Jesus, the misunderstood son

I’ve just noticed something interesting about the synoptics’ report of the transfiguration, in which God declares, “This is my son… listen to him”.  In all three synoptic Gospels (Matthew 17, Mark 9, Luke 9), this scene is immediately followed by a scene in which a man brings attention to “my son” – or as Luke specifies, “my only child”: The son is suffering terribly, and the disciples have completely misunderstood the situation and been unable to do anything about it.  Jesus is anguished at having to put up with a faithless generation, and, according to Matthew, berates the disciples for their lack of faith.

I wonder if the Gospel writers are attempting to do something with this juxtaposition of “son” stories: In the first (the transfigured son), the disciples foolishly get over-excited, thinking they can bring this glorious vision into fixed present habitation; in the second (the seized son), the disciples are unable to deal with the son who suffers (to the point of apparent death, according to Mark).

The disciples, to the despair of Jesus, still fail to recognise what his royal Sonship entails.

How should we interpret verbs of transference… and why does it matter?

Who gave Jesus into the hands of ’sinners’ to be sacrificed and then raised up?  Did God do it?  Did Jesus do it?  Obviously this is a theological question – but there are some interesting questions of interpretation when it comes to New Testament passages that speak about these things – such as Mark 14:41 (“the Son of Man is handed/comes over/hands himself over into the hands of sinners”), Heb 9:28 (“So also the Christ being offered/coming/offering himself once to bring up the sins of many”) and Acts 1:11 (This Jesus being brought up/ascending/bringing himself up from you thus into heaven”).  And these questions have to do with verbs of transference.

One paper at Rome SBL dealt with this very issue, suggesting that too often (since Jerome), we have overlooked the various possibilities in interpreting verbs of transference in these settings.  The paper was by Paul Danove from Villanova University.  It’s worth doing some terminology first:

Conceptualization of Transference: An AGENT transfers a THEME from a SOURCE to a GOAL

Conceptualization of Motion: A THEME moves from a SOURCE to a GOAL

But all of these entities are not necessarily explicitly mentioned whenever verbs of transference or motion are used.  Danove’s argument was that when the AGENT is not explicitly mentioned, and cannot be clearly retrieved by context, there are three possible interpretations (using Acts 27:14 as an example):

1. Transference-Active: Thus it happened that all were brought safely onto the land [passivized active transference]
2. Motion-Passive: Thus it happened that all came safely onto the land
3. Transference-Passive: Thus it happened that all brought themselves safely onto the land [reflexive]

Danove points out: “Although Greek grammar accommodates the three-fold interpretation of specific passive occurrences of verbs of transference, all three grammatically possible interpretations need not be logical or viable within their local context.”

So let’s apply this to one of the passages mentioned above: Hebrews 9:28.  The usual translation is “So also the Christ being offered once to bring up the sins of many” – which is the first option above.  But – Danove points out – there is no contextual support for this reading: in the context, it is Christ who offered himself.  Thus, it may be that the third option above is preferable: “So also the Christ offering himself once to bring up the sins of many…”  Danove’s point was simply that we need to be aware that there are three options for understanding the verb here, and we shouldn’t simply assume that the absence of an obvious agent should always be interpreted as a “divine passive”.

How should we understand the Greek perfect?

Anyone who has studied NT Greek will have been taught English “glosses” to help them understand the different forms:

• Present: I am loosing/I loose
• Future: I will loose
• Aorist: I loosed
• Imperfect: I was loosing
• Perfect: I have loosed
• Pluperfect: I had loosed

The standard gloss for the perfect, “I have loosed” arises from the common understanding of the perfect as “past action with continuing consequences in the present”.  But how accurate is that understanding of the perfect?  What (if anything) is actually essential to the perfect form in every usage?

While I was in Rome for the recent SBL conference, I met Con Campbell, and attended his paper, “Breaking Perfect Rules: The Traditional Understanding of the Greek Perfect”.  Con has argued in his books for a renewed understanding of the perfect, and this paper continued the theme, but came from a more illustrative perspective: He took the English Standard Version and examined how this English translation dealt with the perfect.  He found that of 835 perfect indicatives in the Greek New Testament, 58% are NOT translated according to the traditional “rule” (that the perfect expresses a past action with present consequences).  That’s a heck of a lot of exceptions!

So how does the ESV translate perfect indicatives?  Of the 835, it translates 404 (i.e. 48%) as straight present, and 80 (almost 10%) as simple past, without any hint of ongoing consequences.

Of course, one of the most important developments in the study of New Testament Greek in the last few decades has been the recognition of the importance of verbal aspect.  To simplify, this development involves the insight that the forms of the Greek verb mentioned above (present, aorist, imperfect, perfect, pluperfect) do not all ‘encode’ time.  For example, the idea of ‘present time’ is not essential to the present form.  The present form may be used in context to speak of present time or to speak of past time.  But what is (arguably) essential to the verbal forms is the concept of aspect.  Aspect may be of (at least) two types: Perfective aspect (which is like the bird’s eye view in Googlemaps – showing the big picture), or imperfective aspect (which is like the streetview in Googlemaps – moving along a street and seeing the details).  The present form does not encode time, but it does (at least) encode imperfective aspect – the streetview, in which action is seen as it happens (whether in present or past time).

So back to the perfect form: How can we best understand it?  Is there an ’aspect’ that is essential to the perfect form in every usage?  In Con Campbell’s paper, he outlined three proposals: Perfective aspect, Stative aspect, and Imperfective aspect.  He suggested that the latter two are worthy of consideration:

Porter has argued that ’stative aspect’ best describes what the perfect form expresses – we might gloss “I stand loosed” or “I am in the state of loosedness”.  This does actually make good sense of the 48% of occurrences in which the ESV went for a straight present translation – “It is written” (“it stands written”/”it is in a state of writtenness”); “the door is shut” (“the door stands shut”/”the door is in a state of shutness”); “I am sure that neither death nor life…” (“I stand certain that neither death nor life…”/”I am in a state of certainty that neither death nor life…).  But what of the perfect indicatives that the ESV translates as a simple past?  “You sent to John” (John 5:33) is hard to imagine as a stative: “You are in a state of sent-to-John-ness”.

Campbell’s own view, as he has outlined elsewhere, is that ‘imperfective aspect’ best describes what the perfect form expresses.  He notes that when the perfect form indicates past time, it is usually in the same situations that the present form is used for past time – in verbs of transference and in introducing discourse.  Thus we might think of the perfect form as in some sense parallel to the present form – used to give a “streetview” perspective, often in present time, and sometimes in past time.  So what is the difference between the present form and the perfect form?  The perfect form is like a “heightened” present – thus perhaps we might gloss “I DO loose”.

I need to do more thinking about this, but I think it’s clear, as Campbell illustrated, that the “traditional view” of the perfect can no longer be thought of as the “rule”.

Buy Viagra Online

Just an experiment: I’m wondering if a post like this might attract spam that’s about theology, that’s all…

Wayne Grudem and the Perspicuity of Scripture

Last week I went to a public lecture in Cambridge, where Wayne Grudem spoke about “the perspicuity [clarity] of scripture”.  I entered it with openness, but in the end found myself unpersuaded by his overall point: His main point was that Scripture has an inherent quality of clarity on all the issues about which it speaks – such that when it is studied in a spirit of prayerful dependence and with appropriate tools, its (one) meaning can be accessed.

Now, Grudem is a smart guy – he has a PhD in New Testament (1 Corinthians, no less!) from Cambridge.  But to be honest, he came across more as a concerned pastor wanting to assure the flock than as a rigorous scholar.  Perhaps he would even agree with that.  I found his tone warm and humble – but I worried that he was so oversimplifying the issues that in fact it would eventually prove counter-productive for those he wanted to assure.

I decided to interact with him about it in question time (although I very rarely ask questions in question time!!).  I’ll give the gist of it here – not in order to ridicule – but in order to continue to think about the things we discussed:

MM: When I read in the prophets, “Out of Egypt I called my son”, I don’t get the “one clear meaning” that Matthew the Gospel-writer gets.

WG: Yes – there’s a way in which it’s about Israel, and then about Jesus

MM: So when I read it in the Old Testament, should I take the “one” meaning to be about Israel or about Jesus?

WG: Well there is a sense in which it’s about both…

MM: So could we conclude that there might be multiple meanings to validly draw from a text?

WG: [pause]… There is a richness to the meaning…

I just wasn’t comfortable with him writing off “postmodern hermeneutics” in a few sentences, and assuring the audience that, even without knowledge of extrabiblical materials, it is possible to arrive at the single, clear intended meaning of every part of scripture.  I don’t think that this is the historic doctrine of the perspicuity of scripture, and I worry that it’s setting people up for disillusionment.

Hermeneutical observations at SBL

The introductory session at the Rome SBL was designed to celebrate the centenary of the Pontifical Biblical Institute, where the conference took place.  The four invited speakers reiterated a common theme: Although the PBI was set up by Pius X as a stronghold against the perils of the historical critical method of biblical study, the PBI has managed to throw off those shackles and become a stronghold of the historical critical method.

To be honest, I felt a bit uncomfortable about this, thinking to myself: “Have there been no developments in biblical hermeneutics in the last fifty years that are worth mentioning???”  Finally, the last speaker echoed my concern in his final point.  He urged the PBI (and SBL) not to be too derogatory about “pre-critical” hermeneutical methods.  After all, he pointed out, the earliest biblical interpreters (Jewish and Christian) did not go about their business by pulling texts apart, but by piling them on top of one another – and indeed this midrashic style of hermeneutics is included in the canon itself, as works were edited together and brought into discussion with one another.  For an example of this, consider the interpretive joining together of Psalm 8 (humans have dominion) and Psalm 110 (the Lord has dominion) in 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, and Hebrews.

Indeed, this is surely where biblical hermeneutics has moved: the recognition of the validity (and necessity) of a variety of hermeneutical approaches, as we seek to enter into the world of the Bible and hear it attentively.

Our god the free market

Alex Andrews has an article in the Guardian arguing that neo-liberal economics is basically an idolatrous religion demanding faith in the benevolence of unrestricted free markets…  Check it out here.

Running out of burial space in Cambridge

Here is a tomb inscription at a church (“Michaelhouse”) in historic Cambridge, UK:

And where, you ask, is this to be found in this central Cambridge church?

• In the cemetary?
• On the floor of the church?
• Embedded in the wall, underneath a solemn stained-glass window?

No, dear reader.  Here is the view that this tombstone has:

…back to more theological posts soon!

Overheard in Rome

Today I got back from Rome, and early tomorrow morning I head off to Cambridge for the week.  When I get back I plan to do a few posts arising from papers given at SBL, but in the meantime, here is a conversation overheard outside the Pantheon in Rome, involving the young woman in the picture…  I don’t know her name, so refer to her as Athena, the Greek goddess of intelligence:

Companion: [Such and such] occurred in 120BC

Athena: BC????!!!!  [pause]… So how long did BC go for?

Companion: Err… well, you know – forever – up until Jesus was born.

Athena: Oh.   When was Jesus born?

Companion: Well 2009 years ago, because it’s now the year 2009.

Athena [incredulous]: Oh come on!  That’s AD!!

sigh…

Update from Rome SBL

Well I’m currently in Rome for the International SBL meeting.  I’m in an internet cafe so no time for a proper post… But here are some things that have happened during my time in Rome (I have been here since Sunday):

• I have been impressed with Italian coffee
• I have presented a paper on 1 Corinthians
• I have heard some very interesting papers on the Greek language
• I have been unwillingly groped by a sleazy Italian man who said I had a cute butt
• I have toured the Vatican
• I have eaten raw meat
• I have met some great people
• I have taken lots of photos of the Roman Forum – the large ancient site

As soon as I get back from Rome I’ll be off to Cambridge for the Tyndale conference, but after that I’ll aim to post a few highlights, complete with photos…