Childs Quote of the Day – God’s Purpose in Revelation

On “the goal of self-disclosure”:

Surprisingly, the Old Testament is virtually silent regarding divine motivation. One searches in vain to see this issue treated in any diret fashion. It is evident that divine revelation is never grounded in some need of God, as if he were lonely. There si no hint that God required some fulfillment, or even sought fellowship with mankind in order truly to express his Godhead. Such a move is simply foreign to the Old Testament. (43).

He continues suggesting that the only way to begin to discern God’s purpose in revelation is to oberve his acts throughout Scripture. These acts ultimately point to God’s intent to make himself known for “the proper response … of praise before the manifest glory of God’s presence in his works…” (46).

But since his purposes have been obscured at the fall (46),

the most suitable biblical term for God’s purpose with his creation is ’savlation’ or ‘redemption’. These are much more to be preferred to the much-abused term ‘liberation’. … To make use of the biblical term ‘kingdom of God’ as an equivalent to salvation – his rule over all that he created – will perhaps serve to prevent any restriction of God’s work to the individual human soul, but also point to the divine initiative of bringing his cosmic will to completion, which is an eschatological force energizing the world. (49)

I’m not so sure I agree with this. Even though his purposes became obscured by the fall, I think overall his purposes was always to make himself known so that he might be glorified in praised. No?

Brevard Childs Quote of the Day – On Revelation

As I mentioned here, in honor of my rereading of Childs’ ‘Old Testament Theology in a Canonical Context,’ I’m going to continue the post the most stimulating quote of the day’s reading. Today’s quote is a bit of a patch job, but captures the essence of what I found most stimulating. There’s even a reference to Bultmann for Jim West.

Chapter 2 – The Old Testament as Revelation

Both [James] Barr and [F. G.] Downing … [define] the term revelation according to common parlance. Barr stresses that revelation implies hitherto unknown information, Downing that it effects a removal of obscurity … [this] interpretation … seeks to demonstrate that the term revelation has a different function in the Bible from its subsequent theological usage fails to deal adequately with the Bible’s role as authoritative canonical literature. Their exegesis suffers from being flat and reductionistic in quality. The canonical process often assigned a function to the literature as a whole which transcended its parts. The collection acquired a theological role in instructing, admonishing and edifying a community of faith, and that altered its original semantic level. Frequently a particular story was deemed paradigmatic of God’s ways with his people. Thu even though the knowledge of God communicated through a traditional narrative was not a revelation in its strictly linguistic sense of disclosing hitherto unknown information available to God, in its new role as scripture it served a unique religious role. It disclosed God for the community in a way which was transmitted only through this corpus of literature … The term revelation is integral to the task of Old Testament theology, but only as a shorthand formula pointing to the whole enterprise of theological reflection on the reality of God… The theological issue is not resolved by positing a sharp contrast between pre-critical and modern historical interpretation. Both Barth and Bultmann tried to teach us that lesson in the 1920s. The threat of domesticating the Word is equally present on both the right and left of the spectrum. If the canonical approach is conceived of as a closed system by which to handle biblical revelation, it is also doomed to failure and should rightly be rejected. However, if it can serve as a means for taking seriously the human form of the witness to divine revelation which God continues to bring alive for each new generation through his Spirit, it may serve as a useful tool for grappling with the real issues at stake in the theological enterprise. (22-23, 25-26).

Brevard Childs – Quote of the Day

In honor of my rereading of Child’s “Old Testament Theology in A Canonical Approach,” I’m going to start a new series entitled “Brevard Childs Quote of the Day” where I bring forth the most stimulating quote of the day’s reading. I’m only reading about a chapter a day so we should get 20 good quotes out of this.

Chapter 1 – Introduction to Old Testament Theology

The controversy with the traditio-historical critics is not over the theological significance of a depth dimension of the tradition. Rather, the issue turns on whether or not features within the tradition which have been subordinated, modified or placed in the distant background of the text can be interpreted apart from the role assigned to them in the final form when attempting to write a theology of the Old Testament. For example, to seek to give theological autonomy to a reconstructed Yahwist source apart from its present canonical context is to disregard the crucial theological intention of the tradents of the tradition, and to isolate a text’s meaning from its reception. (11)

Why Historical Criticism Is NOT ‘An Indispensable Tool’

Here’s my comment over on Sibboleth’s page:

With all due respect to Pope Benedict, the phrase “an indispensable tool” is ludicrous.

This kind of talk [is] oozing with the arrogance of the modern era and the enlightenment. If it’s so ‘indispensable’ has the Church simply been lost for 1800 years? If it’s so ‘indispensable’ why doesn’t the early Church use the ‘historical’ method in their exegesis?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying Historicism is not important or helpful, but I think it needs to be ordered appropriately.

Nothing new from me of course. I make similar comments here.

3 of Seitz’s Forthcoming Publications

For those of you that have interest in Canonical Theology and related disciplines, you might appreciate this ‘heads up.’ Christopher Seitz of the Wycliffe College at University of Toronto has three forthcoming publications (well really more than that, but there are three that are very imminent.).

First, (and I didn’t help him on this one) is his forthcoming book being put out by Baker Academic entitled ‘The Goodly Fellowship.’ I haven’t probed too much to figure out exactly what this will be about, but I get the sense that it deals with matters related to the Apocrypha, Old Testament, and Canon.

Second, he is presenting a paper at a conference in Notre Dame on ‘Canon and Conquest’ (i.e. herem) which will later be published by Oxford Press along with the other papers presented on this topic at the conference.

And third, an essay on ‘19th Century Prophecy’ will be included in the up-and-coming Hebrew Bible / Old Testament series (edited by Saebo; for those of you who aren’t familiar with this title, it is similar to the Cambridge ‘History of the Bible’ only better).

Qoheleth: From Heterdox to Orthodox (Part III) (continued . . .)

[continued from yesterday's blog, which can be found here]

Canonical Context (continued . . .)

Job and Qoheleth

The story of Job should be singled out and mentioned in particular because its connection to Ecclesiastes most highlights the canonical context of Qoheleth. Job, who arguably is as pessimistic as Qoheleth, has a very similar voice: (1) Job prefers death rather than life (ch. 3); (2) wisdom leads to sadness (ch. 28); (3) life is too enigmatic to understand (42.1-6) (James Crenshaw, Shadows of Death in Qoheleth; Paul House, OTT, 472). Like Ecclesiastes, Job “condemn[s] oppression, injustice, and other forms of breaking God’s standards.” (Ibid) Also note, as Samuel Terrien has pointed out, that just as Job theologically progresses : (1) better to never have existed, (2) prefers death out of fear that he will betray God, and 3) fear of death, so, Qoheleth theologically progresses (Ecc 1.13): (1) better to have never existed (4.1-13; 6); (2) life is too enigmatic to understand (Ecc 1.2 and similarly all throughout); and, (3) while death is not feared it is obvious that it is at the heart of the problem throughout.

Qoheleth in Light of the Writings

So what’s Qoheleth’s problem? First, unlike the problems in Psalms , Ruth, Esther, etc. Qoheleth turns inwardly to the comedic situation and questions the absurdity of the matter. Ruth and Esther are narrative and so this point is not made in the same way that Qoheleth makes it. In this regard, Qoheleth highlights the absurdity of the situation by directly commenting on the Zeigist of the Writings. Second, the book of Qoheleth is left without the theological comment that is provided within the prologue and epilogue of Job (and so Shannon Burke, God, Self, and Death: The Shape of Religious Transformation in the Second Temple Period, 61). In this regard, Qoheleth is no different than Job (as discussed above) and is speaking in angst and frustration at the injustices of the exile (Again, even if one holds to Solomonic authorship the Zeigist is negative as the Talmud informs it was after Solomon had learned the kingdom was to be given over to Rehoboam: more on this here.).

The point is this: Qoheleth is a voice that is very similar to the surrounding canonical voices that are crying out for help and understanding in the world of exile. The pessimistic voices are warranted because it is a lament (note that Lamentation follows Ecclesiastes in the Writings) of an unjust and fallen world (on a connection to Genesis see Charles Conrad Forman, “Koheleth’s Use of Genesis,” Journal of Semitic Studies 5 (1960) 258-259; Paul R. House, OTT, 474-75; Again, this how the voice of Qoheleth is actualized as received by the early Jewish communities. It is quite possible that Qoheleth did not make the connection with Gen 3, though it is likely).

Future Trajectories

Is there an answer for Qoheleth and the voice that is desperate for hope found within the writings? The canonical portrayal of the writings answers affirmingly. In Ezra-Nehemiah, Cyrus issues a decree which begins the return of the Israelites to “the land” (though not historically chronological this is how the Ezra-Nehemiah text was shaped and read by the early Jewish communities); and the book of Chronicles, typically the last book in the Writings (only few object), portrays the close of the canon as the people of God walking up the mountain of Zion in order to return to the land (2 Chr 36.22-23; like Ezra-Nehemiah, Cyrus is found here as well).

Moreover (for the Christian audiences reading this blog), the witness of the New Testament now answers Qoheleth’s empirically epistemological uncertain voice with (1) the Messiah’s dialogue with Thomas, and (2) Paul’s resolution offered in Rom 8.19-24 (for this last point, see Barry Webb, Five Festal Garments: Christian reflections on The Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes and Esther, New Studies in Biblical Theology, 106-109).

This concludes the series on the book of Ecclesiastes, and so in closing I do commend this book to you. While the deep intricacies of the book are highlighted by the knoweldge of Ancient Hebrew, many have noted that it is still a book that any layman can accurately understand because the message is clear: Life is transient and often difficult, and so while living but a short time on earth make sure to enjoy it. And so, I admonish each of you to “eat, drink, and be merry” and “fear the Lord” all the days of your life, for tommorrow we die.

Heterodoxy in Qoheleth (Part 1): No Afterlife

Recently, I have poured hundreds of hours of research into the book of Ecclesiastes (a.k.a. Qoheleth). In writing an inductive inquiry on Qoheleth’s theology of death, several heterodox assertions have surfaced. Understanding these contradictions in light of their historical and canonical context, along with Qoheleth’s placement within progress revelation, helps smooth out the tension, but these tensions do nonetheless go against the grain of the canon. Below is the first of a three or four part series on a few of the heterodox passages in Qoheleth.

Heterodoxy#1 – No Afterlife

Ecc 3.19-22

כִּי֩ מִקְרֶ֙ה בְֽנֵי־הָאָדָ֜ם וּמִקְרֶ֣ה הַבְּהֵמָ֗ה וּמִקְרֶ֤ה אֶחָד֙ לָהֶ֔ם  כְּמ֥וֹת זֶה֙ כֵּ֣ן מ֣וֹת זֶ֔ה וְר֥וּחַ אֶחָ֖ד לַכֹּ֑ל וּמוֹתַ֙ר הָאָדָ֤ם מִן־הַבְּהֵמָה֙ אָ֔יִן כִּ֥י הַכֹּ֖ל הָֽבֶל׃ 20הַכֹּ֥ל הוֹלֵ֖ךְ אֶל־מָק֣וֹם אֶחָ֑ד הַכֹּל֙ הָיָ֣ה מִן־הֶֽעָפָ֔ר וְהַכֹּ֖ל שָׁ֥ב אֶל־הֶעָפָֽר׃ 21מִ֣י יוֹדֵ֗עַ ר֚וּחַ בְּנֵ֣י הָאָדָ֔ם הָעֹלָ֥ה הִ֖יא לְמָ֑עְלָה וְר֙וּחַ֙ הַבְּהֵמָ֔ה הַיֹּרֶ֥דֶת הִ֖יא לְמַ֥טָּה לָאָֽרֶץ׃ 22וְרָאִ֗יתִי כִּ֣י אֵ֥ין טוֹב֙ מֵאֲשֶׁ֙ר יִשְׂמַ֤ח הָאָדָם֙ בְּֽמַעֲשָׂ֔יו כִּי־ה֖וּא חֶלְק֑וֹ כִּ֣י מִ֤י יְבִיאֶנּ֙וּ֙ לִרְא֔וֹת בְּמֶ֖ה שֶׁיִּהְיֶ֥ה אַחֲרָֽיו׃

The translation of רוח as “spirit” in the majority of translations for 3.21 is ambiguous and thus problematic.[1] The allusion here to Gen 2.7 is likely of God’s breath/spirit in man (objective genitive)[2] and not man’s breath/spirit (attributive/possessive). The creation connection affirms that man’s vitality depends upon the breath of God.[3] At death, God’s breath returns to himself (Ecc 12.7), otherwise man would be eternal since it is the breath of God which gives life (again, Gen 2.7). Thus, the eternal soul is probably not in view here, for such an interpretation is anachronistic. Man’s fate (מקרה) is the same[4] as the animals because both are transitory (הבל) and subject to death (3.19-20).[5] Their bodies go to the grave and dissipate into dust and the breath in them returns to God. Thus, 19-21 does not comment on the afterlife. Note that the Masoretes, probably arriving at a different interpretation than what Qoheleth is affirming, do not point the text as an interrogative but rather as an indicative statement (i.e. “the man’s רוח does in fact go up, and the animals’ רוח goes down”).[6] This, however, is unlikely because an interrogative is almost always expected after מי יודע (See 2 Sam 12.12; Est 4.14; Psa 90.11; Pro 24.22; Ecc 2.19, 6.12, 8.1; Jon 3.9).[7] Thus, Qoheleth indeed is questioning whether there are different destinations for the breath in man and animals. The reason he entertains this question is in light of his statement in 3.18 that equates man with animals. Ironically then, Qoheleth, in 3.21, responds to the very question most modern commentators are asking: “How can man and animals be the same since man has God’s breath within him while the animals do not?” For, man was made from the ground and God placed his divine breath in them (Gen 2.7), whereas the animals are made from the ground, but God never places His breath in them (Gen 2.19). Thus, one would expect the divine breath in man to return to God at death, whereas the animal breath would return to a different destination. Qoheleth’s epistemology does not accept this, however, because he cannot empirically observe it.[8] He leaves room for the possibility, but refutes it because one cannot really know.[9]

The phrase שׁיהיה אחריו also causes some debate and requires brief comment. It can refer to (1) the events after a person’s death (2) the events on earth after a person’s death, or (3) a person’s future while here on earth. Since the discussion revolves around matters concerning the individual and what transpires after death, the events after a person’s death are probably in view. Thus, Qoheleth affirms that he is not convinced that there is an afterlife. Human life is the only known existence of man, thus man should seize the day by enjoying every moment (22).

[1]e.g. KJV, NKJV, NET, NLT, NIV.

[2]רוח followed by אדם occurs only two additional times in the BHS (Gen 6.3; Zech 12.1), both of which appear to denote an objective genitive. Note that in Zech 12.1 the qualifier, בקרב (within [him]) is added to strengthen this idea. Isa 42.4 also strongly supports this interpretation.

[3]Ronald Murphy, Ecclesiastes, vol. 23A, Word Biblical Commentary, ed. David A. Hubbard and Glen W. Barker (Dallas: Word Books, 1992), 37.

[4]The early rabbis argued against the idea that humans and animals were the same by suggesting only the wicked were the same as the animals (see Targum on Qoheleth, 3.18-21).

[5]It could also be argued that man and the animals are the same in that they are both subject to oppression (9.11-12).

[6]See for example, Kaiser, Ecclesiastes, 70.

[7]Delitzsch, The Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes, 270.

[8]Qoheleth continually bases his epistemology predominately on his empirical observations (See 1.10, 14, 16; 2.1, 3, 12, 13, 24; 3.10, 16, 18, 22; 4.1, 4, 7, 15; 5.12 (MT), 17 (MT); 6.1; 7.13, 15, 29; 8.9, 10, 17; 9.11, 13; 10.5, 7).

[9]Some think the Greek-Hellenistic influence on Judaism produced the distinction between the breath in man and the breath in beast. If this is true, thenQoheleth’s response in 3.21 could be seen a polemic against this ideology. See Kruger, Qoheleth, 93.