or The Disunited State of Samaria

“…and they are seven kings;
five have fallen,
one is,
the other has not yet come;
and when he comes,
he must remain a little while.” (Revelation 17:10)

Time for another weird one. Although it’s probably only weird to the conservative evangelical Bible scholars among us. [1]

Albert’s post on marriage the other day allows us to see the context of the sin of the Samaritan woman. James Jordan observes that this woman was most likely a victim of this unjust system, hence the other Samaritans’ readiness to believe her testimony.

Firstly, whenever the Spirit leaves a woman unnamed, we are to see her as a type of The Woman Whose Offspring Would Crush The Serpent’s Head. There is the millstone woman, Samson’s mother, and many others. When Jesus refers to His mother as Woman, that is what He is referring to. Now, she is not that woman, but the historical narrative orchestrated by God will show us some aspect of the Woman. And the story of the Woman Samaria does just that.

Secondly, this woman had had five husbands, and was now in a de facto relationship. That is six men. It is the five-points of a broken Covenant, with a non-Covenant Man on Day 6. What we see here is a division between the legal side of Covenant and the relational side. Ralph Smith writes:

“Marriage, the very first covenantal relationship among men and the foundation of all others is the quintessential covenant. The relationship binds — ‘till death.’ It is a structured relationship with authority and roles distributed between husband and wife. It is a personal relationship— ‘husbands love your wives as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself for it.’ A man and woman living together without the bond of the covenant may have a personal relationship, but they are guilty of fornication. A man and woman married may fulfill the structural requirements of the covenant bond, but fail to love one another, separating the personal from the structural aspect of the marriage covenant.

The covenant oath, the personal love, and the structures of authority and responsibility are all required for a Biblically righteous marriage. What the marriage covenant illustrates is that the covenant is a ’social structure.’ As Jordan points out, in the Biblical notion of the covenant, law and love, form and freedom, are in harmony. The love of the covenant is expressed not in spite of the oath or in spite of fulfilling the duties of the covenant, but precisely through the solemn taking of an oath and the faithful fulfillment of one’s duty.” [2]

Jesus turns up, and He, typologically, is the seventh Man. He is not only the Covenant of Torah (five books, and Ten Words soon to be broken at the foot of the mountain), He is going to replace the false Adam and his whole house.

There is also the division between the two mountains, Zion and Gerizim, Judah and Samaria. Not only is this woman with her sixth man, but the sixth matrix step concerns blessing and cursing, the two goats of Atonement (the bride) and the two mountains between which Israel passed into Canaan (Ebal and Gerizim). Jesus is going to supersede both these mountains with a new worship, one that is not divided. (Note: He was also going to rip Olivet (Judaism) in two for the church to pass through “unmolested” as a smoking firepot body to His blazing torch head.)

Now, this poor woman was a picture of division. In a sense, she was the woman in Eden, torn between two lovers, the true Word of God in Adam, and the delightful un-word of the serpent. (Just another thought here on the purpose of having a physical animal: God’s people fought with flesh-and-blood until the Spirit was given. Now we can fight the very spirits.) She is divided between her legal protector who is content to watch and see if she dies, and a seducer who shows her an inordinate amount of “affection.”

The Samaritan, like Mary Magdalene, symbolizes for us the Bride redeemed from the false seven-eyed “Lampstand” Law of the evil one. Jesus casts out the seven demons. Used and abused by men, Eve, the mother of all, became a Legion, a haunt of jackals. That is humanity, divided and filled with the wrong spirit.

Also, her five broken marriages might possibly be the five major Covenants (Adam/Noah/Abram/Moses/David+Restoration). That makes Herod the sixth Man, the man who lived with her without a Covenant, and Jesus the seventh, her Kinsman redeemer/avenger, the one who would free her from the Adamic curse and reunite her split personality by the Spirit into one new Man.

Some have said that this woman cannot picture the people of God. She is not innocent. But she is really TWO women isn’t she, like the two prostitutes in one house? The flesh lusts against the Spirit. So Jesus is Solomon, “bring me a sword,” and she is suddenly no longer bipolar. The seventh Man casts out the seven demons, the false Shekinah, and she is clothed and in her right mind (That chapter in Matthew follows the same pattern. See Why Jesus Healed Some.) In Christ, Judah and Samaria were reunited on one mountain.

On the BH list, John Barach also commented:

Mike points out that Jesus, here, is the seventh man.  Note, too, that it’s not only that the woman has been married to or involved with SIX men. It’s also the case that it’s the SIXTH hour … but Jesus tells her that “an hour is coming…” (Earlier, of course, we’ve seen Jesus turn SIX jars of Old Covenant purification water into New Covenant celebration wine.) [4]

Something else to notice, if you’re so inclined: According to Fowler White and Warren Gage, in their John-Revelation project (which you can still find online somewhere), John and Revelation are chiastically related, so that this woman is parallel to Babylon, the great harlot (“five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come”). Whatever that means.

It means that the breaking of the Covenant in the Garden of Eden has structured every part of history and biblical revelation since the beginning. It is written into us, and it is written for us, if we have eyes to see.

____________________________________

[1] Never watch a clever film with a conservative Bible scholar. He won’t get it. He might have Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek under his belt (and I most certainly envy that), but it is becoming more and more apparent to me that each one of these guys should have failed English. They have no imagination whatsoever. I guess that’s the way God works. We each have our gifts. We are all splinters of The Door. There, did anyone get that reference? We need to read the Bible like children. (“Kids these days. They just don’t get scared like they used to.”) Anyone capable of simple analysis of poetry, music or film, or recognizing a subtle allusion in any of these (my kids play Can You Guess Where This Film Or TV Quote Is From? in the car) can cope with the Bible’s themes. But these gents I am coming across (it’s Sydney Anglicans for me) amaze me. They lack the intuition which comes from reading or watching a long-running series. Their compromised worldview stops them from entering the world of the Bible (which is actually the world in which they live). But the kids in my high school Bible classes do get it, which means that due to a combination of postmodernism and good Bible teaching, the next generation of Bible scholars will be as incredibly perceptive as the current crop are bovine and unimaginative. (See also Typology Is Female , Exegetical Blinkers 1, 2 and 3, Cross-eyed Exegesis and Systematic Theology.) Now, I believe systematic theology is important, but it is a theology that is formed and not filled, just like the incomplete theology of Nicodemus. The Bible communicates truth through our imaginations, especially the bits that scholars entirely mishandle and then pat each other on the back as though they have actually dealt with the text as a text. (While I’m at it, see also Mercury Rising).
[2] Ralph Allan Smith, James Jordan’s Trinitarianism, www.trinitarianism.com
[3] John’s gospel is also following the Tabernacle pattern (at three levels!). In the secondary pattern, we are up to the Laver. The woman is by a well, a bride found by Abraham’s “oldest servant.”

The Wrong Kind of Blood, the Wrong Kind of Spirit

These six things the LORD hates, Yes, seven are an abomination to Him:
…..A proud look,
……….A lying tongue,
……………Hands that shed innocent blood,
………………..A heart that devises wicked plans,
……………Feet that are swift in running to evil,
……….A false witness who speaks lies,
…..And one who sows discord among brethren. (Proverbs 6: 6-19)

Although Revelation describes two women, there was really only one. Solomon dealt with two prostitutes who lived in the same house. What Revelation does is cut the prostitute in two. At Atonement, Rahab was separated from Jericho; Mary Magdalene was delivered of her seven demons. Peter Leithart writes:

“Mary Magdalene functions in the same way in John’s gospel. She had seven demons (like Israel in Jesus’ parable!), but by the end of the book has become a new Eve, recognising Jesus as the New Adam in the garden of the resurrection. Since she is new Eve, it is entirely appropriate that Jesus call her ‘Woman’.” [1]

The theme of Revelation is the transformation of the whore into the bride, of the fallen old Israel into a beautiful new Israel. This requires the old flesh, the old generations, to be cut off. As David Chilton observes in The Days of Vengeance, the Revelation is an ironic worship service, and old Israel herself is the sacrifice.

The instrument used by Jesus, as Solomon, is the gospel sword. The gospel is Spirit-filled Law, and it brings both Covenant blessings and Covenant curses. For those who refused the Spirit, the judgment was an eye for an eye, just as God’s judgment upon Egypt’s firstborn was payback for the murder of the Hebrew infants.

The following stanza is the second of a group of seven, so it has an “Exodus” (the second book) or “Passover” (the second feast) theme. And within every stanza we also find all seven feasts: wheels within wheels. God’s Word creates its own independent field of gravity, like a gyroscope. Every utterance is Covenantal.

Genesis – Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, (Light/Ark)

Exodus – “Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues;

Leviticus – for her sins are heaped high as heaven, (defiantly drawing near with the wrong kind of innocent blood as an ascension offering: the murdered firstfruits church as grain and fruit: Rev. 14)

Numbers – and God has remembered her iniquities. (a la Numbers 5, a memorial cup of testing, the jealous inspection)

Deuteronomy – Pay her back as she herself has paid back others, and repay her double for her deeds; (plunder – second law, second warning, judged in a “second death” [2])

Joshua – (Atonement) mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed.

Judges – (Booths) As she glorified herself and lived in luxury, so give her a like measure of torment and mourning…

The double portion alludes to restitution according to the Law, and to the double covering required to atone for sin (inside and out, skins and cup). [3]  It also conveys the irony that because of her refusal to be filled with the “double portion” inheritance of the Holy Spirit in an Old-to-New Covenant succession, (being clothed with Christ), the Whore would be filled with wrath wine instead (Mark 3:29; Ephesians 5:18). Jerusalem-Babylon would finish the Covenant cup she had given the nations to drink (Jeremiah 25:26). Blood for blood. [4]

Think about it. Jesus drank the Covenant cup in her place. She turned around and filled her cup with the blood of the prophets and apostles. Drinking this cup would tear her in two, from the inside out.

Or, for the dispensationalists who believe that modern Jews still have some place in God’s economy as “the circumcision,” Jesus tore the veil in two, but the Jewish rulers stitched it back together again. So Jesus tore down the whole luxurious Herodian whorehouse and reestablished a bridal city with greater glory.

So, this stanza is the Exodus/Division step in this larger cycle. The next stanza concerns the “false ascension” of Herodian worship, and what does she say? “I sit as a queen…”

_____________________________________________
[1] Observations from lectures by Warren Gage as summarised by Peter Leithart, Gage On John And Revelation, www.leithart.com
[2] See The Second Death.
[3] See James B. Jordan, Introduction to the Ascensions, BIBLICAL HORIZONS, No. 143.
[4] See Peter Leithart’s very helpful recent article: He Bears His Iniquity.

I probably won’t be posting much now until the end of the year. I want to get into The Covenant Key. But there’s many moons of material to read in the “back catalogue.” If you feel lucky, try the random posts in the right column. Thanks for reading. Catch up soon!

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! (Romans 11:33)

Hermeneutics is a big word you learn at Bible College. It is the study or practice of interpreting texts in the areas of literature, law and religion.

In literature, discovering the intent of an author can be an enlightening game. In law, one’s life (or life sentence) can hang in the balance of a judge’s interpretation. In religion, besides plumbing the depths of the mind of God, it is an enlightening game in the balance of which many lives hang. God has revealed His mind in His Word, and has also seen fit to give to His people the often difficult job of interpreting it.

[This post has been refined and included in Sweet Counsel: Essays to Brighten the Eyes.]

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Warren Gage/Christopher Barber and then James Jordan on Joseph’s wisdom:

“How strange Joseph’s behaviour toward his brothers appears to a modern reader! He recognises his brothers immediately but maintains his Egyptian disguise. He speaks harshly to them and then only through an interpreter. He charges them with spying — a capital crime for which he can sentence them to death. He takes one brother as a hostage. He returns their silver as they go home for the first time, and then he sets the brothers up in order to accuse them of stealing his silver cup on their second return trip, at which point he has them arrested. In short, he terrifies them.

What does this all mean? Is Joseph seeking revenge? Clearly that is not the case, for he so loves them he can hardly restrain himself fom revealing his identity — and his forgiveness — to them. Surely he is not vengeful. Why does he act this way? And why does the text go to such lengths to describe all of this?

Joseph is remarkable in the Bible for his wisdom. If we watch carefully what Joseph does, we will learn much about wisdom, a quality sorely lacking today. In our overly sentimental day, we might expect Joseph immediately to embrace his brothers. We would expect, perhaps, that he should welcome them immediately and tell them right away that the past injustice is forgiven. Because he does not, some today would probably charge him with being unforgiving and manipulative. But Joseph is certainly forgiving. He is also wise.

And thus, even though he longs to be reunited with his family, he cannot do so until he knows the condition of their hearts. It is not difficult imagine the questions swirling through Joseph’s mind. Have the brothers shown the same enmity toward his younger brother Benjamin as they showed toward him? If have have not changed, Benjamin’s life could be in jeopardy. Only ten brothers have come to Egypt. Jacob has kept Benjamin behind. Is Jacob showing Rachel’s other son the same favouritism he once showed Joseph? How will he truly discover the secrets of their hearts?

In short, Joseph wonders if God has redeemed his brothers in the intervening years. The mark of saving faith is love for the brethren (John 13:35). Do they love one another? Joseph knows that for reconciliation to be genuine, he must answer that question. He is not interested in revenge. His heart is willing to forgive. But until he knows whether they love one another, he will not reveal himself to them.

His great wisdom is displayed as he devises three tests for the brothers, each with the goal of revealing another aspect of the condition of their hearts. As he puts his plan into action, we can imagine Joseph watching from behind his Egyptian disguise and listening to the words they speak in their native Hebrew. He learns through his tests that God has done an amazing work in the lives of those who once hated him.

At the conclusion of his final text, where young Benjamin is made to appear as a thief, Judah steps forward. In the last lesson, we saw Judah declare to his father that he would stand as surety for Benjamin’s return. Now that promise is put to the test. Surely Judah could not be blamed if he and the others left Benjamin behind, when for all they know he has committed such a great crime! Even though Judah must believe Benjamin has committed a senseless act of petty theft, we see that the transformation of his heart is complete. Judah informs the Egyptian official of his promise to Jacob to stand as surety for the life of Benjamin and offers himself in Benjamin’s place.

The tests are now over. Joseph recognises that God has been faithful to keep His covenant with this family, He has changed the hearts of the brothers so that now they love one another. He has made the twelve sons worthy of the faith of their father Jacob and of their grandfather Isaac and of their great-grandfather Abraham. They are now brothers in faith as well as brothers in flesh. Now that Joseph knows they love each other, he is able at last to reveal himsel to them. Having restrained his love so long, his tears begin to well up as he longs to embrace them. He cries out, “I am Joseph!”…

What can we apply from this lesson in our own lives? Firstly, it should be a great encouragement to all of us to see the severely dysfunctional family we met in chapter 2 of our study now marvelously restored by God’s grace… no person, no family, no circumstance, is beyond the reach of God’s ability to heal. All of us, like Joseph, face relationships with others which are especially difficult, and we often do not know what to do. Should you confront the person who wronged you? Should you simply forgive and forget? What should you do? In times like these, we need the kind of wisdom Joseph showed to cooperate with the working out of God’s proises in the lives of others, rather than raking matters into our own hands. Joseph’s wisdom was displayed in his obedience to God’s timing, remaining faithful through many years despite great injustice and suffering.”

Warren Gage and Christopher Barber, The Story of Joseph and Judah (Bible Study), pp. 90-94. Expounds on how the text of Genesis deliberately contrasts these two brothers.

*    *    *    *    *
“Joseph’s manipulation of his brothers, like Rebekah’s ‘wise woman’ manipulation of Isaac, is a model of great wisdom. It is not something Christians should try to copy unless they are very wise and insightful. Joseph’s manipulation of his brethren should be seen as the way Jesus manipulates our lives. Just as the circumstances of their lives showed the brothers their sins, so we must be alert to ironies that God brings about in our own lives, and we must change our ways if necessary…The road to dominion through service is often difficult. Doubtless there were many days when Joseph had to pray for God to give him a gracious and obedient spirit because he simply did not want to work. Yet he found God was gracious to help him do what had been set before him…

The road to dominion must never be understood in a pagan sense of sheer triumph and overlording. Joseph was given dominion precisely so that he could become a more effective servant…”

Humble service and dominion can never be separated.”

James B. Jordan, Primeval Saints, pp.127-128.

“…it is instructive that when the issue was so decisively drawn with his legalist opponents, Paul, at the climax of his argument, appealed to an allegory to refute the gainsayers of grace…”

Warren Gage writes:

“The greatest crisis in the early life of the apostolic church was clearly the challenge to the gospel of free grace represented by the Judaisers, the controversy which necessitated the first ecumenical council at Jerusalem (Acts 15:1-3). Paul’s epistle to the Galatians represents the most urgent and passionate defense of the gospel of grace in all the New Testament. Indeed, the stakes could not have been higher for the infant church in that controversy. Paul is so sobered by the threat of the Judaised gospel, which he calls no gospel (Galatians 1:7), that he pronounces a curse (Galatians 1:8) and an imprecation upon his opponents (Galatians 5:12).

Now it is instructive that when the issue was so decisively drawn with his legalist opponents, Paul, at the climax of his argument, appealed to an allegory to refute the gainsayers of grace (Galatians 4:24). It seems a fair question to ask our fellow Protestants whether, without the sanction of Holy Scripture, we would ever find the claim that Sarah and Hagar “are two covenants” persuasive. Would it be self-evident to us, as it apparently was to Paul and the Galatians, that these two women appearing in early Genesis dispositively anticipated the covenants of promise and works?”

“…Modern critics often forget that allegory in modernity is a fancy that is not based on historical reality. Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress is a case in point of a modern allegory. Paul’s use of the term is clearly not the same. His reasoning about the two covenants is founded upon the history of the patriarchal narratives, specifically, upon the histories of Sarah and Hagar. But Paul understands that there was a redemptive significance to these historical accounts. Once again, until it is evident that Sarah and Hagar represent the two covenants of grace and works, a point so obvious to Paul, our typology cannot claim to be commensurate to the apostolic hermeneutic.”

Typology and Reformed Exegesis, pp.3-4.
Warren Gage, www.luke2427.com

Pic by Jen Page.

A quote from Theological Poetics: Typology, Symbol and the Christ, by Warren Gage of Knox Seminary:

A modern introduction to biblical typology should begin inductively with several examples of certain shadows and types from Old Testament passages widely acknowledged to be prefigurative in character, seeking to understand those types as interpreted by the authors of the New Testament.  After a number of such passages are examined, an index of the “criteria of certainty” should be proposed to distinguish legitimate “types” from suspected “allegories.” Principles of interpretation should then be announced, along with the obligatory caveats necessarily qualifying tentative proposals, all of which should be rationally defensible and clearly recognizable to reputable scholarship in the field.

Our approach will be quite different. We explicitly reject the premise that we can fully understand an ancient and sacred book by modern secular means and methods. We must begin by attempting to enter into the world of the Bible itself.[1]  This book is premised on the faith conviction, shared by the New Testament authors, that all the Scripture is about Jesus (John 5:39). We will presuppose that Moses and all the prophets wrote about the sufferings and glory of Christ (Luke 24:25-27; Acts 28:23). We will assume that the prophets of old were seeking to understand the person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was signifying the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow (1 Pet 1:10-12). We will therefore begin deductively. We will turn the modernist project of typology on its head. 

Instead of attempting to understand the reality by the shadows, we will seek to understand the shadows by the reality. To adapt a classical metaphor, we will leave behind the skiagraphic images of the cave to gaze boldly at the radiance of the Son. Having beheld the Light that extinguishes our blindness, we will better be able to see how all the Scripture speaks about Jesus.

1. Our approach affirms an explicitly historical-grammatical approach to Biblical exegesis. However, while we believe conservative scholarship in modernity does an admirable work of analyzing the text of Scripturegrammatically, it is less capable, in our judgment, of reading the Biblehistorically. The modern exegete is generally analytic, but less synthetic than ancient texts require. His interpretation is literal, but less poetic. He is trained to think particularly within individual texts, but not canonically within the Bible.  Goethe envisioned the approach we are attempting when he commented, “Wer den Dichter will verstehen, muss in Dichters Lande gehen,” (Whoever will understand the poet must travel to the country of the poet). In other words, if we are to understand the types of the Bible, we must read the Bible through pre-modern eyes. We must consciously strive to enter into the mundus imaginalis of the first recipients of sacred Scripture. Only by this means can we read the Bible historically, as well as grammatically.

Yet more on literary analysis of the Bible as a ‘terrible marvel‘; a review of two books. As Warren Gage has commented, we are on the verge of a tremendously creative time in Biblical theology. But this to me seems also to be an element of scholarship returning home, older and wiser, from a wilderness of unbelief.

Genesis: The Story We Haven’t Heard
by Paul Borgman. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2001. 252 pages.

The Literary Structure of the Old Testament: A Commentary on Genesis-Malachi
by David A. Dorsey. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999. 330 pages.

Reviewed by Timothy Paul Erdel, Ph.D., Archivist and Assistant Professor of Religion and Philosophy, Bethel College, Mishawaka, IN.

“I have been fascinated by the primal power of Old Testament stories for as long as I can remember. From my perspective, there is no clearer window on human character, no greater storehouse of hard and holy truths. Yet some tales are deeply disturbing. Phyllis Trible calls them ‘texts of terror.’ Even the most familiar passages may seem strangely distant. So I relish each time a preacher or teacher sheds new light on these ancient Hebrew narratives.

The greatest of all great books, the Bible has been the focus of far more sustained and intensive scholarly scrutiny than any other work. Since the modern era, this critical dissection sometimes threatens to destroy everything precious to traditional readers: the religious message, the historical reliability, the underlying drama, and the unity of the writings. Nevertheless, despite two centuries of critical assaults, Bible stories continue to illumine for many of us believers both the will of God and the meta-narratives of our own lives.

Is it too much to hope that serious Old Testament monographs might acknowledge what seems so obvious to the ordinary religious reader, the spellbinding attraction of biblical stories? Could such studies simultaneously help us to see in those same stories all sorts of literary devices we might otherwise gloss over-even though once pointed out the devices seem so patently clear as to be undeniable? Could these newly manifest literary structures in turn underscore moral and religious truths we might also all too readily overlook? And could it possibly be the case, mirabile dictu, that these ever so subtle and tightly woven literary structures would in turn, once recognized, expose some favorite modern critical (i.e., skeptical) theories about the sequence of and motivations for biblical compositions as hopelessly implausible? Could it be that the sorts of generic doubts raised by C. S. Lewis (no mean literary critic himself) about standard biblical criticisms have now found their mundane confirmation in the work of two very patient and observant scholars working out of the limelight at relatively small evangelical schools?

The great good news is that the two books under review provide us with all the foregoing and much more. It is hard for me to describe how refreshing I find their approaches; but since this is to be a relatively brief review, I will restrict myself to a basic example or two from each work.

The story of Abraham offering Isaac on the altar is a powerful one on almost any reading. It has a long history of Rabbinic interpretation, and in the modern era has served as a favorite text for philosophers of religion as well, especially since Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, though Kant took up the story before him.

Critical studies in Genesis have often added to the notion that the story is both bizarre and extreme, and that the God revealed therein is both primitive and arbitrary, unworthy of enlightened religious sensibilities. What Paul Borgman (at Gordon College) does magnificently, though not without a hint or two from Martin Buber, is not only call attention to various details we might otherwise overlook, but stress the literary and moral and religious interconnectedness between this story and nearly everything else that has occurred in Genesis up to this point. Throughout his life Abraham has been tried and tested by some of the same temptations that already seduced Eve, Cain, Lamech, and the builders of the Tower of Babel. He has, repeatedly and to an astonishing degree, failed, as Borgman’s close reading of the text makes clear. But God has not given up on Abraham, and there has been at least some definite progress in each of the previous six visits God has made with Abraham. Now in this seventh visit, the chiasm (symmetry) is complete and virtually every detail of the story ties together dangling threads, not just from Abraham’s own life and experience, but from the whole of Genesis up to this point. You will simply have to read the book to find out why all this is so.

David Dorsey (Evangelical School of Theology) offers an unparalleled tour de force, the systematic laying out of the literary structure of every book in the Old Testament. Scholars have long recognized that repetition, parallelism, chiasm, sevenfold patterns, and similar devices permeate the ancient Hebrew Scriptures. Dorsey merely sets about identifying their occurrences and then seeing what the patterns in each book might tell us about it. What he often finds is, in retrospect, almost embarrassingly simple, but as elegant and powerful as a cleanly constructed mathematical proof. For example, even Old Testament scholars on the theological far right, such as R. K. Harrison and Gleason Archer, have admitted that Jeremiah apparently defies attempts to find an overarching orderly structure. Nevertheless, Dorsey sets out what he has discovered, and once presented, the book’s sevenfold structure seems quite sensible. Or again, given the all but universal tendency among modern scholars to divide Isaiah into separate writings, how would such scholars now explain the literary unity of Isaiah as a giant yet intricately crafted chiasm?

I trust I have not over stressed the polemical aspects in this review, which are more implicit than explicit in these two studies. For Borgman and Dorsey are both deeply indebted to other scholars of very different stripes. Furthermore, both Borgman and Dorsey, though committed evangelical biblicists, offer some striking reinterpretations and emphases that could offend evangelicals, such as Borgman’s stress on the depth and frequency of Abraham’s failures. But the genius of their approaches is that they are so directly tied to the text itself, not to highly speculative critical theories, therefore inviting correction from that same text. Nor does one need to agree uniformly with them to stand in awe of what they have achieved.”

PDF found here.

As an aside, Jordan’s book Primeval Saints takes the opposite position on the faithfulness of Abraham and the other patriarchs.

More on typology. A helpful picture.

 Tim Challies summarises Gage and Barber’s approach in their study guide on Genesis 37-50:

“I have learned to expect to be underwhelmed with study guides. Sadly, it was with this expectation that I began to read The Story of Joseph and Judah, a guide written by Warren Gage, Associate Professor of Old Testament at Knox Theological Seminary and Christopher Barber, a lawyer who is also a graduate of Knox Theological Seminary. I am glad to say that this guide, which promises to provide a ‘fresh look at Genesis 37-50,’ does just that and does it very well.

The book begins with a metaphor of sorts. Gage and Barber describe a story of two men, both of whom have travelled to Milan to gaze upon Da Vinci’s masterpiece the “Last Supper.” The first, a scientist, studies the work with a magnifying glass, moving slowly and methodically from top to bottom, left to right. He takes in the delicate brush strokes and the subtle use of color. And then, having studied every inch of the work, he turns his back and leaves, feeling satisfied that he now knows the painting. The second man stands as far away as possible and tries to understand how Da Vinci has captured a moment of Jesus’  life. He takes in the big picture, observing how each segment fits with the others. He notices that all the lines in the painting carry the eye directly towards Jesus. And then he too leaves, satisfied that he knows the painting.

How is this relevant to The Story of Joseph and Judah? ‘Our portrayal of the difference between the scientist and the art lover allows us to more easily explain the difference between the book you’re now reading and almost any other study of Scripture. Most books examining Genesis (or any other book of the Bible) follow, for the most part, the style of the scientist who stayed very close to the painting. Such studies begin with chapter 1, verse 1, and move line upon line, precept upon precept, breaking down each verse into individual phrases, words, even syllables. Like the scientist, it is as if we have a magnifying glass in our hands, and our noses only inches from the wall.’

The authors do not believe there is anything inherently wrong with such inductive study, but have decided to provide a different methodology in this study guide. They seek to give attention to the inductive study while doing so within the scope of the big picture. It is a unique concept for such study guides and one that proved itself to be very helpful in understanding the passage.”

or Typology: Deadly Weapon or game of Scattergories?

“Chiastic literary analysis has completely destroyed liberal literary criticism. Liberalism is in tatters, bleeding and dying. Liberalism cannot survive Dorsey’s chiastic proof of the total unity of Isaiah, for instance. Dorsey finds loads of 7-fold chiasms in the Bible. I’ve found scores more, quite independently. What Dorsey does not see is that these are recaps of the chiasm of the 7 days in Genesis 1. And that’s good, because it means he did not go through the Bible forcing passages into heptamerous chiasms. He just found them there, and others can see that these track Genesis 1 as ‘new creation’ passages.”

—James B. Jordan, A Reply on the Nature of the Psalter, Biblical Horizons blog, biblicalhorizons.wordpress.com, referring to David A. Dorsey, The Literary Structure of the Old Testament.

If chiastic literary analysis (along with typology as I posted recently) is such a powerful weapon against a modernist interpretation of the Bible, why are these methods of study shunned by those who oppose liberal theology? Why are theologians hauled over the coals for using it if it leaves the enemy in shreds?

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