Baptist Mission Team Detained in Haiti

The Associated Baptist Press has released the following press release about the fate of the Baptist mission team detained in Haiti:

Church seeks forgiveness for mission team detained in Haiti
By Bob Allen
Friday, February 05, 2010

MERIDIAN, Idaho (ABP) -- The sponsoring church of a 10-member Southern Baptist mission team charged with child kidnapping in Haiti has acknowledged that the group made "mistakes" and asked the Haitian government to forgive them.

"We are absolutely convinced that those who were recruited to join this mission traveled to Haiti to help, not hurt, these children," said a statement posted Feb. 4 on the website of Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho. "We are pleading to the Haitian prime minister to focus his energies on the critical tasks ahead for the country and to forgive mistakes that were made by a group of Americans trying to assist Haiti's children."

During a closed-door hearing Feb. 4, a Haitian court charged the Baptists, arrested Jan. 29 while trying to shuttle 33 children from an earthquake zone near Port-au-Prince to a temporary orphanage in the neighboring Dominican Republic, with child kidnapping and criminal association.

Earlier a Haitian attorney representing the Americans suggested that only one of the 10, group leader Laura Silsby, might be culpable in what prosecutors call an illegal adoption scheme.

The case now goes to an investigating judge, a legal process expected to take up to three months, prolonging media attention while Haiti attempts to recover from a Jan. 12 earthquake that left more than 200,000 people dead.

"I believe it's a distraction for the Haitian people because they are talking more now about 10 people than they are about 1 million people suffering in the streets," Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said before the hearing.

Reuters, which had a reporter in the court session, reported that all 10 of the detainees acknowledged they had apparently violated the law when they tried to take children out of the country without proper paperwork but did not know it at the time.

Bellerive said Feb. 4 on "Larry King Live" that he hopes the Americans were acting in good faith, but they must be held accountable for breaking the law.

"I hear a lot of people asking for the government or prime minister to release those people," Bellerive said. "Those people are not in the hands of the government. They're in the hands of the justice."

The prime minister said he would do what he can to see that the case moves forward in a timely manner. "At the same time, we have to respect the law," he said. "It's clear that those people violated the law."

Haitian Ambassador Raymond Joseph told the Christian Science Monitor he thinks Haiti is sending a message that a government is in place and that anarchy will not prevail despite destruction of most government buildings in the nation's capital.

Joseph said the group's character would likely be considered during the upcoming trial and judgment and that "compassion" might play a role in the proceedings somewhere down the road.

The Central Valley Baptist Church statement reads in full: "We are anxious, fearful and concerned about our family members, especially the young people who are jailed in a foreign country. Obviously, we do not know details about what happened and didn't happen on this mission. However, we are absolutely convinced that those who were recruited to join this mission traveled to Haiti to help, not hurt, these children. We are pleading to the Haitian prime minister to focus his energies on the critical tasks ahead for the country and to forgive mistakes that were made by a group of Americans trying to assist Haiti's children."

Each kidnapping count carries a possible sentence of five to 15 years in prison. Criminal association carries a potential sentence of three to nine years. Prosecutors decided not to pursue what could have been the most serious charge against the group, trafficking,

New Life Children's Refuge, a non-profit organization launched last fall to start an orphanage in the Dominican Republic, shifted the effort into high gear after the Jan. 12 earthquake left as many as 300,000 children homeless. That intensified concerns about child trafficking, already a problem in Haiti even before the disaster.

While part of the mission of New Life Children's Refuge is to provide adoption opportunities for Christian parents in the United States, the stated purpose of the mission trip was to rescue Haitian orphans abandoned on the streets, makeshift hospitals or from collapsed orphanages in Port au Prince and surrounding areas.

Haitian authorities said most of the children rounded up by the Baptist group have living parents.

The website at Eastside Baptist Church in Twin Falls, Idaho, home church to three of the 10 members of the mission team, said both of the Southern Baptist congregations "have a great reputation for being mission-minded and have had numerous members participate in mission trips around the world."

Dillon International, a non-profit child placement agency that specializes in international adoption, says it has received many inquiries about adopting newly orphaned children in Haiti but warns that Haiti's adoption laws are very strict. Even with a stable infrastructure in place before the earthquake the agency, which has been placing Haitian children with U.S. families since 1991, said the average waiting time for a Haitian adoption was about two years.

Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


Tags: Baptist Mission Team, Haiti, Haiti Children

Not for Women Only

PRESS RELEASE




On Friday, April 23, 2010, the faculty of Northern Seminary are sponsoring a panel discussion entitled, "Not for Women Only: Affirming the Equal Calling of Women and Men to the Ministry of the Gospel." The event is scheduled to begin at 7:00 p.m. and end at 9:00 p.m.

There is tension in scripture regarding the relationship of gender and ministry and all are invited to come and learn how others with a high view of scripture navigate these important questions.

Through panel discussion and the fielding of audience questions, members of Northern's faculty will 1) Present their own journeys toward supporting the equal partnership of males and females in church ministry and 2) Respond earnestly to audience questions.

Faculty participating in the discussion include: Jeff Hubing, Claude Mariottini, Ricky Freeman, Alistair Brown, Charlie Cosgrove, and Tracy Smith Malone.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Ministry, Women

Who Do You Love Most?

Last weekend, two of my five granddaughters came to visit us. My wife Donna and I enjoy our grandchildren because, as you should know by now, they are the most precious grandchildren in the world.

When our grandchildren come to visit, they like to play games with us, and this time was no exception. One of my granddaughters (she is only six years old) was playing a game in which we had to answer her questions. We had to answer the questions in one minute or less or else we would lose points.

The questions began simply enough: “What is your favorite color?” I had no problem answering that question and the two that followed. Then, my granddaughter said: “Now, the questions will be harder.” I was kind of expecting that. What I did not expect was the question she addressed to me.

“Vovo,” (my granddaughters call me “vovo” which is Portuguese for “grandfather”), “who do you love most: the church or your grandchildren?”

That question stunned me. How could a young lady, six years old, come out with such a profound theological question? And I had only one minute to come up with an answer that was faithful to my commitment to Christ and my love for my grandchildren. All of a sudden, I was confronted with a very profound theological question for which I was struggling for an answer.

Immediately, the words of Christ came to my mind: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children [and I would add, grandchildren] and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26).

People misunderstand the word “hate.” In the Old Testament God said: “I loved Jacob. I hated Esau” (Malachi 1:1-3). In this context, as well as in Luke, the words “love” and “hate” are technical words, used to describe covenant relationship in which the word “love” and the word “hate” are used to mean “choose” and”"reject.”

I doubted that my granddaughter could understand covenant vocabulary. She just wanted a simple answer. So, I gave her a simple answer.

I said: “Since the church is only a building, of course I love my granddaughters more than I love the church.”

I love my granddaughters but I was not very happy with my answer. When my granddaughter is older and understands the concept of heilsgeschichte and the shibboleth of covenant terminology, I may give her a better answer.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


Tags: Covenant Language, Hate, Love

The Election of Israel

The election of Israel is a given fact in the theology of the Old Testament, but scholars differ on when it took place. Some scholars speak of two election traditions in the Bible: one in the time of Abraham and another in the time of Moses. Personally, I believe that the election of Israel took place when God called Abraham and told him to go to the land of Canaan. However, the full implication of that election happened with Israel’s redemption from Egypt and the promulgation of the covenant at Sinai.

God’s promise to Abraham was the basis for the election of Israel to be God’s people. Israel became a nation after it was delivered from Egypt and established a covenant with God at Sinai. The belief that Israel was the special people of God is affirmed throughout the Old Testament.

The history of Israel’s relationship with God is the central reality of the Old Testament. The choice of Israel to be God’s people has a universal dimension. No other nation in the history of the world has influenced humanity more than Israel. Israel’s religious contribution to humanity is greater than any other nation, for it was to Israel that God introduced himself in the greatest act of unselfish love ever demonstrated to humanity. To comprehend Israel’s religious contribution to our understanding of God, one is compelled to understand the concept of God’s election of Israel as his special people.

The study of Israel’s election must begin with two questions. The first question is one of definition: What is the meaning of election? The second question is one of purpose: Why did God choose Israel to be his special people?

The word “election” comes from the Hebrew word bahar (Hebrew בחר) which means “to choose,” “to elect.” However, although the word bahar does not appear in the call of Abraham, the concept of divine election pervades the whole Old Testament. The idea of divine election is emphasized in the book of Deuteronomy: “For you are a people holy to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured possession” (Deuteronomy 7:6).

Although the basic concept of election is expressed by the word bahar, other words are also used to convey the idea that Israel was set apart as God’s special people. The terminology of election includes the word bahar “to choose,” qara’ “to call,” yada‘ “to know,” and bādal “to separate.”Amos uses the word yada‘ to express Israel’s election: “You only have I known of all the families of the earth” (Amos 3:2). The expressions “treasured possession” and “the people of the Lord” also convey the idea of election.

The second question, “why did God choose Israel?” is answered by Deuteronomy 7:7-8: “ It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love upon you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples; but it is because the LORD loves you, and is keeping the oath which he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”

The choice of Israel to be a special people, at its most basic meaning, testifies to the fact of unmerited grace. God did not choose Israel because they were worthy of being chosen. In fact, God chose a people who were slaves in Egypt, redeemed them and established a special relationship with them. The point that the writer of Deuteronomy was trying to convey to the new generation of Israelites was that it was because of God’s faithful love (hesed) and because of the promise he had made to Abraham that he, in his sovereignty, elected Israel to be his special people and his special possession. God told Israel on Mount Sinai: “Out of all the nations you will be my own special possession” (Exodus 19:5).

The basis for God’s promise to Israel was the covenant he had established with Abraham. At Sinai, Israel responded to what God had done in bringing them out of Egypt and to his revelation by establishing a covenant with him and by agreeing to be his people and live in accordance with his commandments.

Thus, it was at Sinai that Israel became God’s special people. God had established a covenant with Abraham, choosing him to be the father of a great and mighty nation. Now, as the people understood their mission in the world and their place in the redemptive work of God, the people accepted their call and destiny as the elected nation of God: “And all the people answered together and said, ‘All that the LORD has spoken we will do’” (Exodus 19:8). Israel became a special nation not because they were great and mighty, but because of the sovereign grace of the God who had delivered them from Egyptian bondage.

This particularism of God’s love, the view that Israel was chosen to be God’s special people and to have a special place among the other nations of the earth, has become offensive to many people. What made Israel to be special to God? The Bible clearly says that it was not that Israel was a greater nation among the nations of the world. The selection of Israel is not easily understood when the issue of merit is taken out of the equation. Why is anyone, for that matter, special to God? The answer to why God chose Israel from among the nations to be his special people is hidden deep in the character of God himself. It was in God’s sovereignty and love that He chose Israel to be his chosen people. In his desire to reveal himself to humanity, God chose to do so through a special people.

The election of Israel does not mean that God has rejected the other nations. To the contrary, the election of Israel is a call to service to God and to the other nations. T. C. Vriezen, in his book An Outline of Old Testament Theology (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1958), p. 76, wrote:

The truth of Israel’s election is untruth if it is rationally understood to mean that for that reason God has rejected the nations of the world, that for that reason Israel is of more importance to God than those other nations, for Israel was only elected in order to serve God in the task of leading those other nations to God. In Israel God seeks the world. . . . For in His mercy He has called Israel to the service of His Kingdom among the nations of the earth.

Perhaps God chose Israel to become a paradigm to the nations. Israel was to be an example of what it means to be a people who live according to God’s laws and teachings. Perhaps God saw fit to take a people who were slaves in a foreign land, a people rejected by society, with no laws, organization, or government in order to demonstrate his power and salvation to the world.

Israel was not only small in number, but they were also hard-hearted, stiff-necked, and a stubborn people, and yet, God chose these people to be his own people The election of Israel, therefore, is a great demonstration of God’s electing love. God’s love is absolutely free and unconditional and this love was bestowed on one nation out of the many nations of the world. If there was some hidden potential in Israel, the Bible does not specify it. What is clear is that Israel was chosen to be God’s people by divine sovereignty and by the kind of love that only God can demonstrate.

God’s love and God’s grace is the focus that permeates the concept of election in the Old Testament. The recipient of this love and grace is called to service to others. God’s love is never conditional. However, as in all relationships, there must be a sense of responsibility and fidelity, and Israel was no exception. God established a relationship with Israel on Mount Sinai, on the day that he chose the descendants of Abraham to be his special possession. Yahweh gave himself to Israel and in return the people of Israel were to give themselves to him. Deuteronomy 4:40 states:

Therefore you shall keep his statutes and his commandments, which I command you this day, that it may go well with you, and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which the LORD your God gives you for ever.

The election of Israel is one of the most important concepts for understanding God’s relationship with his chosen nation. The election of Israel explains the destiny of Israel as God’s special people in the world and required of the nation an exclusive relationship, a relationship that God has maintained throughout the ages, despite Israel’s rebellion and disobedience.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Hebrew Bible, Old Testament, Abraham, Election, Exodus

The NLT Interlinear

The NLT Interlinear is available online. Readers of the NLT Interlinear can explore the words, vocabulary, and grammar of the Greek New Testament and compare the Greek words with the translation of the NIV.

To explore the NLT Interlinear, click here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: NIV Interlinear, Greek New Testament

The Shroud of Turin

Heather Pringle, writing for the Archaeology Magazine’s weekly blog, has an article on the Shroud of Turin. The article, “Who Made the Shroud of Turin?,” compares the Shroud of Turin with burial shrouds dating from the first century A.D. The following is an excerpt from the article:

If you are not Catholic, you may not have heard yet that the Vatican has decided to put the very famous Shroud of Turin on public display for six weeks, beginning on April 10th. Exhibitions of the controversial shroud–believed by many devout Catholics to be the winding cloth that covered Jesus after his crucifixion–are relatively rare. Indeed, the Vatican has authorized only five such expositions since 1898. As a result, the faithful are hastening to their computers to obtain online tickets.

I notice that the Vatican will not permit any scientific experimentation or testing of the shroud during the exhibition. Quite possibly, it is a little disenchanted with the latest archaeological findings related to the controversial cloth. In December, Shimon Gibson, an archaeologist and senior research fellow at the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jersualem, announced tantalizing results from a new study that he and Boaz Zissu, an archaeologist at Bar Ilan University, just completed on a 1st century B.C. shrouded burial they excavated in a tomb in Jerusalem. Gibson and several colleagues published the first part of the study in a paper in PLoS One on December 16th.

The entire study will clearly shed much new light on the authenticity of the more famous Shroud of Turin. As the team points out in the PLoS One paper, archaeologists rarely find ancient shrouded burials in the Jerusalem region: the city’s high levels of humidity quickly destroy organic materials. So, as Gibson recently explained to a reporter at The Catholic Review, ”this is the first shroud from Jesus’ time found in Jerusalem and the first shroud found in a type of burial cave similar to that which Jesus would have been buried in, and (because of this) it is the first shroud which can be compared to the Turin shroud.”

To read Pringle’s article, visit Beyond Stone and Bone by clicking here.

Claude Mariottini

Professor of Old Testament

Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Archaeology, Burial Shrouds, Shroud of Turin

Stones and Bones or People?

Time Magazine has a very informative article which deals with two controversial issues: politics and archaeological excavation in Jerusalem.

A question asked by the writer of the article provides the tenor for the article. He asked: “What matters more, the stones and bones of antiquity, or the lives of the people who live on top of all that history?”

Read the article in its entirety by visiting Time Magazine online.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


Tags: Archaeology, Excavation, Jerusalem, Politics

The Bible and the Lunar Calendar

Image: Lunar Cuneiform Tablet 4000 years old

Image Courtesy: Ynet News




According to Ynet News, the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem is hosting an international conference titled "Living the Lunar Calendar: Time, Text and Tradition.” The conference will take place on January 30 through February 1, 2010.

Invited speakers include Prof. Lawrence H. Schiffman, New York University; Prof. Sacha Stern, University College London; Prof. Wayne Horowitz, Hebrew University Jerusalem; Prof. John Steel, Brown University USA; Prof. Stanislaw Iwaniszewski, National Institute of Anthropology and History, Mexico; and Dr. Jonathan Ben-Dov, University of Haifa.

The following is an excerpt from the press release published by Ynet News:

The “Living the Lunar Calendar” conference — held under the full moon of the Tu B'Shvat Jewish festival (new Year for trees)— will investigate the place of calendar reckoning in human society and culture.

Focusing on the moon as a marker of the passage of time, the conference will address a wide variety of issues regarding the application of astronomical and calendrical rules to everyday life, and beyond to the shaping of cultural identity.

The conference will begin on Saturday night with introduction lectures to Astronomy, the moon’s movements and its importance in determining the time. The second day of the conference will be devoted to the history of the Jewish calendar: with sessions devoted to Mesopotamia and to the use of the traditional Jewish lunar calendar.

The press release also provides the following information about a 4000 year old cuneiform tablet that contains information about the origins of the Hebrew calendar:

The Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem collection includes an extremely important rare cuneiform tablet is prominently displayed in the heart of the Museum's Gallery of the Patriarchs.

This large clay tablet is written in cuneiform on two sides and careful study and decipherment has revealed text that sheds light on the roots of the Hebrew calendar whose origins stem from Ancient Babylon. It describes the religious practices of the Babylonians from the time of Abraham.

The rare tablet takes the visitors to the ancient month Shabatu, 4,000 years ago. It is an example of a text recording the daily routine followed in the temples of the capital city of Larsa, which neighbored Ur in ancient Mesopotamia. In over six hundred and thirty lines, the tablet registers the rites performed in the temples during the month of Shabatu. This month is identical to the Hebrew month of Shvat and they are both the eleventh month of the year.

Read the article in its entirety by clicking here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


Tags: Archaeology, Hebrew Calendar, Lunar Calendar

The Timeless Teachings of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Annysa Johnson of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has written a good article on the timeless teachings of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The following is an excerpt from the article:

They speak of a Teacher of Righteousness and a pierced messiah, of cleansing through water and a battle of light against darkness.

But anyone looking to the Dead Sea Scrolls in search of proof, say, that Jesus of Nazareth was the messiah presaged by the prophets, or that John the Baptist lived among the scroll's authors, will be disappointed.

What the scrolls provide instead, scholars say, is a window into a world of religious ferment 2,000 years ago that gave rise to Judaism and Christianity as we know them today.

"It is an entire library from this crucial period that opens up to us the interreligious debate that is the background for everything that happened after," said Lawrence H. Schiffman, chairman of New York University's Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, who has written extensively on the scrolls.

Read the article in its entirety here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


Tags: Archaeology, Dead Sea Scrolls

The Birthplace of Emperor Vespasian

A news report has announced that archaeologists have found the birthplace of the Roman emperor Vespasian. The following is an excerpt from the news release:

Rome, January 28 (ANI): Reports indicate that an international team of archaeologists has claimed to have unearthed the 2000-year-old birthplace of the Roman emperor, Vespasian, north of the Italian capital.

Vespasian ruled the Roman empire in the first century A.D. and was behind the construction
of the Colosseum, one of Italy's most popular landmarks.

According to a report by Adnkronos International, archeologists believe they have located his birthplace in the Falacrinae valley near the hill town of Cittareale, 130 km northeast of Rome.

"Ancient Roman historian Suetonius says Vespasian was born in the Falacrinae valley area. Field surveys and information from locals have told us tell us this must be Vespasian's birthplace," one of the project's directors, British archaeologist Helen Patterson told Adnkronos International.

Vespasian was the ninth Roman emperor, who reigned from 69-79 AD.

He was believed to come from humble beginnings and founded the short-lived Flavian dynasty after the civil wars that followed Nero's death in 68 AD.

"During recent excavations, the archaeologists uncovered sumptuous marble floors and mosaics at the site of the 3,000-4,000 square metre Villa of Falacrinae," Patterson said.

The team of 30-60 archaeologists recovered pots, numerous coins, ceramic and metal artefacts from the site which is 820 metres above sea level, overlooking the surrounding Falacrinae valley.

"It was obviously a very,very big structure and very luxurious," she said, adding that the marble
used in the villa's floors had been imported from all over the Mediterranean.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


Tags: Archaeology, Vespasian

God’s Covenant with David

In a previous post, I wrote about the Messianic expectation of the Old Testament. In that post I tried to explain how the Messianic hope developed through the centuries. However, in that post I did not explain the origin and the complexity of that hope. As one reader wrote in a comment posted on Facebook, “the concept of Messiah varied greatly from group to group among the Jews. A variety of images appear in the literature describing a Messiah figure.”

His statement is true. It was not my desire in that post to describe the “variety of images” that were present in the Messianic expectation of Israel. These various images were the pieces of the puzzle I alluded to in that post. That would be the subject of another post.

In the present post, I want to discuss the origin of the Messianic hope in the Bible without going into the development of the idea. That, in brief, was the purpose of my first post.

The Messianic hope in the Old Testament begins with God’s covenant with David and God’s promise that David’s throne would be established forever. I consider 2 Samuel 7, the text dealing with God’s covenant with David, to be one of the most important passages in the Old Testament. In this text, God promised to make a house for David, that is, God guaranteed the perpetuity of David’s kingdom by establishing an eternal dynasty for him.

In this post, I will focus on God’s promise to David. God promised that he would be a father to every descendant of David who would sit on David’s throne. I will also deal with two other passages where God’s promise was reaffirmed to a descendant of David.

2 Samuel 7:14

“I will be his father, and he will be my son.”

God’s covenant with David is a unilateral covenant in which God established a new relationship with Israel through David. The Davidic covenant was based upon God’s promise to David that his throne would be established forever. It was an unconditional covenant because it was not based on human behavior. It was God who assured David that his throne would “be established forever” (2 Samuel 7:16). God’s promise to David would bring stability to the monarchy and hope for the permanency of his kingdom in spite of the fact that historical events would threaten the fulfillment of God’s promises.

The promise in 2 Samuel 7:14 was not a reference to Christ and his kingdom, as many interpreters in the past and in the present have understood the passage. In the context of God’s promise to David, the one who would inherit David’s throne and build a house for God’s name would be Solomon:

12 When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.

13 He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever.

14 I will be his father, and he shall be my son. When he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men (2 Samuel 7:12-14).

Although the promise was made to Solomon and after him, to all the sons of David who became king of Judah, none of the kings who sat on the throne of David were able to meet the divine expectations for the ideal king. When Jerusalem was destroyed in 587 B.C. and the dynasty of David came to an end, many people believed that God’s promise to David had failed. However, the people of Israel had to wait many more years, even centuries, before the people could welcome another son of David:

“Hosanna to the Son of David” (Matthew 21:9).

“Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David” (Mark 11:10).

The concept of the Davidic king being the son of God helps to explain two very important texts in the Old Testament: Psalm 2:7 and Isaiah 9:6.

Psalm 2:6-7

“I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.” I will tell of the decree of the LORD: He said to me, “You are my son; today I have begotten you.”

Psalm 2 is a Royal Psalm that was used for the celebration of the investiture of a new king. In this psalm God affirms the son of David to be his chosen one because he continues the kingly line of David. The king was proclaimed to be God’s son on Zion, God’s holy hill. God’s words reaffirmed the selection of a descendant of David to be God’s representative on earth and the election of Jerusalem, the city of David, as the place from which the new king would rule.

The “decree of the Lord” was the royal protocol which was given to the king during the investiture ceremony. This document endowed the new king with legitimacy and authority.

The statement, “You are my son; today I have begotten you” carries two important ideas. First, the expression “You are my son” says that on the day the descendant of David was crowned king, the king developed a new relationship with Yahweh, becoming his representative on earth. The day of the king’s coronation was the day when the divine decree took effect. The idea that the king was God’s son was common in the Ancient Near East. The idea of God as the Father and the king as the son also appears in other texts in the Old Testament (cf. Psalm 89:26-27; 1 Chronicles 28:6). Thus, in Judah, the king became the son of God on the day he ascended to the throne of David.

God’s covenant with David was considered to be an eternal covenant. God promised to David that “Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever” (2 Samuel 7:16). The divine declaration to the new king in Psalm 2:7 served as an affirmation of the divine promise and as a renewal of God’s relationship with the house of David in the person of the new king.

Second, the expression “today I have begotten you” expresses a symbolic “new birth,” a process by which the son of David became the son of God by adoption. Adoption outside of the royal realm was common in Israel. Rachel adopted Bilhah’s son as her own son and Jacob adopted Ephraim and Manasseh, Joseph’s sons, as his own sons (Genesis 48:5). By this process of investiture and adoption, the new Davidic king became an heir of the divine promise to David and a representative of Yahweh before the people.

God’s words in Psalm 2:7 express the adoption of a new king as God’s son the moment this descendant of David assumed the throne to carry out God’s promise to David and rule over God’s people.

Isaiah 9:6

“For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

This passage, Isaiah 9:5-6 (Hebrew 9:4-5) is a hymn celebrating the coronation of a new king. The rejoicing of the people in 9:3-4 (Hebrew 9:2-3) is the result of the celebration at the enthronement of a new king who will conquer the enemies who oppressed the people.

Verse 4 describes the situation of the oppressed people: “For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.” In this verse, the oppressed people are treated like animals of burden. The people carry a heavy yoke upon their shoulders and are forced to labor hard by the rod which chastises them.

The day of the people’s redemption began the day the son of David was crowned king of Judah and ascended the throne of his father. The ascension of a new heir to the throne of David and his adoption by God was seen as the fulfillment of God’s promise to David in 2 Samuel 7:12-14, a promise which brought hope of deliverance from the oppression imposed upon the people of God by the heavy hand of Assyria.

This new king was Hezekiah and the words used by the prophet to describe the new king are the divine ideals for God’s representative and are meant to describe the rule of the one who would sit on David’s throne, but ideals which were never attained by Hezekiah or any other king. It was the failure of the kings of Judah to attain these ideals that forced the people to look to the future and hope for the coming of a new David.

Claude Mariottini

Professor of Old Testament

Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Covenant, David, 2 Samuel 7, Messiah, Psalm 2:7, Isaiah 9:6

The British Museum, Iran, and the Cyrus Cylinder

An article published in The Guardian describes the controversy between the British Museum and Iran over the status of the Cyrus Cylinder. The following is an excerpt from the article:

The discovery of fragments of ancient cuneiform tablets – hidden in a British Museum storeroom since 1881 – has sparked a diplomatic row between the UK and Iran. In dispute is a proposed loan of the Cyrus cylinder, one of the most important objects in the museum's collection, and regarded by some historians as the world's first human rights charter.

The Iranian government has threatened to "sever all cultural relations" with Britain unless the artefact is sent to Tehran immediately. Museum director Neil MacGregor has been accused by an Iranian vice-president of "wasting time" and "making excuses" not to make the loan of the 2,500-year-old clay object, as was agreed last year.

The museum says that two newly discovered clay fragments hold the key to an important new understanding of the cylinder and need to be studied in London for at least six months.

The pieces of clay, inscribed in the world's oldest written language, look like "nothing more than dog biscuits", says MacGregor. Since being discovered at the end of last year, they have revealed verbatim copies of the proclamation made by Persian king Cyrus the Great, as recorded on the cylinder. The artefact itself was broken when it was excavated from the remains of Babylon in 1879. Curators say the new fragments are the missing pieces of an ancient jigsaw puzzle.

Irving Finkel, curator in the museum's ancient near east department, said he "nearly had a coronary" when he realised what he had in his hands. "We always thought the Cyrus cylinder was unique," he said. "No one had even imagined that copies of the text might have been made, let alone that bits of it have been here all along."

Finkel must now trawl through 130,000 objects, housed in hundreds of floor-to ceiling shelving units. His task is to locate other fragments inscribed with Cyrus's words. The aim is to complete the missing sections of one of history's most important political documents.

Read the story in its entirety by visiting The Guardian online.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Archaeology, Cyrus, Cyrus Cylinder, Irving Finkel

The Messianic Expectation of the Old Testament

Most Christians have a great desire to understand the Messianic expectation of the Old Testament. A good way of understanding the Messianic hope of the Old Testament is to understand its basic components. When most people think of prophecy in the Bible, probably what comes to mind is the idea of predicting the future. Most prophecies in the Old Testament are not predictions of the future, but they are the prophets’ attempt to communicate God’s words to their contemporaries.

The so-called Messianic expectation of the Old Testament refers to the coming of the expected or the promised deliverer of Israel. When Christians think about the Messiah, they think about Jesus Christ. To them, Jesus is clearly seen as the promised Messiah and as the fulfillment of the Messianic hope of the Old Testament.

However, the notion of the Messiah who would be a descendant of David and who would come to deliver Israel from their captivity and reestablish the kingdom of David, is a post-exilic phenomenon.

After the reign of David and a few generations after the division of the kingdom, people began looking for a good king, one like David who would reunite Israel and bring the tribes together again. The hope for a new David began to develop after many kings failed to rule righteously. This hope caused the people to begin looking for a new king who would bring back the glories of the Davidic kingdom.

Since most kings in Judah failed to meet the people’s expectation of a righteous king as described in Psalm 72, the people of Judah believed that a new David, “the ideal king,” was needed. Micah’s prophecy of a new David reflects the people’s expectation of their Messiah, their Anointed one:

But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days (Micah 5:2).

By saying that the new ruler would be born in Bethlehem, the prophet was bypassing Jerusalem, the seat of the government and the place where the palace of the king was located. God would go back to the village of Bethlehem, bypassing the city of Jerusalem, to select one who would rule in Israel.

In addition, the king’s origin would be “from of old, from ancient days.” Contrary to English translations which translate “from ôlām” as “from everlasting” (KJV), “from eternity” (HCSB), “from the eternal days” (BBE), the prophet is not referring to the eternity of the new ruler. A better translation is “whose origin goes back to the distant past, to days of long ago.” The days of the distant past, of long ago is a reference to the days of David. What the prophet is saying is that the new ruler will be another David. This is the reason God was going back to Bethlehem, as he did in the days of David, to select a new ruler who would rule over Judah as David did.

When the temple was destroyed and Judah went into exile, the people’s concept of the Messiah changed. The people now began to look for a new king who would restore the nation to its former glory. At the end of the exile, the people thought that the Messiah would come with the rebuilding of the temple in the sixth century. The prophet Haggai proclaimed:

On that day, says the LORD of hosts, I will take you, O Zerubbabel my servant, son of Shealtiel, says the LORD, and make you like a signet ring; for I have chosen you, says the LORD of hosts. (Haggai 2:23).

Zerubbabel was called the Branch (Zechariah 3:8; 6:12) and God’s signet ring (Haggai 2:23). The title “The Branch” is a reference to the Messianic King in Jeremiah 23:5. The title “God’s signet ring” was attributed to King Jehoiachin (Coniah), the son of Jehoiakim in Jeremiah 22:24.

Zerubbabel was not the Messiah and his disappearance produced a great disappointment in the hopes of the post-exilic community. Since no human king met the people’s expectation for the expected deliverer, in time the people began looking for a deliverer who would come in the distant future.

The ideal king would be the one who would come to Israel from the line of David. The new David would lead the people of Israel to power and rule over them in righteousness. Speaking of the new David, Ezekiel said: “My servant David shall be king over them; and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall follow my ordinances and be careful to observe my statutes” (Ezekiel 37:24-25).

Instead of looking at their present for the deliverer, the people began looking ahead, into the future. The people realized that the promise would not have immediate fulfillment. Thus, the promise gradually suffered an adjustment and was transferred to an eschatological fulfillment. This hope for a future deliverer became known as the messianic expectation that found fulfillment in the person of Christ.

A good way to illustrate the people’s expectation of a Messiah is by comparing this expectation to a puzzle. The Messianic expectation of the Old Testament is like a puzzle. With the passing
of time, more and more pieces of the puzzle were put together. In pre-exilic Israel, with the few pieces of the puzzle that the people had, they could not see clearly what the picture was. With the passing of time and with a few more pieces, the picture began to take shape. The people’s understanding of what that picture was, began to take shape.

Finally, in the fullness of time (Galatians 4:4), when all the pieces were put together, the people could see the final picture. The puzzle was not complete until the last piece was put in the puzzle. For Christians, the final piece of the puzzle was Jesus Christ.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


Tags: Hebrew Bible, Old Testament, Messiah, Messianic Hope, New David

The Pope’s Command: Go Forth and Blog

According to a report published by the Associated Press, the Pope has told priests that they should blog in order to spread the gospel and engage in dialogue with people of other cultures. The following is an excerpt from the press release:

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI has a new commandment for priests struggling to get their message across: Go forth and blog.

The pope, whose own presence on the Web has heavily grown in recent years, urged priests on Saturday to use all multimedia tools at their disposal to preach the Gospel and engage in dialogue with people of other religions and cultures.

And just using e-mail or surfing the Web is often not enough: Priests should use cutting-edge technologies to express themselves and lead their communities, Benedict said in a message released by the Vatican.

"The spread of multimedia communications and its rich 'menu of options' might make us think it sufficient simply to be present on the Web," but priests are "challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources," he said.

Read the story in its entirety here.

I think this is a great idea. If the Pope is telling priests to blog and spread the gospel worldwide, then pastors, ministers, and missionaries should also do the same. I am glad that more and more pastors are blogging regularly and sharing the good news through their blogs.

If every priest begins blogging and if at least half of their blogs will deal with biblical topics, then the list of Biblioblog Top 50 will be so long that soon we will have the Biblioblog Top 500.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Blogging

Pictures of Khirbet Qeiyafa

Image: Ostracon from Khirbet Qeiyafa

Blackpetero at 80% Blog has a post with several pictures of Khirbet Qeiyafa. Khirbet Qeiyafa has been identified with the Ella Fortress and the biblical site of Sha’arayim.

Sha’arayim (the town appears in the English Bible as Shaaraim) was a town in the Shephelah. After David killed Goliath, the Philistines fled to Gath and Ekron by the way of Sha’arayim: “The troops of Israel and Judah rose up with a shout and pursued the Philistines as far as Gath and the gates of Ekron, so that the wounded Philistines fell on the way from Shaaraim as far as Gath and Ekron” (1 Samuel 17:52).

Read my posts on Khirbet Qeiyafa:

The Valley of Elah

The Oldest Hebrew Text

The Most Ancient Hebrew Inscription Deciphered

Claude Mariottini

Professor of Old Testament

Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Archaeology, Khirbet Qeiyafa, Elah Fortress, Sha’arayim,

The Location of Solomon’s Temple

In a lecture at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, archaeologist Leen Ritmeyer said that he has found the location of Solomon's Temple.

The following is an excerpt from Ritmeyer’s lecture as published by Baptist Press:

According to Ritmeyer, the original Temple Mount platform measured 500 cubits by 500 cubits. The "royal cubit" used for the temple was 20.67 inches long. Later, King Herod expanded the platform on the Temple Mount, doubling its size. It is the expanded, Herodian platform that tourists in Jerusalem visit today.

***

From information in the Mishnah, he theorized that the temple stood where the Dome of the Rock shrine now stands. If so, the Holy of Holies and the Ark of the Covenant would have rested on the rock inside the Dome of the Rock. Though some archaeologists dispute his claims, Ritmeyer presents a compelling case for his view.

The Mishnah stated that the temple was not located in the center of the 500 cubit by 500 cubit platform but was slightly northwest of center. This gave credence to his view. Ritmeyer then looked for confirmation on the surface of the rock.

The archaeologist saw that the large rock had numerous cuts, lines and indentions on its surface. Many other archaeologists had rejected the rock as a source for clues because of the number of cuts on the surface. Not so with Ritmeyer.

"I look at every stone on the Temple Mount as archaeological evidence," Ritmeyer said.

Ritmeyer searched for marks consistent with the information he knew about the Holy of Holies. Again, he relied on the Bible, historical records and a tape measure to test his theory. He speculated that some of the cuts were made to level the site for the temple's foundation.

Ritmeyer knew the dimensions of the Holy of Holies from 1 Kings 6 -- 20 cubits by 20 cubits. He also knew the thickness of the walls. Ritmeyer discovered that cuts on the rock matched the thickness of the walls and the width of the room. He also found cuts made for the back wall of the Holy of Holies.

Another rectangular mark caught Rimeyer's attention. He believed that this depression was the place the Ark of the Covenant stood in Solomon's Temple. Ritmeyer went to Exodus 25 for the ark's dimensions -- two and a half cubits by a cubit and a half. Using photographs and computers to measure the depression, scholars have found that the cut measures two and a half cubits by two cubits -– ample space to receive the ark.

Ritmeyer has presented a compelling argument for finding the original location of Solomon’s temple. Visit Baptist Press online and read all the evidence Ritmeyer has presented in his search for the location of Solomon’s temple.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


Tags: Archaeology, Leen Ritmeyer, Solomon, Temple

William G. Dever and the Existence of Solomon’s Kingdom

In a recent lecture at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, archaeologist William G. Dever defended the existence of an Israelite state in Palestine during the 10th century B.C., the biblical era of Solomon's reign.

The following in an excerpt from Dever’s lecture:

"Tonight, I want to talk about the age of Solomon, but before I do that, I want to set it up by telling you something about a school of European biblical scholarship," Dever said. "These people call themselves revisionists because they are rewriting the history of ancient Israel, but when they finish, there is no history. They call themselves revisionists. I call them nihilists."

According to Dever, the revisionist scholars deny that an Israelite united monarchy, like the biblical kingdom that flourished under Solomon, ever existed. Dever contested this claim, arguing that the archaeological evidence confirms the existence of a centralized Israelite state in 10th century Palestine.

According to a "wonderful, detailed description" in 1 Kings 9:15-17, the Egyptian pharaoh attacked and destroyed the city of Gezer, Dever said. The pharaoh then gave the city as a dowry to his daughter when she married Solomon. The passage then states that Solomon fortified or refortified four sites: Hazor, Megiddo, Gezer and Jerusalem.

"Wouldn't it be wonderful if we had archaeological evidence from those sites for an early stage? Well, we do," Dever said. "And what do you suppose the revisionists make of this evidence? They just ignore it, because it is inconvenient for their theories."

Dever reported that excavations, especially at Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer, have uncovered "monumental architecture" that cannot be explained without reference to a centralized government. The architecture of each of these cities is adapted to topography for strategic military advantage, but all the cities show the same structural patterns, such as six-chambered gates, double or casemate fortification systems, similar palace structures and Phoenician masonry (according to 1 Kings, Solomon utilized Phoenician craftsmen in his building projects).

These architectural structures can be dated to the 10th century B.C., Dever said, with reference to stratigraphy, ceramic typology and ancient Egyptian chronology. This process is aided by the discovery of destruction levels, filled with rubble and showing evidence of fires "so fierce that it melted the limestone and it flowed down like lava." According to Dever, the destruction can be attributed to the military invasions of the Egyptian Pharaoh Sheshonq, that is, the biblical Shishak (1 Kings 14 and 2 Chronicles 12).

"At one time, there stood a monumental Egyptian inscription at the site of Megiddo celebrating the destruction by Shishak," Dever said. Shishak was the first pharaoh in the 22nd Egyptian dynasty, and archaeological evidence shows that he raided Palestine in the late 10th century B.C. Amid the rubble of destruction, archaeologists also have discovered the hand-burnished pottery characteristic of the 10th century. According to Dever, this implies that the monumental architecture that Shishak and his army destroyed "must have been built a generation or so earlier -- and that places us precisely in the middle of the reign of Solomon."

"Of course, the revisionists argue that, 'Well, you've never found anything from the 10th century, nothing monumental in Jerusalem.' That's true, because we never were able to excavate [in Jerusalem]," Dever said. Jerusalem was the fourth city that Solomon refortified, and it was the center of his kingdom. Despite the lack of access to the archaeological evidence that lies below modern Jerusalem, Dever argued that biblical descriptions of Solomon's Temple resemble other 10th-century temples in the Middle East.

"All the descriptions in the Hebrew Bible," Dever said, "make good sense in the light of what we know about ancient architecture."

Revisionist scholars also contend that a centralized state could not have existed in 10th century Israel because literacy was not widespread, and the knowledge of reading and writing is necessary for the administration of a kingdom. Archaeological evidence like the Gezer calendar, however, has shown that even in rural areas young boys were learning to read during the 10th century and earlier, Dever said.

To read the article in its entirety as published in the Baptist Press, click here.

To learn more about Southwestern Seminary's involvement in biblical archaeology, visit http://www.swbts.edu/ or http://www.gezerproject.org/.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


Tags: Archaeology, Solomon, Minimalists, William Dever

Dead Sea Scrolls Fragments of Daniel Chapter 6

The Baptist Press is reporting that fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls have been acquired by Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. According to the press release, the fragments owned by the seminary include portions of Exodus 23, Leviticus 18 and Daniel 6.

Southwestern Seminary also acquired a pen made from a Palm tree, which was found with the Dead Sea Scrolls and presumably used by the scribes who wrote them. It is only one of three pens known to exist from the Dead Sea Scroll discoveries.

You can read the news release here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


Tags: Archaeology, Dead Sea Scrolls, Daniel 6