Translating the Apocalyptic Literature of Revelation: The Woman and the Dragon and the People of God

The woman and the dragon

http://www.postost.net/2013/11/woman-dragon

 

by Andrew Perriman

November 6, 2013

 

Preparing some lectures on Revelation, I came across Ian Paul’s very helpful introduction to the book in Exploring the New Testament: Letters and Revelation v. 2. With Revelation, probably more than with any other New Testament text, it is difficult to deal with its meaning apart from its form. How we understand its literary character—as some sort of apocalyptic text—inevitably determines how we make sense of what it has to say about the future of God’s people.

 

The point can be illustrated nicely from the visionary allegory of the woman and the dragon in Revelation 12. Ian highlights the significance of both the mythological and the Old Testament backgrounds for interpreting the passage. I want to explore this a bit further here, not least because it lends support to my general contention that the New Testament is fundamentally about how the God of Israel comes to judge and rule the nations, not in some abstract theological sense but [as it occurs] in history.

 

“The Great Gig in the Sky”

 

A woman appears in heaven. She is pregnant, crying out in the agony of giving birth. A red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns and seven diadems on its heads, stands before her, waiting to devour the child. A boy is born—“one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron”—but is caught up to the throne of God. The woman flees into the wilderness. The dragon is cast down from heaven by Michael and his angels. The achievement of those who “have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony” is celebrated—the “kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ”. But it means trouble for people on earth, “for the devil has come down to you in great wrath”.



Woodcut from Luther Bible 1534



On earth the dragon pursues the woman, but she is given the wings of a great eagle so that she can escape into the wilderness to be “nourished for a time, and times, and half a time”. The dragon attempts to sweep her away in a flood, but the earth swallows up the flood. This enrages the dragon, which goes off “to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus”. It stands on the sand of the sea, from which a beast “with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on it heads” is about to emerge.

 

The story prefigured in the Old Testament

 

Much of the substance of the story comes from the Old Testament, and we arrive at a good approximation of its meaning simply by stringing these texts together.

 

1. Jerusalem is pictured by the prophets as a woman in labour:

 

Before she was in labour she gave birth; before her pain came upon her she delivered a son. Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall a land be born in one day? Shall a nation be brought forth in one moment? For as soon as Zion was in labour she brought forth her children. (Is. 66:7–8)

 

Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labour (Jerusalem in exile) has given birth; then the rest of his brothers shall return to the people of Israel. (Mic. 5:3)

 

2. The pagan empire that makes war against Israel is drawn as a devouring dragon or a destructive, blasphemous multi-headed beast:

 

King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon has devoured me (Jerusalem); he has apportioned me; he has seized me, a slim vessel; he has swallowed me like a dragon... (Jer. 28:34 LXX = 51:34)

 

Then I desired to know the truth about the fourth beast…, and about the ten horns that were on its head, and the other horn that came up and before which three of them fell, the horn that had eyes and a mouth that spoke great things, and that seemed greater than its companions. As I looked, this horn made war with the saints and prevailed over them, until the Ancient of Days came, and judgment was given for the saints of the Most High, and the time came when the saints possessed the kingdom. (Dan. 7:19–22)

 

3. The king is YHWH’s son, who is given the nations as his heritage to rule with a rod of iron:

 

I will tell of the decree: The LORD said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” (Ps. 2:7–9)

 

4. The angel Michael will fight on behalf of Israel at a time of extreme political-religious crisis:

 

At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book. (Dan. 12:1)

 

5. God saves his people from the pagan oppressor by bearing them into the wilderness on eagles’ wings:

 

You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. (Ex. 19:4)

 

The [Old Testament] already gives us an outline interpretation of Revelation 12. At a time of severe political-religious crisis a righteous Jewish community in Jerusalem painfully gives birth to a Son, who is immediately caught up to the throne of God. This “birth” is not the incarnation of Jesus but his resurrection. The king is “begotten” on the day that he is given the nations as his heritage, eventually to judge and rule over them (cf. Ps. 2:7-9). The community then comes under attack from the aggressive pagan empire but gains victory over it “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death” (Rev. 12:11). The realistic victory of the persecuted Jewish-Christian community over Rome is prefigured in heaven by the defeat of the dragon by Michael—the “great prince who has charge of your people”. Such a political-religious event - [some say, Constatine's Ottoman Empire; other's say all the ages of man where Jesus is worshipped as Savior and Lord, R.E. Slater] - not the final renewal of all things—is the coming of the kingdom of God (Rev. 12:10).

 

The [Greek] Python myth

 

The shape of the story, however, appears to reflect a type of “combat myth” that is evidenced widely in the ancient world. David Aune writes:

 

The legendary narrative pattern of a combat between a hero and his adversary or the mythic narrative pattern of a primordial cosmic struggle between two divine beings and their allies for sovereignty was widespread throughout the ancient world. In mythical combats the antagonist is often depicted as a monster, serpent, or dragon; the protagonist typically represents "order and fertility," while the antagonist represents "chaos and sterility".1



The serpent Python is killed by Apollo



Perhaps the closest parallel to Revelation 12 is the version of the Python myth found in the Fabulae of the 1st century AD Latin writer Hyginus. A dragon known for issuing oracles is threatened by the birth of a divine child. He pursues the woman in a remote region, but she is carried off by a god to an island, which disappears beneath the waves. The woman gives birth to Apollo, who quickly kills Python. It is commonly understood as a mythical account of how Apollo took control of the oracle at Delphi. This translation comes from Ian Paul’s very helpful chapter on Revelation in Exploring the New Testament: Letters and Revelation, v. 2:

 

Python, son of Terra, was a huge dragon. He was accustomed to giving oracles on Mount Parnassus before the time of Apollo. He was informed by an oracle that he would be destroyed by the offspring of Leto. At that time Zeus was living with Leto. When [Zeus’ wife] Hera learned of this, she decreed that Leto should give birth at a place where the sun does not reach. When Python perceived that Leto was pregnant by Zeus, he began to pursue (her) in order to kill her. But, by order of Zeus, the North Wind (Aquilo) lifted Leto up and carried her to Poseidon; Poseidon[(Zeus' brother)] protected her, but in order not to rescind Hera’s decree, he carried her to the island Ortygia and covered the island with waves.

 

When Python did not find Leto, he returned to Parnassus. But Poseidon returned the island Ortygia to the upper region, and it was later called the island of Delos. There, holding on to an olive tree, Leto gave birth to Apollo and Artemis, to whom Hephaestus gave arrows as a gift. Four days after they were born, Apollo avenged his mother. He went to Parnassus and killed Python with arrows.2

 

Refracted light

 

What we appear to have, then, in literary terms, is a reconstructed Old Testament narrative about Israel, empire, and the future rule of YHWH’s king, refracted through the prism of the Python myth [(or, around the general idea of an apocalyptic story, in its general construction, and socio-political implications at that time, rather than its more usual reconstruction as a "one-for-one corollary" with concrete historical events by modern evangelists - RE Slater)]. This is how John transposes the biblical argument into a form that more directly challenges, if not specifically the ideology of emperor worship, then certainly the power of Rome as a political-religious force violently opposed to the people of God. His brightly coloured dragon myth expresses the conviction of the persecuted churches that the God of Israel would sooner or later take control of the empire.

 

 

Footnotes

 

1. D.E. Aune, Revelation 6–16 (WBC 52B, 1998), 667.

2. Translation from M. Grant, The Myths of Hyginus (1960).

 

 

 

24 Advent Poems for Christmas

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived,

reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. - Anon


*Many thanks to Journey with Jesus for collecting these poems -

http://www.journeywithjesus.net/PoemsAndPrayers/Advent_Poetry.shtml


Daily Readings for the Month of December

from Dec 1 to Christmas Day and Beyond

Dec 1 - Catherine Alder, Advent Hands

Dec 2 - Daniel Berrigan, Advent Credo

Dec 3 - John Betjeman, Christmas

Dec 4 - Sr. M. Charlita, I.H.M., Advent Antiphons

Dec 5 - G.K. Chesterton, The House of Christmas

Dec 6 - Sr. M. Chrysostom, The Stable

Dec 7 - Pamela Cranston, ADVENT (On a Theme by Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

Dec 8 - Pamela Cranston, God's Annunciation

Dec 9 - Pamela Cranston, Poem for Christ the King

Dec 10 - John Donne, Annunciation

Dec 11 - John Donne, Nativity

Dec 12 - St. Ephraim of Syria (Ephrem of Edessa), From God Christ's Deity Came Forth

Dec 13 - U.A. Fanthorpe, BC:AD

Dec 14 - Christopher Harvey, The Nativity

Dec 15 - Denise Levertov, On the Mystery of the Incarnation

Dec 16 - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Christmas Bells

Dec 17 - Edwin Muir, The Annunciation

Dec 18 - Prudentius, Of the Father's Love Begotten

Dec 19 - David A. Redding, Adult Advent Announcement

Dec 20 - Brad Reynolds, Gaudete  (*gaudete - a medieval hymn or carol of "rejoicing")

Dec 21 - Rainer Maria Rilke, Annunciation to Mary

Dec 22 - Luci Shaw, Virgin

Dec 23 - Alfred Lord Tennyson, A New Year's Poem

Dec 24 - Brian Wren, Good is the Flesh

Dec 25 - Matthew 1.18-2.7 (Jesus' Birth), Luke 2 (Jesus' Birth)

Dec 26 - Mark 1 (Jesus' Ministry Begins)

Dec 27 - John 1 (Christ's Incarnation & Calling)

Dec 28 - John 2-3 (Jesus' First Miracle and Message)

Dec 29 - Romans 1 (Paul's Letter to the churches of Asia Minor)

Dec 30 - Readings in Psalms (5 Psalms in 30 Days covers all the Psalms)

Dec 31 - Readings in Proverbs (a chapter a day for a month)

Jan 1 - Chose a Bible Reading Plan (there are several; print-out the chronological as a guide).
            Understanding the OT will help when reading the NT. And understanding the NT will

            help when reading the OT. Same God, same faith, but now re-read through Jesus.

Jan 2 - Begin attending several churches to discover their traditions, customs and understanding
            of Jesus in relation to the living Christian faith. Begin reading Relevancy22 as a starting
            point for understanding the theological teachings of Christianity, its doctrines & dogmas.

Jan 3 - Begin Walk Thru the Bible's 5 Year Study (yes, it's old timey but it will bring the Bible
            alive through the twangy Texas accent of a beloved pastor now passed away in a common-
            sense approach to people and life's many twists and turns. The Bible is not meant to be
            hard to understand. This little audio study will tell of God's daily presence and love).

Jan 4 - Become acquainted with the Basic Theological Readings of the Bible. Five methods are
            summarily examined comprehensively - each method shows how to read the Bible from
            a different viewpoint that will help give an interpretive structure to Bible reading.

Jan 5 - St. John's Video Timelines Project - An Expansive Review of the Bible, church history
           and church doctrine at the reader's pace while continuing to read through Relevancy22.
           In a way, Relevancy22 is the contemporary twin to the St. John's Timelines Project.
           Where one examines the past, the other examines the directions of the church today.

For more on Advent and its meaning go to -

Index - Christmas and Advent
http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2013/12/index-christmas-and-advent.html

Unconditional Love Brings Death

 

http://theupsidedownworld.com/2013/07/09/unconditional-love-brings-death/

 

by Rebecca Trotter

July 9, 2013

Comments

 

I’ve come across a number of Christians lately who are questioning the impulse to elevate love above any other concern. Love is too soft and squishy, they say. Love becomes an excuse to avoid hard things like confronting sin and enforcing discipline. One writer even asked if we are in danger of making love an idol. (Perhaps he hasn’t gotten to the part where the bible says that God IS love?!?).

 

I have something to tell you about people who say that love is squishy, soft, a cop-out: quite clearly, such a person has never actually attempted to love unconditionally. Loving unconditionally is the hardest thing any human being can ever try to do. Confronting sin? Upsetting friends and family? Setting boundaries and rules? Pffftttt . . . . Those are the simplest, most natural things in the world for the fallen human mind to do. Loving unconditionally? That WILL DESTROY YOU. It will cost you EVERYTHING. You will DIE if you try to do it.

 

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me.” ~ Matthew 16:24

 

These Christians who warn against love are right to be afraid of it. But not because it’s soft and squishy. Just the opposite. Unconditional love is the hardest, heaviest cross a human being can bear. It sent Jesus to his death.

 

He warned us that it would divide “father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

 

In fact, unconditional love is so hard and so dangerous that I’ve had mature, devout, loving Christians who I respect warn me against it.

 

One man told me to never ask God to teach me to love people the way he does. It’s impossible, he said. Another woman told me the same thing about the sort of love described in 1 Corinthians 13. It’s impossible.

 

Jesus said to them, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” ~ Matthew 19:26

 

When you love unconditionally, you don’t get to make demands. You don’t get to pressure the other to change, to make you happy, to do as you see fit. When they hurt you, you have to forgive. Every time. When they don’t give you what you need, you don’t get to withhold in return.

 

To love unconditionally, you have to “be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect.”

 

“Your Father who is in heaven. . . causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” ~Matthew 5:45

 

Which is the real secret of unconditional love: it has nothing to do with the person you are loving. Human love is all about the other person – how they make me feel, if they are good, what is pleasing about them, if they treat me well. If the person is good, kind, giving, gentle, attractive, useful, then our affection for them grows and we call that love. When someone is bad, mean, selfish, harsh, ugly, useless, then we struggle to call up any affection for them and loving them can become impossible.

 

Unconditional love works differently. It comes from the goodness of the lover, not the loved. We humans cannot do it unless we have been redeemed and purified in love. And that’s the rub. It is as we attempt to do the impossible – love unconditionally – that we are redeemed and purified in love. Love is a terrible cross. It is the narrow path that few find. It is our salvation.

 

The truth is that humanity is suspicious of love because loves doesn’t address what we see as the real problem – other people and their sins. Instead, love focuses like a laser on me and my heart. I cannot attend to the work love demands of me and look at the sins of others at the same time. But if I let go of my worry about everyone else and follow love where it will lead me, the Kingdom of God will begin to be manifest in and through me.

 

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” ~ John 12:24

 

Salvation comes from dying. If you try to love unconditionally, make no mistake about it; you will die. You will lose everything you ever took life from: the approval of others, status, power, comfort, achievement, certainty, rules, talents, relationships, titles, roles – all of it will be lost. God is a jealous God – he does not share his throne with anything or anyone. Because he is the only source of life – in his presence everything else must become dead to you.

 

When I am hurt by someone, when I am maligned, when my needs are not met, human love dies. If someone mistreats me and instead of fighting back, I absorb that and bring it to my father for healing and correction, what is meant for evil becomes part of my salvation.

 

People will push your love to its limits so God can remove them. They will trigger your every dysfunction so they can be unlearned. They will create and play with your every hurt so it can be scrupulously cleaned out, sutured, operated on and attacked until it is all healed. They will slam up against your hard places until they are soft and abuse your soft spots until God makes them strong.

 

“Hold everything in your hands lightly, otherwise it hurts when God pries your fingers open.” ~ Corrie ten Boom

 

When you give up your right to judge, to hold a grudge, to be offended, to control and pressure, to withhold affection, to demand that your rights be respected, you will lose faith in everything you know, everything you trust, and everything you depend on so that it can all be cast aside. Learning to love unconditionally will lead to everything being removed from your clinging fingers until you have nothing left to hold onto except God alone. Your life in the flesh must die. And make no mistake – like death on the cross always it, it’s a long, painful, ugly, tortuous death.

 

”My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.” ~ Matthew 26:42

 

Unless you really want God, unless you really want his kingdom, unless you really want to give yourself over to love completely, this is not a journey you should take. Because before it’s all done, you will beg for mercy a million times over. You will search for a way to quit. You will spend countless hours calling out to the darkness that surrounds you. You will collapse under the weight of the cross. You will despair and feel forsaken by God and man. Dying hurts, but we must die to be born again in the Spirit.

 

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. ~ 1 John 4:18

 

Those people who are worried about love – ishy, squishy, namby-pamby love? They are right to be worried. Because if we all follow love, then we will have to put down the tools humanity has been been using to try to shape reality with since time immemorial – the rules, the boundaries, the battles. And if we put those tools down – everything will come unhinged. Every boundary will be crossed. Every evil will occur. The dams we have been propping up to keep the worst of human nature at bay will break. We will die. They know this and fear it. But it’s already happening. They can’t stop it and they are going to die right along with everyone else. In fact, the longer they fight love, the longer and more painful the death will be.

 

But it’s the storm before the calm. These people don’t trust love and are desperate to avoid the storm because they don’t really trust God. They don’t understand that the enemy death which they fear so much has already been defeated for us by Christ. In their heart of hearts, they are afraid that God will be defeated by the forces of darkness, cruelty, sin and, yes, death. And they are wrong. Completely and utterly wrong.

 

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new. . . “ He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.” ~ Revelation 21:5,6

 

God’s Kingdom is a bit like happiness – we can’t get there by trying to create it directly. In God’s Kingdom, there will be no sin. So we wage war on sin, thinking that will bring about God’s Kingdom. But sin can only be defeated through purification by love. In God’s Kingdom, there will be no suffering. So we try to fix, suppress and hide from whatever makes us suffer, thinking that is the way to God’s Kingdom. But the end of suffering comes only when we have walked through the suffering of death to new birth. In God’s Kingdom, no one will stand above or below another, but we will love each other all the same. So we work to elevate the downtrodden and bring down the mighty thinking that will manifest God’s Kingdom. But to love the low and the high all the same, we must unlearn human love and embrace unconditional love and all that entails.

 

God’s Kingdom is love. It is made by love. It comes through love. It is manifest through love. If we ever want to see the new heaven and new earth God has promised, it can only be found by picking up the cross of love and following it through death, hell and into the resurrection of new life.

 

I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” ~ Revelation 21:3-4

 

 

 

From Old Creation to New Creation - The Story of Redemption and Mankind

The long, difficult story of new creation
http://www.postost.net/2013/10/long-difficult-story-new-creation

 

by Andrew Perriman

October 30, 2013

 

I had a long conversation over the weekend with an Asian friend who is engaged in conflict-resolution projects in her war-torn country. She was particularly interested in the importance of inter-faith conversations and practices, and we got round to talking about the difference between Christian and Buddhist worldviews or cosmologies.

As she put it, she is driven in her work by a desire to serve life, perhaps rather loosely sustained by the awareness that everything participates in the divine—I think she might describe herself as a secularized Buddhist, but I’m not sure.

I suggested that although the modern church has often appeared more inclined to bicker over beliefs and boundaries than to make the world a better place, in principle the same desire to affirm and serve life is there. But it is mediated necessarily through the story of the strained relationship between a distinct people and the Creator God, which is all the way through a story of new creation.

I have tried to tell that story on a number of occasions, not least in Re:Mission: Biblical Mission for a Post-Biblical Church. My view is that there is little point in replacing a simplistic gospel of personal salvation with a simplistic gospel of life affirmation. No doubt it would be an improvement in some respects, but it still fails to do justice to the biblical narrative and is therefore likely to miss its central dynamic, which is the struggle of concrete communities fully to embody the presence of the good Creator God, in the midst of the nations and cultures of the world, through real—not mythical—history.

Anyway, here we go again. Feel free to take issue with it. And keep in mind that telling the story is not an excuse for doing nothing….

~

The foundational premise of the Judaeo-Christian narrative is the belief that the cosmos is the work of the one true Creator God.

The actual narrative then arises out of the contradiction between the goodness of the Creator and the self-evident corruption of the good creation.

The “original” sin—at the level first of the individual and then of human society—is the ambition to “be like God” or to usurp the place of God in the scheme of things (Gen. 3:5; 11:4). Inequality, injustice, wickedness and violence are the consequence of this act of rebellion.

~

The response of the Creator God at this point is to “choose” Abraham, in the shadow of self-aggrandizing empire, to be the father of a new creation in microcosm, grounded in a seminal act of trust and obedience (Gen. 15:6; 22:15-18). The promises made to him by the Creator undergird the whole ensuing narrative.

The descendants of Abraham are eventually given the good land of Canaan in fulfilment of the promises. The terms of their loyalty to the Creator God are set out in the Law of Moses. This is how they will be a new creation. They have received the original “blessing” of created life—albeit in a constrained, localized form—and are expected to mediate that original blessing to a world that has repudiated the Creator.

The success of the “new creation” project, however, hangs on the continuing trust and obedience of the people of Israel. The Law carries the dire warning that failure to walk in the ways of the Creator—the failure to be a good, new creation—will sooner or later result in invasion, destruction, exile and oppression by foreign powers.

~

From the Assyrian invasion of the northern kingdom (722 BC) onwards, the story becomes one of continual conflict between Israel and the surrounding pagan empires—invasion by the Babylonians, exile, Hellenistic tyranny, Roman occupation.

During this period the hope is conceived by the prophets not only that the people of the one true Creator God will be delivered from this cycle of conflict and restored, but also that the hostile nations, with their fabricated gods, will eventually come to acknowledge the rightness and sovereignty of Israel’s God.

The Judaeo-Christian narrative divides in the first century AD over the question of how the God of national Israel intended finally to resolve the political-religious crisis faced by his people—how the prophetic hope for salvation and kingdom will be fulfilled.

~

Jesus proclaims the coming of the kingdom of God as a decisive moment both of judgment and of salvation for Israel.

He presents his people with a stark choice between a broad road leading to destruction and a narrow road leading to life. He calls his disciples to follow him down the narrow road of rejection and opposition for the sake of the future existence of God’s new creation people.

They will be messengers of the coming kingdom event, first to Israel, then among the nations. But they will also be the nucleus of a renewed people of God.

Jesus is condemned as a false “saviour” by the Jewish authorities and executed by the Romans.

Appearances of Jesus to the disciples after his death convince them that the God of Israel has vindicated his “Son” by raising him to life. More than this, they come to believe that God has exalted him to a position of authority at his right hand to act as judge and ruler of the nations.

In this way, through his trust and obedience Jesus has become God’s decisive answer to the political-religious crisis faced by the descendants of Abraham.

~

Empowered and inspired by the Spirit of Jesus the disciples continue to proclaim the “good news” to Israel. Jews, both in Roman-occupied Judea and in the diaspora, mostly refuse to believe, but many Gentiles, remarkably, find this story of judgment and renewal, crisis and kingdom, God and history, compelling. Their response is to worship the God of Israel in the same Spirit and they become de facto members of the same movement.

As a result communities of radical hope and faithfulness emerge across the Greek-Roman world, formed of people—both Jews and Gentiles—who believe not simply that Jesus died for the sins of Israel and was raised from the dead, but that his resurrection points to a day when the old idolatrous system will be overthrown and the nations of the empire will confess Jesus as Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

So through this long period of historical transition the God of Israel achieved two things through the faithfulness of Jesus. First, he saved his people from the problem of their innate disloyalty and sinfulness—the flesh—so that they could exist as new creation according to the Spirit rather than according to the Law of Moses. Secondly, he gained recognition from the nations of the empire that he alone is God, and there is no other (cf. Is. 45:21).

~

Historically speaking, European Christendom represented this extraordinary new political-religious arrangement for perhaps fifteen hundred years, until the God of Israel was in turn overthrown, in a momentous modern coup-d’état, by secular-rationalism. The western church is having a hard time coming to terms with this latest “catastrophe”, but we deal with the problem, nevertheless, as a sign of new creation, as mediators of the original blessing for the sake of life.

 

 

 

How Paul Saw the Future: The "Day of the Lord" For Saints and Sinners

How Paul saw the future

http://www.postost.net/2013/10/how-paul-saw-future

 

by Andrew Perriman

October 15, 2013

 

Paul had a sharp and vivid understanding of what the future held. It took the form of a prophetic narrative that would affect his own people Israel, the nations and the churches. It was not a matter of peripheral interest, an appendix to his theology. The narrative is pervasive in his letters and determinative for faith. People were converted to a new belief about the future. They believed, for example, that a day of wrath was coming from which they would be delivered by Jesus:

 

"...you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come." (1 Thess. 1:9–10; cf. 1 Cor. 1:7–8)

 

They believed that they would sooner or later inherit, as a community, as a nascent culture or civilization, a radically new political-religious order when the God of Israel would be acknowledged as sovereign over the nations.

 

he expectation, moreover, was that the coming Day of the Lord (1 Cor. 5:5; 1 Thess. 5:2; 2 Thess. 2:2), when this vision of the future would be fulfilled, was not far off. The apocalyptic narrative overlay and reinterpreted the immediate historical experience of the synagogues and churches in the ancient pagan world. Its climax would come within a foreseeable and relevant future.

 

The point to stress here is that biblical “theology”, even at its most exotic and speculative, always addresses or has reference to the concrete, historically determined condition of the people of God amidst the nations.

 

For convenience the landscape of Paul’s eschatology can be mapped in two parts—what it meant for the “saints” to whom Paul addressed his letters and what it meant for everyone else. Please note that the biblical references are not proof-texts. They are pointers to whole arguments and narratives.

 

What the Day of the Lord would mean for everyone else

 

 

1. The overarching intention of the God of Israel was to judge the pagan system that had for so long opposed him and to install his own “Son” as king on his behalf above all rulers and powers (Rom. 1:18-32; cf. Acts 17:31).

 

2. He would punish those who had persecuted the churches (2 Thess. 1:4-10). Paul has no concept of “hell”.

 

3. The “man of lawlessness”, who appears to be a blasphemous pagan king in the mould of Antiochus Epiphanes, would be brought to nothing by the Lord Jesus at his coming (2 Thess. 2:3-8).

 

4. Righteous Gentiles would be “justified” when YHWH judged the Greek-Roman world and would even condemn unrighteous Israel (Rom. 2:6, 14-16).

 

5. For God to judge the pagan world with integrity, however, he had first to judge his own people, who had brought the name of God into disrepute among the nations (Rom. 2:24; 3:6). They would not be justified by their works of the Jewish Law on the day of God’s wrath. Rather, the Law would hold them to account (Rom. 3:19-20). Nothing short of a new creation would remedy the situation.

 

6. Paul does not expect his people to escape the catastrophe of divine judgment, but he retains the hope that after judgment the nation of Israel would repent of its disbelief and so be saved (Rom. 11:26).

 

What the Day of the Lord would mean for the saints

 

 

1. The inclusion of Gentiles in the family of Abraham pointed to the fact that YHWH would demonstrate himself to be God not of the Jews only but also of the nations (Rom. 3:29-30).

 

2. The churches were communities of eschatological formation—that is, they were designed for an eschatological purpose. Practically speaking, they were the means by which the new future would be brought about.

 

3. If they were to fulfil that purpose, they would have to be righteous communities—the unrighteous would not inherit the kingdom of God (eg. 1 Cor. 6:9-11; Eph. 5:5; 1 Tim. 6:14).

 

4. The churches could expect to face considerable opposition and persecution in the period leading up to the Day of the Lord. To the extent, however, that the saints were conformed to the image of the first martyr and re-enacted the story of his suffering and vindication, they had the assurance that they would overcome even the last enemy, death (Rom. 8:16-39). They are communities of the Son of Man, against whom the pagan empire made war, but who remained faithful and were ultimately vindicated and awarded the kingdom (cf. Dan. 7:21-22).

 

5. The Day of the Lord would be a day of battle—of intense persecution. The churches needed to prepare themselves for this in advance by putting on the armour of God (Rom. 13:11-12; Eph. 6;10-20; 5:6-8).

 

6. Paul was very conscious of the fact that it was the responsibility of the apostles to ensure that the churches were fit for eschatological purpose (1 Cor. 3:10-15). They would be his crown and ground for boasting on the Day of the Lord (Phil. 2:16; 1 Thess. 2:19).

 

7. Because the authority to judge had been given to Jesus, the Day of the Lord would be the day when Jesus, not YHWH, came to judge and save.

 

8. For the saints this would at last mean deliverance from their persecutors (2 Thess. 1:5-10) and resurrection for the dead “in Christ” so that they would have a share in the age to come (1 Cor. 15:23; 1 Thess. 4:16); the saints would be judged and vindicated and rewarded if they were found to have been faithful (Rom. 14:10; 1 Cor. 4:5; 2 Cor. 5:10).

 

9. These communities of the saints would then inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 15:50; Eph. 1:14; 5:5; Col. 1:12; 3:24), when Jesus would be confessed as Lord by the nations (Phil. 2:11), and the martyrs would reign with him throughout the coming ages.

 

10. The reign of Jesus at the right hand of God is to continue until the last enemy, death, has been destroyed, at which point the authority to rule will be given back to God, the Father, Jesus himself will be subjected to God, and God will be all in all (1 Cor. 15:24-28).

 

11. Finally, creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay (Rom. 8:21).

 

This is roughly the story that Paul tells about the future, as I see it. It is not an unprejudiced reconstruction of that story. It is as I see it. It is shaped by a number of assumptions that I make regarding i) how Paul has used his source material, the Old Testament in particular; and ii) how he understood the relation of such material to history. It is the sort of narrative that emerges when we read Old Testament and Jewish apocalyptic as an attempt to redescribe future historical events as the outworking of the intentions of Israel’s God. Or to turn it around, Paul has constructed a narrative of judgment and kingdom that demands an eventual historical outcome having to do with the real-world, political-religious relation between Israel and the nations.

 

 

* * * * * * * * *

 

 

Either Paul got the timing wrong or we’ve got the end wrong

http://www.postost.net/2013/10/how-paul-saw-future#sthash.lKYchqD9.dpuf

 

by Andrew Perriman

Sat, 05/10/2013

 

Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, which some would argue was his second (Wanamaker), or his first and second combined (Murphy-O’Connor), was written to encourage a novice community of mostly Gentile believers to stand firm in the face of persecution until the parousia of the Lord, when the wrath of God would come against the world and they would be delivered from their suffering and united with their Lord. This is the narrative—or eschatological—frame of the letter, and it controls Paul’s argument at every point.

 

The same can be said of his first letter to the Corinthians. They “wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 1:7–8). The rulers of the present age are doomed to pass away (2:6). The quality of the apostles’ work will be revealed when a day of fire comes (3:13). The Lord is coming to “bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and… disclose the purposes of the heart”, when everyone will receive his or her commendation from God (4:5). A “day of the Lord” is coming, when “the saints will judge the world”, and the righteous will inherit the kingdom of God (5:5; 6:2, 9). A time of distress is approaching; the “present form of this world is passing away” (7:26, 31). In the Lord’s supper they proclaim his death “until he comes” (11:26). The world will be condemned (11:32). The dead in Christ will be raised at his coming and will inherit the kingdom (15:23, 50-56). Paul prays that the Lord will come (16:22).

 

In fact, with the exception of Philemon, the same can be said of every one of Paul’s letters—even Romans. They are all written explicitly and intentionally in the light of an impending day of the Lord, a day of God’s wrath, which will entail severe affliction for the churches but also deliverance and vindication. Paul’s churches faced a more or less imminent “end”.

 

There are two basic interpretive strategies open to us:

we can reinterpret “imminent” or we can reinterpret “end”.

 

How are we supposed to deal with this, given that the world did not end imminently? We have the same problem, of course, with Jesus. There are two basic interpretive strategies open to us: we can reinterpret “imminent” or we can reinterpret “end”.

 

 

We could say that the traditional understanding of the “end” is correct but that Paul got the timing wrong. He expected the world to come to an abrupt end in the foreseeable future—perhaps even before he himself died—but he was wrong about that because in fact one day is as a thousand years with the Lord, even the Son was kept in the dark about the timing, etc. That would allow us to keep our traditional “end” intact—the whole package of second coming, rapture, resurrection, final judgment, inheritance of the kingdom, new heaven and new earth, lake of fire. But it can be postponed indefinitely.

 

 

Or we could say that Paul was more or less right about the timing but that we have misunderstood his “end”. We could argue that he shared a Jewish-apocalyptic narrative in which YHWH, as creator of the whole earth, asserts his right to judge and rule over the idolatrous pagan nations, which have for so long refused to acknowledge him and oppressed his people. We would then suppose—once we have understood how apocalyptic discourse works—that his eschatology mostly addresses the historical crisis that would mark the transition from an old age of pagan hegemony to a new age in which Jesus is confessed as Lord by the Gentiles. I have developed this argument in The Coming of the Son of Man: New Testament Eschatology for an Emerging Church.

 

This approach would mean that Paul has much less to say about our eschatological circumstances. The coming storm fills his horizon and he cannot see what lies beyond—except that he is certain that the creator God will have the final victory over the evil that has corrupted his creation (1 Cor. 15:24-28; Rom. 8:20-22). But it would mean that he has much more to say about the historical experience of the communities under his care. That makes him a much more responsible prophet and apostle. And I’m sure we can learn something from that.

 

 

 

N.T. Wright, "Paul and the Faithfulness of God" (Vol 4) - Jesus, the Incarnate God Come

Jesus as Israel’s Story of God Freshly Revealed

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2013/11/07/jesus-as-israels-story-of-god-freshly-revealed/

 

by Scot McKnight

Nov 7, 2013

Comments 

The essence of Tom Wright’s project is to show that Paul’s theology is both thoroughly Jewish and at the same time a reframing of the central elements of that Judaism around God’s revelation in Jesus Christ.

 

Wright sees three main elements in Judaism that Paul “reworked”: monotheism, election, and eschatology. All this in his magisterial new two-volume study, Paul and the Faithfulness of God. (As an aside, Doug Moo’s review at TGC’s blog is balanced, which is good for TGC when it comes to Wright, but too focused on the soteriological questions and not enough on Wright’s important worldview-to-theology approach to understanding Paul’s theology. TGC probably needs a lengthy “description” of what Wright is saying since far too many will not read the book/s.)

 

After Tuesday’s post giving the big picture, today I look briefly at the texts Wright focuses on in showing the story of Israel’s God finding its revelation in the story of Jesus. Hence, the story is the promise that God will return to Zion to rule as king, and Jesus is how Paul tells that story coming to fulfillment.

 

Hence, Wright examines these passages:

 

Galatians 4:1-11,

 

Romans 8:1-4,

 

1 Corinthians 8–10, especially the shema text of 1 Corinthians 8:4-6 (see below),

 

the creation and wisdom themes of Colossians 1;

 

those pertinent passages in 2 Corinthians 3–4,

 

and then especially Philippians 2:6-11.

 

The big ideas are these: God is creator, God is one (creational monotheism); God has chosen Israel (election) in Jesus; and eschatology (God has returned to Zion, has come to rule in Jesus). The way Paul describes all of this is through Exodus imagery. Hence, the reworking of Jewish themes around Jesus yet maintaining continuity with Judaism. God has returned to Zion and that return is like the Exodus, a redemptive act.

 

It would take a post too long to summarize each and every point he makes along the way through these passages, so I will provide his own summary:

My argument so far is that the Jewish-style monotheism of ‘divine identity’ which Paul so emphatically reaffirmed had also emphatically been redrawn around Jesus. In particular, I have argued that in several key passages we can detect the overtones of that Exodus-based narrative which formed the basis for the hope that YHWH, having long since abandoned Jerusalem to its fate, would one day return to save his people and to establish his glorious presence in the temple. As we have seen, there is excellent evidence that this was what Paul intended to convey, in one way and another, in one kind of argument or another. For him, Jesus was to be identified within the second-temple Jewish belief in who the one God was –and would be. This is the full expression of the eschatological dimension of monotheism, carrying within itself also the creational and cultic dimensions. In him, that is to say, Israel’s God had indeed returned, and to him therefore could be transferred all that had been said about ‘wisdom’ as the mode of his presence, the ‘wisdom’ through which the worlds were made. He was therefore to be discovered in biblical texts which spoke of the kyrios, translating the adonai which devout Jews said in preference for the sacred name YHWH; and, as such, was to be worshipped, and invoked in prayer. The relationship his followers enjoyed with him was to be understood, and could be spoken of, in the way that devout Israelites from ancient times had spoken of their relationship with YHWH himself. So far, so good.

But is this enough to enable us to understand why not only Paul, but apparently all his Christian predecessors and contemporaries, came to this belief? I think not. We have demonstrated that Paul (and presumably his predecessors and contemporaries) thought of Jesus in categories belonging to Israel’s God, and particularly within the narrative which spoke of long-awaited return of this God to Zion. We have not quite explained why they would think this way. This brings us to the second major hypothesis of the present chapter (689-690).

Because some get caught in a web of wondering if this way of seeing Paul might be supersessionism, I want to cite 1 Corinthians 8:4-6 to show that for Paul the classic Jewish creed — the shema — gets captured by Paul but in so doing he enters Jesus into the very heart of divine identity. Jesus is the Lord of the shema.

1 Cor 8:4    So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that “An idol is nothing at all in the world” and that “There is no God but one.” 5 For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”), 

6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.

Continue to Index -

 

Index to the "New(er) Perspective(s) of Paul"

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rethinking Biblical Stories: "Is Jonah (and the Whale) Satire or History?"

Pieter Lastman, Jonah and the Whale (Google Art Project)

 

Satire or History? (RJS)

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2013/11/05/satire-or-history-rjs/

 

by RJS

Nov 5, 2013

Comments

 

One of the more interesting books of the Old Testament is the book of Jonah. Children from preschool on study this tale. It is short, shorter than most of my posts (a mere four chapters, 1200 words in the NIV – substantially shorter than this post).  It contains foolish disobedience, a great fish, a storm, obedience, repentance, more foolishness … what more could you want in a Sunday School lesson or as material for a sermon series? Even chapter four, although a little less familiar to many, makes for an excellent lesson. No adventure, but a worm, a foolish prophet, and a message from God about the value of people and his compassion.

 

The book of Jonah deserves the attention it gets. This is an important book in scripture. The question I would like to raise is not one of value, or of the truth of the message, but one of genre. Is the genre of the book of Jonah history or or is it satire?

 

The arguments I’ve heard for the book of Jonah as history are four-fold.

 

(1) There is no obvious indication in the book that it is not intended as history.

 

Many feel that the default position should be history except in the presence of direct and incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. The same argument is made for the opening chapters of Genesis and for Job – although I have not heard it made for the Song of Songs.

 

(2) The book provides details. “The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai.” It uses the names of real places (Joppa, Nineveh, Tarshish).

 

If it is story, some ask, why did the author use real places or potentially identifiable people? Jonah of Amittai is mentioned very briefly in 2 Kings 14 although he plays no significant role:

In the fifteenth year of Amaziah son of Joash king of Judah, Jeroboam son of Jehoash king of Israel became king in Samaria, and he reigned forty-one years. He did evil in the eyes of the Lord and did not turn away from any of the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit. He was the one who restored the boundaries of Israel from Lebo Hamath to the Dead Sea, in accordance with the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, spoken through his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath Hepher.

The same argument was raised concerning the book Job, which specifies a location “In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job.” And Job is mentioned in formulaic fashion in Ezekial 14. Some will claim that this rootedness in a historical time and location determines the book as history and precludes other options. The plain sense is preferred.

 

(3) The only reason to doubt Jonah as history is a desire to sidestep the miraculous element. The creator God is certainly capable of the miraculous.

 

A justifiable reaction against the attempt of many to remove the supernatural from the Bible. Our faith is rooted in the existence of the supernatural and in the reality of the resurrection, of Jesus first and of all in the age to come. But the argument for an all powerful God does  not make this particular book history rather than satire.

 

(4) Jesus refers to Jonah in his teaching. For some this is the trump that settles the matter.

 

        Matthew 12:38-41

Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.” 

He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here.

Matthew 16:1, 4 makes a similar, shorter, allusion – a wicked generation will be given only the sign of Jonah.

 

Luke 11

As the crowds increased, Jesus said, “This is a wicked generation. It asks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah. For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so also will the Son of Man be to this generation. … The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and now something greater than Jonah is here.

The context is the same in each reference. The sign of Jonah is found in the fact that he was in the fish for three days and three nights, and yet was returned to the land of the living, so the Son of Man would be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

 

But it isn’t this simple. The answer to the question of genre is not as easy as these arguments suggest. None of them provide a conclusive argument against the book of Jonah as satire, with a message for the reader even some 2500 years later.

 

John Walton in the Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary has some interesting observations placing the book of Jonah in its ancient Near Eastern context. (It is not entirely clear whether Walton views Jonah as history, and if so how much history he sees in the book. The omments here should not be taken as assigning any particular view to Walton himself. Nonetheless his insight into the ancient Near Eastern context is enlightening.) According to Walton:

In current trends within critical scholarship, Jonah is commonly labeled as parody or satire. The former typically lampoons a piece of literature, while the latter targets people (specific or stereotyped categories) or events as Jonah does. Satire can be either an enactment or a written composition in which vice, folly, or incompetence is held up for ridicule. The closer to reality a satire can be, the more effective it is. By definition it targets real people and tries to use the mannerisms and words that they use. Satire exaggerates reality, but is based on reality. 

Satire and parody are both known in the ancient world and in the Bible. … In similar ways, most would agree that the book of Jonah wants us to laugh at the prophet’s incongruity and senselessness even as we are appalled by his behavior and attitude. (p. 104)

In many respects this addresses the first two objections listed above. A good satire will be intentionally realistic – and the closer to reality, the more effective. If the book is a satire we should not find a clear indication of this for that would negate the satire (contra argument one) and we should expect to find realistic details placing the story in time and place (contra argument two).

 

Concerning the fish Walton notes that ancient literature refers to fantastic creatures sent from the gods. The epic of Gilgamesh for example refers to the “Bull of Heaven” sent by Anu.

The Bull of Heaven is particularly interesting in that it is sent in response to the hubris of the hero with the intention of teaching him a lesson. Jonah likewise acted against deity (by fleeing) and was subsequently confronted by a cosmic creature ordained by deity. In Gilgamesh the Bull of Heaven is not symbolic or allegorical. It is considered real, but as a supernatural creature would not be classed alongside any standard list of zoological specimens. A similar understanding may be possible for the fish in Jonah. (p. 105)

If the book is satire it will use the forms of the time – and this would include the cosmic creature ordained by deity. This is an accepted form of the day and age. Contra argument three, the reason to see the fish as a cosmic creature comes not from a desire to remove the miraculous but from the appreciation of the forms common in ancient Near Eastern literature.

 

Walton also comments on the length of time, three days and three nights.

A person is considered truly dead after three days in the grave or in the netherworld. In the Descent of Inanna the goddess goes down into the nether world and tells her servant that is she has not returned in three days, she should lament for he and make petitions to the gods for her return. With this idea in mind, Jonah’s three days and nights in the belly of the fish in the realm of death indicates that Jonah is at the threshold of death. (p. 109)

The idea of Jonah on the threshold of death also comes in his prayer in chapter 2. The sign of Jonah refers to this return from death after three days in the fish. Certainly there is no other way in which Jesus is justly compared with the foolish, selfish, and superficial prophet Jonah. Something greater than Jonah is here is quite the understatement.

 

I will also note that as Christians we celebrate the crucifixion on Good Friday (the preparation day before the Sabbath) and the resurrection on Sunday morning (very early in the morning on the first day of the week) so we don’t exactly attach great literal significance to the three nights in the heart of the earth. Why then, we insist that the story of Jonah must be history for the allusion to be valid I am not sure.  John notes a special Sabbath and thus would likely have three nights, but the church through the centuries has not chosen this chronology, but rather the Friday to Sunday observance.

 

Chapter four of the book really nails the genre as satire (or parody) in my opinion.

3:10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened. 

4:1-3 But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

Walton notes that this description of God is practically creedal in the Old Testament … gracious, compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. Yet Jonah takes it as a negative. God doesn’t do what any “good” God should [do, by wiping] out the Ninevites [and] destroying their city. Really, God’s compassion is reason to wish for death? As satire the focus is on the attitude of Jonah, and perhaps by extension all those who prefer to delight in God’s wrath and judgment (on others of course) rather than his mercy and compassion.