tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67887361043031716092024-03-05T09:22:52.172+13:00 Excursions in Covenant EschatologyTHE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIST BLOGThe Christian Theologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14841409239921477965noreply@blogger.comBlogger59125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788736104303171609.post-37401353845042264972024-02-10T17:49:00.001+13:002024-02-10T17:50:37.326+13:00Migrating to Substack<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0.25cm 0pt; text-align: Left;">
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<p>From now on, I'll be publishing any new material over at <a href="https://christiantheologist.substack.com/">The Christian Theologist on Substack</a>. I'll also be migrating most of the more recent exegetical blogs here to there.
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The Christian Theologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14841409239921477965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788736104303171609.post-86060416728255874222023-09-26T13:26:00.122+13:002024-02-06T13:55:59.301+13:00Hell According to Luke (Part 1)
<p><p>The implication of the parable of Luke 16:19–31 is clear, there was never any hope of salvation for the rich man, even when he was alive.</p>
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<span title="Der reiche Mann in der Hölle und der arme Lazarus in Abrahams Schoß, aus Das Plenarium, by Hans Schäufelein, 1517. The Metropolitan Museum of Art (public domain image)"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9PsctviciPc3eXfW-TMAz-aDvuAvxwhdtn4Fy0_-h1aYKlbeNYk6ow17q0JCWYpz3dSrPX5ca4gApNWNlUlhNY4tJoD-0KcPZE9gW_pZiO8af_83jt9aCqPSIghwoN9ervU8_GASVpsuzyTocTWc8rOZrpNIFeILcdwyzJTDovC2JZJS9h4mobpyDGP0/s1200/main-image.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="400" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="900" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9PsctviciPc3eXfW-TMAz-aDvuAvxwhdtn4Fy0_-h1aYKlbeNYk6ow17q0JCWYpz3dSrPX5ca4gApNWNlUlhNY4tJoD-0KcPZE9gW_pZiO8af_83jt9aCqPSIghwoN9ervU8_GASVpsuzyTocTWc8rOZrpNIFeILcdwyzJTDovC2JZJS9h4mobpyDGP0/s400/main-image.jpg"/></a></div></span>
<a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/670721"><p style="text-align: center;font-size: 10pt;">Der reiche Mann in der Hölle.</p></a>
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<p><b>Neither Heaven nor Hell</b></p>
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<b>hell (n.)</b>
<br />also <i>Hell,</i> Old English <i>hel, helle,</i> "nether world, abode of the dead, infernal regions, place of torment for the wicked after death," from Proto-Germanic <i>haljō</i> "the underworld" (source also of Old Frisian <i>helle,</i> Old Saxon <i>hellia,</i> Dutch <i>hel,</i> Old Norse <i>hel,</i> German <i>Hölle,</i> Gothic <i>halja</i> "hell"). Literally "concealed place" (compare Old Norse <i>hellir</i> "cave, cavern"), from PIE root <b>kel-</b> (1) "to cover, conceal, save."<a href="#footnote1HATL"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>1</sup></span></a>
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<br>The following study is the result of a recent re-examination of the Lucan concept of the afterlife presented in the Third Gospel parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Lk 16:19–31).<a href="#footnote2HATL"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>2</sup></span></a> Its primary thesis is that <b><i>Lazarus’ paradisal place at the side of Abraham</i></b> (Lk 16:22), and <b><i>the rich man’s infernal place of torment</i></b> (Lk 16:23), are not the final resting places called “heaven” and “hell,” as is generally supposed. Rather, they are two disparate sections of the same underworld, where all Jewish souls were believed to be interred until the general resurrection and final judgement of the dead <b><i>at the conclusion of the Mosaic Covenant Age.</i></b> This thesis is adduced from the finding that neither the common understanding of many in the contemporary church regarding the setting of this parable, nor the use of the name “hell” for the place Luke called <i>hadēs,</i> holds up under exegetical examination.
<p><i>Prima facie,</i> the contemporary doctrine that insists the rich man was in hell is undone because the narrative’s internal timing is pre-Resurrection (v. 31), that is, the events described took place long before the Day of Judgement (Mt 25:31; Rv 20:7–13); an inherent contradiction that essentially means the rich man was damned to hellfire <b><i>before</i></b> the day he was damned to hellfire (Ac 17:31; cf. Rv 20:15). This contradiction collapses into complete absurdity at Revelation 20:14–15, where it is prophesied that the “death” the rich man just experienced, and the “hell” wherein he now suffers, are themselves “cast into the lake of fire” <b><i>before he is.</i></b> Awareness of these, and other, intertextual incompatibilities no doubt impelled the earliest theologians of the church to set the foundations for many of the elaborate medieval notions of the afterlife such as <b><i>Purgatory,</i></b> <b><i>Limbo,</i></b>and <b><i>the Harrowing of Hell.</i></b></p>
<p>As for the translation “hell,” it falters for the simple reason that it is semantically unsuitable, by which I mean, because it is anachronistic, the transference through translation of the semantic domain of the modern word <i>hell</i> over that of the Koine Greek <i>hadēs</i> is illegitimate. At the time of the parable’s composition, <i>hadēs</i> could not possibly have conveyed to Luke’s first century Greek readers the fifteen hundred years of European speculation, and mythologising, that the word <i>hell</i> conveyed to the first readers of the New Testament in English,<a href="#footnote3HATL"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>3</sup></span></a> never mind the extra five centuries of Enlightenment-induced theologising the word <i>hell</i> now conveys to its 21st century English readers.<a href="#footnote4HATL"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>4</sup></span></a></p>
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<p><b>Hell in the KJV</b></p>
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<b>Hell.</b> Hell (from a Germanic root meaning “to cover”) is <b><i>the traditional English translation of the Hebrew word Sheol,</i></b> found sixty-five times in the Hebrew Bible, <b><i>and of the Greek word Hades,</i></b> used sixty-six times in the Apocrypha and ten times in the New Testament. In the NRSV these words are simply transliterated into English, and the translation “hell” is reserved for Gehenna.<a href="#footnote5HATL"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>5</sup></span></a>
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<br>Today’s English-speaking churchgoer can be forgiven for still believing that the rich man of Luke 16:19–31 was suffering <b><i>in the eternal flames of hell.</i></b> After all, this is the impression the paraenetic teaching of the Roman Catholic, and the Protestant, church have always left in the minds of the faithful. Moreover, that is where the 1769 Blayney standardised Oxford revision of the 1611 <b><i>King James Bible</i></b> (KJV),<a href="#footnote6HATL"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>6</sup></span></a> the single most influential translation on the doctrine of popular English-speaking Christianity, says he was.
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<b>Luke 16:23</b>
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  <b>KJV:</b>   <b><i>And in hell</i></b> he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off,<br />          and Lazarus in his bosom.
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  <b>STR:</b>  <b>kai en tō hadē</b> <i>eparas tous ophthalmous autou huparchōn en basanois hora<br />          ton Abraam apo makrothen kai Lazaron en tois kolpois autou.</i><a href="#footnote7HATL"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>7</sup></span></a>
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  <b>NKJV:</b> And being in torments <b><i>in Hades,</i></b> he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, <br />          and Lazarus in his bosom.
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  <b>NRSV:</b> <b><i>In Hades,</i></b> where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away <br />          with Lazarus by his side.
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<p>Comparing the four readings above, we see that where the 18th century KJV has the translation “hell,” the Greek text has <i>hadē,</i> which term the 1982 <i>New King James Version</i> (NKJV), and the 1989 <i>New Revised Standard Version</i> (NRSV), suggest is better represented in modern English as “Hades.” Clearly, <i>contra</i> the KJV, the two updated versions have opted to transliterate, rather than translate, the original Greek name for the parabolic rich man’s location. This type of mismatch between the older and newer versions typically indicates a significant hermeneutical shift in the thinking of Bible translators, and a concomitant development in the dominant theological ideas within Christian academia.</p>
<p>This telling mismatch is reminiscent of the one at Matthew 24:3 KJV, which we examined in a <a href="https://thestingofsaltandlight.blogspot.com/2023/01/excursus-world-of-difference.html">previous study</a>.<a href="#footnote8HATL"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>8</sup></span></a> There, where the Greek is literally “the end of the eon (<i>aiōn</i>),” the KJV reads “the end of the world,” while the current versions now read “the end of the age.” In light of what was learned in that study about the impact the KJV’s rendering of <i>aiōn</i> as <i>world</i> had on the laity’s view of eschatology, it is easy to suppose that the impact its translating <i>hadēs</i> as <i>hell</i> has had on the laity’s view of the afterlife is every bit as confounding, and enduring.</p>
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<p><b>Hellish Traditions</b></p>
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<b>hell (n.)</b>
<br />In Middle English, also of the <i>Limbus Patrum,</i> place where the Patriarchs, Prophets, etc. awaited the Atonement. Used in the KJV for Old Testament Hebrew <i>Sheol</i> and New Testament Greek <i>Hades, Gehenna.</i> Used figuratively for "state of misery, any bad experience" at least since late 14c. As an expression of disgust, etc., first recorded 1670s.<a href="#footnote1HATL"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>1</sup></span></a>
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It goes without saying that, between the 1600s and today, the language, culture, and worldview of the English-speaking church has evolved to such a radical extent that, in the absence of any formal theological training, the commonly held doctrines of hell in the 17th century church would, to the modern believer, seem so alien in their ideation, and application, as to appear at best unchristian, and at worst unhinged.<a href="#footnote9HATL"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>9</sup></span></a> The thought of an all-loving Jesus consigning billions of forensically innocent non-Christians to the same punishment as inveterate murderers, rapists, and child-molesters, strikes us today as so patently unfair, it borders on sadistic psychopathy. In fact, the idea of even the most unrepentant of sinners having to endure a limited time of torture in a merciless dungeon between death and Kingdom Come seems unnecessarily excessive; but such notions were a mainstay in the fire-and-brimstone sermons of pious preachers from the days of the early church until well into the 1900s.
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For much of Christian history the condemnation of unbelievers and evil-doers to the eternal torments of hell has not only been a formal item of Christian belief but a powerful and vividly portrayed aspect of the way in which the church has sought to ensure conformity of belief and reformation of life. But today it is questionable how many Christians … hold to that belief in anything like the same sense. Some, who would still hold to a division after death between the saved and the unsaved, prefer to speak of annihilation by exclusion from God’s presence rather than of torment. Others would … declare themselves agnostic about any form of post-mortem existence and understand any talk of hell as a poetic evocation of the horror of alienation from the way of God in the present. <b><i>Many other examples could be given of beliefs which have at one time been a cardinal element in Christian teaching, but which have now been largely set to one side or transformed out of all recognition.</i></b><a href="#footnote10HATL"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>10</sup></span></a>
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<br>The hyper-equalitarian social milieu in which the contemporary churchgoer is steeped, and its overweening moral squeamishness, would strike the Jacobean divines who penned the KJV as equally unchristian, and unhinged. Doubtless, king James’ handpicked translators would think it not only right, but proper, for the Divine Magistrate to torture whomsoever he wished, in whichever manner he wished, for however long he wished; a position that is, with regards to the judicial prerogatives of the Lord, eminently compatible with that of the Scriptures. Yet, because of the particularity of the milieux in which they were steeped, many of the aspects of the KJV translators’ conceptions of hell, which are incompatible with ours, are just as incompatible with the biblical conceptions of Sheol and Hades; their scholarly pretentions, and personal reveries, notwithstanding.
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The divines of the first decade of seventeenth-century England were alert to the glamour of antiquity, in many ways consciously archaic in phraseology and grammar, meticulous in their scholarship and always looking to the primitive and the essential as the guarantee of truth. Their translation was driven by that idea of a constant present, the feeling that the riches, beauties, failings and suffering of Jacobean England were part of the same world as the one in which Job, David or the Evangelists walked. … The King James Translators could write their English words as if the passage of 1,600 or 3,000 years made no difference.<a href="#footnote11HATL"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>11</sup></span></a>
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<br>Of course, the passage of time did make a difference, particularly with the church in England. The long process of reformation from Roman Catholicism to Anglican Protestantism began in the lifetimes of the KJV translators. Their theological worldview, although nominally Protestant, was still informed by Catholic thinking. With regards to the doctrine of the afterlife, and the abode of the dead, they thought largely in Medieval Catholic terms, such as <i>Purgatorium</i> (“Purgatory”), <i>Limbus patrim</i> (“Limbo of the Patriarchs”), and <i>Limbus infantium</i> (“Limbo of (unbaptised) Children”), to name a few.
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<b>PURGATORY</b> Centuries-old dogma of the Roman Catholic Church. The term itself is derived from the Latin <i>purgare,</i> which means “to cleanse” or “to purify.” ... The Council of Lyons in 1274 articulated the doctrine. The Council of Florence in 1439 defined it as both penal and purificatory in nature. In 1563 the Council of Trent recognized the validity of suffrages performed for the benefit of those in purgatory. … Related to purgatory there are two additional specialized abodes for the dead. <i>Limbus infantium</i> is reserved for infants who die before baptism. … Old Testament saints were consigned to <i>Limbus patrim</i> prior to Christ’s atoning work, after which they were translated to heaven.<br /><br>
Roman Catholics appeal to Matt. 12:32; 1 Pet. 3:18–20; 4:6; and 1 Cor. 3:15 for biblical support of the dogma. They also appeal to <a href="https://carm.org/roman-catholicism/purgatory-and-2-maccabees-1239-45/">2 Maccabees 12:38–45</a> in the OT Apocrypha for support. <b><i>None of these texts explicitly articulates a doctrine of Purgatory; the doctrine is formed from extrabiblical tradition.</i></b><a href="#footnote12HATL"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>12</sup></span></a>
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<br>The artificial irritant around which these dubious pearls formed was the belief that Christ descended into hell between his death and his resurrection, in order to lead the pre-Christian saints to heaven. First articulated in the 4th century AD, in various creeds, and in the writings of the ante-Nicene fathers, the idea eventually became known as the “Harrowing of Hell,” and was a popular theme in the plays and paintings of the Middle Ages.<a href="#footnote13HATL"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>13</sup></span></a> As with Purgatory and Limbo, serious theological consideration was given by the contemporaries, both Catholic and Reformed, of the KJV divines, as to the motive and manner of Christ’s harrowing of hell.
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The “harrowing of hell” … is based on New Testament references to resurrection “from the dead,” not just “from death” (Matt 17:9; Luke 24:5; Acts 4:10; Rom 4:24; 1 Cor 15:20). The idea … continued to be developed throughout church history. For example, medieval writers like Abelard spoke of Jesus’ power invading hell, and Aquinas described Jesus’ mission to deal with saints and sinners in Purgatory and Limbo (<i>Summa Theologiæ</i> III.52.2, 4–8). Luther described Jesus’ descent in twofold terms: 1) as vicarious identification with the sinner, and 2) as victor over hell (Luther, “Tourgau Sermon on Christ’s Descent into Hell”; see Kolb and Nestingen, <i>Sources and Contexts</i>, 245–55). Calvin especially emphasized the vicarious suffering of our torments (<i>Institutes</i> II.16.8, compare Heb 5:7–8). <b><i>However, Bucer and Bezer saw this descent as a mere metaphor for “grave.”</i></b><a href="#footnote14HATL"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>14</sup></span></a>
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<br>So, what the KJV committeemen had in mind when they translated <i>hadēs</i> as <i>hell</i> was as different to that of the NT authors, as it is to ours today. Which is not to say there were no similarities at all. Obviously, since the 17th century doctrines developed from the descriptions, actual and supposed, of the afterlife dispersed throughout the Roman Catholic canon, shared characteristics with the concepts of the original authors are bound to exist. In the case of the limbo of the patriarchs, who can fail to see the points of correspondence with the rich man’s abode in the Lucan parable? The great patriarch, the purgatorial heat, the grave imagery, the expanses, the chasm, and the anguished confinement; they are all there, certainly. However, what is not there is what reveals to us the millennium-and-a-half wide gulf fixed between the <i>hell</i> of the KJV divines, and the <i>hadēs</i> of the Evangelist: <b><i>Christian Hope.</i></b>
<p>The implication of the parable is clear, <b><i>there was never any hope of salvation for the rich man, even when he was alive.</i></b> Neither his Jewish heredity, nor his Jewish upbringing, provided him with <b><i>genuine saving faith,</i></b> so he died as he lived, constitutionally deaf to the spirit of the Law. A lifetime of instruction in the commandments, of breathing the atmosphere of Torah observance, had failed to inculcate in him any sense of covenantal obligation to alleviate the suffering and poverty of his fellow Jew, Lazarus.<a href="#footnote15HATL"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>15</sup></span></a> In the horrifying, post-mortem moment of absolute clarity, when he saw Abraham, the great patriarch of the Jewish race, and the beggar Lazarus, feasting together as sumptuously as he was wont to do in life, the tormented rich man understood that, not only was his final condemnation on the day of judgement certain, but so, too, was that of his similarly impenitent brethren. Indeed, at the end of Luke's withering narrative, we learn the fate of any Jew who was deaf to Moses and the Prophets, and therefore incapable of recognising, or believing, <b><i>the one greater than Moses</i></b> (Ac 13:27, 38-39; He 3:3), <b><i>who was soon to rise from the dead</i></b> (Lk 16:30–31).</p>
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<p><b><i>TO BE CONTINUED ...</i></b></p>
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<b>1.</b>  From the Online Etymology Dictionary entry on <a href="https://www.etymonline.com/word/hell#etymonline_v_9125">hell</a>.<br />
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<b>2.</b>  The traditional position of the Church, that the author of the Third Gospel is the Evangelist known as Luke, is maintained throughout. That this same Luke wrote the <i>Acts of the Apostles</i> is likewise maintained.<br />
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<b>3.</b>  “Parts of the Bible had been translated into Anglo-Saxon and Middle English, but not until the end of the fourteenth century had there been a complete text.” Adam Nicolson, <i>God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible</i> (New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 2004), 248.<br />
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<b>4.</b>  Along with inducing theologians into “tracing the evolution of a lofty idea of God from crude primitive origins,” in order to defend against the caricature of God as a “timeless tyrant, … the Enlightenment did a further service to Christianity by ridiculing hell.” John McManners, “Enlightenment: Secular and Christian (1600 -1800),” in <i>Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity</i> (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 282.<br />
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<b>5.</b>  My emphasis. Bo Reicke, “Hell,” in <i>The Oxford Companion to the Bible</i> (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1993), 277.<br />
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<b>6.</b>  Samuel Macauley Jackson, ed., <i>The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge</i>, Vol. II (New York; London: Funk & Wagnalls, 1908–1914), 199.<br />
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<b>7.</b>  This is my transliteration of <i>Stephen’s 1550 Textus Receptus: With Morphology</i>. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2002. Since the STR Greek text in my Logos edition has no punctuation or diacritics, I decided, for the sake of clarity, to represent the heavy breathing marks from the Nestle Aland text of this verse with “h,” capitalise <i>abraam</i> and <i>lazaron,</i> and place a full-stop at the end.<br />
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<b>8.</b>  For a deep-dive into the difficulties with the Matthew 24:3 KJV translation, see my post <a href="https://thestingofsaltandlight.blogspot.com/2023/01/excursus-world-of-difference.html">“Excursus – A World of Difference”</a>.<br />
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<b>9.</b>  “The preaching of hell fire … seems so unchristian now in its use of the weapon of fear.” McManners, “Enlightenment,” 297.<br /> <a name="footnote10HATL"></a>
<b>10.</b>  My emphasis. Maurice Wiles, “What Christians Believe,” in <i>Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity</i> (Oxford: Oxford University Pr<br /> <a name="footnote11HATL"></a>
<b>11.</b>  Nicolson, <i>God's Secretaries</i>, xii.<br />
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<b>12.</b>  My emphasis. Robert Stewart, “Purgatory,” in <i>Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary</i> (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2003), 1350.<br />
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<b>13.</b>  F. L. Cross and Elizabeth A. Livingstone, eds., <i>The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church</i>, 3rd ed. rev. (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 475, 742.<br />
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<b>14.</b>  My emphasis. Dale A. Brueggemann, “Descent into the Underworld, Critical Issues,” in <i>The Lexham Bible Dictionary</i> (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016, n.d.).<br />
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<b>15.</b>  “In order to know that the rich should not live in luxury while the poor starve, a revelation from beyond the grave is not necessary because the scriptures are sufficient.” Richard J. Bauckham, “Lazarus,” in <i>New Bible Dictionary</i> (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1996), 679.<br />
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The Christian Theologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14841409239921477965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788736104303171609.post-43346427331337816412023-07-08T20:26:00.011+12:002023-09-19T09:48:10.049+12:00The King of Contexts Video<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0.25cm 0pt; text-align: Left;">
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<b><i>The geographical, historical, and cultural background of every book, and author, of the New Testament.</i></b><br />
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If you want a pdf copy of the final NT Context Diagram in this video click <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1va_27zZz-OKma4n-QVq9MGlfeKHiD1ZH/view?usp=drive_link">here</a>. If you want a transcript of this video, or have a question, email me by clicking <a href="mailto:xiantheologist@protonmail.com">here</a>. Thanks for watching, and God bless.
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The Christian Theologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14841409239921477965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788736104303171609.post-45592716880001574432023-05-28T11:46:00.054+12:002024-02-10T10:42:16.133+13:00Within the Divided Kingdom Inclusio: Four Soils - Four Seeds<p>The wider literary context of Matthew 13:31–33 reveals that, along with the wheat and the weeds, the grain of mustard, and the leaven, are two of four seeds paralleling the four soils in the Parable of the Sower.</p>
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<span title="By Heinrich Füllmaurer - eingescannt aus: Württemberg und Mömpelgard: 600 Jahre Begegnung. Beiträge zur wissenschaftlichen Tagung vom 17. bis 19. September 1997 im Hauptsaatsarchiv Stuttgart. Herausgegeben von Sönke Lorenz und Peter Rückert. Leinfelden-Echterdingen, 1999, S. 184 (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien), Public Domain"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJxI-ippKtjZuM3tYiQm_sVGE5jxXMPWzfjG-tr0NA7SWKAepDbvLCbzSs7jU3MzPWT6CyBlg-hlgQLRwUdzRYGXPgZGPdYVkK9prPWxHrxoq0R_PgHnmdCsWdNFsEcxg4ZTyB06yLbh01m4tyD7UIaw4hT6DVZiRllG0dHnOFfSMkYLIReDQc_iKe/s648/DetailEnemyTares.JPG" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="648" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJxI-ippKtjZuM3tYiQm_sVGE5jxXMPWzfjG-tr0NA7SWKAepDbvLCbzSs7jU3MzPWT6CyBlg-hlgQLRwUdzRYGXPgZGPdYVkK9prPWxHrxoq0R_PgHnmdCsWdNFsEcxg4ZTyB06yLbh01m4tyD7UIaw4hT6DVZiRllG0dHnOFfSMkYLIReDQc_iKe/s320/DetailEnemyTares.JPG"/></a></div></span>
<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2250383"><div style="text-align: center;font-size: 9pt;">Detail from the Württemberg und Mömpelgard Altar<br> by Heinrich Füllmaurer.</div></a>
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<p><b>The Divided Kingdom Inclusio</b></p>
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<b>Inclusio</b> — A literary device that repeats words or themes at the beginning and end of a section. The repetition brackets the section. The Bible makes frequent use of inclusios to structure both long and short sections of text.<a href="#footnote1WTDKI"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>1</sup></span></a>
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<p>The following notes are the preliminary results of an ongoing critical study on what I call the <b><i>Divided Kingdom Inclusio</i></b> of the First Gospel. This <i><b>divided kingdom inclusio</b></i> opens with the passage containing the aphorism, “Every <i><b>kingdom divided</b></i> against itself is laid waste, and no <i><b>city or house divided</b></i> against itself will stand” (Mt 12:25), and closes with the passage containing the aphorism, “A prophet is not without honour except in his <i><b>hometown</b></i> and in his own <i><b>household</b></i>” (Mt 13:57). This study began as an exegetical examination of Matthew’s <b><i>Mustard Seed</i></b> and <b><i>Leaven</i></b> parables (Mt 13:31–33).</p>
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The <b><i>introduction of kingdom language</i></b> prepares for Jesus’ assertion in [Mt 12:28]. <b><i>The image here is of civil war within a kingdom and the desolation brought by it.</i></b> It is also of something highly undesirable to the existing leadership. Parallel images of a divided town (probably a self-governing city-state is in mind) and <b><i>a divided household</i></b> (probably a domestic household, but possibly <b><i>a royal house in the context of a disputed succession</i></b>) are also offered.<a href="#footnote2WTDKI"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>2</sup></span></a>
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<p><b>Major Themes of the Divided Kingdom Inclusio</b></p>
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<b>1.</b>  Kingdom = House = Homeland = Household = Family.
<br><b>2.</b>  Kingdoms (houses) are established on the words of the King (father).
<br><b>3.</b>  Kingdom Treasure = Words of the King = Laws of the Kingdom.
<br><b>4.</b>  Words = Seeds = Fruit = Propagation = Progeny.
<br><b>5.</b>  Keep = guard, and treasury (<i>thēsauros</i>) = heart (mind).
<br><b>6.</b>  Truth/Falsity – Good/bad – Eternal/Mortal.
<br><b>7.</b>  Words spoken = treasure of the heart (mind) = Laws/King one follows/obeys = Kingdom of one’s subjection.
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<p><b>The Target Text: Matthew 13:31–33 (ESV)</b></p>
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<b>The Mustard Seed and the Leaven</b>
<br /><br><sup>31</sup> He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. <sup>32</sup> It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”<br /><br>
<sup>33</sup> He told them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.”
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<p><b>Common Assumptions of the Target Text</b></p>
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<b>1.</b>  Jesus is evangelising the crowd with his profound and evocative parables (sowing good seed in their hearts).
<br><b>2.</b>  Jesus is commenting solely on the character of his coming spiritual Kingdom of Heaven.
<br><b>3.</b>  The mustard grain, like the seed of the Sower parable, and that of the <i>Wheat & Weeds</i> parable, is being planted by Jesus/God.
<br><b>4.</b>  The exponential growth of the tiniest seed into the tallest tree is taken as a metaphor for the enormous potential of even the smallest efforts Christians make to further the Kingdom.
<br><b>5.</b>  Similarly, the unseen leaven’s highly visible effect on the woman’s three measures of flour is taken as an image of the abundant growth God will add to any Christian’s evangelical “planting” (1Co 3:6-8; <i>cp.</i> 1 Co 9:10).
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<p><b>The Literary Context</b></p>
<p>The immediate context of the two parables above indicates that they are, respectively, the third and fourth of seven <b><i>kingdom parables</i></b> in the thirteenth chapter of Matthew's Gospel: The parables of the <b><i>sower</i></b> (Mt 13:1–9, 18–23), of the <b><i>wheat and the weeds</i></b> (Mt 13:24–30, 36–43), of the <b><i>mustard seed</i></b> (Mt 13:31–32), of the <b><i>leaven</i></b> (Mt 13:33), of the <b><i>hidden treasure</i></b> (Mt 13:44), of the <b><i>pearl of great value</i></b> (Mt 13:45–6), and of the <b><i>net of fish</i></b> (Mt 13:47–8). Widening the literary context further reveals that these seven parables have been placed within a larger section of the Gospel bracketed by the <b><i>Divided Kingdom Inclusio</i></b>. Examining these parables within this wider context exposes a <b><i>planting-propagation</i></b> motif shared by the first four that makes them quite distinct from the other three. Careful exegesis of this quartet of <b><i>planting-propagation</i></b> parables leads to the conclusion that, along with the “good seed” and the “weeds” from the second parable, the “grain of mustard,” and “leaven,” of the third and fourth parables, are two of <b><i>four seeds</i></b>, whose moral ratio of good-to-bad provides a parallel to that of the <b><i>four soils</i></b> in the first parable.</p>
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<p><b>Contextual Evidence Countering the Assumptions</b></p>
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<b>1.</b>  Mt 13:10–16 (fn. Is 6:9–13). Mt 13:34 –35 (fn. Ps78). <b>Is 6:11–13:</b>
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<sup>11</sup> Then I said, “How long, O Lord?” And he said: <b>“Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste, <sup>12</sup> and the LORD removes people far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.</b> <sup>13</sup> And though a tenth remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak, whose stump remains when it is felled.” <b>The holy seed is its stump.</b>
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<b>2.</b>  Further to the 2 fns. above, the 4 Soils: hardpack, rocky, thorny, good (receptive); mirrored chiastically by the 4 seeds: good seed (<i>kalos sperma,</i> ergo from a good tree, <i>cp.</i> 1Jn 3:9–10), weed (<i>zizanion</i>), grain (<i>kokkos</i>), leaven (<i>zumē</i>). Note the same ratio of good soil/seed is 1:4.
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<b>10.29 σπέρμα</b><sup>b</sup>, <b>τος</b> <i>n</i>: (a figurative extension of meaning of [<b><i>sperma</i></b>]<sup>a</sup> ‘seed,’ 3.35) posterity, <b><i>with emphasis upon the ancestor’s role in founding the lineage</i></b> —‘posterity, descendants, offspring.’ ἐν τῷ σπέρματί σου ἐνευλογηθήσονται πᾶσαι αἱ πατριαὶ τῆς γῆς ‘through your posterity I will bless all people’ Ac 3:25.<a href="#footnote3WTDKI"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>3</sup></span></a>
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<b>3.</b>  There is no actual <i>sperma</i> mentioned in Matthew's sower parable , or in its interpretation (nor in Mk 4.1–20; <i>spiros</i> in Lk 8:4–15), because it is not about the seed, <i>per se,</i> but about the receptivity of the soil/hearts. <b><i>The 4 sowers of the 4 seeds:</i></b> the “master of the house/Son of Man” (<i>oikodespotēs</i>, also at v. 52), who has servants (<i>douloi</i>); an “enemy/the Devil;” a “man” (although <i>anthropos,</i> not <i>anēr</i>)<a href="#footnote4WTDKI"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>4</sup></span></a>; a “woman.”
<br><b>4.</b>  A man planted his own grains in the field (same field as the “master’s”?) planted a non-fruit-bearing tree (spice, not food), that choked and overshadowed the edible garden plants (<i>lachanon</i>),<a href="#footnote5WTDKI"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>5</sup></span></a> housing seed-eating birds (pejorative), metaphorically in the sower parable as “servants of the Devil?” Nit-picking (Mt 23:23–24).
<br><b>5.</b>  The woman “hid” the “leaven” (pejoratives). From <b>Wuest</b> on Mark 8:15, “Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod” (<i>par.</i> Mt 16:12; Lk 12:1):
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<br /><b>Leaven</b>. The word is <b><i>zumē</i></b>. It is used in the LXX (Ex. 12:15) of beer-yeast. The principle of fermentation which inheres in it makes it the <b><i>symbol of corruption,</i></b> for fermentation is the result of the divine curse upon the material universe because of sin. <b><i>Always in the Bible, it speaks of evil in some form, Matthew 13:33 being no exception,</i></b> for the kingdom of heaven here refers to Christendom, <b><i>in which are the true and the false, the evil and the good.</i></b> Leaven in I Corinthians 5:6–8, speaks of malice and wickedness as contrasted to sincerity and truth. <b><i>In Matthew 16:12, it speaks of evil doctrine in its three-fold form</i></b> of Pharisaism, externalism in religion, of Sadduceeism, scepticism as to the supernatural and as to the Scriptures, of Herodianism, worldliness.<a href="#footnote6WTDKI"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>6</sup></span></a>
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<p><b>Exegetical Examination Summary</b></p>
<p>The <b><i>Divided Kingdom Inclusio</i></b> is essentially a collection of passages contrasting the righteous, loyal subjects of the temporal, earthly <b><i>Kingdom of Heaven</i></b>, with the unrighteous, disloyal subjects. The righteous display their loyalty through their obedience to the king, and his rightful successor; the unrighteous display their disloyalty through their inability to hear the king’s commands, or recognise his successor.</p>
<p>Locating our target text within the enclave of contrastive passages contained in the <b><i>Divided Kingdom Inclusio</i></b> reveals that the wildly disproportionate propagating power of the nearly microscopic grain of mustard, and the surreptitiously implanted leaven, are metaphorical depictions of <b><i>the corrupting potential of disinformation on a trusting people.</i></b> The leaven shows how the bad seed will corrupt the ground into which it is hidden; the mustard grain shows how the bad seed’s monstrous tree will, in the heart of any garden in which it grows, always come to dominate the other plants around it, and provide a comfortable place for all the seed-eating scavengers to dwell.</p>
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<b>1.</b>  Douglas Mangum, <i>The Lexham Glossary of Theology</i> (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014), “inclusio”.<br />
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<b>2.</b>  My emphasis. John Nolland, <i>The Gospel of Matthew: A Commentary on the Greek Text</i>, NIGTC (Grand Rapids, MI; Carlisle: W.B. Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 2005), 498–499.<br />
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<b>3.</b>  My emphasis. Johannes P. Louw and Eugene Albert Nida, <i>Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains</i> (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996) 115.<br />
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<b>4.</b>  “For the sake of balance with the ‘woman’ of v. 33, ἄνθρωπος here is likely to be ‘man’ as in 10:35 and not the more normal ‘person’.” Nolland, <i>The Gospel of Matthew</i>, 550.<br />
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<b>5.</b>  BDAG, s.v. “λάχανον”.<br />
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<b>6.</b>  My emphasis. Kenneth S. Wuest, <i>Mark in the Greek New Testament for the English Reader</i> (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1950), 162.<br />
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The Christian Theologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14841409239921477965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788736104303171609.post-39333952369764029192023-04-23T18:18:00.138+12:002024-02-16T09:29:09.418+13:00Excursus - A World of Difference
<p>According to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus will come back to destroy Jerusalem, her temple, and then the whole world, in AD 70.</p>
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<p><b>Excursus</b>
<br>The present <i>excursus</i> is a stand-alone digression from our ongoing critical study on <i><b>interpreting the Book of Revelation in the context of Covenant Eschatology.</b></i> It offers an extended discussion on the exegetical difficulty of reading the Greek word <b><i>aiōn,</i></b> (“age”) as “world” at Matthew 24:3.</p>
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<span title="Amazon's The Parousia: The New Testament Doctrine of Our Lord's Second Coming">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTX4BeAOJt4brxsgPT-pM-qhQZnBY1rcThrUmvrAzFYUrAaADzPswJxTqKYbfBm6amwwZyCRbuAWrjVHF9slbql3XGim1YjdVRuAoZewPpz3u3fTK2qPypaUEfTUVOoM9wfnld5xxgIYEuH-XUYTK-5qeruom4XwjokwINOoPkqvEm6dQpWDIYSLmc/s1623/russellcover2.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="1623" data-original-width="1050" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTX4BeAOJt4brxsgPT-pM-qhQZnBY1rcThrUmvrAzFYUrAaADzPswJxTqKYbfBm6amwwZyCRbuAWrjVHF9slbql3XGim1YjdVRuAoZewPpz3u3fTK2qPypaUEfTUVOoM9wfnld5xxgIYEuH-XUYTK-5qeruom4XwjokwINOoPkqvEm6dQpWDIYSLmc/s320/russellcover2.jpg"/></a></div>
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<p><b>A World of Misunderstanding</b></p>
<p>Throughout James S. Russell’s (1816–1895) book, <b><i>The Parousia,</i></b> his classic apologetic support for the preterist approach to <b><i>the Second Coming of Christ,</i></b> there are references to several translation choices made in the most prominent English version of his day that he believed negatively skewed the English-only reader’s understanding of New Testament eschatology (<i>emphasis mine</i>).</p>
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Much confusion has arisen from the indiscriminate use of the word ‘world’ as the translation of the different Greek words [<b><i>aiōn</i></b>], [<b><i>kosmos</i></b>], [<i>oikoumenē</i>], and [<i>gē</i>]. <b>The unlearned reader who meets with the phrase ‘the end of the world,’ inevitably thinks of the destruction of the material globe, whereas if he read the ‘conclusion of the age, or æon,’ he would as naturally think of the close of a certain period of time—which is its proper meaning.</b> We have already had occasion to observe that [<i>aiōn</i>] is properly a designation of time, an age; and it is doubtful whether it ever has any other signification in the New Testament. ... <b>The proper word for the earth, or world, is [<i>kosmos</i>], which is used to designate both the material and the moral world.</b> [<i>Oikoumenē</i>] is properly the inhabited world, ‘the habitable,’ and in the New Testament refers often to the Roman Empire, sometimes to so small a portion of it as Palestine. [<i>Gē</i>], though it sometimes signifies the earth generally, in the gospels more frequently refers to the land of Israel. Much light is thrown upon many passages by a proper understanding of these words.<a href="#footnote1E-AWOM"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>1</sup></span></a>
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<p><b>The End of the Age</b></p>
<p>As a late 19th century writer, the English Bible that Russell reproaches for indiscriminately using the single word “world” to translate those four distinct Greek words is, of course, the <b><i>Authorised Version,</i></b> or, as it is more commonly known today, the <b><i>King James Version</i></b> (KJV). The most notorious occurrence of these problematic translations is the decision to render <i>aiōn</i> as “world” in the disciples’ precursor query to the <b><i>Olivet Discourse</i></b> at <b><i>Matthew 24:3.</i></b> Below is the KJV reading of this question, alongside my transliteration of Stephanus’ KJV-era Greek <b><i>Textus Receptus</i></b> (STR),<a href="#footnote2E-AWOM"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>2</sup></span></a> and three contemporary English NT readings.<a href="#footnote3E-AWOM"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>3</sup></span></a> Take note of the emphasised Greek words, and their English counterparts.</p>
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  <b>KJV:</b>   Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy <b><i>coming,</i></b> <br />          and of the end of the <b><i>world?</i></b>
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  <b>STR:</b><i>  eipe ēmin, pote tauta estai kai ti to sēmeion tēs sēs <b><i>parousias</i></b> <br />          kai sunteleias tou</i> <b>aiōnos?</b>
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  <b>ESV:</b>   Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your <b><i>coming</i></b> <br />          and of the end of the <b><i>age?</i></b>
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  <b>NET:</b>   Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign of your <b><i>coming</i></b> <br />          and of the end of the <b><i>age?</i></b>
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  <b>NIV:</b>   Tell us … when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your <b><i>coming</i></b> <br />          and of the end of the <b><i>age?</i></b>
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<p>As the modern versions indicate, the problem Russell had with the wording of this verse subconsciously pairing the concepts of <b><i>the Lord’s Second Coming (Parousia)</i></b> and <b><i>the end of the physical world,</i></b> in the mind of “the unlearned reader,” has been rectified. Still, the primacy of the KJV in English-speaking churches lasted so long that even today this verse remains the primary prooftext underlying the futurist eschatology of pastors and laity alike. So, despite this modern reading of "age" in Matthew 24:3, Russell’s "world" of misunderstanding still has not come to an end.</p>
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<p><b><i>Aiōn</i> as <i>Kosmos</i></b></p>
<p>In fairness to the KJV translators, however, it should be noted that their translating “end of the age” as “end of the world” is not nearly as indiscriminate as Russell’s quote indicates, given that there is a legitimate etymological justification for it, as Lutheran Herman Sasse’s (1895–1976) “<i>Aiōn, Aiōnios</i>” entry in the <a href="https://www.billmounce.com/tdnt"><i>Theological Dictionary of the New Testament</i></a> explains (<i>emphasis mine</i>).<a href="#footnote4E-AWOM"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>4</sup></span></a></p>
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In the plural [<i>aiōn</i>] formulae [e.g., <i>eis tous aiōnas tōn aiōnōn,</i> “unto the ages of the ages,” “forever and ever”] the meaning of [<i>aiōn</i>] merges into that of a long but limited stretch of time. In particular, <b>[<i>aiōn</i>] in this sense signifies the time or duration of the world, i.e., time as limited by creation and conclusion.</b> At this point [<i>aiōn</i>] is used to indicate two things which are ... antithetical, namely, the eternity of God and the duration of the world. This twofold sense ... points back to a concept of eternity in which eternity is identified with the duration of the world.
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<b>In the NT [<i>aiōn</i>] is used in the sense of the time of the world in the expression [<i>sunteleia tou aiōnos</i>] (“the end of the aeon”) which Matthew uses for the end of the world.</b> The expression is to be explained by the penetration of the term into eschatological formulae in place of other temporal concepts like [<i>ēmerai</i> “days”], [<i>chronoi</i> “times”], [<i>kairoi</i> “seasons”], [<i>etē</i> “years”].
<p style="margin-left: 50px; margin-right: 60px">
<b>The sense of “time or course of the world” can easily pass over into that of the “world” itself, so that [<i>aiōn</i>] approximates closely to [<i>kosmos</i>].</b> In Mk. 4:19 and the parallel Mt. 13:22 the phrase [<i>ai merimnai tou aiōnos</i>] means “the cares of the world” (cf. [<i>o gamēsas merimna ta tou kosmou</i>], 1 Cor 7:33). Paul uses as equivalent expressions [“wisdom of the world (<i>kosmos</i>),” “wisdom of this age (<i>aiōn</i>),” and “wisdom of this world (<i>kosmos</i>)” (1 Cor 1:20; 2:6; 3:19). To the description of the end of the world as [“end of the age (<i>aiōn</i>)”] there corresponds the description of its beginning as [“foundation of the world (<i>kosmos</i>)”].
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<b>The equation of [<i>aiōn</i>] and [<i>kosmos</i>] is to be explained in the NT by Jewish linguistic usage.</b><a href="#footnote5E-AWOM"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>5</sup></span></a>
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<p>Although the <i>TDNT’s</i> exhaustive diachronic word study on <i>aiōn</i> was originally published in German in 1933, the scholarship behind it was clearly available to Russell and his contemporaries, as evidenced by how neatly it concurs with him, and with the synchronic entries on <i>kosmos</i> and <i>aiōn</i> in the American <a href="https://www.biblicalcyclopedia.com/W/world.html"><i>Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature</i></a> of Methodist theologians McClintock (1814–1870) and Strong (1822–1894), which was published, like <i>The Parousia</i>, a full 50 years earlier (<i>emphasis mine</i>).</p>
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The following Greek words are also translated “world:”
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Αἰών, <b><i>Aihn,</i> the world, or age, the present time, or the future, as implying duration</b> (Mt 12:32; Mr 10:50; Mr 3:28-29; Lu 18:30); the present world or age, with its cares, temptations, evils, etc. (Mt 13:22; Lu 16:8; Lu 20:34; Ro 12:2; 1Co 1:20; 1Co 2:6,8; 2Co 4:4; 2Ti 4:10; Tit 1:12; Ga 1:4); and men of the world, wicked generation (Eph 2:2; Lu 16:8; Lu 20:34); <b>also the world itself, as an object of creation and existence</b> (Mt 13:40; <b>Mt 24:3;</b> Heb 1:2; Heb 11:3). <b>This term also denotes the age or world before the Messiah, i.e., the Jewish dispensation (1Co 10:11; Heb 9:26); also, after the Messiah, i.e., the Gospel dispensation (Heb 2:5; Heb 6:5).</b>
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κσόμος, <b><i>kosmos,</i> the world, universe</b> (Mt 13:35; Mt 24:21; Lu 11:50; Joh 17:5,24; Ac 17:24; Ro 1:20); the inhabitants thereof (1Co 4:9); also the earth, as the abode of man (Mt 13:38; Mr 16:15; Joh 1:9; Joh 3:19; Joh 6:14; Joh 16:21,28; Joh 21:25; Heb 10:5; Mt 4:8; Ro 1:8); the inhabitants of the earth (Mt 5:14; Joh 1:29; Joh 3:16; Joh 17:14,25; Ro 3:6,19; Heb 11:7; 2Pe 2:5; 1Jo 2:2); the multitude, as we say "everybody" (Joh 7:4; Joh 12:19; Joh 14:22; Joh 18:20; 2Co 1:12; 2Pe 2:5); also the heathen world (Ro 11:12,15). It likewise designates the state of the world, as opposed to the kingdom of Christ (Mt 16:26; Mr 8:36; Joh 18:36; 1Co 3:22; 1Co 5:10; Eph 2:2; Ga 6:14; Jas 4:4) and men of the world, worldlings (Joh 12:31; 1Co 1:2; 1Co 3:19; 2Co 7:10; Php 2:15); <b>also the Jewish dispensation, founded on Sinai and ended on Calvary (Eph 1:4; 1Pe 1:20; Heb 9:26).</b><a href="#footnote6E-AWOM"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>6</sup></span></a>
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<p>Even allowing for the semantic synonymity of the expressions “end of the age (<i>aiōn</i>)” and “end of the world (<i>kosmos</i>),” and then allowing further that, <i>contra</i> Russell, when the Evangelist had the disciples ask Jesus about the <i>sunteleias tou aiōnos,</i> he had in view the “destruction of physical creation,” Matthew 24:3 still presents a challenge to the futurists regarding the <i>timing</i> of this cataclysmic event.</p>
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<p><b>Matthew’s Imminent End of the <i>Aiōn</i></b></p>
<p>Sound exegesis of Matthew 24:3–36 demonstrates incontrovertably that the First Evangelist believed that the “end of the <i>aiōn</i>” is coincidental with the future return of the Lord, that is, his Parousia. Nolland acknowledges this coincidence in his commentary on the Greek text (<i>emphasis mine</i>).</p>
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<p style="margin-left: 50px; margin-right: 60px">In the NT only Matthew uses the phrase ‘completion of the age’ ([<i>sunteleias tou aiōnos</i>])—see at [Mt 13:39]. This will be the time when the Son of Man arranges the final separation of the wicked from the righteous. <b>In the Greek text ‘your coming’ and ‘the completion of the age’ are marked as belonging together by sharing a single definite article.</b> In the general part of their question the disciples ask about when: ‘When will these things be?’ But in relation to the ‘coming’ and the ‘completion of the age’ they ask, ‘what will be the sign’ of these things? The Markan text has the difficulty that nothing later in the text is identified as this sign. Matthew will make good this deficiency with his very clear reference to ‘the sign of the Son of Man’ in 24:30.<a href="#footnote7E-AWOM"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>7</sup></span></a>
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<p>To be clear, Nolland is saying that the <i>sign of the Son of Man</i> (Mt 24:30) is the Matthean Jesus’ answer to the disciples’ sign query (Mt 24:3), and that the <i>coming of the Son of Man</i> (Mt 24:30) corresponds to the “your parousia” of the same query (Mt 24:3). This means, therefore, that Matthew believed that the Parousia would occur at the same time as the “end of the <i>aiōn,</i>” that is, according to the KJV and many of today's futurists, at the end of the physical <i>world.</i></p>
<p>It is this paring of Matthew's that is a problem for futurists, because, together, Matthew 24:29–30 say that the coming of the Son of Man, that is, the <i>Second Coming of the Lord,</i> will happen “immediately after [Grk: <i>eutheōs meta</i>] the tribulation of those days.” These tribulations refer to every calamitous event adumbrated in the <i>Olivet Discourse,</i> leading up to <i><b>the throwing down of every stone of every building in the temple</b></i> (Mt 24:2), that is, the predicted destruction that provoked the disciples’ query in the first place. Aware of the parallel <i>Olivet Discourses</i> in the other two Synoptics, and their corresponding placement of these tribulations in Judea, virtually all scholars accept that this was a prediction of the climactic event in the accumulating devastation of Palestine in the <i>First Jewish–Roman War</i> (AD 66–73). And that means that, <b><i>according to the Gospel of Matthew, immediately after this series of horrors, Jesus will come back to destroy Jerusalem, her temple, and then the whole world, in AD 70.</i></b></p>
<p>Of course, for scholars today, the overwhelming majority of whom give little to no credence to the notion of fulfilled prophecy, biblical or otherwise, this prediction is just another example of <i>vaticinium ex eventu,</i><a href="#footnote8E-AWOM"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>8</sup></span></a> written after the fact, and placed in the mouth of Jesus, in order to furnish him retroactively with preternatural insight. To them, its imminency is just another curious feature of Matthew’s particular Son of Man doctrine. However, for <i>believing</i> futurist scholars, those few poor souls who look forward to a literal end of creation at the bodily return of Christ, it is devastating. Convinced as they are that Matthew’s grammatically singular event is actually two separate events, the “end of the temple,” and the “the end of the world,” they are left with no other choice but to conclude that, like all the other NT authors, Matthew's Jesus was <i>right</i> about the prophecy, but <i>wrong</i> about the imminency, and that his use of “immediately” in verse 29 is merely a sad testament to just how wrong he was.</p>
<p>In “The Significance of 70,” the second chapter of his persuasive <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Redating-New-Testament-John-Robinson/dp/1579105270"><i>Redating the New Testament,</i></a> A. T. Robinson discusses how modern scholarship’s presuppositions regarding the nature of biblical prophecy is an illegitimate impediment to its accepting a pre-AD 70 composition date for the First Gospel. Although a futurist himself, judging from his remarks below about “unfillable predictions,” Robinson demonstrates just how sub-biblical is the futurist insertion of a 2000+ years-and-counting interval between the judgement of Jerusalem and the Parousia of the Lord (<i>emphasis mine</i>).</p>
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Matthew’s material without parallel in the Markan tradition ([Mt 24.26-8; 24.37-25.46]) has no reference to the fall of Jerusalem but, like the additional signs of the parousia in 24.30f., solely to ‘the consummation of the age’. Yet his version of the ‘Q’ material in 24.26, ‘If they tell you, “He is there in the wilderness”, do not go out’, <b>clearly shows that in his mind the scene is still in Judaea</b> (in the Lukan parallel in [Lk 17.23] it could be anywhere). <b>It is significant therefore that in 24.29, ‘the distress of those days’ (i.e., on the assumption of <i>ex eventu</i> prophecy, the Judaean war) is to be followed ‘immediately’ [<i>eutheōs</i>] by the coming of the Son of Man,</b> whereas in Mark 13.24 it is promised vaguely ‘in those days, after that distress’. Normally Matthew edits out (if this is the relationship between them) Mark’s incessant use of [<i>euthus</i>]. … <b>This makes it extraordinarily difficult to believe that Matthew could deliberately be writing for the interval between the Jewish war and the parousia.</b> So conscious was Harnack of this difficulty that he insisted that the interval could not be extended more than five years (or ten at the very most), thus dating Matthew c. 70-5. He would rather believe that Matthew wrote before the fall of Jerusalem than stretch the meaning of [<i>eutheōs</i>] further. It seems a curious exercise to stretch it at all! … The only other way of taking this verse retrospectively is to say that ‘the coming of the Son of Man’, though not ‘the consummation of the age’, did occur with the fall of Jerusalem. <b>But it is a fairly desperate expedient to seek to distinguish these two (joined by Matthew by a single article in 24.3) in face of the usage of the rest of the New Testament.</b>
<p style="margin-left: 50px; margin-right: 60px">Finally, <b>Matthew retains unaltered Jesus’ solemn pronouncement, ‘The present generation will live to see it all’ ([Mt 24.34]), preserving also (as the equivalent of Mark 9.1) the saying, ‘There are some standing here who will not taste of death before they have seen the Son of Man coming in his kingdom’ ([Mt 16.28]). Most notoriously of all, he has, alongside the apocalyptic material from the Markan tradition which he sets in his mission charge, the promise, ‘Before you have gone through all the towns of Israel the Son of Man will have come’ ([Mt 10.23]).</b> If, on the usual reckoning, the evangelist is writing some 50-60 years after the death of Jesus, it is surely incredible that <b>there are no traces of attempts to explain away or cover up such obviously by then unfulfillable predictions.</b> One would equally expect modifications to prophecies after the non-event.<a href="#footnote9E-AWOM"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>9</sup></span></a>
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<b>1.</b>  James Stuart Russell, <i>The Parousia: A Critical Inquiry into the New Testament Doctrine of Our Lord’s Second Coming</i> (London: Daldy, Isbister & Co., 1878), 264–5.<br />
<a name="footnote2E-AWOM"></a>
<b>2.</b>  <i>Stephen’s 1550 Textus Receptus: With Morphology</i>. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2002. The transliterated text is identical to the text in Kurt Aland, et al. <i>Novum Testamentum Graece</i>. 28th Edition. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2012.<br />
<a name="footnote3E-AWOM"></a>
<b>3.</b>  Respectively: <i>The Holy Bible: English Standard Version</i>. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016; <i>The NET Bible</i>. Biblical Studies Press, 2005; and <i>The Holy Bible, New International Version</i>. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011.<br />
<a name="footnote4E-AWOM"></a>
<b>4.</b>  Significantly, Sasse also penned the <i>TDNT</i> entries on the Greek terms ἀΐδιος (“eternity”), “γῆ, ἐπίγειος” (“earth/land”, “earthly/of the land”), καταχθόνιος (“subterranean”), “κοσμέω, κόσμος, κόσμιος, κοσμικός” (“world”).<br />
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<b>5.</b>  H. Sasse, “Αἰών, Αἰώνιος,” <i>TDNT</i>, 1:202–4.<br />
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<b>6.</b>  James Strong and John McClintock, <i>Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature</i> (New York, NY: Harper and Brothers, 1880), “World”.<br />
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<b>7.</b>  John Nolland, <i>The Gospel of Matthew: A Commentary on the Greek Text</i>, NIGTC (Grand Rapids, MI:Eerdmans, 2005), 961.<br />
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<b>8.</b>  The Latin phrase <i>vaticinium ex eventu</i> is “literally translated ‘prophesying from an outcome.’ … a prophecy placed in the mouth of a narrative figure in light of an event … that actually did transpire. In the Gospels, for example, some interpreters have claimed that <i>vaticinia ex eventu</i> occur in Jesus’ sayings, such as his prediction of the destruction of the temple.” Arthur G. Patzia and Anthony J. Petrotta, <i>Pocket Dictionary of Biblical Studies</i> (Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 127.<br />
<a name="footnote9E-AWOM"></a>
<b>9.</b>  John A. T. Robinson, <i>Redating the New Testament</i> (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2000), 23–24.<br />
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The Christian Theologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14841409239921477965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788736104303171609.post-35087909504426232992023-04-07T20:20:00.061+12:002023-05-13T15:16:38.988+12:00Excursus - Baptism as Ritual Washing<p>After being made aware of the basic purificatory definition of NT baptism, magical thinking held about the practice dissipates with every future reading of the Gospels.</p>
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<span title="Classic Baptism: An Inquiry into the Meaning of the Word ΒΑΠΤΙΖΩ, as Determined by the Usage of Classical Greek Writers, by J. W. Dale">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtKYgC-gYgV0SKgwjMwdjVWhMayW3RetifhbATNiQS7YyiFN9W-e8Q6uiaJO4kDaQE_Fj1flc2HHV2gQPihBUR4RzbVc6JodrCIV3YkyC95MAwu49ZPBfPs4PnSVykRNud_xs90zOBk05i--By8R-N6y4AJGmOH70cHr0jgOmTtNcTbXU6a7neGqBy/s377/Classic%20Baptism2.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="377" data-original-width="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtKYgC-gYgV0SKgwjMwdjVWhMayW3RetifhbATNiQS7YyiFN9W-e8Q6uiaJO4kDaQE_Fj1flc2HHV2gQPihBUR4RzbVc6JodrCIV3YkyC95MAwu49ZPBfPs4PnSVykRNud_xs90zOBk05i--By8R-N6y4AJGmOH70cHr0jgOmTtNcTbXU6a7neGqBy/s320/Classic%20Baptism2.jpg"/></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.logos.com/product/25043/classic-baptism"><div style="text-align: center;">Classic Baptism: An Inquiry into the Meaning of the Word ΒΑΠΤΙΖΩ
<br>by J. W. Dale</div></a>
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<br />  <b>Excursus</b>
<p>For those unfamiliar with the term, <i>excursus</i> is a Latin word used in biblical scholarship to denote a detailed digression from the subject under examination, typically inserted parenthetically into the text of a work, or included as an appendix.<a href="#footnote1E-BARW"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>1</sup></span></a> The following excursus is a digression from our critical study on <i><b>the meaning and purpose of baptism within Covenant Eschatology.</b></i> It is intended to supply hermeneutical support for the conclusions stated in the <i><b>NT Usage and Terminology</b></i> section of that study.</p>
<br />  <b>Baptism: NT Usage and Terminology</b>
<p>The following conclusions on the meaning of the terms “to baptise”, and “baptism,” in the NT appeared at the beginning of the online precis of our study entitled <a href="https://thestingofsaltandlight.blogspot.com/2022/10/baptism-at-end-of-mosaic-covenant.html"><b><i>Baptism at the End of the Mosaic Covenant:</i></b></a></p>
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In the Greek New Testament, the verb <i><b>to baptise</b></i> (<i>baptizō</i>) means “to ritually wash.” The noun <i><b>baptism</b></i> (<i>baptisma</i>) refers to the act of “ritual washing.” Therefore, according to NT usage, if a person <i><b>has been baptised,</b></i> then he is considered <i><b>ritually clean.</b></i>
<br /><br />Moreover, since a baptism is a <i><b>ritual</b></i> washing, no empirical standard of hygiene or thoroughness is implied. For this reason, the <i><b>method of baptism</b></i> (immersion, aspersion, dousing), or <i><b>medium of baptism</b></i> (water, spirit, fire), has no bearing on the action or on its result. That is, regardless of which ritual is undergone, a person can definitively be declared <i><b>baptised,</b></i> in the same way as a garment is declared to be <i><b>dyed,</b></i> whether tinted in whole or in part, regardless of the dying agent used, or how it was applied.
<br /><br />So, in short, according to NT usage, undergoing <i><b>the act ascribed</b></i> (e.g. John’s Baptism of Repentance), by <i><b>the medium prescribed</b></i> (water), is how one achieves <i><b>the state described</b></i> (penitence). This is the same for NT <i><b>water baptism, holy spirit<a href="#footnote2E-BARW"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>2</sup></span></a> baptism, or fire baptism.</b></i></p></blockquote>
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<p>While these conclusions are founded upon a mountain of sound lexical and exegetical scholarship, only a handful of representative sets of these hermeneutical supports are given below. Nonetheless, they are more than enough to fulfil the shallow brief of this excursus.</p>
<br />  <b>Lexical Support: BDAG,<a href="#footnote3E-BARW"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>3</sup></span></a> Louw-Nida</b><a href="#footnote4E-BARW"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>4</sup></span></a>
<p><i><b>BDAG</b></i> tells us that the primary meaning, that is, the more strictly lexical meaning, of the verb <i>baptizō</i> is to “wash ceremonially for purpose of purification, <i>wash, purify,</i> [in reference to] a broad range of repeated ritual washing rooted in Israelite tradition (cp. Just., D. 46, 2) Mk 7:4; Lk 11:38.”<a href="#footnote5E-BARW"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>5</sup></span></a></p>
<p>The secondary meaning in BDAG speaks more to the verb’s usage in the NT:</p>
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② <b>to use water in a rite for purpose of renewing or establishing a relationship w. God, <i>plunge, dip, wash, baptize.</i></b> The transliteration ‘baptize’ signifies the ceremonial character that NT narratives accord such cleansing, but the need of qualifying statements or contextual coloring in the documents indicates that the term [<i>baptizō</i>] was not nearly so technical as the transliteration suggests.<a href="#footnote6E-BARW"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>6</sup></span></a>
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<p><i><b>Louw-Nida</b></i> makes a similar distinction between primary and secondary meanings, albeit with the verb forms and their different noun forms together.
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<b>53.31 βαπτίζω<sup>a</sup>; καταβαπτίζω; βαπτισμός<sup>a</sup>, οῦ</b> m: to wash (in some contexts, possibly by dipping into water), with a view to making objects ritually acceptable—‘to wash, to purify, washing, purification.’ … There is some doubt as to the precise extent to which [<i>baptizō</i>], [<i>katabaptizō</i>], and [<i>baptismos</i>] in Mk 7:4 involve ritual cleansing, but the context would seem to imply this, particularly in view of the relationship of such washing to the rules followed by Jews in general and Pharisees in particular.<a href="#footnote7E-BARW"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>7</sup></span></a>
<br /><br /><b>53.41 βαπτίζω<sup>b</sup>; βάπτισμα, τος</b> n; <b>βαπτισμός<sup>b</sup>, οῦ</b> m: to employ water in a religious ceremony designed to symbolize purification and initiation on the basis of repentance—‘to baptize, baptism.’
<br /><br />The baptism practiced by John the Baptist would seem to reflect far more the Jewish pattern of ritual washing than the type of baptism employed by Christians, which constituted a symbol of initiation into the Christian community on the basis of belief in and loyalty to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. There seems, however, to be no reason to employ a different expression for baptism in the case of John than in the case of the early Christians. Most translators actually employ a transliterated form of the Greek term [<i>baptizō</i>], but in some languages this is both awkward as well as inappropriate, especially if another term or expression has already been employed and is widely accepted by groups practicing various types or forms of baptism. In some languages, for example, one may employ an expression such as ‘to enter the water’ or ‘to undergo the ritual involving water.’ Such expressions do not necessarily imply the quantity of water nor the particular means by which water is applied.<a href="#footnote8E-BARW"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>8</sup></span></a>
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<br />  <b>Dictionary Support: DJGSE,<a href="#footnote9E-BARW"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>9</sup></span></a> DJG,<a href="#footnote10E-BARW"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>10</sup></span></a> TDNT<a href="#footnote11E-BARW"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>11</sup></span></a></b>
<p>As we can see from the second L&N entry above, there are two noun forms of the verb <i>baptizō</i> found in the NT, the masculine <i>baptismos</i> and the neuter <i>baptisma</i>. The <i><b>Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, Second Edition,</b></i> explains:</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="margin-left: 50px; margin-right: 60px">
The common Greek word used to describe dipping in water for the purpose of purification, <i><b>baptismos,</b></i> occurs in the Gospels only in Mark 7:4 (cf. Heb 6:2; 9:10). In distinction from these repeated washings, the baptism of John and Christian baptism are represented by <i><b>baptisma</b></i> (e.g., Mk 1:4; 11:30; cf. Acts 1:22; Rom 6:4; Eph 4:5).<a href="#footnote12E-BARW"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>12</sup></span></a>
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<p>The first edition of the <i><b>DJG</b></i> gives us a bit more on <i>baptisma</i>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="margin-left: 50px; margin-right: 60px">
The noun form, <i>baptisma,</i> is not found outside the NT and is only found in the singular. The term implies not only the external act of baptism, but also denotes the inner meaning and force of the act. Baptism may then be appropriately employed for Spirit baptism as well as water baptism.<a href="#footnote13E-BARW"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>13</sup></span></a>
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<p>Of course, the word <i><b>baptisma</b></i> can only imply all of this because the people who selected it for their purposes believed that all these denotations attached to their special act of “ritual washing.” Yet, notice that the basic meaning of their bespoke noun was still such that even their recording of the acts required various instrumental phrases (e.g.: Mt 3:11: “with water” and “with spirit and fire”) to distinguish which <i><b>baptisma</b></i> was in view.</p>
<p>The conclusions of the diachronic word studies of the <i><b>Theological Dictionary of the New Testament</b></i> are in harmony with both editions of the <i><b>DJG</b></i>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="margin-left: 50px; margin-right: 60px">
“Immersion” or “baptism,” [<i>baptismos</i>] signifying the act alone and [<i>baptisma</i>] the act with the result, and therefore the institution. There are no instances of [<i>baptisma</i>] outside the NT. Even [<i>baptismos</i>] used to be regarded as a new Jewish and Christian term ….
<br /><br />[<i>Baptismoi</i> (pl.)] are Levitical “cleansings” of vessels or of the body at Mk. 7:4 (8 vl.); Heb 9:10. [<i>Baptismōn didachē</i>] denotes instruction on the difference between Jewish (and pagan?) “washings” (including John’s baptism?) and Christian baptism (Heb 6:2). [<i>Baptisma</i>] is the specific NT word for “baptism.”
<br /><br />Since the NT either coins or reserves for Christian baptism (and its precursor) a word which is not used elsewhere and has no cultic connections, and since it always uses it in the singular and never substitutes the term employed elsewhere, we can see that, in spite of all apparent or relative analogies, it understands the Christian action to be something new and unique.<a href="#footnote14E-BARW"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>14</sup></span></a>
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<p>That last point, that the NT authors, as the earliest Christian writers in Greek, adopted a near-unique substantive form of <i>baptizō</i> for their unique type of passive, one-off Hebraic <i>baptismos</i>, is clearly of the utmost etymological significance. However, it should not be read as implying that the basic meaning of <i>baptisma</i> was at all different to that of <i>baptismos</i>. In fact, <i>baptisma</i> was chosen because of its synonymity with <i>baptismos</i>, an already proven Greek translation of whatever Aramaic or Hebrew word John the Baptist, and his contemporaries, were actually using. In much the same way as the Jewish historian Josephus (c. AD 37 – c. 100), a first century non-Christian writing in Greek, chose the similarly synonymous feminine noun <i>baptisis</i> when writing about John the Baptist (Ant., 18.116 –119).</p>
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<p style="margin-left: 50px; margin-right: 60px">
<b>2.</b> (116) Now, some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod’s army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist; (117) for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism <b><i>[baptisis]</i></b>; for that the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away [or the remission] of some sins [only], but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness.<a href="#footnote15E-BARW"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>15</sup></span></a>
</p></blockquote><br>
<p>So, yes, the peculiar <i>form</i> of baptism practiced in the NT became the exclusive referent of the rare noun <i>baptisma</i>, but this NT <i>baptisma,</i> whether performed by John the Baptist, or by an apostle of Christ, was still a type of Jewish “ritual washing,” that is, a religious act of purification.</p>
<br />  <b>Exegetical Support: John 3:22–26</b>
<p>After one is made aware of the basic purificatory definitions of <b><i>baptizō</i></b> and <b><i>baptisma</i></b>, any magical thinking still held about the practice of NT baptism should dissipate in every future encounter with passages such as John 3:22–26 (ESV):</p>
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<p style="margin-left: 50px; margin-right: 60px">
<b>John the Baptist Exalts Christ</b>
<br /><br />After this Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside, and he remained there with them and was <b>baptizing</b>. John also was <b>baptizing</b> at Aenon near Salim, because <b>water</b> was plentiful there, and people were coming and being <b>baptized</b> (for John had not yet been put in prison).
<br /><br />Now a discussion arose between some of John’s disciples and a Jew over <b>purification</b>. And they came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, he who was with you across the <b>Jordan</b>, to whom you bore witness—look, he is <b>baptizing</b>, and all are going to him.”
</p></blockquote><br>
<p>The ESV’s subheading is retained here because it adds a fifth instance of those “words [emphasised in the text] that are built on the root <i>bap-</i>,”<a href="#footnote16E-BARW"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>16</sup></span></a> thereby further reinforcing the literary-critical significance of the Evangelist’s decision to insert a sentence about “purification” [<i>katharismos</i>] into a mix of three about “baptizing” [<i>baptizō</i>], at the beginning of his narrative on the superseding of the rabbi John by the rabbi Jesus.</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="margin-left: 50px; margin-right: 60px">
The contrast between Jesus and John the Baptizer is brought into focus by John’s disciples, who apparently had been engaged in a dispute or “argument” (<i>zētēsis</i>) with a Jew over purification or “ceremonial washing.” … The mention of water and purification together, however, does remind the reader of the first Cana story, where Jesus transformed the water of the Jewish purification pots into wine (2:6–9).<a href="#footnote17E-BARW"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>17</sup></span></a>
</p></blockquote><br>
<p>Newman and Nida, in their UBS Handbook for translators of the Greek text into languages other than English, clearly concur with Borchert’s reading of “purification” as “ceremonial washings,” and, by implication, its relationship to baptism in the Evangelist’s juxtaposing of the two terms.</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="margin-left: 50px; margin-right: 60px">
<b><i>About the matter of ritual washing</i></b> is literally “concerning purification.” Although commentators are divided in their opinions as to the precise reference involved, it seems best to take this expression as referring to the matter of Jewish purification in general (it is used in this sense in 2:6), rather than as reflecting a controversy about the relative value of the baptisms performed by Jesus and John the Baptist. <i>Today’s English Version</i> takes it as a reference to Jewish purification in general, and at the same time makes clear to its readers that a kind of <i>ritual washing</i> is meant.
<br /><br />In some instances <i>ritual washing</i> may be translated as “religious washing” or “the kind of washing one does in his religion” or “… because of his religion.” However, this phrase may also be expanded in some languages as “washing to make one religiously pure” or “washing to eliminate taboo.” However, it is possible to avoid specific reference to “washing” by saying “how one becomes clean from taboo” or “how one removes taboo.” Note, however, that in these instances “taboo” must be understood in terms of “negative taboo that is defilement from contact with unclean objects or events." In some instances, one may actually translate “how one may remove uncleanness.” However, this expression is likely to be understood only in the sense of “washing away dirt.”<a href="#footnote18E-BARW"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>18</sup></span></a>
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<b>1.</b>  Matthew S. DeMoss, <i>Pocket Dictionary for the Study of New Testament Greek</i> (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2001), 54.<br />
<a name="footnote2E-BARW"></a>
<b>2.</b>  Since “holy spirit” is used adjectively here to modify the noun “baptism,” I take it to be describing a medium rather than a person, and am therefore disinclined throughout this study to follow the Trinitarian practice of capitalising the term, except when quoting directly from capitalised sources, of course.<br />
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<b>3.</b>  Arndt, William, Frederick W. Danker, Walter Bauer, and F. Wilbur Gingrich. <i>A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature</i>. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.<br />
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<b>4.</b>  Louw, Johannes P., and Eugene Albert Nida. <i>Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains</i>. New York: United Bible Societies, 1996.<br />
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<b>5.</b>  BDAG, s.v. “βαπτίζω.”<br />
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<b>6.</b>  BDAG, s.v. “βαπτίζω.”<br />
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<b>7.</b>  L&N, s.v. “βαπτίζω.” 53:31.<br />
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<b>8.</b>  L&N, s.v. “βαπτίζω.” 53:41.<br />
<a name="footnote9E-BARW"></a>
<b>9.</b>  Green, Joel B., Jeannine K. Brown, and Nicholas Perrin, eds. <i>Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, Second Edition</i>. Downers Grove, IL; Nottingham, England: IVP Academic; IVP, 2013.<br />
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<b>10.</b>  Green, Joel B., Scot McKnight, and I. Howard Marshall, eds. <i>Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels</i>. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1992.<br />
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<b>11.</b>  Kittel, Gerhard, Geoffrey W. Bromiley, and Gerhard Friedrich, eds. <i>Theological Dictionary of the New Testament</i>. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964–.<br />
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<b>12.</b>  (Emphasis mine) E. Ferguson, “Baptism.” <i>DJGSE</i> (Downers Grove, IL; Nottingham, England: IVP Academic; IVP, 2013), 66.<br />
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<b>13.</b>  D. S. Dockery, “Baptism,” <i>DJG</i> (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 55.<br />
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<b>14.</b>  Albrecht Oepke, “Βάπτω, Βαπτίζω, Βαπτισμός, Βάπτισμα, Βαπτιστής,” <i>TDNT</i>, 1:545.<br />
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<b>15.</b>  The bold italic brackets are mine. Flavius Josephus and William Whiston, <i>The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged</i> (Hendrickson, 1987), 484.<br />
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<b>16.</b>  Dockery, “Baptism,” 55.<br />
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<b>17.</b>  Gerald L. Borchert, <i>John 1–11</i>, vol. 25A of <i>NAC</i> (Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996), 190.<br />
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<b>18.</b>  Barclay Moon Newman and Eugene Albert Nida, <i>A Handbook on the Gospel of John</i>, UBSHS (UBS, 1993), 97.<br />
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The Christian Theologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14841409239921477965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788736104303171609.post-9992359206602511512022-10-07T19:56:00.301+13:002023-10-10T15:46:59.455+13:00Baptism at the End of the Mosaic Covenant<p>John’s Baptism in water was a preparatory ritual of cleansing repentance made available to the last generation of the circumcised, so they could be made ready to receive the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, and escape the Last Judgment in AD 70.</p>
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<span title="Image from www.hellenic-art.com/st.-john-the-baptist-coptic"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpROIWTCLj9LKH1XBE3R7u8mlULN3x5zMvBdXSj9OvTqXMi6MZ449CoFo2c0N3I53LQCghq0sV1-TWQBr_GalkHg4aPpan93CWK-t9iqtEalz8GemZMubC8LiWvqzpG88ik8EA2l0PNUe5jpS5a7xBcjXsREfjs-cU2CjSww3pA9k6hdpGAEAMXMLu/s761/Icon_StJohnTheBaptist.gif" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="761" data-original-width="698" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpROIWTCLj9LKH1XBE3R7u8mlULN3x5zMvBdXSj9OvTqXMi6MZ449CoFo2c0N3I53LQCghq0sV1-TWQBr_GalkHg4aPpan93CWK-t9iqtEalz8GemZMubC8LiWvqzpG88ik8EA2l0PNUe5jpS5a7xBcjXsREfjs-cU2CjSww3pA9k6hdpGAEAMXMLu/s320/Icon_StJohnTheBaptist.gif"/></a></div></div></span>
<div style="text-align: center;">St. John the Baptist - Coptic Icon</div>
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<p><b>Of Baptism and Covenant Eschatology</b>
<br><i>The conclusions below are all drawn from my recent critical study on <b>the meaning and purpose of baptism within Covenant Eschatology.</b> The two previous posts on this blog were a <a href="https://thestingofsaltandlight.blogspot.com/2022/08/prolegomenon-baptism-and-covenant.html">prolegomenon</a> of this study, and an <a href="https://thestingofsaltandlight.blogspot.com/2022/09/excursus-malachi-and-messengers.html">excursus</a> of that prolegomenon. The post after this one is an <a href="https://thestingofsaltandlight.blogspot.com/2023/04/excursus-baptism-as-ritual-washing.html">excursus</a> on the the meaning of the words <b><i>baptize</i></b> and <b><i>baptism</i></b>. All three are recommended reading before this one.</i>
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<br /><div style="font-size: 11pt;"><p style="text-align: center;"><b>Study Sections</b></p>
<p style="margin-left: 60px; margin-right: 60px">
<a href="#location1BATEOTMC">A.   Baptism: NT Usage and Terminology.</a>
<br><a href="#location2BATEOTMC">B.   Covenant Eschatology: The Circumcised.</a>
<br><a href="#location3BATEOTMC">C.   Covenant Eschatology: List of Last Things.</a>
<br><a href="#location4BATEOTMC">D.   The Four Last Days Baptisms of the Circumcision.</a>
<br>   <a href="#location4.1BATEOTMC"><i>1.  Repentance: John’s water baptism.</i></a>
<br>   <a href="#location4.2BATEOTMC"><i>2.  Commission: The Apostles’ water baptism.</i></a>
<br>   <a href="#location4.3BATEOTMC"><i>3.  Justification: The Apostles’ holy spirit baptism.</i></a>
<br>   <a href="#location4.4BATEOTMC"><i>4.  Judgement: Jesus’ spirit and fire baptism.</i></a>
<br><a href="#location5BATEOTMC">E.   The Two Inauguration Period Baptisms of the Uncircumcised.</a>
<br>   <a href="#location5.1BATEOTMC"><i>1.  Salvation: The Lord’s holy spirit baptism.</i></a>
<br>   <a href="#location5.2BATEOTMC"><i>2.  Confirmatory: Apostles’ pseudo-proselyte water baptism.</i></a>
</p></div>
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<p><b>A.   Baptism: NT Usage and Terminology</b><a name="location1BATEOTMC"></a>
<br>In the Greek New Testament, the verb <i><b>to baptise</b></i> (<i>baptizō</i>) means “to ritually wash.” The noun <i><b>baptism</b></i> (<i>baptisma</i>) refers to the act of “ritual washing.” Therefore, according to NT usage, if a person <i><b>has been baptised,</b></i> then he is considered <i><b>ritually clean.</b></i>
<p>Moreover, since a baptism is a <i><b>ritual</b></i> washing, no empirical standard of hygiene or thoroughness is implied. For this reason, the <i><b>method of baptism</b></i> (immersion, aspersion, dousing), or <i><b>medium of baptism</b></i> (water, spirit, fire), has no bearing on the action or on its result. That is, regardless of which ritual is undergone, a person can definitively be declared <i><b>baptised,</b></i> in the same way as a garment is declared to be <i><b>dyed,</b></i> whether tinted in whole or in part, regardless of the dying agent used, or how it was applied.
<p>So, in short, according to NT usage, undergoing <i><b>the act ascribed</b></i> (e.g. John’s Baptism of Repentance), by <i><b>the medium prescribed</b></i> (water), is how one achieves <i><b>the state described</b></i> (penitence). This is the same for NT <i><b>water baptism, holy spirit<a href="#footnote1BATEOTMC"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>1</sup></span></a> baptism, or fire baptism.</b></i></p>
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<p><b>B.   Covenant Eschatology: The Circumcised</b><a name="location2BATEOTMC"></a>
<br>The internal time period covered by the New Testament books spans nearly the entire length of the prophesied final days of the Mosaic Covenant, from the Gospel appearances of John the Baptist to the last epistle of Paul, written just a few years shy of the covenant's termination in AD 70. While none of those last couple of years are recorded in the NT, there are prophesies made in the Gospels, and in the book of Revelation, predicting the significant events occurring in them, up to and including the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and her Temple. The inauguration period of the New Covenant also begins and ends during the Mosaic Covenant’s last days. That period started immediately after Christ’s Resurrection, and ended along with the Mosaic Covenant in, again, AD 70.
<p>Everyone who had undergone circumcision according to the Law of Moses during these last days makes up the last generation covered under the Mosaic Covenant<a href="#footnote2BATEOTMC"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>2</sup></span></a> – including Jesus. This Torah-observant demographic is variously called the “circumcision,” the “circumcised”, the “Jews,” even occasionally the “sons of the kingdom” (Mt 8:12; 13:38). It is this last generation who will face the Last Judgement vividly described by Jesus in his “Sheep and Goat” prophecy of Matthew 25 (Mt 25:31–46), and by the Revelator in the “Great White Throne” scene of his Apocalypse (Rv 20:11–15).
<p>In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus condemns the unrighteous cohort of this last generation of the circumcised for being “faithless and twisted” (Mk 9:19; Mt 17:17; Lk 9:41); a phrase recalling the accusation of apostasy of Israel from Deuteronomy 32:5. In his Pentecost speech in the second chapter of Acts, Peter calls the same group a “crooked generation” (Ac 2:40). The Apostle Paul, decrying their ethnocentric opposition to the church in Philippi (Pp 1:28; 3:1–3), makes use of the full Deuteronomic phrase, and calls them “a crooked and twisted generation” (Pp 2:15).
<p>The Greek word for “twisted” in these verses is the past participle form of the word <i><b>diastrephō,</b></i> meaning either “misled,” “perverted,” or “turned away from,” depending on the context.<a href="#footnote3BATEOTMC"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>3</sup></span></a> The Greek adjective translated “crooked” is <i><b>skolios,</b></i> “a figurative extension … pertaining to being unscrupulous and dishonest.”<a href="#footnote4BATEOTMC"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>4</sup></span></a> Both <i><b>diastrephō</b></i> and <i><b>skolios</b></i> are found together in Philippians 2:15 and LXX Deuteronomy 32:5.</p>
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<p><b>C.   Covenant Eschatology: List of Last Things</b><a name="location3BATEOTMC"></a>
<br>As it is this last generation of the circumcision that will either “inherit the kingdom prepared for [them]” (Mt 25:34), or be held accountable to God for “all the righteous blood shed on earth” (Mt 23:35), and then hurled headlong “into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Mt 25:41; cf. Rv 20:10), they appear first on the following <i><b>list of last things</b></i> relevant to our study.
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<p style="margin-left: 60px; margin-right: 60px">
<b>1.</b>  The last generation under the Law of Moses.
<br><b>2.</b>  The last commandment of the Law.
<br><b>3.</b>  The last days of the Mosaic Age.
<br><b>4.</b>  The last prophet of God (John the Baptist, the “Second Elijah”).
<br><b>5.</b>  The last work of the Law (John’s water baptism of repentance, pre-Crucifixion).
<br><b>6.</b>  The last sacrifice (the Crucifixion).
<br><b>7.</b>  The last Day of Atonement for collective sin (a propitiation; see Rm 3:25; He 2:17; 1 Jn 2:2; 4:10).
<br><b>8.</b>  The last Passover / lamb (Jesus; see Jn 1:29; 1Co 5:7).
<br><b>9.</b>  The last Judgement of God on Israel (AD 70).
<br><b>10.</b>  The last act of mercy (to those who “fear God”).
<br><b>11.</b>  The last call of God to come back to the Law (no more exiles of punishment, “wilderness wanderings”).
<br><b>12.</b>  The last covenant between God and his people (the New Covenant).
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<p><b>D.   The Four Last Days Baptisms of the Circumcision</b><a name="location4BATEOTMC"></a>
<br>With regards to the last generation of the circumcision, we find a different baptism for each of the four consecutive stages of the end of the Mosaic Age, which I have named <i><b>Repentance, Commission, Salvation,</b></i> and <i><b>Judgement.</b></i>
<p><i><b>   1. Repentance: John’s water baptism</b></i><a name="location4.1BATEOTMC"></a>
<p>John’s Baptism in water was a preparatory ritual of cleansing repentance made available to the last generation of the circumcised, so they could be made ready to receive the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. As mentioned above, Jesus also had to undergo this baptism, because he too was circumcised under the Mosaic Covenant, as was every Jewish boy of his day (Lk 2:22–24). Indeed, as the writer of Hebrews reminds us, “he had to be made like his brothers in every respect” (He 2:17).
<p>Until John’s death, the disciples of Jesus performed John’s baptism on this same generation (Jn 3:22–23, 26; 4:1–2). After John’s death, there are no more mentions of them having anything to do with water baptism until the so-called “Great Commission.” However, in the “Lesser Commission” (Mt 10:1–42), the twelve disciples were sent out to preach, endowed with “authority over unclean spirits … and to heal every disease and every affliction” (Mt 10:1). As with the charismata given at the greater commission (See <a href="#location4.3BATEOTMC"><i>3. Salvation: The Apostles’ holy spirit baptism</i></a> below), these were miraculous sign gifts to confirm to the circumcision that these preachers of the coming kingdom (Mt 10:5–8) were every bit as legitimate as their teacher (Jn 3:2). In this way, the second part of John’s kerygma – following Messiah after baptism – continued to be brought to the circumcised.
<p>While the lesser commissioning does not explicitly mention John’s baptism, given its crucial importance to the mission of the last prophet of the Old Testament, it seems highly improbable that Jesus and his disciples abandoned it without comment, only to later insist on another water baptism in the greater commission.
<p>Just how crucial John’s baptism was in God’s Last Days plan for dividing the last generation of the circumcised into sheep and goats is underscored by Luke, in the seventh chapter of his Gospel (<i>cp.</i> Mt 21:31–32):</p>
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<b>Luke 7:28–30</b>
<br>“I tell you, among those born of women none is greater than John. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” (When all the people heard this, and the tax collectors too, they declared God just, having been baptized with the baptism of John, but the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him).
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Parenthetically, the Greek phrase translated above as “<i><b>declared</b></i> God just” is literally “all the people ... <i><b>justified</b></i> God,” an obvious application of the aphorism “Wisdom <i><b>is justified</b></i> by all her children,” found six verses later (Lk 7:35). In both of these verses the word <i><b>justified</b></i> is the same Greek verb, <i>dikaioō</i>. Disappointingly, of the five popular modern versions I typically use for comparison (ESV, NET, NIV, NKJV, NRSV), only the <i><b>New King James Version</b></i> translates the two phrases similarly enough for English-only readers to easily spot the connection. Undoubtedly, this is due to their editorial policy of only changing the more antiquated wording of the venerable, old <i><b>King James Version,</b></i> which has <i><b>justified</b></i> in both verses.
<p><i><b>   2. Commission: The Apostles’ water baptism</b></i><a name="location4.2BATEOTMC"></a>
<p>After the Resurrection, the eleven remaining disciples were commissioned to continue making disciples of the circumcised, and baptising them “in the name of the Father, the Son, and the holy Spirit,” (Mt 28:18–20); which we see later in the NT is the name “Jesus” (Ac 2:38; 8:16; 10:48; 19:4–5; cf. Rm 6:3; Ga 3:27). It must be remembered that the phrase “in the name of” means “by the authority of,” that is, the Lord is <i><b>authorising</b></i> the Apostles to carry on the final leg of his own <i><b>messianic mission;</b></i> hence the term <i><b>commission.</b></i>
<p>However, this time, post-crucifixion, instead of preparing the circumcised to receive the coming atonement through their obedience to the kerygma of John, this new <i><b>believer’s water baptism of repentance</b></i> prepares them to receive the atonement of holy spirit baptism through <i><b>belief in the kerygma of the resurrected Messiah’s apostles</b></i> (Mt 28:18). By accepting the Apostles’ claim that Jesus is the prophesied Son of Man now ascended to Heaven to receive his everlasting Kingdom (Dn 7:13–14; Ac 7:56), and acknowledging their communal guilt for his execution, those of the circumcision who wish to “save themselves” must now undergo the water baptism of the Son of Man’s Apostles. Only then will they be ritually clean enough to receive the atonement that is holy spirit baptism (Ac 2:40).<a href="#footnote5BATEOTMC"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>5</sup></span></a>
<p>That this water baptism is different to John’s water baptism is clearly seen in the incident in Ac 19, where Paul baptises a dozen Ephesian disciples<a href="#footnote6BATEOTMC"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>6</sup></span></a> “in the name of the Lord Jesus,” despite their claim to have already undergone John’s baptism of repentance (Ac 19:1–6). So, it would appear that John’s water baptism of repentance for the national sin of spilling “all the righteous blood” (Mt 23:35, 36; Ac 7:52; cf. Josh. 2:19) was now a <i><b>believer’s water baptism of repentance</b></i> for the additional national sin of spilling the blood of the righteous Son of God (Mt 27:24–25; Ac 2:23, 36–49; 3:15; 4:10; 5:28; 7:52).
<p>The need for the circumcision to undergo the Apostles’ water baptism before spirit baptism is further explained by Peter in his first epistle, which he wrote to the believing Jewish diaspora of his day (1 Pet 1:1). He tells them that water baptism “now saves you” because it is the way to “appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (3:18). Peter’s “appeal to God to be given a good conscience” is what we modern English-speaking Christians might more typically express as “a prayer for a clean conscience,” that is, an internal purification of our guilt, by God, through the power of his holy spirit. So, in short, what Peter is saying here is that his believer’s water baptism is how one is now purified to receive holy spirit baptism.
<p><i><b>   3. Justification: The Apostles’ holy spirit baptism</b></i><a name="location4.3BATEOTMC"></a>
<p>John the Baptist himself distinguished qualitatively between his washing with water, and Jesus’ washing with the holy spirit (Mt 3:11; Mk 1:8; Lk 3:16; Jn 1:33). John knew that his external ritual washing merely symbolised a purified conscience, whereas the Messiah’s washing would be a divine, internal, and therefore eternal, <b><i>purifying of the consciousness.</i></b> In drawing this distinction in this way, John also drew the metaphoric connection between baptism and rebirth, vis-à-vis salvation. With this connection in mind, we read Jesus’ injunction regarding the need to be born again with <i><b>both water and with holy spirit</b></i> (Jn 3:5–8) as speaking of the same two-step requirement, but using a different salvation metaphor, that is, <b><i>birth</i></b> instead of <b><i>baptism</i></b>.<a href="#footnote7BATEOTMC"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>7</sup></span></a> This is why John, who was the last prophet of the Mosaic Covenant, was commissioned by the Lord to preach Messiah, and <i><b>to baptise with water only,</b></i> prior to the Crucifixion; whereas the Apostles, the first prophets of the New Covenant, were commissioned by the Lord to preach Messiah as Lord, and <i><b>to baptise with both water and holy spirit,</b></i> after the Resurrection. It is also why they again needed to be filled with holy spirit at their greater commissioning.</p>
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<p>This connection with the so-called Great Commission and the Apostles’ endowment with charismatic gifts is found in decidedly different ways in the first, second, and fourth Gospels, and the book of Acts (Mt 28:16–20; Lk 24:44–49; Jn 20:19–23; Ac 1:4–8).<a href="#footnote8BATEOTMC"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>8</sup></span></a> John’s version is the most succinct, occurring as it does in the same short passage (Jn 20:19–23), which neatly helps us connect the related dots scattered throughout Acts and the two Synoptics.</p>
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<i><b>Jesus Appears to the Disciples</b></i>
<br>On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”
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<br />Notice that, in this instance, the holy spirit is given to enable the Apostles to forgive sins, a power heretofore reserved for God and his Christ (Mt 9:2–8; Mk 2:1–12; Lk 5:17–26). Notice, too, that these words are paralleled in Jesus’ promise to give to Peter “the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Mt 16:19; cf. 18:18). Of course, the power to forgive sins implies the concomitant power to discern the genuineness of a sinner’s faith; a notion confirmed by those all too familiar instances in the Gospels where Jesus proclaims that a person was “saved/healed” (Greek <i>sozō</i> means both) by their faith (Mt 9:22, Mk 5:34; 10:52; Lk 7:50; 8:48; 17:19; 18:42).<a href="#footnote9BATEOTMC"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>9</sup></span></a>
<p>The author of Luke–Acts has a more protracted account of the Apostle’s commissioning and endowment. It begins at the end of his Gospel (Lk 24:36–50), then continues through the first chapter of Acts (Ac 1:1–9), and culminates in the famous Pentecost event of Acts 2. Although in these commissioning verses there are no explicit mentions of the gifts of discernment and forgiveness of sins, these abilities are detailed specifically in later events in the book of Acts – for solid examples of these, see the <i><b>Ananias and Sapphira</b></i> incident (Ac 5:1–12), and the <i><b>Simon Magus</b></i> story (Ac 8:9–24), taking note of how the Apostles <i><b>deploy</b></i> the holy spirit, whilst remembering that all these people are Torah-observant members of the last generation of the circumcision.</p>
<p><i><b>   4. Judgement: Jesus’ spirit and fire baptism</b></i><a name="location4.4BATEOTMC"></a>
<p>The judgement aspect of John’s reference to “holy spirit and fire” might possibly escape the modern reader of the NT. This is due in part to the tendency of today's ministers and popularisers to downplay any connection between Jesus and judgement, and focus exclusively on his role as loving Saviour. The result being, when they come across this combination of holy spirit and fire baptism, they are apt to conflate it with the same combination seen in Acts 2:3, and thereby read the hendiadys<a href="#footnote10BATEOTMC"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>10</sup></span></a> as “fiery (bright) spirit baptism,” rather than as “fiery (burning) spirit baptism;” which the salvation and judgement imagery of John’s kerygma, in both the Matthean and Lucan accounts, strongly indicate is the correct reading.</p>
<p>Among the scholars, there is much debate surrounding what they see as Matthew's addition of “and fire” to Mark's “with holy spirit.” To begin with, many do not read “spirit and fire” as a hendiadys at all, but instead see it as a prediction of two separate Messianic baptisms. Presumably this is because they conclude along with Nolland that it is contextually more appropriate “to distinguish between the [baptizing] function of the <i><b>Holy Spirit as purificatory</b></i> and of <i><b>fire as destructive.</b></i>”<a href="#footnote11BATEOTMC"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>11</sup></span></a> Marshall, on the other hand, finding a great deal of OT background support (Is 4:4; 29:6; Ml 3:2, 3; et al), has no difficulty with Jesus’ spiritual baptism being simultaneously purifying and penal, when he writes, “This evidence shows that in the first century the pouring out of the Spirit in the last days could be understood as a means of cleansing and salvation and/or as a means of fiery judgment.”<a href="#footnote12BATEOTMC"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>12</sup></span></a></p>
<p>I side more with the Marshalls, than the Nollands, on this one. Although, I would add that, in the case of those first century Jews who believed the Apostles, their fiery judgement was a progressive refinement, that started from the moment they were justified, that is, when they had their hearts “cleansed by faith” (Ac 15:09), and continued until that day and hour in AD 70, when they were finally glorified at the Parousia of their Lord.</p>
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<p style="margin-left: 50px; margin-right: 60px">
<i><b>1 Peter 4:12 –19</b></i>
<br>Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And “If the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?” Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.
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<div style="text-align: center;">The Angel Appears to Cornelius the Centurion, by Gioacchino Pagliei, c.1875</div>
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<p><b>E.   The Two Inauguration Period Baptisms of the Uncircumcised</b><a name="location5BATEOTMC"></a>
<br>All that is left to do to conclude this study is to briefly mention the meaning and purpose of baptism for the uncircumcised of the NT, by whom is meant the first generation of Gentiles brought into the New Covenant during its inauguration period. Their exclusion from the Mosaic Covenant is the instrumental difference between how the uncircumcised and the circumcised are treated in God’s salvation plan. Having no contract with God meant they had no part in any of the contractual blessings or curses of God. It also meant that they did not share in the circumcision’s corporate guilt for either the blood of the righteous prophets, or for the blood of the Messiah. They were not compelled, therefore, to follow any rituals, ordinances, or sacrifices as were the circumcision.
<p>Similar to the last generation of the circumcision, there are consecutive baptisms for the uncircumcised in the New Covenant inauguration period, albeit only two, which I call <i><b>Salvation,</b></i> and <i><b>Confirmation.</b></i>
<p><i><b>   1. Salvation: The Lord’s holy spirit baptism</b></i><a name="location5.1BATEOTMC"></a>
<p>The paradigmatic event of Gentile salvation is the Cornelius narrative in Acts 10. It is here we read of the Apostle Peter, and the handful of “circumcised who had come with [him]” (Ac 10:45), discovering that the Lord himself instantly baptises with holy spirit any Gentile who hears and receives the Gospel (Ac 10:44–47); an act which Peter later calls “cleansing their hearts by faith,” at the Jerusalem Council (Ac 15:09). In both of these events, Peter notes that this bestowing of the holy spirit on the Gentiles was done <i><b>in the same way as it was given to the Apostles</b></i> (Ac 10:47b; 11:15–17; 15:8–9), meaning, presumably, at Pentecost (Ac 2:1–4), and when they later prayed for the boldness to continue evangelising the circumcision (Ac 4:31).
<p>As has been mentioned in <a href="https://thestingofsaltandlight.blogspot.com/2022/08/prolegomenon-baptism-and-covenant.html#location2P-BACE">previous studies</a>, nowhere is there any requirement for Cornelius and his house to repent, be baptised, or saved from this wicked generation, before receiving the gift of the holy spirit. The only thing required was a confirmatory sign <b><i>for the circumcision in attendance</i></b>, in order for them to see that these Gentiles had genuinely received the holy spirit of Yahweh; which in this case was their “speaking in tongues and extolling God” (Ac 10:45–46).
<p><i><b>   2. Confirmatory: Apostles’ pseudo-proselyte water baptism</b></i><a name="location5.2BATEOTMC"></a>
<p>That there was no requirement for Cornelius to be water baptised in order to receive the salvific holy spirit baptism of the Lord did not preclude him from receiving the Apostles’ believer’s water baptism (Ac 10:48). Many have wondered why this seemingly unnecessary baptism was done. After all, reason alone dictates that, since the faith that comes with holy spirit baptism is what saves both Jews and Gentiles (Ac 15:11), a baptism after salvation is redundant, at best. Well, to make a long study short, I believe the solution to this puzzle lies in the relationship between the later events of chapter 10 and chapter 15.
<p>It seems reasonable to me to presume that the primary purpose of the author of Acts in recording both the Cornelius and the Jerusalem Council events was to preserve how the Apostles managed the terribly difficult job of integrating the circumcised believers, and the uncircumcised believers, into a single church. The former group’s culturally ingrained animosity of the latter group hardly needs mentioning, except to note that this animosity was chiefly focussed on matters of purity, that is, <i><b>ritual cleanliness.</b></i> The more religiously fastidious members of the believing circumcision were as convinced of their own racial purity every bit as much as they were convinced of the uncircumcision’s racial impurity, and that their consequent need of an external cleansing, was every bit as acute as their need of an internal one.
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<p style="margin-left: 50px; margin-right: 60px">
It is not until the end of the first century BC that <i><b>[the Jews] begin to reckon a Gentile personally impure.</b></i> Obviously the intention is in this manner to prohibit mixed marriages of Jews with Gentiles. … The further complicated history of the regulations concerning the impurity of the Gentiles … does not concern us here. Only we may remark that in <i><b>many places in the New Testament the impurity of the Gentiles is presupposed.</b></i> What we have said shows with certainty that proselyte baptism reaches back to pre-Christian times; for <i><b>in that moment in which it was acknowledged that the Gentiles were impure, the necessity of a bath of purification on conversion was admitted.</b></i><a href="#footnote13BATEOTMC"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>13</sup></span></a>
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<p>Therefore, as with the recommendations in the letter resulting from the Jerusalem Council debate (Ac 15:19–21), the water baptising of the uncircumcised was a way to make them more ritually acceptable to the sensibilities of the more xenophobic members of the circumcision.<a href="#footnote14BATEOTMC"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>14</sup></span></a> This worked well because, as with circumcision, water baptism was then a familiar, <i><b>one-time initiatory cleansing rite</b></i> in the proselyte process, whereby a Gentile died to his old life, and was born anew in the Kingdom of God, unsullied by his perceived hereditary impurity. In this light, it’s possible to see water baptism as the proselyte baptism of the New Covenant for the circumcision, too.</p>
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<p style="margin-left: 50px; margin-right: 60px">
John performed his rite primarily on Jews who, of course, were never subject to Jewish proselyte baptism. Thus, one may argue that John was practicing proselyte baptism on <i>Jews,</i> which suggests that <i><b>he did not feel their heredity was an adequate safeguard from God’s coming eschatological wrath.</b></i><a href="#footnote15BATEOTMC"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>15</sup></span></a>
</p></blockquote><br>
<p>So, finally, in light of what we learned in previous studies happened to <a href="https://thestingofsaltandlight.blogspot.com/2022/07/the-table-of-lord.html"><i>the Lord’s Supper,</i></a> and <a href="https://thestingofsaltandlight.blogspot.com/2022/07/approaching-parousia.html"><i>the Parousia of the Lord,</i></a> it is anything but surprising that <i><b>believer’s water baptism</b></i> was also continued, and eventually ritualised along superstitious lines, by the primitive church, long after the Mosaic Covenant’s termination made associating with large numbers of believing Jews a rare occurrence, and the consideration of their separatist sensibilities entirely unnecessary. This relatively sudden inversion of the ratio of uncircumcised to circumcised believers also allowed the church to eisegete herself permanently into the texts of the NT books as the object of every verse referring solely to circumcised Christians, thereby forever blurring the clear distinctions made between the two, and forcing a futurist reading of the NT’s imminency language with regards to <i>baptism,</i> the <i>Parousia,</i> and <i>Judgement Day;</i> as can be seen in this excerpt from Jeremias’ classic book on infant baptism in the early church.</p>
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<p style="margin-left: 50px; margin-right: 60px">
In conclusion, reference must be made to the fact that baptism in the primitive church was an <i><b>eschatological sacrament</b></i>. It meant that the person baptised was snatched out of a world delivered over <i><b>to the immediately impending judgement of God</b></i> (Acts 2.38; Col. 1.13) and incorporated into the company of those redeemed by Christ’s saving work, an eschatological sealing <i><b>in the last hour before the catastrophe.</b></i><a href="#footnote16BATEOTMC"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>16</sup></span></a>
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<b>1.</b>  Since “holy spirit” is used adjectively here to modify the noun “baptism,” I take it to be describing a medium rather than a person, and am therefore disinclined throughout this essay to follow the Trinitarian practice of capitalising the term, except when quoting directly from capitalised sources, of course.<br />
<a name="footnote2BATEOTMC"></a>
<b>2.</b>  Any daughter born to a circumcised man was understood to be “covered” by his circumcision.<br />
<a name="footnote3BATEOTMC"></a>
<b>3.</b>  Johannes P. Louw, and Eugene Albert Nida, <i>Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains</i>, Vol II (New York: United Bible Societies, 1996), 61.<br />
<a name="footnote4BATEOTMC"></a>
<b>4.</b>  Low and Nida, s.v. “σκολιός”.<br />
<a name="footnote5BATEOTMC"></a>
<b>5.</b>  “The Greek text [of Ac 2:40] is literally ‘save yourselves from this wicked people.’ But what Peter means is that those who hear are to try to save themselves from the fate which God will bring upon the wicked people who have crucified Jesus.” Barclay Moon Newman, and Eugene Albert Nida, <i>A Handbook on the Acts of the Apostles</i>, UBS Handbook Series (New York: United Bible Societies, 1972), 61.<br />
<a name="footnote6BATEOTMC"></a>
<b>6.</b>  These “disciples” are clearly “Jews,” since they had already undergone John’s circumcision-specific baptism, were called “disciples,” and were met near or just outside the synagogue in Ephesus – judging from how the narrative of verse 1 (“And it happened … Paul … came to Ephesus.”) continues in verse 8 (“And he entered the synagogue ….”), immediately after the re-baptism incident.<br />
<a name="footnote7BATEOTMC"></a>
<b>7.</b>  “The NT uses a variety of images to explain the meaning of baptism, such as dying and rising with Christ, sharing in his death and being cleansed from sin.” Martin H. Manser, <i>Dictionary of Bible Themes: The Accessible and Comprehensive Tool for Topical Studies</i>, (London: Martin Manser, 2009), 7908 baptism, significance of.<br />
<a name="footnote8BATEOTMC"></a>
<b>8.</b>  As it is spurious, I have excluded the longer ending of Mark’s commissioning here, and its prediction of certain “signs [that] will accompany those who believe” (Mk 16:14–18).<br />
<a name="footnote9BATEOTMC"></a>
<b>9.</b>  I think it likely that Paul is referring to this gift of discernment in Galatians 2:7–9.<br />
<a name="footnote10BATEOTMC"></a>
<b>10.</b>  For those unfamiliar with the term, a <i>hendiadys</i> is “the expression of a single idea by two words connected with ‘and’, e.g. <i>nice and warm</i>, when one could be used to modify the other, as in <i>nicely warm</i>.” Google’s Oxford Languages search result.<br />
<a name="footnote11BATEOTMC"></a>
<b>11</b>  Emphasis mine. John Nolland, <i>The Gospel of Matthew: A Commentary on the Greek Text</i>, NIGTC (Grand Rapids, MI; Carlisle: W.B. Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 2005), 147.<br />
<a name="footnote12BATEOTMC"></a>
<b>12</b>  I. Howard Marshall, <i>The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text</i>, NIGTC (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1978), 147.<br />
<a name="footnote13BATEOTMC"></a>
<b>13</b>  Emphasis mine. Joachim Jeremias, <i>Infant Baptism in the First Four Centuries</i>, LHD (London: SCM Press, 1960), 25–26.<br />
<a name="footnote14BATEOTMC"></a>
<b>14.</b>  Even Peter found it difficult to overcome this cultural conditioning, despite his vision in Acts 10, as Paul recounts to Peter’s shame (Gal 2:11–13).<br />
<a name="footnote15BATEOTMC"></a>
<b>15.</b>  Emphasis mine. B. Witherington, III, “John the Baptist,” <i>Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels</i> (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 386.<br />
<a name="footnote16BATEOTMC"></a>
<b>16</b>  Emphasis mine. Jeremias, <i>Infant Baptism</i>, LHD (London: SCM Press, 1960), 23.<br />
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The Christian Theologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14841409239921477965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788736104303171609.post-75797750807096634252022-09-05T20:31:00.035+12:002024-02-06T14:39:00.495+13:00Excursus - Malachi and the Messengers
<p>The ESV footnote at Malachi 1:1 says that the Hebrew name Malachi means “my messenger.” What it doesn’t say is that Malachi also means “my angel.”</p>
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<span title="Image and text from Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church (Metropolis of Detroit)"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy5vGUNHC8-X65m900WcF7W2zXOSDis0_G_T1i2vzar3FdBTNNQ5_SfAn5C3piAQ2hpOKp0izZyKv5OJzCqBKvGLjYPRLJfBOVRQODBZ4hJ07cWdehkcMCvcTFTagKzaSOEheTln1gv7GBbG-Xh1KtsLoyh1LTdjsG2vJWtm4WII3qAJifrrhalVf-/s630/Mal%20no%20text.GIF" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="421" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy5vGUNHC8-X65m900WcF7W2zXOSDis0_G_T1i2vzar3FdBTNNQ5_SfAn5C3piAQ2hpOKp0izZyKv5OJzCqBKvGLjYPRLJfBOVRQODBZ4hJ07cWdehkcMCvcTFTagKzaSOEheTln1gv7GBbG-Xh1KtsLoyh1LTdjsG2vJWtm4WII3qAJifrrhalVf-/s320/Mal%20no%20text.GIF"/></a></div></span>
<a href="https://www.orthodoxmuskegon.church/iconography-project/dome-icons"><div style="text-align: center;">"Manifesting himself an image of spiritual goodness and piety,<br>he astounded the nation and was called Malachi, i.e., an angel."</div></a>
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<p><b>Excursus</b>
<br>For those unfamiliar with the term, <i>excursus</i> is a Latin word meaning a “running out,” a “running forth,” or, as the Anglicised version of the word makes clear, an “excursion.”<a href="#footnote1E-MATM"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>1</sup></span></a> In works of scholarship, the term is used to denote a parenthetical departure from the subject under examination.</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="margin-left: 50px; margin-right: 60px">
<b>Excursus.</b> <i>n.</i> A detailed discussion of a particular topic or point that is included in a book as a digression inserted in the text or appended at the end.<a href="#footnote2E-MATM"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>2</sup></span></a>
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<p>The excursus below is a stand-alone digression from the previous <a href="https://thestingofsaltandlight.blogspot.com/2022/08/prolegomenon-baptism-and-covenant.html"><i><b>Prolegomenon</b></i></a> of our critical study on the meaning and purpose of baptism within Covenant Eschatology called, <a href="https://thestingofsaltandlight.blogspot.com/2022/10/baptism-at-end-of-mosaic-covenant.html"><i><b>Baptism at the End of the Mosaic Covenant</b></i></a>. The particular topic of this excursus is <i><b>the Malachi prophecy of Jesus and John the Baptist.</b></i> Its aim is to bring to light several interesting, and significant, features of this prophecy that are too tangential to be included in the main study.</p>
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<p><b>Messenger and Angel</b></p>
<blockquote>
<p style="margin-left: 50px; margin-right: 60px">
<b>Malachi 1:1 (ESV)</b>
<br />The oracle of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi.
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<b>Malachi 1:1 (LXX<a href="#footnote3E-MATM"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>3</sup></span></a>)</b>
<br />The oracle of the word of the LORD to Israel by the hand of his messenger.
</p></blockquote>
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<p>In my copy of the ESV, there is a footnote at the end of Malachi 1:1 that tells the reader that the Hebrew name <i><b>Malachi</b></i> (<i>mǎl·ʾā·ḵî</i>) means “my messenger.”<a href="#footnote4E-MATM"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>4</sup></span></a> This note helps to explain why the Septuagint (LXX) translators opted for the Greek phrase “his messenger,” rather than <i><b>Malaxias,</b></i> the Greek form of the Hebrew proper name. Clearly, they believed that the book was written by an anonymous, albeit inspired, functionary, rather than a prophet named <i><b>Malachi.</b></i><a href="#footnote5E-MATM"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>5</sup></span></a>
<p>What the ESV footnote does not tell the reader, however, is that in the original languages of the Old and New Testaments the common word for “messenger” is the same word for “angel” (Heb. <i>mǎl·ʾāḵ;</i> Grk. <i>angelos</i>), which means that the name Malachi also means “my angel,” and the Greek phrase “his messenger” can also be rendered “his angel.”<a href="#footnote6E-MATM"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>6</sup></span></a>
<p>On the ESV translator’s part, this is a perfectly understandable omission. There is, after all, no reason to give an exhaustive list of definitions for every word in any given text, especially when the primary meaning is the likeliest one in view, as in the case of Malachi 1:1. Yet, as the English LXX text above shows, despite having the correct definition of a word, one might still be led astray by a faulty presupposition regarding the composition history of the text.
<p>Nonetheless, given the very real differences between the English terms “messenger,” and “angel,” I think it is important for English-speaking Christians to be aware of the distinction being made by the translators of our Bibles when they decide which of these two terms to use. Yes, both kinds of envoy, that is, a generic one, or a supernatural one, can legitimately be inferred from either <i>mǎl·ʾāḵ,</i> or <i>angelos</i>, but whereas the English term “messenger” can refer to any of those two kinds, the English term “angel” can only refer to the supernatural kind. Therefore, whenever the English translators use “angel,” the possibility always exists that the distinction being made does not reflect the intention of the biblical author when he used his word for “messenger.”
<p>As a matter of fact, there are plenty of times in Scripture where one’s insistence on the supernatural interpretation of <i>mǎl·ʾāḵ</i> and <i>angelos</i> is highly problematic. An obvious example would be the “angels of the churches” to whom John is to write in Chapter 2 of Revelation. How exactly does one write a letter to an angelic being? And where would one send it if he did? Personally, I would prefer if editors of English Bibles translated every occurrence of <i>mǎl·ʾāḵ</i> or <i>angelos</i> as “messenger,” with perhaps a footnote reading “or <i>angel</i>” in the less ambiguous instances, as that would allow the English-only reader to decide for himself whether a <b><i>heavenly,</i></b> a <b><i>demonic,</i></b> or a <b><i>human</i></b> messenger is meant.</p>
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<p><b>Messengers, Prophets, and Servants</b></p>
<blockquote>
<p style="margin-left: 50px; margin-right: 60px">
<b>Malachi, Book Of</b>
<br />The prophet’s references to the messenger who prepares the Day of the Lord, along with the Lord’s sudden appearance in his temple (Mal 3:1) and the coming of the prophet Elijah, build a natural bridge to the NT (Mal 4:5; cf. Mt 11:10, 14; 17:10–12; Mk 1:2; 9:11–13; Lk 7:27).<a href="#footnote7E-MATM"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>7</sup></span></a>
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<b>Introduction</b>
<br />Malachi predicted the coming of both John the Baptist and Jesus, referring to each as a “messenger” of God (3:1).<a href="#footnote8E-MATM"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>8</sup></span></a>
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<b>Malachi 3:1 (ESV)</b>
<br />Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.
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<b>Malachi 4:4–6</b>
<br /><sup>4</sup> “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.<br>
<sup>5</sup> “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. <sup>6</sup> And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”
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<p>As the ESV introduction above suggests, along with the snippet from Hill’s <i>DOT:P</i> entry, scholars more or less unanimously conclude that Malachi 3:1, and 4:4–6, prophesy the appearance of John the Baptist, prior to the appearance of Jesus. <b><i>The messenger who will prepare the way</i></b> in 3:1 is taken to be <b><i>the prophet Elijah</i></b> in 4:5. As well, <b><i>the sought-after Lord who comes suddenly to his temple</i></b> in 3:1 is <b><i>the same Lord</i></b> in verse 4:5 who, after Elijah, comes to his people in judgement on <b><i>his great and awesome day.</i></b> As Hill notes above, and as we established in our <a href="https://thestingofsaltandlight.blogspot.com/2022/08/prolegomenon-baptism-and-covenant.html#location1P-BACE"><b><i>Prolegomenon,</i></b></a> the Gospel writers prove incontrovertibly that Malachi’s <b><i>coming Elijah</i></b> is <b><i>John the Baptist,</i></b> and <b><i>the Lord</i></b> whom this Elijah is to precede is <b><i>Jesus.</i></b>
<p>Where there is far less unanimity among scholars is in the identification of “the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight” (3:1). Read any random commentary on Malachi and you will get a plethora of possibilities, from “the titular or guardian angel of Israel,”<a href="#footnote9E-MATM"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>9</sup></span></a> to a messenger like those who carried out “ancient Near Eastern covenant negotiations.”<a href="#footnote10E-MATM"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>10</sup></span></a> Most of these theories are unsatisfying, for one reason or another, which no doubt helps to ensure an endless supply of alternatives to come.
<p>In that vein, allow me to proffer a novel theory of my own, which I believe has a moderate degree of merit, and that I have yet to encounter in any of the literature I have looked through so far. It seems possible to me that, just as “my messenger,” and “the Lord,” of 3:1 each finds their echo in 4:5, the “messenger of the covenant” finds its twin in 4:4. That is, the second messenger of 3:1 becomes “my servant Moses”, and his “covenant in whom you delight” is now Moses’ “law [of] statutes and rules.”
<p>Of course, this suggestion begs the question, “Where in the New Testament does Moses appear after Elijah, and before the Lord’s great and terrible day?”<a href="#footnote11E-MATM"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>11</sup></span></a> Well, to make a long theory short, I’m convinced that, along with prophesying the coming of John the Baptist, and Jesus, individually, Malachi is also prophesying the <b><i>Transfiguration</i></b> collectively (Mt 17:1–13; Mk 9:2–13; Lk 9:28–36; cp. 2Pe 1:16–18); an event which is itself a prophetic picture of the earthly messengers of the beginning and end of the temporal Mosaic Covenant being superseded by the heavenly messenger of the eternal New Covenant.</p>
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<blockquote><div style="text-align: center;">Matthew 17:1–8</div>
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<b>17</b> And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.
<sup>2</sup> And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. <br><sup>3</sup> And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. <sup>4</sup> And Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” <sup>5</sup> He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” <sup>6</sup> When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified. <sup>7</sup> But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and have no fear.” <sup>8</sup> And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only.
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<b>1.</b>  Charlton T. Lewis, <i>An Elementary Latin Dictionary</i> (Medford, MA: American Book Company, 1890), s.v. <i>excursus</i>.<br />
<a name="footnote2E-MATM"></a>
<b>2.</b>  Matthew S. DeMoss, <i>Pocket Dictionary for the Study of New Testament Greek</i> (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2001), 54.<br />
<a name="footnote3E-MATM"></a>
<b>3.</b>  Rick Brannan, et al., eds. <i>The Lexham English Septuagint</i> (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012).<br />
<a name="footnote4E-MATM"></a>
<b>4.</b>  See fn. 1 at Malachi 1:1, <i>The Holy Bible: English Standard Version</i> (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016). <i>Mǎl·ʾā·ḵî</i> is made up of the noun <i>mǎl·ʾāḵ,</i> “messenger,” and the first common singular pronominal suffix <i>î,</i> which, when indicating possession, as here, means “my.”<br />
<a name="footnote5E-MATM"></a>
<b>5.</b>  Richard A. Taylor, and E. Ray Clendenen, <i>Haggai, Malachi</i>, Vol. 21A NAC (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2004), 204.<br />
<a name="footnote6E-MATM"></a>
<b>6.</b>  The Greek “by the hand of his <b>messenger</b>” is ἐν χειρὶ <b>ἀγγέλου</b> αὐτοῦ (<i>en cheiri <b>angelou</b> autou</i>). We get our word angel from the Greek <i>angelos,</i> via the Latin <i>angelus.</i><br />
<a name="footnote7E-MATM"></a>
<b>7.</b>  A. E. Hill, “Malachi, Book of.” <i>Dictionary of the Old Testament: Prophets</i> (Downers Grove, IL; Nottingham, England: IVP Academic; IVP, 2012), 525.<br />
<a name="footnote8E-MATM"></a>
<b>8.</b>  “Introduction” to the Book of Malachi from the <i>ESV.</i><br />
<a name="footnote9E-MATM"></a>
<b>9.</b>  James Pohlig, <i>An Exegetical Summary of Malachi</i> (Dallas, TX: Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1998), 136.<br />
<a name="footnote10E-MATM"></a>
<b>10.</b>  Taylor and Clendenen, <i>Haggai, Malachi</i>, 386.<br />
<a name="footnote11E-MATM"></a>
<b>11.</b>  Regarding the order of appearances, interestingly enough, the LXX places the Moses text at the end of Chapter 4, that is, <i>after</i> the Elijah and the Lord texts.<br />
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The Christian Theologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14841409239921477965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788736104303171609.post-80013736567781054362022-08-27T22:33:00.043+12:002024-02-06T14:43:18.415+13:00Prolegomenon - Baptism and Covenant Eschatology
<p>John’s kerygma was the final prophetic commandment that had to be obeyed by those of his generation under the Mosaic Covenant who wanted to inherit eternal life.</p>
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<blockquote><div style="text-align: center;">Acts 2:36–41</div>
<p style="margin-left: 50px; margin-right: 60px">
<sup>36</sup> Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
<sup>37</sup> Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” <br><sup>38</sup> And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. <sup>39</sup> For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” <sup>40</sup> And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” <sup>41</sup> So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.
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<p><b>Prolegomenon</b>
<br>For those unfamiliar with the term, <i>prolegomenon</i> comes from a Greek word meaning “that which is said beforehand,” that is, a <i>prologue</i>, or a <i>foreword</i>. In <i>Systematic Theology</i>, the term has acquired a precise technical meaning. In academia, however, the technical meaning is more general.</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="margin-left: 50px; margin-right: 60px">
<b>Prolegomenon.</b> Prefatory remarks: a formal essay or critical discussion serving to introduce and interpret an extended work.<a href="#footnote1P-BACE"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>1</sup></span></a>
</p></blockquote>
<p>In keeping with this general definition, the following prolegomenon not only introduces the thesis of our critical study on the meaning and purpose of baptism within Covenant Eschatology, <a href="https://thestingofsaltandlight.blogspot.com/2022/10/baptism-at-end-of-mosaic-covenant.html"><i><b>Baptism at the End of the Mosaic Covenant</b></i></a>, but it also provides the preliminary foundational understandings required to comprehend the focus of the study, and its concluding arguments.
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<p><b>The Thesis</b>
<br>John’s <i><b>water baptism of repentance</b></i> was the means provided, by God, for the final (crooked<a href="#footnote2P-BACE"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>2</sup></span></a>) generation born under the <i><b>Mosaic Covenant (MC)</b></i> to humble itself in preparation for the atoning sacrifice of the <i><b>blood baptism</b></i> of Jesus (his Passion), so as to be able to receive the <i><b>salvific holy spirit baptism of faith</b></i> in his Resurrection, that would induct it into the <i><b>New Covenant (NC)</b></i>. John’s <i><b>kerygma</b></i> was the final prophetic commandment under the <i><b>MC</b></i> to be obeyed by those of his generation who feared God. They were to repent, be water baptised, then follow (obey) the one he prophetically identified as Messiah, who would in turn <i><b>baptise them with holy spirit</b></i>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="margin-left: 50px; margin-right: 60px">
<b>Kerygma.</b> Transliteration of the Greek word that means proclamation or preaching. Depending on the context, it may refer to either the content proclaimed or the act of proclaiming. The word is used once in Matthew (Mt 12:41), once in Luke (Lk 11:32), and six times in Paul’s letters (Rom. 16:25; 1 Cor. 1:21; 2:4; 15:14; 2 Tim. 4:17; Titus 1:3). All of these New Testament occurrences appear to refer to what is being proclaimed.<a href="#footnote3P-BACE"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>3</sup></span></a>
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<p><b>Covenant Eschatology (Preterism)</b>
<br>As was previously established in the studies <i><a href="https://thestingofsaltandlight.blogspot.com/2022/07/approaching-parousia.html">on the Parousia</a></i> and <i><a href="https://thestingofsaltandlight.blogspot.com/2022/07/the-land-faith-and-son-of-man.html">on Faith and Luke 18:8</a></i>, the purpose of the messianic ministry of Jesus, recorded in the Gospels, and the Book of Acts, was to bring the temporal <i><b>MC</b></i> to a close, in his atoning death, and the subsequent Final Judgment of the Land, and to inaugurate the eternal <i><b>NC</b></i>, by his Resurrection and gift of eternal life, which allows the recipient to be found righteous in the Final Judgment of the People of the Land. It is upon this termination of the <i><b>MC</b></i>, the covenant of Works of the Law, that <i><b>Covenant Eschatology</b></i> (lit. “study of the end times of a covenant”) is focused.
<p>The main points to take away from these prior studies are
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<p style="margin-left: 60px; margin-right: 60px"><b>1.</b>  Jesus, by self-identifying as the Danielic <i><b>Son of Man</b></i>, confirmed John the Baptist’s proclamation of him as Messiah, the one who would fulfill all the as yet unfulfilled Old Testament prophecies about establishing the promised <i><b>NC</b></i>, and about the coming great and terrible <i><b>Day of the Lord</b></i>, when God comes to his people in judgment for the last time.
<br><b>2.</b>  Jesus’ own <i><b>End Times</b></i> prophecies, such as those in his <i><b>Olivet Discourse</b></i> (Matthew 24, 25; Mark 13; Luke 21) concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, and in his parable of the <i><b>Wicked Tenants</b></i> (Mt 21:33–46), where the lord of the vineyard destroys the murderers of his messengers, and his beloved son, were about this same Day of the Lord’s Judgement of the Land and its People.
<br><b>3.</b>  Numerous times, Jesus tells the current generation of <i><b>MC</b></i> members that they were the crooked generation upon whom would fall the <i><b>Final Judgment</b></i> of God. He also told this final generation that, by the mercy of God, the righteous among them have been given a final opportunity to escape the judgement. As Mary says, in her Magnificat, “his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation” (Lk 1:50; cf. Ps 103:17).
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<p><b>John the Baptist</b>
<br>The main thing to bear in mind when considering <a href="https://thestingofsaltandlight.blogspot.com/2022/10/baptism-at-end-of-mosaic-covenant.html"><b><i>baptism and Covenant Eschatology</i></b></a> is that John the Baptist was both the final prophet of the Old Testament, and the second coming of Elijah, who was prophesied to come before the great and awesome day of the Lord, in order to fend off the utter destruction of the Land of Israel, in chapter 4 of Malachi.<a href="#footnote4P-BACE"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>4</sup></span></a></p>
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<b>The Great Day of the Lord.</b>
<br /><b>4</b> “For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. <sup>2</sup> But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. <sup>3</sup> And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts.
<br><sup>4</sup> “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.
<br><sup>5</sup> “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. <sup>6</sup> And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”
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<p>Obviously, John is not literally Elijah reincarnated, as he himself admits when he was asked if he was Elijah directly (Jn 1:21), but rather he came “in the spirit and power of Elijah,” as the angel says to John’s father, Zechariah, in the temple.</p>
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<p style="margin-left: 50px; margin-right: 60px">
<b>Luke 1:13–17</b>
<br /><sup>13</sup> But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. <sup>14</sup> And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, <sup>15</sup> for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. <sup>16</sup> And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, <sup>17</sup> and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”
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<p>Jesus confirms John’s identity as both a prophet and “more than a prophet”, for those who can hear it (Mt 11:7–19; Lk 7:24–35).</p>
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<b>Matthew 11:13–15</b>
<br /><sup>13</sup> For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John, <sup>14</sup> and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. <sup>15</sup> He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
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<p><b>The Great Commission & the Apostle Paul</b></p>
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<b>Matthew 28:18–20</b>
<br /><sup>18</sup> And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. <sup>19</sup> Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, <sup>20</sup> teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
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<b>1 Corinthians 1:17</b>
<br />For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
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<p>For any serious reader of the New Testament (<i><b>NT</b></i>), the implications of those two verses regarding baptism is inescapable, especially when one considers what was already established in our study <i><a href="https://thestingofsaltandlight.blogspot.com/2022/07/the-table-of-lord.html">on the Table of the Lord</a></i>, with regards to the respective target groups of the first Apostles of the Lord, and those of the final Apostle of the Lord.</p>
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<p style="margin-left: 50px; margin-right: 60px">
<br />Regarding the institution of the Lord’s Supper for modern Christians, we look to the epistles of Paul, rather than the Gospels, because he is the “apostle [of Christ] to the Gentiles” (Ac 22:21; Rm 11:13; Ga 1:15–16; 2:9: Ep 3:7–9), in order to know how to imitate him (1Co 4:16; 11:1; Pp 3:17, cf. 1Th 1:6; 2Th 3:7–8).
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<b>Galatians 2:7–9</b>
<br /><sup>7</sup> On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised <sup>8</sup> (for he who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised worked also through me for mine to the Gentiles), <sup>9</sup> and when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.
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<p>As the Gospels of the <i><b>NT</b></i> make clear, the ritual of water baptism for repentance (John’s baptism) was an ordinance for <i><b>the circumcision,</b></i> that is, the final generation of members of the <i><b>MC,</b></i> that they had to do first (<i><b>even Jesus!</b></i>), in order to prepare themselves for the baptism of the holy spirit, and escape the wrath to come. This is the group to whom Jesus sent his disciples immediately after his resurrection, because they still needed to be baptised, only now, post-crucifixion, it was a <i><b>baptism of atonement</b></i> of their guilt, that is, to <i><b>receive the benefit of Jesus’ sacrificial death,</b></i> hence, “in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit,” which is “Jesus” (Ac 2:38; 19:4–5).
<p>Paul, on the other hand, was sent specifically to the Gentiles,<a name="location2P-BACE"></a> who carried no corporate guilt for the blood of the prophets, or for Jesus, and were not obliged to carry out any ordinances of the Law of the <i><b>MC</b></i>. As we see in the paradigmatic event in Cornelius’ house (Ac 10:24–48), Gentiles are given the gift of the holy spirit (<i><b>faith & eternal life</b></i>) by simply “hearing” (<i><b>receiving</b></i>) the Gospel of Jesus.
<p>The takeaway here, then, is that the Apostles and Paul were commissioned to deliver two different messages, because they were commissioned to deliver them to two different groups. In Acts 2, Peter tells the men of Israel they had to repent and be baptised, then they’ll be given the gift of the holy spirit (<i><b>saved</b></i>). Nowhere does Paul ever tell Gentiles they have to repent, and be baptised, to be saved; they are simply told to believe (<i><b>have faith</b></i>).</p>
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<b>1.</b>  Stanley Grenz, D. Guretzki, and C. F. Nordling, <i>Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms</i> (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 96.<br />
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<b>2.</b>  The Greek word in Acts 2:40 is <i>skolios</i>, meaning “curved,” “bent,” as in “not straight.” So, in context, crooked in an ethical or moral sense (LXX Deut 32:5; Phil 2:15). Compare “perverse” (NET), “corrupt” (NIV, & NRSV).<br />
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<b>3.</b>  Hobert K. Farrell, “Kerygma,” <i>Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology</i>, Electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1996), 444.<br />
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<b>4.</b>  See also Malachi 3:1, and Isaiah 40:3.<br />
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The Christian Theologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14841409239921477965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788736104303171609.post-6120500797053157162022-08-20T12:22:00.044+12:002023-05-13T16:08:59.948+12:00In That We can All be Certain<p>Our lack of empirical certainty of the text forms, and transmission histories, of the Old Testament books is not a problem for the Church, because we only need to be certain of those OT passages cited in the New Testament.</p>
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<span title="Image from faithineurope.net"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjviRQVK9h1CTfKCVWrpx9wmckaIkl1XXTIAFvyqN82AO3mF5oI8w-rMFI0r-8Ucg70AhrhzdVAkvqrCRB16FyHfUmFItJZ8n5bmEZcFulTWK1HOG5ldLZXffW-lcPOnmO77xBI2ST6rcvYQ53sHiggrLXEhIdxZIF7GRcD4syCv3dBnsfk5kdOCbFW/s300/jesus_reading_scroll_3%20%281%29.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" height="400" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjviRQVK9h1CTfKCVWrpx9wmckaIkl1XXTIAFvyqN82AO3mF5oI8w-rMFI0r-8Ucg70AhrhzdVAkvqrCRB16FyHfUmFItJZ8n5bmEZcFulTWK1HOG5ldLZXffW-lcPOnmO77xBI2ST6rcvYQ53sHiggrLXEhIdxZIF7GRcD4syCv3dBnsfk5kdOCbFW/s400/jesus_reading_scroll_3%20%281%29.jpg"/></a></div></span>
<a href="https://faithineurope.net/2022/01/20/today-this-scripture-has-been-fulfilled/"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">Jesus reads the Isaiah scroll (Lk 4:14–21)</div></a><br />
<p><b>Accepting the Unknown and Unknowable</b>
<br><i>The following brief excerpt is from my recent critical study on the textual uncertainty of the Old Testament texts. The foundational research for this study was done previously for my article called <a href="https://thestingofsaltandlight.blogspot.com/p/did-daniel-write-daniel.html">“Did Daniel write Daniel?”</a>.</i>
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<br />Titus 3:16–17
<br>All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
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<br />Daniel 7:13–14
<br>I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.
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<br>Our empirical certainty of the <b><i>text forms</i></b>, and <b><i>transmission history</i></b>, of the books of the OT goes no further back than the second century before the Christian era. In the absence of hitherto undiscovered archaeological evidence to corroborate the historical and literary claims the texts make about themselves, they are, and will remain, largely unknown and unknowable.</p>
<p>The <b><i>text forms</i></b>, and <b><i>transmission history</i></b>, of the book of Daniel before 200 BC are just as uncertain as the rest of the OT texts, but because of the significance of the <i><b>Son of Man</b></i> prophecies to <b><i>the messianic mission of Jesus</i></b>, the debates are especially divisive between so-called “liberal and conservative” scholars. Liberal scholars scoff at the idea that the Daniel prophecies were divinely inspired, or written prior to the events they purport to predict, whereas conservative scholars, by virtue of their high view of Scripture, are compelled to believe they are genuine prophecies of the final triumph of the everlasting Kingdom of the Messiah Jesus.
<p>As with Christian scholars, so too with the larger, non-academic segment of Christianity. The more invested one’s personal faith is in the certainty of the OT texts, the more uncomfortable one becomes when confronted by the substantial lack of concrete literary and archaeological evidence there is to support it. Depending on how this lack of evidence for the canonical OT books is presented, it can be a terrible blow to the more naïve, or immature, believer’s confidence in the entire Biblical record.
<p>Yet, however understandable this loss of confidence might be, there really is no reason why the faith of any Christian should be seriously disturbed by these OT textual uncertainties. That is because we only need to be certain of the OT texts that were <i><b>used by the writers of the New Testament texts</b></i>. It is in the NT that the OT verses, prophecies, and events <i><b>which are crucial to understanding the meaning of the messiahship of Jesus</b></i> are cited, referenced, and alluded to. It is in the NT that these important Christological OT passages are <i><b>confirmed by the Messiah himself</b></i>, through the testimony of his hand-picked apostles, and their own personal disciples and companions. Comparatively, the <b><i>text forms</i></b>, and <b><i>transmission history</i></b> of the NT texts are absolutely certain, and the confirming fulfilment of Jesus’ two post-event predictions found in these texts – his <b><i>Resurrection</i></b> from the dead, and his <b><i>Parousia</i></b> in AD70 – makes their attendant claims about his being the prophesied <b><i>Son of Man</i></b> similarly certain.
<p>Think of it this way. God himself was aware of every change, every editorial emendation, every scribal error, and every flat-out invention that went into the various OT texts being used by Jesus and his contemporaries. God sent Jesus at the time he did, and Jesus confirmed, denounced, and ignored the doctrines and practices that he did, with full understanding of all the different forms of Scripture there were at that time. When Jesus claimed to be <i><b>the Son of Man</b></i>, he knew fine well what it meant to his audience, and what was then believed, and taught, about <b><i>the book of Daniel and the Son of Man prophecies</i></b>. It didn’t matter whether they were written five centuries before Jesus confirmed them, or five decades; all that mattered is that <b><i>Jesus confirmed them</i></b>, and <b><i>then fulfilled them</i></b>. Of that we can all be certain.
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The Christian Theologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14841409239921477965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788736104303171609.post-75850649983928675762022-07-31T22:54:00.052+12:002024-02-10T11:42:42.672+13:00Approaching the Parousia
<p>The disappointing partiality of anti-preterist theologians ensures their arguments against Covenant Eschatology are based on little more than logical fallacies, exegetical acrobatics, or emotional appeals to their favoured traditions.</p>
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<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3229269"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">Anonymous Greek Icon of the Second Coming</div></a><br />
<p><b>After the End of the End Times</b>
<br><i>The following brief excerpt is from my recent exegetical study on the Preterist approach to the Parousia.</i>
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<br />Matthew 16:27–28
<br>For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.
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<br />Matthew 24:33–35
<br> So also, when you see all these things, you know that [the Son of Man]<a href="#footnote1ATP"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>1</sup></span></a> is near, at the very gates. Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
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<p><b>Terminology Synthesis</b>
<br> The Greek noun <b><i>parousia</i></b> is the general term for the “presence,” “coming,” or “arrival” of a person. In the NT it is only found in Matthew 24, and in some Epistles.<a href="#footnote2ATP"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>2</sup></span></a> In the former, it appears once in reference to Jesus’ future coming (Mt 24:3), and three times in reference to the “coming of the Son of Man” (Mt 24:27, 37, 39).<a href="#footnote3ATP"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>3</sup></span></a> In the Epistles, Paul uses it generically for “the coming of Stephanus and Fortunatus and Achaicus” (1Co 16:17), and for his own “presence” (2Co 10:10; Pp 2:12). He uses it eschatologically for the coming of various combinations of “our Lord Jesus Christ” (“Christ” 1Co 15:23; “our Lord Jesus” 1Th 2:19; 3:13), as do James, Peter and John (Jm 5:7, 8; 2Pe 1:16; 3:4, 12; 1Jn 2:28).</p>
<p>Through his use of the term <b><i>parousia</i></b>, Matthew conflated Jesus’ <b><i>Olivet Discourse</i></b> prophecies with his <b><i>coming as the Son of Man</i></b> statements. This matched so seamlessly with the eschatological usage of <b><i>parousia</i></b> in the Epistles, that the term became synonymous for all the different words and expressions used to refer generally to the post-Ascension return of Christ. In particular, the Parousia refers to the coming of the glorified Christ, as the Son of Man, in the Last Days.
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<p><b>Covenant Eschatology (Preterism)</b>
<br>In searching for a non-preterist description of Preterism for this study, the lack of impartiality among the majority of resources in my Logos library was terribly disappointing. Few of the authors were able to match the succinct objectivity of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preterism">Wikipedia</a>.
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<b>Preterism,</b> a Christian eschatological view, interprets some (partial preterism) or all (full preterism) prophecies of the Bible as events which have already happened. This school of thought interprets the Book of Daniel as referring to events that happened from the 7th century BC until the first century AD, while seeing the prophecies of the Book of Revelation as events that happened in the first century AD. Preterism holds that Ancient Israel finds its continuation or fulfillment in the Christian church at the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.
The term preterism comes from the Latin <i>praeter</i>, which is a prefix denoting that something is "past" or "beyond". Adherents of preterism are known as preterists. Preterism teaches that either all (full preterism) or a majority (partial preterism) of the Olivet discourse had come to pass by AD 70.
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<p>The disappointing partiality among the majority of authors in my Logos library, with regards to the preterist interpretive approach to biblical prophecy, is indicative of the lack of objectivity among mainline Christian scholars, academics, and theologians generally. For the most anti-preterist theologians it is a serious handicap. It renders them so unforgivably dismissive of even the least controversial of preterist conclusions, that their arguments against the controversial ones are based on little more than logical fallacies, exegetical acrobatics, or emotional appeals to a favourite tradition. And soon enough all of these bad faith arguments are adopted unwittingly by trusting Christians who look to these scholars for sound, even-handed explication of matters pertaining to faith, practice, and doctrine. They are also picked up by less capable anti-preterists seeking conformation of their own sclerotic biases.
<a name="location1ATP"></a><p>Of the anti-preterism scholars whose work I did cite in this study, a particularly disingenuous one stooped so far in his slanted apologia as to use the KJV reading of Matthew 24:3, where <i>tēs sunteleias <b>tou aiōnos</b></i> (“the completion <b>of the age</b>”<a href="#footnote4ATP"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>4</sup></span></a>) is infamously mistranslated as “the end <b>of the world</b>,”<a href="#footnote5ATP"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>5</sup></span></a> in order to set up a preposterous strawman to which we are to believe most preterists subscribe. None do, of course, because they translate Matthew 24:3 honestly. The theologian used that ancient translation because he believes that “extreme preterism,” as he calls it, takes away from the modern Christian the blessed hope of seeing “the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ” (Ti 2:13). Note that he does not worry about whether that hope might be based on a misreading of Scripture, only that it might be taken away if a reading he disagrees with is accepted.
<p>Regarding their exegetical approach to the Parousia, the choice for serious readers of the <i>New Testament</i> is simple. Given the unavoidable fact of the overwhelming number of imminency statements in the Gospels, in the Epistles, and in the <i>Book of the Revelation</i>, either Jesus, the Apostles, and the NT authors were correct, with regards to the timing of the Day of the Son of Man, or they were mistaken. If they were correct, then the Parousia took place in AD 70. If they were mistaken, then we are forced to believe in a first and second final judgement of Jerusalem, a first and second great tribulation, a first and second surviving of these two tribulations by the disciples, resulting in their standing guiltless before the Son of Man twice, with all these first occurrences taking place in AD 70, and the second ones still waiting to take place, more than 2000 years later.
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<b>1.</b>  The text reads <i>he</i>, but the antecedent to this pronoun is the twice-mentioned <i>Son of Man</i> of verse 30.<br />
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<b>2.</b>  For every NT occurrence, see <b>Study Document</b> <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1X4wDzJ2KmAPuoU9gl9GUVszTKi5PpeQk/view?usp=drive_link">“NT Verses with Parousia.”</a><br />
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<b>3.</b>  For every NT occurrence, see <b>Study Document</b> <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/11wbgptOWjs6duQ3iHAXwpfZF9OTAb4Fn/view?usp=drive_link">“NT Verses with Son of Man.”</a><br />
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<b>4.</b>  My translation. Most modern translations, such as the ESV, NIV, and NRSV, have <i>of the age.</i><br />
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<b>5.</b>  Let me assure you that not one single serious Christian academic writing in 2016, when this theologian’s book was published, would resort to that venerable, but antiquated, 500-year-old English translation against the modern versions, in order to defend any doctrine, concept, or exegetical conclusion of theirs. The very idea is risible in the extreme – and highly suspect. Such are the depths to which anti-preterists sink in their frantic attempts to discredit those who do nothing more than adhere to the plain meaning of Scripture.<br />
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The Christian Theologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14841409239921477965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788736104303171609.post-20522902324095921222022-07-22T18:39:00.072+12:002024-02-06T14:20:39.469+13:00The Table of the Lord<p>For Paul, the Lord’s Supper tradition was not an anticipatory ordinance of God, like the Passover meal, but rather a voluntary act of meal fellowship, of faithful communal thanksgiving to God for the Salvation wrought by his Son.</p>
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<p><b><i>Modern Christians and Communion</i></b>
<br><i>The following is a brief excerpt from my recent exegetical study on Communion.</i>
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<b>Psalm 23:5–6</b>
<br><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>5</sup></span> You prepare a table before me
<br>in the presence of my enemies;
<br>you anoint my head with oil;
<br>my cup overflows.
<br><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>6</sup></span> Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
<br>all the days of my life,
<br>and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.
<br /><br /><b>Micah 6:8</b>
<br><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>8</sup></span> He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love [mercy]<a href="#footnote1TTOTL"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>1</sup></span></a>, and to walk humbly with your God.
<br /><br /><b>Matthew 23:23</b>
<br><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>23</sup></span> Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you ... have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness.</p></blockquote>
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<p>The evidence of the New Testament, and the history of the Early Church, is indisputable: Until the fourth century, <i><b>the Lord’s Supper was a meal of faithful Christian fellowship and thanksgiving</b></i>, wherein members left their diverse, worldly backgrounds at the door of the house of assembly, and came together as the family of Christ, the benefactor of the table, to rejoice in their having been shown mercy, that is, forgiven and set on the path of righteousness, and in their having been included in the Abrahamic inheritance of eternal life.
<p>Regarding the institution of the Lord’s Supper for modern Christians, we look to the epistles of Paul, rather than the Gospels,<a href="#footnote2TTOTL"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>2</sup></span></a> because he is the “apostle [of Christ] to the Gentiles” (Ac 22:21; Rm 11:13; Ga 1:15–16; 2:9: Ep 3:7–9), in order to know how to imitate him (1Co 4:16; 11:1; Pp 3:17, cf. 1Th 1:6; 2Th 3:7–8). It is Paul who says Christians were to “proclaim” Jesus' self-sacrifice through the worthy sharing of the Lord’s Supper “until he comes” (1Co 11:26). This is clearly a reference to <b><i>the Parousia, which occurred in AD 70.</i></b><a href="#footnote3TTOTL"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>3</sup></span></a> So, Paul's requirement to observe the tradition <b><i>is no longer in force</i></b>. Nonetheless, we are still bound by the covenantal obligation to act with righteous familial charity whenever we gather with other Christians, <b><i>whether we eat or not</i></b>.
<p>However, even for those Christians who believe that the Parousia is still a future event, it has to be seen that, for Paul, the Lord’s Supper tradition was not an anticipatory ordinance of God, like the Passover meal, but rather <b><i>a voluntary act of meal fellowship</i></b>, of faithful communal thanksgiving to God for the Salvation wrought by his Son, through the sharing of food and drink. Which is exactly how the Early Church celebrated it. The Laws of God are written in the Christian heart, so any time we perform a “good work,” it must be a voluntary act, that is, “from the heart” (meaning, “of the will”), and not imposed by an external authority, otherwise it is hypocritical, and therefore sinful. This is why Paul encourages the Corinthians to consider one another as brothers in Christ, rather than simply order them to behave themselves in church. A Christian is <b><i>internally motivated</i></b>, because he has the mind of Christ, so the promptings of his conscience are the only “rules” he needs to follow (1Co 2:14–16).
<p>That observing the Lord’s Supper is not a command does not mean it is sinful, or wrong, to perform a Communion ritual, or to follow a particular denominational tradition. Like any church practice that is not in direct violation of Scripture, it would only be sinful if it were mandated on the grounds that <b><i>it was commanded in Scripture</i></b>. It was not; so that would be a lie.
<p>Finally, while any tradition, aspect, or detail of the current practices of Communion is not inherently sinful, <b><i>if it does not help to foster charitable, familial relations</i></b> between those partaking in it, it is in danger of violating the spirit of the Lord’s Supper, and serious consideration should be made <b><i>to have it modified, or discarded</i></b>.
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<br> <b>1.</b>  The ESV reads “kindness” here for the OT Hebrew <i>hesed</i>, “covenantal-compassion, graciousness.” However, in the LXX, where the Gospels derive most of their OT citations, the Greek word used is <i>eleos</i>, which means “mercy” (Compare ESV Mc 6:8 with KJV, NIV, NKJV). I inserted “mercy” here to clarify that, in the next epigraph, Matthew's Jesus is referencing this OT verse.
<br><a name="footnote2TTOTL"></a> <b>2.</b>  In context, the Gospel accounts are of Jesus “opening” the messianic significance behind the annual Passover seder to his disciples, then instructing them to eat all the future Passovers with this new understanding. Clearly, since the feast was dependant on the Temple lamb-slaughtering ritual, there were no more after AD 70.
<br><a name="footnote3TTOTL"></a> <b>3.</b>  AD 70 is when the 2nd Temple was destroyed, which Jesus predicted in all three Synoptic Gospels (Mt 24:1-2; Mk 13:1-2; Lk 21:5-6). That day was the “Great and Terrible Day of the Lord” (Jl 2:31; cited in Ac 2:20), the “Final Judgement [of Israel],” the Lord’s so-called “Second Coming.”
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The Christian Theologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14841409239921477965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788736104303171609.post-71323115815970901072022-07-14T22:41:00.053+12:002023-08-16T08:35:51.838+12:00The Land, the Faith, and the Son of Man
<p>Jesus’ question about the Son of Man finding faith comes at the end of the parable of the widow and the unrighteous judge, reinforcing the idea that Jesus is asking about the Last Judgement of the Land of Israel.</p>
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<p><b>Conclusions on Faith and Luke 18:8b</b></p>
<p>The following brief excerpt is from my recent exegetical study on the meaning of Jesus' question of Luke 18:8b.</p>
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<p><b>Three Readings of Luke 18:8b</b></p>
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<p style="margin-left: 50px; margin-right: 60px">
  <b>NA28:</b>  <i>plēn <b>o uios tou anthrōpou</b> elthōn ara eurēsei <b>tēn pistin</b> epi <b>tēs gēs;</b></i><a href="#footnote1TLTFATSOM"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>1</sup></span></a>
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  <b>ESV:</b>   Nevertheless, when <i><b>the Son of Man</b></i> comes, will he find <i><b>faith</b></i> on <i><b>the earth?</b></i>
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  <b>Mine:</b>  Nonetheless, when <i><b>the Son of Man</b></i> comes, will he find <i><b>the faith</b></i> on <i><b>the land?</b></i>
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<p><b>Conclusions: Terminology</b>
<br>The term <i><b>Son of Man</b></i> here is an allusion to the messianic figure mentioned in the <i>Book of Daniel,</i> who “approached the Ancient of Days [in heaven] and was … given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed” (Dn 7:13–14).</p>
<p>The Greek term for <i><b>the faith</b></i> (with the article) carries the full range of meanings and senses of all the Hebrew words it translates in the LXX, of which the two primary words are “fear” and “trust.” The range of senses in the group of “trust” words include “rely on”, “put confidence in”, “take refuge in”, “hope in”, “hope for”, “wait for”, “put hope in”, “believe”, and “believe to be true.” In short, Jesus has the genuine, saving faith of Abraham in view.<a href="#footnote2TLTFATSOM"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>2</sup></span></a>
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<p>The term translated <i><b>the earth</b></i> in the ESV (and most English Bibles) can also be legitimately translated <i><b>the land</b></i>. Although a minority report, I believe the intended meaning here is “the land which is to be judged by the Son of Man,” that is, “the land of Judea,” generally, or “the land upon which sits the city of Jerusalem,” specifically. Of course, neither translation disturbs the core meaning of the verse.</p>
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<b>Conclusions: Literary Context</b>
<br>Looking at the internal context of the passage, we see that Jesus’ question is appended to the epilogue (Lk 18:6–8) of the parable of <i><b>the widow and the unrighteous judge</b></i> (Lk 18:1–5). The parabolic widow’s mistreatment at the hands of the unrighteous judge reinforces the idea that the land Jesus is asking about in verse 18b is <i><b>the land which is to be judged by the Son of Man</b></i>. The parable ably illustrates present day Judea’s systemic exploitation of the fatherless (read: “orphans”), the widows, and the strangers, despite the innumerable obligations in the Torah to treat each of these groups with the utmost care and compassion (Dt 10:18; 14:28–29; 24:17–19; 26:12; cf. Is 1:17).
<p>The stated purpose of Jesus’ parable is to show his disciples that, like the widow’s perseverance in seeking after justice, they must continue to pray for God’s justice – continual prayer being a sign of supreme piety – until the Parousia, that is, the “Day(s) of the Son of Man.” In maintaining their faith in this way, they will “have [the] strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man” (Lk 21:36). </p>
<p>The previous passage to the parable (Lk 17:20–37) introduces all the themes alluded to in our verse: The <i><b>Son of Man</b></i>, <i><b>God’s judgement of the unfaithful in the land/city</b></i>, and his <i><b>deliverance of the few righteous people</b></i> there <i><b>before</b></i> the <i><b>promised destruction</b></i>. From this passage we can confidently conflate the coming of <i><b>the Kingdom of God</b></i>, with <i><b>the Parousia</b></i>, and with <i><b>the Day(s) of the Son of Man</b></i>. Also, with its cautionary examples of <i><b>the Flood</b></i>, and <i><b>the destruction of Sodom</b></i>, this passage further reinforces the idea above that, in verse 18b, Jesus is not asking about the whole world, but the local land of Judea, where God’s faithful few live, surrounded by the thoroughly wicked, just like Noah, Lot and their families. Jesus’ question, then, is posed as a kind of warning/reminder that the Son of Man is coming to both save the faithful (the righteous) Jews, and usher them into his eternal Spiritual Kingdom, and to condemn/punish the unfaithful (unrighteous) Jews, and destroy them along with his temporal Earthly Kingdom.</p>
<p>In the passage immediately after verse 18b, Jesus continues his eschatological discourse with another parabolic illustration of the societal divisions of his day (Lk 18:9–14). This parable reveals how God judges the prayer of the apparently righteous Pharisee as unrighteous; and the prayer of the apparently unrighteous tax-collector as righteous. The lesson for his disciples is clear: Like Noah, Lot, the widow, and the tax-collector, regardless of the scorn of everyone around them, they must keep living justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with their Lord (Mc 6:8), so that they, too, will escape the wrath to come, and stand forgiven before the Son of Man (Lk 21:36).</p>
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<b>1.</b>  My transliteration of the text in Kurt Aland, <i>et al.</i>, <i>Novum Testamentum Graece</i>, 28th Edition (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2012).<br />
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<b>2.</b>  The ideas about the Greek and Hebrew terms in this paragraph come from Bultmann, <i>TDNT</i>, s.v., <span style="font-family: Palatino Linotype">Πίστις</span>. The parenthetical definitions of the Hebrew words come from James Swanson, <i>Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains: Hebrew</i> (Oak Harbor: Logos, 1997). The final conclusion is my own.<br />
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The Christian Theologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14841409239921477965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788736104303171609.post-38087817451695961242022-07-09T22:30:00.040+12:002023-05-13T18:27:05.927+12:00The Salvation Pattern and the Promised Land<p>Entering into Canaan behind Joshua was the final act in the physical enactment of the <i><b>Salvation Pattern</b></i>. From this moment on, this pattern is operating spiritually, on the minds of God’s people. The Law of Moses is the “letter” of God’s commandments regarding how he wants people in his Kingdom to behave. It was given for them to discover and adopt the guiding “spirit” within it.</p>
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<p><b><i>Synthesis: On the Promised Land</i></b>
<br><i>The following brief excerpt is from my recent exegetical study on the Promised Land.</i>
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<p><b>The Salvation Pattern: Abraham</b>
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Abraham’s faithful response to the call of God established the scriptural pattern of salvation for God’s people:
<p>    <b>(1) Called</b> > <b>(2) Follow </b> God by faith > <b>(3) Covenant</b> with promises of seed, land, redemption >
<br>    <b>(4) Faith trial</b> > <b>(5) Delivery</b> (Salvation) of the <b>faithful</b> into the Promised Land.</p>
<p><b>The Salvation Pattern: Moses</b>
<br>This pattern is re-presented in the Exodus story with the children of Abraham (Israel), where a significant element is appended to the pattern.
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<br>(1)  “Lost” in the Kingdom of Darkness (Egypt), they are <b><i>called</i></b> to follow Moses (God’s prophet), which
<br>(2)  <b><i>they do</i></b>, getting right up to the border of the Promised (to Abraham) Land (Canaan). There the Mosaic
<br>(3)  <b><i>Covenant</i></b> is established, and they undergo
<br>(4)  a <b><i>trial of their faith</i></b> (40 years of wandering in the wilderness), then the
<br>(5)  genuinely <b><i>faithful</i></b> (true sons of Abraham) are <b><i>delivered</i></b> into the land, an eternal, Edenic paradise<a href="#footnote1TSPATPL"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>1</sup></span></a><br>   (“land flowing with milk and honey”),
<br>(6)  by <b><i>Joshua</i></b> (“<b><i>Jesus</i></b>”<a href="#footnote1TSPATPL"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>2</sup></span></a>).
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<p><b>The Salvation Pattern: Joshua</b>
<br>Entering into Canaan following Joshua was the final act in the physical enactment of the <i><b>Salvation Pattern</b></i>. From this moment on, this pattern is operating spiritually, that is, on the development of the hearts (“minds, inner beings”) of God’s people. The Law of Moses is the “letter” of God’s commandments regarding how he wants people in his Kingdom to behave. This Law was given as a means for them to develop their understanding of the principles underlying the Law, that is, the “spirit” of the Law (see 2Co 3:5-6). Thus, their agreement of the physical Mosaic Covenant becomes the start of their <b><i>(2) following</i></b> the <b><i>(1) call</i></b> of the New <b><i>(3) Covenant</i></b>. After many <b><i>(4) faith trials</i></b> during their following the call, <b><i>(6) Jesus</i></b> shows up to <b><i>(5) deliver </i></b> the genuinely <b><i>faithful</i></b> sons of Abraham into the spiritual Promised Land, eternal life.
<p>So, in the Gospels, the righteous are “Abraham’s children … doing the works Abraham did” (Jn 8:39 ESV) that is, having the same faith as Abraham, and therefore able to recognise that Jesus is the Messiah, “[telling] the truth that [he] heard from God” (v. 40). As genuine children of Abraham, they are God’s children, evidenced by their love for Jesus, as opposed to the unrighteous, who do not have genuine faith, and can’t hear God’s truth in Jesus’ words, and are therefore seeking to kill him, rather than love him, like their “father the devil … the father of lies,” and liars (vv. 42–47).
<p><b>The Salvation Pattern: Christ</b>
<br>For post-Resurrection New Covenant saints, however, the “sheep and goat” analogy does not apply – nor do all the other parabolic contrasting characterisations, such as the “the guests with wedding garments (the called and chosen), and guests without wedding garments (the called but not chosen)” (Mt 22:11–14), the “faithful and wicked servants” (Mt 24:45–51; 25:14–30), the “wise and foolish virgins” (Mt 25:1–13). That is because the six steps of the spiritualised <i><b>Salvation Pattern</b></i> are compressed into a single operation of God, through the crucifixion, death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah.
<p>This is what our “being in Christ” means: In the moment we become aware of our belief in <b><i>(6) Jesus</i></b>, he entered us into his New <b><i>(3) Covenant</i></b> (giving us our new hearts, with the Law of God written on them), we were at once <b><i>(1) called</i></b> by God, faithful <b><i>(2) followers</i></b>, <b><i>(4) tried</i></b> and passed (evidenced by our instant guilt and repentance at our revealed state as sinners), declared genuinely <b><i>(5) faithful</i></b> (righteous/justified) and <b><i>delivered</i></b> (saved/glorified). This is what Paul is explaining in what theologians call “the Golden Chain of Redemption:”
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<p style="margin-left: 50px; margin-right: 60px"><b>Romans 8:28–30</b>
<br>And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
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<b>1.</b>  The word “paradise” (<i>paradeisos</i>), found in Luke 23:43, is the Greek transliteration of “a Persian word meaning ‘garden, park’, [which] was used in the [Septuagint] for the garden of Eden (Gn. 2:8; et al.) and in secular contexts. It then became a type of the future bliss for God’s people in Is. 51:3, and received a technical sense in T. Levi 18:10f. The future paradise was identified with the garden of Eden, thus leading to the view that it existed in between the creation and the final age in hidden form.” I. Howard Marshall, <i>The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text</i>, NIGTC (Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1978), 872–3.
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<b>2.</b>  “<span style="Font-family: Palatino Linotype">Ἰησοῦς</span> [<i>Iēsous</i>, “Jesus”] is the Greek form for the Hebrew name Joshua (<i>Yēšûaʿ</i>). In popular etymology this was related to <i>yšʿ</i> (‘save’) and <i>yêšûʿâ</i> (‘salvation’). While salvation language is not nearly as important to Matthew as to Luke, the verb [<span style="Font-family: Palatino Linotype">σῴζειν</span>, “to save”] is used to cast Jesus in a saving role in a number of places.” John Nolland, <i>The Gospel of Matthew: A Commentary on the Greek Text</i>, NIGTC (Grand Rapids, MI; Carlisle: Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 2005), 98.<br />
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The Christian Theologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14841409239921477965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788736104303171609.post-64764031439711773212022-06-18T19:58:00.110+12:002023-05-13T18:50:13.978+12:00The Prodigal Demoniac<p>Matthew's demoniac is an apostate Jew, unrestrained through sin and/or misfortune from the bonds of the Mosaic Covenant, and civilised society.
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<a href="http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mmpowrs/back.html"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">Relief #35 from Bronze Cross by C. Malcolm Powers</div></a><br />
<p><b>On the parallels between the Gadarene Demoniac and the Prodigal Son</b>
<br>The following is excerpted from my recent exegetical study on the <i>Gadarene Demoniac</i> event (Mt 8:28–9:1, Mk 5:1–20, Lk 8:26–39). All English Scripture quoted below is from the ESV, unless quoted by another author, or otherwise indicated.
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<p><b>Passage Structure: Details of the Common Matthean Triple Tradition (TT) Material</b>
<br>With regards to the Gadarene pericope, Matthew’s abbreviated version is a wonderful distillation of the common TT material found in the longer accounts of Mark and Luke. For the sake of clarity, since only one of Matthew’s demoniacs is common to all three Gospels,<a href="#footnote1TPD"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>1</sup></span></a> and all three have multiple demons (albeit, in Mark and Luke, prior to the man’s introduction of the name “Legion,” Jesus only addresses a single “unclean spirit”), singular pronouns are used below for the former, and plural for the latter.
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<p style="margin-left: 100px"><b>1.</b>  Setting is now “the country of the Gadarenes” (Mt 8:28b).
<br><b>2.</b>  Unrestrainable, demonized man (v. 28ce).
<br><b>3.</b>  He is living in the tombs (v 29d).
<br><b>4.</b>  He recognises Jesus (v. 29).
<br><b>5.</b>  Many pigs “feeding” (v. 30).
<br><b>6.</b>  The demons seek permission to enter the pigs (v. 31).
<br><b>7.</b>  Jesus grants permission (v. 32a).
<br><b>8.</b>  They enter the pigs (v. 32b).
<br><b>9.</b>  The pigs run to their deaths (v. 32c).
<br><b>10.</b>  The swineherds flee (v. 33a).
<br><b>11.</b>  They report the incident (33bc).
<br><b>12.</b>  The towns people react to the report (v. 34b).
<br><b>13.</b>  The towns people react to Jesus (v. 34d).
<br><b>14.</b>  The healed/saved man stays behind (9:1).</p></div>
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<br /><b>Common Details Analysis</b>
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<p><i><b>  Setting is now “the country of the Gadarenes.”</b></i>
<p>The change of setting, from Capernaum in the Galilee, across the lake that Israelis today call “Kinneret,” to “the country of the Gadarenes” (or Gerasenes<a href="#footnote1TPD"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>2</sup></span></a> ), clearly plays a significant part in this story, given that all three Synoptists say Jesus returned to the Capernaum shore immediately afterwards (Mt 9:1; Mk 5:21; Lk 8:37). That nothing else happens on this visit to the other side of the “Sea of Galilee” suggests this event is functionally paradigmatic, that is, it appears in the Gospels because, like those involving Samaritans (Lk 9:51–56; 17:11–19; Jn 4:4–42; cf. Ac 1:8; 8:1; 4–25; 9:31; 15:3.), its details make it ideal as a representative Salvation Narrative of Jesus’ messianic activity in the apostate areas of Palestine.
<p>Located in the northern part of the Decapolis, in the eastern portion of land allotted to the tribe of Manasseh,<a href="#footnote1TPD"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>3</sup></span></a> the “district of Gadara”<a href="#footnote1TPD"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>4</sup></span></a> was an even more disreputable area than the Galilee, according to the more naionalist Judeans, who took it as read that, since it was populated by <i>gentiles</i> and <i>apostate Jews</i>, it was teeming with <i>demons</i>.<a href="#footnote1TPD"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>5</sup></span></a> The Gadarenes in all three versions of this story do nothing to mitigate these pejorative characterisations of the area's inhabitants. In fact, they are each arguably respective representatives of them: <i><b>The swineherds, gentiles; the demoniac, apostates; the unclean spirits, demons</b></i>.
<p><i><b>  Unrestrainable, demonized man / He is living in the tombs.</b></i>
<p>Matthew’s description of the demoniac’s debased state is succinct. The demonised wild man roams an infamously evil land, (“the country of the Gadarenes”), wherein, for reasons unstated, he has come into contact with corpses (“coming out of the tombs”), making him ritually unclean as he charges at Jesus (Nm 19:16). Like a beast, he is aggressively antisocial, chasing away everyone who comes near him, regardless of their intent (“so fierce that no one could pass that way”).
<p>The mention of the demoniac coming from the “tombs” might simply be the recounting of an evocative, but narratively unimportant detail. However, its inclusion in Matthew’s abbreviated account suggests that it might prove more significant if read paradigmatically, as a detail in a representative healing/salvation narrative. Within the pericope’s Salvation theme, the tomb’s implication of ritual uncleanness requiring priestly expiation implies a deeper theological relationship between the demoniac, Jesus as Messiah, and the Law of Moses, in much the same way that leprosy does in other healing/salvation events in the Gospels (Mt 8:1–4; Mk 1:40-45; Lk 5:12–14; c.f. Lv 13:45-46). Perhaps, as suggested above, the demoniac is not a gentile lunatic, as many suppose from the setting, but rather an apostate Jew, who has become unrestrained through sin and/or misfortune from the bonds of the Mosaic Covenant, and therefore, from civilised society.
<p>In this light, “living in the tombs,” as Mark and Luke have it, means the demoniac, while alive physically, is spiritually “dead in [his] sins and trespasses … following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience” (Ep 2:1–2). Like the prodigal son in the midst of his disobedience (Lk 15:11–32), the demoniac is a sheep among a herd of swine, a rebel to the Covenant of his father; lost and dead, oblivious to his eventual rescue and resuscitation (Lk 15:32).
<p><i><b>  He recognises Jesus.</b></i></p>
Additional support for the proposition that the demoniac is a “lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Mt 15:24) is found in the Synoptic unanimity regarding the recognition of Jesus' true identity. In all three accounts, it is the demoniac, not the demons, who expresses this recognition in Messianic terminology: “Son of [<b><i>the Most High</i></b>] God” (v. 29; <b><i>Mk 5:6–7; Lk 8:28</i></b>).<a href="#footnote1TPD"><span style="font-size: 9pt;"><sup>6</sup></span></a> That Matthew's dual demoniacs are speaking is less obvious, given their concomitant third person plural verbs, but both Mark and Luke’s grammar is decisively singular (“<b><i>he saw</i></b> Jesus … <b><i>he ran</i></b> and <b><i>fell down</i></b> … <b><i>he cried out/crying out</i></b> … <b><i>he said</i></b> … ‘What have you to do <b><i>with me</b></i> … <b><i>I adjure/beg</i></b> you … do not torment <b><i>me</b></i>’”). However, Matthew does mark the change in speaker after this initial dialogue, as do the other two Synoptists. When the request to be sent into the pigs is made, Matthew replaces his plural substantive participle, “the demonised,” as the antecedent of the pronoun “we,” with the introduction of the plural noun “the demons,” indicating that until this moment, his demoniacs had been doing all the talking (v. 31). Mark and Luke signal this change in speaker through the simple expedient of inserting third person plural verbs into their narratives, “<b><i>they begged</i></b> him” (Mk 5:12; Lk 8:32).
<p><i><b>  Many pigs “feeding”.</b></i></p>
As with the mention of the “tombs,” that the herd of pigs is said to be “feeding” could simply be the author relaying an incidental detail of the event, one that reasonably accounts for the presence of the swine on that hill, on that day. Similar to the “tombs” mention, too, the “feeding” detail is redundant, perhaps even more so. It has no real bearing on the outcome of the event, and would not have been missed if excised from Matthew’s account altogether. So, like the mention of the “tombs” again, the inclusion of such an ultimately unnecessary detail in Matthew’s distilled version indicates that it might have paradigmatic value.
<p>First, remember that the thing that makes pigs unclean is that they <b><i>do not eat the grass that grows from the land</i></b> (Lv 11:7–8; Dt 14:8). Thus, they have been placed by gentiles on land situated within the boundaries of Yahweh’s providence, while being unable to draw sustenance from it. In fact, whether they eat and live, or die and are eaten, is wholly dependent on those who are not recipients of Yahweh’s providence. The impression this gives is of creatures who absolutely do not belong where they stand; they are aliens, just like the gentiles who feed them, and who feed on them. What an obscene image: A herd of unclean animals, snorting up their unclean food, provided by their unclean owners, churning over the ground that God provided for his sheep to gather on, and trampling down the grass he provided for his sheep to graze upon.
<p> Now consider this image in the context of the food/doctrine motif operating throughout the Gospels, such as is seen in Jesus’ metaphorical caution, “Beware of the leaven[ed bread] of the pharisees and Sadducees” (Mt 16:6). There, the meaning of “the leaven of,” or, “the food provided by,” means “the doctrine of,” or “the teaching provided by” (v. 12). Leavening agents, such as bread yeast, add air bubbles to rising dough. Jesus’ image of “adding leaven to bread” is used to express the puffing up of the divinely provisioned “bread of God,” or, rather, “his divine Doctrine (delivered by his holy breath/spirit),” with “human breath” (unclean spirit). This unrighteous leavening makes the bread of God “softer” (easier to chew, to hold in the mouth), “more flexible” (easier to twist), and “more absorbent” (easier to corrupt). From this we can see how, metaphorically, the “feeding” pigs are a symbol of the doctrinally malnourishing gentile presence of that area, and how corrupting an influence such a debased environment would have on those suited to it in its original condition.
<p>Now, take note of how the demoniac tolerated the pigs, but is completely set apart, wilfully and aggressively, from the humans who rear them, and who eat them. Like most nationalist Jews of the day, he harbours an enculturated antipathy to gentiles, but unlike most of these Jews, he has inured himself to their defiled environment. His toleration of the pigs is a feature of his degenerate condition, his ferocious repulsion of non-Jews a demonised assertion of his ethnic independence. Note, too, there is no suggestion in any of the Gospel accounts that he consumes pork. The mention of the tombs is the only detail given that suggests the man would be ritually unclean, were he a Jew estranged from the Law of Moses, which is precisely what these TT details (the tombs, the demoniac's use of messianic terminology, the pigs feeding) are pointing to: <b><i>The demoniac is an apostate Jew whom Jesus has come to save from his sinful rebellion, and to bring back under civilised obedience to the covenant of Moses</i></b>.
<p>If, for the sake of argument, we accept that the demoniac is indeed an apostate Jew, we can then see an interesting set of thirteen parallels between the Synoptic accounts of his salvation, and that of the titular subject of another gospel passage in which pigs feature: Luke’s parable of the “Prodigal Son” (Lk 15:11–32). The existence of these parallels (two of which were introduced above) not only supports the idea that the demoniac is an apostate, but also strongly undergirds the contention made above, that the demoniac event is a paradigmatic story, a representative Salvation Narrative of Jesus’ messianic activity in the apostate areas of Palestine.
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As you read these parallels, take note of how in the figurative parable, the conditions or states are mostly literal, while in the literal event, they are mostly figurative:
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<b>1.</b>  They both reside in “far off (gentile/foreign) lands.”
<br><b>2.</b>  They are both living beside feeding pigs.
<br><b>3.</b>  They both have uncongenial relations with the owners of pigs.
<br><b>4.</b>  They are both starving (the son literally, the demoniac doctrinally/spiritually).
<br><b>5.</b>  They are both suffering more than the pigs and gentiles.
<br><b>6.</b>  They both look to the pigs for relief from torment.
<br><b>7.</b>  They both come to their senses, or right mind.
<br><b>8.</b>  They are both finally humble/repentant before their Lords (the son before his father, the demoniac
<br>  before the Son of God).
<br><b>9.</b>  They both return home (the son to his father’s house, the demoniac to his people).
<br><b>10.</b>  They both recognise they’ve also sinned against God (the son explicitly, the demoniac implicitly).
<br><b>11.</b>  The sin/cause/frame of mind of their rebellion is abandoned with the pigs.
<br><b>12.</b>  They are both dead/lost, then found/made alive (the son explicitly, the demoniac implicitly).
<br><b>13.</b>  They are both believed to stand condemned, by self-righteous Jews (the son explicitly, by his brother;
<br>  the demoniac presumably, by those of his day), in contrast to their respective Lords.</p></div><br />
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<b>1.</b>  “This is one of a number of [such] doublings in Matthew.” John Nolland, <i>The Gospel of Matthew: A Commentary on the Greek Text</i>, NIGTC (Grand Rapids, MI; Carlisle: Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 2005), 375. Nolland’s footnote to this comment reads, “For other healings see Mt. 9:27; 20:30. In 26:60 there is an extra witness (cf. 18:16). Jesus rides two animals in 21:7.”<br />
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<b>2.</b>  “We lack information about the precise boundaries of the territories claimed by any of the cities in the region, but there is nothing improbable in the suggestion that the sovereignty of Gadara reached the lake and that there was a settlement there with a name that could be corrupted into “Gergesa” and perhaps “Gerasa” (cf. the modern Khersa), so that all three names entered the tradition.” Leon Morris, <i>The Gospel according to Matthew</i>, PNTC (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: Eerdmans; IVP, 1992), 208.<br />
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<b>3.</b>  “The tribes of Manasseh and Ephraim are treated as tribes of Joseph (e.g., Josh 16:4). In addition, Manasseh is called a half-tribe (Josh 1:12; 4:12; 12:6), because half of the tribe took an inheritance from the east side of the Jordan River and the other half took territory to the west of the Jordan (Josh 13:1–14, 29–33).” Chris Stevens, and J. A. Crutchfield, “Israel, Tribes of”, LBD (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).<br />
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<b>4.</b>  Kenneth S. Wuest, <i>Mark in the Greek New Testament for the English Reader</i>, Vol. X (Grand Rapids; Eerdmans, 1950), 100.<br />
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<b>5.</b>  “Expositors [Bible commentary], quoting Grotius, says that Decapolis, full of Hellenistic Jews, was loved by the demons.” Wuest, <i>Mark</i>, 104.<br />
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<b>6.</b>  On the title “Son of the Most High” used by the angel Gabriel in the Annunciation to Mary (Lk 1:32), Marshall notes, “But the title is more than a name; it indicates the true being of the person so called. [It] is equivalent to the more common ‘Son of God’. … and while it is true that it was used for Greek deities, it had a Semitic background. … The context suggests that we are to think of a title given to the Messiah.” I. Howard Marshall, <i>The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text</i>. NIGTC (Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1978), 67.<br />
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The Christian Theologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14841409239921477965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788736104303171609.post-51473233072621890492021-06-06T17:23:00.005+12:002021-06-20T11:52:45.132+12:00You are not the Good Samaritan<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0.25cm 0pt; text-align: Left;">
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<b><i>With which character in the parable of the Good Samaritan are we to identify?</i></b><br />
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If you want a transcript of this video, or have a question, email me by clicking <a href="mailto:xiantheologist@protonmail.com">here</a>. Thanks for watching, and God bless.
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The Christian Theologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14841409239921477965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788736104303171609.post-32396660907704840772020-09-23T07:41:00.004+12:002020-10-01T20:36:03.817+13:00Abortion and Proverbs 24:11<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0.25cm 0pt; text-align: Left;">
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<b><i>On the misuse of Proverbs 24:11 in the present Pro-life crusade.</i></b><br />
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If you want a transcript of this video, or have a question, email me by clicking <a href="mailto:xiantheologist@protonmail.com">here</a>. Thanks for watching, and God bless.
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The Christian Theologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14841409239921477965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788736104303171609.post-30310850864744771032020-08-09T19:29:00.004+12:002020-10-01T20:36:33.467+13:00When Must These Things Come to Pass?<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0.25cm 0pt; text-align: Left;">
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<b><i>How the literary device known as "inclusio" is used by the author of the Book of Revelation to emphasize the imminence statements he placed in his prologue.</i></b><br />
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If you want a transcript of this video, or have a question, email me by clicking <a href="mailto:xiantheologist@protonmail.com">here</a>. Thanks for watching, and God bless.
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The Christian Theologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14841409239921477965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788736104303171609.post-70915416467788279862020-08-02T20:38:00.007+12:002020-08-03T14:38:43.214+12:00Biblical Mythbusting Update<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0.25cm 0pt; text-align: left;">
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<b><i>Update on my upcoming Bible study series.</i></b>
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In January, I posted the outline for a short series of seven <a href="https://thestingofsaltandlight.blogspot.com/2020/01/biblical-mythbusting.html">“mythbusting”</a> Bible studies at <a href="http://www.remuerabaptistchurch.org.nz/">Remuera Baptist Church</a>. As everyone knows, since then the entire world had a collective meltdown, turning 2020 into a year no one will ever forget (unless something even more dire occurs next year; which we’re all praying hard won’t). The effects of the Great Lockdown are still being felt here in New Zealand, even though we’ve been more or less out of lockdown since the beginning of May. I know that Sandy and I are still combatting an unusual reluctance to re-engage with the outside world the way we used to. This inability to get back into things has naturally affected my Bible Study preparations. In fact, today is the first day since Lockdown that I’ve felt any kind of excitement about teaching again!
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<a name='more'></a> I can’t say exactly what’s changed, but I imagine it had something to do with finally receiving my Master’s degree in the mail the other day. I’d <a href="https://thestingofsaltandlight.blogspot.com/2019/06/its-finally-finished.html">submitted my thesis</a> at the end of June 2019, and <a href="https://thestingofsaltandlight.blogspot.com/2019/09/result.html">received my grade</a> the following September, but I didn’t officially graduate until April of this year. Because of the Lockdown, they didn’t have a graduation ceremony, and everyone’s degrees were mailed out instead.
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Along with the degree, I received my final Academic Record, showing the grades for my thesis and three taught courses, which I already knew, and my Grade Point Average (GPA), which I did not know. The degree and GPA both confirmed that my degree was awarded “with distinction” (equivalent to honours). Hearing this, Sandy immediately went on to the <a href="https://www.otago.ac.nz/">Otago University</a> website to check the requirements for full doctoral scholarships (yearly stipend + fees paid) and, <i>miracle of miracles</i>, discovered that my GPA qualified me for a <em><a href="https://www.otago.ac.nz/graduate-research/scholarships/phd/index.html#guaranteed">Guaranteed Doctoral Scholarship!</a></em>
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This was both a huuuuge relief for me, because I couldn’t possibly pursue doctoral studies without a full scholarship, and a huuuge sign from God, confirming that he indeed wanted me to pursue doctoral studies. Needless to say, I was huuugely happy!
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All of which helps explain my newfound excitement at teaching again. So, in about 3 weeks time, I’ll be starting my Biblical Mythbusting Bible study series.
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Although it’s back on, the proposed study has changed considerably. For a start, the number of studies is down from seven to five. Most of the topics of each study have changed, too. Here’s a list of the new titles, in no particular order, with a short blurb on each one.
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<b>Five Mythbuster Studies</b>
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<b>Choose You This Day</b>
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This study will show that the popular Evangellical call to "choose you this day whom you will serve" (Joshua 24:15) is continually being wrenched from its immediate literary context and pressed into service against its will by pastors and theologians alike.
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<b>I Can do All Things</b>
<br />Using a fresh look at Philippians 4:13 as an example, this study explores the differences between biblical interpretation and biblical application, illustrating how to distinguish between sound and unsound interpretation, and between legitimate and illegitimate application.
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<b>The Devil in the Details</b>
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Using the Book of Job as a starting point, this study examines the difference between the scriptural presentation of Satan and the conventional understanding of who and what he is.
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<b>When Must These Things Come to Pass</b>
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Through sound exegetical examination of the prologue and epilogue of the Book of Revelation, this study will demonstrate that the common view regarding the timing of the prophetic material in the Apocalypse has been systematically disconnected from the author's own understanding and intention.
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<b>Who is My Neighbour?</b>
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Based on the core finding of my MTh thesis, this study of the Merciful Samaritan passage in the Third Gospel (Luke 10:25–37) explores how the conventional interpretation of the passage is often at odds with the text.
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<i>God bless.</i>
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</div>The Christian Theologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14841409239921477965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788736104303171609.post-56670398143988359642020-05-29T19:18:00.003+12:002022-12-03T14:30:32.522+13:00Jesus Ruined the Wedding at Cana<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0.25cm 0pt; text-align: left;">
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<b><i>When Jesus changed ritual water into superior wine at the Wedding at Cana, he did the exact opposite of saving the wedding.</i></b><br />
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This is a video taking a sound exegetical look at John 2:1–10.
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<i>NOTE: A longer exegetical essay suporting the conclusions made in this video can be seen by following this link:</i> <a href="http://thestingofsaltandlight.blogspot.com/p/the-first-of-signs.html">The First of the Signs.</a>
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TXTW-yNzKho" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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If you want a transcript of this video, or have a question, email me by clicking <a href="mailto:xiantheologist@protonmail.com">here</a>. Thanks for watching, and God bless.
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<br /></div>The Christian Theologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14841409239921477965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788736104303171609.post-79330109305751991322020-05-17T19:12:00.004+12:002020-10-01T20:37:34.917+13:00The Devil of the Details<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0.25cm 0pt; text-align: left;">
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<b><i>Hard work can't overcome poor skills.</i></b><br />
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This is a video deconstructing Bible Scribe's interpretive method in his "Who is Satan?" video series.
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LmMg3vF78kc" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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If you want a transcript of this video, or have a question, email me by clicking <a href="mailto:xiantheologist@protonmail.com">here</a>. Thanks for watching, and God bless.
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The Christian Theologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14841409239921477965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788736104303171609.post-45108557765651284542020-04-19T19:10:00.005+12:002021-04-07T09:59:04.632+12:00I Can Do All Things Video<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0.25cm 0pt; text-align: Left;">
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<b><i>When your application deforms your interpretation.</i></b><br />
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This is a video examining three takes on Philippians 4:11–13.
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dYG7aLw4N-g" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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<b>The Transcript (narration only)</b>
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WELCOME to the outrageously popular CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIST channel, where reason and sound exegesis are used to highlight faulty doctrine and practice in the contemporary, English-speaking Church. The title of this video is taken from the first clause in Philippians 4:13 – “I Can Do All Things.”
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Because I’m fairly certain that most Christians today are sensible enough to disregard the more literal, contextless interpretations of this verse out there, I thought I’d discuss where and why even those preachers and teachers who strive to interpret this verse from its context can fall short as soon as they try to apply it – Okay, let’s begin.
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In this video, I’m going to briefly examine the interpretations of Philippians 4:13 of three random bible teachers on YouTube: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT7DK5yFb0Q">John Schoenheit</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lC3DjID-GU">Francis Chan</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARTyZix0vwM">Dr Lynn Cohick</a>.
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First up is John Schoenheit, of <a href="https://www.stfonline.org/">Spirit & Truth Fellowship International</a>, who starts out sensibly enough.
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Unfortunately, Schoenheit proceeds to place the verse in the <i>wrong</i> context. Yes, wisely, he does tie verse 13 back to verse 12, but he stops there, then shoots forward and ties it to verse 14.
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The mistake he makes with this is that, by not going back far enough, to verse 11 and then 10, he missed where Paul pauses his commendation of the Philippians in verse 10 to make a three verse-long parenthetical statement about himself, that is, verses 11, 12 and 13. This is indicated at the start of verse 11: “Not that I am speaking of being in need ….” Paul finishes his short aside about himself, then returns to his commending the Philippians with verse 14’s “Yet it was kind of you ….”
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So, Schoenheit catapults Paul’s short parenthesis out of its own self-contained context – that of his personal contentedness with any material condition in which he finds himself –into the context of his current “troubles;” meaning his being imprisoned and facing possible execution.
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No. Paul is explicitly not talking about his current situation vis-à-vis imprisonment, he is talking about his material situations generally; nor is he talking about “doing well,” but rather remaining contented with either material need or material abundance. The “all these things” of verse 13 are the things he just mentioned, that is, “being brought low” or “abounding,” facing “plenty” or “hunger,” “abundance” or “need.”
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After subverting the context, Schoenheit then reaches this astonishing conclusion:
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The reason Schoenheit does this contextual bait and switch while interpreting the verse is so he can pave the way for his pet application of the verse; which turns out to be that every Christian has the ability to replicate Paul’s victory over his emotional fragility.
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This is exactly backwards: instead of his interpretation informing his application, Schoenheit’s application is deforming his interpretation – classic eisegesis over exegesis.
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Our next expositor also lets his application deform his interpretation. Like Schoenheit, Francis Chan of <a href="http://crazylove.org/">Crazy Love Ministries</a> – yeah, I know, <i>craaazy</i> – starts out with good intentions:
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Unlike Schoenheit, Chan obviously gets the basic context right, that it’s about Paul’s material situation. But instead of exegeting this clearly, Chan subsumes his interpretation into his application. Instead of talking about what the Apostle Paul was saying about himself in this verse, Chan talks about some supposed <i>purpose</i> of the verse relative to his audience.
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There are two things wrong with this application. One, this is not a didactic passage, it is expository, meaning it is not a teaching, but a description. Paul is not teaching anything about how the Philippians, or any Christians, <i>should</i> be; he is merely explaining what he is <i>not</i> referring to in his discussion their delay in sending him material assistance – again, this passage starts with “<i>Not</i> that I’m talking about need.” Paul is saying that he is not complaining that he had to do without, because he was content when they were helping him and when they weren’t. That is the purpose of this passage; it has nothing to do with his holding himself up as an example to them.
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The second thing wrong with this application is that it takes Paul's commendation to the Philippians and turns it into some kind of passive-aggressive rebuke. When the Philippians weren't helping him, Paul was concerned that, <i>they</i> might have endangered <i>their</i>own souls by putting a stop to their charity to a fellow believer. He was overjoyed for <i>them</i> when they resumed their help with the same vigour as before. He was not concerned with how content they were with their lot in life.
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Our third teacher, Dr Lynn Cohick, current provost/dean of <a href="https://denverseminary.edu/about/our-faculty/">Denver Seminary</a>, devotes a lot of her short video on the meaning of “all things:”<br />
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But she too expands the context beyond material needs to include things like physical dangers:
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… she just had to get a woman in there, eh? Actually, that solipsistic reflex might point to the motivation behind her expansion of the context – an expansion which, not surprisingly, leads her to misinterpret the passage, too:
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So, it seems clear from that that Cohick really wants to make this verse relevant to today’s Christian experience. So she interprets it in such a way that it can be applied to any and all ministry situations, regardless of its original meaning and context.
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Thanks for watching, and before you go, don't forget to hit the thumbs up, subscribe, and bell notification buttons. God bless.
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The Christian Theologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14841409239921477965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788736104303171609.post-53978408013419661842020-04-12T19:27:00.002+12:002020-10-01T20:38:31.781+13:00The Death of Jesus Video<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0.25cm 0pt; text-align: Left;">
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<b><i>Another Easter video on the Xian Theologist YouTube channel.</i></b><br />
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This is a reworking of the Stations of the Cross video Sandy and I both did for <a href="http://www.remuerabaptistchurch.org.nz/">RBC</a>.
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2UZsOb59O2M" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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<b>The Transcript</b>
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WELCOME to the outrageously popular CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIST channel, where reason and sound exegesis are used to highlight faulty doctrine and practice in the contemporary, English-speaking Church. The title of this video is “The Death of Jesus in Mark 15,” and the underlying passage is found in Mark 15:33–39.
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This passage is another of the so-called “Stations of the Cross,” and the script of this video is another one that I reworked from an Easter video I did for Church. For this reason, I’m not countering any particular misapplication of the text, but merely unpacking some lesser known elements in it. Okay, Let’s begin.
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Here’s how the ESV translates this passage:
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And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, <i>“Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?”</i> which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And some of the bystanders hearing it said, “Behold, he is calling Elijah.” And someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.” And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”
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Bible Scholars use the term “intertextuality” to refer to the literary and theological connections a specific text makes to other books of the Bible, particularly NT references to the OT. In nearly every line of this passage, we encounter a fascinating intertextual feature that is not easily seen by the casual reader.
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The first of these concerns the three hours of “darkness over the whole land” (v. 33). The first thing to know is that “the sixth hour,” when the darkness began, refers to “12 o’clock, noon,” when the sun was at its highest point “in the heavens.” This fact highlights how the verse’s imagery parallels that used for the coming judgement on the “Day of the Lord” in Isa 60:1; Joel 2:10; Zeph 1:15, and especially Amos 8:9–10, “On that day, says the Lord Yaweh, I will make the sun go down at noon, and darken the Land in the light of day [a day which God will make] like the grieving for an only son, and the end of it like a bitter day.”
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There is another similarly ominous and theologically significant OT reference here. Mark’s three hours of darkness being followed by the death of God’s firstborn son, Jesus, parallels the three days of darkness followed by the death of the firstborn sons of Egypt after the Passover in Exodus.
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Jesus’ cry from the Cross also contains an intertextual reference. The words “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me,” are the first lines in Psalm 22. According to Jewish practice at the time, the citation of the first verse implies the whole psalm. So, since both the crucifixion and Psalm 22 start out with a cry of anguish and abandonment and end in “a note of triumph and serenity,” Jesus’ cry is, as one commenter puts it, “an affirmation of faith that looks beyond the despair and tragedy of the cross.”
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The “sour wine,” or “wine vinegar,” of verse 36 echoes verse 21 of Psalm 69, “They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” And, just like Psalm 22, Psalm 69 is a record of the suffering of a righteous man.
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The sour wine brings us to the last intertextual reference I want to mention, which is between our passage, and the Gospel of Luke and John. Notice what happened at the cross in the last few verses of Mark. After receiving the sour wine, Jesus “uttered a loud cry and breathed his last,” then the centurion makes a rather unusual conclusion from “the way [Jesus] breathed his last.” He says, “Truly this man was the son of God!” (or, more likely for a pagan, “a” son of God – the Greek could be read either way). Just what was so supernatural about the way Jesus died that the centurion was convinced he was a divine being?
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Well, let’s look at John 19:29–30; Luke 23:46, and then John 10:17–18. “When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” Notice that John tells us that Jesus decided when “it was finished” and gave up his own spirit.
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Compare this with Luke 23:46: Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” Having said this, he breathed his last.
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Now here’s John 10:17–18:
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For this reason, the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.
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In the face of such an awesome, superhuman display of the power of God, the surprise is not what the centurion said, but that he was able to utter anything at all!
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Thanks for watching, and before you go, don't forget to hit the thumbs up, subscribe, and bell notification buttons. God bless.
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The Christian Theologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14841409239921477965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788736104303171609.post-43874586045058443382020-04-09T12:17:00.003+12:002022-07-19T21:52:59.570+12:00The Daughters of Jerusalem Video<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0.25cm 0pt; text-align: Left;">
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<b><i>An Easter video on the YouTube channel.</i></b><br />
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This is a reworking of the Stations of the Cross video I did for <a href="http://www.remuerabaptistchurch.org.nz/">RBC</a>.
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<b>The Transcript</b>
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WELCOME to the outrageously popular CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIST channel, where reason and sound exegesis are used to highlight faulty doctrine and practice in the contemporary, English-speaking Church. The title of this video is “The Daughters of Jerusalem in Luke 23.” The verses we’ll be dealing with are 27 to 31.
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As this passage is one of the so-called “Stations of the Cross,” it’s bound to be mentioned in plenty of sermons and bible studies at this time of year. Unfortunately, few if any of these presentations will deal with the actual context of this text. Which is all the encouragement I need. Okay, Let’s begin.
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The event in our passage occurs right after Simon of Cyrene is made to carry Jesus’ cross. Luke mentions that there were women following the procession, “mourning and lamenting” over Jesus – these women were not his followers from Galilee, because, later in verse 23:49, his Galilean followers are mentioned standing at a distance watching the proceedings. Rather, as we learn from the Babylonian Talmud, these local women were likely there to watch the executions and to provide opiates for the condemned men as an extra-biblical religious act of service.
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We then read that Jesus turns to these women, whom he calls “Daughters of Jerusalem,” and tells them to save their tears for themselves and their children, because, a tragic cultural reversal is coming where the blessed women in Jerusalem will be those who never had children. That the coming situation will be so horrific that the women of the city will, in language reminiscent of Hosea 10:8, beg the mountains to fall on them, and the hills to swallow them up.
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So, what is the meaning of this passage?
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As I’m sure all of you know, the Gospel of Luke is one of the three Synoptic Gospels. And as all good students of the Bible know, whenever you’re studying a Synoptic Gospel passage, you should always check to see if there are parallel passages in the other two Gospels.
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Well, as it turns out, this passage is peculiar to Luke’s Gospel – meaning, there are no explicit parallels in Mark and Matthew, and that, for some reason, this incident was of particular interest to the third Evangelist. Now, what might that be?
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Well, the theme of the passage appears to be one of the main themes in the Gospel of Luke, the judgement of unrighteous Jerusalem – the city of which Jesus says back in chapter 13, “that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! … Behold, your house is forsaken.” A good question to ask then is, “Is there anything about that theme that Luke does differently to Matthew and Mark?”
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Well, as a matter of fact there is something. In DeSilva’s Introduction to the New Testament, we read that
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Luke’s Gospel … is the most explicit of all three Synoptic Gospels concerning the destruction of Jerusalem. The changes made by Luke from Mark’s presentation of Jesus’ eschatological discourse all move in the direction of bringing Jesus’ words closer in line with the events of 70 C.E. By examining the Gospel parallels closely … we can see that Luke clarifies what Mark and Matthew cryptically called the “abomination of desolation” (Mt 24:15//Mk 13:14). Luke interprets this saying of Jesus as a reference to the siege of Jerusalem (rather than, say, a desecration of the temple): “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near” (Lk 21:20 NRSV). Where Matthew and Mark refer to “great tribulation such as has not been since the beginning of the world until now” (Mt 24:21//Mk 13:19), Luke writes: “they will fall by the edge of the sword and be taken away as captive among all nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled” (Lk 21:24 NRSV). What Matthew and Mark leave as a general prediction of suffering, Luke now specifies as the suffering of those who endure the siege of Jerusalem and its aftermath.
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Here is the full paragraph of predictions of suffering during the coming siege of Jerusalem found in Luke 21:20–22.
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But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are inside the city depart, and let not those who are out in the country enter it, for these are days of vengeance, to fulfil all that is written. Alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! For there will be great distress upon the earth and wrath against this people.
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There are two things to note here in relation to our passage: One, women who are pregnant or nursing infants will be especially distressed. And two, that Jesus gives his hearers a way to escape the carnage if they should find themselves in Jerusalem when “armies surround it” – by fleeing to the mountains.
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The first thing is relevant in that the mother-infant language of the prophecy in our passage in chapter 23 loudly echoes the mother-infant language in the passage prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem in chapter 21. This strongly suggests that the subject of the two prophecies is the same coming event – the destruction of the entire city of Jerusalem less than 40 years later in AD 70 at the hands of the Romans.
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The second thing is relevant in that we know from early Church historians that the faithful Christians who were in Jerusalem when it was “surrounded by armies” did in fact head for the hills, just as Jesus advised them to do. But wait, how could they run to the hills if the city was completely besieged by the Romans? Well, there were actually two sieges of Jerusalem during the Jewish-Roman War – an earlier, unsuccessful one in AD 67, and then a final successful one in AD 70. The unsuccessful one was abandoned after only a few weeks, and this gave the Christians in the city the opportunity to flee – which they did – to a town called Pella south of the Sea of Galilee in present day Jordan.
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Which brings us back to our passage and the “Women of Jerusalem.” Given that these women were not his followers, they were merely mourning him as a religious duty, and not as the innocently condemned Messiah, it is reasonable to conclude that Jesus is calling them out for their faithless hypocrisy, and numbering them with the condemned, unrighteous inhabitants of Jerusalem who will perish in the divine destruction to come.
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That is the actual context and meaning of this passage.
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Thanks for watching and God bless.
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The Christian Theologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14841409239921477965noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6788736104303171609.post-71614840204368736522020-04-05T10:02:00.004+12:002022-07-19T21:54:15.321+12:00Another Christian Theologist Vlogpost<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0.25cm 0pt; text-align: Left;">
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<b><i>Another drop from that new Youtube channel.</i></b><br />
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This chap still sounds particularly astute and erudite.
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<b>The Transcript</b>
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WELCOME to the outrageously popular CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIST channel, where reason and sound exegesis are used to highlight faulty doctrine and practice in the contemporary, English-speaking Church. The title of this video is “A Little Look at a Big Question: The disciples’ precursor query to the Olivet Discourse.”
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The basic lesson in today’s script started as a 2017 post on the Christian Theologist blog at “the sting of salt and light dot BlogSpot dot com,” and was turned into a church seminar earlier this year. Right. Let’s begin.
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Each of the synoptic Gospels records Jesus prophesying the destruction of the great Temple of Jerusalem. This, in turn, provoked the disciples to ask what could arguably be called the most important question in history, since it elicited the longest, most significant prophetic speech in the Gospels, the so-called “Olivet Discourse.” Because of the figurative language and terrifying events discussed in Jesus’ Olivet Discourse, all manner of outlandish and sub-biblical interpretations of it have been made – the very type of faulty, tradition-based interpretations that this channel was created to counter.
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Nearly all of these errors could be dispelled if the interpreters simply laid their traditions and presuppositions aside, and took another, unclouded look at the reason why Jesus gave this long, dramatic speech in the first place – as an answer to the disciples’ question about his prophecy.
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An example of not doing this can be seen in a video recently uploaded to YouTube by one Dalton Thomas, of Frontier Alliance International Studios, called, “8 Reasons Matthew 24 Was Not Fulfilled in 70AD: Understanding Jesus' Teaching on the End Times” (link in the description).
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As the title of his video suggests, Thomas and the good people at FAI are conflating the subject of Jesus’ Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24 with the dispensationalist doctrine of the “End Times.” And the only Gospel verses he deals with are in Matthew.
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The problem with this is that, as I told you already, there are three Scriptural accounts of Jesus prophecy, the disciples’ question, and the Olivet Discourse – one in each of the Synoptic Gospels, that is, in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. These similar accounts in the Gospels are what scholars call “parallel passages,” and they’re extremely valuable aids to interpreters – much is learned from not only where they agree, but where they disagree, too.
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Here’s what I mean. Consider the following statements collected by a policeman after a robbery from three eyewitnesses.
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The first one says, “Yeah, the robber was a short man, with a gun and was wearing a Darth Vader mask.”
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And the second one says, “The robber was a woman with a knife and was wearing a Darth Vader mask.”
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Then the third one says, “The robber was a teenager with no weapon and was wearing a Darth Vader mask.”
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Look at what we now know about the robber, the weapon, and the mask. Because the descriptions of the robber were all different, we know that he or she was NOT a big, burly person with overtly masculine features. Because the weapon was described alternately as a gun, a knife and non-existent, we can be certain it was NOT wielded threateningly, nor was it used on anyone. And, finally, because every witness mentioned the exact same kind of mask, we can be absolutely certain that that was the most significant feature of the robber for the witnesses, and that it was definitely a Darth Vader mask.
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Now, think of how incomplete the policeman’s interpretation of the eyewitness evidence would be if he only took down the first person’s statement? Well, any bible interpreter who is dealing with Synoptic Gospel material and only looks at one of the Gospels, while ignoring the other two, just like Dalton Thomas did, is bound to go terribly wrong.
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So, let’s not be like Thomas, and instead look at all three parallel accounts of Jesus prophecy and the question the disciples’ asked in response to it.
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The text here is from the ESV, but I can assure you that the Greek of the italicised words in orange font, while not identical to one another in form and order like the English, are identical in meaning. There can be no doubt that the most significant element of this passage for each of the Evangelists is that Jesus said, “… there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”
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Here are the verses that follow immediately after these, including the disciples’ question. Take note of the identical material in the question, that is, the most significant element of it for the Gospel writers: “When will these things be, and what will be <i>the</i> sign – notice that’s a singular sign, but understand that this is not singular with regard to number, because Jesus gives many different signs, but rather, singular as a collective signification, which is why each Evangelist can record different forms the sign might take. And don’t forget, when the Synoptic Gospels were written, the temple was still standing.
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The disciples well knew that the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, which Jesus just prophesied, was the divine final punishment on Israel predicted by the OT prophets. The end of the temple functions, the sacrifices commanded by God, spelled the end of Mosaic Judaism itself: No temple; no Judaism. The temple was also the bank, the centre of commerce for Judea, with one of the largest holdings of gold in the known world at that time. It was also the national archive, where all the genealogies of the 12 tribes were kept; in short it was the heart and soul of the Jewish nation.
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And as the disciples also well knew, whenever God predicted punishment for Israel’s unrighteousness, he always gave a fair bit of lead time and then plenty of signs when the moment of punishment was getting close. Which is exactly what Jesus does with the Olivet Discourse – he prophesied a terrible judgment on unrighteous Israel, the destruction of the Temple and nation, then gave the terrible signs to look for when the moment was near; which we all know from history, even Dalton Thomas, finally arrived less than 40 years later in AD 70.
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Thanks for watching and God bless.
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The Christian Theologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14841409239921477965noreply@blogger.com0