Sometimes I catch a scent of something on the wind (I'll not lie, it's usually the scent of rotten vegetation or animal products) and it will remind me of walking around in the 3rd world. It really is a lot different than an American town or city, the smells of food, tea, body odor, rotten food, sewage, animals, perfume, incense, and exhaust all blend together to make this wonderful 3rd world aroma. You really grow to miss it when you are away from it. (When I stepped off the plane in Nicaragua last year the first breath made me think, "Oh, yes! I'm alive now, I can smell the evidence." I know that's wierd...I won't deny it)
Anyhow, I caught a smell like that recently and it made me look forward to Asia this summer. Here are the top 7 things I like about Asia in reverse order.
7. Tea - I can drink it all day, I do drink it most of the day. I bring a suitcase full each time I go so I can have it at home. I love the green tea, the wulong, the pu'er, all of it.
6. Food - Get all the gluttony out of the way early, but it's fresh, healthy, and tastes very good. Even the rat.
5. Hundreds of kids running around playing on the street. I get tired of American kids and their indoor lifestyle with excessive video games (I know I did this too, but I am sorry I did) and their solitary, brooding personalities. It's a joy to walk down a street and hear children laughing. American kids are too over-medicated and over-protected to ever play in large groups laughing anymore.
4. Hospitality - you try to buy a painting from the old lady, she will fix you tea (see #6) and make you sit down and drink it with her, though you speak not a word of her dialect. Your students will try to invite you over for dinner. You can't go near their parents without being offered tea, cigarettes, or anything else.
3. Native believers - you want to see a real Christian? Go find one that can go to jail if they run across the wrong official. And then watch them share Christ with all the people they meet. Where do you think their treasure is? Do you know the Almighty like they know the Almighty?
2. Ethnic worship - you get into the songs. They aren't like Gadsby's hymns, but they'll do.
1. My fiance - Chinese women weren't my thing, until I met one. ;-) I miss her. I'm ready to see her again. I'm ready to take her home.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Genesis in history
I am in a Hebrew exegesis class on Genesis 12-36. The class centers around the life of Abraham and deals with issues of faith and culture in the pre-Israelite land of Canaan. I will write a post perhaps on the faith of Abraham at another point, this rant will deal mainly with issues of scholarship on the book of Genesis and the life of Abraham.
For my faith in Christ to be valid, two conditions (involving Abraham) have to be met.
1. He has to have been a historical person. If Abraham was merely a composite figure*1 (like most German Old Testament scholars believe), or a theological character*2, then nothing Jesus Christ offers me can be true. 1*A composite figure is a character in a story that is made up of pieces of real historical figures. For example, in the sitcom Seinfeld, George Kastanza is a composite character involving real pieces of the writer for the series. 2*A theological character is kind of like an allegorical picture of the theological points a society most values. For example, many German liberal scholars believe the Hebrews prized faith in God's promises even in adverse circumstances, so they invented or embellished a character who was faithful to God's promise even when childless and in old age. The events weren't "real", but they were portrayed to teach virtue, not history.
If Abraham is not a historical person, then there is a problem for the idea of redemption. Abraham enters the story of Genesis at humanity's bleakest point. The flood has killed off almost the entire population, and now the remaining humans detest God's plan for them to be fruitful and fill the earth. They set up an alternative society at Babel in order to rebel against God, and he confuses their languages and sends them scattered. In the midst of the "barrenness" of humanity, a barren couple (Abram and Sarai) are chosen by God to leave their own society. When Genesis 12:1 starts, it is the changing of Genesis from God's scattering of an alienated humanity to his gathering of a redeemed humanity. Abram is the fount of redemption in a historical sense. With him starts the election of a seed that will bless all the nations. Now in Romans, Paul talks about this seed and the promise. God's promise to Abram was not based on keeping a law (that came afterwards), but was based on faith. Therefore, all who believe God relate to his promise the same way Abram did.
If Abram did not exist historically, neither did elective redemption, or God's promise to bless all nations through him. If that promise did not exist, the blessing does not exist, and all nations are still scattered from God.
2. He has to have been truly justified by faith. If he was not historical, or indeed justified by faith (see Genesis 15:6), then my faith in Christ is not valid. If there is no historical precedent for justification by faith apart from works of the law, then there is no validity for present justification by faith apart from works of the law. If Paul's example in Abraham is not historical, then our faith is floating in a sea of subjectivity. Subjective faiths are just wishful thinking. I can believe the pink elephants will bring me eternal happiness, and it will help me feel better if I'm drunk and hallucinating; but let my liver digest the intoxicants and I'm back in a reality that is not benefited by pink elephants. Faith in an ahistorical redemption is just like faith in pink elephants.
Historicity seems to be the most embarrasing aspect of Christianity to most scholars today, yet they don't realize (or either they don't care) that it is essential to its value. An ahistorical Christianity is perhaps the biggest waste of time imaginable. I would not waste one second on a religion that says "lose your life to find it" if in fact there was no true life in the waiting for me once I lost it. If that was the case, we are pitiful among all people (see 1 Cor 15, Paul makes the same point about the resurrection). Abraham is one of the fulcrum points in the Bible in which historicity is non-negotiable.
"so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. " Gal 3:14
For my faith in Christ to be valid, two conditions (involving Abraham) have to be met.
1. He has to have been a historical person. If Abraham was merely a composite figure*1 (like most German Old Testament scholars believe), or a theological character*2, then nothing Jesus Christ offers me can be true. 1*A composite figure is a character in a story that is made up of pieces of real historical figures. For example, in the sitcom Seinfeld, George Kastanza is a composite character involving real pieces of the writer for the series. 2*A theological character is kind of like an allegorical picture of the theological points a society most values. For example, many German liberal scholars believe the Hebrews prized faith in God's promises even in adverse circumstances, so they invented or embellished a character who was faithful to God's promise even when childless and in old age. The events weren't "real", but they were portrayed to teach virtue, not history.
If Abraham is not a historical person, then there is a problem for the idea of redemption. Abraham enters the story of Genesis at humanity's bleakest point. The flood has killed off almost the entire population, and now the remaining humans detest God's plan for them to be fruitful and fill the earth. They set up an alternative society at Babel in order to rebel against God, and he confuses their languages and sends them scattered. In the midst of the "barrenness" of humanity, a barren couple (Abram and Sarai) are chosen by God to leave their own society. When Genesis 12:1 starts, it is the changing of Genesis from God's scattering of an alienated humanity to his gathering of a redeemed humanity. Abram is the fount of redemption in a historical sense. With him starts the election of a seed that will bless all the nations. Now in Romans, Paul talks about this seed and the promise. God's promise to Abram was not based on keeping a law (that came afterwards), but was based on faith. Therefore, all who believe God relate to his promise the same way Abram did.
If Abram did not exist historically, neither did elective redemption, or God's promise to bless all nations through him. If that promise did not exist, the blessing does not exist, and all nations are still scattered from God.
2. He has to have been truly justified by faith. If he was not historical, or indeed justified by faith (see Genesis 15:6), then my faith in Christ is not valid. If there is no historical precedent for justification by faith apart from works of the law, then there is no validity for present justification by faith apart from works of the law. If Paul's example in Abraham is not historical, then our faith is floating in a sea of subjectivity. Subjective faiths are just wishful thinking. I can believe the pink elephants will bring me eternal happiness, and it will help me feel better if I'm drunk and hallucinating; but let my liver digest the intoxicants and I'm back in a reality that is not benefited by pink elephants. Faith in an ahistorical redemption is just like faith in pink elephants.
Historicity seems to be the most embarrasing aspect of Christianity to most scholars today, yet they don't realize (or either they don't care) that it is essential to its value. An ahistorical Christianity is perhaps the biggest waste of time imaginable. I would not waste one second on a religion that says "lose your life to find it" if in fact there was no true life in the waiting for me once I lost it. If that was the case, we are pitiful among all people (see 1 Cor 15, Paul makes the same point about the resurrection). Abraham is one of the fulcrum points in the Bible in which historicity is non-negotiable.
"so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. " Gal 3:14
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