Michael S. Heiser's Blog, page 83

Seventy Weeks of Daniel (aka, The Pit of Despair)

Remember the albino from The Princess Bride? The guy who was in charge of the pit of despair? That's who I feel like when asked to talk about the seventy weeks of Daniel. It is a quagmire of ambiguity and obtuseness. And yet so many people hang so much on one particular interpretation of it.

The pit of despair was the topic of my third session on prophecy at my church. You can view the video here (the audio for week 2′s video never took, so that one won't be posted).

If you want the slides and handout, they will eventually be posted here (but not up yet – keep checking).

One more week to go. Not completely sure what I'll be doing. I'm trying to resist dumping on my favorite "no prayer of being right" prophecy ideas, or my own favorite things to think about (yes, I have those for prophecy, but the list is very short and even they aren't interesting enough for me to care much about prophecy).  I'll probably opt for something more useful.

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"Scriptures" and "Canon"

That's the title of a short piece by Larry Hurtado on his blog today. It's certainly worth a read to catch his distinction.

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New Location for Logos Lecture Series Links

I've had several people recently ask me about where they can find the video and audio of a public (i.e., not for scholars) lecture I have a few years ago on the godhead in the OT.  The link to that has moved from its old spot on the Logos site to this location at the blog.

You can actually find most of the entire lecture series on the blog.  You have to go to the Logos blog and search for "Logos lecture series" or (hope this works) follow this link for the search results.  Scroll down to see lecture titles. There are links to three more pages at the end (mine was on page 3). Not sure what you'll find at each, but likely there is at least audio for them).

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Video Link to My First "Why Do You Believe What You Believe About End Times?" Session

I just saw that the link to my session at my church is up.  For those interested, just click here.

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Thoughts on Prophecy: Embracing the Messiness

Some of you know via other interactions that I'm currently teaching a four-week class at my church on interpreting prophecy. (Yes, I got talked into it).

This past Thursday was the first session. My goal throughout the four weeks will be to convince people that interpretations of prophecy are anything but self-evident. As readers of this blog know, prophecy is all about presuppositions brought to the text.

The topic was why you believe what you believe about the kingdom of God. For many, having little prior exposure to what's really going on under the hood of biblical theology, it's confusing.  But that's good. It's complicated. Popular books and teachers just don't tell you a lot of things you need to think about, and basically don't pull back the curtain so you can see that it's about presumptions, not citing verses.  They want you to adopt their position.

Anyway, I thought I'd post the slides (you have to right-click and "Save As" for some reason) and this two-page summary of the issues for anyone interested.

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Naked Bible Fantasy Football is Back

For those of you who were reading the blog last year, you'll recall that I created a fantasy football league for the blog readership. It pains me to also remind you that I got my hat handed to me last season (finished fourth). Time for some sanctified revenge!

If you want to play this year, just shoot me an email. I'll then send you an invitation with the password. There are nine slots remaining (ten team league with two divisions). Custom scoring (with bonus points) and three defensive players on the roster this time. The draft is live and is scheduled for noon (Eastern) on August 27 (Saturday).

My team's name? Leviathan Bites.

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Were New Testament Writers Hermeneutical Hacks?

For those of you who read comments what follows will be familiar. I've been chatting back-and-forth with someone named John Loftus, who is an atheist and has a blog called debunking Christianity. One of the issues upon which John focused was what he perceives as either deliberate or inept use of the Old Testament by New Testament writers when it comes to "messianic prophecy." In briefest terms, his contention was that the interpretations that NT writers give to OT passages are contrived or just plain wrong; that is, we'd never come up with their interpretations using modern interpretive methods (the "grammatical historical" method). I actually agree in many instances, but I think judging the NT authors in this way is pointless and misguided. That said, in my view evangelicals tend to assume the same sorts of things John does about how messianic prophecy "worked." That those assumptions are misguided is why some of the "fulfillment" NT writers come up with look so strained and, in some cases, sucked out of their thumbs. At the urging of several readers to do so, I'll share my thoughts as to what I mean.

So what do I mean about the common way of parsing messianic prophecy being misguided? Well, let me first explain what I see as common. It seems to me that the vast majority of lay people and pastors make one or more of the assumptions below. (And between us, a lot of scholars do as well).

1. A New Testament messianic "fulfillment" that references an OT passage does so because the OT passage quoted was intended as messianic.

2. That NT messianic "fulfillment" have a literal 1:1 connection with an OT passage. That is, the statement we read in the NT must have a near identical counterpart statement in the OT passage.

3. That, when the above two items don't seem to work, it's okay to say the NT writer was inspired to change the OT meaning.

4. If # 3 is uncomfortable, then the NT messianic application of an OT prophecy that doesn't really jive with the OT meaning (without basically mangling the latter or making it stand on its head) must be an instance of "multiple fulfillment" or a warm-up fulfillment to the "real" fulfillment coming down the line.

Sound familiar?

As a test example for all of these, consider Matthew 2:13-15 -

13 Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." 14 And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt 15 and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, "Out of Egypt I called my son."

In verse 15, Matthew quotes Hosea 11:1.

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.

This interaction doesn't conform at all to #1 above. Hosea 11:1 isn't even a prophecy – it's looking BACKWARD into Israel's history at the exodus, where God's son (the nation of Israel – cf. Exod 4:22) left Egypt. It has nothing to do (on any face-value reading) with the coming messiah.  While it is a direct quotation (see #2 in my list), the fact that there is no messianic telegraphing (or even future perspective) in Hosea makes the directness of the quotation little comfort. The fact that Hosea 11:1 looks backward and not forward also rules out # 4 in my list. It simply isn't forward-looking. Option # 3 is all that's left, and that is where Mr. Loftus has you by your hermeneutic and will make you pay. He would charge the NT writer with sucking the interpretation out of his thumb, violating the original text and its intent in the process. This about the place where most will appeal to mystery and say God could put any new thought into the head of the writer whether it conformed to the original intent or not. If I were John Loftus and you did that, I'd tell you that you have just forfeited your right to ever talk to me about interpreting the Bible in context or its original intent again.  Worse, I'd ask you why God couldn't see the future clearly enough to NOT have to supply the NT writer with something new down the line. I thought he was omniscient!

Hope you get the picture and appreciate the problem.  But then again, I don't see a problem since I don't assume any of the assumptions listed above. I think messianic prophecy operates in an entirely different way (yeah, I know; you're not surprised).

So what's going on?

First, I don't believe the Jews of the 2nd temple period and first century (the NT era) were working from a grocery list of OT passages for which they planned to check off "fulfillments" when it came to the messiah. Frankly, "messiah" (mashiach) is not a common word.  Here are the search results for the term. You'll notice a few things right away: (1) some of the most important messianic "prophecies" don't even contain the word (e.g., Isa 7:14; Isa 53); (2) there are only two passages that even get used by NT authors as though they were prophetic statements about messiah (Psa 2:2 – referenced in Acts 4:25-26; Rev 19:19; Psa 89:51 – a faint allusion in 1 Pet 4:14). Pretty slim pickings.

What this tells us (or should — and I include Mr. Loftus here) is that since the data inform us that the NT writers did not even have a list to go by, then must have been thinking about messiah in a different way. They weren't  thinking "the messiah will say or do XYZ when he gets here because I have these verses that tell me what he'll say and do." From two verses? Come on. Consequently, my response to John Loftus was that he is wrong to criticize the methods of the NT writers. They can't be abusing a method that they never intended to use (his – and our – grammatical historical approach). That's like criticizing your dog for not being a cat. Pointless. But understandable nonetheless. You basically have to say you know better than they did (in which case you have forfeited the coherence of the claim that you are evaluating them in context — in favor of doing so out of context).

Second, my view is that Second Temple / first century Jews instead had what I'd call a "mental mosaic" of what messiah would be like and do, rather than a checklist of verses for him to "fulfill." Rather than asking themselves, "does this guy fulfill all these passages / prophecies?" they were asking "does this guy fit the profile?" The profile of which I speak was a mosaic of motifs and symbols that arise from the OT and its ancient Near Eastern culture (i.e., the OT in its own context). For the Israelite and later Jew, the mental mosaic had many pieces – i.e., motifs and symbols concerning kingship, priesthood, shepherding, sonship, servanthood, divinity, warfare, etc. All of these converged into a picture, and the pieces came from items (a word or phrase, literal or symbolic or both) in a wide network of passages. When the NT writer wrote about Jesus the question often was not "Are we sure Jesus did and said that line in XYZ text?" but "do I see messiah when I watch and listen to him?" Does he fit the profile?

Let's apply this to Hosea 11:1 – "out of Egypt I called my son." Why would Matthew take this as messianic — and what does he mean by "fulfilled"?

Well, Matthew would have to be an inept reader to think that Hosea 11:1 looked forward. He wasn't a doofus, so he wasn't looking at it that way.  But he knew the profile. Here are some obvious mosaic pieces that Matthew would have known (they are transparent from the text):

1. Messiah would be a descendant of David, who was a descendant of Abraham.

2. Descendants of Abraham were Israelites.

3. Israelites were referred to as God's son (corporately) in the OT.

4. Israel was in bondage in Egypt.

5. God delivered Israel from Egypt.

All of this very obvious information was floating around in Matthew's head when one day (we don't know how, but I'm betting Mary told the story often enough) he heard about Jesus, whom he believed the [individual] son of God, had to flee to Egypt until God told his parents in a dream to bring him out of Egypt and back to Judea. And so the lights went on in Matthew's head; he saw an amazing analogy. He decided it was one that was worth recording. It's safe to say he believed God brought to his attention and that God had ordered the events of Jesus' life in such as way as to have the analogy exist for him to see.  That's why he'd use a word like "fulfilled" – but not in the 1:1 correspondence way we imagine it needing to work.

Now, when you look at that, we have to admit it isn't rocket science. There's nothing that isn't readily apparent. But we also have to admit we have the benefit of hindsight. I don't want readers to get the impression that the Holy Spirit / God had nothing to do with the NT authors seeing how Jesus fit the profile. But a lot of it isn't that hard to see unless you're locked in to one way of thinking about prophecy and fulfillment. I think the tougher task for the disciples and NT writers was knowing the text so well that the mosaic became discernible. They weren't scholars (except for Paul). They had to learn and think and connect the dots / match the profile.  That took time. I think we can all identify.

P.S.

By the way, it isn't just messianic prophecy that works this way, either. This is how to look at many things with respect to biblical theology. I refer you to the third bullet point on Heiser's laws for Bible Study: "Patterns in the text are more important than word studies."

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Heiser's Laws for Bible Study

I was doodling today, and this came out. Really.

Last night when I should have been grading some papers I was in the mood to do some work on my next four-week teaching session at church. You'll know how unusual that was when I tell you it's going to be on prophecy (stop chuckling). I'm going to do four weeks on "Why are you where you are when it comes to your end times beliefs?"  I'll be trying to get people to think about their presumptions. (Yes, I will post my power points here). I woke up this morning thinking about the first week, wondering how to communicate some of the skills people really need to move beyond assuming Bible *reading* is Bible *study* (I have learned, kicking and screaming mind you, that this is where most people are at – and it hurts). Bible reading is light years from Bible study, though there is obvious overlap. I sat down and wrote out the list below. No doubt it well get tweaked some time since it's less than thirty minutes old.

Heiser's Laws for Bible Study

There is no substitute for close attention to the biblical text.


You should be observing the biblical text in the original languages. If you cannot, never trust one translation in a passage. Use several and then learn skills for understanding why they disagree.1


Patterns in the text are more important than word studies.


The New Testament's use of the Old Testament is the key to understanding how prophecy works.2


The Bible must be interpreted in context, and that context isn't your own or that of your theological tradition; it is the context that produced it (ancient Near East / Mediterranean).

Put another way, if you're letting your theological tradition filter the Bible to you, you aren't doing Bible study or exegesis.




The Bible is a divine human book; treat it as such.

Put another way, God chose people to write the biblical text, and people write using grammar, in styles understood by their peers, and with deliberate intent — and so the Bible did not just drop from heaven. Study it as though some person actually wrote it, not like the result of a paranormal event.




If it's weird, it's important (i.e., it's there for a reason; it is not random).


Don't hire someone to stock the grocery shelves who can't read the labels.  Or: don't put your meds in the daily pill tray unless you can read the instructions.

Put another way: Systematic theology isn't helpful (and can be misleading) if its parts are not derived from exegesis of the original text. Biblical theology is done from the ground up, not the top down (and so, see # 2 in this list).




If, after you've done the grunt work of context-driven exegesis, what the biblical text says disturbs you, let it.


Build a network of exegetical insights you can keep drawing upon; the connections are the result of a supernatural Mind guiding the very human writers. The only way to think that Mind's thoughts are to find the network, one node at a time.

—————–

These skills would be things like learning grammatical terms and concepts, along with translation philosophy and the basics of textual criticism. ↩
Here's where Greek and Hebrew matter, but there are tools (like Carson and Beale's OT in the NT commentary) that help. If you aren't paying attention to this – and how the NT sees OT prophecy fulfilled in various ways – not just "literally" – you should politely excuse yourself from teaching anything about Bible prophecy and start studying this. ↩

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Last MEMRA Module Open Now

Indeed, this will be the last offering in MEMRA for likely a year. I am rethinking the experiment and will post something about 2012 in September.

As far as this last module, here is the link for registration (which will last two weeks).

Here is the list of courses; all courses are six weeks long, except for the language courses, which are 52 weeks / one year:

How We Got the New Testament ($50; six weeks)

An introduction to the collection and historical transmission of the text of the New Testament. Attention will focus on the canonical process, ancient scribal tasks, copying and transmission of the biblical text, and ancient and modern translation of the biblical texts. The student will be introduced to types of errors in manuscript transmission, divergent readings in manuscripts, text-critical principles of evaluating errors and divergent readings, and the history of the printed New Testament.

Taught by Rick Brannan – Rick handles all the Greek NT Projects for Logos and has done so for many years. This will be a treat for those interested in NT textual criticism. Rick has a deep knowledge of the subject.

Old Testament Theology III ($50; six weeks)

An examination of Old Testament theology in the flow of biblical history, from Genesis 6 through the period of the conquest. Special focus on divine plurality, the sons of God, the Babel incident, Yahweh embodied as the Angel, and holy war in the Old Testament.

Beginning Hebrew Grammar ($200; 52 weeks)

The course involves working through the entirety of the required textbook (Futato) and therefore requires a good deal of memorization. Students should expect to commit an average of 20-30 minutes per day every day to the course.

Beginning Greek Grammar ($200; 52 weeks)

The course involves working through the entirety of the required textbook (Black, 2nd ed) and therefore requires a good deal of memorization. Students should expect to commit an average of 20-30 minutes per day every day to the course.

1 Enoch III ($50; six weeks)

A continuation of the the first two Enoch modules (chs. 72-108)

 

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New Perspective on Paul: A Recent Reading Group Post

Well, the Naked Bible Reading Group on the NPP has started up. I gave everyone a week to read Kent Yinger's short book on it (The New Perspective on Paul: An Introduction), and posting has begun. What follows is my most recent post. I thought it might be useful to share here.

—–

Hopefully this will make sense (and there are no embarrassing typos).

Premise A:  We do not merit salvation – it is not something God owes us at any point.

Premise B:  Salvation is therefore extended to us by the grace of God.

Premise C:  We have to believe in this gracious offer — that it is real and true, that its Giver can deliver the goods.

Premise D:  The offer has some intellectual content that is the object of this belief (i.e., what is the thing or things I must believe in Premise C?).

Q: Does salvation stop here? Is intellectual assent / belief the *only* element of salvation? Is it the lone essential element?  Or, are works added?  That is, does God ask that something be done on our

part for salvation, to any degree?  If so, how are these works not essential to salvation? How is salvation then not merited? This seems to be a theological Catch-22.

I've answered this in past posts on the blog this way:

"For by grace are you saved through faith without works is dead."

Does this mean:

1. The absence of works / godliness indicates faith is absent (i.e., you don't believe). This means belief (faith) is primary; it is what gives life to works. The reverse is not true. (Note: absence here means absence — a complete lifestyle direction away from faith, an abandonment of any pursuit of godliness — not a struggle with sin).

Or

2. The absence of works / godliness kills or drives away faith. This would suggest that ungodliness is more powerful than faith. It wins.

In regard to these options, what about the role of the Spirit, especially his indwelling of the believer (Rom 8:9-11; James 4:5)? While the NT clearly says the Spirit can be quenched, does that mean the Spirit is killed or driven out (as opposed to stymied or hindered)? One can argue that the Spirit left Israel as a result of apostasy, but a careful reading shows that was the Spirit's (God's) decision. The Spirit wasn't defeated while resisting apostasy, as though Israel's apostasy killed or defeated the Spirit.  The apostates were forsaken by the Spirit. Taking that to option #2, it does not appear that ungodliness kills the Spirit and so it does not appear it can kill faith. Rather, the Spirit works in the believer to convict him/her of ungodliness. This means #2 is not coherent. Back to #1 then: the absence of works indicates faith (and so, the Spirit) is absent.

But what about the warnings against unbelief?  Can the believer choose to no longer believe? Would the Spirit (God) abandon the believer when there was no more belief, or when belief was surrendered?

My take: If "unbelief" refers to doubt or losing heart (uncertainty), I would answer "no" to these last two questions. If "unbelief" refers to a turning away (the definition of apostasy) from faith to worship another god or no god at all, I'd answer "yes."  Because …

"No one is in heaven who did not believe."

And so for me, I choose #1 above (the absence of works / godliness indicates faith is absent), which means in turn that I answer the "Q" under the listed premises this way: Salvation is by faith. Belief is what is required. Works are essential to salvation, but not the meritorious cause. Meaning: works are essential in that they validate the real presence of faith. This does not mean believers do not struggle with sin, or that they never have doubt or uncertainty. It means that one must believe to be saved, and if one really does believe, the Spirit will produce fruit in that person, perhaps (always, to be honest) not what he could produce, but there will be fruit. God does not believe for us, though. Neither does he force belief on us. He made us his imagers. We share some of his attributes, one of which is freedom. We must choose to believe in his offer of salvation. If we turn from it and do not (or no longer) believe, we are not going to be saved.

I believe further that salvation worked this way in both testaments, and that some core NPP ideas are consistent with that (but I have a fundamental bone to pick as you'll note below). To illustrate, let's start with Sanders' Jew:

Sanders' Jew would say:

1. God has chosen Israel by election. This elective act was an act of grace.

2. Salvation was then by grace, but not really by faith — it was by election.

3. Salvation was therefore for the Jew. One had to be in the elected nation, the "covenant community" to be saved.

4. The law was graciously given by God not to merit salvation (one cannot merit election — and Deut 7:7-8 makes it clear that election was pure choice on God's part) but to maintain a right relationship with God.

5. The law was therefore required to maintain a right relationship with God.

6. The law provided a means of atonement when the law was transgressed. This, too, was grace.

My own view is that Sanders' Jew misunderstands election, and allows election to displace personal faith. (And I've seen that in reformed Christian circles. too). Salvation was about "being in" the covenant community, not individual faith. Paul rejected the idea that "being in" (being Jewish) = salvation. Salvation is about faith (for Paul, faith in Christ), not being Jewish. Yes, a Jew can believe salvation is by grace (= election) and keep the law to maintain that relationship with God — but if there is no faith, there is no salvation. I think this is why Paul appeals to Abraham in Romans 4 *for the Jew* – he wants the Jews to see that, even in the OT, faith was required. Same thing for Paul's use of David (David is praying for forgiveness in personal belief; he doesn't appeal to election for forgiveness — he goes to the God he believes in). Paul makes this point (that salvation does not derive from the election of Israel) in Rom 3:9, 2:25-29 (it's about the heart – i.e., faith/belief). John the Baptist makes the point as well — one cannot depend on election (Matt 3:9-10).

Many of you will recall my own view of election. It factors in here for sure. Election did not guarantee salvation; it made salvation possible in that those in the elect community had access to the truth ("the oracles of God"). They would be exposed to the truth and the need to believe it. Believers are a subset of the elect. Circumcision got you in where you had access to the truth. Then you had to believe. Same for any practice of infant baptism (I've blogged before about how I think that nearly all denominations who practice this screw up its meaning). It puts the infant into the covenant community (the church) which has the truth they need to believe. It doesn't guarantee anything beyond that exposure (and in many churches they sadly still won't hear the gospel as they grow up).

Thoughts?

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Technorati Tags: Election, faith, grace, new perspective, NPP, Paul, salvation, works