Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Author Related

Posts that relate in some way to my books. Excludes administrative posts and most reviews of other people’s books.

  • Church Sign: An Eye for an Eye

    An Eye for an Eye church sign
    An Eye for an Eye Church Sign

    At first glance, this is a good sign for a Christian.  After all, Jesus replaces “an eye for an eye” with “Do not resist the one who is evil” (Matthew 5:38-39).

    But I think it illustrates the way we fail to understand certain phrases as they were intended.

    “An eye for an eye” or lex talionis was originally also a way to keep the whole world from going blind.  It was intended not to mandate revenge, but to limit it.  Modern Christians understand it as some sort of command to mass mayhem, and are thankful that Jesus overruled it.

    But in fact Jesus simply moved us further along the same path.  Limiting revenge was good.  Forgiveness was even better, though in justice we still find some value in the idea of proportional penalties.

    This sign demonstrates a quite frequent response to the Old Testament, and in many cases to other things that are old.  In seeing the New Testament as good, these Christians have to see the Old Testament as bad.  It is almost as though there was no grace for thousands of years and then suddenly at the appearance of Jesus God’s grace came into being.

    But in fact the grace that Jesus taught was also taught in the Old Tesament, with the teaching accommodated to time and place.

    So yes, I think Jesus improved on the attitude of “an eye for an eye.”  But “an eye for an eye” was, in its time and place, also a forward looking measure of justice.

  • Is Canonical 2 Corinthians a Hypothetical Reconstruction?

    As I’ve noted before, I’m now reading Calvin J. Roetzel, 2 Corinthians, in the Abingdon New Testament Commantaries series.  I want to emphasize here that I accept the use of historical-critical methodology in Bible study.  That does not, however, force me to find all critical theories plausible.  I’m arguing against this specific set of theories, not against historical-critical methodologies generally.

    In arguing against the unity of the book, Roetzel says:

    … Most [scholars who argue for the integrity of the book] side with Kümmel that the canonical version of 2 Corinthians was Paul’s original epistle, and they tend to ignore the hypothetical nature of their own construction even while repudiating the hypotheses of others (Kümmel 1965 [Introduction to the New Testament. Nashville: Abingdon, 1965], 292).  — p. 25

    This seems to me to be an odd statement.  Though it is not explicit, it appears to aim to place all views on a level playing field, from unity to the five letter hypothesis.  But that doesn’t seem the correct approach.

    If I have a letter with an essentially unified textual history, in this case meaning that the partitioning of the letter is nowhere evident in the textual history as we have it, then we might give at least slight preference to the notion that it is, in fact a letter.  When it fulfills all the forms, that suggestion is strengthened.

    I suppose that the idea that the letter is a unity is, indeed, an hypothesis, but it seems a rather obvious one.  Suggestions of Paul’s changes of mood and/or rhetorical intention are based on observing the text based on this first and most obvious hypothesis.

    On the other hand multiple letter hypotheses are immediately much more complicated.  First one has to assume that someone combined multiple letters into one, cutting out the salutation of at least one and the conclusion of another.  If we assume five letters, then the situation becomes more complicated.

    There are clearly shifts or seams in 2 Corinthians.  The question is why?  The problem for multiple letter hypotheses, I think, is to answer the question not just of why such seams are there (which they answer by proposing multiple letters), but also just why someone should put the document together in this way.

    I don’t see this addressed anywhere.  What is the purpose of the redactor?  If he wishes to preserve all the letters why not just copy them in succession?  If he has some theological purpose, then the question goes right back to the start–what is the meaning of the text as it stands?  (I would welcome comment from someone who has spent more time studying New Testament than I have.)

    I’m suggesting two things.  First, that the hypothesis that the letter as we have it is a unity should be privileged in discussion to some extent, because it is supported by the best possible evidence–that’s what the letter looks like now.  Second, that a theory that involves redaction must also explain the actions of the redactor.  Simply producing plausible pieces and providing a chronology for them does little without some reason why they would have been combined as they were.

    Let me illustrate from some texts where I feel I’m on more solid ground.  Many people try to solve the chronological differences between Genesis 1 and 2 by attributing them to two sources.  Now I believe they are from two sources.  I think the evidence is fairly solid for that.  But having said that, I have solved nothing regarding the difference in chronology between the two chapters, because I still must think about a redactor who somehow thought that putting them together made sense.  So now I must ask about his motivations and what message he intended to convey bringing them together.

    In the case of Isaiah, we again have a composite book, but here were have a hypothesis for why redactors would want to add to the book.  Very likely there was a school of prophets or scribes who preserved Isaiah’s work and added to it from time to time.  Their motivation is to preserve the prophet’s (or prophets’) words. They are not cutting pieces out and combining them, but rather putting the pieces together, generally as they were.

    I don’t see any similarly plausible hypothesis for 2 Corinthians, which makes me find the arguments for unity much more plausible in view of the lack of solid reasons for someone to sew the book together from two to five pieces as various theories suggest.

  • Quote of the Day

    From the Wesley Report:

    Mainline Protestant Christianity has become known for leaving people in slavery, because somewhere along the way, our strategy changed from leading people out of Egypt to planting churches along the Nile. And that’s why mainline denominations continue to lose members. People don’t need churches to help them stay in slavery– they can do that by themselves!

    Don’t get it? Go read the whole thing.

  • A Brief Thought on Partitioning Epistles

    I’ve just completed reading Frank J. Matera’s II Corinthians: A Commentary in the New Testament Library series.  I’m going to post a few notes in review of that commentary, but this is just a brief note, a passing thought, and definitely not a completed theory.

    There are many cases in which critical theories about authorship strike me as rather well-taken.  First and second Isaiah come to mind with a very striking change in style and theme between chapter 35 (36-39 provide an historical interlude) providing at least a substantial basis to consider multiple authorship.  The entire book gives evidence of collection, and so one shouldn’t be too shocked to see evidence of a seam here and there.

    But in other cases such suggestions seem a bit less well taken, and epistles are one case.  Keep in mind that I’ve done much more study of Isaiah than I have of any New Testament epistle, but still it seems to me that the very nature of an epistle should suggest that it is not necessarily going to be a coherent theological presentation as might be expected of a thesis or dissertation.

    But some of the arguments seem to depend on a slightly too sanitary an image of what an epistle should be.  Second Corinthians reads to me like a letter written by a volatile, emotional, and very intense man.  That he goes from a “that’s OK now” view at the end of chapter 7, invites them to participate in a collection, and then switches back to castigating them about certain other faults in chapter 10 seems out of place if Paul wrote a carefully planned, drafted, and edited letter.  On the other hand if Paul was responding to the situation with mixed emotions–you’re getting it!  some of it!  not all of it!  let me tell you what else you need to do!–then the letter actually seems fairly coherent.

    Matera deals with the literary integrity of 2 Corinthians on pp. 24-32 and then again briefly on pp. 214-215.  I think he makes some excellent arguments.  He doesn’t appeal to anything like the idea I’m presenting here.  He relates this to Paul’s rhetorical goals.  I’m afraid I think that the letter might have been structured better rhetorically (from a certain point of view) if drafted by a committee of bishops, but Paul was hardly to be compared to a committee of bishops!

    I recall the recent pastoral letter from the United Methodist bishops on care for God’s creation, titled God’s Renewed Creation: Call to Hope and Action.  I think that letter should be strongly contrasted to 2 Corinthians.  While I disagree with very little in the bishops’ letter, though in some cases I think they are not doing well in terms of priorities, I nonetheless find the letter boring and unchallenging.  I have heard several of those bishops preach and without exception they produce a better sermon on their own.

    What I’m getting at here is that it seems to me that some critics expect Paul to produce something akin to the bishops’ letter.  Paul was not too likely to do such a thing, so instead we have 2 Corinthians.

  • The Kingdom of God is a Monarchy

    Shane Raynor just posted on this again, reposting his response to Brian McLaren’s article from 2006.

    I went back and checked out the article I wrote back in 2006 on this and found out that it got mangled in one or another of the moves this blog has undergone.

    I agree with Shane on this. I am all for finding new language and new metaphors. I accept gender appropriate (in my view) language in modern translations. I like engagement with the culture. But your new metaphors need to convey the right information, and the replacement metaphors for “kingdom” do not do so. Like Shane, I appreciate many of the things Brian McLaren has written on those topics.

    The nature of human kingdoms may give a negative impression of God’s kingdom, especially if one fails to look at the precise ways in which God’s rule can be compared to a kingdom. But any metaphor for God’s rule is likely to fall short.

    Quoth McLaren:

    In addition, for many today, kingdom language evokes patriarchy, chauvinism, imperialism, domination, and a regime without freedom—the opposite of the liberating, barrier-breaking, domination-shattering, reconciling movement the kingdom of God was intended to be! …

    But let me ask this? In what way does God’s rule not resemble a kingdom or a dictatorship? With whom does God share sovereignty? Certainly, I believe God ordains freedom, but he doesn’t do that by agreement with someone else. God, the imperial, royal, absolute, and final dictator ordains that the people under his rule shall have freedom. The dictator may be benevolent, but he is still a dictator.

    McLaren suggests six metaphors: the dream of God, the revolution of God, the mission of God, the party of God, the network of God, and the dance of God. All of these are good metaphors for some portion of what God is doing in the world.

    But when all is said and done, God’s dream has him in charge, God’s revolution brings us to acknowledge that he is in charge, God’ mission is to reach us and let us know that he is in charge, it’s God’s party and he can rule if he wants to (and he does), it’s God’s network and he’s in the center, and it’s God’s dance and he leads.

  • Answering a Question on Egalitarianism

    I already responded to one post by Michael Patton on this topic (Am I a Complementarian?), but he followed this up with a question. I have been so busy with the release of my latest book (co-authored with Geoffrey Lentz) that I have fallen well behind the progress of this topic, but I still want to respond, though briefly.

    I would note that I don’t agree with the common statement that there are no stupid questions, even though I use that in classes. “The only stupid question is one you don’t ask,” I intone. But then I contradict myself by teaching that often we get the wrong answer because we ask the wrong question. I’ll dodge that one by noting that “wrong” and “stupid” are not synonymous. So I’m not going to call Dr. Patton’s question stupid, but I think it’s the wrong one.

    My egalitarianism, or more simply belief in equal rights, is not based on a view of just what women are as a group. This applies both in church and in society as a whole. I do not advocate that women be permitted to compete for and take roles because I think they are the same, but rather because I think that the opportunities should be kept similar. I do believe that some women and some men will be found amply qualified for certain non-traditional roles, and in fact I think that we will find that the determinative differences are few, but that will be demonstrated, in my view, by what those people actually accomplish.

    So when Dr. Patton asks:

    Here is my question(s):

    * Is there any way for us to train boys to be “men”?
    * Is there any way for us to train up girls to be “women”?

    If so, what does that look like for each?

    * What does it uniquely look like to be a “man”?
    * What does it uniquely look like to be a “woman”?

    My response would be: What do those questions have to do with anything?

    Well, I can see the value of a negative response. If men and women are essentially different, why is it that you think you have to train them to be different?

    My suggestion? Just as I said with ministry, train and use people according to their gifts. Then if you find that God has not gifted any women (or men) to do a particular task, we can surmise that we are dealing with some kind of fundamental difference.

    How would I train a boy to be a boy or a girl to be a girl? I’d look at their individual personalities and gifts and flow with that.

    Bottom line? My egalitarianism does not require me to assume some artificial sameness of men and women, nor some arbitrary distinctions. I view each person as an individual, and I believe that is the best way to do it. If no woman qualifies as a pastor, then no woman should be a pastor. If God calls no woman as a pastor, then no woman should be a pastor.

    I will emphasize, however, that I do believe there are women who are called and gifted to be pastors, and I know some of them personally. I think there are many more. Too frequently I encounter a woman who is serving at less than her potential because someone told her that women can’t be pastors, or women can’t be theology teachers.

    Follow the gifts; follow the call. That’s my approach.

    PS: Scot McKnight has a letter on his blog today from a woman in seminary. I find its contents both saddening and quite realistic.

  • Can the Bible Be Alone?

    Clayboy asks whether “the Bible alone” is an oxymoron.  Now I sympathize with the question, because I have been dealing in another forum (the issue arises in the last 100 messages or so) with someone who seems to think that a text can have meaning with no context at all, or more precisely that the obvious meaning of English words to a 21st century audience is somehow “the meaning of the text” as opposed to something built on the context in which it was actually uttered.  Using all that ancient language and culture stuff is changing what the text actually says.

    But that is a caricature of sola scriptura, but it is one which many people in the pews of our churches hold.  They believe that by sitting down with the Bible, and perhaps a concordance, they can discover what God actually said, and they don’t need to depend on anyone else–no tradition, no outside sources, no experts.  It’s an interesting view, but I don’t believe it is what the reformers intended by sola scriptura, and I’ve never encountered anyone who could be called “Biblically trained” who held that position.  (I responded on YouTube to someone who made that claim, and yet couldn’t get his English straight, much less his Greek.)

    But there is a more serious issue with the actual sola scriptura position, part of which has been raised in other discussions around the blogosphere.  Without tradition we do not have a Bible.  It is the tradition of the church that produced the canon as we have it, and there is not a 100% agreement even now with respect to just what books should be included in the canon, and whether the canon should be (or is) open or closed.

    But there is also the question of inspiration and just what can demonstrate that a book is inspired by God–God-breathed.  There are numerous ideas, but the question I would raise is just where those standards came from.  For example, why did the early church think there should be apostolic authority behind those books to be included in the New Testament canon?  To a certain extent I can accept the standard, though not completely.  For example, I don’t care whether Hebrews was written by Paul or some other person, whether Revelation by the apostle John or some other John, or whether the pastorals are genuinely Pauline or not.  I regard them as authoritative scripture in any case.

    Why?  Tradition.  It’s as simple as that.  I don’t even regard the books of the Bible as the only ones that are inspired, nor as the only ones that give me guidance.  They are the books that God guided the church to accept as the general authority for the church, and I submit myself to that general authority.  (The sense in which I do so is another topic!)

    There’s a sort of chicken and egg debate as to whether the church or the Bible comes first.  I don’t really see the answer to that as either possible or important.  The Bible and the community of faith grew together, with one supporting the other.  People lived as followers of God for many centuries without the complete canon, and yet somehow they managed.  Abraham believed God, as our lectionary passage for the coming week says, and it was counted as righteousness (Gen 15:6, loosely).

    Somehow Abraham managed to recognize God and believe him without a canon and also with precious little tradition.

    I do believe that the Bible is foundational, but one of the reasons I believe that is that it is the most tested source of tradition and experience–the experience of the community of faith with God passed down from generation to generation.

    It should be no surprise to anyone that one of the things that attracted me to the United Methodist Church was the Wesleyan Quadrilateral.  When I came to that in reading the United Methodist Discipline (and yes, I read the first hundred pages or so before I joined) I was hooked.  I do emphasize, however, that the quadrilateral should be more of a four layer filter than a four lane highway.

    In any case, my answer would be that the Bible cannot be alone, but more importantly is not, and has never been, alone.  We should not be afraid either to drive people back to the Bible as the source or to to admit that the history of our faith, God-guided I firmly believe, was the instrument God used to produce it.

  • Fallibility, Inerrancy, and Mystery

    I think Mark at Pseudo-Polymath is absolutely correct in his excellent post Of Scripture and Tradition.

    When I first decided that inerrancy didn’t work, it was because I found errors as they would be defined by the people that first taught me to regard the Bible as inerrant.  At the same time I remained convinced of Biblical inspiration.  Over time this has evolved in my mind to the position that inerrancy causes us to ask the wrong questions of scripture, something I still believe, despite the efforts of many to frame inerrancy so that it does not have that effect.  My problem is that once one has so framed inerrancy, it appears meaningless to me.

    It seems to me that we try to judge the Bible as a book amongst books, and that we err in doing so whether our judgment is favorable or not.  As scripture, the Bible is a unique phenomenon.  There is no standard by which we could judge it.  There is no category “books inspired by God” which as a set of criteria (presumably also divinely inspired) against which we can judge the Bible.

    I like Mark’s statement “The mystery is the experience …”  That is a very good descriptive phrase.

    Now I don’t think there is any problem evaluating the Bible’s impact on some area of study, for example, its value to historical study, and so forth.  But its value to historical study is not the same thing as its value as God’s message.

  • Opinions, Interpretations, and What the Word of God Says

    There’s one use of the phrase “just your interpretation” that implies that no interpretation is better than any other.  This is often used by people who have no idea how a particular text should be interpreted, but nonetheless feel like rejecting your interpretation in particular.  Either they think all interpretations are equal–a common idea these days–or they are just tool lazy or uninterested to bother to check.  (I wrote about this some time ago on my Threads blog.

    But today I’m writing about the opposite use — the idea that you can get past opinions and interpretations to something that is just “what God’s word says.”  For example, this morning a reader named Bryon commented on a post on tithing, and began thus:

    In regards to tithing, the question is not what is someone’s opinion or interpretation of Malachi 3:10. The question is what does the Word of God say about Malachi 3:10 and other scriptures concerning the tithe? …

    (I’ll provide him a link in my reply to his comment, so he can respond here..)

    Now it happens that I agree with most of the interpretations and opinions contained in his post, but they are his opinions of how to interpret those passages and apply them.  My agreement is my opinion as well.  There’s nothing wrong with interpreting or with having opinions.

    Some people think that claiming something is just God’s word is a matter of humility.  If you attribute it to God then you’re not claiming authority for your own opinion.  I happen to disagree.  It is my opinion that not taking credit for your own interpretations and opinions is really rather arrogant.  They are still your opinions; now you’re just letting people think that somehow God is speaking directly through your words.

    For example, Malachi 3:10 does not tell us whether tithing applies to Christians or not.  Clearly it is addressed to the Jewish people after the exile, but there are other commands that are addressed to specific groups of people that many, many Christians believe apply to everyone everywhere.  Determining the person(s) to whom a command applies is a matter of interpretation.

    Now my opinion is that Bryon is right and this command applied to Israel at the time and stewardship is different for Christians.  But that remains my opinion of how the text should be interpreted.

  • The Biblical Basis for Mission

    Eddie Arthur has a fascinating post on language development and mission, particularly relating this question to the language development work of Wycliffe Bible Translators.

    I was particularly struck by this paragraph:

    An alternative way to view mission is to start with the character and activity of God as revealed across the whole of the Scriptural narrative. The whole story of Scripture pictures a God who reaches out to humanity in creation, through his relationship with the people of Israel, through the incarnation of the Son, His death and resurrection, the sending of the Spirit and the eventual winding up of all things at the end of time. Our mission is a response to God reaching out to us: … [a quote follows in the source post]

    I think this is a wonderful way to think of the Biblical basis for any activity.  We can certainly use specific texts and commands, but we will get a much better idea of what God calls us to do if we set such commands in the full story of the Bible, i.e. of God’s interaction with humanity.

    Read the full post.  It’s really worthwhile.