Henotheism for Moab?

I’ve been reading the Book of Jeremiah for my daily quiet time.  Allow me to present some puzzling verses, both from Jeremiah 48.

Jeremiah 48:13: “And Moab shall be ashamed of Chemosh, as the house of Israel was ashamed of Bethel their confidence” (KJV).

Jeremiah 48:35: “Moreover I will cause to cease in Moab, saith the LORD, him that offereth in the high places, and him that burneth incense to his gods” (KJV).

Why do I call these verses puzzling?  Because, in many places of the Hebrew Bible, the idea is that Israel is to worship the LORD alone, while other nations are allowed to worship their own gods.  See Deuteronomy 4:19, Deuteronomy 32:8-9 (preferably in other versions than the KJV), and also Judges 11:24, where the Israelite judge Jephthah appears to acknowledge the existence of the Moabite god Chemosh.  Israel is in covenant with the LORD and is thus required to worship the LORD alone, but other nations are not under that covenantal requirement.  Some scholars have argued that this is why the Book of Amos criticizes Gentile nations for international crimes, but never for worshiping gods other than the LORD: because they were not required to worship the LORD alone.

In Jeremiah 48:13, 35, however, the belief seems to be that God required Moab to worship the LORD alone.  Why else would God gleefully say that Moab will be ashamed of Chemosh, compare that to Israel’s shame at her idolatrous site of Bethel, and criticize the Moabites for offering in the high places?

Is Jeremiah (or whoever wrote Jeremiah 48) a voice for universalism, one who believes that all nations should worship the LORD alone?  Or is Moab expected to worship the God of Israel because Moab was descended from Lot, the nephew of Abraham, and thus Moab is close to the Israelite family?

Ramblings on Jeremiah 30:21: The Prince Who Dares (Or Engages His Heart) to Approach God

Jeremiah 30:21 states—-and here I will quote the New Revised Standard Version because that is what I read in my daily quiet time—-”Their prince shall be one of their own, their ruler shall come from their midst; I will bring him near, and he shall approach me, for who would otherwise dare to approach me? says the LORD.”

The KJV is a bit different: “And their nobles shall be of themselves, and their governor shall proceed from the midst of them; and I will cause him to draw near, and he shall approach unto me: for who is this that engaged his heart to approach unto me? saith the LORD.”  Whereas the NRSV presents God asking who would dare to approach God unless God brought him near, the KJV depicts the prince engaging his heart to approach God.

The LXX seems to apply to all of Israel what the MT relates to the prince.  To quote Brenton’s translation of the Septuagint: “And their mighty ones shall be over them, and their prince shall proceed of themselves; and I will gather them, and they shall return to me: for who is this that has set his heart to return to me? saith the Lord.”  God in the LXX is gathering to himself the people of Israel, not just the prince.  Or the “them” whom God is gathering could be the mighty ones, but I think that it makes more sense to interpret the “them” as all of Israel, for soon before “them” in that verse is “themselves,” and that refers to Israel.

The HarperCollins Study Bible states in its commentary on v 21: “To approach God was normally a priestly prerogative (see Ex 29.4, 8; 40.12, 14; Lev 7.35).  Cf. Ezekiel’s prince in Ezek 46.1-18.”  John MacArthur in his study Bible similarly says that the Governor in Jeremiah 30:21 is approaching God as a priest.  MacArthur goes so far as to suggest that this Governor is the Messiah, Jesus Christ.

Jeremiah 30:21 surprised me somewhat, but it also baffled me a bit.  I did not know that Jeremiah envisioned an eschatological paradise in which the prince would approach God as a priest.  What I did not understand, however, was the part of the verse asking who would dare to approach God, or who would engage his heart to approach God.  Why is that part there?  What point is it making in its context?  “It teaches us that we do not deserve to enter into the glorious presence of God,” someone might say.  Sure, but why did Jeremiah throw that point in?  What was its function within the passage, what Jeremiah was saying, and the historical situation that he was addressing?

Perhaps its function is to assure Israel that her representative—-the prince—-can approach God, in a time when Israel may be doubting this.  Israel has just experienced devastation and exile.  She has suffered from God’s holy hatred of sin, and she may feel unworthy to approach God, especially a God so glorious that no human being could casually approach him.  God could be comforting Israel by reassuring her that her representative would be approaching him, and yet God wants to indicate that this is indeed a remarkable task, for who would approach so holy and glorious a God?

Suppose that part of the verse does not mean “who would otherwise dare to approach me” and instead means “who is this that engaged his heart to approach me”?  Could the point be that the prince is taking the initiative in approaching God, that he recognizes his and his people’s need for God and thus approaches God in faith?  It’s like Moses taking the initiative of going to the Tent of Meeting and seeking God’s face, when Israel is alienated from God due to the Golden Calf incident (Exodus 33).  Is the prince taking leadership as a man of God, as Moses did?  Well, perhaps.  I read one commentary that suggested that.  But Jeremiah 30:21 is not just saying that the prince is approaching God, but that God is drawing the prince to him.  It’s not just about the prince’s initiative, but God’s invitation and initiative.  God is making the first move.  Could the point of Jeremiah 30:21 be that no one would approach God, unless God first drew that person?  Does God want to emphasize his drawing of people to himself to comfort Israel that God loves and cares for her, or to stress that God deserves glory for Israel (or actually her representative) coming to him?

But why is God changing the rules and letting the ruler approach him, when before that only the priests could?  Well, perhaps it is hasty to assume that a king could not perform a priestly function before the exile.  There were biblical authors who believed that only priests could approach God in the sanctuary, but there are also parts of the Bible where kings do priestly things, such as wearing an ephod or blessing the people.  See my post here about Psalm 110, where the Davidic king (presumably, according to certain historical-critical interpretations) is said to be of the priesthood of Melchizedek.

Or maybe Jeremiah’s point is that, in Israel’s eschatological restoration, there will be greater intimacy between Israel and God.  Jeremiah 33:21-22 envisions the restoration of the Levitical priesthood, so there will be Levites in Jeremiah’s eschatological paradise.  But perhaps the point of Jeremiah 30:21 is that holy priests will not be standing between Israel and a holy God, for Israel’s representative, her prince, will be able to approach God.  God in that case is identifying himself even more with Israel, a refreshing message, in light of Israel’s experience of God’s wrath.

Ramblings on Jeremiah 31:29-30 and People Being Punished for Their Own (Not Their Ancestors') Sins

I’m reading the Book of Jeremiah for my daily quiet time.  Something from Jeremiah 31 jumped out at me.  Vv 29-30 say:

“In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.  But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge” (KJV).

“In those days” refers to the time after Israel’s restoration from exile, for what is what Jeremiah 31 is about.  The passage is saying that, after God has punished Israel and later restored her to her land, made her populous, and blessed her, God’s policy will be that each Israelite will be punished (die) for his or her own sin, not the sins of his or her ancestors.

Ezekiel had the same idea (Ezekiel 18:2), only he took it in a different direction from Jeremiah.  Ezekiel was telling the Judahites—-prior to the Babylonian conquest of Judah and destruction of Jerusalem in 587 B.C.E.—-that God’s policy is to punish Israelites for their own sins, not the sins of their ancestors.  If the Israelites fall to foreign invaders, as far as Ezekiel is concerned, then it is their fault, and they are not suffering for what their ancestors did.  Jeremiah in Jeremiah 31:29-30 is saying, by contrast, that this (individual punishment) will be God’s policy after Israel’s eschatological restoration.

Does Jeremiah believe that God’s policy before then was to punish Israel for the sins of her ancestors?  Well, Jeremiah acknowledged that Israel’s ancestors were sinful (i.e., Jeremiah 7:23-27), so ancestral sins probably played some role in God’s punishment of Israel, as far as Jeremiah was concerned.  At the same time, Jeremiah lambasted Israel’s current sins, and Jeremiah said that God would relent from God’s planned punishment if Israel repented (Jeremiah 18; 26).  My impression is that, for Jeremiah, God was punishing Israel both for the sins of her ancestors and also for her own sins.

Of course, I can’t be too dogmatic about what Jeremiah thought.  Some have argued that not all of the Book of Jeremiah is by Jeremiah but had Deuteronomistic influence, and this includes not only narrative parts but some of the prophecies as well.  See my post here from a while back.  For example, whereas the Pentateuch depicts Israel in the wilderness quite negatively—-as stiffnecked, stubborn, faithless, and sinful in her relationship with her God—-Jeremiah 2:2 romanticizes Israel’s following of God into the wilderness.  Jeremiah 2:2 arguably differs, not only from the Pentateuch, but also from what Jeremiah 7 says about Israel soon after the Exodus refusing to listen to God.  Can those thing be reconciled?  That’s open to debate, I guess.  Still, if we were to rip away everything non-Jeremian from the Book of Jeremiah, my hunch is that we would still see Jeremiah condemning the sins of his Israelite contemporaries, believing that his contemporaries’ sins would play some role in their coming downfall.  Why else would Jeremiah prophesy to them?

In all honesty, I do not know why Jeremiah 31:29-30 stresses that Israelites, after Israel’s restoration, will be punished only for their own sins.  Is the point that they are getting a new beginning, that they do not have to worry about ancestral baggage, that they can go forward freely, appreciating that they are responsible for themselves and themselves alone?  Maybe.  Of course, they were responsible for themselves before the Babylonian captivity, but there were voices that were saying that their ancestors’ sins were hanging over their head, that their repentance could perhaps postpone God’s wrath but not totally eliminate it.  I think of II Kings 23:25-26, which affirms that, righteous King Josiah’s reforms notwithstanding, God’s anger was not turned away from Judah, for a previous king of Judah, Manasseh, had so provoked God with his horrible sins.

I should note something else: Jeremiah seems to be acknowledging that, after Israel’s eschatological restoration, there will still be sinners.  This, even though Jeremiah goes on in Jeremiah 31 to say that God will write God’s laws on Israelites’ minds and hearts, and everyone will automatically know the LORD.  How will there be sinners—-and not only sinners, but sinners bad enough to deserve death (as Jeremiah 31:30 appears to imply)—-if God will spiritual transform Israelites and yield them to righteousness?  Does there have to be a willingness on their part to be transformed, otherwise the transformation does not take effect?  I wrote some posts a while back on a similar topic, only I was focusing on Ezekiel.

Musings on Jeremiah 33:14-16 and Prophecy

At church this morning, the pastor preached about Jeremiah 33:14-16, which states (in the King James Version):

"(14) Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will perform that good thing which I have promised unto the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. (15) In those days, and at that time, will I cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David; and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land.  (16) In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, The LORD our righteousness."

The pastor was applying this to Jesus, but was it Jesus at his first coming, or Jesus at his second coming?  I don't entirely remember.  On the one hand, the pastor suggested that Israel's return from exile occurred in 1948, with the re-establishment of Israel as a nation, and I think that would coincide with applying Jeremiah 33:14-16 to Jesus' second coming----the exiles return to Israel in 1948, and several years later Christ comes back and rules Israel in righteousness while enabling Judah to dwell in safety.  On the other hand, the pastor also seemed to think that v 15's reference to the Davidid as a branch was predicting that Jesus would be a humble Messiah, not the conquering king that many Jews in the first century were expecting.  That appears to hold that Jeremiah 33:14-16 concerns Jesus' first coming. 

Perhaps one could combine the two views:  God caused the Davidic branch to sprout during Jesus' first coming, in the person of Jesus, and years later Jesus would come back and rule Israel in righteousness, save Judah, and enable Jerusalem to dwell in safety.  Speaking for myself, I'm skeptical about applying Jeremiah 33 to Jesus, for I think that what Jeremiah was saying was that the Jews would return from exile in seventy years, and then God would restore the Davidic dynasty and the Levitical priesthood (see vv 18-22, and Jeremiah 25:11-12; 29:10).  Even if you go the route of saying that the prophecy is consistent with saying that the Jews would return from exile under Cyrus, and years later God would re-establish the Davidic dynasty through Jesus, who would rule years after that, there's still the problem of what to do with the prophesied restoration of the Levites.  Don't many Christians believe that Christ nullified the Levitical priesthood?  Is that inconsistent with Jeremiah 33:18-22's prediction that God would not only restore the Levites, but that they would be before him perpetually?

Christians can probably go a variety of routes here.  First, they can say that God did restore the Levites, in Israel's historical post-exilic period.  But Jeremiah 33:18-22 appears to describe the Levitical priesthood as perpetual, whereas the historical service of the Levites in the Temple came to an end, as did the Temple.  Second, Christians can say that Jesus as high priest fulfills the function of the Levitical priesthood, and that Jeremiah 33:18-22 is symbolic of this.  I can't really refute that, but I do think that interpreting prophecies symbolically is quite arbitrary and allows people to read back into the prophecies their desired conclusions rather than allowing the prophecies to speak for themselves.  Third, Christians can say that Levites will offer sacrifices before God during the millennial reign of Christ.  Perhaps that would work.  When I read Jeremiah's prophecies about restoration, though, it seems to concern what Jeremiah expected to happen in seventy years, not something that would be partially fulfilled in seventy years, while other parts would be fulfilled later in the future.  But many Jews and Christians believe that the prophecies could be partially fulfilled in the past while also having a later fulfillment, and the reason has been that they want for the prophecies to have continued relevance rather than being an expectation on the part of Jeremiah that did not fully pan out.

I should note something else: Jeremiah 33:18 states that "Neither shall the priests the Levites want a man before me to offer burnt offerings, and to kindle meat offerings, and to do sacrifice continually."  So the Levites are offering sacrifices?  That appears to be inconsistent with Leviticus-Numbers, in which the Aaronic priests perform the sacrifices, while the Levites are responsible for transporting and guarding the sanctuary, and possibly other services.  Deuteronomy, however, does not present the Aaronides as a higher class of priests than the other Levites, and it just says that the Levites minister before God (Deuteronomy 18:7).  Jeremiah appears to agree with Deuteronomy, whereas Ezekiel depicts the Zadokites as the priests who will offer sacrifices (Ezekiel 43:19; 44:15).  Of course, I suppose that you could say that the Aaronides and the Zadokites were Levites (Ezekiel 40:46), which is true.  Still, it's interesting that Jeremiah does not explicitly distinguish the sons of Aaron from the other Levites, but rather says that the Levites will offer sacrifices to God.

I was intrigued by what my pastor was saying about the branch, for that made me wonder why the Davidid in Jeremiah 33 was called the branch.  Does it have to do with lowliness and humility, as my pastor was suggesting?  I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case, for there was an expectation that the coming king of Israel would be humble----Zechariah 9:9 presents him peacefully entering Jerusalem on a donkey, for example.  But I think the passage probably means that there will come a king who will have Davidic ancestry, which means that God will restore David's dynasty.  In short, a branch will come from the Davidic tree.

Psalm 85

For my weekly quiet time this week, I will blog about Psalm 85.

I think that Psalm 85 was composed after Israelites had returned to the land of Israel from exile.  Their captivity was turned, which may mean that it was reversed.  They believed that their sins were forgiven by God.  And yet, they did not feel fully restored.  They wanted to be turned even more (vv 4, 6), perhaps implying that their turning thus far was incomplete.  And they hoped that God would stop being angry at them.  They wanted to hear a message of peace from God----whether that was through a cultic prophet, the Torah, prophetic messengers, or whomever (it's debated).

There would be restoration, and the restoration somehow coincides with certain attributes or principles: mercy, truth, righteousness, and peace.  What results is the prosperity of the land.

It's unclear to me if the message of Psalm 85 is that Israel's restoration follows her practice of righteousness, or if righteousness is the result of God favoring Israel (grace, if you will).  In favor of the former view, v 13 says that righteousness prepares the way for him, presumably God, which may imply that Israel's righteousness is prior to God's activity on Israel's behalf and presence in Israel.  V 8 affirms that God will speak peace and yet exhorts people not to turn (there's that word again) to folly.  Does that mean that God desires to bless God's people, and yet that will be contingent on Israel's practice of righteousness?  V 9 says that God's salvation is close to people who fear God.  Does that indicate that the path to salvation is fearing God and practicing righteousness?

Or does the practice of righteousness flow from God's grace?  Do vv 10-12 describe what happens when God is near: righteousness, truth, and peace are the fruit?  Peter Craigie and Erhard Gerstenberger present a picture in which agents from God work together for the community's well-being, which (in my opinion) regards the righteousness, truth, and peace as a divine work, not so much as something that humans conjure up.  Moreover, vv 10-12 appear to describe a paradise in which the people hold to truth and righteousness looks down from heaven with approval.  Could human beings attain this sort of paradise by pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps, or does God bring it about?

Within the Hebrew Bible, we see both sorts of concepts, often in the same books.  In Deuteronomy 30, Israel takes the initiative of turning to God, and God then restores her to her land and circumcises her heart.  In Jeremiah 4:4, Judah is told to circumcise her hearts, yet Jeremiah 31:33 foresees God writing God's law on the hearts of Israel and Judah.  Ezekiel 18:31 exhorts Israel to get a new heart and a new spirit, but Ezekiel 11:19 and 36:26 show God promising to give Israel a new heart that is yielded to God's commandments.

Perhaps grace----which means God's forgiveness and transformation----coincides with some willingness on our part.  But God is eager to speak peace to us.

Peckham's Optimistic Jeremiah

For my write-up today on Brian Peckham's History and Prophecy, I'll start with a statement that he makes on page 395:

"Despite the optimism of Jeremiah and his mentors, it soon became evident that the reform would have no long-range effect on the future of Judah and Jerusalem. Nahum knew Jeremiah's work but did not agree with his tempering of the tradition, and described the onrush of the divine storm that would be the undoing of the city. Habakkuk recalled and reconfirmed the vision of Isaiah and knew that it would be accomplished by the Chaldeans. Zephaniah went back to the day of Yahweh envisaged by Amos and saw that the end of the world was at hand. Ezekiel wrote when the worst was over to describe how and why the people had died and the conditions of their rising again. For some the reform had failed; for others it made no difference; for all there was a prophetic fate and doom and historical predestination unrolling in their own time before their very eyes."

For Peckham, certain prophets after the time of Jeremiah took up the mantel of Isaiah: they predicted destruction. They may not have viewed the destroyers as the Assyrians, as Isaiah did, but they prophesied that some nation would destroy Jerusalem and Judah. On page 353, Peckham talks about Jeremiah's vision of the "crumbling of a world order that the Priestly writer described", which sounds like Richard Elliott Friedman's argument in Who Wrote the Bible? that Jeremiah argues against P---and one way that Jeremiah does so is by predicting in Jeremiah 4:23 that there will be a reversal of the created order of P's Genesis 1, as the land reverts to a state of tohu va-vohu.

And yet, Peckham's argument is that Jeremiah had optimism, and prophets after him sought to counter that. Peckham's claim takes me aback, for Jeremiah strikes me as a prophet of doom. But Peckham bases his argument on Jeremiah 2-3, 4-5, 6 and 8, 9-10, and 30-31. From these chapters, Peckham concludes that what is going on in Jeremiah's message is this: God is threatening to destroy Jerusalem and to send Judahites into exile, and Judah indeed experiences God's discipline. But, right before she is hurled into exile, Judah repents and submits to God's law, and God forgives her, and also restores Northern Israel from exile. Peckham may think that the Book of Jeremiah as it comes down to us---which presents Jeremiah as one who predicted the destruction of Jerusalem and exile for Judah---was the result of redaction, as people sought to bring Jeremiah into line with what had actually happened: Jerusalem's destruction and the exile of the Judahites.

Comps: Mishnah for the Future?

Source: Ben Zion Wacholder, Messianism and Mishnah: Time and Place in the Early Halakhah (Hebrew Union College, 1978).

Wacholder's thesis seems to be that many of the Mishnah's laws were intended for the Messianic period, when the temple will be rebuilt. I have some questions about this:

1. According to Wacholder, there were rabbis who believed the Jubilee would apply to the Messianic period, not their own time. If that is the case, why did Hillel invent the prosbul to circumvent the cancellation of debts every seventh year? He seemed to believe that those kinds of land laws were still applicable and thus needed to be reckoned with.

2. According to Wacholder, "The most-holy sacrifices could be consumed only inside the curtains of the sanctuary, and these existed only in the Tabernacle and the First Temple and will exist again in the Messianic Temple" (32). If that is the case, why do the synoptic Gospels refer to the curtain of the temple being torn from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51; Mark 15:38; Luke 23:45)?

3. Wacholder says that, in the eyes of the Mishnah's authors, capital punishment will exist in the Messianic period. This raises profound questions. Isaiah 11 says that the Davidic king of restored Israel will slay the wicked with the breath of his mouth. Yet, it also affirms that people will not hurt or destroy one another, since the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD.

Jeremiah 31 says God will write his laws on the hearts of the Israelites and Jews, meaning they won't have to teach people to know God. At the same time, it also states that people in that time will be punished for their own sins, not the sins of their parents.

But why are people being punished period, if God's law is on their hearts, meaning that they don't sin? Are the prophets referring to the judgment that will precede or introduce the Messianic era?

Dr. Dobson and the System

I've talked on this blog before about Doc Love, a dating guru whose advice has helped many. He has a dating technique called "The System," which is based on three C's: confidence, (self-) control, and challenge.

For Doc, women generally like men who are confident enough to approach them, who don't totally fall apart whenever they're rejected. A good sense of humor also helps, for Doc is clear that a man on the first date should be "light and funny." Self-control means that a man should wait a week after meeting a woman before he calls her, and it also includes being willing to say "no" to a woman every now and then (which women love). That leads to Doc's third C, "challenge," which is allowing women to do some of the chasing. A man needs to show a woman that he has a sense of self apart from her. He should definitely flirt, since that goes with "confidence," but there are also times when he should pull back. That can increase a woman's "interest level."

Doc's advice is not exactly what you see on movies and television, at least not most of the time. Sure, there was an episode of 7th Heaven (Season 1) in which Matt told one of his friends to act aloof around Mary, since "chicks dig that." Unfortunately, his friend didn't follow that advice but chose instead to fawn all over her, leading her interest level to drop lower than it already was.

But, overall, movies and shows tell men to fawn all over women. "You need to tell her how you feel, send flowers every day, remind her all of the time that she's beautiful." There's a place for all that, since such deeds can convey appreciation, which women (like everyone) desire. But, for Doc, they also don't want a man whom they can walk all over. And women like receiving gifts and compliments from men they like, for whom they already have a high interest level. Gifts and compliments do not necessarily increase a woman's interest level, as far as Doc is concerned.

Well, in the midst of all of these conflicting messages that are out there, guess who agrees with Doc Love (though perhaps by coincidence)? Another Doc--the Doc of the evangelical community--Dr. James Dobson!

That's how Jim Dobson got Shirley. Here's a quote from Dale Buss' Family Man: The Biography of Dr. James Dobson:

"[A] more unsettling...strand of their relationship was the perpetual cat-and-mouse game they played as each one tried to figure out how serious they should be and whether the other partner in the relationship felt the same way...This dating equivocation surfaced almost immediately. [B]y the end of their first summer of dating, Shirley told him that she wanted to resume dating a boyfriend from the previous spring. Dobson later recalled his response as a crucial early step in their relationship. 'I said that was a good idea, because there were some girls I wanted to date too,' he says. 'She said that she wanted to go with him and me too. And I said, 'No, go with him.' I set her free at that moment. If I'd said, 'You can't do that to me; maybe I love you!' the relationship would have been over, stone-cold dead--I know Shirley. But I was confident enough to do that. She never dated him again. She stayed with me'" (33).

This game of cat-and-mouse continued on and off until Dobson finally proposed. Buss explains:

"Dobson finally drew an end to the uncertainties by determining that he wasn't going to be a beggar in this relationship. One evening he pulled over the 1949 Mercury convertible he called Ol' Red and gave his beloved a moonlit speech. He was going somewhere in life, he told her, and he wanted her to come along. If she didn't, he would move on. Shirley opted in, and their relationship was forever defined" (33-34).

He wasn't going to be a beggar in the relationship. Doc Love couldn't have said it better!

Dobson's own experience inspired his book, Love Must Be Tough. I was listening to it a few weeks ago, and he said that the men who normally got the girl in his day were the ones who flirted, while maintaining some aloofness. Dobson also recounted that Shirley was a major heartbreaker in her younger years!

This puzzled me because Shirley was a Christian from her youth. Because of her troubled childhood, she learned to depend on her heavenly Father from a really early age. Would a Christian break mens' hearts?

That's when it hit me: so much of dating is a game. Sure, there are important aspects to it, like genuinely enjoying the company of another person. But a big part of dating is determining if this is the one you want to be with for the rest of your life. And many women are drawn to a man's strength (and I don't primarily mean his muscles!).

As I was thinking about this, my (and Bryan L's) favorite Bible passage entered my mind: "If you have raced with foot-runners and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses? And if in a safe land you fall down, how will you fare in the thickets of the Jordan?" (Jeremiah 12:5, NRSV).

God is telling Jeremiah to stop complaining and toughen up, for things will soon get worse. Or they can get worse. And, believe it or not, this verse gives me comfort, probably more than the usual passages that Christians go to for reassurance ("I will never leave you nor forsake you"). I can whine about my current situation, or I can use it as an opportunity to become stronger. And I will need strength if I ever enter the dating game, for there is a lot of rejection out there!

"Maybe I Went Too Far This Time"

I heard a sermon a few weeks ago on anger. It was at a Catholic church that I attend. Much of what the priest said was standard: there is right anger (righteous indignation) and wrong anger (which is selfish and hateful). The priest also said that parents should never discipline their kids while they are angry. He probably said this because parents can go overboard when they act out of anger; once they let the anger pass, however, they are more likely to be fair and levelheaded in their discipline. When he made the latter statement, a thought entered my mind: "Didn't God discipline people when he was angry? Is God's justice always (or ever) dispassionate?"

The question occurred to me because of something I read in Jeremiah not long ago. In Jeremiah 42, Jeremiah speaks to the people who were remaining in the land of Judah after the Babylonian invasion. In v 10, Jeremiah says in God's name, "If ye will still abide in this land, then will I build you, and not pull you down, and I will plant you, and not pluck you up: for I repent me of the evil that I have done unto you." When I first read this verse, I interpreted it as follows: "Okay, I went a little too far in my punishment, I'll admit. I was angry. But I've changed my mind. I'm willing to give you people a second chance right here and right now. You don't have to wait 70 years for your nation to have a new beginning, as I originally promised. I'll work with you right now." But the story turns out to vindicate God's original plan to destroy Judah (at least for a season). Even after God makes the Judahites a promise of immediate blessing, they distrust him, reject his word, and disobey his command, for they flee to Egypt rather than staying in Judah. So God's first instincts were correct! It would take a lot more discipline before the Judahites were ready for restoration.

This is not the first time that God acknowledges he may have gone too far. In Genesis 8:21, God says, "I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done." Here, God seems to be saying, "I just can't keep wiping out all of my creation whenever humanity gets too sinful! If I do that, then I'll be destroying it on a regular basis, since human beings are inherently wicked. I guess I'll have to put up with them and work with them any way I can."

The strange thing, however, is this: Although these passages present God as acting out of anger, the biblical narrative as a whole does not portray God as impulsive. God put up with humanity's corruption for several years before he sent the flood. For centuries, he endured Israel's flagrant transgression, until he finally decided to do something about it. So God is not exactly like a parent who gets mad at his child and starts spanking her until she bleeds. God had time to deliberate about what he was going to do.

At the same time, God seems to regret his punishment of the sinners. Perhaps that's because it was only theoretical to him when he was talking about it, but he saw how horrible it was once he actually did it and observed its effects. Initially, God was saying, "I am so mad at you! I will do such and such to teach you a lesson!" But once he did such and such, he saw how disastrous it was and regretted his action.

But was God wrong to punish sinners? I don't think so. What else could he have done? Had he allowed the generation of the flood to continue in its sinful ways, humanity would probably be worse today than it actually is. And what else could God have done to Israel to turn her from her sins? He had already sent famines, and those weren't producing any repentance. God had to shake her dramatically before she came to her senses.

Some may say that God does not resemble my portrayal of him because the Bible has a lot of anthropomorphisms, which are descriptions of God in human terms to make him more understandable. I'll address this tomorrow. Have a nice day!

Should Josephus Be Used in Biblical Studies?

I was going to save this post for a rainy day, but I am so excited about my new blog that I am in the mood to post it now. Let's hope that I come up with new thoughts for future posts!

Allow me to give some background information for my question. On another forum, a skeptic argued that Ezekiel made a false prophecy about Tyre and Egypt. Ezekiel prophesied that Tyre and Egypt would fall to the Babylonians, that did not happen, and so Ezekiel was technically a false prophet according to Deuteronomy 18:22 (or so the skeptic argued).

I thought about this issue some more when I was doing my daily reading and meditation on the Book of Jeremiah. In Jeremiah 43 and 46, Jeremiah predicts that Babylon under Nebuchadrezzar will conquer Egypt. My HarperCollins Study Bible, my Jewish Study Bible, and my Anchor Bible Dictionary all tell me that this did not happen, for Nebuchadrezzar failed in his attempt at conquest. On what do they base this claim? They do not say. But I did a search on the Internet (not that I rely on the Internet alone for my scholarly endeavors), and I found the claim that the Babylonians did not record that they successfully invaded Egypt. For many scholars, such an omission would indicate that they most likely did not, since conquerors in the ancient world tended to boast about their accomplishments.

But here is the interesting part: Josephus says that Nebuchadrezzar did succeed in his endeavor (Antiquities 10:182, 195). One may argue that Josephus was basing his account on the biblical prediction, but, in Against Apion 1:132-133, he says that Berosus presents Nebuchadrezzar as a conqueror of Egypt. According to Josephus, Berosus was a Chaldean who followed the ancient records of his nation in composing a history of Babylonia.

But the plot thickens: I can envision someone saying that neither Josephus nor Berosus can be trusted, since they lived long after the time of Nebuchadrezzar (at least that was a possible objection that entered my mind). But, in an article on "Edom" in the Anchor Bible Dictionary, scholar J.R. Bartlett uses Josephus (along with other sources) to draw conclusions about the relationship between Babylon and Edom in the sixth century B.C.E. (ABD, volume 2, p. 293). Josephus lived long after that time, and yet at least one biblical scholar seems to think that his works can be helpful for biblical studies (at least on this occasion).

I have not done research to see how many biblical scholars use Josephus, but my question is: Is it acceptable? Why or why not?