Engaging the Bible in Mission Theology Scholarship: Bryant Myers' Walking With the Poor

Engaging the Bible in Mission Theology Scholarship: Bryant Myers' Walking With the Poor

This post is a book review of: Bryant Myers, Walking With the Poor: Principles and Practices of Transformational Development (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 1999).  The book was revised and updated in 2011.

I originally published this review in Transformation 18.1 (2001):  62-64.

Bryant Myers, Vice President for International Program Strategy at World Vision International, seeks to bring together three streams of thinking and experiences in this recent work: (1) the theories, principles and practices of the international development community, (2) the theories, principles and practices of the Christian community involved in transformational development, and (3) a biblical framework for transformational development.  As such, the book is primarily theoretical, with a few examples from practice occurring more in the last three chapters.  Nevertheless, one quickly appreciates how the author’s understanding of field practice has shaped his evaluation of various theories on poverty and development.

The book is a good primer for Christians involved in development work.  The novice will learn of several key theorists in the last two to three decades, David Friedman, Robert Chalmers, and Jayakumar Christian in particular.  Myers builds on such theorists, presenting his own view of ‘transformational development’ throughout the book but in particular in ch. 5: ‘Toward a Christian Understanding of Transformational Development.’  The various lists, tables and models provide grist for many discussions in development, and they will also prove useful in missions in general as well as in ethics.  The book also offers a good starting point for discussion about the character of holistic transformational development practitioners and the principles which guide them (especially ch. 6), and about planning and evaluating such work (ch. 7).

Something of a theology of development emerges over the pages of this book.  The key notions are: (1) holistic worldview: holding the spiritual and material together not only in ministry but in our very understanding of the world as beyond scientific explanation and human activity, finding a place for spiritual power and encounter in our outlook on life; (2) transformational development: development work with a goal beyond giving material aid, seeking to see material, social and spiritual transformation (thus the twin goals of transformational development are a changed people--a people with a new identity defined by life in the Kingdom of God (they are children of God and their ‘true vocation [is] as faithful and productive stewards of gifts from God for the well-being of all’ [p. 14]--and just and peaceful relationships; (3) Christian witness: a witness to the good news of a relationship with Christ which goes beyond oral proclamation (evangelism), involving witness by life, word, deed, and signs (of God’s reign; ch. 8 focuses on this issue); (4) personal and social evil/personal and social gospel: sin and salvation are not only applicable to the individual, they are also social, addressing economics, politics, culture, and the church as an institution (e.g., poverty is seen as ‘a system of disempowerment [in society] which creates oppressive relationships [which involves holding the wrong values in relationships] and whose fundamental causes are spiritual’ such that the poor lack freedom to grow); (5) revelation: revelation from God rather than our own observation through the social sciences must also be a part of development work, thus prayer, fasting, meditation and so forth are important alongside proper training in the social sciences for the development worker; (6) a narrative approach to (a) Biblical reading and (b) sociological encounter: (a) a Biblical understanding of Scripture should primarily be a narrative reading of the Biblical story/stories, and (b) in development work the narratives of development workers and the communities with which they work involves both an encounter and convergence of stories.

The subtitle of the book highlights Myers’ interest in ‘principles’ and ‘practices’ of transformational development.  The principles are four: (1) ‘the ownership of the development process lies with the people themselves’, which primarily means appreciating their own story, spiritual self-understanding, and knowledge about how to survive; (2) ‘Management-by-objectives’ does not work with social systems; emphasis on vision, values and evaluation will better enable people to learn their way towards transformation; (3) Empowerment is the goal of participation; and (4) Participation must build community.

The practices of transformational development focus on people.  In particular, people are to be understood as created in the image of God capable of becoming children of God.  Using the work of others, Myers offers something of a tool kit for the practice of development work: (1) understanding development less in terms of needs and more in terms of social analysis, particularly through Mary Anderson’s and Peter Woodrow’s analysis of vulnerabilities and capabilities; (2) Participatory Learning and Action (PLA); (3) Appreciative Inquiry (David Cooperrider), with its assumption of health, vitality and life-giving social organisation in every community; (4) how to evaluate the work; (5) other critical issues, such as listening to women and children, pacing the work properly, giving proper attention to the spiritual dimension of development work.  Finally, since the practice of transformational development involves Christian witness, Myers discusses the practice of Christian witness.

Myers’ establishes his reflections on poverty upon a three-fold foundation.  The most important part of this foundation is a theological understanding, and Myers approaches theology primarily from a narrative biblical theology.  As Myers’ presents his theological understanding in ch. 2, what emerges is a combination of narrative readings of the Bible, more traditional theological doctrines (‘image of God’, Trinitarian theology, incarnation, redemption), and classical Biblical theological categories (kingdom of God).  This type of an overview is, by nature of its brevity on the one hand and wide scope on the other, open to many criticisms or at least unresolved questions.  For example, are we justified in interpreting ‘image of God’ to have to do with God’s Trinitarian being and a triune self-understanding?  Should we understand the nature of Jesus’ ministry (e.g., in Galilee) as instructive for us today and, if so, how do we properly interpret this?  For example, Myers believes ‘Galilee’ means ministry on the periphery rather than in the centre of power (a not uncommon understanding of the political status of Galilee and yet the whole argument at this point reflects little knowledge of the socio-political realities of Galilee, such as the significance of Galilee as a central cross-roads for an expanding mission--hardly on the ‘periphery’).  He does not interact with the more traditional interpretation of the non-Protestant Church along these lines: the narrative of Christ calls disciples to imitate his life of poverty, chastity, and obedience.  While I also approach Biblical theology within a narrative framework, many hermeneutical and theological issues still need to be worked out with greater scholarly care by those of us promoting this approach.  Myers’ use of narrative categories is based on the belief that one’s world-view is fundamentally shaped by stories, one’s own life is a narrative, communities have their own narratives, and the Bible contains a basic narrative centred on Jesus and numerous additional narratives (creation, the Fall, liberation narratives--the Patriarchs and Exodus, the prophets’ interpretation of Israel’s story, the Church’s unfolding story, and the eschatological story).  A narrative reading of the Scripture permits Myers to work with the following theological notions: relationships, universal and cosmic interests, plot development, liberation and working with the poor, holistic mission, transformational development, a continuity between the Biblical Story and the ongoing work of the Church (without identifying Kingdom and Church--an important point).

The Bible affords interpreters multiple and conflicting answers to the question, ‘Who are the Poor?’ (following Mouw; cf. p. 60).  Myers’ social analysis takes the household as the basic building block for society, with its social, political and psychological power resources for its governmental, territorial and productive interests (following Friedman).  Poverty is understood as more than a deficit of things; it is more than a systemic entanglement (so Robert Chalmers) entailing physical weakness (including mental causes due to poor nutrition, illness, alcohol, drugs), material poverty, vulnerability (social conventions [e.g., Emmanuel Todd’s argument that cultural potential is related to family structure], disasters, physical incapacity [cf., e.g., Jared Diamond’s discussion of geographical resources, social power for exploration and domination, and immunity to germs], unproductive expenditures, exploitation), powerlessness (by resources being kept from the poorest poor, robbery, and paying unfair prices to the poor), isolation; it is more than a lack of organisation and access to the institutions of social power--government (the executive and judiciary), politics (independent political organisations), society (the household, churches, voluntary organisations), and economics (corporations), with its eight bases of social power --social networks, information for self-development, surplus time, instruments of work and livelihood, social organisation, knowledge and skill, defensible life space, and financial resources (so Friedman).  In addition to these, poverty is also spiritual (so Jayakumar Christian).  By ‘spiritual’, Myers means one’s self-understanding (the poor’s belief in the lies told about them and their own delusions about life), moral poverty (absence of love, responsibility and righteousness), and the cosmic, personal evil powers behind the individual and social causes of poverty.  Not only so, but poverty is fundamentally ‘a result of relationships that do not work, that are not just, that are not for life, that are not harmonious or enjoyable’ (p. 86).  By ‘relationship’, Myers means the self in relationship with itself, with the community, with the environment, with others, and with God.

How shall we understand ‘development’?  Modernity approaches development through social control and rational thought, which cannot overcome evil, and believes things are getting better.  But development is not ‘saving’ through economic growth, modern medicine, agriculture, water development, technological advance, and so forth.  Salvation is only through the cross.  ‘Transformation’ can also be understood in a number of ways: to do with souls, physical bodies, mental, social systems, violence, creation (fig. 4-1, p. 93).

Wayne Bragg argued in the development conference called Wheaton, 1983 that transformation must include not only social welfare but also concerns for justice.  He posited the following interests in such an approach: life sustenance, equity, justice, dignity and self-worth, freedom, participation, reciprocity, cultural fit (a respectful attitude towards local cultures), and ecological soundness (p. 95).

David Korten (Getting to the 21st Century, 1991), argued for a ‘people-centred’ rather than growth-centred development approach.  Myers adapted Korten’s argument as follows:

Growth-Centred Development                                  People-Centred Development
Material consumption                                                   Human well-being
Wants of the non-poor                                                 Needs of the poor
Corporation or business                                               Household
Competition                                                                 Community
Export markets                                                            Local markets
Absentee ownership                                                     Local ownership
Borrowing and debt                                                     Conserving and sharing
Specialisation                                                               Diversification
Inerdependence                                                           Self-reliance
Environmental costs externalized                                   Environmental costs internalized
Free flow of capital and services                                   Free flow of information

Korten defines development as ‘a process by which the members of a society increase their personal and institutional capacities to mobilise and manage resources to produce sustainable and justly distributed improvements in their quality of life consistent with their own aspirations’ (1990, 67; Myers, p. 96, italics mine).  Development work should change its focus over time from addressing (1) the shortage of things to (2) the shortage of skills and local inertia to (3) the failure of social and cultural systems to (4) an inadequate mobilising vision (Myers, p. 97).  These stages involve not only a change in one’s perception of the problem being addressed but also the time frame, scope, chief actors, role of the agency, and management style (cf. figure 4-3, p. 98).
John Friedman’s understanding of poverty as ‘limited access to social power’ leads to an understanding of development as ‘a process that seeks the empowerment [decision-making, local self-reliance, participatory democracy, and social learning] of the households and their individual members through their involvement in socially and politically relevant actions’ (1992, 33; Myers, p. 99).  Among other things, Myers criticises Friedman for assuming that empowered people will work towards a just end and that empowerment is not also spiritual.

Robert Chambers (Whose Reality Counts?  Putting the First Last, 1997), sees the end of development as ‘responsible well-being’ (thus going beyond the question of wealth and poverty), the means of development as livelihood security (adequate levels of food for basic needs, rights to access resources, security against shortages) and capabilities, and the principles of development as equity and sustainability.  These five concerns in development are interdependent.

Jayakumar Christian sees development as a kingdom response to powerlessness, much of this having to do with unmasking the lies people believe by hearing the truth of the Kingdom of God.  That is, Christian is not calling for a view of the Kingdom of God embracing the use of force.

Myers offers his understanding of Transformational Development in ch. 5.  (1) He begins with his understanding of stories: ‘every development program is a convergence of stories’, the development workers’ stories, which includes God’s story, and the communities’ stories (p. 111).  In this convergence of stories, Myers is concerned on the one hand that the community owns the story and on the other hand that God’s story (the Biblical story as it emerges in the canon) is clearly offered to the community as the larger story in which they might place their own story of transformational development.  Myers further describes the work of transformational development as (2) offering a better future to the community.  This better future is defined as ‘shalom’--’just, peaceful, harmonious, and enjoyable relationships with each other, ourselves, our environment, and God’, having to do with the physical, social, mental and spiritual aspects of life (p. 111).  Citing Newbigin (1989, 129; Myers, p. 114), Myers notes that this vision of a better future is understood in terms of the Kingdom of God and not in terms of projects, programs, ideologies and utopia.  Myers also insists that ‘it is impossible to imagine a transforming community without a transforming church in its midst’ (p. 115)--a model of what the options are for the community as a whole.  (3) Transformational development has the following goals: (a) a changed people (recovering true identity and discovering true vocation),  (b) just and peaceful relationships, (c) sustainability .  (4) The process of change involves: (a) affirming the role of God in transformation; (b) affirming the role of human beings; (c) focusing on relationships; (d) keeping the end in mind; (e) recognising pervasive evil; (f) seeking truth, justice, and righteousness; (g) addressing causes; (h) doing no harm; (i) expressing a bias toward peace; (j) affirming the role of the church.  All this is reshaped into a diagram on p. 136.

Myers examines how to work with the poor and non-poor in transformational development (ch. 6).  The principles to guide this work are: (1) respecting the community’s story, which in practical terms means understanding the community’s history, discerning where God has been at work in the community’s history, and listening carefully to their whole story, including its understanding of formal religion, folk religion, and folk science; (2) learning the community’s typical survival strategies, including the role of their supernatural, unseen world; (3) respecting indigenous knowledge.  The practice of transformational development should be less management-by-objectives, which assumes a linear approach to social development, and more a ‘vision-and-values approach’, which assumes the unpredictability of social development.  This means working with short-term planning, evaluating, and placing priority on people rather than things.  But a people focused approach must move beyond participation to empowerment, and it must focus on community building with the poor.  The rest of this chapter describes the attitudes of, characteristics of, formation of, and care for the holistic practitioner.  The appendix to this chapter offers a profile of the practitioner in terms of knowledge, character, technical skills, and attitudes of the heart (p. 167).  This chapter includes more examples than previous chapters do, although the emphasis is still theoretical.

This detailed description of the principles and practices of the people involved in development leads to a chapter on the learning tools to use in this work (ch. 7).  The first tool is social rather than needs analysis.  The second tool looks at the various groups’ (e.g., genders, economic classes) vulnerabilities,  and how to enhance their capacities.  The third tool is community organisation through networking, coalition building, action-reflection-action, leadership empowerment, and the birth of a community.  The fourth tool is participatory learning and action (PLA).  The fifth tool is Appreciative Inquiry (AI), a post-modern tool opposed to mechanistic, problem-solving approaches and rather appreciative of and trying to enhance the community’s forces which organise and build it.  Myers notes that this approach has worked well in Tanzania’s World Vision: ‘Insisting on a discussion focusing on what has worked and on when and how the community has been successful in the past is very helpful in getting past the initial view of the NGO as the giver of good things’ (p. 178).  The sixth tool is Logical Framework Analysis and is a management-by-objectives approach, but when used by the community itself, not so much for problem solving as for working out its dreams, it can be useful.  It looks like this:

Objectives                Objectively verifiable        Means of verification          Risks and assumptions
                                         indicators
Goals:
Purpose:
1. 
2. 
Outputs:
1. 
2. 
Inputs:
1. 
2. 

Seventh, appropriate evaluation is even more important than planning.  This needs to be participatory (see the chart, p. 181) and go beyond how the problems were faced to community building questions.  It needs to look at lasting outcomes, changes in identity, vocation, relationships, worldview, values.  It needs to develop outwardly turned systems and structures, supporting and enhancing life in the community for all.  It also needs to ask if those involved are doing the right thing ethically, such as by preserving human life, working for justice, ensuring staff safety, and preserving human freedom (so Hugo Slim; Myers, p. 187).  Slim further describes a moral responsibility framework: (1) intention and motivation; (2) capacity for doing something; (3) knowledge and ignorance; (4) deliberation; (5) mitigation of negative effects of our actions (Myers, pp. 187f).  The spiritual dimension of transformational development also requires evaluation (pp. 188f).  Finally, Myers notes several additional critical issues in planning and evaluation: listen to women and children, get the pace right, and let the spiritual come through.  This chapter concludes with four appendices showing various tools used in planning and evaluation.

The final chapter addresses Christian witness in transformational development.  Noting that a ‘going and telling’ approach to evangelism is anti-developmental (it treats the community as an object rather than empowered participant finding its own answers to its problems), Myers looks about to find an alternative approach to offering a community the ‘best’, that is, the good news of God’s story.  He suggests that actions should provoke questions from the community, which then give the development workers an opportunity to tell the Gospel.  Witness occurs by one’s life, deeds, telling, and the signs of God’s reign.  Discipleship, furthermore, is not a personal, spiritual activity without also being a way of working the Gospel message throughout our society’s ideas and attitudes (politics, economics, culture, race, and so forth).  In all this, the question of the use of Scripture is important.  Throughout this book, Myers emphasises looking at Scripture in terms of its overarching narrative--God’s story (with tribute to Trevor McIlwain of New Tribes Mission, pp. 232ff).  In this way, the development workers can discuss the epic story in which they have found their meaning to groups which often have their own epic stories.  Alongside this narrative approach to Scripture, Myers cites positively two reader-response methods of interpretation (Scripture Search and The Seven Steps).  This sort of approach actually fits well with many home Bible study methods inasmuch as the role of teachers in the Church is minimised or even deprecated.  While this reviewer believes that such approaches to Scripture regularly denigrate its authority and abuse the text’s meaning, perhaps the best place to begin further discussing this matter is by interacting with the plethora of material now being published in biblical hermeneutics by evangelicals.  While this book regularly examines various methodologies and theories as they pertain to transformational development, this sort of scholarly interaction is lacking in the discussion on the use of Scripture.

Engaging the Bible in Mission Theology Scholarship: Scriptural Authority and the Formation of Christian Convictions

Engaging the Bible in Mission Theology Scholarship:
Scriptural Authority and the Formation of Christian Convictions

As the second Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON II) gets underway in Nairobi this October, 2013, the issue of Scriptural authority and the formation of Christian convictions lies at the heart of what needs attention in the Anglican Church—as in various other communions of faith in our day.  This post offers some thoughts on the issue that faces the Church in the West and that requires decisive action in our day.  The crises over Scriptural authority and the formation of convictions that are truly Christian are central for the Church and its mission as it considers its identity and witness in the world.

How we form convictions, how we do theology, what we understand by 'revelation', how we get at the meaning of a text--these rather weighty issues all come to bear on the challenges the Church faces today, including its thinking about sexuality.  There is a way to sum up the challenge to the Christian tradition on issues of sexuality with reference to one of the oldest debates in philosophy: can one ever step into the same river twice?  If theology is a body of doctrine, unambiguous and capable of being systematised, then it is a river into which various people at various times in various circumstances might step more than once.  If revelation is from God to humanity, then it is something authoritative, and the first task of interpretation is listening and the second task is obeying.  If the meaning of a text can be ascertained, if it is not illusive, if it comes from the intentions evident within the text rather than from the reader, then the only courteous thing to do is to hear it out rather than pretend like some naughty child that the obvious meaning is not the only one, or that anything another says can be understood in some other way.

But all this is what so many find so challenging today.  Surely no river remains the same from moment to moment as it is in constant flow.  On such a view, authoritative sources are only generative for a community’s discussion, theology must be understood as dialectical and open-ended, revelation must involve the input of readers, Scriptural authority is suggestive and tentative, and meaning is something to be created as texts float freely from the authors' intentions, while readers bring new contexts and interpretations to texts.

What makes the discussion of sexuality so challenging within Western, mainline denominations today is that it is not simply sexuality that is at issue but the whole 'same river' - 'different river' debate of the ancient Greeks as it pertains to our understanding of theology, our reception of revelation, and our interpretation of Scripture.  The very basis for constructing theology and ethics is under attack.  Of course, answers to this debate must take account of the truth in both arguments: the Thames has never become the Severn, but the water that flowed in it last year is no longer what flows in it today.  Thus the contemporary challenge that some pose to Christian tradition and Biblical authority is for us to get over our supposed ‘hang-ups’ with river banks—with static authorities; everything is said to be in flux and is being reconstituted, like the ever-changing river.  The authority for Christian identity and the formation of convictions, on this view, falls to the contemporary communities of faith, who are empowered (by whom?) to deal with their 'foundational documents' and 'generative revelation' in the Bible however they now see fit.

In step with this 'different river' argument, former Archbishop Rowan Williams opposes a notion of divine revelation that is, as he puts it, a 'lifting of a veil'. He writes, 'The language of veil-lifting assumes a kind of passivity on the part of the finite consciousness which abstracts entirely from the issue of the newness of the form of life which first prompts the question about revelation.'[1]  He prefers to speak of revelation as generative in our experience, which he describes as 'events or transactions in our language that break existing frames of reference and initiate new possibilities of life ….'[2]

Robin Gill's assessment of Church and society in the United Kingdom also defends diversity and process on moral issues within the Church.[3]  He approves Stephen Sykes' argument in The Identity of Christianity to say that there will always be moral disagreement in the Church,[4] as in Paul’s day, and this can play an important and positive function: ‘Christian identity is…not a state but a process; a process, moreover, which entails the restlessness of a dialectic, impelled by criticism.'[5]

Paul actually had a response to this.  He agreed that there will always be moral disagreement in the Church and that it does play an important and positive function, but his reasoning was altogether different.  He wrote,

Indeed, there have to be factions among you, for only so will it become clear who among you are genuine (1 Cor. 11.19).

Almost thirty years ago, George Stroup assessed the new development of 'narrative theology' in terms of a crisis over the identity of Christian community facing the Church at the time.  This crisis, he argued, takes shape in four symptoms in particular:[6]

…the curious status of the Bible in the church’s life, the church’s loss of its theological tradition, the absence of theological reflection at all levels of the church’s life, and the inability of many Christians to make sense out of their personal identity by means of Christian faith.

He went on to say that the doctrine of revelation in the church was 'under siege'.  Stroup defines 'revelation' as ‘the unveiling or disclosure of a reality that is not accessible to human discovery and which is of decisive significance for human destiny and well-being.'[7]  On this view, Rowan Williams' discussion of revelation as not unveiling, as something that includes human initiation and experience, would be an example of the crisis in the Church's doctrine of revelation of which Stroup spoke sixteen years before Williams made his point.[8]  Yet Stroup's own very Barthian understanding of revelation emphasises the dynamic and community role of revelation, perhaps just as much as Williams' argument.  He writes that

… in narrative theology … the authority of Scripture must be interpreted in terms of its function in the life of the Christian community and not in terms of some property intrinsic to it as Scripture.[9]  [He continues:]  In narrative theology Scripture is authoritative in these two ways.  On the one hand, it witnesses to events which are the basis of the church’s proclamation ….  There is no such thing in narrative theology …as a bare fact or an uninterpreted fact….  Consequently the historical-critical investigation of Scripture can never suffice as the only method for determining the sense in which biblical narrative is true .…  [Secondly, Scripture’s authority] is its role in the life of the Christian community [i.e., its authority is functional].[10]

Today, as in pre-Enlightenment times, there is more of an appreciation for the need to acknowledge that readers' perspectives influence interpretation not simply at the level of application of the text but at the more fundamental level of understanding of the text in the first place.  This point can be stated inadequately, as L. Gregory Jones and Stephen Fowl have done by giving up any attempt to discover the meaning of a text of Scripture.  They simply advocate identifying the readers' interpretive interests:

Rather than pursue this illusory quest for the meaning of a text, we recommend that we think in terms of 'interpretive interests' … Once we acknowledge the plurality of interpretive interests, we need not treat alternative interpretations as failed attempts to discover the meaning of a text.[11]

Yet one need not give up on the meaning of the text to agree that interpretive interests are significant throughout the entire interpretation process. Gordon Fee, whom one might describe as a champion of the importance of exegesis for all theology, writes:[12]

…the aim of exegesis [is] to produce in our lives and the lives of others true Spirituality, in which God's people live in fellowship with the eternal and living God, and thus in keeping with God's own purposes in the world.  But in order to do that effectively, true 'Spirituality' must precede exegesis as well as flow from it.

By focusing on the aim of the practice of exegesis, one introduces a moral dimension to the understanding of interpretation.  Whereas Fee speaks of this as 'Spirituality', Kevin Vanhoozer explores this in terms of an ethic of reading.[13]  Thus Fee and Vanhoozer respond to those advocating the readers' role in determining the meaning of a text by saying that there is some truth in this, and therefore it is important that the reader of Scripture not read against but with what it claims and argues.  Vanhoozer discusses this point in terms of speech-act theory (the theory that words, when put together in acts of speech, carry intentions by means of the kind of discourse used and the outcomes expected) and the Trinity:

… as the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, so the literary act proceeds from the author, and so too does the perlocution (persuading, convincing) proceed from the illocution (claiming, asserting).  A text, then, has a mission of meaning, that we may provisionally define in terms of illocutionary success: the goal of a literary act is to accomplish the purpose for which it was sent (Isa. 55.11).  The Word of God in Scripture, similarly, has a mission, and this in turn determines the mission of the Spirit.[14]

Thus, Fee and Vanhoozer suggest that there is a right way to read Scripture.  Readers need to read Scripture with the Spirit and the intentions inherent in its acts of communication. As George Lindbeck has suggested, we need to read for intentions.  But to escape the intentional fallacy (thinking that we can get back into the mind of the author and discover his or her intentions) one must appeal to ‘speech acts being performed by the locutions (the utterances or texts) that are being interpreted.’[15]  The interpreter does not try to get at the author’s acts of intentions but the intentional acts in the Scriptures (which are usually clear enough, especially when heard contextually through careful exegesis).

I believe that there is a Christian hermeneutic which goes beyond the discussion of interpreting any piece of literature.  There is a spiritual dimension to interpretation, which is what Paul had in mind in Col. 3.16 (my translation):

Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly when teaching and admonishing one another with all wisdom, when making music with thankful hearts to God through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.

The source of wise teaching and admonition in the Church, and of Christian worship, is the Word of Christ--Jesus' revelation in His person and work (as discussed in Colossians).  The fact that readers make what they will of what they read is not an endorsement of multiple readings but a call to 'read rightly.'  In a relativistic age, this may sound somewhere between impossible and shockingly outdated, but for Paul, Christ brought wisdom to Christian teaching and admonition and the appropriate disposition to worship (thankfulness).  The dynamic element Rowan Williams seeks in a doctrine of revelation is not located in a liberation of readers from the Biblical revelation but in the work of Christ and the Spirit in the readers, interpreters, teachers, and worshipers.

In Col. 3, sexual immorality is still sexual immorality; it is not redefined.  Paul simply says,

Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry) (Col. 3.5).

What is new is the dynamic power of Christ working in believers such that they are able to 'put to death'--through Christ's death--such sin.  This dynamic power entails letting the ‘word of Christ dwell in you richly;’ it is not a license for believers to form their own convictions.  A Christian hermeneutic is dynamic: it entails the life transforming power of Christ indwelling the community of faith that is faithful to God’s revealed and unchanging truth.




[1] Rowan Williams, 'Trinity and Revelation' in his On Christian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), p. 135.
[2] Rowan Williams, 'Trinity and Revelation', p. 134.
[3] Robin Gill, Churchgoing and Christian Ethics, New Studies in Christian Ethics 15 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
[4] Stephen Sykes, The Identity of Christianity (London: SPCK, 1984), p. 17
[5]Stephen Sykes, p. 285, Gill’s citation on  p. 235.
[6] George W. Stroup, The Promise of Narrative Theology (London: SCM Press, 1984; 1st publ. John Knox Press, 1981), p. 24.
[7] George Stroup, The Promise of Narrative Theology, p. 42.
[8] George Stroup, The Promise of Narrative Theology, pp. 42f.
[9] George Stroup, The Promise of Narrative Theology, p. 249.
[10] George Stroup, The Promise of Narrative Theology, pp. 251f.  The idea that Scripture's authority is to be functionally understood within the life of a community was the subject of David Kelsey's The Uses of Scripture in Recent Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975).
[11] Stephen E. Fowl and L. Gregory Jones, Reading in Communion: Scripture and Ethics in Christian Life (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), pp. 15f.
[12] Gordon Fee, 'Exegesis and Spirituality: Completing the Circle,' in his Listening to the Spirit in the Text (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), p. 6.
[13] Kevin Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in This Text?  The Bible, the Reader and the Morality of Literary Knowledge  (Leicester: Apollos, 1998), see especially ch. 7, 'Reforming the Reader: Interpretive Virtue, Spirituality, and Communicative Efficacy.'
[14] Kevin Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in this Text?, p. 410.
[15] George A. Lindbeck, ‘Postcritical Canonical Interpretation: Three Modes of Retrieval,’ in Theological Exegesis: Essays in Honor of Brevard S. Childs, eds. Christopher Seitz and Kathryn Green-McCreight (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999): 26-51; here p. 48.

Engaging the Bible in Mission Theology Scholarship: Christian Mission in the Early Church: Christian - Jewish Dialogue

Engaging the Bible in Mission Theology Scholarship:
Christian Mission in the Early Church: Christian - Jewish Dialogue

The following is an outline of points from some of the early Christian literature in the first several centuries (scholarship from a very long time ago!). It offers a look at how Scripture was used in Christian dialogue with the Jews. The intention here is only descriptive, although one can see the desperate need for a more narrative theological reading of the Bible, and for a more contextual approach to exegesis.

A. Spurious Letter of Ignatius to the Antiochians (uncertain date)

This work argues first from Moses and then from the prophets as a twofold witness to Jesus’ identity.
1. Proof from Moses about Jesus (section 2):
*’The Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah fire and brimstone from the Lord’ (Gen. 19.24)
*’Let Us make man after our image’ (Gen. 1.26)
*Jesus’ incarnation: ‘A prophet shall the Lord raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me’ (Dt. 18.15)
2. From the Prophets (section 3):
*Jesus’ divinity: ‘A Son...on whose shoulder the government is from above; and His name is called the Angel of great counsel...the strong and mighty God’ (Is. 9.6)
*Jesus’ incarnation: ‘Behold a virgin shall be with Child...’ (Is. 7.14;
Mt. 1.23)
*Jesus’ Passion: ‘He was led as a sheep to the slaughter....’ (Is. 53.7)
*Jesus’ Passion: ‘I also was an innocent lamb led to be sacrificed (Jer.
11.19–not prophetic)
3. The proofs continue from the Gospels in section 4.

B. The Epistle to Diognetus

1. Jewish sacrifice compared to pagan sacrifice: ‘But those who imagine that,
by means of blood, and the smoke of sacrifices and burnt-offerings they offer sacrifices [acceptable] to Him, and that by such honours they show Him respect–these, by supposing that they can give anything to Him who stands in need of nothing, appear to me in no respect to differ from those who studiously confer the same honour on things destitute of sense....’ (3).
2. The author simply takes Jewish food laws, Sabbaths, boasting, circumcision, fastings, new moons to be ridiculous (4). No Scriptural argument, such as we find in the Epistle to Barnabas is proffered. The ease with which these are dismissed suggests that the Jews are not the author’s concern so much as making the argument that Christians ‘are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech....’ (5).

C. The Epistle of Barnabas

1. Jewish sacrifices are abolished by the prophets: Is. 1.11-14; Jer. 7.22; Zech.
8.17; Ps. 51.19 (2).
2. Jewish fasts are not true fasts: Is. 58.4-10 (3).
3. Jewish covenant is not both theirs and ours, but the Jews lost it, as was (foreshadowed) when Moses’ first covenant written by the finger of God was destroyed due to Israel’s idolatry and was rewritten by Moses Himself (Ex. 31.18; 34.28) (4). Towards the end of ch. 4, the author states that Israel was abandoned, with a quotation from Mt. 20.16 or 22.14 (‘many are called, but few are chosen’).
4. Jesus’ death (ch. 5):
a. ‘For it is written concerning Him, partly with reference to Israel, and partly to us; and [the Scripture] saith thus; ‘He was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities: with His stripes we are healed. He was brought as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb which is dumb before its shearer’ (Is. 53.5, 7; later v. 8 is loosely quoted).
b. ‘When I shall smite the Shepherd, then the sheep of the flock shall
be scattered’ (Zech. 8.7)
c. Pss. 22.21, 17, and 119.120 are inaccurately quoted: ‘Spare my soul from the sword, fasten my flesh with nails; for the assemblies of the wicked have risen up against me’
d. Is. 50.6f: ‘Behold, I have given my back to scourges, and my cheeks to strokes, and I have set my countenance as a firm rock’ (ch. 6 continues the quotation from vv. 8 and 9).
e. Is. 8.14; 28.16: ‘Since as a mighty stone He is laid for crushing, behold I cast down for the foundations of Zion a stone, precious, elect, a corner-stone, honourable (ch. 6)
f. Jesus’ flesh is the stone the builders rejected (Ps. 118.22).
g. Ps. 22.17; 118.12: ‘The assembly of the wicked surrounded me; they encompassed me as bees do a honeycomb’ and ‘upon my garment they cast lots’ (Ps. 22.19)
5. Word against Israel (ch. 6)
Is. 8.9: ‘Woe to their soul, because they have counselled an evil counsel against themselves, saying, Let us bind the just one, because he is displeasing to us’ (2nd half of the quote is from Wisd. 2.12).
6. Typological interpretation of Ex. 33.1; Lev. 20.24 (enter the good land...flowing with milk and honey): the new creation in these last days leads to a non-literal interpretation: ‘As the infant is kept alive first by honey, and then by milk, so also we, being quickened and kept alive by the faith of the promise and by the word, shall live ruling over the earth’–which is still future for Christians (ch. 6).
7. Gen. 22: Binding of Isaac a type of Christ’s sacrifice (ch. 7). This sacrifice would be for sins (the author thinks he is quoting a prophet for this point).
8. The goat sent away into the desert with the sins of the people on it is a type of Christ (Lev. 16; ch. 7).
9. The red heifer offered for sin is a type of Christ (there are no quotations, but the author seems certain of the practice) It bears some similarity with the sacrifice on the day of atonement (Lev. 16; ch. 8)
10. Circumcision is of the heart: Jer. 4.4. An evil angel deceived the Jews that it was of the flesh. Deut. 10.16: ‘Circumcise the stubbornness of your heart, and harden not your neck’; Jer. 9.25f: ‘...all the nations are
uncircumcised in the flesh, but this people are uncircumcised in heart’. Abraham’s circumcision of 318 men (confusing Gen. 17.26f and 14.14): ten and eight are ‘I’ and ‘H’ Greek letters–the first two letters of ‘Jesus’–and 300 is the letter ‘T’, representing the cross. Abraham’s circumcision pointed to Jesus. (Ch. 9).
11. Food laws of Moses should be taken ‘in spirit’ (ch. 10). The various foods are interpreted as characters with whom one should not associate. ‘But how was it possible for them to understand or comprehend these things? We, then, rightly understanding his commandments, explain them as the Lord intended. For this purpose He circumcised our ears and our hearts, that we might understand these things’ (ch. 10).
12. Baptism and the Cross foreshadowed in the Scriptures. Yet the quotations are obscure. Ps. 1.3-6 is seen to refer to both baptism and the cross: ‘The man who doeth these things shall be like a tree planted by the courses of waters, which shall yield its fruit in due season....’
13. The cross in the Scriptures:
*’And when shall these things be accomplished? And the Lord saith, When a tree shall be bent down, and again arise, and when blood shall flow out of wood’ (unknown reference).
*Moses’ putting one weapon on another on the hill, arms outstretched, to win the battle (cf. Ex. 17.9ff–but has he confused Moses rod and the ‘banner’ as two sticks in the form of a cross?). The author adds Is. 65.2: ‘All day long I have stretched forth My hands to an unbelieving people and one that gainsays My righteous way’
*Num. 21.9–Moses makes a life-giving serpent to deliver people from the bites of poisonous snakes. This is a type of Christ.
14. Jesus is not the son of David but of God: Ps. 110.1 (Mt. 22.43-45 is necessary for this reading): David called Christ ‘Lord’ (and so not his son but God’s son)
15. Is. 45.1: ‘The Lord said to Christ, my Lord, whose right hand I have holden, that the nations should yield obedience before Him; and I will break in pieces the strength of kings’–David called Christ ‘Lord’.
16. The Christians, not the Jews, are the heirs of the covenant:
*The two nations in Rebecca’s womb are Christians and Jews–the elder serves the younger (Gen. 25) (13).
*Joseph’s two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, when blessed by Isaac: the younger receives the blessing that the elder should have received (Gen. 48) (13).
*Abraham believed God and had righteousness imputed to him and became the father of nations which believe in the Lord while uncircumcised (13).
*The Jews had the role of preparing the way for the Gentiles (Is. 42.6f;
49.6; 61.1f) (ch. 14).
17. False and true sabbaths: Ex. 20.8//Deut. 5.12 calls for sanctifying the Sabbath with clean hands and a pure heart. This was not possible until wickedness was removed. Also, Is. 1.13 says that God cannot abide Israel’s new moons and Sabbaths (ch. 15).
18. The literal Temple and the spiritual Temple: Is. 40.12; 66.1 (and perhaps Is. 49.17 LXX) set God above any earthly habitation (ch. 16). Another
misquote suggests the Temple would be destroyed. Dan. 9.24-27; Hag. 2.10 are applied to the Temple existing in a pure heart–God dwells in us.

D. Justin Martyr

1. Dialogue With Trypho the Jew

Trypho the Jew asks Justin, ‘Explain to us just what is your opinion of [providence and judgment], and what is your idea of God, and what is your philosophy’ (1). Justin’s arguments include:
a. Justin turned away from Platonic philosophy with its emphasis on reason, as though God could be perceived by the mind alone, and became a Christian: No one can understand the truths of the prophets, who themselves offered no proof but were inspired by the Holy Spirit (note: their prophecies have come true and they worked miracles) without enlightenment by God and His Christ (4-7).
b. The authority of Scripture is agreed upon by Trypho and Justin.
*Justin speaks of: ‘Holy Spirit of prophecy’ (ch. 32), ‘a psalm, dictated to David by the Holy Spirit’ (ch. 34)
*No scripture contradicts another (65)
*Thus through Scripture Justin shows Trypho two things (39): 1. The Jews were disobedient; 2. Jesus is Christ. Yet Scripture belongs to the Christians, not the Jews, ‘for we believe them’ (ch. 29).
1. Types:
Passover lamb a type of Christ (40)
Two goats a type of Christs two advents (40)
Offering of flour a type of Eucharistic bread (41)
12 bells of high priest’s robe a type of 12 apostles, who relied on Christ’s power, Eternal Priest (42)
‘for Christ is King, and Priest, and God, and Lord, and angel, and man, and captain, and stone, and a Son born, and first made subject to suffering, then returning to heaven, and again coming with glory, and He is preached as having the everlasting Kingdom: so I prove from all the Scriptures’ (34).
2. Christ’s birth was foretold:
a. Is. 53.8: a mystery
b. Is. 7.10-16: a virgin birth (43)
1. Trypho objects (66): (i) the passage has to do with Hezekiah; (ii) ‘young woman’ does not mean ‘virgin’; (iii) the Greeks say Perseus was born of Danae, a virgin (67)
2. Justin: (i) pagan religious similarities are the devil’s emulations: Baccus, born of Jupiter and Semele, died, rose again, ascended to heaven; Hercules, born of Jove, ascended to heaven at death; Aesculapius, raiser of dead, healer of all diseases; mysteries of Mithras (69, 70);
(ii) Jews removed some Scriptures which may be Christological (72); Jesus was born of a virgin (78).
3. Can one who believes Jesus is Christ and who yet lives by Mosaic Law be saved? [Or, what was the place of the Mosaic Law in salvation?]
*Those who were righteous before Christ came and were under the Law shall be saved (45)
*Nobody now obeys all the Mosaic Law since one cannot offer the paschal lamb
*Patriarchs only observed circumcision and will be
saved
*Mosaic Law given because of Israel’s hardness of heart--to remind constantly them of God through the many precepts. (Ch. 11: Christ replaced the Law). Chs. 19-22: laws on circumcision, foods, sabbaths, sacrifices and oblations were instintuted because of the Jews unrighteousness and idolatries, not because there was any necessity for such sacrifices.
*Yet such people will be saved unless they try to influence others (some Christians disagree with this, however), and those who curse Christians in their synagogues (47)
4. Objection to Jesus’ divinity answered: (50)
a. Understand just what is being claimed: Christ is God
as blood of a grape: Christ comes from God, not from man (54)
b. OT texts support numerical plurality in the Godhead:
1. The one appearing under the oad at Mamre to Abraham is not the Father but is later called ‘God’ (56)
2. Ps. 110: ‘Lord said to my Lord....’
3. The Maker of the universe would not leave the celestial matters and be ‘visible on a little portion of the earth in appearing to Moses’ (60)
4. Wisdom is begotten from the Father (before all things) as fire from fire (61)
5. Creation Story: ‘Let us make man’, ‘Man has become as one of us’ (62)
6. This ‘2nd God’, as it were, became man:
a. Isaiah tells us that he had to suffer
b. Ps. 110 tells us that he was born
c. Why would Jesus need the Holy Spirit? Jesus was in
possession of His power even at His birth, but the Holy Spirit descended on Him for men’s sake (88).
d. Why would Jesus die so ashamedly on a cross? (89)
Allegory and Ps. 22 explain this (99).
5. Scriptural authority over against rabbinic teaching:
Christ told us to obey the prophets and himself, not the teachings of men (48)
6. The ambiguity of an OT text can be clarified by subsequent events. Trypho objects to Justin using Is. 39.8 and 40.1-17 to refer to John the Baptist. Tryho admits the texts are ambiguous but that the cessation of prophets among the Jews and the coming of John the Baptist and then Jesus clarify that the texts were speaking of them (51).
c. A developing NT: ‘...since we find it recorded in the memoirs of His apostles that He is the Son of God....’ (100, cf. 105--‘the memoirs’).

2. Apology I

a. The case for Christianity is made over against paganism in two primary ways: similarities and differences with paganism (20-29) and that it is fulfillment of prophecy (30ff).
b. Fulfillment of the prophets:
1. Christological Fulfillment (30-37):
a. Gen. 49.10-11: after Christ, Romans ruled the Jews--scepter was taken from Judah after ‘he comes to whom it belongs’, and ‘he will wash his garments in ... the blood of grapes’.
b. Isaiah 7.14: a virgin will conceive.
c. Micah 5.2: born in Bethlehem.
d. Isaiah 9.6; 65.2; 58.2; Ps. 21.17-19: Christ’s suffering
and death foretold
e. Zech. 9.9: behold your king comes to you humble and
riding on a donkey
f. Ps. 110.1-3: Christ would ascend to heaven and reign until God struck His enemies. This is so that the quota of those whom God foreknew might be saved, thus delaying the consummation (45 or 46?)
g. Is. 35.5f; 57.1f: Christ would heal and raise the dead
h. Is. 53.12; 52.13-15; 53.1-8: Christ would suffer and
come again in glory
i. Christ had an indescribable origin: Is. 53.8-12; Ps.
23.7-8; Dn. 7.13 (51)
j. Prophecies yet to be fulfilled:
All will acknowledge Him: Is. 45.24
The wicked will suffer: Is. 66.24, etc. (52)
2. The Jews:
a. That Jews would reject this was also prophesied: Is.
1.3f; 66.1; 1.11-15; 58.6-7 (38)
b. The devastation of the land of the Jews was foretold:
Is. 64.10-12; 1.7)
c. Gentiles would worship the Messiah and not the
Jews: Is. 65.1-3; 5.20
3. The Gentile mission was foretold: Is. 2.3f; Ps. 19.3-6; 1.1-6;
2.1-13; 96.1-13 (39)

Conclusion to Justin:
1. All OT is holy Scripture, inspired by God’s Logos or Spirit
2. OT seen in terms of prophecy and fulfillment
3. No Scripture can contradict another
4. Typological exegesis saves the OT for Christians. Spiritual
Law remains.
5. Law had a literal, not just typological, purpose, but was given the Jews because of their wickedness (Dial., 18.2).
6. Concept of salvation history: Law obsolete since Christ came
as eternal Law.

E. Barnabas:

Uses typology in the manner of Hebrews. Says that the Jews failed to see, as did Moses, David and the prophets, that the Law was never meant literally but always typologically.

F. Tertullian

1. Tertullian, An Answer to the Jews

a. Tertullian addresses the question of continuity and discontinuity between the Old Testament and Christianity. His solution is to find temporal or carnal and eternal or spiritual aspects of the Law.
1. The 10 Commandments were enclosed as seeds in the Adamic Law, and natural law prevailed until Moses (e.g., Noah was found righteous).
2. The Mosaic Law had its place in time, but God ‘reforms the law’s precepts answerably to the circumstances of the times, with a view to man’s salvation’ (II). This was a temporal mirror of the new law in the new covenant, which is eternal.
a. Jer. 31.31f promised a new law, a new circumcision. With the abolition of the old Law and circumcision also went Sabbath observance (IV). The prophets (Is. 1.13) witnessed that God hated the Jews’ sabbaths.
b. Sacrifice were also carnal and spiritual from the
beginning, as seen in the types of sacrifices of Cain (=Israel) and Abel (=‘us’). (V). The temporal and carnal ceased when the one who instituted a new covenant, eternal and spiritual, came (VI).
b. Within the Scriptures is proof that the Messiah has come in Jesus. This can be seen in a [literal] and spiritual reading of the Scriptures.
1. Isaiah 45.1: Cyrus is Yahweh’s anointed to subdue nations before him. This is taken in a spiritual sense as a
reference to Christ’s universal reign, the text is now being fulfilled since all peoples are believing in Jesus.
2. Dan. 7.24-27: prediction of the time and events of Christ’s
birth, as follows:
*70 habdomads, holy place and city exterminated at his
coming.
*Beginning with Darius through Cyrus to Augustus to Christ’s birth = 62 1/2 habdomads
*7 1/2 habdomads from then till the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.
3. Prophecies of Jesus’ birth and work: (IX)
a. Is. 7.13ff; 8.4: virgin birth, magi, a non-military
Messiah
b. Is. 53 is fulfilled
c. Jesus’ two-fold work: preaching (Is. 58.1f) and power
(Is. 35.4ff)
4. . Dt. 21.23: Jesus is excluded from the curse in hanging on a tree because he had no guile.
5. Christ’s Passion predicted: Ps. 35.12; 69.4, 21; 22.18
6. Figurative predictions in Scriptures are stumbling blocks for the Jews, but they point to the more magnificent fulfillment in Christ:
a. Binding of Isaac
b. Joseph
c. Blessing of Simon and Levi
d. Moses in prayer and the serpent on a stick (= the devil)
e. God reigned from the tree (Ps. 96.10?); power (=cross) on his shoulder (Is. 9.6); wood (=cross) in his bread (=Christ’s body) (Jer. 11.19); whole passion in Ps. 22; death in Is. 53; dark at midday on the cross (Amos 8.9f); Passover lamb (Ex. 12.1ff).
7. Why have the Jews failed to accept Jesus as the Christ? They looked for his majesty, which will be evident at his second advent (Jer. 8.14; Dn. 2.34f; etc.) rather than the humble coming at his first advent (Is. 53).
c. Israel’s ruin was predicted:
Ez. 8.12-9.6 (sealing of remnant with ‘T’ while the rest are
slaughtered)
Exile and agony predicted once again for Israel (Deut. 28.65ff)
Mic. 5.2 predicted that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem, but now no Jews are in Bethlehem.
Is. 1.7 predicts destruction
Is. 33.17 predicts exile
Anointing is to be in Israel (Ex. 30.22-33)
City and Holy Place to be exterminated simultaneously (Dn.
9.26)
‘My People have changed their glory’ and terms relating to apocalyptic events at Jesus Passion are found in Jer. 2.10-13; Ps. 8.9
Is. 65.13-16 Jews forsake the Lord, others will serve Him
Allegorization of II Kings 6.1-7 (wood = Christ; iron = prophets and Christians suffering from the Jews)
Etc.
Therefore, suffering of Jews predicted and tied to Christ’s coming. Who is left to suffer then in Israel if Christ is still to come? [A literal reading of the text in light of Tertullian’s day, when Jews had been removed from Israel]
d. Promise of calling of Gentiles: Ps. 2.7f; Is. 42.6f (61.1)

G. Constitutions of the Holy Apostles, Books V and VI

1. The Christological predictions:
*Virgin birth: Is. 7.14 (Mt. 1.23; V.XVI)
*Incarnation: Is. 9.6 (cf. Justin Martyr; V.XVI)
*Jesus’ death by the Romans: Ps. 2.1f (‘Why do the nations rage...?’; V.XIX)
*Jesus’ death: Is. 14.19 (spoken of the King of Babylon in mythic language about the demise of a heavenly figure: ‘They cast away the Beloved, as a dead man, who is abominable’; V.XIX).
*Jesus’ resurrection: Ps. 82.8 (‘Arise, O God, judge the earth; for to thee belong all the nations!’, NRSV; V.XIX).
*Jesus’ resurrection: Ps. 12.5 (actually God’s promise to act on behalf of the unjustly treated but taken as a resurrection prophecy: ‘I will now arise," says the LORD; "I will place him in the safety for which he longs"’; V.XIX)
*Jesus’ resurrection: Ps. 41.10 (actually poetic language about a sinful man’s restoration after his demise at the hands of his enemies: ‘But do thou, O LORD, be gracious to me, and raise me up, that I may requite them!’; V.XIX)
*Jesus’ divinity, nobody esteeming Him, Jesus’ revelation to Israel, and His being seen ‘afterwards’ and conversing with men are all found in a statement from Bar. 3.35-37: ‘This is our God; no other shall be esteemed with Him. He found out every way of knowledge, and showed it to Jacob His son, and Israel His beloved. Afterwards He was seen upon earth, and conversed with men’ (V.XX).
*Christ’s second coming to judge: Zech. 12.10; Jn. 19.37 (‘"And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of compassion and supplication, so that, when they look on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a first-born’; V.XIX)
*Jesus’ divinity: Gen. 19.24 (‘the Lord received fire from the Lord’; V.XX)
*Jesus known by the Patriarchs: Gen. 32.30 (‘I have seen God face to face, and my soul is preserved’) and Gen. 18.25 (as Judge), 27 (as Lord) (V.XX)
*Jesus known by Moses (Ex. 3.2--the burning bush) and predicted as coming (Dt. 18.15: the coming of a prophet like Moses; V.XX)
*Jesus seen as the captain of the Lord’s army by Joshua, who worshipped Him (Josh. 5.14; V.XX)
*Jesus known to Samuel as the ‘Anointed of God’ (1 Sam. 12.3, 5–as in v. 3's ‘testify against me before the LORD and before his anointed’; V.XX).
*Jesus known by David: Ps. 45 (in the prescript, a song concerning the Beloved; words of psalm, vv. 3-7 (His reign and majesty), spoken to the King but taken here as a reference to Christ; V.XX)
* Solomon spoke of Jesus: Prov. 8.22-25 and 9.1 (the words are
spoken by Wisdom; V.XX)
*The prophets prophesied of Jesus (V.XX):
**Isaiah prophesied of Jesus’ reign: Is. 9.1, 10
**Zechariah prophesied of His coming on a donkey to reign: Zech. 9.9
**Daniel spoke of Him as the Son of Man coming to the Father and receiving all judgment and honour (Dn. 7.13) and as the stone which filled the whole earth (2.34)
**Jeremiah spoke of Him with reference to His passion and the subsequent triumph of the Gentiles over the Jews (Lam. 4.20–a reference actually having to do with Israel’s captivity by the Babylonians)
**‘Ezekiel also, and the following prophets, affirm everywhere that he is the Christ, the Lord, the King, the Judge, the Lawgiver, the Angel of the Father, the only-begotten God’ (V.XX).
2. The Jewish rejection of Christ is something calling for six days of fasting by the Christians during Holy Week (V.XV). Ps. 74.4 (as dubitably quoted in V.XV: ‘They placed their signs in the middle of their feasts, and knew them not’) is taken as a witness that they were unable to see that the signs in their feasts pointed to Christ. Is. 63.10 is also taken as proof of Jewish exclusion from the Holy Spirit (; V.XVI). Their blindness is a result of not believing that Jesus was the Christ of God (XVI). This refusal to believe was predicted in Is. 53.1 (‘Who has believed our report...?’; XVI) and Is. 6.9f (‘Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand...’; V.XVI). They Jews themselves predict their own lamentation when they read the Lamentations of Jeremiah during their assembly to commemorate their captivity by Nebuchadnezzar: ‘The Spirit before our face, Christ the Lord was taken in their destructions’ (Lam. 4.20; V.XX).
Book VI also discusses Israel’s wickedness and God’s rejection of her. Jeremiah spoke of the ‘pollutions’ which have gone out to the whole earth (Jer. 23.15) and God has forsaken the wicked synagogue and rejected His house (Jer. 12.7: ‘"I have forsaken my house, I have abandoned my heritage’, NRSV; VI.V). Isaiah says, ‘I will neglect my vineyard....’ (5.6; Is. 1.8 and 2.2 are also quoted; VI.V). Joel’s prophesy of God’s Spirit being poured out on all flesh is interpreted negatively as His taking away power and efficacy from the Jews (VI.V).
The calling of the Gentiles also points to the rejection of the Jews, yet the primary point made is that the Gentiles were called by God. Echoes of Hos. 2. (Not a people) are followed by a quotation of Is. 65.1 and 2 (‘I was found of them that sought me not.... All the day long have I stretched out mine hands to a disobedient and gainsaying people’) (V.XV). Finally, Ps. 18.43f is proof of the Gentile inclusion: ‘A people whom I knew not have served me....’

H. The Treatises of Cyprian, XII (mid-3rd century)

1. In 24 arguments, Cyprian argues that the Jews have fallen under God’s wrath and have been replaced by the mostly Gentile Church. This is the first book of this 12th treatise.
2. In the second book of this 12th treatise, Cyprian advances 30 arguments regarding Christ from the Hebrew Scriptures.

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