The Disease of Narcissistic Readings of Scripture in Liberal Scholarship and Literary Context as Its Remedy

My experience with Christianity throughout my life has been one of diversity. I was born a Roman Catholic, went to an Episcopal church with my dad when my parents split and an Assemblies of God with my mom. Later we went to an EFCA in my teen years, and then into various baptist and non-denominational churches in my late teens and early twenties. While at Moody, I attended a liberal church, as well as visiting other churches in various denominations. I even visited a Greek Orthodox church from time to time. I landed in Reformed churches due to my epistemological view of bibliology and ecclesiology.

My ministry focus early on was also on divergent theological views, specifically in the cults. Much of my Christianity was formed in an atmosphere where I was continually challenged to evaluate someone's reading of a text by making sure the verse or passage was being used according to the context. In many ways, my diverse upbringing prepared me to be critical of proof-texting simply because everyone could not possibly be right in their contradictory uses of the same text. 

When I later entered the world of scholarship, I realized that most scholars, particularly those most influenced by what were considered more liberal theories of interpretation, do the exact same thing that laymen do when studying the Bible. They proof-text and ignore the context.

Indeed, their so-called exegetical methodologies are filled with linguistic fallacies that are instead eisegetical to the hilt. It may be old news to us now, but James Barr's monumental critique of diachronic methodologies really should not have been necessary; but the abuses of ignoring context had become so entrenched in modern scholarship, there are those who still argue against it today. 

But why is this? Shouldn't scholars understand the Bible more than laymen and cultists? 

I think the primary reason why liberal scholars ignore context so much is because they are not actually taught how to exegete a literary text. They are, instead, taught how to fragment the text. They are taught source criticism, redaction criticism (which would be fine if they used compositional criticism as well, but they often don't), feminist hermeneutics and post-colonial hermeneutics (both of which tend to be anachronistically eisegetical and impose postmodern paradigms onto the Bible), background texts for the purposes of creating contexts that many times end up being contradictory to the literary context of the text itself, and to see contradiction and read controversies into the text that, frankly, may not be there once a good literary reading is given to each book. In short, they are taught to see the Bible as a fragmented text. 

To be sure, one's view of the Bible will dictate whether he or she thinks, even accepting all of these sorts of critical views, that the Bible should be put back together once deconstructed in such a way. 

But my simple point is that this is not exegesis. Many evidence the very diachronic methodology critiqued by Barr so long ago. The problem with Barr's critique is that it was too focused on word studies. What Barr should have really published was a critique of all of these critical methodologies as being linguistically fallacious if one is attempting to determine meaning of a particular text in its current context, rather than put together a speculative history of a text. Indeed, it is not that the word studies of scholarship were fallaciously diachronic in nature, but that all of liberal scholarship treats entire texts this way.

So liberal scholars are taught to impose contexts on the Bible, many speculative and even anachronistic at the cost of the actual literary context and reading a book as a unit, simply because when a context is not observed, it is replaced with another. 

This explains why they often use Scripture in the same way that laymen, also ignorant of context, do. 

Many Bible scholars are not taught logic either. This is why they often clash with theologians who are (as well as the fact that many theologians are often not taught the findings of biblical scholarship very well). That is an important point, since logic courses don't make the list of their required courses, and logic is at the foundation of language study. They are bump into logical arguments, but they do not necessarily have any requirements to take courses on epistemology or philosophy of religion, or even basic cognitive thinking skills. They will often either learn these elsewhere, perhaps in their liberal arts degree or as an elective (which is what I had to do), or not at all. But linguistics is a branch of logic. It is the logic of communication, and it is vital in studying texts written in a language, which is what the Scripture, at its base, is.

In the liberal's view, of course, the Scripture is just a bunch of fragments. His methodologies of inquiry, rooted in ultimate beliefs (the claim that he has come to such an idea of the Bible via biblical study is just naive to say the least), have led him to view the Bible this way. So it is merely an anthology, a very broken one, of diverse opinions, redacted time and again by various people.

I am reminded of this when I read teachers New Testament like James McGrath, who recently attempted to condemn Christians for not following Jesus' teaching concerning "turning the other cheek."

As my readers know, I've clashed with McGrath a few times in attempting to show that he does not understand the vital function of ultimate beliefs in one's methodologies of inquiry (also see this, this and this), nor how, or even why, one ought to read a biblical text "literarily," and this is likely due to his limited education. 

But the dogmatism, and even narcissism, of the idea that those who disagree with him concerning the teaching of Jesus on the matter is a fascinating example of what happens when one is immersed in a particular tradition, and that tradition, rather than the literary context, provides the context for the passage. McGrath is just as much filled with certainty on what he thinks Jesus is saying as any dogmatic fundamentalist who thinks he's just reading what Jesus said without interpreting it (i.e., without placing it in a context). But this is a blog post for another day, so I digress.

This has happened before when we discussed the parable of the Good Samaritan, where McGrath simply could not see that he was moving the characters of the story around, but even more ignoring the context of Luke's overall literary argument, to fit his traditional reading. And why should he see it? He's not trained to do so. He's trained to read it as a separate unit, isolated from a larger context that would inform it, since that larger context is simply filled with contradictory fragments and traditions. 

In other words, like the Jesus saying in the Sermon on the Mount, it has no context. So why not just read the text, as many laymen do, within a particular tradition? As humans, we actually don't read things without context. So if we hear something, like a proverb, in attempting to understand it, we supply one. And if we do not supply the actual literary context in which it is given (or context in which something is said for that matter), we end up creating a context from our traditions, speculative background studies, etc. 

Fundamentalists do this all of the time as well, and it is why I often say that liberalism is really just a form of fundamentalism. A fundamentalist, however, won't use speculative critical methodologies to do this, but his traditions and even other Bible passages. The latter, as the former, are merely brought in to replace the literary context, and the end result is a text that has been transformed to mean something very different than it would have meant within its literary context. 

So let's take McGrath's use of this phrase, "turn the other cheek," as an example. What does the phrase mean? To McGrath and most in the liberal world that has taken it to mean that Jesus is calling for non-violence in every sphere means that one should never retaliate. Some of the immediate context, not the larger literary context of Matthew, is brought in to show that this is in the sphere of one's enemies who "persecute" you. They are called evil and wicked, and of course, this could not be referring to fellow Christians who Jesus thinks are all good and perfect little angels (wink, wink). Hence, to follow Jesus' teaching is to advocate for non-violence against anyone, even enemies (foreign and domestic), period. 

If Christians advocate something else, they are not following Jesus' teaching, and if they attempt to interpret the text within the context of the book, or even in light of Jesus' other teachings, they aren't being faithful and honest like McGrath and other liberals (this is where the narcissism comes in). 

Now, if Christians hold to their traditional interpretation, and it looks like McGrath's, then he actually has a point. Christians ARE being inconsistent. They are inconsistent with they defend their homes and even do anything of a social justice nature as well btw, since social justice action often wants government, backed by the coercion of violence, to enforce just laws (so McGrath and many liberals would also be inconsistent).

When McGrath is called on his arbitrary picking and choosing of what he considers the true teachings of Jesus, or what he considers good in the actual teachings of Jesus, he simply retreats to his personal views (that's the epistemic problem liberals have and we've discussed this time and again on this blog, so I won't rehash it again right now). But it is an interesting display of our current climate where one can be so dogmatic in his condemnation of others and then retreat into the idea of uncertainty when questioned how he knows something so certainly to be dogmatic. Hence, regardless of McGrath's retreat to some ironic dictum about uncertainty, his condemnation that Christians are not following the teachings of Jesus here are pretty certain. 

Here is why I don't think they should be, and why I don't think his interpretation of this passage has much to do with actual exegesis, and is rather a good example of eisegesis.

Matthew is not arguing about anything having to do with unbelievers. The argument in Matthew, if taken as a literary whole, is presenting the idea that since Jesus is the true Israel, everyone in Jesus is a part of Israel and will receive its promises (everyone outside, including ethnic Jews, will receive the curses of those outside of Abraham, David, and the Diaspora--which is why Matthew's genealogy centers on these three points). Hence, everyone who is a disciple of Jesus is a fellow Israelite who represents the Lord Jesus. This includes fellow Jews who are at odds with one another, women, little children, and most importantly in Matthew's argument, Gentiles who have received the baptism and teachings of Jesus, and are under his lordship. Hence, all evil toward those in Christ are to cease, all manner of reconciliation toward fellow disciples is to be pursued in forgiveness and even church discipline, all good is to be done to "the least of these brothers of Mine," not causing any one "these little ones who believe in Me" to stumble. 

If one does not forgive a "fellow servant," if one does not pursue reconciliation, or beats his "fellow slave," practices "lawlessness" toward one who is in Jesus, he does not have the fruit of repentance and evidences that Christ is not His Lord. He is thus thrown out with the unbelievers.

The unbelievers will be violently destroyed by Christ, cut to pieces, thrown into the Gehenna of fire, etc. Not quite the non-violent view of Jesus painted by traditional contexts seeking to replace the literary one, is it?

So Matthew's argument has nothing to do with how one treats unbelievers. It has nothing to do with governments or the issue of self defense. It has nothing to do with pacifism. Jesus is going to violently destroy all of His enemies. That doesn't sound very pacifist to me.

Instead, since Matthew is concerned with reconciling everyone in Christ, particularly Jews who see the Gentiles as their enemies and oppressors, i.e., those who have done evil to them, his argument is that Jesus' teaching demands that all believers, whether at odds with one another for various reasons, are to forgive one another, love one another, and do good, pray, and bless one another. 

In other words, the literary context indicates that Matthew is not taking a break from his entire argument that has to do with how one treats fellow believers in order to say a little isolated blurb about treating unbelievers well, especially when Jesus doesn't treat them well. Jesus actually curses unbelievers, and violently so, in throughout the book.

Is He a hypocrite? Maybe in McGrath's theology, but maybe that conclusion would be due to poor exegesis, rather than an actual hypocrisy (and no, Jesus is not allowed to be hypocritical because He is God, since He just argued that God does this with wicked men--although taking the analogy that God causes the rain to fall on the just and unjust as absolute in isolation from Matthew's argument is part of the problem of the traditional reading). 

My simple point is that the entirety of Matthew's argument is concerned about how believers treat other believers due to internal conflicts within the religious community, and the greatest conflict was the Jewish-Gentile conflict we see reflected time and again in the New Testament (Acts, Romans, Galatians, etc.). 

So the great irony is that McGrath isn't actually following Jesus' teaching here via non-violence, as it has virtually nothing to do with how a government defends itself or retaliates or whether Christians would back a particular government for doing so. They may or may not for various reasons but it has little to do with Jesus' teaching here.

On a final note, the persecution involved in Matthew is said to be slander, not people killing you, as unbelieving oppressors would be doing. Persecution is seen as one "saying all sorts of false things about you." In other words, turning the other cheek from persecution is not elevating a conflict with other believers by returning insult/slander for insult/slander. Slapping one's cheek is not a term that refers to some violent physical attack, but someone cursing or saying something bad about you. That's why one is told not to "curse," as that would be the natural response. Jesus does not say, don't physically attack the person back, as he isn't talking about someone physically attacking his disciples at all. Instead, they are to bless when receiving curses from other Christians who don't like them, are angry at them, etc. They are to leave their worship aside until they have settled things with their fellow Christians. 

The great irony is that I know plenty of people who would make the argument McGrath does and yet willfully continue to be at odds with other Christians, simply because they don't actually know how to read this text in its literary context. 

As I have said before, if the entire story is about the relationship of two ducks, then a passage isn't suddenly talking about one's relationship with an aardvark out of nowhere. Yet, that absurdity is precisely to what a fragmented, proof-texting, interpretive methodology brings us.

What McGrath has done is to create a false dilemma by dogmatically asserting his alternative, traditional reading to the literary one. But in doing so, he really isn't condemning conservatives who support Netanyahu for not following Jesus. McGrath is merely condemning them for not following his own teaching and tradition. As I've said before, when one does not have a reliable divine revelation as an accurate measuring stick, he merely uses himself as one, which is why liberalism seems to produce nothing but narcissism. 

Antinomianism and the Theology of Deuteronomy

http://www.gracereformedchurchlv.org/sermon/the-theology-of-deuteronomy/

Christo-Telic and Christo-Centric Hermeneutics

If you've every seen the movie Ever After, there is a dialogue that ensues as follows:

Henry: [as Danielle hurries away] Have we met before?

Danielle: I-I do not believe so, Your Highness.

Henry: I could have sworn I knew every courtier in the province.

Danielle: Well... I am visiting a cousin.

Henry: Who?

Danielle: My cousin.

Henry: Yes, you said that. Which one?

Danielle: Th-the only one I have, sire.

Henry: Are you coy on purpose or do you honestly refuse to tell me your name?

Danielle: [stops quickly] No. [quickly heads towards the gate] And yes.

All of this is meant to speak about a person without revealing who the person is. Many words are used, and some information is given, but the dialogue ignores details. 

Such are common uses of the Christocentric and Christotelic interpretations. Details tend to be left out by some in both camps.

Now, these terms are thrown around quite a bit, and frankly, there are probably as many definitions as there are biblical interpreters; but I will attempt to define them in a way that I think best describes what I commonly see out there.

First, let me say that there is a type of Christo-telic interpretation that seeks to end all things in Christ. What I mean by that is that it views the Bible as largely either produced from the socio-religious concerns of the people groups that wrote the Bible or as a divine accommodation to those groups. Either way, as I'll soon note, I reject these ideas, and think, in the end, they are actually conveying the telos of modern/postmodern theological and moral sensibilities, as even Christ is pulled through that grid by most of these people.

Second, let me say that, although I see the Christo-centric hermeneutic as an admirable attempt to honor Christ and see Him as the center of the whole Bible, I think that there is a tendency in this hermeneutic to ignore the literary contexts in which these individual passages exist in favor of a simplistic reading of the text. I would agree with the Christo-centric hermeneutic in many places, as long as typological application was being made to an already thoroughly exegeted text that noted all of its original contextual referents, but to go to the typology without doing the hard exegetical work first, ironically, in my mind, ends up missing Christ in the text.

And it's this last comment that I wish to use to say why I would push for a Christo-telic hermeneutic that sees all things as speaking about Christ, revealing who He is, what He has done with His people in the past, what He desires of His people, etc.

In other words, instead of the Christo-telic idea that all things stated in Scripture are theological or moral accommodations to culturally bound people groups, or that they are merely the theological and ethical musings of these people, that must be vetted through Jesus, a Jesus Himself vetted through modern and postmodern/ultramodern inclinations, I would say that these passages are all a part of Jesus. They make up who He is because they tell us who God is, what His people in the past looked like, what God would do because we see what God did do. They tell us about His character and work in a way that merely going straight to typology or allegory do not do.

It is easy to disregard the Canaanite conquest as something that displays Joshua/Jesus as the destroyer of chaos and sin in the world through the cross, something true enough, but it also tells us that Jesus is the judge who really will destroy people in judgment because, in fact, He's done it before. It's a part of His character to do so.

Christ is truly God's Son He called out of Egypt, but to understand the contextual argument that Matthew is making with that typological allusion involves understanding the original exodus of God's people out of Egypt and His work to save them. Christ, then, becomes the Son who fulfills the role of Israel where it failed. He goes into the wilderness to be tempted as Israel, but, again, where Israel failed, He is victorious. Understanding the original tragedy of the story in its own literary context illuminates the typology used.

This is not only true of historical ideas, but of theological and ethical arguments made through contextually responsible literary readings of the books. If we understand Genesis in its context, we understand that the world is in the midst of creation, and that through that which is chaotic and evil, God will bring about what is ordered and good. The cross becomes central in the fulfillment of this theology, as the filling up of the earth with God's covenant images, what was originally purposed for creation, would have come to nothing had Christ not provided the means to complete this purpose, thus validating the theology of the book.

Understanding the literary argument of Exodus and Deuteronomy helps us understand what considers as worship and gives us the means of worship, i.e., through what is commanded. We then understand what John is saying more when He calls Jesus the Word, the truth, the bread of life, who alone has words of eternal life, that God must be worshiped through spirit and truth, and that if one claims to love Christ he must keep His commandments. Christ affirms that He is the fulfillment of not just the prophecies and historic redemptive themes of the OT, but of the theology and ethics of the OT.

This hermeneutic allows both for a contextual interpretation of the OT and a contextual interpretation of the NT. It allows for each book to make its own unique contribution to the Christian worldview and our view of Christ without having to ignore what the books were saying in their original contexts. It is also what I think the NT authors are doing with the OT. We see typology and development, but also the development of theological and ethical teachings of the OT books as having their fulfillment in the Person and work of Jesus Christ.

One can see, therefore, that both a Christocentric view that ignores the original context and the Christotelic view that allows for the occasional rejection of the teaching of those contexts are equally distorted views of Christ and His work because they either ignore or reject those elements of His character and work that those contextual readings supply.

In this regard, it is very possible that both of these hermeneutics will end in a somewhat to very distorted view of who Jesus is, what He did, what He will do, and what He wishes of His people because it, in one way or another, dissects Him from the larger texts that are actually meant to teach us about Him.

This is what happens when we leave the details out. We can often get a different Christ; and I have to wonder if these hermeneutics subconsciously exist so that we can fill in the details with a Christ we find more in line with our desired versions of Him. When we allow all of the passages to speak in their respective contexts, we allow all of them to tell us about Christ, His work, His people, His will, etc., and they fill in the details for us, details that may push our own details out of the picture, and indeed, change the picture for us.

At best, our pictures are simply missing some minor elements. At worst, those missing elements distort the picture so that it becomes something else entirely.

Indeed, it may be that a confusion in hermeneutics has led to a confusion as to who God, Christ, His work, and His people are, leading to a diversity of religions under the name "Christianity," claiming to follow the Jesus of the Bible. But if we allow the texts to speak for themselves, we allow them to teach us the real Jesus of the Bible and provide for us a critical guide that runs against the tendency of our own, mental idol factories to produce false "Jesuses."

Against the Looting and Violent Rioters

Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants
Martin Luther, May 1525
In the former book I did not venture to judge the peasants, since they had offered to be set right and to be instructed, and Christ's command, in Matthew VII, says that we are not to judge. But before I look around they go on, and, forgetting their offer, they betake themselves to violence, and rob and rage and act like mad dogs. By this it is easy to see what they had in their false minds, and that the pretences which they made in their twelve articles, under the name of the Gospel, were nothing but lies. It is the devil's work that they are at, and in particular it is the work of the archdevil who rules at Mühlhausen, and does nothing else than stir up robbery, murder and bloodshed; as Christ says of him in John VIII, ‘He was a murderer from the beginning.’ Since, then, these peasants and wretched folk have let themselves be led astray, and do otherwise than they have promised, I too must write of them otherwise than I have written, and begin by setting their sin before them, as God commands Isaiah and Ezekiel, on the chance that some of them may learn to know themselves. Then I must instruct the rulers how they are to conduct themselves in these circumstances.

The peasants have taken on themselves the burden of three terrible sins against God and man, by which they have abundantly merited death in body and soul. In the first place they have sworn to be true and faithful, submissive and obedient, to their rulers, as Christ commands, when he says, ‘Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's,’ and in Romans XIII, ‘Let everyone be subject unto the higher powers.’ Because they are breaking this obedience, and are setting themselves against the higher powers, willfully and with violence, they have forfeited body and soul, as faithless, perjured, lying, disobedient knaves and scoundrels are wont to do. St. Paul passed this judgement on them in Romans XIII when he said, that they who resist the power will bring a judgement upon themselves. This saying will smite the peasants sooner or later, for it is God's will that faith be kept and duty done.

In the second place, they are starting a rebellion, and violently robbing and plundering monasteries and castles which are not theirs, by which they have a second time deserved death in body and soul, if only as highwaymen and murderers. Besides, any man against whom it can be proved that he is a maker of sedition is outside the law of God and Empire, so that the first who can slay him is doing right and well. For if a man is an open rebel every man is his judge and executioner, just as when a fire starts, the first to put it out is the best man. For rebellion is not simple murder, but is like a great fire, which attacks and lays waste a whole land. Thus rebellion brings with it a land full of murder and bloodshed, makes widows and orphans, and turns everything upside down, like the greatest disaster. Therefore let everyone who can, smite, slay and stab, secretly or openly, remembering that nothing can be more poisonous, hurtful or devilish than a rebel. It is just as when one must kill a mad dog; if you do not strike him, he will strike you, and a whole land with you.

In the third place, they cloak this terrible and horrible sin with the Gospel, call themselves ‘Christian brethren’, receive oaths and homage, and compel people to hold with them to these abominations. Thus they become the greatest of all blasphemers of God and slanderers of his holy Name, serving the devil, under the outward appearance of the Gospel, thus earning death in body and soul ten times over. I have never heard of a more hideous sin. I suspect that the devil feels the Last Day coming and therefore undertakes' such an unheard-of-act, as though saying to himself, ‘This is the last, therefore it shall be the worst; I will stir up the dregs and knock out the bottom.’ God will guard us against him! See what a mighty prince the devil is, how he has the world in his hands and can throw everything into confusion, when he can so quickly catch so many thousands of peasants, deceive them, blind them, harden them and throw them into revolt, and do with them whatever his raging fury undertakes.

It does not help the peasants, when they pretend that, according to Genesis i and ii, all things were created free and common, and that all of us alike have been baptized. For under the New Testament Moses does not count; for there stands our Master, Christ, and subjects us, with our bodies and our property, to the emperor and the law of this world, when he says, ‘Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's.’ Paul, too, says, in Romans XII, to all baptized Christians, ‘Let every man be subject to the power’, and Peter says, ‘Be subject to every ordinance of man.’ By this doctrine of Christ we are bound to live, as the Father commands from heaven, saying, ‘This is My beloved Son; hear him.’ For baptism does not make men free in body and property, but in soul; and the Gospel does not make goods common, except in the case of those who do of their own free will what the apostles and disciples did in Acts IV. They did not demand, as do our insane peasants in their raging, that the goods of others - of a Pilate and a Herod - should be common, but only their own goods. Our peasants, however, would have other men's goods common, and keep their own goods for themselves. Fine Christians these! I think there is not a devil left in hell; they have all gone into the peasants. Their raving has gone beyond all measure.

Since the peasants, then, have brought both God and man down upon them and are already so many times guilty of death in body and soul, since they submit to no court and wait for no verdict, but only rage on, I must instruct the worldly governors how they are to act in the matter with a clear conscience.

First. I will not oppose a ruler who, even though be does not tolerate the Gospel, will smite and punish these peasants without offering to submit the case to judgement. For he is within his rights, since the peasants are not contending any longer for the Gospel, but have become faithless, perjured, disobedient, rebellious murderers, robbers and blasphemers, whom even heathen rulers have the right and power to punish; nay, it is their duty to punish them, for it is just for this purpose that they bear the sword, and are ‘the ministers of God upon him that doeth evil’.

But if the ruler is a Christian and tolerates the Gospel, so that the peasants have no appearance of a case against him, he should proceed with fear. First he must take the matter to God, confessing that we have deserved these things, and remembering that God may, perhaps, have thus aroused the devil as a punishment upon all Germany. Then he should humbly pray for help against the devil, for ‘we are battling not only against flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness in the air’, and this must be attacked with prayer. Then, when our hearts are so turned to God that we are ready to let his divine will be done, whether he will or will not have us to be princes and lords, we must go beyond our duty, and offer the mad peasants an opportunity to come to terms, even though they are not worthy of it. Finally, if that does not help, then swiftly grasp the sword.

For a prince and lord must remember in this case that he is God's minister and the servant of his wrath (Romans XIII), to whom the sword is committed for use upon such fellows, and that he sins as greatly against God, if he does not punish and protect and does not fulfil the duties of his office, as does one to whom the sword has not been committed when he commits a murder. If he can punish and does not - even though the punishment consist in the taking of life and the shedding of blood - then he is guilty of all the murder and all the evil which these fellows commit, because, by willful neglect of the divine command, he permits them to practice their wickedness, though he can prevent it, and is in duty bound to do so. Here, then, there is no time for sleeping; no place for patience or mercy. It is the time of the sword, not the day of grace.

The rulers, then, should go on unconcerned, and with a good conscience lay about them as long as their hearts still beat. It is to their advantage that the peasants have a bad conscience and an unjust cause, and that any peasant who is killed is lost in body and soul and is eternally the devil's. But the rulers have a good conscience and a just cause; and can, therefore, say to God with all assurance of heart, ‘Behold, my God, thou hast appointed me prince or lord, of this I can have no doubt; and though hast committed to me the sword over the evildoers (Romans XIII). It is thy Word, and cannot lie. I must fulfill my office, or forfeit thy grace. It is also plain that these peasants have deserved death many times over, in thine eyes and the eyes of the world, and have been committed to me for punishment. If it be thy will that I be slain by them, and that my rulership be taken from me and destroyed, so be it: thy will be done. So shall I die and be destroyed fulfilling thy commandment and thy Word, and shall be found obedient to thy commandment and my office. Therefore will I punish and smite as long as my heart bears. Thou wilt judge and make things right.’

Thus it may be that one who is killed fighting on the ruler's side may be a true martyr in the eyes of God, if he fights with such a conscience as I have just described, for he is in God's Word and is obedient to him. On the other hand, one who perishes on the peasants' side is an eternal brand of hell, for he bears the sword against God's Word and is disobedient to him, and is a member of the devil. And even though it happens that the peasants gain the upper hand (which God forbid!) for to God all things are possible, and we do not know whether it may be his will, through the devil, to destroy all order and rule and cast the world upon a desolate heap, as a prelude to the Last Day, which cannot be far off - nevertheless, they may die without worry and go to the scaffold with a good conscience, who are found exercising their office of the sword. They may leave to the devil the kingdom of the world, and take in exchange the everlasting kingdom. Strange times, these, when a prince can win heaven with bloodshed, better than other men with prayer!

Finally, there is another thing that ought to move the rulers. The peasants are not content to be themselves the devil's own, but they force and compel many good people against their wills to join their devilish league, and so make them partakers of all of their own wickedness and damnation. For anyone who consents to what they do, goes to the devil with them, and is guilty of all the evil deeds that they commit; though he has to do this because he is so weak in faith that he does not resist them. A pious Christian ought to suffer a hundred deaths, rather than give a hair's breadth of consent to the peasants' cause. O how many martyrs could now be made by the bloodthirsty peasants and the murdering prophets! Now the rulers ought to have mercy on these prisoners of the peasants, and if they had no other reason to use the sword, with a good conscience, against the peasants, and to risk their own lives and property in fighting them, there would be reason enough, and more than enough, in this - that thus they would be rescuing and helping these souls, whom the peasants have forced into their devilish league and mho, without willing it, are sinning so horribly, and who must be damned. For truly these souls are in purgatory; nay, in the bonds of hell and the devil.

Therefore, dear lords, here is a place where you can release, rescue, help. Have mercy on these poor people [whom the peasants have compelled to join them]. Stab, smite, slay, whoever can. If you die in doing it, well for you! A more blessed death can never be yours, for you die obeying the divine Word and commandment in Romans XIII, and in loving service of your neighbor, whom you are rescuing from the bonds of hell and of the devil. And so I beg everyone who can to flee from the peasants as from the devil himself; those who do not flee, I pray that God will enlighten and convert. As for those who are not to be converted, God grant that they may have neither fortune nor success. To this let every pious Christian say Amen! For this prayer is right and good, and pleases God; this I know. If anyone think this too hard, let him remember that rebellion is intolerable and that the destruction of the world is to be expected every hour.
  

A Little Political Analysis

The map is very red today, more so than it has been in many years. However, I don't think it's because America suddenly went back to conservatism. Instead, I think that the democrat/liberal strategy of instilling distrust toward authorities in the West, in order to argue that the democratic party is the party of change and people should, therefore, vote for them, is a monster that has grown out of their control.

Think about this for a moment. A lot of people didn't vote at all because they distrust the whole system now. These are the same people who tend to buy into every conspiracy theory that comes down the road. They just don't trust any authority anymore. They trust themselves. They trust their little groups. But they do not trust actual authorities. They tend to believe everyone is lying to them. It's a paranoid disposition toward authority in general that rules their thought processes.

Hence, many did not vote. So what we could be seeing with that map is that the country is far more liberal than it used to be. Conservatives are where liberals were in the seventies on a few issues. Liberals have grown radically liberal. Think of millennials. The little seed of distrust instilled in their parents has become a radical, almost certifiable, distrust in authority and the government. The media and university that sought to gain control of them by injecting them with such radical distrust has now lost control of them because they no longer trust them either.

This is displayed as well in our culture with people's distrust of the church and its authority. Self reigns supreme, as though it were a reliable authority at all, and those who have a little trust left in authority rule the world.

Cringe-worthy Reviews of My Book

It is rather disappointing to read reviews of one's own work when the reviewers don't seem to agree. It is, however, absolutely frustrating when it seems they don't agree because they haven't seemed to have read the book carefully.

Such is the case with a couple of reviews I've recently read of it, one of which in RBL by Jeffery Leonard. Leonard's review is one big strawman of my book. His review was then quoted by Peter Leithart, who also seems to have not read the book, in a blogpost with a further strawman objection. Here is what Leonard concludes:

“While the author does a workmanlike job of demonstrating how various numbers in Gen 1–11 could be interpreted symbolically, it is not at all clear to me that the biblical authors necessarily intended that these numbers should be interpreted in this fashion. It seems just as likely to me, for example, that the ancient Yahwist believed there was a flood and that the rains of that flood lasted for forty days as it does that he intended only to symbolize the trials Noah faced in the ark by supplying the number forty for the days of diluvian rain. Hodge attempts to sidestep this issue in part by arguing that we cannot divine from these texts the biblical authors’ beliefs about history and cosmology because the authors did not intend to teach these subjects; their purposes were theological. Simply asserting this to be the case, though, is not the same as demonstrating that the biblical authors did not place historiographic concerns alongside their theological concerns. A symbolic reading of the text may ease the interpretive task by marginalizing questions of what the biblical authors believed about the actual past. Were it the case, though, that the biblical authors intended their numbers to be understood literally, the comfort of a symbolic reading would be a false comfort that only obscures the real issues involved in understanding the thought world of the biblical authors.”

Leonard does this throughout his review. He continually makes this strawman that I am arguing that because the author could be using numbers symbolically, he, therefore, is using them symbolically. 

This, of course, is complete rubbish. I argue no such thing. The entire book is meant to show that the language of the Primeval History is symbolic, and therefore, the numbers should be taken as symbolic as well. To do the opposite of this, and take them as literal, not only creates unnecessary contradictions in the text, but it contradicts the symbolic nature of this genre of literature. 

Leonard gets past the contradictions by critiquing that I don't take the lazy route of most of scholarship and blame contradictions on the sources used. I say up front that I have no problem with conflicting sources, but argue that this is not what is happening with Genesis. It is simply a superficial view of the text that retreats back into this idea. The author has crafted a text out of sources that coheres to the message he wishes to convey. To argue otherwise is to stubbornly remain a fossil in the outdated relic that is nineteenth and twentieth century scholarship. 

Leonard has also completely misunderstood my argument. At no time did I pit the symbolic description of history as either historical or symbolic. In fact, I spend a lot of time in the opening chapters explaining that the author believes all of this to be history but still describes it symbolically. Leonard wants to create some false distinction between the two that I explain at lengths are not opposed to one another.

Indeed, Leithart's objection in his blogpost is that the ideas of "literal" and "symbolic" are not opposed, as though he is arguing against something I said in my book. In fact, he is arguing against Leonard, not me. My point is that there is a dichotomy between literal and symbolic description. I am not arguing that if the language is symbolic, the event is as well. This is nonsense.

But what of Leonard's argument? Instead of actually refuting anything I argue, what Leonard has done is show the weakness of his position. I have argued that since the language used is symbolic and filled with ancient Near Eastern symbolism evidenced in other texts that also vary in their descriptions (as texts that are not attempting to describe something literal would) that the numbers, which are often used symbolically both in the Bible and the ancient Near East, should be understood in context as symbolic as well. 

However, it is at this point that Leonard's argument turns on him. Leonard is arguing that since one can take these numbers as literal, one should take them as literal. Leonard would have to show that there is not ancient Near Eastern symbolism in these chapters, that the numbers are not used symbolically in the Bible and ancient Near East, and that the author's mindset is one of plain historical facts laid out in literal speech. Since he has not produced a work that has done this, nor could he, and has not refuted my book's real argument, his review just muddies the waters with logical fallacies.

The reviews done by fundamentalists like Andrew Kulikovsky are equally bad. In fact, they share some of the same objections but for different reasons. Kulikovsky's review is so riddled with logical and exegetical fallacies I cannot address them all here, but he, as well as his liberal counterparts, are committed to reading Genesis within their own modern context and concepts of historiography rather than attempt to understand how the text would have been read in an ancient Near Eastern context. The book attempts to show this, but alas, if one is dead set against the idea to begin with, there is really no evidence that would prove otherwise.

I'm still waiting for someone to address my actual argument, but it seems the desire to maintain one's quota for writing or to just be published outweighs the desire to understand an argument. The problem is that scholars tend to read reviews more than books, so their view of my work will be based on these strawmen; but this also causes me to wonder how much literature is misunderstood because of poorly thought out reviews.

Sermons about the Role of Priests in the Church

The Particular Priesthood and the Theology of the Book of Numbers

The General Priesthood and the Theology of Second Peter