Bible Difficulties

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April 8, 2008

Psalm 110:1 — A Case Study for the NT use of the OT

Posted by Jason Dulle under Bible Difficulties, Theology
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I have blogged in the past on some of the strange ways the NT interprets the OT, and linked to an essay by Peter Enns that helps make sense of it. As helpful as it is, I am still baffled by some of the ways the NT interprets the OT. Here is another troubling example: Jesus’ and Peter’s interpretation of Psalm 110:1.

The LORD said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”

It’s important to understand the structure of this verse. The person speaking in verse 1a is a prophetic voice in the royal court, delivering a message from YHWH (“LORD”) to the prophet’s “lord.” The prophet’s lord is the king, David. Verses 1b and 4 constitute YHWH’s message to David via the unnamed prophet. In verses 2-3 the prophet addresses David, and then speaks to God about David in verses 5-7.

In the original context, then, the “Lord” was David, and the person who spoke the words, “The LORD said to my Lord” was the unnamed prophet speaking to David. When we turn to the NT, however, the original context is turned on its head. According to Jesus and Peter, the “Lord” is a reference to the Messiah, and the person who spoke the words, “The LORD said to my Lord” was David (See Matthew 22:43-45; Mark 12:35-37; Luke 20:41-44; Acts 2:34-36).

It should be pointed out that Jesus did not invent this interpretation of Psalm 110:1. The Jews already had a long-standing interpretive tradition of identifying the “Lord” as the coming Messiah. They reasoned that if what was spoken applied to David, it also applied to all of His royal descendents, including (and especially so) the promised Messiah. As for attributing the words of verse 1a to David, presumably it was reasoned that since David was the author of the psalm, He could be cited as having said those words. A similar phenomenon appears elsewhere in the NT when the words of YHWH are attributed to the prophet who authored the book containing YHWH’s words, or when the words of prophets are attributed to YHWH.

Be that as it may, there is something else even more troubling than these semi-understandable changes to the original meaning. In the NT, Jesus and Peter appeal to Psalm 110:1 as an argument for the deity of Christ. It was common knowledge that the Messiah would be the son of David. So Jesus asked those present, “How is it that the experts in the law say that the Christ is David’s son? David himself, by the Holy Spirit, said, ‘The Lord said to my lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet.”’ If David himself calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?” (Mark 12:35b-37a).

To understand Jesus’ argument one must understand ancient-near-eastern culture (ANE). According to ANE culture the father is superior to his offspring. Why, then, does David call the Messiah his Lord? To call him such implies that his son is superior to himself, which is unthinkable. This was a paradox that could only be solved if one granted that the Messiah was more than a mere man—He was divine as well.

What I find troubling about this argument for the deity of Christ is that it only works if one takes the OT passage out of context. One has to change the identity of the original subjects in order for it to work. And yet, as with other strange uses of the OT in the NT, the crowds found the argument powerful and persuasive.

 

February 2, 2008

Why Samuel and Chronicles Sometimes Contradict Each Other

Posted by Jason Dulle under Bible Difficulties, Textual Criticism, Theology
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Back on 9/14 I posted “Re-measuring Goliath: 9’9” or 6’9”?” In the comments section I brought up an issue I want to make the focus of a new post: the quality of the Masoretic Text of the OT. It seems that it may not represent the original wording in significant places, particularly in books like Jeremiah and 1 and 2 Samuel. Here are the relevant portions from J. Daniel Hays’ article:

As in the book of Jeremiah, there is quite a difference between the Septuagint text of 1-2 Samuel and the Masoretic Text of 1-2 Samuel. Also similar to the textual situation in Jeremiah is the fact that in 1-2 Samuel the Hebrew text from the Dead Sea Scrolls (4QSama) generally aligns with the Septuagint over against the MT. In addition, the story in 1 Samuel 16-18 represents the place where the differences between the two are the most severe. In the Septuagint text of Codex Vaticanus, our oldest complete Greek Bible, 1 Samuel 16-18 is 44% shorter than in the MT. Not only are entire verses missing but entire paragraphs are missing. In the David and Goliath narrative these include 17:12-31, twenty verses that explain about David and his brothers and how he came to be at the battle, and 17:55-58, the four puzzling verses in which Saul doesn’t seem to know who David is in spite of the fact that David had been playing music for Saul back in 1 Samuel 16. As in Jeremiah, the differences between the Septuagint and the MT go well beyond anything that could be attributed to scribal errors or transmission mistakes. And 4QSama generally (but not always) agrees with the Septuagint against the MT. Either somebody added a large chunk of text to the original autograph, somebody deleted a large chunk of text, or else two different accounts of 1-2 Samuel developed separately.

…

Practically all scholars agree that the evidence from 4QSama implies that at the time of Christ there were two different Hebrew text traditions of 1-2 Samuel. As mentioned above, the vorlage or text tradition behind the MT in 1-2 Samuel contains many more readily identifiable scribal errors that the tradition reflected in 4QSama/LXX. Furthermore, and of great interest to those of us who try to connect the doctrine of inspiration into our theories of composition, it should be underscored that when using 1-2 Samuel as a source, the author (compiler, editor, etc.) of 1-2 Chronicles (as reflected in the MT) used a Hebrew text from the textual tradition reflected in 4QSama/LXX and not the one that is reflected in the MT of 1-2 Samuel.14 That is, frequently the MT in 1-2 Chronicles disagrees with the MT in 1-2 Samuel, but agrees with the reading in 4QSama and/or the Septuagint. So the inspired author/editor of 1-2 Chronicles either did not have a copy of the MT tradition text of 1-2 Samuel or elected to use the text tradition reflected in 4QSama/LXX, presumably because he regarded it as a superior text.


Our theory of inerrancy has to account for stuff like this. What do we do with ~23 extra verses in the MT version of I Samuel 17-18? If the LXX and DSS preserve the original, inspired form of the book (as seems likely), are we prepared to cross those verses out of our Bibles in the same way we should change Goliath’s height from 9’9” to 6’9”? This is a matter of textual criticism, and is not altogether unlike what we see even in NT text criticism in which the authenticity of long passages is disputed (the longer ending of Mark, the periscope of the woman caught in adultery). The difference here is the quantity of verses that are suspect. Either way, we should be open to the evidence and not shut our eyes to the facts because they make us uncomfortable.


The main reason I bring this up is not to cause anyone to doubt the reliability of Scripture. Indeed, I could write a series of posts arguing for the trustworthiness of Scripture. The reason I bring this up is because it provides an answer for why we find so many contradictions between Samuel and Chronicles when it comes to numbers. For example:

1. In 2 Sam 8:4 David takes 700 horsemen, whereas in 1 Chron 18:4 he takes 7000.

2. In 2 Sam 10:18 David slew the men who drove 700 Syrian chariots, and 40K horsemen, whereas in 1 Chron 19:18 David slew 7000 charioteers and 40K footmen.

3. In 2 Sam 23:8 we are told that David’s chief captain slew 800 men at one time with his spear, whereas in 1 Chron 11:11 he is said to have slain 300.

4. In 2 Sam 24:9 Joab counted 1,300,000 fighting men, whereas in 1 Chron 21:5 he is said to have counted 1,570,000.


Why the discrepancy? It could be due to copyist errors, or a misunderstanding of certain numerical values due to the evolution of the Hebrew numerical system. Given the fact that not all numbers disagree between the two books, this option is unlikely. The best answer is that the Chronicler was using a different Hebrew text of Samuel that had different numerical values in certain places, which means there were at least two competing manuscript traditions of Samuel. Of course, the question remains as to which is the original text, and how the changes were introduced (copyist error, purposeful tampering with the text, misunderstanding of older numerical system, etc.). That is where textual critics enter the stage, and I step off. For what it’s worth, I tend to think the Chronicler was using a superior Hebrew text, and should be given the benefit of the doubt over the MT of Samuel. The MT is a younger text. The DSS and LXX give us a much earlier picture of the text.

 

November 13, 2007

Differences in the Gospels…update

Posted by Jason Dulle under Bible Difficulties, Theology
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Back in May I posted a blog entry titled “Differences in the Gospels” in which I discussed some of the supposed contradictions the Gospels, and how they are not actual contradictions. As a case study I examined John’s report of Jesus baptizing in Judea. In one place he says Jesus baptized, while a little later he says it was Jesus’ disciples, and not Jesus Himself. If it was Luke rather than John who had noted that it was Jesus’ disciples, not Jesus Himself, who baptized, people would claim a contradiction between Luke and John. Since both appear in John, however, it is clear that there is no contradiction. It only illustrates the flexibility in which the Biblical authors reported historical events. John so no contradiction at all. I argued that this is illustrative of how we ought to view other supposed contradictions between the Gospels.

I just updated that post to include another example similar to the one above. In John 20:1 John only mentions Mary Magdalene as a witness to Jesus’ resurrection, while the other Gospel authors report a plurality of women (the lists differ as to who is identified). Some see this as a contradiction. And yet in the very next verse John records Mary as saying to the apostles, “We do not know where they have laid him.” While John only names Mary as a witness, he is clearly aware of the fact that there were more present than just Mary. Again, such ways of speaking should alert us not to be too rigid in our interpretation of the Gospels. We cannot impose modern standards of historiography on the apostles and the texts they created.

 

August 30, 2007

How Could God Command the Killing of Children?

Posted by Jason Dulle under Bible Difficulties, Theology
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William Lane Craig has a really good response to those who ask how a just and loving God could command the Israelites to kill every Canaanite (including children). In the same article he makes some poignant distinctions between the Jewish conquest of Canaan and Islamic jihad.

 

May 25, 2007

Understanding Apostolic Hermeneutics

Posted by Jason Dulle under Bible Difficulties, Theology
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I don’t know about you, but I have always been somewhat bothered by how the apostles interpreted the OT at times. While we are taught (rightly so for the most part) that meaning is to be found in the author’s intention, the apostles seemed to find meaning in the OT that the author could not have possibly intended. At times they seem to throw context and the whole historico-grammatical approach to hermeneutics out the door.

For example, in Hosea God says, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.” Matthew says this was prophetic of Jesus’ sojourn and departure from Egypt as a child. Nothing in the original context indicates the passage to be prophetic in nature, or have any Messianic application. It was a mere historical statement about what God did in the Exodus.

Or consider Paul’s use of Genesis 12 and 15. God told Abraham his “seed” would possess the land of Canaan forever. While the word “seed” in Hebrew (zera) is singular, the context makes it clear that God was speaking about all of Abraham’s physical descendents. In Galatians 3, however, Paul interpreted the singular “seed” to be a reference to a single person: Jesus Christ. He is said to be seed to whom the covenant promises applied. From this, Paul made a theological claim that by being united to Christ through faith we too become the seed of Abraham, partaking of the promises God made to Him. A very strange use of Scripture indeed. I can guarantee you that if Matthew or Paul was enrolled in a hermeneutics course today, and interpreted the Scripture the way they did under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the NT, the professor would give them a failing grade.

So how do we make sense of this? Peter Enns, Associate Professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary, offers some help. He authored an article titled “Apostolic Hermeneutics and an Evangelical Doctrine of Scripture: Moving beyond a Modernist Impasse,” which appeared in the Fall 2003 issue of the Westminster Theological Journal. While this is a complicated and vast topic that cannot be adequately tackled in a short paper, Enns did a good job of making some inroads. The paper can be downloaded here. While I would highly recommend that you read it for yourself, I will summarize and reproduce relevant points.

Enns begins by acknowledging a genuine conflict between the hermeneutic of the apostles and the hermeneutic of modern Evangelicalism. Whereas many Evangelicals try explaining away the apostles’ regular departure from a historico-grammatical (HG) approach to hermeneutics, Enns admits that the apostles’ hermeneutic is markedly different from the HG method. While at times they used the HG method, at other times they didn’t.

Enns points out that to understand the way the apostles interpreted the OT, we have to understand the hermeneutical principles being used by their contemporaries. Their hermeneutic was culturally informed. Looking at contemporaneous writings it becomes clear that the way the apostles interpreted the OT is consistent with the rabbis of the Second Temple era.

Not only was the apostles’ hermeneutic culturally informed, but more importantly it was eschatologically informed. Enns writes:

The Apostles had their own reasons for engaging the OT, their Scripture. How they engaged the OT (interpretive methods) and even their own understanding of certain OT passages (transmission of pre-existing interpretive traditions) were a function of their cultural moment. But why they engaged the OT was driven by their eschatological moment, their belief that Jesus of Nazareth was God with us and that he had been raised from the dead. True to their Second Temple setting, the Apostles did not arrive at the conclusion that Jesus is Lord from a dispassionate, objective reading of the OT. Rather, they began with what they knew to be true—the historical fact of the death and resurrection of the Son of God—and on the basis of that fact re-read their Scripture in a fresh way. There is no question that such a thing can be counter-intuitive for a more traditional evangelical doctrine of Scripture. It is precisely a dispassionate, unbiased, objective reading that is normally considered to constitute valid reading. But again, what may be considered valid today cannot be the determining factor for understanding what the Apostles did.

For example, it is difficult indeed to read Matt 2:15 as an objective reading of Hos 11:1, likewise, Paul’s use of Isa 49:8 in 2 Cor 6:2. Neither Matthew nor Paul arrived at his conclusions from reading the OT. Rather, they began with the event from which all else is now to be understood. In other words, it is the death and resurrection of Christ that was central to the Apostles’ hermeneutical task.
…
To put it another way, it is the conviction of the Apostles that the eschaton had come in Christ that drove them back to see where and how their Scripture spoke of him. And this was not a matter of grammatical-historical exegesis but of a Christ-driven hermeneutic. The term I prefer to use to describe this hermeneutic is Christotelic. … To see Christ as the driving force behind apostolic hermeneutics is not to flatten out what the OT says on its own. Rather, it is to see that, for the church, the OT does not exist on its own, in isolation from the completion of the OT story in the death and resurrection of Christ. The OT is a story that is going somewhere, which is what the Apostles are at great pains to show. It is the OT as a whole, particularly in its grand themes, that finds its telos, its completion, in Christ. This is not to say that the vibrancy of the OT witness now comes to an end, but that—on the basis of apostolic authority—it finds its proper goal, purpose, telos, in that event by which God himself determined to punctuate his covenant: Christ.

The big question is Can we do what the apostles did? Can we re-read the OT in light of the eschatological Christ event and find Christ where Christ would not be found using the normal HG method of interpretation? Most would say no. Why is it that the apostles could do it, but we can’t? The usual response is that the apostles could do it because they were inspired to do so, whereas we are not; they had apostolic authority to do so, whereas we do not. Enns destroys that argument on several counts. First, it would be all the more reason for us to employ their methods of interpretation. If God inspired them to interpret Scripture in such a fashion, the method must be valid. While we may not be certain that Christ is found in the OT where we think we see Him (since there would be no inspired Scripture to verify that we are right), looking for Him in passages not speaking of Him in their original context could not be condemned as illegitimate. Secondly, if we are to follow the apostles’ teaching, why should we not follow their hermeneutics? Thirdly, rooting the apostles’ ability to handle the Scripture in the manner they did because of their office could actually argue against the legitimacy of their claims to apostolicity. If the H-G method of interpretation is the only valid method, and the apostles did not consistently use it, then they were mishandling the Word of God. That’s hardly befitting of an apostle; hence, they are not apostles. If we reject the conclusions of these three arguments, then we must reject the traditional argument for why we can’t interpret the Bible the way the apostles did.

How does Enns answer this question? He argues that we can use the apostles’ hermeneutical goal, but not their exegetical method. Regarding the former Enns writes:

The Apostles’ hermeneutical goal (or agenda), the centrality of the death and resurrection of Christ, must be also ours by virtue of the fact that we share the same eschatological moment. … A Christian understanding of the OT should begin with what God revealed to the Apostles and what they model for us: the centrality of the death and resurrection of Christ for OT interpretation. We, too, are living at the end of the story; we are engaged in the second reading by virtue of our eschatological moment, which is now as it was for the Apostles the last days, the inauguration of the eschaton. We bring the death and resurrection of Christ to bear on the OT. Again, this is not a call to flatten out the OT, so that every psalm or proverb speaks directly and explicitly of Jesus. It is, however, to ask oneself, “What difference does the death and resurrection of Christ make for how I understand this proverb?” It is the recognition of our privileged status to be living in the post-resurrection cosmos that must be reflected in our understanding of the OT. Therefore, if what claims to be Christian proclamation of the OT simply remains in the pre-eschatological moment—simply reads the OT “on its own terms”—such is not a Christian proclamation in the apostolic sense.


Regarding the latter Enns writes:

What then of the exegetical methods employed by the Apostles? Here I follow Longenecker to a degree in that we do not share the Second Temple cultural milieu of the Apostles. I have no hesitation in saying that I would feel extremely uncomfortable to see our pastors, exegetes, or Bible Study leaders change, omit, or add words and phrases to make their point, even though this is what NT authors do. One very real danger that we are all aware of is how some play fast and loose with Scripture to support their own agenda. The church instinctively wants to guard against such a misuse of Scripture by saying, “Pay attention to the words in front of you in their original context.” What helps prevent (but does not guarantee against) such flights of fancy is grammatical-historical exegesis.

But this does not mean the church should adopt the grammatical-historical method as the default, normative hermeneutic for how it should read the OT today. Why? Because grammatical-historical exegesis simply does not lead to a Christotelic (apostolic) hermeneutic. A grammatical-historical exegesis of Hos 11:1, an exegesis that is anchored by Hosea’s intention, will lead no one to Matt 2:15. The first (grammatical-historical) reading does not lead to the second reading. This is a dilemma. The way I have presented the dilemma may suggest an impasse, but perhaps one way beyond that impasse is to question what we mean by “method.” The word implies, at least to me, a worked out, conscious application of rules and steps to arrive at a proper understanding of a text. But what if “method,” so understood, is not as central a concept as we might think? What if biblical interpretation is not guided so much by method but by an intuitive, Spirit-led engagement of Scripture with the anchor being not what the author intended but by how Christ gives the OT its final coherence?

I’ll leave you hanging with that. Check out the article.

For additional resources, check out this excellent lecture by Matt Harmon, Associate Professor of NT Studies at Grace Theological Seminary, and this article by Glenn Miller (I haven’t finished reading it yet, but Miller is always good).
 

May 10, 2007

Differences in the Gospels

Posted by Jason Dulle under Bible Difficulties, Theology
[20] Comments 

Skeptics make much to do of differences in details between the Gospel accounts, claiming they prove the Bible is full of contradictions, and thus can’t be the Word of God. One popular example is the number of angels at the tomb of Jesus. Was there one angel (Mt 28:2; Mk 16:5) or two (Lk 24:4, 23; Jn 20:12)? Other differences include the discoverers of the tomb. Was Mary Magdalene the lone discoverer of the empty tomb (Jn 20:1) or were there others (Mt 28:1; Mk 16:1; Lk 24:1, 10)? How many others, and who were they (each account gives a different number and grouping of names)? And then there’s the demoniac of the Gadarenes. Was there one demoniac (Mk 5:1-2; Lk 8:26) or two (Mt 8:28)?


 

It’s important to note that none of these examples are contradictions; they are mere differences. A contradiction is to say something is both A and not A at the same time and in the same way. That’s not what’s going on here. We simply have one author providing more details than another author. Adding details someone else left out is not a contradiction. If I hit a 2 base run and a home run during a baseball game, it’s not a contradiction for sports writer A to say I hit a home run and sportwriter B to say I hit a homerun and a 2 base run. One is providing more details than the other, but neither is contradicting the other. One provides more details, but neither has conflicting details.


 

Other passages aren’t so easy to explain, however. Consider Jesus’ healing of the centurion’s servant. Who came to Jesus asking Him to heal the child? Was it the centurion (Mt 8:5), or elders of the Jews (Lk 7:3)? This seems to be a genuine contradiction. Or is it?


 

We tend to force modern writing standards on the Biblical writers. We expect them to be as concerned about including every little detail as we are. When a big news story breaks we spend hours exploring and reporting on every (almost meaningless) facet of it. Every detail must be included, and everything said must be quoted exactly as spoken/written. Not so in the ancient near eastern world. They were more interested in the big picture, not the details; the gist, not the minutae.


 

I was reading the Gospel of John recently when I noticed something that illustrates my point beautifully. John 3:22 says, “After these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judaea; and there he tarried with them, and baptized.” Baptized is in the third person singular, the antecedent singular subject being “Jesus.” And yet in John 4:1-2 we read, “When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, (though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples,)….” Same author. Same book. Same context. Clealry John did not see any contradiction between these two statements. Notice how similar this is to the story of the centurion. Who came to Jesus? One person: the centurion? Multiple persons: the elders of the Jews? I think the answer to who came to Jesus is the same as who was doing the baptizing. Jesus’ disciples were doing the baptizing, but John could say it was Jesus because His disciples were doing so in His behalf. Likewise, the elders of the Jews came to Jesus, but Matthew can say it was the centurion because the Jewish elders represented him.

 

Or consider John 20:1 again. John only mentioned Mary Magdalene as a witness to Jesus’ resurrection, and yet in the very next verse he records Mary as saying to the apostles, “We do not know where they have laid him.” While John only reports Mary as a witness, he is clearly aware of the fact that there were more present than Mary.


My point is not to try to answer every kind of apparent contradiction in Scripture, but only to point out that what we think is a contradiction in Scripture would not have been viewed as such by the authors of Scripture. We are guilty of imposing modern standards of historiography and discourse on the apostles; they are not guilty of contradictions.

 

 

December 18, 2006

Star of Bethlehem: Natural or Supernatural?

Posted by Jason Dulle under Bible Difficulties, Theology
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In Matthew 2 we find the story of the wise men from the East coming to worship the newborn king of the Jews. The text says “the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was” (Mt 2:9b)

 

Was this star a natural or supernatural phenomenon? Both interpretations seem to be problematic. If it was a natural phenomenon, how could it be that the star stood specifically over Bethlehem? A natural celestial star would have naturally stood over every location in Israel, not just a tiny little town five miles from Jerusalem! That lends to the idea that the star was a supernatural phenomenon. But if it were supernatural, how is it that only the wise men picked up on it? Why weren’t the locals fascinated with this star? Why wasn’t anyone else drawn to the birthplace of Jesus through this star? Surely someone besides the wise men would have been drawn to a star that stood over a very specific location.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions for resolving this dilemma?

 

December 8, 2006

Jesus’ Baptism: to fulfill all righteousness

Posted by Jason Dulle under Baptism, Bible Difficulties, Theology
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Awhile back a blog dedicated to Biblical theology was discussing what it meant for Jesus’ baptism to “fulfill all righteousness.” One of the commentators brought up Broughton Knox’s take on the passage. Know writes:
In other words, Jesus said that it was right for him to identify with John’s messianic movement, for John’s baptism was “from God” (Matt 21:25) and Jesus would not stand aloof from it but ‘while all the people were being baptized’ (Lk 3:21) it was suitable that Jesus too should be baptized. It was the ‘right thing to do’. It was right for John, who was sent from God to baptize with water (John 1:33) to baptize Jesus and so include him in the movement along with all other God-fearing Jews who were awaiting the kingdom, and it was right for Jesus to accept John as the God-sent leader at that time and so accept baptism at his hands. In this way it was appropriate for both of them that John should baptize Jesus and that Jesus should identify with John’s message in the way that God had ordained, i.e., by being baptized by him in water, for God had sent him to baptize with water (John 1:33). That is, the baptism of Jesus was a baptism of discipleship, for at that time John was the leader. When the providence of God removed John from the leadership through Herod shutting him up in prison, then Jesus took over the leadership, preaching the same gospel. However, it would seem that he dropped the rite of baptizing with water, though his disciples revived it on the day of Pentecost.
What do you think of this interpretation? What is your interpretation of this intriguing and perplexing passage?

 

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