Dr. Platypus

David Ker is uncomfortable with the passages in the Old Testament that seem to revel in thoughts (and actions) of vengeance against one’s enemies. So am I—and it would be deeply troubling to meet someone who wasn’t. There are some awfully graphic, bloodthirsty places in Scripture. David notes in particular a couple of psalms. Psalm 63:9-10 says:

But those who seek to destroy my life
shall go down into the depths of the earth;
they shall be given over to the power of the sword,
they shall be prey for jackals.

Perhaps most famously, Psalm 137 ends with these blood-curdling words:

O daughter Babylon, you devastator!
Happy shall they be who pay you back
what you have done to us!

Happy shall they be who take your little ones
and dash them against the rock!

What is a believer to do with this sort of material? David suggests, and I think he is right, that verses like this may need to be omitted from the public reading of Scripture if there isn’t going to be an opportunity for a teacher or preacher to set them in some kind of context. Some of the people who show up at public worship have little or no framework for understanding such texts. Reading an unbowdlerized version of Psalm 137 with “little ones” present may prove problematic—especially if those little ones are paying attention, love to ask questions, and don’t have a parent with formal theological or biblical training!

Even so, there must be some forum in which these words are brought to the surface of our Christian consciousness and owned as Holy Scripture. As John Hobbins reminds us, latching only onto the parts of the Bible that suit us was precisely the heresy of Marcion. We can’t ultimately “fix” these texts by sweeping them away, and in fact these texts have played an important, positive role in the history of Christian spirituality.

In Chanting the Psalms, Cynthia Bourgeault observes that the vengeance passages in the Psalter have an important purpose in contemplative prayer. In that setting, the Psalter’s “shadow material” makes it possible to talk about the darkness humans carry with them and provides a means of letting go of it. She states,

What I believe happens when we introduce the psalms into our consciousness—and even more so into our unconscious—through the practice of contemplative psalmody is that they begin to create a safe spiritual container for recognizing and processing those dark shadows within ourselves, those places we’d prefer not to think about. There are times in the spiritual journey when anger is a very real part of our live, just as jealousy, abandonment, helplessness, rage, and terror are. All of these emotions are in us, and they’re all in the psalms. Perhaps we’re not terribly pleased with ourselves when we find ourselves praying, “Destroy all those who oppress me, O Lord,” but most of us have felt that way. (43)

In other words, the vengeance passages confront us with the darkness in our own souls so we can deal with it in a spiritually healthy way. (I have discussed Bourgeault’s “therapeutic” approach to the psalms elsewhere, and the remainder of this post is mostly a re-post of that material.)

In the past, I have found Bourgeault’s approach to be a helpful jumping-off point for teaching mature Christians about the imprecatory psalms. The key for me is to identify accurately the “enemy” one is asking God to destroy. Relying on the traditional triad, “the world,” “the flesh,” and “the devil,” I tend to see three possible ways to redeem these psalms for Christian use:

• The Psalms as Vehicles for Emotional Catharsis (the enemy = the world). This is the model Bourgeault develops. By means of this sort of reading, I confess that I have real enemies, flesh and blood people who delight in doing me wrong. My feelings for them are not entirely Christlike, and I need to own up to that fact and seek God’s transformation.
• The Psalms as Vehicles for Self-Mortification (the enemy = the flesh). Bourgeault alludes briefly to this model at the end of the chapter, where someone explains understanding these psalms as prayers for God to destroy in oneself those sinful attitudes that prevent spiritual growth and holiness. This reading allows me the opportunity to admit that I am often my own worst enemy. I need God’s refining fire to do away with those parts of me that are at cross-purposes with God’s will.
• The Psalms as Vehicles for Spiritual Warfare (the enemy = the devil). I believe this was also suggested by the Desert Fathers and Mothers, who of course understood themselves to be “soldiers of Christ” doing battle with the forces of evil in the wilderness. This reading recognizes that our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual forces that must be brought into subjection to the will of God.

Similar approaches can help us with some of the other vengeance passages in the Old Testament. This material is difficult, to be sure. But they remain a part of the Bible for both Jews and Christians. Therefore it is important for us to find ways to navigate their turbulent content and come out for the better on the other side of them.

The latest post by Peter Enns explores the connection between Adam’s story and the story of Israel, and in the process explains where Cain got his wife:

Look at it this way. The word “adam” is ambiguous in Genesis. Every commentator notes that sometimes “adam” represents humanity (so I will use the lower case); other times it is the name “Adam” (upper case) representing one man. What does this back and forth mean? It means that Adam is a special subset of adam.

The character “Adam” is the focus of the story because he is the part of “adam” that God is really interested in. There is “adam” outside of Eden (in Nod), but inside of Eden, which is God’s focus, there is only “Adam”—the one with which he has a unique relationship.

The question in Genesis is whether “Adam” will be obedient to “the law” and stay in Eden, thus continuing this special relationship, or join the other “adam” outside in “exile.” This is the same question with Israel: after being “created” by God, will they obey and remain in the land, or disobey and be exiled?

I’m still perturbed, however, that nobody ever  seems to worry about where Seth got his wife!

The fifty-first Biblical Studies Carnival is now posted at Anumma, the blog of G. Brooke Lester. It’s a keeper!

Why do so many people who have an unwavering faith in the Bible do such stupid things with it? That’s not quite the way David Ker puts the question, but he is struggling with how to teach people to do better. His thoughts are worth a read. He begins,

This is my fourth year teaching exegesis to Mozambican Bible college students. I walk a fine line between getting the students to interpret the Scriptures properly on one hand and to not apply it incorrectly on the other. It is a given among my students that the Bible is God’s Word. It is inspired. All of it is profitable. Every passage and verse has wisdom and application for us today. But this high regard for the Bible frequently leads to nonsense and often downright heresy. That’s because, simply put, not everything in the Bible is applicable to us today.

He makes some interesting suggestions about improving the soundness of one’s exegesis, which will no doubt be more compelling for people of some theological persuasions than for others.

Craig Keener asks the question:

Why would scholars assume that the disciples of Jesus were less reliable transmitters of his teaching than other disciples were for their teachers? If Jesus’ disciples respected him as more than a teacher, rather than less than a teacher, this respect would surely not justify deliberately misrepresenting his teaching.

Read Craig’s very reasonable defense of not treating the Gospels differently than classicists and historians treat every other ancient document.

(H/T: Jim West)

John Hobbins has a great roundup of posts discussing the “10th-century” wall recently discovered in Jerusalem (and related finds). For those (like myself) who strongly suspect there is something fishy with how ancient chronology has been put together, there is little chance that this find is actually from the Solomonic era, although it does (like the Qeiyafa inscription) point to an era only a few generations removed from the United Monarchy.

At any rate, a little more light seems to be shining on the “dark age” of early Iron Age Israel.

Our church is listening to the New Testament during the forty days of Lent. Through our partnership with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, every church member who wanted one has been given an MP3 version of the New Testament. We will be listening together and continuing the conversation online.

You can also download audio Bibles for free (in many different languages!) from the good folks at Faith Comes by Hearing.

I think it was Scot McKnight who suggested that the “New Perspective on Paul” would make a lot more sense to traditional Protestants if they assumed that Ephesians was the epitome of Pauline theology rather than Romans or Galatians. (He may have merely been reporting an observation of N. T. Wright, and I don’t have time right now to look it up.) If that’s the case—and I think it is—then the “Ephesians Road” version of the “plan of salvation” developed by Trevin Wax and now elaborated by Derek Leman will be of interest.

According to Leman, the “Romans Road,” familiar to evangelical Christians, is not untrue, but it is incomplete:

Whereas the Romans Road says, “You can be forgiven and live forever,” the Ephesians Road says, “God is making a perfected cosmos and you can join in.” The Romans Road is limited because it ends in mere acceptance of future blessing. The Ephesians Road is more complete because it ends in all things united in Messiah and calls for us to work with Messiah through the community to bring about healing and redemption for the world.

Here is Leman’s summary of the “Ephesians Road”:

• Salvation is about God’s plan for the world (Ephesians 1), including the election of Israel, the adoption of Israel as the people of God, the inclusion of Gentiles in salvation, and the uniting of all things in Messiah symbolized by the new unity of Jew and Gentile in Messiah.
• Salvation is only by unearned favor (Ephesians 2:1-9), raising us from the dead and saving us from God’s wrath.
• Salvation comes with a calling that must be fulfilled in the community of faith (Ephesians 2:10-22), including good works, kingdom community of mutual blessing between Jew and Gentile, and imaging God to the world.

What do you think?

Prepared for those who will be attending an upcoming conference at Wheaton, but available to all from Nijay Gupta and some of his colleagues.

N. T. Wright for Everyone: The Apostle Paul (by Nijay Gupta)

N. T. Wright on Biblical Theology (by Kyle T. Fever)

Jeanie Miley has some very kind words to say about Formations adult Bible study curriculum, of which I am the editor:

For years we have used the FORMATIONS study material, written by moderate Baptists across the country.  The lessons are edited and printed by the publisher Smyth and Helwys.  I have been so impressed by these current commentaries on the prophets,  written by Brett Younger, that I ordered copies for each member of the class.  Brett has an unusual ability to peer into the biblical material and connect it with contemporary culture.  He has made the ancient material in Malachi, Micah, Habbakkuk and Zephaniah come alive for us.