An Early Non-Literal Reading of Genesis

While studying the Apostolic Fathers last semester I came across a non-literal reading of Genesis in 2 Clement. Just as background, 2 Clement, which is not written by Clement, is an early Christian homily that probably dates to around the mid-to-late second century. It is interesting in large part because it is evidence of allegorical interpretation of the Genesis story occurring very early on in Christian history. Here is the passage (Ehrman’s Translation):

But I cannot imagine you do not realize that the living church is the body of Christ. For the Scripture says, “God made the human male and female.” The male is Christ, the female the church. And, as you know, the Bible and the apostles indicate that the church has not come into being just now, but has existed from the beginning. (2 Clem. 14:2)

There are similar comments sprinkled throughout the passage. The church “was created before the sun and moon” and the author exhorts the reader to be apart of the “first church, the spiritual church.” Interesting stuff. I noticed similar ideas in other Apostolic Fathers texts, but none of them made use of Genesis.

Book Announcement

I’d like to take this opportunity to tell my friends and fellow-biblibloggers about a new book I have coming out from Major Evangelical Publisher. A few months ago, MEP contacted me about a book opportunity to continue a series exploring the church life and theology of the Fathers. I must admit, I was surprised that they chose an obscure grad student for the project, but when I confronted them about it they replied, “Who is willing to work cheaper than a grad student?”  Who indeed? After accepting their offer, I got to work right away.  I thought I’d use this blog to provide a preview of the content of the book.  The first chapter focuses on Ignatius of Antioch and examines his three point rhetorical strategy, a strategy that I dare say would remain effective even today.

Step I: Dehumanize

The easiest way to challenge the legitimacy of your opponents is to portray them as somehow subhuman. After all, nobody goes to the zoo for theological advice (except perhaps a “pastor” whose name rhymes with Lark Griscoll who pioneered the quadrant-based flung-monkey-poo method of discernment). Watch as Ignatius elbow drops his opponents with the gospel. His opponents are:

• “wild animals” and “raving dogs” (Ign. Eph. 7.1)
• “seemingly trustworthy wolves” (Ign. Phil. 2.2)
• “beasts in human form” (Ign. Smyr. 4.1)

Step II: Demonize

Once you show that your opponents are subhuman, you really have to prove that they are evil instead of just stupid. Try finding as many ways as possible to associate your opponents with the Devil. Be creative like Ignatius, he said his opponents were:

• “a weed planted by the Devil” (Ign. Eph. 10.3)
• “filthy” and they “will depart into the unquenchable fire” (Ign. Eph. 16.2)
• an “evil offshoot which produces deadly fruit” (Ign. Trall. 11.1)
• bearers of “the stamp of this world” (Ign. Magn. 5.2)
• promoters of “evil teachings” (Ign. Eph. 9.1)
• doomed to become bodiless daimons (Ign. Smyr. 2.1)

Step III: Delegitimize
Finally, find ways to smear your opponents with unpleasant titles, and whenever possible exploit the prejudice of your audience. You can call your opponents names:

• those who say he only appeared to suffer are “atheists” (Ign. Trall. 10.1)

You can exploit the growing Anti-Judaism in Christianity by characterizing your opponents as:

• partakers of the “bad yeast” of Judaism (Ign. Magn. 10.2)
• believers of “old fables” who by living “according to Judaism” “have not received God’s grace.” (Ign. Magn. 8.1)

And you can attack the legitimacy of their worship:

• Their eucharist is “invalid” without the bishop (Ign. Eph. 5.2; Ign. Smyrn. 8.1)

Obviously the church fathers give us powerful examples of theological reflection, prayer, and worship, but they can also help us deal with divisions in our churches. A quick rhetorical rout can leave your opponents decimated, and bring your church back under your impartial, divinely-appointed control with great speed. Watch for the book to be published later this year, and check the table of contents below to see what other church fathers I mine for that decisive rhetorical victory today’s churches really need.

Table of Contents:

• Chapter 1: Irate Ignatius
• Chapter 2: Mighty Justin Martyr
• Chapter 3: Indomitable Irenaeus
• Chapter 4: Testy Tertullian
• Chapter 5: Combative Chrysostom
• Chapter 6: Antagonistic Augustine

Cool Resource

Harvard University Extension School has a website where they have essentially posted the lectures from online courses for free public consumption.

Harvard open courses feature video of Harvard faculty. The following noncredit free Harvard courses are offered online by Harvard Extension School’s Open Learning Initiative. Featuring Harvard faculty, the courses are open to the public.

• Intensive Introduction to Computer Science
• The Heroic and the Anti-Heroic in Classical Greek Civilization
• Bits: The Computer Science of Digital Information
• Shakespeare After All
• China: Traditions and Transformations
• World War and Society in the Twentieth Century: World War II
• Sets, Counting, and Probability
• Abstract Algebra

Of particular interest is the course titled, “The Heroic and the Anti-Heroic in Classical Greek Civilization.” Enjoy.

Excommunication Letter

I saw this on failblog and thought you all might enjoy it.

Extreme Right Politics + Christianity = Loony

I had a Facebook interaction that I found so amusing I decided to share with all of you. First, a little background. I went to a semi-conservative undergrad, the sort of place where professors are tolerant of views both more liberal and more conservative than their own but the official positions of the school say all the “right” things. I’m Facebook friends with a former classmate of mine who even then displayed a certain level of mental instability. I recall the stunned and awkward silence as he gave his sermon in our preaching class and used it to suggest that Christians should support the summary execution of any person who engages in homosexual activity. He was one of those people who espouses extreme views, but simultaneously is generally very nice and otherwise pleasant to be around. Even though I know it is futile, from time to time I attempt to comment on his more extreme postings and nudge them back towards some sense of sanity. It was his response to my gentle prodding which is prompting me to write this post. His comment is many things: loony, bizarre, uncharitable, and sad, but above all it is sort of hilarious. This man made a post about how he will enjoy murdering U.N. troops when they come to take over the U.S. for their “One World Tyranny.” I suggested that such an attitude does not correspond to the advice given by Jesus in the Gospels. I reproduce his response in its entirety:

Right, like Jesus Christ Himself [sic] wasn’t a Radical [sic]. Like He didn’t say to “put away you [sic] sword” for later use. Not Get[si..oh nevermind] Rid Of It! Like We Aren’t Supposed To Fight Tyranny And Evil… Dude, Your Social Justice Christianity has your head screwed on wrong. I am Scripturally Sound and your wanna help Pussify The Nation God Gave Us And Turn It Over To The Evil Of EDOM HE HATES. Go Ahead, But Not This Republic. Move To Canada Where Pussification Has Already Taken Hold But Don’t Dare Try To Un-Do The Christian Nation God Has Blessed Me With. Your Liberal B.S. Is Exactly Why Our Troops Get Spat Upon In Airports By Those Claiming To Love Our Country Then Turn Around And Fist Those Of Us With Balls Enough To Defend Her. Perhaps You Don’t Dig My Kind Christianity But At Least My Balls Have Dropped Enough To Be A Good American Hard Core. Time To Grow Up And See It’s Not All About Love And Flowers J.B.[that's me] … Perhaps It Is That You Just Never Knew Who I Am? I Use Scripture As A Sword… You Must Be An Awfully Protected Guy Not To Have Your Eyes Open To Reality Yet. Grow Up.

Is it wrong that I cracked up reading that?

Jim West is giving something other than disdain away

Jim West has a contest to give away a copy of the Ephesians/Galatians volume of the totally awesome and new IVP Reformation Commentary on Scripture. Check it out. Depraved individuals need not apply.

Lisa Frank Joins Mark Driscoll’s Mars Hill Church

In a stunning victory for Christianity, Mark Driscoll has converted Lisa Frank to Christianity and she has joined his Seattle church. Already, the artistic genius of Ms. Frank is making itself visible in the life of Mars Hill Church. In the recently unveiled “Peasant Princess” series found here, Frank’s talents have been put to good use. When asked for comment about Frank’s participation on the Mars Hill team, Mark Driscoll responded, “When I first met Lisa, I wasn’t sure I wanted to preach her the Gospel. After all, Jesus would never carry a Lisa Frank binder. But then the Holy Spirit TV Screen™ kicked on, and the Lord showed me her talent. I thought ‘You know, cute neon woodland creatures would be the perfect thing to go with a discussion of the sexually charged Song of Solomon.” Frank reported being happy with the move. “I’m just so excited. I’ve always wanted to use my art to reach people older than 11.” Truly the angels rejoice.

A Song For NASCAR Jesus

Words fail me.

Theological Responsibility

Moving has kept me from the blog world for far too long.  I promise I’ll try to return to some of my recent post series soon!  Today, though, just a quick thought:

I find myself burdened by what I feel is my “theological responsibility” as a seminary graduate.  I felt this coming on during our final months at Fuller, and I probably feel it more acutely in the last month or so.  By that I mean that I feel that a church or organization that I’m going to “endorse,” especially through financial support, should be improving its members’ theology rather than further corrupting it.  This burden of theological responsibility may just mean I’m picky and/or arrogant, but I believe at least some of it comes from a good place.  It makes me uncomfortable to think of giving a thumbs up to Christian leaders who aren’t theologically educated or reflective and who pass on beliefs and ideas that are innocuously (but annoyingly) wrong at best, and detrimental to the faith lives of their communities at worst.

I can recognize these sort of leaders as Christian brothers and sisters who are well-meaning and who even may get a lot of things right… but I just have trouble stomaching the idea of directly supporting ministries that may explicitly teach the kinds of things you go to seminary to unlearn.  In fact, to do so, to me, feels unethical.  Yes, I feel ethically uncomfortable supporting certain Christian organizations—which are in significant part like-minded and filled with nice people—because I feel as someone with a theological education I have some sort of responsibility to the larger Christian world to not condone what I know to be teaching that is just plain wrong (and, on a positive note, to encourage people to be thoughtful Christians with exposure to a wide range of ideas).

I think my awareness of this problem is exacerbated greatly by the general lack of moderate Christian organizations out there.  I want very much to be able to stand behind positive Christian causes and to participate in their ministries (directly or indirectly).  But I find myself asking who is left that I really feel comfortable supporting right now.

Anyone else (seminarian or not) have this issue? Would love to hear your thoughts and experiences in this realm.

From the Dilettante Files: Prismatic Theology

A couple years ago, I attended my very first meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in New Orleans. As I was meandering through the hallways in search of interesting sessions, my attention was drawn by a colorful poster placed upon a board which was in use for the poster sessions. It took about .002 nanoseconds to figure out that some whack-job had hijacked the poster session board. I meant to blog on it then, but I forgot
about it until some particularly ridiculous bit of dilettantish behavior mentioned on Scotteriology reminded me of it. Anyway, I bring to your attention ladies and gentlemen: Prismatic Theology. What is Prismatic Theology you might ask, and the answer is about what you’d expect. From the about page:

[W]hile my husband and I drove from Tulsa, OK to Eureka Springs, AR the unexpected happened! It was a beautiful Fall day and the foliage in the Ozark Mountains was particularly brilliant …yellow, orange, red, purple and green leaves dotted the hillsides! But something other than the colorful leaves caught my attention. An image appeared between the windshield of our car and my mind’s eye. The vision that I saw was an organizational structure for ministry. It was in the shape of a square and it looked like a fishing net which had the colors of the rainbow woven into its structure.

The vision came to me from beyond myself and I have no rational explanation for it. The only thing that I can say for certain is that the vision came with a complete understanding of how ‘The Net’ was to function. Moreover the new knowledge was instantaneous and could not be un-learned…During the next four years,1996 – 2000, I experienced a continuous supernatural influx of instruction. At times the intensity of the teaching and the amount of information was beyond what I thought I could handle. I begged for a respite but no rest came until Oct, 2000. By the end of the four year period of time however I had an awareness of three tools for ministry here on earth: A Clock, a Key, and a Net![emphasis original].

Ok, so she had a vision, but what on earth does prismatic theology even mean? From what I can tell, she seems to have haphazardly applied her vision to a variety of random things in the Bible. For example: The creation story in Genesis 1 should not be understood as linear, but rather as circular…because color wheels are round…or something. Unexplained prophetic vision? Color wheels to the rescue! Her application of the color wheel often breaks down into incoherent rambling:

It is unlikely that the wheel was successfully used in ancient times as a means of measuring time relative to the 24-hour measurement. However through the gift of hindsight, a synchronization of ‘bible-time’ and ‘earth-time’ becomes possible. The entire wheel accounts for the counter-clock-wise passage of 8,400 years of which 6,000+ years have elapsed and 2,100+ remain.

What? At least there are plenty of nifty colorful pictures. If you think the climax of absurdity has been reached, get ready to be blown away. She has presented this crap at SBL!

When my research was complete, I joined the Society of Biblical Literature and the American Academy of Religion in order to present my research. I wanted the scholarly community to listen to the information and either tell me that I was crazy; laugh me off of the planet; or help me understand why the insights couldn’t possibly be accurate. But no one laughed. And after several years of presenting academic papers I’m still on the planet. A few scholars commented on the ‘unconventional nature of the wisdom’ saying, “I’ve never thought about this” or “I’ve never seen anything like this.”  But no one told me that the conclusions I offer cannot possibly be accurate.

I’m all about sunshine and kindness, but for the love of Pete why didn’t anyone say, “Yes madam, you are indeed crazy.” The fact that no one did so is allowing her to trade on the name of the SBL. Her website lists her “academic papers presented within the Society of Biblical Literature” including three regional meetings and a national meeting. I’m no fan of censorship, but who is letting this woman into their sessions? Do her abstracts sound distinctly less crazy or something?

Carol, if you are reading this, I have no desire to hurt your feelings, but what you are doing is not scholarship. It does not belong at SBL, and you shouldn’t be hawking DVDs about it on the internet. If you are really interested in Biblical Studies, I suggest that you seek training from an accredited institution of higher learning or contact someone who has had such training and ask for a list of books to read.