Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: Leviticus

  • Leviticus 5:14-6:7

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

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

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

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

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

    The passage also provides the elements of repentance:

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

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

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

    Abbreviations:

    OSB – Orthodox Study Bible

    NISB – New Interpreter’s Study Bible

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

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

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

  • Leviticus 3: Fellowship Offering

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Abbreviations:

    OSB – Orthodox Study Bible

    NISB – New Interpreter’s Study Bible

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

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

  • Leviticus 2 – Offering Food

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Abbreviations:

    OSB – Orthodox Study Bible

    NISB – New Interpreter’s Study Bible

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

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

  • Thoughts on Leviticus 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Abbreviations:

    OSB – Orthodox Study Bible

    NISB – New Interpreter’s Study Bible

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

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

  • Starting Leviticus in the Tyndale Cornerstone Biblical Commentary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Cornerstone Biblical Commentary on Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy: A First Look

    This is a first look, before I have read or used the book extensively.  I have simply looked through it, read the preface and some introductions, and laid out a plan for reading and study using the volume.  I intend to “blog through” rather than simply read and review this volume.  See the end of the post for how I will proceed.

    Those who know me will be completely unsurprised that, when I was given the opportunity to review a volume in this commentary series, I chose this one.  There are two interlocking reasons:  1)  I love studying the Torah from every perspective I can manage, and 2) I believe Christians who neglect this part of the Bible also miss some of the depth of their own theology and tradition.

    Yet few Christians are really interested in Torah, and it is difficult to get them to study it.  So while I have studied from much more complex commentaries on the topic, such as Jacob Milgrom’s three volume commentary on Leviticus (here is my review), I can’t pass those on to Sunday School classes or to pastors I’m encouraging to get started in preaching or teaching from these books.

    Thus I am very much attracted to the basic idea of this commentary series, starting with its use of the NLT second edition text, which is an excellent foundation on which to build a commentary for everyone.  Too frequently commentary translations are done in a technical fashion, designed to illustrate the commentator’s points.  This is not a bad thing for a scholarly audience, or even for those past the first stages of study.  Indeed it is necessary.  But it doesn’t help much with that first study.

    I’m encouraged by the ambitious goal set forth in the General Editor’s preface:  “… the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary aims at helping teachers, pastors, students, and laypeople understand every thought contained in the Bible.”  Yes, it’s ambitious, but it is aimed at the right group of people.  If one doesn’t keep one’s eye on the goal, then one will never get anywhere.

    So how is this volume laid out?

    First, it includes the full scriptural text from the NLT second edition.  That’s a highlight.  I’ve already read that part, though not from this volume.  It is a good translation to use in accomplishing the goals of the commentary.

    Second, it includes notes on textual, translational, and interpretational details.  For example, looking at notes from Leviticus 4:1-5:13, I see explanations of the Hebrew word behind the English translation “commands” along with references.  We’re provided with word numbers in both the Tyndale and the Zondervan numbering system (Kudos to Tyndale for including the latter), along with references to selected works.  There’s a discussion of the phrase “ceremonially clean” and “an offering for their sin” amongst many others.  In scanning through the volume I also saw notes on various textual issues, but written in minimally technical language.

    Finally, there is commentary on the passage as a whole, dealing more with themes, theology, and application.  In the case of Leviticus 4:1-5:13, there is about a page of notes followed by nearly five pages of commentary.  The scriptural text itself occupies very nearly two pages.  This will give you an idea of how space is proportioned.  (The introduction and outline of the book is 10 pages.)

    Overall, the book is 679 pages + 14 pages of front matter.  The main section uses 214 pages for Leviticus, 229 for Numbers, and 236 for Deuteronomy.

    So let’s compare bulk as a sort of “intimidation factor.”  The NLT Study Bible uses 65 pages for the book of Numbers.  The New International Commentary on the Old Testament volume on Numbers uses 667.  I don’t have a good intermediate number on Leviticus, but I would note that Migrom’s commentary is over 2700 pages.  I would say this commentary is well-placed then to draw people beyond the study Bible stage and on to the more serious study.

    As for perspective, the authors (David W. Baker, Dale A. Brueggemann, and Eugene H. Merrill) and editors are all unsurprisingly evangelical, and fairly conservative at that.  I don’t intend to criticize the commentary for its stated perspective.  I will note just how much each author interacts with opposing viewpoints.  In a commentary such as this, there is a balance.  Too much discussion of every idea out there means that one can’t get to the basic work necessary; too little tends to limit the usefulness of the work to broader audiences.

    As I mentioned in the initial note, it is not my intent to read through this book and then publish a review.  Rather, after publishing these initial notes, I am going to use it as my secondary devotional study, after my time spent on the week’s lectionary passages, and then blog about the experience, finally wrapping everything up when I have read the entire volume.  While I will, as always, be studying and comparing with many sources, my primary question in this case will be just how valuable and accessible the material is to someone preparing a Sunday School lesson or a sermon for their congregation that would draw from this material.

    In terms of overall theme, I’ll be asking myself how well the volume will link the theological themes to Christian theology and tradition, and of course ultimately to Christian living.  Then I will rate the book as to how well it accomplished the stated goal I quoted above, with due consideration for how ambitious a goal it is.

    You will be able to follow my study on my Participatory Bible Study blog.  There will be a final wrap-up post here.

  • Sacrifice then and Now

    What meaning is evoked in people’s minds by the word “sacrifice?”  One of the things I like to do when teaching is to simply write a word on the board that is commonly used in Biblical and/or Christian discourse and get people to give me various things that this word means to them.  I try not to specify the context too closely.

    The other day I did this while teaching a bit on the tabernacle service, and its relation to the theme of Hebrews 7-9.  Yes, I know, big subject.  But I started by writing the three words “temple”, “priest”, and “sacrifice.”

    The result was not entirely unexpected, but was instructive.  I’m going to stick with the word “sacrifice.”  The group focused on giving up things for others or for some benefit for oneself.  For example, one person talked about giving up certain things in life in order to pursue an avocation for tennis.  Others talked about sacrificing in order to help the poor.

    It is probably indicative of the group involved that, even though we were in Sunday School class, the “church” meanings did not come up.  When I brought up the idea of sacrifice for sin and the various ways in which that might be understood, people acknowledged it with an “oh yeah.”

    Now this was not a stupid group of people. Far from it.  They were one of the most interactive and constructive groups with whom I have had the privilege to work recently.  But what was uppermost in their minds was not quite entirely unlike a picture of sacrifice in the ancient world, but it was pretty close.

    The idea of offering a sacrifice “to” anyone–God, for example–again did not come up.

    When I have done a similar exercise with more conservative groups I will likely get all the words that relate to sin and atonement, but they will often miss the idea of a sacrifice in order to accomplish something, a simple offering for thankfulness, or the fairly common purification sacrifices.  Those are ideas that are not part of either the liberal or conservative universes.

    So how does one read and/or teach Hebrews in such a context?  First, I consider my use of that exercise completely justified.  I can get an idea of where people are, and then point out the differences and similarities between their view of sacrifice and that of the ancient world.

    Elements that may be missed by various groups include:

    • Any concept of substitution
    • Purification (clean and unclean)
    • Thankfulness
    • Appeasement
    • Magical rituals in which the animal is slaughtered less as a sacrifice and more as a part of the magical ritual.
    • Sacrifice as part of the continuing liturgy.

    There is a difficulty here, I think, in teaching a book like Hebrews without having some exposure to sacrifice, priesthood, and temples in the ancient world.  A good start on that exposure would be to look at the sacrifices as taught in Leviticus especially, but such a process tests the patience of the best of classes.

    I’m not one to maintain that the author of Hebrews was some kind of expert on the Torah.  On the other hand he certainly did have a working acquaintance, at least with the LXX version of it, and he would not necessarily see sacrifice in the same way we do.  In order to get some portion of his perspective, we need to do some reading of that same literature.

    Even simply looking at each of his quotes and perhaps their Old Testament context will be inadequate.  We need somewhat of a picture of how ancient Israelite religion worked, placed in an ancient near eastern context, before we can learn how one New Testament author wanted to change, or better, <em>transform</em> it.

  • Will We Let the Text of Scripture Change Us?

    On The Rev’s Rumbles (HT: Shuck and Jive) there is a discussion of Biblical authority. The writer quotes the following assertion favorably (from Kenneth Cauthen):

    NO CHRISTIAN ALLOWS THE BIBLE TO TEACH AS THE AUTHORITATIVE WORD OF GOD WHAT IS KNOWN OR BELIEVED (FOR WHATEVER REASONS) TO BE EITHER UNTRUE OR IMMORAL.

    EVERY CHRISTIAN FINDS WHAT THE BIBLE TEACHES AS THE AUTHORITATIVE WORD OF GOD TO BE IDENTICAL OR CONGRUENT WITH WHAT IS KNOWN OR BELIEVED (FOR WHATEVER REASONS) TO BE TRUE AND RIGHT.

    There is a great deal of truth in that statement. I can certainly observe these mechanisms in place as I discuss interpreting Bible passages. Try asking a group of Christians why they regard Leviticus 19:18 as a universal and binding command, but feel that they can ignore Leviticus 19:19, for example. There are certainly good reasons in Christian hermeneutics to do so, but those hermeneutical reasons are not the ones you are likely to hear.

    At the same time, such a statement can certainly be taken too far, whether or not it was intended by the author. (My own exposure to this particular author is limited to the quotes in this blog post, so please don’t take me as commenting on him; rather I’m commenting on the blog post that contains them and on some general approaches.) It’s easy to assume that nobody can change their impression of what is right and wrong based on their reading of a work they regard as authoritative. Such a change can be good or bad.

    It’s because of such issues that I think we should all spend time thinking about why we believe what we do, how we come to ethical decisions, and if we believe we base our decisions on the Bible, how we interpret what we read.

    I have frequently heard someone say that they do something because the Bible plainly says so, but when I point out another passage that speaks just as plainly taken at the same level of context as the first, they find a quick explanation for why it does not apply. The interesting point is to ask whether the same explanation will work for any similar scripture.

    Since one of the reasons one might reject Leviticus 19:19 while accepting Leviticus 19:18 is simply that Jesus reaffirmed Leviticus 19:18 (Love your neighbor as yourself), let me try again from Leviticus, this time with passages not so clearly affirmed (or not). Leviticus 18:22 is commonly read as forbidding homosexuality, and is used regularly by Christians as such. It is one passage regarding which I have heard the expression “the Bible plainly says.”

    When that was once quoted to me, I referenced Leviticus 19:33-34:

    Do not take advantage of foreigners who live among you in your land. Treat them like native-born Israelites, and love them as you love yourself. Remember that you were once foreigners living in the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God. (NLTse)

    The immediate answer? “That’s different. Things are different now.”

    Now my point is not to debate just how these two texts would apply today. Rather, I would like to point out that if you quote one as “what the Bible plainly teaches” and then find reasons to avoid the other, you are not truly advocating “what the Bible plainly teaches” (an impossible task in any case), but are applying some other means of producing your result. That doesn’t mean you’re wrong on the result, but the process is not what you claim.

    I would argue that if “confirmed by Jesus” is the key, then Leviticus 19:33-34 has much better evidence of having been reaffirmed by Jesus than does Leviticus 18:22, though I actually think the “reaffirmed by Jesus” is not the best approach in any case.

    For me there’s a three step process, broadly described. The first is to ask just how I’m approaching the scripture. The second is to try to look at scriptures consistently. the third is to ask just how that might enlighten my decision making. I think God intentionally didn’t give us a working “plain meaning” model because he preferred us to go through the hard work of evaluating and making decisions.

    There is much in scripture that I believe should change me, or to be more accurate that God the Holy Spirit should use in changing me. I have to intentionally get away from using ad hoc interpretation to support my own view in order to let that happen.