"I Must Go Down to the Sea Again..."

"So where is this bl*%dy sea?"

I must go down to the sea again, 
to the lonely sea and the sky;
I left my shoes and socks there - 
I wonder if they're dry? 

Spike Milligan

I believe there's another earlier version of that verse, but Milligan is a personal favourite, so let's begin there.

I've been neglectful of Paul Davidson's excellent blog Is That In The Bible? and have only just come across his latest post on that famous biblical body of water, the Sea of Galilee. You know, stormy waters, ships foundering. You find it appearing in our first canonical gospel, Mark.

Davidson has one of those inquiring minds that makes me feel quite dense by comparison. He doesn't blog frequently, but when he does, watch out. His is a voice of reasoned discourse, and he documents his ideas and conclusions with great care. He uses the word "nerdy" in a self-deprecating way, but despite not being in the hallowed academy, he runs rings around those self-serving apologists who have gathered the wagons around to defend the often indefensible.

Anyway, the question in this case is, did the author of Mark just plain invent the Sea of Galilee? It's a question I never considered before, but Paul lays out the evidence. Absolutely intriguing.

The Plain Truth About Balaam's Ass

If you thought you already had a handle on the famous talking donkey tale, you might want to check out Paul Davidson's blog. Things are not as simple as they seem. Paul provides a mixture of archaeological data along with some impressive textual detective work that explores the contradictory information found in the Bible. This is one of the smartest biblical commentators I know of, and he makes a pretty watertight case. The Balaam character evolved down the years from a prophet of God to a pagan bad guy.

If you needed any further evidence that the Bible can't just be read at face value, this about clinches it.

Mad Genius Bible

Word is out that the Wolverton Bible is now available on Amazon. The ultimate coffee-table book for all those who've been scre..., er, blessed by the WCG experience.

It's an art book, not a theological tome, and it's all the better for having lost the tendentious text. If your current church affiliation is all love, light, and warm fuzzies, this'll put the fear of God into your kids - or grandchildren - guaranteed!

Check out the cool page-turning preview on Flickr!

Gotta have one? Why, of course! Zip across now to Amazonand secure your copy for a special price of under twenty bucks ($16.49) while you can.

How to Read the Bible

Every so often along comes a book that resets the agenda and signals a weather change in the way people view their world. James Kugel's How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now may be just such a book.

Kugel is an effective writer, and his book is mercifully approachable by the non-specialist. But more than this, he is an intelligent and informed writer, not out to score cheap apologetic points. Kugel writes out of his own struggle with the Bible, as both an Orthodox Jew and a scholar. This is a book that will both challenge and appeal to people of faith and those who have moved away from biblical faith... and those in between.

How to Read the Bible begins with a potted history of the way people down through history have viewed the scriptures - with particular focus on the Old Testament. On the cusp of change we meet a remarkable American Presbyterian called Charles Briggs, convicted of heresy a hundred years ago.

From there Kugel begins a kind of survey of the Hebrew Bible viewed with the twin lenses of received wisdom and dogma on one hand (the "ancient interpreters"), and the fruit of modern biblical scholarship on the other. From the first section on the Creation, Adam and Eve, it's clear this is a journey of discovery even for those old hands who thought they already knew it all. Expect to find a few overturned apple-carts along the way.

For anyone fascinated or conflicted by the Bible (the two reactions aren't mutually exclusive!) this is a brilliant and utterly riveting read.

LXX-rated

I know I'll get in trouble with this posting unless a qualifier is added in, so here it is: I'm not seriously suggesting the LXX should be adopted by modern Christians, and I am writing somewhat "tongue in cheek"... though the issues are real enough despite that.

It's always puzzled me that conservative Christians get all strident about the Masoretic text of the Old Testament, when it's clear that the New Testament writers wouldn't go near the thing. Instead they used the Septuagint (LXX) almost exclusively.

There are differences between the two, and for a long time it was assumed that the LXX was an inferior product, deviating from the Hebrew original. If so, how come the early church relied on it so completely?

Then along came the Dead Sea Scrolls, and it turns out that the LXX readings do in fact go back to the Hebrew. It seems that there were variant versions of the Hebrew scriptures, one set of which underlie the Masoretic tradition, so beloved of King James fanatics, and another which leads to the LXX.

It's discoveries like these - and the scholarship that flows from them - that forever renders the old-style "Bible helps" of a previous era redundant and misleading. That news doesn't seem to have yet percolated down to the fundamentalist subculture.

Assuming you're not able to read Greek, where would you go to check out the LXX text? There have been translations, but they tend to date back to the nineteenth century, which limits both their readability and their accuracy. Mind you, if you're one of the many Rip Van Winkles who still thinks Strong's is a valuable resource, that probably won't faze you.

If not, then there's good news. Oxford University Press is scheduled to release a new LXX English translation within a few months. Even better news, you can download a pre-publication version here.

Yeah, yeah, I can hear the gainsayers already. Why bother, mythology, yadda yadda. I'm not suggesting it be put to literalist proof-texting uses, or made the object of devotional navel gazing. On the contrary, neither practice seems particularly valuable to me for any Bible version. But it does open up a new window on the historical and literary issues which - and I guess this is my point - preclude the kind of mindlessness that's rife in the splinters, the genetically modified contemporary WCG, and the evangelical community generally.

Jewish folk would also probably be pleased to have ownership of their scriptures - rooted in the Masoretic tradition - back again. The misuse and appropriation of the Tanakh has served to create tension between the two communities for centuries.

The Septuagint is the Bible of the early church, no question. It's "apostolic" in the sense that the New Testament writers quoted it almost exclusively. To paraphrase the song "Gimme that ol' time religion", if it was good enough for Paul, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, how come it's not good enough for Spanky, Six-pack, Big Dave, Dave the Visionary, and the Cincinnati Sanhedrin? Somebody might ask these many COG gurus with pretensions to apostolic principles (Rod Meredith uses the a-word habitually) if they'll be dumping their NKJVs and moving across to the new translation...

And if not, why not?

Transparent English Bible

Dr James Tabor has released a sample from the forthcoming Transparent English Bible, a longstanding project that dates back to a proposal by Ernest Martin. If you fancy literal translations, this may appeal to you. The first few chapters of Genesis are available as a PDF document.

Tabor expresses his preference for literal translations in a blog entry, even recommending the long-forgotten 1901 ASV, and opting for the 1950s RSV over the NRSV. To each their own.

What you can say is that the proposed TEB is different. With the proliferation of dumbed-down "easy to understand" versions (which distort the not-so-easy-to-understand realities of the manuscripts) this version will certainly stand out. This is a long, long way from the feel-good babblings of the Good News Bible or the CEV.

A couple of "buts". The TEB has reached this stage of development before, with substantial excerpts pre-published online (including the first chapters of Genesis, if memory serves.) For whatever reason the project was then rebooted and the initial work apparently withdrawn.

Second, if an important quality of a good English translation involves being able to be read aloud, then this may be the TEB's Achilles heel. Scripture has only been the object of personal, silent reading in relatively recent times. In synagogue and church the Bible has always been read aloud, reflecting the reality of our largely illiterate forebears. Arguably these books were written to be read aloud rather than pored over by individuals - that's how it was supposed to happen when they were first set down. By this criteria TEB looks shaky. Try rolling this text off the tongue:

These are the bringings-forth of the skies and the land in their being created. In the day of the making of YHVH ELOHIM, land and skies, and no shrub of the field was before that on the land, and no plant of the field had before that sprouted - for YHVH ELOHIM had not made rain on the land, and there was no soil-man to service the soil (2: 4-5)

This may be true to the Hebrew, but it's not the way lucid English works. That said, the Tabor Bible may - assuming it finally reaches completion - fill an important void in the market, perhaps supplanting the simply awful NASB and kindred travesties. It's certainly a project worth following, and I'd wager a thousand percent more worthy than the KJVish Coulter translation, due for release (both Old and New Testaments) very shortly.

Meantime I'll be sticking to the NRSV.

King James triumphant

According to the last poll, which pulled a respectable 121 responses, nearly half of us still prefer to use either the King James Version or the New KJV. None of us is bothered with the trendy Message paraphrase, almost as many of us have given up on the Bible thing entirely as use the scholarly NRSV, and a bare five percent have been convinced by the evangelically-minded to change to the NIV or TNIV.

Confused? I sure am.

Even more interesting, nearly a quarter of us prefer another translation to the ones listed.

So, if you voted "other," what do you use and why?

Genesis Genetics

Bob Thiel breathlessly announces: "AW Questions Historical Validity of Genesis" following the previous post.

The truth is that I usually give Bob a harder time than he gives me, so I'm not particularly worried - even if he infers (yet again) that I'm an atheist. "Sticks and stones..."

But I'm fascinated to know what Bob, committed as he is to the historical accuracy of Genesis, makes of the genetic modification technique practiced by Jacob in Genesis 30. Jacob has been repeatedly stiffed by Laban, the uncle from hell. He works seven years for the right to marry Rachel, but Laban sneaks in her sister Leah under cover of bridal burka. Next morning, after consummation, Jacob finally thinks to lift the veil and discovers the awful truth. Another seven years are required among the sheep before he can pay Laban off for his dearly intended.

Time passes. Jacob strikes a deal with his father-in-law. He will return home with his wives and children, and all the striped, spotted and speckled livestock from Laban's flocks will be his. Again, Laban tries to pull a swift one, but Jacob has learned some smarts of his own:

Then Jacob took fresh rods of poplar and almond and plane, and peeled white streaks in them, exposing the white of the rods. He set the rods that he had peeled in front of the flocks in the troughs, that is, the watering places, where the flocks came to drink. And since they bred when they came to drink, the flocks bred in front of the rods, and so the flocks produced young that were striped, speckled, and spotted. (Genesis 30: 37-39)

Wow! How simple! Obviously Gregor Mendel, despite being a priest, never read this chapter.

And just in case there's any doubt, here's verses 41-42:

Whenever the stronger of the flock were breeding, Jacob laid the rods in the troughs before the eyes of the flock, that they might breed among the rods, but for the feeble of the flock he did not lay them there; so the feebler were Laban's, and the stronger Jacob's.

Yes brethren, here is God's own inspired agricultural science.

Actually, this is called "sympathetic magic" (HarperCollins Study Bible.)

The point is that, according to Genesis, it worked.

Except that it couldn't and didn't.

And yet here it is, inspired, God-breathed and inerrant from old Moses himself. Remember, this is historically valid stuff.

Note to Bob: please explain.

The Mark of Cain

I want to acknowledge the kindness of Samuel Martin in sending me a copy of his small book What Was the Mark of Cain? These comments follow from reading it.

The first thing to say is that Mark of Cain can be read in a single sitting, and that's a refreshing change from the weighty tomes that afflict most people studying biblical issues. The second is to assure prospective readers that the material is eminently readable. In many ways Mark of Cain is comparable to the style of literature once produced by the church: it doesn't assume a familiarity with theological verbiage or send you off to check a dictionary with every second page.

Martin's proposal is an interesting one. The murder of Abel was a crime committed in the passion of youth. Cain had not yet reached his majority, and Abel was even younger. This explains, according to the author, why the death penalty was not exacted. Cain's exile to the land of Nod is a reference to a state of mourning: Cain became the first Nazarite, letting his hair grow. This was the mark of Cain.

Exactly how Samuel Martin arrives at these conclusions is beyond the scope of this short review, but I enjoyed his line of argument immensely. If your curiosity is aroused, you can discover how to order a copy of What Was the Mark of Cain? from the author's website.

Is Martin's case convincing? I'm not so sure. Mark of Cain makes assumptions about the authorship of the Pentateuch/Torah that I find problematic. Martin writes:

"It is essential (in the view of the author) to believe that Moses was the author, compiler or first editor of almost all sections of the first five books of the Bible."
Here I differ from Martin, though traditional COG brethren will be less skeptical. Even more basic is the assumption that Genesis relates real history. Was there truly a garden called Eden in prehistory, a place which we might find if we had H. G. Wells' Time Machine at our disposal, or are we dealing with another genre altogether? Is the reason why temple symbolism exists in Genesis a wonderful prefiguring of what was yet far in the future, or an indication that the real authors wrote at a time when the Temple stood in Jerusalem, and that they retrojected that symbolism back on the mythical past? To suggest that some kind of Nazarite vow was operative in Adam's lifetime seems to me to risk making a case based on an obvious anachronism. That said, Martin's presentation is engaging.

Mark of Cain is the first in a projected series by Samuel Martin called "Studies in Genesis". If future installments are as stimulating as this one, then fans of the late Ernest Martin will be well pleased.

Bob's Bible Blender

Bob Thiel is in attack mode, and his latest target is the hapless Ken Westby and ACD.

I've never met Westby, and I'm pretty far removed from his weltanschau, but he seems a decent bloke with a track record of acting on principle. I personally don't share his unitarian enthusiasm, but that's largely because I think he's asking the wrong questions. But does that mean it's okay to label the guy a "heretic"?

Heresy is in the eye of the beholder. There's something incongruous about Bob pasting the label on Ken when Bob is an apologist for the Living Church of God, a sect widely regarded as heretical itself.

Bob writes: I believe that what A.C.D. does and stands for is dangerous and at least two of its teachings need to be denounced as heresy–the first being the denial of Jesus being God and the second being the denial of portions of the New Testament being scripture... A.C.D. is promoting heresy by teaching that Jesus is not God. Yet Jesus is God and that is what the Bible clearly teaches.

Hold your horses Bob, just what do you mean "the Bible clearly teaches"?

The Bible is a collection of documents written over centuries, composed in various genres and grounded in changing cultures. What Leviticus teaches needn't be what Galatians teaches. Mark's understanding of Jesus is different in many ways from John's. To use the jargon, Mark's earlier Christology is low, John's is high. Putting all the books of the Old and New Testaments into the LCG blender and whizzing them around till they come out as homogeneous pulp is just plain stupid. Each biblical writer needs to be heard individually before making sweeping generalizations (or Fred Coulter-type harmonizations) based on cut 'n paste proof texts severed in bloody chunks from the living documents.

But then, Armstrongism Ancient & Modern knows no other way to approach the Bible. Chuck it in the blender and pick out the bits you like that float to the top. This then can be defended as "the Bible interpreting itself." Why is Rod Meredith allowed to see some things differently in 2007 to Herbert Armstrong back in 1967, while Mark in 50 CE must be squished into the same identical mold as John in 95 CE or thereabouts? This is a woeful understanding of inspiration.

A.C.D. denies the diety [sic] of Christ and questions the Gospel that the Holy Spirit inspired John to write and apparently other passages of scripture. A.C.D. is thus promoting dangerous heresies and should be denounced by those who believe that they are in the true Church of God.

Bob fails to mention that non-unitarians engaged F. Paul Haney and other speakers at the conference in Albany. They seem to have done so with a spirit of generosity and openness, with no indication of name calling and anathemas. I'm also guessing that David Sielaff (who spoke against the unitarian position) at least knows how to spell deity.

As for Bob objecting to the idea of "the denial of portions of the New Testament being scripture," well, maybe he would like to tell us all whether he regards the "Johannine coda" (1 John 5:7-8 in ye olde King James Version) as scriptural.

Westby et al invite us to think about our binatarian assumptions. Why is that a problem? Either they can make a convincing case or they can't. Bob's latest outburst of outrage - what Brian Knowles calls heresy hunting - offers nothing constructive to that debate.

Inspired Forgeries?

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but did imitation take a step too far into outright fraud and forgery in the New Testament?

There certainly were forgers out there. Two documents claiming to come from the Apostle Paul are obvious examples: Third Corinthians and an alleged exchange of letters between Paul and the philosopher Seneca.

These guys could be tricky. A text emerged in the fourth century claiming to be written by the original apostles. Called the Apostolic Constitutions, it brazenly advises its readers to avoid reading books that make false claims to apostolic authorship. Talk about chutzpah!

But what about the documents that made the final cut for the New Testament? There are at least six books claiming to be written by Paul that display the tell-tale marks of being pseudonymous (a scholarly way of saying forgeries.) The suspect letters fall into two groups: the Deutero-Pauline epistles (2 Thessalonians, Colossians and Ephesians), and the Pastorals (1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus.)

That means, of the 13 letters attributed to Paul, nearly half are thought to be fabrications. That just leaves us with Romans, Galatians, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Philippians, Philemon and 1 Thessalonians as genuine.

What about Hebrews? It's not by Paul either, but then it doesn't claim to be. Although it was included in the canon on the false assumption that Paul wrote it, it can't be considered a forgery as it makes no pretense to be from Paul (or any other apostle). Church father Origen wrote about the identity of the author: "God only knows." James was a common name at the time, and the letter bearing that name nowhere claims to be by the brother of Jesus; hence not pseudonymous. Revelation is in a similar category: John the apostle? Not likely. The Gospel of John is famously unconcerned with the end of the age, quite unlike the Apocalypse. While it's true that these books made it into the canon largely on wishful thinking about authorship, there's nothing in the way of such extravagent claims within these documents.

But there certainly do seem to be flagrant forgeries in the Pauline corpus. Unfortunately there's more. Chalk up 2 Peter as pseudonymous, along with Jude. Questions need to be asked about 1 Peter as well. The letters of John are also dubious affairs, most scholars optimistically attributing them to a later disciple of John.

Despite the special pleading of latter-day apologists, "forgery was almost universally condemned by ancient authors." The exception was in schools of philosophy where it was considered a bit of an art form to place your thoughts in the mouth of a great teacher of the past.

Bart Ehrman comments: "Many scholars are loath to talk about New Testament "forgeries" because the term seems so loaded and suggestive of ill intent. But... [it] is striking that few scholars object to using the word "forgery" for books, even Christian books, that occur outside the New Testament."

The beginning of wisdom in tackling the scriptures, whether the Old Testament or the New, is honesty. These ancient books are many things, but inflating their value by misrepresentation can serve no useful purpose.

Study Bibles

As part of my drive to become the oldest person in history to acquire a recognised qualification in theology (maybe I exaggerate slightly) it's been necessary to acquire a decent Study Bible, one that supports the text with the kind of notes and information that provides context and throws light on some of the more obscure references. While I already had a variety of translations, nothing quite met those criteria.

I looked first at the Zondervan NIV Study Bible which is supposed to be the most popular. The notes on the dust-cover say it all, evangelical and conservative. If that's your poison, you could do a lot worse, but I got the feeling the contributors were looking through rose colored spectacles. Where does the scholarship end and the apologetics begin? I gave it a miss, along with the TNIV (gender-neutral text but same notes.)

In dithered for a while over the The New Oxford Annotated Bible. Although it uses the NRSV and has gone through three editions so far, it's showing its age a bit, and the notes are a little thin on the ground. It still has a great reputation, but I'm prepared to wait for a 4th edition that (hopefully) brings it up to speed with what the others offer.

In the end, in a classic case of overkill, I ended up going for three very different options.

The Jewish Study Bible. (Oxford, 2004)
That might seem an unusual choice, but it's definitely a fresh perspective, and why settle for something that will do no more than just tell you what you expected it to? The translation is JPS's Tanakh which is outstanding, and the supporting essays, maps and notes are excellent (just don't expect a New Testament.)

The Catholic Study Bible (2nd edition) (Oxford, 2006)
The translation used is the New American Bible, which is very readable, and it boasts some great contributors, including John J. Collins, Luke Timothy Johnson and Pheme Perkins. The Reading Guides provide a brilliant introduction to the individual books of the Bible.

The HarperCollins Study Bible. (HarperCollins, 2006)
This is the major competition to the New Oxford Annotated. Included are all the books in the Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox canons. Like the Oxford it also uses the NRSV (which happily is the required translation at the University of Otago), but from what I've seen it offers better value. The contributors come from a wide range of backgrounds, and the Society of Biblical Literature has lent its name to the project. It'll probably get the most use of the three, and is already my "default" choice.

That barely scratches the surface when it comes to what's available, but a lot of the Study Bibles on the shelves of Christian bookshops are, to put it gently, so heavenly-minded that they're of no earthly use. A good Study Bible serves to drive a few pitons into the rock face to help the reader make basic connections without having to drag out commentaries and handbooks every time, and doesn't hide the difficult texts behind a veil of comforting platitudes. And yes, you can pick up a KJV edition if you really want to (the one I thumbed through was endorsed by Jerry Falwell, so I put it back pretty quick!)

(This is the first post in an occasional series on "building a library.")

A COG Bible?

One of the scariest things I've heard of in recent days is Fred Coulter's plans to produce a “translation” of the whole Bible. Coulter, as you probably know, abandoned the ministry of the WCG in the late 70s to establish the Biblical Church of God which swiftly sank without trace. Fred then founded the Christian Biblical Church of God.

Fred's telephone directory-sized New Testament is already with us, it came out a couple of years ago, built around the text of his revised Harmony of the Gospels (to his credit, Fred at least knows how to read Greek, based on his time at AC.) His “Faithful Version” reads like a slightly updated and rather dull KJV, nothing like the first edition of his Harmony which was then in contemporary English (he's since moved to adopt a severely literal translation approach.) Most notable in his New Testament are the copious and rambling essays and explanations that have blown out the book to 880 pages. By my estimate at least 50% is made up of commentary. A hardback copy of Fred's Faithful New Testament (full title: The New Testament in its Original Order: A Faithful Version with Commentary) will set you back around $50 on Amazon, exclusive of postage.

Individual translators, as opposed to committees, have often produced colorful and stirring versions. James Moffatt, J.B. Phillips, Eugene Peterson (The Message) and John Henson (Good As New) spring to mind (Fred wastes 3 ½ pages attacking Henson in his NT preface, and 2 more attacking Peterson, but Fred simply isn't in this league.) What is remarkable though is his reliance on a corrupt Greek text - “the Stephens text of 1550” (which, of course, he passionately defends at tedious length as the most accurate!) The Stephens in question is “Stephanus” (Robert Etienne), a French printer who produced a revision of Erasmus' Greek text. This is part of the "Textus Receptus" tradition out of which the KJV came. But there are problems.

“No translation can be better than the text on which it is based... those were the days before the art of serious textual criticism had begun. They were able to use only those manuscripts that had been available to Erasmus (which he recognized to be defective) and to the Parisian printer Stephanus... These manuscripts were mostly of the Byzantine (or Koine) family of texts, which subsequent research has demonstrated to be amongst the least trustworthy.” (Robinson, The Thoughtful Guide to the Bible, 2004, p. 269-270.)

“When the AV/KJV was translated, the oldest and best Greek manuscripts had not then been discovered. The earliest used by Erasmus for his 1516 edition of the Greek NT dates back no further than the tenth century.” (Dewey, Which Bible? A Guide to English Translations, 2004, p. 195.)

Now Fred is “doing” the Old Testament. But wait, does Fred actually know any Hebrew? Not that I'm aware of.

The strategy seems to be to revise an already obscure translation called the Modern King James Version to produce an even more obscure one. Fred has paid out $20,000 for this privilege (courtesy, one assumes, of his tithe-paying supporters.) Troublesome verses are being duly “COGified”, so Genesis 1:1-2 will now read “ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth became without form and void...” The inspired marginal notations are migrating into the text itself!

In essence this doesn't seem much different from Joseph Smith's rewrite of the KJV to produce the “Inspired Version” (still published, last I heard, by Herald House in Independence, MO.)

Fred has also decided to structure his Bible version “in its original order.” Original order? Certainly there's precedent for reordering the books of the Bible, but this one (which owes a good deal to Ernest Martin) has little to recommend it.

There is the consolation of knowing that the Coulter Bible, when it arrives, will be little noticed, as with his existing – and widely ignored – New Testament. This is largely because no other COG is about to give a rival the satisfaction of citing his Bible version in their own publications. Unless you are a collector of uncommon or abstruse Bibles, you may want to give this one a miss.

Putting Mark back where he belongs

You might not know it from the Ambassador College Correspondence Course, but one of the first things students of the New Testament learn about is a little something called "Marcan priority."

The short explanation is that Mark, not Matthew, is the first Gospel, and by looking at the ways Matthew and Luke adapt Mark you can learn an awful lot about their agendas.

What do the 21st century COGs think of that? Who knows. Most COGs are too busy fiddling with their proof texts to pay much attention to issues like this. Fred Coulter has an opinion though, he thinks Matthew was the first Gospel writer, and he wrote it "at the time of Jesus' ministry from 26 to 30 AD." This remarkable statement is pretty much in line with Fred's other "scholarly" opinions. His "Faithful Version" deserves to be a party conversation piece if only because of the bloopers in its copious and repetitive notes.

We also know what James Tabor thinks, because he's addressed this very issue in his latest blog entry. Tabor goes further by drawing out what he sees as some implications of Marcan priority.

Whether or not you agree with Tabor's conclusions, Marcan Priority is pretty much one of the assured results of New Testament scholarship, whether among Catholics, Evangelicals or traditional Protestants. Sorry Fred.

Junia not Junior

I suspect most readers of AW are blokes, judging from the gender balance of the comments. The old time WCG was a blokes' club with not just an all male ministry, but (and this was highly unusual) a preponderance of men over women in the general membership. This caused problems for the single men, exhorted to be maintain a high moral standard but unable to marry outside of their faith (and for most of the church's history outside of their “race” as well.)

Which is why most of the eligible bachelors scrubbed up with particular care for the Feast of Tabernacles. A chance to impress was too important to miss!

But what about the women? In some ways women have been the forgotten 50% of the Church of God. No women as preachers of course, no women as administrators, no women consulted when it came to the latest flip-flop over divorce and remarriage or make-up. For years even the by-lines in church publications were exclusively male, women apparently made inferior writers as well.

Today the new-look Tkach-WCG has, thankfully, made most of that history. They're even looking at the issue of women in ministry, though that reform is slow in coming, and you've got to suspect that, despite the advocacy of Sheila Graham and others, there is a lot of resistance. A cousin of mine, a fine and sincere man who has stood by the WCG through thick and thin, has written a paper opposing the idea.

So, let me introduce you to Junia, woman and apostle. Her story is a fascinating one. She's been hiding away in Romans 16 for nigh on two millennia, but precious few blokes seem to have noticed. Those that have, more often than not, have felt the need to perform gender reassignment: poor Junia has been shorn of her femininity and morphed into a man.

Check out Romans 16:7. “Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.” (NRSV)

Compare the same verse in the NIV where Junia goes under the knife to emerge as Junias, a male.

No, this isn't a trendy new feminist re-reading of the trusty old KJV, the KJV has Junia correctly identified, as did the early church fathers (mainly composed of misogynists who'd make Rod Meredith look positively enlightened by comparison.) Even Fred Coulter's translation (gasp!) gets it right - though I doubt he thought through the implications.

Junia, a woman who was “prominent among the apostles”? What gives?

Rena Pederson comes to the rescue with “The Lost Apostle: Searching for the Truth About Junia.” Pederson is a Washington journalist, not a theologian, and a “moderate Methodist”, not a COG member. Her book, however, illustrates the doggedness of a journalist who knows how to go after the facts, find the people “in the know” (she has interviewed a “who's who” of Christian scholars) and then present the findings in a highly readable, accessible way. I particularly enjoyed her account of meeting with a gaggle of Vatican scholars at the Pontifico Instituto Biblico:

"Surrounded by male scholars at the table, I had the feeling that this was what it must be like to have lunch at the Elks Lodge. I had envisioned a defensive or hostile reaction from the church scholars, but the institute professors exuded a gentlemanly curiosity about my topic. As it turned out, studying the women of the church was not high on their list of scholarly pursuits. It was like asking them what they thought about hormone replacement therapy."

You won't trip over theological verbiage, but you will get a fantastic insight into how women have fared in the Christian church down through the centuries, and who knows, just maybe you'll end up agreeing with Joe Jr. that the issue really does need addressing.

Agreeing with Joe about anything is a scary thought, but he's got to be right about something occasionally. And, just quietly, I think the various COGs would be much improved if some of the wooden-minded blokes stepped aside to make way for a few multi-tasking females. Any one of the service-minded secretaries who make coffee and clean up after Dave Pack would be a definite improvement, don't you think?

Who wrote 2 Peter?

John Ross Schroeder is up to bat on the canonical question in the latest Good News. And JR has a nifty new argument to offer in an article called Is the New Testament a Fraud?.

Let me begin by putting my cards on the table. The New Testament is an amazing collection of documents from the first century. It uniquely chronicles the diverse faith and testimony of those who first took on the name Christian. It is a source of inspiration to people of faith today, as in the past, and many of us have heard the voice of God speaking through its text. But why should anyone believe - let alone promote - nonsense in order to make it into something it's not.

- These are the founding documents of the faith, not objective history.

- These are documents that deserve great respect, but not idolatrous worship.

- These are documents that point beyond themselves in all their fallibility to something beyond words and opinion. They do not point to themselves.

- These are documents written by time-bound human beings attempting to express their experience of Jesus, the living Christ, the power of the Spirit and the unconditional grace of God. These documents are not honored by telling porkies about them in an effort to inflate their reputation.

Back to JR and the canon. Mr Schroeder suggests that both Peter and Paul contributed to the canonization of the New Testament - the gathering of these documents together as recognized scripture for the church. In part his argument revolves around 2 Peter 1: 12-15.

12 Therefore I intend to keep on reminding you of these things, though you know them already and are established in the truth that has come to you. 13 I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to refresh your memory, 14 since I know that my death will come soon, as indeed our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. 15 And I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things.

That last verse, according to Schroeder, indicates that Peter is taking steps to create the canon. But there's a problem. Peter didn't write 2 Peter.

Richard Bauckham writes in the HarperCollins Bible Commentary: 2 Peter belongs not only to the literary genre of the letter, but also to that of "testament"... In Jewish usage the testament was a fictional genre... It is therefore likely that 2 Peter is also a pseudonymous work, attributed to Peter after his death... These literary considerations and the probable date of 2 Peter... make authorship by Peter himself very improbable.

Scot McKnight, writing in the Eerdmans Commentary notes that 2 Peter "was probably composed within two decades after his death. No book in the Bible had more difficulty establishing itself in the canon. As late as Eusebius (d. 371) some did not consider 2 Peter to be from the Apostle or part of the canon... doubts continued for centuries (e.g., Calvin and Luther)"

McKnight adds: There is clear evidence that 2 Peter is either dependent on Jude or on a later revision of a tradition used by the author of Jude and then by the author of 2 Peter... The letter probably emerges from a Hellenistic Jewish context, probably in Asia.

In his recent book "Peter, Paul, & Mary Magdalene" Bart Ehrman notes: whoever wrote 2 Peter, it was not Simon Peter the disciple of Jesus. Unlike 1 Peter, the letter of 2 Peter was not widely accepted, or even known, in the early church. The first time any author makes a definite reference to the book is around 220 CE, that is 150 years after it was allegedly written. It was finally admitted into the canon somewhat grudgingly, as church leaders of the later third and fourth centuries came to believe that it was written by Peter himself. But it almost certainly was not... As scholars have long recognized, much of the invective is borrowed, virtually wholesale, from another book that found its way into the New Testament, the epistle of Jude. This is one of the reasons for dating the letter itself somewhat later... it is dependent on another letter that appears to have been written near the end of the first century.

How ironic then that Mr Schroeder uses 2 Peter, a very late document, to "proof text" his view that the canon was created very early! The idea that our New Testament in its present form goes all the way back to the time of the apostles is wishful thinking at best, and dishonest at worst. The Good News understandably has an apologetic thrust, but good apologetics also requires being honest with and about the sources. Sadly, that doesn't happen very often in the unholy rush to protect the Bible from the facts.

Heavy canon fire

LCG web commentator and church history buff Bob Thiel writes: "one of the reasons that the COGs are NOT Protestant is that we believe the Bible and do not believe that anyone... is entitled to change it."

Which led me to think again about the whole canon issue.

To provide a bit of an introduction, Bob regards the Bible - his non-Protestant canon (which actually is the Protestant canon) - as a given. It kinda dropped out of the sky one day, intact, fully formed and fluttering gaily down beneath a Holy Spirit parachute. Those nasty Church Fathers and proto-Catholics had nothing to do with it. If I understand Bob correctly, he champions a reconstruction where the Eastern church created the current canon before it invented ikons, pillar saints and liturgical chants, and was still under the influence of those mysterious and mythical COG leaders of the apostolic age.

Yeah, right.

I disagree with Bob, though I don't doubt his sincerity (as the old refrain goes, folk can be "sincerely wrong.") For me, this was a real "trunk of the tree" issue several years ago, as it affects the whole underpinning of fundamentalist and evangelical belief. I even wrote a short article on the subject which attracted a bit of attention. It sorely needs a rewrite, which I'm hoping to get done later this year (then it'll appear as a PDF file on otagosh.) Currently the New Testament paper that I'm doing touches on this issue, and there's more to add. But despite the fact that it's a little dated, I stand behind what I said then.

Bottom line: for centuries the canon was subject to change after change as Christians of all hues and stripes debated what to include. And in some cases they got it terribly wrong in the final cut. The article explains this in some detail. I'll expand on this theme in later postings.

In their lifetimes

Fred Coulter certainly has a way with words. For those unfamiliar with the more obscure byways of COG Christianity, Fred is a former WCG minister who went out independently in the late 70s. He is a self-styled scholar, has produced his own New Testament translation, and runs his very own niche COGlet.

Here's a recent slice of Coulter text that took my eye in a full page ad appearing in the latest issue of The Journal: "Did You Know... The Apostles wrote the Gospels in their lifetimes?"

Profound, huh! I mean, if the apostles (was Mark an apostle? was Luke?) indeed wrote the Gospels that bear their names, then they would have to have written in their own lifetimes... wouldn't they? Or have I missed something?

Of course there is always posthumous publication, but I'm guessing that the actual writing usually occurs before the coffin is lowered into the grave... unless Fred is a secret devotee of psychic channelling (but that seems unlikely.)

What Fred seems to be maintaining is that Matthew wrote Matthew, Mark wrote Mark, Luke... but you get the picture. While that seems logical, there are a few pesky facts to take into account.

The Gospels circulated a long time before agreement was reached on who actually wrote them. Nowhere in these documents is there a direct statement of authorship (Hi, I'm John the apostle), and the titles ("Gospel according to...") were added later. Even the author of Luke, who tells his readers up-front that he's writing to Theophilus, keeps his identity to himself. The ascriptions we have are part tradition and part guesswork. Maybe they got it right, maybe not. For example, many early Christians were convinced that John's Gospel was the work of a heretic called Cerinthus. What is certain is that Paul's letters (the seven genuine ones) predate the Gospels, that Mark is the earliest of the four, and that the author of John was a different person to the disciple of that name (though he may have been used as a source).

In trying to defend the truth of the Bible it's all too easy to think the issue is the truth about the Bible rather than the truth which the Bible points to. To get hung up on the former is bibliolatry, and leads to ridiculous claims which in turn undermine the credibility of the Christian message.

But I'm sure Fred will disagree with that... and probably in his own lifetime.