Typology, Jehu, and Christ

In a previous post, I addressed the issue of the use of typology in biblical interpretation. The issue was raised by Pauline Viviano, Associate Professor of Theology at Loyola University Chicago, in her review of Peter Leithart’s commentary on 1 & 2 Kings, Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2006).

In another post, I mentioned that Peter J. Leithart, in response to Viviano’s criticism, wrote a blog defending his use of typology in his commentary on 1 & Kings.

In this ongoing discussion between Pauline Viviano and Peter Leithart on the use of typology, Viviano has written a blog in response to Leithart’s comments. The following is an excerpt of Viviano’s response to Leithart’s comments:

Once I "discover" that putting garments on the ground before Jehu bears a similarity to the people putting garments on the ground before Jesus on Palm Sunday, must I conclude that Jehu is a type of Christ? Is that all it takes? Is the brutality of Jehu simply to be disregarded or do I also apply that to Christ in some clever fashion? But even if I accept that this one sentence correspondence between the Old Testament and the New makes Jehu a type of Christ, then what have I learned? Does it draw me into a deeper understanding of who God is and what God is about? Does it inspire me to become a more loving human being?

The early Christians read the Old Testament through the lens of the Jesus event. I have no problem with that. We all read the text through some lens. Some today try to understand the biblical text from within its historical context (Historical Critical Method) or from within its literary context (New Literary Criticism; Rhetorical Criticism). Others interpret the biblical text privileging the position of the poor (Liberation criticism); others focus on gender issues (Feminist criticism). These methods and others are different and valid ways to approach the biblical text. What I object to is the notion that reading typologically, or any approach in search of the spiritual sense of the text, IS the theological reading of the text and what contemporary biblical scholars do is not theological. I find what contemporary biblical scholars are doing to be profoundly theological. Maybe the problem is that some just don't like the theological insights that we have gained from contemporary biblical interpretation and want to return to those "good old days" of the early Church Fathers ignoring entirely that not only has the world changed, but also that "the good old days" weren't all that good.

Read Viviano’s comments here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Eisegesis, Exegesis, Hermeneutics, Interpretation, Pauline Viviano, Peter Leithart,
Typology

Typology and Biblical Interpretation

In my previous post, "The Use of Typology in Biblical Interpretation," I wrote about Pauline Viviano’s criticism of typology as a valid exegetical tool in biblical interpretation. Her criticism came in her review of Peter Leithart’s commentary on 1 & 2 Kings, Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2006).

Peter J. Leithart has written a blog in response to Pauline Viviano’s criticism of his use of typology in his commentary on 1 & Kings. In his comments, Leithart addresses some of the issues Viviano raised in her review of the book.

The following is an excerpt of Leithart’s comments:

No doubt Hellenism had its influence on early church hermeneutics, but can after the last hundred years of study of patristic and medieval exegesis can anyone still accept this as an accurate summary of what the church fathers were after? Can anyone doubt that Paul read the Old Testament (at least, portions of it) "typologically"? As Viviano says, I have to answer with a resounding "NO!" Paul even uses the word "type" to describe what he finds in the Old Testament narrative (1 Corinthians 10). Can de Lubac's work have had so little effect, on Catholic biblical scholars?

Of my suggestion that Jehu is a type of Christ, she writes, "Among the most puzzling is Jehu as a type of Christ. You remember Jehu, don't you? He was the general of Israel's army who led a coup in which he butchered the previous dynasty and burned to death the worshippers of Baal whom he had locked in their temple. If you couldn't find the similarity to Christ here, you are not alone; I couldn't find it either."

She's writing for a blog, so we don't expect an argument; but, for anyone who didn't notice, it's worth pointing out that this isn't one - an argument, that is. She takes what she believes to be the most un-Christlike actions of Jehu and then throws up her hands. But isn't she even a wee bit intrigued by the fact that Jehu's men lay their garments on the ground as they proclaim him king? Mightn't this just possibly be a foreshadowing of some other king before whom a crowd of followers laid down their garments?

Leithart’s conclusion is that “Viviano's objection is not really to my hermeneutics; it's to my theology.”

Read Leithart’s blog by clicking here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Eisegesis, Exegesis, Hermeneutics, Interpretation, Pauline Viviano, Peter Leithart,
Typology

The Use of Typology in Biblical Interpretation

The use of typology in biblical interpretation has been a common method employed by many Christian writers to mine the hidden truths of the Bible. Typology can be defined as the correspondence between Old Testament and New Testament events that explains the work of God in the Old Testament as type of what God was accomplishing in the life and ministry of Christ. Typology is based on the belief that people and events in the Old Testament find their true meaning in the events of the New Testament.

Those who adopt typology as a valid method of interpretation believe that what God did in the lives of some persons and in some events in the Old Testament is the valid key to understand what God did in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ and in the ministry of the early church.

The validity of typology as an exegetical tool has been raised by Pauline Viviano, Associate Professor of Theology at Loyola University Chicago, in her review of Peter Leithart’s commentary on 1 & 2 Kings, Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2006). Viviano raises several issues about the typological interpretation of 1 and 2 Kings. The following is an excerpt of Viviano’s comments:

Of the many criticisms of the work of biblical scholars the one I have most recently been "attacked" with is that we are not theological enough, so it was with some eagerness that I agreed to review a theological commentary on 1 & 2 Kings. My eagerness was diminished somewhat when I discovered that the commentators for this series were chosen for "their expertise in using the Christian doctrinal tradition" and not for their "historical or philological expertise." But I was willing to enter into the "world of the text" and see how "doctrine provides structure and cogency to scriptural interpretation."

The author's preferred method of interpretation was to treat the people and events of the books of Kings typologically. Typology was a method of interpretation much in vogue among the early Church Fathers. In typology the events and people of the Old Testament are thought to foreshadow or prefigure what is fulfilled with the coming of the Messiah. The events and people of the Old Testament become "types" of the events and people in the New Testament. The typology of the early Church Fathers was grounded in philosophical and hermeneutical assumptions drawn from the Hellenistic philosophies of the time which were heavily influenced by Platonism. In their worldview typology made sense and over the centuries extreme typologies were forgotten and the Church was left with the more sensible typologies that we continue to find in liturgy and are artistically rendered in stained glass windows. Can we "resurrect" typological interpretation and by means of it find a theologically satisfying understanding of the Bible today? After reading this commentary on Kings I would have to answer with a resounding "no!"

The author was able to find the most amazing "types;" they are literally on every page of the commentary. Among the most puzzling is Jehu as a type of Christ. You remember Jehu, don't you? He was the general of Israel's army who led a coup in which he butchered the previous dynasty and burned to death the worshippers of Baal whom he had locked in their temple. If you couldn't find the similarity to Christ here, you are not alone; I couldn't find it either. My favorite quote from the book is "Moses is Elijah is John; Joshua is Elisha is Jesus. Yet also, Moses is Elijah is Jesus, and Joshua is Elisha is the church." If you can unpack this quote for me, please do so; it just makes me giggle. It was clear after the first few pages of this commentary that every number "3" in the books of Kings was going to be taken as a foreshadowing of the Resurrection; every body of water, a reference to Baptism; and every anointing, messianic. The story of Elisha and the floating ax head is seen as a type of both Resurrection and Baptism! I have many more examples, but I think my point has been made: this "resurrected" form of typological exegesis is just plain silly.

Read Viviano’s comments in its entirety by clicking here.

I tend to agree with Viviano’s comments. In the name of typology, commentators of the biblical text have found Christ where Christ should not be found. Sometimes, even a bad translation of the biblical text allows for a typological interpretation of the text, as I have demonstrated in my post on the sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22:8. Interpreters must be very careful not to interject their own preconceived ideas into the text. This form of interpretation is not exegesis; it is eisegesis.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Eisegesis, Exegesis, Hermeneutics, Interpretation, Pauline Viviano, Peter Leithart, Typology

Atheists and the Bible

In my interview with Jim West published in Biblioblog, I said a few words about atheists that caused Duane Smith’s heart “to skip a beat.”

In response to what I wrote, Duane wrote a post, “Who Can ‘Fully’ Interpret the Bible?” in which he takes issue with what I said about atheists and biblical interpretation. Read his post and learn the full scope of his argument.

Jim West comments on my statement and Duane’s response in a post titled “Duane Smith v. Claude Mariottini” and presents the dialogue as an adversarial argument between atheist Duane and Christian Claude. Jim concludes his post by saying that “in some respects Claude is right. In some respects Duane is right.”

I will begin this post by responding to some of Duane’s arguments. It is possible that I made a mistake by putting all atheists in one group. Duane classifies himself “as a secular student with an interest in the Hebrew Bible.” Thus, his position on the Bible makes him different from the strident atheist whose sole aim is to ridicule the Bible.

Duane is a secular person who believes “that the Bible has had a tremendous influence on Western civilization.” His view is completely different from Bertrand Russell who believed that every bit of human progress in law, morality, and science has been opposed because of the teaching of the Bible. In his lecture “Why I Am Not A Christian,” Russell wrote: “A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men.”

Atheists like Bertrand Russell, Robert Ingersoll, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens approach the Bible with such a negative view that for them, the Bible is a book of lies and contradictions and the work of a demon. Strident atheists share Voltaire’s view of the Bible. Voltaire defined the Bible as “what fools have written, what imbeciles command, what rogues teach.”

So, how can strident atheists interpret the Bible when they do not believe in God, deny the possibility of revelation, reject the concept of inspiration, do not believe in divine intervention, faith, prayer, the possibility of miracles, or the concept of divine justice?

I agree with Jim West when he said that atheists “can be extraordinarily good historians and philologians.” Atheists can relate some historical events of the Bible to Assyrian and Babylonian histories, but the Bible is more than just a book of history. It is a religious book written by people of faith who believed that God had entered human history.

Atheists can study the words of the Bible (either in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek) and understand precisely what the words mean and what the words communicate. But the Bible is more than just letters: “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:6).

Duane has two criticisms which he believes disprove my argument. First, he said that “in order to provide as full an interpretation of a text as possible, the interpreter must be part of that text’s living tradition.” By this he means that for a proper interpretation of the text the interpreter must be alive when the text was written.

But this argument is not true. Albert Einstein's theory of relativity is very complicated but scientists can understand the theory of relativity today even though many of them were not alive when Einstein developed it. In addition, the Bible is different. “The word of God is living and active” (Hebrews 4:12). Because the word of God is living, then the believer does not need to have been alive when the word was written because the word is alive today, at a time when the believer is alive. The word of God makes itself contemporary with the believer. Thus, the believer becomes part of the text’s living tradition.

Second, Duane said: “Claude would be justifiably upset if I claimed he couldn’t fully understand Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens because he isn’t an atheist.”

But the fact is that I can. The works of Dawkins and Hitchens are only words and anyone can read words and understand precisely what the words mean and what the words communicate. Notwithstanding all the enthusiasm and the bravado in Dawkins’ and Hitchens’ words, they are, after all, only words.

The Bible, on the other hand, is the living word of the living God. And, that word became human and lived here on earth among us (John 1:14). This truth is hard for atheists to accept.

It is God who teaches us to understand his word. This is the reason the Psalmist prayed: “Teach me” (Psalm 119:12). So, the proper understanding of the Bible requires divine instruction. But how can people call on him in whom they have not believed? And that is the dilemma atheists face.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Atheists, Bible, Interpretation

Rereading Micah 6:4: Miriam, A Leader in Israel

Feminist hermeneutic has made an impact on biblical scholarship because it has demonstrated to interpreters that the biblical text reflects the patriarchal views of the society which gave birth to the text. In addition, feminist interpreters have shown that some of these same patriarchal values and concerns have affected biblical translations.

Feminist writers like to emphasize that the stories in the Bible were written by men for men. In many stories about women in the Old Testament, women remain nameless, as in the case of Jephthah’s daughter and the concubine that was raped and then dismembered or they remain voiceless, their voices only heard through the voice of the male redactor.

The portrayal of Miriam in the biblical text may demonstrate how the biblical writers lessened her influence as one of the leaders of the Israelite community at the time Israel journeyed through the wilderness.

The purpose of this study is to look at Miriam and how she is portrayed in the biblical text and then focus on Micah 6:4 and how the NIV portrays Miriam in its translation of that text.

Miriam appears in five books of the Old Testament: Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, 1 Chronicles, and Micah. Her name appears 15 times in these books, but only 13 in the NIV. On two occasions, in Numbers 12:10 and Numbers 12:15, the NIV uses the pronoun “she” instead of using Miriam’s name, as do most translations.

In Miriam’s first appearance in the biblical text, she is the nameless sister of Moses who watches him on the waters of the Nile. She is called only “his sister” (Exodus 2:4). In this text the reader can see the initiatives taken by Miriam: Miriam speaks to Pharaoh’s daughter and offers to find someone to take care of the child. Because of her, Moses lived his formative years with his own mother. Because of Miriam, Moses lives and does not die. Miriam saves her brother before he can save a single Hebrew.

In Exodus 15:20, Miriam is calledהנביאה “the prophetess.” A prophet (נביא) is a person called by God. Miriam was called by God to lead the people together with Moses and Aaron. Miriam was assigned a prophetical role because she led the community in celebrating God’s victory over the Egyptian army:

“Sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea” (Exodus 15:21).

And yet, the song of Miriam has been attributed to Moses:

“Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the LORD, saying, 'I will sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea'” (Exodus 15:1).

Some scholars have proposed that Miriam’s song was a response to Moses’ song. However, a critical review of Moses’ song in Exodus 15 reveals that the song was written many years after the events. Miriam’s song may be an old composition celebrating Israel’s crossing on the sea. Moses received the credit for the song, but it was Miriam who led Israel in celebrating God’s victory.

In Numbers 12:1-15 there is a controversy over the issue of leadership. In Numbers 12:2, Aaron and Miriam asked Moses: “Has the LORD indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?” (Numbers 12:12). However, Numbers 12:1 attributes the controversy to questions about Moses’ Cushite wife.

The text is not clear on the nature of the conflict, but it seems that Miriam was raising an issue that reflected a concern in the community. Although both Aaron and Miriam are involved in this controversy, only Miriam was punished as a result of this challenge to Moses’ leadership. The public nature of her punishment may indicate that the issue was of interest to the whole community.

That Miriam was a leader in Israel is clearly seen in Micah 6:4: “For I brought you up from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery, and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam” (Micah 6:4 ESV).

In this text Miriam is named as one of the leaders of Israel, together with Moses and Aaron, whom God sent to lead the people out of Egypt. The prophet Micah lists Moses, Aaron, and Miriam as the three leaders of Israel.

Thus, Micah’s statement reflects an ancient tradition that affirms that Miriam had a very significant leadership role in early Israelite history, a role that in later writing was downgraded partly in order to promote Moses as the prominent leader of Israel. Although the biblical text refers to Moses and Aaron as the leaders of the community, the text in Micah 6:4 reveals that Miriam was their equal.

Anderson and Freeman acknowledge the importance of Micah’s statement. They wrote: “What makes Micah’s simple statement so remarkable, and so puzzling, is the fact that nowhere in the tradition are the three siblings presented in a shared leadership role” (p. 519).

However, the NIV’s translation of Micah 6:4 looks like an attempt to diminish Miriam as a leader in Israel. The NIV translates: “I brought you up out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery. I sent Moses to lead you, also Aaron and Miriam” (Micah 6:4 NIV). The same translation is found in the TNIV.

This translation does not reflect the biblical text. All the other translations reflect the Hebrew text: “For I brought you up from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery, and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam” (Micah 6:4 ESV).

The translation of the NIV takes away the unique leadership role Miriam had in the community. By separating Aaron and Miriam from Moses, the NIV elevates Moses’ position (“I sent Moses to lead you”) and diminishes Miriam almost to an afterthought (“also . . . Miriam”).

The leadership role of Miriam is also diminished in the biblical text. In Psalm 77:20 the name of Miriam is omitted from the list of leaders in Israel: “You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.” Where is Miriam? Her position as a leader of Israel was marginalized by the Psalmist. The memory of what Miriam did for the community was forgotten, consigned to an ideology that minimized the contribution of women to their society.

Reading and interpreting the biblical text is not easy. At times, a translator, in order to make sense of a text, applies methods of interpretation that may reflect cultural and theological biases.

The NIV diminishes Miriam by omitting her name twice. Furthermore, the addition of the word “also” by the translators of the NIV and TNIV gives a slant to the text that serves to undervalue the role of Miriam as a leader in Israel. I do not know whether this addition to the text was intentional. However, the resulting translation has a strong theological overtone, one which may reflect an undercurrent of patriarchy.

In my judgment, the translation of Micah 6:4 in the NIV and the TNIV is not acceptable.

Reference: Francis I. Andersen and David Noel Freedman, Micah: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. New York: Doubleday, 2000.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Aaron, Femenist Hermeneutics, Interpretation, Micah 6:4, Miriam, Moses, Translation

The Book of Isaiah and Zionism

An article published in Israel Today gives a very interesting perspective on the book of Isaiah. The article reads in part:

People often maintain that the Old Testament, in contrast to the New Testament, is defined by a Debit and Credit system of laws. But that is simply not true.

One example of this is the book of Isaiah. Modern theologians have invented the Deutero-Isaiah theory, which claims that the second part of Isaiah was written later than the first by another author. Their works were later compiled together under the name of the first author, the “real” Isaiah.

However, anyone who really looks at Isaiah in context will see clearly that there were not two of them who supposedly contradicted each other, but rather there was one writer who prophesied regarding two different periods of time.

In chapters 1 to 39, Isaiah prophecies about the destruction of the Temple (70 AD) and the banishment of the Jews from Israel (135 AD). Then from chapter 40 to the end, Isaiah prophecies about the end of the Jewish Diaspora when modern- day Zionism begins, fulfilled by the founding of the State of Israel.

The last statement of this article reveals the problem some people have in interpreting a biblical text. To say that Isaiah 1-39 contains prophecies about the banishment of Israel in 135 AD and that Isaiah 40-66 speaks about the Zionist movement of the last two centuries is a clear evidence of infusing the text with ideas that were never present in the mind of the original writer.

The correct interpretation of a biblical text is a difficult enterprise. The task of explaining the meaning of a text requires at least three very important hermeneutical principles:

1. The interpreter must make an attempt at understanding what the original writer meant to communicate to his primary audience.

2. The interpreter must discover what the primary audience or the recipients of the message understood the original writer to be communicating to them.

3. The interpreter must understand the simple meaning of the message that is actually conveyed by the words of the text.

As humans, we come to a biblical text with our set of biases and presuppositions that are mediated through our religious experiences and personal history. Thus, our cultural background, our religious experience, and our prior knowledge influence what we read and how we understand the biblical text.

The statement above does not meet the three criteria for a good interpretation of the biblical text and reflect the kind of bias that brings into the text an interpretation that was never intended by the writer or writers of the book of Isaiah.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Hermeneutics, Interpretation, Isaiah, Zionism