eahaddix
06-05-2006, 07:14 AM
:looney: :sermon: :looney:
Enns gives us a number of startling New Testament passages that use the Old Testament by wrenching the original words violently out of context and even altering them. For example, Matthew 2 tells us with confidence that Jesus' trip down to Egypt as a boy (and his eventual return to Galilee) fulfilled Hosea 11:1, "Out of Egypt I called my son." But Hosea 11:1 is simply describing the Exodus; it is a passage, Enns points out, which "is not predictive of Christ's coming but retrospective of Israel's disobedience." In other words, Matthew is shamelessly proof-texting, in a way that would get any student enrolled in Practical Theology 221 (Expository Skills) sternly reproved.
Or consider Paul's use of Isaiah 59:20 in Romans 11, where he winds up an argument by announcing, "And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: 'The deliverer will come from Zion.' " But Isaiah says something quite different: "The Redeemer will come to Zion," he tells us.
Changing the words of Scripture to suit your own purposes? Paul wouldn't get past the first week of New Testament 123 (Hermeneutics) like that. He is breaking every rule of thoughtful evangelical scholarship, which holds that the proper way to approach inerrant Scripture is with careful grammatical-historical exegesis:[...]
"This makes revelation somewhat messy," he writes, "but … it would seem that God would not have it any other way. For the apostles to interpret the Old Testament in ways consistent with the hermeneutical expectations of the Second Temple world is analogous to Christ himself becoming a first-century Jew."
In other words, the God who spoke to man through Christ also speaks to man through Scripture, and in much the same way: he enters into our world and uses our own cultural patterns to reveal himself. We cannot insist that there is a separate, ahistorical, all-divine message in any part of the Bible that somehow triumphs over all contemporary thought and custom.
Source: "Messy Revelation: Why Paul would have flunked hermeneutics." by Susan Wise Bauer @ ChristianityToday.com, May/June 2006 (http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2006/003/3.8.html)
:popcorn: Comments?
Enns gives us a number of startling New Testament passages that use the Old Testament by wrenching the original words violently out of context and even altering them. For example, Matthew 2 tells us with confidence that Jesus' trip down to Egypt as a boy (and his eventual return to Galilee) fulfilled Hosea 11:1, "Out of Egypt I called my son." But Hosea 11:1 is simply describing the Exodus; it is a passage, Enns points out, which "is not predictive of Christ's coming but retrospective of Israel's disobedience." In other words, Matthew is shamelessly proof-texting, in a way that would get any student enrolled in Practical Theology 221 (Expository Skills) sternly reproved.
Or consider Paul's use of Isaiah 59:20 in Romans 11, where he winds up an argument by announcing, "And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: 'The deliverer will come from Zion.' " But Isaiah says something quite different: "The Redeemer will come to Zion," he tells us.
Changing the words of Scripture to suit your own purposes? Paul wouldn't get past the first week of New Testament 123 (Hermeneutics) like that. He is breaking every rule of thoughtful evangelical scholarship, which holds that the proper way to approach inerrant Scripture is with careful grammatical-historical exegesis:[...]
"This makes revelation somewhat messy," he writes, "but … it would seem that God would not have it any other way. For the apostles to interpret the Old Testament in ways consistent with the hermeneutical expectations of the Second Temple world is analogous to Christ himself becoming a first-century Jew."
In other words, the God who spoke to man through Christ also speaks to man through Scripture, and in much the same way: he enters into our world and uses our own cultural patterns to reveal himself. We cannot insist that there is a separate, ahistorical, all-divine message in any part of the Bible that somehow triumphs over all contemporary thought and custom.
Source: "Messy Revelation: Why Paul would have flunked hermeneutics." by Susan Wise Bauer @ ChristianityToday.com, May/June 2006 (http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2006/003/3.8.html)
:popcorn: Comments?