Reading Paul and Palestinian Judaism 6: Ben Sirach

Sanders claims that two actions can atone for sins in the Wisdom of Jesus Ben Sirach: (1) honoring one’s father and (2) giving to the poor (338).

• Sir 3.3: ὁ τιμῶν πατέρα ἐξιλάσκεται ἁμαρτίας, // the one honoring [their] father atones for sins.
• Sir 3.30: πῦρ φλογιζόμενον ἀποσβέσει ὕδωρ, καὶ ἐλεημοσύνη ἐξιλάσεται ἁμαρτίας. // [as] water puts out a blazing fire, so alms atone for sins.

Giving to the poor is a thoroughly Jewish idea. The notion of alms giving to the poor as salvific is also found Didache 4.6: ἐὰν ἔχῃς διὰ τῶν χειρῶν σου, δώσεις λύτρωσιν ἁμαρτιῶν σου. // if you have through your hands [i.e. through working], give it in redemption for your sins. The idea here is giving money earned through labor to the disadvantaged of the community serves to redeem the person from their sins.

This Jewish idea also shows some influence in Matt 25.31–46. In this parable, the Matthean Jesus separates those whose destiny is unending punishment from those whose destiny is unending life. The distinguishing mark between these two groups is one cared for the disadvantaged and the other did not. However, unlike Sirach, the Didache, or later Rabbinic writings, the link between giving to the poor and redemption/atonement/etc. is not explicit but implicitly embedded in the story.

I wonder if Matthew backed off a bit from this link between alms and redemption, making it only implicit, because he wanted to allow room for Jesus’ death as ultimately redemptive/salvific (cf. Matt 20.28). I am not a Matthean scholar but one might be able to see a trajectory here, as other Christian writers don’t seem to make this link: as the Jesus movement went from Jewish to largely Gentile, the distinctly Jewish link between alms and atonement slowly died to make room for other understandings of atonement (from Point A [Sir 3.30] to Point B [Did 4.6] to Point C [Matt 25.31–46]).

Just curious blog musings here, people …

A Five-Fold Reading of Psalm 2

This post is a bit less gutsy and controversial but I figured sense I laid out my current thoughts on the hermeneutics of ‘son of man’, I might as well do the same for the hermeneutics of ‘son of God’. Interestingly, the son of man figure appears to have a more exulted status in the Second Temple period than the son of God figure. Ironically, these phrases ‘flip-flopped’ in the later writings of the Apostolic and Church Fathers: Son of Man denoting Jesus’ humanity and Son of God denoting his divine status and filial relationship with God.

A Five-Fold Reading of Psalm 2:

• Historical-Critical: This is not a messianic psalm but is a royal psalm about a coronation of a king.
• Canonical-OT Theology: This text was to be read in conjunction with 2 Samuel 7 concerning the Davidic dynasty. The Prophets longed for its restoration. These promises gave root to earliest messianism in the post-exilic period as other nations ruled over the Jewish people, though God had promised a Davidic dynasty reigning justly.
• Intertestamental: The LXX is beginning to evince an expectation of an eschatological Messiah in their translation of Psalm 2. PsSol 17 combines Psalm 2 and Isaiah 11 to render a messianic reading. SibOr 3 evinces reliance upon Psalm 2, as well. Both of these are moving the son of God figure in a more eschatological direction (cf. Sam Janse, You Are My Son: The Reception of Psalm 2 in Early Judaism and the early Church [Walpole: Peeters, 2009]).
• Apostolic: Mark 1.1, 11; 9.7; 15.39 all apply Psalm 2 to Jesus in a regal, messianic sense. Cf. also Hebrews 1 & 5.
• Christian: Tert. Marc.3.20 sites from Ps 2.1–2 to argue for the divinity of Jesus. Cyril of Alexandria (PG 69:721) and Augustine (FC 92: 149) read this filial language this Ps 2.7 language through a christological lense in a Nicean/Trinitarian manner.

Thoughts? Questions? Outbursts? I do find it rather interesting to development of these terms from their original meaning to their later Christian / Creedal understanding.

A Five-Fold Reading of Daniel 7.13–14

I am doing some work for a class on Daniel 7.13–14 (esp. the ‘son of man’ phrase) been used throughout its reception history. Here is my first stab. I would love to hear your thoughts.

A FIve-Fold Reading of Daniel 7.13–14:

• Historical-Critical: This refers most likely to one like a human being. More ink has been spilled on this text than most other OT text due to its importance to both Old Testament and New Testament issues. This either refers to (1) an exalted human figure or (2) a heavenly being. (some might also taken this as a collective symbol, but this seems unlikely). The context demands an exulted figure in some sense. It seems reasonable to connect the Son of Man in Daniel 7.13–14 with Michael the archangel who was the angelic defender of Israel (cf. esp. Daniel 12.1–2; Collins, 305–6).
• Canonical-OT Theology: This text has no meaningful connexion to the other uses of Son of Man in Ezekiel and is not about the Messiah per se; it is, however, messianic in the broad sense of the term (cf. Hartman and Di Lella, 219). Messianism evolved out of the cognitive dissonance between the Davidic regal promises and the nations dominating Israel. This is precisely the context of Daniel 7. At bottom, it must be considered a theologically messianic text in some sense: God will give to an exulted (heavenly? angelic?) figure dominion and share his throne with him (Mowinkel, He That Cometh, 348–9).
• Intertestamental: The LXX renders פלח as λατρεύω in Daniel 7.14, evincing a tendency to further exult this Son of Man figure. 1 Enoch 36, 46, and especially 48 harken back to Daniel 7.13–14 and interpret them messianically as referring to an exalted figure, though not one who is divine in any Trinitarian or even binitarian sense. 2 Esdras 7 & 13 also seem to speak of the Son of Man (alluding back to Dan 7.13–14) in both a pre-existent and messianic sense (cf. Myers, 307–15).
• Apostolic: The Gospels (and mainly the Synoptic Gospels) use the phrase Son of Man to refer to the exulted position of Jesus, though not in a Trinitarian and not even in a divine sense. Though the precise meaning of the term is unknown, it clearly refers to one endowed with divine authority (cf. Mark 2.1–12; 2.28; 13.26 et al).
• Christian: As early as Ignatius in the early 2nd century (IEph 20.1–2), many within the church began to speak of the terms Son of Man and Son of God to speak of the humanity and divinity of Jesus of Nazereth. Both Justin Martyr and Irenaeus used Daniel’s Son of Man to refer to Jesus’ humanity (cf. Justin.Dial.100; cf. also Iren.Haer.12).

This is where I am sitting of these issues right now. Thoughts? Questions? Outbursts? Something I am missing? I realize this is greatly reducing complex issues but for the sake of a blog post I found it necessary to do so.

Observations on IEph.20.1–2

Ignatius wrote the following as he wrapped up his small scroll that he sent to the Ephesians:

Ἐάν με καταξιώσῃ Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς ἐν τῇ προσευχῇ ὑμῶν, καὶ θέλημα ᾖ, ἐν τῷ δευτέρῳ βιβλιδίῳ ὃ μέλλω γράφειν ὑμῖν, προσδηλώσω ὑμῖν ἧς ἠρξάμην οἰκονομίας εἰς τὸν καινὸν ἄνθρωπον Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν, ἐν τῇ αὐτοῦ πίστει καὶ ἐν τῇ αὐτοῦ ἀγάπῃ, ἐν πάθει αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀναστάσει, μάλιστα ἐὰν ὁ κύριός μοι ἀποκαλύψῃ «τι» οἱ κατ᾿ ἄνδρα κοινῇ πάντες ἐν χάριτι ἐξ ὀνόματος συνέρχεσθε ἐν μιᾷ πίστει καὶ ἑνὶ Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ, τῷ κατὰ σάρκα ἐκ γένους Δαυίδ, τῷ υἱῷ ἀνθρώπου καὶ υἱῷ θεοῦ, εἰς τὸ ὑπακούειν ὑμᾶς τῷ ἐπισκόπῳ καὶ τῷ πρεσβυτερίῳ ἀπερισπάστῳ διανοίᾳ, ἕνα ἄρτον κλῶντες, ὅ ἐστιν φάρμακον ἀθανασίας, ἀντίδοτος τοῦ μὴ ἀποθανεῖν ἀλλὰ ζῆν ἐν Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ διὰ παντός. // If Jesus Christ considers me worthy in your prayers, and if it is his will, in my second small scroll which I am about to write to you, I will explain to you the divine subject which I began (to explain) with reference to the new man Jesus Christ, involving his faithfulness and his love, his suffering and resurrection—especially is the Lord reveals anything to me. Continue to gather together, each and every one of you, collectively and individually by name, in grace, in one faith and one Jesus Christ, who was in the flesh a descendent of David, Son of Man and Son of God, so that you might obey the bishop and the presbyters in an undisturbed mind, breaking one bread, which is the medicine of immortality, the antidote [we take in order to] not die but to live forever in Jesus Christ.

I have read this verse several time and it always surprises me for a couple reasons.

1. As Mike over at Ecce Homo pointed out in his recent article in JTS, Ignatius referred to the faithfulness of Christ using a subjective genitive construction. Of course, syntactically this could be taken as an objective, but the context seems to defy this reading, as ἐν πάθει αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀναστάσει clearly demands a subjective sense. For Ignatius, in this text, the emphasis is on the work of the Messiah, not on our faith.
2. Ignatius collocates two highly debated christological terms in the phrase, ‘Son of Man and Son of God’. What’s more, the basic reading of this phrase in this text seems to go against the grain of much scholarship concerning the original contextual meaning of these terms. Tell me if I am missing something, but by collocating these terms, he seems to be trying to highlight the humanity together with divinity of Jesus, as we know that Ignatius thinks of Jesus as divine from his intro to this letter (IEph 1.0: ἐν θελήματι τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν). Might one describe this as proto-binitarian?
3. It always surprises me to see just how high Ignatius’ viewed the Eucharist—especially at such an early stage in Christianity. Here’s is an influential bishop speaking of ‘breaking one bread’ which is the medicine of immortality, the antidote by which we live forever in Jesus Christ. This evinces a nose-bleed high view of the Eucharist, a nose-bleed high view of the church, and a nose-bleed high view of the episcopate. As a bishop himself, some might see his view of the episcopate as tendentious, but then again he was going to die, so I am not sure how he really stood to benefit from the Ephesians a high view of the episcopate.

All these observations reflect what seems to me fascinating fasts when considering the question of Christian origins and its developmental trajectory. All of these observations become more and more interesting if the connection between Ignatius and John is in any way veracious. Thoughts?