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What is the Gospel?

The word “gospel” as used within Christian circles today carry different meanings. They are used to refer to the NT books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. When used in this way, they are using “gospels” as a literary genre – that is in reference to these books that provide a narrative of the life of Jesus – an ancient biography. Mark 1:1, for example, introduces the book saying:-

The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Mark is, here, referring to the book in the sense of “biography”. It is, as it were, the gospel of Jesus Christ or the biography of the life of Jesus the Messiah.

The Greek texts of the gospels, however, as found within the Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus, our oldest complete manuscripts, do not actually call these books “gospels”. Not all the books are titled (eg. Matthew in Codex Sinaticus has no title) but where they are titled, they are usually called “Kata Markon” (“According to Mark”) for example, or “Kata Yohannan” (“According to John”.) In other words, the popular usage of “gospels” as reference to these books of the NT is more of a convenient usage, but one that does not relate to the bible’s internal use of the word “gospel”.

“According to John”, Codex Sinaiticus

“According to Mark”, Codex Vaticanus

*There are other works that present themselves as “gospels” that are not part of our regular NT canon. You may have heard of the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Judas, among many others.

The gospel of the kingdom of God

Within the NT, the word that is usually translated as “gospel”, “good news” or “glad tidings” is the Greek noun εὐαγγέλιον (pronounced euaggelion). This breaks down to “eu” which means “good” and “aggelia” which means “message”. Put together, the word literally means “good message” or “good news”. Mark, immediately after introducing his work as the gospel-biography of Jesus, goes on to use the same word in a very different sense. In Mark 1:14-15, we have:

Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

In this case, it cannot be referring to the book of Mark which would have been anachronistic. The “gospel” here is referring to the message that Jesus preached at the very onset of his ministry in Galilee, what Mark called the “gospel of the kingdom of God” as opposed to the “gospel (biography) of Jesus Christ”. This “gospel of the kingdom” is the one that is being presented to the hearers and demanding their belief. At this point, Jesus had not called his disciples yet. He certainly had not been crucified yet, nor died on the cross and resurrected three days later. What, then, was this “gospel” or “good news” that Jesus was asking his hearers to believe in?

In Luke 8:1, we once again see that the message that Jesus brought was the “gospel of the kingdom of God”:

Now it came to pass, afterward, that He went through every city and village, preaching and bringing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God.

This wasn’t just some passing news, but appears to be the central preaching of Jesus during his years of ministry, and for this reason we can get some idea of the substance of this “gospel” by looking at what Jesus preached. In Luke’s account, right after Jesus’ temptation, he went to a synagogue in Nazareth, in the Lower Galilee area, and inaugurated his ministry with the familiar words of Isaiah. Luke 4:18-19:

The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.

Jesus had been appointed to read the prophets, which on that day happened to fall on Isa 61:1-2 (NKJV):

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me, because the LORD has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor. He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, …

This was the “gospel” that Jesus was preaching. The Hebrew word that is translated “good tidings” here is actually a bit more neutral. The Hebrew noun and cognate to the Greek εὐαγγέλιον is בְּשׂוֹרָ֥ה (pronounced besorah) simply means “news”. It could be good news or bad news. Moreover, the form in which this word often appears, such as in Isa 61, is usually as a verb baser which can be translated as “heralding” or “announcing”. There is no implicit “good” in the news. That “good” is more of a translatorial interjection. For example, if we look at 2Sam 18:31, the verb yitbaser there was translated as “good news” in the NKJV, NASB and ESV but was translated as “informed” in the JPS. In 1Chr 16:23, on the other hand, baseru was translated in the NKJV and NASB as “proclaim the good news/tidings” whereas the ESV simply translated it as “tell of.” Whether this news was good or not, for the translators, was a matter of contextual interpretation and not intrinsic to the word itself.

In order to understand the nature of the message, therefore, we have to look beyond just the lexical meaning of the word to the context (of Isa 61 in this case.) Isa 61:1 gives us some clues – the message is about healing, liberty, release – but the summary of this message is found in Isa 61:2, that is to declare the “acceptable year of the Lord” or the “year of favour to/of Yehovah.” The word translated as “liberty” (NKJV) is the Hebrew word דְּר֔וֹר (pronounced deror) which refers to the emancipation of slaves upon the year of Jubilee (Lev 25:10), along with the cancellation of debt. This, according to Isaiah, was what the “news” was about. The rest of the chapter goes on to describe a time of great deliverance for the people of God and a time of restoration for the city of God, a day of divine retribution when wrongs would be put right. More than that, Isa 61:8 tells us that this was also the day in which Yehovah would make a (new) covenant with His people. In many ways, this was the day many Jews had been waiting and hoping for. Isa 52:7 similarly speaks of the “news” of such a day when God’s reign is restored:

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns!”

Isa 49:8 speaks of this “acceptable time” as follows:

Thus says the LORD: “In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you. I will preserve You and give you as a covenant to the people, to restore the earth, to cause them to inherit the desolate heritages.

The “acceptable time” is a reference to the day of deliverance and salvation. It is also a reference to the promise of restoration as well as the covenant. One could say that this hope for God’s deliverance and restoration of Israel was nothing new to the Jews. They had been longing for this ever since the destruction of the first temple in 586BC. After the Hasmonean dynasty ended in 37BC, giving way to the Herodian rule as a client of the Roman state, these aspirations were heightened with messianic hopes. So when Jesus told the synagogue in Nazareth what he did, you can just imagine their shock. Lk 4:20-21:

Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Jesus was basically saying to them that their waiting for deliverance was over, and that God was finally ushering in the promises of a restoration and of the covenant. The year of Jubilee had finally arrived. That was the “news” and it was good, for those who had been waiting and felt like they had been in bondage as slaves. At this point, we may also look at how Jeremiah had prophesied concerning a time when God would make a “new covenant” with the house of Judah and the house of Israel in Jer 31:31:

Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah …

In the same way that Isa 61:4 looked forward to the day of rebuilding of the old ruins and former desolations, Jer 31:38 also anticipated the rebuilding of the city of God, and by implication the restoration of the rule and kingdom of God. This was not just a picture of personal salvation, but of the ushering in of a new era of the kingdom of God. Jesus confirms the prophecy of Isaiah by performing the very miracles that was described. Mt 4:23:

And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people.

Mk 1:14-15 says:

Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

One can imagine that on the evening just before the Jubilee would be ushered in (Jewish days start in the evening), there would be the sounding of the shofar throughout the land (Lev 25:9) and every slave, every debtor, everyone who had lost his land and become dispossessed, would have leapt for joy upon hearing the sound of the shofar that starts in Jerusalem and is then echoed and relayed throughout the land of Israel. There would be people who may not have been aware of their Jubilee liberty, and would have had to rely on someone to announce to them the good news as heralds ran from village to village. Jesus was that herald, as well as the fulfilment of the promise. His message was the good news of emancipation, of restoration, and of the establishment of a new era of God’s rulership over the world. This was the gospel of the kingdom of God and the kingdom encompasses every aspect of life, as well as the afterlife, but it was not just about going to heaven.

The writer of Matthew must have understood the imminent advent of this kingdom. As soon as the news gets to everyone who needed to hear it, God’s day of judgement would come. In Mt 24:14, he wrote:

And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.

It was clear that the disciples of Jesus believed that the day of the Lord was imminent and “at hand.” This was why they asked what they did in Acts 1:6:

Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”

That was the capping of the good news. Today, we see that this period had lasted longer than anyone had anticipated and that may have been why Jesus did not answer the direct question that was posed to him. It does, however, help us understand what “good news” meant for Jesus and his disciples.

Paul’s gospel

Once we move past Jesus, we discover that Paul’s usage of the “gospel” is somewhat different. Nowhere in his writings does he ever mention the “gospel of the kingdom”. Rather, Paul preached a “gospel of the grace of God”. In his own words in Acts 20:24:

But none of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.

In several other places, he calls his message the “gospel of Christ” (Rom 1:16, 15:29, 1Cor 9:12,18, 2Cor 2:12, 9:13, 10:14, Phil 1:27, 1Thes 3:2, 2Thes 1:8). Elsewhere he seems to suggest that this gospel which he often referred to as “my gospel” was somehow distinctly for the Gentiles. In Gal 2:7 Paul compares his gospel to that of Peter’s:

But on the contrary, when they saw that the gospel for the uncircumcised had been committed to me, as the gospel for the circumcised was to Peter.

Paul’s gospel focused on salvation for gentiles (Eph 1:13, Rom 1:16), and specifically salvation by faith (Rom 1:17) without the need of conforming to the traditional requirements of the Law (Col 2:14). This involved, primarily, a belief and confession in Jesus Christ (Act 16:31, Rom 10:9) and that salvation comes as a result of God’s grace (Tit 2:11)

This version of “gospel” is the one that is most theologically prevalent in evangelical circles today, but it isn’t the only “gospel” in the bible nor is it even the primary one. I would like to think of this as a subset of the gospel of the kingdom, and one that focuses more on gentile adoption into the plan of God and on salvation specifically. For Paul, the cross represented an “offense”, particularly to the Jews, and is the power that granted to Gentiles access to God for reconciliation (Col 1:20), and salvation as a consequence.

James, the first leader of the Jerusalem church and the brother of Jesus, espoused a gospel that is much more in line with Jesus’ teachings. He does not mention the cross nor utilized it in the way Paul did. For James, the hope of the believer is in the faithfulness of God with the idea that if we keep our part of the covenant, God will surely keep His part which includes our deliverance and salvation. This encompassed more than just a belief, but required obedience as the evidence of that faith (Jas 2:18-24). This also happens to be the direction the Didache taught, that the way of life being found in obeying God’s commands, particularly that of loving God and our neighbours (Did 1).

Summary

In summary, we see that the word “gospel” (good news, glad tidings) isn’t always used int the same way throughout the bible. We also see that much of the evangelical understanding of the gospel tends to be more Pauline than the “gospel of the kingdom” that Jesus himself preached. For Paul, the “cross” symbolizes his theology of justification by faith, which he considers an offense to the Jews (possibly including James.)

The Six Days of Creation

A translation and commentary of Genesis 1

Gen 1:1-2 (Day One)

בְּרֵאשִׁ֖ית בָּרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֑ים אֵ֥ת הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְאֵ֥ת הָאָֽרֶץ
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

וְהָאָ֗רֶץ הָיְתָ֥ה תֹ֨הוּ֙ וָבֹ֔הוּ וְחֹ֖שֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵ֣י תְה֑וֹם וְר֣וּחַ אֱלֹהִ֔ים מְרַחֶ֖פֶת עַל־פְּנֵ֥י הַמָּֽיִם
And the earth was empty and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters.

In the eyes of the ancient peoples, the broadest encompassing categories were the heavens and the earth. Everything we know is contained within these categories. At this time, however, the expanse of heaven and earth were like a blank canvas as nothing else had been formed. Some translations like to use “formless” (NASB, NKJB) instead of “empty” (which is how this word is often translated elsewhere in the bible, eg. 1Sam 12:21, Isa 29:21) and the idea is that things were in a pre-creation or pre-ordered state.

The basic material of this world, however, included waters – deep waters that seemed to have been considered a part of the primeval universe. The word used for this “deep” comes from the Hebrew “tehom”, which is a cognate for the Akkadian word “tiamat” found in the Babylonian creation story, the Enuma Elish (1900-1600BC) which predates the time of Moses (ca.1400BC). The first few lines of the tablet reads as follows:-

At a time when even the glories above had yet to be named, And unuttered was the word for the world which lay beneath It was then that the first being, Apsu, who was their source, And the progenitor Tiamat, the mother who gave birth to all, Intermingled their waters, producing neither field nor marsh At a time when no divine beings had yet come into existence, There were no names to be spoken, and no fates pronounced, But the gods were given birth within those intermixing waves.

In the Enuma Elish, “tiamat” was this primordial chaos that was depicted as a tumultous sea, as well as the “mother” of the gods. The Genesis narrative puts God (Elohim) well over the apex of the Babylonian pantheon.

Going back to Gen 1:2, the fact that the water had a “face” upon which the Spirit hovered seems to suggest something like an ocean. There was also the “heavens” and the “earth”, but it is not very clear how the water fits into the other two at this point. Today, our cosmic world-view consists of a round planet earth and waters that cover parts of the surface of the planet. The ancients, however, saw the cosmos differently. For them, earth was flat and everything above the flat earth was the heavens. Around the flat earth, however, and possibly in the heavens as well, was huge amounts of water. It is possible that the “land” at this stage was viewed as being submerged in the waters.

God was already present, obviously, and the “spirit of God”, being the active agent by which God performs His will, was “fluttering” above the surface of the water since there was no dry land to stand on yet. This as, therefore, the ripe stage for creation – God, through His spirit, fluttering like a bird over the primeval ocean that covered the earth, and the heavens above.

Gen 1:3-5

וַיֹּ֥אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֖ים יְהִ֣י א֑וֹר וַֽיְהִי־אֽוֹר
And God said, “Let there be light” and light was.

וַיַּ֧רְא אֱלֹהִ֛ים אֶת־הָא֖וֹר כִּי־ט֑וֹב וַיַּבְדֵּ֣ל אֱלֹהִ֔ים בֵּ֥ין הָא֖וֹר וּבֵ֥ין הַחֹֽשֶׁךְ
And God saw the light, for (it was) good, and God separated between the light and between the darkness.

וַיִּקְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים ׀ לָאוֹר֙ י֔וֹם וְלַחֹ֖שֶׁךְ קָ֣רָא לָ֑יְלָה וַֽיְהִי־עֶ֥רֶב וַֽיְהִי־בֹ֖קֶר י֥וֹם אֶחָֽד
And God called the light “day” and the darkness he called “night.”. And it was evening, and it was morning. Day one.

The very first thing that God ordered out of the darkness was “light”. No mechanics were given. Light came into being simply at the expressed will of God, without effort. The previously dark heavens and earth were now bathed in light. The sky was no longer black as before, but blue, even if the sun had not yet been created. It was naturally the first thing to be ordered since without light, everything else would remain hidden in darkness. There was a logical precedence that called for light to be “created” first. Darkness, however, was uncreated. It was the beginning state and was defined by the absence of light and generally represented the absence not just of light, but of order.

The ancient writer did not yet have the concept of a heliocentric galaxy or how the days and nights were the result of earth rotating on its axis. To them, the sun existed for the day, and the moon for the night. While it should be apparent that the sun brought light, it was not the only source of light and light, as such, could exist apart from the sun (such as from the moon and the stars). The light of day, was not yet connected to the cosmic role of the sun. God calls the light “day”, although in reality it wasn’t “light” that God called day, but the time when the earth was lit. Conversely, when the light was absent, the time was called “night.” This was being written from the perspective of someone on earth, experiencing the progression from day to night and from night to day. This was not being written from a scientific heavenly or cosmic perspective, where the notion of day and night would be irrelevant.

The day came to a natural end when darkness set upon the land and all activity ground to a halt. This also marked the beginning of the next day. The full cycle of night to day and back to the end of day was considered a “day”, even if sunlight only illuminated a part of the day. In this sense “day” is actually a measure of time, and not just the state of being in sunlight.

Gen 1:6-8 (Day Two)

וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֔ים יְהִ֥י רָקִ֖יעַ בְּת֣וֹךְ הַמָּ֑יִם וִיהִ֣י מַבְדִּ֔יל בֵּ֥ין מַ֖יִם לָמָֽיִם
And God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters,” and there was a division between water and water.

וַיַּ֣עַשׂ אֱלֹהִים֮ אֶת־הָרָקִיעַ֒ וַיַּבְדֵּ֗ל בֵּ֤ין הַמַּ֙יִם֙ אֲשֶׁר֙ מִתַּ֣חַת לָרָקִ֔יעַ וּבֵ֣ין הַמַּ֔יִם אֲשֶׁ֖ר מֵעַ֣ל לָרָקִ֑יעַ וַֽיְהִי־כֵֽן
And God made the firmament and divided between the waters which was below the firmament and between the waters which was above the firmament, and it was so.

יִּקְרָ֧א אֱלֹהִ֛ים לָֽרָקִ֖יעַ שָׁמָ֑יִם וַֽיְהִי־עֶ֥רֶב וַֽיְהִי־בֹ֖קֶר י֥וֹם שֵׁנִֽי
God called the firmament “heavens”, and it was evening and it was morning of day two.

So what exactly was a “firmament”? In the ancient world-view, there was a dome or an arc that stretched over and covered all of the earth. This was what appeared to people as the sky and it was on this sky that the heavenly bodies transited. The notion of an infinite universe that was deeply three-dimensional was not yet understood and this sky was almost like a two-dimensional canvas. Sometimes, portals or gates would open up in this come and water would pour through, and come down on earth as rain. It must mean, therefore, that there was a massive source of water up beyond the visible sky that was responsible for rains and floods. This is why we see in Gen 7:11, 8:2 the mention of “windows of heaven” which open and close, giving rise to the phenomenon of rain and floods. From that primeval water of Gen 1:2, it has to somehow be divided into the waters above and the waters on earth (and under the earth.)

[Kyle Greenwood, “Scripture and Cosmology: Reading the Bible Between the Ancient World and Modern Science”]

The writer of Genesis was actually describing how the world, as he understood it, came about. It was working back from how he saw things to the beginning, rather than as a first principles approach to cosmogony. Interestingly, for this day, there was no “good” commendation given. Some would consider Gen 1:9-10 events of day two, and thus the “good” commendation can be found there.


Gen 1:9-10 (Day Three*)

וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֗ים יִקָּו֨וּ הַמַּ֜יִם מִתַּ֤חַת הַשָּׁמַ֙יִם֙ אֶל־מָק֣וֹם אֶחָ֔ד וְתֵרָאֶ֖ה הַיַּבָּשָׁ֑ה וַֽיְהִי־כֵֽן
And God said, “Gather the waters from under the heavens to a one place, and let dry ground appear,” and it was so.

וַיִּקְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים ׀ לַיַּבָּשָׁה֙ אֶ֔רֶץ וּלְמִקְוֵ֥ה הַמַּ֖יִם קָרָ֣א יַמִּ֑ים וַיַּ֥רְא אֱלֹהִ֖ים כִּי־טֽוֹב
And God called the dry ground “land” and the gathered waters He called “seas”, and God saw that it was good.

The counterpart to the heavens created in day two was now being ordered in day three. The waters below the firmament must have originally covered everything (thus requiring the Spirit of God to hover over the surface) was now collected in places, revealing (soon to be) dry land. They have experienced enough floods to understand that waters can recede to let land appear. Under the heavens, we now have the juxtaposition of land with the seas. Once again, these were very basic features and categories in an ancient person’s view of the world.

*Some consider this part of day two so the next section begins day three.

Gen 1:11-13

וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֗ים תַּֽדְשֵׁ֤א הָאָ֙רֶץ֙ דֶּ֔שֶׁא עֵ֚שֶׂב מַזְרִ֣יעַ זֶ֔רַע עֵ֣ץ פְּרִ֞י עֹ֤שֶׂה פְּרִי֙ לְמִינ֔וֹ אֲשֶׁ֥ר זַרְעוֹ־ב֖וֹ עַל־הָאָ֑רֶץ וַֽיְהִי־כֵֽן
And God said, “Let sprout on the land, grass, herb that bears seed, fruit tree(s) that bears fruit of its kind, whose seed is in it, on the land.,” and it was so.

וַתּוֹצֵ֨א הָאָ֜רֶץ דֶּ֠שֶׁא עֵ֣שֶׂב מַזְרִ֤יעַ זֶ֙רַע֙ לְמִינֵ֔הוּ וְעֵ֧ץ עֹֽשֶׂה־פְּרִ֛י אֲשֶׁ֥ר זַרְעוֹ־ב֖וֹ לְמִינֵ֑הוּ וַיַּ֥רְא אֱלֹהִ֖ים כִּי־טֽוֹב
And the earth brought forth grass, herb that bears seed according to its kind, and tree(s) that make fruit whose seed is in it according to its own kind, and God saw that it was good.

וַֽיְהִי־עֶ֥רֶב וַֽיְהִי־בֹ֖קֶר י֥וֹם שְׁלִישִֽׁי
And it was evening and it was morning. Day three.

This was a long day. After the land had appeared out of the waters, it could not be left barren. Vegetation was seen as part and parcel of what makes the land up, and so it belonged together with the “creation” of land. It was well understood that seeds were basic to continued production of herbs and trees, seeing as the ancients had been in agrarian cultures. Of course, in our scientific world-view, we are aware that plants also depend on water and light, and carbon-dioxide, and a host of other things for survival. The writer was not trying to supply the mechanics of plant growth as much as he was making a statement about how God must have created the world as he observed it. Keep in mind that at this point, the sun had not yet been created if we are to follow the sequence of Genesis, and yet each day was already punctuated by evenings and mornings, further underscoring that this was not written as history, but theology.

Gen 1:14-19 (Day Four)

וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֗ים יְהִ֤י מְאֹרֹת֙ בִּרְקִ֣יעַ הַשָּׁמַ֔יִם לְהַבְדִּ֕יל בֵּ֥ין הַיּ֖וֹם וּבֵ֣ין הַלָּ֑יְלָה וְהָי֤וּ לְאֹתֹת֙ וּלְמ֣וֹעֲדִ֔ים וּלְיָמִ֖ים וְשָׁנִֽים
And God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide between the day between the night, and let there be for signs and for appointed times and for days and years.

וְהָי֤וּ לִמְאוֹרֹת֙ בִּרְקִ֣יעַ הַשָּׁמַ֔יִם לְהָאִ֖יר עַל־הָאָ֑רֶץ וַֽיְהִי־כֵֽן
And let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens for light on the land.”

וַיַּ֣עַשׂ אֱלֹהִ֔ים אֶת־שְׁנֵ֥י הַמְּאֹרֹ֖ת הַגְּדֹלִ֑ים אֶת־הַמָּא֤וֹר הַגָּדֹל֙ לְמֶמְשֶׁ֣לֶת הַיּ֔וֹם וְאֶת־הַמָּא֤וֹר הַקָּטֹן֙ לְמֶמְשֶׁ֣לֶת הַלַּ֔יְלָה וְאֵ֖ת הַכּוֹכָבִֽים
And God made the two great lights. The great light to rule the day and the little light to rule the night and the stars.

וַיִּתֵּ֥ן אֹתָ֛ם אֱלֹהִ֖ים בִּרְקִ֣יעַ הַשָּׁמָ֑יִם לְהָאִ֖יר עַל־הָאָֽרֶץ
And God gave them in the firmament of the heavens to light the land.

וְלִמְשֹׁל֙ בַּיּ֣וֹם וּבַלַּ֔יְלָה וּֽלֲהַבְדִּ֔יל בֵּ֥ין הָא֖וֹר וּבֵ֣ין הַחֹ֑שֶׁךְ וַיַּ֥רְא אֱלֹהִ֖ים כִּי־טֽוֹב
And to rule in the day and in the night and to divide between the light and between the darkness, and God saw that it was good.

The two great lights were the sun and the moon, as was obvious to any person who wasn’t blind. These have actual Hebrew names – “shemesh” for sun, and “yareach” for moon – but neither of these proper nouns were used. What could have been the reason for this? “Shamash”, as it turns out, was also the name of the Mesopotamian sun god (and god of justice). It is possible that the more oblique language of “greater light” and “little light” was used to avoid the mention of these names because they were worshipped as gods in ancient times. Perhaps the writer was keen to present a monotheistic creation narrative, in which there was one god responsible for everything.

The sun and the moon served not only as light sources, but also play important calendrical functions. The word “moedim” in this verse is usually translated as seasons, possibly because the translators were thinking of the seasons of a year. The word itself, however, is almost always used in reference to appointed times of meeting and feasts of the Lord and translated as such. Here the writer, I believe, was anticipating the calendrical function of the moon, in particular, which was the basis for their lunar calendar. This explains the specific mention that they were for “signs”, as in the sign of a new month, or the sign of the beginning of a feast. This is a connection that appears many times in the rest of the Old Testament (eg. Dt 16:1, Ps 81:3).

Just as the waters under the firmament had to be divided again into land and seas, the lights in the firmament were further divided, into the sun for the day, and moon and stars for the night. In ancient times, these celestial bodies were often associated with deities and angels.

Gen 1:20-23 (Day Five)

וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֔ים יִשְׁרְצ֣וּ הַמַּ֔יִם שֶׁ֖רֶץ נֶ֣פֶשׁ חַיָּ֑ה וְעוֹף֙ יְעוֹפֵ֣ף עַל־הָאָ֔רֶץ עַל־פְּנֵ֖י רְקִ֥יעַ הַשָּׁמָֽיִם
And God said, “Let there abound in the seas an abundance of living soul(s), and flying birds over the land on the face of the firmament of the heavens.”

וַיִּבְרָ֣א אֱלֹהִ֔ים אֶת־הַתַּנִּינִ֖ם הַגְּדֹלִ֑ים וְאֵ֣ת כָּל־נֶ֣פֶשׁ הַֽחַיָּ֣ה ׀ הָֽרֹמֶ֡שֶׂת אֲשֶׁר֩ שָׁרְצ֨וּ הַמַּ֜יִם לְמִֽינֵהֶ֗ם וְאֵ֨ת כָּל־ע֤וֹף כָּנָף֙ לְמִינֵ֔הוּ וַיַּ֥רְא אֱלֹהִ֖ים כִּי־טֽוֹב
And God created the great sea-monsters and every living soul that moves which swarms the waters according to their kind, and all the winged birds according to their kind, and God saw that it was good.

וַיְבָ֧רֶךְ אֹתָ֛ם אֱלֹהִ֖ים לֵאמֹ֑ר פְּר֣וּ וּרְב֗וּ וּמִלְא֤וּ אֶת־הַמַּ֙יִם֙ בַּיַּמִּ֔ים וְהָע֖וֹף יִ֥רֶב בָּאָֽרֶץ
And God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and be great and fill the waters in the seas, and let the bird(s) be many in the land.

וַֽיְהִי־עֶ֥רֶב וַֽיְהִי־בֹ֖קֶר י֥וֹם חֲמִישִֽׁי
And it was evening, and morning. Day five.

Where most bible versions translate the word “nephesh” here as “living creatures”, it is usually translated as “souls”, which can be used to mean living beings. It is interesting that animals were referred to as souls, and I think this goes back to the ancient notion of life as anything that breathes, whether it be humans or animals. When someone dies, the breathing stops and the soul leaves. Special mention was made about some “great sea-monsters” or “tanninim” which features in Ugaritic myths as a sea-monster that serves Yam, the god of the sea. It is unclear what this actually referred to for the writer of Genesis but it could be any of the great sea creatures that is seen to dominate the seas and rivers (Eze 29:3, Isa 27:1). It is there, I think, to represent the creatures of the sea in the same way that birds came to represent the creatures with wings.

[“Context of Scripture”, Ugaritic Myths, The Ba’lu Myth, CTA3, Anatu’s Response]

For the first time, God specifically blessed these souls, both in the sea and in the air, thus according them a status beyond that of vegetation. Not only that, they were given the command to multiply and to fill the earth. We notice the language of “abundance” and “fruitfulness” as being part of what God considers “good” and connected to blessings.

Gen 1:24-25 (Day Six)

וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֗ים תּוֹצֵ֨א הָאָ֜רֶץ נֶ֤פֶשׁ חַיָּה֙ לְמִינָ֔הּ בְּהֵמָ֥ה וָרֶ֛מֶשׂ וְחַֽיְתוֹ־אֶ֖רֶץ לְמִינָ֑הּ וַֽיְהִי־כֵֽן
And God said, “Let the land bring forth living soul(s) according to its kind, beast(s) and moving things and living things of the land according to its own kind,” and it was so.

וַיַּ֣עַשׂ אֱלֹהִים֩ אֶת־חַיַּ֨ת הָאָ֜רֶץ לְמִינָ֗הּ וְאֶת־הַבְּהֵמָה֙ לְמִינָ֔הּ וְאֵ֛ת כָּל־רֶ֥מֶשׂ הָֽאֲדָמָ֖ה לְמִינֵ֑הוּ וַיַּ֥רְא אֱלֹהִ֖ים כִּי־טֽוֹב
And God made the animals of the land according to its kind and the beasts according to its kind and all moving things of the earth according to its kind, and God say that it was good.

Animals are more generic whereas beasts (or cattle in some cases) are more specific types of animals. These were clearly not conceived of as comprehensive categories, but observational categories, and would therefore have potential overlap. They were what the ancient readers would normally see in the world around them.

Gen 1:26-31

וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֔ים נַֽעֲשֶׂ֥ה אָדָ֛ם בְּצַלְמֵ֖נוּ כִּדְמוּתֵ֑נוּ וְיִרְדּוּ֩ בִדְגַ֨ת הַיָּ֜ם וּבְע֣וֹף הַשָּׁמַ֗יִם וּבַבְּהֵמָה֙ וּבְכָל־הָאָ֔רֶץ וּבְכָל־הָרֶ֖מֶשׂ הָֽרֹמֵ֥שׂ עַל־הָאָֽרֶץ
And God said, “Let us make man in our image according to our likeness, and let him dominate the fish of the sea, and the birds of the heavens, and the beasts, and in all the land and over all moving things that moves over all the land.”

וַיִּבְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים ׀ אֶת־הָֽאָדָם֙ בְּצַלְמ֔וֹ בְּצֶ֥לֶם אֱלֹהִ֖ים בָּרָ֣א אֹת֑וֹ זָכָ֥ר וּנְקֵבָ֖ה בָּרָ֥א אֹתָֽם
And God created the man in His image, in the image of God He created him. Male and female He created them.

וַיְבָ֣רֶךְ אֹתָם֮ אֱלֹהִים֒ וַיֹּ֨אמֶר לָהֶ֜ם אֱלֹהִ֗ים פְּר֥וּ וּרְב֛וּ וּמִלְא֥וּ אֶת־הָאָ֖רֶץ וְכִבְשֻׁ֑הָ וּרְד֞וּ בִּדְגַ֤ת הַיָּם֙ וּבְע֣וֹף הַשָּׁמַ֔יִם וּבְכָל־חַיָּ֖ה הָֽרֹמֶ֥שֶׂת עַל־הָאָֽרֶץ
And God blessed them and God said to them, “Be fruitful and be great (many) and fill the land and subdue it, and dominate the fish of the sea and the bird(s) of the heavens and all the animals that moves on the land.

וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֗ים הִנֵּה֩ נָתַ֨תִּי לָכֶ֜ם אֶת־כָּל־עֵ֣שֶׂב ׀ זֹרֵ֣עַ זֶ֗רַע אֲשֶׁר֙ עַל־פְּנֵ֣י כָל־הָאָ֔רֶץ וְאֶת־כָּל־הָעֵ֛ץ אֲשֶׁר־בּ֥וֹ פְרִי־עֵ֖ץ זֹרֵ֣עַ זָ֑רַע לָכֶ֥ם יִֽהְיֶ֖ה לְאָכְלָֽה
And God said, “Behold, I give to you-all all the herbs that bears seeds which is on the face of all the land, and all the tree(s) which is in it, fruit bearing tree(s) that bears seeds, to you-all it shall be for food.”

וּֽלְכָל־חַיַּ֣ת הָ֠אָרֶץ וּלְכָל־ע֨וֹף הַשָּׁמַ֜יִם וּלְכֹ֣ל ׀ רוֹמֵ֣שׂ עַל־הָאָ֗רֶץ אֲשֶׁר־בּוֹ֙ נֶ֣פֶשׁ חַיָּ֔ה אֶת־כָּל־יֶ֥רֶק עֵ֖שֶׂב לְאָכְלָ֑ה וַֽיְהִי־כֵֽן
And to all the animals of the land and to all the bird(s) of the heavens and to all the moving things on the land which has a living soul in it, all green herbs for food, and it was so.

וַיַּ֤רְא אֱלֹהִים֙ אֶת־כָּל־אֲשֶׁ֣ר עָשָׂ֔ה וְהִנֵּה־ט֖וֹב מְאֹ֑ד וַֽיְהִי־עֶ֥רֶב וַֽיְהִי־בֹ֖קֶר י֥וֹם הַשִּׁשִּֽׁי
And God saw all that He had made, and behold it was very good, and it was evening and it was morning. Day six.

We now come to the climax of the creation narrative, climbing up in status from vegetation to fish and birds, to animals and finally to man. There are many interesting things about these verses. For one, in Gen 1:26 God spoke in the plural, “in our image.” Some have called this a “majestic plural” meaning that it was a way to show the greatness of God by using the plural instead of the singular. On the other hand, in the next verse, with “in His image” the singular was used. Others have suggested that the plural here referred to the divine council that served with God. In any case, it is an interesting detail. What is clear, though, is that man sat on top of the hierarchy, and was given clear dominion over the other living things of the earth. The language of dominion may not sit well with modern day environmentalists but it is what the bible uses.

[Michael S. Heiser, “The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible”]

Man was uniquely made in the pattern or likeness of God. Male and female they were created, suggesting that this was a separate narrative from the Gen 2 narrative of Eden. The progression here is less chronological or sequential, as it is in terms of significance and ranking. This is another reason to think that the order of creation presented here is not meant to be taken literally or historically, but theologically.

Note that here, God gave man the rulership over all living things, but in Gen 1:29, He gave them only the plants for food. Likewise, in Gen 1:30, He gave the animals only plants for food. This would make sense especially for an agrarian culture. If taken literally, we would all be vegans or vegetarians! Like any good ruler, the responsibility and care for the welfare of the ruled is implied so care and stewardship is part of this dominion.

On this final day of creation, God pronounced the “good” verdict twice. First was in Gen 1:25 at the conclusion of the creation of the animals, and then again after the creation of man. God did not bless the animals as he did the fish and the birds earlier, but He blessed man with the same mandate to be fruitful and multiply. One could make the case that blessings, in this context, had to do with fruitfulness.

Observations

The categories of creation over the six-days are:-

  1. Darkness and deep waters
  2. Heavens and the earth
  3. Light
  4. Firmament. Division of waters above and below
  5. Dry land and seas
  6. Sun and moon, and stars
  7. Fish and birds
  8. Animals
  9. Men and women

It seems to me that this was less of a chronological order of creation and more an order of importance of categories within creation, with humans being the most important within this hierarchy. Even from a scientific point of view, if one were to take this order literally, it would mean that earth would be created before light was created. It would mean that waters were not created and were only divided. It would mean that evenings and mornings existed without the sun being first created. Then we have the problem with the “firmament” which simply does not have an equivalent within the modern scientific categories. Some people try to relate this to “atmosphere” but there is nothing in the language or context that suggests that it is anything other than a part of the ancient world-view that has no place within modern cosmology. There is also so much missing from this sequence, even if one were to take it only as the sequence of the creation of earth itself and not of the universe.

Others have pointed out the correspondence between days 1-3 and days 4-6 a follows:-

[Greenwood, Kyle. Scripture and Cosmology (p. 106). InterVarsity Press.]

Here we see the poetic structure of Genesis 1 as a juxtaposition of form and purpose. God first brings order out of disorder, and creates the “container” forms, and then fills them up. This further points the passage away from chronological history towards theological narrative.

The main message of Gen 1 seems to be:-

  1. There is only one true God in all of creation
  2. Everything else is created by God
  3. Man has a special place in creation, indicated by the fact that he was created in God’s image, and the rank he occupies in the hierarchy of creation
  4. Man is given a mandate to rule
  5. Man is blessed so that he might be fruitful
  6. Creation was made for man
  7. Man owes everything to God, and should rightly serve God
  8. Order and function/roles are good. Disorder is bad

The creation hymn is clearly theological in design. If it happens to coincide with some theories of the creation of the physical world, all the better. The writer, here, does not seem to be concerned with chronology or science, but with theology.

There are, nevertheless, proponents for a literal reading of Gen 1. These are typically Creationists who take the narrative as literal history, and even scientifically accurate documentary. I looked at some of the evidence they put forward to argue for this but have found that much of it is speculative and circumstantial.

[https://answersingenesis.org/genesis/did-bible-authors-believe-in-a-literal-genesis/
https://www.gci.org/articles/genesis-1-are-the-six-days-of-creation-literal-or-figurative/
]

It seems appropriate to end with the words of J. I. Packer, a well renowned scholar and thinker, written in response to “The Chicago Statement on Biblical Hermeneutics”:-

What the Bible says about the facts of nature is as true and trustworthy as anything else it says. However, it speaks of natural phenomena as they are spoken of in ordinary language, not in the explanatory technical terms of modern science. It accounts for natural events in terms of the action of God, not in terms of causal links within the created order; and it oflen describes natural processes figuratively and poetically, not analytically and prosaically as modern science seeks to do. This being so, differences of opinion as to the correct scientific account to give of natural facts and events which Scripture celebrates can hardly be avoided

It should be remembered, however, that Scripture was given to reveal God, not to address scientific issues in scientific terms, and that, as it does not use the language of modern science, so it does not require scientific knowledge about the internal processes of God’s creation for the understanding of its essential message about God and ourselves. Scripture interprets scientific knowledge by relating it to the revealed purpose and work of God, thus establishing an ultimate context for the study and reform of scientific ideas. It is not for scientific theories to dictate what Scripture may and may not say, although extra-biblical information will sometimes helpfully expose a misinterpretation of Scripture.

[https://library.dts.edu/Pages/TL/Special/ICBI_2.pdf]

The Lord’s Prayer (Matt 6:9-13)

The Lord’s Prayer holds a special place for many Christians throughout the history of the church. It was, after all, the prayer that the Lord himself taught his disciples to pray, but what exactly made this prayer special? Some Christians have felt that the use of “our father” to address God made this prayer more personal and intimate than usual, but this suggestion, popularised by Dr. Joachim Jeremias in 1962, was actually unfounded. Jews frequently addressed God as “father” and even “my father” (we have many examples from prayers of that period), so while the language may endear the prayer to some Christians, it certainly was not the reason this prayer was different from other prayers.

Yet others point to the precedence of God’s kingdom before personal needs, or the selection of items included in the prayer, but none of these explanations seem particularly compelling given that these items were certainly not unique amongst Jewish prayers of the day. One such prayer that dates back to possibly as far as 150BCE is known as the Eighteen Benedictions. In the extant versions of this prayer (excerpted below), we find that it contains much of what is also found in the Lord’s Prayer.

P3 – You are holy and revered is your name …
B14 – Upon Jerusalem your city, return in compassion and build her soon in our days …
P16 – May it be your will, Lord our God, to dwell in ZIon …
P9 – Bless to us, Lord our God, this year to our benefit with all kinds of produce …
P6 – Forgive us our Father for we have sinned against you …
P8 – Heal us, our God, from heaviness of our heart and grief and remove sighing from us …

(Pxx refers to the Palestinian Geniza. Bxx refers to the Babylonian version.)

It is not difficult to see the common themes shared with the Lord’s Prayer and if so, they were certainly not unique to the Lord’s Prayer in any way. So what was the point of the Lord’s Prayer if not the presumed intimacy with God, nor the specific contents of the prayer? Perhaps the answer is a lot more mundane than many of us imagine, and more obvious.

Unlike the Eighteen Benedictions, which was a pretty wordy and lengthy prayer punctuated by many liturgical blessings, the Lord’s Prayer was incredibly brief and simple by comparison – occupying a scant four-verses in Matthew’s version and three in Luke’s. In fact, it was so short that it sounded unimpressive – and that, perhaps, was what made it unique – it’s brevity. This brevity, one would argue, was intentional, given Jesus’ preface to the prayer (Matt 6:5-8):-

And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.

Jesus’ points for the prayer that followed was:-

  • not to emulate the flowery prayers of the religious establishment
  • not to pray to impress
  • not to pray in public
  • not to be repetitive
  • not to over-elaborate for God already knows our needs
  • that these things have no traction with God

In Luke’s preface, we see a similar context where Jesus’ disciples wanted a distinctive prayer that would set them aside as his disciples (Luke 11:1):-

Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”

It wasn’t as if Jesus had not been praying with his disciples. He had. What triggered the request was the desire to have a distinctive prayer that would identify them – a prayer that served a public identification purpose. Luke follows the Lord’s Prayer with Jesus teaching on how much more willing God, who was unlike ordinary people, was to answer His children’s prayers (Luke 11:13):-

If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

Interestingly, the scope of the request is narrowed down to the Holy Spirit here.

It is unsurprising, then, that the Lord’s Prayer took the form it did. It wasn’t novel, nor impressive with flowery language. It was brief, to the point and devoid of liturgical repetitiveness. It also reflected an attitude of complete dependence on God to answer the prayer, as opposed to reliance on the human element of prayer. I must say that growing up as a Christian, it was very rare to hear anyone teach that our prayers should be brief, private, and to the point. Rather, we have lionised “prayer warriors” who specialised in praying a lot. The quantity of prayer, whether it be measured in the length of time or the number of people involved, is assumed to have great impact on the efficacy of the prayer, at least around the parts where I come from. At the very least, they seem very impressive to Christians.

This stands in stark contrast to the ostensible purpose of the Lord’s Prayer. More than that, we place the “power of prayer” in the hands of the supplicant (the person praying). It is almost as if the supplicant could move the hand of God by his/her sheer will and determination, and is perhaps what gives rise to sayings such as “there is power in prayer.” With the Lord’s Prayer, the power rests squarely on God and not in the supplicant. There is no power, as such, in prayer. I can totally understand the appeal of the “power” thinking since it gives us an illusion of control in what is otherwise total surrender to the will of God.

At this point, there will, no doubt, be those who will cite Luke 18 with the parable of the unjust judge. My answer is that most people seem to fail to recognize irony in the narrative. Much like Luke 11:13, the point of the parable is that God is NOT like the unjust judge who would need such harassing. He is NOT like that sleepy neighbour who was reluctant to get out of bed, and as a consequence, He does NOT need us to attempt to wear Him down with lengthy prayers. Rather, He is a God who sees our desperation and responds accordingly, to His will.

I think this points to some hermeneutical mistakes that are commonly made when treating the subject of prayer in the gospels. Contemporary Christian culture seems to value long, repetitive prayers, preferably made by a lot of Christians in impressive manners. Our practice of prayer seems more engineered to inspire a sense of confidence in the supplicants rather than to follow the biblical model. Success with a certain form of prayer (eg. overnight prayer meetings, prayer mountains, etc.) invariably generates a following of those who are convinced of using that form. Form, rather than essence, appears to be our fixation when it comes to prayer.

We also seem to view God as a reluctant or sleepy neighbour who needs to be roused from bed by our incessant petitions. Lastly, our theology of prayer places the “power” in our hands – in our ability to move this reluctant God, thus making heroes out of “prayer warriors”. This stands in contrast to what Jesus taught about prayer – that God was attentive to our needs, and is far more willing than any earthly counterpart to hear our prayers. For that reason, we need to keep our verbal prayers brief, and to the point. God is unimpressed with our liturgical prowess, or how long we can organise a prayer chain. If anything, God responds to our heart, and perhaps to the kind of relationship we have with Him.

Praying without ceasing (1Thess 5:17) has a lot more to do with an attitude of trusting God always, than with methods and rites.

Creating God in our own image

A Lenten reflection on the narcissism in contemporary worship

No sooner than Moses had instructed the children of Israel did they craft for themselves a golden calf to call their god. The idea itself seems preposterous as it flies against everything they had witnessed and experienced, but it reveals a prevailing problem with human nature – our desire to deify and worship our needs. The Israelites had some real needs as they faced an uncertain future and innumerable threats from both Egypt behind them, Canaan before them, and the harsh desert they found themselves in. In the midst of such dire circumstances, they had to choose between faith in a god they had not seen (except for smoke and clouds), or the fear that stands at the door of their hearts.

Understandably, their fear got the better of them and they decided that they had to have something more tangible and visceral to invest their hopes in – enter the golden calf. This was more than a particular pagan deity, it was an attempt to make God fit their expectations shaped by their pressing needs. Their need, however legitimate, was the dominant force in their religion. God was that great vending machine in the sky to which they would willingly insert whatever coins was required to ensure that their needs were met.

This same attitude seems to plague the modern church as our religious life continues to revolve around God as the meeter of our needs – be it of health or wealth, emotional or material. Like the children of Israel, our God is infinitely  malleable – shaped to meet whatever your crying need might be. If you are poor, He is the key to wealth and security. If you are lonely, He is your best friend and lover. If you are fearful, He is the perpetual affirmer of your value as a person. If you are rejected, He is the one who will always welcome you with open arms. If you are sick, He is your personal physician par excellence. God is anything and everything you need, or to be more precise, God will serve your every need.

Now, don’t get me wrong – we all have needs and God surely knows that. But a faith that revolves around a God whose primary value to us is a meeter of our needs is little more than a golden calf of sorts. It has been my observation that the church has focused greatly on God as the meeter of our needs, rather than God as the great I AM. When John Newton first penned the lyrics for “Amazing Grace”, the primary theme of the song was God’s grace in the face of our unworthiness and wretchedness. In the contemporary re-write of the song by Chris Tomlin (#14 on CCLI Top 40 of 2017), he added several verses that gave a very different take on the song. Instead of our unworthiness, the focus now became:-

MY chains are gone
I have been set free
the Lord has promised good TO ME
He will MY SHIELD AND PORTION be
God will be forever MINE

This is but an example of the narcissism that has swept through contemporary worship – a reflection of the church’s preoccupation with the meeting of our needs. Worship has shifted away from a pure focus on God as God, to a notion of God as a means for the meeting of my needs. We love God because of what He did, does, and will do for us. This is not to deny the fact that God has in fact saved us in doing for us what we could never do for ourselves on Calvary. It is to point out that we need to consider the question of how our relationship with God would be if He never did another thing for us.

Another Chris Tomlin song that’s been really popular is “Good Good Father” (#3 on CCLI Top 40 of 2017). I think that as a song, it touches many hearts because it speaks to a generation that seems starved of paternal approval and offers God as the answer to our need for fatherly acceptance. If we step back from that need, however, and look at what the song actually conveys, it’s about:-

tender whispers of love in the dead of night
You tell me you’re pleased (with me)
that I’m never alone
I’m loved by you – it’s who I am, who I am, who I am
Cause you know just what we need

Number 1 on the CCLI Top 40 charts for 2017 is currently “What A Beautiful Name” by Hillsongs. The song is ostensibly about the name of Jesus but right in the middle of the song, we find the verse that goes:-

You didn’t want heaven without us
So Jesus, You brought heaven down
My sin was great, Your love was greater
What could separate us now

That seems to suggest that God needed us and that was what prompted God’s salvific work. I really don’t want to get into what “brought heaven down” possibly means or try to answer “What could separate us now?” (clue: a lot). This, once again, tips the hat to the attitude that what is most important about God is what He does for us. It seems to elevate ourselves to a place of undue importance in the eyes of God, quite a different perspective from that of the Psalmist in Psa 22:6:-

But I am a worm, and no man;
A reproach of men, and despised by the people

I guess the question is, within this culture of elevated self-importance, are we as worshippers of God prepared to die to our needs and lay those aspirations at God’s discretion? Are we prepared to not be driven by our needs, and let God be God – the great I AM? Are we able to say “not my will, but yours be done”? Can we simply worship God because He is God and not because of some benefit that could result from it? In short, can we make worship not revolve around us, our needs or our feelings, and become more about God and who He is, about His glory?

Lent is the season that reminds us of self-denial, something contrary to the idea of self-fulfillment that under-girds the narcissism of much of contemporary worship (by which I don’t just mean songs of worship.) During this season, we are challenged to die to our own needs and desires and to turn our eyes onto Jesus who set the example of preferring the Father’s will over His own. This is the season to take a break from pandering to our need for emotional affirmation and sense of security, and to simply abandon our fate into the hands of God. True worship happens when we say to God, “I have this need, but You are so important that I am prepared to give up the fulfillment of my need.”

May Lent be a season of breaking free from the chains of self-fulfillment and need.

The Prince of Peace (Isa 9:6)

As Advent rolls around the corner, we will no doubt hear the many familiar verses and passages that have become associated with the season. One of the most prominent of these verses is Isa 9:6 which reads as follows:-

For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called
Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

This is pretty much the same translation we get with the NKJV, NASB, NIV and the ESV, with minor stylistic differences. The NET, NRSV and JPS, however, presents a slightly different translation. In this article I would like to look at what is behind these differences and you may be surprised to find that there is a lot more going on here, and the final translation of the verse may be something rather unexpected.

Let us begin where I tend to begin in this series, with the original Hebrew. The Hebrew bible has different versification and in this case, the equivalent verse is actually Isa 9:5, and here is the text.

כִּי־יֶ֣לֶד יֻלַּד־לָ֗נוּ בֵּ֚ן נִתַּן־לָ֔נוּ וַתְּהִ֥י הַמִּשְׂרָ֖ה עַל־שִׁכְמ֑וֹ וַיִּקְרָ֨א שְׁמ֜וֹ פֶּ֠לֶא יוֹעֵץ֙ אֵ֣ל גִּבּ֔וֹר אֲבִיעַ֖ד שַׂר־שָׁלֽוֹם

The translation and transliteration is as follows:-

ki_yeled       yulad_l’anu                        ben      nitan_l’anu
For_a-child has-been-born_to’you a-son has-been-given_to’you

v’tehi                  ha’misrah        al_shikhemo
and’it-will-be the’dominion on_his-shoulder

v’yiqra         shemo      pele yoetz                  el gibor
And’called his-name wonderful advisor mighty god

avi’ad                                     sar_shalom
my-father’everlasting  prince_of-peace

If we were to smooth out this translation, the first part would read something like this:-

For a child has been born to you, a son has been given to you, and the dominion will be on his shoulder.

The thing to notice here is that the words “yulad” (has been born) and “nitan” (has been given) in the Hebrew are in the perfect (completed) tense [or more familiarly, past-tense]. The common English translations (NKJV, NASB, NIV, ESV) obfuscates this with “is born” and “is given”, whereas the NET, NRSV and JPS actually translates this more accurately as “has been born” and “has been given”. This also means that the plain reading of this verse would present Isaiah as referring to something that has already happened, as opposed to a future referent. Who could he be referring to then, if not a future messiah?

The second part of the verse gets even more complicated because not only is “yiqra” (called) in the perfect tense (ie. completed and past) but it is what is known as a qal-verb (simple unaugmented form) which means that it is an active verb. Active verbs typically require a subject (the acting agent) and usually has an object (that which is acted upon). Since “yiqra” is an active verb in the perfect tense meaning “called”, then there must be a subject, and an object. Someone called someone else something. Okay, so now we look back at our sentence and we have to ask ourself who the subject of this sentence is? Who is doing the calling here? The object we know from the suffix of “shemo” (meaning: his-name) so we know that someone called his-name something. The “his” here refers to the “child” from the first part of the sentence. When a noun ends with an “o”, that’s usually a third person masculine singular referrent – “him” or “his” – and since “shem” means “name”, “shemo” means “his name”.

The mystery here is in the identity of the subject or agent – who is doing the calling? Before we get into that, it is worth pointing out that the English translations completely alters the original meaning and translates “yiqra” passively into “he will be called”. What was originally a perfect active verb became an imperfect passive verb. Once again, NET, NRSV and the JPS gets this more right than the NKJV, NASB, NIV and ESV. The JPS Isa 9:6 reads:-

He has been named “The Mighty God is planning grace, The Eternal Father, a peaceable ruler”

At least they got the tense correct but even here, it translates the verb passively and avoids the problem of requiring a subject or agent for the verb. One clue to how to resolve this mystery comes from the Targum, the Jewish oral tradition and commentary of the bible. In it, it gives the translation of Isa 9:5b as:-

And his name has been called from before the One Who Causes Wonderful Counsel, God the Warrior, the Eternally Existing One, “The Messiah who will increase peace upon us in his days.”

Here you see that they have made the first three of the four titles the subject or agent, and the last title the name. In other words:-

And the wonderful Counsellor and mighty God, our(my) everlasting Father, has called him the Prince of Peace.

This construction and translation is legitimate because, for example, we find a similarly structured verse in Gen 3:20a:-

וַיִּקְרָ֧א הָֽאָדָ֛ם שֵׁ֥ם אִשְׁתּ֖וֹ חַוָּ֑ה

Transliterated and translated this is:-

v’yiqra        ha’adam shem         ishto       chawah
and’called  the’man name (of) his-wife Eve

Here we see both the subject and object follows the active verb “yiqra” with the name being the last in the sentence. If this is true, then the child does not have four titles as we have been taught, but one title – “Prince of Peace” – and the one declaring this is the wise and mighty God himself, our everlasting Father. This child was, literally, a “son” of God the Father.

The conventional (but erroneous) translation is popular because it lends itself to trinitarian arguments which identifies the child with the father, the messiah with God himself. Unfortunately this is not borne out by the actual Hebrew text. The text still has strong messianic overtones, especially in the following verse where it says (Isa 9:7):-

Of the increase of His government and peace
There will be no end,
Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom,
To order it and establish it with judgment and justice
From that time forward, even forever.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

This verse falls within the first 12-chapters of Isaiah, the oracles against Judah, and comes on the heels of the vision Isaiah had in Isa 6:1. Isaiah served under four of the Israeli kings – Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah. Uzziah was considered one of the good kings but he had just died. His son, Jotham, was already a co-regent for 11-years by that time, and would go on to rule another 5-years as a good king after Uzziah died. After Jotham, Ahaz (a bad king) reigned for 16-years before Hezekiah took to the throne at the age of 25. Hezekiah would have been born by this time* and it is quite possible that at the time Uzziah died or soon thereafter Isaiah was thinking about Hezekiah and prophesying about him when he said those words in Isa 9:6.

*The calculation of years is complicated by the unknown years of co-regency between kings.

Now, it is not uncommon for biblical prophecies to have multiple fulfillments and even if it was Hezekiah that Isaiah was originally thinking about, it could also refer to a future messiah. However, if this was referring to Hezekiah in the first place, there is no way that Isaiah would have conferred him the titles “mighty God” and “everlasting Father”. That would force the translation to follow the lines of the Targum, meaning that these titles were a reference to God, the agent, who was declaring the name of the messianic child to be the Prince of Peace.

This child is spoken of again in Rev 11:15:-

Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!”

As we approach the season of Advent in these chaotic times, may we keep our eye on the one Prince of Peace whose kingdom will have no end.

All in “Al”, to heap or not to heap coals: Prov 25:22

Another public holiday, another linguistic write-up.

In his exhortation to the Roman church, Paul advises them to be peaceable and not to seek revenge. The reason he gives is through the citation of two separate OT verses, Deut 32:35 and Prov 25:21-22, suggesting that God will eventually exact vengeance upon the unjust and their kind acts towards the “enemies” will only compound the injustice and thus multiply the eventual judgement upon them. In other words, be nice to your enemies because in so doing, you’re making it worse for them. Rom 12:19-20 (NASB) says:-

Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. “But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; For in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.”

Now, off the bat, this should come across as a little strange considering all that Jesus had taught – the forgiveness of our enemies from the heart – as opposed to the hope for their eventual punishment (although this was certainly a popular thought in the Jewish mind for their enemies.) Are we really to be kind towards our enemies for the sake of their eventual punishment? The citation Paul used came from Proverbs 25:21-22 (NKJV) which goes:-

If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat; And if he is thirsty, give him water to drink; For so you will heap coals of fire on his head, And the LORD will reward you.

This seems to justify what Paul had intended in “leaving room for the wrath of God” but for a little problem in the text. Specifically, the word translated “heap” in our English translations is the word חֹתֶ֣ה (Hebrew:choteh) which actually means “take” or “snatch”. The relevant part of the verse reads (R-to-L):-

כִּ֤י גֶֽחָלִ֗ים אַ֭תָּה חֹתֶ֣ה עַל־רֹאשׁ֑וֹ

Transliteration and direct translation:-

ki    gecholim atah choteh al_rosho
for coals          you   snatch  on_his-head

As you might already see, we have a problem here with the agreement between the verb “snatch” and the preposition “on” (Hebrew:al). Normally a preposition “from” (Hebrew:me) would be used together with a verb like “snatch”. The LXX (from which Paul most likely quoted) translates the Hebrew “choteh” as the Greek σωρεύσεις :“heap” (or “pile up”) as well. Everywhere else this lexeme appears in the OT, however, it is translated as “take” or “snatch” or “pluck”.

Isa 30:14 (NKJV) – … a shard to take fire from the hearth …
Psa 52:5 (NKJV) – … and pluck you out of your dwelling place …
Prov 6:27 (NKJV) – Can a man take fire to this bosom …

The only reason why “heap” is used over against its normal meaning is because of this verb-preposition disagreement and preference was given to the prepositional direction. Here is where it might be useful to look into the history of the Hebrew language. Hebrew and its more ancient form – Paleo-Hebrew – belong to a Semitic language group that, while similar to, is distinct from the Akkadian cuneiform family. It does, however, share considerable similarity with the Ugaritic cuneiform (Northwest Semitic group) writing and there are suggestions that the Ugaritic cuneiform is a pre-cursor to Hebrew. In Ugaritic, the preposition “al” can mean both “on, upon, onto, over” as well as “from on”, meaning that Prov 25:22 can be translated (literally) as:-

For coals you snatch from-on_his-head, and Yahovah (will) complete/pay [shalem] you.

The meaning of this translation goes from one of adding to the wrath to one of defusing the wrath – the removal of angry coals from someone and runs along the lines of Prov 15:1 (NKJV):-

A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

Now, this, to me, sounds a lot more consistent with what Jesus taught and, more intuitively, something that God would reward. The motivation for doing good to our enemies takes a 180-degree turn along with the change in the handling of the preposition “al”. This also flows much better with the tenor of the rest of Proverbs, that of peacemaking rather than just tongue-biting while a vengeful fire burns within. Contextually, why would you want to heap coals of fire on someone who is (Prov 25:21) hungry and thirsty anyway? Wouldn’t it be far more prudent to take the opportunity to win them over by offering them hospitality here? Would not extending kindness to a needy “enemy” defuse the fiery coals of enmity? Prov 24:17 (NKJV) tells us not to rejoice or be glad in our hearts when our enemies stumble or fall.

It seems to me, then, that not only is this translation more viable linguistically by taking into consideration the normal meaning of “choteh”, it is also more sensible contextually and consistent theologically. Unfortunately, it raises another problem for us because Paul had cited it from the LXX which had lost this nuance and he had used the text in a way opposite from how the author of Proverbs most likely intended it to be. I think Paul got it wrong in so far as making room for God’s wrath.

In summary, here is what Jesus himself taught concerning our enemies in Luke 6:35 (NKJV):-

But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil.

Go read the rest of it in Luke 6:27-36 (NKJV) on your holiday.

The nature of inspired truth: Deut 30:12-14

I’m making a note to myself to keep these posts short but I must admit that I do get carried away by the topic in question because it is so fundamentally important to our faith. We’ve been working towards a more sophisticated yet robust view of inspiration, one that takes divinity and humanity together in a sensible yet effective manner. If you haven’t done so, I recommend reading the previous post(s). Now that we have an idea of what a doctrine of inspiration can be, what would the truths and revelations contained in the bible look like? What are the implications of such a view of inspiration?

Well, first of all – these truths would be simple and easy to understand. It’s not going to be “rocket-science” or anything with levels of detail that would demand more rigorous modes of transmission. Biblical truths should be broad-stroked rather than fine-grained. The bible is not going to spell out fine details about what we should or should not do, or how we should or should not do it, in general. The nature of inspired truth is going to be more like broad principles and guides. Anything else will require us to postulate outlandish theories of God directly intervening in every step of the transmission, including translations, and the sum of evidence that we have does not support this theory. One should likewise be wary when someone purports to bring a specially derived “revelation” from the bible, usually involving convoluted reasoning – this is probably not inspired truth.

Secondly, it should not be obscure or esoteric. You won’t need a secret key to unlock the bible as such – the bible is designed to make truth known to us, rather than to conceal it from us. While it was true that Jesus used parables to confound his skeptics (and cynics), he ultimately revealed the truth to seekers and that revelation is often captured for us in the writings of his disciples. There is no “bible-code”, unfortunately for conspiracy theorists or neo-gnostics. Deu 30:12-14 (NKJV) tells us:-

It is not in heaven, that you should say, “Who will ascend into heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it.

The point of scripture is to make this easy to understand broad principles of God known to man. While the bible contains many details, we are to make an abstraction from those details to arrive at the underlying truths, as opposed to being caught up in the details. So if Jesus made mud out of his saliva and healed the blind – the point is that Jesus healed the blind. Some Christians get hung up on the details of the methods or even try to duplicate them, as if the secret rested therein. A case in point is the longer ending of the gospel of Mark. If you have a half-decent study bible, you will notice that Mark 16:9-20 comes with a footnote that tells you that this section is absent from all the earliest and most reliable Greek manuscripts (including the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus). How it appears in the most reliable manuscripts is as follows (the alternative Mk 16:9):-

They reported briefly to those around Peter all that they had been commanded. After these things Jesus himself sent out through them, from the east to the west, the holy and imperishable preaching of eternal salvation. Amen.

This is known as the “shorter ending” of Mark and is considered the more reliable one. Scholars believe that the longer ending (the one in most of our bibles) verses were scribal additions not present in the original autograph. Without going into the actual debate, one could say that while the details of the longer and shorter endings differ, the spirit – the broad strokes – remain the same, namely that Jesus sent the disciples into the world to preach the gospel. With the longer, and more unreliable, ending however, you get a whole bunch of details, including v.18 which says that disciples who thus go out (Mk 16:18):-

“… will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

I think most of us would not presume to test out the veracity of this “promise” any time soon. Christians taking a literal and plenary view of inspiration, however, are faced with two options – to either explain away the verse, or explain why they ignore what they consider God’s direct word, or if they have enough integrity (and insanity) to actually do it. As it turns out, there are a small number of Pentecostal (holiness movement) churches in the US who espouse exactly this. The idea being to take verbal plenary inspiration to the extreme and as a result, they actually have snake handling as part of their worship services to prove that God is keeping His promises, much in the same way that some Charismatics use miracles and healing to prove a point. Recently, there was a bit of unfortunate news in one of these churches in Kentucky whose pastor was bitten by a viper and refused medical treatment, and died. My point is that the most reliable revelations rest in the non-obscure truths of the bible.

The third feature of biblical revelation is that it must be presented in a redundant manner. In other words, you won’t find a crucial revelation that only appears in one single verse or a single word. Can you imagine what the ramifications might be for God and for us if a worm happened to eat through the papyrus in that particular spot? God is smarter than that and His truth is spread out in a redundant (meaning that there are many backups) fashion throughout the text. If it appears in only one place – it should be suspect in so far as being made into dogma or doctrine. So if you find a rare verse such as Ecc 10:19 (NKJV) that says:-

A feast is made for laughter,
And wine makes merry;
But money answers everything.

you just have to ask yourself if this is the consistent message of the bible or just an oddity. To assume that every single word, even in context, is God’s direct word could be theologically disastrous. I don’t personally understand why this isn’t admitted by more theologians and teachers – especially those insisting on plenary inerrancy. They usually will jump through all kinds of hoops to try and squirm their way out of such issues mainly because their view of inspiration is flawed from the start. It’s their view that is flawed, not the text of the bible per se.

00-edvard-munch-the-scream-1893

When you enter an art gallery and look upon a painting, “The Scream” by Edvard Munch, for example, and start commenting: “Oh this is a terrible painting. Look how the eyes lack eye brows and is so disproportionate. The face is also missing a ear and who has ever seen a sky that looks like that. This is a terrible representation of truth,” you’d be missing the point of the painting. The problem isn’t the painting. It’s your expectation of a photograph when the artist never intended to give you a photograph. Correct interpretation of the painting will require a correct understanding of the nature of the piece of art, and in this case it is an abstract style known as “expressionism”. Many Christians make exactly this mistake – going to the bible expecting a “photograph” because that’s the easiest thing for them to interpret when the bible isn’t a “photograph.”

I think with this post, I will conclude the discussion on inspiration – this inspiration of authorial intent is a pragmatic and practical view that takes reality into account. It does take some of the mysticism out of the bible and for those who cherished that mysticism, what can I say but “sorry”. The saving power of the bible, however, lies not in its mystical nature but in the truth that it contains. So there you go – stop making the bible say what we want it to say, or say what it never intended to say, and start listening to what it is trying to tell us.

The human hand in the text: Matt 2:6

Previously we looked at how the NT canon came to be formed. The closed canon was created by necessity for the purpose of safe-guarding the church from error. It does not mean that God’s truth cannot be found in any of the other writings but that these are the officially accepted ones. They were thus endorsed because the church discerned that these writings correctly reflect the Christian message. Writings outside the canon did not receive the same official stamp of approval but could very well still prove useful and beneficial. Scriptural status was gained through the wide-spread usage of the texts within the liturgy of the church and is more an indication of the function of the texts rather than the “inspiredness” of it.

In thinking about the nature of scriptural inspiration, we must also consider the human intermediary – the writers of the texts. Only then can we really ask ourselves what exactly it is that is inspired within the text of scriptures. Let us begin with Matthew 2:6 where Matthew quotes from Micah 5:2 as proof that Jesus fulfilled biblical prophecy. Matt 2:6 (NKJV):-

“But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
Are not the least among the rulers of Judah;
For out of you shall come a Ruler
Who will shepherd My people Israel.’ ”

The idea here is that Bethlehem though small is NOT insignificant (“not the least”) because of the fact that the messiah will come forth from her folds. This is all fine until we look at Micah 5:2 (JPS):-

“And you, O Bethlehem of Ephrath
Least among the clans of Judah
From you one shall come forth To rule Israel for Me
One whose origin is from of old, From ancient times.”

You will notice that Bethlehem here is said to be the “least” in Judah, contrary to Matt 2:6. Some English translations have tried to soften this contradiction by introducing words like “though you are little” (NKJV) but the problem remains. This doesn’t change the purpose of the citation, it still shows Jesus fulfilling Micah 5:2 but we see that the writers were humans. Let us consider another example. Luke 2:4 tells us:-

Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David.

From this we understand that Joseph’s city of origin was Nazareth before he travelled to Bethlehem. Matthew 2, however, offers us a different sequence of events. In Matt 2:1 we are told that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and fled to Egypt soon after that. Upon return from Egypt after Herod died, they returned to Israel and eventually found their way to Nazareth and settled there. Matt 2:22-23:-

But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea instead of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And being warned by God in a dream, he turned aside into the region of Galilee. And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, “He shall be called a Nazarene.”

It appears that we have two conflicting accounts of the movement of Joseph and his family in Luke and Matthew. What do we make of this? What about when Matthew quotes Jeremiah in Matt 27:9-10:-

Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the value of Him who was priced, whom they of the children of Israel priced, and gave them for the potter’s field, as the LORD directed me.

Unfortunately there is no such verse in Jeremiah, although we do have the verse in Zechariah 11:12-13:-

Then I said to them, “If it is agreeable to you, give me my wages; and if not, refrain.” So they weighed out for my wages thirty pieces of silver. And the LORD said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—that princely price they set on me. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the LORD for the potter.

More famously, the synoptic gospels has Jesus celebrating the last-supper on Passover day. Mark 14:12:-

Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they killed the Passover lamb, His disciples said to Him, “Where do You want us to go and prepare, that You may eat the Passover?”

John, however, has other ideas about this because Jesus was crucified on the day before the Passover, the preparation day. John 19:14:-

Now it was the Preparation Day of the Passover, and about the sixth hour. And he said to the Jews, “Behold your King!”

Surely they can’t both be correct – that is Jesus celebrating the Passover after he had been crucified? The purpose of these examples (and there are many more) is to make us ask concerning the nature of scriptural inspiration. Do we mean that every single word (including those errors above) were divinely given by God? In which case, God must have made some mistakes. Or do we argue that the text was somehow corrupted in transmission and has become unreliable? It is in thinking about such textual issues that I find the verbal plenary views of inspiration to be untenable and unhelpful because they do not explain our text. Article VI of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, for example, states that:-

WE AFFIRM  that the whole of Scripture and all its parts, down to the very words of the original, were given by divine inspiration.

If we were to take this position in the light of the above examples, it must mean that either God made mistakes, or that He was deliberating misleading us, or that our texts are corrupt. None of these are helpful conclusions – and that is why I think we are in need of a less pious but more historically sound idea of inspiration.

I am inviting you to consider a more sophisticated view of scriptural inspiration – one of inspired truth delivered to men who relied on their human abilities to convey it. This truth that is couched in those earthen vessels is a simple and robust core, expressed in a variety of ways through our NT writings, and is so obvious that it shines clearly through in spite of the imperfections of the vessels.

In this view, the authors had received truth and revelation from God through various means – through the Lord’s teachings himself, or through apostolic traditions handed down. The first thing we believe in this idea of “inspiration” is that they received the revelation correctly and sufficiently for its intended purpose(s). So for example, when Jesus says in Mark 4:31 (NKJV) that the mustard seed “is smaller than all the seeds on earth” – I will hold that the statement concerning the absolute size of the seed in relation to other seeds, this scientific statement, is not part of the intended purpose of Mark 4:31. The intended purpose was to make a parabolic point to serve within the larger illustration. The inspiration is limited to the truths that the writings were intended to convey. I call this the inspiration of “authorial intent”. In the same way, the bible writers were not generally intending to make scientific or absolute historical comment and the absolute factual content of those (scientific or historical) comments, when they appear in the bible, are incidental rather than essential and are therefore not regarded as “inspired”.

In the same way, when Matthew misquotes Micah, that was the human artefact in his writing. His intent was to show that Jesus fulfilled OT prophecy – this is the inspired intent. What this means is that we have to read the bible for intent (and intended message) rather than becoming obsessed with the particularities of a text. While it is important to study the text because this allows us to understand what the author meant to say, it is also true that the authorial intent is not generally obscure. They are relatively easy to understand once you get past the basic language issues. Where textual studies are important is to ascertain what was actually written. Historical and contextual studies help us to understand what was meant. Theological studies help us piece it all together to get a big picture of the biblical truth.

Theology, history and language inform each other to help us arrive at a better understanding of the author’s intent. To some extent our distance from the cultural and linguistic context of the original writers of the bible means that more work needs to be done to regain the correct understanding and this sometimes requires specialist skills in language and history to help in uncovering those original messages and meanings. It is an unfortunate reality that there is this added layer of obscurity that was not originally present but inevitably so given the passage of time.

There are some implications to this view of inspiration – namely that if we take verses out of the intended purpose of the authors, it can no longer be considered “inspired”. In this view, inspiration does not necessarily reside in a particular noun, verb, adjective, conjunction, article, or even sentences, but in the meaning contained by the collective words and sentences as intended by the authors. It is a view of divine revelation wrapped up within the author’s understanding, wrapped up within the limits of the cultural context, wrapped up within text, wrapped up in transmission and finally wrapped up in translation. This multiple layers of wrapping still works because the inspired intent of the authors – the divine revelation – is robust, simple and redundantly communicated through many aspects in the bible as a whole.

Let me just close this post with this illustration. You want to convey the appearance of your face to your friend in another country but you can’t fly there yourself. So you start by taking a photograph of yourself with a digital camera on your phone, for example. The moment you do this, your image is broken up into millions of little dots called pixels. If you zoom all the way in, you will only see what appears to be a mosaic of pixels and nothing like your face. But this works because you have many pixels and your face is pretty big. This digital image is now compressed when you send it through e-mail to your friend, a process that throws away a whole bunch of pixels that the computer deems unnecessary (ie. that you won’t notice) in order to make the image smaller and easier to send. When your friend receives the file and opens it, he views it on his old monitor which has a few hundred faulty pixels (out of a few million) and faded colours. Not only that, his monitor has less pixels than your original photograph. By this time, you could say that the original file has undergone considerable “corruption” but when he looks at the picture on the screen, he will recognise you right away. He might not be able to count the hairs on your eyebrows or see the little mole on your cheek, but it is sufficient to get the intended picture. This is pretty much why this view of inspiration works – it focuses on the essential message, one that is robust enough to withstand the vagaries of time. In short – biblical truth is robust in nature.

I’ll probably discuss this a little more in another post as this one seems to be getting rather long. Hope this is helping.

Formation of the NT: John 20:31

When we step back and look at the big picture, we can see that the “system” must have worked because we do understand the gospel and we call Jesus our Lord. In spite of all the potential problems with textual selection, transmission, and translation – we got the message. 2,000-years is an awfully long time to keep the message passed along. This has been possible because the core message of the NT is a simple one. When we look at the purpose of the early church, functionally, they simply wanted to ensure that the message would be passed on to future generations and that they might believe. John 20:30-31 explains exactly why he wrote his gospel:-

And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.

From this point of view, if people would read the gospel of John, and believe in Jesus, he would have succeeded, and succeed he did. At that point in time, no one was asking if a particular sentence or word that John used was “inspired” or divinely selected or not. They were focused on the substance of his message, rather than its particular form or expression.

As the apostles grew older or neared their death (Peter died ca. 65AD), it became more important for them to write down what they had learned from Jesus. Peter, for example, felt compelled to write the encyclical that is 2Peter because he knew his time was short. 2Pet 1:13-15 (NKJV) tells us:-

Yes, I think it is right, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding you, knowing that shortly I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me. Moreover I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease.

In time to come, these letters and gospels gained wider circulation among the fledgling churches. According to Eusebius (260-339AD), Bishop of Caesarea and church historian, that period saw all kinds of documents in circulation, including letters, sermons, theological treatises, commentaries and histories. There was a lot of writing going on after the initial decades and this was a serious effort. Letter writing was costly and involved – you usually required the services of a writer (sometimes called an “amanuensis”) such as Tertius (Rom 16:22) and Silvanus (a.k.a. Silas) (1Pet 5:12). These writers helped in the crafting of the letters and going over the drafts before the final copies were sent out, so it’s not like Paul or Peter himself sat down to write, except where they wanted to leave a mark of authenticity (2Thess 3:17, Col 4:18, Gal 6:11, 1Cor 16:21),

These and other letters were read aloud in church meetings, and usually copied for further circulation. With the proliferation of letters, however, you can imagine that there would increasingly be the problem of ascertaining which letters were orthodox and which were not. The idea was that these letters were supposed to be, in the words of Paul (2Tim 3:16-17), “profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” and the general equipping of the church. As an example, Bishop Dionysius of Corinth (ca.168AD) wrote to Bishop Soter of Rome the following message:-

We read your letter today, the Lord’s Day, and shall continue to read it frequently for our admonition, as we do with the earlier letter Clement wrote on your [i.e. the church at Rome’s] behalf.

The problem was that there also pseudo-epigraphs (letters falsely claiming to be from another author) as well as letters from disputed individuals espousing questionable or heretic teaching. Bishop Serapion of Antioch (ca. 200AD) found out that a certain “Gospel of Peter” was being read among the churches in Antioch and after some investigation, stopped them on the basis that the theology was questionable (it was docetic.) Increasingly the need for some kind of checking became important to ensure that churches were not being misled by unorthodox writings. This was further compounded by the fact that an influential church leader, Marcion (ca. 144AD), was rejecting some letters ascribed to Paul, and all of the OT scriptures, and had come up with his own list of approved books and letters:-

Luke
Galatians
1 & 2 Corinthians
Romans
1 & 2 Thessalonians
Ephesians
Colossians
Philemon
Phillippians

while rejecting the gospels of Matthew and John.

These developments provided the impetus for the early church to put in some measures to ensure orthodoxy in the midst of a theologically volatile context where heresy was rife. The response was not as organised as we would like to think, with different parties coming up with their own measures and criteria. In 170AD, for example, another list was put up, likely in response to disputed lists such as Marcion’s. This list, known as the Muratorian Canon, contained 22 out of the 27 books of our NT, leaving out:-

Hebrews
1 & 2 Peter
James
3 John

but included the Wisdom of Solomon and the Apocalypse of Peter (which later proved to be a pseudo-epigraph.) The selection of the books of the canon was a process of evolving consensus among the churches as to which books were deemed authentic, orthodox, and widely accepted. It certainly wasn’t a clear cut process, especially for some of the books which were not included until much later. The notion that these books were “inspired”, the way we understand it, probably hadn’t entered their mind as yet but the function of the letters as being standards of teaching in the church would slowly grant them the status of “scripture.” Scripture, in this sense, would be akin to official religious texts employed in churches.

It should be mentioned that there were also other widely accepted texts that were in use in the churches, such as the letters of 1 & 2 Clement, Epistle of Barnabas, Shepherd of Hermas, Didache, Jubilees, Paul’s letter to the Laodiceans, Apocalypse of Peter, Preaching of Peter, Gospel of the Egyptians, Gospel of the Hebrews. Some of these books bore outlandish teachings and accounts while others were fairly sound. Over time, these were rejected as official standards for a variety of reasons, including questionable content or authorship, late date of writing and unorthodox theology. Some segments of the church (usually different geographic regions) continued to accept these books as standard until much later.

The purpose of the history here is to demonstrate that the process of arriving at a canon (a standard set) for NT books was by no means a clear and simple process. It evolved over time with some books being added or rejected before the church eventually arrived at a greater consensus. It was a process driven by pragmatic need and a desire to ensure orthodoxy. The criteria used were commonsensical criteria but were not necessarily universally understood, agreed upon or applied in the same ways – it wasn’t so much an organised application of criteria as it was the collective discernment of the early church. We should also keep in mind that theology itself was being clarified through this period, over against heresies and gnosticism.

When we read authors like F. F. Bruce (in his book “The Canon of Scripture”) and see the criteria set forth as “Apostolicity, Antiquity, Orthodoxy and Catholicity”, it is tempting to think that these were universally agreed upon and that some group sat down to ascertain the qualifications of the various books. That was not the case. While these were indeed the commonsensical considerations, it was a more diffused and organic application over time. This process took a few centuries and, even then, still contained variations to our bible. The first list that matches our NT comes from Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria (367AD). By then the idea of limiting (or closing) the official canon books was a common idea and these writings had acquired the status of “scripture”. In his 39th Festal Epistle he writes:-

These are the fountains of salvation, that he who thirsts may be satisfied with the living words they contain. In these alone the teaching of godliness is proclaimed. Let no one add to these; let nothing be taken away from them. For concerning these the Lord put to shame the Sadducees, and said, Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures. And he reproved the Jews, saying, Search the Scriptures, for these are they that testify of me.

The 3rd Council of Carthage later in 397AD issued an official notice on the canon of the NT as follows:-

It was also determined that besides the Canonical Scriptures nothing be read in the Church under the title of divine Scriptures. The Canonical Scriptures are these: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua the son of Nun, Judges, Ruth, four books of Kings, two books of Chronicles, Job, the Psalter, five books of Solomon, the books of the twelve prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Tobit, Judith, Esther, two books of Esdras, two books of the Maccabees. Of the New Testament: four books of the Gospels, one book of the Acts of the Apostles, thirteen Epistles of the Apostle Paul, one epistle of the same [writer] to the Hebrews, two Epistles of the Apostle Peter, three of John, one of James, one of Jude, one book of the Apocalypse of John. Let this be made known also to our brother and fellow-priest Boniface, or to other bishops of those parts, for the purpose of confirming that Canon. Because we have received from our fathers that those books must be read in the Church. Let it also be allowed that the Passions of Martyrs be read when their festivals are kept.

This contained all of the 27-books of our NT but also included some apocryphal books (in bold text).

As we conclude this long historical post, I will note that the idea of “inspiration” as we know it has not been needed thus far. What we needed to know was that these NT books that we have, were the same ones the early church used to learn about the faith – faith that led them to Jesus as Lord. Even without broaching the issue of inspiration, the pragmatic view is that these books were sufficient for their intended purpose – that of making us disciples as they were.  If it was beneficial and profitable enough for them, it is good enough for us. We will look at “inspiration” in upcoming posts but I will have to stop here for now.

Before the writing of the NT: 2Tim 2:2

Between the time Jesus died and when the first NT epistle was written (probably 1Thessalonians circa 50AD) there were nearly two decades, during which the church saw considerable growth going by the report in Acts. Without written material, the early church relied on oral recounting of the teachings of Jesus and that of the apostles, as well as the OT which was regarded as their only scriptures at that time (Acts 8:28-32). We further know that letters were sent by the apostles to various churches in the region (Acts 13:23).

During those 20-years or so, how do you suppose the inspired message of God was disseminated to the faithful? I would suppose that it would be in the oral recounting, in the teachings of the apostles, some of which were distributed in letters. In 2Tim 2:2 (NASB) [at this point the canonical gospels were not written], Paul instructs Timothy as follows:-

The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

Notice that Paul specifically says “heard” as opposed to “read”. The “things” would be the essential teachings Paul had verbally taught the churches. Did Paul mean that Timothy had to remember the exact words he had used, or the substance of the teaching? I would suggest to you that it was the latter that Timothy was being exhorted to pass on to other faithful men.

I want to think about the substance of the inspired word of God at this point of time and it’s nature. Here are some fairly straightforward inferences we can make:-

  1. The inspired payload was successfully delivered through those 20-years
  2. It could not have been an overly complex payload for this to have worked
  3. The message of that payload was not tied to any particular form of expression (ie. different people might have delivered the same inspired message differently, in their own words.)
  4. What was “inspired” was the substance of this message, more so that particular expressions (notice that the different gospels recorded what were essentially same parables but with slightly different wordings.)
  5. The essential inspired payload would be close to something like the Apostle’s Creed in substance and simplicity
  6. Along with that essential message came practices that became normative traditions (such as the holy communion, etc.)
  7. This gospel payload and apostolic tradition would be accompanied by various teachings, explanations, exhortations

Keep in mind that all of this is before the writing of 1Thessalonians, before we have even one of the “inspired” books of the NT canon. God’s word must have persisted through that period before came to be written down. This inspired content, I am arguing, predates any written NT books and must therefore be independent of the particularities of those books. To put it another way, the gospel message existed as it passed from mouth to ear without any written words. In time, some of those recounting became more standardised and formulaic (creedal). I am suggesting that it was this same inspired content that the NT writings is supposed to contain. It is the substance of the message, rather than the particular expressions, that was inspired. In this way, as long as a translation faithfully conveys the message, even though it is necessarily re-expressed in different languages, one can still consider it “inspired.” (Consider the fact that Jesus probably used Hebrew/Aramaic and the NT is mostly Greek. Translating was inevitable.)

I suggested that the inspired payload/substance of the NT era would not be overly complex because it had be to be robust enough to withstand the limitations of oral transmission. It also had to be simple enough for people to retain in memory without written aid, and be transferable enough to be passed from generation to generation. We are not looking at trying to preserve fine print here, but broad strokes of a simple message. This message can be broken down into the following categories:-

  • Gospel narrative – ie. the account what Jesus did and taught
  • Apostolic traditions – ie. Christian norms and practices as they evolved
  • Pastoral instruction – covers a variety of issues and situations

1Tim 3:16 (NASB) provides us with an example of how concise and simple such inspired content can be:-

He who was revealed in the flesh,
Was vindicated in the Spirit,
Seen by angels,
Proclaimed among the nations,
Believed on in the world,
Taken up in glory.

Another example of an creedal content is found in Phil 2:6-11 (NRSV):-

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross.
Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

One could conceivably say this in many different ways, while preserving the essential substance. The later Apostle’s Creed (120-250AD) says pretty much the same thing but more elaborately. The middle section of the Apostle’s Creed looks like this:-

I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come to judge the living and the dead.

As for Apostolic Traditions, the Didache (circa 65-80AD) is probably the best example of what they communicated to those (Gentiles) wanting to become Christians. It gives the basic OT laws, instructions on how they ought to live, Christian rites (baptism and holy communion [Eucharist]), and other general pastoral instructions. In fact, most of the NT content would fall pretty much into the same categories as those covered in the Didache. It is quite well worth reading, if nothing else, to get a sense of what the earliest Christians were taught. You will find that most of what they were taught familiar but some pastoral instructions vary or differ from what you might find in the epistles.

The purpose of this brief survey of material is to demonstrate that prior to the writing of the NT canon texts, the early church seemed to be more concerned with preserving the substance of the “inspired” message than with the form and specific expressions and words that couch them. To put it another way, the “inspiration” rested with the substance more than it did with the specific wordings. This substance was the “faith” they were contending for before the NT canon took shape (Jude 1:3). Through this, I also hope that we gain some sense of how the early church operated before they had the NT canon. It was this early context that the NT writings emerged and functioned in, and may help us better understand what we mean when we say that the NT writings are scripture and inspired.

All of this, before the writing of the NT canon texts.