Category: Book of Habakkuk
The Apostle Paul’s use of the Book of the Twelve
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post asking why the Apostle Paul never used the Book of Jonah in support of his argument for the Gentile mission when it would seem that there was no book more qualified to address Israel’s hardened heart toward their neighbors. This led Matt Emerson to write one noting the same thing can be said of important biblical characters like Joseph and Joshua who are never mentioned in the whole of the New Testament! In our exchange in the comments he mentioned another solution that I thought I would post here to see what everyone (or anyone) has to say.
Matt suggested that since the Book of the Twelve was considered a unified whole it may not have crossed his mind to cite Jonah specifically since we have quotations from books like Habakkuk, Hosea, and Joel that are part of the twelve.
I don’t know enough about the Book of the Twelve or how it was used in Second Temple interpretive schemes to know if this is a likely answer or not. Any thoughts?
__________
At this time the best response has been from J. Michael Rios who wrote,
“ I suspect that the answer stems from the interpretation of Jonah, which isn’t primarily about a challenge to mission, but rather about condemnation of Israel’s reticence to fulfill mission. Hence, Paul doesn’t quote it with respect to his Gentile mission because it isn’t a source that bolsters that argument. (See also Jesus’ references to Jonah, which always bear an edge of lurking condemnation.) Hence, if I were looking for Paul to use Jonah in his writings, I would look for passages that condemn (national) Israel’s resistance to the call of the gospel. But since Paul desires, rhetorically, to invite in and not condemn national Israel (e.g., Rom 10:1), this is something he doesn’t do. Hence, no Jonah in Paul.”
Habakkuk 2:4 in 1QpHab
In Letters and Homilies for Jewish Christians the author, Ben Witherington III, argues that the author of Hebrews is more faithful to the original meaning of Habakkuk 2:4 when he quotes it (10:38) that the Apostle Paul is in Galatians 3:11 and Romans 1:17 (p. 291). When I read Habakkuk 2:4 in the setting of the Book of Habakkuk and I read Hebrews 10:38 in the setting of Hebrews I tend to agree with Witherington. In both Habakkuk and Hebrews the concept of faith is better understood as “faithfulness”.
It may be argued that the Apostle Paul does include the idea of faithfulness in Romans and Galatians, but it is not as evident, especially since Hebrews deals with longevity of faith and avoiding apostasy while the Apostle Paul appears to be arguing that faith, as in trust in the Messiah, is how Habakkuk 2:4 is applied. If the Apostle is not reading Habakkuk 2:4 as the author of Hebrews is reading it, is there a model of such a reading of Habakkuk 2:4? It seems to me that the Apostle reads Habakkuk 2:4 much like the Qumran community read it.
In 1QpHab, the pesher of Habbakuk found in cave 1 of Qumran, the author commentary made on Habakkuk 2:4 is this: “This refers to all those who obey the Law among the Jews whom God will rescue from the place of judgement, because of their suffering and their loyalty to the Teacher of Righteousness.” (Col. 8, translated in Wise, Abegg, and Cook, A New Translation: The Dead Sea Scrolls, p.85). The Qumran community understood the prophecy of Habakkuk to apply to their community in a new way, namely that adherance to the Law, as well as obedience to the Teacher of Righteousness, is what this passage meant in the new eschatological situation.
It may be that the Apostle Paul had a similar way of approaching this text. Faith, or faithfulness, to the God of Israel now meant moving beyond the Law of Moses (contrary Qumran) and follow Messiah (like the Teacher of Righteousness). As in Habakkuk the context is a judgement that is coming and a means of escaping. For Habakkuk this meant fidelity to the covenant as Babylon swooped in, for Qumran this meant fidelity to the Law and the Teacher of Righteousness when the Romans invaded, for the Apostle Paul this means following and trusting Messiah in light of the eschatological judgement inaugurated by the resurrection.
