Eutychus

Revealed to Whom? (John 3:21)

2011-07-18T09:50:00.000-07:00

I often get questions from students about the best translation of some verse. Usually, the difference is between "literal" translation (such as ESV or NASB) and "dynamic" translation (such as the NIV or NLT). These two types are also called "formal" (because they try, when possible, to follow the forms and word order of the original Greek or Hebrew sentences) and "functional" (because they try to preserve the function or meaning of a whole sentence). Another way that these two types of translations are sometimes characterized is "word-for-word" and "thought-for-thought." A good book that clearly and succinctly explores these two translation philosophies is How to Choose a Translation For All Its Worth, by Gordon Fee and Mark Strauss.

A recent question emailed to me about the translation of John 3:21 reveals the difference in approaches. The underlined phrase in each (below) is a translation of the underlined Greek verb.

Greek: ὁ δὲ ποιῶν τὴν ἀλήθειαν ἔρχεται πρὸς τὸ φῶς, ἵνα φανερωθῇ αὐτοῦ τὰ ἔργα ὅτι ἐν θεῷ ἐστιν εἰργασμένα.
My formal translation: But the one who does the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be revealed that they are worked in God.
ESV: But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.
NLT: But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.

There are several differences between the translations, but the most important one is who the works are revealed to. The ESV (and other formal translations, like the NASB) leaves it unclear, but the first impression of most readers is that the works are revealed to God. The NLT (and some other functional translations like the CEV) specifies that the works are revealed to other people.

Part of the change that the NLT makes is converting the Greek passive "may be seen" into an active "so that others can see." It is common for functional translations to convert passive verbs to active for greater clarity. Nothing wrong with that - formal translations sometimes do the same to make more sense in English (Matt 5:7, for example). In this verse, converting the passive "may be seen" to an active verb requires specifying who it is revealed to. Should it be translated "so that God can see" or "so that others can see"? If the sentence was ambiguous in Greek, it would be best to leave it ambiguous in English, or maybe pick the most likely one and put the other choice in a footnote.

However, it turns out that this verse was not ambiguous to a native Greek speaker. The Greek verb for reveal in this verse is phaneroo (φανερόω). Elsewhere in John, and in general throughout the NT, phaneroo refers to revelation to humans, not to God (John 2:11, 7:4, 9:3, 17:6, 21:1). Knowing this, the translators of the NLT decided to make it clear in the translation that the the works are revealed to other people.

While there are good reasons to have "literal" translations like the ESV, it is interesting that in this case, the NLT more clearly communicates the meaning of the sentence by being less "literal."

The picture: John 3:21, from the fourth-century manuscript Codex Sinaiticus. You can see that the scribe accidentally skipped most of verse 21, but the corrector added it into the margin.

Greek Scholars Rule?

2011-04-09T22:03:00.000-07:00

He is a very amiable good fellow, but he is a Greek scholar and naturally a little eccentric.

– George Bernard Shaw, Major Barbara

Greek Scholars Rule!

2011-04-08T13:07:00.000-07:00

Greek scholars are privileged men. Few of them know Greek; and none of them know anything else; but their position is unchallengeable.

– George Bernard Shaw, Major Barbara

Erasmus on Interpretation

2011-04-08T12:41:00.000-07:00

It's the generally accepted privilege of theologians to stretch the heavens, that is the Scriptures, like tanners with a hide.

– Erasmus

Review of Bell's Book

2011-03-29T08:18:00.000-07:00

Darrel Bock is going through a chapter-by-chapter review of Rob Bell's new book, Love Wins at his blog. Bock is a top-notch scholar of the Gospels, and writes some civil and fair comments about the pros and cons of each chapter of Bell's book.

Are You Hungry? Blessings on the Hungry and Meek (Matthew 5:5-6)

2011-03-22T21:29:00.000-07:00

Here's a sermon on two of Jesus' beatitudes, preached in August 2006 at Hope Chapel West Oahu.

The picture: Jesus' triumphal entry (on a donkey rather than a warhorse). Giotto di Bondone, 1308.

The Good Shepherd

2011-03-21T21:10:00.000-07:00

Here's a sermon on John 10, the Good Shepherd, that I preached recently. The intro, about 5 minutes, is missing from the recording.

Gospel of Luke Wordle

2011-03-21T09:04:00.000-07:00

Soldiers in the Gospels

2011-03-14T10:59:00.000-07:00

When I teach or preach from the Gospels, I always bring in relevant aspects of the historical and cultural background. Including such details not only helps us in our interpretation of the scene, but also helps us retell the story well – an essential part of preaching from narrative passages.

Several passages in the Gospels involve soldiers. Movies about Jesus, and most sermons about Jesus, portray all of these soldiers as Romans. We sometimes get the idea that there were centurions on every street corner. But is this the case? I have pulled together some of the information that we have about soldiers in Judea and Galilee in the first century, and included a few comments about each scene in the Gospels involving soldiers.

Herod the Great: During Herod’s rise to power, his personal army consisted of Jews as well as bands of foreign mercenaries. Rome also loaned Herod the use of three legions to help him expel the Parthian invaders and their puppet king, the Hasmonean prince Antigonus. But by the time of Jesus’ birth, Herod had no Roman troops; he still had a sizable Jewish army, as well as one cohort each of German, Thracian, and Gallic mercenaries. Herod continued to use some Roman advisors or officers.

Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee: Herod Antipas also had his own army. Although details are sketchy, his soldiers were likely Jews and Gentile mercenaries, like his father’s army.

Pilate and other Roman governors: When Archelaus (another Herod) was removed from office, Jerusalem and Judea fell under the control of the Roman governors. They kept four cohorts (a cohort was usually 6 centuries of 60-80 soldiers) and some cavalry in Caesarea Maritima, the Roman provincial capital, and one cohort in the fortress Antonia in Jerusalem. The cohort in Jerusalem was primarily in charge of protecting the fort and the arsenal. The governor came to Jerusalem at major feasts with additional cohorts, which were temporarily quartered in the Praetorium (the governor’s palace). Roman cohorts normally travelled with battle standards and shrines that honored their gods. However, the troops left these behind when they came to Jerusalem, since Romans (usually) tried to honor the religious customs and gods of their client nations. Since the "Roman" soldiers in the East were primarily recruited from the Syrian Greeks, they probably spoke Greek as their primary language, not Latin. Their senior officers were probably ethnically Roman or Italian.

The High Priest: The Roman governors allowed the priestly aristocracy to govern Jerusalem and Judea, although the governor appointed and removed high priests and kept the right of capital punishment. The high priest had his own Jewish troops (called ὑπηρέται, hyperetai in the Gospels). These primarily had police responsibility, but were also prepared for city defense.

Scenes involving soldiers:

Soldiers coming to John the Baptist: Some soldiers come to John the Baptist for baptism (Luke 3:14). Since John’s primary ministry was in Galilee, these are probably Jewish soldiers of Herod Antipas.

Gentile officer who comes to Jesus (Matt 8:5-13). It is possible that this officer is a Roman centurion, as it is normally interpreted. However, the word translated "centurion" is ἑκατοντάρχος (hekatontarchos), which refers to an officer of any army. Throughout the LXX (the Greek translation of the Old Testament), hekatontarchos is a standard title used for captains and administrators, translating the Hebrew title שָׂרֵ֣י מֵא֔וֹת (sarey meyot), “leader of a hundred” (Exod 18:21, 1 Sam 8:12, 2 Sam 18:1). Josephus uses the title to refer to officers in David’s army, the Roman army, and in his own rebel army. Since it is unlikely that Roman troops were stationed in Galilee, it seems possible, or even likely, that this man was a Gentile mercenary captain in the army of Herod Antipas.

The arrest of Jesus: John 18:3 mentions the cohort and officers of the high priest. Although “cohort” can refer to troops of any nation, in this case it refers to a squad (or more) of soldiers from the Roman cohort. In Jerusalem, a reference to “the cohort,” along with the mention of a χιλίαρχος (chiliarchos, commander of a cohort, John 18:12), makes it clear that Roman troops are present along with the officers of the high priest. Since civil disorder was always a possibility at Passover, the high priest decided to request a contingent of Roman troops to support this arrest. John’s wording can be interpreted to mean that some portion of the cohort was present, rather than the entire cohort.

Jesus before the high priest: When Jesus appeared before the high priest, only Jewish officers (ὑπηρέται) were present (Matt 26:58). One of them struck Jesus during the hearing (John 18:21); others beat him after the verdict (Mark 14:65). In the morning, these soldiers would have guarded Jesus as he was handed over to Pilate.

Jesus before Pilate: Pilate ordered Jesus to be beaten and mocked by his soldiers (Matt 27:27-30). These were from the cohort that had travelled down with Pilate from Caesarea Maritima. Most of these troops were recruited from the Syrian Greeks, known for their hostility towards Jews. Josephus records that in about AD 50, one soldier “mooned” the Passover crowds from the walls above the Temple and caused a riot; another was executed by the governor for tearing up a Torah scroll.

Jesus before Herod Antipas: Herod was in Jerusalem for the Passover, so Pilate sent Jesus to Herod, probably hoping to dodge the problem of executing Jesus. Herod’s soldiers, who were probably Jewish, mocked Jesus and gave him a royal robe (Luke 23:6-12).

The crucifixion: Since the Roman government reserved the right of capital punishment, Roman soldiers presided over the execution. Mark calls the presiding officer a κεντυρίων (kenturion), a Latin loanword, rather than the usual hekatontarchos. Crucifixion was reserved for acts of insurrection against Rome; the two criminals were likely compatriots of Barabbas, an insurrectionist.

The tomb: The high priest persuaded Pilate to seal Jesus’ tomb and post a squad of Roman soldiers (Matt 27:62-66). Since their failure to guard the tomb could result in their execution, the chief priests promised to use their influence with Pilate to protect them, if they would lie about the event.

There is more to say, as soldiers show up in Acts, and as metaphors in Paul's letters (maybe the topic of a later post). Paying attention to the “local color” of scenes in the gospels doesn’t always dramatically influence our reading, but it does help us retell the stories in an interesting and accurate way.

Reading John

2011-02-15T15:45:00.000-08:00

Over at the Talbot blog you can find my new post on how to read the Gospel of John. It is a re-working of an older post (found here).

Talbot Blog

2011-02-10T11:45:00.000-08:00

Talbot School of Theology (where I teach) just started a blog. The contributors are the Talbot faculty, so there are a wide variety of topics related to the Bible, theology, church history, Christian ministry, and personal spirituality. Most of my new posts will be on both blogs.

Why It's OK to Have a Christmas Tree

2010-12-26T14:45:00.000-08:00

At least three times in the last year, I have heard from Christians who are concerned that they shouldn't have a Christmas tree, or maybe shouldn't celebrate Christmas, because many Christmas customs are adopted from pagan customs. Some Christians worry that the date of Christmas was picked to replace pagan holidays such as Saturnalia (likely true), that the Christmas tree came from pagan rituals (uncertain, but possible), or that the star on the tree comes from star worship (not too likely, in my opinion).

To answer this concern, let me ask a very different question: is it OK for Christians to use the names for the days of the week and the months? The days of the week honor Norse gods: Sun day, Moon day, Tiw's day, Odin's day, Thor's day, Freya's day, Saturn day. Some of the months honor Greek and Roman gods (Janus, Mars, Aphrodite, Maia, Juno) while others honor deified Roman emperors (Julius, Augustus). But no one seems to have a problem with this, for a very good reason: when Christians say "Thursday," they are not worshipping Thor, and no one else thinks they are, either. The Bible prohibits idolatry, but idolatry consists of worshipping other gods. Worship is not something that one does unintentionally; it's a matter of the heart.

This is why it's OK to have a Christmas tree, give gifts, put a star on your tree, and celebrate Jesus' birth on December 25 (even if he wasn't born then). When I erect a Christmas tree, none of my neighbors thinks I am worshipping some old druid god, and I certainly have no intent to worship anything. In fact, to genuine pagans, my devout observance of Christmas in honor of Jesus is a testimony to my faith in Christ, not my worship of any other god.

Symbols and words are not permanently tainted merely because they are used by another religion ("I know and am convinced in the Lord that nothing is unclean in itself..." says Paul in Rom 14:14, referring to meat sacrificed to idols). Cults misuse baptism and the Lord's Supper, but that does not mean we should no longer baptize or share in communion. When Solomon built the first temple for God in the Old Testament, there had already been pagan temples for at least two thousand years. The design of Solomon's temple even had some similarities to Egyptian temples. The fact that temples were used by other religions did not make it wrong to build a temple to God or to use the temple as a metaphor for God's people. There are lots of other examples in the Bible of using (or redeeming) terms and symbols from the pagan world. Paul quotes the poem "A Hymn to Zeus" in Acts 17:28. While astrology and the worship of stars is condemned in the Bible, stars are repeatedly used as symbols of Jesus, Israel, and the church - so it is OK for you to put a star on your Christmas tree.

Finally, celebrating Christmas is allowable because the Scripture gives us personal freedom in such matters. In 1 Cor 8-10, Paul tells Christians not to participate in idol feasts, because idol feasts involved acts of worship to other gods, and everyone knew such feasts were designed to honor other gods. But in 1 Cor 10:25-33, Paul says that Christians can eat meat that was sold in an idol market, because it is not an act of worship, and the meat is not permanently tainted. Paul also says that Christians have freedom to celebrate religious holidays or not according to their own conscience, and even warns us not to condemn others for their decisions in these areas of freedom (Rom 14:1-14, Col 2:16-17). The Bible forbids worship of other gods - but celebrating Christmas by putting up a Christmas tree does not constitute worship, especially when we do it in honor of Jesus.

"Do not let what is for you a good thing be spoken of as evil, for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking [or celebrating Christmas or not!], but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Rom 14:16-17). The Christian life is primarily about living out the virtues of Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit. If Christmas is a good thing for you that leads you to think about Jesus, then enjoy it - but more importantly, make sure that your Christian life is primarily about things that really matter, not minor quibbles about Christmas.

The picture: The Nativity, by an unknown Ottonian, ca. 1025-1050.

The Real Saint Nicholas (re-post)

2010-12-23T10:32:00.000-08:00

It's hard being a professor's kid. When my kids ask me if Santa Claus is real, I answer, "Of course. Here's his picture." And I show them this picture of the actual St. Nicholas, bishop of Myra (AD 280-346), historical basis of the Santa Claus legend (take off the "ni" from his name and you can see how we got "Claus").

The photo is a reconstruction from Nicholas' skull, made by a forensic anthropologist. Nicholas was briefly disinterred in the 50s, and high-quality photographs of his remains were eventually used to create a 3-D image of his face. Nicholas was Greek, so his complexion is a little more olive than the rosiness of modern Santa Claus.

Nicholas had a broken nose, which may be related to accounts that he was imprisoned and tortured during Diocletian's persecution of Christians in AD 303. Like most other bishops of his time, he was present at the Nicene Council (AD 325).

There are all sorts of interesting stories about St. Nicholas: he gave dowries to poor girls to save them from prostitution; he appealed on behalf of unjustly condemned men; and my personal favorite: he slapped the heretic Arius in the face at the Nicene Council.

Of course, you should probably take all of this with at least a little grain of salt, since legends tend to accumulate around saints and their remains - but I think I like Nicholas of Myra better than the fat man at the North Pole!

As good old St. Nick would say, Kala Christougenna!

Evangelical Theological Society, Day 3

2010-11-20T11:03:00.000-08:00

Final day of ETS! Here are the highlights:

Found a good sushi place today - best I've had since leaving Hawaii. Funny - they had a health warning posted about eating raw fish.
The best part of being at these conferences, as everyone agrees, is spending time with people. I have enjoyed having coffee or meals with former students, former professors, and colleagues who teach all over the country. Kind of strange - I am only (ha!) 42, but I think I have at least 7 or 8 former students who are now professors.
NT Wright gave a really good lecture near the end of ETS yesterday, and Tom Schreiner and Frank Thielman responded to him. They covered lots of ground, but several things impressed me. 1) All three were models of Christian civility, even in their disagreements with each other - something sometimes lacking in this debate. They emphasized their points of agreement (e.g. substitutionary atonement, Christ as the heart of the gospel, and others), and did not overstate their areas of disagreement. Wright was rather pointed as he addressed the crowd, asking them not to quote him out of context or allow false rumors about him to spread (he has taken a lot of heat, some of it quite unfair, in books and especially blogs). 2) Wright agrees that Paul teaches that sin and guilt transfer to Jesus (substitutionary atonement) but he doesn't think that Paul teaches that righteousness transfers to the believer (imputation of righteousness). However, I was surprised to hear him admit that there might be space for imputation as a trajectory in Paul's thought stemming from union with Christ. 3) I found myself persuaded by Wright's reading of the larger narrative of salvation (you can read his work on this, but it emphasizes the roles of Adam, Abraham, Israel and Jesus in God's plan), but in general I am still unpersuaded by how he reads it into particular passages in Romans and Galatians. 4) Wright is sometimes viewed as overemphasizing the role of works in justification, but in the conversation between the three, it became apparent that this difference might be more semantic than real. All three (along with most Paul scholars) recognize that Paul repeatedly emphasizes that we will be judged for our works, but that our justification rests solely on faith in Christ and his work.
Craig Keener discussed his new book on the historical Jesus. Lots of good stuff (about 800 pages), but in the presentation, he emphasized 1) Studies of ancient biographies show that biographers were relatively bound by their available data despite authorial purposes and biases. He showed how the three biographers Suetonius, Tacitus and Plutarch all had significant overlap in the details of their account of the Roman emperor Otho. Keener suggests this should affect our view of the biographies of Jesus (the gospels). 2) Studies of memorization prove that both ancient and modern cultures regularly preserve vast amount of information by memory alone, and that very little changes in the memorized material over generations. The first of the gospels was written within 40 years of the events, and relies on even earlier memorized material, demonstrating that there is no reason to believe that lots of extraneous material crept into the memorized data about Jesus.
On Friday night, I went to the Institute for Biblical Research. This year, they started giving away the traditional free book to members only, so it looks like I finally need to apply for membership! NT Wright was again the speaker. I won't try to summarize his paper here; its content about Jesus' message of the kingdom might be revolutionary in many of our churches (which was his point), but is almost commonplace among evangelical gospels scholars. Still, Wright managed to present it in a compelling and even entertaining manner. Ditto for his respondent, Michael Bird.
Favorite quote/anecdote of the week: Tom Wright told about being stuck in traffic in London. The cabby saw his clerical collar (Wright was a bishop until recently) and said (imagine a good Cockney accent) "You anglican bishops are having quite a row over women bishops, aren't you?" Wright agreed. The cabby weighed in, "Well, the way I figure it, if God raised Jesus from the dead, then the rest is all rock'n'roll, i'n't it?" Wright said that quote became the main text of his next Easter sermon.

Evangelical Theological Society, Day 2

2010-11-18T10:02:00.000-08:00

So here are the highlights of day two of the conference:

I had grits for breakfast. Of course, this obligated me to quote Joe Pesci in My Cousin Vinny to my friends: "Sure I've heard of grits. I just never actually seen a grit" and "How could it take you five minutes to cook your grits when it takes the entire grit-eating world twenty minutes?"
Celebrity Alert: I saw Darrel Bock going down the escalator. I have it on good authority that some of his friends call him "Dome of the Bock" because of his vast forehead. This, of course, in contrast to my own thick, wavy hair.
Christian Book Industry Bailout Alert: I haven't bought any more books today, but it will be hard to avoid if I go back into the exhibit hall.
Last night's plenary session (for some reason, half the people say plee-nary and half say plenary, but that's not important right now): Tom Schreiner gave a brilliant lecture responding to Wright's view of justification. It was incredibly well-organized, strongly argued, and very gracious. Schreiner's basic points: 1) Wright is a gifted scholar who has contributed immensely to NT scholarship, but his view on justification needs correcting. 2) Wright thinks justification is fundamentally about ecclesiology (the inclusion of Gentiles in the people of God), but Schreiner showed that the terms related to justification are constantly used in soteriological passages to communicate the granting of right moral standing. 3) Wright doesn't believe in imputation of righteousness, but Schreiner worked through several texts showing that Paul taught it. 4) Wright believes that "works of the Law" refers not to all Law-keeping, but to the use of certain laws (circumcision, diet, and holy days) as Jewish boundary markers. Schreiner showed numerous passages in Paul where this definition just cannot work. (I probably missed something there, but you can read Schreiner's paper in a few months). Looking forward to hearing Wright speak tomorrow.
Danny Hays presented a paper this morning on how the story of the Ethiopian eunuch's conversion (Acts 8) alludes to the story of another Ethiopian eunuch in Jeremiah 38-39. I was interested in this story because of a project I am working on about allusions to the OT in Luke-Acts. I had noticed the reference to Jeremiah, but could not figure out what Luke was doing with it. Hays had a great explanation. Hays spent several years in Ethiopia, and has an interest in Africans in the Bible (he's also co-author of a great undergrad hermeneutics textbook).
Nicholas Piotrowski presented a paper on an allusion to Ezekiel 36 in Matthew 1:21. Among other interesting claims, Piotrowski suggests that the Ezekiel allusion contributes to an "end of Exile" theme in Matthew; that is, some Israelites viewed themselves as still in the Exile, and Jesus ended that.
You can see by my choice of lectures that one of my special interests is how the New Testament uses the Old Testament.

Evangelical Theological Society, Day 1

2010-11-17T15:57:00.000-08:00

So here I am, at theological nerdvana again. This year, three or four thousand scholars from around the country have converged on Atlanta, and all of them were trying to get on the same elevator at dinner time. But besides that, I'm having a wonderful time. There were probably a hundred lectures today, but I made it to about five. Here are today's highlights:

I helped keep the Christian academic book industry afloat by buying two books, The Heresy of Orthodoxy and Keep Your Greek. I bought the second book primarily because of the title of ch. 2: "Burn Your Interlinear: The interlinear is a tool of the devil, designed to make preachers stupid." Amen!
Celebrity Alert: I met Bill Mounce while signing in at the hotel.
Another Celebrity Alert: While I was glancing over Wayne Grudem's new book on politics and Christianity, Grudem walked by and said "Buy it! Buy it!" I bet he didn't know he would be quoted.
I just listened to my friend Ken Berding present a very good paper arguing that the proper translation of Rom 8:27 should be "and [the Spirit] who searches hearts knows the [believer's] mind set on the Spirit, because he intercedes for the saints according to God's purposes" instead of the traditional translation: "and [God] who searches hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because he intercedes for the saints according to God's purposes."
Darrel Bock, Gordon Johnston and Herb Bateman gave a presentation of their book, Jesus the Messiah. It covers how OT messianic texts were understood when they were first written, how they were understood by readers in Second Temple Judaism, and how they were understood by the authors of tne New Testament. Bock used the imagery of a puzzle: OT passages that contained limited information about the Messiah, or only hinted at the Messiah, are the separate puzzle pieces. Jesus put the pieces together in ways that were not anticipated by many before him.
A student, Jonathan E. Parnell, gave a good presentation of how Piper and Wright differ in how they read the Bible, resulting in different views. Wright emphasizes (overemphasizes, according to the presenter) the Jewish conceptual framework, allowing it to be more significant than the text itself, while Piper uses background information, but allows the text to dominate. One respondent pointed out that Piper allows broader theological concepts to dominate over the text.

Not this... but that. (Ephesians 4-5)

2010-10-06T10:38:00.000-07:00

This morning, I was paying attention to the string of contrasts in Ephesians 4 and 5. Each of them explains the first contrast, found in Eph 4:22-24: lay aside the old self... put on the new self.

not falsehood... but truth

don't steal... but work so you can be generous

don't use rotten words... but give gracious, edifying words

not bitterness, anger... but kindness, compassion, forgiveness

don't be unwise... but wise

don't be foolish, but understand the will of the Lord

don't get drunk, but be filled with the Spirit

For several of the contrasts, Paul explains a little more of what he means. For example, being "filled with the Spirit" in Eph 5:18 is explained in the rest of the sentence (found in vv. 19-21): "speaking to one another in psalms... giving thanks... submitting to one another..."

When Paul says "understand the will of the Lord" (Eph 5:17), it's easy to misunderstand him. Usually, Christians use that sort of language to refer to big decisions like what job to take, whom to marry, or what church to attend. But for Paul, "the will of the Lord" is the opposite of the items in the first column, and it is like the items in the second column. So "the will of the Lord" is not lying, stealing, rotten words, foolishness or getting drunk, and it includes truthfulness, generosity, gracious words, kindness, and wisdom.

What I like about this is that it makes "the will of the Lord" something that is within reach. The will of the Lord is not this... but that. God's will is not about which job or church I pick, but about rejecting my "former conduct" and putting on the new self (Eph 4:22-24). I can be certain that I am "in God's will" when I am being kind, forgiving, wise, thankful, and worshipful, regardless of whatever "big decisions" I may be struggling with.

The picture: a depiction of the book of Ephesians, from Biblia ectypa: Bildnussen auss Heiliger Schrift (an illustrated Bible) by Christoph Weigel, 1695. Image courtesy of the Digital Image Archive, Pitts Theology Library.

Erasmus on Interpretation

2010-08-31T14:10:00.000-07:00

"For there are some secret places in the Holy Scriptures into which God has not wished us to penetrate more deeply and, if we try to do so, then the deeper we go, the darker and darker it becomes, by which means we are led to acknowledge the unsearchable majesty of divine wisdom, and the weakness of the human mind."

-Erasmus of Rotterdam, preface to On the Freedom of the Will, 1524.

Jesus in Context

2010-08-16T07:32:00.000-07:00

"If you don’t put Jesus in his proper context, you will inevitably put him in a different one, where he, his message, and his achievement will be considerably distorted." Found in a nice article by N.T. Wright about C.S. Lewis (thanks to euangelion for pointing it out).

If you already like Wright, you will enjoy this article. If you are skeptical about some of Wright's ideas (as I am), you will see a bit of Wright's admirable heart and observe that he is quite a bit like Lewis.

Vacation Pictures

2010-08-05T13:21:00.001-07:00

You can take a look at our family vacation pictures here and our day at Sequoia National Park here.

Jesus Was Not a Rebel

2010-08-02T20:10:00.000-07:00

When I say that Jesus was not a rebel, I mean that he was not a rebel in the way that most modern or post-modern Americans define rebel. When I hear or read a claim that Jesus was a rebel, it usually implies the following definition:

A rebel opposes authority simply because it is authority. A rebel flaunts traditions simply because they are traditions.

People who view Jesus as this sort of rebel emphasize that he publicly broke Sabbath traditions and consorted with outsiders such as tax collectors and prostitutes. But does this sort of rebel image really fit Jesus? As I read the Gospels, it seems clear to me that Jesus was not opposed to all authority or all tradition. Rather, he sought to overthrow one sort of authority and replace it with another. Read the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7) carefully - Jesus rejects the authority of the scribes and Pharisees, but he replaces it with his own authority and the authority of the Torah. Jesus was not opposed to all traditions, but only to those traditions that prevented genuine obedience to the even older tradition of the Law.

Why does this matter? Because it seems to me that a certain class of Christian routinely skewers authority and traditions and uses the excuse that Jesus was a rebel. Before we begin to flaunt Christian traditions by swearing or smoking pot (for example), we need to ask if that sort of rebellion is really anything like what Jesus did. Jesus broke bad rules and replaced them with "greater righteousness" based on love for God and neighbor.

The Mark of the Beast is Islam? Walid Shoebat and 666

2010-07-13T21:08:00.012-07:00

Walid Shoebat, a prophecy speaker, was in Hawaii last week teaching at a few churches. He made some interesting claims (found in this video) about the meaning of the "number of the beast" in Rev 13:18. A few people asked me to comment on the validity of this claim.

Here's Walid's basic claim: When John wrote about the famous "number of the beast" in Rev 13:18, he actually wrote in a Muslim symbol and an Arabic phrase, not a Greek number. Walid said he discovered this by looking at the symbol for 666 in the 4th-century manuscript Vaticanus. When he turned the letters sideways, he saw the crossed swords of Islam and the Arabic phrase bismillah, meaning "in the name of Allah."

There are multiple problems with this claim.

1) It is yet one more example of our obsession with 666. Every few years, some radio prophecy teacher makes another claim that they have identified who the Antichrist is - Ronald Reagan, the Pope, Prince Charles, Barack Obama. Frank Fasi is my favorite candidate (initials FFF, and F is the 6th letter of the alphabet). It is difficult to take these claims seriously, especially when they are not based on the way numbers worked in the first century.

2) John tells us four times that he is referring to a number: "the number of his name... calculate the number of the beast, for the number is that of a man, and his number is 666." We need to listen to the author: if he says that 666 is a number, then we should agree that it is a number, not an Arabic phrase.

3) Walid says that he found the symbols in the 4th century manuscript Codex Vaticanus. This is incorrect. Codex Vaticanus is from the 4th century, but it is missing the book of Revelation and several other books due to damage. A 15th century manuscript was added in to the end of Vaticanus to replace the missing material. This is very important, because it means that the supposed Arabic phrase is not found in the earliest manuscripts of Revelation, but only one late medieval manuscript.

4) Anyone who spends much time reading Greek manuscripts can recognize that the symbol in the picture is indeed the Greek number 666. Greek did not have symbols for numbers, so it used letters. In this case, χξς (chi xi stigma) is the normal way to write 666 (chi = 600, xi = 60, stigma = 6).

5) The scribe who wrote this particular manuscript followed a pattern that proves that he was writing a number. Like other scribes, he put a bar above the letters to indicate that they were functioning as numbers. He also switched his "font" - he wrote all of his normal text in the more ancient majuscule font (all caps, essentially), and all his numbers in the later minuscule font (lower-case, kind of like cursive). This miniscule script was not even used until the 5th century, so there is no way that John would have used it in his original. In the script used in the first century, John would have written it something like this:

or perhaps like this:

which does not work at all for Walid's claim.

6) In order for his theory to work, each letter has to be turned sideways, and the bar that symbolizes "number" also has to be turned sideways and read as an Arabic letter. The bar also has to be arbitrarily placed third from left, since it is actually a bar above all three letters. It is almost impossible to believe that John wrote intentionally in Arabic in a Greek manuscript, then turned each letter sideways, moved one letter above the other three, altered each to look more like Greek letters in a script that would not yet exist for four centuries, called them numbers, then expected people to figure it out. Even if it were possible, Walid has only given us evidence (sort of) that a 15th-century scribe did this, not that John did it.

7) All early interpreters of Revelation thought it was a number. Some scribes wrote out the whole number (ἑξακόσιοι ἑξήκοντα ἕξ, hexakosioi hexekonta hex, six hundred sixty six), and others commented on the symbolic nature of the number.

8) Most scholars of Revelation (i.e. professors and authors of scholarly books on Revelation) believe that 666 is an example of gematria, the ancient system of calculating the numerical value of a person's name. Walid opposes the gematriacal interpretation because gematria was used in witchcraft. But this is not a good reason to reject gematria in the Bible. Although gematria was used at times in magical incantations, so have many other things, such as the name of God, Jesus, and the angels of the Old Testament.

Walid also opposes using gematria because, he says, "God is not the author of mysteries." This is also not a good objection. Revelation is filled with mysterious symbols, and it uses the word mystery four times. Walid's interpretation is much more mysterious than many others! And actually, gematria was not that mysterious. Since every Greek and Hebrew letter was equivalent to a number, any one who spoke those languages in the ancient world could calculate "the number of their name" (gematria) without effort.

The standard ancient interpretation still holds up well: 666 is the number of Nero's name. Other details in Revelation also point to Nero. John is thus saying that the final evil leader will be someone much like Nero (who was already dead when John wrote). This evil leader will persecute Christians, conquer nations, call for worship of himself, and not follow even his own ancestral religion.

It's important to remember that 1 John says that there are many antichrists (1 John 2:18, 2:22, 4:3): anyone who opposes the truth about Jesus is an antichrist. In that sense, many empires throughout history have been "antichrist" and Islam is sometimes "antichrist" when it suppresses the Christian message and persecutes Christians. But Rev 13:18 does not tell us that Islam is the antichrist.

Manning Kids

2010-07-13T16:44:00.008-07:00

A sample of recent sayings and conversations from the Manning kids:
Andrew and Elizabeth (5), pretending to be superheroes:
Andrew: My guy is kinda like Iron Man, but he shoots lava out of his hands, like this: WHOOSH! BAM!
Elizabeth: My superhero is like Iron Man too, but her helmet covers up her hair so bad guys can't tell she's a girl. And she wears a skirt that comes down to here, and boots that come up to here.

Peter (6), warning his siblings against entering his fort: Avandish hope, all he who enter here!

Caleb (7), watching cool reflected lights: Wow! It's so exciting! It's like one of those dinko parties!
Me: Like what?
Caleb: You know, with the ball with mirrors on it.
Me: You mean a disco ball?

Speaking the Truth in Love (Ephesians 4:15)

2010-06-24T18:25:00.005-07:00

It's common for Christians to quote Ephesians 4:15, "speaking the truth in love" when they talk about the need to make damaged relationships right, or when they need to address the sin of an erring brother or sister. People usually use the phrase to mean that when we deal with conflict or address sin, we should do so lovingly. That is certainly good advice! But I don't think that was what Paul was talking about.

First, the context. This phrase is found in a paragraph about causing the church to grow into christlike maturity (4:13-17). The result of this maturity is that the believers are no longer deceived by every teaching that comes along (4:14). In contrast, we are to "speak the truth" and thus continue to grow to be like Christ (4:15-17). So what Paul is talking about here is a contrast between a church that accepts all sorts of false teaching and one that speaks the truth. In other words, Paul is talking about teaching the Truth out of love so that Christians will become more like Jesus.

This interpretation, that Paul is talking about right teaching, is verified by the meaning of ἀληθεύοντες, "speaking the truth" (one word in Greek, not three). Paul uses the word elsewhere only in Gal 4:16: "Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?" Here, as in Ephesians, "telling the truth" is about teaching the truth.

The NET Bible translates this phrase as "practicing the truth" because the verb is sometimes used in the LXX to imply being true or proving true. However, in determining the meanings of words, we should let near context rule over far context. Eph 4:13-15 contrasts ἀληθεύοντες with false teaching, not with unfaithfulness; and Paul's use of the word in Gal 4:16 is about teaching the truth. It is difficult to follow Paul's train of thought in Eph 4 if he is talking about being faithful or true rather than teaching the truth.

The picture: Eph 4:15 from Codex Sinaiticus, a manuscript from AD 350. The first word in the first line is ἀληθεύοντες, speaking the truth.

"Christ who is over all God blessed forever" (Romans 9:5)

2010-05-31T14:42:00.010-07:00

One of my students sent me a question about the translation of Romans 9:5 (pictured above in Codex Sinaiticus, a manuscript from AD 350).

The phrase in question is ὁ Χριστὸς τὸ κατὰ σάρκα ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων θεὸς εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας. Here are the two possible translations, with some English translations that (more or less) follow this option.

1) Christ according to the flesh who is over all, God blessed forever (or "who is God over all, blessed forever"). KJV, NASB, NIV, NLT, ESV, NET, HCSB, NRSV.
2) Christ according to the flesh. God who is over all [be] blessed forever. RSV, CEV, NAB

Option 1 typically includes a comma, but the comma does not affect the meaning. Option 2 requires a period between κατὰ σάρκα and ὁ ὢν. It is legitimate for translators to insert periods where necessary, since ancient manuscripts used minimal punctuation. But it is important to note that no ancient manuscript inserted a period at that spot. The manuscript above is typical: there are punctuation marks after "promises" from Rom 9:4, and after "amen" in 9:5, but none after "according to the flesh" (line 4, fifth letter in the photo).

In favor of option 2: Although Paul elsewhere makes statements about the deity of Christ, he never does so in these words, equating Χριστὸς (Christ) with θεὸς (God). Elsewhere in the NT, the phrase "over all" and "blessed" (εὐλογητὸς) are used with reference to the Father, not the Son.

In favor of option 1: the phrase ὁ ὢν ("who is") is a participle phrase functioning as an adjective. Everywhere else in the New Testament and in the LXX, this phrase modifies a noun that precedes it. I cannot find any example of ὁ ὢν modifying a noun that follows. That means that ὁ ὢν must modify Christ, not God, resulting in "Christ... who is God." There are a few examples of other adjectival participles (i.e., not εἰμι) modifying a noun that follows, but they are quite rare.

I favor option 1 for three reasons.

Translation decisions should rely heavily on original grammar, and the grammatical support for option 1 is much stronger than for option 2.
The only real argument for option 2 is that Paul doesn't elsewhere use this kind of language to refer to Christ. But Paul often makes unique statements that have no exact parallel elsewhere in his writings. It is illegitimate to exclude a translation only because "it doesn't sound like Paul." If Paul wants to emphasize that Christ is God, it is only natural that he would use language that he has elsewhere used for God.
Option 1 best makes sense of the context. Paul is expressing his anguish that so many of his fellow Israelites, who had the patriarchs, the Scriptures, and Christ himself, have rejected Christ. Paul emphasizes who they are rejecting: Christ who is Jewish in his humanity, but is also God over all, blessed forever.

Gospel of John Sinaiticus Mug

2010-05-06T17:50:00.003-07:00

A few days ago, when I should have been grading papers, I designed this mug. It has the first two columns of John 1 (split into four columns to fit on the mug) from the fourth-century Greek manuscript Codex Sinaiticus.

Designing the mug was a lot easier than it sounds. I used Zazzle, a website that allows you to easily make personalized mugs, t-shirts, ties, and other stuff. In fact, you can buy this mug on their website. I'm thinking of buying a few to give out for my first-year Greek awards.

And yes, I am now finishing up grading my large stack of papers.

Gospel of John Class

2010-05-02T21:11:00.002-07:00

For my last course at Pacific Rim Christian College, I will teach a Gospel of John class (my area of specialty) at the beginning of the summer. It will be an intensive course for only two weeks, May 24-June 4, 9:00-1:00 every day. It can be taken as a graduate or undergraduate level course (with different assignments depending on level), or you can audit it for about half price.

It is only a few weeks away, so if you want to take the class, call up the registrar at Pac Rim (853-1040).

The picture: 12th century manuscript (codex 666) of the Gospel of John. The title is in the older majuscule style (all caps), while the text is in miniscule (cursive).

Talbot Bound

2010-04-29T20:49:00.009-07:00

If all goes well, I will be headed to Talbot School of Theology (at Biola University) this fall as associate professor of New Testament. After a very rigorous (but enjoyable) interview process, the Talbot faculty committee recommended me for the position to the Biola President and Board. If their approval is granted, we will be moving to Southern California this summer as soon as our house sells. We will really miss Hawaii, and I will miss my students at Pac Rim, but overall we are very excited about the coming changes.

I received my M.Div. from Talbot, and I was an adjunct professor there while I was doing my Ph.D. work at Fuller. I am excited about the prospect of joining a faculty team that I have highly respected since I was a student. We are all looking forward to living near my wife's family. For our younger children, the best thing about the move is that we will live near Disneyland!

Easter according to Basic Instructions

2010-04-04T12:51:00.005-07:00

Ok, it's Easter, and I know I ought to post something either scholarly or pastoral... but I couldn't resist posting this comic about Easter from Scott Meyer's Basic Instructions.

Yes, there is an eerie resemblance between me and the comic's main character, who is also Scott Meyer, the author. But that's mainly because any two bald haole guys with goatees look about the same.

For a fee, Scott Meyer will convert a photo into the kind of art you see in the comic, and my friend Rich bought one for me for my birthday - see my avatar at right on my blog under "about me."

NT Survey Class at BIH

2010-03-24T23:19:00.005-07:00

I will be teaching a short New Testament Survey Course for the Bible Institute of Hawaii (BIH) in April and May. The class will meet weekly on Thursdays from 7-9 at Kalihi Union Church. Details are available in the flyer above, and you can register (for only $40!) at the BIH website.

The Lord's Prayer in Elvish

2010-03-19T10:27:00.001-07:00

Middle-Earth fans are well aware that J.R.R. Tolkien, as an accomplished linguist (or philologist, as they were called then), created multiple languages for Middle-Earth. The two languages that he developed the most were two elven languages, Quenya and Sindarin. Tolkien translated the Lord's Prayer into Quenya himself, and a fan translated into Sindarin.

In Quenya:

Átarema i ëa han ëa, na aire esselya,

aranielya na tuluva, na care indómelya cemende tambe Erumande.

Ámen anta síra ilaurëa massamma,

ar ámen apsene úcaremmar sív' emme apsenet tien i úcarer emmen.

Álame tulya úsahitenna mal áme etelehta ucullo.

Násie.

In Sindarin:

Ae Adar nín i vi Menel

no aer i eneth lín

tolo i arnad lín

caro den i innas lin

bo Ceven sui vi Menel.

Anno ammen sír i mbas ilaurui vín

ar díheno ammen i úgerth vin

sui mín i gohenam di ai gerir úgerth ammen.

The picture: The Lord's Prayer in Sindarin (the letters are in the Tengwar script, also created by Tolkien).

Handling Accurately or Teaching Straight?

2010-03-12T20:41:00.001-08:00

In my Greek class last week, we had a discussion about the word ὀρθοτομέω (orthotomeo) in 2 Timothy 2:15. Here's a quick overview of how several translations render the end of that verse:

NIV: correctly handles the word

NASB: accurately handling the word

NLT: correctly explains the word

NET Bible marginal note: "correctly handling" or "imparting it without deviation"

NAB: imparting the word... without deviation

The Message: laying out the truth plain and simple

Translations vary because orthotomeo is a metaphorical word referring to cutting straight. Is the emphasis on accurate workmanship? (NIV, NASB, most others) or on straight cutting, meaning without deviating to irrelevant teaching? (NAB, The Message).

Here are two reasons why I am starting to favor the sense of "without deviation."

1) Orthotomeo is used in LXX Prov 3:6 and 11:5 to refer to cutting a straight path - a path that does not meander. The word is not used elsewhere in the NT or LXX.

2) The context of 2 Tim 2:15 includes both warning against incorrect teaching and against pointless teaching. However, one of Paul's key warnings in the entire passage is against pointless speculation: "warn them not to argue about words" "avoid worldly and empty chatter" "refuse foolish and ignorant speculations".

If that is how Paul is using the metaphor, then his point is that teaching in the church needs to stick to the big important ideas and not get distracted into speculation, pointless debate, or error.

The picture: a fresco of Paul from a tomb believed by some to hold his actual remains. It is the oldest painting of Paul, and the sarcophagus contains bone fragments from the first or second century.

Dr. Seuss and Revelation

2010-03-11T20:41:00.002-08:00

Last week, I taught a short seminar at HIM (which is Hawaii's biggest Christian conference) on how to read Revelation. To explain the nature of symbolism in Revelation, I used a few political cartoons (an idea that I got from David Scholer, one of my doctoral advisors at Fuller). And in honor of Dr. Seuss' birthday a few weeks ago, I used some of Seuss' political cartoons from the 30s and 40s. What is interesting, and what makes this relevant to the study of Revelation, is that Dr. Seuss' cartoons were immediately obvious to readers at the time, but are difficult to understand today unless we study history. If you are my age or older, you can immediately recognize the hammer and sickle in the chef's hands as a symbol of Communism or of the USSR - but if you are the age of many of my college students, you might not recognize the symbol. Most people today recognize the swastika on the pig's hat, but people from another time might not. You have to know something about history to recognize that the cartoon represents Stalinist Russia's defeat of Hitler's Germany. There's a few things I don't know - was this cartoon in response to a particular battle that Russia won? or in hopes of a victory? And what does the wreath on Joe's left arm symbolize?

Here's another one that made immediate sense to the original listeners. "Coughlin-ites" refers to followers of Charles Coughlin. Although he is obscure to us, Coughlin was the most popular radio speaker in the US during the 30s and early 40s (more than 40 million listeners, according to the infallible Wikipedia entry). Saying "Coughlin-ites" was something like saying "Ditto-heads" or "Limbaugh-ites" today. But Coughlin was sadly an anti-semitic Nazi sympathizer who blamed the escalating European conflict on England rather than Germany.

In this cartoon, labels help identify the topic. Pearl Harbor and Manila on a couple of bricks show that Dr. Seuss is talking about the Japanese attacks that brought the US into WWII. Dr. Seuss, like others from his time, clearly felt that Japan's unannounced and unprovoked attacks broke the rules of warfare - and now it was time to take up some of the same dirty tricks? There are only a few symbols here: the top hat as a symbol for the US and a swastika for Hitler. Is the main figure an eagle, America's symbol? or is it a chicken, symbolizing fear? Note another culturally-bound image: Hirohito is portrayed in a manner many would now regard as racist. But is Seuss racist? Reading his other cartoons makes me think not - he was in favor of civil rights for African Americans long before it was popular.

You can see the relevance for studying Revelation: we cannot understand the meaning of symbols, such as the beast, 666, Babylon, the two witnesses, or any others, unless we know how people perceived those symbols in the ancient world. We also could easily misread the impact of certain images. Just as we might (mis)read Seuss as racist, rather than opposed to the aggression of Japan, some scholars (mis)read Revelation as anti-semitic, rather than responding to first-century Jewish-Christian tension.

Bible Genre Chart

2010-03-10T14:50:00.009-08:00

One of the important aspects of interpreting the Bible (or any other type of literature) is paying attention to genre and adjusting reading strategies accordingly. You'll notice this emphasis in almost any book on hermeneutics. We pay attention to genre unconsciously when reading or even watching movies. We go into a sci-fi, romantic comedy, or action-adventure movie, and we have a set of expectations and an unconscious interpretational grid for that type of movie.

In the Bible, we also switch between various genres: poetry, wisdom, historical narrative, biography, epistles, apocalyptic literature, parables, and so on. I developed a handy-dandy chart to help guide readers through the various genres of the Bible. Unfortunately, the chart doesn't work well in blogger format, so you can access it here as a pdf (the pictures above are just snapshots). Feel free to make a copy if it helps you with your Bible reading.

Origin of the Name "Jehovah"

2010-02-23T10:27:00.003-08:00

Claude Mariotti wrote a nice post on the origin of the name Jehovah from the original YHWH as the personal name of God in the OT. Devout Jews avoid saying YHWH (pronounced Yahweh) out of honor for God, replacing it with either Adonai (Lord) or Hashem (the name). In the Hebrew Bible, the vowels from Adonai are transposed onto the divine name YHWH to remind the reader to say Adonai instead of Yahweh. This results in the Hebrew spelling YeHoWaH, although it is never pronounced that way. Modern English Bibles normally translate YHWH with LORD, Adonai with Lord, and Elohim with God.

What Dr. Claude pointed out that I was not aware of was that Jehovah was not used as a transliteration of YHWH until 1278 in the work of a Spanish monk.

Of course, you all immediately saw the significance of that date: If Jehovah was not in use during the 11th century (the first Crusade), then there is a mistake in one of the final scenes of the otherwise inerrant and inspired Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. One of the clues to avoid the traps protecting the Holy Grail involved stepping on the letters in Jehovah to avoid falling to certain death. My faith in Steven Spielberg is now destroyed forever.

Bible Translation Quotes

2010-02-22T13:43:00.012-08:00

I came across some good quotes on the nature of Bible translation as I was preparing to lecture on the subject for my Bible Interpretation classes:

“If one translates a verse literally, he is a liar; if he adds thereto, he is a blasphemer, and a slanderer!” (Rabbi Judah, b. Kiddushin 49a, quoted in HTPAT, Fee and Strauss)

“Let them not drag me into court if the text does not agree with the original word for word, for, try as you may, it cannot be done.” (Erasmus, Apologia 170:20-1)

"You are urged therefore to read with good will and attention, and to be indulgent in cases where, despite our diligent labor in translating, we may seem to have rendered some phrases imperfectly. For what was originally expressed in Hebrew does not have exactly the same sense when translated into another language. Not only this work, but even the law itself, the prophecies, and the rest of the books differ not a little as originally expressed." (Preface to Sirach, ca. 200 BC)

“I must let the literal words go and try to learn how the German says that which the Hebrew expresses… Whoever would speak German must not use Hebrew style. Rather he must see to it – once he understands the Hebrew author – that he concentrates on the sense of the text, asking himself, “Pray tell, what do the Germans say in such a situation?” … Let him drop the Hebrew words and express the meaning freely in the German he knows. (Martin Luther, commenting on translating the Old Testament into German, quoted in HTPAT, Fee and Strauss)

And we can't omit the Italian proverb "Traduttore traditore" ("the translator is a traitor.")

The picture: Acts 15:22-24 in Codex Laudanius, a parallel Greek/Latin manuscript, 6th century. Note the scribal correction in the line fourth from the bottom: the original says etaran, but the corrector changed it to etaraxan (they troubled). Also note the faint lettering in the background, which is probably text on the other side of the page that has bled through.

Come on in, you wounded Greeklings

2010-02-08T10:54:00.005-08:00

For all my Greek students, here's a post I read over at Dave Black Online (originally from Laudator Temporis Acti):

After the first three weeks of the beginning Greek class, 20 percent of the students are unfortunately conked, casualties of the masculine nouns of the first declension. Others are DOA thanks to the pronoun autos. They find that the autos monster can mean three altogether different things ("him/her/it/them," "-self," or "same"), depending on both its case and its position in a sentence. Students do withdraw from an introductory Greek class before they taste Plato or the Gospels, these bored, annoyed, and exhausted ninteen-year-olds, those very prospects who you once hoped would go on to Thucydides—and perhaps be one of the 600 each year in America who still major in Classics. They slide now across the hall to squeeze into the university's over-enrolled Theory of Walking, Rope Climbing, and Star Trek and the Humanities, which will assuage and assure them that they are, all in all, pretty nice kids, classes that will offer the veneer of self-esteem but will guarantee that they will probably lose what little sense of real accomplishment they had carried within to begin with. You can nearly hear those doctors of therapy, those professors of recuperation at the lecture-hall door: "Come on in, you wounded Greeklings. It's not your fault. They had no business subjecting you to all that rote; we do things a lot differently here. Relax, sit back, breathe deeply, and tell us how you feel."

The picture: First column of the Gospel of Luke, from codex Sinaiticus (ca. AD 350).

SBL Survey

2010-01-14T12:48:00.002-08:00

The Society of Biblical Literature (an association of biblical scholars to which I belong) is putting together a website on biblical studies aimed at laypeople. It might end up being a good resource for students. To get it started, they are asking for input on this survey. It should only take a few minutes to fill out, and it will help them make decisions about what to include on the site.

Twitter Ven Diagram

2010-01-08T09:40:00.002-08:00

This is especially for my friends who tweet and those who read my blog on facebook. I wonder where blogging would fit in? We might have to add a fourth circle, labelled "delusional."

Thanks to Leon for the diagram.

Book of Acts Wordle

2010-01-06T22:45:00.007-08:00

A wordle of the book of Acts. I fed in the text of the NASB, then did a find and replace to get the most common verbs in the same tense. Like all wordles, the size of the text shows the relative frequency of the word in the text. From wordle.net.

New Family Picture!

2009-12-29T14:44:00.005-08:00

Front row: Anna, 5 (soon to be adopted); Caleb, 6; Andrew, 5.

Middle row: Ian, 8; Barbara, 27 (or at least she still looks like it); Gary, 41; Harley, 6 (soon to be adopted).

Back row: Nathan, 13; Daniel, 9; Josiah, 14.

We took these pictures recently for our annual Christmas picture. As usual, my wife bought me a new coffee mug with the picture wrapped around it. I always like handing the mug to the baristas at Starbucks and getting their reaction: "Is this your family? How beautiful!"

Herod Remembered

2009-12-22T22:25:00.013-08:00

Herod wanted to be remembered for something else.

He wanted to be remembered as the man of influence - friend of Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, and Augustus. He wanted to be remembered as a political prodigy: governor of Galilee by age 25, Roman governor of Coele-Syria, tetrarch of Judea. He wanted to be remembered as "King of the Jews" - a title bestowed on him by a vote of the Roman Senate, despite the fact that he was neither royal nor Jewish. He wanted to be remembered as a successful commander: he defeated the brigand Ezekias in his youth, and he commanded a Roman legion to reclaim Israel from the Parthian empire.

Herod wanted to be remembered for his public works. He had a thousand Levites trained as stone masons to totally refurbish the Temple. He built aqueducts, baths, fortifications, hippodromes, theatres, amphitheatres and gymnasiums, not only in Israel but in other nations. He built a shrine to Augustus and allowed a statue of himself to be erected in another temple - not something that endeared him to his Jewish subjects. He built the port and city of Caesarea Maritima, still an amazing feat.

Herod wanted to be remembered for his generosity towards his subjects. He twice reduced taxes, once by one-third and once by one-fourth. During a famine, Herod sold the silver in his palace to provide food for his people.

Herod wanted to be remembered for his protection of Jews throughout the Roman Empire. Because of Herod's influence with Augustus, Jews throughout the Empire gained official protection: they could not be compelled to appear in court on the Sabbath; they were exempt from having to participate in Roman religious rituals; and shipments carrying their annual head-tax to the Temple were protected by Roman law and Roman might.

But Herod is remembered for none of these things by most people. Instead, Herod is remembered only for how he responded to the baby Messiah. His brutality in killing the baby boys of Bethlehem was unfortunately entirely consistent with his character. Although Herod killed many, those who could make a more legitimate claim to kingship than Herod were his special targets. He killed most of the remnants of the previous royal dynasty, the Hasmoneans, including his own wife and sons. It is not surprising that Herod would also try to kill the offspring of an even older dynasty, the Son of David.

By the way, don't get your Herods confused. Herod the Great was king of Israel (40-4 BC), and is famous for trying to kill the baby Jesus (Matt 2:16). Herod Antipas, his son, was tetrarch of Galilee (4 BC - AD 39), and is famous for executing John the Baptist (Matt 14:3-12) and interrogating Jesus (Luke 23:6-12). Herod Agrippa I, grandson of Herod the Great, ruled over Israel (AD 37-44), and is famous for executing James the son of Zebedee and being eaten by worms (Acts 12). Four other family member show up in the NT: Archelaus, ethnarch of Judea, son of Herod the Great (4 BC-AD6, Matt 2:22); Herodias, granddaughter of Herod the Great and wife of Herod Philip and Herod Antipas (Matt 14:1-12); Herodias' daugher; and Herod Agrippa II, tetrarch of Iturea (Acts 25:13-26:32).

The picture: a coin minted under Herod the Great.

Shroud Discovery in Jerusalem

2009-12-21T10:33:00.004-08:00

Archeologists have found the remains of a leper from the early first century and his burial shroud in Jerusalem (see also this video at Ben Witherington's blog). In first-century Jerusalem, bodies were normally interred in a family tomb wrapped in a shroud; then, a year later, the bones were placed in a small ossuary (or bone box) and reinterred in the tomb. This means that shrouds were unlikely to remain in the tomb. But this man was never placed in an ossuary; archeologists speculate that the family decided not to reenter the tomb because of the man's leprosy.

There are several interesting details about the find. DNA tests showed that the man had both Hansen's disease and tuberculosis. When the Bible uses the word "leprosy," is is using the generic term for a wide range of skin diseases, and does not necessarily refer to Hansen's disease - but this man had Hansen's disease.

The leper's shroud was in two pieces - one for the head, and one for the body. This matches the burial practice for both Lazarus (John 11:44) and Jesus (John 20:5-6). This gives another reason to doubt the genuineness of the Shroud of Turin (the supposed burial cloth of Jesus), since it was a single cloth, not separate head and body cloths.

The leper's shroud was a simple weave of wool and linen. Although some scholars are pointing out that this is another difference from the Shroud of Turin, my first thought was wondering why they used an unkosher cloth. Mixing any two kinds of cloth was forbidden in the Torah (Lev 19:19), and a linen-wool weave was specifically forbidden (Deut 22:11).

The picture: a diagram of the "Shroud Tomb" showing where the remains and shroud were found.

Augustine on Greek

2009-12-17T22:30:00.006-08:00

Last in my series of quotes about learning Greek:

"But why did I so much hate the Greek, which I studied as a boy? I do not yet fully know. . . ." "Difficulty, in truth, the difficulty of a foreign tongue, dashed, as it were, with gall all the sweetness of Grecian fable. For not one word of it did I understand, and to make me understand I was urged vehemently with cruel threats and punishments..."

-Augustine, Confessions, 1.12.19-1.14.23

The picture: title page of Erasmus' Lucubrationes, 1516; Augustine is at middle right.

The Real St. Nicholas

2009-12-17T09:57:00.006-08:00

As good old St. Nick would say, Kala Christougenna!

Christmas Myths

2009-12-15T11:40:00.014-08:00

Here is a list of my favorite Christmas myths - traditional parts of the Christmas story that we assume to be true, but they are not found in our two accounts of Jesus' birth in Matthew and Luke.

Mary rode on a donkey and Joseph walked to Bethlehem? No donkey mentioned in the Bible. Maybe they had one, maybe not. The reason that a donkey and ox are always depicted in manger scenes goes back to the middle ages, when the two animals were placed in the scene as symbols of Isaiah 1:3.

Mary gave birth the night that they arrived? "While they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth" (Luke 2:6). Sounds like they arrived some time before. They were smart enough not to make a 9-month-pregnant woman travel!

Joseph delivered the baby? Almost impossible in their culture. Joseph is from Bethlehem (Luke 2:3-4), so he has plenty of extended family. His female relatives likely served as midwives.

No room in the inn? This myth is understandable, since our Bibles say "inn" (Luke 2:7). However, the Greek word is kataluma, which more likely means "guest room" (Luke 22:11, Mark 14:14). Jews in general did not stay in inns, and it is unlikely that Bethlehem had an inn. Since Joseph had family in Bethlehem, Luke probably meant that there was no space in their guest room. Perhaps the family did not give Joseph and Mary their best reception, since Mary got pregnant before they got married?

Jesus was born in a stable? No stable is mentioned in the Bible. "She laid him in a manger" (Luke 2:7). Peasant homes sometimes had feeding troughs dug into the dirt. Some animals were kept in the house for safety. They probably kicked out the animals and used the manger for the baby because it was convenient and warm. Perhaps this was a "sign" to the shepherds because it showed that the Messiah was born as a peasant, rather than in the Herodium, Herod's nearby palace that overshadowed Bethlehem. (By the way, Herod's tomb was discovered in the Herodium just a few years ago).

Swaddling clothes are for dead bodies, symbolizing the coming death of Christ? No, the Greek word sparganao (Luke 2:7) merely means to wrap in cloths, and is not used elsewhere to refer to the cloths for dead bodies.

The Star of Bethlehem was some astronomical phenomenon? The star described in Matthew 2 does thing that real stars don't do - like change positions and hover over a particular house. Stars were regarded by ancients as supernatural, and that seems to be what Matthew is saying about this particular star.

Three kings from Persia came to visit? Matthew doesn't give a number. And they were magoi, astrologers and advisors to kings, not kings themselves. They may have been from Persia. In Greek "the east" is the same word as Anatolia, so it is possible that they are wise men from Anatolia rather than from Persia - but that's not certain (see Ben Witherington's blog on this).

The wise men came that night? We don't know exactly when they arrived, but it was some time between one month and two years after his birth (Matthew 2:16). The magoi came to a house, not a stable (Matthew 2:11). It must have been at least a month later, because Joseph was still poor when Jesus and Mary were presented at the Temple (after 33 days, Lev 12:1-3). They offered two turtle-doves instead of a lamb, which was only allowed in the case of poverty (Lev 12:6-8). If the wise men had already come, then Mary and Joseph would not have been poor.

Medieval and renaissance art often portrayed the shepherds and wise men at the stable, but that is because artists of the time would put all the related events in one scene with no concern for chronology. Nativity scenes sometimes included the annunciation, although that happened nine months earlier.

Gold, frankincense and myrrh symbolize... ? Various versions of this Christmas myth circulate - that they symbolize kingship, deity and death, or prophet, priest and king. But all three were appropriate gifts for a king, and were very expensive.

Herod killed hundreds of babies? Population estimates of Bethlehem make it likely that Herod's soldiers killed a dozen or so baby boys. Those who doubt that Herod was evil enough to do this should read Josephus' account of Herod's last years. In his attempts to preserve his throne, Herod killed court members, wives and sons. Caesar Augustus famously said about Herod that it was better to be his pig (hus) than his son (huios). On his death bed, Herod ordered the execution of every tribal patriarch in his realm to make sure that all would mourn at his funeral (fortunately, this command was not carried out).

Jesus was born on December 25, AD 1? The exact date of Jesus' birth is unknown, but was not December 25. The first time his birthday was mentioned was in the late second century, and it was given as November 18, but that's not certain either. Jesus must have been born before March of 4 BC, because that's when Herod the Great died. 5 BC seems likely, although maybe it was as early as 7 BC.

The picture: The Vigil of the Shepherds, by Benozzo Gozzoli, 1459.

Greek Wordle for the Gospel of John

2009-12-10T13:07:00.007-08:00

Here's another Wordle for the Gospel of John, this time based on the Greek text. It's a little less useful than an English Wordle, because the various cases of nouns and tenses of verbs all show up as separate words. Still looks cool!

This wordle was constructed at wordle.net.

I also have wordles of the Gospel of John in English here and here.

In the Beginning Was the Wordle...

2009-12-09T16:46:00.006-08:00

Another Gospel of John Wordle from wordle.net.

In Wordle, the size of a word represents how often it occurs. Other details (font, color, layout) are randomly organized by the Wordle program.

To make this Wordle, I dumped the full text of John (in the NASB) into the Wordle website. To make sure that words like "see" and "saw" were not listed separately, I did a "find and replace" to put the most common verbs in John in the present tense.

What I like about this Wordle is that it displays what is important in the Gospel of John. Look at the prominent people: Jesus, Father, disciple, world, Jews, man. Look at the main actions: come, believe, know, see, give, go.

I am Not Elijah, Intro

2009-11-29T11:29:00.003-08:00

The following is the introduction to a paper I presented at the Evangelical Theological Society in Nov 2009. For all sections of the paper, see here.

I am not Elijah: The Use and Non-use of Elijah/Elisha Material in the Gospel of John[1]

Gary T. Manning Jr., Ph.D.
Pacific Rim Christian College, Honolulu
garym@pacrim.edu
http://eutychusnerd.blogspot.com

From the beginning of the Fourth Gospel, it is clear that John has a different perspective on John the Baptist than the Synoptic Gospels do. John certainly does not disparage John the Baptist; he is, as the evangelist says, “a man sent from God” who came “to testify… so that all might believe through him” (John 1:6-7). But John is not interested in portraying JTB as Elijah. It is not only that John the Baptist refuses the title of Elijah (John 1:20, 25); but John also omits other synoptic details that link Elijah to John the Baptist: his Elijah-like clothing (Mark 1:6 and parallels/2 Kings 1:8) and Jesus’ identification of John the Baptist as Elijah (Mark 9:12-13 and parallels). The Gospel of John also omits mentioning two other references to Elijah found in the Synoptics: Elijah’s appearance to Jesus at the Transfiguration (Mark 9:4-5 and parallels); and the observers’ belief that Jesus was calling to Elijah on the cross (Mark 15:35-36 and parallels). Of course, John omits many synoptic sayings and details, so we need to be cautious about speculating about single omissions. However, the fact that John omits all of the explicit references to Elijah found in the Synoptics suggests that the omissions are intentional.

John also goes out of his way to apply Elijah/Elisha imagery to Jesus. On six occasions in John, miracles, or sayings associated with miracles, seem to be designed to draw attention back to similar stories in the Elijah/Elisha cycle (1 Kings 17-2 Kings 13). Some of these allusions are quite strong and recognizable, while others are weaker and open to challenge. When viewed together, these allusions suggest that John wanted his readers to compare Jesus to Elijah and Elisha,[2] and perhaps thought that the role of Elijah applied more to Jesus than to John the Baptist.[3]

Allusions are slippery things, and so attention to method is essential. The last twenty years have seen an abundance of studies on allusions to the Old Testament in the New Testament, producing some consensus about methods for identifying and analyzing allusions. There is wide agreement that the presence and strength of an allusion can be established based on factors such as the number of words and phrases in common; the similar narrative use of such words and phrases; resonance or congruence between the context of the earlier text and the context of the alluding text; the presence of repeated quotations or allusions to the same text or nearby texts; and similarities in the structure of the two contexts. There is also consensus that the meaning of an allusion should be evaluated on the basis of such factors as the role of the allusion in its new context, ways in which the alluding author modifies the source material, the implied interpretation of the source material, and ways in which other authors from the same period made use of the same material.[4] All of these methods have informed the study of the following allusions, but space does not permit a thorough evaluation of each method for each proposed allusion.

[1] Marianne Meye Thompson first brought my attention to John’s theme of Jesus as Elijah, while I was a student in her Johannine Christology seminar at Fuller Theological Seminary in 1999.
[2] Why does John use allusions to both Elijah and Elisha? It is natural for readers to connect Elijah and Elisha, since they have similar types of ministries, and since Elisha received the “double portion” of Elisha’s spirit (2 Kgs 2:9-14). Their ministries were also compared in Sirach 48, and Elisha was described as “filled with his [Elijah’s] spirit” (ἐνεπλήσθη πνεύματος αὐτοῦ, Sir 48:12).
[3] J. Louis Martyn first presented the idea that John, or one of his sources, presented Jesus as Elijah. J. Louis Martyn, “We Have Found Elijah,” pages 181-219 in Jews, Greeks and Christians: Religious Cultures in Late Antiquity: Essays in Honor of William David Davies, ed. Robert Hammerton-Kelly and Robin Scroggs. Leiden: Brill, 1976.
[4] This paragraph is adapted from G. Manning, “Shepherd, Vine and Bones: The Use of Ezekiel in the Gospel of John,” in After Ezekiel: Essays on the Reception of a Difficult Prophet (ed. Paul Joyce and Andrew Mein; LHBOTS; London: T&T Clark, 2010). For a more thorough exploration of these methods, see G.K. Beale and D.A. Carson, eds., Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), xxiii-xxviii; G. Manning, Echoes of a Prophet: The Use of Ezekiel in the Gospel of John and in Literature of the Second Temple Period (JSNTS 270; London: T&T Clark, 2004), 7-19.

I am Not Elijah, Part 1 (John 4:29, 2 Kings 6:12-13)

2009-11-28T06:03:00.001-08:00

The following is part 1 of a paper I presented at the Evangelical Theological Society in Nov 2009. For all sections of the paper, see here.

1. “Come and See”

2 Kings 6:12-13 (LXX)[1] One of his servants said, “No, my lord the king. Elisha, the prophet in Israel, reports to the king of Israel all the words that you say in your bedroom. [The king of Aram] said, “Go, see (Δεῦτε ἴδετε) where this man is, and I will send and take him.” And they announced to him, saying, “Behold, in Dothan.”

John 4:29
“Come, see (Δεῦτε ἴδετε) a man who told me all that I had done; surely he is not the Christ, is he?”

The first proposed allusion is admittedly weaker than most of the following parallels. However, the phrase “come and see” is somewhat distinctive; Δεῦτε ἴδετε occurs in only two other places in the LXX (Ps 45:9 [46:8], 65:5 [66:5]), and neither of them otherwise parallels John 4:29. The phrase is not entirely distinctive in the NT, however. Δεῦτε ἴδετε is used in Matt 28:6, and the similar ἔρχου καὶ ἴδε is used in John 11:34 (see also John 1:39); neither seem to be allusions to 2 Kgs 6:12-13. Although this allusion is weaker than some others, it still is worth considering. The presence of other solid allusions to Elijah/Elisha material in John confirms the possibility that John may use more subtle allusions to the same material. Most importantly, there is some resonance between these two passages. The king of Aram is seeking Elisha because his prophetic knowledge threatens the outcome of his war with Israel. Likewise, the Samaritan woman uses the phrase to point to Jesus’ prophetic knowledge of secret things. Jesus’ knowledge of her multiple marriages was enough for her to suggest that he was a prophet, and perhaps even the Christ (John 4:19, 29).

If the saying of the Samaritan woman is an allusion to 2 Kgs 6:12-13, then John 1:46 may also: “Philip said to him, “Come and see” (ἔρχου καὶ ἴδε).” While ἔρχου καὶ ἴδε looks different from Δεῦτε ἴδετε, the main change is from plural to singular. The switch to ἔρχου is then necessary since there is no singular form of Δεῦτε. Both phrases are legitimate translations of the Hebrew phrase in 2 Kgs 6:13, לכוּ וּראו (see Jdg 13:18, 18:19). Philip invited Nathanael to meet Jesus, who could reveal secrets. While we don’t know what Nathanael’s secret was, Jesus’ knowledge was surprising enough that Nathanael confessed Jesus as the Son of God and King of Israel. If John 1:46 is an allusion to 2 Kgs 6:12-13, then there is some resonance between the two accounts: Elisha prays for spiritual sight for his servant, and he sees a vision of fiery horses and chariots (2 Kings 6:17-18); Jesus promises Nathanael that he will see a vision of the heavenly ladder (John 1:51).

Of course, there are significant differences between the accounts in John and in 2 Kings 6. Nathanael and the Samaritan woman are both positive examples who quickly trust Jesus based partially on his prophetic knowledge, while the king of Aram is trying to capture or kill Elisha because of his prophetic knowledge.

We might understand subtle allusions like this better if we think of ways that biblically literate people make allusions today. Recently, while I was speaking at a Christian conference, another speaker scheduled at the same time encouraged people to leave his session and come to mine. I later emailed him and thanked him for his self-denying promotion of my teaching. He quickly sent back the reply, “You must increase while I must decrease.” Anyone familiar with the story of John the Baptist quickly recognizes what my friend was doing with the allusion: he was humbly (but humorously) claiming that my teaching was more important than his. He was probably also alluding to the fact that John the Baptist encouraged his disciples to leave him and follow Jesus. But of course it is not a perfect allusion. My friend was not (I hope!) claiming that I was the Messiah, or that he would be beheaded at a party. There are any number of facts about John the Baptist and Jesus that he was not applying to our situation.

Some subtle allusions in the NT may be like this.[2] They use phrases that were well-known enough to biblically literate Jews and Christians to make them recall an OT passage. The allusions are intended to make just a few connections between the OT and NT situations. But the allusions do not imply every connection that is possible to make between the OT and NT situations.

[1] The NA27 list of allusions suggests both 1 Kings 6:13 and10:16, but 10:16 otherwise has very little in common with John 1.
[2] Brown pointed out another such sly allusion: the use of θύω (normally used for sacrifices) to refer to the hirelings’ killing of sheep in John 10:10 is “a sly reference to the priestly authorities.” R. Brown, John, 1: 386

I Am Not Elijah, Part 2 (John 2:3-4, 2 Kings 3:9-22)

2009-11-27T12:33:00.001-08:00

The following is part 2 of a paper I presented at the Evangelical Theological Society in Nov 2009. For all sections of the paper, see here.

2. “What to you and me?” (Τί ἐμοὶ καὶ σοί, ti emoi kai soi)

2 Kings 3:9-22 (LXX)
The king of Israel and the king of Judah and the king of Edom went… and there was no water (οὐκ ἦν ὕδωρ) for the army or for the cattle… So the king of Israel and the king of Judah and the king of Edom went down to [Elisha]. Elisha said to the king of Israel, “What do I have to do with you? (Τί ἐμοὶ καὶ σοί)…

John 2:3-4 And Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding. And when the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine (οἶνον οὐκ ἔχουσιν ).” Jesus said to her, “What do I have to do with you? (Τί ἐμοὶ καὶ σοί)

It is common for commentaries on John to refer to 2 Kings 3:22 (along with Jdg 11:18, 2 Chr 35:21, 1 Kgs 17:18, and Hos 14:8) as an example of the idiom Τί ἐμοὶ καὶ σοί in John 2:4. However, John 2:4 has never been seen as an allusion to 2 Kgs 3:22 until recently. Mickey Klink’s recent article ably demonstrated that Jesus’ miracle in John 2 is told in a manner designed to recall Elisha’s water miracle.[1]

Although the exact verbal parallel extends only to the phrase Τί ἐμοὶ καὶ σοί, there is significant resonance between the two passages. In 2 Kings 3, water for the army runs out, the king asks Elisha for help, and the man of God responds with Τί ἐμοὶ καὶ σοί. Despite his initial reluctance, Elisha helps. He gives some rather strange commands; once the commands are obeyed, the water miraculously arrives, filling the trenches. In John 2, wine for the wedding runs out, Mary asks Jesus for help, and Jesus responds with Τί ἐμοὶ καὶ σοί. Despite his initial reluctance, Jesus helps. He gives some rather strange commands; once the commands are obeyed, the water miraculously turns to wine, filling the water jars.[2]

If this is a genuine allusion, as seems possible, then it clears up the mystery of why Jesus at first appears to refuse, then helps anyway. The conversation between Jesus and his mother is designed to point to Jesus’ similarity to Elisha. His initial refusal does not really make sense in John’s story, but it does make sense in its original context in 2 Kings 3. This is the nature of many quotations and allusions to the OT: when they are removed from their original context and placed in the NT, slight irregularities are introduced. In some cases, minor grammatical irregularities occur, as when the tense of verbs do not match the new context or the pronouns are not quite appropriate for the new context. In other cases, the meaning of the original text goes through small distortions as it is placed in a new context.

[1] Edward Klink III, “What Concern is that to You and to Me? John 2:1-11and the Elisha Narratives,” Neotestamentica 39.2 (2005) 213 -287. Klink pointed out that Raymond Brown had twice hinted at the connection between this passage and the Elisha story. Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John (AB, 29-29A; 2 vols; Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1966, 1970), 1:110; Brown, “Jesus and Elisha,” Per 12 (1971) 85-104.
[2] Another, more coincidental connection between the passages can be found in 2 Kings 3:22. The Moabites see the water in the trenches “red like blood” (אדמים כדם); both terms are sometimes used to describe wine (Gen 49:11, Isa 63:2).

I Am Not Elijah, Part 3 (John 4:7, 1 Kings 17:10-14)

2009-11-26T19:19:00.001-08:00

The following is part 3 of a paper I presented at the Evangelical Theological Society in Nov 2009. For all sections of the paper, see here.

3. “Give me a Drink”

1 Kings 17:10 (LXX)[Elijah] arose and went to Zarephath, to the city gate, and behold, a widow was there gathering firewood, and Elijah called after her and said to her, “Please give (Λαβὲ δή μοι / קחי־נא) me a little water (ὕδωρ) in a jar and I will drink (πίομαι).”
14 “… the flour jar will not run out, and the oil jug will not run short until the day the Lord gives rain upon the earth”

John 4:7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water (ὕδωρ). Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink (δός μοι πεῖν).”
14 “whoever drinks from the water I will give him will never thirst; but the water that I give him will become in him a spring of water…”

John’s account of Jesus’ encounter with the woman of Sychar is probably not a pure allusion to a single OT passage. As others have pointed out, a meeting between a man and a woman at a well is an archetypal image suggesting courtship and marriage (Gen 24, Exod 2). However, in the case of both Elijah and Jesus, the scene describes the beginning of a relationship between a prophet and an outsider woman.

There are a few direct verbal similarities between the two passages. Both include the obvious words ὕδωρ and πίνω. In the LXX, Elijah’s request Λαβὲ δή μοι … ὕδωρ (“please take me … water”) is a fairly wooden translation of קחי־נא, and does not represent the normal use of λαμβάνω. John’s phrase δός μοι πεῖν is a more normal way of requesting water in first-century Greek.

It is the similarities between the whole accounts that are the most striking. God clearly appoints the meeting between Elijah and the widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17:8-9). As most commentaries on John point out, the phrase “Jesus had to pass through Samaria” (John 4:4) indicates Jesus’ divine appointment with the Samaritan woman. Both the widow of Zarephath and the woman of Sychar are outsiders; the one, a Sidonian widow; the other, a Samaritan sinner. In both cases, the woman gives sustenance to the man of God, and the man of God gives far greater sustenance to the woman. Elijah promises the Sidonian woman that “the vessel of flour will not give out, and the jar of oil will not run short, until the day the Lord sends rain upon the land” (1 Kings 17:10). Jesus promises the Samaritan woman that “whoever drinks from the water that I will give to him will never be thirsty, but the water that I give him will become a spring of water in him leaping up to eternal life” (John 4:14).[1] The allusion seems even more likely to be intentional when we realize that the following scene in John alludes to the following scene in 1 Kings (John 4:46-54/1 Kings 17:17-24).

Although both conversations begin over water, they turn towards God. The Sidonian woman swears “as Yahweh your god lives…”, and Elijah pronounces to her, “Thus says Yahweh, God of Israel…” After Elijah raises her son, the woman affirms her belief: “Now I have known (ἔγνωκα) that you are a man of God and the word of Yahweh is truly in your mouth” (1 Kings 17:24). The Samaritan woman affirms her faith as well: “Lord, I see that you are a prophet” (John 4:19); and “he isn’t the Christ, is he?” (John 4:20). Both stories are, in essence, conversion accounts. The Sidonian woman affirms her belief in Yahweh and Elijah as his messenger; the Samaritan woman affirms her belief in the salvation that comes from the Jews and in Jesus as the messenger of that salvation. In OT terms, both women are invited to join in the blessings of the covenant. In this sense, all five similar stories of a meeting at a well – Rebecca, Hagar, Zipporah, the Sidonian woman, and the Samaritan woman – show the inclusion of an outsider woman in the covenant people.

[1] Although Jesus does not ask the woman for food, the disciples get food from Sychar, and food is a prominent theme in the story (John 4:8, 31-34).

I Am Not Elijah, Part 4 (John 4:50, 1 Kings 17:21-24)

2009-11-26T09:24:00.005-08:00

The following is part 4 of a paper I presented at the Evangelical Theological Society in Nov 2009. For all sections of the paper, see here.

4. “Your Son Lives”

1 Kings 17:21-24 (LXX)
[Elijah prayed,] “Oh Lord my God, please let the life of this child return to him.” It happened as [he had prayed], and the child cried out. [Elijah] led him down from the upper room into the house and gave him to his mother, and said, “See, your son lives” (ζῇ ὁ υἱός σου). The woman said to Elijah, “Behold, I have known (ἔγνωκα) that you are a man of God and the word of the Lord is true (ἀληθινόν) in your mouth.”

John 4:50 Jesus said to him, “Go, your son lives. (ὁ υἱός σου ζῇ)” The man believed the word that Jesus said to him and began going.
… ὁ παῖς αὐτοῦ ζῇ (4:51)
… ὁ υἱός σου ζῇ (4:53)

In John, repetition and final sayings are often keys to the meaning of stories. “Your son lives” is Jesus’ final saying in this pericope, and it is recorded three times. Jesus’ saying reminds us of John’s theme of Jesus as the source of life, found in almost every pericope in John. As with the rest of the “signs” in John, the healing of the nobleman’s son is designed primarily to reveal something about Jesus’ identity.

“Your son lives” also seems designed to draw the readers’ attention to Elijah’s famous healing of the widow’s son at Zarephath. The phrase is distinctive; it is not found elsewhere in the NT or LXX. It also functions as an allusion in that the phrase causes the reader to notice other connections between the two miracle accounts. In both cases, the miracle results in the parent’s belief that the healer is genuinely from God and speaks for God. The nobleman believed when he heard Jesus (4:50), and then he believed when he heard news of his son’s healing (4:53). The widow’s response to the healing affirms her belief in Elijah in terms that could be comfortably applied to Jesus in the gospel of John. The use of the perfect ἔγνωκα to intensify or solemnize a statement of belief is well-known in John (6:69, 11:27; cf. 1:34, 1:41, 1:45, 4:42). Elijah, like Jesus, is a “man of God” who speaks the word of God. John may have even been drawn to this passage because of his interest in “truth” (ἀληθινόν).[1] Although many books in the LXX use ἀληθινόν, in the NT, it is primarily a Johannine term, and usually applies to Jesus or his message (23 of its 28 occurrences in the NT are in John, 1 John, or Revelation). John’s theology of signs is very similar to the theology of Elisha’s miracle: both produce faith in God’s representative and his message.

If John 4:7 contains an allusion to 1 Kings 17:10 (argued above), then John 4 contains two successive allusions to two successive passages in the Elijah narrative. In intertextual studies, repeated allusions to the same text or nearby texts is one of the criteria for verifying the genuineness and strength of an allusion. The second allusion confirms the suspicion in the reader that the first allusion was intentional. Combined, the allusions suggest that John wanted to show a Jesus who was like Elijah.

John is not the only NT author to allude to Elijah’s raising of the widow’s son. Luke’s account of the raising of the widow’s son at Nain contains the allusive phrase “and he gave him to his mother” (καὶ ἔδωκεν αὐτὸν τῇ μητρὶ αὐτοῦ, Luke 7:15/1 Kings 17:23).[2] Luke’s allusion is stronger than John’s, since it has more details in common (the raising of a dead widow’s son by touch rather than the healing of a nobleman’s son at a distance). This suggests that John’s appropriation of Elijah imagery for Jesus is not unique to John.

[1] Similarly, John’s ἡ ἄμπελος ἡ ἀληθινὴ (John 15:1) is an allusion to Jeremiah’s ἄμπελον… ἀληθινήν (Jer 2:21).
[2] A similar allusion can be found in Acts 20:7-10/2 Kings 4:32-37. Paul raised Eutychus from the dead by laying down on top of him, as Elisha did to raise the son of the Shunammite woman.

I Am Not Elijah, Part 5 (John 6:9-13, 2 Kings 4:42-44)

2009-11-25T12:00:00.001-08:00

The following is part 5 of a paper I presented at the Evangelical Theological Society in Nov 2009. For all sections of the paper, see here.

5. “What are these for so many?”

2 Kings 4:42-44 (LXX)
A man came from Baal-shalisha[1] and brought twenty barley loaves (ἄρτους κριθίνους) and dried fruit cakes from his first-fruits to the man of God. [Elisha] said, “Give to the people and have them eat.” His servant said, “What, shall I give this before a hundred men?” (Τί δῶ τοῦτο ἐνώπιον ἑκατὸν ἀνδρῶν) [Elisha] said, “Give it to the people and have them eat, for thus says the Lord: ‘They will eat and there will be some left over (καταλείψουσιν).’” And they ate and there was some left over according to the word of the Lord.

John 6:9-13
“There is a little boy here who has five barley loaves (ἄρτους κριθίνους) and two fish; but what are these for so many?” (ταῦτα τί ἐστιν εἰς τοσούτους). Jesus said, “Make the people sit down for the meal...” Then they sat down for the meal, the men about 5000 (ἄνδρες... ὡς πεντακισχίλιοι ) in number… When they were filled, Jesus said to his disciples, “Gather the leftover pieces…” (τὰ περισσεύσαντα κλάσματα). Then they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with pieces from the five barley loaves that were left over from what had been eaten.

Elisha’s miracle is often noted as an important background text to Jesus’ feeding miracle in all four gospels.[2] However, John includes two unique phrases that connect his story even more firmly back to Elisha’s. John alone tells us that Jesus’ disciple commented on how little the food is by saying “What is this for…?”, just like Elisha’s servant (Τί τοῦτο / ταῦτα τί ). Second, John alone tells us that these are barley loaves (ἄρτους κριθίνους), like Elisha’s. Other details strengthen the allusion: in both accounts the man of God gives a command to feed the people; both accounts mention the amount of males (ἄνδρες) fed; and both emphasize that there was food left over. Although the two passages use different words for “left over,” both καταλείπω and περισσεύω (or cognates) are used to translate the Hebrew ytr (2 Ki 25:11, 1 Sam 30:9). John often updates septuagintal language in his quotes and allusions; καταλείπω no longer had the meaning of “left over” by the first century; other NT passages describing leftovers use περισσεύω or πλήρωμα.

John likely has two reasons for mentioning the barley loaves. First, it will remind his readers of Elisha’s miracle. Second, barley loaves connect both accounts to Passover. The barley harvest began at Passover,[3] and the offering to the prophets at Gilgal was likely a Passover offering. John wants us to know that the feeding miracle occurred near Passover (6:4), since the Bread of Life discourse plays on Passover themes.

It is interesting to note that both stories include the same types of characters who say the same sort of things. A generous outsider[4] brings a small but generous gift of food; the man of God unreasonably suggests to his servant that he should feed a large crowd with it; the servant questions whether the food will be adequate. Both stories have a similar goal: to reveal the power of the miracle worker. Both reveal the miracle worker as one moved by the needs of those around him.[5]

[1] LXX has Beth-sarisa.
[2] T.R. Hobbs, 2 Kings, 55; Burge, John, 193; Brown, John 1:110.
[3] ISBE 3:676, s.v. “Passover” by M.R. Wilson.
[4] T.R. Hobbs sees generosity as one of the key themes of the three miracle stories in 2 Kings 4. T.R. Hobbs, 2 Kings, 49.
[5] The Elisha stories in ch. 4 have “… generally no point beyond demonstrating the miraculous power and authority of Elisha.” Gray, 466, quoted in T.R. Hobbs, 2 Kings, WBC, p. 45.

I Am Not Elijah, Part 6 (John 9:6-15, 2 Kings 5:10-15)

2009-11-23T12:22:00.001-08:00

The following is part 6 of a paper I presented at the Evangelical Theological Society in Nov 2009. For all sections of the paper, see here.

6. “Go, Wash”

2 Kings 5:10, 14-15 (LXX) Elisha sent (ἀπέστειλεν) a messenger to him, saying, “Go, wash (Πορευθεὶς λοῦσαι) seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.” 14 Naaman went down and washed himself (ἐβαπτίσατο) in the Jordan seven times according to the word of Elisha, and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a small child, and he was cleansed… [Naaman] said “Behold, surely I have known (ἔγνωκα) that there is no god in all the earth except in Israel.”

John 9:6-15
[Jesus] spat on the ground and made mud from the spittle and anointed the mud on his eyes said to him, “Go, wash (ὕπαγε νίψαι) in the pool of Siloam” (which is translated ‘Sent’ (ἀπεσταλμένος). Then he went away and washed himself (ἐνίψατο), and came back seeing… 12 “Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, “Go to the pool of Siloam and wash;” so I went and washed and then I saw.” 15 “He put mud on my eyes and I washed and now I see.”

The healing of the blind man in John 9 is another of John’s signs that is designed to display the identity of Jesus. Jesus is displayed as the light of the world, not only in the opening dialogue (9:4-5), but throughout the blind man’s trial and defense of Jesus. The healing itself also recalls the water motif found throughout John. The pool of Siloam was the well-known source of water for the water ritual at the Feast of Tabernacles, a ritual which provided the setting for Jesus’ water proclamation (John 7:37-39). John recounts the healing three times, although some of the details (anointing with mud, Jesus’ instructions, going to Siloam, washing, and seeing) are recounted as few as twice or as many as five times. Clearly the washing is crucial to the story.

Jesus’ command is translated the same as Elisha’s command, but represent different words in Greek. However, the words used in John’s narrative are close enough semantically that an allusion is still possible. When John quotes or alludes to the OT, he sometimes updates the language of the LXX to more contemporary Greek, or at times he may be using his own translation of the Hebrew text. Elisha orders Naaman to go (Πορευθεὶς), while Jesus instructs the blind man to go (ὕπαγε). While πορεύομαι is used in a variety of ways in the NT, it is commonly used to describe travelling some distance, such as to another town (John 4:50, 7:35, 11:11). ὑπάγω focuses on the act of departing, and can be used for either short or long distances (John 4:16, 7:3). ὑπάγω was almost non-existent in septuagintal Greek, but relatively common in NT Greek; quite likely it sounded better in this context. John’s use of νίπτω instead of λούω for wash is also quite normal. Both the LXX and the NT use λούω or βαπτίζω for bathing the full body and νίπτω for washing part of the body, such as the hands, feet or head (see especially John 13:10). The LXX consistently translates רָחַץ with νίπτω or λούω depending on whether part of the body or the whole body is washed. So, although John replaced both words with synonyms, it is still quite possible that this is an intentional allusion.

John’s use of the phrase draws attention to other details that resonate between the two accounts. It is not entirely clear why John tells us that Siloam can be translated “sent;” some have suggested a connection to Jesus as the “sent one.” It is also possible that this detail allows John to make a further connection back to the story of Naaman, which prominently features the sending of messengers and scrolls. The account in 2 Kings includes seven occurrences of ἀποστέλλω /ἐξαποστέλλω, translating שָׁלַח.

Jesus, like Elijah and Elisha, was a man of God who sometimes used unusual methods in his miracles. The two passages also share a similar theology of healing. After Naaman is healed, he makes a confession of faith in the one God, using the perfect tense (ἔγνωκα) to solemnly affirm his knowledge of God. Likewise, the blind man affirms his belief that Jesus must be a prophet (9:17), an innocent man (9:25, 31), a man from God (9:33), and finally Son of Man and Lord (9:35-38). Elisha’s miracle is like Jesus’ sign: they are works of power that bring people to faith. In both stories, the signs result in glory to God and the prophet. Elisha summons Naaman so that he would “know that there is a prophet in Israel” (2 Kings 5:8). After the miracle, Naaman acknowledges Yahweh as God of the world, and even brings Israelite dirt back to Aram to build a shrine to Yahweh (2 Kings 5:17). Jesus reveals that the blind man is blind “so that the works of God might be revealed in him” (John 9:3), and the Pharisees ironically adjure the blind man to “give glory to God” (9:24), which is of course what the blind man is doing.

It is possible that this passage in 2 Kings is part of the multifaceted background to John the Baptist’s baptisms in the Jordan. The Synoptic Gospels normally portray JTB as a new Elijah, so it is possible that the ritual washings in the Jordan are intended to recall Elisha’s ritual washing of Naaman, the Gentile convert.

I Am Not Elijah, Conclusion

2009-11-22T12:40:00.000-08:00

The following is the conclusion of a paper I presented at the Evangelical Theological Society in Nov 2009. For all sections of the paper, see here.

Conclusions
1) John’s pattern of omitting references to Elijah found in the Synoptic Gospels, and adding allusions to Elijah/Elisha material in miracle accounts and miracle sayings, suggests that John wants to apply the role of Elijah to Jesus. John’s six allusions to Elijah/Elisha material are all designed to make Jesus look like Elijah. John omits other synoptic references to Elijah (Mark 9:4-5, 15:35-36) because they would distract from his identification of Jesus with Elijah.

2) John is correcting misconceptions about John the Baptist. This does not mean that John is correcting the synoptic accounts, but correcting beliefs about John the Baptist current in late first-century Ephesus. Discipleship to John the Baptist continued after his death (Acts 19:1-7) and possibly on into the second century. To counter beliefs like this, John may have wanted to focus on John the Baptist’s role in pointing to Jesus, and to de-emphasize any sort of exaltation of John the Baptist. This is why John not only downplays John the Baptist’s role as Elijah, but omits all of JTB’s teaching except his testimony to Jesus. The reason that JTB denies the titles “Christ,” “Elijah” and “the prophet” may be because all three belong to Jesus in John.

3) Popular beliefs about Elijah in the first century may have influenced John to connect Elijah more with Jesus than with John the Baptist. In Sirach 48, Elijah will “calm the wrath of God before it breaks out in fury” and “restore the tribes of Jacob” (48:10); Elisha was “filled with the spirit” of Elijah (48:12); Elisha “did wonders in his life, and in his death his deeds were marvelous” (48:14); and despite the miracles of Elijah and Elisha, the people did not repent (48:15; cp. John 12:37). Each of these ideas could more appropriately be transferred to Jesus than to John the Baptist.

4) John is able to identify Jesus with Elijah because “Elijah” is an eschatological symbol with some flexibility.[1] Malachi 4:5 does not specifically say that Elijah must come before the Messiah; it says that Elijah must come before the “great and terrible day of Yahweh.” The flexibility of the Elijah symbol is revealed in the use of Elijah imagery in the two witnesses of Revelation 11, another eschatological symbol. Other eschatological symbols have the same flexibility: for example, antichrist language is applied to Antiochus IV (Dan 9:27, 11:31), Titus (Mark 13:14), false teachers (1 John 2:18-22), and the beast (Revelation 12-13).

5) It is possible that John found several qualities about Elijah more appropriate to apply to Jesus than to John the Baptist. In John, only Jesus ascends to heaven (John 3:13, 1:18, 6:46); thus, John may have found it appropriate to compare Elijah to Jesus, not to John the Baptist. As Elijah gave a double portion of his spirit to Elisha (2 Kgs 2:9, 15), Jesus gives the Spirit “without measure” to his disciples (John 1:33, 3:34; 7:37-39, 20:22).

[1] A more common explanation is that John the Baptist was denying his literal equivalence with Elijah (Gospel of John), but agreeing that he had the role of Elijah (Synoptic Gospels). According to Brown (John, 1:48), this explanation can be found in the church fathers.

Merry Christmas - November 18

2009-11-18T22:41:00.000-08:00

Happy belated real Christmas! Jesus may have been born on November 18 - see here for more details.

Evangelical Theological Society

2009-11-18T17:57:00.003-08:00

I am again in nerdvana - nerdvana for lovers of biblical studies, that is. This year, the Evangelical Theological Society, and the Society of Biblical Literature, are holding their conventions in New Orleans. Today I listened to a few lectures, tweaked my paper (which I will present Friday, and maybe post here as well), and tried to stay awake after my all-night flight from Honolulu.

One lecture today was from Mark Strauss, who talked about the purpose of Luke-Acts. I attended this session because I will be teaching an Acts class in the spring. Mark summarized the views that have been presented on the purposes of Luke-Acts - a defense of Paul before Roman officials, an evangelistic booklet to convert god-fearers (Gentiles who were interested in Judaism), and several others. Mark suggested that the purpose that best covered all the evidence in Luke is that the purpose of Luke-Acts is to legitimize the church and defend it. Maybe I'll post his reasons later - right now my brain is too jet-lagged to type it out in any coherent manner.

Gospel of John Wordle

2009-11-03T12:28:00.003-08:00

You can click on the picture to go to the website and get it full-size. I printed one out as a poster for my office.

You make a wordle by dumping some text into wordle.net. The size of each word is directly proportional to how many times the word occurs in the text. I made the John wordle by dumpint the entire text of the Gospel of John into wordle, and setting it to show the top 150 words. Reminds you of what the book is really about!

Writing deadlines!

2009-11-02T11:30:00.002-08:00

I probably will not post much for the next three weeks. I have two deadlines. On Nov 15, I am submitting a chapter on "The Use of Ezekiel in John" for a forthcoming book entitled After Ezekiel: Essays on the Reception of a Difficult Prophet, edited by Paul Joyce and Andrew Mein. That chapter will be an abbreviation of my dissertation and monograph.

Then I am presenting a paper at the Evangelical Theological Society in New Orleans on Nov 20. The paper is "I am not Elijah: The Use and Non-use of Elijah/Elisha Material in the Gospel of John."

So I will be trying to grab every spare minute to finish these two papers. As we all know, when deadlines loom, suddenly everything else becomes more fascinating - answering email, blogging, even minesweeper :)... What I really need right now is a computer that has no access to internet, email, computer games, or anything else except Word and Logos!

(Hey - that's a play on words! involving the word "word"! Was it intentional or not? Sorry - ignore the babblings of someone immersed in deciding whether various allusions to the OT in the NT are real or not)

Jesus the Aleph-Tav? (Genesis 1:1, Revelation 21:6)

2009-10-31T12:39:00.010-07:00

A few people asked me about the nature of the errors in this video (mentioned in my last post and also viewable as a youtube video). The content of the video can also be found (more or less) in posts here and here. The basic thrust of this bizarre claim: Jesus is the logos (John 1:1), which must mean written word; Jesus is the Alpha and Omega (Rev 21:6), which is a translation from Hebrew of Jesus the Aleph and Tav; the Hebrew word et (את, aleph tav) is an untranslatable word found in Genesis 1:1; therefore Jesus' claim that he is the logos and the Alpha and Omega is actually a claim that his name is את and is written in Genesis 1:1.

Here is a sampling of the linguistic errors in the video:

1) Logos (λόγος) and rhema (ῥῆμα) no longer have the distinct meanings of "word as idea" and "spoken word" - they are mostly synonymous by the time of the NT (see BDAG or another reputable Greek dictionary).

2) The speaker claims that logos must mean "written word" - simply not true. Using BDAG or finding the occurrences of logos in the NT and LXX is a quick way to disprove this mistake.

3) Jesus likely could speak all three languages (Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek), although there is some debate on this (see Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, s.v. "Languages of Palestine" by M.O. Wise).

4) There is no evidence that Revelation is "spoken in Hebrew and written in Greek." If you are very familiar with both languages, you can recognize Greek that has been translated from Hebrew, as in the LXX or in the quotations of the OT in the NT. Those marks of "translation Greek" are not found in most of Revelation, except in the quotes and allusions to the OT.

5) The worst error: the Hebrew word et (את, aleph tav) is not at all "mysterious" or "untranslatable;" in fact, I remember learning its meaning during the second week of introductory Hebrew. It is a very common word used to identify the direct object (as well as a few other less common functions). English identifies the direct object by the noun's position in the sentence; languages like Greek, Latin and German identify the direct object by changing the ending of the noun; and Hebrew marks the direct object with the word את.

Bad Interpretation and Erasmus

2009-10-29T21:42:00.007-07:00

For a wonderful example of the nonsense that one can spout if one knows only a little bit of Greek and Hebrew, take a look at this video at Boulders 2 Bits. It's a bit long, but painfully and unintentionally funny. By the way, the author of Boulders 2 Bits is not promoting the views in the video!

It reminded me of a story that Erasmus told about some linguistic analysis that he heard that was almost as creative and tortured. You'll make the most sense of Erasmus' story if you know just a little bit of Latin.

"I met... another, some eighty years of age, and such a divine that you'd have sworn Scotus himself was revived in him. He... with wonderful subtlety demonstrate[d] that there lay hidden in [the letters found in the name of Jesus] whatever could be said of him; for that it was only declined with three cases, he said, it was a manifest token of the Divine Trinity; and then, that the first ended in S, the second in M, the third in U... those three letters declaring to us that he was the beginning, middle, and end (summum, medium, et ultimum) of all. Nay, the mystery was yet more abstruse; for he... split the word Jesus into two equal parts [and] left the middle letter by itself, and then told us that that letter in Hebrew was schin or sin, and that sin in the Scotch tongue, as he remembered, signified as much as sin; from whence he gathered that it was Jesus that took away the sins of the world. At which new exposition the audience were so wonderfully intent and struck with admiration, especially the theologians… ”

-Erasmus, In Praise of Folly, 1515 (and the picture is from that work)

Erasmus on Greek

2009-10-27T14:58:00.007-07:00

Miscellaneous leftover quotes from Erasmus on learning Greek:

“And, my dear Batt, I am very anxious that you should know Greek…”
-Letter to Jacob Batt, September 1500

“We can use Greek words when we wish our meaning not to be understood by all and sundry.”

“… I am paying scant regard to my very health as I help my friends; I compose for some, read to some, correct for others, and meanwhile read, compile, emend, and compose on my own account, and practise my Greek which in any case is very difficult.”
-Letter to Jacob Batt, 1500

In Epistle 23 (I am unsure of the date), Erasmus signed his name on a letter in Greek rather than Latin - a practice just about every Greek student does at some point.

The picture: Title page of the Complutensian Polyglot, 1522. Erasmus' printer heard that the Polyglot was about to go to press, and so Erasmus rushed to finish his first edition of the Greek New Testament. As a result, Erasmus' first edition is one of the few print Bibles riddled with typographical errors.

Most Popular Post: Nicodemus and the Samaritan Woman

2009-10-26T17:47:00.007-07:00

My blog normally gets twenty to thirty hits per day. But in the last week, I have received more and more hits, until today, there are over 150 hits (according to Google Analytics).

It turns out that almost all the new hits are basically the same profile: someone googles "Nicodemus vs. the Samaritan woman" or some variation, and for some reason Google lists my post on that topic in first place.

So here's my question: are there always a hundred people per day googling about comparisons between Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman, and Google just recently noticed my blog post on that topic? Or is there some reason that hundreds of people suddenly became interested in this comparison? Maybe the passage came up in some church's lectionary cycle? A new documentary on Jesus that talked about Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman?

Baptism Pictures

2009-10-24T19:02:00.001-07:00

Daniel getting baptized last month.

Romans 7 - Christian or Pre-Christian?

2009-10-23T19:18:00.014-07:00

Today in my undergraduate class on Paul's letters, we talked about the "I" in Romans 7:13-25. Those of you who have done some study in Romans will know that throughout Christian history, there have been several opinions about what Paul meant. The two main options are 1) Paul is referring to his own experience as a Christian, and therefore the general Christian experience; or 2) Paul is referring to the experience of a pre-Christian Jew trying to obey the Law.

Here are some of the reasons that I gave in favor of option 2:

1) This passage is an answer to the question "Did that which was good [the Law], then, become death to me?" Paul is not interested here in discussing the current Christian struggle with sin. He is interested in explaining how the OT Law was used by sin to bring death to pre-Christians (this is related to "the law of sin and death").

2) Paul knows that Christians struggle with sin. But he discusses this in Romans 8:10-14 - and he has a very different take on the struggle there.

3) Every phrase that describes the "me" of Rom 7:13-25 is used to describe non-Christians or pre-Christian Jews elsewhere in Romans; further, each of those phrases contradicts what Paul says about Christians in Romans.

7:14 "I am fleshly, sold into bondage to sin." Compare to 7:5, "we were in the flesh;" 6:18 "we were freed from sin;" 6:20 "we were slaves to sin;" 8:9 "you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit."

7:16 "I agree with the Law, that the Law is good." (often used to assert that Paul is talking about Christians.) Compare to 2:17 "If you call yourself a Jew and rely on the Law...;" 7:4 "You died to the Law."

7:19 "I practice the very evil I do not want." Compare to 6:14 "Sin will have no mastery over you."

7:23 "a different law... making me a prisoner of the law of sin." Compare to 6:22 "but now, freed from sin and enslaved to God;" 8:2 "For in Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit of life has set you free from the law of sin and death."

Finally, I argued that Paul's theology in general does not support the interpretation that 7:13-25 refers to the Christian struggle with sin. Paul's normal approach to the Christian struggle is this: because of our union with Christ, we are saints; we have transferred from death to life, from sin to righteousness, from Adam to Christ, from Law to grace, from Law to Spirit. The way to deal with ongoing sin is to recognize that sin is inconsistent with our new identity in Christ, and to act in accordance with that new identity. We are dead to sin, so we should act dead to sin.

If option 1 is correct, Paul is presenting the Christian struggle in a way that he never presents it anywhere else in his letters: he is saying that we are still sinners by nature, we are still slaves to sin, we are still trying to keep the Law, and we are still under the law of sin and death.

This is the opposite of what Paul says in the next chapter: we are not in the flesh, we are in the Spirit, we are under no obligation to the flesh, and we can put the deeds of the body to death by the power of the Spirit.

That, my friends, is good news.

The picture: The Apostle Paul, in Entschuoldigung by Matthias Flacius Illyricus, 1549.

Eutychus Allusion in Jane Eyre

2009-10-23T02:38:00.005-07:00

I enjoyed this allusion to the story of Eutychus in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. (The story of Eutychus is found in Acts 20:7-12; see this post for more information.)

"The Sunday evening was spent in repeating, by heart, the Church Catechism, and the fifth, sixth and seventh chapters of St. Matthew; and in listening to a long sermon, read by Miss Miller, whose irrepressible yawns attested her weariness. A frequent interlude of these performances was the enactment of the part of Eutychus by some half dozen little girls; who overpowered with sleep, would fall down, if not out of the third loft, yet off the fourth form, and be taken up half dead. The remedy was, to thrust them forward into the center of the school-room, and oblige them to stand there till the sermon was finished. Sometimes their feet failed them, and they sank together in a heap; they were then propped up with the monitors’ high stools."

By the way, it is interesting to note that readers of Jane Eyre in the nineteenth century would not have been at all surprised that the girls could recite the catechism, as well as the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7).

The picture: movie poster for the Masterpiece Theater adaptation of the novel, which my wife and I enjoyed.

Baptism Pictures

2009-10-23T02:17:00.003-07:00

Nathan, our second son, was also baptized in October. Baptizing him is Pastor Mike Kai, Pastor Mark Peterman, and me.

Erasmus on Greek

2009-10-22T00:01:00.003-07:00

“I knew in my time... a Grecian, a Latinist... who... perplexed and tormented himself for above twenty years in the study of grammar, fully reckoning himself a prince if he might but live so long till he could certainly determine how the eight parts of speech were to be distinguished, which none of the Greeks or Latins had yet fully cleared: as if it were a matter to be decided by the sword if a man made an adverb of a conjunction. And for this cause is it that we have as many grammars as grammarians; nay more, forasmuch as my friend Aldus has given us above five, not passing by any kind of grammar, how barbarously or tediously soever compiled, which he has not turned over and examined; envying every man's attempts in this kind, rather to be pitied than happy, as persons that are ever tormenting themselves; adding, changing, putting in, blotting out, revising, reprinting, showing it to friends, and nine years in correcting, yet never fully satisfied; at so great a rate do they purchase this vain reward, to wit, praise, and that too of a very few, with so many watchings, so much sweat, so much vexation and loss of sleep, the most precious of all things. Add to this the waste of health, spoil of complexion, weakness of eyes or rather blindness, poverty, envy, abstinence from pleasure, over-hasty old age, untimely death, and the like; so highly does this wise man value the approbation of one or two blear-eyed fellows.”

-Erasmus, In Praise of Folly, 1515.

The picture: Folly Mounting the Pulpit, by Hans Holbein the Younger, in In Praise of Folly.

Rowley on Biblical Languages

2009-10-21T14:06:00.005-07:00

"One who made it his life's work to interpret French literature, but who could only read it in an English translation, would not be taken seriously; yet it is remarkable how many ministers of religion week by week expound a literature that they are unable to read save in translation!"

- H. H. Rowley, Expository Times, LXXIV, 12, September, 1963, p. 383

Thanks to Anumma, who drew my attention to this quote on the Pyromaniacs website.

Wesley on Greek

2009-10-20T15:06:00.004-07:00

“Do I understand Greek and Hebrew? Otherwise, how can I undertake, as every Minister does, not only to explain books which are written therein but to defend them against all opponents? Am I not at the mercy of everyone who does understand, or even pretends to understand, the original? For which way can I confute his pretense? Do I understand the language of the Old Testament? critically? at all? Can I read into English one of David’s Psalms, or even the first chapter of Genesis? Do I understand the language of the New Testament? Am I a critical master of it? Have I enough of it even to read into English the first chapter of St. Luke? If not, how many years did I spend at school? How many at the University? And what was I doing all those years? Ought not shame to cover my face?”

— John Wesley, “An Address to the Clergy,” in Works X:491.

When students finish taking Greek from me, I always appeal to their budget: if you stop reading Greek and using it for exegesis, you just wasted $2500 (the cost at our school for 12 credits of Greek/exegesis) and countless hours in class and studying. Don't lose your investment!

Baptism Pictures

2009-10-18T22:20:00.006-07:00

Josiah, our oldest son, was also baptized in October. Baptizing him is Pastor Mike Kai, Pastor Mark Peterman, and me.

Baptism Pictures

2009-10-18T18:59:00.012-07:00

In October, four of our boys were baptized.

Here's Caleb (age 6), who was very excited about getting baptized. Pastor Mike Kai, Pastor Mark Peterman and I did the baptism.

We may need to baptize this foot again some day.

Haleakala Slide Show

2009-10-16T18:51:00.004-07:00

Here's a slide show of our Haleakala trip. Thanks to Rich, who put all our pictures together and made the slide show. There's some background music to the slide show, so turn on your volume if you want. You can also look at all the pictures on Flickr.

Picture from Haleakala

2009-10-14T11:35:00.006-07:00

We just got back yesterday from our three-day back-packing trip through Haleakala National Park.

Here's the first photo - all packed up and ready to start the hike. We are at about 10,000 feet at the Summit parking lot, about to go down the Sliding Sands trail into the crater. In the background are several observatories. Left to right: Me, Nathan, Josiah, Daniel (the Mannings), Bryan, Bradley, Rich (the Fewells). Rich and I did this hike together with our friend Aaron Johnson 23 years ago.

Haleakala Trip

2009-10-08T11:45:00.004-07:00

This weekend is a backpacking trip! All of us (me, my three oldest boys, my friend Rich, and his two boys) will be flying to Maui this weekend to backpack through Haleakala National Park for three days. Whenever cell phone reception is good, Rich will be posting photos and audioblogs directly from the crater to his blog - be sure to go there to see the pictures, starting on Saturday, Oct 11.

Martin Luther on Greek

2009-10-08T11:38:00.004-07:00

"Insofar as we love the gospel, to that same extent, let us study the ancient tongues. And let us notice that without the knowledge of languages we can scarcely preserve the gospel. Languages are the sheath which hides the sword of the Spirit, they are the chest in which this jewel is enclosed, the goblet holding this draught. Where the languages are studied, the proclamation will be fresh and powerful, the scriptures will be searched, and the faith will be constantly rediscovered through ever new words and deeds.

-Martin Luther

The picture: Portrait of Martin Luther, Cranach the Elder, 1535.

Erasmus on Greek

2009-10-07T02:13:00.004-07:00

Erasmus, commenting on the efforts of theologians to interfere with his publication of an edition of Jerome:

“Certain… distinguished theologians… adjured the printer by all that is holy not to allow any admixture of Greek or Hebrew; these two languages, they said, are fraught with peril and there is no good to be got out of them; they were designed solely to satisfy idle curiosity.”

-Erasmus, Letter to Maarten van Dorp, 1515.

The picture: Erasmus, by Quentin Matsys, 1517.

Erasmus on Greek

2009-10-03T11:45:00.004-07:00

“…still I must scrape together from each and every source a small sum of money to clothe myself and to buy the complete works of Jerome… and a Plato, and to get together some Greek books, and also to pay for the services of a Greek tutor. My mind is burning with indescribable eagerness… to acquire a certain limited competence in the use of Greek, and thereby go on to devote myself entirely to sacred literature…”

-Erasmus, letter to Jacob Batt, December 11, 1499

The picture: Erasmus' self portrait, in his commentary on the works of Jerome, 1516.

ben Sirach on Translation

2009-10-02T11:34:00.008-07:00

"You are urged therefore to read with good will and attention, and to be indulgent in cases where, despite our diligent labor in translating, we may seem to have rendered some phrases imperfectly. For what was originally expressed in Hebrew does not have exactly the same sense when translated into another language. Not only this work, but even the law itself, the prophecies, and the rest of the books differ not a little as originally expressed."

-Sirach Preface

This could well be the plea of all Greek and Hebrew students for mercy from their profs as they grade translations on tests.

Scot McKnight on the "The Evangelical Flip"

2009-10-02T00:00:00.002-07:00

Take a look at Scot McKnight's new post on the Evangelical Flip. Here's a representative quote:

"So let me say this: (too many) evangelical leaders have become too enamored with management skills and techniques and have neglected the nitty-gritty of soaking themselves in the great texts of the Old and the New Testament."

What do you think?

Erasmus on Greek

2009-10-01T23:11:00.005-07:00

“[Theologians] are dogged everywhere by the nemesis that waits for those who despise Greek; here too they are subject to delusions, half asleep, blear-eyed, blundering, producing more monstrosities.”

-Erasmus, Letter to Maarten van Dorp, 1515.

The picture: Folly, marginal drawing by Hans Holbein the Younger, in Erasmus' In Praise of Folly, edition of 1515. Although Erasmus did not join the Reformers, this work satirized (among other things) abuses of the Catholic church. Its popularity may have even contributed to the Reformation.

Relevant Teaching

2009-09-29T17:18:00.005-07:00

I was doing some reading in John Walton's NIVAC Genesis commentary today (prepping for an adult Sunday school series that I will be teaching at a friend's church), and I came across this quote by Howard Hendricks:

"It is not too difficult to be biblical if you don't care about being relevant; it is not too difficult to be relevant if you don't care about being biblical. But if you want to be both biblical and relevant in your teaching, it is a very difficult task indeed."

Many traditional churches struggle with the first problem; many progressive churches struggle with the second problem. Most of my students teach and preach in a ministry environment where relevance is highly valued and reinforced. Teachers who get "too biblical" in their teaching are sometimes prodded by their ministry peers to get more relevant - and the implication is that they need to spend less time explaining Scripture.

The average person walking into church does not know how important it is to understand ideas like the Kingdom of God, union with Christ, or justification - three of the most important ideas in the New Testament. Relevant churches often respond by not teaching about these ideas. Traditional churches may teach on these topics, but often fail to help people realize their implications.

What do you think? Is this a problem in the church today? What are some things that you do to try to keep your teaching both relevant and biblical?

Erasmus on Greek

2009-09-29T10:51:00.005-07:00

"I can see what utter madness it is even to put a finger on that part of theology which is specially concerned with the mysteries of the faith unless one is furnished with the equipment of Greek as well, since the translators of Scripture, in their scrupulous manner of construing the text, offer such literal versions of Greek idioms that no one ignorant of that language could grasp even the primary, or, as our own theologians call it, literal, meaning."

-Erasmus, Epistle 149

The picture: Title page of Erasmus' Ecclesiastae (on preaching), 1535.

Erasmus on Greek

2009-09-28T11:03:00.005-07:00

Erasmus' response to Jacob Latomus' De tribus linguis (Whether a knowledge of the three languages is necessary for a theologian).

“I have never said that anyone with linguistic skills will right away understand the mysteries of sacred literature, I said that it is a great help in arriving at an understanding of Scripture; and I have said that this can be achieved through many means, and not only through the help of linguistics. But just as the philologist does not instantly attain an understanding of the innermost mysteries, so – all other things being even – the man who is ignorant of languages is rather far away from understanding them.”

-Erasmus, LB IX 82A-B

The picture: Medallion of Erasmus, Quentin Matsys, 1519

How to Waste Your Theological Education

2009-09-27T18:35:00.002-07:00

The following is a post from Derek Brown's blog, From the Study. Thanks to Pac Rim student Carl Amouzou for drawing my attention to it. I add my hearty amen to Derek's thoughts!

1. Cultivate pride by writing only to impress your professors instead of writing to better understand and more clearly communicate truth.
2. Perfect the fine art of corner-cutting by not really researching for a paper but instead writing your uneducated and unsubstantiated opinions and filling them in with strategically placed footnotes.
3. Mistake the amount of education you receive with the actual knowledge you obtain. Keep telling yourself, “I’ll really start learning this stuff when I do my Th.M or my Ph.D.”
4. Nurture an attitude of superiority, competition, and condescension toward fellow seminary students. Secretly speak ill of them with friends and with your spouse.
5. Regularly question the wisdom and competency of your professors. Find ways to disrespect your professors by questioning them publicly in class and by trying to make them look foolish.
6. Neglect personal worship, Bible reading and prayer.
7. Don’t evangelize your neighbors.
8. Practice misquoting and misrepresenting positions and ideas you don’t agree with. Be lazy and don’t attempt to understand opposing views; instead, nurse your prejudices and exalt your opinions by superficial reading and listening.
9. Give your opinion as often as possible – especially in class. Ask questions that show off your knowledge instead of questions that demonstrate a genuine inquiry.
10. Speak of heretical movements, teachers, and doctrine with an air of disdain and levity.
11. Find better things to do than serve in your local church.
12. Fill your life with questionable movies, television, internet, and music.
13. Set aside fellowship and accountability with fellow brothers in Christ.
14. Let your study of divine things become dull, boring, lifeless, and mundane.
15. Chip away at your integrity by signing your school’s covenant and then breaking it under the delusion that, “Those rules are legalistic anyway.”
16. Don’t read to learn; read only to refute what you believe is wrong.
17. Convince yourself that you already know all this stuff.
18. Just study. Don’t exercise, spend time with your family, or work.
19. Save major papers for the last possible moment so that you can ensure that you don’t really learn anything by writing them.
20. Don’t waste your time forming friendships with your professors and those older and wiser than you.
21. Make the mistake of thinking that your education guarantees your success in ministry.
22. Don’t study devotionally. You’ll never make it as a big time scholar if you do that. Scholars need to be cool, detached, and unbiased – certainly not Jesus freaks.
23. Day dream about future opportunities to the point that you get nothing out of your current opportunity to learn God’s Word.
24. Do other things while in class instead of listening – like homework, scheduling, letter-writing, and email.
25. Spend more time blogging than studying.
26. Avoid chapel and other opportunities for corporate worship.
27. Argue angrily with those who don’t see things your way. Whatever you do, don’t read and meditate on II Timothy 2:24-26 and James 3:13-18 as you prepare for ministry.
28. Set your hopes on an easy, cushy pastorate for when you graduate. Determine now not to obey God when he calls you to serve in a difficult church.
29. Look forward to the day when you won’t have to concern yourself with all this theology and when you will be able to just “preach Jesus.”
30. Forget that your primary responsibility is care for your family through provision, shepherding, and leadership.
31. Master Calvin, Owen, and Edwards, but not the Law, Prophets, and Apostles.
32. Gain knowledge in order to merely teach others. Don’t expend the effort it takes to deal with your own heart.
33. Pick apart your pastor’s sermons every week. Only point out his mistakes and his poor theological reasoning so you don’t have to be convicted by anything he says.
34. Protect yourself from real fellowship by only talking about theology and never about your personal spiritual issues, sin, and struggles.
35. Comfort yourself with the delusion that you will start seriously dealing with sin as soon as you become a pastor; right now it’s not really that big a deal.
36. Don’t serve the poor, visit the sick, or care for widows and orphans – save that stuff for the uneducated, non-seminary trained, lay Christians.
37. Keep telling yourself that you want to preach, but don’t ever seek opportunities to preach, especially at local rescue missions and nursing homes. Wait until your church candidacy to preach your first sermon.
38. Let envy keep you from profiting from sermons preached by fellow students.
39. Resent behind-the-scenes, unrecognized service. Only serve in areas where you are sure you will receive praise and accolades.
40. Appear spiritual and knowledgeable at all costs. Don’t let others see your imperfections and ignorance, even if it means you have to lie.
41. Love books and theology and ministry more than the Lord Jesus Christ.
42. Let your passion for the gospel be replaced by passion for complex doctrinal speculation.
43. Become angry, resentful and devastated when you receive something less than an A.
44. Let your excitement for ministry increase or decrease in direct proportion to the accolades or criticisms you receive from your professors.
45. Don’t really try to learn the languages – let Bible Works do all the work for you.

Erasmus on Greek

2009-09-26T15:21:00.005-07:00

Erasmus talks about what he will do with grant money that he hopes to receive from a benefactor. Reminds me of my financial situation during seminary!

“If there is a chance, I shall set out for Italy in the autumn with the intention of obtaining a doctor’s degree… I have turned my attention to Greek. The first thing I shall do, as soon as the money arrives, is to buy some Greek authors; after that, I shall buy clothes.”

-Erasmus, letter to Jacob Batt, April 12, 1500.

The picture: Title page of a German translation of Erasmus' Enchiridion, 1520. Erasmus first published it in Latin in 1503.

Erasmus on Greek

2009-09-25T17:41:00.005-07:00

On Erasmus' Latin translation of the Greek New Testament:

“Let them not drag me into court if the text does not agree with the original word for word, for, try as you may, it cannot be done.”

-Erasmus, Apologia 170:20-1

The picture: Dedication (to Pope Leo X) of Erasmus' New Testament, 1516.

Erasmus on Greek

2009-09-24T13:17:00.006-07:00

“It is a fairly troublesome business to learn to recognize the shapes of letters at sight, to pronounce readily, to decline and conjugate. Do you think a man has achieved nothing who has digested all this tedious stuff?… And maybe he is content with that, for the only reason he wishes to learn Greek is to be able to spend his time with more profit and more sure judgment on the Scriptures.”

-Erasmus, Letter to William Latimer, February 1517

The picture: Erasmus, by Hendrik Bary, 1671.

William Latimer on Greek

2009-09-23T15:22:00.006-07:00

“Greek is a complex and many-sided business, as you know, and more than a little involved; and though it is toilsome rather than difficult, yet it needs time, at least until it can be got by heart. Do not think I judge other people’s mental powers by my own slow pace… But neither of you [Erasmus and Thomas More], I think, will say that he ran through these difficulties so fast that after a month or two he could go where he would without a guide; the more so as one meets so many meanders and side-turnings everywhere that they might lead even an expert astray.”

-William Latimer, Letter to Erasmus, January 30, 1517

The picture: Title page of Erasmus' first edition of the Greek New Testament, 1516. William Latimer, a theologian and Greek scholar, assisted Erasmus by proofreading the first edition.

Greek Quotes

2009-09-22T14:59:00.010-07:00

As you may have noticed, I have been posting a number of quotes about learning Greek and using Greek (see here for all quotes). I first became interested in such quotes when Alan Gomes, my Church History prof at Talbot School of Theology, shared a quote from Augustine about the pain of learning Greek as a boy (I'll post that one later).

When I began teaching Greek, I tried to find other similar quotes for use in my lecture notes. Mostly, I found quotes that were already being circulated among Greek profs, such as well-known quotes by Zwingli and Wesley (also coming soon). But I found the motherlode of useful quotes on the topic while doing a doctoral paper on the history of textual criticism. I decided to read the letters of Erasmus to try to find out a little more about his text-critical approach when he was editing the first published Greek New Testament. It turns out that Erasmus didn't talk much about his methods in his letters, but he did talk a lot about the value of reading the Scriptures in the original languages. I'll be sharing more of those quotes over the next several days.

Erasmus' interest in Greek and Hebrew had several important results. Erasmus not only compiled (and repeatedly revised) the first Greek New Testament, but also made a fresh Latin translation. Despite Martin Luther's dislike of Erasmus, Luther used Erasmus' Greek New Testament as the textual basis for his influential German translation.

Seminarians of the time did not usually learn Greek and Hebrew; in fact, many theologians were wary of the possible heretical influence of the original languages (see some interesting quotes on this in the next few days). Erasmus encouraged other scholars to learn and teach the original languages, and eventually this became part of the standard seminary curriculum - a fact which causes modern seminarians to either bless or curse the name of Erasmus.

Do you have a favorite quote about learning and using the biblical languages? Please share it!

The picture: Title page of Erasmus' Greek New Testament, 3d edn., 1522.

Erasmus on Greek

2009-09-22T11:57:00.008-07:00

Erasmus, commenting on the labor of editing his Greek New Testament, the bestselling book of the early 16th century:

“I am immersed in work, especially in the revision of the New Testament – I wish I had never touched it. If this is what a scholar’s work is, much better to go on sleeping.”

-Erasmus, Letter to Hermann von Neuenahr, November 30, 1517

The picture: Erasmus of Rotterdam, by Albrecht Durer, 1526.

Zwingli on Greek

2009-09-21T11:32:00.007-07:00

Zwingli: … He then, in order to show that Christ, although of Divine Nature, had taken upon Him the form of a servant, and been made like to us, cited in the Greek text the passage from Philip. ii.7.
Luther: Let the Greek alone, quote it in Latin or German.

Zwingli: Excuse me; during the last twelve years I have only made use of the Greek New Testament.

-Text of a debate between Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli on Oct 1, 1529. Quoted in Zwingli: or, the Rise of the Reformation in Switzerland, by R. Christoffel, 1858.

Erasmus on Greek

2009-09-20T16:50:00.007-07:00

"My readings in Greek all but crush my spirit; but I have no spare time and no means to purchase books or employ the services of a tutor. And with all this commotion to endure I have hardly enough to live on; and this is what I owe to my studies!"

-Erasmus, letter to Jacob Batt, 1500.

The picture: Studies of the Hands of Erasmus of Rotterdam, Hans Holbein the Younger, 1523.

Erasmus on Greek

2009-09-20T01:59:00.006-07:00

Erasmus, commenting on the value of studying the Scriptures in Greek and studying other Greek literature:

“And where meanwhile are those who say that Greek literature is of no value in the study of Holy Scriptures? Where are those individuals – camels rather than men – who bleat that nothing comes out of Greek literature except heresies?”

-Erasmus, Letter to Carondolet, 1523.

The picture: Portrait of Erasmus of Rotterdam, by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1523. Erasmus commented that the portrait made him look much too handsome.

Top Ten Things To Do While Learning Greek

2009-09-04T15:33:00.007-07:00

10. Loudly discuss your pastor’s incorrect Greek usage after the sermon.

9. Find infallible proof that [insert name here] is the Antichrist by translating his name from Greek to Aramaic to English to Elvish.
8. Feel really cool when you write your name in Greek and start all your e-mails with charis humin kai eirene.

7. Discover ancient prophetic messages hidden in the Greek letters of the New Testament: "Jesus calls the antichrist the abomination of desolation, bdelugma eremoseos. The letters in that phrase can be rearranged to form the phrase a submerged eel moos, meaning that one of the signs of the apocalypse will be the creation of mutant eel-cows."
6. Come up with really descriptive word pictures based on Greek: "It says here that 'rivers of living water will flow from' the believer. In Greek, that word flow is rheo, from which we get the English word diarrhea."
5. Find secret Satanic messages in fraternity and sorority names.
4. Consider yourself more holy than the heathen in your church who don’t know Greek.
3. Whisper sweet nothings to your honey in Greek: chairein, brephe. kalle puge (= Greetings, baby. Nice buns).

2. Regularly interrupt your Bible study by saying, “Well, in the Greek New Testament…”
1. Improve your chances of getting a date with an ancient Greek.

Biblioblogger Rankings

2009-09-01T15:50:00.003-07:00

Biblioblogger just posted its monthly ratings of Biblical Studies blogs for August. It's fun to read some of the top ten blogs and see all the trash talk going on at the end of each month.

Eutychus' ranking moved up from 230 to 159 - Yay! I think if I want to crack the top 50 I'll need to start writing more often - or maybe I can just start writing some seriously crackpot posts. I'm thinking of starting by claiming that Jesus was really a time-traveller from the 1960s, which explains the robe, long hair, and all the talk about peace.

Barack Obama - Antichrist?

2009-08-12T11:17:00.004-07:00

I'm glad to see Barack is in good company in this video - remember when Ronald Reagan, Henry Kissinger, and Prince Charles were identified as the Antichrist? There's a book called Naming the Antichrist: The History of an American Obsession, which will make you very skeptical about such attempts.

The main problem with claims like this is that they attempt to find coincidental similarities between a modern figure and the Antichrist while ignoring the central characteristics of the Antichrist. No one is eligible to be an (or the) antichrist unless he persecutes Jews and/or Christians, and sets himself up as an object of worship even above the pagan gods. Leaders like Domitian, Mao, Stalin or Hitler (whose names probably don't mean anything special!) might qualify on those grounds - but not a politicaly liberal president who doesn't agree with Evangelical Christians on some matters.

Linguistically, the claims of the video are off. In Hebrew and in Aramaic, lightning is baraq. (BTW, the speaker is not accurate to say that Aramaic is the most ancient form of Hebrew - the first hint that he is not an expert. His use of Strong's concordance is another hint that he doesn't actually know Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek). But in Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic, that q at the end is a different letter from k, and is even pronounced differently. In all three languages, barak (with slight spelling differences between the languages) means "blessed." The parallel name in Hebrew is Baruch, and Mubarak is another Arabic name with the same root. English speakers may think that barak and baraq are about the same - but non-English speakers would think that watch and wash are about the same.

"Obama" fares no better. I am no expert in this area because Obama is an African tribal name, not Arabic or semitic. That means there is no linguistic connection between the Hebrew bamah (heights, hills) and the tribal name Obama. I can't vouch for this website, since I haven't studied any African languages, but it seems much better informed than the video.

Finally, the video has its biblical interpretation off. Jesus does talk about the antichrist, but not in Luke 10:18. The Bible makes a clear distinction between the human antichrist and the angelic/demonic Satan, and there is absolutely no discussion of the antichrist anywhere in Luke 10. The video also refers to Isa 14:12-14. Although it is common for Christians to think this passage is talking about Satan, you will have a hard time finding an Old Testament scholar who agrees. It is a hyperbolic description of the king of Babylon, as the first line in the poem says (14:4). Even if the passage was describing Satan, the word "heights" is not a description of Satan. We might as well pick other random words from the passage and claim that anyone with a name like that might be the antichrist (Maybe Ken Starr? Isa 14:12).

And if that's not enough, you can tell that the video was really fishing, since lightning in the Bible is associated with Satan only once, and is associated with God or the Son at least thirty times (Ezek 1:13, Lk 17:24, Rev 4:5).

"I am not going up to this feast" (John 7)

2009-08-11T15:14:00.012-07:00

John 7 is a story about conflict over Jesus' identity. Jesus' brothers as well as the crowds at Jerusalem believe that Jesus is some sort of great rabbi or wonder-worker, but they do not believe that he is the Messiah. Much of the account depicts Jesus' invitation to move beyond deficient beliefs about him.

The story starts with an interesting dialogue between Jesus and his brothers, who, we are told, do not yet believe in him. The brothers want Jesus to publicly proclaim himself at the Feast of Tabernacles. Jesus responds "My time is not yet here... You go up to this feast. I am not going up to this feast, because my time is not yet fulfilled" (John 7:6-8) But then Jesus goes secretly halfway through the feast.

Some Bibles have "I am not yet going up to this feast." Some ancient manuscripts have "not" (ouk) and others have "not yet" (oupo). It seems more likely that John originally wrote ouk. The earliest manuscripts (p66, p75, B) have this reading. But more importantly, we can imagine a pious scribe changing "not" to "not yet" in order to preserve Jesus' honesty; it is very difficult to imagine a scribe changing "not yet" to "not." (On the other hand, the reliable 4th century ms Sinaiticus has oupo, leading the UBS Committee to give a C rating to their decision in favor of ouk).

So why did Jesus say "I am not going up to (or at) this festival"? John loves to use plays on words (see some of my other posts on John). Elsewhere in John, going up (anabaino) is used to refer to Jesus' "glorification" - his crucifixion, resurrection and ascension (John 3:13, 6:61-62, 20:17). The "hour" is also a reference to Jesus' glorification (John 4:21, 23, 5:25, 28, 7:30, 8:20, 12:23, 27, 13:1). So Jesus may be saying that this festival is not the time for him to display his glory through his death; he must wait for the following Passover. This pattern - Jesus uses a play on words, and someone else misunderstands - can be found in other places in John (3:3-5, 4:9-11).

Although I have read the passage as a subtle reference to Jesus' coming glorification for some time, I recently discovered that some church fathers read it this way. Augustine and Chrysostom seemed to view the passage in this way, and (according to Beasley-Murray, who thinks the view is nonsense) so did Ephraem and Epiphanius. Augustine and Chrysostom were not viewing the passage that way in order to preserve Jesus' honesty, since they were working with manuscripts that said "not yet."

[However, it is possible that there is no play on words here; anabaino is the standard word used for going up to Jerusalem, especially for a festival (John 2:13, 5:1, 7:8, 10, 14; 11:55, 12:20).]

The picture: Jesus teaching in the Temple, Michelangelo, 1548.

Age of the Fallen

2009-08-05T16:30:00.003-07:00

My friend Mark Olmos has just published Age of the Fallen, a fictional book about spiritual warfare amoung youth in Japan. I have not read it yet, but I intend to. Mark is a great pastor and one of the most creative people I know, so I expect it to be a great read. It would help him the most if you order directly from his website.