Cody Cook's Blog, page 23
April 27, 2018
A Biblical Worldview of Government Part 2 – Left Versus Right
This is the second article in a series about the biblical view of government and how Christians should relate to it. For more, follow the RELATED tags within the article.
Two Modern Views of Politics
Moving past the more basic understanding of the role of government which we explored in our last article, we might begin to ask whether Christians ought to have a conservative or progressive outlook when it comes to the role of government on more minute details. To answer this question, it would be helpful to examine what a conservative and progressive outlook actually are at root. The names themselves suggest a policy of conserving traditional political and social values or progressing to something perceived as better.
These viewpoints are represented in their early formation, according to conservative political analyst Yuval Levin in his book The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left, by the 18th century political theorists Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine respectively. The grounding of these perspectives seems to have been their views of how government actually originates and evolves over time.
RELATED: A BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW OF GOVERNMENT PART 1 – THE ORIGIN AND ROLE OF GOVERNMENT
Where Paine saw states as tending toward corruption from their original purpose to guarantee the rights of an equal people, Burke saw societies as building over time toward a more perfect system—though small repairs could be made as needed. Though it wouldn’t be improper today to argue that the progressive seems to be looking forward to a perfect “eschaton” while the conservative looks back to a blissful Eden, it is worth noting that this is in some senses a reversal of how Burke and Paine, those founts from which our modern right and left flow, saw civilization. Paine was a “radical” in the most traditional sense of the word—one who sought to bring civilization back to its hypothetical anarchist foundations so that something new which respected the equal rights of all men could be created. Conversely, Burke was in a sense the real progressive since his argument was that we are where we are because society has evolved through a kind of natural selection where what was ineffective in older times fell away like a useless vestigial organ.
Indeed, Burke was something of a political Darwinist. From his point of view, Paine was seeking to go back to the social equivalent of a one-celled organism and forego the evolutionary advances we have made. For Burke, even a revolution which seeks to level the stratas of society will eventually result in someone ruling, and it will undoubtedly be the wrong kind of someone—someone not of the ruling class which social development has formed. In sum, Burke bases his view of society on evolutionary principles; Paine on universal truths. What they have in common with the contemporary political positions which derived from their debate is their outlook on tradition. Burke values tradition whereas Paine views it as oppressive and worth throwing off.
Another way to understand left and right is by reflecting upon which two forces they see in conflict. The conservative sees the world as a struggle between order and chaos whereas the liberal sees it as a struggle between oppressor and oppressed (particularly in the case of more radical leftists like Karl Marx). In our modern age, we could place these filters on the issues of gay marriage and police relations with minority communities. The conservative sees gay marriage through the lens of the dichotomy of a traditional order and a liberalizing chaos which threatens to rip apart the foundation of civilized society. The liberal sees the opposing sides as a privileged class attempting to oppress an underprivileged class by hoarding rights and benefits for themselves. On the issue of police relations with minority communities, the right sees police as the enforcers of moral order and those whom they use violence against as agents of chaos and crime seeking to disrupt civilized society. In contrast, the left sees these same parties as the enforcement wing of an oppressive class holding down an oppressed class of people.
RELATED: PODCAST: MAKE CHRISTIANITY WEAK AGAIN
Though the progressive dichotomy of oppressor/oppressed may resonate at points with scripture (recall that Mary’s announcement of the gospel included praising God because, “He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble” [Luke 1:52, NIV].), it is not ultimately adequate because it, like the conservative model, is predicated on separating society into two opposing classes of people—one of which must be reacted to with force if justice is to be done. More than that, both models, though perhaps valid in certain circumstances, define the good on the basis of either tradition (privileging the ruling class) or progress (privileging the oppressed class) instead of on the basis of universal values and the unified nature of humanity—a humanity unified both in our sin and in the solution to our sin in Christ.
Progressivism is perhaps even more open to this danger since it often bases justice on the revenge instinct and is constantly looking to overthrow some newly theorized ancient aristocracy. Burke saw this clearly when he wrote that, “their principles always go to the extreme . . . [they will] push for the more perfect, which cannot be attained without tearing to pieces the whole contexture of the commonwealth” (Levin, p. 133). Paine himself should have learned this lesson after narrowly escaping an execution in a French jail on the charge of not being sufficiently radical.
Paine was undoubtedly correct in his critique of Burke’s traditionalism when he wrote against, “associating [precedents] with a superstitious reverence for ancient things, as monks show relics and call them holy” (Paine, The Rights of Man. Kindle edition). But Burke was equally correct when he noted that a revolution, once institutionalized, will tend toward an even greater authoritarianism than what it replaced:
“The very same vice assumes a new body. The spirit transmigrates; and, far from losing its principle of life by the change of its appearance, it is renovated in its new organs with a fresh vigor of juvenile activity . . . You are terrifying yourselves with ghosts and apparitions, whilst your house is the haunt of robbers.” (Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France. Kindle edition).
Though by no means an entirely satisfactory Christian alternative, one might also examine economist Arnold Kling’s libertarian dichotomy of freedom and coercion, which seeks to limit force and expand freedom, detailed in his essay “The Three Languages of Politics.”
In the next article, we’ll discuss how Christians have related to the state in American in the last hundred or so years and note some biblical suggestions that need to be taken into account if we are to move forward with a better approach.
NEXT: A BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW OF GOVERNMENT PART 3 – HOW SHOULD CHRISTIANS RELATE TO THE STATE?
April 25, 2018
A Biblical Worldview of Government Part 1 – The Origin and Role of Government
This is the first article in a series about the biblical view of government and how Christians should relate to it. For more, follow the RELATED tags within the article.
A Christian looking for a political outlook to integrate with his biblical worldview will find seemingly persuasive arguments for both left and right wing formulations of Christian politics. Despite the confusion which can come about as a result of hearing so many contradictory but well-formulated perspectives, some firm conclusions may be reached about the kind of society Christians should prefer and the role that we should seek to have in our nation’s political dialogue.
The Biblical Account of the Origin and Role of Government
To begin with, we ought to have some understanding about how the Bible views the origin and role of government. As to origin, we should note that the Bible in no place specifies any particular political scheme as the one which God favors, though it is clear that He is sovereign over kings and nations. The first king mentioned in the Bible is Nimrod (see Gen. 10), who is described as a mighty warrior. This suggests that his throne was consolidated by force. It is stated that one of the first centers of his kingdom was in Shinar (in Gen. 10:10), where the Tower of Babel was built to consolidate human power. This attempt was thwarted by God via His sending a confusion of languages upon humanity to limit the unification of political hegemony.
RELATED: PODCAST: MAKE CHRISTIANITY WEAK AGAIN
In the case of Israel monarchy was actually chosen by the people—though God and the prophet Samuel both warned Israel against this act. The biblical record is somewhat vague but at least consistent with the classical liberal viewpoint that kings emerge on the basis of the consent (even if consent is forced by subjugation) of a larger populace which is no more fit to rule as the king is.
As for the role of government, scripture gives us both the benefits and drawbacks of centralized authority. We are told in Judges 21:25 that the wickedness of Israel stemmed from their not having a monarch to organize their moral chaos, though 1 Samuel 8:10-18 also records the warning of God that a king will confiscate the property of the people and make war using their sons as canon fodder. The books of Kings and Chronicles are filled with stories of good kings who bless Israel and Judah as well as bad kings which oppress the people and lead them into moral depravity. The Old Testament also records that God judges kings for their oppression of the poor and weak:
“Hear the word of the Lord to you, king of Judah . . . : Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place. For if you are careful to carry out these commands, then kings who sit on David’s throne will come through the gates of this palace, riding in chariots and on horses, accompanied by their officials and their people. But if you do not obey these commands, declares the Lord, I swear by myself that this palace will become a ruin” (Jeremiah 22:2-5, NIV).
There is also a distinction to be made between the role of government in the Israelite theocracy and its role in every other state. For instance, in Amos we find oracles against both Israel and her pagan neighbors. Israel is held accountable for not following Torah (the law of Moses), whereas the nations are chastised for violating more basic, naturally understood directives of human decency. Gaza kidnapped people and sold them as slaves, Amon ripped open pregnant women to extend its borders, but Judah rejected the law of God and worshiped idols. God will judge these nations on the basis of what He demanded from them.
So, we know what a government should not do—oppress those in need and punish the innocent. What, ideally, will a government do? According to Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2:14, it will punish the evildoer while commending and rewarding those who do good. Paul also suggests in Romans 12-13 that governments should do this because Christians cannot, a complication for the Christian’s relationship to government which we will address later.
NEXT: A BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW OF GOVERNMENT PART 2 – LEFT VERSUS RIGHT
April 23, 2018
Critical Biblical Scholarship Part 4 – The Historicity of the Book of Daniel
This is the fourth in a series on critical biblical scholarship. For more, follow the RELATED links on each article.
A lot of people are familiar with the story of Daniel in the lions’ den. Slightly less of us are familiar with the story of his friends Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace (and many of those only because of the Beastie Boys song). But I’d like to go into the much less familiar territory of how Daniel is dated by critical scholars who question the Bible’s veracity and to how those arguments are rebutted by conservative (which is to say those who read the Bible as trustworthy) scholars.
Dating Daniel
The book of Daniel claims of itself to have been written during the period of the exile of the Jews into Babylon and into the empire of the Medo-Persians who conquered Babylon, which would put its final date of composition at around 530 B.C.
RELATED: PODCAST: DANIEL WAS A MAN – THE HISTORICITY OF THE PROPHET DANIEL
This date is contested by critical scholars for a handful of reasons, but the most pertinent ones have to do with the fact that Daniel claims to know about future events which he delivers information about through prophetic oracles. If you think the Bible is trustworthy in its relation of supernatural events, this won’t be a very persuasive argument for you. But if you rule out the supernatural a priori, then obviously Daniel must have been written after the events he claimed to prophesy about.
What are the prophecies in Daniel that critics use to late date it? In chapter 8, Daniel has a vision of a ram with two horns fighting a goat with one big horn. The two-headed ram is explicitly identified as the dual kingdom of Medo-Persia and the goat is identified as Greece, a kingdom coming from the west and conquering everything–including the ram. This implies that the goat’s one big horn is Alexander the Great. We then read that, “The goat became very great, but at the height of its power the large horn was broken off, and in its place four prominent horns grew up toward the four winds of heaven.”
RELATED: ARE THE OLD TESTAMENT ACCOUNTS HISTORICAL?
We know that Alexander’s kindgom was divided into four, and one of them, the Seleucid kingdom, would have a significant impact on the Jewish people. This is where the critical dating comes in. Daniel says that one of the four horns grows in power and directs itself toward Palestine. It then takes away the temple sacrifices and worship. This is Antiochus IV, called Epiphanes (or “God manifest”).
In addition, Daniel 11 has a lot of very specific biographical details about Antiochus’ life, though from verses 36-45, it either shifts to describing a different king (that some exegetes have identified as antichrist) or it begins to give incorrect data about Antiochus’ life before his death. Critical scholars opt for the latter interpretation and date the writing of Daniel to just before the book begins to give data which they view as false prophecy. This places the writing around 167 B.C.
RELATED: CRITICAL BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP PART 1 – JEDP AND THE DOCUMENTARY HYPOTHESIS
The problem with this reading of Daniel is that Daniel doesn’t just provide data up to the time of Antiochus, but up to the time of Christ.
In Daniel’s 2nd and 7th chapters, we find two different accounts of the same series of events which were yet future to Daniel. The first from the perspective of the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar, and the second from the perspective of God. In chapter 2, we read of Nebuchadnezzar’s vision of a great statue with four different sections made of different elements, representing four kingdoms—the first the Babylonians, the second the Medo-Persians, the third the Greeks, and the fourth the Romans. In the end, a stone cut without human hands is hurled at the feet and the image comes crashing down. It would be during this fourth empire—the Roman—that God’s kingdom would be inaugurated.
In chapter 7, we see this from God’s perspective: these pagan powers were not a beautiful statue, but crude beasts which will be judged in God’s coming kingdom on earth.
RELATED: CRITICAL BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP PART 2 – PROBLEMS WITH THE DOCUMENTARY HYPOTHESIS
Critical scholars reinterpret the beasts and statue to make the fourth kingdom Greece instead of Rome, so that their version of Daniel isn’t writing about future events but present day ones. The problem with that interpretation is that the third beast matches many of the characteristics of the goat (explicitly referred to as Greece) in Daniel 8. Instead of a swift goat, it’s a leopard (also known for its swiftness) and this one has four heads and four wings, which is reminiscent of Daniel’s description of the leopard as “crossing the whole earth without touching the ground” before its horn is broken and four new horns grow in its place.
In addition, in Daniel chapter 9 Daniel has a vision wherein he sees that 490 years after the call to rebuild the Jerusalem temple, a Messiah will come and be put to death in order to “finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy Place” (Daniel 9:24, NIV). The timing of this prophecy results in an end date at around 27 AD—the beginning of the ministry of Jesus. Add this to Daniel’s claim that at the time of the fourth empire, Rome, God’s kingdom would be inaugurated—a prophecy that was fulfilled by Christ’s resurrection and the church which it created.
Critical Double Standards
But there are other problems with dating Daniel to the 160s BC. Stephen Miller, in his commentary on Daniel, gives us one example that underlines the special pleading and circular reasoning of the critical perspective. Critical scholars had suggested that a number of Psalms probably dated to the time of Antiochus IV due to their content, but this hypothesis was broadly abandoned when manuscripts of these Psalms were found at Qumran which dated to the late second century BC. Writes Miller:
“W. H. Brownlee remarks that ‘it would seem that we should abandon the idea of any of the canonical psalms being of Maccabean date, for each song had to win its way in the esteem of the people before it could be included in the sacred compilation of the Psalter. Immediate entrée for any of them is highly improbable.’ Yet concerning Daniel, Brownlee states, ‘None of the Dead Sea Scroll copies of Daniel are so early as to dispute the usual critical view concerning the book’s authorship, although one Daniel manuscript from Cave Four is to be dated not more than fifty years later than its composition.’ If the discovery of the Psalter in the second century B.C. is sufficient evidence to push the date of that document back before 332 B.C., should not the same evidence indicate that Daniel was written before the second century” (Stephen B. Miller, The New American Commentary Vol. 18 – Daniel,
Kindle Edition.)?
Such fuzzy reasoning and double standards on the part of critical scholars led Old Testament scholar Brevard S. Childs to remark:
“The often used cliche of ‘freedom from dogma’ seems now largely rhetorical. Nor can the categories of historical versus dogmatic be seen as intractable rivals. Rather, the issue turns on the quality of the dogmatic construal. It is undoubtedly true that in the history of the discipline traditional dogmatic rubrics have often stifled the close hearing of the biblical text, but it is equally true that exegesis done in conscious opposition to dogmatics can be equally stifling and superficial” (Brevard S. Childs, Biblical Theology of Old and New Testaments:Theological Reflection of the Christian Bible, Kindle edition.).
When one assesses all of the data on Daniel, this one must conclude that the critical perspective tries too hard to come up with a naturalistic explanation for its composition that simply strains plausibility.
April 19, 2018
Critical Biblical Scholarship Part 3 – The Documentary Hypothesis Applied to the Book of Amos
This is the third in a series on critical biblical scholarship. For more, follow the RELATED links on each article.
We talked last time about the documentary hypothesis and how critical scholars have chopped up the first five books of the Bible into sections which they assert come from different authors writing at different times. If you haven’t heard that, you might want to go back and read those articles because I’ll assume that you have some familiarity with the topic.
RELATED: CRITICAL BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP PART 1 – JEDP AND THE DOCUMENTARY HYPOTHESIS
RELATED: CRITICAL BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP PART 2 – PROBLEMS WITH THE DOCUMENTARY HYPOTHESIS
What I want to do here is look at how acceptance of the documentary hypothesis impacts how other biblical books outside of the Torah are treated by critical scholars. Amos is a great book to look at because it’s short, its author lived fairly early in Israel’s history (in the 750s BC or thereabouts), and it’s rich in content that suggests familiarity with portions of the Torah that critical scholars date to hundreds of years later.
Let’s start with a broad look at the book of Amos. He seemed to have been a prophet of humble background and humble occupation. Attributed to Amos in 7:14-15 is this statement:
“I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.”
The first two chapters of Amos pronounce judgment upon pagan nations for their cruelty and inhumanity, the latter part of chapter 2 up through chapter 9 detail Israel’s crimes and impending punishment, including the destruction of the Israelite sanctuary at Bethel, and the end of chapter 9 details their future restoration. When discussing the crimes of Israel and of pagan nations, Amos seems to reference passages in the Pentateuch, including passages which critical scholars view as later priestly and Deuteronomic additions written after the time of Amos. More on that later.
The Critical View of Amos
Tchavdar Hadijev, in his book The Composition and Redaction of the Book of Amos, gives us some insight into how critical scholars look at Amos. He begins by telling us that the book comes substantially from the prophet Amos himself:
“There are a number of commentators who ascribe all, or almost all, of the book’s content to Amos himself but do so for very different reasons. They would also have quite distinct ideas on what Amos actually was an did: a Northern government official, a Judean nationalist . . . a cultic prophet, a preacher of the covenant, etc.”
RELATED: PODCAST: FOR THREE REDACTIONS, EVEN FOR FOUR — AMOS AND THE DOCUMENTARY HYPOTHESIS
Now, we’re already off to a rocky start. Look at the diversity of opinions about who Amos was and where he lived, all based on different concerns which scholars think they find reflected in the text. Also, a number of commentators ascribe the book to Amos, which suggests that a number do not.
It gets more complicated. Hadijev notes that:
“Modern redaction-critical study of Amos begins with the influential thesis of Wolff who identified six stages in the literary development of the book.”
The last three hypothesized stages are most important for our purposes:
4. The Bethel-Exposition of the Josianic age [3:14, 5:6, 4:6-12, 4:13, 5:8-9, 9:5-6, 1:2] where addtions were made which “aimed to support the destruction of the Bethel sanctuary by Josiah.”
5. “a Deuteronomist redaction [1:9-12; 2:4-5, 10-12; 3:1b, 7; 5:25-26] sought to apply the prophetic word to Judah during the time of Babylonian exile.”
6. “A postexilic addition of the epilogue in 9:11-15 supplied the missing message of salvation.”
Hadijev claims that Wolff’s reconstruction has been accepted in broad outline by “a number of scholars,” though notes important dissenters on various points.
The Conservative View of Amos
In contrast, Gleason Archer, a conservative biblical scholar who rejects the documentary hypothesis and holds to biblical inerrancy, notes several places where Amos seems to refer to the Pentateuch, such as:
Amos 2:7 apparently chastises Israel for engaging in religious prostitution, as forbidden in Deuteronomy 23:17-18.
Amos 2:8 condemns those who keep clothing from poor borrowers overnight as forbidden in Exodus 22:26.
Amos 2:12 refers to the Nazarite vow as referenced in Numbers 6:1-21.
Numerous places in Amos use sacrificial terms which many critical scholars suppose come from much later in Judah’s history.
In addition, Amos 4:4-5 seems to be railing against the unauthorized sanctuaries outside of Jerusalem, which is why some scholars (including those who accept the sixfold development Hadijev detailed) see it as a later Deuteronomist passage. However, Hadijev argues that it isn’t unauthorized sanctuaries which Amos is railing against but improper attitudes in worship.
The Right View of Amos?
So, what are we to conclude? Why do so many scholars date portions of Amos as much later than the life of Amos himself? Is it because there is clear, incontrovertible evidence that such segmenting is required by the data? Or, on the contrary, is it because the book of Amos presents a history consistent with a straight-forward reading of the Old Testament which critical scholars are simply biased against?
Why not assume that the book of Amos is a single unit and that its author is familiar with the Torah as a complete unit during his own time? Is that not the simplest and most obvious solution? Perhaps critical scholars could do just this if they didn’t treat the text with an undue suspicion and didn’t feel obligated to justify the history of Israel/Judah presented by the documentary hypothesis.
NEXT: CRITICAL SCHOLARSHIP PART 4 – THE HISTORICITY OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL
April 15, 2018
Critical Biblical Scholarship Part 2 – Problems with the Documentary Hypothesis
This is the second in a series on critical biblical scholarship. For more, follow the RELATED links on each article.
In the last article, we discussed the basic contours of the documentary hypothesis and how it has developed through the years. For this post, we’ll discuss some of the problems with this hypothesis.
PREVIOUS: CRITICAL BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP PART 1 – JEDP AND THE DOCUMENTARY HYPOTHESIS
What objections are raised against the documentary hypothesis?
The Divine Name Criterion
To start with, there are numerous examples in Ancient Near Eastern literature of one God being referred to with multiple names, and this undermines the divine names criterion for slicing up the Pentateuch. Baal was also known as Aliyan, the Koran refers to Allah as both Allahu and Rabbu, and in the Ebla tablets there are two gods—Mi-ka-il and En-na-il, who go by the same name but with a “ya” instead of an “il.” This is most interesting since the God of the Bible is known both as Yahweh and Elohim.
In addition, there are plenty of examples of a name for God showing up where the critics expect the other name. For instance, the name Elohim occurs in passages defined as belonging to J (such as Genesis 3, 16, and 32) YHWH occurs in E passages like Genesis 22 and 28, etc.
But perhaps the death blow to the divine names criterion is that in the Greek translation of the Old Testament (called the Septuagint), which is acknowledged by scholars to be more trustworthy than the Hebrew Masoretic text in a number of places, differs in which divine name is used in almost 200 places (substituting YHWH for Elohim or vice-versa), which means the criterion cannot be used definitively to show which supposed author is writing.
RELATED: PODCAST: A PRIEST AND A DEUTERONOMIST WALK INTO A BAR – THE DOCUMENTARY HYPOTHESIS
If the use of one divine name over another doesn’t tell us who authored which section, what might it tell us? When critics argue that the name YHWH often is used in passages where God seems more intimate with humanity and is described in more anthropomorphic terms, they’re not far off. For instance, in Genesis 1, we find that Elohim brings the universe into existence. But in Genesis 2, it is YHWH Elohim who takes a special interest in the creation of mankind and walks in Eden with Adam and Eve and who enters into covenant relationship with them. This doesn’t necessarily require two different authors, however, but two ways of describing the same God depending upon how He is relating to His creation.
Begging the Question
There’s also a great deal of circular reasoning in the Documentary Hypothesis. For instance, if a critic says that J and E aren’t interested in issues of the temple or the sacrificial system, that’s only because they have defined any passage which discusses these issues as a P passage, and they’ve only done that because of assumptions they’ve made about the development of the Israelite religion. Why not assume, as earlier thinkers in the documentary hypothesis did, that the passages now relegated to P belonged to J or E?
Kenneth Kitchen, an orientalist and Egyptologist by training, has also spent some time examining Old Testament scholarship and noted how much more distrustful and cynical it is of its primary sources in comparison to other Ancient Near Eastern scholarship. Critical Old Testament scholarship has a strong tendency to avoid harmonizing texts—instead exaggerating differences in texts to create contradictions as a rationale to multiply proposed sources—and generally trusts non-OT sources over OT ones when an apparent discrepancy seems to exist. For instance, it was assumed in Old Testament scholarship that the Babylonian king Belshazzar, mentioned in Daniel, never existed since no other source seemed aware of him outside of the Bible. This was used to further the assumption that Daniel was written hundreds of years after it claims of itself and was not historical. In 1850 German scholar Ferdinand Hitzig said in his commentary on the book of Daniel that Belshazzar was ‘a figment of the writer’s imagination.'” This critical position was changed after the Nabonidus Cylinder and Chronicle were discovered, referencing Belshazzar and his position as co-regent.
Evidence for the Traditional View of Mosaic Authorship
Though the Torah by no means claims to have been written entirely by Moses (even the most conservative scholars will at least acknowledge that Moses didn’t write of his own death in Deuteronomy 34), there are portions which explicitly claim Mosaic authorship, such as Exodus 17:14, Num 33:1-2, and Deut 31:9. In addition there are other Old Testament passages which claim Moses as the author of at least portions of the Torah, such as Joshua 8:32, 1 Kings 2:3, and 2 Kings 14:6.
There are also some indirect evidences which suggest an author whose characteristics line up with those of Moses. The author of the Torah is familiar with Egyptian names, titles, and geography though he assumes some unfamiliarity on the part of his readers with Palestine. For instance, in Genesis 13:10 the author explains what the Jordan Valley was like by comparing it to Egypt. This assumes that he thought his readers would know more about the geography of Egypt than the geography of Palestine (perhaps Hebrews traveling to Palestine for the first time?), and perhaps that he knew more of Egypt than he did of Palestine.
Also, many of the commands in the Torah regarding sacrifices and worship assume a movable tabernacle and not the temple which would mark the worship of the Israelites after the time of Solomon in the tenth century B.C., two centuries before the documentary hypothesis dates its earliest source. There are also commands assuming life within a sojourning community–such as how one should defecate outside of the camp–which seem irrelevant if they were written for a people who were settled within Palestine.
Finally, the author of the Penateuch is clearly a very educated person, and this also fits the bill for Moses.
NEXT: CRITICAL BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP PART 3 – THE DOCUMENTARY HYPOTHESIS APPLIED TO THE BOOK OF AMOS
Critical Biblical Scholarship Part 1 – JEDP and the Documentary Hypothesis
This is the first in a series on critical biblical scholarship. For more, follow the RELATED links on each article.
Origin and Development of the Documentary Hypothesis
In the field of Old Testament studies, and particularly in the Torah (which are the first five books of the Bible traditionally attributed to Moses), the model which has been perhaps the most influential for critical scholarship (those who tend to treat the Bible more skeptically) is called the documentary hypothesis. The documentary hypothesis asserts that the Torah contains multiple written sources with different perspectives on God which were later edited together into the form that we find them now. This article will discuss the hypothesis’ origins and history; the next one will focus on some of its problems.
RELATED: PODCAST: A PRIEST AND A DEUTERONOMIST WALK INTO A BAR – THE DOCUMENTARY HYPOTHESIS
The roots of the documentary hypothesis are in an 18th century French scholar named Jean Astruc. Astruc suggested that different divine names in Genesis 1 and 2 (Elohim in 1 and YHWH Elohim in 2) suggested two different sources. This was later applied to the rest of Genesis and part of Exodus by a scholar named Johann Eichhorn. These two alleged sources—J for Jehovah (a poor translation of the Hebrew divine name YHWH) and E for Elohim—were seen as the backbone of the historical sections of the Torah. In addition to parceling out texts on the basis of divine names, these scholars also pointed to doublets in the text—repetitions of the same material—as suggesting two different sources being placed together.
19th century scholar Wilhelm De Wette then suggested a third source called D for Deuteronomy which he contended was manufactured by King Josiah and the high priest Hilkiah in the 7th century B.C.–a more conspiratorial reading of 2 Kings 22 where we read about Hilkiah finding the forgotten Law of Moses in the temple and sparking a revival in Jewish piety.
Instead of simply finding the law, De Wette suggested that these authorities wrote it themselves, emphasizing the temple in Jerusalem as central to Jewish worship for their own benefit. For those familiar with the popular “Bush did 9/11” meme, De Wette, if he were alive today, might have invented “Josiah did Deuteronomy.”
Hermann Hupfield split the alleged E source into two, creating a fourth source called P which is short for the Priestly author. This created the standard fourfold division of the documentary hypothesis, though Hupfield’s chronological order of PEJD differed from the now standard order of JEDP.
The order of JEDP would be suggested by a German scholar whose name is most closely associated with the hypothesis named Julius Wellhausen. His assumption that the priestly source was last is shared by contemporary documentary hypothesis advocates, though not his (now largely viewed as antisemitic) rationale that it came last because Jewish religion had devolved into obsessing with the sacrificial system prior to the coming of Christ, a problem which Christianity resolved. A lecture from Dr. Christine Hayes of Yale (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zy5ue0QPUOo) criticized this perceived anti-semitism of Wellhausen as a product of its time, though she seemed to think that modern scholars can use the documentary hypothesis without the bias of those in previous generations.
At this stage of the documentary hypothesis, J is dated to 850 B.C. in the Southern Kingdom and it is argued that it describes God more anthropomorphically. E is dated to 750 in the Northern Kingdom and it is argued that it sees God as more distant. D is dated to around 621 B.C. and supposedly centralized Israelite worship in Jerusalem. Finally, P reflects the concerns of a later priestly class.
Now, if that sounds like a messy backstory, I really only gave the broadest strokes. There are so many reversals and variations that it would be very tedious to get into all of them. In the next post, we’ll get into some of the problems with the documentary hypothesis.
NEXT: CRITICAL BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP PART 2 – PROBLEMS WITH THE DOCUMENTARY HYPOTHESIS
April 14, 2018
Did the Early Church Believe that Jesus Is God? (Jesus’ Divinity in the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch)
Audio download: http://www.cantus-firmus.com/Audio/20180414-DidtheEarlyChurchBelievethatJesusIsGod.mp3
I’m doing a series right now on early 2nd century church father Ignatius of Antioch’s letters on my Patreon podcast and thought it might be useful to pull together some of the data about how this early church father looked at Jesus and thought about His divinity.
There’s this notion that the earliest Christians didn’t see Jesus as divine and that the idea of His divinity crept in slowly over a long period of time. Some have even argued that it came about through the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D., almost 300 years after Jesus died!
RELATED: THE EARLIEST WITNESSES TO THE LIFE AND NATURE OF CHRIST
Well, Ignatius of Antioch was a major figure in the early church and wrote a series of letters in the first decade of the 2nd century (or early 100s A.D.) to churches as he was on his way to be martyred in Rome. He tries to persuade them of a number of ideas (for instance, that they should not follow Jewish practices, that they should obey their bishop, even that they shouldn’t interfere with his martyrdom), but whenever he speaks about Jesus’ divinity, it’s always something he mentions matter-of-factly as if they all just believed it. Here are five citations from Ignatius about the divinity of Jesus:
God-and-Man in One Agreed
“There is only one Physician –
Very Flesh, yet Spirit too;
Uncreated, and yet born;
God-and-Man in One agreed,
Very-Life-in-Death indeed,
Fruit of God and Mary’s seed;
At once impassible and torn
By pain and suffering here below:
Jesus Christ, whom as our Lord we know.”
-Ignatius to the Ephesians, 7
God in Human Form
“The age-old empire of evil was overthrown, for God was now appearing in human form to bring in a new order, even life without end. Now that which had been perfected in the Divine counsels began its work; and all creation was thrown into a ferment over this plan for the utter destruction of death.”
-Ephesians 19
Son of Man and Son of God
“[Be] united in faith and in Jesus Christ (who is the seed of David according to the flesh, and is the Son of Man and Son of God).”
– Ephesians 20
With the Father from All Eternity
“Jesus Christ, who was with the Father from all eternity and in these last days has been made manifest.”
– Magnesians 6
Eternally with That One
“Jesus Christ – who came down from the one and only Father, is eternally with that One, and to that One is now returned.”
– Magnesians 7
April 1, 2018
PODCAST: The Gospel of the Resurrection
For Easter Sunday I wanted to discuss the significance of the resurrection for how the apostles presented the gospel and contrast that with how most modern Christians present it.
The material I covered in this podcast can also be found in my Kindle essay The Gospel of the Resurrection: How Belief in Eternal Conscious Torment Has Obscured the Apostolic Understanding of the Gospel, which can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TKM88VW
Audio:
http://www.cantus-firmus.com/Audio/20180331-GospeloftheResurrection.mp3
Music:
“The Itis” by Polyrhythmics. Licensed under CC BY 3.0
http://www.needledrop.co/wp/artists/polyrhythmics/
March 17, 2018
Announcing the Cantus Firmus Patreon + Rewards
For me, this Patreon is an opportunity to do more of what I love while getting a little extra financial help finishing my theology MA and taking care of my family.
For you, it means rewards for your patronage, such as (depending upon your level of support) early access to podcasts and new book projects I’m working on (as well as status updates and opportunities to participate in the process), all of my books in digital format, a special bi-weekly podcast that will discuss biblical/theological issues as well as analysis of a theologically relevant movie selected for that episode, and the ability to see and discuss the work I’m doing completing my MA. At the $50/month tier, you can also get autographed physical copies of my books, a shout out in the podcasts, and the opportunity to suggest a film for me to discuss in the exclusive Patreon podcast. I’ll work hard to produce quality content that makes you feel like you’re getting your money’s worth.
I’ve already posted the first Patreon-exclusive podcast!
Visit https://www.patreon.com/cantusfirmus to learn more!
March 10, 2018
PODCAST: Cantus Firmus at the Movies Ep. 10 – The Night of the Hunter (w/ Bridget Nelson)
My special guest was Bridget Nelson of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax fame. We talked about the 1955 Charles Laughton film The Night of the Hunter, highlighting what it says about religious hypocrisy and religious sincerity, the danger of unchecked authority, and God’s unique concern for the weak and “little things.”
Bridget can be found at www.rifftrax.com, on Twitter at @bridgetjnelson, and her podcast Instead of Tweeting can be found on iTunes.
Audio:
http://www.cantus-firmus.com/Audio/20180308-CFATM-Ep10-NightoftheHunter(wBridgetNelson).mp3
Music:
“Octagon Pt 2” by Polyrhythmics. Licensed under CC BY 3.0
http://www.needledrop.co/wp/artists/polyrhythmics/
Because we spent so much time talking about the visual feel of this film, I’ve included some photos below to provide some examples:
