Gegraptai

East Carolina University’s Religious Studies Department will be hosting a lecture by William Dever on Monday, March 31 entitled “Did God Have a Wife? Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel.” It is based on his recent book of the same name. You may read about it here.

This is during our Reading Week at Asbury, and I’ll be in North Carolina that weekend anyway, so I’ll be there.

Anyone care to join me?

Ask a typical evangelical Christian what will happen to his soul when he dies, and he will likely respond, “Well, it will go straight to heaven, of course.” Having been surrounded by evangelical Protestantism my whole life (I grew up in evangelical churches, attended preschool and elementary school at an evangelical Christian academy, graduated from an evangelical Christian university, and am now studying at an evangelical theological institution) this is what I grew up hearing and believing. As such, the Roman Catholic notion of purgatory, the Eastern Orthodox idea that the soul awaits final judgment in the ‘abode of the dead,’ and suchlike, were off-limits because they were too “Catholic”—and, quite candidly, they seemed rather fantastical to me anyway.

Now, however, try as I might, I simply cannot reconcile the traditional evangelical Protestant understanding of the course of the afterlife with both Scripture and reason. As a result, I’ve found the notion of purgatory—or perhaps the Eastern Orthodox and similar Calvinist conceptions of the soul consciously awaiting final judgment, or perhaps better yet some blend of the two—to better suit both my own reasoning (inasmuch as I have reasoned it out) and what little can be gleaned from Scripture about the matter. My rationale follows in list form.

1. Scripture has precious little to say about the matter, at least in explicit terms. What can be gleaned comes only through implicit references, many of which, at times, seem inconsistent. Evangelicals sometimes argue that in fact there are explicit passages supporting the oft-quoted mantra “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” Indeed, there are at most a handful of passages that, at first glance, may seem to support the traditional Protestant view in a fairly straightforward way (cf. e.g. Deut 18:10-12; 2 Cor 5:8; Phil 1:21-23; 1 Pet 3:18). When read carefully and honestly, however, it is quite obvious that these passages no more explicitly support the notion of immediate entrance into heaven at death than the notion of something like purgatory. Some of them, in fact, are about something else altogether.

To be fair, the passages cited by Roman Catholics in support of purgatory are foggy as well (cf. e.g. Matt 18:23-25; 1 Cor 3:11-15; 1 Pet 3:19; 2 Tim 1:16-18; Rev 21:27), though it hardly needs mention.

It seems clear to me, then, that the precise course of the afterlife cannot be definitively determined sola scriptura. But Scripture does not rule out either of these views—no, not even something like purgatory!

2. God cannot tolerate the presence of sin. This is a rudimentary theme that dominates Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation. If God cannot tolerate the presence of sin, then one cannot enter God’s full presence if one is not entirely pure in heart, that is to say in Wesleyan terms, entirely sanctified (cf. Rev 21:27).

So, what of those who aren’t yet entirely sanctified when they die? Their debt has been paid and they will surely enter heaven, but they cannot enter still marred to any degree by sin. The encounter with God requires holiness. Protestant theology, insofar as I perceive it, has failed to satisfactorily answer the question it was left with when it rejected the doctrine of purgatory five hundred years ago.

3. The final judgment has not yet occurred. Obviously. In general, Christians agree that when one dies, one experiences particular judgment, that is, the immediate judgment of one’s eternal destiny. And then what until the final judgment? Here is where the road splits in many directions. Without taking the time to expound all of the nuances and distinctions of Christian theology on this matter, all of which I am not familiar with anyway, I will simply say that the Eastern Orthodox explication of the state of the soul between particular judgment and final judgment is the most satisfactory to my own reasoning.

The Eastern Orthodox understanding is that after death, the soul awaits the final judgment in the ‘abode of the dead.’ Depending on whether one is judged righteous or unrighteous at particular judgment, one’s experience while awaiting final judgment will be that of paradise or suffering—a foretaste of one’s ultimate destiny after the final judgment, but not yet the full experience of heaven or hell. Calvin held a very similar understanding. Insofar as I perceive it, this explanation deals most directly and logically with the position of the soul between the particular and final judgments and the bodily resurrection, though it is not without difficulties, of course.

4. It’s tradition. Like it or not, Protestants, tradition is highly important to Christian theology—and I’m not talking about red carpet and hymn books. When Scripture is vague on certain questions of theology, we must look to the next most authoritative thing, which is Christian tradition. Much of what Christians understand about God, salvation, etc. that cannot be found explicitly within the pages of Scripture has been handed down to us from the very earliest Christians, who were instructed by the apostles, who were students of Jesus. Although in many cases it took several hundred years before certain doctrines became fully developed, most can ultimately be traced back to, or at least very near to, apostolic teaching. Christian tradition, then, must be authoritative (though, of course, it isn’t infallible).

Though the dogmatic definition of purgatory and the name “purgatory” were not developed until the thirteenth century, the notion was dominant from Christianity’s inception. The notion of purgatory may be found in rather precise terms in the writings of many of the Church Fathers, such as Irenaeus (c. 130-202), Clement (c. 150-215), Origen (c. 185-254), Chrysostom (c. 347-407), and Augustine (354-430). Even Paul offered a prayer for his departed friend Onesiphorus (2 Tim 1:16-18), from which we may infer that Paul must have understood the soul of Onesiphorus to be in something like purgatory.

My hunch is that, when the reformer Martin Luther rejected the doctrine of purgatory in the sixteenth century, his contention was primarily with the practice of indulgences, and that contention resulted ultimately in his rejection of purgatory. I could be wrong, of course. But it is certain that, when Luther rejected the notion of purgatory, he discounted and discarded 1500 years of Christian tradition. Perhaps he was right—but 1500 years of Christian tradition handed down from the earliest Church Fathers, and perhaps even the apostles and Jesus, is a thing to be carefully and prayerfully reckoned with.

Conclusion

Plenty more could be said, naturally. After thinking on this for several months, however, I am inclined to believe that purgatory, or something like it, indeed does exist, and necessarily must. Perhaps it is the case that at death, souls experience particular judgment and then await the final judgment and the bodily resurrection in the abode of the dead, either in paradise or anguish, at which time those souls who are not yet entirely sanctified may become prepared to enjoy God’s full presence in heaven. Perhaps I’m wrong.

What do you think?

After translating Matt 1:22-23 this morning for my daily Greek reading, I thought it might be good to post a blurb about the concept of the virginal conception (mainly for my own benefit), particularly the First Evangelist’s interpretation and (mis?)use of Is 7:14 here.

The apparent problem with the evangelist’s quotation of Is 7:14 is at least twofold: (1) he draws his quotation from the LXX, a Greek translation of the original Hebrew text which renders the Hebrew word ‘almah (”young woman of marriable age”) into Greek as parthenos (”virgin”); and (2) Isaiah’s prophecy takes place in a historically specific context, that is, Isaiah is talking about an event in his own time.

With all of the interest in the historical Jesus and early Christianity as of late brought on by books like The DaVinci Code, the Discovery Channel documentary on the so-called “Jesus Tomb,” and the release of the Gospel of Judas, it has become well-known that the Greek word Matthew uses in 1:22, which we usually translate “virgin,” does not agree with the original Hebrew text of the Isaiah prophecy from which Matthew is drawing. Matthew, in fact, is quoting the LXX, in which the Greek word parthenos was chosen by translators for the Hebrew word ‘almah used in Is 7:14. The problem is, these words don’t seem to have the same meaning. Parthenos usually means “virgin.” This is whence we get our common English translation of Matt 1:22, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive.” ‘Almah, however, does not necessarily imply virginity at all; rather, it means “a young woman of marriable age.”

Moreover, this prophecy which Matthew appears to be using to support the idea of virginal conception is historically specific. In Is 7:1, we find the historical context of this prophecy:

When Ahaz son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, was king of Judah, King Rezin of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel marched up to fight against Jerusalem, but they could not overpower it.

In 7:2-9, it is predicted that their threat to Jerusalem will fail. Isaiah then challenges Ahaz, “Ask the LORD your God for a sign…” (v. 11), to which Ahaz responds, “I will not ask; I will not put the LORD to the test” (v. 12). Isaiah then rebukes Ahaz, “Will you try the patience of my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign” (vv. 13b-14a). Immediately following is the prediction that “a virgin shall conceive and bear a son” called Emmanuel (v. 14). Isaiah firmly ties Emmanuel’s birth to the threatened invasion in the verses which follow:

“… for before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste. The LORD will bring on you and on your people and on the house of your father a time unlike any since Ephraim broke away from Judah—he will bring the king of Assyria.” (vv. 16-17)

The point here is that, if Matthew interprets Is 7:14 as a text prophesying the virginal conception of Jesus, he may be grossly misinterpreting it—not forgetting, of course, that the word Isaiah originally wrote doesn’t mean “virgin” anyway. If indeed this is Matthew’s intention here, we who believe in the virginal conception have a rather serious problem.

But what if Matthew isn’t using this quotation from Is 7:14 in that way at all? That is to say, what if Matthew is quoting this text, not as a citation of an OT prophecy about a first-century A.D. virgin birth, but rather because he wants to portray the birth of Jesus, like that of Emmanuel, as a divine saving presence in the world? If this is the case, Matthew’s emphasis here is not on the word parthenos (”virgin”)—which relieves us of the translation issue—but on the the word Emmanuel, which means “God with us.”

In an article from BAR entitled “Does the Gospel of Matthew Proclaim Mary’s Virginity?”, Charles Isbell argues very compellingly for this interpretation. First, he establishes that neither ‘almah nor parthenos has the inherent meaning of “virgin.” He cites texts from both the Old and the New Testaments where both words are used of virgins and non-virgins. Since neither word alone is sufficient to express the idea of virginity, Isbell argues and provides examples that, both in Hebrew and Greek, biblical writers used standard, very specific phrases to describe a woman whose virginal status they want to leave without doubt. For example,

the narrator in Genesis 24 wished to describe Rebeccah as a virgin. And so he clearly stated the fact that “no man had known her” (Genesis 24:16). He could refer to Rebeccah as a bethulah [which normally means "virgin" in Hebrew] (Genesis 24:16), as an ’almah (Genesis 24:43), or as a na’arah (Genesis 24:14, Genesis 24:28 etc.). But her virginity could not be certified by any one of these terms; that is why he pointedly declared that “no man had known her.” Such a phrase, unlike bethulah or any other vocabulary word in Hebrew, was totally unambiguous. A similar phrase is consistently used throughout Biblical literature whenever the author wished to stipulate clearly that a certain woman was a “virgin,” and the use of such phrases can be traced back at least as early as the Code of Hammurapi. (Isabell)

In light of Isbell’s observation, we see now that if one wants to know whether or not the evangelists thought Mary to be a virgin when she conceived, one must look not to particular words, but to the phrases which they chose to describe her sexual status. Indeed, Matthew does use such phrases. For example, in 1:18, he uses specific language to make clear that Joseph did not father Jesus before his marriage to Mary (”before they came together”). Furthermore, 1:25 clearly states that Joseph abstained from having sexual intercourse with Mary until after Jesus was born.

What does all this mean? First, it means that the text of Is 7:14 has nothing to do with the idea of a virginal conception, neither in the MT nor in the LXX nor in Matthew. Second, it means that Matthew did not misinterpret Is 7:14; indeed, he is recalling the same historical event Isaiah speaks of. Rather, it is Christians who have commonly misinterpreted Matthew’s purpose for the citation of Is 7:14, which was to recall God’s hand at work bringing hope to his people who were in desperate need of salvation, and to say, especially to his Jewish readers, “Hey! Remember when this happened? God has done it again—only this time it’s through Jesus, and he has brought hope and salvation to the entire world!” Finally, it means that even though Matthew nor Isaiah did not intend for Is 7:14 to speak of a virginal conception, we still have plenty of very specific scriptural statements regarding Mary’s virginity. Thus, we can still say with confidence, “I believe in Jesus Christ … who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary…”.

For more, see Charles D. Isbell, “Does the Gospel of Matthew Proclaim Mary’s Virginity?” Biblical Archeology Review 3/2 (June 1977), 18-19.

A voice of one calling, ‘In the wilderness prepare the way for the LORD; make straight a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places plain. And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.’ (Is 40:3-5)

This is a fairly well-known Christmas-related text from the OT, perhaps partly because of its use in a popular chorus from Handel’s Messiah. This passage from Isaiah is quoted by Luke, who is quoting John the Baptist, at Lk 3:4-6. Luke, however, is evidently drawing from the LXX in his quotation rather than the MT, since at Lk 3:6 we have “and all people will see God’s salvation,” which matches the LXX rendering, not the MT (cf. “all people will see it together” in Is 40:5).

What difference does it make? Evidently, the translator(s) of the LXX believed that “the glory of the LORD” equals salvation here. It seems that Luke did, too, since he chooses the rendering of the LXX rather than the MT. Dr. Witherington, in his post ‘The Glory=The Salvation of God’—’All Flesh Will See it Together’, offers some implications. Here’s a teaser:

The term salvation of course makes clear the end or aim of the revelation, and also the glory. The aim is the rescuing, saving, redemption of both Gentiles and Jews.

Here I think, in our wonderful Christmas story is as clear a revelation of the other-directed character of God, which involves God revealing, saving, and bringing glory to his people.

… And here is the punch line. The glory of God is most revealed when God indiscriminantly saves people, whether they are part of his chosen people or not. The salvation ‘which all flesh will see’ reveals the real heart and character of God– which is other directed, and self-sacrificial, even to the point of giving up his only Begotten Son. In other words, God doesn’t just exhibit a covenant love to those whom he has always and already promised redemption, help healing– his Jewish people. God comes and saves those he has made no promises to, and has had no covenant relationship with at all!

Alright, now go read the rest!