Live Beginner’s Hebrew Class April 14

A friend is leading an online class for 45 minutes and for only $5 on April 14.

I am giving a online class for $5 from Currclick.com- April 14, 4:30pm central time/ 5:30 Eastern. Folks will have read dozens of Hebrew words by the end of the 45 minute class, and have a plan in place to enhance their skills. The class is called “Learn to Read Hebrew.”

To sign up, go to currclick.com and choose Live Classes on the left bar and then Homeschool Classes. You will see Learn to Read Hebrew on the list.

Understanding the Passover Haggadah: Part 5

This is the first new installment in this series since March 17 (sorry). Still, at least 50% of my posts since then have all been about the Haggadah. It’s just that I should finish what I started. In parts 3 and 4 began elucidating the Maggid section of the Haggadah (which is its heart). I got as far as the Laban the Aramean section in part 4, so I will continue from there.

By the way, I hope all of this has whetted your appetite to make Haggadah study a yearly ritual. Your first two steps should be to get a traditional Haggadah (the Artscroll version called The Family Haggadah is an easy to follow, simple, affordable choice) and My People’s Passover Haggadah edited by Lawrence Hoffman and David Arnow. There is a world of learning here.
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The Egyptians Did Evil to Us . . . We Cried to the Lord
The Laban the Aramean section, which I commented on in the last part of this series, was the beginning of a midrashic explanation of Deuteronomy 26:5-8. Laban the Aramean figures prominently in the midrash on Deuteronomy 26:5 and so now, I am continuing from the midrash on Deuteronomy 26:6, “The Egyptians did evil to us…”

Most of the rabbinic commentary here is relatively unremarkable. They tend to comment in ways that bring out the meaning of the text without too many surprises or scriptural gymnastics. Yet there are a few places in this extended explanation of Deuteronomy 26:6-8 that are intriguing puzzles calling for questioning and reflection.

Regarding Deuteronomy 26:6 (And the Egyptians treated us harshly, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage), the commentary of the Haggadah is simple. The sages use Exodus 1:10, 11, and 13 to remind us of the roots of Israel’s slavery. The Egyptians enslaved Israel to keep us down, to keep us from coming to power, and to keep us from becoming a threat to their own power. The reason for this comment becomes apparent in the explanation of 26:7.

Regarding Deuteronomy 26:7 (Then we cried to the Lord the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice, and saw our affliction, our burden, and our oppression), the Haggadah commentary leads in a specific direction: the affliction of Israel was about the killing of the male children and inhibiting the growth of the incipient nation. Through a series of references (Exodus 2:23-25; 1:22; and 3:9), the rabbis focus the issue of suffering on the slaughtering of the children. The affliction is identified as disruption of family life. The burden is the casting of infant sons into the Nile. And the oppression is the groaning of Israel. These comments are surprising, perhaps, in emphasizing the killing of children above the pains of slave labor.

It is in their explanation of Deuteronomy 26:8 that the sages introduce the largest puzzle of all, a puzzle worthy of its own section in this article.

Hashem Brought Us Out of Egypt
Deuteronomy 26:8 is straightforward: and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror, with signs and wonders. The explanation in the Haggadah is not so straightforward: …not through an angel…but through the Holy One…I and no angel…I and no other.

Reading it the obvious question is, “What are you arguing against?” Clearly the point that it is God who rescued Israel is being made from Deuteronomy 26:8, “the Lord brought us out of Egypt.” But why deny the involvement of angels? There is a long history of texts from the apocalyptic writings, the New Testament, and various rabbinic texts discussing the mediation of angels at Mt. Sinai (see Acts 7:53 and Gal. 3:19, for example).

In My People’s Passover Haggadah, Vol. 2, Marc Brettler (who comments on the Biblical background of the Haggadah) sees this as another example of the rabbis giving priority to one Biblical text over another. Specifically the rabbis give priority to the first of these two references:

Exodus 12:12, I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will smite all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast.

Exodus 12:23, …the Lord will pass over the door, and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to slay you.

Brettler shares the commonly held view of critical scholars that the Torah is a composite of several sources written in different eras and pasted together with some contradictions left intact. He sees these two verses as irreconcilable and the rabbis are choosing one over the other in order to hold a consistent theology of the Passover story.

Lawrence Hoffman, on the other hand, gives what is likely the real reason for the strange commentary of the Haggadah on this verse:

This is almost certainly a polemic against Christianity. Origen of Alexandria (185-c. 254) . . . engaged in controversy with Rabbi Yochanan, the most significant rabbi in the Palestinian Talmud, on precisely this point. Origen claimed that the Christian “second” covenant through Jesus surpassed the Jewish “original” one through Moses, because Jesus was the Christ, a part of God, whereas Moses was merely a human agent or messenger.

If you know that the word “angel” is the same as the word “messenger,” then you understand how this Haggadah commentary might be a response to a Christian triumphalism over Judaism. The rabbis here are not necessarily denying Exodus 12:23, as Brettler claims, but emphasizing the direct role of Israel’s God in the Passover. They wish to emphasize this so no one can claim the Jewish story is inferior to the Christian story.

Note: How Yeshua-followers Should Use This Section
Is it a problem for Yeshua-followers, then, to recite from the Haggadah when it says, “It was I and no angel”?

The answer is decidedly no, it is not a problem. Origen had his good points, but his triumphalist attitude toward Jews and Judaism was not one of them. Origen’s attack on Judaism is without merit and perhaps reveals some of early Christianity’s sense of inferiority to Judaism rather than the reverse. There is no need to denigrate Moses or Mt. Sinai or the Torah to exalt Christ. Christ would never share in such attacks. The God who gave Torah is the God of Christ. Origen and many leaders throughout Church history have failed to see this.

It is fitting, then, for Yeshua-followers to insert a note in the Haggadah and explain at this point in the service, why the sages used such an explanation.

The Rabbis of the Passover Haggadah

It is a curious fact that many of the stories in the Passover Haggadah are not from ancient Israel and not from the time of Israel’s exodus and wilderness wandering. Many are from the second century and the emerging Judaism of the time between the Jewish wars with Rome and after the destruction of the temple.

I have a small but growing collection of Passover Haggadahs, including several from the 1930’s and 1940’s. I recently saw a reference in an article and decided to purchase a rare Haggadah from 1942. The Hebrew Publishing Company in New York produced The Haggadah of Passover with an introduction by Louis Finkelstein. Finkelstein is often regarded as the most important figure in Conservative Judaism in the twentieth century because of his work growing Jewish Theological Seminary. In his introduction to the Haggadah, Finkelstein gives some background information about the rabbis of the Haggadah.

Rabbi Eliezer
One of the five rabbis in the story of the all-night Haggadah discussion in Bnei Barak, Rabbi Eliezer was a disciple of Johanan ben Zakkai. He was the greatest of Johanan’s students (at one time Johanan said if all the Torah scholars of his time were placed on one side of a scale and Eliezer on the other, Eliezer would outweigh them all). Eliezer helped plan Johanan’s escape from Jerusalem during the siege that led to the destruction of the city (the story is that they brought him out in a coffin and convinced Vespasian to let them open a rabbinic college at Yavneh).

Eliezer traveled to Rome with two other rabbis to petition the emperor. On the way they met with Roman philosophers, one of whom asked, “If God abhors idolatry, why does he not destroy them?” Eliezer responded, “If only such things as could be dispensed with were worshipped by idolaters, perhaps the idols would be destroyed. But the pagans worship, among other things, the sun, the moon, the stars, and other natural phenomena. Shall the whole universe be destroyed because of a few misguided creatures?”

Rabbi Joshua
Also one of the five rabbis at the Bnei Barak all-night Seder, Joshua was in many ways the opposite of Eliezer and yet also his closest friend. Rabbi Joshua was poor, where Eliezer was wealthy. Joshua was a pacifist who thought the war with Rome a bad idea, while Eliezer supported it. Eliezer was, as Finkelstein says it, “somewhat dour” while Joshua was “good humored and cheerful.” Joshua earned his living making needles.

Yet in learning, Joshua and Eliezer were brothers. Joshua’s genius was evident not only in Torah but in science and especially astronomy. He spoke of a comet that appeared every seventy years, which we now know as Halley’s comet. Although he was ugly in appearance, his pleasant voice and teaching were once compared to “wine in a disfigured pitcher.”

Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah
Of the five rabbis at Bnei Barak, Eleazar is the one who speaks in the story. He is the youngest of the group and his reference to his age is taken to mean that he had aged prematurely. He looked as old as his colleagues, but was by far their junior. He is of the descendants of Ezra the scribe and is emerging as the leader of the next generation of rabbis in Palestine. Rabbi Joshua said of him, “Despite all out difficulties, our generation is not fatherless so long as we have Eleazar ben Azariah as one of our leaders.”

Rabbi Akiba
One of the greatest names in the history of Judaism, Akiba was also present at the Bnei Barak Seder. Akiba was a shepherd until he was forty and then became a student of Torah. One of his teachers, Rabbi Tarfon, quickly recognized that Akiba had ceased being the student and had become the master of his age instead. Akiba is pivotal in the development of the Mishnah and a giant among the Tannaim.

Akiba is famous for dying with remarkable kedushat Hashem (sanctification of the name). As the Romans peeled away his flesh slowly and terribly, Akiba said he rejoiced to see if his loved God not only with his mind and all his might, but also with his life. He recited Shema until the torture killed him.

Rabbi Tarfon
The last mentioned of the five rabbis at Bnei Barak, Tarfon was the teacher of Akiba. He was a wealthier man than Akiba, and once he decided to help his pupil, investing in him to give him a future source of income. Tarfon gave Akiba a sum of money. He came to his pupil later and found that Akiba had given it away to students poorer than he. Tarfon asked him to show his return on the investment and Akiba read to him from a Psalm, “He has given to the needy and his lovingkindness endures forever.”

Rabbi Tarfon loved his pupil and said of Akiba, “He who departs from Rabbi Akiba departs from life itself.”

Rabbi ben Zoma
This disciple of Akiba, though not present at the Bnei Barak Seder is mentioned in the story because of something he taught Rabbi Eleazar. Ben Zoma was very poor but enjoyed the simple pleasures of life immensely. Eating his poor crust of bread he remarked that primitive man had to do so much work plowing, planting, reaping, threshing, kneading, and baking bread while he, Ben Zoma, was as a rich man, able to buy his bread without hard labor. He taught that everyone should live every moment as a guest of God’s good providence. “A good guest always thinks of the preparations made to receive him, and is accordingly grateful.”

In the story of the Bnei Barak Seder, Rabbi Eleazar spoke of Ben Zoma’s teaching. This poor student of Torah was regarded as a master of seeing the deeper meaning of texts. In the case of this famous Seder, one of Ben Zoma’s teachings involved proving from a verse in Exodus that the Passover story would still be told annually in the World to Come.

Rabbi Judah, son of Ilai
This lesser-known rabbi is mentioned briefly in conjunction with the ten plagues. He was so soft of heart, he could not bear to say all the ten plagues and so created a mnemonic (d’tzach, adash, b’achab) which summarized them. He was also a poor scholar and it is said for a while he and his wife had only one outer garment between them and took turns going out in it. He was said to radiate such joy he looked like an angel. A Roman lady once asked him why he was so cheerful. Was he a breeder of hogs or a money-lender? He replied, “No, I am a student of Torah.”

Rabbi Jose of Galilee
A man of temper and a zealot for the revolt against Rome, Rabbi Jose was not satisfied with the ten plagues and sought to prove they were worse and more numerous that appeared on the surface in the Torah. His teaching is an example of the sort of playful games, not to be taken too seriously, the rabbis played with the text to show what kinds of things could be “proven” with the rules of exegesis.

Rabbi Hillel
Arguably the most famous rabbi of all time, Hillel lived a generation before Yeshua. He was famous for his piety and poverty. Once someone wagered four hundred zuz that they could cause Hillel to lose his temper. They made slurs about his Babylonian ancestry and even tried to disturb him as he prepared for Shabbat. Finally Hillel said, “Better you should lose your money rather than I should lose my temper.”

In the Haggadah, Hillel is mentioned as the founder of the custom of eating Matzah with bitter herbs and charoset. In Hillel’s time a slice of lamb was also eaten together with these. Hillel’s practice reflects a literal interpretation of Numbers 9:11. This practice is retained alongside the other interpretation: that these should all be eaten separately and not together. Thus, the Haggadah does it both ways so as to retain the honor of Hillel and to fulfill both interpretations.

Rabban Gamaliel
The grandson of Hillel and the teacher of Paul (mentioned in Acts 5:34 and 22:3) is a formative figure in passing the legacy of Hillel down to his pupil Johanan ben Zakkai and so into modern Judaism. The title Rabban (our teacher) was invented for Gamaliel, so significant was his role in developing Judaism. Many of his teachings are in the Mishnah anonymously, as part of the accepted tradition of the Tannaim.

In the Haggadah, one of Gamaliel’s teachings is part of the recitation. He ruled that no Seder is complete unless it teaches about the Pesach (the Passover lamb), the Matzah (unleavened bread), and the Maror (bitter herbs). Gamaliel’s teaching and the answers now part of the Haggadah are a refreshing dose of literal interpretation in a scattering of fanciful stories and traditions.

Reading Revelation

The Island of Patmos Today

I’ve been teaching Revelation at my congregation since the beginning of the year. We skipped over chapters 2 and 3 because a few years ago I did a long series on them.

I have been presenting with Keynote slide shows. I think they make an attractive way to showcase the text and the discussion points I want to get across. I am considering adding an audiotrack to these and making them available as Quicktime videos. I have them at the link below as PDF files with no audio (of course).

Anyway, if you’d like to read some studies in Revelation that attempt to balance theology, exegesis, background, and practical issues, check them out:

http://tikvatdavid.com/Tikvat_David/Torah_Learning.html

Passover and Yeshua’s Crucifixion

When I first began seeking sources, people and articles and books, on the Jewish background of Yeshua’s life, I ran into numerous articles and conversations to the effect that Good Friday is a myth. Looking back now, I realize the articles were amateurish and the conversations were with those who had more zeal than knowledge. There is a certain appeal to proving the mainstream wrong and staking out a corner of self-glorification and insider truth. I know I have fallen into a similar trap myself with egotistical delusions.

And sometimes the mainstream is wrong. I think, for example, of supersessionism and its long history in Christian thought, where it has truly been the mainstream and an Israel-centered view of the canonical narrative is thought to be special pleading. So we really should ask: is Good Friday a myth? Was Yeshua’s crucifixion on a Friday?

Crucifixion Before Passover?
There are a number of reasons people might think Yeshua was crucified on a day other than Friday. The prerequisite for a non-Friday crucifixion is the acceptance of one vital theorem: that Yeshua was crucified on the afternoon before Passover began. That is, one must accept the idea that Yeshua was crucified at the time the Passover lambs were being slaughtered.

Many believe something just like this due to their reading of the Fourth Gospel. I treated this topic and debunked the notion of a pre-Passover crucifixion in a series of three articles here, here, and here.

Why is a pre-Passover crucifixion necessary to deny that Yeshua was crucified on a Friday? The answer is the repeated mention in the accounts that Yeshua was taken down from the cross quickly to be buried before the coming Sabbath. The Sabbath, of course, begins Friday at sundown. But there is another kind of Sabbath, which can be any day of the week, a Yom Tov. A Yom Tov is a special Sabbath occurring on certain days of Biblical festivals, such as the first day of Passover.

If the Sabbath they rushed to bury Yeshua before was the Yom Tov of the first day of Passover, then his crucifixion could have been on a day other than Friday — say Thursday or Wednesday.

Three Days and Nights
If pre-Passover crucifixion is the pre-requisite for a non-Friday theory, then the saying of Yeshua about three days and nights is the crux.

When Yeshua was asked for a sign of his Messiahship in Matthew 12, he responded that he would only give the sign of Jonah. Just as Jonah was in the belly of the great fish for three days and three nights, so Yeshua would be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth (Matt. 12:38-40).

This certainly does look like a problem for a Friday crucifixion. By the most generous interpretation this would require Yeshua’s time in the grave to include at least Friday day and night, Saturday day and night, and Sunday day and night, with a resurrection at the earliest on Sunday night. To arrive at a Sunday morning resurrection, the latest the crucifixion could be is Thursday (some say Wednesday). Or so it would seem.

The Reason It Had to Be Friday
The case for Good Thursday seems solid and yet I will argue that it is wrong and even impossible. I believe the crucifixion had to be on Friday. In fact, I would say that either Matthew, Mark, and Luke are wrong or the crucifixion had to be on Friday.

The reason is simple: Yeshua ate a Passover Seder the night before he was crucified. As I argued in the previous series, “The Last Supper and Passover,” Yeshua kept Passover with the rest of Israel and not on some hypothetical separate calendar.

This leaves us with only one possible meaning for the Sabbath before which Yeshua was quickly entombed. It had to be a Friday afternoon with the weekly Sabbath about to arrive.

The idea that they were hurrying to bury Yeshua before the Yom Tov of Passover’s first day is off the table. It was the first day of Passover when Yeshua was crucified, the day after the Seder.

But . . . Three Days and Nights
Those who urge a strictly literal reading of three days and three nights make two errors. First, they are not equally literal about the far more common saying that Yeshua rose on the third day. Second, they do not account for similar uses of three days and nights in conjunction with the third day in the Hebrew Bible.

As to the first error, think of it this way. If Yeshua was crucified on Thursday, by the most generous reckoning this would mean a Thursday day and night, Friday day and night, and Saturday day and night, with the resurrection being on Sunday morning. Sunday is the fourth day from Thursday, not the third day.

As to the second, the story of Esther is a good example. She instructed Mordechai and all the Jews to fast for three days and nights before she would appeal to King Xerxes (Esth. 4:15-17). Esther then went in to the king. On which day did she go? Was it on the fourth day, after the fast of three days and nights? No, she went in on the third day (Esth. 5:1).

It would seem that Yeshua’s three days and nights saying was not so literal. And the point of the sign of Jonah is perhaps also overlooked. Was Yeshua’s point that he would miraculously meet the exact time parameters of Jonah’s entombment in the fish? Is there something impressive about the time period of three days and nights?

No, the sign of Jonah was not about a period of time. It was about the impossible turning of a hopeless situation. What man survives being swallowed and held for days in the belly of a great fish? Like Jonah, Yeshua returned from three days in the jaws of death.

Conclusion
The mainstream is sometimes right. Whatever the faults of Christian history, on important details such as the timing of the crucifixion, the tradition turns out to be right. Good Friday is no myth. It is the only interpretation true to the Jewish background of the story.

Shabbat as a Spiritual Discipline

There is an old formula about the Sabbath (Shabbat) that comes from the two primary commands of the scriptures about it: remember it (Exod. 20:8) and keep it (Exod. 31:14). We keep it or observe it on Shabbat and we remember it all the other six days of the week.

Shabbat becomes the center of our week and in the dimension of time, it is the concentration of our spiritual yearnings.

Shabbat has become for me and I’m sure for multitudes of others a holy habit, a day for which I prepare by reading and studying and a day on which I spend time praying, teaching, discussing, and being in community.

It is not just Saturday or Friday night with the family around the table that becomes hallowed by the Shabbat command, but other days as well.

This morning, Tuesday, I lay in bed deciding whether to roll over another hour or get up (I don’t always have the choice) and asked myself a question: how many of the six working days does Shabbat really impact in my life? In other words, do I begin preparing on Sunday for the next Shabbat, wait until Friday, or something in between?

My experience, of course, is colored by the fact that I am a congregational leader and prepare teaching for each Shabbat. Still, it is a good question for me and for all who are part of a Jewish expression of faith. You don’t have to be a rabbi to have plenty of activities leading up to Shabbat.

The daily prayers and prayer times, the seven aliyot of each Torah reading, the haftarah or prophets reading, the various New Testament readings available to complement them — all these and more are activities to prepare for Shabbat. Washing the family tablecloth, making sure we have candles, planning a Friday night meal, a Saturday oneg Shabbat meal, and some food to have ready for after synagogue and before Shabbat ends — these weekly rituals give the Sabbath meaning as well. Will it be pot roast on Friday nights? Why does the worshipper lean his hand on the animal at the sacrificial ritual in this week’s Torah portion? Why does Isaiah call Israel Jeshurun in this week’s haftarah? Is my tablecloth clean and should I buy some flowers to decorate the kitchen for Shabbat?

Jewish life is rich and makes it nearly impossible to forget that God sanctifies all of life, from the cooking to the reading to the words we use.

Of course, this all assumes that we remember the Sabbath and keep it.

Need to brush up on Shabbat basics? http://www.aish.com/shabbat/

Want to read a rather advanced article by a Messianic rabbi about one of the Shabbat prayers? http://bethavinu.org/learning/articles/kdushat-hayom-the-holiness-of-the-sabbath-day

A Passover Poem (Reprint)

Last year, I posted a poem I wrote about Passover. The poem considers the Passover story from the point of view of the women, coping with death and life and the journey.

It is analogous to Deborah’s song in Judges 5, which comes down to the mother of Sisera, the general fighting against Israel, wondering why her son hasn’t come home.
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Experience the first Passover night.

An angel of death.
Holy terror.

Blood on the door.

Wailing mothers and dead sons.

Wailing mothers whose sons were saved.

Deadly silence across the land.

Egyptian neighbors come to the door.

“Here, take these gold things,

Go and worship your God,

he has taken our sons.”

Jewish mothers hold their sons.

And they cry.

“Who cried for our sons
enslaved and mistreated?

Cruelty has begotten cruelty,

sin has precipitated death.”

And from this dreadful night 
Israel fled.

Witless and afraid.

Would Pharaoh cut them down?

Carts and oxen.

Burdens and animals.

Children and elderly.

A hard journey ahead.

Passover.
Redemption.
Freedom.
Exodus.
Journey.

A Quote I Like About the Mystery of the Passover Haggadah

Today I did an internet search for a rare 1942 Haggadah with an introduction by Louis Finkelstein (1895-1991) who is regarded as the leading light in the development of Conservative Judaism in America. I had read about his introduction in this Haggadah and wanted to own it for myself.

I did buy the book at an online rare book shop. I’ll probably blog about it before Passover.

Meanwhile, I found this article from an online class on the history of the Haggadah. The excerpt I have here sums up some of what I have been saying in my “Understanding the Passover Haggadah” series. This is by Barbara and Reuven Sutnick of the Jewish University in Cyberspace, found here: http://www.jafi.org.il/education/juice/siddur/week9.html

I have heard it said that in the commentary literature, there has been more written on the Haggadah than any other book! The truth is that the Haggadah was designed to be fascinating, and it does not disappoint. The basic premise of the Haggadah is the telling of the Exodus from Egypt. Thus, we have in the Haggadah a ritual which is not really prayer — it is an object lesson in Jewish history — or is it?!? The second goal of the Haggadah is to praise God for redeeming us in the past, present and future. . . .

. . . The connection between prayer and history is another one of those perplexing elements that characterize Jewish ritual, conceptually and technically. For example, we have the biblical commandment to recite the story of the Exodus each year at the Passover seder (Exodus 13:8). However, the historical discussion that comprises much of the seder is cast in a highly ritualized context, making it inaccurate to describe it as pure telling. Conversely, during the rest of the year, the kiddush recited over wine on Friday nights contains the words “a remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt.” In the case of the Haggadah, history is tempered with prayer; in the kiddush, prayer is tempered with history!

Affordable, Practical Ebooks for Learning to Read Hebrew

How important is it to learn to read the Bible in its original languages? Maybe you think it is beyond you. I assure you, it is not. All you need is the desire and enough discipline to have a little fun working a few times a week on it.

An old friend (well, she is young, but I mean old because she moved away) has just published three ebooks that make getting started super-easy. These could be used for children’s education, synagogue education, adult education. They are a simple way to be able to read. Once you master reading, then you can move on to understanding. Please take a minute to look at her books even if you don’t think you are interested (they might change your mind):

Read Hebrew Today.

Read Hebrew Today, Level Two.

Read New Testament Greek Today.

Plotzing Along, Trashing the Bible

Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible
Author: David Plotz.
Harper, 2009.

David Plotz is the editor at slate.com and there is much to appreciate about his first encounter with a complete reading of the Bible. As a person immersed in the Biblical literature, I admit to enjoying the chance to read a fresh take on the Bible that is irreverent and critical.

Here is the problem I have with this book: it treats complex topics simplistically. Plotz discusses intricate issues with a predilection for superficial judgments. Plotz is an admitted non-expert, but he nonetheless imposes his opinion on readers who know less than he does. The very nature of a web pundit’s musings about any topic creates a predicament: non-experts will trust the pundit as an authority (though he denies it vehemently).

Many casual readers will pick up this book and say, “This confirms that I have no need to read the Bible and that people who value the Bible are trapped in a primitive mindset.” Plotz’s superficial findings come across as a man with modern sensibilities standing in judgment over an ancient text (believed by billions to be inspired by the living God). He often speaks “from a modern perspective,” a way of implying a superior perspective.

Here is my experience with Good Book. It started when I found it in some blog-hopping. I watched an online interview here. I went to my local Borders bookstore and sat down with a copy. I read two chapters, “Isaiah” and “Digging the Bible,” and resolved to write about it today.

In the Isaiah chapter, I noted that Plotz made some good observations and felt qualified to make some hasty conclusions. He said that for the first time in Isaiah 1 we see a God who values good deeds over blind faith. How can anyone read the Torah and not see social justice and good deeds as the heart of God’s ethic for his people? I am not discounting the problems in understanding some issues in the Torah (its regulations on slavery rather than abolishing the practice, total judgment on Canaanites, and so on).

It was the “Digging the Bible” chapter, as well as the online interview, that particularly bothered me. He talked with a few eminent archaeologists and came up with a totally predictable conclusion: the Bible’s historical claims are mostly unproven and even worse, mostly legend.

If you know a little about archaeology or any similar subject, you know that there are diverse viewpoints. You also know that there is an unfortunate tendency toward ideological leftness and trendiness in many fields. In fact, taking any complex subject, a mature person should realize experts on both ends of a spectrum can make a compelling case. Learning does not happen through a quick hearing from one side of an issue and truth is elusive at best, impossible to ascertain at worst.

Asking David Plotz to clarify what we should think about the state of archaeological research and historical fact is a bit like asking a partisan politician to explain the economy and the role of government. The alleged expert (or admitted non-expert pundit) started with presuppositions that skew the resulting conclusions. Complex issues deserve a broader dialogue with varying viewpoints and only tentative conclusions are recommended.

The stance of Good Book seems to be that there is something of a modern sensibility which represents an evolutionary progress in human development. We moderns, allegedly superior, can rest assured that our ideas about individualism and free choice are evolutionarily better suited to deal with life’s difficult questions. The ideas of the ancients about collective obligation and accountability are not to be preferred.

The news we read about our world gives the lie to this facile conclusion. What progress? Is slavery gone? Is oppression, the ability of the dominant to take from the masses at will?

We should discourse about these matters with less presupposition and more openness to discovery. New and potential readers of the Bible are poorly served by Plotz’s book. I respect his journey, but wish he had expressed it differently once he decided to share it with the world. A book has such a sense of authority about it, even if the author attempts to have a stance of inexpert musing. And if Plotz wished to have a more neutral outlook, he could have done so more carefully.

In the chapter on “Digging the Bible,” Plotz interviews an eminent archaeologist and they discuss the finding by Eliat Mazar of David’s Palace in Jerusalem. This eminent scholar is skeptical about Mazar’s findings. He says of her that she started with the Bible in hand and “found what she was looking for.” Can we say any better about Plotz’s book? He ended up remarkable the same after engaging with the Bible as he was before it.

You can see the book here at amazon.

Revelation 7, Israel, the Church, and Tabernacles

Last week I lamented the unfortunate conclusions Grant Osborne came to in his otherwise excellent commentary on Revelation. Like many other commentators, he reads Israel out of Revelation. Israel shows up in Revelation in four places: chapters 7, 11, 12, and 14. In all of them, Osborne decides these images are about the Church (even to the point of saying that the Church in Revelation 12 gives birth to the Messiah!).

As I said then, we should see Revelation as taking God’s Messianic promises to Israel and expanding them to include John’s non-Jewish audience. It is sad that many read Revelation as replacing God’s Messianic promises to Israel with new promises to the Church that undo the old ones.

Having said all that, I’d like to argue that Revelation 7 is a wonderful retelling of the story of the canonical narrative (the Bible’s over-arching story of God’s revelation and redemption through Israel to the nations).

Consider a few pieces of background. Anyone steeped in the theology of the Hebrew Bible would recognize a few themes in Revelation 7:

–God will save a remnant of Israel and work through that remnant to spread his redemption (see Appendix A below, “The Remnant Theme in the Hebrew Bible”).

–God has always planned to bring the nations into his redemptive plan and his Messianic promises (see Appendix B below, “Gentiles in the Messianic Promises”).

And Revelation 7 is a colorful and somewhat enigmatic telling of a story about these themes:

–Rev. 7:1-8, God seals 12,000 from every tribe in Israel (except Dan) of men who are sexually pure (see Rev. 14 for these details). The purpose of this remnant of Israel is not spelled out in Revelation, but can be imagined from the larger theme of the remnant of Israel in the Hebrew Bible.

–Rev. 7:9-17, A multitude from every nation comes in festal robes of purity with palm branches in hand, recalling the Messianic promise of Zechariah 14, especially vss. 16-17. This is the nations being included in the Messianic promise and found worshipping at the Temple for the feast of Sukkot (Tabernacles). Palm branches were used to celebrate at festivals (somewhat comparable to people waving souvenirs and sporting events) and especially at Tabernacles (God commanded the use of palm branches at Sukkot, see Leviticus 23:39-43).

We see right here in Revelation 7 the story of Israel and the nations coming together in God’s plan to redeem and complete the perfection of the world to come. It is an affirmation that Christian faith is the continuation, not the replacement, for God’s institution of a people of God. That people of God is now bilateral (see Romans 11 and the Olive Tree parable). Israel and the Church both come to their rightful place in the long-awaited Messianic promises. It will be a glorious age when these things are realized.

Appendix A: The Remnant Theme in the Hebrew Bible
The following is simply a brief introduction to a theme that especially finds development in the second half of Isaiah. There are numerous texts about only a remnant surviving beyond the judgments and from which God will build his covenant community:

–Gen. 45:7, Joseph’s purpose was to preserve a remnant (through which God built the elect people, Israel).

–1 Kgs 19:18, 7,000 left as a faithful remnant (God preserves a remnant even in times of apostasy).

–Micah 4:6-7, God will make the lame and blind a remnant (God will use the forgotten and left behind to build his community).

–Jer. 31:7-9, God will gather his remnant and save Israel (the remnant issue involves bringing Israel into the Land).

Appendix B: Gentiles in the Messianic Promises
God never intended his election of Israel to be just about Israel. Israel is the priestly people through whom God mediates himself to the whole world. To put it in a simple way Christians can easily grasp: God gave the scriptures and the Messiah through Israel and when Messiah returns, it will be to Israel and the Jewish people. The following are some texts about this Gentile inclusion:

David recognized God’s plan for Israel’s worship to spread to the nations: “All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to Adonai; all the clans of the nations will worship in your presence. For the kingdom belongs to Adonai, and he rules the nations.” (Psa. 22:27-28).

Israel recognized that the nations would be drawn to God through them: “Let the nations be glad and shout for joy, for you will judge the peoples fairly and guide the nations on earth. Let the peoples give thanks to you, God; let the peoples give thanks to you, all of them. The earth has yielded its harvest; may God, our God, bless us. May God continue to bless us, so that all the ends of the earth will fear him.” (Psa. 67:4-7).

Various prayers for all the nations to know God: “May his name endure forever, his fame continue as long as the sun! May people be blessed in him, all nations call him blessed!” (Psa. 72:17).

Non-Jews are received as Non-Jews, and not expected to convert: “In that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old, that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations who are called by my name.” (Amos 9:12).

The nations will come up to Jerusalem to learn the Torah and to worship God: “It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of Adonai shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come, and say: ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of Adonai, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’” (Isa. 2:2-3).

Messiah comes for the nations: “I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.” (Isa. 42:6-7). “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” (Isa. 49:6).

Israel’s restoration will draw nations to God: “Nations will go toward your light and kings toward your shining splendor.” (Isa. 60:3).

Some from the nations will serve as Levites and Priests in God’s Temple: “They shall declare my glory among the nations. And they shall bring all your brothers from all the nations as an offering to Adonai, on horses and in chariots and in litters and on mules and on dromedaries, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says Adonai, just as the Israelites bring their grain offering in a clean vessel to the house of Adonai. And some of them also I will take for priests and for Levites, says Adonai.” (Isa. 66:19-21).

The nations who attack Israel will be cursed: “I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. And I will enter into judgment with them there, on behalf of my people and my heritage Israel, because they have scattered them among the nations and have divided up my land, and have cast lots for my people, and have traded a boy for a prostitute, and have sold a girl for wine and have drunk it.” (Joel 3:2).

Many from the nations will attach themselves to Israel to find God: “When that time comes, ten men will take hold – speaking all the languages of the nations – will grab hold of the cloak of a Jew and say, “We want to go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.”‘” (Zech. 8:23).

The nations will worship God at the Temple with Israel at the Feasts: “Then everyone who survives of all the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, Adonai of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Booths.” (Zech. 16:16).

More in The World to Come
Much of what I spoke of here, and all of appendix 2, comes from my book, The World to Come, 2008, Lederer. You can see it here at amazon.

Understanding the Passover Haggadah, Part 4

This is a continuation from Part 3 about understanding the Maggid section of the Haggadah.

The Laban the Aramean Section
This is one of the most difficult sections of the Haggadah to understand. And the difficulty most readers have interpreting this part of the storytelling for Passover is understandable. It’s not even easy to explain in short form, though I will try my best below.

Here is a simple translation from Artscroll of the Laban section in which I place in bold text a few key phrases that help the whole story to make sense later. I have also omitted some text as noted by the periods of ellipsis:

Go and learn what Laban the Aramean attempted to do to our father Jacob. For Pharaoh decreed only against the males, Laban attempted to uproot everything, as it is said (Deut. 26:5):

An Aramean attempted to destroy my father. Then he descended to Egypt and sojourned there, with few people, and there he became a nation — great, mighty, and numerous.

Then he descended to Egypt — compelled by divine decree.

He sojourned there — this teaches that our father Jacob did not descend to Egypt to settle, but only to sojourn temporarily . . .

With few people — as it is written (Deut. 10:22): with seventy persons . . .

There he became a nation — this teaches that the Israelites were distinctive there.

A Short Explanation of the Laban Section
Below I fill in the details, but many readers may want to simply get a quick answer for what this section is all about. Then you can decide if you’d like to wade into the details below for more depth.

The Laban the Aramean section is an example of the creative retelling of the Exodus story to fit the struggle of a later generation. It is a model for the way the Biblical story can be told to fit the struggle of any generation of Israel.

The generation that best fits this creative retelling is from the time between the two Jewish revolts against Rome (between 70 and 135 C.E.). I will explain this theory as developed by Lawrence Hoffman in My People’s Passover Haggadah below.

The underlying message, Hoffman tells us, is that Jews should keep the Land of Israel as the center of Judaism and not allow the Labans, Pharaohs, Romans, Nazis, and so on to pull us off course. Even Jacob in a time of duress only entered Egypt to sojourn and only when God decreed it. The place for Jacob and thus for Judaism is the Land.

Now, this is an interpretation of this creative retelling, but the evidence is in the details if you care to read.

The Biblical Roots of the Laban Section

And you shall make response before the Lord your God, ‘A wandering Aramean was my father; and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number; and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous. (Deut. 26:5).

The key phrase is, “a wandering Aramean (Syrian) was my father.” The Hebrew is ambiguous (arami oved avi). Oved usually means perish or destroy. It can also mean lost or strayed (as in 1 Samuel 9:3 and 20). Not only is the word ambiguous, but so is the grammar. To make a long story short, the most likely two options are either:

–A wandering (lost/fugitive) Aramean was my father
–An Aramean destroyed my father

Of these two, there are two reasons to prefer the first one: (1) the verb is a participle and fits better as an adjective than as a past tense and (2) the second statement is not historically true. Thus, as we will see in the explanation below, some interpretations rendered it, “An Aramean wished to destroy my father.”

Onkelos and Later Rabbis
Onkelos is the name of an Aramaic paraphrase (Targum) of the Torah that is very ancient (1st Century C.E.). Onkelos reads this phrase from Deuteronomy with different vowels (arami ibed avi). This could be translated, “An Aramean tried to destroy my father.” Lawrence Hoffman explains that later rabbis likely had an even more creative reading in mind that uses the same consonants: romi ibed avi, a Roman tried to destroy my father (My People’s Passover Haggadah, Vol. 2, pp.25-26).

The Roman Theory
The best theory that explain this curious retelling of Deuteronomy 26:5 is that it was devised by the rabbis who lived after the destruction of the Temple when the oppression of Rome was felt strongly. Lawrence Hoffman suggests the key is to note the details that diverge from a simple reading of the Biblical story:

1. The idea that Laban the Aramean was worse than Pharaoh is a stretch Biblically speaking. It is true that if Laban had killed Jacob in Genesis 31 or if he had seduced Jacob into idolatry, Israel would never have formed as a people. But Laban did nothing of the kind (some interpreters say the fact that Laban wanted to do it was enough to create the possibility, so that “an Aramean destroyed my father” is real in a potential kind of way). But the Romans did do something like what Laban is accused of: destroying the Temple and killing many thousands of Jews. The Romans were worse than Pharaoh and killed more than just the males.

2. The idea that Jacob only went into Egypt by divine decree is also a stretch. It is true that God caused a famine and this might be interpreted as God orchestrating Jacob’s journey into Egypt, though the text never says this was the purpose of the famine. It is true, however, that in the period of Roman persecution, the Jewish center in Alexandria, Egypt, became the most important Jewish community outside of Israel.

3. The idea that Israel became a distinct people in Egypt is true Biblically, but Hoffman asks why emphasize it? This too fits the Roman theory, in which diaspora Judaism threatened to become the spiritual center of Judaism (it eventually did in Babylon; hence the Babylonian Talmud). Meanwhile, rabbis such as Gamaliel II sought to bring the center back to the Land of Israel.

Therefore, what we have in the Laban the Aramean section is a retelling of Deuteronomy 26:5 that makes its message contemporary for Jews in between the two Jewish revolts (66-70 C.E. and 132-135 C.E.). With some creativity, repointing the vowels, and making use of fanciful exegesis, the rabbis were able to make a wisdom parable for their generation.

One could easily imagine, and it has been done, other generations of Jewish history fitting the story to their generation’s struggle.

***Coming in Part 5: the rest of the Maggid section explained.

Understanding the Passover Haggadah, Part 3

In “Understanding the Passover Haggadah, Part 1,” I explained a few confusing elements of the Haggadah, such as the fact that it is more about Deuteronomy 26:5-10 than the Exodus narrative. This insight alone gets us a long way toward understanding the rationale behind the parts of the Haggadah. The Haggadah is not what most people expect it to be before reading and studying it. I also included in part 1 some advice from Lawrence Hoffman from My People’s Passover Haggadah. He encourages Seder leaders not to merely read every word of the Haggadah without comment. The Haggadah is a book that can be interpreted with different emphases each year, selecting some portions for greater commentary and other to be omitted.

In “Understanding the Passover Haggadah, Part 2,” I went section by section through the Hebrew poem that helps people remember the parts of the Seder. There was a time when printing did not exist and owning one or many Haggadahs was beyond the means of most families. The Haggadah follows a poem (kadesh urchatz . . .) that defines the parts of the Seder.

Now, in Part 3, I will begin explaining the part of the Haggadah most people associate most strongly with Passover: the telling of the story. It is called the Maggid, or the telling, and it is roughly 1/3 of the Haggadah (24 out of 72 pages in the Artscroll Family Haggadah, for example).

Before the Maggid section comes, these are the preparations leading into the storytelling: the first cup and its blessing, handwashing, the green vegetable, and breaking the middle matzah.

After the Maggid, which includes many physical elements itself, such as explaining the Seder plate and a second cup, these are the elements finishing out the worship aspect of the Seder: handwashing again, blessing bread and matzah, bitter herbs, the Hillel sandwich, the meal, afikoman, grace after meals, the third cup, Hallel psalms, fourth cup, and concluding blessings.

Understanding the Parts of the Maggid (Storytelling)
The storytelling of the Haggadah does not proceed the way we would expect it to. This is not the Exodus story told simply and in a straightforward fashion. Instead, you might say we have a storytelling section defined over time by committee, and not just any committee, but an unofficial committee of tradition building on itself with variations over hundreds of years. As with any product of committee, it is a bit of a jumble.

So take out your Haggadah (a traditional one, preferably, and use this guide to understand the parts of the Maggid section. You might copy these notes below and print them out to insert for reference in your Haggadah.

Bread of Affliction — The time this part was added is uncertain. It may be a leftover from the days when the lamb was still eaten. The leader of the Seder may have made a statement to the effect that, “This is the sanctified Passover offering.” As matzah came to replace the lamb as central to the Seder after the temple was destroyed, perhaps this bread of affliction statement was the replacement.

The phrase “bread of affliction” comes from Deuteronomy 16:3 (lechem oni). Rabbi Akiva read it slightly differently as the bread of poverty. It may refer to the affliction of the Israelites in their wilderness journey with only hard bread to eat. It is also possible that it was a kind of slaves’ bread, as those in forced labor may not have had time for proper breadmaking.

We say, “Let all who are hungry come and eat,” a part of the Seder intended to inspire us to invite families to join us at Passover, especially families lacking the money or the knowledge to lead a Seder on their own. Leviticus Rabbah 34:9 says, “The poor man stands at your door and the Holy One, Blessed be he, stands at his right hand.”

Four Questions — These are really one question (“why is this night different from all other nights?”) and four observations. The idea of children asking questions when they observe the Passover Seder goes back to verses in the Torah in which children ask (Exod. 12:26-27; 13:8, 14-15; Deut. 6:20-25).

Originally the children were to have asked questions spontaneously and a list of questions developed in case the children did not know what to ask. Over time the questions became fixed. When the temple was standing the questions were different and included one about the Passover sacrifice.

The questions are not directly answered, but the answers come in the rest of the storytelling for those who listen and pay attention. The modern custom is for a child to chant these questions to a melody.

We Were Slaves — The rabbis of old made a ruling about how the Passover story should be told (Mishnah Pesahim 10:4): the story should begin with disgrace and end with praise. What is the disgrace the story should begin with? The obvious answer would be Israel’s slavery. Some of the rabbis leaned in this direction and Deuteronomy 6:21 is a response in the Torah to the child’s questions that fits this interpretation, “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt.”

Yet other rabbis felt the disgrace began long before Israel’s slavery in the reality of Joshua 24:2-4, “originally . . . our fathers served other gods.”

In the Maggid section, both approaches happen. This section, “we were slaves,” fulfills the first opinion, that the storytelling should start with slavery. In a section to come later, the story will backtrack and start again from the other opinion, “originally . . . our fathers served other gods.”

The Five Rabbis at Bnei Barak — Bnei Barak was a town near modern Tel Aviv, mentioned in Joshua 19:45. There is a traditional story about five rabbis meeting there during the second Jewish revolt to celebrate Passover. Five is considered a well-rounded number for Torah learning (such as the five books of the Torah).

Some Haggadahs have commentary that suggests a military interpretation about this Seder with five rabbis. Why were they up all night “telling the Passover story”? The military interpretation is that they were planning a part of the Jewish revolt. As observed in My People’s Passover Haggadah, however, there is no evidence for this colorful theory, but it fit well in Haggadahs from the era after Israel’s independence as an inspiring example of Jewish resistance in history.

It seems, rather, the good rabbis were up all night dialoguing about the details of the Exodus story in good rabbinic fashion.

Rabbi Elazar’s Passover at Night Midrash
One of the five rabbis was Rabbi Elazar, who was a friend of Rabbi ben Zoma. Zoma was known in the Mishnah as a master of the deeper meaning of texts. Elazar had learned from him a novel interpretation about why the Passover story was to be told at night. It might seem that Deuteronomy 16:3 interpreted literally would call for the story to be told in the day (i.e., the day after the Seder). Deuteronomy 16:3 says to remember the story “all the days of your life.”

Zoma taught Elazar that while days would mean daytime, “all the days” includes the traditional night telling at the Seder. Further, “days of your life” means this lifetime, but “all” means even in the world to come.

The Four Sons — There are four places in the Torah in which a child asks a question relating to Israel’s Exodus story. The rabbis noted midrashically that these four questions seem to come from four kinds of children:

Wise Son — Deuteronomy 6:20-21
Wicked Son — Exodus 12:26-27
Simple Son — Exodus 13:14-15
Unable to Ask — Exodus 13:8

The rabbis saw different motivations behind each question. Yet the principle is that all children should be told the story and not just the most deserving children. Numbers Rabbah 8:4 says, “If you estrange those who are distant you eventually estrange those who are near.”

One Might Think . . . — Since Exodus 13:8 has been brought up in the previous section, this paragraph is used to discuss an ancient question about the timing of Passover. As typical in rabbinic discussion, much is assumed without being stated. The stated reason for asking about the timing of Passover is a phrase in Exodus 13:8, “on that very day.” It is likely, however, that what is really at issue is Deuteronomy 16:1, which could be translated either, “in the month of Aviv the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt” or “on the new moon of Aviv.”

Scholars who view the text of the Torah critically often assume from Deuteronomy 16 that the Passover used to be celebrated on the first of Aviv (Nisan) and was later changed to the fifteenth. This “one might think” paragraph is the rabbis clarifying that their interpretation is that Passover is on the fifteenth (and thus, the word should be translated month in Deuteronomy 16).

Those modern interpreters who insist that Deuteronomy 16 contradicts the Passover traditions found elsewhere in the Torah are guilty of unnecessary dogmatism. The idea that periods from new moon to new moon might be referred to in shorthand with the same word as new moon (chodesh) is not difficult to sustain.

Our Ancestors Were Idol-Worshippers — This section, as noted previously, begins to retell the story following the other opinion about what “disgrace” should form the beginning of the Passover story. Was it the Israelite slavery, as the previous section assumed, or the idolatry of the pre-patriarchal fathers, as this section assumes? The answer for the rabbis is to do both.

This piece of the backstory of Israel comes from Joshua 24:2-4.

God Calculated the End of Our Bondage — This is an extra observation thrown into the Passover story for good reason. It refers to Genesis 15, when God showed Abraham that Israel would go into slavery and come out after a period of time. God showed redemption in advance to the Patriarchs. This is obviously of interest to the Jewish community, particularly in hard times, as a reminder that the Messianic Age of redemption is coming and Jewish sufferings are only for a while. It also shows that the Patriarchs may have started in disgrace (pre-Abrahamic idolatry) but moved on to redemption and praise (thus, the story is told from disgrace to praise, as the old ruling calls for).

***More to come in Part 4***

Kings, Bad Reading, Good Reading

I have recently returned to my first love in terms of theology and Biblical studies. That is, I decided to return to me former specialization in Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament). It was my concentration in undergraduate school and in my Masters degree at Emory University. My Masters thesis was on the Elisha stories, “Elisha and the King: The Elisha Narratives and Prophetic Authority.”

Over the years, as I got into dialogue on Jewish matters and sought a way to understand Yeshua (Jesus) as a man in the context of his times and his Judaism, my interest shifted to New Testament and Second Temple Jewish writings (apocrypha, pseudepigrepha, apocalyptic, and so on).

Of course I am still fascinated with Second Temple Jewish writings and the New Testament is still central to my faith.

But I am back to trusting my early instinct, developed within months of deciding to follow Jesus as I encountered life in a modern church setting. I decided that even though I knew less about the Bible than my teachers at that church, that these men and women had a massive gap in their knowledge. It was so pronounced, even a beginner could see it. They knew next to nothing about what they called the Old Testament.

I was put off by language I heard repeatedly demeaning the Hebrew Bible, “You can’t live by the Old Testament and you have to interpret it by the New Testament.”

In fact, I later learned a saying that I believe still guides many Christians, “The Old is in the new revealed and the New is in the Old concealed.”

Yuck. How terrible. What an offense to the prophets and wise men of old. What an offense to God who stands behind the writing of the Hebrew Bible.

So, to get to the point, I am casually studying the books of Kings. I am not teaching or writing about Kings at the moment, so this reading and study is pure fun and is proceeding at a slow pace.

I just ordered a commentary on 1 and 2 Kings by Ian Provan in the New International Biblical Commentary series. So far I have only read the introduction, yet I find I like this scholar and what he has to say. He knocked me over in his introduction with a section called, “Kings as Narrative Literature.”

He says several things I hope Bible readers will learn from. I will illustrate with a few citations and then draw a few guiding principles:

Given this general perception of the nature of Kings [that many authors/editors worked on it over centuries with conflicting ideas], it is hardly surprising that scholarly reading of the book as a book in the modern period has generally ceased. It is not difficult at all to find monographs and articles written in the last two centuries that hypothesize about the original source material used by the editors of Kings or about the various levels of editing that might exist in the text. It is not difficult to find discussion of the theology or theologies of various people supposed to have been responsible for the book. What is scarce before the last decade is writing on the book itself in its final form as a piece of narrative.

Is there anything that compels us to see incoherence in Kings? Or is it simply that OT scholars, often lacking in general competence in literary matters and approaching Kings with inherited presuppositions about its incoherent nature, have largely found what they expected to find?

Even conservative commentaries on the OT narrative books tend to supply coherence to the story from elsewhere, rather than drawing it out of the story itself. They show little interest in reading the text as a text–even though they assert most firmly that it is a text inspired by God himself.

Provan is saying that scholars who are not committed to the text of the Hebrew Bible as a God-inspired book read it piece-meal because of their theories of conflicting editors and ideas in the text. Meanwhile, scholars who are committed to divine inspiration behind the Hebrew Bible also tend to fail to read the books as books in themselves, but feel they must look to history or the New Testament to supply meaning.

Why not read the book as a book?

That would be too simple, or not simple as we get into the details and find that the kind of storytelling the Biblical writers used is not much like the storytelling we are used to. The drama is not like a modern movie or novel. The style is very concise and the points are subtle.

Bad reading of ancient narrative and especially these divinely inspired narratives is to chop them into pieces, considering this or that theory of editing or history. Good reading is to understand the parts and the characters and the voice of the narrator. Bad reading from a conservative point of view is to abandon all hope of finding meaning in a book like Kings and instead relate everything to stories about Jesus or attempt to relate to New Testament theology. Good reading is to start at the beginning, read to the end, and consider the meaning of the parts adding up to the whole.

In fact, this is the solution I have proposed and I will continue to propose to Bible lovers about the best way to read the Bible. Many people read the same fifty pages of the Bible over and over, rarely venturing out to the other 1,400 or so pages. The best way to read the Bible is from start to finish, Genesis to Revelation.

Don’t follow a plan that has you read a little Old and a little New each day (the assumption of these Christian reading plans is that the Old will bore you or have too little value, so mix in a little of the New).

We need to recapture the reading of the Bible, as well as its individual books, as a book. It has a canonical narrative (over-arching story). We need to read it that way. Thanks to Ian Provan for putting it so well.

Revelation’s 144,000 and Grant Osborne’s Commentary

I have been reading with profit Grant Osborne’s commentary on Revelation in the Baker Exegetical series. I have worked my way through four commentaries on Revelation and like this one the best overall. And in spite of what I am going to say here, I still do. I think Osborne has a blind spot when it comes to Israel’s continuing role in God’s plan to redeem and consummate this world. I will set out to show that in the essay below. Yet I still believe his commentary does an excellent job of interacting with other commentators from many points of view and offering sane alternatives. He is a gifted exegete.

Nonetheless, you can imagine how disappointed I was to find that Osborne consistently reads Israel out of the book of Revelation.

I have two previous blog posts (which I should update into one essay and perhaps I will) called “Is Israel Missing From Revelation?”:
http://derek4messiah.wordpress.com/2008/08/19/israel-missing-from-revelation-pt-1/
http://derek4messiah.wordpress.com/2008/08/21/is-israel-missing-from-revelation-pt-2/

Let me state the overriding issue at the beginning and then give a brief summary of the details. The question we have to ask when interpreting Revelation with regard to Israel is this: is Revelation an expansion of God’s promises to Israel so that they include the nations or is Revelation a reinterpretation and/or abrogation of God’s promises to Israel?

Osborne sees Revelation as a reinterpretation (and maybe abrogation) of God’s promises to Israel. I will list a few of his arguments for this position and then present what I see as theological and hermeneutical problems with Osborne’s approach.

Grant Osborne’s Case For Reading Israel Out of Revelation
Osborne does not think that the 144,000 listed tribe by tribe in Revelation 7 and 14 are Jews, but instead are a symbolic representation of Christians. He also does not think the woman “who brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all nations” (i.e., Messiah) is Israel, but the church.

These readings feel natural to some, who are used to reading the Bible as if the New Testament were the beginning and end of theology. This kind of thinking is a natural product of a Christian culture which sermonizes the letters Paul over and over again to the neglect of the other 95% of the Bible. Contemporary and even historical Christianity is a racehorse with narrow blinders.

The following are a few of Osborne’s arguments for his readings of Revelation 7, 12, and 14:

–There is no mention of Jewish believers apart from the Gentile church anywhere else in Revelation.

–Revelation emphasizes one group, the overcomers, and does not divide this group into Jews and Gentiles.

–The New Testament teaches that the church is the New Israel.

–Paul dismisses Jewish identity as of no value in numerous verses.

–Israel’s calling is given to the church in numerous verses.

–The 144,000 couldn’t be literally from the twelve tribes because ten tribes are lost to history.

–In Revelation 12, the church gives birth to the Messiah in the sense that the last days church hastens the coming of Messiah through its martyrs and faithful witnesses.

Some Theological Arguments Against Osborne’s Reading
Should we expect Revelation to depict God’s plan in light of the whole canonical narrative (Genesis through the New Testament) or to give only a limited view from the culture of Asia Minor and the Gentile situation?

I would hope that Revelation would do the former. And I find, in my reading, that it does. This fact in no way lessens the Gentile focus of Revelation. The fact that Revelation in a few places makes clear that its promises are the continuation of the promises to Israel in no way undermines the beauty of every tribe and tongue joining the priestly people of God. In other words, it is not necessary to read Israel out to appreciate the Gentile-centric beauty of Revelation.

To read Israel out of Revelation should give us pause because of the nature of God. Is he the God of the switcharoo or the God of faithfulness? And if he switched plans and left Israel out who is to say he won’t do the same to the church?

What I mean is that God made promises to renew Israel and through Israel save all the nations. Read Deuteronomy 30, Isaiah 2 and 11, Jeremiah 23 and 31, Ezekiel 36 and 27. Try to read Israel out. You can only do it through dishonest creativity. (And I assume that Grant Osborne would agree with me here — I am not saying he reads the Hebrew prophets incorrectly).

Shouldn’t we then read the New Testament as if God is faithful to Israel and expect to see Israel’s continuing role in the New Testament texts? I think so and I believe John delivered a balanced picture as he received it. These Gentiles in Asia Minor to whom Revelation is addresses were all readers of the Hebrew Bible (far more so than in modern churches). They would not be surprised at all to find that 144,000 Jewish men who were single and sexually pure would play a major role in last things. Nor would they assume that the church, as opposed to Israel, gave birth to the Messiah.

Some Hermeneutical Problems With Osborne’s Reading
Grant Osborne wrote one of the leading textbooks on hermeneutics (how to interpret the Bible). I would be a fool to debate him on specifics. He would make me look foolish except where I agreed with him. He has read more on hermeneutics since breakfast than I have read all my life.

So I don’t understand why he abandons two sound principles when he decides to read Revelation 7, 12, and 14 as he does.

First, the Bible should be read in its order as a canonical narrative (one overarching story with many parts). We should proceed from the Torah through the New Testament and, because of our faith in divine inspiration, assume a basic, coherent unity to the narrative. Thus, as we read Revelation we should constantly note how John affirms but adds a new twist to Hebrew prophecies. John does not discard the former things to replace them with a new people of God and a new plan. Rather, God adds the developments of the church to the existing prophecies of Israel. This can be seen time and time again with the way John subtly updates, not replaces, specific prophecies such as Zechariah 12:10.

Second, the Bible frequently contains complex discourses from both sides of an issue. I could name dozens: God’s transcendence and immanence, the truth of retribution and the truth of unpunished evil, faith and works, and so on. Why then, does Osborne engage in prooftexting the idea that Christians are the New Israel without engaging the other side: God continues to work with and through Israel in the New Testament and to distinguish Jews and Gentiles?

Specific Counter-Arguments to Osborne

–There is no mention of Jewish believers apart from the Gentile church anywhere else in Revelation. But the New Testament is full of examples of such distinction between Jews and non-Jews. And Revelation would have such references in Osborne’s reading if wouldn’t rule out Revelation 7, 12, and 14 (not to mention the key chapter on Israel, chapter 11).

–Revelation emphasizes one group, the overcomers, and does not divide this group into Jews and Gentiles. Revelation is capable of having multiple emphases and we should not limit its message with oversimplification.

–The New Testament teaches that the church is the New Israel. I would say the New Testament teaches that the church is included with Israel but does not replace it (try Romans 11 and the olive tree parable). The New Testament contains dialogue from both sides: the church as Israel and Israel continuing in God’s plan as the priestly people.

–Paul dismisses Jewish identity as of no value in numerous verses. Paul is dismissing something more subtle and insidious: the notion that non-Jews are second class in God’s eyes. His rhetoric should be understood in that light.

–Israel’s calling is given to the church in numerous verses. Yes, the church now shares in Israel’s calling as the priestly people of God, but that does not eliminate distinction and a mission for the Jewish believers that is parallel to but distinct from the mission of the Gentile believers.

–The 144,000 couldn’t be literally from the twelve tribes because ten tribes are lost to history. The so-called disappearance of the ten tribes is vastly overblown. Anna in Luke 1 is of the “lost” tribe of Asher. Some seven centuries had elapses since the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel, a destruction which did not wipe out the ten tribes as many had emigrated down to Judah. Even by the first century, and how much more now, the Jewish people included all twelve tribes. If God is the only one who can sort out the complexity of who belongs to which tribe, then so be it.

–In Revelation 12, the church gives birth to the Messiah in the sense that the last days church hastens the coming of Messiah through its martyrs and faithful witnesses. On the one hand, we have the strained interpretation that the last days church gives birth to the Lord of the Universe and on the other we have the natural, Biblical inference that Messiah comes from Israel. Which should we choose?