Mission Accomplished, Part II: Fill-in-the-blank

In part one, I tried to make the case that when the New Testament authors spoke of “fulfilled” Scripture, they weren’t saying the OT predicted the events of the NT, but that God’s mission was accomplished in Jesus. Jesus saw it this way himself, when on the cross he said, “It is finished,” perhaps better translated “it has been accomplished” (Gk tetelestai; Jn 19:30).

Prediction in the NT

Greek actually has a specific word, proeipon, that can be translated as “predicted.” It’s only used 12 times in the entire NT. But, even then, proeipon usually doesn’t mean to predict, as in to declare ahead of time the unfolding of specific future events. You can see from the chart below just how infrequently the verb has the connotation of “prediction.”

	NAS	ESV	NRSV	NIV	CEB	NLT
Matt 24:25	told in advance	told beforehand	told beforehand	told ahead of time	told ahead of time	warned ahead of time
Mk 13:23	told in advance	told beforehand	already told	told ahead of time	told ahead of time	warned ahead of time
Acts 1:16	foretold	spoke beforehand	foretold	spoke long ago	announced beforehand	predicted long ago
Rom 9:29	foretold	predicted	predicted	said previously	prophesied	said the same thing
2 Cor 7:3	said before	said before	said before	said before	already said	said before
2 Cor 13:2	previously said	warned before	warned previously	gave a warning	already warned	already warned
Gal 1:9	said before	said before	said before	said before	said before	said before
Gal 5:21	forewarned	warned before	warned before	already gave warning	already warned	already warned
1 Thes 4:6	told before	told beforehand	told beforehand	told before	told before	solemnly warned before
Heb 4:7	has been said before	words already quoted	words already quoted	passage already quoted	in the passage above	words already quoted
2 Pet 3:2	spoken beforehand	predictions	spoken in the past	spoken in the past	foretold	said long ago
Jude 17	spoken beforehand	predictions	predictions	foretold	spoken beforehand	predicted

As you can see, among the 12 occurrences of the verb across six modern English Bible translations, “predict” occurs only 7 times (8 if you include “prophesied”), which works out to approximately 10% of the time. In other words, it is very, very rare for the NT writers to suggest that the OT predicted the NT.

Fulfillment in the NT

On the other hand, the word for fulfill, plēroō, occurs 86 times in the NT. The chart below shows its distribution in the NT and Greek Apocryphal books.

The basic meaning of plēroō is “to fill”, as in to fill a container. It is the word most commonly  used in the Septuagint (over 70 times) for the Hebrew verb mālē’, “to be full, to fill.”

The article on the word plēroō in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament can be summarized here:[1]

This also attaches to πληρόω (→ 291, 3–9, 10 ff.), but the particular content of this word in the NT is determined by 2.–5. (→ 291–298): “to fulfil a norm, a measure, a promise,” “to complete or achieve” something, and in 1. the idea of “totality” or “fulness” is decisive. Senses 2.–5. are prepared, or at least intimated, in non-biblical Gk. (→ 287, 4–23) and further developed in the LXX (→ 288, 1–21). The multiplicity of nuances does not always permit us to integrate individual passages into a firm lexical schema. Lit. the term means “to fill something completely,” a place, Ac. 2:2 (pass. Jn. 12:3; Mt. 13:48; Lk. 3:5), a material lack, Phil. 4:19; in a transf. sense Ac. 5:28: “You have filled all Jerusalem …”

In short, plēroō simply means to fill something. In the case of the NT’s understanding of the OT, it means something along the lines of “to fill in the blanks.”

So, what blanks needed filled in? God’s mission was to bring redemption to the world (as discussed in Part I), beginning with the call of Abram in Gen. 12. Exactly how God was going to accomplish that mission was not always clear. But, the NT authors are convinced, and they wish to convince us, that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus answered that concern. He was the answer to the fill-in-the-blank question.

Conclusion

In summary, the NT writers rarely suggested that the OT predicted the events of the NT. Frequently, though, they stated that the mission of God was accomplished through the signature NT event—the Christ event—and this event filled in the blanks in terms of understanding how God’s plan would unfold.

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[1] Gerhard Delling, “Πλήρης, Πληρόω, Πλήρωμα, Ἀναπληρόω, Ἀνταναπληρόω, Ἐκπληρόω, Ἐκπλήρωσις, Συμπληρόω, Πληροφορέω, Πληροφορία,” ed. Gerhard Kittel, Geoffrey W. Bromiley, and Gerhard Friedrich, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964–), 291.

Mission Accomplished, Part I: Prophecy Predicted or Prophecy Fulfilled

There’s a common misconception about what Old Testament prophets do and how their message was understood in the New Testament. Simply stated, prophets were preachers, not predictors. They came with a message, often one that involved some sort of dire warning if their words were not heeded. But they also came with words of comfort and a promise for better things ahead. The prophets themselves were often eccentric characters who did weird things like laying on their side for over 400 days (Ezek 4:4-8) or marrying a harlot (Hos 1:2) to get their message across.

One of the unfortunate consequences of the way the Christian Bible is laid out, is that the context takes some work. The events into which the prophets were speaking are spelled out half a testament earlier in 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah. If you’re reading canonically—that is, reading straight through from Genesis to Malachi—by the time you get to Amos, you will have read fifteen other OT books since reading about the pertinent events in 2 Chronicles (seventeen books since 2 Kings). As a result, many readers make the false assumption that the words of the prophets only had a future audience, rather than a present audience.

Part of the confusion for Christian readers is that the New Testament looks back to the Old Testament and sees Jesus as the fulfillment of not only the prophets, but all of the Old Testament. Eighty-six times NT writers comment how the OT has been “fulfilled.” Since the OT has been fulfilled, that must mean the OT predicted certain things to come to fruition at some point down the road, right? Not quite.

There’s a big difference between predicting an event, and an event being fulfilled. A meteorologist offers a daily prediction of the weather forecast. Investors try to predict how the market will respond to unemployment rates. A major league hitter predicts he’s going to see a fastball on a 2-0 count.

However, OT texts rarely make predictions, at least not long-term predictions. For example, Isaiah predicted that a young woman would conceive and give birth to a son who would be called Immanuel as a sign to King Ahaz that he should trust the Lord in the midst of political turmoil. In fact, that prediction was realized in short order with the birth of Isaiah’s son, whose name was Maher-shalal-hash-baz, recognized a few verses later as Immanuel (Isa 8:8, 10). This son would be a reminder to Ahaz that in the midst of those tumultuous times, God would be with the people of Judah.

So what does it mean that the OT is fulfilled in the NT? First, we have to recognize that the overarching theme of the OT is not about discovering the hidden mysteries of embedded messianic secrets, but the revelation of God’s plan to bring all of humanity into covenant relationship with himself. When that plan reaches its culmination, we could say it’s been fulfilled. Or, put another way: mission accomplished.

When Mary, Joseph and Jesus fled to Egypt, Matthew wrote, “This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son’.” (Matt 1:15). Matthew is not saying that Hosea 11:1 predicted that Jesus be taken to Egypt by his parents, and then called back to Judea following Herod’s death. In fact, Hosea 11 is explicitly about how God rescued Israel from Egyptian bondage, yet they rebelled and even sacrificed to idols. It would be theologically unwise to equate idolatrous Israel with holy Jesus! What Matthew is saying is that the plan to deal with Israel’s rebellion has been fulfilled: Mission accomplished!

At every turn in the NT, the authors saw God’s rescue plan fulfilled in the life, death, and resurrection and Jesus. The details were not predicted, at least not in unmistakable clarity. Nonetheless, with 20/20 hindsight the apostles could look at the person of Jesus and confidently proclaim: Mission accomplished.

Paris Accord

My wife and I celebrated our 25^th wedding anniversary this past summer…in Paris! It was awesome! We only had about 7 days, but we were able to take in all the major sites.

It just so happened that we arrived to the festivities of Bastille Day. What's more, France was making quite the run in the World Cup. And with the U.S.A. not even in the tournament, we were pulling for “Le Bleus.” And they didn’t disappoint, bringing home the Copa du Monde!

Paris was electric for days after the French team was crowned “Champions du Monde.” Parisians adorned themselves with French flags, strangers hugged (and kissed), cars honked their horns in celebration. People lined the Champs Elysees to get a glimpse of their futbol heroes. The nation was one because the nation had won! Everyone was of one accord.

Eventually, lives returned to normal for the French. They went back to work. They raised their children. They dreamed of what had been and what can be. And they paid their taxes. Lots of taxes. Lots and lots of taxes. And riots erupted. The nation was no longer in one accord.

I make no claims to fully grasp what’s happened in Paris between late July and early December. Surely there are some complicating factors that I, as an outsider looking in, just won’t get. But what I’m able to see is a country that was recently at peace is now not at peace.

This past Sunday marked the second Sunday of the Christian Advent season, the Sunday of “peace.” This gave me reason to reflect on Paris, particularly, but on peace more broadly.

In the Middle East today people greet each other by saying “peace.” Don’t think hippies in tie-dye holding up the “V” sign. They’re saying shalom (Hebrew) or salaam (Arabic). In the Semitic languages, “peace” doesn’t simply mean tranquility; it means complete, whole, fully operational. When they greet each other, they are basically saying they hope that your life is fully ordered. That you are healthy. Your relationships are whole. Your business is thriving.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matt 5:9). He wasn’t just saying “Can’t we all get along?” Instead, making peace is “an active involvement that confronts the problem and works through to a satisfactory reconciliation.”[1]

I don’t have to look hard to find problems in the world, in my government, in my employment status, in my family, or with myself. Being a peacemaker isn’t avoiding the problems and pretending they don’t exist. Being a peacemaker means being a healer—not necessarily by leading, but by serving.

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[1] Robert H. Mounce, Matthew, New International Biblical Commentary 1 (Hendrickson, 1991), 41.

10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...

After nearly a year's hiatus, I'm hoping to re-up Kyleinschriften. If you've been here before, you'll notice a different, cleaner look.

Stay tuned...

In the beginning God created the heavens and the underworld

I've thought quite a bit about Hebrew cosmology. Not as much as some, but probably more than the average Jane or Joe. But Scott Noegel just published an essay in Hebrew Studies that seemingly states the obvious ("God of Heaven and Sheol," HS 58 (2017):119-44), but hadn't even crossed my mind until Noegel made the case.

It's well known that the Hebrew word ארץ (eretz) has several meanings, including the entire habitable earth, a tract of land, and the underworld, among others. In Hebrew cosmology, the heavens are the height of the cosmos, and the underworld represents its lowest extremity. This concept is evident in a number of poetic passages in the Hebrew Bible, including, for example, Ps 139:8

If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. (NRSV)

Most interpreters agree that the theological assertion in Gen 1:1 is that God created everything, not just heaven and earth. This idea of an expression representing a totality is called a merism, a rather common feature in the Bible and in ancient Near Eastern texts. 

Noegel suggests that the merism in Gen. 1:1 makes more sense if we understand eretz as the underworld, rather than the entire habitable earth. In other words, God created the heavens and the underworld, from the height of the cosmos to its depth.

He admits he doesn't expect to see any changes in Bible translations anytime soon. But, as more evidence from the ANE comes to light we need to be prepared to adjust traditional readings accordingly, as we have already done with many, many way.

Genesis 1-11 (Review)

Earlier this summer John Hobbins generously offered to send me a copy of his book (co-authored with Samuel L. Bray), Genesis 1-11: A New Old Translation for Readers, Scholars, and Translators (Glossahouse, 2017). I am under no obligation to offer a review of the book, but I am more than happy to do so.


Bray and Hobbins have divided the book into three sections: Before the Translation, The Translation, and After the Translation. While this is a helpful organizational structure, the bulk of the book's content is comprised of (1) Translation (pp. 19-38); (2) Notes "to the persistent reader" (41-64); and (3) Translation "notes" (65-200). The book contains many helpful resources, including "Dramatis Personae," glossary, abbreviations, works cited, and five indices: subjects, ancient sources, translations, authors, and stories & genealogies.

1. Translation
Bray and Hobbins affirm a strict commitment to the Masoretic Text (MT) as preserved in Codex Leningradensis (Codex L). This is not to say that they ignore ancient sources or blindly ignore textual challenges within the MT. However, they it is also true that they don't immediately appeal to other textual witnesses whenever a difficulty arises. Their modus operandi is to make as much sense of the MT as possible, but utilize the versions where necessary for clarity.

Adhering to Codex L also means that Genesis 1-11 does not actually end at 11:32. Following the section breaks of Codex L, Bray and Hobbins conclude their translation at 12:9.

The translation itself takes great pains to be faithful to the original text, not just in meaning, but also according to Hebrew literary techniques (puns, assonance, alliteration) and diachrony. Genesis 1-11 is replete with etymological word-plays, particularly with names. The authors helped readers make the link by use of italics. 

"Now the man knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, 'I have gained a man through the Lord'." (Gen. 4:1). 

Diachrony, the use of archaic spellings in Hebrew, is cleverly demonstrated by archaic spellings in English, such as "Aethiopia," "beastes" and "brynge."

Often, Bray and Hobbins "default" to traditional translations, but not without considering the alternatives, which are discussed under "Notes." However, even when traditional translations are favored, the authors often add their own twist on well-established verses by providing an alternative vocabulary word or change in word order.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was void and desolate, and darkness was over the face of the waters... (Gen 1:1-2).

At other times, they completely break from any tradition, giving the text an awkward freshness.

"And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Urartu" (Gen. 8:4). 

2. To the Persistent Reader

Following the translation, the authors give some insights into some of the methodological decisions they made. Some readers may have wished for these notes to precede the translation, but I understand the authors' rationale for its placement as many of their explanations only make sense after the fact. 

3. Notes

This section serves two functions. First, it affords the authors the opportunity to explain their interpretive decisions. Second, it allows them to pull insights (etymological, linguistic, intertextual, and other) from the text that might otherwise be missed.

Most commentaries due well to engage with the ancient textual sources, and as I said above, Bray and Hobbins do not neglect these sources. But none that I have encountered engage the vast array of modern translations as Bray and Hobbins do, from Robert Altar to the Zurich Bible, as well as every conceivable English translation. This survey of modern translations is extremely helpful in tracing some of the translational traditions we are now stuck with. See for example, their discussion on Gen. 4:6-7:

For Hebrew robetz traditional renderings include "lieth" (KJV), coucheth (RV), and "is couching" (RSV). In the middle of the twentieth century, English translations moved en masse from "couching" to an orthographically similar but unrelated word "crouching." (p. 130).

Review

In short, Genesis 1-11 is a great resource for students, teachers, and translators of the so-called Primeval History. Hebraists will likely take exception with decisions here or there. In fact, I had a few disagreements myself (e.g. I would have translated yom echad as "one day," rather than "a first day;" but I was very happy that days 2-5 were translated as "a second day," etc; I prefer "sea creatures" for tanninim, instead of "whales"). As a whole, however, the book is a pleasure to read, demands that the reader pay close attention to the text, and offers many a useful (at times profound) insight into the biblical text.

Adam and the Genome (Review)

The question of human origins and its implications for biblical interpretation has caused much consternation for well over a century. Charles Darwin did not invent the idea of evolution by natural selection. Just read his introduction to On the Origin of Species and you'll see that his ideas were not particularly novel. What Darwin did, though, was provide an elegant and detailed explanation for the process. Some within the church immediately balked at Darwin's theory. Others were so compelled by his work that they had to reconsider their own interpretations of Genesis 1-2 in light of it. 

The theory of evolution is not going anywhere. In fact, rather than becoming less stable as a hypothesis, it is now firmly entrenched in the scientific community as "theory," which in the sciences is about as close to a knowable reality there is without it being "law." Jamie Tanner, professor of biology at Marlboro College explains scientific theory this way:

Most people use the word 'theory' to mean an idea or hunch that someone has, but in science, the word 'theory' refers to the way we interpret facts...For example, we have ample evidence of traits in populations becoming more or less common over time (evolution), so evolution is a fact but the overarching theories about evolution, the way that we think all of the facts go together might change as new observations of evolution are made.

Rather than casting doubt on evolutionary theory, new fossil discoveries and most importantly, the mapping of the human genome, only make the theory more compelling.

In Adam and the Genome: Reading Scripture after Genetic Science, Dennis Venema and Scot McKnight have done the church and the scientific community a great service. Venema is professor of biology at Trinity Western University and wrote the first four chapters looking at the biological, fossil, and genetic evidence that overwhelmingly supports human descent by evolution. McKnight, professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary, tackles the theological implications in the final four chapters.

For Venema, human descent through evolution is without dispute. He patiently walks the reader through the world of biology and genetics (with some paleontology thrown in for good measure) and demonstrates how and why biologists make the claims they make. He shows how evolution not only explains certain biological phenomena, but predicts certain outcomes. Venema also takes issue with the Intelligent Design movement, arguing that ID simply ignores too many data. Venema concludes with this:

[A]s I reflected on what Scripture says about creation, I came to view ID as counter to its witness. In Romans 1 Paul declares that observing creation bespeaks a creator...Creation reveals the Creator, and we are without excuse. Learning more about how that  creation works only deepens our wonder. To paraphrase Bonhoeffer, Paul calls us to see God in what we know, not in what we don't know--and as science reveals ever more about creation, we know more and more about how God chose to bring his creation into being (pp. 90-91).

McKnight's chief goal is remove the shackles of culture and tradition from the biblical text so that we might read the Bible on its own terms. After taking the readers on a journey through the world of the Ancient Near East, McKnight shows how the literary Adam (and Eve; he's always careful to remind us that Eve is generally forgotten to later interpreters of Genesis) is treated in the Jewish interpretive tradition. This tradition can be summarized as follows:

Adam is the paradigm or prototype or archetype of the choice between the path of obedience and that of disobedience, the path of Torah observance and that of breaking the commandments, the path of Wisdom and Mind and Logos and the path of sensory perceptions and pleasure and bodily desires. The Adam of the Jewish tradition is depicted very much as the moral Adam...In some of these interpretive traditions Adam comes off more positively than in others, but in each of them Adam is not just the first human being (the literary-genealogical Adam) but also the first sinner, whose sin had an impact on those who followed him (p. 169)

McKnight concludes with an assessment of the "historical" Adam in chapter eight. Through careful analysis of Romans 5:12-21 and 1 Corinthians 15:21-22, 45-49, McKnight concludes that the Adam of Paul is not a "historical" Adam, at least not in the sense that Paul would have thought that Adam (and Eve) have a biological relationship to all humanity by shared DNA. 

Perhaps most important in McKnight's discussion, however, is challenging the Augustinian view (via Jerome's mistranslation of Rom. 5:12) that we are all sinners because Adam sinned. Rather, McKnight argues, we are all sinners because we all sin: "each human being stands condemned before God as a sinner because each human being sins as did Adam (and Eve)" (p. 187).

In summary, Adam and the Genome provides a great entry into the theological implications of genetic science. As a non-scientists, I was able to follow most of what Venema had to say about genetics, and McKnight's chapters were equally accessible for the lay theologian.