Defilement, part 2

Let me briefly recapitulate part 1:

• Defilement and sin are discrete, albeit overlapping, constructs.


• Christians ought to learn what the references to defilement mean, because such references permeate the Bible (including the New Testament).


• We took the following quote from Paul Ricoeur as a summary statement:  "The repertory of defilement appears to us sometimes too broad, sometimes too narrow, or unbalanced."¹


• It is too broad (from our perspective) insofar as it contains some matters that seem perfectly innocent.


• Second, it is too narrow insofar as it gives short shrift to misdeeds that we regard as serious offences.


• Third, it is unbalanced —

but that is where we pick up the argument in this post.

3. Unbalanced:

The purity / defilement system is "unbalanced", Ricoeur tells us. By this he means that relatively inconsequential matters (from our perspective) are regarded as grave.

We have already seen this in the saying attributed to Jesus in Mt. 23 (quoted in part one). Jesus mocked the Pharisees for scrupulously observing the tithe (tithing even their herbs and spices) while neglecting the "weightier" matters of the law.

But Ricoeur doesn't discuss tithing. He focuses on a different characteristic of the "repertory" of defilement:  one that has long puzzled me.

One is struck by the importance and the gravity attached to the violation of interdictions of a sexual character in the economy of defilement. The prohibitions against incest, sodomy, abortion, relations at forbidden times — and sometimes places — are so fundamental that the inflation of the sexual is characteristic of the whole system of defilement, so that an indissoluble complicity between sexuality and defilement seems to have been formed from time immemorial. (p. 28)

To illustrate Ricoeur's observation, I would call attention to 1Co. 6:9-10 —

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived:  neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.²

It seems to me that the Church devotes a disproportionate amount of attention — and emotional voltage — to the sexual sins on Paul's list. For example, I have never heard of a believer being confronted with this text because s/he is greedy. In an acquisitive, capitalist society, am I to suppose there are no greedy people in our churches?

I submit that we do not really believe what Paul says here:  that the greedy will not inherit the kingdom of God. On the other hand, we are prepared to believe it with respect to fornicators, adulterers, and homosexuals. Those people are storing up wrath for themselves on the day of God's judgement — we know it in our very bones.

Why are we preoccupied by sexual sins? Because the fear of defilement still determines our responses at a deep, unconscious level. We acknowledge that greed is a sin; but homosexual activity elicits a greater emotional response from us because unconsciously we regard it as a defiling sin.³

Conservative Christians may dispute what I have just said. It is clear in their minds — indeed, it is a core part of their identity — that society is wrong when it winks at fornication, adultery, and homosexuality. But even conservatives must recognize the validity of Ricoeur's point when we shift our attention to other biblical texts:

When you are encamped against your enemies, then you shall keep yourself from every evil thing.

If any man among you becomes unclean because of a nocturnal emission, then he shall go outside the camp. He shall not come inside the camp, but when evening comes, he shall bathe himself in water, and as the sun sets, he may come inside the camp. (Deut. 23:9-11)

Like the law concerning menstrual uncleanness, this law refers to a matter that is entirely involuntary (since the man is asleep at the time). Moreover, we must surely be struck by the fact that an innocuous sexual matter is regarded as a gravely serious source of defilement.

Behind the text is an unstated fear that Israel will lose a battle because of one soldier's defilement. Better to have a mighty man of valour sit out the battle than have him fight in a state of uncleanness due to a nocturnal emission!

Conclusions:

1. Broader, narrower, unbalanced
   The purpose of this post was to demonstrate that defilement and sin are discrete constructs. By comparison to the offences that we usually mean when we speak of "sin", the repertory of defilement is broader at some points, narrower at other points, and unbalanced. In particular, it gives disproportionate significance to sexual matters.
   
   
2. Quasi-material
   Ricoeur suggests that sexual matters receive disproportionate emphasis because of their physicality — the bodily fluids associated with sex. Sexual impurity
   

   is connected with the presence of a material "something" that transmits itself by contact and contagion. … By many of its traits sexuality supports the ambiguity of a quasi-materiality of defilement. (p. 28)

   Thus the puzzling preoccupation with sexual matters gives us an insight into the nature of defilement:  it is "quasi-material".
   
   Defilement blurs the distinction between physical contamination and ethical contamination. It is this ambiguity that enables defilement to function as a symbol. Biblical texts can use the language of (physical) defilement to symbolize the stain (on one's soul) which results from sin.
   
   Likewise, we can take biblical references to defilement and "translate" them, treating them as if they were references to sin. But we should always be conscious of this process when we engage in it. We may be reading something into the text that is actually one step removed from its original scope.
   
   
3. Utility as a symbol for sin
   Finally, I return to Isaiah 6, the text quoted at the beginning of part one. Isaiah cries out (1) "I am a man of unclean lips," and (2) "I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips." Note the second statement. Here we are unmistakably in the realm of defilement (as opposed to sin). Isaiah implies that uncleanness is a kind of contagion, communicated from one contaminated person to the next via physical contact.
   
   Isaiah is seized with dread, for a defiled person must die when he enters the presence of a God who is rightly described as "Holy, Holy, Holy". But perhaps the text ought to say, "Pure, Pure, Pure"? Here the language is already subtly shifting away from defilement/purity toward sin/holiness.
   
   One of the seraphim flies to Isaiah. He touches Isaiah's mouth with a burning coal, taken from the altar. And he says, "Behold, … your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for." Here we see the same juxtaposition yet again. The altar exists for the express purpose of removing defilement (through rites carried out by priests). Thus, when the seraph touches a coal from the altar to Isaiah's lips, he is performing a rite of purification.
   
   But the seraph then speaks of guilt and sin, effectively changing the topic from the physical (defilement) to the ethical (sin).

I hope that this (long!) post has clarified the distinction between defilement and sin, and shed light on at least one biblical text.

But it is only an introduction to a topic that warrants a series of posts. More to come in due course!


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
¹The Symbolism of Evil, transl. Emerson Buchanan, Beacon Press, 1967, p. 26.

²Unless otherwise indicated, scripture is quoted from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version.

³Cf. Walter Brueggemann's remarks on this topic. It is Brueggemann's impression "that the enormous hostility to homosexual persons … does not concern issues of justice and injustice, but rather concerns the more elemental issues of purity — cleanness and uncleanness. This more elemental concern is evidenced in the widespread notion that homosexuals must be disqualified from access to wherever society has its important stakes and that physical contact with them is contaminating."Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, dispute, advocacy, Fortress Press, 1997, p. 194.

Defilement: an alien concept that permeates the Bible

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said:

       "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
          the whole earth is full of his glory!"

And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!"

Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: "Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for."

And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" Then I said, "Here am I! Send me."

       Isaiah 6:1-8¹

In this text, Isaiah employs the language of defilement (crying out that he is an unclean representative of an unclean people); whereas the seraphim employs the language of sin ("your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for").

With that observation, we are plunged into the topic that I want to explore in a series of posts.

Introduction:

Defilement and sin are discrete, if overlapping, constructs. Contemporary Christians living in the West rarely give careful thought to defilement. And yet it appears again and again throughout every part of the Bible — including the New Testament!

If any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. … [For] the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. (1Co. 7:12-14)

What?! But … but … but … I thought that was old covenant talk!

And indeed, I confess that I don't understand the text I've just quoted. Sin and atonement, I understand. But defilement as a contagion that is passed on from parent to child? What are the implications of 1Co. 7 for a child who dies? Did Christ's atonement address the problem of uncleanness as well as the problem of sin?

I am embarking on this series of posts because I have only a partial understanding of the sociological construct, defilement, and yet it permeates the Bible. I don't know yet what conclusions will emerge from the study. I don't have settled convictions at this point; I only have questions.

We don't attend to defilement for two reasons. First, it is utterly alien to us, as will become clear in the next section.

Second, references to defilement are easily "translated" and regarded as references to sin. This is precisely what we see in the Isaiah 6 text, when the language shifts from Isaiah's uncleanness to his guilt and sin. We engage in this sort of "translation" all the time without ever pausing to consider what we're doing.

But there's an interpretive problem lurking in the shadows here. We need to shed some light on it.

Too broad, too narrow, and unbalanced:

Philosopher Paul Ricoeur will be our guide as we consider the topic:  primarily The Symbolism of Evil, a book-length examination of defilement, sin, and guilt.

In the book's first chapter, Ricoeur explains why we are so befuddled by defilement. He writes, "The repertory of defilement appears to us sometimes too broad, sometimes too narrow, or unbalanced."²

1. Too broad:

By "too broad", Ricoeur means that the category, sources of defilement, contains some things that seem perfectly innocent to us. And so they are:  for "innocent" is the language of sin, but defilement is oriented to a different set of concerns.

Ricoeur offers two non-biblical examples of sources of defilement:  "the frog that leaps into the fire [and] the hyena that leaves its excrements in the neighborhood of a tent." Biblical parallels are easily supplied. For example, "You shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness while she is in her menstrual uncleanness" (Lev. 18:19).

Note that the text does not merely forbid sexual relations during a woman's period; it says that the woman is unclean during her period. Rabbis later forebade any physical contact with women. You never know whether a woman is menstruating; thus she must always be regarded as a source of defilement. You can't even shake hands with her.

Once again, we find ourselves stammering incoherently, but … but … but. Avoiding physical contact with a woman because it might lead to lust and sexual immorality — that we understand. But this? This is alien to our way of thinking.

We're shocked to see that intent isn't taken into consideration. For example, in English law there is no culpability unless the guilty act (actus reus) is accompanied by the guilty mind (mens rea). That makes sense to us. But defilement is often involuntary, as with menstruation. According to Lev. 18:19, a woman becomes unclean by virtue of her period even though she has no choice in the matter.

We're also shocked because menstruation is a natural biological function, essential to reproduction — part of God's design! Why should a menstruating woman be regarded as unclean and therefore to be spurned? In this instance, the category is too broad for our liking.

2. Too narrow:

In other instances, the category is too narrow. The impurity / defilement system gives short shrift to misdeeds that we regard as serious offences. According to Ricoeur, theft, lying, and sometimes even homicide are not regarded as sources of defilement.

But you can't say that about the Bible, can you? The sorts of ethical concerns mentioned by Ricoeur are ubiquitous in scripture, appearing alongside the parallel interest in defilement. Indeed, the legal texts surprise us by not making a distinction between deeds that we would separate into different categories. Leviticus 19, for example, says (1) Don't hate your brother; (2) Don't wear a garment made of two different kinds of cloth; (3) When you plant a tree, don't eat its fruit prior to the fifth year; and (4) Don't interpret omens or tell fortunes.

From our perspective, this is a grab-bag of disparate concerns. But at least some of the items on the list (love for one's kinfolk; abstaining from occult practices) strike us as matters of "real" moral consequence. No part of the Bible is concerned exclusively with defilement; sin is an ever-present preoccupation of the biblical texts.

And yet — if you stop to think about this, you realize that Ricoeur's observation is relevant to some very serious theological problems. How could Abraham have lied (twice!), saying that Sarah wasn't his wife? Why does polygamy appear to be an accepted practice in many parts of the Old Testament? How is it possible that a Psalm (used in worship!) should conclude with the benediction, "Blessed shall he be who takes your little [children] / and dashes them against the rock"?!

And how did the Pharisees get things so ass-backwards (from our perspective)?

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. (Mt. 23:23)

Here Ricoeur's observation begins to shed light on the biblical texts. The purity / defilement system can absorb major ethical lapses without blinking. The category, sources of defilement, seems to us to be too narrow. Some very significant offences are left off the list.

On the one hand, the "repertory" of defilement is too broad:  it includes things that ought not to be there, in our view. On the other hand, the category is too narrow:  some very significant things are left out.

[More to come! Because of the length of this post, I've decided to divide it into two parts. Part two is already basically written. I will probably publish it on Sunday evening.]


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
¹Unless otherwise indicated, scripture is quoted from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version.

²Paul Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil, transl. Emerson Buchanan, Beacon Press, 1967, p. 26. The material following the quote is a summary of pp. 26-29.

Now and not yet: Jesus' error, part 2

Thanks to all of you for your insightful comments on the previous post. You have grappled gamely with the problem I raised: Did Jesus make an error when he (evidently) predicted that the eschaton would come within a generation of his ministry?

You offered the following solutions:

• The Son of Man coming in his kingdom (Mark 9:1 // Mt. 16:28 // Luke 9:27) may have referred to the transfiguration. (suggested by James)
  
• In context, Mark 13:29-30 (// Mt. 24:34 // Luke 21:32) may have referred to the destruction of Jerusalem. (again, James)
  
• Perhaps Jesus meant only that his prophecies about the end times will all be fulfilled within the scope of a lifetime. (suggested by Cliff)
  
• The prophecy may have been conditional. (Jamie)
  
• Finally, John observed that we must also keep in mind Mark 13:32 ("But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father") and Acts 1:7 ("It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority").¹

Jamie's suggestion is intriguing. Would the kingdom have come then and there, if the Jews had accepted the Gospel and embraced Jesus as their Messiah? If so, would the Romans have crucified Jesus anyway, or would the crucifixion never have happened? The latter possibility is almost unthinkable from a Christian perspective.

We'll come back to John's comment below. I think it's an important counterweight to the appearance of watertight certainty that the other sayings possess.

As for your other suggestions, I think they all have merit. Meanwhile, the fact that there are so many attempts at a solution is evidence that interpreters have struggled to understand Jesus' sayings over the years.

In this post, I want to offer three theological concepts which, taken together, at least reduce the magnitude of the problem.

1. Now and not yet:

In my view, Jesus' prediction was fulfilled in part. The New Testament authors generally agree that the kingdom of God was inaugurated with (a) Jesus' resurrection followed by (b) the pouring out of the Holy Spirit.

Both are eschatological events — both were supposed to happen at the end of history, not part way through history. That's why St. Paul refers to the resurrection (1Co. 15:20) and the indwelling Spirit (Ro. 8:23) as "firstfruits". Again, Paul speaks of the Holy Spirit as a down payment. We have received a partial fulfillment now, guaranteeing that a perfect fulfillment will follow in due course.

The eschaton has been inaugurated (it is "now") but not consummated (it is "not yet"). This is the first theological concept we must bear in mind. Scholars use this terminology, now and not yet, to capture the paradoxical nature of the church age. John's Gospel provides a classic example of this now/not yet tension at 5:25 —

Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.

The concept implies that Jesus' prediction was fulfilled, if only in part. It also explains why the first generation of Christians lived in such fervid expectation of Christ's return. First there were Jesus' predictions; then those predictions were followed by unmistakably eschatological events. Surely Jesus' return could not lag far behind!

2. Jesus' self-emptying:

But Jesus did not return immediately, and so the question persists. Did Jesus err, at least in part?

In my view, there's no getting around it:  what happened wasn't exactly what Jesus expected and confidently predicted. Here we must return to the sayings John called to our attention — particularly Mark 13:32.

But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

This saying is another problem passage. At least, it's problematic for folks who assume that Jesus possessed all of the divine attributes, including omniscience, even during the period of his incarnation. And yet St. Paul says that Jesus "emptied" himself (Php. 2:7, NRSV) during the period of his ministry.

This self-emptying (Gk. kenosis) is the second theological concept we must bear in mind. Logically, Jesus would have to divest himself of at least some of the divine traits in order to be considered fully human. To be human is, by definition, to be subject to limitations which cannot apply to God.

And so it is with Mark 13:32, where Jesus admits that his knowledge of "that day or that hour" is finite. It seems that Jesus, like Paul, could prophesy only "in part".

Robert Peterson introduces a helpful distinction.² I have added numbering and italics to his presentation for greater clarity:

To understand the timing of the second coming, we have to deal with all the information God gives us, and that information falls into three categories, three types of passages.

1. There are imminence passages, which cause people to look for Jesus to come.
   
2. There are interval passages, which indicate certain things have to happen before He comes.
   
3. And most importantly, there are ignorance passages, which tell us that we do not know, that nobody knows, the day or the hour.

… It seems to me that if we hold these three things together, we will be much better off.

3. Prophetic foreshortening:

Finally, let me observe that the prophecy in Mark 13 is an outstanding example of "prophetic foreshortening". This is the third theological concept that we must bear in mind. It is a commonplace of prophecy that events which are separated by centuries of history are "foreshortened", or telescoped together in the prophet's message.

One classic illustration involves someone looking at a mountain range from a distance. (Please excuse my lack of artistic talent!)


The general significance of the illustration is as follows. From a distance, the mountain peaks appear to be close together. It is only as you arrive at the first peak that you realize the second peak is actually quite distant.

Turning to the specific problem of Mark 13 and parallels —
Point 1 marks the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Point 2 marks 2,000 years (and counting) of Church history. That timespan was evidently hidden from Jesus; at any rate, it doesn't feature in the sayings we have been considering. Point 3 marks the parousia (Second Coming).

In his predictions, Jesus jumbled these events together as if they were all part of the same constellation. And indeed, some of the events may ultimately be fulfilled twice:  for example, an intense persecution of the Church and the coming of false Messiahs. Those predictions may have been fulfilled at point 1 in my diagram. (Josephus spoke of false prophets, who may in fact have been messianic pretenders.) It doesn't mean that there won't be a second fulfillment when history arrives at point 3.

For another example of prophetic foreshortening, consider Joel 2 (= Acts 2):

For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel:

"'And in the last days it shall be,' God declares,
'that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams;
even on my male servants and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.
And I will show wonders in the heavens above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke;
the sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.
And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.'"

(Acts 2:15-21)

Here we see the pouring out of the Holy Spirit packaged with the arrival of the eschaton. And indeed, this foreshortening phenomenon is a commonplace of biblical prophecy (particularly with respect to eschatological events).

Conclusions:

1. The several suggestions offered in response to my previous post testify that there is no completely satisfactory solution to the problem I outlined.
   
   
2. Several of the suggestions also testify to a partial fulfillment of Jesus' prophesies. In particular, I would emphasize Jesus' resurrection and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. According to Acts 2, the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on Jesus' disciples is evidence that he had been exalted to the right hand of God, and installed as king (= Christ).
   
   And yet there is a remainder — various elements of Jesus' expectation which have not yet been fufilled. This unexpected development, a partial fulfillment of prophecy, is articulated in the theological expression, now and not yet.
   
   
3. In my view, the events were not quite as Jesus had anticipated and predicted. But perhaps this is only what we might have expected. St. Paul speaks of Jesus' self-emptying (kenosis), and Jesus confessed that his knowledge of eschatological events was limited.
   
   
4. We should compare Jesus' partially fulfilled prophecies with the general pattern of prediction and fulfillment in the Bible. At that point, we may be surprised to realize that prophetic foreshortening is a commonplace of biblical prophecy (i.e., a clustering together of events that turn out to be separated by centuries of history).
   
   
5. Finally, I wish to reiterate the point that I made in the conclusion of my previous post. That these (and other) "hard" sayings of Jesus were preserved in the Gospels testifies to the Evangelists' unwillingness to destroy authentic tradition. This conservative impulse reassures us that the Gospels are a trustworthy source of information about the historical Jesus.

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¹Unless otherwise indicated, scripture is quoted from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version.

²I believe Peterson is crediting David Jones for the three-part categorization of scripture mentioned above.

A study in depression

I'm curious how many of my readers are familiar with the Latin word, verisimilitude. It is a technical term used primarily in literary criticism, but I encountered it in my theology studies. Here's a good definition:

The sense that what one reads is "real," or at least realistic and believable. For instance, the reader possesses a sense of verisimilitude when reading a story in which a character cuts his finger, and the finger bleeds. If the character's cut finger had produced sparks of fire rather than blood, the story would not possess verisimilitude. Note that even fantasy novels and science fiction stories that discuss impossible events can have verisimilitude if the reader is able to read them with suspended disbelief.

Note the phrase, "the reader possesses a sense of verisimilitude …". The term tells us something about the text, to be sure, but it isn't a characteristic we can define objectively. It's fundamentally about the reader:  his or her subjective response while reading the text.

The word verisimilitude came to mind yesterday as I was reading this text:

Elijah went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, "It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers." And he lay down and slept. (1 Kings 19:4-5a)¹

I find this story about Elijah startling and deeply moving. I don't have any deep theological or psychological insight to share with you. I just wanted to say, here's a text that has verisimilitude.

Years ago, I received some training before I began to work at a crisis support centre, answering telephone calls from people in distress. The trainer was a clergyman, and he drew our attention to this passage as a textbook example of depression.

Elijah has reached the end of his rope. He can't cope any longer. He wants nothing more than to die. He sleeps.

The story is especially remarkable if you read it in context. It comes immediately after Elijah's triumph on Mount Carmel, where he had proven that Baal is a false god and the prophets of Baal were false prophets. It was the high point of Elijah's career; but immediately afterward, he was plunged into a state of depression.

The sequence is true to human psychology. Whenever you have a peak experience, you can expect to feel a letdown afterward. But the word "letdown" is hardly adequate in Elijah's case!

To be fair, I should point out that there was one intervening event. Queen Jezebel had threatened to murder Elijah:

[King] Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets [of Baal] with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, "So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow." Then he was afraid, and he arose and ran for his life. (1 Kings 19:1-3a)

Elijah was also suffering from the burden of carrying too much responsibility. He lived in an era when Israel had broken faith with God. He was the point man in God's campaign to bring Israel to repentance.

And Elijah came near to all the people and said, "How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him." And the people did not answer him a word. (1 Kings 18:21)

This is a heavy burden to bear. The religion of Israel mattered profoundly to Elijah. He felt that its very survival rested on his shoulders, and his alone.

Elijah came to a cave and lodged in it. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" He said, "I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away." (1 Kings 19:9-10)

So Elijah's depression has three² identifiable causes:  (1) the inevitable letdown after his triumph on Mount Carmel; (2) Jezebel's threat on his life; and (3) the onerous burden of responsibility he carried.

"It is enough," he says, with profound understatement. "Please — just let me die."

Sceptics deride the Bible for its fantastic stories, and I understand that point of view. Elijah is associated with a series of outstanding miracles. It is as if earthly limitations don't apply to him:  rather like Jesus walking on water.

Even if faith says that the stories are historical, it's still difficult to relate to a superhuman hero.

It's worth noting that the Bible also has this other side. In most cases — Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, and Jeremiah come to mind — the veil is lifted at least occasionally, and we see the frail, human side of the Bible's heroes.

It is then that the Bible seems truest to us:  it is then that the reader experiences this subjective response, verisimilitude.

(Cross-posted on Outside the Box.)



This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

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¹Unless otherwise indicated, scripture is quoted from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version.

²Four, if we include physical exhaustion:  "And the angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, 'Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you'" (1 Kings 19:7). This, after Elijah had run a great distance to escape Jezebel's wrath.

Hear, O heavens ...

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth;
for the Lord has spoken.     (Isaiah 1:2)

From time to time, the heavens are invoked to listen to someone's testimony:  against a sinner (Isaiah 1:2 and Psalm 50:4; compare Job 20:27, Jer. 2:11-12, and 51:48) or, on one occasion, in praise of YHWH (Psalm 32:1-3).

Let's take a closer look at Isaiah 1:2-3 —

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth;
     for the Lord has spoken:
"Children have I reared and brought up,
     but they have rebelled against me.
The ox knows its owner,
     and the donkey its master's crib,
but Israel does not know,
     my people do not understand."¹

The part about the ox and the donkey is clear enough — I get the point of that! But what's this "Hear, O heavens" business? Walter Brueggemann comments:

The call to heaven and earth is a rhetorical assertion of indignation on Yahweh's part. Yahweh summons cosmic witnesses to observe the mess that has become of the relationship with "my people." Because Yahwism is monotheistic, Yahweh cannot summon other gods to observe, and so instead summons the most formidable of creatures, heaven and earth. Israel's failure in its response to Yahweh is a matter of cosmic concern, now made evident to the whole known world.²

Note Brueggemann's use of the word "rhetorical". Clearly we're in the realm of metaphor here. Indeed, the prophets often express their message in poetry:  hence modern translations break Isaiah 1:2-3 into eight short lines, instead of a single paragraph. And note the parallelism (so characteristic of Hebrew poetry) between lines 5 and 6, and again between lines 7 and 8.

If I'm not mistaken, the text is a rudimentary depiction of a courtroom scene. The heavens and the earth are called in to hear YHWH's testimony against "my people", that they might testify to the rightness of YHWH's verdict against Israel. This appeal to a "court" is a recurrent rhetorical device in the prophets, and I expect we will encounter it again.

Brueggemann says, "Israel's failure in its response to Yahweh is a matter of cosmic concern, now made evident to the whole known world." Indeed! That last phrase, "the whole known world," interprets the heavens and the earth in its standard sense, "the entirety of the cosmos".

In my opinion, the opening chapter of Isaiah is one of the most powerful, and terrible, texts in all of scripture. It reduces me alternately to terror and to tears.

God have mercy on the Church when inevitably we follow Israel down her backsliding path!

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¹Unless otherwise indicated, scripture is quoted from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version.

²Walter Brueggemann, Isaiah 1-39, Westminster John Knox Press, 1998, ad loc.

The "Uh-oh" principle, part 2: Poetic justice in the prophets

I've decided to write two more posts on the David and Bathsheba story.

First, in this post, I want to explore a concept that Walter Brueggemann flags as a core element of rhetorical criticism. Brueggemann maintains that there is a very close relation between what gets said (the message of the text) and how it gets said (the literary or rhetorical techniques utilized by the author).

But let's quote Brueggeman himself on the subject. Here he is, contrasting historical criticism with rhetorical criticism:

Historical criticism, as it has come to be practiced, has been notorious for its lack of interest in the actual expression of the text itself. Indeed, the primary references for historical criticism characteristically are outside the text or, as is often said now, "behind the text" in the historical process. …

The commentaries are characteristically occupied with sorting out what is "genuine" in the text and with identifying parallels in other cultures. Such treatment of the text does not at all attend to the statements of the text itself, but is in effect a sustained raid on the text, looking for clues that support historical reconstruction. …

Rhetorical criticism is a method that insists that how what is said is crucial and definitive for what is said, so that the theology of the Old Testament does not trade in a set of normative ideas that may be said in many ways, but in a particular utterance that is spoken and/or written in a certain way.

It is now agreed that the primary impetus for rhetorical criticism as an intentional Old Testament enterprise stems from the address of James Muilenburg, "Form Criticism and Beyond," presented in 1968 and published in 1969. …

Muilenburg almost single-handedly made credible the practice of close reading, whereby one notices the detail of the text, such as word patterns and arrangements, the use of key words in repetition, the careful placement of prepositions and conjunctions, and the reiteration of sounds of certain consonants. … He held that such detail in the text is characteristically intentional, and that the force of the text cannot be understood apart from noticing such detail.

(Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, dispute, advocacy, Fortress Press, 1997, pp. 53-55.)

I am attracted to rhetorical criticism, in part because it puts evangelicals and liberals on common ground, at least to a significant extent.

To be clear, Brueggemann does not suppose that everything in the text is historical, or that the various Old Testament texts agree with one another. On the contrary, he maintains that scripture speaks with many voices:  there are diverse agendas at work in the texts as they have been handed down to us.

But insofar as rhetorical criticism begins with the text as it appears in the Bible, seeking meaning in (not behind) the text, evangelicals will find the method amenable.

Personally, I am at a disadvantage because I do not know Hebrew. Many of the details of importance to Muilenburg do not carry over into an English translation. But some of them do, so we will work with such details as are present to us.

With this method in mind, let's take another look at 2 Samuel 12. I'm using a different format this time, highlighting certain keywords:

(past experience of God's grace)
Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, "I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. And I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more.

(present moral failure)
Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.

(impending consequences)
Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife."

Thus says the Lord, "Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. And I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun."

(2 Samuel 12:7b-12)¹

The reader should note the pattern that emerges when the text is colour-coded in this way. The word "wife" recurs in all three sections of the text (past experience of God's grace, present moral failure, and impending consequences). The word "sword" appears in the latter two sections.

Rhetorical criticism tells us to be alert to the repetition of keywords. The literary technique is a clue to the meaning of the text. In this case, it tells us something interesting about the worldview of the author:  what I have called "poetic justice" in the title of this post.

• David sins with Uriah's wife (present moral failure), even though YHWH has already provided him with wives² (past experience of God's grace); poetic justice deems that his own wives will be taken by another man (impending consequences).
  
  
• David uses the sword to rid himself of a problem (present moral failure); poetic justice deems that David's kingdom will never be free of the sword (impending consequences). (That is, Israel will never be at peace with its neighbours while David is king.)

The idea of poetic justice is found not only here, in Nathan's oracle to David, but elsewhere in the prophets as well. It seems to be an important element of the prophetic worldview.

Klaus Koch describes this phenomenon in an evocative way. He is commenting on Jeremiah 1:13-16 —

The word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying, "What do you see?" And I said, "I see a boiling pot, facing away from the north." Then the Lord said to me, "Out of the north disaster [literally, evil] shall be let loose upon all the inhabitants of the land. For behold, I am calling all the tribes of the kingdoms of the north, declares the Lord, and they shall come, and every one shall set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, against all its walls all around and against all the cities of Judah. And I will declare my judgments against them, for all their evil in forsaking me. They have made offerings to other gods and worshiped the works of their own hands.

This text is not laid out in the same neat pattern as the one in 2 Samuel 12. There is no mention of God's prior grace to Israel. Moreover, the "present moral failure" is the last element mentioned. Israel's moral failure consists of forsaking YHWH to worship idols:  "… all their evil in forsaking me. They have made offerings to other gods and worshiped the works of their own hands."

Even though the pattern is not as tidy, we see a similar repetition of a keyword:  evil. Israel has committed evil, and evil (calamity) will be turned back upon Israel. Here's what Koch says:

In the prophetic genres, key words generally form the pivot in the logical progression from the 'now' to the 'impending'. … The word ra'a [evil] is used ninety times in [Jeremiah] and becomes the common denominator, both for human transgression that has already taken place and for a catastrophe that is going to break in from outside. …

For the prophet, ra'a is not an abstract power. It is an aura, with effects on the world, an aura encircling the particular agent, who brings about his own destiny.

(Klaus Koch, The Prophets II: The Babylonian and Persian periods, Fortress Press, 1982, p. 20.)

This is an evocative picture:  an aura of evil surrounding Israel which then attracts evil upon Israel. In the same way, David's aura of adultery or his aura of "the use of the sword" attracted precisely those consequences upon him in punishment. It is poetic justice.

I'm not convinced that we should take Koch's description at face value. It might better be understood as a metaphor rather than a literal, Magical Mystery principle of the cosmos.

Regardless, our rhetorical analysis of these two texts leads to an enriched understanding of the "Uh-oh" principle. When people do evil, "Uh-oh!" — that same evil will be turned back on their heads.

(Next up: a consideration of Bathsheba's voicelessness in the 2 Samuel 11-12 narrative. Whereas the first two posts have been evangelical in their treatment of the text, the third post will explicitly adopt a critical perspective.)



This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

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¹Unless otherwise indicated, scripture is quoted from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version.

²YHWH's assertion, "I gave you … your master's wives into your arms" is odd:  we're not told any such thing in the narrative where David assumes the throne. However: (1) it was customary in that era for a new king to take the former king's wives, perhaps as a symbol of his succession to the former king's place; (2) David and Saul both had a wife named Ahinoam, although we can't be certain that it is the same woman in both references.

The "Uh-oh" principle: sin and its consequences

The world of the Old Testament has a predictable moral order. Good deeds turn God into an ally, resulting in spiritual and material gains. Conversely, bad deeds turn God into an adversary, resulting in spiritual and material losses.

Moral cause and effect are rarely so straightforward in the "real" world, the world of our personal experience. Nonetheless, the Old Testament insists that the moral order exists, even if our personal experience often contradicts it.

With the negative part of the cycle in mind, we might speak of the "Uh-oh" principle. Sin has negative consequences. If you do the crime, "Uh-oh!" — you're gonna do the time.

David's sin and its consequences:

Which brings us to 2 Samuel 11-12, which tells the story of David's great moral failure and its tragic consequences. I won't display the whole text, but here's a summary of 2 Samuel 11:

• David commits adultery with Bathsheba, who becomes pregnant as a result (vss. 1-5);
  
• David attempts to manipulate Uriah (Bathsheba's husband) so that he will later assume the baby is his (vss. 6-13. Verse 8, "wash your feet", evidently is a euphemism for "enjoy the pleasures of your wife's company".);
  
• When David's first scheme fails, he resorts to more drastic measures:  he arranges for Uriah to be killed in battle. (vss. 14-27)

The chapter ends with the ominous words, "The thing that David had done displeased the Lord."¹

Uh-oh. The reader who is familiar with the Old Testament worldview knows:  David is in deep doo-doo.

Sure enough, the prophet Nathan turns up at the palace door.² He bears bad news:  somewhere in David's kingdom, someone has committed a grave injustice:

And the Lord sent Nathan to David. He came to him and said to him, "There were two men in a certain city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought. And he brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children. It used to eat of his morsel and drink from his cup and lie in his arms, and it was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the guest who had come to him, but he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him."

Then David's anger was greatly kindled against the man, and he said to Nathan, "As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die, and he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity."

Nathan said to David, "You are the man!" (2Sa. 12:1-7a)

David stood self-condemned.

So do we all. It isn't just that we violate other people's standards; we violate our own. It is a demoralizing fact of life. I suspect most of us have shed tears at one time or another when we found ourselves in David's shoes:  self-condemned.

We resist the truth, of course. We stretch our principles as taut as a high wire when we pass judgement on other people's conduct, and we slacken them into mere skipping ropes to evade the truth of our own misconduct. That's why Nathan dressed up his message in the form of a parable — to circumvent David's defence mechanisms.

And then Nathan tightened the noose:

past experience of God's grace	Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, "I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul. And I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah. And if this were too little, I would add to you as much more.
present moral failure	Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.
impending consequences	Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife." Thus says the Lord, "Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. And I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun." David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the Lord." And Nathan said to David, "The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child who is born to you shall die." (2Sa. 12:7b-14)

I have displayed the text as a table to supply an outline for Nathan's oracle.

We have already discussed the second and third segments of the outline. David's sin ("present moral failure") turns God into an adversary, resulting in spiritual and material losses ("impending consequences"). It is the "Uh-oh" principle at work.

But there's another factor here that must not be overlooked.

God's grace toward David:

Nathan's starting point is David's past experience of God's grace. The Lord tells David, I blessed you very greatly in the past, and I would have gladly continued doing so.

God always makes the first move. God's grace is the foundation of the biblical worldview:  everything else rests on it. It isn't always mentioned explicitly, as it is here; but it is present in the background of every biblical command and every biblical narrative.

I can't emphasize this point too strongly. You will misunderstand the Bible if you don't begin here.

The religion of ancient Israel was, like Christianity, a religion of grace. To be sure, the Old Testament strongly emphasizes obedience to the Law of Moses. But Israel's obedience to the Law is properly set in the context of God's grace.³

Nathan evaluates David's disobedience from the same perspective. He considers David's sin in the context of God's grace, and concludes that David has shown contempt for the Lord (12:9, 10, 14).

In accordance with the "Uh-oh" principle, David suffers terrible consequences for his sins:

• "the sword shall never depart from your house";
  
• "I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. And I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives" (a reference to the rebellion of David's son, Absalom (see 2Sa. 16:22), which forced David to flee for his life and ended with Absalom's death);
  
• "the child who is born to you shall die".

These are terrible consequences. Even so, David doesn't quite get what's coming to him.⁴ The penalty for adultery in the Old Testament is death. The penalty for murder is death. And note David's spontaneous response to Nathan's parable:  "the man who has done this deserves to die."

Thus David deserves to die. But in the last few sentences of the narrative, God's grace reasserts itself. Nathan's message is delivered so effectively that David repents on the spot:

David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the Lord." And Nathan said to David, "The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die.

We might say that God's grace is the Alpha and the Omega of Nathan's oracle. Nathan's opening statement rehearses God's grace toward David, and his closing statement promises a further manifestation of grace in response to David's repentance.

Conclusion: the "too good to be true" principle

The "Uh-oh" principle is not the only power at work here. The principle of God's grace shields David from the full application of the "Uh-oh" principle.

David's transgressions were extremely grave and the consequences were necessarily grave as well. Even the principle of God's grace didn't allow David to get off scot-free. But David's life is spared. And he is allowed to remain king.

We might call this the "too good to be true" principle. I'm thinking of those occasions when someone does something extraordinarily generous for you. Your emotional response may be, Is this for real? It's simply too good to be true!

The idea of extraordinary generosity is beautifully illustrated in one of Jesus' sayings:

Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you. (Luke 6:37-38; emphasis added)

Imagine that you are purchasing a bushel of wheat. The shopkeeper fills a bushel measure and then says, "That's not generous enough!". So he shakes the basket to get the wheat to settle; then he presses the wheat down into the basket to make room for more; and finally he keeps pouring until the wheat overflows. This is extraordinary generosity indeed — why, it's too good to be true!

That's Jesus' description of God's grace toward us.

David paid a terrible price for his sins. It's difficult to say too good to be true in his case.

And yet … David's life and his throne were preserved. At least in part, the "too good to be true" principle shielded David against the full application of the "Uh-oh" principle.

The same two principles are at work in our lives, even if our perception of them is dim.

(More to come: I intend to take another run at this text to analyse it from a different perspective.)



This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

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¹Unless otherwise indicated, scripture is quoted from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version.

²An aside:  I don't believe it's necessary to assume a direct revelation of David's sin from the Lord to Nathan. Various people would have been aware of Bathsheba's visit to the palace (beginning with the messengers who approached her at David's behest) and David's subsequent machinations with Uriah. It would be enough information to start tongues wagging, so that a rumour might find its way to Nathan. In general, I think it is accurate to say that the prophets began with a known incident into which God gave them heightened insight.

³This is the great insight of E.P. Sanders (Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion) who broke the mould of New Testament interpretation in 1977. Before Sanders, generations of scholars had caricatured Judaism as a legalistic religion, utilizing it as a foil against which to praise the superiority of Christianity as a religion of grace. The contrast is not completely unfounded, but the difference is not nearly as stark as Christians popularly suppose. Two texts from Deuteronomy are of particular note. They are downright insulting in making the point that Israel's election was an act of grace:

It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers. (7:7-8)

Do not say in your heart, after the Lord your God has thrust them out before you, "It is because of my righteousness that the Lord has brought me in to possess this land," whereas it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out before you. Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out from before you, and that he may confirm the word that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Know, therefore, that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people. Remember and do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness. (9:4-7a)

⁴Arguably, Bathsheba suffers relatively more than David. It isn't clear to me that she was in a position to refuse the king's advances. She might have been acting out of (implicit) compulsion, in which case she was essentially innocent of wrongdoing. Her husband was murdered (presumably she loved him), and then her baby died. In sum, she paid a heavy price for being the object of the king's desire.