True Revolutionaries

Welcome back to our two-part treatment of the (post-)modern attitude to truth.

Last week, we were observing that the concept of an actual objective truth has gone out of fashion these days. More and more, the average person of today tends to disbelieve that anything can be, in any final and universally binding sense, “true”. Truth has been banished because there are so many voices shouting so many messages that most of us don’t know where to find it if it did exist. We’re overwhelmed by multiculturalism, media overload, the speed of modern life and the decline of the formerly-solid touchpoints of religion and tradition, even if we know nothing about the theory behind it, or about the new skeptical “hermeneutics” being taught in the contemporary academy. We’re all just pretty confused about truth.

In the Wilderness of Judah

Well over two-thirds of the Bible’s 150 psalms have titles or introductory notes that scholars refer to as superscriptions. These provide information about authorship, usage, musical directions and sometimes even the circumstances in which the psalm was written. From the late 1800s until relatively recently, a majority of Bible scholars questioned the value of these superscriptions, believing Hebrew scribes likely added them centuries later than the original text. It may be for this reason that not all modern translations include them.

At least one expert on Old Testament studies has reconsidered that view.

On Authorship

In the course of studying and writing my way through more than fourteen different books of the Bible chapter by chapter and verse by verse for our ongoing Saturday series of expository posts, it’s been quite impossible to avoid the subject of authorship. I’ve had to consider that question at the beginning of every series, twelve times alone in our study on the Minor Prophets.

What quickly becomes evident is that unless the author specifically identifies himself in the text, we simply do not know who wrote any given book.

Anonymous Asks (389)

“When did the Church begin?”

Two answers to this question are common among evangelicals. The Dispensational answer is “At Pentecost in the early first century AD.” The answer of Replacement Theology (“RT”) is “The people of God are one throughout the entire Bible.” Since “church” [ekklēsia] means a congregation (i.e., more than one person), the Church can then be said to have begun with the second human being ever saved, perhaps Eve or Abel. Others argue Abraham is “the father of us all”. Either position adds thousands of years to the age of the Church.

If you think the difference is a mere numeric technicality, think again.

A Quick-and-Dirty Theology of Sleep

For over a decade, I have lived with a sleep disorder that usually limits me to between two-and-a-half and four hours of uninterrupted rest per night. I have probably mentioned that once or twice in this space. I don’t have any trouble at all getting to sleep; I nod right off in a heartbeat as soon as I lie down and turn out the light. I just can’t make sleep last, and once I’m awake again after a nap, nodding back off is impossible.

That’s been great in some ways. I have no end of opportunity for Bible study and prayer when most people are sawing logs. On the other hand, I’m not usually up to much socially later on in the evening. By ten I’m right out of gas. The third period of most hockey games ain’t happening no matter how much I’d like to see the final score.

No King in Israel (42)

One of the more interesting features of this final, very unsavory episode in Judges is that while it gives us both the spiritual nadir and narrative climax for the book, it is chronologically out of sequence. Rather than coming at the end of the period when the judges governed Israel, I believe the culling of the Benjamites actually occurred some 300 years prior; before Samson, Jephthah, Gideon and many others lived, fought and ruled.

How do we know this? By the major logistical difficulties placing it anywhere else creates.

Too Hot to Handle: The Christian Nation

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

In America is not a Christian nation: The dark capitalist roots of our country’s most destructive myth, Andrew Aghapour quizzes Princeton professor Kevin Kruse about the “Christian nation myth”.

As with most things in the media these days, the title is a bit sensationalist and the substance of the article a little less dramatic. Basically, it’s what it purports to be: the assertion that America is not and never has been a Christian nation, with a bit of window dressing that suggests a mini-conspiracy by businessmen and evangelicals to spread that myth.

Tom: Immanuel Can, I think we can agree that America is demonstrably not a Christian nation today. Has it ever been?

The Trouble with the Truth

Some years ago I picked up a volume compiled by Walter Truett Anderson entitled The Truth About the Truth. It was a collection of essays, actually, each one detailing some way in which the modern conception of “truth” has been warped. It had chapters on reification (the modern tendency to mistake mere traditions for inevitabilities), the love of the ironic tone, the tendency to accept things at face value, the obsession with commercialism, gender fluidity, cultural pluralism and the loss of the integrated self, and so on … all very interesting, and some of it insightful. But so far as the concept of a stable, universal, actually-existing kind of truth, very cynical.

The Commentariat Speaks (35)

The Google Books Ngram Viewer is a great little online tool for discovering when any word or phrase began to appear in the 22 million English books and manuscripts Google has digitized, and the years in which its popular usage peaked. Google’s library is a reasonable proxy for the frequency with which a term was and is used in Western cultures. The Ngram Viewer charts sets of search strings by year, in most cases from 1800 to 2022, and only charts words and phrases that appear in forty or more books.

The phrase I’m searching today is “sense [alternatively, ‘feeling’] of entitlement”.

The Good Portion

The vast majority of people Jesus healed went home to family and friends to tell the tale, though the Lord would often instruct them not to reveal who had healed them, especially early in his ministry. In some cases, he commanded even the demons he drove out of men and women not to speak “because they knew him”.

Unclean spirits tended to use phrases like “Son of God” to describe him. That might be a bit of a giveaway.

Anonymous Asks (388)

“What is the Synoptic Problem?”

The word ‘synoptic’ refers to the gospels written by Matthew, Mark and Luke, coming from the Latin synopticus, literally “seeing all together”. Wikipedia describes the Synoptic Problem this way:

“The ‘synoptic problem’ is … the question as to the source or sources upon which each synoptic gospel depended when it was written.”

You too may have noticed passages from the three gospels that are similar to one another. I’m not quite sure why commentators describe it as a problem. I think of it more as a curiosity.

The David Connection

It occurred to me while reading through the Gospel of Mark that the significance of many little things perfectly obvious to Bible students or people with a Christian upbringing is probably quite lost on first time readers, especially those whose background is not Jewish.

Little things like the words of the blind beggar Bartimaeus, who cried out to Jesus, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” That “Son of David” thing must have been important: after all, the blind guy kept repeating it despite everybody around him trying to hush him up.

He wasn’t the only one. That title was something Jesus heard regularly.

No King in Israel (41)

The tribe of Ephraim was contrary, rebellious and idolatrous. The half-tribe of Manasseh in Gilead refused to obey the judges God raised up to defend Israel, provoking a brief civil war. The histories in Judges reveal the persistent moral failings of Joseph’s children during this period.

However, Ephraim and Manasseh were hardly the only Israelite tribes whose cultures bottomed out during the rule of the judges.

Too Hot to Handle: Your Bible Is An Anachronism

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Juan Cole at Alternet.org has bucketloads of fun in an article entitled “If the Christian Right Wants to Get Worked Up About Sexual Controversy, They Should Read These 5 Bible Passages”. He goes to town on Solomon’s 300 concubines, Abraham and Hagar, etc.

In a forlorn attempt at evenhandedness, Mr. Cole tosses in this disclaimer: “Ancient scripture can be a source of higher values and spiritual strength, but any time you in a literal-minded way impose specific legal behavior because of it, you’re committing anachronism.”

Tom: Immanuel Can, one of things I love most about Mr. Cole is the unquestioned assumption that each scripture he cites is a “gotcha” moment to the religious right. Like none of us have seen these passages until his article came along …

Two Can Play That Game

Pearls of wisdom from Mary Kassian:

“A husband does not have the right to demand or extract submission from his wife. Submission is HER choice — her responsibility … it is NOT his right!! Not ever. She is to ‘submit herself’ — deciding when and how to submit is her call. In a Christian marriage, the focus is never on rights, but on personal responsibility. It’s his responsibility to be affectionate. It’s her responsibility to be agreeable. The husband’s responsibility is to sacrificially love as Christ loved the Church — not to make his wife submit.”

So it is “HER choice — her responsibility … deciding when and how to submit is her call”. So declares Mary Kassian.

The Queen Question

The introduction to Psalm 45 calls it a love song and tells us the Sons of Korah wrote it. The psalm portrays a glorious, conquering king. By verse 5, his enemies, in so many words, have become his footstool. Hmm, now where have I heard that before?

I jest. There’s no difficulty identifying the king as our Lord Jesus Christ. The writer to the Hebrews quotes verses 6 and 7 of this very psalm and plainly tells us they speak of “the Son”, distinguishing him above all created beings, no matter how powerful and glorious.

Good - Better - Best

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

In yesterday’s Anonymous Asks post, we considered Adam and Eve. One was deceived into sinning, the other was not, but neither had much more to work with than a simple, unambiguous command: do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The penalty: “you shall surely die”.

They were given the “what” but not really the “why”.

Anonymous Asks (387)

“Why does God allow deception?”

Google the phrase “Why does God allow”. Stop there. The number one answer by a long, long shot is “suffering”. Even my browser’s AI response assumes that’s what my open-ended question is really asking. Second highest is “evil”. Third is “tragedy”, which may or may not have a malevolent component. I often associate tragedy with natural events that hurt people, or things like dying young.

Way down the list is “Why does God allow me to struggle and fail?” Hey, I sympathize.

2026 and Christian Testimony

“It’s a bad testimony,” she insisted.

The speaker was an older friend, the “bad testimony” a younger friend, and the evidence a report from a third party about a political opinion the younger friend had posted to social media where the whole world (or at least people who follow him, depending on his settings) could read it and react, pro or con.

Almost immediately, I was on the fence. A “bad testimony” is often very much in the eye of the beholder. Or at least it depends on the lens one is looking through.

No King in Israel (40)

Others have noted Judges does not recount certain events in chronological order. The story in chapters 17 and 18 appears to have taken place after the death of Samson during a period in which Israel had no named judge, maintaining a more-or-less linear march through time to this point in the book. However, it’s evident the final three chapters (19-21) actually took place quite a bit earlier and probably find their place at the end of the book for theological, dramatic and/or thematic reasons.

Historically speaking, chapter 18 concludes Judges.