I saw Dan's attempt to draw some broad and damning conclusions based on a few selected texts cherry picked from Matt 23. After reading the whole chapter, I thought that it would be relatively easy to do a deeper dive into the entire chapter, instead of cherry picking the parts I liked. What I found was part of a larger principle I was reminded of on Monday night. Years ago I was reading a book by John Piper called Reading The Bible Supernaturally. This was the first time I'd heard someone coherently explain that the Bible should be read as a single meta narrative, and not in small snippets. (Obviously there is a place for focusing on smaller sections of The Bible, but always keeping the broader context in mind) This was reinforced by a pastor on Monday evening in a class I am taking. That point was that the entirety of scripture exists as a whole. The illustration given was of a play with 7 scenes ( ) , yet each scene is part and parcel of the larger work. Without thinking about this consciously, I later realized how this tied in with my classes from an OT professor and how important understanding the OT is to understanding the NT and Jesus teachings.
That is a lot of rambling which brings me to this more simple point. It is not helpful to snip out proof texts from Matthew 23, without considering the larger immediate context (Matt 21-26) as well as the larger context of the whole of scripture.
NOTE: FROM HERE ON OUT I WILL USE THE TERM PHARISEES TO INCLUDE THE SADDUCEES, SCRIBES, SANHEDRIN, AND OTHER JEWISH AUTHORITIES.
For example, it is ridiculous to suppose that the warnings to the pharisees applied equally to all of the pharisees, given that we have examples of pharisees who followed Jesus. Further even the Jewish literature notes 7 kinds of pharisees, surely Jesus was not speaking equally to all.
"But it's not only the New Testament that portrays them like that. In the Jewish Talmud (Ṣota 22b) they are divided into seven different types. These are:
1. The "shoulder" Pharisees, who wear their good actions on their shoulders for everyone to see.
2. The "wait-a-little" Pharisees who always find excuses for putting off a good deed.
3. The "bruised" Pharisees, who run into walls because they are so busy avoiding looking at women.
4. The "pestle" or hunched-over Pharisees, who walk bent over in pretended humility (think Dickens' Uriah Heep).
5. The "ever-reckoning" Pharisees, always weighing their good deeds against the bad.
6. The "fearful" Pharisees, who are are frightened of doing the wrong thing.
7. The "God-loving" Pharisees, who really love God from their heart and take delight in his law."
What I see in Dan's eisegesis, is an example of someone who shows traits of pharisee types 1 and 5, attempting to use these proof texts as a rhetorical cudgel to rhetorically bludgeon those he perceives as worse pharisees. Yet, that strikes me as Dan doing exactly what Jesus warned against in Matt 23:3-4.
Finally, in a general sense, Dan's facile eisegesis strikes me as someone who is not particularly concerned with drawing the links from the OT to the NT. From the beginning of the chapter Jesus affirms the authority of the Pharisees, while also acknowledging that their actions should not be imitated.
So, instead of a quick and dirty run through Dan's eisegesis, this is going to be the first of multiple posts on the more immediate context of Matt 21-26. It didn't take long to see how necessary this would be to properly evaluate Dan's eisegesis.
One final note, Dan chooses to use a paraphrase of the scriptural text instead of a translation (which is fine). I suspect that he chose it because it paraphrases "woe" as "it will be hell", despite his problems with the concept of hell, Dan still likes the notion of others being condemned to hell. My problem with his paraphrase is the use of "theologians and preachers" instead of "teachers of the law and Pharisees". In this case, Jesus was speaking directly to (or at least within the hearing of) specific/actual individuals who were "teachers of the law and Pharisees". The paraphrase makes the assumption that this admonition to some of the "teachers of the law and Pharisees" can be randomly applied to all who might be considered "theologians and preachers". While I suspect that this warning does apply beyond those in direct hearing of Jesus at the time, I'm not positive that it does. Likewise, Dan is taking the assumption of the paraphraser, and assuming that that assumption is True. In True Dan fashion, I think it is reasonable to expect him to prove this assumption to be True.
5 comments:
I think you meant to post this at the other thread.
OOPS!
Dan likes to hype the sins of the Pharisees in order to project his interpretation of what they were onto those who adhere to the actual written commandments of God. Christ objects to their "oral law", which they asserted was given to Moses as well, despite there being absolutely no mention of an oral law given to Moses in the Torah. If the Pharisees only spoke of infractions against the actual written Law Moses received, I doubt there would have been as much of an issue between He and the Pharisees. They wouldn't have been "heaping laws" upon the people God had not already "heaped" upon them, but merely reminding them of what those commandments are. Thus, when we remind Dan about God's clear and unequivocal, unambiguous prohibition against homosexual behavior, Dan pretends we're acting like Pharisees who made up laws not already in the Torah. It's a weak ploy, but Dan loves using it nonetheless.
It's the same thing he does with the "Neither do I condemn you" line from Jesus to the woman caught in adultery. But by pointing out the obvious...that a given behavior is clearly in breach of a written Law of God...we're not condemning. Indeed, as one chooses to sin, one is condemned by such choosing.
Of course he does, because he needs to be able to portray anyone who suggests that there are any sort of "rules", let alone Law, as a Pharisee. It's merely a rhetorical club for him. The difference is that the Pharisees were saying "Look at all you sinful people, you need to follow all of these laws, which we exempt ourselves from" (sound familiar?) Where as we tend to say things like "We're all sinners, and I have found hope and forgiveness in Jesus and would like to share that with you to lead you to repentance" (Do "good" people really need to repent?) Jesus gave the Law to Moses, He came to fulfill the Law, not abolish it. The Pharisees made up extra crap and expected the people to obey them, they expanded the Law from the Torah and continued to do so for hundreds of years. Eventually this rabbinic overreach was codified in the Talmud. It's right up front in 23. It's about "hypocrites", who happen to be Pharisees.
So, when we point people to YHWH's actual Law, we are not acting as the Pharisees did. If we point people to a standard beyond YHWH's Law, we are doing what the Pharisees did. Further, if we were expecting others to live according to a standard we did not, that's the Pharisees. If we hold ourselves to the same standard we point others to, not Pharisees.
In both the "condemning" passage, and Mathew 21-26, the bigger message Jesus is trying to communicate is one of His authority. He had the authority to condemn, or forgive the woman. He had the authority to cleanse the Temple. He has the authority to rebuke the Pharisees. Until He shows His authority over death itself.
Jesus came as the Judge of Israel, all we can do is point others to Him.
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