Dispensational equivocations and anachronisms

I’m going to comment on this post:

http://drreluctant.wordpress.com/2012/03/02/and-behold-it-was-all-a-vision-last-response/

Ezekiel has several visions.  For example he has a vision of the glory of the LORD departing the Temple in Jerusalem in Chs.10-11.  It departs through the East Gate.  So far as I know, nobody believes the temple in the vision was not the actual physical temple in Jerusalem.

The first vision was of an actual temple standing in Jerusalem.  Thus, just because something is seen in a vision does not at all mean it is symbolical. To base ones interpretation on the symbolical nature of visions is therefore irresponsible.

i) This fails to distinguish between subjective and objective visions. For instance:

The paragraph [Ezk 8:7-13] opens with the visionary guidance formula, according to which Ezekiel is brought to the entrance and instructed to enlarge, and through which he enters a dark room. While we may puzzle over how he is able to dig a hole in the wall or why he does not use the existing entrance to this room, the visionary nature of this entire unit removes the necessity for realism or logical consistency.

D. Bock, The Book of Ezekiel: Chapters 1-24 (Eerdmans 1997), 289.

Likewise:

The manner of Ezekiel’s translocation [Ezk 37:1-2] is described as by the Spirit of Yahweh (beruah yhwh)…The present activity bears a closer resemblance to 11:24, according to which beruah Elohim, “by the Spirit of God,” explains bemar’eh, “by a vision,” as the transporting agency. Both are technical expressions associated with trancelike prophetic experiences, and there is no need to suppose a literal physical journey in any of these instances.

D. Bock, The Book of Ezekiel: Chapters 25-40 (Eerdmans 1998), 373.

Another issue at stake in 8:3-17 is the nature of the visionary scenes Ezekiel witnessed. Were they meant to constitute a veridical vision, so that a time traveler in the vicinity of the temple on 17 September 592 BC could have filmed the events happening as Ezekiel described them by second sight? Probably not: the worship of Tammuz featured in the third scene is a counterindication. Such ritual mourning took place in the fourth month (June –July) rather than the sixth…As Cassuto (“Arrangement” 231n3) pointed out, the continuation of the vision account in chap. 9 is not meant to refer to the present but is a representation of the destruction that was to occur some five years later.

L. Allen, Ezekiel 1-19 (Word 1994), 141.

Therefore, what is seen in visions of this nature is not a physical entity, but a simulation of a physical entity–just as dreams simulate space, speech, motion, and bodies, even though the dreamscape is imaginary.

ii) Visionary revelation, as Ezekiel describes his own experience, feels like an out-of-body experience. So, for instance, Ezekiel didn’t physically dig a hole in the wall. It wasn’t an actual wall, but a simulated wall–like a dreamscape. 

So there’s no reason for presuming that the actual temple in Jerusalem had a secret room with idolatrous graffiti.

iii) Visions analogize reality. They involve a degree of correspondence between the vision and its real-world analogue, but analogy doesn’t entail resemblance. Indeed, the relation may be highly symbolic. Take the vision of dry bones (Ezk 37).

iv) That’s one advantage of visionary revelation. It’s more flexible than reality. Visionary representations aren’t subject to natural constraints on what physically possible in time and space. 

v) Henebury is trying to use the physical temple to interpret the visionary temple, but that’s backwards. For unless he already knew that the vision posits a one-to-one correspondence between the physical temple and the visionary temple, he’s not entitled to begin with that operating assumption.

As the later vision is also of the glory coming through the East Gate into the inner court, we are encouraged to take the vision as representing a real temple structure – but of the future. 

Notice the massive equivocation in Henebury’s argument. On his own interpretation, Ezekiel didn’t see an actual temple in Ezk 40-48; rather, Ezekiel only saw an incomplete architectural model for a future temple. The temple wasn’t an actual temple at the time Ezekiel saw it. To this day, it’s not an actual temple.

So Henebury’s argument from analogy, where he infers a physical temple in Ezk 40-48 from Solomon’s temple, breaks down at a crucial point of comparison. He’s comparing the actual with the inactual.

What future?  The return from exile but without independence?  That might have been the expectation of those in Babylon, but it became clear that that was not going to be so.

But in that event, Henebury has abandoned his principle of understanding the text as the “first hearers” heard it. He’s now proposing an ex post facto interpretation that’s at variance with how the “first hearers” heard the text.

He’s conceding that Second Temple Jews retrofitted the text to make allowance for the non-fulfillment of the text in the postexilic period. There’s a word for that: reinterpretation.

Because it “became clear” after the fact that it wasn’t going to happen when the Babylonian captives expected it to happen, later Jews revise the fulfillment to occur at a later date.

 The full blessings of restoration which the prophet foretells would not be realized in “the day of small things” (Zech. 4:10).   In Ezek. 48:35 we are given an indication of when this will occur:

“…the name of the city from that day shall be: THE LORD Is THERE.”

So when Jerusalem will be known by the name “The LORD is there” will be the time of fulfillment of the whole vision.

That misses the point. Temples symbolize divine presence. That’s the point of the name. The temple and the city it consecrates symbolize the presence of God with his people. That’s what it’s called “THE LORD Is THERE.”

The point is not that Jerusalem will be renamed, but what the eponymous name signifies. What will change is not the name, but the fact that it will be God’s dwelling-place.

Now, many interpreters, because they cannot see how a literal interpretation of these chapters harmonizes with the NT, use their understanding of the teaching of the NT as a reason to conclude that the whole later vision is non-literal and typological.

That’s a perfectly valid procedure in its own right, but it’s not the argument I’ve been using.

But many of us see no reason to go that route.  We think God said what He meant…

Henebury keeps intoning that simplistic formula (“God said what he meant”) as if what he meant is self-explanatory. But that’s the very issue in dispute. What did he mean by what he said?

For instance, God said what he meant in Ezk 37, but that formula doesn’t tell you what he meant. That formula doesn’t select or predict for the correct interpretation.

...and if He wanted us to think of this vision in symbolical terms He would have said so somewhere in the context.

There’s no presumption that visions are literal rather than symbolic.

  And because this vision comports with the covenant promises God made (e.g. in Num. 25 & Jer. 33)…

Which begs the question of what the covenant promises promise.

…we believe the major stumbling block to a plain-sense interpretation is simple disbelief, perhaps engendered by a faulty understanding of, say, the book of Hebrews.

The charge of “simple disbelief” cuts both ways. Henebury refuses to believe any interpretation that runs counter to his preconceived notions.

We may be wrong.  But the discussion must be on the basis of the text of Scripture and not the current fashion among language philosophers.

Henebury is playing to the galleries. There’s no inherent conflict between the text and language philosophers. The text is a linguistic artifact. What it means or denotes is a question the answer to which is affected by the semiotic and hermeneutical assumptions of the reader. Philosophy of language is quite germane. Henebury isn’t exempt from process. He doesn’t float above that process in splendid isolation.

Hays represents this as me interpreting the OT via extraneous sources.  But I’m doing nothing of the sort.  My purpose is simply to show how ancient readers, including the disciples in Acts 1:6, understood, e.g., Ezekiel’s vision and Malachi’s prediction; and show thereby that his objection that my interpretation is conditioned by my timeline and/or by my dispensationalism is plain wrong.

i) Notice the way he’s abdicated his appeal to how the “first hearers” heard the text. Now he’s stretched the “ancient readers” so broadly that it even includes NT Jews. But if the original audience is defined so elastically that it even extends to NT Jews, then what’s wrong with “reading the NT back into the OT”?  “Ancient reader” is hardly synonymous with “original reader.”

ii) And Acts 1:6 doesn’t begin to show how they understood Ezk 40-48.

He’s been shown to be wrong.  And all he puts up in response is philosophy mixed with supposition.  It’s not enough!

That’s a willful and malicious caricature. It reflects the insecurity of Henebury’s position that he has to play to the galleries in this fashion.

I can’t decisively prove that the first hearers of the Prophets interpreted them differently than those witnesses, both biblical and non-biblical, that I’ve produced within Second Temple Judaism and after.  But when that is combined with the above and the intertextual links I have provided I’m content to rest my case and let the reader decide if Steve’s objection has any bite.

The problem with that move is that he’s abandoned his hermeneutical strictures. If he has to filter an exilic passage (Ezk 40-48) through the lens of Second Temple Jewish literature and beyond, then covenant theologians can just as well filter OT prophecy through the lens of the NT.

Steve plies his trade in sense/reference, type/token, authorial/audiential [sic], etc., but never actually does anything with it.  He never applies it exegetically.  Observing a “New Exodus” or “New Eden” motif does not automatically mean we are alerted to a biblical type.  I know Steve complains he never said such a thing – and I acknowledged it – but when he introduces types and tokens he is doing so to disprove my interpretations.  Fine.  But every time he does that he clearly does imply his putative typology of the OT.

Actually, I have applied it exegetically. And, of course, Henebury has a putative dispensational typology.

He sees this in his proffered texts (Isa. 11; 35; Jer. 16; and Isa. 51 and Ezek. 36).  These were examined here and here.  He also faults my inability to see that “the Fregean distinction between sense and reference” nobbles my interpretations.  But how does all this work on Ezekiel 10-11?  If Ezekiel tells us he saw the Temple in Jerusalem, are we to decide he is not referring to to the Temple in Jerusalem?  No, he assuredly is referring to it.  Very well, how come things change when we get to the Temple Vision at the end of the Book?  What magic ingredient causes us to idealize the future Temple?

I just explained that (see above). Henebury is committing a level-confusion. Whenever I point that out he responds by repeating the same level-confusion.

  That temples represented other theological truths is well known (I recommend Allen P. Ross’s outstanding, Recalling the Hope of Glory on this subject).  But the representation of, say, Eden or New Eden no more dissolves the representative entity then God’s image dissolves the man who bears it.  Likewise, the Temple in Ezekiel 10 represented old and new Eden just as much as the Temple in chs. 40-48.

I didn’t suggest it “dissolves the representative entity.” Rather, I said it implies a type/token relation with shifting referents.

I didn’t say he did.  I inferred that his argument implied it which is very different.  He does not take the next step and demonstrate how the motifs he sees drive the action toward a typology. 

I’ve explained that repeatedly. But Henebury feels too threatened to even acknowledge the argument.

Steve thinks we should all get this:

The sense/reference (or intension/extension) distinction is pretty mainstream in hermeneutics and semiotics.

But we’re not talking about mainstream hermeneutics and semiotics.  We’re supposed to be talking about biblical typology.  “Type” re. “type/token” is a different animal than “type” re. typology of Scripture.

That’s a false dichotomy. And we’re “supposed to be talking about” whatever the OT means. There's no proscription on what we're allowed to talk about, or prescription how we're allowed to frame the issues. 

That’s reassuring.  Ricoeur, the man who thought the story of the fall contained “nothing like Augustine’s doctrine of original sin” (K. Vanhoozer, “Ricoeur, Paul,” Dict. for Theol. Interp. of the Bible, 694)!

i) Henebury is moving the goalpost. I was responding to Henebury claim that:

I close by noting that although I have never read Frege (and do not intend to mend the deficiency any time soon), I am familiar with work on sense and reference.  My observations about words and motifs overlap with it.  Steve thinks it is important.  Most hermeneutics manuals demur.  Hardly any of them pay much attention, if any, to Frege.  Hays’s stress on Frege sounds more impressive than it is.  To read him one might think that to know Frege the philosopher is to agree with Hays the interpreter.  That simply does not follow.

So I presented some documentation to the contrary. The fact that Ricoeur doesn’t think Gen 3 teaches the Augustinian doctrine of the fall is totally irrelevant to Henebury’s original claim.

ii) In addition, there’s nothing liberal about the sense/reference distinction. For Henebury to tar that by guilty association with Ricoeur’s position on Gen 3 is purely extraneous, adventitious, and diversionary.

iii) It’s also devious for Henebury to insinuate that this distinction is the provenance of liberals. I went on to cite a slew of evangelical scholars who acknowledge that distinction.

iv) Indeed, dispensational hermeneutics employs this very distinction. For instance, that’s essential to Bock’s approach. Cf. “Single Meaning, Multiple Contexts and Referents,” S. Gundry, ed. Three Views On the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Zondervan 2007), chap 2.

Mention of the story of the fall makes one think of the way the first chapters of Genesis are “interpreted” by old-earth creationists (M. Kline, V. Poythress), and theistic evolutionists (B. Waltke, J. Collins, P. Enns) by their employment of motif and literary theory.  I repeat, the words in context must determine the meaning.  Any motif will not contravene the “plain-sense.”

Many dispensationalists past and present subscribe to old-earth creationism. Conversely, you have covenant theologians who subscribe to young-earth creationism. It’s devious for Henebury to insinuate that this is a dividing line between dispensational and new covenantal hermeneutics.

Does this mean exegesis equates to “face-value” meaning?  Not necessarily.  But the first, most apparent meaning must be given first shot and the exegesis must uncover good reasons for departing from what most would call, for right reasons of expediency, “the plain-sense.”

i) No, the face-value meaning shouldn’t be given the first shot. That’s prejudicial. Unless you already know that the face-value meaning is correct, there’s no presumption that the face-value meaning is correct. Why presume something that may be wrong, then try to overcome your faulty presumption? That tilts the scales before you even begin to exegete the text. Henebury is simply laboring to launch a first strike against interpretations that threaten his own position.

ii) It’s ironic that Henebury is so enamored with face-value meaning, which he defines as “apparent” meaning–for “apparent” meaning is, by definition, subjective rather than objective. What’s apparent to one reader is not apparent to another. How something appears to you is person-variable. That’s not simply a matter of words and sentence, but what the reader brings to the text. What he perceives. A type of reader-response criticism.

So this is in tension with another one of Henebury’s hermeneutical strictures.

It may be that figures and symbols and structure have to be taken into account.  Thus, in the case of Ezekiel’s Temple we must decide on what grounds, if any, the Temple in chapter 40ff. is symbolic or figurative.  As I pointed out last time, the reason Hays recognizes a floor-plan is because of the meaning imparted by a normal reading of the text. 

No, that’s not the reason I recognize a floor-plan. Rather, when Ezekiel is given a guided tour through the temple-complex, that’s what he sees, and all he sees–for his perspective assumes the vantage-point of a human observer who naturally sees his surroundings at eye-level. He doesn’t have eyes on the top of his head.

Because a subjective vision simulates sensory perception, it mimics the way we normally perceive the world. That’s generally the case even with ordinary, uninspired dreams. So that indexical perspective is consistent with the genre (i.e. visionary revelation).

The reasons for departing from that must be set out and weighed.  Still, the assumption must be that God said what He meant to say and that the Bible is revelation and not obfuscation.  I know of no fundamental Christian doctrine that can be maintained by any other method.

Fundamental Christian doctrines are best maintained by grammatico-historical exegesis rather than gimmicks like “plain sense/face-value” meaning which short-circuit responsible exegesis.

But Steve asks,  Since I set my own position in explicit contrast to the sensus plenior, how’s that relevant?   Read what I said and judge.  I wasn’t talking about Steve’s position on sensus plenior.

So his reference to Moo is a red herring.

And he wants to know,  “does Henebury endorse Moo’s section on typology?”  Well, I recommended it.

Well, that’s odd inasmuch as Moo clearly uses NT typology as an interpretive grid to recognize some OT passages as Messianic prophecies.

I may also be guilty of misrepresenting him elsewhere (these long blog debates run without editors and are liable that way), although I am not impressed by his other attempts at crying wolf.

That begs the question.

He’s more concerned with motif-spotting than following what the words of the text are saying in context.

That’s Henebury’s hostile, self-serving (mis-)characterization.

This is bogus.  As I have shown, ancient Jews managed it without reference to the NT.  I have demonstrated intertextual covenantal linkage in the OT itself (none of which has been joined).  That this intertextuality agrees with Jewish expectations at the time of Jesus and before, and also with later premillennialism, shows it has explanatory durability and force.  Hays just thinks we all start at Rev. 20 (which only gives the duration), and read it into the OT.  He is badly mistaken.  My position bears resemblance to that of those who reject the NT – Rev. 20 included!

Henebury is tacitly using the NT to sequence Ezk 40-48 into his premillennial eschatology. For instance, Ezekiel doesn’t distinguish between the First Coming of Christ and the Second Coming of Christ. And Ezekiel doesn’t put the temple at the terminus of the church age.

We can, for present purposes, easily set aside the NT and simply examine OT texts to present a coherent picture of future hope for Israel, and the world through Israel.  Steve just doesn’t like what these many passages say, so they must undergo artificial typological treatment to make them conform to his theology.   Modern philosophy is drafted in to shore up a poor argument.  Let Hays interact with the textual and background evidence that has been produced before he makes such cavalier remarks.

i) “Philosophy” is unavoidable. Henebury has a theory of meaning. A communication theory.

ii) The real choice is whether you’re self-aware of your guiding philosophy, whether you have a thoughtful, consistent philosophy–or whether you blunder along with a half-baked philosophy, oblivious to your social conditioning and your subconscious assumptions.

iii) Henebury is also erecting a false dichotomy between hermeneutics, semiotics, and what the passage “means.” For the whole point of these disciplines is to explicate the nature of meaning. This isn’t a substitute for what the passage means; rather, this is getting at the meaning of the passage.

iv) I have interacted with his material.

He ought to have quoted the entire paragraph.  No matter, no OT text was interpreted by use of the NT to show that the church was not in view for the Jews.

Except for the stubborn fact that that’s exactly what Henebury asserted: “The church was a mystery not revealed to them (Eph. 3:3-6; Col. 1:26).  All they needed to know was that it would be fulfilled.”

As Steve thinks the Church is a NT phenomenon he shouldn’t complain if I have to go to the NT to answer him.

My stated position was a good deal more qualified. And that’s also irrelevant to Henebury’s contradictory methodology.

Acts 1:6 is simply cited as another ancient witness to the way Jews of that period understood the promises to Israel.  Steve had written:  If they understood the fulfillment as taking place when Jews returned to Israel after the Babylonian exile–or even before the exile (depending on the date of a given oracle), then that’s at odds with postponing the fulfillment to the end of the church age.

i) “Ancient witnesses” are hardly not interchangeable with the “first hearers.” Henebury keeps pulling this bait-n-switch routine.

ii) Moreover, Acts 1:6 doesn’t index the fulfillment to the final stage of the church age.

iii) And if he can appeal to Acts 1:6, why can’t Poythress or Beale or O. P. Robertson appeal to Rev 20-22?

I have shown they didn’t understand it that way.  This reference to Acts as an ancient witness is relevant to the question Steve put.   There was nothing “schizophrenic” about it.   As every commentator I know of thinks the disciples understood “the kingdom” of Israel as a literal restoring of a literal kingdom to literal Israel it serves to demolish Steve’s anachronistic view of how Jews of the day took the OT.  Notice he ignored the main point.

i) Henebury continues to ply his bait-and-switch tactic, even though this is diametrically opposed to his hermeneutical strictures. He’s filtering the OT through the NT. In addition, he’s swapping out the “original hearers” and swapping in later hearers.

ii) It’s also a misrepresentation of what I said. I wasn’t discussing how “Jews of the day took the OT.”

Rather, I was discussing how exilic Jews took exilic oracles, in potential contrast to a later audience. How an audience understands a statement about an event may vary depending on whether the event is past, present, or future to the audience. You can’t substitute the understanding of a postexilic audience (or 2^nd Temple audience) for the understanding of an exilic audience, just as you can’t substitute the understanding of a preexilic audience for an exilic audience, or vice versa–or substitute the understanding of a preexilic audience for a postexilic audience, or vice versa. That’s just elementary. Henebury plays this little shell game, as if the viewpoint of one audience is equivalent to the viewpoint of another audience.

Steve links to “a lengthy discussion of Ezekiel’s temple.”

His discussions of Ezekiel’s temple did not address the issue raised by Hess citation, nor many issues raised in this correspondence.

I addressed that separately–and repeatedly. But since Henebury keeps harping on the issue, let’s go another round. Henbury said:

According to Marvin Sweeney in The Jewish Study Bible of the Jewish Publication Society, (2004), because of the discrepancies between Ezekiel’s temple and the Tabernacle,

“’Jewish tradition regards these chs as Ezekiel’s vision of the Third Temple to be built in the days of Messiah (Seder Olam 26; Rashi; Radak).” (1118. Cf. 1126).

i) If that’s alluding to the Seder Olam Rabbah, then that’s a 2C AD document. That postdates the NT.

It’s perfectly absurd to act as if the viewpoint of a 2C AD Jewish writing is equivalent to the viewpoint of 6C BC Jewish exile.

In addition, Rashi (12C AD) and Radak (13C AD) are medieval rabbis.

ii) Likewise, if it’s okay to filter the OT through post-NT literature, why is it wrong to filter the OT through NT literature?

iii) As I mentioned before, Henebury also disregards the potential for 2^nd Temple writers and rabbinic writers to reinterpret OT prophecies.

Since they didn’t, and since they couldn’t know “the church age” would intervene, and since they still await the restoration of Israel, well Hays is answered.

i) Notice Henebury’s blatant anachronisms and equivocations. Modern-day Jews who still await the restoration of Israel aren’t hermeneutically substitutable for preexilic, exilic, or even postexilic Jews. It’s not the same audience.

ii) And their ignorance of the church age is precisely the problem for Henebury. He’s intercalating OT prophecies into a premillennial eschatology–which also depends on NT prophecy (as he understands it). That’s not a timetable he can reconstruct from OT prophecy alone. He’s resequencing the fulfillment in light of NT revelation.

True, it’s a good way to get rid of “problems.” Translation: “If we interpret the words of God through domineering motifs interpreted through the Hays typology then we can move along without dealing with the words in context.”

We interpret God’s words through God’s words. OT theological motifs are also part of God’s word.

And it’s no more "the Hays typology" than Henebury’s dispensationalism is "the Henebury alternative." Both he and I are offering a theological construct. Henebury can’t rise above that. He’s not uniquely objective.

We could go on and on with this.  For instance, the fact that “all flesh is grass” is a figure of speech in a poetic section of Isaiah is supposed to alert us to the figurative nature (?) of nine chapters in a non-poetical temple account in Ezekiel!

i) Is Henebury even attempting to argue in good faith? What was the context of my statement? What was I responding to? Did I mention “all flesh is grass” to interpret Ezk 40-48 figuratively? No.

I was responding to this statement by Henebury:

I’m assuming Israel means Israel, Zion means Zion, Ezekiel’s Temple is a real temple; that the covenants mean precisely what they say, etc.  To me, Steve’s position is like saying “a car is a car” is begging the question.

I merely cited some obvious counterexamples.

ii) He’s welcome to qualify the verse as “a figure of speech in a poetic section of Isaiah,” but in that case he’s backpedaling from his original claim.

iii) He also ducked more serious counterexamples. To repeat: does David mean David in Ps 89 or Ezk 34:22-23 & 37:24-25?

Likewise, does Babylon mean Babylon in Revelation?

Okay, I’m nearly done.  I was going to go into this but, as I said, it’s too long.  Suffice then to say that Turretin believes the OT saints were in the Church:

the proper signification of this word [church called catholic] teaches that…in whatever place they have been or will be, and in whatever time they have lived from the beginning of the world or will live unto the end.  In this sense, “The whole family of God” is said “to be named in heaven and on earth (Eph. 3:15).  Therefore, in the Apostle’s Creed the church is properly called catholic.  – Institutes of Elenctic Theology, (Trans. Giger, ed., Dennison1997), Vol. III, 18th Topic, Sixth Question, II, p. 30. (See also Fifth Question: IV, p. 27).

In 6.V he speaks of the term “taken more strictly for the church of the New Testament” but only because of its OT restriction to the Jews.

Henebury even admits that Turretin’s usage is qualified. So how does that contradict my own position–even if agreement were germane.

I was going to cite D. Dickson’s Truth’s Victory Over Error, 194 to show that the Westminster Confession disagrees with Hays on restricting the term Church to the NT saints (I know he will play the semantics game but either way, it’s clear he doesn’t jibe with them).

Henebury may call it a “semantics game,” but Henebury is committing a popular semantic fallacy. Moreover, it’s semantic fallacy as defined by dispensational hermeneutics:

The word-idea fallacy assumes that the study of a term is the study of an idea. But the study of a concept is broader than word study, and many terms can be related to a single concept.

D. Bock & B. Fanning, Interpreting the New Testament Text: Introduction to the Art and Science of Exegesis (Crossway 2006), 151.

ii) In addition, Henebury fails to distinguish between traditional positions and traditional supporting arguments. Supporting arguments are secondary to the positions which they’re deployed to support. To retire a conventional supporting argument for a newer argument in support of the same position isn’t a substantive change.