Time Travel and the Bible

The people who wrote the New Testament (NT) were not, in their day, like those of us living today. They lived and wrote in the latter half of the first-century CE, many centuries before the Enlightenment of the eighteenth-century CE. The Enlightenment was an intellectual awakening in Europe and America that witnessed the birth of the critical method, the rejection of the hegemony of Christian belief, and the rise of reliance on human reason.

Hence, first-century people generally, by definition, were prescientific in their approach to the world. What things people generally today commonly assume about the world, would have seemed strange to them. For example, occasionally in the pages of the NT, the authors write as if they conceived the earth being flat, not globular, in shape. Hence, most people, who likely shared this view, upon hearing Rev 1:7 being read aloud (most people could not read), might not be surprised by John’s description of the imminent return of Jesus to the earth in judgment:

Look, he is coming with the clouds; every eye shall see him, even those who pierced him. (Rev 1:7; see also Rev 2:1, 20:8; Matt 4:8)

In the twenty-first century, however, the words, “every eye shall see him,” jump off the page for the careful reader. How can it be that from a globular surface every eye will see anything hovering over a point on its surface? And “even those who pierced him” suggests the event would occur in the lifetime of the writer, but it has been over 2000 years now and “those who pierced him” have long since died. Even the later author of Second Peter (3:3-11) recognized the problem and found a way to mitigate the immediacy of the return.

They knew nothing of unseen microorganisms, like germs that can cause disease. The world only became aware of germs that cause sickness in 1860 through the work of Louis Pasteur.¹ They also did not understand that such physical ailments as muteness and deafness (Mark 9:37-43), blindness Matt 12:22-24), epilepsy (Matt 17:14-21), leprosy (Mark 1:40-45), and mental illnesses (Mark 5:1-17) are biologically induced. They, on the other hand, believed them to be caused by demons or evil spirits. They thought such difficulties required the services of a faith healer or thaumaturge to exorcise the spirit forces that caused such abnormalities, rather than treatment by a physician. Medicine was not very advanced in those days. Some health issues, people imagined, could even be cured by a kind of religious magic.

And God did extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that handkerchiefs or aprons were carried away from his body to the sick, and diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them. (Acts 19:11-12 RSV)

            Of course, the spirit of science was alive before and during the first century, but it was not the view of the general population and is not represented among the thoughts of NT writers, much less those of the Old Testament. For example, Aristotle (4^th century BCE) knew that the earth was spherical because in an eclipse, the earth’s shadow on the surface of the moon was always circular. Some years later, Eratosthenes (3^rd century BCE) is credited with proving that the earth was spherical in shape.²

            Readers of the NT must remember that they are traveling back in time some two thousand years when they delve into its pages. There were bright spots, sure enough, but in general, the world was as dark as it was in the Dark Ages.³ What little scientific progress there was did not benefit the welfare of the general population of the world. Hence, do not read the NT as if it provides an accurate description of the nature of the world and how to get along in it. When reading the NT in the 21^st century, one must exercise a willing suspension of disbelief and aim not to inculcate its views on how the world works. To do so, would be to risk losing the world in which you now live with its scientific achievements and medical advances.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹https://www.britannica.com/biography/Louis-Pasteur

²Eric M. Rogers, “The Triumph of a Theory,” pp. 111-116 in Louise B. Young, ed., Exploring the Universe (2^nd edition; Oxford: Oxford university, 1971). And Aristotle, “The Shape of Heaven and Earth (4^th Century B.C.),” Young, Exploring the Universe, 116-121. Carl Sagen, Cosmos (New York: Wings Books, 1980), 12-16.

³The Dark Ages consist of the centuries (ca. 500-1500) following the fall of the Roman Empire.

⁴https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspension_of_disbelief

Knowing Jesus

I was chatting with a friend about someone I knew who was at the extremity of life and described him/her as a person of devout religious faith in one of the more liturgical traditions (for example, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Catholic, Orthodox, etc.). My friend, quickly replied, “Does he know Jesus?” For a moment I was flabbergasted! The suggestion was palpable—how could one of those possibly “know Jesus.” How does one respond to such a question and suggestion?

            Jesus, as every conscious person in these United States knows, is a figure of the ancient past; he lived around two Millenia ago. An obscure (in his day) healer, thaumaturge and religious teacher during his life, he was crucified at the hands of the Romans on a charge of sedition and near the middle of the first century CE he was touted by his followers as being raised from the dead.

            Hence, the question could mean, does my seriously ill friend know Jesus like a figure of human history, or does he know Jesus as a figure in modern culture, for the name of Jesus is touted by innumerable religious groups, by their church steeples on countless corners, in religious commercials on television, in religious publications, in political movements, in marketing, etc.

            But I do not think my friend, who raised the question, was talking about knowing Jesus as a figure of the ancient past or as a cultural icon in the modern world. I was being asked if my seriously ill friend knew Jesus intimately, as we know those dear to us. That is, does he know Jesus spiritually, in his heart by faith? Has he been “born again” through a faith encounter with the living Jesus?

            Physically, human beings have only five faculties of sensation: seeing, smelling, hearing, touching, tasting.¹ These are the only means by which we are able to “know” the world around us. Physical sensations encountered through our senses are transmitted by means of neural activity to the brain where the brain interprets them. For example, we sense a touch, and the brain interprets it as soothing or painful.

Christian folk, however, believe there is also another non-physical way of “knowing.” It is by perceiving “spiritually.” Spiritual perception, they claim, is not dependent on the physical senses but rather on the Spirit of God that communes with the human spirit (Rom 8:14-16; 1 Cor 2:11-14; 6:17) to impart a knowledge of Jesus, the Christ (Phil 3:7-11). It is in this spiritual sense that I was being asked if my seriously ill friend “knew Jesus.”

The difficulty, however, is that human beings don’t have indwelling spirts as a distinct, identifiable aspect of the human anatomy. Human beings can “show spirit,” for example, but the spirit in this case is a motivational attitude that animates an individual, and that attitude would likely be considered an emotional response to some exterior stimulus. “When Paul speaks of the pneuma [spirit] of man, he does not mean some higher principle within him or some special intellectual or spiritual faculty of his, but simply his self…”² Nor do we usually speak in polite society of an exterior spirit acting upon us to produce an emotional response, such as that of “knowing Jesus.”

            As with any stimulus, the brain must process the putative “spirit encounter.” The stimulus in this case would be hearing the “Gospel” in the clamor of the different gospels preached by the likes of a Jim Jones or Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, Benny Hinn or Billy Graham, Martin Luther or Norman Vincent Peale, Billy Sunday or Bishop John Shelby Spong, etc. Two texts in the New Testament even disagree over the role of Faith (Paul: Gal 3:6-19) and Works (James 2:18-26) in salvation. In short, there are competitive gospels, and each proclaimer is arrogant enough to think the gospel he preaches is absolute divine Truth to the exclusion of all other truths. Compare Paul’s arrogant statement about those who disagreed with his gospel in Gal 1:6-9. We tend to forget in our arrogance that it is God (if God there be) who will judge the condition of the human soul (if human soul there be) and will thereby “separate the sheep from the goats.”³

            There appears to be no accounting for the unusual things people will take as “gospel truth” when it comes to religion.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Philip G. Zimbardo, et al., Psychology. Core Concepts (Boston, MA: Pearson, 2009), 305.

²Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament (2 vols. in 1; trans. K. Grobel; New York: Scribner’s1951, 1955), 1.206.

³An image used by Matthew’s Jesus in Matt 25:31-46.

Human Insight or Divine Revelation

In a recent article, published shortly after his death, Roy Hoover¹ linked (human) insight and (divine) revelation:

What Paul regarded as a revelation we often refer to as an insight…I mean to use insight in this essay in the same sense as the meaning Paul had in mind in using the term revelation—that a new reality had become visible to Paul when God raised Jesus Christ from the dead…”²

An insight is a sudden thought that arises from within. A psychologist might define it as follows: “In psychology, insight occurs when a solution to a problem presents itself quickly and without warning,”³ or perhaps better: “The ability to see and understand clearly the inner nature of things, esp. by intuition.”⁴ Psychologists regard insight as a common human ability and have developed therapies relying on human insight in the treatment of patients with mental difficulties.⁵ On the other hand, in Pauline thought a revelation was something initiated from a divine source that came from outside an individual (Gal 1;12; 2:2; 2 Cor 12:1).

            What are we then to make of Hoover’s suggestion that (human) insight and (divine) revelation are the same experience? One seems to cancel-out the other. That is to say: if it is revelation, it is not human insight, and vice versa. Julian Jaynes, late Princton psychologist, however, theorized that ancient humans had a bicameral mind (i.e., two-chambers). One part of the mind issued commands that the other half of the mind perceived as voices of the Gods. Jaynes argued that the ancients did not consider their emotions and desires to be from within themselves, but their inner emotions came from the outside as actions of the Gods.⁶ The human mind began shifting to human consciousness around the 2^nd Millenium BCE, Jaynes argues.⁷

Today, it is generally thought that sudden flashes of insight that suddenly present themselves to us emerge from the subconscious. Yet how are we to explain auditory “hallucinations,” where people hear voices telling them to do certain things, or people of religious faith claiming to have received “answers” from God to their prayers? Might such experiences be from the subconscious, occurring as a historical residue of the bicameral mind that today is referred-to as insight? Reactions to Jaynes’ hypothesis are mixed, some positive and others negative.⁸

            On at least two occasions Paul, in his undisputed letters, claims to have had revelations from the Lord (Gal 1:12; I Cor 11:23) and on one occasion claims that the Lord spoke to him, and Paul quotes the Lord’s very words: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Cor 12:9). Could these occasions be considered instances of a residual bicameral mind at work in the first century CE? The bicameral mind is a mental state in which an experience of the right hemisphere of the brain is transmitted to the left hemisphere via auditory hallucinations. Or must we think that Paul was only speaking metaphorically. That is, he didn’t mean to say that he heard an actual voice. It was only a sudden flash of insight that came to him.

            Hoover preferred to describe as (human) insight what Paul described as (divine) revelation, and Jaynes’ hypothesis presents a plausible theory for explaining divine revelation as simply human insight. What an awesome and terrifying thought! If true, God-believers are more alone in the universe than ever before.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Late Weyerhaeuser Professor of Biblical Literature and Religion Emeritus at Whitman College.

²Roy W. Hoover, “The Origin of Paul’s Gospel and the Power of Insight,” The Fourth R 37.5 (November-December 2024), 18.

³https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insight

⁴Webster’s New World College Dictionary, under the word “insight.”

⁵Philip G. Zimbardo, et al., Psychology. Core Concepts (6^th ed.; Boston: Pearson, 2009), 576-77.

⁶Julian Jaynes, The Origins of Consciousness in the Break-down of the Bicameral Mind (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976), see his readings of the Iliad, p. 72 (date of the Iliad is around 8^th/7^th century BCE).

⁷https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameral_mentality#:~:text=Jaynes%20theorized%20that%20a%20shift,complexity%20in%20a%20changing%20world. See his argument for the breakdown of the bicameral mind in Mesopotamia: Jaynes, Origins, 223-246.

⁸https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameral_mentality#:~:text=Psychiatrist%20Iain%20McGilchrist%20proposes%20that,that%20McGilchrist%20mischaracterized%20Jaynes's%20theory.

Are there Narrative Gaps in the Parables of Jesus?

Parables are not straight forward. They only tell you imprecise stories. At times, a parable is simply ambiguous, always polyvalent, or appears to leave gaps in the flow of the narrative. Such gaps influence capturing an elusive meaning for the story. Readers must find a way, or ways, to bridge the gap before they can struggle with a parable’s meaning.¹ Here are three parables that have or appear to have narrative gaps influencing how they are understood. At times the gaps undermine how one has always understood the story.

            Luke 13:9, the conclusion to the story of two bumbling farmers (Luke 13:6-9), breaks-off in mid-sentence leaving the reader with a physical gap in the narrative. Literally, 13:9 concludes: “And if it [the tree] bears fruit in the future, […]; and if not you will cut it down.” In this case, the latter half of the sentence is missing. Most translators, aware of the missing text, accommodate the ellipsis (i.e., gap in the text) in some way. For example, the NRSV and REB² fill it in the following way: “And if it bears fruit in the future, <well and good>” (pointed brackets indicate the translator’s conjecture; except translators don’t generally use pointed brackets). One can easily imagine the vintner’s shoulder shrug and open palms as he unexpectedly drops the last phrase. What should one make of the gap and how should one take the vintner’s subtle refusal to cut-down the tree?³

            There appears to be a crucial gap in Jesus’ well-known parable about a father and his two sons (Luke 15:11-32).⁴ The gap in the flow of the narrative occurs between Luke 15:24 and 25. Why did the father not notify his older son about the celebration? The celebration was in full swing when the older brother happened to come-in from the fields. He had to ask a hired hand what was going-on. He was clearly ignorant of the younger son’s return. The older son felt slighted, for his father had never given him so much as a young goat for a celebration. (15:29). Was the father’s slight of the older son deliberate or simply the oversight of a father who doted on the younger son and had taken the older son for granted? If this be the case, how does the gap influence how one reads the parable?

            Jesus’ story about a shepherd and a lost sheep (Luke 15:4-6) also may have a gap in Luke’s version of the parable. It occurs between 15:5 and 6. In verse 4, the shepherd discovers one sheep is missing and he leaves the flock of 99 sheep alone in the wilderness to search for the lost sheep. When he finds it, he puts it on his shoulders rejoicing (verse 5). When he comes home, he celebrates his finding the lost sheep with friends and neighbors (verse 6). Did the shepherd go directly home with the sheep on his shoulders after finding it, abandoning the 99 in the wilderness? If there is a gap between verses 5 and 6, the shepherd might be construed as returning to the flock and bringing all 100 of the flock to a place of safety before he returns home. Alas, that is not how the story appears in Luke. In Luke, it is a story about an irresponsible shepherd who abandons his flock in the wilderness and returns home to celebrate the one lost sheep that was found.⁵

The danger of filling gaps in an explanation of the story, however, leaves one open to the charge that he (or she) is writing another story, rather than reading and explaining the story as it is written. The more responsible approach would be to explain the story as written and raise the issue of the gap. In either case, once you recognize a gap, it is impossible not to let it affect how you read the story. For gaps also are part of the parable.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹See Hedrick, Many Things in Parables. Jesus and his Modern Critics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2004), 47-50.

²New Revised Standard Version and the Revised English Bible.

³See Hedrick, “An Unfinished Story about a Fig Tree in a Vineyard (Luke 13:6-9)” pages 142-69 in Parabolic Fictions or Narrative Fictions. Seminal Essays on the Stories of Jesus (Cascade, 2016).

⁴Hedrick, Many Things in Parables, 48.

⁵Hedrick, Many Things in Parables, 49-50.

How to describe a first-century Church?

The earliest references to the ekklēsia, an expression usually translated as "church," are better thought of as "gatherings," as found in the letters of Paul. He never specifically defines the nature of the church, although he uses the word over 40 times throughout his undisputed letters. These predecessors to what we experience today in the modern church were small, largely independent, gatherings of people. These gatherings were likely viewed as simply another private club or association among the many others in the Graeco-Roman world.¹

            The descriptive expression Paul used most often to describe the nature of the gatherings was "the gathering (ekklesia) of God (tou theou)."² That is to say: "God's gathering." Judging from that expression, the "church" appears to be a gathering of people around a particular concept of God. The Pauline gatherings were not conceived as part of a universal gathering. They appear to be a local phenomenon. It was the gathering of God at Corinth (1 Cor 1:2), for example.³ Or, Paul groups the gatherings in a regional configuration: the gatherings of Galatia (Gal 1:2; 1 Cor 16:1), or Asia (1 Cor 16:19), or Judea (Gal 1:22); or Macedonia (2 Cor 8:1); or in an ethnic configuration: all gatherings of the Gentiles (Rom 16:4), or all gatherings of Christ (Rom 16:16). To these latter two configurations, one must add "of which I Paul am aware."

Paul also thinks of these local and regional groups in an aggregate sense: the brother famous in all the gatherings (2 Cor 8:18; 11:28); Paul's rule in all gatherings (1 Cor 7:17).⁴ Both individually (Phil 4:15-16) and collectively (2 Cor 11:8) these gatherings were organized enough to provide financial support to Paul and others (1 Cor 16:1-4; 2 Cor 9:1-15).

Their gatherings seem to have been rather spontaneous with no set order to what they did once assembled (1 Cor 14:26-33). Leaders of the gatherings were not democratically elected but emerged in the gathering at God's behest, as Paul describes them as those with "spiritual gifts" (1 Cor 12:4-11, 27-31). Outsiders and unbelievers (1 Cor 14:23-25) were allowed in the gatherings, and sometimes allowed to have leading roles, such as settling a disagreement between members of the gathering (1 Cor 6:2-6). Their "pot-lucks," which passed as a commemoration of the "Lord's Supper," scandalized Paul (1 Cor 11:17-22).

Alas, in the gathering at Corinth women were required to veil themselves when they prophesied or prayed (1 Cor 11:2-16) and only the male members of the gathering were allowed to speak (1 Cor 14:33-35). I doubt, however, such restrictions held true in the gathering of Cenchreae, where sister Phoebe was a deacon (Rom 16:1), or in the gathering at the home of Prisca and Aquila (Rom 16:3-4; 1 Cor 16:19), since it was their house. Nor do I think that Junia, a lady "outstanding among the apostles" would be prohibited from speaking or required to veil herself in the gathering (Rom 16:7).

            The Pauline home gatherings appear quite different from modern churches with their fine buildings, education and other programs, large budgets, choirs, business meetings, set order for worship, and professional requirements for the ordination of ministers. By comparison, the forerunners of the modern church were simply a home gathering taking place under the radar of state sanction. I am coming to think of the modern church as a clinic for seekers after truth and the world-weary. It is a formal organization that offers religious advice, treatment, and instruction, and an opportunity to shut out the world with all its raucous demands.⁵

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Charles Hedrick, "Pondering the Origins of the Church," Wise Guy Blog," Feb 16, 2017:  http://blog.charleshedrick.com/2017/02/pondering-origins-of-church.html

²I Cor 1:2, 10:32, 11:16, 11:22, 15:9; 1 Thess 2:14; Gal 1:13; 2 Cor 1:1. Thrice he associates these gathering with Christ (Rom 16:16; 1 Thess 2:14; Gal 1:22). Once he refers to it as churches of the holy ones (i.e., saints, I Cor 14:33).

³Other specific gathering locations are Thessalonica (1 Thess 1:1), the gathering in the house of Prisca and Aquila (Rom 16:4), the gathering at Cenchrea (Rom 16:1); or the gathering in the house of Philemon (Philemon 2), or the gathering at Philippi (Phil 4:15).

⁴Rom 16:23 likely refers only to the gathering at Rome.

⁵Webster's New World College Dictionary (4^th ed., 2002), s.v. "clinic," 5^th definition.

Ancient Scribes and Modern Translators - and the Bible

What one reads in one’s New Testament (NT) is largely determined by these two groups, ancient scribes and modern translators. An ancient scribe is a literate person who makes a living by copying manuscripts. They, of course, were, at one time, living, breathing people with opinions and prone to errors. A modern translator is a person linguistically skilled in the ancient form of the Greek language called koine (the common dialect of the Hellenistic and Roman periods) and in the target language of the translation—in this case English. They too are living, breathing people with opinions and prone to errors. And both groups in their time contribute to what a NT text says.

            The original author of a text produces an “autograph,” which is an author’s original, first-copy of a text. When completed, the autograph determined what the text originally said. Alas, at that point the author loses control of the written text. Scribes will make copies of the autograph and in so doing will introduce errors and make other deliberate changes in the copies they produce. And still other scribes will make further copies of the text from the first copies and introduce further errors and changes.

At this point a third group becomes involved in a text’s transition from koine Greek into English: the textual critic. There are over 5000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. Alas, the original autographs no longer survive and existing copies differ from one another.¹ Textual critics aim to restore the readings of the original autograph, and periodically publish a koine Greek edition of the NT, showing in an apparatus at the bottom of pages the numbers of significant differences existing among the manuscripts of the Greek NT. Text critics decide the most probable readings, which are published in the text above the apparatus. The 28^th edition of the Nestle-Aland Greek NT is the current edition from which translators work.

The judgments of text critics as to the readings of the original author’s copy of a NT text are not always accepted by translators of the text, resulting in different readings between translations. In other words, each translated version of the NT differs in some degree. Here is one example. One finds in Mark 1:41 different readings between the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) and The Revised English Bible (REB). The NRSV follows the text critical judgment that Mark’s autograph originally read in Mark 1:41 “moved with pity” (splagxnistheis), while the REB follows a lesser supported reading “moved to anger” (orgistheis). Text critics selected the reading “pity” as the original reading because they could easily understand why an ancient scribe would change anger to pity but could not so easy understand why a scribe would change pity to anger. In the end the committee was more impressed with the superior support of manuscripts that read pity rather than the less impressive manuscript support for anger.²

I noted fourteen other instances where scribal changes contributed to different readings in the translation of the Gospel of Mark between the NRSV and REB.³ While these changes are not particularly significant, they are enough to make the point that the NT read in the church today is as much a human book as a divine book. The autographs were written by imperfect human beings, prone to error, and, in any case, the autographs no longer exist. Virtually all the over five thousand manuscripts of the Greek NT come from the third century and later. Scribes have introduced innumerable new readings into their copies, both deliberate and accidental. And translators decide what readings they will translate. Hence, it is misleading to refer to the NT as the “Word of God.” If the texts were initially divinely inspired, their words, both Greek and English, were, and still are, decided by human beings.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Bruce Metzger, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (3^rd ed.; Oxford: Oxford University, 1992), v.

²Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (2^nd ed., 3^rd printing; Stuttgart: United Bible Societies, 1998), 65. Note that one other reading in Mark attributes anger to Jesus but without a scribal change to pity: Mark 3:5.

³Here are the other fourteen instances in Mark: 3:14, 32; 6:22, 41, 47; 7:4, 35; 9:42; 10:2; 11:19; 12:23; 14:39, 68; 15:10.

Personal Religion: should one just "take it all on Faith"?

I am usually given a non-answer when I ask a question that rubs-up uncomfortably against someone’s religious beliefs. For example, I may say “how can the Bible be the Word of God when it contains errors?” God is perfect, right? Then comes back the perturbed answer, “I just take it all on faith,” as though that answered the question.

Here is one of those questions: Was Mark (or God?) in error when he wrote that Abiathar was priest on the occasion that David entered the Temple and ate the bread from the altar (Mark 2:24-26)? Actually, Ahimelech (2^nd Sam 8:17) was priest at the time that David ate the holy bread from the altar (1 Sam 21:1-6; cf. 2^nd Sam 15:35).¹ The discrepancy is not really a problem, however, unless you have the mistaken idea that the Bible sprang immediately from the mind of God, and was wholly and perfectly received through inspiration into the minds of its writers (something like osmosis). Bringing the Bible into print in the language of readers is a much sweatier, human process.²

            Taking matters on faith is not something that people do in virtually any other area of life. For example, in buying a house or a car, people count-up the cost, carefully read the contract, have the house checked that all is in stated condition and in working order, and have the car checked by a mechanic, if it is a used car. The rule in life for virtually all is “trust but verify.” People trust but verify because they believe the old adage caveat emptor (“buyer beware”). Particularly in everyday activities people are led by that adage. They diligently make shopping lists, and follow them, so that they will not give-in to urges and purchase things they do not need, cannot afford, or pay-for. They shop the sales offers and compare the costs of the same item in several different stores in order to pay less for an item. People as a general rule “take with a grain, or two, of salt” political promises made during an election year, and they check the politician’s background, reputation, and public record before casting their vote.

            So, why would anyone take personal religion on faith, without critically examining the beliefs? Surely, one’s religion is as important as buying a house? What happened to the old adage caveat emptor where religion is concerned? Why should religious faith take less critical thought than hanging pictures on a wall?

            Socrates, according to his student Plato, spent his life examining his own life and the lives of others (he was something of a gadfly on the citizens of Athens). Socrates once said (just before he was condemned to death on the charges of impiety and corrupting the youth of the city by means of his persistent questions) that “the unexamined life is not worth living.”³ If one is going to shape one’s life by religious beliefs, those beliefs should be critically examined and probed. How, for example, can anyone claim that the Bible is the Word of God, when text critics decide its content, and translators bring the Bible into your language in their words? Questions about one’s personal religious faith deserve a more thoughtful answer than—I just take it all on faith.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Matt 12:4 and Luke 6:4 eliminate the name of the priest; one possible reason for their omission of the priest’s name is that they recognized Mark’s error.

²Hedrick, “Inspired Writings”: http://blog.charleshedrick.com/search?q=inspired+writings

Hedrick, “The Bible’s Story: A Brief Summary”: http://blog.charleshedrick.com/2023/10/the-bibles-story-brief-summary.html

³Plato, The Apology, 38a.

A Passing Thought about Heaven and Hell

A fleeting thought passed through my mind a few days ago: why do religious folk have such a longing for an afterlife (if such there be)? In my case, since I have persistently, for good or ill, continued to associate myself with those Bible-thumping Baptists, it would be the blessed afterlife of the Christian Heaven. The only options one is given in Baptist theology for the afterlife is Heaven or Hell—and I have no interest in spending eternity in a Baptist Hell (if such there be). It turns out, however, descriptions of Hell in the New Testament are quite minimal. In general, Hell is described as a “place” of torment in fire¹ and the absence of God (Matt 25:31-46). If one was not all that religious throughout one’s earthly life, the absence of God might not be a bother, and a burning of one’s spirit/soul (if such there be) in a (nonphysical) fire might not seem that fearsome, since it is not a burning of one’s physical flesh and bones.² Hence, Hell may be a place of suffering, but not physical suffering. How much can a nonphysical fire hurt a gathering of (nonphysical) spirit “molecules,” one wonders.

Spending eternity in the Christian Heaven, on the other hand, might not be that satisfying either. The New Testament only speaks obliquely or metaphorically³ about Heaven. Compare, for example, the description of Heaven as a physically buffed-up version of a new Jerusalem, although the Christian Heaven is obviously a nonexistent spirit “space” (Rev 21). What takes place in Heaven is, hopefully, also expressed in images. Denizens of Heaven will forever (I Thess 4:16-18) spend their time praising God (Rev 5:11-13; 19:4-8), serving/worshiping God (Rev 7:13-17; 22:3), and extolling God in song (Rev 14:1-3). It sounds roughly like a morning worship service in a post-reformation church of any variety. Doing that all day,⁴ day in and day out, forever, could become a bit tedious, perhaps, and lead one, like the ancient Israelites, to think fondly of what was left behind—the “fleshpots” of life on earth (Exod 16:3), so to speak. Even divinely-prepared activities, like diets (Exod 16:8, 12, 13-16, 31) for example, would tend to become a little old over time (Exod 16:35).

            The creation was once the apple of God’s eye (Gen 1:31), but the primordial couple outraged God, and he cursed the created order as well (Gen 3:16-19)—so goes the biblical narrative. On the other hand, most of us have found that our proverbial three score and ten (Ps 90:9-10), or so, has also brought physical, mental, and emotional pleasure and offered us the opportunity to grow and develop in mind, body, and spirit; to enjoy creation’s diversity; to delight in those sensual pleasures innate to the flesh, and join to become one with another for the journey of life (Gen 2:23-24). Life, even in a fallen universe with its many downsides (viz. cancer, Alzheimer’s, and other terminal diseases for which there is yet no known cure) is still a great ride.  The major disappointments have been life’s brevity and the inevitable goodbyes.

            Of course, there may be more diversity to Heaven and less torment to Hell (if such there be) than the biblical writers were aware-of. In both afterlife scenarios, we are only dealing with ideas expressed in one religious tradition. There were other views in antiquity. In the faith of the ancient Israelites, for example, the dead went to Sheol, a common collective afterlife for the departed dead, much like the ancient Greek belief in Hades,⁵ initially a place for all the departed.⁶ Modern ecclesiastical beliefs about Heaven are usually much rosier than we find in the Bible, and contemporary views of Hell are likely to have been influenced to some degree by Dante’s Inferno.⁷

            I called it a passing thought, and so it was, but, after reflecting on it, my reflections led me to this longer essay. I suppose you, reader, have thoughts on the subject?

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Mark 9:43; Matt 13:49-50; Matt 25:41; Rev 14:9-11, 20:12-15, 21:8; Jude 6-7.

²Who knows what a burning of a spirit/soul means, except it is not physical torture.

³A metaphor is an image describing one thing in terms appropriate to another.

⁴Of course, there would be no “days” in the sense of 24 hours, which is tied to the rotation of the earth around the sun, besides there is no night in Heaven (Rev 21:25; 22:5).

⁵Hedrick, Wry Thoughts about Religion, “The Land of Forgetfulness”: http://blog.charleshedrick.com/search?q=sheol

⁶See Alan Segal, “Afterlife,” New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible (Abingdon, 1989), 1.65-68; Richard Bauckham, “Hades, Hell,” Anchor Bible Dictionary (Doubleday, 1992), 3.14-15.

⁷Dante Alighieri, the Divine Comedy, part one is the Inferno. https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/langdon-the-divine-comedy-vol-1-inferno-english-trans

Aphorisms of Jesus

Here are three examples of an aphorism:

But many that are first will be last and the last first (Mark 10:31).

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God (Mark 10:25).

Let the dead bury their own dead (Matt 8:22).¹

An aphorism is spoken by Jesus before a group in the Roman Province of Judea and later is recalled (or not) by unnumbered minds. The saying is repeated (or not) by still fewer mouths and pens with both performance and interpretive variations. In an oral world generally “one speaks or writes an aphoristic saying, but one remembers an aphoristic core”² on the basis of its sense and structure. One does not necessarily remember exact words. The core of the saying is subject to compression or expansion and changes when repeated. For example, compare the aphorism on First and Last: Mark 10:31, Matt 20:16, Luke 13:30, Gos. Thom. 4b.

            Aphorisms in the Jesus tradition at their literary stage appear in writing alone, as single sayings, and are gathered in pairs that lead to interpretative interaction and verbal and thematic seepage between them. They are also gathered into clusters (more than two) with similar results. They can also be appended as conclusions to other linguistic forms, such as miracles, prayers, parables, dialogues, and stories. The individual aphoristic saying is later gathered into aphoristic dialogues (for example, Matt 16:1-3; Luke 12:54-56; Gos. Thom. Saying 91) and aphoristic stories (for example, Mark 6:1-6a; Luke 4:16-30).

            There is a curious exclusion from the list of numbered aphorisms that Crossan finds in Q and Mark, and their parallels in Matthew and Luke. The aphoristic saying, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but as for you go and proclaim the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:60/Matt 8:22) is lacking an aphorism number, like other aphorisms discussed in the book. Its absence jumps-out at readers between numbered aphorisms 53 and 54 on pages 343 and 370 (In Fragments), and in his discussion of the aphoristic dialogues in Matt 8:19-22 and Luke 57-62.³ In these dialogues Matthew has two aphorisms (Foxes Have Holes and Let the Dead) and Luke has three (Foxes Have Holes, Let the Dead, and Looking Back). Crossan never notes why the saying Let the Dead (Luke 9:60/Matt 8:22) does not receive a number as an aphorism in the book. He regards Luke 9:59-60 as dialectical dialogue rather than aphoristic dialogue, and agrees with Rudolf Bultmann, whom it struck as “improbable” (nicht wahrscheinlich) that the saying ever circulated as a solitary saying.⁴ Nevertheless, both in form and content the individual saying in Luke 9:60/Matt 8:22 clearly fits the aphoristic criteria Crossan himself developed (see note 1). Granted, it is a Q tradition and only singularly attested, but that does not affect the aphoristic character of the saying Let the Dead, even if it is integrated into a dialectical dialogue.⁵

Crossan’s book, In Fragments. The Aphorisms of Jesus, is a landmark study of the transmission of the aphorisms of Jesus that establishes the aphorism, alongside the parable, as a classic oral form used by Jesus and later preserved at the earliest literary stage of the tradition.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Aphorisms are “concise, pointed, pithy sayings of never more than a few sentences.” “Thus, the aphoristic form conveys universal truths in a distinctive compressed format.” Both quotations are from the front cover. They are generally unclear on their surface, prompting an auditor to ponder because aphorisms frequently trade in overstatement and exaggeration, hyperbole, and paradox, and even understatement. J. D. Crossan, In Fragments. The Aphorisms of Jesus (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1983), 27.

²Crossan, In Fragments, 67.

³Crossan, In Fragments, 237-244.

⁴Crossan, In Fragments, 243; Rudolf Bultmann, Die Geschichte der Synoptischen Tradition (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1957), 29. Nevertheless, Crossan includes Matt 8:21-22/Luke 9:59-60 with the dialogues (#330) in his Sayings Parallels. A Workbook for the Jesus Tradition (Foundations and Facets; Philadelphia: Fortress, Press, 1986).

⁵The Jesus Seminar voted the aphorism in Matt 8:22 pink (a saying to be included in the data base for Jesus’ sayings) at Toronto in 1989, but voted Luke 9:60 gray (I would not include the saying in the database but might make some use of its contents) at Sonoma in 1988. Nevertheless, both sayings were printed pink in Robert W. Funk and Roy W. Hoover, The Five Gospels. The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus (New York: Macmillan, 1993), 160, 316. Foundation and Facets Forum 6.3/4 (September/December 1990), 260, 276.

Losing a World

And learning to cope with the new one is an experience of several groups of people in our society. At one time they had "places" in society but lost them due to advanced old age, serious disability problems, or by immigrating (there are likely other groups). Every person in each of these groups may yet find a place in the new world, depending on their particular situation, physical and mental abilities, interest, and adaptability. I am focusing on one of these groups in this mini essay—those lucky (?) enough to have reached the advanced old age of 90 and above.¹ Currently that number is reported at 4.7% percent of the US population.² It is expected to grow.

            The world in which 90-year-olds reached adulthood (in my case, 1934-1954) and with which they coped during much of their working years (1954-2005) has passed away.³ One of my earliest childhood memories is the family ice box (the refrigerator came later) and milk delivered to the front porch twice weekly. I became aware of the passing of an old world in 1983, when I skidded from the typewriter to word processing and rather quickly into the personal computer. Telephone booths and landline phones, once common are now things of a former world, since most of us carry personal smartphones, by which we can have instant visual contact with someone half a world away (assuming the phone is not smarter than we). This new world features the presence of artificial intelligence writing television ads and responding to online searches (just give it a google!); online shopping has become a major industry, and television has any number of movies, news shows, and TV serials just a click away. A big change is the advent of GPS and the loss of paper maps! Coping with the numerous changes that a new world brings challenges those at the very far end of things (alas, some far-enders simply give-up coping with technological advances altogether).

            Challenges are not simply technological. Many of us entering the nonagenarian stage of life have lost our life partners, and find the adjustment to solitary living difficult. For example, grocery shopping for one requires a skill that must be learned over time. Intimate hugging and touching are things of the past (paternal and formal social hugs are permitted, and some do find intimacy at the far-end). A thick silence fills the house, broken only by the TV and the startling sound of one's own voice. Retirement from the demands of salaried occupations has brought with it an enforced isolation from colleagues, friends, and other workplace associations. If one has relocated the family residence to a distant city, then close friends of many years are no longer in the picture. Such circumstances contribute to the loss of a familiar world.

            It is not easy for an active person to adjust to the increasing frailty of aging. There is a noticeable decline in one's abilities: balance, hearing, sight, dexterity, stamina, agility, and mental acuity. Eventually the trajectory will result in loss of independence (John 21:18), which is a last stage of living at the far end of things. Far-Enders know that obsolescence is the way of the natural world and eventually come to accept the inevitability of the outcome.

            The Christian synthesis of the 4^th century common era, distilled in many ways from the failed philosophies and religions of the ancient Hellenistic world,⁴ held out hope for a new world, set free from its bondage to decay (Rom 8:18‒17), and hope for personal resurrection in a "spiritual body" (1 Cor 15:35‒57). Such an expectation seems to deny our life experience known through obsolescing (birth, youth, adulthood, the far-end), and prompts the question: does living in this physically changing world mean anything or have any enduring value? The poet appears to have a similar question.

Children picking up our bones

Will never know that these were once

As quick as foxes on a hill.⁵

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Much of this essay relies on self-observation.

²https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/aging_population/cb11-194.html#:~:text=Because%20of%20increases%20in%20life,likely%20to%20reach%2010%20percent.

³In antiquity culture and society changed very slowly. In the modern Western world change is rapid.

⁴The Hellenistic period was the blending of Greek with indigenous cultures in the ancient world from Alexander, the Great (323 BC) to the end of the Roman Empire (410 AD).

⁵Wallace Stevens, "A Postcard from the Volcano" in The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens (Knopf, 1961), 158.

Jesus Remembered: A Gadfly on Israelite Religion

There is a rhetorical question, often asked: Why would anyone want to kill someone who wandered around the community telling charming stories, reminding neighbors to love one another, healing the sick, exorcizing evil spirits, and even supporting the Roman tax paid to Caesar (Mark 12:17)? The answer may lie simply in the fact that Jesus was remembered by the tradition, in part, as a critic of the religion in which he was reared, before he became, in the faith of the later Jesus gatherings, the savior of the world and much later, the second person in a divine trinity.

In the pronouncement stories Jesus is often quoted being critical of aspects of his own religious tradition.¹ A pronouncement story in the gospels is a brief narrative told for the purpose of housing a saying attributed to Jesus. For example, in Mark 2:23-27, Jesus is challenged by the Pharisees because his disciples “harvested” grain and ate it on the sabbath day, violating sabbath restrictions (Exod 20:8-11). Jesus replies that even David broke a taboo by eating consecrated bread (1 Sam 21:1-6), lawful only for priests to eat. The Sabbath was meant to serve humankind rather than being an ornery chore.

In another pronouncement story (Mark 3:1-6) Jesus attends a synagogue and met there a man with a withered hand. People watched him to see what he would do. He asked them, is one allowed to do good on the Sabbath? And he healed the man. His critics then conspired to destroy him. Both of these stories put Jesus in the position of challenging a basic aspect of the institutional religious tradition of his day, sabbath observance.

            Mark 11:15-19² is a story of Jesus in the Jerusalem Temple creating a disturbance by chasing-out the vendors and shoppers and saying that the religious philosophy allowing such practices has turned God’s house from a house of prayer into a hangout for crooks (Isa 56:6-8). It resulted in the chief priests and scribes planning on getting rid of him for challenging the institutional religion.

            I am inclined to call the settings of such narratives about institutional religion housing an antithetical saying attributed to Jesus, stories about the criticism of institutional religion that portray Jesus attacking, gadfly-like, Israelite religion.³ Such stories are traditional. That designation means they were products of oral recall, at some point between the public career of Jesus (around 30 C.E.) and the composition of the Gospel of Mark (around 70 C.E.). Mark found the stories in the stream of oral tradition, having been remembered, and passed around orally for about 40-50 years, and eventually repeated to him. Mark edited them to his tastes, and perhaps invented others. The historical character of the settings of the three stories discussed above is mixed. The Jesus Seminar/Westar book on the Acts of Jesus judges the setting of Mark 2:23-28 as likely to be historical (printed in the book in pink); Mark 3:1-6 was printed gray (likely not historical). The incident in the Temple (Mark 11:15-19) is multi-colored, although all seem to agree that an incident in the Temple took place at which time when Jesus rousted vendors and shoppers from the temple; the incident is likely historical (pink) other aspects of the story are gray and black, historically questionable.⁴

I am arguing that the settings of these traditional stories about institutional religion have historical value in themselves for informing the reader about how the life situation of Jesus was remembered. The memory that produced the setting is historical whether or not the settings reproduce a particular occasion in the life of Jesus or the sayings they house are considered to have originated with Jesus. The settings are not husks to be discarded; they describe social contexts in which Jesus was remembered. Bultmann describes the value of the traditional settings for the stories in this way:

The individual controversy dialogues may not be historical reports of particular incidents in the life of Jesus, but the general character of his life is rightly portrayed in them, on the basis of historical recollection.⁵

In other words, in such stories Jesus harped about the religion of the Israelites.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Vincent Taylor, The Formation of the Gospel Tradition (London: Macmillan, 1960), 63-87.

²Taylor refers to this narrative as a “story about Jesus,” 151, 179.

³R. Bultmann described the three stories I discussed above as controversy/scholastic dialogues. The History of the Synoptic Tradition (trans. John Marsh; Oxford, Blackwell, 1963), 11-69.

⁴The Jesus Seminar of the Westar Institute made a study of the stories about Jesus, evaluating whether the settings might be claimed to contain authentic memory of the time of Jesus: R. Funk, The Acts of Jesus. The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus (San Francisco: Harper, 1998).

⁵Bultmann, History of the Synoptic Tradition, 50.

Early “Christian” Prophets in Pauline Gatherings

There is no end of people today willing to tell you God's opinion on whatever issue is on the table. Few, if any, of them would claim to be officially recognized as prophets by a religious organization. In the ancient world, however, there were many who were called prophets and believed to speak God's words. This was also true among the early followers of Jesus.

The early Christian prophet was an immediately-inspired spokesperson for God, the risen Jesus, or the spirit who received intelligible oracles that he or she felt impelled to deliver to the Christian community or, representing the community, to the general public.¹

The earliest reference in Christian literature to early Christian prophets in the assemblies of the Jesus-gatherings is found in 1 Thess 5:19-20. Here Paul speaks approvingly of the utterances of such figures—meaning that he apparently regarded them as divinely inspired by God's spirit; there were many such figures in the religions of the ancient world.² Paul, however, had reservations about such figures even in his own tradition:

Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good. (NRSV)

In other words, listen carefully, for not everything the prophet says may be helpful. So, discriminate in and among the prophetic utterances and hold onto what is profitable. I detect a healthy skepticism in Paul's statement about the utterances of early Christian prophets.

Prophets, who were believed to be channels for the words of a God, were endemic to his social and religious worlds (Israelite, and Greco-Roman traditions). The matrix and stimulus for such prophets and prophetic utterances in Jesus-gatherings likely came from both reading the Bible and pagan traditions. Prophetism was in the Greco-Roman air, as it were. In such a social environment, it was simply the way Gods were reckoned verbally to communicate.³

In the gathering at Corinth Paul acknowledged that God had given the gift of prophecy to certain people in the fellowship (1 Cor 12:10; Rom 12:3-8) and appointed them prophets (1 Cor 12:28-29). What the prophets were believed to bring was a direct revelation from God (1 Cor 14:29-32) for the encouragement, consolation, and benefit of the community (1 Cor 14:1-6). He did, however, continue to have reservations.

            The prophets in the community apparently could not control themselves and, like Jeremiah (20:9), the Word of the Lord was a "burning fire shut up in their bones," and they could not restrain it. So, they all prophesied at the same time (1 Cor 14:26-31), creating general confusion. Paul insisted that "the spirits of prophets are subject to the prophets" (1 Cor 14:32). So, they should all prophecy but only one at a time (1 Cor 14:30-31).

            Nevertheless, he still had reservations about the utterances of the prophets (1 Cor 14:29). Whatever they said must be carefully evaluated or judged (diakrinetōsan). Why is that? Because different spirits inspire prophets (1 Cor 12:3). And that is the reason why some in the assembly had the spiritual gift of discerning between spirits (1 Cor 12:10).

            It is interesting that in the Deutero-Pauline epistles (Colossians, Ephesians) and the Pastorals epistles (1, 2 Timothy, Titus) prophets are no longer a vital force in the Jesus-gatherings.⁴ Itinerant prophets are, however, found to be a problem in the Didache (11:3-12).⁵ Among other things, the writer says "do not test or examine any prophet who is speaking in a spirit" (11:7), but recognizes that not everyone speaking in a spirit is a "true" prophet. The true prophet can be distinguished from the false prophet by his behavior (11:8-12). So, the writer of the Didache also had reservations about the prophets.

            When someone claims to know the mind of God and assumes to tell you what God requires of you—prophet or not, exercise a healthy dose of Pauline skepticism. Be an adult in your thinking (1 Cor 14:20). Evaluate and judge carefully what you are told, for who really knows the mind of God (Rom 11:33)?

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹M. Eugene Boring, "Prophecy (Early Christian)" in D. N. Freedman, et al., The Anchor Bible Dictionary New York: Doubleday, 1992), 5. 495-502; the quotation is on 496.

²See Boring, "Prophecy."

³David S. Potter, "Prophecies," and Robert C. T. Parker, "Prophētēs" in Hornblower and Spawforth, Oxford Classical Dictionary (3^rd ed.), 1259.

⁴Boring, "Prophecy," 500.

⁵Kirsopp Lake, The Apostolic Fathers (2 vols.; Cambridge, MA, Harvard University, 1965), 325-27. The date of the Didache is not settled, but a consensus seems to be gravitating toward the end of the first century or beginning of the second. See Kurt Niederwimmer, The Didache. A Commentary (Hermeneia; trans. L. M. Malony; ed., H.W. Attridge; Minneapolis, MN, 1998), 52-53.

Why is the New Testament a Postscript in the Christian Bible?

My beginning question is: why are the Christian Holy Writings attached footnote-like to the end of the Jewish Bible? I suppose one could reasonably argue that the two collections are gathered into the Bible in the historical sequence of their dates of authorship. That is a reasonable thought, for the dates of the Hebrew Bible texts predate those of the New Testament (NT). But why doesn’t the same rationale apply for the order of the books within each collection? For example, the NT texts are not printed in historical order. If that were so, First Thessalonians would be the first text in the NT, followed by the rest of the undisputed Pauline letters, and the next few would be in this order: Mark, Matthew, Luke, Hebrews,¹ John…and second Peter would be the last text in the NT.

A more basic question now occurs to me: why do Christians use Jewish Holy Scriptures as Word of God and put the Jewish Scriptures first in the Bible? The answer seems to be they were “grandfathered” in, as they were the first canon of Christian Holy Writings. Here is the reason: The earliest followers of Jesus were Israelites, people of the Covenant God (Gen 12:1-3; Gen 17:1-14), whose holy writings were Israelite religious texts.² When the Jesus movement later moved out into the Gentile world, capturing the imagination of Greeks and Romans, these later Gentile followers of Jesus continued to use the Bible of the Israelites (in its Greek translation), because the Israelites and these later followers of Jesus believed it to be “God breathed or inspired” (2 Tim 2:15-16).³

Those who wrote the NT searched their religious texts and found therein “prophecies” that supported their belief that Jesus was the Anointed One, who would come (Micah 5:2, for example), and applied the prophecies to Jesus. These prophecies, and the fact that they believed the Israelite writings to be Word of God, locked-in the Israelite writings as Holy Scriptures for Orthodox Christianity and secured their first-place position in the Christian Bible.

One notable exception to this “mixed” collection of Israelite and Christian texts was the biblical canon of Marcion that appeared around the middle of the second century. Nothing is preserved of his writings except refutations written by his Orthodox opponents. Marcion rejected The Israelite writings and published an abbreviated NT containing a shortened gospel (Luke) and ten letters of Paul (minus the Pastoral Letters and Hebrews). Marcion rejected the Israelite writings and their God, whom he regarded as a God of Justice (“an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”). The God of Jesus, on the other hand, was the God of Mercy. Marcion’s NT was the first attempt to form a distinctive collection of “Christian” writings.

The biblical canon of the Christian communities of the first 400 years in the evolution of Christianity retained the old covenant books (which they came to know as the Old Testament [OT]) and added to them the new covenant/testament books (now known as the NT).⁴ Both collections are named for covenants God is believed to have made with humankind. The covenants are briefly alluded-to in Heb 8:6-12, where the author of Hebrews quotes Jeremiah (31:31-34; Heb 8:8-12), who anticipated a “new covenant” with God. The author of Hebrews adds the following statement to the end of Jeremiah’s quotation:

In speaking of a new covenant, he [Jeremiah] treats the first as obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away (Heb 8:13).

This “prediction” (toward the end of the first century), making the old covenant obsolete or useless, never happened. Christians are still using Israelite writings, and these old “obsolete” writings continue to hold first position in the Christian canon. The connection with the old covenant, although “obsolete,” will likely never “disappear.” For example, when the two different collections are discussed in dictionaries of the Bible under the entry “Canon,” the editors reverse their usual alphabetical listing of entries by listing Old Testament before New Testament. Their alphabetical order would have been NT before OT.

            The tradition of individual churches decided the order of the contents in papyrus NT manuscripts, which was largely determined on the basis of interest and what could be gotten into a papyrus codex (i.e., book). The surviving papyrus fragments of NT texts do not include OT books. In the papyrus manuscripts of the second through fourth centuries, which are mostly fragmentary, there are few differences with the order of today’s NT, which is also traditional.

            The large parchment uncial Bible manuscripts (Sinaiticus and Vaticanus), surviving from the fourth century CE, however, contain both OT and NT with NT texts tagged on at the end of the OT texts. Why is that do you suppose? Two reasons occur to me: The OT was considered Word of God long before Christians began writing what eventually became NT texts, and it took around 200 years, or so, for these “postscripts” to achieve Word of God status. Hence, the OT/NT order is simply traditional.

            Isn’t it time that some enterprising ecclesiastical scholar reconsidered that arrangement and recommended putting the NT books first? It just seems rather odd to begin the Christian Bible with the Jewish Scriptures!

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Kummel, Introduction to the New Testament, 246. John was written in the last decade of the first century (90-99). Hebrews is earlier “probably written between 80-90” (p. 403).

²There was not at the time of the public career of Jesus (around 30 CE) a collection of religious texts that all members of the Israelite religious community agreed upon. The Hebrew Bible, as we know it today, is thought to have been formed by the surviving group, the Pharisees, after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE by the Romans.

³The comment in Second Timothy does not refer to the Christian Bible but rather it refers to what are today the Jewish Holy Scriptures.

⁴Covenant in Greek is diatheke; in Latin it is testamentum. The words mean the same thing.

⁵See note one above. The critical date for the writing of Hebrews is earlier than the writing of John.