Readers Reply

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Selling Bible Review

The promotional letter I received from you folks concerning Bible Review is a complete disgrace to a Holy God!

Just when I think I have seen it all, here comes another huckster trying to profit from the name of God. Have you no shame? Even more, have you no love for God, or understanding of His ways?

Wake up, my friend, and repent of this wickedness, and humble yourself before the Lord, lest you become a castaway.

The Bible indeed offers a very stern warning for those who would turn the house of God into a “marketplace.”

May the Lord have mercy upon you, and may the eyes of your heart be enlightened that you may behold the Lord Jesus Himself full of grace and truth.

Knowledge Enhances True Faith

I am a very new subscriber to Bible Review, but I want to tell you how delighted I am to have it.

I am particularly fascinated with the historical context of Scripture, and I admire your exploratory curiosity. Knowledge enhances true faith. It doesn’t shake or otherwise damage it. Only the closed mind is unwilling to be taught. Light comes to us through many windows of many colors.

The Bible contains the inspired word of God, but it also contains some mythic words as well. I have always loved the story of Creation, for example, as a resplendently simple explanation of an incomprehensible event, but I do not accept Genesis as literal truth. Creation and other biblical events were wonderful enough—never mind how they happened, or how long they took! Thank you for a remarkable magazine.

The Serious Business of Learning

Those who harbor delusions of biblical inerrancy will tolerate nothing less than a full acceptance of their presumptuous opinions. After all, they alone possess the truth, so why should they tolerate anyone who thinks differently? Like a fish out of water, they will never be happy with the give and take of a scholarly environment. Short of serving up apologetic pablum and censoring all dissent, BR can never please them. They demand pablum; BR serves French cuisine.

Let’em cancel! That will leave BR with a more mature readership. We could then get on with the serious business of learning without offending simple minds.

We want everyone. Even if they reject some of our articles, many believers in inerrancy like to read all opinions.—Ed.

Glasnost Needed in Biblical Studies

“Quem deus vult perdere prius dementat.”

(“Whom God would destroy, he first makes mad.”)

Somehow that little saying pops into my mind whenever I get BR or Biblical Archaeology Review and start reading letters canceling subscriptions. In Readers Reply, BR 06:03, for example, there is a letter from Valerie Fortier who didn’t like an advertisement for Gospel Fictions.

Instead of putting her own ad in BR denouncing the book, she merely stopped taking BR, a negative action rather than a positive action. Another alternative would be to write her own article or letter and submit it to BR, perhaps entitled “Errors in Gospel Fictions.”

Perhaps what Christianity needs, and what your readers who cancel supscriptions need, is a dose of glasnost, an open and frank discussion, so that some time down the road the world will be a better place.

An Excellent Book

Concerning the ad for the book Gospel Fictions by Randel Helms in the February 1990 issue, I say bravo to Bible Review! Placement of that ad clearly shows that your magazine is not afraid of free, honest 011and open inquiry into all aspects of biblical scholarship. Censoring the ad would merely have produced blind spots in our awareness, because censorship arbitrarily chooses to ignore information. Therefore, censorship is ignorance. On the other hand, probing analysis of all aspects of scholarly data can separate deep insights from deep nonsense. Evaluating evidence on both sides of an issue produces hard-won truth.

I have read Gospel Fictions. It was a pleasure. The book is excellent.

A Valuable Resource for Rural Pastor

I have read the April 1990 issue cover to cover and found it thought-provoking and informative. As a pastor to small rural churches on the prairie, I find your publication to be a valuable resource.

Would the Bill of Rights Have Worked with Pharaoh?

Ziony Zevit (“Three Ways to Look at the Ten Plagues,” BR 06:03) is exactly right to seek to understand the plagues within the context of the Egyptian environment. When Moses returned to Egypt to confront Pharaoh he had a credibility problem—as the dialogue of the burning bush clearly reveals: Who was he to stand before Pharaoh and who was he that the people should follow him? If Moses had said, “Let my people go because under the Bill of Rights they are entitled to freedom of religion,” who would have understood him?

To successfully deliver a message, one must speak the language of the audience. The symbols or metaphors for loss of leadership, authority or validity are culture specific. Every society has its equivalent of a misery index (rate of inflation plus unemployment rate) leading to a loss of mandate. In ancient Egypt, the signs were quite specific: Control over the environment (the height of the Nile) meant that all was right with the world, that the link between nature and culture was secure and that the reign of Pharaoh was valid. There could be no Chernobyls.

An environment in chaos was an environment in collapse, as in the First Intermediate Period. The plagues challenged the validity of Pharaoh to rule, thereby raising the possibility of another way; the plagues raised the issue of who controlled the Egyptian environment; the crossing of the Red Sea answered it. The plagues were not events of chance or nature; they were acts in history. The message was delivered.

What Did Isaiah Know and When Did He Know It?

I found Ziony Zevit’s essay on the ten plagues (“Three Ways to Look at the Ten Plagues,” BR 06:03) most interesting. The references to the plagues in Psalms which are somewhat at odds with the descriptions in Exodus were unknown to me. It is noteworthy that the plagues don’t seem to be mentioned in Isaiah. Considering that much of the text of Isaiah consists of dire predictions of disaster for Israel and other nations, it is surprising that the plagues were not referenced as a prototype for misfortune and suffering.

Egypt is frequently mentioned in Isaiah. Chapter 19 enumerates a variety of problems predicted for that country. Most are social, political or religious upheavals. The only natural disaster mentioned in Isaiah in connection with Egypt seems to be drought, which, of course, was not one of the original ten plagues. One wonders if Isaiah and his listeners were even aware of the plague legend. If so, it seems hard to imagine a text such as Isaiah not mentioning it.

How Did Those Israelite Folks Ever Get Along?

Bible Review means a lot to me. I am a deep Bible student. I’m 85 years old and I find much soul-searching among the writers of the magazine. This means dedication to the true message originally intended and today so much confused.

Reading the Bible is OK, but let’s be aware that all we may find there may not have been compiled originally as we find it today. Seeking the spiritual message of the Bible is surely the only safe way to read it, to discover the sober message.

The story entitled “Rachel and Leah—Sibling Tragedy or the Triumph of Piety and Compassion?” BR 06:02, by Samuel Dresner, is a lively test of our biblical challenge. Much of it is so far from what we are taught as Christians. For example, I was rather amused to read in this story the question: “What must have been [Jacob’s] emotions when he awoke and found the homely, scrawny, bony Leah instead of the lovely and beautiful Rachel?” Such deceit could not happen in our day! Jacob must have been doped or drugged not to notice how bony and scrawny his bed-partner was! Unless he was stupid and had no sense of “sex” as we know it, and no tendency toward foreplay, it’s no wonder he lay with Leah and didn’t know it was not his beloved Rachel! Things like this can become very confusing to readers of the Bible, and cause us to wonder how those insensible folks ever got along at all.

The Old Testament for Christians

I would like to reply to Dr. Manfred Lehmann’s letter (Readers Reply, BR 06:03) concerning Hemchand Gossai’s “The Old Testament Among Christian Theologians,” BR 06:01. Apparently, Dr. Lehmann did not read Gossai’s entire article, for Lehmann appears to have missed Gossai’s contention that “there is no doubt that the Old Testament contains God’s word for people in every time.” Unfortunately, Gossai’s validation of the Jewish Scriptures comes only in the last paragraph of his article.

Second, Gossai’s article does not quote “most” of the Christian theologians of the last hundred years. It quotes only a few and none of them contemporary. The article is largely one-sided, until the very end.

There is no question that the history of Christianity contains many outrageous and despicable episodes with regard to relations with the Jewish people and Jewish culture; the greater part of Gossai’s article underscores one aspect of this unfortunate history. It would have been helpful if Gossai had provided evidence of current scholarship and theological thought by naming Christians (such as Father Raymond Brown and Father Carroll Stuhlmueller) who support the importance and significance of the Jewish Scriptures. There are many of these people! As it stands, his article gives the impression that only Gossai stands up for the “Old Testament.”

Gossai gives the impression throughout the article that no Christian pays any attention to the Jewish Scriptures. This could not be further from the truth. How explain the phenomenal growth in Bible study among Christians today? Our whole Christian tradition originates in the Hebrew Bible, which is why it is, and has always been, part of the Christian Bible. After all, as Dr. Lehmann correctly states in his letter, 012Jesus himself preached extensively from the Law and the Prophets.

Does Jesus’ Atoning Death Appear in All Four Gospels?

I thoroughly enjoyed David E. Aune’s article, “The Gospels—Biography or Theology?” BR 06:01. Although before reading the article I favored the theological aspect rather than the biographical aspect, I found the author’s presentation very convincing indeed.

And the Hellenistic or Roman form of the Gospels doesn’t minimize their specifically Christian message—another example of divine incarnation in a given cultural context.

I found especially enlightening Professor Aune’s discussion of the similarities between death in Greco-Roman biography and in the Gospels. However, two of his statements puzzle me:

First, he says, “In Luke, the concept of the atoning death of Jesus is missing altogether.” In Luke 22:19, Jesus says, “This is my body given for you,” and in the next verse he says, “This cup which is poured out for you ….”

Second, in endnote 22 Professor Aune states: “In Mark the interpretation of Jesus’ death as an act of atonement occurs just once,” citing Mark 10:45. However, in Mark 14:24, Jesus says, “This is my blood of the Covenant which is poured out for many.”

Don’t these texts contain the idea of the atoning death of Jesus? I’ve always believed that all four Gospels affirm the atoning aspect of Jesus’ death. Does Professor Aune feel that this aspect weakens his case because it is not present in Greco-Roman biography? Isn’t it rather one of the differences between the Gospels and Greco-Roman biography?

Professor David Aune replies:

The question of whether or not a sacrificial or atoning conception of Jesus’ death occurs in all four Gospels is a problematic issue. By the middle of the first century A.D., Paul had developed a theologia crucia (theology of the cross) in which the significance of the death and resurrection of Jesus played a central role. Since the Gospels were written during the half-century following the death of Paul, one might expect the concept of the atoning death of Jesus to be more influential in the Gospels.

The idea does occur in Mark 10:45, which I mentioned in my article. This has a parallel in Matthew but is missing from Luke. Father Bolduc is quite right in calling attention to Mark 14:24, in which Jesus refers to “my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many.” The atoning significance of that statement is amplified in the Matthaean parallel (26:28): “my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” The traditional and stereotypical character of the Eucharistic words in Mark, however, make it difficult to assess how theologically significant that statement was for the evangelist. The parallel in Luke 22:15–20 is problematic, for both a shorter and a longer text of the Eucharistic words of Jesus are found in the manuscript tradition. The originality of Luke 22:19b–20 is now generally accepted by New Testament scholars, which means that the concept of atonement does occur at this point in Luke-Acts. In general, however; it appears that in Luke-Acts, the death of Jesus is interpreted not through sacrificial imagery but rather within the framework of Jewish martyrological traditions. A number of scholars have vigorously denied that the death of Jesus has salvific significance in Luke-Acts.

While Father Bolduc correctly observes that the concept of the atoning death of Jesus constitutes one of the differences between the Gospels and other types of ancient biography, that conception is certainly not of central significance in the Gospels.

Freedman on Coveting

I have reread BR editor Hershel Shanks’ letter in Readers Reply, BR 06:02, regarding my article “The Nine Commandments—The Secret Progress of Israel’s Sins,” BR 05:06. I think the letter is a very creative twist on my original article, and even if I were the editor of BR, I would want very much to print such a letter from a perceptive reader of the article. From my point of view, I think it strengthens the main thesis that I propounded, namely that the author-editor-compiler of the Primary History had a purpose in organizing the commandments in the way he organized the books, and that the basic objective was to correlate the commandments with the books of the Primary History, namely nine books with the corresponding nine commandments, one by one.

When it comes to the tenth commandment, there is clearly a difference of perception, as this is a commandment (against coveting) that could not be violated by itself in the form of a punishable crime, as could the others. So almost by definition, if it is going to be violated in a criminal fashion, it has to be connected with at least one other commandment. Shanks and I have both shown that there is at least one other commandment that is violated to demonstrate that the tenth commandment has been violated at the same time. I have suggested that that is the case with all four of the last commandments. No one would deny that, as the same word is used in the sixth commandment, and it is clearly a strong motivational factor in the others. And I would agree that it is certainly not less true in the case of the ninth commandment. Perhaps even more so, Shanks says. But coveting is certainly not exclusive to the ninth. Shanks emphasizes that the violation of the tenth commandment ties better with the ninth commandment than with any of the others. As long as we agree that the tenth is significantly different from any and all of the other nine commandments (and Shanks should be the strongest advocate of the qualitative difference, as he is a lawyer), and that it is a, or the, motivating factor in at least four of the commandments listed, then I have nothing to quarrel about.

If Shanks wants to say that despite the above two points, the author-compiler really wants to connect the tenth solely (?) with the ninth, who is there to stop him? Shanks may know more about the author’s mind than I do. But certainly his view is not incompatible with my overall position, and mine differs from his only in that I don’t want to go the extra step and say that the combination of the ninth and tenth commandments is what the author had in mind. I don’t think it is the same as the combination of commandments one and two, where there is much more evidence for the combination (numbers one and two in Jewish and Catholic counting are, by my reckoning and by that of Protestants generally, really only one commandment). By contrast, in no counting at all is there the slightest suggestion that numbers nine and ten are only one commandment. And in the case of numbers one and two, we have a previous book, Genesis, to account for, whereas in the case of numbers nine and ten, there is explicitly, and in my view deliberately, no tenth book to reckon with.

At the same time, I think Shanks’ insight into the psychological connections between numbers nine and ten is excellent, and his description of Ahab and his greed is a literary masterpiece. It is an exceptionally worthy spin-off from my observations. I think my statement of the case can easily and fully accommodate his observations. However, I am not sure his understanding is really the same as mine or even compatible with it.

Selling Bible Review
The promotional letter I received from you folks concerning Bible Review is a complete disgrace to a Holy God!