You’ll enjoy this post by Fred Sanders at the new Evangel blog: http://firstthings.com/blogs/evangel/2009/10/g-r-a-c-e/

Teaser:  ”For fundamentalists: Gotta Really Agressively Confront Ecumaniacs”

I recently enjoyed this short article:  Lester L. Grabbe, “Scribes and Synagogues,” in The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies, Oxford Handbooks in Religion and Theology (Oxford University Press, 2006), 362-71.  Some tidbits:

An interesting quote from Ben Sira:

A scholar’s wisdom comes from ample leisure; to be wise he must be relieved of other tasks. How can one become wise who guides the plough . . . whose talk is all about cattle? (34:24f)

“The position [of scribe] could vary from a rather lowly individual keeping records in a warehouse to a high minister of state whose office was an important one in the established government.”  Josephus mentions various levels: village clerks, secretary to Herod, secretary of the Sanhedrin, scribes of the temple. (365)

Grabbe suggests that the “scribes” of the NT were not an independent sect or group, but are perhaps best understood as “scribes of the Pharisees,” that is, among that particular sect (cf. Mk 2:16; Acts 23:9). (365-66)

“The ideal of public education is a modern concept. In antiquity the wealthy might hire tutors, and we know that in the Graeco-Roman world ‘sophists’ would take on pupils for payment. Greek cities also operated a ‘gymnasium’ for the training of citizens, but this was limited to the small number who qualified as citizens. In short, a system of schools for the general public was unknown.”

“No source refers to the synagogue or anything like until the third century BCE.” (367) “The earliest references to anything like synagogues in extant literature [italics added; earlier evidence was inscriptional/archaeological] are found no earlier than the first century CE.” (368)

A nice quote from Ben Sira:

A scholar’s wisdom comes from ample leisure; to be wise he must be relieved of other tasks.  How can one become wise who guides the plough . . . whose talk is all about cattle? (34:24f)

“The position [of scribe] could vary from a rather lowly individual keeping records in a warehouse to a high minister of state whose office was an important one in the established government.”  Josephus mentions various levels: village clerks, secretary to Herod, secretary of the Sanhedrin, scribes of the temple. (365)

Grabbe suggests that the “scribes” of the NT were not an independent sect or group, on par with the Pharisees, but are perhaps best understood as “scribes of the Pharisees,” that is, among that particular sect (cf. Mk 2:16; Acts 23:9). (365-66)

In discussing literacy in the NT era, Grabbe notes, “The ideal of public education is a modern concept. In antiquity the wealthy might hire tutors, and we know that in the Graeco-Roman world ‘sophists’ would take on pupils for payment. Greek cities also operated a ‘gymnasium’ for the training of citizens, but this was limited to the small number who qualified as citizens. In short, a system of schools for the general public was unknown.” (366)

“No source refers to the synagogue or anything like until the third century BCE.” (367) “The earliest references to anything like synagogues in extant literature [my italics; earlier evidence was inscriptional/archaeological] are found no earlier than the first century CE.” (368)

When paging through the schedule for the upcoming SBL meeting, I came across Baylor’s advertisement and happily discovered a newer series of which I had been entirely unaware.  The Baylor Handbook on the Greek New Testament series looks to be quite helpful.  It makes me think of a beefed-up Rogers and Rogers Linguistic Key, and is also reminiscent of Eerdman’s regrettably defunct Exegetical Guides to the Greek New Testament series (which petered out after the first volume, Colossians and Philemon, by Murray J. Harris). Currently, there are two volumes available (I, II, III John by Martin M. Culy and Acts by Culy and Mikeal C. Parsons) and one in the pipeline (Ephesians by William J. Larkin).

The advantage to volumes like this over commentaries is their high level of focus on the Greek text.  They are not so much concerned with providing a coherent explanation of the flow of thought of a biblical book as they are with discussing the nitty-gritty details of syntax and grammar in the underlying text.  These volumes are running $20-$30 on Amazon and look to be an excellent addition to an expositor’s library.  The “Look Inside” feature is active for preview of the already-published volumes on Amazon.  If I were going to be teaching or preaching through Ephesians, the Johannine epistles, or Acts, I’d order the corresponding volume immediately.

David deSilva, in An Introduction to the New Testament (2004), suggests a full-orbed exegetical method which he calls “socio-rhetorical interpretation” (following Vernon K. Robbins).  It was interesting to read his take on this method, for I had always understood “socio-rhetorical” to have reference only (or at least primarily) to (1) background/sociological issues and (2) the related category of analyzing how the rhetorical aspects of the text would have been understood in Greco-Roman society.  As deSilva defines “socio-rhetorical interpretation,” however, the followng are all involved.

1) First level of study: “inner texture” — detailed analysis of the text itself.  Includes textual criticism, lexical analysis, grammatical analysis, literary context, “repetitive texture” (repetition which reveals thematic material), rhetorical criticism, genre analysis (e.g., interpreting parables, epistolary analysis).

2) Second level of study: “intertexture” — the text in conversation with other “texts”.  Includes examining any quotation or allusion to the OT, or to Greco-Roman or Hellenistic Jewish traditions.

3) Third level of study: social and cultural texture — the intersection of a text and its world.  Includes examining the world of the author/original audience to determine how it might affect our understanding of the text, and social-scientific analysis (examining “how a passage orients its audience to the world of everyday life and how it seeks to shape their relationships and interactions with one another”).

4) Fourth level of study: “ideological texture” — agendas of authors and interpreters.  Involves asking what the goals of the author are, and examining how the author uses his text to achieve his goals (his “persuasive strategy”); asking whether our own agendas or presuppositions have influenced our understanding of the text adversely.

Somehow, I have been entirely ignorant of the relatively new blog begun by my alma mater, Central Baptist Seminary: “Theology Central”.  Definitely worth subscribing to.

Further, I was unaware of Craig Muri’s blog until I connected with Theology Central, and I commend muri.com to your reading as well.

Of course Dave Doran’s blog Glory and Grace is well worth your time.

And here’s a treasure–Doug Bookman has a blog!  The Rabbit Trail is very aptly named, and a welcome addition to my feeds.

In preparing for a sermon, I perused an article by recently-deceased NT scholar Reginald H. Fuller:  ”John 20:19-23,” Interpretation 32 (1978): 180-84.  Fuller is no conservative, denying the historicity of this passage, and in his article is concerned to discuss the proper way that a preacher may rightly preach a passage which, while having “a historical nucleus” (180), is actually “not . . . a historical report, but  . . . a pre-Gospel appearance story redacted by the Evangelist” (182).  That is (as he goes on to note), “Jesus did not really appear in the upper room on Easter Sunday evening; this is a tradition that grew up in the oral period (or as a result of the Evangelist’s redaction, as the case may be” (182).

One can understand the problem.  If one doesn’t believe that what Scripture said happened really happened, how does one preach it authoritatively to one’s congregation?  The ghost of Bultmann would frown on saying this passage relates a historical event, but, as Fuller notes, all the same, it is embarrassing to straightforwardly tell one’s congregation that the event didn’t really happen.

The solution, as Fuller sees it, is to concentrate on the “kerygmatic truth” of the passage, the “proclamation” of which the non-historical text is the vehicle (182). That is, don’t give much attention at all to the matter of what actually happened.  Don’t try to harmonize the text with other related texts.  No, instead–referencing Reinhold Niebuhr–the preacher must “be a deceiver and yet true.”  Or–referencing Paul Ricoeur–he must achieve “a second naïveté” (182).

Oh, the tangled web we weave!  I will note that Fuller does not deny the historicity of Christ’s resurrection (180).  That being said, it seems that when one picks and chooses which NT events are historical and which aren’t — when in both cases the text presents the event as historical — one finds it difficult to defend the historicity of any purportedly historical text.  And “if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Cor 15:14).

In addition, Paul has some pretty straightforward language regarding the use of “deception” in the proclamation of the gospel message: “Our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive” (1 Thess 2:3).  Niebuhr notwithstanding, I would aver that the preacher of the gospel must not be a deceiver in any way.

Does it not become suggestive that one is on the wrong path when one must speak of the “embarrassment” (182) that one might feel in telling the congregation about the text and its lack of historicity?

I enjoyed Charles Scobie’s comments on the “higher standard of judgment” which comes from being part of the elect people of God:

Being God’s chosen people does not mean that he will judge them less severely. On the contrary, since God’s will has been more clearly revealed to them and they have been chosen to serve God in a special way, their failures will bring greater condemnation.  The prototypical rebellion of Israel against God through the worship of the golden calf (Exod 32) resulted in the slaughter of three thousand of the people (v. 28) and in the sending of a plague (v. 35).  In Num 21 the Israelite’s rebellious complaints resulted in an attack by poisonous serpents as a result of which many died (v. 6).

Israel is not spared divine judgment because they are God’s people; indeed, it is precisely because they are the covenant community that God disciplines them. This pattern continues throughout the OT: as already noted, God’s dealings with his people constitute not only a history of salvation (Heilsgeschichte) but also a history of judgment.  Election and covenant are the basic presuppositions of the prophets’ messages of judgment.  Nowhere is this more forcefully put than in Amos 3:2, where God says to Israel:

You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.

“The Election is the often unexpressed but always evident basis of every prophecy of judgment; it heightens the claim on Israel, and results in a correspondingly harder punishment” (quote from G. A. Dannell, “The Idea of God’s People in the Bible,” in The Root of the Vine: Essays in Biblical Theology, ed. A. Fridrichsen New York: Philosophical Library, 1953], 31)

Charles H. H. Scobie, The Ways of Our God: An Approach to Biblical Theology (Eerdmans, 2003), 472-73.

My wife and I sang this song yesterday in our morning service.  An excellent text by Johann Franck, and translated by the incomparable Catherine Winkworth.

“Jesus, Priceless Treasure”

Jesus, priceless treasure, fount of purest pleasure,
truest Friend to me:
Ah, how long in anguish shall my spirit languish,
yearning, Lord, for thee?
Thine I am, O spotless Lamb!
I will suffer naught to hide thee,
Naught I ask beside thee.

In thine arms I rest me; foes who would molest me
cannot reach me here.
Though the earth be shaking, ev’ry heart be quaking,
Jesus calms my fear.
Lightnings flash and thunders crash;
Yet, though sin and hell assail me,
Jesus will not fail me.

Satan, I defy thee; death, I now decry thee;
fear, I bid thee cease.
World, thou shalt not harm me nor thy threats alarm me
while I sing of peace.
God’s great pow’r guards ev’ry hour;
Earth and all its depths adore him,
Silent bow before him.

Hence with earthly treasure! Thou art all my pleasure,
Jesus, all my choice.
Hence, thou empty glory! Naught to me thy story
told with tempting voice.
Pain or loss or shame or cross
Shall not from my Savior move me,
Since he deigns to love me.

Hence, all fear and sadness! For the Lord of gladness,
Jesus, enters in.
Those who love the Father, though the storms may gather,
Still have peace within.
Yea, whate’er I here must bear,
Thou art my still my purest pleasure,
Jesus, priceless treasure.

One can argue (rightly, I opine) that a person leaving a church for doctrinal / ethical issues is a species of ecclesiastical separation — which is, as Kevin Bauder notes, is about “separation within the boundaries of the professing church” (original emphasis).  John Calvin has some interesting things to say in the Institutes (Book 4, Chapter 12) about this practice, given his own history as a reformer.

…private individuals must not, when they see vices less carefully corrected by the Council of Elders, immediately separate themselves from the Church; nor must pastors themselves, when unable to reform all things which need correction to the extent which they could wish, cast up their ministry, or by unwonted severity throw the whole Church into confusion.  What Augustine says is perfectly true: “Whoever corrects what he can, by rebuking it, or without violating the bond of peace, excludes what he cannot correct, or unjustly condemns while he patiently tolerates what he is unable to exclude without violating the bond of peace, is free and exempted from the curse.”  He elsewhere gives the reason. “Every pious reason and mode of ecclesiastical discipline ought always to have regard to the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.  This the apostle commands us to keep by bearing mutually with each other.  If it is not kept, the medicine of discipline begins to be not only superfluous, but even pernicious, and therefore ceases to be medicine.

He [Augustine] confesses, indeed, that pastors ought not only to exert themselves in removing every defect from the Church, but that every individual ought to his utmost to do so; nor does he disguise the fact, that he who neglects to admonish, accuse, and correct the bad, although he neither favours them, nor sins with them, is guilty before the Lord; and if he conducts himself so that though he can exclude them from partaking of the Supper, he does it not, then the sin is no longer that of other men, but his own. Only he would have that prudence used which our Lord also requires, “lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.”

Calvin goes on to note the Donatists (in Augustine’s time) and the Anabaptists (in his own) as what he sees as examples of over-zealous separation:

when [the Donatists] saw faults in the Church which the bishops indeed rebuked verbally, but did not punish with excommunication (because they did not think that anything would be gained in this way), bitterly inveighed against the bishops as traitors to discipline, and by an impious schism separated themselves from the flock of Christ.  Similar, in the present day, is the conduct of the Anabaptists, who, acknowledging no assembly of Christ unless conspicuous in all respects for angelic perfection, under pretence of zeal overthrow everything which tends to edification. 

A friend and I sang this as a duet not long ago.  What a text!

“Christ Jesus Lay in Death’s Strong Bands,” Martin Luther, trans. Richard Massie.

Christ Jesus lay in death’s strong bands,
For our offenses given;
But now at God’s right hand He stands,
And brings us life from Heaven.
Wherefore let us joyful be,
And sing to God right thankfully
Loud songs of Alleluia! Alleluia!

No son of man could conquer Death,
Such mischief sin had wrought us,
For innocence dwelt not on earth,
And therefore Death had brought us
Into thralldom from of old
And ever grew more strong and bold
And kept us in his bondage. Alleluia!

But Jesus Christ, God’s only Son,
To our low state descended,
The cause of Death He has undone,
His power forever ended,
Ruined all his right and claim
And left him nothing but the name,
His sting is lost forever. Alleluia!

It was a strange and dreadful strife
When life and death contended;
The victory remained with life;
The reign of death was ended.
Stripped of power, no more it reigns,
An empty form alone remains
Death’s sting is lost forever! Alleluia!

Here the true Paschal Lamb we see,
Whom God so freely gave us;
He died on the accursed tree—
So strong His love!—to save us.
See, His blood doth mark our door;
Faith points to it, Death passes over,
And Satan cannot harm us. Alleluia!

So let us keep the festival
Where to the Lord invites us;
Christ is Himself the joy of all,
The Sun that warms and lights us.
By His grace He doth impart
Eternal sunshine to the heart;
The night of sin is ended! Alleluia!

Then let us feast this Easter day
On the true Bread of Heaven;
The Word of grace hath purged away
The old and wicked leaven.
Christ alone our souls will feed;
He is our Meat and Drink indeed;
Faith lives upon no other! Alleluia!