Continuing the discussion of Matthew’s appropriation of OT scripture as prophecies fulfilled in Jesus Christ, we turn to these exegetical questions found in yesterday comic section of the newspaper. The passage in question come from Matthew 2.16-18 (REB):

When Herod realized that the astrologers had tricked him he flew into a rage, and gave orders for the massacre of all the boys aged two years or under, in Bethelem and throughout the whole district, in accordance with the time he had ascertained from the astrologers. So the words spoken through Jeremiah the prophet were fulfilled: “A voice was heard in Rama, sobbing in bitter grief; it was Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they were no more.”

The fulfilled passage in question is from Jeremiah 31.15 and in its original context has nothing to do with Jesus, Herod or the slaughter of young children. William Barclay describes the situation as this:

Jeremiah was picturing the people of Jerusalem being led away in exile. In their sad way to an alien land they pass Ramah, and Ramah was the place where Rachel lay buried (1 Samuel 10:2); and Jeremiah pictures Rachel weeping, even in the tomb, for the fate that had befallen the people.

Remember that Rachel was the mother of Joseph and Benjamin; Ramah was located in the area allotted to Benjamin, just north of Jerusalem. The NET Bible has this further note:

Ramah is a town in Benjamin approximately five miles (8 km) north of Jerusalem. It was on the road between Bethel and Bethlehem. Traditionally, Rachel’s tomb was located near there at a place called Zelzah (1 Sam 10:2). Rachel was the mother of Joseph and Benjamin and was very concerned about having children because she was barren (Gen 30:1-2) and went to great lengths to have them (Gen 30:3, 14-15, 22-24). She was the grandmother of Ephraim and Manasseh which were two of the major tribes in northern Israel. Here Rachel is viewed metaphorically as weeping for her “children,” the descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh, who had been carried away into captivity in 722 b.c.

Whether Rachel was weeping for Jerusalem (Barclay) or the northern kingdom tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh (NET) is evidently disputable, though the latter seems more appropriate. Regardless, we do now have the specific “who”, “where” and “why” that Linus seeks.

We often caution about taking a verse-by-verse view of scripture - applying individual passages to whatever we want by interpreting them outside of context - yet at first blush it seems that this is what Matthew is doing here and elsewhere in this second chapter of his gospel (cf. Matthew 2:15 and Hosea 11:1, Matthew 2:23 and Isaiah 11:1) when he uses the literal words themselves to communicate, outside of original context or metaphorical meaning. Or is there something else here? In comments to my previous post on Matthew, Damian noted that:

Regarding Matthew’s use of the OT, I’m of the school that tends to assume that an OT quote implies the relevance of the entire passage that quote is within. In Matthew, especially early Matthew, this approach works quite well, and so I don’t think he misappropriates prophecy at all.

So we return to Jeremiah and tackle the larger picture. Chapters 30 and 31 fall under a general categorization of promises and hopes for the restoration of Israel and Judah. So while Rachel is weeping in 31.15, the overall trajectory of the passage is positive; keep reading in Jeremiah 31.16-17 (REB):

These are words of the Lord to her [Rachel]:
Cease your weeping,
shed no more tears;
for there will be a reward for your toil,
and they will return from the enemy’s land.
There will be hope for your posterity;
your children will return within their own borders.

In the face of bitter lamentation and exile from wrongdoing, there is the ultimate promise of hope and consolation:

The days are coming, says the Lord, when I shall establish a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. [...] I shall set my law within them, writing it on their hearts; I shall be their God, and they will be my people. No longer need they teach one another, neighbour or brother, to know the Lord; all of them, high and low alike, will know me, says the Lord, for I shall forgive their wrongdoing, and their sin I shall call to mind no more. (Jeremiah 31.31, 33-34 — REB)

Again, these verses were originally specific to the exiled Israelites, but Matthew is surely calling to mind the promises of the covenant for all people, Jew and Gentile alike. That is, Herod has slaughtered the children of Bethlehem and there is much weeping, but like the exiled kingdoms, the Christ has survived and will return (out of Egypt) to establish a new covenant with all people and for all time. If we view Matthew’s scripture quotations in this light, then we perhaps understand that he is telling the gospel story as a massive typological argument, using huge blocks of Hebrew scripture to underpin the good news message of Jesus Christ as the annointed Messiah and fulfillment of all scripture.

Battle was joined and a small number of Jews fell. [...] Next day they went to collect the bodies of the fallen, as by now had become necessary, in order to take them for burials with their kinsfolk in their family graves. On each one of the dead they found under the tunic amulets sacred to the idols of Jamnia, objects forbidden to Jews by the law. It was evident to all that here was the reason these men had fallen. So everyone praised the acts of the Lord, the just Judge and Revealer of secrets, and turning to prayer they begged that every trace of this offence might be blotted out. The nobel Judas exhorted the people to keep themselves free from wrongdoing, for they had seen with their own eyes what had happened because of the sin of those who had fallen. He levied a contribution from each man, and sent to Jerusalem the total of two thousand silver drachmas to provide a sin-offering - a fit and proper act in which he took due account of the resurrection. Had he not been expecting the fallen to rise again, it would have been superfluous and senseless to pray for the dead; but since he had in view the splendid reward reserved for those who die a godly death, his purpose was holy and devout. That was why he offered the atoning sacrifice, to free the dead from their sin.

On this Thanksgiving Day, I am thankful that Jesus Christ died as the perfect and eternal sacrifice of atonement for our wrongdoing, that we are freed from sin by his blood shed on the cross and not by silver or gold or any other work of our own doing.

God who is the Splendour of Israel does not deceive, nor does he change his mind, as a mortal might do.

My initial reaction is that open theism does not presuppose that God’s mind was determined in the first place, therefore the openness of his reaction or response to a situation is not a matter of “changing his mind”, but fixing it on a path in the first place.

Do not be afraid; although you have been so wicked, do not give up the worship of the Lord, but serve him with all your heart. Do not turn to the worship of sham gods which can neither help nor save, because they are a sham. For his great name’s sake the Lord will not cast you off, because he has resolved to make you his own people.

God knows that our thoughts and inclinations are naturally wicked (Genesis 6:5), yet we are not to give up worshiping him in our state of despair and wretchedness.

In 1990, Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903-1994) summarized an interpretation of the meaning of El Shaddai by Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (1135-1204), popularly known as Maimonides:

[Maimonides] explains El Shaddai in terms of “the God for whom it is sufficient (shaddai lo): the God who is sufficient in Himself, whose essence is Himself, not in functions which He fulfills in relation to the world. That was the perception of our forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, of El Shaddai. On this the midrash comments, that our fathers - unlike the generation of Moses - did not demand signs and wonders upon which to base their faith in God. Now though, that Moses was sent to bring the tidings of the redemption to the Israelites, who did not know of God as El Shaddai, there was a need to use names of God that represented His actions in the world.

In slight contrast is a tradition that interprets the word Shaddai as derived from the phrase sh-dai meaning “that which is (sh) enough (dai).”

By knowing God as El Shaddai, the Patriarchs recognized the inherent holiness within everything that God created. It was through this holiness that they were able to connect with God. Moses’s generation, by contrast, failed to see the holiness that existed before them. They required grand gestures, miracles and wonders, in order to sustain their faith.

On one hand, God stands self-sufficient, not defined as “Creator” or “Savior”, but simply “God”; on the other, God is intimately understood by and through the products or functions of Creation. One views God from God’s perspective, the other views God from our perspective. The first embodies the classic proverb of not being defined by your work, the second finds the holiness in the function of using or working with creation, e.g. “work to live, don’t live to work”.

However, this post isn’t so much to compare the two etymological interpretations of El Shaddai, but to focus on the common conclusion in both - that the generation of Israelites leaving Egypt with Moses were unable to recognize and believe in the holiness of God without overt functional signs. Their perception of God had been reduced to seeking “grand gestures, miracles and wonders.”

The slavery of the Hebrews in Egypt epitomizes the subjection of humankind to the curse of sin and the futility of the soil: broken and beaten, men and women are unable to look beyond the physical reach of their lives and will grasp any seemingly miraculous display that offers immediate stimulation and relief, however fleeting. That search began with the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden, reached the top of the tower of Babel, flashed in the forging of the golden calf, and so forth and so forth. Racing forward to 2000 years ago, we find echoes of this conclusion at various points in Jesus’ ministry:

He replied, “A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.” (Matthew 16.4)

“No one has ever seen God, but the one and only [Son], who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.” (John 1.18)

“Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” (John 3.14-15)

“Unless you people see signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.” (John 4.48)

We are no different today. In the constant search of new titillation to feed our attention-starved lives, we look for signs of the day rather than accept by faith that God is “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty,” the All Sufficient One. (Revelation 1.8) Without this faith, we fall sway to signs from any source, including those of Satan:

The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. (2 Thessalonians 2.9-10)

However, despite our wickedness, God loved the world in this way:

He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

Jesus is the ultimate sign of God’s holiness and sufficiency, and his death and resurrection is the true assurance of our faith that God is sufficient beyond the limits of Creation and the Curse.

When he set the heavens in their place I was there,
when he girdled the ocean with the horizon,
when he fixed the canopy of clouds overhead,
and set the springs of ocean firm in their place,
when he prescribed the limits for the sea
and knit together earth’s foundations.

Then I was at his side each day,
his darling and delight,
playing in his presence continually,
playing on the earth, when he had finished it,
while my delight was in mankind. (8.27-31)

Wisdom, Sophia, the divine daughter, is a child playing next to her Father as he creates the world.

If we understand wisdom not just as a human virtue but in the first place as a presence of God in creation, then we understand why Jesus is presented in the New Testament both as Israel’s messiah and as the Wisdom of creation, so that the Christ mystery is both male and female. When the Gospel of John calls the divine mystery of Jesus the Logos, the Word of God, [then] Sophia, the Wisdom of God is meant too. Jesus is the incarnate Sophia, Jesus is the incarnate Logos — both Sophia and Logos given human form. (p.12)

With this in mind, perhaps when we run across a translation like the TNIV in Philippians 2.6-8:

[Jesus] Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a human being,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death-
even death on a cross!

We should not howl in protest that Jesus is being made into some androgynous, genderless figure, but perhaps reflect that:

God created human beings in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

Jesus incarnate as the perfect human being, reflecting the complete image of God as Word and Wisdom, both male and female, flesh and spirit. And when we, as Christians, declare our faith and trust in Christ and are filled with the Holy Spirit, perhaps then we too are becoming complete human beings, reflecting the image of God in physical flesh and spiritual wisdom. Our flesh can be male or female, but without Wisdom, the Spirit of God, Goethe’s eternal feminine (Ewigweibliche), we are an incomplete image of God.

Now consider Acts 5:30, which in the New Living Translation is rendered, “The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead after you killed him by crucifying him.” ⁽¹¹⁾ Literally Peter’s words are, “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree.” This expression as literally translated ought to give some pause to the reader. Why does Peter say “hanging him on a tree” (epi xulou) instead of “crucifying him“? Anyone who has read Galatians will know where the unusual phrase comes from, and what it means. It is from Deuteronomy 21:22-23, quoted in Galatians 3:13-14, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.” See also 1 Peter 2:24 and Acts 13:29. And so by this phrase “hanging him on a tree” Peter evokes the whole theology of the cross! But apparently the translators missed it, or found this to be unimportant. By flattening out and simplifying the language they have caused the reader to miss this thought-provoking allusion.

Marlowe does mention in a footnote that the NLT Second Edition (2004) makes some improvements: In Acts 5:30 it reads “killed him by hanging him on a cross,” and it gives a literal translation in a footnote: “Greek, on a tree.” In the angst of this attack on functional translation, I whipped open my Revised English Bible (REB) to see how the relevant passages fared:

“When someone is convicted of a capital offense and is put to death, and you hang him on a gibbet, his body must not remain there overnight; it must be buried on the same day.” (Deuteronomy 21:22-23)

The God of our fathers raised up Jesus; after you had put him to death by hanging him on a gibbet [...] (Acts 5:30)

When they had carried out all that the scriptures said about him, they took him down from the gibbet and laid him in a tomb. (Acts 13:29)

Christ bought us freedom from the curse of the law by coming under the curse for our sake; for scripture says, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a gibbet.’ (Galatians 3:13)

He carried our sins in his own person on the gibbet, so that we might cease to live for sin and begin to live for righteousness. (1 Peter 2:24)

Whew! So the REB cannot be accused of the same internal inconsistency as the NLT per Marlowe. Whether “gibbet” as a translation of the Hebrew `ets and the Greek xylon is recognizable to the average English reader is a whole different issue - certainly David Ker believes that these foreign phrases have a strange smell.

Strange or not, I have learned something today, which is good. That said, I cannot escape the nagging feeling that if a “B” were to be mistakenly replaced by an “L”, then Christ would have died by hanging from the neck of a turkey…

“But if you are harbouring bitter jealousy and the spirit of rivalry in your hearts, stop making false claims in defiance of the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes from above; it is earth-bound, sensual, demonic. For with jealousy and rivalry come disorder and the practice of every kind of evil. But the wisdom from above is in the first place pure; and then peace-loving, considerate, and open-minded; it is straight-forward and sincere, rich in compassion and in deeds of kindness that are its fruit. Peace is the seed-bed of righteousness, and the peacemakers will reap its harvest.” (REB, emphasis mine)

As one who grew up watching my mom rototill the vegetable garden each spring, that final image of a seed-bed really resonates with me. The more conventional translation is “Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness” (TNIV) or “And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace” (ESV). Just as deeds of kindness are the fruit of pure wisdom (v.17), righteousness is the harvest of peace. Verses 17-18 go right along with the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5 and Paul’s definition of love in 1 Corinthians 13.

The REB’s choice of “the spirit of rivalry” for the Greek eritheia is interesting. Most modern translations use some variant of “selfish ambition”. However, BDAG notes that, before the NT texts, eritheia was only found in the work of Aristotle, “where it denotes a self-seeking pursuit of political office by unfair means”. Similarly, Thayer’s Lexicon states that the term was used by “those who electioneer for office, courting popular applause by trickery and low arts.” To my ears, the more general concept of selfishness and/or ambition doesn’t adequately capture this latter element of purposeful deception and, while the REB gets at more of the inner motivation, it leaves this open as well.

I wonder if perhaps a more interesting one-word translation would be “skulduggery”…

In an effort to keep it simple, short, and easy to follow, I’d like to challenge you to quote one verse (not one chapter). And then say what the Lord has been teaching you in one sentence (not one paragraph). Then tag 5 peeps (you know the drill).

Of course, I’m going to break the meme rule by quoting two verses because they form one semantic thought and can’t be separated:

But the harvest of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, fidelity, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
-Galatians 5:22-23 (REB)

In the aftermath of my recent struggle to understand being filled with the Spirit, I have been increasingly aware of my conscience pricking me beyond the bounds of legalism when my thoughts, words and deeds run afoul of life by the Spirit.

To continue the meme, I will tag the following bloggers:

1. Paul Sibley
2. Hanoch
3. Dave Cruver
4. Robert Jimenez
5. Finally, if you’ve been lurking and not commenting - this meme’s for you!

Best is discussing the contrast between our rational need for order, symmetry, harmony and balance and the seemingly overwhelming chaos of creation:

But walk into a meadow and see if you can locate a straight line of buttercups all exactly the same height, each with exactly replicated petals. Or try to find a strictly triangular stand of perfectly symmetrical trees foregrounding a mountain range the left side of which is a mirror image of the right side. There is no landscape in which we can find any semblance of order, no storm at sea in which the waves are the same shape, height, creaminess or momentum. [...] Nothing repeats and nothing is predictable. (Unceasing Worship, p.135)

Best goes on to discuss the paradox between the randomness of what we see and the reality of underlying laws that do not randomly fluctuate. Commonly known as chaos theory, the effect is that immutable laws are seemingly worked out with randomness, asymmetry, unpredictability and endless variety, all the while germinating from a fixed set of initial conditions.

Parallel to my reading, I was reminded in a conversation on the new Theologer forums (one of those “distractions”…) of a different “working out”:

So you too, my friends, must be obedient, as always; even more, now that I am absent, than when I was with you. You must work out your own salvation in fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you, inspiring both the will and the deed, for his own chosen purpose. (Philippians 2:12-13, REB)

Once saved, we are called into a life of service, not as best friends forever with God, but as fearful and trembling slaves, wholly dependent on him for our redemption and freedom from sin. The terms of his gift of salvation are well defined:

If the confession “Jesus is Lord” is on your lips, and the faith that God raised him from the dead is in your heart, you will find salvation. (Romans 10:9, REB)

And yet our lives are filled with decisions and deeds that often appear to make no sense, are not straight and orderly, twist wildly in the winds of our days, and we tremble before the throne.

If we apply the notion of chaos theory to salvation, that is 100% correct. Once we have heard the message of the gospel and the Spirit moves our heart to accept it, and we confess that “Jesus is Lord”, then God resets our “initial conditions” and our eternal lives become based on his immutable plan of salvation, rather than our natural condition of sinful inclination (Genesis 8:21).

Then, just as an immense fractal starts with the smallest mathematical expression, once through the narrow gate of Jesus Christ, we are free to fill the infinite expanse of the kingdom with the trembling twists and turns of our lives. Like the buttercups in the meadow, the trees and mountains, the landscapes and the stormy waves, our salvation lives are worked out in chaos, with infinite variety and all for God’s chosen purpose.

Leviathan was conquered. Long live Leviathan!