Category Archives: Biblical Studies

As my reading of Anders Gerdmar’s excellent Roots of Theological Anti-Semitism progresses, I’ll occasionally be posting some little excerpts with my thoughts. Here is the first of such, discussing some of the ideas of Johann Salomo Semler (1725-1791):

Semler dichotomises universalism and particularism, where the negative, particularism, is characteristic of the Jews. Overall, Semler takes a negative view on historical religions with their specific forms and expressions—they are particularist, provincial, local and preliminary, whereas his religious ideal is the abstract, the general and universal. Christianity, to him, is a universal religion. Judaism had an outward worship and outward promises, waiting for a national deliverer. Even the religion of Jesus was clothed in Jewish garb, and the New Testament represented an ‘incomplete’ form of Christian religion. Fortunately the Christian can separate the content from the Oriental-Jewish language and world-view. This is important to Semler, since he believes that ‘thinking people’ consider the ‘revelation’ of the Jews and Christians to be irritating (ärgerlich). Although he sees some Old Testament scriptures as having moral value, he believes that much of the Bible of the Jews contains ‘idiotism’ (Idiotismus), clothing the message in circumstances that pertain only to one people in one land at certain times. He rejects its mixing of civil society and religion, and holds that the moral benefit of the text would be much greater without the tabernacle, the feasts, the sacrifices and the laws of Moses. This outward religion is Jewish, local and pertains only to its own Jewish society, which opposes all that Semler values: the ambition of becoming “an inwardly perfected person, like God and rich in virtue.” The problem is particularism, which hampers a proper understanding:

All such individual and merely particular concepts, descriptions and stories must and may by a thoughtful reader of the books be singled out as passing and temporal clothes or vehicles, sa he seeks to apply the general concepts and truths to himself and then to assess himself morally, but he should not be and become such a Jew.

Well. So, it sounds as though Semler would fit right in at the local Unitarian brie-bake! It hardly needs mentioning that orthodox Jews and Christians find such an approach as Semler’s offensive.

Semler deals with the Old Testament in the most superficial manner. Of course, in his day, the great wealth of ancient Near Eastern documentation from the world in which the Hebrew Bible took shape was as yet unknown, the languages unreadable, most of the texts still lying buried. So, he could not recognize the very clear moral superiority demonstrated in the laws of Moses for their time. He should, however, have been able to discern at least some of that morality, from his vaunted position as a kind of one man moral arbiter. That he didn’t shows a singular lack of qualification as a moral arbiter. But he was reading too superficially, a characteristic method of reading these texts that is common to all Enlightenment-dependent scholars. They are incapable of recognizing, in a further matter, the paradigms lying within the Scriptures which were systematized, collected, and applied to further expand upon Scripture in the Rabbinic documents. It is in such paradigm-extension that the New Testament itself takes shape, not due to a childlike (mis)reading of Messianic prophecies. To focus on the most superficial aspect of a text betrays no fault in the text, but in the reader.

It is not surprising that with foundations like these laid in the German academy by Semler that we eventually come to see Marcionism alive and well again: the elimination of the Old Testament and the editing out of Jewish elements from the New Testament (which I will describe in a later post). A de-judaisation of the New Testament will result only in heresy, as has occurred previously in Christian history, and which actually did occur in Germany, as well. Severing the New Testament from its historical moorings will lead to an unhistorical view of Christian origins, of course. Severing Christ from his historical moorings, however, leads to quite a bit more: anathematized heresy. It is orthodox Christology that Christ is both fully human and fully divine, and that fully human part is Jewish, not Aryan, not German, not American, but Jewish. A removal of the Jewishness of Christ becomes a removal of the entirety of his human nature. He is not a “universal” person, a creature of every race, as though such a thing were possible. As a human, he is Jesus of Nazareth, a distant son of David, a Jew. And it is within that real, historical context that God chose to work, according to orthodox theology, with Israel, and with Christ. To strip away the actual setting of these things as “irritating” in their particularity, because they don’t jibe with what “thinking people” consider important brings to mind one thing: “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, ‘He catches the wise in their craftiness'” (1Cor 3.19).

There is nothing more contemptible than the arrogance of the ignorant, and that is precisely what is in play here with Semler. He might be forgiven for not being familiar with the writings from the ancient world yet to be discovered and interpreted, which would put the Hebrew Bible in a better light, and the Jews in a better light amongst their contemporaries as well. However, in his pontificating, he leaves no room for such discoveries, again preferring the superficial apparency of what is solely visible contemporarily to be the totality of evidence (a fault of much of the thinking of the “Enlightenment,” of course). His own preferred universalism, a creation of the desires of “thinking people” rather than any objectively existent entity, quite guided his entire program. And so he could leave no room for the result of the overturned stone. For his precious universalism to be and remain acceptable as an intellectual option, all stones must remain unturned. I ask you, how enlightened is that?

Excellent news for students of the Septuagint!

Takamitsu Muraoka has completed and published his A Greek-English Lexicon to the Septuagint. This edition covers the entire Septuagint, thus superseding the previous two partial editions. It utilizes the text of the Göttingen Septuaginta where present, and the Rahlfs text otherwise. Reading the information on that page, it appears to be an extremely thorough and educational work in itself, another exemplar of the high standard of quality that Muraoka strives for and achieves in all his works that I have had the pleasure to be familiar with.

Unlike the Lust, Eynikel, Hauspie A Greek-English Lexicon to the Septuagint, Muraoka’s is a full lexicon, providing definitions, antonyms, synonyms, and so on. The LEH included simply glosses.

Muraoka’s Lexicon is certainly going to be the lexicon for the Septuagint for some time to come.

Now if we could just get the Göttingen Septuaginta finished, we’d all be happy, and not require such excellent works as Muraoka’s to be based upon a hybrid text of “Göttingen where available, otherwise Rahlfs” or “Göttingen or Cambridge or Rahlfs” as the case may be. One text for our tools and reading is really not asking too much.

My copy of Anders Gerdmar’s Roots of Theological Anti-Semitism: German Biblical Interpretation and the Jews, from Herder and Semler to Kittel and Bultmann (Brill, 2009) has arrived. This is going to be a really good read.

Here is a listing of the volume’s parts and chapters:
Part I: Enlightenment Exegesis and the Jews
      The Jews in Enlightenment Exegesis from Deism to de Wette
      Johann Salomo Semler: Dejudaising Christianity
      Johann Gottfried Herder: The Volk Concept and the Jews
      F. D. E. Schleiermacher: Enlightenment Religion and Judaism
      W. M. L. de Wette: Judaism as Degenerated Hebraism
      Ferdinand Christian Baur: Judaism as an Historical Antipode of Christianity
      David Friedrich Strauss: Judaism in Continuity and Discontinuity with Christianity
      Albrecht Ritschl: Kulturprotestantismus and the Jews
      The History of Religions School and the Jews—An Historical Turn?

Part II: Salvation-Historical Exegesis and the Jews: From Tholuck to Schlatter
      Friedrich August Tholuck: “Salvation Comes from the Jews”
      Johann Tobias Beck: Organic Continuity Between Judaism and Christianity
      Franz Delitzsch: Pioneering Scholarship in Judaism
      Hermann Leberecht Strack: Missions to and Defence of Jews
      Adolf Schlatter and Judaism: Great Erudition and Fierce Opposition

Part III: The Form Critics and the Jews
      Karl Ludwig Schmidt: A Chosen People and a ‘Jewish Problem’
      Martin Dibelius: Ambivalence to Jews and Judaism
      Rudolf Bultmann: Liberal and Anti-Jewish

Part IV: Nazi Exegesis and the Jews
      Gerhard Kittel: Jewish Unheil Theologically Founded
      Walter Grundmann: Towards a Non-Jewish Jesus

Why is such a book important? It is only a scratching of the surface after all, and a painful kind of scratching at that. People of good will would certainly prefer to leave such distasteful matters to lie undisturbed, yes? No. The best will is the will toward openly facing the truth of a matter, and realistically dealing with the consequences. The antisemitic attitudes of several of the above-mentioned German critics and various other scholars who were working on Old and New Testament subjects need to be understood to have really and truly affected their work. We might, as an erudite friend suggested to me last night at dinner, rather ignore these antisemitic ideas of theirs as not having any direct effect upon their work, as is generally done in the case of Ezra Pound. But Ezra Pound was a poet, not working on Jewish subjects. If all his poems were on Jewish subjects, there would be parity. However, whilst these men were establishing a foundational approach to ancient Jewish literature, their opinions of the civilization that produced them were absolutely apalling; therefore, it must be admitted that their explanations of how this literature was produced reflect directly their low opinion of the abilities of the ancient Jews. It is an uncomfortable and ugly subject, but one that has been swept under the carpet for too long.

This will be a very interesting read.

Over at Nick Norelli’s Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth, in the post Just Ordered…, he was describing how he’d purchased a copy of One Gospel From Two: Mark’s Use of Matthew and Luke, which I’d recommended here a few days ago. In the comments, I responded to some of the objections to Matthean Priority, which is a component of the Two Gospel Hypothesis presented in the above-mentioned book. One of the commenters to the post, John Poirier, brought up an interesting objection to Matthean Priority that I’d never heard before:

One problem with Matthean priority has to do with the patterns of agreement between Matthew’s quotations of the Old Testament, and Mark’s quotations. When Matthew quotes the OT in a Markan context, he quotes according to the LXX (as does Mark), but when he quotes the OT in a non-Markan context, he quotes according a non-aligned text (viz. proto-Aquila, kaige, whatever you want to call it). Supposing that he could know which contexts would be Markan when there as yet is no Mark simply defies the odds.

One may read my more superficial responses there, or continue reading here for the detailed examination of this idea.

Frankly, this conception is completely wrong. There is no correlation between Matthew and Mark and the LXX. Below I list all the instances in which a Markan quotation of the Old Testament is paralleled in Matthew, which also occasionally entails a parallel in Luke. I have not included Johannine parallels, as they are irrelevant to the Synoptic Problem and the specific “problem” in view. I used the (partly incorrect) list of quotations at the back of the UBS GNT4, along with the Septuagint Editio Altera (Rahlfs and Hanhart) and the Kurt Aland Synopsis of the Four Gospels, in order to get this done quickly. The passages are ordered according to their appearance in Mark. My notes are cursory. To understand what they mean, you’ll really have to be reading the texts involved. Here are the results:

1.) Malachi 3.1 in Matthew 11.10, Mark 1.2, Luke 7.27: None are LXX. In Mt, the first phrase matches LXX: “Ιδου εγω αποστελλω τον αγγελον μου.” Both Lk and Mk omit the εγω. The continuation of this allusion is as follows: Mt and Lk: προ προσωπον σου ος κατασκευασει την οδον σου εμπροσθεν σου. Mk: προ προσωπον σου ος κατασκευασει την οδον σου. Between LXX and these allusions lie a difference in pronoun in this second phrase, with LXX having μου, not σου.

2.) Isaiah 40.3 in Matthew 3.3, Mark 1.3, Luke 3.4: Almost LXX. In all three, the LXX τας τριβους του θεου ημων becomes τας τριβους αυτου. Mt and Mk end the allusion there. Luke continues through Isaiah 40.4 and into verse 5, with an almost identical text to the LXX, altering παντα τα σχολια to τα σχολια, and omitting the first phrase of verse 5, και οφθησεται η δοξα κυριου.

3.) Isaiah 6.9-10 in Matthew 13.13, Mark 4.12, Luke 8.10: Not LXX. The tripartite allusion in Mt (βλεποντες…ακουοντες…ουδε συνιουσιν) is shortened in Lk, with tenses adjusted, to a bipartite, balanced gnomic phrase through conflation of Mt’s 2nd and 3rd phrases. Mk follows Lk’s conflation of the 2nd and 3rd elements, and includes further allusions to the verse, but jumbled.

4.) Isaiah 29.13 in Matthew 15.8-9, Mark 7.6-7. Almost LXX. Mt’s ο λαος ουτος is LXX, not Mk’s ουτος ο λαος. LXX has τιμωσιν με, while Mt/Mk has με τιμα. LXX has διδασκοντες ενταλματα ανθρωπων και διδασκαλιας. Mt/Mk has διδασκοντες διδασκαλιας ενταλματα ανθρωπων.

5.) Exodus 20.12 in Matthew 15.4, Mark 7.10. Almost LXX. LXX has τιμα τον πατερα σου και την μητερα. Mt omits σου, while Mk inserts one after μητερα. (See #6 below for the importance of this.)

6.) Exodus 21.16 in Matthew 7.10 and Mark 7.10. Almost LXX. LXX has ο κακολογων πατερα αυτου η μητερα αυτου τελευτησει θανατω. Mt has ο κακολογων πατερα η μητερα θανατω τελευτατω. Mk is identical. Which is original? As Mt, in the Ex 20.12 quotation above, also displays the stripping of personal pronouns, while Mk inserts one, so Mt may be reckoned the source of this rendering of Ex 21.16 which is likewise stripped of its personal pronouns. Mk follows Mt in this, here.

7.) Genesis 1.27 (or 5.2) in Matthew 19.4, Mark 10.6. LXX. All read αρσεν και θηλυ εποιησεν αυτους.

8.) Genesis 2.24 in Matthew 19.5, Mark 10.7-8. Mk follows LXX, Mt is independent. Mt is not dependent upon Mk or LXX.

9.) Exodus 20.12-16 in Matthew 19.18-19, Mark 10.19, Luke 18.20. First part: Mt has LXX. Mk follows Lk’s forms in Mt’s order, with addition of μη αποστερησης. In Mt 19.19, τιμα…, again Mt lacks the personal pronoun, showing this lack as a characteristic of Mt. Lk supplies it and Mk follows Lk, both showing the LXX text. In Mt 19.19 is added και αγαπησεις τον πλησιον σου ως σεαυτον. Throughout, Mt follows LXX, Lk has an alteration thereof including the omission of και αγαπησεις…, which Mk follows, adding the anomalous (and non-Biblical) μη αποστερησης.

10.) Psalm 118.25-26 (LXX 117.25-26) in Matthew 21.9, Mark 11.9-10, Luke 19.38. Only ωσαννα comes from Ps 117.25, but this is not LXX. Both Mt and Mk follow LXX of 117.26. Lk has ερχομενος ο βασιλευς.

11.) Isaiah 56.7 in Matthew 21.13, Mark 11.17, Luke 19.46. All reflect LXX. Mt stops at κληθησεται, while Lk stops at the preceding προσευχης. Mk includes κληθησεται and continues the quotation from Isaiah: πασιν τοις εθνεσιν, a phrase of obvious interest to his Gentile audience. Lk is odd for omitting a verb here.

12.) Psalm 118.22-23 (LXX 117.22-23) in Matthew 21.42, Mark 12.10-11, Luke 20.17. LXX in all. Lk omits 117.23 though Mk includes it. (Note especially the conflation of Mt 21.46 and Lk 20.19 in Mk 12.12.)

13.) Deuteronomy 25.5 in Matthew 22.24, Mark 12.19, Luke 20.28. Not an LXX quotation at all, but a paraphrase. Again, however, Mk shows itself as dependent primarily on Lk, but adjusting to Mt. Note the expansion of Mt’s terse protaxis, which assumes the dead man to have had a brother, yet which for Gentile readers needs to be expanded to make that explicit.

14.) Exodus 3.6 (or 3.15) in Matthew 22.32, Mark 12.26, Luke 20.37. Almost LXX. Lk is a paraphrase. LXX lacks the definite article in all three positions before each θεος. Perhaps Mk does too, though this is textually questionable; in the UBS4 text, the article stands before the first, and is bracketed in the second and third position. Mt has definite article for each: ο θεος.

15.) Deuteronomy 6.4-5 in Matthew 22.37, Mark 12.29-30. Not LXX throughout, though Mk has that text for the first two items (καρδιας and ψυχης), and is consistent in using εξ, as does LXX. Mt uses εν throughout, and Lk uses εξ first, then switches to εν. Mt ends with διανοια rather than the expected LXX δυναμεως. Lk inserts a representation of the latter in the proper position as ισχυι, before Mt’s διανοια. Mk then switches the order of Lk’s last two items, as διανοια is better paired with ψυχης.

16.) Leviticus 19.18 in Matthew 22.39, Mark 12.31, Luke 10.27. Mt and Mk follow LXX. Lk removes the counting of first and second greatest commandments, and so elides the verb for this phrase, linking it to the former αγαπησεις with a simple και. Mk’s extended and repetitive agreement/reply is necessary to bring the dispute material to a close, which he does with the phrase about no one able to question Jesus anymore, wanting to get on with the story. Mt, however, has extended and important discourses following which Mk passes over, as these dealt primarily with halakhic matters, which are not of interest at all in Mk.

17.) Psalm 110.1 (LXX 109.1) in Matthew 22.44, Mark 12.36, Luke 20.43. Almost LXX. Lk has LXX υποποδιον, while Mt and Mk have υποκατω. All lack in this text the initial ο in the ειπεν ο κυριος of LXX.

18.) Daniel 7.13 in Matthew 24.30, Mark 13.26, Luke 21.27. This is only a paraphrase. However, the LXX (OG) phrase επι των νεφελων του ουρανου is in Mt. Lk has εν νεφελη, while Mk has εν νεφελαις. None is fully LXX, though Mt has a partial quotation.

19.) Zechariah 13.7 in Matthew 26.31, Mark 14.27. Not LXX. This is more of an allusion, with the imperative altered to a first person future indicative.

In the above, there are only three cases in which both Matthew and Mark and LXX reflect an identical text. The idea that Mk always follows LXX is simply wrong, as seen from the above. That Mt always follows LXX in a hypothetical use of Marcan quotations is therefore absurd. The patterns of utilization of these OT quotations may, however, demonstrate Mk’s use of Mt and Lk, as I touch on in the above notes in places. This investigation of quotations is something to look into further.

I’m very excited by this book by Anders Gerdmar: Roots of Theological Anti-Semitism: German Biblical Interpretation and the Jews, from Herder and Semler to Kittel and Bultmann (Brill, 2009). As Brill books are so expensive, I’d recommend searching through various booksellers by ISBN (hardcover 9789004168510, paperback 9789004186217) to find discounted copies.

Here’s the blurb:

As Adolf Hitler strategised his way to power, he knew that it was necessary to gain the support of theology and the Church. This study begins two hundred years earlier, however, looking at roots of theological anti-Semitism and how Jews and Judaism were constructed, positively and negatively, in the biblical interpretation of German Protestant theology. Following the two main streams of German theology, the salvation-historical and the Enlightenment-oriented traditions, it examines leading exegetes from the 1750s to the 1950s and explores how theology legitimises or delegitimises oppression of Jews, in part through still-prevailing paradigms. This is the first comprehensive analysis of its kind, and the result of the analysis of the interplay between biblical exegesis and attitudes to Jews and Judaism is a fascinating and often frightening portrait of theology as a servant of power.

Not just “theology as a servant of power” but as a servant of insanity and inhumanity. I’ve been waiting for a book like this to come along for a number of years now (mostly so I wouldn’t have to write it myself!). There is a persistent antisemitism present throughout the authors and works lying at the foundations of modern critical Biblical Studies. Even when an author is known to have been a rabid antisemite, this is typically shrugged off as of little account, as though such a mentality let loose at Jewish materials (that is, the Old and New Testaments) could be trusted to maintain an academic, critical objectivity. Such objectivity is, of course, a myth, and such a downplaying one might call poppycock, except poppycock is too charming a word. Rather, something like “filthy, evil, collaborationism” comes to mind as a better alternative. Just about ten years ago, the problem was brought into the spotlight by Maurice Casey, “Some Anti-Semitic Assumptions in the ‘Theological Dictionary of the New Testament” (Novum Testamentum 41.3 [Jul 1999], 280-291). Casey describes the full-blown antisemitism, and Nazi and even SS support of editor Gerhard Kittel and various authors of articles in the Theologische Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament, in English translation, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. This work is still considered “[o]ne of the most widely-used and well-respected theological dictionaries ever created” and “one of the few agreed upon standard reference works in the area of New Testament studies” (see here, in the blurb for an electronic version). Though various articles about Kittel and his ilk had appeared on the subject elsewhere, they were hard to track down, generally in festschrift editions and more obscure journals. The appearance of Casey’s article in such an accessible and well-respected journal as Novum Testamentum brought the problem to light for many who otherwise would not have known of it. The Gerdmar volume mentioned above looks like it will be following in detail the trend of antisemitism throughout the work of two centuries which established what are now considered the unquestionable foundations of Biblical Studies. I suspect, and indeed hope, that readers of Gerdmar’s book will start questioning those foundations, for the motivations that lie behind them.

Here is your chance to pick up, at a substantial savings, two books that lay out the Two Gospel Hypothesis, formerly known as the Griesbach Hypothesis. This is the solution to the Synoptic Problem that posits Matthew as the first gospel, which Luke then uses, and Mark as a later conflation/epitome of those two. Dove Booksellers is offering these books at a 63% discount each!

The first is Beyond the Q Impasse: Luke’s Use of Matthew, edited by Allan J. McNicol, with David L. Dungan and David B. Peabody. The price is only 12.99.

The second book is One Gospel from Two: Mark’s Use of Matthew and Luke, edited by David B. Peabody, with Lamar Cope and Allan J. McNicol. The price is only 18.50.

There are only a limited number of copies available. So, if you’re interested in a solution to the Synoptic Problem that is both a.) logical, and b.) traditional, and the Two Source Hypothesis (with Q and all the other imaginary documents involved) isn’t cutting it for you, then you should have these books. Buying both volumes at these prices means you can get both of them for less than the regular price of either volume. Nice!

Happy shopping!

These are some more expanded reading notes of mine on John P. Meier’s A Marginal Jew: Law and Love, his fourth volume in the historical Jesus mode.

Meier misunderstands the import of Matthew 12.11, because he viess the healing narratives from the Markan perspective of emphasis upon the healing as merely an example of wonderworking. Rather, in Matthew 12.11 lies the key, and an understandably historical and accurately halakhic concern missed by Gentile interest in Jesus as thaumaturge. This is the simple matter of not impinging upon a man’s livelihood due to keeping the Sabbath. Note the translation used by Meier for Matthew 12.11: “Which man among you, if he has a sheep that falls into a pit on the sabbath, will not take hold of him and draw him up?” The NRSV renders this much better (my emphasis): “Suppose one of you has only one sheep and it falls into a pit on the sabbath; will you not lay hold of it and lift it out?” The important and key element of the question is obscured in this translation. It should not be “a sheep”, but “one sheep.” Does the importance register better with this change, a reading that is explicit in the Greek, as it is not anarthrous here, but numbered (ἕξει προόβατον ἕν)? The question therefore relates to the loss of the man’s livelihood, his one and only sheep. This is the precise exepmption made by the Sages—no such rescue was permissible on merely compassionate or economic reasons, but such action on the Sabbath was permissible when life was endangered, for the man with only one sheep, the wool and the milk from which clothed and sustained him, would certainly die without it. See b Yoma 85 a-b, the discussion on saving a life on the Sabbath. In this case, in Matthew 12.11, a similar practice is presumed of the Pharisees of Jesus’ day. In the case of Matthew 12, the extension is subtle but clear: just as the ordinary action of a man to preserve his livelihood was permitted, so the extraordinary healing of a man so that he could earn his livelihood was permitted. Meier misses this entirely, by focusing on the red herring of an animal fallen into a pit, which is only incidental here, and unlike the situation described in b Shabbat 117b, which is predicated on Leviticus 22.28, in which both a mother animal and its offspring are fallen into a pit, discussed within the context of slaughtering only one of those rescued. Meier does mention the strict ruling of the Damascus Document (CD-A XI 13-14: “And if [an animal] falls into a well or into a pit, he must not raise it on the Sabbath.”), which in its exclusivity is striking. This ruling being found in a short list of rulings regarding Sabbath restrictions may actually indicate differences with other contemporary pre-70 AD restrictions.

Despite these drawbacks, Meier shows good intentions:

In reality, the historical Jesus is the halakic Jesus, an important bulwark against those who would make him either the embodiment of the Epistle to the Galatians or a cipher for whatever program they are pushing at the moment” (p. 262).

So, A for intention, D for reliance on Marcan priority, which is completely throwing his conclusions out of whack, and away from a correct understanding of Matthew and its obvious priority. Matthew reflects precisely the halakhically sophisticated discourses that Meier wants to find, ones that are contextually and historically likely and illuminate the pre-70 situation in Judea and its environs, and the beginnings of the Church as a part of Israel, not as a Gentile religious philosophical confraternity. Meier at least is taking steps in the right direction, but he is hobbled by reliance on Marcan Priority, the Two Source Theory, and late-dating of the Gospels, as well as by other hobgoblins of New Testament Studies. Matthean Priority, the Two Gospel Theory, and a dating of the Synoptic Gospels prior to 70 AD lead to historically more accurate, understandable, and recognizably contextual conclusions. An author utilizing such an approach will discover or invent a much different historical Jesus than the one under construction by Meier in A Marginal Jew. We must be clear, however, that in Meier we see not a discovery of the historical Jesus, but the invention of one that is entirely a child of its time and place: the late twentieth century context of consensus Biblical Studies.

Over the course of the last several years, since the appearance of the first volume of John P. Meier’s A Marginal Jew in 1991 (yikes! that long ago!), I’ve gone in a particular direction in study that has led to a peculiar mix of both greater appreciation and greater disappointment with the volumes as they’ve appeared.

Firstly, however, I will say that I have nothing but admiration for Meier’s obviously deep and broad erudition. His documentation and discussion in the notes is particularly thorough, and probably as close to exhaustive as anyone can these days approach, with the field so vastly overburdened with secondary (and tertiary, and quaternary, etc) literature.

So, now to my broader thoughts on the strengths and weaknesses of the A Marginal Jew project.

On the one hand, Meier’s handling of the Rabbinic Canon (Mishnah, Tosefta, Midrash, Talmuds) is exemplary. He avoids the credulous approach to these sources that would find historical reminiscences recorded in even the latest sources simply based upon attribution. We know from Neusner’s work that such is decidedly not the case, that attribution is by no means consistent, that the various stories told about the sages’ interactions are consistently based in other than historical concerns, and that the most that one might be able to determine (with a host of provisos) is the approximate generation in which a saying or argument or decision first appeared. This is reflected in Neusner’s blurb on the dust jacket to the fourth volume, A Marginal Jew: Law and Love:

This definitive work on Jesus and the law displays mastery of the legal heritage of Judaism in clarifying critical issues. Meier’s monumental research illuminates long-debated issues and resolves a century of debate.

I heartily agree. Meier’s overarching presentation of Jesus’ approach to the Law is exemplary, and should turn a page on the debate toward a more reasonable approach to the Rabbinic documents in Christian hermeneutics and historiography. One would at least hope so.

On the other hand, I find that Meier’s treatment of several issues and approaches more “internal” to New Testament studies is not as commendable, regrettably. This will take some explaining, and I hope to make a case that there are some serious issues that need to be revisited here.

I’ve mentioned before that I am an advocate of the Two Gospel Hypothesis (also/formerly known as the Griesbach Hypothesis), which has fine advocates in the International Institute for Gospel Studies, and is represented in the work of two compelling publications: Beyond the Q Impasse: Luke’s Use of Matthew, edited by Allan McNichol, David Peabody, David Dungan, and William Farmer; and One Gospel from Two: Mark’s Use of Matthew and Luke, edited by David Peabody, Lamar Cope, and Allan McNichol. The solution to the Synoptic Problem as presented in these works furthers that of Griesbach, while overturning some of his ancillary opinions, thus “Two Gospel Hypothesis” is the preferred terminology. A website for the Two Gospel Hypothesis presents several articles. The Two Gospel Hypothesis posits Matthew as the first Gospel, followed by Luke (which used Matthew), followed by Mark (which used both Matthew and Luke).

Meier, on the other hand, is a believer in the Two Source Hypothesis, which is the majority opinion in Gospel Studies these days. This posits the Gospel according to Mark (or some precursor thereof) to be the first Gospel, followed by Matthew and Luke, entirely independently of one another using Mark, a common and supposedly written source labelled Q, and their own independent and supposedly unwritten sources. Various complications and inadequacies of this core hypothesis are dealt with by an ever increasing number of sources or versions of the various documents involved, so that this majority opinion is no longer so simply described as it once was. It is likewise arguably the case that the increasing complexity renders the Two Source Hypothesis increasingly unlikely.

Tied to Meier’s preference for the Two Source Hypothesis are his criteria for determining the historicity of a particular datum within the documents in question. These are as follows, described in Meier’s own words from the Introduction to A Marginal Jew: Law and Love (pp 13-115):
1.) «The criterion of embarrassment pinpoints Gospel material that would hardly ahve been invented by the early Church, since such material created embarrassment or theological difficulties for the church even during the NT period—a prime example being the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist at the beginning of the public ministry» (p. 13).
2.) «The criterion of discontinuity focuses on words or deeds of Jesus that cannot be derived either from the Judaism(s) of Jesus’ time or from the early church (e.g., Jesus’ rejection of voluntary fasting)» (p. 15).
3.) «The criterion of multiple attestation focuses on sayings or deeds of Jesus witnessed (i) in more than one independent literary source (e.g., Mark, Q, Paul, or John) and/or (ii) in more than one literary form or genre (e.g., sayings of Jesus about the cost of discipleship plus narratives about his peremptory call of various disciples)» (p.15).
4.) «The criterion of coherence is brought into play only after a certain amount of historical material has been isolated by other criteria. The criterion of coherence holds that sayings and deeds of Jesus that fit well with the preliminary “database” established by the other criteria have a good chance of being historical» (p. 15).

Aside from the above criteria though, there are various other sub-criteria, which Meier has culled from the forests’ worth of books which he’s read and internalized. One is a preference noted for short, pithy, gnomic sayings of Jesus to more likely be historical. This, however, can also be viewed legitimately as a later development, one more amenable to Gentile sensibilities used to the pithy aphorisms of Menander, or the Delphic Oracle, or any of the great number of producers of Gentile philosophic-religious sound bites. This preference for a sound bite Jesus, a gnomic Jesus, is part and parcel of a preference for Mark as the original Gospel. Mark is shorter, quippier, and yet is blatantly directed at a Gentile audience. Matthew, on the other hand, is lengthier, Jesus’ sayings exhibit characteristics of argumentation that are likewise found in later Rabbinic sources, and is blatantly directed toward a Jewish audience. Matthew, outside of the preference for the Two Source Hypothesis and its requisite Marcan priority, presents precisely the Gospel that we would have expected to be first: presenting a very Jewish Jesus, with a focus on Old Testament prophecy and its fulfillment in Jesus, and exhibiting very little interaction with Gentiles. Meier posits at a few points in the early chapters of Law and Love that Matthew represents a later “re-Judaization” of the Gospel materials, which I would find laughable, were it not so pitiable.

In addition, Meier’s various criteria are also rendered less than objective yet again by the reliance on the Two Source Hypothesis. This is only to be expected, when one posits Mark as, rather than an almost entirely dependent epitome based upon Matthew and Luke, the übersource for all the Gospels. This is not something to be blamed upon Meier, but upon Synoptic scholarship over the last century and more. It has come to equate Marcan terseness with historicity. This “shorter is older” axiom is thus the rule not only Gospel origins, but in the preference for gnomic sayings of Jesus as mentioned above, and even in the textual criticism of the New Testament text itself. This is despite the well-known preference for ancient authors to do two related things when quoting another author: 1.) to quote a block of material verbatim, with or without attribution, and 2.) to epitomize the rest. A classic Biblical example is the case of II Maccabees, which slimmish single volume is an epitome of the four volume original by Jason of Cyrene. A classic extra-Biblical example is found in Jpsephus’ Against Apion, in numerous excerpts but especially in his use of an already epitomized Babyloniaca of Berossus and Egyptiaca of Manetho, which epitomes he further epitomized.

What I have been noticing, therefore, in working through Law and Love is a consistent feedback loop of circular logic: criteria are utilized to support the Two Source Hypothesis, and the Two Source Hypothesis is used to support the criteria. This appears to be altogether unconscious on the part of Meier. He is not an advocate per se of the Two Source Hypothesis, just one of its believers, as it is the majority opinion in Biblical Studies these days, just as is Wellhausen’s Documentary Hypothesis (of the well-known J, E, D, and P). Majority opinion doesn’t, however, necessarily reflect reality. In this particular case, I find that Meier’s reliance on the Two Source Hypothesis with its concomitant Marcan Priority leads the project further and further astray from its intended goals. To describe the historical Jesus, models of composition that are in themselves historically accurate and contextual should be utilized, despite what may be the preferred hypothesis du jour in the academy. Matthean Priority coupled with the Two Gospel Hypothesis inserted into Meier’s framework would yield a vastly different Jesus from the one that is appearing in the pages of A Marginal Jew, which is one that would (as so many other “historical” Jesuses) be much more familiar to nineteenth century German Protestants than to first century Judeans.

More on this subject later.

From the Introduction to Volume Four (pp 708):

Here the peril of Christianizing the historical Jesus mutates into the peril of being relevant to Christians, with no hermeneutical reflection required. Many modern Christians eagerly desire either a Thomas Jefferson/Enlightenment Jesus inculcating eternal truths or a psychobabble-counselor Jesus suggesting warm, fuzzy maybes. Still others seek moral direction from Jesus the social critic, the political activist, or the academic iconoclast. Such Jesuses are perennial crowd-pleasers. In contrast, as I can well attest from lectures I have given, Christian eyes glaze over as soon as a scholar insists on envisioning Jesus as a Jew immersed in the halakhic debates of his fellow 1st-century Jews. In my opinion, the best way to treat this glazed-eye syndrome and to block any Christianizing of the historical Jesus in matters moral is not to sugarcoat the message. Rather, giving no quarter, one must insist on understanding this 1st-century Jew as addressing his fellow Palestinian Jews strictly within the confines of Jewish legal debates, without the slightest concern about whether any of these legal topics is of interest to Christians. In other words, to comprehend the historical Jesus precisely as a historical figure, we must place him firmly within the context of the Jewish Law as discussed and practiced in 1st-century Palestine. As the reader of this volume will notice, a basic insight will slowly but insistently emerge from this critical sifting of the legal material contained in the Gospels: the historical Jesus is the halakic Jesus, that is, the Jesus concerned with and arguing about the Mosaic Law and the questions of practice arising from it.

My copy of this book arrived only an hour and a half ago, and already I’m thoroughly enrapt. In the above paragraph, Meier describes two things: first, the construction of some historical Jesus which validates our preconceptions, resulting in a “Comfort Jesus”, if you will. Secondly, he particularly states (in this and in a previous paragraph) the need to separate the ethical and moral concerns of the historical Jesus from the reflection upon and expression of those moral and ethical concerns in Christian Tradition. Lest one find that this is offensive, one needs to notice the sly proviso given above: “with no hermeneutical reflection required.” That is, Meier’s historical Jesus is likewise amenable to hermeneutical reflection. And in this case, it is deep reflection that is required. I am not too surprised to read in Meier’s Introduction that he is following precisely the same trajectory that I found in my own investigation of the Gospels on the Pharisees (parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) under the influence of the excellent volume edited by Jacob Neusner and Bruce Chilton, In Quest of the Historical Pharisees (Baylor University Press, 2007). It is, I think, the only trajectory that the evidence honestly allows. And though I’m only beginning the volume, it’s already clear that the adheres to the standard Two Source Theory on the composition of the Synoptic Gospels, rather than the Griesbach Theory, which places Matthew first. As I discussed in my series linked to above, Matthean priority is made clear through the ways that the form of halakhic argumentation is preserved intact only in Matthew, while Luke and Mark diverge, clearly altering the text in various ways for later non-Jewish audiences. It will be interesting to see how he deals with that.

I want also to make special note of Meier’s comments upon the title of Volume Four, Law and Love:

As an aside, I should offer a clarification here: what I have just said about my approach to the love commands of Jesus should obviate a possible misconception—namely, that Volume Four’s title, Law and Love, presupposes some sort of opposition or antithesis between the Mosaic Torah and the command to love. Rather, the title of Volume Four simply employs a venerable rhetorical device known as merismus (or, in English, merism). Using merismus, a writer designates the totality of some reality or experience by naming two of its complementary parts, for example, its beginning and its end. A prime example is offered by Ps 121:8: “[The Lord] will protect your going out and your coming in both now and forever.” One’s “going out” and “coming in” symbolize and encompass one’s entire life and activity, summed up in these two actions functioning as bookends. So it is with Law and Love. The title is simply a convenient way of designating the whole of Volume Four by naming the first and last chapters, the alpha and omega of our investigation. As Chapter 36 will show, far from being opposed to the Law, love is for Jesus the Law’s supreme value and command” [pp 9-10].

Striking, no? “[L]ove is for Jesus the Law’s supreme value and command.” So it was and is. And such should be the beginning of Christian hermeneutical reflection, firstly to understand the Law as an expression of God’s love for his creatures, and secondly to understand further developments with that original basis in mind.

This will be some good reading, well worth the wait.

Heads up! The fourth volume of John Meier’s magisterial investigation of Jesus in history is about to be released: A Marginal Jew—Rethinking the Historical Jesus: Law and Love.

Professor Jacob Neusner gives it two thumbs up (so to speak), having contributed a very positive blurb. So keep an eye out. It’s assured to be excellent. The release date on the Yale University Press site is 4 May 2009.