Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Bible Passages

  • Hebrews 2:6 and Inspiration

    James McGrath brings up Hebrews 2:6, where the author introduces a quote by saying “somebody somewhere says.” Dr. McGrath uses this sort of as an argument against inerrancy, though primarily as an argument for human authorship.

    I have used the text in a similar way. It is not, in fact, a good argument against inerrancy, at least as generally defined by scholars who affirm it. It is not an error but rather a failure to state a fact. Is this rhetorical? One of the commenters on Dr. McGrath’s post seems to think so. I would suggest rather that the author either did not remember precisely or simply didn’t come up with a good way to introduce the passage.

    But the important thing about this, in my view, is that the verse sounds distinctly human. The problem with “distinctly human” is that we don’t really have a way of knowing how God might talk about such a thing should he choose to. But arguing about this particular issue and finding a way to make it more “god-like” in tone is not the issue.

    One key point I try to make in my book When People Speak for God is that we need to look at how Scripture actually was produced and how it functions in order to understand how it was produced and how it functions. Circular? Well, in a way. There’s nothing like looking at the actual object or mechanism to discover what it is and what it does.

    But the tendency in creating or producing a doctrine about Scripture is often to read texts in Scripture that say what the “Word of God” is, or texts that speak of what Scripture is (circular again, anyone?), then to imagine what this would mean in practice, and finally to force the texts to fit the definition.

    What does it mean for Scripture to be “god-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16)? The only way we have to really know that is to look at other things that are god-breathed, if we can find them. The difference between “All god-breathed Scripture” and “All Scripture is god-breathed” may be somewhat less substantial than people think. What we need to do is to fill in the definition of “god-breathed” by looking at Scripture, rather than concocting a definition and then imposing it on Scripture.

    Besides looking at how Scripture itself came to us, we have some interesting claims regarding what God’s breath might do, such as Genesis 2:7, when God breathes into the first human being. Interestingly enough, that first human became alive. He did not, perhaps unfortunately, become inerrant.

  • Poetry and Trinity

    … from Bob MacDonald at Dust. I like his way of talking about it!

  • Of Contexts, Communities, and Individuals

    Stop Taking Jeremiah 29:11 Out of Context is the headline in RELEVANT magazine. Thomas Turner is writing vigorously about the apparently shameful misuse of this passage of scripture. He points out that it’s used on graduation cards and often quoted in words of encouragement to individuals. He summarizes:

    Sure, it might make a person feel better, but this verse as we often prescribe it is being taken completely out of context. It doesn’t mean what people think it means. It’s time to back up and see what the author of Jeremiah is actually saying.

    Really? Totally out of context? Read his article first, and you may see just how much of what we say about the passage is very close to the same thing. Yet I’m coming to a different conclusion on the usage of the text on a graduation card or as a matter of encouragement.

    Jeremiah is not talking to each of us personally. Jeremiah is speaking to Israel. Quite true! Further, Jeremiah is talking about our high school graduations, or our difficulties in finding a job or a spouse. Just so. Jeremiah is not talking about those things. But the fact is that scripture does not generally talk to us quite that directly.

    I’m a great fan of context. One has to be in order to study scripture. But I’m not a fan of the excessive or indiscriminate application of rules. Almost any rule can be misapplied or stretched. A compact, memorable rule is very much like Jeremiah 29:11—when you use it, you will tend to bypass a great deal of logic and background.

    Take, for example, the etymological fallacy. This is a very real and quite pernicious fallacy. I encounter it regularly in reading. Someone lays out the root(s) of a word, and derives a meaning from them. “‘Church’ in Greek is ekklesia,” says the confident but careless preacher, “and that comes from ek, ‘out of’ and klesia which comes from the word for ‘called’, so the church is the ‘called out ones’.”

    But there are some uses for etymology. One is for fun, where a speaker might help us remember a point by pointing out etymology. Provided one doesn’t claim that the etymology has the last word about the meaning of the passage, there’s no problem with this. It’s fun. It helps one remember things. In addition, it can help one with spelling. And did I mention that it’s fun?

    The second is when studying obscure words which one has available in only a limited number of contexts. It’s easy to announce that a word’s meaning is determined by usage, and that we discover that meaning by observing it in various contexts. But some words might occur only once, or even just a very few times in the literature we have available. What then? Well, etymology can provide pointers. I observed this in studying Ugaritic. My knowledge of Hebrew regularly suggested possibilities for words I encountered in Ugaritic, then context would help narrow down my choices. As a student, of course, I had recourse to the available literature on the topic to check my work.

    Ugaritic, in turn, suggested some possible options for understanding rare words in Hebrew. At which point the etymological fallacy would often come into play again. Ugaritic could be helpful, but it could also send the unwary off into flights of fancy.

    I take that detour to point out that we can apply rules, even good rules, improperly. Rules themselves require context. That’s true of the use of context as well. I learned before I was in High School (most of which I skipped anyhow) that one should always take texts in context. But there was a fallacy hidden in there too. The type of context I learned about was the literary context, i.e. discovering what the author said before and after, and placing the text into that context.

    That’s good. We want to do that. We’ve already pointed out how Jeremiah isn’t talking about us personally. He’s looking at a community. Not only that, he’s looking at a specific community, Israel. He’s looking at that community at a specific time and in specific circumstances. What he says will be fulfilled in specific ways to those people.

    And with that last sentence I blast my way right out of literary context and start looking at historical context. (Jeremiah lays out the historical circumstances of his statement in the context. I’m talking about the broader history of the fulfilment of his statement.) Now we realize that there is much more to context than just the literary context. Notice here that we also get away from a “one meaning” fallacy, the idea that a text means only one, limited thing. (And that rule could be badly misapplied as well!)

    And this context can lead us to a canonical context. How do the words of Jeremiah tie in with scripture as a whole? (I will pass over the issue of whose scripture. I write as a Christian, reading as a Christian.) The exile, regarding which Jeremiah writes, becomes a historical watershed for Israel, and comes to define, along with the exodus, must of the Christian understanding of redemption. There’s a reason so many prophecies of 2nd Isaiah (40-55) are later applied to Jesus, even though in context, they have more immediate applicability. The entire event—exile and restoration—takes on new meaning in this theological context.

    We might argue that this is improper usage. If Jeremiah didn’t mean it or Isaiah didn’t mean it (an assumption on our part), then how can we use it in that way? First, if we don’t accept a theological context, we’re pretty much out of business as a community with a shared theology, i.e. a shared understanding of God. Second, we do this kind of reshaping of events and stories all the time with other literature. While I believe what the author intended needs to be an anchor, a guide, even a limitation, preventing flights of fancy with the text, words do take on a power of their own in a community. (I would suggest the example of how Melchizedek is used in Hebrews, but this post would grow to long if I discussed that further.)

    I’m not, however, suggested that we can just grab the text and do what we want with it because there are such things as canonical and even theological contexts. As with literary context, we have to look at what these contexts actually are and make sure that we haven’t just yelled “context” and declared victory, whichever side we’re on.

    How does the theological context apply?

    Well, first, we have the issue of individual versus community application. The church in America tends to be very individualistic. It’s fashionable in certain circles, to lay heavy emphasis on the community in order to counter that trend. I’m in those circles. I think we need to revive the idea of community in the church. It’s not about me, it’s about the body of Christ as a whole.

    But there’s a tension in scripture and in theology on this very point. The church is a community, but the community is made up of individuals. So you have things that apply to individuals somehow. As I study Hebrews with my Sunday School class right now it’s interesting to see the tension between remembering the leaders (13:7), and everyone having boldness going before God, between the examples of faith, all individuals (11), and the great cloud of witnesses (12:1ff).

    When someone today says to remember the leaders of my church, I can point out that I can move down the street and find other leaders. That’s actually a sad thing, that disunity in the church, yet it’s true, and unless you’re prepared to argue that every church’s leaders are truly following God, then there is room for me, as an individual to make a choice. In fact, I must make a choice.

    So there is a tension here as well. It’s good to realize that Jeremiah 29:11 was first spoken to a specific community and that there was a specific fulfilment of this text to that community. That is important. As Thomas Turner points out, it’s a promise of the kingdom of God as well, and that’s important too.

    But for the individual looking at a major life choice, the most important thing to get out of this verse may well be that God has a plan for him or her at that moment. The choice of the right college, the right job, or the right spouse may be the most important kingdom thing right then for that individual who is a member of the community of believers.

    And in that very community that we want to celebrate, for which God has great plans, this text has come to mean more than just the good of the big group in the by and by. It has come to mean that, as “Abraham’s seed” I can now hear God speaking to me (Galatians 3:29), and that this individual application may be precisely what I need to hear.

    We often act as though God has to pay more attention to the big things (like the triumph of the Kingdom at the end) than to the little things (where will I go to college?). But God doesn’t have limited attention so that he needs to prioritize. He can give full attention to both issues, along with billions more.

    Just like those boiled down, compact rules of hermeneutics, the community has boiled down Jeremiah 29:11 and presented it as a compact promise. It’s a usage I find entirely appropriate.

  • Daniel Wallace on Manuscripts of Q

    There’s a great moment in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (the book, not sure about the movie) when the truly incredible synthesizer on the ship is trying to produce tea. The results? Something almost, but not quite totally unlike tea.

    Daniel Wallace asks whether manuscripts of Q still exist, and prefaces his answer with:

    A favorite argument against the existence of Q is simply that no manuscripts of Q have ever been discovered. No more than this bare assertion is usually made. But a little probing shows that this argument has some serious weaknesses to it.

    He does make some good points regarding the likelihood that Q would continue to be copied if it was absorbed into Matthew and Luke as well as the scarcity of manuscripts dating from the first or even early second century. Thus, absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence. One always needs to qualify that little line by noting that if there is an event that would definitely leave evidence, and that evidence is absent, that absence of evidence is indeed evidence of absence.

    Having now tried to attain a record for the use of “evidence” and “absence” in a single paragraph, let me move on to the technical content. Dr. Wallace presents us with eight papyri containing just portions of the gospel of Luke and suggests it’s hypothetically possible that at least one or two of these are actually papyri of Q.

    He continues by presenting all the reasons one might reject that hypothesis with respect to a particular manuscript, and what happens next might be described as the case of the mysteriously vanishing evidence. One manuscript of these eight remains after the sifting, and Dr. Wallace’s conclusion hardly seems conclusive:

    Altogether, the evidence thus far presented can hardly be said to build confidence that any missing Q fragments have actually been discovered.

    You know, that’s what I thought before I read his post, so what’s this “has serious weaknesses” thing of which he speaks?

    I do not absolutely reject Q myself. I have simply become less and less confident that it existed. I started on this path reading the works of William R. Farmer, and most recently when my own company published Why Four Gospels? by David Alan Black.

    I still feel that the redaction theories for Mark that I’ve encountered are less than convincing. But my confidence in Markan priority and the existence of Q has still been seriously weakened.

     

  • Is the Virgin Birth a Mistranslation?

    Mark Goodacre has an excellent podcast on this question.

    What I’d want to get across in a brief answer to this question is:

    1) Greek parthenos is not necessarily a bad translation of Hebrew almah. The semantic ranges do overlap substantially, though (as Mark points out) parthenos tends more toward “virginity.”

    2) For reasons that do not involved the translation of almah (in my opinion), Isaiah 7:14 is not intended as a Messianic prophecy.

    3) I have heard people claim that Matthew was not asserting a virgin birth, but one has only to read the whole text to see that he clearly is doing so. Again, in my view, the correct translation in Matthew is “virgin” irrespective of one’s view of how almah should be translated in Isaiah 7:14. I would translate almah as young woman and also “is pregnant” rather than “shall conceive.”

    4) This provides an interesting case for discussing Matthew’s use of Hebrew scripture. Dr. Goodacre also mentions Matthew 2:15/Hosea 11:1 which is even more interesting.*

    Listen to the podcast!

    (In my notes here I’m speaking for myself, not attempting to summarize Goodacre’s arguments.)

    * While I find Matthew 2:15 / Hosea 11:1 interesting, it is not the one mentioned by Dr. Goodacre. He references Matthew 2:23. This was an error in my original post.

  • Biblical Studies Carnival Posted

    … at Dust. It’s quite a carnival. I’m pretty sure I won’t manage to read even decent percentage of the posts listed and classified. Great job!

     

  • Biblical Numerology and Texts without Context Gone Berserk

    … and that title may be too soft.

    Nonetheless those with a sense of humor should get a few good laughs from this. One keeps hoping it’s a spoof, but it doesn’t appear to be. This is so not what Revelation is about!

  • A Note on Hebrews 1:3 (Orthodox Study Bible)

    I’ve said enough negative things about the Orthodox Study Bible that I need to mention when I find it quite helpful as well. Generally, this is when it is either quoting or referring to various church fathers.

    In the note on Hebrew 1:3a, “who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person …”

    The first half of v. 3 is quoted verbatim in the Liturgy of St. Basil the Great. The brightness of His glory expresses the Son’s nature, His origin from and identity of nature with the Father. He is the Father’s brightness because He is begotten from the Father beyond time and without change. Thus, the Nicene Creed speaks of “Light of Light.” As the sun does not exist without radiating light, so the Father does not exist without the Son (p. 1653, on Hebrews 1:3).

    I particularly liked the last sentence. It’s hard to use analogies for the trinity without falling into one or another heresy, but this one does a great deal. The note goes on to state that the “express image” speaks of the Son as distinct from the Father, thus bringing together the two elements of the incarnation—one with the Father and yet with us, truly an icon of God.

  • Ephesians 2: The Radical Nature of the Gospel

    As I’ve been reading this passage repeatedly this week, I have been repeatedly struck by the radical nature of what Paul is saying here. I’m surprised we don’t spend more time on it, because it seems to me to clarify many things that are left unclear in Galatians and Romans.

    Of course, considering the discussion of authorship, if one thinks Paul did not write the letter, one would hardly go there for a clear statement of Paul’s view. I think a similar corrective would be provided if one added the undoubtedly genuine 1 & 2 Corinthians to the mix when one wants to determine Paul’s theology.

    In the meantime, however, Ephesians 2 remains radical. There are two ways in which this impressed me.

    1) Contrary to what many modern readers imagine, the gospel message of grace received through faith does not treat works negatively, provided they are in their proper place. If I walk a couple of miles a day with a view to reaching Australia, I will likely be disappointed. There’s an ocean between here and there, and I keep winding up at my starting point. If I do the same thing for exercise, however, it’s a good thing.

    Works done to earn God’s favor are destined to fail. Since all that we do is by definition a result of God’s gift to us (of life, before salvation), we can’t actually create something that God needs in order to make God owe us something. But to fail to attempt good works, however imperfectly we may accomplish our mission, after we have received God’s grace, is not only ungrateful, it is a rejection of the gift. The gift of grace makes good works possible.

    For by grace you are saved through faith. Yet this is not from you. It is God’s gift. It’s not from works, so nobody can boast. For his creation is what you are, created in Christ Jesus for good works, so you can walk in them (2:8-10).

    I also note that the exclusion of boasting as a reason why works are not the source of our salvation also excludes an intellectual sense of achievement in grasping and accepting the gospel. We are also not saved through intellectually comprehending the theology of salvation. We are not better than the person who cannot comprehend the theology.

    2) This radical gospel could not have been produced using a modern hermeneutic. It must add to, and in some cases transform, what came before. I do not mean to suggest that Judaism was a graceless religion. I think it was filled with grace. I think the transformation is rooted in the Torah and developed in its early stages by the prophets.

    But that entire process required just that—a process. God’s message came at various times and at various places before God finally spoke to us through God’s Son (Hebrews 1:1-3). Is there a more profound way for God to speak than through the incarnation? I don’t think so. But there is the possibility that we will more and more deeply understand the implications of God’s message.

    In the face of this radical gospel, our hermeneutic of God’s entire revelation is often not radical enough to let us hear God calling us ever deeper.

    I apply this idea to my previous note on egalitarian and complementarian texts. Rather than seeking a filter for those commands that are eternal and those that are temporal (and I suggest that all commands are both eternal and temporal; always given for a time and place, always deriving their force from an eternal principle), we need to be asking how God’s revelation should continue transform our natures and attitudes, both individually and as Christ’s body.

    I think this is the failure both of many of us (definitely including myself) and of much of  the 21st century American church.

     

  • Sunday School Notes – Ephesians

    Ephesians: A Participatory Study GuideWe’ve completed the first two lessons of Bob Cornwall’s study guide (Ephesians: A Participatory Study Guide) in my Sunday School class. I planned to write some notes earlier, but I’ll try to catch up.

    These first two lessons complete the first chapter of Ephesians. There’s quite a lot of material just in the first couple of verses, and Bob doesn’t hesitate to lead the study into potentially deep waters by bringing up the issue of authorship. Just about anyone with theological training knows that the authorship of Ephesians is disputed, along with a number of other letters attributed to Paul. More people are aware of the dispute with regard to 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus, but Ephesians, Colossians,  and 2 Thessalonians are also disputed by some.

    Bob Cornwall does a good job of giving the basics of the dispute, insofar as one can in a small study guide of this nature. In fact, the way Bob tackles this and other disputes is one of the great features of this particular guide. We went into greater detail in the class, as this was what interested most people there. I was gratified to note that most people had studied the lesson, and so we could safely pick and choose.

    There were three major issues we discussed:

    1) What is the basis for the claim of authorship?

    One of the things that disturbs me concerning Bible study in mainline churches is that many people will simply state that it’s the “scholarly consensus” or more likely “the best biblical scholarship says,” and they’re satisfied with that. I see this as parallel to the conservative tendency to say, “this is traditional.” One side dismisses and the other accepts the results of critical scholarship, while neither side actually understands what is going on.

    We had a good discussion of the theological issues and possible historical connections that indicate to some scholars that Ephesians is not a Pauline work. I tend to think the balance is in favor of Pauline authorship, but at the same time, I tried to make sure people understand that the other view is not just plucked from air. There is valid reason for the dispute.

    2) Was pseudonymous writing an accepted standard in the ancient world?

    I’d reduce this more to whether it was an acceptable practice amongst the early Christians. I don’t know the answer to this. We know a number of books in circulation were not written by the person to whom they were attributed, but whether everyone realized that this was so and found it acceptable, I don’t know.

    Bart Ehrman (Forged) has recently claimed that this practice was not acceptable. I haven’t read his book, so I can’t respond in any detail. This is a topic I’ll be interested in studying further.

    3) How does the authorship issue relate to inspiration?

    In this case, I pointed out that when we dispute authorship of Matthew, for example, we’re dealing with authorship that is attributed outside the text. In the case of Ephesians, the text itself says it’s from Paul, and I know of no textual dispute on this point.

    If writing in someone else’s name was an acceptable practice, for example, honoring a teacher, again there would be no particular issue for inspiration.

    I would tend not to worry in either case, because I would depend on the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the church accepting the work as canonical. I don’t see inspiration primarily as a characteristic of the text, and if the author was imperfect and did something he should not have (by the standards of his time), that would not disturb me.

    All this said, however, I would note that I find the balance of the evidence to lean in favor of Pauline authorship, partially based on the text. When the authorship claim is integral to the text, it seems to me it requires greater evidence to overturn that attribution than when the attribution itself is later.

    So again, thanks to Bob for setting up this discussion.

    The next chapter has such a huge amount of material, even though it again covers only a few verses, well, 21 verses. Bob emphasizes the worship aspects, while my class got completely involved in the word “predestined.”

    Here most of the class came to the same conclusion as Bob did in the lesson. In this case the predestination is more corporate than individual. It refers to God’s eternal plan to bring the gentile believers into God’s people. As agreeable (!) as we all were, we still spent most of the time talking about words like “chosen” and “predestined” and other places they occur where the intention is not quite as clear as it is in this chapter.

    A class using this lesson would ideally spend more time on prayer and worship, which is clearly Bob’s intent in the study guide. We started with the prayer in the book and ended with the hymn at the end, but we didn’t quite stay on the track between the two. But others can do so. Don’t assume you have to spend your time on predestination!