Items from the Gospel of Nicodemus

I recently read the “Gospel of Nicodemus” in The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden.  The English translation there is what I will quote in this post.

The “Gospel of Nicodemus” is also known as the “Acts of Pontius Pilate.”  Scholars have differed about its date, and proposed dates have ranged from the third to the sixth centuries C.E. (see here, here, here, here, and here).  Clayton N. Jefford in his article about the “Acts of Pilate” in the Anchor Bible Dictionary states that many medieval manuscripts have added a section to the “Acts of Pilate” about Christ’s descent into hell.  According to Jefford, these two writings combined “circulated…under the title of the ‘Gospel of Nicodemus.'”

The “Gospel of Nicodemus” covers the time from Christ’s trial to events after Christ’s resurrection.  In this Gospel, the Jewish authorities accuse Jesus before the Roman authority Pontius Pilate of violating the Sabbath.  Jewish defenders of Jesus bring in people Jesus healed to testify before Pilate, but Jesus’ Jewish opponents have their excuses to explain those healings away: that Jesus heals people with sorcery or demonic power.  Jesus is crucified.

The hostile Jewish authorities imprison Joseph of Arimathea after Joseph arranges to bury Jesus, but an angel delivers Joseph from their custody.  After that happens, the Jewish authorities begin to soften somewhat in their stance towards Jesus.  Why did this miracle, of all miracles, open them up to the possibility that Jesus may have been from God?  My guess is that they were surprised and impressed that Joseph could escape from their secure custody!  They could not explain that away, since they were unwilling to admit flaws in their security system! 

A priest and a Levite see the resurrected Jesus talking with his disciples and tell the other Jewish authorities about this.  Two sons of Simeon (the Simeon in Luke 2 who prophesied about Jesus when Jesus was a baby) were raised from the dead for a brief period of time (a la Matthew 27:52), and they testify that they saw Jesus come into hell and empty it of the souls imprisoned there.  The Jewish authorities search the Scriptures and conclude that Jesus is the Messiah, and they become Christians.

Here are some thoughts.  In a few cases, I have more questions than answers.

A.  Scholars and historians have long discussed the history of anti-Judaism within Christianity, as Christians called Jews Christ-killers.  This contributed to the persecution of Jews during the Middle Ages, and it may have set the stage for the Holocaust in the twentieth century.  Such issues were discussed in 2004, with the release of Mel Gibson’s controversial film, The Passion of the Christ.

In light of that, it was noteworthy to me how pro-Jewish the “Gospel of Nicodemus” is.  In the “Gospel of Nicodemus,” there are Jewish defenders of Jesus.  And the hostile Jewish authorities ultimately become believers in Jesus.

The “Gospel of Nicodemus” may have been drawing from themes in the New Testament.  Acts 6:7, for example, states that there were many priests who became obedient to the faith.  In addition, the “Gospel of Nicodemus” may, in its own way, have fit within an environment of Christian anti-Judaism, since many Christian persecutors of the Jews tried to pressure Jews to convert to Christianity.

B.  Jesus’ emptying of hell puzzled me for two reasons.

First of all, Beelzebub and Satan are different characters altogether in the “Gospel of Nicodemus.”  Beelzebub is the ruler of the underworld, whereas Satan was on earth plotting to get Jesus killed.  Beelzebub is upset with Satan because Satan’s plots got Jesus sent to the underworld, which Jesus is now in the process of emptying!  This puzzles me because passages such as Mark 12:23, Matthew 12:26, and Luke 11:18 appear to equate Satan with Beelzebub.  The “Gospel of Nicodemus” may be sensitive to certain tensions or complexities within the New Testament, however: that not all hostile spiritual powers are in the underworld (see, for example, Ephesians 6:12, which refers to spiritual wickedness on high); and that Satan in the Gospels orchestrates Jesus’ death (Luke 22:3), yet tries to discourage Jesus from dying (Matthew 16:21-23; Mark 8:31-33).  Such factors may have encouraged the writer of this part of the “Gospel of Nicodemus” to regard Beelzebub and Satan as two different characters, in different places, with differences of opinion.

Secondly, there is the question of the extent of Jesus’ emptying of hell.  Does Jesus only deliver the righteous souls from hell, or does he deliver every soul?  The people Jesus delivers from hell are called saints.  At the same time, they are said to be burdened under the weight of original sin and guilt over their own unrighteousness, and Beelzebub does appear to be concerned that Jesus is cleaning out the place.  Did Jesus make every soul into a saint when he delivered that soul from hell?

C.  I grew up in Armstrongism, which denied that people have immortal souls that go to heaven or hell right after death.  We believed that people were in a state of unconsciousness until the resurrection of the dead, which would occur after Christ’s second coming.

A challenge to our view was the thief on the cross, to whom Jesus said “Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43 KJV).  We argued that the King James Version and other English translations have the punctuation in the wrong place: that it should read, “Verily I say unto thee today, thou shalt be with me in paradise.”  In our view, Jesus was assuring the thief on the cross that he would eventually be with Jesus in paradise, after the resurrection of the dead, not that his soul would be with Jesus in paradise that very day.

I once heard Garner Ted Armstrong mock or question what he considered to be an inconsistency within mainstream Christianity.  On the one hand, he noted, many Christians say that the thief was with Jesus in paradise immediately after the two of them had died—-that very day.  On the other hand, many Christians maintain that Jesus went to hell after his death.  So which was it?  Was Jesus (and the thief) in hell or in heaven right after his death?

A number of Christians have offered solutions to this.  A popular answer is that paradise was the righteous section of hell, and Jesus went there after his death (with the thief) and took paradise to heaven.

The “Gospel of Nicodemus” has its own scenario: that the thief went to heaven at the time when Jesus was emptying out hell.  This, presumably, was occurring the day that the two of them died.  In this scenario, the thief was in paradise the day that he died.

That scenario raises questions in my mind, especially because Jesus in John 20:17 tells Mary Magdalene after his resurrection not to touch him because he has not yet ascended to his Father.  Does that mean that Jesus did not go to heaven before that time?  If so, would that preclude the thief from being with Jesus in heaven on the day of their death?

That depends on one’s interpretation of John 20:17, and the point that Jesus was trying to make there.  Perhaps his point was that his risen, glorified body had not yet ascended to present itself as a wavesheaf offering before God.  That does not preclude his soul from going to heaven prior to that point.  Or Jesus’ point may be that Mary does not need to cling to him because he has not yet ascended to heaven, so they still have time to see each other and enjoy each other’s company.  That, too, does not preclude Jesus’ soul from going to heaven prior to his resurrection.  See here for my post about John 20:17.

Yet, something still puzzles me.  I do not recall the “Gospel of Nicodemus” saying explicitly that Jesus’ soul went to heaven between the time of his death and resurrection.  Jesus liberates souls from hell, and they then go to heaven.  The thief on the cross also goes to heaven.  Yet, I recall nothing about Jesus going to heaven at that time.  In light of that, is the thief on the cross in the “Gospel of Nicodemus” truly with Jesus in paradise on the day of their death, a la Luke 23:43?

D.  In John 18:31, we read: “Then said Pilate unto them, Take ye him, and judge him according to your law. The Jews therefore said unto him, It is not lawful for us to put any man to death” (KJV).

The Jews say that it is not lawful for them to put a person to death, and this is why they want Pilate to do so.  Many commentators interpret this to mean that the Romans did not allow the Jews to practice the death penalty at that time.  C. Marvin Pate, on pages 329-331 of 40 Questions About the Historical Jesus, argues for this position and, using Josephus and rabbinic sources, discusses when the Jewish authorities did and did not have the authority to execute criminals.

The “Gospel of Nicodemus” appears to have a different interpretation of John 18:31, however: that the Jewish law of Moses forbids them to put a person to death, and that is why the Jewish authorities want Pilate to execute Jesus. 

The Jewish authorities in “Gospel of Nicodemus” 4:16 say, “Our law commands us not to put any man to death…”  Earlier, in 3:5, Pilate says to the Jewish authorities that “The command, therefore thou shalt not kill, belongs to you, but not to me.”

Are the Jewish authorities saying that the law of Moses forbids them to enact the death penalty, under the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” (Exodus 20:13)?  The problem is that, in 4:14, the Jewish authorities express to Pilate awareness that the law of Moses allows for the death penalty: “Our law saith, he shall be obliged to receive nine and thirty stripes, but if after this manner he shall blaspheme against the Lord, he shall be stoned.”

There are various considerations in my mind as I wrestle with this:

—-Could Pilate and the Jewish authorities be saying that it is against the law of Moses to put an innocent person to death?  Pilate in 5:46 asks, “What will it profit you to shed innocent blood?”  The problem is that the Jewish authorities do not believe that Jesus is innocent, at this point.

—-Could the “Gospel of Nicodemus” be acknowledging an aversion within rabbinic Judaism towards the death penalty, which appears in Mishnah Makkoth 1:10, and in the numerous hurdles and safeguards in Babylonian Talmud Sanhedrin 40a-b?  Moreover, according to Jacob Milgrom in his Jewish Publication Society commentary on the Book of Numbers, rabbinic Judaism understood the penalty of karet (being cut off) to be something that God does, not something that human beings do: God can kill certain sinners prematurely, or in the afterlife (pages 405-408).  Yet, as Milgrom notes, there is acknowledgement within rabbinic literature that the authorities of Israel are allowed by God to carry out the death penalty.

—-Could the discussion in “Gospel of Nicodemus” 4 concern the manner of the death penalty: the Jewish authorities want Jesus crucified, whereas their law only allows them to stone him?  They want Jesus, not just to die, but to endure the shame that accompanies crucifixion.  This is a tempting solution, since the Jewish authorities stress that they want Jesus to be crucified.  But does their law forbid them to hang a person?  Deuteronomy 21:22 seems to indicate otherwise.

Perhaps there is some technicality in the law of Moses that prevents the Jewish authorities from applying the death penalty in the specific case of Jesus, even if the law of Moses allows for the death penalty.  To execute Jesus, in that case, would violate “Thou shalt not kill.”

Exodus 22:2-3 and Self-Defense

Exodus 22:2-3 posits a situation in which a thief is breaking into somebody's home:

2 If a thief is found breaking in, and is beaten to death, no bloodguilt is incurred;
3 but if it happens after sunrise, bloodguilt is incurred. (NRSV)

When I first read this verse, it resonated with me because God was permitting self-defense.  You hear discussions about the Sermon on the Mount, especially Jesus' exhortation that people turn the other cheek (Matthew 5:39).  People wonder if Jesus there is forbidding people to protect themselves, their loved ones, or others from those who are immediately threatening their lives.  Like many, I have struggled with Matthew 5:39.  Exodus 22:2-3, on the other hand, struck me as realistic.  Call me a counter-Marcionite, in this case!

But I did not understand v 3.  Why would God allow people to protect themselves from thieves during the night, but not during the day?

I have been reading the first century Jewish thinker Philo's take on this issue (Special Laws IV:7-10), and also various other people's interpretations: Nahum Sarna's Jewish Publication Society commentary on Exodus; Jeffrey Tigay's comments in the Jewish Study Bible; Ed Greenstein's comments in The HarperCollins Study Bible; The IVP Bible Background Commentary; John Calvin; Rashi; John MacArthur; Keil-Delitzsch; and the commentators featured on E-Sword (i.e., John Gill, Matthew Henry, Adam Clarke, Barnes, JFB, etc.).

The commentators phrase things differently, and some of them emphasize things that others do not emphasize.  Still, overall, they have roughly the same explanation regarding Exodus 22:2-3.
Their idea is this: if a thief is breaking into a house at night, there is a greater probability  that the thief will murder the residents of the house.  The thief knows that people are in the house at the time of the theft, since the thief is breaking in at night, when people are at home and are sleeping.  Self-defense is justified in that case, for the residents do not know if the thief will kill them or not.

During the daytime, the situation is different.  The thief is primarily interested in stealing, since he does not even know if anyone is at home.  He would probably prefer for no one to be at home, since in that case no one would identify him as the thief and turn him in!  Philo makes the point that, during the daytime, residents can take the thief to the judges, and there will more likely be people around to help them against the thief.  During the nighttime, people are asleep, so neighbors will be less likely to help the residents then.  During the daytime, by contrast, neighbors are awake, alert, and around in case the residents need help.  In short, there is less danger to residents during the daytime when a thief breaks into a house, and residents are able to pursue alternative paths to killing the thief to protect themselves, their loved ones, and their property.

Philo says that to kill a thief when he breaks into a house in the daytime is to yield to passion rather than reason, which, for Philo, is a big no-no.  Philo also says that such an act would itself be theft in that it steals from justice.  Of the commentators that I read, Matthew Henry was the only one who explicitly appealed to compassion and mercy for the thief.  Sarna, however, acknowledged that Exodus 22:2-3 had a humanitarian element and contrasted that with certain other ancient Near Eastern laws:

“The laws of Eshnunna also deal with the topic of theft and likewise distinguish between daytime and nighttime offenses, but they are concerned solely with the protection of property and ignore the humanitarian issue.  Hammurabi simply prescribes the death penalty for the thief who made a breach in a house or committed robbery.”  (Page 130 of the Jewish Publication Society commentary on Genesis)

There are cultures that had different sets of laws for this situation, and people who interpreted the Torah a bit differently.  They may realize that things are not so simple as a literal interpretation of Exodus 22:2-3 would indicate.  After all, a thief breaking in during the daytime can immediately threaten a resident's life, and there may not be anyone around to help.  What does a person do then? Are his or her hands tied because he or she is forbidden to kill a thief in self-defense during the day?

John Calvin refers to the Roman Twelve Tables, which permit self-defense during the night and during the day.  Calvin then states: "But, since God had sufficiently repressed by other laws murders and violent assaults, He is silent here respecting robbers who use the sword in their attempts at plunder. He therefore justly condemns to death those who have avenged by murder a theft in open day."  Calvin seems to be divorcing Exodus 22:3 from self-defense, saying that it concerns instead an attempt to carry out personal vengeance against someone who stole from one's house during the day.  For Calvin, it seems, Exodus 22:3 does not forbid self-defense during the day, but it does forbid being so concerned about possessions that one kills a thief who is not an immediate danger.

The medieval Jewish exegete Rashi presents a not-so-literal interpretation of Exodus 22:3.  For Rashi, the sun shining on the thief in that passage relates not so much to the timing of the theft.  Rather, it relates to the understanding that the victim has of the thief's motivations----the light that the victim has on the situation.  Does the victim perceive that the thief is peaceably disposed and is not an immediate threat to the victim's life?  If so, then the victim is forbidden to kill the thief.  According to Nahum Sarna, the rabbinic Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael contains a similar opinion.  Rashi may have gotten the idea from the Mekhilta. 

I think that Exodus 22:2-3 does well to balance self-defense with a regard for the life of the thief.  Of course, we should care about the people we love and protect them if we can.  On the other hand, a high regard for self-defense can go in trigger-happy directions, or directions that value property over people.  The abuses of Stand-Your-Ground laws show this to be true.  

The Martyrdom of Zechariah in Rabbinic Literature and Matthew 23:35

In Matthew 23:35, Jesus is lambasting the Pharisees, and he says:

"That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar” (KJV).

A number of biblical scholars say this is an error.  They think that Jesus really means Zechariah the son of Jehoiada, who was murdered in the Temple court in II Chronicles 24.

In II Chronicles 24, the story about the murder of Zechariah the son of Jehoiada is set in Judah's pre-exilic period, during the reign of King Joash of Judah.  After the death of Jehoiada, who was a priest, a mentor to King Joash, and the father of Zechariah, King Joash and the princes of Judah become idolatrous.  This offends God, so God sends them prophets to exhort them to turn from their wickedness.  But the people continue in their idolatrous ways.  Zechariah the son of Jehoiada, under the influence of God's spirit, criticizes their transgression of God's commandments and says that God is forsaking them because they are forsaking God.  The king and princes plot to stone Zechariah in the Temple court, and the dying Zechariah says, "The LORD look upon it, and require it" (v 22 KJV).

But Jesus in Matthew 23:35 does not say Zechariah the son of Jehoida, but rather Zechariah the son of Barachias.  Zechariah the son of Berechiah was a post-exilic prophet.  He encouraged the Jews returning to Judah after the exile in their work of rebuilding the Temple (Ezra 5:1; 6:14).  The biblical Book of Zechariah is attributed to him, and Zechariah 1-8 explicitly concerns figures and events during Israel's post-exilic period: Joshua the high priest, Zerubabbel the governor, etc.  Zechariah's father was named Berechiah, but his grandfather was Iddo (Zechariah 1:1), so Zechariah is called the son of Iddo (Ezra 5:1; 6:14).  Iddo and Zechariah were both priests (Nehemiah 12:4, 16).

Was Jesus, Matthew, or whoever spoke or wrote Matthew 23 mistaken in saying that Zechariah the son of Berechiah, rather than Zechariah the son of Jehoida, was killed between the Temple and the altar?  Many biblical inerrantists think not.  They maintain that Jesus was correct and that Zechariah the son of Berechiah was killed between the Temple and the altar during Israel's post-exilic period.

I am currently reading C. Marvin Pate's 40 Questions About the Historical Jesus.  (Kregel Academic sent me a complimentary review copy of this book.)  Pate argues that Jesus in Matthew 23:35 was not mistaken.  An argument that Pate makes is that there are other ancient sources that say that the prophet Zechariah the son of Berechiah was killed.  Pate states, on page 33:

...rabbinic traditions (e.g., the Targum on Lam. 2:20 and the Midrash Rabbah on Eccl. 3:16) also refer to Zechariah the prophet being killed in the temple.  On this understanding, Jesus and extra-biblical tradition converge in reporting an actual incident not mentioned in the Old Testament.

I had never heard this before, and I was curious to check out these sources.

I took a look at the Midrash Rabbah on my Judaic Classics Library (which is the Soncino one).  The passage is Ecclesiastes Rabbah 3:19.  The passage there did not say that the Zechariah in question was Zechariah the son of Berechiah or the son of Iddo.  It simply referred to a Zechariah who was killed.  The footnote that the commentators added believe that the Zechariah here is Zechariah the son of Jehoida, the one in II Chronicles 24.  And there is good reason that they arrive at that conclusion.  According to Ecclesiastes Rabbah 3:19, Zechariah was killed before the Babylonians invaded Judah.  Zechariah has been dead and buried by the time that Nebuzaradan the captain of the Babylonian guard invades Judah, and his blood is still visible at the Temple.  The passage seems to suggest that the Babylonian invasion of Judah was God's punishment for what Judah did to Zechariah, even though a merciful impulse towards Judah comes over Nebuzaradan at Zechariah's grave.

Zechariah the son of Jehoida, in II Chronicles 24, was killed prior to the Babylonian invasion of Judah.  Zechariah the son of Berechiah lived after the time of the Babylonian invasion, when the Israelites returned from exile.  Ecclesiastes Rabbah 3:19 is talking about a pre-exilic Zechariah, so it probably concerns Zechariah the son of Jehoida in II Chronicles 24, not the prophet Zechariah the son of Berechiah.

The Targum on Lamentations 2:20 is a different story.  C.M.M. Brady's translation of this Targum states the following:

See, O Lord, and observe from heaven against whom you have turned. Thus is it right for the daughters of Israel to eat the fruit of their wombs due to starvation, the lovely boys wrapped in fine linen? The Attribute of Justice replied, and said, “Is it right to kill priest and prophet in the Temple of the LORD, as when you killed Zechariah son of Iddo, the High Priest and faithful prophet in the Temple of the Lord on the Day of Atonement because he admonished you not to do evil before the Lord?”

There, the Zechariah who is killed in the Temple is Zechariah the son of Iddo, the post-exilic prophet Zechariah.  Pate is correct about this passage.

I still have questions, though.  For one, was Zechariah the son of Berechiah/Iddo a high priest, as the Targum suggests?  He was a priest, but was he the high priest?  In the Book of Zechariah, the high priest is Joshua, not Zechariah (Zechariah 3; 6:11).  Does the Targum really have the prophet Zechariah the son of Berechiah/Iddo in mind?  Yet, perhaps one can say that Zechariah the son of Berechiah/Iddo became high priest after the time of Joshua.  Second, the Targum says that Zechariah the son of Iddo was killed on the Day of Atonement.  The reason that this detail stands out to me is that Ecclesiastes Rabbah 3:19 (the source we looked at above) seems to suggest that Zechariah the son of Jehoida was killed on the Day of Atonement: "R. Judan said: Seven transgressions were committed by Israel at that time: they killed a priest, a prophet, and a judge, they shed innocent blood, they defiled the Temple Court, and this was done on the Sabbath which was also the Day of Atonement" (Soncino translation).  This is said immediately after the story of Nebuzaradan visiting the grave of Zechariah.

Were both Zechariahs killed on the Day of Atonement?  Or could it be that the Targum is mixing up and confusing Zechariahs, saying Zechariah the son of Iddo when it really means Zechariah the son of Jehoida (the one killed on the Day of Atonement in Ecclesiastes Rabbah 3:19)?  Could the Targum here be making the same mistake that many scholars think Matthew 23:35 makes?  If so, then the Targum is not actually reflecting a Jewish tradition about the death of Zechariah the son of Berechiah.

I still tend to believe what I said in my post about II Chronicles 24:

Finally, not only is there no evidence that Zechariah the son of Berachiah was martyred, but I also find it unlikely.  Zechariah the son of Jehoiada spoke truth to power and had a message that could get him killed.  Zechariah the son of Berachiah, by contrast, supported the establishment, specifically the attempts by Governor Zerubabbel and Joshua the priest to rebuild Israel.  Why would Zechariah the son of Berechiah be martyred?  Was it because he was challenging post-exilic Jews for not completely giving paganism up?  Still, he was part of the establishment.

The Testament of Abraham: Salvation and Answered Prayer

I recently read the Testament of Abraham for my daily quiet time.  The Charlesworth Pseudepigrapha dates it to the first-second centuries C.E.  E.P. Sanders, in his editorial introduction to the work, argues that it has an Egyptian Jewish background.

In this post, I will focus on Recension A, which is longer than Recension B.  I will use Sanders’ translation, looking primarily at chapters 9-14.

The Testament of Abraham is about God sending his angelic Commander-in-Chief, Michael, to Abraham.  The Commander-in-Chief’s mission is to prepare Abraham for his coming death and to escort him to the afterlife, since it is Abraham’s time to go.  But Abraham is resistant to going, and the Commander-in-Chief does not want to inform Abraham that he will soon die, since Abraham is a sweet, hospitable, and righteous man.  Abraham says that he wishes to see all of the world before his death, and the Commander-in-Chief obliges.

Although Abraham in chapter 9 confessed that he was a “sinner and…completely worthless servant,” Abraham does not have a whole lot of tolerance when he beholds other people’s sins.  Abraham sees murderous robbers with sharp swords, and Abraham tells the Lord to send wild beasts to kill them.  Wild beasts then come from the thicket and devour the robbers.  Abraham sees a man and a woman “engaging in sexual immorality,” and Abraham tells the Lord to “command that the earth open and swallow them up.”  The earth then opens and swallows the man and the woman up.  Abraham sees some men attempting to break into a house to rob it, and Abraham tells the Lord to consume them with fire from heaven.  Fire then comes from heaven and consumes the robbers.

Although the Lord is complying with Abraham’s requests, they do not exactly fit God’s will or character.  A voice comes from heaven and speaks to the Commander-in-Chief: “O Michael, Commander-in-chief, command the chariot to stop and turn Abraham away, lest he should see the entire inhabited world.  For if he were to see all those who pass their lives in sin, he would destroy everything that exists.  For behold, Abraham has not sinned and he has no mercy on sinners.  But I made the world, and I do not want to destroy any one of them, but I delay the death of the sinner until he should convert and live.  Now conduct Abraham to the first gate of heaven, so that there he may see the judgments and recompenses and repent over the souls of the sinners which he destroyed.”

Abraham sees the judgment of the dead.  Those who went on the narrow way, a tiny minority, are saved, whereas those who traveled on the broad way are punished.  This sounds like Matthew 7:13-14 and Luke 13:23-24, but there are indications that the Testament of Abraham is not Christian.  Jesus, or the Son of God, is not mentioned in the Testament of Abraham.  Rather, Adam is in heaven cheering humans on, hoping that more people travel on the narrow way.  And Adam’s son Abel, who was killed by his brother Cain, is the one who judges humanity.

Abraham then sees a person whose judgment is on hold because he has an equal number of righteous and wicked deeds.  (Such a concept appears also in rabbinic literature; see here.)  Abraham prays for this person, and the person enters into Paradise.  Abraham, after seeing the bleakness of judgment, perhaps concludes that people need all the help they can get, so he repents of having snuffed out the sinners whom he saw previously.  He asks God for forgiveness of his sin, and God forgives Abraham and restores the sinners who got snuffed out.  God then says that he punished these sinners “for a time,” but that those who die prematurely at God’s hand are not requited.  Sanders’ note interprets this statement in light of “the well-known rabbinic view that those who are punished with suffering or premature death in this world are considered to have been sufficiently punished and to have atoned for their sins, so that they are not punished in the world to come…”

Here are some items:

A.  Could the Testament of Abraham be somehow related to Christianity, in terms of one influencing the other? Maybe the Testament of Abraham got from Christianity the idea of a righteous murder victim sitting in judgment of humanity. Perhaps, conversely, Christianity got from the Testament of Abraham, or a prior tradition that was similar to the Testament of Abraham, the idea that God could exalt a righteous murder victim to heaven, where that victim would judge humanity, and it concluded that this is what happened to Jesus. Could the Epistle to the Hebrews be relevant to my question? Some interpret Hebrews 12:1 to mean that Old Testament saints are a great cloud of witnesses cheering the saints on, and that sounds similar to Adam in the Testament of Abraham cheering humanity on. There is also Hebrews 12:24, which affirms that Jesus’ blood speaks better things than that of Abel. Could Hebrews be responding to a tradition like the Testament of Abraham, in which Abel was judging humanity?

B.  In reading the Testament of Abraham, I thought about some ideas in Scripture.  In the New Testament, we often encounter the idea that God will grant any request that a disciple makes in the name of Jesus, or with faith (Matthew 21:22; Mark 11:24; John 14:13-14; 15:7, 16; 16:23-24; I John 3:22).  This troubles people.  Any request?  Then why didn’t God heal so-and-so, after I prayed for him?  And is not God holding himself hostage to human whims by saying that he will answer any request made in Jesus’ name, or in faith?

Many Christian interpreters would add qualifications to this.  They point to I John 5:14, which affirms that God answers requests that are according to God’s will.  They have also said that God answers the requests that conform to his own character and his commandments: that, when our character is shaped and molded according to God’s righteousness, we ask God for the right things, and God grants our requests.  There may be something to this view.  John 15:7 states: “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you” (KJV).  I John 3:22 affirms: “And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight” (KJV).  In these passages, God granting our requests seems to be conditioned on us being yielded to Christ and Christ’s righteous way, in some manner.  I do not think that this entirely solves the problem of unanswered prayer, however, for why wouldn’t God answer the prayer of a righteous person to heal someone else, a prayer that is made out of concern for another person?

I also think of Genesis 27.  In that chapter, Isaac blesses Jacob when Jacob pretends to be Esau, and Isaac cannot reverse that blessing on Jacob after the real Esau shows up.  Blessings were considered to be that powerful, in the ancient world.  Does that mean, though, that God is holding himself hostage to what people say, to people’s blessings and cursings?

In the Testament of Abraham, God grants Abraham’s requests because Abraham is righteous: Abraham is the sort of person who tries to be hospitable to everyone, both those who are important in the eyes of the world, and those who seem unimportant.  But Abraham does not always make righteous requests that accord with God’s will, and God still feels obligated to grant those requests.  At the same time, God is still in control.  God can remove Abraham from seeing more sinners so that Abraham does not request for more sinners to be snuffed out.  God can teach Abraham about God’s nature of compassion and longsuffering, knowing that Abraham is the type of person who will learn the lesson that God wants to teach him.  God holds himself hostage to Abraham’s requests, on some level, but God is still in charge, navigating events in accordance with God’s righteous will.

C.  In the Testament of Abraham, God wants as many people as possible to be saved, but only a tiny minority are saved.  That is a tension that I do not understand, but there it is.  Could the co-existence of these concepts be relevant to interpreting the New Testament within the context of debates about universalism (i.e., God will eventually save everyone)?  There are universalist voices, particularly among certain fourth century church fathers.  Here in the Testament of Abraham, however, we see the idea that God may want for everyone to be saved, but God does not save everybody, only a tiny minority.  For some reason (maybe free will, and the understanding that people have enough light to make right decisions), what God wants is not what God gets.

D.  Abraham calls himself a sinner, but Abraham is not merciful towards other sinners; what’s more, God says that Abraham is not merciful towards them because Abraham himself has not sinned.  And yet, Abraham’s lack of compassion by itself is something that Abraham labels a sin, and Abraham asks God for forgiveness of it.  These concepts appear contradictory.  Could some of that be due to different sources in the Testament of Abraham?  Or perhaps one author believed that these paradoxes could co-exist: yes, Abraham was righteous in terms of his overall walk, but he was also a sinner.  Even if Abraham slipped up at times, the general pattern of his life was to conform to God’s righteous standard.

I am not as righteous as Abraham, not by a long shot, but like Abraham, I can acknowledge that I am a sinner, while still being outraged at the sins that I see on television.  When someone tries to harm someone else, human or animal, that upsets me, and I desire justice.  I do not think that this is wrong.  I hope, though, that I can also be outraged at my own sins.

Book Write-Up: Christ in the Sabbath, by Rich Robinson

Rich Robinson.  Christ in the Sabbath.  Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2014.  See here to buy the book.

Rich Robinson is a Jew who believes in Jesus and a researcher for Jews for Jesus.  He has an M.Div. from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and a Ph.D. in biblical studies from Westminster Theological Seminary.  Going through the notes at the back of the book, I noticed that Robinson wrote his dissertation about the Sabbath.  That would explain how he knows so much about the subject, which certainly shows in his book, Christ in the Sabbath!

Robinson explores the Sabbath in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, Second Temple and rabbinic Judaism, and Christianity (patristic, and even Puritan).  Robinson does not believe that Christians are required by God to observe the Sabbath, either on Saturday or on Sunday, but he does maintain that the Sabbath teaches important principles, such as setting aside time for rest and worship.

The book’s advantages are many.  Whereas many Christian authors are negative in their depiction of Judaism, Robinson tells readers what Jewish leaders’ rationale was in coming up with certain rules regarding the Sabbath, and he does so with empathy.  Robinson also notes parallels between Jesus’ humanitarian stance towards the Sabbath and certain Jewish teachings.  Robinson is academic and thoughtful in his presentation, but he also incorporates stories about his Jewish background and his experience of Sabbath rest.  There were details in the book that I found particularly interesting: Robinson’s discussion of a rabbinic reference (b. Yeb. 90b) that states that a true prophet can nullify a biblical law, and Robinson’s discussion of post-biblical attempts to obey the biblical law of letting the land lie fallow every seventh year (and Robinson in an endnote attempts to account theologically for why such attempts have not resulted in the abundance that the Torah promises).  I appreciated some of Robinson’s insights: that outward observance of God’s commands is good but not sufficient (in contrast to Christians who imply that we should not bother with outward observance if our heart is not in it, or if our intention is wrong), and that all of the laws of the Torah have a moral component (in response to Christians who rigidly divide the Torah’s laws into ceremonial, civil, and moral categories).

I did not always agree with Robinson.  Robinson argues that the seventh day in Genesis 1 was not an actual day, since it does not end with evening and morning, but rather was an Edenic experience of God, which the Fall disrupted.  Robinson argues that the Sabbath is about recapturing Eden and foreshadows an eschatological Eden, and Robinson refers to rabbinic references to support his position.  Many Christian interpreters have noted that the seventh day in Genesis 1 (unlike the other days) does not end with evening and morning, but I was never clear about where exactly they were going with that observation.  At least Robinson took that observation somewhere, to his credit.  But I was not entirely persuaded by his argument.  I believe that the view of the documentary hypothesis that Genesis 1 and Genesis 2-3 are by different authors should be taken seriously.  I also have my doubts that eschatology was part of the worldview of the priestly author of Genesis 1, even though I do acknowledge, like Robinson, that there are parallels between the Tabernacle and creation (in the Genesis 1 story).  Moreover, while Robinson, in denying that the Sabbath was a creation ordinance, argues that the Sabbath was not a literal day in Genesis 1, I think that Exodus 20:9-11 indicates the opposite: I agree with Desmond Ford that Exodus 20:11 is saying that the seventh day became the Sabbath when God blessed and hallowed it after creation.  That does not necessarily mean that the Sabbath is a creation ordinance for all humanity, however, for God, within the Hebrew Bible, could have rested on the Sabbath after creation while only requiring Israel to observe it later on, as Jubilees affirms.

Robinson argues against the view of the late Seventh-Day Adventist scholar Samuele Bacchiocchi that Sunday observance emerged in response to Roman anti-Semitism.  For Bacchiocchi, many Christians kept Sunday instead of the Sabbath to distance themselves from the Jews, whom Romans regarded as troublemakers.  For Robinson, by contrast, Christians (even Jewish Christians) as early as New Testament times were meeting on the first day of the week, and many Jewish Christians observed the Sabbath while also meeting with believers on Sunday.  Robinson questions whether the early church fathers saw Sunday as a substitution for the Sabbath, contending that there were not “Sunday vs. Saturday” arguments at this time.  Robinson may be correct in his larger argument, for he does refer to evidence about early Christians observing both the Sabbath and Sunday.  But I do think that there were “Sabbath vs. Sunday” arguments even in early patristic writings.  Barnabas 15:8-9 and Ignatius’ Epistle to the Magnesians 8-10 (at least one version of it) do seem to contrast the Sabbath with Sunday.  Robinson may account for such passages when he later argues that certain church fathers were concerned about Gentile Christians adopting Jewish customs, but I still found his argument that there were no “Sabbath vs. Sunday” arguments in early patristic writings to be a bit shortsighted.

While I did not always agree with Robinson, I did find even the arguments that did not convince me to be judicious, balanced, and informative.

In terms of the book’s negatives, there were times when Robinson was rather elliptical, particularly when he was trying to explain the significance of the shewbread in the Tabernacle and the law against lighting a fire on the Sabbath.  Robinson tried to help readers in pronouncing certain terms by coming up with cute rhymes, and that could be annoying, even if it may have been necessary.  While Robinson did helpfully document a lot of what he was saying, he did not always.  Robinson also depicted the Sabbath as a time for service, even within Judaism, and I wondered how that was the case, with the restrictions that Orthodox Judaism puts on Jews on the Sabbath, particularly on travel and carrying things.  (Perhaps Robinson was not referring to Orthodox Judaism, but he could have said more about Judaism’s view of service on the Sabbath, and how that practically plays out.)

I still give this book five stars, for I enjoyed it more than I enjoy many books that I have awarded with five stars.  I found it to be informative and profound.

Moody Press sent me a complimentary review copy of this book, in exchange for an honest review.

Nullified Laws and the Rabbis: The Death Penalty and the Prophet

In this post, I would like to post a couple of items on the belief within rabbinic Judaism that certain commands in the Torah could be nullified, or simply not applied.  A commenter asked me about this topic yesterday (see here), and I found a few items, one of them when I was looking for information, and one of them when I was not.

1.  In a footnote on page 126 of Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible: The Social and Literary Context (William B. Eerdmans, 2002), David Instone-Brewer says the following about the death penalty in ancient Judaism, including the death penalty for adultery:

“According to the Talmud, the death penalty was abolished soon after 30 C.E. (‘forty years before the destruction of the Temple,’ b. [Sh]abb. 15a; b. Sanh. 41a; b. ‘Abod. Zar. 8a).  Capital punishment was still administered outside the legal system, by the mob (e.g., John 8) or by zealous individuals (e.g., m. Sanh. 9.6).  Sometimes the death penalty may have been carried out with semi-official authority, such as the beating to death of a priest who brought uncleanness into the Temple (m. Sanh. 9.6).  Most of this is undatable, and the reference to ’40 years before the destruction of the Temple’ may be figurative because several other events are dated to this time (b. Yoma 39a; cf. b. Ro[sh]. Ha[sh]. 31b).  However, it is significant that there is no record of official death penalties, and rabbinic literature argues strongly against the use of the death penalty (b. Nid. 44b-45a; m. Yebam. 1.13),  presumably to cover up the inability to carry it out.  Some rabbinic rulings would make no sense if the death penalty were carried out for adultery: e.g., the rule that the unfaithful wife cannot marry her lover (M. Sota 5.1) and that if such a marriage took place, they had to divorce (m. Yebam. 2.8).  There is one recorded death penalty for adultery (m. Sanh. 7.2, an old saying passed on by Eliezer b. Zadok, ca. 80-120 C.E.), but the woman was burned (instead of strangled as the law demanded), and thus this was probably a mob killing.  Josephus’s casual assertion that the penalty for adultery was death is probably an antiquarian note rather than a record of experience (Ag. Ap. 2.25).  See the discussions in Epstein, Sex Laws and Customs in Judaism, pp. 201-2, 210-11; Abrahams, Studies in Pharisaism and the Gospels, p. 73.”

See here for further discussion of whether first century Jews in Palestine were allowed to execute people.  I particularly found a couple of things in this discussion (the one I just linked to) to be interesting.  First, there was a quotation of page 153 of Paton J. Gloag’s A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1870—-see here to get the book on archive.org): “In one important matter, however, the authority of the Sanhedrim was abridged: the Romans deprived it of the power of life and death. They might pronounce sentence of death, but the sanction of the Roman governor had to be obtained before that sentence could be carried into execution. According to the Talmud, the Sanhedrim was deprived of the power of inflicting capital punishment forty years before the destruction of Jerusalem; whereas formerly it alone of all the Jewish courts possessed this power (Joseph. Ant. xiv. 9. 3). Hence the remark of the Jewish rulers to Pilate: ‘It is not lawful for us to put any man to death’ (John 18:31). The stoning of Stephen is not an exception to this; for that happened during a popular tumult, and when, in all probability, there was a vacancy in the Roman procuratorship, after Pilate had been sent to Rome. A similar instance occurred after afterwards, when James the Just was put to death by the high priest Ananus during the absence of the Roman governor: for Josephus expressly informs us that this was an illegal assumption of power, and for which Ananus was deposed from the high-priesthood (Ant. xx. 9. 1).”

Second, another commenter in that discussion said that Herod had the authority to execute.  We see that in Acts 12.  Herod Antipas also had John the Baptist killed (Mark 6; Matthew 14).  The commenter also refers to Luke 23, in which Pilate sends Jesus to Herod because Jesus was a Galilean and thus was part of Herod Antipas’ jurisdiction.  The commenter may be implying that Herod Antipas had the authority to execute Jesus but found nothing wrong with Jesus, and thus sent Jesus back to Pilate.  As I talk about here, Herod Antipas may have had authority to execute, whereas the Jews in Judea did not, because Herod Antipas was over a client state, where the Roman authority was more indirect.  Judea, by contrast, was under the direct authority of Rome.

I should note an additional consideration.  In my post here, I review a book by David Klinghoffer, and Klinghoffer refers to Rabbi Shimon ben Gamaliel’s statement in b. Makkot 7a that, without the death penalty, bloodshed would be rampant in society.  That should be taken into consideration when we evaluate rabbinic stances towards the Torah, particularly the death penalty in the Torah.  At the same time, I did find Instone-Brewer’s statement about the Mishnah and adultery to be important and interesting: there are places in which the Mishnah presumes that the death penalty against adultery, which the Torah mandates, is not to be carried out.  Perhaps that reflects the political situation at the time of the Mishnah; at the same time, the Mishnah did not hesitate to talk as if certain non-existent institutions were still authoritative—-the Temple rituals, at a time when the Temple was destroyed—-perhaps because it loved the Torah, or envisioned the rebuilding of the Temple.  Why couldn’t it have had the same approach to the death penalty for adultery—-talking about it like it’s still authoritative, even if it could not be carried out?  (Note: I am not saying that it should have had that stance, morally-speaking, but I am asking why it did not, from a historical standpoint.)

While I am on this topic of the death penalty for adultery in the Torah, here, here, and here are some other posts that I have written about this topic.

I am rambling here, so on to the next item.

2.  I am reading Christ in the Sabbath (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2014), which is by Rich Robinson, an academic and a researcher for Jews for Jesus.   On pages 97-98, Robinson talks about the question of whether, according to rabbinic Judaism, the biblical Torah could be legitimately contradicted, in areas.

Robinson states that some rabbis believed that they had the authority to “enact laws contrary to the Torah when, to their mind, circumstances required it.”  Robinson then goes on to say that some thought that a true prophet could do this, as well.  Robinson refers to page 307 of The Gospel According to Saint Matthew, volume 2 (ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), by W.D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, which cites b. Yeb. 90b.  According to this rabbinic passage, if the prophet of Deuteronomy 18:15 tells Jews to transgress a commandment of the Torah, they are to obey.  In I Kings 18, the passage notes, the prophet Elijah sacrificed on an altar on Mount Carmel, which was against the Torah because the Torah banned sacrifice outside of the central sanctuary (which, then, was in Jerusalem).  But Elijah violated that law “in accordance with the needs of the hour” (translation in Soncino), and God was okay with that.

One can perhaps question the extent to which some rabbis believed that a prophet could nullify a law in the Torah.  Elijah did so “in accordance with the needs of the hour,” which may imply that this was an emergency.  Another relevant passage is Deuteronomy 13:1-5, which states that, even if a prophet’s sign comes to pass, if the prophet encourages the Israelites to worship other gods, that prophet is to be put to death.

Robinson goes on to discuss Hillel’s prosbul—-Hillel’s way of circumventing the cancellation of debts every seventh year, mandated by Deuteronomy 15—-and Robinson states that there were Jews who disagreed with Hillel on this.  Robinson goes on to say that the view that rabbis could contradict Scripture did not become mainstream, and that Orthodox Judaism today maintains that rabbinic laws are less authoritative than Scripture.

I would not say that Hillel believed that he was contradicting Scripture.  Hillel was actually doing the opposite—-interpreting the Scripture overly literally in order to find a loophole.  As Robinson states when discussing the prosbul, Hillel thought that Deuteronomy 15 meant that loans that an individual made to another individual had to be cancelled every seventh year.  Hillel, however, tried to circumvent that by having a court collect the loan, and the individual would be reimbursed.  For Hillel, the written Torah said that individuals could not collect on loans in the seventh year, but it said nothing about a court.  Robinson on page 63 states that Jewish commentators have debated whether the prosbul “violates the spirit as well as the letter of the commandment…”  Still, Hillel, as far as I can see, was not simply declaring the commandment null-and-void, but was trying to circumvent it through a literal interpretation.  That assumes the commandment’s authority.

I’ll stop here.

Unintentional Sin in the New Testament and Books 1-2 of the Sibylline Oracles

Growing up as a Christian, I was taught that the animal sacrifices in the Old Testament foreshadowed Jesus Christ’s death on the cross to pay the penalty for people’s sins.  I assumed that those sins were intentional sins—-sins that people intended to do.  If I mouthed off to my mother, for example, that was something that I intended to do.  I knew that I was violating God’s commandment to honor my parents, yet I committed the sin anyway.  And yet, as a Christian, I believed that Jesus Christ paid the penalty for that sin.  My assumption was that the situation in Old Testament times was similar, only the Hebrews would offer an animal to die in their place after they sinned.

I was surprised, therefore, and maybe a bit disturbed, when I read Leviticus 4 and learned that the sin offering was for unintentional sins, or sins committed in ignorance.  I later would read Numbers 15:27-31, which prescribes a sin offering for unintentional sins, but the death penalty for defiant, high-handed sins.  I wondered what exactly unintentional sins were.  Were they sins that one committed because one did not know what the law actually said?  Were they accidental sins?  What are accidental sins?  Since that time that I read Leviticus 4, I have heard a variety of definitions for unintentional sins.  I have heard that they are sins that one can commit as a result of not knowing the law or the legal or ritual status of an object—-one may inadvertently eat something that he is not allowed to eat because it belongs to the priests, or touch someone or something unclean while being unaware that he or it is unclean (see Leviticus 5:2, 15).  They can include accidental sins: in Numbers 35, for instance, a contrast is made between a person who kills someone accidentally and one who commits premeditated murder.  But I have also heard that they can be sins committed in weakness.  Then there was the rabbinic dictum that repentance could convert an intentional sin into an unintentional sin (Babylonian Talmud Yoma 86b; see here for other references).  That fit more with my understanding of how things worked!

A study of how the concept of unintentional and intentional sins fits into the New Testament and Christianity would probably be interesting.  Hebrews 9:7 acknowledges that the high priest on the Day of Atonement offered a sacrifice for the sins that he and the people committed in ignorance.  Hebrews 10:26 affirms: “For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins” (KJV).  That sounds pretty rough, but a lot of Christians would say that Christians who feel bad about their sins can still find forgiveness, or that Hebrews is specifically criticizing apostasy from the Christian faith (cp. Hebrews 6:4-8), not simply committing a sin.  Moreover, Hebrews does appear to regard sins committed out of weakness to be unintentional sins, the types that can be forgiven (Hebrews 4:15-16; 5:2).

The concept of sins from ignorance occurs a handful of other times in the New Testament.  Those who contributed to the death of Jesus were said to have committed their sin in ignorance (Acts 3:17; I Corinthians 2:7-8).  Gentile lust and idolatry are said to flow from ignorance (Acts 17:30; Ephesians 4:18; I Peter 1:14).  One can probably bring into the discussion biblical texts that appear to suggest the opposite—-that seem to say that these sinners knew full well what they were doing.  Regarding those who conspired to put Jesus to death, I think of Jesus warning the Pharisees about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, of attributing Jesus’ activity to Satan when it is obviously the work of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12:21-32).  Regarding the Gentile idolaters, I think of Paul’s argument in Romans 1:18ff. that the Gentiles knew God, for God made himself known to them through creation, but they chose idolatry instead.  Maybe these are examples of Bible contradictions.  Or perhaps these concepts all coexist, on some level: there could be such a thing as willful ignorance.

Going past the New Testament into Christianity, there is the Catholic concept of mortal and venial sins, and I wonder if that could be related, in some manner, to the concept of intentional and unintentional sins in the Bible.  One perhaps can even go outside of the Bible, Judaism, and Christianity and look to Plato and Aristotle for insight.  Plato believed that knowing the good was loving the good, that true knowledge of the good would lead to love of the good.  That could imply that, in a sense, all sins flow from ignorance: if a person sinned, according to this view, the person obviously must not know the good, for the person would love the good if he or she truly knew it.  Aristotle, however, was more open to acknowledging weakness of the will: that a person can know what is right, and maybe even desire to do what is right, and yet still do wrong out of weakness.  How, or whether, both insights influenced Judaism and Christianity would probably make an interesting study.


All of that said, I want to turn now to the concept of unintentional sin in Books 1-2 of the Sibylline Oracles.  Books 1-2 contain a Jewish edition of prophecies that were attributed to the Sibyls, who were female prophets.  These books may date to the second-third centuries C.E.  Here are two places where I have found the concept of unintentional sin in these books:

1.  Sibylline Oracles 1.43-45 is talking about the sin of Adam and Eve in eating the forbidden fruit.  We read there (in John Collins’ translation): “She gave, and persuaded him to sin in his ignorance.  He was persuaded by the woman’s words, forgot about his immortal creator, and neglected clear commands.”

The sin of Adam would not initially strike me as a sin committed out of ignorance.  God explicitly prohibited Adam to eat the forbidden fruit, so Adam was aware of the rule, yet Adam ate the fruit anyway.  But this passage in the Sibylline Oracles says that Adam sinned in ignorance because he temporarily forgot about God and neglected God’s commands.  As an aside, this may shed some light on what the Epistle to the Hebrews means by unintentional sins.  I think of Hebrews 2:3, which warns about neglecting God’s great salvation.  Neglecting is not necessarily the same as rejecting, but it can still be disastrous in that it can lead to drifting away from the faith.  At the same time, Hebrews there does seem to suggest that neglect can bring a stern punishment.  Maybe Hebrews believes that neglect is a venial sin that can lead to a mortal sin if one is not careful, or something like that!

2.  Sibylline Oracles 2.68 is part of an extract from Pseudo-Phoclydes, and it says (again, in Collins’ translation): “Do not commit perjury either in ignorance or willingly.”

I wondered how one could commit perjury in ignorance.  Perjury is lying, right?  Lying is knowing the truth and choosing to say what is untrue, right?  Perjury sounds to me like it would be an intentional, willful sin.

But not so fast!  I think of Leviticus 5.  Vv 17-18 may suggest that the sins listed in Leviticus 5 are unintentional sins.  In any case, they require a trespass offering, not the death penalty.  One sin that Leviticus 5 mentions is hearing a voice of swearing and not telling anyone about it, which probably means withholding important testimony.  Leviticus 5 does not explicitly say why the person hearing the swearing does not tell anyone about it, but perhaps the person forgot that he heard it, or failed to come forward due to weakness (i.e., shyness, not wanting to get involved, fear).  Another sin in Leviticus 5 is swearing to do good or evil and not following through.  Maybe the swearer was careless and forgot his oath, for v 4 says that, when he finds out about it, he is to offer a trespass offering.  In these cases, the category of unintentional sin seems to be applied to testimony in court, or oaths; weakness of will or ignorance can come into play in these situations.

So what could perjury committed in ignorance be?  My guess is that it could be saying that something is true, when one does not fully know.  One may believe that something is true or conclude that something is true, but one is filling in some of the gaps in one’s own mind with conjecture.  In condemning perjury committed in ignorance, Sibylline Oracles 2.68 may be saying that, if one wants to testify, one should make sure that he knows what he is talking about.  He should be clear, to himself and to others, about what he knows, and what he does not know.

I’ll leave the comments on in case one wants to add additional information or insight.

UPDATE: Book 2 of the Sibylline Oracles closes with the Sibyl repenting and asking for forgiveness because she "committed lawless deeds knowingly" (Collins).  This occurs after an extensive discussion of eschatological punishments and rewards. 

Genesis 3:3: Neither Shall Ye Touch the Fruit

I am reading the Sibylline Oracles in my Charlesworth Pseudepigrapha.  The Sibylline Oracles were female prophetesses at various points in history, and Jews and Christians produced editions of their prophecies.  I am currently reading Book 1 of the Sibylline Oracles, and, according to John Collins’ discussion of its date, scholars have dated the Jewish stage of this book to the second-third centuries C.E. (while debating which century works better: the second or the third).

What stood out to me in my reading a couple of days ago was this book’s treatment of Genesis 3:3.  In Genesis 3:3, Eve encounters the serpent, who will tempt her to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, in violation of God’s command.  In telling the serpent her understanding of what God’s command is, Eve states: “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die” (KJV).  More than one reader has noted that what Eve says about God’s command does not match up identically with what God actually commanded Adam.  God’s command to Adam appears in Genesis 2:16-17, and God says: “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (KJV).  God told Adam that he was not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Eve, however, understood the command to be, not just that she could not eat the fruit from that tree, but also that she could not touch it.

I have heard various things about this point.  My high school Bible literature teacher said that this was an example of a fence around the law.  Jews, she said, did not want to get to the point where they were close to disobeying God’s commands, and so they set up a fence that would keep them a few steps removed from a tempting situation.  Eve, in this case, could not eat from the tree, but she also felt that she could not touch it, and the prohibition on her touching the forbidden fruit would supposedly keep her from eating it.

Some people have had a negative reaction to Eve’s statement of “neither shall ye touch it.” These were evangelical Christians, and they accused Eve of adding to God’s command, with disastrous results.  Her addition of “neither shall ye touch it” meant that she saw God and God’s command as overly strict.  Moreover, by adding to God’s command, Eve was setting herself up to sin.  She said that she would die if she touched the forbidden fruit?  But she did touch it, and she did not die.  She could then easily conclude that eating the fruit would not be fatal, since touching it apparently was not!

In Sibylline Oracles, Book 1, lines 38-39, we read: “To these [Adam and Eve] did God then address commands and instruct them not to touch the tree” (John Collins’ translation).  According to this passage, Eve was not adding to God’s command when she said “neither shall ye touch it,” but rather was being faithful to God’s command, for God himself told Adam and Eve not to touch the forbidden fruit.

I decided to do a quick study of how various ancient interpreters have understood Genesis 3:3, specifically what they have thought about Eve’s statement of “neither shall ye touch it.”  I looked at my Judaic Classics Library, and I also did a search on the Scripture index of Phillip Schaff’s compilation of the works of the Ante-Nicene and Post-Nicene church fathers.  There are a lot more sources out there—-there are patristic sermons about Genesis that I cannot find online!  But I worked with what I had.  And, even then, there is more out there!

I looked at how Midrash Rabbah handled Genesis 3:3, and, essentially, it said the same thing that evangelical critics of Eve would say centuries later.  In the Soncino English translation of Genesis Rabbah 19:3, we read: “SHALL NOT EAT OF IT, NEITHER SHALL YE TOUCH IT, LEST YE DIE (III, 3). Thus it is written, Add not unto His words, lest He reprove thee, and thou be found a liar (Prov. XXX, 6). R. Hiyya taught: That means that you must not make the fence more than the principal thing, lest it fall and destroy the plants. Thus, the Holy One, blessed be He, had said, For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die (Gen. II,17); whereas she did not say thus, but, GOD HATH SAID: YE SHALL NOT EAT OF IT, NEITHER SHALL YE TOUCH IT; when he [the serpent] saw her thus lying, he took and thrust her against it. ‘ Have you then died?’ he said to her; ‘just as you were not stricken through touching it, so will you not die when you eat it, but For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof,’ etc. (ib. 5).”

According to this rabbinic passage, Eve was wrong to add to God’s command.  The passage quotes Proverbs 30:6, which warns people against adding to God’s command, for then they may be found to be liars.  In the case of Eve, Eve thought that she would die by touching the forbidden fruit, and so the serpent made her touch it and showed her that she was still alive.  That made her more open to disobeying God’s actual prohibition on eating the fruit.

At the same time, Judaism does have a concept of establishing a fence around the law, which is stated in Mishnah Avot 1:1.  That could mean protecting people from getting to the point where they are in danger of transgressing God’s commands, by adding additional rules.  That may be the understanding of it in Genesis Rabbah 19:3, for the passage quotes R. Hiyya as saying that one should not make “the fence more than the principal thing, lest it fall and destroy the plants.”  The passage accepts making a fence around the law, but it believes that there should be limits on that practice.  There is an alternative understanding of making a fence around the law in rabbinic Judaism, however, and I talk about that in my post here.  According to Louis Finkelstein, Avoth de-Rabbi Nathan believes that making a fence around the Torah is not adding regulations, but rather protecting the Torah itself from additional, non-Scriptural prohibitions.  Finkelstein states that the Avoth de-Rabbi Nathan appeals to the story in Genesis 3 about Eve and the serpent to show the dangers of adding additional prohibitions to what God has already commanded.

So we have a Jewish version of the Sibylline Oracles that says that God actually forbade Adam and Eve to touch the forbidden fruit.  And we have rabbinic passages that say that Eve (or Adam in telling Eve the command) was adding to God’s command, with disastrous results.  Where do the patristic sources that I searched land on this issue?

I found only two places that address the issue explicitly.  The first is Irenaeus’ Against Heresies 5.23, and the second is the section on Procilla in Methodius’ Banquet of the Ten Virgins.  Irenaeus, who dates to the third century C.E., simply says that Eve was relaying God’s command to the serpent.  There is no hint there that Irenaeus thought that Eve was adding to God’s command.  Methodius, who dates to the third-fourth centuries C.E., says that Adam received the command not to touch the Tree of Knowledge.  Irenaeus and Methodius, like that passage from the Sibylline Oracles, hold that the prohibition on touching the tree actually came from God, and, according to this interpretation, that would mean that Eve was not adding to God’s word.

I decided to search one more source.  Over a decade ago, I read Gary Anderson’s The Genesis of Perfection.  I had taken a couple of Gary Anderson’s classes at Harvard Divinity School and thought that I would enjoy this book, and I did enjoy it.  I vaguely recall Anderson saying that, in some version of the Adam and Eve story, God gave the command both to Adam and to Eve at the same time, meaning that both heard God’s command from God himself: it was not like what we see in our Bibles, where God gives the command to Adam and then makes Eve, and then somehow Eve becomes aware of the prohibition (maybe from Adam).

I could not find that discussion on googlebooks, but I did find something else.  Anderson refers to the view of the fourth century Christian Ephrem of Syria that Eden was a holy place, and so Adam and Eve needed to keep their distance, on some level.  Anderson states:

“…Ephrem conceived of Eden as a mountain sanctuary.  His interpretation was grounded in the second half of the command given to Adam and Eve: Don’t draw too close to the tree of knowledge.  This warning, Ephrem reasoned, was modeled on the warnings given to priests.”  (Anderson quotes Hymns on Paradise 3:16.  Anderson’s discussion occurs on page 56 of his book.  See here to read it.)

For Ephrem, apparently, God was the source of the prohibition on touching the tree, for God wanted Adam and Eve to keep their distance from the holy.

It is interesting to me that the rabbinic sources that I read were critical of Eve for adding to God’s commandment, whereas the ancient Christian sources that I read tended to say that Eve got God’s commandment right.  A lot of the rabbis were for adding a fence around the law, yet rabbinic literature largely appears to disapprove of what Eve said to the serpent about God’s command.  And evangelical critics of Eve, when they criticize Eve, are probably also taking a swipe at the Pharisees and rabbinic Judaism (at least by implication), making a point of “You see what happens when people add commands to God’s word and make God seem stricter than he truly is?”  Yet, the rabbis were closer to their views on Eve than were some of the ancient Christians!

I’ll leave the comments open in case someone wants to add any information or insight.  Please limit your comment to adding information or insight, though.  Don’t criticize me for writing about this topic.  Thank you.

Pseudo-Philo and Cherem

Cherem, in the Hebrew Bible, usually refers to total destruction, particularly God’s commands for the Israelites to destroy totally the Canaanites in the land of Canaan.

Somewhere in the course of my reading and education in biblical studies, I learned that cherem means devoting something to God, or a god.  We see this a couple of times in the Hebrew Bible, although, the vast majority of the time, cherem in the Hebrew Bible means utter destruction.  Leviticus 27:28 refers to Israelites devoting to the LORD men and beasts, and not being allowed to redeem them.  Micah 4:13 refers to consecrating gain to the LORD.  Both passages use the Hebrew verb ch-r-m, from which the word cherem is derived.  We may see in Numbers 21:2 a notion that cherem relates to devoting something to God: Israel vows that, if God will deliver some Canaanite cities into Israelite hands, the Israelites will utterly destroy those cities.  Why would Israel vow this?  Maybe she is making God a deal: give us those cities, and we will consecrate them to you.

Outside of Israel, the Moabite Mesha Stele, which probably dates to the ninth century B.C.E., has a concept of cherem that means consecration to God.  In the Mesha Stele, the context is battle, which is often (but not always) the context of the word cherem in the Hebrew Bible.  See here for a list of the Hebrew Bible verses that have ch-r-m.

Understanding the cherem in reference to consecrating something or someone to God has influenced how some scholars interpret certain biblical passages.  Why, in the Book of Joshua, was Israel commanded to destroy Jericho utterly and not take any plunder, whereas she could take plunder from the next city that she conquered, Ai?  One explanation that I read (unfortunately, I forget where) is that she was offering Jericho to God as firstfruits of her conquest, since Jericho was the first city that she conquered, and there are laws in the Torah about offering firstfruits to God (i.e., Numbers 18:12).  I one time read (and, again, I forget where) a biblical scholar who tried to give King Saul the benefit of a doubt in I Samuel 15.  God wanted Saul to destroy all of the Amalekites and their animals, but Saul instead was offering the animals to God as sacrifices.  This scholar speculated that Saul, in his own mind, was obeying God’s command.  Saul was supposed to offer the animals to God by destroying them in the cherem, and Saul was offering the animals to God through sacrifices.  Either way, he is offering the animals to God!  I think that this scholar’s point is that an earlier story was presenting Saul as obedient, and a later editor tried to change the story to make Saul look disobedient, with awkward results.  In any case, cherem, in this understanding, is offering something or someone to God.

In light of all this, it was interesting to me to see how the first century C.E. Jewish work Pseudo-Philo addressed the topic of cherem.  Essentially, in Pseudo-Philo 26, it radically distinguishes the cherem from devoting or offering something or someone to God.  Kenaz is the judge, and God wants Kenaz to destroy the Israelites who have been found to have participated in idolatry, along with the idolatrous objects.  Kenaz asks if he should burn the precious stones or consecrate them to God, and God tells Kenaz to destroy them, saying, “If God in his own name takes anything from the things under the ban, what will man do?”  (This is D.J. Harrington’s translation.)  The ban here is not consecrating someone or something to God, but is simply destroying something.

(I should add that, in its telling of the story in I Samuel 15, Pseudo-Philo makes King Saul look a lot more sinister.  In Pseudo-Philo 58, I do not see anything about Saul offering animals to God, as Saul does in I Samuel 15, and Saul in Pseudo-Philo 58 spares the Amalekite king Agag because Agag is offering Saul hidden treasures if Saul spares his life.  Maybe Pseudo-Philo’s understanding of cherem is relevant to this: there is no way that Saul is being obedient to God in offering sacrifices, for cherem is unrelated to sacrifices.  In any case, Samuel in I Samuel 15 rebukes Saul by saying that obedience is better than sacrifice, and Pseudo-Philo 58, as far as I can see, takes away any idea that Saul was sacrificing!  Pseudo-Philo depicts Saul as utterly selfish, whereas I Samuel 15 as least depicts him with some piety.)

Not long ago, I was looking through Jeffrey Tigay’s Jewish Publication Society commentary on the Book of Deuteronomy.  He has an appendix in that about the cherem.  Actually, to be honest, I was trying to track down those points that I made above about Jericho and Saul, and I thought that they might be in this commentary, but, alas, I could not find them.  But I did find another point that Tigay made.  According to Tigay, the Book of Deuteronomy itself does not regard cherem as devoting something or someone to God.  Rather, in the Book of Deuteronomy, God commands the Israelites to destroy utterly the Canaanites so that the Canaanites will not be a temptation to them to engage in idolatry or false religion.  In Deuteronomy, cherem is a matter of getting rid of temptation, not devoting someone or something to God.  That appears to be what Pseudo-Philo would suggest centuries later, only Pseudo-Philo is more explicit in distinguishing consecrating something to God from the cherem.

As I look at the places where ch-r-m appears in the Hebrew Bible, I see that viewing the word in reference to consecrating something or someone to God does not always make sense.  Exodus 22:20 says that any Israelite who sacrifices to another god besides the LORD will be utterly destroyed.  That seems to me to relate more to punishment of sin, than to devoting someone to God.  Why would God want an idolater as a sacrifice?

I did a quick google search of “cherem AND Mishnah” because I was curious about the concept of the cherem in rabbinic literature.  The reason is that I vaguely recall cherem being used in the Mishnah in reference to devoting something to God as part of a vow or an obligation, meaning that it is not available for personal use.  There may be something to my hunch (see here).  At the same time, the concept of cherem within Judaism can have other applications as well: it can refer to excommunicating a person (see here).  The term is used in a variety of ways.

I am going to open up the comments to this post, but this is only so that people can add information or insight, if they want to do so.  I may not publish comments until tomorrow, though.

II Chronicles 27

II Chronicles 27 is about Jotham the king of Judah.  Jotham was a righteous king.

Rashi’s comments on Jotham caught my eye (see here what Rashi says about verse 2).  Rashi refers to something that Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai said that was told to him by Rabbi Eliezer ben Moses.  (This discussion appears in Babylonian Talmud Sukkah 45b, albeit in a briefer and a different form.)
Essentially, according to Rashi, Rabbi Simeon was told that we do not find sin in Jotham, and so Jotham and “I” (I guess Rabbi Eliezer) can take upon themselves the sins of people from Abraham to Rabbi Eliezer’s time, and even to the end of the generations, the same way that Abraham took upon himself the sins from creation to his own time.  What does this mean exactly?  The text does not go into much detail, but it reminds me of what a number of Christians say about Jesus: that Jesus was a righteous man (God, even) and could thus make atonement for sinful humanity.  Jesus bore blame that he did not deserve, so that sinners could be freed from blame that they do deserve.

Of course, rabbinic Judaism would not suggest that Abraham and Jotham were God.  A number of Christians, perhaps drawing from Anselm, say that a significant reason that Jesus’ atonement was so efficacious was that Jesus was God, and thus was worth more than all human lives put together.  How could one man, Jesus, atone for the sins of all of humanity?  Because Jesus was more than a man, many Christians say: Jesus was God.

Rabbi Eliezer does not go so far in his portrayal of Abraham, Jotham, and himself.  In his mind, Abraham did not have to be God to bear the sins of all of the people before him, and thereby to persuade God to spare sinful humanity.  Abraham simply qualified for this role as an especially righteous human being, one who pleased God.  Similarly, in the Book of IV Maccabees, the righteous martyrs die, and their martyrdom is depicted as an act that brings forgiveness to Israel (IV Maccabees 6:27-29; 17:17-22).  These martyrs did not have to be God to atone for the sins of Israel, but they were righteous people.  (On a related note, see this article, which explores substitutionary atonement in the Bible, Greek thought, and IV Maccabees).

Rabbi Eliezer appears a bit proud in suggesting that he could bear the sins of humanity after the time of Abraham.  To be fair, however, he is not saying that he could do that all by himself.  He is saying that, if he had to bear the sins of humanity, the person he would choose to do so with him would be Jotham.  The reason is that II Chronicles 27 does not record any sin that Jotham committed, whereas the Bible does refer to the sins that other kings—-including righteous ones, like David—-did.  For Rabbi Eliezer, apparently, that must mean that Jotham was sinless!

Was Jotham perfect, though?  He did do good things.  He added to the Temple in order to protect it.  He was brave in war—-he challenged the Ammonites.  I suppose whether or not that counts as “good” is in the eye of the beholder: Is it good to challenge and subordinate another nation?  But perhaps the other nation would challenge and subordinate Judah if Judah did not act first.  And yet, God told the Israelites in Deuteronomy 2:19 to leave the Ammonites alone.  In any case, it does appear that the Chronicler approves of Jotham’s war policies, for II Chronicles 27:6 says that Jotham became mighty because he prepared his ways before God.

But was Jotham perfect?  II Chronicles 27:2 says that the people of Judah continued to do corruptly under his reign.  Was that Jotham’s fault, though, or could one simply say that the people of Judah were so corrupt that not even the righteous leadership and example of Jotham could inspire them to desist from sin and pursue righteousness?  The Orthodox Jewish Artscroll commentary says that at least Jotham’s predecessor, Uzziah, sought to reach a higher spiritual level by entering a part of the Temple that he was not permitted to enter, whereas II Chronicles 27:2 makes the point that Jotham did not do that.  Jotham, seeing that his father was stricken with leprosy, shied away from doing what his father did, and the Artscroll says that this was why Jotham failed to stem the tide of Judah’s corruption.  That is an interesting interpretation, not that I would suggest that the Chronicler had any of that in mind.  I doubt that the Artscroll is suggesting that Jotham should have tried to enter the area of the Temple that was forbidden to him.  I think that what it is saying, though, is that Uzziah at least had a passion for spiritual advancement, whereas Jotham did not, even though Jotham may have done good and right things.  Can one be an inspiring spiritual leader without spiritual passion and hunger?

II Kings 15:35 says that the high places were not taken away under Jotham.  That, perhaps, was a blight on his record, and Rashi does not interact with that.  Was Jotham in that case sinning, or simply failing to be a strong spiritual leader?  Well, Deuteronomy 12:2-4 commands the Israelites to destroy the Canaanite high places and not to worship God in that fashion.  Was Jotham sinning and disobeying God?  Or did he just realistically conclude that he could not force the Judahites to abandon the high places, since they were popular?

Another question: How exactly would Jotham bear the sin of people after the time of Abraham?  Did God cause him to suffer or die in place of those people, as Jesus did?  Not as far as I can see in II Chronicles 27 and II Kings 15.  But perhaps a few considerations should be kept in mind.  For one, Rabbi Eliezer is presenting a hypothetical situation.  He is not saying that Jotham actually did bear the sins of people, but that, if Rabbi Eliezer were to bear the sins of people, he would want Jotham bearing them with him.  Second, bearing other people’s sins does not necessarily imply suffering or dying in their place.  According to Leviticus 10:17, Aaronide priests bear the iniquity of Israel by eating the sin offering.  They do not suffer and die in Israel’s place, but they still perform a priestly role of bearing iniquity and bringing atonement to Israel.  (I attribute this point to R.N. Whybray’s book on Isaiah 53, Thanksgiving for a Liberated Prophet.)

Here is a question: Could a righteous person bear the iniquity of sinners by interceding for them before God, while being burdened about the sinners’ sins and wanting God to forgive them?  I do not see that explicitly in the Bible, but how else would Abraham and Jotham bear people’s iniquity, in the mind of Rabbi Eliezer?

Will God's Character Change at the Last Judgment?

I was reading the Book of IV Ezra recently.  IV Ezra was a Jewish work, and Michael Stone in the HarperCollins Study Bible says that it was probably written around 70 C.E., which is when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple.  Stone also states that IV Ezra has been respected by certain Christian communities, such as Armenian and Ethiopic churches.

IV Ezra was a disturbing book for me to read, and yet I also found it fascinating.  A major part of this book is a debate that Ezra has with an angel about God’s judgment and hell.  Ezra challenges God’s plan to pour God’s wrath on most of the people.  Ezra has questions: Doesn’t God love God’s creation?  Isn’t God reputed to be merciful?  Why can’t Ezra intercede for them, for God in the past has listened to intercessors, who persuaded God to turn away from God’s plan to wipe people out?

The angel offers a variety of responses to Ezra’s questions.  The angel says that the people only have themselves to blame for their judgment, for their lives have a pattern of disobeying God’s law.  While the angel does not talk often about God’s love and mercy, he does at one point say that Ezra cannot understand the mysteries of God’s mercy.  A key point that the angel makes, though, is that God operates in different ways at different times.  In this world, God loves God’s creation, is merciful, and listens to intercessors.  In the next world, God will be a judge, and that’s about it!

I’ve heard different things about such issues from Christians in the past.  I remember walking with a couple of Christians—-one was converting to Catholicism, and the other was a Pentecostal.  The Pentecostal was rattling on about a movie that he watched about the end times and was saying that the end times are near.  The Pentecostal was getting on my Catholic friend’s nerves, for the Pentecostal was dramatically telling us about scenes in the movie in which a devout evangelical Christian grandmother was telling her kids and grandkids to leave the Catholic church and become born again, and the evangelical grandmother got raptured, whereas her Catholic family (at least those past the age of accountability) got left behind.  My Catholic friend did not care for the Pentecostal’s harsh portrayal of Jesus.  “Did not Jesus reach out to the woman at the well and talk with her?”, my Catholic friend asked.  “Oh, at the second coming, Jesus will be through with talking,” my Pentecostal friend retorted.  “The first time Jesus came, he reached out to people; when he comes back, it’s with a sword!”

At least in this discussion, my Pentecostal friend was assuming that God’s M.O. will be different in the eschaton from what it is now.  Now, God shows mercy; at the last judgment, God will be a judge.  That’s why he, and many Christians, believe that now is the time for people to accept Christ as their personal savior and receive forgiveness of sins: they think that, at the last judgment, that opportunity will be closed to people, that those who failed to accept Christ will go to hell, no second chances.  In other conversations with my Pentecostal friend, though, I got the impression that he thought that there was more to the issue than that.  When it came to people in other religions, he said that Jesus did refer to other sheep, and so my Pentecostal friend was open to the possibility that some non-Christians may enter eternal life.  When I asked him one time what the requirements are to be saved, or who exactly will enter eternal life, he said that the requirements are accepting Christ, and also trying one’s best to obey God.  “I doubt I’ll make it,” he said to me.  At the same time, he had some hope that God would be merciful to him.

Will God’s character at the last judgment be different from how God is today?  Will God’s love and mercy go out the window at the last judgment?  If so, can these things truly be said to be integral parts of God’s character, how God essentially is?  Are they essential aspects of who God is, or simply things that God does?  When it comes to the last judgment, even some evangelicals believe that God will have some mercy on people at that time.  When they are asked about those who died before hearing the Gospel, they respond that God will judge people according to what they know, and that God’s judgment will be mixed with God’s mercy.

In terms of rabbinic and later Judaism, I think of the theme in the Fall festival liturgy in which Jews ask God to leave his throne of judgment and to go to his throne of mercy.  That seems to imply that God M.O. is different at different times, though I may be taking the liturgy too literally in saying that.  There is also a rabbinic reference that seems to present God as a balance between justice and mercy—-that, if God were too just, everyone on earth would be eliminated, for we are all sinners, and yet, if God were too merciful, the wicked would get away with murder.  My understanding, though, is that, within strands of medieval Judaism, there is some aversion to saying that God has all these different attributes, for is not God a single unified being?

In terms of where I stand on these sorts of issues, well, at the very least, I believe in seeking God’s mercy for myself and others.  I cannot make others believe or follow certain ideas, but I can ask God to make God’s love known to people.  Often, I’ve flirted with Christian universalism, the idea that God will save everyone.  While I don’t care for how many conservative Christians casually dismiss that school of thought, I have been doubting it lately, as I have read pseudepigraphic apocalyptic literature, which could have formed part of Jesus’ cultural context.  But I may talk about that in another post.

II Chronicles 13

For my blog post today about II Chronicles 13, I will adapt my notes on the chapter.

In I Kings 15:1-8, King Abijah (or Abijam) of Judah is said to walk in the evil ways of his ancestors, and yet God still preserved the Davidic line of which Abijah was a part because God was honoring the righteousness of David.  The passage also states that Abijah fought King Jeroboam of Northern Israel all his days.

II Chronicles 13, however, seems to paint a different picture.  There, King Abijah preaches to the Northern Kingdom of Israel when Judah and Northern Israel have gathered to battle each other.  Abijah criticizes the North for revolting against the Davidic king whom God had established.  Abijah also lambastes the Northern King Jeroboam’s idolatry and expulsion of the LORD’s priests from Northern Israel, as Abijah notes that Judah worships the LORD rightly in the Temple.  Abijah exhorts the North not to fight God, for it will not succeed.

The battle proceeds, and the Judahites shout to God for help.  God then responds by defeating Northern Israel, and Judah captures some cities and villages from the Northern Kingdom.

Abijah in I Kings 15 is wicked and fights repeatedly with Jeroboam.  Abijah in II Chronicles 13, however, appears to take a stand for righteousness and fights a single battle that cripples Jeroboam.  Are these two pictures compatible?  Perhaps they can be.  Even if one is not a fundamentalist who seeks to harmonize the Bible and demonstrate that it is perfectly consistent, one can still be edified by reading two texts intertextually—-in dialogue with one another.  Maybe one can say that Abijah fell short in his own life, yet he was willing to appeal to righteousness for political ends.  How many of us appeal to righteousness, without allowing that righteousness to sink deeply into us and shape our lives?  If only Abijah absorbed the righteous words that he was speaking—-the appreciation of God’s work, the love for worship in the Temple, and the outrage at unrighteousness that Abijah was outwardly expressing.

Interestingly, according to the Orthodox Jewish Artscroll commentary, rabbinic literature tends to take a dim view of Abijah’s speech and actions in II Chronicles 13.  Abijah is criticized for publicly shaming Jeroboam and for mutilating Northern Israelite corpses (which the great slaughter of II Chronicles 13:17 is interpreted to be).  Another consideration is that, while Abijah criticizes Northern Israel for rebelling against Judah, God was the one behind the Northern Israelite revolt, and it was in response to the father of Abijah, King Rehoboam, refusing to lighten the burdens of the people (I Kings 11-12; II Chronicles 10:15).  Although rabbinic literature depicts Abijah as wrong in II Chronicles 13, one cannot escape that God helps the Judahites in that chapter.  The Artscroll explains this by saying that Abijah may have been bad or inaccurate, but God was still honoring the Judahite army that cried to him for help.

I would say that Abijah is depicted rather positively in II Chronicles 13.  When we bring together different biblical texts, however, the picture becomes murkier, yet perhaps more interesting and spiritually instructive.