Is anyone else having trouble leaving comments on blogspot blogs at the moment? Clearly not everyone since comments are appearing. I find if I put in my username and password I get an error message saying 'Could not log you in at the moment. Please try again later' (this has been happening for two or three days).

Even if I try to leave an anonymous comment, it won't allow it.

Help?!

The task: to sum up a book of the bible in precisely six words.

The results: here.

Can you do better? If I get some good suggestions, I may compile a list.

HT: Thomas Renz

This is the verse I wrote my essay on for the hermeneutics class. The task was to examine Paul's hermeneutical goals, methods and assumptions by comparison with at least one other body of contemporary literature.

Leviticus 18:5 is a fascinating verse in terms of its interpretive history. The principle it embodies, of law-obedience leading to life, became foundational in second-temple Judaism and appears in all kinds of variant forms and different contexts. Someone has called it the 'John 3:16 of early Judaism'.

I think you can trace two different strands of the interpretive tradition associated with the verse:

(i) the salvation-historical strand

This is represented in Ezekiel 20, Neh 9:29 and the Damascus Document of the Qumran community. Here the focus is on Lev 18:5 as the identifying factor of the law. These laws which Israel disobeyed were the laws which 'if a man do them he shall live.' The context is of historical, national failure. The law did not lead to life for Israel, because Israel failed. That is the law of which Lev 18:5 speaks.

(ii) the deferred eschatological strand

This is represented in Luke 10:28, the Targums on Leviticus and Ezekiel, the Damascus Document and a variety of other texts. Essentially the focus here is on the life promised in Lev 18:5. Rather than blessed life in the land, this is eternal life. Rather than a promise for the nation, this is a promise for the individual law-keeper.

So there are a number of possibilities for Paul in Gal 3. He could be alluding to one of these strands, or both, or neither.

If neither:

This is the classic reformation view of Luther et al. Usually the interpretation of Gal 3:12 is something like 'the one who does them shall live by them' but no one does them, so no one will live by them (except Christ, of course). The problem with this view is that I just don't see how Paul could have expected any of his original hearers to have understood that this is what he meant. They thought people could keep the law (and so did Paul - Phil 3:6, Rom 2:13). And they would never have heard Lev 18:5 used in this way.

Which is not to say Paul couldn't have used it to mean that, just that he would surely have needed to explain it a lot more clearly. And the same argument applies to any non-traditional reading of the verse (even a strict GHE reading) - Paul's hearers would not have known what he meant.

If both:

Could be both - the traditions are neither isolated (both appear at Qumran) nor mutually exclusive (historical failure does not necessarily entail future disqualification). We'll need to look at the context of Galatians to see whether one or both fits best.

It seems clear to me that the salvation-historical reading of Lev 18:5 fits Paul's aims and argument in Gal 3 most closely, without any need to refer to the deferred eschatology strand at all. Here are some reasons why:

(i) Paul's overall argument is to do with the definition of the covenant community by faith rather than by law (3:7, 9, 29), not with individual salvation. Remember the presenting problem is whether Gentiles need to become like Jews to be included.

(ii) This is a salvation historical argument contrasting the people of God who lived under law and were cursed with those who live by faith and are blessed. This historical aspect is brought out strongly in the discussion in vv.15-28.

(iii) Since faith brings blessing, the law can't be 'of faith' (3:12), rather 'The one who does them shall live by them' and we know what happened to those who lived by them - they failed and were cursed.

(iv) 'Life' in Galatians is almost exclusively life here and now (2:14, 2:20, 5:25) and most of the letter is concerned with issues of the Christian life. Only in 6:8 does Paul make any mention of eternal life.

Corporate, historical, failure rather than individual, future, eternal life seems to be the matter at hand. And the interpretive tradition was surely strong enough that Paul could presume his readers' familiarity with it.

So it's a bit like the use of 'brave new world' with reference to Huxley not Shakespeare. Paul refers, I think, primarily to Ezekiel and Nehemiah and the associated tradition, rather than to Leviticus per se.

... in the chair of conversational theology, just where I should be while revising. All comments and questions welcomed to stimulate further thought. And if Dawn wants to make us all cups of tea and Neil could supply some of Mrs Jeffers' lovely brownies, that would be just perfect.

Something which has been niggling at the back of my mind as I think through all this hermeneutics stuff (see my previous posts) is the issue of text and meaning.

Let me take a non-biblical example to illustrate this. Everyone knows the phrase 'fools rush in' and most know the counterpart 'where angels fear to tread.' It has the status of a proverb with a fairly general scope for application.

Few know that this 'proverb' in fact has its source in an essay by Alexander Pope on criticism, where it had a very specific reference to those fools (the literary critics) rush to comment on that about which they know little or nothing.

The point is simple - we use the proverb without reference to its author's intent. It has become common currency.

Or take another example, the expression 'brave new world'. This has gone through at least two shifts in meaning/reference. I think probably it can be used as an idiom in modern English, referring to almost anything. A quick google turns up a PR company and a pro-am golf tournament. I'm fairly sure that neither of these intend their clients to be thinking in terms of bio-engineering effecting social change for 'universal happiness'.

But it still probably conjures up at least some of the connotations of Aldous Huxley's novel for most people. A 'brave new world' is a slightly frightening concept. Those things we hold most dear are overridden for the sake of the utopia being created.

Huxley's ironic use of the phrase is absent for Miranda in The Tempest, though, who first spoke these words:

How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is!
O brave new world,
That has such people in't!

So you see how meaning of texts develop. When we use the phrases 'brave new world' or 'fools rush in' we have access to a whole range of associations and connotations which Shakespeare and Pope neither knew nor intended. So if we were to exegete a modern usage of one of these phrases, our task would not merely be to ask 'what did the original author intend to convey?' and 'what does the new author do with that?'

We also need to ask about the general understanding of those phrases (which may be manifold) in common currency. It is most unlikely that a reference to the Tempest, or to the Essay on Criticism, is intended (except among pretentious literary circles).

Now it seems to me that the same thing must be true with respect to the NT authors use of the OT. Unless they make the effort to explain how the common contemporary understanding of an OT text they employ is wrong, then I suggest we should presume that that is what they intend to communicate. The NT authors are not writing in a vacuum of biblical interpretation. Their readers already have an interpretation of these texts and, unless told otherwise, that is what they are going to think of when the text is cited.

The more fleeting and casual the reference, the more true this is. I think of the reference to Jannes and Jambres in 2 Timothy. For a reader of the bible this is incomprehensible. But for a first century Jew, it's a clear allusion to the story of the Exodus, for Jannes and Jambres were two of the magicians at Pharaoh's court.

Or take the 'moveable rock' in 1 Cor 10. No mention of this in Exodus or Numbers, but the traditional interpretation was that the rock went with the people wherever they wandered in the desert.

Now what about a verse like Lev 18:5? I think we need another post.

Richard Longenecker's books 'Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period' is a helpful, thorough, if somewhat dull, analysis of the explicit uses of the OT in the NT. He only considers those OT passages directly cited, by contrast with Hays who deliberately looks for the echoes and allusions in the text. Longenecker focusses much more on the parallels between the NT authors and their Jewish contempories, specifically employing categories like midrash and pesher, as well as literal and allegorical, to describe the NT author's methods.

Throughout the book he's uncontroversial. Right up until the last 5 pages when he starts to discuss the question of whether the apostolic hermeneutics is normative for our own. Interestingly he only applies this question to the three categories of midrash, pesher and allegorical interpretation, presumably having already arbitrarily decided that the 'literal' interpretation is acceptable. (He uses literal to mean 'the meaning intended by the human author' which, given the wide range of genres in the OT, may not be literal at all!)

Longenecker suggests three factors which are important in deciding how far the apostolic hermeneutics should be normative for our own:

(i) an adequate understanding of the hermeneutics of the NT authors (the historical consideration)

(ii) an appreciation of the purpose of biblical revelation (the theological consideration)

(iii) a sensitivity to what is normative and what is merely descriptive in biblical revelation.

Then he comes to his conclusion:

But apart from a revelatory stance on our part, I suggest that we cannot reproduce their pesher exegesis. While we legitimately seek continuity with our Lord and his apostles in matters of faith and doctrine... we must also recognize the uniqueness of Jesus as the true interpreter of the Old Testament and the distinctive place he gave to the apostles in the explication of the prophetic word.

Likewise, I suggest that we should not attempt to reproduce their midrashic handling of the text, their allegorical explications, or much of their Jewish manner of argumentation. All of this is strictly part of the cultural context through which the transcultural and eternal gospel was expressed. This is fairly obvious where such methods are used more circumstantially and in ad hominem fashion. But it is true even when they are not.

So what he seems to be saying is that it is only because the NT writers were inspired, indeed, only because they received specific revelation, that the conclusions they came to in their use of the OT were true. Despite the methods they used, rather than because of them, we can trust the doctrines they derived.

But we're not inspired NT authors, so if we used such methods, we would come to wrong conclusions. If we use GHE, however, which is essentially what Longenecker means by the 'literal' interpretation, then even without direct revelation, we are on solid ground.

He makes this crystal clear on the final page of his book:

What then can be said to our question, "Can we reproduce the exegesis of the New Testament?" I suggest that we must answer both "No" and "Yes." Where that exegesis is based on a revelatory stance, or where it evidences itself to be merely cultural, or where it shows itself to be circumstantial or ad hominem in nature, "No." Where, however, it treats the Old Testament in more literal fashion, following the course of what we speak of today as historico-grammatical exegesis, "Yes." Our commitment as Christians is to the reproduction of the apostolic faith and doctrine, and not necessarily to the specific apostolic exegetical practices.

If you can't see the problem with this, I refer you to my earlier posts here, here, here, here
and here.