Open Book: Views & Reviews, No. 1
January, 1991
Copyright (c) 1991, Biblical Horizons
The most cursory glance at the history of Western literature reveals that it has been deeply influenced by the Bible. Some of the greatest classics of Western literature draw their plots, characters, and ideas largely from Scripture; Dante’s Divine Comedy and Milton’s Paradise Lost are two of the most notable examples. Even when plots were not derived directly from the Bible, Scripture provided a commonly understood source of symbols and themes. Critic Northrup Frye has said, "a student of English literature who does not know the Bible does not understand a good deal of what is going on in what he reads." Right into this century, such major American figures as Faulkner and O’Connor continued to employ biblical themes. As L.A. Siedentop has recently written with respect to Western political ideas, the West remains more dependent on Christianity than it is willing to admit.
T.S. Eliot rightly pointed out that the Bible exercised this literary influence because it has been read as something more than literature. As this faith has eroded, however, the Bible has ceased to be a meaningful source of symbols and ideas. Contemporary writers have been cast back upon their own resources, to invent their own language and worldview, which is shared with a small circle of like-minded readers. There is no longer any common fiction. What sense can a rural Midwesterner make of the parochial New York novels of Jay McInerny? As I watch movies or TV or read most contemporary novels, I am constantly thinking, "I don’t know anyone like this!"
Our privatized literature, however, continues to feed off the root of the Christian Bible, but in a more subtle way than the literature of earlier centuries. In order to understand how modern literature shows its dependence on the Bible, we must recognize that it is not only the content of Western literature that was inspired by the Bible; that is, it is not merely that plots, characters, ideas, and symbols were derived from the Bible. In addition, the narrative form of much Western literature after antiquity was inspired by the form of biblical narrative.
What is characteristic of the Bible’s narrative structure, especially as compared to Greek literature? In the first chapter of his magisterial study of Western literature, Mimesis, Erich Auerbach compares the structure of Homeric narrative to the structure of Old Testament narrative. In particular, he compares the story of Odysseus’ scar to the biblical story of Abraham’s near sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 22).
The Homeric story is found in book 19 of the Odyssey. Odysseus has finally, after many trials, returned home to find his house full of greedy suitors eager to marry his wife, Penelope, whom they suppose to be a widow. Odysseus wants to keep his identity secret until he can formulate a plan to take vengeance on the suitors. Unrecognized by Penelope, Odysseus is welcomed to his home, and an old nurse begins to wash his feet. While washing his feet, the nurse recognizes a scar on his leg and immediately knows that he is her master returned. Odysseus quickly makes the nurse promise that she will not reveal him to Penelope. In the midst of this rather tense moment, there are several dozen leisurely lines that tell the story of the origin of Odysseus’ scar.
Auerbach asks what purpose this digression plays in the narrative, and, using this scene as an example, he inquires into the general character of Homeric narrative, which, he claims, "remained effective and determinant down into late antiquity." Several points emerge from this discussion. First, Homer’s digressions are not "meant to keep the reader in suspense, but rather to relax the tension." Second, Homer more generally leaves nothing unsaid, nothing hidden. Each character is given a detailed genealogy, the setting of every event is meticulously described, and even the characters’ innermost motives are verbalized. Third, Homeric narrative does not use the device of recollection; the story of the scar is not presented as if Odysseus or the nurse suddenly remembered an event long past. Rather, "the Homeric style knows only a foreground, only a uniformly illuminated, uniformly objective present."
The story of Abraham and Isaac is told in a very different way. Little detail about time and place is provided; those details that are provided are enigmatic and, Auerbach contends, demand interpretation. Unlike the Homeric story, the story of Abraham is full of suspense. When the biblical characters speak, it "does not serve, as speech does in Homer, to manifest, to externalize thoughts" but "to indicate thoughts which remain unexpressed." Abraham’s actions presuppose his past in a way that the actions of Odysseus do not; Abraham "remembers, he is constantly conscious of, what God has promised him and what God has already accomplished for him." When God commands him to sacrifice his son, therefore, "his silent obedience is multilayered, has background."
Thus, "in Homer, the complexity of the psychological life is shown only in the succession and alternation of emotions; whereas the Jewish writers are able to express the simultaneous existence of various layers of consciousness and the conflict between them." Homer operated with a simplistic view of human nature in which "delight in physical existence is everything." The Bible presents a realistic understanding of the human psyche.
It is here that modern literature, even when it is quite rabidly anti-Christian, and as widely different as it is from the Bible in many ways, has not escaped the kinds of narrative devices that are used in Scripture. The radically psychologized novels of Joyce and Proust, while immediately dependent on Freud, would have been unthinkable in a culture dominated by Homeric narrative. Their deepest roots, like the roots of psychology itself, lie in Christianity. If liberalism is, as Siedentop suggests, a secularization of certain Christian ideas, modern literature can be seen as the product of certain Christian concepts and biblical techniques taken, through centuries of development, to a radical extreme.
In another way, too, modern literature stands closer to the Bible than to Homer. According to Auerbach, Homeric heroes "have no development, and their life-histories are clearly set forth once and for all." Biblical characters, by contrast, are constantly responding to the voice of God; God "has not only made them once for all and chosen them, but he continues to work upon them, bends them and kneads them, and, without destroying them in essence, produces from them the forms which their youth gave no grounds for anticipating."
(We could take this one step further. Auerbach argues that any attempt to interpret Homer is artificial, while the Bible demands interpretation. It might thus be possible to argue that literary criticism, radicalized though it may be in its current forms, originated in biblical interpretation.)
It would be pretentious to demand that Christian writers use only those narrative techniques that the Bible itself uses. Yet it is clear that contemporary Christian writers can find a rich store of inspiration, even at the formal level, from the Word of God.
BIBLICAL Horizons, No. 21
January, 1991
Copyright 1991, Biblical Horizons
Each time the Scriptures recount the story of Moses’ birth and deliverance from Pharaoh, reference is made to two facts about that event. First, each text points out that Moses was "beautiful." Second, each text points out that Amram and Jochebed, his parents, hid him for three months (cf. Ex. 2:2; Acts 7:20; Hebrews 11:23). What is the significance of these two facts?
The Hebrew word (tob) translated "beautiful" in some modern versions of Exodus 2:2 is translated elsewhere as "good." The word (asteios) used in Acts 7:20 and Hebrews 11:23 means "beautiful" or "well-formed." Some scholars suggest that Stephen’s phrase "beautiful to God" should be taken in a superlative sense, thus meaning "wonderfully, divinely beautiful." The New Testament word is a fitting translation for the Hebrew tob. In the book of Genesis, by and large, tob refers to physical beauty or describes something pleasing to the senses. Eve saw that the fruit of the tree of knowledge was "good" for food. The sons of God in Genesis 6 saw that the daughters of men were "good." Eliezer, when he first saw Rebekah approach the well, saw that she was "good" (24:16). It does seem entirely proper to translate the same word in Exodus 2:2 as good.
Determining why this fact should be mentioned so consistently is somewhat more difficult. The Scriptures say that Moses’ parents decided to spare him when they saw that he was a "good" child. But how was this an exercise of faith (Heb. 11:23)? This seems to imply, instead, a normal parental affection for a good child. Surely, moreover, we cannot conclude that Amram and Jochebed would not have spared Moses if he had been an ugly child. In response to these sorts of questions, most commentators have been content to suggest that there was something in Moses’ appearance even as a newborn that bespoke some future greatness, and leave it at that.
That interpretation is, I think, true as far as it goes. It does seem, however, that something more may be going on here. First, though a different word is used, Genesis 39:6 makes a point of noting the physical beauty of Joseph. Perhaps by noting the physical beauty of their child, Moses’ parents were thinking of him as a new Joseph. Just as Joseph was be a prince in Egypt, so also Moses would be a prince. Joseph had brought the Israelites to Egypt in a partial fulfillment of the promise to Abraham, and Moses would bring the people out to fulfill God’s promise of deliverance (Gen. 15).
It is also possible that the reference to Moses’ physical beauty is part of a larger set of connections with the life of Noah. Noah too was marked out as a special child at birth, as a child who would bring "comfort" to his people (Gen. 5:29). Though not mentioned in Scripture, there is an ancient tradition that Noah was a beautiful child. Noah lived, moreover, at a time when people were multiplying on the face of the earth (Gen. 6:1), just as Moses lived when the Israelites were multiplying in the land of Egypt (Ex. 1:7). Noah lived in a time of apostasy, just as Moses lived in a time when Israel had begun to worship the gods of the Egyptians. Both Moses and Noah were placed in arks (the same Hebrew word is used of Moses’ "basket" and Noah’s "ark"). Noah was delivered from the waters of death, as Moses was drawn out of the very waters that were supposed to drown all the Hebrew male children.
Moses’ beauty, then, could have suggested to his parents that their son was a new Noah. Just as Noah delivered the faithful remnant from God’s judgment, so also Moses was marked as one who would deliver God’s people from the plagues of Egypt. Just as Noah brought his family through the waters of the flood into a new creation, so also Moses would lead God’s people through the waters of the Red Sea into a land flowing with milk and honey, a new Eden. Moses’ childhood deliverance from the waters of the Nile foreshadowed his role in the deliverance of Israel.
The "three months" of Moses’ hiding connects Moses’ early years even more closely to the experience of the Israelites. The number "three" in Scriptures refers to a resurrection in the midst of the week of history. This mid-week resurrection is both a pledge and a foretaste of the resurrection of the seventh day, at the end of history. The "third day" in Scripture is a day of resurrection and renewal. The "third month" is the month of Pentecost, when the fruits of the grain harvest were offered and when the Spirit was poured out upon the apostles. The third month is also the month of the recovenanting assembly of the people of God at Sinai (Ex. 19:1).
Given this background, it is highly appropriate that Moses was reborn through water in his third month. He was delivered in the third month from the waters of death. This too foreshadows the deliverance of Israel from Egypt. Moses was "passed over" by Pharaoh in his first month, just as Israel was "passed over" by the angel of death in the first month, the month of Nisan. In the third month after the Passover, the people assembled in the presence of God to recut the covenant, to receive His laws, to be born again as a peculiar people and nation of priests. Moses foreshadowed the "passing over" of the angel of death, and the rebirth of Israel in the third month. Moses was the firstfruits of the liberated Israel of God.
BIBLICAL Horizons, No. 21
January, 1991
Copyright 1991, Biblical Horizons
17. The eye that mocks a father, And despises to obey a mother, The ravens of the valley will pick it out, And the young eagles will eat it. 18. There are three things that are too wonderful for me, Four that I do not understand: 19. The way of an eagle in the sky, The way of a serpent on a rock, The way of a ship in the middle of the sea, And the way of man with a maid. 20. So also is the way of an adulterous woman: She eat and wipes her mouth, And says, "I have done no wrong."
The theme of the sayings of the Sojourner is humility versus arrogance. We have seen the Sojourner (most likely Jacob) begin in verses 2-4 by saying that he is stupider than "any man," but that he rests in his knowledge of God. God is allwise, and so we need not be. He goes on in verses 5-6 to say that if we trust God’s Word, we shall have true the wisdom that comes from humility.
The humble man does not want too much (vv. 7-9), while the arrogant "leech" man wants everything (vv. 15-16). The humble man does not meddle in other people’s business, while the arrogant man does (v. 10). The arrogant man is proud. He is a knowitall. He despises his parents (vv. 11-13) and is savage to the poor (v. 14). He is never satisfied (vv. 15-16).
Now we come to another statement about the arrogant man (v. 17). The Sojourner says that he will come under the curse of the covenant.
The "eye," as we have seen, is the organ of judgment (Biblical Horizons No. 14). The eyelids of the arrogant are raised in lofty judgment against all authority (v. 13). The arrogant son mocks and despises his parents with his "eye" (v. 17). Notice particularly that it is his father who is mocked by the arrogant man, while it is his mother whom he disobeys. This is what Esau was like. He mocked the birthright that his father offered him (Gen. 25:34). He made life miserable for his parents (Gen. 26:35; 27:46). Jacob, however, obeyed his mother in all things (Gen. 27:6-13).
The unclean birds will pick out such "eyes." This refers to the curse of the covenant, set out in Deuteronomy 28:26, "And your carcasses shall be food to all birds of the sky and to the beasts of the earth, and there shall be no one to drive them away." This last part of that verse refers to Abram, who drove the birds away in Genesis 15:11. When Israel rejected her righteous inheritance, Abram no longer protected them and the birds devoured their carcasses (Mt. 24:28; Rev. 19:17-18). The doom of arrogant Esau and the picking out of his eyes is set forth in the book of Obadiah.
Rebellion may seem to lead to prosperity, but it leads to destruction. Those who judge wickedly with their eyes will be judged by God’s army of beasts and birds.
The Sojourner now moves back to the subject of humility: there are three, yea four things that are too wonderful for him. Indeed, he adds a fifth in verse 20.
What do these three, four, yea five things have in common? Because of our rationalistic education, we believe that an abstract formulation of a generality is more "true" than a series of concrete illustrations. Thus, we don’t feel we can "understand" this proverb unless we can summarize it in abstract language. Perhaps what these five things have in common is that they skillfully negotiate their environments: an eagle in the air, a serpent on a rock, a ship in the sea, a boy with his sweetheart, and an adulteress with her lifestyle. Or, perhaps what they have in common is that they are completely at ease in their environment.
It is not wrong to seek a common principle here, because obviously the Sojourner is looking at five similar things. We must avoid the idea, however, that when we have come up with an abstract generality we have done all that is necessary to understand this proverb. We must let the illustrations work on us visually and emotionally as well. Think about an eagle in the sky, a snake on a rock, a ship in the sea, and a boy with his sweetheart. Each is marvelous.
Christian philosophy says that eventually, maybe thousands of years from now, we will be able to put words to all the things we perceive and feel. This part of what is called the "maturation of epistemological self-consciousness." Maybe all we can do in this essay at this point is grope toward a sense of what is being said here.
I think we can say, however, that what is wonderful about each lies in the general area of the surprising ease of these things in their environments.
The "three things" cover the three environments God made in Genesis 1: heavens above, earth beneath, and waters under (below) the earth. It takes great effort for us to fly, and in the Sojourner’s day it was not possible at all, but an eagle soaring in the sky does it without any effort at all, it appears. The snake glides across the rocks, while we stumble and trip in rocky places. We thrash and splash in the water, but a ship negotiates it without fuss.
The "fourth thing" applies the principle to human life. Think of how shy young men are around girls. They may seek to cover up their shyness by acting boastful and by showing off, but clearly they are ill at ease. When, however, a boy and girl are in love, they just don’t seem to have any difficult communicating or getting along (that comes later!). Everything is rosy and everything falls into place.
The Sojourner adds a twist to his proverb, a "fifth thing." The adulterous woman eats up a man like a meal, wipes her mouth and thinks nothing of it. This also is amazing: Where is her guilt, her shame? Like the rebellious man with flashing eyes, so the adulterous woman has no sense of her own immorality. It is as natural for her to commit adultery as it is for an eagle to fly in the sky.
The Bible associates sexuality with eating, because both are "covenant" acts. The covenant meal seals the wedding at the marriage supper. Just so, an unclean meal is associated with sexual immorality. (For an extensive discussion of this, see J. B. Jordan, "The Meaning of Eating," available for $4.00 from Biblical Horizons .)
There is no way you can tell an eagle not to fly, and there is no way you can tell a snake not to flow through the rocks. Similarly, there is no way you can warn a love-struck young man that the person he is infatuated with may not be the right person. It is "too wonderful" for you, and you will have to take it to God. Get them to postpone marriage until they begin to see the "flaws" in each other.
In the same way, there is no way you can get through to people hardened in sin. Prisons are full of hardened criminals who think they have done no wrong. Always, according to them, it is someone else’s fault. Biblically speaking, the only hope for such people is to excommunicate them, to turn them over to Satan for the destruction of their flesh in the hope that such treatment will break through their veneer of arrogance (1 Cor. 5:1-6). It is a sad thing that the Church today does not love people enough to do this for them!
BIBLICAL Horizons, No. 21
January, 1991
Copyright 1991, Biblical Horizons
The modern Church in America and virtually everywhere else is ideology-centered, not geographical. This is because various Churches believe different things and have different customs of worship and sacraments. The ideological Church has gradually developed from the time of the Reformation, because accuracy of doctrine has become more important to the various churches than ever before. This was a net gain for Christendom, I believe, but it has now gone to seed.
The Biblical picture of the Church is clearly geographical: the Church at Ephesus, at Jerusalem, at Sardis, etc. It is very important to recover the geographical model of the Church, because it is intimately related to the Church’s mission on the earth.
In the recent symposium published by the faculty of the two Westminster Theological Seminaries, Theonomy: A Reformed Critique (Zondervan, 1990), several authors make the point that the New Testament is concerned almost exclusively with the Church as a governmental organization, and has virtually nothing to say about the civil government. They make this point over against the Bahnsen-Rushdoony "Theonomic" position, which maintains that both Church and "state" are pictured side-by-side in the New Testament as in need of reformation and as needing to come under the revealed law of God. There is a sense in which both positions are correct, and I think many (not all) on both sides would agree with what I am about to state here.
As I pointed out in Biblical Horizons No. 19, the distinctive change that came about with the Noahic Covenant was this: God promised to act to call a halt to all Cainitic civilizations, and put into the hands of His people the tools with which to effect this stoppage. The Old Testament Church would determine who ruled the land. The Church would put the sword of capital punishment into the hands of civil rulers, who would then execute justice on the earth. When the Church was evil, the ruler would rule badly, but when the Church was faithful, the ruler would rule wisely.
Throughout the Old Testament, the enemy was defined as Cainitic men, and the imprecatory psalms are phrased in terms of battle against evil men. We find next to nothing about battling demonic powers in the Old Testament.
What is distinctive and new about the New Covenant is that God pushes the battle back to the citadel of the enemy. Now the enemy is defined as Satan’s legions, the fallen-angelic principalities and powers. The Church is called to destroy them. Now the war is against the Garden-enemy (Satan), not primarily against the Land-enemy (evil men). Church discipline is what is most important, and excommunication comes in as a more powerful tool than execution.
For this reason, the New Testament focuses almost exclusively on ecclesiastical warfare, which is liturgical warfare. We cannot rest with a mere victory against Cainitic culture. We cannot rest until men are converted, and Satan is fully bound from influencing the hearts and minds of men. We must cast down strongholds of ideology, not merely bring criminals to justice.
If the Church is faithful in her calling to prosecute liturgical warfare, there will be little need for the magistrate to carry out capital punishment. We can see that this has indeed happened in Christian societies, for there is far less tyranny, brigandage, and murder in them than in non-Christian lands. The crimes that brought the death penalty in the Old Covenant are not often committed in Christian lands. Of course, as the Western world has rejected Christianity, the old crimes of rape, incest, homosexual seduction, murder, and the like have once again become major concerns in our society.
God plants the Church in specific places to exercise dominion over those places. The Church does this by faithfully obeying God in worship: weekly communion with real bread and real wine; singing all the psalms and other Bible songs; excommunicating rebels; recognizing the government of other churches; tithing; praying specifically for the people within her area, whether believers or not; etc.
But there is more. The Church is to claim territory. The old word for this is "parish." The Church governs a parish spiritually, and within her parish she oversees what is going on. A full parish is about the size of a political precinct in our state-centered age.
If some "Theonomists" (capital Tee) have failed to make clear that the Church is the center of society, some "anti-" and "non-Theonomists" have failed to make clear that the Church exercises social dominion. The Church does not exist for herself, but as Alexander Schmemann put it, "for the life of the world." In a particular place, the Church establishes a sphere of Spirituality, driving out the demonic powers. Within that sphere, such "state" actions as are necessary — and there will always be some criminals — will be done according to the standards of the law of God. And here, of course, the Old Testament social standards have much to say.
Practically speaking, what can be done to restore the geographical model of the Church? First of all, I don’t believe anything would be accomplished if we each decided to quit the church we presently attend and walk to the Church nearest to us. We might as well continue to drive to the Church we prefer.
Second, we need to take seriously the idea that the place where we meet, where the Word is preached on the Day of the Lord and where the Table is set up, is the geographical center of our work. The pastor should view himself as an "elder over hundreds" (Ex. 18). Those hundreds are not the same as those on the role of his church, who drive across town to get to worship. Rather, they are those who live within walking distance of where the church meets.
The pastor should put on his clergy shirt and clerical collar, and walk to every house and apartment near the church. There is nothing like a clerical shirt to open doors: When people see the black shirt and white collar, they know who you are and what you represent, and they know you are not a Jehovah’s Witness. He should speak to the people in the house, and say something like this: "Hello. I’m Pastor Green. Our church meets in the school down the street. I want to let you know that if you ever have trouble, or if you need someone to talk to, or if you want to know more about the Christian faith, we are here to help you in any way we can."
Pastor Green should find out what church they attend, and assure them that he is not trying to get them into his church. If ever there is an emergency, however, and they cannot get in touch with their pastor, they can call on him. Green should call their pastor and tell them this as well, and thereby build bridges. If they are not in a church, Pastor Green can offer to explain the faith to them.
Pastor Green should tell them that they are invited to come to the bazaars, Christmas and Reformation Day parties, and other public events hosted by the church. He should ask them if they would like to be on a mailing list to hear about those events. He should stress events that their children or visiting grandchildren might like to attend. He should tell them about the church’s brown-bag food programme. If the Church has a recreation hall, they should be invited to use it any time. In as sense, it is their Church, the Church in their neighborhood for them.
Meanwhile, the elders of the church ("elders over tens," Ex. 18), can do the same in their neighborhoods. They, too, can put on clergy shirts and clerical collars — for they, too, are pastors — and visit up and down their streets (two houses on either side, and five across the street), telling where they live, and offering the services of the church in like manner. The elder might have a meeting in his home on Sunday evenings, hosted by him and his assigned deacon, and neighbors should be welcome. The elder should try to have a neighborhood barbeque during the summer, so that the neighbors meet each other. The elder should offer to baby-sit in case of emergency. His car should be available in case of emergency. Etc.
When the New Testament speaks of the Church in Ephesus, this is what it has in mind. Jesus wrote letters through John to seven such city-churches, addressed to the bishop ("elder over thousands," Ex. 18; Rev. 2-3). In such churches, the bishop (or "superintendent," the Presbyterian term) was pastor to the pastors over hundreds, who in turn shepherded the elders over tens.
Jesus made it clear that as goes the Church in a city, so goes the city itself. The example in Revelation is Jerusalem. The Temple was wicked, so the city was too, and both were destroyed. This was the object-lesson to the seven churches in Revelation 2-3.
We can rebuild the geographical-parish view of the Church if we simply start doing what the Bible says to do. It is not hard: All we are doing is offering to help. In this way, the Church can begin to establish dominion as she did in the days of the Early Church. After a while, whole nations had "arch-bishops" called Patriarchs, each independent and equal to the other in a common brotherhood of Christian nations. A shadow of this still exists in Orthodoxy.
Let me suggest some steps for implementation. First, teach these things to your officers and then to your congregation. Second, have a congregational meeting and covenant together by vote to do these things: weekly communion, psalmody, tithing, etc. Sign and date it. Third, declare a moratorium on all hymns until all 150 psalms are learned in at least metrical versions. Chanting is easier and better; get with your local Lutheran pastor and learn how to do it. Have his music-leader come on Saturdays to teach your congregation how. The point of all this is to recreate the Church as a true home, a place you feel good about asking people to visit.
After six months or a year of learning how to do it in the privacy of your local Church, have the Pastor start visiting as described above, taking an elder with him. Once the elders learn to do it, have them do it in their neighborhoods. Eventually, these elder-run house-churches may grow into new full-churches.
Biblical Chronology
Vol. 3, No. 1
January, 1991
Copyright © James B. Jordan 1991
By James B. Jordan
As we move into the Persian period of ancient history, and try to reconcile it with Daniel’s prophecies, we need to ask some hard questions about the interpretation of the data before us. One question concerns the reliability of the Biblical witness, and beyond that a second question concerns the reliability of secular scholarship, both modern and ancient.
It would be nice if the first question were the only one we had to concern ourselves with. In that case, we could postulate that the Bible is a reliable historical witness, and then reconcile the data and interpretations developed by secular scholars with it. That in fact is what most evangelical commentators today do. They assume that both the Bible and the research of secular scholars are reliable, but that the Bible alone is inerrant, and then they work to reconcile them.
The evangelical assumes that the Bible is reliable for several reasons. At the human level, the Israelites are the only people in the history of the world to have developed more than a rudimentary sense of history. Neither the Greeks nor any other culture of the ancient world thought historically, and thus their view of the past was absorbed in mythology. For the pagan, this world and its affairs were not very important; what mattered was what went on upstairs. Contemplation, escape from history, and endless repetitive ritual were the essence of his outlook. It was only the Israelites who had such things as a doctrine of creation, a concept of linear, non-repetitious time, and a view of progress and eschatology. The gods of the nations neither created nor governed history, while the God of Israel did both. Salvation for the pagan meant escape from the world and history, while salvation for the Israelite meant redemption in space and time and thus the salvation of the world and history. Accordingly, as compared with other nations, we can expect that the historical records of Israel are much more reliable.
Additionally, as has often been pointed out, it is in the Bible and only in the Bible that we have an historical chronology. Other nations of the ancient world could produce king lists with numbers next to them, but only in the Bible do we have the kind of literature we find in the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles: history wedded to chronology. The pagan king lists are open to a variety of interpretations: Were some of the reigns overlapping? Was the nation divided and did some of these kings reign coterminously? Are some of the numbers faked in order to make the nation look older than all the other nations? By way of contrast, the Biblical data fits together reign by reign in an historical mosaic, even though some passages are difficult to interpret.
Beyond these arguments, the evangelical scholar points out that the Bible is God’s Word, and therefore inerrant. Wherever the Bible speaks of history and chronology, it has to be taken as absolutely true — although our interpretations may be challenged.
Having decided that the Biblical data is true, the evangelical then looks to the world of scholarship to find places where the Bible intersects with the history of the ancient world. Who was the Pharaoh in Joseph’s time? Who was Moses’ Pharaoh? How long did the Persian empire last? And here is where the trouble begins.
The current scholarly consensus gives little comfort to the evangelical scholar, because at a great many important points the history of the ancient world as reconstructed by secularists contradicts what the Bible says. The evangelical scholar finds two possible ways to deal with this. The first, far and away the most common, is to go back to the Bible and "soften" what the Bible says until it fits with the current secular scholarly consensus. The second way of dealing with the problem is to attack the secular scholarly consensus. This is something few evangelical scholars are willing to do.
Why not? Well, we could be harsh and say that evangelical scholars like their tenured positions at secular and quasi-secular institutions of higher learning, and so don’t like to take risks. That would be unfair, however, because some tenured people do take risks, as do some untenured people. In more than a few cases, however, fear doubtless is a factor. Most people, scholars included, like to look good to their peers, and to call into question the work of one’s fellows is not the way to get along with them.
The more pervasive reason that evangelical scholars do not challenge the secular system at its root is that modern evangelicals do not believe that the depravity of man seriously infects scholarship. They believe that the secular scholars are simply and disinterestedly pursuing truth. They don’t think that secular scholars suppress evidence.
Unfortunately, this view of the secular mind is extremely naive. The Bible tells us in Romans 1:18ff. that the unconverted mind constantly suppresses the truth, and that includes the truths of history. The Bible tells us, again in Romans 1:18ff., that the unbeliever deceives himself continually. In other words, he is not really aware of his powerful propensity to suppress any truth that threatens his peace of mind.
Further — and I realize that by writing what follows I am opening myself up to ridicule, but it is true nevertheless — the Bible tells us that the unbelieving world, including the world of scholarship, is constantly being led astray by fallen angels who seek to prevent the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth. These "principalities, powers, thrones, and dominions" are under Satan but over the ordinary demons. They operate by means of prejudice and ideology, binding the minds of men into straightjackets of error from which it is difficult to deliver them. It takes the miraculous power of the gospel to break through these ideologies. Warfare at this level is the calling of the Church (Ephesians 6).
Thus, over the course of time, men forget the truth because in their hearts they forsake it. The reason the Bible is so full of memorials to historical events and to the words of God, is that men tend to forget. This is an moral forgetting, not a mere psychological one: Men forget because they don’t want to remember. Thus, the history of the Bible and of the Church is a history of revivals, of times when what had been suppressed and forgotten is once again remembered. If this is a problem in the Church, how much more is it a problem outside of her?
Many readers of this newsletter can remember a time when Christianity was the public religion of the United States, instead of a persecuted minority. We have seen the gradual and then rapid removal of the Bible, of Christian history, and of the Christian worldview from our textbooks. This comes about not so much because of an intellectual conspiracy, but mainly because when the unconverted mind sees Christian things, they seem weird and strange to him and he moves to blot them out.
Consider, for example, how selectively news is reported. While television cameras and reporters swarmed over each other to cover every single event in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, these same people have actively suppressed news about the Anti-Abortion Movement of today. How many Americans are aware that there have been far more arrests of anti-abortion demonstrators, and far more cases of police brutality, than ever took place in the days of the Civil Rights Movement? So-called "human rights violations" in the Republic of South Africa are reported constantly, while the same actions performed by Soviets or Israelis only occasionally get on the news. The nationwide attacks on Christian schools that took place in the late 1970s and early 1980s were almost never carried in the secular media.
Would you believe a history of America written by such people? If not, then why believe a history of the ancient world written by the same class of people? Moreover, why believe the secular newscasters of the ancient world, who were just as interested in suppressing the facts as modern newscasters are?
This has everything to do with the chronology and history of the ancient world. The Bible tells us that in Moses’ day, the entire Egyptian army was destroyed, the Pharaoh himself included (Ps. 136:15; Ex. 14:8), the firstborn sons of every single family in Egypt were slain, their entire crop for the year destroyed, all their cattle killed, their economy devasted by the Israelites who spoiled them of gold and silver, and their population diminished by two million Israelites plus a huge "mixed multitude." Now, does an event like this fail to leave a mark? According to modern secular and evangelical scholarship, yes. They debate whether this happened in the reign of Thutmose III or Rameses II, both of whose mummies we have, and neither of which suffered any such a disaster.
In order to "soften" the Biblical data, evangelicals suggest things like this: The Egyptians refused to record any historical events unfavorable to them, so they just skipped over the exodus, and that’s why there is no evidence. Again: Maybe in discussing the plagues and the population figures the Bible is exaggerating, speaking "poetically" or something. But these explanations are silly. An event this huge does not fail to leave a big mark in history.
In fact, the current chronology of the ancient world is clearly and obviously wrong at this point. If the Bible is true, we need to find a place in Egyptian history where a tremendous disaster destroyed the nation — most likely at the beginning of one of the Egyptian dark ages. (Courville puts the two dark ages together, and has them beginning with the exodus of the Israelites; Donovan Courville, The Exodus Problem and its Ramifications; Loma Linda, CA: Challenge Books, 1971.)
The Bible tells us that the civilized Israelites conquered and enslaved a population of morally and culturally degenerate Canaanites. Thus, there should be a layer of advanced artifacts on top of a layer of primitive ones in the archaeological record of Palestine, dated at this time. In fact, current archaeological dating provides no such evidence. The layer of artifacts that fits the bill is dated much too early. Here again is an historical event that is too big to be ignored, and here again the archaeologically reconstructed sequence of events in Palestine is obviously wrong. (See the discussion of this problem in Courville, chaps. 5, 6, & 8.)
The Bible tells us that under the preaching of Jonah, the city of Nineveh, capital of Assyria, converted to the worship of the one true God. Jonah tells us that three generations converted, which means that for seventy or so years, the city was populated with believers. Present-day secular scholarship finds no such event in Assyrian history. Some evangelical scholars have suggested that perhaps Jonah converted Adad-nerari III, and that this is why he and the rulers immediately after him seemed to favor the Jews.
The Bible gives every indication that Nebuchadnezzar, Darius the Mede, Cyrus, and the early Persian kings were or came to be believers in the true God. Secular scholarship, with very little to go on, does not even entertain this idea.
The problem of suppressing information is not at all a modern one. Men hated God and His people and His history in the ancient world just as much as they do today. There is absolutely no reason to grant prima facie credibility to the works of pagan "historians" like Ptolemy and Manetho, especially when they contradict the Bible, and especially when various parts of their works have been shown to be fraudulent. Yet, the works of these two pagan writers have been employed by scholars, including Christian ones, as if they were virtually inerrant — except where obviously wrong.
Ptolemy is the problem for us at this point in our studies, because it is his king list and his eclipse data that are used to justify the currently-accepted chronology of the Persian empire, a chronology that does not jibe with the prophecy of Daniel, if we take the prophecy as predicting 490 literal years. (See Biblical Chronology 2:12.)
In conclusion, while we are in no position at this point to be able to reconstruct ancient history and chronology, we are in a position to say that evangelical scholars need to take their theological presuppositions more seriously, and to be far more critical of secular scholarship in this area than they have been heretofore.
Open Book: Views & Reviews, No. 1
January, 1991
Copyright (c) 1991, Biblical Horizons
Ewa Majewska Thompson: Understanding Russia: The Holy Fool in Russian Culture. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1987. Xi + 229. Hardcover $28.50. Reviewed by James B. Jordan.
Ewa M. Thompson is Professor and Chairman of the Department of German and Slavic Studies at Rice University. In this seminal study, she investigates the concept of the "holy fool" as it exists in Russian culture and civilization. While this might seem a specialized and curious topic of investigation, Thompson makes a convincing case that the "holy fool type" is essential to an understanding of Russian culture and religion.
The most notorious holy fool known in the West was Grigorii Rasputin, who exercised such a strange influence over the family of the Tsar before the Russian Revolution. Rasputin was, however, only the latest in a long line of such men, and his hold over the royal family was not as unusual as it might seem.
The holy fool was found in every Russian village for centuries, and often exercised great influence in governmental affairs. In early times, the holy fools went around completely naked, unwashed, and filthy; in later times they wore garish and weird outfits. At all times they caused disruptions in social life. They spoke incoherently, and their oracles were then interpreted by others. Such men were regarded as fools, but also as holy men. "It was believed that he possessed mysterious powers and was in some way in contact with the supernatural. He was also assumed to be clairvoyant, and his advice on matters personal and social was eagerly sought." Holy fools "were capable of scandalous and malicious actions against those who displeased or contradicted them" (p. 1). The sexual immorality and vile behavior of the holy fools was excused on the grounds that they sinned to make a point, or sinned in order to humble themselves. Their total verbal incoherence, often connected to imbecility, was proof of their mystical profundity.
Thompson shows that the holy fools were shamans, the descendants of a long history of shamanism in Russia and the cultures surrounding her (pp. 97-123). Their dress and behavior, as well as their standing in the community, demonstrate this clearly. Like the shamans, the holy fools covered themselves with iron objects and chains, engaged in trances and ecstasies, performed miracles and prophesied (in some fashion), were fond of beating drums or bells (which in Russia are fixed; i.e., they don’t swing), and were generally inclined to showmanship. Their lack of Christian morality, of course, is another parallel. The feats performed by holy fools were completely unlike those of Christian saints, for the saints did miracles to help others, while the holy fools did miracles only to call attention to themselves and to frighten ordinary people.
In early times, such people were regarded as pagans rather than as Christians. This is seen in the Russian Primary Chronicle, which speaks of such persons as "vicious." Later, "the shamanic influence in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries helped to deflect the Byzantine tradition of unusual ascetic practices, and the result was that positive recognition was given to conduct that had little or nothing to do with any form of ascesis" (p. 11). Early Christian ascetics were doubtless influenced by gnosticism, but still the purpose of their "prophetic theater" was to minister the gospel and to challenge others to righteousness. "Unlike the Byzantine eccentrics whom they allegedly imitated, [later] holy fools did not try to convert anyone. They committed acts which are considered sinful by Christians; they annoyed and hurt others. . ." (p. 13). There are no stories about the charity of holy fools, only about their aggression. Since they did not speak coherently, they did not preach.
Thompson shows that the acceptance of such holy fools throughout the warp and woof of Russian culture had a tremendous effect on the culture itself. As the holy fools pretended to be Christian, and were interpreted in a Christian light, a syncretistic popular religion arose that was half Christian and half shamanistic and self-consciously paradoxical. The foolishness of the holy fool was seen as paradoxical wisdom. The immorality of the holy fool was seen as paradoxical purity. The aggression of the holy fool was seen as paradoxical meekness. The rootlessness of the holy fool was regarded paradoxically as tradition. This pervasive acceptance of radical paradox set the stage for the Russian acceptance of Hegelianism and Marxism.
In chapter 2 of her study, Thompson contrasts the Western and the Russian views of mental illness. In the Middle Ages of the West, insanity was pitied and cared for by the Church. During the Renaissance’s revival of pagan viewpoints, insanity was identified with witchcraft and persecuted. During the Enlightenment, when human reason was glorified, the insane were regarded as subhuman and as objects of contempt and ridicule. Throughout all this, the Western paradigm was binary: sane versus insane.
The Russian taxonomy was trinary. Some people were sane and normal; some people were insane; and some people were paranormally insane: the holy fools. During the nineteenth century, responsible medical practitioners and Orthodox clergymen tried to reshape this paradigm and eliminate the holy fools from their special privileged status, but without success. An important byproduct of this scheme, Thompson shows, is that since some insane people are really wise (holy fools), some seemingly sane people are really insane. This has led throughout Russian history to the use of the charge of insanity as a way of dealing with political deviants. The Soviet misuse of psychiatry is nothing new in Russian culture.
In chapter 3 of her study, Thompson discusses the relationship of the Church to the holy fools. Throughout her book, Thompson displays a profound and thoroughly Biblical grasp of theology, and she uses it to show that the holy fools bore no resemblance to any kind of Christianity. Thus, her discussion is admirable and exemplary. The Russian Orthodox Church hierarchy was always very wary of the holy fools, and important leaders were critical of them. Important theologians, such as M. P. Bulgakov and more recently George Florovsky, were openly critical. For a long time in the Middle Ages, however, the sermons in the Orthodox church consisted by law of the reading of written homilies, and the clergy were poorly trained. This meant that the church did not minister to the needs of the people, and became no more than a Sunday ritual. If people wanted specific advice for problems, or if there was a crisis in the community, neither the sermon nor the pastor was likely to have anything to say. Thus, the shamanistic tradition was not challenged, but flourished Monday through Saturday and gradually accommodated itself to some exterior forms of Christianity. As a result, "throughout Russian history, some members of the clergy opposed the worship of holy fools, where others encouraged it" (p. 95).
Having shown the pervasiveness of the holy fool ideal in Russian culture, Thompson turns in chapter 5 to a discussion of Russian literature, where as she demonstrates, holy fools play a large role. In literature, the holy fool is romanticized and often made a voice for "Holy Russia," as in Pushkin’s Boris Godunov (also in Mussorgski’s opera) and in some of Leo Tolstoi’s works. More important, however, is the "stylized holy fool." The stylized holy fool brings the essence of the holy fool ideal (paradox) into more conventional settings. Thompson argues that Pierre Bezukhov (War and Peace) and Yuri Zhivago (Dr. Zhivago) are stylized holy fools.
Holy fools are particularly important in Dostoievski. Because Dostoievski understood Christianity much better than did Tolstoi (who was actually a pantheist and was excommunicated from the Church), he presented real-life holy fools in a very negative light. The stylized holy fool, however, as a representative of authentic, existential, paradoxical, Russian Christianity, is met frequently in Dostoievski. Thompson discusses Prince Myshkin (The Idiot) and Sonia Marmeladova (Crime and Punishment). The absurd contradiction of the innocent, unembittered prostitute is in the heart of the holy fool tradition, and "it is worth noting that Sonia did not advise Raskolnikov to go to church and make a confession according to the principles of the Orthodox faith. Instead, she insisted on humiliating him," requiring that he "expiate his sin publicly by going to the marketplace, kissing the earth [! — not an icon, JBJ] and proclaiming to the people around him that he had sinned" (p. 144).
Thompson’s study would be of great value already if it stopped here, but her last chapter is perhaps her most valuable. She shows that the Russian radicals and intelligentsia of the nineteenth century were simply acting out the holy fool paradox at a secular level. Russian folklore had already glorified secular holy fools, especially in the person of Ivan the Terrible. "Geoffrey Gorer put it this way: `Many Russians state that repentance is more highly to be esteemed than innocence.’ Lest this be taken as a reaffirmation of the prodigal son parable, it should be pointed out that in the Russian context, repentance means public denunciation of one’s misdeeds, the kind of thing Tsar Ivan practised, humiliation rather than a change of heart" (p. 179). This sheds great light on the Soviet practice of public confession.
Thompson argues that the holy fool paradox has worked to create a Russia that is tyrannical at home and aggressive abroad. In the absence of a coherent religious "ideology," the cultural psychological vacuum is filled by the power of the state authority. "What to an intellectual was a way of saying that paradoxes mattered more than syllogisms, to an ordinary Russian was a reassurance that the state of affairs in Russia was superior to the state of affairs elsewhere, and that it deserved unconditional loyalty and devotion, even if the price was slavery at home and aggression abroad" (p. 185).
She argues that the holy fool myth made the Revolution possible and easy, not only in providing a widespread foundation for Marxian dialectics, but also in that "holy fools expressed contempt for civil order and for organized religion, and this attitude came to be regarded as praiseworthy" (p. 194). Thus, the collapse of the Tsarist regime and of the Orthodox Church took place with very little social upheaval. It was on the outskirts of the Russian empire that the Revolution was greeted with horror; the Great Russians accepted it rapidly.
She closes with some important criticisms of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Solzhenitsyn, she points out, promotes the view that the values of the Russian people are those of a humble and suffering people, victims rather than props of the Soviet regime. Her position is that this is only half of the story, half of the self-embraced paradox. "Solzhenitsyn condemns what in his opinion constitutes an onslaught of non-Russian values on the Russian people: the secret police and strong political supervision, the system of internal passports, the limitations on travel abroad and within the Soviet bloc, the work camps in Asia, and an elaborate system of spying. All of these existed in nineteenth-century Russia, but Solzhenitsyn views them as if they had been imposed by a foreign conquest: as a burden rather than an integral part of the Russian tradition. He does not mention that popular resistance to these political customs has been virtually nil" (p. 191).
Thompson’s study is filled with invaluable insights into Russian culture, and will be of great value to historians, both ecclesiastical and cultural. It will be of value to theologians interested in social modelling and in the relationship of gnosticism to Christianity. It will be of value also to those wrestling with care of the poor, the insane, the homeless (who are often insane), and the demonically possessed. Finally, it will be of tremendous value to anyone seeking to understand the current changes in Russian and Soviet culture.
