New Testament Intersections 6: Pesher Commentaries

Previous posts in this series include:

Most Apocrypha and Alexandrian Literature
Enochic Literature and 4QMMT
Covenant of Damascus
Community Rule
Qumran Hymns

The next installment of our run through intertestamental literature for its possible intersections with the New Testament leads us to the Habakkuk, Nahum, and Psalms commentaries at Qumran. Their principle intersection with the NT is their method of interpretation.

They are of immense value, however, in relation to the history of the Qumran community and the Essenes in general. They generally date to the first century BC and so were copied at Qumran. I locate them as sectarian documents of the Qumran community, therefore, and perhaps less documents of broader Essenism. The sense of Hab. and Nahum that the Kittim (Romans) have broad judgment on the wicked, without hardening into the view against them found in the War Scroll, speaks of a date somewhere around 60-50BC.

Habakkuk Commentary (4QHab)
Historical Data
1. Wicked Priest/Liar versus TR again (1, 2, 8, 9, 10); Wicked Priest (Jonathan Maccabeus) pursued the TR to the house of his exile on Day of Atonement (11); WP defiled temple (12)

2. TR called a priest (2)

3. Kittim=Romans (2), sacrifice to their standards (6)

4. Absalom=Pharisees? (5)

New Testament Intersections
1. Pesher method of interpretation quotes an OT Scripture and then applies it directly to the Qumran sect and its history is much like the way Matthew interprets OT Scripture in relation to the life of Jesus (e.g., Matt. 2:15), although Matthew does not format his interpretation in commentary form.

2. new covenant again (perhaps equated with Covenant of Damascus; 2)

3. Essenes as the elect (5)

4. Idea that they were in the final generation (7); judgment coming (13)

5. circumcise foreskin of heart (11)

Nahum Commentary (4Q169)
Historical Data
It mentions Demetrius III (1) and thus implies that the "seekers of smooth things" were the Pharisees who sided with Demetrius against the Hasmonean king-priest Alexander Janneus (103-76BC) around 88BC. Janneus, the "furious young lion" then crucified 800 Pharisees.

We also learn that "Ephraim" is symbolic for the Pharisees as well (2), as is "House of Separation" (4). "Manasseh" could refer to the Sadducees.

New Testament Intersections
same pesher method of interpretation

Psalms Commentary (4Q171)
Historical Data
1. Liar/Wicked Priest (Jonathan; 1, 2); tried to kill TR because he sent him a "law" (4; in ref. to 4QMMT?)

2. wicked of Ephraim and Manasseh (Pharisees and maybe Sadducees; 2)

3. TR a priest (2, 3)

New Testament Intersections
1. same pesher interpretive method

2. Belial again (2)

3. poor will inherit the world; cf. Matt. 5; Luke (3)

New Testament Intersections 5: Qumran Hymns

Previous posts in this series include:

Most Apocrypha and Alexandrian Literature
Enochic Literature and 4QMMT
Covenant of Damascus
Community Rule

Qumran Hymns
Some may come from the Teacher of Righteousness himself. Geza Vermes points to a comment in Philo's Contemplative Life that indicates hymns were sung after the exposition of Scripture. I am in my mind placing the core hymns between the founding of the Essenes around 150BC and the founding of Qumran around 100BC. For the numbering of the hymns, Vermes' number is first, followed by the older).

New Testament parallels
1. glory of Adam again (1/23)

2. the righteousness of God as God's righteousness again, cf. Rom. 1:17 (2/24; 4/21; 5/22; 12/7 TR; 15/11 TR; 21/17; 22/18)

3. the depravity of humanity, righteousness by grace alone cf. Rom. 3-4 (3/25*; 5/22; 12/7 TR; 16/12; 17/13; 18/14*; 23/19)

4. God's word does not return empty, cf. logos in NT (3/25)

5. Holy Spirit again (4/21; 5/22; 15/11 TR; 18/14; 23/19)

6. demand for subsequent moral perfection (4/21; 6/1)

7. the congregation, assembly (5/22; 12/7)

8. radical predestination (5/22*; 19/15); foreknowledge (6/1* TR)

9. Belial again (7/2; 10/5; 12/7)

10. Messiah as marvelous mighty counselor (9/4); 14/10? 18/14?

11. Law written on heart (12/7 TR)

12. mysteries again (12/7; 18/14; 21/17; 23/19)

13. possible references to resurrection (14/10 TR; 21/17*); imprisonment of dead spirits (18/14; 20/16); everlasting abode illumined with perfect light (24/25)

Historical data
1. possible reference to Pharisees as seekers of smooth things (6/1 TR; 8/3; 12/7 TR)

2. others seeking after Teacher of Righteousness (TR)'s life (7/2 TR); banishing him from the land (12/7 TR)

3. plant imagery (14/10 TR; 18/14)

New Testament Intersections 4: Community Rule

In three previous posts I have attempted to catalog intersections between Intertestamental literature and the New Testament, as well as some basics.

They are:
Most Apocrypha and Alexandrian Literature
Enochic Literature and 4QMMT
Covenant of Damascus

Here are some basics relating to the Community Rule (1QS) of the Dead Sea Scrolls:

Only known from Qumran:

Entry process
1. Examination (done yearly; 1QS 5)
2. One year trial (no communal meal)
3. Examination; property turned over
4. Additional year trial (no communal drink)
5. Examination; property absorbed

Structure

• Guardian (1QS 6)
• Council of Community (12 men and three priests; 1QS 7); at least one priest for 10 elders (1QS 6)
• Interpreter of the Law (1QS 6, 8)

Possible NT Intersections
1. Sons of light and sons of darkness (cf. 1 Thess. 5:5; e.g., 1QS 1)

2. Belial cont (1QS 1).

3. Emphasis on perfect living (1QS 1); holiness in an ethical sense (e.g., 1QS 5)

4. Everlasting fire (1QS 2, 4; cf. Matt. 5, 13, 25)

5. Spirit of holiness (1QS 3, 4; cf. Rom. 1:3); Holy Spirit (1QS 8)

6. Sanctification, cleansing of sin by way of baptism (1QS 3)

7. God’s predestination of all things (1QS 3; cf. Rom. 9)

8. Two spirits, vice list proceeding from spirit of falsehood (1QS 4; cf. Gal. 5:9-21); evil inclination cont. (1QS 5)

9. Glory of Adam again (1QS 4)

10. Communal meal and drink (1QS 6; cf. Lord’s supper)

11. Communal holding of property (1QS 6; cf. Acts 2); lying in regard to property very serious (cf. Acts 5)

12. Council a “precious corner stone” (1QS 8; cf. 1 Peter 2:6)

13. Community in wilderness to “prepare the way of the Lord” (1QS 8, 9; cf. John the Baptist)

14. The Way again (1QS 9)

15. Now dual messiahs, one of Judah (king) and one of Aaron (priest); also a Prophet mentioned (1QS 9)

16. Mysteries again (1QS 9)

17. Category of salvation (1QS 10)

18. Category of justification (1QS 3, 11)

19. Righteousness of God as God’s mercy to justify (1QS 11; cf. Rom. 1:17)

20. Flesh as metaphor for humanness/sinfulness (1QS 11)

New Testament Intersections 2: Covenant of Damascus

In an earlier post I went through the "Enochic" literature up to 4QMMT, a document that possibly stands at the very moment of the birth of the Essenes as a distinct sect.

Next I want to look at the Covenant of Damascus, both for clues to the history of the period and for possible intersections with early Christianity. I have not yet thought of significant parallels between the Temple Scroll and the New Testament, other than a general sense that the current temple in Jerusalem was not legitimate as it stood.

Covenant of Damascus
History of Movement (all in I.)
1. A plant sprang up 390 years after the Babylonian captivity--corresponds to the founding of the Hasidim? in the early 100s BC, as also mentioned in the Apocalypse of Weeks (ca. 170BC).

2. Wander for twenty years (ca. 170-150BC)--period of Hasidim involvement in Maccabean crisis

3. Teacher of Righteousness gives leadership to movement about 150BC, presumably when the Scoffer (Jonathan Maccabeus) assumed the role of high priest. The seekers of smooth things are probably the Pharisees, other Hasidim who sided with Jonathan over the Teacher (cf. CD VII).

4. Perhaps flees to Damascus with many Hasidim, where this covenant is formed. Not sure if we should take Damascus literally.

New Testament Intersections
1. The expectation that one would walk "in perfection"? (CD II), although it is hard to find any NT writings that use the word "perfection" in relation to holiness or ethical behavior in general

2. Mention of following "the way" in association with Damascus (CD II; Mark 1:3; Acts 9:2)--very interesting!

3. Talk of a "guilty inclination" (CD II; cf. James 1:14)

4. Mention of Holy Spirit (CD II)

5. Mystery of God's forgiveness (CD III; Rom. 11; Eph. 4)

6. glory of Adam (CD III; Rom. 3:23; Heb. 2:10)

7. elect within Israel (CD IV; Rom. 9)

8. Use of the word "Belial" for Satan (CD IV; cf. 2 Corinthians 6:15)

9. Mention of the tradition of Jannes and Jambres (CD V; cf. 2 Tim. 3:8)

10. Expectation of a king messiah (e.g., CD VII) who is also a priest messiah (e.g., CD B II)

11. A new covenant (e.g., CD VIII; 1 Cor. 11:25)

12. “angels of holiness in their midst” (CD XV); some say relevance to head coverings in 1 Corinthians 11 (Fitzmeyer), although I don't see it

13. Jesus counters the saying “You shall keep your vow” (Matt. 5) with you should not swear. This saying is mentioned as binding in CD XVI, making one wonder if Jesus and James are reacting to some overemphasis on vows?

14. The collective group is called the “assembly” (e.g., XII), which is ekklesia (church) in Greek.

Very interesting. Very difficult to know the weight of any one parallel. How widespread, for example, was using Belial for Satan? But the more "blips" on the parallel screen, the more likely we should see early Christianity at least partially growing out of Essene soil.

Berlin Wall... 20 years on

What a great day! It is amazing to look back and remember the thirty year or so stretch when East and West Germany were so separated. It is a stark testimony to the failure of twentieth century communism in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

The basic principles I take from this failed experiment are two-fold: 1) competition is key to human thriving and excellence and 2) the goal of making everything free is a phantom one. What you do with these two principles of course will have to face the complexities of reality. For example, it does not translate into unbridled capitalism, which arguably has its own set of failures, not least the economic crisis of these last year or the social plight of countless little people during the Industrial Revolution. Adam Smith meant for capitalism to empower the little person, not to create a new economic aristocracy.

We need objectivity seeking geniuses with strong human values to translate these principles into political reality. By "strong human values" I mean individuals who do not dismiss those who, when left to their own devices, will fail (everyone from the mentally challenged to some people who live near me). They are part of the social contract. By "objectivity seeking" I mean non-partisans, which would not include those economists for whom unbridled capitalism has become a religion to itself.

So I am not competent to judge whether the current "public option" under discussion is sound or not. I do suspect America should have one to cover everyone--as long as it does not sabotage true competition in the mainstream marketplace, and I realize that is a big "if" in the current discussion. And I am not opposed to, for lack of a better term, "welfare," as long as its primary goal is the empowerment or, frankly, placement of those who for whatever reason lack the ability or impetus to support themselves. Where to start on that one, I don't know.

I saw a well intentioned Christian video recently about how great it would be if everything were free. I don't even know if that principle will apply in the kingdom of God! For whatever reason, the vast majority of human beings do not seem to do anything noteworthy by their own impetus. Work and competition are who we are. It is hard to imagine anyone from eastern Europe or the former Soviet Union producing a video like that.

Communism simply does not work given human nature--at least most of our human natures.

Some New Testament Intersections 1

I was fascinated to see Geza Vermes, who is Jewish, use the language of the "intertestamental" period in his revised Dead Sea Scrolls Translated. Early Judaism would seem to be the more accepted term in neutral scholarship. But fascinatingly, he seems to be speaking of the years 160ish BC to AD70 or so, presumably because he considers Daniel to have been finished in the late 160s BC.

Thought I would gather some notes on important parallels between the next phase of my intertestamental class and the New Testament:

Book of the Watchers (ca. 200BC)

• Jude 14-15 of course quote 1 Enoch 1.
• Jude 6; 2 Peter 2:4; and 1 Peter 3:19-20 all seem to refer to the story of angels having sex with human women in 1 Enoch 6 and following, based on Genesis 6.
• first recorded journey apocalypse, which relates to revelation
• 1 Enoch 22 is perhaps the earliest differentiation of the dead in the underworld in Jewish literature.

Astronomical Book (ca. 200BC)

• no significant parallels

Aramaic Levi (ca. 200BC)

• perhaps earliest example of "testament" genre, begins to raise (along with 1 Enoch) the issue of pseudonymity, how it was understood in terms of genres of literature
• only in the most general way stands in the anti-current temple and need for legitimate priest tradition

Apocalypse of Weeks (ca. 170BC)

• excepting Daniel from discussion, oldest historical apocalypse
• only in the most general way stands in the "new age around the corner" tradition

Dream Visions (ca. 160BC)

• first real anticipation of a messianic figure around the corner in intertestamental literature
• continues sense of coming regathering of Israel from exile (or could be interpreted to mean general resurrection, but I go with the former)

Jubilees (ca. 150BC)

• "rewritten Scripture," illustrates the acceptability of recasting biblical stories sometimes in quite remarkable ways (e.g., Mastema rather than God tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac)
• 23:20 mentions returning Israel to "the way," meaning the way of righteousness (23:21).
• possible eternal existence of righteous spirits, but no resurrection (23:31)

4QMMT (ca. 150BC--"Some of the Works of the Law")

• Possibly sent from the founder of the Essenes, the Teacher of Righteousness, to Jonathan Maccabeus as he received the title of high priest in 152BC, possibly witnesses the origins of the name "Essene" as "doers" of the Law as one subset of the Hasidim coalesces around a disenfranchised priest descended from Zadok
• Provides important background to the phrase, "works of Law" in Galatians and Romans, where it relates directly to intra-Jewish squabbles over the particulars of keeping the Law, especially as the Law related to matters of purity, calendar, and so forth

more to come...

The Impact of Background Literature

I am teaching a course on "Intertestamental Literature" this semester. I do not believe you need to be able to read the New Testament in its historical context to read it as Christian Scripture and God's living word to believers today. But it seems impossible to understand what these books actually meant without some sense of this background.

Any curriculum that truly aims for its students to understand the Bible in context should significantly engage this material. It provides such depth of understanding, reveals our inconsistencies! It holds a mirror up to ourselves and exposes the extensiveness to which our varied Christian traditions control our interpretations. It is no surprise that John Piper discouraged engagement with this material in his debates with Tom Wright--it reveals the fact that Piper's Calvinist theology derives more from Reformation theology than from what the New Testament actually meant.

I'll leave it at that. Like I said, one can certainly use the Scriptures Christianly, as God's living word to believers today, without being able to read it in historical context. As long as one does this in a mature community of faith, you should not go wrong. The common Christian understanding of these texts is a stable and enduring understanding. But this reading, which we might call theological interpretation, does not change the actual meaning these texts had originally, which was largely a function of their ancient contexts. A Christian hermeneutic that cannot account for both is either not fully Christian (over-emphasis on the original meaning) or shallow (over-emphasis on the Christian understanding).

IMHO

The Future of Ministerial Vocation: Greg Jones

We were delighted to have Greg Jones, Dean of Duke Divinity School, and Dorothy Bass of Valparaiso on campus tonight to talk about the future of ministerial vocation. Russ Gunsalus, Acting Chief Operating Officer of our new seminary, gave an excellent response alongside Dr. Bass.

My take-away from Dr. Jones was:
1. Ministry is a calling, but not about personal therapy.
2. Ministry is a profession, but not a way to earn money.
3. Ministry is an office, not a chance for power.

There was much monkey imagery tonight. Dr. Jones about monkeys who learned not to reach for bananas, even long after they could. Dr. Bass' response suggested that we might be monkeys who help other monkeys come to piles of bananas. And Russ Gunsalus warned the students to be careful what monkeys they hang around and to break open the cage and go out and take the bananas to other monkeys.

I had another book idea tonight (happens regularly, usually with no issuance).

"Faith in a Mystery: Christian Faith in the 21st Century"
Chapter 1: Faith is a Disposition (including how we process experiences)
Chapter 2: Faith in the Word (dealing with faith in Christ, processing questions about the Bible)
Chapter 3: Faith in Creation (dealing with how we process questions about science, time, space)
Chapter 4: Faith in History (dealing with problem of evil, minority of Christian faith)
Chapter 5: Faith in Destiny (dealing with processing questions about soul, afterlife, psychology)
Chapter 6: Faith in Action (the positive impact of people of faith in the world)

Sunday Explanatory Notes: Hebrews 11:1-7

11:1-2 Now faith is the substance of things that are being hoped, proof of things that are not being seen, for in this, the elders were witnessed.
This is a description of one kind of faith rather than a definition, and it comes in the context of the previous verses. The author has been urging that the audience not shrink back, but press on and attain, that the audience be faithful and endure on. The audience hopes for Christ's return. The audience hopes for the whole world to be set straight.

These are not things they have today, but faith that they will happen in the future gives substance to them today. They do not see these things today, but faith that they will happen gives evidence or proof of them today. The faith to which the author refers here thus relates to the future. Faith affords endurance today because of what is believed in relation to tomorrow.

The "elders" surely refers to all the "heroes of faith," the example list that follows. These "Old Testament saints" were all witnessed to have faith. The author thus wishes to encourage the audience to continue in faith, to endure, like the myriad individuals that follow. They will see that they are in good company.

11:3 By faith we understand the aeons to have been knit together by the [spoken] word of God, with the implication that what is being seen has not come to be out of things that are [currently] visible.
The first example of faith differs from those that follow in that it does not mention some Old Testament individual but rather invokes the creation in Genesis 1 itself. We have only translated aion as "aeon" to point out that the word is somewhat unusual. "Worlds" is the common translation. We have not used it here so that we do not think of planets, solar systems, or galaxies. Aeons in Hebrews might refer to the layers of sky that Jesus passed through on route to the highest heaven (e.g., 4:14; 7:26), the created skies as opposed to the eternal sky or heaven, in addition to the earth below.

The word of God here is not logos but hrema, so we should be cautious of bringing John 1 or Christ into view here. Given the author's proximity to some Alexandrian imagery, it is interesting to say the least that he avoids logos here. God rather than Jesus is the creator here.

It is not at all clear that this verse pictures ex nihilo creation. It simply says that the materials that God used to "knit" the world together, like mending a net, are not materials that are currently visible. He thus did not make the world out of earth, air, fire, and water.

The point is that God is quite adept at making things that are not currently apparent. Thus they can be confident that the things on which they have set their hopes will materialize, even though they do not currenly see them. If the audience believed that God created the visible world out of a pre-existing chaos, as was the common belief of the day, then the illustration would be all the more poignant. Although things do not look orderly or manageable today--things look formless and void--God is quite good at creating order out of chaos.

11:4 By faith Abel offered to God a greater sacrifice than Cain, through which he was witnessed to be righteous, God Himself witnessing by way of the gifts, and through it, he still is speaking, although he died.
If the invocation of creation implied that the audience should have faith and endure, mention of Abel's faith reinforces the audience's faith in Christ's atonement. The verse is too allusive for us to know the answers to the questions we have about the nature of each sacrifice. The author merely builds on the fact that Abel's sacrifice was better than Cain's and was accepted. Similarly, the audience should have faith in the greater, more perfect, and indeed effective sacrifice of Jesus over and against the Levitical sacrifices. This is the path to justification, to be deemed "righteous," faith in the faithful death of Jesus Christ.

As a part of Scripture, Abel continues to speak of faith through the biblical text. He is a witness to faith that the audience should listen to. And if any Christians had been martyred prior to the time of writing, they were also still speaking to the audience, even though they might have died. Literal faith in life after death may also be implied as well.

11:5-6 By faith Enoch was taken so that [he] did not see death, and "he was not found because God took him." For before his taking, it has been witnessed [that he] "pleased God." But without faith it is impossible to please [Him], for it is necessary for the one who is approaching God to believe that He is and [that He] becomes a rewarder to those who seek Him.
The nature of Enoch's faith is not set out. Perhaps the image invokes the possibility that the audience might not have to face death in persecution. If Abel died because of his faithfulness, Enoch did not because of his. The chapter both reinforces faith to the point of death, while also giving hope that a person might not see death if they continue in faith.

In either case, faith is necessary for justification, for "pleasing God." In particular, Hebrews mentions the conviction that God exists, meaning the God of Israel, and faith in the things hoped for, namely, that God is going to come through on His promises. If the audience does not continue in faith in things currently not seen, they do not have faith that God "rewards those who seek Him." In that case they should not expect to receive the promise.

11:7 By faith Noah, when he was warned about things not yet being seen, he contructed a ship for the salvation of his household because he had a godly fear, through which he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness according to faith.
Thus far we have seen overtones of faith to endure in the midst of persecution (creation from chaos, Enoch) and faith in Christ's sacrifice (Abel). Noah adds another example to the first category. Noah did not see the salvation God had promised for a long time before it materialized. He nevertheless endured in faith. He constructed an ark of salvation for his household. He demonstrated reverent fear, as Jesus did in 5:7 and was resurrected in consequence.

The audience can also be a witness to the condemnation of the world that disobeys and resists God. Their faith makes them an heir of justification. They will be declared righteous, like Abel, on the Day of Judgment if they continue in faith despite the torrent that looks to beat against them in the days ahead.

"God said it; I interpreted it" T-Shirt

James McGrath mentions it, but it is originally here. It's probably not funny if you've never studied the Bible formally. If you have, it's pretty hilarious:

God said it.
I interpreted it
as best I could in light of all the filters
imposed by my upbringing and culture,
which I try to control for but you can never do a perfect job.

That doesn't exactly settle it
but it does give me enough of a platform
to base my values and decisions on.

Saturday Philo: De Agricultura 1-10

It is now the season when scholars go out to war. Well, actually, it's all very civilized, to be honest. November is the annual pilgrimage to the biblical guild's Mecca, otherwise known as SBL, the Society of Biblical Literature. Liberal, conservative, mainstream scholar, they're all there. The Evangelical Theological Society and Institute for Biblical Research, two related conservative organizations usually meet right before.

I'm giving a paper on the intersection of Acts 7 and Hebrews (surprise), but I also have a little work to do this next month or so on Philo (not giving a paper). I'd like to take Saturdays to read through Philo's De Agricultura, which is the Philo Group's commentary focus this year at SBL, and to begin reading through the new Cambridge Companion to Philo edited by Adam Kamesar of Hebrew Union. It is much like the volume I did on Philo 5 years ago, except it's written by Philo scholars :-)

So my first post today on Philo (I hope it's only the first) is to copy (mostly) the first ten "sentences" or so of De Agricultura from the Loeb. "On Husbandry" is in the most advanced of Philo's three commentary series, The Allegorical Commentary. It is an allegorical interpretation of Genesis 9:20. Even copying the Loeb will help me get into it. I may translate some.
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1 "And the man Noah began to be a farmer of land, and he planted a vineyard and he was drinking wine and he was drunk in his house."

The majority of people, since they do not know the natures of things, go wrong (hamartano) also of necessity in relation to the conferring of names. For things that are well considered and subjected as it were to dissection have appropriate designations attached to them in consequence; while others having been presented in a confused state receive names that are not thoroughly accurate.
_________
Philo thinks there is a correspondence between the name a thing should have and what it is--obviously he hadn't read de Saussure. The word "sin" here simply means they make a mistake. I hate to say it (and it means nothing), but "miss the mark" would fit the translation here.
_________
2 Now Moses, being abundantly equipped with the knowledge that has to do with things, is in the habit of using names that are perfectly apt and expressive. We shall find the assurance just given made good in many parts of the lawgiving, not least in the section before us in which the righteous Noah is introduced as a farmer.
_________
Notice that different people have different standards of "inerrancy" in different times and places. For Philo, the names of the Pentateuch have precisely accurate allegorical meanings.
_________
3 Would not anyone who answers questions offhand think that farming and working on the soil were the same things, although in reality they not only are not the same things, but are ideas utterly at variance with each other and mutually repugnant?
_________
Wait for it, the explanation cometh.
_________
4 For a person is able, even without knowledge, to work at the care of the soil. But it is guaranteed that a farmer will not be an unprofessional but a skilled worker with this very name, which he has gained from the science of farming, the science whose title he bears.

5 In addition to this there is the further point to be considered, that the worker on the soil as a rule is a wage-earner, and as such has only one goal in view: his wages. He cares nothing at all about doing his work well. By contrast, the farmer would be willing not only to put into the undertaking much of his private property but to spend a further amount drawn from his household budget, to do the farm good and to escape blame by those who have seen it. For regardless of gain from any other source, he desires only to see the crops that he has grown yield plentifully year by year, and to take up their produce.

6. This person will be anxious to bring under cultivation the trees that were wild before, to improve by careful treatment those already under cultivation, to check by pruning those that are over-luxuriant because of excess nourishment, to given more scope to those that have been curtailed and kept back, splicing on new growths to stem or branch. When trees of good kinds throw out abundant tendrils, he will like to train them under ground in shallow trenches, and to improve...

sorry, too boring to keep copying

... The same thing happens, I might add, in the case of people, when adopted sons become congenial to those who by birth are alien to them and become firmly fitted into the family, because of their natural good qualities.

7 To return to our subject. The farmer will pull up by the roots and throw away quantitites of trees on which the shoots ... have lost their fertility... The science, then, that has to do with growths that spring out of the earth is of the kind I have described. Let us consider in its turn the farming of the soul.

II.
8 First, then, farming has as its aim not to sow or plant anything that will not yield fruit, only things that are fit for cultivation and bearing fruit, indeed, likely to yield yearly tributes to mortals, its prince. For humanity did nature appoint to be ruler of all trees as well as of the living creatures besides themselves who are mortal.
________
Here we have the theology of Psalm 8 at work, which we also find in the inner logic of Paul and Hebrews. Philo of course is not much of a Psalms man. His proto-canon is the Pentateuch, and a few other OT books are somewhat deuterocanonical (e.g., Jeremiah). This is to be expected, I suspect, of someone from the Diaspora. Nothing like our current canon was in place when the Jews scattered.
________
9 But who else could the human in each of us be if not our mind, whose place it is to reap the benefits derived from all that has been sown or planted? But seeing that for babies, milk is food, but for grown people wheat bread, there must also be soul-nourishment, such as is milk-like for those in "childhood"--when the mind is in the stage of the preliminary stages of the encyclia (school curriculum)--as well as food suitable for adults in the shape of instructions leading the way through wisdom and self-control and all virtue. For when these are sown and planted in the mind, they will produce the most beneficial fruits, namely fair and praiseworthy conduct.
________
"Vintage" Philo. Notice the commonplace of milk and grown up food that we find not only in the New Testament (e.g., Paul, Hebrews), but in the secular philosophical literature of the day as well.
________
10 By means of this farming, whatever trees of passions or vices have sprung up and grown tall, bearing mischief-dealing fruits, are cut down and cleared away, no minute portion even being allowed to survive, as the germ of new growths of sins (harmartema) to spring up later on.
________
Parallels in James, 1 Peter, and Paul.

The Mystery--Final Answer

Well, here's what I finally came up with:
__________
What is the Mystery?

One of the key themes of the letter we call Ephesians is the unity of the church, particularly as it relates to Jews and non-Jews, or Gentiles. Both Jew and Gentile belong to the same body and have the same Spirit (4:4). They have the same God and Father, the same Lord, faith, and baptism (4:5-6). Ephesians highlights the social unity between Jew and Gentile more than any other book in the New Testament.

A Mystery
Ephesians also reflects how unexpected this development must have been for the early Christians. We have hints of the mysteriousness of this new phase in God’s relationship with the world in earlier letters of Paul. Romans 11 talks about the mystery in slightly different terms. In Romans 11:25 Paul is dealing with the strange situation of his day in which as many or, probably, more Gentiles had come to believe that Jesus was the Lord of the world than Jews.

How strange, Paul recognizes, that fewer among God’s own people believed in their messiah than those outside! Here is the mystery, Paul says, “Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in” (Rom. 11:25). Why it happened this way we do not know. Paul can only exclaim, “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments” (11:33).

By the time of Colossians, the mystery is discussed in more generic terms. Addressing a Gentile audience, Colossians says that the mystery is “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). Glory is something Paul taught was the destiny of all believers. As Hebrews tells us more explicitly, God had created humanity to be crowned with glory and honor over the creation (Heb. 2:7). Unfortunately, all have sinned and are lacking the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). At present we do not yet see humanity with this glory (Heb. 2:8). So Jesus came to lead many sons to glory (Heb. 2:10). This “hope of glory” in Colossians is now something that Gentiles as well as Jews can hope for because of Christ.

Ephesians finally expresses this mystery even more straightforwardly than Colossians. The mystery is plainly stated in 3:6 as being the fact “that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.” This is the “mystery of Christ” (3:4), a mystery that “through his blood” the Gentiles have been brought near (2:13). “In his flesh,” Christ abolished the Law, the dividing wall of hostility that had separated Gentile from Jew, and the two were now reconciled “through the cross” (2:16).

Ephesians uses language here that is different and starker than Romans. For example, Romans 3:31 emphasizes that justification by faith—being considered right with God because of our trust in what he has done for us through Christ—does not “nullify the law.” Paul uses the word law in different ways that can be confusing, but the later distinction Christians made between the “moral” parts of the Jewish Law (like the Ten Commandments) and the “Jew-specific” parts (like circumcision or not eating pork) gets at the gist of what was not nullified (the “moral” parts) and what was abolished, at least in terms of Gentiles (namely, the Jew-specific parts).

That God would do so was a mystery. The Old Testament assumes throughout that God has a special relationship with Israel and that Israel’s blessing was connected to its keeping of the particulars of the Jewish Law, God’s covenant with Israel (cf. Deut. 28). Provision is made for the “alien” in the land (e.g., Deut. 10:19), but the Old Testament as a whole assumes that those outside Israel worship other gods and are almost always God’s enemies destined for judgment. It may be said to Abraham that all nations on earth would be blessed through him (e.g., Gen. 22:18). But prior to Christ that blessing was understood to come through Israel, not directly to the Gentiles the same as to Israel!

A New Revelation
A feature of Ephesians and Colossians (as well as of Romans 16:25, which probably was not part of the original copy of Romans, but nevertheless was added to many copies of Romans very early on) is a sense that this mystery of the equal inclusion of Gentiles alongside Jews “was not made known to men in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God’s holy apostles and prophets” (Eph. 3:5). Colossians 1:26 says that this mystery, “has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints.” In a similar vein, the later ending of Romans says that this mystery was “hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all nations might believe and obey him” (Rom. 16:25-26).

These passages reflect how unexpected this development must have been to the earliest Christians, including Paul. Indeed, we remember that before Christ appeared directly to Paul, he thought the very idea that the messiah would die on a cross was foolish, probably fighting words! He was a Pharisee, a group that emphasized separating yourself to God by living a particularly pure life (by the standards of the Jewish Law). What an unexpected turn around for him, now to think that God would include the Gentiles apart from the Law through the reconciling blood of Christ, Gentiles who almost by definition were unclean according to the laws of Leviticus! But it was Jesus who set this trajectory by trying to redeem sinners within Israel like prostitutes and tax collectors. To see Christ’s blood potentially redeeming the whole world, even non-Jews, thus fit the spirit of Jesus’ mission while he was on earth.

The Consensus of the Saints
We have the great benefit of hindsight on these sorts of things. Paul’s writings and Acts give us hints that the full inclusion of the Gentiles was not immediately obvious to everyone in the early church. Arguments along these lines dominate Paul’s letters to the Galatians and Romans and we find hints in Acts 15 and 21 of how live these issues were even within a decade of Paul’s death. But Ephesians and Colossians do not blink to tell us that the apostles and prophets had come to recognize this mystery (Eph. 3:5). Prophets here does not likely refer to the Old Testament prophets but to prophets within the early church. The implication would seem to be that, whatever struggles the earliest Christians might have had in coming to accept this mystery, by the time of the apostles’ deaths and the passing of the first generation, it was agreed that God had done something very unexpected from a Jewish standpoint. Through the atoning death of Jesus Christ, all people now had equal access to God, whether Jew or Gentile.

CT: Not All Evangelicals and Catholics Together

I found this piece sad. About half an InterVarsity college fellowship left because the national InterVarsity organization was talking too friendly-like to Roman Catholics. Say what you like about whatever baggage you think the Wesleyan-Methodist tradition has, but at least it doesn't have these issues.

One of the strangest things is that N. T. Wright is somehow invoked as pushing people catholic. The man has Reformed, evangelical Anglican written all over him. And they say this because he speaks positively about works in salvation, worships in a liturgical church, and has an emphasis on social justice. The first and last are thoroughly biblical. The second is not unbiblical and has much to commend it if one participates in liturgy with intentionality.

Thankfully this article seems so very far away from my life...

What is the Mystery of Ephesians 3?

I have a small writing assignment due Friday, thought I'd take some notes here.

First, it's pretty clear that the mystery of Ephesians 3:5 is "that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise of Christ Jesus." This is the "mystery of Christ" (3:4), meaning the mystery that "through his blood" (2:13) the Gentiles have been brought near. "In his flesh" (2:15) Christ has abolished the Law, the dividing wall of hostility that separated Gentile from Jew, reconciled "through the cross" (2:16).

Colossians has a similar passage, as it does to a great deal of Ephesians. Colossians 1:27 says the mystery is "Christ in you, the hope of glory," where the "you" in question are the Gentiles. The mystery in Colossians is thus again that the Gentiles can have hope of glory, can have Christ in them.

The mystery in Romans 11:25 is a little different. There the mystery does indeed involve the inclusion of the Gentiles, but the mystery does not seem to be so much that the Gentiles are coming in but that Israel is experiencing a hardening until the full number of the Gentiles come. This is thus yet another point at which Ephesians and in this case Colossians as well differ somewhat from Paul's earlier letters.

The mystery in Romans 16:25 is more like Ephesians but, in my opinion, was not part of the original text of Romans.

A feature of Ephesians and Colossians, as well as the addition to Romans 16, is the sense that this mystery was "not made known ... in other generations as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God's holy apostles and prophets" (Eph. 3:5). Colossians 1:26 says that this mystery "has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints." The ending of Romans says that the mystery was "hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God" (Rom. 16:25-26).

What these passages reflect is how unexpected it was that the Gentiles would be brought together with the Jews into one body through Christ on more or less equal footing. In Ephesians, this equal reconciliation includes the abolishment of the Law (2:16), clearly unexpected from an Old Testament standpoint. Paul's sense of mystery in Romans 11, although slightly different from Ephesians, relates to how strange it is that the Gentiles seem more receptive to the gospel than the Jews at large. Strange, since Jesus is the Jewish messiah! It is at least possible that Ephesians' more generic mystery of the Gentiles' inclusion may also reflect somewhere in the background the strange fact that Christianity was becoming a religion for Gentiles as much as Jews.

The revelation of this new understanding was a feature of the earliest Christian apostles and prophets (Eph. 3:5), of the Christian saints (Col. 1:26), and of the "prophetic writings" (Rom. 16:26). The implication would seem to be that individuals prior to the Christian era did not see the inclusion of the Gentiles in the words of the Old Testament. Rather, this was a spiritual understanding of the biblical texts understood as prophecy, one that was unknown prior to Christ.

It is interesting that this mystery is known here not just to Paul, but to the "apostles and prophets" of the Church, whom Paul earlier in chapter 2 has called the foundation of the Church. In Paul's earlier writings, we do not necessarily get the impression that the other apostles were fully comfortable with his mission to the Gentiles. But the implication of Ephesians 3 would seem to be that, whenever the foundation was understood to be laid, the apostles in general, as well as that significant company of early Christian prophets, were understood to endorce the Gentiles' inclusion.

So there are some notes...

Spock was right... mostly

A reading group on campus is reading a book on How God Changes Your Brain. It's not written from a Christian perspective but has significant data from the neurosciences that Christians will either need to incorporate or respond to.

I'm just dropping in on the group today; I haven't read the whole book. But one thing that stuck out to me in the chapter I read is the fact that the authors claim that the limbic system in the center of the brain is more primitive and older from an evolutionary standpoint. It is where primal emotions like anger, aggression, and fear are seated. By contrast, the frontal lobes and the anterior cingulate just below it are considered younger from an evolutionary standpoint and are the places where empathy, reason, logic, and compassion reside.

The chapter likens these two parts of the brain--the inner primal and the front outer rational--to two wolves that fight inside of us. Which one wins depends on which one you feed. This description is of course ripe with theological parallel--flesh versus Spirit, the yetzer hara or evil inclination of rabbinic Judaism, the id versus the superego of Freud.

But one of the most interesting things in the chapter (7) was the sense that the emotions of anger and fear actually inhibit good thinking. Such negative emotions can apparently even damage the anterior cingulate. So Spock and the Stoics were half right. The negative emotions of anger and fear do apparently impair our ability to reason well. But they were wrong to try to do away with all emotion. Apparently compassion and empathy can coincide with good thinking.

P.S. Note the implication for the general accuracy of Rush Limbaugh's thinking... and me when I'm on one of my rants ;-)

P.S.S. I'm not sure what "good thinking" means in terms of the frontal lobes. Time to finish reading Philosophy in the Flesh.

Happy Entrails...

I was looking this morning at a Greek word in 1 Peter 3:8--eusplanchnos. You've heard of "happy trails"? I think a fine translation of this word would be "happly entrails." :-)

Seminary Feature of the Week: Charles Arn

Here's the scoop.

Biblical Theology and Pornography?

I have yet to add some OT and NT Theology resources, but this is a draft of a sample I am producing for MDIV students. As part of every seminary praxis course, students do some phase of research toward a single pastoral issue of their choice almost every week of the course. In the first seven weeks they interpret a wide spectrum of biblical passages in their original context. This sample then relates to Week 8 of each course, where they try to systematize a biblical theology.

Here is my unfinished sample:
___________
I. Old Testament Theology

Old Testament sexual ethics seem to fall into two broad categories: prohibitions relating to social consequences and prohibitions relating to purity consequences. Both of these are decidedly external in orientation, which is to say, Old Testament sexual ethics are primarily oriented around concrete actions and concrete consequences. As such, Old Testament texts assume without question that an individual can in fact keep such prohibitions, and the consequences of such actions are relatively straightforward, often even perfunctory.

Social Consequences
The primary sexual prohibition in the Old Testament in this regard is against adultery. Various rationale are given by Old Testament scholars, including calling into question who inherits property (Goodfriend), disgrace to a man and his family (Whybray), violation of another man’s property, etc. Disgrace and dishonor to one’s self and one’s family would seem to stand at the heart of prohibitions against prostitution. The shame did not, however, seem to apply primarily to the man visiting to the prostitute but to the person doing the prostitution (Tamar, Lev. 19:29).

The idea that a man might not be able to avoid committing adultery—or any of the sexual taboos of the Pentateuch—is completely foreign to the legislation. And interesting picture into intentionality is the legislation of Deuteronomy 22:23-27. Here if a woman is betrothed to another and a man lies with her, the consequences for her depend on whether she is thought to have cried out for help. If she is thought to have cried out for help, only the man is stoned. If it is thought that she did not cry out, then only the man is put to death.

Purity Consequences
The “holiness” legislation of the Pentateuch assumes that sexual sins bring impurity because they violate the order of things. One cannot “uncover the nakedness” of a close relative by sleeping with his wife, nor can one sleep with an animal or a man with another man without violating the order of things. The impurity such actions bring is greater than other actions that bring impurity, and death is the usual punishment.

In general, matters of impurity often seem to supersede even intentionality. That is to say, not only is unintentional defilement not a legitimate excuse for sin, but impurity with its consequences take place regardless of intent. In the case of sexual defilement, however, we seem to find the same assumption that a person might avoid such sin.

Divine Implications
By and large, the Old Testament does not theologize in relation to sexual sin. In the Ten Commandments, all the commandments are part of the covenant with the LORD. Accordingly, there is a general connection between sexual prohibition and Israel’s relationship with God. But the Old Testament does not “psychologize” this relationship in terms of psychological impact on a person. Similarly, the Old Testament does not individualize these prohibitions in the sense of a “personal relationship” with God—the focus is much more on Israel’s relationship as a whole with God and whether or not one should be included within Israel. Sexual ethics are thus a “package deal,” part of the overall social and purity expectations of Israel, even though sexual sin is considered more “dangerous” and potentially defiling to Israel than some others.

The passage in Genesis 2:24 about a man leaving father and mother and becoming one flesh with his wife is never referenced again in the rest of the Old Testament. Its significance derives from the New Testament use of it rather than from its prominence in Old Testament theology per se. In Genesis it is an expression and description of how ancient society actually functioned rather than a prescription Genesis was urging on its audience. What is distinctive about the Genesis passage is the story of Adam and Eve as an etiology or “origin story” of marriage as it was practiced at the time.

II. New Testament Developments
Continuity
Unlike some other areas (e.g., Sabbath observance; sacrificial law), we cannot find any instance in the New Testament where a sexual prohibition from the Old Testament is countermanded. Indeed, on the subject of divorce, the New Testament actually makes a prohibition where the Old Testament had little. Adultery remains sinful behavior from which the New Testament fully expects a person to abstain. 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 baldly state that individuals such as adulterers, those who practice homosexual sex, or those who commit other forms of sexual immorality “will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Since Paul is addressing Christians, he clearly implies that Christians cannot participate in such activities and be “saved” in the end.

In fact, like the Old Testament, Paul seems to consider the significance and consequences of sexual sin among Christians greater than other sins, simply given the way he responds to them. He may address issues like disunity and in-fighting more often than sexual sins, but he does not generally urge expulsion from the community in such cases. Yet when a man was sleeping with his step-mother in 1 Corinthians 5, he insists that the individual in question be handed over to Satan (5:5). Visiting a prostitute similarly defiles the body of Christ by joining Christ to the kingdom of Satan (1 Cor. 6:15-20).

Our study has shown consistently that Paul did not expect sinful behavior to typify the life of a believer. This notion is largely built off of a misinterpretation of Romans 7 ripped from its overall context in Romans 6-8. Nor in Philippians 3 does Paul forget is sinful failures from the past but what from a human perspective would be human accomplishments. James 3:2 recognizes the fact that we will always make mistakes, even mistakes that wrong others, and 1 John 1:8 and Romans 3:23 make it clear that no human is without sin in general. But the consistent testimony of the New Testament is that intentional, concrete sin can be avoided, indeed that God enables individuals to escape such temptation (1 Cor. 10:13).

Extension
The main development in the New Testament on this topic has to do with the movement toward interiority. The Old Testament legislation on sexual ethics is almost entirely, perhaps entirely directed toward concrete action. The Jesus tradition, particularly that of Matthew 5, moves the issue decidedly toward interior intent, in addition to the remaining concrete prohibitions. To be sure, Matthew 5 does not seem to be talking about passing thoughts but, more likely, internal acts of will, decisive intent such that, given an opportunity without consequence, one would commit the act. The fundamental principles involved would seem to be that 1) action is a function of heart and 2) the ultimate orientation of the heart must be toward love of one’s neighbor and, indeed, one’s enemy.

Another key expansion of at least some of the New Testament is the growing consideration of the woman. In the Old Testament, adultery is an offense against a man, not a woman. A man who visits a prostitute was not understood to commit adultery. An exception appears in Malachi 2:13-15, where the LORD laments that Israelite men were abandoning the wife of their youth, although even here a concern for marrying foreign wives may stand in the background (cf. Mal. 2:11, 15).

Jesus’ teaching on divorce seems to follow in the tradition of Malachi and seems to give such a strong prohibition of divorce that takes the woman into consideration. Matthew 5 treats divorce immediately after adultery and introduces the subject in a way that may imply it is an extension of the discussion of adultery. If so, divorce becomes a kind of legalized way of committing adultery.

III. The Trajectory of the Kingdom
In general, the two Jesus principles we mentioned above tend to radicalize the issue of sexual ethics. On the one hand, the fundamental ethic to “love neighbor and enemy as self” sets sexual ethics on a radical trajectory of consideration toward others. Then the principle that virtue is a matter of the heart first also radically changes the ethical equation.

With regard to pornography, we are dealing with concrete acts. One takes external action to surf the web or seek out pornographic materials. We will need to consider questions of addiction later in our study to be sure, but we are left with no question but that a person in normal human terms can choose to get rid of such materials or set safeguards in place such that any act toward pornography is avoidable. We find no biblical support for any sense that a person of a normal human state of mind cannot help but view something like pornography.

The question of loving one’s neighbor primarily puts pornography into violation of one’s spouse if married. The question of the heart raises an equally serious issue, can one’s heart be disposed lovingly toward the opposite sex while viewing pornography? Does the use of pornography in some way involve the cheapening of the opposite sex as an object of desire? These are questions for further study.

Sunday Explanatory Notes: Hebrews 10:19-39

10:19-21 Having therefore, brothers, boldness for entrance of the Holies by the blood of Jesus, which he opened for us [as] a new and living way through the veil, that is, his flesh and [having] a great priest over the house of God,
The "therefore" of this verse transitions from a rather long argument about Christ's high priesthood and the atoning effectiveness of his death to the practical implications. Depending on whether one sees the argument beginning at 3:1 or 4:14, we have six or seven chapters dedicated to the subject. 10:19-25 thus both give the immediate take away from that argument while introducing the exhortations of 10:19-12:29.

10:19-25 is directly parallel to 4:14-16, although it is not an inclusio because 10:19-25 does not end the section 10:19-25 begins. The heart of the parallel is between 4:14 and 10:23--"let us hold fast the confession"--as well as between 4:16 and 10:22--"let us approach." The effect of 10:19-21 is to give the reasons to do so. The participles are causal and we might translate them as "since we have" confidence in Jesus' blood and "since we have" a great priest, we should hold fast our confession.

Entrance to the Holies, the Most Holy Place or the Holy of Holies, is of course the metaphor the author has been using of Christ's ascension to heaven. Now he applies it to the audience. They can now enter into the Most Holy Place as well. While previously only the high priest could do so once a year, they now have access to God's presence, the highest heaven and God's throne room, through the blood of Jesus. The author seems to be thinking of present spiritual access, through Christ who intercedes at God's right hand (4:15-16).

Scholars have long debated whether the veil in 10:20 is Christ's flesh or something else. Grammatically, the most natural way to take the statement is that Christ's flesh is like a veil through which we pass into God's presence. Others have found this imagery inappropriate, thinking it pictures Christ's flesh as something that hides or veils and thus having a negative sense of physicality. They opt for his flesh being the "new and living way." Perhaps in the author's mind there would not be a great difference between the two and, in any case, grammatically and following the author's use of "that is" elsewhere, we should go with Christ's flesh as the veil.

While in 3:2 the house of God is the household of God, here it primarily refers to the heavenly sanctuary of God, the "house of God." Perhaps a double entendre is also meant in reference to God's people.

10:22 ... let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, [our] hearts having been sprinkled from an evil conscience and [our] body having been washed with pure water.
"Let us approach" here parallels "let us approach" in 4:16. There it is approach to the throne of grace to find grace, presumably for atonement. Here it is also approach to the "Most Holy Place" of the previous verse with confidence in the atonement we have already appropriated.

The faith in question in this verse is presumably our faith, our faith in the promises of God, our faith in the atoning value of the death of Jesus. The dual imagery of inner and outer cleansing is intriguing. The washing of our bodies with water is presumably an allusion to water baptism. The sprinkling of our conscience is a mixed metaphor but no doubt refers to the cleansing of our sins and our consequence awareness of this fact. The perfect tense implies that these are completed acts whose consequences continue with the audience into their present.

The inner/outer washing of the verse reminds us somewhat of Acts, where baptism in water is associated with baptism with the Spirit. The latter Acts 15:9 equates with purifying hearts through faith. Presumably the common imagery of baptism implies a connection between the two cleansings in the minds of the early Christians.

10:23 Let us hold fast the confession of hope without wavering, for the One who has promised is faithful.
Here again is a verbatim parallel with 4:14: "let us hold fast the confession." As we mentioned earlier, it is not entirely clear whether the author has a specific confession like "Jesus is the Son of God" in mind or whether he means the basic principles of Christian faith in general. The mention of our confession as a confession of hope at least implies that the author has in mind everything associated with faith in Jesus as Son of God. The confession of hope is a confession of faith that Christ will return again to set the world straight.

The mention of wavering gets again at the doubts of the audience. In the context of confessing hope, the particular doubt in view would seem to relate to the future expectations of the faith. The mention of God's faithfulness to His promises hearkens back to 6:13-20, where the author reminded the audience that God cannot lie (6:18). As the remainder of chapter 10 will make clear, they are doubting that in fact Jesus will return in victory and thus probably that he is in fact the messiah, the Son of God. In our reading, they are not Jews in danger of turning back to mainstream Judaism. They are Gentile converts to Christian Judaism in danger of turning back to paganism in the wake of the temple's destruction.

10:24-25 And let us consider one another for encouragement of love and good works, not leaving behind the assembling of ourselves, as is customary for certain ones, but encouraging [it] and by so much more as you see the Day nearing.
The implication seems to be that the churches, the assemblies, the gatherings (synagogues) of this audience, assuming it is a single group, have begun to suffer in the light of current events. The author has appealed to argument, but here he appeals to the audience to urge each other on. They are to show love to each other, and good works, to encourage each other to continue on in faith. The Day in question is almost certainly the Day of the Lord, the day of Christ's return in judgment.

10:26-27 For if we are willingly sinning after receiving the knowledge of the truth, a sacrifice for sins is no longer left, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire about to eat those who are opposed.
The author now returns to the theme of apostasy that he touched on in 6:4-8 and that he will allude to again in 12:15-17. For the author, God's grace in relation to sin only extends so far before it is "used up," in effect. The nature of Christ's atonement is to cover sins that are past, not sins that are committed into the future, that is, not "sins with a high hand" committed in full knowledge of the truth.

We thus should not think that the author is speaking of unintentional wrongs or even of sins that are atypical and for which one might quickly repent in sincerity and seek speedy forgiveness. The author is thinking specifically of abandoning faith in Christ, of turning back from the affirmation that he is messiah, in effect relegating him to a crucified failure at best and a deserving criminal at worst. Presumably any repeated path of defiance to God would receive the same condemnation from the author.

We think that the phrase, "the knowledge of the truth" relates directly to imagery elsewhere of "having been enlightened" (6:4) or, by contrast, "sins committed in ignorance" (9:7). It is imagery that would relate best to Gentiles who had come to believe in the Jewish God, in the basics of 6:1-2. Without the sacrifice of Jesus to atone for one's sins, nothing is left but the expectation of judgment along with the rest of the world on the Day of the Lord. The opposition are perhaps the enemies mentioned in 10:13.

10:28 When someone has rejected the Law of Moses, that person dies without mercy on the basis of two or three witnesses.
Here is yet another "lesser to greater" argument (qal wahomer, a minore ad minorem, or a fortiori). Verse 28 sets up the lesser situation. Here we do not have the often heard sense that God goes lighter on people under the new covenant than He did under the old. Rather, the author suggests that if the consequences of disobedience were severe under Moses, imagine what they will be like under Christ. Under Moses, a person died without mercy, as long as two or three witnesses might corroborate guilt.

10:29 By how much of a worse punishment do you think will be worthy the one who tramples the Son of God and the blood of the covenant, having considered it profane, by which this one was sanctified, and having insulted the Spirit of grace?
And thus the second have of the author's a fortiori argument. The author's point is not that God is not gracious. Indeed, it is God's grace that secured atonement and redemption in the first place. The problem is the insulting of God's grace.

In keeping with the norms of ancient patronage, grace was undeserved favor from a "have" to a "have not." But such grace, even though it was informal, came with informal expectations as well. It would have made no sense to an ancient audience that you could insult the patron and yet enjoy the continued patronage of the giver. So also, the person who "despises" God by trampling the free offer of grace in this way not only will not receive continued grace but is destined for the wrath of God.

The honor shame imagery of this verse is extensive. The person who disregards faith in Christ "tramples" the Son of God, God's royal representative. They "trample" the blood of the covenant. It was this blood that "sanctified" them, that made them holy and pure, that made them belong to God and become the property of the Divine. Instead, they have treated it as common, as profane, as the kind of blood indeed that would make a person unclean.

10:30 For we know the One who spoke, "Vengeance is for Me; I will repay." And again, "The Lord will judge His people."
The author punctuates the threat with Scripture. The quotes are from Deuteronomy 32:35 and 36 in the Song of Moses. The author has already quoted this Song in 1:6, so we can infer that the larger Song might have had significance for him, perhaps in relation to the final judgment. The Song of Moses laments the faithlessness of Israel, anticipates its distress in the face of its enemies, then looks to its restoration. The author, however, latches only on the judgment of God's people, thus changing the meaning of the second quote from the Lord's vindication to His judgment.

The quotes thus carry with them overtones of the judgment of those in God's people who do not remain faithful and we are reminded of the author's use of the imagery of the wilderness generation in Psalm 93 back in Hebrews 3. If we are right about the setting of Hebrews in wake of the temple's destruction, these verses might also carry with them a sense that the current distress of Israel is a punishment for its failure to believe on Jesus as messiah. The author thus implicitly warns the audience that they may face a similar fate if they do not continue in faith.

10:31 It is fearful to fall into the hands of the living God.
This memorable verse evokes all the incidents in biblical history, as well as perhaps in the contemporary history of the day, in which God judged either His people or their enemies. Further example would hardly be necessary. If the audience were Gentile, the mention of the living God would evoke the contrast of the gods of the nations, not least the gods of the Romans. Departure from the Jewish God was to return back to following the dead idols of the nations, yet another feature of the Song of Moses (Deut. 32:17).

10:32 But be in rememberance of the days formerly, during which, after you were enlightened, you endured much struggle of sufferings...
The author already alluded to an earlier time of trouble for the audience in 6:10. If the audience is in Rome, as is the majority suggestion, two principal possibilities exist. The first is the expulsion of certain Jews from Rome by Claudius around the year AD49. The second is the persecution of Nero after the fire of Rome around AD64. The image of becoming enlightened again points strongly to a Gentile audience, since the distinction between Christian and Jew seems hardly strong enough at this time to justify such a drastic reinterpretation of a mainstream Jew.

10:33 ... now on one hand being exposed to public disgrace both with abuses and troubles, now on the other having become partners with those living thus.
The rhetoric here seems to distinguish the audience from certain others undergoing a more dramatic crisis than they. If the audience is Gentile, we can imagine Gentiles who were not expelled from Rome suffering disgrace by association with Jews who were expelled. Similarly, at the time of Nero's persecution we can imagine an assembly of converts who witnessed others in the broader Christian community suffer death.

10:34 For you both suffered with the prisoners and you received with joy the seizing of your possessions, knowing that you have a better and remaining possession.
One version of the Claudian hypothesis sees a Jewish audience losing their property because of exile from Rome. On the Neronian hypothesis, we can see many believers being fined while others were eventually put to death. The statement in 12:4 that the audience has not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood would seem irrelevant in this debate. The author speaks of the current crisis, not any previous one. As a matter of fact, the most likely understanding of 13:7 is that the former leaders, at least of the broader Christian community, were in fact martyred.

The mention of a better possession looks forward to the asides of 11:13-16, where the author speaks of a heavenly homeland in store for the audience, a better country. They have on earth no lasting city, such as Jerusalem (13:14). Similarly, any earthly possessions they might have in Rome are of no lasting consequence, and should they have to lose them again, it is no matter.

10:35-36 Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has great reward, for you have need of endurance so that, after doing the will of God, you might receive the promise.
"Therefore" indicates the logical conclusion of what has preceded. They have endured suffering in the past; they can endure suffering now. Just as they did not lose faith during the earlier time of suffering, so they should not do so now. If the previous trial was under Claudius, the stakes have escalated with the anticipation of scores of martyrs. If the previous trial was under Nero, the stakes have escalated with the very destruction of Jerusalem and God's temple, with the very possibility of atonement called into question. Once more the author invokes God's promise, the promise of vindication, the promise of the return of the messiah.

10:37-38 For yet "a little while, the one who comes will come and will not delay, but my righteous one by faith will live," and "if [a person] should turn back, my soul is not pleased with him."
The first verse is the strongest possible allusion to the delay of Christ's return as part of that which is causing doubt (although cf. 9:28). If as seems likely the earliest Christians expected Christ to return sooner rather than later, we can anticipate that the period immediately following the deaths of apostles like Paul, James, and Peter might have accentuated a sense that Christ must surely return very soon indeed.

Perhaps the Jewish War would have contributed to the sense that the final hour was being played out, the beginning of the judgment with the household of God (cf. 1 Pet. 4:17). Then when the destruction of Jerusalem came and went and the captives were paraded through town, finally to be crucified, it surely created a climate of doubt among some.

Hebrews' use of Habbakuk 2:4 is different from Paul's. Paul understands the verse in relation to the person who is justified on the basis of faith, of trust in the fact that God raised Jesus from the dead (e.g., Rom. 4:24). For Hebrews, faith here has the principal sense of faithfulness and endurance. The one who is righteous to God is the person who does not turn back but keeps going, remains faithful.

10:39 But we are not of turning back to destruction but of faith to the saving of soul.
The final verse of the chapter confirms that faith in this context is the opposite of turning back or shrinking back. Turning back leads to destruction. Faith, on the other hand, implies that one's "soul" will be saved, rescued from God's wrath and judgment. Whether the author is thinkng of the soul as a detachable part of a person is not clear. However, since the author elsewhere uses spirit in this way (12:23), it is perhaps just as likely that soul here means "life." We are of those who remain faithful and their lives are saved.

For Philo, the soul was the part of a person that joined body and spirit together. There was the animal part of the soul, which was connected strongly to the body and gave it life. Then there was the spirit, which was the soul's soul. If the author of Hebrews had some conception of this sort, then we can better understand 4:12's comment about the difficulty of separating soul and spirit.

9.2 The Rise of the Individual (philosophy)

Been trying to get this one out for a good while. The draft of the first section of this chapter, "What is a Human Being?" is here.
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9.2 The Rise of the Individual
The default human sense of identity would thus seem to be group-oriented. That is to say, humans by nature tend to identify themselves more in terms of the groups to which they belong than by some identity they as individuals self-determine. We stereotype ourselves by gender, by race, by nation, by social status, by family reputation, by region, and so forth. Throughout history, such forces have by far exercised greater influence on how we understand ourselves than the relatively recent sense that we as individuals decide who we want to be.

Humans are "herd animals" by nature, or what the philosopher Aristotle called "a political animal." [1] We are social creatures. Societies like the Ik people, where individuals completely abandon any sense of common value--even toward their own children--are by far the exception rather than the rule. [2] The democracies of ancient Athens and of modern times have also been more unique in history than the norm, and arguably they have only been as successful as their members have agreed on profitable common values and laws. [3]

Because of the way he formulated his thinking in terms of the individual, St. Augustine (AD354-430) has sometimes been called the "first modern man." [4] He had no concept of democracy or radical individualism, to be sure. But his interpretations of Paul's writings in the New Testament did subtly shift the focus of God's relationship with humanity from a relationship with His people, corporately, to a relationship with each of us as individuals. Protestants in general have a tendency to read the writings of Paul in the New Testament and think they are about how to "get saved," meaning how I as an individual can "go to heaven." While this trajectory largely was not picked up after Augustine till the Reformation in the 1500s, it has no doubt played a very significant role in the individualism of modern Western history.

For example, when we read Romans 3:23--"all have sinned and are lacking the glory of God"--we as Western individualists naturally think "every individual has sinned." Probably Paul would have agreed with this claim too. But it is fairly clear from the context of Romans 3 that the "all" Paul had in mind was the groups into which he initially divided the world, namely, Jews and Gentiles. When he says all have sinned, he means to say that Jews have sinned as well as Gentiles--all have sinned, meaning both Jews and Gentiles, "all."

It is a subtle shift, but one with significant implications nonetheless. It subtly changes the question Paul is dealing with. Paul is addressing this question: "Can Gentiles escape God's judgment even though they are not Jews." To be sure, Paul is also dealing with the question of how anyone can be in right standing with God. But the "anyone" he was thinking about is not a human being as a free standing individual (Augustine), an "autonomous," self-directed individual. Paul is thinking about a human being as a Jew or Gentile.

Again, when Paul speaks of "works of Law" not being able to make a person right with God, we do find an element of no human individual being able to earn God's favor in their own power (e.g., Rom. 9:32). But surely the "works of Law" he most immediately has in mind are those aspects of the Jewish Law, especially those Jews might boast about when comparing themselves to Gentiles (e.g., Rom. 2:25). In other words, when Paul talks about the Law in his writings, he is not primarily thinking about some abstract moral law that all human individuals should know. He is not talking about some universal conscience that is built into each individual head. He is surely talking about the Law of the Jewish people, as found in books like Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy.

At point after point, we can see Augustine subtly changing Paul into an individualist. Paul's thought had everything to do with the idea that Gentiles could be saved as well as Jews. Augustine shifts the issue to the salvation of individuals. Romans 9 originally focused on God planning ahead of time to save Gentiles as well as Jews. Augustine turns Romans 9 into God picking out specific individuals to be saved and others to be condemned. Paul speaks of Sin as a cosmic power over the world. Augustine turns it into a sinful nature inside each human individual.

These subtle shifts do not always contradict what Paul was saying. Indeed, in some respects they may represent a more timeless and universal way of thinking about Christian theology than Paul's own thinking. But they nonetheless do reorient Paul's words around us as human individuals rather than as groups and thus potentially change how we understand ourselves as human beings.

The Protestant Reformation picked up these seeds in Augustine's thought. Martin Luther (1483-1546) found himself focusing on individual justification by faith as the center of Paul's thought, when ironically this idea only really is focal in two of Paul's letters. By contrast, the notion of Christians as a collective whole being incorporated "in Christ," dying with Christ, rising with him, arguably appears far more often in his writings. The sense of us as the corporate body of Christ gives way to the primacy of us as individual Christian believers.

The earlier sense that Christians read the Bible in the light of common Christian tradition eventually gives way to the idea that every individual can read the Bible and determine its meaning, with the resultant fragmentation of Christianity into tens of thousands of little denominations. We become a priesthood of (individual) believers rather than a holy priesthood, a spiritual household (1 Pet. 2:5). As the idea of corporate identity continues to disappear, infant baptism comes to be rejected in many circles. No longer can the Philippian jailer have his whole household baptized (cf. Acts 16:34). Now only an individual Christian who has reached some hypothetical "age of accountability" can get baptized or be saved.

We can characterize most of the thinking of the Renaissance and the Reformation as individualist. As we move toward the Enlightenment of the seventeen hundreds, the common ground between the leading figures increasingly becomes not religion but Reason. It is assumed that each individual has access to this universal truth. While each individual now is on an individual quest, at least the assumption remains that everyone is in pursuit of a common Truth and the rules for its pursuit are a matter of common agreement.

René Descartes (1596-1650) is usually called the "father of modern philosophy" for the way he especially turned the focus of philosophy from the world "out there" to each one of us as individuals looking at the world. He asked the question, what can I as an individual be certain about. Or to put it another way, what can I not doubt. As we saw in a previous chapter, he finally concluded that the only thing I cannot doubt is my own existence, I (as an individual) think; therefore, (at least) I (as an individual) am. [5]

The effect of this line of thinking was to push the focus of philosophy inward, toward ourselves as individual knowers rather than on the "outside world" as an object of knowledge. We will discuss in the next section Descartes' new way of looking at the soul. It was also highly individual in focus and thus has contributed to our Western sense of individualism ever since. Romanticism in the 1700s and 1800s actuated individualism even further. The ideal was a highly idiosyncratic artist, misunderstood and misrepresented, a genius set apart from everyone else.

Modern psychology was largely built on the assumption of autonomous individuals. For example, it is interesting to compare the approach to identity of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) with that of ancient biographers. For ancient biographers, you could categorize people into certain stock types. You have heroic men; you have traitors; you have virtuous women; and so forth. If a person is destined for greatness, then you expect to find that they were exceptional as a child as well, perhaps that they were born under remarkable circumstances. People do not change or develop from one type to another.

By contrast, Freud looked to formative events in your childhood in order to explain what you turned out to be. We joke about lying on a couch telling a psychotherapist about your mother, but we have thoroughly bought into this understanding of individuals. The often predictive power of one's childhood has demonstrated itself time and time again.

Many theorists of development have appeared on the scene since. Erik Erickson (1902-94) plotted out an eight stage sequence of individual life development starting with a need for basic trust and hopefully progressing to a peaceful death. Jean Piaget (1896-1980) plotted out the same for the development of the ability to think, cognitive development. Lawrence Kohlberg (1927-87) applied the developmental principle to moral development and James W. Fowler (1940-) has applied it to faith development.

All these theorists suppose that individuals undergo similar steps of development, and in that sense they suppose that their theories are somewhat universal. [6] But in practice, they have a tendency to turn us inward, to foster a sense of introspection. We tend to use these theories to identify ourselves as individuals and to distiguish ourselves from others. Personality tests and, in Christian circles, "spiritual gift tests," have a tendency to push us toward looking at ourselves as individuals with particular strengths and weaknesses.

Finding a balance between corporate and individual identity is not usually something we can go out and invent. We all live in particular cultural contexts with their own senses of such things and rarely does a person have the freedom to alter a society. There are great strengths to a Western sense of individual freedom and responsibility, but if we are herd animals biologically, we will also need to group together as well to find fulfillment. As Christians this is especially true, as we will discuss in the last section of the chapter.

[1] Politics ***

[2] The Mountain People. The accuracy of this famous study has recently been called into question. In my opinion, however, we are increasingly seeing a similar attitude among the more desperate in America. A typical case would be a crystal methodone adict whose problem leads them to sacrifice the needs of his or her children in order to feed the addiction.

[3] E.g., by the existentialist philosopher Karl Jaspers (1883-1969), The Great Philosophers: Plato and Augustine **. In much of what follows I am presenting the seminal ideas of Krister Stendahl, "Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West," ***.

[4] This observation has immense implications when it comes to modern foreign policy. Extreme caution must be taken when the West attempts to "better" other countries by forcing democratic systems on them. By default, such democracies largely reduce to "one vote, one social group." In reality, the situation is not much different in Western democracies, except that the social groups may be more difficult to identify.

[5] See chap. *

[6] One does wonder, however, whether some of these developmental theories are somewhat Western in character rather than universal.

Life Beyond Death 4

Previous posts include:

1a. Born at a Time and Place 1; 1b. Born at a Time and Place 2
2a. A Change in Life Direction; 2b A Change in Life Direction 2; 2c A Change in Life Direction 3
3a. The Unknown Years 1; 3b. The Unknown Years 2; 3c. The Unknown Years 3

The previous posts for the current chapter are Life Beyond Death 1; Life Beyond Death 2; and Life Beyond Death 3.

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[Some scholars have also suggested that Paul's thought underwent development between 1 and 2 Corinthians on the question of when resurrection takes place. [2] Whereas in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul clearly thinks of us receiving our resurrection body at the time of Christ's return, 2 Corinthians 5 says that if the "earthly tent we live in is destroyed," if we die, then we have "an eternal house in heaven," our resurrection body. It would be easy to read this statement to indicate that we go to heaven when we die and get a spiritual body immediately at death. We want to please Christ whether here in the body or in heaven when we die (2 Cor. 5:9). And one might argue accordingly that our appearence before the judgment seat of Christ in the next verse (2 Cor. 5:10) is what happens immediately at death.]

Although this is a possible interpretation of Paul, most scholars have not opted for it. It is possible to interpret Philippians and Romans with this slightly different understanding of the timing of resurrection (i.e., that it takes place at death). But it does not seem the most natural reading of, say, Philippians 3:11. These two letters were written either about the same time or a little later than 2 Corinthians. On the other hand, 2 Timothy 2:18 warns of those who say the resurrection has already happened. Could it be a warning against the kind of teaching we are talking about?

***

Looking at these sorts of questions in detail can be a little startling. For example, popular thinking usually stops with "you die and then either go to heaven or hell." Some so equate the idea of the immortality of the soul with bedrock Christian faith that they might even react with anger to hear what resurrection was really about in the Bible. [1] Meanwhile, the notion that we will reunite with our bodies is not attractive to many today, just as it wasn't to some in Paul's own day. The idea of resurrection was foolishness to some Greeks--why would I want this "prison house of the soul" back again. And the idea that the resurrection is an event still on the horizon can disrupt some comfortable sense of dying and then immediately going to our "final resting place."

Scholarly debates over the meaning of various passages can also be confusing, even disturbing. You mean those who know the most about these issues find room in the evidence for disagreement? Did Paul's thought develop in some ways over time? It implies a rethinking of the Bible as a single, static book whose "chapters" all say the same thing. It pushes us to read the Bible more as a library of books than a single one. Now we have to get a sense of the biblical trajectory rather than assume Genesis teaches exactly the same things as Revelation.

For example, on this particular issue, the Old Testament as a whole has little to say about the afterlife at all (e.g., Ps. 30:9; Eccl. 9:4-6). The only passage in the Old Testament that everyone agrees points to a meaningful, personal, conscious life after death is Daniel 12:2-3. The New Testament thus seems to take us further along on a trajectory of revelation than the Old Testament on this issue.

Many of the beliefs we have on issues like the afterlife seem obvious to us in Scripture. But the reason is not always because it really is clear but rather because of a certain common sense we have inherited from the Christian traditions of which we are a part. Some of these traditions are rather recent, like the idiosyncratic beliefs of churches that only came into existence in the last century or so. By contrast, the best "common sense" readings are those that the Christian Tradition (big T) arrived at by hashing out these sorts of ambiguities throughout the ages. Presumably God's Holy Spirit has had something to do with such common Christian faith, such Spiritual common sense.

On the afterlife, Christians have affirmed since the beginning, "I believe in... the resurrection of the dead and the life everlasting" (the Apostle's Creed). We have affirmed this resurrection as something that is yet to come (except for Christ, the first fruits of the dead; 1 Cor. 15:20) and that will involve continuity with our human bodies as possible, although transformed into something that cannot decay. Christians throughout the centuries have affirmed that our souls will continue to exist and be conscious in between our deaths and our resurrections.

Christian tradition throughout the centuries has generally looked to a similarly transformed creation, a new earth. Paul is not entirely clear where he thinks we will spend eternity, but he does clearly speak of the redemption of the creation along with the redemption of our bodies (Rom. 8:19-23). It is perhaps more likely than not that he saw us living out eternity on a new earth with new bodies not made of the old flesh and blood (1 Cor. 15:50). Many Christians think of us spending eternity in heaven, and there are some New Testament passages that can be read this way (e.g., John 14:3; Heb. 12:26-27; 1 Pet. 1:4; 2 Pet. 3:10). But perhaps throughout the centuries, more Christians have believed we would spend eternity on a new earth (e.g., Rev. 21:2). God will clarify all these ambiguities when He ushers in His kingdom.

[1] Although he possibly makes things a little more tidy than they really were, an excellent introduction to this entire topic is N. T. Wright's, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2008).