A Bissel of Hanukkah How-To’s and Inspiration, MJ Style
Hanukkah starts tonight! Time to run hot water over your menorahs to melt the colored wax from last year. Time to get ready for the smell of onions and potatoes frying in oil. Time to save up calories for jelly donuts and chocolate, oy! Time to buy a gift for a loved one and to put together a special something for a family in need. Time to plug in those electric menorahs and put them in the window so the neighbors will know there is a Jewish house on their street.
There are so many people who do not know how to properly celebrate Hanukkah. I will include a few links here to help you.
But more than a bissel of instructions, we also need to know how to find the messages of Hanukkah. There are many messages that spring from Hanukkah.
Hanukkah is a call to resist assimilation away from the Jewish and Torah lifestyle and to just blend in. If the Israelites in the days of the Maccabees had been as slack as our generation, there would be no Jews in the world anymore!
Hanukkah is a call to rededication, purifying the defiled areas of our lives and making our personal and household temples pure again for God.
Hanukkah is a wake up call about future events (see Monday and Tuesday’s posts about Daniel and Hanukkah). Antiochuses will rise again. Will we be Mattathiases?
Hanukkah is also abut Messiah. You won’t hear this on mainstream Jewish sites. Yeshua had a message at Hanukkah about being the Good Shepherd.
Messiah asks us at Hanukkah, “What shepherds are we following?” The message is holiday-appropriate. In days of yore the Israelites allowed their leaders to be compromisers, like Jason and Menelaus who shepherded the people away from Judaism and into assimilation with the Greek ways of the world. But that generation cast out the false shepherds and followed the Hasidim and Maccabeans.
Yeshua asked his generation (in John 10), what shepherds are you following? Do you know the difference between the thief and the Good Shepherd?
So, below I will post a few how-to links for Hanukkah as well as an outline for reading John 10. Check back later today and I may put a few notes with the John 10 outline as well.
Above all, may your Hanukkah be blessed in the love of God and people!
A Few Links to Help You Celebrate
How to light the Menorah and say the Blessings:
http://judaism.about.com/cs/chanukahgeneral/ht/hol_chan_light.htm
A video on how to light the Menorah:
http://www.mahalo.com/how-to-light-hanukkah-candles
The Hanukkah Story Messianic Jewish Style:
http://derek4messiah.wordpress.com/2009/12/09/the-hanukkah-story-mj-style/
The Hanukkah Story:
http://judaism.about.com/od/chanukah/a/hanukkahstory.htm
In-depth article on history and meaning of Hanukkah:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanukkah
How to play dreidl (hint: we play with M&M’s or Hershey’s Kisses):
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/holidays/Jewish_Holidays/Hanukkah/At_Home/Dreidel/How_To_Play.shtml
How to make Latkes (hint: we prefer the Manischewitz box mix, Latkes/Potato Pancakes):
http://www.ehow.com/how_11727_make-potato-latkes.html
Reading About Messiah and Hanukkah
John 10:1-6 The Shepherd and the Thief
John 10:7-10 The Door to Life
John 10:11-13 The Good Shepherd
John 10:14-18 One Flock
John 10:19-21 Possessed or Prophet?
John 10:22-30 Hanukkah, Miracles, Messiah
John 10:31-39 God, Man, Miracles
PODCAST: Yeshua in Context – Yeshua as Prophet
There is a difference in the way Yeshua was viewed by his own generation and the way he has been viewed since then in church and Jewish tradition. Our image of Jesus the Christ of Christianity is different for many reasons than the image of Yeshua the Galilean to his own people in his own time.
For one thing, we know the end of the story about Yeshua whereas they did not. For some of us, that means accepting that Yeshua was and is far more than he appeared to be as he walked the hills of Judea, Samaria, the Decapolis, and Galilee. For others of us there are complicated issues such as anti-Semitism in church history and a heated dialogue about Jesus which often meant death or marginalization for Jews. It is not easy to see Yeshua objectively in any sense of the word.
But part of the idea of the Yeshua in context podcast is to peel away what layers we can and see Yeshua in his own time and place. Of course we cannot do this perfectly. We can only look at evidence from the past and get fuzzy glimpses of the way his audience would have thought of him.
This podcast is one of three considering Yeshua as Teacher, Prophet, and Messiah. In our last podcast we considered Yeshua as teacher, but we found that the Gospel of Mark in particular shows us a different kind of teacher than some other studies have suggested. Yeshua resembled not so much rabbinic teachers such as Hillel, but a prophet-teacher, such as Elisha.
LISTEN ONE OF TWO WAYS:
(1) If you have iTunes, search Yeshua in the iTunes store and subscribe.
(2) If you don’t use iTunes, go to this link at derekleman.com.
The Hanukkah Story, MJ Style
I call this version “MJ Style” because, true to Messianic Judaism, I see the Hanukkah story in terms of Yeshua’s work as the redeemer of Israel. Most of the story is familiar to you and I am going light on details. The point is in the way I use the story to say something for the Jewish people as well as Christians that takes into account “the rest of the story.”
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The actual miracle of Hanukkah is not about burning oil that lasted longer than was naturally possible. The story of the miraculous oil is a very late one and almost certainly didn’t happen.
The miracle of Hanukkah is like the miracle of Purim. It’s the kind of miracle we see in our world today. Bodies of water do not stand up in two heaps as caravans pass through. Theophanies from the midst of a storm do not speak down from mountains. But God is saving, healing, and preparing all things to be renewed. He preserves his people Israel and he spreads his name among the nations of the world as well.
The miracle Hanukkah is the preservation of God’s people Israel and preparing his people for the days of Messiah. If it had not been for Hanukkah, there might not have been a Jewish people for Messiah to be born into. The covenant promises of God would perhaps have failed. But history will never work out this way. Seen or unseen, God’s hand drives history in the direction of the world to come.
Great empires rose and fell. The Israelite prophet, Daniel, spoke of four kingdoms succeeding one another. Babylon fell even while Daniel was living there. The Medes and Persians arose and Persia covered almost the whole earth. Greece came later with the sudden and overwhelming conquests of Alexander as Daniel describes in his eleventh chapter. After the Greeks would come a fourth kingdom, but only in the days of Messiah’s birth, and our story does not take us there as yet.
Daniel said that Alexander would be a mighty king with great dominion. But his kingdom would be broken four ways very soon after it arose. And two of the four parts of the Alexandrian legacy were the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucids of Babylon and Syria. In between them were the people of Judah, those who had returned from exile in Babylon and dwelt with a rebuilt Temple in their midst.
All around Judah the world was changing. Hellenism was the fashion. Cities built hippodromes for public chariot races and horse races. Stadiums were built for games and the fashion was for athletes to participate without clothes. Races, wrestling, and other games entertained the people of the cities. The city was called a polis and there were libraries, courts, temples, and places for discussion and learning.
Judah was a backwards sort of place and for the most part the people wanted nothing to do with Olympian Zeus, nude games, and the Greek way of life.
But among the nobility, there were compromisers, people who wanted to see the old traditions disappear. Circumcision, they said, was barbaric. It was embarrassing for Jewish young men to participate in nude games where all could see their circumcisions. Some had unreliable and dangerous surgeries to try and reverse their circumcision. And many wanted to see the end of Torah study and Hebrew and Aramaic writing and conversation. The common Greek which was growing to be the world language was the language of sophistication.
Meanwhile, the Seleucids came to rule over the territory of Judah and put the Ptolemies back into Egypt. Eventually a new Seleucid monarch arose in 175 B.C.E., Antiochus Epiphanes. He called himself Epiphanes, manifestation of the gods. The Jews called him Epimanes or crazy one.
Antiochus Epiphanes put in his own high priest, someone not from the line of Aaron at all. He strongly supported the nobility in their desire to Hellenize the Jews. Antiochus loved Olympian Zeus. In time he built a hippodrome and made decrees forbidding circumcision. He installed a statue of Olympian Zeus in the Temple and had priests, many of whom were already Hellenized, offer swine in the holy Temple of Hashem.
But Antiochus read the whole situation wrongly. The enthusiasm for Greek ways was only a thin veneer or nobles who aspired to greater wealth and power. The people of Judah were not with these changes.
So, when a envoy came to the town of Modi’in to enforce the new ways, Mattathias and his sons rose up. There were already Torah-faithful groups who had given martyrs and formed bands in the wild places of Israel. Mattathias and his sons became the leaders of these groups of Hasidim, pious ones. It would be Hasidim versus Hellenists in Israel.
The Hasidim quickly grew and the Hellenists would have been in trouble except that Antiochus had the greatest armies in that part of the world. But God had already been at work and there was another factor in the favor of the Hasidim. The armies of Antiochus and the wealth of Antiochus had already been harmed by trouble with Rome. Rome was not yet an empire, but they were already a force to be reckoned with, having defeated Hannibal and the Carthaginians in a great battles in Africa. Antiochus’ father had supported the wrong side and made an enemy of Rome. Rome had demanded a huge tribute from the Seleucids and had greatly reduced the military which Antiochus had available.
In many battles the Hasidim, led by the sons of Mattathias, who were now called the Maccabeans, the Syrian mercenaries were defeated. Eventually the Maccabeans took the Temple back. They cleansed it and declared an eight day celebration, since the people had missed Sukkot. Hanukkah is eight days because it was in that year a late celebration of the Feast at the Temple.
Hanukkah is about the time the Jewish people were almost exterminated. There was no Haman or Hitler here, but something more subtle. Even Antiochus was not as much the bad guy as the temptation among the Jewish people to assimilate and adopt the ways and customs of the world.
We know from the Israelite prophet Daniel that other Antiochuses will arise. In the last days there will be a ruler who also makes decrees against the ways of God. People will be tempted to go along with economic advantage and the pull of popular power.
But God promises that Israel in the last days will be circumcised in heart and will not give in to the wickedness of smooth things. And in the history of Israel there have been some leaders whose voices called for a renewal within that would bring such renewal to Israel in the here and now.
The greatest of these was Yeshua, the son of Joseph the Nazarene. One Hanukkah he stood in the Temple and challenged his generation to a renewal which was far more important than war, kingdoms, and power. Who are your shepherds, he asked his people, the kind who rob and steal or the kind who lay down their life for the sheep?
Yeshua said that his sheep would hear his voice. His sheep would have the eternal life of the last days here and now. At Hanukkah he declared that he was the good shepherd, the last David, who would bring his people home. But his generation was not ready. When he declared that he was not only sent by God, but also one with God, the people around him wanted to kill him for blasphemy.
Yet Yeshua did have disciples, Hasidei Yeshua, the pious ones of Yeshua. And the early ones became men and women of great renown. James, the leader of the Yeshua-followers in Jerusalem, was a man of unimpeachable reputation amongst the Jewish leaders and Torah-faithful of the time.
The miracle of Hanukkah is the preservation of Israel’s people and the continuation of the covenant promises that God will heal and deliver Israel. The one who heals the people of Israel is Yeshua, the man who said at Hanukkah he was one with the Father, the one who said he is the good shepherd of Israel who leads his people to circumcised hearts and eternal life.
When a new Antiochus will arise, as foretold in Daniel, and will greatly trouble Israel again, it will be Yeshua who comes to deliver his people. In the meantime, we are the Hasidei Yeshua, the pious ones of Yeshua, who stand firm in faithfulness to God’s ways and who do not compromise. Great movements of salvation do not usually look impressive, but when the times get difficult, the ones who shine are revealed.
Hanukkah and the Prophet Daniel, Pt 2
Hanukkah is a holiday which post-dates the Hebrew Bible. So it would seem that we could say little or nothing about Hanukkah from the Hebrew Bible.
Yet the sixth century B.C.E. prophet Daniel foretold events that would lead up to Hanukkah. Some say the parts of Daniel that deal with Hanukkah-era events are not foretelling, but late additions to the book by someone living in the middle of those events. See part 1 for more about the issue of date and Daniel.
The chapter in Daniel which brings us to the events which lie behind Hanukkah is chapter 11. It is a long and obscure chapter. No doubt many who read it, and I include myself, get a few of the early references and then become lost in the details. Historians and commentators have been working on understanding those details for long centuries. I will bring us through the major parts of the chapter and help us understand the story.
NOTE: Some readers may get bored with some of the details below, though I have been extremely brief. At least skip to the final section before you give up reading, “Hanukkah and the Last Days.”
Daniel 11:2-3
Two of the most famous conquerors of history are referenced in these verses: Xerxes of Persia and Alexander the Great.
If you saw the move “300,” you saw a very cool depiction of Xerxes, the insanely wealthy and powerful emperor of much of the known world at that time (ruled 486-465 B.C.E.). As Daniel said, “he shall stir up all against the kingdom of Greece.” It was an ill-advised war and Xerxes lost a great deal trying to defeat the Greeks.
After Xerxes, Daniel brings us to Alexander the Great, son of Philip of Macedon. Alexander’s conquests (336-323 B.C.E.) are legendary and involved bringing Greek culture to the world in addition to conquering. This period of history led directly to the Hanukkah story, when the Hellenization (spread of Greek culture) threatened to annihilate the people of Israel through assimilation.
Daniel 11:4
When Alexander died in 323 B.C.E. (at only 33 years of age), his kingdom was divided four ways. Daniel’s “his kingdom will be broken and divided toward the four winds of heaven” is accurate.
This breaking up of Alexander’s kingdom is an important step leading to the Hanukkah story. The Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucids of Babylon and who ruled into Syria contested the territory between them, which included the land of Israel.
It was a combination of military conquest, political strategy, the ambition of a Hellenizing monarch, and treachery from Jewish nobles who preferred Greek ways that led to the Maccabean revolt and the Hanukkah story.
Daniel 11:5-20
The king of the south stands for the Ptolemaic rulers from Egypt while the king of the north stands for the Seleucid rulers from Babylon and into Syria.
Daniel’s words detail a number of events occurring from shortly after Alexander’ death to just before Antiochus IV (Epiphanes) who was the evil king in the Hanukkah story. Vs. 5 may have reference to the Battle of Ipsus in which Seleucus I expanded his power though the Ptolemies ruled Judah at this time. The alliance in vs. 6 is the marriage of Berenice, daughter of Ptolemy II, to Antiochus II in 253 B.C.E. But the peace did not last. Ptolemy III conquered Seleucid territory and then later Seleucus II took it back.
In vss. 10-13 are about the wars of Seleucus II and Antuochus III to capture Ptolemy territory. In 200 B.C.E., Antiochus II took Judah and Samaria for the Seleucids. Vss. 14-19 bring us to more about Antiochus III, who strongly consolidated Seleucid power, but who lost battles with Rome in Asia Minor. After that, Rome became the enemy of the Seleucids and in the Hanukkah story, the Romans are an ally with the Maccabeans.
Daniel 11:21-35
This is one of the controversial sections of Daniel, perhaps the most controversial. Those who view this part as a late addition to Daniel see it as a history-written-as-prophecy. In other words, someone living in the middle of these events (167 B.C.E.) is thought to have written these words. This mystery writer, it is said, got the parts right that had already happened, but made some predictions about the future that did not come to pass.
P.R. Davies, following this approach, sees vss. 40-45 as predicting Antiochus IV defeating Egypt and dying in the land of Israel. Antiochus IV never conquered Egypt and died in Persia. Thus, it is thought by many that the writer of this section lived before these final events happened and guessed wrong about what would happen.
Iain Provan, as I mentioned in part 1, takes a different approach. Giving the benefit of the doubt to the book presented as a prophecy from the sixth century B.C.E., Provan notes that while there is no doubt that vss. 40-45 bear “no relation to history,” even here in vss. 21-35 we see something more than history.
Some of the details in vss. 21-35 do point to Antiochus IV. The Seleucid king did suffer loss from the Kittim (the Romans). He did seduce traitors to the Torah covenant in a conspiracy to end Torah observance (Jason and Menelaus and other Jewish leaders who wanted to lead Israel to become Greek).
Yet other parts do not fit well with Antiochus IV. He did not rise to power unexpectedly. He was the brother of Seleucus IV and the son of Antiochus III. The reference to a prince of the covenant being swept away by him doesn’t fit well. Davies says this must be Onias III, but Antiochus did not break him with a military action. Rather, Antiochus sold the priesthood to Jason. Antiochus did not instigate war with Egypt as vs. 25 implies, though of course there was fighting between Antiochus and the Ptolemies. We know of no internal plots that led to the downfall of the Ptolemies in this period as vss. 25-26 imply.
Rather than taking 11:21-35 as being about Antiochus IV, Provan stands in a long line of interpreters who suggest we have prophetic telescoping going on. Some events do fit with Antiochus, but the rest are about an Antiochus-like figure, the final anti-Messiah who will come. It is about the time of the end (vs. 35) and not just the time of the Maccabees.
Daniel 11:36-45
If we understand these as prophecy yet to be fulfilled, the difficulties with Daniel disappear. We should not be surprised to hear Daniel prophesying about the anti-Messiah of the last days. His book has had an eschatological focus throughout.
The Big Point: Hanukkah and the Last Days
If we understand Daniel 11 as prophetic telescoping, leaping from a king whose madness and opposition to the covenant of God is legendary to the final evil ruler, the anti-Messiah, then we see a connection between Hanukkah and the last days.
The story of Hanukkah is a lot like the story of the book of Revelation. We have all the important elements. A hell-sent ruler makes decrees attempting to get the righteous to abandon God’s ways. The compromisers give in and find judgment as their reward. The holy ones, the hasidim, submit to martyrdom if necessary to resist evil.
This Hanukkah, as you consider the many worthy themes (faithfulness to the covenant way of life, rededication to the worship of Hashem, the preservation of the people of Israel, and so on), do not omit the one Daniel points us to. A day is coming, he would have us know, when the ultimate Antiochus will come. And like the Maccabeans and the hasidim and the faithful common people of the land in those days, we will be judged by our commitment to faithfulness to God and the ways of his covenant.
The Hanukkah story will happen again. There will be a decree against circumcision, Jewish continuity, the worship of Hashem, and so on. There will be a call for compromise, for worshipping false images.
What if it happens in our generation? Will we stand firm to the end?
If so, we can look forward to what comes next in Daniel: the resurrection of the dead and shining like stars into eternity (see 12:1-3).
But you may worry. You may say, “This seems very exclusive of God and what if I don’t measure up?”
I don’t think so. I think that those who love God will find great strength. But if you want to be ready, then live the covenant now.
Intermarrieds, Hanukkah, Christmas
A little humor, but not completely unrealistic:
Hanukkah and the Prophet Daniel, Pt 1
Hanukkah arrives Friday night and among other things (like reading the relevant chapters in H.H. Ben-Sasson’s A History of the Jewish People) my thoughts are turned toward the prophet Daniel.
Let me say at the outset that I am not well-read in Daniel studies. What I have to offer here is as much about me learning and exploring the topic as it is about helping anyone else learn.
But there are several reasons why Daniel is relevant to Hanukkah.
First, as most of you know, Hanukkah is not specifically mentioned in the Hebrew Bible because the events of Hanukkah came after the main period of the Hebrew Bible. Hanukkah’s only mention in the Bible is in John 10:22 (“dedication” is Hanukkah).
Yet, the events behind Hanukkah are mentioned in the prophet Daniel, at least in part.
There are two ways (at least) to approach this subject. A very common way is to find evidence that Daniel is a late book or at least has late sections, dating to about 167 B.C.E. For those who choose this way of looking at the evidence, it is still quite likely that Daniel 2-7 could be an early document, perhaps, many would say, even being a genuine writing of Daniel (if, they would say, he really existed at all).
The case for a late date of Daniel is not as naively skeptical as it sounds to many who offhand reject such critical theories. P.R. Davies (a Biblical minimalist of extreme proportions) makes a good case for the late dating of parts of Daniel (The Oxford Bible Commentary). He points to three issues:
(1) Some inaccuracies that a person living in the sixth century B.C.E. ought not to have made.
(2) The possibility that the latter part of Daniel 11 is a failed prediction (it was future to the time of even the late “Daniel” writer and it turned out not to happen that way historically).
(3) The popularity of pseudonymous (falsely ascribed to a famous writer) and fictitious history among Jews in the Second Temple period.
A Little Philosophy of Knowing
I am not trying to deal with these issues in full. I realize that raising them will be troubling for some people and even more so if there is no simple resolution. But we should look at the Bible honestly and know the issues.
However, there is one philosophical point that is often not made. Many “conservative” readers play the same game and use the same philosophy of reason (epistemology) as the historical critics.
But since when did reason come to be the trustworthy vehicle for knowledge? Reason, in my philosophy, is one part of the tools of knowledge, but is itself a somewhat untrustworthy tool. Reason has limits reason should become aware of, not the least of which is our extremely partial command of the “facts.” We know less than we’d like to admit about history, especially ancient history.
How much weight, therefore, should we give to tradition, especially tradition that appears to go back thousands of years closer to the events than our own? How do we balance tradition and reason?
I, for one, believe that tradition should be given weight, and for the sacred texts such as Daniel, that means I tend to give a work the benefit of the doubt and I have a reluctance to jump to conclusions about false ascriptions, failed prophecies, and the like. The evidence may increase and I may be shown wrong.
But the heavy point about tradition is that people much closer to the time than I am read Daniel and felt it should be included in the Hebrew Bible.
Tradition also tells me that things like prophecy actually happened. Men and women did actually pass on to us from God insights into coming events. And my philosophy of knowing inclines me to give Daniel the benefit of the doubt and to attempt to read this book as it presents itself: the words of a sixth century B.C.E. prophet.
Another Way to Look at Daniel
Iain Provan, whose work in Hebrew Bible I am beginning to appreciate, especially Provan, Long, and Longman’s A Biblical History of Israel, writes about Daniel in the Eerdman’s Commentary on the Bible.
Provan addresses and chooses a more traditional path in discussing Daniel 11. I will get into the specifics tomorrow and how it relates to Hanukkah. For now, let me summarize his major point about Daniel 11:
The failed history (alleged) in the latter part of Daniel 11 may not be history at all, but a foretelling which is yet future.
I will get into details tomorrow. This does not in and of itself resolve all of the reasons people point to a late date for Daniel. Nor is this approach intellectually satisfying in some sort of manner of proof.
How convenient, the critic will say, that you can jump from obvious history-made-to-look-like-foretelling to eschatology (final things, events at the end of this age of the world) and avoid the problems.
Sure, but could it really be happening in Daniel 11? Could Daniel 11, which begins as a sixth century prophet foretelling the conquests of Xerxes of Persia and Alexander of Macedonia move on to foretellings of anti-Christ couched in details similar to Antiochus IV (Epiphanes) and the Hanukkah story?
Let’s get into the details tomorrow and see what Daniel might have to do with Hanukkah. Meanwhile, you might want to read Daniel 11. Warning: it is long, detailed, confusing, and you may just scratch your head.
Robert Alter on Jacob’s Wrestling Till Dawn
I get so much every week out of following the cycle of Torah, reading commentators old and new, and seeing connections in ideas and events to the readings. If you are in the habit of reading, you know what I mean.
So many ideas and thoughts come from the readings each week, I never lack for topics to think about even as I settle into sleep at night.
This year, I am reading mostly Nachmanides (Ramban) on the Torah (last year was Rashi). And I have enjoyed the Ramban’s thoughts, especially interesting on Genesis 33:14 and a midrash which sees in this innocuous verse a Messianic prophecy.
But the thought I share with you this week is from a modern scholar, Robert Alter, author of The Art of Biblical Narrative and many other books. The following thoughts are developed from his translation and notes on Genesis.
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Genesis 32:23-33(22-32) is mysterious in many ways. Who is the man Jacob wrestles? Why does the man accost Jacob? Why does the man want to be released before dawn? What does the story mean about the man dislocating Jacob’s hip? Why does Jacob think he has seen God? Why does Jacob get a new name? Why does the man bless Jacob in the end?
Robert Alter comments:
The image of wrestling has been implicit throughout the Jacob story: in his grabbing Esau’s heel as he emerges from the womb, in his striving with Esau for birthright and blessing, in his rolling away the huge stone from the mouth of the well, and in his multiple contendings with Laban. Now, in this culminating moment of his life story, the characterizing image of wrestling is made explicit and literal. (Genesis, p.180).
People have often understood the touching of Jacob’s hip to dislocate it as a sort of supernatural touch. Others have argued this was not supernatural, but a wrestling move. Alter makes a great case that the touch was indeed supernatural, since the verb is used in a form that means a light touch (p.181). Vs. 26 should be translated, “he touched [lightly] his hip socket and Jacob’s hip socket was wrenched.” The man wrestling with Jacob is not an ordinary man.
Many have wondered why the man wants the wrestling to end by dawn. Is he afraid of the light? Is this some sort of legend of a night creature who cannot face the light? Again, Alter’s comment is helpful:
But the real point, as Jacob’s adversary himself suggests when he refuses to reveal his name, is that he resists identification. Appearing to Jacob in the dark of the night, before the morning when Esau will be reconciled with Jacob, he is the embodiment of portentous antagonism in Jacob’s dark night of the soul. He is obviously, in some sense, a doubling of Esau as adversary, but he is also a doubling of all with whom Jacob has had to contend, and he may equally well be an externalization of all that Jacob has to wrestle with within himself.
In other words, the man does not want Jacob to see him and know his identity. The man wants to remain a mystery. Jacob’s wrestling encounter is a physical sign of the spiritual struggle that has been going on inside him. It is also a sign of the complex relationship between Jacob, obstacles, and blessing.
Jacob refuses to let the man go until he blesses him. Jacob has always sought blessing by extreme methods.
How much struggling was actually necessary for Jacob to receive the blessing of God? What conditions did God put on Jacob’s blessing in earlier promises? What do we learn from this?
The identity of the man wrestling with Jacob becomes even more clear when he gives Jacob a new name. Alter resists saying that the man is an angel or God, suggesting that having to ask for Jacob’s name is a sign of limited knowledge (p.181). Yet God often asks for what he already knows. The point God made by asking the name was to give Jacob a new one. Jacob, which can be rendered as “crooked.”
What does Israel mean? Many would merely say it means “he has struggled with God.” Yet Alter’s comment opens a surprising possibility:
In fact, names ending with the el ending generally make God the subject, not the object, of the verb in the name. This particular verb, sarah, is a rare one . . . though an educated guess about the original sense of the name would be: “God will rule,” or perhaps, “God will prevail.” (p.182).
In other words, the name Israel does not necessarily mean Israel is a people who struggles with God. It may mean God will prevail. Thus, the sense of vs. 29(28) should be, “You will be called Israel, God will prevail, for you have struggled with God and won.”
Verse 29(28) is a two-edged sword, praising Jacob’s persistence and desire for blessing while assuring him only the will of God will stand in the end and not the striving of men. God rewards persistence, but puts limitations on it as well. The lesson would seem to be something like: desire blessing and seek after reward, but know that it is God’s to give and not man’s to take. It seems God wants us to desire and then to trust.
The identity of the man who wrestled Jacob continues to be mysterious. Hosea 12:5 refers to him as an angel, “He strove with the angel and prevailed” (12:4 in Christian Bibles). Yet even in Hosea 12, the identity is both God and angel, for the very next verse seems to indicate that the angel was God or represented God, “HaShem the God of hosts, HaShem is his name.”
After his encounter, Jacob was limping on his hip. The sacredness of what happened to him, the angel of God wrenching his hip, led to a Jewish practice of avoiding the sinew of the hind legs. The common practice outside Israel is to avoid all cuts of meat from or near the hind legs. Kosher meat avoids all cuts, many of which are the most popular, from the hindquarters except in Israel where the sinew is removed.
PODCAST: Yeshua in Context – Yeshua as Teacher
One of the most helpful things we can do in getting back to the context of Yeshua’s life is to try and see him in the categories of the day. Yeshua was not a rabbi in the modern sense, someone who went to seminary and who led a synagogue and met with the board and so on. He certainly was not a priest or pastor in the modern sense. He was not a philosopher, a cynic, or a sage either.
To really understand him, we have to get back to the categories in which he would have been viewed in first century Galilee and Judea as well as how he might have been viewed by Romans and Greeks.
In my 2004 book, Jesus Didn’t Have Blue Eyes, I considered Yeshua as rabbi, teacher, prophet, wonder-worker, and Messiah. In a recent commentary on the gospel of Mark in the famed Hermeneia series, often regarded as the ultimate in critical scholarship, Adele Yarbro Collins discusses Jesus as prophet, Messiah, and teacher. I find her work on this topic to be insightful, a different view than what has often been presented before.
LISTEN ONE OF TWO WAYS:
(1) If you have iTunes, search Yeshua in the iTunes store and subscribe.
(2) If you don’t use iTunes, go to this link at derekleman.com.
More About Christmas and the Haggadah
I wrote yesterday explaining what I see as some of the issues involved for intermarried families and the question of whether or not to celebrate Christmas. I think it is a tough issue and a tough decision for intermarried families. I see positives and negatives, though in my mind the negatives are weightier. Interestingly, the discussion on my Facebook page has been more heated than the discussion here on the blog.
In this post I want to accomplish several things:
(1) To explain further what I mean by false historical arguments used to denounce Christian celebration of Christmas as a pagan practice and
(2) To explain why I am making a Haggadah for the Birth of Messiah even if I am not encouraging intermarried families to celebrate Christmas.
The Nimrod/Tammuz/Ezekiel 8/Jeremiah 10 Fallacy
Tandi says in her paper on why she does not celebrate Christmas, “There are many complex legends, but essentially the tree represents the slain god, Nimrod, reincarnated as Tammuz, the Babylonian messiah.”
A commenter on my Facebook page said, “It started with Nimrod and Seremis, who both declared being godly. When Nimrod died he was reincarnated into himself as Tammuz the sungod. Seramis who first was his wife now said that the rays of the sun made her pregnant.”
So, just to be clear, all our Christian and secular friends who put up a Christmas tree are bringing an idol of Nimrod into their home and worshipping the Babylonian Messiah.
Many of you have no need for me to debunk this claim and you can intuitively recognize it as ludicrous. For one thing, it smacks of the idea that people can love God and through an unknown error actually earn damnation or at least judgment. This understanding of God is so deficient, I weep for anyone who believes it. This is the worst kind of fundamentalism. Arguments against it are many. I might note that the men and women of the Bible would never live up to this kind of black and white fundamentalism. They built altars in violation of Torah and yet God accepted them (Samuel and Elijah, for example). They were imperfect in their obedience and yet God supported them (the kings of Judah). They thought in pagan ways, but God continued to show himself faithful (Jacob and Rachel).
I am glad that God is not so “paganoid” as some critics of Christianity are (paganoid = paranoid of pagan ideas).
Let’s start with the Nimrod fallacy. Nimrod is only mentioned in Genesis, Chronicles, and Malachi. We know almost nothing about Nimrod. The idea that Nimrod was the Babylonian Messiah is based on multiple errors. The Babylonians did not have a Messiah. They did not worship Nimrod.
So where did this falsehood come from? It comes from a late Jewish writing of the Second Temple period which equates Nimrod with Ninurta (a.k.a. Ningirsu), a Sumerian and Akkadian deity. Just because a Second Temple Jewish document equates the two does not make it true.
It is possible to equate Ninurta with Tammuz (Babylonian) and then Adonis (Greek) and Saturn (Roman). And here we get our connection with Christmas. Since the church set Christmas during Saturnalia (a fact), the festival for Saturn and involving sun worship, some people want to equate it all into one Satanic conspiracy.
The way we get from Nimrod to the Christmas tree is a convoluted path of equating this and that and relying on a very late Jewish text which has no historical claim to accuracy. Meanwhile, there is no evidence the Babylonians used cut trees in their worship of Tammuz. Nor is Tammuz the Babylonian Messiah.
People will use Ezekiel 8 in their argument. This is interesting to me, since I am beginning to read Ezekiel for serious study. The passage in question is about unfaithful Judeans in Jerusalem who are participating in the Babylonian Tammuz cult. Tammuz supposedly died every winter and was reborn each spring.
Note the difference between Christmas and Ezekiel 8. In Ezekiel 8 the unfaithful Judeans are specifically worshipping Tammuz and engaging in a ritual knowingly devoted to him. This cannot begin to compare to a family joyfully celebrating a holiday with a decorated tree and singing songs about snow, chestnuts, and baby Jesus.
Others will use Jeremiah 10. To the naive, who do not consider that Jeremiah lived 2,600 years ago and was in a very different life-situation which had nothing to do with Christmas, this passage could sound like putting tinsel on a tree. Or you could read it in context: it is about hammered work of silver on a wood base in idol-making. The Bible cannot simply mean whatever we want it to mean. There is an audience and a situation for every writing. Interpretations which ignore the audience and situation must be rejected (otherwise the Bible can be made to say anything we want it to say).
So, Why Make a Haggadah for the Birth of Messiah?
This is a major change in subject, I know.
Yesterday I suggested some positives and negatives, as I see it, for intermarried families considering whether or not to celebrate Christmas. I respect the many varied decisions made in families. Until I am willing to live with someone through their issues, I will not stand as judge. Family is terribly important and negotiating decisions about family and culture is terribly complex. We have to remember the non-Jewish spouse of intermarriage has a culture and a family to relate to as well.
As I said yesterday, the negatives of celebrating Christmas in an intermarried family are weightier for me. But I have a family that understands. In my context, I am able to negotiate the non-Christmas path of life and maintain good relations with family. Some others are not.
That said, there are two reasons why I am making a Haggadah for the Birth of Messiah:
(1) Intermarried families I know and love do celebrate Christmas and I want to provide some healthy alternatives which will also be attractive.
(2) Every Messianic Jewish family can and should study or discuss the birth of Messiah at some point in their lives and having nothing at all to do with Christmas.
Healthy Alternatives
So, to provide some healthy alternatives to the traditions of Christmas, I need some ideas that are powerful and which can compete with decorated trees and gift-giving and so on. This is not an easy task.
So far, I have been compiling a few ideas and I have a colleague who I hope will also be contributing ideas (all very quickly since I hope to have this out by mid-December).
How about going to a sheep farm and reading from Micah and Luke? How about a family project to learn about constellations and consider theories about the Magi and the star of Bethlehem? How about a map of Israel and tracing the journey of Joseph, Mary, and Yeshua?
Also, it seems to me some meaningful prayers and Bible readings would be useful when learning about the Birth of Messiah or celebrating it annually. How about combining the Messiah prayers of the Siddur with various scriptures about Messiah’s birth?
I am open to other suggestions from Messianic Jewish Musings readers and I look forward to the ideas I am expecting from my friend and partner on this project.
The Birth of Our Teacher and Messiah
Some people make a big deal out of the fact that God nowhere reveals to us the time of Messiah’s birth and nowhere commands us to celebrate it.
One illogical deduction goes like this:
–God did not reveal the timing or command the celebration.
–There are other festivals for which God did reveal the timing and celebration (e.g., Lev. 23).
–Therefore it is wrong to celebrate the birth of Messiah.
The conclusion does not follow from the two premises. A better conclusion would be: it is not necessary to celebrate the birth of Messiah.
But first, it should be obvious to all that we need to teach our children and we need to study for ourselves the birth of Messiah. This need not be an annual affair. It might be something we do once or occasionally in our lives. Considering the importance of the coming of the Word into flesh, I’d say it should be repeated many times in our lives. We can’t overemphasize the importance of Yeshua’s birth and the promise it brings and the theology of the joining of divinity and humanity.
And second, in parallel to traditions in wider Judaism noting the timing of birth and death for important teachers, it would be a very Jewish thing to do to celebrate Messiah’s birth and mourn his death each year. We do have the problem of not knowing the time of his birth. There are several ways to handle this.
One is to go with the erroneous, but widespread, tradition that Messiah was born at Sukkot. There is no compelling evidence for this claim, but Sukkot could be a good time to celebrate. The symbolism of earthly tabernacles does make for a nice celebration.
Another involves the cycle of readings from the Apostles (New Testament). In Messianic Judaism there are at least four reading cycles I am aware of for the New Testament. Perhaps one day we will be able to unite around one as the mainstream Jewish community has united around a set of Torah-Haftarah readings. We could celebrate Messiah’s birth at the time Luke 2 is read in the cycle.
However we in our families and synagogues handle these issues, a Haggadah with readings, liturgy, and celebration suggestions will be a most useful tool.
Best of all: it’s free. So when I release it here on Messianic Jewish Musings, I hope even those inclined to be very negative about Christmas will read it and consider using it in their communities. If you have some ideas you would like to add to it, feel free to comment or email me at derek4messiah@gmail.com
Should Intermarried Families Celebrate Christmas?
Messianic Judaism brings together many intermarried families with many different backgrounds and stories. In December, there is an issue which touches the core of what it means to struggle with two heritages, two cultures, under one roof.
Yesterday, in a comment on my post about going off to Chicago-land, in which I mentioned that I am working on a haggadah for the birth of Messiah, Tandi wrote in representing what I would call one extreme position in approaching the question of Christmas. You can see her comment here.
Tandi’s explanation, though it contains several historical inaccuracies (even major ones), is nonetheless essentially true. The customs of Christmas are adapted from Roman and Teutonic holidays and at the root these customs did once involve pagan rites and worldviews. From this, she concludes that Christmas-celebrating families are being deceived into unwittingly practicing pagan worship and imitating the forbidden customs of the native peoples. I cannot go this far.
But it is a good question to raise: should an intermarried family celebrate Christmas?
The Positives
First, it should be noted that adapting pagan customs for the worship of the true God is not only allowable, it is something God himself does. Research and you will find that Sukkot (Tabernacles) is quite similar to the Babylonian and other Mesopotamian rites at the end of harvest. You will find that new moons marked the calendar in virtually all ancient cultures prior to the institution of the Biblical calendar. You will find that Late Bronze temples amongst the pagans were virtually identical in layout to the pattern God showed Moses on Sinai for the Tabernacle and what later became the Temple in Jerusalem. You will find that cherubs, mixed creatures of animal and human features, marked the deities of Egypt and Mesopotamia and yet were included on the Ark and on the curtains of the Temple. I could go on and on, but Tandi and the many critics of Christmas as deceptive-pagan worship need to reckon with the fact that worship customs are shared in common between pagans and Jews and Christians and always have been.
Second, the idea that customs of Christmas (a cut tree, holly, a fire, songs, etc.) are equatable with the customs of the Canaanites which the Torah forbids Israel to imitate has a major problem. The problem is that in context after context, the Torah and prophets give examples of these customs. They involve idolatrous worship, sexual immorality, and even child sacrifice. These are hardly equatable with a family decorating and feasting for a holiday.
More importantly, Christmas represents for many of the non-Jewish spouses of intermarriage a treasured piece of childhood, a family heritage, and a cultural expression that brings fond memories. When a person comes to God he does not strip away heritage or culture, but only wrong-doing and error.
Christmas is for many a connection to extended family, a shared experience that has meant bonding and forgiving and coming together for something good and joyful.
There are positive reasons why a non-Jewish spouse of intermarriage might want to celebrate Christmas.
The Negatives
Yet there are strong reasons to take the opposite approach as well. My family has chosen not to celebrate Christmas for these reasons. I find them compelling.
Celebrating Christmas in an intermarried family will confuse the children. Are they being raised as Jews or encouraged to assimilate and leave Jewish identity behind? Their Christian friends will see them as really Christians and not Jews as will their Jewish friends. At best, Christmas in a Jewish or intermarried home sends a mixed message.
Remembering the birth of Messiah on December 25 is based on a falsehood. The church long ago chose a date which coincided with a Roman feast involving pagan customs. This was not an attempt by the church to deceive anyone. It was a matter of expedience. Everyone was already freed from regular work during Saturnalia and it was a good time for a feast (Christmas feasts were more than one day at that time). Yeshua was decidedly not born on December 25 which means there is always something artificial about Christmas. We have no idea when Yeshua was born (the so-called proof that he was born during Sukkot is baseless and equally false).
Christmas long ago ceased to be a sign of faith, an identity marker of a person devoted to Messiah and willing to take a stand in a Messiah-less culture. Christmas is simply the way of the land, a day that may just as well be about greed and the desire to enrich our lives with baubles and amusements. It is no act of faith to bow to the deities of Walmart and Target and Best Buy.
Very significantly for the Leman family, Christmas detracts from Hanukkah. The materialistic delights of Christmas presents easily outweighs the family fun of dreidl and the telling of the Maccabean story. Why would we want our children to thing of Hanukkah as “that other holiday in December”?
Finally, and also a deciding factor in the Leman home, Christmas will raise barriers with Jewish friends and family. I know, some of you intermarrieds are saying, “But my mother-in-law buys Christmas presents for the kids and she has a tree in her own house.” This is often the case. But even those in the Jewish community who celebrate Christmas know it is a compromise with assimilation. And they look to you, the family that supposedly believes in God and is devoted to him, and they wonder why you are so eager to assimilate. What difference does God make and is faithfulness an issue for you at all? It is better for them if you are not committed and excuses their own surrender to assimilation. Let’s not take God too seriously, shall we?
In Sum
I have said more on this topic than usual. It is an emotional one. As a rabbi over a congregation of mostly intermarried families, I make no comment at synagogue or when I visit a home. I respect either decision, though clearly I favor one over the other.
I know as well as anyone the good side of Christmas as well as the bad side. “It’s a Wonderful Life” is one of my favorite movies too. The true values of the secular Christmas are not just materialism, but a return to family, goodwill toward all people, and faithful and devoted love. Even without the Messiah story, Christmas has a good side.
I don’t hesitate to say Merry Christmas to friends. I don’t rankle because the store clerk does not say, Happy Hanukkah to me. I simply have made the choice to keep Hanukkah in the Leman home and not Christmas. And, yes, I have succumbed to the temptation to give gifts to my wife and children at Hanukkah. It is a compromise with secular culture, but we give it meaning in our own way.
So, why am I making a Haggadah for the Birth of Messiah and putting it out in December? Stay tuned and we will discuss it tomorrow.
Off to Chicago-Land, Update on Things
Thanksgiving is here (obviously).
I am still on a bit of a high from the SBL conference (see previous posts). I had a nice note from Michael Legaspi about yesterday’s post. I also got a bit of push-back on another blog where historical criticism is the preferred method:
http://scholarlybound.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/notions-of-history-and-memory/
I am off this morning to Chicago for Thanksgiving with Linda’s family. While there I will be reading two of the new books I got at SBL.
One is a translation and commentary on Radak’s commentary on Chronicles. Radak is a 13th century French-Spanish Jewish exegete whose full name is David Kimhi. Why am I reading his commentary on Chronicles? Because I will be translating his commentary on Ezekiel soon as part of my reading Ezekiel in preparation for doctoral studies. I am a lover of the medieval Jewish exegetes, like Rashi, Ramban (Nachmanides), Ibn Ezra, Radak, and so on. I figure reading his commentary on Chronicles will give me some idea of his style and so on. There is no English translation of Radak’s commentary on Ezekiel (hmm, publishing potential).
I will also be reading a new commentary on Ezekiel by Paul Joyce. He is the co-chair of the Ezekiel section at SBL. His commentary is concise and will help me get caught up on the who’s who of Ezekiel studies and what the current state of scholarship is. I now own six commentaries on Ezekiel (some of them expensive, but not Joyce’s short volume).
I have also been working on, and will keep working on, a Haggadah for the Birth of Messiah. Few people know I am working on this project. Some will even be offended that I am doing such a thing (there are some in the Messianic Jewish movement who do not merely refrain from celebrating Christmas, but who feel it is pagan and syncretistic).
While I do not celebrate Christmas, I am working on this Haggadah for two reasons. First, I think of the many intermarried families in our movement for whom Christmas is a troubling issue. The Haggadah I am preparing should help to make such a families commemoration meaningful and focused on the text in interaction with Jewish prayer about the coming of Messiah.
Second, though commemorating his birth is certainly not commanded, to honor at some time or times during the year, the birth of our Rebbe and Messiah, seems only fitting. I also commemorate his death on Passover week and his resurrection on Firstfruits.
I hope to have a Haggadah ready by the second week of December. I have put together a few exciting ideas already.
Blessings to you from Chicago-land and may your Thanksgiving be filled with family and peace.
What is Historical Criticism?
On Saturday there was a fascinating session of papers at SBL (Society of Biblical Literature) called “What is Historical Criticism?”
The presenters were from Jewish and Christian backgrounds: Alan Cooper of Jewish Theological Seminary, Peter Machinist of Harvard, Francis Watson or Durham University, and Michael Legaspi of Creighton University.
The first thing I learned at this session is that I want to read anything Michael Legaspi writes. The guy really impressed me as a thinker and communicator. I learned how smart I am not while listening to him.
Historical criticism, simply put, is the idea of studying the Biblical texts scientifically, which has led to dissecting the Bible into many alleged source texts. You may have heard of JEDP or the documentary hypothesis, the idea that the books of Moses were written by a series of committees over a period of many hundreds of years and in five stages (add H for the fifth stage).
Alan Cooper spoke basically to say that for Jewish readers it is not difficult to uphold historical critical views of the text at the same time as upholding Torah as sacred authority. He traced some history of Jewish thought, showed that so-called pre-modern Jewish thinkers were more than capable of understanding historical critical issues, and so on. I won’t say much about his paper, though it was a good representation of his school of thought (which is, obviously, not mine).
Peter Machinist defined historical criticism as reading the Bible from its human side and seeing it as rooted in historical realities. He traced the development through five seminal thinkers. I would summarize, but the details might prove uninteresting to a lot of readers. I’m not really sure what point Machinist was making. I think he wanted to affirm a both-and approach.
The really interesting papers were the last two.
First, it is important to know that historical criticism has fallen on increasing disfavor. The whole project is so rationalist and assumes the possibility of so much knowledge and the superiority of the modern over pre-modern cultures, that in this post-modern age, the enterprise is looking more and more imperialistic.
Francis Watson of Durham University gave a provocative lecture. He said we should abandon the term historical criticism altogether for the following reasons:
(1) Biblical scholars are not historians and should not imply that we are.
(2) Historical criticism is not a neutral characterization. In its origin the term referred to textual criticism, which is about restoring texts. Historical criticism, by contrast, has been about doubting them. The historical critical movement has had an agenda to criticize, in the harsh sense, other views of the Bible.
(3) Historical criticism has claimed that its methods are objective, neutral, and not about dogma. This has been shown to be a farce.
(4) The real issue has been modernity and rationalism versus tradition.
(5) Historical approaches to a text are far from the totality of the work we do. Much Biblical scholarship is not historical but interpretive.
(6) The distance historical critics claim to put between themselves and the text is illusory.
(7) Therefore, we should talk about biblical studies or scholarship and make the term historical criticism defunct.
I was pretty jazzed after Watson’s presentation and the room was buzzing. But things only got better as Michael Legaspi gave a stinging critique of the whole enterprise of historical criticism.
Legaspi traced the history of historical criticism and its move from seeing the Bible as scripture to seeing the Bible as simply a text.
One step in this journey was the Reformation, in which there arose a question for the first time about which version of the Bible and which selection of Bible books was valid. Before the Reformation, the Vulgate was regarded as the word of God, with no need for translation of Greek and Hebrew manuscripts. Whose Bible? Whose doctrine? Whose practice? All things were now up in the air.
The death of scripture in the West was solidified in 18th century German universities. German universities were to create ideal citizens for the German state, preparing leaders well-rounded in philosophy, literature, and other academics. The theology departments were pushed to the lowest rank.
German theology departments were tasked with creating a critical, non-confessional Bible, so that the Bible was viewed as literature and not scripture. Israel was viewed as a classical society, like Rome or Greece, and not as the people of God. Part of the critical spirit was keeping religion under control, to combat fundamentalism and violence which resulted from it. Christianity and Islam needed healthy doubt, they alleged, so equalize and relativize ideas and to keep extremism at bay.
Legaspi concluded that academic criticism of the Bible is a failed project. It has not helped society. Its origins involve dubious ideas about knowledge, rejection of tradition, and fake objectivity.
**************Correction****************
Michael Legaspi emailed and noted that I had summarized him well with one exception. He did not feel historical criticism had completely failed. It had served its purpose in bringing about new discoveries. Rather, his point was that it will not serve the needs of religious communities today. Here is an excerpt in which he explains what he meant:
H-C was successful for a time, quite a long time in fact. My point was simply that it is no longer in a position to function as it once did. I don’t believe it is in an epistemological position inferior to that of confessional modes, i.e. regarding objectivity or tradition. But I believe that the discourse that it has framed is not a promising one for actual religious communities functioning now, in a post-Christian–not simply post-confessional–society.
******************************************
Further, our society is rapidly becoming post-Biblical, he said. Biblical studies must now change. Causing doubt and combatting fundamentalism, even if they ever were worthy goals, is not so much the issue in a post-Biblical society. Biblical scholarship should ask if it believes society needs the Bible and if so, decide how to communicate it positively.
I asked Legaspi for some recommendations for further reading and I will share with you three books he recommended:
(1) Hans Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative (a difficult classic I have not yet read).
(2) George Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine
(3) Jon Levenson, The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and Historical Criticism
Paul, N.T. Wright, and What About MJ’s?
I am at the Society of Biblical Literature conference in New Orleans with about 8,000 scholars and students of Bible, theology, archaeology, and so on.
Last night, I asked N.T. Wright a question in front of 1,000 scholars.
For those unaware of N.T. Wright (how could you be?), he is perhaps the best-known theologian in the world. If you are having a television story on historical Jesus or Paul issues, you will most likely want to have N.T. Wright featured. His popular level books sell in high numbers (The Challenge of Jesus, Surprised by Hope, Justification, etc.). His trilogy (The NT and the People of God, Jesus and the Victory of God, and Resurrection and the Son of God) is core work to be reckoned with.
Wright gave a lecture and took questions on the subject of justification in the thought of Paul. The idea is how we are justified or made right in the sight of God. Since the room was full of scholars who have an awareness of traditions and schools of thought already, Wright mostly summarized how he came to his views.
He started with a view, in his evangelical youth, that he now recognizes as mostly Lutheran in character. The Jews in the Old Testament earned their way by law-keeping, it didn’t work, now God has given us plan B called grace. That’s pretty close to the way Wright described it.
The moral anarchy of the 1960’s led Wright to question a view of law that is so negative.
He then read Calvin and became converted to a more positive view of law. From Calvin he learned that God’s way with humanity is one way and not two or three or a series of dispensations. And law was given as a gift to those who were already redeemed, who had already walked through the water and had the promised land to look forward to. Law is for believers. Wright didn’t mention it, but the way this view works out in practice is that only the so-called moral laws of the Pentateuch apply today.
To make a long story short, Wright’s ideas became sharpened when he considered Romans 10:3, “Because they disregarded the righteousness from God and attempted to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted to God’s righteousness.”
A thought occurred to Wright. The righteousness of their own is not fastidious law-keeping as Luther and others had assumed. It is the idea that Jewish identity in and of itself makes one righteous or acceptable to God. The problem with this idea is that Gentiles will never be able to be right with God unless they become, through circumcision and conversion, Jews.
Wright’s understanding now of justification, which falls into the category of the New Perspective on Paul (a category in which there is still variation, but which views Paul as a faithful Jew), includes the following:
(1) Being “in Christ” is more important for Paul than justification.
(2) Present justification is God’s announcement that currently he grants the verdict of innocence to all who believe.
(3) Future or final justification will be a judgment by works a la Romans 2:6-7 (the synoptic gospels also, 2 Corinthians 5, James, and many other places also).
(4) Paul’s great concern is for the total unity of the people of Messiah as one congregation.
I am with Wright on most of these points. The problem for me comes in how we apply the last one.
Wright has not thoroughly thought through some issues here. In his Anglican context it is easy for him to see a single community without distinctions perhaps.
But what about Jewish people who follow Yeshua.
So here was my question, “What about Messianic Jews? How do you see this working out for us who desire to be faithful to Torah and Christ so that our yes to Jesus is not a no to God?”
First, let me say that Wright was gracious and sensitive. He said that this issue calls for dialogue between Messianic Jews and Christians. He said the church has treated Messianic Jews badly, either as an embarrassment for those who see Jews as having their own covenant and path to God or as heterodox by those who denounce Torah observance.
Yet on a more disappointing note, Wright said that unity is too important for Paul for him to imagine a separate body of Messianic Jews in relation to the church. I say this is disappointing because Torah life is not possible without a community of shared values and Messianic Jews cannot give up connection to the broader Jewish world. A bilateral ecclesiology is necessary (the idea that the congregation of Messiah has two distinct parts: the Jewish and Gentile branches).
On an even more disappointing note, Wright said that even for Jews who follow Yeshua, we have to realize some of the Torah has been set aside. This is not because Torah was bad or insufficient, but that some measures were temporary due to the hardness of hearts. But Jesus, he said, has brought a cure for that hardness rendering such laws unnecessary.
I don’t think he thought this answer through carefully. It would be strange, for example, to argue that circumcision and Sabbath are now unnecessary since hearts are no longer hardened. Perhaps if we’d had more time, Wright could have clarified. Perhaps he views Sabbath and circumcision as still important for Jews who follow Yeshua. If so, I wonder if he has considered that Messianic Jews need their own community.
My point in sharing all this here is to say that Christian theology, in many places, is moving closer to a Torah-friendly view and away from supersessionism. I don’t think Wright has fully made the journey. Others have gone further. But he is trying and is sensitive to anti-Judaism in church theology. He did mention in his remarks that he agreed it is important for Messianic Jews to be faithful to God’s calling. I hope this indicates he is at least conflicted about what that should look like.
Meanwhile, the Old Perspective on Paul, which equates law-keeping with legalism, is shrinking, and this is a good thing.
Perhaps we are seeing in our days the beginning of the coming together of Christians and Jews. A relationship between faithful Jews and Christians must increase. Here at the Society of Biblical Literature, I am encouraged to see the interaction.
On My Way to SBL
That’s Society of Biblical Literature. The annual meeting is in New Orleans.
This is my first SBL. I think I am heading back into Hebrew Bible studies (my masters in 1998 from Emory was in this field) and with a concentration in Ezekiel.
There are a few hilarious papers. You have to understand thousands of papers are delivered at this conference and some are quite weird and many are very specialized and obscure.
My favorite weird ones:
(1) Lynn Huber, Elon University
What a Drag: How Queer Performance and Critique Can Contribute to Explorations of the Bible and Popular Culture
n the 2008 movie Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist an inebriated young woman calls her friend and proclaims, “I’ve found Jesus!” We see her look up, as she repeats, “Jesus! He’s much taller in person.” Standing next to her is an actor dressed as Jesus smoking a cigarette. We learn later that this Jesus is part of a holiday themed drag-show. Interestingly, the character dressed as the Son of God reads as male, perhaps alluding to the ambiguous gendering of Jesus in the biblical and Christian traditions. The drag Jesus, moreover, reminds us that drag, camp and other forms of queer performance and culture are often about more than entertainment for entertainment’s sake; rather, queer performance can be understood as a critique of dominant cultures, political, social, and religious, which inscribe heteronormativity and strict categories of gender and sexuality. In this vein, a drag Jesus might serve to challenge conservative Christian views of Jesus as a defender of “family values.” (A recent video featuring the actor Jack Black as a Jesus who challenges California’s Proposition 8 functioned similarly.) As a form of critique, the performances of queer culture often exist in tension with popular culture in general, critiquing the latter, while the latter seeks to embrace, constrain and commodify queer culture. In light of this messy relationship, this paper will highlight some of the ways that queer culture might contribute a critical and important voice to conversations about engaging the intersections between popular culture and the biblical texts and traditions.
(2) Tony Michael, York University
The Dark Knight as Prophetic Realism: A Minority Voice in American Super Hero Culture
Scholars Jewett & Lawrence argue that American civil religion is bifurcated by two contradictory traditions—zealous nationalism which seeks to redeem the world by the destruction of enemies and which dominates American behavior and prophetic realism which seeks to redeem the world for coexistence by the impartial enforcement of law. Recent big-budget films such as Superman Returns, Ironman and Spiderman perfectly demonstrate the dominant view as endemic to both narrative and character development whereas only The Dark Knight represents the minority tradition. This presentation will suggest that the minority voice can be seen in such a film in all of its parts (i.e., dialogue and visual). This apparent evidence of the Jewett & Lawrence position can be quite stunning.
Yeah! A little Batman Dark Knight mixing with Biblical studies. I’m sad I can’t see that one.
I am mostly looking forward to some Ezekiel papers, some papers on the Didache, some early Jewish-Christian relations research, and a session of papers on the Sabbath in early Judaism.
So watch out New Orleans, a collection of the world’s Bible scholars and students is about to descend.
Derek Leman
In Atlanta? Visit us this Shabbat. Info at:
TIKVATDAVID.COM
Want a speaker for your group? DEREKLEMAN.COM
The ZIBBC, Ezekiel 8, and Tammuz
I am bringing together several topics of interest in this post. First, I recently reviewed the ZIBBC (Zondervan Illustrated Bible Encyclopedia) here and recommended it as a resource to everyone who loves study. The set on the Hebrew Bible is $157.47 on amazon (five volumes, full-color, beautifully bound).
Second, because of some discussion the last two days about Christmas, Hanukkah, intermarriage, and so on, the issue of Tammuz and Ezekiel 8 came up.
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In Ezekiel 8:14-15, the prophet sees a vision of women in Jerusalem weeping for Tammuz.
The ZIBBC has a number of helpful comments and tools to help understand this passage. First, the commentary helpfully introduces the book of Ezekiel and helps the reader understand the time and place of the book. On the page where this passage is explained, the ZIBBC in a short space gives the reader the historical and religious background information needed.
Tammuz/Dumuzi
On the left margin of the page is a picture of a cuneiform tablet, a clay tablet fire-hardened after having been impressed with a stylus (an instrument for making impressions on the clay) in the writing known as cuneiform. The tablet is the Myth of Dumuzi.
Dumuzi is the older Sumerian name for Tammuz, and means “the good offspring.” As a fertility god, Tammuz was called on in Babylonia to provide healthy animal and human babies. His power was believed to be over fertility for animals, plants, and people.
Tammuz is the shepherd god, similar to gods in other nations as the mythologies of the ancient world have many interconnections. In Sumerian texts he was known as “Dumuzi the shepherd” or “Dumuzi of the grain.”
Ezekiel’s text is the only place where Tammuz’s name is mention and there is a deliberate slighting of his power evident on the text. Ezekiel does not name the god Tammuz but does something subversive, calling him “the Tammuz,” making him “a mere object or a fetish.”
In Sumeria and Babylonia there were ritual mourning periods at the end of the month of Tammuz (roughly June-July) and the image of Tammuz was brought out. Tammuz, though a story involving Ishtar (Ashtoreth, in German Eostre, the goddess from whom Easter received its name), Tammuz dies after every summer and is reborn every spring. The weeping for Tammuz marks the beginning of his journey down into the netherworld (Hades, Sheol, the underworld, they are all connected ideas).
As you can see, this myth of the dying and ever-resurrecting god is the myth explaining the seasons.
In the Gilgamesh Epic we read about this annual rite:
What Ezekiel was seeing was the unfaithfulness of the people of Jerusalem.
–He saw a wall with symbols of unclean animals and creeping things, indicating Jerusalemites were eating unclean food (8:10).
–He sees the seventy elders of Israel in their rooms using censers in private worship of idols (8:11-12).
–He sees the women of Jerusalem weeping for Tammuz (8:14-15).
–He sees the men of Jerusalem with their backs to the Temple, facing the rising sun and worshipping it (8:16-17).
All of these visions serve as a reason for the withdrawing of God’s presence from the Temple. It is not that God is abandoning his covenant promises but that Israel has abandoned the covenant. When the Temple is destroyed, as noted later in Ezekiel, God’s presence has already been removed.
God has not failed. God’s people have failed to maintain the statutes of the covenant. Judah and Jerusalem are unfaithful.
But though God punished and pulls away, he does return. The book of Ezekiel portrays not only the end of God’s protection, but also regathering, restoration, and redemption.