Rediscovering Heaven

In an interview with Evangelical Alliance, New Testament Scholar and former Anglican Bishop of Durham N.T. Wright recalls a conference at which John Stott responded to questions about the “irreducible, minimum Gospel.” Stott replied, “I don’t want the irreducible, minimum Gospel! I want the whole Gospel!”

Evangelicals have stood in this tension since the movement began. In our zeal to spread the gospel as widely as possible, we embarked on the dangerous journey to find the minimum, barest Gospel. It usually goes something like this: Each of us have sinned, and that sin separates us from God. Through Jesus Christ, we can find forgiveness and experience eternal life with God in Heaven.

Overall, this isn’t a terrible summary of the message of the Bible. It does, however, have one major fault: the final two words.

The phrase “go to Heaven” occurs nowhere in the Bible. The Gospel brings with it eternal life, but this life doesn’t come through going to Heaven. Rather, Scripture says, Heaven comes to Earth,where God’s establishes his reign in Creation again just as it was in the days before sin. This is the message of the Bible: not that we can go to Heaven when we die, but that Heaven is coming to us.

Why is it important that we read the Bible through this perspective? First, because it makes the most sense of the Bible as a whole. If salvation takes place in another world, the messages of the prophets seem to be untrue, significant portions of the New Testament (such as Paul’s extreme emphasis on the importance of bodily resurrection or his claims about creation awaiting redemption) also become problematic. In its entire context, Scripture imagines the world as awaiting redemption, not abandonment.

Second, the idea that God will take us out of the world is theologically problematic. God created the world and called it “very good”- not just humans, but the world they inhabited as well. If human sinfulness has tainted the world in such a way that God must completely destroy it, we have, in a sense, overcome God by destroying his work; but if God saves the world and expunges it of sin, how much more is he glorified above humanity! Christians have long held that God’s power is manifested more clearly in redemption and restoration than in destruction. Thus, God saving the world brings him more glory than scrapping it.

Make no mistake: the world, in its present form, will not continue forever. The future return of Christ will see the Earth purified and cleansed in a way that will be beautiful to those who have anticipated it and fearful to those who have not. This is why, in various parts of the New Testament, the coming of Christ is described with fire imagery. When reading these passages, we must not make the mistake of bringing our assumptions about what the text says into the text. To the writers of the New Testament, the idea that humans would spend eternity in some other place was a foreign concept. This was the conception held by Greeks, not Christians. Rather, Christ’s return purifies the Earth like fire refining precious metal: it burns away the impurities so that only the pure metal remains.

For far too long, Evangelicals have been spreading the unbiblical idea that eternal life takes place in a separate realm. The Bible is too optimistic about the power of God to assume that Heaven has to be somewhere untouched by humanity. We wait not to be swept away to somewhere utterly foreign to us, but for that which we know and loved to be transformed and redeemed and purged of that which ails it. Perhaps the old hymn “When we all Get to Heaven” should be amended to “When Heaven gets to us.”

What Jesus Came to Save

Jesus didn’t come to save souls; he came to save lives. Protestant culture seems to have lost this distinction, and its time that we found it again.

Allow me to explain. If  you grew up anything like I did (a Conservative Evangelical), you heard the same explanation Sunday in and Sunday out. Confessing belief in the story of Christ’s death and resurrection brings salvation. Salvation means the safety of a higher part of the human nature: the soul. Your body would die, but God would grant your soul entry into Heaven rather than eternal punishment in Hell.

The Gospel, as I remember hearing multiple preachers put it, is all about saving souls. Read the New Testament and you’ll see God’s concern for the soul: Christ tells us to not to “fear those who kill the body” but to “fear him who can destroy both soul and body” instead. Paul tells us that “Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16). It seemed to me before that the Bible was clear: we have a physical nature and a spiritual nature. God’s concern is for the later of the two, the more important. This is what Christ came to do: to save our souls.

I studied English in college, and one of the most important lessons I learned was this: there’s no such thing as a “neutral” reading of a text. If we expect to find something, we’re going to find it- and we’re all expecting to find something when we open our Bibles. Sometimes something in Scripture seems obvious to us because we don’t know that there are other ways to read a text (for example, I’ve had many discussions with Calvinists who don’t understand how I can read passages that talk about predestination and election and remain unconvinced of Calvinism. I always respond that Paul indeed uses the words “predestination” and “election,” but not in the same way that Calvin understood them).

This seems to be the case with this otherworldly conception of salvation: because we’ve heard all our lives that the Gospel is about saving souls in another life, we’ve become convinced that this is the plainest meaning of the text. This does not, however, appear to be the case. To understand the New Testament, it is crucial to understand that in the minds of its original writers the soul was not a separate “part” of the body, but a summation of the individual person’s being. In other words, the soul wasn’t the “inner” nature, but the totality of the person: body, spirit, mind, and character.  The New Testament writers didn’t think of people as having two natures; rather, in their view, humans were one unified being composed of various aspects.

The idea that God’s chief concern is with the soul necessarily leads to a low view of both the body and physical existence; after all, how important can something be if its going to be “shed” before eternity? When we see humans as the biblical writers saw them, we see Christ as Savior and Lord over more of our lives: rather than only saving a part of us (the soul), Christ saves all of us: our bodies, our minds, our character, our very being. Seeing Christ’s concern for all of our being also encourages us to love and serve others as Christ called us to: the growling stomach of a hungry child is of as much concern to Jesus as his spiritual state because these two things are ultimately not separable.

Evangelicals are overdue for a change in language. Christ did not come to save our souls; he came to save our lives. The Gospel, if we understand it as the writers of the Bible understood it, motivates us to care for needs both physical and spiritual. Neither is more important than the other because, ultimately, they are not separable. Knowing Christ shouldn’t remove us from the world and its concerns; it should make us feel them more deeply and act more passionately because of them.

 

Should Christians Associate with Political Parties?

Until I came to college, I assumed that all Christians were Republicans. I had only ever known one Christian who claimed to be a Democrat- a favorite theater teacher who I assumed hadn’t thought his political principles through all the way, despite being one of the cheeriest and most intelligent individuals that I have ever known. The reasoning seemed to be pretty clear-cut. When it came to issues that the Bible spoke on, Republicans took the biblical position while Democrats took the opposite. The Bible spoke of the sanctity of life in the womb, so Republicans opposed abortion while Democrats encouraged it. The Bible said that marriage was only to be between one man and one woman, so Republicans sought to make this the national norm while Democrats rejected this teaching.

Those two examples were probably it, actually. I don’t think I realized it, but I harbored the assumption that God only cared (or at least, mostly only cared) about these two issues. College challenged this perspective for me. First, I met more Christians with opposite political convictions, and they were almost always more active in serving the community than I was. Next, when I began to study the Bible more seriously, I realized that it spoke to a host of other issues I hadn’t considered: poverty alleviation, environmental care, peace, and other issues where the Republicans appeared to have the less biblical stance.

At this point in my story, it sounds like I am describing how my Christian convictions led me to become a Democrat. This is not the case. I think Democrats have a better, godlier platform on poverty issues than Republicans, who typically appeal to a wealthier demographic. I think Republicans are justified in their outrage at the prevalence of abortion in the world, a tragedy that Democrats are more often unwilling to face, despite their old adage of “safe, legal, and rare.” I cannot, in good conscience, join a political party (either in real membership or practical, like those who aren’t official members but vote only for that party) because none of them represent me in all of my convictions.

That said, there’s another reason why I think Christians shouldn’t claim to be a Republican or a Democrat: each and every one of us is already a member of another party.

Why was Christ crucified? He was seen as a political threat by both religious and civil authorities. The title “Christ” or “Messiah” literally means “one anointed for leadership” and was synonymous with “King.” When Jesus accepted the title of “King” and preached about a new Kingdom, he was directly challenging the powers of his day. Caesar and Christ cannot both be Lord. Citizenship in the Kingdom of God necessitates allegiance in all aspects of life- spiritual, religious, economic, and political. Each and every Christian is a member of a political party: The Kingdom of God. A servant cannot serve two masters.

Political parties demand our allegiance to a given power structure. They teach us that change comes by instilling an individual of their choosing into a political position. Christ calls us to pledge ourselves to Him alone, and that change comes when His people follow his example of humility and self-deprivation.

I see the appeal of claiming to be a member of a certain party. When I thought of myself as a Republican, decision making was simple: the way forward was support of a particular entity. I didn’t have to think through every issue before I went to the ballot box; I only had to look at the letter beside the name, because the candidate with the “R” was always the right choice. Now that I refuse to affiliate with the party, every decision has to be made individually, and each person on the ballot must be painstakingly researched before I pull the lever. It’s more work, but this has always been what Christ called us to. If we aren’t willing to go issue-by-issue, person-by-person, we’re selling our ability to decide for ourselves for less to think about. We’re taking a shortcut that has huge ramifications.

Christians should be politically active. Christ calls us to use all available means to do good. We cannot, however, rely on those in political power to dictate how we will think about pressing issues. God has a political party, and it’s the Kingdom that His Son brought to the Earth through his life, death, and resurrection. No party speaks for God, and those who speak for a party necessarily don’t speak for God. Brothers and sisters, in all that we do, may we pledge our allegiance to Christ and Christ alone. Anything less than this- any mixed loyalty to Christ and to worldly powers- is unbecoming of the Gospel.

Who is my enemy? Overcoming an Us/Them Mentality

“Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?” -Abraham Lincoln

Over this last summer, I began studying the Koran for the first time. Nothing in depth, just a rudimentary survey of its history and contents. When I mentioned my study to a friend from church, the response was “I think it’s good to know your enemy.” This reply surprised me; I wasn’t learning about the book to help in some sort of fight. I have a close friend who is a devout Muslim, and wanted to learn more about his faith and worldview. I’d given him a Bible before we parted for summer, so it was only fair that I began to look at his religious book.

My friend is an all-around wonderful person. He’s always smiling, and will extend hospitality to anyone, in need or not. He was born into a Muslim family, but was non-religious for most of his life, holding instead to a more scientific worldview. In his early 20’s, he wanted to come to America to obtain a Master’s degree, but his passport request met difficulties. He began praying, and when the administrative issues cleared, decided to become a practicing Muslim.

I could never look at my friend and call him an enemy, so the comment by my Christian friend shocked me. I can say with certainty that there are no Muslims in his life, and when we don’t have personal connections, forwarded emails and click-bait news stories take that place. If he knew the person that I knew, he would never have made the comment. If more Christians had Muslim relationships, there wouldn’t be the animosity that now exists.

Who are Christians allowed to treat as enemies? “You have heard that it was said ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemy, and pray for those who persecute you (Matthew 5:43-44 NRSV).” The answer is no one. We are called to show love to everyone. Even the atheist, and the Muslim, and the Democrat, and the Republican, and the communist, and so on. Sure, love doesn’t mean turning a blind eye to unacceptable behavior. But love sure isn’t sharing inflammatory Facebook posts and polarizing political cartoons. I am sure Jesus would not have done that.

Having an enemy is significantly easier than having a friend. Having an enemy puffs us up, and gives us a sense of self-righteousness. Having a friend makes us immensely vulnerable. If an atheist is my enemy, then his soul is inconsequential. I can shout my so-called “apologetics” at him, and if he doesn’t accept it, that’s his fault. I won’t lose sleep. But when my friend rejects the Gospel, I feel immense sorrow and pain. I feel the weight of his soul, and feel a responsibility. It isn’t a good feeling; and yet, THAT is attitude Jesus tells us to take, and that is the attitude that truly wins people for the Kingdom.

So how do we keep from slipping into the us/them mentality that impedes the mission Christ gave us? The answer is simple: by forming relationships with those who aren’t like us. Give Islam a face that doesn’t come from a fear-mongering news source. Make friends with our “enemies.” You’ll have to seek them out; they won’t come to your door. But they’re out there. Go to that little Mediterranean restaurant and talk to the waiter. Meet the cashier at that Indian grocery store you always drive by. The internet is full of tips for finding and building relationships with internationals. Don’t run from diversity- embrace it as the beautiful thing it is. The darkness doesn’t come to the light, but the light goes into the darkness. This is the mission of all who claim Christ. In the words of that great philosopher Roger Daltry, of the prophetic guild known as “The Who,”

“You’ve been told many times before, the Messiah’s pointed to the door/

but no one had the guts to leave the temple.”

Instruction to the Wise: The Plane of Wisdom in Proverbs

Before writing about Proverbs, I should give a disclaimer: Proverbs is a book that a biblical scholar could spend an entire career is. The tradition of Wisdom Literature (in the Bible, the Old Testament books of Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes, along with instructional Psalms such as Psalm 119) is as complicated as it is rich. The peoples of the ancient near east had a fascinating conception of wisdom, its source, and its implications. In this medium, I will not be able to the subject matter justice. That being said, one particular aspect of Proverbs has been particularly influential in my interpretation and application of the book.

Proverbs 9:9 reads: “Give instruction to the wise, and they will become wiser still; teach righteousness and they will gain in learning (NRSV).” 14:13 describes the opposite: “Those who despise the word [wisdom] bring destruction on themselves…” This contrast is what I refer to as the “plane of wisdom.” Think all the way back to sophomore geometry and picture a ray. A ray is a line the extends infinitely in one direction but not the other. Wisdom in Proverbs works like this. The wise can gain wisdom, and can become wiser and wiser. There is no end to wisdom. Foolishness, or lack of wisdom, does not work in this way. There is a definite endpoint: destruction. The foolish will not continue to gain in foolishness, but will reach a definite endpoint.

Now that we have our line, let’s put some more points on it. The starting point of wisdom is not the place where our line ends; if you will, imagine the starting point as “zero,” and the end of foolishness as being in the negatives. A person is at zero until they make a choice to gain or turn away from wisdom. The first half of 4:7 reads: “The beginning of wisdom is this: get wisdom.” Seemingly redundant, the statement claims that the way to gain wisdom is to set out to gain it. When one begins seeking wisdom, they begin moving down the positive, infinite side of the line.

An equal amount of attention is given to the movement down the negative, non-infinite side. Three terms are used to describe this movement. The lightest of these is simple. Proverbs 14:15 reads: “The simple believe everything, but the clever consider their steps.” To be simple is to be mislead due to lack of wisdom. In chapter 7, in which the father warns his son to avoid the adulterous woman, it is the simple that she ensnares; those who are not wise enough to see the trap they are walking into.

The next movement down the line is the fool. The fool is the one who openly rejects wisdom. The first half of 15:5 reads: “A fool despises his parent’s instruction.” 18:2 claims: “A fool has no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his personal opinion.” While the writer of Proverbs has pity on the simple, he does not (unlike Mr. T) pity the fool. The fool in Proverbs is openly condemned for his rejection of wisdom, but is not yet at the end of the line.

The final negative character of Proverbs is the scoffer. The scoffer not only rejects wisdom but encourages others in foolishness and mocks those on the path of wisdom. 21:24 reads: “The proud and haughty person, named ‘scoffer,’ acts with arrogant pride.” To become a scoffer is the worst thing a person can become in Proverbs. The simple need teaching, and the fool needs rebuke, but there is no hope for the scoffer. 9:7 tells us that “Whoever corrects a scoffer wins abuse.” The only thing a scoffer is good for, according to Proverbs, is setting an example for the simple when they are destroyed.

The plane in Proverbs presents an overall positive and exciting vision for the life of a seeker. Foolishness eventually ends, but the wisdom can be gained on and on into infinity. Those who seek wisdom will continue to improve their lives and their standing with their Creator, while those who reject it are eventually unmade. Even when one travels the wrong way, they can turn around and begin seeking wisdom again. Of course, much more could and should be said on what it means to gain wisdom, and I hope to visit this in another post. Until then, my wish is that I have been able to add to the reader’s understanding of a rich and complicated book. Until next time,

“Take… instruction instead of silver,

and knowledge rather than choice than choice gold (Proverbs 8:10 NRSV).”

On Interpreting Messianic Prophecy

“This was to fulfill the what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”– Matthew 2:15

“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.”–Hosea 11:1

The idea of Jesus as fulfillment of prophecy is used as one of the strongest weapons in the apologist’s toolbox. I’ve heard many times that the most convincing evidence for Christianity’s validity is how Jesus was predicted countless times in the Old Testament. When I googled “messianic prophecies,” a staggering amount of results appeared. One website offers 44 different prophecies Jesus fulfilled. The next offered 365. The next was a website entirely devoted to the Old Testament’s prediction of Christ. While I have unfortunately lost the page number (I know, there goes my credibility), Halley’s Bible Handbook makes the claim that the entire life and story of Christ is foretold in the Hebrew Bible. In my high school days, I loved this. What surer way to know Jesus is the son of God than by an astounding array of prophecy and fulfillment?

My first semester of college, I took an Old Testament class and read the Hebrew Bible cover to cover. This seriously crippled my view of the Old Testament’s prediction of Jesus. The reason was simple: when a verse was pulled out of context, it sounded like the author was making a prediction. When the actual passage was read in context, it was almost always part of a larger story or message, and one that was not attempting to be prophetic in that sense.

An example comes from the texts listed above. In the Gospel of Matthew, Joseph, Mary and Jesus hide in Egypt while Herod kills all of the male babies in Bethlehem. After they return, Matthew calls this movement a fulfillment of Hosea 11:1: “Out of Egypt I called my son.” Hosea 11 is definitely not claiming to predict that the future Messiah will go to Egypt and come back to Judah. This verse is in part of a larger section of Hosea, in which the prophet presents a series of metaphors to describe Israel and its relationship to Yahweh. Israel is a grapevine God found in the wilderness (ch. 9), a vine overgrown with thorns (10:1-7), a trained heifer (10:11-15), and a wayward child (11:1-11). Hosea 11 is immensely personal, describing God’s pain over watching his child, Israel, turn away from him. Like a parent who did the best for their child but watched them turn away, Yahweh longingly thinks over all that he did for his son. His child, Israel, was a slave in Egypt, and God brought him out of the oppression they were facing.

Consider also Matthew 1:22-23, where the gospel writer quotes Isaiah: “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel (Note- I am aware of the myriad of controversy surrounding the exact meaning of “almah,” translated “virgin” in most translations. For a brief explanation of  why I am comfortable with this translation, see the appendix at the end).“ Matthew quotes Isaiah’s words in Isaiah 7:14. In the original setting, Isaiah is speaking to King Ahaz, who is contemplating a treaty which God has told him not to accept. The Assyrians are coming to Judah, and Judah’s army is no match. Their only hope is to ally with Israel (the northern kingdom) and Syria, which God has forbidden due to their idolatry. As Ahaz ponders the fate if his country, Isaiah offers him a sign: See that virgin (again, I will defend this wording later) over there? She’s going to have a child, and by the time the child is old enough to know good from evil, the king you’re afraid of right now will be history (cf. Isaiah 7:14-16).

The miracle Isaiah is predicting here is not a biological impossibility occurring, but the downfall of the Assyrian empire. The young woman Isaiah is referring to may have been a virgin at the time, but certainly was not by the time she gave birth. The woman had a child, and by the time he was old enough to assume responsibility for his actions (in Jewish thinking, probably between 11 and 13), Assyria was no longer a threat. Had Isaiah been predicting a miraculous conception 700 years in the future, he would not have been a very good prophet; after all, what comfort would that have been to Ahaz, facing destruction here and now?

Now, obviously, the New Testament writers saw these passages as predictive signs of Jesus’ messiahship. And the New Testament writers are authoritative, not to mention smarter than I am. So how do we approach messianic citation passages like those addressed above?

One of the most compelling aspects of scripture is how it reinterprets other materials. I could write on and on about the Old Testament’s reinterpretation and revision of other religious ideas, and may in a future article. The New Testament continues this trend by constantly reinterpreting the old. This is what I believe the gospel writers were doing. Matthew’s readers would have been immediately familiar with Isaiah 7, and would have appreciated his usage of it. It’s like Matthew is saying: “Remember when Isaiah predicted the young, engaged woman becoming pregnant and the peace from Assyria? Well, Jesus was born of a mother who was still a virgin when she gave birth. And he brought peace from something more than a nation: he brought peace from death itself. And remember Hosea, and his story about Israel as God’s child? Well I’ve got a story about God’s child for you, and it’s not a metaphor. This guy’s the real deal!”

Understanding that the writers of the Old Testament were not laying down specific qualifications of a future messiah does not in any way diminish the incredibility of what the gospel writers were doing. It’s like when Jesus is the synagogue, reading Isaiah 61:1  and telling the people that the scripture has been fulfilled before them (see Luke 3:16-30). Jesus let the oppressed go free alright, but he was thinking bigger than the Jews being under the Romans; he freed the sinners from their sin. My intent is never to degrade Scripture, but to bring those reading to a fuller, richer understanding. Those lists of all the prophecies Jesus fulfilled may not be the same powerful weapons if the authors weren’t actually making predictions, but the gospel’s power is seen in a fuller light. In the end, I’ll take that over an attempt at obtaining certainty any day of the week.

Appendix for people with nothing better to do: In Isaiah 7:14, the writer refers to the mother to be as an almah (forgive my lack of Hebrew/Greek fonts). This word is a somewhat obscure term that occurs only nine times in the Hebrew Bible. Two of these are of particular interest to understanding the correct interpretation of the Isaiah passage. The first is Genesis 24:14, in which Abraham’s servant prays to God to show him an almah worthy of being a wife for Isaac. In the culture of the Ancient Near East, virginity was obviously a requirement for marriage. The fact that the writer of Genesis used almah instead of the more common na’arah (young woman) may indicate that virginity was part of the idea of an almah. A passage commonly cited against understanding almah as virgin is Proverbs 30:19. While describing things difficult to understand, the writer refers to “the way of a young man with an almah. Obviously a reference to sexual relations, this passage is often used to claim that an almah is not related to sexual status. It seems to me equally probably that the Proverbs refers specifically to the loss of virginity. Given its extremely high value in biblical times, the writer may be referring to the consummation of marriage as the act he cannot understand, along with “a bird flying in the air.”

Almah has no direct corresponding English word because the Hebrew conception of growth into maturity is different than the modern one. While we typically think of growth in biological states (i.e., a boy becomes a man after puberty), the Hebrew conception was based in moral ability. A yeledah(female child) was one not capable of discerning right from wrong. A na’arah was able to make this distinction. It is my conclusion that an almah was a stage in between, one in which the girl was on the verge of being able to discern good and evil, and therefore at appropriate age to marry. While the word “almah” might not refer specifically to biological virginity, it was likely a necessary part of the connotation of the word.

Canon, Scripture, and Authority: Part 2

“You search and investigate and pore over the Scriptures diligently, because you suppose and trust that you have eternal life through them. And these [very Scriptures] testify about Me! And still you are not willing [but refuse] to come to Me, so that you might have life.” – John 5:39-40

A few months back I visited a Zen Buddhist temple and sat in for a few hours on their morning service. The people were all very nice, but it was difficult to get straight answers to questions about why they practice the way they do. Zen Buddhism does not hold to any specific authority. To put it in the simplest terms, each individual person is their own authority, deciding how the ceremonies should be practiced and what they mean. There are leaders, of course, to facilitate the service, but matters of theology are seen as personal and differ from person to person; what is true to you may not be true to me, as neither of us is in a position of authority.

Zen Buddhism is based on an entirely different set of assumptions than Christianity. One of the most significant is that truth is relative; again, the idea that what is truth is a subjective experience and and can differ from person to person. Zen Buddhism also lacks the urgency found in Christianity- salvation is a matter of inner peace, not an outward, objective experience.

I talk about this group not to disparage it, but to have a ground for comparison. Christianity makes an exclusive claim, that salvation is found only through Christ. We may differ slightly on how one comes to attain this salvation (i.e, what about people who’ve never heard the gospel?), but orthodox Christianity makes objective claims.

This is why the source or sources of authority are so necessary to understand. Christianity is based on unwavering truths. Who or what decides what those are? Historically, Christians have claimed three sources of authority. One, obviously, is the Bible. Another is the testimony of the Holy Spirit. Nearly all subgroups within Christianity accept these two. A third, more controversial source is Church History/Tradition.

While researching different theories on the nature of the Bible, one theology book (Theology of the Old Testament by Edmond Jacob) pointed me to examine the Hebrew word debar. Hebrew grammar books will almost always translate debar as “word” or “thing.” It is important to note that “word” and “thing” are not two separate phenomena described by the same set of consonants and vowels. “Word” and “thing” are the same phenomenon in the Hebrew understanding. This observation is key to understanding the biblical conception of the debar elohim, “the Word of God.”

The Divine Word of the Hebrew Bible permeates history and intervenes in physical and historical events. Israel’s exodus out of Egypt is an example of the Word of God. History reveals God’s word. The Law represents a record of God’s actions in the founding of the nation, and the Prophets (which contains the historical books in the Hebrew canon) represents God’s continued intervention into the history of the nation. Please note the word “represents.” The Word of God is the action, not the record. The record is how we know and remember, but the action is the element that brings salvation and deliverance.

Jump ahead to the New Testament, where John so famously declares that Jesus is the true Word of God. The Word of God here represents God’s ultimate act: the intrusion of his very self into history. This is the Word above all words; the Word by which all other words are understood by. In light of this ultimate Word, all Words that came before are reinterpreted, and all Words that come after are understood by this Word.

The Bible is then a record of the Word of God, first through a series of Words directed towards a particular people, and then the ultimate, end-all Word of the Incarnation. Again, notice “record.” The Bible is a record of the Word of God; Christ himself is The Word, the ultimate intrusion into physical and temporal history. Of course, given that the act is the Word and the Scriptures are recordings, we necessarily understand that the scriptures are written in the vernacular and understandings of the writers. This is where hermeneutics, the study of proper interpretation, becomes a necessity.

How do we know the Bible is a reliable record, or that the 66 (or more) books that we have collected are the only valid recordings of the Word? This is where the additional means of authority I first spoke of come into play. As I stated in my last post, the Bible cannot speak on its own authority any more than a defendant can speak definitively on his own innocence. Given the classical sources of Christian authority, we have two possible responses. We can make the claim that the Holy Spirit testifies to this particular canon of scripture (as per John Calvin and Karl Barth), or that Church Tradition has dictated this collection as authoritative and therefore it is. John Wesley, founder of the Methodist denomination, harmonized these two nicely. He claimed that God would not allow his church to be deceived to the point of false gospel, and therefore traditions held over a long period of time can be seen as proper, either because the Spirit has guided it or the church has dictated it. As my Hebrew professor says, “pay your money, take your shot.” Either way, the Bible, not the ultimate Word in itself, becomes a unique and authoritative record of the Word of God, Jesus Christ.

Canon, Scripture, and Authority: Part One

As of lately I’ve been working through some issues regarding the doctrine of Scripture. I’ve noticed several problems with the way it is typically described, namely:

1) The Bible cannot be the final word on what the Bible is. To grossly oversimplify the argument I usually hear, The Bible claims to be inspired. How do we know that claim is true? Because the Bible says so, and the Bible is inspired. This is circular reasoning, and it is unsupportable in this form.

2) The Bible never speaks about “the Bible.” Any references are to “scripture,” not “The Bible.” These are not quite synonymous, as “scriptures” refers to singular portions of what we now call the Bible. When Paul says that “all Scripture is breathed out by God (2 Timothy 3:16), he does not refer to the Bible as we know it today, but to what we now know as the Old Testament.

3) If the Bible is a collection of inspired scriptures, how do we know that the collection was inspired? After all, the Bible did not, as one of my professors likes to put it, “fall out of the sky, King James Version.” A group of people had to decide what would and would not be considered authoritative, as the Bible was not written as a single unit. How do I know that God inspired the Gospel of Matthew, but not the gospel of Thomas? Even the church as a whole is not in 100% agreement, as the apocryphal/deuterocanonical books (Maccabes, Esdras, etc.) are accepted in Catholic and Orthodox circles but not in Protestant.

This is the subject I would now like to meditate on: How does the fact of canonization (the process of deciding which books are scripture and which are not) affect authority? How do we know that our current canon is “correct?” To start this examination, it seems most logical to discuss how these 66 (or 73, depending on your tradition) come to be seen as authoritative?

While the composition of the Old Testament is extremely difficult to trace, it seems that by the first century Judaism had decided on its official canon. Josephus, a Jewish historian writing in the first century, recorded that

“…We have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from and contradicting one another, [as the Greeks have,] but only twenty-two books, which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine (Against Apion, Book 1, Paragraph 8).”

Compared to the New Testament, the Old Testament canon was developed fairly naturally. With writing ability limited, less material was produced, and with a definite priestly class, there was a standard for what was and was not within orthodoxy. Most of the books we now know as the Old Testament were accepted and gathered into collections between 200 B.C. (The apocryphal book of Sirach, which dates to this time, refers to most of the book in the current canon and deems them authoritative) and the very early second century, when Josephus wrote the work referenced above. Only two books faced serious debate: Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon. Both of these would be accepted by the community by the end of the second century A.D.

Christians accepted the Old Testament from the beginning of the movement. Some debate did arise regarding what are now known as the apocryphal/deuterocanonical books. These books, written later than the rest of the Hebrew scriptures and in a different language (Greek rather than Hebrew) were contained within the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. The importance of the Septuagint cannot be overstated; being in Greek rather than Hebrew, it was the most widely used version of the (now) Old Testament, and most early Christians considered the Septuagint, not the original Hebrew scriptures, to be authoritative. The most notable dissenter was Jerome, who produced the first major translation of the Bible into Latin. Jerome translated directly from the Hebrew (rather than the Septuagint), upsetting the early Christian orthodoxy. As the Jews did not accept the  apocryphal/deuterocanonical books as scripture, Jerome did not either. Jerome’s Latin translation became the definitive version of the Bible in the Western church until the Reformation, though the popularity of the Septuagint meant that the disputed books were usually included as well.

These books were included in the canon until the Protestant Reformation, when Luther rejected them based on Jerome’s principle of the authority of the Hebrew canon tradition. Since then, Protestant groups have nearly unanimously accepted Luther’s critique and ceased to use them. Luther unsuccessfully attempted to make changes to the New Testament canon, as will be discussed later.

The development of the New Testament canon was significantly more complicated. By the end of the first century, all of the books composing our modern New Testament had been written, but not yet defined as “scripture.” Churches used the written materials they had available and tried to make sure these coincided with those used by other churches. A “canon” as we define it today was not needed in the very early church.

In the second century, a church leader named Marcion emerged and gained popularity. Marcion observed the problem of evil in the world and posited a new explanation. The God of the Old Testament, Jehovah, was not the same God as the Father of Jesus. The Father, a perfect being, created a purely spiritual world. Jehovah created the physical world, against the Father’s will.

From this standpoint, Marcion rejected the Old Testament. It was inspired, but by the malevolent Jehovah. Marcion also rejected most of the New Testament as not understanding the difference between Jehovah and the Father. Paul, he believed, did understand, and thus was authoritative. In addition, the majority of Luke was accepted as well, although without the birth narrative. In addition, he apparently edited both the Gospel and letters to suit his own theological views, although what exactly he changed is not totally clear.

Marcion presented a huge threat to the early church and created the need for a canon stating what was and was not authoritative. Around 200 AD, the church at Rome released the first known canon listing, known as the Muratorian Canon. The four Gospels, Acts, and Paul’s letters were practically never questioned within the early church and appear in all early canon listings. In addition, the Muratorian Canon listed James, 1 and 2 John, Jude, and Revelation. It also listed three books not included in our current canon, the Revelation of Peter, the Wisdom of Solomon, and The Shepherd of Hermas (to be read privately, but not in public). Around 250, the church father Origin recorded another canon list. His included the Gospels, Acts, and Paul’s letters, as well as 1 Peter, 1 John, and Revelation. He lists 11 other disputed books, among which are the rest of the books contained in our current canon. In 300, Eusebius published a list of scripture that matched that of Origin. He also stated that James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, and Jude were disputed but well known. In 400, a church council in Carthage officially proclaimed a settled canon, the one we use today.

This canon was stable until the Protestant Reformation, when Martin Luther called for the removal of Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation, on the grounds that they went against the Protestant doctrines of Salvation through Grace alone and Justification by Faith alone. Luther’s followers rejected this teaching, and thus the New Testament canon stayed fixed.

I believe several conclusions can be drawn from this overview, as follows:

1) The development of the canon of Scripture was fairly straightforward. As stated above, the church never questioned the authority of the Old Testament as the Jews defined it (with the important exception of the apocryphal/deuterocanonical books), and the Gospels, Acts, and Letters of Paul in the New Testament were never debated. Even among those that were disputed, the only ones that faced consistent debate debate were Hebrews (probably due to its heavy use of Jewish theology) 2nd Peter (due to its disputed authorship), 3rd John (probably due to its personal nature and non-instructive nature), and Jude (due to its usage of non-canonical writings).

2) The decisions as to which books would be considered scripture was not arbitrary, but decided against a standard. For both the Jewish compilers of the Old Testament and the Christian compilers of the New Testament, books were judged based on the history of their composition, theology, and contemporary usage. Why are the gospels of Peter and Thomas not canonical? Because these were written at least a century after Jesus’ death, contain teachings differing vastly from the earlier gospels and church orthodoxy, and were utilized only by the heretical Manicheans. These later books belong in the canon no more than the writings of Thomas Jefferson belong among the collected works of Shakespeare. They were written in a different time, for a different purpose, to a different group of people.

3) The majority of the canon of Scripture was decided extremely early in the churches history. By my calculation, 91% of the New Testament was universally accepted before the writing of the Muratorian Canon around 200 AD.

This post has presented a crash-course in the history of the Biblical canon. What are the theological implications of this process? That will be the subject of my next post. Stay tuned!

Ryan Bell, Rene Descartes, and Living with a Lack of Certainty

This post was originally written at an earlier date on another platform.

Recently, a man named Ryan Bell has been showing up in the news. A former Seventh-Day Adventist pastor, Bell began expressing doubts about his faith last March and stepped down from his position. In December of 2013, he announced via the internet that he would live the next year as if God didn’t exist; no prayer, no devotional Bible reading, no seeking divine guidance or assistance. He blogged about his experience, and the story caught on quickly. At the end of 2014, he announced to the world that, as a result of his experiment, he no longer believed in the existence of God.

The results of Mr. Bell’s experiment were predictable; when one lives in a certain fashion for 365 days, day 366 won’t be radically different.  His concluding thoughts have mostly focused on the limits of religious/metaphysical certainty (a quick definition of terms: “metaphysics” refers to those things that exist outside the physical world; things that exist but are not composed of matter, such as God or love).  As such, he has been reluctant to call himself atheist.  While thinking that religious labels are inherently unhelpful, he thinks “agnostic” is a more apt (though baggage-laden) term due to his belief that certainty is unachievable.

Again, claims of certainty seem to be what drove Mr. Bell from both Christianity and from identifying with the atheist community.  Bell believes that one can lean one way or another (theism or non-theism), but claims of certainty are impossible to make.  To a certain extent, I agree; I think a conversation on the relationship between faith, experience, and certainty is in order in light of the discussions he has provoked.

In 1641, a French philosopher named Rene Descartes published his Meditations on First Philosophy, a philosophic journey that left an indelible mark on western thought.  Descartes began his treatise by announcing his intent to cast off absolutely anything that could be doubted, with the intent to discover what could be known with certainty. This turned out to be, initially, one single fact.

Anything known by the senses, Descartes said, had to be doubted and cast off.  After all, he had no way to be sure he wasn’t dreaming.  Things known solely through logical propositions must also be doubted and removed; an omnipotent God could make the rational irrational, and Descartes had no way of being sure he had not. Furthermore, he wrote, a demon could be committed to completely deceiving him in every way, essentially preventing any acquisition of true knowledge (note that Descartes did not say that this was likely, or that he thought that this was true; only that it was possible, and therefore a cause of doubt within his attempt to set aside anything that could be doubted). In the end, Descartes was left with one thing he could be certain of: that he existed. Even if he was dreaming his entire life, or the malevolent demon was making sure that nothing was what he thought, he must exist in order to be deceived.

A personal anecdote: When I was somewhere around five or six, my parents came back from a weekend spent away with a surprise for me and my sister: a puppy.  This was out of character for my parents, and too good to be true.  At that point, I wondered: could I be dreaming? The rest of the day went on, and I never woke up. Same with the next few days, the next few weeks, the next few years. Even so, I still wondered if I would wake to find everything since the puppy had been a dream. To this day, I still ponder it: I have no way of being sure that, since that unlikely event, I could be having one long, vivid dream, from which I will wake up as a puppyless six year-old.

The point of Bell’s experience, Descartes’, and mine, is that certainty in most things is not attainable.  Descartes would deductively build upon his single fact, all the way up to a proof that God exists.  Bell denies this, claiming certainty cannot be reached.  Again, I must agree. No argument for or against the existence of God produces certainty; none are airtight, and all can be doubted. If I cannot be absolutely, doubtlessly certain that anyone besides me exists, I cannot be absolutely, doubtlessly certain that God exists either.  Beyond this fact, Bell and I diverge.

What do we do when we can’t be certain? We have no choice but to continue living.  Anyone who knows me or has followed my writings knows that I am committed to Christianity and to its metaphysical teachings, and would describe my certainty in the God of Christianity as being as close to certain as is possible (as long as I’m not dreaming right now, and that pesky hypothetical demon isn’t making things appear as they aren’t).  The possibility that I am wrong does not stop my practicing of what seems to be correct.  The claims of Christianity are either true or untrue, and they are claims that have massive implications.  Standing on the line between is not an option, and the chance that we are wrong cannot mean dropping the system as a whole.

Please note that I am not expressing serious doubt at my faith or Christianity as a system of belief. My rational calculations, my experiences, and my attempts at seeking divine revelation have all lead me powerfully to the conclusion that Christianity is true in the most wonderful way. Personally, I think those who deny the presence of God or any sort of metaphysic have looked so intently at the proverbial trees that they have denied that a forest exists.  What I am saying is that, as Bell learned, absolute, complete, and 100% certainty in religious beliefs in not tenable.

Contra Bell, I believe we must not drop a system because it can be doubted; the same issues arise in non-theism. Examine all possible evidence, weigh the results, and embrace what is most likely to be true. One will never build a system of belief in any kind without some leap of faith at some point. Perhaps someday, when the Kingdom of God has been fully realized and is a present reality in all of its glory, we will have absolute certainty. Until then, let us realize that doubt and inability to be certain are not attacks against the system we hold to be true; they are the natural result of living on this side of Heaven.

 

Works Referenced:

Bell, Ryan: “Sorting through the categories.” Year Without God. Patheos. Web. Accessed 01 January 2014.