Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: Hebrews

  • Hebrews: Authorship and 6:1-8

    Thomas Hudgins links to a post in which someone supports Luke as the author of Hebrews. The post to which he links indeed supports Luke, but I find a number of other things somewhat more interesting. The topic is Hebrews 6:1-8, one of the more controversial passages in scripture, and the title is An Enduring Call for Christian Maturity: An Exegesis of Hebrews 6:1-8. I find the suggestion of Luke as the author of Hebrews quite plausible, though I remain agnostic on the subject, but I found a great deal to disagree with in the exegesis. I need to write something more detailed on this topic. My disagreement shouldn’t be too surprising, as I come at this from the Arminian perspective. I hope, however, that I am also faithful to the text of Hebrews.

    On the other hand, the more I have looked at this passage, the more I have begun to think that the term that ties this passage to the previous (and Chilton rightly starts with Hebrews 5:11 which gives clear indication of moving forward), is the various forms/cognates of the word teleios, a verbal form being found in 5:9, referring to the completion of perfection of Jesus, particularly, as verse 10 notes, leading up to Jesus as the Melchizedek figure, which will be the focus of chapter 7.

    Contrary to my Wesleyan roots, I’m thinking less and less that the perfection/maturity involved is so much that of the believer as what the believer is brought into in Christ. I agree with Dave Black (you can find some of his comments in his blog archives; search for Hebrews 6) that we should allow the passive force of the verb, “be carried along” to come forth in translation. Now in the overall message of Hebrews, this does mean that something is accomplished in the believer’s life, but the believer’s activity is to continue to be carried.

    As I said, I would like to discuss this further, but I don’t have time this afternoon. In fact, I will doubtless spend many more days working with this passage. In the meantime, despite my disagreement on some points, I really appreciate seeing such thorough analysis of this passage. It’s often neglected.

  • Follow-Up on According to John: Theological Development and Determining Date and Authorship

    In my Google Hangout discussion I mentioned using the development of theological concepts in dating a particular writing. I don’t think I really covered the issue involved all that well, so I’m going to follow up briefly here. My purpose is not to argue any particular position, but to illustrate the issues.

    If I might start from a slightly broader approach, one of the ways in which one dates a particular writing is by looking at things in it that connect to events outside of it. Hopefully some of those things outside of it can be dated more precisely than the writing itself. In all cases, one should be aware that no single element provides an absolute answer. One normally gathers a set of arguments and searches for the best possible explanation of all the data. Often people reject an argument as weak when it is not intended to stand alone at all, but rather is just suggestive. It has to be combined with other data.

    To take an example from the Hebrew scriptures, the destruction of Samaria (722-721 BCE) is described both in 2 Kings and in Assyrian records. We can get quite precise dating from the Assyrian records, while we only have relative dating from Kings. We can tie the events together with a high degree of accuracy because the event is described in both.

    Narrowing it down a bit, consider both the authorship and dating of the pastoral epistles, Titus and 1 & 2 Timothy. Many scholars believe that these were written by someone in Paul’s name after Paul had died. Note here how authorship and dating interact. If Paul wrote the pastoral epistles they must date no later than the early 60s CE, since Paul dies in that period. He is unlikely to be producing new epistles after his death! Here, however, it works the other way. If it isn’t Paul that wrote them, then it is likely they were written after Paul’s death. Nobody is likely to be sending around letters claiming to be from Paul while Paul was still alive, at least not without inviting scandal.

    But why the later date? One argument relates to church history. Some would hold that the church organization displayed in the pastoral epistles is too advanced to reflect the time of Paul. In a sense, then, the later writer would be using Paul’s name to bless these developments in church organization. I’m not going to try to argue this one way or the other as that’s not my purpose. What I do want to point out is that this form of dating requires two things: 1) A correct reading of the level of church organization reflected in the epistle, and 2) An accurate assessment of the development of church organization.

    Regarding the first, let’s consider the Greek word episkopos. When you see this word in the pastoral epistles how do you understand it and translate it? How do you see it’s relation to the diakonos? Is it bishops and priests, or perhaps a more informal general overseer and local minister? What is the role and authority of those making the appointments. I’m not an expert on any of this. What I will point out is that people see these terms and the discussion of church leadership in the pastoral epistles differently. This will impact any decision on dating that relates to the development of church organization.

    Regarding the second, one has to determine just how church structure developed. This is a task for a church historian who will look both at the New Testament evidence, and the evidence of the early church fathers as they either reflect or describe the church organization that exists at that point.

    Now remember that each argument need not be decisive. Far from it. There will be many minor indicators and many indicators that could be argued either way.

    I referenced one in my discussion, the dating of Hebrews, and my difference of opinion with my friend (and Energion author), Elgin Hushbeck, Jr. One of the most important datable events of the first century of church history is the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Now, Elgin and I differ on the probable dating of the book of Hebrews. First, note that if the author of Hebrews is Paul (ably argued by David Alan Black in The Authorship of Hebrews: The Case for Paul), then it must be dated no later than the early 60s CE. Why? See above on Paul’s death.

    But the particular point that I mention here is that Elgin and I take the same piece of evidence and see a different result. I see the author of Hebrews building his entire argument on the tabernacle in the wilderness, and thus see the destruction of the temple (not in existence at the historical time our author is referencing) as much less relevant. In fact, one might argue that the author uses the tabernacle because the temple was no longer in existence. But Elgin argues that one could hardly make this argument after the destruction of the temple without mentioning that event. And as much as I may hate admitting it, he does have a point. So the evidence weighs lightly in this case.

    But now we finally get down to the issue at hand, which is dating based on theological development. This is akin to dating the pastoral epistles based on church organization but each element of the argument becomes harder. Let’s consider the case of christology. I would argue a high christology for the gospel of John. The Word was God. The Word became flesh. Case closed. Well, not quite as easily as all that, but I’d come back to those two points after arguing other interpretations.

    To date a writing in this way requires one to both read the theology of the writing in question correctly and also to have a well calibrated idea of the way in which theology developed. If you move into later times, you can look at whether a writer argues for or against gnostic positions, and just what gnostic positions are reflected. I parallel John 1:1-18 to the thought developed in Hebrews 1:1 – 4:13. In both cases we have the message presented through Jesus (a Son/the Word) placed against the message presented by Moses, with superiority attributed to the message through the Son. I would argue that the christology of Hebrews 1:1-3 is as high as the christology in John. If I then date Hebrews to the decade or so following the destruction of Jerusalem, some would say that the christology is questionable at that point. Most interpreters since the time of the reformation, for example, have interpreted the term “Word of God” in Hebrews 4:12 as referring to the scriptures and not to the person of Jesus.

    If we turn to Elgin’s dating, which is earlier, then his reading of Hebrews as high christology (as he does) means that a high christology and the associated vocabulary would be available much earlier. I refer to Elgin because he’s a friend. There are plenty of scholars who would hold either the position I do or that he does. Elgin and I hope to arrange a discussion of this between us, not so that one of us can win, but so that we can clarify the way these arguments are formulated and help readers make their own decisions. This particular type of argument is one of the weakest. I’m not arguing that it’s not worth doing, but it requires a broad knowledge and very careful work to make successfully.

    A reverse effect is also possible. One might find a way to read Hebrews as having a lower christology, simply present Jesus as the Son of God, because one assumes due to date that this is the way it should be read. In doing this sort of work, one should always be very conscious of one’s own biases.

    My point in going through all of this is to help readers get an idea of how to read introductions to Bible books, especially when those introductions differ. There are massive differences in dating given for portions of the New Testament. Matthew, for example, might be dated all the way from the 40s to the late 80s. Luke is often dated in the mid-80s, but there’s an interesting piece of internal evidence that suggests an earlier date. Acts ends before the death of Paul. One explanation for this is that the book was written before Paul died. There are other explanations; never imagine that a debate such as this is settled in one line! In addition, Luke was written before Acts (relative dating is important!), and so Luke must have been written before the mid 60s because it must have been written before Acts. But if there’s a good reason for Paul’s death to be left out of Acts, other than that it hadn’t happened yet, all this might change!

    Knowing how these arguments are formulated will help you read introductions intelligently.

  • How and Why Ezekiel, Hebrews, and Leviticus Shaped My Theology (Briefly!)

    In a comment, Steve Kindle asks:

    … in regards to your formative books, Hebrews, Ezekiel, and Leviticus, is it because you see Hebrews as teaching substitutionary atonement that springs from Leviticus? And Ezekiel foresees a renewed covenant that Hebrews embellishes? Just wondering.

    The briefest answer would be “no.” But leaving it at that would be rude, or at least would appear rude to me.

    My view of the atonement does not center on the substitutionary view, nor on the even more specific penal substitutionary view. This annoys one set of my friends, and perhaps an enemy or two. To annoy the rest, I must emphasize that I do not deny substitutionary atonement. I believe it is one way in which Scripture talks about atonement, though I don’t see the strong courtroom sense of the modern PSA in Scripture. What I actually believe is that there are many metaphors in in Scripture for God saving us from sin and death, and that each of these enlightens us in some way. Each of them, however, if made the sole metaphor, will also tend to lead us into various forms of imbalance.

    While the substitutionary view of atonement does occur in Hebrews, substitution itself is not in focus. Similarly, I do not get such views of substitution as I do have from Leviticus. The most famous quote on this is Leviticus 17:11, quoted at Hebrews 9:22, but if this is made to carry the weight Christians often make it carry, it will actually produce a contradiction in Leviticus, and the ransom theory/metaphor, one which fits the text of Leviticus more closely, works quite well in Hebrews.

    So having eliminated substitution as the formative view, what exactly did lead me to take these three books so seriously. I must admit that the key reason is simply that I chose to study them. I had no idea what I was getting into, but elements of the books fascinated me. But in fact some common themes became very much formative for me.

    Once I got started on Ezekiel, however, the key issue because the presence of the glory of God. There are interesting movements of God’s glory throughout the book, and they produce some quite interesting ideas. My first question was why we have a vision of God’s glory in Babylon in the first chapter, then we see the glory leaving the temple in Jerusalem in the 8th and 9th chapters, and finally it returns to Jerusalem in the 43rd chapter. The illogic on the surface of the first chapter led one commentator, whose name I forget though Eichrodt comes to mind, to suggest that the first chapter was moved by a later editor. Obviously God’s glory couldn’t appear in Babylon before it left Jerusalem.

    But on thinking a bit further I came to believe that was precisely the point. God’s glory was not restricted to the land of Israel. God was able to act anywhere. At the same time as God was able to act anywhere God has not rejected Israel either, so we see the glory return to the temple and life flow from the temple later in the book. In its very structure, Ezekiel looks forward to the blessing of the entire world in fulfilment of the promise to Abraham. Chapters 8 & 9 also make clear, however, that one cannot behave however one wishes and still expect God’s glory to remain and bless. So we see the withdrawal of God’s glory in those chapters along with the condemnation of all who do not sigh and cry for the abominations in the land (9:4).

    External to the three books I would point out that this “presence/absence of God” idea stuck with me. You’ll see it in Torah in wilderness, and you see that the presence of God is not necessarily safe, but is much to be desired. But the whole ceremonial system, as I was taught to call it, didn’t seem to make sense. In fact, the problem was that I heard about it almost exclusively as substitutionary sacrifice for sin. What I, as a Christian, was supposed to know was that lambs (little, cute, wooly lambs in Sunday School terms) were killed because of how awful people’s sins were, and this had pointed to Jesus dying as the lamb of God. Now I in no way want to diminish the view of Jesus as the lamb of God, and especially the application of that we see with the lion/lamb metaphor in Revelation 4-5. But why is there this huge body of literature starting in the latter portion of Exodus and going through numbers, with a few points in Deuteronomy? So from there I started my study of Leviticus.

    I began to see a much broader sense of the ceremonial law, how many of the things taught by the prophets were foreshadowed in liturgical form. These include a priestly teaching of the doctrine of repentance, a repeated turn away from ritual as powerful in itself, and a drive to learn to distinguish holy and unholy, not to simply avoid the unholy, but to become holy, to increase the bounds of the holy. God told the Israelites to be holy because he is holy. A simple yet extremely daunting command.

    My wife said that during this study I would come away from my personal devotion time detached, as though I had been in an extraordinary time of spiritual experience. All I can say is that I would love to write a study guide for Leviticus with the intention of drawing more Christians into that story, but that I feel utterly inadequate to the task. In my study I would read the text in Hebrew, then in the LXX, and finally in an English translation before going to Milgrom’s commentary. It takes hard work to get even a good start on this material, but I consider it well worthwhile, in fact, the most worthwhile year of personal devotions I have engaged in.

    And that turns me back to Hebrews, where I see Hebrews 6 as the center of the book’s message, but if you step back right before, one of the characteristics of mature Christianity is having one’s faculties trained by practice to discern good from evil, a close parallel to Leviticus. I think it is also closely aligned in goal, i.e., this training of the faculties is part of the endurance, staying on the track. And note that I don’t think this contradicts it being a gift from God. The Torah is also a gift from God, and it was instruction. It’s purpose was to train.

    If I could summarize, I get from this that my faith is to be an active faith, an active seeking of the presence of God, a life of practice. We are changed and transformed by looking, by finding, by discerning (2 Corinthians 3:18). That is the key element of theology that I get from Ezekiel, Hebrews, and Leviticus, and I think it shapes all else.

     

  • Yet More Hebrews and Old Testament-New Testament Continuity

    One of the things I love about both blogging and publishing is the number of interesting and capable people I get to interact with. It’s something I’ve missed since graduate school days—the opportunity to run my ideas up against people who can really challenge them.

    Dave Black has written some commentary on this matter of continuity between the Old and New Testaments. I’ve extracted the relevant entry from his blog and reposted it to JesusParadigm.com. (For those who don’t know, Dave’s blog doesn’t provide a way to link to a particular entry.) If you haven’t, read Dave’s notes. There is a great deal there. I intend to respond to the matter of who I publish over on the Energion Publications blog. (I’ll add a link here once I’ve done that.)

    I think Dave and I are quite close to agreement, though I do think we have some difference of emphasis. Perhaps his is a more radical approach, and I think the parallel to ecclesiology and the Anabaptist movement as opposed to the more traditional reformers. In fact, labeling them “more traditional” may summarize the whole issue. This does not, of course, tell us who is right. I think my difference with Dave here would be that I allow for more variation for time, place, and culture. I think that is in one sense a minor difference, but not truly insignificant.

    The problem with radical reformation is that it may get derailed in practice. As I read Scripture, God has always led his people with some consideration for their starting point. I’ll say a bit more on this in a later paragraph regarding the study of Torah. So the perfect, or even the “better” becomes the enemy of the good. I see this in my own church. I can look from one angle and say, “There is so much wrong with this church.” (Some might note as a problem that it has Henry Neufeld as a member!) But if I look from another angle, there is so much that is going right in the church, including the fact that the gospel is being preached there regularly. What do I want to reform and when do I want to reform it? Of course, the reality is that I have very little to say on that. The pastoral staff and the church council do most of that work, and I’m involved in neither group.

    But there is a problem with the “gradual change” folks as well, and I think the reformation provides examples of this. Gradual change often becomes stagnation. We don’t become more Christlike on a continuing basis, but instead become, in our own eyes, more Christ-like than our neighbors and then hang out there, or even begin deteriorating from that point. I think that if you look at the energy and focus of the Methodist movement during John Wesley’s lifetime and then at the United Methodist Church now, you don’t see progress.

    But how does this relate to the Old Testament/New Testament continuity or discontinuity?

    To steal a phrase from Paul: Much in every way!

    I see the progress from the Old Testament to the New as one of moving to the next chapter of a book, one that we, as Christians, see as the climactic chapter. So there is a substantive change as we enter into the final phase, the solution of the whole mystery, the resolution of the conflict. That is very different. But at the same time, we should not say that previous chapters were bad because they weren’t providing the whole solution. Rather, those chapters led up to the final chapter. They provided the clues. They provided the background. the seeds of the conclusion were planted there.

    The priesthood of all believers, for example, is foreshadowed in Exodus 19:6, but it is a strong New Testament concept. The latter verses of Exodus 20 (after the giving of the 10 commandments) tell us something of why. The people were afraid and didn’t want god speaking directly to them. There was comfort in having Moses and Aaron handle that part for them. There was comfort in having a priesthood. I suspect that the priesthood of all believers frightens us now for the same reason. We share the same human failings as the people around Mt. Sinai. We’d like something solid and comfortable that doesn’t tell us things that are upsetting. They turned to the golden calf. We turn to our denominational structures. “We’re Methodists,” I’m told, “We don’t do things like that.” It’s the same avoidance.

    Hebrews uses Jeremiah 31:31-34 which foreshadows the same idea. From looking at these texts in their place in the story, I began to see certain of the texts not as a destination, so much as a road map leading forward. The author of Hebrews taps into that road map and proposes to draw the path forward and say something about the destination. But everyone knowing the Lord is something that looks good on paper, or when spoken by the prophet. Just don’t make anyone implement it. Or is it not the same attitude that is displayed when someone says, “Please just tell me what this means! Don’t go into all those details!”

    There is a tendency to think of the professional class of pastors keeping the people away from their priesthood. And there are doubtless times and places where that is what’s going on. But I see more of a refusal to take that much responsibility for our own souls, our own calling, and our own decision making. Because of the priesthood of all believers the failings of the church are my failings. I do not get to blame this on others. Jesus has called me. I do not have permission to blame it on the paid pastor.

    But God’s ideal for Israel, expressed in many of the very passages quoted in Hebrews, was the same. It was for all to know God for themselves. This is one of the things I have learned in studying about what Christians call the “ceremonial law.” It was a teaching tool. It was not God’s intention to leave the priesthood in the hands of the few. It was God’s intention to eventually have a nation of priests.

    Is there discontinuity? Yes, but it is the discontinuity of turning back to the ideal, to what God had planned all along. It is radical in the extent to which it is not radical.

    Dave asked how much we differ. I think not that much on the Old Testament/New Testament discontinuity, though I am ready to have this view adjusted. On the nature of reform and how to carry it out, perhaps we differ a bit more.

    I’ll have to write some more about ecclesiology. That might get us to the more serious differences.

     

     

  • Hebrews Backgrounds

    Since I’m revising my Hebrews study guide, and have been for more than a year, I can bring up complaints against the old one. One of the most common complaints was that people had a hard time connecting the background reading to the current passage. I included three reading lists: 1) Minimum reading, 2) Extra reading, and 3) Advanced reading. My normal response to that complaint was to suggest just using the minimum reading, and people generally found that worked. The problem is that sticking with the minimum reading results in diminishing the value of the study. Hebrews is a connected book.

    I could say that about any book of the Bible, in that one can see the canon as a form of story, the story of the people of faith who become the church. I say that not to diminish the Hebrew scriptures, but rather to emphasize that, combined into the Christian Bible and Christian canon, the story extends into the story of the church. Being able to see Bible passages in the context of the broader story is very important. Hebrews, however, is very much about the connections, and thus understanding it is very much about knowing the background. One can, of course, jump in at the end of the story. This is like looking at the last chapter of a mystery to find out who really did the deed without looking at the process by which the characters found out about it.

    Hebrews asks, and I believe answers, the question of how we, as Christians get from being centered on Torah to being centered on the person of Jesus. How do we go from the scriptures of the people of Israel to the message and mission of the church? In these questions lie the avenues to many errors. One of the most critical errors, I think, is to see Hebrews as proposing a massive disjunction between the Old Testament and the New, a view that the Old Testament was superceded because it was bad. This error results from the forward momentum of the book being read as a denial or denigration of the old. In reality, Hebrews does not put aside the Old Testament any more than the reader of a book dismisses a previous chapter because he begins to read a new one. The old chapter wasn’t bad. That’s not why you turned the page. If the previous chapter was bad, you’re more likely putting down the book entirely. (Note: I follow in this post my usual practice of using the term “Hebrew Scriptures” when referring to the books we Christians call the Old Testament as an historical document and “Old Testament” when I’m referencing those same books as part of the Christian Bible. I see these as different views.)

    So when Hebrews starts out talking about how God spoke to our forefathers, this isn’t to say, “Wow, what a lousy mode of communication God used, but now, finally, at the end, God has gotten it right!” Rather, it is to say, “Look at the new thing God is now doing right on time! The foundation is good, so we’ll build on it. But it’s not the whole house.” (I must note that this foundation/house distinction has its own problems. I believe the author of Hebrews sees God’s intention in all of the Old Testament passages he quotes. He’s not saying that God created something new out of whole cloth. The new covenant of Jeremiah 31 is not nearly as new as it looks at first glance. Rather, in this passage God expresses his intention to carry out his plans in spite of human failings. We may fail, but God’s plan continues.

    So in order to understand the book of Hebrews one needs to understand this background. If you read it without knowing the material referenced, you may get the idea that this is intentionally new and surprising, when instead it is designed carefully to be (and look like) a natural next chapter. “See,” the author suggests, “this is what God has been building up to for generations.”

    I’ve said before that the most formative books for my theology have been Hebrews, Ezekiel, and Leviticus in that order. I didn’t actually study them in that order, though I have always been fascinated by Hebrews, but a college independent study working on the first chapter of Ezekiel led to many other things and finally a study through Leviticus using Jacob Milgrom’s wonderful three volume commentary in the Anchor Bible series. So while I could hardly call myself an expert in Torah, I’ve read somewhat more in this area than the average Christian. Working through Leviticus gave me a different view of both Leviticus and Hebrews. The sanctuary system of worship was not really an end in itself, as we so often read it. Rather, it was a means to an end. The details here are well beyond a blog post that is already getting longer than it should!

    Some argue that the author of Hebrews must have been a priest due to his knowledge of, and interest in, the temple service. I would suggest that isn’t the case. The knowledge that is needed to write a book like Hebrews is a strong knowledge of the Old Testament passages in the context of their story. Too frequently we see “reading in context” as a matter of making sure we read the verse (or even chapter!) before and the verse after. That’s important, as single phrases can be taken out of their immediate context.

    But there is also a broad cultural and historical context. When was the passage written? Who wrote it? To whom was it addressed? All of these are questions that help us understand a passage. I would suggest that the author of Hebrews knows his scriptures well and knows the story. When he seems to deviate, as he does in many stories in Hebrews 11 (compare the story of Moses in Exodus to Hebrews 11), he is doing so for a particular purpose. (Hint: I believe it has to do with the “why” of perseverance.)

    In terms of revising the book, I do intend to keep my reading lists, though I’m adding some notes to help draw the lines between the passages. I think it’s important. One of our problems in reading about the Bible is that we are not well enough acquainted with the Bible itself. Thus someone can suggest something that correctly quotes a number of Bible texts, but still misses important points.

    Let me give an example. One of the blogs I read (HT: Arthur Sido) pointed me to an article by Greg Boyd talking about the “eye for an eye” command of the Old Testament being superceded. And there is much of interest to interpretation, I believe, in those “you have heard … but I say” statements in the Sermon on the Mount. In applying particular commands to particular times and circumstances, one must be aware of those circumstances. Now I’ve provided the link so you can decide if I’m being unfair to Boyd, but it seems to me that he applies an out of context judgment to Elijah, and as a result manages to quite vigorously dismiss a great deal of the Old Testament.

    Some questions that need to be answered:

    1) Does “an eye for an eye” or, in fact, any of the “but I say unto you” statements of Jesus apply to Elijah and the prophets of Baal? To me, this looks like applying a command to a situation and a time without any consideration. Reading Matthew 7:1 we might well resist judging our contemporaries for such an act, but we have little hesitation in condemning Elijah with no regard for circumstances or context at all. If you haven’t already, please read at least the second to last paragraph of Boyd’s article. How parallel is the situation of Elijah and that of the disciples who are inconvenienced by having to turn to another village (Luke 9:51-55)? I fail to see here a suggestion of how Jesus viewed Elijah.

    2) Do the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount turn the corner on God’s judgment, i.e. bring us to a point where judgment no longer occurs? Consider, for example, Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11), written by the same hand that recorded Luke 9:54-55. Peaceable scene, isn’t it?

    3) While I believe strongly that we have trajectories in scripture, i.e. we are going somewhere with each statement, so we may see modifications, we need to be sure that the place we’re going is not entirely of our own making. One of the things that happens in Hebrews is that the author sees his destination rolled into the texts he cites. He’s building on something he has read thoroughly.

    4) What about the eschatological sayings of Jesus? Are these also to be dismissed?

    My own response to Greg Boyd’s article is not some sort of revulsion that he suggested an action by Elijah was demonic. Rather, it’s that he pulled so much out of so little with relatively little basis. I’m afraid that it strikes me as inept handling of scripture. I’ve heard so much better, scripturally faithful arguments for non-violence. This is writing your own story in the white spaces without bothering to truly understand the story as you have it.

    Is there a need to respond to violent passages in the Old Testament? Indeed there is! And while we’re at it, let’s respond to a few violent passages in the New Testament as well. But let’s do so by understanding rather than dismissing. I think that’s the pattern Hebrews has set, and it’s a good one.

  • Quick Follow-up on Hebrews 2:6-8

    I commented earlier on the difficult choices involved in translating an Old Testament reference that does not match the Old Testament passage in your own translation.

    Here’s an example from the NIV1984. First, Psalm 8:4-6 –

    what is man that you are mindful of him,
    the son of man that you care for him?

    You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
    and crowned him with glory and honor.

    You made him ruler over the works of your hands,
    you put everything under his feet.

    Now look at this as translated in Hebrews 2:6-8 –

    “What is man that you are mindful of him,
    the son of man that you care for him?

    You made him a little lower than the angels;
    you crowned him with glory and honor
    and put everything under his feet.”

    The key phrase here is “a little lower than the angels.” The usage of this line in Hebrews will reflect an alternate translation of the Greek (LXX), “for a little while lower.” The translation is, I believe, accommodated to the phraseology in the Old Testament. The NASB is pretty open about simply translated the text in front of the committee, and leaving it to commentators to deal with the difference in the text and translation.

    I find this interesting, though not a major issue. It is valuable, however, to understand the approach taken by your translation. I am much more concerned with the attempt by the NIV to “fix” problems through questionable translations, such as the sudden introduction of an unjustified pluperfect at Genesis 2:19, a rendering that survived from the 1984 to the 2011 NIV.

  • CHWRIS or CHARITI in Hebrews 2:9

    I chose to do some reading from Hebrews this morning, but instead of using my NA27 or my UBSIV text, I went to Bible Gateway and read from the SBL text. There I encountered (again) the reading chwris rather than chariti. (I checked out NA28 online and I see it still reads chariti.

    I tend to lean just a bit toward internal evidence over external in textual issues. The reason for this is that I suspect that most variations in the text likely occurred early in the transmission history, where we by nature will have the least evidence for them. In this case, however, I would have to say that one can argue the internal evidence either way. Which text is more difficult? It depends on how you read it. Using chariti seems almost superfluous to the conversation. Some of the explanations for chwris as a marginal gloss seem pretty reasonable. Either reading could cause someone to go for the other. Either can be explained as fitting the text.

    At this point, I think the Nestle-Aland text has it right. The overwhelming external evidence would need to be countered by much stronger internal arguments to convince me that chwris was original.

    I took a quick glance through a few translations that are here within arm’s reach, and found none that accept chwris as their primary text. The NRSV and the REB both mention chwris as an alternative in a footnote.

    What do you think?

  • Some Thoughts on the Christ of Faith after Reading Hebrews

    As most of my readers know, I’ve been working on revising my study guide to Hebrews. At least I keep mentioning it. I’m only about two years overdue on the project. When one deadline or another must be missed I tend to miss mine and work on other people’s stuff.

    So today I was reading in Hebrews, especially the first four verses, and I got to thinking about the distinction between the “historical Jesus” and the “Christ of faith.” There are various words used to make the distinction, and it is not a distinction that is uncontroversial. On the one hand there are those who don’t think the Jesus of history is really accessible in a meaningful way, so if we, as Christians, are going to discuss Jesus at all, it will be as the Christ of faith. There are others who think that the Jesus of history is so well established that there is no need of any distinction at all. There are, of course, many variations on these views.

    I am not one to deny the importance of history, but at the same time I doubt our ability to access it in any absolute fashion. If one studies history, I believe one studies probability, so I would describe the Jesus of history not as a necessarily accurate portrayal of who Jesus was, but rather Jesus as he can be accessed by purely historical methodology. Just how accurate you believe that picture is will depend on how you evaluate the documents we have, not to mention the methodology we use. But for me the Jesus who can be established historically, while important, is not critical in any sort of detail.

    There is, for me, definitely a “Christ of faith.” That is the Jesus in whom I placed my own faith as a nine year old at a church in the mountains of Chiapas, Mexico. I made that confession when I knew little of a Jesus of history or a Christ of faith. I proceeded to encounter Christ personally through washing one another’s feet and through participating in the act of communion. The person whose feet I washed had walked for three days over muddy trails to be at that place at that time. He was laughing the entire time I washed his feet and then he washed mine. It was a friendly laugh. In it, I encountered a Jesus who definitely transcended history. He is one reason why I cannot conceive of an amount of historical reasoning that would actually change my faith at the core. The details of the stuff I believe might change, and indeed they have over the years. But at the core, that is my Christ of faith.

    As I read from Hebrews it occurred to me that while the author of Hebrews builds on history, the Christ he preaches could never be established by historical means. We might make factual statements of all that can be construed as an historical claim, and we would have an extraordinary person by biblical standards (assuming Hebrew scriptures at that point), but that person would not be God, would not be exalted, and would not be the foundation of our faith. All of that is founded on a person, and have no doubt that I believe fully that Jesus came in the flesh, i.e. that God has walked among us and has experienced what we must experience and died. But even a person rising from the dead does not make that person God. There is no set of criteria which a historian could use to say, “This person is God because they meet the criteria.”

    Rather, that is a matter of faith. I don’t believe it merely because I have the witness of the New Testament writers, or their witness to witnesses, as is expressed in the early verses of Hebrews 2. Rather, I can believe Hebrews 2 because of what happened when I was nine years old. That experience matches mine, and the two together, through the power of the Holy Spirit, become my faith.

    I think it is very easy to change one’s views about history. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to change that experience, even if one is distant from it for a time, as I was.

    (Though I formed my view of faith before I read these books, they do elucidate my views, and are both by Edward W. H. Vick: History and Christian Faith, Philosophy for Believers.)

     

  • Link: Elgin Hushbeck on Hebrews

    I’m posting this in the middle of the action, but Energion author Elgin Hushbeck, Jr. is blogging (and teaching) through Hebrews verse by verse. He’s in chapter 10, so follow it back to the beginning first if interested.

  • Prologue to To the Hebrews: Continuity and Reliability

    I’m continuing to read from the commentary on Hebrews by David L. Allen (Hebrews in the New American Commentary). I’m bound to get way ahead in my reading but I want to make a few remarks about the prologue, which both Dr. Allen and I would say goes through verse 4.

    I have written on this before (comments and translation notes), and I haven’t found any reason to alter what I said in those posts on the subject. What I want to discuss here is how the prologue relates to the theme.

    I think the prologue states the theme. We will find at later points in the book that we can refine the particular nature of the situation addressed and the causes of problems that are addressed, but we already have the basic story right here. The author is interested in two major points, I think: continuity and reliability. He states these in terms of God’s relationship to his people.

    Often people get the idea that Hebrews is about discarding the Old Testament. I recall some participants in discussions I have led telling me that it is obvious that he is making the New Testament supersede the Old, or Jesus to supersede all that came before. People can become quite distressed that I do not see such an obvious conclusion. But if you are looking at the structure of the book, you realize that the entire thing falls apart if the author thinks the Old Testament is somehow wiped away. That isn’t the argument at all.

    Rather, a certain view of the Old Testament is wiped away, most particularly the view that it is the scriptures and is the end, or that in the Torah one would find the ultimate revelation of God. Rather than saying that the Torah is flawed, he is saying that God didn’t finish by presenting the Torah. There is a new center point, and that center point is the revelation of God through Jesus. I would also suggest that our author is not here saying that this is a change from what the Old Testament writers themselves would have said. I think he would maintain that he is correcting course, that the idea that the Torah was everything was never correct, but rather than it was always God who was the focus, and that until God became manifest in Jesus, we didn’t have the opportunity to see that particular radiance.

    So now he is putting the focus of all revelation on God, and letting us know that we can receive God’s message, and that we can enter into a relationship with God because that has been made possible through Jesus Christ, the exact representation of who God is. There is no suggestion here that this eliminates all that other revelation; instead it illuminates it.

    So why do I say the structure would fall apart if the author was simply discarding the Old Testament revelation? Surely he can be arguing that the Old Testament was good enough for its time, but now we have something better, and even the Old Testament writers realized they would be superseded. But I disagree. He is not simply aiming at continuity. He is aiming at reliability. Those Old Testament writers were not some kind of failure on God’s part. Rather, they were leading up to the present time (the author’s and ours!) and that chain of connections shows that not only does the revelation continue, but it can be relied upon by us, just as it was relied upon by the patriarchs (and matriarchs, for that matter). But we now have this additional communication and evidence of reliability. God did come through, did send Jesus, did and does still lead us, and will continue to do so until we reach that (to us) coming Mt. Zion.

    One of the refinements of this theme comes in chapter 11 in which we have the patriarchs represented as more faithful than they actually were in the Old Testament text. But in God’s faithfulness they are even more faithful than they would appear to us to be in their story. Well before the time of Jesus, when they were weak, he was strong.

    I’d suggest spending quite some time with this passage. I’ve read it more times than I can recall. I have the entire book of Hebrews recorded on my phone in Greek so I can listen to it in my car. But I always feel tremendously inadequate as these words roll over me and I realize the freight that has been loaded into these few sentences.