Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Leviticus 5:14-6:7

    I’m still following the division of David W. Baker’s commentary on Leviticus in the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary on Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.  Today’s passage equates to Leviticus 5:14-26 in the Hebrew text, and the Hebrew text is indeed better divided than the English or the LXX.

    While the section is indeed properly grouped together, the priests have snuck in a pretty major doctrine into the passage.  The first part deals with violation of holy things (through 5:19), along with the possibility that one has done so but doesn’t know.  I think there’s good reason to believe, with Milgrom and others, that this also involves that horrible sense of guilt that has no known source; one feels that one has done something very wrong, but can’t be sure.  The early part of this passage provides an opportunity to deal with that guilt.  One can pity the bank account of someone who had a guilt complex, however!

    Some call this a guilt offering.  I prefer “reparation” offering, again following a number of commentators.  The offering accompanies a reparation.  It is this reparation portion that presumably connects the violation of sacred things at the end of chapter 5 with the violation of one’s neighbor at the beginning of chapter 6.

    I recall quite vividly how I encountered this chapter when reading Leviticus with Milgrom’s AB commentary.  I read the passage ahead in Hebrew before reading the commentary and so I had studied through the previous chapters and noted the sacrifices for inadvertent sins, but no sacrifices for intentional sins.  There was no statement that these sins were intentional, but it’s hard to imagine finding someone’s property and then lying about it as “inadvertent.”

    Baker notes this, but the best discussion comes from Milgrom (373-378) in a section titled “The Priestly Doctrine of Repentance.”  In his words, “…The Priestly authors took a postulate of their own tradition, that God mitigates punishment for unintentional sins, and empowered it with a new doctrine, that the voluntary repentance of a deliberate crime transforms the crime itself into an involuntary act.”  NISB emphasizes the voluntary part of this repentance, i.e. one must repent without being caught.

    The passage also provides the elements of repentance:

    1. A realization of feeling of guilt; one acknowledges that what was done was a wrong.
    2. Payment of reparation
    3. Confession
    4. Desire for atonement and sacrifice
    5. Forgiveness

    These days we frequently forget the first part and often the second.  I doubt one gets to #5 without going through those elements.

    The OSB notes that the sacrifices here for damage done to another are not gradated, unlike the previous sacrifices.  The poor must offer the same thing as the rich.  Being poor, they note, does not provide the right to steal (p. 124 on 5:15, 21, 25).

    Abbreviations:

    OSB – Orthodox Study Bible

    NISB – New Interpreter’s Study Bible

    Milgrom – Milgrom, Jacob.  Anchor Bible:  Leviticus 1-16.

    Baker – Leviticus portion written by David H. Baker, of the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary on Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

    Chapter 6 deals with sacrifices for sins that appear to be quite deliberate.

  • Biblical, Convinced, and Wrong! (Lent 2B)

    The story in Mark 8:31-38 fascinates me because the disciples were, in one sense, so right, yet they were so wrong.  What we often forget is that there was good reason for the disciples to expect the Messiah to take over the throne of David immediately, to rescue their nation from the Romans, and to become the ruler of the world.  He would not be divine, as such, but he would be divinely anointed.  If Jesus was the Messiah, they would be standing next to power.

    And what was wrong with that?  Shouldn’t patriots want to be involved in freeing their country from foreign rule, unjust taxation, and foreign rule?

    Though there is debate on the background of the use of “son of man”  as a title for Jesus, I tend to suspect it comes from Daniel 7:13-14:

    13I saw in the night visions, and behold, there came with the clouds of the sky one like a son of man, and he came even to the ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. 14There was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and languages should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.  (WEB)

    So here is their quite Biblical view of who the Messiah would be and what he would do.  And Jesus is telling them that they have got it wrong.  He’s telling them to give up on one whole set of proof texts and take hold of another.  Why?  Because they knew from being with him that he must be the Messiah, the anointed one.  He, in his person, would reveal God to them, and therefore God’s plans and what the real future would be like.  And it wouldn’t be pretty or easy.

    Now consider this:  How truly convinced must those disciples have been that they didn’t just say, “Well, I guess you’re really not the one.  I didn’t sign up for this, and I don’t think that’s what the Bible says.”  No!  They stuck around and let Jesus convince them.  While they ran in fear at the crucifixion, they came back, confused, yes, but ready to hear the new message–“He is risen!”

    We often focus on the negative, how slow the disciples were to believe, and how cowardly they were during the trial and the crucifixion.  I have to confess that I’m pretty sure I would have been slower and more cowardly than the twelve.  If I had been a disciple, I’m not sure how bad the story would have gotten, but it would have been pretty bad.

    Consider this:  When you’re convinced of something what does it take to change your mind?  Are you too quick, blown about by every wind, or are you stuck in concrete when you really should be flexible?

     

  • Romans 4:13-25 – Abraham and God (Lent 2B)

    There are two questions I think will prove very much worth some meditation time.  This is a rich passage, so obviously there are more, but let me emphasize just two.

    First, Paul uses Abraham a great deal.  In an excursus on page 2015, amongst the notes on chapter 4, the New Interpreter’s Study Bible notes that “Abraham is cited more frequently in Paul’s letters than any other historical figure except Jesus.”  What is it about Abraham that makes him such an excellent example?  Paul uses him, James uses him in a seemingly contradictory manner, though one that I think is quite reconcilable.

    Abraham is “caught” by God outside of God’s community.  Though he is a descendant of the patriarchal line, he is known for worshiping other Gods (Joshua 24:2).  He has done no works to earn God’s favor.  God simply selects him and takes action.  Paul uses this to illustrate how God’s salvation is grace based, and I would reemphasize that it was always based on grace.  While there are distinctions in the way God interacted with those who had been saved by grace, there was never a time when one could earn a place in relationship to God.

    Don’t take the word “relationship” lightly.  We sometimes here this as a sort of “casual dating” relationship.  Not at all!  A relationship with God is a covenant relationship, a complete reordering of who one is.  This is a relationship that defines one’s identity.  There are works done “in” relationship, and works done to gain a relationship.  The latter will not work.  To me it seems pretty clear and obvious.  If God is the creator, he can not only create a million of me if he wants, he can create millions of planets with millions more of me.  So there is no way to make myself necessary to God.  It won’t work.

    God chooses to love me!  That is the amazing story of grace.  Thus Paul is right that Abraham is “made right” by faith, apart from works (Galatians 2:16), yet James can be quite correct, looking at this from a few moments forward when he says we are made right by works (James 2:24).  Part of the complete reorientation is the simple fact that works done in the relationship with Christ are completely different from works done outside.

    The second question is this:  How is it that Abraham gets treated as an unblemished character of faith?  As I mentioned previously, Paul ignores the negatives, and our lectionary passage cuts out Abraham’s laughter.

    I like to call this the faith view.  Compare all the heroes of the faith as described in Hebrews 11 with their stories in the Old Testament.  You’ll find that there are rose colored glasses involved here.  There are two views of heroes.  One encourages us by seeing them as real people with failings.  The Bible provides clear and honest stories in this sense.  The other encourages us by seeing them as extraordinary.  In a spiritual sense, I believe, both are true.

     

  • Interpreting the Bible VII – Christians Contribute to Confusion

    In reality I’m going to discuss framing the questions on the test passages I quoted last time, but in doing so, I need to highlight the way Christians contribute to a misunderstanding of one another, and by non-Christians who don’t understand how many of us use the Bible.

    There is, of course, that vocal group of Christians who claim that they take the Bible literally and follow all of it. Their loud voice tends to drown the rest of us out. But one can easily debunk any claim to follow all of the Bible, unless that claim is properly defined by a tradition or method of interpretation.

    But non-fundamentalists contribute to the idea that the really, truly holy and most valid Christian approach to the Bible is Biblical literalism. We do so primarily in two ways:

    1. We use the claim that we don’t take the Bible literally as an answer to anything.
      This is not so much a liberal thing as a mainline thing. In this case by “mainline” I mean those old and established denominations to which so many people belong just to be known as church-going people. When confronted by almost any Biblical claim that is counter to their tradition, they will say: “We don’t take the Bible that literally around here.” Or something like that.

      But that may not be the point at all. One may be hearing a passage that was intended quite literally. For example, if you are reading Leviticus and it commands animal sacrifice, the point is not that you don’t take it literally; it’s a literal command to do a literal thing. As Christians we don’t do that because of a number of passages such as Acts 15. I will probably spend a whole post on Acts 15 before I’m done.

      The reason for this kind of abuse of the word “literal” is simply that many Christians are quite unaware of what the Bible actually says, and so they feel the need of an easy way to dismiss any claim regarding what they do or don’t do in church.

    2. They discount passages without admitting it.
      Now let me be clear here. Many of these passages need some sort of discounting in order to apply in the modern world.

      I discussed this in my essay Facing the Proof-Text Method, in which I called it “text trimming.” The problem is not that the texts are trimmed; the problem is that they are trimmed without consideration to any consistent style of interpretation.

      I use as an example Exodus 21:15 & 17 which call for the death penalty for cursing one’s parents. I recall one class in which numerous members were willing to accept this as a command that should be applied today. I was a bit surprised and asked them if they would then take their children out to be stoned to death should they utter a curse against their parents. They were shocked and told me that wasn’t what they meant. “We mean that you should discipline your children properly!”

      They really didn’t even see the text itself until well into the discussion. They’d discounted it so quickly on reading they were hardly aware that they were worlds away from that in which the command was given. For them, this meant corporal punishment. For others, it might well be discounted more. And I’m happy that it should be discounted. It is not, however, a figurative command.

    Now how does this apply to my test passages? I want to make clear here that the problem with the passages I cited is not that I don’t like what they say. My feelings about what a passage says do not impact what it’s now dead author meant to say. The ancients said many things that I don’t like. God is represented as saying things that I don’t like in scripture. My dislike of the statement doesn’t alter the intent of that statement.

    When we phrase the problem in that way we open things up for non-Christians to point out that we are simply taking what we like from scripture, for more conservative Christians to suggest that we are discarding passages at will, and for those more liberal to suggest that we haven’t moved far enough.

    So when Numbers 31:17 says, “Now kill every male among the children, and kill every woman who has had sexual relations with a man” I don’t like it. But that is not a problem for interpretation. The meaning is clear. You can read it in context. This is a command. Moses did not like the fact that the people preserved the women and the boys alive and he is now ordering them to be killed. He will exempt virgin girls, who may be taken as spoil. There’s no problem figuring out what the command would mean at the time.

    So what does constitute a problem for interpretation? If I were working strictly within Judaism I would have to look eventually at the prophetic statements regarding eventual salvation for the gentiles. At a minimum I would have to ask when and why the attitude changed. If the Israelites were to treat the aliens living among them as their own (Lev. 19:33-34), why the difference here? I’m skipping over numerous answers to those questions because here I’m simply wanting to point out what does create a question that must be answered, however easy it may be.

    Finally, if you represent God as a God of love, who does not desire the death of anyone (Ezekiel 18:32), then how can God command all of these deaths? Again, I’m using the Old Testament, and one closely tied to the priestly tradition, in order to keep the two viewpoints close. Again, I’m not continuing into attempts to answer these questions. Some readers are going to see obvious answers, but I’m not ready to go there.

    Thus what I believe constitutes a genuine issue of Biblical interpretation is not my dislike of a text, but rather the fact that I am presented with at least two pictures in the Bible which seem not to be wholly consistent. The interpretation of the passage for its time and place may be clear, but what it means for me or what it meant for other generations of believers who used it as scripture becomes less clear because of apparently conflicting pictures.

    Procedural Notes: I’m going to try to write these a bit shorter, though it will take me several more posts at least to get where I’m going. I also need to do an excursus (or more) showing the prevalence of non-literal interpretation throughout Christian history.

    Continued from Interpreting the Bible VI

  • Leviticus 4:1-5:13

    It is not entirely helpful to include these two sections under the same heading, but there is certainly a break between 5:13 and 5:14, so the division is understandable as Baker does it.

    We’re moving here to sacrifices that are required, first for inadvertent acts in chapter 4, and then for acts of omission that result in prolonged impurity (Milgrom: 307ff), only some of which are inadvertent in chapter 5.  Milgrom maintains, I think convincingly, that the distinction in chapter 5 is that the acts in question result in prolonged impurity, and prolonged impurity gets worse.

    Baker does well in presenting the major lesson I think we can take from these chapters, that wrongs are not just a personal thing, but they have a lasting impact on others.  We have a tendency to think that if something was a mistake there is no real guilt attached.  “I goofed,” is supposed to forgive all.  Here errors, most notably amongst the leadership, even if inadvertent, are highlighted as damaging the entire congregation and particular as polluting the sanctuary, and thus the congregation’s relationship with God.

    There is a secondary point, in that chapter 5 provides gradated levels of offerings and includes one even the poorest could bring–a grain offering.  I think this should be discussed in terms of atonement, in which we regularly quote Hebrews 9:22, which in turn quotes Leviticus 17:11.  Perhaps while blood provides the strongest metaphor for atonement, it is not the absolute requirement that some make it.  An exception to the blood sacrifice as in Leviticus 5:11-13, would not in that case be a minor point.  I’ll discuss this further when we get to Leviticus 17:11.

    The OSB emphasizes the difference between the sins of the priesthood and the laity, and quotes St. John Chrysostom thus:

    Wishing to show that sins receive more serious punishment by far when they occur in the case of the priest than in the case of the laity, Moses enjoins as great a sacrifice to be offered for the priest as for the whole people, and this amounts to a proof on his part, that the wounds of the priesthood need more assistance, that is, as great as those of all the people together.”

    OSB further applies this to the modern priesthood as well.  I could wish they would both quote the fathers more and would indicate the particular work.  In this case I have been unable to find the reference by search at CCEL–I’m probably doing something wrong.

    Again, I commend Baker for providing the elements that a preacher would need quickly and with the minimum of fuss.  You will frequently find you want to know more, but there are other reference works for that purpose.

    Abbreviations:

    OSB – Orthodox Study Bible

    NISB – New Interpreter’s Study Bible

    Milgrom – Milgrom, Jacob.  Anchor Bible:  Leviticus 1-16.

    Baker – Leviticus portion written by David H. Baker, of the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary on Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

  • Missing from Lent 2B

    One thing that always interests me in the lectionary is the passages we don’t read.  Often these are signaled by commas indicating a number of verses left out.  At other times it may be interesting portions before and after.  I see three interesting cases in the lectionary for Lent 2B.

    The first is in Genesis 17, where part of the omission is obvious.  We are told to read Genesis 17:1-7 and then skip to 15 and 16.  What happens in the intervening verses?  The sign of circumcision is instituted.  Christians don’t comprehend circumcision all that well, and perhaps it is good that the pastor won’t have to explain that portion, but I find the omission interesting, considering that we will also read Romans 4 in which Paul will use this passage for something quite different than what it was originally intended for.  In fact, he uses quotes from it mixed with those from Genesis 15 to point away from the sign of circumcision.

    A few years ago I wrote an essay, Was Paul an Exegete?, in which I maintain that clearly he was not.  The problem is that the word “exegesis” has so positive of a connotation amongst many pastors and Bible scholars that suggesting Paul isn’t an exegete sounds positively sacriligious.  Paul isn’t doing exegesis when he uses Hebrew scripture, but that doesn’t mean that he’s either a liar or a bad person.  Rather, he’s doing something else entirely.  Shouldn’t we be interested in seeing just what?  Reading the whole passage will help.  I would suggest at least reading Genesis 17:1-16 straight through if you are using the lectionary in a Bible study group.  For a scripture reading, it’s possible you should use it as is.

    But there’s more!  If we read forward, verse 17 informs us that Abraham fell on his face and laughed.  He didn’t believe the promise.  We see that also in chapter 18, where it is Sarah who laughs.  Yet in Romans 4:20-21 we’re informed that Abraham’s faith was strong and he was convinced God could do what he had promised.  I call this the “faith” view, one that makes the heroes of the faith look better as we give them credit for what they grew into, not what they were at the time.  But Paul’s view and that of the author of Genesis are not quite in line, and we miss that if we don’t read the whole passage.

    Then there is Psalm 22:23-31.  Here we have a contiguous block of praise, but we lack the reason for the praise, which is that the Psalmist has been ill and suffering and prayed for healing.  The praise is thanks to God for bringing him through (possibly prospectively) that situation.  Now we will read the rest of the Psalm on another day in the lectionary, but it’s omitted here.

    Finally, in Mark, we have Peter’s rebuke of Jesus and Jesus’ rebuke of Peter in return, but we don’t have the story that brought it on.  The positive part of Mark’s passage is removed, while the negative part of the Psalm is removed.

    The Romans passage is in good shape, other than the fact that it is well-nigh impossible to get the right balance from any small portion of Romans.  Yet we could hardly read the whole book, could we?

     

  • Interpreting the Bible VI – Introducing some Test Passages

    I’ve been delinquent on this series since January 24, but here goes again. My major point has been to show first that there is no obvious interpretation which one should take from the Bible, but rather that how one applies the Bible to one’s life, if at all, is based on an interpretive framework.

    It’s generally not so much that we cannot determine what a particular author meant to say, though that can be difficult. For example, the arguments over how literally one should take the first 11 chapters of Genesis are all based on a certain amount of evidence. The literary form is debatable, which is demonstrated by the number of people who debate it.

    What is most difficult, however, is determining how something applies to another time, if at all. We all have things we ignore from scripture. I’m blogging through Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy over on my Participatory Bible Study Blog right now, and those books contain many things that Christians do not do, and do not believe they have to do. In fact, it is so ingrained in Christian thought that animal sacrifices, for example, don’t apply to us, that often people don’t even think of it as something they ignore. They will tell me that’s not a real example–it’s too obvious. But the fact that Seventh-day Adventists, for example, keep Saturday as the Sabbath shows that we don’t all agree on where the line is drawn. Further, other small groups keep certain other laws or observe feasts.

    But to get to the idea of test examples, there are two very interesting topics on which Christians debate, but which tend to result in some interesting interpretation.

    The first of these examples is homosexuality. In almost any discussion of gay and lesbian rights in the church, Leviticus 18:22 will surface somewhere. It’s one of those, “But it’s obvious! The Bible says it right here!” sorts of texts. Now my purpose is not to try to tie the entire issue to this one text.

    In my experience, however, I’ve encountered an interesting phenomenon. If I ask the person who has just referred to Leviticus to read Leviticus 19:33-34, which is often just across the page–it is in the Bible I’m using right now–the tone changes. “Well,” I am told, “that passage obviously doesn’t apply today.” The argument usually has to do with welfare and how aliens might get government money to which they are not entitled.

    Now it’s quite possible that one passage applies and one doesn’t, but that isn’t an adequate hermeneutical argument. It doesn’t deal with various reasons one might find to consider Leviticus 18:22 equally inapplicable, for example. And just where does the idea that having some of your money go to people who are not legally entitled to it come from? There are, after all, many other things called “abominations” in Leviticus, yet we don’t avoid them.

    This leads me to ask this of any set of principles of interpretation: Can these principles explain why one passage is applicable and one is not?

    You’ll find that disagreement on that point lies behind many, many debates about scripture, especially debates that are particularly intractable. One side accuses the other of ignoring scripture, while in turn the second side is quite certain the first is intentionally misrepresenting their position. This is because the two don’t use similar principles.

    Once you have identified the principles being used, the next good question is just how those principles are derived. Often, the practical principle that people apply is simply whether something sounds good. “Love your enemies (Matthew 5:44) is good and literally applicable (except when you really don’t want to), whereas cutting off your hand is not (Matthew 5:30).

    Which examples lead me to the second test case. Can your approach to interpretation deal with Numbers 31 in relation to Matthew 5, or perhaps more importantly 1 John 4:13-21. You’ll have to read Numbers 31 for yourself, but I’ll just let you know that in it Moses is quite angry at the way in which the Israelites have not killed an adequate number of women and children in battle.

    In the following posts, which I hope will follow more quickly than this one did, I will look at those two issues and the principles of interpretation that might be involved. For better or worse, I must tell you now that I doubt anyone will consider my approach “obvious.” But that’s OK. I don’t consider anyone else’s all that obvious either!

    Previous posts in this series:

  • Christian Carnival CCLXVI Posted

    … at C.Orthodoxy.

  • A Faith that is not Silent (Psalm 22:23-31, Lent 2B)

    Psalm 22:23-31 is an interesting passage of praise.  It’s easy to read these praise passages as kind of interchangeable–which Psalm shall we use to praise God today.  But there are generally some special features of each passage.

    I believe that we are to focus on God when we worship and praise him.  But at the same time, God is focused on us.  Keeping that in mind might help keep the balance.  There are many reasons to praise God, because he is our creator, because he’s great, because he’s good, and so forth.  Anyone in the congregation can list them.

    But there’s another reason illustrated in this passage. We need to praise God because other people need to hear us do it.  No, this is not because we need them to think better of us seeing as they have heard us offer praise to God.  Rather, it’s because they need to hear what God has done.  The classic Psalm based on this idea is Psalm 78, but it is equally well expressed in shorter form here in Psalm 22.

    Verse 30:  “our children will also serve him.  Future generations will hear about the wonders of the Lord.”  (NLT)

    Verse 31:  “His righteous acts will be told to those not yet born.” (NLT)

    The thing about a silent faith is that it is dead in the most important way–it doesn’t reproduce.  Reproduction is one of the key elements that defines biological life.  It is also a key element in defining spiritual life.

    Here’s a question for you and for your Sunday School class or congregation.  Have you provided enough of a basis for your faith to survive?  Is there anything known about it that would make people want to join your community of faith and carry on?

     

  • Lent 2B – Preliminary Thoughts

    I’m going to try to write something daily, even though I never intended this site to be blog-like.  I link to my blogs from here which have shorter thoughts on various passages, but I rarely get into the themes and the relationships between the passages in the lectionary in my blogging.  Over the last few weeks I have found it much easier to get notes on paper and in the margins of my Bibles than to get them into an article here.

    This week I was struck by several themes, so let me list them in order:

    1. God does it!  That comes through all the passages.  In Genesis 17, our lectionary reading skips Abraham’s response of laughter, and emphasizes God speaking of the blessing and how it will be done.  There is almost the sense that God intentionally waits until Abram (now renamed Abraham) is 99 and his wife Sarai (now Sarah) is 90 years old in order to emphasize that he is the one who does.  Psalm 22 ends on the words “he did” referring to divine action.  In Romans the focus is on the righteousness of faith as opposed to righteousness we manufacture ourselves.  I can’t help but think this righteousness must be real and manifest in the person in and on whom God works, and not merely transactional.
    2.  Death is no barrier.  One common question Christians ask is why Jesus had to die. There are so many answers.  But one is simply that for God death is no real barrier.  In Genesis 17 we have Abraham viewing himself as effectively dead–no longer able to produce life, something Paul picks up on in Romans 4:19.  (Note that our lectionary passage skips Genesis 17:17 in which Abraham laughs, and Paul seems to ignore it too, seeing Abraham as a perfect example of faith!)  In Psalm 22, God receives worship even of those who go down to the pit(v. 29).  Finally, while Jesus has his human reactions to his coming death in various places, when he discusses it with the disciples it is a simple necessity.  Death is no barrier to God.
    3. Sarah and Abraham are blessed together.  In a culture in which the man was seen as generating seed, and the woman was more or less a place for it to grow, God makes it clear that Sarah is part of this as well.  Thus we remember Abraham and Sarah together.  We might think of this when considering the difference between a God’s eye view and a culture eye view on men and women.
    4. God’s word and action is effective.  This is a big topic, but I would simply note that when God blessed Abraham, it wasn’t only transactional.  So when Paul speaks of the righteousness of faith, should it not also be effective and accomplish something in the life of the person who believes?  It is all God’s action, but God’s action is effective.

    Passages:  Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Psalm 22:23-31; Romans 4:13-25; Mark 8:31-38.