Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Galatians 3:15-18 – Preliminary Thoughts on Seed and Seeds

    I want to make a few quick notes on this passage right after studying through Martyn’s Galatians commentary notes on it. This is a passage that has troubled many because in verse 16 Paul makes a major issue of the singular “seed,” thus pointing the passage directly at Christ. Now if one reads the passage in its original context, “seed” is a collective, referring to all of Abraham’s descendants, and thus the meaning is precisely the opposite of what Paul claims.

    I didn’t use this passage in my essay Was Paul an Exegete? but I certainly could have. In that essay I concluded that in the modern sense of searching out the original historical meaning, Paul was not, and didn’t try to be an exegete. I would add here that Paul is quite open about how he sees Jesus as the Messiah breathing new life into texts.

    There are several key points from this passage that I want to tentatively connect. Paul claims that:

    • God established the promises
    • The promises were for the seed, singular, Christ
    • Nobody other than the one who makes a will/covenant can modify it
    • The law could not modify or set aside the promise that preceded it. This involves the argument that the law was given by angels, but that goes beyond what I’m discussing right now.
    • Eventually the promise meets its fulfillment in Christ

    Now Martyn, commenting on these verses indicates that the law is not, according to this passage, another step in salvation history, but rather that the giving of the promise, and finally the act of God in bringing reconciliation through Jesus are both punctiliar events. He does not see the law as another step or another way of implementing the promise (pp. 337-352).

    The Jewish view, which in part would have been incorporated by the teachers who opposed Paul in Galatia, makes the Torah a single whole. There are not separate entities in it of “promise” and “law” and there certainly would not be a covenant without there also being a law. Sirach 44:19-21 represents Abraham as law observant, and presents God’s promise as depending on Abraham’s faithfulness in fulfilling the requirements. So Paul is hear creating a substantial difference in view between these historical events. The giving of the promise occurs before the giving of the law, and even though it comes from that same portion of scripture, the Pentateuch or Torah, it is not part of the same law. The law, given at Sinai, is something separate and different, and cannot in Paul’s view alter the original promise, nor is it an organic part of that promise.

    Gentiles are not being brought into Israel through the covenant at Sinai. Rather, they are being brought into God’s promise, incidentally given to Abraham, a promise that is superior to and unalterable by that law.

    My preliminary suggestion here is that this relates closely to what I have pointed out in my article Structural Typology and the Tabernacle, where I suggest that God’s original intent was to dwell with his people (Exodus 19:6), but that because of fear they required a separation (Exodus 20:19). The Tabernacle, far from representing God’s presence, in many ways represents God’s absence. Peter sees the fulfillment of this goal and promise of God in Jesus and the church (1 Peter 2:9).

    Where I would differ from Martyn, I think, on salvation history is that the law is indeed a step in salvation history. There may be two punctiliar acts, between which the law is a parenthesis (Martyn), but that parenthesis is an essential one, tuned to human needs. There is still salvation history, but that history is not a continuous march of progress, but rather it takes detours as God deals with people as he finds them and leads them in the direction he wants them to go.

    In this sense one can also see “seed” as an inspired “breathing-in” by Paul, through the Holy Spirit, of new meaning into the word and form, because in Jesus all the promises given to Abraham were fulfilled in one man (singular) for everyone (very plural). The spiritual application trumps the historical exegesis.

  • Response to Misquoting Jesus IV

    . . . in which I respond to chapter 3.

    This response will be brief. This chapter is excellent. If you’re a Bible student of any variety, buy Misquoting Jesus and make sure to read chapter 3. While I have read many of the things presented here before in more technical works, this chapter is an exceptional job of popular writing by a scholar. You will enjoy the stories, and you will understand the transmission of the Biblical text much better. You could only get this kind of information elsewhere in fairly technical works.

    The first and major part of the chapter deals with editions of the Greek New Testament and how scholarship moved from simply using whatever manuscripts were available to building a text based on the best manuscripts and creating references of the variants in various manuscripts. When I studied Textual Criticism at the undergraduate level, I was required to take several verses and work from available photocopies of manuscripts to create a critical text of that passage. That was a truly revealing experience for me. Ehrman will help you get some of that feel.

    After that, he presents a section on the types of errors found in various manuscripts, starting with inadvertent copying errors and continuing with intentional changes. The examples are brilliantly selected and clearly presented.

    Recall that one of the basic arguments that Ehrman has with some other textual scholars is that he tends to think that more errors are intentional than some do. This is a matter of degree. Ehrman is not way out of the field, and most errors are fairly easy to classify. This chapter will give you a good idea how scholars accomplish their work.

  • Is there such a thing as a theistic evolutionist?

    Panda’s Thumb writer Pim van Meurs gave an irony award to Salvador Cordova whom he quotes as saying:

    Darwinian TE (Theistic Evolution) just doesn’t cut it scientifically.

    That is ironic, considering that young earth creationism makes many assertions that contradict archeology, not to mention geology. Young earth doesn’t even match the written record.

    But this statement does remind me of all the reasons I don’t like the label “theist evolutionist.” I’m a theist and I’m an evolutionist, but the two about as unrelated as any two ideas. As a theist I see nature as God’s handiwork, and thus evolution as God’s elegant way of producing diversity. But that doesn’t change what I see when I see nature.

    There really should be no difference between a theistic evolutionist and any other variety in the field or in the lab. Now I’m not a scientist at all, but I don’t keep inserting “and God did that” between the lines of every science book I read.

    Two commenters on Panda’s Thumb, Raging Bee and Doug S make extremely cogent comments.

    As I’ve argued in my response to The God Delusion, my theist is emphatically not a scientific thesis, nor do I claim scientific evidence for it. So in answer to my title question, I think not. But we’re probably stuck with the term to describe people like me no matter how weak it is.

  • No greater love . . .

    Professor Liviu Librescu gave his life for his students (Jerusalem Post). It’s worth remembering. I’m sure there were many others. In the midst of this terrible act, there are also people who showed true heroism.

    HT: Breaking Christian News.

  • You are a Bible Translator

    Some readers here may be interested in a devotional I wrote for my wife Jody’s devotional list, titled You are a Bible Translator. Not the normal exegesis, but a thought! 🙂 Enjoy!

  • Responding to Tragedy

    Many of us right now are thinking about and praying for the folks at Virginia Tech. Others closer to the scene are responding as their duty calls them. But it’s an ill wind that blows no one good, and there are two groups of people who thrive on this sort of thing: The news media, and political activists.

    One can’t blame the media for thriving on disaster, because so many of us glue our eyes to the TV during an event like this, just looking for the latest tidbit of information that they can dig up. Our tendency is to criticize the media for overplaying the situation, finding everyone who may have heard a gunshot and interviewing them, and bringing in commentators to make lengthy comments on things they cannot possibly no. The media provides it because we watch it. They even got me for about 15 minutes, but after that I moved on, and I’ll keep up with written stories on the internet (MSNBC story).

    For political activists a tragedy like this is a godsend. People’s emotions are stirred up. They want a solution and are less anxious to spend time considering how effective a course of action will be. If it looks good, they’re liking to jump on board. So for people with pet projects, this is the time to get out there and pitch them if there is any possibility that someone might think they’re related to the cause of the tragedy.

    Whether it’s gun control, or increased gun ownership, censorship of violent movies or video games, greater police presence, less restrictions on police monitoring of citizens, increased education, drug legalization or greater drug enforcement, restriction or increase of immigration, or whatever it is, people will [immoderate metaphor stricken with apologies, see comments-HN] quickly appear on television/radio with their pet projects. I’m sure there are readers for whom many of these things are pet issues, and they may well be offended at my list. I’m not sure it is balanced between conservative and liberal causes, but it could be if I thought some more.

    What the rest of us need to do is demand that as actions are taken they are carefully chosen for their effectiveness. Just because something looks like it will doesn’t mean that it will. Politicians will be glad to pass legislation that will make their constituents feel better. It’s quite irrelevant whether it actually works. In fact, it’s very difficult to get government projects tested for their efficacy. Generally we assume that if the government has an Office for Making Everyone Safer, that office will actually make everyone safer.

    So let the sympathy flow to the families, but keep your other emotions under control. Check out what is and isn’t done and check out just how effective it is. After all just because there are violent video games and there are violent people doesn’t mean that one caused the other. It’s a connection that has to be checked.

  • More on the Atonement

    Peter Kirk has collected a series of his comments into a single post along with links to various blogs that can bring you up to date on the atonement wars. I weighed in with a post over on my Participatory Bible Study blog. I see that Coops hasn’t posted in his atonement series since March 19th.

    I know how it can go. One can get really, really tangled discussing the atonement!

  • What Embarrasses me About Christianity

    A discussion has been raging over on the Religion Forum, and Tom Sims has taken it up on his blog regarding Bishop Spong and a quote (Rochester, MN Post-Bulletin) in which he says:

    “Religion in America today embarrasses me,” said Spong, 75, who will speak in Rochester next week. “If that’s what Christianity is all about, then I’m not really interested in that.”

    Of course the question is clearly just what Bishop Spong thinks Christianity is actually about. Frankly, while Spong is one of the more popular characters in modern liberal Christianity, he is by no means the most thoughtful, in my view. In fact, when it gets right down to it, I don’t find his historical reconstructions I find him one of the least credible of the writers on the historical Jesus.

    He makes one excellent point, however, in the interview I cited, when he tells us that the problem comes in when someone claims that their way is the only way it can be. I’m one of those “embarrassments” who believes in the resurrection. Once I’ve swallowed a doctrine like the incarnation, it hardly seems a matter of concern. Could I be wrong? Of course I could! I’ve been wrong before, am quite probably wrong about many things right now, and I suspect I will go right on being wrong until I die.

    Especially in matters of theology we do well to walk and talk humbly, simply because when dealing with the infinite we are by definition infinitely ignorant. We have to recognize that very often the more rational option is to simply admit that we don’t really know. But I, and others like me, have a category of experience to describe, and it is religious language and even religious doctrines that describes it.

    For Bishop Spong, however, and for many in the Jesus Seminar, one has to ask just how Christian their Jesus actually is. I do not arrogate to myself the right to judge whether they are Christians or not, or what their relationship to God might be. My question is simply one of picking up their views and making them my own.

    I recall the series of stories by Isaac Asimov which are set at the dinners of the Black Widowers. Each guest was asked one major question: How do you justify your existence? I think the question that needs to be asked of Spong’s Jesus is the same one: How do you justify your existence? When one limits oneself to a purely historical reconstruction, and one done with a seriously skeptical turn of mind, then the resulting “Jesus” is often rather weak, and one has to wonder why anyone should care whether such a person lived.

    In the historical sense, one might make the question instead whether the Jesus one has discovered by historical research would be likely to have had the impact that he had. The one thing I always find when I think about Jesus in purely historical terms is that in the end I’m certain that Jesus must be more than what I can prove him to be historically, otherwise there is an excessive effect for the cause involved. In some ways, however, the Jesus of Spong fits well with American Christianity–tepid and not terribly challenging.

    There are a number of things about American Christianity that do embarrass me, though they don’t primarily have to do with doctrinal beliefs.

    I’m embarrassed

    • that we have so many buildings and so much real estate that tends to be idle during the week. I believe we could improve our use of that property for building up our communities.
    • that we now have almost as many definitions of heresy and orthodoxy as there are denominations. At least the inquisition worked from one script. Now I can be fundamentalist, orthodox, heretical, and an atheist all at the same time. Just ask my critics!
    • that we still permit discrimination and even foster it in our society–any discrimination that considers something other than the ability of the person in question.
    • that we are depending more on political and temporal means than on the transforming power of the gospel.
    • that for so many Christians church is just a social club. We debate the spiritual gospel and the social gospel, but while we do so the “comfy chair” gospel is often winning in churches.
    • that so many of us couldn’t even discuss the issues that Spong is raising, because we have no clue what we believe or what our church claims to believe in the first place.
    • that our faith is so weak and so poorly grounded that we have to get into a real tizzy about every new book that comes out about Christianity.

    I’m embarrassed, but I don’t dwell on it, except for posts like this. Mostly I just try to help alleviate that situation in the little corner where I am.

  • Galatians 3:2: AKOE PISTEOS

    Or should I make that AKOH PISTEWS? Note that a similar question can be asked in Galatians 3:5, but I will assume due to theme that one will give the same answer in both places.

    Writing an exegetical article on this verse could be quite lengthy, but I agree with J. Louis Martyn in his commentary on Galatians when he says:

    . . . Paul is not asking the Galatians which of two human acts served as the generative locus in which they received the Spirit, a decision on their part to keep the Law or a decision on their part to hear with faith. On the contrary, he is asking rhetorically whether that generative locus was

    • their act in becoming observant of the Law or
    • God’s message (akoh).

    — page 288 [some punctuation/formatting including Greek rather than transliterated text is mine-HN]

    The specific translation of akoh pistewj depends on two factors. First, should the word “hearing” be active or passive, in other words is the thing that generates the reception of the Spirit the act of hearing, or the content of what is heard, the message? The second is how does faith relate to the message. Is it a message that is faith, or is it a message that elicits faith? Martyn (op. cit.) Romans 10:16-17, where the message is much more clearly established as that which elicits faith, and the word akoh is also pretty clearly established as passive in intent.

    So how do translations compare on this. Here are some examples, showing the variety on these two points:

    • TNIV – Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard. [This agrees with the NIV, which is surprising considering the accusations of Calvinist bias in the NIV translation.]
    • REB – did you receive the Spirit by keeping the law or by believing the gospel message?
    • NLT – Did you receive the Holy Spirit by keeping the law? Of course not, for the Holy Spirit came upon you only after you believed the message you heard about Christ.
    • ESV – Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?
    • CEV – How were you given God’s Spirit? Was it by obeying the Law of Moses or by hearing about Christ and having faith in him?
    • TEV – did you receive God’s Spirit by doing what the Law requires or by hearing the gospel and believing it?

    I don’t see any translation that gets quite the nuance that I see in this passage, though perhaps I’m being a bit too tense. In this case, I think the NLT actually has the best translation with the CEV and TEV following very close after.

    Of course, it’s hard for translations to get everything right. In this case, however, I think that formal equivalent translations, such as the ESV really leave the English reader hanging, because “hearing of faith” cannot possibly elicit the same semantic ranger as akoh pistews, with unfortunate results.

  • Response to Misquoting Jesus – III

    I’m continuing my chapter by chapter response to Misquoting Jesus with a discussion of chapter 2, “The Copyists of the Early Christian Writers.” I continue to see this book as a basic introduction to New Testament Criticism (in agreement with Elgin Husbheck, Jr.), though the hype connected with it tries to make it sound more controversial than it is.

    The second chapter starts with the basic problem for texts in early Christianity–Christians were heavily oriented to texts, but they lacked professional scribes in general and a tradition or standards for proper copying. Thus manuscripts were copied generally by whoever needed them, or by whoever was literate and could do the job. As a result, there are numerous errors in the manuscripts. We can verify this assumption by observing the manuscripts we have and the tens of thousands of variants they display.

    Here we get started on one of the key scholarly issues that lies behind this book. How many variants are the result of errors in copying and how many are the result of scribes trying to improve the text? On this issue Ehrman in his scholarly writing is an advocate of the view that there is a high proportion of variants that result from intentional changes. Those changes may have generally resulted from good motivations, but they nonetheless changed the text.

    Ehrman continues with the issue of precisely what should be considered the “original text” of a document, using Galatians and the gospel of John as examples. Since Paul dictated the letter to the Galatians to a scribe, and then the letter was sent to more than one church, which probably necessitated copying that original, what precisely should be considered the “autograph?” There is room for error even in the dictation process (pp. 58-60). Add to that the fact that our earliest copy of Galatians comes from 150 years after the letter was written, and one begins to get an idea of the difficulties involved in textual criticism.

    I would note in addition that the issue of finding just what we should call the “original” starts to cross the line into what is known as higher criticism, involving source and redaction criticism. Ehrman uses the gospel of John, but what about the synoptic gospels? In general, no matter which theory one assumes for authorship, at least two, and probably all three of the gospels largely consist of source material edited into a new form. Why should this new form be regarded as an autograph? Would not the earlier versions be more authoritative?

    Ehrman tends to favor the work of the original author, as illustrated by this quote:

    . . . As we saw in chapter 1, Christianity from the outset was a bookish religion that stressed certain texts as authoritative scripture. As we have seen in this chapter, however, we don’t actually have these authoritative texts. This is a textually oriented religion whose texts have been changed, surviving only in copies that vary from one another, sometimes in highly significant ways. The task of the textual critic is to try to recover the oldest form of these texts.

    Modern Christians inclined to a conservative evangelical or fundamentalist position will certainly find Ehrman’s stated goal appropriate. What other option could there be? But I think it is not nearly so obvious as that. In fact, by the time the texts were officially designated as authoritative, they were already somewhat altered. In fact, due to the fact that early manuscripts were copied without standards by non-professionals, the greatest number of variants would occur early in the process, thus it would be a somewhat easier task to discover the text of the New Testament at the time when a document was finally designated as canonical. How God might act in the formation of a text is also not a finally settled matter.

    I don’t intend to try to settle these questions, but rather simply to raise them. The boundary between higher and lower criticism is not as precisely defined as many would like to think.