Thursday, November 29, 2007

Plato & a Platypus Walk Into A Bar...


Yesterday, as I turned on my radio for my daily NPR-listening ritual on my way to school I happened to catch the title of a book that sounded fascinating, it's called Plato & a Platypus Walk Into a Bar...Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes.  When I got home I was able to find an interesting and short interview NPR did with the authors back in May when the book came out.  You should take a listen here. After listening, I am even more determined to buy the book.  
For me, it seems like the book hits on something Jesus found out a long time ago, people resonate with stories and pithy sayings (e.g. parables).

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Levenson - Death & Resurrection of the Beloved Son: A Theology of Transformation

"You shall not put off the skimming of the first yield of your vats.  You shall give Me the first-born among your sons.  You shall do the same with your cattle and your flocks" (Exod 22:28-29a, JPS)

"They have built shrines to Baal, to put their children to the fire as burnt offerings to Baal  which I never commanded, never decreed, and which never came into My mind" (Jer 19:5, JPS)

"I, in turn, gave them laws that were not good and rules by which they could not live: When they set aside every first issue of the womb, I defiled them by their very gifts - that I might render them desolate, that they might know that I am the LORD" (Ezek 20:25-26)

These are the texts Levenson begins with in his The Death & Resurrection of the Beloved Son:  The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism & Christianity.   For many, this first text isn't all that shocking because we will automatically apply our rule of faith (allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture) but Levenson rightly cautions against this (at least so quickly).  In Exodus 34:20, the sacrifice of the first-born is given the opportunity to be 'redeemed' by an animal while Exod 22:28 is eerily silent in terms of this provision.  

What later prophets do with this text does seem to present some tensions:  Jeremiah denies that YHWH ever commanded it (or is Jeremiah only speaking of sacrificing to other gods, e.g., Molech?) while Ezekiel, while not condoning the practice, does have it as a command of YHWH.  Interestingly enough, Levenson also asks the probing question, "If, as Jeremiah put it, "burn[ing] their sons and daughters in fire" is something which YHWH "never commanded, which never came to [His] mind," then how shall we explain the aqedah, the binding of Isaac in Genesis 22?" (12).   

What this seems to point to for Levenson is that "YHWH once commanded the sacrifice of the first-born but now opposes it" (8).  This is not to say that people obeyed this law frequently but throughout the literature of the OT it is undeniable that this idea of sacrificing the first-born is ubiquitous.

Vestiges of this idea can be found most importantly in Genesis 12 (aqedah), Judg 11:29-40 (Jephthah's vow), 2 Kgs 3:26-27 (Mesha's sacrifice).  The theology underlying Exod 22:28 is that first-fruits of all creation, animals and sons alike, belong to YHWH.  This is the underlying motif that will undergo many transformations in the OT.  

He then takes this tradition and extends it to the self-identification of Israel as the first-born of YHWH (Exod 4:22).  The Exodus itself is a story of redemption at the cost of the first-born.  Israel is released only at the expense of Egypt's first-born.  

This notion is transformed further in a cultic setting.  Whereas the offering of firstlings to YHWH in Exod explicitly says to give YHWH first-born sons as well, the stipulation in Deut 15:19-23 is missing.  Has it been eradicated?  Levenson says no, it has been transformed both by the cultic rites of the paschal lamb but also, importantly, in the dedication of the Levites whom Aaron is to "designate before the LORD as an elevation offering from the Israelites" (Num 8:11, 13).  

This even goes so far as to present a crisis in Num 3:39-43 when the number of first-born males of Israel were 273 more than the number of Levites.  "Thus Aaron and his sons were given 1,365 shekels as redemption moeny for the first-born for whom no Levites were available to serve as substitutes (Num 18:15-18, 49-51)" (47).  

Ultimately this does lead to the theme of Christ as Son of God.  Ironically Levenson does point out the hypocrisy found in Tertullian who railed against an ancient African practice of sacrificing their children because Saturn sacrificed his children: they were following imitatio dei, "in mimicry of Saturn's deeds with respect to his own offspring" (24).  Tertullian found it repulsive to follow a god who would sacrifice his own children.  Do you sense the irony?  See John 3:16.  

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Levenson - Sinai & Zion: A Theology of Tension

The first thing to notice about Levenson's approach to OTT is that it is a theology of tension.  This is because one of Levenson's main points theologically is that the Hebrew Bible is much more ambiguous than we sometimes like to admit.  There is this ongoing balancing act within the HB to navigate these tensions, sometimes knowingly letting these tensions stand, for theological significance.  In the first section of Levenson's Sinai & Zion I noted some of the prominent contrasts and we have the following (there could be more):

intersection/barrier (15):  In the theophany of Exodus 19:16-22 there are "contrasting movements," the first speaks of the intersection between the lives of God and Israel.  The second speaks of the barrier between God and Israel.  This points up the classic tension between the immanence and transcendence of God.

relevant/distant (16):  "The Sinaitic experience is here presented as simultaneously supremely relevant to human experience and distant from it and foreign to it."

 tree/fire (20-21):  Deut 33:16, Exodus 3, and the wordplay between sene ('tree' or 'bush') and Sinay ('Sinai') suggest that YHWH is traditionally associated with a tree/bush.  Later tradition shows that YHWH is associated with fire (see Deut 4:24).  So then the narrative of Moses and the burning bush has both these symbols, tree and fire, "clash, and neither overpowers the other."  This is the case as well with the Menorah of the Tabernacle and Temple (Exod 25:31-39; 1 Kings 7:49).  

Egypt/Midian (21):  If you try and figure out where Sinai is, based on the earlier texts, a curious thing becomes known:  Sinai is neither in Egypt nor in Midian, God rather reveals himself in a literal "no man's land."  This is seen even in Moses's request to Pharoah to let the Israelites worship "in the wilderness."  The contrast is not only governmental (YHWH is not governed by either Egypt or Midian) but also between the desert and urban state.  So then YHWH's home on Sinai represents freedom, "which stands in opposition to the massive and burdensome regime of Egypt, where state and cult are presented as colluding in the perpetuation of slavery and degradation."  

legal law/affective law (50):  This again points up the prominent dialectic in Levenson's works:  "The energy and spiritual power of Torah flows in no small measure from its insistence on holding these two dimensions, the outer (legal) and inner (affective), in a tight unity, refusing to sacrifice the one on the altar of the other.  


YHWH/other gods (56ff):  This is where Levenson becomes somewhat 'controversial.'  He begins to doubt whether Israel's religion was monotheistic throughout its history.  I'll post again soon on his arguments for this.


God as king/Israel's king (70-72):  Levenson argues here that the covenant relationship between YHWH and Israel precludes human kingship.  YHWH is Israel's king and only rightful suzerain.  This presents in some texts a tension between pro-monarchical and anti-monarchical texts (the pro-monarchical tradition is typically what Levenson will put under the "Zion" category), see Judges 8:22-23/I Samuel 8:7.  Levenson would argue that even the Davidic covenant itself points up this tension.  "Thus, it is of the utmost significance that the Torah, the law of the theo-polity, was, for all its diversity, always ascribed to Moses and not to David, to the humble mediator of covenant and not to the regal founder of the dynastic state."  

law/love (86):  "His past grace grounds his present demand...Mount Sinai is the intersection of love and law, of gift and demand, the link between a past together and a future together."

 
The point in bringing all of these up is to show again Levenson's methodology and his Sinai & Zion does this paradigmatically.  Throughout even his part 1 on Sinai, Levenson is continuously pointing out tensions in the text, and this is all under the 'unified' rubric of Sinai.  You can imagine what he does then when exploring the relationship between his two parts, Sinai & Zion.  His first part develops one tradition found in the HB, in this case the Sinaitic.  He then goes back and develops what he sees as another tradition found in the HB, in this case, Zion. Then his third part discusses the parts where these traditions both agree, but more importantly, disagree.  I didn't always agree with Levenson's conclusions but I found his methodology refreshing.  Pointing out the tensions really did open up the text and allowed me to see things in the text that I would never have seen before, mostly because my methodology didn't allow me to.    

Monday, November 19, 2007

Rabbi Singer

Recently my friend Art introduced me to Rabbi Tovia Singer, a Jewish "apologist" of sorts.  He does a lot work with how to deal with Christians who are trying to convert Jews and their friends to Christianity.  And boy does he do a good job.  He has some very good things to say.  Anyway, you can search for him on itunes but I actually found a website that has several lectures from several rabbis, including Singer, so check them out.  
And here is the homepage
Enjoy.  

Saturday, November 17, 2007

The Tax Exempt Status of "Prosperity" Ministries


Saturday mornings have become my designated time for reading Time Magazine, mostly because I get it on Saturday. This morning I read an article on a subject I have been hearing a lot about in recent media. It is about Republican Senator Chuck Grassley's new investigation into the spending of the top "Prosperity Gospel" proponents, Time names six:
Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Benny Hinn, Eddie Long, Joyce Meyer and Paula White.

One thing I never knew before was that the tax exempt status of religious organizations is based in some way on the fact (or trust) that those organizations will be putting money back into public service, something that is to be rightly expected of religious organizations. I think the Church would agree. And this is the problem I have with the pastors listed above. Asking for money for your organization is great, if its used to further the kingdom of God, not the kingdom of Paula.

I agree completely with this quote from the article,

"Prosperity dominates American religious TV, and millions of adherents send millions of dollars to preachers they have never met. For Grassley, this might be fine if the ministries put all the money back into their mission work. But his now famous question about [Joyce] Meyer's $23,000 commode suggests he questions the destination of the her estimated $124 million annual take."

This actually raises questions for me about the tax-exempt status of religious organizations in general. Why don't we "render to Caesar's what is Caesar's"?

Now, this post is actually difficult for me since I actually grew up watching and admiring the pastor's listed here, but at some point enough is enough. I have a hard time trying to understand the logic behind the theology that says God will give you money if you give money to someone who already has a lot of money and is asking for more of it.

Here is the link to the article:  Going After the Money Ministries

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

One Village Coffee


For anyone interested, some of my best friends in PA started a coffee roasting business this year with an eye towards being missional. They are fair trade and partner with MAMA Project in Honduras, Stephen's Children and other very worthy kingdom building projects. My wife currently works with them on staff and our group, LivingRoom, is behind them all the way. Oh and by the way, their coffee is actually pretty good from what I hear (me not being a coffee drinker).

I post this now as Scot McKnight today posted some good reviews of the cofee on his blog

So please, check them out by going to the following and then buy some coffee!:

One Village Coffee

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Levenson & the Task of Old Testament Theology - Part 3


So now we know why Levenson isn't a fan of OTT, but at this point some accuse Levenson of speaking out of both sides of his mouth; he's not a fan of OTT and yet theologizes about the text Christians call the Old Testament. However, there seems to be an equivocation of terms. For Levenson there is a difference between the technical field of Old Testament Theology and doing theology with the text of the Hebrew Bible. The former, as seen in the other posts, is unable to accomplish its task of being historically contextual, creating a unifying theology out the entire Hebrew Bible, alongside the emphasis on the practice being done only by those of the faith. The latter has no such methodological baggage. “Instead, Jewish biblical theology is likely to be, as it always has been, a matter of piecemeal observations appended to the text and subordinate to its particularity. As Gershom Scholem put it, “not system but commentary is the legitimate form through which truth is approached.””

This is a very helpful explanation by Levenson of the differences he sees between "Old Testament Theology" and "Old Testament theology" (if I can distinguish the two with lowering the case of theology in the latter). Because of this explanation, Levenson actually does what he sets out to do and his works do in fact follow from the methodology he has laid out. “To be sure, Jews have contributed studies of theological themes in various texts of the Hebrew Bible.” Again, this is exactly what Levenson does in most of his major works and he does it fairly consistently. He does trace themes throughout the Hebrew Bible.

This post will be concerned with an interesting qualification on how Levenson plans on doing theology, namely, it's being synchronic. I am taking this qualification from his introduction to Sinai & Zion: An Entry Into the Jewish Bible.

Levenson’s explicit concern is to make this book a synchronic study rather than diachronic (page 12). While at first agreeing with Christopher Seitz who argued, “Although the author suggests in the introduction that his approach would favor synchronic analysis (p. 12), the bulk of his work remains at the diachronic level. This is not to say that Levenson is disinterested in generating stimulating theological positions based upon the present text. Far form it…but the spadework which produces these proposals is still predominantly diachronic…” I have come to nuance this view somewhat. Levenson’s view of synchronicity is in opposition to the type of historical criticism proposed by Wellhausen’s extreme source criticism. In this case, Levenson is showing that although he makes use of historical-criticism as a tool he is not interested in canonizing history as Wellhausen did. “In short, Wellhausen decomposed the Torah into its constituent documents, reconstructed history from those components, and then endowed history with the normativity and canonicity that more traditional Protestants reserve for scripture.” This is the sort of diachronic analysis he is avoiding when he calls Sinai & Zion a work of synchronicity. Importantly, what Seitz calls the diachronic spadework, is probably better described as tradition-history, a task Levenson is heavily involved in. Of course, to engage in tradition-history is in some sense diachronic, so I don’t want to dismiss Seitz’s observation outright, only show that Levenson’s definitions of synchronic and diachronic are not the same as Seitz’s and therefore shouldn’t be considered to be contradicting himself by declaring to do one thing while actually doing another. But there will be much more on how Levenson actually utilizes tradition-history in later posts.

Friday, November 09, 2007

The Future of Justification - Free Online Copy

In case your interested and follow up on NT scholarship and the current "New Perspective" debate, a new Piper book The Future of Justification: A Response to N.T. Wright was recently released. Now, I don't mean to betray my devotion to wtsbooks.com so you can still click on the link above and buy it from wtsbooks.com or you can click HERE and download the entire book from Piper's Desiring God website in pdf (just click on the small link 'read'). Either way, I am sure it will be a helpful read, whichever side of the debate you tend towards.

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

New Father

I am soon to be a new dad in April and my wife recently sent me the following video, I think I am a little offended. If I have conquered the Tipton digest and the Hebrew of Amos, surely some diaper changes can't be that bad...

Saturday, November 03, 2007

Jon Levenson & The Task of Old Testament Theology - Part 2


The last post was Levenson's argument that the task of Old Testament Theology is an untenable task. It cannot be both historical and create a unifying theology out of the entire Old Testament.

Levenson’s argument is furthered by his look at the insistence of many biblical theologians on the faith commitment of biblical theologians. Citing Moshe Goshen-Gottstein and Gerhard Hasel, he contends that Old Testament theologians believe Old Testament Theology is an enterprise only for those of faith. But Levenson determines that a person of faith actually is not able existentially, that is, as a practicing Christian, to do theology without post-biblical elements. The practicing Jew of this century cannot isolate the Hebrew Bible from the larger corpus of tradition just as a practicing Christian cannot isolate the Old Testament from its larger corpus of tradition. If s/he does isolate it from the larger corpus it is by definition no longer Jewish or Christian but simply historical.

Levenson’s main point in this discussion is that if “biblical theology is historical in character” as Gabler suggests then “the affiliation of the biblical theologian is of no account for their work.” And if this is the case, then there is no distinction between history of religion and biblical theology methodologically, as it should be, suggests Levenson. As he sees it, “If, however, there are “persistent…principles” or “an overarching unity,” then it would seem that the historian of Israelite religion ought to be able to see them as well as can the Old Testament theologian.”

Levenson goes on to further to bring these two ideas of what he’s getting at together by discussing the importance of context in interpretation, an emphasis he says biblical theologians have largely ignored. “The great flaws of the biblical theologians are their lack of self-awareness on the issue of context and their habit, in the main, of acting as though the change of context made no hermeneutical difference.” Eichrodt is a prime example of this since his goal was to “combine the historical context of the Hebrew Bible (“its religious environment”) and its literary context in Christianity (“its essential coherence with the NT”). The problem with this goal is that it sets the two sides or contexts up as parallel tracks and any historical inquiry that casts any doubt that the two might ever cross in contradiction is disallowed from the beginning. This results in Levenson’s own doubt casting. If the tracks are so parallel and if they indeed never cross in the New Testament’s “Christian recontextualization” then why did the Jewish tradition continue? The opposite is also the case. If the text univocally points to rabbinic Judaism, then why are there non-rabbinic traditions that still exist? The answer for Levenson is a hermeneutical key to almost all of his critiques of Old Testament theology:

In sum, the historical evidence suggests that the Hebrew Bible speaks less univocally than Eichrodt thinks: it is to some degree coherent and to some degree incoherent with all its recontextualizations – Jewish, Christian, and other. The privileging of one of these over the others depends on something very different from dispassionate historical inquiry. It depends upon something more akin to an act of faith. This is not to impugn the act of faith, but only to say that it is highly problematic when it becomes regulative for historical study.

This is Levenson’s main critique of the field of Old Testament theology, tying together the tensions he has pointed out between historical and faith commitments. Now, this is again a good point but here Levenson seems to be making a proscriptive judgment against Old Testament Theology on the basis of his descriptive observance of it. Does Old Testament Theology necessarily have to be done in an apologetic fashion where the Old Testament cannot be seen in direct contradiction to the New Testament, as Levenson’s reading of Eichrodt suggests? Does a Christian’s take on the text necessitate reading it only in light of the New Testament? There does seem to be a way to read a text in its historical context as a “first read” prior to bridging the gap towards the New Testament as a “second read.” When Levenson says that commonality between Jews and Christians is doubtful because “…to the Christian, biblical theology is concerned with Christological issues in a way that excludes the Jew…” this is unfair and doesn’t take into account the importance of this “first read,” that does indeed allow for commonality.

Now that we have what Levenson wants to avoid, we'll look for the next several weeks at what Levenson actually accomplishes theologically, and, I dare say, it has had no small impact either on the theological world or on my own personal world.

Friday, November 02, 2007

Levenson & the Task of Old Testament Theology - Part 1


I want to attempt to review Jon Levenson in his relationship to Old Testament Theology. On the one hand, Levenson is explicitly against Old Testament Theology as he defines it, so this could be interesting. On the other hand, Levenson does do something akin to theology and he does it with respect to a set text that Christians call the Old Testament. So then we also need to account for what Levenson actually does positively in this field of “non-Old Testament Theology” Old Testament theology. For most of you, this second part will actually be the most interesting. Stay tuned...But up first, Levenson's reasons for doing what he does, his method to his madness (what we'll call his methodology).

The book, which is actually a collection of essays, that I found most clearly bring out Levenson’s views on the discipline of Old Testament Theology is The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and Historical Criticism and the most helpful chapters in that book are the essays, “The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and Historical Criticism” and “Why Jews Are Not Interested In Biblical Theology.”

Apart from the charge of Anti-Semitism, the most important disagreements Levenson has with the task of Old Testament Theology in these two works is its relation to history, which is in fact Levenson’s main methodological concern with the task of Old Testament Theology. If you remember, one of the staples of Biblical Theology that originally separated it from dogmatics was its insistence on the historical context of the text. But for Levenson this emphasis on historical context is in opposition to two other defining characteristics of Old Testament Theology, namely, presenting a unifying theology (singular) of the Old Testament and secondly, the role of faith within the discipline.

First up, the tension between taking a text in its historical context and making a unifying theology of the Old Testament. If the theologian truly deals with the text in its historical context, he or she cannot take into account all of the literature Christians call the Old Testament since “the construction of a religion out of all the materials in the Hebrew Bible violates the historian’s commitment to seeing the materials in their historical contexts. The result will correspond to the religion of no historical community, except perhaps some parties very late in the period of the Second Temple.” So then to discuss any unifying theology of the corpus of the entire Old Testament violates the historical context of each individual text, thus rendering the dual goal of Old Testament Theology untenable. This point is well taken. This is an important point that many Christians need to recognize. Levenson is not here saying that tracing unifying themes throughout the Old Testament is illegitimate, just that we need to be honest about what it is we are actually doing when we say we are giving full credence to the historical context.

At this point, Levenson is only arguing that ‘biblical theology’ is never an independent discipline, it is either history of religion or it is dogmatics masked as this unnecessary tertium quid. If only the historical context is taken into account, what makes biblical theology different from history of religion? If the text is looked at ‘canonically,’ what makes biblical theology different than dogmatics? So then, can the theologian construct a religion out of all the materials in the Hebrew Bible? Of course, but this is looking at the Bible in a literary context and hardly ever an historical context, a perennial problem of any religion of the Book. And at this point the scholar is engaged in what Levenson would consider ‘dogmatics,’ and should be willing to call it what it is. Any thoughts on this? I tend to agree with Levenson here on most of what he's saying. I would appreciate any feedback on how accepting what Levenson is saying here is wrong or makes me a heretic.

What's In A Name?

My wife & I started a blog about a month back so that we can keep our family up to date on the pregnancy and all. Well I decided to write about the names we picked out, so here it is:

If it is a girl our kid will be named Kieryk Eileen

If it is a boy our kid will be named Augustine Fredryck

What is the meaning of all this, you may ask. Well, let me tell you.

Kieryk - Named after Soren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855). You can google him and find out more but he is Jared's favorite philosopher, and since Jared was a philosophy major, that's a pretty big deal.

Eileen - Sarah was gracious enough to allow Jared to have the first names after philosophers and theologians but she rightfully claimed the middle names for herself (although we both love all of the names and wouldn't have it any other way). It is interesting actually, Jared's names are of philosophers and theologians, Sarah's names are of family. To be honest, this is actually quite telling of the kind of people we are. In any case, Eileen is the namesake of Sarah's beloved grandmother, from what I have heard, a beautiful lady who loved ice cream. I don't have a picture right now but I will be sure to edit this tomorrow or Sunday and get that out.

Augustine - Not the city, the saint. I know there is a major (though futile) debate amongst pseudo-intellectuals as to what is the proper way to pronounce this name. Many of you reading this will pronounce it Awe-Gus-Teen while many more of you will pronounce it Uh-Gus-Ten, we prefer the latter. I have once heard it said, "Awe-Gus-Teen is in Florida, Uh-Gus-Ten is in heaven" and well, we like heaven better. In any case, St. Augustine is an incredible theologian, arguably the most important theologian of the Ancient Church (AD 354-430). If you have never read his Confessions click HERE, it is a classic, a masterpiece, and should be read by every Christian.

Fredryck - Again, the middle names are for family. This happens to be the name of Jared's grandfather. I am almost certain he didn't spell it the same way, and everyone called him Fred, but I know for a fact that my child will not like to be called Fred.

This speaks to another thing: Who thought of shortening everyone's names? With a name like Augustine people keep asking me what I am going to call him. Hmm, let's see, why not Augustine? Do we really have to have a pet name for our kid? So please, this is for you dear mother, no "Gus" or "Auggie," only Augustine. Love you all!