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When Mark identifies John the Baptist as the preparing messenger, he thereby also identifies him as the eschatological Elijah (cf. also Mk 9.11-13). In Mal. 4.5, God announces that “I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.” This announcement matches the prophecy regarding the messenger in Mal. 3.1. In the context of the book of Malachi, the messenger and the prophet Elijah are therefore one and the same. This prophecy forms the basis for a Jewish expectation of an eschatological Elijah. A number of Jewish eschatological texts refer to the coming of Elijah (e.g. Sirach 48.10-11; 4Q558 1.ii.4). According to many scholars, Elijah was expected to be a forerunner of the Messiah. However, none of the pre-Christian texts describe him as such. We cannot conclude that he was a forerunner of the Messiah just because he would appear in the end times. Jesus and the Gospels identified John the Baptist as Elijah, and since Christians saw Jesus as the Messiah, they concluded that Elijah was a forerunner of the Messiah. But the reason that Elijah was seen as Jesus’ forerunner was that he was the one who would prepare for the coming of God himself.

Christology in the Synoptic Gospels, 38.

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I’d disagree on all fronts. Some of the finest scholars I’ve had the pleasure of reading are apologists and use their scholarship in the service of the church and the Christian faith. I think of folks like Darrell Bock; William Lane Craig; and John Frame to name a few from varying backgrounds. And good apologetics is the opposite of fideism. It’s a presentation of all the many reasons for the Christian faith. This isn’t to say that there isn’t a bunch of bad apologetics floating around—there is—but the scholarly kind of apologetics usually has plenty to back it up.

But it’s the critique of the last group that irks me the most. I get that historical critics and atheists are working with completely different presuppositions but Christians who claim to believe that the Scriptures were given by inspiration of God shouldn’t be quite so hostile to apologetics, assuming that they’re good apologetics, not bunk. It seems to be a position born out of arrogance. The idea that nobody can make sense of certain things or resolve things that seems at odds because you can’t is the height of hubris, or at least appears to be. Yet that seems to be the attitude I see reflected in much writing on the subject.

Question: What if the tension appears to be there because certain folks are poor interpreters? Did they ever consider that? Did they ever consider that perhaps there are folks out there who have labored over the texts as much or more than them and have found them to make sense and not be at odds? Have they considered that there are myriad good explanations for the portions of Scripture that they consider hard to swallow (e.g., the command to slaughter Midianites; regulations on slavery)? Has it ever crossed their minds that a willingness to live with alleged contradictions doesn’t actually honor Scripture but rather subverts it?

Ponder that for a moment. Seriously think about the attitude toward Scripture that says, “If God said it; that settles it.” Is that really as naive as it appears on first glance? Or does it evince an attitude of humility? An attitude of submission to the word of God? When I think about how Jesus is depicted as handling Scripture I don’t come up with a picture of someone willing to live with hopeless tensions; or as someone who thought the OT authors got it wrong and needed correcting. I see someone who took God at his word and argued based on the authority of that word. Ladies and gentleman, Jesus was an apologist. Paul was too. And they were both unapologetically apologetic as were all of the NT authors.

So to the apologists I say, thank God for you; keep up the good work (assuming it’s good work)! The is much better with you than without you and don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.

B”H

Dogma and Preaching: Applying Christian Doctrine to Daily Life

Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week: From the Entrance Into Jerusalem To The Resurrection

Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives

What Every Christian Needs to Know About the Qur’an

I had tracked the package a few days before it arrived and was dismayed to see that it had left a sorting center in Kentucky. That meant that it shipped from the Lexington warehouse, which is notorious for poor packing methods that result in damaged goods. I’ve received numerous damaged books and even video games from this particular warehouse (see here for details).

In the most recent instance I was quite pleased to see that nothing was damaged, but not for lack of trying. The books were packed in a box that was larger than it needed to be and there was no bubble wrap or even styrofoam peanuts in the box. There was one un-inflated packaging cushion in there. Ridiculous!

It’s only by the grace of God and the tender-loving care of the USPS that these books were not dented and creased! Something needs to be done about this particular shipping hub. We must rise up against poor packaging methods; especially since we’re paying good money for new books! Who’s with me?!!

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Filed under: Books (Misc.), In the Mail ]]> https://rdtwot.wordpress.com/2013/05/09/in-the-mail-360/feed/ 4 Nick Norelli https://rdtwot.wordpress.com/2013/05/06/in-the-mail-359/ https://rdtwot.wordpress.com/2013/05/06/in-the-mail-359/#comments Tue, 07 May 2013 02:16:47 +0000 Nick Norelli http://rdtwot.wordpress.com/?p=24413 ]]> Eerdmans sent along a copy of Francis Watson’s Gospel Writing: A Canonical Perspective for review. Looks awesome! It’ll be a little while before I get to it but I can hardly wait.

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After describing Bauckham’s argument for Jesus being included in the divine identity, the authors say:

Yet, in terms of the development of early Christology, Bauckham’s proposal remains problematic, since, by dismissing the significance of intermediaries, there is now no direct analogy for the origin of the christological doctrine. (142)

I fail to see how that criticism even begins to highlight something that is problematic. Why would there need to be a direct analogy for the origin of Christological doctrine in the first place? And granting that there isn’t one, why would it have to be intermediaries?

For the record, Bauckham does suggest an analogy, namely God’s Word and Wisdom, which he judges to be intrinsic to the divine identity. The authors judge Word and Wisdom to be “too closely identified with Yahweh’s primary instantiation of the divine identity to form a convincing analogy with the incarnate Christ” (135). Okay, but that doesn’t mean that Bauckham sees no analogy.

What’s more is that we can argue that the direct analogy is God himself. Tilling examines several Second Temple texts and compares their constellation of intermediary-language and God-language with the Paul’s Jesus-language and finds that the analogy is between God and Jesus; not the intermediaries and Jesus. This also proves true when comparing the OT/NT’s God-language with Paul’s Jesus-language.

Perhaps the authors get to this later in the essay and I’ve spoken too soon, but as it stands, this is a facile criticism. Let’s hope the remainder of the essay gets better.

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Dogma and Preaching: Applying Christian Doctrine to Daily Life

Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week: From the Entrance Into Jerusalem To The Resurrection

Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives

I also got a copy of James White’s What Every Christian Needs to Know About the Qur’an specifically for the chapter on the Trinity.

I had another $30 to spend but couldn’t figure out what to get so I’ll be saving that for another time.

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I didn’t get to say much by way of response because I was watching a fight and I wasn’t in the mood to debate. The one question I asked was this: What heretic throughout any period of history do you think didn’t believe that they loved God and were doing him obedient service? He said he didn’t know but that he didn’t want to be quick to call someone a heretic simply for disagreeing with him. Okay, that’s good and well, and I’d agree to some extent. I don’t call people heretics simply because they disagree with me; I call them heretics because they embrace teaching that has already been declared heretical by the church.

And that’s an important point to make in this discussion. He mentioned John MacArthur and how he’s dead wrong about spiritual gifts, which, by the way, he is. But he said that I wouldn’t call MacArthur a heretic for being wrong about that, and he’s right, I wouldn’t. I’d simply say that there’s a chink in MacArthur’s expositional armor. Cessationism isn’t born through exegesis; it’s born through experience, or the lack thereof. But that’s not my point. My point is that at no time in church history that I’m aware of has the the lack of belief in spiritual gifts been declared a heresy. In fact, some might argue for the similarities between Montanism, which was declared heretical, and modern Charismatic beliefs and practices. I’d say they’re wrong, but they’d have more of a leg to stand on than those arguing the opposite.

For the record, I don’t slavishly adhere to conciliar definitions and creeds out of a sense of duty or tradition, but rather because I believe they are correct. I believe with all of my heart, mind, soul, and strength that God guided his church to the correct understanding of his Scriptures when the early disputes arose over their meaning. I think that patristic exegesis is the outworking of apostolic exegesis and that any modern exegesis should align with both without necessarily having to repeat it verbatim. But what I don’t believe is that my personal convictions, in and of themselves, are any criteria by which to judge a person’s orthodoxy. What I think is ultimately irrelevant in light of what has already been declared by the church.

So to repeat myself: I call certain people heretics because they embrace teaching that has already been declared heretical by the church. These issues have been settled. Either get on board with it or jump ship. But whatever you do, realize that heresy can’t be reformed or redeemed; it has to be repented of. Can heretics be saved? Of course. Just not as long as they actively embrace heresy.

B”H

Invitation to Biblical Interpretation: Exploring the Hermeneutical Triad of History, Literature, and Theology

Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2011. Pp. 891. Hardcover. $39.99.

Amazon | WTS

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With thanks to Kregel Academic for this review copy!

Invitation to Biblical Interpretation (hereafter IBI) is the latest in a long line of introductory texts on biblical exegesis. While the subtitle speaks of the “hermeneutical triad,” this is not a text aimed at hermeneutics as a discipline in general. Readers interested in such works would do well to consult Anthony Thiselton’s voluminous body of work on the subject or more recently Stanley E. Porter and Jason C. Robinson’s Hermeneutics: An Introduction to Interpretive Theory. Nor is it a volume that offers an in-depth exploration of the history of biblical interpretation although there is a brief treatment on pp. 67-78. Gerald Bray’s Biblical Interpretation: Past and Present will satisfy readers on that front. IBI is, however, a textbook that will teach students sound exegetical principles from an evangelical perspective.

IBI is divided into three disproportionate parts with an introduction and epilogue of sorts. In the introduction Köstenberger and Patterson (hereafter K&P) explain their approach to interpretation, which attends to the history, literature, and theology of any given passage/book. They call this the “hermeneutical triad” and its didactic value is not to be underestimated. At the base of this hermeneutical triad are both history and literature, which, when properly understood, yield the theology of any given text. If one were to sum up this hermeneutical foundation in a single word it would be “context.”

The Bible is a collection of texts written for us even if it wasn’t necessarily written to us. Like an inside joke between friends, the original audiences would have taken certain things for granted that modern readers miss completely. As such it becomes vital to understand as much as possible about the world of the people it was written by and to initially. So in Part 1, which is comprised of a single chapter, K&P cover the history corner of the triad by briefly surveying the broad sweep of biblical history before saying a few words about some of the archaeological discoveries that help to bring the text to life and confirm what has been written. An emphasis is placed on primary sources (e.g., OT, NT, ANE texts, Dead Sea Scrolls, Pseudepigraha, Apocrypha) while not downplaying the value of secondary sources such as modern study Bibles and reference works. All of these resources help the modern interpreter to get in on the joke so to speak.

Part 2 is comprises the bulk of this hefty volume and is dedicated to the literature corner of the triad, which K&P consider to be the “focus” of Scripture. This part is subdivided even further into three units that address Canon, Genre, and Language. The Canon unit has two chapters, one each on the OT and NT canons. Many a teacher has quipped that the OT is the NT concealed while the NT is the OT revealed, so placing a text in its canonical context helps to see what we’re looking forward to or back at. The chapters on Genre cover historical narrative, poetry & wisdom, prophecy, parables, epistles, and apocalyptic. It’s in these chapters that it becomes evident that this is not a textbook suited for the novice since K&P at times get very detailed and cover concepts that would make any newbie’s head spin. The final unit on language covers grammar, syntax, discourse, linguistics, semantics, exegetical fallacies, and interpreting figurative language and assumes some acquaintance with the biblical languages; another indication that the beginner would do better with something else, e.g., Fee & Stuart’s How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth.

Part 3, also a single chapter, addresses the apex of the hermeneutical triad: theology. K&P focus most of their attention on offering a definition of biblical theology; outlining the different approaches to biblical theology; and offering sketch views of the NT authors’ use of the OT. In truth, this chapter felt anticlimactic. If theology is the apex of the triad then one would expect more to be said about it. But the chapter I referred to earlier as “an epilogue of sorts” helps to make up for the thinness of the previous chapter. This concluding chapter is on how to put everything learned in the previous chapters into practice. K&P offer practical suggestions on how to prepare for study; how to prepare a sermon or Bible study lesson; and finally how to apply what we’ve learned from our exegesis to real life.

IBI is a well composed textbook on biblical exegesis but K&P aren’t really doing anything new with this volume and they admit as much. Responsible interpreters have always focused on the areas of history, literature, and theology. But the method as laid out here is extremely approachable. The general principles work for any type of biblical literature and the specifics given aid the interpreter when they run into different types of literature. I’d argue that even literature outside of the Bible, be it ancient or modern, could be interpreted rightly by following the general rules laid out in IBI. From a methodological standpoint there’s really nothing to fault them on, so kudos to K&P on that front.

I was also pleased to see that they didn’t harp on the standard evangelical interpretive rule that says we can’t take descriptive texts and understand them prescriptively. This is certainly not an interpretive principle that the Apostle Paul followed (Rom. 15:4 cf. 4:23-24; 1 Cor. 10:11). Their approach seems justifiably measured when they say, “Remember that historical events are descriptive of morality and conduct but not always prescriptive” (137, emphasis mine). They later note some “major mistakes” in preaching NT narratives and say, “We often mistake a description of an event for a command to the church” and then cite the casting of lots in Acts 1:26 as an example (753). It’s a sound principle to not take every description as a prescription but it would also be a mistake to suggest, as some interpreters have, that no description can be taken as an example for us.

The layout of IBI is superb. Each chapter begins with a list of objectives and an outline and is closed with guidelines for interpretation, a glossary of key words, a series of study questions, assignments, and a bibliography. Add to this the full glossary at the end of the volume, detailed indices, and an extremely helpful appendix on “Building a Biblical Studies Library,” and it becomes clear how valuable this textbook is. I can’t imagine a teacher or student who couldn’t benefit in significant ways from its use. It’s also worth mentioning the sample exegeses that close out the main body of text in each chapter. This gives the reader concrete examples of what these interpretive principles look like in practice.

There were a couple of things that I was unsatisfied with but these do not detract from the overall value of this volume. The chapter on exegetical fallacies appears to have a bent towards showing that egalitarian interpretations of certain contentious passages are always based on one fallacy or another. This leaves the reader, or at least this reader, with the impression that there was an underlying polemical/apologetic agenda for this volume. I was also disappointed to see a lack of focus on textual criticism. Had this been a beginning level textbook then the lack of discussion would be understandable, but I’ve judged this to be an intermediate work based on the authors’ appeal to the original languages and some of the complex subject matter when dealing with genre. That being the case, it’s a general rule of interpretation that a text has to be established before it is interpreted. Devoting a chapter to the basic principles of textual criticism would have been most welcome. Still, in all, K&P have produced an excellent text that deserves a place in seminary classrooms and the educated nonspecialist’s library.

B”H