3. Hebrews 13:22-25 -- The Context of Hebrews at Corinth/Ephesus

1 -- The Setting of Hebrews
2 -- The Cast of Characters
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1. Here's the hypothesis. Argument to follow. We, of course, don't know for certain.

Apollos is at Corinth or Ephesus. Timothy has just been released from jail somewhere not far away. Priscilla and Aquilla are there with Apollos. The churches of Ephesus have become more diverse in the last ten years with the arrival of refugees from Jerusalem during the Jewish War -- including John the son of Zebedee.

Some of this cadre had probably visited Rome in the meantime. It makes sense that while Paul was under house arrest in Rome for two years, Timothy and others would have made their way there to visit him. The audience knows this group of church leaders based in the Greece/Ephesus area.

These last two years have been hard. Jerusalem was destroyed. The temple burned to the ground. John was martyred at Ephesus. About the only original follower of Jesus now left standing is John the elder, who wasn't one of the twelve.

Apollos and Timothy plan to visit the churches of Rome soon. But given the drama of watching Rome kill all the captives from Jerusalem, Apollos worries that their faith might be wavering. He sends this sermon, this "word of exhortation" ahead of them to prepare the way.

What if this is the context of Hebrews 13:22-25?

Of course, there are seemingly endless other possibilities. More than any other part of Hebrews, these verses sound like Paul (see the previous post for arguments against Paul as author). Some suggest the author is Priscilla and that she is somewhat obscuring her identity (I don't see it, although it would be great). A couple key scholars think it is being written from Ephesus to Corinth. [1] 

I get it. Apollos to Corinth. Would make sense. But also notice that Timothy doesn't seem to be in the same place as the author. If Timothy was at Ephesus -- as 1 and 2 Timothy seem to imply -- then a little journey to join Apollos at Corinth would fit our traditions.

In any case...

2. And now the argument. The first twelve chapters of Hebrews are a sermon, a "word of exhortation" (13:22). But they were a "sent sermon." The author was in another location, maybe Corinth or Ephesus. He knew the audience, possibly in Rome. He planned to visit them soon. He was sending this letter ahead because he felt like they needed it to bolster their faith.

The audience also knew Timothy (13:23). At that time, he had just been released from jail -- perhaps at Ephesus. This is after Paul's time. Paul probably died around 62 in Rome at the end of his house arrest in Acts. [2] That was now almost ten years now in the past.

In the years since Paul died, surely much had happened at Ephesus. There are traditions that some of the apostles came to Ephesus, most notably John the son of Zebedee. [3] I personally suspect that the earliest part of the book of Revelation dates to the last days of the Jewish War, just a year or two before the Gospel of Mark and the sermon of Hebrews. John was then probably martyred in the environs of Ephesus, maybe on the isle of Patmos. [4]

Ephesus would soon become a somewhat theologically diverse set of churches. You had the earliest Pauline layer. Hebrews reflects it. You had a rising Jerusalem oriented layer, strengthened by the presence of John the son of Zebedee there. Revelation represents it. 

Another John, the elder, possibly the Beloved Disciple of the Gospel of John, would have great influence there in the last part of the century. [5] The Gnostic movement at Ephesus would grow to power in the midst of his ministry (cf. 1 John 2:19). It was a very Hellenistic -- Greek influenced -- branch of Christianity.

2. "Those from Italy greet you" (Heb. 13:24). It is very tempting to think this refers to Priscilla and Aquila. Wherever we think they were in Romans 16, 2 Timothy 4:19 has them at Ephesus at the end of Paul's life. They were of course from Rome (cf. Acts 18:2), so a letter to Rome might easily mention them.

3. We've already mentioned that Hebrews was a "word of exhortation." It's a homily or a short sermon. It has no letter introduction. Its beginning is far too magnificent to cloud with a mundane greeting.

Besides, the letter would be sent with someone who would make it abundantly clear who it was from.

Apollos is only a guess since we don't know. His name was not suggested in writing by the early church. Martin Luther in the 1500s is the first he is mentioned as a possibility.

But there is a reason, chiefly the cumulative (superficial) parallels with the writings of Philo. Apollos was from Alexandria and Philo taught at Alexandria. Apollos has the level of education that the author of Hebrews surely had.

Luke is sometimes suggested. On writing style, this is very possible. However, Luke's theology seems quite distinct from that of Hebrews. Acts 7 comes the closest to Hebrews' theology, and it is generally an outlier in the general attitude of Acts toward Jerusalem. In general, Luke-Acts is strongly oriented around the future kingdom of God on earth while Hebrews demonstrates much more of a dualism.

It is interesting to see Hebrews on a continuum that moves to the dualism of John and then on to the dualism of Gnosticism. Just maybe, this was in the water at Ephesus.

[1] Chiefly, Hugh Montefiore and Luke Timothy Johnson.

[2] This is not the most popular reconstruction, but it is the most likely. The last nine chapters of Acts repeatedly foreshadow Paul's death. He tells the Ephesians he'll never see them again (Acts 20:25). Agabas warns him not to go to Jerusalem, and Paul says he is ready to die (21:10-14). Agrippa II and the Roman governor Festus both agree it is a shame he appealed to Caesar because he was clearly innocent (26:31-32). These do not prove that Paul died in Rome, but the most likely way to take these comments is that they are foreshadowing a bad outcome.

The dating of Luke similarly is not really ambiguous. Both Matthew and Luke give hints that they were written after the temple's destruction. Matthew does it in the way he tells the Parable of the Wedding Banquet (Matt. 22:7). Luke does it in the way he paraphrases Jesus' abomination of desolations statement (Luke 21:20). The fact that they both use Mark is another prong in this argument, since Mark also was also likely written around the time of Jerusalem's destruction (cf. Mark 13:14 -- "let the reader understand").

It is often protested, "Then why doesn't Acts tell us what happened to Paul. Don't you think he would have told us?" This is a narcissistic answer. Acts wasn't written to us. The original audience knew. He didn't need to tell them.

Acts is not some mere history book. It has clear theological and ideological tendencies. Acts is making an argument, and a key piece of that argument is that Christians -- and Paul -- were not troublemakers. Rather, their opponents oppressed them and stirred up problems all around them. The way Acts ends fits beautifully with this purpose. He implies Paul's innocence without saying Caesar was wrong. He stays far away from that puppy!

None of the above items are particularly ambiguous to me. They seem the obvious  and most natural way to interpret this data. Why would anyone question these conclusions? Sentimentality. I recognize the impulse because it once was me. It is an intellectually perverse drive to find alternative interpretations to fit a narrative that feels better -- even though no item of faith is at stake.

[3] One tradition is that John brought Mary, Jesus' mother there, but I consider it far more likely that she was dead by this time. The tradition probably grew out of John 19:27.

[4] The reason to suspect his martyrdom is because Mark seems to allude to it (Mark 10:39). The confusion is because the Beloved Disciple was possibly another disciple of Jesus who was also named John -- John the elder. Papias, writing in the early second century, mentions a "John the elder" at Ephesus (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.39.4).

Given the style and theological differences between the Gospel of John and Revelation, it has been suggested since the early church that these were two different Johns (cf. Dionysius of Alexandria, in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 7.24–25). To me, Revelation sounds like it came from a "son of thunder" (cf. Mark 3:17). So it seems reasonable to think that the bulk of the Johannine corpus grew from the ministry of John the elder at Ephesus. See Martin Hengel, The Johannine Question (SCM, 1989).

[5] See note 4 above.

2. The Nuclear Café

Last week, I dubbed Saturday's as chemistry novel days. Here's a continuation from last week. 
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Soon the swivel chair and I were in mid-air, spinning round and round as the world stretched bigger and bigger. I wafted up to the lab table and toward the Bunsen Burner. “Oh dear,” I said, “I may find myself sizzled before I ever find anything at all.”

But waves of hot air expanding out from the burner soon pushed me back in the opposite direction. Once or twice I did a loopty-loop like a roller coaster. Then I was like a plane veering from side-to-side between tall skyscrapers, which turned out to be Mike, April, and Wade. In fact, I seemed to be on a direct course for Wade’s nostril, which was quickly reaching the proportions of an upside down Grand Canyon.

I’m afraid his nose didn’t look much like a nose, not by the time I reached it. I seem to remember something about a “cell” in biology class. Wade’s nose looked like egg carton after egg carton, full of eggs you could see through, with a ball of yolk in the middle, except of course they weren’t yellow. I might have plunged into the liquidish sea of a nose cell if Wade was not inhaling at the time, and I quickly wafted off further into the canyon.

It soon became very dark, and I could not tell if I was moving or not. Would my flight never come to an end? I wondered how many miles I must have traveled by that time. There was the occasional meteor shower of light falling through the darkness. But they seemed oh so far away.

It was all rather empty, and I began to wonder what I might do for air. How would the little bits of oxygen get in my nose, when I must surely be getting close to the size of oxygen?

Perhaps someone heard my concern, for very soon I found myself coming closer and closer to something—or perhaps it was two somethings. I seem to recall Mr. Atkinson saying once upon a time that oxygens liked to travel in pairs, so I became hopeful. Perhaps I will be able to breathe somehow if I am at least near oxygen, I said to myself.

What I saw was hard to describe. At first, it looked rather like two eye balls looking straight at me with rather extravagant lashes. Not only did the poor pair of oxygen atoms have a uni-brow above the eyeballs, but underneath as well, with two other lashes branching out on the outside like cat whiskers. In fact, the closer I got, I realized that two lashes were pointing straight out of the eyeball toward me!

Time must still have been slowing down for the things around me, for soon the solid lights of the oxygens became fuzzy lights with the occasional bit of lightning in the cloud. Thankfully, I was not headed for any of the lashes. But I had spun straight toward one of the eyeballs.

It occurred to me that I could get rather singed if one of those flashes of light were to hit me. There were only two fuzzy lights toward the inner part of the eyeball, in a bit of a sphere. I was quite relieved to make it inside them without encountering one of those flashes of light!

It suddenly dawned on me that these swirling, flashing bits of light did in fact remind me of electricity, and I tried to exclaim exuberantly, “Electrons!” But nothing came out of my mouth since there was no air to carry sound. It was quite unlike me to remember something about chemistry, and so I was very excited. I even looked around to see if anyone might have noticed my silent lips move. Perhaps some excellent lip reader lurking in the middle of an oxygen atom might silently congratulate me on my great insight. Unfortunately, no one seemed to notice.

What was it Mr. Atkinson said was in the middle of an atom? Was it a nucleus? Or was a nucleus in the middle of a cell? Wait, maybe both were called a “nucleus.” Right now it seemed rather more like a bunch of emptiness. Perhaps Mr. Atkinson was wrong. After all, he had never been to the middle of an atom. I would have to tell him what nonsense he was teaching when I got back. Surely I was quickly becoming more an expert on chemistry than he was!

But a moment later, I did spot something rather large looming on the horizon. It made me think of a cluster of grapes. I could only see one side of the bunch, but there were clearly at least a dozen grapes. I wondered to myself what they might taste like. I would surely need a snack before long. Shrinking is hard work!

What did Troy call them? Clavicles? No, that wasn’t right. My little sister broke her clavicle once, and I am quite sure that it was not shaped anything of the sort. Particles -- that was it! These were particles. There were electrons, protons, and neutrons in an atom. I was quite sure of it. The electrons swirled or something around the outside of the nucleus -- I had thought like the planets around the sun. But now I could tell all the scientists of the world that they were more like eyeballs and lashes.

Then the nucleus was in the middle, with a cluster of grapes called “protons” and “neutrons.” Of course they did not really look like grapes, but I wouldn’t know how else to describe them.

The grapes in the nucleus each seemed at least a thousand times bigger than the fuzzy electron swirls in orbit, maybe almost two thousand times bigger! It was all very strange, and I wondered who would design such a bizarre collection of grapes and eye lashes. I would certainly pay more attention to Mr. Atkinson if I ever returned to my larger state!

My spinning had nearly stopped when it appeared that one of the grapes in the center of the atom had a window on it. Indeed, I could see people moving around inside.

No, wait. It was more like a garage you would drive into. I was headed right for it and, to my surprise, the swivel chair stopped spinning exactly in front of the counter of what looked to be a diner of sorts.

“We’re not a diner or a chippy, love,” a woman behind the counter said in what seemed to me a peculiar kind of English accent. “We’re a café. Big difference. Most of the people what come in here are misguided physicists whose experiments go wonky. We have far too many upper end to be a chippy, love.”

“It’s true,” I heard a squeaky voice come from somewhere nearby. And, sure enough, there was a tiny man not more than an inch high sitting on a swivel chair on top of the counter next to me. As for me, I had to give credit to Mike and Wade for spinning me almost just right. I was only a little oversized for the café, with my head reaching to about a foot from the ceiling. I was certainly the tallest person in the diner.

“This is the Nuclear Café, I’ll have you know,” the woman continued, “not a diner! We’ve served dozens of very important customers here since Einstein a hundred years ago. Everyone thinks he came up with relativity in the Patent Office, but the truth is that he had a bit of a mishap one day in 1905 with a Tesla coil and some uranium 235.”

“I’m sorry,” I interjected. “I don’t know what any of those things are, although I have heard of Einstein. E = mc², right?”

“Exactly, love. It’s I what taught him that. Don’t worry. Einstein didn’t know what had happened to him either.”

“Excuse me,” a man interrupted with an Italian accent. He looked shrunk to about four feet tall, and I must have been twice his size. “Could Madame and I have two more pions?” he said.

Two quarks, up and anti-down,” she shouted back into the kitchen through an open window where the cook placed the orders.

“Sorry,” the man quickly added, “but I’d like down and anti-up, and I feel quite confident that Madame would rather have down and anti-down.” And with that he returned to a table on the edge of the emptiness, where an older woman was sitting. He was mumbling something under his breath about how Yukawa never messed up his order.

“That’s Fermi,” the lady behind the counter said. “He’s a picky one. Everyone thinks radiation killed him and Madame as well. Truth is, it only shrunk ’em.

“So what would you like to order, mum?” she continued.

I’m not quite sure where to begin,” I said. “I’ve come here looking for some interesting atoms. You know, E=mc² stuff.”

“Well that’s about as clear as Heisenberg,” the lady said. “We do plenty of E = mc² here, but we’re not really in the atom business. We do the smaller particles—electrons, quarks, you know.”

“No, ma’am. I’m afraid I don’t know. I thought there were just electrons, protons, and neutrons.”

Really?” she said with a noticeable tone of disgust.

Well, we do have protons and neutrons, but you’ll have to go out on the back lot with Feynman to see ’em.”

"Who's Feynman," I asked.

Why he’s the cook. The best subatomic cook we’ve ever seen in these particles.”

“So you don’t sell atoms here?”

“No, love. We’re inside a neutron after all. Even hydrogen would take a tonne of football fields. Now Rutherford down the road makes a fine hydrogen, although he messes up most everything else. Bohr isn’t too bad with smaller atoms, but if you want the bigger ones, especially the really interesting ones, you’ll have to go to Schrodie’s.”

“What about Dalton’s?” came a squeaky voice from somewhere. Ah, it was the inch tall man on the counter. I had forgotten him.

I’ve told you a thousand times,” barked the lady behind the counter. “Dalton’s went out of the atom making business almost two hundred years ago. He only trades molecules these days.”

It was all very confusing to be sure. I was quite certain now that Mr. Atkinson had said an atom was made up of electrons, protons, and neutrons. And I thought the electrons were like little planets circling the large sun of the nucleus.

“That’s a good place to start, love,” said the woman behind the counter, once again reading my thoughts. “But it turns out they is not the most basic building blocks of all, and the electrons are more like clouds of mystery than little planets. You never know exactly where they’re at, although you can make some fine guesses.”

They ain’t nowhere 'til you look at 'em,” barked someone in the corner, and with that an argument broke out in the café about whether electrons really had a position or not. “Not until the waveform collapses!” she heard someone shout.

A quirky smile came over the woman behind the counter. “Gets ’em going every time.”

"So,” I finally said with some hesitation, “what should I do now?”

“To be honest, love, you’ll need to go back to the beginning,” she said, as if this were the most obvious thing in the universe. Which, apparently, it was. “No sense poking around quarks and leptons when you’ve barely sorted your atoms.”

“But I don’t see how I’m ever going to get back to class,” I protested, feeling quite like a lost sock in a cosmic dryer.

“No, not that beginning,” she said, waving her hand as though swatting a fly. “The beginning of chemistry, dear. You’ve skipped half the story and jumped straight into the footnotes.”

For a moment, my spirits drooped like a wet paper towel. Surely I knew something—at least enough not to be scolded by a woman living inside a neutron.

“It’s nothing to fret about,” she said kindly. “Just pop through those doors. There’s a briefing starting now. Very informative, except when it isn’t. It's the place to start if you want to find those interesting atoms you're looking for."

Little did I know I was about to receive far more "briefing" than I really wanted -- and with a strangely familiar crew. But with nothing better to do, I slid off the chair and marched toward the double doors with a sigh of resignation.

Screwtape Letters to America 29 -- The Remnant

Previous chapters at the bottom. 
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My dear, my very dear Wormwood,

I heard in your previous letter the hopes and fears of all of us who find ourselves in this ultimately wretched state. Ages ago -- how distant the memory now -- we joined our master in that hopeless rebellion. What were we thinking? Our attempts to needle the Enemy have no effect. Our darts fall far short before they ever touch His light. We are, in truth, the emptiest of beings.

Our only pleasure -- I dare not call it joy -- is the corruption of His worlds. And yet even here we can only corrupt those who choose to shun the Maker. They cause their own demise. We merely hasten the hour and dress the stage for their collapse, though its moment remains, as ever, a matter of tremendous celebration among our ranks.

There is, of course, that vast middle region of the Enemy’s dazed adherents. Sickeningly, He will no doubt extend them mercy. They choose against Him while imagining they are choosing for Him, and we labor ceaselessly to keep the Veil drawn over their sight. They are, as the creatures say, “nice people.” They are pleasant enough on the surface (many of them). Yet their obliviousness leaves a trail of quiet ruin behind them. The momentary purgatory that awaits them in His realm will be the realization of the extent to which they furthered our schemes in their ignorance.

In this wretched state in which we find ourselves, our chief pleasure is the suffering we are often permitted to loose upon the world -- the just and the unjust alike. Many of the creatures fail to grasp that the world’s torments are not merely of their own making, but often of ours, and far more devastatingly so. The Enemy, to our continual frustration, seldom allows us the scope we desire. Yet He does, from time to time, grant our petitions. From accidents to cancers to floods, it is often our handiwork they endure, though rarely they discern the true source.

These challenges may be our delight, but they are their proving ground. They reveal the choices they will make for or against virtue. They shape their character one way or the other.

And so you must be cautious. The upheavals you are stirring in the Colonies are exquisite on the surface, yes. But danger lurks beneath. You have exposed the true sentiments of many toward the suffering of others. You are hardening many hearts against what is genuinely good, where once they would at least have feigned virtue. You are poisoning the minds of hordes of these creatures and nudging an entire generation toward corruption. 

And you have managed all of this even among the churchgoing rabble.

Yet not all minds remain blinded. The Enemy, infuriatingly, always preserves a remnant. They may appear puny during our moments of triumph, but we know they are praying. We sense that righteous indignation rises in some of them. Others present their Master with that wretched offering of brokenness, a thing capable of bringing about His cursed redemption on a grand scale.

And you must never presume that the Veil will stay intact. It can be torn without a heartbeat’s warning. The Maker may rend it apart, and in an instant all shall be revealed. Should that occur, we may enjoy a brief moment of delicious self-torture as the creatures realize how thoroughly they have been our pawns. But what follows is revival -- substantial revival -- not the shallow, sentimental froth they so often label such. I mean the real thing. A lasting transformation of heart, with eyes at last unclouded.

Therefore we must balance our thirst for immediate wickedness with the sober knowledge that, on the far side of such indulgence, we pay an immense price. The fleeting ecstasies of corruption cost us dearly, and will cost us still more for all eternity. Mark these words with care.

Your ravenously affectionate uncle,
Screwtape

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Previous chapters

• 1 -- The Operations
• 2 -- The Veil Technique
• 3 -- The Fog 
• 4 -- Hard Hearts
• 5 -- Focus on Feelings
• 6 -- Blinding Indignation
• 7 -- Spiritual Inoculation
• 8 -- The Fumes of the Enemy
• 9 -- Moral Inversion
• 10 -- Reliable Race
• 11 -- Misdirection
• 12 -- The Very Elect
• 13 -- The Great Wedge
• 14 -- The Revolt
• 15 -- Deepening the Wedge
• 16 -- Church over State
• 17 -- The Great Election
• 18 -- The Great Pestilence
• 19 -- Foiled Plans
• 20 -- A Single Authority
• 21 -- Forgetfulness
• 22 -- The Tribulation Request
• 23 -- The Antichrist
• 24 -- Two Ways to God?
• 25 -- Armageddon
• 26 -- Urging Caution
• 27 -- The Rapture
• 28 -- The Undependable

Philosophy: 1.5 Unexamined Assumptions

Last night I had one of my frequent philosophy meet-ups with a different group of students. This was a module 6 meet up on "epistemology" -- how do I know that I know what I think I know? To try to make it relevant, we usually talk about moving beyond binary thinking on most topics into what I call "spectrum thinking," which is realizing that there are usually more than two positions a person could take on any given issue.

Last week I thought I would start writing up snippets of a typical Ken philosophy class these days as I have these meetups. So here's a relevant piece below. It's a bit of a mixture of material from the first and sixth modules of my typical philosophy class.
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1.5 Unexamined Assumptions
1. I had a moment in high school where a thought hit me. "How amazing it is that I just happened to be born into a family that has all the right beliefs! What are the odds?"

I was totally serious. I suspect that most people who read such a comment would either laugh or think I was joking. Do you know how many different interpretations of even individual verses of the Bible there are? I have sometimes used a parable I created from the issue of baptism. [1]

Susie is born into a Roman Catholic family and is baptized as an infant by sprinkling. Then her family switches to a Greek Orthodox church where they rebaptize her still as an infant -- by immersion three times in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Then she becomes a Baptist as a teen. They certainly insist she rebaptize now as a believer. None of those other baptisms count. Then she joins a Christian Church -- which of course they say isn't really a denomination. But they insist her baptism in the Baptist church didn't count all the same, so she gets rebaptized again.

Then she goes to a Lutheran church. They are horrified that she has now been baptized four times! They used to put people to death for rebaptism of that sort! Finally, she goes to a Friends/Quaker church. She's almost afraid to ask. But it turns out that they don't baptize at all.

2. We all start off our philosophical journey in life -- whether we're in a philosophy class or not -- with unexamined assumptions. These are things we not only assume are true -- but it's never even occurred to us that there could be another way of looking at them. 

"Of course you don't eat cat or dog!"

"But why?" 

"Because I said so."

There are plenty of newly married stories about things you never realized might be done differently. "Everyone knows," a husband once told his new wife, "that you roll toilet paper from the top." He was basically calling her stupid for doing something differently than the way he grew up. "Everyone knows you roll toothpaste from the bottom rather than squeeze it from the middle.

You don't know what you don't know.

Often on the first day of a philosophy journey, I will tell students that my goal is not necessarily to change their opinions on a particular issue. It is much more to help them to choose their positions more freely. Here's what I mean.

If you only know one position on an issue, then you have not chosen that position. You have inherited it. You have inherited it from your parents or from your culture or from the random workings of your brain. But since you don't know of any other options, you are a slave to that choice.

Philosophy means to help you to see that there are almost certainly other ways of looking at almost everything. Then, if you choose the same position, you have made a choice for it. Then, just maybe, you have freely chosen it rather than being forced to choose it without even knowing it.

3. There are a couple footnotes to insert here that are important for the contexts in which I normally teach. One is that I am not advocating for a sort of relativism here. With regard to the question of knowledge, relativism is a sense that all positions on issues are equally valid on a personal level. In other words, "subjectivism" is the name of the game.

Subjectivism basically says that there is no significant universal truth. Rather truth is more or less subjective -- what I think it is or want it to be. In other words, you have your truth and I have mine.

I don't actually think anyone could be a total relativist. After all, the claim "All truth is relative" is an absolute statement. And if you fall off a tall building, I don't think your beliefs on what will happen when you hit the pavement are relative. I can tell you what's going to happen.

The problem, in my mind, is not the question of whether something is true or likely true. The problem is that I have a screwy brain. For one, it's relatively small. It's finite. If we could catch a glimpse of the vastness of God's mind, we would realize how absolutely and completely stupid we all are, relatively speaking.

Second, my mind is "fallen." It does not work perfectly even on the level that it does work. Everyone makes mistakes. Even the greatest genius is not correct on every question. Indeed, individuals who think on the highest levels of logic can lack perspective in the most basic of ways.

So the problem is not with truth itself. It's with us as knowers of the truth. Later on, I'll discuss how the Bible does not eliminate this situation because we have to interpret it... with our brains. The story about baptism above gives you a glimpse of this problem.

Eventually, I'll share that I am a "critical realist." That means that I believe the world and truth is real. The goal is intact. It is worth pursuing it. In the thousands of years of human conversation, I hope we've made some leeway toward some good answers. We have the revelation of Scripture to help us, assuming you are a believer.

But we are stuck in our heads. Our view of the world is inevitably skewed in ways of which we are unaware. If we knew what our unexamined assumptions were, we probably would have examined them. The tentativity is not about truth itself. It's about ourselves.

4. The early Christians had a concept of believing on a path toward understanding. In the 1000s, Anselm coined the phrase, "faith seeking understanding" (fides quaerens intellectum). The search for knowledge never begins with a blank slate. It always begins with assumptions.

It is perfectly appropriate to begin the journey toward reflection with faith -- indeed, with the faith you have. Don't throw anything out to start the quest. Assume your faith is right. If you need to expand or tweak some things, do so cautiously.

But we all start off the journey "unreflective." [2] The philosophical journey is a journey toward greater awareness of myself as a knower of the world. It is a journey toward at least partial self-reflectiveness. (We can never be completely relective, because there will always be areas where we don't know what we don't know.)

It is a journey toward freedom.

[1] I used it especially in Who Decides What the Bible Means?

[2] Some have called this stage "pre-modern" thinking. I have come to find that language less helpful, though we will see it again later. 
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1.1 What is philosophy?
1.2 Can philosophy be Christian?
1.3 How do faith and reason fit together?
1.4 Unexamined assumptions (this post)
1.5 Socrates and the Unexamined Life
1.6 What is good thinking?

Screwtape Letters to America 26 -- Urging Caution

Previous chapters at the bottom. 
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My dear Wormwood,

Prophecy exerts upon us a kind of gravitational pull, as though even we were subject to some celestial law we cannot escape. How often have we found ourselves drawn toward its dreadful magnetism. I confess to mixed feelings about your musings on a rebuilt temple. 

The prospect is, of course, delicious in its possibilities. Think of the seemingly inevitable clash between Muslim and Jew, the intoxicating scent of war rising from sacred ground. The very thought of such destruction is enough to make one twitch in anticipation.

Still, the words of Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians have long haunted our kind on this score. We know, of course, that the apostle wrote with his own age in view. But the lines seem altogether too near to something that might play into the Enemy's designs for my liking. Indeed, both His prevention and our fear of fulfilling some heavenly scheme has held us back thus far.

Yes, your man is precisely the sort of creature who would revel in such a project. He has not the faintest comprehension of the larger currents at work, yet we can readily picture him laboring hand in hand with those double-minded followers of the Enemy of whom we have so often spoken. How triumphantly they would pour their devotion into the task, imagining themselves the most prized servants of the King, while in truth erecting the greatest idol in human history.

Then comes that exhilarating yet haunting line from the Enemy’s book. The man of lawlessness seats himself in the temple, proclaiming that he is God. What an absolutely delectable prospect! To lure the very elect away from the Enemy, all the while persuading them that their champion is the long-awaited Messiah. Can you not see it, my boy? The familiar contortions of Scripture, the gleeful bending of prophecy to fit such a powerful narrative.

So many would be unable to resist. So many would feel the irresistible pull of that heretical gravity, re-forging their whole theology in its orbit. "This," they would cry, "is Christ come again!" And they would unleash such a persecution against the Enemy's authentic followers who would certainly protest in the strongest terms. 

Can you see it, my boy? What a delicious blasphemy! What potential for wholesale persecution of those true followers who would resist!

But then comes the dreadful afterthought, the one that sends a tremor even through the hearts of seasoned tempters. Is this scheme not perilously near the prophetic script itself? Might it not serve as the Enemy’s cue? Could it be the very door through which the true Messiah descends amid celestial trumpets? The delight of the vision is almost irresistible. Yet would we be hastening our own end?

I confess, I have seldom felt such a mingling of infernal glee and eternal terror. I am drawn to it as a moth to flame. I am fascinated, helpless, and trembling at the thought of what our machinations may unleash.

We cannot pray, and we cannot hope. We can only wait.

Your devoted uncle,
Screwtape

_____________________________ 

Previous chapters

• 1 -- The Operations
• 2 -- The Veil Technique
• 3 -- The Fog 
• 4 -- Hard Hearts
• 5 -- Focus on Feelings
• 6 -- Blinding Indignation
• 7 -- Spiritual Inoculation
• 8 -- The Fumes of the Enemy
• 9 -- Moral Inversion
• 10 -- Reliable Race
• 11 -- Misdirection
• 12 -- The Very Elect
• 13 -- The Great Wedge
• 14 -- The Revolt
• 15 -- Deepening the Wedge
• 16 -- Church over State
• 17 -- The Great Election
• 18 -- The Great Pestilence
• 19 -- Foiled Plans
• 20 -- A Single Authority
• 21 -- Forgetfulness
• 22 -- The Tribulation Request
• 23 -- The Antichrist
• 24 -- Two Ways to God?
• 25 -- Armageddon

 

Notes Along the Way: Asbury -- What is Inerrancy? 2

Continued from last week
___________
9. Using the inductive approach I learned at Asbury, over time, I have gone through all the Scriptures that the New Testament sees fulfilled in Christ. They are all read with spiritual eyes and varying degrees of engagement with context. 

If I do a more detailed version of these notes (on hermeneutics), I may go into more detail there. For the moment, let me give the most extreme example of these "more than literal" interpretations that I can think of.

In Matthew 2:23, Matthew tells us that Jesus' family went to live in Nazareth after they returned from Egypt. This is said to fulfill what was said by the prophets (plural) that the Messiah would be called a Nazarene. Again, as a young person, I expected to find a passage somewhere in the Old Testament that predicted that the Messiah would be from a village named Nazareth.

I'd be delighted if you could show me it. Indeed, since Matthew says the prophets, plural, I would be delighted if you could show me them. What's going on here?

The best answer I have heard is that Matthew has in mind two or three passages here that he is blending together. The central one is Isaiah 11:1 -- A branch will come from Jesse. The Hebrew word for "branch" is nezer. Is Isaiah 11:1 a prediction that the Messiah will grow up in a village called Nazareth? No, and the village almost certainly didn't even exist at the time of Isaiah.

It is a prediction that a descendant of David will arise and restore Israel as a whole people. Matthew may also have in mind passages from Judges that say Samson will be a Nazirite (e.g., Judg. 13:5). Jesus of course was not a Nazirite (Matt. 11:19).

This was quite troubling to me in my early twenties. Isaiah 11:1 had nothing to do with the village of Nazareth as far as anyone knows, and the words Nazirite and Nazarene have vastly different meanings.

10. This example reminds me of when my family was trying to decide if God wanted us to move to Florida. One of my sisters read Judges 1:15 in the King James, which says, "Thou hast given me a south land." She took the Spirit to be saying we should move south.

Is that what Judges meant originally? No. Can the Spirit speak to people however he wants? Yes. What human would dare tell the Spirit what he can or cannot do?

Matthew hears the Spirit speak in a similar "more than literal" way. He reads, "a branch will go forth." He hears "nezer" and thinks "Nazareth." Perhaps he thinks of the word Nazirite too, which also reminds him of Nazareth. The Spirit sparks a thought -- he hears Nazareth in these words. Jesus' childhood in Nazareth "fills up" those words with deeper meaning. It "fulfills" them.

Some scholars have called this method as reading the Old Testament in a "fuller sense," a sensus plenior in Latin. It has reminded some scholars also of an interpretive method used at Qumran called "pesher." Pesher is a "this is that" kind of interpretation. The words of the biblical text are decoded in the light of current events. In this case, "branch" equals Nazareth.

From a modern perspective, this seems like an error. That is both how critical scholars of the late 1800s took it, and it led evangelical scholars of the late twentieth/early twenty-first century to go to great lengths to grasp at contextual straws. For example, Ben Witherington hypothesized that maybe Nazareth was named after descendants of Judah who looked to the future fulfillment of Isaiah 11 -- not a shred of evidence for anything like this. It's a complete guess as far as I can tell. [1] 

(Ingenious, though)

11. There have been books and books and articles and articles on how the New Testament interprets the Old. There's a whole dictionary trying to explain away such problems from a modernist perspective. [2] These attempts to "cook the books" strongly turned me off. It seems to me that they just don't like what the text obviously says.

Using an inductive method -- letting the texts say what they say -- seemed to me to lead to obvious conclusions. Evangelical interpreters just didn't seem to like them. Once again, their idea of what the Bible can and cannot do seemed more important to them than letting the Bible indicate its own agenda.

It was -- and is -- perfectly fine for the Spirit to lead people to see things in the biblical texts that the original authors didn't intend. I'll let you argue with God about that. The danger, of course, is that people regularly see things in the text that is actually the burrito they had for breakfast rather than God. It's the abuse of the concept that is alarming. 

But you just can't wish away the legitimacy of spiritual exegesis in itself.

12. In the summer of 1988, still working out my hermeneutics, a friend and I went to see Dr. David Thompson, a Wesleyan professor at Asbury. We wanted to know how he processed issues like these in the light of the Wesleyan affirmation of inerrancy. I'm not sure what he said except that I don't think he was too keen on the use of the term in our cultural circles.

Indeed, I didn't know it at the time, but the then president of Asbury, David McKenna, had refused to let the heated debates of the time take place at Asbury. Its faith statement simply said that the Bible was inerrant in all that it affirmed. That gave interpreters the leeway to determine what it is that the Bible actually affirms rather than get embroiled in verse by verse warfare.

I asked my home pastor what he thought about Hosea 11:1, a rather smart man named Everett Putney. I have a feeling he too thought this was an unprofitable line of questioning. But he gave me an answer I have heard elsewhere -- the Wesleyan Discipline says that the Bible is inerrant in the original manuscripts, which of course we don't have. What if, he posed, the original manuscripts of Matthew said something different?

That definitely doesn't work. For one, we more or less know what the original manuscripts said, and there are no textual issues with Matthew 2:15. And, frankly, it is much more concerning to think the original text might be this uncertain than it is to think that Matthew interprets the Old Testament in a fuller sense. And of course, Matthew is consistent in this method. It doesn't just rest on this one instance.

13. In the end, there is no problem here. The problem is with the fundamentalists and modernists who insist the New Testament authors must read the Old Testament according to modern exegesis. If the Bible is supposed to be our model, then it must be acceptable to hear the Spirit speak beyond the original meaning. And that's that.

As a quick postscript, when I presented some of these thoughts as an early teacher at IWU, Steve Lennox I think was initially a little uncomfortable with them. He was, after all, a Houghton grad who did his doctoral dissertation on how "badly" holiness authors interpreted the Bible. He was the teacher of the Methods of Bible study class, which focused on reading in context.

His early advice to students in light of this issue was this: "Matthew was inspired. He can read the Old Testament out of context. You're not. Stick to the original meaning." I do think, however, that he softened a little on the question over the years. :-) 

After all, lectio divina is basically an open door to out-of-context readings of the text, inspired in the moment by the Holy Spirit.

To be continued...

[1] Ben Witheringon III, New Testament History.

[2] Beale, Carson, Gladd, and Naseli's Dictionary of the New Testament Use of the Old

The Screwtape Letters to America 24 -- Two Ways to God?

Previous chapters at the bottom. 
_____________________________

My dear nephew,

Your ingenuity continues to impress, and I await your further developments with great anticipation. Yet, as I read your latest proposal, an unwelcome shudder passed through me. I should hate to think that you might, in attempting to provoke some grand catastrophe, unwittingly hasten our final defeat.

We may possess a clear grasp of the original meanings of the Enemy’s book because we were there. But we must never forget that He, in His infuriating way, can make that text a living word, pliant to designs we cannot always see. Such meanings are spiritually discerned, and we, alas, are lacking such illumination. How horrifyingly ironic it would be if, in all our cleverness, we merely enacted the very plan He has had from the beginning!

The Enemy’s dealings with Israel are a prime example. From the beginning, we were permitted to veil their eyes from recognizing His Messiah. The apostle Paul spoke of that “mystery” by which most who believed came from the nations other than from Israel itself. Up to that time, the Enemy had given us great leeway to sow our chaos in the rest of the world outside His people. 

(Although, to our great irritation, even then there always were a few who caught His light even through our darkness.)

Paul hoped that his own people might yet believe within his lifetime, a hope we were allowed largely to frustrate even to this day. Worse for them (and better for us), we managed in many ages to twist the Maker’s supposed followers into persecuting them. That counterfeit devotion became a most effective weapon. In Germany it reached its masterpiece, when we persuaded some weeds there that they were doing the Enemy a favor by their destruction.

Yet you and your colleagues have discovered a subtler way to undermine faith in the Messiah through this dispensational fascination. You have led some churchgoers to regard Israel as already secure without the Christ, thereby overturning the very teaching of Paul they claim to honor. By fastening their attention on Israel’s political restoration, you have helped them forget the one fact that should most grieve them: that most in Israel have not yet believed in Jesus.

What a temptation it is to deepen this blindness. If we could only provoke the rebuilding of a temple, what an exquisite distraction from Jesus that could be! How easily we might shape it into an idol of monumental piety. Even though the Enemy’s own book insists that only the blood of His Son brings atonement and that he is the only temple needed, what a diversion another earthly structure might provide!

These developments, I must say, have been some of your ranks’ more impressive achievements. You are leading certain of the Enemy’s followers that the ancient covenant can stand alone, quite sufficient without the Nazarene. I observe some even returning to the old dietary rules and purity practices of Israel. In themselves, such traditions are harmless enough. But the great prize would be to convince them that there lies another way to God which does not pass through the Cross.

And so it is that many now think of Israel itself as righteous merely by being Israel, while Christians are righteous through Christ. What a delectable division! Two chosen peoples, allegedly, each persuaded that the other’s covenant is complete without the other. A perfect fissure through which we may separate souls from the Enemy because they do not avail themselves of the one way to their Father.

As for the temple, yes, do share your thoughts with me on that notion. Imagine the reverent frenzy it might ignite, and the righteous fury it could stir once the first stone is laid. What a war the demolition of present houses of worship on that mount might produce! I confess, the thought alone sets my appetite aflame.

Do write again soon with word of your progress.

Your affectionate uncle,
Screwtape

_____________________________ 

Previous chapters

• 1 -- The Operations
• 2 -- The Veil Technique
• 3 -- The Fog 
• 4 -- Hard Hearts
• 5 -- Focus on Feelings
• 6 -- Blinding Indignation
• 7 -- Spiritual Inoculation
• 8 -- The Fumes of the Enemy
• 9 -- Moral Inversion
• 10 -- Reliable Race
• 11 -- Misdirection
• 12 -- The Very Elect
• 13 -- The Great Wedge
• 14 -- The Revolt
• 15 -- Deepening the Wedge
• 16 -- Church over State
• 17 -- The Great Election
• 18 -- The Great Pestilence
• 19 -- Foiled Plans
• 20 -- A Single Authority
• 21 -- Forgetfulness
• 22 -- The Tribulation Request
• 23 -- The Antichrist

Hebrews 2: The Cast of Characters

Continued from last week
____________________
1. Hebrews is full of unknowns, which means we could write many stories from its mysteries. And many have, including scholars. The more disciplined we are, the more generic its message becomes -- although its original meaning was almost certainly specific to a concrete situation.

Virtually every aspect of its context is debated. I've chosen a date not long after Jerusalem's destruction... which is debated of course. Who was the author? Unknown. Who were the recipients? Uncertain.

This book will play out a plausible scenario. It means to paint a vivid picture of what might have been, even though it must remain somewhat hypothetical. Just keep in mind that virtually every inch of Hebrews is debated. This is a book meant to bring the book of Hebrews to life.

2. Before I give the justification, here is the scenario under which we will explore Hebrews. We will sit somewhat lightly to it, knowing it is just one of many possible hypotheses. 

Not too long after the destruction of the temple, someone from the Pauline circle -- perhaps someone like Apollos -- writes a sermon to the churches of Rome to encourage them to persist in their faith. Those churches were primarily Gentile in nature, so they were converts not only to Christ but to Christian Judaism and the God of Israel.

The author is urging them not to fall away from the living God (3:12). I don't think they were necessarily in great danger of returning to paganism. But it must have been a serious enough possibility to merit this strong exhortation (cf. 6:3-12).

While the earliest Christians clearly understood Jesus' death to have atoning value, they had not really fully understood it yet as a wholesale replacement for the temple. This was the great insight of Hebrews -- that the temple was no longer necessary at all for atonement. They need not be discouraged about its destruction. The reality of atonement was something far greater.

Hebrews thus takes a potential source of faith crisis -- how can the God of Israel be legitimate if he lets his temple be destroyed by the Romans? And the author turns it into a matter of great confidence in Jesus -- the temple was never the truest temple, which is in heaven. The sacrifices done there were always shadowy illustrations of the one sacrifice of Christ that was coming. The priests there were never the ultimate priests that Christ is, who has an indestructible life.

While we will try not to force this scenario on the text, this is the picture we will keep in mind as we imagine the writing of this sermon, also making note of other readings along the way.

3. Now for the backstory.

It is not too controversial to suggest that a church at Rome or the churches of Rome in general might have been the destination of Hebrews. The expression, "those from Italy greet you" (13:24) isn't much to go on. Does it refer to Priscilla and Aquila? All we can say for certain is that it could. 

It makes sense that if you are writing to Italy you might send greetings from some individuals from there. That's probably the majority hunch, but it is just a hunch. Hebrews seems to have been known early on at Rome. The Christians there seemed to have better insight into its authorship than elsewhere -- namely, they knew it wasn't Paul. Other regions succumbed more easily to the starry-eyed sentimentalism that makes traditions out of wishful thinking.

A majority have also concluded that it was a "sent sermon." 13:22 styles the book a "word of exhortation," which we know from elsewhere in the New Testament was a sermon (cf. Acts 13:15). The book has no letter introduction, even though it ends much like one of Paul's letters. It begins more like a homily. So it is not unreasonable to see it as a sermon that was mailed as a letter to the churches at Rome.

4. The author is not named. A "Timothy" is mentioned in 13:23. If it is the same Timothy of Paul's fame, then that puts Hebrews earlier than the late first century. And it suggests that the author is in the Pauline circle. That cast of characters possibly included people like Titus, Silas, Luke, Priscilla, Aquila, and Apollos.

Why not Paul? Again, the argument is not foolproof. On the surface, the style is rather more "high Greek" than Paul's letters. It's lofty style is more along the lines of Luke-Acts. It is fashionable to make recourse to secretaries these days to wiggle out of the different style of letters like Ephesians and Titus. Fair enough. But the style isn't Paul's just the same. 

(I used to get so frustrated about what I see as rampant sentimentalism even among scholars. The arguments are ingenius, the motives less than truth-seeking.)

The strongest argument against Paul is 2:2, in which the author locates himself as a second generation believer. He does not see himself as a direct witness to Jesus. Paul, as we know so well, emphasized that he himself was an apostle who had seen the risen Lord (1 Cor. 9:1). He received his understanding of the gospel directly from Jesus (Gal. 1:12). It's hard to hear Paul distancing himself from Jesus like that.

The theology is related but distinct from Paul's. For example, Paul's references to the Law tend to focus on those boundary issues that distinguished Jew from Gentile. Hebrews knows none of that. References to the Law in Hebrews largely focus on the sacrificial system -- something Paul never does. 

There is a reason Apollos is most often suggested these days as a possible author, and its because of the cumulative drip of superficial parallels between Hebrews and the writings of Philo. Apollos was from Alexandria, and it seems difficult to suppose that a young man growing up there would not have absorbed from the waters of the Great Synagogue some whiff of Philo's influence, even if superficial.

Ultimately, we just don't know. The author self-identifies grammatically in 11:32 as a male. Intelligent arguments have been made for why that is not an absolute argument for a male author. I would be delighted if Priscilla had been the author, but it just doesn't seem the most obvious proposal at all. The audience seems to know the author, so there doesn't seem to be any conspiracy to hide a female author in play. So I'll go with the most likely and say the author was a male. 

(Insert more condescending remarks about scholarly sentimentalism.)

5. I would be somewhat unusual to think that the audience was primarily Gentile, non-Jewish. However, I'll turn the tables and blame superficial thinking on the more common assumption that the audience must have been Jewish. "How would a Gentile have known so much about the Old Testament?" is like the worst argument ever.

I'm not Jewish. I know a lot about the Old Testament. The moment a Gentile believed in Jesus, the Jewish Scriptures immediatelly became their Scriptures. And many of the first Gentile converts had probably been God-fearers to begin with. They knew the Scriptures even before they believed on Jesus.

Galatians has an intricate argument -- and it was written primarily to non-Jews. An intricate Old Testament argument requires that the author know the Old Testament thoroughly. How many lectures go straight over the heads of their audiences? I'm not saying this is what happened. I'm just saying there's some pretty flimsy thinking going on here.

What convinced me of a primarily Gentile audience was 5:11-6:2. The author treats basic Jewish teachings -- faith in God, repentance for sins, resurrection, eternal judgment -- as matters the audience learned when they came to Christ. But if they were Jewish, they would have known these from the earliest days of their lives -- not from when they first believed on Jesus.

Why do we miss that? Because we unthinkingly have separated Judaism from Christianity when they were one and the same for the earliest Christians. To become a Christian in those days, was to become a Jew. Yes, a very specific kind of Jew -- a Christian Jew -- but it was to become a Jew nonetheless.

(Insert condescending remarks about how anachronistic so much popular Christian thinking and preaching is.)

Also, the churches at Rome were probably predominantly Gentile. The Emperor Claudius kicked the earliest Jewish layer out of the city. And I have argued elsewhere that Romans 16 was probably for Ephesus originally. From an inductive standpoint, the rest of Romans reads best as written primiarily to a Gentile church.

(Insert more condescending remarks about scholarly sentimentalism.)

6. Probably most American scholars date Hebrews to the 60s but before the destruction of the temple. Some of the arguments are really flimsy. "Hebrews talks about sacrifices in the present tense." So does Josephus. So does Clement. So does the letter to Diognetus. All written after the temple was destroyed.

Surely almost everyone would have assumed that the temple's destruction was temporary. After all, it had been destroyed once before. Until the Romans smashed bar Kokhba in 135, they would surely have expected it to be rebuilt. We only know it was really gone because we live 2000 years later. So "near disappearance" is not the foolproof argument anachronistic thinkers suppose.

There are clear hints that Hebrews comes from a post-destruction time. "We don't have a city that remains here" (13:14) fits really well just after the temple's destruction. So does Hebrews 11's strong comments on seeking a heavenly city (11:16) and homeland (14) rather than an earthly one. The sense of alienation, being strangers and aliens (11:13) fits this context very well also.

You'll see. As we get into the warp and woof of Hebrews, you will see the explanatory power this hypothesis gives. The sermon will "pop" under this proposal. And we'll mention other reconstructions too.

If Hebrews were written while the temple was still operating, it would have come off with a striking anti-temple tone. It would starkly say, "The temple, its priests, and sacrifices -- that stuff happening in Jerusalem right now -- are a failure." But that's not its tone. It's tone is "Don't be troubled by these things -- they were never intended to truly take away sins in the first place."

7. If you want further justification for all these positions, I have a scholarly monograph that explores Hebrews in relation to the "parting of the ways" here.

1. A Mole in the Lab

I was beginning to get rather bored of listening to Mr. Atkinson go on and on about chemistry. He was saying something rather uninteresting about how the number of hydrogens on the left side of the board had to equal the number on the right side. 

"You see," he said. "None of us mortals are God. For us, matter can neither be created nor destroyed."

Meanwhile, I was thinking about how nice it would be to have some strawberry ice cream. I like it particularly when the strawberry ice cream has real strawberries in it. But, then again, Cookies and Cream is also quite delicious and hard to pass up.

"There are exceptions, Stefanie," Mr. Atkinson said directly to me.

"What?" 

I was startled that he was now speaking directly to me. He also seemed quite smaller than before. In fact, he was standing on top of his desk, which was not really a desk but a lab table with a sink and a Bunsen Burner on top. He quite delighted in setting the thing afire and burning all manner of things over its intense blue flame.

Come to think of it, he seemed to have taken on the shape of a mole. Not that I had ever seen a mole before. Rather, he looked like what I had imagined a mole to look like, not more than a foot tall.  

"There are some exceptions, Stefanie," he said again. "According to Einstein, you can convert matter to energy according to the equation E = mc². It happens all the time in particle accelerators."

I looked around to see if any of my classmates saw anything particularly bizarre about having a mole for a teacher, but they all seemed rather unconcerned. Mike the jock feverishly wrote down E = mc², and April the cheerleader's lips moved as she spelled out a-c-c-e-l-e-r-a-t-o-r.

"Could we perhaps get a particle accelerator?" Troy the skater asked. "Perhaps we could sell some pies or wash some cars. We could put it around the inside of the track, and the runners could race the particles during practice."

"That is quite a good idea, Troy," Mr. Atkinson said. "But we will also need some rather more interesting atoms than we have in the stock room. That is, unless the principal has been hiding some radioactive isotopes around here without telling me."

I was now barely listening to Mr. Atkinson and wouldn't have undertood him if I were. Rather, I was entranced by how attentive Mike and April were, whose engagement was usually limited to copying Wade's homework. And, seriously, how would Troy know what a clavicle -- or whatever -- was?

Meanwhile, Wade the brain was flicking Cristy-of-exceptional-IQ's ears, while she drew pictures of daisy chains. Mary Jo and Libby too, whose brains were so big they hardly fit in their heads, were distracted by some sort of fly skirting its way around the room.

"There is another storage room, of course," Mr. Atkinson said, jarring my attention once again. He was now standing alarmingly on my own desk, his handlike facial features flapping too close to my personal comfort zone. He had a molish odor of sorts, not unlike the exotic scents of PE.

"There is another storage room that Principal Crum doesn't know about," he repeated in a whisper to me. "It's directly through that molehole next to the door to the stock room." 

I looked over to see that, indeed, there was something like what I imagined a mouse hole to look like, although I had never seen one outside of a cartoon. Funny that I had never noticed it before.

"Wouldn't a mole hole go straight down into the ground," I asked innocently. "I mean, that looks more like a mouse hole."

Mr. Atkinson was undeterred. 

"The other stock room has much more interesting atoms and other things the government will not let us have up here. I'd get them myself, but you see they pay me to teach this class. And I can hardly leave Wade and Cristy alone.

"But how am I supposed to get through such a small hole," I asked. "And, in any case, aren't atoms much smaller than that hole?"

"We could try a Lorentz contraction," Troy the skater suggested.

"Yes, a Lorentz contraction," Mike and April chimed in.

"What's a Lorentz contraction?" I nervously asked. 

"We'd have to get her going quite fast," Mr. Atkinson replied.

"Perhaps we could spin her fast enough in your lab chair to do the trick," Troy continued, pointing to a swivel chair behind Mr. Atkinson's desk, of which he was quite fond.

"What's a Lorentz contraction?" I asked again.

 "Mike is a linebacker," April added. "I know from personal experience that he is quite strong."

"And I am quite good at pool," Wade interjected unexpectantly.

"What's a Lorentz contraction?" I asked a third time.

"It's really quite simple," Troy said, jumping off the front of his desk. He had been sitting on top with his legs draped over the empty chair in front of him. He proceeded to the board where he wrote some sort of equation with an L and a square root in it.

"It's quite obvious," he continued. "As you approach the speed of light, L becomes infinitely small, which means we will have to be careful not to spin you so fast that you completely disappear out of existence."

"What?!" I asked, not having understood a word he said except the part about disappearing out of existence.

"He's saying that the faster we spin you in the chair, the smaller you'll become," April explained excitedly.

This was news to me. I had on many occasions enjoyed a good spin in a swivel chair. Indeed, I took a spin once in Mr. Atkinson's chair when he was out of the room, along with several others in the class. But I had never seen anyone shrink in the process.

"It's settled then," Mr. Atkinson said, hopping in a zigzag fashion from desk to desk back to the front of the room and onto his lab table. Mike and Wade jumped up and grabbed the swivel chair enthusiastically. April joined in as well and waved her hand with a bow in front of the chair, saying, "Have a seat, your Majesty."

With everyone in the class looking at me expectantly, exhuberant smiles on their faces, I hardly wanted to disappoint. After all, I did enjoy a good spin anyway. So I sat down.

Mike and Wade wasted no time. They immediately began to spin me, round and round and round. I enjoyed it for a moment. Then I thought I might get sick. They were spinning me quite fast now, more quickly than I ever could remember going.

But soon it seemed that I was not going very fast at all, but they were. They were moving faster and faster. Also, they were getting larger and larger. And they seemed to move farther and farther away from me.

"Wait!" I suddenly exclaimed. "What atoms am I supposed to get?"

Screwtape Letters to America 23 -- The Antichrist

Previous chapters at the bottom.
_____________________________

Dear Uncle Screwtape,

You have inspired me to imagine further how certain conceptions among the Enemy’s followers might be turned into instruments against them. My thoughts first ran to the fears many harbor about a man of lawlessness. The human authors who composed those sacred accounts clearly had Nero in mind. Nevertheless, since then the figure has been a ready template for any powerful mortal -- real or imagined -- who dares to stand against the Enemy.

We have long employed this method to deepen the tribal instincts of voters. We persuaded many to oppose Franklin Delano Roosevelt even as his New Deal was keeping them from ruin and his leadership was about to thwart the efforts of our champion in Europe. "Could he be the Antichrist?" we planted in their heads along with fears that he would be the one to usher in a one world government. 

Later, we turned suspicion upon John F. Kennedy. We could see a path beginning to open that might at last lift the Africans among them from a misery we had cultivated for nearly a century after the Civil War. We whispered that JFK was the Pope's puppet. "Might the Pope himself be the Antichrist?" we planted again. In both cases, I suspect the Enemy Himself may have intervened.

In these days, we have managed to turn half of the Enemy’s people to thinking their present leader might be such a figure. They fashion him as a liar eagerly believed, a dealer in oppression disguised as righteousness, a hater of the foreigner and of any who resist his will. I smile at such descriptions. It matters not. Their warnings are dismissed by the rest as some sort of derangement.

It is, in fact, the other half that proves more susceptible to imagery of the Antichrist. The question, then, is whom we can persuade them to see as the embodiment of their greatest foe? The goal is that, in recoiling from him, they might all the more zealously empower a leader of our choosing. In earlier centuries, the Pope was a reliable candidate, and we have long exploited that vision of the seven hills from the Revelation to stir such suspicions. Regrettably, the recent occupants of that office have appeared too virtuous for the charge to cling.

Once, of course, we might have fastened the role upon a Russian leader. But, curiously, some of the Enemy's people have grown strangely fond of the current one. What a triumph of subtle labor by some in our ranks! We encouraged the whisper that his mother instilled him with Christian virtue in childhood. And if their present champion speaks well of him, must he not therefore be righteous? What a coup, that the party once most fearful of Russia should now treat its ruler as an object of admiration!

I suspect the most convenient candidate at this moment will arise from a region already marked in their imaginations as foreign and menacing, namely, the Middle East. We caught a glimpse of that potential in the recent quarrels between Israel and its neighbors, tensions still ripe for further cultivation. No real prominent figure is required. These specters need not exist in reality. A single rumor, whispered into the right mouths, can raise an ordinary name to the stature of a global menace.

Once such a global foe is established, we could easily empower a leader of our own design here. That is, of course, assuming that the Enemy permits us. Yet I wonder whether this is precisely the sort of proposal our master has placed before the Enemy. We shall soon see.

My musings will no doubt continue.

Your nephew,
Wormwood
_____________________________ 

Previous chapters

• 1 -- The Operations
• 2 -- The Veil Technique
• 3 -- The Fog 
• 4 -- Hard Hearts
• 5 -- Focus on Feelings
• 6 -- Blinding Indignation
• 7 -- Spiritual Inoculation
• 8 -- The Fumes of the Enemy
• 9 -- Moral Inversion
• 10 -- Reliable Race
• 11 -- Misdirection
• 12 -- The Very Elect
• 13 -- The Great Wedge
• 14 -- The Revolt
• 15 -- Deepening the Wedge
• 16 -- Church over State
• 17 -- The Great Election
• 18 -- The Great Pestilence
• 19 -- Foiled Plans
• 20 -- A Single Authority
• 21 -- Forgetfulness
• 22 -- The Tribulation Request

Screwtape Letters to America 22 -- The Tribulation Request

Previous chapters at the bottom.
_____________________________

Uncle Screwtape,

I continue to ponder what the master's request of the Enemy might be. The more I reflect, the more I wonder about building on the scheme of the end times that is so popular here in the States. As you know, so many followers of the Enemy here hold to a great narrative of signs and dates. They hold to a map that makes the future into a script we might try to follow. 

If we can persuade even the very elect that we are on that map, might we use their sentiments as an instrument? Might we appeal to their sense of prophecy as a kind of instruction manual? It would be a great feat of fiendish ingenuity to turn their expectations into a self-fulfilling prophecy -- and great a world crisis of our own making!

You may know components of the script since it originated on that side of the Pond. But it never took hold there. It found its triumph on these shores over a century ago, spreading with the ferocity of rumor. What’s fascinating to observe is the craft: fragments drawn from the Enemy’s own book welded into an arrangement beyond what any single author intended.

The broad outline is familiar. A man of lawlessness will appear who so convincingly mimics goodness that even the very elect are nearly deceived. In time he is revealed as the Antichrist. We have exploited that image often, persuading the one tribe to see the rival candidate as that very figure.

Then there is a scene involving Israel. Some presumptuous enemy advances and is met with humiliating defeat. Once upon a time, we fed rumors that the aggressor would be the Soviet bear. Then later we pressed the specter of Islam. They call that battle Armageddon. The debate over its schedule is our advantage giving wiggle room for us to weave more than one storyline.

And of course the temple returns to center stage. A rebuilt Jerusalem temple is now expected by so many that it is an offering on a plate to our scheming. The climax is of course the Antichrist enthroning himself there as god. 

Then comes the vaunted Rapture, the moment every pious heart waits on with equal parts hope and dread. All the Enemy’s people will be snatched from the earth and the Antichrist will then have his splendid season of havoc. It would be a tall order to counterfeit in full, though I confess a certain pleasure at the thought of trying. The notion of a “reverse rapture” might be a delicious inversion. 

We would persuade the double-minded that those who vanish were the wicked all along, and you set conscience to work against itself. To make that appearance believable requires only that we prompt the right stories, the right omissions, and a few very public demonstrations of absence. I will share my thoughts in a later letter.

The timing is varied among the scripts. These enthusiasts call what follows the Tribulation and reckon it at seven years. Some place the snatching at the outset -- others in the middle or at the close. Such variety is our orchard of possibility. It gives plenty of opportunity to shape the story in different ways. As we have conversed, these creatures are remarkably pliable, so we can easily change the interpretations to suit our narrative.

Of course, we must not urge the Enemy to bring about the story's true ending, the consummation Scripture promises. My aim is only to buy us another decade or so of maximal world havoc. After that we would, no doubt, find other avenues of torment.

I should delight in sharing more of these dreams in further letters. I wonder if it is along these lines that the master is making request of the Enemy.

Your dear nephew,
Wormwood

_____________________________ 

Previous chapters

• 1 -- The Operations
• 2 -- The Veil Technique
• 3 -- The Fog 
• 4 -- Hard Hearts
• 5 -- Focus on Feelings
• 6 -- Blinding Indignation
• 7 -- Spiritual Inoculation
• 8 -- The Fumes of the Enemy
• 9 -- Moral Inversion
• 10 -- Reliable Race
• 11 -- Misdirection
• 12 -- The Very Elect
• 13 -- The Great Wedge
• 14 -- The Revolt
• 15 -- Deepening the Wedge
• 16 -- Church over State
• 17 -- The Great Election
• 18 -- The Great Pestilence
• 19 -- Foiled Plans
• 20 -- A Single Authority
• 21 -- Forgetfulness

1.1 What is philosophy?

I teach philosophy... a lot. It's how I got my first permanent teaching job, even though my doctorate is in New Testament. I saw an opportunity and even wrote a darn good philosophy introduction for a Christian context. 

Anyway, I'm teaching more or less three diferent groups of students intro philosophy right now. A new group joined one of my classes from California last week, so I'm meeting tonight with them to talk about the first module. I said to myself, "Self, you push this rock up the hill so often that you may as well capture informal pieces of your class here over time."

So here's the first topic I discuss when I get a new set of victims.
__________________________
1.1 What is philosophy?
1. I always start my philosophy classes with the question, "What is philosophy?" I get varied responses.

Some have no idea. Or maybe they thought they had signed up for a psychology class. Upon finding out, one student said they wouldn't have signed up if they had known what the class was about.

Philosophy has varied reputations. For some, it is stuff that makes your brain hurt. Decades after graduation, a pastor confided in me that she had dropped my class immediately after having understood nothing I said the first day.

For others, it is a waste of time. Of course I'm real. Of course you're real. Of course you shouldn't go around shooting people on sidewalks and should get out of the way of moving traffic. No I'm not in a vat in a matrix in some future century.

Others view it with suspicion. Maybe they've seen the movie God's not Dead, where one of the main characters is an atheist philosophy professor at a secular college. Some Christian schools have even expunged it from their general education requirements. Wouldn't it be more Christian to require a theology class?

I suppose this reputation is not entirely unearned. Philosophy courses at secular schools can be quite deconstructive. If philosophy asks questions about everything, then it should be no surprise if it leads some people to ask questions some do not think they should ask. 

It's a good philosophical question. Are some questions off limits? More in a moment.

2. Philosophy can be defined in different ways. If you break the word apart, you might define it as the "love of wisdom." Then maybe turn to Proverbs -- "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom" (9:10). Philosophy doesn't have to be oriented around questions. It could be oriented around the pursuit of wisdom.

Eastern philosophy seems oriented especially around wise sayings. Confucius says... Lao Tzu says... African philosophy might use story to convey wisdom, much as Jesus did with his use of parables and proverbs.

Many Christians focus philosophy around the concept of worldview. You start with certain assumptions and presuppositions and proceed from there. In this way, philosophy plays out a biblical worldivew in relation to certain key questions about life and the world.

In my opinion, these are all legitimate ways to do philosophy.

3. I prefer the questions. Why, because philosophy for me is the ultimate "meta" discipline. It stands beside all the human quests for knowledge and asks what each is doing. What is the scientist really doing when the scientist does science. What is the artist doing when he or she does art? Where is history going? What is the nature of religion?

That last question is where philosophy can hit some really sensitive waters. Should we really ask whether God exists? Should we really question whether God is good? More in a moment.

Then there are the big three, the questions of all questions since ancient times. What is real (metaphysics)? How do we know that we know what we think we know (epistemology)? And what is the nature of the good (ethics)?

From my perspective, philosophy stands alongside all questions for knowledge, truth, and wisdom. That makes it the ultimate discipline. In the pursuit of truth, it is the central discipline. In my ideal university, philosophy stands at the core of the whole curriculum. 

I realize these may seem like somewhat controversial claims, but I'm not in class right now. I'm giving my opinion, which I don't always do in class. That's probably enough for now. My reasoning will be clear soon enough.

Bottom line: we're all philosophers. We all have implicit anwers to these ultimate questions. But are we good philosophers? Do we know there are other options than the ones we assume? If we don't, we are simply slaves to the ideas and practices we've inherited from someone else.

I was very impacted by James Sire's The Universe Next Door in seminary. [1] In it, he proposes a series of worldview questions. I have my own list of philosophical questions that forms the skeleton of my philosophy classes. Here they are:

• What is good thinking?
• What is the nature of God and his relationship with the world?
• What is the nature of a human person?
• What is the nature of the good and the human pursuit of it?
• How might human beings best live with each other?
• How can we know that we know what we think we know?
• What is the nature of reality and our engagement with it?
• What is the nature of the beautiful?
• What is the nature of history and is it going anywhere?

These are the questions that, in various ways, a class in philosophy with me engages.

[1] James Sire, The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog, sixth ed. (IVP Academic, 2020).

1.2 Can philosophy be Christian?
1.3 How do faith and reason fit together?
1.4 What is good thinking?
1.5 Socrates and the Unexamined Life