Marketing the Common English Bible

UPDATE: Paul Franklyn, Project Director for the CEB, informed us in the comments that the text originally featured on the new CEB website would be revised taking into account the concerns laid out below. I sincerely commend Abingdon for their gracious response to criticism and for their willingness to promptly put suggestions into practice. Further, I am pleased to report that the text quoted below has been removed from the website and that the new presentation of the CEB is much, much better.

As most of my readers know, the Common English Bible is a new ecumenical Bible translation project sponsored by Abingdon Press. News of the project appeared throughout the Biblioblogosphere last year, and over the past few days, the buzz has been about the release of the text of the St Matthew’s Gospel, which was finally made available for download yesterday. I expect to make a few comments about the translation later, but  at the moment I only wish to discuss the perplexing statements featured in the brand new website for the CEB, which was launched in connection with the release of its translation of the Gospel of St Matthew. Below are two blocks of text from the website’s front page, each followed by my comments.

A TRANSLATION FOR MAINSTREAM CHRISTIANS
While new translations abound for part of the church, for mainstream denominations the choice is limited. The NRSV revision began in the 1970s and is now 20 years old. It reads at an 11th grade level (which is higher than the typical college graduate), and it was a modest revision of the 1951 RSV. In the past 20 years alone, the English language grew from 300,000 words to over 1 million words. In our quickly changing world, we need a translation of Scripture that connects with the kind of people who worship and study the Bible in our congregations. The Common English Bible can connect people to God once again. What happens next, when we study the Scripture, can take our passion for loving God and neighbor to the next level.

The first question here is what exactly constitutes a “mainstream Christian” or a “mainstream denomination.” By any count, the Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant denomination in the US, and news of the controversies at their annual convention often make the national news, so they have a large degree of public visibility. Further, they have recently produced the Holman Christian Standard Bible, and hardly lack choices of other translations to use. Evidently, then, “mainstream” denotes here neither numbers nor public visibility, since Southern Baptists have both of these, and the opening statement still does not apply to them.

A possible solution to the dilemma is that “mainstream” is used here as a synonym of “mainline,” a proposal that has much to commend to it: after all, a majority of the CEB’s translators and consulting readers hail from such denominations as the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the United Methodist Church, the United Church of Christ, the Reformed Church in America, and the Presbyterian Church (USA). Traditionally African-American denominations are also well represented, as is even the Roman Catholic Church. But then the Church of the Nazarene, a 20th-century revivalist denomination of Wesleyan-holiness heritage, is represented by 5 translators and two readers—more than, for instance, the very mainline UCC. Further, there isn’t a single Orthodox translator or consulting reader in the CEB team, though I should certainly hope that the Orthodox Church is considered by all to be at least “mainstream,” and though there are more Orthodox in North America than all Nazarenes worldwide put together.

It is unclear, then, to whom does the CEB website actually refer when it speaks of “our congregations” and of the “kind of people (!) who worship and study the Bible” in them. What is clear, however, is that the CEB is being marketed with a regrettable “us versus them” mentality from the start, even though who falls into which category is not explained. Still, whoever belongs to the “us” can rest assured that the CEB will “connect [them] to God” and stir them to “take [their] passion for loving God and neighbor to the next level”—presumably in a way that the NIV will not (see below).

I cannot help but to comment on the incredible (and linguistically naive) statement that “[i]n the past 20 years alone, the English language grew from 300,000 words to over 1 million words.” Imagine that: a mind-boggling 700,000  new words coined in two decades, whereas the previous six or so centuries before that only managed to produce a mere 300,000! Clearly our Anglophone ancestors were lazy and unimaginative in the extreme. This sort of figure is usually produced by counting words in a dictionary or another lexicographical corpus and comparing the tally with previous editions of the same, or yet more fantastically, by swallowing whole the claptrap advanced by Paul J. J. Payack’s Global Language Monitor. But let us suppose for a second that English has really expanded at a rate of 35,000 new words per year over the past 20 years: how many of these new words do you suppose would find their way into a new Bible translation? There are no New Testament passages, alas, that recount how St Paul wrote his email to the Seattleites from his laptop while using the wireless connection at Panera.

OTHER TRANSLATIONS
Several Bible translations were produced over the past 20 years. However, most of these translations represent a particular conservative theology and are revisions or updates from prior translations (e.g., ESV from the RSV, NKJV from KJV, TNIV from NIV). The revision is generally less than 5 percent. Or they are paraphrases of the biblical text (e.g., The Message, The Voice, or the New Living Translation—a revision of the Living Bible). The NIV will be marketed again in this crowded conservative field in 2011, by merging the TNIV with the aging NIV, which originated among Reformed groups in the 1970s.

There are a couple of glaring errors in this paragraph. For one, we hear the same old tired canard that the New Living Translation is a paraphrase of the Biblical text. It is not. Like the Good News Translation, it is a functionally equivalent translation, not a paraphrase. Also, the New International Version had its origins among Reformed groups in the ’50s. By the ’70s, when the translation was finally published, the members of the NIV’s Committee on Bible Translation hailed from no less than 13 different denominations, all Evangelical, but not all Reformed or Calvinistic. (For details on how the NIV came to be, see this article by the late great John H. Stek.)

More importantly, however, here we learn where the perceived divide between “us” and “them” in the previous paragraph lies: it is something ominously called “conservative theology.” By this I suspect  that they mean Evangelicals and others with a so-called “high view of Scripture,” since they are the ones who by and large have produced the revisions mentioned above, and also the ones who make the most use of them. This is a shocking proposition on which to market a Bible translation, particularly taking into account the fact that Evangelicals and others with a “high view of Scripture” are the primary market for Bible translations. If it is hoped that the dying demographic of the mainline will suddenly become energized by the publication of the CEB and return handsome profits to Abingdon for their enormous expense on this project, I’m afraid that such hopes are built on quickening sand.

From the above we would be led to think that no individuals who espouse a “conservative theology” are involved in this translation project, but a brief glance at the list of translators and readers quickly dispels that notion. Indeed, three of the translators belong either to the Evangelical Free Church of America or to the Baptist General Conference, two bodies that unambiguously affirm Biblical inerrancy in their statements of faith. There are also several translators who serve on the faculties of Wheaton College, Fuller Theological Seminary, Asbury Theological Seminary, Bethel Seminary, Westminster Theological Seminary, and Denver Seminary, all of which are, at the very least, decidedly Evangelical schools who affirm a “high view of Scripture.” Why, then, stir the hornet’s nest of “liberal” versus “conservative” Bible translations? Why the gratuitous indictment of the “conservative theology” that several of the CEB’s own translators espouse?

I realize, of course, that framing the matter in this way likely responds to the recent news that a new edition of the NIV will be released in 2011, which is also the target publication year for the CEB. One can practically hear the terror behind the lines quoted above about “the aging NIV” and the hideous progeny that will surely result from its “merger” with the TNIV (which descriptions are, incidentally, very disingenuous). It is understandable that those responsible for marketing the CEB should want to have the first strike against its putative rival, especially when it said rival is a new edition of a translation that has over 300 million copies in circulation. However, the point that they have chosen to emphasize in their campaign isn’t only misleading (because the CEB is not a “liberal” translation, and plenty of “conservatives” are involved in its production), but it is also a classic example of shooting oneself in the foot.

On Sermon Evaluations (Or, It’s a Tough Job, But Somebody’s Got To Do It)

My friend and former coworker Charles Wiese, who blogs over at The Lamb On the Altar, has lately been occupied with a most interesting exercise in sermon evaluation. After tracking down and listening to several sermons on St Mark 9:30-37, he grades each on the basis of the following criteria:

1. Does the pastor explain the text correctly? (+1 for explaining the text correctly, 0 for not explaining the text at all, -1 for explaining the text incorrectly)

2. Is the law preached lawfully? (+1 for preaching the law in all its sternness, 0 for not preaching the law at all, -1 for preaching the law as if it is doable)

3. Does the sermon mention Jesus? (+1 for saying true things about Jesus, 0 for not mentioning Jesus, -1 for saying false things about Jesus)

4. Is the sermon about what Jesus has done for us? (+1 if the primary focus of the sermon is about what Jesus has done for us, 0 if the sermon does not mention Jesus, -1 if the sermon is all about what we do for Jesus)

5. Does the creation of a wordle show a Christian focus in the sermon? (+1 for yes, 0 for sort of, -1 for no)

Thus far the series has proved to be rather enlightening, and not a little entertaining: quite frankly, I was thoroughly amused that a sermon by John Piper earned a measly 35% F by such Christocentric standards! I look forward to  many more sermon evaluations from Charles in the future.

The above criteria got me thinking, though. Charles is a confessional Lutheran, and it shows. So, what if we tried to apply some of these same criteria to an ancient Christian sermon that has historically made confessional Lutherans uncomfortable? Yes, you guessed it. Let’s look briefly at the Epistle of St James.

Needless to say, we are beset with difficulties from the beginning. To ask whether St James expounds his text correctly is to raise the bugaboo of his use of the Old Testament, which at least in one notable instance, seems to be at odds with the use of the same passage by St Paul (cf. St James 2:14-24; Romans 4). The rest of his examples and allusions (some quite unclear) are likewise riddled with exegetical problems, and as often is the case, the modern reader can’t help but wonder how could the Apostles use the Old Testament in such a way. I suppose, then, that this earns St James a -1 in this department.

What about the lawful preaching of the law? Even a casual reader of the Epistle can’t help but notice St James’ insistent call  for his audience to be not only hearers, but doers of the word. Indeed, he explicitly exhorts his audience to fulfill the royal law (another questionable application of the Old Testament; cf. St James 2:8; Leviticus 19:18), and goes on at length what manner of behavior constitutes this fulfillment. I’m afraid that here, too, St James earns a -1.

At long last, and with much difficulty, we reach a criterion which St James passes with flying colors, for he indeed mentions “our glorious Lord Jesus,” and says nothing false about him. Here, then, we may finally award him a +1.

Regrettably, however, the fourth criterion takes us back to where we started. Allusions to the saving work of Christ are notable for their absence, and there is a rather heavy emphasis on behavior throughout the Epistle. Again, here we must ruefully give St James a -1.

The final criterion calls for a wordle of the sermon, which I created on the basis of the RSV text of the Epistle:

Here we see that the chief words used in the Epistle are “God” and “Lord”; the latter is on the main a Christological term for St James (but see 3:9), and so we may safely conclude that, all appearances aside, the main focus of this ancient sermon is indeed Christian. This clearly merits a +1.

The grand total for St James, the Brother of God, is -1 or 40% F. He did slightly better than John Piper, who may find consolation in the thought that St James was an Apostle, and was therefore bound to do better!

Of course, there is a gulf between the way we should read a New Testament writing and the way we should evaluate a contemporary sermon, and the above is nothing but an affectionate jab at my good friend Charles. But I do commend to all his ongoing series of sermon evaluations for an insightful (and sometimes alarming) look at contemporary Christian preaching.

On Broken Clocks that Are Right Two Times a Day

In recent days, and as a result of a recent comment thread in Aaron Taylor’s blog, I have spent some time revisiting Thomas Aquinas’ treatise Contra errores græcorum. Thomas composed this treatise in 1263/4 at the request of Roman Pope Urban IV, and it he engages the Orthodox Faith on the Most Holy Trinity on the basis of treatise compiled by one Nicholas, the unionist Bishop of Cotrone in Sicily. In spite of the revisionist readings of such modern ecumenically-minded writers as the late Dominican scholar Yves Congar, it is clear that, while not entirely unsympathetic to the concerns of the Orthodox, Thomas clearly and unambiguously regards the Orthodox confession of Faith in the Holy Trinity (particularly on the matter of the procession of the Holy Spirit) as, at best, imperfectly expressed and conducive to greater errors. In this post, however, I do not wish to discuss Thomas’ arguments, but rather taking my cue from the well-known saying referenced in the title, I will present two quotes from this treatise in which Thomas is, amazingly, right!

I. On Translation

“It is, therefore, the task of the good translator, when translating material dealing with the Catholic faith, to preserve the meaning, but to adapt the mode of expression so that it is in harmony with the idiom of the language into which he is translating. For obviously, when anything spoken in a literary fashion in Latin is explained in common parlance, the explanation will be inept if it is simply word for word. All the more so, when anything expressed in one language is translated merely word for word into another, it will be no surprise if perplexity concerning the meaning of the original sometimes occurs” (Contra err. græc., Prologue).

Yes, Thomas, obviously indeed! And this is not only true when it comes to translating “materials dealing with the Catholic faith” (Thomas has in mind here the well-known difference between the Greek hypostasis and the Latin persona, which he has discussed immediately prior to this), but also when translating the Holy Scriptures themselves. As Thomas aptly recognizes, the Holy Grail of Accuracy is no more tied to literal translation (“essentially” so or otherwise) than it is to the aberration commonly known as concordant translation: both can be, and often are, the source of considerable (and oft times unnecessary) “perplexity regarding the meaning of the original.” A good translator, then, will strive “to adapt the mode of expression so that it is in harmony with the idiom of the language into which he is translating.” A shocking concept for some, I’m sure! See, even Thomas understands this; why can’t you?

II. On the Filioque and Papal Supremacy

“The error of those who say that the Vicar of Christ, the Pontiff of the Roman Church, does not have a primacy over the universal Church is similar to the error of those who say that the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son.” (Contra err. græc. II, 32).

Now, this is a very interesting snippet, because in it and in the extended discussion that follows, Thomas seems to suggest that there is indeed a connection between Trinitarian theology and ecclesiology, and specifically, between the Latin dogma of the double procession of the Holy Spirit and Papal supremacy. Of course, he states the point negatively, suggesting that there is a connection between the Orthodox confession of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father alone and the ecclesiology of the Orthodox Churches, which categorically rejects Papal supremacy.

What is so interesting about this is that, in militant Americanist Orthodox circles, it is the received wisdom that emphasizing what is thought to be the connection between the Filioque and Papal supremacy is a 20th-century development. This notion is most clearly articulated by His Eminence, Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia, in the 3rd edition of his book The Orthodox Church:

“[Stricter] Orthodox writers also argue that these two consequences of the Filioque — subordination of the Holy Spirit, over-emphasis on the unity of God — have helped to bring about a distortion in the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Church. Because the role of the Spirit has been neglected in the west, the Church has come to be regarded too much as an institution of this world, governed in terms of earthly power and jurisdiction. And just as in the western doctrine of God unity was stressed at the expense of diversity, so in the western conception of the Church unity has triumphed over diversity, and the result has been too great a centralization and too great an emphasis on Papal authority.

Such in outline is the view of the Orthodox ‘hawks’. But there are Orthodox ‘doves’ who have significant reservations about several points in this critique of the Filioque. First, it is only in the present century that Orthodox writers have seen such a close link between the doctrine of the Double Procession and the doctrine of the Church. Anti-Latin writers of the Byzantine period do not affirm any such connection between the two. If the Filioque and the Papal claims are in fact so obviously and integrally connected, why have not the Orthodox been quicker to recognize this?” (page 216).

But it turns out that no less a Latin authority than Thomas agrees with the so-called Orthodox “hawks” on this point! And of course, it can be easily argued that so does St Mark of Ephesus, though unfortunately English-speakers without Greek or Russian have very little (if any!) access to his writings, which by-and-large have not been translated into English (but see here and here). And so we come once again to this: even Thomas understands this; why can’t you?

The Colbertian Contribution to Conservapedia

Surely most of my readers are aware already of Conservapedia’s recently announced “Conservative Bible Project,” which aims to remove what they regard as “liberal bias” from existing Bible translations in English. They intend to do this by “retranslating” (or, better, rewriting) the King James Version to clearly reflect, among other things, a free market understanding of the parables and a consistent use of words current in American conservative discourse—all of this, of course, carried out without regard to the original languages of Scripture or sound exegesis, but purely on the basis of ideological concerns.

Since this project is hosted in a wiki site, anyone and everyone is able to contribute to it who is willing to do so. Needless to say, no one is more conservative or loves the Bible more than the great Stephen Colbert, which is why he encouraged his minions just a few moments ago to turn to the “Conservative Bible Project” en masse and make him a biblical character. (I will add the video just as soon as it becomes available.) Of course, The Voice of Stefan does not encourage wiki vandalism, but I am intrigued to see what the results will be. But if Colbert’s proposal has also piqued your interest, you’ll have to wait to see the results: the response has been so enormous that Conservapedia has temporarily crashed.

UPDATE: Conservapedia appears to be back up and running again. And as promised earlier, here’s the video:

On Bibliobloggers, Review Books, and the FTC

As others have already noted, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced yesterday that it has adopted a series of revisions to its Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising which seek to apply existing laws on the subject to, among others, bloggers who receive cash or “in-kind” compensation for publishing a product review. Broadly according to the revised Guides (which are, however, to be applied case-by-case), these are now formally considered to be “endorsements” by the FTC. Given this, such bloggers are expected to fully and unambiguously disclose any compensation they receive from an advertiser in order to feature their product, and failure to do so may result in a fine of up to $11,000 per violation, as well as mandated reimbursements to consumers who may have been misled by deceitful and irresponsible endorsements from those who failed to disclose their material connection to the advertiser. This seems entirely fair to me.

The obvious concern here for bloggers on the Bible and Theology is the matter of the review books that many of us have received from academic publishers. Since these are sent at no charge, they may be construed under certain circumstances as “in-kind” compensation for an endorsement. Fortunately, I am unaware of any biblio- or theobloggers who fail to disclose the source of the books they review when these have been sent directly by publishers at no charge. Here at The Voice of Stefan, a complete listing of such may be found in the Books Received page, a practice also adopted by our good friend and reviewer extraordinaire Nick Norelli. Others, while lacking a full listing like those just linked, invariably acknowledge whether the book they are reviewing was received from a publisher, and this usually in the very first line of their review.

Of course, there is a long history of academic publishers sending review books to peer-reviewed journals at no charge. These titles are usually listed in a “books received” section in the journal in question (whence the name of my above linked page), and then are distributed to scholars and graduate students for review. In the end, reviewers usually either keep these books or else dispose of them according to their better judgement (and indeed, during my days at Baker Book House, I came across several books marked “For Review” by a number of journals, some of which now grace my bookshelves). Needless to say, these reviews can be alike positive, negative, or somewhere in between, and the fact that the book was received for free plays no part in the reviewer’s assessment.

It stands to reason that the practice of sending books to bloggers for review is an extension of this long-standing practice—as a matter of fact, review books sent by publishers started to appear in the biblioblogosphere among established scholars. Later the practice spread to graduate students, and later still to non-specialists, whether trained to a certain degree or with no formal training at all, but all interested (and often widely read) in the subject matters these books address.

Somewhere along the way (rather early on, if my cynicism may be trusted), some publishers realized that, since many of us turn to the internet to search for reviews of book we do not know, this was a very effective marketing strategy—particularly in view of the fact that many bloggers, unaware of the long history of journal reviews described above, feel that it is their bounden duty to speak of the books they have received only in glowing terms. Some have gone so far as to hastily review books they have not read (!), while others have resorted to writing two-paragraph “reviews” that amount to little more than a glorified blurb. In these cases, the haste is usually related to a misplaced desire to comply with the time limits of a marketing campaign, while the invariably positive review is tied to misguided gratitude for the free book received. In these cases, one might indeed say that an advertiser has effectively bought a glowing endorsement for the measly price of book production and shipping.

Of course, many publishers send bloggers their books in good faith, and many of us receive them on the same terms. But I encourage those who have fallen into the trap described above to realize that when a publisher sends you a book, they are taking a risk. While it is often true that many of us request books that we assume to be excellent treatments of their subject, it no less true that in more than one occasion these same books are a disappointment. Do not hide that fact out of a false sense of duty. A negative or mixed review is the risk that publishers take when they send along a book for critical examination. What you truly owe to them, to yourself, and to your readers is to produce a review that evinces critical engagement and that does not shrink from making criticisms, even pointed ones. Haste is not a help in this endeavor, but rather a pernicious foe. In all these respects, the example of our friend Nick Norelli is a fine standard against which other reviewers in biblioblogdom would do well to measure ourselves: note, for example, his recent two-part review of John J. and Adela Yarbro Collins’ King and Messiah as Son of God.

Returning to the revised FTC Guides, another concern for biblio- and theobloggers relates to the rather widespread use of link-based rewards programs such as Amazon Associates and the WTS Bookstore Blog Partners. This is more clearly an instance of a “cash” compensation for advertisement, and again, I believe that the FTC does well to expect from bloggers full disclosure of their participation in these programs. Unfortunately, due to carelessness and the sparsity of my posting over the past several months, I have neglected to announce that earlier this summer I decided to sign up for both of these programs. I do not, of course, place any gratuitous links on this blog to earn rewards of any sort, but given that I often mention books here for which I invariably provide links, I decided to give these programs a try. I have since decided to do away with the Amazon Associates links, since that system operates on a sales commission basis with which I am not entirely comfortable; but I will continue to link to the WTS Bookstore whenever they carry a book I happen mention, as they often provide generous excerpts from these titles, and their system is simply based on the number of clicks that a link generates. I will also include a logo on the sidebar to clearly identify The Voice of Stefan as a participant in the WTS Blog Partners program. In the meantime, be at peace: I have earned exactly nothing towards a purchase at the bookstore!

Mondays with Moisés: On the NIV

Welcome to “Mondays with Moisés” at The Voice of Stefan! Of course, there simply aren’t enough days in the week to praise the excellencies of our Infallible Hero, but this occasional feature will grace your computer screens, well, whenever I wish to post a “Sundays with Silva” but can’t manage to do it by the end of the Lord’s Day. This installment, in which Silva introduces an article for the OPC’s magazine New Horizons addressing criticisms to the NIV from various quarters, seemed appropriate to me in light of the recent news regarding that translation.

“When the editor of New Horizons asked me if I would be interested in writing a response to criticism of the NIV, I hesitated briefly. After all, I was not involved in the translating of the NIV. Moreover, I think the NIV is far from perfect. During the past few years, I have been involved in the production of an ‘NIV-like’ translation of the Bible into Spanish. This work, which involves very close comparison of the NIV with the original, has alerted me to numerous renderings that appear unsatisfying, problematic, or even plain wrong. In other words, my own list of objections is probably much longer than that of the most outspoken critics of the NIV. So why then would I agree to write this article? Simply because my list of objections to other versions would be even longer. This is not to say that all available English translations are bad. Quite the contrary! We are richly blessed by a wide variety of versions, almost all of which—when compared with good translations of other literature—have to be regarded as clear and accurate, but never perfect.”

(Moisés Silva, “Reflections on the NIV,” New Horizons [June 1995], quoted by Kenneth Barker, “Hearing God’s Word Through a Good Translation,” in Arie C. Leder [ed.], Reading and Hearing the Word: From Text to Sermon. Essays in Honor of John H. Stek [Grand Rapids: Calvin Theological Seminary and CRC Publications, 1997], pages 30-31.)

When I first read these comments by Silva a decade ago, I couldn’t help but to nod in agreement. At that point, I had been preaching regularly in English for a little over a year, and since the Bible in my congregation’s pews was the NIV, I had finally resigned myself to using it in all my preaching and teaching. As you might guess from the tone of my comments, this was a difficult decision to make: I had never been a fan of the translation, and in fact had gone out of my way to avoid it until I it was (in a sense) forced upon me. But by the time I laid down my preaching Bible to enter the waters of Baptism in the Orthodox Church a few years later, I had developed a very deep appreciation for the NIV born from struggling to preach and teach its words week in and week out. Oh, there still were plenty of exegetical decisions made by the Committee on Bible Translation (CBT) that seemed less than fortunate to me, and a few that appeared to be so thoroughly mistaken as to be shocking; however, having became thoroughly familiar with the way the NIV works as a translation through relentless use, I learned to trust it as a reliable (but never perfect!) text for preaching and teaching. To borrow the words of our good friend Kevin Edgecomb,

“There’s nothing dirty, little, or secret in my love for the NIV. From start to finish, most particularly in the savvy yet vanishingly rare instance of having hired a style consultant, the NIV project was exemplary. I’m often in awe of their skill at paraphrase. The quality of the English is a perfect middle, not too elevated, not too, er, plebian. It’s a great translation, and probably the most successful yet.”

Although I haven’t used the NIV as my primary Bible for any purpose in several years, I was enthusiastic about the release of the TNIV in 2005, and as early readers of this blog might recall, I spent several months trying to obtain a copy of it (which were, alas, not all that easy to find in Puerto Rico). Once I finally got a hold of one, I was impressed by the quality of the translation: indeed, many of the exegetical mistakes of the 1984 edition that had previously troubled me were now corrected, and it was on the whole a superior text to its older counterpart. The story of the regrettable and unedifying campaign of disinformation to which the TNIV was subjected has been told many times, and I need not repeat it here. Now that it had been announced that the TNIV will be retired from the market, I can only repeat what Rick Mansfield so poignantly said in his eulogy for that translation: “[A]s for me, I’ll always remember the TNIV with great fondness. It was surely the best translation that nobody ever read” (emphasis his).

All that said, I have great hopes for the NIV 2011 project, which will replace both the 1984 NIV and the 2005 TNIV. Of course, it will not be a perfect translation. There will doubtless be many problems with it—at least as many as there are with any other translation out there in the market. But we have seen already in the TNIV what the CBT can accomplish when it sets itself to the task of revision, and on those grounds, there is no reason to be anything but hopeful.

John H. Stek: Obituary and Article Online

My copy of the September issue of The Banner arrived in the mail sometime last week, and as I had previously indicated, it contains the ecclesiastical obituary of the late great John Henry Stek. This may be accessed online here.

Also in a previous post, I had advised one and all that

“not to be missed is Stek’s fascinating chapter “The New International Version: How It Came to Be,” in Glen G. Scorgie et al. (eds.),  The Challenge of Bible Translation: Communicating God’s Word to the World. Essays in Honor of Ronald F. Youngblood (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003), pages 235-264.”

I am pleased to announce that the full text of Stek’s contribution to the Youngblood Festschrift is now available online here.

Sundays with Silva: πίστις Χριστοῦ and the Witness of the Greek Fathers

I am overjoyed, my gentle snowflakes, to have found at long last an opportunity to offer another installment of “Sundays with Silva” for your edification. This is, in fact, the very installment that I intended to post when my computer suddenly gave up the ghost on account of my lamentable covenant-breaking. In the selection below, our Infallible Hero examines the burning question of what light, if any, the use of πίστις Χριστοῦ in Greek Christian literature might shed on the Pauline use of this same phrase, noting, in particular, a number of errors that can be (and usually are) made when weighing the evidence.

“As far as can be determined, Greek-speaking writers in the early church who commented on Galatians 2:16 (and parallel passages) understood the phrase as a reference to out faith in Christ. To be sure, they do not stop to address directly the question of whether it refers to our faith or Christ’s: they just repeat the phrase, apparently assuming that the meaning is obvious (though this factor itself may be a significant clue). Occasionally, however, they make their understanding explicit. Chrysostom, for example, paraphrases the thought of Galatians 2:15-16 by saying, ‘we have fled for refuge to the faith which is in Christ’ (κατεφὐγομεν εἰς πίστιν τὴν εἰς Χριστόν).  More important, both Chrysostom and other writers, in their exposition of the passage as a whole, make repeated references to the Christian’s act of believing in Christ, while never once unambiguously speaking of the πίστις that Christ himself has or exercises*.

[*Footnote, page 228: "Here again, the question is not at all whether the church fathers believed in the theological significance of Christ's faithful obedience . . . , but whether they were likely to use the phrase πίστις Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ to express that truth" (emphasis mine).]

“The significance of this facts needs to be fully appreciated. It is not a matter of how much weight should be given to an ancient writer’s exegetical opinion. The point is rather that native Greek speakers seem to have perceived no difficulty whatever in understanding the expression as an ‘objective genitive.’ Even if some exceptions were to be found in the literature, the fact would remain that a reference to the believer’s faith did not at all offend the linguistic intuitions of those for whom Greek was their mother tongue—indeed, they preferred such a reference and apparently (as far as we can tell) did not entertain the possibility that there was another option.

“What this means for the present debate is that one can hardly take seriously certain linguistic arguments that have been advanced against the traditional interpretation, such as the view that the ‘objective genitive’ is not natural, or that a majority of the extrabiblical instances of πίστις with a genitive are ’subjective,” or that the objective genitive ‘demands a verbal ruling noun . . . whose cognate verb is transitive.’ These and other arguments fail to take into account the point I have emphasized above: genitival constructions merely indicate that a relationship exists between the two nouns in question, and the nature of the relationship can be established only by the reader’s knowledge of the linguistic and historical context.

“The matter can be easily illustrated with reference to Luke 6:12, which tells us that Jesus spent the night ἐν τῇ προσευχῇ τοῦ θεοῦ.  The phrase is, of course, universally understood as a so-called objective genitive and translated, ‘praying to God’ (NRSV, ‘in prayer to God’).  Now let us fancy someone arguing along the following lines:

The usual translation of this phrase does not seem very natural, and in fact the construction cannot be an objective genitive because the verb προσεύχομαι is used with the dative, rather than the direct object, of the person to whom one prays.  More important, every other NT use of προσευχή with a genitive is subjective (Acts 10:4, 31; Rom 1:10; Eph 1:16; 1 Thess 1:2; Phlm 4, 22; 1 Pet 3:4; Rev 3:8; 8:3-4).  As if that were not enough, there are almost sixty occurrences of the construction in the LXX, and all of them (except for the unusual phrase in Isa 56:7; 66:7) are also subjective.  The normal way to express an objective relationship would be with the dative, as in Psalm 42:8 (LXX 41:9), προσευχὴ τῷ θεῷ τῆς ζωῆς μου.

“Superficial statistics of this sort may appear impressive to some, but they totally miss the point and are thus altogether irrelevant.  The only thing that matters is that, as both Luke and his readers know, God is never represented as praying (or as possessing prayers or whatever), while people are routinely spoken of as praying to God.  Let us then return to πίστις Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ and ask, What information would have let the Greek fathers to understand this phrase as a reference to faith in Christ?”

Moisés Silva, “Faith Versus Works of Law in Galatians,” in D. A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien, and Mark A. Seifrid (eds.), Justification and Variegated Nomism, vol. 2: The Paradoxes of Paul (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck and Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), pages 228-230.

Five Views on Justification? (Or, A Bone to Pick)

A few months ago, Michael Bird announced his participation in a forthcoming volume from IVP tentatively entitled Justification: Five Views. The contributors and their respective views are as follows:

1. Traditional Reformed: Michael Horton
2. Progressive Reformed: Michael Bird
3. “New Perspective”: James Dunn
4. Theosis: Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen
5. Catholic: Gerald O’Collins and Oliver Rafferty

I will be the first to admit that I rather enjoy “counterpoint” books such as these, and a few of them were once very important to me personally in starting to think about a number of issues. However, I was taken aback to see theosis nonchalantly treated here as a “view of justification,” a classification that, in this case, would be appallingly reductionistic. In spite of this difficulty, I welcomed the announcement as an opportunity to see in print a treatment of the Orthodox doctrine of theosis accessible to those not generally acquainted with Orthodox publications.

As I was unfamiliar with the author of the theosis chapter, Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, I decided to do some investigating. I had originally assumed him to be a Finnish Orthodox scholar involved in the fascinating “New Finnish Interpretation of Luther” that arose in the context of the Lutheran-Orthodox dialogue in that country (cf. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson, Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998]). Instead I found that Dr Kärkkäinen is a Pentecostal scholar, both an ordained minister in his denomination and a professor of systematic theology at Fuller Theological Seminary. Since the authors of the chapter on the Roman Catholic view are themselves Roman Catholics, this suggests to me that the chapter on theosis will not be, in fact, an account of the biblical and patristic doctrine of deification as believed in the Orthodox Church, but another Protestant view of justification perhaps influenced by the “New Finnish Interpretation” (a contribution which would be exceptionally interesting in its own right).  Well, at least I hope so: it is not the case, after all, that there are no English-speaking Orthodox scholars who are capable of writing a chapter-length treatment of the doctrine.

To those seeking an accessible  and pastorally sound Orthodox exposition of the biblical and patristic doctrine of theosis, I warmly recommend Archimandrite Christoforos Stavropoulos’ frequently reprinted little book Partakers of the Divine Nature (Minneapolis: Light and Life, 1976). Interested parties can be assured that, with this little gem in hand, they can hardly do any better.

On the Regrettable Generalities of the Psalms

In recent weeks I have finally been able to dig into James Kugel’s How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now (New York: Free Press, 2007), which I purchased earlier this year. In his chapter on “The Psalms of David,” Kugel discusses the general, “one-size-fits-all” composition of many of the Psalms, which according to the general consensus of form-critical research may be ascribed to its use as Israel’s cultic poetry, both communal and private. In this connection, Kugel comments on what is undoubtedly one of the more regrettable byproducts of these generalities in composition. He says:

“Such a hypothesis, scholars noticed, seemed to fit well with a rather striking feature of the Psalms, their lack of specificity. For example, a great many psalms . . . speak of ‘my enemies’ or ‘my foes,’ but they rarely say anything more specific. Personally, if I had my own thirty seconds to stand directly before God and discuss my enemies, I would not beat around the bush: ‘Punish N_______,’ I would say to Him, mentioning by name a certain prolific but misguided student of rabbinic Judaism; or “Squash W_______,’ I would urge, referring to someone who has had the temerity to disagree with some of my ideas about biblical poetry. On the contrary, they are full of metaphors that could apply too almost anyone—‘roaring lions’ threaten the Psalmist or ‘bulls of Bashan’ surround him; he overcomes snakes and panthers, jumps over traps that have been dug for him, and escapes snares that have been spread out for him.  And it is not just a matter of enemies.  The psalmist begs to be saved from the underworld, Sheol, the gates of death, and so forth—but he almost never gets around to saying what’s wrong with him or even what makes him think such danger is imminent.  It seems to scholars, therefore, that the great variety of psalms in the Psalter on the one hand, and their somewhat vague language on the other, derive from the balancing of two contrary tendencies.  A psalm had to be somewhat individualized, reflecting the specific occasion that had brought a person to the temple; so there had to be a lot of them.  On the other hand, such psalms could not be overly specific, since they had to be used again and again for a multitude of different worshipers, each of whose circumstances would be somewhat different” (page 464).

Needless to say, half the fun in reading the above paragraph is filling in the blanks in Kugel’s text. The other half is coming up with one’s own blanks to replace Kugel’s cries for divine punishment and squashing and so remedy this lamentable deficiency in the Psalms. So, for instance, in my own thirty seconds before Divine Justice, I would say “Punish G______,” whose embarrassingly shoddy lexical “scholarship” and crypto-heretical triadology surely demand vengeance from heaven; or “Squash C_______,” who in his utterly narcissistic madness has raised up his heel against the Infallible One.

You know, come to think of it, it was probably better that it was up neither to Kugel nor to myself to write the Psalms.

Returning to the matter of the “lack of specificity” in the Psalms and how this feature enabled the Psalter to serve a wide range of purposes in Israel’s cultic life, Kugel’s paragraph quoted above reminded me of a very interesting document I found a few years ago. Recognizing the versatility of the Psalter, and much in the vein that Kugel describes above, a modern Greek elder, St Arsenios of Cappadocia (1840-1924), prepared a list of possible uses of the Psalms as blessings and prayers for various needs when the liturgical books fail to include an appropriate text for a specific occasion. The listing is available in English from the St Pachomius Library. I take the liberty to quote below the editor’s note, which helpfully puts St Arsenios’ list in context.

Saint Arsenios used to use the Psalms for blessings, especially when there was no prescribed blessing for a particular occasion.  . . .

Apart from all religious considerations, this “Book of Needs” is a fascinating portrait of village life in Anatolia at the beginning of the Twentieth Century: whether it reflects more the “longue duree” of Byzantine history or the particular difficulties of St. Arsenios’ time we do not feel well enough informed even to speculate. There is certainly no idealization of rural conditions here: particularly noteworthy is the extreme concern for alleviating psychological as well as physical pain, and the mention of what we would nowadays call “post-traumatic stress disorder”.

To us, at least, the exact reasoning behind the saint’s choice of a particular psalm for a given need is not always obvious; perhaps this is by design, to encourage close reflection on the words. Orthodoxy is not magic, and a document like this one is not an endorsement of “peasant superstition”; it is rather a channel through which the Love of God can enter into every aspect of human society.

Dietrich von Hildebrand on Legitimate and Illegitimate Forms of Biblical Exegesis

A short visit to a local used books shop earlier today yielded a number of treasures, among them Dietrich von Hildebrand’s Trojan Horse in the City of God: The Catholic Crisis Explained (1967; reprint, Manchester: Sophia Institute Press, 1993). Hildebrand (undoubtedly one of the preëminent Roman Catholic thinkers of the 20th century) published this prophetic book almost immediately after the Second Vatican Council, before innumerable and reckless episodes of slaughter were perpetrated in the name of the so-called “spirit of the Council,” and certainly well before their gory aftermath became obvious for all to see. A book like this usually commands my full attention, since it often serves as an urgent cautionary tale for us Orthodox, who are no less tempted by the seductive siren song of “modernity” than our friends of the Roman-Latin confession.

(As an aside, I’m sure that someone out there is bound to dispute my claim above that Hildebrand was one of the preëminent Roman Catholic thinkers of the past century. To them I say that it is not my fault if he is ignored in many contemporary Roman-Latin centers of theological education in North America and elsewhere: after all, surely a place like the Woodstock Theological Center is not called that for nothing.)

In chapter 4 of his book, Hildebrand offers his evaluation of “progressive Catholicism” as a “false and evil reaction” against the perceived “narrowness and legalism of a former age.” Among the subjects he discusses in this connection is the relationship of biblical exegesis to what he calls the “scientific fetishism” of the modern age. Under the subject heading of “Legitimate and Illegitimate forms of scriptural exegesis,” he seeks to “distinguish [the] different aspects” of the exegetical enterprise as follows:

First, there is a scientific exegesis based on philological historical research which attempts to determine the accuracy of translations and texts, the chronology of the different Gospels, the authenticity of parts of the Old Testament, and the like.  Second, there is an exegetical criticism which is based on philosophical presuppositions.  The evaluation of the historical authenticity of parts of the Gospels is inevitably dependent upon one’s philosophical point of view.  Third, there is a specifically religious exegesis which deals, for example, with the meaning of the parables, which delves into the inexhaustible plenitude of the words of Christ.

The first is a real scientific work.  Like all historical and philological exploration, this can progress in time.  It has, moreover, the character of all strictly scientific undertakings in that it admits and even demands teamwork.

But the second is not in the same sense strictly scientific. If one doubts the authenticity of the miracles of the Lord, philosophical views obviously play a decisive role in one’s doubts. If one asserts that we cannot expect a modern man to believe in the corporeal apparition of the Angel Gabriel at the Annunciation, one’s position is obviously not supported by the first kind of strictly scientific exegesis.

Belief in the improbability—if not in the impossibility—of miracles is not based on scientific findings but on certain philosophical presuppositions.  Therefore, there is the constant danger that wrong philosophical views, as well as pervasive contemporary prejudices, may interfere with a man’s ability to discern historical authenticity.

The third type of exegesis is not at all of a scientific order.   The value of religious interpretations depends upon the genius of the individual theologian, and especially upon his religious depth and charisma.  The interpretation of a Father of the Church, of a saint or a mystic, has much more interest and weight than that of professors of exegesis.  A deeper penetration of the unfathomable depth of our Lord’s parables and sayings is not guaranteed by scientific studies, but by the religious intuition of an individual person, as submitted always to the endorsement of the infallible magisterium of the Church.  This third aspect of exegesis, like other branches of theology, is thus not scientific even to the moderate extent of the second.  It requires men who are at least homines religiosi (religious men) and not mere professors.  (pages 46-7)

In spite of my  reservations about some points of detail in the last paragraph, I think this is a most helpful way to break down the various aspects of exegesis, as it aids us in parsing some of the statements of confessional exegetes that are more troubling to others. For instance, the patristic notion that merely seeking the “literal meaning” of a text makes for a truncated reading of Scripture is made a little clearer: it would, after all, stop at the level of Hildebrand’s “exegetical criticism” without going on to “religious interpretation.” Likewise, the suggestion that those who stand outside the “hermeneutical circle” (that is, outside the confessing community of faith) are hindered in their reading of Scripture. This refers not to the first two categories, on which non-confessional scholars have demonstrably made significant  work that has advanced our knowledge, but again to “religious interpretation.” Finally, the usual objection to the supposed objectivity of historical-critical scholarship is further elucidated by Hildebrand’s distinction between “scientific exegesis” and “exegetical criticism,” which is not often made in critical literature. The main locus of the objection is in Hildebrand’s second category, in which, as he rightly notes, philosophical presuppositions play a pivotal role. (Of course, this is not to say that “scientific exegesis” is itself altogether free of the encumberment of presuppositions, but more on this later: see my forthcoming review of E. J. Epp’s Junia: The First Woman Apostle.)

Hildebrand offers further comments on the subject of exegesis in the following pages, on which I expect to post in the near future.

The Prophet Amos and the Resurrection, Part Two

Do Apostolic and patristic exegesis ignore of the historical meaning of Scripture? That is, are they ignorant of such, and if not, do they simply dispense with it? A great many historical-critical interpreters, together with fundamentalist literalists of all stripes, seem to assume one thing or the other, often regarding interpretations like that of St Ireneaus (grounded though it is in that of St Luke) as fanciful flights of the allegorical imagination. To seek a basic answer to this question, let us consider another instance of patristic exegesis of Amos 9:11-12, this time from the pen of St Cyril of Alexandria:

The tabernacle of David means the race of the Jews. It must be known that after Cyrus has freed Israel from captivity, they returned to Judea and built the temple of God. Then, after they had again fortified the cities that had been destroyed before, the lived in security day by day for a long time, that is, for many days and long periods. They became and example and an assurance for all the other nations that it was necessary thereafter to turn to God. . . . This is an explanation of the history of these things, but a more hidden and truer interpretation would be in Christ [ὁ δὲ ἐσωτέρω καὶ αληθέστερος εἴη ἂν ἐν Χριστῷ]. Indeed after he came back to life from the dead in his tabernacle that had fallen into death, that is, after God has raised his earthly flesh, then at that very moment he brought all human things back to their original ordering and all our things that had been overthrown have been brought to a new dignity. For, if as Scripture states, anyone in Christ is a new creation, we have then been raised together with him. So whereas death demolished the tabernacles of all, God the Father rebuilt them in Christ¹.

Evidently, St Cyril intends to take full account here of the literal meaning of the text as best he understands it, and does not neglect its exposition. He doesn’t stop there, however, but rather proceeds to explain that a “more hidden and truer meaning [than the historical] would be in Christ.” That such a meaning is “more hidden” (ἐσωτέρω) is hardly disputable, but the suggestion that it is “truer” (αληθέστερος) might give us pause. Let us not imagine, however, that the implication is that the historical meaning is less true than the meaning “in Christ” (and therefore specious); if this were the case, St Cyril would not have occupied himself in its exposition. What he does here is point us in the direction of the Christotelic hermeneutics reflected in the Apostolic use of the Old Testament.

The point that the Fathers, whose interpretation of Scripture was shaped by Apostolic exegesis and stands in continuity with it, would regard the mere historical reading of the text as a puzzling endeavor has been made often. Frances Young, however, goes a step further and forcefully brings this point to bear on the contemporary crisis of historical criticism:

The results of the Fathers’ exegetical methods have often been dismissed because of their so-called disregard of history.  Indeed, the standard English account of Origen’s exegesis virtually organises the material around the view that Origen never really understood the Bible because he sat too loosely to history.  Since that book was written, the shift in biblical studies has helped us to recognise that concern about ‘history’ has a very modern ring.  The Fathers would condemn much modern exegesis for its exclusive focus on the ‘earthly’, and its lack of concern with the ‘heavenly’ dimension of the text.  A reassessment of their assumption that the Bible has a ’spiritual meaning’ is necessary, as is a review of the procedures whereby they unravelled the symbols discerned in the text.  Debate is needed about potential criteria for distinguishing justifiable and unjustifiable ‘allegory’.  This is important not only for patristic interpretation but also for modern hermeneutics.  Without a form of allegory that at least allows for analogy, the biblical text can can only be an object of archaeological interest.  Recent trends suggest that there is considerable dissatisfaction with the limitations of historico-critical research precisely because it yields no hermeneutic².

Apostolic and patristic exegesis point the way out of this modernist impasse because they yield the Christotelic hermeneutics which have so often occupied us here. It is crucially important, of course, to learn that St Luke, and both St Irenaeus and St Cyril after him, understand Amos 9:11-12 to be a prophecy of the Resurrection. Those of us who regard Apostolic and patristic exegesis as normative might even be tempted to stop there, since we have already learned the “more hidden, truer meaning” of the passage. I’m afraid that this easy (and frankly, lazy) solution will not do.  We must strive to grasp not only the “what,” but also the “why” and “how” of such an interpretation if we truly wish to honor our commitment. Otherwise, we are ultimately dispensing with our normative exegesis because it will end up having no practical bearing on our reading of Scripture, and as the infallible Moisés Silva reminds us,

If we refuse to pattern our exegesis after that of the apostles, we are in practice denying the authoritative character of their scriptural interpretation—and to do so is to strike at the very heart of the Christian faith³.

Of course, the Apostolic exegesis that shaped that of the Fathers did not arise in a vacuum. In the next installment, we will consider another instance of the interpretation of Amos 9:11-12, but this time outside the New Testament.

Notes:

¹ Catenæ græcorum patrum in novum testamentum 3:249-50, quoted in Francis Martin (ed.), Acts, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament, vol. 5 (Downers Grove: IVP, 2006), p. 187.

² Frances M. Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2002), pp. 3-4.

³ Moisés Silva, “The New Testament Use of the Old Testament: Text and Form,” in D. A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge (eds.), Scripture and Truth (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), p. 164.

And the Winner Is…

…Nick Norelli of Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth! Yes, I know that Nick gets far too many free books already, but this isn’t just because of his pretty face (he hasn’t got one).  It’s because he puts some actual effort into these things. Witness, for example, his clever theory of Qumramic origins:

“My theory regarding the Qumran community is that they were actually the originators of the Arabic text commonly referred to as the Qur’an.  Anyone who has ever had a look at the Dead Sea Scrolls realize how fragmentary the texts are.  It is only logical to conclude that as the Qumran settlers traveled east into the lands of Jordan, Arabia, and Iraq that they carried their scrolls with them, one of those scrolls being a text of manifold wickedness, a collection of detestable sayings gathered from the various pagans they had come across in their journeys, and this text of course was marked by the name of the community, ‘Qumran,’ but due to the dry climate of the Middle East and the centuries of time that had elapsed between their original travels east and the uprising of Muhammad, this wretched document of demonic dreck deteriorated, and once discovered by the illiterate Muhammad its fragmentary title read ‘Quran.’  So this is to say that the Qumran community were the keepers of records of all sorts, records that have since been lost and found and co-opted for all kinds of insane purposes.  The Qumran community were the pre-Arabian librarians of the ancient Mediterranean.”

Fascinating, and dare I say, persuasive! Well, congratulations to Nick, whose book will be in the mail shortly. And if you didn’t win today, do not be discouraged: there is another giveaway coming in just a couple of weeks!

A Reminder

Today is the last day to submit your entry for the Covenantal Blessings Book Giveaway! If you haven’t gotten around to formulating your theory of Qumramic origins yet, the time to do it is now. I will close the comments at midnight tonight, and the winner will be announced tomorrow morning, God willing.

The Prophet Amos and the Resurrection

Today, June 15 by the Church calendar, we commemorate the holy Prophet Amos, known to us from his prophecy in the biblical canon. As readers of this blog already know, one of my primary research interests is the history of biblical interpretation, particularly as it pertains to Apostolic (i.e., intracanonical) and Patristic exegesis, and their continuities and discontinuities. On the occasion of this feast, then, it occurred to me to share a remarkable example of continuity between these involving the Prophet’s better known oracle in Christian antiquity (and indeed, the very text written on the scroll he is holding in the icon to the right), Amos 9:11-12:

On that day I will raise up
the tent of Dauid that is fallen
and rebuild its ruins
and raise up its destruction,
and rebuild it as the days of old
in order that those remaining of humans
and all the nations upon whom my name has been called
might seek out me,
says the Lord who does these things. (NETS)

As is well known, this passage is quoted in Acts 15:16-17, where St Luke essentially reproduces (with some editorial variations) the LXX text in his retelling of St James’ address to the Council of Jerusalem. The point that this quotation is meant to prove in that context has been the subject of hot debate among commentators, but I believe that Ernst Haenchen is right when he states:

“When [St Luke] speaks of the re-erection of the ruined tabernacle of David, he does not see this as the restoration of the ruined tabernacle of David, he does not see this as the restoration of the Davidic kingdom, nor does he even see in it an image of the true Israel. He conceives it as adumbrating the story of Jesus, culminating in the Resurrection, in which the promise made to David has been fulfilled: the Jesus event that will cause the Gentiles to seek the Lord”¹.

Apostolic exegesis, then, sees in this passage a foretelling of the “Jesus event” centered in the Resurrection, which (as I have noted earlier) is arguably the locus of Davidic fulfillment in the New Testament. Patristic exegesis, consciously patterned after that of the Apostles, follows suit. Note what St Irenaeus  of Lyons writes in his Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching (36-38):

And He fulfilled the promises [made] to David; for God promised him to raise up, from the fruit of his ‘womb’, an eternal King, whose reign would have no end. And this King is Christ, the Son of God become the Son of man, that is, become the Fruit from the Virgin, who was of the seed of David. And for this reason the promise was “from the fruit of the womb,” which is proper for parturition from a woman; and not, “from the fruit of the loins,” or, “from the fruit of the kidneys,” which is proper for generation <from a man>, so that the proper Fruit of the virginal womb [descended] from David might be announced—who reign<s> forever over the house of David, and of whose reign there is no end.

Thus, in this way, he gloriously accomplished our salvation and fulfilled the promise made to the patriarchs and dissolved the old disobedience—the Son of God become the Son of David and the Son of Abraham [....] Rich in mercy was God the Father: He sent the creative Word, who, coming to save us, was in the same place and situation in which we were when we lost life, breaking the bonds of the prison; and His light appeared and dispelled the darkness <of the prison>, and sanctified our birth and abolished death, loosening the same bonds by which we were trapped. And He demonstrated the resurrection, becoming Himself the “firstborn from the dead,” and raising in himself fallen man, raising [him] above to the highest heaven, to the right hand of the glory of the Father, as God had promised, by the prophets, saying, “I will raise the fallen tabernacle of David,” that is, the flesh [descended] from David: and our Lord Jesus Christ truly accomplished this, gloriously achieving our salvation, that He might truly raise us up, saving us for the Father”².

In the next installment I will offer one further example of patristic exegesis that addresses the  question of the “historical meaning” of this prophetic text and its expansion in Apostolic use.

Notes:

¹ Ernst Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary (Oxford: Blackwell, 1971), page 448.

² St Ireneaus of Lyons, On the Apostolic Preaching, trans. [Fr] John Behr (Crestwood: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997), pages 63-64.