Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • What’s the Impact?

    In what is destined to become a classic understatement, Newsweek subtitles their aricle Face of the Enemy about the death of Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi Zarqawi’s many roles in the Iraqi tragedy suggest his deminse may have side effects that are very difficult to predict. One thing we can be fairly certain of is that his death will not make all the other terrorists go home and decide to play nicely with others, while not beheading or blowing them up.

    This entire article is well worth reading. Fighting terrorism is not nearly as easy as we want to think. The level of force that is necessary is very large, and the cost is high. Strategic mistakes are very costly. Don’t assume too much from the death of one leader.

  • Excellent Post on Gay Marriage

    There’s an excellent post on gay marriage by Jon Rowe over on Positive LibertyA Theoretical Solution to Maggie Gallagher’s Problem (thanks to Ed Brayton on Dispatches from the Culture Wars for pointing this post out.)

    I’m particularly pleased with the argument here that allows religious toleration for those who believe homosexuality is a sin, and yet supports civil rights for gays and lesbians in society. It’s well worth a read whatever your position is on this issue.

  • Roy Moore (Governor) and Alabama Supreme Court Slate Lose

    There have been a number of articles on these races because of the national issues raised, including the idea that a state court should be permitted to ignore a federal court order that it regards as unlawful. Roy Moore gained fame by refusing to remove a monument to the ten commandments, but when it came down to campaigning for governor he was simply unable to pull it together.

    The article Message and money: Moore needed more, from the Birmingham News provides some analysis. It takes more than a good issue that is popular with the voters to get somebody elected. Alabama voters are probably sympathetic with Moore’s basic position on the ten commandments issue, though ignoring a court order didn’t sit well with some. But a single issue is not sufficient to get someone elected.

    I’m glad to see these particular candidates go down to defeat in Alabama.

  • Isaiah 24-27: Basics of Criticism

    Now that we’ve looked over the text and found a set of transitions in it, we can start looking at how critical methologies will apply to this material. Will they help us interpret and apply the passage?

    This is a moment to look at some of the reasons I’ve been writing this series. Frequently, Bible students are confronted with the results of critical scholarship, but with very little support, documentation, and reasonsing provided to help them determine whether they should accept a particular critical position or not. On the other hand, they will often see denials of the results of criticism with equally little background provided. One can’t avoid the types of questions that Biblical criticism asks, even though one can have widely varying positions on the answers. Whatever commentary or study Bible you choose, there will be statements about the date of writing, the authorship, and the historical and cultural circumstances of the book.

    What do you do when one set of notes tells you that the gospel of Mark was written around 45 CE, while another says it was written between 70 and 80 CE? In relation to our particular exercise, what do you do when one source tells you that Isaiah was written by a single author in the 7th century BCE, while another says it has at least three authors dating from the 7th century to the 4th century BCE? Again narrowing in on Isaiah 24-27, how do you respond when one source says this is a scattered collection of unrelated sayings that has obviously suffered in editing and transmission, while another tells you that this passage is a coherent whole with a single theme carefully presented?

    You can, as some people do, take the word of the scholar who is most similar to your theological viewpoint, you could throw up your hands and say, “Nobody knows!” or you can dig in and ask a simple question: How do each of these scholars know what they claim to know? That is the purpose of delving into critical methology. How does someone come to any of these conclusions?

    Let’s think briefly about the gospel of Mark. There are two major areas of disagreement that alter the way scholars date Mark. The first is their solution to the synoptic problem. If someone believes that Mark is one of the sources for Matthew and Luke, he will clearly have to date it before Matthew and Luke. The second major issue is found in the relationship of the text to the destruction of Jerusalem. This is not only an issue of whether predictive prophecy is possible, but also whether the text of Mark reflects a situation in which the temple has been destroyed or not. Based on these criteria, you’ll find that more conservative scholars who believe that Mark was written first tend to date Mark very early. More liberal scholars tend to date Mark a bit later, even if they believe Mark was written first. Conservative scholars who believe Matthew wrote first tend to date Mark a bit later, though often still before the destruction of Jerusalem. (This can get tricky depending on how one dates Matthew.) Some scholars who are moderate or liberal believe Matthew was written first, and this results in a very late date for Mark, since in general the same scholars would date Matthew shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem. If you look carefully in each introduction to Mark, you will probably find the reasons even though they may not be clearly set out for you.

    In the case of Isaiah, we don’t have an issue of copying, except in a small number of cases. We have two categories of issues: 1) That some portions of Isaiah are written presuming Assyria to be the main enemy, 2) that some portions are written assuming Babylon to be the main enemy, 3) that Cyrus is specifically named as a deliverer (which even some who like a 7th century date in general find a little hard to accept), and 4) that there are also passages that appear to apply to a time of rebuilding. This is not the time to evaluate all those issues in detail, but you should be aware of them. The deutero- and trito-Isaiah theories are based on an analysis of the text itself, along with a small number of external references. You need to consider the details about the text in order to express a valid and convincing opinion on the topic.

    As we start on Isaiah 24-27, I want to call your attention to a couple of my own experiences in studying other books. I did a full quarter independent study in college on Ezekiel’s call vision (Ezekiel 1). One commentary guts the call vision of repetitions and things that seem not to fit into a coherent description of the vision. As I read this commentary (see the paper for more details), I began to ask myself whether the original report of the call vision would, in fact, have had the characteristics of brevity, organization, and clarity that this commentator supposed it would have? I decided that this was unlikely. A vision, after all, is not an ordinary experience. One might be slightly incoherent in describing the vision. By making the chapter more organized, that commentator was, in fact, losing the feeling of excitement and awe, along with the difficulty of describing a vision of this nature. I encountered the same thing using R. H. Charles’s commentary on Revelation in the ICC series. Charles rearranges the last chapters of Revelation because he thinks they are so horribly disarranged. He even suggests the following:

    . . . John died either as a martyr or by a natural death, when he had completed i.-xx. 3 of his work, and that the materials for its completion, which were for the most part ready in a series of independent documents, were put together by a faithful but unintelligent disciple in the order which he thought right. (Charles, Revelation Vol II, p. 147)

    Again we have to ask whether the order that the modern student thought right is the order that would have appeared right to the original author.

    The assumption behind the interpretation of the passages I cited (Ezekiel 1, Rev. 20:4-22) is simply that a description of an end time vision should be clear, orderly, and in perfect sequence. The problem I have with this assumption is that there don’t seem to be any examples in scripture of such a clean, orderly work that would allow us to conclude that this was the “normal” form for such a vision report. The apocalyptic speeches of Jesus are more orderly, though not much more forthcoming with the data, than these, but it isn’t the report of a vision. A similar assumption has been made about Isaiah 24-27.

    If you did your own outline of these four chapters, showing transition points, take a look at it again. If not, use the one I did earlier in this series, and then read the passage again. What kind of feeling do these chapters give you? Is it necessarily true that in a time of crisis, however resolved, we would feel a clean sequence of events, or would we have a slower transition?

    Each of the “forms” we identified (though I used ad hoc names, rather than those you will find in many commentaries) contributes to the feeling of these chapters. We can use form criticism, identifying a passage as a hymn or a prayer, for example, to help us understand the pieces, but they form a portion of the word picture that the author is painting. They come from different places and situations, but they are combined into one theme.

    In my next entry I’ll look a bit more at the theme and how it is brought together, and we’ll use a little bit of methodology from redaction criticism. While some scholars do try some source criticism on this passage, generally theories that combine some of the elements into sources prior to the final composition generally rely on extremely thin evidence, and I am unconvinced that such sources can be identified. The best picture of authorship, in my view, is that a single author takes elements from worship, devotional life, existing literature, and his own visions and compositions, and combines them into a passage heralding God’s final victory. The elements may look scattered to us, but that is largely because we come with the wrong questions, asking what historical events are in view, what is the sequence of age-ending events pictured, and so forth, when the author is answering the question of what it will be like when YHWH makes his final intervention in human history.

  • Hebrews 1:5-14

    I’m going back now to fill in some of the blanks in my blogging on the book of Hebrews. My series of classes is finished, and I’ll focus just a little bit more narrowly than I did in a series of thematic classes taken from the book.

    Following his introductory long sentence (1:1-4) our author immediately moves back to establishing the details of his broad claim. He wants to show that Jesus is greater than any previous revelation, and from that he will establish the better priesthood, the better sacrifice, the greater salvation, and the greater need to carry on to the end. We have already seen to some extent how he interleaves his goal–faithful endurance–with the reasons supporting it. So first we will hear about how Jesus is greater than the angels, then we will hear a little bit about the nature of the salvation that Jesus brings (2:1-4), and then again we hear about who Jesus is (2:5-18), and so forth through the book.

    In this section we will also see our author’s use of the Old Testament in his teaching. He’s quite willing to slice and dice it, phrase by phrase, and use what would seem to be minor points in their original context to make major points in his context. I’m going to blog later on his use of the Old Testament. For now, I will only make brief remarks as it applies to the way in which the passage is being used.

    5For to which of the angels did God ever say: “You are my son, today I have given birth to you” [Psalm 2:7] or again, “I will be a father to him, and he will be a son to me”? [2 Samuel 7:14]

    It’s useful here to read both of these verses in their Old Testament context, not because the author is using them in context–he’s not–but because he is aware of the context, and is drawing meaning into the passage. He can count on his readers having some knowledge of the passages from which he is drawing. The first, Psalm 2, is a royal Psalm and most likely would be used for coronation and/or confirmation of the king. The second, 2 Samuel 7, is God’s words to David about his successor, Solomon, and what his relationship would be to that king. Neither passage, in context, appears to be predictive.

    So what is going on here? First, let me note that New Testament writers are not afraid to make use of Old Testament language in just about any context, borrowing it, paraphrasing it, or alluding to it as it suits them. But second, we should be aware of typology, which understands a present event in the light of past events. As an example, let me cite Matthew 2:15, “out of Egypt I have called my son.” Matthew uses this citation as a prophecy, to be fulfilled in Jesus, specifically that Jesus went to Egypt as an infant, and came back to Judea and then Galilee.

    But if we read the citation, from Hosea 11:1, we will find that not only is this not a prophecy but rather a historical reference, there are a number of elements in the next few verses of Hosea 11 that we would certainly not want to apply to Jesus. But Matthew accomplishes something with this reference that we modern folks often miss. He’s letting us know that he interprets the mission of Jesus in the light of the exodus from Egypt, right down to the sacrifice of the passover lamb. How well that works is another matter. Our modern focus is on whether Hosea was predicting this particular event in the life of Jesus, and we must conclude that he is not, if we’re faithful to the context of Hosea. But while Matthew may think of this single sentence as a prediction, his greater concern with it is to tie the mission of Jesus with the a previous act of salvation history, the exodus from Egypt.

    So back to our text. The greatest point here is to establish that Jesus is greater than the angels. Like the kings of Israel, and especially Solomon, God calls Jesus “Son.” I believe that the royal element in the mission of Jesus is implicit throughout Hebrews even though it is not developed. It is likely that the author assumes an understanding of the royal metaphor for who Jesus is, and simply wants to establish the other elements–priest and sacrifice.

    6But again when he brought the firstborn into the world, he said: “And let all the angels of God worship him.” [Deuteronomy 32:43 LXX; Psalm 97:7]”

    We’re again working with a single phrase, and the worship referenced in context is worship of YHWH as God. For Jewish readers this would have been quite an astounding verse to quote. This verse would work very poorly to convince opponents. But if you combine it with 2:1-4, we get a verse to draw Jesus, already known to be divine in some sense, into the act of worship.

    7Rather he says concerning the angels:

    “He who makes his angels spirits {winds}
    and his servants flames of fire.” [Psalm 104:4 LXX]

    In this case the LXX quote is required. The Hebrew can be read in this way, but it is not the most likely translation. See my notes on Psalm 104.

    8But concerning the Son he says:

    “Your throne, God, is eternal,
    and the Scepter of your kingdom is a righteous one.
    9You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness,
    Therefore God, your God, has anointed you;
    With {olive} oil of rejoicing amongst your companions.” [Psalm 45:6-7]

    If I were translating this myself, I would translate Psalm 45:6 thus:

    “Your throne is a divine one, forever and ever,
    Your royal scepter is one of justice.”

    I suspect that the combination of royalty and divinity is precisely what was desired by our author again. Read Psalm 45 in context to get the flavor there.

    10And:

    “At the beginning you founded the earth;
    The heavens are the work of your hands.
    “11They will pass away, but you remain.
    They all become old like a piece of clothing,
    12and as a canvas you roll them up.

    Now we are dealing with pure divinity, in material written of YHWH himself.

    13To which of the angels has he ever said:

    “Sit at my right hand,
    Until I set your enemies as a footstool for your feet”? [Psalm 110:1]

    And again back to a royal Psalm, but one which we will hear about later. This is the Psalm that mediates the use of the story of Melchizedek, who becomes the type for the eternal priesthood.

    14Are they not all ministering spirits, sent out for the sake of those who are about to inherit salvation?

    Essentially, angels are servants, and Jesus was more than that. He has really only hinted at this rather than proven it in these few verses, but he has snuck a rather large amount of typology, especially royal typology, into his argument.

  • Mixing up Symbol and Reality

    It’s interesting that the following article, Burning Gods: Fear and Free Speech in America, is written by an atheist. The principle is so strongly applicable to Christian thinking as well.

    Carol’s article reminded me of the Ten Commandments flap in Alabama, which produced some interesting pictures of Christians bowing down in front of the ten commandments monument while praying. I’m certain they were not praying to the ten commandments, but was there a confusion in their view?

    Like Carol, I’m disturbed by flag burning. The flag is an extremely important symbol to me. But it’s a symbol of freedom. If we destroy freedom in order to protect its symbol, just what have we done?

    Note: This issue has not gone away in Alabama. Now there is a slate of judicial candidates for the Alabama Supreme Court who believe they should be able to ignore federal court orders. (See the story here: Alabama revisits issue of federal vs. state power:
    GOP lawmakers argue that state courts aren’t bound by U.S. Supreme Court    .) Look what a misbegotten brood a misplaced symbol has brought forth!

    Confusion of symbol and reality is the heart of idolatry. That’s why images were forbidden. It’s very easy to assume that our images of God or of anything else are the same as the reality, and that can cause us to behave in bizarre ways.

  • Educating for Reality

    This is good stuff! Kudos to North Carolina, not because they have succeeded, but because they are trying in a number of innovative ways to solve actual problems that students are observed having. You always have to try before you can succeed. The Newsweek story is here: The Future is in Their Hands.

    The key here is that North Carolina educational authorities are looking at what their young people actually need in the workplace and organizing their education around that, rather than around some traditional idea of what they need. I think this could get much more radical, and do so to good effect. We need to look at the needs of the workplace and examine every element of the curriculum asking, “Is this helping us attain our goal?”

    Those who are planning for college can afford, and may even need some detours to round out their learning ability, but those who are going into technical jobs need specific skills.

    I hope more states and communities learn lessons from this.

    Note: Something much closer to my daily life is the education of pastors. I would love to see churches, especially the United Methodist Church, re-examine pastoral training in the light of what pastors actually do. For example, training in prayer/prayer ministry, practical advice from other pastors on working with administrative boards and staff-parish relations committees, perhaps a year working with an older, well-chosen pastor as opposed to more classroom time. These are just ideas–I’d just like to see the whole thing looked at. I have yet to work with a pastor in a parish who does not state that a good portion of his seminary training was not relevant to his work.

  • Wayne Leman on Translation Errors

    Wayne Leman has written an excellent post on the Better Bibles Blog, in which he discusses what should or should not be called an error in Bible translation. He is looking for a list of genuine translation errors; not differences of opinion or ideology, but genuine errors. I’ll be watching with interest to see what he finds.

    I don’t actually have a list of translation errors in the sense Wayne is talking about. I personally consider a number of translations way off the mark, but those is a differences of opinion, and I can certainly provide the linguistic justification for the translation I oppose. For example, I regard the translation of ;almah in Isaiah 7:14 as “virgin” to be inappropriate. I think the evidence is strongly in favor of translating “young woman.” But I do understand both the linguistic and ideological arguments in favor of the other translation. Nobody “goofs” and puts “virgin” in the verse. They are expressing a difference of opinion.

    In a comment at Bible Bibles, I indicated also that I thought it would be inappropriate in context to fault the KJV translators for not using information they didn’t have. If one is looking at inaccuracies in the KJV, that is one thing. Errors would seem to imply that the translators had the necessary knowledge, and they goofed.

  • Christian Violence?

    A Christian game company is producing a game based on the Left Behind series. Their own advertising quotes the New York Times saying that the game “Combines Tom Clancy-like suspense with touches of romance, high-tech flash and Biblical references.”

    The game puts players in the position of either killing or converting their opponents and includes spiritual warfare, scriptures texts and more, according to a story in the LA Times Converting Video Games Into Instruments of God.

    I’m not going to go into this in depth, but I want to ask my Christian friends this: Can a game be made Christian just because we quote some scripture and include prayer? Is there going to be a time when God will sanction this type of behavior?

    From what I can see from the advertising, I don’t think this is an improvement over the average type of violent video game. I’m particularly concerned about the “convert or die” part.

    For full disclosure I should note that I do not accept the “Left Behind” interpretation of Revelation.

    (Thanks to Dispatches from the Culture Wars for alerting me to this.)

  • Unity, Diversity, and Confusion

    Recently I wrote a couple of entries, first on diversity and liberalism, and then on the Together for the Gospel statement. The issues I discussed in those two posts raise quite a number of questions about truth, unity, and Christian fellowship. Many might decide from my comments thus far that I don’t care about truth or correct doctrines at all. But that is not the case. “Doctrine” is simply teaching, and we all have some form of teaching. Even the doctrine that correct doctrine is not primary in salvation is itself a doctrine.

    Where are the boundaries where disagreement is permissible or not permissible? How can we tell what is essential and what is not? It’s easy to quote St. Augustine, “In essentials, unity. In non-essentials, liberty. In all things, charity,” but it’s a great deal harder to define precisely what one means. Two sincere people who accept the idea of unity in essentials and liberty in non-essentials can nonetheless get into quite a fight over just what is essential.

    I think we could view the situation as a sort of continuum.

    Unity by Exclusion Unity in diversity Disunity by confusion
    Doctrinal continuum arrow Non-doctrinal

    To the far left of this spectrum (no left-wing/right-wing implications intended), we have those for whom doctrine is central and absolute. I’m seeing the folks who wrote the Together for the Gospel statement I discussed in my post Who’s Together for What?. For them the way to defend the gospel is to be both very clear and detailed on what is truth, make sure people know it, and only respect those who are fully on track as bearers of the gospel. In the center of this continuum we have those who have a small number of essential doctrines on which they require unity, but outside of that boundary diversity is permissible within the community. On the far right of my continuum, we have those who hold nothing, or almost nothing, as essential, and thus have confusion because they are not defined as a community. Even greater confusion results when a community cannot agree on just where they stand.

    Let me provide an illustration from another article I’m working on that looks at the type of people who might be part of such organizations:

    Church member attitudes toward doctrine and diversity
    Click the image for a larger view

    Churches that attain unity by exclusion tend to have a large number of essential doctrines. These churches tend to split, and the people in them tend to move from church to church looking for a precise match to their desires. I am not saying that such a church cannot practice unit and cannot teach the gospel; merely that it is difficult to maintain unity in that atmosphere.

    I believe the United Methodist Church, of which I’m a member, tends toward the other extreme. We tend to allow diversity in everything and require unity in nothing. We add to that a debate over where we should be allowing diversity, what is essential, and what is not.

    the-methotaku made a great comment on my previous post, Liberalism and Diversity, in which he started to do precisely what I had planned to suggest in this article–define the distinctives of Wesleyan and then United Methodist theology. Go back there and take a look.

    One reason it is often hard to define the essentials is that one can’t define “essential” without asking “essential for what?” Many people are tired of denominationalism, and I am also concerned when denominations promote themselves over Christianity as a whole. I like to call myself a “Christian, who is a member of a United Methodist congregation” rather than “Methodist.” Why? Because my primary identity is Christian. I don’t think John Wesley would have a problem with that.

    But in order to be a community in ministry to the world, I need to become part of a more tightly defined group. Rather than the very small number of doctrines I suggested as a definition for “Christian” I need some additional points that make one “United Methodist” rather than Presbyterian or Pentecostal, for example. When I define such items, I am not saying that these are additions to what makes me a Christian, rather, they define how it is that I am going to live my Christian witness in the world through a community.

    I can cooperate with anyone with whom I can agree on the essentials for that specific mission. That means that if I am dealing with an enterprise that is broadly Christian, I can cooperate with anyone who accepts basic Christianity. When I meet as a member of a congregation for worship, I expect some additional unity, though I still can allow diversity. I could easily form a small group that would share a larger number of “essential” doctrines–essential to our group, that is.

    But in each case I must try to keep these essential doctrines to the minimum required for that particular community. When I engage in charitable activity in general, for example, I don’t need to find people who agree with me doctrinally. All I need is to find people who agree that there is a human need to be filled.

    It is my prayer for the United Methodist church that we’ll reduce confusion by defining what it is that we find essential and learning to live with it. I don’t know where those lines should be drawn. I would suggest two things–they should be as inclusive as possible while allowing us to be defined as a community, and we should not use what defines us as a community to condemn those who choose a different one.