Category Archives: Bible Studies

Posts which are Bible studies

The ruins of Babylon are still there …

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… although damaged by Saddam Hussein’s reconstructions and by an American-build helicopter pad. The BBC has a report from the site, with a brief video and pictures. It seems there is plenty of the ancient city still in place, mostly unexcavated. Nebuchadnezzar’s palace can be seen alongside Saddam’s. There is work there for generations of archaeologists in uncovering a city which was already ancient in the time of the biblical Nebuchadnezzar.

See also this audio slideshow which is a trailer for an exhibition ‘Babylon: Myth and Reality’ at the British Museum in London, from now until March 2009. I’m not sure how many of the original tiles of the Ishtar Gate, now rebuilt by Saddam, are in London. But when I saw some of them in their regular museum home in Istanbul, I was stunned by their beauty and magnificence.

Right through the Bible Babylon (or Babel) is a symbol of evil, megalomania, and resistance to God. Saddam Hussein was perhaps consciously continuing this tradition. But in the New Testament Babylon is not just the physical city which was already in ruins. The lament over Babylon in Revelation 18 seems to be less for the city and more for the system of world trade which it symbolised. That system is now also in ruins, it seems – perhaps it will recover in part, but the time will surely come when God will put a final end to it.

How many tetrarchs inherited Herod's kingdom?

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A post by Bill Heroman on the obscure figure Lysanias, tetrarch of Abilene, known from Luke 3:1 and a very few ancient inscriptions, has turned up a bit of a mystery and misunderstanding. See also this post about Abilene.

It is very easy for someone with a little knowledge of Greek to deduce that the Greek word τετραάρχης tetraarchēs, traditionally transliterated “tetrarch”, means “ruler of a quarter”, that is, ruler of one of four subdivisions of a wider area. And indeed that is probably what it meant in classical Greek. But, as we shall see, this definition is rather misleading for the New Testament period.

Luke 3:1 mentions three tetrarchs (actually using the related verb for ruling as a tetrarch) ruling in 28 AD (as dated by Bill), Herod (otherwise known as Antipas) of Galilee, Philip of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias of Abilene. Luke also mentions that Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, the area which Bible readers will remember from Matthew 2:22 was ruled by Archelaus after the death of Herod the Great in 4 BC. It is well known from secular sources that Archelaus was deposed and replaced by a Roman governor in about 6 AD. It is also well known that Herod Antipas and Philip, also sons of Herod the Great, became rulers of parts of his kingdom on his death. The casual reader will easily conclude that Luke in 3:1 was listing the four successors of Herod the Great at that time, each ruling a quarter of what had been Herod’s kingdom. Indeed this seems to be the conclusion reached by the NIV Study Bible in its note on Matthew 14:1:

tetrarch. The ruler of the fourth part of a region. … At the death of Herod the Great the area [Palestine] was divided among four of his sons.

Wrong! – at least if the evidence Bill notes in a comment is correct, that Abilene had never been part of Herod’s kingdom. Actually the NIV Study Bible is inconsistent but apparently more accurate in its note on Luke 3:1:

At the death of Herod the Great (4 B.C.) his sons – Archelaus, Herod Antipas and Herod Philip – were given jurisdiction over his divided kingdom.

No mention here of a fourth son, and no suggestion that Lysanias was a successor of Herod the Great.

It seems that by the time of Jesus the term “tetrarch” had acquired a less specific meaning, perhaps “ruler of a subdivision” or simply “ruler of lesser status than a king”. It also seems that there were only three subdivisions of Herod the Great’s kingdom, and so only three tetrarchs within its boundaries, reduced to two when Archelaus was deposed. Lysanias was simply a low status ruler of a rather small neighbouring territory.

But I think the question must also arise of how Luke understood the situation. He may have understood “tetrarch” in its more classical sense. The form of Luke 3:1 suggests to me that he considered Lysanias to be a successor of Herod the Great like Antipas and Philip, and so one of the originally four tetrarchs. Or perhaps he took Abilene to be part of Palestine and so listed Lysanias as a ruler of one of four divisions of it. In fact Abilene lay a little to the north of the traditional boundaries of the Holy Land (and the borders of modern Israel), on the northern side of Mount Hermon. But then we shouldn’t insist on Luke being entirely accurate as a historian and geographer, although he has been proved to be much better at that than many liberal scholars used to think.

It seems to have been a popular misunderstanding that Herod the Great’s kingdom was divided into four. It is one which until today I shared with the author of the NIV Study Bible note on Matthew 14:1. Assuming that this really is an error, it is one which needs to be corrected with good publicity. So perhaps I can play my part in doing that.

Wheat or weed?

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My commenter Daron Medway has brought up the parable of the wheat and the weeds in Matthew 13 and how it relates to the issues concerning The Donatists, GAFCON, and the Todd Bentley critics. I refuse to use the traditional name “the wheat and the tares” for this parable because I have never heard the word “tares” used in any other context. Anyway, my preferred title “wheat and weeds” is not only alliterative but, by a happy chance of the modern English language, illustrates within itself one of the main points of the parable, that “wheat” and “weed” are indistinguishable except at the end, and even then only slightly distinct.

I was a bit reluctant to apply this parable to the situation in question because I am aware of a popular misunderstanding of the parable, going back I think to Augustine, in which the field is not the world, as Jesus clearly states in Matthew 13:38, but the visible church. The parable is not teaching, as Augustine misinterpreted it, that false believers should be allowed to remain alongside true ones in the church. At this point I think I am agreeing with Daron. The point is rather that Christians, the servants in the parable, should not be trying to judge the world around them now, but leaving it to God to sort out the mess at the end of time. This might be a lesson for the US government to stop interfering in other countries’ problems, but it is not one for the GAFCON leaders or the critics of Todd Bentley.

But there is a message for this situation from the parable of the wheat and the weeds. That message is that wheat and weeds, at least some kinds of weeds, look very much the same until wheat sprouts and forms ears (verse 26); it was only then that the servants could distinguish them. That is, the difference between the two could be discerned only when the fruit became visible. This is of course the same teaching as Jesus gave in the Sermon on the Mount:

Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.

Matthew 7:15-18 (TNIV)

No one can tell the difference from the outward appearance, for both sheep and wolves look like sheep. The only way to distinguish between the two groups is to wait for the fruit to appear.

This implies that it is still rather early to make definitive judgments about Todd Bentley. I think there has been good fruit, but there have also been reports of bad fruit. We will have to wait and see.

As for making judgments about errant Anglicans, there has been much more time to assess their fruit. I am not in a position to make personal judgments, but if I can trust what others say there has been plenty of bad fruit produced in certain areas and not much good. So we can be rather sure that there are false prophets around. What to do about them, when they are in positions of authority in the church, is another issue. Does the principle of the parable apply, to leave them be until God sorts things out at the end of time? I’m not sure.

Did Jesus say Christians will not marry?

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I was startled this evening by a Bible passage quoted by ElShaddai Edwards, even though it is taken from my current favourite Bible translation:

Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, 36 and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection. …”

Luke 20:34-36 (TNIV)

I was startled by what this appears to be saying. The contrast is between “The people of this age” (more literally “the sons of this age” but intended to be gender generic) and “those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead” (RSV “those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead”). This sounds at first like a contrast between worldly, sinful people and faithful Christians. After all in Luke 16:8 the same phrase in Greek, literally “the sons of this age”, seems to refer to dishonest people. So this passage would appear to be Jesus teaching that good Christians will not marry. Could that be what Jesus, or Luke, was really saying? Could this be the same teaching, but in stronger form, as Paul’s in 1 Corinthians 7:25-35?

The question cannot be resolved from the parallel passages as they omit this contrast and give much simpler readings:

At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.

Matthew 22:30 (TNIV)

When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.

Mark 12:25 (TNIV)

But it seems to me that there is a clear but subtle indication that Jesus’ meaning is not what I have suggested. It can be found only in the original Greek, not in English translations. I have checked all the versions of these verses at Bible Gateway and not one of them makes this point clear. The Greek word rendered in TNIV as “considered worthy” is an aorist or past participle, indicating an event preceding what follows. So an accurate rendering of the first part of verse 35 would be “But those who have been considered worthy of taking part”, or more pedantically “But those who will have been considered worthy of taking part”. The Greek clearly means that first they have been considered worthy and only then they do not marry. And the phrase “considered worthy of taking part” cannot be divided up temporally; if they have been considered worthy of taking part, that means that they have already attained this and are taking part in it. Luke uses a similar phrase in Acts 5:41, with the same main Greek verb, which implies that the apostles had suffered disgrace, not that they might do in future.

So, despite the possible misunderstanding in almost any English translation, Jesus’ words as recorded for us in Greek seem unambiguous. The ones who do not marry are not Christians who are looking forward to “taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead”, but those who are already taking part in them, in other words those who have been raised from the dead. Thus Luke teaches the same as Matthew and Mark.

As for “The people of this age”, the ones who do marry, the implication is that this phrase refers to everyone alive in this world, Christian or not. That may have implications for the understanding of the enigmatic passage in which Luke 16:8 appears – although we then have to ask, who are “the people of the light” in this verse?

Blessing the Lord

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Roger Mugs writes a good post about the importance of blessing the Lord, based on Psalm 102:1-2. He concludes:

… the East is a LONG ways from the West. There is nothing about the East that is ANYTHING like the West.

Our God removed our sins that far from us. So next time before a meal instead of “Good food, good meat, good God lets eat,” try a “God we bless you for your steadfast love, for your provision for this meal, for your great love for us, for dying on the cross for us. Bless you God!”

But what does it mean to bless the Lord? Clearly not what “bless” meant to the author of Hebrews 7:7. This was a real problem in the project I worked on, for translation of the Bible into a language without a long tradition of Christian terminology. There is a word meaning “pronounce a blessing”, but we could not use that of a lesser blessing a greater. There is one meaning “give abundantly to”, but that did not fit either. We could just say “praise”, like some modern English translations, but we wanted to avoid too much repetition and anyway this word does not fit everywhere.

Eventually we used in most places a word which is usually translated “applaud”, not necessarily in the sense of clapping hands, but would also include shouts like “Bravo!” But even that doesn’t really work in the case of blessing God for a meal.

And things became even more complicated in the case of blessing the bread, fish and wine at the feedings of the 5,000 and 4,000 and at the Last Supper. In these places the gospel writers made a careful distinction between two Greek words, one usually translated “give thanks” and the other “bless”. Now “give thanks” is clearly directed at God. In the context “bless” is probably to be understood in the same sense. Thus in Matthew 14:19 “he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke and gave the loaves” (RSV) the implied object of “blessed” is probably God rather than the loaves, especially because Jewish prayers of thanksgiving for meals always start something like “Blessed are you, Lord our God …” (I note that in Mark 8:7 and Luke 9:16 a literal translation is “he blessed them”, i.e. the fish or loaves are the grammatical object, but this too can be understood as “he blessed God for them”; similarly also in 1 Corinthians 10:16.) So there is no concept here of blessing being associated with a material object. (Indeed Deuteronomy 28:4,5,8 are just about the only cases in the Bible of this kind of association, and caused a different translation problem.) In fact in our translation we could not use the regular “bless” or “applaud” words and had to render “he said the prayer of thanks”. I note that TNIV simply uses “give thanks” for both the Greek words, used almost synonymously.

By the way, we used a quite different word in cases like Matthew 5:3-11 and Psalm 1:1, representing different Greek and Hebrew words.

The lesson I take from this is that we need to unpack the meaning of a word like “bless”, which is quite different in different contexts, even if the same Hebrew and Greek words are used. We have to do this and then restate the concept in appropriate words if we want to communicate such things to people whose regular language is as far from Christian jargon as the East is from the West – which means plenty of people in the West as well as the majority in the East.

Yes, Roger is right, we need to bless God, applaud him, give him thanks for all the great things he has done for us. And as Jews as well as many Christians have understood, one of the best times to do this than before a meal.

Impartation and Ordination

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Henry Neufeld asked the question, in this post at Threads from Henry’s Web, whether there is some kind of impartation, analogous to what Todd Bentley offers, in ordination to the priesthood or pastorate. The following is adapted and expanded from a comment I made on that post.

First I want to look at some biblical material which links impartation and what might be considered the biblical prototype of ordination.

We do have at least one mass impartation meeting in the Bible, in Acts 8:15-17, where Peter and John placed their hands on large numbers of people in Samaria and they each received the Holy Spirit. In verse 18 we read specifically that “the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands” (TNIV). These people were already baptised believers but had not experienced the Holy Spirit in their own lives. This sounds all very like Lakeland to me, although I am sure many of the people receiving an impartation from Todd Bentley have been filled with the Spirit before and are seeking a refilling (cf Acts 4:31, Ephesians 5:18) or greater power.

Within church tradition (at least Anglican and I think Roman Catholic) this event in Samaria is seen as the prototype of confirmation, rather than of ordination – a blessing imparted by the apostles and so now to be imparted only by bishops, but offered to all believers and not just those chosen for office in the church; also it is not transferable in that those confirmed do not acquire the power to confirm others. In fact not even Philip who evangelised Samaria seems to have the power to impart this blessing; he had been commissioned by the apostles with the laying on of hands (Acts 6:6) but for a different role as a prototype deacon, in what is understood in the tradition as the first ordination to the diaconate – not to the episcopate, so he could not confirm people. Note, however, that Philip had received the power to perform signs and wonders (Acts 8:6-7), something which is in principle available to all Spirit-filled believers, not just ordained clergy.

Now it is interesting to see what Simon the sorcerer made of this, in Acts 8:18-19. Presumably he received along with all the others the impartation which was not transferable, analogous to confirmation. But he wanted more, and made the serious mistake of offering money for it. What he wanted was the transferred power to impart the Holy Spirit to others, or in the terms of church tradition he wanted to be ordained or consecrated to the episcopate so that he could confirm others. Peter and John, as apostles, could presumably have performed this impartation, but for very good reasons refused to do so. So, whereas the non-transferable impartation was offered to freely to all who believed, the transferable impartation was carefully guarded.

It is not entirely clear how, if by any human means, the power to impart the Holy Spirit was passed outside the immediate circle of the apostles. We can surmise that when the apostles sent Barnabas to Antioch (Acts 11:22) he was given this power of transferable impartation; or, in traditional terms, he was consecrated bishop. When later (Acts 13:2-3) he and Saul/Paul were commissioned with laying on of hands for their missionary journeys, it may be that Saul was also given this power; certainly by the time he gets to Ephesus (Acts 19:6) Paul is able to pray for people to be filled with the Holy Spirit. However, Paul insists that he received his apostleship direct from the risen Christ, and not from the original apostles (Galatians 1:1). Paul seems to have passed his commissioning on to Timothy in some kind of ceremony of impartation (2 Timothy 1:6), and he and Titus (Titus 1:5) seem to have had the right to appoint elders and “bishops”.

This is, I suppose, the biblical basis for the (Roman and Anglo-) Catholic concept of the apostolic succession, that true bishops and priests must be ordained through an unbroken succession of laying on of hands from the apostles. Most Protestant Christians do not consider this necessary, and indeed do not have bishops. The ordination Henry Neufeld referred to was into the United Methodist Church which does have bishops, but they are not in the proper apostolic succession because the first American Methodist bishops were ordained by John Wesley, who was a priest, not a bishop. Interestingly, some charismatic and Pentecostal denominations, such as the one which consecrated Bishop Michael Reid, do consider it important to have bishops in a genuine apostolic succession.

Now while I would be surprised if Todd Bentley actually considers the apostolic succession to be important, his concept of transferable impartation seems to be in the same tradition. He believes in and practises laying hands, or cloths, on people so that they receive for themselves not only filling with the Holy Spirit but also the power to pass this impartation on to others.

Now an interesting corollary of the traditional apostolic succession teaching is that if one rogue bishop chose to ordain or consecrate everyone at mass meetings and taught them to do the same, a situation could quite quickly come about in which millions of believers worldwide became bishops and would have to be recognised as such by the Catholic churches. One might however argue that this rogue bishop would be doing the right thing, in fulfilment of Moses’ prayer in Numbers 11:29 and Joel’s prophecy quoted in Acts 2:17-21, which foresee a universal outpouring of the Holy Spirit not restricted by the limited number of apostles who could mediate it.

What Todd seems to be doing is what the rogue bishop might do. Now I don’t mean to suggest that Todd actually stands in any literal apostolic succession, although that is possible. But he seems to be offering a transferable impartation to all, and teaching all to pass it on to others. On the traditional understanding he is consecrating all and sundry as bishops. In this way the impartation will soon make its way to every Christian worldwide who is willing to receive it.

Of course this begs the question of whether the impartation, what is passed on by laying on of hands, is in any way real in the spiritual realm. On that issue all I can say is that this kind of impartation does seem to have been significant to the apostles – also that thousands of people including myself have experienced something real if subjective when given the Todd Bentley impartation either directly or indirectly.

One lesson we can learn from all this is that there are no neat rules or formulae for how this kind of impartation works. God is not bound the apostolic succession but can do a new thing. As he raised up Paul independently of the established apostles, so he can also raise up new leaders even from stones (compare Luke 3:8), people like John Wesley, who was never a bishop, and apparently Todd Bentley. And given the weakness and apostasy of so many bishops in what remains of the original apostolic succession, at least the Anglican branch of it, it would hardly be surprising if God raised up a new source of transferable impartation which he chooses to use to pour out his Spirit on a needy world.

The Old Testament Good Samaritans

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It is not often these days that I find a Bible story which I don’t remember reading before, and even less often that I find one which is clearly linked to a well known parable of Jesus. But I have just discovered, as if for the first time, 2 Chronicles 28:5-15, thanks to a post about this from Michael Barber. In this passage the people of Samaria, in response to a message from the prophet Oded, released some captive Jews (that is, Judeans), provided for them, put some of them on donkeys, and escorted them to a place of safety in Jericho. The parallels with the parable of the Good Samaritan are very obvious when you look for them.

Oded’s prophetic message is that the people of Samaria (actually at that time the northern kingdom Israelites, not the mixed people who later became known as Samaritans) should not oppress people from other nations. But the message which Jesus brings out of his parable is surely similar to the one which the Chronicler wanted to bring out by including this incident, that God is working even in other nations and that they should not be despised as entirely evil.

So, even though Michael is a Roman Catholic and gives clear reasons why I am not, his blog is great!

Satan in Job

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Brian Fulthorp has brought my attention back to Tyler Williams’ post The Mysterious Appearance of “Satan” in English Translations of the Book of Job, also discussed by Chris Heard.

Now Tyler’s main point is quite correct. Formally, in Job chapters 1 and 2 there is no proper name “Satan”, but only several occurrences of a common noun with the definite article, ha-satan meaning “the adversary”. (In Hebrew, as in English but not Greek, proper nouns never take the definite article.) In the Hebrew Bible only in 1 Chronicles 21:1 does the proper noun satan, the name “Satan”, appear.

But who is “the adversary” referred to in Job, and similarly in Zechariah 3:1-2, if he is not in fact the one we know of as Satan or the Devil? In the context he must be a spiritual or angelic being with close access to God. There is good reason to identify him with the named Satan of 1 Chronicles 21:1. In Jewish writings later than the Hebrew Bible, for example Wisdom of Solomon 2:24, and then in the New Testament and other Christian works, this figure becomes identified with the tempter in the Garden of Eden and with the prince of demons. In Greek the word is usually translated as a proper noun diabolos “adversary” (or “devil”, but that is a secondary meaning of the word), and sometimes transliterated as a name, Satanas, but there is no question that in the New Testament these two words refer to the same being.It seems clear to me what has happened with the Hebrew word here: a common or generic noun has become identified primarily with an individual and so has gradually become a proper name. The same happened with Adam, who is at first ha-adam “the human being” and only gradually becomes adam as a proper name without the article. Also much the same happens with elohim “God”: sometimes we read ha-elohim “the god” as a common noun, and rather more often just elohim “God” as a proper name. But of course in Genesis 2-3 the person referred to as “the human being” is the same person as “Adam”, and throughout the Hebrew Bible the being referred to as “the god” is almost always the one true “God”. So similarly we should probably understand “the adversary”, in suitable contexts, and “Satan” as slightly different ways of referring to the same spiritual being.

Yes, Tyler is correct to note that

There is significant theological development from the time of the Old Testament through the Second Temple period to the New Testament and beyond.

That is true in our understanding not just of Satan, but also of God. This does not imply that the being referred to in the Hebrew Bible as “the god” and as “God” is not the same being as God in the New Testament. See what Jeremy Pierce has written on this issue, in the different context of showing that the God of the Muslims is also the same as the Jewish and Christian God. By exactly the same argument we cannot infer that the being referred to in the Hebrew Bible as “the adversary” and (once) as “Satan” is not the same person as Satan in the New Testament.

There is simply a logical error, a non sequitur, in these words of Tyler:

It is pretty clear that this passage isn’t referring to “Satan” (i.e., the king of demons) since the Hebrew noun “satan” has a definite article. The biblical text refers to “the satan”, not “Satan.”

Indeed the word is “the satan” or “the adversary”, but that by no means proves or even suggests that the adversary in question is not Satan. In fact, adapting Jeremy’s argument, to the extent that the concept of Satan in the New Testament is clearly a theological development from Job’s concept of the adversary, they should be identified as most probably the same being.

Yes, it might be better to put “the adversary” rather than “Satan” in translations of Job. But this is not because, to quote Tyler with his emphasis,

it is very clear that Satan was never in the book of Job to begin with!

Rather, it is good translation practice to render a common noun as a common noun, not as a name. But I would expect to see a footnote something like:

Hebrew ha-satan, understood as referring to Satan.

How to understand the Bible on atonement

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Andrew has written an important post on the methodology of exegeting atonement doctrine, i.e. how to understand what the Bible has to say about the atonement. He explains what is wrong with the way many others study the biblical teaching on the atonement. The principles he gives here apply to the biblical teaching on any other doctrinal issue.

Andrew also outlines how, through years of study, he came to his own view of the atonement. But he doesn’t actually describe that view; he simply says:

The reasons why I think my view is best are horrendously complicated

I hope he will try to make sense of these complications in clear writing in the near future.

In the light of his own lengthy studies he writes:

I think this makes me truly appreciate works where the author[s] … have long grappled with all the different atonement ideas and really understand the situation. I think this is what made me so contemptuous of Pierced For Our Transgressions as the authors demonstrated ignorance on all the important issues and had set out to prove what they had been taught in response to some else denying the truth of what they had been taught.

Ouch! Read Andrew’s post for some justification for this statement.

UPDATE 26th July: Andrew has followed this up with a post The same cup, which shows clearly how flawed is the argument, used in Pierced for Our Transgressions and elsewhere, that Jesus’ use of the word “cup” for his sufferings implies that God was wrathful towards him.

Does the risen Jesus have blood?

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This is the somewhat arcane question which has been raised on the b-trans e-mail list, and is also related to my post on Hebrews 2:14 at Better Bibles Blog and to Lingamish’s response to that post.

The discussion started when I objected to a proposed rendering “mortal humanity” in Hebrews 2:14, to replace or refer back to the literal “flesh and blood”. My issue was that “flesh and blood” refers to humanity in general, not just to mortal humanity but also to the resurrection bodies which Jesus has and which we will have. But I was surprised that my suggestion proved so controversial. Here I hope to show that Jesus’ resurrection body has blood, and that this is important for our salvation.

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