Brilliant! Your 5 stages of System Failure helpfully sort and define the issues. And I realize this is more than a "word study" in light of the way the Trinity doctrine was exploited to sanctify brutal conquests. Post-Nicaea, the Church didn't "Christianize" the Empire as much as the Empire "imperialized" the Church.
Disagreement became heresy in the Church, then heresy became a crime against the Empire (punishable by excommunication and/or exile) and finally, a crime punishable by death. As I recall, the first execution of a believer for "heresy" occurred roughly 40 years after Nicaea.
It's good to see another piece of yours! I appreciate your care and clarity in working through these materials. May He strengthen the work of your hands!
Your implicit claim seems to be that it is *bad* to use a different conceptual framework or vocabulary or ask different questions than a 1st century Jew. While I agree it's important to recognize that our current categories differ from that of Jesus of Nazareth, Paul, or any of the New Testament authors, it is not possible to mold our minds to the shape of a 1st century Jew, nor should we even if we could. Christ came as a man in a particular time and place. And this is not a bug but a feature.
The truth Jesus expressed at his time is something which *must be* re-contextualized into every culture and brought into dialogue with the questions they bring… verily, it must be relationally contextualized in every individual soul who follows Christ.
I am happy to say that Greek categories influenced the development of Christian doctrine. It's one of the things I love about Christianity -- that it unites Eastern ways of thinking with Western ways of thinking. Christianity is both Hebrew and Greek. Each has an honored seat at the table. While on one hand, it's important for many in the church to further study the context of Jesus and more deeply see things from the Jewish perspective, it's equally important that many in the church bring their own culture's categories and questions into dialogue with Christ and his church, such that the truth of God can be manifest in more full and complete ways. Bring in the gentiles! :)
Oh, sure. Is "historical interpretation" your ultimate goal here? Or is it establishing good teaching and praxis?
Maybe I'm reading more into your writing than I should. Do you think that a Christian teaching is only valid if it comes from the time and historical meaning-matrix of Jesus, the apostles, or earlier?
I’m concerned with letting the people who wrote these texts speak within their own conceptual world before interpreting them through later ones. If Second Temple Judaism provides a coherent framework for understanding Jesus and the earliest followers, why should Greek philosophical categories become the primary interpretive framework? Is the assumption that Second Temple Judaism is somehow insufficient to explain its own texts? If not, then what historical or linguistic evidence demonstrates that later Greek categories should have hermeneutical priority?
Thanks for the response! I agree with the implicit answers to your questions. Greek philosophical categories should not be considered a more important framework than the categories of Second Temple Judaism. I'd even say there is a certain priority that should be given to the Second Temple Judaism (and for any Biblical passage its own cultural-historical context insofar as we can try to understand it). I just think it's ALSO perfectly valid to see what happens when we inform Greek philosophy with Christian scripture, and it's valid to look at the Bible through a myriad of cultural lenses. But I agree, most important and weighty is to understand the categories of the time, because only then can we see how it authentically intersects with other categorical frameworks.
What does “certain priority” mean? Would I prioritize the conceptual world of Plato to explain the Epic of Gilgamesh? How do you determine when one conceptual framework is illuminating another and when it is replacing it?
I'd say the *ultimate* goal is not to reconstruct the past for the sake of "accuracy" but for the sake of living a better future (much like how our memory works). So when one conceptual framework intersects with another, we should ask: does it lead to good or harm?
Sure, it's also good practice to ask the question: "how well does this way of speaking/this framework illuminate for me and my society the meaning communicated by this other framework/tex?" And in that we can all have good debate around what Jesus would say/do now and what language he would use and how God would be revealed through (and subvert) modern categories, just as God was revealed through (and subverted) ancient categories.
For instance, I'm very against modern reductionism, and strictly dualistic or capitalistic framings -- and I think the church has been infected by much of this! In this case I'd say it's less illuminating God and more obscuring God and misunderstanding the true meaning of the Text.
Her point was that when you use the words of one context to answer the questions of another context, you are prone to wind up with answers that the original source would not have cosigned.
This can show up in real harm. The most obvious example is slavery. 1st Century Hebrews did not have the cultural context to question the morality of slavery altogether. When we later developed that cultural notion, we looked back and asked what Jesus had to say about it. Jesus supposedly spoke up for the rights of slaves, but didn't condemn slavery altogether. That's because slavery was an assumed part of life. So, people used the words of Jesus to justify enslavement. Had Jesus had the historical context of the abolition movement, I'm quite positive he would have been one.
So, no, it's not inherently bad to reflect on modern problems via the wisdom of people from another time, you have to do the work of understanding their context, otherwise you might wind up justifying things the original source probably would not have.
I think we’re talking about two different questions. My article isn’t about whether Christians can develop new ethical doctrines or respond to new moral problems. It’s about historical methodology. Specifically, how do we determine what Jesus and the biblical authors meant before later theological reflection? Slavery is an ethical application question. My article is about lexicons, conceptual worlds, and the methodology of interpretation.
Yes, Cory, I agree with this entirely! This aligns well with my point I think. If getting back to the mindset and categories of cultures surrounding Jesus and the apostles was the *most* important thing, we would have a strong case to keep slavery going.
The doctrine of the Trinity and of slavery being always impermissible, are both good doctrines, even though they were developed within a culture that wasn't centered in 1st century Judea (though these doctrines were influenced by and in continuity with the scriptures coming from that culture).
Maybe Brandy has some good reasons to reject or call into question the Trinity or Greek categories of thought, but if the argument is that "those categories weren't in the Bible or in the minds of its authors so they can't be ultimately true" is fundamentally flawed. (but I agree it's very, very important to also do the work of trying to get into the mindset of the historical contexts, it just takes discernment to relate those to ours)
Brilliant! Your 5 stages of System Failure helpfully sort and define the issues. And I realize this is more than a "word study" in light of the way the Trinity doctrine was exploited to sanctify brutal conquests. Post-Nicaea, the Church didn't "Christianize" the Empire as much as the Empire "imperialized" the Church.
Disagreement became heresy in the Church, then heresy became a crime against the Empire (punishable by excommunication and/or exile) and finally, a crime punishable by death. As I recall, the first execution of a believer for "heresy" occurred roughly 40 years after Nicaea.
Thank you!
Good stuff, Brandy!
Thank you Thomas! Means a lot.
It's good to see another piece of yours! I appreciate your care and clarity in working through these materials. May He strengthen the work of your hands!
Thank you!
I comment here hesitantly, being a lay person, uneducated in the language, basically reading from outside the seminary…
I appreciate your method and language in dealing with some issues serious to me.
Thank you.
I certainly will have to reread this at least once…
Thank you for coming by :)
Your implicit claim seems to be that it is *bad* to use a different conceptual framework or vocabulary or ask different questions than a 1st century Jew. While I agree it's important to recognize that our current categories differ from that of Jesus of Nazareth, Paul, or any of the New Testament authors, it is not possible to mold our minds to the shape of a 1st century Jew, nor should we even if we could. Christ came as a man in a particular time and place. And this is not a bug but a feature.
The truth Jesus expressed at his time is something which *must be* re-contextualized into every culture and brought into dialogue with the questions they bring… verily, it must be relationally contextualized in every individual soul who follows Christ.
I am happy to say that Greek categories influenced the development of Christian doctrine. It's one of the things I love about Christianity -- that it unites Eastern ways of thinking with Western ways of thinking. Christianity is both Hebrew and Greek. Each has an honored seat at the table. While on one hand, it's important for many in the church to further study the context of Jesus and more deeply see things from the Jewish perspective, it's equally important that many in the church bring their own culture's categories and questions into dialogue with Christ and his church, such that the truth of God can be manifest in more full and complete ways. Bring in the gentiles! :)
When our goal is historical interpretation, which context has interpretive priority…the original historical context or a later recontextualization?
Oh, sure. Is "historical interpretation" your ultimate goal here? Or is it establishing good teaching and praxis?
Maybe I'm reading more into your writing than I should. Do you think that a Christian teaching is only valid if it comes from the time and historical meaning-matrix of Jesus, the apostles, or earlier?
I’m concerned with letting the people who wrote these texts speak within their own conceptual world before interpreting them through later ones. If Second Temple Judaism provides a coherent framework for understanding Jesus and the earliest followers, why should Greek philosophical categories become the primary interpretive framework? Is the assumption that Second Temple Judaism is somehow insufficient to explain its own texts? If not, then what historical or linguistic evidence demonstrates that later Greek categories should have hermeneutical priority?
Thanks for the response! I agree with the implicit answers to your questions. Greek philosophical categories should not be considered a more important framework than the categories of Second Temple Judaism. I'd even say there is a certain priority that should be given to the Second Temple Judaism (and for any Biblical passage its own cultural-historical context insofar as we can try to understand it). I just think it's ALSO perfectly valid to see what happens when we inform Greek philosophy with Christian scripture, and it's valid to look at the Bible through a myriad of cultural lenses. But I agree, most important and weighty is to understand the categories of the time, because only then can we see how it authentically intersects with other categorical frameworks.
What does “certain priority” mean? Would I prioritize the conceptual world of Plato to explain the Epic of Gilgamesh? How do you determine when one conceptual framework is illuminating another and when it is replacing it?
I'd say the *ultimate* goal is not to reconstruct the past for the sake of "accuracy" but for the sake of living a better future (much like how our memory works). So when one conceptual framework intersects with another, we should ask: does it lead to good or harm?
Sure, it's also good practice to ask the question: "how well does this way of speaking/this framework illuminate for me and my society the meaning communicated by this other framework/tex?" And in that we can all have good debate around what Jesus would say/do now and what language he would use and how God would be revealed through (and subvert) modern categories, just as God was revealed through (and subverted) ancient categories.
For instance, I'm very against modern reductionism, and strictly dualistic or capitalistic framings -- and I think the church has been infected by much of this! In this case I'd say it's less illuminating God and more obscuring God and misunderstanding the true meaning of the Text.
Her point was that when you use the words of one context to answer the questions of another context, you are prone to wind up with answers that the original source would not have cosigned.
This can show up in real harm. The most obvious example is slavery. 1st Century Hebrews did not have the cultural context to question the morality of slavery altogether. When we later developed that cultural notion, we looked back and asked what Jesus had to say about it. Jesus supposedly spoke up for the rights of slaves, but didn't condemn slavery altogether. That's because slavery was an assumed part of life. So, people used the words of Jesus to justify enslavement. Had Jesus had the historical context of the abolition movement, I'm quite positive he would have been one.
So, no, it's not inherently bad to reflect on modern problems via the wisdom of people from another time, you have to do the work of understanding their context, otherwise you might wind up justifying things the original source probably would not have.
I think we’re talking about two different questions. My article isn’t about whether Christians can develop new ethical doctrines or respond to new moral problems. It’s about historical methodology. Specifically, how do we determine what Jesus and the biblical authors meant before later theological reflection? Slavery is an ethical application question. My article is about lexicons, conceptual worlds, and the methodology of interpretation.
I think I understood that but was applying it to the ethics side of Exegesis. Sorry if I misrepresented your point!
Yes, Cory, I agree with this entirely! This aligns well with my point I think. If getting back to the mindset and categories of cultures surrounding Jesus and the apostles was the *most* important thing, we would have a strong case to keep slavery going.
The doctrine of the Trinity and of slavery being always impermissible, are both good doctrines, even though they were developed within a culture that wasn't centered in 1st century Judea (though these doctrines were influenced by and in continuity with the scriptures coming from that culture).
Maybe Brandy has some good reasons to reject or call into question the Trinity or Greek categories of thought, but if the argument is that "those categories weren't in the Bible or in the minds of its authors so they can't be ultimately true" is fundamentally flawed. (but I agree it's very, very important to also do the work of trying to get into the mindset of the historical contexts, it just takes discernment to relate those to ours)