Canaan, Corinth, and the Death of Death - Part IV

In the last post, I argued that resurrection in the OT was not anything anyone hoped for for themselves. It was sort of a pipe dream. For Isaiah and Daniel, for Job, for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, death was the end. Death was still an enemy yet to be defeated.

The Death of Death
So, when will death be defeated, or has it already been defeated? The verb katargeitai in 1 Corinthians 15:26, translated as “defeated” is a present active indicative verb. As a present tense verb, one thing we can say is that Death’s defeat has not already happened, which is why your modern translations render this verb something like “to be defeated” or “will be defeated.” But, as a present tense verb, it also means it pertains to contemporary time, hence NOT the future, in which case we could translate 1 Corinthians 15:26 as “death is being defeated.” Both translations, though, imply the same thing. Death is not yet defeated at the time of Paul’s letter. Roman 6:9 affirms that Jesus has conquered death: “death no longer has dominion over him.” Throughout the remainder of 1 Corinthians 15, though, Paul seems pretty clear that the dead in Christ have yet to be raised. While Death suffered a crippling blow with the resurrection of Christ, Death remains the last enemy to be defeated.

Paul confirms this a few paragraphs later, as he concludes his excursus on the resurrection.

What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Cor. 15:50–55 NRSV)

While there is much to unpack here, let me just draw your attention to three points. First, Paul clearly thought he was living in the last days and expected the Second Coming of Christ to happen during his lifetime. Second, when the trumpet sounds, Paul’s expectation was not that he would be taken up or raptured away to the heavens, but that his body would be changed from mortal to immortal. Finally, and to the thrust of this blog series, the resurrection of the dead at the Second Coming of Christ will conclusively and completely signal the death of Death.

The Resurrection of the Redeemed is not just a wishful hope to get us through days of uncertainty and insecurity. It is at the very core of the Christian faith. “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” In the Christian world two things said be said for certain: death and the death of Death.

Canaan, Corinth, and the Death of Death - Part III

Resurrection in the Old Testament

The notion of a resurrection is not foreign to the Old Testament, but it is rarely attested, appearing just four times: Isaiah 26, Ezekiel 37, Daniel 12, and Hosea 6. Another passage that is often assumed to contain a reference to the resurrection is Job 19:25–26.The NIV renders these verses as follows:

“I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God”

There is much to investigate here, and it would be worth an entire [blog post] to commit to these verses alone. But, let’s cut to the chase by putting these verses in the context of the book of Job. Throughout the book, Job has had one primary objective: to maintain his innocence before God and his friends. Both he and his friends believed that people got what they deserved. If they sinned against God or humans, they should suffer. If they have been upright (as the narrator tells us Job has been), they should prosper and be healthy. Since Job was suffering, the only conclusion Job’s friends could draw was that Job had sinned. Job declared his innocence before his friends and wanted the opportunity to declare his innocence before God himself. Job’s declaration in Job 19 is not for some future after-life experience, but the recognition that the only one who can vindicate him before his friends is God himself. Nearly every modern translation of these verses misses this point, and too quickly assumes a New Testament perspective to understand them. My own translation of these verses is this:

“As for me, I know that my vindicator is alive. At last, he will rise above the dust. After my skin had been destroyed like this, from my flesh I will see God.”

Job had faith that God had not abandoned him. Job’s flesh was falling off; it was scabbed and peeling, but even in his deteriorated flesh he had hope that he would see his Vindicator.

Ezekiel 37 and Hosea 6:2 both speak of resurrection, but only figuratively, in the sense that the nation would be restored after its figurative death of the exile.

[Ezekiel's Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones, 

Dore's English Bible, (c) WikiCommons]

The only examples of bodily resurrection in the Old Testament, then, are found in Isaiah 26:19 and Daniel 12:2. However, it’s important to recognize that even in these verses resurrection or the after-life is not seen as being imminent, but only will take place “in that day,” a prophetic reference to the Day of the Lord, the day when God finally and ultimately accomplishes his purposes.

On that day, Isaiah says, God will defeat “Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent,” “the dragon that is in the sea” (Isa 27:1). Isaiah employs language that is strikingly similar to the Baal Epic, representing Yahweh’s adversary as the sea serpent who wreaks havoc on Yahweh’s plans. In THAT day, Isaiah says, God “will swallow up death forever” (Isa 25:8). For Isaiah and for the ancient Israelites, death’s defeat was a future hope, not a present reality.

They clung to the hope that the horrors of imperialistic oppression would one day end, but they lived in a world where oppression was part of daily existence. But in THAT day, Leviathan would be struck down by God’s great and strong sword. In THAT day, death would die forever. In THAT day, the dead shall live, corpses shall rise, and those who sleep in the dust will wake up and sing for joy (Isa 26:19).

But that day had not yet come. For Isaiah and Daniel, for Job, for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, death was the end. Death was still an enemy yet to be defeated.

Canaan, Corinth, and the Death of Death - Part II

Death and After-death in the Old Testament

The Old Testament has a great deal to say about life, but little, if anything about the afterlife. It does, however, speak of two important aspects of death: burial practices, and the location of the deceased.

While there is some disagreement regarding the precise nature of burial practices in ancient Israel, the Bible does provide us with enough information to lay out a general outline of the customs and practices. We see this most explicitly in the phrase, “slept with his ancestors,” pointing to the ancient Israelite belief that a proper burial was necessary so the deceased could be reunited with their families in the grave, despite the manner in which they died. Ecclesiastes 6:3 reflects this concern, stating that it is better to be born dead than to not receive a burial. Deuteronomy 21:22–23 commands that even executed criminals deserve a proper burial, so as not to invoke God’s wrath.

The concern for a rightful burial is evident with both Ahab and Jezebel who both died inglorious and dishonorable deaths, yet Ahab “slept with his ancestors,” (1 Kings 22:40) and an attempt was made to provide Jezebel a proper burial even though she was thrown from a wall and trampled by horses (2 Kings 9:34). Even Saul, who died in battle and whose corpse was decapitated and cremated, was given a proper burial beneath the tamarisk tree in Jabesh (1 Sam 31:8–13). A proper burial was essential to the ancient Israelite view that if one did not receive a proper burial their ghosts would haunt their surviving family members.

["Death of Jezebel" by Gustave Dore; (c) Wikicommons]

This is why it was essential for Abraham to buy a plot of land to bury Sarah (Gen 23), and why the bones of Joseph were carried back from Egypt and buried in Shechem, the site of the family grave. It is also why it was such a huge commitment on Ruth’s part to not only leave Moab, but to pledge to be buried where Naomi was buried (Ruth 1:17).

The other area where the Old Testament speaks at length about the dead is the location of the deceased. The destiny of the deceased goes by several names in the Old Testament: Sheol, the Pit, the Grave, Shades, Deep Shadow, Abaddon, earth, and the land of no return.  But they all refer to the same place. When the Bible speaks of Sheol, it speaks of it as the polar opposite of the cosmos’s upper extremity, as in the heights of heaven and the depths of Sheol (Job 11:7–8; Ps 95:3–5). For the biblical authors, Sheol was a land of deep darkness located in the depths of the earth, it was guarded by gates, and those who descended there could not escape.

The nature of Sheol in the Old Testament corresponds quite closely with the Mesopotamian view of the KUR.NU.GI.A, “the land of no return.” The idea that Sheol was the eternal abode of the dead permeates the book of Job, but is most clearly articulated in Job’s first response to Eliphaz.

Remember that my life is a breath;
my eye will never again see good.
The eye that beholds me will see me no more;
while your eyes are upon me, I shall be gone.
As the cloud fades and vanishes,
so those who go down to Sheol do not come up;
they return no more to their houses,
nor do their places know them anymore. (Job 7:7–10) 

For Job, and the rest of ancient Israel, the grave was literally the final resting place for all humanity. There was no anticipation of an afterlife, and there was no expectation of an ascent to heaven. In fact, the only person to have ascended to heaven in the Old Testament was Elijah, and this happened while he was living.

In the next post I'll take a quick look at the notion of the resurrection in the Old Testament.

Canaan, Corinth, and the Death of Death - Part I

In his 1726 classic, The Political History of the Devil, Daniel Defoe observed, “Things as certain as death and taxes, can be more firmly believed.” Ben Franklin, of course, popularized the saying, spinning it into a modern proverb: “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” I am a Bible scholar, not a Political Scientist, so while taxes do affect me (both positively and negatively), my concern here is the certainty of death. [1] 

First Corinthians 15:26 says that “the last enemy to be destroyed is death.” The word used for enemy here is the same word used throughout the New Testament in reference to both human and cosmic adversaries. So, how can death be an enemy? Isn’t death just the absence of life, the natural end to one’s earthly existence? 

Furthermore, katargeitai, the word translated “to be destroyed” is used elsewhere in the New Testament to mean “ineffective, powerless, nullified, abolished, ceasing to exist, passing away.” How can one of life’s certainties no longer exist? How can a non-entity be destroyed?

To answer these questions, let's turn to an unlikely source, the religious writings of ancient Canaan. In 1928 a Syrian farmer accidentally opened a tomb that would later be identified as belonging to the ancient and forgotten city of Ugarit. Since excavations first began in 1929, thousands of texts have been unearthed, chief among them are religious texts with close affinities to the language, culture and religious practices of ancient Israel. The longest and most impressive of these texts is the Baal Epic, whose primary protagonist is one and the same with biblical Baal, the divine antagonist of the prophets of Yahweh in the Old Testament. 

(Baal Epic, Louvre; (c) WikiCommons)

The epic consists of six clay tablets and over 900 lines of Ugaritic text. The Baal Epic tells the tale of how the young storm god Baal overthrew the older god El, the father and creator god, as king of the Ugaritic pantheon by defeating his rival Yamm (deified Sea), sometimes called Judge River and personified by the seven-headed serpent Litan, known in the Bible as Leviathan. As the newly enthroned king, the craftsman god Kothar-wa-Hasis built a palace-temple for Baal and sent messengers to the god called Mot, whose name means “Death,” to brag about his palace and inform Death that Baal was refusing to pay Death his dues. Death responded first with a threat, then with action. Putting one lip to the earth and one lip to the heavens, Death swallowed Baal. Taking revenge on the death of her brother, the goddess Anat brings back Baal from the netherworld, the realm of the dead, and conquered death (in a rather gory fashion). This would appear to be the demise of Death, but seven years later, Death returns, saying

Baal, because of you I experienced shame:

because of you I experienced splitting with a sword;

because of you I experienced burning with fire;

because of you I experienced grinding with millstones;

because of you I experienced winnowing with a sieve;

because of you I experienced scattering in the fields;

because of you I experienced sowing in the sea.

Give me one of your brothers that I may eat, 

and my anger will turn away

If you do not give up one of your brothers…

then I will swallow humans, 

I will swallow the multitudes of the earth.”

In the Baal Epic, Death has an insatiable appetite and a ravenous hunger. Death swallowed Baal and Death seeks to devour all humanity. Death was defeated, but only temporarily. His appetite was too rapacious to control, and too voracious to starve.

Death is an all-too-familiar acquaintance with humanity, which is why Death is not only a villain in the Baal Epic, but also a common character in the biblical drama. In Jeremiah 9:21 Death is depicted as a thief in the night who enters through windows to take life prematurely.

Death has come up into our windows,

he has entered our palaces,

to cut off the children from the streets

and the young men from the squares.

It is no coincidence that in the Baal Epic when the craftsman god laid out the blueprint for Baal’s palace-temple, Baal only allowed windows in the structure after some persuading, not wishing to give Death access to his abode. As it turns out, Baal’s concerns were justified. Death did enter Baal’s house and steal young Baal’s life.

[to be continued...]

[1] This blog series was first delivered as a chapel address at Colorado Christian University, March 3, 2016.

Since the Beginning in Edge of Faith Magazine

A while back, Michael Porter at Edge of Faith magazine interviewed me about Since the Beginning. The interview appeared in the February edition. You can read a portion of the interview here. (Unfortunately, the remainder of the interview is behind a paywall.)

EOF: Let’s just jump straight in. We are going to interview you about your book, Since the Beginning: Interpreting Genesis 1 and 2 through the Ages. You are the editor, but you are also a contributor, and it’s a collection of people’s papers. Those interested in the creation story in Genesis 1 and 2, what can they expect, at least at a high level, from reading your book?

Greenwood: If you don’t mind, I think I’ll just provide a little more background on the book for those who may not be familiar with it. As you said, it is a collection of essays and unlike some collected essay volumes, there is a rhyme and a reason and a method for each of the chapters that are included in the book. Basically, it is a history of the interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2 where each chapter looks at a particular era both from a Christian perspective and from a Jewish perspective. For example, there is an earlier Rabbinic chapter, a Christian medieval chapter, a Jewish medieval chapter — in other words, how have these texts that begin the scriptures, how have they been interpreted by Christian and Jewish interpreters over time? 

What it Means to "Train Up a Child"

Recently, I chaired a panel discussion on the topic of parenting at River Church FMC, where I serve as Family Ministries Director. We called it “Train Up a Child,” the first words of Proverbs 22:6 in the King James Version, which is followed by both ESV and NASB.[1]

The verse reads in full as follows:

Train up a child in the way he should go:

and when he is old, he will not depart from it. (KJV)

But the translations are not real clear on how to understand the Hebrew text behind these words (ḥănōk lanna‘ar).

NAB	NRSV	NIV (2011)
Train the young in the way they should go; even when old, they will not swerve from it	Train children the right way, and when old, they will not stray.	Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.

The verse seems simple enough, right? But, when we start asking questions, it becomes less clear as to exactly what this adage is suggesting.

What does it mean to “train” a child?

An athlete trains by engaging in certain exercises that helps them reach their highest potential in performance. A soldier trains through physical and mental exercises, using their weapons, and mastering their specific skill—whether it’s flying a jet, driving a tank, or programming a computer. A musician trains by repeatedly rehearsing key strokes and finger placement, practicing the most difficult measures until they’re second nature.

But, what does it mean to train a child?

The Hebrew root behind verb “train” is ḥnk (חנךְ). Of the 49 times in which the root appears, 18 refers to the palate (ḥēk; חֵךְ), 15 pertains to the personal name Enoch (ḥănôk; חְַנוֹךְ), and twice with reference to the toponym Enoch (ḥănôk; חְַנוֹךְ). Of the remaining 14 uses, it is used as verb only five times, including Prov 22:6. In each of the other four instances, it clearly refers to a dedication. In fact it is the same word from which we get the word Hanukah, or Feast of Dedication. It is this sense of dedication, whether altars (Num 7:10, 2 Chron 7:9), walls (Neh 12:27), or the temple (Ps 30:1) that accounts for eight of the remaining nine occurrence of the root. The final occurrence is found in Gen 14:14, when Lot was taken captive by a coalition of kings. His uncle Abram led a group of ḥānîk (חָנִיךְ) men. Most translations say these men were “trained,” but since each of these men were born in Abram’s house, perhaps “dedicated” fits better. Moreover, Cain’s son Enoch was named after a city. It seems more likely that the city would be called “dedicated” rather than “trained.”

ḥēk; חֵךְ	ḥănôk; חְַנוֹךְ	ḥănukkâ חְַנֻכָּה	ḥānak חָנַךְ (verb)	ḥănōkî חְַנֹכִי	ḥānîk חָנִיךְ
palate 18x	Enoch (PN) 15x Enoch (TP) 2x	Dedication 8x	dedicate 4x ? 1x	Hanochite 1x	? 1x

In other words, it’s unclear what the training in Prov. 22:6 entails, and whether it’s training at all. Perhaps what the proverb has in mind is not a particular regiment, but a commitment on the part of the parents to present this child before the Lord as a dedication.

In what way should the child go?

There are three basic interpretations of the training of the child.

1. The training should be based on the child’s nature and personality; that is, according to the child’s way.[2]
2. The training should be in a matter appropriate for a child; that is, according to societal norms for child-rearing.^[3]
3. The training should be done the according to a specific method; that is, according to God’s way of doing things.[4]

Of these three options, interpretation #3 seems to fit best with the overall theme of Proverbs. The book opens with an outline for the collection’s purpose:

²For learning about wisdom and instruction,
   for understanding words of insight,³for gaining instruction in wise dealing,
   righteousness, justice, and equity;⁴to teach shrewdness to the simple,
   knowledge and prudence to the young—⁵let the wise also hear and gain in learning,
   and the discerning acquire skill,⁶to understand a proverb and a figure,
   the words of the wise and their riddles.⁷The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;
   fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Moreover, the book is set out as a set of instructions for wise living, passed down from instructor to student, from parent to child.

[source: Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii 

Collection (Library of Congress), WikiCommons]

So, in the scope of the book of Proverbs it seems that the parents are dedicating themselves to the faithful teaching of the fear of the Lord.

What does Prov 22:6 promise?

Too often I have heard various proverbs cited as promised from God. But that’s not how proverbs operate. Proverbs are common expressions used to express a universal truth in broad, but memorable strokes. Proverbs are sometimes contradictory, like Prov. 26:4–5.

⁴Do not answer fools according to their folly,
  or you will be a fool yourself.⁵Answer fools according to their folly,
  or they will be wise in their own eyes.

So, it takes wisdom to know when to apply proverbs to various situation. Proverbs are based on observation and experience. They are not legal guarantees from God. 

If parents dedicate themselves to raising children who fear the Lord, experience shows that these children will likely continue to walk with God throughout life. The book of Proverbs is a guidebook for providing the best opportunities to succeed in doing that, but it doesn’t guarantee it.

---

[1] The similarity between KJV, ESV and NRSV are unsurprising due to their shared pedigree. For a helpful chart of the English Bible family tree, see https://findingrightwords.wordpress.com/2016/05/26/english-bible-chart-2-0/.

[2] This view was promulgated as early as the 9^th century CE by a the Jewish scholar Saadia.

^[3] Duane A. Garrett, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, The New American Commentary 14 (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1993), 187–188. See also Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament. vol 6 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996), 324. “The instruction of youth, the education of youth, ought to be conformed to the nature of youth; the matter of instruction, the manner of instruction, ought to regulate itself according to the stage of life, and its peculiarities; the method ought to be arranged according to the degree of development which the mental and bodily life of the youth has arrived at.”

[4] See, for example, W. McKane, Proverbs: A New Approach, Old Testament Library (London, SCM, 1970), 564. “There is only one right way – the way of life – and the educational discipline which directs young men along this way is uniform.”

Review: Heartbeat of Old Testament Theology by Mark Boda

It is in vogue these days to abandon the notion that the Old Testament has a theology. The evidence is pretty clear on that matter, given the diverse library of books found in the OT canon. Nonetheless, this hasn’t stopped the proliferation of books dedicated to the subject of Old Testament theology.

Mark Boda is aware of the tension and recognizes that another book on the topic requires justification. In The Heartbeat of Old Testament Theology: Three Creedal Expressions (Baker, 2017), Boda asks rhetorically, “Can we speak any longer of a theology that lies at the core of the OT? Are our claims of theology merely perspectival projections, or can we identify something in these ancient texts that witness to some form of unity in the biblical corpus?” (p. 6)

Boda does not argue against the reality that the Old Testament portrays a multifaceted theological framework. Rather, Boda follows the lead of Gerhard von Rad who highlighted three creedal recitations (Deut. 6, 26, and Josh. 24) as Israel’s “underlying theological expression”(p. 11). For Boda, the three creedal recitations are not three biblical passages, but three biblical ideas: the narrative rhythm, the character rhythm, and the relational rhythm. These are detailed in chapters 2–4. 

The narrative rhythm represents God’s activity in history. “In this creedal tradition in ancient Israel, theology is expressed as God’s redemptive story described through finite verbs expressing past action” (p. 15). The basic elements of the narrative creed include the following: ancestors, exodus, wilderness, conquest, land, and exile. Exod. 20:2 exemplifies this creed: “I am Yahweh your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.”

The character rhythm emphasizes God’s being versus God’s acting. Boda defines it this way: “Instead of speaking of God as One who did this or that at a particular time (e.g., in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth; at the Reed Sea God delivered Israel), this tradition speaks of God as One who does this or that (e.g., participles: God is the one who creates, God is the one who delivers; or nonperfective finite verbs: God will deliver) and by extension as One who possesses these characteristics (e.g., nouns: God is the Creator, God is the Deliverer)” (p. 29). Exod. 34:6–7 typifies this creed: 

The Lord, the Lord,a God merciful and gracious,slow to anger,and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation,forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,yet by no means clearing the guilty,but visiting the iniquity of the parentsupon the childrenand the children’s children,to the third and the fourth generation.

The relational rhythm refers to how God interacts with humanity relationally, primarily with covenant or familial language, or “by utilizing copular syntactical constructions (היה as copula, verbless clauses, third-person pronoun copula), usually translated into English as ‘I am/you are,’ ‘I will be/you will be’ or ‘He is/they are,’ ‘He will be/they will be’”(p. 55). Lev. 26:12 is a fair representation of this creedal expression: “And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be my people.”

In chapter 5, Boda looks at Exod. 5:22–6:8 and Neh. 9 as case studies to show how the three rhythms are integrated into the whole of the OT theology. Chapter 6 demonstrates how the three creedal rhythms are expressed in OT creation language. Chapter 7 illustrates how the three rhythms carry over into the NT. In chapter 8, Boda argues why Christians should be concerned with these three rhythms. After a brief postscript, Boda concludes with a thirty-two page appendix, “Biblical Theology and the Old Testament.”

For Christians, especially evangelical Protestants, chapter 8 shines a bright light into some dark corners. I suspect that some will read this chapter with skepticism and some will start to read but be turned off by his sharp criticisms of the church. Hopefully, though, many will read Boda’s commentary on the evangelical church and heed his exhortations.

For example, in response to an individualistic ecclesiology inherent in evangelical Protestant churches, Boda writes:

“The narrative creed in OT theology reminds us that salvation is defined in communal rather than individual terms. God saves and transforms a community in order to bring transformation and salvation to the entire cosmos. This is intimated from the outset in God’s promises to Abraham, promises that spoke of the creation of an entire nation through whom the nations of the earth would be blessed. These same promises are communicated to the church in the NT, and through this new humanity God will transform the cultures of the world” (p. 125).

This is a much different, and more vibrant faith, than one in which salvation is about saving my own hide from the fires of hell. As I understand the gospels, this is what it means to have life and have it abundantly (Jn 10:10).