Open Book: Views & Reviews, No. 3
May, 1991
Copyright (c) 1991 Biblical Horizons
Czech novelist Milan Kundera, though hardly a household name in the English-speaking world, has achieved a certain notoriety in America in recent years, largely on the strength of the English translation and film version of his novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Harper and Row, 1984).
The Unbearable Lightness of Being — the book — is a highly philosophical novel that begins with a discussion of Nietzsche and the idea of the eternal return, a doctrine in which "the weight of unbearable responsibility lies heavy on every move we make." But is weight really a curse? Kundera muses whether weight or lightness is truly to be preferred. Typically, he uses sexual imagery to describe the splendor of weight: "The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in the love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man’s body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life’s most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become."
It is lightness, then, that is unbearable. But it is lightness that characterizes the daily life of Kundera’s characters. Life itself, indeed, appears to be objectively light; at best, Kundera seems to suggest that life is composed of a kind of yin/yang of weight and lightness.
Unbearable Lightness is set in Prague around the time of the 1968 "Prague Spring." The novel centers on three characters: Tomas, a physician reduced to washing windows after writing an article critical of the regime; Sabina, a painter, an apolitical aesthete, and Tomas’s sometime mistress; and Tereza, a photographer and Tomas’s wife. The events of the novel defy summary, because no real events occur. In place of a plot, Kundera provides a string of sex scenes, as Tomas moves from bed to bed, an "epic lover," a "curiosity collector" of erotic experiences.
Tomas’s sexual escapades are evidently to be interpreted within the weight/lightness dualism. Tomas is "aware deep down of his inaptitude for love," his incapacity for a "weighty" love for a woman; he therefore chooses to pursue a variety of "light" affairs. Ironically, he and Tereza ultimately die "under the sign of weight" as a result of Tomas’s foray into journalism. But weight is the exception in Kundera’s world; he writes, "History is as light as individual human life, unbearably light, light as a feather, as dust swirling into the air, as whatever will no longer exist tomorrow."
The form of Kundera’s novel contributes to the impression of weightlessness. It lacks the standard Aristotelian beginning, middle, and end; time overlaps with time; earlier episodes are later recalled and elaborated; the narrator intrudes frequently with comments on the characters, as well as speculations on philosophy, Czech history, theology, language, politics, and art.
Writing in the July-August Crisis, Thomas Molnar describes the depersonalization and abstraction of contemporary novels, and cites Kundera as an example of this tendency. Rather than depicting the lives of flesh-and-blood people, Molnar argues, recent novels derive their force "from intellectual problems, psychologically monitored complexes, and from stereotyped conflicts of a socio-economic nature." Characters are placed "in a world where good and evil, crime and punishment, sin and redemption no longer make sense." Molnar notes of Kundera: "We find the same non-action and non-reality in the case of Milan Kundera, suddenly lifted to the status of an emblematic witness-of-the-century. Kundera, too, mechanizes his characters, whose sexual acts exhaust all the dimensions of living." For Kundera and other writers, "being is indeed light and porous. . . , unbearable since all its elements are permutable at will. The center of gravity is the bed."
"All is vanity," says the Preacher. We are dust, and to dust we shall return. Our days are fleeting, and the glory of man is like the flower that fades. All these images of the "lightness of life" are expressed in Scripture. But this is never the Bible’s ultimate perspective on life. Our final end is not disintegration into dust, but resurrection. God’s purposes will be fulfilled in a renewal and glorification of the heavens and earth. In The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis depicts heaven as the habitat of the "Solid People," where the blades of grass are too sharp for bare feet. Solidity, weight, not ethereal lightness, is our destiny.
Not only is "weight" our destiny, but earthly life is itself inherently weighty. Lewis brought this out in his remarkable sermon, "The Weight of Glory." Glory — God’s approbation — is an "almost incredible" promise: "To please God . . . to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness . . . to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son — it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is." The thought that men are destined for such awesome glory or equally awesome destruction means that "All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics." There is, in Lewis’s deeply Christian vision, no place for "light" sex such as Tomas wishes for. Instead, all of life is inherently and inescapably filled with ungodly meaning.
Molnar’s comments above imply that the amoral and impersonal universe of the contemporary novel not only runs counter to a Christian view of the world, but also makes for bad literature. For literature to be meaningful, characters, events, life itself must be weighty. They must have at least the potential of glory. Otherwise, men are left with nothing to write about but their own emptiness and shallowness.
Open Book: Views & Reviews is published occasionally, funds permitting, by Biblical Horizons , P.O. Box 132011, Tyler, Texas 75713-2011. Anyone sending a donation, in any amount, will be placed on the mailing list to receive issues of Biblical Horizons as they are published. The content of all essays published in Biblical Horizons is Copyrighted, but permission to reprint any essay is freely given provided that the essay is published uncut, and that the name and address of Biblical Horizons is given.
BIBLICAL Horizons, No. 25
May, 1991
Copyright 1991, Biblical Horizons
The drink offering or libation (nesek) is mentioned in only three places in the book of Leviticus. When the sheaf of the firstfruits was waved before the Lord, a grain offering was to be burned, along with "its libation, a fourth of a hin of wine [approx. one gallon]" (23:13). Similarly, libations were to be offered with the lambs, bull, and rams offered on the day of Pentecost (23:18). A general statement is made concerning libations in 23:37: "These are the appointed times of the Lord which you shall proclaim as holy convocations, to present offerings by fire [or, "food offerings"] to the Lord — burnt offerings and grain offerings, sacrifices and libations, each day’s matter on its own day."
More elaborate instructions for the drink offering are found in Numbers 15. There, the Israelites were commanded to offer a libation of wine with all burnt offerings and "sacrifices," the latter being a common term for the peace offering (15:8; cf. 1 Sam. 9:12-13; 1 Ki. 8:62-63). Two facets of this set of commands are noteworthy. First, a libation was required for all burnt offerings and peace offerings, whether they were offered to "fulfill a vow, or as a freewill offering, or in your appointed times" (v. 3). Second, it might seem from these verses that libations were not offered with sin or trespass offerings. Numbers 28:15, however, states that the sin offering included a libation. Every bloody sacrifice was to be accompanied by grain and wine offerings.
Numbers 15 also gives instructions on the amounts of wine required, which varied according to the kind of animal being sacrificed. Finally, the directions for the sacrifices in Numbers 28–29 include instructions for the offering of drink offerings.
To arrive at the meaning and rationale for the drink offering, it is helpful, first, to note, as Kurtz points out, that the drink offering was never to be offered except in the land of promise. (J. H. Kurtz, Sacrificial Worship of the Old Testament [Grand Rapids: Baker, {1863} 1980].) The instructions in Leviticus are prefaced with "when you enter the land which I am going to give to you" (v. 10), as are the instructions in Numbers 15. If the sacrifices are God’s food (literally, bread), then the libations are evidently God’s drink. The law of the drink offering, therefore, tells us that God would not drink wine with His bread until His people entered the land.
This makes sense in terms of biblical theology. Drinking wine is a sabbatical activity; it is a sign and a means of rest and celebration. Specifically, the libation is a sabbatical offering, particularly as described in Leviticus 23. Only after the Lord had defeated the enemies of His people, and given His people a restful dwelling in the land, would He accept the wine of the libations.
This connection of victory and rest with the drink offering is highlighted by the context of the laws of Numbers 15. These laws were delivered immediately after Israel rebelled at Kadesh Barnea, and then rashly attacked the Amalekites when God was not with them. God punished the Israelites by leaving them to wander in the wilderness for 40 years (Num. 13–14). Immediately after this defeat, God gave Moses instructions on the drink offering. In the context, the drink offering is a promise of eventual victory and settlement in the land. It is a sign also of God’s faithfulness to His covenant with Israel. Israel was to suffer in the wilderness for 40 years, restless and wandering; for 40 years, they were unable to eat and drink and rejoice before the Lord (Dt. 14:22-27). If God’s peculiar people were to be 40 years without wine, then God Himself would refrain from drinking wine for those same 40 years. Wine is an eschatological drink: it requires time for it to reach its maturity. So, God fasted from wine until His people reached their eschaton, the land where huge clusters of grapes grew. He wandered with His people, sharing in their sufferings, for the joy that was set before Him. Though the Israelites would wander for a generation, they could take comfort in the assurance that God was wandering with them.
Second, it should be noted that, even when the people of Israel entered into a conquered the land, it was only God who was given the wine of the drink offering. True, the people were permitted to drink wine and strong drink at the sanctuary. But, unlike most of the animal and grain offerings — a portion of which were retained for the priests or the worshiper — the entire drink offering was poured out upon the altar of burnt offering. (Kurtz, convincingly, infers this from two facts: first, the priests were forbidden to drink wine in the tabernacle [Lev. 10:9], and, second, the requirement that all sacrificial food be eaten in the tabernacle precincts [Lev. 6:16]). Thus, the drink offering was a sign not only of God’s victory and His entering into sabbath rest, but a sign of Israel’s exclusion from full participation in that victory and rest. In the New Covenant, Christ, the God-man, has entered into Sabbath rest, and we with Him. Therefore, we are given not only to eat of the flesh of our peace offering, but also to drink of the wine of the libation.
Third, the drink offering, like the grain offering, was symbolic of the works of the worshiper. This is a further reason why libations had to await entrance into the land; entering the land not only brought rest from wandering and from enemies, but also brought a renewed demand for dominion. The fruits of that dominion over the land — grain, oil, and wine — were to be offered to the Lord.
This background can perhaps shed some light on Paul’s statement that he was being poured out as a drink offering (Phil. 2:17; 2 Tim. 4:6). Though often understood as a reference to his impending death, it is more likely that Paul understood the struggles and toils of his apostolic ministry as a libation upon the sacrificial service of the churches among which he ministered (see Gerald F. Hawthorne, Philippians. Word Biblical Commentary 43 [Waco: Word, 1983], pp. 104-6). In the OT, the libation was offered as a portion of the fruits of the worshiper’s labor, so it is fitting for Paul to speak of his labor as a libation. His labor was offered up as drink for God, as wine to make His heart glad. But, as is appropriate to a better covenant, it is not only the Lord who drinks the wine of joy, but also the people: hence, Paul says that he shares the joy of his libation-labor with the Philippians, and asks them to respond by pouring their libations out upon him (2:17-18).
BIBLICAL Horizons, No. 25
May, 1991
Copyright 1991, Biblical Horizons
Here begins a series of studies in the Abomination of Desolation, or Desolating Sacrilege. This month and next I shall set out an overview of what I regard as the best interpretation of the phenomenon. Later essays will look at it in more detail.
(The original form of this introductory essay was published as an appendix in Gary DeMar, The Debate Over Christian Reconstruction [Tyler, TX: Dominion Press, 1988]. It is slightly revised here. It builds on research available in my Studies in Food and Faith, No. 11: "The Meaning of the Mosaic Dietary Laws," available from Biblical Horizons .)
As a result of my studies in Leviticus, I have come to the conclusion that the abomination of desolation spoken of in Daniel 9 and Matthew 24 is none other than apostate Judaism, and that the Man of Sin spoken of in 2 Thessalonians 2 is the apostate High Priest of Israel. In this essay I wish simply to set out the gist of my interpretation.
I am taking for granted the fundamental preterist position as set forth by Jay Adams in The Time Is at Hand and by David Chilton in Paradise Restored and Days of Vengeance. On Matthew 24, my taped lectures, available from Biblical Horizons , can be consulted for details. With this in mind, let us turn to Daniel 9:26-27.
Now we come to the statement that "on the wing of detestable things, or abominations, comes one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate" (v. 27b). In the past, I have taken the wing as a reference to the eagle, and thus jointly to Edom and Rome, both of whom are symbolized by the eagle in the Old Testament. The Romans and Idumeans together managed to destroy the Temple. The Idumeans (Edomites) invaded the Temple and filled it with human blood. The Romans sacked it. I understood the last phrases of the verse to be saying that in time the Romans would also be destroyed.
There is a problem with this view. Those who ignore the Idumean invasion of the Temple cannot deal with Jesus’ statement in Matthew 24 that the abomination of desolation stood in the holy place. Luke’s parallel statement that Jerusalem would be surrounded by armies (actually a reference to the Idumean-Zealot conspiracy that let the Edomites into the Temple) is not equivalent: surrounding Jerusalem is not the same as standing in the Temple. Only the Idumeans stood in the Temple.
But is this enough? The other passages in Daniel to which Jesus alludes indicate that counterfeit worship was set up in the Temple, and that this was the abomination of desolation. Prophesying of Antiochus Epiphanes, Gabriel (?) tells Daniel that "forces from him will arise, desecrate the sanctuary fortress, and do away with the regular sacrifice, and they will set up the abomination of desolation" (Dan. 9:31; 1 Maccabees 1:41-61). At the end of Daniel, the preincarnate Christ (?) tells him that "from the time that the regular sacrifice is abolished and the abomination of desolation is set up, there will be 1290 days." In my opinion this has to do with the same event, the 1290 days being thrice 430, but days instead of years (Ex. 12:40), while the 1335 days of the next verse go back to the 45 years between the Exodus and the Conquest of the land (Dt. 2:14; Josh. 14:6-10). The oppression of Antiochus will be worse than that of Egypt, but much shorter. Blessed is he who endures to the end and sees the land reconquered. All this is a type of the New Covenant, of course.
With this in mind, though, it certainly seems that the mere presence of wicked Edomites and Zealots in the Temple is not enough. We need to have a cessation of true sacrifices and an implementation of counterfeit ones. And of course, that is exactly what happened in the New Covenant. With the death of Christ, the sacrificial system came to an end. Any blood sacrifices offered after the cross were potential abominations.
Returning to the time of the Maccabees and Daniel 11, we need to ask who were the "forces from him" that desecrated the sanctuary and set up the desolating sacrilege? They were the reigning High Priests Jason and Menelaus, who apostatized to Greek religion, and who invited Antiochus to help them take over Jerusalem for their own purposes (Josephus, Antiquities 12:5:1). In the same way, the apostate High Priests between A.D. 30 and 70 cooperated with the Romans in order to suppress the Christian faith and in order to maintain their own Sadducean combination of Greek philosophy and apostate Judaism.
The whole of Old Testament theology points us to this. The "wing of abominations" goes back to Numbers 15:37-41, where every Israelite was commanded to wear a blue tassel, called a wing, on his garments. ("Corner" is literally "wing.") This was the "wing of holiness," to remind Israel to obey the law (v. 40). Every Israelite was a member of a heavenly people, and "flew" about the throne of God on these blue (heavenly) "wings." Naturally, an apostate Israelite would no longer have "wings of holiness" but "wings of abominations." Their leader, the High Priest, would be the preeminent example of this.
(A full study of the "wing" motif would be a large undertaking. Let me call your attention, however, to the wings of the cherubim, on which God sat enthroned. The wings on the garments of the Israelites meant that they, too, were cherubim, and were to guard God’s holiness. The High Priest, described in Ezekiel 28:11-19 as the true spiritual King of Tyre, is called a cherub. Counterfeit cherubic wings carrying a counterfeit Ark to a counterfeit Temple are pictured in Zechariah 5:5-11, and this is relevant background to the destruction of Jerusalem, because these also are wings of abomination. Notice also that apostate Jerusalem in Revelation 18:2 is said to be a "dwelling place of demons and a haunt of every unclean spirit, and a haunt of every unclean and detestable bird.")
The idea of abomination is thoroughly Levitical. Unclean food was called abominable, or literally detestable, because you were to spit it out. If they ate detestable food, they would become detestable, and God would spit them out. This is clearly set out in Leviticus 11:43, 18:28, and 20:23, and see also Revelation 3:16. This was all symbolic of sin, of course. It meant that God would spit out the people if they corrupted themselves with idolatry, since the unclean animals were associated with idols and with the idolatrous nations. (Compare Paul’s "table of demons.")
False worship is idolatrous worship. When the Jews rejected Jesus and kept offering sacrifices, they were engaged in idolatry. This was the "wing of abominations" that took place in the Temple. It is why the Temple was ultimately destroyed. The particular desecration that took place was the massacre of converted Jews that took place just before A.D. 70, as prophesied in the book of Revelation. It was the blood of those saints (Rev. 14) that Jerusalem was made to drink (Rev. 17) to her own destruction.
A full picture of this is provided in Ezekiel 8-11. I shall not expound the passage at this point, but simply direct you to it. There you will see that when the apostate Jews of Ezekiel’s day performed the sacrifices, God viewed them as an abomination. He called the holy shrine an "idol of jealousy, that provokes to jealousy" (8:3). The Jews had treated the Temple and the Ark as idols, and so God would destroy them, as He had the golden calf. Ezekiel sees God pack up and move out of the Temple, leaving it empty or "desolate." The abominations have caused the Temple to become desolate. Once God had left, the armies of Nebuchadnezzar swept in and destroyed the empty Temple. (When we remember that Ezekiel and Daniel prophesied at the time, the correlation becomes even more credible.)
This is what happened in Matthew 24. Jesus had twice inspected the Temple for signs of leprosy (Lev. 14:33-47; the two so-called cleansings of the Temple in John 2 and Matthew 21). Jesus had found that the Temple was indeed leprous, and as the True Priest He condemned it to be torn down, in accordance with the Levitical law. "And Jesus came out from the Temple [leaving it desolate; God departing] and was going away [compare Ezekiel], when His disciples came up to point out the Temple buildings to Him. And He answered and said to them, `Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here shall be left upon another which will not be torn down’" (Matt. 24:1-2).
(Note that the counterfeit Ark is removed from Israel right after a description of house-leprosy in Zechariah 5:4. The message in Zechariah was that when God’s Temple was rebuilt, wickedness would be removed. This is a type of the New Covenant: When the Church was established, God sent leprosy into the Temple, and it became a seat of wickedness.)
With this background we can interpret Daniel 9:27b much more clearly:
Thus, verse 27 is simply an expansion of verse 26. Verse 26 says that the Messiah will be sacrificed; verse 27 explains that this ends the sacrificial system. Verse 26 says that the invasions will desolate the Temple and that it is determined. Verse 27 says that wrath will be poured out on the apostate Jews and their High Priest, whose actions desolated the Temple, and that this is decreed.
This correlates magnificently with 2 Thessalonians 2, as we shall see in the next installment in this series.
Now, just because these events were fulfilled in A.D. 70 does not mean that they are irrelevant to us. Churches can also apostatize, and Christ warned the Seven Churches that they too could be destroyed if Christ departed from them. They would be "desolate" and their worship would be "abominable" (Rev. 2-3). The destruction of the Temple and of its Jerusalem-culture, as portrayed in the remainder of Revelation, was thus a warning to the Seven Churches: If you do the same thing, God will do this to you. Thus, the principles are still in force, and serve to warn us today: If our churches depart from Christ, He will destroy both them and our society, which grew up around them.
BIBLICAL Horizons, No. 25
May, 1991
Copyright 1991, Biblical Horizons
29. There are three things that are stately in their march, Even four that are stately when they walk: 30. The lion is mighty among beasts And does not turn back before any, 31. The strutting cock, The male goat, And a king with his army around him. 32. If you have been foolish in exalting yourself Of if you have plotted evil, put your hand on your mouth. 33. For the churning of milk produces butter, And the churning of the nose produces blood, And the churning of anger produces strife.
We come at last to the end of the remarks of Agur the Sojourner. These last two proverbs can be paired and considered together. They contrast the man who has proper glory with the man who is ambitious.
The four things that are stately in their march have this in common: They are enthroned and glorified by the community of which they are a part. The beasts recognize the lion as king, and none can stand before him. The cock (not greyhound) is recognized as lord of the yard by the hens. The male goat leads the flock. The king, if the people are with him, is in the same position.
Unlike the preceding proverbs of Agur, this one does not give us any indication of why these particular animals are selected as analogies. Since the proverb climaxes with the king, it seems to me that each of the animals portrays something appropriate to kingship in the human realm.
The last phrase, "a king with his army" or "militia" has also been translated "a king against whom there is no opposition." The matter of debate concerns an obscure Hebrew word. But whichever way we translate it, we get the same impression. A king surrounded by a willing people formed into an army is a king against whom there will be no opposition, and vice versa.
Such a king is like a lion. He does not need to retreat before any other beast, any other king. His presence is magnified by the support of his people. This is how it must be with King Jesus, the Lion of Judah. When His people are united in righteousness and in support of Him, no other king will be able to stand before Him.
Such a king is like a strutting cock. Modern scholars seem to be agreed that this is the meaning of another obscure Hebrew phrase, translated in older versions as greyhound or war-horse. It is appropriate for there to be ceremony around the king, so that he "struts" among his people. Such ceremony glorifies the king, and enables him to show his glory, to the delight of his people. It would be a false humility, and damaging to the nation, if the king should refuse such ceremony. So it should be with King Jesus also. Our worship should be glorious.
Finally, such a king is like a male goat. He leads the flock, and is recognized as leader by all. His power as lion and his beauty as cock enhance his leadership, and assist the people to follow him, to their own betterment. In the same way, we should follow King Jesus.
As Agur winds up his proverbs on humility and arrogance, he gives direct advice to us as sinners in verses 32-33. Like Adam, we are all prone to exalt ourselves instead of exalting the King. Like the fool who says "No God for me" (Ps. 14:1), we want to make ourselves great. We pursue glory instead of waiting for it to come to us as a result of our faithful service.
Agur says to throw away such tendencies. He warns us that no good will come to us if we are ambitious for self-glory. When other people oppose us, as they will, it will make us churn with inner anger.
There is a righteous churning, which is the desire to be useful. Such churning is like the churning of milk that produces something good: butter. There is also, however, an unrighteous churning, which is the desire to be important. The man who churns with such desires will get his nose "bent out of joint," and the twisting of the nose produces blood. In the same way, the anger that results from having our ambitions thwarted produces the blood of violence and strife.
The wise man is not like the ambitious fool. He has the attitude of Agur, which was presented at the beginning of the chapter, and which makes a fitting close to our discussion:
Surely I am more stupid than any man, And I do not have the understanding of a man, And I have not learned wisdom, But I have knowledge of the Holy One! (Prov. 30:2-3).
Biblical Chronology
Vol. 3, No. 5
May, 1991
Copyright © James B. Jordan 1991
By James B. Jordan
We have seen that it is likely that the Artaxerxes of Ezra-Nehemiah is the same as Darius the Great. If this solution be correct, and I think it is, possibly there is another problem in Ezra that can be resolved by it. In Ezra 4:6 we are told that "in the reign of Ahasuerus, at the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem." Nothing more is ever said about this accusation. The next verse reads, "And in the days of Artaxerxes" they wrote a letter of accusation. A full discussion of this letter ensues in Ezra 4. There are several interpretations of these verses.
A. The current establishment interpretation says that Ahasuerus is Xerxes and Artaxerxes is Longimanus. It is held that the letters to these two later monarchs are mentioned here, out of chronological sequence, because the theme of this section of Ezra is opposition to God’s work. Thus, we are shown two later instances of opposition.
B. The classical interpretation is that Ahasuerus is Cambyses and Artaxerxes is Pseudo-Smerdis. We know that there are at least two Ahasueruses in the Bible (Dan. 9:1; Esth. 1:1), so why not a third? The value of the classical interpretation is that it does not wrench Ezra 4 out of chronological sequence, nor does it fall into the modern trap of assuming that the Jews called these monarchs by only one name each and that they used the same names the Greeks used. The problem with the classical interpretation is that Pseudo-Smerdis almost certainly did not reign long enough for a letter to have reached him and a reply to have been sent back.
C. Another view is that Ahasuerus is Cambyses, and Artaxerxes is Darius. This makes a lot of sense, since as we have seen it is likely that in Ezra-Nehemiah, Darius and Artaxerxes are the same king. The scenario presented is that at the beginning of Cambyses’ reign, a letter of complaint was sent to him, which he ignored. Then again, at the beginning of Darius’s reign, when he was threatened with insurrection on all sides, more letters were sent complaining about the Jews. Darius-Artaxerxes ordered work on the Temple stopped. In the second year of his reign, having received more information, Darius ordered the work resumed (Ezra 6).
D. Another twist on this is to see both Ahasuerus and Artaxerxes as Cambyses, so that Ezra 4:7ff. is simply filling out 4:6. This means, however, that within Ezra’s book there are two Artaxerxeses (4:6 and 6:14), and that they are not distinguished by any indication — an unlikely thing for a writer to do. Another problem with this interpretation is that extra-Biblical evidence indicates strongly that Cambyses continued the policies of his father Cyrus in showing favor to the Jews. When Cambyses was in Egypt he "knocked down all the temples of the gods of Egypt," but allowed no harm to be done to the Jewish temple at Elephantine (Elephantine Papyrus No. 30). Thus, it is not likely that Cambyses would have called a halt to the rebuilding of the Jerusalem temple.
E. Finally there is the Jordan view. I suggest that the Ahasuerus of Ezra 4:6 and the Artaxerxes of 4:7 are both Darius, and that the "and" of 4:7 should be translated "to wit." This means that the phrase "at the beginning of his reign" applies to Darius-Artaxerxes, and that the letter sent to Artaxerxes in Ezra 4:7 is the same as the one sent to Ahasuerus in 4:6. It also means that Ezra 4:5-6 are in chronological order. To wit: "They hired counselors against them to frustrate their counsel all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius (Do-good) king of Persia. To wit, in the reign of Ahasuerus (Chief of Rulers, Darius-Artaxerxes), in the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem. To wit, in the days of Artaxerxes (King of Justice, Darius), Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of his colleagues, wrote to Artaxerxes king of Persia; and the text of the letter was written in Aramaic and translated from Aramaic."
The letters Ezra 4 complain that the Jews were rebuilding not the temple but the wall. The long chronology says that under Darius the temple was rebuilt, but that when the Jews began to rebuild the wall, stiff opposition arose against them. In the days of Xerxes (son of Darius) and in the days of Artaxerxes Longimanus they were prevented from rebuilding the wall. Finally, Nehemiah obtained permission to rebuild the wall, in the 20th year of Artaxerxes Longimanus.
I believe that there is internal Biblical evidence against this reconstruction. We have seen that it is most likely that the Artaxerxes of Ezra-Nehemiah is Darius. But if the wall was not rebuilt until Nehemiah came in Darius’s 20th year, why were letters sent complaining about the wall at the beginning of Darius’s reign? The answer is seen in Ezra 9:9, which says that the Jews had begun rebuilding the wall before Nehemiah, and indeed had erected some kind of a wall by the time Ezra arrived in Jerusalem.
Here is the historical scenario, as I see it: Jeshua and Zerubbabel and their associates returned to Jerusalem in the first year of Cyrus. They built the altar, and begin rebuilding the temple (Ezra 3). Soon, however, they encountered opposition, which "discouraged the people of Judah and frightened them from building" (Ezra 4:4). The people left off working on the temple and devoted themselves to building nice homes for themselves and working on the wall (Haggai 1). God in His mercy raised up adversaries who complained about this wall-building, and at the beginning of his reign King Darius forbad them to work on the wall and city (Ezra 4:21). They were not, however, forbidden to work on the temple. Thus, God raised up the prophet Haggai, who told them that they were in sin for not having finished the temple first (Haggai 1). No longer able to work on walls and houses, the people to devoted themselves to rebuilding the temple. This aroused more questions, and another letter was sent to Darius asking about the temple (Ezra 5). Darius gave permission to rebuild the temple, which was completed in the 6th year of Darius (Ezra 6). The next year Ezra arrived, and noted that both the temple and a rudimentary wall had been completed.
This scenario does better justice to the information contained in the texts of Ezra-Nehemiah and Haggai, and does not require that Ezra 4 be yanked out of historical context.
Daniel’s 70 Weeks Revisited
One thing that emerges from these three studies in the chronology of Ezra and Nehemiah is that Calvin and other older students of the Word may well have been right to challenge the Ptolemaic chronology and the existing system of B.C. dates (see Biblical Chronology 2:12). It is entirely possible that Daniel’s 70 weeks are weeks of real chronological years, beginning with Cyrus’s decree and ending with the crucifixion.
The short chronology of Ezra-Nehemiah clarifies the meaning of Daniel 9:25, "So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince: seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress." The seven weeks, or 49 years, extend from the decree of Cyrus until the 34th year of Darius-Artaxerxes, which takes us down to the end of the book of Nehemiah. (7 years for Cyrus, 8 for Cambyses and pseudo-Smerdis, 34 for Darius.) During those 49 years the city was indeed rebuilt, and in times of distress.
If the 49 years (7 weeks) prove to be literal years, as we have seen they likely are, then the remaining 63 weeks would also be literal years. In that case, the entire B.C. system of dating is off, and a great deal of revisionist labor lies before us.
Bibliography
As we have stated all along, modern unbelieving and evangelical commentators are agreed on two points that we are calling into dispute. The first is that the Ptolemaic B.C. dates are correct, and that the Persian Empire lasted 205 years. The second is that the Artaxerxes of Ezra-Nehemiah is not Darius the Great (as we have argued) but is Artaxerxes Longimanus, who came to the throne 57 years later than Darius. We have not discussed this (yet), but it is also agreed that the Ahasuerus of Esther is Xerxes the son of Darius, while Biblical chronology suggests that he is again Darius the Great.
The two most significant critics of this scheme are Anstey and Faulstich. Martin Anstey, Chronology of the Old Testament (originally The Romance of Biblical Chronology), is published by Kregel Publications (Grand Rapids: [1913] 1973). Anstey provides a full and persuasive discussion of all the chronological materials from the ancient world, and provides many sound arguments in favor both of the short chronology for Ezra-Nehemiah and also in favor of taking Daniel’s 70 weeks literally. He concludes that the Persian Empire actually lasted 123 years. Unfortunately, Anstey believed in the postponement theory regarding Daniel’s 70th week (p. 277). If we place the crucifixion of Christ in the middle of the 70th week, which is the best interpretation, then we must subtract 3 years from Anstey’s calculation. In that case, the Persian Empire lasted 120 years.
Anstey’s many pages of discussion must be taken seriously by any student of Biblical chronology. He surveys all the ancient literary sources for chronology (pp. 16-33), discusses the history of Biblical chronological study and shows its dependence on questionable pagan sources (pp. 35-57), provides telling arguments in favor of identifying Darius as the Artaxerxes of Ezra-Nehemiah and the Ahasuerus of Esther (pp. 240-274), and reviews numerous inconsistencies and impossibilities in the Ptolemaic understanding of the chronology of the Persian Empire (pp. 275-293). I believe Anstey to be in error in a few places, but his massive revisionist study is compelling and needs to be reviewed by someone with the time and expertise to make a thorough study of the matter.
Less useful but still of value is E. W. Faulstich, History, Harmony, the Exile & Return, published by Chronology Books, Box 3043, Spencer, IA 51301 (1988). I have had occasion in the pages of this newsletter to criticize Faulstich for some of his absurdities in the past, and the present volume contains many such. Faulstich is committed to the Ptolemaic B.C. dating system, and also is committed to a bizarre prophetic scheme involving modern-day Israel. All the same, in this book he provides many good arguments for identifying Darius the Great with the Artaxerxes of Ezra-Nehemiah. Unlike other chronologists, he identifies the Ahasuerus of Esther with Darius the Mede (whom he identifies as Astyages), son of the Ahasuerus of Daniel 9:1. I find his arguments here to involve a great deal of supposition and guesswork, and prefer Anstey’s work at this point. Faulstich’s discussion of the Elephantine Papyri is useful.
Open Book: Views & Reviews, No. 3
May, 1991
Copyright (c) 1991 Biblical Horizons
My copy of Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (1976: not so new, really) defines obscene as (1) "disgusting to the senses; repulsive" and (2) "abhorrent to morality or virtue; specif: designed to incite lust or depravity." Definitions such as this serve a useful purpose only when there is agreement on what the terms of the definition itself mean. But in American culture today, there is no agreement about what is "disgusting" or "repulsive" or even about what is "moral" or "virtuous." What is disgusting to one is artistically daring to another. What is more, it is widely believed, if we can trust the conclusions of philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, that it is impossible to arrive at any universal moral norms. Much of our moral discourse, MacIntyre argues in After Virtue, implicitly assumes a philosophy of "emotivism," the belief that "all moral judgments are nothing but expressions of preference, expressions of attitude or feeling, insofar as they are moral or evaluative in character" (p. 12). In such a situation, it is unlikely that we can come to agreement on the meaning of "obscene."
Moreover, even if we could assume a common morality, people have different reactions to books or works of art. Some Christians like opera, others dislike it intensely. Common morality does not guarantee uniformity of taste. Nor should it. Yet, while admitting the inherently subjective character of our reactions to music, visual and plastic arts, and literature, it would seem advisable to seek, if possible, a more objective definition of what constitutes obscenity. Especially if obscenity restrictions are to be embodied in law, it will not do to define obscenity in terms of the viewer or reader’s reaction. Subjective standards provide fertile ground for arbitrariness in the application of law.
The Christian encounters additional difficulties when attempting to define obscenity. First, certain parts of Scripture might be deemed "repulsive" by some of our contemporaries. After all, the Bible is full of stories about sinners. But by no means all of the "repulsive" actions and events are condemned. God commanded Israel to put certain Canaanite cities under the ban; Jael was praised for pounding a tent peg through Sisera’s temple; it is Samuel’s zeal for the Lord that leads him to hack Agag to pieces before the Lord at Gilgal. The prophets tell us that those who are judged will be devoured by birds of prey and dogs. The burning sulfur that consumes Sodom and Gomorrah came from heaven. As a friend of mine might say, there’s a lot of gritty stuff in the Bible.
Focusing more specifically on the area of obscenity as we usually think about it (writings tending to incite lust), we must say again that the Bible contains some material that might — just might — be construed by some as obscene. The Song of Solomon is an extended celebration of, among other things, sexual love. Ezekiel uses graphic imagery in several chapters of his prophecy, and the same language is used by some other prophets.
Some Christians have thought it best to avoid these features of Scripture. When, after all, was the last time you heard an expositional sermon on Ezekiel 16 or 23? When was the last time they were even read in your church? Similarly, some Christians tend to be uncomfortable with any sexual imagery or themes in literature. But these attitudes ought to be challenged. Should Christian writers, musicians, painters, and sculptors ignore human sexuality? Should they treat it as an embarrassment to Christian faith that they have bodies? We cannot fall into the extreme of virtually denying the sexual nature of man: man was made male and female, and our particular sexual identity is an integral part of who we are. (Despite bad press, Christians, at least until the early modern period, were remarkably frank about sexual matters. On the Puritans and Augustine, see the racy but entertaining and insightful article by Garry Wills in the New York Review of Books, December 21, 1989)
There is no biblical reason for Christian artists to ignore sex. Rather, they must seek to write and paint about sex in a God-honoring way. Christian writers and artists must create a new, biblically-informed vocabulary and, if possible, an "iconography" of sexual love in order to counteract the pervasively pornographic vocabulary and iconography of our culture. We can’t fight something with nothing. We cannot fight pornographic portrayals of sex with denial of the sexual. We must fight ungodly portrayals of sex in books, movies, and other media with godly portrayals of sex.
What kind of guidance does the Bible give in this area? There are no direct commands concerning the content or style of writing. It would be helpful to think carefully through the implications of the seventh commandment, and its case laws, for the artist or writer. This is not as easy as it might seem. Without wishing to appear jesuitical, it seems important to distinguish between portraying or describing a sinful act on the one hand, and actually committing the same act on the other hand. Moses, after all, describes the activities of the Sodomites; the rape of Tamar by Amnon is also described. Thus, there is clearly no necessary sin involved in describing a sinful sexual act.
As profitable as this line of inquiry is, I want to take a different tack. For many, the question is not so much whether to portray sex (whether licit or illicit), but how. In this regard, I believe we can gain some insight by examining briefly the Bible’s own example. Obviously, the Bible, being a literary work, gives us more direct guidance for literature than for visual arts. But some of my conclusions might be applicable in some way to other arts.
The Bible’s language in dealing with sex is not, perhaps, what our Scripture-illiterate culture tends to expect. Unlike many Christian books, the Bible’s language is restrained but matter-of-fact when dealing with sexual matters. There is no hint of Victorian sentimental prudery in the Levitical descriptions of sexual defilement (Leviticus 12; 18; 20). The authors of the Bible describe sexual crimes, such as rape and adultery without flinching (e.g., Genesis 38; 2 Samuel 11:1-13; 13:1-19). The Bible makes no secret of the importance of sexual passion in human life and history (witness the effects of David’s adultery). But neither does the Bible dwell on the anatomical details of sexual intercourse. Sexual acts are described forthrightly for what they are, but the details that are so prominent in contemporary portrayals of sex are passed over in silence. Leviticus 18 says that it is an abomination for a man to lie with another man as with a woman. Generally, that is about as detailed as the biblical language gets. This might give Christian artists a (rather vague) guideline for artistic portrayals of sex.
More specific guidance can perhaps be found in the fact that in the Bible, poetry is the literary medium for the expression of licit sexuality. It is the clothing without which discussion of sex becomes embarrassingly impersonal and clinical. The Song of Songs provides the best model in its use of architectural, banquet, and pastoral imagery to describe the woman’s body and the act of love. The woman describes her husband as "a cluster of henna blossoms in the vineyard of Engedi" and "like an apple tree among the trees of the forest" in whose shade the wife takes "great delight and sat down, and his fruit was sweet to my taste" (Song of Solomon 1:14; 2:3). The act of love is here described as a feast in which the each lover enjoys the pleasures of the other’s body.
The Bridegroom in turn uses a combination of pastoral and architectural imagery to describe his Bride:
How beautiful you are, my darling,
How beautiful you are!
Your eyes are like doves behind your veil;
Your hair is like a flock of goats
That have descended from Mount Gilead.
Your teeth are like a flock of newly shorn ewes
Which have some up from their washing,
All of which bear twins,
And not one among them has lost her young . . . .
Your neck is like the tower of David
Built with rows of stones,
On which are hung a thousand shields,
All the round shields of the mighty men.
Your two breasts are like two fawns,
Twins of a gazelle,
Which feed among the lilies (Song of Solomon 4:1-2, 4-5).
As chapter 4 continues, the Bridegroom turns to garden imagery: "A garden locked is my sister, my bride, a rock garden locked, a spring sealed up." In 7:1-2, he describes the curves of his Bride’s hips as "jewels, the work of the hands of an artist," and her navel as "a round goblet which never lacks mixed wine." Examples could of course be extended, but the general point has been made: In the Song of Solomon, the lovers’ admiration of each other’s bodies, and the act of love itself, are described by poetry.
In other biblical passages, however, the direction of the metaphor is changed; rather than employing architectural and pastoral imagery to describe sexual activity, as in the Song of Songs, some of the biblical writers use illicit sexual acts as metaphors for idolatry and faithlessness. In these passage, graphic sexual imagery, sometimes combined with rather nauseating, almost scatological language, is used. In denouncing the idolatries of Jerusalem, Ezekiel wrote an extended allegory of a young girl child (Jerusalem), whom the Lord pitied, clothed, adorned with jewels. He displayed her beauty to the surrounding nations. In response, however, Jerusalem "trusted in [her] beauty and played the harlot" and "poured out [her] harlotries on every passer-by who might be willing" (Ezekiel 16:15).
Ezekiel’s language becomes more intense:
You built for yourself a high place at the top of every street, and made your beauty abominable; and you spread your legs to every passer-by to multiply your harlotry (16:25).
Jerusalem "played the harlot" with Egypt, Philistia, Assyria, and Chaldea; the Lord, in response, threatens to "gather all your lovers with whom you took pleasure . . . and expose your nakedness to them that they may see your nakedness" (16:36-37).
In a parallel passage, Ezekiel described the harlotries of the sisters, Oholah (Samaria) and Oholibah (Jerusalem). Samaria was the first to become a prostitute, but Jerusalem followed the same path, and in fact was worse than her sister:
She lusted after the Assyrians, governors and officials, the ones near, magnificently dressed, horsemen riding on horses, all of them desirable young men. . . . And she saw men portrayed on the wall, images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermillion, girded with belts on their loins, with flowing turbans on their heads, all of them looking like officers, like the Babylonians in Chaldea, the land of their birth. And when she saw them she lusted after them. . . . And she uncovered her harlotries and uncovered her nakedness; then I became disgusted with her, as I had become disgusted with her sister. Yet she multiplied her harlotries, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the harlot in the land of Egypt. And she lusted after her paramours, whose flesh is like the flesh of donkeys and whose issue is like the issue of horses. Thus you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when the Egyptians handled your bosom because of the breasts of your youth (23:11-21).
It is important to recall that the sins for which Jerusalem is being judged were not primarily sexual, but have to do with breach of the covenant. Both Ezekiel 18 and 23 are full of explicit and implicit references to the holiness code of Leviticus. But what is immediately in view is idolatry.
It is significant that the graphic sexual imagery used by Ezekiel is never used in Scripture to describe loving, marital sex. Rather, it is the language of prophetic denunciation. The effect of the language is to heighten the horror and shame of Israel’s idolatry. The language is graphic, but not pornographic; it is not intended to produce lust, but shame and repentance. Ezekiel’s point is: this is how your idolatry appears in the eyes of God; this is how ugly you are in your sinfulness.
By comparing the lyrical poetic language of the Song of Solomon with the violent and nauseating sexual imagery of Ezekiel 16 and 23, we can approach a biblical understanding of the appropriate medium for expressing human sexuality, and the beginnings of a definition of obscenity. Poetry, and with it poetic, lyrical, allusive music and visual imagery is the appropriate medium to express true and Godly sexual love. Graphic sexual imagery, if it is used at all, should be used to produce shame and horror; it should be used as a metaphor for covenant adultery.
From this perspective, obscenity might be defined as the non-metaphorical use of explicit and graphic sexual language. This definition leaves, of course, a great deal to interpretation. Where, after all, does "metaphor" end and "non-metaphor" begin? Despite the difficulties, this definition does provide some guidance, and seems preferable to definition in terms of intent.
Obscene sexual material is, on this definition, more or less completely self-referential. Its meaning is more or less completely exhausted in its description of sex acts. Obscene material would be judged obscene on the basis of analysis of the material itself, rather than upon its (always ambiguous) effects on the readers or viewers. Obscene material, on this definition, would tend to appeal to prurient interests, but this would not be its defining characteristic. This definition, in short, is somewhat less subjective than the prevailing definitions, but it at the same time is able to respond to the same concerns.
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