There is an article today on the recent church burnings in Canada and it said the mass grave story was disproven not yet proven
Just to be clear, what is alleged is not “mass graves” but “unmarked graves”.
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I figured it was clear these mass unmarked graves were real, but as with so many things, it’s a little more complicated than that
Yes, the scope of the issue still needs to be unfolded.
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But that’s exactly what Second Temple Judaism considered them to be:
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Paul didn’t say “spiritual forces of wickedness” as a metaphor, he meant it literally just as any Second Temple Jew would have, just as literally as the demons Jesus cast out. Taking them any other way is the sort of thinking that ended up dismissing the Resurrection – de-supernaturalizing. It’s not “learning how to read”, it’s stripping out the content of what Paul wrote.
You don’t write this kind of thing if you’re just using a metaphor:
Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand
> against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh
> and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the
> cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of
> evil in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of
> God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done
> all, to stand firm.
Love this statement:
“…there’s no New Testament doctrine of ostriches built on Old Testament ostrich content, but
there’s plenty of New Testament doctrine built on (or which presumes) Old
Testament conflict with a cosmic enemy that becomes known as Satan. There’s
plenty of that. And demonic forces that oppose God’s people, there’s plenty of
that. Sorry, but Satan and demons material is not like Old Testament mentions of
ostriches because the New Testament builds on that Old Testament content.”
If there were just one or two minor references to Satan and demons in the New Testament I could grant the Waltons some validity here, but the theme is too strong, too bluntly stated, and too common. Some spots ccould be taken as being figurative, but not the majority. Heiser is pretty energetic in his critique, but as he builds his case that makes sense.
I see this as an extension of Walton’s silly claim that Genesis 1 isn’t in any way about creation of a physical universe; he grabbed what seemed like a good idea and pushed it to ridiculous lengths.
I thought of the angel angle before Heiser raised it, but I have an additional question: If it wasn’t a heavenly being, who told Mary she would have Jesus? Did she dream it?
One of the final points is important here because we have people who make the same mistake:
They apply the scientific thinking to things on which science can’t comment—i.e., the spiritual world. . . . They are forcing a modern cognitive environment (one that is scientific) on items that cannot be tested by science.
I have to say I’m almost totally with Heiser on this one, and very, very disappointed in both Waltons.
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Definitely. Lutherans love to talk about “the breaking in of the Kingdom of God” and how it’s part of the already but not yet, in this case about the new Creation.
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I think consigning those spiritual forces to embodied figures such as might ride horses across the sky does make them less real - much less real than recognizing these spiritual forces as the very things that are operational within us and our communities, economies, and nations. And I’m not convinced that these early apostles - at least not after Jesus painfully pounded out of them their propensity to reduce his teachings to mere literal things (as if his teachings were actually about yeast instead of about what he was using ‘yeast’ to represent) - after the apostles grew up into Jesus’ message ("learning to read if you will), I think they knew full well the higher imports and symbolisms of the things of which they wrote. Your quote of Paul I think shows this very point in its opening lines …
If it were actual physical armor that I’m supposed to be finding and putting on, then indeed Jesus’ Kingdom would be of this world, contrary to what he taught, and we would need to be fighting with the world’s weapons much like Peter wanted to do in the first place. Christians today still want (the pre-enlightened) Peter to be right and Christ to be wrong about all this. It’s showing in how U.S. evangelicals are conducting themselves anyway.
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ONE:
@Mervin_Bitikofer and @St.Roymond you are getting at an important feature of Wright’s lectures that I think we will need to discuss in general. Hanging on to the questions you are working with will be valuable as we all work through lecture 4.
What do WE (21st Century Christians) do with apocalyptic literature NOW. But even before that, how do we identify what is apocalyptic from what reflects a different world concept from ours? And having once made that distinction, what do we DO with it?
Maybe all of us as recipients of these lectures can look for interpretative principles that Wright discusses in them, and think through together the value of those principles as well as the best application.
TWO:
Any things specific to Lecture 3 that need to be wrapped up? I have some work to do today on a few things.
In a different direction, one can be badly mistaken by thinking these forces may not represent intentional agents
But there’s no way to get that from the passage.
But the two are not the same. Second Temple Judaism knew of both sets of phenomena.
And if you turn “principalities and powers” from what the terms meant into some sort of commentary on our inner spiritual lives the end result is trying to turn all mention of Satan and demons into . . . what? Figures of speech? The Gospel writers don’t use them as figures of speech, they assert that Satan and demons actually exist. To draw a line at one arbitrary point in the hierarchy is an action with no basis.
I don’t see anything apocalyptic about the array of dark spiritual forces; the writers of both Old and New covenants spoke of them matter-of-factly as actual beings all the way back to Genesis 3. Eve wasn’t portrayed as being tempted by a symbol, she’s portrayed as interacting with an actual being; the Nephilim aren’t portrayed as some natural occurrence, they’re portrayed as actual beings who took actual bodies and had actual children with human women; the Prince of Persia isn’t portrayed as some spiritual idea that needed Michael to help subdue, he’s portrayed as an actual being. I suppose these are all apocalyptic in nature because they’re the targets of spiritual warfare – but it isn’t called spiritual warfare because it’s some nebulous thing that happens inside us, it’s called spiritual warfare because these are actual spirits we have to contend with.
Peter certainly regarded them as intentional agents when he wrote of them being imprisoned in Tartarus.
Yes. Thanks for stripping things back to The Question. (I tend to get lost in minutia. Always have.) And the obvious problem.
I don’t think so. He lays out his case in public and leaves it for others to evaluate.
I like that you brought up subjective/objective. Wright actually mentions the two a few times, and sometimes as not so sharply delineated as we normally see them. I hope he explores this more.
This sounds like a great book. In the last few years I’ve become familiar with the name: Abraham Kuyper, whose version of two kingdoms mixed into politics has become a popular basis for justification in evangelicalism of attempts to grasp worldly power and wield it for specific religious purposes.
The support for the F-16 Jesus does not come from the Bible.
I think you’re pointing at the same question Jay asked. Wright seems to want to show God at work in the world in his rejection of German romantic ideals. Depending on where his arguments go, he will need to show how to recognize the divinity in the world.
I hope Wright talks more about the practical implications of this for the Church. In light of the launch of the New Creation about 2000 years ago, what do we do? What do we as the church need to change.
I agree with your summary of Wright’s description of the “Enlightenment Split.”
His application of it to the U.S. I find faulty. The basic U.S. constitution doesn’t mention religion. It is part of the First Amendment to the document:
- Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Rather than trying to relegate religion to some distant corner, it was prized so highly that it was protected from (legal) government interference or (legal) preferential treatment of one over the other. Likewise, the right not to practice religion is protected. I believe Wright shows some biases when he brings this up , which detract from his argument and maybe harm his conclusions.
I think in many ways, you and I have a great deal of overlap in our views of two kingdoms.
I wonder sometimes, though, if they did not arrive quite at the expected destination. If one really follows the path of free (unfettered) thinking that resulted from the enlightenment, I think we are at best, faced with more challenges to our faith.
I don’t know that it’s possible to generalize in this way about Biologos enthusiasts.
I don’t think this is so easy to define. What are, for example, the bounds of Scientism? I can ask the same sorts of questions of my own areas of discipline, particularly regarding critical theory:
- At what point has one thought beyond the pale?
- And whose answer to my questions is authoritative?
Moving closer to Lecture 3, I wanted to highlight a few sections:
28:30
Yes, we do need to locate ideas and events in their own contexts described as richly as we can. But, no, we should not try to use social scientific observation of the past to produce the meaning of the present still less the direction of the future. The first of these can indeed be used to support relativism…We all see things from our own point of view but that doesn’t make history arbitrary or
capricious. Historical knowledge remains genuine knowledge.
(Lecture 3 00:28:30)
I appreciate Wright’s careful work to make his point that history is not teleological, as Hegel believed it to be. It doesn’t allow us to predict “where things are going,” OR the meaning of NOW based on the past. If anyone is serious in attempting either of these, they know way too little to be accurate. This leads to self-serving models.
I thought this was also valuable, as it is a view that I’ve been exposed to:
34:07
Instead they ask us to hold together, like Hegel but with a different theology, a maximal version of history in its totality and a revealed version of sovereignty of Jesus Christ over all history. We are then to proclaim – as some of told us – the meaning of history from this point of view and no other. Here actual historical research is not needed. Actually it’s forbidden! Because to go about assembling data and forming hypotheses and writing connected narratives to display your results would be a sign of unfaithfulness a sign that you didn’t really trust that Jesus was the lord of history.
Lecture 3 00:34:07
I like the way Wright includes and describes the tension between theologians and historians. I think there is real merit in his point that history must direct the discussion, not theology. Fascinating considering who is speaking. It’s interesting that throughout the lectures, he refers to himself as a historian, while the rest of us probably all assumed he was a theologian.
I particularly liked the 4 Virtues that good history requires from his conclusion:
-
Humility submits to the thoughts of people different from ourselves.
-
Patience go on working with the data while resisting premature conclusions.
-
Penitence acknowledge that our traditions may have introduced attractive distortions.
-
Love appreciate with delight events outside and thoughts different from our own.
Time for me to knuckled down with Lecture 4.
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Exactly my point. That’s why we know Paul makes heavy use of symbolism.
That doesn’t make what he wrote about spiritual beings symbolic, especially when Paul goes on to describe this armor in detail.
The moment you do that you’re in trouble: “principalities and powers” are part and parcel of the entire ‘system’ of dark spiritual beings in the scriptures, so suggesting that just this batch of them is symbolic is completely arbitrary; logically, if you want to argue them away in this mention there’s no stopping point.
Have you looked at those details? Breastplate of righteousness? Helmet of Salvation? Belt of truth? Sandals of peace?
This isn’t stuff you find down at the local armory.
- At New Testament for Everyone (NTFE) , if I’m not mistaken, Bible Gateway has included N.T. Wright’s The Kingdom New Testament under the title “New Testament For Everyone”.
- Compare:
- (KJV) Galations 6:15 - “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.”
- (NASB) Galations 6:15 - “For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.”
- (NTFE) Galations 6:15 - “Circumcision, you see, is nothing; neither is uncircumcision! What matters is new creation.”
- Now Bible Gateway needs to include David Bentley Hart’s translation, so that we can compare Wright and Hart’s translations and “take sides”.
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I always thought Hegel was a poor student of human nature as anyone who has really paid attention to how humans tend to act would not have been optimistic about the resolution of a thesis and antithesis.
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- “A motley crew” works for me …
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