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Tuesday, December 27, 2022

Problems With The Eliakim Argument For The Papacy

Some comments I posted in a YouTube thread, in case anybody would find them helpful:

It's striking that Jesus chose such different language and concepts in Matthew 16 than what we find in Isaiah 22, even though he could so easily have made the two more similar (as Revelation 3 illustrates). There's a different number of keys in Matthew 16, a different type of kingdom, binding and loosing rather than opening and shutting, a reversal of the order of the activities (binding corresponding to shutting and loosing corresponding to opening), a rock rather than a peg, etc. If Jesus is going to be paralleled to two figures in Isaiah 22 (God and the king), why can't all of the Twelve be paralleled to Eliakim, as Matthew 18:18 and other evidence would suggest? If we're going to think in terms of an elevation in going from type to antitype, then how do we determine what qualifies as an elevation? Why can't the involvement of the Twelve rather than one individual be considered an elevation? If there's discontinuity in one context in going from two figures in Isaiah (God and the king) to one in Matthew (Jesus), whereas there's continuity in another context in going from one in Isaiah (Eliakim) to one in Matthew (Peter), it can't be argued that the relationship between Isaiah and Matthew is the same in every context involved. Rather, the number of figures involved is getting smaller in one context while staying the same in another. If we can allow that sort of inconsistency, then why not allow some other type of inconsistency (e.g., going from Eliakim in Isaiah to the Twelve in Matthew)? Or why not conclude that there's consistency rather than inconsistency, so that Jesus only takes on God's role from Isaiah 22, whereas some church leader below Jesus and above Peter takes on the king's role from Isaiah 22?

Regarding the evidence against the papacy outside of Matthew 16, think of the many contexts in which a papacy could have been mentioned early on, but wasn't: there's no reference to a title for a papal office (in contrast to "apostle", "deacon", etc.); the qualifications for holding other offices, like apostle and elder, are mentioned in places like Acts 1 and 1 Timothy 3, whereas there's no such discussion of the qualifications for being a Pope; passages discussing the structure of the church, like 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4, say nothing of a papacy; the imagery used for the church in Ephesians 2 and elsewhere doesn't make any effort to portray a papal office; the imagery used for the apostles in Matthew 19 and elsewhere (e.g., twelve thrones, twelve foundation stones) doesn't make any effort to portray a papal office; in passages in which the apostles are anticipating their departure in some sense (Paul departing from the Ephesian elders in Acts 20, Paul and Peter anticipating their deaths in 2 Timothy and 2 Peter), there's no reference to a papal office, looking to the bishop of Rome as the foundation of the church, looking to the bishop of Rome as the center of Christian unity, or anything like that; the earliest sources to comment on the Roman church and its importance (Paul in Romans, Luke at the end of Acts, Ignatius, Dionysius of Corinth, Irenaeus, etc.) give a variety of non-papal reasons for the Roman church's significance; the early opponents of Christianity, including ones who addressed the religion at as much length as Trypho and Celsus did, showed no awareness of a papacy. Furthermore, passages like 1 Corinthians 12:28 (mentioning "apostles" as the first order in the church) and Galatians 2:9 (grouping Peter with other apostles and naming him second) make more sense if there was no early belief in a papacy than if there was a belief in it.

The Other Paul recently did a good interview with Timothy Rucker, who wrote a book on Isaiah 22, Revelation 3, and Matthew 16.

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