Biblical Ruminations

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2008-10-16T06:07:00.002-04:00

http://christopher-petersen.blogspot.com

2008-01-14T17:41:00.001-05:00

Wrede's Messianic Secret: Introduction 1.1

2007-10-11T01:29:00.000-04:00

Wrede begins his study by first noting that in regards to the two decisive questions concerning the historical figure of Jesus-"what do we know of his life? and, what do we know of the history of the oldest views and representations of Jesus's life"-scholarship has on the whole offered only disappointing results. Wrede believes this is because of a defective historical-critical method regarding three areas:

1.) Although it should be taken as axiomatic that what lies before the historian examining the gospels is a "later narrator's conception of Jesus' life and that this conception is not identical with the thing itself" (p.5) scholars often recall this axiom only when they discover strong miraculous features in a text, or when contradictions arise within the same source of a text, or when separate reports clash with one another. This means that unless one of these three features occurs scholars, according to Wrede, are inclined too quickly to proceed with their historical assessment of the gospels as if what is before them is generally historically accurate.

2.) Scholars in their haste to utilize the gospel accounts for composing a historical portrait of Jesus too quickly pass over the evangelists' literary presentations of those accounts. What inevitably results from this is that "something which was not in the writers' mind is substituted for the account and represented as its historical content" (p 5). This neglect of what the narrator is trying to convey by his narration means that scholars will inevitably gloss over important bits of information in the gospel texts.

3.) Though psychology has a place within historical Jesus research it is widely abused by scholars: "The scientific study of the life of Jesus is suffering from psychological 'suppositionitis' which amounts to a sort of historical guess work. For this reason interpretations to suit every taste proliferate." (p 6). Furthermore, says Wrede, for psycho-analyses to provide a valuable contribution to Jesus research it must have lucid facts concerning Jesus with which to work. Unfortunately, however, too many things about Jesus are historically uncertain and thus for this reason psycho-analyses need to be used sparringly.

To summarize, Wrede's beef with the scholarship of his day derives from scholars not approaching the gospels with enough healthy skepticism, and it is this lack of skepticism that results in premature conclusions being made concerning the historical figure of Jesus.

William Wrede

2007-10-04T04:04:00.000-04:00

Like many young aspiring scholars I have too often neglected the reading of classic scholarly works. To remedy this I have put on my reading list the works of several scholars such as Strauss, Weiss, Wrede, Bultmann, Dibelius, et al. Of course, most of them are German scholars and because my German is very limited I am having to depend on English translations which means that I cannot at this juncture in my academic pursuit fully engage these works, something that is a particularly frustrating thought.

Nevertheless, I have opted to begin with William (or Wilhelm) Wrede's The Messianic Secret which was one of the most influential works on the gospels (particularly Mark) at the beginning of the 20th century. Prior to the publishing of this book most scholars viewed the first three gospels, especially Mark, as giving a basically historical representation of Jesus' ministry. But Wrede's work on Mark's messianic secret motif promulgated skepticism among scholars concerning what could be historically asserted about the life of Jesus. In the coming weeks I will blog on this work, reviewing each chapter and then giving a (limited) evaluation of the book. But first, a quote from the book to give you an idea of Wrede's perspective concerning the gospels:

"I should never for an instant lose sight of my awareness that I have before me descriptions, the authors of which are later Christians, be they never so early-Christians who could only look at the life of Jesus with the eyes of their own time and who described it on the basis of the belief of the community, with all the viewpoints of the community, and with the needs of the community in mind." (The Messianc Secret, trans. by J.C.G. Greig, p. 5)

"And now for something completely different..."

2007-08-02T00:50:00.000-04:00

Before the days of DVDs when VCRs were still prominent I had a peculiar hobby in which I would edit together in a creative and/or unique way clips from some of my favorite movies and would then add my own audio tracks (music, voiceovers, sound effects, etc). For example, I once took the original three Star Wars films and edited them in such away so as to condense the story into about thirty minutes while adding my own music and other audio effects to the story. I did several projects similar to this (many of which have been, sadly, lost). It was always very tedious work (my equipment never involved more than two VCRs, a CD player, and a cassette player) but it was something which gave me great satisifaction whenever a project was completed. But with the advent of DVDs I abandoned this hobby since most VCR's were not able to get around the copyright protection on DVD's and I could never be satisified continuing with VHS copies when I knew the DVD quality of movies was so superior. And so eight years ago I gave up this hobby.

But through the help of a good friend who showed me how I could get started doing this again on the computer I have picked this hobby back up. This is part of the reason I haven't been blogging because I have been consumed for the past month with my first project using the computer. For those interested you can view it here (albeit in a lower quality than the original):

Jet Li as Wong Fei Hung

However, there are some things to note. If you care neither for martial arts or Jet Li then it will probably bore you so do not bother to watch. Also, if your conscience is panged that I had to use copyrighted material to make this then you may wish to refrain from watching as well. However, I assure anyone concerned that I have not and will not profit from this creation. For those who like this kind of stuff, enjoy.

Difficulties in Communication

2007-07-12T05:09:00.000-04:00

One of the things that I frequently have trouble with is communicating to people what it is I am pursuing as a career. I currently work in Healthcare as an ER registration person and I have been getting this question a lot from my fellow co-workers. The question arises when people in the ER figure out that I am not pursuing a career in the Healthcare industry and so quite naturally they want to know what I plan to be when I "grow up". But I keep encountering difficulties trying to explain what is I'm wanting to do with my life.

This problem partly arises because I try to avoid saying things such as "bible scholar" or "NT professor." I do this for two reasons: one, my interests are wider than the discipline of biblical studies and/or its subsets (e.g., NT, OT) and, two, when you tell someone, especially here in the "bible belt", that you are studying something bible-related the response is always something to the effect of "oh, so you want to be a preacher!" And when I say no and try to explain that my interests are more academically oriented most of these people respond with blank stares. I have found that it is simply futile to try to explain to many of these people that one can pursue the bible in a purely scholarly and/or academic fashion without necessarily doing so from a devotional perspective.

However, I have tried in vain to come up with alternative explanations that I feel are adequate. I have attempted things like "historian of Late Antiquity" or "historian of ancient Mediterranean Society" but the response is usually more blank stares because the majority of these people do not know what is conveyed by these terms. Thus I have to spend lengthy amounts of time trying to explain "Late Antiquity" and "ancient Mediterranean Society".

Therefore, my questions to scholars and budding scholars of biblical studies related disciplines are:

1.) Do you have the same kinds of difficulty explaining to people what is you are doing and/or are pursuing as a career? and,

2.) How do you usually explain to people what is you are doing and/or are pursuing as a career?

Pharisaical Ponderings

2007-06-26T04:49:00.000-04:00

I have several times indicated that in my opinion E.P. Sanders' Jesus and Judaism is the best work on the historical Jesus to date (here, here, here, and here). However, my excessive lauding of Sander's work on the historical Jesus has likely given the mistaken impression that I accepted pretty much everything Sanders put forth in Jesus and Judaism (hereafter JJ). This is not so. At the time when I initially read (and then eventually re-read) JJ there were two things that I disagreed with concerning Sanders' reconstruction of the historical Jesus. First, was Sanders' assertion that what most offended Jesus' contemporaries was his claim that sinners need not repent of their sins nor seek forgiveness of their sins in order to have a share in the (soon) coming kingdom and then, second, I had a problem with Sanders' claim that the Pharisees did not play a dominent role in Jewish Palestine and likely were small in number being chiefly located in Judea.

I am still not persuaded on Sanders' position concerning Jesus' message to sinners, but I am slowly coming around to accepting the second proposition concerning the Pharisees (principally via the now classic work by Anthony Saldarini entitled Pharisees, Saducees, and Scribes in Palestinian Society: A Sociological Approach). But I have not engaged enough with the requisite material in order to flesh out any thing at the moment here as to why I think I now agree with Sanders. However, what this one issue has alerted me to is the amount of historical questions there are surrounding the Pharisees. Here are, in no particular order, some of these major historical issues surrounding the Second-Temple Jewish group known as the Pharisees:

1.) Were the Pharisees, as some have asserted, major players in Palestinian society or were they a relatively marginal group no more influential than any of the other Jewish groups during the Second Temple period?

2.) What (if any) historical truth can be ascertained from the gospels concerning the Pharisees? In other words, how much of the gospels' portrayl of the Pharisees is mere caricature born out of polemic and how much has a historical basis? More importantly, how did the historical Jesus view the Pharisees? Was he in fundamental agreement with Pharisaical points of view or in fundamental disagreement with them or something in between?

3.) What was the Pharisaical view of the so called 'am a ha'aretz (people of the land). Did they view them as transgressors or simply as the common people who they believed did not necessarily have to adopt the strict purity regulations that governered their own lives?

4.) Can one or should one draw a direct historical link between the Pharisees and the post-70 Rabbinic sages? How much of Rabbinic traditions concerning the Pharisees reflect actual pre-70 Palestinian Jewish times?

My goal before this year is over is to investigate these issues and to discover where I stand concerning the Pharisees. Here is some of the relevant literature that I hope to read this year in regards to the historical Pharisees:

1.) Louis Finkelstein, The Pharisees: A Sociological Background of their Faith (2 Vols), 1939.

2.) Jacob Neusner, The Rabbinic Traditions about the Pharisees before 70 C.E. (3 Vols), 1982.

3.) Anthony J. Saldarini, Pharisees, Scribes, and Sadducees in Palestinian Society, 1986.

4.) E.P. Sanders, Jewish Law from Jesus to the Misnah: Five Studies, 1990.

5.) Jacob Neusner and Bruce Chilton (eds), In Quest of the Historical Pharisees, 2007.

Hopefully, in future posts I will be able to tackle some of these issues but for the time being I must get to reading.

My Synoptic Pilgrimage Part 2

2007-06-16T20:12:00.000-04:00

For the second part of my synoptic pilgrimage (see Stephen Carlson's post for another pilgrimage “story”) post I want to discuss why I believe that the Two-Source theory (hereafter 2ST) will continue to dominant synoptic studies as the "best" solution to the synoptic problem. Along with Goodacre I was pleasantly surprised that the Farrer-Goulder hypothesis garnered so many votes in Brandon’s poll. However, Deconick is surely correct in her assertion that the poll hardly counts as a reliable indicator of the present (or future) state of the synoptic problem in the academy. Now, I certainly wish I could share in Goodacre’s optimism concerning the future of the Farrer-Goulder hypothesis among NT scholars but the fact of the matter is that I do not foresee the 2ST ever losing significant ground to the Farrer-Goulder hypothesis (although it certainly has a better chance than say the Griesbach hypothesis). To understand why I think this is so I must digress for a moment.

Those who are avid fantasy readers will surely have read or at least heard of Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series. It is one of the best fantasy series ever written and in my mind rivals the Lord of the Rings (if nothing else it outdoes it in scope with to date 11 books and a twelfth forthcoming). One of the more remarkable things about the books in this series is that every book contains what is called a Wizard's Rule which are basically general principles that the Wizards in Goodkind’s universe adopt and which the plot of each book pivots around. And it is the first Wizard’s Rule (incidentally, this is also the name of the first book in the series, Wizard's First Rule) that pertains to our topic. Succinctly, Wizard’s First Rule states the following:

With minimal persuasion people will generally believe things to be true for one of two reasons: either because they are scared that it may be true or because they strongly wish it to be true.

What this principle signifies is the problem of trying to achieve a fair level of objectivity when one is emotionally invested in a certain topic. Obviously, a state of complete objectivity can never be attained (since it would mean a complete disinterest in the topic under scrutiny) but this principle indicates that any level of objectivity will be difficult to obtain when one is so emotionally involved in an issue. So what does this principle have to do with the synoptic problem and the 2ST solution?

I believe that most Q scholars fall prey to the second part of Wizard’s First Rule, i.e, it is difficult for scholars to relinquish Q because deep down they want and even need it to be true. Why is this so? In short, Q has something for everyone. Its acceptance spans the liberal/conservative spectrum and so finds adherents in virtually every scholarly ideological framework. Goodacre expresses this better than I can so I will quote him at length:

"If we were to dispense with Q, it would not be without tears. For Q has been all over the world, loved by everyone, feminists and liberation theologians, the sober and the sensational, the scholar and the layperson, a document with universal appeal. Indeed one of the keys to its success has been its ability to woo both conservatives and radicals alike. While conservatives, for example, are drawn by its early witness to sayings of Jesus, others have seen its lack of a Passion Narrative as witnessing to an alternative stream of early Christianity, one not based on the proclamation of a crucified Christ. For those at one end of the theological spectrum, Q can give us a document of Jesus material from before 70, written within a generation of the death of Jesus. For those at the other end of the spectrum, Q aligns itself with the Gospel of Thomas to form a “trajectory” in early Christianity that contrasted radically with emerging orthodoxy, and which only “canonical bias” can now obscure from out view." (The Case Against Q, 16-17)

Because Q offers so much to so many it is easy to see why Q scholars strongly want the existence of Q (of whatever form) to be true. Because of this and ultimately because of Wizard’s First Rule I simply do not see the 2ST theory ever losing ground to the Farrer-Goulder hypothesis or to any theory which does not invoke Q as a solution to the synoptic problem. Q is simply too valuable and too desired by the academy. Goodacre is right: to dispense with Q would not be without tears and because of this I believe scholars will continue to be persuaded that Q is the best solution to the synoptic problem even if overwhelming evidence were to be presented otherwise.

Note: My more perceptive readers have surely realized that Wizard’s First Rule could be turned around on me since it could be argued that I dispensed with Q precisely because of my frustrations with its abuse which led me to want it not to exist. It can certainly cut both ways.

My Synoptic Pilgrimage Part 1

2007-06-13T03:47:00.000-04:00

Recently, Brandon Wason at Novum Testamentum created a poll in which he asked readers to vote on what they thought was the most persuasive “solution” to the synoptic problem (here). Not surprisingly, the Two-Source theory came out on top but with the Farrer-Goulder hypothesis, of which I am an adherent, taking second place. The results of Brandon’s poll elicited some interesting responses, most notably in the exchanges between Mark Goodacre and April Deconick (here, here, and here). For my own part, I tended to agree with Goodacre against Deconick but that is not what I want to discuss. Instead, I would like to offer a brief account of my pilgrimage from the Two-Source theory to an acceptance of the Farrer-Goulder hypothesis.

Like most young religious studies students I held to the Two-Source theory (commonly referred to as Q) unquestioningly. Everything that I read and/or was taught accepted the existence of Q as a fundamental basis of NT scholarship. But slowly I began to have misgiving after misgiving about Q, especially concerning the way Q was constantly abused by certain scholars in their attempts to locate various stratifications or editions of Q, and the extent to which most of these same scholars believed that they could extrapolate a specific Q theology or Q community. This was especially exemplified for me when I was researching burial practices in the Second-Temple period and came across a book called Roll Back the Stone by Byron McCane. In this book, McCane devoted an entire chapter to an examination of the Q community’s specific burial theology (which was, of course, at odds with typical Second-Temple Judaic practice). His ostensibly dubious analysis especially alerted me to the pitfalls that occur when scholars become strongly dependent on Q.

The next crucial thing which happened that started me on a path to Q skepticism was an encounter with of one of the many minor agreements between Luke and Matthew against Mark. Of course, at the time I did not understand the issues surrounding the minor agreements since I had yet to even read anything written against the Two-Source theory. And so, intriguingly, I stumbled upon this minor agreement from a discussion unrelated to the synoptic problem. A friend of mine was authoring a series of posts (I would provide links but the posts nor his blog now exist) attempting to indicate why inerrancy was a faulty view of the Biblical texts. One of the several passages he used was Mark 2: 23-28.

In this passage the author of Mark attributes to Jesus the saying that it was Abiathar who was high priest when David entered into the house of God to feed his hungry men. However, according to 1 Sam 21: 1-6 it is Abiathar’s father Ahimelech who was the high priest at that time and not Abiathar as Mark mistakenly indicates. Furthermore, it is not until Ahimelech and his fellow priests are slaughtered in 1 Sam 22: 17-19 that Abiathar becomes high priest. Given that both mens’ names begin with an “A” and the proximity of the two narratives to one another it is easy to see how Mark could have made the mistake. But it is a mistake nonetheless.

My friend further pointed out to his readers that what was interesting was what Matthew did with this passage. In the Matthean version of this passage (Matt 12: 1-8) the author of Matthew simply omits Mark’s reference to who was the high priest during this particular Davidic episode. More than likely, as my friend observed, given the gospel of Matthew’s probable Jewish authorship, the author of Matthew being more acquainted with the Hebrew scriptures recognized that Mark made a mistake and so remedied it by simply omitting the reference altogether. Immediately curious as to how Luke dealt with this passage I read Lk 6: 1-5. Now, you must realize that I was still operating under the rubric of a Two-Source theory and so recalling that the consensus of scholarship has been that Luke was of gentile authorship I expected Luke to replicate Mark’s mistake since he most likely was not as versed in the Hebrew scriptures as Matthew. Instead I was astonished to discover that his version followed Matthew’s verbatim by simply omitting the reference to the high priest. Here's how it all worked out in my head:

1). Mark mistakenly identifies the high priest in 2:23-38 as Abiathar and not Ahimelech.

2). Matthew because his gospel is more Jewish and well versed in the Hebrew scriptures (as his preoccupation with finding passages in the Tanach which he felt Jesus had fulfilled clearly exhibits) spotted the error and chose to "fix" the situation by omitting the reference to the high priest altogether.

3). Luke follows Matthew by omitting the reference to the high priest thus agreeing with Matthew against Mark.

4). Generally, scholars view the author of the gospel of Luke as a Gentile and so it seems rather unlikely that the author would have recognized Mark's mistake on his own.

5). Therefore, it seems more probable to assert that Luke knew Matthew and chose to follow suit with Matthew by omitting the reference to the high priest.

Once I had worked this out in my mind I realized that the principal implication of these conclusions was that, contrary to what the Two-Source theory stated, if Luke in fact knew Matthew then this would entail that invoking Q as a source might be superfluous. Now of course this one minor agreement does not prove that Luke knew Matthew and at the time I was still a bit reluctant to dispense with Q. However, what was chiefly important for me concerning this encounter with one of the minor agreements was that I could for the first time conceive of the possibility of Luke's literary dependence on Matthew. Eventually, I read Mark Goodacre's The Case Against Q and was persuaded that Q was an unnecessary postulate of the synoptic problem and that the literary relationship between the synoptics could in part be satisfied with reference to Luke's dependence on Matthew.

To be continued...

Goodbye to Undergrad

2007-05-24T06:50:00.000-04:00

My undergraduate days have finally come to an end. Paradoxically, this last semester was my worst as well as my best semester at Union. Academically, it was my worst since I did garner my first "C" at Union (in an Ethics class of all things) but I also feel like it was my most important semester because an interest in genoicidal and Holocaust studies was ignited. The two major research papers I did this semester concerned these two respective topics and they were probably the best ones that I have ever written. The papers of course still require some tweaking but I am considering posting them on this blog for those who might be interested in reading them. The first paper examined the Cambodian Genocide and the second paper was an analysis of anti-Jewish perceptions in ancient Greco-Roman and early Christian thought. Thus, do not be surprised if some of the topics dealt with in future posts reflect these new found interests.

I will be taking a year off before going to graduate school in order to work, work, work and work some more so that I can pay off loans and save money. Hopefully, this means I can regularly blog now since my academic obligations are completed (at least momentarily). I must have read 30 or more books this past semester so I definitely have a lot of material to use for future posts. So please bear with me as I attempt to get my blogging faculties back to optimal effeciency. In the meantime, be sure to check out Matt Hopper's excellent series on John Piper's criticism of biblical academic scholarship here.

A Negative Implication Concerning the Resurrection

2007-04-11T05:59:00.000-04:00

Those who have followed this blog from its inception (roughly a year ago now) know that part of its purpose was the elucidation of various resurrection themes especially concerning the implications of Jesus' resurrection. And though I have changed my academic tune a bit as far as my blog is concerned I felt that since this past weekend was Resurrection Sunday, i.e. Easter, that I should say something about the resurrection of Jesus.

In the past my reflections on the resurrection have been decidedly positive. In fact, I do not think I posted one blog entry that indicated anything negative about the resurrection or its implications. But I want to consider here something that at least I believe is a negative implication that the resurrection or, perhaps better, the disciples' belief in Jesus' resurrection birthed.

For this to make sense you must understand that for the past year I have been probing into the origins of anti-semitism/anti-judaism, especially in its relation to the event of the Holocaust (or Shoah as most Jews refer to it as). That thousands of years of Jewish hatred perpetuated by Christianity made the soil fertile for the rational, racial anti-semitism that led to the slaughter of nearly all of European Jewry (1/3 of the global Jewish population at the time) is not a difficult conclusion to arrive at. However, pinpointing the origins of Jew hatred is another matter altogether.

Some try to locate the origins of Jew hatred in the pre-Christian era, especially in Alexandrian Egypt. Ostensibly cited in support of pre-Christian anti-semitism/judaism are a handful of Greco-Roman writers who often speak derisively about the Jews, especially concerning their customs which tended to isolate them from the rest of society (this is why the charge of misanthrope was often leveled against them). But more often than not it seems to me that those who push for this option do so for apologetically motivated reasons such as the desire to exculpate any role that nascent Christianity, especially the writings of the NT, may have played in the fomenting of anti-semitic/anti-Judaic strains of thought. On the other hand there are others (cf. Rosemary Ruether's Faith and Fratricide for a good example of this) who wish to lay full blame on nascent Christianity and who further perceive the NT to be crawling with anti-Jewish rhetoric. The truth is, I believe, somewhere in between but I do not wish to deal with that in this post.

Nevertheless, without a doubt one of the greatest sources for the development of the immense Jew hatred which characterized Europe for roughly two thousand years was the supersessionistic attitude of the Church toward Judaism in its first few centuries. But from where did the notion of supersessionism arise? This belief followed quite naturally from the notion that Christianity constituted the fulfillment of the promises made to Israel of old. But then we must ask what gave rise to the conviction that God's promises had been fulfilled? I believe the principle motivation for this belief which colors the NT was the disciples' fervent belief that God had raised Jesus from the dead.

The resurrection of the dead in Second-Temple Judaic thought was understood as involving a general resurrection of the dead at the end of the present age. There is no evidence that Jews believed in isolated resurrections from the dead but rather viewed the resurrection as an a pan encompassing act which would take place in the new aeon. Thus when the disciples came to believe that Jesus had been raised from the dead and when this belief was combined with their experience of the apocalyptic tenor of Jesus' message, it is pretty clear that they would have come to believe that the promises were being fulfilled, especially since they would have thought that the resurrection of everybody else was just around the corner. (I have explicated this point elsewhere more fully: beginning with this post)

Thus, it was ultimately the resurrection (plus Jesus' apocalyptic message) or, rather, the disciples belief in the resurrection of Jesus which was the catalyst for the notion that the promises of old had been or were being fulfilled. However, much time eventually passed and the general resurrection of the dead was not forthcoming nor was the new age for that matter. Israel was not restored and evil still reigned throughout the world. But Christianity could not bring itself to give up the notion that it was the fulfillment of Israel of old. This then led to supersessionistic modes of thinking which contributed in a significant way to the overall Adversus Judeaus tradition of the Church which made the route towards Jew hatred and Jew demonization much smoother.

In conclusion then there is a real sense in which the resurrection of Jesus has contributed to anti-semitic and anti-Judaic modes of thought. For someone like myself who has prized the place of the resurrection in Christian thought this is certainly a disturbing thought but true nonetheless.

A Change

2007-04-05T05:18:00.000-04:00

Once again it has been some time since I have blogged. I am making some changes most notably of which is the name of my blog. (For those of you who are linked to my blog feel free to change the name if you wish but I will be keeping the same url, at least for the time being.) The name change reflects my ever widening interests in the world of Late Antiquity, especially the Greco-Roman and cultural-anthropological background to the era of Second-Temple Judaism. I have two months left of undergraduate work and will be taking a year off before entering graduate school and fortunately I have a new job which is third shift which means sometimes I have downtime with internet access at hand. All of this means, hopefully at least, that I will now be able to blog on a frequent basis. Thanks to all of you who have put up with my lack of blogging and I look forward to getting back to full speed.

Brief Thoughts Concerning the "Kingdom of God"

2007-02-07T17:14:00.000-05:00

One of the few nearly unanimous points of agreement among NT scholars is that a central (if not the central) theme of the synoptic Gospels is the "kingdom of God" (or Mt.'s equivalent phrase "kingdom of heaven"). Furthermore, though there are many diverse and often times opposing historical reconstructions of Jesus (e.g., compare Albert Schweitzer's fully apocalyptic Jesus with Dominic Crossan's egalitarian promoting Cynic peasant) most scholars in this field agree that the "kingdom of God" was an integral component of the historical Jesus' mission. But the agreement often ends there with any further elucidation of the "kingdom of God" diverging widely. The discussion tends to get weighed down by scholarly baggage over whether or not the kingdom should be defined in a purely spiritual or physical sense (or both) and if the kingdom should be understood as principally imminent or present or somehow both. The disagreement on this matter is enhanced further by the fact that the phrase itself is rarely found in the Hebrew Bible, Deutero-canonical, Qumranic, and Pseudepigraphal literature. There is then little to no background information with which to inform scholars of the possible connotations that the phrase "kingdom of God" might carry. And so disagreements understandably arise.

But for many evangelical Christians, especially those of a verbal plenary inspiration stripe, the matter is easily settled and it goes something like this: Jesus was sent by God (indeed, was God in the flesh) to fulfill the prophecies of the OT which included the coming of God's kingdom; Jesus fulfilled these prophecies of the kingdom by inaugurating its coming principally via his death and resurrection; the ekklesia or Church which his apostles founded is in some sense the incarnation or manifestation of this inaugurated kingdom of God; and this kingdom will be fully realized or concretized at Jesus' Parousia. Thus the "kingdom of God" has two stages: fulfillment and consummation. Jesus at his first coming ushered in the former stage and will usher in the consummate stage at his second coming.

I at one time subscribed to this viewpoint known as "inaugurated eschatology". But the more and more I've come to study and analyze the Hebrew Bible, especially concerning its restoration of Israel motifs, the more and more that I'm beginning to see this interpretation as apologetic nonsense. The uncomfortable fact that many of the eschatological kingdom characteristics normally associated with its arrival such as the general resurrection of the dead, a Messianic rule, the restoration of Israel, etc. did not occur at Jesus' coming has forced Christians into this semantic word game by neatly dividing up the kingdom into 'fulfillment'and 'consummation' stages.

I will have more to say on this in the next post.

Bible Quiz

2007-02-05T09:28:00.000-05:00

This was rather easy. Hat-tip to Tyler Williams.

You know the Bible 100%!

Wow! You are awesome! You are a true Biblical scholar, not just a hearer but a personal reader! The books, the characters, the events, the verses - you know it all! You are fantastic!

Ultimate Bible Quiz
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"The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology": Part 1

2007-01-20T13:24:00.000-05:00

Introduction

Introduction: Bible Study and Cultural Anthropology

Malina's introductory chapter is divided into three sections. For the first section, Malina's concern is to emphasize to the recent student of biblical studies the nature of the cultural gap between us and the 1st century Mediterranean world. Malina makes many observations towards achieving this goal but perhaps one of his more important statements in this regard is the following:

"Perhaps the first and largest step that a contemporary American can take toward understanding the Bible is to realize that in reading the Bible in English (or even Greek), we are in fact listening to the words of a transplanted group of foreigners. It takes only the ability to read to find out what these foreigners are saying, but it takes far more to find out what they mean." (NTW, 2)

The notion of the interpreter's role as akin to eavesdropping on a group of foreigners is consistently used by Malina throughout the book. It is, I think, a useful metaphor which highlights the cultural gap between interpreter(s) and ancient text. But Malina's point here is a fairly simple one. In order for one to completely understand a text one must ascertain what it means. In other words, knowing what a text says and what a text means can be two different things. One can know what a text says but still not fully grasp its meaning. To highlight this feature, one of the examples Malina provides is Mt 19: 12 which says:

"For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by other people, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven."

Malina notes concerning this passage that,

" the author of Matthew's Gospel speaks of eunuchs, for example, can be easily verified. That the word "eunuch" refers to a castrated male can also be easily verified. But why the reference to a castrated male? What does being called a eunuch mean to a first-century Palestinian man? What does it mean in terms of male social roles and values? How can a person in contemporary America find out such information relative to the first-century Mediterranean world?" (2)

It is the answer to the last question that indicates the essential purpose of the book which is "to explain how we might retrieve such information" (2). Malina then spends the next several pages elucidating this purpose further. Malina's concluding point(s) in this section concerns how modern biblical commentators tend to focus on literary analysis of texts which include the what, when, where, and historical how questions but exclude the why question (6). And it is precisely this why question which socio-cultural approaches seek to answer. The conclusion then is that the type of "context" approach which Malina is advocating is requisite for the bible student if he is to properly understand an ancient text or people.

The next section looks at some of the essential presuppositions behind the book. The first presupposition Malina tackles is epistemological in nature. Malina observes that knowledge about others, as well as ourselves, can be divided into three distinct types:

1. awareness knowledge or "that" knowledge-this primarily involves information about something or someone.

2. usable knowledge or "how to" knowledge-chiefly concerns the kind of information that is necessary in order to properly engage with something or someone.

3. principle knowledge or "why" knowledge- this is "information about cultural scripts and cues, about the cultural models behind the applicable facts" (7). In other words, it concerns the overall or big picture; the totality of cultural experiences.

The second major presupposition which Malina discusses is perhaps the most important one. This presupposition can be summarized as follows: "All human beings are entirely the same, entirely different, and somewhat the same and somewhat different at the same time" (7). The first part of this presupposition focuses on the similarities possessed by all cultures and correlates to what we call "nature" which Malina suggests is "all that exists apart from purposeful, willful human influence" (8). This would include regular patterns of similarity in nature (e.g., laws) that human beings cannot change. The second part of the presupposition focuses one's direction on the uniqueness of individuals. That is to say, no two people are alike and each individual "lives out their stories in unique fashion" (8). Furthermore, this second aspect of the presupposition corresponds to what we would call "person". Now, the third part of the presupposition examines the relatedness or "interplay of similarities and differences within human communities" (8). Not surprisingly then, this part of the presupposition corresponds to "culture". And by culture, Malina means:

"an organized system of symbols by which persons, things, and events are endowed with rather specific and socially shared meanings, feelings, and values." (9)

Recognizing and appropriating these presuppositions into one's studies of ancient texts and cultures is vital according to Malina in order to insure that one does not engage in misinterpretation which occurs when the interpreter makes his or her own cultural story normative for all of human nature. Therefore, these presuppositions are essential in that they force the interpreter to acknowledge the cultural gap between them and the text or culture they are studying.

The last section of this introductory chapter is rather long and chiefly involves attempting to define "culture" more precisely (pp 11-17). Once Malina has established more clearly what he intends by the word "culture" he then proceeds to discuss the three different kinds of models that are often employed in cultural studies. They are as follows:

1. Structural functionalism- this model "pictures social systems as the result of consensual obligation, with people freely choosing to oblige themselves in a certain way." (20) In this model there is a sense of cooperation by the members of societies in the development and maintenance of their respective cultures. Also, this model emphasizes the stability and "well-integrated structure" of societal reality.

2. Conflict theory- this model is the opposite of the above model because it indicates that societal systems are chiefly set up my means of "coercive tactics" in order to protect "the distinctive interests of its members." (20) In other words, it is not consensual obligation that holds a system together but coercion or force. Furthermore, because of this factor this type of model tends to understand two particular aspects of society as that of conflict and change.

3. Symbolic-this model examines the nature of how symbols function in society in the assigning of meaning and value to a culture. Malina insists further that the symbols of a society are not limited to concrete objects alone but include "the self, others, nature, time, space, and the All (God)" )(22). Thus, one can learn much about how a culture functions by examining its use of symbolic appropriations and how these operate in investing meaning into a society's world.

Malina then concludes this section by emphasizing that the best approach is to utilize all three models while acknowledging that they are models which means they are at best abstract generalizations that can never give us the entire story of a culture. Nevertheless, it is the preferred approach to take and Malina concludes the introductory chapter by stating that the rest of the book will follow these three models which have as their foundation the very important axiom that "all human beings are entirely the same, entirely different, and somewhat the same and somewhat different at the same time." (24)

Next time we will look at chapters 1 and 2.

"The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology": Introduction

2007-01-18T13:41:00.000-05:00

I have to confess that in the past I have been reluctant to read anything by the aptly named "context-group" of scholars. I think this has been partly due to my bad experience with Crossan's The Historical Jesus in which he utilizes the cultural anthropological features of the 1st century Mediterranean environment as his controlling paradigm for his reconstruction of the historical Jesus. Admittedly, Crossan's abuse of sociological and anthropological models for his historical Jesus investigation left a bitter taste in my mouth for such "context" approaches.

However, since entering the biblioblogosphere, I have softened my stance significantly on context writings. The blogs of Loren Rosson and James Crossley in particular have been most helpful in this development. I must say that I have benefited greatly from the sociological and anthropological insights of both men. Additionally, Loren has repeatedly alerted his readers to the works of such erudite context scholars as Philip Esler and Crossley has written a book on Christian Origins from a socio-contextual perspective of which he has been summarizing on his blog (first post here and book available here). But I still needed a further impetus to get me to read some actual context works. This final impetus had its origin in a strange place, namely, The Travel Channel. The Travel Channel has a new show that premiered last Sunday called "Living with the Kombai" which basically is about two Westerns who attempt to live among an isolated group of people known as the Kombai from West Paupa. For some reason, witnessing the vast cultural gap between these men and the Kombai prompted the desire in me to finally begin reading more "context" works.

And so I am beginning by reading a book that has been sitting on my shelf awhile entitled The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology by Bruce J. Malina. It is as a good place to start as any since it is written principally as introductory material. In the coming posts I hope to provide an adequate review of the work plus any additional reflections and/or insights that I may acquire on my way to completion of this book.

LXX Scholars of Old

2007-01-10T12:07:00.000-05:00

One of the books that I have been reading lately is Invitation to the Septuagint by scholars Karen Jobes and Moises Silva. It has been on the whole an enjoyable read. The first half of the book caters towards readers who have little or no knowledge of the LXX while the latter half is intended for students (and scholars) more familiar with Septuagintal studies and who possess at least an intermediate reading level of Greek and Hebrew. (For my own part I could not completely finish the chapter entitled "Interpreting the Septuagint" because my reading knowledge of Hebrew and Greek was not on par with this section.)

However, I do not wish here to engage in a book review principally because my language skills are not such that I feel qualified to do so. But I do want to say a word about the chapter entitled "Our Predecessors: Septuagint Scholars of a Previous Generation". As the title indicates this chapter is devoted to briefly examining the important contributions of various scholars of old to LXX studies. In fact, the current state of LXX work would not exist had it not been for the intellectual efforts of these men as the authors note:

"this chapter introduces some of the prominent scholars who have set the agenda for LXX studies and on whose work the discipline still stands" (239).

The scholars discussed include Friedrich Constantin von Tischendorf:known especially for his important collection (and collation) of manuscripts, especially one of the most important for NT textual criticism, namely, Codex Sinaiticus; Edwin Hatch: produced (along with Henry Redpath) a still widely used concordance for the LXX; Paul A. de Largarde: considered by many to be the father of modern LXX textual criticism principally due to his invaluable work on the Greek text of Proverbs and Genesis; Alfred Rahlfs: a student of Lagarde who took up the mantle of finishing the work his mentor left incomplete by reconstructing a LXX text based on the unicals B, S, and A; Max Leopold Margolis: a Jewish scholar who devoted his entire scholarly life to a reconstruction of the orginal Greek text for the Book of Joshua.

The thing that is most impressive about these scholars is their philological skills. For instance, Lagarde in his lifetime published works in Latin, Syrian, Babylonian, Arabic, Coptic, Persian, and Armenian while Margolis wrote his entire dissertation in Latin on the textual criticism of the Jewish Talmud! At the least, most of these scholars had an excellent reading knowledge of four or five ancient languages. To be sure, many of them already had acquired a working knowledge of Greek and Latin from secondary school, something the school systems here obviously lack. Nonetheless, these scholars knowledge of ancient languages would readily put many of us to shame. I must admit that upon reading this chapter I became a bit depressed. It forced me to realize just how little philological skills I possess in comparison with these erudite scholars of old.

The Magic is Back

2006-12-21T11:08:00.000-05:00

Normally I do not do movie reviews on this blog unless it has something to do (if only indirectly) with biblical studies, but because I have always been a big Rocky fan I feel compelled to say something about the most recent installment of the series entitled Rocky Balboa. When I first heard about another Rocky film in the works a little over a year ago, I initially had somewhat mixed feelings on the matter. Being a Rocky fan I was both excited and anxious at the prospect of another film, yet I could not shake the memory of the lackluster fifth film of the series which just wasn't that palatable. Thus, I was a bit concerned that Stallone would be unable to recapture the magic that has characterized the Rocky franchise, especially that of the original film (which won best picture in 1976).

But as I watched the film last night those concerns gradually dissipated. The movie was remarkably well done and Stallone, in my opinion at least, managed to recapture that magic. I know that it sounds silly but when Rocky stepped into the ring with Mason Dixon I became overwhelmed with nervousness for the Italian Stallion. It was at that point that I realized the movie had really worked. I am not going to give away plot details here but both the script and the acting were excellent. The movie parallels the storyline of the first film and so I would encourage those of you who are planning to see this one to rewatch the first film. My only gripe with the film is that it is too short (without the credits run time is just over an hour and a half). If it had been a little longer there could have been more of a build up to the final fight. This is the only aspect of the film that I felt needed work. The brief work up to the fight also resulted in a short training montage. For me, one of the pleasures of the Rocky films has been the training scenes and I just thought this one was too short. Nevertheless, Rocky Balboa succeeds in wrapping up this beloved series and I can only commend Stallone for the excellent writing, directing, and acting he did for this final Rocky movie. Therefore, I heartily recommend it.

Wrapping up

2006-12-20T10:37:00.000-05:00

Well, things have finally come to an end this semester. The paper was finished (for the second time!) and I did well in all of my classes. Hopefully, I will begin blogging frequently here very soon once the retail season slows down after Christmas. I miss blogging and am looking forward to getting back into it. By the way, for those of you who are curious, my research paper focused on the theme of Israel's final restoration as it appears in the Prophets, in the mission of the historical Jesus, and Romans 11. In the coming weeks I will probably post a summarized form of the principal observations of that paper. But until then I want to wish everyone a happy holiday.

Frustrations

2006-11-17T12:26:00.000-05:00

I had always purposed this blog for purely academic writing and never for the fleshing out of personal issues. However, I'm particularly frustrated right now. Along with not be able to go to SBL my truck was broken into the other night. My laptop and work items were stolen. The trouble is that I only had my paper on two places: the laptop and a cd-rom. Unfortunately, the cd-rom was in the same bag ast he laptop so the last two weeks of work on this research paper has been in vain. Moreover, almost a thousand dollars of cell-phone money was taken of which I will have to pay because my company has a very high deductable. My mind just is not in the best place right now. For those of my readers who are believers, I would greatly appreciate any prayers. Many thanks.

SBL Woes

2006-11-15T17:22:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately, due to various reasons I am having to back out of going to the SBL. I was very much looking forward to the sessions, the book fair, and meeting many of the bloggers who I read. But financial problems and the need for more time to complete my research paper have convinced me to hold off this year. To those 0f you going to the SBL, do enjoy!

The Passover Discrepancy Part 6

2006-10-20T11:30:00.000-04:00

Part 5
Part 4
Excursus
Part 3
Part 2
Part 1
Introduction

It is now time to address the main proposition in support of Kostenberger's position which states:

1.) The phrase "day of preparation of Passover" (Jn 19:14) refers to the preparation of the coming Sabbath and not to the preparation of Passover day proper when the lambs are slaughtered for the evening meal. This is evidenced by the fact that the Greek term paraskeue was a technical term equivalent to "Eve of the Sabbath" thus referring to the preparation for the Sabbath and not of Passover day itself. (cf. Josephus' Antiquities 16.163-64).

Before refuting this proposition I want to first express my frustration with a particular subtle move that Kostenberger makes in his arguments against a discrepancy between the Synoptics and John. When Kostenberger attempts to make the case that paraskeue tou pascha means "preparation of Passover week" he fails to inform his readers that "week" is not in the actual Greek. It is literally "preparation of the Passover". Even if it can be plausibly argued that paraskeue was a technical term referring to the preparation for the Sabbath, Kostenberger is still responsible, because he is a scholar, to let his readers know that "week" is not in the Greek and that he is supplying it in view of his interpretation of paraskueue (and pesach). However, he does not do this. In both the passage from Biblical Theology and his commentary on John he simply quotes from the NIV which, interestingly enough, supplies "week" to the Greek. Here are the relevant passages again:

"The reason many have seen John as placing the Last Supper on Wednesday night with the crucifixion taking place on Thursday afternoon (when the Passover lambs would have been slaughtered in preparation for Passover later that evening) is the reference to 'the Day of Preparation of Passover Week' in John 19:14 (NIV [throughout this essay]; cf Jn 18:28)." (BT, 148)

Notice in this passage Kostenberger's subtle indication that he is using the NIV which is the only translation to my knowledge that interpolates "week" into the translation (which is itself not surprising since the translation committee of the NIV was made up predominately of conservatives). And then the passage from the commentary on John:

"If this is accurate, then tou pascha means not 'of the Passover,' but 'of Passover week.' Indeed, 'Passover' may refer to the (day of ) the actual Passover meal or, as in the present case, the entire Passover week, including Passover day as well as the associated Feast of Unleavened Bread. "Day of Preparation of Passover week' is therfore best to be taken to refer to the day of preparation for the Sabbath (i.e., Friday) of Passover week." (John, p 538)

In both of these passages Kostenberger never indicates to his readers that the Greek does not contain "week". He does hint at this in the latter passage but does not state this as the case explicitly. Moreover, even the footnote to this passage is obscure and simply says Contra Brown and a list of other scholars who disagree with him. It is only when you follow the references, especially that of Raymond Brown, that you realize Kostenberger is arguing for the injection of "week" into Jn 19:14. Again, though he implies as much in this latter passage, those readers who are not already familar with the issue would never have realized this. Therefore, even if the case can be made that "week" should be added to the Greek on the basis of a certain technical interpretation of paraskeue, Kostenberger is responsible to inform his readers of such details. To do otherwise is simply, dare I say, irresponsible scholarship.

With that aside the issue here does center around the question whether or not paraskeue was a technical term which could be translated as "preparation for the Sabbath). The argument is essentially as follows:

1.) Paraskeue was used as a technical term by Greek-speaking Jews to indicate the "day of preparation for the coming Sabbath", thus

2.) when Jn 19:14 says "the day of paraskeue of Passover (which itself can indicate the entire feast week following Passover day proper)" he is indicating that it is the day of preparation of the coming Sabbath in Passover week.

3.) Therefore, Jn 19:14 can (and does) refer to the day after Passover proper and not to the day before when the lambs are slaughtered in preparation for the pesach meal.

Unfortunately, Kostenberger's only (extrabiblical) support for this interpretation is a reference to Josephus' Antiquities 16. 163-64 which states:

"and that their sacred money be not touched, but be sent to Jerusalem, and that it be committed to the care of the receivers at Jerusalem; and that they be not obliged to go before any judge on the Sabbath day, nor on the day of the paraskeue (preparation) to it, after the ninth hour"

That Josephus' "day of preparation" refers to the day before Sabbath proper is not in dispute. Yet this passage is far from conclusive in showing that paraskeue was in any sense a technical term for Greek-speaking Jews. If we wish for a fuller argument we will need to revert back to the first scholar to propose this solution to the Passover discrepancy, Charles Torrey. I should mention that Torrey's analysis is much too complex to lay out in a blog. Those of you who wish to view his entire argument go here. Nevertheless, here is the summary of the argumentation in Torrey's own words:

"There are at all events three undoubted facts to be borne in mind: (1) The paraskeue in John 19.14 is not the colorless Greek word, 'preparation,' but the Jewish technical term. This is shown conclusively by vv. 31 and 42. (2) The Greek can give no testimony as to the exact form of the Aramaic which lies behind it for the proper noun 'Friday', or 'Preparation,' would ordinarily appear in the Greek without the definite article; cf. also Mark 15.42, Luke 23:54. (3) If John had wished merely to adopt in his own gospel what his predecessors had established, and to give in a single phrase their date of the crucifixion, he would most naturally have done so in precisely the phrase employed in 19.14." ( Torrey, "The Date of Passover According to the Fourth Gospel" in JBL Vol 50, No. 4 [1931] , 237)

Torrey comes to these conclusions based on a supposed Aramaic form underlying the Greek paraskeue whose form would have been erev shabbat (lit., eve of Sabbath). Notice what this would accomplish for the overall argument:

If paraskeue was a technical term for Greek-Speaking Jews which had underlying it the Aramaic erev shabbat then Jn 19.14 could be translated as "the eve of the Sabbath of Passover". And if a connection is exhibited between the phrase "eve of Sabbath" and a feast day such as "Passover" then one is further justified in translating as Torrey does, "the Friday of Passover Week" (236).

The key here then is to show not only that paraskeue can be translated as "eve of Sabbath" but also give evidence that when the phrase is employed it is often done so in connection with a feast day such as Passover. However, Torrey's evidence for this festal connection is lacking and concerns only one (late!) rabbinic passage that is itself inconclusive ( see 237). Moreover, Torrey himself admits that all the early examples of the Aramaic phrase "are in connection with the sabbath only (and none of the feast days)" (236) but then suggests "the possibility may be admitted that it was given an equally early application to the principal festal days"(i.e., Passover, 236). This possibility is then thought to have a firm basis in one rabbinic example.

But what about paraskeue itself? Is Torrey (and Kostenberger for that matter) correct that it was understood as a technical term by Hellenistic Jews as being equivalent to erev shabbath, "Eve of Sabbath"? Solomon Zeitlin argues to the contrary:

"The word paraskeue is not Jewish technical term at all. When the Hellenized Jews translated the words erev shabbat, Eve of Sabbath, they did not translate them by the word paraskeue, but by the words pro sabbaton (before Sabbath). The author of the book of Judith, when he states that Judith fasted all the days of the year except the Eves of Sabbath and Sabbaths, also uses the word pro sabbaton kai sabbaton and not paraskeue. Philo quite frequently uses the word paraskeue, but only in the sense of preparation. This shows quite clearly that the word paraskeue is not a Jewish technical term equivalent to erev shabbat, Eve of Sabbath." (Zeitlin, "The Date of the Crucfixion According to the Fourth Gospel" in JBL Vol 51, No. 3 [1932], 268-69)

Zeitlin argues convincingly against the assertion of a technical connotation of paraskeue for Hellinistic Jews that could have been translated as "Eve of Passover". No doubt I will be accused of depending on Zietlin at this point and I admit to this fact. I would, therefore, encourage those who doubt Zeitlin's examples to read the full article (here) and then to reference each and everyone of his footnotes, especially those quoted on the pages above.

But some may still demur and will ask: what about the evidence of the gospels themselves? Do not they indicate some sort of technical usage of paraskeue? The passages in question are Mk 15.42 and, as Torrey points out, Jn 19.31, 42 (Luke's usage poses no problem since he would have most likely been copying Mark at this point). The case is somewhat stronger here since all three passages do use paraskeue in reference to the coming Sabbath. Interestingly, when Mark uses paraskeue he promptly clarifies this with "ho estin prosabbaton", lit. that is, before the Sabbath. Nevertheless, this can hardly be as conclusive as Torrey thinks. For one, the problem still exists for the lack of evidence of an extrabiblical technical usage. The one extrabiblical source adduced as evidence by both Kostenberger and Torrey does not use paraskeue in a technical fashion. Look at it again:

"that they be not obliged to go before any judge on the Sabbath day, nor on the day of the preparation to it, after the ninth hour." (Josephus, Antiquities 16.164)

Clearly, paraskeue is being used in practical sense in this passage and not in a technical fashion. Secondly, even if the gospels are using paraskeue on the basis of prior technical usage it must be kept in mind that the gospel writers did not have a monopoly on the Greek word paraskeue. As Zietlin mentioned concerning Philo, paraskeue was a common word that meant, yes, "preparation". Therefore, context is obviously the key. I would admit that the contexts of Mk 15.42 and Jn 19.31, 42 clearly are in reference to the preparation of the Sabbath. I am not disputing this. Moreover, if 19.14 used only paraskeue then there would be no issue. But Jn 19. 14 says:

hen de paraskeue tou pascha (the day of preparaton of Passover)

The question I would submit is: suppose John did want to inform his readers that it was the day of preparation for the Passover meal and so before Passover day proper, how would he have said it without utilizing paraskeue? Moreover, the disputers of a Passover discrepancy know themselves that proving paraskeue was a technical term referring to the eve of the Sabbath is not enough. This is why they must go to great lengths to argue that tou pascha does not refer to the day before Passover but to the entire week of the festival which is what Torrey tries to do in the rest of his article (see pages 238-239). However, I argued against this interpretation of tou pascha in part 5.

In conclusion, I find the assertion that paraskeue was used regularly as a technical term to be built on a shaky foundation. Even if some of the gospel passages use it as such, there is virtually no extrabiblical evidence that it was used likewise. In fact, Zietlin's evidence exhibits that when Greek-speaking Jews wanted to speak of the "Eve of Sabbath" they regularly translated this not as paraskeue but as prosabbaton. Finally, for the entire argument to be valid at all it must show that the addition of tou pascha in Jn 19.14 refers not to the day before Passover proper but to the entire festal week of Passover itself. Yet this was shown in part 5 to be an illegitimate rendering of tou pascha. Therefore, this translation of Jn 19. 14 as "day of Preparation of Passover Week" should be rejected.

Candler and Duke

2006-10-19T12:56:00.000-04:00

For those who still visit my blog I do apologize for the lack of posting. As I near the completion of three papers and getting together my graduate applications I should finally then be freed up to blog more frequently. Speaking of graduate schools I have had the pleasure of visiting both Candler School of Theology and Duke University during the last month. I enjoyed both visits thoroughly. In regards to Candler, though I am no particular fan of Augustine's, I had the pleasure of sitting in on a class by the well-established Augustine Scholar Dr. Lewis Ayres. Like I said I have never been too much of a fan of Augustine but Ayres succeeded in grabbing my attention. One of the illuminating things that Ayres discussed in the lecture was his belief, contra most Augustine scholars, that Augustine's religous pilgrimage was not quite like what Augustine himself laid out in his Confessions. In this book Augustine presents his religious journey as moving from a superficial Christianity in his young days to Manicheaism, to Astrologly, to Platonism, to Skepticism, and then finally to the acceptance of a genuine Christianity. Ayres position was that Augustine in reality never completely left the Christianity of his younger days (due to his Mother's influence) but dabbled in these other religions with the hope of answering some hard questions he had concerning Christianity (like the problem of evil for instance). I had never heard of Augustine's journey interpreted in such a manner and so was quite intrigued at the lecture.

Excepting the long drive there and back, Duke was a wonderful visit as well. Without a doubt the highlight of the trip was finally meeting and visiting the father of biblioblogging and genius behind NT Gateway, Dr. Mark Goodacre. Goodacre is especially significant for myself for two reasons. First, it was by chance that I happened upon his blog which ignited my own interest in biblioblogging and which introduced me to the many other blogs that I've come to enjoy reading. Secondly, Goodacre's The Case Against Q was the final push in convincing me to become a Q skeptic. Before reading Goodacre's book I had started to have some problems with the Q theory but was reluctant to investiage further into my misgivings. For one thing, I think many scholars are reticent to even consider the invalidity of Q because, like myself, the idea of an extra source, let alone an earlier extrabiblical source of Christianity, is hard to dispense with. But upon reading Goodacre's book, I was persuaded. Aside from that, it was a, again, a great pleasure to meet with Goodacre. And, Dr. Goodacre, if you read this, many thanks again for taking the time to meet with me.

For those who still wish to see the final post in my Passover series, I will have it up tomorrow. This is my fall break this weekend so I have plenty of time to complete it. I apologize for its belatedness.

The Date of Passover and the Pitfall of Inerrancy: Part 5

2006-09-14T08:18:00.000-04:00

Part 4

Excursus

Part 3

Part 2

Part 1

Introduction

Now it is time to critique proposition two which states:

2.) The reference in Jn 18:28 to the desire of the Jews to "eat the passover" most probably is a general reference to "celebrating the feast" which probably would have been the chagigah meal on the Day after Passover, namely, the day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. (2 Chron 30:21)

Kostenberger's argument here is essentially that phagosin tou pascha (to eat the passover) does not refer to the pesach meal which is celebrated on Passover day but refers instead to the chagigah feast on the day after Passover, the day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. He claims that "to eat the passover" would be a general phrase meant to convey a desire to "celebrate the feast" (which is itself a reference to the following seven days following the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the chagigah being eaten on this first day). He cites 2 Chron 30:21 and Num 28: 18-19 to be cross referenced. Let's look at them briefly:

"And the people of Israel that were present at Jerusalem kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with great gladness; and the Levites and the priests prased YHWH day by day singing with all their might to YHWH. And Hezekiah spoke encouragingly to all the Levites who showed good skill in the service of YHWH. So the people ate the food of the festival for seven days, sacrificing peace offerings and giving thanks to YHWH the God of their fathers." (2 Chron 30:21-22)

"On the first day there shall be a holy convocation: you shall do no laborious work, but offer an offering by fire, a burnt offering to YHWH: two young bulls, one ram, and seven male lambs a year old; see that they are without blemish." (Num 28:18-19)

It is not altogether clear why Kostenberger cites these two passages in support of his interpretation. Even reading them as they stand I do not see where Kostenberger gets the notion that these texts exhibit a tradition which uses the phrase "to eat the passover" as a circumlocution for "celebrating the feast" or more specifically, eating the chagigah. All that the first passage informs us is that the people ate food for the seven days of the feast and gave peace offerings. Likewise the second passage states simply what the people are to sacrifice on the first day of Unleavened Bread. Neither one of these texts indicate a tendancy to correlate "celebrating of the feast" with "eating the passover."

At this point, I need to make a clarication. In doing this series it may seem like I'm presenting Kostenberger's interpretations of these key passages as novel. But they are not. In fact, the first to propose the type of solutions that Kostenberger presents was Charles C. Torrey back in 1931 in Vol. 50, No. 4 (pp. 227-241) of the Journal of Biblical Literature. Thus it was Torrey who first suggested that in Jn 18:28 the phrase "to eat the passover" is a general reference to "celebrating the feast." Torrey is also responsible for seeing 2 Chron 30:21-2 as evidence for this. What he attempts to do there is to say that in vs 22 the Hebrew translates literally as "so they ate the feast" but then then says that the literal translation is too literal and that on the basis of the fact that the passage cannot mean they ate "through the feast" as some English translates the phrase. . Thus he retranslates it as "they celebrated the feast" and then states that this is equivalent in Greek to "ephagon to pascha" which is, except for a difference in tense , the same as Jn 18:28: "phagosin tou pascha." Why the translation move? Because Torrey argues that leaving it as "they ate the feast" "would imply too much eating, besides being untrue to the Hebrew" (240)

Is this convincing? Not at all. For even if we allow Torrey's shuffling around of the translations, it is still not clear at all that this passage is equating "to eat the passover" with "celebrating the feast" for no such equation is ever posited. Torrey is simply inferring this based on the fact that the previous context of 2 Chron 30 speaks of passover. The passage in its fuller context is as follows:

"And they killed the passover lamb on the fourteenth day of the second month. And the priests and the Levites were put to shame, so that they sanctified themselves, and brought burnt offerings into the house of YHWH. They took their accustomed posts according to the law of Moses and the man of God; the priests sprinkled the blood which they received from the hand of the Levites. For there were many in the assembly who had not sanctified themselves; therefore the Levites had to kill the passover lamb for every one who was not clean, to make it holy to YHWH. For a multitude of the people, many of them from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun, had not cleansed themselves, yet they ate the passover otherwise than as prescribed. For Hezekiah had prayed for them saying, 'YHWH pardon every one who sets his heart to seek God, YHWH the God of his fathers, even though not according to the sanctuary's cleaness.' And YHWH heard Hezekiah and healed the people. And the people of Israel that were present at Jersualem kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with great gladness and the Levites and the priests praised YHWH day by day singinging with all their might to YHWH. And Hezekiah spoke encouragingly to all the Levites who showed good skill in the service of YHWH. So the people at the food of the festival for seven days..." (15-21)

Forgive me for quoting this passage at length but it was necessary to show one important thing, namely, that even if we grant Torrey's translation of the last sentence as "they celebrated the feast" the only time the passage uses the phrase "eat the passover" (v18) it is without a doubt in reference to the lamb which was slain for passover in v15. Moreover, the "eating of the passover" in verse 18 clearly takes place before the "celebration of the feast" in verse 21 because when the Passover was partaken of, it was done improperly which caused Hezekiah to pray for his people. It was only subsequently, after this prayer that the text tells us the people then celebrated the feast (or the seven days following the passover meal). Thus a distinction is made in the text between the passover meal and the subsequent feast of seven days. And, again, when we do find the phrase "eat the passover" it is without a doubt in reference to the lamb. There is absolutley no responsibly, exegetical way in which to argue from this passage that "to eat the passover" can generally mean "to celebrate the feast" so that Jn 18:28 can be interpreted as celebrating the feast of the chagigah.

At this point some of you may be recalling the fact that in a previous post (here) I argued that by the time of the first century some Jews, as evidenced by the gospels and Josephus, began to conflate the Day of Passover with the First Day of Unleavened Bread. If this is the case then it seems at least a possibility that the phrase "to eat the passover" could have come to refer to the chagigah feast since there was a tendancy to conflate these feast days. But let us grant that this is in fact the case and that in Jn 18:28 we should translate "to eat the passover" as "celebrate the feast" so that Jesus is crucified on the Feast of Unleavened Bread. However, recall Luke 22:7 which says:

"Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the passover lamb had to be sacrificed."

What's the problem? The problem is that as it stands in the biblical text there would still be a contradiction because Luke (and his synoptic counterparts) would be presenting Jesus as being crucified on the day after Passover/Feast of Unleavened Bread whereas John's Jesus would then be crucified on the day of Passover/Feast of Unleavened Bread. Either way you end up with a contradiction in dates. Therefore, though it initially appeared this might help Kostenberger's case in actuality there would still be a contradiction in dates between the Synoptics and the Gospel of John.

The Date of Passover and the Pitfall of Inerrancy: Part 4

2006-09-13T08:31:00.000-04:00

Excursus

Part 3

Part 2

Part 1

Introduction

We have finally arrived at the moment of critique of Kostenberger's interpretation of the various Passover passages in John. By way of a refresher, here are Kostenberger's three main propositions as presented in Part 2 with some modifications:

1.) The phrase "day of preparation of Passover" (Jn 19:14) refers to the preparation of the coming Sabbath and not to the preparation of Passover day proper when the lambs are slaughtered for the evening meal. This is evidenced by the fact that the Greek term paraskueue was a technical term referring to the preparation for the Sabbath and not of Passover day itself. (cf. Josephus' Antiquities 16.163-64).

2.) The reference in Jn 18:28 to the desire of the Jews to "eat passover" most probably is a general reference to "celebrating the feast" which probably would have been the chagigah meal on the Day after Passover, namely, the day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. (2 Chron 30:21)

3.) The time reference in Jn 13:1-2 does not indicate that the meal in chapter 13 is not a passover meal but rather is meant to show that the footwashing occurs before the Passover meal that does occur later in the chapter.

Since proposition one is Kostenberger's principal one and three the weakest of his arguments we will argue against these propositions in reverse order. In regards to proposition three let's take a look at this passage once more:

"Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. And during supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God rose from supper, laid aside his garments, and girded himself with a towel. Then he poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which he was girded." (13:1-5, emphasis added)

Just on a plain reading of the text these verses clearly seem to say that the following events that are narrated (the footwashing, the promise of the Holy Spirit, Jesus prayer for his disciples, etc.) occur before the feast of the Passover, i.e. the pesach meal. But Kostenberger claims that the Last Supper and the footwashing are distinct events narrated in the same chapter, so that when the text says "before the feast of the Passover" the temporal force is to be understood only in reference to the footwashing and not the later meal that occurs in verses 21ff.

However, this interpretation is clearly in error. For one, the footwashing episode is clearly occuring in the context of a meal as verses 2 and 4 clearly indicate. Therefore, in order for Kostenberger's interpretation to work he must posit that between verses 20 and 21 a whole day has lapsed and that the meal narrated after verse 21 is completely different from the meal narrated in the context of the previous footwashing episode. But does this make sense of the text? As Barth would say, "Nein!". Let's look at verses 20-21:

"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who receives any one whom I send receives me; and he who receives me receives him who sent me. When Jesus had thus spoken, he was troubled in the spirit, and testified, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.'" (20-21)

Verse 21 clearly connects back with verse 20 and this verse cannot be disjoined from verses 12-20. Moreover, verse 12 clearly continues the events narrated in 13:2-11 for it states: "When he had washed their feet and taken his garments, and resumed his place, he said to them..." If this is not convincing let's look at most of the temporal references in this chapter:

"Now before the feast of Passover, when Jesus knew...And during Supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas...to betray him... (Jesus) rose from supper, laid aside his garments, and girded himself with a towel...began to wash the disciples feet...when he had washed their feet, and taken his garments, resumed his place, and said to them...when Jesus had thus spoken, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, 'Truly, truly, I say to you one of you will betray me'...so when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas...then after the morsel, Satan entered into him...so after receiving the morsel (Jesus) he immediately went out and it was night...when he had gone out, Jesus said..." (1,2, 4, 5, 12, 21, 27, 30, 31)

In short there is no where in the text of John 13 in which one can posit such a temporal rift without destroying its unity.To engage in this task is simply poor exegesis. Everything that is narrated from verses 2-30 take place in the same context and in the same night. Moreover, the author(s) of John inform his readers that all of this takes place before the feast of the Passover. I would encourage those who remain unconvinced to simply read through chapter 13 and discern for yourselves if there is such a temporal rift anywhere which could refer to two distinct evenings.

In conclusion, I find Kostenberger's suggestion that John 13 includes two different evenings, one in which a footwashing occured and one in which the Last Supper was partaken of as simply unwarranted exegesis. Kostenberger would have done better to argue that John 13:1 was never in the original text (as some have done before him).

Note: I did not realize I would spend this much time critiquing each proposition. Therefore, I am dividing the critiques into individual posts. Tomorrow I will post my critique of proposition number two and then the third the following day.

The Date of Passover and the Pitfall of Inerrancy: Excursus

2006-09-06T08:32:00.000-04:00

Part 3

Part 2

Part 1

Introduction

I realize it has been quite a while since I've posted in this series. I do apologize. With the fall semester beginning and my workload increasing I've been struggling to find time to post blogs of substance. Nevertheless, I am going to finish this series. But since there has been a considerable time lapse I want to take a bit of an excursus in order to refresh my readers on the Passover "discrepancy" and to make some additional points in order to bring some clarity to the issue for those unfamiliar with the discussion.

1.) Raymond Brown reminds us that the "Hebrew pesach and the Greek pascha are ambivalent terms, referring not only to a feast day but also to the slaughter of a lamb or goat and the subsequent meal." (Brown, Death of the Messiah: Vol II, p. 1354) In other words the underlying Hebrew and Greek words for what we translate as "Passover" could refer to either the actual slaughtering of the animal, the meal which is eaten at sundown on the 14th/15th of Nisan or to the entire feast day of the 14th of Nisan itself.

2.) Originally, according to Ex 12:8, Lev 23:5-6, and Num 28:16-17 the day of Passover proper is the 14th of Nisan not the 15th when the pesach meal was actually eaten. In other words in pre-70 Judaism there was a distinction between the day of Passover and the meal that was eaten at sundown, which would have been the following day, the 15th of Nisan. But, as Sanders notes, "many modern scholars think that 'Passover' technically applies to the meal on 15 Nisan, and thus that 14 of Nisan is the day before Passover. " (Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus, p. 312) Why the misunderstanding? Because after the destruction of the temple, Passover in Jewish usage became referred to as the pesach meal and so in modern Judaism the 15th of Nisan constitutes Passover day proper. This then is often retrojected into the pre-70 period by modern scholars. But in ancient Judaism, the 14th of Nisan was actually Passover day proper.

This point is more for my own possible correction. I stated that the synoptics present Jesus' crucifixion on Passover day proper and John the day before Passover. However, according to ancient Judaism this would be incorrect. Technically then, John would be presenting Jesus as having been crucified on Passover day proper while the synoptics would have been portraying his crucifixion as having occurred after the pesach meal, namely, on the first day of the Feast of Unleavened bread.

However, I think Sanders may be wrong to posit a neat transition in terminology based soley on the second temple's destruction. Surely the situation was more complex. There is still a lot we do not know about this era of Judaism and so I see no reason why during the period of second-temple Judaism the Jews might not have begun to lose the distinction between Passover day proper and the subsequent meal. Nevertheless, nothing of monumental importance hinges on whether or not a distinction is to be made at the time of Jesus' crucifixion between Passover day proper and the pesah meal. Therefore, I will continue to speak of Passover day proper as the time after the meal and the day before as the day of preparation of Passover when the lambs were slaughtered.

3.) Now according to the OT passages mentioned above, namely, Ex 12:8, Lev 23:5-6, and Num 28:16-17 (and also Philo, On the Special Laws 2.27-28) we know that, initially, Passover day, and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were considered separate feasts. However, we know that by the 1st century some Jews, including Josephus, began failing to make this distinction. For example in Antiquities 9.13.3, Josephus states: "When the feast of the Unleavened Bread came around, they sacrificed the pascha." The author(s) of Mark also fails to make this distinction: "On the first day of the Unleavened Bread when they sacrificed the paschal lamb," (14:12). Now at first sight this might appear to support Kostenberger's interpretation of Jn 18:28. But, as I will argue next time, looks are, in this case, actually deceiving.

4. Some readers were a bit confused as to some of my statements regarding how the Jewish calendar functioned during the Second-Temple period. I admit to being heavily dependent upon secondary sources in this matter. Calendarics (don't know if that constitutes an actual word) and astronomy certainly are not my specialty. But in order to grasp better some specifics concerning the Jewish calendar here is Sanders again, and at length:

"To demonstrate where the problem lies, I shall have to explain the Jewish calendar. It was (and still is) luni-solar. The year was divided into months, and months were reckoned strictly according to the phases of the moon. A lunar month begins with the new moon and lasts about 29 1/2 days; therefore months were either 29 or 30 days long. Twelve such months produce a lunar year of about 354 days, 11 1/4 days too short for a solar (seasonal) year, which is determined by the position of the earth relative to the sun. In a strictly lunar year the months back up. Every year, each month comes about 11 days earlier than the year before. The consequence is that springtime festivals soon start arriving in the winter. In order to keep months in the right season, Jews 'intercalated' a thirteenth month every two or three years. Thus while most years were 354 days, some were 383 or 384 days. Over a nineteen-year cycle, the total number of days comes out about right in terms of the solar calendar. This is why we say that the Jewish calendar is luni-solar: the months are lunar, but the number of months is adjusted in order to bring the calendar into agreement with the solar year." (Sanders, Historical Figure of Jesus, p. 283-284.)

(I quote Sanders at length here in order to exhibit how the attempts to keep the solar year in step with a lunar reckoning of months would from time to time result in the 14th of Nisan coinciding with a Sabbath day. This is, I believe, precisely what John presents. )

I realize that these observations are a bit excessive and so not necessarily conducive for the overall thrust of my argument (except for point three). But I felt it necessary to clarify some matters partly because one of my readers implicitly condemned me for not doing my "homework" and partly because I wanted to present some of the more complex issues pertaining to Passover to those not too familiar with the topic under discussion.

If this did nothing but confuse some of you, then clear this post from your mind (with the exception of point 3 because it will be important for my critique of Kostenberger) and go back and read part 1. Alright, next time I promise to finally post my critique of Kostenberger

Miscellaneous

2006-09-02T18:00:00.000-04:00

Stephen Carlson at Hypotyposeis has posted the XI Biblical Studies Carnival. He has done a wonderful job of compiling some of the best blogs from the month of August. Many thanks to Stephen for his hard work getting this together.

In regards to another Stephen, Stephen Peltz, otherwise known as "Q" who runs the great blog Toward's Jerusalem, we will shortly be joining forces. We think this will be beneficial for both of us since neither one of us really have the time to keep fresh content coming. This will help ease our burden and also, hopefully, keep our readers entertained. However, I will not be giving up this blog. My plan is to keep this blog and to post at least once a week on something pertaining to resurrection. My posts with Stephen will be in regards to all of my other interests (Jewish-Christian relations, Historical Jesus, Origins of Christianity, Christology, etc.). What I will do is link to the posts at Stephen's site here for those interested in what I might have to say on things other than the resurrection. As of yet, Stephen and I are not sure if I am just going to go to his site or if we are going to start another "neutral" site. But I will let you guys know.

Finally, I have not forgotten about my "Passover" series. Before joining Stephen, I will finish it, probably within the next few days so just bear with me. I am very much looking forward to co-blogging with Stephen. For those of you who are not familiar with his site, do check it out.

School Rantings

2006-08-31T18:32:00.000-04:00

Well, this week I started back at Union University for my last year in undergraduate work. For those of you who are not familiar with Union it is a conservative, Southern Baptist institution whose Christian Studies department is theologically Reformed, though there are a few Arminians among the faculty. Some of you who have been reading my blog regularly for a while may be surprised by the fact that I am attending such a school since I'm neither Southern Baptist, conservative, nor Reformed. Rather, I stem from a charismatic tradition (Assembly of God), consider myself more of a moderate, and am a hopeful universalist (though I think annihilationism is a viable option).

Why then am I at Union? For one thing I do love and respect the Faculty, even if I'm not theologically in step with most of them. Another reason is that Union has in the past few years become a well-respected Biblical Studies school in undergraduate work. This will certainly help as I seek a graduate school(s) to attend. But aside from these two things, my main reason for attending Union is for its strong foundation in Biblical Languages. In fact, my first year of undergrad was spent at Lambuth University and though I loved Lambuth and its faculty it did not have the strong foundation in biblical languages that I was seeking and so I transfered.

Anyways, an interesting thing happened today at school. One of my frustrations this week was finding out that my German class had been canceled due to staffing complications. I was really looking forward to getting a beginner's year of German before going to graduate school. But to stay full time I needed to add another class. However, for various reasons I ended up changing around other things on my schedule, dropping a class here, adding a class there. To get approval for this kind of stuff you, naturally, have to get approval from either your advisor or the Dean of the school. Well, my advisor was not in so I went to see our new (and first) Dean, Dr. Gregory Thornbury (a very intelligent and humorous professor) and get approved for the changes. He surprised me by saying that he heard that I had quite the blog. Then later in my "History of Christianity" class, when I gave my name to Dr. James Patterson he asked if I was the "blogger."

Intriguing.

Light Blogging Ahead

2006-08-25T13:29:00.000-04:00

I realize that I have not posted in a while, I do apologize but my workload keeps steadily increasing (almost exponentially it seems). I'm taking a full load of classes and am also working nearly full-time. Moreover, I am scrambling to get graduate applications completed and studying for the GRE that I am going to take in October. Thus I am afraid that for this fall semester I will be blogging rather lightly. However, I am going to committ to posting at least twice a week. For those who care, I will finish my Passover series. But once that is done do expect less of those kinds of blogs over this next semester. Again, apologies, and many thanks to those of you who do regularly visit and engage with my blog.

The Date of Passover and the Pitfall of Inerrancy: Part 3

2006-08-17T13:55:00.000-04:00

The Date of Passover and the Pitfall of Inerrancy: Introduction

The Date of Passover and the Pitfall of Inerrancy: Part 1

The Date of Passover and the Pitfall of Inerrancy: Part 2

Before engaging in my critique of Kostenberger's "solution" I want to show where Kostenberger misunderstands the discrepancy. Recall these words:

"The reason many have seen John as placing the Last Supper on Wednesday night with the crucifixion taking place on Thursday afternoon..." Biblical Theology, p. 148

And again in his commentary on John:

"Some believe that John places the supper on 14 Nisan, Wednesday evening, with Jesus' crucifixion occuring on Thursday afternoon..." John, p. 401

At every point that Kostenberger presents this discrepancy he does so by saying that the issue is that some believe John has Jesus eating the Last Supper on Wednesday with his crucifixion on Thursday in contrast to the Synoptics who portray each event a day later. However, the day of the week is not what is actually in dispute because the author of John does present Jesus' crucifixion on the eve of the Passover in agreement with the Synoptics:

"Since it was the day of Preparation, in order to prevent the bodies from remaining on the cross on the sabbath (for that sabbath was a high day, the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away." Jn 19:31

Kostenberger, therefore, is at least right when he concludes that all four gospels present Jesus being crucified on a Friday just prior to sundown (which would commence the Sabbath). The problem is that John has Passover Day falling on the same day as the Sabbath. To comprehend what I'm saying one needs to first understand how the Jewish Calendar worked in regards to the Passover. John P. Meier explains:

"Now, according to the Jewish way of calculating liturgical days at the time of Jesus, sundown would mark the beginning of a new day, the fifteenth of Nisan, Passover Day proper. This type of calculation for liturgical days is already witnessed in the OT (e.g., for the Day of Atonement in Lev 23:27, 32) and is explicitly applied to Passover in the Book of Jubilees 49:1 (written in the 2nd century B.C.): 'Remember the commandment that the Lord commanded you concerning Passover, that you observe it in its time, on the fourteenth of the first mont [Nisan], so that you might sacrifice it before it becomes evening and so that you might eat it during the night on the evening of the fifteenth from the time of sunset.'" John Meier, A Marginal Jew: Vol 1, p. 389.

In other words, the normative rule was that the Passover lambs were to be slaughtered on the 14th of Nisan and then at sundown to be eaten when Passover day proper began, which would then be the 15th of Nisan. Normally, the 14th of Nisan would occur on a Thursday (with the day beginning at 6 p.m. on Wed and ending at 6 p.m. on Thrs) and the 15th on a Friday (with Friday beginning at 6 p.m on Thrs). However, every now and then in order to adjust the lunar calendar to the actual solar year the Jews would have to add a leap year into their calendar which sometimes resulted in Passover day occuring on the same day as the Sabbath which is precisely what John indicates happened. (cf. Meier, p. 402)

To reiterate, the issue is not that the synoptics and John disagree as to what day of the week Jesus was crucified on but disagree concerning whether or not the date of his crucifixion was the 14th of Nisan or the 15th of Nisan. Now in so far as my argument goes, this is not an important observation because the crucial issue is whether or not John presents Jesus as being crucified on the Day of the Preparation of Passover, regardless of the day of the week or the date of the month.

Nevertheless, I bring this to attention to show that this betrays to me that Kostenberger has not sufficiently researched this issue. For if he had read and had been interacting with scholars who disagree with his position he would have seen that the larger issue involved the Jewish calendar itself and not the day of the week.

Next time, I will present my fuller critique of Kostenberger's "solution."

The Date of Passover and the Pitfall of Inerrancy: Part 2

2006-08-15T10:19:00.000-04:00

The Date of Passover and the Pitfall of Inerrancy: Introduction

The Date of Passover and the Pitfall of Inerrancy: Part 1

Having presented a simplistic analysis of the evidence which points to a contradiction between the Synoptics and the Gospel of John concerning the Passover events, it is now time to present Kostenberger's solution.

There are two places where one can find Kostenberger's attempt to harmonize the Synoptics and the Gospel of John on this matter. The first one I want to look at is found in his contributatory essay in Biblical Theology: Retrospect and Prospect entitled "Diversity and Unity in the New Testament." As I stated previously, Kostenberger's goal in this essay is to criticize New Testament Theologies which seek to emphasize the diversity of the theological perspectives in the New Testament. Therefore, Kostenberger has to tackle particular issues which many critical scholars have targeted as representing diverisity or contradiction in the NT. This includes the relationship between Jesus and Paul, development in Paul's thought, the Paul of Acts versus the Paul of the epistles and, germane to our discussion, the relationship between the Synoptics and the Gospel of John. It is in the context of discussing this relationship that Kostenberger tackles the "apparent" contradiction between the Synoptics and John concerning Passover. Here is the argument in full:

"The reason many have seen John as placing the Last Supper on Wednesday night with the crucifixion taking place on Thursday afternoon (when the Passover lambs would have been slaughtered in preparation for Passover later that evening) is the reference to 'the Day of Preparation of Passover Week' in John 19:14 (NIV [throughout this essay]; cf Jn 18:28). However, the solution to this apparent dilemma lies close at hand. In John 19:31, it is made clear that Jesus' crucifixion took place on 'the day of Preparation,' with the very next day being a 'special Sabbath' (i.e., the sabbath of Passover week). Thus, even in John the crucifixion takes place on Friday, with 'the day of Preparation' in John, as in Mark and Luke, referring not to the day of preparation for the Passover but for the sabbath (Mk 15:42; Lk 23:54; cf Josephus Antiquities 16.163-64). Moreover, since Passover lasted a week (in conjunction with the associated Feast of Unleavened Bread; Lk 22:1), it was apropriate to speak of the day of preparation for the sabbath as 'the day of Preparation of Passover Week' (though not of the Passover in a more narrow sense; Jn 19:14)." Kostenberger, Biblical Theology, p. 148

To briefly summarize, Kostenberger's argument here hinges on the phrase "the day of Preparation of Passover Week (NIV)" which he interprets not as the day of preparation of Passover understood as the time before the meal when the lambs are slaughtered but as a way of referring to the day of Preparation for the coming sabbath. He cites Mk 15:42, Lk 23:54, and Josephus' Antiquities 16.163-64 in support of this intepretation. Therefore, Jesus is crucified after the Passover meal and on Friday just before the sabbath in agreement with the Synoptic account.

Kostenberger argues likewise in his commentary on John. There he states:

"Some argue that paraskueue (Day of Preparation) refers to the day preceding Passover, that is, the day on which preparations for Passover are made (in the present case, Thursday morning). If so, then John indicates that Jesus is sent to be executed at the time at which Passover lambs are slaughtered in the temple. The Synoptists, however, clearly portray Jesus and his disciples as celebrating the Passover on the night prior to the crucifixion. Moreover, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Josephus all use paraskeue to refer to the day preceding the Sabbath. The term therefore should be taken to refer to the day of preparation for the Sabbath (i.e., Friday.)"

He continues:

"If this is accurate, then tou pascha means not 'of the Passover,' but 'of Passover week.' Indeed, 'Passover' may refer to the (day of ) the actual Passover meal or, as in the present case, the entire Passover week, including Passover day as well as the associated Feast of Unleavened Bread. "Day of Preparation of Passover week' is therfore best to be taken to refer to the day of preparation for the Sabbath (i.e., Friday) of Passover week (so, rightly, Carson 1991: 603-4; see also commentary at 19:31). Thus all four Gospels concur that Jesus' last supper was a Passover meal eaten on Thursday evening (by Jewish reckoning, the onset of Friday)." Kostenberger, John (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament), pp 537-538.

Once again we find that Kostenberger seizes on the phrase "day of Preparation of Passover" and interprets it as referring, not to the preparation of Passover day but as a sort of circumlocution representing the preparation day of the coming Sabbath. But Kostenberger still has to deal with the two other references which seem to indicate that Jesus did not partake of a Passover meal (and so by inference, was crucified before the meal). Recall John 18: 28 which states that the Jews would not enter the praetorium for fear of being defiled because this would have kept them from being able to "eat the passover." Kostenberger has a solution:

"The present reference may not be to Passover itself but to the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which lasted seven days (note Luke 22:1: 'the Feast of Unleavened Bread, called the Passover'; see further commentary at 19:14, 31) and in particular to the feast-offering which was brought on the morning of the first day of the festival (cf. Num. 28: 18-19). 'Eat the passover' probably simply means 'celebrate the feast' (cf. 2 Chron. 30:21)." John, 524.

And what about John 13:1 which seems to indicate that the last meal depicted in this passage was not a passover meal because it says "now before the feast of passover."? Once again, Kostenberger:

"Some believe that John places the supper on 14 Nisan, Wednesday evening, with Jesus' crucifixion occuring on Thursday afternoon, when the lambs are slaughtered at the temple in preparation for Passover. A closer look at the relevant passages, however, shows that none of these actually conflicts with the Synoptic accounts. The opening words thus place the footwashing immediately prior to the Passover meal that is about to begin." 401-402

Here is Kostenberger's solution in proposition form:

1.) The phrase "day of preparation of Passover" (Jn 19:14) refers to the preparation of the coming Sabbath and not to the preparation of Passover day proper when the lambs are slaughtered for the evening meal.

2.) The reference in Jn 18:28 to the desire of the Jews to "eat passover" most probably is a round about way of saying that they wish to "celebrate the feast" and so does not necessarily refer to Passover meal proper.

3.) The time reference in Jn 13:1 does not indicate that the meal in chapter 13 is not a passover meal but rather is meant to show that the footwashing occurs before the Passover meal that occurs in the chapter.

4.) Therefore, there is no contradiction between the Synoptics and the Gospel of John concerning the date of Passover. They all agree that Jesus had a Passover meal with his disciples and was crucified subsequent to this meal on Passover day proper.

I will criticize Kostenberger's "solution" in the next post.

The Date of Passover and the Pitfall of Inerrancy: Part 1

2006-08-13T15:56:00.000-04:00

In this post I want to present the basic problem that exists between the Synoptics and the Gospel of John concerning the date of Passover and Jesus' crucfixion:

1.) The Synoptics present Jesus' last meal with his disciples as a a Passover meal which means his crucifixion occured on Passover Day proper after the meal.

That Jesus last meal with his disciples was the Passover meal is indicated clearly by the following passage:

And on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the passover lamb, his disciples said to him, "Where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the passover?" And he sent two of this disciples, and said to them, "Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him, and wherever he enters, say to the householder, 'The Teacher says, Where is my guest room, where I am to eat the passover with my disciples?' And he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready; there prepare for us." And the disciples set out and went to the city, and found it as he had told them; and they prepared the passover. (Mk 14:12-16; cf Mt 26:17ff and Lk 22:7ff)

What follows is the Lord's Supper. Though from time to time some have tried to show that this meal really wasn't a Passover meal (due to the absence of the lamb and such), most are convinced otherwise, especially because of the preceding context which I just quoted.

2.) The Gospel of John indicates that Jesus' last meal was not a Passover meal and that Jesus was crucified just prior to when the Passover meal would have been eaten, i.e., when the lambs were slaughtered in preparation for the meal.

Here are the key passages:

Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. And during supper... (Jn 13:1-2)

What follows this introductory material in chapter 13 of John is the one meal that the author(s) do present that Jesus had with his disciples. However, there is absolutely no indication that this meal bears the distinctives of a Passover meal. Moreover, given the introductory sentence ("Now before the feast of the Passover") it seems best to conclude that this is not a Passover meal. But if this is not enough evidence for some, consider the next passage:

Then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the praetorium. It was early. They themselves did not enter the praetorium, so that they might not be defiled, but might eat the passover. (Jn 18:28)

In this passage we see clearly that the Jewish authorities had not yet eaten the Passover meal and wished to do so later, thus they would not enter the praetorium (because of the Gentile presence) for it would have rendered them unclean and so unfit to eat the passover meal.

And then finally:

When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Pavement, and in Hebrew Gabbatha. Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover; it was about the sixth hour. (Jn 19:13-14)

Here we have Jesus' crucifixion taking place on the Day of Preparation of Passover, prior to Passover Day proper. Jesus is crucified at the time the lambs are prepared for the evening meal (cf. Mk 14:12, Ex 12:8).

The discrepancy should now be clear. In a nutshell, the Synoptics and John differ concerning a key moment during Jesus' final week. The Synoptic witness is that Jesus did in fact have a Passover meal with his disciples and so was tried and crucified after this meal. In contrast to this, the Gospel of John does not have Jesus sharing a Passover meal with his disciples because he is crucified just prior to when the meal would have been participated in, namely, on the Day of Preparation for Passover when the lambs are slaughtered for the evening meal.

The issue is, admittedly, a bit more complex than my brief analysis might indicate. This is because to make sense of the conflict between the Synoptics and John, it requires a certain understanding of the Jewish calendar. But I want to stave off a more complex analysis until I have presented Kostenberger's "solution" to this problem which I will do next post.

The Date of Passover and the Pitfall of Inerrancy: Introduction

2006-08-12T12:30:00.000-04:00

In preperation for my Biblical Theology paper coming up in the fall I've been reading a lot of material concerning this topic. Currently, I am reading Biblical Theology: Retrospect and Prospect which is edited by Scott J. Hafemann and contains contributions by such notable conservatives as Peter Stuhlmacher, G.K. Beale, Nicholas Perrin, and others. Yesterday I read Andreas Kostenberger's article, "Diversity and Unity in the New Testament" in which Kostenberger seeks to emphasize the unity of the NT witness against its diversity (which is for the most part only apparent). Kostenberger is a conservative, evangelical NT scholar so I knew to expect some harmonization tactics. But I was not prepared for the way Kostenberger "solved" the problem of the "apparent" discrepancy in the dating of the Passover between the Synoptics and the Gospel of John.

Therefore, I am going to put on hold my series concerning American Evangelicalism and the Gospel of John (sorry Q) so that I can take issue with Kostenberger's "solution" to this problem and to exhibit how Kostenberger's and other's belief in plenary verbal inspiration forces them to harmonize such discrepancies (such as this one) that cannot and should not be harmonized. However, I realize that some of my readers may not be familiar with this particular problem of conflicting Passover dates between the Synoptics and John so in the next post I will first present the chronological problem which arises from this discrepancy. Subsequent to this, we will look at Kostenberger's particular resolution to this problem and then show why this is in error.

At the outset, let me say that I respect Kostenberger and think that he is a very skilled, exegetical scholar. Unfortunately, it is his doctrinal position of a particular belief in inerrancy which leads him to make serious errors in exegesis. Ultimately, my attack is not against Kostenberger but against a particular form of inspiration which does not allow for errors of any kind in the biblical text. Moreover, I hope that I do not come across as attacking Evangelical scholars as a whole. If I had to force a label onto myself I would say that I am Evangelical, in at least some sense. Again, my problem is with those evangelicals who adopt this particular notion of inerrancy.

Also please allow a few days or more between the posts. I am very busy this month partly due to my boss being on his honeymoon (we all had to pick up extra shifts because of this) and mostly because I am heavily researching the topic of Biblical Theology.

James Dunn on the Cross and the Resurrection

2006-08-08T11:15:00.000-04:00

"If the cross of Jesus stands at the centre of Paul's theology, so also does the resurrection of Jesus. Christ crucified is also he whom God raised from the dead. More to the point, the significance of the one cannot be grasped in isolation from that of the other. Without the resurrection, the cross would be a cause for despair. Without the cross, the resurrection would be an escape from reality. " James Dunn, Theology of the Apostle Paul, p. 235

The Triumph of the Gospel of John in American Evangelicalism: Introduction

2006-08-03T13:49:00.000-04:00

Ever since the rise of higher biblical criticism, scholars have been quick to point out the striking differences between the synoptic gospels and the Gospel of John in regards to the figure of Jesus. The following are some of the well-known ones:

1.) In contrast to the synoptic portrait of a Jesus who proclaims the coming of God's kingdom (Mk1:15/Mt 4:17; Mk 9:1/Lk 9:27, Lk 21:31, cf Mk 13), the author(s) of John's Gospel depict a Jesus who constantly proclaims himself (e.g., Jn6ff; 7:38; 8:12,58; 10:7-10; 11:25-26; 14:6; 15:1-6) as the means to salvation. To provide a bit more of a perspective consider the synoptic data concerning the occurances of "kingdom of God" and its equivalent Matthean version "kingdom of heaven" versus the gospel of John's data:

Synoptics-92 (59 "kingdom of God" and 33 "kingdom of heaven")
Gospel of John-2 (both of which occur in the context of Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus in chapter 3)

The gospel of John's use of the phrase(s) occurs about 2 percent of that of the synoptic's usage.

2.) The chronology of the synoptics and John are quite different. Whereas the synoptics present Jesus' mission as lasting at about a year, John 's presentation seems to indicate a possible two or even three year ministry. One of the major examples of a diachronic discrepancy between the synoptics and John includes the relocation of the temple incident during the passion week in the synoptic versions (Mk 11:12-19 and par.) to the beginning of Jesus' mission (Jn 2:20-22). Another major example is the difference concerning the time of Jesus' death. The synoptics indicate that Jesus died on the day of passover (Mk 14-15 and par.) after the meal but the gospel of John places Jesus' death at the time the passover lambs were being slaughtered, i.e. before the actual passover meal. (Jn 18:28; 19:14)

3.) The method of teaching is quite distinct between the synoptics and John. The synoptics present a Jesus who instructs through parables, aphorisms, riddles, etc. However, John's Jesus regularly engages in lengthy monologues and lacks the forms of teaching found in the synoptics.

4.) The gospel of John is significantly more theologically colored. One prime example is the difference in interpretation of the feeding of the 5000. When one compares the synoptic verisons (Mk 6:38ff and par.) with John's own account (Jn 6ff) the theological elaboration in the latter's account is striking.

It is this last point that is particularly troublesome since it exhibits the extent that the post-Easter proclamation has been retrojected into the Jesus tradition by the author(s) of John. Of course the synoptics are not entirely free of this element but John seems infused at every point in his gospel by a post-Easter reflection of the exalted Christ. Because of this those who are not of a conservative bent tend to dimiss the gospel of John as containing valuable history. Any history that is contained in John's gospel would be minimal at best and even harder to retrieve. Those who would wish to use the gospel of John as a source for reconstructing the historical Jesus should pay account to the late Raymond Brown's words:

"...subsequent development, no matter how homogeneous, is something that is refractive when one's purpose is to establish scientifically the exact circumstances of the ministry of Jesus. And so, although I think that the Fourth Gospel reflects historical memories of Jesus, the greater extent of the theological reshaping of those memories makes Johannine material harder to use in the quest for the historical Jesus than most Synoptic material." (Raymond Brown, An Introduction to the Gospel of John, p. 107)

However, though the synoptics differ considerably from the gospel of John and probably contain more information historically in regards to the figure of Jesus of Nazareth, this gospel has held a place of dominance throughout history in regards to the formulation of Christian faith. For example, its importance for the first few centuries of Christianity in the ensuing Christological debates cannot be understated (though it had to be wrestled constantly from the hands of Gnostic Christians). But even today, especially among American Evangelicalism, the presentation of Jesus found in the gospel of John is by far the dominant one. And so in this new series of posts (which may or may not be posted consecutively) I will look at the evidence which I believe indicates this and then explain why I have some problems with this particular appropriation of one aspect of the Jesus tradition by a majority of Christians today, namely, the one found in the gospel of John.

Bultmann on the Resurrection

2006-08-01T11:19:00.000-04:00

I am coming late into the game but as others have already pointed out (particularly Jim West) the anniversary of Rudolf Bultmann's death was this past July 30th. Though I would obviously disagree with Bultmann concerning his interpretation of the resurrection (cf. Theology of the New Testament: Vol1;ET, p. 295) one thing Bultmann did consistently right was to recognize that it was the death and resurrection together which constituted the complete salvation event. And so, in honor of Bultmann here is one of my favorite quotes from this brilliant New Testament scholar:

"It is clear that the salvation-occurence, viz. Christ's death and resurrection, is the deed of the prevenient grace of God; and the various expressions which describe this deed intend to express its unprecedented nature and its might which so radically transformed the human situation. It is an occurance purely by God's initiative; for man, pure gift; by accepting it he is released from his perverse striving to achieve life or self-hood by his own efforts-in which he does the very opposite-only to be given it as a gift in the 'righteousness of God'." (TNT, p. 294)

The Proper Starting Point of All Theology

2006-07-29T13:26:00.000-04:00

Recently, I stated my goal of reading more works on systematic theology. I have begun this committment by reading (though intermittently) Robert Jenson's Systematic Theology: The Triune God(vol1). Already I am impressed with Jenson. Why? Because Jenson recognizes the true starting point of all subsequent theological reflection:

"To attend to the resurrection is to attend to God self-identified as 'the one who raised the Lord Jesus'. Whoever-and, indeed, whatever-did that, the church says is the reality we mean by 'God.' To attend to the Resurrection and to attend to this particular putative God, to take either as the object of our reflection, are the same." (Jenson, 12)

My kind of theologian.

One Book Meme

2006-07-26T09:53:00.000-04:00

Ben Meyers has started a one book meme (here) that is being duplicated around the blogosphere. Be sure to read the lists on Ben's comments pages as well as Chris Tilling, Jim West, and Kyle Potter's lists. Here is my own contribution:

1. One book that changed your life:
Bart Ehrman's "Introduction to the New Testament" (this work stimulated my interest in NT studies)

2. One book that you've read more than once:
N.T. Wright's "Resurrection of the Son of God."

3. One book that you'd want on a desert island:
John Meier's "A Marginal Jew" work (yes, I know that's technically more than one book).

4. One book that made you laugh:
"Wizard's First Rule"

5. One book that made you cry:
"Lord of the Rings"

6. One book that you wish you had written:
Dale C. Allison's "The End of the Ages Has Come"

7. One book that you wish had never been written:
Anything promoting fundamentalist pre-dispensationalism

8. One book you are currently reading:
Brevard S. Childs' "Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments".

9. One book that you've been meaning to read:
"The Count of Monte Cristo (unabridged version)

10. One book that you wish had been written:
Jesus' autobiographical reflections.

11. Tag five people:
I tag Q, Loren, Rick Sumner, Derek, and Sven.

Some Noteworthy Posts

2006-07-23T17:13:00.000-04:00

Here are some quality posts that I want to mention:

1.) Loren Rosson has posted a functional outline of the Epistle of Romans here.

2.) Q continues his Christological series with a post concerning the connection between resurrection and exaltation here.

3.) And Tyler Williams continues his series of posts on Old Testatment Textual Criticism here.

Enjoy.

James Dunn and the Resurrection

2006-07-21T09:20:00.001-04:00

Many thanks for everyone who gave me advice as to whether or not to keep "Resurrecton Dogmatics" as the name of my site. It was pretty much unanimous that I do so, thus this will remain the name of my site. I have just finished James Dunn's Jesus Remembered. Once again Dunn was impressive. I wish I had time to give a thorough review but right now I do not. Perhaps soon I will. For now, in honor of keeping my site name, here is a brilliant quotation on the Resurrection as metaphor from this erudite scholar:

"Christians have continued to affirm the resurrection of Jesus, as I do, not because they know what it means. Rather, they do so because, like the affirmation of Jesus as God's Son, 'the resurrection of Jesus' has proved the most sastisfactory and enduring variety of options, all of them inadequate in one degreee or other as human speech, to sum up the impact made by Jesus, the Christian perception of his significance. They do so because as a metaphor, 'resurrection' is perceived as referring to something otherwise inexpressible, as expressing the otherwise inchoate insight that this life, including Jesus' life, is not a complete story in itself but can be grasped only as part of a larger story in which God is the principal actor and in which Jesus is somehow still involved. In short, 'the resurrection of Jesus' is not so much a criterion of faith as a paradigm for hope." (Dunn, 879).

Many thanks once more to everyone who helped me in my decision.

Concerning Theology and a Possible Name Change

2006-07-18T17:48:00.000-04:00

I must confess to the dismay of many of my theologian friends that I have never cared too much for "systematic theology." If you take a glance at my library you will find that it is heavy on biblical studies and light on theology, particularly systematic theology. My problem with much systematic theology is its presupposition about revelation being propositional. And because of the assumption of the nature of revelation as propositional it is a small step forward to systematization. The reason I have a problem with systematization is that it assumes an exhausitive continuity in revelation that I do not think is there in our biblical witness. But I also prefer biblical studies over systematic theology for a more practical reason: I am a fan of all things historical. To put this another way, when I read works related to the field of biblical studies I feel more grounded in history. Yet when I read systematic theology it is more often than not an engagement in asbstract thinking which in turn causes me to feel divorced from history.

Nevetheless, theology is a necessary discipline. In fact my favorite statement, "God raised Jesus from the dead" is itself a theological indicative that I myself have tried to unpack in a theological manner (see this post in particular). For those of us who are believers whenever we read our Bible and reflect upon on it or when we present the gospel message we engage in a theological task. Thus I hope no one thinks I am dismissing theology altogether. My problem is that sometimes systematic theology goes further than it should, sometimes beyond the "Wholly Other" that it seeks to present.

But as this post by Chris Tilling nicely pointed out there has arisen a broad, unhealthy division between those rooted in biblical studies (Tilling uses the term "exegetes") and theologians. This gulf has caused both groups to make egregious errors in their respective disciplines. For this reason, I am committing to reading more theological works than I have in the past. Therefore, to my readers, do not be surprised if some of my future posts become a bit more "theological." However, the vast majority of my blog will still be devoted to the general field of biblical studies which brings me to a question that I would like to ask my regular readers.

Initially when I started this site I wanted to chiefly focus on issues concerning the resurrection, thus its title. The problem is that my own interests have always been much more broad (as my recent series has exhibited). Moreover, I realize that eventually I could exhaust material on which to blog about concerning the resurrection. This has occasioned the possibility of changing the name of my blog which I am definitely considering. But before I decide I would like to have some input from my regular readers as to whether or not this would be a good idea. (For one thing I realize it would mean those who are linked to me will have to change their link addressess and so I'm not sure if I want to cause that). If you do not wish to leave comments then feel free to e-mail me. I would appreciate any feedback you all are willing to offer.

The Value of E.P. Sanders' "Jesus and Judaism": Conclusion

2006-07-17T18:05:00.000-04:00

In this series of posts concerning the value of E.P. Sanders' work in historical Jesus research I have called attention to three aspects of Sander's particular methodological procedure. By way of summary, they are:

1.) To commence the reconstruction process from the facts about Jesus' life that many scholars regard as probably historical rather than to focus on the sayings of Jesus as the principal means to recovering the "historical Jesus."

2.) To assign the "sayings" of Jesus to a secondary role and to incoporateinto the historical data only those sayings which can most probably be said to have originated from Jesus.

3.) To develop a plausible hypothesis which seeks to incoporate data from 1 and 2 above and which accounts satisfactorally for three factors:

a. It situates Jesus believably within Judaism.
b. It explains why the movement eventually broke with Judaism.
c. It provides a plausible connection between Jesus' mission and subsequent death.

This is a very concise summary of the methodological procedure Sanders presents in the introduction to his book. Obviously, to gather a more comprehensive understanding of Sanders' particular reasons for adopting this method I can do no better than simply point you to the book itself.

The result of the appropriation of this method leads Sanders, in my opinion, to reconstruct the most plausible "historical Jesus" to date. And though I by no means agree with every one of Sanders' conclusions (particularly his stance on Pharisees) I think Sanders' method provides the surest way to reconstructing the historical Jesus. Of course, I never discussed whether such a resconstruction was possible or even needed at all. But that is obviously a discussion for another time.

Oh and while we are on the subject of the historical Jesus be sure to check out this series of posts on the historicity of Jesus by Michael Pahl: parts 1, 2, 3, and 4.

Also there is a new blog by Matthew Hopper called Historical Jesus and Paul which if you cannot guess by the title is devoted to historical Jesus and Pauline studies. Welcome, Matthew to the biblioblogosphere.

The Value of E.P. Sanders' "Jesus and Judaism": Part III

2006-07-15T13:41:00.000-04:00

The Sayings of Jesus

I know that I said I was going to conclude this series of posts in this one but I realized there was one more methodological procedure of Sanders of which I wanted to discuss. In the last two posts I emphasized the problem that plagues many Jesus research scholars, namely, the exclusive focus on Jesus' sayings. In contrast to this, Sanders' method is to concentrate on those facts of Jesus' life which are agreed upon by many scholars and to develop a hypothesis which accounts adequately for these facts. In this scheme, the sayings of Jesus are given a somewhat subsidiary role, mainly because of the problems associated with trying to authenticate the sayings of Jesus. However, this does not mean Sanders views an analysis of Jesus' sayings as unimportant. On the contrary, Sanders says:

"Although the sayings material has just been assigned a relatively secondary role, especially considering the dominance which it has generally enjoyed, it remains important in this study." (Sanders, p 13)

But then how does Sanders utilize the sayings? Here it is perhaps best to quote Sanders at length:

"I belong to the school which holds that a saying attributed to Jesus can seldom be proved beyond doubt to be entirely authentic or entirely non-authentic, but that each saying must be tested by appropriate criteria and assigned (tentatively) to an author-either to Jesus or to an anonymous representative of some stratum in the early church. This appears to be a neutral stance, placing the burden of proof equally on those who would assign a saying to Jesus and those who would assign it to the church. If one were writing a history of the synoptic sayings material, such a position probably would be neutral. When one writes about Jesus, however, this attitude has the effect of shifting the burden of proof to the shoulders of those who affirm the authenticity of a saying or group of sayings. I find that I am not neutrally canvassing the material, assigning it as best I can to an appropriate place. I am looking for information about Jesus, and looking somewhat with a skeptical eye; I want to be convinced that a given saying is at least probably by Jesus before employing it." (Ibid)

Sanders' method of approach to the sayings of Jesus is one that attempts to be neutral but with a leaning towards skepticism. He, quite reasonably, wants to be sure a saying attributed to Jesus was probably said by him before including it his historical data. From a historian's perspective this is, I think, the best approach to take concerning the logions of Jesus. Because of this, the historian must not and cannot take into account things such divine inspiration and so forth. They have to be inclined to deal with the possibility of faith-embellished tradtion. And if the possibilty for that exists then the historian has to reckon with the possibility that the tradition could have become embellished extensively. For this reason, the historian is quite justified in taking a skpetical approach to the sayings of Jesus.

Yet, I must admit that from a faith-persepctive such as I adopt, this position is somewhat unsatisfactory. Because I am a believer, and because I am inclined to view the gospels as an (overall) faithful witness to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus (though I am no inerrantist) I would want to give the sayings of Jesus the benefit of the doubt and place the burden on those who would wish to assign attributed sayings of Jesus to the category of "unhistorical". But from the perspective of a historian who should attempt as much as possible to engage in "objective" history (and yes, I'm well aware that it's quite impossible to be completely objective), adopting a skeptical standpoint concerning Jesus' sayings is a must.

For those who are curious Sanders provides three reasons which cause him to adopt a skeptical view concerning the sayings of Jesus.They are, with much brevity, as follows:

1.) The discipline of form criticism has shown that the traditions have been handed down by the early church and adapted for use by that church. (p. 14)

2.) Form-critical tests that were often used in attempts to discover earlier forms of tradition which in turn were used to make judgements of authenticity are ultimately unreliable. Sanders, "I have in mind principally Semitisms, brevity and details, Saying sin general do not tend to become either more or less Semitic, longer or shorter, or more or less detailed."(p. 15)

3.) The lack of knowledge concerning "the practices and interests of the early church (apart form the Pauline mission) before the Gospels were written." (Ibid)

Okay, next time I promise to complete and summarize the value of Sanders work on the historical jesus. I just thought it best to provide Sanders position on the sayings of Jesus and the reasons for his skepticism.

The Value of E.P. Sanders' "Jesus and Judaism": Part II

2006-07-13T18:02:00.000-04:00

Not so long ago Richard M. Weaver in his classic work Ideas Have Consequences observed that when one becomes obsessed with focusing on the particulars of a certain concept the result is inevitably the loss of perspective of the "whole" or "unity" of the object under scrutiny. Weaver's work was in particular a reaction to the philosophical thought typically associated with William of Ockham known as nominalism which denies "universals" in favor of particulars only. In Weaver's opinion Ockahm's victory, as exhibited in the scientific method for example, led to society's obsession with particulars. The result was a society which lost a vision of a metaphysical dream. For Weaver, having a "metaphysical dream" was an important framework for attempting to understand how to, in a sense, "unify" reality. Without this framework the loss of ultimate "truth" was, for Weaver, a certain outcome. Weaver pointed to many things during his lifetime which he felt proof of this degredation of society, especially mankind's "moral stupidity."

Now you may be asking yourself at this point what does any of this have to do with E.P. Sanders or the historical Jesus. Simply this: many historical Jesus studies commit the same error as nominalism in that those scholars who focus exclusively on Jesus' sayings and the use of various criterion by which to authenticate these sayings lose sight of the entire "picture" of the historical Jesus and ultimately engage in a futile pursuit of this Jesus.

Okay, so the correlation I was attempting to make is not exactly one to one. My aim is to show how inconclusive and bizare the results can be when one attempts to reconstruct the historical Jesus from his authentic sayings which in turn have to be authenticated themselves by various criterion that are never wholly agreed upon. In other words, many scholars start at the "bottom" by focusing on the particulars of the Jesus tradition, i.e. the sayings of the tradition and then attempt to "build up" from there. In my opinion such a methodological approach can only yield fruitless results and so is ultimately a futile endeavor, not least because of the problem of the lack of the criterion to provide the kind of "proofs" that the, say, scientific method can provide.

The better and more fruitful alternative is to begin with a good hypothesis which, according to Sanders, must do at least three things:

1.) "situate Jesus believably in Judaism" (Sanders, 18)
2.) "explain why the movement initiated by Jesus eventually broke with Judaism" (Ibid)
3.) "offer a connection between Jesus activity and his death" (22)

Now it should be noted that Sanders is not the only historical Jesus scholar who views the presentation of a viable and essentially verifiable hypothesis as the starting point in Jesus research. I am thinking particularly of N.T. Wright's Jesus and the Victory of God, the second volume to his present undertaking, Christian Origins and the Question of God. In a way Wright's prolegomena volume, The New Testament and the People of God, functions as Wright's setup for his hypothetical model that he uses in JVC, namely, "restoration and exile." Unfortunately, Wright is a good example of the problem of beginning historical Jesus research with first developing an hypothesis or paradigm by which to construct the historical Jesus. The problem is that one can become overly dependent on one's hypothesis resulting in the forcing of the Jesus tradition to fit the hypothesis in question. Case in point is Wright who, in order to uphold his "restoration and exile" paradigm is forced to interpret apocalyptic images in a wholly metaphorical fashion.

Nevertheless, I still believe beginning with a paradigm or hypothesis which seeks to incoporate those facts known about Jesus and which can be derived from the Jesus tradition provide a better method to a reasonable, historical reconstruction of the mission and message of Jesus of Nazareth. But just as one should proceed in caution when attempting to use various criterion by which to authenticate Jesus' sayings so should one proceed in caution so as not to get caught up in one's controlling paradigm such that it causes one to force interpretations onto the Jesus tradition.

In the next post I will conclude this series by summarizing Sanders' methodological proceedure and its value for historical Jesus research.

The Value of E.P Sanders "Jesus and Judaism": Part I

2006-07-11T09:21:00.000-04:00

In my last post I provided a list of my personal favourite ten historical Jesus works. My number one spot went to E.P. Sanders' Jesus and Judaism. I promised to provide an explanation for why I accorded this work as my number one among historical Jesus studies. Perhaps the best way to approach this is to provide a few common problems that plague many historical Jesus reconstructions and to offer Sanders' particular remedy. The first error is the following:

1.) The conviction that Jesus' words and teaching are the securest way forward to recovering the historical Jesus' message and mission.

The implications for this should be obvious. Once one is committed to finding Jesus' message in his teachings and sayings (exclusively) then one must attempt to ascertain the authenticity of the various sayings attributed to Jesus in the gospel accounts. Sanders indicates two flaws with this particular methodology. First, he points to the problem of such few consensus by scholars as to which sayings are authentic. Moreover, the few sayings that are generally agreed to be authentic are just that: few. In other words one cannot hope to recover Jesus' message and aims from only a few sayings. Secondly, when one focuses exclusively on Jesus' sayings as the key to discovering the historical Jesus there is an important assumption being made, namely:

"that what he really was, was a teacher. ( and if so) He is then either a clear, straightforward teacher whose parables make his message about God and the kingdom plain, or, as in some recent studies, a difficult, riddling teacher, whose meaning is not and was not altogether clear, or even one who intended to be ambiguous. Whatever sort of teacher he is held to have been, it is difficult to move from 'Jesus the teacher' to 'Jesus, a Jew who was crucified, who was the leader of a group which survived his death, which in turn was persecuted, and which formed a messianic sect which was finally successful'." (Sanders, p. 4, parenthetical remark added)

Sanders observation is simply that an undertaking of extracting Jesus mission and message soley from his teachings leads to Jesus as a teacher whom spouts out parables and aphorisms, which in turn is problematic because it lacks the explanatory power necessary to properly account for Jesus' own death and the rise of Christianity itself (p. 1). What is needed is secure evidence, the kind of evidence that "everyone can agree and which at least points towards an explanation..." (5) In light of this observation Sanders provides his own surer, firmer way to reconstructing (at least minimally) the historical Jesus' message and mission. Sanders' more secure method in historical Jesus reconstruction is to begin with the facts about Jesus' life and its consequences. In other words to pivot historical research of Jesus on those incidents in Jesus' life which the mass of scholars agree to be historical and to move from this pivot point while making the study of the sayings of Jesus secondary.

I myself am convinced of this particular method of proceeding with historical Jesus research. In many ways it is very commonsensical. It seems much more reasonable to begin with those things generally agreed to be historical concerning Jesus than to start from the ground up. Moreover history shows that people are more remembered for what they did as opposed to the things that they said. Thus Jesus facts and actions reasonably appear the best way forward. Of course the situations will always be more complex and less linear than we would like. But overall this method does seem to be a better way than trying to authenticate Jesus' sayings to the exclusion of his actions by way of criteria and such which leads us into the second flaw with many historical Jesus studies. This, as well as Sanders remedy, we will look at in the next post. In the meantime, for those who are interested in what initial facts Sanders believe are generally held to be historical by most scholars, here they are:

1. Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist.
2. Jesus was a Galilean who preached and healed.
3. Jesus called disciples and spoke of there being twelve.
4. Jesus confined his activity to Israel.
5. Jesus engaged in controversy about the temple.
6. Jesus was crucified outside Jerusalem by the Roman authorities.
7. After his death Jesus' followers continued as an identifiable movement.
8. At least some Jews persecuted at least parts of the new movement (Gal. 1.13,22; Phil.3.6), and it appears that this persecution endured at least to a time near the end of Paul's career (II Cor. 11.24; Gal 5.11; 6.12; cf. Matt. 23:34; 10:17)

Taken from page 11 of Jesus and Judaism.

My Top Ten Historical Jesus Works

2006-07-08T11:20:00.000-04:00

Currently I am finishing up James Dunn's Jesus Remembered (Christianity in the Making: Volume 1). Since this is the last book on the historical Jesus that I will probably read for quite some time (I will be reading much literature on biblical theology to prepare for a future class) I wanted to give my own, as of right now, top ten personal favorite books on the historical Jesus.

10.) Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millenium by Bart Ehrman. I include Ehrman's very short work on the historical Jesus because it was one of the first books I ever read on the subject and was important in stimulating my interest in historical Jesus research. Its chief drawback is that it is written for general audiences and so lacks interaction with important sources in the field of historical Jesus research.

9.) Jesus of Nazareth by Gunther Bornkamm. Though Ernst Kasemann is generally credited as being the catalyst for the so-called "Second Quest" for the historical Jesus, Bornkamm's was the first actual detailed work on the subject from this renewed quest. I found this to be a most refereshing read but the work ultimately suffers from very little interaction with sources and still exhibits a Jesus who was constantly in conflict with the terribly legalistic Jews.

8.) The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant by John Dominic Crossan. As far as an overall reconstruction of the historical Jesus, Crossan's is the least persuasive on my list. However, Crossan's work is still highly valuable not least for its detailed inquiries into the anthropological and sociological structures of the Mediterranean world.

7.) Jesus and the Victory of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God, Volume 2) by N.T. Wright. Some of my Wright fans will wonder why this work is far down my list. Though Wright's piece on the historical Jesus is very informative, a pleasant read, and very engaging but I remain unconvinced of Wright's overall picture of the Historical Jesus, namely his grand-narrative approach (the theme of exile) which forces Wright to see more continuity between the Israel and Christian story than there actually is.

6.) The Christology of Jesus by Ben Witherington. A valuable work in that it seeks to understand Jesus' self-consciousness via the various relationships that he had with both his allies and those who opposed his mission. A weakness of this approach is that it inevitably leads one to infer things from these relationships that do not necessarily follow.

5.) Jesus Remembered (Christianity in the Making: Volume 1) by James D.G. Dunn. The significance of Dunn's work is indicated by its title, Jesus Remembered. Rather than attempting to reconstruct the historical Jesus in the sense of the actual Jesus who lived and walked in Galilee and Judea, Dunn is more concerned with the impact Jesus had on his disciples and the early believers. Dunn also emphasizes the neglect of the role of oral tradition in historical Jesus studies in favor a predominately literary pardigm and states his work is meant to focus more on this oral aspect and thinks oral tradition offers a better way of reconstructing the tradition than does a literary one. An obvious weakness of Dunn's work is that he goes to the opposite end of the spectrum of those whom he criticizes and so winds up stressing the oral dimension of tradition to the extent that he neglects its literary aspects.

4.) The Quest of the Historical Jesus by Albert Schweitzer. Schweitzer work was of monumental importance in that it brought to a halt the so-called "First Quest" by exhibiting how the various scholars of that quest formed Jesus into their own likeness and introducted the apocalyptic dimension of Jesus thought and mission. Unfortunately, Schweitzer was rather uncritical of his sources and built much of his interpretation of the Jesus tradition stemmed from Matthew 10 and the so-called Messianc woes.

3.) Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet by Dale C. Allison. Those of you who read my blog regularly know I plug Allison quite a bit. This is one of my favorite works by this scholar. The value of this work is that it takes a refreshing, skeptical view on the various so-called criterion that are often used in a mechanistic manner to construct the historical Jesus. Allison also has a very detailed and persuasive critique of Crossan's work on the historical Jesus.

2.)A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus by John P. Meier. This is without a doubt the most comprehensive work on the historical Jesus and still remains unfinished awaiting a fourth and final volume. Unlike many historical Jesus works Meier extensively interacts with his sources. The amount of information contained in his endnotes is mind-boggling and overwhelming at times. Another plus of Meier's work is its sections that are dedicated to the miracles of Jesus. Too often much historical Jesus research tends to exclusively focus on the words of Jesus rather than his deeds. This criticism certainly cannot be leveled against Meier. Meier's work would probably be my number one choice on my list but isn't for three reasons:

a.) It still stands incomplete and so we as of yet do not have Meier's take on Jesus parables, self-understanding, the passion events, and his execution. All of these we can expect in the much anticipated fourth volume.

b.) Meier at times uses his criterion too mechanically even after warning against such appropriation in his first volume.

c.) Meier's reconstruction is much to0 dependent on the hypothetical Q document. The reason this is problematic for me is that I have recently become a Q skeptic thanks to Mark Goodacre's persuasive arguments in The Case Against Q.

And the number one on my list is:

1.) Jesus and Judaism by E.P. Sanders. This remains for me the most persuasive reconstruction of the historical Jesus. If I had to pinpoint my viewpoint concerning the historical Jesus it would ultimately be Sanders eschatological restorationist perspective (with a bit more apocalyptic flavor). But since this is my favorite work I want to provide a bit more extensive review of my reasons for thinking so and this I'll do next time. Until then enjoy the list.

Around the Biblioblogosphere

2006-07-07T09:37:00.000-04:00

Here are some good posts that I have been reading lately.

1.) At Theology and Biblical Studies Sven Harris has a great post concerning whether or not theological reflections are detrimental to one's faith.

2.) At the The Busy Body Loren Rosson in celebration of his one year anniversary of blogging has archived and categorized 61 of his best posts here. This particular post is one of my favorite of Loren's. Be sure to at least read this one.

3.) As I stated previously, Q is starting a series of posts on Christology which commenced here. (also Derek and Jonathan continue their series as well: here and here)

4.) Lastly, Professor James Tabor (author of The Jesus Dynasty) enters the blogging community and has an intriguing post on the identity of the beloved disciple here.

Enjoy!

The Subconscious and Q on Christology

2006-07-06T19:00:00.000-04:00

The other night I had a dream in which I was at a bible study and someone was teaching on Paul's view of the law, or at least I think they were, that part is a bit hazy but what I do remember is that they were formulating Paul's view of the law in the context of Jewish legalism. It was at that point that I launched into Sanders mode and explained the New Perspective view. I don't remember anything after that so who knows if I was persuasive. This is a case of my academic studies becoming so ingrained in my brain that it found places to dwell in my subconcious.

There are other things like this that continually occur. One thing that I always do is when my pastor or teacher asks us to turn to the book of Mark I almost always go to the very beginning of the NT because Marcan priority is so ingrained within my mind. I do the same with the OT because I tend to follow the Tanak or Jewish order of the canon. I do this especially with the historical writings and the Psalms.

I'm just curious if any of you guys have had the same kinds of experiences where your academic studies spilled over into your subconcious.

At any rate be sure to read Q's first installment of his Christological series here. His first post deals with the Trinity and whether it is necessary for one to believe in this concept in order to be a believer. I know that I will catch fire from a lot of my evangelical readers for saying this but I am in agreement with Q on this matter. I do not see the Trinity as necessary for the Christian faith in the sense that one has to believe in it or they cannot be a Christian. In a soon post I will give some reasons of my own for believing this. Till then be sure to read Q's post.

A Third Christological Option?

2006-07-04T13:19:00.000-04:00

Since I have been caught up in my "Future Resurrection of the Body" posts I have been unable to read very many blogs this past month . But there is one issue I have been following and that is the various Christological discussions going on at Derek's Eucatastrophe (especially these two posts: here and here) and Jonathan's According to Jonathan (see this post). I would encourage you to read these posts from Derek and Jonathan as well as Q's comments on their posts. Though I am entering late into the discussion, here are some of my own brief thoughts on the subject.

When discussing the process of Christological reflection generally only two options are presented for how one must understand this process. To those who have studied Christology these two options should be familiar: the evolutionary model and the developmental model (both terms are taken from C.F.D. Moule's The Origin of Christology, particularly pp 1-3). An evolutionary concept concerning the genesis of Christology betokens images of the change of one species into that of an entirely different and new species such that the Christological process can be understood in successive stages. In contrast, a developmental view of Christological genesis means "something more like the growth, from immaturity to maturity, of a single specimen from within itself." (Moule, p 2). The point is that both perceive of the development of Christology as progressional or successive in some sense.

But is there a third option to choose from, one that does not necessarily include any kind of progression in Christological reflection? John P. Meier seems to think so. After a lengthy discussion concerning the passage in Mark 6:45-52 and its OT background in epiphany miracles, Meier says:

"the application of these motifs to Jesus in the brief miracle of the walking on water is nothing less than astounding. It must be especially astounding for anyone accustomed to charting the development of NT christology via a neat progression from a pre-Synoptic "low christology" of Jesus the prophet and teacher, endowed with special power from God, to John's "high christology of the eternal Word made flesh. Such tidy evolutionary schemas should always be suspect, and in reality they simply do not mirror the complexity of NT christology." (John P. Meier, Mentor, Message, and Miracles (A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Volume 2), p. 919)

Meier here condemns conceptions of Christology that are evolutionary (whether in an evolutionary or developmental sense). But then what is the alternative that Meier proposes? In short, Meier offers the conception of Christology as a theological grab bag set off by the belief that Jesus had been raised from the dead. Meier explains:

"once the early Christians believed that Jesus had been raised from the dead, a theological explosion was set off that assured both creativity and disorder for the rest of the 1st century A.D. When it comes to understanding NT christology, it is best to recite this mantra: in the beginning was the grab bag. The next couple of centuries would be taken up sorting out the grab bag. Many early Christians were quite content to make both 'low' and 'high' affirmations about Jesus, with no great concern about consistency, systematization, or synthesis." (Ibid)

In other words, in the very beginnings of Christology there were both "high" and "low" Christologies from which one could choose (thus Meier's "grab bag" terminology). If this was indeed the case then to speak of Christology as evolutionary or developmental would be erroneous. Or would it? I would like to know what you guys (particularly Derek, Jonathan, and Q) think about this third option? Is it a valid third option? If not, why? And are there other Christological options (in terms of its "genesis") that have yet to be considered?

The Future Resurrection of the Body: Conclusion

2006-07-02T14:05:00.000-04:00

I am now going to quickly wrap up this series of posts on the Future Resurrection of the Body.
Just as a refresher, I argued in the last few posts for two important aspects of Jesus' resurrection:

1.) That Jesus' resurrection acts as the "first fruits" (1 Cor 15:20) of the resurrection event and indicates an integral, symbiotic relationship between Jesus' resurrection from the dead and the future resurrection of the believer.

2.) The resurrection functions as the redemption of Jesus' body and further cements his role as Last (or second) Adam. As the new Adam, Jesus not only participates in the salvation process but his salvation acts paradigmatically for the believer.

I believe when these insights are combined the believer can have a firm hope for their own resurrection in the future. Take point number one for example, Jesus' own resurrection as "first fruits" would not make since if the believer did not participate in their own resurrection from the dead. As noted before the concept of "first fruits" has in view the rest of the harvest that will soon follow. Paul's example of the two resurrection moments would make no sense if we tried to narrowly focus salvation on the personality of the individual alone. If this were the case then Paul's entire ranting on the future resurrection of the believer in 1 Cor 15 becomes meaningless.

As for the implication of point number two, this should be obvious. Because Jesus (as Last Adam) forms a new paradigm for humanity, namely, one of salvation, and since Jesus participated in this salvation paradigm which climaxed in the resurrection of his body the believer can therefore have the hopeful expectation of the climax of their salvation being the redemption of their own body (which in the ordo salutis is called glorification).

Many other reasons can be given which could provide a reasonable basis for the hope for a future resurrection of the believer. One of the chief ones has been brought forth in some of the comments on my posts, namely, since God desires to redeem his entire creation this would include our bodies. But I've lingered much too long on this issue. For what it's worth these are just some of the reasons I have for hoping that when Christ returns and "the trumpet is sounded" my body will be raised from the dead and transformed into the likeness of Christ. This is my hope and, I believe, it was the hope of Paul and the early believers which was itself grounded in the belief that God had raised Jesus of Nazareth from the dead.

The Future Resurrection of the Body: Part VI

2006-06-27T11:15:00.000-04:00

Unfortunately, I do not think my last post was too well received. As Q pointed out in the comments section of the previous post the notion of the resurrection as Jesus' redemption is eccentric. Furthermore, there are no explicit statements in scripture to support this viewpoint (though see Acts 2:22-27). Because of this, both Q and Michael Bird suggested that I would have been better off by speaking in terms of the resurrection as Jesus justification and/or vindication. Now I certainly do not dispute that by raising Jesus from the dead, God vindicated Jesus (see especially this post) or that Jesus' resurrection is integral to our own justification (Rom. 4:23-24). This is a valid implication to draw from the resurrection event.

But resurrection as vindiction/justification and resurrection as redemption are for my purposes differentiable. What are we denoting when we say that Jesus was vindicated in his resurrection? To put it as simply as possible, we are affirming that Jesus, by God raising him from the dead, was declared to be in the right. The resurrection was the stamp of approval on Jesus and his ministry. However, this is not the same thing as Jesus' ultimate salvation and/or redemption. This happened when God loosed him from the pangs of death by redeeming and transforming his body. When I speak of Jesus' redemption this is my intended meaning. The problem is that the term(s) justification/vindication do not carry this meaning and so, in regards to the purpose of this series of posts, I cannot use justification/vindication language. We should not conflate these two terms (vindication and redemption) to force them to mean the same thing. They are parts of the whole of the entire process of salvation and so can be differentiated.

Yet as I mentioned, some say that I do not have explicit scriptural support for asserting that the resurrection denotes Jesus' bodily redemption. First, I would like to point out that the resurrection as Jesus' vindication has no explicit support from scripture either. The closest that we come to this is from 1 Tim 3:16 where it states that Jesus was "vindicated in the Spirit." Most exegetes believe (and I think rightly so) that this verse refers to the vindication of Jesus via the resurrection. But from a purely simplistic hermeneutical standpoint the text does not directly affirm this. Yet most of us (including myself) do interpret the text as such, namely, that it refers to Jesus' resurrection as his justification/vindication. We draw and infer this meaning from the text. But we must be honest and say that the text itself does not explicitly state this.

My point is that my case for the resurrection as the redemption of Jesus' body cannot be refuted simply because it lacks explicit scriptural proof. If this were the case then we would have to reject the resurrection as Jesus' vindication and doctrines like the Trinity that have to be inferred and deduced from the texts. But of course no one argues this because many of us affirm that taking subsequent steps to draw out things of theological importance and truth from the texts can and should be done (like in the case of the Trinity). And so when I read a passage like Acts 2:22-27 which says things such as "But God raised him up having loosed the pangs of death" and "nor did his flesh see corruption" or when I survey every aspect of the Adamic motif in Paul's thought, I feel justified in asserting that one meaning of the resurrection is that it indicates Jesus' redemption because this is what I believe to be a proper, theological conclusion to infer from these texts and themes.

Thus I stand by my belief that one of the essential implications of the resurrection is that it was the moment when God redeemed and glorified Jesus' body and that this can be distinguished from the resurrection as also, validly, signifying Jesus' vindication. But I fear some will not be able to get past the eccentricness of my position and so I feel I may be fighting a losing battle. Nevertheless, I hate not finishing something that I commenced so in the next and last post in this series I will conclude why I believe Jesus' resurrection provides the assurance for our own bodily resurrection in the future.

The Future Resurrection of the Body: Part V

2006-06-22T17:51:00.000-04:00

Jesus: The Paradigm of Salvation

II. Resurrection as the Redemption of Jesus

For much too long Christian soteriology has tended to focus exclusively on the salvific nature of Christ's death and the benefits that can be applied to the believer from this death. The part the resurrection might play in soteriology is often not considered or simply missed altogether. When the resurrection is taken into account in aspects of soteriology it is often with the view of sealing the efficacy of the salvation moment found in Jesus' death on the cross. There are a few who have witnessed this problem and have sought to correct it such as Richard Gaffin that I quoted from in the previous post. Unfortunately, with the limitations of this series of posts this is not a discussion that I can really enter into at this time. Resurrection as a proper soteriological concept is something I intend to pursue in a full length study in the future. But there is one aspect of resurrection as soteriological that bears directly on our discussion, namely, that the resurrection functions as the redemption or salvation of Jesus.

This may seem a bit strange to speak of Jesus' redemption since (no doubt due to the exclusive focus on the death of Christ as the salvation moment in redemptive history) Christians are used to speaking about the redemption and salvation that Jesus brings. Perhaps it is best to quote Gaffin again first:

"His (Jesus) death is the wages of the sin he became (cf. Rom. 6:23), and the state of death he endured for a time is the nadir of his exposure to the wrath of the Father...It is, then, not only meaningful but necessary to speak of the resurrection as the redemption of Christ. The resurrection is nothing if not his delieverance from the power and curse of death which was in force until the moment of being raised...The resurrection is the salvation of Jesus as the Last Adam..." (Gaffin, Resurrection and Redemption, p. 116)

To understand this one needs to recall the importance of Paul's Adamic Christology. (Unfortunately much Christian theology has tended to focus on Logos or Incarnational Christology and to place Adamic Christology in a subordinate position. But that is also a discussion for another time.) There are several passages of scripture that posit an understanding of Jesus as Last Adam (most notably Rom. 5:12-21 and 1 Cor 15: 20-22). Not only did Jesus in his death identify with Adam but it was his resurrection from the dead which actually cemented Jesus' role as Last Adam.

Why? Precisely because it is the resurrection and not the death of Jesus which reverses and undoes the death brought into the world by the First Adam. No matter how sacrifical the death of Jesus may have been so long as the body remained in the tomb, death would have remained victorious and triumphant. The death that the first Adam introduced into the world would not have been undone. And so if Jesus had never been raised, he could never have been declared to be the Last Adam. But Paul believes that Christ has been raised and so can declare "for as by a man death came into the world, so as by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive."(1 Cor 15:21-22)

What then does this have to do with the resurrection as Jesus' own redemption? Well, not only did the First Adam bring death into the world but he also felt the sting of death. In other words the effects of Adam's disobedience did not extend to only those whom he represented, but applied to himself as well. The First Adam died. He was essentially the pattern of death for humanity but it was a pattern that first had to be applied to himself.

Likewise, Jesus as Second Adam forms a pattern for those whom he represents, namely, the "in Christ" group. But Jesus' pattern is that of salvation and of life. However, just as the First Adam had to first undergo the effects of the consequences of his actions so did Jesus since he was acting in an Adamic role. However, unlike the First Adam whose disobedience brought him death, the Last Adam's obedience brought him life and this by his resurrection from the dead. If Jesus was to constitute a new Adamic paradigm, namely, one of salvation, then he first had to be redeemed. And it was this that the resurrection accomplished. Jesus' redemption forms the pattern for ours. Unfortunately, this is something that is not emphasized in soteriological studies. Gaffin rightly condemns this:

"A soteriology structured so that it moves directly from the death of Christ to the application to others of the benefits purchased by that death, substantially short-circuits Pauls own point of view. For him the accomplishment of redemption is only first definitively realized in the application to Christ himself at the resurrection of the benefits purchased by his own obedience unto death." (Ibid, 117).

Next time I want to take the insights from this post and the previous one and combine them to draw some conclusions as to why we can hope for our own, future bodily resurrection from the dead.

The Future Resurrection of the Body: Part IV

2006-06-20T11:03:00.000-04:00

The first three posts in this series were primarily structured as replies to Patrik's two posts on this issue of the future resurrection body of the believer. Now in the next couple posts I want to present my arguments for grounding our hope in a future resurrection (bodily) of believers. Since my arguments ultimately hinge on Jesus' resurrection I will proceed on the rather huge assumption that his resurrection was bodily such that an empty tomb was left behind. If one does not believe this, then my arguments will not be persuasive. But to argue that Jesus' resurrection was indeed bodily would require another series of posts, something I am not prepared to do at the moment. However, Patrik has not denied Jesus' bodily resurrection and I will assume that he believes as I do on this point (another assumption perhaps). Moreover, the majority of my readers most likely believe in Jesus' bodily resurrection and so I will proceed with my arguments.

Jesus: The Paradigm of Salvation

I. The Organic Relationship Between Jesus' Resurrection and the Future Resurrection of Believers.

"But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first
fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a
man has come also the resurrection of the dead." (1 Cor 15:20-21)

The key word I want to target in on is "first fruits." This is the most obvious place in the NT where we see a connection made between the two resurrections. Though the word has temporal connotations this by no means exhaust this particular phrase's meaning. Along with the temporal dimension, there is also an inherent organic meaning. Richard Gaffin explains further:

"There can be little question that the Septuagint provides the background for its use here. There, with few exceptions, 'firstfruits' has a specifically cultic significance. It refers to the 'firstfruits' offerings of grain, wine, cattle, and the like, appointed by Moses. The point to these sacrifices is that they are not offered up for their own sake, as it were, but representative of the total harvest, the entire flock, and so forth...it does not bring into view the initial portion of the harvest, but only as it is part of the whole...the word is not simply an indication of temporal priority. Rather it brings into view Christ's resurrection as the 'firstfruits' of the resurrection-harvest, the initial portion of the whole. His resurrection is the representative beginning of the resurrection of believers. In other words, the term seems deliberately chosen to make evident the organic connection betweeen the two resurrections." (Richard Gaffin, Resurrection and Redemption, pp 34-35)

Gaffin's observation is that the concept of 'firstfruits', the initial portion of the harvest, was representative of the complete harvest that would follow the firstfruit offerings. Paul's use of the term in 1 Cor 15:20ff more than likely carries the same organic meaning. This organic relationship is made clear in the surrounding context in which the term is used:

"Now if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead." (1 Cor 15:12-21)

Notice the interesting correlation(s) Paul makes here between the two resurrections. Paul argues in an inverse apologetic manner. Instead of predicating the future resurrection of the believer to Jesus' own resurrection Paul instead argues that if there is indeed no future resurrection of the dead then Christ could not have been raised. The reality of Jesus' resurrection (and, I would argue, its effective work) depends upon the future resurrection of the dead. But notice what Paul then says, "But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead." Thus, because of this assurance that Christ has in fact been raised from the dead, the believer's future resurrection of the dead is likewise assured for "by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead." To summarize Paul's argument, if there is no future resurrection of the dead, then Christ was not raised. However, Christ has indeed been raised and so we know the dead will be raised in the future.

This clearly indicates that for Paul, the two resurrections are integrally related to one another. To express this relationship Paul, quite understandably, utilized the terminology that best described this relationship, namely, "first fruits." Next time we will look at the part resurrection plays in soteriology in regards to Jesus own redemption and how this connects with the relationship between his resurrection and our future one.

The Future Resurrection of the Body: Part III

2006-06-15T11:36:00.000-04:00

In his post entitled The Body and the Self, Patrik, in response to a reader's comments, presents us with a tentative interpretation of the Pauline view concerning the resurrection taken from the context of 1 Cor 15. In this post I want to comment briefly on a certain section of that post:

Patrik says,

"the immediate problem I see is the assumption that we can agree on what a 'real physical resurrection' would mean, not to mention know what St. Paul would mean with such a phrase. Both the terms "real" and "physical" are modern concepts. My point is that even if one would attest that Paul did in fact believe in a real physical resurrection, one would still have to address what this means. I guess my interpretation is an attempt to address that question."

First, Patrik's assertion that "the terms 'real' and 'physical' are modern concepts" is baffling to me. The Ancient Near East and Late Antiquity surely had concepts such as these. Patrik must have in mind a philosophically loaded understanding of "real" and "physical". And if that's so, I do not see how that applies to the discussion.

However, perhaps Patrik is right to assert that we can never agree on what a real physical resurrection would mean. But what I think Patrik is implying is that we could never really conceive what a resurrection (physically) of a body would mean. For my part, it is enough to affirm that God will redeem our bodies and that we call this "resurrection." I'm not concerned with the particulars of the resurrection body and neither was Paul:

"But some one will ask, 'How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?' You foolish man! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body which is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain." (1 Cor 15:35-37)

As Patrik has rightly pointed out before, Paul is stressing discontinuity and transformation of the body. But this should not detract us from seeing that Paul is still emphasizing that resurrection is something that happens to these bodies. Paul never has in mind two absolutely distinct bodies. What is sown and what is reaped are still, in someway, the same. All Paul wishes to affirm is that resurrection is something that happens to our present bodies and that probing beyond this to ask particulars about certain qualities of the new body such as whether it will wear clothes, have sex, eat, etc. need not be our concern.

Therefore, I do not see the importance of agreeing, in a complete and exhaustive sense, what a real, physical resurrection would entail. It is enough to say that the resurrection indicates God's desire to save this fleshly body of mine. And even if we have to live with the supposedly insolvable paradox of a "spiritual body" or of trying to figure out what Paul meant by "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God", the purpose of resurrection remains the same: the salvation of the believer's body, even if that salvation takes on an almost completely different form (spiritual body) that is inconceivable to us.

The Future Resurrection of the Body: Part II

2006-06-12T13:24:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the lack of blogging. It was a busier weekend than expected. One of my jobs is as an agent for a cell-phone company and so I've been dealing with customer issues all weekend. One of the cons of selling cell-phones is that I have to give these people my personal cell-phone number and so, naturally, when problems arise they call me. Well, enough of the complaining. In this part of my new series of posts concerning the future resurrection of the body I want to comment briefly on each of the propositions I gave concerning what I felt to be the substance of Patrik's (sorry for the misspellings earlier) view. Here was the first proposition:

1.) First, discussions on the afterlife are problematic to begin with since we know so little about existence after death (granting there is such a thing).

Patrik is certainly correct, from a purely epistemological perspective, to assert that we know very little about post-death experience. However, there is a difference in epistemological certainity and hoping for certain conceptions of the afterlife. As I will try to argue in future posts, I think there are reasons for hoping in a future, and in some sense more than metaphorical, resurrection of our bodies. The key term here is hope. This is how I want to frame this discussion, by affirming that, yes, our knowledge about the after life is limited but that this limitation should not hinder us from having certain (hopeful) conceptions about it.

2.) Furthermore, the Bible does not offer any detailed discussions concerning life after death and the common perceptions of this post-death existence have more to due with the influence of such literary works as Dante's Inferno.

3.) What the Bible does offer is" essentially a 'negative theology'" about the afterlife.

Patrik is a bit wrong on these two points. Granted, most of the Hebrew Bible does not offer much in regards to an afterlife and when it is clearly asserted it is not until the Book of Daniel, which many scholars believe to be one of the latest books in the Hebrew canon. However, once we cross the intertestamental divide into the NT it is an entirely different story. I must admit to being somewhat perplexed as to how Patrik can assert that the Bible says very little about existence after death. The hope of a future resurrection permeates the NT (even in individualized eschatological schemes such as John's Gospel there remains a hope for future resurrection). What the Bible is silent about is the intermediate phase between death and resurrection. But it has much to say about the final state of salvation.

4.) And though Paul takes up the issue of future bodily resurrection in 1 Cor. 15, Rom. 6ff offers a better guide to Paul's thoughts on the believer's body where he uses it as a symbol for what the believer has become or who they currently are (personality).

In Romans 6, Paul never actually uses the body as a symbol in and of itself. Paul's discussion concerns our being crucified and baptized into Christ's death. This is the symbolism being utilized (though I think if Paul were here he would reject our talk of 'being baptized into Christ' as merely symbolic). Yet even if we allow that Paul is using the body in a purely symbolic sense in this passage this would by no means signify that that is how Paul always understood the body. Indeed, later in Romans we see clearly Paul's understanding of the body as more than a symbol for "ourselves." Consider the following passages:

"But if Christ is in you, although your bodies are dead because of sin, your spirits are alive because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you." (Rom. 8: 10-11)

"We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we are saved." (Rom. 8: 22-24)

In regards to the first passage two things need to be noted. First, Paul makes it clear that the life given to our mortal bodies is provided for on the basis of the life given to Jesus' mortal body when he was raised from the dead. The connection would imply the salvation of our bodies as similar to that of Jesus' when God, through the Spirit, raised him from the dead. Secondly, Paul places an attributive adjective with the word body (Greek: soma), namely, mortal. The use of this adjective is inexplicable if Paul merely has in mind a metaphorical body.

As for the second passage, Paul clearly makes a correlation between the redemption of the created order with that of our bodies. Just as the creation eagerly groans to be redeemed, so too do our bodies. To make Paul's use of body as merely symbolic for our personalities or what have you would not make sense in this passage.

So then for Patrik to divert the discussion concerning Paul's view of the body from 1 Cor 15 to Rom 6 is not helpful since, in my mind at least, other passages in Romans would seem to suggest the same type of understanding of body as that found in the famous resurrection chapter.

5.) Based on this observation, the hope of salvation after death should be understood as the redemption of our personality, that which constitues who we truly are. Resurrection of the body is simply a way of affirming that after death, God will make us "whole."

Since this is the crux of Patrik's position. I do not think Patrik is necessarily wrong in what he is saying but it is incomplete in my opinion. The rest of the posts in this series will attempt to clarify why I think this is incomplete and why I think we can hope for the resurrection as more than the salvation of our personalities. In the next post I will engage Patrik's interpretation of 1 Cor 15 (be sure to read Patrik's intepretation here).

Resurrection Dogmatics: Restatement of Purpose

2006-06-08T11:26:00.000-04:00

Before continuing my series on the resurrection of the body I want to clarify some things about my blog. I named this site Resurrection Dogmatics partly in honor of Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics but also because in my experience and reading, the topic of the resurrection has become very marginalized. When the topic is treated it is almost always in reference to Jesus' resurrection with apologetic motives. Rarely is the true significance of the resurrection examined and propounded. Furthermore, except for a few scholars resurrection as a proper soteriological concept is non-existent. Salvation is almost always exclusively dealt with in terms of Jesus' sacrificial death and the atonement it brings for humanity's sin. In my opinion, most of Christian exegesis and theology has been insufficient due to this exclusive focus on Christ's death.

But that's a discussion for another time. I'm saying all of this to emphasize that the resurrection has become in most Christian circles an appendix to the gospel message and to theology in general. My site exists in part to correct this by posting periodically on issues related to the topic of resurrection. Thus the title of my blog, Resurrection Dogmatics. What is not the purpose of my site is to beat people over the head with resurrection. My site is not dogmatic in this sense. I hope that I do not come across like this. I apologize if at times I have seemed to act in such a manner.

As I enter into dialogue with Patrick over the issue of the resurrection of the body, I would ask my readers to make sure I do not inadvertantly cross the line into the kind of dogmatism that this site is not meant to be characterized by. If any of you at any time feel like I'm doing this, please let me know. In the meantime, I have added Patrick's blog to my list and I would encourage you to visit. He has some very keen insights on various issues and updates very regularly. Tomorrow, part 2 to my current series should be up. But the weekend is approaching, and those who regularly visit my website know, because of my two jobs, that is the hardest time for me to post. Regardless, part 2 should not be up any later than Sunday.

*Note: See original statement of purpose here.

The Future Resurrection of the Body: Part I

2006-06-07T11:53:00.000-04:00

My next series of posts will be in part a response to Patrick Hagman's two posts at God in a Shrinking Universe where Patrick argues for the resurrection of the body as predominately a symbol and/or metaphor for the salvation of our personality. Be sure to first read Patrick's insightful posts here and here before reading my series on why I believe that the resurrection of the body is something that we can hope in as more than a metaphor.

Before tackling Patrick's view on the future resurrection of the believer I think it's best to lay out in proposition form what I consider to be the substance of Patrick's arguments:

1.) First, discussions on the afterlife are problematic to begin with since we know so little about existence after death (granting there is such a thing).

2.) Furthermore, the Bible does not offer any detailed discussions concerning life after death and the common perceptions of this post-death existence have more to due with the influence of such literary works as Dante's Inferno.

3.) What the Bible does offer is" essentially a 'negative theology'" about the afterlife.

4.) And though Paul takes up the issue of future bodily resurrection in 1 Cor. 15, Rom. 6ff offers a better guide to Paul's thoughts on the believer's body where he uses it as a symbol for what the believer has become who who they currently are (personality).

5.) Based on this observation, the hope of salvation after death should be understood as the redemption of our personality, that which constitues who we truly are. Resurrection of the body is simply a way of affirming that after death, God will make us "whole."

This is, in brief, what I see as the substance of Patrick's arguments for resurreection as a metaphor for "wholeness". Now, on my reading of Patrick, he does not appear to dogmatically believe that the afterlife will not be an embodied one but rather he seems to remain somewhat agnostic asserting that we do not know how wholenesss "will feel, look, or take place." Yet the subsequent post does suggest that Patrick leans away from viewing the afterlife as embodied. However, contra Patrick, I think a plausible case can be made for the hope of the resurrection of the body as something that goes beyond the symbolic and/or metaphorical. This is what I want to explore in the next few posts. Any comments and/or criticisms, as usual, are always welcome.

Resurrection Oddities II

2006-06-06T11:11:00.000-04:00

Here's part two of my periodical "Resurrection Oddities" series. The following passage occurs in the context of Jerome's attack on Origen's view of the resurrection of the body which is taken up by a certain John with whom Jerome is debating. Jerome takes issue with Origen for affirming a resurrection of the body but denying the resurrection of the flesh. Jerome first explains Origen's viewpoint and then argues why its in error. Here's the passage:

"I (Jerome) shall explain briefly the teaching of Origen concerning the resurrection...He says we would be simple-minded and flesh-loving to say that these bones and this blood and flesh-that is, face and members and the whole complex of the body-will rise again in the last day, that is, that we will walk with feet, work with hands,...and digest food with stomachs...Those who believe this tell us [he says] that we will then produce feces, give forth humors, take wives, and produce children. For why are there genitals, if not for marrying?"

Jerome's reply: "You, heretic, say 'body and do not mean 'flesh' at the same time, for you wish to deceive the ears of the ignorant. Believe me, your silence is not simple. For 'flesh' has one definition and 'body another...Job said:'And I shall be surrounded again with my skin and in my flesh I shall see God' (Job 19.26) Does it not seem to you, then, that Job writes against Origen and for the truth of the flesh which he sustained torments: For it grieves him that the suffering is in vain if another rises spiritually when this flesh has been carnally tortured...If he is not to rise in his own sex and with the same members that were thrown on the dung heap, if the same eyes are not opened for seeing God by which he then saw worms, where therefore will Job be? You take away the things in which Job consists and give me empty words concerning resurrection; for how, if you want to restore a ship after shipwreck, do you deny a single part of which the ship is constituted."

Taken from Caroline Walker Bynum's The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200-1336, pp 87-88.

Jesus the Rabbinic Sage?

2006-06-03T10:43:00.000-04:00

For some people, many of the regulations and rules (halakha, halakhot) that are given as supplemental (or complemental) to the written Torah by the Rabbis of the Mishnaic and Tannaitic periods may seem superfulous to us today or even legalistic as it seemed to many interpreters before E.P. Sanders paradigm shifting Paul and Palestinian Judaism. One need only look at the various Rabbinic discussions concerning what actually constitutes breaking the Jewish shabbot (sabbath) for a prime example of this adding to the law. Consider the following the discussion about what actually constitutes work on the sabbath:

"The main classes of work are forty save one: sowing, ploughing, reaping, binding sheaves, threshing, winnowing, cleansing crops, grinding, sifting, kneading, baking, shearing wool, washing or beating or dyeing it, spinning, weaving, making two loops, weaving two threads, separating two threads, tying a knot, loosening a knot...writing two letters, erasing in order to write two letters..." (From Shabbath 7.1ff: taken from C.K. Barrett's The New Testament Background: Selected Writings, p. 195)

Though seemingly excessive to us, the Rabbis did have their reasons for adopting these various halakhot as is given in the following passage:

Pirqe Abot 1:1
A. Moses received the Torah at Sinai and handed it on to Joshua, Joshua to elders, and elders
to prophets.
B. And prophets handed it on to the men of the great assembly.
C. They said three things:
1.) "Be prudent in judgment."
2.) "Raise up many disciples."
3.) "Make a fence for the Torah." (emphasis added)

The Rabbinic sages believed that part of what Moses handed down through a chain of tradition (oral Torah) involved the injunction to "make a fence around the Torah." The purpose of this "fence" was to keep people as far away as possible from breaking a commandment and so transgressing. The Oral Torah, as written, compiled, and redacted in the Mishnah (and further commented on in the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds) was precisely the barrier placed around the written Torah to prevent as much as possible Jewish transgression of that Torah. Thus the halakhot.

Again, though this may seem a bit excessive to us, especially those of us who like to affirm that we are justified by faith and not by "works of the law" Jesus acted in a very similar manner to the Rabbinic sages. Consider the following from the classic Sermon on the Mount:

1. "You have heard that it was said to the men of old, 'You shall not kill...' But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable" (Matt. 5:21-22)

2. "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (5:27-28)

3. "You have heard that it was said to the men of old, 'You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.' But I say to you, 'Do not swear at all'" (5:33-34)

What is Jesus doing here? He is, like the later Rabbis, putting his own "fence" around the Torah. The Jewish Rabbinic scholar Jacob Neusner elaborates further:

"Not only must I not kill; I must not even approach the threshold of anger that in the end leads to murder. Not only must I not commit adultery; I must not even approach the road that leads to adultery. Not only must I not swear falsely by God's name; I should not swear at all. These formulations represent an elaboration of three of the Ten Commandments. In the language of a text of Judaism attributed to authorities long before Jesus' own time, 'Make a fence around the Torah.' That is to say, conduct yourself in such a way that you will avoid even the things that cause you to sin, not only sin itself." (Jacob Neusner, Judaism When Christianity Began, 24-25)

So then, Jesus in a similar manner as his Jewish successors provided his own version of halakhot to prevent as much as possible transgression of the Torah. Jesus on this score was not too far from his Jewish brethern as is sometimes maintained (as in the oft-repeated, "the Jews stressed rules and regulations, but Jesus preached love and mercy").

However, though Jesus was very similar to the Rabbinic sages in constructing a fence around the Torah, he differed from the Rabbis at an important point. After praising Jesus for acting as the later sages do, Neusner is quick to point out what is problematic with Jesus' assertions concerning the Torah:

"But what kind of Torah is it that improves on the teachings of the Torah without acknowledging the source-and it is God who is the source-of those teachings? So sages would be troubled not so much by the message, though they might take exception to this or that, as by the messenger. The reason is that in form these statements are jarring. On the mountain, Jesus' use of language, 'You have heard that it was said...but I say to you...' contrasts strikingly with Moses' language at Mount Sinai. Sages, we saw, say thing sin thier own names but without claming to improve on the Torah, to which they aspire to contribute. The prophet, Moses, speaks not in his own name but in God's name, saying what God has told him to say. Jesus speaks not as a sage nor as a prophet...So how are the sages to respond to this 'I,' who pointedly contrasts what 'you' have heard with what he says?" (ibid, p. 25)

In this passage Neusner highlights the difficulties from a Rabbinic perspective concerning Jesus' additions to the Torah. Where as the Rabbis were accustomed to acknowledging preceding sages (and ultimately God) as the source of their "fence" (as exhibited by their speech, 'Rabbi so and so said this, and Rabbi such and such said that) Jesus' 'I' points to himself as the source of the changes. Ulitimately, the sages and Jesus part ways at this point on the Torah.

Even so, Jesus' own building of a 'fence' around the Torah should cause us to be less apt to criticise the Rabbis for their own fence constructions even if their fence may seem to have been built a bit too high. Jesus and the sages ultimate telos in adding to the Torah was congruous: to further prevent possible disobedience to the Most High's law.

Biblical Studies Carnival VI

2006-06-02T09:35:00.000-04:00

Biblical Studies Carnival VI is up at Faith and Theology. Be sure to give it a look. Many thanks to Ben Meyers for his hard work in gathering up these great posts from across the biblioblog kingdom.

Karl Barth and the Resurrection

2006-06-01T09:48:00.000-04:00

"The Resurrection is the revelation: the disclosing of Jesus as the Christ, the appearing of God, and the apprehending of God in Jesus. The Resurrection is the emergence of the necessity of giving glory to God: the reckoning with what is unknown and unobservable in Jesus, the recognition of Him as Paradox, Victor, and Primal History. In the Resurrection the new world of the Holy Spirit touches the old world of the flesh, but touches it as a tangent touches a circle, that is, without touching it. And, precisely because it does not touch it, it touches it as its frontier-as the new world." (Karl Barth, Epistle to the Romans, p. 30)

Resurrection Oddities I

2006-05-31T11:02:00.000-04:00

I've decided to do some random posts every now and then on certain idiosyncrasies dealing with resurrection. The first example deals with a Rabbinic attempt to explain which part of the body the Most High will utilize to resurrect the person. No doubt behind this explanation is also a slight apologetic attempt to deal with circumstances where a Jew's body had been mangled or almost entirely destroyed. Enjoy.

"Hadrian-may his bones rot-asked R. Joshua b. Hannaniah, "From what part in the body will the Holy One, blessed be he, make a person sprout up in the age to come?" He said to him, "He will make him sprout out of the nut (coccyx bone) of the spinal column." He said to him, "How do you know this?" He said to him, "Bring one to me, and I will explain it to you." He put it (the coccyx bone) into the fire, yet it did not burn up. He put it into water, yet it did not dissolve. He pulverized it between millstones, yet it was not crushed. He put it on a block and smashed it with a hammer. The block split, the hammer broke, yet it (the coccyx bone) remained undamaged." (Gen. Rab. 28:3)

Neo-Gnosticism in the Church

2006-05-30T11:51:00.000-04:00

Sorry guys for my lack of posting the last few days, but the weekends never provide a good opportunity to post since it is my busiest time of the week. Plus, this particular weekend I was out of town, so, apologies.

I have just finished reading Oskar Skarsaune's In the Shadow of the Temple. Since it occured to me the other day that I probably give too many reviews on the books I read, I'm not going to give a review here except to say that overall the book is an entertaining read and deals with the persistence of Jewish influences on Christianity into the third century. My main criticism of Skarsaune's work is that he is way too uncritical of his sources such as Josephus, Eusebius, and others.

But when I was reading Skarsaune's section on Gnosticism and Marcion it dawned on me that many lay believers and pastors, especially those of an evangelical mode, are practicing a form of gnosticism today. Now, obviously, Christians today do not hold to the nonsense of these Gnostic systems such as an obsession with the various aeons, the notion of a pleroma, the belief that the god of the OT is an evil creator god, that Jesus did not really come in the flesh, etc. However, what is interesting is that many do, whether they realize it or not practice many other tenets of gnosticism. There are at least three things many believers today hold in common with Gnosticism:

1.) An understanding of the material world as evil and its corollary that all things spiritual are good. Thus radically spiritualizing many aspects of the gospel message.

2.) The belief that Jesus' purpose in coming to earth was to save their "soul" (divine spark) so that when they die, that "soul" (spark) can ascend to heaven to be with Jesus forever. (in other words, the divine spark ascends back to the pleroma)

3.) As a result of point number two, denying (unconciously and mostly ignorantly) the future resurrection of the dead, since it is the saving of the "soul" that is the main concern.

The following is a typical conversation that I've had with many Christians:

Me: "What is the gospel?"

Them: "That Jesus came to earth, died on the cross for my sins and that if I accept him as my Saviour I'll be saved."

Me: "What do you mean by saved? Exactly what does this salvation entail?"

Them: "Well, Jesus died for my sins so that I can go to heaven when I die?"

Me: "Go to heaven? What do you mean?"

Them: "Jesus' death on the cross provides the salvation for my soul so that my soul can go to heaven when I die."

Me: "Is that it? So that your soul can go to heaven? This is how your're saved?"

Them: "Well, yes. Isn't that what you believe?"

It's at this point that I try to explain that they have misunderstood the Christian hope, that they have collapsed the intermediate phase into the final phase of salvation. They've replaced the final hope of "resurrection" with the intermediate dwelling of the "soul." I then proceed to read and interpret 1 Corinthians 15 to them. It is amazing that many of these people that I encounter do not even know that this chapter exists in the Bible . Am I the only one that keeps running into this false soteriology and eschatology?

They are in effect doing precisely what the Gnostics did, denying the future resurrection of the dead. As Skarsaune observes (p. 256), this was a serious matter for the early Christians. To deny the resurrection of the dead was to deny the Creator God.

Now this is obviously a matter more of ignorance than it is of deliberate heresy. Yet, this is still problematic. What is happening is that most believers are not getting proper teaching from their church leaders. And apparently just reading your Bible as many of these believers assert they do doesn't help since everytime I'm told this I promptly proceed to inquire about the doctrine of salvation and almost always get that watered down verision of the gospel being: Jesus died for my sins so that I can go to heaven when I die.

In my opinion this is incomplete Christianity, yet this is the kind of Christianity practiced by the average believer. Now I do not think this is due to stupidity but rather to many of our church leaders not exercising the effort to teach properly. The doctrine of the future resurrection is not something hidden to only scholars. But the result of not teaching this to the lay believer has led to a kind of Neo-Gnosticism among many evangelical churches today.

Dale C. Allison and The Gospel of Matthew

2006-05-25T17:16:00.000-04:00

Dale C. Allison is one of the premiere, if not the premiere scholar on the gospel of Matthew today. Well known is his three volume set on Matthew in the International Critical Commentary coauthored with his mentor W. D. Davies (though the majority of the work is Allison's). Unfortunately, the commentaries are pretty expensive and are definitely not intended for the lay reader. Those who haven't had at least two years of Greek will have a hard time reading and utilizing this commentary series.

But Allison has published a book entitled Studies in Matthew which functions as a sort of companion volume to his ICC commentary. It is definitely much more accessible for the lay reader who does not have the time nor the academic training to wade through the more indepth ICC volumes. I have just finished it myself and was as usual not disappointed.

The book is divided into two sections. The first section takes certain passages or phrases within the Gospel of Matthew and seeks to provide illumination on them by looking at some of the patristic literature whichAllison rightly points out has been neglected in modern biblical studies. Why this neglect? Dale Allison answers:

"As the literature in the field of biblical studies continues to grow at dismaying rate, we may be increasingly tempted to ignore old writers. How can one keep up with what is going on now if one is still catching up with what went on then-if one is spending time, let us , with books from the fourth or sixteenth centuries? Have not all the good observations and plausible hypotheses been passed down from book to book and from generation to generation and so on to us? We may be disinclined to pay the past keen attention because we are under the illusion that exegesis progresses like the hard sciences. Who among us would read a physics textbook from 1919? Surely today's work makes yesterday's obsolete, so that we do not really have to bother much with writers who have expired. Such a restricted vision, such a condescending attitude toward the past, however, impoverishes exegesis..." (p. 117)

Thus Allison seeks to remedy this by exhibiting some examples of interpretations of certain passages in Matthew from the exegetical past. For example, Allison shows how the earlier commentators were probably correct in their interpretation that the Magi's "star" was probably meant to indicate an angel and not an actually star according to our modern concept that remain inanimate. Other examples include an interpretation of "seeing God" in Matt. 5.8 as referring to actually viewing an embodied deity, Matt. 5:21-25 as an intertextual reference to the Genesis narrative concerning Cain and Abel and others.

Section two of this work concerns various literary and historical issues pertaining to the First Gospel. Here Allison tackles certain questions such as whether or not Matthew was writing a biography of Jesus, what the structure of Matthew is, how to interpret the first two words in Matthew, and much more. He has a lengthy chapter dealing with the structure of the Sermon on the Mount. Since literary studies is a weakpoint of mine this was the most difficult chapter for me to comprehend. At times it seemed like Allison was pressing things a bit too far in trying to formulate a tightly compact structure for the Sermon on the mount. However, since I have not had any training in literary criticism or its cognate disciplines I do not know if this is a valid critique.

The best and most enlightening parts of the book for me were Allison's chapter on the various foreshadowing motifs of the passion and resurrection in the Gospel narrative and the last chapter which dealt with Matthew's theodicy. In particular, Allison convincingly argued that Matt. 10:30 does not refer, as commonly asserted, to God's will or his providence but rather to his knowledge and by inference, the ignorance of humanity in comparison to that knowledge. Says Allison:

"Exgetes have gone astray by reading verse 30 as though it were just a poetic variant of verse 29 ("Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father"). Verse 29 is about God's will, verse 30 about God's knowledge. "the hairs of their head", as has laways been recognized, a divine passive: "(your hairs) are all counted (by God)." The verse then refers to hairs in a way reminiscent of other texts that refer to the stars or to the sands of the sea, namely, in order to stress God's knowledge or human ignorance." (p. 261)

Allison has written a wonderful companion to his ICC commentary series. For those of you who do not have the time or training to read that commentary, this is a good alternative for understanding some of Allison's methodological methods and exegetical insights. Allison is one of the best scholars today in the areas of the historical Jesus and the Gospel of Matthew. I cannot wait for the day when he takes on Pauline scholarship.

The Christology of the Da Vinci Code

2006-05-23T09:58:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, at the behest of a friend, I went and viewed the Da Vinci Code. Overall, I felt that the movie was entertaining even though the performances of the principal protagonists were uninspiring and flat, namely the characters of Robert Langdon (played by Tom Hanks) and the character of Sophie Neveau (I do not recall who plays her). But most everyone knows the story by now and so I am not going to give a review of the film, nor am I going to point out the erroneous historical claims the movie and book make. This has been done time and time again. (For a concise list of some of these false historical assertions see Michael Barber's post here.)

I want to deal, rather, with the reasons why the Da Vinci Code (hereafter, abbreviated DVC) perturbs some Christians. The issue has to do primarily with the Christological, both implict and explicit, claims that the movie makes. Chiefly, DVC offers a very human Jesus who married and had children with Mary Magdalene and whose divinity was imposed upon by Constantine at the Council of Nicea. Now, obviously, this latter assertion is historical nonsense. Proof that many of the followers of Jesus began to view Jesus as divine crop up abundantly even within some of the NT documents themselves, most being dated in the first century. But for the sake of argument, let's say that Jesus did in fact marry and produced offspring with Mary Magdalene. Would this destroy the very foundation of Christianity as the character, Teabing (played by the wonderful Ian Mckellan), claims, because it would emphasize Jesus' mortal nature?

Absolutely not. For one thing, on a trivial level, the gospel, that is the good news, is not that "Jesus is Divine" therefore he couldn't have married and had children, but rather, "this man, Jesus of Nazareth who died for our sins, God raised from the dead." It is by believing in this good news that we are saved (or properly speaking, being saved). But even if we grant that Jesus' divinity is the very ground of the gospel, would his marrying and having kids nullify this? I still do not think so. One of the major creeds that so many Christians claim to adopt says this about this man from Nazareth who God raised from the dead:

"Following, then, the holy fathers, we unite in teaching all
men to confess the one and only Son, our Lord Jesus
Christ. This selfsame one is perfect both in deity and in humanness; this selfsame one is also actually God
and actually man, with a rational soul
{meaning human soul} and a body.

He is of the same reality as God as far as his deity is
concerned and of the same reality as we ourselves
as far as his humanness is concerned; thus like us in
all respects, sin only excepted.
Before time began he was begotten of the Father, in
respect of his deity, and now in these "last days," for
us and behalf of our salvation, this selfsame one was
born of Mary the virgin, who is God-bearer in respect
of his humanness." (Creed from Chalcedon)

The creed affirms that Jesus was both God and Man, fully, and that these two natures:

"are not divided or cut into two persons, but are
together the one and only and only-begotten Word
{Logos} of God, the Lord Jesus Christ."

The creed of Chalcedon has been a staple of Christian "orthodox" belief for centuries. It asserts that Jesus was, mysteriously, both fully God and fully man without the disruption of the two natures. Most believers affirm this creed. But I would submit that deep down, many of us unconsiously say to ourselves that, yes, Jesus was human, but surely he was more divine than human. Surely, then, Jesus could not have possibly married and engaged in (gasp!) sexual intercourse.

What is striking is that though many of us today, even many modern Catholics, have left behind the predominately medieval false notion that sex is evil, we still operate with the unconcious assumption that, though maybe not evil, the act of sex is at least less pure than celibacy. And like the Rabbis who while affirming that all Israel would have a share in the world to come, subsequently lists those groups of Jews who will not have a share in that world to come, we affirm Jesus' full humanity and then proceed to give a list of human attributes that should not be associated with Jesus such as sin, marriage, sex, mistakes, etc, lest this somehow degrade what is really important, Jesus' divinity. Whether we like it or not, and no matter how much we affirm Jesus' humanity in, say his suffering, his humanity in subtle ways will always be subsumed within his divinity (though this is precisely what the Chalcedonean creed is trying not to do) in Christian practice.

And so we cringe and we complain when a story or movie like the DVC comes along and asserts the possibility that Jesus was human in so far as he married and had children. "No!", we cry, "Jesus was divine and so could not have possibly had children!" But this does not necessarily follow. If we are to remain true to our creed, then the possibility that Jesus could have had children should not destroy our assertion that he was divine. Nothing warrants this conclusion.

All of this displays, however, the tendancy of Christianity to emphasis Jesus' divinity over his humanity. Oh, again, we may well assert that both are equally important, but, as responses to the DVC code have exhibited, our own praxis points to a different conclusion.

I remember well how uneasy I felt reading Dale C. Allison's Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet and its conclusion that Jesus was simply in error thinking that the end of his age was about to occur very soon. Up to that moment I had struggled with passages like Mark 13 and ended up adopting the Caird/Wright view that passages like these were simply metaphorical devices utilized to point to the future destruction of the temple in 70 AD. But Allison's work convinced me that this was wrong exegesis. Thus I was stuck with a Jesus who made a mistake. I remember sitting there, asking myself, why did this trouble me? It was then that I realized I was doing exactly what I've just accused many Christians of doing, namely, of secretly elevating Jesus' divinity over his humanity. The idea that Jesus erred was troubling because it might entail that Jesus was not fully divine. But the more and more I reflected upon this, I began to see that it did not follow that if Jesus was mistaken he was not fully divine as well. The Chalcedonean creed itself allows for only one exception, namely, sin and not error, marriage, sex, having children, or anything else.

Now I myself do not believe that Jesus married and had children. There is no proof nor any evidence that such was the case. But even if he did, the very foundations of Christianity would not be shattered since to assert, along with Chalcedon that Jesus was fully divine and fully human would be to leave open the possibility that Jesus could have married and had children without thereby impugning on his divinity nor destroying Christianity itself.

"Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People" Part 2

2006-05-22T12:34:00.000-04:00

Unfortunately, the second part of Sanders' book, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People, that deals with Paul's relationship to his fellow Jews is much shorter than the section on the law. I suppose this is understandable given the various problems associated with developing a comprehensive Pauline view on the law. In fact, Sanders' provides his own justification for the brevity of this section:

"If the attempt to respond to them (the questions arising from Paul's thought about the Jewish people) takes less space than was spent on the law, it is not because the problems are less momentous or less difficult, but because there are fewer passages and there is wider agreement about them." (p. 171, parenthetical comment added)

Nevetheless, I wish Sanders would have devoted a bit more of his book to these questions and passages. Sanders proceeds to deal with three topics concerning Paul's relationship to the Jewish people. The first of these is the question of whether or not believers, the ekklesia, constitute a "third race." Sanders recognizes that there is a tension in Paul's thought concerning this, which is not surprising considering his views on the law. On the one hand, Paul no doubt thought of the ekklesia as the fulfillment of the promises to Abraham, thus to posit a distinction between Israel and "true Israel" would probably be erroneous. On the other hand, however, Paul's emphasis that all become one in Christ and so erradicating distinctions such as Jew and Gentile, would lead to the conception of the church as a "third" entity. This latter emphasis, Sanders' concludes, probably eventually came to dominate Paul's understanding of the the nature of the church:

"Paul's view of the church, supported by his practice, against his own conscious intention, was substantially that it was a third entity, not just because it was composed of both Jew and Greek, but also because it was in important ways neither Jewish nor Greek." (p. 179)

The second issue Sanders proceeds to tackle is that concerning Paul's missionary practice. This section was the most enlightening for myself and ultimately I was convinced of Sanders' presentation that Paul most likely rarely engaged in missionary practices towards his fellow Jews, but rather focused purely on Gentile pagans, and not Hellenistic Jews or even Gentile God-fearers despite what Acts attempts to portray. The one point on which I departed from Sanders in this section was his assertion that both Paul and the other Apostles did not make special provision for Diaspora Jews. Sanders offers no evidence for this except to point out that a mission to the Jews of Alexandria is never mentioned in the New Testament. But this is arguing from silence and Sanders in the same paragraph asserts that Christianity did eventually come to Egypt, though he claims the reasons for this are unknown (p.189).

The last issue is, of course, the question of the salvation of Israel. Here Sanders enters into the merky exegetical waters concerning how to interpret Paul when he affirms that "all Israel will be saved." (Rom. 11:25ff) Sanders quickly dismisses the view that this passage has in mind the eschatological salvation of all Israel apart from Christ. Sanders notes that "the connection with the Gentile mission shows that the salvation of Israel does not take place apart from Christ." (p. 194) Sanders further argues that when Paul quotes from Isaiah concerning the "Deliverer" who will come and banish ungodliness from Jacob, he has in mind Christ and not God apart from Christ. However, whether the "Deliverer" is Christ or God,

"matters little...for it is incredible that he thought of 'God apart from Christ,' just as it is that he thought of 'Christ apart from God.' This is where the interpretation of Rom. 11:25ff as offering two ways to salvation seems to me to go astray. It requires Paul to have made just that distinction. By the time we meet him in his letters, however, Paul knew only one God, the one who sent Christ and who 'raised from the dead Jesus our Lord' (Rom. 4:24)" (p. 194)

On this score I think Sanders has made a valid point. To isolate Christ from God, and God from Christ in Paul's thought is surely erroneous.

Strangely, after providing some strong foundational exegetical reasons for seeing this passage as talking about the eschatological redemption of all the Jews, and saying that "it would not surprise me a great deal to discover this to be the correct interpretation of Paul's thought", Sanders asserts that he is unpersuaded that this is the correct interpretation and instead claims that the simplest reading of 11:13-36 is:

"the only way to enter the body of those who will be saved is by faith in Christ; the mission to the Gentiles will indirectly lead to the salvation of "all Israel" (that is their fullness); thus at the eschaton God's entire plan will be fulfilled and the full number of both Jews and Gentiles will be saved, and saved on the same basis." (p. 196)

Sanders ends up affirming a type of covenant theology position, promiment amongst Reformers, that the "all Israel" that is saved, is that which constitutes the elect Gentile and elect Jewish believers. But this is not the end of the matter for Sanders himself condones a two covenant approach to the Jewish situation and leaves his readers with the possibility that Paul, had he lived for two thousand more years, may well have come to adopt the two covenant position.

On the matter of the interpretation of "all Israel" I remain unpersuaded of Sanders position, as I am of the Reformed viewpoint concerning this passage. But that will be a matter for another time. On the whole I was well pleased with this book and was convinced by many of Sanders points concerning Paul and his view of the law.

At the end of the book, Sanders makes a poignant observation that I wish to leave you with concerning why Paul's views on the law and the Jewish people have given biblical exegetes many headaches throughout the centuries:

"He (Paul) sometimes sounds quite glib about transferring the promises made to Abraham to those in Christ, but it worried him. God made those promises, and he made them to a historical people. And Paul knew it. As he neared what by his own calculation must have been the last phase of his career, his doubts surfaced. And thus we have Romans; and thus New Testament professors have a continuing occupation. What is interesting is how far Paul was from denying anything that he held deeply, even when he could not maintain all his convictions at once without both anguish and finally a lack of logic. It is thus no accident that the most difficult chapters for interpreters are also the most anguished." (p. 199)

Sanders Interlude

2006-05-18T17:34:00.000-04:00

I just wanted to let you guys know of some good blogs I've added to my blog list:

1.) Bashalon: This site is devoted to issues dealing with the Hebrew language and is written from the perspective of an American living in Israel. Thanks to Chris Heard for pointing this site out first.

2.) Katie Eating Popcorn: Though not technically a biblical studies site, Katie has some good insights, particularly on the problem with the theological content of worship songs. Thanks to Kyle at Vindicated for pointing Katie out.

3.) New Perspective on Rob: Rob has a great quote from Wright here.

4.) Toward Jerusalem: This site is quickly becoming one of my favorites and has some great posts that indirectly relate to the issue of inerrancy (here, here, here, and here.)

Also if you guys have not been following Loren Rosson's posts concerning his "unpapal conclave" be sure to check this out. (Part 1 , part 2, part 3, and part 4)

Lastly, be sure to read Chris Tilling's delightful posts on the issue of extraterrestials here, here, and here.

Enjoy.

"Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People" Part 1

2006-05-18T10:48:00.000-04:00

The highlight of most of my days is typically the beginning. I work two jobs and go to school so I don't have time for much recreational activities. Thus I get a lot of my reading time done early in the morning, most often at Starbucks. Reading at Starbucks with a coffee in hand and often times my mp3 player is about as relaxing as it can get for me.

This morning I finished E.P. Sander's Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People and once again found myself pleased with Sander's work. Sanders writes in a peculiar style that is easily readable and enjoyable. Even when your mind cannot digest anymore, there is something about Sanders' style that makes you want to keep on reading. There are very few scholars who write in such a fashion (Dunn and Allison would be two others). I of course by no means subscribe to every conclusion Sanders produces but I cherish the insight I discover every time I read him.

Those of my readers who are familiar with the "New Perspective on Paul" have probably already read this book and so I'm not going to provide a thorough review. Well known is that Sanders' interpretation of Paul falls within the bounds of the New Perspective which he himself initiated with his monumental Paul and Palestinian Judaism. The purpose of the first section of the book is to lay out his argument for understanding Paul as emphasizing that the law is not a membership requirement:

"The attack on righteousness by the law is against making acceptance of the law a condition of membership in the body of those who will be saved. The reasons for his position which are thus far visible can be immediately connected with one of his primary convictions: salvation is available to all on the same basis, faith." (p. 48, emphasis added)

Thus what Paul is attacking is not a misguided Jewish legalistic use of the "works of the law" but the "works of the law" as, to use Dunn's phrase, boundary markers which highlight the distinctions between Jew and Gentile. These distinctions (circumcision, sabbath, and dietary laws) Paul seeks to obliterate by declaring that all are justified on the same basis, namely, faith. It is the misuse of Jewish privilege that's in view in Paul's critique of the law and not a Jewish legalism.

In the next section of the book, Sanders tackles the issue of the purpose of the law. Sanders highlights the dilemma that arises once Paul has asserted that justification comes from faith apart from "works of the law":

"We earlier said that Paul was in a dilemma, since he thought, as a good Jew, that God gave the law, while he also was convinced, on the basis of the revelation of Christ to him, that the law could not produce righteousness." (p. 73)

If the law cannot provide the righteousness that comes only by faith, what then was its purpose, granting that the law was given by God? This is Paul's dilemma. He now has to seek a way to hold together two incontrovertible facts: that God gave the law, and that justification is only by faith in Christ apart from that law. Sanders' concludes that Galatians provides a solution by asserting that the law fits into God's plan in a negative sense:

"the ultimate purpose of God's action was to prepare for salvation; the law was given in order to increase the trespass, with the intent that grace would ultimately reign." (p. 70).

The situation in Romans is not, at first all that different. The law for the first six chapters of Romans is viewed in a very negative light. In fact, Rom. 5:20ff agrees with the purpose of the law in Galatians: to increase trespasses and so condemn. More than this, however, is the close association of the law and sin to the point that they almost become the same entity. Yet, Paul, Sanders' informs us, shifts his thought drastically when he comes to Romans 7:7-25. It is perhaps, necessary to quote Sanders' at length here:

"in Rom. 7:7-13 paul still holds (1) that God gave the law; (2) that the law and sin are connected. But here the relationships among the law, God's will, and sin change: the law is good, it was even given 'unto life' (7:10), but it was used by the power alien to God-not by God himself, but by sin (7:8,11,13). That produced a situation contrary to the will of God. Thus there is an alteration in Paul's view of the relationship between sin and God's intention, and between God's will and the law (he gave the law to save, an intention which was frustrated, rather than with the intent to condemn). These changes seem to be required by the new role given to sin: it is now an active agent which employs the law against the purpose of God." (p. 73-74, emphasis his)

What is Sanders' trying to convey in this passage? Simply that God originally gave the law with the purpose of leading to life, but Sin (as a personified power) frustrated this plan of God by causing humanity to be unable to fulfill its requirements. Sin uses the law to its own end, to increase trespass and thus to condemn. It is the misuse of the law by Sin which brings to necessity the sending of Christ and justification on the basis of faith alone. The Law in and of itself is still a good thing. And so, rightly I think, Sanders sees Paul as inconsistent at this point from all else he has said concerning the law prior to Rom. 7 and in the Galatian epistle.

After this, Sanders' concludes with a brief discussion concerning Paul's assertions about the "fulfilling of the law" in the lives of spirit-led believers which is, not surprisingly, very similar to the covenantal nomism that Sanders described as a description of Judaism in Paul and Palestinian Judaism.

But since it is the problem of the relationship, soteriologically, between Christians and the Jewish people that has been on my mind lately I want to move onto the second part of Sanders' book which concerns this topic. Yet I've gone on too long now and so will finish this review in the next post.

Ushpizin

2006-05-17T11:46:00.000-04:00

I watched a marvelous movie this week called Ushpizin. This about an
orthodox, though at times unorthodox, Jewish Rabbi named Moshe Belanga who smokes, regularly misses synagogue, and is married to a woman who has been unable to provide him with children. It takes place during the time of the Sukkot festival in which the Jews would build a temporary dwelling place and live there for a matter of days in memory of their former way of life after the Exodus when they were a nomadic people who had not yet inherited the promised land. They would also entertain guests during this time as well, which is what the word "ushpizin" means in Aramaic.

It's just prior to the Sukkot holiday and Moshe Belanga has no money to buy the things necessary to celebrate the holiday including a succah (the temporary building.) When we first see Moshe, he enters a shop to look for some lemons that are used in the festival. He has his eyes set on what the dealers call "the diamond" since it is the most beautiful lemon in all of Jerusalem. But their asking price is ridiculous, a thousand shekels. Moshe, after examining the lemon gives it back to which the dealers ask, "Are you not buying?" Moshe just shrugs his shoulders and replies, "With God's help," and leaves. The next scene, Moshe is in the Yeshiva hoping to receive enough funds from the Rabbis so that he and his wife may celebrate the festival. However, they give him nothing. He goes home rejected and informs Mali, his wife, of the bad news. They get into a bit of an argument and Moshe stresses that God will provide for them.

He proceeds to quote to her a saying he heard from one of the Rabbis, "where something is lacking I know that either it was not prayed for or it wasn't prayed for enough." Mali's response is great: "so then go pray." To which Moshe replies that he's tired and doesn't feel like praying. Mali chides him for quoting such things to her if he has not intention to take the words and put them into practice. I loved this scene because this is the way a lot of us are, including myself from time to time. We spout out great words of wisdom and insight, but then when it comes time to apply such things, we recede back into our comfort zone.

At any rate, Moshe does go and pray and it is a beautiful scene. Moshe is honest with his Lord, informing him that he is "a lump of saddness" because he can't provide for his wife during the holiday. He proceeds to pray fervently for a miracle. The beauty of this scene is that it is cut with two different scenes. One in which Mali herself is praying from the Psalms, and one in which Moshe's miracle is underway with a certain man who has a thousand dollars left over to give someone and randomly picks Moshe's name. Moreover, a friend of Moshe's finds an "unused" succah that he gives to him. His wife finds the money and, in another wondeful scene when Moshe returns home, Mali is lipsinging to a contemporary Jewish song of praise to God for their miracle. She then proceeds to inform Moshe of the money and they celebrate. One of the things Moshe immediately does with the money is to buy that lemon, the "diamond" to the shock of thosed dealers.

Things could not have been going better for them. However, Moshe and Mali are placed under another test of faith as they do receive some "guests." Unfortunately, their guests are an old friend of Moshe and his friend who have escaped from jail and need a place to hide out. What follows is a trying time of patience for Moshe and Mali. Their blessing seems to turn into a curse and everything begins to fall apart. Yet, I do not wish to give away the entire plot so, go rent it!

One of the beautiful things about this film is that it is entirely in Hebrew. In fact I would suggest that once you've watched it through with the subtitles, watch it again without and just listen to the language. And even though I've had only one year of Hebrew, I was able to pick up on a lot of things, more than I thought I would be able to. One of these, is the Rabbi's consistent use of speaking of God as "Ha-Shem" which literally means, "The Name." It is of course a reference to the divine name, YHWH, and serves as a circumlocution for "God." One of the things I truly admire about the Jewish people is their reverence for God. If you've ever been around any religious Jews, you'll quickly notice that they will hardly ever say "God" in their conversations, unlike many of us believers who flippantly throw the name around, but instead will say "Ha-Shem." Unfortunately, the translation in the subtitles obscures this fact and translates "Ha-Shem" as God most of the time, and as Lord the rest of the time (Adonai is used plenty as well). Christians would do well to learn something from the Jews on this score.

Some Answers

2006-05-16T10:09:00.000-04:00

*The following is in response to some questions posed by a certain reader named agnosis00 on some earlier posts of mine. But everyone is welcome to comment. Sorry, agnosis00, that it took me a while to reply back to your questions. Thanks for these great questions and for commenting on my Et Resurrexit series.

1) Do you think that the empty tomb and any type of subsequent appearances would have been adequate to result in the use of “resurrection.” (i.e. did the appearances also have to have the impression of physicality?) And if you think they had to have the impression of physicality, do you think that this would not be sufficient to account for the use of ‘resurrection’ without the empty tomb? (Not that both could not have occurred for double confirmation).

I am inclined to believe that the appearances likely did give some kind of impression of "physicality." But I submit that this alone was more than likely not adequate to give rise to defining what had happened to Jesus as "resurrection." One thing about visions is that they can appear and even feel physical. After an interesting survey of modern day visions of apparitions Dale Allison makes this point:

"Most apparitions of the dead seen during bereavement are not, in the usual sense of the word, 'ghosts' (which is why the bereaved rarely use that word of their experiences). Apparitions instead commonly appear to be just like real human beings. It is accordingly often their odd arrival, or their sudden disappearnce, or their identification with a deceased individual that gives them away. Time and time again people not only hear and see apparitions: they even touch them. (Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, p. 290.)

Though Allison's study was in the context of modern day visions, I think the same was true of late Antiquity. Visions could have seemed very real, and physical to many people, even to the disciples. On this score, then, it seems necessary for there to be more than just visions to betoken their language of "resurrection." Thus to answer your question, even granting the physicality of the visions I do not think this would have been sufficient to give rise to the belief that God had raised Jesus from the dead.

2) How big of a role do you think Jesus’ more apocalyptic teachings and actions had on the disciples and their subsequent use of “resurrection” for the post-crucifixion appearances?

Most likely, Jesus' apocalyptic teachings and actions did have an impact on his disciples. However, even granting this influence, since Jesus probably spoke of his vindication as occuring during the general resurrection of the dead it does not seem plausible that solitary visions taking place without an empty tomb would cause them to assert that Jesus had been raised. I suppose it may be a possibilty but it's certainly not probable. Yet if we allow for the visions and belief in an empty tomb then the context of an apocalyptic setting provided by their teacher would definitely have provided a strong impetus for believing that Jesus had been raised from the dead.

3) Do you think the disciples’ use of resurrection was similar or the same as Paul’s use of the concept “first fruits of the resurrection”? With this phrase it seems to me that Paul is expanding the concept of resurrection from the view of normative second Temple Judaism. And it’s my impression that he felt comfortable doing this because of the soon to come general resurrection. Doesn’t “first fruits” have a temporal connotation? Wouldn’t he have been less comfortable using this phrase if he knew no general resurrection would occur for the next two millennia?

I think that the disciples' and Paul's use of resurrection were very similar in that both believed that Jesus' resurrection had precipitated the end of this age. Thus the phrase "first fruits" is an adequate metaphor that conveys this understanding. But since the giving of the "first fruits" was understood to be shortly followed by the rest of the harvest (i.e. the rest of the general resurrection) I'm not sure that we can positively affirm that Paul's description of Jesus' resurrection as the first fruits was an expansion of the normative understanding of "resurrection" in Second Temple Judaism. This is because, given the normative definition, the resurrection of one man would almost certainly give rise to the belief that the end had begun. Paul's metaphor of "first fruits" still conveys this belief.

But you are surely right that the concept of "first fruits" contains a temporal connotation. If Paul were somehow able to know that the general resurrection would not occur for some millenia he probably would have been uncomfortable with the phrase and most likely would not have utilized it to describe Jesus' resurrection.

4) The term resurrection has several connotations for 2nd Temple Judaism. I tend to agree with you and others who say one connotation was something happening to the actual bodies of individuals. How much was the temporal aspect connected and a part of the concept of the general resurrection for 2nd Temple Judaism (i.e. that the resurrection would occur at The End, or right before God’s rule, etc.)?

That the resurrection would occur at the end of the (their?) present age permeates the literature. It is of course found in the book of Daniel, but it permeates the apocraphal, pseudepigraphical, Qumranic, and Rabbinic literature. Nowhere is there found the notion that resurrection will be divided into two chronological phases, with the resurrection of one (or many) first and then the rest at a later point. This is certainly a Christian innovation that eventually arose in light of the fact that the general resurrection of the dead was not immediately subsequent to Jesus' own resurrection from the dead.

Second Thoughts on Dunn's "Unity and Diversity"

2006-05-13T13:49:00.000-04:00

Recently, I gave a brief and very critical review of James Dunn's Unity and Diversity. There I lamented against Dunn's proposal that the person of Jesus was enough to hold together the unity of the New Testament in the midst of its diversity. However, when I gave this review I had not read the appendix which is not found in the first edition of Unity and Diversity. I simply skimmed through it and it seemed just another summary of the arguments in the book so I didn't read it. But for some reason, this morning I decided to read that appendix which is entitled, "Unity and Diversity in the Church: A New Testament Perspective." Strangely, it is in this essay that Dunn clarifies further what is the ground of unity in the New Testament. Here Dunn goes beyond my chief criticism that the person of Jesus is the strand of unity holding together the unity of the NT and declares that the unifying element in earliest Christianity was:

"the unity between the historical Jesus and the exalted Christ, that is to say, the conviction that the wandering charismatic preacher from nazareth had ministered, died and been raised from the dead to bring God and man finally together, the recognition that the divine power through which they now worshipped and were encountered and accepted by God was one and the same person, Jesus, the man, the Christ, the Son of God, the Lord, the life-giving spirit." (p. 437)

Dunn summarizes this foundation as Easter and Pentescost. The former being the conviction that God had raised Jesus of Nazareth from the dead and the latter being the moment when the Spirit was poured out on the early believers. In regards to the former, Easter, I could not help but smile when I read Dunn saying,

"In short, if anything can claim to run through the NT writings like a golden thread is the conviction that God raised Jesus from the dead." (p. 439, emphasis his)

And in regards to the latter, Pentecost, Dunn says:

"Experience of the Spirit of God, belief that what they were experiencing was God's eschatologically new out pouring of the Spirit is part of the most basic stratum of Christian faith attested by the NT writers." (p. 441, emphasis his)

These were the sort of "checks" I was looking for. Why they come in an appendix and why this appendix was not in the first edition is beyond me. This is much better than Dunn's assertion that the person of Jesus is that solitary thread of unity holding together the diverse perspectives of the NT witnesses.

Moreover in the appendix, Dunn also highlights the fundamental tension within the NT that I've been preoccupied with lately, namely, the problem of the Jew and Christian relationship. Dunn makes a great point when he asserts that:

"The greatest schism in salvation-history is not between Catholic and Protestant or between East and West, but between Judaism and Christianity." (p. 444, emphasis his)

In conclusion, this appendix was the most satisfying of the book for me. And to think, I almost didn't even read it! Why this is an appendix and not the actual conclusion to the book is baffling. At any rate, though there are still some things that I have difficulty accepting in Dunn's book, my attitude is now much more positive and favorable given Dunn's more explicit statements concerning what grounds the unity in the NT among its diversity.

Next blog I am going to (finally) reply to a certain reader's questions concerning some of the implications from my Et Resurrexit series of posts. I apologize to this reader for taking so long to get back to this, but the Jew/Christian issue was on my mind and I felt the need to blog on this first. But next time I promise to have a reply to your questions. For my other readers here are the questions at which I will attempt to answer in the next few posts:

1) Do you think that the empty tomb and any type of subsequent appearances would have been adequate to result in the use of “resurrection.” (i.e. did the appearances also have to have the impression of physicality?) And if you think they had to have the impression of physicality, do you think that this would not be sufficient to account for the use of ‘resurrection’ without the empty tomb? (Not that both could not have occurred for double confirmation).

2) How big of a role do you think Jesus’ more apocalyptic teachings and actions had on the disciples and their subsequent use of “resurrection” for the post-crucifixion appearances?

3) Do you think the disciples’ use of resurrection was similar or the same as Paul’s use of the concept “first fruits of the resurrection”? With this phrase it seems to me that Paul is expanding the concept of resurrection from the view of normative second Temple Judaism. And it’s my impression that he felt comfortable doing this because of the soon to come general resurrection. Doesn’t “first fruits” have a temporal connotation? Wouldn’t he have been less comfortable using this phrase if he knew no general resurrection would occur for the next two millennia?

4) The term resurrection has several connotations for 2nd Temple Judaism. I tend to agree with you and others who say one connotation was something happening to the actual bodies of individuals. How much was the temporal aspect connected and a part of the concept of the general resurrection for 2nd Temple Judaism (i.e. that the resurrection would occur at The End, or right before God’s rule, etc.)?

Jews, Christians, and Robert Jenson Part 2

2006-05-12T08:55:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure that I am convinced by Jenson's modified two covenant solution, but I am in agreement with him in so far as there is a crucial need for believers to construct a Christian theology of Judaism. For all the trouble Paul has caused us with Rom. 9-11, he sought to do what Jenson and others are proposing, to develop a Christian theology of Judaism. If I can be honest about my feelings for a moment I am rather sick and tired of those believers who treat the subject of Jews and Judaism with an irrelevant and sometimes condescending attitude. The grief Paul was stricken with over his fellow Jews, should be our grief as well, especially in this post-Shoah time. The Jews are in fact our elder brothers and just as we would be concerned about the relationship with our own flesh and blood siblings, so then should the Christian community be concerned about its relationship to the Jewish people. This can be done only by properly working out a theology that is Christian and which concerns itself with the Jewish people.

Do we Christians, who are predominately Gentile, need to be reminded again that we were grafted into the olive tree and our supported by the root? Unfortunately we do need this reminder. The warning Paul issued remains true to this day and we need to heed that warning:

"do not boast over the branches. If you do boast, remember it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you. You will say, 'Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.' That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast only through faith. So do not become proud, but stand in awe. For if God did not spare the natural branches neither will he spare you." (Rom.11:18-21)

Part of this "boasting" I would submit is the failure of many believers to enage in the task of formulating a Christian theology of Judaism. Jenson may be wrong in his proposal, but at least he is undertaking the crucial task to better understand, from a Christian theological standpoint, those to whom "belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises." Let us not fail to enage in this same task.

Jews, Christians, and Robert Jenson Part 1

2006-05-11T08:07:00.000-04:00

Those of you who have been reading my blog since the beginning know that one of my chief interests is the relationship between Jews and Christians. I posted very briefly on this in a book review of Jews and Christians: The Parting of Ways that I did here. I am currently reading another book dealing with some of these issues entitled Jews and Christians: People of God edited by Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson. Though I have enjoyed reading T.B. Vick's quotes from Robert Jenson (here and here), I myself had not read any of Jenson's work until now. His is the first essay in the book and I must say that I was impressed. In that particular essay Jenson highlights the need for developing a Christian Theology of Judaism.

In this essay Jenson proposes the central problem in the relationship between Judaism and Christianity as the question of who now is "Israel" after Israel. Jenson makes a distinction between what he calls "canonical" Israel and Judaism. The canonical Israel is that Israel which

"denotes the national political and cultic entity that was established through Moses and David and endured, in one recognizable form or another, for something like a millennium. This Israel came to an end when Rome terminated temple-worship and made the land of promise foreign territory, this time apparently for good." (p. 2)

The problem then for Christians is figuring out how to undestand and incorporate this latter Judaism's "theological claim to be Israel" with Christian belief. (p. 3) Jenson further explains:

"That there should be any difficulty in understanding Judaism's claim to be Israel may, of course, seem preposterous to Jews. But for Christian theology it is not merely a difficulty but a torment. Christian faith is the conviction that the God of Israel has raised his servant Jesus from the dead and installed him, if hiddenly and prolepticaly, as the Messiah of Israel, and that by this prolepsis he has opened the ingathering of the gentiles to Zion. That the vast majority of Abraham and Sarah's descendents have rejected and do reject this claim, and maintain a claim to be faithful Israel without acknowledging Jesus' resurrection, must indeed give the church furiously to think, and has done so since at least the time when Paul wrote his letter to the Romans. From a certain angle of vision, the mere existence of Judaism looks much like a refutation of Christianity-and may indeed be just that." (p.3-4)

This is problematic for Christians especially for those who see the law and the prophets as being fulfilled by Jesus' death and resurrection. If it has been fulfilled then what do we do with Judaism? Can we still call them God's people? Can we accept their theological claim to be "Israel"? Are Christians now the new "Israel"? These are questions that have vexed me in the past and they are questions that need answering from a Christian theological standpoint.

Jenson himself rightly dismisses "supersessionism" as being the theological answer. This is the belief that all things Judaic have become obsolete and that the term "Israel" now defines only Christian believers. Jenson's own proposal is a somewhat modified two covenant theory. He speaks of God mysteriously taking two detours, one of which is beneficial for the ekklesia and one which is concerned soley with Judaism. Says Jenson:

"I propose to my fellow Christians that God wills the Judaism of Torah-obedience as that which alone can and does hold the lineage of Abraham and Sarah together during the time of detour. And that lineage must continue, until the day when lineages shall end."

Jenson's proposal is that God still wishes to have a people who are to be identified as seperate from everyone else. This seperation being marked out by their ancestral lineage and their obedience to the Torah. By virtue of being predominately Gentile, the ekklesia cannot fulfill this desire of God because it cannot claim physical descent from Abraham and Sarah and cannot affirm itself as being marked out by the Law and obedience to that Law. Moreover God wishes for the Torah to not only be heard in this time of detour but to believed in. The former is the job of the Jews, the latter the job of Christians to believe that "the Torah became flesh and dwelt among us." (p.12) Jenson concludes his essay with one final proposal:

"My final-and perhaps most radical suggestion to Christian theology (not, let me say again, to Jewish self-understanding) is that, so long as the time of detour lasts, the embodiment of the risen Christ is whole only in the form of the church and an identifiable community of Abraham ad Sarah's descendents. The church and the synagogue are together and only together the present availability to the world of the risen Jesus Christ." (p.13)

To be continued...

No Posts till Friday

2006-05-09T18:41:00.000-04:00

I just wanted to remind everyone that I am finishing up a paper (along with a power point presentation) this week for a class. Thus I probably will hold off posting until Friday. Till then take a look at a unique way to do a Christian fundraiser here.

Unity and Diversity: A Review

2006-05-08T12:04:00.000-04:00

James Dunn's work has always impressed me. I first encountered Dunn in his edited work entitled Paul and the Mosaic Law. I was immediately impressed by his essays in that book and was prompted subsequently to purchase his Theology of the Apostle Paul. Since then I've read much of his work including Christology in the Making which has been very influential on my thought concerning the place of Adamic Christology in Paul. Though I obviously do not agree with everything Dunn has proposed in his career my thought is probably closer to his (with a mix of Dale Allison) than any other NT scholar. So then it is with much sorrow that I came away from Unity and Diversity with a critical attitude.

Though I agreed with the basic position that there is substantial diversity within the NT and early Christianity such that it is probably not best to speak of single "orthodoxy" during the first centuryI found it hard to be convinced, as is Dunn, that the one unifying strand that creates unity amongst the diversity is simply the person of Jesus. This claims Dunn is the one thing that allows Christianity to be diverse, but at the same time also acts as protective barrier to ensure that the diversity does not get out of hand and so become unacceptable. However, this is simply to cast the net too wide. There needs to be a standard, uniform tradition which further keeps Christianity in check. Because without further qualifications it is difficult to see why extreme versions of Christianity such as later Gnosticism should be regarded as unacceptable diversity since for all their excess, they could still be said to be centered around an exalted Jesus thus meeting Dunn's criteria.

To Dunn's credit, he tries to bracket this diversity with a discussion concerning the Christian canon as the "norm that norms the norm" such that later diverse forms of Christianity can be deemed as unacceptably diverse since they are not within the canon. But to use this argument one has to address the question of the "authority" of the NT. And though Dunn has a section specifically concerning this topic he does not offer any answers but simply raises questions to leave with his readers to ponder. So then to use the NT as the endpoint of diversity is of no use without a reason for first accepting the NT as authoritative. In short Dunn leaves us with a severely pluralistic understanding of early Christianity and then proceeds to assert the validity of each simply because they remain centered on the person of Jesus. Dunn downplays the importance of tradition significantly and though I do not wish to impose later creeds onto anyone I think there is still a need to adopt a common tradition that can serve to keep in check diverse forms of Christianity. Otherwise we are forced to call any movement that claims to center itself around the person of Jesus as a genuine development of Christianity no matter how far off from the center they may be.

To conclude, I still thoroughly enjoyed reading the book even if most of its conclusions failed to convince me. The important contribution of Dunn's book is to highlight that a certain amount of diversity did exist during the 1st century and can be found in the pages of the NT documents themselves. But I remain unconvinced that the person of Jesus is enough to hold the thread of unity together.

Pentecostals, Ecology, and Resurrection

2006-05-05T19:38:00.000-04:00

Chris Tilling has alerted his readers to a new blog called Pentecostal Discussions. Since I have charismatic roots (Assembly of God) I'm glad to see a site dedicated to charismatic/pentecostal discussions. Thanks to Chris for pointing them out. They have a very good post that highlights the lack of ecological concern in many strands of pentecostal and/or fundamentalist movements. As the post points out this is partly due to their "other worldly orientation" and their obsession with "end time" catastrophes.

One of the great things about the doctrine of resurrection is that it points to the Creator's own ecological concerns. Resurrection is a signifier that God cares about his creation. The goal of eschatological consummation is not a discarding of the physical world, but its redemption. The Most High is not going to trash his creation. The "good" he declared when he completed his creation is still valid today even with all its failings. It is telling that Paul when he asserts the future redemption of the believer's body places the discussion in the overall context of the redemption of creation:

"I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies." Rom. 8:18-23

Let us not forget that the Almighty still values his creation and He will redeem it just as he will redeem our bodies. Thanks again to Chris for pointing out this excellent new site.

New Things

2006-05-05T09:48:00.000-04:00

I have added a new look to my blog. The previous green design I had became an aesthetic headache. There's only so much plain green that you can take, but I am rather pleased with the new look of the blog (except for the picture which is a bit off-center for some reason). I have also added many other blogs to my list. Particularly I want to single out Derek Ryan's Eucatastrophe. For those of you not aware of his site and Christology is one of your interests then promptly check out Derek's blog.

Also, as for my Et Resurrexit series I am going to hold off finishing it until June. I have a paper to write and some exams this month. But next post I will have a review of James Dunn's Unity and Diversity which I have almost finished reading.

1 Corinthians 13:1-3 in the NBV ( New Blogger's Version)

2006-05-03T10:43:00.000-04:00

"If I blog with the tongues of scholars and emeritus professors, but have not love, I am but a noisy keyboard.* And if I have the highest blogging aptitude, and I understand all other blogs to the fullest, and I leave the most erudite comments, but have not love I am nothing. And if I give up totally blogging and turn over all my posts to be burned, but have not love, then I gain nothing." 1 Cor. 13:1-3 (NBV).

*Note: some ancient manuscripts contain "typewriter" instead of "keyboard."

The Empty Tomb: Why Doesn't Paul Mention It?

2006-05-01T11:10:00.000-04:00

"For I delievered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve." 1 Cor 15: 3-5

Well known is this passage from 1 Corinthians in which Paul reminds the believers at Corinth of the tradition that he handed down to them. Here we find some of the bare essentials of the faith: Christ's death, burial, and resurrection all said to have been "in accordance with the scriptures." Most scholars agree that we are dealing with a tradition that reaches back further than Paul and that, with the exception of verses 6-8, this formulation of the tradition was probably left mostly intact in its original form.

Some however have seized upon what Paul does not mention: the empty tomb. This, they say, is grounds for rejecting an early tradition about an empty tomb. The argument usually runs in this manner: "Paul did not know about Jesus' grave, and if he did not know about it, then surely no one else before him did either. The story of the empty tomb must, it follows, have originated after Paul." (Dale C. Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, p. 305-6) Thus the tradition of the empty tomb is concluded as being secondary to the Jesus tradition. Furthermore, what was of chief importance were the appearances of Jesus and not an empty tomb. For my own part I think this argument from silence is less than compelling.

However, my concern right now is not to prove that there was an empty tomb tradition prior to Paul but to attempt to answer the question: if Paul did have knowledge about an empty tomb tradition why does he fail to mention this? The simple answer is that he didn't see it necessary to make explicit. To understand this we must realize that Paul is passing on a very compact tradition that is lacking in many other details we might expect, most notably the event of crucifixion (Allison, p. 306).

Paul would have expected the believers at Corinth to know that the phrase "Christ died for our sins" refered implicitly to the Christ's death by crucifixion. What is striking is that this tradition concerning the mode of Jesus' death is not as prevalent as one might expect in the New Testament documents that predate the Gospel accounts and Acts. In fact, if we took away 1 Corinthians, 2 Cor. 13:14, the letter of Galatians, Rom. 6:6, and Rev. 11:8 you would have effectively removed all references to Jesus' death as crucifixion in the rest of the NT! Yet very few would assert that Jesus' death by crucifixion was not part of the tradition.

A similar argument could be made concerning the empty tomb. Paul by the simple phrase "he was raised on the third day" could have been making an implicit reference to the empty tomb that he knew the Corinthian believers would have inferred. And so just as the phrase "Christ died" implied the mode of death, crucifixion, so the phrase "he was raised" implied the leaving behind of an empty tomb. In fact, what is implicit in the phrase is that the "raising" was from the dead. That Paul doesn't qualify with "from the dead" exemplifies just how terse Paul meant this statement of tradition to be. In conclusion, due to the nature of the statement, Paul would have found the mentioning of the empty tomb to be superfulous and redundant since it was already implicit in the phrase "was raised on the third day."

Moreover, we have an example from latter Christianity that does precisely what I'm postulaing Paul may be doing here. Here's the example from a well known creed:

I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth:
And in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord:
Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary:
Suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead and buried:[ He descended into hell:]
The third day he rose again from the dead:
He ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty:
From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead:
I believe in the Holy Ghost:
I believe in the holy catholic church: the communion of saints:
The forgiveness of sins:
The resurrection of the body:
And the life everlasting. Amen.

Though this is obviously much latter than the tradition that Paul cites it still exhibits a tendancy of the early church not spell out every detail that they would have viewed as already implicit. Here Jesus is said to have risen on the third day, but there is no mention of an empty tomb. Yet we know that by this time the empty tomb tradition was a significant factor in Christian belief. However, since the assertion that Jesus was raised from the dead would have implied the tradition of an empty tomb, the creators of this document did not see the need make explicit the implicit. Thus Paul could have plausibly acted likewise in his summary of the tradition he passed on to the Corinthian believers.

Of course none of this proves that Paul received a tradition about an empty tomb, but it at least provides a plausible account of why he would have failed to mention this tradition if he in fact knew of its existence.

Pannenberg on the Delay of the Parousia

2006-04-30T16:33:00.000-04:00

"The delay of the end events which now amounts to almost two thousand years, is not a refutation of the Christian hope and of the Christian perception of revelation as long as the unity between what happened in Jesus and the eschatological future is maintained...When we speak today of God's revelation in Jesus and of his exaltation accomplished in the resurrection from the dead, our statements always contain a proleptic element. The fulfillment, which had begun for the disciples, which was almost in their grasp, in the appearance of the resurrected Lord, has become promise once again for us." Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus: God and Man, p. 108.

A Marginal Jew

2006-04-29T11:10:00.000-04:00

I have just finished John P. Meier's A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus Vol.3 which looks at the historical Jesus in relation to his contemporaries, both those who followed him and those who opposed him, whether directly or indirectly. This volume compared with the previous two is probably my least favorite. This is just out of opinion and not because I found the scholarship lacking or anything . On the contrary, the scholarship was on par with the previous two volumes but because I've already read plenty of material dealing with Qumran, the Pharisees, Sadducees, and other groups the discussion of these groups was somewhat redundant for me. The two groups I did find enlightening that Meier touched on were the Samaritans and the enigmatic "scribes." But beyond this everything seemed more like a review than anything else.

Nevertheless, the depth of Meier's research amazes me. The amount of references that he has in the endnotes of his volumes is mindboggling. To date Meier's three volumes comprise a total of 2352 pages and we are still awaiting the fourth and final volume in which Meier will tackle what he calls the four enigmas or riddles of the historical Jesus:

1.) Jesus' relation to the Mosaic Law.

2.) Jesus' use of parables.

3.) The temple incident.

4. ) The death of Jesus.

Needless to say I am eagerly awaiting this final volume. I'm sure that we can expect to see much of Meier's use of the criterion of coherence in this work, especially concerning the fourth enigma. What I'm going to do is attempt to contact Dr. Meier in order to see if he will grant me a short interview concerning his final volume. If he agrees I will post the interview. If anyone has a question they wish me to ask feel free to leave it in the comments section or e-mail it to me.

For a decently thorough review of this volume go here.

Et Resurrexit: Excursus

2006-04-26T13:23:00.000-04:00

*Note: In what follows I will consistently use the term bodily in place of physical since a focus on the physical aspect of the resurrection might lead to a false understanding of the resurrection as simply a crass rescusitation. What the NT affirms is that the resurrection was something transformative. Nevertheless, the transformation was something that the NT authors believed happened to the physical body of Jesus. But in order to avoid the implications of the term physical I will use bodily in its place as a description of the nature of the resurrection.

It seems as if Michael Bird has stirred up a firestorm with his post concerning the necessity of belief in the resurrection (bodily) as marking one to be a Christian. Ben Meyers in his reply post , though himself holding to a bodily resurrection, disagrees with Michael and sides with Wright saying:

"On this occasion, I will have to side with N. T. Wright against Mike. I think Mike is exactly right about the centrality of resurrection in the primitive Christian kerygma. But the crucial question is whether any particular theological interpretation of resurrection belongs to the heart of the gospel. And it seems to me that the New Testament itself resists such a view. In fact, the New Testament witnesses don’t offer any precise theological interpretation of the resurrection. None of the Gospels tries to describe or explain the event of resurrection at all—rather, the resurrection is precisely the mystery at the centre of the story of Jesus." (emphasis Ben's)

Since I consider both to be very intelligent men and since they are two of my favorite blogs, it's unfortunate that I have to take sides on this issue. Yet take sides I must. Now Ben agrees with Mike that the resurrection was central to the primitive Christian kerygma. This is key. Where they obviously differ is in the matter of the interpretation of the event of resurrection. Ben stresses that there is no uniform theological interpretation of resurrection that the New Testament witnesses emphasize. The stress is rather on the mystery behind the event. Ben sees in this good reason for still calling those who do not affirm a bodily resurrection, Christians.

Now on the one hand Ben is correct to say that the New Testament documents witness to various theological interpretations of the resurrection. But on the other hand I think this diverse interpretation has to do with the meaning of the resurrection event rather than with an interpretation of the event itself. There is a difference. On my reading of the New Testament, what is uniformly taught or implied is that Jesus' resurrection was indeed bodily. When the NT authors (particularly the Gospels) discuss Jesus' resurrection it is never with the intent to impose on it some theological understanding which denies its bodily nature. Rather, as Michael in his reply post observed, the NT writers when treating the resurrection actually go to great lengths to restrict certain understandings of the resurrection that would deny its bodily aspect:

"The NT authors bracket out certain hermeneutical reflections on the resurrection including its denial (1 Corinthians 15), gnostics and docetic interpretations (John 21; Luke 24), and over-realized accounts (2 Tim 2.18)."

I think Mike has made an essential point here and reinforces my observation that a distinction should be made between diverse interpretations of resurrection meaning and differing interpretations of the nature of the resurrection event. It is the former which the NT witnesses to not the latter.

Yet this does not really answer the question that has been raised: "Is belief in the bodily resurrection necessary for one to properly be labled a Christian?" It seems to me the reason that we are running into a problem is due to some of our terms, particularly the label, "Christian." We need to remember that this term is anachronistic when speaking of the primitive community. It does not occur anywhere in the NT except for briefly in Acts 11:19-30. In the context of the passage it is suggested that the term is a label placed upon the community externally. This is confirmed by the fact that it is not used throughout the rest of Acts (nor anywhere else). The term that is applied consistently in the NT to the primitive community is "believers." This phrase appears in Paul (1 Cor 6:5, Gal 6:10), James (2.1), and especially in the book of Acts (Acts 1:15, 2:42, 44, 9:41). Why am I stressing this fact? Because to become a part of the 'ekklesia' you had to become a believer. The question then is, "a believer of or in what?" The simple answer is belief in the 'gospel.' However, the answer is not so simple anymore since the word 'gospel' has been loaded down with theological excess (incarnation, trinity,etc).

The proclamation uttered by the early assembly (ekklesia) was that the man Jesus who had been crucified was raised from the dead by God. He was now Lord and was exalted at God's right hand. It was by believing in this 'good news' (euangelion) that one was thereby incoporated into the community. The good news had content, and that content centered around the proclamation that God had raised this man from the dead and placed him in a position of authority. Furthermore, this proclamation 'God raised Jesus from the dead' would have been understood as bodily. There are three, I believe, decisive indications of this:

1.) The first point has already been made, namely, that the New Testament is uniform as to its interpretation of the event being bodily, even in the cases where discontinuity is emphasized.

2.) Secondly, the major contribution of N. T. Wright's The Resurrection of the Son of God was in exhibiting that when the noun and verb forms of anastasis and egeiro were used by both supporters and opposers in the Second-Temple Judaic period the referent was always concrete and was something that happened to the body. Other interpretations and/or definitions Wright, rightly dismissed:

"Nothing in the entire Jewish context warrants the suggestion that the discussion in 1 Corinthians 15 was about'resurrection in heaven', or that the Jewish literature of the period 'speaks both of a resurrection of the body and a resurrection of the spirit without the body'. Some Jews speak of eternal disembodied bliss, but this is not described as 'resurrection'; when resurrection is spoken of, it is the second stage in post-mortem life, not the instant destiny upon death. Nothing here, either, would prepare us for the use of 'resurrection' to mean 'that after his crucifixion...Jesus entered into the powerful life of God' or 'the passage of the human Jesus into the power of God'." (204)

3.) Thirdly, juxtaposed with the proclamation that God had raised Jesus from the dead, was that Jesus had previously been crucified and so had died (cf Acts 2:23ff, 1 Cor15:3ff). If, in their proclamation of the gospel, the early believers intended for the audience to understand Jesus' death as literal and so bodily then when they claimed God raised him from the dead, the same meaning would have been intended, that is, that God had bodily raised Jesus from the dead.

Given these three observations, I fail to see how the early community's proclamation would not have been understood as involving the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

Lastly, if this is how the resurrection event was meant to be understood, as something that happened to Jesus' physical body, then Paul's assertion in Rom. 10:9 carries all the more weight in this debate. Paul, who some scholars see echoing an early baptismal formula, declares that to be saved one need only to "confess Jesus as Lord" and to "believe in their heart that God raised him from the dead." These two assertions, as I stated in my previous post, are integral to one another and form a symbiotic relationship. The believer can confess Jesus as Lord because God raised him from the dead. If you excise the resurrection, by default you excise the Lordship of Jesus.

In the end, I must cast my lot with Michael. If the early community was defined by its belief in the gospel and if the content of that gospel included the bodily resurrection of Jesus then I fail to see how I can properly call someone a believer who does not believe in that message which included Jesus' bodily resurrection from the dead.

Et Resurrexit: Initial Implications Part 3

2006-04-23T13:26:00.000-04:00

If the early church, subsequent to their belief that Jesus’ resurrection meant the beginning of the eschaton, had come to see that same resurrection as a validation of Jesus’ Messiahship then there would have been at least one more conclusion those followers would have reached. The resurrection would further be understood as the decisive event in which Jesus becomes the Kyrios, i.e., the Lord. As with Messiahship, by itself the resurrection would not denote Lordship per say. But when we combine the initial insights discussed in the previous posts, Jesus’ resurrection as the beginning of the end and the confirmation and vindication of his Messiahship, it only makes sense that an understanding of Jesus as Lord would follow. If Jesus was indeed the King of the Jews he was also now the Lord, of not just Judea or of Israel in general but of the entire cosmos. (see Wright, "Resurrection of the Son of God", p .563-66.)

This concept that the Messiah would be the ruler of the whole earth is firmly rooted in Jewish belief, especially in the Psalms:

I will tell of the decree of Yahweh: He said to me, "You are my son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel." (Ps 2:7-9)

"Give the king thy justice, O God, and thy righteousness to the royal son . . . May he have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth! May his foes bow down before him, and his enemies lick the dust! May the kings of Tarshish and of the isles render him tribute, may the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts! May all kings fall down before him, all nations serve him!" (Ps 72:1; 8-11)

"I have found David my servant; with my holy oil I have anointed him . . . He shall cry to me, You are my father, my god and the rock of my salvation; And I will make him my firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth." (Ps 89:20, 25-27)

And also in Isaiah:

"And now Yahweh says, who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him, and that Israel might be gathered in him, for I am honored in the eyes of Yahweh, and my God has become my strength-he says: "It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth." (Is 49:5-6)

Though each of these passages places a distinctive emphasis on how God’s anointed one will treat the nations of the earth (whether harshly, mercifully, favorably, etc.) each affirms that the Messiah’s function as Yahweh’s anointed one was to represent His kingdom and rule over all the ends of the earth.

For further evidence of this connection between Jesus’ Lordship, Messiahship, and resurrection there is Acts 2. Peter in the same speech in which he asserts the resurrection of Jesus as a validation of his Messiahship also asserts that Jesus is Kyrios, by virtue of his resurrection:

"This Jesus god raised up, and of that we are witnesses...Let all the house of Israel therefore know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified." Acts 2:32, 36

But we can penetrate back even further than the book of Acts for a connection between Jesus' lordship and his resurrection from the dead. There is an important passage that is generally acknowledged by scholars as containing an early baptismal creed formulated by the earliest church, namely, Rom 10:9. Here we find the most basic form of Christian proclamation: "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved." What this creed exhibits is that there exists a symbiotic relationship between confession of Jesus as Lord and the belief that God raised him from the dead. Indeed, you cannot have one without the other. The confession of Lordship and the inward belief of resurrection are integral to one another. The early believers could proclaim that "Jesus is Lord" precisely because "God had raised him from the dead."

In conclusion, the twin beliefs that Jesus' resurrection meant the beginning of the eschaton and the validation of his Messiahship ultimately gave birth to the notion that Jesus was now Lord. In the next post I will conclude with a brief discussion concerning why these initial implication were and are so important for us, who are decidedly removed some 2,000 years from these events, today.

Et Resurrexit: Initial Implications Part 2

2006-04-20T10:41:00.000-04:00

"when his disciples were confronted by the resurrection of Jesus, they no doubt also understood this as the beginning of the universal resurrection of the dead, as the beginning of the events of the end of history. " Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus-God and Man, p. 66. (emphasis added)

Pannenberg expresses in this passage the belief discussed in the previous post, namely, that the disciples upon encountering the resurrected Jesus would have understood this as meaning the general resurrection of the dead had begun. But more importantly, the beginning of the general resurrection would have further entailed that the eschaton had arrived.

Now I am not going to belabor this point since it has been made many times before. The notion that the primitive believers thought the end was just around the corner, or had occured is not a novel interpretation. There is plenty of evidence within the New Testament documents that suggest this. For a detailed study concerning this early primitive interpretation see especially Dale Allison's The End of the Ages Has Come: An Early Interpretation of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus. Allison convincingly exhibits how early interpretations of Jesus' resurrection first gave impetus to this pervasive belief in early Christianity that the eschaton had, at least in some sense, arrived.

In reality these two results of Jesus' resurrection should probably be integrated since the belief that the end had come (or was nigh) cannot be seperated from the belief that the general resurrection of the dead had begun. The former is a direct result of the latter. Thus the initial implication of Jesus resurrection as understood by the earliest followers would have been that since the general resurrection had started the end had either occured or was very soon about to take place. At any rate the transition between this age and the age to come began via Jesus' resurrection from the dead.

But apart from its ostensible eschatological meaning, the early believers would have viewed the resurrection of Jesus to signify something further: his vindication. Just days earlier Jesus had been condemned and crucified as a criminal under Roman law. His resurrection could only mean the reversal of the verdict previously placed on him. By raising him from the dead, God was declaring Jesus to be in the right, i.e. to be justified or as Karl Barth would put it, the "No!" uttered against Jesus had now been vanquished by God's "Yes!".

This also meant God's seal of approval on the itinerant ministry of Jesus. Everything that Jesus said and did throughout Galilee and Judea was in accordance with the will of God. Most importantly the resurrection involved the vindication of Jesus' Messiaship. Of course, some doubt that Jesus ever claimed this title for himself. This is not the time or place to enter into that discussion. Suffice it to say that since I'm dealing with the early believers' interpretation and not Jesus' own self-claims this is a moot point. What is clear is that the earliest followers of Jesus believed that he was the Jewish Messiah (most likely prior to the resurrection) even if they forced the title onto him. Thus the resurrection would have meant the vindication of this belief that Jesus was the Messiah, the long awaited King of the Jews.

Now when we combine these two initial insights that Jesus' resurrection meant the arrival of the eschaton and his vindication, especially concerning his Messiahship, we end up with one final initial implication which results directly from a synthesis of these two beliefs. This I will discuss in the next post.

Et Resurrexit: Initial Implications Part 1

2006-04-18T19:04:00.000-04:00

Within Second Temple Judaism you find the common hope for a future general resurrection of the dead. This belief was held by most Jews with the exception of the Sadduccean sect (whose ambitions were more political and this worldly). Though there was disagreement among the Jews as to specifics concerning the resurrection (would all be resurrected, or only the righteous? would each and every individual ethnic Jew be raised to everlasting life, or only those who obeyed the covenant? Will the Gentiles partake in the resurrection? Will there be a two stage resurrection? etc) of the dead, it was unanimously agreed that the event would take place at the "end" of the present age.

All the more striking then that the primitive believers would have begun to proclaim that the resurrection had happened to their leader who had just been condemned and crucified as a criminal. What then would it have meant initially to say that Jesus of Nazareth had been raised from the dead? It would have meant that the general resurrection of the dead had begun. If one man had been raised from the dead, then it was certainly about to occur for everyone else.

There are several indiciations of this in the New Testament that point to this initial belief. First, is Paul's description of the Risen Jesus as "the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep" (1 Cor 15:20). The first fruits were considered the best or main part of the crop in the OT. Dunn explains the significance of referring to Jesus' resurrection in this manner:

"The metaphor of first fruits dentoes the beginning of the harvest, more or less the first swing of the sickle. No interval is envisaged between the first fruits and the rest of the harvest. With the first fruits dedicated the harvest proceeds. The application of this metaphor to the resurrection of Jesus and the gift of the Spirit expresses the belief that with these events the eschatological harvest has begun; the resurrection of the dead has started..." (Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit, p 159.)

Jesus' resurrection by Paul was understood as the beginning of the harvest. And as Dunn points out, there was not understood to be an interval between the time of the first fruits and the subsequent harvest. Thus Paul's metaphor of the "first fruits" is best understood with the belief that Jesus' resurrection was thought to be part of the beginning of the general resurrection of the dead.

Secondly, the pre-Pauline formula embeded in Romans 1:1-4 when speaking of Jesus' resurrection says ex anastaseos nekron which literally translated is "from resurrection of the dead (ones)" instead of "his resurrection from the dead" which is how some scholars translate this phrase (e.g. Fitzmyer and Cranfield). But this is not what the Greek denotes and so I am inclined to agree with Kasemann, Dunn, Bultmann and others who translate the phrase literally. As Kasemann says this "hymnic tradition does not isolate Christ's resurrection, but views it in its cosmic function as the beginning of general resurrection" (p. 12). Thus in an early pre-Pauline formula we witness the same initial belief, namely, that Christ's resurrection from the dead means the beginning of the general resurrection of the dead and so the beginning of the end.

Finally, there is the strange account of the resurrection of some hoi hagioi (the holy ones) unique only to Matthew's gospel. The passage reads as follows:

"the earth shook, and the rocks were split; the tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many." (Mt. 27:51b-53)

This passage has puzzled scholars for decades. But the best explanation for it is that it expresses that same initial belief that Jesus' resurrection was the beginning of the general resurrection of the dead. Therefore, Matthew (or a pre-Matthean tradition) added this account to the Passion narrative in order to emphasize this point. Moreover, Dale Allison in his book The End of the Ages Has Come has convincingly shown the obvious literary parallels this passage has with Zech. 14:4-5 (LXX version) which was read as a prophecy of the general resurrection of the dead (p. 44). Allison concludes concerning this passage:

"The pre-Matthean and indeed primitive character of Matt. 27:51b-53 is suggested by the following consideration: the account falls in with what we otherwise know of primitve Christian eschatology. As the church moved away from its beginnings, Jesus' resurrection came to be viewed as an isolated event in history...in the earliest period his resurrection was more closely joined to thought of the general resurrection." (ibid)

Et Resurrexit: Prolegomena

2006-04-17T09:32:00.000-04:00

Easter Sunday was disappointing for me. Though my church sang some songs that mentioned an empty tomb and the "aliveness" of Jesus, there was an extreme lack of emphasis on the resurrection itself. Indeed, the sermon was not on the resurrection, but rather was an evangelistic message (since, naturally more people come to church on Easter Sunday, pastors want to take advantage of this "ripe" situation). Ironically, it was an evangelistic message that did not include the resurrection at all. I say ironically, since when you penetrate into the earliest Christian Kerygma (proclamation) it is saturated with the resurrection.

The few times my pastor did mention the resurrection it was with a typical apologetic thrust, "if you visit the tombs of all the other great religious figures, you won't find their bodies, but if you visit Jesus' tomb his body isn't there." Moreover, the resurrection's theological significance did not go any further than, "Jesus was raised so that you forgiveness could be ensured." Sometimes I think Christians affirm the resurrection simply so that they can sing songs that emphasize Jesus living within their hearts. (On this see further Michael Bird's delightful post on the resurrection)

Now this isn't just a problem with my church. Whenever I meet a fellow believer I almost always ask them about the resurrection and what it means for them. Their understanding rarely goes beyond the two meanings I just gave above. This is disheartening to me. At the ETS meeting in Atlanta a few years back I remember NT Wright commenting about how the resurrection is viewed within America as simply "God's last big magic trick to ensure that Jesus will live forever." This is indeed how many believers treat the resurrection, as simply the last super miracle that God does. They never go further and ask, "what does the resurrection mean?"

Unfortunately, many of our Christian philosophers and theologians have not mitigated this situation. Though I appreciate much of the apologetic work that philosophers like William Lane Craig, Gary Habermas, and others have done on the resurrection they fail to deliever what the implications for Jesus' resurrection would entail. Their main intention is, quite naturally, apologetic. However, in my opinion this is a narrow view of the resurrection. And though the theologians more often ask about the resurrection's significance, this usually does not journey beyond the resurrection as a pointer to Jesus' divinity. Furthermore, as Richard Gaffin and others have pointed out, the resurrection has been significantly downplayed in soteriology, often taking a back seat to theories on the atonement thus making the death the definitive moment in salvation history.

And so for the next series of posts I'm going to discuss briefly what the resurrection meant for the earliest believers and what it means for us today. This series will have three parts which will explore the resurrection's initial, theological, and practical implications. I obviously cannot hope to exhaustively cover the meaning of the resurrection in a series of blog posts. Nevertheless, I hope to provide a least a proper overview of what I understand the resurrection to signify. No doubt some of you will have additional insights on the resurrection and so I would greatly appreciate any feedback and/or criticisms you can supply.

Apologies

2006-04-16T21:47:00.000-04:00

Some things unexpectedly came up today and so I was unable to blog on the resurrection. Ironic, since my website is principally dedicated to the topic of resurrection and today is resurrection Sunday. Many apologies for this, but I intend for the remainder of the month, and possibly into May, to blog exclusively on some implications of the resurrection of Jesus beginning tomorrow. Till then may everyone have a blessed Resurrection Sunday as we pause to remember that our Lord has risen.

The Death of the Messiah

2006-04-14T18:27:00.000-04:00

This is the day that Christians traditionally celebrate the death of their Lord and Savior. As much as I rant and rave against those who tend to glorify the cross to the extent that they lose the resurrection of Christ, the death of Jesus is important for Christian theology. Indeed, the idea that Jesus' death was for sins is found early in the Christian tradition. Paul in 1 Cor. 15: 1ff tells the Corinthians that he passed onto them what was of first importance, namely, "that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures..."

It is amazing to me, that even before Paul (who speaks more than any other voice in the New Testament concerning what God did in Christ through his death on the cross) the theological interpretation of the Messiah's death as "for our sins" was already commonplace in the tradition. The death of Jesus was obviously very important early on for the nascent believing community. But let us not forget that the death is meaningless without the resurrection and that it is the latter which led to the subsequent theological interpretation of Jesus' death. But more on this Sunday.

Since I fear that any words I have to say about the death of Jesus would be inadequate (naturally, I'd much rather prefer to speak about the resurrection) I would direct those who are looking for such insight to Michael Bird at Euangelion and his great post in which he provides an excellent story that exemplifies the sacrifice involved in the concept of penal substitution. Well, until Sunday, may everyone have a blessed Good Friday and Sabbath.

From Solution to Plight: Part 2

2006-04-13T11:26:00.000-04:00

And now for part two of my series of posts on "From Solution to Plight."

There are a couple of reasons why I agree with Sanders that one should properly understand Paul's theology as proceeding from solution to plight. First, Paul's own testimony to his former life under the law in such places like Phillipians chapter 3 seems to throw in doubt the assertion that Paul before his "conversion" was undergoing an inner spiritual crisis concerning his Jewish faith:

"If any other man thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law a Pharisee, as to zeal a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law blameless." Phillipians 3:4-6 (RSV)

The attempt to appropriate Rom. 7: 13ff in support of a pre-Christian Paul under a state of torah-crisis is problematic espescially in light of Paul's testimony in the Phillipians passage just quoted. Indeed, the majority of commentators have abandoned the older view which interpreted this passage as an autobiographical portrait of Paul before his "conversion." Most now interpret the "I" in the passage as referring to humankind in general rather than to Paul specifically. Thus any attempt to construct a psychological analysis of Paul's pre-Christian condition under the law will forever be a fruitless and futile exercise.

Now, granted, one should be cautious of doing this type of exegetical analysis with the Phillipian passage. However, this passage seems clearer exegetically and much more "matter of fact" than the passage from Romans. With this passage it is at least uncontested that Paul is speaking about himself. If one is going to attempt a psychological analysis of Paul's pre-Christian condition, this passage certainly would be a better starting point than the exegetical nightmare of Rom. 7:13ff.

My other reason for thinking that Paul's thought runs from solution to plight mainly has to do with the content of his proclamation. But since that entails something I want to talk about on Sunday I'm going to wait until then for its discussion.

George Guthrie Interview

2006-04-12T13:35:00.000-04:00

Alan Bandy has been doing a series of very stimulating posts in which he has been interviewing various scholars on their views pertaining to "faith and secular based scholarship." He recently interviewed one of my professors from Union University, Dr. George Guthrie. Be sure to check out Dr. Guthrie's wise comments on this issue here. Thanks to Alan for the hard work on these posts and for inviting my professor to participate.

From Solution to Plight: Part 1

2006-04-11T20:12:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite books is without a doubt E.P. Sander's (in)famous Paul and Palestinian Judaism. However, it wasn't Sanders development of what he calls "covenantal nomism" (which he supported by an examination of various Rabbinic, Qumranic, Pseudepigraphical, and Deutero-Canonical literature) that fascinated me. This was largely due to the fact that before I read this book I was already well aquainted with the "new perspective" on Paul and Second Temple Judaism, having read NT Wright, Dunn, and others. But it was Sanders very brief discussion on Paul that really intrigued me.

Though I found myself disagreeing with Sanders at several points on Paul, there was one interpretation that I found very refreshing. Sanders notes that the traditional way of dealing with Paul's theology has been to start with the assumption that Paul was a deeply troubled Jew who saw mankind in a terrible plight and who additionally viewed the law as woefully inadequate to bring mankind out of this plight. And so Paul, undergoing a deep spiritual struggle, found the solution to his plight on the road to Damascus. This then influenced his theology so that, e.g., Romans begins with the plight of man and climaxes with its solution, namely Christ. To support this argument, the structure of Romans that I've noted and chapter 7 of the same epistle are utilized, with that chapter interpreted as being Paul's previous Jewish life in which he found that sin was an over powering force in his life and that the law could not bring him out of his situation.

But Sanders suggests otherwise:

"It appears that the conclusion that all the world-both Jew and Greek-equally stands in need of a saviour springs from the prior conviction that God had provided such a saviour. If he did so, it follows that such a saviour must have been needed, and then only consequently that all other possible ways of salvation are wrong. The point is made explicitly in Gal. 2.21: if righteousness could come through the law, Christ died in vain. The reasoning apparently is that Christ did not die in vain; he died and lived again 'that he might be Lord both of the dead and the living' (Rom 14.9) and so that 'whether we wake or sleep we might live with him' (1 Thess. 5.10). If his death was necessary for man's salvation, it follows that salvation cannot come in any other way and consequently that all were, prior to the death and resurrection, in need of a saviour." (p 443)

Thus Sanders flips the traditional interpretation and claims that Paul was working from solution to plight. I essentially agree with Sanders on this point and will provide some reasons for this in the next post.

Resurrection Misgivings

2006-04-09T15:27:00.000-04:00

My church for Palm Sunday did a musical drama which portrayed Jesus' passion week. The main act was, of course, the crucifixion scene. The scene, not unlike that in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, was drawn out and bloody. In contrast, the resurrection scene was quick and rather vague. I doubt that those who were not already acquainted with the gospel story would have even understood what had happened to Jesus in that scene. Like much of Christianity today, my church's play forced the resurrection of Jesus to the peripheral and made the cross the true center of the gospel.

But this should not be the case. The cross and the resurrection are integral to one another. The cross has no meaning apart from Christ's resurrection. Yes, it is true that Jesus death on the cross was for "our sins" (cf 1 Cor. 15:1, 2), but it is equally true that Jesus was "raised for our justification" (Rom 4:25). Too many believers today tend to glorify the cross to the extent that the resurrection becomes void of meaning. These believers serve and worship a crucified savior instead of the Risen Lord.

Guest Blog

2006-04-07T19:52:00.000-04:00

Ben Meyers at Faith and Theology asked me recently to guest post on the topic of Qumran and Predestination. You can read it here and here. Many thanks to Ben for allowing me to guest blog on his site. His is one of the best out there and never fails to deliever insightful thoughts.

Random Talk

2006-04-06T20:06:00.000-04:00

You'll have to forgive the light blogging this week. I've been buried in Ancient Near Eastern texts for my "Biblical Backgrounds" class. We are somewhat behind in the class so our work load was increased pretty substantially this week. But next week I am going to do a series of posts that will criticize some aspects of Luke Timothy Johnson's book on the historical Jesus that I just finished reading. My main critique will be on his understanding of the resurrection. Before I begin the posts I'm going to try to e-mail Dr. Johnson and present some questions to him. Hopefully, he will reply.

In the meantime I've made a few additions to the site. The first is my photo. I'm not exactly computer literate so it took some time for me to figure out how to finally upload one. The other additions I want to point out is the KC Hanson and Online Primary Texts links. These two sites have a plethora of information on pretty much anything having to do with the Ancient Mediterranean world and are loaded with primary and secondary material resources. So enjoy.

Pasolini's "The Gospel According to St. Matthew"

2006-04-03T20:36:00.000-04:00

I recently purchased Pasolini's great masterpiece The Gospel According to Saint Matthew. Though I haven't finished the movie, it is quickly becoming one of my favorite film adaptations of the gospel story. What I really like about this film is its portrayl of Jesus via only one of the gospels, that of Matthew. Too many Jesus' films take the route of many conservative scholars and attempt to harmonize the gospel story thereby eliminating the diversity inherent in the four different gospel accounts.

Watching Pasolini's movie brought into clearer perspective just how disjointed and seemingly unconnected some of the narratives are within the different gospels. At one point during the film I was reminded of something E.P. Sanders pointed out in his Jesus and Judaism. One of Sanders more controversial points was his insistence that the Pharisees were not a dominent group in Palestine, but were a small group located mostly in Judea. Furthermore, he viewed many of the debates between Jesus and the Pharisees as probably not authentic. Sanders explains why in the following:

"The extraordinary unrealistic settings of many of the conflict stories should be realized: Pharisees did not organize themselves into groups in the hope of catching someone transgressing (Mark 2:23f.), nor is it credible that scribes and Pharisees made a special trip to Galilee from Jerusalem to inspect Jesus' disciples' hands (Mark 7.1f). Surely stories such as these should not be read as describing actual debates between Jesus and others." (p. 265).

The forcefulness of this statement didn't really hit me at the time of reading it. But after watching Pasolini's film I now understand better what Sanders was getting at. In the film, when it comes to the scene where the disciples begin to pluck grain for themselves on the Sabbath, it follows Matthew's text (Matt 12ff) to an almost exact degree. As the disciples begin to pluck the grain, a Pharisee seems to come out of nowhere to condemn what they are doing. I was struck by the ridiculous nature of that scene because of the Pharisee's abrupt appearance. This immediately reminded me of this passage by Sanders and I quickly realized that he was right. Some of these debate settings are pretty absurd and probably didn't occur the way they are narrated. But it took seeing this worked out "visually" to help me perceive this. Such is the wonder of film I suppose.

At any rate for those of you who have not seen Pasolini's film, I highly recommend you get a copy of it. It stays truer to the story of Jesus better than many of the Jesus films made subsequent to it.

New Book Arrivals

2006-04-01T12:09:00.000-05:00

I just received four new books from Amazon. They are as follows:

The Case Against Q by Mark Goodacre.

Questioning Q: A Multidimensional Critique edited by Goodacre and Nicolas Perrin with a foreward by N.T. Wright

Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People by E.P. Sanders.

The Real Jesus: The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gosepls by Luke Timothy Johnson.

As you can tell, my frustration with certain scholarly treatments of "Q" has finally led me to read the definitive case(s) against its existence by Goodacre and others. I don't know if they'll be able to fully convince me of their case, but we shall see. In the meantime, as I am taking a break from Meier's momumental work on the Historical Jesus and have started reading Luke Timothy Johnson's short work. I'm already half way through with it and will give a review soon.

Also, I have just finished paying off my truck (what a relief!). Instead of saving that money this month like I probably ought to, I am debating on buying one of two things. Christian Books has a wonderful sale going on on both the entire set of the Early Church Fathers ($230 dollars for a 38 volume set!) and Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics (the entire 14 volume set for $360 dollars). The Church Dogmatics is unfortunately paperback, but I think that I could live with that. This is a tough decision. The easy solution would be to get both.

"You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk"

2006-03-30T20:10:00.000-05:00

I just became a member of Biblical Archaeology Society and one of the perks is that you, as a member, get access to their back issues of not just Biblical Archaeology Review, but Bible Review as well. And so I was looking at some back issues and found this very informative article. For those of you who have always been perplexed by this strange Israelite prohibition the article is here. Oh, and be sure to look at the interesting images too.