Category: Old Testament Scholarship
Essentially Marcionite?!
If you haven’t had the opportunity to listen to some of the lectures given by Richard Hays at Baylor University a few weeks ago let me encourage you to do so. I have already linked both audio and video here. In these lectures he challenges the modern approach to reading the Old Testament by taking a look at the christological lens through which the canonical Gospels present the Old Testament. In his opening lecture, “Can the Gospels Teach Us How to Read the Old Testament”, he says this:
“….many mainstream Protestant churches are, in fact, naively Marcionite in their theology and practice. In their worship services they have no Old Testament reading or if the Old Testament is read it’s rarely preached upon and indeed, in so far as Jewish tradition appears in preaching at all it is usually with a negative foil for the gospel, a legalistic religion from which Jesus has delivered us.”
I find it hard to disagree with this statement. I would say this isn’t limited to mainstream Protestants. We evangelicals have been influenced as well.
Do you see modern Protestant preaching as essentially Marcionite? If so, what can we do to change this?
Dispensationalism and the Problem of Old Testament Understanding
After only one week of seminary, dispensationalism has already come up twice in class. What is interesting is that both times it has been to point out some of the problems of dispensationalism.
The first time it happened the professor was trying to convey to the class the importance of in-depth study of the Old Testament. He described how many christians lack a working knowledge of the OT. Not only do many christians lack basic understanding of the OT, some just have a very low view of the OT in general. He feels that eschatology has brought about this lack of knowledge. Most specifically the eschatological idea of dispensationalism. He feels that dispensationalism has diminished the OT and taken away much of the reason for people to study it. Here are his reasons.
1) Dispensationalism has led many people to view the OT as outdated.
2) Dispensationalism has caused many to view the OT as strictly law, and the NT as strictly grace.
3) Some dispensationalists have reduced the place of the OT as strictly a place to find moralistic stories.
4)Dispensationalism has led to many churches not discussing the OT in services.
I find this to be problematic since often in discussion with non-believers passages from the OT have been discussed. While I am in no way an expert on the OT, I do feel that it is extremely important to understand the OT. It is also important for churches to expose congregations to the OT, either through sermons, readings or bible studies.
What do you think about this view? Do you feel that there is a lack of understanding of the OT among modern christians?
Enns on the Evolution of the Pentateuch
Peter Enns has written a short essay providing a “descriptive historical survey” on the evolution of the Pentateuch titled “When was Genesis Written and Why Does It Matter?”. You can access it from the BioLogos website here. The thesis is as follows:
“The Pentateuch as we know it was not authored out of whole cloth by a second millennium Moses, but is the end product of a complex literary process—written, oral, or both—that did not come to a close until sometimes after the return from exile.”
Enns makes some good observations (nothing radically new, hence a “historical survey”). I think it is a worthwhile read and I’d be interested to hear the opinion of any student of the Old Testament who has read it.
Sailhamer on the Pentateuch as Meditation on the Sinai Covenant
I found this paragraph from John Sailhamer in his commentary on Genesis for the Expositors Bible Commentary (V.2, pp. 12-13) worth sharing:
“It is important to see that while the Pentateuch is about the Sinai covenant, it is not the document of that covenant. The Pentateuch does contain documents that were part of the Sinai covenant, e.g. the Ten Commandments (Exod 20), the covenant code (Exod 21-23), the tabernacle instruction (Exod 25-31), the law of sacrifice (Lev 1-7); but the Pentateuch, as a literary document, is fundamentally different from the document of the Sinai covenant. What this means is that the Pentateuch is a document that looks at the Sinai covenant as an object under consideration. It was attempting to evaluate the Sinai covenant from the perspective that was not the same as that of the covenant itself. Like the other historical books of the OT, the Prophets, and the NT, the Pentateuch represents a look back at the failure of Sinai and a look forward to a time of fulfillment (e.g., Deut 30).”
