This was a somewhat pleasantly feisty session by Michael Grisanti. He spoke on a paper by Robert Chisholm about conditional prophecies (this paper was also given at the NW ETS Regional meeting last year as the plenary session) and a book by Brett Sandy about hyperbolic language in the prophets. Chisholm views the majority of prophecies in the OT as conditional, with Jonah as a classic example. He thinks that there almost always is an implied “if” in the prophecies. Grisanti took issue with this and said that while there are some conditional prophecies, the majority of them are not. Sandy claims that the OT prophecies contain more hyperboles than usually acknowledged, and Grisanti had essentially the same reason: much of what Sandy noted is good, but he takes it too far.

The feisty part was during the question and answer time, as Chisholm was in the audience. Eugene Merrill had some negative words about Chisholm’s proposal, to which he responded, after making a comment that they could continue to disagree with each other at home since their offices are right next to each other at Dallas. He said that Deuteronomy 18 refers only to short-term unconditional prophecies, but not long term prophecies or conditional prophecies. He also noted Daniel’s prayer implies conditionality, since if it was unconditional then he would just have assumed it would have happened. Conditions are bound up in the Mosaic covenant: If you repent, God will bless you.

The last report is actually a collection of presentations from the Old Testament as Historical Literature study group. The focus this year was a book that came out at ETS last year by Peter Enns: Inspiration and Incarnation. The book was interesting, I thought, but not excellent. But it has gotten a lot of attention and multiple book reviews, with the reviewers strongly stating their opinions either for or against the book. In this series of presentations, Peter Enns gave a talk, and then three others responded to specific aspects of his book (but I only went to the first two responders). It was a very full session, with people spilling out into the hallway, and many of the top evangelical OT scholars were present.

There are many questions I have about Scripture that I am certain the (human) narrator knew the answer to, but declined to share.  Other times, I feel pretty sure he did not.  But on some occasions, I wonder if perhaps the narrator did know the answer, and did share his conclusion, but just not in the straight forward way we might hope.  I think I have an example of this third scenario. 

The Shema is a central passage for the Jews, many of whom still recite it daily even today. But Deuteronomy 6:4 is a very difficult verse to translate, since there are only six words, four of whose relationship to each other is unclear. I preached on this passage recently and thought I would pass along two notes from my study. I did not arrive at these conclusions by myself, but I borrowed them from a JETS article by Dan Block several years ago on the topic. These two different readings than the norm present a fairly different picture of the verses.

The best introduction to the literature on war in the Old Testament easily is The Problem of War in the Old Testament, by Craigie. Not only is it easy to read, it is short (just over 100 pages), and easily available on Amazon for only a few dollars.  I would recomment this book to anyone interested in the topic. He provides a great introduction to the data about God as Divine Warrior and to the war texts of the OT, as well as previous research on the issue. 

All that being said, I'm not sure that Craigie actually offers a viable solution to the problem. Here are some of the main points of the book.

1. War is always fundamentally evil.

2. God can be called  the Divine Warrior because of accomodation to human language.

3. The OT contains so many stories about war because Israel was a state and states must fight. 

4. For a final conclusion about war he proposes a position between just war and pacificsm. He finds arguments against both sides compelling and so does not go with either side.  He says it is a matter of mystery, like divine sovereignty and human responsibility.

But I am not sure these are all that helpful. I agree that war often is evil. But is it fundamentally evil? The divine accomodation point is the weakest point for me. Sometimes this kind of language is used. But we don't see God being called the divine murderer. Or the divine rapist. Or the divine thief. As far as epithets, there doesn't seem this kind of process. His final conclusion is also unhelpful. I agree that the issue is difficult, but someone must say something about the topic, and appealing to mystery I think does not work in this situation. But perhaps my feelings on these things will change as I continue to study. 

Robert Hill: Reading the Old Testament in Antioch

A central part of the history of the early church is the dynamic between Antioch and Alexandria, a dynamic which exists to this day, albeit under different names. But as useful as this handle is for speaking in broad terms, does it accurately reflect the situation? This book sets out to present how the Old Testament was viewed in Antioch, specifically in the commentaries of the primary Antiochenes. 

            Wright wrote this book due to his concern for missions and its relation to the Bible. While growing up, he heard missions proclaimed using proof-texts such as the Great Commission. He became discontented with this approach, especially when he did his academic studies in Bible and did not talk about missions at all. This book is an attempt to relate God, his people, and missions in a more biblical fashion. Wright argues for the basic idea of the Bible being missional: namely, God’s mission, not our mission (Wright uses missions for cross-cultural missions and missional for anything relating to mission). He shows through this book how God’s mission can be used as a basic hermeneutic to read the Bible, not as an alien hermeneutic imposed on the text but as a natural hermeneutic arising from the text itself. Since this is an excellent book, I have included a short overview of the argument of the book. The book is well worth reading. 

My dad left me a legacy of game playing. He played detailed war games throughout most of his life and left them all to me. Since my family refuses to play them with me, they don't get unpacked very often (I do play a lot of Catan with the family, though!). I am always interested in games that involve the Bible in some way. People stopped playing Bible trivia games with me a long time ago, but there are some excellent games out there that help in understanding the Bible. I came across a seemingly comphrensive list recently that is well worth looking at, since it includes games of complexity levels and quality. I am particularly interested in Credo , a game that allows one to play a role in the eary church councils and argue for one of the Christological views. But it is apparently impossible to find.

 A game that just came out a few months ago I was able to find and acquire. The name of the game is the Campaigns of King David. I've only played it a few times, but it is quite fun. It is a game based on the nations around Israel during David's time. There can be two to five players. Two players play Philistia and Judah, and each additional player plays Aram, Phoenicia, and Moab. The game is fairly extensive, with 20 or so pages of rules. The turn order is completely random, which injects a fun element into the game. There might be several turns of excess food, and then a famine for a few turns, for example. There might be five battle episodes before a time to raise new armies. While the two player game is rather lame, more players give a real feel for what the politics of the time period were like and what David and other kings actually faced. A full game with five players would probably take six or seven hours (I've not actually finished one yet), so it is not a game for the weak-willed, but it is a great game to help introduce the geography and politics of the time period. And you can get the random "Ark of the Lord" card to help you in battle!

The Hebrew of Proverbs 30:33 has a fun aspect that does not come through in English. Here is the verse in Hebrew and a literal translation.

כי מיץ חלב יוציא חמאה ומיץ אף יוציא דם ומיץ אפים יוציא ריב

For the pressing of milk brings out butter and pressing of the nose brings out blood and the pressing of anger brings out strife.

The verse is highly parallel, as each clause uses the same verbs: press and brings out. The second and third clause have another parallel: the word "anger" is actually the plural of "nose."

I'm quite sure that all of this is rather meaningless, but it was interesting, right? 

King, Philip J., and Lawrence E. Stager. Life in Biblical Israel. Library of Ancient Israel. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001.

This book is simply an amazingly broad and comprehensive study of life in ancient Israel. While the book is written in prose like a traditional book, the deep structure is that of an encyclopedia. If one wants to learn about any aspect of life in ancient Israel (and most likely see some gorgeous pictures in relation to it), then one can simply turn to the table of contents and immediately find it. This book is very useful to have one’s shelf within easy reach at any given moment.

King and Stager wrote this book to illustrate what life was like for both the average Israelite as well as the elite. This area of interest was neither of much interest previously nor able to be studied until the rise of archaeology, since so much of the Bible has to do with the elites. So King and Stager write using archaeology, other ancient Near East cultures, and the Bible to show the reader what life would have been like in ancient Israel.

The first main chapter (chapter 2) is about the Israelite house and household, covering domestic architecture, family relationships, food, and illness. The third chapter covers farming, animals, water sources, arts, and travel. The fourth chapter looks at royal architecture, urban water sources, and warfare. The fifth chapter examines clothing and adornments, music, dance, and literacy. The last chapter is about sacred sites, ritual objects, religious practices, death, and the afterlife.

The pictures are another strength of the book. This is one of the most beautiful books on the Old Testament I have ever read. It seems that every other page had a color photo illustrating some point the authors were talking about. Some of these were essential to understanding the description, such as the photo of how keys worked in the ancient world (33). The chart of pottery types and Hebrew words was helpful in visualizing what they would have looked like, very useful as one reads about seemingly dozens of different types of jugs and jars in the Old Testament (144-145).

There are many interesting tidbits in the book along the journey that may or may not be true. They theorize that anointing kings with oil came from a remedy for head lice (75) (a correlation vs. causation problem?). They identify the “price of a dog” in Deuteronomy 23:19 as related to a healing cult centered around dogs rather than relating to prostitution (83). Ekron produced a thousands tons of oil every year (96). Grape production requires a stable society, since it is a multi-year process (98). The apparel of women did not differ much from that of men, although they do recognize there must be some difference because of the laws against dressing like the other gender (272).

            In current Evangelical circles, there are few, if any, who would deny that there is at present a cosmic battle between God and Satan, and thus a battle between those who would follow God and those who would follow Satan.  Paul affirms this in his letter to the Ephesians, but the majority of the time we are not able to see this battle as it progresses.  Individual Christians may disagree over what constitutes spiritual warfare, and yet would affirm that we see it taking place in scripture.  Some notable examples would include Paul’s persecutions (1 Thessalonians 2:17-18 cf Acts 17:1-9), Elijah’s battle with the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18), Eve’s seduction by the Serpent (Genesis 3:1-6), and the life and ministry of our Lord (Revelation 12:1-6).  These, and many more, receive attention in Scripture, but none, with the exception of the crucifixion, resurrection and return of Christ, measure up to the account of the plagues in their length, scope and grandeur.

Murphy, Roland E. The Tree of Life: An Exploration of Biblical Wisdom Literature. 3rd ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002.

Roland Murphy has written a very helpful introduction to wisdom literature in the Bible and somewhat beyond. The book includes the usual discusses of the classis wisdom books of the OT: Proverbs, Job, and Qoheleth. Beyond these he also includes surveys of Ben Sira and the Wisdom of Solomon. He concludes the book by looking at wisdom’s echoes in other parts of the Hebrew Bible, the theology of wisdom literature, and Lady Wisdom. The book seems to be designed for those with a basic background in Old Testament who desire to know more about wisdom literature.

Proverbs has seen a large number of great commentaries published recently, and one of the largest is a two volume commentary by Bruce Waltke (NICOT). One of the more interesting points of the commentary is his understanding of proverbs. Most commentators think of proverbs as general principles which are not always true: they are true only in specific situations. Waltke argues that this is a terrible basis to follow: can we seriously trust God's word if it is only true some of the time? Therefore, he makes the proverbs virtually into promises: this is what will happen. This naturally leads to some problems for his understanding of the proverbs, since many of them do not seem to be absolutely true. I have only glanced at his commentary, but he has several ways of explaining them as promises.

First, he reads many of them eschatologically. That is, even if they are not true now, they will be true in the eschaton. The righteous will not always get the rewards of righteousness now, but they will eventually. This is true enough, but I wonder if onecan get this from reading Proverbs. A canonical reading will support this interpretation, but that does not seem to be the langauge and idea of Proverbs itself.

Second, he interprets some passages as being only part of a process. For example, the proverb on training one's child and they will not depart from it receives this explanation. While it is an important part, parenting is not the only part of a child's choice in what to do with their life. Hence, the proverb, while being absolute, is not absolute. But then is any proverb absolute? Are not all situations interconnected with other situations and decisions? 

Third, he simply interprets proverbs to fit his definition. The most famous example of proverbs being used in different situations is 26:4-5, which contain a flat out contradiction. One tells us to answer a fool according to his folly, the other tells us not to answer a fool according to his folly. Which is it? Waltke, in contrast to most commentators, reads the first part of each verse in light of the second part, that is, they are actually talking about two different things. We are to answer a fool to make sure they are not encouraged in their foolisheness, but we are not to answer them in a way that sinks us to the level of foolishness. They are not contradictions. We are not to decide which one to follow in each situation (the usual interpretation), instead, we are to follow both all the time. Both are absolute and both are to be followed all the time. While Waltke knows Hebrew grammar far more than I ever will, I do not think that the leading parallel phrases can be defined differently when they are stated in exactly the same terms. 

While it is an interesting idea, I do not think Walkte has the correct idea on proverbs. Having said that, it is an excellent commentary, at least on my minimal reading of it. Owners of it will not be disappointed. 

Some of you, Charlie in particular, thought this post series was finished...but that was only wishful thinking.  In this, the last in this series, I attempt to provide some thinking about the application of this paper.  I have not forgotten those of you who have commented on the previous entries.  I will do my best to respond to you within the next 2 months.  Actually, in Charlie's case, this may provide some manner of response.

One of the odd facts surrounding Jeremiah is that he never mentions Josiah's reform. Shouldn't Jeremiah have been excited about it? He was alive and seems to have been active during the time period. Why didn't Jeremiah praise Josiah and the reforms? This oddity has produced a number of speculative theories. But the more I thought about it the less odd it became in my mind for two reasons. One is a parallel: Isaiah and Hezekiah. Hezekiah enacted similar reforms to Josiah, but we read nothing about them in Isaiah. Why not? Which leads to a second reason: the purpose of the prophets. Prophets go from central to peripheral in the course of the OT. The earliest prophets, such as Abraham and Moses, are the center leadership. The next group of prophets are still associated with the central government, but are not the center themselves, such as Nathan and Gad. But by the time we get to Elijah and Elisha and the writing prophets, we mostly have prophets who speak from the outside (there are exceptions, and in postexilic times the prophetic role seems to return to a more central role, it seems). But the peripheral prophet works to challenge sinners and abuse; in other words, the prophets come in when the times are evil. Hence, if the king is enacting reforms, there is little role for peripheral prophets. They are needed most when the king and leaders are opposed to God. Hence, it is not surprising that Jeremiah does not mention the reforms: that was the not the time when prophets were in action.

I was just reading Rashi's commentary on the Song of the Sea and came across some left-handed slander. Here is the text on which he (Rashi) is commenting: Your right hand, O LORD, glorious in power; your right hand, O LORD, crushes the enemy (Exodus 15:6). Rashi says on the verse, in a loose paraphrase: the two mentions of the right hand indicate that when Israel does the will of the Omnipresent one, the left hand is made into the right hand. I.e., a wonderful thing happens: one's useless left hand becomes a glorious right hand!Sorry to all you left-handers out there.