A Handy Way to Demonstrate the Stability of the Greek New Testament Text

By Ken Berding
The Good Book Blog

People often get up-tight when they first learn of the existence of variations in the text of the Greek New Testament, but their concerns are baseless.  The text of the New Testament is far-and-away the most attested and stable text of any ancient document.  In fact, if you question the stability of the text of the New Testament, you probably ought to disregard just about everything you think you know about ancient history since almost all the important historical manuscripts from which such history is derived are from copies that are far later and of far poorer quality than are our New Testament manuscripts.

I recently discovered a convenient way to demonstrate this!

For my birthday this past year my wife gave me the recently published: The UBS Greek New Testament:  Reader’s Edition with Textual Notes.  I was delighted to finally own a Greek Bible that included definitions of infrequently used Greek words alongside of textual notes (notes that display variations among Greek manuscripts and that list some of the important manuscripts that form the basis for the text we use for translating).  But when I opened the book for the first time, I was surprised (and, I’ll be honest, somewhat disappointed) to find only a few textual notes—far fewer than I expected.  It turns out that the editors made a conscious decision to only include variants that they deemed important for the meaning of a text.  I’ll let them describe what they did in their own words:

“Compared to the NA27 and the UBS4, the edition at hand focuses on places where variants from the reading of the USB4 signifantly impact the meaning of the text” (p. 11*).”

Before I make my big point in this post, please allow the sentence I just cited to teach you something about textual criticism.  Some of you think that I just made two scribal mistakes while typing in that quote.  (Did you catch them?)  No, those two mistakes are actually in the printed text of the volume—a volume published by text critics no less!  (Ouch…)  The two printed mistakes are “USB4” (instead of “UBS4”) and the spelling of the word “signifantly” (instead of “significantly”).

But to read that sentence, you yourself had to do a bit of impromptu textual criticism!  So at this point let me ask you a question:  How much did those two variants impact your understanding of the meaning of the sentence?  You probably understood the sentence without difficulty (and perhaps didn’t even notice the UBS4/USB4 difference the first time you read it).  The types of changes found in this English sentence are analogous to the vast majority of textual variants found among New Testament manuscripts.

Now to the main point of this post…  The editors of the Greek New Testament my wife bought me for my birthday (and there are no better editors than this group!) claim that the only variants that they included are the ones that significantly impact the meaning of the text.  In other words, they don’t think that other variants significantly impact the meaning of the text.  So they have gathered together in this volume the ones they consider the important ones.

And what do you discover when you actually look at the “significant” differences?  You discover how stable our text really is!  Following is a list of every variant found in 1 Corinthians that the editors of this volume deemed important for determining the meaning of the text.  (I have translated them into English for you.)

1:14  “I give thanks to God that…” / “I give thanks to my God that…” / “I give thanks that…”

2:1  “while proclaiming to you the mystery of God” / “while proclaiming to you the testimony of God”
(“mystery” and “testimony” look very similar in Greek)

5:5  “in the day of the Lord” / “in the day of the Lord Jesus” / “in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ” / “in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ”

7:15  “God has called you in peace” / “God has called us in peace” (“you” and “us” are extremely close in Greek)

10:9  “Nor let us test Christ” / “Nor let us test the Lord” / “Nor let us test God”

11:24  “This is my body that is for you” / “This is my body that is broken for you” / “This is my body that is broken [different word] for you”

13:3  “And if I give my body that I might boast” / “And if I give my body that I will be burned” / “And if I give my body that I might be burned” (The difference between these three variants is a single letter.)

14:34-35  These two verses are sometimes included after verse 40 instead of in the position found in most manuscripts but there is no significant change to it.

14:38  “But if anyone disregards, he is disregarded” / “But if anyone disregards, let him be disregarded” (same word, different tense)

15:49  “we will bear the image of the heavenly one” / “let us bear the image of the heavenly one” (one letter difference, and they sound almost identical)

That’s it!  That’s every significant variant in 1 Corinthians.  I remember my father coining the word “underwhelmed” when I was a child.  Are you feeling underwhelmed at this moment?  You should be.  That’s the point.

If you exclude from the wider discussion the two longer passages that seem to create the most discussion among my students (John 8 and the ending of Mark), and a handful of other passages in the New Testament that are a bit more important, you have just gotten for yourself a glimpse into the kind and quality of the so-called “significant” New Testament variants.

So when maverick scholars attempt to convince you that the Greek text underlying the New Testament that you read, love, and strive to obey is unstable, you probably shouldn’t take them very seriously.  God has marvelously preserved His Word.  The UBS Greek New Testament: Readers Edition with Textual Notes offers us a convenient way to demonstrate that such a claim is true.

If It Isn’t Costly, It’s Not Commitment – Tyler Wigg-Stevenson Interview, Part 2

By Timothy Dalrymple
Philosophical Fragments

It was my pleasure this week to interview Tyler Wigg-Stevenson, whose book, The World is Not Ours to Save, is really rocking some boats.  Some of my most conservative friends, as well as some of my most progressive friends, have really enjoyed the book, so I was eager to talk with Tyler.  Patheos is also featuring an extended discussion on the book here – and you can see the first part of this interview here.  To set the stage, Tyler argues that many amongst the younger generation are eagerly rushing into a cause-oriented evangelical activism that quickly burns out and tunes out.  Instead he calls for a more richly theological conception of calling that can provide meaning, strength and courage through the hard times.  This is where the next question picks up:

*

5. Is it mostly a matter of perspective, or are there tangible practices we can integrate into our lives to be faithful servants for the long haul?

That’s a great question. It’s significantly a matter of perspective, but that perspective must be lived out in tangible practices.

The second half of the book is really all about the shape that “welcoming the kingdom from a distance” will take. I interpret the kingdom vision of Micah 4.1-5 as a description of three interrelated forms of peace: peace with God, peace among the peoples or nations, and peace in community. And in my read of Micah’s portrayal, each of these has three facets. Peace with God entails worship, discipleship, and evangelism. Peace among the peoples is justice, industry, and nonaggression. Peace in community requires dignity, prosperity, and security.

So I tell stories about what each of these looks like when lived out. For example, how the architecture of Coventry Cathedral speaks to the centrality of worship. Or the amazing way that an unassuming CEO named Dave Kiersznowski has formed his business as an exemplar of biblical industry. Or how my wife’s grandfather garbed black skin with dignity in Apartheid South Africa.

Telling such stories of fidelity is maybe as much as I can do. I’m not sure that I can tell readers that they should be doing X, Y, and Z – like, oh, the secret to lifelong activism is daily quiet time or regular communion. If the book does its work, readers will write their own final chapters with their lives. I hope I get to read some of them.

6. You’re known for your work on the global abolition of nuclear weapons. When did that become a calling for you, and not “just” a cause?

Well, it’s never purely one or the other. I think there are two competing logics or spirits at work in any activism – in any do-gooding, really. One is control, and one is faithful service. The former is my desire to have the world look the way I want it to – even if that desire is for good. And that logic of control, or mastery, was shot through my earliest anti-nuclear activism. I wasn’t a Christian then. I’d say that the cause started to become a calling for me at my conversion. That’s when I heard the voice of God say “The world is not yours, not to save or to damn. Only serve the one whose it is.” That’s when I began to surrender the goal of my activism. I began to give up efficacy as my benchmark and strive for fidelity instead. On my best days, it’s the latter spirit that animates my work.

One other thing on this point: I’d never want to dichotomize “cause” and “calling,” because I do think it’s both possible and desirable to strive for excellence in causes. The International Justice Mission exemplifies this. There’s no doubt in my mind that IJM is an authentic outgrowth of Gary Haugen’s calling. I look at how he lives his life, the accountability to which he submits himself, the way he describes IJM’s work, and I think: this guy is submitting to his vocation. But that organization is also a phenomenal cause. They do amazing, disciplined, strategic, patient, goal-oriented work.

7. It’s become rather common for books from young evangelicals to bash the earlier generation of the Religious Right. Yet you see both the Religious Right and progressive evangelicals having some positives and negatives in common, right?

A very cautious yes! I should say up front that I do not align with the Religious Right. One side of my spiritual family tree runs through folks like John Stott, Ron Sider, and Jim Wallis; the other comes from the African-American Baptist congregation that brought me up as a new convert and ordained me. Nevertheless, I’m leery of bashing the Religious Right because it smacks of an entirely unwarranted generational smugness. Just because we’re later doesn’t make us better or smarter.

Also, as you say, the Religious Right and progressive evangelicals are both committed to systemic change. Their difference is in content, not method. Mainline Protestants trace this systemic commitment to the Social Gospel movement at the start of the twentieth century, and Roman Catholics have their own history of social teaching. But the Religious Right and progressive evangelicals together represent a sea change in earlier twentieth-century evangelical approaches to public life. And they share, in my view, the blessings and curses that come with a systemic paradigm.

Finally, I have to admit that as a professional organizer I stand in awe of the Religious Right’s discipline and commitment. Think about it. They worked for a quarter-century to build a base, getting folks active in school boards, local political parties, etc. That meant their national power wasn’t empty rhetoric, but grounded in their capacity to reach a huge number of people.

Maybe most important, they understood that activism is not about enthusiasm or good intentions, but power and its exercise. That’s a lesson that makes many on the left uncomfortable, but it shouldn’t. Consider William Wilberforce, or Martin Luther King, Jr. Faith-based activists have to be willing to fight, and they have to be willing to win.

8. If you could speak to the 22-year-old faith-inspired activist right now, what advice would you give?

Embrace this very moment the possibility afforded by your position in life. You’ve got audacious commitments, huge passions, and unfettered imagination. So think, dream, and act big. Move to India. Move to your inner city. Stay exactly where you are and live radically.

If you’ve got the spiritual stomach for it, live into the status quo as Jesus’ own Manchurian candidate, and seep grace throughout its cracks. Love with everything you’ve got, wherever you are.

On the flip side, refuse mediocrity. This means: don’t just live the cultural script written for you by your class, gender, race, sexuality, or education. This means: don’t treat Facebook likes or Twitter followers or the pithy gems of contemporary Christian books and speakers as a substitute for real activism. If it isn’t costly, it’s not commitment.

As you look to the future, know what it is you are working for, and why. Is it worth fighting for? Are you willing to win? Are your tactics commensurate with and oriented toward your goals?

Be suspicious of activist jargon, like “raising awareness,” “spreading the word,” and “joining the movement” with the hopes that these things will “make a difference.” These are means, not ends. And unless such words describe concrete activities that lead to the strategic, concerted effort and commitment of large numbers of people – a goal which requires foresight, intention, planning, and discipline – you will waste everyone’s time, including your own.

Don’t be too serious, at least not all the time. Life is not a checklist. It is funny, and fun, and beautiful.
Recognize that enthusiasm is not a substitute for excellence, and most people are not excellent professional activists. Early in my activist career all I had was a B.A. and good intentions, and that got me an entry-level job at a non-profit. But everyone I saw who did genuine good had been deeply formed in another discipline – business, law, politics, religion, etc. Non-profit work is its own sphere of excellence, and most are not suited for it. So discern as early as you can where your professional gifts are and commit yourself to that field. You will stand out in an age of dilettantism. And excellence, regardless of the discipline in which you achieve it, will multiply your contribution to the causes you care about by an order of magnitude.

If you aspire to be a leader, remember that you cannot lead those whom you do not love.

Build for the long haul by cultivating balanced habits, because the architecture in which you live your life will define the parameters of the decisions available to you. To carry your cross is to live in the freedom of condemnation. In that vein, build around personal holiness.

Receive the Sabbath as a gift; I dearly wish I had done this earlier in my life. It lets the world get on without our oversight. It is our arrabon of divine rest.

Look up arrabon. Read more classics and history than you do new releases (including mine). Read them with a heart that is at once generous and critical. But above all, read.

Wherever you are, whether you’re light-footed or firmly rooted, prioritize a local church that lives the gospel – preferably one that is intergenerational, interracial, and mixed economy. Commit to its unglamorous, inefficient life. Learn from those who are different from you, especially the elderly. Make informed, responsible, and lasting political commitments in your community.

You are not the hero of the story. The worst problems you face cannot be fixed. It’s your job to be on God’s side, not the other way round. And remember that you (and I, and everyone) are what’s wrong with the world: as Solzhenitsyn wrote, the line between good and evil runs straight through each heart, not between “us” and “them.”

Nevertheless, in Jesus Christ the peace of the Lord is with you. Mull on this and accept it.

And then get back out there and turn your flesh, blood, and breath into fidelity, for as long as God gives you.

Beyond Activism Innocence

By Timothy Dalrymple
Philosophical Fragments

It was my pleasure this week to interview Tyler Wigg-Stevenson, whose book, The World is Not Ours to Save, is really rocking some boats.  Some of my most conservative friends, as well as some of my most progressive friends, have really enjoyed the book, so I was eager to talk with Tyler.  Patheos is also featuring an extended discussion on the book here:

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Congratulations on the new book. The reception I’ve seen so far has been highly enthusiastic, across the political spectrum. Why is this the right time for a book like The World Is Not Ours to Save?

I think we’re at a transitional cultural moment for Christianity in public life, particularly in the US, where a rising generation of Christians is emerging from a certain initial innocence with activism and causes.

Over the last ten to fifteen years, the generation that grew up in the 1960s reached the apex of its power, on both sides of the political aisle. Conservatives elected one of their own in President Bush and enjoyed the fruit of that influence. Progressives successfully made the case that this politically lucrative label, “evangelical,” entailed a broader set of public commitments than those held by the Religious Right.

At the same time, the next generation of younger Christians – those who had no memory of, say, the tumult of 1968 – was coming of age, having internalized the message that faith ought to take shape through public engagement. The resulting proliferation of causes was compounded by technologies like Facebook and Twitter, which created the sense that anyone could become a sort of micro-activist, “spreading the word” and “raising awareness” about whatever he or she cared about.

But now the older generation is passing on – as the 2012 election shows, the Religious Right has been demoted from a national to a regional power, at best – and the younger generation is ending what I see as a sort of initial “age of innocence” toward the causes it cares about.

This waning innocence has three aspects and the first two are negative. First, friends in campus ministry tell me about younger Christians’ increasing incredulity toward the sweeping goals promised by movement Christianity – like “ending poverty in a generation.”

Second, people are rightly skeptical about the efficacy of common activist tactics, or means, such as liking a Facebook page or retweeting a message. They’re just too easy, and incommensurate with the causes at hand.
Despite these two trends, however, the third aspect of the waning innocence is an abiding commitment to issues like justice. The passion for a better world is still there, amidst doubt about how and whether sweeping change is possible.

That’s why I wrote this book: to map the practical and spiritual pitfalls that dot today’s landscape, and to cast an alternate vision for establishing a deep connection between an activist spirituality and the heart of a lifelong faith.

What do you see as the leading causes of “cause fatigue” or “compassion fatigue”?

At a surface level, three things. First, the huge number and variety of causes vying for Christian attention and support – how can I decide between them? Second, the overwhelming litany of global misery on display – how can I care enough? Third, the disconnect between global need and individual capacity – how can I make any sort of meaningful difference? Each of these factors pushes us simply to “turn off.”

Going a bit deeper than that, though, I think another real problem is the commodification of causes – which is also the “causification” of commodities – resulting in Christian antipathy toward genuine political commitments.

What I mean is this: today, anything can be a cause. I saw an ad for some soda that said something like, “Drink X, join the movement.” Really? What movement is that? The protest language of the 1960s evolved out of the need to articulate identity and worth for minority-status groups, around race, gender, sexuality. But today, consumerism means that our identities are formed by consumptive preferences: the amalgam of brands and choices that we use to construct and identify our selves. (Incidentally, this is the point of my first book, Brand Jesus: Christianity in a Consumerist Age.) Today’s consumerist identity-formation project has coopted the movement rhetoric of the 60s. But if everything’s a movement, nothing is.

The difference between then and now – and I think that people are not paying sufficient attention to this – is that our cultural logic is shifting from the political to the economic. Genuine political commitments require shared commitment to a common cause, across individual differences. An economic cultural paradigm, however, tolerates nearly infinite fragmentation into niche micro-markets. And that’s why so many causes today seem unsatisfying. They’re often not about a big, audacious, common commitment, but rather are the expressions of one particular community’s preferences, however well-intentioned. The apotheosis of identity politics is the market, a bazaar of causes – and the end of politics altogether.

I can’t help but think of the Franciscan priest Richard Rohr and his vision of the whole of Christian life. There is a “heroic journey” for many young people, especially young men — and setting out to change the world through activism can easily be wrapped up in our own delusions of heroism. You even have a chapter called “Don’t Be a Hero.” For Rohr, what’s critical is how we respond when our youthful vision of religious heroism is thrown down. Do you see it similarly? Does cause fatigue provide a teachable moment?

I’m embarrassed to admit that I haven’t read Richard Rohr, though he’s on my reading list, and your question just bumped him to the front of the line! So, without claiming to speak directly to his work, I’ll just say that the logic of the hero’s journey is as compelling as it is deeply problematic for Christians. For example, the trope of “slaying the dragon” pervades the activist sensibility: what’s the big bad thing that I need to get rid of? But the Christian life is not a call to save the world. It is the proclamation that God has done so in Jesus Christ. And so the hero’s journey for the mature Christian is slaying the dragon inside myself. It is putting to the sword that in me that which hates God, which hates being saved, which wants to be the savior, which loves redemptive violence.

In that sense, yes, cause fatigue is absolutely a teachable moment. Because it’s the moment just after I’ve realized that the world has more monsters than I have swords to swing, and that the most ferocious of all of them is beating away beneath my ribcage.

How does a proper understanding of calling or vocation help? Can you flesh that out?

In the book I talk at length about vocation entailing an acceptance of limitations and finitude. If I’m called to this, I’m not called to that. There’s an opportunity cost to deep commitments. We’re seeing this lived out in the number of Christians who are deciding to pour out their lives in one city, one place. Christianity Today’s “This Is Our City” project tells a lot of these stories, and people like Shane Claiborne in Philly and Leroy Barber in Atlanta come to mind.

Of course, our singular calling is to follow the discipline of Jesus Christ, and in so doing grow in resemblance to his image. But the beauty of an incarnational faith is that this conformity can take billions upon billions of forms. So the question to each of us is “what/where/how has God given me to be?” And starting with that understanding, rather than frantically running from crisis to global crisis, we can discern how it is that each of us might pour out our lives in love of God and neighbor over the long haul.

Hebrews 11 talks about the Old Testament saints “welcoming from a distance” the promises of God. That’s how I think we’re supposed to relate to the coming kingdom where pain and crying and death will be no more. We welcome it from a distance. And that transforms our every today.

What Christians Critics of the Iraq War Forget

By Mark Tooley
Philosophical Fragments

It’s now been 10 years since the launch of the Iraq War.   And some religionists have exploited the anniversary as a time for national regret and spiritual repentance.

Former McCormick Theological Seminary President Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, in a Washington Post online column, represents many of these voices  by condemning the Iraq War as a “moral, fiscal and geopolitical disaster for the United States,” which “broke the rules of war by ignoring them or so completely ‘re-defining’ them that they lost their meaning.”

Thistlethwaite cites “enhanced interrogation,” which is really “torture,” while also remembering the degradation at Abu Ghraib, as evidence of America having “lost our soul.”  She also cites polls ostensibly showing most evangelicals support “torture,” although she declines really to define “torture,” as many critics of “enhanced interrogation” have.

The Iraq War was a “war of choice, a pre-emptive war,” violating Just War principles, Thistlethwaite also complained.  The early church was “pacifist,” she asserts, and Augustine and Aquinas developed Just War to emphasize “self-defense” and defense of the “vulnerable other.”  Instead, the U.S. waged a “preventive war” with an absence of “imminent” threat and with no discoverable weapons of mass destruction, which she rather conspiratorially claims the U.S. government actually knew.  She also claims that pre-emptive war has been “subtly corrosive” and facilitated public support for the U.S. drone program as “ pre-emptive violence.”

Thistlethwaite asserts that the Iraq War created “more terrorists” and “more enemies” instead of “reducing the threat to our nation from terrorism.” She concludes:  “Ten years is a long time and it is long past time for the people of the United States, and our leaders, to engage in self-examination in how we got to such a state that we are willing to unilaterally attack another nation, engage in torture, deceive about the pretext for war, and count the real costs, morally, fiscally and geopolitically.”

In a similar but more explicitly pacifist vein, Florida pastor and peace activist Craig Watts, writing for Tony Campolo’s “Red Letter Christians,” denounces the Iraq War as “immoral and unjust.”  Indeed, “only those who view the world through the thickest ideological lens and those who have benefited the most economically claim the war was ‘worth it.’”  He cites 134,000 dead Iraqis, nearly 4500 U.S. dead service personnel and 3400 U.S. contractors killed.  He claims “increased radicalism in the region.”  And he also notes the exodus of Iraqi Christians since the war.  “The American public and nationalistically inclined religious leaders too quickly and uncritically accepted the dubious justifications for invading Iraq,” Watts claims, specifically criticizing U.S. evangelicals for supporting the war.   Unlike Thistlethwaite, he does not cite Just War teaching, because presumably he does not believe in it.

Watts and Thistlethwaite, like most secular critics of the war, don’t dwell on the downside of Saddam Hussein’s reign, nor do they describe preferred alternatives to removing Saddam circa 2003 or beyond.  Their critique would be more serious if it admitted Saddam directly murdered hundreds of thousands, while robbing, torturing and raping many more, waged war against at least 4 of his neighbors, was effectively still at war with the U.S. and other coalition nations since the ceasefire of the 1990 Persian Gulf War, had ties to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, had attempted to assassinate former President George H. W. Bush, was funding Palestinian terrorism, had links with a network of terror groups including al Qaeda (although not an ongoing collaborative relationship, as the 9-11 Commission specified), had joined Afghanistan’s Taliban regime as one of only two governments in the world to publicly endorse 9-11, had an ongoing chemical warfare program that was resurrecting although lacking discoverable, deployable weapons, and was exploiting the international sanctions against his further weapons procurement to enrich himself and his Baathist Party at the expense of reputedly hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who were prematurely dying for lack of food, clean water, and medicines, even as those international sanctions were eroding, thanks partly to Russians, French and others who were themselves profiteering off Iraqi oil.

The war critics, religious and otherwise, usually omit that Saddam’s continued reign required an ongoing U.S. troops presence in Saudi Arabia, which was politically problematic and perhaps unsustainable.  Osama bin Laden cited this infidel presence in the land of the Prophet as a specific motive of 9-11.  There was also in 2003 the by then 13 year U.S. and British air force no-fly zones imposed upon Iraq to prevent Saddam’s further slaughter of the Kurds to the north and Shiites in the south.  This largely humanitarian military project was perhaps also unsustainable and would now be 23 years old. Of course, Saddam’s rule also necessitated U.S. troops in Kuwait, which he previously invaded.

Hardheaded realists have argued and do argue that continued military containment of Saddam, even with all his ongoing murderous horrors, was preferable to war in 2003.  These realists are at least transparently consistent.  But more idealistic religious critics of the Iraq War, and of usually all wars, simplistically assert a stark choice between war and peace, without admitting more may die and suffer from a supposed peace than from war, or that avoidance of war may in fact only delay it, often facilitating an even wider and more horrific war.

Christian pacifists of today reject all war at all times, while only rarely admitting the increased suffering that may actually result.  Many religionists who profess Just War adherence often demand maximalist, unattainable standards that default towards a functional pacifism.  Actual policymakers, many of whom are often Christian and seriously regard church teachings, cannot and should not heed utopian demands from academics, activists and clergy who intone from on high and do not plausibly transmit the Just War tradition to which the vast majority of The Church has long adhered.

Serious Christians must apply their teachings with discernment about the real world, not a preferred dream sequence.  There must also be historical perspective.   Would the world really be better today if Saddam’s murderous Baathist regime were still in place? How so? American anti-war activists, religious and otherwise, have been in high dungeon since the Vietnam War, but rarely if ever consider the genocide, slavery and suffering that ensued after the U.S. withdrawal they sought.  The Korean War killed 10 times as many Americans and Koreans as the Iraq War, and was far more disastrous in many ways, leaving North Korea’s tyranny in place and South Korea a dictatorship for another 40 years.  Yet historically, 60 years later, it is now considered a measured success, a key moment in the West’s survival during the Cold War that spared now prosperous and democratic South Koreans from North Korea’s dark, impoverished servitude.  World War II was the “good war” that killed over 400,000 Americans in under 4 years and that entailed the U.S. air force’s incinerating countless German and Japanese cities while in alliance with a Stalinist tyranny little if at all morally better than the Nazis, and leaving half of Europe in captivity to that surviving tyranny.  And yet the alternatives were even worse.

The U.S. war most resembling Iraq was the now largely forgotten Philippines Insurrection after the Spanish American War, which killed about the same number of Americans, with Filipino deaths on par with Iraqis.  U.S. forces were accused of torture and atrocities against the guerrillas.  Like Thistlethwaite, critics of U.S. imperialism like Mark Twain and William Jennings Bryan warned America would lose its soul. At the start, President William McKinley told his fellow Methodists he chose to retain the Philippines for America after prayerful consideration that other imperial empires would have gobbled them up otherwise.  Likely he was right, and probably Japan would have seized the Philippines about that time as it did Korea, inflicting decades of notorious cruelty until overthrown by American force of arms over 40 years later.

Christians must address the world as it is, not as we wish, advancing incremental justice when possible, with the available instruments at hand.  We must realize that power vacuums will always be filled by some force, and some earthly powers are decidedly preferable to others.  We also have to admit that all human endeavors, warlike or peaceful, even when noble, are flawed by human sin and finite wisdom, and usually will have unintended negative consequences.  Sometimes relative justice has been advanced by the severity of war.  And sometimes injustice and disaster are precipitated by the inept pursuit of peace.

In his marvelous new book Shaking Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda, United Methodist theologian William Abraham of Southern Methodist University notes the “world is shot through with evil and sin; people deliberately and systematically reject the full resources of grace in their private and public lives; the default position in human life is war not peace.”  Theologically grounded Christians should understand this basic truth, but how many truly do?

Americans of both left and right, religious and otherwise, are inherently idealistic and often expect a perfection impossible in war or peace.   Such perfection will be possible only when God’s Kingdom is fully consummated.  Until then, Christians can modestly work for what is attainable by God’s grace.

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Mark Tooley is President of the Institute on Religion and Democracy.

Hebrews: The Mind-blowing Finale

By Joe Henderson
The Scriptorium

 

The book of Hebrews is the grand finale of the first semester in the Torrey Honors Institute. After the freshman fall, the curriculums for Torrey’s two houses take their separate ways: the Morgan House following a roughly chronological path to bring them up to the twentieth century in senior spring and the Johnson House dwelling on a different theme each semester. In the first semester, however, the two curriculums have a significant amount of overlap. Both houses begin with the Iliad and Odyssey and end with Genesis through Joshua—and finally, Hebrews.

For the Morgan House freshmen, Homer’s epics are part of an introduction to Greek literature that includes tragedies, a history, and some philosophical works of Plato. For the Johnson House freshmen, Homer’s epics are the beginning of a run of epics that includes the Aeneid, Beowulf, the Divine Comedy, the Fairie Queene, and Paradise Lost and Regained. Then at the end of the semester, the two reading lists come back together with the Old Testament histories and Hebrews.

Beginning with Greek epics and ending with big chunk of Bible has been the basic plan for the first semester since Torrey began. (In most of the other semesters, the biblical books have been moved from the end to strategic places throughout the readings.) The reason the freshman fall semester has been left largely untouched is that it works so well. What we do is let the Greek works—especially Plato (or the epics—especially Dante) open the students’ minds wider than ever before and then throw in the Bible and stand back while their minds explode.

It’s remarkable how well the classic works students read in this semester prepare for the biblical books they read at the end. When the Morgan House students reach Genesis, they have just read Plato’s Timaeus, his account of the origin of the universe. The Johnson House students have just finished Milton’s expanded account of the creation and fall in Paradise Lost.

The connections between the classics and the Bible extend beyond Genesis 1-3 to the whole sweep of Genesis to Joshua. The Morgan House freshman, who have been discussing the organization of Plato’s “city in words” (the Republic) and his desire to see the city in action (in the myth of the war with Atlantis), will find in the Law of Moses the divine blueprint for the Israelite community and in Joshua its first significant action, the conquest of Canaan. The Johnson House freshmen, who have been discussing the epic journeys of Odysseus to his home in Ithaca and Aeneas to the future home of the Roman capital, will find in the Pentateuch and Joshua the epic journey of the Israelite people to their promised home in Canaan, the future home of Jerusalem.

If the Old Testament books recapitulate and transcend the classic books earlier in the semester, the book of Hebrews in turn recapitulates and transcends both the Old Testament and the classics. It’s only to be expected that Hebrews would transcend the Old Testament since its foundational argument is that Christ and the new covenant he has inaugurated transcend the old covenant and its greatest figures. The author draws on Genesis to show that Christ, the priest after the order of Melchizedek, is greater than Abraham. He draws on Exodus to show that Christ is greater than Moses and that he has entered a greater tabernacle. He draws on Leviticus to show that Christ is a greater priest than the Levitical priests and that he offers a greater sacrifice. He draws on Numbers to show that unlike the generation who perished in the wilderness, true followers of Christ can enter the Promised Land by faith. He draws on Deuteronomy to show how Christ has inaugurated a new and better covenant. He draws on Joshua to show that there is a “rest” that Joshua didn’t bring his people into but Christ can.

Hebrews is designed to be read with Genesis through Joshua in mind, but it’s also a great experience to read it with Greek philosophy or the epic tradition in mind. Imagine being a Morgan House freshman who has just been introduced to Plato’s idea that everything we see in this world is only a shadow or copy of the forms in the ideal realm and then reading a verse like this: “The law is but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities” (Hebrews 10:1). Imagine being a Johnson House freshman who has just read about Dante’s vision, in which he like Paul was “caught up into Paradise” not knowing “whether in the body or out of the body,” and then reading a verse like this: “Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (Hebrews 9:24). This is where the mental fireworks start exploding.

The book of Hebrews is a fitting finale to the first semester of Torrey because it presents Christ, who unites all things in heaven and on earth in himself. Christ, who is the radiance of the glory of God, is the reality that the philosophy of Plato dimly foreshadows. Christ, who took on flesh and blood, is the one human who has reached humanity’s ultimate destiny, the presence of God.

God speaks to the freshmen “in many times and many ways” through the books they read in their first semester in Torrey, but when they come to Hebrews he speaks to them “by his Son.”

The book of Hebrews is the grand finale of the first semester in the Torrey Honors Institute. After the freshman fall, the curriculums for Torrey’s two houses take their separate ways: the Morgan House following a roughly chronological path to bring them up to the twentieth century in senior spring and the Johnson House dwelling on a different theme each semester. In the first semester, however, the two curriculums have a significant amount of overlap. Both houses begin with the Iliad and Odyssey and end with Genesis through Joshua—and finally, Hebrews.
For the Morgan House freshmen, Homer’s epics are part of an introduction to Greek literature that includes tragedies, a history, and some philosophical works of Plato. For the Johnson House freshmen, Homer’s epics are the beginning of a run of epics that includes the Aeneid, Beowulf, the Divine Comedy, the Fairie Queene, and Paradise Lost and Regained. Then at the end of the semester, the two reading lists come back together with the Old Testament histories and Hebrews.
Beginning with Greek epics and ending with big chunk of Bible has been the basic plan for the first semester since Torrey began. (In most of the other semesters, the biblical books have been moved from the end to strategic places throughout the readings.) The reason the freshman fall semester has been left largely untouched is that it works so well. What we do is let the Greek works—especially Plato (or the epics—especially Dante) open the students’ minds wider than ever before and then throw in the Bible and stand back while their minds explode.
It’s remarkable how well the classic works students read in this semester prepare for the biblical books they read at the end. When the Morgan House students reach Genesis, they have just read Plato’s Timaeus, his account of the origin of the universe. The Johnson House students have just finished Milton’s expanded account of the creation and fall in Paradise Lost.
The connections between the classics and the Bible extend beyond Genesis 1-3 to the whole sweep of Genesis to Joshua. The Morgan House freshman, who have been discussing the organization of Plato’s “city in words” (the Republic) and his desire to see the city in action (in the myth of the war with Atlantis), will find in the Law of Moses the divine blueprint for the Israelite community and in Joshua its first significant action, the conquest of Canaan. The Johnson House freshmen, who have been discussing the epic journeys of Odysseus to his home in Ithaca and Aeneas to the future home of the Roman capital, will find in the Pentateuch and Joshua the epic journey of the Israelite people to their promised home in Canaan, the future home of Jerusalem.
If the Old Testament books recapitulate and transcend the classic books earlier in the semester, the book of Hebrews in turn recapitulates and transcends both the Old Testament and the classics. It’s only to be expected that Hebrews would transcend the Old Testament since its foundational argument is that Christ and the new covenant he has inaugurated transcend the old covenant and its greatest figures. The author draws on Genesis to show that Christ, the priest after the order of Melchizedek, is greater than Abraham. He draws on Exodus to show that Christ is greater than Moses and that he has entered a greater tabernacle. He draws on Leviticus to show that Christ is a greater priest than the Levitical priests and that he offers a greater sacrifice. He draws on Numbers to show that unlike the generation who perished in the wilderness, true followers of Christ can enter the Promised Land by faith. He draws on Deuteronomy to show how Christ has inaugurated a new and better covenant. He draws on Joshua to show that there is a “rest” that Joshua didn’t bring his people into but Christ can.
Hebrews is designed to be read with Genesis through Joshua in mind, but it’s also a great experience to read it with Greek philosophy or the epic tradition in mind. Imagine being a Morgan House freshman who has just been introduced to Plato’s idea that everything we see in this world is only a shadow or copy of the forms in the ideal realm and then reading a verse like this: “The law is but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities” (Hebrews 10:1). Imagine being a Johnson House freshman who has just read about Dante’s vision, in which he like Paul was “caught up into Paradise” not knowing “whether in the body or out of the body,” and then reading a verse like this: “Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (Hebrews 9:24). This is where the mental fireworks start exploding.
The book of Hebrews is a fitting finale to the first semester of Torrey because it presents Christ, who unites all things in heaven and on earth in himself. Christ, who is the radiance of the glory of God, is the reality that the philosophy of Plato dimly foreshadows. Christ, who took on flesh and blood, is the one human who has reached humanity’s ultimate destiny, the presence of God.
God speaks to the freshmen “in many times and many ways” through the books they read in their first semester in Torrey, but when they come to Hebrews he speaks to them “by his Son.”
- See more at: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/scriptorium/2013/02/hebrews-the-mind-blowing-finale/#sthash.XrLqvYnP.dpuf

The book of Hebrews is the grand finale of the first semester in the Torrey Honors Institute. After the freshman fall, the curriculums for Torrey’s two houses take their separate ways: the Morgan House following a roughly chronological path to bring them up to the twentieth century in senior spring and the Johnson House dwelling on a different theme each semester. In the first semester, however, the two curriculums have a significant amount of overlap. Both houses begin with the Iliad and Odyssey and end with Genesis through Joshua—and finally, Hebrews.
For the Morgan House freshmen, Homer’s epics are part of an introduction to Greek literature that includes tragedies, a history, and some philosophical works of Plato. For the Johnson House freshmen, Homer’s epics are the beginning of a run of epics that includes the Aeneid, Beowulf, the Divine Comedy, the Fairie Queene, and Paradise Lost and Regained. Then at the end of the semester, the two reading lists come back together with the Old Testament histories and Hebrews.
Beginning with Greek epics and ending with big chunk of Bible has been the basic plan for the first semester since Torrey began. (In most of the other semesters, the biblical books have been moved from the end to strategic places throughout the readings.) The reason the freshman fall semester has been left largely untouched is that it works so well. What we do is let the Greek works—especially Plato (or the epics—especially Dante) open the students’ minds wider than ever before and then throw in the Bible and stand back while their minds explode.
It’s remarkable how well the classic works students read in this semester prepare for the biblical books they read at the end. When the Morgan House students reach Genesis, they have just read Plato’s Timaeus, his account of the origin of the universe. The Johnson House students have just finished Milton’s expanded account of the creation and fall in Paradise Lost.
The connections between the classics and the Bible extend beyond Genesis 1-3 to the whole sweep of Genesis to Joshua. The Morgan House freshman, who have been discussing the organization of Plato’s “city in words” (the Republic) and his desire to see the city in action (in the myth of the war with Atlantis), will find in the Law of Moses the divine blueprint for the Israelite community and in Joshua its first significant action, the conquest of Canaan. The Johnson House freshmen, who have been discussing the epic journeys of Odysseus to his home in Ithaca and Aeneas to the future home of the Roman capital, will find in the Pentateuch and Joshua the epic journey of the Israelite people to their promised home in Canaan, the future home of Jerusalem.
If the Old Testament books recapitulate and transcend the classic books earlier in the semester, the book of Hebrews in turn recapitulates and transcends both the Old Testament and the classics. It’s only to be expected that Hebrews would transcend the Old Testament since its foundational argument is that Christ and the new covenant he has inaugurated transcend the old covenant and its greatest figures. The author draws on Genesis to show that Christ, the priest after the order of Melchizedek, is greater than Abraham. He draws on Exodus to show that Christ is greater than Moses and that he has entered a greater tabernacle. He draws on Leviticus to show that Christ is a greater priest than the Levitical priests and that he offers a greater sacrifice. He draws on Numbers to show that unlike the generation who perished in the wilderness, true followers of Christ can enter the Promised Land by faith. He draws on Deuteronomy to show how Christ has inaugurated a new and better covenant. He draws on Joshua to show that there is a “rest” that Joshua didn’t bring his people into but Christ can.
Hebrews is designed to be read with Genesis through Joshua in mind, but it’s also a great experience to read it with Greek philosophy or the epic tradition in mind. Imagine being a Morgan House freshman who has just been introduced to Plato’s idea that everything we see in this world is only a shadow or copy of the forms in the ideal realm and then reading a verse like this: “The law is but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities” (Hebrews 10:1). Imagine being a Johnson House freshman who has just read about Dante’s vision, in which he like Paul was “caught up into Paradise” not knowing “whether in the body or out of the body,” and then reading a verse like this: “Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (Hebrews 9:24). This is where the mental fireworks start exploding.
The book of Hebrews is a fitting finale to the first semester of Torrey because it presents Christ, who unites all things in heaven and on earth in himself. Christ, who is the radiance of the glory of God, is the reality that the philosophy of Plato dimly foreshadows. Christ, who took on flesh and blood, is the one human who has reached humanity’s ultimate destiny, the presence of God.
God speaks to the freshmen “in many times and many ways” through the books they read in their first semester in Torrey, but when they come to Hebrews he speaks to them “by his Son.”
- See more at: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/scriptorium/2013/02/hebrews-the-mind-blowing-finale/#sthash.XrLqvYnP.dpuf

The book of Hebrews is the grand finale of the first semester in the Torrey Honors Institute. After the freshman fall, the curriculums for Torrey’s two houses take their separate ways: the Morgan House following a roughly chronological path to bring them up to the twentieth century in senior spring and the Johnson House dwelling on a different theme each semester. In the first semester, however, the two curriculums have a significant amount of overlap. Both houses begin with the Iliad and Odyssey and end with Genesis through Joshua—and finally, Hebrews.
For the Morgan House freshmen, Homer’s epics are part of an introduction to Greek literature that includes tragedies, a history, and some philosophical works of Plato. For the Johnson House freshmen, Homer’s epics are the beginning of a run of epics that includes the Aeneid, Beowulf, the Divine Comedy, the Fairie Queene, and Paradise Lost and Regained. Then at the end of the semester, the two reading lists come back together with the Old Testament histories and Hebrews.
Beginning with Greek epics and ending with big chunk of Bible has been the basic plan for the first semester since Torrey began. (In most of the other semesters, the biblical books have been moved from the end to strategic places throughout the readings.) The reason the freshman fall semester has been left largely untouched is that it works so well. What we do is let the Greek works—especially Plato (or the epics—especially Dante) open the students’ minds wider than ever before and then throw in the Bible and stand back while their minds explode.
It’s remarkable how well the classic works students read in this semester prepare for the biblical books they read at the end. When the Morgan House students reach Genesis, they have just read Plato’s Timaeus, his account of the origin of the universe. The Johnson House students have just finished Milton’s expanded account of the creation and fall in Paradise Lost.
The connections between the classics and the Bible extend beyond Genesis 1-3 to the whole sweep of Genesis to Joshua. The Morgan House freshman, who have been discussing the organization of Plato’s “city in words” (the Republic) and his desire to see the city in action (in the myth of the war with Atlantis), will find in the Law of Moses the divine blueprint for the Israelite community and in Joshua its first significant action, the conquest of Canaan. The Johnson House freshmen, who have been discussing the epic journeys of Odysseus to his home in Ithaca and Aeneas to the future home of the Roman capital, will find in the Pentateuch and Joshua the epic journey of the Israelite people to their promised home in Canaan, the future home of Jerusalem.
If the Old Testament books recapitulate and transcend the classic books earlier in the semester, the book of Hebrews in turn recapitulates and transcends both the Old Testament and the classics. It’s only to be expected that Hebrews would transcend the Old Testament since its foundational argument is that Christ and the new covenant he has inaugurated transcend the old covenant and its greatest figures. The author draws on Genesis to show that Christ, the priest after the order of Melchizedek, is greater than Abraham. He draws on Exodus to show that Christ is greater than Moses and that he has entered a greater tabernacle. He draws on Leviticus to show that Christ is a greater priest than the Levitical priests and that he offers a greater sacrifice. He draws on Numbers to show that unlike the generation who perished in the wilderness, true followers of Christ can enter the Promised Land by faith. He draws on Deuteronomy to show how Christ has inaugurated a new and better covenant. He draws on Joshua to show that there is a “rest” that Joshua didn’t bring his people into but Christ can.
Hebrews is designed to be read with Genesis through Joshua in mind, but it’s also a great experience to read it with Greek philosophy or the epic tradition in mind. Imagine being a Morgan House freshman who has just been introduced to Plato’s idea that everything we see in this world is only a shadow or copy of the forms in the ideal realm and then reading a verse like this: “The law is but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities” (Hebrews 10:1). Imagine being a Johnson House freshman who has just read about Dante’s vision, in which he like Paul was “caught up into Paradise” not knowing “whether in the body or out of the body,” and then reading a verse like this: “Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (Hebrews 9:24). This is where the mental fireworks start exploding.
The book of Hebrews is a fitting finale to the first semester of Torrey because it presents Christ, who unites all things in heaven and on earth in himself. Christ, who is the radiance of the glory of God, is the reality that the philosophy of Plato dimly foreshadows. Christ, who took on flesh and blood, is the one human who has reached humanity’s ultimate destiny, the presence of God.
God speaks to the freshmen “in many times and many ways” through the books they read in their first semester in Torrey, but when they come to Hebrews he speaks to them “by his Son.”
- See more at: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/scriptorium/2013/02/hebrews-the-mind-blowing-finale/#sthash.XrLqvYnP.dpuf

The book of Hebrews is the grand finale of the first semester in the Torrey Honors Institute. After the freshman fall, the curriculums for Torrey’s two houses take their separate ways: the Morgan House following a roughly chronological path to bring them up to the twentieth century in senior spring and the Johnson House dwelling on a different theme each semester. In the first semester, however, the two curriculums have a significant amount of overlap. Both houses begin with the Iliad and Odyssey and end with Genesis through Joshua—and finally, Hebrews.
For the Morgan House freshmen, Homer’s epics are part of an introduction to Greek literature that includes tragedies, a history, and some philosophical works of Plato. For the Johnson House freshmen, Homer’s epics are the beginning of a run of epics that includes the Aeneid, Beowulf, the Divine Comedy, the Fairie Queene, and Paradise Lost and Regained. Then at the end of the semester, the two reading lists come back together with the Old Testament histories and Hebrews.
Beginning with Greek epics and ending with big chunk of Bible has been the basic plan for the first semester since Torrey began. (In most of the other semesters, the biblical books have been moved from the end to strategic places throughout the readings.) The reason the freshman fall semester has been left largely untouched is that it works so well. What we do is let the Greek works—especially Plato (or the epics—especially Dante) open the students’ minds wider than ever before and then throw in the Bible and stand back while their minds explode.
It’s remarkable how well the classic works students read in this semester prepare for the biblical books they read at the end. When the Morgan House students reach Genesis, they have just read Plato’s Timaeus, his account of the origin of the universe. The Johnson House students have just finished Milton’s expanded account of the creation and fall in Paradise Lost.
The connections between the classics and the Bible extend beyond Genesis 1-3 to the whole sweep of Genesis to Joshua. The Morgan House freshman, who have been discussing the organization of Plato’s “city in words” (the Republic) and his desire to see the city in action (in the myth of the war with Atlantis), will find in the Law of Moses the divine blueprint for the Israelite community and in Joshua its first significant action, the conquest of Canaan. The Johnson House freshmen, who have been discussing the epic journeys of Odysseus to his home in Ithaca and Aeneas to the future home of the Roman capital, will find in the Pentateuch and Joshua the epic journey of the Israelite people to their promised home in Canaan, the future home of Jerusalem.
If the Old Testament books recapitulate and transcend the classic books earlier in the semester, the book of Hebrews in turn recapitulates and transcends both the Old Testament and the classics. It’s only to be expected that Hebrews would transcend the Old Testament since its foundational argument is that Christ and the new covenant he has inaugurated transcend the old covenant and its greatest figures. The author draws on Genesis to show that Christ, the priest after the order of Melchizedek, is greater than Abraham. He draws on Exodus to show that Christ is greater than Moses and that he has entered a greater tabernacle. He draws on Leviticus to show that Christ is a greater priest than the Levitical priests and that he offers a greater sacrifice. He draws on Numbers to show that unlike the generation who perished in the wilderness, true followers of Christ can enter the Promised Land by faith. He draws on Deuteronomy to show how Christ has inaugurated a new and better covenant. He draws on Joshua to show that there is a “rest” that Joshua didn’t bring his people into but Christ can.
Hebrews is designed to be read with Genesis through Joshua in mind, but it’s also a great experience to read it with Greek philosophy or the epic tradition in mind. Imagine being a Morgan House freshman who has just been introduced to Plato’s idea that everything we see in this world is only a shadow or copy of the forms in the ideal realm and then reading a verse like this: “The law is but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities” (Hebrews 10:1). Imagine being a Johnson House freshman who has just read about Dante’s vision, in which he like Paul was “caught up into Paradise” not knowing “whether in the body or out of the body,” and then reading a verse like this: “Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (Hebrews 9:24). This is where the mental fireworks start exploding.
The book of Hebrews is a fitting finale to the first semester of Torrey because it presents Christ, who unites all things in heaven and on earth in himself. Christ, who is the radiance of the glory of God, is the reality that the philosophy of Plato dimly foreshadows. Christ, who took on flesh and blood, is the one human who has reached humanity’s ultimate destiny, the presence of God.
God speaks to the freshmen “in many times and many ways” through the books they read in their first semester in Torrey, but when they come to Hebrews he speaks to them “by his Son.”
- See more at: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/scriptorium/2013/02/hebrews-the-mind-blowing-finale/#sthash.XrLqvYnP.dpuf