Monday, June 19, 2006

Who Speaks in Scripture?

I'm giving a paper next month on Hebrews' Theology of Scripture. It's more fun for me to do my brainstorming here than by myself. So I may post some thoughts here these next few days.

Hebrews 1 has several quotations of the Old Testament.

1. In the first and second quotations (1:5), Hebrews quotes as the words of God words from Psalm 2 and 2 Samuel 7:14 that are there the words of God.

2. In the third quotation (1:6), the voice of Deuteronomy 32:43 is that of Moses.

Note: the Greek text of the OT used by the author of Hebrews was different from the OT text on which most of our Bible versions are based (again, the NRSV wins on these issues). Our versions are still largely and unfortunately based on late Hebrew manuscripts. The Dead Sea Scrolls agree with the Septuagint that Hebrews' version of the verse is closer to the original. Hebrews was using the "RSV" while our Old Testament texts are still the later "KJV."

The author does not reference this verse, however, as Moses speaking. It is rather God who asks the angels to worship Christ. Further, the him of the original text was referring to God as the one the angels were to worship. Now it is taken in reference to Christ, I have argued the exalted Christ as he enters heaven.

The remaining quotes are all from Psalms
3. Psalm 104:4 (Heb. 1:7) is originally the voice of an anonymous psalmist. Now it is God speaking.

4. Psalm 45:6-7 (Heb. 1:8-9) was again originally a psalmist. Now it is God speaking to Christ.

5. Psalm 102:25-27 (Heb. 1:10-12) was again a psalmist, crying out to God. Now it is God speaking to Christ.

6. Psalm 110:1 (Heb. 1:13) is in its original context the psalmist telling of Yahweh speaking to the ancient king--the LORD said to my Lord. However, this is not how the early Christians understood the psalm. They took it to be David speaking of Yahweh speaking to the Messiah (cf. Mark 12:35-37).

In any case, the author is taking the words as God's voice just as the psalm indicates. The receiver of the message differs a little from the original in that Christ is the one to whom these words are directed, rather than the ancient king. It is perhaps useful to note that Mark 12:36 considers this meaning a meaning of the Holy Spirit.

Summary:
Hebrews 1 understands all of its Scripture quotes in terms of God as the speaker. In some cases, this was the original meaning. In other cases, it quite obviously was not the original meaning.

(By the way, if anyone is tracking my claim that the NT largely does not worry about the original meaning, this little study of Hebrews--as any study of any NT book--will pound to smithereens any doubts anyone might have. I remain astounded that any scholar of any girth at all could maintain that NT authors had any real concern to stay close to the original meanings of these texts. It is these modernist scholars' paradigm, not their intelligence, that is to blame. But what a complete loser of a paradigm!!!!! It blows over like a piece of fluff in the air.)

In particular, the author of Hebrews considers these words of the biblical text to be the logos of God, God's word.

Did the author do this intentionally? In other words, did he knowingly take certain words as the words of God when in fact he knew they were not in context. I do not know that I have enough evidence to conclude this yet. The non-contextual paradigm doesn't always ask contextual questions, even though the answers are often obvious once the question is asked. For example, surely any Jew knew Deuteronomy 32 as the Song of Moses. And the crying out of the psalmist in Psalm 102 is clearly not that of God (e.g., Ps. 102:1-2).

I am almost certain I will conclude that these out of context readings are done consciously by the author (to varying degrees). I think I will conclude that it is not that the author doesn't realize he is reading out of context. I think his answer is, "So what... this is the spiritual meaning of the text, the important one."

Again, we hear the modernist evangelical paradigm disappear in a puff of smoke. The paradigm that leads us to listen to the original meaning to hear God's voice concludes that the original meaning is not necessarily the locus of God's voice. EE-EE-EE-EE-EE-EE-OINK-OINK (Pac Mac dying)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not a comment but a question: If it is so that one of the criteria for the cannonization of the New Testament was apostolic authorship, and we are not certain who wrote Hebrews, what was the historical defense for the canonization of this book?

Ken Schenck said...

My sense is, first, that authorship became a more and more significant criterion for canonization as time went by. In other words, Mark, Luke, and Acts did not have to be written by disciples because they were more or less agreed to be "in" by the mid to late second century and their contrast with Gnostic gospels solidified their standing.

But, yes, the authorship of Hebrews was, I believe, significant in its getting in. Ironically, I do not believe Hebrews would be in the canon if the church had not eventually come to believe that Paul wrote it. So assuming that Hebrews belongs in and yet accepting that no significant original meaning scholar has defended Paul as its author since the 1940's, we have a paradox. We apparently must conclude that God got Hebrews into the canon despite or even through the misunderstanding of the church.