Religious Conservatism on the Upswing

Scot McKnight and friends had an interesting discussion yesterday about the rise of neo-fundamentalism:

http://www.jesuscreed.org/?p=1383

Russ Gunsalus showed me the most recent front cover of Christianity Today, which is about the resurgence of the more virulent forms of Calvinism.

The trend is more than just the usual fight against the "dying of the light," the age old sense that religious institutions are always going liberal. I have thoughts on this subject too (surprise).

"Tangent" on the Dying of the Light
On the one hand, it is apparently well documented that religious institutions of higher learning have a tendency to become less and less affiliated with their parent denominations and eventually to become secular. It can go the other way, at least for a time, as the witch trial at Louisville Southern Baptist in the 90s did.

So you regularly hear rhetoric of "carrying the torch" and "don't let the fire go out" and "we need a revival." You also often hear an anti-education or anti-intellectual edge in the pew, a "town-gown" divide, as it were. It's been especially prominent on News shows with witch hunts of liberals at colleges and universities around the nation. Scarborough Country on MSNBC had a number of programs last year about removing extreme liberals from tax paid funded American universities. One of the main speakers at the Truth Conference of the Wesleyan Church this summer had this witch hunt flavor.

To be sure, there are a lot of whackos out there at educational institutions. I am amazed at a good deal of it. Don't take anything I say here as support for some of the sloppy thinking that passes in the name of education out there.

But a very sobering question lurks in the "dying of the light" scenario. Underlying this "myth" is the presumption that the more a person studies, the more likely he or she is to go liberal. Is this true? If it is, then something like one of the following must surely be true 1) there's a Satanic conspiracy, 2) there's a human conspiracy, 3) education tempts people to a particular kind of temptation that tends to lead to temptation, or 4) the truth tends to the liberal.

If there's a human conspiracy, I don't know about it (and you'd think I would by now). Clearly the conservative ideological machine is alive and well and just if not more popular right now than any liberal machine. So at best we have #3, a human temptation associated with education. I think if there is a Satanic conspiracy, it also must boil down to #3.

On the other hand, individuals like Ben Witherington and Tom Wright are immensely popular--ravenously devoured by conservatives. So I don't buy that there is some universal temptation that pushes the educated go liberal. I personally believe I could really have gone places these last ten years if my sermons and teaching played more to reinforcing traditional values and ideas. I think I could easily be on a speaking circuit by now doing a bunch of revivals and writing popular books.

[By the way, I'm not suggesting that Witherington or Wright are faking it. I wholeheartedly believe they are sincere.]

To me the answer to this question that has always been the most likely answer, that has always been staring us in the face generation after generation is that in some way, the truth tends to work against the traditional. Notice how I worded it this time. I did not say that the truth is liberal. There are a thousand different "liberals," just as there are a thousand different "conservatives." The trend is what is common, not the specific content that is deconstructing.

Note, for example, Daniel Wallace's defense of his view of inerrancy. This man is no liberal to be sure, but he is being attacked by his particular set of traditionalists, simply because he has come to see that matters are more complicated than he might at first have thought:

https://delta.indwes.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=4200

And there's the real answer. Ideological systems tend to be human contructs that denconstruct on closer examination. Reality is too complex for any human system of positive understanding to capture or grasp it. Institutions of higher learning tend toward their respective "liberal" simply because the more you investigate a subject, the more previous human constructs of that subject deconstruct.

The secret is thus not in constructing a new liberal system which itself will only deconstruct. But what we need to expend our energies toward is operating with a sense of mystery as we investigate, to learn to view human truth as a collection of true metaphors and true "myths." We believe God knows everything, but accept that we are only getting little snippets of what God knows in a skewed form.

Return to "Main" Subject
I suspect that 9-11 is the key factor behind the most recent resurgence of fundamentalism. For most Americans, religion is part of a cultural package that cannot distinguish America and apple pie from church. The Iraq War has only furthered the polarization of world religions. Iran will do the same. Right now I'm predicting that a Republican will win in 2008 because of the impending crisis with Iran.

So liberal colleges and seminaries are in trouble. Conservative ones face a marketing boon. So Liberty Baptist will rock this decade!

Thoughts...

51% of Current Seminarians, Women

Ben Witherington's blog today (www.benwitherington.blogspot.com) set me on to an New York Times article this morning of interest:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/26/us/26clergy.html

The article indicates that 51% of current individuals in divinity school are women. It also indicates that in their second decade of ministry, most women pastors do not move on to larger congregations. It also mentions the decline in women ministers among many groups like the Wesleyans that historically ordained them last century.

Poor Pluto

Pluto has just been downgraded to a dwarf planet and is no longer one of nine. Poof, there are only eight planets in our solar system now. Poor Pluto.

Actually, I'm pretty happy with the decision over and against its alternative, which was to count Charon, Zena, and a whole bunch of other icy things orbiting the Sun. Pluto wasn't big enough to clear everything out of its orbit (it crosses Neptune's) and was just too small.

The funny thing is of course that yesterday it was a planet. In other words, the category of planet is a human construct in this instance. The difference between our planets and the many suns out there is not a human construct, nor are certain key differences between Pluto and Neptune that have constituted the different classifications.

But the name planet is a human sign whose definition might just as easily have come out something different. We humans created the planets today.

And since as a son of Adam I can make names too, I will continue to refer to Pluto as a planet. I'll be selling Schenck dictionaries on Amazon so you can know what I really mean. But of course someone will have to learn your language and mine in order to write it in yours.

Wayne Grudem

Some might have been surprised that I didn't post something on the woman removed from her Sunday School class in Watertown, New York. I figure I've blogged quite a bit already on my views. It's more surprising that it's an American Baptist church, since they don't usually have a problem with women in ministry. As many have said, this probably had nothing to do with the fact that she was a woman--that was likely just a superficial side excuse or comment of a pastor with other motives.

What has me angry is Wayne Grudem's site in conjunction with the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: http://www.efbt100.com Now I really suspect that he's a nice and good person. He is fair in his views and presentation. More dangerously, his site is really "good" and no doubt would bombard anyone sympathetic to women in ministry from the sheer "shock and awe" of it. It's convinced me to start my own site or get IWU or the Wesleyans to do it.

Believe it or not, I have a tendency to pull my punches a little on these issues. In my mind, hitting them with full force would be a little like Israel's bombing tactics in Lebanon--a lot of innocence might get hurt in the process.

But now I'm ticked. Maybe it would be good for evangelicalism to work through some things it generally ignores.

Good Preaching

A few professors at IWU read through parts of Augustine's writings this past spring, including his classic piece on preaching. There he made an interesting comment that some people are born preachers, yet that it is difficult to become a good preacher if you are not born with such gifts.

I resonated with that. It's the idea that a person can improve their speaking skills, but that ultimately either you are born to speak or you're going to have to work hard each week to do an adequate job. Now I don't imagine that this will be a very popular idea, especially in a democratic society that boasts that you can do anything you put your mind to. And don't get me wrong, the preaching courses we take in college and seminary are helpful and useful. Almost anyone can do an adequate job of preaching with some training.

I also recognize that this whole line of thought seems to forget the Holy Spirit and being anointed in preaching. We have to believe that the Holy Spirit is there in the mix, like the wind that blows where it wills. But I think it is naive to have some magical view of pulpit inspiration. I simply do not believe that the most delightful speakers to the ear are somehow more spiritual or inspired than those we may find it torturous to hear. And some have gifts in other areas just as striking as those who are pulpit wise. Some are gifted counsellors and listeners where the gifted preacher might be a dullard.

So what does it take to be a good preacher--or for that matter a good conveyor of the Bible or theology? I am convinced that it takes wisdom. The Bible will not yield more on the lips of a preacher than the wisdom of the preacher. God may speak directly from the words of Scripture or through the mind of the individual in the pew. But the preacher's wisdom is the preacher's wisdom. The same goes for a "Bible conveyor." It is naive to think that the Bible equally shares wisdom with all. It usually takes wisdom to get wisdom from the Bible. The wisdom a teacher "of the Bible" finds and brings from the Bible is proportionate to the wisdom that teacher brings to the Bible.

So what if you are not wise? Get wisdom my son, get wisdom. If you are not wise--and I would put myself naturally in that category--then read and borrow from those God has gifted with wisdom.

It is more difficult to become entertaining if you are not a naturally enjoyable speaker. You can work to model yourself on those who tickle the ears. You can pursue illustrations that hold attention. You can work at these things and should. But there are limits to what you have here and you shouldn't try to be something you aren't.

Again, I think it is naive to think that this generation will delight as much in dryly presented wisdom as a less wise sermon with the tiniest drop of truth in a spoonful of sugar. This says nothing about the spirituality or wisdom of the speaker, only to one area of giftedness. But there are easily learned ways to adjust. A pastor who knows he or she is not enjoyable to hear can use objects or movie clips or can preach in 5 minute segments with some other interruption that holds attention by a quick shift of attention to some skit or action that illustrates yet mixes things up.

And we have to believe that the Holy Spirit is there in this mix. But where exactly is always a mysterious matter. Life is a tapestry and we can sometimes see in hindsight where the golden thread of the Spirit is interwoven. But just as often we will not know until we reach the kingdom.

Climbing the Mountain of Knowledge

This is a slightly different kind of post. These are some of my reflections for those in PhD programs in biblical studies or who are younger professors of Bible who are post-doc and wanting to keep up to date or to publish.

When I finished my PhD and had defended my dissertation, I told one of my examiners that I felt like all the scholarly knowledge I was supposed to know as a biblical scholar was like a mountain that I hadn't even begun to climb. This December is the tenth anniversary of my defense, and I have a few reflections on climbing the mountain. Here are some thoughts

1. If it is your calling (or perverse hobby) to be an "original meaning" resource for the kingdom of God, first study with those near the top of the mountain. They'll give you the fast track past many dead ends and lead you straight to their own :-) Get as close as you can to those who seem to know the most. Get where you have access to the best libraries and a steady stream of visiting scholars on the cutting age of your field.

2. Skim through the Journal of Biblical Literature, Catholic Biblical Quarterly, and New Testament Studies as each new issue comes out (every three months). Read more thoroughly those that represent gaps in your knowledge or areas of research interest.

3. Scan the Review of Biblical Literature that SBL puts out each week. Skim through the book reviews, especially again those that represent gaps or areas for research.

4. Find a way to scan the catalogs of the main publishers each quarter (Eerdmans, Fortress, Baker, IVP, Westminster JK, etc...). See what's being published. I think you will get these automatically if you are a member of SBL.

5. Join the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL). Go to the yearly meetings. Pick an area and join the group. Get on the program. At least send one proposal each year. Better yet, propose a new group. Start a blog in your area and network with the young whipper snappers who are all over this stuff (see my links to Euangelion and Scot McKnight... follow their links... you'll be amazed at how many young scholars are blogging their stuff out there).

6. Write something, at least one thing a year. Follow a trail of scholarship. Even if it doesn't get published, you'll get really helpful reviews from someone established in the guild. You'll have grown in the process of writing. Try a smaller journal if you don't get in to a big one. I now try to pick one of the courses I'm teaching each semester and brainstorm on something I might publish relative to that course (once a year is success to be sure).

7. Pick an area or a specific scholar you like and read everything in that area or everything by that scholar. He or she will almost certainly introduce you to a circle of scholars that are in dialog with each other about something. Join the dialog. It's important to find a subcircle in the guild. One way is to be the expert on some tiny slice of the pie. Then you will be referenced and invited to give that slice on whatever the broader topic. I wouldn't advise you to do this intentionally, but being intelligently quirky--having an infamous position--can work this angle too as long as it's not just plain whacko.

8. Try to go to some of the conferences that pop up here and there. Give a short paper. Try to get in the conference volume.

I don't suppose this blog entry is relevant to too many of those who might be reading this, but these are some of my thoughts today on the subject...

Latin is the Bomb

I wanted to interrupt my regularly scheduled nonsense for a serious moment.

DEFEAT THE CONSPIRACY!

They, who shall remain unmentioned, don't want IWU students to know that Latin is being offered this Fall! Knowing that the best way to defeat the forces of evil is a good knowledge of Latin, they have clouded the minds of students into thinking IWU doesn't even offer Latin.

This is an actual conversation:

"Dr. Schenck, it's really sad that IWU doesn't offer Latin," said the summer student.

"But it does; I'm actually teaching it this Fall," said Ken Schenck.

"Is there even anyone here who could teach Latin?"

"Dude, didn't you hear me? I'm teaching Latin," shouted Schenck.

"Too bad. Because Latin is, like, the bomb," said the student, walking away.

Well actually, only the first two sentences really happened, but it sounds more interesting if there's a conspiracy.

There are only two and a potential third student signed up for Latin! Surely this is my failure to advertise the class. The class will happen regardless.

Spread the word! It is not too late to switch your schedule to Latin! Then you'll be able to understand what they're saying with all those spells in Harry Potter (and of course read what Augustine really said in his Confessions).

We now resume our regularly non-scheduled blogging.

LuLu Publishing

As usual, there are untold benefits to having your office next to Keith Drury. He put a bug in my ear the other day about LuLu Publishing, the future of publishing and the nemesis of the traditional publishing guild. Some of you may know that I have an old manuscript lying around that has never been published, Who Decides What the Bible Means? I logged on to LuLu publishing and within twenty minutes had it published, cover and all!

I unpublished it, made a few modifications, and then republished it the next morning. My perfect bound copy arrived by UPS today. I need to adjust the font and take care of a few details, so I have it so only I can buy copies right now. But when I'm happy with it, I can put it on Amazon and whooptie doo.

I have seen the future and it is me (because now any whacko can get published for the cost of paper, shipping, and handling...)

The Secrets of Hebrews

Everybody wants to know the secrets of Hebrews. Who was the author? Where was it written from? Who was it written to? When was it written? Why was it written? We cannot speak of definitive answers about any of these questions, even if we can peck at a few.

At the beginning of the summer, I felt convinced the author was a male (masculine singular self-referential participle at 11:32) and probably a Jewish male (although I can't prove it). Apollos is tempting, but really we just can't know, other than no one thinks it was Paul. I felt pretty good about it being written after the destruction of the temple in AD70 and probably to a Gentile community of believers at Rome. Already here I was in the minority of English speaking scholarship, who generally vote for Jews before 70. Rome remains the most popular vote for destination and still gets my vote (13:24).

When I wrote my little book on Hebrews, I guessed that there might be something going on in the synagogue that claimed to be an atoning replacement for the absent temple. Big guess of course. I still think that might be what stands behind 13:9-10. Of course the old standard is that a Jewish audience is contemplating a return to mainstream Judaism.

A little over a year ago I noticed that Hebrews (in its main argument) never tells its audience not to rely on the Levitical system. This seemed peculiar to me if the point of Hebrews is to argue for them not to rely on the Levitical system. It is really peculiar if Hebrews was written before 70 to dissuade an audience from reliance on the temple. Of course Hebrews never uses the word temple and you could argue that a bit of secrecy is going on because "the walls have ears." But I began to wonder if Hebrews is more a consolation in the temple's absence than an argument against reliance on the Levitical system per se.

I was having these thoughts last year as I was editing my dissertation (by the way, I got my first word back on it today and, with fingers crossed and hands assuming the prayer position, it's looking good for it to get published). Then surprise, surprise, Pamela Eisenbaum says something very similar at SBL. Then surprise, suprise, Richard Hays gives a paper something like this in Scotland. It's bubbling up and who knows that I've had some of these thoughts too on my own?

But it was a couple weeks before the conference that I had my big thought--in the sense that my degree of certainty went up considerably. If you read the situation chapter of my book, I am very tentative and uncertain in what I conclude.

The problem with my answers so far has been that while 6:1-2 lead me to think the audience was Gentile (these are not "beginning words about the Christ" for Jews, not "ABCs of the beginning oracles of God" for a Jew that is the foundation laid when they became enlightened about the Christ), I had not been able to explain why Gentiles might be tempted to abandon Christian faith for mainstream Judaism, in that scenario. Or how would an argument that Christ replaces the Levitical system convince Gentiles to continue in faith?

My aha moment was when several of these developing threads came together for me. And I should mail off tomorrow an article submission with my idea to New Testament Studies. Here is the formula:

1. Christians at the time of Hebrews considered themselves Jews, whether "Gentile Jews" or ethnic Jews. They were all Christian Jews. To speak of Christians and Jews in distinction from each other is anachronistic. There was as yet no "parting of the ways."

2. Many Christians probably didn't expect God to let the Romans destroy Jerusalem and the temple and then for it just to sit there. Whatever happened to the second coming of Christ who destroys the lawless one after he sets himself up in the temple as God? What about my house will be a house of prayer for the nations? There's no house there. What about the rebuilding of the temple after the destroying part? Most if not all of the early Christians in Acts don't seem to have a clue that the temple is about to be destroyed. Paul even makes an offering in the temple in Acts 21, a little more than 10 years before it was destroyed!

3. Maybe Hebrews is an apology rather than a polemic. That is, maybe the audience needs an explanation for how Christian Judaism can be true in the absence of a temple, rather than an argument against reliance on the Levitical cultus. If Paul argues with other Christians that "faith of Christ" justifies apart from "works of law," maybe Hebrews argues "Christ's sacrifice" atones apart from the need for any other atonement.

4. A Gentile might be tempted to give up on the whole thing under these circumstances. They might want to believe the Jewish Scriptures, but not see how. What would be at stake would be Judaism for them, a tendency to turn away from the "living God."

I think I can account for pretty much all of Hebrews' argument on this scenario. We'll see if I convince anyone.

Sermon Starters: The Words of God

The outline of my sermon this morning:

Introduction
Having the right tools or the right person with the right knowledge makes all the difference between a 10 minute thing and something that never gets fixed. Romans 10 tells us that the word of faith that results in salvation is in our mouth and heart. You don't have to bring Christ down from heaven to be right with God. You don't have to bring him up from the grave. Faith is only as far away as your heart.

The Word Near You 1: The Spirit of Christ
John 1:1-14: The Word made flesh is Christ, the word par excellence.
"Tabernacled" among us, as God met Moses in the tent.

Now present through the Spirit, John 16:7-13.
Spirit convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Leads believers into truth.
Not always clear what is the Spirit and what isn't. Word is near, but not always recognized.

Some people have an overactive conscience that isn't the Holy Spirit
David Seamands, Healing for Damaged Emotions, Healing of Memories, "damaged love receptors"

Some people have no conscience... we can at least pray for them.

Many in the coming generation have a conscience that is a blank slate: they are willing to do what Jesus would do but don't have a clue what that is!

A place to start:
Love neighbor--don't do to others what you wouldn't want them to do to you...
Love God--are you willing to do anything God would ask you to do?

The Word is Near You 2: The Speaking of God in History
A wander through Hebrews: the word of God is bigger than the Bible

Hebrews 4:12-13: Everything is naked and exposed before God's word.

The word of God, the Bible, is near us, but not always clear what God's word in it is:

The fundamentalist who limits the word of God to the Bible, the letteralist. Surprising interpretations about the Sabbath and about Moses' veiling in Paul.

The "liberal" who doesn't care what the Bible says at all.

The confused person who doesn't know who to believe on what the Bible says.

A place to start:
The love commands in how to live.
2000 years of Christian reflection on the Bible in what to believe (like the creeds). No need to start from scratch when God's been working through things with the church for 2000 years.

The Word of God 3: The word of faith that leads to salvation
Romans 10:5-13
We can walk by faith even when we don't know everything about the words of God near us.

Conclusion
Is your heart troubled about judgment: 1 John, God is greater than your heart
Is your heart troubled about sin: 1 John, if you confess your sins, God will forgive them
Are you worried about truth: Walk by faith until God gives sight.
Are you worried about salvation: If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Coincidence?

Keith Oberman is an MSNBC host whose sympathies clearly don't lie with George Bush. I imagine he's a Democrat, but I don't find him extreme. If he is a Democrat, he is unusual in that he is quite funny. Republican talk show hosts usually have the upper hand in the "sardonic wit" department. But one thing is for sure--he's a clever beast.

I smile whenever I watch his show at the end (usually when putting children to sleep). He always ends with the comment "one thousand, four hundred, and ninety-whatever days since Mission Accomplished in Iraq." Clever beast I tell you. How do you argue with the point: George Bush was rather naive to think the battle was over just because we were in control of Baghdad. And now this war has lasted longer than we were in World War I and the Korean War, and in about a year, we will have been in Iraq longer than WW2. Don't pull the endless war on terror idea--the war in Iraq is a different thing.

Today his cleverness showed as he noticed that Tony Snow knew what was coming down yesterday when he berated the Democratic party for the defeat of Lieberman in Connecticut. Lieberman lost for his support of the war in Iraq, and Bush used the defeat of Lieberman to argue that the Democrats are weak on defense. It is hard not to conclude that the Bush administration took advantage of the fact that a "defense" issue was going to arise today to set up the Democrats as weak on defense. Very clever... has the look of Karl Rove. Frankly, you can't blame them from using the knowledge to their own advantage.

In fact, being a Republican, I received an email from Ken Mehlman yesterday, chair of the Republican party with the same message: "if you stand for a strong defense and victory in the War on Terror, you have no place in the [Democratic] party and you must be purged."

I had wondered yesterday why the Republicans were making such a big point about the Lieberman defeat. I guess now I know why.

Of course Oberman was not to be deterred. He showed a clip from July 4 in which Bush happily proclaimed that the war in Iraq was taking the war to them so we don't have to face them here. Then he showed a clip of Bush yesterday I think, noting that we shouldn't think that we are safe here in America. Does anyone really think that the Islamic psychos can't spare twenty or thirty from Iraq to blow up themselves somewhere else?

Clever beast, that Oberman. He just sets you up with clips and tidbits... you draw the conclusion.

Terror Plot

A quick prayer of thanks to the Lord that the individuals who were planning to blow up dozens of planes were stopped. Sometimes the Lord lets such people through, but apparently not this time.

What we need to ask ourselves seriously is whether this plot would exist if we had not invaded Iraq. And Israel must also ask whether the way it has approached Lebanon will have the same effect. And if the answer is yes to either of these questions, then we must admit that we are not able to defeat the forces of darkness strictly by military might. We have to win hearts and minds too to keep the squashing of one enemy from raising up 10 others. And neither the US nor Israel seems very good at that about now.

Truth, Justice, All That Stuff

It may seem trivial to use a line from Superman to try to capture some of the greatest strengths of the American way of life. But the line is so good.

Truth: We may be postmodern now, but let's not throw out the old Enlightenment sense of truth too much--even if it did get a little arrogant. The idea that there are right and wrong answers is ultimately fundamental to the American Way of life. Math problems have answers and there are better and worse ways to go about things. I'm not going fundy on you, especially since I think scientists in general tend to be more objective than we religious types.

I know it doesn't sound like me, but ultimate relativism in the category of truth is incompatible with the American way. Either a person committed the murder or they didn't. Either the motor will drive the car or it won't. Either tax refunds will spur on the economy with the appropriate accompanying variables or it won't. Even if a philosopher could deconstruct everything I just said, we would need the "myth" of truth for the American way to continue to exist.

When you're wrong, no amount of talking and explanation will make you right.

Justice: Another very important part of the American way is justice--blind justice in particular. In some ways of course, this is a myth we have told ourselves, for our justice system often convicts the innocent and lets the guilty go free. But it is a goal we must ever strive for. We must strive for a justice that is blind to color, race, gender, and indeed all but the crime in question.

Here the enemy in my view is "group culture." Group culture is when a police officer gets off because he or she is "in" or when a black person gets convicted because he or she is "out." Frankly, it is unamerican to treat an American differently than a non-American. Justice is blind to interest group and treats everyone with impartiality.

But justice is not vindictive. "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." Not two eyes for one or five teeth for two. And justice is not something administered by individuals, but by the state.

The American way is really the way of Western Enlightenment culture with an American twist. Sure, it is at times culture rather than absolute truth. Sure, the culture of the 1700s, 1800s, and 1900s did not live up to its own ideas over and over. But the ideals remain and cannot succomb to postmodernism or "tribalism."

All are welcome here, as long as they are willing to abide by our social contract. We do not invade other sovereign nations unless we have their permission, the permission of their people, the consensus of collected, just nations, or a clear and present danger. We bend over backwards to protect the innocent, no matter where they may be. An American soldier of honor will die for an innocent Iraqi or Lebanese who gets caught in the fight.

This is a land of opportunity, a land of capitalism with certain safeguards so the system does not become oppressive and only benefit a few. It is a place for the pursuit of happiness, as long as your pursuit doesn't harm anyone. It is a place for all to practice their religion as long as it does not harm others.

This is the American way: truth, justice, and all that stuff.

What's some stuff I've forgotten?

4 Ezra

4 Ezra is a Jewish writing that dates to about AD100, meaning that it was written at about the same time Revelation and the latest parts of the NT were coming off the press (so to speak). I've had to dabble in it for years of course, but finally sat down and read it from front to end at leisure. It's basically written by someone trying to figure out what God is up to after not only letting the Romans destroy Jerusalem and the temple, but in letting it just sit there in the dust for thirty more years after.

It's about the problem of evil from a Jewish perspective and why God allows bad things to happen to His people while letting the wicked prosper their socks off.

4 Ezra is an apocalypse like Revelation, some of Daniel, some of 1 Enoch, etc... It is placed on the lips of Ezra because Babylon had destroyed Jerusalem and its temple once before as well. Of course historically, the temple was rebuilt by the time of Ezra and the Persians were in control. An earlier generation of scholars might laugh or scorn the author of 4 Ezra at this point, saying, "Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, you silly forgerer--you got it way wrong. How about taking responsibility for your own ideas rather than hiding behind someone else."

But this seems an ignorant response itself, one laden with anachronistic and cultural presuppositions. I have a pet theory (which is either itself ignorant, has already been suggested before, or is something I should publish quickly) that many pseudonymous authors put "fail safe switches" into their writings just to make it clear that they weren't really writing about Ezra, Judith, or whoever. It was like a clue to say, "This is a parable of our present time." If this is the case, of course, then it is wrong to dismiss such writings simply because they weren't written by the name on them. I mean, no one scorns Dickens, "I just found out he made it all up... There never was a Tiny Tim!!" I'm sorry, who are you? It's a novel, twit. And so it may be that these things were simply an ancient type of writing with which we are not familiar and thus don't know the "rules" on how to read them.

The Top Ten Interesting or Relevant Things about 4 Ezra:

1. It mentions Adam as the culprit behind the mess of the world.
Believe it or not, Paul's idea that sin and death entered the world through Adam is a pretty unusual idea in Judaism. The Enoch books which are before Christ more blame fallen angels from the time of the Flood. In fact, it is not until a (perhaps first century BC) work called the Life of Adam and Eve that any Jewish writing even equates Satan with the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Genesis never says this.

"A grain of evil seed was sown in Adam's heart from the beginning, and how much ungodliness it has produced until now--and will produce until the time of threshing comes!" (2 Esdras 4:30; cf. 7:11; translations from the NRSV; it was originally in Hebrew or Aramaic, but no longer survives in the original language)

More on Adam: 6:54; 7:118.

2. It has a full blown sense of the afterlife.
It has a sense of torment and reward immediately at death (7:75), as well as a future resurrection. The corruptible will perish at that resurrection (7:31). The wicked will go to the pit of torment, the righteous to a paradise of delight (7:36). The face of the righteous will "shine like the sun, and how they are to be made like the light of the stars, being incorruptible from then on" (7:97).

Cf. also 4:35, 41-42; 5:41-42; 6:16, 19, 25-26; 7:13, 17, 32, 78 (cf. Eccl), 80-100, 123-25, 131; 8:46; 10:16; 14:35.

3. Almost no one will be saved, certainly no Gentiles, and hardly anyone in Israel either!
4 Ezra's answer to the problem of evil is not a very happy one. Basically, no one is going to be saved (e.g., 7:60; 8:1, 3; 10:10). Well, okay, just a few. The earth is compared to a woman who is getting old and, accordingly, her later children are more sickly than her earlier ones (5:51-55). Things are going to get worse and worse (it reads in some places like Mark 13--e.g., 9:3) and then the end will come.

God basically isn't very gracious in 4 Ezra. In fact, in E. P. Sanders' classic work on Judaism where he tried to debunk the common idea that Jews believed they had to earn salvation through works, 4 Ezra was the only Jewish writing from the time he thought didn't picture God as gracious and compassionate and, in general, Judaism as a religion of grace. Ezra finds himself thinking that he himself is doomed, but God corrects him: "you have a treasure of works stored up with the Most High" (7:77).

So 4 Ezra is untypical of Jewish writings in the sense that a person is saved through works rather than through God's grace and faith in God (cf. 7:105; 9:7 also note the mention of faith there in combination!).

But I think even this portrait takes 4 Ezra a little out of focus. 4 Ezra does believe that God "is gracious, because he is gracious to those who turn in repentance to his law" (7:133; note the opportunity for repentance at 9:11). The same passage also proclaims God merciful, patient, bountiful, and abundant in compassion. People can get through even though every one has sinned. We have to remember that 4 Ezra is trying to figure out how God is righteous even though he has let the Romans toast Jerusalem. This is about all he could come up with.

There is a strong sense at least that God made the world for Israel (thus, election): 7:10-11.

Notice the importance of faith: 6:6, 28; 7:34; 9:7.

By the way, I'm sure all this has been suggested, but I wonder if this guy was brought to Rome from Jerusalem as a captive after the Jewish War (cf. 3:29; look at 10:22).

4. All have sinned and are in really big trouble.
I've already hinted at this but 4 Ezra has something like a Romans 3:23:

"Who among the living is there that has not sinned, or who is there among mortals that has not transgressed your covenant" (7:46). See also 3:36; 4:24; 8:35.

Notice that sin is defined in terms of the Jewish law. See also 5:27; 13:38.

5. 4 Ezra looks for the arrival of a political Messiah.
I've often written that the Christian conception of Jesus as Messiah was not at all around before Christ. They didn't expect the Messiah to be divine or to come from heaven or, particularly, to suffer. Psalms of Solomon 17 expects a political leader to come pound the Romans. A part of 1 Enoch that either dates to just before or just after Christ (the Similitudes) does have a more heavenly sense of a Son of Man.

4 Ezra has a primarily political sense of the Messiah. The author thinks the Messiah is pre-existent in heaven (see 12:32; 13:26, 52; 14:9), and in fact likely thinks human souls are pre-existent as well (8:4-5). He will be born of the lineage of David (12:32).

When the Messiah arrives, he will reign for 400 years (7:28). Then he and all humans will die. Then there will be the resurrection of all (7:32). He will destroy Rome when he arrives (he is the lion of 11:37-12:3 and the eagle is Rome). Chapter 12 is basically an apocalyptically presented history of the Roman Empire up to the time 4 Ezra is being written.

He will stand on the top of Mt. Zion and the new Zion will appear, not made with human hands (13:36).

There is a very interesting "Son of Man" type portrait of the Messiah in 13:1-4. He is flying on the clouds of heaven. This imagery probably comes from Daniel 7 rather than NT influence.

See also 5:6; 13:32.

6. A new Jerusalem is being or is prepared.
Even though the current Jerusalem is in shambles. God apparently has another one ready or is getting it ready: 8:52 (rest is involved, see Hebrews 4), 10:27, 42, 44, 55 (where city and building [temple?] is equated). Cf. 10:54; 13:32.

This reminds us of Revelation's city that descends and is at least analogous to Hebrews 12.

7. Ezra is really bold!
Ezra really seems bold to me in his questioning of God. I think a friend of mine, Bruce Longenecker, argued at one time that 4 Ezra doesn't actually conclude that the author thought God was really being appropriate. He later changed his mind, I think.

I think Ezra increasingly accepts God's actions as the book moves on, to where he is more puzzled at the beginning but more defending God by the end.

8. I think the word "Apocrypha" comes from 4 Ezra 14.
Here Ezra writes 24 books of Scripture for the public--these correspond to the Jewish/Protestant canon (14:45). So perhaps the Jewish canon is pretty much set at this point (the idea that it was set at Jamnia is more a legend than established fact). But he "hides" seventy others (14:46). Presumably these include things like the books of Enoch and many other books that we call the Apocrypha. Apocrypha means "hidden," but there are really only 7 books in the Roman Catholic "Apocrypha," along with some expansions to Daniel and Esther.

9. The angel and the Lord are interchangeable speakers.
One fascinating thing to me is that the angel speaking to Ezra and God speaking to Ezra blur together. In 5:31, the angel is talking to Ezra. They have a number of exchanges and then suddenly when Ezra responds, he is talking to God (5:38). So the angel is speaking God's word and Ezra can respond to God directly by responding to the angel.

Tidbits vaguely related in my mind... God's word accomplishes God's work in creation (6:38, 43). The holy spirit is mentioned and is a category in a non-Christian Jewish writing in relation to the inspiration to write scripture!! (14:22; cf.6:39).

By the way, more than once as I read this thing I wondered whether this guy was aware of certain Christian ideas and was interacting with them, working things retro from Christian Judaism back into a form of mainstream Judaism. Of course it is also possible that Christian Jews and this guy (is it a guy?) were drinking from the same Jewish stream. Of course since Christians preserved this thing, you can't always be completely sure that they haven't "upgraded" the manuscripts somewhere.

10. The Western Church deleted a bunch from chapter 7 (verses 36-105).
I say Western rather than Catholic because everything's catholic until 1054 when East and West split. But these verses were cut out of the Latin textual tradition, probably because they leave no hope for a person to switch to the righteous side after death. In other words, you can't support the idea of Purgatory from these verses:

"The day of judgment is decisive and displays to all the seal of truth" (7:104), I think in reference to not long after death.

Scraps that don't fit my top 10 list:
1. Behemoth and Leviathon, always favorites (6:49ff).

2. Compare 8:22 to Hebrews 1:7.

3. God didn't intend all this. It was humanity's fault (8:59).

4. Some language makes us wonder if this guy went to Essene/Enoch school: plant language (9:21, see the Apocalypse of Weeks); dream visions (10:59).

5. The creation of the world is set 3000 years before the temple was completed (10:45).

6. The 5th vision of the seven reminds one a lot of Revelation and actually reinterprets Daniel (11:1-12:51).

7. Ezra may be the last prophet before the end (12:42). While we shouldn't assume the old "they didn't think there were any prophets in the dark intertestamental times" idea, Ezra may have some sense of something like this. Part of the dynamic here is the fact that Ezra=the author of 4 Ezra, which causes the time between the two to collapse somewhat.

8. God has hidden the lost nine tribes (some mss say 10) of Israel on the other side of the Euphrates River, but they'll come back in the end times. Were the Mormans reading this or what?!!!!

If you want to find 4 Ezra, it is hidden inside 2 Esdras in your handy dandy Apocrypha (usually printed in association with the OT of the Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and Anglicans--but it is not considered Scripture by any of these groups). It's a little confusing. The first two chapters of 2 Esdras are a later Christian addition (sometimes called 5 Ezra). Then the last two chapters, 15-16, are an even later Christian addition (sometimes called 6 Ezra).

Welcome to my world..

By the way, I guess I should say any unique things above are my intellectual property, in case I want to develop any of it for publication at some point.

Downfall

As is often the case, my wife Angie put on a movie about 10:30 and then proceeded to fall asleep somewhere in the middle, leaving me to watch until after 1:00 in the morning.

The movie was Downfall, a German movie (with English subtitles) about the final days of Hitler in his bunker. The main character is his secretary, and she would also seem to be the main source of information behind the movie. As the movie neared its end, I had a fair sense of who would survive and who would not, based on who the plot seems to be centered. Given my "hermeneutic of suspicion," this of course made me wonder whether in fact the, all things being equal, positive portrayal of these individuals might be a little skewed. But my impression is that the film is broadly accurate (i.e., I didn't get the impression I have of Oliver Stone films).

I found so many aspects of the film horrifying, and in fact I wasn't able to sleep for some time after the movie ended. Unlike so many films of the adventure sort, this one was non-fiction, and many of those we would want to survive did not. Perhaps the most horrifying scene was Frau Goebbels giving a sedative and then cyanide, I think, to her children. She didn't want her children growing up in a world without Nazi Socialism. One in particular sensed what was going on and didn't want to drink the sedative. As far as I know that part was fiction, but we can easily imagine it.

Children come home to find their parents just hung and shot by roaming death squads personally carrying out Hilter's wishes for all the German people to die for being too weak to bring in the Third Reich. At one point Hitler remarks that the strong have all died already, and only the weak continue to live.

Meanwhile, Hitler lives in a dream world, continuing to act as if mythical battalions will pinch the Russian army. His generals nod and sweat, knowing that all was lost. Many of them shoot themselves in the end. Others are trying to surrender or trying to get him out. Hitler goes ballistic and orders several of his generals to be shot (alas, mostly to no avail--they're well out of his reach by now) for these things. He has Eva Braun's brother-in-law shot within hours of defeat for his part with Himmler in working toward surrender.

I wondered if the movie was calculated to have an effect on the latent and sometimes not so latent neo-Nazism afoot in Germany these days. Hitler--did he have MS--is not portrayed weak in the movie to be sure. But his inability to reckon with reality and his hatred for the surviving, weak German people, does not inspire. He is not someone I think a winner watches and thinks, I want to be just like him. Maybe I'm wrong.

Of course he ends up committing suicide with Eva Braun, whom he has just married, and has his body torched so that it cannot be displayed as a trophy. Goebbels and his wife do something similar. Another doctor secretly blew up his family with two hand grenades over supper.

I was struck by the fact that many of the individuals in the movie have only died in the last five to ten years. Several of them spent time in a Russian prison and were released in the fifties, then to live out the rest of their lives. They lived alongside other Germans up until the present time. It is often noted how ordinary these people seemed, how even individuals who had done atrocious things--or done nothing to stop them--were just ordinary people.

N. T. Wright on Mark 13

Scott, in an effort to get it Wright, I did a little research for a change and dug up these quotes. Wright doesn't make a big point of whether it means coming or going, but if we take it as coming, he understands the movement to be that "he comes from earth to heaven" (Jesus and the Victory of God, 361).

Here are some other interesting Wright quotes:

First from Who Was Jesus?:
"When Jewish writers spoke of the sun and moon being darkened; when they spoke of angels gathering people from the four winds of heaven; when, in particular, they spoke of a Son of Man who would come on the clouds of heaven - in each of these cases they were using language in this metaphorical way. It is flagrantly absurd to think that Jesus, in saying that sort of thing, envisaged himself of anyone else literally flying around in mid-air on an actual cloud" (55).

"They didn't expect the end of the world; merely the end of the present way the world was run" (56).

And from Jesus and the Victory of God:
"the 'coming of the son of man' does not refer to the 'parousia' in the modern scholarly, and popular, sense of a human figure travelling downwards towards the earth on actual clouds... The word 'coming', so easily misread in English, is in Greek erchomenon, and so could mean either 'coming' or 'going'... The 'coming of the son of man' is thus good first-century metaphorical language for two things: the defeat of the enemies of the true people of god, and the vindication of the true people themselves. Thus, the form that this vindication will take, as envisaged within Mark 13 and its parallels, will be precisely the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple" (359-60).

These are awefully convenient interpretations for orthodox faith, although not so much for American fundamentalist faith. Wright has a fun footnote: "the interesting spectacle of fundamentalist interpreters taking the metphorical language in Mk. 13:26, 30 ('the coming of the son of man') literally, and literal language ('within a generation') metaphorically," (Jesus, 224 n.96). I agree that some of this apocalyptic language is metaphorical. But I'm not convinced that the arrival of Christ was.

Mark 13

Mark 13 gives us Jesus' predictions about the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in AD70--or does it? Of course, the Left Behind series thinks Mark 13 is about end time events. An Antichrist will set himself up as god in a rebuilt Jerusalem temple. On the one hand, it is not too hard to see where this interpretation comes from. There are some things in Mark 13 that don't seem to have happened in AD70, like Christ coming on the clouds, sun darkening and moon turning to blood, etc...

On the other hand, the context of Mark 13 leads us to believe that the prophecy is about the destruction of that temple right in front of them. Jesus says that the stones they are looking at will be torn down; the disciples ask when; then the discourse begins. Then there are thornier issues still. There is the statement that "this generation will not pass until all these things happen." Well, that generation's past, which works fine if Jesus means the destruction of Jerusalem. If Jesus meant the second coming, then we have a problem, Houston.

From what I remember, N. T. Wright has a clever solution (so are they all, all clever solutions). He suggests that rather than "coming on the clouds," the sense is "going on the clouds." The Greek word erchomai can mean either. So, he suggests, perhaps it is a reference to Christ abandoning Jerusalem. Since such a going can be coordinated with AD70, and since sun darkening and moon turning can be taken metaphorically (e.g., Acts 2 seems to relate this passage to the Day of Pentecost), case solved.

Then again, is that really what Mark 13 is saying? Should a convenient possible solution trump an inconvenient probable one?

If we leave comfortable surroundings, the discussion gets thornier and thornier. Scholars debate, for example, whether Jesus even predicted that the temple would be destroyed. James Dunn, in Jesus Remembered, makes a pretty good case that Jesus was remembered for predicting some sort of judgment and "rebuilding" of the temple. The main basis I would say is the so called "multiple attestation" of the idea in so many different sources. Some sort of prediction is found not only in the synoptic gospels but in John and the Gospel of Thomas as well. So even an unorthodox person like John Dominic Crossan believes Jesus was remembered for saying something against the temple (man, he likes Thomas).

On the other hand, it is reasonably argued that whatever Jesus said, it surely wasn't as clear as Mark 13 currently is. The disciples in Acts don't seem to have a clue that the temple is going to be destroyed. They continue to worship there, preach there (not against the temple, although Stephen apparently does), heal there, even take vows and offer sacrifices there (Acts 21). Paul talks about a man of lawlessness setting himself up in the temple as God, but says absolutely nothing that would lead us to believe the temple was about to be destroyed.

Indeed, even a close read of Mark 13, other than its beginning, says nothing about the destruction of the temple. It only implies the temple's desecration. Is it possible that it was only in hindsight, after the temple's destruction, that the early Christians came to understand just what Jesus' action in the temple must have signified. Was it only then that they came to understand exactly what Jesus must have meant by destroying and rebuilding the temple?

It seems to me that these are difficult issues to sort out, and they of course run rough shod over simplistic conceptions of the biblical text. My hunch is that the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple must have shocked the Christian community almost as much as it shocked the Jewish communities of the world. It is quite possible to read books like Matthew, Luke-Acts, and Hebrews against the backdrop of these events and the ripples they created among Christians.

Of course you would expect that something having to do with Hebrews was driving my interest in this question...

Things to think about... or not.

Time to Back Off

I was reading a little from a blogger in Beirut http://beirutlive.blogspot.com/. I really think the Israel-Hizbollah thing is at that point I blogged about a few weeks ago--time to step back and lose a battle to win a war. I am not at all disputing that Hizbollah has manipulated Israel into killing children, civilians, and UN peacekeepers. They shoot near these targets knowing that Israel will retaliate and innocents will die. They should get the primary blame, I think.

But it doesn't matter. Israel falls into their trap and it is having the desired outcome. What used to be a conflict of Hizbollah versus Israel--with the Arabs, Palestinians, and broader Lebanese against Hizbollah--is almost if not already everyone against Israel and America by extension. Israel must back off and regroup.

Brute force simply will not work at this point. It has become counterproductive. It doesn't matter who's right and who's wrong. Reality doesn't care. God lets the evil win all the time, for whatever reason. We have to be smarter to win over evil, not necessarily stronger.

Email on Women in Ministry

I have a friend who is on staff at an independent church where the pastor is trying to convince his elders that women in ministry is not prohibited Scripturally. Here is my most recent presentation of the case:

__________________
The woman thing is hard and you can see I've flown around that airport several times, trying to stop a fundamentalizing trend in my own denomination. I guess my big picture argument goes something like this:

1) if we had to guess what God's position on this issue was, what would we guess? If women have the Spirit just like men (Acts 2), if women are sons of God just like men (Gal. 3)--we know we men aren't always more spiritual, wiser, more intelligent or more responsible than them. So if we had nothing else to go by, spiritual common sense would lead us to think, "Yeah, if God calls a woman and she has the goods, why not?" If our plane is about to crash and needs a pilot, and there's a woman who can fly planes and I can't, it would be silly (not to mention stupid) to insist I do it because I have a penis, eh?

2) There's really only one verse in the whole Bible that comes even close to sounding like it's against women taking leadership roles. Women take leadership roles in both the OT, Acts, and Paul's mission. They pray and prophecy in Paul's churches (he assumes this in 1 Cor. 11, which by the way eliminates the 1 Cor. 14 as an argument against spiritual speech by women in church). The headship passages don't work against women in ministry, because if God calls women, then a husband-head would be in defiance of his head if he refused her to fulfill God's call. Most men with wives who minister support their wives' ministry.

That leaves one passage 1 Tim. 2:12-15. This is a passage written to a church having problems with false teaching, and 2 Tim. 3:6 makes it sound like women were involved. I'll come back to this verse but that makes us think of

3) We simply do not have full information on the background to the words of the Bible so that we can know for sure what the precise connotations of all its comments are. Just a little information on so many passages might make us completely rethink many interpretations that seem really obvious on the surface. That's why applying the Bible must be a spiritual task, not a task of the letter. The Pharisees of the gospels and the Judaizers were interpreters of the letter. In contrast, Paul and the NT writers showed great spiritual freedom in their appropriation of the text.

Because we don't have full information, we must always bring the Spirit of Christ with us when we are trying to discern God's will. I've already mentioned what I think it is in #1. I think any person full of the Spirit would be puzzled at the suggestion that God would not use women in leadership simply because they don't have a penis. That sounds more Muslim than Christian, frankly.

So back to #2. 1 Tim. 2:12-15 has some bizarre arguments. First, is it really about husband wife relationships primarily? It could be translated that way, "I don't allow a wife to be an autocrat over her husband"?

Second, does the argument, "God made Adam first" pull on our brains the way it did on people 2000 years ago? Or is it an argument aimed at a particular culture.

Third, Eve was the one deceived, Adam wasn't. So women are more easily deceived than men and shouldn't be allowed to teach men. Again, women were less educated in the first century than men, but clearly this argument doesn't work today. All women aren't more easily deceived than all men. And we're only arguing here that women God calls and gifts should be allowed to obey God. Who has the boldness to tell a woman who believes God has called her to ministry that she's wrong? Boy, better make sure you're not fighting God on the basis of a deception on your own part.

Finally, Eve and the women in her will be saved through childbearing? I thought we were saved through Jesus Christ! Isn't that blasphemy? Oh, he's probably talking about the fulfillment of the curse on Eve, pain in childbearing.

In short, this passage raises far too many questions to serve as the starting point of our understanding of women in Christ. Galatians 3:28 seems a lot more like the central station from which our train drives into the countryside.

I think I know where history is going on this one. Catch the Spirit and join the "winners" on this issue. Fully support women in all roles of ministry!

Acceptance of Article by CBQ

I was excited yesterday to receive word that an article Kevin Wright and I worked on quite extensively has been accepted by the Catholic Biblical Quarterly, which in my mind is one of the top three English speaking scholarly journals in biblical studies. The current form has benefited much from earlier critiques by helpful reviewers.

I don't know that I ever blogged it, but I was quite happy in my own mind to feel some resolution to the "faith of Jesus Christ" debate. The issue centers on the fact that the phrase typically rendered "faith in Christ" in Romans 3 and Galatians 2 might also be translated as the "faithfulness of Christ." James Dunn has become the poster proponent of the traditional faith in Christ reading, while Richard Hays of Duke has led the charge for the faithfulness of Christ interpretation.

The difference is largely one of focus. Is Christian faith most properly placed in God, as Abraham's in Romans 4, while our faith is more in what God did through Christ? Is the expression "believing on Christ" better understood as "exercising faith into Christ," becoming "in Christ" by our faith in what God has done through him? Of course all this implies a trust in Christ as well, but the focus comes to be more on God (the Father).

I have largely become convinced that this interpretation is the more accurate rendition of Paul's prioritization. My article largely proceeds from 2 Corinthians 4:13, where I argue Paul takes Psalm 116:10 to be a reflection of Christ's faith as he faced his own death. Just as Christ exercised faith in the "one who could save him out of death" (Heb. 5:7), Paul also trusts in God to raise him from the dead.

With concrete evidence in hand that Paul could think of a progression of faith from the faith of Christ to our faith, I suggest a model of intepretation "from Hays to Dunn," that combines what I see as the best features of both their arguments. While I sketch what this might look like in my article, CBQ will now have the dubious pleasure of a follow up submission that will work out my "from Hays to Dunn" conception in greater detail. To the laptop, Robin...

Reflections on Israel/Hezbollah

Here are some reflections after returning from Scotland.

My wife Angie was quite irritated at the anti-Israel bent to European media, probably corresponding to similar pro-Israel American leanings (with there being exceptions on both sides). And let's make no bones about it--the rest of the world largely hates us right now and are making alliances against us (e.g., Chavez is trying to make alliances with Russia right now). There were a couple times in Scotland where I wondered if cold interactions had anything to do with me being an American.

First, I am not opposed in theory to Israel taking the opportunity of two captured soldiers to try to castrate Hezbollah. I do not consider Hezbollah a force for any good in the world and wholly favor its castration. I agree with the words, "Israel has a right to defend itself." And sometimes, the best defense is a good offense.

And I deplore the way the UN community tends to find fault only with Israel and wink at Hezbollah. If Lebanon had followed the UN resolution for the disarmament of southern Lebanon, this presumably would not be happening.

[Insert here an aside on the UN as a bit of a farse as it currently operates. I want it in NY so that we have significant power in its doings. But I think we should think of it as what it is--a place for powerful and not so powerful nations to discuss world issues and work for consensus. But we should not pretend that it stands for truth or justice or that any of its member states are ultimately anything but self-interested entities. Its claim to broker right and wrong is a farse, in my opinion, and I am sympathetic to Bush's decision not to be a part of the Hague (gray issue for me).]

But at the same time, this is all "in theory." In practice things get substantially messier. I do not know the process by which the real Israel has gone about bombing Lebanon. I do believe that Hezbollah deliberately launches missiles from civilian locations knowing that Israel will retaliate in a way that will result in innocent deaths. In this I fault Hezbollah more than Israel.

But I pity those who have little option other than to fight for Hezbollah (given where they are born) or must stay put because their husband or father fights for Hezbollah. I am not for the annihilation of everyone who lives in south Lebanon or who even in their theory opposes the existence of Israel as a state. But I accept the right of Israel to fight those who actively fight against them and, in the light of first act aggressions by Hezbollah, those who have been actively seeking to fight against them.

On the other hand, I have gone on record as believing that war favors the violent. Regardless of what some leader thinks in Jerusalem. Some individual Israeli soldier will cross the line at some point and kill someone who shouldn't be killed. I would like to believe that the killing of UN peace keepers or the bombing of Red Cross ambulances by Israel are accidents. But I cannot be sure at all that these were not acts of spite born by hate in the midst of war (I can conceive of them reaching the highest levels of Israel, although I hope not). Of course I consider all non-military bombings of Hezbollah to be immoral. And frankly all bombings by Hezbollah are stupid since they haven't got a chance.

I think I understand the bombing of gas stations where Hezbollah might get gas and of satellite antennae that Hezbollah uses. Israel has destroyed infrastructure that Hezbollah might have used, even though such infrastructure served all of Lebanon. In all out war especially you would need to eliminate the resources of your enemy even when they are shared by the innocent.

But I am not sure that this should be categorized as all out war at this point. I think it would have been far more profitable in the long term--even if not in the short term--for Israel to work together with the anti-Hezbollah parties of Lebanon rather than to act as it seemingly has against Lebanon's overall infrastructure. It is at this point that I fear (though I am open to being convinced otherwise) Israel has gone beyond what it should have either morally or prudentially.

It is my contention that truly human ethics must consider innocent humans as ends in themselves. And by innocent I mean by the Western standard of "all individuals on the basis of their actions" and as a Christian I mean "all individuals are created in the image of God." In other words, you cannot consider guilty the wife, child, or even inactive party member of Hezollah. The guilty are those who have acted or actively supported those who have so acted. Any other position is not Christian.

I hear some Americans these days considering the children and wives of the guilty to be guilty by proxy. This is unamerican thinking (all "men" are created equal... with certain inalienable rights), even if it is the natural tendency of the human animal, which is a herd animal in my view. To think this way is the way humans tend, but the Western tradition at its peak rose above it. We are not nobly human if we succumb to our animal default.

Things get a little messier I think in "all out" war, and I would not at this point classify the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in that category. I am trying to make fine distinctions here, but I believe they are very important in such complex and high stakes matters.

And I also want to go on record as saying the notion of a "war on terror" is far too imprecise in referent to push to the higher degree of all out war without considering specifics. I believe the blanket conception that gives absolute license against anyone we might place under such a non-specific heading as a "war on terror" potentially damnable and immoral in consequence.

To speak of a "war on terror" is a different mode of speaking than saying that we are in a "war with Saddam Hussein." The two must not be confused--it is sloppy and dangerous logic. We are certainly warring with terror around the world. But I reject categorically any move to literal war against specific enemies without more concrete discussion of that specific enemy. This is an atrocious leap in logic and bad thinking. It is the logic that puts a Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda in the same category--that transfers an appropriate action against the one to the other without significant consideration of the difference. Good thinking and good ethics requires more precision than this, especially when we're talking about war.

So this is my very limited appraisal of the Israeli-Hezbollah situation from where I sit--without access to Israel's war room or the streets of Lebanon. I support the appropriateness of Israel to pursue Hezbollah and bomb sites in southern Lebanon. I support Israel's agenda to disarm Hezbollah as much as possible. I am flabbergasted at the irrational, self-defeating, and yet persistent refusal of groups like Hezbollah (Hamas, anyone?) to accept that the nation of Israel is here to stay. Get over it and move on to your own benefit and that of your people even more.

Yet I think Israel is self-defeating as well and indiscriminate in its manner of attack, that it shoots itself in the foot by its lack of caution. Defeat open aggressors; convince would be aggressors not to become agressors; win over the unconvinced. The operating policy that Israel seems to follow is "Defeat open aggressors and anyone, let's say, in south Lebanon, give or take; convince would be aggressors to become aggressors when they have the chance (maybe when they grow up); and win over the unconvinced to the other side. And this is the way I believe our actions in Iraq have also played out so far, despite good intentions on Bush's part.

Smart People in Scotland

The Hebrews conference was helpful to solidify thoughts and reassure one of the lay of the land. I was especially impressed by the theologians. These people are trying to work out distinctions between God's impassibility and immutability while dancing with the biblical text. I watched the familiar clash of the principal of "theology can't contradict the text" and "theology deals with things way beyond the text." I think this is a faulty paradigm.

But John Webster did an admirable job. He's a Scot and a systematic theologian. Incredibly intelligent. One of the most profound things he said was "There is no historical Jesus, only the incarnate second person of the Trinity." Profound doesn't mean right necessarily, but it is ingenious.

Bruce McCormick is a theologian from Princeton. Again, his command of the theologies of everyone from the early fathers to the post-Reformation was incredibly impressive.

Richard Bauckham is also incredibly clever, even if I frequently disagree with him. His cleverest suggestion is that the "name Christ inherited more excellent than the angels" (Heb. 1:4) is Yahweh. He inherits it because it is the name of his father, while "Son" is not a name one inherits. I think this argument probably reads in modern definitions into these words but it is the typical genius of Bauckham.

Richard Hays did a good job of introducing what I am calling "a new perspective on Hebrews," a subject on which I have been preparing an article with my own twist. I'm quite excited, although I usually find that others aren't nearly as excited about my ideas as I am. Hays gave us a helpful way of conceptualizing this new perspective. He suggested we forget that we know anything about Christianity and read through Hebrews as if we were a Jew reading a Jewish author.

Harold Attridge impresses me by his instantaneous ability to respond to any question. Most seem to pause and contemplate for a moment when asked a challenging question. He, being from the northeast anyway, talks quickly and responds instantaneously. He was treated as the Hebrews patriarch of the conference. He was the reference.

Turning away from impressive people, Angie and I watched a large, angry march of anti-Israel demonstrators today. We just have no idea in America how angry the world is right now about all these things.

Off to Scotland

Lord willing, tomorrow at this time I will groggily be going through customs in Edinburgh with my wife Angie. I finished the footnotes on my paper last night so I am ready to go. You can see the schedule and details of the conference, Hebrews and Theology, here. I'll looking forward to some heavy thinking, maybe.

Have I learned anything writing my paper (or at least duped myself into thinking I have)? The most satisfying thing about the paper for me was the opportunity to bring together several hermeneutical concepts of interest to me: Hans Frei's exposition on the difference between pre-critical and critical biblical interpretation, Roman Jakobson's basic conception of speech-acts (addresser, message, addressee, etc...), J. L. Austin's sense of "performative" speech that not only declares but "does" as it declares. You know, blah, blah, blah...

What do I think is most insightful about my paper?

1. The distinction between using the biblical text as (pre-modern) window on the past and the text as witness to truth. I think one sentence in my paper expresses Frei far more clearly than anything he ever wrote: "In a sense, the text disappears as the interpreter outside the text becomes a part of the world within the text and the world within the text is seen as the past of the world outside the text."

By the way, this is not in my paper, but I think I have finally understood the debate on 2 Timothy 3:16 for the first time. I wonder if it really should be translated, "Every God-breathed scripture is profitable for instruction, correction, etc..." If so, the verse is not questioning whether parts of the Old Testament are really God-breathed, which is how I took the debate previously. Rather, the word "scripture" simply means "writing" and of course there were many, many writings in the ancient world. So to translate the verse as a reference to "every God-breathed writing" is not to question the inspiration of parts of the Old Testament but to identify the Old Testament writings as an inspired subset of all writings.

I haven't studied up on this debate, but these thoughts occurred to me in the process of writing my own paper.

2. I suggested in my paper that the author probably located the scriptures (and I am now very intentionally using the plural rather than the singular that is our default given book packaging) within God's overarching word and the overarching story of salvation history. Ironically, the scriptures were no doubt the mine from which that word and story was mined, but the author conceived of them as the larger entities and scriptures as a subset of God's word and the story.

This I think is a primary difference between the pre-modern paradigm that has been the Wesleyan past and the fundamentalist culture of, say, Baptist churches. While we have used the Bible as the "playing field" and "meaning mine" of our thinking, we have conceived of these words as a part of God's larger word and story. We view the Bible through the lens of the story as we understand it. Fundamentalists tie more chains on the story by way of the biblical text. I haven't fully thought this distinction through, but I think it has some validity.

3. I argued that while the author considered the voice of God and the Holy Spirit to be the same voice, the speaking of the Holy Spirit tends to be used in relation to contemporary, new covenant speaking through texts. The Holy Spirit accordingly seems more linked to non-literal interpretations of the text aimed at the present.

4. Finally, I feel like I was able to get beyond some recent paradigm problems with regard to things like typology and allegory. I tried to crash the boundary between the text as example in relation to behavior (e.g., Esau, the wilderness generation, Abraham) and the text as "shadowy example" in relation to the Levitical system (e.g., 8:5). I rediscovered the existence of a book by Frances Young which deals with the topic: Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1997).

Well so much for my world. I may be able to post from St. Andrews...

Blessings!

Israel Bombing Lebanon

I'm always a little sad when Israel's bombing Gaza or shooting missles into the offices of the Palestinian authority or assassinating someone or another. But I don't usually get too worried about it.

I don't know how effective it all is, mind you. What are the long term consequences? I imagine the people Israel assassinates deserve to die from the standpoint of justice. I'm willing to believe that assassination can be justified (I don't have a problem with those who tried to assassinate Hitler). I just don't know what the long term consequences really are. I am sympathetic to many of Israel's responses--but very unsure how profitable they really are.

But up to this point no one in the world thus far has seemed to care enough to up the ante for Israel... until now. After twenty some years, Israel and Lebanon are at it again, as Hezbollah has kidnapped two soldiers. Israel has responded with great force, calling it an act of war. Lebanon is asking the UN to call for a truce.

Maybe nothing will come of this either. It kinda looks like Israel is taking advantage of the opportunity to bomb Hezbollah to heck. It reminds me of us invading Iraq--the circumstances at the time didn't warrant it, but we had been wanting to take out Saddam and it seemed as good a time as any. Again, I imagine most of these Hezbollah guys are not unworthy of death (I'm sure this is true of some Israelis as well, of course). But the consequences I am not sure of--will the net result of these actions be positive or negative?

The result that Israel is hoping for is that 1) Hezbollah will be significantly weakened, 2) they will think very, very seriously before kidnapping Israeli soldiers again.

The other possibilities are 1) their action will harden and recruit many others, young and middle aged, to fight the cause in the future. In one scenario their actions inadvertantly recruit more future terrorists than they kill. This is what I fear our invasion of Iraq has done--recruited thousands of militants who would not otherwise have become militants and brought fundamentalist Islam out of the shadows and into the mainstream.

2) By far the unintended consequence I fear the most is escalation into a regional or world war. Hezbollah seems to have the backing of Syria and Iran, which in turn has the support of Russia and China. Israel has us and maybe Great Britain in a pinch. Frankly, I don't see Russia or China doing much other than fund and supply with weapons. But there are plenty of Muslim and Arab recruits all over the Middle East all furious over our invasion of Iraq and eternally angry at Israel. They are a ready and endless infintry.

Would the U.S. fight for Israel? What would be the consequences? I don't know. I shudder to think of the worst case scenario.

What do you think? I am sympathetic with Israel. Maybe they are doing the right thing. I just don't know.

Psalm 40, Hebrews, and Camp Meeting

I was looking at Psalm 40 tonight in relation to Hebrews 10. Any number of "fun" observations here that send some people's understanding of the Bible into a tailspin. So Hebrews reads Psalm 40:6-8 on the lips of Christ as he enters the world. I have no problem with this whatsoever. What is interesting is 1) the author would not have put the whole psalm on the lips of Christ, since in Psalm 40:12 the original speaker of the psalm admits his iniquities and 2) the author uses a text of the Septuagint that had changed from the original Hebrew (which says "my ears you have dug out" rather than "a body you have prepared"). My hunch is that the author was quite aware that he was hearing a parabolic meaning to the text, although he probably did not know about the textual issue.

But all that aside, I was excited to find an old camp meeting song in some of the first few verses of the psalm. I've joked about making a CD of me singing all the choruses, hymns, and camp meeting tunes I know based on the psalms: "Ken Sings the Psalms." Do you know this one? I'll try it from memory so may mess up a little:

I cried to the Lord 'neath Jehovah's dread frown
And there to the Lord where my sin brought me down
I cried to the Lord from the deep miry clay
Who tenderly brought me out to golden day

He brought me out of the [deep] miry clay
He set my feet on the [solid] rock to stay
He puts a song in my [happy] soul today
A song of praise, Hallelu-jah!

Gives me goose bumps to sing it! I swear that music can be as much a means of grace as the official sacraments.

Hebrews Paper Snippets

Here are some more Hebrews paper snippets as I try to blaze a trail in preparation for Scotland.
_________
"Hebrews arguably presents us with at least seven distinct ways in which God speaks in the biblical text: 1) pre-modernly, as the character of God speaks in the biblical text, 2) by way of straightforward exempla, stories of the Scriptures that serve as examples to emulate or avoid, 3) in straightforward, ‘timeless’ truth, 4) as prophetic script (e.g., to be placed on the lips of Christ or the contemporary audience), 5) in shadowy illustration, which is closely related but distinct from 6) parabolically/allegorically, and, finally, 7) directly to the audience through God’s Holy Spirit. Several of these categories are not those of the author of Hebrews himself, and several embody fine distinctions from our contemporary hermeneutical perspective. Nevertheless, they provide a helpful rubric for us to describe and discuss Hebrews’ own use of Scripture within its own paradigm."
....

"Within such a pre-modern paradigm, narrative framing plays out in a reader or audience’s mind much as the scene direction of a screenplay. The narrative context is not read as text, but is experienced as action in the drama. It is for this reason that pre-modern interpreters confuse the main speaker of a biblical narrative with the author of that narrative. Moses the main speaker of the Pentateuch becomes Moses the author of the Pentateuch.

"Accordingly, narrative about God speaking is experienced as God speaking. For this reason, the author of Hebrews attributes the Septuagint of Deuteronomy 32:43 to God when in fact this text is obviously about God, not God himself speaking (Heb. 1:7). Similarly, we might add the author’s citation of Deuteronomy 32:35 in Hebrews 10:30b to the list of quotations the author attributes to God. This verse was about God, but the author likely thought of it as a word of God."

The Paradigm that Blurs Author and Speaker

I realize that the later books of the Old Testament call the Pentateuch the "books of Moses." I also realize that the New Testament and other Jewish writers reference these books with Moses as the author. It is certainly traditional to consider Moses the author of the Pentateuch.

But I don't think these later ways of referencing the Pentateuch are either the original reasons why people began to talk of Moses as their author nor why so many of us have a tendency to think of them as Moses' writings.

If you think for just a second, the books themselves certainly don't look like what we would expect if Moses were their author. Genesis doesn't mention Moses once and these books nowhere say that Moses is their author even though Moses features prominently in them. You would not naturally think that the account of Moses birth, childhood, and especially his death were written by him. After all, wouldn't we want some comment about how God inspired me, Moses, to see my death before it happened and I'm writing this all down right before I go off to fulfill it? And wouldn't we expect something like "I was born in Egypt" rather than the consistent third person, "Moses did this," "Moses did that"?

In short, in themselves, these books give us every reason to think that they were not written by Moses.

We could mention several other examples of this phenomenon. Some have thought of Joshua as the author of Joshua--but again, Joshua is always told about in these words. John 21 says that the beloved disciple is the one who has borne witness to the things of the gospel and that his words are true. But would the beloved disciple himself write in this way about himself? It sounds like someone writing about this disciple rather than the disciple himself writing.

Then there is the fact that I inevitably have students who put true for the following true/false question in NT survey: "Paul wrote 1 Thessalonians to us from Thessalonica on his second missionary journey." The statement is obviously false... but do you see why?

In matters like these, where some obvious observation is consistently missed by intelligent people, paradigms are at work. The first paradigmatic element I have mentioned over and over again--it is the paradigm of Scripture. The very idea of a Scripture is that the message is somehow important for us. We read Scripture to gain insight about the present, not the past.

Yet these documents were written in and to the past, not to the present. Paul did not write to us from Thessalonica. 1 Thessalonians is Paul's letter to the Thessalonians, written either from Corinth or Athens. It was not written to us or anyone who has been alive for about 1900 years.

But more fascinating to me is the pre-modern paradigm that tends to blur the distinction between inside and outside the biblical text. It places itself, in a sense, inside the text with Moses. Moses in Exodus is now speaking with us there present with him, like we have jumped into the book. Even when he is talking to someone else, we are listening to the words as if they are verbatim quotes and videotape. There is no thought of someone writing about Moses in a book.

The words that frame the story in the text become part of the video, but they cease to be words. It's like a screenplay for a movie. As we watch the movie, we experience "Superman enters from the sky" in the screenplay not as words, but as part of the action. And if it is a good movie, we have joined it, we are there next to the Daily Planet watching him catch the globe that has fallen off the top.

So the pre-modern reading of Moses hears Moses and experiences the narrative setting as action in the drama, not as words. And the result is that we think of Moses as the speaker, as the author, even though it is obvious that someone else has actually written the screenplay.

It is this same dynamic that makes us think of the gospels as the earliest part of the New Testament, because we experience them as drama about Jesus, who is the earliest part of the NT story. But in fact, each gospel is a moment in the late first century church, each with its own concerns and angles. Historically, Paul's writings stand closer to Jesus in time than any of the gospels. So the earliest evidence for the Lord's Supper is not to be found in the gospels, but in 1 Corinthians 11. And the historical question of whether Jesus predicted the destruction of the Jerusalem temple must address why Paul seems completely unaware of any such prophecy.

Fundamentalism was of course the early twentieth century reaction of the startled pre-moderns of that day. Suddenly forced to see the kinds of clear observations we are mentioning here (and forced I might add by a somewhat hostile teacher), they assumed an irrational defensive posture. They rolled up into the fetal position. I hope we are now in a position to recognize that the truth of the text does not stand or fall on how straightforwardly historical it is--this was not the ancient criterion of truth in play. This is the baggage of a debate that happened a 100 years ago. The important questions are not so much about history but about what God was trying to say in the creation of these writings and, even more importantly, what God has led Christians to understand in these writings.

My two cents...

Psalm 34:20 in the TNIV

A student in the Fall of this past year was deeply troubled that our department was passing out the free TNIV's that Zondervan sent our way. You'll remember that Dobson, World Magazine, and others conducted a vigorous smear campaign against the TNIV several years ago, mostly over its use of what Zondervan called "gender accurate" translation ("brothers and sisters" for brothers, etc...).

I've mentioned some of these things before and suggested it is a matter of your personal taste rather than a right or wrong. I've recently asked how translating "brothers" in Romans 16:17 as "brothers and sisters" can be evil when Paul clearly meant the word to include the women in the list of greetings earlier in the chapter. The masculine was often used in Greek even when women were included, as an all inclusive category.

But the student in particular last Fall was upset over the TNIV's translation of Psalm 34:20: "he protects all their bones, not one of them will be broken." The student felt the TNIV was evil for making the verse sound like it wasn't about Christ. The NIV at this point reads, "he protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken."

And why the fuss? Because John 19:32-36 says (NIV), "The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man... and then those of the other. But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs... These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled, 'Not one of his bones will be broken.'"

So the perception was that the "evil" TNIV had translated away a prophecy about Christ by using "their" instead of "his." Now that I think of it, I imagine anti-TNIV-ites thought that the TNIV did this to move to inclusive gender language. That is not the underlying reason, as we will now see.

The problem here is not the TNIV... or the other translations. The problem is not Psalm 34's, and I would even say that the problem is not John's. The problem is the often perpetuated idea that the scripture fulfillments of the New Testament correspond closely to the original meanings of the OT passages they are quoting.

Have you heard the argument? It's done with a good and commendable attitude. I affirm the spirit that zealously says, "Christianity is true."

The argument goes something like this, "It is mathematically impossible that all the predictions of the OT could coincidentally all come true in the life of the same man, Jesus. Therefore, Christianity must be true."

But this argument will never work on a Jewish scholar, especially one who knows Hebrew and the Old Testament contexts. The spirit of the statement is commendable, but a little embarrassing in the light of the facts. It bugs me because it sets up some for a potential crisis over something that shouldn't be a crisis.

The New Testament authors simply were not concerned to read the OT in context the way some are today. Virtually all the prophecies of the OT are prophecies when you take the words in a particular spiritual way. But to varying degrees, the New Testament authors read the words differently from the meaning the OT author originally intended. Prophecies thus tend toward the spiritual rather than the contextual (many aren't even worded as prophecies in context, like Hosea 11:1).

In this case, John takes a verse that in the original Hebrew is about the righteous, plural, throughout and applies them to the Righteous One par excellence, Jesus. I guarantee you that no human being ever understood Psalm 34 to be about the Messiah until after the crucifixion.

34:15: "The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous." This was not originally about the Messiah or a single individual. It is zaddiqim, with a plural ending, "righteous ones," not a singular righteous one. When they cry, the LORD hears (34:17). So when the text turns to the singular "righteous one" in 34:19, it was not thinking of any one righteous person in particular, but any one of the many righteous it has been discussing. The context leading up to the verse in question is consistently plural, referring to the fact that righteous people often suffer unjustly.

It is fine to suggest that the Holy Spirit at this point led the psalmist to switch to the singular, if you like, "keeping all his bones, one from them is not broken." I'm fine with the idea that God has impregnated many passages of Scripture with a sensus plenior, a "fuller sense" than the human authors would have realized. In the original context, however, it is clear that the psalmist was still talking about the plural righteous of the previous verses.

So John (or perhaps early Christian tradition) went well beyond anything suggested by the original meaning of Psalm 34 when, instead of it speaking of the general protection God gives to the righteous in general, he took it to relate to the fact that on April 7 in the year AD30, Jesus' bones were not broken. ;-)

John was reading the verse out of context--or at least mega-beyond the context--which I think is perfectly allowed when you are inspired by the Holy Spirit.

But don't fault the TNIV for translating the OT verse appropriately. They do change a singular masculine in the Hebrew (his bones) to a generic plural. But this is a matter of preference, not right and wrong. The context is plural and surely God guards righteous women as well as men.

"And so all Israel will be saved": Alongside Rom. 11:26

Today I started teaching a summer New Testament survey. Sometimes I'm afraid I'm becoming a tape recorder. All you have to do is press the button, "OK Schenck, first day of class." Then I cue "the story behind the story."

But actually that's not true. Almost no matter how much structure I have planned (quiz, group activity, preplanned "this will be on the quiz" comments), some tangent inevitably presents itself... unless I have Bell's Palsy at the time. Those must have been about the best classes with me ever. No tangents, out early after I had covered the essentials.

Any number of semi-controversial to controversial tangents today, including one point where I sat down because "the opinions of Schenck do not necessarily represent those of Indiana Wesleyan University." The topic was whether or not the election of Israel was still in place and, in particular, what Paul might have meant by Romans 11:26: "and so all Israel will be saved."

There are several interpretations, three of which are found in Bud Bence's Romans commentary. Off the top of my head, I think the three he mentions are 1) that Israel here means true Israel, namely, Jews and Gentiles who accept Christ, 2) ethnic Israel, meaning that eventually disbelievers in Israel will accept Christ, and 3) ethnic Jewish believers.

As a slight tangent, I would not assume that biblical authors like Paul always meant "all" literally--I'm not trying to get out of anything or insinuating dishonesty, the meaning of words and phrases is in their use, and many, many "all" statements that people make are not really meant to withstand the insane questioning of some hypothetical philosophy teacher.

Ok, here's a typical unexpected tangent. I get frustrated when language is assumed to function only on a literal and declarative level. I've heard sermons where the preacher condemns the insincerity of someone who says, "How are you?" and then walks on before waiting to hear the answer. Some expressions are "performative" not declarative. And this statement often is simply meant to play a "cohesive," social function rather than a cognitive one. It can be a bit like shaking hands with words. Perhaps the most enlightening book I've read on this subject is G. B. Caird's The Language and Imagery of the Bible.

Anyway, I think Paul must be referring significantly in context to those in ethnic Israel who have not accepted Christ. The reason is that the verse right before is talking about how "a hardening has come on part of Israel until the full number of the Gentiles come in." In other words, he is talking about the part of Israel that has not "received our report." Because of election, they will be saved (11:28), because God's call is irrevocable (11:29). I see no other possible interpretation in context: Paul is prophesying that all (generally speaking--at least the part that was currently hardened) Israel will eventually stop being hardened in their heart toward Christ. He did not mean "true Israel" by Israel in this verse. After all, he would then be saying almost nothing: "all the saved will be saved."

So we have some sense of the original meaning. Now we sit alongside the text with our theology, experience, the Spirit, the church, our knowledge of history and current events. What will we do with this text?

On the one hand, Paul was not thinking about Israel 2000 years later. The Israel he had in mind stood right before him. Surely the Romans must have wondered if Paul was a false prophet after Jerusalem was destroyed (this surely applies to 2 Thessalonians as well)!

Was the Spirit really speaking about modern Israel through Paul, even though Paul didn't know it? On the one hand, it hasn't happened yet. Modern Israel has not yet accepted Christ. The last statistic I heard was that 85% of those in modern Israel aren't even practicing Jews, let alone Christians. It's actually illegal to try to proselytize. That's the ironic thing--as far as I can tell there are more Palestinian Christians than Israeli Christians. At least until the post-Iraq period (I hope it's still true), places like Bethlehem and Nazareth were both primarily Palestinian and Christian.

Nazareth is Palestinian but in Israel. Bethlehem is in the West Bank. Both have historically been more Christian than Muslim. My impression is that the Iraq war has facilitated changes toward Islam in these places.

So here's where I sit down. It seems to me that a nation like Israel does not get a "pass" of any kind just because they are Israel. I'm not presuming here that Israel is unrighteous. I'm not debating here their assasinations or retaliatory strikes or the wall. Has there been unrighteous violence toward Palestinians? I've already noted that there will always be--even when a violent act is "justified" for a greater good, violence begets violence and evil acts will take place by all sides in consequence.

On the other hand, my impression is that most Israelis would gladly give the Palestinians a state, including eastern Jerusalem as the capital, if they'd just stop blowing things up. But the US should expect the same standard of behavior from Israel as anyone else--just as the world should expect it of us. God certainly didn't let them off the hook because "this is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord" (Jer. 7:4). And God won't let us off either.

By the way, anyone else amused that some of the same people who saw 9-11 as God's judgment on America's sin are also some of those who staunchly argue that America is a Christian nation?

Anyway, it just seems deeply ironic that so many conservative American Christians funnel money to the Zionist cause. When I was in Israel, the orthodox Jews at the wailing wall could spot Americans like me a mile off and came a running for donations to the cause. I bet these individuals say something like "Sucker" to themselves after Americans cough up the dough for them. They probably think Christianity laughable--they certainly don't believe Jesus was the Messiah. And here these stupid American Christians are giving them money! What fools!

Meanwhile, there is a Baptist Bible college run by Palestinians in Bethlehem. Perhaps we shouldn't be sending finances to anyone. But it seems to me that if we sent them to anyone, we should send them to the Christians of the Holy Land, whether Israeli or Palestinian. But why would we send them to the fundamentalist Jews?

I do not know God's plans for ethnic Israel. I pray for its peace. I honor Jews as the people of God to whom God gave the oracles (Rom. 3:2). But politically, they are no more our friend than any ally, and we should expect of them and ourselves the same standards of action as any other nation. God may have political plans for them as a Christian nation. But it hasn't happened yet. For all we know, they might be destroyed and not become Christian for a 1000 years!

P.S. I didn't say all this this morning.