Four Reasons Why I am Excited for "NOAH"

Do yourself a favor, and watch the international version of the trailer. Far more interesting, and they didn't 'censor' the blood in the first 10 seconds. 

1. Darren Aronofsky has done great things with a little money (Fountain; Black Swan; Pi). In regards to a purely visual experience, one can hardly do better than Aronofsky. In regards to the screenplay, John Logan (Gladiator) has long been one of my favorite writers.

2. Theologically, I'm intrigued by the mixed reception from various theologians and writers. Usually the criticism is a perceived diversion from the unique source material. Since I haven't seen the film, I cannot comment on this.
However, I will say that to expect historical accuracy from such a generalized tale as Noah and the flood is to expect far too much. Especially when Noah's personality isn't mentioned, what happens on board the ark isn't explained and the story caps off (and begins) a narrative that is unspeakably violent and full of corruption.

3. An issue I'm excited about is relevance; how does this story translate to our (post) modern setting? I know Aronofksy has made claims about it being about environmental disaster, and this makes complete sense. Given the oft apocalyptic imagery one finds through the First Testament and Apocrypha and the images of collapsing ice glaciers in our age, its a fitting parallel.

4. Ultimately, its the experience for me. To sit in a large theater and to be drowned in the sound and fury of a live action story that has both perplexed and haunted me since I was a little boy is precisely why I enjoy movies in the first place.

Will you see it? Why, why not?

--Nick

Origen of Alexandria on the Purification of Man

On First Principles, Chap. X, Sec. 6. Page 146-47.

6. There are many other matters too, which are hidden from us, and are known only to him who is the physician of our souls. For if in regard to bodily health we occasionally find it necessary to take some very unpleasant and bitter medicine as a cure for the ills we have brought on through eating and drinking, and sometimes, if the character of the ill demands it, we need the severe treatment of the knife and a painful operation, yes, and should the disease have extended beyond the reach even of these remedies, in the last resort the lilies burnt out by fire, how much more should we realize that God our physician, in his desire to wash away the ills of our souls, which they have brought on themselves through a variety of sins and chimes, makes us of penal remedies of a similar sort, even to the infliction of a punishment of fire on those who have lost their soul's health.

Allusions to this are found also in the holy scriptures. For instance, in Deuteronomy the divine word threatens that sinners are to be punished with 'fevers and cold and pallor', and tortured with 'feebleness of eyes and insanity and paralysis and blindness and weakness of the reigns' (Deut. 28:22, 28-29). And so if anyone will gather at his leisure from the whole of scripture all the references to sufferings which in threats against sinners are called by the names of bodily sicknesses, he will find that through them allusion is being made to either the ills of the punishments of souls. And to help us understand that as physicians supply aids to sufferers with the object of restoring them to health through careful treatment, so with the same motive God acts towards those who have lapsed and fallen into sin, there is proof in that passage in which, through the prophet Jeremiah, God's 'cup of fury' is commanded 'to be set before all nations' that 'they may drink it and become mad and spew it out' (Jerem. 25:15,16,27). In this passage there is a threat which says, 'if anyone refuses to drink, he shall not be cleansed' (Jerem. 25:28,29); from which certainly we understand that the fury of God's vengeance ministers to the purification of souls.

Isaiah teaches that even the punishments which are said to be inflicted by fire are meant to be applied as a help, when he speaks thus about Israel: 'The Lord will wash away the filth of the sons and daughters of Sion, and will purge away the blood from the midst of them by the spirit of burning' (Is. 4:4). And of the Chaldaeans he speaks thus: ' Thou hast coals of fire, sit upon them; they shall be to thee for a help' (Is. 47:14,15: LXX), and in other places he says: "The Lord shall sanctify them in burning fire' (Is. 66:16,17), and in the prophet Malachi it speaks as follows: 'The Lord shall sift and refine his people as gold and silver; he shall refine and purify and pour forth purified the sons of Judah' (Mal. 3:3).

--Nick

The 'Mortality' and Wisdom of 'Solomon'

Beneath is the Wisdom of Solomon, chapter 7:1-6 from the Apocrypha. I find it to be a powerful explanation of the image of pure mortalism. That is, a man who recognizes that he is without immortality, without eternal life.

1 I also am mortal, like everyone else,
a descendant of the first-formed child of earth;
and in the womb of a mother I was molded into flesh, 

2 within the period of ten months, compacted with blood,
from the seed of a man and the pleasure of marriage. 

3 And when I was born, I began to breathe the common air,
and fell upon the kindred earth;
my first sound was a cry, as is true of all. 

4 I was nursed with care in swaddling cloths. 

5 For no king has had a different beginning of existence; 

6 there is for all one entrance into life, and one way out.

Its a helpful reminder of my own mortality.

--Nick

First Testament Theology: God Birthed

In preparation for Fuller Theological Seminary, I've been reading as much as possible about pretty much everything: historical criticism, textual criticism, Greek/Hebrew etc. I picked up John Goldingay's Old Testament Theology: Israel's Gospel (the first volume in his three volume set) and what he wrote continues to amaze and challenge me.

Included below is such an excerpt:

In the beginning, God birthed the heavens and the earth. Genesis 2:4 itself describes creation as "the generations of the heavens and the earth," suggesting that they came into being like something like giving birth (he includes a lengthy footnote on the implications of the subjective versus objective genitive). Psalm 90:2 makes that explicit: "Before the mountains were birthed, or you labored with earth and world, even from age to age you were/are/will be God."

Any suggestion that the First Testament does not speak of God giving birth to the world, as some other creation account do, joins many other failed attempts to set the First Testament off from these other works. The boundaries usually turn out to be permeable. Yes, God gave birth to the world. Of course it is a metaphor, but then so are statements such as "God shaped" or "God created." All such statements use the language of analogy. Birthing is an image that tells us something true about God's relationship with the world, though like all images it has to be set in the context of other images so that we can guard against taking it too far.

First, birthing suggests wondrous mystery. It is stupefying that a fully alive being emerges from the body of its mother. It is extraordinary that mountains should exist, and human beings stand amazed before their majesty.

--Nick

1. Goldingay, Old Testament Theology: Israel's Gospel, pg61-62.

Purification, Sacrifice and the Death of Christ

John Goldingay, David Allen Hubbard Professor of Old Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary, recently (Fall of 2012) wrote an essay explaining 'sacrifice' within the Old Testament. Particularly in relationship to atonement theories (as the magazine was dedicated to such theories). I found it compelling enough to post bits and pieces.

Enjoy.

Christians often assume there is a link between sacrifice and the assuaging of God's anger. It is certainly the case that the Old Testament and New Testament talk a lot about God's anger as well as about sacrifice. But they never bring these two together. Leviticus, the book that tells us the most about sacrifice, never mentions God's anger in this connection. Insofar as sacrifice deals with problems, the problems are the need to be made clean and the need to make compensation for wrongdoing. 

Isaiah 53 speaks of God's servant offering his life as a compensation offering to God, and also of his bearing our punishment. Oddly enough, neither of these two lines is quoted in the New Testament, unlike much of the rest of Isaiah 53. . .when Christians think of Christ bearing the punishment for our sin, they are thinking of the punishment meted out by a law court for wrongdoing, but this is not the regular connotation of this word, nor the connotation suggested by the context in Isaiah 53. The servant of God in Isaiah 53 is going through chastisement all right, going through ill-treatment at the hands of his own people and/or at the hands of the imperial authorities, but he is not going through a judicial punishment that other people thereby escape. 

The ordinary meaning of the Hebrew word most commonly translated "forgive" is "carry." It is what parents do for their children's wrongdoings and what God was doing with Israel through Old Testament times. It was a process that came to its climax with the cross, which is the logical end to the Old Testament story. Seeing the way the relationship between God and Israel worked helps us see why the cross was necessary. Through God's life with Israel God was paying the price for that relationship, making the sacrifices to keep it going (my own note: we see this in Hosea).. God's people keep doing their worst to God, so eventually God paid the ultimate price for them. God showed that even killing God cannot put God off from relating to them. God will just come back from the dead.

Fuller: Theology, News & Notes. VOL. 59, NO. 2.

--Nick

Theological Diversity and the Authority of the Old Testament part I

Dr. John Goldingay:

"The theme of the people of God is a main focus of OT thinking correlative to that of the person and activity of God himself, and there is considerable diversity over the meaning of this theme."

This struck me a bit as I wasn't quite certain how to handle this. I can see a multitude of meanings and themes running throughout the OT (many of them quite subversive -- seriously, a female Prophet and Judge?) but I've never quite thought about the possibility of a central theme. I'm confident that many theologians have speculated upon this, but what do you think?

John Goldingay, "Theological Diversity and the Authority of the Old Testament" pg2.

Numbers and the "Threat" to Inerrancy

Quient:

Currently, I am in the middle of someone’s sick experiment to see how soon MDiv students will go insane under pressure. I just finished one 4 unit Hebrew Exegesis class in only 10 days and am now taking a Pentateuch and Historical Books 4 unit class—in 10 days. Even though I have had to pull three all nighters in a row working on exegetical papers, much of what I am learning in class almost makes up for the pain and suffering.
One of the topics discussed today by Dr. Younger are the inflated numbers in the Old Testament book of Numbers. Basically, the way the numbers are represented in many of our Bibles makes it seem as though there is an absorbent amount of people—way too many for how many there could reasonably be for even a large city in the ancient world. Just one tribe: Ruben is said to have 45, 500 people! There are some who are dedicated to taking a literalist interpretation, who claim this presents a problem for believing the Bible is without errors.

There is actually a very simple resolution to this problem though. The word used is “elef” which can certainly mean 1,000, but it can also mean “clan” (Judge 6 and Micah 5:2). What is the difference in result?

One example of the difference is 46,500 Rubenites vs 46 clans or families with some additional people perhaps not part of the clans.

The strength in this line of thinking is evident when we consider what other parts of Scripture have to say and do a little problem solving. Deuteronomy 7:7 tells us God did not choose Israel because they were the most numerous. This means, the Israelites did not stand as some radical exception to the norm in numbers for the ancient world. Also, when it came to the Israelites conquest of Jericho they are said to have went out with about 3,000 men, but lost and badly defeated on account of 36 men dying? This of course contextually makes no sense if 36/3000 died.

This is a case where understanding the original language the Bible was written in makes all the difference!

For the entire post, click HERE.

--Nick

Peter Enns, "John Piper & Canaanite Genocide"

Enns:

Pro and con, to my post on John Piper and his view on Canaanite genocide and his view that, “It’s right for God to slaughter women and children anytime he pleases.” 

I will say, however, that, although some pushback comments were very insightful and brought to the table issues of importance, a number of them were implicitly working from a false, though common, dichotomy: pitting against each other (1) engagement of Scripture informed by what we know of ancient context, and (2) any notion of biblical authority, inspiration, etc.

Such a posture is a lamentable innovation of recent generations of Fundamentalist influence on how Christians think about the Bible, prompted by some uncomfortable developments in biblical studies over the last two centuries. But in truth, the church has a long track record, going back to the 2nd century, of grappling with, let’s call it, the problem of history in the Bible, i.e., what it means for a transcendent God to speak within the humble and limiting circumstances of the human drama.
Of particular interest at the outset was how God’s actions in the Old Testament, especially his violence, can be squared with the not only the ethics of the gospel but common reason and decency. One early solution that stuck was to read these passages of violence allegorically. At the end of the day, I don’t think that solution works, but let’s not lose sight of the motivating factor:

God does things in the Old Testament that cause theological problems for Christians, and so we have to think about what to do about them.

We today are latecomers to this conversation, although some, apparently, do not seem to be aware that it is even an issue.

For the rest, click HERE.

--Nick

"The Earth is Full of His Glory?"

Allison Quient:

Dr. Beitzel strikes again with some amazing insight into the Biblical text. Usually our Bibles translate Isa 6:3b as “All the earth is full of His glory,” but Beitzel speculates that this history of interpretation could have come from the later Greek translation of the Old Testament. However, is this the best translation? It all depends on how you take the word for fullness (mala). Usually we take it as a noun, but it can actually be translated as: “that which fills all the earth is His glory” (Inf Con).

What does this difference mean for the rest of the passage and theology? Some might immediately protest that this translation makes God’s glory dependant on man. However, I don’t see how this would be necessitated. God is personal and God is holy and He desires the holiness of His people. He desired the earth to be filled and Israel to be the light to the nations and entered into a covenant relationship with His people. This is His holy desire being fulfilled.

This translation makes more sense in the context of the rest of Isaiah. For instance, consider the grim description of death in v.12 and 13 and ch.7. Many people die and this is a sign of the covenant having been broken and God’s judgment in the land. God’s glory can be found when His people fill the land and His covenant is kept.

What does this understanding of Israel’s land and its people mean for the final restoration of all of the earth?

For the post, click HERE.

--Nick

The Old Testament and "Constellational" Truth

Quient:

Sometimes it is difficult to understand exactly what an Old Testament writer is trying to say and at times what is said can seem disconcerting. This is often true when it comes to trying to interpret Old Testament poetry (ex: Psalms). While there are many helpful suggestions that could be shared, I have decided to include here one thing my Hebrew Exegesis teacher Dr. Beitzel said. “When it comes to Hebrew poetry, think constellational truth, not propositional.” Hebrew poetry is made in such a way that you have to connect the individual dots (ideas) before the message or formation emerges. If you try and just read each individual idea on its own, the whole meaning of the piece will elude you.

For the original link, click 

--Nick

Olson, "Inerrnacy & Definition/s"

Olson:

Kenton (“Kent”) Sparks is professor of biblical studies at Eastern University (American Baptist) in Pennsylvania. He has authored books such as Ancient Texts for the Study of the Hebrew Bible and God’s Word in Human Words. He identifies as an evangelical. Some critics will question that identification, but I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt and view “evangelical” as a fuzzy category.

In my opinion, a person can be evangelical without adhering all the way to every part of the so-called “received evangelical tradition” (stamped as that tends to be by Old Princeton theology).
Without question Sparks’ argument is bold—at least among evangelical and relatively conservative Protestants. It will be interesting to see how it plays out among moderate to progressive (postconservative) evangelicals.

What’s especially interesting about the book is Sparks’ response to the Old Testament “texts of terror”—something we have discussed here quite a lot. If I understand his thesis correctly, it is very similar to what I have argued here—that the Old Testament must be interpreted in light of the New and that, at least occasionally, reports in the Old Testament (about what God commanded people to do) must be relativized in light of the character of God revealed in Jesus Christ who is the Word of God in person.

Here is one especially clear statement of the book’s overall thesis:

Scripture, as a book written by fallible human beings, is itself a book of theological discourse that that advances the truth but also stands in need of redemption. Scripture is beautiful and broken, and it is being read and studied in the church, and sometimes outside of the church, by beautiful and broken human beings. Nevertheless, Christians have theological and philosophical reasons to suppose that, when we read Scripture well, we are able to understand it. And as we understand it, we shall find that God’s truth and beauty run deeper, and are more potent, than the brokenness that God is healing. (88)

In other words, according to Sparks, there are records in Scripture that simply cannot be trusted as true because of the Bible’s humanity. He begins with blatant contradictions such as the accounts of Judas’ betrayal of Jesus and death in Matthew and Acts; they cannot be reconciled. Most people are not particularly bothered by that. Only neo-fundamentalists find it necessary to try to harmonize them. The differences are not important theologically. One can easily respond to them by saying that, in spite of such contradictions, the Bible is “perfect with respect to purpose” (John Piper). We can chalk such flaws to human fallibility so long as we hold to a dynamic rather than verbal view of inspiration. (By “verbal inspiration” here I mean the idea that God led the writers to the exact words he wanted them to use. By “dynamic inspiration” here I mean the idea that God led the writers to the ideas he wanted them to record but allowed their personalities and cultures and fallible memories, etc., to affect what they wrote.)

What will trouble many evangelicals more is Sparks’ handling of the Old Testament texts of terror:

Where we judge that Scripture presents God as saying or doing something he would not say or do, we should confess that “these texts tell us more about the purposes of their human authors than about the purposes of God.” We will simply admit that the author of Deuteronomy wrongly believed (as Luther did) that God told his people to slaughter their enemies. To express in theological jargon, Scripture includes both “God-talk” (first-order words from God to humanity) and “god-talk-talk” (mistaken, second-order accounts of what God has supposedly said. This is an important distinction…. (105-106)

Telling the difference between these two types of texts is a matter of Christological discernment, not cultural accommodation. Sparks adamantly rejects any idea that his proposal is based on modern sentiments. To those who disagree he rightly points back to church fathers such as Gregory of Nazianzus and John Chrysostom and others who freely admitted that the texts of terror in question could not be taken at face value. The way premodern Christians handled them was to allegorize them. That method isn’t open to us. So where does that leave us?

 For the rest, click HERE.

--Nick

Women in Ministry, Or Helpful Theology of Gender Facts

I contributed a little to this, and Allison Quient did a majority of the research. The post on her blog is incredibly in-depth and focused. Check it out.

A sample:

Did you know…? 

"I have come to understand that many people don’t know some of the key facts and information about debated Scripture passages for a theology of gender. My primaryaim here is NOT to provide you with an Egalitarian interpretation of Scripture, but some key bits of information to consider in the debate. It is up to you to think through these and come to your own conclusions and interpretations. 

If you want, skip to the books you are more curious about. If you want specific citations or sources that I didn’t include, just ask and I’ll give them to you."

Allison Quient's page

--Nick

McKnight/ Yoder on the Death Penalty

I am still undecided on the biblical case in support of the death penalty. I think I lean towards situational cases in support of the death penalty, but I view this as a last resort if anything. 

Undecided is the easiest way to view this for now, I guess. 

Most humans conceive of the death penalty in legal terms. That is, whether one if “for” or “against” it, the argument is legal: it is just or it is unjust. Those Christians who are “for” it often contend that “life for a life” is just, while those who are against it, Christian or not, often argue that at least one reason against it is that we are not smart enough and infallible enough to take the life of another — better err on the side of mercy and caution that put to death an innocent person. 

Is the death penalty Christian? Would Jesus support the death penalty? 

John Howard Yoder, in a new book expertly edited by John Nugent, called The End of Sacrifice, contends that the death penalty in the Bible was not so much connected to justice as it was to sacrifice. Namely, a human was sacred since she or he was made in God’s image, and the whole “life for a life” was about expiation and not justice restored or balanced. 

Yoder then adds this point: if sacrifice has realized its end, namely, has found its completion in the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ, it therefore has come to an end. The cross of Christ as the completion of all atonement has meant that the sacred act of expiation is no longer needed. Thus, he sees a redemptive trend or a salvation-historical plot that brings to end death as expiation for murder. 

He argues other points:1. That the law, even Genesis 9:6′s “by man shall his blood be shed,” is to be read like Exodus 21:24-25 (law of retaliation’s limit) — that is, as putting the limit of punishment and not as a commandment to exact the death penalty. 

2. Within the pages of the Bible, and Jewish texts fill this out, most punishments were becoming fines and imprisonment and not death penalty. 

3. John 8, though disputed as a text in canon but not as an event in the life of Jesus, shows that Jesus posed the death penalty over against two issues over which the death penalty fell short: the more authority of the judge or executioner and the authority Jesus had to forgive. Thus, death penalty is put in the context of expiation and not penal judgment. 

4. Society has move increasingly away from the death penalty and has discerned an increasing number of mitigating factors, like insanity, etc.. We do not make these judgments infallibly; our criteria are not entirely justifiable; etc. In other words, development has led to reduction — why not go all the way and end sacrifice completely? 

5. Romans 13′s sword is not about death penalty but is the symbol of judicial authority. Jesus’ words in Matt 5 show that the lex talionis is put on an entirely different order. 

6. Following Jesus is what Christians do and they do this all the time, not just when they are being private or being Christians. 

7. If Jesus is Lord, truly, then he is Lord now over all and that means Christians are to live under his lordship and advocate for kingdom ethics, not “realistic” ethics. 

8. The theory of deterrence is useless; the death penalty does not deter violence. Those States with the death penalty have more murders; those without it have less. Countries without it have fewer than countries with it.

For the entire article -- McKnight and Yoder

--Nick

Roger Olson, "Regarding Old Testament 'Texts of Terror'"

A very incisive look into distinctions made in both hermeneutics and historicity.


"Recently I reported and commented on a conversation with a Ph.D. student (not of the institution where I teach) who confronted me about “inclusivism” and the fact that he would not bother to risk his life in missions if he thought God had provided any other way by which people could come to know his grace and mercy unto salvation than hearing and believing the gospel of Jesus Christ (restrictivism). My point in reporting and commenting on that conversation was not to pick on that individual; it was to respond to a recurring theme in numerous conversation I’ve had with conservative Christians who claim that any belief other than restrictivism undermines evangelism and missions." --Olson


Continue below.


Texts of Terror


--Nick

Conditional Futurism

James is co-founder of the Evangelical Universalist forum, and this book looks to present assorted arguments in new and interesting ways. Looks absolutely fascinating! If one has any interest in OT and NT prophecy as well as the end of All Things, this looks to be a good start.

*update*

I've completed my review of it and sent it to my boss. Should be out relatively soon. I won't spoil anything but I will say that it is indeed not something an opponent can easily dismiss. 

Plus, Thomas Talbott endorsed it. ;)

Conditional Futurism -- New Perspective of End-Times Prophecy

--Nick