Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Bible Commentary

  • Another Reason to Hate Study Bibles

    Thomas Nelson has release The American Patriot’s Bible: The Word of God and the Shaping of America*, which is a Bible so lousy in concept that one can dislike it without even bothering to read it.  (HT: Christ my righteousness.)  You’ve probably heard the cliche, “It’s a really bad book, that’s why I never read it?”  OK.  I’m caught.  But I’m still not going to read it.

    I don’t really hate study Bibles.  I’ve reviewed some of them before.  They can provide valuable background information and ideas.  But in too many Bible classes I see students reading the footnotes in place of the Biblical text, and assuming that the notes are correct, rather than interacting with what the Bible text (you know, the part normally printed on the top half of the page) actually says.

    But the Patriot’s Bible goes a step further by simply mating two sets of concepts.  It is really quite rare that American patriotic stories and symbols go directly with the passage of scripture one is reading.  In many cases, the text might just go quite contrary to these symbols.

    But by putting information on a particular page of the Bible, one suggests (to the suggestible, at least) that the Bible in that particular place actually embraces what is contained in that extraneous information.  Unfortunately, I know people in churches who are just careless enough to believe this without actually checking.

    The first rule of interpretation should be to actually read the words of the text you’re interpreting, even if only in translation.

    * Note that I provide this link for information purposes only. I do not in any sense recommend buying the book to which the link leads you.

  • Leviticus 6:8-13

    Baker takes a series of short sections here, and I’m not grouping them into any larger passage, because I’m under some pressure and these short sections are working for me right now.

    Let me note also that while the electronic edition of Rahlf’s LXX that I’m using today (GnomeSword) follows the English verse divisions, the print edition of Rahlf’s follows the Hebrew division.  So the passage there is 6:1-6.

    The idea of having a fire from sacrifice going on 24 hours a day doesn’t sound much like modern worship, but there are really two key elements in this passage that I think can be applied to modern worship:

    1. The fire burns continuously.  Three times in the LXX text we read that it is never to go out.
    2. There is a continuing ritual for keeping it clean.  There is care taken in carrying out this command as with every other one in Leviticus.

    There appears to be an error in the notes of the Orthodox Study Bible, which bases the notes on the English verses, and thus the notes on our passage for today indicate they are about 6:9.  But they are interesting, and connect this daily sacrifice with the continual offering of Christ in heaven.  The continuous worship provides an “open door for uninterrupted worship of God and fellowship with Him” only now this is through the sacrifice of Jesus.

    Milgrom adds an interesting note.  With Baker, I have emphasized the continual worship, and I think this is an important point.  But Milgrom points out:

    … The sacrifices offered up at the inauguration of the public cult were consumed miraculously by a divine fire (9:24), and it is this fire which is not allowed to die out so that all subsequent sacrifices might claim divine acceptance… (p. 389, emphasis in original)

    This raises another point to me for the modern church.  How careful are we with the spiritual fires that God lights?  We have waves of revival and then for various reasons we let them die out or treat them with contempt.  There’s a “fire” that was lit in Christianity back with Jesus and then at Pentecost.  But we often neglect one end or the other, either the connection back to that original flame, or the need to keep it actively burning in our modern world.  Both are necessary to keep up the continuing fire.

    Abbreviations:

    OSB – Orthodox Study Bible

    NISB – New Interpreter’s Study Bible

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

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

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

  • Leviticus 5:14-6:7

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

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

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

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

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

    The passage also provides the elements of repentance:

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

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

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

    Abbreviations:

    OSB – Orthodox Study Bible

    NISB – New Interpreter’s Study Bible

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

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

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

  • Leviticus 3: Fellowship Offering

    I’m moving through this fairly quickly, paced by the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary: Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.  (See the last entry.)  The pace of reading is an interesting issue.   In order to study Leviticus with Milgrom’s Anchor Bible commentary, I spent time nearly daily for more than a year.  Now I’m covering about a chapter a day. [Note:  Links to all sources are at the end of the post.]

    The temptation, after having spent the longer period of time, is to be a bit dismissive of the faster reading, but I’ve found that various levels of detail in study are very helpful.  In the Pentateuch or Torah, I have read it through with individual major volumes, such as Milgrom’s.  Well, there really isn’t another commentary such as Milgrom’s in my experience.  That one remains a high point of all my studies.  But at least I have used commentaries that dedicate a full volume to a book.  I have also read along with commentaries that cover the whole Torah at once.  Each pass through has its own blessings.

    As I read chapter 3 and the comments on it in the three sources I’m reading through right now I was again impressed by the difference in viewpoint of the person whose focus is Biblical studies as opposed to the person whose focus is pastoral or on daily living.  I could easily get stuck on the technical terms.  Today I was playing around with the Greek words used to translate Hebrew technical terms.  I didn’t go far, as I quickly remembered my purpose, but I could cheerfully spend some hours playing with that topic.

    Ordinary church goers, including very intelligent and educated people, are often not going to be very interested in such things unless they are specialists.  What they want to hear is what connects and applies.  That seems to be the strength of Baker’s commentary.  Given two and a half pages of comment, I’m sure you can tell he doesn’t detail the technical terms.  What he does is bring the material home.

    Now I’ve used the term “fellowship offering” which, like pretty much every other term, is a bit weak as a translation.  It will do, however.  The fellowship offering again emphasizes how much of the sacrificial system did not have to do with atonement for specific sins.  Rather, it had to do with all aspects of worship, such as praise, celebration, thanksgiving, community, reconciliation, and indeed fellowship.

    Now while Baker is more Christological than your average critical commentary, he is not quite so much so as the OSB, which unabashedly connects everything with Jesus.  In this case, the fellowship offering illustrates the freely offered fellowship with God and connects to the service of communion in a different way than the preceding grain offerings.  We often ask why Jesus had to die.  One of many good answers is that he became one of us, like us, in fellowship with us, and that fellowship was complete.

    I think western evangelicalism often manages to be both excessively Christological, and not Christological enough.  What do I mean by such a contradictory statement?  First, in the west we try to connect rationally between specific predictions in the Old Testament and events in Christ’s life.  If we can’t rationally connect them, and assume that they were in the mind of the original writer (and not just in the mind of God), we don’t really want to assert them.  In this rational connection, prediction and accomplishment sense, we are often too quick to draw the connection, and we force the rational explanation.

    On the other hand, concepts like “sacrifice” and events like the Eucharist were formed by people who were well acquainted with passages such as the ones I’m reading right now.  Their minds were fertilized by these words and ideas.  There were connections in the way they understood these things that we will miss if we don’t have the same concepts fertilizing our own minds.  To say that Jesus is our fellowship offering does not necessarily mean that Moses or the Priestly writer were thinking, “Wow!  This points to the future Messiah who will die on the cross.”  What it does mean is that the two ideas are related.  Both are part of God’s interaction with his people in history, and both show these various principles.  How much you think God planned it all out may differ, but the ideological connection can be real in any case.

    All of my sources write in similar ways on this passage.  The NISB does not make the Eucharistic connection.  The OSB makes that most strongly.

    Abbreviations:

    OSB – Orthodox Study Bible

    NISB – New Interpreter’s Study Bible

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

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

  • Leviticus 2 – Offering Food

    There’s a bit of a change of gears in the second chapter of Leviticus, which contains only food sacrifices.  (See Leviticus 1.  Abbreviations at the end of the post.)  These sacrifices are most commonly not offered because of some sin or impurity, but rather as sacrifices of thanksgiving or for some celebration.

    I think that if most Christians were asked to do a word association, they would think of “animal” very quickly in relation to “sacrifice.”  That’s because they are very much used to the link between animal sacrifice, sin, and the sacrifice of Jesus.  That link is not without merit, but the temple services were so much more than animal sacrifices for sin.

    Baker gets less new out of this chapter than out of the first one, though he does mention the meticulous directions for the sacrifices because “it’s human nature for people to wriggle their way out of any obligation that might cost them something.”  That’s a good point about people in general, though I’m not sure it’s a major point to be drawn from this chapter.

    The difficulty for anyone trying to teach from these passages is that especially these first few chapters are much like notes for priests and presumably worshipers, though the latter might have gotten the answers indirectly.  Supposing you took all the liturgical directions for your church for a year and put them in a book.  This would probably be quite useful to the next worship leader, but it wouldn’t make engaging reading for most church members.

    Nonetheless, one could learn a great deal about liturgy by reading such a book.  But if you were going to use a portion as a text for a lecture on liturgy, what would you assign?  Doubtless the instructions for various weeks would contribute to the topic.

    This is similar to the problem of teaching from Leviticus.  You have quite a number of cryptic instructions, and many of the lessons don’t come through until you have the broader picture.  I’m thinking as I go through this book about using a more visual approach to teaching.  Certainly many people use tabernacle models and so forth, and that would help, but perhaps a study could start with an overview of key points, trying to produce a general picture of a year of worship, then focusing on individual aspects, and finally drawing lessons for specific aspects of worship, such as atonement and forgiveness, thanksgiving and celebration, characteristics of the worship experience, living in a way that is conscious of God’s presence, and connecting worship with history.

    I’ll continue to comment on these ideas as I continue to write, but there are a couple of thoughts from the resources I’m using that I’d like to mention.

    First, Baker comments that “the major difference between this sacrifice and the previous was that here there was no blood shed, and as a result, there was no atonement (1:4; Heb 9:22)” (p. 27).

    I find this rather interesting in consideration of Lev. 5:11-13, which provides an alternative of a grain offering for animal sacrifices, which clearly refers to both atonement and forgiveness.  I’ll discuss this more when we get to that chapter, though I did look ahead and did not see any discussion of the matter in Baker.  NISB notes that grain offerings could substitute for animal sacrifices for the poor with equally little discussion.

    Milgrom does discuss the issue of blood in atonement and various other uses and I will include some of his comments at the appropriate time.

    The OSB was quite interesting, with its unabashedly Christological interpretation.  The grain offering “pictures Christ as the totally acceptable grain offering to God” (p. 119), paralleled with John 12:24.  In addition, the grain offering is related to the faithful in Christ and their service.  Metaphors are wonderful that way–multiple meanings!  The oil is the Holy Spirit, and the salt represents the “whole spiritual meditation of the scriptures” (p. 120).

    While I would hardly see this passage as pointing forward in that sense, looking back I can see that the grain offering might will provide an excellent background for understanding some of the bread passages in the gospel of John.

    I also note for the record that again the OSB works out much better when I don’t read the translation!

    Abbreviations:

    OSB – Orthodox Study Bible

    NISB – New Interpreter’s Study Bible

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

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

  • Thoughts on Leviticus 1

    I’ve now read through the first chapter of Leviticus using the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary on Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.  I want to caution readers that I’m reflecting on and responding to the text of the commentary, and not just repeating it.  If I don’t identify a thought as coming from Baker (David W. Baker, author of the Leviticus portion), don’t blame him for it.  I will try to clearly identify those portions.

    I decided to add a bit to my study by trying a new way to use the Orthodox Study Bible, which I have already reviewed negatively.  Since the translation tends to annoy me, especially in the Old Testament, I’m reading the Biblical text in Greek from Rahlf’s (on which the introduction says the translation was based), and then reading just the notes from the Bible.  I’ll comment on this a bit more below.

    One theme I’m following throughout the commentary is worship.  Baker used the phrase “handbook for worship” back in the introduction (p. 4) and I want to see how he works that out.  In his comments on the first chapter, he has been very clear.  On page 24 he introduces the question “What can we take from this chapter that will help us in our worship?”  He continues with about 1 1/3 pages of discussion.  I think a key to this is his comment that:

    …The whole being, not just the intellect, would have been caught up in this celebration of worship for the God who held life itself in his hand, who gave blessings and heard prayers, and who even smelled the scent of his people’s worship.

    Is not our contemporary worship too often more cerebral than sensory, thinking about God rather than celebrating him? … (p.25, emphasis mine)

    Baker goes on to indicate that beliefs and thinking are important as well, but that we are perhaps not balanced.

    What struck me throughout, and was mentioned in other sources I read on this book as well, is that the tabernacle worship was very visual, or indeed more broadly sensory.  One doesn’t get the impression of a quiet place of meditation, or a building of one’s personal relationship.  One’s gift is public, presented in the community at a tabernacle in the center of the community, to a God who manifests his presence in that tabernacle.

    All of the introductions also emphasize how revelation comes from the tabernacle.  God shows his presence there and he speaks to the community from there.  Leviticus is largely presented as divine speech, and this speech comes from that center (Lev. 1:1).  Often we–and I am certainly guilty here–present hearing from God as an individual activity to be done in our times of devotion, personal prayer, and reflection.  Leviticus presents a very different picture of God speaking in, from, and about the various rituals of corporate worship.

    The introduction from the New Interpreter’s Study Bible points out something interesting about the structure.  They note that the book has 36 speeches of God, introducted by “the LORD said.”  In addition, there are twelve major summarizing statements which tend to divide the book into 12 parts.  These kinds of structural elements are often subject to subjective judgment (NISB points out two minor summaries as well), but do indicate an intentional and careful creation of the final form of the book, irrespective of how one dates it.

    In reading from three sources this morning, the Cornerstone commentary, the NISB, and the Orthodox Study Bible, there was one issue on which three divergent opinions were expressed.  Baker understands the laying on of hands as indicating that the animal is a substitute (p. 22), and he dismisses the idea of indication of ownership.  The NISB, on the other hand (p. 148, note on Lev. 1:4) states that this laying on of hands indicated ownership.

    The Orthodox Study Bible phrases it differently, and I think this expression is consistent with Orthodox theology.  (Perhaps one of my Orthodox readers can confirm this for me or correct any error).  It says:

    Here, the worshiper placed his hand on the head of the animal and killed it, and in so doing united with the offering; for the animal’s death became the death of the offerer. … (p. 118, comment on Lev. 1:4)

    I am going to keep those three expressions in mind as I continue this study.  Which best expresses the understanding of sacrifice in Leviticus?  In protestantism there is a certain desire to get a “pure” substitution out of Leviticus, but I don’t see that clear of an expression.  On the other hand, Baker’s comment that ownership was already indicated by the worshiper bringing the animal, so what was added by laying on hands, is a cogent criticism of the “ownership” idea.

    It seems likely to me that the idea of identification, which the OSB then carries forward to the identification of the believer in baptism with Christ’s death, is closer to the thought of Leviticus.  Milgrom (150-153), however,  makes a fairly strong case for hand-leaning as an indication of ownership, and dismisses identification because of its magical nature.  This will be one to watch and think about as my study progresses.

    As a final note, I did find the OSB much more usable when I did not read the translation.  I’m going to continue the practice of reading the scripture from the Greek and then reading the notes while ignoring the translation for awhile.

    Abbreviations:

    OSB – Orthodox Study Bible

    NISB – New Interpreter’s Study Bible

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

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

  • Starting Leviticus in the Tyndale Cornerstone Biblical Commentary

    I recently received my copy of this good looking volume from Tyndale for review, and I have summarized its features here.  I noted there that this is not a book I will read once and then write a short review.  Rather, I’m going to blog through it, which also means that I will be blogging through Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.  Ambitious, no?

    Well, don’t expect massive detail, but I will bring thoughts as I go through and major points from the commentary so you can understand its value.  I’m still working with very little reading, so I’m going to defer many points until I have read more.  As of today, I completed reading of the introduction to Leviticus.

    As expected, the author, David W. Baker, takes a conservative stand on authorship and dating of the book, arguing for a “life-setting back in the period of the wilderness wanderings” (p. 5).  I won’t be making a major issue of my disagreements on issues such as this.  My only concern is that the position of the commentator is made clear and that he engages other positions as well.  Considering the length of the introduction and the size of this commentary, he is doing both quite well.

    As one who thinks Christians neglect the book of Leviticus I was happy to see that Baker is making an all-out assault on this neglect of an important portion of the Bible.  Along with the typical arguments of history and theology, that this is part, even a core part, of Israel, and that we have grown from Israel, and that it is also of great historical interest, he suggests “religious reasons” and particularly that one might see it as a “handbook for worship” (p. 4).  I am eager to see how he will portray that particular perspective through the book.

    I’ve been a bit irritated ever since I finished my reading of Jacob Milgrom‘s commentary, because I have so many notes that I would like to use in teaching but very few of them are accessible without a serious effort in terms of teaching background and history, for which I rarely have time.  Many believe the hardest part of Biblical studies is digging out details.  In my view, the hardest part is developing an understanding to the point at which one can express it clearly and comprehensibly.  After reading the his introduction, I am looking to Baker for help in that task.

    I’d conclude this interaction with the introduction with the following quote:

    …Whether we like it or not–and the lack of preaching and teaching from Leviticus today seems to indicate that we don’t–this book is also in our canon.  Leviticus is God’s Word to us in some way just as much as the Gospels.  We also are an audience who must seek to determine the book’s relevance to the church in our own times.

    Very much my own feelings.  I am hopeful that Baker can help make it more of a reality.

  • The Orthodox Study Bible: Wrap-Up (For the Moment)

    I received the Orthodox Study Bible free from Thomas Nelson in their blogger book review program, and as I have been using it in my personal devotions and study for my lectionary notes, (which notes have languished during a very busy period), I have already written about it substantially.

    But just what does it mean to “read” a study Bible.  Should it mean to read through it from cover to cover, to use it as you normally read a study Bible, or perhaps to read certain relevant portions?  I don’t know how Thomas Nelson will interpret this, and I have no intention to argue with them should they interpret it differently than I do–after all, they sent me a free book!–but I have chosen to take it in the second way.

    Now in using it in that fashion it would probably be another year or so before I would have read all of the book introductions and notes, at which point I would simply note that I have previously read the entire NKJV text of the Bible, which covers the New Testament, and I would have seen most of the Old Testament.  But such a long wait hardly serves the purpose of a review program either.

    Thus, having gone through a number of weeks worth of lectionary readings, sampled the translation in quite a number of areas and compared it to the text of Rahlf’s LXX (from which it is said to be translated in the case of the Old Testament), checked out the book introductions, and read the major articles, I’m going to write a review, and one which will be substantially longer than 200 words.  I’ll extract 200 words or so to post on Amazon.com, and then let the folks at Thomas Nelson know so they can respond as they will.

    Had this book lived up to my hopes, I would likely have been willing to read it through from cover to cover, just like an ordinary book, though presumably spending much longer.  My hopes were that there would be substantial quotations from the eastern church fathers and from Orthodox theologians, and that the translation of the Old Testament (I already was aware that the New Testament was NKJV) would also prove enlightening regarding the use and usefulness of the LXX in the life of the church.

    Unfortunately, I was disappointed, so that my use of the volume has become a duty rather than a joy.  I will link to my previous blogging about using this book at the end of my post, and will simply summarize here.  I’m going to start with the negative points, continue with the ordinary (though acceptable) ones, and end with the points I approved.

    Negatives:

    1. The translation.  I dislike the NKJV in the first place, but was trying to overcome that in light of the fact that the eastern church uses the Byzantine text.  Unfortunately, that proved to be more difficult than I thought.  In the New Testament, the NKJV is what it is, which is a fairly accurate, but not very engaging or readable translation.  I recall once when reading through Daniel in the NKJV (yes, I know I switched to OT, but it illustrates my point) that I actually consulted the Aramaic to discover just what was meant by an English phrase.  In the Old Testament, the translation itself does not improve, even though there was work to bring it into agreement with the LXX.  The quality is variable and wooden.  It reads approximately like an exercise by 2nd year students of Biblical Greek.  I’m sure there were many much more highly skilled persons involved, but somehow the translation style doesn’t reflect it.  It’s not that they were inaccurate in undestanding the Greek.  Rather, they appear afraid to actually write down the result in English.
    2. The verse-by-verse notes.  These are not entirely bad, but rather so variable, that one does not know what to expect.  One might find an enlightening note from a church father, or an extremely inane summary of the text in question.  I provide examples in one of my prior blog posts, all linked below.

    Ordinary things:

    1. The book introductions.  These are not bad, but are not precisely exciting.  I think they are mostly adequate given the space constraints.  At the same time, I am very glad that this is not my only study Bible, because there is simply too much missed.  I would note that while I personally want access to modern critical study, I am not criticizing this volume for a lack of that material.  I can get that elsewhere.  It’s in developing theological themes that I think these introductions could be improved.
    2. The general layout.  This is pretty good, but could well be improved in order to better use space and to make notes more easily related to the content.  I did appreciate the liturgical material in the inset notes.

    Positive:

    1. The christological focus.  Some might quibble that this could occur in a much better volume, and so it could.  But the western churches, especially protestant churches, often tend to see Christ in the Old Testament primarily as a chain of fulfilled prophecies.  I really appreciate the distinctively Christological understanding of scripture, even where I actually disagree with it.  This emphasis is quite clear in the essay “HOW TO READ THE BIBLE”, which starts on page 1757 and particularly in the section subheaded “Christ, the Heart of the Bible” that starts on page 1763.  This also shows in the notes from time to time.
    2. The liturgical references in articles and notes.  Where these are present, they are very helpful to me.
    3. The organization of the books.  It’s hard to get a picture of the Bible of the eastern church from western study Bibles that include the apocrypha, such as the New Oxford Annotated Bible, because the material is scattered.  The book order does have an impact on how the Bible is read.  The organization here is a genuine product of church history and the eastern communion.

    I think I have made enough specific points, and if you want particular examples, you will find them in my linked posts below.  There is much promise in the idea behind this Bible, and part of my negative reaction is due to excessively high expectations which were not met.  At the same time, I cannot honestly recommend this Bible, unless one looks at the negatives and decides that those are worth enduring for the positives.

    Here are my previous posts regarding the Orthodox Study Bible, one of which is on a different blog:

  • Inane Comments in the Orthodox Study Bible

    I’ve complained previously about the translation used in the Orthodox Study Bible, but I reserved discussion of the notes for later.

    Before I complain, however, I want to note that I have found quite a number of comments that I regard as helpful. My study has been enriched by using this Bible.  At the same time, I am frustrated by the number of cases in which it could be so much more enriching than it is.

    So herewith a small and perhaps nitpicky complaint–notes that actually add nothing to the text.

    I was reading 2 Samuel 7:1-11 for my lectionary study, and checked the notes.  The passage is the story of how David finds himself living in a house of cedar, but God’s house is a tent, so he wants to build a temple.

    The note on verses 1-3 reads:

    David has united the tribes under his kingship, established Jerusalem as his capital, and lives in a house paneled with cedar.  The ark, though now brought up to the city, remains in the taernacle he pitched for it, a tent.  He seeks advice from Nathan the prophet, who instructs him to build a temple for the ark.

    Umm, wasn’t that approximately what the text just said?  The only thing added is where the capital is.  The next note begins:

    In a dream, God informs Nathan . . .

    And you guessed it, we get the next several verses summarized.

    There is much that this Bible does, but so much more that would be possible.  The notes are quite variable, ranging from profound, especially when they bring the eastern church fathers into the mix, all the way to completely inane such as these two.

  • Appearance of the Form of the Glory

    In today’s Running Toward the Goal podcast, recorded on the road with apologies for the quality, I discuss Ezekiel 1:28. I thought that as additional reference I’d provide my discussion of these terms from my college paper originally written in 1979. This is unchanged from the original form.  (This extract is an appendix to the original paper.  The full paper is here.)

    The Uses of ;eyn, demuth and mar’eh in Ezekiel 1

    In the textual comments (see note p on verse 13) I made an emendation of the text in which I stated that a scribe, reading the chapter and seeing demuth used in verse 13 would tend to wish to correct it to mar’eh as more appropriate to the context of the verse. As the King James Version uniformly translates each of the three words above with English words which are essentially similar, it is necessary to demonstrate that this use is indeed correct. The KJV has translated them as color, likeness, and appearance respectively.

     

    ;eyn appears four times in the chapter, Holladay suggests simply “look” or “appearance”, but Eichrodt (OTL) suggests “sparkle”. Elsewhere, gleam is suggested. The latter seem most appropriate in the context here, In verses 4 and 27 the Chashmal gleams, In verse 7 the polished bronze. In verse 16 the wheels, probably of a translucent or transparent color gleam. So gleaming or sparkling here appears to be the best translation.

     

    demuth appears 9 times. We have the demuth of the four living creatures who have the demuth of a man. Their faces have the demuth of various creatures. The demuth of a vault is above the creatures’ heads. The sapphire stone resolves itself into the of a throne. Upon the demuth of a throne is the demuth of the appearance of a man. Finally the glory of God is said to have demuth. The only one of these which is neutral is verse 28, “the form of the glory of Yahweh”, although even here reference is being made to the form which was on the throne. Holladay suggests form as a translation for demuth. It appears to be the best translation in this chapter.

    Lastly we have mar’eh which appears 11 times. It is used as a general reference to the four creatures, immediately followed by the statement that they had the form of a man, four faces, four wings, etc. In verse l3 there is the mar’eh of lightning, which does not have “form” as such. In verse l4 we have the mar’eh of lightning again. The mar’eh of the wheels was as the sparkle of tarshish, etc. The mar’eh of the wheels was as if a wheel were within a wheel. Ezekiel sees the mar’eh of sapphire which resolves itself into the form of a throne. There is the form of the mar’eh of a man, and the mar’eh of fire, the mar’eh of a rainbow, and the mar’eh of a gleaming. In only one of these cases would “form” be an appropriate translation. That is verse 16, with regard to the wheels.

    In verse 13, however, the situation is reversed. The “coals of fire burning like lightning” could hardly be described as having “form”. The scribe, seeing Ezekiel’s normal use of the words could easily have added mar’eh in the margin to indicate that this would be a better word to employ here.