Which text: Masoretic or Septuagint?

I'm currently studying two topics. (1) I'm reading Brevard Childs's Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture, in preparation for two posts on the canonical approach. (2) I'm familiarizing myself with the book of Amos, because I plan to blog my way through the whole book.

Childs's proposal:

The two topics have come together this week, at least in my mind. It was triggered by Childs's assertions about the Masoretic text:

The thesis being proposed is that the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible is the vehicle both for recovering and for understanding the canonical text of the Old Testament. …

There were many different Jewish communities in the Hellenistic period with different authoritative texts. Why should the one community which finally supported the Masoretic text be singled out? The reason is that only this one historic community has continued through history as the living vehicle of the whole canon of Hebrew scripture. …

But was not the relation of canon and text very different for Christians from what it was for Jews? Did not Greek-speaking Jewish Christians continue to use the Septuagint as an authoritative text, as the New Testament and early church fathers appear to demonstrate? Why should decisions within the Jewish community, some of which extended chronologically after the rise of Christianity, be deemed normative in any sense for Christians? …

The crucial point to be made is that the early Christian community of the New Testament never developed a doctrine of scripture apart from the Jewish. It made no claims of having a better text of scripture, as did, for example, the Samaritans. …

In sum, the church's use of Greek and Latin translations of the Old Testament was valid in its historical context, but theologically provides no grounds for calling into question the ultimate authority of the Hebrew text for church and synagogue.¹

I wish to make two points in response to Childs's proposal.

Two objections:

First, "that the early Christian community of the New Testament never developed a doctrine of scripture apart from the Jewish" is completely irrelevant. We should not think, anachronistically, in terms of a formal council giving its official imprimatur to a specific canon of books and a specific (Masoretic) text.

There was no promulgation of a canon even at Jamnia, as Childs knows. The various books were recognized as normative by the religious community (or communities) in a piecemeal fashion. The Law and the Prophets were agreed upon first. But the boundaries of the Writings and what we regard as the apocryphal texts were still disputed during the formative era of the Christian Church.

The determinative consideration was the practice of the various communities:  which books they treated as normative when they gathered for worship and instruction. Therefore it is irrelevant that Christians did not develop a doctrine of scripture.

As Childs indicates, the New Testament and the Church fathers appealed to the Septuagint as an authoritative text. This matters, because at many points the Septuagint is more open to a Christian reading than the Masoretic text is.

Which brings me to my second point. The establishment of a normative text was not a purely spiritual act, but also a socio-political one. The stabilizing of the Masoretic text enabled the religious authorities to seize control of the theological agenda. As Childs indicates (p. 98),

Following the stabilization of the Hebrew text, the various Jewish communities began to establish their identity on the basis of the Masoretic text.

Childs sees that development as constructive; and no doubt it was, in large part. But consider the very different perspective of Joseph Blenkinsopp. He says that the decisive factor in delimiting the canon

was the need to resolve conflicting claims to authority, the point at issue being the interpretation of the received corpus of tradition. This may not lead us to view writing, with Lévi-Strauss, as an instrument of oppression and control, but it should alert us to the possibility that it will embody claims of a polemical and tendentious nature.²

I submit that this polemical impulse — an impulse to seize control of the theological agenda from one's opponents — applies not only to the selection of a canon, but also to the many choices which had to be made as the text of the Hebrew Bible was standardized.

Childs indicates that the Masoretic text was stabilized around the end of the first century. In other words, it was stabilized after the core documents of the New Testament had been written.

We ought to consider whether partisan considerations were at work in the formation of the Masoretic text. In a follow-up post, I will consider the text of Amos 9:12 in light of that question.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
¹Brevard Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament As Scripture. Fortress Press, 1979, pp. 97-99.

²Joseph Blenkinsopp, Prophecy and Canon: A Contribution to the Study of Jewish Origins. University of Notre Dame Press, 1977, p. 4.

Scot McKnight on emerging Christianity

Last week, Scot McKnight spoke at a convention which brought together three scholarly societies:  the Evangelical Theological Society, the Society of Biblical Literature, and the American Academy of Religion.

For those who don't know, McKnight is a professor, the author of 20 books, and a blogger. He is solidly evangelical in his convictions. Nonetheless, he has embraced emerging Christianity, perhaps with some reservations about its postmodern orientation.

I was surprised to see that the meeting of academics included on its agenda a forum on the Emergent Church. And I'm grateful that Andy Rowell recorded the sessions he attended, including the Emergent Church Forum.

Here is a ten-minute excerpt. McKnight begins by telling a story about a blue parakeet (which symbolizes emerging Christians) stirring up the sparrows (evangelical / orthodox Christians) in his backyard. And then he identifies six uncomfortable questions that emerging Christians are asking.

You can listen to the audio, or read my summary (verbatim at some points, a free paraphrase at other points) below.

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1. What kind of truth can be found in scripture?
   Emerging Christians are beginning to ask questions about scripture that an older generation thought it had answered. The questions include, Just how human is this book? and Is it possible that the story of Jonah and the whale is just a myth? Emerging Christians hear that there might have been three Isaiahs, and they aren't too bothered about it — it isn't even interesting to them.
    
   
2. Questions about science:
   My students put it like this: If evolution isn't true, I would like to ask God why he made a world that looks so much like evolution. This is a generation that isn't even attracted to questions about proving that Genesis 1-11 is a historical record. They don't care about creation science. They believe in evolution, and that's just the way it is.
    
   
3. Questions about Christians and how they behave:
   Emerging Christians grew up with the scandals of Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker and the priests, and they just don't trust institutional leaders. Behind closed doors, church leaders do things that are despicable. Emerging Christians ask this question:  If Paul says that those who are in Christ are a new creation, why are there so many old creatures in the Church?
    
   
4. Questions about hell:
   I've had students say to me, Scott, my evangelical pastor tells me that people who haven't heard the gospel are going to hell. Is he really telling me that everybody in North Korea who never has a chance to hear the gospel is going to hell? Well, I just can't believe that's true.
    
   
5. A moral critique:
   I've had students say to me, Why is Jephtha in the Bible? And why is he valorized and heroized in Hebrews 11? That is a serious question. It's easier to talk about how many Isaiahs there are than it is to answer that question.
    
   
6. Questions about social location:
   Emerging Christians are aware that what we are interested in comes out of the world in which we live. There are other people in other parts of the world who don't care about our questions.
   
   Social location matters to everything we talk about, the language we use to discuss it, the way we shape theology, the way we respond to the gospel, etc.
   
   Emerging Christians don't just admit that, they delight in it. They're not seeking a universal theology. They're willing to live with a theology for the midwest, or the east coast.

I have a few comments of my own. First, none of the questions that McKnight points to are particularly new (except perhaps the last one, which brings us into the realm of postmodernism). What is new is the degree to which the traditional answers — answers which satisfied a previous generation of evangelicals — are now regarded with suspicion. As McKnight puts it at one point in his presentation,

This is not a question that evangelicals and orthodox Christians can simply give a traditional answer and get by with it anymore.

Second, the refusal to settle for easy answers may be related to McKnight's third point, the distrust of institutional leaders. The traditional answers were never intellectually satisfying. They were accepted largely on the say-so of the priest or the Doctor of Theology, who was regarded as a trustworthy authority. Given the new cynicism about church leaders, emerging Christians aren't taking things on authority; they're waiting for an argument that they deem reasonable.

Third, I think emerging Christians within evangelicalism look particularly shocking in the US context. In Canada, you will find extremely few Christians, evangelical or otherwise, who insist that the earth was created in seven 24-hour days. Evolution is perhaps somewhat more controversial, but I think most Canadian believers accept, at the very least, that theistic evolution is a legitimate position.

Finally, the six "questions" of McKnight's presentation do not touch on all the elements of emerging Christianity. McKnight knows that:  he has given a very different summary of the movement in a Christianity Today article.

A prophetic voice decries Christmas consumption

(cross-posted on [A]mazed and [Be]mused)

Yesterday was one of the biggest shopping extravaganzas of the year. Americans celebrate Thanksgiving on a Thursday, and most of them take the Friday off work, too. En masse, they head to the shopping malls to begin buying, getting, consuming:  spending themselves into massive debt to commemorate the birth of the baby Jesus.



Rev. Billy doesn't like it. Not one little bit!

We're trying to get people to back away from the Walmart; back away from the Target; back away from the Home Depot! … Backing away from the product, slowing down your consumption is a spiritual act. … Stop shopping, children! Amen!

Rev. Billy is a persona created by performance artist and activist Bill Talen. He is featured in a movie, What Would Jesus Buy?, which is produced by Morgan Spurlock (who scored big with Super Size Me).

What Would Jesus Buy? is built around a 2005 documentary of Rev. Billy's activist hi-jinks. The original documentary was made by Rob VanAlkemade, the director of What Would Jesus Buy?. Footage from the original documentary alternates with interviews and commentaries from experts and everyday consumers.

According to SignOnSanDiego, the movie's message makes it a tough sell to potential distributors:

"Major distributors have backed away because Wal-Mart pushes half of their DVDs," VanAlkemade said after a sold-out screening of the movie Sunday at the Silverdocs documentary festival near Washington.

Starbucks — a frequent target of Rev. Billy which got a court order to keep him out of its California stores — pulled out as a sponsor of Silverdocs. The festival is presented by the American Film Institute and the Discovery Channel.

Festival spokeswoman Jody Arlington said Starbucks expressed discomfort with the movie and raised security issues, but it let Silverdocs keep the sponsorship money even as it withdrew its logo. Starbucks Mid-Atlantic manager Carter Bentzel denied the decision was linked to the movie.

This is a good illustration of the potential negative impact when enormous, multinational stores like Walmart control the lion's share of a particular market. So much for supply and demand as the sole regulatory principle of a free market! If Walmart doesn't like your movie, they can pretty much turn the lights out on you.

Rev. Billy comments, "The multinational corporations have got as much control over us as the Roman Catholic Church in the 1300s." Then again, there's always the democratic power of the World Wide Web:

VanAlkemade pledged that the movie will find its way to audiences despite the marketing challenges. … "Maybe someone shot this screening today and we'll see it on YouTube tonight. It's worldwide distribution. It's instantaneous."

How will Christians respond to the movie? I haven't seen it; but as I watched the Youtube clip, I alternated between laughter, cringing, and shouts of "Hallelujah! God bless Rev. Billy!" Christianity Today offers a generally positive take on the movie:

Aside from a few more serious, melancholy scenes, WWJB is more or less a comedy. It's hard not to laugh at the confused faces of holiday shoppers as a robed choir marches through Abercrombie & Fitch and Victoria's Secret stores, singing about the impending shopocalypse as hovering security guards call for reinforcements. It's classic agit-prop theater — using humor and stagy gimmicks to shake things up, entertain, and provoke. It's a creative brand of protest, certainly, and according to the choir director (and Rev. Billy's wife) Savitri D, it's a protest grounded in Christian tradition: "Jesus was preaching within a tradition of theater as activism."

… Some critics have noted that the film's playfully sacrilege use of Christian forms and traditions may alienate some audiences. Rev. Billy's character is clearly modeled after a sweaty, breathy, over-the-top southern televangelist (Billy name drops Jimmy Swaggart) who prances around in polyester suits and occasionally "speaks in tongues" or is "slain by the Spirit." Catholics might also take offense at some of Rev. Billy's antics, whether he's in a makeshift confession booth on a city sidewalk (taking "confessions of shopping sins") or "baptizing" a baby outside of a Staples.

Yes, it's condescending. Yes, it cheapens Christianity. But the whole argument of the film is that our commodity culture has already cheapened Christianity.

Aint that the truth! Amen! Amen!

But would it be appropriate if I bought copies of the DVD for everyone I know, as Christmas presents?

The Anglican Church of Canada is splitting even as you read this post

The same sex marriage issue continues to roil the Anglican Church of Canada. A conference underway right now (Thursday and Friday, Nov. 22-23) is bringing about a formal split.

For the record, I am not an Anglican. But I am a Canadian, so it seems appropriate for me to alert readers outside of Canada to such a significant event.

I personally support same sex marriage. Nonetheless, it is heartbreaking to see congregations and denominations riven over this issue.

Here is some relevant background from the Globe and Mail:

The general synod, or governing body, of the Anglican Church of Canada voted earlier in the year not to "affirm" the authority of member dioceses to authorize the blessing of same-sex unions, but at the same time it voted not to declare the issue to be a matter of core Anglican doctrine.

What its decision meant is still being debated by church canon law experts, but the consensus seems to be that dioceses are not blocked from authorizing the blessings — and three have in the past few weeks:  the dioceses of Ottawa, Montreal and Niagara.

The bishop of Niagara has given his approval for the blessings to be implemented, but, to date, the bishops of Montreal and Ottawa haven't.

In response, two retired bishops have joined a different Anglican "province" located in another part of the world:

Bishop Malcolm Harding, retired Bishop of Brandon, has announced that he will minister under Archbishop Gregory Venables and the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone of the Americas, effective immediately.

Bishop Harding is the second Canadian bishop to make this announcement in the past week. It was announced on Friday that the Right Reverend Donald Harvey had been received under the Primatial authority of Archbishop Venables and would be free to offer episcopal oversight to biblically faithful Canadian Anglicans. …

[Bishop Harding commented,] "I cannot in conscience travel the path that the Anglican Church of Canada is traveling, away from historic Christian teaching and established Anglican practice."

The Anglican Province of the Southern Cone (Iglesia Anglicana del Cono Sur de America) is one of 38 Provinces that make up the global Anglican Communion. It encompasses much of South America and includes Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay and Argentina.

Similarly, in the United States,

the dioceses of Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, San Joaquin, California, and Quincy, Illinois, as well as several Virginia parishes have indicated they plan to leave the Anglican Episcopal Church and affiliate with overseas churches.

Recently, the Virginia diocese began a court battle with its renegade parishes over title to church buildings.

Back to Canada. Bishop Harvey is the moderator of the Anglican Network in Canada, which describes itself as a national fellowship of Canadian Anglicans who share a commitment to "biblically-faithful, historically-authentic" Anglicanism.

The Network is holding a conference this week in Burlington, Ontario. The Network has received messages of support from Anglican churches in the USA, Africa, and Australia:

I know that as Canadian Anglicans you are beginning this new initiative only after much prayer and searching of the word of God. The issue on which you have taken a stand is absolutely correct. Your obedience to the word of God is a necessary witness both to the Church and to society about the way in which God has designed us to live. You have my admiration for your courage and my prayers for the Lord's richest blessing on this venture. I extend my warmest Christian greetings to Archbishop Venables and to Bishop Harvey.

Peter, from Calgary, Alberta, is live-blogging from the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) conference. It appears that the split is a fait accompli:

Rev Charlie Masters - ANiC is now a reality, it has been launched. We are open for business.

We are part of the Anglican Communion. We will be episcopally lead and synodically governed. We are incorporated and we are real. We are part of the common cause partnership. ANiC is a temporary provision with the hope that there will be a new N American province.

Commited to discern and raise up numbers of new people to be ordained. We understand there will be parishes transferring juristictions. There will be church plants. There will be housegroups thinking about becoming church plants but not at that stage yet. …

Eventually parishes will be part of the Southern Cone, ANiC affliliation for individuals only. Currently both 'types' can be members of both - this is transition (so a little up in the air).

Charlie - what we are trying to do is like trying to build an airplane while we are flying. …

A number of events coming up:

Church memberships 23rd November 2007.
Ordinations 2nd December 2007.
Celebration 25-27th April 2008 Vancouver.
Confirmations and Church plants - TBA.
First Synod - November 2008.

How sad that it has come to this.