A $25 million creation museum is under construction in rural Kentucky, with the intention of challenging the scientific consensus view of origins. MSNBC tells us about it in a story titled High-tech museum brings creationism to life. They quote Ken Ham, of Answers in Genesis saying,
If the Bible is the word of God, and its history really is true, thats our presupposition or axiom, and we are starting there,
There’s a moment in sermons that makes me cringe and my wife grin. She kind of enjoys seeing me squirm.
What is this important moment? It’s when a pastor says, “What the Greek really says is . . .” Sometimes it’s worded a bit differently, but I believe that when you hear or read that phrase or something similar, the vast majority of the time you’re about to get misinformed. This week our pastor used the phrase “knowingly and with full intent” just to get the laugh out of us, which is all in good fun.
There are several reasons for this. First, most pastors are not well enough trained in Greek or Hebrew to make such a statement with confidence. Unfortunately, this is often also true about writers who are not specialists in the language. I have found significant errors–not differences of opinion, but demonstrable errors–in books written by famous writers and published by well-known publishing houses. In one book I found a case where a Hebrew word was cited, and not only was the definition or the suggested glosses (English words suggested to translate it) questionable, but the word itself was simply not in the verse in question.
Newsweek currently has an interview with Tim LaHaye in which he discusses current events in the middle east and their relationship to the end times. I find myself in pretty nearly complete disagreement with LaHaye on his interpretation of Revelation, but that should be no surprise to anyone. But he emphasizes one point in his interview that I think needs to be examined, and that’s the attempt to interpret things literally whenever possible.
When the interviewer asks him about Biblical scholars who might disagree with his viewpoint, he says:
These are usually liberal theologians that dont believe the Bible literally.
When asked whether Revelation should be interpreted as a polemic against Rome, he says:
Thats what they say. We believe that the Bible should be understood literally whenever possible. [Emphasis in original.]
Asked about support for Israel amongst Christians, he says:
I think those two things are related. Christians who take the Bible literally are generally supportive of Israel because God promises to bless those nations that are a blessing to Israel and curse those nations that are not. And the history of America bears that out.
It is clear that he regards the issue of whether one interprets the Bible literally as of central importance. I agree with him. But literal vs. non-literal is only one way of dividing Biblical interpreters, and he is not correct in suggesting that it is mostly liberals who would disagree with his position. There are, in fact, numerous interpretations of Revelation that are supported by people who take a very conservative view of the inspiration of the Bible, and many of these are directly contradictory to LaHaye’s interpretation.
Peter Kirk has writtten that he finds a complementarian bias in the TNIV. He says:
A major aim of the changes made in Today’s New International Version (TNIV) was to avoid the danger of such misunderstandings. I don’t think anyone can complain about TNIV’s rendering of 2 Thessalonians 3:10: “Anyone who is unwilling to work shall not eat.” This is after all closer to KJV’s “if any would not work, neither should he eat”, and it avoids any possible misunderstanding that this applies only to males.
However, TNIV does not always make such changes. For example, in Titus 1:6 TNIV has “a man whose children believe”, in this phrase identical to NIV. But there is no word here to be translated “man”; the Greek is tekna ekh
I’m going to write today about a neglected part of God’s creation–the human mind. It is a wonderful element of creation, one that has provoked some of the most profound philosophical and scientific writing. No, I don’t mean merely that people think with their minds and then write philosophy and science. I’m referring to writing about how the mind evolved, how it functions, what consciousness actually is, and why the mind malfunctions from time to time. Those are all interesting topics.
My topic, however, is how Christians can choose to honor God with their minds, and why they should. (I’m addressing Christians because that’s my own faith group, not to imply that other people cannot honor God with their minds.) Sometimes it seems that every element of our faith is used against the human mind instead of in cooperation with it.
It would seem that simply from observation and logic we could discover that God wants us to use our minds. He provided them. They are necessary to our survival. Even if we didn’t have scriptural statements to confirm this, it is pretty obvious from nature. But we do, in fact, have scriptural confirmation.
How long, simple-minded folks, will you love being simple?
How long will scoffers delight in scoffing?
And fools hate knowledge? — Proverbs 1:22
Now I could spend my time listing texts that back this up further, texts that talk about thinking, wisdom, using our minds, and our choice. They are a strong theme in scripture. But I’m going to assume you either know or can find the texts. I’d just like to call your attention to two texts. The first is from the words of Jesus.
15Watch out for false prophets, who come to you dressed like sheep, but inside they are ravenous wolves. 16It’s by their fruit that you’ll recognize them. 17People don’t gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles, do they? 18A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. 19That’s why you will recognize them by their fruit. — Matthew 7:15-19
This is a sentiment that Paul repeats in Galatians:
7Don’t be deceived! God won’t be mocked! Whatever a person plants is what he’ll harvest! — Galatians 6:7
These two texts make it clear that God has not abrogated the law of cause and effect in his kingdom. The law of cause and effect is one that is basic to human thinking. It’s clear that God wants you to think about the consequences of your own actions, not to mention the words and actions of others. What people think, what they say, and what they do does have consequences. (I discuss choice and the kingdom in the pamphlet Seven Kingdom Principles of Choice, and its relationship to salvation in my essay A Fruitful Faith. I believe that the twin principles of choice and fruit operate throughout the kingdom of God.)
So how can one honor God with one’s mind? Primarily by using it!
Some may have wondered about this first point in my list of excuses above. Aren’t we saved by grace? Are we not to accept salvation as a gift? Indeed we are. But Paul noted the same problem I’m noting. My point is certainly not original with me–it’s Biblical! Paul uses most of Galatians 5 and the first several verses of Galatians 6 dealing with the possibility that some would take their salvation as permission to sin. He makes it clear that’s the point. I think the best antidote to this type of thinking is for us not to think of salvation merely as a ticket to heaven, but as spiritual healing. When we think of it like that, we might find the question rather silly. If the doctor provides you with a cure for your disease, and does not charge you (a true miracle, I know), you have received the free gift of healing. But if you go home and say, “I want the disease, I’m going to get it back,” you may well be able to make yourself sick again. You can’t then complain to the doctor that his free gift failed. You set his gift aside.
Christians sometimes depend on Jesus to save them from sin, while at the same time they indulge themselves in destructive behavior. I’ve been working on a paraphrase or representation of the story of Susanna (Daniel 13, from the apocrypha) for my literature and fiction blog, The Jevlir Caravansary. Update: The article is now completed, Susanna: A Transformation. What struck me as I read that story is that the elders who falsely accuse Susanna do everything possible to lead themselves into sin and eventual destruction. They dwell on their temptation. They hide the fact that they are being tempted. They get as close to sin as they can. When eventually they are caught, everything that follows is inevitable. Christians are often like that. “Why won’t God free me from my addictions?” someone asks, at the same time sitting with the object of his addiction readily available. Grace opens the door, grace makes it all possible, but no number of gifts will make you rich if you throw them all away.
In my second point I mention depending on God only supernaturally. The problem here is that Christians take actions that will bear one form of fruit while expecting God’s supernatural intervention to produce other results. I am not denying miracles, or asking anyone not to pray for them. I pray for God’s power and God’s action myself. But I also know from scripture that God normally folllows the simple law of planting and harvesting, or as Jesus said, of bearing fruit.
God’s supernatural power is not there to provide you with a license to ignore God’s laws, whether moral or natural laws written in the fabric of the universe.
This laziness is generally manifested when people simply use “God said” for anything in the Bible. There are portions of the Bible that are identified as the words of God, but there are also large portions which are not. I have even heard Job’s friends quoted as what “God said,” and they are soundly condemned by God right in scripture. It takes more work to find out what God is doing when he acts in history or in our own lives than it is simply to find a phrase that says what we want it to, and then to quote it, but it also means that very often we are ignoring what God actually meant, while taking on the appearance of affirming his word.
God put prophets and teachers in the church for a purpose–to help bring his word to the people. I’m going to be brief about this, but it’s very important! Please think about it! Now that we can all enter the sanctuary with confidence (Hebrews 10:19), we have as our goal getting everyone to approach God for themselves. The goal is not to teach people to accept what we, as teachers, prophets, or leaders, say, but rather to get them to think for themselves, and to listen to God for themselves.
For the individual, the goal is to approach God individually, and not to depend on the teacher, preacher, or even prophet. It may be harder, but it’s the right goal.
This is the printed version of the previous point. Some people think that just because it’s in a book it must be true. Many who know that one can’t trust it just because it’s in print, will trust it because it’s in print written by someone well known. But I have a secret (not really!) to tell you. There are plenty of Christian books in print that contain misinformation. I’m not talking about differences of opinion–I’m talking about things that people from many different perspectives could agree were just factually wrong. I find, for example, that a distressingly large number of “insights” brought from Greek or Hebrew in popular books are simply wrong, while many others are at least misleading because they don’t have the proper context.
When you get information from a book, you need to check references, and then you need to assure yourself that the references themselves are reliable. There are some facts making the rounds in Christian books that have simply been quoted so many times that everyone “knows” they are right, but nobody knows precisely where those facts came from. You need to check back to a primary source–the person who actually observed and recorded the data in the first place–whenever possible.
You are responsible for planting seeds in your mind. You are the one who is going to bear the fruit. You need to honor God with your mind by looking up the information.
It’s easy to dishonor God while sounding extremely pious. I cannot count the number of times I have heard someone say, “I’m just doing what the Bible says,” or “That is just God’s word!” when they are not, in fact, correctly quoting the material or are taking it badly out of context. (For some help with context, see my essay Understanding Context.) What God says for a specific situation should settle it, but what God says and what people say God says may well be two very different things.
Always remember: You will harvest what you plant, and you are the one who chooses what to plant!
Suzanne McCarthy, on the Better Bibles Blog has blogged somewhat about nostalgia for the KJV language and for the standard English Bible that was accepted by everyone in a post titled The 1611 King James Text. I like Suzanne’s work, and this is not intended as a critique of her comments, but she collects the various links quite nicely and I’m saving time (and being lazy) by linking to her and you can follow the rest from there. Besides, Better Bibles is a good blog for you to look at anyhow, and I have a list of posts there that I intended to comment on, but haven’t had time. (Hmmm! Having read this again, I want to repeat that nothing here is aimed at Suzanne’s post; I thank her for the convenient references and for her useful comments.)
I want to examine briefly the key element that most of the nostalgia posts about the KJV have in common, which is the element of moral authority. In the past, the argument goes, there was the KJV which all regarded as a standard, and which was used to settle all arguments. This admirable (to some) state of affairs has now been shattered by the existence of multiple translations so that nobody is sure anymore what the Bible really says.
This reminds me of a young man who came by our booth at a show where I was displaying my book, What’s in a Version?. His major question, repeated often through about a half an hour of discussion (it was a slow show) was this: “What is your absolute standard? Where do you have a book that you can hold in your hand and say, ‘This is the Word of God’?” What he wanted was something in English, accessible to him, that gave the absolute answers.
The answer to his question is that no such book exists, no such standard exists, and none has ever existed.
Previous generations may have been sure that they held the absolute one and only Word of God in their hands when they held their KJVs, and modern KJV only advocates may try to stand in their footprints, but they are both surely wrong! The fact is that even if we had only the KJV to guide us, there would remain substantial differences of interpretation. We might be pointing back at the same book, but we would not be getting the same standard things from it. But that’s not really the issue or the state of affairs.
This search for the supposed “standard” in the form of a book is simply a search for security where none is available. There is no great benefit in being sure but wrong, as our ancestors were in regarding the KJV as the one authority. The weakness of that position is demonstrated by the collapse of that position when contrary evidence was discovered. Now there are many who thought that such assurance was available in Christianity give up because they find that it is not available. It was a false trust, and it failed because it was false. There is no benefit in trying to step back towards an imagined standard.
Let me be blunt. I think the problem here is much the same as the problem with idolatry–we put our trust in something less than God. Stealing from Tillich, we make our ultimate concern the KJV, which is considerable less than ultimate, and thus fall into idolatry.
In supporting this idolatry, we use the standard arguments of idolatry, which go back at least to Exodus 32. Moses is missing. We don’t know where God is. We need something to hold on to, we need assurance, we need a standard. So we make a calf.
There is no such standard, indisputable, not subject to misinterpretation, easily accessible to everyone. It does not exist. Short of God, that is. Inventing an alternative is idolatry and is doomed to failure.
God has given us minds. He has created and he sustains a universe that is susceptible to serious study using those minds. He has given us the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit, as our guide, and he has provided the guidance of the past experience of those who were in communion with Him through the Bible. Now we just have to use the tools God has given us to make good, Godly decisions for our lives and for our communities.
It’s not really that hard. But our natural human laziness asks God to provide us with clearer answers, ones that don’t take work. We are like a man provided with a stream filled with fish, rod, reel, hooks, and bait, who complains that he lacks fish because they won’t jump out into the pan. What God doesn’t provide we simulate, and because God knows that is our tendency he has forbidden us simulation as idolatry. He wants us to have the real thing.
He could make us with finished characters, but he doesn’t. He lets us mature.
14Solid food is for the mature, for those who through practice have exercised their understanding to distinguish good and evil. Hebrews 5:14 (from my project)
I’ve pretty much quit bothering with the KJV only folks since their arguments are so repetitive. Yet occasionally I run across one that so illustrates the failings of this entire movement that I want to take the time to comment briefly. Of course, you all know already that I rarely comment briefly . . .
The argument in this case comes from an article titled The Rudimentary Factor Underlying Infallibility by Jeffrey Nachimson, and relates to a comment made by Elgin Hushbeck, Jr. regarding the translation of John 5:44. Now the author of this article does not provide a useful reference to the material, other than author name, but a brief search of known material found Elgin’s material on this topic including the major arguments, though clearly the author of the attrocious article I am referencing was working from some other text.
[For full disclosure, I need to note here that I am the publisher of Elgin’s book series Consider Christianity, but I would also note that the treatment given by av1611answers.com web site to other authors is no more fair or appropriate than what they use in this case.]
First, the article begins in the usual KJV only manner by belittling all other Christians. I’m not going to quote it, but one can just follow the link and read the first couple of paragraphs to get the style. If you’ve read any substantial amount of KJV only material, you’re already acquainted with this procedure.
Second, the article is one that deals with accusations of inaccuracies in the KJV. This is such an interesting approach for a KJV only advocate, because this article criticizes their own approach. Any logic to be discovered here will apply equally against the vast majority of KJV only arguments, which generally start with a list of errors they find in whatever modern version they wish to attack. The one and only constant with these arguments is that we know that the tortured logic must show that the KJV is right and all others are wrong. In response, opponents of the KJV only position occasionally present error lists of their own, demonstrating simply that the KJV translators were also human and suffered from the possibility of error. KJV only advocates, however, regard this as some form of slander against the KJV. That characterization is silly. Each and every critic, not of the KJV, but of the KJV only position, is aware that translators make errors. Only against a backdrop of a claim of infallibility for the KJV does it appear slanderous, but since neither the KJV translators, nor obviously the text of the KJV Bible itself claims this level of infallibility, it is hardly slander.
Now if Nachimson cared about Hushbeck’s position, it was readily available. In his article Which Bible is the Word of God? he comments regarding a similar discussion concerning John 1:18, “If we were to follow the logic of the KJV-only supporters we would have to conclude that the translators of the KJV were trying to weaken the doctrine of the deity of Christ” (emphasis mine). Husbheck does not, in fact, believe that this kind of list of errors is the right way to deal with the problem. Rather, he is showing that the KJV is also vulnerable to that type of criticism. I would add, based on the same logic, that this approach to a translation can easily be taken as an attack on the Bible as a whole. If we find a characteristic that (1) destroys the validity of the Bible and (2) applies to all available Bibles (the KJV-only crowd do not accept the texts in their original language as authoritative), then the result is, in fact, to tear down the Bible.
But let’s look at the argument itself before I comment further on its anatomy. It goes in this way:
Nachimson says:
Elgin Hushbeck, an engineer and apologetic writer, shows us what an engineering degree can do for the text of the King James Bible:
Actually, while Elgin does have an engineering degree, he also has a master’s degree in Christian apologetics, and is the author of the apologetics series I referenced earlier. But what is the point here? Is it to suggest that engineers cannot possibly understand the Bible?
Nachimson quotes Husbheck:
” The other type of problem involved poor translations. Translation is a difficult task and humans are not perfect. As a result, no translation the size of the Bible is perfect. While the King James Version is a good translation, it does have a few minor problems.
Note here that even in the article quoted, and in the portion quoted by Nachimson Hushbeck makes his point extremely clear. He is simply pointing out something that true, and for which the evidence is overwhelming, namely that translations are not perfect. He is not slandering anything, nor is he claiming that one should abandon a translation because one finds such problems in it. He is simply pointing out to the KJV only advocates that their logic applies the other way as well. Note also that he notes that these are minor problems, something which can also be said at a minimum of most KJV only criticisms of modern versions.
Nachimson quoting Hushbeck again:
Again here are two examples: John 5:44 and Hebrews 10:23.In John 5:44 the Greek text very clearly reads “…and seek not the honor that comes from the only God.” Among other things this is a strong statement of monotheism. Yet for some reason the King James Version translates this as “and seek not the honor that cometh from God only?” Here any reference to monotheism is removed, and it becomes a statement that honor only comes from God. In Hebrews 10:23, the Greek text reads “let us hold fast the profession of our hope.” Yet the King James Version translates the Greek word for “hope” as “faith” and reads “let us hold fast the profession of our faith.” I have yet to hear of any explanation of either of these translations except that the King James Version translators must have known what they were doing. ” (Hushbeck, “King James Version Only” article)
Note that I have provided a link to Nachimson’s article, something he has failed to do to Hushbeck’s.
Nachimson now quotes the Greek text, notes that there is such a thing as an adjectival use of a prepositional phrase in Greek, and then agrees with Hushbeck on the literal translation. Those who want to follow this in detail can follow the link back to Nachimson’s article.
But then he says:
The problem with Elgin Hushbeck is that he failed to notice two things:
1) That the context of the verse renders a literal adjectival translation of this passage senseless.
Here let me drop down past his second point, which I will take up in a moment, to quote his discussion of this first point.
Beginning in verse 30 in John 5, Jesus Christ discusses the plethora of witnesses that testify to his ministry and authority. He lists the testimony of John the Baptist (vs. 32-35); his works (vs. 36); the Father (vs. 37); the scriptures (vs. 39); and notice in verse 41 where Jesus Christ states exactly where he DOESN’T GET HIS HONOR FROM! Why the discussion is how to know if something or someone is from God, AND THE HONOR THAT ONLY GOD CAN GIVE! No one in this context bats an eye about monotheism! There isn’t an inclination anywhere in 47 verses that one person (including the lost Pharisees) is discussing the necessity of monotheism. For Hushbeck to conjecture that the A.V. rendering doesn’t uphold monotheism in the passage because it doesn’t translate the prepositional phrase as an adjective, is bordering on the realm of the absurd. The point is where do REAL testimonial witnesses and honor originate? REAL honor comes from God ONLY, not the only God.
Umm, so where is his argument here? If the text says it comes from the only God, that’s what it says. And it is certainly not nonsense. In a world in which one might also seek honor from other gods, it was quite appropriate for Jesus to point out that this honor came from the one God. His Jewish audience would have had no difficulty with that. The point Nachimson claims Jesus is making here is just fine. But the translation chosen by modern versions is also just fine, it does make sense in context, and there is no reason for Nachimson to arbitrarily alter the text of the gospel of John here in order to support his favorite translation. Talk about amateur critics! (See below.)
Now I return to add the second point:
2) That there are other translational possibilities that he didn’t bother to look into or inform his readers due to his prejudicial bias against the King’s English.
Where does Nachimson get the idea that Hushbeck has a “prejudicial bias against the King’s English.” Apparently he just felt the need to make up an insult. Of course I don’t have such a bias either, and yet I don’t speak “the King’s English” in daily life, I don’t preach in it, and I don’t need to use a Bible written in it. Nachimson gets the idea that others have such a bias because he has a completely irrational bias in favor of the English of the KJV, and thus any balanced perspective, such as one that approves such language in its place, appears to be a bias against it.
Nevertheless, Hushbeck’s real problem is his ignorance of Greek grammar. Here I shall quote, “A Grammar of New Testament Greek,” by James Hope Moulton, Vol. III-Syntax, by Nigel Turner, pg. 225-226:
“There is therefore not surprisingly some confusion of monos with the adv. monon: Mk 6:8- meden ei me rhabdon monon (D monen); Acts 11:19- medeni ei me monon (D monois) Ioudaiois; Heb. 12:26 OT seiso ou monon ten gen, alla kai…; 2 Tim. 4:8; I Jn 5:6- ouk en to hudati monon (B mono). In Jn 5:44 monou is best TAKEN ADVERBIAL; not from him who alone is God, but only from God (Jewish monotheism was unimpeachable; Jesus was referring to their love of human praise), IN SPITE OF THE WORD ORDER. Lk 5:21 adv. monos.”
But what is the argument in favor of taking this adverbially? Surely Nachimson is not suggesting that we should take whatever view of any passage that Moulton, or Turner who wrote the volume in question, took. If so, then we can surely destroy the KJV Only position using such authority. There is, in fact, no argumentation provided in favor of this position at all. We see here an illustration of the KJV Only method. Those quotes from grammarians which appear to support their position are authoritative, and all others are not.
The fact is that there is excellent reason to read this passage precisely as it is written and to take the term adjectivally. Of the modern versions, I found only one, the NLT uses the term adverbially. Now I want to emphasize that the simple fact that all these translations take the term adjectivally doesn’t make it so. But it does make Nachimson’s claim that Husbheck is ignorant of Greek grammar rather silly. While he tries to focus an attack on just one person he’s really saying that all of these people did not make a translational choice, but rather that they are all ignorant of Greek grammar.
It would do the reader good to examine the passage mentioned by Nigel Turner; Luke 5:21. This passage states:
“And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, Who is this which speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone?”
In this passage in Luke you have a similar set-up, where the discussion is centered around something ONLY GOD CAN DO! There was never any question about monotheism! Such are the devious of ways of amateur Bible critics who fool around with Greek New Testaments. It is like a toddler trying to handle a 9mm pistol. Nevertheless, in Greek, the last phrase of Luke 5:21 appear as thus:
“… ei me monos ho theos;” – Lit. “Except only God?” Hence the Greek indicative “ei,” and the Greek subjunctive particle “me,” together form and idiom that means, “except/unless.” However, in this case better English is “but.” However, the point is, you have the adjective “monos” functioning as an ADVERB just like John 5:44 even those the sentence structure is different. The point is still the same because both contexts are discussing entities that are limited to God’s discretion.
But what Nachimson misses, while busily accusing others of ignorance, is the simple fact that the syntax of these two passages is different. The probability that “monos” is an adverb in Luke 5:21 is much higher than in John 5:44. The fact that there are similarities in the context does not mean that the point must be the same. Note in addition that it is the Pharisees talking in Luke 5:21.
I now omit some paragraphs quote Daniel B. Wallace on the use of adjectives adverbially in Greek. You can again go back to the referenced article to read this if you wish, but this is a point that was never in dispute.
Therefore, it is evident that based upon the context of John 5, and the clear fact that adjectives (even if in the attributive position in a prepositional phrase) can function adverbially to form a more idiomatic structure in the English translation.
The KJV only method continues. First, Nachimson provided a substantial amount of evidence to support an idea that was never in dispute (adjectives can be used adverbially in Greek), and now he claims that he has proven something else–namely that one should take this particular instance of an adjective adverbially. There is a key difference between the examples given and John 5:44. In John 5:44 the adjective is in the attributive position, while in all the other examples, either it is not, or there is some other syntactic indication that one should take the adjective adverbially. Assuming Nachimson quoted Turner correctly, and I don’t have that volume at hand to check, I would simply have to disagree with him that one should take “monos” adverbially in John 5:44
But second, Nachimson goes on to suggest that we are taking “monos” adverbially in order to “form a more idiomatic structure in the English translation.” Does Nachimson have any comprehension of translation theory at all? If it should be taken adverbially at all, it would be because that was the intent of the Greek of this passage, not to make the English more idiomatic. We try to make the English as idiomatic as possible so that people who read it in English understand the intent.
Thus, the A.V. 1611 preserves the better reading “that cometh from God only?” instead of, “that comes from the only God?” in the modern translational perversions.
And there’s that typical KJV only quote. At the most Nachimson has demonstrated that one might, were one so inclined, justify the possibility of an adverbial translation. He hasn’t even begun to demonstrate that it is the best one, nor to provide any evidence that taking “monos” adjectivally here is a “perversion.”
POINT: LEAVE JOHN 5:44 AS IT STANDS IN THE A.V. 1611 AND LEARN SOME MORE DETAILS ABOUT GREEK GRAMMAR AND CHAPTER CONTEXTS BEFORE YOU MESS WITH THE GREATEST BOOK IN THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
. . . and point refuted. It is Nachimson who lacks an adequte knowledge to cogently argue his point, thus he is left arguing something else, and then hoping we won’t notice his sleight of hand as he claims to have proven his original point.
Now that we’ve looked at various critical issues about this passage, and I’ve discussed the dangers and difficulties involved with Biblical criticism, I’d like to summarize some of the things we can learn by examining the passage critically.
We have identified a number of elements in the passage that have been strung together to form a whole, overall message. If we read the passage through without carefully looking for the various sections and the various breaks between sections, we might try to pull the entire thing into a single theme. You can try this as a study experiment for yourself if you like. Try to make a coherent outline of these four chapters that organize the subject matter coherently in the sense, for example, that you might organize a college research paper.
What you’ll notice is that it is very difficult to find any coherent timeline, or to find any good geographical or historical “hooks.” In the previous chapters, especially 13-23, there are numerous references to historical events, locations, and people, and it is normally fairly easy to date a particular oracle and tie it to some particular set of events. These identifications are not without controversy, but there are at least some facts to deal with.
In chapters 24-27 in contrast, there is very little. But if you look at the passages they all deal with material that is somehow related to the end of the age, to God’s judgment on the whole world. That is why this passage is often called an apocalypse, as it deals with material similar to that of Daniel, Revelation, and some of the other apocalyptic literature. But it differs both in that it does not have the same symbolism, and again because it does not tie easily to specific historical events.
Some commentators, as I have noted before, simply think this passage is incoherent. But let me suggest another option. Our author has taken a variety of elements, including hymns of praise, oracles of judgment, and promises of victory, and has strung them together. (To see my previous comments on this passage, start with my entry Isaiah 24-27 – Overview.) This seems to offend our sense of order. Surely a prophecy should be more coherent!
But will the end times be all that coherent? I’m often struck by the extreme order of prophetic timelines presented by many preachers. The end of the world will happen on a precise, easily perceived schedule. If you follow the particular preacher’s interpretation you will be OK, because you will know what is going to happen. But times of God’s judgment and of his redemption, such as the time of the exile to Babylon and the restoration under Cyrus and his successors often does not work in that coherent of a fashion.
I think that rather than being incoherent or accidental, these chapters portray the feeling of being in the midst of the end times. There will be times when it seems victory is in sight, and we will sing songs of praise. There will be times when it will seem that all is dark. There will be times to recite the oracles of judgment: God will deal with the wicked. At other times we will need to remember promises of praise. (Please note that I am not a pre-tribulationist, in case you couldn’t tell!)
Isaiah 24-27 presents an excellent picture of that time, and if you read it out loud, and let the changes of attitude sweep over you, you may come to better understand some of the nature of living in a time when God is coming both in judgment and in redemption.
[This conludes my series of blog entries on Biblical criticism. There is obviously much more that could be said, but I have to draw a line somewhere. I mentioned in an earlier post that I might post some on critical issues in the book of Daniel, and I probably will, but I will do so over on the Participatory Bible Study blog.]
In a previous entry I discussed the inspiration of the Bible in response to the Together for the Gospel statement, Article I. Since I disagreed almost entirely with that article, and Article II also deals with the Bible, it is no surprise that I find much to disagree with in this second statement as well.
Article II says:
We affirm that the authority and sufficiency of Scripture extends to the entire Bible, and therefore that the Bible is our final authority for all doctrine and practice.
We deny that any portion of the Bible is to be used in an effort to deny the truthfulness or trustworthiness of any other portion. We further deny any effort to identify a canon within the canon or, for example, to set the words of Jesus against the writings of Paul.
I agree that the authority and sufficiency (whatever that means) of scripture extends to all of scripture, but for reasons I have previously stated, I do not agree that the Bible is our sole source of doctrine. The key to this article, however, comes in the denials, which show that it is intended to respond to the idea of a “personal canon” or a “canon within a canon.” Now I think the notion of a “personal canon” is logically questionable. A “canon” is a set of writings held by a community to be authoritative in some formal sense, such as church law. Thus a “personal canon” can be held to be oxymoronic. But there is a very practical point that is intended by the term; individuals build their spiritual life with different emphases on different portions of the scripture.
As an example, other than the gospels, which I regard as central, I spend more time on the average reading the Pentateuch from the Old Testament and the general epistles, especially Hebrews from the New Testament. My wife tends to read more of the Psalms, some prophets, and her New testament reading other than the gospels generally comes from Paul’s less theological letters such as 1 & 2 Corinthians. But neither of us would deny that what the other is reading is inspired. This is a sort of “practical” canon within a canon.
But I agree with the statement here to the extent that someone who defines a separate canon while denying the inspiration of other writings separates himself to some extent from the community. When the “canon within a canon” becomes more than a practical choice for my own spiritual walk and I start denigrating the authority of other scriptures for other people, then there is a cause for concern.
But setting the words of Jesus against the words of Paul is another matter. First, there is the simple point that God chose to give the scriptures through different writers at different times and in different places. There is evidence of these differences in the writings. I believe a greater danger is the homogenizing of these differences that God put into scripture. It is not honoring scripture, or the God of scripture, to pretend that it is not constructed the way it is.
But more importantly, this phrase is a code-word for those who build a theology out of Paul’s writings and use it as a basis to ignore the words of Jesus. Jesus talks about holiness of life and obeying the law; Paul speaks against the law. It is essential to their theology to keep people from setting the words of Jesus against their interpretation of Paul. It is common in discussion or in theological writings for them to use the words of Jesus and Paul equally because both, they say, are inspired.
But to truly honor scripture, one must note that Paul’s words were written to a different audience than were those of Jesus. If one takes the differences seriously, then one will have to deal with what Jesus says brings salvation, and what Paul says brings salvation. One will need to deal with issues of behavior and holiness. When you homogenize scripture, on the grounds that it all comes from God, you immediately lose these nuances, and will form a theology that may be more systematic, but is less faithful to the experience of God reflected in scripture.
In addition, those who form theology from Paul in this way tend to form their theology largely from the more theological books of Romans and Galatians, and particularly from the parts where Paul expresses his theological foundation. But salvation is also discussed in 1 Corinthians, with much less theology and much more practical application, and in both Romans and Galatians, when Paul gets down to application, he sounds much more like Jesus. One possibility that must be examined here is that modern readers have misunderstood Paul’s basic theology and its application, and may need to check their application against Paul’s.
For example, the conclusion of some that one can be saved without the fruit of faith is clearly challenged starting with Galatians 5. Theologians have found many ways to work around this, but all of these ignore some aspect of the text. (I apologize for making broad statements with little support, but I’m trying to work through this in a reasonable amount of time. I have discussed a good deal of this material in my essay A Fruitful Faith.)
Thus while I have some agreement on the point of a canon within a canon, I must reject what I believe is the real thrust of this statement. One cannot simply combine texts from Jesus, Paul, and other writers on the basis that all come from God. One must understand the overall view of each one and then see how they mesh. One must not limit what Jesus can say based on what he must be saying because of some theological principle gleaned from Paul.
Let me also repeat one last time: If you are a Christian who believes the incarnation, you must logically believe that Jesus is more important than any other person, whether a writer of scripture or not. Jesus is central.
Now that we’ve looked over the text and found a set of transitions in it, we can start looking at how critical methologies will apply to this material. Will they help us interpret and apply the passage?
This is a moment to look at some of the reasons I’ve been writing this series. Frequently, Bible students are confronted with the results of critical scholarship, but with very little support, documentation, and reasonsing provided to help them determine whether they should accept a particular critical position or not. On the other hand, they will often see denials of the results of criticism with equally little background provided. One can’t avoid the types of questions that Biblical criticism asks, even though one can have widely varying positions on the answers. Whatever commentary or study Bible you choose, there will be statements about the date of writing, the authorship, and the historical and cultural circumstances of the book.
What do you do when one set of notes tells you that the gospel of Mark was written around 45 CE, while another says it was written between 70 and 80 CE? In relation to our particular exercise, what do you do when one source tells you that Isaiah was written by a single author in the 7th century BCE, while another says it has at least three authors dating from the 7th century to the 4th century BCE? Again narrowing in on Isaiah 24-27, how do you respond when one source says this is a scattered collection of unrelated sayings that has obviously suffered in editing and transmission, while another tells you that this passage is a coherent whole with a single theme carefully presented?
You can, as some people do, take the word of the scholar who is most similar to your theological viewpoint, you could throw up your hands and say, “Nobody knows!” or you can dig in and ask a simple question: How do each of these scholars know what they claim to know? That is the purpose of delving into critical methology. How does someone come to any of these conclusions?
Let’s think briefly about the gospel of Mark. There are two major areas of disagreement that alter the way scholars date Mark. The first is their solution to the synoptic problem. If someone believes that Mark is one of the sources for Matthew and Luke, he will clearly have to date it before Matthew and Luke. The second major issue is found in the relationship of the text to the destruction of Jerusalem. This is not only an issue of whether predictive prophecy is possible, but also whether the text of Mark reflects a situation in which the temple has been destroyed or not. Based on these criteria, you’ll find that more conservative scholars who believe that Mark was written first tend to date Mark very early. More liberal scholars tend to date Mark a bit later, even if they believe Mark was written first. Conservative scholars who believe Matthew wrote first tend to date Mark a bit later, though often still before the destruction of Jerusalem. (This can get tricky depending on how one dates Matthew.) Some scholars who are moderate or liberal believe Matthew was written first, and this results in a very late date for Mark, since in general the same scholars would date Matthew shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem. If you look carefully in each introduction to Mark, you will probably find the reasons even though they may not be clearly set out for you.
In the case of Isaiah, we don’t have an issue of copying, except in a small number of cases. We have two categories of issues: 1) That some portions of Isaiah are written presuming Assyria to be the main enemy, 2) that some portions are written assuming Babylon to be the main enemy, 3) that Cyrus is specifically named as a deliverer (which even some who like a 7th century date in general find a little hard to accept), and 4) that there are also passages that appear to apply to a time of rebuilding. This is not the time to evaluate all those issues in detail, but you should be aware of them. The deutero- and trito-Isaiah theories are based on an analysis of the text itself, along with a small number of external references. You need to consider the details about the text in order to express a valid and convincing opinion on the topic.
As we start on Isaiah 24-27, I want to call your attention to a couple of my own experiences in studying other books. I did a full quarter independent study in college on Ezekiel’s call vision (Ezekiel 1). One commentary guts the call vision of repetitions and things that seem not to fit into a coherent description of the vision. As I read this commentary (see the paper for more details), I began to ask myself whether the original report of the call vision would, in fact, have had the characteristics of brevity, organization, and clarity that this commentator supposed it would have? I decided that this was unlikely. A vision, after all, is not an ordinary experience. One might be slightly incoherent in describing the vision. By making the chapter more organized, that commentator was, in fact, losing the feeling of excitement and awe, along with the difficulty of describing a vision of this nature. I encountered the same thing using R. H. Charles’s commentary on Revelation in the ICC series. Charles rearranges the last chapters of Revelation because he thinks they are so horribly disarranged. He even suggests the following:
. . . John died either as a martyr or by a natural death, when he had completed i.-xx. 3 of his work, and that the materials for its completion, which were for the most part ready in a series of independent documents, were put together by a faithful but unintelligent disciple in the order which he thought right. (Charles, Revelation Vol II, p. 147)
Again we have to ask whether the order that the modern student thought right is the order that would have appeared right to the original author.
The assumption behind the interpretation of the passages I cited (Ezekiel 1, Rev. 20:4-22) is simply that a description of an end time vision should be clear, orderly, and in perfect sequence. The problem I have with this assumption is that there don’t seem to be any examples in scripture of such a clean, orderly work that would allow us to conclude that this was the “normal” form for such a vision report. The apocalyptic speeches of Jesus are more orderly, though not much more forthcoming with the data, than these, but it isn’t the report of a vision. A similar assumption has been made about Isaiah 24-27.
If you did your own outline of these four chapters, showing transition points, take a look at it again. If not, use the one I did earlier in this series, and then read the passage again. What kind of feeling do these chapters give you? Is it necessarily true that in a time of crisis, however resolved, we would feel a clean sequence of events, or would we have a slower transition?
Each of the “forms” we identified (though I used ad hoc names, rather than those you will find in many commentaries) contributes to the feeling of these chapters. We can use form criticism, identifying a passage as a hymn or a prayer, for example, to help us understand the pieces, but they form a portion of the word picture that the author is painting. They come from different places and situations, but they are combined into one theme.
In my next entry I’ll look a bit more at the theme and how it is brought together, and we’ll use a little bit of methodology from redaction criticism. While some scholars do try some source criticism on this passage, generally theories that combine some of the elements into sources prior to the final composition generally rely on extremely thin evidence, and I am unconvinced that such sources can be identified. The best picture of authorship, in my view, is that a single author takes elements from worship, devotional life, existing literature, and his own visions and compositions, and combines them into a passage heralding God’s final victory. The elements may look scattered to us, but that is largely because we come with the wrong questions, asking what historical events are in view, what is the sequence of age-ending events pictured, and so forth, when the author is answering the question of what it will be like when YHWH makes his final intervention in human history.
