Dear Dr. Arnold,In your commentary on Genesis you said “The ‘mountains of Ararat’ of 8:4 most likely refers to the foothills where the Mesopotamian plains in the north yield to the highlands near the sources of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers” (105).What would you say is the elevation of the foothills in question?Hi Steve.I have no idea about the altitude of those foothills. The Zagros Mountains, which are spread along the eastern & northeastern border of the Mesopotamian plains, vary in altitude considerably.Does it matter?
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CD-Host said #174 –
The word “logos” is in Greek without a corresponding Hebrew word. The fundamental problem of the logos, how an unchanging god can interact with a changing universe, that is act in time, doesn’t exist in Hebrew though. In Hebrew though God exists in time and experiences reality sequentially.
I’m not going to deny that there are concepts in the Hebrew literature that tie in. For example it is possible to make such a case like Yahweh being the material realization of El. But then you are have to have “Old Testament Judaism” as henotheistic not monotheistic and there you have the “son” being Yahweh not Jesus. The angelic “Son of God” / “Son of Man” concept which does have Aramaic ties and might go back to Hebrew could work.
I don’t see how you can argue that the Christian Logos, John’s Logos isn’t a variant of Hellenistism’s Logos. The Logos for Christians is an intermediary who interacts with matter on behalf of the supreme God.
I think Pagan Hellenism -> Hellenistic Judaism (Philo) -> Christianity (Gospel John) is such an obvious derivation. I’m not sure why you would want to bypass it.
We don’t have to relegate this to opinion. I’ve mentioned to you that T.F. Torrance found Philo in 1 Clement’s use of the concept of “grace”. But that same study of the Apostolic Fathers traced Paul’s usage and it had no discernable reliance on Philo, but rather it relied heavily on the OT concepts of hesed and related concepts of God’s lovingkindness.
Just as some background, (and in response to Bryan’s article “The Tradition and the Lexicon”), I cited G.K. Beale to the effect that:
By standards that Beale relates, there may be more than 4,000 “allusions” or “echoes” of the Old Testament found within the New. Given that there are 7956 verses in the New Testament, more than half the New Testament can be seen as bearing at least some form of “echo of” or “allusion to” some Old Testament concept or idea.
Thus, when a New Testament writer talks of “tradition” “handed down” (παρέδοσαν) to him by “those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word”, which in Luke 1:2 is a clear reference to the apostles, the “content” of that “tradition” was oozing with Old Testament words and concepts.
Beale traces three different types of phenomena: “direct references”, “probable allusions”, and “possible allusions”.
An “allusion” may simply be defined as a brief expression consciously intended by an author to be dependent on an OT passage. In contrast to a quotation of the OT, which is a direct reference, allusions are indirect references (the OT wording is not reproduced directly as in a quotation).
This is an exercise in determining “where the language of the New Testament came from”. And it is no surprise that Christ’s Apostles were steeped in the culture of the Old Testament.
With that said, looking to John and λόγος, D.A. Carson, for example, in his analysis of John’s prologue (John 1:1-1:18) while allowing that the word exists in Greek culture (i.e. Plato and Philo), but he says (after a lengthy analysis) “there is little evidence for the existence of full-blown Gnosticism before John wrote his gospel”.
Of Philo and other Greek sources he says:
Still others think John has borrowed from Philo, a first-century Jew who was much influenced by Plato and his successors. Philo makes a distinction between the ideal world, which he calls ‘the logos of God’, and the real or phenomenal world wihich is but its copy. In particular, logos for Philo can refer to the ideal man, the primal man, from which all empirical human beings derive. But Philo’s logos has no distinct personality, and does not itself become incarnate. John’s logos doctrine, by contrast, is not tied to such dualism. More generally, logos can refer to inner thought, hence ‘reason’ even ‘science’. That is one reason why some have advocated ‘Reason’ as a translation of logos. Alternatively logos can refer to outward expression, hence ‘speech’ or ‘message’, which is why ‘Word’ is still thought by many to be the most appropriate term, provided it does not narrowly refer to a mere linguistic sign but is understood to mean something like ‘message’ (as in 1 Cor 1:18).
Kostenberger, too, in his commentary notes the various Greek concepts, and points out that “in Stoic thought, logos was Reason, the impersonal principle governing the universe … Yet while John may well have been aware of the Stoic concept of the logos, it is doubtful that it constituted his primary conceptual framework (and he cites an earlier work of his to that effect).
Neither Carson nor Kostenberger (nor Beale) is unaware of the DSS and other sources you cite. Nevertheless, Carson gives what I believe is a superb summary of the source for λόγος in John 1:
However the Greek term is understood, there is a more readily available background than that provided by Philo or the Greek philosophical schools. Considering how frequently John quotes or alludes to the Old Testament, that is the place to begin. (And the chapter on John in “Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament” covers nearly 100 pages).
There, ‘the word’ (Hebrew: dabar) of God is connected with God’s powerful activity in creation (cf. Gen 1:3ff; Ps 33:6), revelation (Jer 1:4; Is 9:8; Ezk 33:7; Amos 3:1, 8) and deliverance (Ps 107:20; Is. 55:1). If the Lord (Yahweh) is said to speak to the prophet Isaiah (e.g. Is 7:3), elsewhere we read that ‘the word of the Lord came to Isaiah (Is 38:4; cf. Jer 1:4; Ezk 1:6). It was by ‘the word of the Lord’ that the heavens were made (Ps 33:6); in Gen 1:3, 6, 9, etc., God simply speaks and his powerful word creates. That same word effects deliverance and judgment (Is 55:11; cf Ps 29:3ff).
When some of his people faced illness that brought them to the brink of death God ‘sent forth his word and healed them; he rescued them from the grave’ (Ps 107:20). This personification of the ‘word’ becomes even more colourful in Jewish writing composed after the Old Testament (e.g. Wisdom 18:14, 15). Whether this heritage was mediated to John by th Greek version of the Old Testament that many early Christians used, or even by an Aramaic paraphrase (called a ‘Targum’), the ultimate fountain for this choice of language cannot be in serious doubt.
Carson goes on to cite other post-OT writings, especially related to the concept of logos as wisdom and concludes, “However, the lack of Wisdom terminology in John’s Gospel suggests that the parallels between Wisdom and John’s Logos may stem less from direct dependence than from common dependence on Old Testament uses of ‘word’ and Torah, from which both have borrowed.”
Concluding with his discussion of Greek thought:
In short, God’s “Word” in the Old Testament is his powerful self-expression in creation, revelation, and salvation, and the personification of that ‘Word’ makes it suitable for John to apply it as a title to God’s ultimate self-disclosure, the person of his own Son. But if the expression would prove richest for Jewish readers, it would also resonate in the minds of some readers with entirely pagan backgrounds. In their case, however, they would soon discover that whatever they had understood the term to mean in the past, the author [the Apostle John] was forcing them into fresh thought (see on v. 14: there Carson discusses and unpacks this comment: “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth”.
It is interesting to note that Carson is finding the same phenomenon in John and “λόγος” that Torrance found regarding “grace” in Paul: the word, prevalent in Greek thought, has a totally new meaning [for pagans] that is filled with Old Testament concepts.
One could go into much greater detail with this. Brown and Cullmann both interact extensively with the literature you cite and both place the identity of the λόγος firmly in the Old Testament.
The Roman Catholic Church claims to be the one, true church established by Jesus Christ. The Reformers of the sixteenth century rejected this claim, pointing to numerous conflicts between Scripture and Roman Catholic doctrine and practice. What are the differences that divide Roman Catholics and Protestants? Are they important? In this series, Dr. R.C. Sproul carefully and respectfully looks at the doctrines that are at the heart of the Catholic-Protestant divide.
The subterfuge here authorized by the Lord [1 Sam 16:2-3] has often been brought into discussions of whether or not there are ever situations in which it is ethically permissible, according to biblical standards, to lie to or deceive another person. Some have argued that this is never permissible, without exception. Others have said that in certain extreme situations a person is not required to speak the truth because there may be a higher obligation, usually that of protecting innocent life.This argument is based to a large extent on the ninth commandment, in which the prohibition against bearing false witness against one’s neighbor is not formulated as an impersonal prohibition (not lying) but as a prohibition in which another person is involved. You may not damage your neighbor with your words. But this sometimes leads to a conflict: Are there cases in which one must consider his obligation to his neighbor as a higher obligation than his witness concerning reality (e.g. a formal statement of truth)? The answer would be yes, because to formally speak the truth in such situations would in reality violate the spirit and intent of the ninth commandment (i.e., to protect our neighbor with our words).Those who say that deception or lying is never permissible usually deal with the Lord’s instruction to Samuel in 16:2 by making a distinction between concealing and lying…One may wonder, however, whether this line of argument really resolves the problem. Samuel was instructed not just to “conceal” his intentions from Saul, but to deceive Saul concerning the real purpose for his trip to Bethlehem, should that become necessary. It would seem to be difficult to defend the proposition that this is telling the truth in the sense that Scripture elsewhere requires. How much difference is there between deliberately misleading another person and lying to that person? Would it not be better in cases such as this to accept the fact that the Lord has told Samuel to deceive Saul, and therefore to conclude that here we find an example of a situation in which there is no obligation to tell the truth…In that case this situation is similar to that of the midwives in Exod 1:17-21, Rahab in Josh 2:1-14, and “the woman” in 2 Sam 17:18-21), J. R. Vannoy, 1-2 Samuel (Tyndale 2009), 158-59.To protect his prophet, the Lord tells Samuel to go to Bethlehem under the pretense of offering a sacrifice. This half-truth will serve to protect Samuel and to veil the Lord’s intentions. God is not above using deception when he judges rebels (e.g. 1 Kgs 22:19-22; Jer 4:10; Ezk 14:9). The Lord is a God of truth, whose word is reliable, but he may very well deceive his enemies when they have, by their actions, forfeited their right to know the truth (see 2 Sam 22:26-27; 2 Thes 2:11-12). R. Chisholm, 1 & 2 Samuel (Baker 2013), 113.
38 John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” 39 But Jesus said, “Do not stop him, for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. 40 For the one who is not against us is for us (Mk 9:38-40; par. Lk 9:49-50).
Thornwell demanded the legal sanction of slave marriages, the repeal of the laws against slave literacy, and effective measures to punish mistreatment of slaves. He assailed the scientific racism of his day that held that blacks were a separate species. He repudiated the idea that the curse of Ham in Genesis was fulfilled by the infliction of slavery on the Africans. He recognized in black people “the same humanity in which we glory as the image of God,” and he declared to a white Charleston congregation, We are not ashamed to call [the black man] our brother!” “Upon an earth radiant with the smile of heaven, or in the Paradise of God, we can no more picture the figure of a slave,” Thornwell wrote. He strongly opposed the reopening of the slave trade in the United States…On a trip to Europe in 1860, Thornwell apparently made up his mind to act at once for the gradual emancipation of the slaves…but when he got back home he found it was too late: “the die was cast,” Our Southern Zion (Banner of Truth 2012), 133-34.
Before the first abortion, she learned she was pregnant relatively late — 14 weeks in. She turned to her mother for advice:I told my mom I was pregnant. She said, “Get an abortion.”I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t really thinking I had any choices. I didn’t have a job that could support a child. And I wasn’t sure if I was planning to marry my boyfriend, although we were living together. I knew that I had big ideas for my life and I hadn’t figured things out yet.My mom got militant. “You’ll destroy your career possibilities.”She got pregnant again, a few years later (and apparently after the volleyball phase of her career):So the second time I got pregnant, I thought of killing myself. My career was soaring. I was 30 and I felt like I had everything going for me — great job, great boyfriend, and finally, for the first time ever, I had enough money to support myself. I hated that I put myself in the position of either losing all that or killing a baby.
Her sons are living evidence of her optimism. She suffered two miscarriages before doctors told her she would never have children. “I was convinced that it was not true because I believe if I really put my energies into something it happens. When I became pregnant I spent the whole nine months -- both times -- in bed. Maybe that’s my strength -- I really go all the way. The lowest point in my life was when I lost my two unborn children - I didn’t want that again.”
The calls came as Snowden described how he fears he will be kidnapped and returned to America to face espionage charges and possible life in prison – or even murdered on Washington’s orders.
Daniel. By Sharon Pace. Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys, 2008, xxiv + 383 pp., $55.00.Reflecting the mainstream of contemporary scholarship on Daniel, Pace argues that the apocalyptic section (chaps. 7–12) was written just before the death of Antiochus IV Epiphanes in 164 bc. Because of the format of the commentary, the introduction to Daniel is brief. Typical arguments for and against the late date cannot be seriously weighed. This is an unfortunate shortcoming of the Smyth and Helwys series. However, since this is the working assumption of the commentary, support for the later date is found in appropriate places throughout the commentary. For example, Pace argues that the fourth kingdom of Daniel 2 and 7 is Greece and the goat of Daniel 8 is Antiochus. Likewise, the “anointed prince” of Dan 9:25 is likely Onias III and the final “week” refers to the cessation of worship under Antiochus. Pace is clear that chapters 8 and 9 are non-historical, stereotyped depictions of the progress of history up to the time of the writer. The details of the final vision of the book, however, can be confirmed from descriptions of the Seleucid kingdom found in Josephus and Maccabees. Pace therefore reads Daniel 7–12 alongside texts from 1–2 Maccabees, Josephus, Polybius and other primary sources. These texts are placed in sidebars to illustrate many of the difficult allusions to history in Daniel 11. She interprets all of Dan 11:21–45 as ex eventu prophecy referring to Antiochus IV Epiphanes, although verses 40–45 “turn to general statements about what will happen in the future” (p. 333). This is problematic, however, since Antiochus did not die in the land of Israel in a final battle—a detail Pace acknowledges. In the introduction, she describes these verses as “genuine predictions” with no awareness of the successes of the Maccabean revolt. If the final editor of Daniel had no problem inserting political marriages into Daniel 2, one wonders why this prophecy was not also “updated” to more accurately reflect the way in which Antiochus died.
The immediate successors of kings who receive news of impending judgment on their royal houses, for example, characteristically reign for “two years” in Kings (1 Kgs 15:25; 16:8; 22:51; 2 Kgs 21:19). Are we really being told exactly how long they reigned, or are we to see this as an example of narrative art, linking these kings together and inviting reflection upon them as a group? And what are we to make of the highly schematic ending to the book, where the last four kings of Judah are described as reigning successively for three months; eleven years, three months, and eleven years (2 Kgs 23:31-24:20)? I. Provan, 1 and 2 Kings (Hendrickson 1995), 18-19.[20:15] “All the Israelites, 7,000.” It is, of course, a curious coincidence that 7,000 is the number of the “remnant” destined to survive the onslaught described in 19:15-18 (153-54).[22:30] The various numerical links perform the same function (400 prophets in 18:19 and about 400 in 22:6; 7,000 Israelites in 19:18 and 20:15; 32 kings in 20:1 and 32 commanders in 22:31 (166).[24:16] It is interesting to find the figure seven thousand occurring yet again, since that is the number of “the remnant” in 1 Kgs 19:18 (cf. also the additional note to 1 Kgs 20:15) (281).[2 Chron 7:4-7]. Here the numbers appear, but they are astounding: “twenty-two thousand…and a hundred and twenty thousand” (7:5). In all likelihood these numbers are hyperbolic. 144,000 sacrifices in the period of fourteen days (7:8-9)… R. Pratt, 1 and 2 Chronicles (Mentor 1998), 244.
3 Now the donkeys of Kish, Saul's father, were lost. So Kish said to Saul his son, “Take one of the young men with you, and arise, go and look for the donkeys.” 4 And he passed through the hill country of Ephraim and passed through the land of Shalishah, but they did not find them. And they passed through the land of Shaalim, but they were not there. Then they passed through the land of Benjamin, but did not find them.
5 When they came to the land of Zuph, Saul said to his servant who was with him, “Come, let us go back, lest my father cease to care about the donkeys and become anxious about us.” 6 But he said to him, “Behold, there is a man of God in this city, and he is a man who is held in honor; all that he says comes true. So now let us go there. Perhaps he can tell us the way we should go.” 7 Then Saul said to his servant, “But if we go, what can we bring the man? For the bread in our sacks is gone, and there is no present to bring to the man of God. What do we have?” 8 The servant answered Saul again, “Here, I have with me a quarter of a shekel of silver, and I will give it to the man of God to tell us our way.” 9 (Formerly in Israel, when a man went to inquire of God, he said, “Come, let us go to the seer,” for today's “prophet” was formerly called a seer.) 10 And Saul said to his servant, “Well said; come, let us go.” So they went to the city where the man of God was.11 As they went up the hill to the city, they met young women coming out to draw water and said to them, “Is the seer here?” 12 They answered, “He is; behold, he is just ahead of you. Hurry. He has come just now to the city, because the people have a sacrifice today on the high place. 13 As soon as you enter the city you will find him, before he goes up to the high place to eat. For the people will not eat till he comes, since he must bless the sacrifice; afterward those who are invited will eat. Now go up, for you will meet him immediately.” 14 So they went up to the city. As they were entering the city, they saw Samuel coming out toward them on his way up to the high place.15 Now the day before Saul came, the Lord had revealed to Samuel: 16 “Tomorrow about this time I will send to you a man from the land of Benjamin, and you shall anoint him to be prince over my people Israel. He shall save my people from the hand of the Philistines. For I have seen my people, because their cry has come to me.” 17 When Samuel saw Saul, the Lord told him, “Here is the man of whom I spoke to you! He it is who shall restrain my people” (1 Sam 9:3-17).
And this shall be the sign to you that the Lord has anointed you to be prince over his heritage. 2 When you depart from me today, you will meet two men by Rachel's tomb in the territory of Benjamin at Zelzah, and they will say to you, ‘The donkeys that you went to seek are found, and now your father has ceased to care about the donkeys and is anxious about you, saying, “What shall I do about my son?”’ 3 Then you shall go on from there farther and come to the oak of Tabor. Three men going up to God at Bethel will meet you there, one carrying three young goats, another carrying three loaves of bread, and another carrying a skin of wine. 4 And they will greet you and give you two loaves of bread, which you shall accept from their hand. 5 After that you shall come to Gibeath-elohim, where there is a garrison of the Philistines. And there, as soon as you come to the city, you will meet a group of prophets coming down from the high place with harp, tambourine, flute, and lyre before them, prophesying (10:1-5).
The end of Christianity is not some far-off dream, nor is it on the verge of occurring. Instead, it happened two thousand years ago—in fact, Christianity never even began; it was stillborn….there is no such thing as the religion of Christianity; at best it is a multitude of related but distinct and often-enough opposed traditions, shifting and swaying with the windsof local culture and passing history … (Dr. David Eller, “Christianity Evolving: On the Origin of Christian Species”, Chapter 1 in Loftus, ed., ©2011“The End of Christianity”: Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, pg. 23.)
Burrell offers only a cursory survey of God’s speech in Job 38–41 and does not interact with recent studies that utilize ancient Near Eastern materials to understand how God constructed His argument. These include, among others, J. C. L. Gibson, “On Evil in the Book of Job,” in Ascribe to the Lord, JSOT Supplement, ed. L. Eslinger and G. Taylor (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1988); Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, In Search of God: The Meaning and Message of the Everlasting Names (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 175–200 (a chapter entitled “Job and His God”); Robert S. Fyall, Now My Eyes Have Seen You: Images of Creation and Evil in the Book of Job, New Studies in Biblical Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2002); and André LaCocque, “The Deconstruction of Job’s Fundamentalism,” Journal of Biblical Literature 126 (2007). These authors demonstrate that the key to understanding God’s argument is the symbolism of Behemoth and Leviathan, which in their ancient Near Eastern context represent the sinister forces of chaos, death, and evil. If this is so, then God does address the issue of Job’s suffering in a very pointed way by reminding him that the chaos in the world originates with the Enemy—an enemy that God alone can and will subdue. Granted, there are unanswered questions about the origin and persistence of evil; so one must acknowledge that the Book of Job does not offer a fully developed theodicy. Yet it does offer an explanation for Job’s suffering—he was caught in the crossfire of a cosmic struggle between God and the forces of evil (symbolized by Leviathan but behind which lurks the Adversary of the prologue).
http://www.dts.edu/reviews/david-b-burrell-deconstructing-theodicy/
6 And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” 7 And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. 8 And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day (Gen 1:6-8).
This investigation attempts to glean evidence from the widest possible variety of surviving sources in order to present as clear a picture as possible of Mesopotamian views of the universe. At the same time, however, it must be recognized that this approach poses certain dangers, not the least of which are our distance and time and space from the ancient writers, as well as the vagaries of archaeological discovery…Ancient Mesopotamian authors do not distinguish between cosmographic ideas drawn from direct observation of the physical world (for example, the movement of stars in the sky) and those not derived from direct observation (for example, the geography of the Heaven of Anu above the sky or the fantastic regions visited by Gilgamesh in Gilg. IX-X). The current evidence simply does not allow us to know, for instance, if ancient readers of Gilgamesh really believed that they too could have visited Utnapistim by sailing across the cosmic sea and “the waters of death,” or if a few, many, most, or all ancient readers understood the topographical material in Gilg. IX-X in metaphysical or mystical terms. W. Horowitz, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography (Eisenbrauns 1998), xiii-xiv.
15 Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. 16 The glory of the Lord dwelt on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud. 17 Now the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel. 18 Moses entered the cloud and went up on the mountain. And Moses was on the mountain forty days and forty nights (Exod 24:15-18).
