Let Athanasius Spur You to Study the Psalms

In his fascinating lecture on “Reading the Psalms Messianically,” Gordon Wenham recommends The Letter of St. Athanasius to Marcellinus on the Interpretation of the Psalms.

Having followed that recommendation, I am now passing it on, and I would also recommend having a listen (or multiple listens) to Wenham’s lecture. The most striking thing, for me, about Athanasius’s letter is his absolutely thorough knowledge of the Psalms! What a gift to be spurred on to a closer and more comprehensive knowledge of the Psalms!

Enjoy.

By the way, if you have the SVS Press edition of Athanasius’s On the Incarnation (the one with the brilliant introduction by C. S. Lewis), the letter to Marcellinus on the interpretation of the Psalms is included as an appendix.

Review of Tsumura’s NICOT volume on 1 Samuel

David Toshio Tsumura, The First Book of Samuel, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007. 720pp. $50.00, Hardcover.

Japan Bible Seminary’s David Toshio Tsumura has given us a fine new commentary on 1 Samuel. He lucidly overviews the history of the modern discussion of the text of 1 Samuel, which, he notes is “allegedly ‘in extremely poor condition’” (3). Against the tendency to emend the Masoretic Text in light of the LXX and the other versions, Tsumura insists that “The primary task of exegetes of ancient texts . . . is to interpret data in its original context, not to alter the data so that they can explain it easily” (8). Tsumura suggests that some difficulties are due not to a corrupt text but to phonetic spellings, misunderstood Hebrew grammatical structures, or idiomatic expressions. He suggests that “A narrative like 1–2 Samuel could have been written, at least partly, as if it was heard or spoken,” thus “the majority of proposed emendations are needless” (10). How might scholars two thousand years from now, whose only recourse to English is what they find in surviving written texts, respond to William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying? Would the dialects in Faulkner’s prose be corrected or emended if the English text were compared with the French translation (or even with an English dictionary!)?

Tsumura argues that the “final editing of 1–2 Samuel, with minor adjustments, was probably made no later than the late 10^th century b.c.” (11). The Philistines are identified as being from the “Sea Peoples, who migrated from the Aegean” (34). They were uncircumcised but neither unsophisticated nor uncultivated (37). Tsumura provides a fascinating discussion of the historical and religious background of 1–2 Samuel, and his discussion of Grammar and Syntax is informed by both modern linguistics and more traditional grammatical categories.

The traditional threefold division of 1 Samuel is broadly followed: Samuel (1–7), Saul (9–15), and David (16–31). Tsumura sees the purpose of 1 Samuel being to highlight the establishment of the monarchy and the preparation of David (73). He argues that the references to daughter/sons of Belial (e.g., 1:16; 2:12) should be rendered to reflect a person’s connection to the divine name Beliyaal rather than as a “worthless” man or woman (124). He does not explore what this might imply about the way that people in the OT are reckoned in terms of “corporate personality” as belonging either to the “seed of the woman” or to the “seed of the serpent.”

This commentary is very strong on matters textual, grammatical, and historical, and Tsumura allows the rest of the OT to inform his interpretation. But readers should be aware that the commentary gives almost no attention to canonical biblical theology—the flow of redemptive history, the typological patterns between, for instance, Joseph and David, or the ways this flow of redemptive historical patterns might influence and be fulfilled in the NT. For another commentary on 1–2 Samuel that reverses these emphases (little attention to text criticism, grammar, and history, while focusing on canonical biblical theology), see Peter Leithart’s A Son to Me: An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel.

For the most part volumes in this series are very user friendly, but I have two complaints about them: First, it makes no sense to me why the series hides the bibliography between the Introduction and the Commentary. The bibliography would be so much easier to find if it were located in the same place as it may be found in most other volumes: at the back of the book. Second, these are long commentaries read mainly by people who at least know the Greek and Hebrew alphabets. Therefore, all transliteration of Greek and Hebrew in these volumes should be abandoned. Transliteration hinders those who know the languages, and it does not give understanding to those who don’t. While it may help those who have not studied Greek and Hebrew feel more comfortable, how many people know what sounds are signified by the superscripted e’s or the backwards apostrophe? And even if they can sound out the word, sort of, they still don’t know what it means. Down with transliteration!

We congratulate David Toshio Tsumura for this accomplishment. He has advanced the discussion of 1 Samuel, and his bold position on the text of 1–2 Samuel is a refreshing, if controversial, perspective on the reliability of the Masoretic Text. No researcher will be able to ignore this volume, and no preacher will want to be without it.

UPDATE: JT wrote to tell me that Tsumura wrote the study notes on 1-2 Samuel for the ESV Study Bible. One more reason to look forward to its appearance this fall!

Twelve Challenges Churches Face, by Mark Dever

The Bible is clear, but that doesn’t mean that it is easy to rightly interpret it. Interpreting the Bible rightly is one of the hardest things in the world to do. And if interpretation is difficult, proclamation is even harder. We move beyond the meaning of the points made in the text to questions like: What is the best way to proclaim the gospel from this text? What are relevant contemporary illustrations of this text?

One of the most helpful things to have when thinking about preaching a text is a sermon done by someone you trust to get the message of the text right, to surprise you with applications or illustrations that stimulate your thinking, and to show you strategies for undermining unbelief you haven’t thought of yourself. Because reading this kind of thing is so helpful, I am very thankful that Crossway is publishing Mark Dever’s sermons.

Anyone trying to get their head around how to do expository preaching should read Twelve Challenges Churches Face. Anyone preaching through 1 Corinthians will want to add this book to the things used in preparation to preach. Anyone teaching a Sunday School class on 1 Corinthians could study this book along with their “teacher’s curriculum.” Anyone leading a Bible Study on 1 Corinthians will gain from this book. Anyone who has decided to study 1 Corinthians over the course of a month or a semester or for the whole year will be helped by this book.

Have I mentioned that I like this book and am glad to recommend it?

Biblical, Baptist Ecclesiology

I’ll be speaking on the most biblical form of ecclesiology at Redeemer Community Church in Katy, TX tomorrow night, Sunday, April 27, 2008 at 7pm.

If you’re in the area, I would love to see you. I’ll be arguing that the most biblical form of ecclesiology is the one practiced historically by Baptist churches: elder-led deacon-served congregationalism.

Hope to see you there!

Practicing Hospitality, by Pat Ennis and Lisa Tatlock

The perfectly sanctified people who are totally unselfish and have their whole lives running smoothly and efficiently for the love of God and neighbor don’t need this book.

The rest of us do need this book because we are selfish with our time and resources, organizationally challenged, and so concerned about what people will think of our homes or food that we don’t risk having them over to lower their opinion of us. Moreover, the organizationally challenged nature of our experience which keeps us from cleaning up also serves as a hindrance to hospitality because it makes the whole process so much work.

Practicing Hospitality is the book for us!

The authors write: “The answer to the question, ‘What makes a person or home hospitable?’ is the purpose of Practicing Hospitality” (17). The two great strengths of this book are (1) that it is practical, and (2) that it focuses on our attitudes toward hospitality.

The practicality is thorough and thoughtful. Reasonable recipes and strategies to become more hospitable. I encourage you to check it out!

And I am so relieved to find these words in this book: “Remember there are seasons in life. There will be seasons in our lives when we will be able to spend more or less time practicing hospitality” (77). Thank you, Pat Ennis and Lisa Tatlock, for helping those of us with small children and/or newborns and everything else to deal with the guilt we feel for not being hospitable!

And they give good ideas for how to be hospitable in spite of these constraints, as well.

Best of all, throughout this book the authors encourage us to consider our attitudes toward hospitality. My legalistic heart loves to make lists of things I need to do to be righteous or meet qualifications and then take pleasure in checking off the boxes, and Practicing Hospitality’s focus on our attitude calls us back to the recognition that we are to be humbly serving and loving others (not grumbling about these lousy duties on the list we’ve made for ourselves). The authors encourage us to practice hospitality as a way to live out and share the gospel with others. Amen and amen.

Pick up a copy of Practicing Hospitality (mother’s day is just around the corner) and may we all obey God’s word (Heb 13:2) by faith in Jesus in the power of the Spirit as we show love for God and others.

In addition, for a good article on hospitality, see Jonathan Leeman’s essay here.

Review of Messiah in the Old and New Testaments, ed. Stanley E. Porter

Stanley E. Porter, ed., The Messiah in the Old and New Testaments. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007. ix + 268pp. $29.00, paper.

These essays were presented at McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada in 2004. The collection is preceded by an introduction written by Stanley Porter and concluded with a response, in which each paper is briefly considered, written by Craig Evans. The book is presented in two parts: Part 1: Old Testament and Related Perspective, containing essays that deal with the OT, the Qumran documents, and the literature of early Judaism; and Part 2: New Testament Perspective, containing essays that deal with most of the New Testament (Revelation seems to receive no treatment).

The first essay after Porter’s introduction comes from Tremper Longman, who explores the Law and the

mp3nasb

Some enterprising folks who believe that “faith comes by hearing” (Rom 10:17) have partnered with the Lockman Foundation to make the NASB available on mp3.

The mp3 files can be kept on the computer, transferred to an mp3 player, or burned onto CD’s. The whole Bible will fit on three mp3 CD’s and takes up 1.6 gb’s of space. $29.95 for the whole Bible is not a bad price.

May the Lord bless the reading and the hearing of his living and active word!

Responses to Mike Bird’s Questions

My friend Mike Bird posted some questions in response to what is happening at Westminster Seminary with Peter Enns as a result of Enns’s book, Inspiration and Incarnation.

My responses to those questions in the comments section on Bird’s blog became such that I thought it might be useful to post them here.

For the questions, see Mike’s post here. My response was as follows:
—————————–

Mike, 

I appreciate Marty’s responses above [the third comment in response to Bird's post], and I want to add that it seems to me that the way you’ve framed the questions doesn’t exactly match the way that the opposition to Enns understands the issues. 

It may be that the way you’re framing the issues is the way that Enns thinks they should be framed, but I don’t think those who think he doesn’t fit at WTS approach the questions the way you do here. So, I’ll briefly add my two cents on your 4 points, which I think will get at the way the Enns-opposers would think about the issues (I can’t speak for them, but being sympathetic with their concerns, I’m giving you the rationale behind my concerns): 

1. My guess is that they would say there isn’t only one orthodox way of dealing with extra-biblical sources. I suspect they would be very sympathetic with Greg Beale’s objection to the way that Enns narrows things down to only one possible explanation–that the biblical authors shared mythological notions reflected in extra biblical lit–then from this Enns concludes that the biblical authors held some mythological ideas that they wrote up in the Bible. Beale lists 4 different ways that evangelicals have explained the kinds of things that lead Enns to think there are mythological notions in the Bible: 1) biblical polemic against these ideas; 2) general revelation shared by biblical and extra-biblical authors; 3) common reflection of ancient tradition; and 4) a productive use of truth found in extra-biblical literature. (I’m referring to the Beale review in JETS, which I think is worth reading carefully).

All this to say, there isn’t one and only one orthodox way of dealing with these kinds of things, there are many orthodox ways of explaining these things. There are also unorthodox ways of explaining them, and the folks at WTS think that saying that the Bible contains myth is on the unorthodox side. I agree. 

2. Couldn’t it simply be that Genesis 1-3 is engaged in polemics against the false notions current in the day? 

3. With Marty’s points above, I would add that Paul would have held that the Bible was totally true and trustworthy (inerrancy), and I think he would have seen enough manuscripts to recognize that God didn’t re-inspire every scribe who decided to copy a manuscript of a biblical text (the point of saying that the autographs are inspired and inerrant). 

As for the kinds of things we see in Paul’s citation of Isa 59:20 in Rom 11:26-27, we have to take these things on a case by case basis. The Greek translator of Isaiah was working with an unpointed Hebrew text–as was Paul if he was looking at the Hebrew rather than the Greek (I don’t need to tell you that the pointings don’t come in until the middle ages, ca. 6th-7th c. AD, but maybe some readers will benefit from that note). Just a cursory glance at this leads me to think that the Greek translator of Isaiah has carried over the subject from the first half of the line (”the redeemer will come”) to the second half of the line, so that whereas the Masoretes pointed the text to read “to those who turn”–taking ulshavey as a masc. pl. ptcpl in construct with the following word, the Greek translator perhaps read the yod as a vav (easy to do if the tail on the yod was a little long–or maybe it was a vav and the Masoretes misread it as a yod) and perhaps the Greek translator, seeing ulshavo, took this as an infinitive construct whose 3ms (the vav) pronominal suffix pointed back to the subject of the first half of the line, resulting in the reading “and he will turn back ungodliness” in the LXX instead of “and for those who repent of sin” in the Masoretic text. I only put this out as a possibility. A definitive explanation would require, among other things, an examination of the translation technique employed by the Isaiah translator. But this possibility should show that we should not draw overly rash conclusions about the kinds of things we see happening in the texts as we move from the Masoretic text to the Greek translations of the OT to the New Testament. Other changes in Paul’s rendering appear to have come in from the influence of Psalm 14:7. On these issues I highly recommend Peter Gentry’s article, “The Septuagint and the Text of the Old Testament,” BBR 16.2 (2006), 193-218. 

Having said all this, I would also say that my presupposition is that Paul has rightly understood the meaning of the OT text–even if that meaning is dependant upon his interpretation of the wider context of not only Isaiah but the whole OT–and so perhaps Paul does introduce changes (maybe as Earle Ellis argues he selects from all the translations/interpretations known to him) and these changes that Paul introduces into his citations are intended to communicate more clearly what he thinks is the true meaning of the OT text in context. So the variations that we see point us to the way that Paul is interpreting the OT. Now the question becomes, has Paul rightly understood the OT? I think he gets it right, and I think it is incumbent upon us to patiently seek to understand him and not too quickly arrive at the conclusion that Paul has done violence to the OT text or assumed some mythological interpretation. 

Even if Paul is alluding to the movable well, as Enns argues, how do we know that by asserting that the rock was Christ he is not opposing what he views as a silly fable? In several texts Paul calls his audiences to reject Jewish myths that promote speculations (e.g., 1 Tim 1:4). Maybe the movable well thing was one of those speculative myths. In my opinion, Enns has taken what is at best a dubious possibility–that Paul believes in the movable well–and from that dubious possibility Enns wants to construct his doctrine of Scripture. I think his critics who have objected that he’s trying to build a doctrine of Scripture from “problem texts” are right on the money, and I think the Beale is right to point out in his Themelios review that when you count up the problem texts that Enns cites, there aren’t more than a dozen! Maybe as few as 8 to 10.

4. Marty’s answer is very helpful. Schreiner rejects the idea that the prophecy was really made by the historical Enoch, and he states, “It is better to conclude that Jude quoted the pseudepigraphical 1 Enoch and that he also believed that the portion he quoted represented God’s truth. Jude’s wording does not demand that he thought we have an authentic oracle from the historical Enoch. We do not need to conclude, however, that the entire book is part of the canon of Scripture . . . Jude probably cited a part of 1 Enoch that he considered to be a genuine prophecy” [Schreiner cites Moo as being in general agreement with him on this point]. Schreiner then suggests that Jude’s opponents might have valued Enoch, so he quoted this unremarkable prophecy against them, concluding, “Jude simply drew from a part of the work that he considered true” (Schreiner, 1, 2 Peter, Jude, 469-70).

I think that Greg Beale’s three reviews of Enns’s book are worthy of careful study, and I hope that what I have written here is helpful. 

So thankful for the reliability of the Bible! 

Jim

Mitch Maher against Biblical Illiteracy

We are all aware of the growing phenomenon of biblical illiteracy, and I sometimes hear people who minister in churches complain that the mammoth proportions of the problem make it difficult to teach and preach because it is necessary to keep things at such a basic level.

One of my classmates from DTS days, Mitch Maher, has set out to address this problem. He has developed a basic over-view of the whole Bible called “Clarifying the Bible.” You can check it out at  www.clarifyingthebible.com. Mitch was discipled by Tommy Nelson of Denton Bible Church, and I know him from our days together in a Hebrew Exegesis elective. He is a clear and likable communicator, and he knows his stuff. The year we graduated, Mitch was chosen by the faculty to preach in chapel, and one of our profs told me his sermon was one of the best he had heard in the DTS chapel. He now pastors Fellowship Bible Church of Jonesboro, Arkansas.

At the website, you can check out a preview video that will give you a taste for what the DVD looks like, and if you are looking to host a conference, Mitch’s contact info is available.

May the Lord use Mitch and this project to turn the tide of biblical illiteracy in evangelical churches!

Interview with Schreiner on his New Testament Theology

Andy Cheung interviews Tom Schreiner on his New Testament Theology, due out soon, here.