You can sign up. (Corrected Link for sign up.) They are only guaranteeing delivery for shipping addresses in the United States, but are working on others, and list a number of countries to which they should be able to ship as well. You can also still download a free copy of Matthew. I hope to get around to writing a brief review of that soon.
(HT: Wesley Report)
Chris Tilling gives three. I’m linking because of #2–read the New Testament, which could be said for Bible study in general–read the Bible. Odd how many miss that!
I’m not going to link to every post in Tim’s series, but he has just posted his first substantive one, and I’d like to note a couple of things and then quote part of one paragraph.
If you read his first post you will know that Tim is planning to make an argument for the reliability of the original text of the New Testament. Now depending on just what he means by “original” that could vary from difficult to impossible. In fact, he has taken on a difficult, but in my view not impossible task because he understands the nature of the task.
Responding to a claim that it is futile to try to reconstruct the first century text, he says:
. . . Most assertions, scientific, theological, or otherwise, are hypotheses, attempting to explain as much of the evidence as possible. One theme we will come back to again and again is that possibility is not the same as probability. That a hypothesis exists at all is not an argument in favor of its viability. That a hypothesis cannot be proven 100% true by reason or evidence does not mean that it can’t be maintained with a reasonable degree of certainty.
That is absolutely correct, and something that needs to be said repeatedly. People are constantly asking for absolute certainty in historical matters, and it cannot be provided. The only way we could be completely certain about the original text of the New Testament would be to actually have the autographs. Then we could compare what we have to them. As it is, we will always be dealing with probabilities.
But we must resist the temptation to assume that a probability is the equivalent of the absence of knowledge. We live with probabilities every day. Right now I’m using my computer even though I know there’s a 30% chance of thunderstorms. I’m generally protected, but in our worst storms I will shut the system down. I’m quite functional even though I don’t have absolute certainty.
With that, I look back at the earlier part of Tim’s post. My only problem here is not with the data, which he summarizes quite well, but with the context. I think it is very difficult for laypeople to understand the meaning of these manuscript numbers. They sound impressive, but what do they mean? That requires some context in terms of how many manuscripts we normally have for ancient documents (many less), and just what one can do with manuscripts.
Herewith a quibble. Manuscripts are weighed, not counted, and that can mentally skew these numbers. Those approximately 5,500 mss are not all of equal weight. At the same time they do have some weight, which it is easy to forget when one is busy weighing fragmentary papyri and key early manuscripts.
In any case, I’m enjoying reading Tim’s series, and look forward to continuing. I have also demonstrated my verbosity, having written at least as many words commenting on Tim’s post as he put into it. It is unlikely, however, that at half a century I will change that much!
I have two books on my “to be read” shelf that I also intend to blog through. Since I just completed Random Designer, by Dr. Richard Colling, and I have Francis Collins, The Language of God which also deals with evolution, I decided to take Ben Witherington III, What Have They Done with Jesus? next. I’ll get to Collins’ book next.
In addition to giving me a change of subject, its topic is also closer to areas in which I have some expertise. The word “some” should be noted here–I’m not a New Testament scholar. I’m largely a popularizer, and my academic training emphasized Hebrew scriptures. But working in a church, rather than an academic environment, I have been forced to spend a great deal of time on the New Testament just because that’s what most church members want to study.
My procedure for blogging through a book is to read a chapter or block of chapters and then write my reaction on the blog immediately, rather than read the whole book and then write a more comprehensive review. This can result in some need to correct my impressions later, and in the case of Random Designer, that did happen. It is perhaps a slightly post-modern way to read a book, but I don’t think I’m very post-modern, so maybe I do it just for fun.
Dan Wallace has started a series (actually he did so last week), on textual variants in the New Testament. His first article The Number of Textual Variants: An Evangelical Miscalculation deals with the definition of a textual variant and then with an estimate of the total number of textual variants in the New Testament text. The second deals with the nature of these variants.
Information about textual variants is abused constantly in discussions both within and about Christianity. Dr. Wallace is setting about providing a basis for correcting some of these abuses. The number of variants is cited raw as evidence that one cannot trust the Bible. The number of manuscripts is cited as evidence of the historical reliability of the New Testament. Yet both of these uses miss the mark. The first fails to take into account the nature of the variants, which Dr. Wallace begins to do in his second article. (I will link to the next part when it appears). The second, is based on the false premise that one can demonstrate the veracity of a document based on the number of times it is copied.
At the same time, the number of manuscripts and the number of variants can be used to demonstrate the likelihood that we do, in fact, have something close to the original text of the New Testament. Wallace contends that meaningful, viable variants constitute less than 1% of the total variants, and he may be generous in that estimate. The vast majority of the New Testament text is not even disputed.
Note, of course, that neither the number of variants, nor the number of manuscripts, actually impacts the historicity of the autograph. These statistics form the basis for our best measure of how accurate our current copies are, information that we need in studying the now absent autographs.
I use the fact that there are some substantial variants in my book When People Speak for God in discussing inerrancy. Modern proponents of inerrancy assert inerrancy of the autographs, and believe that inerrancy is a necessary characteristic if one is to assert any authority for scripture. I challenge this on the basis that we do not have the autographs, yet many of us do, in fact, accept the authority of the scripture as we have it.
This relates to Wallace’s third category, which he describes thus:
The third category are those variants that can affect the meaning in a significant way but have a very poor pedigree. A classic example is 1 John 5.7 in the King James Bible (For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one). This reading is not found in any manuscripts prior to the 12th century, and even then it is found as a marginal reading written by a scribe several centuries later than the original scribe wrote. . . .
The paragraph continues with the sparse representation of this reading. Certainly no modern textual critic would be likely to argue that 1 John 5:7-8 as read in the KJV is an original reading. Yet many people have used Bibles that contain that disputed passage, and seen them as authoritative. In other words, inerrancy is not needed for authority, and in fact, very, very few people have had an inerrant Bible, even if inerrancy of the autographs is essential.
I believe the Bible is adequately preserved for it’s intended purpose, and that we do not need to possess an inerrant Bible for that purpose.
Having digressed into my side interest, the value of Dr. Wallace’s work is that he is so thorough in his basic scholarship that you can often evaluate opponents’ work by reading his summary of their view. Thus while I will disagree with some conclusions, the basic work is exceptional. He is doing a great service in going over this basic information. Many church members are quite confused on the subject of textual criticism, and what it means or does not mean, for the reliability of the Bibles they hold in their hands.
This seems to be my day for linking, both on my threads blog and here. Ben Witherington has written an excellent basic post on hermeneutics. I’m particularly interested because of his illustrations taken from Revelation. In my study guide to Revelation, I recommend Witherington’s commentary as “the best commentary on Revelation for the serious student that is available today.”
Witherington lists three principles: 1) What it means is what it meant, i.e. the meaning is in the text; 2) Context is everything; and 3) Genre matters. I’d love to say one is more important than the other, but there may well be no “greatest of these.”
In this post Witherington demonstrates the clear exposition that makes his commentary the powerful resource that it is.
Dave Warnock has made an interesting discovery while looking at the interview with Wayne Grudem that Adrian Warnock is publishing on his blog (#6 entry). Jesus has been almost totally left out of the argument.
I commented on the type of view of scripture that seems to lead to this previously, and in my recent post on deciding who is saved I note that one of the problems I see with current evangelical views on atonement, and particularly on putting penal substitutionary atonement front and center, is that it puts the material out of order.
In the history of salvation, Jesus came first, and then Paul interpreted him. While the gospels are generally dated after the letters of Paul (though this can be contested), the oral traditions of Jesus on which Christianity first rode forth into the world obviously predate anything Paul wrote. Many modern Christians seem like art critics who, instead of actually looking at a painting, read from a description while the painting itself is readily available. The direction of study should start with Jesus, and who he is, and then read Paul where he fits in, which is in applying the message of Jesus to a broader community. In particular, the kingdom parables say some fairly definitive things about the kingdom, which we often permit theology to override.
1Now this Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of the Most High God, met Abraham when he was returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him. 2Abraham apportioned a tenth of everything to him. He is first “King of Righteousness” and then King of Salem which is “King of Peace.” 3He is without father, without mother, without genealogy, and has neither beginning of days nor end of life, but, in a way similar to the Son of God he remains forever. — Hebrews 7:1-3
There is a critical element to the Melchizedek priesthood which is often neglected. It’s mentioned in the first verse of chapter 7: Melchizedek is both king and priest.
In reading the Bible story we are accustomed to a substantial separation between royal authority and priestly activity. Though we have a brief hint at something different in the time of David (2 Samuel 8:18), there is a strong them of separation between the civil authority and the priesthood. This is emphasized by the experience of Uzziah, who tried to usurp priestly functions and became a leper for his efforts (2 Chronicles 26:16-21).
But it’s easy to miss the significance of this element in the theology of the book of Hebrews. In Biblical history, this separation begins with Exodus 19 when the Isralites are afraid of hearing the voice of God from Mt. Sinai. They are invited to be a holy nation and a kingdom of priests, but they prefer to have a safer distance. In the New Testament, this theme is picked up in 1 Peter 2:9 in which Christians are referenced in the same terms. To someone acquainted with the Hebrew scriptures, this was a not so subtle way of suggesting that we have entered into the Messianic age.
In Hebrews, the Melchizedek priesthood serves to make the same point. While civil power was separated from the priesthood from the time when the tabernacle was being built in the wilderness forward, the Melchizedek priesthood was also a royal priesthood. Thus besides being eternal, which is of great importance to our author, authority and priestly intercession are combined in one person, Jesus who is both king and priest.
This connection is emphasized by the use of Psalm 110. In its original setting, Psalm 110 is an accession psalm, a poem or hymn celebrating the accession of the king to the throne, and thus YHWH says to “my lord” (the poet is speaking), sit at my right hand, vesting the king with divine authority and promising him victory.
While by modern standards of exegesis, our author uses the wording of Psalm 110 in a substantially different way (I think he’s allowed that as an inspired writer), he still manages to pull in a great deal of meaning by using that precise reference.
In the incarnation, God becomes human, experiences humanity, and at the same time royal authority (lawgiving, enforcement, sovereignty) with the priesthood (intercession, communication, connection) and God-become-man thus reaches us directly. As Jesus said, “On that day you will ask in my name. I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God” (John 16:26-27).
Asking the Father himself, and knowing that the Father himself loves us, is one of the great gifts of the incarnation. Priestly and royal power have come together again.
Suzanne McCarthy has a series of posts on the Better Bibles Blog about the name “Junia” in Romans 16:7. I’ve discuss this before on the Compuserve Religion Forum, but Suzanne covers all the major points. Here posts are, in order:
List updated to include parts 7-10, written after I posted this.
I’m writing this for two reasons: First, I want to commend the entire series to you for your reading pleasure and its educational value. This is some good blogging. Second, I want to comment indirectly on this verse and the way we make theology and practice out of Bible passages. I really have nothing to add directly.
The handling of this text illustrates to me two elements of the way in which we make theology from scripture that are problematic. (Yes, I guess I’m on a 2’s kick today!) I believe that we tend to take the propositional statements of scripture over its narrative, and secondly, we tend to avoid the implications of the cultural context. (For further notes on context, see my essay Understanding Context.)
Dealing first with the issue of narrative and propositional statements, I do not mean simply that we take passages that present propositions over those that are narrative in nature, for example, taking Galatians over Acts. I mean to say that we take the theological propositions over the narrative background. There is considerable narrative background even in non-narrative passages. For example, in Galatians we have both the theological heart, of the book, and we have some application toward the end. In the first part, Paul is presenting theology, in the last, he is talking behavior. In my seminary class in Galatians, a quarter long study, we never got out of chapter 4. Now I understand that when doing in-depth study, you can’t always cover all the ground you’d like, but is one’s view of the book balanced when you read the heart of the argument but not the conclusion?
Similarly, you might compare the heart of Galatians to 1 Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians you can get a good deal of narrative by looking just below the surface. What is actually happening in the church in Corinth. Gordon Fee uses the narrative in chapter 11 to note that obviously women were prophesying and praying in church, otherwise why comment on their headgear? He follows this up with his textual arguments that chapter 14:34-35 is an interpolation. (See The First Epistle to the Corinthians in the New International Commentary on the New Testament, pages 699-708. I regard Fee’s comments here as definitive.)
Romans 16:7 falls into the narrative. It tells us what the church was actually doing, and here we have that exception to the rule that intrudes on one’s comfortable assumptions. The easy thing is to explain this quick reference away so that we can keep our interpretation of other passages about women intact. I must note here that I do see as the only strong reason for rejecting the idea that Junia was an apostle is a preconceived notion that a woman cannot possibly be an apostle. The most probable reading of the text, in my opinion, is that she was.
And that’s were the other element comes into play–cultural context. We come to the text of scripture, not hearing the text speaking directly to us, but rather listening in on the divine conversation with someone else, in this case God to Paul to the church in Rome. This is true of all of these passages. In the background we have to realize there is a patriarchal society. Now certain people want to make that patriarchal society normative.
But think of it this way. Supposing that today I write that we need more women active in church leadership. I believe that to be the case. I feel no need of qualifying my statement. Supposing that someone reads my statement 2,000 years from now. Women’s liberation has succeeded beyond anyone’s wildest dreams and extended itself into nightmare. We have a matriarchal society, and men are not permitted in positions of leadership. How will my statement be understood then? It should be understood as irrelevant to the existing situation. Women are in all the positions of leadership, but it could be understood as advocacy of an all female leadership.
In a patriarchal society, I think we need to look for the exceptions to discover the answer to the question of whether other indications of all male leadership are simply an artefact of the particular culture, or whether they are a moral imperative. In fact, by looking at those exceptions, such as Romans 16:7, I believe we see the church willing to accept female leadership, but not yet ready to push for equality in the church when the church lived in a very unequal society.
I believe a combination of observing the narrative of scripture and the cultural background will lead us to a more balanced view of church leadership roles.
