Has God Said?

I’ve been thinking a lot about that question.  On a literary level it illustrates the subtlety of the serpent–not a direct attack, simply posing an innocent-seeming question, although with a minor distortion already present in the question.

Is there a difference between questioning the clear, direct command of God, and asking historical or literary questions about a narrative text in the Bible?

Jesus asked questions, for example, Who wouldn’t pull a lamb out of a ditch on the Sabbath?  Jesus appealed to logic or reason in interpreting the commandments so as to preserve life.

Throughout the Bible people question God in prayer.

In Judaism study is an act of devotion to God.  And study of the biblical text often consists of asking questions: Why does the text say this instead of that?

One of the themes in Jeremiah is that God is watching over his word.  Surely inspiration must include the whole process of God first speaking to Jeremiah, Jeremiah dictating the words to Baruch, and then others preserving the scrolls.  The narrative portions in the book come under God’s guidance, direction, and inspiration as well as the direct speech–but are the narrative passages the word of God in the same sense as the “thus saith the Lord” passages?  Do they have the force of commandments?

Should we all be Roman Catholics and never question the authority of the church?

I wrote about this a while back on my personal blog, in a post called “The Critical Spirit in the Bible.”

By the way, have any of you read Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes?

The Secular Study of the Bible

The Society of Biblical Literature exists to promote the historical-critical study of the text of the Bible and its historical context.  The SBL is for all scholars who have an academic and professional interest in the Bible, especially professors at university religious studies or humanities departments.

Recently a member of the SBL announced his resignation because the SBL has become too open to expressions of faith and also what he refers to as “proselyting activity” and anti-Jewish remarks.

Read professor Hendel’s remarks, then express your own opinion.  Should there be a society where all who have an academic interest in the Bible can come together and share the results of their research?  Should we at times separate faith from research?

The SBL published its own response to professor Hendel’s complaints.

Editions of Jeremiah

Jeremiah had told the residents of Judah to submit to the yoke of Babylon, to accept captivity as God’s will, to pack there bags and trust that the Lord will go with them to Babylon and bless them there.  After many exiles were taken, he even told some of the survivors they could stay in the land and he would protect them.  Instead they chose to flee to Egypt and forced Jeremiah and Baruch to go with them (Jeremiah 42-43).  Jeremiah did maintain some contact with the Jews in Babylon (Jeremiah 51:59-64).

Evidently the Jews in Babylon took with them an edition of the writings of Jeremiah, as did the Jews who went down to Egypt taking Jeremiah and Baruch with them.  Eventually in Egypt the Hebrew text of Jeremiah was translated into Greek (which had become the main language of the immigrants around Alexandria, which was where many Jews eventually settled.)

Meanwhile the scribes in Babylon continued to study and copy the writings of Jeremiah, along with the other books of the Bible.

Scholars who study the Septuagint (Greek) text of Jeremiah note that it is notably different from the Hebrew text.  In particular, whole chapters (especially the “foreign oracles in chapters  ) are in a different order.  In addition, the Hebrew text has additional words–and the words seem to be glosses, scholarly explanations and definitions.

We can speak of a Septuagint text-type and a Babylonian text type.  It gets more complicated here: some Hebrew fragments of Jeremiah found at Qumran (home of the Dead Sea Scrolls) agree with the Septuagint text-type and some agree with the Babylonian text type.

So we have to assume that there were eventually two distinct editions of Jeremiah: an Egyptian edition and a Babylonian edition.

We have already seen that there were at least three editions of Jeremiah; now we have to allow for four.

Again, these are not scholarly conjectures or hypotheses.  The existence of three editions is based on the words that can be plainly found in our English versions of the Bible.  It is not a dark secret, it is clearly indicated in the Bible we read.  To learn about the distinct Babylonian and Egyptian editions requires some reading beyond our English Bibles–but it is based on facts on the ground–manuscripts that can be examined–not on abstract speculation.

This is the way God chose to reveal and preserve the message he gave through Jeremiah–first to the people of his lifetime, then to us also.

Thought Question

How is the Bible different from the Koran?

Or, more specifically, how is what Christians believe about the Bible different from what Muslims believe about the Koran?

You can read my thoughts about it here (with a link to another good essay by Mark Roberts).  You should read the essay by Mark Roberts, including his quote from the pope.

But I’m interested in your thoughts on the subject.

More Dates

Here is an updated list of dates for biblical history:

• 1850 or 1650 God calls Abraham out of Iraq

• 1445 or 1290 God brings Israel out of Egypt

• 1000 BC  David was king

  • 930 BC Divided Kingdom Israel and Judah

• 722  BC    Destruction of Samaria, end of northern Kingdom of Israel, exile of 10 northern tribes

  • 609 BC   Death of King Josiah

  • 605 BC   Babylon Rules the World, first wave of captivity

  • 597 BC    Second wave of captivity

• 586 BC     Destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple; Babylonian exile of Judah.

  • 538 BC    Decree of Cyrus officially ending the captivity

Date of the Exodus

It is not as easy to determine the date of the event that began Israel’s national history as the event that ended it.  There are two conflicting dates available for the Exodus from Egypt: Approximately 1445 BC and approximately 1290 BC.

The College Press textbook discusses the issues on pp. 127-131.  The author says, “Traditionally the thirteenth-century date fits better with the archaeological record than the biblical record.”

The date of Abraham would depend on the date of the Exodus.  You could use 1850 or 1650 as a round number for the migration of Abraham from Iraq to Canaan.  This could be the beginning point of the Hebrews’ national journey; the end point–at least temporarily–would be the exile back to Iraq in 587 BC.

Of course there are biblical events before the call of Abraham and after the Babylonian captivity; but the two events: the call of Abraham and the exile to Babylon are certainly critical points on a timeline of biblical history.

History of Religion and Progressive Revelation

Die Religionsgeschichtliche Schule

(From Gerd Lüdemann’s Archives)

There are two ways of dealing with historical issues in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament.  One is the concept of progressive revelation, and goes back to the New Testament (Hebrews 1:1-4) and early Christian leaders such as Irenaeus.  The other is more modern and is associated with the “History of Religions School,” some of the chief practitioners of which are pictured above.

Both approaches recognize development or “progress” over time in the Old Testament.   Both approaches recognize the importance of the ancient world as the context for understanding the text of the Bible.

The difference is this: Progressive Revelation understands God as taking the initiative in revealing himself and his will. God chooses and calls a people, speaks to them, and prepares them for hearing more of his word through experiences in history.  God condescends to meet his people where they are, and he leads them to where he wants them to be.

The History of Religions approach examines the religion of ancient Israel in the context of world religions. It sees Israel’s religion (and therefore the writings of the OT) as the product of social and anthropological evolution.  Religion developed in Israel in the same ways and under the same sociological laws as it developed in Egypt, Canaan, Babylon, China, India, and Africa.

Scholars in the History of Religions School may have been believers–most considered themselves Christians; but they kept their academic work in the University separate from the prayers they said in church.   In the case of the Old Testament, this was not especially difficult, since there was a long tradition (especially in Germany) of disparaging or neglecting the Old Testament.

Many, such as Wellhausen, believed they were being faithful to the example of Luther and Paul when they criticized the religion of the Old Testament, or spoke of its inferiority to the New Testament.  So they did not believe they were dishonoring God if the treated the faith of the Old Testament as arriving the evolution of primitive religious practices into somewhat less primitive practices and concepts.

If you read the first few pages of Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament (15-17), you will find a description of Friedrich Delitzsch, an extreme case of the application of the history of religions approach.

John Walton, Peter Enns, and others are scholars who take the historical context of the Bible just as seriously as Delitzsch did, but they also take the theological nature of the Bible seriously: they understand that they are studying the Word of God.  Unfortunately, they are sometimes misunderstood and have been criticized for taking historical parallels and backgrounds seriously.  (More here and here.)

Easy Dates

Here are a few simple dates I want you to know for the class:

• 1000 BC  David was king

• 722  BC    Destruction of Samaria, end of northern Kingdom of Israel, exile of 10 northern tribes

• 586 BC     Destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple; Babylonian exile of Judah.

These dates are pretty firm and fairly reliable–within a year.  The ancient calendar was lunar and didn’t start on Jan 1, and there are a few other minor complications–but these dates are good pegs to fit biblical events around.  Once you get further back than the time of David there are more complications, more dates to choose from, and we deal more with round numbers.

MY Commentary Arrived

It took only a little less then a month and a half but I finally got the commentary!

authorship/inerrancy

The question of the authorship of the various books of the Bible has elicited quite a variety of responses most likely due to the varied backgrounds of each one. The questions asked by Dr. Alterman have lead to a discussion of history and culture and what the writers meant at the time the book was written. First of all it would seem natural to have some sort of common ground that will establish a place to begin the discussion. It is my belief if we claim to be believers in the God of the Bible we have to believe God was involved in the production of the text in some manner. Whether God inspired the minds of the various authors and scribes to accurately write what He wanted to be written or if it was just a group of authors over time wishing to write about a God they believe is real and it is their thoughts and actions alone or some place in between is the point of contention.

For those who view the Bible as some sort of authoritative book the question then is where in the spectrum do we find ourselves and what does that place on the spectrum do to faith and hope that we espouse as believers in Christ. Where does any position on the issue other than God being intimately involved in the production of the Bible lead us in our faith and claim to be children of God the Father as is portrayed in the Bible? Don’t we walk by faith and not by sight? The question of authorship seems to me to lead to the issue of inerrancy.

In an interview on AlbertMohler.com dated September 4, 2009, Dr. Albert Mohler of Southern Baptist Seminary questioned Dr. Gregory Beale, Professor of New testament, Wheaton College, on Beale’s book, The Erosion of Inerrancy of Scripture. This is my take on the interview. Beale laments that our movement away from inerrancy is just a repackaging of the old attacks on the reliability of scripture. Dr. Beale states too often scholars insinuate authors of the books of the Bible were prisoners of their own time in history and culture and are unable to break free of that history and culture as they write even though inspired. Dr. Beale states this in essence presents a God who is powerless to overcome the culture of humanity to ensure what he wants to say is written as he desires.

 Paul said 1^st Corinthians 14:33 that God is not an author of confusion. Paul also said in Ephesians 5:17 for us not to be foolish but understand what the will of God is. In 1^st Peter 1:21 Peter writes that men did not act of their own will but were moved by the Holy Spirit from God. That tells me the scriptures are not bound to a point in history for God himself has no beginning or end. This Bible was not written to theologically trained individuals but to people similar to what we have in our congregations. As I read in the Bible Exposition Commentary, the writers assumed that these people could read it, listen to it, and understand it as led by the same Holy Spirit that inspired it. Isn’t that possible for us today while not denying the gift and importance of teaching in Ephesians 4:11?

 I mentioned in an earlier post Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes there is nothing new under the sun. Satan asked Adam and Eve, “Has God said you shall not eat from any tree of the garden?” We all know the results of the doubt Satan created. Aren’t we asking the same thing only in a different manner, “Did God really say (inspire) these words?” I guess what this all comes to is when we abandon the doctrine of inerrancy where do we stop in our doubts? If Jesus is the word of God as the apostle John said he was in chapter one of his gospel then what or who are we doubting when we doubt the inerrancy of scripture? I have been there and do not like what I have seen happen to a church body I loved which followed that path. If we believe in a powerful God don’t you think he could author a book of truth that is as timeless as He is and see it is handed down from generation to generation intact? It is beneficial to study the historical setting and the culture of the Bible to acquire a fuller picture of God’s truth, but if it is God’s word and He inspired it, and it says that Jeremiah wrote the word then I believe Jeremiah wrote it. Martyrs throughout history have suffered death for the word of God. In comparison, it is a small thing that I do to trust in the story of redemption woven through every page and every word of the Bible.