I had the opportunity to teach a five-week course of “Introduction to New Testament Literature” at UNC-Chapel Hill this summer, and I took the opportunity to reexamine and revamp a few aspects of how I’ve taught that course (or have seen others teach it) in the past. In addition to a lot of fine-tuning and a few things I didn’t think worked quite as well as they might, I was especially pleased with three primary “innovations” that I tried this summer, which I’ll be blogging about in my next few posts.

The first of these innovations stemmed from my overall dissatisfaction (shared by others ) with the way that the Synoptic Problem tends to be taught in introductory classes, namely that the Synoptic Problem tends to be taught “solution to plight,” leading off with the standard scholarly solution(s) and only later turning to the data to demonstrate the problem to be solved. (For those who are unfamiliar, the “Synoptic Problem” is the scholarly term for the difficulties involved in explaining the similarities and differences among the “Synoptic Gospels”: Matthew, Mark, and Luke.) Typically this amounts to teaching the 2-Source Hypothesis and then explaining why this theory makes the most sense of the Synoptic Problem, which has not yet become a “problem” in the minds of the students.

This solution-to-plight pedagogy amounts to reinforcing the consensus view from generation to generation, inasmuch as the next generation of scholars will have necessarily passed through Intro to NT classes, where their first major academic NT lesson is on the Two-Source Hypothesis for solving the Synoptic Problem, standing in contrast to our responsibility to train students to think critically and creatively through problems we ourselves may not have been able to fully solve (and even some we think we have already solved). As tends to be the case whenever the solution is taught before the problem is recognized, this sort of teaching leads to a weakening of the learners’ critical and creative faculties. Once a plausible solution has been presented (and with some authority, at that), trying to think through the problem is like watching/reading a murder mystery after having the ending spoiled. It’s next to impossible to put the solution one has learned far enough outside one’s head to be able to consider any other possible solutions. Of all people, biblical scholars should be aware of just how embedded a first solution or interpretation (regardless of how wrong!) can get; once a student has been told a given passage means this, that student tends to see only this whenever s/he sees that passage, rarely if ever actually reading the passage itself. (Students in my NT classes regularly express shock that, despite having read a given text numerous times, they didn’t know that was even in there!) Once a given solution is entrenched, it is terribly hard—no matter how good the evidence—to disabuse a person of his/her strongly held (from the very first time s/he learned given information) beliefs.

Given all this, I decided to try an experiment this summer: rather than beginning our studies of the Gospels with the Synoptic Problem, I decided to invert the usual order and start with the Gospels themselves, giving my students the opportunity to grapple with the data and see with the problem before introducing any solutions. To facilitate this, I constructed a few careful assignments to force them to engage with the data firsthand and begin to think through the problem. I also began with an “Introduction to the Gospels” lecture, the last ten minutes or so of which was dedicated to explaining that the first three gospels we would read would share a large amount of material and that we would begin with Mark since it was the shortest, while the other two had more material that Mark didn’t have. But this lecture did not address the dating, chronology, or redaction of the Gospels, as that would only come after going through the Synoptics themselves. So, my schedule looked like this (in the compressed summer format):

(After a few basic background lectures)
The Transmission of the NT & Introduction to the Gospels (w/underlining assignment & reflection paper)
Gospel of Mark
Gospel of Matthew
Gospel of Luke
The Synoptic Problem (w/another underlining assignment & reflection paper)
Gospel of John

Ideally I’d like two classes on the Synoptic Problem after going through the Synoptics themselves, but the compressed summer session didn’t allow for that this time. The underlining assignments required both underlining the passages in the standard red, green, yellow, and blue colors as well as a prompt asking the students to write one to two pages reflecting on the possible causes of the agreements and disagreements between the three gospels. As it turns out, I was quite pleased with the results of inverting the schedule. My students began to get restless about the similarities and differences right from the start. This short audio clip from the class meeting on the Gospel of Matthew illustrates how well they were wrestling with the problem before even getting to Luke:

Intro NT Students Wrestling with Synoptic Problem (mp3)

I was obviously pretty excited to hear this level of problem-solving and textual attentiveness among my introductory class. It’s precisely what I was hoping to stimulate by teaching the solutions after introducing the problem. As an added benefit, I think it helped keep the Synoptic Problem from seeming quite so tedious, since the students were invested in the problem by the time I was getting to introduce the various scholarly solutions. This approach did require that I not assign textbook readings for the three Synoptic lectures (thanks to introductory textbooks assuming the Two-Source Hypothesis from the start), but given my predilection for favoring primary text assignments over secondary texts, that wasn’t much of a problem. I did get complaints from a few students who went through the main textbook used for the course after we had gone through the Synoptic Problem lecture: they were disappointed/frustrated by the textbook’s dismissal of all but the Two-Source theory.

At any rate, I think I’ll continue teaching along these lines in the future, beginning by letting students see the Synoptic Problem before I try to explain the Synoptic Solution(s).

Related posts:

1. Paper Accepted for Synoptic Gospels Section at 2010 SBL
2. A Few Notes on Matthew and Luke from My Students

I know I’m a bit late to the party here (teaching a summer course and doing home renovations have had me busy), but Timothy Gombis’ “The Paul We Think We Know” in Christianity Today is worth the read. Gombis does an excellent job highlighting the differences between the popular Evangelical/Protestant images of Paul and the figure who actually graces the pages of the New Testament, starting with an excellent (and brief) explanation of how the traditional narrative of Paul having left behind a legalistic Judaism in converting to a non-legalistic salvation-by-grace Christianity. This is a good primer to the so-called “New Perspective on Paul” that is certainly no longer new among scholars but is still largely unknown in the pews (and many pulpits). Gombis rightly flags moderns for making Paul in our own image, noting,

If we encountered Paul today, we might be disappointed to find someone quite unlike the strong and decisive leader we often imagine. In fact, many of our contemporary churches would hardly consider him a viable pastoral candidate. In this regard, as in so many others, the New Testament evidence resists efforts to re-create Paul in our own image.

Although some may have concerns about whether Gombis’ summary of Paul’s proclamation as centering on the “the Kingdom of God” is historically accurate, I entirely agree with Gombis on this; Paul uses the term enough in the limited material we have and the term “gospel” (εὐαγγέλιον) is itself connected to the concept of the Kingdom. (This is something that always throws my NT students, who are always startled that they actually have no real idea what “gospel” means in the New Testament.)

That said, I do have one significant point of contention with Gombis’ portrayal of “the problem with Judaism”:

“First-century Judaism didn’t have a legalism problem; it had an ethnocentrism problem. The first followers of Jesus were all Jewish, and had difficulty imagining that the God of Israel who sent Jesus Christ as their Savior could possibly save non-Jews without requiring them to convert to Judaism.” (See also Scot McKnight’s affirmation on this point.)

David Miller has already expressed his concerns about this line of thinking in an excellent and lucid post, pointing out,

 It is curious that new perspective scholars in the Dunn / Wright tradition still create a negative picture of Judaism as a foil for early Christianity. …

But of course, we can try not to stereotype ancient Judaism–which leads me to my next point: What was wrong with Jewish ethnocentrism? What is wrong about the people of God thinking they are the people of God? Isn’t that what the Old Testament encourages? Was it even conceivable to think that Israel would be a light to the nations without being distinctive as a people? Would anyone have imagined that God would save all the nations of the earth without their joining the covenant of the people of God? And does Paul ever criticize non-believing Jews for being ethnocentric? (What am I missing?)

Finally, was early Christianity any different? Sure Gentiles were not required to become Jews, but they were required to join ‘the people of God’. I submit that first century Judaism was not any more “ethnocentric” than normative Christianity is.

Miller has summed up one of my main points of frustration with the New Perspective: it quite simply doesn’t go far enough in its reconsideration of Judaism. Having begun by giving Judaism the benefit of the doubt with respect to legalism, will it now be completed by returning to the same nationalist/particular vs. universal paradigm from Protestantism of old? In one sense, I think at least part of this problem stems from the attempt to retain at least some of the trappings of historical Protestant readings in the face of greater awareness of (and sensitivity to) first century Judaism. I think Dunn is especially transparent in his attempts to apply the insights of a New Perspective on Judaism while still trying to hold to traditional Protestant theology (Wright, on the other hand, has been more willing to move away from “justification by faith” as the central element of the gospel, for example). As a result,  as I stated on one my Ph.D. exams (it’s not often one can quote one’s own exams, so I might as well do so here, right?):

Dunn has tried to have his cake and eat it too by accepting Sanders’ depiction of Judaism as non-legalistic but instead depicting Paul’s Jewish opponents as those trying to retain their ethnic distinction through “the works of the Law,” which he interprets as specific sociological “boundary markers.” Thus, instead of Paul opposing Jewish legalists, Dunn has pushed forward Jewish racists/nationalists, against whom Paul asserts his “justification by faith” message, moving towards universal access to God over and against Jewish exclusivism and nationalism.

As Miller rightly shows, this particular/universal dichotomy goes at least as far back as F.C. Baur; there’s not a whole lot “new” about it. And he’s also right that Christianity is no less “particular” or “ethnocentric” than Judaism—the only real differences concerned what actually properly functioned as (to use Dunn’s term) the “boundary markers” separating insiders from outsiders. (See the work of Caroline Johnson Hodge, Paula Fredriksen (PDF), and Denise Kimber Buell, among others.) In my own work, I’ve concluded that Paul was in no way opposed to the special claims of Israel or advocating some sort of universalism over and against Israelite “nationalism.” On the contrary, Paul’s own gospel centered on God’s promises to Israel, with the mission to the Gentiles a necessary component if “all Israel” were to be restored. If I’m right (and I obviously think I am), this invalidates the idea that Paul’s quarrel with Judaizers was over an “ethnocentrism” problem.

Racial and cultural concerns  just so happen to have been a hot issue the last thirty years, with openness and multiculturalism the chief goods of our time, making this an especially convenient reading of Paul today. Gombis is right in his critique, but I submit that his alternative is itself vulnerable to the same critique. The Paul who campaigns against ethnocentrism looks conveniently like just the apostle many would like to see today. This multicultural Paul has been crafted into the image of his modern academic interpreters every bit as much as the Evangelical Paul has been conformed to the image of his Evangelical interpreters.

Lest I take the easy way out and stop short of providing an alternative proposal of my own, I am convinced that Paul did not oppose his Jewish contemporaries because of legalism, self-righteousness, particularity, or ethnocentrism but over the question of how one becomes a righteous person (or rather, a part of a righteous people) who will justly be judged as righteous in the final judgment. He argues that no external law, facts of birth, or ritual practice can reliably be said to truly make a person (or people) righteous. Against this, he points to the power of the Spirit to transform a person from the inside out as the only means of true righteousness, asserting that the death and resurrection of the Messiah have provided for an outpouring of this Spirit for the transformation of his people (and ultimately the world itself). Paul’s thinking was thoroughly apocalyptic—emphasizing God’s righteous judgment—and thoroughly centered on God’s restoration of his people through this transformation by the Spirit. This may not scratch modern itches to the degree that the Evangelical or academic multicultural Pauls do, but I am convinced that it is a more faithful reconstruction of what was truly at root in Paul’s proclamation.

Related posts:

1. Paul’s Conversion or Paul’s Call?
2. Pauline Studies Pet Peeve: Paul Never Says “by Faith Alone”
3. Why Paul Went West

I am pleased to report that my article, “What Do the Gentiles Have to Do with ‘All Israel’? A Fresh Look at Rom 11:25–27″ has (finally!) been published in the summer edition of the Journal of Biblical Literature. This article is a piece of a project that began in the spring of 2003 and is continuing in my dissertation, “Paul, the Gentiles, and the Restoration of Israel.” My article reexamines that difficult passage that sums up Paul’s grand theological argument in Romans:

I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery (lest you become high-minded yourselves) that a hardening has come upon a part of Israel until the fullness of the nations (τὸ πλήρωμα τῶν ἐθνῶν) has come in—and thus (καἰ οὕτως) all Israel will be saved, just as it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will remove ungodliness from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them, when I take away their sins.”

The central point of the article involves an exploration of what Paul means by “the fullness of the nations” and how that relates to “all Israel,” a term that refers to a larger group than just Jews/Judaeans and is especially important in light of Jewish apocalyptic hopes of the restoration of (all twelve tribes) of Israel, as the prophets had promised. Essentially, Paul is arguing that Gentile inclusion in the church (קהל ישראל) is inseparable from the promises made to Israel and ultimately to Abraham. For those who don’t have access to JBL, I’ve uploaded an archive copy here.

Related posts:

1. “The Real Paul” article at PBS.org
2. Paul’s Conversion or Paul’s Call?
3. Political Values and Religion: American Jews and “Anti-Israel” Policies

I stumbled across a post on TheGospelCoalition site the other day that left me shaking my head at how modern theological perspectives are capable of completely inverting the New Testament message they’re ostensibly based upon. The post is “The Pitfall of Perfectionism,” by Tullan Tchividjian, in which he begins with several poignant anecdotes borrowed from Steve Brown, in which we are told of people who had reached the end of their endurance, who had “come to the end of themselves.” Amazingly, Brown’s response was the following:

Perfectionism (or performancism) is a horrible disease. It comes from the pit of hell, smelling like rotting flesh. Someone convinced these folks that they were called to measure up to an unattainable standard. They couldn’t do it and each in his or her own way simply quit trying.

Nobody told them that Jesus was perfect for them, and because of that they didn’t have to be perfect for themselves. They didn’t understand that if Jesus makes you free, you will be free indeed.

Tchividjian then adds:

Christian, please remember that Jesus plus nothing equals everything. That,

Because Jesus was strong for you, you’re free to be weak;

Because Jesus won for you, you’re free to lose;

Because Jesus was Someone, you’re free to be no one;

Because Jesus was extraordinary, you’re free to be ordinary;

Because Jesus succeeded for you, you’re free to fail.

Preaching the gospel is the only thing that helps us take our eyes off ourselves and how we’re doing and fix our eyes on Christ, the author and perfecter of our faith. Jesus fulfilled all of God’s perfect conditions so that our relationship to God could be perfectly unconditional.

You’re free!

Incredible. It is hard to imagine how the gospel of the New Testament can be so inverted, how the triumphant grace preached by Jesus and Paul can be utterly reversed. And yet this message is being proclaimed as if it were what Paul preached rather than the opposite. Contrast Tchividjian’s post with the questions posted by David Miller, a New Testament scholar honest enough to recognize that the “grace” he’d like to see in Paul often seems lacking:

Why is it that when I ‘get’ the need for grace, I struggle to grasp conversion? Paul never says, “Sorry, churches, I goofed.” His conversion, like Augustine’s, seems complete and total. To be sure, Paul insists that our whole life is to be lived through God’s grace, not our own effort, but he assumes radical transformation. When he addresses failure, he exhorts people to become what they are, and to repent. He doesn’t admit to being a continuing failure himself. (I assume that Paul is not talking autobiographically about his experience as a Christian in Romans 7.) Paul doesn’t emphasize God’s grace to forgive, he stresses grace to live. In short, Paul is not one to sympathize with moral weakness. His life and letters give little comfort to those who, like me, sometimes feel stalled, who need to start over again, and again, and again. Paul left his σκύβαλα (Phil 3:8) when he met the Messiah; what about those of us who sometimes look inside and σκύβαλα is all we see? [my emphasis]

This is the Paul represented on the pages of scripture, not the one who comforts people with the notion that Jesus died for them so that they no longer had to worry about their failures. Much the opposite! Returning to Tchividjian’s pithy statements, this is more like what the New Testament actually proclaims:

Because Jesus became weak for you (2 Cor 13:4), you’re empowered to be strong (Eph 6:10–11);

Because Jesus lost for you, you’re able to win (Rom 8:37);

Because Jesus became no one (Phil 2:7–8), you’re empowered to be someone (Jn 1:12);

Because Jesus became ordinary (Phil 2:7–8), you’re empowered to be extraordinary (John 14:12–13; Acts 4:33; Eph 3:20; Col 1:29);

Because Jesus died for and as you, you’re free to live for him (Rom 6:8; Rom 8:13; 2 Cor 5:15).

This infuriating bumper sticker perfectly summarizes a modern anti-gospel

Brown proclaims, “Nobody told them that Jesus was perfect for them, and because of that they didn’t have to be perfect for themselves.” But Jesus himself proclaimed, “Therefore be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect” (Matt 5:48). But never mind that—Jesus didn’t really mean this stuff when he said it, he just wanted us to try it before we realized we couldn’t do it. Then we’d realize that we could be set free from guilt so we could fail without feeling bad about it. Right? Right???

Brown continues, “They didn’t understand that if Jesus makes you free, you will be free indeed.” Of course, this ignores that the “real freedom” Jesus was talking about was freedom from sin:

“Truly truly I say to you, everyone who is committing sin is a slave to sin. But the slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains in the house forever. Therefore, if the son set you free, you are really free.” (John 8:34–36)

Talk about reversing the message! We’ve somehow gone from Jesus promising that people can truly be set free from sin to proclaiming that Jesus came so that people can be set free from the crushing expectations of living righteously. Amazing.

Finally, Tchividjian explains: “Jesus fulfilled all of God’s perfect conditions so that our relationship to God could be perfectly unconditional.” Where, I ask, did he get this notion of an unconditional relationship with God as a part of the gospel? It certainly isn’t in the New Testament. This is a total reversal of that wonderful term of reciprocity so often used in the New Testament: χάρις (“grace”). On the contrary, Paul warns repeatedly in his letters to Christians that their standing is indeed conditional. For example:

But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted into them and you became a partaker/fellow of the root of fatness of the olive tree, don’t boast against the branches! If you boast, you do not sustain the root, but the root sustains you. Therefore you say, “Branches were broken off in order that I should be grafted in.” Good! They were cut off for unfaithfulness, and you stand by faithfulness. Do not think highly of yourself but fear, for if God did not spare the according to nature branches, he will not spare you. And so see the kindness and severity of God, severity towards those having fallen, but kindness from God to you, if you remain in his kindness, otherwise also you will be cut off. And yet, if they do not remain in unfaithfulness, they will be grafted in, for God is able to engraft them again. (Rom 11:17–23)

Does that look “unconditional” to you? Why then the “if” statements and the warnings? Oh, Paul must not have meant this stuff, either. He must have been borrowing a page from Jesus’ playbook and bluffing to get them to try to be better so they would realize they didn’t have to live righteously. Or, more likely, Jesus and Paul meant what they said.

The gospel presented in the New Testament centers on the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit, who enables the faithful to do what s/he could not do on his/her own, to live in obedience and righteousness. But much modern preaching (and theology) leaves out this transformation and empowerment by the Holy Spirit and instead focuses on the “what s/he could not do on his/her own” part, with nothing but a reassurance that God will forgive. What a difference between the “grace to live” (as Miller calls it) proclaimed in the New Testament and the powerless “don’t worry, you’ll never be righteous and that’s okay” message proclaimed so often today! Talk about getting grace backwards!

Related posts:

1. What Did Jesus Preach?
2. “The Real Paul” article at PBS.org
3. “Flesh” is not “Human effort” in Gal 3:3

During my reading for preliminary exams (generally a frustrating exercise, given that I was forced to read lots of infuriating scholarship without the ability to respond to it anytime soon), one mistake came up surprisingly often in the literature: Pauline scholars—who of all people should know better—referencing the “Pauline” doctrine of “salvation/justification by faith alone.” Yikes. It’s no wonder laypeople are so consistently misinformed on this point if scholars focusing on Paul regularly make this mistake themselves.

I was especially surprised to see someone of the stature of Jimmy Dunn making this mistake throughout the collection of his essays in The New Perspective on Paul. Obviously Dunn is a tremendous scholar, but it is a mystery to me how he can make statements like this:

Putting the point from Paul’s perspective, Paul was clear that justification is by faith alone: to regard any ‘works of the law’ as essential (in addition to faith) undermines ‘faith alone’. The gospel principle is clear: ‘no one is justified by works of the law, but only (ean mē) through faith in Jesus Christ’ (Gal. 2.16). [p. 25]

Apparently in the absence of Paul every saying “faith alone,” one must try to stretch ἐὰν μή to mean “only” (and only “only”). Unfortunately, that isn’t what it typically means in phrases like this, instead meaning something like “unless” or “without,” resulting in “a person is not justified by works of the law unless through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ.” (I suppose this is worth a later post.) More Dunn:

That's right, country music fans, not one of Paul's letters teaches "faith alone."

The thought of earning ‘the election of grace’ by the ‘works’ (to be subsequently) performed by the elect people is far from the thought. The challenge to Paul’s mission was rather that those who accept the gospel and receive the Spirit ought therefore to do the works of the covenant’s law, and that failure to do these works amounts to a refusal to accept the terms of God’s covenanted favour. That is what was at issue, and that is what Paul denied: God’s acceptance was by grace through faith alone. [p.51]

No. A thousand times no! Paul’s argument is that the old covenant had achieved its purpose and was fulfilled when Christ fulfilled its curses in his own person. Paul protested a going back to the old covenant, back to the flesh, once the new (the Spirit) had come. Paul was not arguing against covenantal nomism, which he upholds (as even Ed Sanders admits with respect to 1 & 2 Corinthians).

The primary question was whether these works were obligatory (also) for Gentile believers. Paul’s response had been clear: only faith was necessary; to require works of the law in addition to faith was to subvert the gospel of justification by faith alone (Rom. 3.28; 9.30-32; Gal. 2.15-16). Here the thought seems to have broadened out to refer to human effort in general as inadequate to the demands of salvation; salvation could be accomplished only by grace alone through faith alone. [p. 56]

So let me get this straight: Paul’s answer was something he never says?

But if, on the other hand, Paul is entirely serious, on the ground that ‘everyone who does good’ refers only to the Christians, then Paul’s theology of justification by faith alone has to be qualified as final justification by faith and by works accomplished by the believer in the power of the Spirit. If Paul is thus vulnerable to such a charge being levied against him, despite his insistence elsewhere that justification is by faith alone and entirely on the basis of grace, then at the very least the charges brought against Judaism’s ‘covenantal nomism’ should be a good deal less fault-finding. [pp. 87–88]

Argh. This whole section is invalidated by the problem that Paul never upheld a “theology of justification by faith alone,” nor did Paul bring charges against “Judaism’s ‘covenantal nomism’.”

The most frustrating thing about this is that I found so much of value in this volume (and others like it), only for everything to get dashed on the rocks of “faith alone.” Precision is so important in exegesis, and if we’re to do honest exegesis of Paul that isn’t simply an apologetic for the Paul of the Reformers, we should really insist that we start with what Paul actually says rather than what other interpreters have said he said. This requires that we drop “faith alone” when discussing Paul, since Paul does not ever use this phrase. It is perfectly fine to use this term when discussing Reformation theology, but it is out of place in a historical examination of the Apostle himself (except perhaps to point out that he never makes use of the phrase).

Related posts:

1. Paul’s Conversion or Paul’s Call?
2. Why Paul Went West
3. “The Real Paul” article at PBS.org

I suppose it’s about as good a time as any to deal with this popular misinterpretation, given Harold Camping‘s ridiculous prediction that the church will be raptured at 6PM on May 21 (time zone by time zone, no less!). Yet again, the passage in question deals with eschatology (the end times), a subject that has produced more than its share of misinterpreted passages. This particular passage is especially notorious, having provided the title of the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins and spawned several popular CCM songs, most notably Larry Norman‘s “I Wish We’d All Been Ready,” covered by DC Talk in the following video:

The passage is found in Matthew 24:40–41 and Luke 17:34–36 (with some variation); we’ll stick to the shorter version in Matthew for simplicity’s sake. The same concepts that apply here apply equally to Luke:

τότε δύο ἔσονται ἐν τῷ ἀγρῷ, εἷς παραλαμβάνεται καὶ εἷς ἀφίεται· δύο ἀλήθουσαι ἐν τῷ μύλῳ, μία παραλαμβάνεται καὶ μία ἀφίεται.

Then two men will be in a field: one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and one will be left.

Popular Misinterpretation

In the fanciful world of Pre-Trib dispensationalist theology, this verse as been interpreted as a reference to the “Rapture of the Church” in which Jesus comes from heaven to “catch up” his church in the air and take them back to heaven with him, leaving the unbelievers behind to suffer the wrath of God, poured out in all its gory goodness for a short but hellish period of time known as the “Great Tribulation” (this framework rests on a host of other misinterpreted passages—most notably Daniel 9:24–27—but we’ll just stick to this one for the time being). According to this interpretation, the fulfillment of Jesus’ words will look something like this:

An old woman sat across the aisle from him, a passed out drunk next to him. He turned form his window and looked at the old woman. She had a pair of cotton nylon blend underpants in one hand and dentures in the other. She stared at Buff in shock.

This one is really much better than the original

“Excuse me mister,” she said.

“Yes?” Buff said.

“My Harold,” she said.

“Yes?” Buff said.

“He’s gone. He’s just gone, vanished, disappeared. Could you help me find him?

“I’m afraid that there is going to be no finding him, Ma’am.”

“Why?”

“Has he left all material things behind him? Clothes, dentures, hairpiece?”

“Yes.”

“Then he has finally turned his back on this world of matter and all things evil. He has jumped right out of the corruption that matter entails. he has taken everything essential to his being and left the rest behind. He has reached the enlightened world of forms where there is no jewelry but spiritual jewels, where dentures cannot go, where everyone is naked. He has been Raptured.”

“How do you know?” the woman said.

“I write bad apocalyptic fiction. I know things. Endgames are my game.”

“What is that?” the woman said.

“What?” Buff said.

“That pink thing in Harold’s seat. Right there in his trousers. It’s wet.” Buff looked closely, and was surprised.

“Ma’am, I’m afraid that’s Harold’s appendix. It’s been left behind.”

“Oh, how terrible!” Ma’am said, and she cried herself to sleep.

– Mr. Sock & Nathan Wilson, Right Behind, pp. 18–19.

Essentially, the idea is that (true) Christians will be “taken up” to be with Christ, with the unrighteous “left behind.” One will be taken, one will be left behind, as the passage says. It’s pretty straightforward, right?

Getting it Backwards (again)

Once again, we find that the passage has been interpreted to mean exactly the opposite of what it means in context. As usual, the antidote to bad interpretation is found in the immediately surrounding verses: let’s look at what immediately precedes these two short verses:

Ὥσπερ γὰρ αἱ ἡμέραι τοῦ Νῶε, οὕτως ἔσται ἡ παρουσία τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. ὡς γὰρ ἦσαν ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις [ἐκείναις] ταῖς πρὸ τοῦ κατακλυσμοῦ τρώγοντες καὶ πίνοντες, γαμοῦντες καὶ γαμίζοντες, ἄχρι ἧς ἡμέρας εἰσῆλθεν Νῶε εἰς τὴν κιβωτόν, καὶ οὐκ ἔγνωσαν ἕως ἦλθεν ὁ κατακλυσμὸς καὶ ἦρεν ἅπαντας, οὕτως ἔσται [καὶ] ἡ παρουσία τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου.

“For the coming of the son of man will be just like it was in the days of Noah— just like in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day Noah entered the Ark—and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away [Luke: "destroyed them all"]. The coming of the son of man will be just like that.” (Matt 24:37–39)

Who was “taken” in the days of Noah? It certainly wasn’t the righteous—they stuck around and inherited the earth after God removed the wicked. Jesus explains here that the coming of the son of man will be just like the days of Noah, when the wicked were taken away and the righteous will be left behind. To make this more clear, consider that the passage (which I translated rather traditionally above) is probably better rendered this way:

Then two men will be in a field: one will be seized and one will be released. Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be seized and one will be released.

This translation is a bit clearer: it’s better to be in the latter group than the former, better to be “let go” or “released” than “taken” or “seized.” This runs completely counter to the picture in modern imagination, which relies upon the idea that the righteous will be taken and the wicked “left behind” to suffer in the Tribulation. What’s remarkable to me is how ingrained this interpretation has gotten within the Evangelical world, despite it being a relatively new theological perspective with less than 200 years of history and despite the fact that it reads this “proof text” passage to mean the opposite of what it means in context.

Conclusion

Once again, we have found that a passage dealing with eschatology is interpreted to mean the opposite of what it actually says. In this case, we have a passage talking about the destruction of the wicked at the Parousia (Second Coming) that has been creatively transformed into a story about people disappearing and leaving the wicked on earth. Why is this important? Well, for one, a proper reading of these passages is a safeguard against predictions by the likes of Harold Camping and Hal Lindsay, since these predictions consistently rest on misinterpretations of this and other passages. If the foundation is bad, the building is worse. It also should be understood that these passages are a promise of divine protection, not a promise that God will remove his people from times of trouble—something that quite simply has never been the case. Instead, Jesus promises that God will look after his people through tribulation rather than removing them from troubled times. This is a critical point, as it applies to every generation and not only to that one generation lucky enough to miss out on all the tough stuff (such a theology only works in the prosperous West to begin with). So next time someone asks you if you’ll be “left behind,” answer, “I certainly hope so!”

Related posts:

1. “That day will come like a thief”: Misinterpreted Bible Passages #4
2. “Whoever Looks at a Woman With Lust”: Misinterpreted Bible Passages #1
3. “The Signs of the Times”: Misinterpreted Bible Passages #5

Since it’s Easter weekend (hey, I know when Easter is this year—first time in several years I’ve known before the day itself!), I thought it would be good to take a closer look at a famous scene from the Synoptic Gospels: Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane.

The Gospel of Mark records Jesus praying the following:

αββα ὁ πατήρ, πάντα δυνατά σοι· παρένεγκε τὸ ποτήριον τοῦτο ἀπ᾿ ἐμοῦ· ἀλλ᾿ οὐ τί ἐγὼ θέλω ἀλλὰ τί σύ.

“Abba! Father, all things are possible for you! Remove this cup from me! But no, not what I want; rather, what you want.”

This is really a remarkable prayer, one that does not get nearly the attention that it deserves.

It was a core teaching of the early Church that Jesus was tempted in every way, just like any other man who has ever lived (thus Mk 1:13 & parallels; Heb 2:18, 4:15; 1Jn 4; Rom 8:1–4). This was an absolutely central teaching to early Christianity inasmuch as Christ’s victory over temptation and sin in the flesh—the same flesh with the same drives and desires that every human being has ever had—is the guarantor of the Spirit’s capacity to bring about righteousness in the present life of the believer. Since Christ was victor over the desires of the flesh through the Spirit, so also the believer can share in this victory in the present life. Without this key teaching, the gospel could provide no assurance of victory over the flesh—since Jesus’ obedience would have been over a lesser temptation or a less powerful or less “depraved” flesh—but because Christ truly “came in the flesh,” the believer who shares in his obedience through his Spirit can have assurance that there is no temptation beyond what can endured by the power of the Spirit.

This Gethsemane prayer is so important because it illustrates the total humanity of Jesus (something the earliest Christians seemed to find more important to defend than his divinity)—his flesh resists the cross and cries out against its own mortification, pleading against the very will of God. But right then, the Spirit checks the prayer, and Jesus immediately corrects himself, cutting off the outcry of the flesh and yet again submitting himself to the will of his Father, against his own desires. Right here, in the Garden of Gethsemane, the Synoptics show a man—the man—at the very breaking point, a man wrestling with himself to go through with the will of God, a man committed to the mortification of the flesh and its desires—but a man whose flesh was yet alive and kicking. As he says two verses later: the Spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak.

Think about that: according to the Gospels, Jesus‘ flesh was weak and prone to temptation, and he prayed and wrestled with his own flesh lest he fall short of accomplishing his task. For the early Christian preachers, it was this fact—not so much Jesus’ divinity but that the human Jesus had overcome by the power of the Spirit —that was the guarantor of justification, because the same Spirit that had overcome the flesh in Jesus could do the same in the believer also.

Related posts:

1. What Did Jesus Preach?
2. “Flesh” is not “Human effort” in Gal 3:3
3. NIV Update 2011 – “Flesh” and Other Translation Issues