Readers Reply

002

We Might Regress

Thank you for printing only substantive and meaningful responses to ideas in your August letters section. Your restraint in not publishing vituperative, cancel-my-subscription sputterings from readers with closed minds and short fuses who have nothing worthwhile to contribute is a sign that this magazine is leaving behind its wont to titillate and to smirk at others and is finally growing up.

Wright

Read On

I imagine you’ll get a lot of cancellations over N.T. Wright’s courageous column regarding the Rapture of the Church (“Farewell to the Rapture,” BR 17:04). Some of the most obscure passages in the Bible are used by many as a sort of litmus test: Either you believe in the Rapture, Great Tribulation, Second Coming and Millennium (in that order), or else you are a shallow Christian lacking scriptural understanding!

Prefers Paul to Wright

Your magazine does well with history. Why not stay there? Why unleash N.T. Wright’s ugly attack on the future? No doubt he is a devout scholar, but if I have to choose between his understanding of the “Rapture of the Church,” and that of the Apostle Paul’s, please, let me stay with the apostle (see “Farewell to the Rapture,” BR 17:04).

Until the Rev. Mr. Wright can begin his assertions, with the same words Paul used—“For I have received of the Lord that which I also delivered unto you” (1 Corinthians 11:23)—let him not so pompously snatch the Rapture from those of us who are probably just as able as he is to decipher “Paul’s mixed metaphors of trumpets blowing and the living being snatched into heaven to meet the Lord.”

How does the Rev. Mr. Wright expect to get to heaven, or does he also “declassify” heaven as literal truth?

Dull as Freeze-Dried Oatmeal

I had to chuckle when I read N.T. Wright’s recent column, “Farewell to the Rapture,” BR 17:04. Only a scholar could make “coming” into “going,” “before” into “after,” and “come down” into “a different dimension, a different space-time, altogether.” While the apostle Paul confesses that he wrote 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 to encourage bereaved Christians, Wright says the text exists “to subvert the political imagery of the dominant and dehumanizing empires of our world.” And while the apostle can speak excitedly of “the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13), and can thrill to “the splendor of his coming” (2 Thessalonians 2:8), Wright can only apologize that “[he doesn’t] deny that [he] believe[s] some future event will result in the personal presence of Jesus within God’s new creation.” Huzzah.

Whatever one may think of Tim LaHaye’s prophetic interpretations in his Left Behind series, I doubt that Wright’s silly and snide comments will do much to bid a “farewell to the Rapture.” It never ceases to amaze me how academics can so flatten powerful images, draining them of all passion and making them as bland as freeze-dried oatmeal. I suppose we should not be looking for any series of novels from Wright soon. At least, one may hope.

Don’t Blame Us

N.T. Wright smugly states, “The American obsession with the second 004coming of Jesus…continues unabated (see “Farewell to the Rapture,” BR 17:04). Seen from my side of the Atlantic, the phenomenal success of the Left Behind books appears puzzling, even bizarre. Few in the U.K. hold the belief on which the popular series of novels is based.”

Excuse me? This stuff started in the U.K.! It was John Nelson Darby who fathered dispensational theology and became champion of the rapture. Darby was born in London in 1800. He was educated at Westminster School, then at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated in 1819. As early as 1828, his eschatological views and the term “rapture” began to surface in a group known as the Plymouth Brethren. By the 1840s it had spread throughout Britain. As Ernest R. Sandeen correctly observes, “Much of the thought and attitudes of those who are known as Fundamentalists (today) can be mirrored in the teachings of this man” (Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism [Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1970; repr., Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1976], p. xix).

Between 1859 and 1874, Darby made six trips to the United States and Canada where he promoted his beliefs concerning the rapture. His influence is linked to the Schofield Reference Bible and the creation of the Dallas Theological Seminary. Today, his theology influences such dubious works as The Late Great Planet Earth (Hal Lindsey) and, of course, the Left Behind books.

N.T. Wright’s column is timely and appreciated. However, I kindly request that, in the future, the good people of the U.K. please keep their bizarre theology to themselves.

Wright Is Wrong

Mr. Wright is mistaken when he writes: “This dramatic end-time scenario is based…on Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians.” (see “Farewell to the Rapture,” BR 17:04) This end-time scenario is actually based on Christ’s own words: “I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left” (Luke 17:34–35). Jesus Christ’s statement is confirmed in Matthew 24:40–41: “Two men will be in the field, one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.”

N.T. Wright responds:

The passages in Luke 17 and Matthew 24 are not the basis for the view I was criticizing, though they have often been used in support of it. Actually, they do not refer to some people being “taken” in the sense of being snatched up to heaven in a “rapture,” but to some being “taken” by the invading Roman forces, and others being “left,” i.e., spared (note the gathering of the “eagles,” an allusion to Roman standards, in Luke 17:37). This is now a widely held opinion among exegetes; I have set it out in Jesus and the Victory of God (Fortress, 1996).

Mark

II Mark: The Sequel

Professor Michael Holmes provides an interesting and thorough review of the 005existing evidence regarding the ending of Mark (“To Be Continued…The Many Endings of the Gospel of Mark,” BR 17:04), but doesn’t offer much in the way of a conclusion. Here’s one that has occurred to me.

Verse 8 of Chapter 16 has the feel of a cliff-hanger to those familiar with the movie serials of 40 to 50 years ago. It leaves the reader begging for the rest of the story. The women are frightened, and tell no one. And yet they must have, or the story of their experience in the Garden would never have been recorded. The result leaves us anxious for more.

Perhaps Mark intended to write a sequel, as Luke did with his Book of Acts, but was prevented by reasons now unknown.

What About the Others?

The other gospels (Matthew, Luke, John) contain detailed post-Crucifixion scenarios similar to the long versions of Mark. Is there any question about the originality of these accounts?

Michael Holmes responds:

In sharp contrast to the case of the Gospel of Mark (where the surviving manuscripts preserve the nine different forms of the ending discussed in the article), the manuscripts of Matthew and Luke known today preserve essentially a single form of each ending. Likewise all surviving copies of John that are complete through the end of the gospel preserve all 21 chapters of that gospel. In support of the claim that an early “first edition” of John had only 20 chapters, it has been hypothesized that two early copies of John (known as P5 and P75) may have ended with chapter 20, but since both are incomplete (they break off prior to the end of chapter 20), the value of their evidence remains uncertain.

The Zeigarnik Effect

In the early 20th century, a young psychologist by the name of Bluma Zeigarnik discovered what has come to be called the Zeigarnik effect: Tasks that are not completed are remembered better than tasks that are completed. She was a student of Kurt Lewin, an early Gestalt psychologist who maintained that working on a task created a tension that did not dissipate until the task was done; therefore, incomplete tasks remained intentions, keeping them in memory. One may read about the Zeigarnik effect in any history 006of psychology text (see B.M. Thorne and T.B. Henley, Connections in the History and Systems of Psychology, 2nd ed. [New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2001], p. 406).

Perhaps the Zeigarnik effect may help us to understand why the gospel, the story of Jesus, was and has been remembered for so many years. The absence of a clear, concise closure to Mark, the first gospel, left the early readers (and us all) with a tension, an intention to find out what happened as a result of the events of that time. The several endings currently available give us a clear indication that the early readers felt a need to wrap up the story, to reach closure. One might even translate that last phrase of Mark 16:8, “for terror seized them,” as “for tension seized them.” Even the women at the tomb wanted to discover the end of the story.

As we look at Mark’s gospel, then, perhaps we should see not a writer who was interrupted or a gospel with a page missing, not a mistake in the transmission of the life of Jesus, but rather we should see in Mark and his “incomplete” gospel the intention that created Christianity.

By George

In the description of Wayne Forte’s painting “Really Wanna Touch You,” which appeared on the cover of the (August 2001) issue, the comment that the title of the painting was borrowed from a Beatles’ song is not quite correct. It is from one of the songs on George Harrison’s solo album. The object of the song “My Sweet Lord” is the Hindu God Hare Krishna.

Rahab

The Promise of Rahab

Thanks for “Reversal of Fortune,” BR 17:04, by Frank Anthony Spina. Certainly his premise, that even Rahab can become part of Israel, is important for us today.

What Does Rahab’s Red Rope Signify?

It seems clear that the stories of Rahab and Achan are to be read in light of each other, and Frank Anthony Spina does a good job of bringing out the relationships between them (see “Reversal of Fortune,” BR 17:04).

One point, however, seemed weak to me. Spina attributes “negative and erotic connotations” to the scarlet cord by which the Israelites will recognize Rahab’s house (Joshua 2:18). Spina writes, “Even Rahab’s rope is suggestive.” Perhaps, but to what end? We already know she’s a prostitute. How does this detail advance the story?

A less titillating—but to my mind more meaningful—interpretation is that the red cord alludes to the blood of the Paschal sacrifice, which the Israelites smeared on their doorposts on the eve of the Exodus. Just as the bright red blood marked the homes of the Israelites in Egypt, signaling to God to pass harmlessly over them (Exodus 12:23), so too the scarlet cord marked the home of Rahab, signaling her location to 008the Israelites and saving her family from destruction.

If so, one can combine the two readings and understand the significance of the cord as follows: With Rahab’s revelation of belief in the Lord, what was at first a symbol of immorality and sin becomes transformed into the ultimate instrument of redemption.

A Matter of Choice

I enjoyed Mr. Spina’s article on Rahab and Achan (see “Reversal of Fortune,” BR 17:04). The story of Rahab starting out as a Canaanite and then becoming an Israelite through her profession of faith in Yahweh recalls the story of Ruth the Moabite who became an Israelite by professing her faith to Naomi (“Thy God shall be my God,” Ruth 1:16).

My question is: Are the biblical writers intending to say that whether one is Israelite or not is more a matter of behavior and moral choices one makes rather than of the accident of birth or bloodline? If so, is this a teaching that was unique to Israelite religion; that is, did this distinguish it from other Canaanite religions?

Frank Spina responds:

I argue that throughout the biblical tradition, authors indicate that “Israel” is more than an ethnic group (itself a contested term and concept). To ask whether this situation holds for Canaanites and others is perhaps to misconstrue the situation. Being “Canaanite” is primarily a religious designation. That is, Israelites would have shared many cultural characteristics with Canaanites (or other -ites): language, ritual, social systems, etc. In the ancient world, socio-religious characteristics were perhaps more extensive and pervasive than in the modern world where “religion” is often abstracted from other areas of our lives (was there anything comparable to the idea of the “secular” in the ancient world?). If that is the case, then it follows that many of the names of ancient peoples (Canaanites, Jebusites, Girgashites and so forth) were primarily religious or socio-religious designations.

Dickinson Poet’s Dozen

It is not strictly accurate to say, as William B. Hunter did (Readers Reply, BR 17:04), that Emily Dickinson “alone among poets” uses short meter. A virtually identical ancestor of this was popular with English poets of the pre-Elizabethan period (early 16th century): a 12-syllable line followed by a “fourteener.” This was dubbed “poulter’s measure” by the poet George Gascoigne (after the practice of poultry merchants giving 14 eggs as a second dozen) and stigmatized much later by C.S. Lewis as “the terrible poulter’s measure” as used by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and others, like Arthur Brooke in “The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet” (Shakespeare’s source), which begins: “There is beyond the Alps, a town of ancient fame, / Whose bright renown yet shineth clear, Verona men it name.”

Lewis considered this meter typical of “the drab age of English verse,” and it is true that after 1600, as “short meter,” it is 060generally only found in hymns, such as Bishop W.W. How’s “We Give Thee but Thine Own” (1864).

The Professor and Emily?

Did you know that many of Emily Dickinson’s poems can be sung to the tune of the theme song from Gilligan’s Island? Try it!

The Yellow Rose of Texas works, too.—Ed.

Picture Books

I find the articles written by Cliff Edwards (“Van Gogh’s Bible,” BR 16:01, and “The Bible Through a Poet’s Prism,” BR 17:02) very educational and enjoyable. Can you recommend other articles and books on related subjects?

Edwards replies:

Books on religion (generally Christianity) and the arts are multiplying. A great one is Painting the Word (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1999), by theologian and biblical scholar John Drury. With exciting text and beautiful color plates, the book explores the incarnation of the spiritual in what is obviously Christian art as well as in what appear to be the most secular of paintings. Neil Macgregor’s Seeing Salvation: Images of Christ in Art (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 2000) is a good second choice.

Creative books on poetry and the Bible are more difficult to find. Great scholars to check on the overall theme of the Bible and literature include Northrop Frye, Robert Alter and Amos Wilder. Earle Coleman’s paperback, Creativity and Spirituality: Bonds between Art and Religion (Albany: SUNY Press, 1998) gives a strong overview from the perspective of all religions. More specifically on poetry and the Bible, books worth viewing are Chapters into Verse: A Selection of Poetry in English Inspired by the Bible, ed. Robert Atwan and Laurance Wieder (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 2000), and The Poet’s Book of Psalms, ed. Laurance Wieder (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1995).

Mary

Why Mary?

Just returned from three weeks in central Europe. Was struck by how much more important Mary was than her son Jesus. Four days later BR arrived to tell me why (June 2001, with Ronald Hock and David Cartlidge, “The Favored One: How Mary Became the Mother of God,” BR 17:03). Thank you.

Potpourri

Chapter and Verse

When was the chapter and verse system incorporated into the Bible? I know that the original Hebrew texts do not contain chapter breaks, so where do they come from?

Michael Holmes of Bethel College in St. Paul, Minnesota, responds:

The chapter divisions with which we are familiar are the work of Stephen Langton (who at the time of his death in 1228 was Archbishop of Canterbury). He introduced them into the Latin Bible (the Vulgate) near the beginning of the 13th century, when he was a lecturer at the University of Paris. These chapter divisions were later transferred from the Vulgate to manuscripts and printed editions of the Hebrew Bible and the Greek New Testament.

The concept of verse division in the Hebrew Bible is at least as old as the Mishnah, which dates from about 200 C.E. (see Megillah 4.4, “He that reads in the Torah may not read less than three verses”). Verse numbers are attributed to Rabbi Isaac Nathan, in about 1440. The current verse divisions in the New Testament are the work of the famous publisher Robert Stephanus (Estienne), who published at Geneva in 1551 a Greek-Latin New Testament divided into numbered verses. The first English Bible to incorporate verse numbers is the Geneva Bible of 1560.

Going in Circles

The “Books in Brief” section of your August 2001 issue (see Books in Brief, BR 17:04) mentions that two recent books point out that the Dead Sea Scrolls speak of a suffering messiah (interpreting Isaiah 53:3, 5) and so the idea didn’t start with Jesus. This also means that all the scholars who claimed that Jesus couldn’t possibly have seen himself as a suffering messiah were speaking out of ignorance.

The entire notion of scholars meeting almost two millennia after the Gospels were written to determine which parts came from Jesus and which were made up later is silly. Obviously, somebody in the first century had to come up with the sayings attributed to Jesus in the Gospels. Why not him?

Why don’t scholars get together to dissect a more recently written work—Henry David Thoreau’s Walden? Let’s convene a gathering to vote on which parts of Walden were really written by Thoreau (who, as a 19th-century American farmer, had to be a strict Fundamentalist, right?) and which were added by a late-20th-century New Ager (for instance, “Let him humbly commune with Zoroaster then, and, through the liberalizing influence of all the worthies, with Jesus Christ himself, and let ‘our church’ go by the board”).

Someone might point out that discounting parts of Walden because they don’t fit your preconceived notion of what Thoreau thought isn’t scholarship, it’s circular reasoning. But isn’t it the same thing when it’s done to the Gospels?

We Might Regress