Thoughts on the New Testament . . . and Other Stuff by David B Capes
Over the last decade I have given a good deal of thought and effort to exploring what it means to imitate Christ. Recently I sat down with Dr. Holly Ordway to discuss what it means and how we go about it. I have two academic articles on it which I hope to make available here on my blog soon. Stay tuned. In the meantime, take a listen.
http://www.civitate.org/2014/05/the-city-podcast-how-to-imitate-christ/
Scholars have been weighing in on the badly named “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife” fragment since Harvard University’s Karen King announced it about 20 months ago. Now after publication in the Harvard Theological Review, closer scrutiny by scholars has almost certainly determined the fragment is a forgery. By whom we do not know?
The most up-to-date presentation of the details can be found on Mark Goodacre’s blog on May 5, 2014. Here is the link:
Forgeries of antiquities are nothing new. A lot of money has been made by creating fake relics and smuggling them out of their supposed countries of origin. Likewise, careers have been made (and sometimes broken) by scholars who discover and argue for the authenticity of new documents, particularly when those documents present information which goes against the prevailing knowledge of a field.
Let’s not be too hard on Dr. Karen King and Harvard University. This is exactly how scholarship is supposed to work. Research is conducted and ideas are put forward by a scholar in a publication. Those ideas are tested and examined by another group of scholars. Over time–it sometimes takes several years–the truth comes out.
Jack Wisdom and I taught a Lenten series at Ecclesia Houston on the Imitation of Christ. Jack is an elder at Ecclesia and one of the scholar-writers who helped us with the translation. He is a lawyer during the day and a New Testament scholar all the time. He is a good friend, and I admire the way he carefully reads through the Scripture.
One of my favorite biblical texts urging us to follow Jesus and have his mind is Philippians 2.5-11. It is one of those passages I think about and quote often. At the heart of it is an early Christian hymn that sets the story of Jesus within poetic verse. A lot of modern translations obscure the fact it is a hymn. The New American Standard Version (NASV), for example, formats every verse like a paragraph so you never really know you’re dealing with a hymn. Now I like the NASV, but that is one of its shortcomings. In The Voice we decided to take seriously not only the words but the forms as well.
The Bible contains more than prose. It contains poems, hymns, acrostics, and wordplays. Now, to be honest there are aspects of the original Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic that you cannot replicate in another language; but there are features which you can at least attempt to bring over into the target language—in our case English. For example, Lamentations is written in an acrostic poem. So our scholar-writer Dr. Kristin Swenson, research professor at the University of Virginia, did an excellent job at approximating the look, sound, and meaning of the Hebrew acrostic. An acrostic is a type of poem where each line or set of lines begins with a new letter in alphabetic order: A, B, C, etc. It’s a challenge to do because English has more letters than Hebrew. Still we sensed there was beauty and meaning in the form. Take a look at how we did Lamentations 3. If you don’t have a copy of The Voice, you can always look it up on www.biblegateway.com.
Back to Philippians 2. Here is how we translated the Philippian hymn to Christ.
Though He was in the form of God,
He chose not to cling to equality with God;
7 But He poured Himself out to fill a vessel brand new;
a servant in form
and a man indeed.
The very likeness of humanity,
8 He humbled Himself,
obedient to death—
a merciless death on the cross!
9 So God raised Him up to the highest place
and gave Him the name above all.
10 So when His name is called,
every knee will bow,[a]
in heaven, on earth, and below.
11 And every tongue will confess[b]
“Jesus, the Anointed One, is Lord,”
to the glory of God our Father!
The hymn captures the career of Jesus from his preexistent glory with God to his incarnation, suffering and then exaltation. Paul urges the Philippians to have the same mind (2:5). Larry Hurtado, retired New Testament professor at the University of Edinburgh, offered a phrase a few years ago that has helped me think about this. Jesus, he said, is “the lordly example” of humility and service. Most lords through history have demanded others serve them. This Lord emptied himself, humbled himself and ultimately gave his life for others. We can’t do those actions, but we can strive to have the same mind. Now that we are beyond the Lenten season, my hope is that we might follow the lordly example of Jesus in service to God, his people, and his creation.
Many thanks to David Taylor and Paul Owen who hosted me recently at Montreat College in western North Carolina. I had a wonderful time sharing with hundreds of students, faculty, and staff in class and in chapel. Their students asked some great questions. Some of which I’m still pondering and hope to answer later, here on this blog. Montreat College is a great school in one of the most beautiful settings I’ve ever seen. I can see why people want to go there to study, hike, and do life together.
A friend of mine Edward Fudge is hosting a conference this summer, July 11-12, at the Lanier Theological Library. The title is “Rethinking Hell.” Edward Fudge, as you may know, has written the definitive book on hell as annihilation. Here is an announcement I received recently on it. If you are in or near Houston this summer, you should plan on attending. Go to the site http://www.rethinkinghell.com for more details.
Eleven weeks from now, registrants from countries on three or four continents arrive in Houston for the first ever Rethinking Hell Conference. Awaiting them will be a schedule that includes high academic prowess and ground-level practice, historical exhibits, a live podcast interview with audience involvement, screening of a feature movie, and never-before-seen excerpts from an international documentary film now in progress.
All this happens in a world-renowned venue, the Lanier Theological Library and Chapel, whose professional staff is accustomed to tourist buses, even on ordinary days with nothing special on the calendar. The calendar for this conference is brief, though packed, beginning on Friday evening, July 11, and ending Saturday night, July 12. In keeping with the sponsor’s mission and vision, and unlike many conferences, this one is open to anyone who wishes to register (for a very modest fee) and attend.
The sponsor and its mission
Less than two years ago, God wondrously brought together a small group of disparate individuals scattered halfway around the world, by inspiring in them the uniting vision of a joint mission. They differed in age, location, occupation, and theology–but in truth they shared very much indeed. They all were Christian believers and all held to evangelical convictions. Additionally, driving this conference on July 11-12 in Houston, the sponsors all held the understanding of final judgment known as conditionalism or conditional immortality.
The group named their mission the Rethinking Hell Project, and took as their first assignment the creation of a powerful website called RethinkingHell.com . Next, they organized an international conference on the subject that brought them together.
What is conditionalism?
The term “conditionalism” reflects the biblical teaching that human beings are not inherently immortal, and that human immortality is “conditional” as God’s gift to the redeemed. At the time he has appointed, God will raise all the dead, both righteous and unrighteous, for judgment and their final reward.
However, while the redeemed are raised immortal, the unrighteous are not. Instead, they are banished into hell, also called Gehenna, and the Lake of Fire. There they finally “perish” (John 3:16), are “destroyed” both soul and body (Matt.10:28), and experience the “second death” (Rev. 21:8)–from which there will be no restoration, return, or recovery forever. This is the view set out in my 1982 book, The Fire That Consumes, which was something of a leader in its field.
Conference speakers and presenters
The conference will feature two plenary speakers–Dr. John Stackhouse of Vancouver, Canada, and Dr. Glenn Peoples of Wellington, New Zealand. Dr. Stackhouse holds the Sangwoo Youtong Chee Chair of Theology and Culture at Regent College, an international graduate school of Christian studies. Dr. Peoples blogs (Right Reason) on issues of philosophy, theology, biblical studies and social issues. His is the most widely listened to podcast on philosophy or theology in the southern hemisphere.
Presenters at breakout sessions and panelists include philosophers, theologians, authors and clergy; but also an evangelist/apologist in more than 100 countries; an appellate judge, a filmmaker and a psychiatrist, each bringing a unique perspective. Dr. Stackhouse is also slated to preach on Sunday, July 13 at Bering Drive Church of Christ in Houston, and those attending the conference are specially invited to attend.
Will you join me there?
Click here for links to the conference schedule, cost, and hotel and other information. With only eleven weeks to go, why not register now and plan to join me there!
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This may strike you as a strange question until you recall this was a question posed during Jesus’ lifetime. Here is the dialogue from the translation The Voice:
Jesus (to the crowds): 21 I am leaving this place, and you will look for Me and die in your sin. For where I am going, you are unable to come.
Jews: 22 Is He suicidal? He keeps saying, “Where I am going, you are unable to come.”
Given the strange things Jesus keeps saying, it is no doubt some of them wondered whether he intended to kill himself. Scholars think this kind of question persisted long after Jesus’ death. By the time of the Johannine community this may have been an ongoing charge against Jesus. If Jesus did kill himself, then he violated one of the ten commandments. Self-murder is still murder and is a grievous sin. How could Jesus then have been the Messiah?
If suicide means to take actions which will likely lead to one’s own death, then the charge may stick. In all four Gospels Jesus’ actions put him on a collision course with powerful people who had a vested interested in putting him to death. Jesus pushed them too far. Scholars think it was the temple incident—often mischaracterized as his cleansing of the temple—which put the nail in his proverbial coffin. Even at his defense or lack of defense, he handed his Jewish interrogators the charge that finally stuck: blasphemy. False witnesses were so inept they could not agree so Jesus came along and condemned himself with his own words.
Consider the modern example of suicide by cop. It happens dozens of times every year in this country. A person takes a handgun into a crowded mall and starts brandishing it about. He has no intention of hurting anyone other than himself. He wants to die and for whatever reason can’t bring himself to do it alone. Some terrorized person calls 911 and soon the police arrive. The man takes refuge in the back of a store. Perhaps he has taken a few faux hostages. It’s all part of the ruse. The man lowers the gun in the direction of the officers and a peace officer, fearing for his life, squeezes off three rounds in rapid succession. When they examine the dead man’s gun, they realize it was not loaded. Some poor policeman will have to live with it for the rest of his life. But he could not have known.
The man acted in a way which would likely lead to his death at the hand of another. Jesus did the same . . . or did he? One one level, the answer could be yes, until that is you factor in his motivation.
The suicide charge only works depending on one’s motive. In the case above of suicide by cop, the man wanted to die. He was hurting physically, mentally, emotionally and he wanted the hurting to stop. So he killed himself.
But there are those who sacrifice themselves for others. They act in such a way which will likely lead to their deaths, but they do so for noble reasons. Consider the soldier who falls on a grenade losing his life but saving the lives of his friends and others. Or consider the secret service agent who steps in front of a bullet meant for a presidential candidate. He loses his life to save another. Or consider the firemen who rush into a burning building to save a homeless man trapped in the building. The building collapses on them, and they all die. Factor in motive, then it changes everything. It is no longer suicide; it is now the greatest sacrifice of all.
I’ve always found it interesting when we talk about ultimate things we are driven to religious language. When firefighters give their lives in the line of duty we don’t turn to theater and say “they exited, stage left.” When soldiers give their lives in Afghanistan or any war for that matter, we don’t turn to sport and say, “they took one for the team.” No, we turn to religion because only religious language can carry the weight of ultimate things. This is why we say, the firefighters and soldiers made the ultimate sacrifice. Now, no one would say God was looking for human sacrifice because he wasn’t. He ruled that out a long time ago. Sacrifice is the only way we have to speaking of the sheer gravity of their selfless actions.
So Jesus did not kill himself, but he did act in such a way so as to bring about his death. In some extraordinary way he seemed to control those final hours and what ultimately happened to him. He could have avoided the cross altogether, gotten married and moved to the south of France. But Jesus had a different plan and a nobler motive grounded in love. Though he did not want to die, he did wish to lay down his life for others. When trying to make sense of the death of Jesus, early Christians turned where we do in order to talk about what happened. In some ways it was more natural for them because they lived in the shadow of the temple where real sacrifices went on daily. But again, no one was saying that God was looking for and demanding a human sacrifice. Still the language of sacrifice is the most satisfying way of thinking and pondering what happened to Jesus on the first Good Friday.
A Word in Edgewise 
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