Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Bible Passages

  • James 1:13 – Tempted by Evil?

    In the Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament on James (my review) the suggestion is made that apeirastos kakwn should be translated as an objective genitive, as “tempted to do evil.” They oppose this to a subjective genitive (“tempted by evil”) or one alternative which does not involve a new way of reading the genitive (67, 70-71).

    It’s interesting to note that nearly all translations choose “by evil.” (I say “nearly” because all the translations I have in my library do so.) This is a time when I feel the limitations of my library, but Wallace (125) uses it as an example of a genitive of means, Robertson calls it ablatival (515-517), and Blass-deBrunner-Funk discusses it in a passage covering other cases of the genitive following an adjective, including examples that could have different translations, such as 1 Corinthians 9:21 (anomos theou/ennomos christou). The BDAG entry on apeirastos suggests “tempted to do evil” (and also cites the same passage from Blass-deBrunner-Funk that I have).

    As I look at this passage it seems to me that the more natural translation is “tempted by evil,” while I don’t deny the possibility of the alternative. At first glance, the context seems to suggest something more like “tempted to do evil,” since this then forms the basis for the claim that God does not tempt anyone.

    But I would suggest a logical connection to another phrase, James 1:17 “no inconsistency or shifting shadow” (ISV). Yes, this phrase is separated from the phrase in question, but it appears to me that James entwines multiple topics together as he relates them throughout the book. His point in 13 is that God is reliable and cannot be moved, a point which is actually supported by either translation.

    Thus my second reflection is that the traditional translation of this passage actually fits the logic quite well.

    Any thoughts?

  • Book Review: Genesis Unbound

    Sailhamer, John H. Genesis Unbound: A Provocative New Look at the Creation Account. Sisters, OR: Multnomah Books, 1996.

    Note (January 11, 2017): I just discovered while writing about Dr. John Sailhamer’s death, that there was a new edition of this book published in 2011, shortly after I wrote this review.

    My interest in this book was aroused when I read a review from Andrew Kulikovsky of Answers in Genesis. I made some preliminary comments on that review in my post titled Unbinding What Rules?, and set about getting a copy of the book, which is out of print, via Interlibrary Loan. I must confess my biases, and admit that getting an unfavorable review from someone at AIG made it more likely that I’d read the book! That said, I’m very glad I took the time to get a copy and read it.

    The Book

    The book contains 239 pages of text and seven pages of notes, but no indexes. A scripture index would be particularly helpful. (As a publisher myself, however, I know not to blame the author for this.) The author writes clearly and in plain English. Though you will find many references to Greek, Hebrew, and even occasionally another language or so, there is nothing that cannot be followed without knowledge of those languages.

    In fact, the language is plain to a fault, and the explanations may seem just a bit redundant if you have studied this topic. As I read, however, I kept in mind that most readers would not have made a particular study of this topic as I have, and thus what appears redundant to me will contribute to clear understanding for others.

    I don’t feel any need to avoid “spoilers,” as Dr. Sailhamer sets out precisely where he’s going in the introduction. He then proceeds to do precisely as he said. In the first section, running through page 34 he lays out the controversy about Genesis, the reasons for it, and its importance.

    In the second section, which runs through page 96, he examines a number of general themes in Genesis 1 & 2, opening up some additional perspectives, and building the background information you will need to understand the material that follows.

    In the third section, through page 156, he goes through the creation account day by day, explaining his understanding of the details of the creation days as well as of Genesis 2 in relation to Genesis 1.

    In the fourth section, he examines how we got to this point and why the various schools of thought about Genesis exist, and why our English translations tend to reflect these same ideas. Here he introduces us to ancient and medieval commentators, and to their views of Genesis. This latter section is the most important part of the book, though it could not stand alone without the previous discussion.

    I think anyone with a solid grasp of the English language who will take the time to read carefully can grasp the arguments in this book. There are certain elements of the argument that are based on knowledge of the languages, and in those cases you can only go back and check Dr. Sailhamer’s work if you can use various lexical aids, such as a source language concordance. Nonetheless, the argument is clear enough even without that.

    I appreciated the lack of anathematization of opponents. In discussions of Genesis there are way too many accusations of heresy, atheism, obscurantism, and so forth. Sailhamer is clear about what he believes is right and wrong, but he manages to express this without the kind of vitriol that one often finds in such books.

    Overview of the Thesis

    Since the author has chosen to put his cards on the table (and I borrow his metaphor here), I will go ahead and lay out my summary of it for you.

    Sailhamer sees three major schools of thought regarding Genesis, in particular amongst evangelicals, but these probably also cover mainline and Catholic positions fairly well. These are young earth creation, old earth creation, and theistic evolution. In addition he acknowledges ruin and restoration or the “gap” theory, though he doesn’t spend as much time on it as he does on others.

    He accuses each of these views of using science to interpret the Bible in their own way, i.e. of forcing their particular worldview and cosmology onto the text of scripture rather than letting the text speak for itself.

    In place of those views, he proposes Historical Creationism, which he defines on pages 44 & 45. Historical creationism holds he Genesis account to be historical, but interprets the details somewhat differently. Genesis 1:1, rather than being a title, a summary of what is to follow, or even an introductory clause, is the account of the creation of the universe, “heavens and earth” being a merism expressing the concept of “universe.” The following days describe the preparation of the promised land and the Garden of Eden for human habitation and the creation of human beings to live there.

    Sailhamer cites extensive parallels of language and theme in the creation account and references to the promised land, and believes that he can locate the Garden of Eden there. He is not giving some explicit location within the promised land, or even telling us anything about the size of the garden. He is simply claiming that the garden was located in the promised land.

    Thus once ‘erets is translated “earth” in “the heavens and earth” (presuming one doesn’t go all the way and just use “universe”) it should be translated as “land” throughout the remainder of Genesis 1 & 2. I think anyone who reads Hebrew will recognize that this is possible, and anyone who has studied the concepts and imagery of creation in the Old Testament will recognize the extensive parallels that exist in creation, the exodus, the exile and return, and so forth.

    As he goes through the days of creation, Sailhamer then deals with specific details of what actually happened on each day. For example, he does not see the heavenly bodies as created on the fourth day (Genesis 1:14) but rather as being designated to their purpose in serving soon-to-be-created humanity.

    He can thus both take the days of creation as literal 24 hour periods, while at the same time accepting that the earth itself is very old. The planet, as such, was created in Genesis 1:1, while a seven-day creation week prepared the land for human beings, and included the special creation of humankind.

    He rejects any notion of ruin and restoration, thus avoiding the linguistic problems with translating Genesis 1:2 as “And the earth became…”, a mistranslation that results from simply counting occurrences of a Hebrew word (hayah) without considering tense or syntax. His view is similar, however, in where it places the creation week, though not in the details and the scope. Most ruin and restoration creationists would see the creation week as a recreation of the entire earth, and not a preparation of a local land.

    Sailhamer sees this as more in accord with science, even though he avoids basing his interpretation on meeting the requirements of current scientific evidence. I think this latter point is one of the major weaknesses of this view, as I will discuss below. Throughout the book, there are discussions of specific scientific issues, such as the age of the earth, the age of humanity, the relationship (or not) of the hominids to modern humans, and so forth. Sailhamer believes that human beings were specially created without dependence on prior genetic material and thus are not related to the hominids (p. 171).

    The Positives

    I often stop people in classes and conversations when they say something like “We don’t take that literally around here.” It’s a sentence I hear quite frequently in my home church, a United Methodist congregation. What I always ask is this: “Just how do you take it?” The problem is that too many people think that questions about the Bible may be settled with an answer to the question “Is it literal?” But one will find that there are many gradations and types of “not-literal.”

    In this book Sailhamer has made it clear that one also cannot simply answer the question the other way either. Just because someone takes a passage literally doesn’t mean that they take it correctly, even if it is intended literally. We bring some baggage to the process and we have to deal with that fact if we are to let the text speak to us on its own terms rather than forcing it to fit into ours.

    Out of the three camps (four if you include Ruin and Restoration), all but theistic evolutionists would claim that they are taking Genesis 1 & 2 literally in some way, yet they agree on very little regarding what the account actually says.

    Sailhamer takes the task of letting the text speak very seriously, even where this requires clearing some thorns and thistles out of the way. He primarily supports his view by referring to other texts and the usage of biblical words in their various contexts. He does not neglect syntax, and barely brushes by etymology. All this makes for good reading.

    I should refer here to his handling of Genesis 2:19, which I also mentioned in my previous note. Sailhamer dismisses the NIV translation “had created” with a simple “…the Hebrew text doesn’t contain the proper verb form for such a translation” (89). I would refer, however to some potential counter-examples, including 1 Kings 13:12, which presents a clear, contextual pluperfect (wayir’u, “had seen”). One should note the context, however, and the sequence of thought, which indicate that this is not one of those rare instances where the wayyqtl form can be used for the pluperfect. Waltke cites three examples.1

    Overall this book is probably the most challenging and fascinating work on Genesis that I have read, even though ultimately I find myself in fundamental disagreement. Or perhaps I find it so useful precisely because it challenges many of my approaches so fundamentally, and, I confess, effectively. While agreeing with a book is nice, I prefer a book with which I disagree, and yet find profitable.

    Negatives

    I’m going to leave the issue of overarching approach to scripture to my own response in the next section. I’m limiting myself here to the portions of the book that many will find frustrating.

    Sailhamer has bent over backwards to be fair to the various views, yet he has failed to accomplish the impossible. (Shocking, isn’t it?) I think advocates of any of the opposing views would find fault with his summaries of their viewpoints. In terms of young earth creation, I think Kurt Wise or Todd Wood would be eager to deny that they allow science to determine their reading of Genesis, and with some justification. Both see the current evidence for evolution to be very strong, yet they believe that the Bible teaches a young age for the universe (thus their preference for young age over young earth), and they are willing to place their faith in God’s word as they understand it, and wait for science to catch up.

    On the other hand, the implication that theistic evolutionists believe God had limited involvement in the process of creation simply because he uses a mechanism such as biological evolution to accomplish his purposes. I personally believe that God is directly involved in the movement of every subatomic particle, and that an infinite God has no need to diminish his attention to what we humans see as great matters in order to supervise small ones.

    That said, I must again say that Sailhamer is fairer to his opponents than the vast majority of writers on this divisive topic, so perhaps this negative is more of a positive!

    I was more disappointed with the various scientific excurses, which do not, in my view, reflect the best in scientific thought on those topics. In addition, the scientific explanations showing how science would support Historical Creationism seem to me to detract from the original argument–understanding the text on its own terms. I do understand the desire to show that this interpretation does not contradict major scientific evidence. But these excurses on science are all subject to extensive debate and the science has advanced even since the date of publication. It’s interesting to note that one of the defects Sailhamer sees in other views is that they depend on the current cosmology. If his view is correct, for example, those who reconciled Genesis with the Ptolemaic universe were wrong. Might it not be the same for any reconciliation to current science on human origins or the origin of life itself?

    I referred earlier to one more issue, the reading of Genesis 1:14 which Sailhamer discusses extensively (131-135). He states that Genesis 1:14 clearly has a substantially different meaning than Genesis 1:6. He is trying to establish that the sun and moon and other heavenly bodies were created in the beginning (Gen. 1:1), and thus could not be created on the fourth day. After several readings, I can’t see an adequate syntactic warrant for this. It’s possible I have misunderstood the argument.

    Response

    The reason this book, good as it is, did not ultimately convince me, is that my disagreement is at a more basic level, one which would probably be beyond the scope of a book this size. The first point is that I don’t take Genesis 1 & 2 literally, and I don’t fall into the trap of failing to specify how I do take it. But more on that in a moment.

    One of the great features of this book is Sailhamer’s discussion of ancient and medieval commentators on the text. At the same time, he begins this discussion with Ptolemy on the one hand and with Hellenistic Jewish efforts to accommodate the Torah with Greek thought, particularly cosmology. I would go further, and look at the relationship between Genesis and ancient near eastern literature. While I agree that Genesis 1 was not copied from Sumerian sources, I do not agree (and did my research on this for my MA) that the cosmology and other symbols are not present and are not related. Of course, I must confess that if I were writing a book, the opposite criticism would likely be levied-that I had neglected the later commentators and cosmologies.

    At the time I completed my degree I saw no direct relationship between Genesis 1-2 and Mesopotamia, but since then I have become convinced that Genesis 1-2 is a direct challenge to the theological views represented in that material. (Note again that I’m not claiming direct relationship, but again that’s beyond the scope of this already rather long review.) The very absence of such things as conflict between the gods, of a great windstorm, and of the contempt for humans is very telling.2

    But what of the cosmology? Can one maintain that Genesis 1-2 is divine in origin, while claiming that it reflects the cosmology of the time? I think so. I’d refer to my 2005 blog post, The One Ended Cord. If God is to communicate with humans in language that we can understand, he must use our language. That does not mean simply language that we have in our lexicon. It must be language as we can understand it.

    In my view, God chose not to teach us new cosmology in Genesis 1, but  rather to declare his involvement in creation and the fact that he is ultimately the creator of everything and involved in everything, and to do so in a context we could understand.

    Since our understanding of cosmology has changed and will likely continue to change, we need to see that message in new forms, translated in terms of cosmology, if you please. We could wish that God had spoken in terms of our cosmology, but since we don’t know the future, we do not know what will be discovered next week, next month, or next year that might change all that. I see the cosmology in which the creation story is clothed as no more ultimately important than the specific language in which the story is spoken. It is the medium, not the message.

    Thus I disagree as to the type of literature we’re dealing with. It is not narrative history. It is not intended to relate a series of events in a historical sense, not because somebody was too stupid to figure it out, but because we are all too ignorant to understand an actual narration of God’s creative activities. God, who inspired the story, knows precisely what happened. Me? Not so much.

    So what do I call this? Well, I see Genesis 1:1-2:4a as liturgy, though doctrine packed liturgy. I think it works well as such and it frames the remainder of the story in that fashion. This is as good a place as any to discuss those extensive parallels I referenced at the beginning of this review, which I think Sailhamer has established so thoroughly. I would see those referenced as specifically shaped by the Genesis story, relating God’s redemptive power to his creative power. In other words, the relationship is reversed. These stories do not refer to Genesis or use it’s language and imagery because Genesis was specifically about the promised land; the promise of the land and God’s redemption and provision as repeated through biblical history, are couched in terms of creation because the creator God is also the redeemer God.

    Conclusion

    I suggest reading this book. There are too many narrow readings of Genesis, and too few challenges to our various supposed orthodoxies on the topic. There are many ways of looking at these issues, and you need to be acquainted with a variety of them in order to speak intelligently on the topic. Dr. Sailhamer has made it easier for me to take another step toward speaking intelligently, for which I am grateful.

    [updated 2:42 pm to correct embarrassing misspelling of author’s name]

    1 Bruce K. Waltke and M. O’Connor. An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 1990, 33.2.3.

    2 Gerhard von Rad. Genesis. Old Testament Library. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1972, 63-67.

  • 2 Corinthians and Leadership

    Brian Fulthorp has written a few notes on 2 Corinthians, a book that has been growing on me over the last few years.  I think it’s unfortunately neglected in Christian preaching.  Except for a few proof texts we rarely hear much of the message of this book.

    This comment from Brian might indicate why the book is  not popular:

    Gombis notes Paul as the Apostle of weakness and that it is only through our weakness and dependency on God that we can experience his power or that God’s power them becomes fully manifest – listen to that carefully: it is only when we are completely and utterly and fully dependent on God and function in our own weakness that God’s power is made complete in us or that his power is fully manifest – this is true biblical and Pauline leadership.

    “[F]ully dependent on God and function in our own weakness….”  Doesn’t sound like much fun!  Might not be seeker friendly either. Time to go read a different book.

  • On Saul and David – for World Prayr Blog

    I wrote a post on Saul and David for the World Prayr devotional blog.  It ties into my series in some ways.

  • 1 Chronicles 14:1-16:3 (The Ark Again)

    I’m continuing my notes on 1 Chronicles, working from the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary volume on 1 & 2 Chronicles by Mark J. Boda.

    One of the strengths of this particular commentary is making the themes of the book and the connections between the various passages very clear.  The chronicler presents his theology in the form of story, and if you aren’t paying attention things will slip past you.  Some commentaries can make following the themes in a book more complex than the book itself.  Boda is very clear and easy to follow.

    In chapter 10 we find that Saul is rejected because he is disobedient and is seeking his guidance from someone other than God.  In chapter 13, we discussed Uzzah and the ark, as David tries to move the ark without due consideration of the proper procedure.  In chapter 15 the ark is moved according to the rules.  It might be tempting to regard chapter 14 as an unrelated interlude, but in that chapter we have the story of David encountering the Philistines twice, and each time he seeks God’s will.  Then in chapter 15 he admits that he did it wrong last time and does it right.

    There is also the theme in Chronicles of the proper role of the Levites and priests, and indeed I get a taste here of a call for Torah observance, a message that certainly fits with the post-exilic situation.

    I know this note is brief and general, but I think you can get the feel of the passage … and read it for yourself!

  • Uzzah and the Ark – 1 Chronicles 13

    I’m continuing with brief notes on the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary volume on 1 & 2 Chronicles by Mark J. Boda.  I previously provided an overview and some notes on the coverage of 1 Chornicles 1-9, and 1 Chronicles 10-12.

    As I mentioned in my previous post I wanted to make some specific comments on 1 Chronicles 13, dealing with David’s first attempt to move the ark to Jerusalem.  It illustrates two different approaches to commentary on a passage of scripture.  It is probably not surprising that the one thing most people remember about the chapter is the same one I emphasized in my title:  The moment when Uzzah touched the ark. In fact, in the Chronicler’s story, that is a minor point.  Yes, it provides the reason for the failure of that attempt, but Uzzah and his life is not the major concern.

    I recall a few years ago teaching a class on the Bible in general.  We were running through some themes in the Old Testament, and especially dealing with the conquest of Canaan.  I was emphasizing some spiritual aspects of the story when I saw that one lady in the class was building pressure.  Finally she raised her hand and interrupted.

    “I understand about all this spiritual stuff,” she said.  “But the fact remains that in the story real people are dying!  Now what about that?”

    Joshua and Judges don’t address the issues that concern many modern audiences.  Those books don’t spend the time worrying about just why God would allow, much less command, all that slaughter.

    In the face of that there are two distinct ways we can approach the text.  (Well, of course there are more, but just two that I want to contrast here.)  I’m not saying that one or the other of these ways is the way to approach a passage, but it’s useful to know which way a commentary leans.

    The first way is to look at the text entirely in its own context.  What was the writer trying to address?  In 1 Chronicles 13, some of the issues involve the relationship between the ruler and the worshiping community, particularly priests and in Israel’s case, Levites.  The moving of the ark forms a key point in David’s rise to power and eventually his preparation for the building of the temple by his son Solomon.  Internally, there is little concern for Uzzah.  David is certainly concerned that this has happened, but the concern is not directed to the fairness of Uzzah’s death, or how proportionate the penalty was to the offense.

    In fact, it may well be that the writer did not consider this so much of a punishment by God, but rather simply the results of improperly coming into contact with something holy.  One would as well become offended at God because one touched high tension wires and died in consequence.

    The second way one can look at a passage such as this is from the point of view of the questions it raises in modern readers.  Why would God be so nasty as to kill Uzzah when all he was doing was trying to keep the ark safe.  But as Boda notes:  “This incident is a subtle reminder that God sets the agenda for his worship; he must be worshiped in the way he as required.”  I would ask just what was “subtle” about it!

    Ideally, we go from reading the text for what it is in its own context to hearing the text speak in ours.  If we see events such as this as historically valid, then we have to deal with God’s action.  We worship a God who would “break out” against Uzzah in this particular way.  One can keep the text within its own world by assuming that this is not an actual action of God, but rather just a view of God by the Chronicler.  One should note, of course, that the Chronicler is hardly alone in this view.

    A commentary that emphasizes the first approach is more useful in terms of studying the text, but if you’re a pastor in a hurry who is looking for sermon material, it provides a much longer path to speaking to the questions the congregation is likely asking.  A commentary that takes the second approach often answers the question at the expense of the text, but it can be much more helpful to the hurried reader who needs something quickly usable.

    This commentary clearly takes the first approach.  I would note as an example of the second approach the book Who’s Afraid of the Old Testament God? published by my company.  The author is well aware of the text, but is addressing the questions that are going to be asked by modern readers.  That book is not a commentary, which is probably a better venue in which to discuss such questions.

  • Unbinding What Rules?

    A while back Dave Black linked to a review of Genesis Unbound by John Sailhammer.  The review is by Andrew Kulikovsky and is on the Answers in Genesis site, titled Unbinding the Rules.  The interesting thing for me about this review is that despite being very negative, it made me much more anxious to read Sailhammer’s book.

    It’s hard to evaluate some of the criticisms without having read the book itself, but I’m going to comment on one, and write a bit more after I’ve gotten my hands on a copy of the book itself.  The one issue is the translation of Genesis 2:19.  To state the problem simply, there is a difference in translation between the NIV (continued in the NIV2011, ESV agrees) for example, and the NRSV amongst others.  To illustrate:

    Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. (NIV2011) So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, (NRSV)

    The translation arises from the perceived need to reconcile the order of events in Genesis 1 and 2, since in 2:19 the animals would be created after human beings rather than before as in Genesis 1. Using a past perfect in English solves this problem.  The question, of course, is whether such a translation is legitimate.

    Regarding this, Kulikovsky says:

    According to Sailhamer, the rendering ‘ … now the Lord God had formed …’ for Genesis 2:19, is faulty because ‘the Hebrew  text doesn’t contain the proper verb form for such a translation’  (p. 89). This is a very surprising statement from a Hebrew  scholar. Firstly, Sailhamer seems to be confused over the  aspectual identification of the clause ‘had formed’—this is actually indicative of a pluperfect not a perfect. Secondly, the standard grammars1,4 stand against Sailhamer on this, as do modern translations such as the NIV.

    I was rather surprised to see this, because the standard grammars say no such thing, and the NIV and ESV are pretty much isolated amongst modern versions in this translation.  The NLT, also evangelical, translated “formed” for example.  I had recently been investigating this issue to see just what support the NIV had for their rendering, and had found very little such support.

    The footnotes, unfortunately, are duplicates of previous references, and simply point to Gesenius-Kautzsch (with the latter name misspelled), and to Waltke-O’Connor without referencing any particular page or section number in either grammar.  There are only two  direct references to Genesis 2:19, and only one provides a translation of the first part of the verse, which he translates “YHWH God formed …” (11.2.11d, p. 213), but there he is discussing the translation of the preposition min.  There are, of course, substantial discussions of Hebrew verb tense, but I cannot discover which would provide Kulikovsky with support for his view.  Sailhammer’s statement is hardly surprising; it’s pretty standard.

    I would note that I have found cases cited in which the waw-consecutive form can be translated with an English past perfect.  They are very rare, and not too similar to the case of Genesis 2:19.  I’ll provide some references when I read and comment on Sailhammer’s book.

  • 1 Chronicles 10-12 in the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary

    I’m continuing with brief notes on the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary volume on 1 & 2 Chronicles by Mark J. Boda.  I previously provided an overview and some notes on the coverage of 1 Chornicles 1-9.

    I have only a few comments on these three chapters, but I’m covering them in a separate post because I want to write a bit more about chapter 13 dealing with the ark and particularly with Uzzah.

    One of the key elements of Boda’s writing on Chronicles is that he is clearly not trying to force the text into some preconceived view of what it must be.  He lets the chronicler speak.  One of the ways in which he does this is by identifying the cases where the chronicler is using sources, such as Samuel-Kings, that are available to us.  Differences between these sources and Chronicles provide insights into the themes of Chronicles.

    In chapters 10-12 the issues involved are usually minor, but they are very important to understanding where we’re going with the story.  David is emphasized and Saul is minimized.  Boda doesn’t try to explain differences (or “errors” or “contradictions”).  Rather, he simply lays out the options that are available for understanding the text and why it is as it is.

    A good illustration of this is the commentary on 12:23-40, in which he states the problem succinctly on page 121:  “The numbers given in this section for the armed warriors who joined David at Hebron are inordinately large.”  Indeed they are.  So what do we do about it?

    First, Boda provides four traditions in interpreting the passage:

    1. They are precise figures representing historical reality
    2. The word for “thousand” was actually the title of a military unit
    3. The word for “thousand” should be repointed to represent the commander of such a unit
    4. The chronicler is using the numbers hyperbolically

    Mixed in with these options, but not excluding any of them, is the possibility of errors in textual transmission.  I personally would add the possibility of confusion in the sources, i.e. that the material used by the chronicler may have already confused some of the numbers.

    Boda then proceeds to evaluate these views, and finds that perhaps the fourth view fits best with what we see elsewhere in Chronicles.  I do note that he does not list as an option that the chronicler intended the numbers as real numbers, but that they were inaccurate in his source, something he hardly had the opportunity to check.  In my view there is no reason to expect the Holy Spirit to correct sources when that correction does not impact the message.

    In the end, Boda recommends the possibility that at various points in Chronicles different ones of these options may come into play, and that in chapter 12, the best option is likely that they speak of military units rather than actual numbers.

    What I find particularly helpful is that Boda explains the numbers without detracting from his main effort of explaining what these numbers are intended to accomplish in producing this history as a whole.

    I’ve already read and made my own notes on chapter 13, and I’ll try to get those posted in the next couple of days.

    http://www.deepbiblestudy.net/?p=1103

  • Biblioblog Top 50 Posted

    … and I have clawed my way back onto the list, at a miserable #43. Ah well, it helps if one actually blogs!

  • 1 Chronicles 1-9 in the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary

    I previously gave an overview of the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary on 1-2 Chronicles, but I’ve been spending more time with it since, reading the Hebrew text along with the commentary. While I do appreciate the NLT text on which the commentary is based, I’m not reading this for the NLT text, but rather for the commentary.

    I just completed chapter 9 which gets me to the start of the narrative portion of the book. In the genealogies especially, it’s hard to properly represent the Hebrew text in English translation. There are many ambiguities, name variants, and textual variants, especially in the versions. In several cases when I went to the NLT after reading the Hebrew I found that the reading I had chosen as I went through was in the NLT margin. That’s not a negative comment on the translation–it’s just very difficult to render this sort of text both clearly and accurately. Clarity is often purchased at the price of accuracy.

    My impression of the commentary on this section is very positive. Author Mark Boda focuses on structural issues and the way in which the structure of the genealogies sets the shape for the narrative of the remainder of the book. One can derive timing, sources, and the purpose of the author from the way the genealogies are named. This commentary tends to emphasize a key point about studying the Old Testament: Genealogies aren’t some sort of appendix or footnote, but are rather of great, even central importance to the writers.

    Within the limits of space (1 Chronicles 1-9 occupies pages 25-102), and the purpose of the commentary, which is for serious lay students or pastors, and not so much for scholars, the coverage is excellent. Boda includes a discussion of sources wherever they are used. It would be interesting to see more discussion of the implications of the way these sources are used, but what is provided is excellent.

    Connections with historical events are covered, including references to place or personal names in other ancient near eastern sources are covered. What is absent is any extended effort to deal with the historicity of either these chapters or their sources. The author presents options but doesn’t really push any particular approach. I think that’s a positive thing. With the number of rough edges involved, such a discussion could easily occupy the whole book.

    Overall, the commentary on these first nine chapters presents a structure that sees the post-exilic community built around the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, but with the Levites placed at the center of national religious life. The other tribes are included in such a way as to make a statement that they are part of the restored Israel as well. In some ways you can see Israel reinventing itself post-exile.

    I’ll post further notes as I study further.