Warren Austin Gage and Leah Grace Gage. Milestones to Emmaus: The Third Day Resurrection in the Old Testament. Fort Lauderdale: St. Andrews House, 2015. See here to buy the book.
The title of this book alludes to a story in Luke 24. Two disciples
of Jesus are walking to Emmaus three days after Jesus’ death. A
stranger joins them, and they all three talk about Jesus. The two
disciples express disappointment that Jesus, the one they had hoped
would redeem Israel, had been put to death. The stranger then shows
them from the Scriptures that this was supposed to happen. The stranger
turns out to be Jesus.
According to that story in Luke 24, Jesus’ death and resurrection
were predicted in the Hebrew Bible. Similarly, the apostle Paul in I
Corinthians 15:3-4 states that he received the tradition that Christ’s
death, burial, and resurrection on the third day were in accordance with
the Scriptures.
Are they, though? Is there any place in the Hebrew Bible that
explicitly says that a coming Messiah would die for people’s sins and
rise from the dead on the third day? Not really. Many critical
scholars, including evangelical critical scholars, would answer “no” to
that question. Why, then, is there a belief within the New Testament
that Christ’s death and resurrection on the third day were in accordance
with the Scriptures? On what basis would the New Testament authors
make such a claim? Did they have specific passages of the Hebrew Bible
in mind?
Warren Austin Gage and Leah Grace Gage tackle this question by
exploring the use of the third day and three days within the Hebrew
Bible. They also consider passages in which “three days ago” is an
idiom for “ago.” The Gages find that something significant often
happens on the third day: exaltation, the completion of the Temple,
punishment, satisfaction of one’s needs, deliverance from impending
death, etc. Not only is this the case in the Hebrew Bible, but such
usage of the three-days motif is also present in the New Testament (in
addition to the passages about Jesus’ resurrection on the third day).
The Gages’ approach to the Hebrew Bible is largely typological. That
means that they believe that stories in the Hebrew Bible foreshadow the
ministry, death, resurrection, and exaltation of Jesus Christ. These
Hebrew Bible stories contain themes that resemble Christian themes about
Jesus. For example, many Christians believe that Abraham’s near
sacrifice of his son Isaac in Genesis 22 foreshadows God sending his Son
Jesus Christ to die for our sins.
There is not always a perfect fit between type and antetype.
Sometimes, the Gages believe that the antetype has a more positive
outcome than the type. In some cases, common themes may exist between
the type and the antetype, but there are also differences. Jonah is
thrown overboard so that God will preserve the people on his ship, and
King David offers to die in place of Jerusalem. That resembles Jesus
dying to save others. The difference, as the Gages note, is that Jonah
and David were sinners, whereas Jesus was not. In Genesis 40, Joseph
predicts (under divine inspiration) that Pharaoh’s baker will be hanged
in three days, whereas the butler will be restored to his previous
position. For the Gages, this foreshadows the crucifixion of Jesus, and
Jesus’ exaltation after his resurrection.
I have not always been a fan of typology. It strikes me as rather
arbitrary. The smug attitude of some Christians who use it has long
been a turn-off to me: “Oh, why can’t those Jews see these clear
references to Jesus in the Old Testament?” (The Gages do not say that,
but I have heard Christians say that.) I prefer the historical-critical
method of reading the Bible: interpret a passage in light of what it
meant to its original audience.
At the same time, I did find the Gages’ use of typology to be
impressive and somewhat compelling. Can one account for these parallels
between Old Testament and New Testament stories from a non-Christian
perspective? Perhaps. One can say that New Testament authors modeled
their stories after Old Testament stories and themes. One can say that
such themes are present in all sorts of literature—-suffering,
exaltation, powerful enemies, dying to save others, injustice, etc.—-so
it is not particularly remarkable that they appear in both the Old and
the New Testaments. Even if typology does increase the likelihood that
the Hebrew Bible is a divinely-inspired document that foreshadows
Christ, there are still compelling arguments to the contrary. And yet,
one can ask: Did the New Testament authors interpret the Hebrew Bible as
the Gages do, particularly when the New Testament authors claimed that
Jesus’ resurrection on the third day fulfilled the Scriptures? Quite
possibly.
The Gages also have sections about other topics, such as the good and
bad trees in the Hebrew Bible. In one place in the book, they make
connections between the Passover and biblical Flood chronology, which I
found particularly interesting. The Gages also make the interesting
point that Jesus escaped corruption (a la Psalm 16:10 and Acts 2:27, 31)
by rising on the third day, since corruption of corpses occurred on the
fourth day (John 11:39).
In terms of criticisms, I was hoping that the book would be more
scholarly. Warren Gage has a Ph.D. in philosophy and literature from
the University of Dallas, and he teaches Old Testament at Knox
Theological Seminary. Leah Grace Gage has an M.T.S. in Hebrew Bible-Old
Testament from Harvard. Bruce Waltke, a renowned Hebrew Bible scholar,
recommends this book. In light of all that, it would have been nice to
have seen more references to secondary literature, more discussion of
Second Temple biblical exegesis, more interaction with contrary ideas.
The book is a helpful encyclopedia of the use of the three-days motif in
Scripture, but I could have heard a lot of its ideas in an evangelical
Bible study.
I received a complimentary review copy of this book through Bookcrash, in exchange for an honest review.