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After following several discussions I think a recurring methodological issue deserves examination in its own right.
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Michael has repeatedly insisted upon a distinction with which I’m inclined to agree with:
- An inference drawn from a biblical text is not the same thing as what the biblical text actually says.
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In the festival discussion, for example, he repeatedly asks for the text that actually says Yah’s appointed festivals were abolished, abandoned, or replaced. When someone argues from Colossians 2, Romans 14, or another passage that their covenantal status has changed, he objects that the conclusion has been inferred rather than explicitly stated. He recently put the principle this way: “The conclusion must be established by the text, not supplied by the interpreter.”
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Fair enough. But what happens when that same standard is applied to his own conclusions?
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Consider “The Great Sleep.” He argues that the dead are unconscious until resurrection: “death is described as sleep; resurrection is the awakening.” Yet the New Testament presents Moses at the Transfiguration. Moses is not an Elijah-type case in which Scripture never records his death. Deuteronomy explicitly says:
- “So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab.” (Deut. 34:5)
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Nevertheless, Luke describes what happens at the Transfiguration: “And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.” (Luke 9:30–31)
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Michael has publicly recognized the difficulty. He wrote that if the Transfiguration genuinely teaches a conscious intermediate state, it “has to be accounted for rather than ignored.” His answer is that Matthew subsequently calls the event a horama, a “vision,” and therefore Moses’ appearance does not establish that Moses had remained consciously alive during the centuries since his death. The BioLogos Forum
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But notice what that establishes—and what it does not. It may establish that the Transfiguration does not “prove continuous consciousness throughout all the centuries since Moses died”. But where does Matthew say that the Moses who appeared was unconscious? Where does Luke say that Moses was only a representation of Moses? Where does any Transfiguration account say that Moses was temporarily reconstructed, resurrected for the occasion, or otherwise made capable of speaking despite having been unconscious in death?
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The text says “Moses appeared, Moses spoke, and Moses discussed Jesus’ coming departure with him.”
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Any mechanism by which this is reconciled with “The Great Sleep” must therefore be supplied by interpretation unless Scripture states that mechanism somewhere.
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Now consider 1 Samuel 28. In a private discussion Michael maintained that the being encountered by the medium at Endor was demonic rather than the deceased Samuel.
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Why? because a living Samuel who by previous acounts had died, would poke a hole in “The Great Sleep”. And that just cannot happen. So??? The Samuel who appeared to the Witch of Endor and to Saul must have been a demon.
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I am not disclosing anything personal about Michael by mentioning that theological position; it is relevant because it provides an unusually clean test of the interpretive principle at issue. What’s good for the goose is not good for the gander, as the saying goes.
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What does the biblical narrator actually call the figure? Samuel.
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The woman sees Samuel. Saul understands that it is Samuel. Samuel speaks to Saul. The narrator continues calling the speaker Samuel.
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Yet where does 1 Samuel 28 say: “This was a demon impersonating Samuel” It doesn’t.
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Perhaps someone can construct a theological argument that it must have been a demon because genuine communication with the dead is impossible. But that conclusion is precisely an “inference supplied by the interpreter”. It is not what 1 Samuel 28 says.
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And that brings me back to the festivals. The recurring demand there is essentially: “Show me the text explicitly abolishing the command.”
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But that demand already presupposes another proposition: A command given under the Sinai covenant remains obligatory upon New-Covenant believers unless Scripture explicitly repeals it.
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Where does Scripture state that proposition?
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An appeal is made to Matthew 5:17–19, Jeremiah 31:33, and Hebrews 8:10. Those are certainly texts relevant to the question. But none says: “Every command given under Sinai remains legally binding upon New-Covenant believers unless explicitly abolished.”
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That conclusion is reached by interpreting those texts. The BioLogos Forum
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So I see a recurring pattern: “When a conclusion conflicts with someone’s theological framework, he asks where the conclusion is explicitly stated in the text and rejects inference as insufficient. But when his own theological framework requires a conclusion not explicitly stated in the text, e.g. the continuing obligation of Sinaitic commands, “an unconscious Moses despite Moses appearing and speaking, or a demon rather than Samuel” interpretation supplies the necessary bridge.”
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That doesn’t demonstrate that Michael’s conclusions are false. An inference can be perfectly sound. Indeed, biblical interpretation would be impossible without inference.
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The problem is treating inference as illegitimate when someone else’s theology requires it while treating one’s own inferences as simply “what Scripture says.”
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So I think several questions remain on the table:
- Where does Scripture say that Sinaitic commands remain binding upon New-Covenant believers unless explicitly abolished?
- Where does Scripture say that the Moses who appeared and conversed with Jesus at the Transfiguration was unconscious in death?
- Where does 1 Samuel 28 say that the figure repeatedly identified by the narrator as Samuel was actually a demon?
- What principle distinguishes a legitimate inference from an illegitimate inference and is that principle being applied equally to one’s own interpretation and everybody else’s?
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Those questions are not ultimately about festivals, soul sleep, or the medium of Endor separately. They concern something more fundamental: Are we distinguishing consistently between what Scripture says and what we infer Scripture means?
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