Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • In Which My Wife Uses the Language of PSA

    This morning as I was listening to my wife’s message for our Running Toward the Goal podcast, I heard her use some distinctly PSA-like language. I thought I’d link to it. Today’s podcast was first broadcast on local radio here in Pensacola on July 21, 2003 and is titled I Surrender All. This is the first time it has been podcast. (The speaker is my wife, Jody Neufeld.)

    Those on the PSA side who also are complementarian may not want to listen to a woman teach, but I’m fullly egalitarian and enjoy sharing both blogs and platform with my wife.

  • Recognizing Literary Genre – I

    I’m keeping things short today as I’m facing another deadline tomorrow night when some research materials have to be returned, and I need to have all my notes extracted and filed. Nonetheless, I did feel the urge to post a couple of things.

    I’m promoting this comment from Peter Kirk because he makes a couple of good points. Some people never get down to the comments.

    Of course starting a story “Once upon a time” is enough to identify it as not intended to be historical, with no need to mention a wicked witch. And most languages have similar pointers to fairy tale or equivalent genres – which are sometimes also in the verb tenses used. It is important for Bible translators to be aware of these pointers, because if they are not, translations of historical books of the Bible may end up being misunderstood as fairy tales. By contrast, the genealogy at the beginning of Matthew is sometimes understood as a strong indication that what follows is intended to be a factual narrative about real people. This kind of study is known as discourse analysis.

    Peter is quite correct that the “once upon a time” indication is enough to identify such a story as one that is not intended to be historical. Many of us would clue in first on the wicked with, however, as it’s simply an easier clue. Such recognition becomes subconscious. We simply respond according to the genre because we have had practice.

    Relatively few of us learn discourse analysis. For example, I went through my BA and MA in Biblical Languages without any training in that area at all. It was only when I became much more interested in Bible translation that I started to pay more attention to it and to read some about it. Amongst students that I teach, which means largely lay people without a formal education in Biblical studies, the only people I have encountered who have an acquaintance with it were one graduate student/teaching assistant in English literature and one philosophy instructor.

    That is unfortunate, because we have many of the same people saying with confidence that Genesis 1, for example, sounds like history. On what basis do they say that? Well, generally they have the feeling that the “right” thing for it to sound like is something factual, because facts are more important than feelings any day. Other varieties of literature, in their view, don’t convey enough facts. I have often heard people in these settings judge works of fiction based solely on how much information one can learn from them. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings or Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia suffer, or are weighed solely on allegorical value (a questionable approach in Tolkien’s case at least).

    A good starting point in recognizing literary genre is to put aside prejudices about what literature ought to accomplish. Literature does so much more than convey facts. It can also convey facts in many different ways. I wonder how many of you who have preached or taught have gone back later to find out what people remember. I have done so. I preached a sermon in which I set up a skit. A friend of mine in the audience was primed to angrily interrupt me in the middle of a sermon, and then we followed by ad libbing and argument. A couple of weeks later I asked a few people what we had talked about. The only thing that anybody remembered was the interruption and the skit, but they also remembered the point of the skit.

    I use this approach in my study guide on Revelation. I ask members of the class to mention types of literature that they read and what they expect to get out of them. Once they’ve looked at how their lives actually interact with literature (and we usually extend it to other media as well), they begin to relax. Then we can ask what type of literature the book of Revelation is.

    Which leads to another point. Information may be packaged and organized differently in different types of literature. Just because Genesis 1 is not narrative history, doesn’t mean it contains no information. Peter mentioned the way in which Matthew starts, and one might also look at the way Luke and Acts begin. In both cases there is an indication that they are trying to present factual information. I think those who try to claim that the gospels are not intended to present historical information do a disservice. The gospel writers were not writing as historians, but they were convinced that they were writing something that contained historical information, that is events that actually took place. Now we can look at what was important to them–chronology not as much as the spiritual meaning–and that will help us get the right information.

    One last note. Genre doesn’t necessarily tell us how accurate a work is. We may determine that something is intended to portray history in some way, and yet also determine that the author was hopelessly careless or intentionally inaccurate. Josephus was intending to portray history, or at least he writes as though he was, yet his work is more a personal apologetic, and one can question many of his portrayals.

    To be continued . . .

  • Importance of Correct Procedure

    On both sides of the political spectrum, and even in the middle, we tend to elevate particular policies over the procedures. I think it is very dangerous to do so. This type of thing has occurred in abortion (use of RICO, free speech issues), various federalism issues, and quite commonly in church-state issues.

    Ed (Dispatches) obviously got my attention today as this is the second link to him this morning, but he comments on a brief in the Libby case in which a broad group of scholars filed a brief making a procedural point. Those who want Libby in jail have responded predictably. If the shoe were on the other foot, of course, the response would be different.

    We all need to consider how we would feel if these things were applied to us personally. Supposing a federal official were used improper powers to get you. Would you think it was inappropriate to complain about those powers? The golden rule requires us to consider how our actions would impact others, and how the things we do to them or advocate having done to them would feel if they happened to us.

  • Bible Curriculum in Odessa

    Ed Brayton has an informative post on the process of selecting a Bible curriculum in Odessa, TX. I haven’t had time to follow the case closely, but it appears that Ed is doing so.

    If one is to have a specifically Bible curriculum in high school, as opposed to appropriate mentions in literature, history, and various social studies classes, I would prefer the BLP curriculum strongly. I do not, however, think it is good either for the state or for the church to venture into this area. I realize it’s constitutional when done right (and NCBCPS is not done right), but I still do not think it is a good idea, as I explained in a previous post.

  • Notes and Links on Atonement

    I’ve gotten severely behind in reading the current atonement debate, but I haven’t ceased being interested. I note that Adrian has taken to throwing passages at his opponents, ones which we’re sure to have read before, including Isaiah 53, and 2 Corinthians 5. Because I accept substitution and even penal substitution as valid metaphors, but not as the key or sole metaphor, I am not surprised to find some substitution in scripture.

    I wrote two items on the atonement in partial response to the debate. The first is an entry for my wife’s devotional list, which was posted this morning and expresses my view that understanding the details of doctrine is not nearly as important as many seem to think. The second is a few notes on Isaiah 53 and the suffering servant.

    There is quite a bit of good stuff on the atonement going around the web right now. I got a link to Is Your Gospel Robust Enough, and I wish I could give a hat tip to the right person, but I can’t find where I got the link. The post discusses our excessively individual view of salvation, a problem that is common to many advocates of PSA–and to many of the rest of us as well.

    Dave Warnock is preaching from Ephesians 2:11-22, one of my favorite passages, and is doing a wonderful job of it. At the same time Peter Kirk is keeping active, with a post titled UCCF Director contradicts the Bible and the Apostles’ Creed which he starts from a comment he made here.

    I plan to get back to talking about literary genres tomorrow, but I may be tempted to say more about the atonement. You can always hope not!

  • Religion and Politics Forum

    I was happy to see this forum take place, though I only had time to watch a portion of it as it played. (I must note also that I am resistant to watching major political debates this far from the election.)

    The major reason is simply that there have always been many more people of faith, and even of Christian faith, than are represented by the “religious right.” This forum shows that there are more people out there interested in faith issues or part of a faith community than those conservative Christians who are also conservative Republicans. I would hope at the same time that we express issues in the public forum from the broadest possible foundation, so that they can communicate with people of many faiths or those who are not believers.

    I am motivated to love my neighbor from within my faith in Christ. I want to keep the royal law to love my neighbor. I can express the policies that I support in many ways. When I communicate with those in my community I may speak in one way. When I address those outside, I may speak another way. When I write on this blog, I realize that there will not only be Christians who will read it, but a variety of folks who are not Christians. Public debate needs to be open to all those options.

    I’m not going to be afraid to express my faith, but at the same time I believe that if the policies I derive from my faith are also for the common good, I should be able to express the reasons why they are for the common good.

    In the meantime, such forums as this, and programs such as ONE Vote 08 will help demonstrate that not all religious voters have the same beliefs, no matter what many in the media appear to believe.

  • Isaiah 53: A Short Note on the Suffering Servant

    Yesterday Adrian was apparently surprised that anyone would question that the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 (or better, Isaiah 52:13-53:12) was Jesus. He said:

    The answer to the first question is very straightforward if you believe the bible is without error and Jesus can be trusted. For he himself tells us who the prophet is speaking of –


    Luke 22:37 For I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors.’ For what is written about me has its fulfillment.”

    So, can we now all accept that Isaiah 53 is about Jesus? Jesus himself might not have had a theological degree, but I do think we should take his exegesis seriously!

    Further, he is amazed that anyone could think that this passage was not about substitution:

    Now, as far as question 2 goes, I simply cannot see how Isaiah 53 can possibly be stripped of the idea of punishment and substitution. Dave Warnock claimed in this comment section to have found commentaries that disagree. . . .

    Let me look at these points in reverse. I quite agree that the ideas both of substitution (though I think it can be better expressed) and of punishment occur in Isaiah 53. There actually have been commentaries that claim that those concepts do not occur, but I am only aware of them by citation (and refutation) in Childs (Isaiah in the OTL), and Childs disposes of them pretty quickly.

    My question would be, “What of it?” I have thought that the ideas of substitution and punishment were present in Isaiah 53 since I can remember, but that doesn’t make the chapter support penal substitutionary atonement as it is being argued currently. If all folks want to prove is that the ideas of “substitution” and “punishment” occur in the Bible, I can concede their point. But it seems that they want me to buy the entire doctrine based on the presence of a couple of concepts.

    Since I believe that penal substitution is one valid expression of the atonement, I am scarcely surprised to find it in scripture. But thus far every person with whom I have debated this point has been unsatisfied with my calling PSA “one valid expression.” They want this one metaphor to be the sole expression. That is a narrowing of doctrine that I reject.

    So let me start by saying that both the ideas of substitution and punishment can be found in Isaiah 53. There are some additional points that I think should be emphasized, but they will only broaden the picture, not eliminate the concepts.

    So let me turn back to the question of whether this is Jesus. I’m going to try to abbreviate my comments, so please forgive me (and chastise me in comments) if I fail to cover all points. Traditionally there have been two extremes in the interpretation of Isaiah 53. The first is the more or less standard Christian view that this is a prophecy, or more precisely a predictive prophecy of the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus. I’m referring to a simple, one-to-one relationship. Isaiah was talking specifically and exclusively about Jesus and Jesus specifically and exclusively fulfilled the prediction. The other extreme views the suffering servant as Israel collectively, suffering for their sins and the sins of the world in general, yet redeemed by God and restored.

    Informed readers will be able to point out difficulties with these interpretations very quickly. Isaiah 45:4 stands against the identification with Jesus by identifying the servant directly at Israel. Many interpreters see Isaiah 49:1-3 as a narrowing of this concept specifically to the prophet (or someone of whom he spoke) individually as a representative of Israel. In objection to understanding Israel as the servant one can present Isaiah 53:9 “done no violence” and “no deceit in his mouth.” It hardly seems likely that someone in the prophetic tradition would present Israel as totally innocent.

    There is an intermediate position (in fact, more than one, but I don’t want to write a small book here), which sees the servant firstly as the (reformed) remnant of Israel. In this case, the exiles, who will eventually be restored to Judea become the servant, despised by the remainder of the people (Ezekiel 11:1-13). This leaves us with not precisely substitution but a form of representative suffering, in which a small group suffers for a larger group. This concept would have been easier to comprehend in the ancient world, which was less individualistic. We think of offenses and punishments as personal things. I sin, Jesus dies for me, I am saved from sin. In that formulation there is no representative suffering; there is a simple swap. But we should take seriously the words of Hebrews 2:10-15 where Jesus is said to be perfected through suffering, and to be made “of one stock” (REB) with his brothers and sisters. This intermediate position is then completed with the identification of Jesus as the ultimate representative of Israel.

    Let me quote Wolf (Interpreting Isaiah: The Suffering and Glory of the Messiah, p. 215):

    The suffering and salvation of the nation led Isaiah to his fullest disclosure of the suffering and exaltation of the Servant, who is “Israel” par excellence. The fourth Servant Song describes the meaning of the death of Christ and its significance for a sinful world. . . .

    Now I’m not quoting Wolf in support of every element of my interpretation, but specifically in connecting the servant of the early songs, clearly identified as Israel, with the servant of Isaiah 53, with characteristics that are not as applicable.

    Here I would like to note my problems with Adrian’s approach of simply telling us that Jesus said it and we should respect Jesus’ exegesis. First, this approach is fairly weak if one is going to ever dialog with a non-Christian. Acts 8:26ff tells the story of the Ethiopian eunuch, which Adrian also references. Imagine if Philip used that approach. “You’re reading Isaiah 53? Well, there’s this guy who lived in Judea, and he said this applied to him.” I’m suspecting Philip’s approach was slightly more complex than that. If Jesus provided a good exegesis, one would hope a good exegete could provide an explanation.

    But second, I think that approach rips Isaiah 53 out of its context in Isaiah and loses us part of the understanding. If we start with the idea of Israel as God’s servant–a role to which they were called–we can then take the single step to the remnant who suffer, but not merely for their own transgressions. Many of them were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

    Yet even a quick read of Isaiah 53 will leave you dissatisfied with that solution. Perhaps we’re talking about one heroic figure, contemporary with the prophet if one sees this as an exilic 2nd Isaiah (40-55), or someone amongst the exiles, to which most of the passages are primarily addressed. That is a useful idea, but nonetheless I don’t think it fully fulfills the promise of the passage.

    Both of those concepts, however, provide some context for the type of suffering which befell the ultimate servant. Just as the exiles receive God’s punishment from a foreign power that is God’s agent, so Jesus is crucified by the Romans. Just as the exiles were despised by those not taken, so Jesus is handed over for that punishment by his own people. The redemption is accomplished by God’s action exalting his servant and redeeming the many.

    I feel quite a lot like someone who has attacked a several acre field with a small garden hoe, but I’ll leave it at that. Let me commend to you both of the books (Wolf and Childs) that I have quoted in their comments on the servant songs. They provide a good survey and basis for further research.

  • Good Ruling on Detainees

    A panel of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the fourth district has ruled that the government cannot detain resident aliens as combatants.

    The appeals panel ruled that Bush had overreached his authority and that the Constitution protects U.S. citizens and legal residents such as Marri from unchecked military power. It also rejected the administration’s contention that it was not relevant that Marri was arrested in the United States and was living here legally on a student visa. (Source: Washington Post)

    This is a case in which I strongly agree with the court’s ruling. It is very easy for the military or security authorities to claim that they need additional powers in order to protect us, and when we are frightened, we tend to go along. Many people who would be horrified, hire an attorney, and sue the government agencies responsible should their own home be illegally entered nonetheless cheer when such a thing happens in a police drama, for example.

    We need to think about these things as though they could happen to us. How would we feel? What recourses would we have? Now there’s a strong probability that the individual involved in this case deserves to be arrested, but if that is true, then it should be possible to find a judge who will agree to that. He can be charged with whatever offenses are appropriate and tried.

    There is good reason to provide special circumstances for the battlefield, where there can be much confusion and time is critical. There are even good reasons for such considerations to apply to U. S. citizens who are caught fighting against the United States. But none of those circumstances do not obtain in this case. This is just a matter of convenience for the law enforcement authorities, a convenience we can’t afford to provide them.

  • Narrowing a Doctrine: Penal Substitution and Isaiah 53

    In a previous post, Adrian Warnock said there were two reactions to his interview with the authors of Pierced for our Transgressions. I’m guessing he referred to the favorable and unfavorable, and intensely so in each case. In the rest of that post, he implied pretty strongly that those of us who are opposed to PSA [as the sole metaphor for the atonement I would add, but Adrian did not] are not spending enough time with the scriptures.

    I also note two sets of reactions. I see one set of reactions that deal with the actual position of opponents, and one set of reactions that prefer to make accusations. I don’t want to spend much time on this, but let me just quote one example, from Grave Updates

    Isn’t off how it is always those with robust theology who are told to become broad and drop our distinctives, as if the greatest sin is to offend those who hold to vague and are like those Paul speaks of in 2 Timothy 3:7, “always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.”:

    I would simply like to note here that my position on PSA has nothing to do with avoiding offense to anyone. I’m also not afraid of giving offense to the proponents of PSA as the exclusive or “real” teaching of the atonement when it is, in fact, one metaphor for the atonement. I am quite open in saying that such teaching is wrong and presents a stumbling block. It’s very easy in Christian circles to attribute “truth value” to being persecuted, and to give great credit to teachings which are exceptionally offensive. After all, the gospel is foolishness to those who are perishing (1 Corinthians 1:18). But Paul never said that every stupid and offensive thing thereby automatically became God’s truth. It is crucially important, I believe, for us to make sure that it is the gospel that is offending people when they are offended, and not our behavior or our made up teachings.

    Now Adrian hits us with Isaiah 53. It’s not a bad chapter to use in discussing the atonement, but I find it amazing to have Adrian quote it and let it “speak for itself” as though nobody who rejects his view of PSA has ever read the passage. Well, I have read, memorized, studied, and restudied that passage many times. Having Adrian quote it one more time is unlikely to change a thing, unless he can point out how that scripture challenges my view that:

    1. Substitution is broader than penal substitution
    2. Atonement is broader than substitution

    I have never denied substitution. I took a class Exegesis of Romans (from the Greek text) from a professor who believed in the moral influence theory. He tried to teach it from Romans. It didn’t work. He massacred Paul’s teaching. I did my very best to see it his way. I was inclined to see it his way. I liked the professor and enjoyed his lecture style. Nonetheless, I just couldn’t do it. Nonetheless there is an element of moral influence in the atonement.

    There is also an element of substitution in Isaiah 53, though very little of it is penal in nature. Isaiah 53 needs to be viewed in the broader context of the servant passages of 2nd Isaiah (40-55), but even that is not the primary point. I’m not arguing that Jesus is not described here, though that interpretation will not work as an exclusive look at the chapter. That is another debate. But let’s look at the substitution in this case:

    Notice in verse 4 that it is the people in general who esteem the servant “smitten by God.” They view him as suffering for his own sin, and thus under the wrath of God when in fact the servant is suffering for their sin. The servant gets all the suffering for the guilt of the whole people, and he submits to it. That is absolutely substitution, but there is no indication that God’s anger is directed at the servant. He certainly dies as a substitute, but the notion that God turns his anger purely on the person of that righteous person is simply not there.

    The debate here, at least with me, is not that Jesus did not suffer and die for our sins. It is rather with the penal aspect, and with the exclusivity of either substitution or the penal aspect. I see nothing whatsoever in Isaiah 53 that denies my position. Even verse 10, that especially in the ESV sounds most like penal substitution can be read quite easily and appropriate as the Lord allowing the stroke to fall on the servant rather than the whole nation.

    Incidentally this goes well with the view that the servant is in the first instance the remnant of Judah, taken into exile, and viewed as the greatest transgressors by those left behind. But they were the ones God was using to preserve the future of his people. In the second instance, Jesus fulfills the remainder of the prophecy as the pure remnant, the final representative of the people who took the punishment on himself. It is consistent both with God’s action and with the action of Jesus in laying down his own life (John 10:18).

    The problem I see repeatedly here is that texts that fit well with more than one view of the atonement are being cited as exclusively supporting one narrow view. I do not regard this approach to interpretation as scriptural. That is my problem with PSA. It cuts a square inch out of a large tapestry and then declares the square inch to be the whole. That’s too close to idolatry for me.

  • The Importance of Literary Genre

    Yesterday I wrote about the importance of teaching and preaching on the doctrine of creation and also the “how” of creation in our churches. It’s important for us to understand what we believe about this. My personal view is that theology and Bible study tells us about God’s relationship to us and the natural sciences tell us about what is and how it came to be in terms of natural processes. But whether you agree with me on this or not, I suggest that now is not the time to be silent and hope the argument will go away.

    The key element I mentioned in that post is literary genre, and I did so because it is a critical starting point in Biblical interpretation. One can read the Bible as literature and even treat one type of literature as another when doing so. As an example, one could read Job either as history or as literature. In terms of spiritual application, there would be only a small amount of difference. But if one is looking for propositional truths, it is important to understand first what the intention of the author was in whatever passage you’re studying.

    The gospels make a good illustration for this point. Many debates about historicity simply shoot past one another because each speaker is making different assumptions about what type of literature the gospels represent, and what one can expect from that. At one extreme, the gospels are seen as pretty much pure theology, with any possible historical facts one may glean as incidental. At the other extreme one can view the gospels as pure history, describing the life of Jesus accurately, with theology being derived from the events and not the written presentation. I happen to think gospels are their own literary genre, with a number of variants when one includes non-canonical gospels, and that the historical value is considerable, though not the primary focus. But if one reads the gospels as histories, one might expect information that is not present, such as careful chronology. The various attempts to reconcile the chronology and create a life of Jesus from the four gospels demonstrate the difficulty.

    As modern readers, we are used to having the major literary genres identified for us. When I want a science fiction novel, I go buy a book that is identified as such. I don’t have to read it to identify it. The title page or the jacket blurbs generally tell me what I need to know. In ancient times there are no such blurbs. In many cases, I believe we could easily identify modern types of fiction if they were presented to us. We would probably have some difficulty with historical fiction or with fictionalized biography, for example, but generally we’d get a pretty good idea. Why? Because we have read quite a number of examples of each genre.

    And this brings up the common problem in determining the genre of Biblical documents. If we don’t specifically try to shift our viewpoint, we will likely try to force Biblical documents into modern categories, and do so by looking at their characteristics in comparison to what we read most. This will not result in an accurate picture. I experienced this personally in starting to study Biblical languages. As I moved further and further into ancient literature I found that there were other categories and styles than I was used to in my reading. The Bible felt more at home in that environment than when I tried to read it from a modern point of view.

    So one obvious way to learn to recognize Biblical genres is to read a variety of ancient literature. That will expand your viewpoint and give you more points of comparison to more types of literature. I would suggest this process to anyone who is interested in understanding the Bible better. You are going to need to read a variety of things. For protestants, adding the apocrypha to your reading will help a great deal. There are other collections of ancient literature, however, that are also very helpful in getting perspective.

    Let’s just consider one indicator that we commonly use in recognizing genre. Let’s call it the “wicked witch” indicator. By this I mean that we recognize a story as some literary form other than narrative history or a true/true-to-life story because things just don’t work the way the story says they do. If I start a story, “Once upon the time there was a wicked witch who lived in a broken down shack far out in the woods . . .” you will not be under any illusions that I am telling a modern, true-to-life story. (Apologies to any witches who read this. I’m willing to bet you don’t live in broken down shacks far out in the woods.)

    Now consider the following from the Bible: “The trees went out to anoint a king over themselves . . .” — Judges 9:8

    We know immediately that we are not going to read narrative history. Why? Trees do not behave that way. What follows is known as the parable of the trees.

    Now one more example, this time from the apocrypha: “It was the twelfth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, who ruled over the Assyrians in the great city of Nineveh. In those days Arphaxad ruled over the Medes in Ecbatana.” — Judith 1:1 (NRSV)

    I suspect this one is nearly as easy to identify as the parable of the trees. Why? Because even based solely on the Biblical text, surely available to the author of Judith, we know that:

    • Nebuchadnezzar did not rule over the Assyrians
    • Nebuchadnezzar (first or second) did not rule in Nineveh
    • Arphaxad comes from Biblical genealogies, not from the Median kings

    So here we have historical data that is clearly created using available names and countries. All of these are real, but they’re combined in impossible ways. It’s very likely, based on this, that the author of Judith had no intention of his book being taken as actual history. His readers with no more than the various historical books of Hebrew scripture, could have seen what he is doing.

    Notice that we have twice identified a piece of literature as not being historical because in some sense things just don’t work in the way described.

    To be continued . . .