It's amazing sometimes the way life derails even our best-laid plans. Thus, no blog posts for the past three weeks. Sure, it sounds like an excuse; after all, everyone's busy with the stuff of life. And, in fact, it probably is just an excuse. However, it gives me a chance for some theological ruminations.
We all live out our lives here on earth under the providence of God. For some, this provides the comforting thought that no matter what happens, God is there with us through it all. For others, it provides a level of frustration, since they expect that God's presence should keep all the problems away from us. For many, the providence of God is an uncomfortable or even unwelcome thought. They want to be in control, and if there is a God is means that He has some claim on their lives.
Maybe for most of us all three of these are true at various times in our lives. For instance, we have the innate desire to be in control of what happens to us, to be the captain of our own fate. Further reflection will remind us that this is obviously not true. That's not a fallacious "obviously" that attempts to evade the question; if you think about your life, how much of it happened without your approval? Your physical makeup, your family, where you were born and grew up, the talents you have, many of the circumstances of life- all of these happen without any input on our part. No matter how hard we try or how much we work at it, we can't control much of our lives.
The thought that if God is for us nothing bad should happen to us is the focus of a lot of teaching these days. (It was also the focus of a lot of teaching throughout history, but we tend to forget that.) By reading certain Biblical passages in a certain way, and taking a few verses out of context, and tying that together with the truth that God does care for us, we think that as long as we're trying to please God we should avoid the bad things that happen in this world. Yet the Bible never promises us that we will avoid problems if we're faithful to God. In fact, it promises just the opposite! (Read Mark 10:30 and James 1:2-4, in context please.)
Ultimately the promise of the presence of God in our lives provides comfort not because it ensures we won't face trials, but because it promises that He goes with us through the trials. One of the salient points of Easter is that Jesus went through suffering on our behalf, so when we suffer we don't go to a God who doesn't understand what we're facing, but One who experienced it all for us. In the end, our peace and comfort come from knowing our loving Father carries us through all the trials of life, so that whatever happens we are not separated from Him.
Or, maybe, I should say that in the end, the trials of life will bring us to the glories of a perfect life, the kind of life we desire and were made for. Life only lasts so long. Unless Jesus comes back first, we're all going to die. (There's an encouraging word for the day!) But, through the suffering and death of Jesus and the promise of His resurrection, we can be restored to life the way God meant it to be. We've wrecked our lives and our world through sin; Jesus broke the power of sin so the life we want to live can be ours through Him. So I'm not complaining (at least, I'm trying not to). I just want to lean on the comfort of the presence of God through my life, until I have the life He promises in Christ.
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Thursday, April 3, 2014
The Apocrypha and the Hebrew canon
For my Bible reading project this year, I decided for the first time to read through a Roman Catholic translation, including the Apocrypha. I've read through the books of the Apocrypha before, but I thought it would be informative to read through them as they stand in the Bible. I take them in the order they appear in the New American Bible, Revised Edition, which is the translation I have chosen to read. So today I reached the first of these books, Tobit. (I admit that Tobit is a fascinating story, if a bit strange in detail and with a decided emphasis on almsgiving as a means of righteousness.)
Now my friends will hit me from both sides the fence on this reading choice. My Protestant friends will ask me why I bother to read the Apocryphal books at all. (Some might even question why I'd bother with a non-Protestant translation, but I reading through a variety of translations gives me insights into where many of them come from theologically, and the Word of God is powerful in any good translation-and even in many bad ones!) As someone who has a deep interest in the early church, especially the Ante-Nicene period, I know that while these books were generally not accepted as canonical, they were respected as books that provided spiritual insight that could be helpful. In many respects, they are an OT era parallel to books like the Epistle of Barnabas, the Didache, and 1 Clement, which were valued by the church but were ultimately determined to be non-canonical.
My Roman Catholic friends, on the other hand, would ask why, if I consider them worthwhile enough to read and respect the opinion of the early church that they have some value, I don't consider them canonical. While there are a number of reasons to reject the Apocrypha (and even the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches view them as having a lesser canonical status), there really is one reason that stands out for me: they were not part of the Hebrew canon.
The Tanakh, as it later came to be called, was generally settled by time of the Hasmoneans. (The story that it was set at the Council of Jamnia in the late 1st or early 2nd century has been widely discredited.) The name comes from the Hebrew words for the three sections of the Hebrew Bible: Torah (Law), Nebi'im (Prophets), and Kethubim (Writings). It consisted of 22 or 24 books, depending on who was doing the division and whether they felt the need to have the same number of books as the Hebrew alphabet had letters. Several of our current 39 OT books were combined: the books of Samuel, the books of Kings, the books of Chronicles, Ezra/Nehemiah, and the Twelve minor prophets. (To get 22, you can combine Judges/Ruth and Jeremaih/Lamentations.)
This three-fold division, with its constituent books, was well-attested by Jesus' time. The Apocrypha lay outside of the Hebrew canon then, and continues to be rejected as canonical by Jews to this day. In my view, the establishment of what we call the Old Testament canon should follow the practice of the Jewish people, for whom it was a remains Scripture. For Christians to add to that canon is to place our (often much later) views on a higher plain than the views of those for whom these words were life.
I will continue to read the Apocrypha, and I anticipate that I will find it informative, spiritually uplifting, and helpful as devotional literature. I will still, however, base my beliefs and my theology on those books that I believe, and that the Jews believe, are the ones inspired by God.
Now my friends will hit me from both sides the fence on this reading choice. My Protestant friends will ask me why I bother to read the Apocryphal books at all. (Some might even question why I'd bother with a non-Protestant translation, but I reading through a variety of translations gives me insights into where many of them come from theologically, and the Word of God is powerful in any good translation-and even in many bad ones!) As someone who has a deep interest in the early church, especially the Ante-Nicene period, I know that while these books were generally not accepted as canonical, they were respected as books that provided spiritual insight that could be helpful. In many respects, they are an OT era parallel to books like the Epistle of Barnabas, the Didache, and 1 Clement, which were valued by the church but were ultimately determined to be non-canonical.
My Roman Catholic friends, on the other hand, would ask why, if I consider them worthwhile enough to read and respect the opinion of the early church that they have some value, I don't consider them canonical. While there are a number of reasons to reject the Apocrypha (and even the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches view them as having a lesser canonical status), there really is one reason that stands out for me: they were not part of the Hebrew canon.
The Tanakh, as it later came to be called, was generally settled by time of the Hasmoneans. (The story that it was set at the Council of Jamnia in the late 1st or early 2nd century has been widely discredited.) The name comes from the Hebrew words for the three sections of the Hebrew Bible: Torah (Law), Nebi'im (Prophets), and Kethubim (Writings). It consisted of 22 or 24 books, depending on who was doing the division and whether they felt the need to have the same number of books as the Hebrew alphabet had letters. Several of our current 39 OT books were combined: the books of Samuel, the books of Kings, the books of Chronicles, Ezra/Nehemiah, and the Twelve minor prophets. (To get 22, you can combine Judges/Ruth and Jeremaih/Lamentations.)
This three-fold division, with its constituent books, was well-attested by Jesus' time. The Apocrypha lay outside of the Hebrew canon then, and continues to be rejected as canonical by Jews to this day. In my view, the establishment of what we call the Old Testament canon should follow the practice of the Jewish people, for whom it was a remains Scripture. For Christians to add to that canon is to place our (often much later) views on a higher plain than the views of those for whom these words were life.
I will continue to read the Apocrypha, and I anticipate that I will find it informative, spiritually uplifting, and helpful as devotional literature. I will still, however, base my beliefs and my theology on those books that I believe, and that the Jews believe, are the ones inspired by God.
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