Journal of Biblical and Pneumatological Research: Volume Three, 2011

By Paul Elbert

Journal of Biblical and Pneumatological Research

VOLUME THREE
FALL 2011

The Journal of Biblical and Pneumatological Research (JBPR) is a new international peer-reviewed academic serial dedicated to narratively and rhetorically minded exegesis of biblical and related texts. Potential topics include theological and pneumatological interpretation, the role of spiritual experience with authorial, canonical, and contemporary contexts, and the contextual activity of Ruach Yahweh, Ruach Elohim, and various identifications of the Holy Spirit. JBPR hopes to stimulate new thematic and narrative-critical exploration and discovery in both traditional and under-explored areas of research.


CONTENTS:

Editor's Overview of Volume 3 - 1

GALEN L. GOLDSMITH

The Cutting Edge of Prophetic Imagery

REBECCA SKAGGS and THOMAS DOYLE

The Audio/Visual Motif in the Apocalypse of John through the Lens of Rhetorical Analysis


DAVID SEAL

Sensitivity to Aural Elements of a Text: Some Acoustical Elements in Revelation


SIMO FRESTADIUS

The Spirit and Wisdom in 1 Corinthians 2:1-13

KEITH WHITT

Righteousness and Characteristics of Yahweh

VANTHANH NGUYEN, S.V.D.

Luke's Point of View of the Gentile Mission: The Test Case of Acts 11:1-18

LYLE STORY

Luke's Instructive Dynamics for Resolving Conflicts: The Jerusalem Council


Review of Christopher L. Carter, The Great Sermon Tradition as a Fiscal Framework in 1 Corinthians: Towards a Pauline Theology of Material Possessions (R. G. Dela Cruz)

Review of Robert P. Debelek, Jr., Hidden in Plain Sight: Esther and a Marginalized
Hermeneutic (A. Kay Fountain)

Review of Richard Feldmeier, The First Letter of Peter: A Commentary on the Greek Text
(Rebecca Skaggs and Thomas Doyle)

Review of Rodrigo J. Morales, The Spirit and the Restoration of Israel: New Exodus
and New Creation Motifs in Galatians (James C. Miller)

Review of Robin Routledge, Old Testament Theology: A Thematic Approach (Andrew Davies)

Review of John C. Poirier, The Tongues of Angels: The Concept of Angelic Languages in Classical Jewish and Christian Texts (Russell P. Spittler)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Release date: Sep 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781498275316

Paul Elbert

Paul Elbert, physicist-theologian and New Testament scholar, before retirement, was working in interpretive methods and narrative-rhetorical Greco-Roman backgrounds with respect to Luke-Acts, with a particular focus on the rhetorical use of examples and precedents, together with the fulfillment of prophecy theme in Lukan thought. He has served as chair and as co-chair of the Formation of Luke-Acts section within the Society of Biblical Literature and is a former adjunct faculty member at the Pentecostal Theological Seminary. He was the founding editor of the Journal of Biblical and Pneumatological Research.

Book preview

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Journal of Biblical and Pneumatological Research

VOLUME 3, 2011

JBPR is published annually by

Wipf and Stock Publishers. 199 West 8th Avenue, Suite 3,

Eugene, Oregon 97401, USA

©2011 by Wipf and Stock Publishers

ISSN: 1944–107X

ISBN: 978–1–61097–651–0

EISBN 13: 978-1-4982-7531-6

The cover of JBPR features professor John C. Trevor’s photograph of the Isaiah scroll found in Cave 1 at Qumran and is used with the copyright permission of his estate. The scroll consists of 17 sheets of sheepskin sewn together, being 24 feet long and 10 inches high. The earliest biblical manuscript appears here as it looked in 1948 after being sealed in a jar and unexposed to light for over two thousand years. Dr. Trevor has opened the scroll to Isa 38:8–40:28. Lines 2 and 3 in the left column contain Isa 40:3 which inspired the community that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Journal of Biblical and Pneumatological Research

Editor

Paul Elbert, Pentecostal Theological Seminary

900 Walker Street, NE

Cleveland, Tennessee 37320-3330

Books for review should be sent to the editor at this address.

All editorial correspondence should be sent electronically

to [e-mail] or to [e-mail].

Website: http://wipfandstock.com/journals/jbpr

Editorial Board

Thirty three scholars in thirteen countries serve the critical collaborative editorial process of the Journal of Biblical and Pneumatological Research, an international peer-reviewed journal:

Guillermo Acero, Insitution Biblico Pastoral Latinamericano, Universidad Minuto de Dios, COLUMBIA

Mervin Breneman, Escuela de Estudios Pastorales, COSTA RICA

Chris Carter, Central Bible College, Tokyo, JAPAN

Blaine Charette, Northwest University, USA

Roger Cotton, Assemblies of God Theological Seminary, USA

Terry Cross, Lee University, USA

Andrew Davies, University of Birmingham, UK

David Dorman, Near East School of Theology, LEBANON

Scott Ellington, Emmanuel College (Georgia), USA

Janet Meyer Everts, Hope College, USA

A. Kay Fountain, Asia Pacific Theological Seminary, PHILIPPINES

Jacqueline Grey, Alphacrucis College, AUSTRALIA

Jon Huntzinger, King’s Seminary, USA

William Kay, Bangor University, UK

Dongsoo Kim, Pyeongtaek University, SOUTH KOREA

William Kurz, S.J., Marquette University, USA

Leonard Maré, North-West University, SOUTH AFRICA 

Lee Roy Martin, Pentecostal Theological Seminary, USA

Robert Menzies, Synergy (A Rural Service Organization), CHINA

Martin Mittlestadt, Evangel University, USA

David Norris, Urshan Graduate School, USA

Finney Philip, Filadelfia Bible College, INDIA

John Poirier, Kingswell Theological Seminary, USA

Emerson Powery, Messiah College, USA

Robin Routledge, Mattersey Hall College and Graduate School, UK

James Shelton, Oral Roberts University, USA

Rebecca Skaggs, Patten University, USA

Kevin Spawn, Regent University, USA

Rob Starner, Southwestern Assemblies of God University, USA

Roger Stronstad, Summit Pacific College, CANADA

Robby Waddell, Southeastern University (Florida), USA

Keith Warrington, Regents Theological College, UK

Wilhelm Wessels, University of South Africa, SOUTH AFRICA

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Table of Contents

Title Page

Editor’s Overview of Volume 3

The Cutting Edge of Prophetic Imagery

Through the Lens of Rhetorical Analysis The Audio/Visual Motif in the Apocalypse of John

Sensitivity to Aural Elements of a Text: Some Acoustical Elements in Revelation

The Spirit and Wisdom in 1 Corinthians 2:1–13

Righteousness and Characteristics of Yahweh

Luke’s Point of View of the Gentile Mission: The Test Case of Acts 11:1–18

Luke’s Instructive Dynamics for Resolving Conflicts: The Jerusalem Council

Carter, Christopher L. The Great Sermon Tradition as a Fiscal Framework in 1 Corinthians: Towards a Pauline Theology of Material Possessions. Library of New Testament Studies 403. London / New York: T & T Clark International, 2010. Pp. xi + 272. Hardcover. £70.00 / $130.00. ISBN 978–0–567–47304–2.

Debelak, Robert P., Jr. Hidden in Plain Sight: Esther and a Marginalized Hermeneutic. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2008. Pp. 170. Paper. $20.00. ISBN 978–1–55635–499–1

Feldmeier, Reinhard. The First Letter of Peter: A Commentary on the Greek Text. Trans. Peter H. Davids. Waco, Tex: Baylor University Press, 2008. Pp. 265. Paper. $29.95. ISBN 978–1–60258–024–4

Morales, Rodrigo J. The Spirit and the Restoration of Israel: New Exodus and New Creation Motifs in Galatians. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2/282. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010. Pp. xii + 200. Paper. €49.00 / $71.60 / £43.54. ISBN 978–3–16–150435–8

Routledge, Robin. Old Testament Theology: A Thematic Approach. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2009. Pp. 384. Casebound. $32.00 / £17.99. ISBN 978–0–8308–2896–8.

Poirier, John C. The Tongues of Angels: The Concept of Angelic Languages in Classical Jewish and Christian Texts. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2/287. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010. Pp. xi + 222. Paper. €59.00 / $93.18 / £51.25. ISBN: 978–3–16–150569–0.

Editor’s Overview of Volume 3

The strong contemporary interest in New Testament prophecy certainly complements the new discoveries and insights that a deeper understanding of Israelite prophecy may bring to the fore. Galen Goldsmith ably demonstrates this point with her new study on the cutting edge of that inspired prophetic speech and its imagery wherein the divine name plays an intriguing and heuristic role. Prophecy in the Book of Revelation continues to be mined for new insights and in this volume we are offered two studies which interact with much of the recent scholarship exploring these new insights. Rebecca Skaggs and Thomas Doyle look at details of the audio/visual component of revelation and David Seal treats the impact of aural effects on listeners to what is being revealed. Moving to Paul, Simo Frestadius gives us an insightful analysis of Paul’s interlocking connection of the Holy Spirit with the reality of divine wisdom as expressed in chapter two of First Corinthians. In keeping with the prophetic revelation of the one true God in the Old Testament, the righteousness of Yahweh and its notable characteristics are given a fresh investigation by Keith Whitt, helping to deepen both our understanding of this aspect of the divine nature and our appreciation of its efficacious direction toward us. In the narrative-rhetorical area, we are always interested in the interpretive significance of point of view and vanThanh Nguyen does not disappoint with his perceptive study of Luke’s portrayal of the Gentile mission. Our seven entries for this volume are brought to a fitting close with Lyle Story’s attention to the contextual details of how the Holy Spirit functions as a freely acting and independent communal but personal witness, a phenomenon of collective Christian experience noticed by the Jerusalem council in the Book of Acts. This interactive connection and partnership with the Spirit which can assist in overcoming ecclesiological difficulties and tensions, very briefly considered earlier by Oskar Föller,¹ is given a welcome and timely examination here by Professor Story.

Our panel of critical reviewers complements well the in-depth investigations of our aforementioned authors. R. G. dela Cruz, A. Kay Fountain, Rebecca Skaggs, Thomas Doyle, James Miller, and Andrew Davis attempt to evaluate the work represented by their respective authors, while also stimulating current discussion when appropriate. On behalf of the journal’s editorial board, I am grateful for the opportunity to commend this third volume of JBPR to friends of scholarship everywhere within the biblical and theological community of scholars, teachers, pastors, missionaries, and Gospel workers.

P.E.

1. Föller’s very brief treatment categorized as Paradoxe Wechselbeziehung und Parnerschaft: Der überwindende Geist als Gabe appears within his broader discussion of Der Heilige Geist und die Erkenntnis seines Wirkens in einem heilökonomisch-trinitarischen dogmatischen Entwurf in ‘ökumenischer’ Methodik, a critique of the pneumatological dimensions of Heidelberg theologian Edmund Schlink’s ecclesiology (Oskar Föller, Charisma und Unterscheidung: Systematische und pastor-ale Aspekte der Einordning und Beurteilung enthusiastisch-charismatischer Frömmigkeit im katholischen und evangelischen Bereich [TVM; Wuppertal: Brockhaus, 1997], 238–75 [268]).

The Cutting Edge of Prophetic Imagery

GALEN L. GOLDSMITH

[e-mail]

Tyndale STEP Project, Tyndale House, Cambridge, UK

The live drama of Israelite prophecy was elicited when a prophet saw history and human nature from the standpoint of God, and so was impelled to speak for God. Prophetic speech was set in historical circumstances that can never be repeated, but it does not leave that moment as it found it because prophecy is a moment in history in which God’s perspective intends to alter the course of events.¹ Whether ancient prophets spoke first and wrote later, or carefully composed a speech and delivered it, prophetic texts retain the character of a performance that strikes its point in a few words.² The oracle becomes literature as the critical moment recedes, leaving distilled insights and sharpened judgments aimed at the conscience.

Like parables, oracles elicit nuanced reflection with words that do not require literacy to understand. Prophets used cinematic images to characterize historical settings and human behavior, so that the parallels between fact and fiction create a new design for understanding reality.³ They invented a metaphorical context that continually measures inhumanity by eloquent and unprecedented standards. The main subject is the historical situation the prophet commented upon. The historical facts are made to interact with an auxiliary subject, which is the thematic use of imagery. This new design has continuing relevance for new settings because it succeeds not only in stating a critical reality, but in prompting the hearer to draw conclusions that ultimately bear on generalized behavior.

Prophecy survived history to become art by holding history and metaphor in a tension that illumines both. Its factual structure, originally determined by the situation the prophet commented on, is soon unbound from its original context, but remains bound to how images characterized the facts. The fixing of the metaphoric representation of fact continues to influence subsequent evaluations of similar situations. Oracles that were acts of protest, judgment, or social commentary in a specific historic setting survived as literature because they continue to alter how people think and act.⁴

It would be naïve to suppose that oral teaching, though simple, is not sophisticated. Classical Hebrew prophecy, intent on changing the hearer’s attitude towards the world, exercised its genius to direct or redirect opinion, causing the hearer to arrive at the surprising (and possibly damning) conclusion, How true! A classic example is Nathan’s entrapment of David in the metaphor of the lamb taken from a poor man to be slaughtered by a rich man (2 Sam 12:5–13). David’s horror at the injustice turns against his own actions when Nathan disclosed the metaphorical parallel to Uriah the Hittite and his wife, Bathsheba, whom David had taken and then ensured that her husband would be killed in battle (2 Sam 11). Nathan’s adroitly told fiction caused David to see facts he had ignored. Trapped in self-condemnation, David repented. The mix of fact and fiction provided by Nathan deftly subjected the king’s hitherto unquestioned noblesse oblige to common and lawful standards of humanity. It is still a thriving moral paradigm.

The metaphors to which this discussion now turns are four of the most striking and effective prophetic images discovered by the author during a reading of the entire Hebrew Bible in Hebrew. They are joined here by no other thread than the excellence of each Hebrew mashal, remarkable for lively social critique, beauty, imaginative precision, and exegetical creativity. Each one achieves its point poetically, through sound and rhythm, and all used images as a way of causing people to think unwonted thoughts. Each one has quite distinctive exegetical problems, and so the discussion of each will be entirely different. The passages for which translations have been done and annotated were those in which appreciation of how the image operates could profitably govern the varied tasks of a translator. The aim of each exegesis is merely to understand how that image works; why is it so terrible, so good, so holy?

Hosea 7:3–9

Hos 6:7 to the end of chapter 7 is a series of laments in which adultery and idolatry are related forms of infidelity to God. In the Hosean thought-world of chapters 1–3, adultery is a metaphor for idolatry. The theme is refreshed in these laments by comparing adultery, violence and apostasy to how bread is baked, which is the fulcrum of the prophetic device. The metaphor opens with a complaint that indicts moral idiocy: They do not say in their hearts that I remember their wickedness. (7:2).⁵ Growing lawlessness (3–7) ripens into apostasy (8, 9) until Ephraim can be compared to badly made bread, broken by other nations. But still they do not return to the LORD their God; for all this, they do not seek him (10). The language of baking, heating ovens, swelling dough, is innocent enough, but its conjunction with personal, political and religious infidelity is shockingly apt.

The jagged texture of the text of Hosea has been at the center of a long history of comment that has included diachronic, tradition historical and synchronic descriptions.⁶ The baking metaphor is remarkable for abrupt syntax, broken grammatical structures and ambiguous vocabulary, and these factors naturally produce varied exegetical and translational solutions. One hypothesis is that the text is only a sketch of what the prophet said, written either by the prophet or his followers.⁷ The spoken word was flexible, adapted to the audience and left in the moment. Only an orator’s notes remain.

Alternatively, tradition history has held that the original utterances of Hosea were always transmitted by a group of adherents who were at liberty to retell them with minor variances. The exact words of the prophet cannot be determined because his message was mediated by how his students remembered, creatively re-used, and finally fixed his message in writing.⁸ In this view, the baking metaphor of Hosea 7 is a template by which both the court and the international policies of the king were critiqued for their general failure to turn to God.

Redaction criticism can then hold that the second metaphor regarding Ephraim is a re-invention of the ipsissima verba of Hosea in 3–7.⁹ The text bears this interesting explanation particularly well because 8 and 9 are in superior condition for translation. However, if 3–9 is not a single complex diatribe, the irony of those who consume their judges (7) being consumed by the nations (9) is a remarkably well done addition to the original prophecy.

Since the dates of Hosea are well known, 3–7 possibly refers to a specific assassination in Israel, giving rise to speculation that the baker was a key character in an assassination, so baking was part of a sitz im leben that could be compared to lust and ambition.¹⁰ The mashal made the baker’s craft a conceit for how a plan, once it is conceived, grips the imagination while at rest and awakens the heated intention to act.

From a purely literary reading, many examples of assonance in the choice of words creates a texture of associations that can be analyzed on several levels.¹¹ Moreover, this poetic musicality demands dramatic performance to be fully appreciated. My translation below is composed with the aim of making effective Hosea’s comparison of bread baking to vice.

(3) In their wickedness they make the king glad¹², and in their deceits, princes. (4) They are all adulterous as a burning oven.¹³ The baker lets the dough rest, he takes it up,¹⁴, he kneads¹⁵ it until it is leavened. (5) By day¹⁶ princes enraged ¹⁷ with wine weaken¹⁸ our king; he drew to his side¹⁹ deceivers.²⁰ (6) For in their artifice, they prepare their hearts like an oven²¹; within them their anger²² lies inert through the night; in the morning it ²³ bursts into flaming fire. (7) They are all heated like an oven; they consume²⁴ their judges and all their kings are fallen. None of them call upon me. (8) Ephraim is mixed among the people; he is a cake not turned. (9) Strangers eat his strength and he doesn’t know it; mold²⁵ is scattered over him and he knows it not" (Hos 7:3–9).

Rising bread dough easily doubles its size when at rest while a hot oven is prepared to arrest its swelling. It is anything but exciting. But to coordinate this placid routine with adultery engenders a kind of horror as the hidden agenda appears. It is so well-conceived as to make its point on first hearing or reading. When the reader understands, the strange disjunction of subjects has arrested prurient interest while engaging moral reflection. Deeply indecent but avoiding indelicacy, the comparison is like acceptable but hidden crime, or social sins that move along tried and true paths of convention. The innocent image bristles with angry language that tears away the mask of innocence. Baking does not indulge the passions; but describing passion, ambition or crime as baking gives the intellect an opportunity to dissect immorality dispassionately.

The metaphor has several purposes. One is to evaluate historic human actions by a standard that elicits judgment as to their quality and merit. Another is to frame the social comment in terms that ring true for this entire class of motive and deed. The main subject, in view of Hosea’s first chapters, is adultery, itself a metaphor for idolatry and political folly.²⁶ The auxiliary subject is the phased process of baking bread. Prurient fascination exercised over the imagination by vice is arrested by the dispassionate association of inflamed sentiments with fermenting yeast. The tendency to enjoy the subject is thus suspended. The metaphor then heightens the ability to form a moral judgment by "a novel configuration . . . by the juxtaposition of two frames of reference of which the reader must be simultaneously aware."²⁷ These two domains collide —two contexts that are not actually comparable each interpret the other. The reader must discern in a euphemistic setting the mental, moral and emotional states that engender and drive wrongdoing on to its bitter end.

This prophetic image uses a well-known routine of the disempowered to expose what kings and princes do. People who bake daily bread can easily understand the judgment upon a ruling class burning with enthusiasm for pleasure and power. Even a woman’s imagination is called to judge priests and rulers as she might another woman. Making these high and fine intrigues as common as bread removes the privileges that shield them from public calumny. The metaphor thus brings judgment and with it the hope of justice, for what is exposed in this way is drained of good reason to cooperate with it. Hos 7:2 and 10 however, do not leave the subject entirely open to interpretation, but direct it: the fault—of which all are guilty, whether through adultery, regicide or apostasy—is failing to turn to the LORD.

Habakkuk 1:9–12

Like Hosea (737–720 BCE), Habbakuk (606–598 BCE) employed familiar images to say extraordinary things, but this passage dreaded something not yet accomplished. Its purpose was to cause people to understand something too unbelievable to be plainly said (v. 5), or perhaps to admit the unthinkable. The failure of justice and its perversion in Judah will result in bondage to a people whose justice and dignity proceed from themselves. The Chaldeans who will replace a society structured by the teachings of Moses are worse than disobedient to law;