BIBLICAL Horizons, No. 55
November, 1993
Copyright 1993, Biblical Horizons
Mr. John Robbins and his associates of The Trinity Review have frequently attacked my work and the work of other Vantillian theologians. Mr. Robbins, a wannabe theologian, is not a member of any church, and thus is disobedient to the clear commands of scripture to submit to elders. One friend of mine who has been attacked by Robbins has said that he is not in the habit of replying to theological criticisms from those outside the church, and thus he has no interest in replying to Mr. Robbins. That is, roughly, my feeling as well. Moreover, I have never been impressed that Gordon Clark, whose philosophy these men follow, was a very profound or Biblical thinker, and some of what he wrote was definitely quackodox.
Since, however, several readers of Biblical Horizons have written to ask about The Trinity Review, let me say the following. First, the Clarkians say that both God and man know the same thing: for instance, that David was king of Israel. Vantillians agree, contrary to the silly assertions of Robbins and his associates. The objects of God’s knowledge and our knowledge are the same, though God knows such things exhaustively and we do not. But Clarkians also say that God and man both know things in the same manner, by the same kinds of mental processes ("logic"), and this assertion is fundamentally heretical, for it makes the human mind divine. Vantillians say that God’s knowledge is direct, and ours is analogical: we think God’s thoughts after Him. God knows things as God, and we know things as creatures.
Second, implicitly the Clarkians believe that human reason is divine, participating in the Divine Logic of God. I don’t see how this squares with the Creator/creature distinction, and it seems to me it is implicitly monophysite (i.e., a variant of monotheletism, perhaps "mononoeticism"). To form it into a question: Do these men believe Jesus the God-man has two minds?
Third, these men routinely misread and put the most amazing interpretations on those they disagree with. Robbins’s review of my Sociology of the Church was simply idiotic. I hardly recognized any of my actual views anywhere in his review. He is evidently incapable of reading. W. Gary Crampton completely misunderstands my comment on p. 2 of Biblical Horizons 46, where I wrote that God is, in His essence, three and one. Crampton thinks I am saying that God is one essence and also three essences (Trinity Review, September 1993).
I cannot take this kind of nonsense seriously, and the reason virtually no Vantillian ever answers the silliness of these men is that virtually nobody takes them seriously.
BIBLICAL Horizons, No. 55
November, 1993
Copyright 1993, Biblical Horizons
Nicodemus’s conversation with Jesus in John 3:1-15 is often regarded as an illustration of the tremendous stupidity of the Jews of our Lord’s day. Those who take the passage this way fail to recognize the profound nature of Nicodemus’s questions and of Jesus’ answers.
In verse 3, Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be born "from above." The reference is to heaven, to what is on the other side of the firmament set up in Genesis 1:6-8. What is on the other side of the firmament is the heavenly ocean.
Nicodemus asks, in verse 4, "How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?" This is often taken to be an almost mocking question, but it is not. Nicodemus knows that Jesus does not mean for us to reenter our mother’s wombs and be reborn in that sense. He is using a figure of speech to ask this question: Can history be reversed? Can there be a new creation? History has moved along since the creation, since the sin of Adam. How can that history be undone?
Jesus replies by saying that history is not reversed or undone. Rather, the new birth from above is "of water and the Spirit" (v. 5). If we look back at Genesis 2:6-7, we find that Adam was created without water. He was made of dust breathed upon by the Spirit of God. The water from the ground watered the soil and gave life to plants, but man was made not from ground water but from the Spirit and dry earth. Thus, being born of water is an eschatological idea. The implication is that man would have a new birth when the waters from heaven are sprinkled upon him by the Spirit.
The firmament is the boundary between heaven and earth. The New Testament makes it clear that Jesus is the Firmament, the Mediator between heaven and earth. Thus, it is He who sprinkles us with water from above. It is He who gives the new birth of water and the Spirit. The first creation is by the Spirit; the new creation is by water and the Spirit. The first creation is of the earth, earthy; the new creation is of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 15:45-49).
Waters from heaven cleanse the old earth and bring a new world. At the Flood, waters came down from heaven. The various sprinklings of the Old Covenant made the same point. Water baptism today (which of course is by sprinkling or pouring) makes the same point.
Nicodemus asks in verse 9, "How can these things be?" He is asking the legal ground for what Jesus has said. What makes it possible for God to bring about a new creation in the midst of the history of the old creation?
Jesus gets to the answer in verses 13-15: His atoning death will make Him the new Firmament, the Mediator between heaven and earth. His death will grant men access to the baptismal heavenly waters, and provide birth from above, by water and the Spirit.
BIBLICAL Horizons, No. 55
November, 1993
Copyright 1993, Biblical Horizons
According to James B. Jordan’s outline of Deuteronomy, the first commandment section runs from 6:1 to 11:32, and the second commandment section begins with 12:1 (Covenant Sequence in Leviticus and Deuteronomy [Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1989], pp. 60-61). That this division of the text is sound is confirmed by a comparison of 6:1 with 12:1. Deuteronomy 6:1 announces that "this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgments which the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you, that you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it." Similarly, 12:1 states, "These are the statutes and the judgments which you shall carefully observe in the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess as long as you live on the earth." Parallelism marks out the boundaries of the two sections.
Deuteronomy 12 as a whole is organized chiastically:
A. Observe statutes carefully in land, v. 1
D’. Meat and blood, vv. 20-25 ("well with you"; "do what is right," v. 25)
A’. Be careful to do commands, v. 32
The striking thing about this outline is that the central section, normally highlighted in a chiasm, concerns the care of the Levites. Jordan’s suggestion that the second commandment has to do with true and false mediation comes into play here. He notes that "the house of God was the place of mediation" (Covenant Sequence, p. 22). It is appropriate, therefore, that Deuteronomy 12, which begins a section that concentrates on liturgical idolatry and which specifically designates the place of mediation, would also highlight the priestly mediators.
The first fourteen verses of Deuteronomy 12, dealing with the elimination of Canaanite worship and the establishment of true worship in the land, divides into two main sections, each of which may be outlined in a more or less chiastic form:
I. Eliminate Canaanite worship, vv. 1-4
A’. Don’t act like Canaanites, v. 4
II. Establish true worship, vv. 5-14
B’. Bring offerings and contributions, vv. 10-11
A’. Offer offerings in place Lord chooses, vv. 13-14
As we might expect, the central section of the chiasm of 12:5-14 concerns rest. Rest is highlighted because the centralization of sacrifice becomes effective only after the Lord has brought rest to his people in the land. The Lord takes His sabbath rest in His house only after completing His war against the Canaanites and bringing rest to His people. On the other hand, when the tabernacle was in disarray, as it was in the later period of the judges, the centralized system was suspended in favor of sacrifice at high places (cf. 1 Sam. 9:14).
BIBLICAL Horizons, No. 55
November, 1993
Copyright 1993, Biblical Horizons
Calling Jerusalem the "holy city" comes so naturally to Christians that it comes as something of a surprise to realize how infrequently the phrase is used in Scripture. Not only is Jerusalem rarely called holy, but in the Old Testament this classification is found only in texts that refer to or were written in the exilic and post-exilic periods.
Joel 3:17 asserts, for example, that "Jerusalem will be holy." Joel 3 is evidently a promise concerning the restoration period: It begins with a promise that the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem would be restored (3:1), and the entire chapter follows a pattern of restoration, judgment and war against the nations, and the Lord’s return to Jerusalem that is found in other prophecies of the return from exile (e.g., Ezk. 37-48; Zech. 9-14?). Regardless of the dating of Joel’s prophecy, 3:17 is concerned with the return from the Babylonian exile. Three texts in Isaiah are relevant: 48:2, 52:1, and 64:10. Though these were written prior to the exile, they are in a section of Isaiah that concerns the restoration. The other Old Testament references to "holy" Jerusalem are Nehemiah 11:1, 18 and Daniel 9:24.
In her 1988 study, In An Age of Prose: A Literary Approach to Ezra-Nehemiah (Atlanta: Scholars Press), Tamara Cohn Eskenazi argues that Ezra and Nehemiah both assume that, after the return from exile, the holiness of the temple expanded to include the entire city of Jerusalem. Many bits of evidence support this interpretation. Most directly, Nehemiah twice called Jerusalem the "holy city" (Neh. 11:1, 18). Eliashib the high priest, moreover, "consecrated" the wall at the beginning of the building project (Neh. 3:1), and Levites were stationed at the gates of the city (Neh. 7:1; 13:22).
Once it is recognized that the restoration city participated in the holiness of the temple, certain odd events in Nehemiah begin to make more sense. Nehemiah’s attention to the broken walls of the city takes on a religious, not only a military, coloration; his survey of the walls parallels the priest’s inspection of the temple. Genealogies of the people who volunteered to return to the city are provided, just as genealogies were earlier required for Levites who wished to participate in the temple services (Neh 11:4-9; cf. 7:61-65). Jerusalem, being a holy city, required a demonstrably holy seed.
As Eskenazi points out, Ezra and Nehemiah distinguish between the temple proper and the wider notion of the "house of God," which, in these books at least, includes both temple and city. This usage is evident in Ezra 3:8, which begins, "Now in the second year of their coming to the house of God at Jerusalem in the second month." Note first that "Jerusalem" may be read as an apposition to "house of God" (the Hebrew can be translated, "to (‘el) the house of God, to (le) Jerusalem"). More importantly, Ezra 3 describes events that occurred several years before the completion of the temple (cf. Ezra 6:15); only the altar had been erected (3:3). It might be argued that the building of the altar established a house of God. But I am persuaded that Eskenazi’s interpretation is more plausible; returning to the city of Jerusalem was equivalent to returning to the house of God.
In several passages outside Ezra-Nehemiah, "temple" refers to a more restricted area than "house." Daniel 5:3 refers to the "temple of the house of God in Jerusalem." (The NASB translates "the temple, the house of God," but the Aramaic particle di, frequently used to mark a genitive, separates the two.) Ezekiel 41:1 uses a word frequently translated as temple (heykal) to refer to the main hall of the temple, not the whole temple. The NASB rightly translates heykal as "nave," but botches the rest of the chapter by randomly translating bayit now as "house," now as "temple." In any case, in Ezekiel 41 the heykal is an area within a larger structure called the "house."
Recognizing that the term "house" has a broader referent than "temple" helps explain features of Ezra 4:7-24 that have been the subject of considerable debate. The crux of the problem is that the context speaks of "building the house of God" (4:3), but Rehum and Shimshai’s letter to Artaxerxes says nothing about the temple but concentrates exclusively on the building of the city walls. Many commentators have seen verses 7-24 as a dischronologized digression, but the purpose of citing the correspondence is clearly to explain why the "work on the house of God ceased" (4:24). Everything fits perfectly together, however, if "house" equals "city." In fact, Ezra 4:7-24 provides strong confirmation of this conclusion.
The equivalence of the house and the city explains other details of Ezra-Nehemiah as well. The dedication service for the temple is only briefly described (6:16-18); compared with the dedication service for Solomon’s temple, this feast seems meager indeed. Whatever practical reasons there might have been for limiting the celebration, the theological rationale seems to be that the completion of the temple was not yet the completion of the "house." When we come to the service for the dedication of the city walls, Nehemiah takes several chapters to describe the activities. Significantly, the covenant renewal ceremony after the completion of the wall occurred in the seventh month (Neh. 8:2), connecting with the completion of the temple of Solomon (1 Ki. 8:2). Both events were associated with the celebration of the feast of booths. After completing the house, moreover, the people commit the sin of Solomon (Neh. 13:26). The restoration analogue to the completion of Solomon’s temple is the completion of the city walls.
Further, the dedication service described in Nehemiah 12 is difficult if one assumes that "house" means "temple." First, could all these people fit into the temple court at one time? Second, 12:31-39 describes a double procession around the top of the city wall, the second stopping at the "Gate of the Guard," but in verse 40 the two choirs are suddenly and inexplicably taking their stand in the "house of God." This is a jarring transition. Either Nehemiah, who has been so careful to describe the procession almost step by step up through verse 39, makes an awkward leap, or something has been dropped from the text, or taking a stand in the "house of God" means standing on the city walls.
The expansion of the holiness of the house parallels the more intense holiness of the whole nation in the restoration period. In the background are prophetic promises of a "new covenant" and the outpouring of the Spirit on all flesh (Jer. 31:31-34; Ezk. 36:22-32; Joel 2:28-32), which were initially fulfilled in post-exilic Israel. In Ezra and Nehemiah, this point is confirmed more by what is absent than by what is present. The first temple was built by a king, but there is no king in the restoration community. Far from being highlighted, Zerubbabel’s Davidic ancestry is not even mentioned in Ezra or Nehemiah. Instead, the main builders are the people; every Israelite has a hand in building the temple, an activity normally reserved to kings in the Ancient Near East and in Israel.
Moses was aided in the construction of the tabernacle by the Spirit-anointed Bezalel and Oholiab (Ex. 31:1-6), and Solomon by Hiram of Tyre (1 Ki. 7:13-14), but there is no master architect in Ezra or Nehemiah. Instead the Lord stirred up the spirits of the whole people to build (Ez. 1:5); we have here a nation of Bezalels, all equipped by the Spirit to build the house of God. When the house of the Lord is finished, the people pray, not the king (compare Neh. 9; 2 Chron. 6); what we have, again, is a nation of Solomons. The people bow to the ground when Ezra blesses the Lord and read the Torah, but no cloud appears (Neh. 8:6). The people are the glory-canopy, and their shouts of praise resound through the land (Neh. 12:43).
Thus, the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which were originally a single book, are from beginning to end about the building of the house of the Lord. The books may be organized according to the four stages in the completion of the house. First the altar; then the temple; then the reformation of the people-house; finally, the city walls are finished and dedicated. Cyrus’s decree permitting the Jews to rebuild the Lord’s house, quoted at the beginning of Ezra, was not fulfilled until the end of Nehemiah.
This interpretation of the house-building of Ezra and Nehemiah throws fresh light on several contemporary prophetic passages. Zechariah 2:1-5, the third of Zechariah’s night visions, presents a man measuring the boundaries of Jerusalem. Elsewhere in the Old Testament, only holy places are measured (Ex. 27:9-19; Nu. 35:4-8; 1 Ki. 6:14-7:8; Ezk. 40-43). To "set a measuring line over Jerusalem" (Zech. 1:16) is to consecrate it as holy space. Zechariah ends with a prediction that the holiness of the temple would expand to the entire city (Zech. 14:20-21), a prophecy whose fulfillment is implied in Ezra and Nehemiah.
The holy city theme of Ezra-Nehemiah may also suggest a refinement of traditional interpretations of the promises of Haggai 2:1-9 and the vision of Ezekiel 40-48. Both prophetic passages promise that the restoration "house" would be more glorious than Solomon’s temple. The notion that these prophecies refer to the spiritual reality of the restoration, not to the physical temple, suffers from the fact that glory nearly always refers to an empirical and visible reality. If these prophecies are taken as promises about the "house" of Jerusalem, then they might be taken in more literal fashion: They promise that the glory of the holy city would exceed the glory of the temple of Solomon.
Biblical Chronology
Vol. 5, No. 7
November, 1993
Copyright © James B. Jordan 1993
by James B. Jordan
(Continued from Biblical Chronology V:5-6. In his book 1994?, Harold Camping asserts that the life spans of the primeval patriarchs of Genesis 5 & 11 were actually epochs, one after another. This together with other mistakes in interpretation yields for him a creation date of 11013 B.C. From here, Camping tries to work out the date of the second coming. We are in the midst of analyzing his hypothesis.)
Confusion About the Judges
We have seen Camping make two important errors in chronology thus far. First, he has assumed, without a shred of Biblical foundation, that the life spans of most of the patriarchs of Genesis 5 & 11 are to be regarded as successive epochs. Second, he has misinterpreted the data in Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers to mean that the Hebrews lived in Goshen for 430 years, instead of the 215 years they actually lived there. Thus, while accurate Biblical chronology gives us 2513 years from creation to the exodus, Camping’s scheme requires 9566 years.
Camping now moves to the period of the Judges, where he commits another classic mistake. 1 Kings 6:1 states that there were 480 years from the exodus to the beginning of the building of the Temple in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign. Like a number of 19th century expositors, Camping tries to reconcile this figure with the years found in the book of Judges by saying that the number 480 only counts years when Israel was free and unoccupied, while the times when Israel was oppressed are not counted. In fact, a careful reading of the texts of Judges and Samuel shows that the stories of Jephthah, Samson, and Samuel happened at the same time. Moreover, the oppression of Jabin and the judgeship of Barak in the north are simultaneous with the peace of Ehud in the south. The bizarre notion that the chronology omits "carnal years of oppression" is wholly without any Biblical foundation, and contradicts the data that prove the simultaneity of Samson’s, Samuel’s, and Jephthah’s histories. The reader is directed to Biblical Chronology 2:2, 2:8, & 3:8 for a full discussion of this period. At any rate, Camping winds up with 111 years too many for the period of the judges.
But then Camping subtracts four years by assuming that the fourth year of Solomon, when he began to build the temple, was the year David died. Thus, he asserts, there was a four-year co-regency of David and Solomon, during which time David helped Solomon gather the raw materials for the Temple. He bases his assertion solely on the fact that David got cedar and stones from Hiram of Tyre, and so did Solomon (1 Chronicles 22:2-4; 1 Kings 5).
Camping ignores two facts. First, David in 1 Chronicles 22:14 says to Solomon that he "may add to" the cedar and stone David has already collected. In other words, there is no reason to reject the notion that Solomon got more cedar and stone from Hiram after David’s death.
Second, though David did crown Solomon before he died, it evidently was very shortly before his death. 1 Kings 2:12 says that Solomon was established king after David’s death and proceeds to delineate a series of events after David’s death that occupy at least three years (1 Kings 2:39). We know that David is dead during this time, because these events constitute Solomon’s fulfillment of David’s deathbed commands (1 Kings 2:5-9). Thus, it is clear that after David’s death Solomon had to put down his enemies and organize the nation for three years before he could begin to build the Temple. There was no co-regency.
(Moreover, it was fitting and necessary for Solomon to do this. The counterfeit king Adonijah had to be eliminated; the counterfeit High Priest Abiathar had to be eliminated; the counterfeit "helper meet" for the king–the commander Joab–had to be eliminated; and the leader of the Saulide opposition, Shimei, had to be eliminated. Now Solomon’s reign could stand free and clear. Accordingly, Solomon married, received God’s blessing, reorganized the kingdom, and began to develop the wisdom literature. This sequence of events corresponds to the exodus from Egypt that preceded the building of the Tabernacle:
Exodus Solomon
defeat of Pharaoh defeat of enemies
mixed multitude marriage to Pharaoh’s daughter
initial worship at Sinai worship at Gibeon
Jethro organizes nation Solomon organizes kingdom
God gives law Spirit produces wisdom literature
Tabernacle built Temple built)
Having invented a co-regency of four years, Camping now can say that there are exactly 400 years (well, true spiritual years) from the exodus to the reign of Saul (480 – 40 for David – 40 for Saul). He proceeds to try and make a big deal out the supposed symbolic meaning of this on pages 171f. He says that the "400-year period" from the exodus to Saul was a testing period, like the 40 days of Jesus in the wilderness, the 40 days of Jonah in Nineveh, the 40 years of Israel in the wilderness. But consider this: Camping has already subtracted 111 "carnal years" from the period. It seems that the very years that show Israel failing this supposed test are omitted from the scheme. Israel’s 40 years in the wilderness were a punishment for sin; Camping’s 400 years are all years of blessing, because the punishment-years have been subtracted. What kind of logic is this? Well, since the period actually lasted 404 years, the symbolism falls apart anyway.
In conclusion, we see again that Camping, doubtless a fine Christian man, is not a God-gifted exegete. Thus far he has fallen into virtually every error possible in the field of Biblical chronology, as well as inventing one brand new error of his own (to wit, his epoch-view of the primeval patriarchs).
Further Problems
Camping does not discuss the period of the kings, but his chronological summary gives 380 years from the foundation of the Temple to its destruction (pp. 309-10). We can only assume he is building on the eccentric and unreliable work of Edwin Thiele. The actual count of years is more like 432. I have discussed this at length throughout the first series of Biblical Chronology newsletters (2:9-10; 3:9-4:7), and so I won’t rehearse it again here.
In Chapter 10 of 1994?, Camping discusses the period between Cyrus and Christ. Daniel 9:24-25 says that there would be 70 weeks of years to the Messiah, beginning with a decree to rebuild Jerusalem. The only decree that fits the bill is the decree of Cyrus, as we have seen previously (Biblical Chronology 2:12). Camping assumes that the Ptolemaic chronology of the ancient world is correct (which means that, whether he realizes it or not, he implicitly rejects the testimony of extra-Biblical Jewish sources), so that the decree of Cyrus came in 539 B.C. Thus, either the 70 weeks of years is symbolic (which Camping rejects) or else Cyrus cannot be the starting point. Camping does not entertain the notion, which we have advocated, that Cyrus is the starting point but the Ptolemaic chronology is erroneous.
Camping advocates a spiritual understanding of the decree to rebuild Jerusalem. He identifies it with Artaxerxes’ sending Ezra to restore the law in Jerusalem (Ezra 7:21-26). Camping here assumes that the Artaxerxes of Ezra is the Artaxerxes of Herodotus, a common assumption these days, but one without good Biblical foundation. As we have seen, everything in the Biblical account points to Artaxerxes’ being another name for Darius, a viewpoint more common among earlier generations and one that is regaining ground today (Biblical Chronology 3:2-5). Thus, even if Camping’s spiritual interpretation were correct, which it almost certainly is not, it still would not provide him with the date he requires.
Camping tries to substantiate his scheme by pointing to jubilee years. Because his chronology of the kings is off, his jubilary count is also off. Additionally, Camping assumes that jubilees came every 50 years, whereas it is far more likely that the jubilee year was simultaneous with the first year of the new cycle; i.e., the 50th year is also the first year of the new cycle just as the 8th day is the first day of the new week. In that case, the jubilee came every 49 years. See Biblical Chronology 5:2-4.
Then Camping tries to substantiate his scheme by pointing to a supposed 1000-year distance between David and Christ. Because his chronology is wrong, this 1000-year distance evaporates. But beyond this, Camping connects the death of David at age 70 with the year after Jesus’s death (a.d. 34 – Camping assumes the crucifixion happened in a.d. 33). Camping has already asserted that Solomon began the Temple the year David died, so he has another "amazing coincidence." But all of this is built on error. It is all fantasy. There is no 1000-year period between David and Christ. The death of Christ was His ascension to the throne, which should correspond to David’s accession, not to David’s death at age 70. Also, the Temple was not begun the year David died.
Now Camping really gets wild. Based on his erroneous chronology, Abraham was circumcised in 2068 B.C., which is exactly (!!!) 2100 years before a.d. 33. Now, 2100 is 3 x 7 x 1000, and thus surely significant! And, get this! Daniel prayed for 21 days while the prince of Persia stood against God’s angel, but then Michael overcame the prince of Persia (Daniel 10:2-3, 13). So maybe the 21 days are 21 centuries. (There is absolutely no Biblical foundation for such a notion, but what if?) And, maybe the 21 centuries start with the circumcision of Abram, which begins the Jewish race, which is oppressed the whole time until Michael comes to save them in a.d. 33? Plus, Isaac was born the next year, a clear connection to the Messiah.
Now, folks, this is just bizarre. First of all, if the 21 days have any symbolic meaning, they would be 21 years, for in the Bible the only correlation we have to go on is day=year. Moreover, if the 21 days have any relation to prophecy, they would relate to the prophecy Daniel receives in Daniel 10-12, in the immediate context. In other words, the 21 days would relate to the period from Daniel to Jesus (if Michael’s help is indeed a type of Jesus’ work). Additionally, there is nothing to connect 21 days of oppression and fasting with Camping’s entire 2100 years of Jewish history, much of which was free and full of festivity. On top of that, the connection between Daniel’s 21 days of fasting and any kind of prophetic period is completely unfounded. Finally, the chronology is simply wrong because it is untrue to the text; there are not 2100 years between the circumcision of Abraham and the death of Jesus.
This is just the beginning, folks. Camping follows up his 2100-year fantasy with a phantasmagoric plethora of other completely unsubstantiated numerological associations. The 191 years between Abraham’s circumcision and the descent into Egypt become 1910 years between the descent and a.d. 34. The 190 years between the birth of Isaac and the descent into Egypt become 1900 years between the descent and a.d. 33. And on it goes.
The number 12 is important, isn’t it? Now, guess what? There are 1200 years from the death of Gideon to the year 7 B.C., which Camping has already "shown" is a jubilee year (and which he will assert as the birth-year of Christ). Not only that, but guess what else? Deuteronomy 1:2 says that it took eleven days to journey from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea, and there are 11 thousand years from the creation to 13 B.C., which is "surprisingly close to 7 B.C.!!! (p. 361). But there’s more! There are 6023 years from creation to the flood, and if we add 5023 (yes, 5023, not 6023), we come up to a.d. 34!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now, I’m going to stop here. Camping goes on in this vein for 20 more pages (pp. 361-380), but at this point, simple human decency and Christian charity compel us to draw a veil over our neighbor’s folly. Reading this material, I’m reminded of certain googly-eyed charismatic girls I knew in college who greeted every weird idea they encountered with a hyper-enthusiastic "Oh, wow!"
One of the strange positions that emerges from Camping’s chronological fantasies is that Jesus was almost 40 when He died. He was born in 7 B.C. and died in a.d. 33. This odd notion does not square very well with Luke 3:23, which says Jesus was baptized when He was about 30 years of age. If Jesus’ ministry lasted 3 years, Camping would have Him baptized at about age 36, which is not close enough to be "about 30 years of age." Camping, therefore, interprets Luke 3:23 symbolically (p. 484). Camping thus sets aside a very clear statement of historical fact in order to maintain his extremely speculative and fantastic scheme.
The Nearness of the Second Coming
In Chapter 9 of his book Camping explicitly rejects our Lord’s command not to try to set the date of His second coming. I discussed at the outset of this evaluation that this puts Camping into the borderland between Christianity and heresy, the realm of quackodoxy. But, having set aside the Biblical warnings in this area, Camping now sets about trying to come up with the forbidden date.
The first seven chapters of 1994? lay out Camping’s prophetic prejudices. He makes it clear that the "rapture" will occur at the end of time, not at the beginning of a tribulation, but he then argues that there is some kind of tribulation period that is predicted to take place just before the second coming. He fails to see that there is no "rapture" but rather an ascension of the saints’ physical bodies, analogous to Christ’s ascension. Just as we rise with Him, so also we ascend with Him; spiritually now, physically at the last day. As regards the great tribulation, Camping ignores the rather clear evidence of the gospels that this was a period that would happen shortly after Jesus’ ascension; it was the time just before the destruction of Jerusalem in a.d. 70.
Camping also makes it clear that Satan has been bound from deceiving the nations by Christ’s first coming; therefore, there is no future millennium. The millennium is the Church Age. Camping goes on to say that though Jesus established the institutional Church, that Church is going to apostatize and will have to be destroyed. He clearly believes that the bad estate of the institutional Church today is a pointer to the nearness of the tribulation and the end of history.
In Chapter 6, Camping argues from a series of extremely bizarre numerological fantasies, which I will not bother to take up, that the last tribulation will endure for about 6 years. If Jesus is to return in 1994, that tribulation began in 1988; but where is it? If worldwide Christianity is going through the great tribulation right now, then the great tribulation does not amount to much compared with what we have usually been led to expect. (Remember, Camping published this book in 1992, which is well into the great tribulation, on his reckoning.)
Camping provides a couple of truly quackodox evidences that we are living in an age of apostasy. One is that divorce is now permitted in the Church, whereas the Bible clearly teaches (according to him) that all divorce is forbidden, and that if the sin of divorce has been committed, remarriage is forbidden (p. 145). This is idiocy, and has never been the teaching of the Christian Church at all. The Church has always recognized legitimate divorce for adultery, and usually for other gross kinds of sins and oppressions as well, grouping them as desertions. And remarriage has been recognized as legitimate as well. One of the great gains of the Reformation was that the Reformers recognized that the Bible allows divorce and remarriage. Where Camping gets the lunatic idea that the Bible forbids divorce I do not know.
Another piece of lunacy is on p. 146, where Camping says that another sign of the times is that birth control is now permitted by the Church. Well, the fact is that the Bible does not prohibit birth control and family planning, and indeed encourages us to live responsibly and take dominion over such matters. To be sure, birth control can be abused, but so can everything else in the world. Camping’s idea that everyone must have as large a family as possible is completely unBiblical and is a piece of liberal, modernistic rationalism.
Well, then, since we are in the great tribulation, what does this tribulation consist of? Camping’s answer is that it consists of spiritual distress, which is symbolically presented in the Bible as external pain, suffering, and martyrdom. Filling out his model, he points to the modern tongues and signs & wonders movements. These are, he argues, Satanic counterfeits of true Christianity, and the Church is flocking to them en masse. This is the great apostasy, which brings tribulation to the souls of those faithful who resist these movements.
Now, I agree that tongues ceased in the first century; the Bible is pretty clear about this. Modern tongues are simply glossolalia, not foreign languages. Modern tongue speaking is not the same as what was going on the New Testament. But what that means is that that modern glossolalia can be quite harmless. In fact, if we can whistle and hum to God’s glory, we can also babble to His glory, provided we don’t try to say that this babbling is a second blessing or in some other way misinterpret it.
Moreover, I agree that the signs & wonders movement is a great evil. It does come very close to being a counterfeit gospel, replacing truth and obedience with a new kind of shamanism not far removed from the religions of primitive tribes. But at the same time, I don’t see huge masses of orthodox Christians going for this idiocy and garbage.
Stupid emotionalistic cults have hung around the fringes of Christianity for 2000 years. The Church of the Middle Ages had far more of this kind of stuff than we see today. Camping is historically naive if he thinks the modern charismatic movements are very important. There was much more "apostasy and tribulation" in the Church 1000 years ago than today.
Similarly, Camping says that the outbreak of homosexuality in our day, and the plague of AIDS, is a sign of the end. But historically there have been periods of greater and more open homosexuality, and certainly there have been greater plagues. It is easier to see AIDS as God’s gracious destruction of the wicked in order to make more room for His people.
Calculating the Second Coming
Camping’s date for the second coming builds on the strange brew he has concocted regarding the first coming of Christ. So caught up is Camping in his scheme that he actually writes this on page 423 that we are greatly helped in our study of the second coming by what we have learned about the date of the first coming. "By following the same principles we should not run the risk of abusing the Bible" (emphasis mine). By rights, I should stop this review right now. The numerological principles Camping has been using are totally unBiblical (day = century; day = millennium; year = decade; completely arbitrary associations between Old Testament events and the death of Christ; etc.); and his chronological framework is completely wrong in every epoch: wrong about creation to Abraham, wrong about Abraham to the exodus, wrong about the period of the judges, wrong about the period of the kings, and wrong about Daniel’s 70 weeks. If Camping is going to continue to engage in this kind of quackodoxy, we don’t need to read any further. The fact is that virtually everything Camping writes in this book is an abuse of the Bible.
But curiosity has moved me on. Without going into detail, Camping routinely misapplies to the second coming texts of the New Testament that deal with the destruction of Jerusalem in a.d. 70. As a result, his understanding of New Testament eschatology is badly confused, which simply compounds the confusion already existing in his chronology and his numerology. On p. 435 Camping presents the standard dispensational quackodox goofball interpretation of Matthew 24:32-33, and says that the budding of the fig tree refers to the movement of the Jews to Palestine in 1948. Please! Gimmeabreak! Matthew 24:34 states that this event happened in Jesus’ own day. The budding of the fig tree refers to the beginning of the Church out of the Old Covenant Israel. The book of Acts is about the budding of the fig tree.
Now here we go again. See if you can follow this, from Chapter 13 of 1994?: Deuteronomy 32:8 says that God has set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. Job 14:5 says that God has determined days, months, and boundaries. Now, from these two verses, Camping reasons: (1) that the bounds of the people in Deuteronomy 32:8 is a temporal, not just a geographical, boundary; (2) that the number of the children of Israel does not mean a census or the nation as a whole, but refers to the tribes, which were literally 13 in number; (3) the linking of the bounds of the nations with the number of Israel means there is a connection between the number 13 and the length of world history; and (4) that the 13 tribes must refer to 13,000 years of human history from creation to consummation.
Now, on Camping’s bizarre chronological scheme, 13,000 years takes us to 1988. But that won’t work. We have to add some more years. Here’s how Camping does it on p. 443. He assumes Christ was born in 7 B.C. From creation in 11,013 B.C. to the birth of Christ is 11,006 years. Just look at those sneaky extra 6 years that have crept in here! Well, if they can creep into the time before Christ, we can let them creep in again. 1988 + 6 = 1994. There you have it.
Want proof? Well, after all there are 2000 years from the birth of Jacob (2007 B.C., Camping’s Wrong Chronology) to the birth of Jesus (7 B.C., CWC). And so, 2000 more years brings us to 1996. Plus (get this!), there are 2000 cubits mentioned in Joshua 3:3-4, AND THERE ARE 2000 PIGS IN MARK 5:1-17!!! Hey, what more evidence do we need?
Well, as you can imagine, Camping provides many more lines of "evidence," each weirder than the one before it, but I won’t be able to resist becoming savagely humorous if I continue to rehearse these. (If you think I’ve been too rough heretofore, remember that this ignorant man has had the arrogant gall to invade my profession, despise it, and tell me how to do it. I don’t tell him how to run radio stations, so just how tolerant am I supposed to be with his telling me how to do theology?)
A final note on Deuteronomy 32:8. All this verse evidently means is that God set up the geographical bounds to provide enough space for Israel, in terms of the population of Israel. That’s pretty simple isn’t it?
Conclusion
Camping does an absolutely horrible job of Biblical chronology, symbolism, and numerology. Many readers, when they see someone like Camping going ape over symbolism and numerology tend to reject and despise Biblical symbolism and numerology. This kind of reaction is foolish. It is like saying that because Jehovah’s Witnesses do bad systematic theology, therefore we will not do systematic theology at all. The fact is that the Bible abounds in symbolism and also contains a good deal of numerology (The numbers 4, 7, 10, and 12; the 3rd day, 3rd hour, 3rd week, 3rd month, 3rd year; the 7th of each; the 8th of each; etc.). But just as the "systematically theological" letters of Paul have to be read carefully and accurately, so also the symbolism of the tabernacle, the chronology of the Bible, and the numerological allusions of the Bible have to read carefully and accurately. Camping’s problem is not that he tries to deal with chronology and numerology; his problem is that he is completely ungifted and unskilled at doing so, and he does a horrible job of it.
I’m sorry to be so blunt about it, but what can I say? I’m a practicing, professional Biblical theologian. Camping clearly isn’t. I have the gifts, training, skills, and experience to work in this area. Camping clearly does not. I wish him well at his calling. I would not presume to tell him how to run a radio station. Ah, but Mr. Camping wants to do theology–indeed, theology of the most sensitive sort, dealing with symbols and numbers. Mr. Camping thinks he can be a theologian because in America everybody thinks he is entitled to be a theologian. Biblical Christianity rejects such a silly notion.
Mr. Camping, please call back all copies of this awful book and sell them for recycling.
Courteous reader, you own a copy of this book, just put it into your Jordan Theological Shredder. Jordan Theological Shredders are sold by Jordan Corporation. Put a good book into the shredder and it won’t work. Put something like this into it and you’ll never see it again.
OPEN BOOK
Views & Reviews
No. 18 Copyright (c) 1993 Biblical Horizons November, 1993
Graphic Novels
by James B. Jordan
Frank Miller, The Dark Knight Returns (DC Comics/Warner Books, 1986), 200 pages.
Alan Moore & David Gibbons, Watchmen (DC Comics/Warner Books, 1987), 410 pages.
Timothy Truman, Hawkworld (DC Comics, 1989), 150 pages.
Comic books, or illustrated narratives, were _rst published in 1933. Before that time there had been comic strips, but not comic books as we think of them. Because these were humorous, they were known as "comics," a name that has remained to the present, even though most modern comic books are not funny.
The "Golden Age" of comic books began in June of 1938 with the publication of the _rst issue of Action Comics, which introduced the character of Superman. A year later, May of 1939, saw the _rst appearance of the Batman in Detective Comics. Both of these were published by DC Comics. These two ushered in the kind of clean, action-oriented, adventure tales that most of us associate with comic books. Characters like Green Lantern, the Flash, Wonder Woman, Hawkman, and others _lled the pages of 1940s and 1950s comics.
In 1961, Marvel Comics began its line of slightly more serious superhero comics. These were heroes with problems — not moral problems, but tragic complications that rendered their lives more realistic and di_cult. The Fantastic Four, the Amazing Spider-Man, the Hulk, and others followed this approach. After a while, DC Comics permitted its writers to add the same kind of depth to its characters.
Around 1986, a new phase of comic books came to the fore. These were aimed at an older audience, and were more adult in tone and content. Now some characters lived rather immoral lives, generally o_ the page, but sometimes on the page as well.
This has led to the development and adoption of a rating system, which we can compare to the rating of movies. Comics that are G- or PG-rated carry the stamp-like Comics Code Authority seal of approach. Comics of a PG-13 character do not have this seal. R-rated comics carry a warning stating that these are for mature readers only.
While a lot of this continues to be either nonsense or something close to trash (in the more "mature" comics), there have been a couple of interesting and far more artistically advanced pieces of illustrated narrative produced of late. I think that Christian writers and artists, as well as educated Christians in general, may _nd it pro_table to take notice of this development.
Many Christians read novels and see movies produced by non-Christians, and these novels and movies often have "mature" aspects to them that make them unsuitable for children and that re_ect artistic conventions unacceptable to Christians. Christians are forced to "read past" or "_lter" these objectionable elements. This being the case, some of the more artistic graphic novels may also be read, especially by Christians interested in the arts.
Illustrated narrative is a worthy and possibly useful _eld for Christians to pursue. If we are concerned to make good Christian _lms, to answer Hollywood, perhaps we could also produce good Christian graphic novels as well — something besides Archie and his friends.
While there have been a number of more serious illustrated narratives published in the past couple of years, such as Lex Luthor: An Unauthorized Biography, Hawkworld (about Hawkman), and Batman: The Cult, nothing has come close to Miller’s Dark Knight and Moore’s Watchmen.
Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns is what started the current rage about the Batman. Miller posited a future about ten mythical years distant in which society has broken down and gangs of thugs roam the streets. An envious population has driven the superheroes of the past into retirement. Superman remains active, but only doing what the government allows him to do. Bruce Wayne _nds his solace in drink, and Batman is no more. Then one night, watching the crime reports on the news, Wayne can stand it no longer and Batman lives again.
There is little point in trying to summarize the plot from here on. Miller takes up the question of vigilanteism in the course of his narrative, and a number of other matters. Primarily, though, he presents a great story, which climaxes in a _ght between Batman and Superman. As has been pointed out by others commenting on the comic book genre, Batman and Superman, after _fty years, have become like Paul Bunyan and John Henry: folk heroes who are larger than life. Miller manages to retain this element, while telling a good yarn.
The Dark Knight Returns is not o_ensive in its portrayal of Batman — he even rebukes a small boy for cussing at one point. Unlike the movie Batman, Miller’s Batman still uses rubber bullets and does not sleep with any girls. The novel does, however, deal with some of the seamier sides of underworld life and includes a number of murders committed by the Joker. Parental caution is advised.
Watchmen, co-produced by writer Alan Moore and illustrator Dave Gibbons, is a far more ambitious work. At four hundred pages, Watchmen contains around 3000 panels and requires quite some time to read. In terms of content it is de_nitely "rough stu_," and if considered in terms of _lm categories would be R-rated. Watchmen does not contain graphic sexual pictures, but it does deal at some points with sexuality and sexual perversion. It is de_nitely not for kids.
At the same time, compared to modern best-selling novels and popular _lms, Watchmen is relatively clean. As with modern _lms and novels, Watchmen would have been just as good without the sex and violence, perhaps even better. I suppose it’s because we think of it as a "comic book" that we are surprised to see such rough content in it. Nevertheless, the warning still stands.
While I cannot provide an endorsement of Watchmen as a Christian novel or even as a novel intrinsically of interest to Christians, I can recommend a study of it by Christians interested in the arts. In terms of technique, Watchmen is one of the best yet. It fully integrates the verbal and the visual aspects of its presentation, so that if you only read the words you will miss half the story. As in great _lms, the transformation of visual imagery from panel to panel is just a important as the dialogue.
Additionally, in terms of content, Watchmen is extremely complex and sophisticated. It is a true novel presented in illustrated form. Miller’s Dark Knight is actually four hero stories about the latter days of the Batman, analogous to the stories about the last days of Robin Hood. Watchmen, however, is a completely uni_ed novel both thematically and in terms of narrative.
Unlike Miller’s Dark Knight, Moore’s Watchmen contains no familiar faces. The watchmen of the title were a group of masked vigilante heroes of the `40s and `50s. They had no superpowers, and only brie_y _ourished. A second generation of masked avengers _ourished in the `60s, but also gave up. Only one of these, Dr. Manhattan, possessed super powers, and he has gradually become estranged from human feelings.
Another ex-hero of the second generation, Ozymandias, the world’s smartest man, has concocted a scheme to save the world. It is the gradual uncovering of this scheme that provides the background for the novel’s tapestry. Ozymandias is concerned with salvation, regardless of truth, and regardless of cost. His foil is another aging hero, Rorschach, whose concern is with truth at all costs. Rorschach is the novel’s hero — in some ways an anti-hero because he is almost universally hated by police and criminals alike — and in the last panel he emerges triumphant through his literary legacy. There are elements to this — the triumph of truth over lies as a result of the work of a humble and despised person — that Christian readers can appreciate.
Watchmen guard the city. But watchmen are also little gods, for it is God who is the Watchmaker of this universe. Dr. Manhattan, with his superhuman godlike powers, creates a watch-like world, but then allows it to crumble when he realizes that there is a Higher Power who created and governs all things. It is ultimately the providential superintendence of the Supreme Watchmaker that ensures the triumph of truth. This semi-religious theme is much more deistic or pantheistic than Christian in its presentation, but again is one the Christian reader can appreciate. In terms of literary development, Moore does a _ne job of winding together the two senses of "watchmen" (guards and gods).
Rorschach wears a mask devised by the superhuman Dr. Manhattan. The mask looks like a Rorschach Ink Blot Test, with black globs on a white background. The globs continually change, reacting to the situation (and thus providing a Rorschachian commentary on the action). At the end, the mask is a butter_y, symbolic of resurrection. Rorshach is the "Christ _gure" in Watchmen.
All the details have been thought through. What would comic books be like in a world with real masked heroes? What would advertising copy be like? Design? Transportation? These and many other elements that form the tapestry of the presentation are all well constructed and believable.
All in all, Watchmen is a remarkable work, and one that Christian artists and writers can examine with pro_t. But it is not for everybody.
Although Hawkworld is not as ambitious as Watchmen, it is of equal interest to Christians because the author, Tim Truman, is a professing Christian of sorts. Katar Hol is a policeman on the planet Tranagar, a world of tyranny and cruelty. His story is powerfully presented in this graphic novel, in the course of which he learns the uniquely Christian virtue of sacri_cial love and comes to identify with the downtrodden and oppressed. Often visually stunning, Hawkworld is worthy of your attention.
The continuing story of Katar Hol was presented in the last several years in the monthly Hawkworld comic, authored by Jim Ostrander. It is basically the story of the developing love between the "Christian" Katar Hol and his rough, harsh partner Shayera, who in previous comic book incarnations of Hawkman was his wife. The comics are themselves enjoyable reading. The previous run of Hawkman (mid-late 1980s) was unique in showing a crime-_ghting team of husband and wife, but the later series is more sophisticated.
Harold Bloom, The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992. Reviewed by Peter J. Leithart.
In the climactic scene of the beautiful 1987 _lm, Babette’s Feast, the austere inhabitants of a remote Danish _shing village gather to celebrate the memory of the founder of their small religious sect. Babette, a French refugee living with the daughters of the founder, has gained permission to prepare a genuine French meal with the money she won from the lottery, and her imports of quail, wine, and a large sea turtle scandalize the town and give Babette’s mistress terrapin nightmares. To resist the manifest dangers of French cooking, the villagers agree before the meal that they will make no comments on the food, and will eat while pretending not to eat. Their plan is an utter failure as course after course of delectable food, and glass after glass of _ne wine erode their determination to resist the pleasure of the art of cooking.
"Eating while pretending not to eat" is about as close as I can come to a one-phrase summary of the practice and worldview of gnosticism. The Church father Irenaeus said that one test of orthodoxy was whether a doctrine was consistent with the practice of the eucharist. By this measure, any religion that requires its disciples to "eat while pretending not to eat" can hardly be called Christian.
As Yale literary critic Harold Bloom puts it in The American Religion, the gnostic identi_es creation with the fall; the fall is not a fall into rebellion and sin, but a fall into the material and sensual. The gnostic believes, however, that within him is a spark of the original, non-material creation, a tiny bit of divinity, which, if cultivated in splendid solitude, can lead to his escape from the material and his reabsorption into the divine pleroma. Gnosticism, Bloom argues, is the basic faith of the American people. The American religion is not Christianity or Judaism or Judeo-Christianity, but a confused blend of patriotism and gnosticism. Bloom uses this hypothesis to explain how the American people can be so religious without being identi_ably Christian.
Bloom’s is a deeply _awed book. Bloom describes himself as an agnostic Jew with a_nities to the gnostic systems that he explicates. Biased interpretations are legion. He viciously claims that Southern Baptist fundamentalists are vicious. He calls Operation Rescue a violent movement. His prophetic credentials must be seriously questioned; throughout the book, published late in 1992, Bloom writes as if America will never see another Democratic President. Strangely, he says that George Bush’s advocacy of "_ag and fetus" symbolizes the American religion. Which raises the obvious question, if Americans place such high value on fetuses, why are so many slaughtered?
For all its many _aws, Bloom’s book is worth reading for several reasons. First, he gives thumbnail histories of several of the most obviously gnostic sects in America today. Several chapters follow the history of the Mormons, and he devotes one chapter each to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Science, Seventh-Day Adventism, and the New Age Movement. He provocatively argues that the Mormons and the Southern Baptist Convention are the two most typical sects of the American Religion.
The most detailed and interesting chapters of the book deal with the history and thought of Mormonism. The evidence Bloom presents of the growth and impact of Mormonism evokes a disturbed admiration for the persistence of the disciples of Joseph Smith. He perceptively dismisses the attempts of Mormons to enter the mainstream of American Christianity as evasions, and emphasizes Smith’s original polytheism, which has never been disavowed. I had never read before that Joseph Smith was, late in life, secretly crowned as "king of the Kingdom of God," but Bloom mentions the event several times.
Second, Bloom’s main thesis contains a great deal of truth. With e_ective irony, Bloom claims that America is now _ghting to "make the world safe for Gnosticism." All around he sees the burgeoning of a "religion of the self," which exists "under many guises."
This rings true to me. Americans are, in my judgment, far more gnostic than Christian. Of course, most do not accept the "doctrines" of gnosticism, but whatever there is of a common American worldview has a deeply gnostic tone. Even within the most conservative churches, gnosticism has dissolved classical Protestantism. The studied creedlessness of American Protestantism, its reliance on the guidance of the "inner light," its resistance to the speci_c authoritative claims of Scripture, its ignorance of the teaching of Scripture, its preoccupation with the millennium, its anti-sacramental and anti-ecclesiastical bias are all indicators of an essentially gnostic worldview.
In his chapter on fundamentalism in the Southern Baptist Convention, Bloom mentions that he read J. Gresham Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism with distaste, but with "reluctant and growing admiration for Machen’s mind." Perhaps, despite his own gnostic tendencies, there is still hope for Bloom after all.
