Advent is upon us, formally beginning tomorrow, Sunday, November 29.  I wanted to post here links to last year’s collection of past observations on the incarnation.

Irenaeus ( – c. 202) on the Incarnation

Tertullian (c. 160 – c. 220) on the Incarnation

Cyprian ( -258) on the Incarnation

Methodius ( -311) on the Incarnation

Athanasius (293-373) on the Incarnation

Ambrose (c. 340-397) on the Incarnation

Chalcedon (451) on the Incarnation

Martin Luther (1483-1546) on the Incarnation

John Calvin (1509-1564) on the Incarnation (1)

John Calvin (1509-1564) on the Incarnation (2)

John Donne (1572-1631) on the Incarnation

John Gill (1697-1771) on the Incarnation

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) on the Incarnation (1)

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) on the Incarnation (2)

Charles Wesley (1707-1788) on the Incarnation

Louis Berkhof (1873-1957) on the Incarnation

C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) on the Incarnation

David Wells (1939- ) on the Incarnation

Robert Reymond on the Incarnation

K. C. Hanson and Douglas E. Oakman, Palestine in the Time of Jesus: Social Structures and Social Conflicts, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008).

This interesting work, developed as a textbook for college/seminary students and recently revised, was a fascinating read.  The major chapters of the book address various “domains” in first-century Palestine: kinship/family, politics/patronage, economy, and religion. They relate these “domains” thus: “Mediterranean societies, organized at the core around dominant families, issued in politics and political arrangements (treatment of all other families and clans) that structured both economic life (especially within households but also between households) and religious institutions (beliefs, rituals, practices)” (xxii).  As the book’s title indicates, Hanson and Oakman approach their topic from a social-scientific perspective, but even for those hesitant to embrace every aspect of their social-scientific methodology, fascinating and valuable discussions abound.  This is one of those books that helps one to better grasp the background to the NT documents, a background largely and naturally assumed by both NT authors and recipients, but foreign to contemporary readers.

As one might expect from Fortress, the reader will find Hanson and Oakman less than conservative on certain points.  The gospels are said to all have been written after the fall of Jerusalem (9), and Paul is apparently wrong on the basis for gender roles (24).

A detailed summary of the book in an RBL review can be found here.  I should also mention the companion website, which has a number of subpages with resources connected with each chapter — pictures, maps, and the like.  As well, Hanson and Oakman have included several well-done glossaries: “Ancient Groups, Institutions, Objects, and Events”; “Ancient Documents, Collections, and Authors”; and “Social-Scientific and Cross-Cultural Terms.”

Below, I’ve noted a number of interesting points that caught my eye — no rhyme, reason, or organizing scheme, just some of the things I marked as I read through the volume.

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“Most of us have never encountered some of the most common first-century Palestinian social institutions, for example, patronage/clientage, household slavery, a resident foreign army.  And conversely, first-century Palestinians would not share some of our most common institutional experiences, for example, voting, public education, free choice of spouses and careers. . . . In U.S. society, religion and economics are explicit domains (groups of institutions), while in Palestine, indeed, most of the ancient world, religious and economic institutions were embedded in kinship or politics.  By embedded, we mean that they did not exist substantially apart from the larger domains.  They were conceived and they operated as particular manifestations and subsets of political and kinship institutions.” (3)

Helpful chart on p. 22 comparing kinship in first-c. Palestine with twentieth-c. U.S.  For instance:  spousal choice controlled by custom and parents vs. free choice by couple; “marriage strategy” was ideally endogamous (within one’s own kin-group) vs. exogamous (no marriage to close relatives) by law; wedding endowment was formal (dowry, indirect dowry, bridewealth) vs. informal (family gifts); postmarital residence was “patrilocal” (with groom’s parents) vs. “neolocal” (new household); inheritances followed particular guidelines (oldest son: double; other sons: single; daughters: dowries) vs. no inheritance rules in our own culture.

“One of the key ways that a genealogy expresses the claim to honor is by the choice of the apical ancestor–the one at the head (apex) of the list. ”  For Luke this is Adam; for Matthew, this is Abraham. (48)

‘The people of first-century Palestine did not elect their rulers.  From emperors to regional governors, their rulers were either hereditary monarchs or elites appointed to their posts by distant empires.  Urban elites, whether Romans or Judeans, decided both domestic and foreign policies with little attention paid to the majority of the peasants who lived in villages.  Taxes, tolls, and tribute were not open to referendum but were imposed from above; and they were not collected to benefit the populace, but only the elites.” (61)

An excellent summary table on p. 67 of what patronage/clientage involved.  For example: Patron/client relation “do not usually take on legal or contractual forms but are very strongly binding; that is, they are informal and often opposed to official laws of the country”; Patron/client relations are based on a strong element of inequality and difference between patrons and clients (social stratification).  Patrons monopolize certain positions of crucial importance to clients, especially access to means of prosecution, major markets, and centers of society”; ”a client might easily have more than one patron (usually for different purposes).”

“The cities [in the context, those built by Herod] were considered by the Palestinians as something separate from the land as a whole.  The Herodians could get away with things in Caesarea, Sepphoris, or Tiberias that never would have been acceptable to the general population in the countryside of Galilee or Judea.” (71)

“Elites with political power . . . appointed their family members to offices.  In modern democracies this would be considered nepotism, a charge that can cause scandal or outrage . . . in the ancient Mediterranean, preference given family members was not only allowed but expected. . . . the primary allegiance was not to the state with weight given to the value of efficiency.  Rather, one strategized to maximize the benefits to one’s family . . . The negative reciprocal of this is that families could bear the brunt of political intrigue.  When ten men conspired to assassinate Herod the Great and were then discovered, their families were punished along with them. . . . the assumption would be that the conspirators never would have proceeded without the complicity of their families [think "Achan"].” (75-76)

“Why did Herod give a banquet for others on his birthday (Mark 6:21a)?  One of the key attributes of patronage/clientage in the ancient Mediterranean was banqueting.  By having banquets for one’s ‘friends,’ patrons reinforced their connections to their network and could honor those to whom they were also indebted.  It was a time to display one’s honor by how grand a feast could be offered.  The seating arrangements symbolized the relative status within the group.  Being invited indicated one’s membership in the in-group.  And banquets were opportunities not only to socialize but to share information, make deals, and cement attachments. . . . But what can we deduce from the fact that it is specifically a birthday celebration?  Birthdays were rarely celebrated except for elites in the roman world.  Moreover, no birthday celebrations are known in the Semitic world; this was a Hellenistic phenomenon.  In the Bible, the only birthday celebrations mentioned are for rulers: the Egyptian pharaoh (Gen 40:20), Antiochus IV Epiphanes of Syria (2 Macc 6:7; see also 1 Macc 1:58-59, and Herod Antipas of Galilee (Mark 6:21//Matt 14:6).  Keep in mind that Herod Antipas was educated and socialized in Rome (Josephus, Ant. 17.20), and in Roman circles the ‘genius’ of the male head of the household was celebrated on his birthday.  The genius was the life-force of the family residing in the father and passed on to the next generation.  But the genius of a king or emperor was especially significant because of his representative status; that is, his genius affected his whole kingdom.”

John the Baptist was not criticizing Herod Antipas and his wife Herodias for incest — “endogamous marriages between two cousins or uncle and niece (as Herod and Herodias) were perfectly acceptable throughout the eastern Mediterranean.  In fact, what John is exposing for public shame is that Herod and Herodias precipitated divorces in order to get married.  Beyond that, Herod virtually ’stole’ this new wife from his half brother, Philip, who was still alive.” (79)

“Crucifixion was an institution of humiliation, torture, and execution designed to deal with the people considered most threatening to the establishment and its interests.  It was public, demeaning, and painful; and it was designed to strike fear into the hearts of any who would dare pose a threat to the status quo.  ’Whenever we crucify the condemned, the most crowded roads are chosen, where the most people can see and be moved by this terror.  For penalties relate not so much to retribution as to their exemplary effect’ (Pseudo-Quintilian, Declamations 274).” (86)

“Fishing was an important part of the Palestinian economy in the first century C.E.  But it was not the ‘free enterprise’ that most modern readers of the New Testament imagine.  Even fishers who owned their own boats were part of a state-run enterprise and a complex web of financial relationships.  Fishing was controlled by the ruling elites.  The local rulers (king, tetrarch, prefect) sold fishing rights to brokers (telonai, commonly translated ‘tax collectors’ or ‘publicans’), who in turn contracted with fishers.  The fishers received capitalization along with fishing rights and were therefore indebted to the brokers.  The location of Matthew’s (or Levi’s) toll office in Capernaum–an important fishing locale–probably identifies him as just such a contractor of royal fishing rights (Matt 9:9; Mark 2:14).” (99)

“Our modern conceptions of the temple are rather bloodless and undoubtedly too spiritual.  An appropriate analogy is a slaughterhouse.  Enormous amounts of animal blood spilled around the altar every day and splashed upon the priests as they worked.  The temple architects had to design very special drainage systems to convey the blood down into the depths of the Temple Mount and thence away.  Enormous quantities of water were required for this purpose.  Aristeas again helps us here: ‘There were many mouths at the base [of the altar], which were completely invisible except for those responsible for the ministry, so that the large amounts of blood which collected from the sacrifices were all cleansed by the downward pressure and momentum’ . . . Aristeas afterwards describes the huge conduits and water supply that supported this cleansing mechanism.  Archaeology of the Temple Mount area confirms that extensive water facilities were installed.  Some of the cisterns still can hold thousands of gallons.” (136-37)

“What consequently stands out about Palestinian society is the centrality of the Herodian temple, especially in maintaining the political-economic system, and the preeminence of the priestly oligarchy in the system’s management and benefits.  The role of the temple in the life of early Roman Palestine was so pervasive that it should be thought of as an institution intruding into and organizing the social life of every Judean region and settlement.  Its effects upon the distribution of social goods within Palestinian society cannot be overemphasized.” (145)

After studying the social systems that were in play during the NT era, “what has been gained? . . . we learn to take seriously the distance between ourselves and the ancients. The actions of Jesus, Joseph Caiaphas, or Pontius Pilate need to be placed in contexts that make sense for the first century–not only historical contexts, but social contexts.  Whatever we have in common with them as humans, they did not grow up in families like ours; they were not motivated by the same values as ours; and they did not participate in the same political, economic, or religious institutions as ours.  If those distances are not fully appreciated, then we are simplistically imagining them as variations of modern American individuals.” (149)

After Stapert’s introductory chapter, he addresses “The Song of the Church in the New Testament.”  His summary of that topic:

The song the church sings, as described in the New Testament, is a joyful response to the works of God, stimulated by the Word and the Spirit.  It is sung by humans to God and to each other, with the saints and angels and all creation. (28)

Some points of note as Stapert works through musical references in the NT:

Stapert draws the connection between Christian music and the music of Judaism.  One way this is significant is that the Psalms teach us that the subject matter of our song should not be monolithic.  The main theme of Christian song is “the good news of a rescue” (16), but

The countersubject ["sorrow and a cry for mercy" (16)] needs to be sung lest the expression of joy in the main theme sound glib and its celebration of victory sound hollow.  Christians need to remember what they have been rescued from, and they need to acknowledge what they still need rescuing from.  There must be, if I may put it this way, a Kyrie theme in Christian song that brings out the true meaning of the main theme, Gloria. (17)

Christian song is unlike pagan ritual music in its purposes.  It is not meant to magically influence God to do what we want him to do; at most it is “petitionary,” but never “manipulative” (19). Nor it is “an opiate that numbs one to the ills of this life and thus provides a false comfort.  It is a response of joy to what is known through the Word and the Spirit.” (21)

Stapert speaks of the “dual direction” of Christian music in the NT: both to God as our primary audience as well as to other believers.  In addition Stapert suggests that Christian music also has a role to play in evangelism, reaching back into the OT for this point, but also seeing a hint of this role in the jail at Philippi (Acts 16:25): “Whatever the circumstances, God is always the primary audience; but another audience — the prisoners, the nations — is also listening.” (23)

Music in the NT was also meant to reflect the unity among believers.  Stapert points to Romans 15:5-6: “that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  ”Does ‘with one voice’ refer directly to singing?  Probably not — at least not exclusively.  But no one can doubt that it articulates a principle that the church took very seriously for her singing.  The importance of singing ‘with one voice’ was a constant refrain among the early Christian writers.” (25)

Calvin R. Stapert, A New Song for an Old World: Musical Thought in the Early Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007).

I mentioned this book before, having only dipped into it a bit here and there.  I had a chance to read it last week and wanted to post more about it.

Stapert explores the writings of the early church fathers — particularly Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Ambrose, and John Chrysostom — digesting and summarizing their take on music.  The first chapter gives his rationale for the book, opening with a quote by Karl Barth:

Are we at liberty to ignore the past?  Do the great teachers of the Church . . . not possess a — certainly not heavenly — but, even so, earthly, human “authority”?  We should not be too ready to say, No.  To my mind the whole question of tradition falls under the Fifth Commandment: Honor father and mother!  Certainly that is a limited authority; we have to obey God more than father and mother. . . . There is no question of bondage and constraint.  It is merely that in the Church the same kind of obedience as, I hope, you pay to your father and mother, is demanded of you towards the Church’s past, towards the “elders” of the Church. (1)

An interesting quote, to be sure, and if it goes too far in assigning an obligation to follow the fathers, it does on the other hand guide us away from a temporal self-absorption and gesture toward the valuable insights left us from time past.  Stapert capitalizes on this notion, noting that “by ignoring her past, the church, in the words of D. H. Williams, is attempting ‘to stand tall without the deep roots of its history’” (4).  He quotes Loren Mead in this regard as well: “When the new way is considered the only way, there is no continuity, fads become the new gospel and in Paul’s words, the church is ‘blown to and fro by every wind of doctrine’” (4).  If you’ve read C. S. Lewis’s “Introduction to Athanasius’ On the Incarnation,” you’ll find Stapert’s first chapter to be in much the same vein, focusing of course on music. (And if you haven’t read that Lewis essay, you really should — just follow the link on the sidebar under “Resources”.)

In regards to musical thought from the church’s past, Stapert rightly notes that “we have ignored all but the latest installments of a conversation about music that has been going on for centuries” (7), and his book is an attempt to introduce us to some of that conversation.  His teaser in the introductory chapter is that he will demonstrate that “the church fathers, despite their differences, show a remarkable consistency in their views on music, regarding both what music they rejected and denounced and what they affirmed and promoted” (11).

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:

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?