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.

This is a question I’ve spent a little bit of time pondering lately, especially on separating translation issues from faith practice or application issues. That is, can I hold onto a position whereby OT translation should primarily focus on the original intent and context, while at the same time believing Christ to be the complete fulfillment of some of those OT passages and understanding that to read the OT and NT scriptures together as a Christian often means reading Christ back into the OT?

After working through examples from Psalm 51 and Genesis 12, Ray comes to his conclusion:

From my perspective, the intertextual approach is most consistent with Christian tradition.  Excising Christ from the OT is a curious innovation of the past 200 years in the West.  To my knowledge, nearly all of the early church fathers read the OT christologically–that is, through Christian eyes, seeing shadows and types (see Hebrews 8:5) of Christ, the church, the Holy Spirit, the sacraments, and eternal life.

It is unfortunate that Christian translators have emphasized the disunity of the Bible in recent years.  It has led to a fragmenting of the church into those who read a Christian Bible unified by the work of the Holy Spirit, and those who read a book made up of various witnesses from various historical and theological viewpoints that may or may not be related to each other.

Certainly, when it comes to producing a Bible in English, there is more than one way to skin a cat.  But how we do the skinning comes with tremendous responsibility to not just translate words and phrases, but to be faithful in our presentation of God’s Word to the world.

What do you think? Can a Christian read the Holy Bible as a unified document and maintain sensitivity to the original meaning or context of the OT? Or does our faith demand that we interpret the OT texts in a specific way?

NT Use of the OT — Test Your View!

Fuller Meaning, Single Goal view You seem to be most closely aligned with the Fuller Meaning, Single Goal view, a view defended by Peter Enns in the book “Three Views on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament” (edited by Kenneth Berding and Jonathan Lunde, Nov. 2008). Since the NT writers held a single-minded conviction that the Scriptures point to and are fulfilled in Christ, this view suggests that the NT writers perceive this meaning in OT texts, even when their OT authors did not have that meaning in mind when they wrote. It should be noted, however, that advocates of this view are careful not to deny the importance of the grammatical-historical study of the OT text so as to understand the OT authors on their own terms. For more info, see the book, or attend a special session devoted to the topic at the ETS Annual Meeting in Providence, RI (Nov. 2008); Walter C. Kaiser Jr., Darrell L. Bock, and Peter Enns will all present their views.

Fun quizzes, surveys & blog quizzes by

HT: Several, but I came across it first in Jeff’s Scripture Zealot blog.

The folks at Zondervan recently developed a short quiz that tests “your view of the New Testament Use of the Old Testament” and ties the answer to their new book “Three Views on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament” (edited by Kenneth Berding and Jonathan Lunde, Nov. 2008). Disclaimer: I don’t know anything about this book and this post should not be read as an endorsement of such.

In any event, I was scored as having the “Fuller Meaning, Single Goal” view. As I noted in TC’s blog a few days ago, I believe that everything in the four gospels was recorded in the context of Jesus’ post-resurrection explanations of his fulfillment of scripture, cf. Luke 24:27, 44-47. We should not read through the gospels as if we were getting “daily dispatches from the front”; instead, these texts were crafted after Jesus’ physical resurrection and reflect careful thought and discernment in light of his entire ministry on earth.

For me, this aligns with the quiz result that “the NT writers held a single-minded conviction that the Scriptures point to and are fulfilled in Christ [...] even when their OT authors did not have that meaning in mind when they wrote.” Their single-minded conviction came from Jesus himself who “opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.” (Lk. 24:45)

I agree completely with the result summary that we should be “careful not to deny the importance of the grammatical-historical study of the OT text so as to understand the OT authors on their own terms.” Since the OT authors were not necessarily writing about Jesus, it’s important to understand their original context, to better see how Christ is the fuller fulfillment, in both word and deed.

Looking at Peter Enns’ published works on Amazon, his book “Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament” looks interesting - anyone want to recommend it?

I’ve read about the Pope (meaning the position, not the current holder of that title) inspiring countless millions, as well as millions who look at him as the incarnate Antichrist. And some, like Kim Riddlebarger, who see him (the person) as:

a brilliant and formidable theologian (Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger), who now presides over a church which officially denies the gospel of justification sola fide.

Which I suppose could be the same as the incarnate Antichrist, but at least Riddlebarger didn’t go so far as to name him “Satan’s Pastor”, as Iyov recently labeled fellow blogger John Hobbins.

However, a recent post by Michael Barber on “Singing in the Reign” about the Pope’s visit caught my eye as it promised to undercover some of things that may have otherwise slipped past the media’s eye.

There’s been much written about Pope Benedict’s visit to the US. You’ll find commentary in the media, in the Catholic blogosphere, in Catholic-friendly arenas, in anti-Catholic forums—like I said, a lot has been said. But there’s a lot about this visit that you’re not hearing. A lot of that has to do with the fact that most of the commentators don’t know how to contextualize what just happened. Here I want to do that. Just what happened with this visit. Well, the short answer is: way more than most people realize. Let me explain… and, as I said before, let me do so by helping to provide the framework for understanding why this visit was so big.

Barber goes to on to discuss the current state of Catholicism in Europe, the unprecedented greeting by President Bush, the opening remarks by President Bush and the Pope, and the Pope’s “long-fought war for truth in the face of relativism.”

He ends by discussing the final ceremonial song of the welcome ceremony, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”, tying in the President’s now famous (infamous?) remark that he sees God when he looks in the eyes of the Pope to the opening phrase in the hymn: “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord…” He concludes by noting with astonishment that the hymn sung by the army choir was based on the exact passage (Revelation 14) that was used for that day’s prayer from “the Liturgy of the Hours―the prayer book prayed by virtually all priests, religious and many lay people.”

14 Then I looked, and there was a white cloud, and One like the Son of Man was seated on the cloud, with a gold crown on His head and a sharp sickle in His hand. 15 Another angel came out of the sanctuary, crying out in a loud voice to the One who was seated on the cloud, “Use your sickle and reap, for the time to reap has come, since the harvest of the earth is ripe.” 16 So the One seated on the cloud swung His sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested.

17 Then another angel who also had a sharp sickle came out of the sanctuary in heaven. 18 Yet another angel, who had authority over fire, came from the altar, and he called with a loud voice to the one who had the sharp sickle, “Use your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from earth’s vineyard, because its grapes have ripened.” 19 So the angel swung his sickle toward earth and gathered the grapes from earth’s vineyard, and he threw them into the great winepress of God’s wrath. 20 Then the press was trampled outside the city, and blood flowed out of the press up to the horses’ bridles for about 180 miles.

- Revelation 14:14-20 (HCSB)

Barber highlights the phrase “the press was trampled outside the city”, but doesn’t explain why. I can only suppose that he is meaning that God’s winepress is located outside of Rome. Is the suggestion that the events of Revelation are being divinely fulfilled by the Pope’s visit to the United States? Or does some event planning bureaucrat in Washington have an apocalyptic sense of humor?

Barber promises two more posts on the Pope’s visit. I’ll look forward to them to better know whether kissing the Pope’s ring (as Ms. Pelosi recently did) is bending my knee to acknowledge Christ as Lord or taking the mark of the Beast.

Before looking at NT texts, Pratt surveys the range of prophecy in the Old Testament. Using the text of Jeremiah and the potter (Jeremiah 18:1-10) as a starting point, Pratt identifies “two major types of prophetic prediction: judgment and salvation [blessing]. All prophetic oracles gravitate in one or both of these directions.” The texts of vss. 7-10 demonstrate that the fulfillment of God’s prophetic announcements can be changed as God reacts “to the way in which human beings respond to threats of judgment and offers of blessing. In terms of his providential involvement in the world, God often watches to see how people react to the prophetic word and then moves history in particular directions.”

Pratt divides the level of God’s prophetic determination into four levels:

1. Conditional predictions — these typically take the form of “if … then” prophecies and “reveal that, providentially speaking, God had not yet committed to one direction or another.”
2. Unqualified predictions — unlike conditional predictions, these prophecies have no explicit conditions, but reveal that “at the moment of the prediction, God had a significant level of determination” for a specific future direction, either in judgment or blessing.
3. Confirmed predictions — like unqualified predictions, these have no explicit conditions, but instead include verbal confirmation of God’s determination or visual signs to attest the prophecy.
4. Sworn predictions — these prophecies are accompanied by a divine oath that “raises that prediction to the level of a covenantal certainty.”

Through each of these types of prophecy, Pratt maintains that “prophets did not want to inform their listeners about the future as much as they wanted to motivate their listeners to form the future.” It was the listeners’ response that determined God’s final providence, not a scripted plan of predetermined decisions and activities. Pratt is careful not to equate contingent prophecy with open theism, inasmuch as God’s sovereign plan is not changing, but rather the way by which He implements His plan.

Pratt goes on to survey the progression of OT prophecy, beginning with Moses and continuing to Haggai and Zechariah. The key takeaway here is that Daniel’s “seventy weeks” prophecy (Daniel 9) is a sevenfold increase of the original 70-year covenantal judgment (Jeremiah 25:11-12). This extension is caused by the lack of repentance of the Jews during their exile; the precedent for this is stated in Leviticus 26:18.

The return to Jerusalem after the original 70 years is considered then a partial realization of Jeremiah’s restoration prophecy, but the complete fulfillment of restoration and covenantal blessing was delayed until what became the time of Christ. In turn, the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah are to be read as a renewed call for repentance, such that the restoration “might come sooner rather than later” and Daniel’s seventy weeks would be reduced.

See for example, Haggai’s contingent offer of blessing to Zerubbabel that the blessings we tend to see as manifested in Christ would have been accorded to him (Zerubbabel) instead. This is why it’s so important to understand the original context of these prophecies and recognize why their fulfillment in Jesus Christ was never the primary offer. Once the prophetic voice went silent and the contingent offers had lapsed, then fulfillment could only happen in Christ.

What does all this have to do with preterism?

The time texts in the gospels are well known and there have been countless theories devised to explain them apart from a literal reading that the events described would occur within the lifetime of the original audience. However, if we apply the principle of contingent prophecy, then the reality of a delayed fulfillment might be explained. Pratt points to Peter’s sermon on Pentecost as an example of a contingent offer within the context of imminent eschatological expectation:

Repent, therefore, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out. Then the Lord may grant you a time of recovery and send the Messiah appointed for you, that is, Jesus. He must be received into heaven until the time comes for the universal restoration of which God has spoken through his holy prophets from the beginning. (Acts 3:19-21, REB)

Peter indicates three benefits of repentance: (1) the forgiveness of sins, (2) times of recovery (or refreshment), and (3) God would send Jesus to restore all things. Certainly Peter’s early expectation appears to be consistent with full preterism in that these blessings and Jesus’ return would happen before that first generation passed away. However, the eventual “no show” of Christ forced Peter to conclude that it “is not that the Lord is slow in keeping his promise, as some suppose, but that he is patient with you. It is not his will that any should be lost, but that all should come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9, REB)

Peter continues on in his later letter to describe a cataclysmic return of Christ (3:10) and encourages his audience to live “devout and dedicated lives” that they would “look forward to the coming of the day of God, and work to hasten it on.” (3:11-12, REB) Peter still believed that, like Haggai and Zechariah before him, sincere repentance would work to shorten the delay of Christ’s return. The fact of Christ’s return was (and is) immutable, but the timing of his return could be changed with sincere repentance, just as the lack of repentance delays His return, even today.

The destruction of Jerusalem (AD 70) might then be seen, like the return of the Jews to Jerusalem after 70 years in Babylonia, as a partial fulfillment of God’s promise to overturn the world order, but not a complete fulfillment of the promised covenantal judgment, which will occur at the end of time and include both Jew and Gentile.