Out of sight and out of mind

Time for an interdisciplinary tidbit.

I read about a study an Israeli scientist did with Finnish, American, and Israeli children recently. It dealt with the way language affects thought.

In Hebrew, you find gender in every noun, every adjective, and almost every verb. In English we have a few nouns with obvious gender endings, but it usually only shows up in pronouns. In Finnish (which I know less about), there is no gender for pronouns, and seldom for nouns. The study found that Israeli children universally come to a realisation of gender identity before Americans and Finns. Americans usually figure it out before Finns, but the correlation is not as strong.

That is totally irrelevant to this website. Here's what isn't:

In Hebrew there is one form of past tense. On occasion, they will use a periphrastic construction when they want to emphasise process (ie: 'I went' as opposed to 'I was going'), but this is more a part of the literary idiom, and is somewhat rare in everyday speech. In English, we have about five or six nuances of past tense that are used in every day speech (I went, I have gone, I had gone, I was going, I have been going, I had been going).

The same study found that Israeli tots have much more difficulty remembering chronology, even to the extent that they don't recall very well if something happened yesterday or the day before, or last week.

If you can't figure out what this has to do with our Jewish histories recorded in the Bible, think harder.

Hebrew Matthew

Internet was down yesterday. Here's the stuff:

Let's go over what we know about the synoptic gospels:

They are all very similar, as anyone who has read them back to back or side by side will know. The early church tells us that Matthew came first, then Mark, and then Luke. Therefore, it was said for a long time that Mark condensed Matthew, and Luke used Matthew as well but supplemented it with his own material. There are some problems with this, if one investigates the Greek text. Mark has bad Greek. It's fairly clear that he's a non-native speaker doing the best he can to tell a good story in a foreign language (and he does a pretty good job, I'd say). There are places where Matthew and Luke are obviously correcting Mark's Greek to reflect the proper Koine (or occasionally Attic) idiom. It is therefore regularly assumed that Mark was composed first, and the others follow. A lot of folks like to suggest that the fathers were just making stuff up because they liked Matthew the best (they do use him the most).

What else? There are a lot of sayings where Matthew and Luke agree that are not found in Mark. Did one use the other? Well, many people think this is unlikely because if they had, their narrative would agree more (their narratives disagree fairly often). Therefore, it is said that they must have shared another source, which we usually name “Q.” You'll know what I think about that if you've read my first post.

Take a quick peek at my post from June 15th. It's about a document we don't have that the fathers mention fairly often, a Hebrew version of Matthew. In fact, our earliest witnesses, Papias (c.125), tells us two very interesting things. One is that Matthew compiled the sayings of Jesus in Hebrew. The other thing he tells us is that each one interpreted them as best they could. Here, we actually have one of the church fathers attesting what scholars have been assuming, that there was an early sayings source utilized various evangelists and teachers at the time. Recently, some scholars have also been suggesting that there must have been a Hebrew or Aramaic source used for the sayings of Jesus (particularly Robert Lindsy and the Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research).

Well here it is, right here in the fathers; the first place we ought to look, and the last place anyone does. Furthermore, Irenaeus (c.185) gives us a time-frame (Paul and Peter were founding the Church in Rome during the sixties), and possibly a location for the composition of this document ('among the Hebrews;' dare I say Palestine?). I'm liking this Hebrew Matthew more than Q already!

And what has this to do with the composition of our canonical gospels? To state briefly, I would like to suggest that this was the sayings source used by Greek Matthew and Luke in addition to Mark. What about it's content? Well, when one observes the structure of Matthew, one finds five long discourses surrounded by narrative pericopes. When Matthew does disagree with Mark, it is often with regard to the chronology of this material, so as to preserve the integrity of the discourse. I would tend to guess that, in these five discourses, one pretty much has the basic content of Hebrew Matthew. Of course, that is just a guess. Non-extent documents are non-extent (or undiscovered), and I don't want to go over board with this theory, since I think one of the great flaws of modern Gospel scholarship is conjecturing about documents and community histories that nobody has ever heard of, and ignoring the vast wealth of information we actually do have preserved by folks like Eusebius, Josephus, the Rabbis, and others; not to mention the text of scripture itself.

So what does it all mean? Before I bring together all my thoughts on the issue, I'll need to discuss the roll of oral tradition in the transmission of the Gospel in early times, and how that affected the shape of our Gospels. Only after considering this oft neglected reality can we complete the picture.

Jesus and Isaac.

בנך יחידך

I realize I'm not the first person to have discovered that there is some connection between Isaac and Jesus. However, I always heard it said that Isaac was a type of Christ. I tend to be very weary about this term type. Isaac was Isaac. His story first and foremost tells us about Isaac, though it story is rather short and uneventful in comparison with both the story of his father and that of his sons. Why have people insisted on making a connection between Jesus and Isaac?

Well, there are some Greek and Hebrew words that started it all. In John, Jesus is called the monogenes of God, which we translate variously as the “Only Son,” or the “Only Begotten,” or sometimes “One and Only”. So what? Isaac wasn't Abraham's only son, was he? Well, not exactly, but in Genesis 22 (the story of the sacrifice of Isaac), God calls Isaac Abraham's yechid, Which means, more or less, 'only son'. When Josephus retold the story the sacrifice of Isaac in Greek (Ant. 1:13), he used that Greek word, monogenes, and in fact, so did the author of Hebrews (11:17; The LXX translates the word as agapaton, 'beloved'; a loose translation, but it will also become important).

Why would God call Isaac Abraham's only son? What's Ishmael, chopped liver? Well no, God also blesses Ishmael, and he turns out to be quite a good chap in the end, and has lots of kids, with whom I am becoming acquainted here in Jerusalem (and yes, they are at strife with their brothers). However, Isaac is the only son in a legal sense. He gets all of the inheritance, and he gets all of the blessings. Interesting.

Now, it may be recalled that while the circumstances surrounding Jesus birth were quite extrordinary, he was not really Gods only son. Paul implies, and Luke outright says that Adam was also God's son. By proxy this means (as Luke records Paul saying in Athens) that the whole human race are God's children. In the Old Testament, Israel is also called God's Son, and Jews still refer to themselves as such. But John calls Jesus the only son. This does two things: first, it establishes him as the son of the inheritance (not Abraham's inheritance, necessarily, but actually God's inheritance). The second thing is that it ties Jesus very closely to another story of a father who went out to sacrifice his son. Josephus reports that Isaac was twenty five when he was Sacrificed, and the Talmud says 37. Not a small child. They also report that when he discovered his father's intentions, he willingly went along because it was the will both of his father and of God. John draws on this tradition to explain, in a very Jewish way, the nature and significance of Jesus' son-ship.

I'd like to point out a couple other parallels that I think John may have intended, but perhaps are not quite as blatant in the text. For one, Isaac's story is oddly similar to Abraham's. He marries one of his relatives, he lies to Abimelek about his wife, he builds alters and sacrifices to God, he digs wells, he prospers greatly, etc... Isaac does what his father did. John repeatedly emphasizes that Jesus does the same things as the Father, and that Jesus is essentially carrying on his work. Another thing about Isaac is that, while Abraham was the father of Israel, it is through Isaac. Isaac was the immediate father of Jacob, Israel. John is very clear that those who believe in the Son also become son's of God. That is, God is starting his own nation that will be reckoned through his only Son.

Furthermore, Genesis also mentions that Abraham had dug wells, the Philistines had stopped them up, and Isaac re-opened them. I won't go into that too much, as it's very speculative, but I will allow you to draw your own conclusions based on the significance of water and wells and the presentation of the Jewish leadership in the Gospel of John. But where did John get these ideas? Well I think it has roots in the life of Jesus himself.

When Jesus was baptized there was a voice that said, “You are my Son, my beloved. I am delighted with you.” We often see the connection with Psalm 2:7, where it says “The LORD said to me, 'You are my Son. Today, I have begotten you.'” We take this to be a reference both to his divine paternity and his Kingship (as it is originally in Psalm 2). I think there is a connection, but that isn't the only connection one can find, It's just the most obvious in English. If you were a good Hellenistic Jew or Christian in the first century, you would know that in your LXX translation Genesis 22, God repeatedly calls Isaac “Your son, your beloved,” as a translation of yechid, 'only'.

Now, I wasn't there when God spoke, but if I were a betting man, I'd say (assuming God was speaking Hebrew, which is reasonable for that place and time) he called Jesus his yechid. We still have the echo of Psalm 2, but we have a much stronger echo of Genesis 22. I believe the Gospel writers recognized this very well, and chose a translation that would alert their readers to look into the correct scripture. Too bad our translators haven't done us the service. (Not that they can really be blamed for giving us literal translations of the Greek and Hebrew, respectively). Another connection is in a little recounted story of Isaac where it says that there was a famine, but God told him not to go to Egypt, so he moved to Gerar with Abimelek and blah, blah, blah... and (Gen. 26:12) 'Isaac sowed seed in the land, and in the same year he reaped one hundred fold.' Wait... what? He sowed seed and reaped one hundred fold? Kinda reminds me of another story about a sower who sowed his seed and reaped one hundred fold...

Better to same that one for another time...

PS: I realize I totally crapped out on that lectionary thing. I did begin research for posts about it, but it was a lot lot lot of work, an usually by the time I could get sorted about the readings and their relationship, the week had long past. If I was a preacher, and it was my job to preach from the readings every week, I would definitely do it, but I don't really have the time.

By the way, I think I'm going to post my conclusions about Hebrew Matthew tomorrow.

Fun with the Lectionary: prequel

There is a story of a Rabbi who was teaching in a synagoge, and as he preached, he tied together different passages of scripture. As the words came out of his mouth, fire flashed aroud him and set the people's hearts ablaze. People asked him what had happened. He told them that in the beginning, the words were together on the mountain of God, wrought in flame before he gave them to Moses. When one puts the words from one section of scripture together with the words of another, they rejoice to be in one anther's presence, so much so that flame again as when God made them. This is how the rabbinc Midrash developed, and that is how they often teach in the synagoge today, bringing the words from different places together as they were in the beginning.

As some of you may know, I'm probably going to become Anglican when I move to Jerusalem. As in most liturgical chruches, the Church of England follows a regular schedule of scripture reading called a lectionary. When the Church of England was first established, the lectionary was super hardcore. There were four readings per day, and you would read through the whole Bible in a year. In addition, there were like 5 Psalms per day, so you would read through the whole book every month. The Anglican liturgy has developed over time, but in 1994, they, along with the majority of other English speaking liturgical churches, adopted the Revised Common Lectionary for Sunday service. The Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) was created by the Catholic Church, and was found to be an acceptable standard by some ecumenical council.

The lectionary itself runs on a three year schedule. Each year, they go through one of the first three Gospels (though they skip some bits), and use passages from John around several holidays. In addition, there is always a reading from another book of the New Testament (that goes roughly through a book, but skips as well). There is also a Psalm and an Old Testament passage every. These are generally chosen in a more topical way as they relate to the Gospel and New Testament readings.

Generally, there is a thread running through all of the readings. Though it is sometimes difficult to see the relation to the selection from the Epistle, there is usually some slight connetion even there.

A skilled preacher can make could make a sermon using all of the readings to interpret one another.

I think I'm going to base some studies for this blog off the weekly passages from the Revised Common Lectionary. Look for the first one late tonight or tomorrow.

And I haven't given up on Hebrew Matthew yet. It's coming...

John's realized eschatology and the destruction of the Temple.

John is often seen as presenting the end of time as a present reality. This is true, in lesser and greater measures, for all of the New Testament, but it is perhaps most explicitly stated in John. "Whoever believes in me has eternal life" In John's gospel, the word that get's translated as "eternal" is aionios, related to the word from which we get "aeon" or "age," and has to do with the Jewish belief in an coming age were God would set everything to right (by the way, the real Greek word for "eternal" is aidios, if anyone wants to fact-check me).

John makes every effort to tell his readers that if you believe that Jesus is the son of God, you are living in that age. Of course, there are also a few promises of "resurrection on the last day," in chapter six, so it's not quite as cut and dry as some commentators would like us to think. However, to me, it seems clear enough that John pictures a qualitative change that takes place in the life of the believer, but does not deny that the final day has not yet been realized, and the resurrection is still in the future.

But there is another side of the coin. In scripture judgment and salvation are always tied together. Now, John has a lot of talk about judgment; mostly that the Father has handed all judgments over to the Son. However, there are only two places where a timeframe is given for this judgment. One is in 3:18, "The one believing in him is not being judged; but the one non believing is already has been judged, because he has not believed into the name of the only begotten Son of God."

The other place is in 12:47-48, "If someone hears my words and does not keep the, I am not judging him, for I did not come to be judging the world, but that I would save the world. The one who rejects me and does not believe my words has that which judges him: The word which I have spoken will judge him on the last day."

Hmm... difficult. Is there a two-tiered judgment on the unbeliever to complement the regeneration and resurrection of the Believer? Well, to some extent, there is a sense that those who believe are moving from death to life (John 5:24), and this could constitute the present judgment of the unbeliever. I'm not sure about this, as I tend to see this categorization as a reflection of the final judgment, rather than a present state. Many unbelievers are very much alive. It has been suggested that they somehow experience the curse of living under judgment. This may be so, but you will have a heck of a time getting most of them to admit it.

Let me suggest that something else going on in this verse (without denying the possibility that unbelievers may experience their judgment in the present, in one way or another.

In Jesus conversation with Nicodemus, he refers to himself in a way that is typical in the Synoptic Gospels, "The Son of Man." In 3:16 we begin to see the title "Only begotten Son." This is a signature title of the evangelist. Most commentators agree that this is a place where the evangelist is explaining the significance of what has just been said.

Now, we must remember that John is writing perhaps some fifty some odd years after the conversation. Ten years or so before John wrote, one of the most significant events in the history of Judaism occurred: The temple was destroyed by the Romans during the Jewish war. Those who stayed and fought the Romans were destroyed by them, those who deserted, following Jesus’ orders (Luke 21:20-24), lived. There is a very real sense in which the early Christians saw this as God’s judgment on the Temple establishment.

Simply to say that John is referring to this and leave it at that is not sufficient. It is a bit vague; though the destruction of the temple was well know to all in John’s world.

The pericope immediately before is that of the cleansing of the temple, which John has moved purposefully into this position for some reason or another (contra the Synoptics). Now, John does not specifically mention the destruction of the temple in this context (well, he does, but apparently referring to Christ’s body), but the whole episode would sound a jarring note with his audience, in light of the fact that the temple had recently been destroyed. Furthermore, the story following this also has a teaching about the soon-coming irrelevance of the physical temple. Jesus, in more ways than one, is setting himself up as the replacement for the temple, and makes it irrelevant to the faith.

In light of these things, as well as historical events, I think it would be wise to consider that the present judgment of John 3:18 (which in not present, but actually emphatically past), could very easily refer to the defeat of the Jewish nation and the end of the temple establishment.

This probably isn’t that interesting to most people, but I’ve been arguing with a retired Lutheran professor about this very issue at his excellent bible study that I’ve been recently attending. I love bible studies that are actually about the bible. For some reason, none of the commentaries I’ve been able to consult seem to make any connections between the destruction of the temple and the composition of John. Weird. Seems like a pretty big deal to me.


Edit: I'm very interested in input on this topic. I haven't totally convinced myself on it yet. Still seems shaky.

External Evidence for Hebrew Matthew

"Now, Matthew compliled the sayings (logia) in the Hebrew language, and then each one interperated them as they could"

Papias c.125 AD, recorded by Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.39.16 (c.325)

"So, Matthew, with the Hebrews, in their own language, published a writing of a gospel, while Peter and Paul were in Rome evangellizing and founding the church."

Irenaeus c.185, recorded by Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 5.8.2

"as learned by tradition about the four gospels ... that, first, written was Matthew ... who published it for the believers from Judaism, composed in Hebrew letters;"

Origen c.182-251, recorded by Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.25.4

... and their's loads more These are just the earliest and perhaps the most interesting. Check out Prologi Monarchianorum, Eusebius Hist. Eccl. 3.24.6, Ephraem Syrus' Comentary on the Diatessaron (attesting that Matthew was translated from Hebrew to Greek), Epiphanius in Panarion haer. 5.3, and Hieronymus in De viris inlustribus II.

So, all the guys back in the day thought Matthew was written first, and in Hebrew (or perhaps Aramaic). All the guys today think Matthew was writen after Mark, and nobody says peep about a Hebrew version. What's it mean? More later...

Fellowship with the Animals? (aka: you can't fake Hebrew)

There is a woman at my church who loves Animals. She has facilities to take care of rescue animals, and she also takes care of people's pets when they go on vacation for a business. This is all well and good. Here's what isn't:

My folks were at her house once to pick up the dog when they came back from a vacation, and the woman gave them a little piece of paper. This piece of paper was a commentary on Genesis 1:28, where God tells man to "have dominion" over all the animals. The paper claimed that in Hebrew the word for "have dominion" was, I quote YORADE. Which, according to the paper meant "to go down among," and therefore is an imperative to have fellowship with the animals. When my parents told me this, I tried to parse "YORADE." I was having trouble... There were a couple of verb forms that came to mind, but that "E" on the end doesn't really fit the mold for a Hebrew verb. It was clear enough, however, that she (or whomever she got the information from) was thinking it was some form of the root yarad, which means 'to go down.' I looked up the word in BDB. There are no listed cases in which it means 'Have fellowship.' Hmmm...

Anyway, I turned to the text. What it really says (and I ask those who know Hebrew to forgive the limited transliteration options of this format) is ReDU. Though it looks pretty different, this could legitimately be an imperative plural form of YARAD. The letter "y" at the beginning of words has a tendency to disappear in some verb forms, so it's legit. However, the exact same spelling is also the imperative plural form of RADA’ because the letter ’ (yes, it's the letter aleph, just bare with me) disappears at the end of words some times. Now, RADA’ means "Have dominion," like in the sense that Babylon or Persia has dominion over the nations. Not necessarily a positive thing. It is also used of God having dominion over the earth sometimes, so it's not all bad.

So, do we translate "Go down among" or "Have Dominion?"
Let's look in verse 26. God says "let's make man in our own image and likeness, and he will (have dominion over/go down among) the fish and the birds and the beasts etc."

Here, in Hebrew we find YIRDU. Now the animal loving hippy lady is stuck. YIRDU is only a form of RADA’. God created man to "have dominion over" the animals, not to "go down among" them, much less "have fellowship with" them.

Now, I do believe that we should take care of the Earth and the things in it, and that includes animals. At the same time, I also believe Hebrew is a helluva language, and you can't make too much of it unless you've studied it for real (I'm not claiming to be a master myself, but I've spent enough sleepless hours on it to have some idea of what's going on). There is only one appropriate response to this situation:

n00b!!1! U KANT HAZ HBREW!! lulz...