Keller getting the OT wrong

Tim Keller makes a careful and patient explanation of how we should pick and choose from the OT laws.
The problem is the whole ceremonial/moral law divide is nonsense. The OT laws are not arranged into moral and ceremonial categories, no such division could have existed in the minds of its original audience and no indication is ever given in the text as to such categories. The only way to make such categorisations is to impose totally arbitrary criteria. Admittedly Keller's criteria has the appearance of being less than arbitrary,

One way to respond to the charge of inconsistency may be to ask a counter-question—“Are you asking me to deny the very heart of my Christian beliefs?” If you are asked, “Why do you say that?” you could respond, “If I believe Jesus is the the resurrected Son of God, I can’t follow all the ‘clean laws’ of diet and practice, and I can’t offer animal sacrifices. All that would be to deny the power of Christ’s death on the cross. And so those who really believe in Christ must follow some Old Testament texts and not others.”

Now before I am misunderstood I both advocate Christological readings of the OT and am a conservative on issues of sexual immorality. Keller has ably demonstrated why some OT laws are not followed by Christians. What he has failed to do is show why any OT laws should be followed by Christians. Obviously Keller has in mind Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 which he wants to still carry weight because to him this is not a ceremonial issue but a moral one. But the argument from the other side of the debate is that both these chapters are set firmly in the context of OT worship and avoidance of idolatry, yes the chapters feature incest and bestiality, but they also feature Canaanite idolatry and unclean animals. More to the point, "man lying with man as with a woman" is more likely a description of male temple prostitution than a modern monogamous and loving homosexual relationship. The modern social construct of homosexuality did not exist when Leviticus was written so it can hardly be expected to be addressing our contemporary situation in quite such a direct and convenient manner.

Keller is wrong because Christians do not follow any of the OT laws - we follow Christ. We may extract principles from the OT for our theology and ethics - an example of where this is done constructively is around the year of Jubilee, an example of this being less useful is Leviticus 18 - but this is fraught with danger if not done very carefully. As Christians we only read the OT as Christians, we are God's people not because we follow the law but because of the blood of Jesus (Rev 5). We read the OT to meet Christ, not to find legal precedent for our moral convictions. So where do we get our moral convictions from? Well I'll have to leave that for another post, it is time for breakfast and to wake my kids up for school.

Let me know what you think, :-)

Lev 24:10-23, Blasphemy, the Lex Talionis and the Imago Dei

So there I am, minding my own business, reading through Leviticus with my lady wife one evening, when suddenly I realise, with great anger, that the person responsible for paragraphing my Bible (in this instance an ESV) has started a new paragraph complete with section heading in the middle of a narrative unit.  What a wally.  But then again, you could understand why someone might think v17 starts a new subject on account of the fact it moves from the topic of blasphemy to lex talionis (the law of retaliation).  The section starts in verse 10 with the introduction of a new character:

 pic from here

That is him in the middle, the offspring of a Danite woman and an Egyptian man.  It seems like he was visiting his mum (maybe he had had a row with dad?) and then, perhaps because someone made an unkind remark about his parentage, and then got into a fight and whilst he was fighting blasphemed (v11).  So the Israelites, who until that point had been enjoying watching a good fight, put him in custody until Moses could tell them what God wanted them to do (v12).  So far so good, the Lord then speaks to Moses explaining the method for dealing with blasphemers and also pointing out that the same rule applied to both aliens and citizens, one rule for all (v13-17).  But then God seems to go off on a tangent,

'If anyone takes the life of a human being, he must be put to death. Anyone who takes the life of someone's animal must make restitution—life for life. If anyone injures his neighbour, whatever he has done must be done to him: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. As he has injured the other, so he is to be injured. Whoever kills an animal must make restitution, but whoever kills a man must be put to death. You are to have the same law for the alien and the native-born. I am the LORD your God.'  Lev 24:17-22

Which you might think started a new subject, except for the fact it cannot, because the story that started with the introduction of the half-Israelite half-Eygyptian blasphemer is yet to finish, and does in fact finish in the next verse, where his story ends with his violent death (v23).  So what is the connection between blasphemy and the lex talionis, so that the author would place the two together like that?  (if indeed they needed to "placed" together in the first place)

What occurred to me as I pondered this was whether or not this might relate to Gen 9:6, where we have another lex talionis (kind of), that "whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall that person's blood be shed; for in his own image God made humankind." (NRSV)  Isn't the justification for this lex talionis that murder equates in someway to blasphemy against the image of God in one's fellow human?  In which case the link between blasphemy and murder has already been made.  In Lev 24:10-23, that link is simply made in another direction, possibly predicated on Gen 9:6.  The punishment for blasphemy is death, and murder is itself a form of blasphemy, so it is simple move to go from talking about blasphemy (of the name) to murder (of the image bearer).  However the law is careful to differentiate between the life of an animal and the life of a human, because the animal does not bear the image (v18, 21; animal rights activists take note!).  On the other hand it is equally careful to remove differentiation between citizen and alien in this matter, all human life is equally sacred, it is not dependent on nationality (v16, 22). 


Ok, so here are some questions:
1) How come all the conservative Christians that want the death penalty for murder don't campaign equally vigorously for the death penalty for blasphemy?
2) Those of you who don't support the death penalty for murder, what does that say about your valuing of the human life that was taken?
3) Matt 5:38-42 anyone?

Bart Simpson Swears on the Bible

Conversation in the staff room at lunch today reminded me of a certain Simpsons episode where Bart and Milhouse go through the Bible (KJV) to find swear words that they can use with impunity (because they are in the Bible).  The list they come up with has five words:

• Hell
• Dumb
• Ass
• Whore
• Leviticus

The scene is really funny, especially when Bart and Milhouse argue over the status of Leviticus as a "swear," unfortunately I couldn't find a video of it, only this sound clip.  Does anyone know if there is a clip of this anywhere, or will i have to buy the box set?

So, what do you read the Bible to find?

[By the way, never google "dumb, ass, whore," there are some areas of interent land where only Interpol should go.  Thankfully no pictures were displayed!]

Posts Worthy of Note

After an arid weekend, Monday brings signs of new life in the biblioblogosphere:

• CARNIVAL!!!!! And for the first time, yours truly gets a mention. :-)
• Larry Hurtado on debunking the mysogynist interpretation of Mark 16:8.
• Mike Bird brings a book about Palestinian Christians to our notice.
• Richard Beck gives some thoughts on visting the museum where MLKjr got shot.
• And Douglas Mangum lets his goat go in Leviticus.

Sailhamer: The Adding of Laws in the Pentateuch

Well, Sailhamer may write long introductions, but he sure knows hows to get you hooked.  When considering the composition of the three legal codes of the Pentateuch he argues that the Mosaic law was added to the Sinai covenant as a consequence of Israel's transgressions. (p42)  So the structure of Exodus-Leviticus looks a little like this:

1. Sinai Covenant, Ex 19-31, original covenant >>>
2. Golden calf incident, Ex 32-33, priestly indiscretion >>>
   
3. Priestly Code, Ex 35- Lev16, extra laws >>>
4. Goat idols, Lev 17:1-9, popular indiscretion >>>
5. Holiness code, Lev17-25, extra laws

All of which serves to agree with Gal 3:19, where Paul states:  "What, then, was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions . . ." (NIV)  For Sailhamer the giving of the law is thus an act of God's grace (not a punishment) because it is God's remedy for the Israel's  breaking of the covenant (p48). All of which is really interesting, but it does ignore lots of larger narrative interuptions to the law codes and puts a lot of weight on the goat idols/demons which in Leviticus seem like more of an aside that a central interpretive signpost.  That said, Sailhamer is just sketching his arguments at the moment so he may well address these issues later in the book.

Personally, as a father of young children, I like this scheme because it is true to life.  At home we do not create new rules till the kids' behaviour demands it. In our house, as in Sailhamer's scheme, rules are purely pedagogical. The default setting is freedom and grace. However, the jury is out at this stage over whether or not this really works as an explanation of the laws in Exodus-Leviticus.

Roundup

The soul of a dead human is apparently worth NZ$1,415, unless the buyer got a discount for buying in bulk?

RCAP has a new feature,"Conversations with Matua," this month managing to mix assault, incest and the prophet Amos.  Matua is a rather useful Maori word for parent, not least because it is gender non-specific. 

Barnabas Fund reacts to the change in Western Christian perceptions of Islam.

Christian Kiwis get kicked out of Morocco, but claim not to be missionaries.  Isn't caring for orphans part of Christian mission? I think what they mean was that they weren't actively proselytising.  But shaming Morocco by taking better care of its orphans than its Muslim society does is surely even more provocative.

John Hobbins continues an excellent series on slavery in the OT:

• The abolition of slavery in Leviticus 25: some preliminaries
• The abolition of slavery in Leviticus 25: more preliminaries
• The abolition of slavery in Leviticus 25
• Slavery per se is a cruel practice (Leviticus 25)
• Slavery according to the law collections of the Hebrew Bible

I know it seems like I am stalking Hobbins, but he really does blog a lot of good stuff, and this stuff (above) is really very important.

And perhaps most interestingly, a Zimbabwean tribe, the Lemba, have been genetically proven to share a common ancestor with the priestly Jewish line of Cohen, the ancestor they share dates back to around the time of ... wait for it ... Moses and Aaron!  Assuming of course that they existed at all. [HT Chris]

Sex isn't icky for Paul

One of the fascinating results of my thesis research (IMHO) has been to realise how much we tend to impose modern evangelical conceptions of sexual purity onto the NT texts (even if we don't hold to them ourselves).  In the Torah sex has a defiling potential so, to use Lev 15:16-18 for example, an emmission of semen requires a ritual bath (for the man and for the woman if she is involved) and a wait until evening before they can be cosidered clean again.  Sex is apparently dirty and needs to be dealt with to avoid contaminating other things and rendering them dirty too.

But in NT Christianity purity ceases to revolve around that which is dirty and becomes an issue of the heart's intentions.  The classic text where this revolution takes place is Mark 7:17-23.  In this text Jesus denies the ability of any external physical thing to make someone "unclean."  As witnessed to by Jesus' ministry this included corpses, lepers, and women with bleeding, all of whom should never have been touched under the Torah's purity regulations.  And yet through his miracles Jesus showed that his "pure" compassionate intentions were stronger than the defiling capacity of those external facts, he could touch and remain undefiled.  Instead his "purity" often spread to those he touched, as evidenced by their healing.

Unfortunately readers of Paul often come to the passages where he talks about sexual purity and think that he has reverted back to the Levitical idea of sex being "icky".  That it is something dirty which will stick to you and make you dirty too.  But although Paul uses purity language in regard to his exhortations regarding proper sexual conduct, careful reading reveals that the purity Paul is concerned with stems not from a revulsion towards icky sex but from other considerations.  In both 1 Cor 6:12-7:40 and 1 Thes 4:3-8, which are the two key Pauline passages on sex, the driving concerns are not the potential for contamination but,

1. the respect of people's sexual property "rights" (1 Thess 4:6; 1 Cor 6:20; 7:4)
2. the demonstration of the self-control that comes from a Spirit filled life, i.e. not being dominated by the gratification of one's urges (1 Cor 6:13, 19; 7:9; 1 Thess 4:4, 7)
3. the maintenance of the believer's right relationship with members of the community and with God/Christ (1 Cor 6:15, 1 Thess 4:1, 6, 8)

Within those concerns Paul's purity language is consistently used regarding the interior, spiritual, and social effects of sexual immorality, the consequences of the sexually immoral acts not the external fact of the act at all.  To my mind this means that contemporary Christian sexual ethical reasoning must move away from purity language because we are unable to get out of our heads that certain external actions are just plain "icky" in and of themselves.  Instead, if we are going to critique promiscuity, homosexuality, or pre-marital sex, we need to do so from a point of view of how these acts actually effect those who particpate in them and the society in which they live and what motivates those actions. 

Apart from being "Biblical," the other real advatnage to this approach is that it both allows us to argue in terms that a non-believer can meaningfully engage with (i.e. personal and social consequences), but also forces us to respect the fact that a key reason for our own sexual restraint is maintenance of a relationship with God, an aim many non-believers don't share (funnily enough).  This alone should cause us to slow down if we are under the impression we need continually agitate to legislate Christian sexual morality in our secular nations.

let me know what you think :-)