Episode 117: Pete Enns - Reading the Old Testament Christotelicly

In this episode of The Bible for Normal People Podcast, Pete discusses how New Testament authors use the Old Testament in their writings as he explores the following questions:

• Why do the New Testament authors use the Old Testament?
• How often is the Old Testament quoted in the New Testament? 
• Is Jesus really mentioned in the Old Testament?
• How does the New Testament resemble Jewish Midrash?
• What does Christotelic mean?
• Where did Christians get the idea that Jesus is hiding in the Old Testament?
• What do the people of the Qumran community teach us about interpreting the New Testament?
• How did the Babylonian exile influence the trajectory of biblical interpretation?
• What is the Talmud and how does it compare to the New Testament?
• How does Paul use the Old Testament in light of his understanding of Jesus?
• What was the function of prophesy in the Old Testament?
• What is a throne name?

Tweetables

Pithy, shareable, less-than-280-character statements from Pete you can share. 

• “[New Testament writers] go back and read their scripture in such a way to support what they already know to be true by faith.” @peteenns
• “What we see in the Bible is a lot of diversity. And that diversity reflects the fact that times were changing and different questions were being asked and God was being perceived differently.” @peteenns
• “When we read the Old Testament, when we see things like the diversity of theological views among the biblical writers, what we’re seeing actually is a sort of overview, snapshot of developments of Jewish tradition over time.” @peteenns
• “What we’re watching these New Testament writers do is talking about how this Jesus fits with that long [Jewish] tradition.” @peteenns
• “The logic is not a modern one, it’s an ancient, midrashic logic and to accept that rather than fight against it… is the true beginning of trying to understand the nature of how scripture behaves.” @peteenns
• “How you read the Bible, the method for which you read the Bible, serves the goal that you know the story points to.” @peteenns
• “If our understanding of what it means to have an inspired text can’t account for how the Bible actually behaves, we need a new way of talking about what an inspired text means.” @peteenns

Mentioned in This Episode

• Book: How the Bible Actually Works
• Patreon: The Bible for Normal People

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[Introduction]

0:00

Pete: You’re listening to The Bible for Normal People. The onlyGod-ordained podcast on the internet. I’m Pete Enns.

Jared: And I’m Jared Byas.

[Jaunty Intro Music]

Pete: Hey everybody, welcome to this episode ofthe podcast and today we’re going to talk about a topic that is very close tomy heart. In fact, it’s one of these topics that when I started exploring inmore, especially in graduate school, not so much in seminary, but definitely ingraduate school, especially having Jewish professors – this is a topic thatreally got me thinking about the kinds of things we talk about on this podcastall the time. What is the Bible? What do we do with it? And a way of getting tothat question is, for me the way I put it is, “watching how the Bible behaves.”And a great way to see how the Bible as a whole, the Christian Bible behaves,is by looking at this very important topic of how the gospel writers or Paul orsomebody else, how they handle their Scripture, what Christians call the OldTestament. There is no New Testament, obviously, they’re writing it. Andthey’re not even thinking about writing the New Testament, they’re justwriting. Eventually it becomes part of the Christian Bible, but for Paul, andfor the gospel writers and everyone else in the New Testament, really, it’stheir Scripture and their tradition that is very important for understandingwho Jesus is. And what we’re going to look at is how they actually do that andwhat that might tell us about what the Bible is and what we do with it.

So, the first thing to point out, I have severalpoints to make here. The first thing to point out is that the New Testamentwriters, well, they use the Old Testament a lot. It’s like they can’t make amove without bringing their Scripture into it, and that’s because they sawJesus as somehow a continuation of this Abrahamic and Mosaic (Moses) traditionand Jesus is sort of, I guess you could say for them, the culmination, thefinal clarifying moment of Israel’s entire story. Now so, they’re going to citethe Old Testament an awful lot. In fact, statistically speaking, the exactnumbers elude me at the moment, but it’s about 350 times the New Testamentcites the Old Testament and that’s a lot. I mean, in one of the Bible’s that Ihave without any footnotes or anything like that, that comes out to about twoand a half Old Testament citations per page. And not only that, but there are anumber of passages of the Old Testament that seem to be popular for NewTestament writers. I know, for example, Paul uses one in Genesis, Genesis 15:6.Abraham believes, and it was credited to him as righteousness. Paul uses that,he uses a citation from Habakkuk more than once. All in all it might be, it’sunder 300 Old Testament passages that make their way into the New, but becausesome are cited more than once it’s over 300 times. Who cares? Who cares about numbers?This is not a math class, right? It’s just a lot. They can’t make a movewithout it, but here is the point. When you start investigating, and just,forget investigating, just reading carefully, being a careful reader of Scripture.When you read how these New Testament writers use their Scripture, you begin tonotice something that everyone notices really at some point when they start lookinginto this issue a bit more carefully. They see that the way in which a NewTestament writer, say a gospel writer, uses the Old Testament, the way theyinterpret it, doesn’t really match with what that Old Testament passage meantin its original context. And I don’t know if any of you have ever been involvedin, or maybe come into contact with Christians, you know, missionaries or evangelistswho want to say that “my goodness gracious, Jesus is so clearly articulated inthe Old Testament, why can no Jew believe this?”

And I’ve heard Jews respond that, “well, thereason we don’t buy it is because this is not what our Scripture actually says,Jesus isn’t there. You’re putting him there.”

“Yeah, but right here it says Paul say this,”yeah, well, they’re doing that. They’re actually putting Jesus into the OldTestament, when, if you look at its original context it has nothing to do withJesus at all. And that has caused some challenges for people, and it getsreally interesting, you know, when you start looking at these examples youbegin to wonder, you know, what is the connection between this story of Israeland then the New Testament. How do those two parts of the Christian Bible tietogether?

5:01

That is a great question and I want to get tosome of that stuff, but first, I thought it might be good to illustrate theproblem with an example. And this is one of my favorite examples, and it’s justillustrative and it’s just a wonderful entry point into a deeper discussion ofthis, and it comes from Matthew. Matthew has a lot of things to say about theOld Testament. Probably because his audience is largely, his followers of Jesusthat he’s writing to are largely Jewish, that’s what most people think. And so,he’s really going to a great length to establish this connection between Jesusand Israel’s story. So, here’s one example just to sort of kick this off, andit’s found in the book of Matthew and in chapter 2, and this is a story of whenthe holy family escapes to Egypt after Jesus’ birth and we read that Joseph,you know, had a dream and an angel tells him to “’Get up, take the child and hismother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is aboutto search for the child, to destroy him.’ Then Joseph got up, took the childand his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the deathof Herod.”

Now, here’s the point, verse 15, “this was tofulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: ‘Out of Egypt, Ihave called My Son’”. Now, here Matthew is citing Hosea 11:1, and what Matthewis saying is that this moment in Jesus’ young life, when they are fleeing toEgypt and then escaping to Egypt and then coming back again eventually, they odcome back a few verses later, but this trek down to Egypt is a fulfillment ofsomething that Hosea says. And the thing is, that you go back and read Hoseachapter 11:1, the whole context of Hosea is not a prediction forward, but it’slooking backward. Chapter 11 begins, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, andout of Egypt I called my son”. Right? That’s exactly what Matthew cites. Andwhat Hosea clearly means, is that he’s looking backward to this time hundredsand hundreds of years earlier when God delivered the Israelites out of thehands of Egypt, out of slavery. Matthew takes this as a fulfillment, and that’sa little odd isn’t it? See, Hosea’s not even predicting anything, he’s justtalking about, matter of factly rather, about a past event and he goes on totalk about this and saying, listen, you know, I brought out of Egypt - God’stalking - but you’ve done nothing but disobey me and I really should reject youbut how can I do that, you’re my child. It goes on like that, it’s sort of achiding, not a very positive section in Hosea here, but Matthew says this isfulfilled in Jesus as a child going down into Egypt to escape the massacre ofHerod and then coming back again. And a lot turns on what Matthew means byfulfilled, okay? Matthew is, I don’t think saying this is predictive, but he’ssaying there’s something in this Old Testament story that connects with Jesushere in a vital way. And all that is fine, and we’ll get into, you know, whyNew Testament writers sort of do what they do, but for us, for readers of theBible today, if you’re looking at this, you might be scratching your head andsaying how in the world can Matthew get this out of that passage, and that’s agood question. And there are a few hundred other examples of this sort of thingthat happens in the New Testament, typically what we find is that the NewTestament writers are not doing what modern interpreters of the Bible normally dowhen they interpret the Bible. We try to understand the original context, andwe work with that, and we look to that as sort of maybe an anchor for how weunderstand this text and, you know, if my students were to interpret a passageof the Old Testament like Matthew dos with Hosea, I might say, have you evenlooked at a commentary to understand what’s happening in this moment. See,that’s the dilemma. The New Testament writers rely on this Old Testament story,the story of Israel for explaining Jesus. But yet, the way they approach itseems so, just counterintuitive and odd and weird to modern ears. That’s wherethe challenge lies. Okay, so that’s one point.

9:53

Here’s a second point. What Matthew is doing inwhat we will see other writers do, a bunch of examples later on in the podcast,but what we see them doing is actually, it fits very nicely with the Jewishworld at the time, and the word that comes up to describe this kind of creativeapproach to Biblical interpretation is midrash. That’s a Jewish word that hasto do with interpretation, but not interpretation the way we might think of ittoday. Read the text. What does it mean? Explain what it means. Midrash is acreative way of handling past texts; of course, all texts are past. It’s acreative way of handling these traditions and these stories from the Bible inorder to make it connect to the present moment. It’s making the past presentand connecting the present with the past, but very creatively. You know theBible is pretty old and it has its own topics, and those topics make sense inantiquity, but as time goes on the circumstances change and these texts have tobe brought in more creatively to the present moment. And that whole approach,that whole procedure is referred to typically as midrashic interpretation. Verycreative and very much focused on what that text has to do with our presentmoment. Even if it doesn’t speak to the present moment directly, it can be madeto speak to the present moment.

So, to explain this and to understand it and tryto communicate it, I use a term that I have found to be very helpful. Othershave used it in a very different way than I intended to use it, but let me sortof explain what I mean by this term. The term is Christotelic. The way the NewTestament writers used the Old is in a Christotelic manner. Christo = Christ.Telic is built off of a Greek word which is telos and that telosmeans something like a purpose or goal, something like that. So, when I say theNew Testament writers approached the Old Christotelicly, what I mean is this,they see Christ as the telos, the goal, the purpose, the end point ofIsrael’s story. That’s their starting point. Their starting point is theirfaith in Christ. Christ is the telos; they know that by faith. Now whatthey do is they go back and read their Scripture in such a way to support whatthey already know to be true by faith.  Namely,that Jesus is God’s Messiah, crucified and raised, and this is the culminatingmoment, this is the telos of Israel’s story. That’s their beginningpoint.

Another way of putting it, one of my teachers inseminary put it this way. He said for the New Testament writers the method, theway they interpret the Bible, it actually serves their goal. The goal is Jesus.That’s their goal. That’s their starting point. That’s the telos ofIsrael’s story. I don’t mind beating a dead horse here, I’ll be repeating thata few times, but it’s very important. To put it another way, let me say this.It’s not that Jesus is somehow, you know sort of, in a veiled sort of way, he’sreally in the Old Testament. That’s a common Christian confession. This goesback, you know, a long time. Augustine talks like this too, that Jesus is inthe Old Testament concealed. He’s there, he’s just hiding a little, but youhave to find him. But I don’t think that’s the case. I don’t think Jesus is inthe Old Testament. Let that sink in for a second. I don’t think Jesus is in theOld Testament. But I think what these New Testament writers did was they tookthe Old Testament and they reread it with this unusual surprise ending, namelyJesus, as the goal. They know where the story goes, they’ve experienced it,it’s by faith. And now they look to the Old Testament, their Scripture, forconnections. And some of those connections with just a little bit of teasingcan make a certain degree of sense and others are maybe a bit moreadventuresome, but they’re working with this text to bring that text to bare onthis culminating moment in the story of Israel, again, which is Jesus.

14:59

You know for Matthew, for example, I don’t thinkMatthew was simply winging it and just sort of like, oh, here’s an old passagein the Old Testament that says Israel is God’s son and I’ll just use thatbecause Jesus is the Son of God. I think it’s probably deeper than that, Ithink Matthew has a method to the madness, so to speak. It’s not clear to usand I suspect it’s something like, well you know, listen, Israel is God’s sonin Hosea and we are community and others like us refer to Jesus as the Son ofGod, so maybe there’s some connection between the story of Israel and the storyof Jesus. Maybe, to be more specific, that Jesus, in some sense, embodieselements of Israel’s story. For example, Matthew portrays Jesus as a new Moses,even though Jesus isn’t Moses. Even though the story of Moses doesn’t predict Jesus,he presents Jesus as a new Moses because Jesus has a Sermon on the Mount, wherehe gives law to the people, even citing the Ten Commandments and saying “you’veheard it said, but I say to you.” Jesus is Moses. He’s Moses 2.0. He’s not thesame as Moses, but he’s deeply connected to this Moses story. That’s Matthew’sthing. He really likes to show that. I think that citation here of Hosea 11 islike that. Matthew has a scheme, a plan, he understands Israel’s story andJesus’ story in a certain way, and he brings these two together, and I thinkit’s enlightening. I think it’s beautiful theology. My only point is that hehas to read Hosea very creatively in order to get that point across. See, it’sa prior conviction, in other words, that determines how Matthew reads Hosea.Matthew would never read Hosea 11:1 the way that he does, were it not for theprior conviction that Jesus is the Son of God. That goes first, the Bible comesalong for the ride, so to speak. The driving force isn’t what the Bible says, thedriving force is who Jesus is.

I think, in my opinion, and people disagreeobviously, but, in my opinion, this is fundamental to understanding the natureof our Bible and how it works and what it means to read it well.  And in this respect, this sort of midrashicuse of Israel’s tradition and Israel’s Scripture, this use of it that sort oflooks at the present moment and says this is the culmination of God’s purposesand Scripture speaks to it in some way, let us try to see how we can get itthere. That is not something that’s unique to the New Testament, and this iswhere, you know, we won’t belabor this point, but this is where the Dead SeaScrolls come in which were discovered in the 1940s and really revolutionized certainelements of New Testament study. And one of those things that wasrevolutionized was the very thing we’re talking about here. Because here wehave the Dead Sea Scroll community, also known as the Qumran community. Qumranis the town where they were sort of holed up. This Dead Sea community sawitself as the true, pure, chosen people of God and they’re in the desertbecause they left Jerusalem, which had become very corrupt. This is like in thesecond century and first century BCE, before Christ. So, they left Jerusalembecause of corruption and they became sort of like the pure ones who werewaiting for the end for the cataclysm, for the apocalypse.

And they saw themselves because they rejected thecorruption of the priesthood in Jerusalem, I mean, you know, you could buy andsell the priesthood, the high priesthood. During that time there was a lot ofcorruption between some of the Jews and Greek influences and appeasing people,it’s a very complicated and somewhat difficult history to read. But this Qumrancommunity separated itself and said basically, we’re the chosen people, we’rethe folks of God. And so, they too began reading their Scripture in such a waythat helped them understand who they are. They knew they were the chosenpeople, they knew they were God’s people, they knew that they were the childrenof light rather than the children of darkness, they knew that the truth was ontheir side, they knew that God was on their side, and Scripture refers to “us,”and so they too would take prophetic passages and do something similar to whatwe just saw with Matthew. They would read that in light of their own situationand say, well, this passage there that seems to talk about the Babylonians isactually talking about us and talking about our leader. They even had a leadercalled the righteous teacher and people have said that’s similar to how Jesusfunctions in the Gospels as the authoritative interpreter of Scripture.

20:16

My point is that the New Testamentwriters are doing what they do, and it’s odd and it’s weird, but in the contextof the world in which they lived, this was not all that shocking. And I have to tellyou, this is getting to sort of I guess another point here, a third point, abrief one. But thisis the issue that really made me stand up and take notice about howour Bible works and I came to terms with how thoroughly Jewish theNew Testament writers were. Obviously. Yeah, but maybe not. It’s notobvious for everyone, you know, sometimes you can get buried under a lot ofChristian thinking and assumptions, but these writers fit very well, these NewTestament writers, Matthew, he fits very nicely into an ancient world. And wemight not access the Old Testament the way they do, and that’s anotherdiscussion altogether. My only point here is I’m just observing what I’mseeing here, and it is not the way I was taught to think about theBible. So, it was a little bit of a shock to the system. Again, thishappened a lot in graduate school with Jewish professors who had no ideathey were stepping on certain toes, evangelical toes or fundamentalisttoes. They just were doing what they do, and what they showed me wasso compelling. It was so, my goodness gracious, wow. Boy this isdifferent than what I thought! And for me, as I said, that sort of was abig moment early on that started a journey for me, an intellectual andspiritual journey to come to terms with how the Bible behaves.  

One way that I like to sort of thinkdifferently about this issue is not to think in terms of like, well,here’s sort of this solid Old Testament and that hasn’t changed much and thenJesus comes around and says a bunch of stuff and the New Testament writerssay a bunch of stuff and then you've got this New Testament. Idon’t like to think of it as, so much, how the New Testament uses theOld Testament. I like to think of it a bit differently, and that is howthe Jesus story fits with Israel’s tradition. That may sound likeI’m saying exactly the same thing, but for me it’s not. I look at theOld Testament itself as, itself a traditionthat develops and changes over time where you have, you know,biblical writers of a later period discussing or debating things that earlierwriters said. It is really a living tradition that we see in theOld Testament. When we read the Old Testament, in my lastbook, How the Bible Actually Works, I talk about this in greatlength. I won’t repeat it all here, but what we see in the Bible is a lotof diversity. That diversity reflects a fact that times werechanging, and different questions were being asked, and Godwas being perceived differently at different times in differentplaces. When we read the Old Testament, when we see things like thediversity of theological views among the biblical writers, what we’re seeingactually, is a sort of an overview snapshot of developments ofJewish tradition over time. And that didn’t end somewhat magically,you know, at some random point in the past, but, you know, as Jewscame back from the exile, this is in 539 BCE, few hundred years beforeJesus. As they came back, they were wrestling with their old traditions andwhat relevance those traditions had for them. And those developmentskept appearing and different Jews had different ways of looking at,you know, what does it mean to be Jewish, how are we tied to the past,what does the Bible require of us as people living, you know, this life offaith in the line of Abraham and Moses and David, etc. And Jews had verydifferent points of view on those things, they weren’t all the same.  

24:30 

So, when you come to the storyof Jesus, what we’re seeing here is another Jewish development in this story.No one is starting a new religion. Jesus isn’t, Paulisn’t. They’re deeply connected to the tradition of the past, and so, I’d liketo think of the New Testament writings not so much as like aset thing, a closed New Testament cannon, which doesn’t happen until like,the fourth century anyway. But Ilike to think of it as Jews, for the most part, except possibly the author ofLuke and Acts, but, you know, be that as it may. I like to see this as Jews atthe time who were aligned with this particular Jewish movement,the Jesus movement. They’re writing about how this movement fits withtheir tradition. They’re not saying, well, here’s a new religion. How can wemake it fit into this other religion? They’re saying - we believethis is fundamentally the right continuation. This is the telos ofIsrael’s story. And what we’re watching these New Testament writers do, istalking about how this Jesus fits with that long tradition, diverse as it is,but how this Jesus fits with that tradition.  

So really, in what we call the Oldand New Testaments, we have a series of documents that all come from differenthistorical moments in different times and places and we’re seeing Jews of aparticular time, specifically the first century of the common era, AD. We’reseeing them think out loud, if I could put it that way, about how this momentthat they’re a part of fits with the tradition as whole and that is what drovethem to do some creative handling of that tradition in order to explain it. AndI really can’t stress this enough folks,it’s not just followers of Jesus who had to do that. Who else had to do that?Well, Judaism, throughout its tradition, going back hundreds of years beforethe time of Jesus. Jews also had to rethink their tradition again andagain inlight of changing circumstances. And Ithink this is really, reallyimportant and not alwaysgiven its due weight, at least in popular circles. But, youhave, you know, the story of Israel, I mean how does, okay…

Where does Israel's storygo? It lands them in exile. Okay, to back up a little bit. You’ve got thisstory where God has chosen Abraham and the patriarchs, and thispromise is being funneled through them and it culminates in Moses and thedeparture from Egypt and God is with them; and the whole point of leaving Egyptis to go to Mount Sinai to get the law so you know how to act and alsoinstructions for building a tabernacle so you know how to worship, andthe whole point is you move through that to the land and you setup a monarchy and everything goes downward spiraling from there,right? But the point is that God’s promise is, it goes back toAbraham – land, and a lot of offspring. A lot of offspring and a place to putthem, and this is my promise to you, I’ll never break it, this is what I’mgoing to do, I’m going to make a great nation out of you and the whole world’sgoing to see it and they’re going to glorify me. That’s sort of themainstream story, but where does it go?  

28:16 

It ends, first of all, withthis monarchy dividing into two, north and south. This happened after the reignof Solomon. His son, Jeroboam, was not a very wise king, and thenation split into two. And the north, confusingly called Israel, theyretained the name of the entire nation and then the southern nation ofJudah. And, a couple hundred years later, this is around 930 that happenedroughly, around 722 the northern nation of Israel, which was comprised of tentribes, was taken captive by the Assyrians and never heard from again. Ifyou’ve ever heard the term, the lost tribes of Israel, there they are. Andwhat’s left is little Judah, very small, not very powerful, and they hangon until 586. This is when the Babylonians came and this initiated theBabylonian exile, but the temple was leveled to the ground, the walls of Jerusalemfell, and the elite were taken captive into Babylon and they return in 539under the Persians in captivity for forty-something years, and, you know, toset up show again. And these Judahites returned to the land and that landeventually came to be called Judea and the residentswere Judeans or Jews or Jewish. All these terms come from that southerntribe of Judah, the nation of Judah that returns from Babylon.  

But my point is this, this is really not howthe story is supposed to end. It’s not supposed to end in exile, it’s supposedto end in some triumph. And they do have some triumph, they come back to theland. The Persians take over and they come back to the land, they let them comeback and they rebuild the temple, they rebuild the walls, which is great. But whatthey don’t have is a king. They don’t have a king sitting on thethrone. And this is, you know, you’re not really completely backin the land, you’re not really completely back the way things should be, ifyou’re in your land but still, it’s run by other people. It’s run by othernations, so first the Persians and then after a while in the fourthcentury, the Greeks come. And the Greeks are in charge of thispart of the world from the 330’s down to about the 160’s, you know, I guess ahundred, two hundred years or so. Two hundred something years. And, actually, let medo that math, that’s embarrassing. No, it’s about a hundred, uh, two sixty,three sixty, yeah, about a hundred and fifty years roughly. And theproblem though, is that around 200, the Greeks become sort of hostile to theJews and there’s a lot of persecution and martyrs and because the Greeks weretrying to force some Jews to convert to Greek ways, like eating pork and thingslike that and it’s really, it’s a horrible story. The storyof Hanukkah comes to us from that time, and that inspires the Jews torebel against the Greeks, and here’s my point in all this. There was a periodof Jewish semi-independence from about 167, 164 down to about the 60’s, about ahundred years, but it was semi-independence. There were kings who ruled,but there was just a tremendous amount of infighting and stress, and stillpeople wanted to adopt Greek ways, and others didn’t, and this is thecorruption of the priesthood, where they were buying and selling it,and this is what the Qumran community took off and brokethe Dead Sea Scrolls and things like that.  

This is not the way the story isreally supposed to go. It’s not going in a really good direction,they’re supposed to be triumph for God’s people, and insteadthere’s infighting, and in due time, the Romans come and take over. And,of course, a hundred years later, around the year, in the year 70 after aperiod of rebellion on the part of the Jews, the temple is destroyed onceagain and the rest is history, as they say. The Jews disperse, and, you know,they have not really been living in their land from the early second centuryuntil the 1940’s when Israel became a state again. So, it was a long time wherethey’re not really in the land, and this has created challenges forJudaism, not just throughout history after AD 70, but even before that. Because,you know, you’re in the land but you’re not really in the land and their wholetradition assumes them being in the land, it assumes them having kings andpriests and prophets, and everyone sort of tight with God and you’reobeying the covenant and God’s blessing the people.  

33:15 

When you’re in foreign territory,when you’re taken away to Assyria or to Babylon, or you come home andyou’re still being run by pagans - Persians, Greeks, Romans, whoever – you haveto think really hard about what it means to be Jewish. And a lot of Jewishtraditions began during this time as creative ways to connect them with the Godof old. You know, when you’re in exile or after the temple is destroyed inAD 70, you don’t sacrifice anymore. That’s a pretty fundamental thing inJudaism. Sacrificing is a big deal, right? It’s atonement for sin, it’s away of communing with God, you need to do this. God commanded it to Mosesin Mount Sinai, it’s not really a negotiable, but yet theycan’t do it. So how do you stay Jewish in a totally different context whenyou’re not in the land and in charge of it? Well, they had to think aboutwhat it means to be Jewish, and certain customs were developed, and a lot ofthat has defined Judaism over time and it’s a huge issue, not, we don’t need toget into.  

My point is that the Jews themselveshad an ancient tradition that they had to think creatively about in order tomaintain the tradition. You couldn’t just do what it said in the Bible. You hadto adjust, you had to make amendments, you had to think creatively. Youhad to employ a midrashic mentality towardsthat text. Because, again, circumstances have changed rather drasticallyand unexpectedly. Our story is not supposed to end in exile or with foreignoccupation or with the temple being destroyed a second time. Our story issupposed to end differently.

So, history of Judaism, letme just, this is a bit, maybe a slight overstatement and just too simplistic,but from the time of the exile, again, this is in the sixth century BCE. Fromthe time of the exile, and from that point on, Judaism has had to becreative in engaging its tradition in order to maintain that tradition.That’s a great irony. You have to becreative with the tradition to keep the tradition going. Well, all traditionswork that way. I think of the New Testament analogously to thissituation because it is a Jewish movement, but what the New Testamentwriters are doing is they are also approaching their tradition, what we callthe Old Testament. They're approaching that tradition creatively because theycan’t just sort of do what the Bible says. Something has happened, namely, forthem, Jesus, who they believe was God’s Messiah, God’s king, who wascompletely, utterly, unexpectedly crucified by the Romans, and as theybelieved, raised from the dead.

This is an unexpected shift inevents. This is not the way the story is supposed to continue. It is a telos,it’s a goal, it’s a purpose, but it’s something of a surprise telos,a surprise purpose. It doesn’t jump off the pages into your eyes as you readthe Old Testament. No one reads the Old Testament saying – I wonderwhen Jesus is going to come and die on the cross. This was offensive. This wasan indication that Jesus was not the Messiah. That’s why, you know, a lot ofJews didn’t believe, because you’ve got to be kidding me. He lost, how can hebe our king, how can he be our Messiah if he’s crucified by the Romans? It justdefies logic. So, many Jews, and history shows us that Christianity became verymuch a Gentile faith already in the second century, sort of losing some of itsJewish roots over time, but that’s because this is a story that is socounter-intuitive to the story of Israel that it makes some sense to see theNew Testament writers, who were Jewish, remember, not third centuryGentiles, philosophers, they were Jews, just normal, every day people.It shouldn’t surprise us to see how they are approaching the reading of their Scripturein such a creative way because you want to forgethis connection between Israel’s story and this unexpected surprise endingof a crucified and risen Messiah. I think this is the problem, right, that isbeing addressed by New Testament writers by how they handle their Scripture,creatively.  

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Again, who else handled their Biblecreatively? They all did. The Dead Sea Scroll community, ormany, many other Jewish communities. You can read about them inthe Apocrypha, or in the pseudepigrapha. You can see this invarious translations of the Old Testament like the Greek translation called theSeptuagint, or the Aramaic translation called the Targum. You seethere all sorts of creative handlings of the ancient tradition, becausethe ancient tradition is now being asked to address issues that the traditionitself never anticipated. And if you want to stay connected tothat past, guess what? You’ve got some creative reading to do in order toforge that connection. And so, I like to think of the New Testament as sort oflike a, this is not the best analogy, but I like it anyway.  

I think of the New Testament as sortof a Christian version or alternative to the Jewish Talmud. What’s the Talmud?Well, the Talmud is a compilation of a long history of discussion in Judaismthat goes back, at least to the second century of the common era and certainlybefore that, although, it’s much more difficult to document there. But, youknow, the way I would put it, the Talmud is all discussing about whatit means to be Jewish. And it’s engaging Scripture and law and debating it andthinking about it and moving past it if need be, or interpreting it in creativeways to, you know, maintain Jewish distinctives when you're living inPoland or Spain or Canada later, or the United States or wherever,right? This is what the Talmud is doing, it’s engaging this ancienttradition and adapting it for people living in different times and places. Andthe New Testament does that too on a smaller scale, because it’s restricted to,you know, the first century. But Iwould argue that the history of Christian theology is analogous to the Talmudin that it’s different followers of Jesus at different times under differentcircumstances are making sense of that ancient tradition for changing times andchanging circumstances.  

To me, if I can put it this way,that’s almost too obvious to even say, but it has implications forhow we view our Bible because this process of reengaging the past creativelybecause of changing times and changing circumstances, for Christians, this isembedded in our New Testament. In Matthew is just, Matthew’s use of Hoseais just one example. There are many others, we’ll look at some in aminute, not drive them into the ground, but at least to give an overview. Maybejust a sense of how the New Testament writers handle Israel’sstory inlight of this Jesus. But for me asI said before, this was an enlightening moment to see, my goodness gracious,what, what is our Bible doing? And on one level it’s really exciting, andanother level, it’s a little bit disturbing, because it’s not at all howChristians are typically taught to understand how their Bible works.  

Okay, so let's move on to afew more examples, actually, three to be specific. I want to look atexamples that I think are really good at illustrating this Christotelic midrashic creativehandling of the Old Testament on the part of these New Testament writers thatwe’re looking at and all these citations they have, but justthree I think are really, really illustrative. And the firstone, and again, we don’t have to go into tremendous detail, this is athirty-thousand-foot thing. You know, details are really interesting, butthey’re not necessary. You can just sort of look at the big picture andsay, my goodness gracious, what are the New Testament writers doing here?  

Okay, one example comes from the bookof Acts 2. This is Peter, is giving a speech proclaimingthe resurrection of Jesus after Pentecost, and he’s talking aboutJesus, and he cites Psalm 16. This is in chapter 2 of Acts beginning inverse 25, goes on for a few verses, and he’s citing Psalm 16:8-11 and there aresome interesting differences here between the Psalm itself, how it’s cited herein Acts and how the Psalm appears back in the Old Testament.And that a lot has to do with the use of the Greek Old Testament onthe part of these New Testament writers. Shifts already began with theSeptuagint with the Greek translation of the Old Testament. Adjustments, changes,updating, that sort of thing happened. And that’s reflected here in thispassage, but again, I don’t want to dwell on those things too much. Let me justread where Peter is saying here, how he’s citing Psalm 16.  

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He is talking about Jesus’ resurrection and hesays in verse 24,  

“ButGod raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible forhim to be held in its power. For David says...” 

Now he’s getting to Psalm 16 – 

“ForDavid says concerning him,” 

Who is him? Well, Jesus. See, rightaway Peter is saying that David is saying something that concerns Jesus. I’mnot sure if Peter is saying that David is predicting Jesus, he’s just sayingthis concerns him, this has to do with Jesus perhaps. Let’s read it and seewhat he says. This is the citation of the Psalm. 

“‘I sawthe Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand so that I will not beshaken; therefore myheart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced; moreover my flesh will live in hope.For you will not abandon my soul to Hades,’  

That’s the Greek word that reallytakes the place for the most part of the Hebrew word Sheol,which is like the abode of the dead, right? So,  

‘Foryou will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy Oneexperience corruption.’ 

Like decay, rot.  

‘Youhave made known to me the ways of life; you will make me full of gladness withyour presence.’ “Fellow Israelites,”  

Peter continues -  

“I maysay to you confidently of our ancestor David that he both died and was buried,and his tomb is with us to this day. Since he was a prophet, he knewthat God has sworn with an oath to him that he would put one of his descendantson his throne.” 

And he goes on and on talking abouthow basically, a lot of details, like I said. Jesus fulfills somehow, Psalm 16.Now, the problem with that from the point of view, like a simple prediction, isthat Psalm 16, frankly, has nothing to do with Jesus and that’s not a stretch.You can go back and read Psalm 16 and what the Psalmist is saying is that, youknow, you have been faithful to me God, you're alwaysbefore me, you will not abandon my soul to Hades, to Sheol, or letyour holy one go to the pit. That’s what it says in theHebrew, English translation of the Hebrew. But it doesn’t matter, itsays you will not allow me, basically, to be, you will not abandon meto Sheol. You won’t let me see corruption or the pit or decay orrot. What that means, it’s self-evident in the contextof Psalm 16. What it means is you will keep me alive, youwon’t let me die. You won’t abandon me to Sheol, you’ll keepme here on earth. Thank you for not letting my enemies get the better of me soI don’t die. But notice Peter takes that, he gives it a little bit of a twist.For him, you will not abandon my soul to Hades means you’re already there, butGod won’t leave you there. Won’t leave Jesus there, specifically. Do you seethat? Is it too subtle? I hope not. Peter is using this Psalm in avery creative manner, in a manner that the author of Psalm 16 would not recognize.He says, I’m not talking about anybody rising from the dead, I’m talking aboutsomebody not dying at all. But here it’s, again, as I said, not to repeat ittoo much, but this is about now resurrection from the dead, and Peteruses this Psalm. See, this is the hard part. He’s not just sort of like riffingwith words, he’s using the Psalm as, if I can say it this way, a prooftext. For Jesus’ resurrection has always been part of what thisstory of Israel is about, because it’s predicted in Psalm 16, and Ido think in this context in the book of Acts that that’s very much what isbeing implied here. That this is a prediction because David knew, gosh, youknow, all people die. He must have been talking about Jesus. 

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Pete: Youknow, I have a problem with that from, sort of an intellectual, logicalpoint of view, in that Psalm 16, no one would ever get that from reading Psalm16 on its own. You have to begin with a resurrection faith, and thengo back and read Psalm 16 in a rather creative way. Again, thisis this Christotelic notion that I’ve mentioned. This, we knowthe purpose and the goal of Israel’s story is Jesus, therefore we go back andlook at the Hebrew Bible from that perspective and interpret it from thatperspective. It’s hard for, I think, most of us. I don’t want to presumethings, but I think it’s hard for us to read Psalm 16 and say, oh yeah,this is talking about resurrection from the dead. But this is a great example,because it’s such a difficult example of this creative viewof Scripture on the part of the New Testament writers, and it’ssomething we shouldn’t shy away from. I think it’s very, very important. I don’tthink this is, I don’t think this is like a haphazard sort ofjust, let's just use verses and sort of, you know, worry about theconsequences later. I do think that there’s a logic here on the part of Luke,you know, the author of Acts. I think in recording a speech like this, andwhether Peter said it exactly this way, that’s a whole otherissue. But whether it’s Peter or Luke, there’s a logic here. But my pointis that the logic is not a modern one, it’s anancient midrashic logic. And to accept that rather than fight againstit, I think is the true beginning of trying to understand the nature ofhow Scripture behaves, how it works. And therefore, Ithink nothing is gained by going into sort of apologetic mode, and say,well listen, if Peter says Psalm 16 was about Jesus, obviously we read it asabout Jesus on the part of the intention of the original author, but that’snot, that would not explain what we see throughout the New Testament. The NewTestament invests meaning into these Old Testament passages that the originalwriter had absolutely no intention of putting there.  

Okay, so,let’s now go to another example, more of the same. And this one comes to usfrom Romans 10. Again, I like these examples and I just think they’re soillustrative. So, in Romans 10:4, Paul says,  

“For Christ is the end of the law so that there may berighteousness for everyone who believes.” 

And thatphrase, I want to pause here for a second, because that phrase “Christ is theend of the law”, the Greek word there is telos. I’m sort of gettingthis Christotelic notion from places like Romans 10:4. Christ isthe telos of the law, and he, he’s not the end of the law inwhich, you know, the law can now be ignored. Paul doesn’t say that. But he’ssaying that Christ is the ultimate goal and purpose for which the lawwas given in the first place. Which sounds really great, but now you haveto watch what Paul does to illustrate this point. And this starts in versefive. And he says,  

“Moses writes concerning the righteousness thatcomes from that law, that ‘the person who does these things will live bythem.’”  

That’s inLeviticus.  

“But, the righteousness that comesfrom faith...” 

Not the onethat comes from the law, but the one that comes from faith says, and now he’sgoing to quote Deuteronomy. So, the first thing to notice here, whichis really creative on Paul’s part, is that he is in essence, pittingone part of Torah against the other. He’s contrasting the righteousness thatcomes from the law, which means “the person who does thesethings shall live by them.” That’s from Leviticus chapter 18:5. He says,okay, that’s one thing, “but the righteousness that comes not fromthe law, but from faith” says something else, and now he quotesDeuteronomy. So that’s just enough to take in for a second, that for Paul’s useof his Scripture, which he’s trained in, when he’s proclaiming Jesus, he feelsfree to contrast Leviticus, which says the person who does thesethings, obeys the law, will live by them. Life comes from obedience.And he feels, he feels a freedom to contrast that to what is inDeuteronomy, and here he is citing Deuteronomy chapter 30, the first few versesof it and it, actually, let me back up and talk about what Deuteronomysays.  

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See, inDeuteronomy chapter 30, we’re getting to the end of Deuteronomy,and there Moses is delivering a speech, which basically the wholebook of Deuteronomy is a speech of Moses, but it’s sort of like a lastminute pep talk and you’ve got this law and it’s in front of you and it’ssomething that is very, very doable. And I want to read what he says there,because this is really, reallyimportant for understanding against something of the characterof this BIble that we read today, and how it behaves and does thingsthat might not be exactly, well, in this case, not remotely like the way welook at it. So, Paul begins in Deuteronomy 30:11, he says,  

“Surely, this commandment that I am commanding youtoday...” 

Which is tobe faithful to the covenant - 

“Is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away. It is notin heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us, and getit for us so that we may hear it and observe it?’ Neither is it beyond thesea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us,and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?’ No,  

Paul says- 

“The word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and inyour heart for you to observe. See, I have set before you today life andprosperity, death and adversity.” 

In otherwords, the whole point of this passage here in Deuteronomy 30 is that,listen, the law, it’s not too hard for you.  

It’s not upin heaven so somebody has to go up and get it. It’s not acrossthe ocean so you have to take a boat to go find it and bring it back.It’s staring you in the face, I’m giving it to you, I’ve been preaching thislaw to you since the very beginning of the book of Deuteronomy. That’s it.This is a very law centered passage,obviously; Torah centered, law of Moses centeredpassage. Paul, however, interprets this portion of Deuteronomy 30very creatively, and what he does, and I’m going to read this here, and justto, you know, here’s the punch line. Paul replaces Torah with Christ, buthe quotes Deuteronomy 30. He just replaces Torah with Christ. Here’s what hesays.  

“But the righteousness that comes from faithsays,”  

And now hebegins quoting Deuteronomy.  

“’Do not say in your heart who will ascend intoheaven?’  

Paul adds,“That is to bring Christ down.” 

“’Or who will descent into the abyss?’” 

Hmm,that’s interesting. The Old Testament doesn’t say whowill descend into the abyss, it says who will go across the sea.Right, so in Deuteronomy it’s a vertical/upward, to the heaven and thena horizontal/across the sea, those two directions. For Paul,it’s vertical/upward, who will go into the heaven, and thenvertical/downward, into the abyss. Who will descend into the abyss? That’sa major shift. That’s not in the Greek version of Deuteronomy; that’snot the Hebrew version. This is Paul. Who will descend into the abyss, that is,to bring Christ up from the dead. And his answer is nobody,you don't have to do that. Who brought Christ down? Well, Godsent Jesus. Who raised Jesus from the abyss, from the dead? God did that.See what he’s saying, he’s saying it’s not the Torah that is ever present withthe people and now you can keep it. He is, let’s say, decentering Torah,putting it more on the periphery and putting Jesus in its place,which is a great thing to say. You know, if you’re Paul and you’re preachingthe Gospel to these Jews and Gentiles who were probably the people getting thisletter to Rome, but just, you could’ve said that without citing Deuteronomy30. That’s sort of the point. But he takes Deuteronomy 30, he takes greatliberties with it, to change the directional aspect, not up and notvertical/horizontal, but vertical/up, vertical/down; and then replacingTorah with Christ, right? And he continues, but what does itsay,  

“The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart.” 

Which is arough citation again, of Deuteronomy 30, but for Paul, the word is notTorah. For him, the word is Christ and that’s why if, what saves you, right,what shows true obedience to God, not obedience to Torah. But hecontinues,  

“Because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord andbelieve in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will besaved.”  

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See, Paulcreatively takes a Torah centered passage and makes it into a Christ centeredpassage. Now again, I really want to stress this, this is not Paul just beinghaphazard. There is a logic in Paul’s thinking that really begins with hisfaith in Christ that drives him to go back and to read his Scripturecreatively. Again, a Christotelic approach. Deuteronomy 30, Iwill say this from a rooftop until the day I die, has absolutely nothing to dowith Christ. It is drawn into the Christ orbit because this is Paul’s faith.Jesus is crucified and raised from the dead. He is God’s solution to a very bigproblem. We are now within our rights to read all of Scripture, to reframeit, to reread it, to rethink it around this risen Christ. Scripture servesChrist, Christ doesn’t serve Scripture. Scripture’s role now is to point toJesus, the telos of Israel’s story, not to Torah. Torah nowactually is there to point to Jesus as well.  

And, youknow, some of us might sit there and say, well, obviously. Yeah, obviously for Christians,but, not if you’re a Jew living in the first century. And again, for usto enter into this hermeneutical adventure, which is to read Paul’sletters, I think especially Romans. To do this, really is an eye opener to helpus understand the nature of Scripture and what it means to see Christ in ourBible and is it obvious, it is not obvious? Well, I think it’s amatter of creative interpretation. And again, to try to defend Paul as doing,let’s say, good exegesis, good interpretation the waymodern people do, I think we’re really not seeing what’s directly infront of us. A creative handling of the text driven by the foundationalcommitment of Paul. Not that the Bible is the word of God, whichhe believed, the more foundational commitment of Paul’s, is thatChrist is the purpose and goal and end of Israel’s story and now we arebound as people who understand that, who have experienced that, to goback and read Scripture creatively. And again, that’s not reallysatisfying, I understand this, to a lot of modern ears, but thiscreative use of Scripture on Paul’s part is, well, prettynormal among Jews in the centuries before Paul and certainly during histime. A creative handling of Scripture to adapt it to new and changingcircumstances, that’s what faithful people do. “Well, wedon’t.” Yeah, because we’re modern people. We have different approaches toreading any text, let alone the Bible. Anyway.

Okay, hey,one more example, because we’re in Romans, what the heck. In chapter 9,Paul is talking about the election of Israel and his, one of the goals inRomans, and I think I’m on very safe ground saying this, is to show that bothGentiles and Jews are on the same boat, so to speak, and not one is over theother, but Gentiles are fully a part of this faith of Abraham as Gentilesthat don’t have to convert to Judaism. They don’t have to maintain dietaryrestrictions or male circumcision and stuff like that. In fact, this is part ofGod’s plan all along. This is one of Paul’s arguments, that the Gentileshave always been a part of God’s plan exactly the way it’s happening now.  

This is nownew. This is part of the biblical tradition. How does he do this? Well, byciting things from the Old Testament. But that’s again where we run into thischallenge that we’ve seen with these other two examples, because here he’sciting a couple of passages in Hosea. This is Hosea 2:23, also Hosea 1:10 andhe goes on to bring Isaiah into it a little bit. But if you wantto look at this on your own sometime, this is in Romans 9 beginning inverse 25. And I want to back up just a little bit to get the context of whathe’s saying, and again, let’s not get bogged down in the details. This is athirty-thousand-foot view, alright? So, let’s start in verse 22. Paulsays,  

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“What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make knownhis power, has endured with much patience the objects of wrath that aremade for destruction; and what if he has done so in order to make known theriches of his glory for the objects of mercy, which he has prepared beforehandfor glory – including us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but alsofrom the Gentiles?” 

This is thesection, like, the real big predestination section, and Paul that hasbeen used by Calvinists to support the notion that God picks individuals and Idon’t think that’s what Paul is saying. I’m certainly not alone inthis. I think in this section as a whole, what Paul is saying is notthat he picks people that the chooses to save individuals, but if God wants to saveJews and Gentiles in the same way, God has every right to do that. And the hardpart to handle there for Jews at the time might have been this kind of Gentileinclusion, sort of just as Gentiles, you’re part of the children ofAbraham. It might have been a difficult pill to swallow, and apparently by thereactions Paul got in like, Galatians, that’s probably what happened. But,leading into the citation of Habakkuk, he says,  

“Including us, whom he has called, not from the Jews only butalso from the Gentiles? As indeed he says...” 

God says- 

“In Hosea.” 

Interestingviews there of biblical inspiration. You know,when Hosea speaks, it’s God speaking? Right,so, that’s interesting, so. Anyway, he says, 

“Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ andher who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’” 

Now, catchthat, okay? He’s citing Hosea 2 and the context of Hosea makes itabsolutely, perfectly clear. What he’s talking about is that thosewhom God has rejected among Israel because of rebellion, he is going to callthem his people again. So, when Hosea says, “those who were not my people,I will call ‘my people,’” he’s talking about Israelites. He’s not talkingabout, hey, I’m going to bring Gentiles into all this. And again,thirty-thousand-foot view. You’re welcome to read the first three chapters ofHosea and any Old Testament prophet, and their focus is on the faithfulness,the fidelity on the part of Israel or not. So, Hosea means to say,like, “those who are not my people I will call ‘mypeople,’” and “her who was not beloved, Iwill call ‘beloved.’” In other words, I’m going to reconcilewith you, Israel, despite your rebellion, but notice what Paul does. Thatphrase, “those who were not my people,” Paul, he, okay, he interprets it.That’s really the best word to use, he interprets this by really forcingsomething into this context that simply isn’t there. And that sounds likereading into the text for us, well, he sort of is. But, in ancientJudaism, that’s what you do when you interpret. You bring in ancient text intoyour present moment because times and circumstances have changed and what Paulis living in, in his view, and the view of others, is that Gentiles arepart of the kingdom of God. As Gentiles, without conversion, withoutbecoming Jewish first. That’s what’s happening. That’s the reality. That’shis telos. That’s the goal of the story of God and it’s beenreached and they’re living in it. Now, they go back and look at thesepassages, like, in Hosea 2, and where Paul sees “those were not my peopleI will call ‘my people,’” and Paul reads the Gentiles will now becalled “my people.” Not repentant Israelites, but theGentiles will. That is a very forceful, creative reading of thistext. And, you know, if you asked me, and let’s pretend you are, I don’tthink that Paul misunderstood the original intention of Hosea. I think Paulunderstands exactly what that’s about. I think, frankly, all the New Testamentwriters, if you push them and you say what might this have meant to the peopleback then? I think they would’ve given an answer like, well, Hosea’s talkingabout, you know, unrepentant Israel, you know, God will bring them back and“those who were not my people will be called ‘my people’” and “those notbeloved I will call ‘beloved’” and this is a story of repentance on the part ofIsrael.  

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But thatwon’t stop a Jew of antiquity, and Paul was a Jew of antiquity, from employingsome creative license in bringing this passage into what he knows to betrue. So, let me put it this way. I believe, very firmly here, thatthe Jewish readers, whoever they might have been, when they saw Paul doingthis, would not have said, “boy, you’re taking the Bible out of context,”because this kind of approach to Scripture was in the air, very common, not atall unusual. It had to be done after all, this Bible is so old, what dothese passages have to do with us today? They have to be brought intoour world. Circumstances change, right? And that’s a Jewish thing, that’s alsoa Christian thing on the part of Paul; bringing this ancient text into thepresent moment. I know I’m repeating myself, but I think it’s important becauseit’s easy to lose track and to miss the main point of all this, whichis Scripture serves the goal. How you read the Bible, the method for which youread the Bible, serves the goal that you know the story points to. This isPaul. What makes Paul distinctive from other Jewish interpreters thathe learned from, and probably his contemporaries, isn’t that, you know,he’s creative or he’s not creative. He is creative. It’s that what he is beingcreative about, which is Jesus of Nazareth. That’s his focus, that is whatmakes Paul distinct in his world, not whether or not he’screative.  

That’s avery different way of thinking about the nature of Scripture. And again,for this example as well, this is not just, it’s not haphazard, but Paul has alogic. It’s an inner logic, but it’s also a logic that only works witha midrashic interpretive mindset. In other words, people today whodon’t have a midrashic creative mindset, which is basically allmodern people. You know, we don’t read, we’re not taught to read Scripture theway Paul is reading it. That’s why it seems so foreign to us. “Well, he can’tpossibly be doing that, that’s so wrong!” Well, it’s not wrong for him.See, here’s the irony of it, for the way many people today, and let me just sayevangelicals and fundamentalists generally, but also Christians whoare not like that at all, our tendency, our assumption is to read a text andsay “what did the author mean, well, that’s the meaning.” With thatkind of an attitude, we will never get to what Paul is doing here with Hosea,or what he’s doing earlier with Deuteronomy, or what the author of Luke isdoing with Psalm 16, or what Matthew is doing with Hosea, or theother three hundred something examples that we see in the New Testament.We’ll never see the logic. It will always escape us; it will alwaysbe this profound mystery. It’s really not that much of amystery, what they’re saying is that Jesus is the answer, this is the story,and we’re going to appeal to it in a manner that helps us to see that goal moreclearly. And in doing that, Paul is no different, Matthew is no different, Lukeis no different from other Jews at the time and even in the centuriesbefore.  

Okay, now,one more thing. I would like to address a couple of clobber passages. In otherwords, there are places in the New Testament that seem to contradict the wayI’ve just explained Paul. One of them, actually, is Acts 2 and the use of Psalm16 where it says that David is predicting Jesus, alright?Actually, let's just start with that. As I suggested before, I mean,I understand the mentality, so to speak, of the writer to sort of, to aJewish audience, to show this deep connectiveness between Jesus andwhat the ancient tradition said. Having said that, it’s still, it betrays oursense of the logic of things to simply say, “well, okay, Iguess then it means it predicts it.” I would ratherput that entire mentality of prediction, also in an ancient context, andnot assume prediction means then what it sort of means today.Prediction for us means foretelling, it means, well, this is said, andthis person is clearly talking about that.  

1:13:39 

I think inthe first century world, and this could be developed at great length and,again, this is a thirty-thousand-foot thing, but the manner of predictionreally in the Old Testament vis-a-vis the New is not a matter offoretelling the future, but a New Testament writer saying what we’reseeing here in front of us is like that. Like that thing back there. Thatthing back there is like what we see here. It’s a like thing. It’s an analogy,so to speak. You know the thing that happened back there that God did, wellthat’s like this over here. Remember Matthew’s use of Hosea, you know, “out ofEgypt I call my son,” I don’t think Matthew is saying that’s beingpredicted, but I think he is saying Jesus fulfills it. It’s not a prediction,but Jesus fulfills it. That Jesus is the telos, the purpose, thegoal of this. Jesus is the ultimate moment that reflects what we see here backin Hosea. That’s not a prediction, it could be a fulfillment, but it’s nota prediction. It’s not the same thing. So, I think understanding somethingof what prophecy was, even, in the ancient world, and wasn’t reallylong distance predictive, but more a proclamation ofa reality in that moment in time. Well, in the New Testament thetimes have changed, the circumstances are very different. Hundreds of yearshave transpired, but how does the Scripture speak to us? Well, it speaks to usstill, but getting and fostering that connection requires a creativeimagination on the part of the New Testament writers.  

Anyway,well, one of the, you know, better known clobber passages is II Timothy 3:16, 

“All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching,for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so thateveryone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for everygood work.” 

Amen. I haveno problem with that. I think it’s completely irrelevant to the topic. This isabout the usefulness of Scripture, and God inspires Scripturefor it to be useful and profitable. That does not mean that Godinspired Scripture so that the New Testament is simply the fulfillmentof predictions from the Old Testament, right? In other words, thisdoesn’t, and it simply can’t discount for us the way in which we watch theNew Testament writers handling their Old.  

I thinkwhat’s really behind this clobber passage is that, well, the Bible is inspiredand an inspired book by God would never do this sort of silly stuff becauseit’s really confusing to us, it makes no sense, and it makes me have lessfaith in the Bible. And I think the New Testament writers would say, well, Godinspired the text and he’s inspiring the moment, and it is veryconvincing to us to see God at work in this way and others did the samesort of thing with Scripture. Other Jews did the same sort of thing. You know,it might not be convincing to us with a modern mentality where we have views ofprediction that are, frankly, just out of step with the Bibleitself. But, this is not an apologetic bookwritten for us to prove Jesus. It’s an end time bit of theology.It’s an end time bit of interpretation in the first century to showsomething of Jesus on the basis of this old story, but stillinterpreted very, very creatively. And, to call the Bible inspired doesn’tdiscount what these New Testament writers were doing. What probablyneeds to happen is we have to think differently about whatinspiration means. At least, some of us do; to be more in accord with whatwe’re watching the Bible actually do. That’s a huge topic folks. We’vedone a couple podcasts on that, we’ll do more, because it’s a big, big topic.But if our understanding of what it means to have an inspired text can’taccount for how the Bible actually behaves, we need a new way of talkingabout what an inspired text means.  

Okay, nextpassage is II Peter 1, actually, let me start in verse 19.  

“So we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed.You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place,until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Firstof all you must understand this, that no prophecy of Scripture is amatter of one’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by humanwill, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” 

1:18:24 

And again,this is sometimes used as a counter argument to the creative use of Scriptureon the part of anybody, including Biblical writers, because “no prophecyof Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation.” And it looks like Paulis sort of just like, riffing, and maybe just being sort ofpersonally ingenious and making texts say things they don’t say, andespecially if you understand that these men and women were moved by the HolySpirit spoke from God, right? So, if they spoke from God, youcan’t really do something weird and haphazard with it, there’s one meaning, whateverthe meaning was back then, that’s what it is now. And so, whatever you thinkPaul is doing, Pete Enns, he is not being creative with this text, he’s sort ofjust saying what the prophet said, because “no matter of prophecy of scriptureis a matter of one’s own interpretation,” you can’t do that.  

Well, twothings to that. One, II Peter, the rhetoric of II Peter is very important.Again, it’s not the kind of thing we can get into in any depth here, but anypassage of the Bible has to be understood within its context, andwhat is the argument that Peter is making here or whoever the author of IIPeter is. Most people, including people like JohnCalvin, thought it was not Peter. It was after, it’s got stylisticissues that make it difficult to square with I Peter. But leaving thataside entirely, this piece of writing is not just, well, here’s a verse,let’s take it out of context and just use it to undermine what Paul and otherwriters are doing in other places quite clearly, which a creative bit of interpretation.I mean, I don’t, it’s sort of like, you know, when James says, you know, don’twaver and just believe, you know, don’t doubt. Don’t be rudderless, youknow. And to square that with the passages in the Bible where there is alot of doubting going on and nobody seems to be bothered by it, like Jesus onthe cross, he’s in agony, he feels God’s abandoned him. Or in the Old Testamentlament Psalms, or in Ecclesiastes, or Job, I don’t want James to discountthat whole witness of Scripture. I don’t want II Peter to discount... 

First ofall, I don’t even think that’s the right interpretation that I justlaid out for us here, but that’s the common way of looking at it. But Idon’t want that to discount what we’re plainly seeing dozens and dozens anddozens and dozens of times, not only within the New Testament,but actually in the Old Testament itself. A creative handling of pasttraditions and past texts. This is woven in, it’s baked into the nature ofScripture, and I want to understand II Peter in light of that.Not correct all that in light of what I think II Peter issaying.  

Okay, threemore clobber passages, but this is brief. They're all in Isaiah, andthe first one is Isaiah 7. This is where Isaiah says a child will beborn to you of a virgin and he’s talking to the, King Ahaz, because he’s reallyconcerned about a battle that’s going to happen and he doesn’t wantto get wiped out, and he says, should I make alliances, what should Ido. Isaiah says no, here’s a sign to you, a virgin shall conceive, andshe’ll bear a son, and by the time the son is old enough to know right fromwrong, basically, this problem that you’re concerned with, this politicalalliance from the north, it’s not going to be existing anymore, don’t worryabout it. The problem is that this is Isaiah 7:14, which Matthew cites assupporting the virginal conception of Jesus through Mary. In Isaiah7:14, it probably shouldn’t be read as virgin, but as young woman, and thecontext again there makes it very, very clear that Isaiah is not talking about,well, the sign is miraculous nature of the birth. The sign is that a youngwoman will conceive and bear a son, maybe Ahaz’s wife, maybe Isaiah’swife. I mean, it’s hard to know who he’s talking about. But, she’llconceive and bear a son. Here’s the sign: by the time the child is old enoughto know right from wrong, within a very few short years, the problem thatyou’re facing now will not exist anymore and you need to trust God. NowMatthew, because he’s a creative handler of the Bible, uses this to connectJesus’ birth and Jesus’ origins very deeply with Israel’s story. And again,there’s a logic to what Matthew is doing. There’s a logic there, but it’s notwhat Isaiah is saying. It’s not predictive, rather, the New Testament writerhandles this in a creative midrashic way, knowing that Jesus is theend purpose and goal of the Scriptures.  

1:23:39 

It also is afactor, this is a little technical, but that word in Hebrew, when it’stranslated into Greek, into the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint, it took ona flavor that made its meaning a little bit more flexible and Matthew seems tobe capitalizing on that as well, but that’s another issue of, notirrelevant to what we’re talking about, because, again, it’s part of thehistory, the circumstances, the moment that these New Testament writers are in.Anyway, not to dwell on that.  

Anotherexample, this is in Isaiah, keep flipping, chapter 9. And chapter 9 is aboutthe near ascendancy of a righteous king, and some people think it might beHezekiah or something like that but, we don’t have to ferret that out, but herewe have the famous passage in Isaiah 9 that says “for a child has beenborn for us, a son given to us.” Which in the context is about the birthof a king, but how is this king described? Well,  

“Authority rests upon his shoulders; and he isnamed Wonderful Counselor, MightyGod, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endlesspeace for the throne of David and his kingdom.”  

It goes onlike that. And understandably, I mean, I get it, people say,well, that’s not a human being, that’s got to be Jesus. Who elsecould that possibly be? Well, the who else is an earthly king. Well, how canthat be? How can a king be just a wonderful counselor or a mighty god?Well, in context, this is called a throne name and throne names are given tokings to connect them with God, to connect them with a divine source; this isoutside of Israel as well. So, you know, when you call the king “Wonderful Counselor, MightyGod, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace,” you’re not saying thisking is divine, you’re saying the throne name connects him with the power andthe authority of Yahweh. It’s really not much more thanthat. It’s like Psalm 2, that when the king is anointed orcoronated, we would say that God says this is my son, today I have begottenhim. You know, you are my son, today I have begotten you. It’s very personal.That doesn’t mean the child is an offspring of God and therefore divine, that’sjust a way of talking about royalty. Now, I can understand how we would look atIsaiah 9 and say, well, okay, but it sounds like Jesus. Yeah, well, let’sthink of it this way. This is not predicting Jesus, this is not a passagethat’s only, let’s say, applicable to Jesus, but Jesus in the minds ofChristian theologians and the Christian tradition, he like, hyper-embodies thisnotion and let’s say, in a trinitarian theology, he embodies this notionmore literally. He is Wonderful God, you know, Mighty Counselor, Princeof Peace, Everlasting Father, right? Even though Jesusisn’t Father, you know. So, you know what I mean. That’s,we just see the same thing happening again here. The context is one thing, thecontext of Isaiah 9 shows us that Isaiah 9 is not impossible to understandapart from Jesus, therefore it must be a prediction. No. Handling this passagein Christian theology is itself a creative handling of an ancient text to bringit into, let’s say, conversation or engagement with the true ultimate truth as youbelieve it, which is Jesus is Lord.  

Okay, onemore very quick example, because this is just so much fun. Beginning at the endof Isaiah chapter 52, we have what is called the fourth servant song. And thereare others in chapter 42 and 49, and also in chapter 50. And theservant, like, who is this servant? Well, that’s a good question. Let’ssee if we can figure that out. But the suffering servanthere is described in ways that are very familiar to us, that are alluded to inthe New Testament. Things like, “he was despised and rejected by others,”“a man of suffering acquainted with griefor infirmity,” and he was as one who hid his face from others. Youknow, Jesus was so beaten that he just hid his face. And -  

“Surely he has borne our infirmities, and carriedour diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down byGod, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions,crushed for our iniquities,” 

He goes onlike that. It’s a pretty long chapter, but he even talks about that thissuffering servant experiences a death, and the grave and oppressed andafflicted and like a lamb led to the slaughter.  

1:28:47 

I mean, youlook at this and understandably so, my goodness gracious, you read this andsay, how can this possibly be about anything other than this one person who isstricken for others and who is afflicted and who has a marred appearance andwho goes to the grave. It’s gotta be about Jesus. Well, this couldbe, let’s say, hyper-fulfilled in Jesus, just like the previous example. Thisis something where Jesus embodies this kind of an idea fully, which Iactually, I do believe that. But Isaiah 52 and 53 is not a prediction ofJesus. “What do you mean it’s not a prediction of Jesus?” Well, here’s why.I am of the opinion, as are many others, not everybody, to befair, the matter is a bit tricky. But the question is who is the sufferingservant in these four servant songs starting in Isaiah 42? And, long storyshort, I am of the opinion that it’s the people, Israel. Well, itsays “he,” it doesn’t say “them.” Yeah, it’s metaphorical language, right?Hosea, his wife Gomer is a “she,” but “she” is representing Israel as a whole,or rebellious Israel. I mean, you can have singular things representingsomething that’s more than one because it’s metaphorical language.

So, thesuffering servant here is specifically, not Israel as a whole, but specificallythe suffering servant here is those Judahites, specifically those were livingin Jerusalem, those who were taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE andbrought into captivity. See, the Israelites at this point, we have to sayJudahites because the northern kingdom is gone, it’s just the southern kingdomof Judah left. But the Judahites, they believed that the Babylonian exilewas God’s punishment for the sins of the people. Well, who went to Babylon tobe punished? Everybody? No, a representative few. See, they are theservant of God, I believe. To me, that makes the most sense of this passage.They are the servant of God and it’s their suffering, it’s their rejection,it’s their being disfigured, which I think is also metaphorical, but it’s theirexperience which was a punishment and their punishment benefitted the whole,right? So, God’s forgiving the nation, but how is he forgiving the nation? Bypunishing a few in exile. A small number, a representative sampling, let’s say.They’re the ones who suffer, they’re the ones who are despised and rejected, aman of suffering acquainted with infirmity. That’s who this sufferingservant is - it’s Judah. And the whole part about death and the grave,well, again, that’s metaphorical language, and we see this in, back inDeuteronomy 30. We see it in Ezekiel 37 to give two examples. Beingoutside of the land is death, being inside of the land is life. Yes, when yougo into exile, you die. That’s really what that’s about. A spiritual death, butit’s a death nonetheless. And, you know, and maybe it’s something worth lookingat on your own, or maybe we can bring some people on the podcast and talk aboutthis sort of thing more, but it’s, you know, I’m not making this up. Thisis a way of reading this that makes a tremendous amount of sense, that aremnant of Judah, a small portion of Judah suffers, and their suffering atonesfor the sins of the people.  

Now,obviously, when you believe Jesus died on the cross to atone for the sins ofthe people, you’re going to make a connection between Jesus and the fourthservant song. Which, I think is perfectly valid and really somewhat dramaticand enlightening, but it is still a creative piece of interpretation, becauseIsaiah 53 is not predicting someone who is not going to live for another500-600 years. It means something to them right then and there. It’s asort of comfort to the people, which is a big theme of this section of Isaiah.It’s comfort that God has taken care of the problem, the punishmenthas happened, the sin has been paid for, and now everyone gets a clean start.You press reset. So, that’s what I see happening in this passage and Ihope this has been helpful. 

1:33:39 

You know,there’s a lot going on here with how the New Testament writers usethe Old, and it seems like boy, they’re being really creative, and theyare. And I think we can’t escape this creative dimension when we look at howthe New Testament writers use the Old Testament. It’s there, it’s staring us inthe face, and I think we need to make some sense of it. And the sense we canmake of it is by employing these terms like a midrashic creativehandling of the text, and the word that I like is a, to sort of put more,give it a little bit more punch, is to call isa Christotelic approach to handling their own Scripture. They’retrying to account for who Jesus is, and their faith in what Jesus is, and whathe did. They’re trying to account for that within this old Israelite andJewish Scripture and tradition. And to do that, they are employingcreativity because you have to, because times have changed but God’sword still speaks, and here’s how it speaks to us. And in doing that, thewriters of the New Testament who were essentially Jewish are no differentthan Jews who were living at the time, will come to live in latercenturies, and who have been living for centuries before trying to bring thisancient story into their changing context. The New Testament is no different.Where it’s different is that it’s proclaiming Christ and not proclaimingsomething else.  

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Pete: Okayfolks, let’s call it a day. I’ve had a great time, hope you have too. I couldgo on and on with this topic for hours, but I won’t. Instead, let me make aquick announcement. I’m really excited about this. On March 26, 8:30 PM easterntime, for ninety minutes, we’re going to have anotherpay-what-you-want course. We did this a few months ago, and it was just a greattime was had by all. And this is going to be taught by me and Jared and thetopic is “How to Read the Bible Like Grownups.” We’re going to cover all sortsof stuff in that class, and we hope you can join us, and they’ll bemore announcements coming and you’ll know where to clickand where to find this. Believe me, we won’t leave you in the dark.Just wanted to let you know now it’s coming up in less than a month.Alright folks, thanks for everything, and again, appreciate you listening, andwe’ll be with you soon. See ya!  

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