Ask Dr. Creasy
Logos classes are typically in a lecture format before a large audience, or here on the Internet. Neither format lends itself to discussion or to asking questions. But most certainly many very good questions arise!
So here is your opportunity to ask them!
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I received the following email today from one of our listeners:
I was listening to Dr. Bill Creasy on your web site. (1 Kings chapter 1, but 2 was listed)
At first I was learning a great deal about 1 Kings chapter 1, but Bill then mentioned how erotic the relationship, the supposed relationship, that King Solomon had with the Shunamite woman. He asked his listening audience to use their imagination inviting us to "imagine" the eroticism between the two.
Bill asked us if any had seen the Godfather. The Godfather was rated R, and had graphic sex.
I think you should discontinue Bill on your web and tell him that pointing to R movies and causing the congregation to imagine the eroticism in the writings of Solomon will cause God's children to stumble. I feel Logos shouldn't be apart of this.
I am a sinful man but have sense enough to keep my mouth shut about lascivious imagination. There is a judgment for those that cause even the weakest of God's children to stumble. A Bible teacher has a stricter judgment.
Thx, Chris Lipscomb
Here's my response to Chris's email. I thought I would share it with you here on the Forum:
Chris,
My staff forwarded your email to me. It deserves a thoughtful answer.
The Bible is a grownup book, and yes--there is plenty of sex and violence in it.
David is one of the great characters in Scripture, but he is certainly not a simple character: he loved titanically; he hated ferociously; and he lived fiercely. And God said: "David is a man after my own heart." God thought so highly of David that he brought his only son into this world through him. But David is also a deeply flawed character, at the core a tribal warlord who had no problem executing people to achieve his ends (e.g., David's advice to Solomon to bring Joab's gray head down to the grave in blood). There are, indeed, a great many parallels between the David story and Francis Ford Copploa's "Godfather," especially Part 1--a movie, by the way, that was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, won 3 and is considered the second best American film ever made, trailing only "Citizen Kane."
As for Solomon's "Song of Songs": it is in fact an erotic love poem, sitting squarely at the center of a literary genre that goes back as far as 5th-3rd century B.C. Sumerian inscriptions and ancient Egypt Ramesside love poetry; it flourishes in the Middle Ages and Renaissance; and it continues to this day, finding expression in literature, music and art--including religious art (e.g., Bernini's 1647 masterpiece, "Ecstasy of St. Theresa").
Our goal at Logos Bible Study is to develop "educated readers of Scripture." That means engaging the text of the Bible as adults, fully armed with all the literary, historical and theological tools necessary to understand God's word as adult readers.
As Paul said to the Corinthians: "I gave you milk, not solid food for you were not yet ready for it" (1 Corinthians 3: 2); adults eat steak. It's time to grow up.
Bill
You're absolutely correct: Jesus says nothing new in the Gospels. In the Gospels Jesus expresses the truths in the Hebrew Scriptures and he does so in striking and memorable ways, probing their inner meaning as he does. For example, in the Sermon of the Mount Jesus says, "You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment" (Matthew 5: 21-22). "You shall not murder" is the sixth commandment given by God in Exodus 20: 13. It refers specifically to the "unlawful, premeditated taking of another person's life." Being subject to judgment refers to Exodus 21: 12 where the punishment for such murder is death. In Jesus' comment on the sixth commandment, he is not telling people not to be angry, in the ordinary meaning of the word: he himself was angry on several occasions. Rather, Jesus understands that the kind of anger that simmers, congeals into hatred and manifests itself in murder is what should be avoided. Murder is the final act in a sequence of events that begins with such anger. When you feel it, deal with it in the anger stage, Jesus says, for as anger develops into hatred and results in a plan to murder, it is too late.
That's one example. There are many others. When Jesus says, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind" and "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22: 37-39), he is simply quoting from Deuteronomy 6: 5 and Leviticus 19: 18. When he then goes on to define "neighbor" to include your enemies, he probes beneath the surface of the law to illuminate its meaning.
Yes, Rabbi Michael and I have talked about this, and we agree: Jesus operates entirely within the framework of 1st century Judaism, albeit it as a radical reformer.
My knowledge of world history is near embarrassing. Is it possible that Darius was king of the Medes and Cyrus was king of the Persians? Or were they officially one empire with only one king (Cyrus) at this point?
One note suggests that Daniel 6:28 can be read a bit differently than the English translation in the NASB, suggesting that Darius is another name of Cyrus. I don't know Aramaic (and I barely know Hebrew - only enough to accidentally fool a few people once a year) so I don't know what to think of this.
Any insights would be very helpful. Thanks!
-Russ
Now THIS really is a “stump the professor” question. I had to do a little research to work out the answer. Like you, Russ, my knowledge of Persian history is rather scant. Here’s what I found.
Yes, Russ: that's correct.
Regarding Nabonidus: it wasn't that Nabonidus wasn't interested in being king; he was on military campaign, and his son was put in charge of governing the kingdom during that time. Someone had to stay home and mind the store!
There is something of a parallel in the Roman Empire. Caesar Augustus is King, but he appoints local men loyal to him to govern specific areas of the Empire. He appointed Herod the Great (37-4 B.C.), for example, as "king" over Israel. Upon his death Herod's son, Herod Antipas, became ruler (4. B.C.- A.D. 39), but he was not given the honorific title of "king" by Caesar. That had to be earned.
As we read the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments, we have to keep in mind that the text emerges out of a time and culture that was: 1) patriarchal, 2) monarchical, 3) polytheistic and 4) slave holding. It would never occur to anyone in biblical times that a society or culture could be structured in any other way. In the world of the Bible, men ran the show; every nation had a king (usually, an absolute monarch); everyone believed in many gods (with the notable exception of the Jews, but only after around 700-500 B.C.); and every society had slaves. These were fixed cultural and societal norms, the framework within which people lived.
Jesus was no exception.
To impose our own values and cultural norms on the Bible produces a wildly distorted reading of the text.
Likewise, transporting a biblical figure into our time and culture and asking what he/she would believe or do can be nothing more than pure speculation.
It's amusing at best, upsetting at worst, to see people appropriate someone like Jesus and use him to support their own 21st-century political or economic ideas. To see placards reading "Jesus was a Socialist" or "To be Against Healthcare Reform is UnChristian" only displays the woeful ignorance of those who wave them. Likewise, those who claim Jesus reflects conservative Republican "family" values and free market economics reveal a stunning misunderstanding of Scripture.
Adam is not only in the Chronicles' genealogy (1 Chronicles 1: 1), he is also in Luke's genealogy of Jesus (Luke 3: 37), and he is mentioned by Paul in Romans 5: 12, 14; 1 Corinthians 15: 22, 45; and 1 Timothy 2: 13, 14 as an important element in Paul's theological arguments in those books.
I think we have to understand Scripture as a literary work that employes a variety of genres: history, myth, folklore, and so on. It is a mistake to read the Bible as a literal account of historical events from beginning to end (which it obviously isn't), and it is also a mistake to read it as wholly myth and folklore (which it is obviously not, either). Given that, I think we have to engage the Bible as a unified literary work which creates--from a variety of sources and genres--its own literary world, what I would call, "the world of the narrative."
As one uses the Bible to "do theology," one accepts statements that are true within the world of the narrative as support for one's position, not trying to dissect Scripture into what is historically factual and accurate and using only that material as support for one's position. Clearly, this is what the author of Chronicles does in presenting his 8-chapter genealogy; what Luke does in Jesus' genealogy; and what Paul does as he crafts his theological arguments in Romans, Corinthians and Timothy.
The "Pillar of Cloud & Fire" first appears in Exodus 13: 21-22, where we read: "By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people." This is technically called a "theophany," a physical manifestation of God. As I understand it, there is only one pillar: by day in the bright sunlight it appears to be a "cloud," but in the darkness one can see fire flashing about inside the cloud.
When the Israelites erect the tabernacle at the end of Exodus (c. 1445 B.C.), ". . . the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle" (Exodus 40: 34). Later (c. 959 B.C.), when Solomon completes the Temple in Jerusalem, the pillar relocates to the Holy of Holies in the Temple: "When the priests withdrew from the Holy Place, the cloud filled the temple of the Lord. And the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled his temple" (1 Kings 8: 10), where it stays until c. 592 B.C. Because of the Israel's astounding unfaithfulness, the pillar of cloud & fire leaves the Temple in a series of passages: Ezekiel 9: 3; 10: 4, 18-19; 11: 22-23. The pillar moves from over the Holy of Holies to the Temple's threshold and then to the eastern gate. It then moves across the Kidron Valley, up the western side of the Mount of Olives, and it disappears as it moves down the eastern side, toward Jericho. After Ezekiel 11: 22-23, we never see the pillar of cloud & fire again.
If the pillar of cloud & fire is a physical manifestation of God, however, we may argue that God reappears at the Temple in the physical form Jesus, as Jesus enters Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, moving from Bethany (on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives), over the crest of the Mount, down its western slope, across the Kidron valley and to the Temple itself--a mirror image of the path the pillar of cloud & fire took when it departed the Temple.
Nconway, Thank you for letting us know about the missing lecture material. Turns out I posted an older, unfinished lecture for Matthew 1:1-3:13 however, the new one is now posted and covers all of the material from Matthew 1:1-3:13. Please re-listen to this new lesson. Thank you so much!
Andrew - Logos Website Administrator
Julie--What a good topic!
As I see it, we must make a careful distinction between forgiveness of sins and the consequences of those sins. Forgiveness has to do with healing a relationship; it does not cancel consequences. In other words, I can forgive you for something you've done against me, but my forgiveness does not cancel the consequences of your actions. For example, if you were one of my employees and you stole from Logos Bible Study and were caught doing so, I may forgive you for what you've done, and that could go a long way toward healing a serious breach in our relationship. But I would still fire you, and if the amount were significant, I may well prosecute you and see you go to jail. That's a very important moral and ethical distinction.
In the case of terrorism, an act is committed against the nation as a whole, and we have every right to defend ourselves against such acts using proportional means. If an act of terrorism is committed, then we have every right to hunt down the perpetrators, bring them to justice, and ensure that they don't do it again.
Forgiving a terrorist for his action may lay the groundwork for a future relationship, but it most certainly does not remove the consequences of that action, which may be criminal prosecution in a civil or military court (depending on whether we view the act as a crime or an act of war). Once such prosecution occurs, then the verdict should be carried out: imprisonment or possible death, if the act warrants it.
Jesus, of course, doesn't address this question directly, but we can certainly apply the principles he lays out to a variety of specific cases.
As a funny footnote: Right after 9/11 I gave a talk on the Middle East at a Presbyterian church here in San Diego. When question time came, a woman stood up and asked (rather indignantly): "As Christians, do we not have the obligation to forgive Osama bin Laden?" I replied (in a rather inspired moment, I thought): "It's God's obligation to forgive Osama bin Laden; it's the United States Marine Corps' obligation to arrange the meeting."
Do you have any comments on this website on your approach to his thinking?
Ooops! You forgot to attach the web site link!
No, I really don’t discuss Darwin or evolution in my classes. In Scripture we have a clear portrayal of God creating the world and all that is in it: in Genesis 1 & 2, in the Psalms and elsewhere. The Bible is a literary work, though; it is not a scientific treatise. The Bible address God creating all that is; science addresses how he did so. I would no more use the Bible as the basis for scientific inquiry than I’d use a science text to address the structural and rhetorical techniques of poetic or narrative form.
The Church made this mistake in times past, the most famous episode being Galileo’s championing of Copernicanism, which viewed the universe as being heliocentric, rather than geocentric. For his efforts, Galileo was roundly condemned by the Church, as well as by a majority of the scholars and philosophers of his day. The Roman Inquisition officially denounced him in 1616 on the basis that his views were “false and contrary to Scripture.” Church authorities required that he publically “abjure, curse and detest” his position, and he was imprisoned (the sentence later commuted to house arrest). It wasn’t until October 31, 1992—376 years later—that Pope John Paul II acknowledged the errors committed by the church in condemning Galileo’s position. In March 2008 the Vatican erected a statue of Galileo inside the Vatican walls, and in December of 2008 Pope Benedict XVI officially praised his contributions to science and astronomy!
The Bible teaches us profound truths about God and about our relationship to him, but it does so through a literary medium, using a variety of literary forms and techniques. Using the Bible to address scientific questions about creation and the natural world is a mistake, in my view, and those who do so almost always end up looking silly, foolish . . . or worse.
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That's a great question. In fact, I've written a whole article on the logistics of Paul's travels. Check out "On the Road with Paul" in the "Bible Articles" section of "Bible Study Resources." That should bring you right up to speed.
Now that’s a tough question! Of all the theological concepts in Scripture, I think the Trinity is the most difficult to grasp and the most difficult to explain clearly. I’ll take a stab at it here.
The word “trinity” is not used in the Bible, either in the Old Testament or the New, although the concept is implied in both. In the Old Testament, one name for God is “Elohim,” a plural noun, and in Genesis 1: 26 God says: “Let us make man in our image” (plural pronouns). In the New Testament, Matthew 28: 19 tells us to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, clearly associating the three, and in 2 Corinthians 13: 14 Paul ends his epistle by saying, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” There are countless other examples in both the Old and New Testaments that suggest the triune nature of God.
The explicit concept of the Trinity is not fully formulated, however, until the fourth century at the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325. At the Council the early church Fathers defined the relationship between the Father and the Son as being “of the same substance” (the Greek word is homoousios). The concept was further developed to include the Holy Spirit in the formula “three persons, one substance” (again, homoousios). This formula finds its clearest expression in the Nicene Creed, which Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant churches still use today: “. . . God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in being (homoousios ) with the Father.” The statement is a central principle of orthodox Christianity.
As Roger E. Olson points out in The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition and Reform (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1999), the ancient world did not view a person in the modern Western sense of an “individual, self-actualized center of free will and conscious activity” (pp. 185-6); rather, a person “was in some sense individual, but always [existed] in community as well” (p. 186). Seen from this perspective, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit exist as three distinct persons(the Greek is hypostases), but as one being.
As modern readers rooted in a very different cultural context, that’s a difficult idea to grasp. The most common modern illustration of the Trinity is H2O: two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom are covalently bonded into one distinct molecule, but the molecule exists in three forms: as solid (ice), liquid (water) and gas (steam). That’s not a perfect illustration, but it helps. Another illustration might be you or me. I am one distinct being, but I exist as several different persons: father (to my sons), son (to my father) and teacher (to you). Again, that’s not a great illustration, but it helps.
The church father St. Augustine said that anyone who denies the Trinity is in danger of losing his salvation, but anyone who tries to understand the Trinity is in danger of losing his mind. That said, St. Augustine wrote the single best book on the subject, The Trinity (De Trinitate). A classic but difficult read, it’s available in paperback at www.amazon.com.
Thank you for your kind words about the web site. It's very good to hear that Logos Bible Study is helpful to you. I'm honored and blessed that you are a Logos student!
Several people have asked about the teaching sequence for the books of the Bible that I use in class. In live classes I alternate between the Old and New Testaments. I do so for two reasons: first, most people are more familiar with the New Testament than with the Old, so I have to get to the New Testament fast. If we began with Genesis and pushed through to Revelation, it would be year 5 before we got to Matthew! Second, by weaving back and forth between the Old and New Testaments, I can weave the fabric of Scripture. The Old Testament foreshadows the New, and the New completes the Old. It's a nice way to demonstrate the unity of the text.
Beyond that, I group books that go together: Exodus/Leviticus are a pair; Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs are a trio (all written by Solomon); Luke/Acts go together; and so on. Sometimes, though, I just like to get to a book in the New Testament because we've been in the Old Testament for a while, or vise versa.
I'd recommend following such a pattern, although there is certainly nothing wrong with a more open approach: studying the books that most interest you at the present time, that follow a set liturgical order, or that are part of another class you may be taking.
I do plan to write detailed curricula as the site develops, a set of teaching materials that offer a variety of approaches suited to people's varying needs. I think this would help guide newer Bible students, and it would also help teachers use the site for Sunday School classes, as well as help pastors who follow a set liturgical order in their worship services, and so on. This is in the hopper.
Hope this helps.
And, yes, I'd certainly be interested in teaching in the Inland Empire. A good approach might be to do a day-long Saturday seminar on a topic that would interest your audience. Just let me know and we can get the wheels in motion.
Dan--Thanks for the question. Melchizedek is Melchizedek! I don't think we need to see him as the pre-incarnate Christ, Shem, or any other veiled character.
Both Genesis 14 and Hebrews 7 present Melchizedek as "king of Salem and priest of God Most High," a distinct character in his own right, who functions as an archetype of Christ, the great high priest.
I don't view him as the pre-incarnate Christ, since the pre-incarnate Christ appears consistently in the Hebrew Scriptures in the figure of "the angel of the Lord."
Russ--Sorry it's taken so long to get back to you. Technical elements of launching the site have eaten up all my hours!
Most certainly Israel will be back in the land, prior to the coming of "The Great and Dreadful Day of the Lord," which we see play out in Revelation. Whether the resurrection of modern Israel as a nation on May 14, 1948 is this return to the land or not is a matter of legitimate debate. I'm rather skeptical, although I fully understand why some think so.
Applying the fulfillment of prophecy to current events is always tricky. Remember how those writing about prophecy invariably identified Gog and Magog with the former Soviet Union; how the European Union was viewed as the renewed Roman Empire, etc. As history moves on, such interpretations fall by the wayside, and those who misread the times adapt their views, and so go on selling their books.
My honest assessment is to wait and see. Is modern-day Israel, in fact, a viable nation, given the global geopolitical landscape and Israel's fierce oppression of the Palestinian people? Will biblical prophecy be fulfilled in the near future, or will modern-day Israel simply fall by the side of the road? Time will tell.
The Bible calls specifically for capital punishment under a variety of circumstances. The main reference is Genesis 9: 5-6--"And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting . . . for the life of his fellow man. 'Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.'"
In the Ten Commandments, the sixth is properly translated (as it is in the NIV): "You shall not murder." It refers specifically to the unlawful, premeditated taking of another person's life. It does not refer to killing animals, self defense, killing in war or judicial killing--all of which are treated separately throughout Scripture. And there is nothing in the New Testament that contradicts this. When Jesus says, "You have heard it said to the people long ago 'do not murder' . . . but I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment" (Matthew 5: 21), he is probing beneath the surface of the commandment. He is not telling you never to be angry: Jesus himself was angry on several occasions. He is saying that murder is the final step in a sequence of actions that begins with the kind of anger that congeals into hatred and manifests itself in a plan to get even by murder. When you feel that kind of anger, he says, deal with it in its early stage, for when you step out of the bushes and put two rounds into your adversary's head, it is too late.
Of all the crimes that one might commit, the unlawful, premeditated taking of another person's life (murder) is the only crime for which one cannot make restitution. The victim is quite simply dead. The only morally just punishment for such an act is to take the life of the person who committed it. One can argue against capital punishment from a variety of perspectives--social, behavioral, etc.--but one cannot reasonably argue against it biblically. Obviously, there are circumstances that mitigate the act of murder, such as mental illness, the age of the perp, etc. In a very important sense, the Ten Commandments are ten principles that must be applied in specific cases, taking the circumstances of a case into account. But the principle of justice should remain intact.
I deal with this to some extent in the lessons that include Exodus 20 and Matthew 5.
On at least three occasions Paul claims legal rights under Roman law, by asserting his Roman citizenship. When Paul claims to be a Roman citizen, do the authorities simply take him at his word, or does he have some way of proving his assertion?
The Roman Empire of Paul’s day was a hierarchical and class-conscious society. In general, Roman society could be divided into two categories: 1) the upper classes, which included the senatorial class and the equestrian class and 2) the lower classes, which included the commons, Latins, freed people and slaves.
When Paul is asked by the Roman commander in Jerusalem, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?” Paul answers, “Yes, I am.” To which the commander replies, “I had to pay a big price for my citizenship.” And Paul says, “But I was born a citizen” (Acts 22: 27-28). The Roman commander had probably been a man captured in war and sold into slavery, but who had bought his freedom and become a member of the freed people; Paul, however, was born a Roman citizen and was probably a member of the commons.
Since Roman citizenship carried such important legal benefits as the ability to enter into contracts, the right to a trial in the presence of one’s accusers, and the right of judicial appeal, Paul doubtless would have carried evidence of his citizenship during his extensive travels throughout the Roman Empire.
The University of Michigan’s Papyrus Collection offers a sample of such evidence. Among its collections is a wood and wax document certifying the Roman citizenship of Marcus Cornelius Iustus. Dating from A.D. 103, the document measures 13.5 x 7.2 cm (roughly 4 ½ x 2 ½ inches, slightly smaller than a 3 x 5 index card). The document is durable, and it is easily portable.
Although claiming to be a Roman citizen when one is not was a grave offense under Roman law, it would have been much easier for Paul simply to carry such documentation, much as we carry a passport when we travel today.
You can see a detailed description and photos of the document in the University of Michigan’s Papyrus Collection by clicking on this link: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/i/image/image-idx?id=S-APIS-X-1617%5D2737W....
