In the short story “The Bishop” from 1902, the Russian writer Anton Chekhov describes the days and nights of a bishop during Holy Week. The bishop is ill and dying, though at first he does not know this. During the course of the story, he holds services in the Orthodox cathedral, including a four-hour Good Friday reading of lessons from the Gospels; visits a sick woman; hears the concerns of parishioners; and interacts with his colleagues in the monastery. Lying in bed, he recalls different stages of his life in the ministry: the sounds of church bells combined with creaking wheels and bleating sheep in the peasant town where he grew up; his years studying theology at a university; his homesickness for Russia when stationed abroad.
Having an uncle who is an Episcopal Priest, I’m aware of the ways in which Holy Week is like a spiritual decathlon for members of the clergy. It is not only an extraordinary opportunity for meditation on Christ’s death on the Cross, affirmation of foundational Christian theological principles, and fellowship with one’s spiritual community, but also a time in which ministers, deacons, and lay leaders take care of hundreds of details. I remember Easter services in Kentucky with a cross of chicken wire, its slots filled with forsythia. Every year, someone had been responsible for propping up the cross before the service and storing it afterwards. Ministers in churches served by a single clergy member—a common situation in rural areas and small towns like the one I’m from—write and delivery four different sermons on four back-to-back days.
In a few pages, Chekhov’s story renders an entire life spent in the ministry, including mundane aspects of the bishop’s role that frustrate him: “The senior clergy, all over the diocese, were in the habit of awarding good-conduct marks to junior priests, young or old, even to wives and children, and all this had to be discussed, scrutinized and solemnly recorded in official reports.” Yet Chekhov contrasts the bureaucratic obligations that are a part of church ministry with moments of ineffable beauty, such as the scene of parishioners departing from the Palm Sunday service:
Soon the service was over. As the bishop climbed into his carriage,
homeward bound, the whole moonlit garden was overflowing with
the joyful, harmonious ringing of heavy bells. White walls, white
crosses on graves, white birches, dark shadows, the moon high above
the convent—everything seemed to be living a life of its own, beyond
the understanding of man, but close to him nonetheless. It was early
April, and after that mild day it had turned chilly, with a slight frost,
and there was a breath of spring in that soft, cold air. The road from
the convent to the town was sandy and they had to travel at walking pace.
In the bright, tranquil moonlight churchgoers were trudging through
the sand, on both sides of the carriage. They were all silent and deep
in thought; and everything around was so welcoming, young, so near
at hand—the trees, the sky, even the moon—that one wished it would
always be like this.
Before starting the biblical commentary section of this blog entry, I would like to give thanks to readers who are ministers, for all that you do during Holy Week to help your congregations draw closer to God.
John 20: 1-18
This week’s lectionary selection from the Gospel emphasizes the role of Mary Magdalene. In the Gospel of John, she is portrayed as the first person to visit Jesus’ tomb after his crucifixion:
1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!"
Other Gospel accounts of the Resurrection are Matthew 28; Mark 16; and Luke 24. The term “the other disciple, the one Jesus loved,” has been interpreted as the apparent narrator; we first see this description in John 13:23, in the scene when Jesus washes the disciples’ feet. The pronoun “They” could be used to describe grave robbers. However, robbers would not have left the expensive linen used for burial.
3 So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. 8Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9(They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)
Scriptural passages that describe the Resurrection include Luke 24; Acts 2:24-32; and 1 Corinthians 15.4.
10 Then the disciples went back to their homes, 11but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
13 They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?"
"They have taken my Lord away," she said, "and I don't know where they have put him." 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
It is interesting to note differences between the Gospel accounts of this narrative. Luke describes Mary Magdalene going to the tomb first, but she is in a group of women that includes Mary the mother of James and Joanna. In contrast to the account in John, the group of women is met, not by Jesus, but by two men whose clothing and mysterious appearance indicate that they are angels. Jesus’ first appearance in Luke is to the two men on the way to Emmaus. In the longer version of Mark 16 that includes passages 9-20, Mary Magdalene, described as “the woman from whom he cast out seven demons,” and two other women encounter, not two, but one angel at the tomb; in Mark, Jesus first appears to Mary Magdalene alone. A distinction of Matthew 28 is that Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” actually get to see an angel forcibly rolling back the stone and sitting on it. Matthew is the only Gospel that includes an earthquake in this scene. The two women tell the disciples; it is not clear whether or not they are still there when Jesus appears. An element that all of the Gospels share is that Mary Magdalene, either alone or in a group, is in the first party to arrive at the tomb. A probable reason would be to anoint the body.
15 "Woman," he said, "why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?"
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him."
16 Jesus said to her, "Mary."
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher).
17 Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' "
18 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that he had said these things to her.
Although it is not spelled out, there is a suggestion in the Gospel of John that the disciples did not believe Mary Magdalene. Jesus does not appear to the disciples until evening, and they are in the same house, with the door locked. Evidently they did not go to the tomb after Mary described meeting Jesus after the Resurrection.
I wish all of you a blessed Holy Week.
--Elizabeth Fels
Sources:
Chekhov, Anton. The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories, 1896-1904. London: The Penguin Group, 2002.
Coogan, Michael, Ed. The New Oxford Annotated Bible (3rd ed). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Other lectionary passages: Acts 10:34-43; Psalm 18: 1-2, 14-24; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
April 5: Words for God
One of my early memories of reading the Bible involves confusion at the different words used to describe God. While one can readily make analogies to human relationships in which a variety of words are used to address, describe, or give honor to one person—multiple words for “father” or “mother” come to mind—I remember specifically being confused by the contrast between the terms “God”, the standard New Testament translation, and Yahweh, which appeared in several Hebrew Scripture narratives. Also mysterious was the trend to capitalize all four letters of “LORD” in Hebrew Scripture. As a child I assumed that this was the writer’s way of giving God particular respect.
While a typical first-guess reaction to the term Yahweh is to understand it simply as the Hebrew word for “God”—in the same way that Spanish words sometimes appear untranslated in a Hemingway short story—this is not completely the case. In translations such as the King James, “LORD” is written in caps to indicate that the original Hebrew word is יהוה, or YHWH—the abbreviation referred to in Judaism as the tetragrammaton. In most modern Jewish communities, a prohibition against pronouncing the tetragrammaton is observed; for example, Orthodox Jewish communities use the term Hashem, or “the Name.” Describing the challenge of translating various Hebrew names for the divine, Robert Alter writes,
In the late-biblical period, only the High Priest in the Holy of Holies on the day of Atonement was allowed to utter the ineffable name. When several centuries later the Hebrew text of the Bible was assigned vowel markings, YHWH was vocalized as though it were ’adonai, “Master” or “LORD,” and was pronounced as ’adonai. The King James Version in most instances honors this precedent by translating the name as “the LORD,” using smaller upper-case font for the last three letters to indicate that there was something anomalous about the word (34-35, Introduction).
Other words in the Psalms which describe the divine include ’elohim and ’el, both meaning “God.” The word ’el in particular appears in many names in the Hebrew Scripture, including the name Israel given to Jacob after he wrestles with a mysterious spiritual being: “One who strives with God.” In some Psalms, “God” is also called Yah, which is likely an abbreviation of the tetragrammaton YHWH. This syllable also appears in the word Hallelujah, “Praise God.” (The word God itself, according to Merriam Webster, comes from Middle English, dates from before the 12th century, and is similar to the Old High German ‘Got.’) In the Psalms God is also sometimes called Elyon, or "the Most High."
The tetragrammaton appears in this week’s lectionary psalm for Palm Sunday, 118:
22 The stone the builders rejected
23 the LORD has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes.
24 This is the day the LORD has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.
25 O LORD, save us;
O LORD, grant us success.
26 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD.
From the house of the LORD we bless you.
The image from 22, “The stone the builders rejected,” a metaphor indicating a reversal of expectations, is quoted in Luke 20:17 as Christ’s expression of Messianic hope. Lines 25 and 26, which were sung in Jewish communities to celebrate the Passover festival, are quoted in Mark 11:9-10, as Jesus is riding a colt into Jerusalem. Hosanna, a word often left untranslated, means “Save us”:
1As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, 2saying to them, "Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 3If anyone asks you, 'Why are you doing this?' tell him, 'The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.' "
4They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, 5some people standing there asked, "What are you doing, untying that colt?"
6They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go.
7When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it.
8Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields.
9Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted,
"Hosanna!"
"Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!"
10"Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!"
"Hosanna in the highest!"
11Jesus entered Jerusalem and went to the temple. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.
The iconic image of Palm Sunday, Jesus entering Jerusalem on a colt, would have been understood as a fulfillment of a prophecy of Zechariah, in which a peasant king rides a donkey instead of a war-chariot. The related verse from the book of Zechariah is 9:9-10, translated in NOAB: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” This passage has been described to me as exemplifying difficulties of translating Hebrew into English. In Hebrew poetry, a common technique to add particular emphasis to an image involves duplication, or repeating a term. In this passage, an attempt at literal translation can result in the amusing image of the Messiah entering Jerusalem like a circus performer, with one foot on a donkey and one on a colt.
The Palm Sunday image of Jesus’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem also implies continuity between Jesus and David’s dynasty. 1 Kings 1:38 describes Solomon succeeding David as king of Israel: “So the priest Zadok, the prophet Nathan . . . went down and had Solomon ride on King David’s mule, and led him to Gihon. There the priest Zadok took the horn of oil from the tent and anointed Solomon.” The image of people spreading cloaks in the road before Jesus would also resonate with the audience as related to the spreading of cloaks when Elisha anointed Jehu to lead a rebellion against the Omride regime, described in 2 Kings 9:13: “Then hurriedly they all took their cloaks and spread them for him on the bare steps, and they blew the trumpet, and proclaimed, ‘Jehu is king.’” Finally, the image of palm branches, which we commemorate on Palm Sunday with crosses made of palm, links to an image from 1 Maccabees 13:51, in which the community celebrates Jerusalem’s independence: “. . . the Jews entered it with praise and palm branches, and with harps and cymbals and stringed instruments, and with hymns and songs . . .” The hymn of praise in Mark 11, a citation from Psalm 118, testifies to the enduring role the Psalms played in communal celebrations, in the time of David, the time of Christ, and our time today.
--Elizabeth Fels
Alter, Robert. The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2007.
Coogan, Michael, Ed. The New Oxford Annotated Bible (3rd ed). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Monday, March 23, 2009
March 29: Law in their Minds
This week I will focus on the Hebrew Scripture reading of the lectionary, Jeremiah 31:31-34.
Jeremiah was born in Anathoth, a city just north of Jerusalem, and probably descended from the Shiloh priesthood. His career is dated from approximately 625 to the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. It spanned about forty years between the reigns of Josiah to Zedekiah, the last kings of Judah, who Jeremiah tried to influencing urging appeasement with Babylon rather than rebellion.
The events described in the book of Jeremiah, much of which was dictated to his assistant Baruch, are corroborated by nonbiblical sources. During this time period, the Babylonian Empire was rising in power and threatening Judah. Jeremiah was active during the siege of Jerusalem in 597 BCE. He would have seen refugees from the countryside pouring into Jerusalem as their towns were swallowed up by the Babylonians, and desperate famine from lack of food from the siege. Zedekiah, who has been described as not the strongest of kings, mounted a revolt against Babylon, expecting help from Egypt which never came.
Zedekiah’s revolt led to the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE by Nebuchadnezzar, described in 2 Kings 25. This was one of the most pivotal traumas for the people of Israel and for the Jewish faith. The Babylonians used ramps to scale Jerusalem’s walls, destroyed the First Temple, and captured the royal family. Zedekiah was forced to witness the death of his sons, thus the extinguishing of the Davidic line, then blinded and taken prisoner. According to the book of Kings, a small number of residents were left to be plowmen and work in vineyards, but the majority of citizens were taken to Babylon in captivity. A major reason why the destruction of the Temple represented not just a political but a religious crisis was that so much of religious life revolved around worship at the Temple. An analogy would be if worship in America was centered around a single church building, and that building was destroyed. The Babylonian exile is still commemorated today in songs that take their chorus from Psalm 137, by artists including Sinead O’Connor and Sweet Honey in the Rock. An example can be found on the Web here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGKgCAKnzYo.
"By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down,
yea, we wept when we remembered Zion.
There on the poplars we hung out harps,
for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors asked us for songs of joy;
they said, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’
How can we sing the songs of the LORD
in a foreign land?”
One of my Jewish friends, hearing these lyrics set to a perky, reggae melody, asked me, “How can the song be so upbeat? Don’t they know the song is about something terrible?”
The historical events during Jeremiah’s career are significant for understanding the context in which the lectionary passage was written. Jeremiah understands himself as someone called to articulate God’s messages to Israel. Like Moses, Jeremiah at first hesitates and feels himself inadequate to the task. Yet God will put words in his mouth: “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you.” (1:7) Abraham Heschel identifies two main themes in tension the book of Jeremiah: God’s wrath at human cruelty, and God’s grief that humans must suffer from their own failures.
Unlike the book of Job, where suffering is not caused by human failure but occurs arbitrarily, the book of Jeremiah presents an interpretation of suffering as a consequence of sin. In the earlier chapters, God rails at social injustice committed by the people he has chosen: “They bend their tongues like bows . . . they have taught their tongues to speak lies; they commit iniquity and are too weary to repent. Oppression upon oppression, deceit upon deceit! They refuse to know me, says the LORD.” (9:3-6) Jeremiah describes physical privation as resulting from lack of righteousness: “. . . the cry of Jerusalem goes up. Her nobles send their servants for water, they return with their vessels empty. They are ashamed and dismayed and cover their heads, because the ground is cracked” (14:2-3). God describes the faithlessness of Israel using the metaphor of a broken marriage:
I remember the devotion of your youth,
your love as a bride,
how you followed me in the wilderness,
in a land not sown. . .
What wrong did your ancestors find in me,
that they went far from me,
and went after worthless things,
and became worthless themselves? (2:2-4)
Thus the passage from this week’s lectionary is a pivotal point in the entire book. The passage expresses confidence in a future time of renewal and restoration. In the midst of suffering, God affirms that the relationship with Israel will endure. The broken marriage metaphor from Jeremiah 2 is transformed into assurance of a new marriage covenant. There is a parallel in this passage with the book of the prophet Hosea. Hosea describes his marriage with a prostitute as a metaphor for God’s redeeming love for Israel. Although the prostitute Gomer leaves Hosea, he finds her and takes her back. Similarly, Jeremiah 31 describes God looking ahead toward a future time when the relationship with Israel will be restored. Another metaphor for this time involves God writing the law on the peoples’ hearts. This image is similar to an image from Song of Solomon, 8:6:
“Place me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm;
for love is as strong as death,
passion as fierce as the grave.”
It is not clear from this passage whether Israel’s forgiveness results from people’s repentance, or God’s unearned love:
31 "The time is coming," declares the LORD,
"when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah.
32 It will not be like the covenant
I made with their forefathers
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband to them,"
declares the LORD.
33 "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time," declares the LORD.
"I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
34 No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,'
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,"
declares the LORD.
"For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more."
--Elizabeth Fels
Sources:
Blenkinsopp, Joseph. A History of Prophecy in Israel. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1983.
Coogan, Michael, Ed. The New Oxford Annotated Bible (3rd ed). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Heschel, Abraham. The Prophets. New York: Harper & Row, 1962.
Jeremiah was born in Anathoth, a city just north of Jerusalem, and probably descended from the Shiloh priesthood. His career is dated from approximately 625 to the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. It spanned about forty years between the reigns of Josiah to Zedekiah, the last kings of Judah, who Jeremiah tried to influencing urging appeasement with Babylon rather than rebellion.
The events described in the book of Jeremiah, much of which was dictated to his assistant Baruch, are corroborated by nonbiblical sources. During this time period, the Babylonian Empire was rising in power and threatening Judah. Jeremiah was active during the siege of Jerusalem in 597 BCE. He would have seen refugees from the countryside pouring into Jerusalem as their towns were swallowed up by the Babylonians, and desperate famine from lack of food from the siege. Zedekiah, who has been described as not the strongest of kings, mounted a revolt against Babylon, expecting help from Egypt which never came.
Zedekiah’s revolt led to the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE by Nebuchadnezzar, described in 2 Kings 25. This was one of the most pivotal traumas for the people of Israel and for the Jewish faith. The Babylonians used ramps to scale Jerusalem’s walls, destroyed the First Temple, and captured the royal family. Zedekiah was forced to witness the death of his sons, thus the extinguishing of the Davidic line, then blinded and taken prisoner. According to the book of Kings, a small number of residents were left to be plowmen and work in vineyards, but the majority of citizens were taken to Babylon in captivity. A major reason why the destruction of the Temple represented not just a political but a religious crisis was that so much of religious life revolved around worship at the Temple. An analogy would be if worship in America was centered around a single church building, and that building was destroyed. The Babylonian exile is still commemorated today in songs that take their chorus from Psalm 137, by artists including Sinead O’Connor and Sweet Honey in the Rock. An example can be found on the Web here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGKgCAKnzYo.
"By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down,
yea, we wept when we remembered Zion.
There on the poplars we hung out harps,
for there our captors asked us for songs,
our tormentors asked us for songs of joy;
they said, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’
How can we sing the songs of the LORD
in a foreign land?”
One of my Jewish friends, hearing these lyrics set to a perky, reggae melody, asked me, “How can the song be so upbeat? Don’t they know the song is about something terrible?”
The historical events during Jeremiah’s career are significant for understanding the context in which the lectionary passage was written. Jeremiah understands himself as someone called to articulate God’s messages to Israel. Like Moses, Jeremiah at first hesitates and feels himself inadequate to the task. Yet God will put words in his mouth: “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you.” (1:7) Abraham Heschel identifies two main themes in tension the book of Jeremiah: God’s wrath at human cruelty, and God’s grief that humans must suffer from their own failures.
Unlike the book of Job, where suffering is not caused by human failure but occurs arbitrarily, the book of Jeremiah presents an interpretation of suffering as a consequence of sin. In the earlier chapters, God rails at social injustice committed by the people he has chosen: “They bend their tongues like bows . . . they have taught their tongues to speak lies; they commit iniquity and are too weary to repent. Oppression upon oppression, deceit upon deceit! They refuse to know me, says the LORD.” (9:3-6) Jeremiah describes physical privation as resulting from lack of righteousness: “. . . the cry of Jerusalem goes up. Her nobles send their servants for water, they return with their vessels empty. They are ashamed and dismayed and cover their heads, because the ground is cracked” (14:2-3). God describes the faithlessness of Israel using the metaphor of a broken marriage:
I remember the devotion of your youth,
your love as a bride,
how you followed me in the wilderness,
in a land not sown. . .
What wrong did your ancestors find in me,
that they went far from me,
and went after worthless things,
and became worthless themselves? (2:2-4)
Thus the passage from this week’s lectionary is a pivotal point in the entire book. The passage expresses confidence in a future time of renewal and restoration. In the midst of suffering, God affirms that the relationship with Israel will endure. The broken marriage metaphor from Jeremiah 2 is transformed into assurance of a new marriage covenant. There is a parallel in this passage with the book of the prophet Hosea. Hosea describes his marriage with a prostitute as a metaphor for God’s redeeming love for Israel. Although the prostitute Gomer leaves Hosea, he finds her and takes her back. Similarly, Jeremiah 31 describes God looking ahead toward a future time when the relationship with Israel will be restored. Another metaphor for this time involves God writing the law on the peoples’ hearts. This image is similar to an image from Song of Solomon, 8:6:
“Place me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm;
for love is as strong as death,
passion as fierce as the grave.”
It is not clear from this passage whether Israel’s forgiveness results from people’s repentance, or God’s unearned love:
31 "The time is coming," declares the LORD,
"when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah.
32 It will not be like the covenant
I made with their forefathers
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband to them,"
declares the LORD.
33 "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time," declares the LORD.
"I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
34 No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,'
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,"
declares the LORD.
"For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more."
--Elizabeth Fels
Sources:
Blenkinsopp, Joseph. A History of Prophecy in Israel. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1983.
Coogan, Michael, Ed. The New Oxford Annotated Bible (3rd ed). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Heschel, Abraham. The Prophets. New York: Harper & Row, 1962.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
March 22: The Paradox of Grace
Grace is one of the most difficult theological terms for me to explain in everyday conversation. As opposed to, say, “soteriology,” “grace” is ubiquitous in popular culture—yet how many of us at the drop of a hat can define what it means? Coming from the Greek word Χάρις, or “charis,” it is the theme of the song “Amazing Grace,” and, on the opposite end of the pop culture spectrum, the TV crime-fighting show “Saving Grace.” It’s a popular name for girls, and part of the name of the hospital Seattle Grace where “Grey’s Anatomy” is set. In the lectionary reading Ephesians 2:1-10, “grace” is nothing less than the mechanism of salvation: “For by grace you have been saved.” In this week’s entry I will explore the concept of grace in this passage.
Ephesians 2:1-10
1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,
2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.
3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them (New American Standard Bible).
The city of Ephesus is located on the Aegean coast of Asia minor. It is one of the Pauline letters which some scholars doubt was actually written by Paul. Reasons for this doubt include theological concepts developed here but not elsewhere in the letters, such as salvation experienced during life on earth (2:4-10), and terms that are significant in Ephesians both not in other letters, like “heavenly places,” “dividing wall,” and “fellow citizen.” In addition, the rhetorical style in which the letters to the Ephesians are written features long, complex sentences, which the editors of the New Oxford Annotated Bible note are divided in the NRSV translation. However, there are several similarities in language between Ephesians and Colossians. If Ephesians was written by Paul, a probable date for them would be the late 50s. If it was written by a follower of Paul, it would have come after the 50s and likely modeled on Colossians.
A major theme of the letters, which is reflected in this passage, is the vision of a universal church. The language of Ephesians can also be traced to Jewish scripture, such as the so-called “Third Isaiah” in which the God of Israel is depicted as the God of all humanity. Regardless of who the author is, the book of Ephesians is part of the biblical canon and has played a major role in shaping Christian thought. We see the concept of a diverse church reflected in this particular passage: 2:1, “You who were dead in your trespasses and sins,” is addressed to Gentiles, while Jewish Christians are meant by the phrase “we too” (or “all of us”) in 2:3. The term grace then enters as the means by which the Christian community opens outward: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast” (2:8-9). This line is similar to Romans 3:22-24: “For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by grace as a gift . . .”
Not long ago I had to respond to the question, “Isn’t all you have to do to get saved is believe in Jesus, regardless of how nice, or how much of a jerk, you are in your life? If this is true, how is it meaningful for a Christian to take a stand on social ethics?” I can imagine the asker of the question might have attended a church service like one I visited recently in which the preacher congratulated the congregation on “being saved.” Reading lines like Ephesians 2:8 out of context, it is not hard to see how one might get the impression that converting to Christianity takes away the gravity of moral decisions. According to the stereotype, a person can do harm all week, go to confession on Sunday, start with a clean slate, and repeat the cycle.
However, grace in this passage is not a license to do whatever we want, whenever we want. Rather it concerns our motivation for doing good, and the circumstances that make doing good possible at all. In Judaism and Christianity: Perspectives and Traditions, the authors Luther Harshbarger and John Mourant write,
Grace is probably the most crucial concept in western religious thought because it refers to the free and unmerited act by and through which God restores man. In essence grace is a paradox which affirms that every good in man and every good act is somehow from God rather than from the self (314).
Thus, when the author of Ephesians writes, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast” (2:8-9), the point is not to denigrate the importance of serving others—it’s to give credit for being able to serve at all to God. Human access to divine mercy is not a reward for hitting a certain mark on a scale of good works—rather, we are inspired to do good works in joyful response to God’s love and mercy, embodied in the incarnation.
In Judaism and Christianity: Perspectives and Traditions, the authors argue that the stereotypical division of Judaism as a “religion of law” and Christianity as a “religious of grace” is quite false. For example, a fundamental characteristic of grace as described in this Ephesians passage is that it’s not something earned, but a free gift that God offers: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive . . .” (4-5). The language used to describe God directly recalls the Hebrew word hesed, or steadfast loving kindness. Hesed is used to describe God throughout the Hebrew Scripture, for example when God saves Jonah from the fish, despite Jonah’s refusal to preach to Nineveh. Harshbarger and Mourant highlight the parallel between the Christian concept of grace and the Jewish concept of being chosen: both versions are the result of God’s abundant love and mercy, not from any special virtue on the part of the people that, so to speak, forces God’s hand:
The election of Israel is a constant theme in the Tanakh and rabbinic literature. There is, however, never a suggestion that the election came through any merit of Israel. . . Grace, then, is closely associated with the Covenant and finds its expression in the Law. To be a Jew means to stand in Abraham’s place and at the foot of Sinai receive the Torah . . . Through the Law man enters a partnership with God as a man under commandment, yet free. Grace as it is manifested in and through the commandment does not diminish man’s freedom” (315).
For Christians, the authors differentiate between Catholic and Protestants conceptions of grace. The primary difference between Catholic and Protestant conception of grace concerns the role of the sacraments: “For the Roman Catholic, grace as a gift of God is an energy-giving virtue which is infused into the soul sacramentally. The sacraments are the effective signs of grace—grace made visible” (316). On the other hand, Luther claims that man is justified by grace through faith alone:
In grace God in His deepest being is performing a completely gratuitous act. There are no degrees of grace; either one is forgiven or one is not. . . The sacraments rightly administered and rightly received do embody the promises of God, but grace is not thereby restricted” (317).
Both strands of Christian theology hold that grace is that which makes it possible for humans to achieve anything. According to Ephesians 2:10 we are “created in Christ Jesus for good works,” yet God is the catalyst awakening us to this potential. God does not only demand goodness, but supplies us with the power to do good.
I would like to close by linking to two youtube versions of “Amazing Grace”, by the
country singer Leann Rimes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT88jBAoVIM&feature=related
and for bagpipe fans, the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkLXOWimMY8&feature=related
--Elizabeth Fels
Source for background on Ephesians:
Coogan, Michael, Ed. The New Oxford Annotated Bible (3rd ed). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Harshbarger, Luther H. and Mourant, John A. Judaism and Christianity: Perspectives and Traditions. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc. 1968.
Ephesians 2:1-10
1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,
2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.
3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them (New American Standard Bible).
The city of Ephesus is located on the Aegean coast of Asia minor. It is one of the Pauline letters which some scholars doubt was actually written by Paul. Reasons for this doubt include theological concepts developed here but not elsewhere in the letters, such as salvation experienced during life on earth (2:4-10), and terms that are significant in Ephesians both not in other letters, like “heavenly places,” “dividing wall,” and “fellow citizen.” In addition, the rhetorical style in which the letters to the Ephesians are written features long, complex sentences, which the editors of the New Oxford Annotated Bible note are divided in the NRSV translation. However, there are several similarities in language between Ephesians and Colossians. If Ephesians was written by Paul, a probable date for them would be the late 50s. If it was written by a follower of Paul, it would have come after the 50s and likely modeled on Colossians.
A major theme of the letters, which is reflected in this passage, is the vision of a universal church. The language of Ephesians can also be traced to Jewish scripture, such as the so-called “Third Isaiah” in which the God of Israel is depicted as the God of all humanity. Regardless of who the author is, the book of Ephesians is part of the biblical canon and has played a major role in shaping Christian thought. We see the concept of a diverse church reflected in this particular passage: 2:1, “You who were dead in your trespasses and sins,” is addressed to Gentiles, while Jewish Christians are meant by the phrase “we too” (or “all of us”) in 2:3. The term grace then enters as the means by which the Christian community opens outward: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast” (2:8-9). This line is similar to Romans 3:22-24: “For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by grace as a gift . . .”
Not long ago I had to respond to the question, “Isn’t all you have to do to get saved is believe in Jesus, regardless of how nice, or how much of a jerk, you are in your life? If this is true, how is it meaningful for a Christian to take a stand on social ethics?” I can imagine the asker of the question might have attended a church service like one I visited recently in which the preacher congratulated the congregation on “being saved.” Reading lines like Ephesians 2:8 out of context, it is not hard to see how one might get the impression that converting to Christianity takes away the gravity of moral decisions. According to the stereotype, a person can do harm all week, go to confession on Sunday, start with a clean slate, and repeat the cycle.
However, grace in this passage is not a license to do whatever we want, whenever we want. Rather it concerns our motivation for doing good, and the circumstances that make doing good possible at all. In Judaism and Christianity: Perspectives and Traditions, the authors Luther Harshbarger and John Mourant write,
Grace is probably the most crucial concept in western religious thought because it refers to the free and unmerited act by and through which God restores man. In essence grace is a paradox which affirms that every good in man and every good act is somehow from God rather than from the self (314).
Thus, when the author of Ephesians writes, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast” (2:8-9), the point is not to denigrate the importance of serving others—it’s to give credit for being able to serve at all to God. Human access to divine mercy is not a reward for hitting a certain mark on a scale of good works—rather, we are inspired to do good works in joyful response to God’s love and mercy, embodied in the incarnation.
In Judaism and Christianity: Perspectives and Traditions, the authors argue that the stereotypical division of Judaism as a “religion of law” and Christianity as a “religious of grace” is quite false. For example, a fundamental characteristic of grace as described in this Ephesians passage is that it’s not something earned, but a free gift that God offers: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive . . .” (4-5). The language used to describe God directly recalls the Hebrew word hesed, or steadfast loving kindness. Hesed is used to describe God throughout the Hebrew Scripture, for example when God saves Jonah from the fish, despite Jonah’s refusal to preach to Nineveh. Harshbarger and Mourant highlight the parallel between the Christian concept of grace and the Jewish concept of being chosen: both versions are the result of God’s abundant love and mercy, not from any special virtue on the part of the people that, so to speak, forces God’s hand:
The election of Israel is a constant theme in the Tanakh and rabbinic literature. There is, however, never a suggestion that the election came through any merit of Israel. . . Grace, then, is closely associated with the Covenant and finds its expression in the Law. To be a Jew means to stand in Abraham’s place and at the foot of Sinai receive the Torah . . . Through the Law man enters a partnership with God as a man under commandment, yet free. Grace as it is manifested in and through the commandment does not diminish man’s freedom” (315).
For Christians, the authors differentiate between Catholic and Protestants conceptions of grace. The primary difference between Catholic and Protestant conception of grace concerns the role of the sacraments: “For the Roman Catholic, grace as a gift of God is an energy-giving virtue which is infused into the soul sacramentally. The sacraments are the effective signs of grace—grace made visible” (316). On the other hand, Luther claims that man is justified by grace through faith alone:
In grace God in His deepest being is performing a completely gratuitous act. There are no degrees of grace; either one is forgiven or one is not. . . The sacraments rightly administered and rightly received do embody the promises of God, but grace is not thereby restricted” (317).
Both strands of Christian theology hold that grace is that which makes it possible for humans to achieve anything. According to Ephesians 2:10 we are “created in Christ Jesus for good works,” yet God is the catalyst awakening us to this potential. God does not only demand goodness, but supplies us with the power to do good.
I would like to close by linking to two youtube versions of “Amazing Grace”, by the
country singer Leann Rimes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT88jBAoVIM&feature=related
and for bagpipe fans, the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkLXOWimMY8&feature=related
--Elizabeth Fels
Source for background on Ephesians:
Coogan, Michael, Ed. The New Oxford Annotated Bible (3rd ed). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Harshbarger, Luther H. and Mourant, John A. Judaism and Christianity: Perspectives and Traditions. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc. 1968.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
March 15: Ten Words
The Hebrew Scripture reading from the lectionary today has had recent appearances on late-night comedy shows. Representative Lynn Westmoreland from Georgia’s Third District appeared on the Colbert Report “Better Know a District” segment after co-sponsoring a bill that would require the display of the Ten Commandments in the House of Representatives and Senate. “I think if we were totally without them, we may lose our sense of direction,” Westmoreland said. When Colbert asked him to name the commandments, Westmoreland could only name three: “Don’t murder, don’t lie, don’t steal.”:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/70730/june-14-2006/better-know-a-district---georgia-s-8th---lynn-westmoreland
If he did not know the answer, like Sir Lancelot in Monty Python in the Holy Grail asking whether the old man guarding the bridge meant an African or a European swallow, Westmoreland could have asked Colbert whether he meant the Jewish, Eastern Orthodox, or Catholic version: these three religious communities have different versions of the ten commandments, or as they are literally called in biblical Hebrew, “the ten words.” In the Jewish tradition, Exodus 20.2 is considered the first of the ten words: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” In the Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran traditions, the commandments begin with Exodus 20:3-5, with the last two commandments concerning coveting a neighbor’s wife and his property separated. In the Eastern Orthodox and other Protestant traditions, the first commandment is 20.3, the second is 20.4-6, and coveting a neighbor’s wife and property are considered a single commandment.
Since I am focusing on Exodus 20:1-17 in this entry, for ease of reference I will post the reading into the text, from the New International Version:
And God spoke all these words:
2 "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
3 "You shall have no other gods before [a] me.
4 "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand {generations} of those who love me and keep my commandments.
7 "You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
8 "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
12 "Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.
13 "You shall not murder.
14 "You shall not commit adultery.
15 "You shall not steal.
16 "You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
17 "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to neighbor."
While not everyone might be able to list off the ten commandments at the drop of a hat, they play a controversial role in modern culture: several court cases recently have addressed whether they can be displayed in public buildings. In 2005, the Supreme Court issued two 5-4 decisions on this topic, ruling that the Ten Commandments could be displayed outside the Texas Capital but not inside Kentucky court houses—or, as Jon Stewart put it, “Outside a building, okay, inside a building, not so much.”
An Alabama Supreme Court chief justice was fired recently for refusing to remove a two-ton display of the Ten Commandments from the lobby of the court house. “Three times I was asked by a prosecutor of this state, an attorney general, if I would deny God. Three times I said I would not,” he said at a press conference. Defenders of the right to display the Ten Commandments argue that they reflect the role religion has played in the development of the US. The opposing argument is that such displays are tantamount to an official endorsement of religion, violate the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment, and, in court houses in particular, imply that cases are judged according to religious laws.
In this entry, I would like to examine what can be inferred about the social setting of the people who received Exodus 20:1-17, using The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction and The New Oxford Annotated Bible as resources. Although the text describes God as giving Moses the Ten Commandments shortly after the Israelites' escape from slavery, “On the third new moon after the Israelites had gone out of the land of Egypt” (Ex.19:1), they are addressed to an agrarian community, where there are houses, oxen, donkeys, and slaves, or, as many translations tend to call them, “servants.” However, unlike in the Deuteronomic Code, there is no mention of a monarch, and the text is dated to the late second millennium BCE.
Interestingly, the text does not express a vision of what we would call today monotheism. The language of the passage, “you shall have no other gods before me” does not imply that there is only one God, but presumes the existence of other gods who are not to be ranked with Yahweh. This “messy monotheism,” as Paula Fredriksen calls it, is consistent with the presumed reference to the Ten Commandments in the book of Jeremiah, from the late seventh century BCE: “You steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known” (Jer. 7:9). Often in the prophet writings, language of marital fidelity is used to describe the people’s commitment to God, or lack thereof.
Like the Noaheide laws, in the Hebrew Scripture reading from the first week of Lent, the Ten Commandments are written in language that implies a treaty structure. The passage begins with God, the stronger power, describing what He has done for Israel, and then describing how He should be honored. The first four commandments concern the people’s relationship to the divine: the second commandment prohibits the making of “idols,” which can be understood as images of God. The prohibition against making idols would have differentiated the Israelites from neighboring groups, who made animal and human images to depict deities. I remember my Hebrew Scripture professor talking about traditions in the Jewish and Muslim faiths of not visually portraying the divine, describing the complex, intensely colorful flowers that characterize Islamic art. He remarked dryly, “Christianity is a stunning exception.” From Michelangelo to South Park, prohibitions against rendering the divine in a visual image have apparently not been enforced for some time in Christian communities. The prohibition against “making wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God” may have implied invoking the name of God in an efforts to use magic or sorcery, attempts to gain control over the divine.
The other six commandments involve human relations with each other. Michael Coogan writes, “A man’s life, his marriage, his person . . . his reputation, and his property were to be inviolable by another Israelite (his “neighbor.”) Two other major areas in which the culture of contemporary religious communities do not reflect the moral norms expressed in the Ten Commandments concern the status of women and slaves. Exodus 20.17 often gets translated with the word “servants,” as in, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or manservant or maidservant, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” I once heard a sermon in which the pastor said, “they were more like modern-day employees.” However as seen in the next chapter of Exodus, the laws governing this relationship bear closer relation to what we would call slavery than, say, a Jane Austen-era cordial servant-employer relationship. Exodus 21:7 reads, “When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. In Exodus 21 we read,
When you buy a male Hebrew slave” (note the adjective “male”), he shall serve six years, but in the seventh he shall go out a free person . . . If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s and he shall go out alone.
The much-quoted line “you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife” falls before the prohibition of coveting donkeys or oxen, but after that of coveting a neighbor’s house. No mention is made of a neighbor’s husband, because the language of the Ten Commandments in Hebrew uses the second person masculine singular. Like other groups from this time period, the Israelite society structure was patriarchal, and the commandments are specifically addressed to men.
Fun Fact: in Exodus 34, after the golden calf debacle, Moses breaks the tablets containing the text of the commandments, and God tells him to go back to Mount Sinai for another copy. But the text in Exodus 34 is slightly different from Exodus 20—the new commandments focus less on human treatment of each other and more on worship, and for that reason are called the “Ritual Decalogue.” It can be inferred from the presence of differences in the texts that there was more than one tradition of the Ten Words, and that the writer(s) of Exodus placed more weight on including them than in making them match.
One last observation on this week’s lectionary reading: the last verse of Psalm 19 is incorporated into Sweet Honey in the Rock’s hauntingly beautiful a capella version of “By the Waters of Babylon”: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable unto you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.”
--Elizabeth Fels
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/70730/june-14-2006/better-know-a-district---georgia-s-8th---lynn-westmoreland
If he did not know the answer, like Sir Lancelot in Monty Python in the Holy Grail asking whether the old man guarding the bridge meant an African or a European swallow, Westmoreland could have asked Colbert whether he meant the Jewish, Eastern Orthodox, or Catholic version: these three religious communities have different versions of the ten commandments, or as they are literally called in biblical Hebrew, “the ten words.” In the Jewish tradition, Exodus 20.2 is considered the first of the ten words: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” In the Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Lutheran traditions, the commandments begin with Exodus 20:3-5, with the last two commandments concerning coveting a neighbor’s wife and his property separated. In the Eastern Orthodox and other Protestant traditions, the first commandment is 20.3, the second is 20.4-6, and coveting a neighbor’s wife and property are considered a single commandment.
Since I am focusing on Exodus 20:1-17 in this entry, for ease of reference I will post the reading into the text, from the New International Version:
And God spoke all these words:
2 "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
3 "You shall have no other gods before [a] me.
4 "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand {generations} of those who love me and keep my commandments.
7 "You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
8 "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
12 "Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.
13 "You shall not murder.
14 "You shall not commit adultery.
15 "You shall not steal.
16 "You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
17 "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to neighbor."
While not everyone might be able to list off the ten commandments at the drop of a hat, they play a controversial role in modern culture: several court cases recently have addressed whether they can be displayed in public buildings. In 2005, the Supreme Court issued two 5-4 decisions on this topic, ruling that the Ten Commandments could be displayed outside the Texas Capital but not inside Kentucky court houses—or, as Jon Stewart put it, “Outside a building, okay, inside a building, not so much.”
An Alabama Supreme Court chief justice was fired recently for refusing to remove a two-ton display of the Ten Commandments from the lobby of the court house. “Three times I was asked by a prosecutor of this state, an attorney general, if I would deny God. Three times I said I would not,” he said at a press conference. Defenders of the right to display the Ten Commandments argue that they reflect the role religion has played in the development of the US. The opposing argument is that such displays are tantamount to an official endorsement of religion, violate the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment, and, in court houses in particular, imply that cases are judged according to religious laws.
In this entry, I would like to examine what can be inferred about the social setting of the people who received Exodus 20:1-17, using The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction and The New Oxford Annotated Bible as resources. Although the text describes God as giving Moses the Ten Commandments shortly after the Israelites' escape from slavery, “On the third new moon after the Israelites had gone out of the land of Egypt” (Ex.19:1), they are addressed to an agrarian community, where there are houses, oxen, donkeys, and slaves, or, as many translations tend to call them, “servants.” However, unlike in the Deuteronomic Code, there is no mention of a monarch, and the text is dated to the late second millennium BCE.
Interestingly, the text does not express a vision of what we would call today monotheism. The language of the passage, “you shall have no other gods before me” does not imply that there is only one God, but presumes the existence of other gods who are not to be ranked with Yahweh. This “messy monotheism,” as Paula Fredriksen calls it, is consistent with the presumed reference to the Ten Commandments in the book of Jeremiah, from the late seventh century BCE: “You steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known” (Jer. 7:9). Often in the prophet writings, language of marital fidelity is used to describe the people’s commitment to God, or lack thereof.
Like the Noaheide laws, in the Hebrew Scripture reading from the first week of Lent, the Ten Commandments are written in language that implies a treaty structure. The passage begins with God, the stronger power, describing what He has done for Israel, and then describing how He should be honored. The first four commandments concern the people’s relationship to the divine: the second commandment prohibits the making of “idols,” which can be understood as images of God. The prohibition against making idols would have differentiated the Israelites from neighboring groups, who made animal and human images to depict deities. I remember my Hebrew Scripture professor talking about traditions in the Jewish and Muslim faiths of not visually portraying the divine, describing the complex, intensely colorful flowers that characterize Islamic art. He remarked dryly, “Christianity is a stunning exception.” From Michelangelo to South Park, prohibitions against rendering the divine in a visual image have apparently not been enforced for some time in Christian communities. The prohibition against “making wrongful use of the name of the LORD your God” may have implied invoking the name of God in an efforts to use magic or sorcery, attempts to gain control over the divine.
The other six commandments involve human relations with each other. Michael Coogan writes, “A man’s life, his marriage, his person . . . his reputation, and his property were to be inviolable by another Israelite (his “neighbor.”) Two other major areas in which the culture of contemporary religious communities do not reflect the moral norms expressed in the Ten Commandments concern the status of women and slaves. Exodus 20.17 often gets translated with the word “servants,” as in, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or manservant or maidservant, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” I once heard a sermon in which the pastor said, “they were more like modern-day employees.” However as seen in the next chapter of Exodus, the laws governing this relationship bear closer relation to what we would call slavery than, say, a Jane Austen-era cordial servant-employer relationship. Exodus 21:7 reads, “When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. In Exodus 21 we read,
When you buy a male Hebrew slave” (note the adjective “male”), he shall serve six years, but in the seventh he shall go out a free person . . . If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s and he shall go out alone.
The much-quoted line “you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife” falls before the prohibition of coveting donkeys or oxen, but after that of coveting a neighbor’s house. No mention is made of a neighbor’s husband, because the language of the Ten Commandments in Hebrew uses the second person masculine singular. Like other groups from this time period, the Israelite society structure was patriarchal, and the commandments are specifically addressed to men.
Fun Fact: in Exodus 34, after the golden calf debacle, Moses breaks the tablets containing the text of the commandments, and God tells him to go back to Mount Sinai for another copy. But the text in Exodus 34 is slightly different from Exodus 20—the new commandments focus less on human treatment of each other and more on worship, and for that reason are called the “Ritual Decalogue.” It can be inferred from the presence of differences in the texts that there was more than one tradition of the Ten Words, and that the writer(s) of Exodus placed more weight on including them than in making them match.
One last observation on this week’s lectionary reading: the last verse of Psalm 19 is incorporated into Sweet Honey in the Rock’s hauntingly beautiful a capella version of “By the Waters of Babylon”: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable unto you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.”
--Elizabeth Fels
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
March 8: Jesus's Jewish Context
This week I will focus on the Gospel reading of the lectionary, Mark 8: 31-38. While in the last reading, we saw the Gospel open with Jesus’ baptism and the beginning of his mission, the passage this week portrays Jesus’ role as a suffering servant, his death, and resurrection. Jesus uses the phrase “Son of Man” to describe himself: “Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering . . . and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside to rebuke him (31-32). The phrase “Son of Man,” or literally “human being,” has been called a reference to the angelic figure who appears in Daniel 7:13-14, representing the renewal of Israel:
I saw one like a human being
Coming with the clouds of heaven.
And he came to the Ancient One
And was presented before him.
To him was given dominion
And glory and kingship,
That all people, nations, and languages
Should serve him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion
That shall not pass away,
And his kingship is one
That shall never be destroyed.
In Mark’s passage, Jesus goes on to say, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” This would have been an extremely graphic metaphor to Jesus’ audience of Jews living in Roman-occupied Caesarea Philippi. As demonstrated by the Passion story, but supported by historical evidence apart from the Bible, agitators in the Roman Empire who state officials deemed threatening were forced to carry the crossbeams on which they would then be hung for several days until suffocating to death.
One aspect of this Gospel reading that stands out is the way that the Jewish religious elite are portrayed. At this juncture of the scene, Jesus has just told the disciples that he is the Messiah (“anointed one”), the figure bringing about Israel’s renewal. Yet he will be a martyr-Messiah: not a ruler wielding political power, freeing Israel from Rome, and reinstating the Davidic line of kings. In addition he will not be recognized as the Messiah by the religious elite of his time: “rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed . . .” (31).
While preparing for this blog, I came across an editorial in Monday’s Boston Globe edition on the Vatican rejecting the “apology” from Richard Williamson. As the international press has widely reported, Williamson is a bishop of the breakaway Society of Pope Pius X whose excommunication was recently lifted by the Pope Benedict: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2009/03/02/a_bishops_bad_faith_apology/. Interviewed on Swedish television earlier this year, Williamson stated that “not one Jew was killed by gas chambers, it was all lies, lies, lies.” Although at the prompting of the Vatican, Williamson regretted causing harm, he did not go so far as to recant his denial of the Holocaust.
While this is an extreme example of a self-identified Christian leader making anti-Semitic statements, this narrative calls to mind the conflictual history between Judaism and Christianity. On one hand, parishes across the US have robust interfaith dialogue programs promoting mutual understanding. Paula Fredriksen, Professor of Ancient Christian at Boston University, writes of efforts of Catholic leaders to combat anti-Semitism: “. . . popes and bishops, in plenum councils, have issued official (‘magisterial’) teachings against it. Anti-Semitism violates magisterial instruction touching on biblical interpretation, on the theological significance of Christ’s sacrifice, and on Catholic-Jewish relations.” (1)
Yet as the Williamson story reminds us, tension between Jewish and Christian communities has not disappeared. Another national news story that recently thematized it involved the portrayal of Jewish people in Mel Gibson’s film The Passion. Amy-Jill Levine, professor at Vanderbilt Divinity School and author of prize-winning studies on Christian origins and the Gospel of Matthew, has described, for example, the unbiblical scene where construction of the cross on which Jesus died occurs in the Jewish Temple.
This brings us back to today’s reading. There is arguably not a passage in Mark suggesting that Jewish people as a whole bear responsibility for Jesus’ death. However, the syntax of this line does not imply that Jesus will be crucified for sedition in imperial Rome, but in connection with his rejection by Jewish leaders. His rejection and death are juxtaposed consequently in this sentence: “Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again” (31). Parishioners invested in promoting Jewish-Christian dialogue may likely wonder how this passage would sound to Jewish friends and colleagues.
In his book The Origins of Anti-Semitism, John Gager, Professor of Religion at Princeton University, describes a method of reading this passage not necessarily as a polemic against Jewish people, but as one scene among many in which all of Jesus’ contemporaries including his closest disciples fail to grasp his message. Describing the context of this passage, Gager writes how in Chapter 5, opposition to Jesus did not come from Jewish people but from an unclean demon; next Jesus grants the request of Jairus, “one of the rulers in the synagogue,” to heal his daughter (5:21-24, 35-43). Placing this passage in the context of Mark’s overall narrative structure, Gager writes,
. . . the theme of incomprehension is a leitmotif throughout Mark.
The most uncomprehending figures in the Gospel, and thus the
targets of Jesus’ most severe rebukes, are not outsiders at all but
rather the disciples themselves (Gager, 145).
8:33 supports this reading. In the kind of extreme rhetorical gesture we see Jesus often make in the Gospels, here Jesus is calling Peter, the eventual rock of the church, “Satan,” presumably when Peter does not accept that Jesus’ kingship is not of this world: “‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” Those who know the final outcome from the beginning are Christian readers of Mark’s Gospel, not the disciples in the Gospel itself. However Gager also directly admits that there are passages in the Gospels that portray Judaism negatively and have historically been interpreted to justify discrimination or worse, like Matthew 27:25. He explores how Gospel writers were likely motivated to define the early Christian movement as connected to and yet different from the vibrant and attractive Jewish community, and how this might have been a motivation for anti-Judaism polemic in the Gospels.
For readers interested in this topic I strongly recommend Amy-Jill Levine’s book The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus. A proponent of what Krister Stendhal calls “Holy Envy,” or appreciation of the beliefs and practices of another, Levine calls for in-depth examination of Jesus’s cultural context on the part of ministers and church leaders: as a Jew, speaking to Jews. The following quote encapsulates Levine’s project:
By seeing Jesus as a Jew with regard to both belief and practice,
Christians can develop a deeper appreciation for the teachings of
the church. . . / . . Today Jesus’ words are too familiar, too domesticated,
too stripped of their initial edginess and urgency. Only when heard
through first-century Jewish ears can their original edginess and urgency
be recovered. Consequently, to understand the man from Nazareth,
it is necessary to understand Judaism. . . . if we get Judaism wrong,
we’ll wind up perpetuating anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic teachings,
and thus the mission of the church—to spread a gospel of love rather
than a gospel of hate—will be undermined. For Christians, this concern
for historical setting should have theological import as well. If one
takes the incarnation—that is, the claim that the “Word became flesh
and lived among us” (John 1:14)—seriously, then one should take
seriously the time when, place where, and people among whom
this event occurred (Levine, 6-7).
Levine goes on to describe Jewish life in Jesus’s historical setting, including the roles of women, perceptions of the messiah, and diversity of practices and beliefs, with particular focus on the narratives of the Good Samaritan and the Samaritan Woman.
In the book of Romans, the apostle Paul presents a complex and at times contradictory picture of Jewish-Christian relations. Yet Romans 3, the chapter before this week’s lectionary reading passage, contains a vision of God extending salvation to Jewish people and Gentiles both: “. . . He will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law” (Romans 3:30-31.)
--Elizabeth Fels
(1) See http://jeffweintraub.blogspot.com/2003/07/gospel-according-to-mel-gibson-paula.html
Other works cited:
John G. Gager, The Origins of Anti-Semitism
Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus
Bible quotes taken from The New Oxford Annotated Bible, third edition.
I saw one like a human being
Coming with the clouds of heaven.
And he came to the Ancient One
And was presented before him.
To him was given dominion
And glory and kingship,
That all people, nations, and languages
Should serve him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion
That shall not pass away,
And his kingship is one
That shall never be destroyed.
In Mark’s passage, Jesus goes on to say, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” This would have been an extremely graphic metaphor to Jesus’ audience of Jews living in Roman-occupied Caesarea Philippi. As demonstrated by the Passion story, but supported by historical evidence apart from the Bible, agitators in the Roman Empire who state officials deemed threatening were forced to carry the crossbeams on which they would then be hung for several days until suffocating to death.
One aspect of this Gospel reading that stands out is the way that the Jewish religious elite are portrayed. At this juncture of the scene, Jesus has just told the disciples that he is the Messiah (“anointed one”), the figure bringing about Israel’s renewal. Yet he will be a martyr-Messiah: not a ruler wielding political power, freeing Israel from Rome, and reinstating the Davidic line of kings. In addition he will not be recognized as the Messiah by the religious elite of his time: “rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed . . .” (31).
While preparing for this blog, I came across an editorial in Monday’s Boston Globe edition on the Vatican rejecting the “apology” from Richard Williamson. As the international press has widely reported, Williamson is a bishop of the breakaway Society of Pope Pius X whose excommunication was recently lifted by the Pope Benedict: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2009/03/02/a_bishops_bad_faith_apology/. Interviewed on Swedish television earlier this year, Williamson stated that “not one Jew was killed by gas chambers, it was all lies, lies, lies.” Although at the prompting of the Vatican, Williamson regretted causing harm, he did not go so far as to recant his denial of the Holocaust.
While this is an extreme example of a self-identified Christian leader making anti-Semitic statements, this narrative calls to mind the conflictual history between Judaism and Christianity. On one hand, parishes across the US have robust interfaith dialogue programs promoting mutual understanding. Paula Fredriksen, Professor of Ancient Christian at Boston University, writes of efforts of Catholic leaders to combat anti-Semitism: “. . . popes and bishops, in plenum councils, have issued official (‘magisterial’) teachings against it. Anti-Semitism violates magisterial instruction touching on biblical interpretation, on the theological significance of Christ’s sacrifice, and on Catholic-Jewish relations.” (1)
Yet as the Williamson story reminds us, tension between Jewish and Christian communities has not disappeared. Another national news story that recently thematized it involved the portrayal of Jewish people in Mel Gibson’s film The Passion. Amy-Jill Levine, professor at Vanderbilt Divinity School and author of prize-winning studies on Christian origins and the Gospel of Matthew, has described, for example, the unbiblical scene where construction of the cross on which Jesus died occurs in the Jewish Temple.
This brings us back to today’s reading. There is arguably not a passage in Mark suggesting that Jewish people as a whole bear responsibility for Jesus’ death. However, the syntax of this line does not imply that Jesus will be crucified for sedition in imperial Rome, but in connection with his rejection by Jewish leaders. His rejection and death are juxtaposed consequently in this sentence: “Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again” (31). Parishioners invested in promoting Jewish-Christian dialogue may likely wonder how this passage would sound to Jewish friends and colleagues.
In his book The Origins of Anti-Semitism, John Gager, Professor of Religion at Princeton University, describes a method of reading this passage not necessarily as a polemic against Jewish people, but as one scene among many in which all of Jesus’ contemporaries including his closest disciples fail to grasp his message. Describing the context of this passage, Gager writes how in Chapter 5, opposition to Jesus did not come from Jewish people but from an unclean demon; next Jesus grants the request of Jairus, “one of the rulers in the synagogue,” to heal his daughter (5:21-24, 35-43). Placing this passage in the context of Mark’s overall narrative structure, Gager writes,
. . . the theme of incomprehension is a leitmotif throughout Mark.
The most uncomprehending figures in the Gospel, and thus the
targets of Jesus’ most severe rebukes, are not outsiders at all but
rather the disciples themselves (Gager, 145).
8:33 supports this reading. In the kind of extreme rhetorical gesture we see Jesus often make in the Gospels, here Jesus is calling Peter, the eventual rock of the church, “Satan,” presumably when Peter does not accept that Jesus’ kingship is not of this world: “‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” Those who know the final outcome from the beginning are Christian readers of Mark’s Gospel, not the disciples in the Gospel itself. However Gager also directly admits that there are passages in the Gospels that portray Judaism negatively and have historically been interpreted to justify discrimination or worse, like Matthew 27:25. He explores how Gospel writers were likely motivated to define the early Christian movement as connected to and yet different from the vibrant and attractive Jewish community, and how this might have been a motivation for anti-Judaism polemic in the Gospels.
For readers interested in this topic I strongly recommend Amy-Jill Levine’s book The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus. A proponent of what Krister Stendhal calls “Holy Envy,” or appreciation of the beliefs and practices of another, Levine calls for in-depth examination of Jesus’s cultural context on the part of ministers and church leaders: as a Jew, speaking to Jews. The following quote encapsulates Levine’s project:
By seeing Jesus as a Jew with regard to both belief and practice,
Christians can develop a deeper appreciation for the teachings of
the church. . . / . . Today Jesus’ words are too familiar, too domesticated,
too stripped of their initial edginess and urgency. Only when heard
through first-century Jewish ears can their original edginess and urgency
be recovered. Consequently, to understand the man from Nazareth,
it is necessary to understand Judaism. . . . if we get Judaism wrong,
we’ll wind up perpetuating anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic teachings,
and thus the mission of the church—to spread a gospel of love rather
than a gospel of hate—will be undermined. For Christians, this concern
for historical setting should have theological import as well. If one
takes the incarnation—that is, the claim that the “Word became flesh
and lived among us” (John 1:14)—seriously, then one should take
seriously the time when, place where, and people among whom
this event occurred (Levine, 6-7).
Levine goes on to describe Jewish life in Jesus’s historical setting, including the roles of women, perceptions of the messiah, and diversity of practices and beliefs, with particular focus on the narratives of the Good Samaritan and the Samaritan Woman.
In the book of Romans, the apostle Paul presents a complex and at times contradictory picture of Jewish-Christian relations. Yet Romans 3, the chapter before this week’s lectionary reading passage, contains a vision of God extending salvation to Jewish people and Gentiles both: “. . . He will justify the circumcised on the ground of faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law” (Romans 3:30-31.)
--Elizabeth Fels
(1) See http://jeffweintraub.blogspot.com/2003/07/gospel-according-to-mel-gibson-paula.html
Other works cited:
John G. Gager, The Origins of Anti-Semitism
Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus
Bible quotes taken from The New Oxford Annotated Bible, third edition.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Mar.1: Divine Rescue
Psalm 25: 1-10
Genesis 9: 8-17
Mark 1: 9-15
1 Peter 3: 18-22
A vector running through the lectionary readings for the first week of Lent is the theme of divine rescue. In the acrostic Psalm 25, the writer reminds the Lord of the mercy shown to him in the past, appealing for forgiveness of sin and deliverance from enemies. Genesis 9:8-17 contains the first “covenant” described as such in the Hebrew Scriptures. It applies to all of humanity, the animal world, and the earth. Following the covenant concept, Mark 1:9-15 describes the genesis of the new covenant: Jesus is baptized, receives the Holy Spirit, and begins to proclaim the approach of the kingdom of God. Finally in 1 Peter 3:18-22, recounting Christ’s resurrection from death “in order to bring you to God,” the writer describes the possibility of salvation God extends: “And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience”.
Psalm 25 is also one of nine acrostics in the Book of Psalms, a form of poetry that elsewhere in the Bible only seen in Lamentations. The first word begins with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the second line with the second letter, and so on through the end of the alphabet, although the sixth and nineteenth letters are missing. In The Book of Psalms: a Translation and Commentary, Robert Alter writes that this structure might have been used as a mnemonic device because of the text’s liturgical use. The Hebrew noun in the phrase “I lift my heart” is nefesh, “essential self” or “life breath.”
It can be inferred from verse 7 that the speaker has erred: “My youth’s offenses and my crimes recall not. In your steadfast love, recall me—You; for the sake of your goodness, O LORD.” Alter writes that the juxtaposition of the pronouns “me” (li) and “You” (‘atah) is unusual in Hebrew in the line “recall me—You”. After the imperative verb “recall,” the second-person “You” would not be necessary. While the word hata’im in line 8 can be translated “sinners” or “offenders,” Alter also notes that the etymology of the word suggest missing a target. Asking the Lord for forgiveness, the speaker also appeals specifically for wisdom: “Make me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths."
In this passage we thus see the speaker alternating requests for help with expressions of trust in God’s faithfulness. The speaker directly asks God to recall earlier love and mercy, appealing as if to a person who can be swayed by rhetoric. We see the word hesed, or “steadfast love,” which also figures prominently in the Book of Jonah characterizing divine love. At the conclusion of that book, Jonah addresses God (4:2), saying, “That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.” Hesed can also refer to the mutual loyalty of the partners in a marriage, as seen in the description of Hosea as husband and covenant partner. The appeal to hesed shows that the speaker views himself as having an ongoing relationship with God, a sense of continuity that dovetails with the lectionary’s next passage, Genesis 9: 8-17.
In order to understand the lectionary reading 8-17, it’s necessary to read it in the context of the whole chapter. 9:1-7 contains the basis for the Noachide laws in Judaism, considered binding upon Gentiles as well as Jews and referenced in Acts 15:20 and 21:25. The laws are given in response to the acts of violence preceding the flood: God stipulates that humans, bearing God’s image, may not be killed.
Genesis 9:8-17 thus contains the first covenant described in the Bible, preceding the Ten Commandments. After giving the Noachide laws, God in turn declares, “I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” As a sign of the covenant, God places a bow in the sky turned away from humanity: “When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.” We also see the bow depicted as God’s weapon in Ps 7:12-13 and Hab 3:9-11. The anthropomorphic way that God is portrayed here is noteworthy.
A great information source for the concept of covenant (berît) in the Bible is The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures by Michael D. Coogan. Coogan compares structure of covenants in the Bible to that of political treaties in the ancient Near East. He writes that in this region and time period, Israelites were the only group known whose texts describe a relationship with a deity in terms of a treaty. Coogan uses two classifications for treaties: those between parties that are presumed equal, like Solomon and Hiram the king of Tyre, and “suzerainty treaties,” where one party is presumed to be superior to the other. A typical structure of the second kind of treaty includes identification of the suzerain or stronger party; history of the relationship, emphasizing the suzerain’s benevolence; stipulations, or obligations imposed on the weaker party, which might include prohibition of relationships with other powers, requirement to respond to a call of assistance from the suzerain, or payment of tribute; and blessings for observing the treaty. This basic structure characterizes the communication we see from God to Noah in Genesis 9. Other covenants central to the Bible include those between Abraham and God, between God and Israel (The Book of the Covenant containing the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20), and what Christian theology calls the New Covenant, or New Testament.
Mark 1:9-15 shares in common with the Hebrew Scripture lectionary readings a depiction of hope for a new beginning. In Psalm 25, the speaker appeals to God’s mercy and steadfast love for forgiveness of sin; Genesis 9 shows God committing to protect humanity in the form of a covenant; and Mark 1 portrays the beginning of Christ’s ministry. According to the New Oxford Annotated Bible, the Gospel of Mark has traditionally been attributed to John Mark of Acts 12:12 and 15:37, who is thought to have composed it in Rome summarizing Peter’s preaching (1 Pet 5:13.) The narrative associated with Christmas is absent; we first encounter Jesus, not in a manger, but with the other figures of the Trinity:
In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased. (9-11).
Jesus goes through a trial in the wilderness, as did Elijah in 1 Kings 19, then begins to proclaim the Gospel. The NOAB annotation describes his mission: “At the right time, in fulfillment of long-standing yearnings and hopes, God is finally acting to reestablish his beneficent will for the people. (Repent means) return to God’s way, in response to the good news of God’s action.” 1 Peter 3:18-22 describes the culmination of those hopes in the form of the resurrection: “For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit . . .”
For parishioners who have not read the New Testament cover to cover, 1 Peter 3:19, “. . . also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison,” might come as a shock. I did not grow up in a tradition in which this passage made frequent appearances in sermons and Bible studies, unlike what one might call “Greatest Hits” like the Parable of the Sower. Typical questions one might ask include, “Which spirits? When did this happen? What happened to them as a result?” I found one of the more extensive glosses in Begegnung fürs Leben: Die Studienbibel für jeden Tag: Neues Testament, published by the Hänssler Verlag. The annotation lists several possible readings, including linking this passage to Matthew 27, when rocks burst, graves open, and the dead rise. When I asked Rev. William Rich at Trinity Church Boston for clarification, he explained that this passage holds great importance in the Eastern Orthodox tradition and was well-known during medieval times. It is the subject of many icons, including one with Christ standing over a grate of hell with a massive hook, pulling out souls. “Google ‘Harrows of Hell’ to the see icons,” he said.
--Elizabeth Fels
Sources:
Alter, Robert. The Book of Psalms.
Coogan, Michael: The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures.
Coogan, Michael, ed. The New Oxford Annotated Bible (3rd ed).
Begegnung fürs Leben: Die Studienbibel für jeden Tag: Neues Testament, Hänssler Verlag.
(Adapted from Life Application Bible, by Tyndale House Publishers, 1988.)
Genesis 9: 8-17
Mark 1: 9-15
1 Peter 3: 18-22
A vector running through the lectionary readings for the first week of Lent is the theme of divine rescue. In the acrostic Psalm 25, the writer reminds the Lord of the mercy shown to him in the past, appealing for forgiveness of sin and deliverance from enemies. Genesis 9:8-17 contains the first “covenant” described as such in the Hebrew Scriptures. It applies to all of humanity, the animal world, and the earth. Following the covenant concept, Mark 1:9-15 describes the genesis of the new covenant: Jesus is baptized, receives the Holy Spirit, and begins to proclaim the approach of the kingdom of God. Finally in 1 Peter 3:18-22, recounting Christ’s resurrection from death “in order to bring you to God,” the writer describes the possibility of salvation God extends: “And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience”.
Psalm 25 is also one of nine acrostics in the Book of Psalms, a form of poetry that elsewhere in the Bible only seen in Lamentations. The first word begins with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the second line with the second letter, and so on through the end of the alphabet, although the sixth and nineteenth letters are missing. In The Book of Psalms: a Translation and Commentary, Robert Alter writes that this structure might have been used as a mnemonic device because of the text’s liturgical use. The Hebrew noun in the phrase “I lift my heart” is nefesh, “essential self” or “life breath.”
It can be inferred from verse 7 that the speaker has erred: “My youth’s offenses and my crimes recall not. In your steadfast love, recall me—You; for the sake of your goodness, O LORD.” Alter writes that the juxtaposition of the pronouns “me” (li) and “You” (‘atah) is unusual in Hebrew in the line “recall me—You”. After the imperative verb “recall,” the second-person “You” would not be necessary. While the word hata’im in line 8 can be translated “sinners” or “offenders,” Alter also notes that the etymology of the word suggest missing a target. Asking the Lord for forgiveness, the speaker also appeals specifically for wisdom: “Make me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths."
In this passage we thus see the speaker alternating requests for help with expressions of trust in God’s faithfulness. The speaker directly asks God to recall earlier love and mercy, appealing as if to a person who can be swayed by rhetoric. We see the word hesed, or “steadfast love,” which also figures prominently in the Book of Jonah characterizing divine love. At the conclusion of that book, Jonah addresses God (4:2), saying, “That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.” Hesed can also refer to the mutual loyalty of the partners in a marriage, as seen in the description of Hosea as husband and covenant partner. The appeal to hesed shows that the speaker views himself as having an ongoing relationship with God, a sense of continuity that dovetails with the lectionary’s next passage, Genesis 9: 8-17.
In order to understand the lectionary reading 8-17, it’s necessary to read it in the context of the whole chapter. 9:1-7 contains the basis for the Noachide laws in Judaism, considered binding upon Gentiles as well as Jews and referenced in Acts 15:20 and 21:25. The laws are given in response to the acts of violence preceding the flood: God stipulates that humans, bearing God’s image, may not be killed.
Genesis 9:8-17 thus contains the first covenant described in the Bible, preceding the Ten Commandments. After giving the Noachide laws, God in turn declares, “I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” As a sign of the covenant, God places a bow in the sky turned away from humanity: “When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.” We also see the bow depicted as God’s weapon in Ps 7:12-13 and Hab 3:9-11. The anthropomorphic way that God is portrayed here is noteworthy.
A great information source for the concept of covenant (berît) in the Bible is The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures by Michael D. Coogan. Coogan compares structure of covenants in the Bible to that of political treaties in the ancient Near East. He writes that in this region and time period, Israelites were the only group known whose texts describe a relationship with a deity in terms of a treaty. Coogan uses two classifications for treaties: those between parties that are presumed equal, like Solomon and Hiram the king of Tyre, and “suzerainty treaties,” where one party is presumed to be superior to the other. A typical structure of the second kind of treaty includes identification of the suzerain or stronger party; history of the relationship, emphasizing the suzerain’s benevolence; stipulations, or obligations imposed on the weaker party, which might include prohibition of relationships with other powers, requirement to respond to a call of assistance from the suzerain, or payment of tribute; and blessings for observing the treaty. This basic structure characterizes the communication we see from God to Noah in Genesis 9. Other covenants central to the Bible include those between Abraham and God, between God and Israel (The Book of the Covenant containing the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20), and what Christian theology calls the New Covenant, or New Testament.
Mark 1:9-15 shares in common with the Hebrew Scripture lectionary readings a depiction of hope for a new beginning. In Psalm 25, the speaker appeals to God’s mercy and steadfast love for forgiveness of sin; Genesis 9 shows God committing to protect humanity in the form of a covenant; and Mark 1 portrays the beginning of Christ’s ministry. According to the New Oxford Annotated Bible, the Gospel of Mark has traditionally been attributed to John Mark of Acts 12:12 and 15:37, who is thought to have composed it in Rome summarizing Peter’s preaching (1 Pet 5:13.) The narrative associated with Christmas is absent; we first encounter Jesus, not in a manger, but with the other figures of the Trinity:
In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased. (9-11).
Jesus goes through a trial in the wilderness, as did Elijah in 1 Kings 19, then begins to proclaim the Gospel. The NOAB annotation describes his mission: “At the right time, in fulfillment of long-standing yearnings and hopes, God is finally acting to reestablish his beneficent will for the people. (Repent means) return to God’s way, in response to the good news of God’s action.” 1 Peter 3:18-22 describes the culmination of those hopes in the form of the resurrection: “For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit . . .”
For parishioners who have not read the New Testament cover to cover, 1 Peter 3:19, “. . . also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison,” might come as a shock. I did not grow up in a tradition in which this passage made frequent appearances in sermons and Bible studies, unlike what one might call “Greatest Hits” like the Parable of the Sower. Typical questions one might ask include, “Which spirits? When did this happen? What happened to them as a result?” I found one of the more extensive glosses in Begegnung fürs Leben: Die Studienbibel für jeden Tag: Neues Testament, published by the Hänssler Verlag. The annotation lists several possible readings, including linking this passage to Matthew 27, when rocks burst, graves open, and the dead rise. When I asked Rev. William Rich at Trinity Church Boston for clarification, he explained that this passage holds great importance in the Eastern Orthodox tradition and was well-known during medieval times. It is the subject of many icons, including one with Christ standing over a grate of hell with a massive hook, pulling out souls. “Google ‘Harrows of Hell’ to the see icons,” he said.
--Elizabeth Fels
Sources:
Alter, Robert. The Book of Psalms.
Coogan, Michael: The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures.
Coogan, Michael, ed. The New Oxford Annotated Bible (3rd ed).
Begegnung fürs Leben: Die Studienbibel für jeden Tag: Neues Testament, Hänssler Verlag.
(Adapted from Life Application Bible, by Tyndale House Publishers, 1988.)
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