Bethlehem

Archive for January, 1970

The Sunday School class I currently attend uses a random selection process for the questions we’ll discuss.  Class members put questions in a container, and we draw a question for each week.  Last week the question was:  Why am I such a doubting Thomas?

As we were discussing how much we doubted, what we doubted, and why, someone commented that what we believe as Christians really is quite bizarre if you haven’t gotten used to it.  Most commonly we would cite things such as the resurrection.  I believe that one person who died about 2,000 years ago didn’t stay dead, but came back to life.  That’s a fairly bizarre thing to believe, or better to base an entire system of belief on.

The person who made the comment cited the belief that Jesus died for our sins and thus we can have salvation.  I believe that’s equally bizarre.  Who these days would think of such a thing?  The idea of atonement was much more common in the ancient world, but not so much in western civilization today.

And that brought another question, which seemed to be addressed to me.  Did Christianity seem less bizarre back in the first century.  My answer is “yes,” though different things would seem bizarre and likely in different ways.  As I’ve already mentioned, the atonement would seem more natural, provided one was drawing on a range of ideas prevalent in the ancient world, but there are aspects of it that are odd.  For example, the idea of a single, universal atonement, reconciling the whole world to God, was unique to Christianity, I believe.

I don’t think it came out of thin air.  There are many, many parallels that come close, but I think the full idea of atonement as expressed especially by Paul, is unique.

But what first comes to our modern, or even slightly post-modern minds, is generally the question of miracles.  But there is where I think we differ less from the ancients than we generally think.  We imagine that they were much more naive about miracles in general than we are, that they would tend to believe whatever miracle might be claimed.  I see little evidence for this.  In fact, the resurrection was very hard for either Greeks or Jews to believe, and was often a stumbling block, as noted, for example, in Acts 17:32.

I observe two things.  First, there are quite a number of miracle stories even today, and plenty of people to believe in them.  Second, there is plenty of evidence of ancient people who were quite unwilling to believe miracle stories.  In both cases, such belief tends to be easier regarding miracle stories in one’s own religious tradition than in those of others.  As a Christian, I find it much easier to accept the idea that Jesus ascended to heaven than that Muhammad did.

I’d suggest that this has a substantial impact on the way I read the Bible, as opposed to how I might read other literature, especially religious literature.   While I look at evidence regarding historical events related to my faith, at some of the most critical points, it is faith, without that much sight involved.

One important reason to recognize this, I think, is that it will impact the way we relate to other people.  When we understand that, in a sense, one must put on a whole new religious culture before our religious faith makes sense, we may be somewhat more charitable.  I’m afraid I may lean the other way.  I find doubt and even rejection of things I hold dear quite reasonable, despite the depth of my own commitment to those beliefs.

So I may not believe at least six impossible things before breakfast every morning, I do believe some things that, to someone outside my faith tradition, are bizarre.

Source: Henry Neufeld

So now that you have been freed from sin, you have become enslaved to righteousness. — Romans 6:18 (my translation)

Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living. — Romans 6:18 (NLT)

And yet there are those who think Paul taught easy believism!

Source: Henry Neufeld

I discuss why I think we should pay attention on the World Prayr blog today.

Source: Henry Neufeld

… at larryhurtado.wordpress.com.  He’s Professor of New Testament Language, Literature & Theology at the University of Edinburgh, and it looks like he’ll be a nice new addition to the biblioblogosphere.

I think I’m about the thousandth person to mention this, but in case you missed the other 999 …

Source: Henry Neufeld

My wife Jody notes that in my talk at a local church last Sunday night I commented that people read 1 Corinthians more than 2 Corinthians.  I must add that I also said they read more Romans and Galatians than any Corinthians, but that’s beside the point.  In any case she’s meditating her way through 2 Corinthians for her devotional list, and I’m finding the posts pretty interesting.  The first one is here.

Source: Henry Neufeld

Some notes and a link on my book’s (What’s in a Version?) page.

Source: Henry Neufeld

I’m ending a hiatus in blogging of just over a month.  I see my last post was dated May 8, 2010, but I was pretty sparse for a month before that.  I’ll get a post up about what I was doing during that time.  No, nothing adventurous; just trying to do necessary work to grow my publishing business.

This morning I looked again at the lectionary passages for the week, and compared them to the Mosaic Bible.  Three of the lectionary passages do have material connected with them in The Mosaic Bible, though there is no overlap in the texts for this week.  The lectionary gives us 1 Kings 21:1-21a (again deleting what I think is some relevant material starting with 21b),  Psalm 5:1-8, Galatians 2:15-21, and Luke 7:36-8:3.  Of these, only Psalm 5 is not connected, though Galatians only overlaps with verse 20 used for Easter in the Mosaic Bible.

This simply reaffirms the way in which I think the Mosaic Bible is most useful for those who already use a reading plan oriented to the church year–it provides a rich range of readings that relate to the various church seasons that will be helpful in lesson and sermon preparation.  For those who do not use a reading program tied to the church calendar, I think the Mosaic Bible provides a more friendly starting point than simply diving into the lectionary.  Often the lectionary texts prove a challenging combination–individually helpful, but seeming quite scattered as a group.

The focus for this lectionary reading seems to be evil men.  One interesting twist is just how you read the story in Luke.  Naboth’s vineyard gives you a pretty clear set of bad guys and good guys, with Ahab in the role of very bad guy.  One interesting approach might be to contrast the response of Jesus to the woman who is a sinner as opposed to the judgment meted out to Ahab.  That could lead to really interesting discussions of varying types of sin as well.  No matter how often we claim that sin is sin, I think we really do have “clean” sins and “dirty” sins. Most commonly “dirty” sins are the ones you commit, and “clean” sins are the ones I commit.  (See the host in the story in Luke.)

I find the possible range of topics presented by each collection of lectionary texts quite fascinating, and this week was no exception.

Source: Henry Neufeld

I located this video today, and while I’m not blogging much these days, I wanted to share it.  Alden was one of my teachers at Walla Walla College when I was in the Biblical Languages program there.  I now publish his book Who’s Afraid of the Old Testament God?, now in it’s fourth edition.

There will be some references to specifically Seventh-day Adventist events and issues, but the majority of the material here relates to controversies that will be familiar to all of us.

And no, I didn’t post this just because he mentions me and says a couple of nice things about me.

Source: Henry Neufeld

My primary training in biblical studies placed an overwhelming emphasis on historical study.  The idea was to get at the original meaning of the text as it would have been understood by those who first heard or read it.  I should note that amongst my professors there was some desire to look at reception, and there was also some desire to look heavily at denominational application (these were Seventh-day Adventist schools), but I rejected both elements quite strongly and stuck to historical study.

Now I still have no problem with that approach, as long as that is seen as an approach rather than the approach to Bible study.  The Bible is indeed a document written in history.  I would no longer say, as I said at the time, that I approach the Bible like any other piece of ancient near eastern literature.  (At some other time I’ll discuss the problem I see with interpreters who remain in the sacred tradition and seem unable to see the historical meaning at all.)

But what does a person whose approach has been entirely on the historical side do if he is convinced that there is also an approach to studying scripture that is not purely historical, but sees the Bible not as just another piece (or collection) of ancient near eastern literature, but rather as God’s revelation to the church?  Such a view means that the reception of the text through the history of the church is also critical.

Where I actually started was with whole books by church fathers and by Christians through the centuries.  There is a benefit to this form of study in that you get a better picture of a particular writer by reading a substantial portion of his or her writing.  But I am still primarily a student of language and history and definitely not a professional theologian.

Enter the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture series.  (I wrote this on completing my read of New Testament Volume X, but I think my comments apply to the whole series.) Here we have a selection of patristic commentary on various passages.  It simple to read and follow and contains the full text of the scripture in question.  The variety and the selection is great, and most of the commentary is brief.

You shouldn’t expect to use this as a full commentary.  It’s not intended to be.  Neither should you expect it to give you a full introduction to each church father.  It’s providing snippets that relate to particular scriptures.  But you can find the context of the various fathers and their contribution by looking at the brief bios and the summary timeline in the back.

I’ve found myself providing many quotes from this book as I’ve read.  It has been a far back-burner type project, and in many cases I’ve gone on to find the context of the quotes online, for which the Christian Classics Ethereal Library has proven very useful.  I’ll be bold enough to note also that I find some statements by the fathers to seem somewhat wide of the mark.  I think they were subject, as I am, to a desire to make the scriptures support their own pre-established views.  I would note that they are closer to the time and language of the texts, and thus they provide some help in discovering the historical meaning as well.

This is really turning out to be more notes on using the church fathers and writers from other periods in Bible study and less a review of this particular commentary.  Let me summarize.  I think the selection is excellent, the volume well-organized, and provided one makes use of the resources provided, one can gain substantial value using any of these volumes in study.

Source: Henry Neufeld

… at Other Food.  I like the brief comment from the editor on each post.

Source: Henry Neufeld