Reflections on Paul Tillich’s Notion of the Theonomous

 From a seminar on on at Bethel Seminary on Theology and Contemporary Culture

Introduction

In highlighting sharply distinctive points of reference, McClendon, in Witness: Systematic Theology, Vol 3, draws out Paul Tillich, Julian Hartt, and John Howard Yoder in broadly typological terms, with Tillich representing the cultural point of reference, Hart, the theological, and Yoder the ethical/political.  While his selection is rooted in a typological motivation, he has chosen well, given Tillich’s substantive work on the important role of cultural analysis in the shaping of theological investigation, Hart’s on the depth of his theological rooting in the centralities of the Great Tradition of Christian orthodoxy, and Yoder’s emphasis on the non-violent politics of Jesus of Nazareth, sifted through a sharply-focused ethical lens.  Moreover, his discussion of these modes of Christianity is “thicker” than the very broad-based typological presentation of H. R. Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture.

Typology is useful in identifying distinctive points of (in this case, theological) reference, which, however, can mask the ways in which the representative theologians speak to the concerns of the others in the given model.  Thus, Tillich also embraces the theological significance of the centrality of the risen Christ, and clearly addresses ethics, while Hart—as McClendon notes—also addresses culture, rooted in the same mid-20^th-century concerns (especially existential anxiety) that influenced the later Tillich.  As McClendon also observes, Yoder addresses culture and the orthodox Christian faith tradition, along with his particular concern for a radical non-violent ethics that eschews just war theory, based on his interpretation of the first century mission of Jesus of Nazareth.  There is value McClendon’s model-based approach that allows him to establish “a three-stranded cord—which opens space for his notion of a theological “trajectory—in which the whole is stronger than any of its contributing parts” (p. 49), a point which neither Tillich, Hartt, or Yoder would deny.

I focus my substantive comments here by drawing out McClendon’s analysis of Tillich.  Specifically, McClendon identifies two major aspects of Tillich’s work: the emphasis he places on culture in giving shape to the critical theological issues of any given historical context through which Tillich introduces his intriguing term, “theonomy,” and his theology of “correlation,” which many interpret as the necessity to define the Christian faith through the prism of pressing contemporary, commonly viewed, secular concerns and frames of reference—not totally accurately—at the expense of a more vital appreciation of the centralities of the Christian faith.

Caveat

As a prelude, I share many of the critiques of Tillich issued by McClendon and Hartt.  Those criticisms are well taken of Tillich not relying sufficiently on the inscripturated Word of God embodied in Scripture, his relative failure to embrace the Great Tradition of Christian orthodoxy in its full Chalcedon incarnational and Trinitarian meaning, and his unique terminology through which he characterizes the human encounter with the holiness of God—new being, ultimate concern, theonomy, Kairos, as well as his symbolic understanding of God as the Unconditional (McClendon, pp. 39-40).  With this concern noted, my goal in this post is to present something of the significance of Tillich’s “apologetic” theology of culture, with the hope that it provides a valuable perspective on the Christ-culture relationship that evangelicals and other more traditional orthodox Christians can draw on.  In this, I am echoing Richard Lints’s challenge that, in the case of his writing, “conversation with postmodern theologians will stretch evangelicalism like it has never been stretched before.”  As Lints further statesin The Fabric of Theology, “there is no guarantee that evangelicalism will not break [through the encounter]—except for God’s faith to be faithful.”  As he concludes: “for a people whose collective memory includes the cross as well as the resurrection of Christ, this may well be a discomfiting comfort” (p. 256).  So, it may be for evangelicals in the risky encounter with the theology of culture of Paul Tillich.

In referencing Tillich, I draw on Paul Tillich: Theologian on the Boundaries  (http://fortresspress.com/product/paul-tillich-theologian-boundaries), which includes a comprehensive 23-page introduction by editor, Mark Kline Taylor.  For the purposes of this post, I highlight two short selections that deal, respectively, with Tillich’s “theonomous” theology of culture and his theology of correlation.  The first is titled, “Religion and Secular Culture” (pp. 119-126); the second, “The Problem of Theological Method” (pp. 126-141).

Tillich’s Notion of the Theonomous

In the first article, Tillich introduces his concept of the “theonomous” as the spirit of God which can break in within any historical moment, whether commonly viewed as secular—which, when disconnected from the holy devolves into the “autonomous” sphere—or its opposite, the formally religious, when disconnected from the immanent and transcendent power of God, which Tillich refers to as a state of “heteronomy.”  Tillich makes a distinction between theonomy, which refers to the potentiality of such breaking in of the spirit of God within any given historical (as well as personal) movement or moment, and the Kairos as “the fulfilled moment of time in which the present and the future, the holy that is given and the holy that is demanded [by the theonomous potentiality of a given moment] meet, and from whose concrete tensions the new creation proceeds in which sacred import is realized in necessary [contextual] form” (Taylor, p. 57).  That is, when the spirit of God moves from the potential to the fulfilled in any given cultural context.  This is at least what I think Tillich means.

Tillich’s theological focus emerged amidst the breakdown of the known world order in the chaos and violence that sprang forth in Europe in the cataclysmic events of World War I and its 30-year aftermath, with the rise of Nazism, the economic depression of the 1930s, WWII, the holocaust, the atomic bomb and the emergence of the Cold War. Within this cauldron, old religious certainties broke down for Tillich and the need for a new world order of God’s indwelling within history was called for, in order for the power of God to reappear in a world gone fundamentally astray, not unlike the new world order promised by Second Isaiah amidst the Babylonian onslaught that threatened to tear apart the very fabric of Israel’s identity as Yahweh’s special people.  In Tillich’s terminology, as in Israel of old, the foundations were truly shaken in the post-1918 European cultural, social, political, and religious world order. 

Initially, Tillich linked a theonomous potentiality to the underlying spirit of democratic socialist movements, which in the upheavals emerging from the Nazi onslaught and the Soviet gulags, turned demonic.  By the 1950s he pinned his hopes in the emergence of a “sacred void” (p. 124) as a counter-response to the existential angst in the mid-century age of alienation and despair.

For Tillich, “a theonomous culture expresses in its creations an ultimate concern and a transcendent meaning not as something strange but as its own spiritual ground” (p. 121), whether a social movement, a work of art, a psychological theory, a historical explanation, or even a religious movement.  The issue for Tillich was not whether the potentiality for God’s indwelling—what Old Testament theologian Walter Brueggemann refers to as “hope within history”—was formally religious or secular, but that it carried within it the living spirit of God’s immanent transcendence, which brought “new being” and new life through its manifestations and symbols in response to a given period’s “ultimate concern.”

Tillich’s theology was very much rooted in existential theology in the realization of, and working through anxiety, the consequence of human guilt, estrangement from self, others, and God in the quest for the “courage to be” through which the power of transcendence has the capacity to break forth.  As expressed by Tillich, “religion is ultimate concern; it is the state of being grasped by something unconditional, holy, absolute.  As such it gives meaning, seriousness, and depth to all culture and creates out of the cultural material a religious culture of its own” (p. 123), regardless of whether formally acknowledged as religious. 

A Few Words on Tillich’s Correlation Methodology

 Because my text on Tillich’s concept of theonomy is already overly long, I will by-pass a substantive discussion of his methodology of correlation, other than to highlight a few key points and passages. One is his distinction between kerygmatic and apologetic theology.  The first he defines in predominantly biblical or classical theological terms as commonly identified in traditional orthodox Christianity.  The second (and only the second) he links to given “prephilosohical and philosophical interpretations of reality” (p. 138), broadly speaking, through which to engage the culture. His methodology of correlation pertains to the second sphere, only; however, the terminology he draws on to describe his understanding of the presence and power of God is implicitly linked to the language forms and underlying presuppositions of existential philosophy and mid-century depth-psychology. 

McClendon is correct in critiquing Tillich’s underdeveloped utilization of the fullness and depth of the OT and NT biblical narrative, a problem that is partially offset in Tillich’s published collections of sermons, particularly, The Shaking of the Foundations.  Nonetheless, in the following passage, at least, the similarities between Tillich and Hartt are not that far apart even though the latter uses more formal traditional Christian terminology than the former.  According to Tillich:

“If the question implied in human finitude is the question of God and the idea of God is the answer to the question, then modern [mid-century] existential analysis of human finitude becomes extremely valuable for the theological treatment of God. [Viewed thusly], God becomes the correlate to human anxiety and contingency.  He becomes the symbol of a ‘transcendent courage’, in which the characteristics of finitude, as essential insecurity, loneliness, having to die, etc. are overcome. In this way the idea of God attains existential significance” (p. 140).

In short, any religious or theological response to the gospel needs to be linked to the questions and concerns people actually identify, in which a correlational methodology is designed for this expressed purpose.  For Tillich, the response is ultimately rooted in the living God, though he expends a great deal more energy than most in probing the implicit and explicit questions rooted in culture through a stimulating faith-culture dialectic.  As he puts it, “question and answer must be correlated in such a way that the religious symbol is interpreted as the adequate answer to a question implied in man’s [sic] existence” (p. 139), clearly, a high bar.  In this emphasis Tillich played a most formative role within the various contextual theologies of the second half of 20^th century into the first two decades of the 21^st century, particularly death of God theologies of the 1960s, and, in his initial search for the Kairos in democratic socialism, in the liberationist theologies of Latin America. 

Concluding Note

As McClendon notes, Tillich is a theologian of culture to be contended with, perhaps more than he acknowledges, his substantial critique notwithstanding.  A critical question remains on the extent to which thoughtful evangelicals can appropriate significant aspects of his theology of culture, while remaining thoroughly rooted in their own prevailing traditions, particularly, in movements of God within history that are not expressly religious, in the spheres of art, literature, science, philosophy, and culture, the respective spheres that McClendon addresses in Witness.  As we go forward, it will be instructive to see whether a Tillichian theology of culture can effectively be drawn upon to complement McClendon’s own cultural theology, or for that matter, the Christ-culture relationship in Henry’s Uneasy Conscience and in H. R. Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture. 

 

 

The Intellectual Influences on Social Darwinism in Theological Perspective

From a seminar on at Bethel Seminary titled, Theology in Contemporary Culture

 When I read Thomas Kuhn’s (1962) Structure of Scientific Revolutions, I gained a general familiarity of the extent to which science—whatever its illumination of the natural world—is a socially constructed discipline, in which the precepts of any given subfield are canonically derived from the fields of knowledge and the forms of investigation that underscore its legitimation.  As knowledge accrues, more or less unproblematically, a field develops in a “normal” fashion in a successive building block accumulative process. Problems emerge, but can be typically resolved within an existing frame of reference, a process Kuhn refers to as “normal” science. At critical points, a given discipline experiences anomalies sufficiently disruptive to result in a “paradigm” change of an existing model.  A given model, however long standing—such as the shift in physics from Newton’s unchanging laws of motion—gives way when the anomalies of the given paradigm are too great to subsume, and when an alternative interpretation of more comprehensive scope emerges—Einstein’s theory of relativity and quantum mechanics—that provides a more comprehensive understanding of how the laws of the universe operate.

While Kuhn dealt primarily with changes in scientific thought, his work includes discussion of the mediation of scientific thought through communities of scientific investigators and their roles in defining the realm of the canonical in the formation of accepted scientific standards and in signaling the need for paradigmatic change.  With that backdrop, I was able to process Murphy’s social construction and historical impact of Darwin’s theory of evolution and the exploration of alternative interpretations that could have emerged had the social climate for the reception of such work developed in directions different that which actually transpired in the second half of the 19^th century. 

In Ch. 3, Nancey Murphy, in Witness: Systematic Theology, Vol. 3, does a nice job in articulating the social and intellectual context in which Darwin’s work took shape and received into the European and U. S. intellectual and religious cultures, particularly in mediating the tension in the natural theologies, respectively, of William Paley and Thomas Malthus. From the former, Darwin drew out the importance of design in his inescapable anthropomorphizing theory of “natural selection” (p. 111). From the latter he drew on the notion of “survival of the fittest” as a core metaphor for depicting the competing forces in nature underlying his theory of “natural selection” based on more rather than less effective adaptation of a genetically differentiated organism to thrive in any given environment.

While not directly intended by Darwin, the underlying metaphors of his theory of evolution, in which “natural selection” emerged through a “struggle for existence and the “survival of the fittest,” gave shape to a highly competitive social ideology in which those who succeeded in the social and economic arena deserved to do so based on their natural merits.  In turn, government or charitable organizations—including the church—should not support those who failed because to do so violated the natural laws of the social universe.  19^th century intellectuals associated this form of social Darwinism with “laissez-faire liberalism,” in which the government’s role was to protect the liberty of individuals and not meddle in improving the affairs of social classes, since such efforts, being contrary to the laws of social and biological nature would only be counterproductive.  This was prevailing viewpoint that provided scientific justification to the captains of industry and their managers and an explanation for the increasingly sharp class divisions which characterized European and U. S. society in the era of the second industrialization and imperialistic expansion into Africa, Asia, and Latin and South America.  In the U. S., this era was dubbed as the Gilded Age, recently highlighted in a PBS American Experience series (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/gilded-age/).  Mark Twain and Charles Dudley dubbed this era as The Gilded Age, the title of their novel. 

Murphy points to a more benign interpretation of social Darwinism  underlying a reformist impetus that undergirded the progressive movement of the early 20^th century based on the capacity of society to evolve through intentional social policy, an orientation that led to the improvement of the conditions of humankind in support both of “liberalism and socialism” (p. 113). While “Darwin’s theory [was able to] lend itself to a multiplicity of…different directions” (p. 114), the ideology of laissez faire individualism based upon the survival of the fittest had (and continues to have) an enduring impact on U. S. and European social practices, leading to a number of malignant outcomes.  Murphy does a nice job in illustrating how such a position was embedded in the social, intellectual, religious and scientific thinking of the late 19^th century.

In the later sections of Ch. 3 Murphey also illustrates that the constrained language that gave shape to the emphasis in evolution on competition masked some of the more symbiotic and cooperative ways in which animals interacted with each other in their natural environments and draws implications as well for the evolution of human morality predisposed to such cooperative designs.  In this interpretation, “‘the most effective ‘struggle’ for life is mutual cooperation,’” (p. 117), undergirded with a degree of altruism intrinsic to animal behavior.  Throughout Section 3, Murphy provides wonderful examples of animals, mostly within a clan network within a species, cooperating with each other, sometimes at risk of an individual animal’s own narrow interests, even to the point of survival.  One sees something of this sort on many of the PBS Nature Series, very powerfully reinforced in Jane Goodall’s decades-long studies of the social life of chimpanzees.  Murphy does not want to over-romanticize this altruistic and communal focused impulse in the animal world.  Nonetheless, she makes the critically important point that even today, such an emphasis in the biological sciences is minimized in the works of Dawkins and other contemporary biologists because they are presupposed to identify a “selfish” gene underlying even the most apparently benign altruistic behavior.

In Section 4, Murphy draws out the implications of a richer view of biology for a theology rooted within the context of an “embodied selfhood,” which underlies creation theologies often underplayed in perspectives based on a radical polarity between the spirit and the flesh.  A critical point of her discussion in this section is that our moral sense of the human community has an evolutionary grounding in the animal kingdom.  That whatever one is to make of any literal interpretation of the Adam and Eve narrative, a sense of religious identity had its formation within the hominid species itself, and not just with homo sapiens.  Based on the archeological and geological evidence, “burial practices and cave drawings of Neanderthals are often taken to show religious awareness” (p. 126).  Consequently, Murphey wonders whether Neanderthals also had souls.

 Murphy does not probe into the extent to which any such reality poses fundamental challenges for traditional Christian theology, but her embodied understanding of human reality puts to rest any theology based on body/soul dualisms of any sort.  She implicitly contends that Christian theology can carry the full weight of contemporary science.  From her vantage point, it is easier to grasp the interface between science and religion when the spiritual and embodied dimensions of human understanding are more thoroughly integrated.

Murphy’s discussion is wide ranging, covering many critical areas.  Given her emphasis on evolution, it would have been interesting to see how she would have processed the arguments of intelligent design within the context of her obvious respect for and understanding of evolutionary theory.  From what I can see, she has no problem in squaring a mature, scientifically informed Christian theology with evolutionary biology, as such. For those interested in such an interface see the Biologos website https://biologos.org/.  Their discussion of biological evolution is particularly instructive https://biologos.org/blogs/archive/biological-evolution-what-makes-it-good-science-part-1

Wright and Crossan on the Historical Jesus and the Christ of Faith: What Matters and What Does Not

From a seminar at Bethel Seminar on the historical Jesus

I appreciate N.T. Wright’s long-term commitment to interpret the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith in light of each other.  His three-volume Christian Origins series is a mammoth effort to bring these two perspectives into critical and sympathetic relationship to each other (https://www.amazon.com/gp/bookseries/B010L7JS5O).  His second volume, Jesus and the Victory of God, is the most germane of these texts for our course.  Many of his views on the relationship between the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith are put in juxtaposition to those of Marcus Borg in the much shorter, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions.  My own review of this book can be accessed here.  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06VWN5P8H/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

I empathize with Wright’s aspiration and also agree that the historical Jesus of the first century and the Christ of faith are invariably linked.  How could they not be?  That said, there are two issues I would like to raise.  The first is, in what sense might they placed in such proximity.  The other is the ultimate usefulness of the juxtaposition.  To what extent does it invariably lead to good history? To what extent does such a quest (and it can only be a quest) for the historical Jesus contribute to a strengthening of one’s Christian faith?

Both Crossan and Wright seek to place Jesus in his first century, Jewish, Mediterranean context, even as Crossan places more weight on Hellenistic influences in Galilee, while Wright places his focus in the Jewish grounding of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth.  Through their research, both scholars give an account of the rise of Christianity as well as the specific ministry of Jesus that took place around 30 CE.  Both scholars draw on historical conjectures (i.e., hypotheses) based on their respective presuppositions about how God works in history, their best understanding of what actually happened surrounding the events of Jesus of Nazareth, and their own academic training. That is, both scholars work with a theory of the case around which they construct their version of the historical Jesus. 

I am in no position to evaluate the historical soundness of either scholar’s positions in a substantive way, even as I view Wright’s Jesus and the Victory of God a marvelously impressive study that has drawn me in a great deal.  I only know that both scholars proclaim their faith in Christ and each presents a radically different historical perspective, especially of the events surrounding the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus and the emergence of the early church. I’m not sure of the dating of the texts that make up the Q source, but they do not focus on the crucifixion and resurrection.  Clearly, the evidence (through Paul) points to an early resurrection tradition, including a burial (1 Cor 15:4), but nothing like the full-scale narratives at the end of each gospel which were constructed from 30-50 years after the events to which they refer.

In any event, neither Crossan nor Wright (nor anyone else of whom I am aware) has direct, primary material of the events surrounding the life, ministry, and death and resurrection narratives of Jesus, dating back to the early 30s. Therefore, each of these scholars has had to undertake their studies using inferential reasoning, evidence that they view as germane, and various scholarly methodologies that provide probes into this period of time.  Undoubtedly, there were eyewitnesses, which are embedded in the gospel narratives, the letters of Paul, and Acts, but accurately sifting what they may lay witness to is a perilous undertaking, and anything but self-evident even though as eye-witness accounts, if they could be effectively extracted, would be potentially fruitful in strengthening or challenging particular arguments.

When I was converted to Christianity in 1972, I encountered what I believe, was the risen Christ (the Christ revealed in and through the New Testament).  When I came to faith, I took the revelation that was given to me with radical seriousness—as my ultimate vocabulary and my ultimate concern, to use the phrase of the theologian, Paul Tillich.  That faith calling has its own unique resonance. It is different than any other source of knowledge, understanding, or conscious awareness, even as it has a relationship to various sources of cognition and emotional perceptiveness that give shape to human awareness.  The prompting of that still, small voice (i.e., the Holy Spirit) has a relationship to history; whether so-called sacred or secular.  It has a relationship to the scholarship that has given shape to the three quests under discussion in this course.  In what specific ways I am uncertain, especially in relationship of the historical personage of Jesus of Nazareth to the Trinitarian Father, Son, and Spirit, as it relates to the most fundamental question: “but who do you say I am?”  That is, except to say that there is a relationship, however much the mystery of this revelation is beyond my capacity to grasp.

If N. T. Wright is closer to the mark, then there very well may be close symmetry to the actual life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth and that portrayed in the Gospels.  If Dom Crossan is closer to the mark (and I’m not arguing that he is), then the gap between the actual life of Jesus of Nazareth and the Gospel portrayals may be more sharply divergent than many Christians are willing to allow—and then what, if that is so, or nearer to the mark than Wright?  Where do we go from here? 

The short of it is I do not accept history as having the capacity to disclose absolute truth, even though its insights are enormously important. Likewise, I do not accept a historically literal view of the Gospel narratives as similarly synonymous with the actual events they describe, without denying that they may be close.  That is, with Wright, I acknowledge that there could be a close correspondence between the passion stories as narrated in the four gospels and what actually happened surrounding the events of the early 30s.  And then again, maybe not (Crossan) and that’s the issue, and I don’t know that this is a resolvable matter. 

That given, I draw upon the entirety of the New Testament canon as a most primary source for grounding my faith in the revelation of the risen Christ, which includes, and I believe, somehow subsumes the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. In this, as I have elsewhere written, is what may be “the confluence of what is commonly referred to as natural and supernatural forces” operative in the relationship between history and the risen Christ as “more complexly intertwined than we can ever or are ever called upon to discern.”   In response to this mystery of faith in the One  who “will…give life to [our] mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in” us (Rom 8:11), I hold as an ultimate hermeneutic Paul’s proclamation that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor. 5:19).  I believe this holds, whether Wright or Crossan is closer to the mark, in which the history of Jesus and his times, was both a lived one in real time, and one in which God, the Father was and is in the resurrected Christ reconciling the world to himself. Academic history can provide clues about this, but the revelation transcends that which can be discerned through naturalistic forms of human knowledge.  We see, but only so through a glass darkly, and that is a wonder in itself.

 

A Difference That Makes a Difference Part II

From a seminar at Bethel Seminary on Uses of the OT in the N

In Revelation, John reiterates many of the promises that God gives in the Old Testament. For example, just as God promises to “create a new heaven and a new earth” in Isaiah, John sees the “new Jerusalem” coming down from heaven and hears Jesus proclaim, “Behold, I make all things new” (Rev 21:5). Yet, as with the OT prophecies, Revelation describes something that is yet to come—something that will occur in the future. So, if we already have the yet-future promises given to us in the Old Testament, why do we need the promises in Revelation? Is Revelation telling us something that the Old Testament isn’t already telling us?  

Yes, indeed, the appointment of God’s son as “the heir of all things,” who is the very “radiance of” his glory “and the exact imprint of his nature” (Heb 1:2-3). Notwithstanding the promise of a New Heaven and New Earth” in both Is 65:17-25 and Rev 21, Graeme Goldsworthy is on to something in his observation that in light of “the two-stage exile to Assyria and Babylon,” the promises of God issued in Isaiah did not come to fruition in Jewish history (outside of Jesus, that is) but only remain future oriented.  Goldsworthy, noting that “while Israel clung to the promises that God’s glory would again return,” ‘nowhere in second temple literature [except, of course, for the New Testament] is it asserted that this has happened [the return to God’s glory to Israel, as depicted in Isaiah 65]; therefore, it still remains in the future. The exile is not really over” (Goldsworthy, Christ-Centered Biblical Theology, 130.  The embedded Wright citation is from The New Testament and the People of God, 269).

As noted in the question, the promises of New Heaven and New Earth in both Isaiah and Revelation are yet to be realized, so is there a difference in the promises of Isaiah and Revelation that makes a difference? While the answer may be obvious based on the citation from Hebrews, which could be gleaned as well from the prologue to John’s gospel, can we say something more precise about any difference that actually makes a difference?

Let’s address the seriousness of the question—the futurity of God’s kingdom as eschatological promise—as Eden restored and transformed.  Interpreting Revelation from the perspective of Boyarin, it’s plausible to see the last book of the NT as an early Christian midrash writ large on Isaiah’s most far reaching proclamations, in which God’s servant will “be a light for the nations that my salvation may reach to the ends of the world” (Is 49:6).  While there are technical and highly precise definitions of what qualifies as a legitimate midrash, Boyrain’s more general (and generous) interpretation, cited below, allows it to be instructive here.

“Although a whole library could (and has been) written on midrash, for the present purposes, it will be sufficient to define it as a mode of biblical reading that brings disparate passages and verses together in the elaboration of new narratives.”

Further:

“The rabbis who produced the midrashic way of reading considered the Bible one enormous signifying system, any part of which could be taken as commenting on or supplementing any other part” (The Jewish Gospels, 76).

Thus, a Jewish scholar might say something along the following: The second temple followers of The Way created a messianic figure through a two-step already/not yet eschatological promise through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, who, in his earthly ministry was at most an ambiguous figure who some viewed as a prophet, some as a messiah and others as a charlatan. While there is much in the life and the heroic death of Jesus of Nazareth to admire—and yes, even to emulate—nonetheless, since there are so many of the prophetic promises that he did not fulfill—we can only wait for the true messiah.  In creating a two-stage fulfillment promise, followers of The Way created a safety hedge in which the full reality of their messiah would only be fulfilled when the new heavens and new earth finally descends.  We have a different understanding of the role of the messiah.

 An in-depth response is beyond the bounds of what can be addressed in this format, yet a few things can be said.  While Boyaron makes an excellent case in illustrating how some of the most cherished Christian beliefs, even the Incarnation, have their roots in the broader second temple literature, history, and theological traditions, it is in the composite depiction of Jesus the Christ throughout the NT that speaks of his authenticity at least for the millions that have been so persuaded over the centuries.   Boyrain brings much astute scholarship in making the case that, in one sense, there was nothing new in such second temple notions of the merger of messianic conquering Davidic king (son of God) and Isaianic Suffering Servant, as well as an incarnated son of man, as depicted in Daniel.  N. T. Wright has argued similarly. The novum of tremendous proportions, however, is their merging in the singular figure of Jesus Christ, when combined with the life, teaching, healing, and miracles of Jesus as depicted in the gospels and the entirety of the insights on the relationship between the Risen One and the life of his disciples in the various church communities as highlighted in the letters. 

What stands out for me is the authenticity of the depicted character, as summarized in the early NT liturgy (Phil 2:5-11).  If in this character, the exact imprint of God’s nature is enfleshed, we do have a high priest who embraces us more intimately than we or our closest companions could possibly do.  More could be said.  In the final analysis, it is a matter of faith and calling.  

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God…. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.  The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” Viewed (John 3:5, 7-8 .  

Stated otherwise, the authenticity of the already resonates with the profound depths in what is anticipated in the not yet.  For "faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Heb 11:1). 

Viewed in a more contemporary voice, 

“There is no continuous movement from an objective inquiry into the life of Jesus to a knowledge of him as the Christ who is our Lord.  Only a decision of the self, a leap of faith, a metanoia or revolution of the mind [and, of course, a calling, itself, from the Spirit] can lead from observation to participation and from observed to lived history.   And this is true of all other events in sacred history (H. R. Niebuhr, 1941, The Meaning of Revelation, 83).  

A Difference that Makes a Difference Between the Role of the Holy Spirit in the OT & NT

  From a seminar at Bethel Seminary titled, Use of the OT in the NT Part I

Lecture Five, various assigned and unassigned biblical passages, and certain sections in this week’s secondary reading highlight the centrality of the Spirit of God as an underlying source of communication to God’s people in both testaments.  In short, the Holy Spirit, like the New Covenant was not a New Testament innovation—nor is a great deal else according to the various authors we are encountering in this course.  The breaking in of the Spirit of God as a  foundational event in both testaments testifies to its centrality, namely, the descent of the Holy Spiirt in Acts 2:2-3 at Pentecost as the disciples awaited their marching orders from the risen Christ, and at the instruction of the great Lawgiver after issuing the Ten Commandments from Mount Sinai, where “the Lord spoke…out of the midst of the fire [where] you heard the sound of the words, but saw no form, you only heard a voice” (Deut 12:11-12).  Through resonating language and imagery, both events heralded a theophany of God of major proportions, in which God emphatically spoke to God’s people (https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/the-ultimate-theophany/).

 The articulation of the breaking in of the Holy Spirit at the inauguration of the early church is depicted in Peter’s first sermon as the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy that God will pour down his Spirit on his people—a vision in both texts is characterized by dreams, prophecy, and visions.  The common key event is the “pouring down of God’s Spirit on all flesh” with wonders in the heavens above and signs in the earth beneath” (NKJV).  Whatever minor variations, Peter (Luke) made in appropriating Joel’s last days prophecy may be significant for certain exegetical purposes, the main point here is the pouring down of God’s Spirit as reflected in Acts 2: 17-21 and Joel 2:28-32.  While there may be no qualitative difference in the theophonous power of the most holy God that inhabited both Joel and Luke (Peter), a significant difference resides in the focal point of each text; namely, in Acts, “the miracles, wonders, and signs… God did through him (added emphasis) whom God raised up, having loosened the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be held by it” Acts 2:22-24).

 As noted in the Lecture and elsewhere, the emphasis on the Spirit of God was more than a passing phenomenon in the OT, rooted in Israel’s deepest discourse, particularly passages in Deuteronomy, Isaiah, and Psalm 119, to say nothing of the profound pathos of Hosea 11.  The emphasis on the holiness of God is a central OT theme—one that underlies and presupposes the power of the Spirit of God.  One approach to this question is to explore the deepest themes of each testament in which God spoke to his people. This emphasis reinforces the argument of Boyarin that Christianity, however unique on its own terms, is one important variant within the religious culture of Second Temple Judaism, in which, if we are able to move back a bit from the pervasive Judaism/Christianity polarity, we would grasp profound commonalities that have the capacity to enrich both faith traditions.  The Spirit of the Lord speaking to God’s people is one such commonality.

In accepting all of this, I still want to speak of a distinction of no minor consequence, as highlighted in the Acts 2:22-24 citation, namely, the linkage of the Holy Spirit to Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, the Son of God, the Lord of human history.  On this, Romans 8:9-11 is a favorite passage of mine, in which the Spirit of God and Spirit of Christ are mutually highlighted. Verse 11 merits particular mention: “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.”  Clearly, it is God, the father, who does the raising, but is it Christ, the Son who dwells with us and gives life to our mortal bodies. 

 In his discussion of Daniel 7, Enoch, and Fourth Ezra, Boyarin did a nice job in demonstrating various late second temple manifestations of an incarnational understanding of God in two persons, in which the vision of Jesus in Acts and throughout the NT is one such manifestation. Fair enough as far as it goes, in which one could evaluate this common second temple discourse from a purely historical, third person perspective, but what, in itself, would that have to do with any first-person significance, with which one needs to come to grips for any personal encounter with the still living Christ. 

 While other texts could be drawn, consider the stunning passages in John 14-17 and the interlacing of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, in which “the helper” mediates God’s presence to believers through his Son. Key verses include 14:6, 9-11, 15:1-10, 26, 16: 23-24 and the entirety of Ch 17, in which the faithful are intimately invited into divine communion with Father and Son. 

 “And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one:  I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me” (John 17:22-23).

 Throughout all of these passages, the Holy Spirit is a central presence, sometimes spoken of, sometimes not in the intermingling discourse of the three persons of the Trinity, in which we get to participate.  This is clearly a novum of major proportions.  However much the roots of this Trinitarian discourse are grounded in an overarching second temple historical, textual, and religious common idiom, the differences are significant enough—including the differences in the particular manifestation of the Holy Spirit that through the living Christ a difference that has made a difference in the lives of millions over the millennia, has come into the world.

 

Extra Biblical Jewish Tradition

 From a seminar at Bethel Seminary on Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament

In light of Matthew’s knowledge of extra-biblical Jewish tradition (as reflected in post-NT texts such as the Targum and the Mishnah), how familiar do you think New Testament readers should be with Jewish (i.e., non-Christian) literature? That is, beyond the Old Testament, do you think New Testament readers should be spending time reading Jewish literature? Why or why not?

Context is the critical factor in responding to this important question, namely, what are one’s motivations in reading the NT and how does such knowledge factor in.

I can imagine for more than a few faith-seeking/faith embracing adults whose primary motivation is spiritual edification, drawing broad connections between NT and OT passages facilitated by well written study Bible may be sufficient.  With a singular focus on attaining an ever deeper walk with the Lord, there may not be need for more, though within the context of a church-based educational plan, for courses or workshops providing background knowledge of the life of Jesus, additional information might be well received.  At the least, this would include knowledge about the diverse groups that are mentioned in the NT—Pharisees and Scribes, as well as some knowledge of the Essenes and the Dead Sea Schools.  Given that most of the OT references in the NT are drawn from the Septuagint, some knowledge of that, including sample comparative passages with the Hebrew text might be of value.  Such a comparative reading may offer some valuable insights into the NT that would not be accessible without the comparison.

For other adults seeking a deeper walk with the Lord, biblical and related-historical knowledge could play a more pivotal role in sustaining a high-level faith formation.  Thus, someone with a more cerebral orientation might want to know why the OT portions of their Protestant Bibles are not based on the English translation of the Septuagint rather than the Masoretic text.  This could open up questions about the Council of Jenna (96 AD) and the shaping of the Christian canon, including differences between Protestant and Catholic and Orthodox resolutions.  More broadly, our cerebral-focused faith walker might appreciate a deeper understanding of the Second Temple Judaic period, a curiosity that could be opened up through reading N. T. Wright’s masterful The New Testament and the People of God or Jesus and the Victory of God.  Wright’s texts provide commentary on the wide ranging Jewish literature discussed in Beale and Boyarin.

To kick this up a notch, for those teaching in Christian adult contexts or for those preaching the Word, a reasonable working knowledge of the extra-Biblical Jewish texts, could be additionally helpful, all things being equal, which they seldom are.  Much of this information could be learned contextually, as teachers and preachers consult various sources in preparing specific teaching topics or sermon series.  Even still, in Christ-Centered Biblical Theology, Goldsworthy offers an important insight, namely:

“We have recognized the value of intertestamental texts for understanding the history and culture of the Jews and thus as background to the New Testament.  However, in the canonical perspective, irrespective of the value of the literary works of the period, the prophetic value of these texts is nil” (p. 65).

That’s strong, and may be overstated, but not too much, if one accepts the Bible, in its current canonical form, as the primary source of the revealed Word of God, then the canon, itself should remain the primary source of focus, even while accepting the value of the extra-biblical Jewish sources, as not only providing historical and textual “background” knowledge, but also for additional illumination on the OT and NT texts that might not be otherwise available.

 In his interpretation of the extra-biblical literature, Boyarin has cogently argued in his reading of Daniel 7 on the relationship between the Ancient of Days (God) and the Son of Man, an incarnational interpretation of God enjoyed respectable currency in the Second Temple literature outside of the OT and NT.  On this he notes, the primary contribution of Christianity was its recognition that Jesus, the Messiah was portrayed as God in human flesh.  That there were anticipations of a Messiah, an incarnational theology, and an apocalyptic longing for the coming of the Lord throughout the extra-biblical literature was a given. That’s a valuable insight that can evoke a spirit of understanding, humility, awe, and capacity to enter into respectful interfaith discussions with interested members of the Jewish faith.  Arguably, it is not absolutely necessary for an in-depth appreciation of the Christian faith on its own terms, though it can be helpful.

With these last points folded in among those with specialized interests, the extra-biblical knowledge may have additional value.  With those possessing a more theological orientation, one might want a reasonable working knowledge of this literature to better contextual the Bible and the historical background of both Judaism and Christianity, in which Wright’s texts provide a good deal of that background information.  The theologically oriented faith walker might concentrate more on biblical theology, as exemplified by Goldsworthy, than thick exegesis itself, which seems to be more of the focus of this course. 

That leaves those seeking specialized biblical knowledge for which the literature highlighted in this course opens up invaluable insight.  For those with that interest, the studies introduced here provide useful background for in-depth biblical interpretation.  As exemplified in Beale, even for this group, work would need to extend beyond exegesis, enter into critical dialogue with biblical, historical, and systematic theology, and into the life of the church community.  The extra-biblical Jewish literature could factor into all of these dialogues, but finding pathways into them related to such purposes would be a most critical challenge that would take a variety of forms.

Context matter.

 

The Johannine Community

 From a course I am auditing on Bethel Seminary on the Letters of John

Reflections on the Johannine Community

The Letters of John represent an important component of the literature that comprised what scholarly tradition refers to as the Johannine community, which includes the Gospel of John and perhaps Revelation.  By-passing the latter text, Burge refers to this as a “Johannine school or community or circle” (1) rooted in various locations around Ephesus. Despite differences in focus, the Gospel and the Letters share a common dualistic world view—that of either being inside the beloved community, rooted in the spirit and Incarnation of Christ, and bathed in God’s love, or that of being outside the community, consigned to darkness, whether that be the blindness of the Synagogue (the narrative body of the Gospel of John) or that of the so called, proto-Gnostic, “secessionists” (1, 2 Letters of John) who, in radicalizing the spiritual and material realm, refused to identify the Christ with Jesus in the flesh.  In this, as far as can be drawn from the extant evidence, the opponents of 1 John rejected both the Incarnation and the atonement—the “blood,” in the terminology of 1 John. As reflected in the Gospel, the “darkness, persecution, and turmoil” (Burge Location 386, Kindle) portrayed in the text stemmed from an external source, extremely sharp conflict with the synagogue, as particularly heightened in John 8:31-58.

 By contrast, especially in 1 John, “the once unified congregation,” (Ibid.) (assuming that was the actual state of affairs) began to tear apart from within) over “the proper acknowledgement of [the person] of Jesus” on the relationship to his earthly existence in the flesh (1 John 4:2) and “in his relationship to God as Father and in his mission” (Lieu 9). This was in regard to the Incarnation and atonement, as reflected in the theological high points of the Gospel, and to the significance of his teachings,  as well as the signs, as reflected throughout much of narrative body of the Gospel.

 In terms of working out some of the relationships between the Gospel and the Letters, the focus of their respective antagonistic diatribes may offer gist for some intriguing speculation, though it needs to be acknowledged that the relative silence of the sources remains an ongoing interpretive problem.  The literature points to a Greek and Jewish ethnic mix within the Johannine community, though that leaves open why the Gospel emphasized the Synagogue Jews while 1 and 2 John referenced the proto-Gnostics. Was that a matter of historical time (about a 10-15-year difference between the earlier Gospel and the later Letters?).  Was this a matter of divergence of location of the specific communities within the various Johannine circles?  

 Perhaps in some circles, the relationship between the claims of the Christ camp and the Pharisees were uppermost, most evidently an external foe, though I wonder if there was a muted internal threat—a Jewish analogue to the proto-Gnostics—in the Gospel reflected in the character of Nicodemus as perhaps an interior Jewish-Christian voice that played some significant role throughout the Gospel. Thus, could the writer of 1 and 2 John have had a particular localized focus where the proto-Gnostic challenge to the faith of the saints, at least to the writer and his immediate circle (the “I” and the “we” of 1 John) became the salient matter? I raise the relationship between the Gospel and the Letters because the primary antagonist of each points to the potential audiences each is seeking to address, even as the difference between the two leaves open many intriguing questions.

 The challenge becomes an increasingly intertextual one if one accepts the suggestion by Burge and Lieu that there may be a redactional relationship between the two bodies of texts. On this view, various stories of Jesus were circulating among the Johannine community, many of which ultimately comprised the narrative core of the Gospel.  Eventually the Prologue (1:1-14) and Farewell Discourses (14-17) were added, both of which included a stronger emphasis on the incarnation (Jesus in the flesh). These additions gave the Gospel of John the canonical legitimacy to argue against any appropriation of this Gospel by the various schools of Gnostic thought that were circulating around the first several centuries before the formal adaption of the Incarnation and the Trinity at the various church counsels of the 4^th and 5^th centuries. On this interpretation, these texts were added to the Gospel in response to the tensions experienced by those within the immediate circle of the writer of 1 and 2 John. Thus, the shift in the antagonistic foe from an external enemy reflected in the Gospel’s portrayal of “the Jews” to that of an internal enemy reflected in the secessionist, proto-Gnostics required, as reflected within 1 John, an emphasis on the Incarnation and atonement, were redacted into the later editing of the Gospel of John.

 Sources:

Burge, Gary, M. John, Letters of. In Martin, Davids. Dictionary of the Later New Testament & Its Developments: A Compendium of Contemporary Biblical Scholarship. Dictionary of the Later New Testament & Its Developments. Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2010.

Burge, Gary M. The New Application Commentary: Letters of John. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998. Kindle

Lieu, Judith, I, II, and III John: A Commentary. Westminster: John Knox Press, 2008.