John 4:14 and its Edenic motif

In The Theme of Temple Christology in John's Gospel, Stephen T. Um comments about the relationship between John 4:14 and "new creational blessing of life" mentioned throughout biblical and post-biblical literature, but especially its imagery used throughout Isaiah's prophecies. Some noteworthy remarks regard the significance of the Septuagint translation of Isaiah 44:3. He argues that the translator has "metaphorically interpreted" the 'thirsty land' as as "the thirsty people who walk in a dry land."1  Because the barren land represents its thirsty people, the translator of the Septuagint related the two metaphors of drinking and irrigation "to show that the act of irrigating the barren land can also be interpreted as an act satisfying those who are thirsty."2 

Um then makes numerous connections between water and Edenic motifs of the Bible. He writes: 

Although many of the Deutero-Isaiah passages do not explicitly refer to Eden, they do, however, develop the garden theme by describing a new creational place of blessedness where there will be wells of salvation and abundant fertility (Isa. 12.3; 35.6-7; 41.17-19; 44.3; 58.11). Once again, Isa. 58.11, 'you will be like a well-watered garden like a spring whose waters never fail', clearly connects water with the garden motif. These irrigation metaphors of water as a symbol of promoting life are highlighted by the revitalizing power of water restoring a barren desert to a luxuriant garden. These rivers, waters, streams, and bubbling springs representing elements leading to life describe a future paradisiacal garden of complete restoration. These Isaianic texts highlight the unique identify of God by attributing to him the source of eschatological, life-giving water.3

By illustrating further connections between the Edenic garden and the Temple, Um convincingly argues that John portrays Jesus as the true Temple in whom Israel's worship reaches its climatic goal.4 The old covenant expectation for building an end-time Temple reaches its telos or goal in the Messiah, Jesus, and out of that temple-of-his-body flows abundant new creation life to the rest of the world around Eden--the rest of the world around Jesus and his Body--irrigating it and quenching its thirst. Um sees this abundant new creational blessing of life culminating at the end of human history, but the significance of its beginning is worth further reflection and meditation as well. If Jesus began a new creational blessing of life for the whole world, that means his life-giving presence remains in the world until it reaches it's culmination at the end. That means people can always have hope in this world to be the hope of this world. In other words, the life giving waters flow in abundance from the Temple of Christ's body throughout the world to irrigate its land, and the Church, which is Christ's body, is the life of this world while the new creational temple-building process awaits its culmination. 

1. Stephen T. Um, The Theme of Temple Christology in John's Gospel [New York, NY: T&T Clark; 2006] p. 142

2. Ibid. p. 143

3. Ibid. p. 147

4. Ibid. p. 152

"This water" vs. "That bread"

In John 4:15 a Samaritan woman asks for "this water" that Jesus offers, and later on in 6:34 certain Jews ask for "this bread" offered, again, by Jesus. The parallel is strikingly intentional. Jesus came to his people to provide another exodus for them. He was the rock who followed them through their wilderness wandering (Ex. 17; Num. 20; I Cor. 10:4), pouring out water to drink for all forty years. Likewise he was the manna--the bread of heaven--that sustained Israel for forty years until they came to a land that was settled (Ex. 16:35). More importantly, Jesus comes to the same land for both of them, but the Jews reject him while many Samaritans offer a warm welcome. 

The location of each offer made by Jesus is striking too. At the time of offering himself as "this bread" Jesus had just finished miraculously crossing a sea, and John writes it with a very clear "exodus-crossing" motif in mind; then certain Jews cross the sea over to where he could be found, but they don't want what Jesus himself has to offer them--they just want their stomachs filled with bread. When Jesus offers himself as that bread they must eat to be satisfied, they murmur just like their fathers in the Wilderness of Sin (Exod. 16), and they depart from him.

With the Samaritan woman, the location and response to Jesus' offer is different. That encounter occurs at a well, and throughout the Bible encounters at wells often signify bridal imagery of some sort. Jacob, for example, meets Rachel, rolls away the stone-cover on a well, gives her and her flock water to drink, kisses her, and weeps for joy; their marriage followed shortly thereafter (Gen. 29). Likewise Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman is laced with bridal imagery too, especially since it is Jacob's well at which the encounter takes place (John 4:6). Only this time, the point is to portray Jesus as the greater Jacob, the greater bridegroom who gives himself as the water that, when drank, wells up to everlasting life (v. 14). 

In John's gospel, when Jesus enters the land he visits his own to obtain a bride for himself; but when his own receive him not, he goes to those who are excited to drink the living waters he has to offer. In John's gospel the contrast is not between partaking of "this water" or "this bread," as though only one would suffice for eternal satisfaction. Rather the contrast is between "this water" which can and does satisfy, and that "bread" which the Jews wanted but does not satisfy because it is not bridal food. By rejecting bridal food and drink--food and drink prepared for the promised wedding feast of their Lord--they rejected the wedding invitation altogether. And by rejecting the invitation this way, such examples are given to us to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. 

To this day Jesus freely offers the living waters of baptism welling up to eternal life, but are we willing to drink and feed our flock with the waters he offers? Every week in the liturgy, Jesus spreads a table and offers his own flesh as "true food" and his blood as "true drink" (John 6:55) so that we may abide in him and he in us. But how do we respond to the invitation of his feast? Do we respond by questioning the legitimacy of his words, or do we respond in faith, trusting that he has the words of eternal life (John 6:60-68)?

"Inerrancy" often works like that

Commenting on God's communication to mankind as mediated through the Holy Scriptures, and the way "biblicism" often fails to understand and appreciate the differences of meaning communicated throughout Scripture, Christian Smith makes these fascinating observations:

   Locutionary acts utter or inscribe words, illocutionary acts use uttered or inscribed words to perform communications concerning the purpose or disposition of the speaker or writer, and perlocutionary acts rely on uttered or inscribed words to accomplish a particular effect in the hearer or speaker. All of it concerns getting things done with speech. But the things gotten done are different in quality and "locution," even when they are all gotten done by means of a single speech act, such as uttering the phrase, "Let him have it."

   The point of distinguishing these three speech acts is to help us to recognize that the use of speech to communicate is not a simple matter of speakers intending to make clear propositional statements that, when properly interpreted, reproduce the original propositional meaning in the minds of those receiving the statements. It is more complicated than that.  

...The meanings of terms such as "error," "mistaken," "inaccurate," and "fallible" become not entirely straightforward when speech acts are understood in this way. Of course, certain kinds of cases can be straightforward about descriptive truth or falsehood. If the illocutionary action of the locution, "Jesus went throughout Galilee," for example, is to inform hearers or readers about actual events in specific locations, then if Jesus had never been to Galilee, the locution would be in error and the related illocutionary act would be performed fallibly. In such cases of reporting mistakes, the readers or hearers would then have good reason to increase their distrust of the speaker or writer.  

   But many cases of speech communication are not that simple. Consider some of the illocutionary acts named above [previously]: commanding, promising, warning, asking, assuring, appealing, criticizing, offering, honoring, bequeathing, and challenging. What would it mean for them to be in error or mistaken? Is it even strictly possible? Can a command itself be inaccurate? No. Commands can be unauthorized or misguided but not inaccurate. Can an appeal be mistaken? Not really. Appeals can be hopeless or unnecessary but not mistaken. Can a promise itself be in error? No exactly. A promise, by virtue of its own future orientation, may later prove to have been empty or untrustworthy. And present knowledge about the one making the promise may provide grounds to judge his or her promises as unlikely to be fulfilled. But promises as promises per se are not the sort of things that either entail errors or do not. 

   Given the richness of the variety of kinds of speech acts that appear to be at work in the Bible, therefore, it seems quite inadequate to try to describe or defend scripture's truthfulness, reliability, authority, and whatever else we might say on its behalf with single, technical terms like "inerrancy." That particular term---a favorite of many evangelicals---tends to zero in on matters of accuracy in reporting on facts and events as a matter of correspondence between propositions and the real states to which those propositions refer. But that term tends not to capture the multitude of other ways in which the locutions of texts and their illocutionary and perlocutionary acts may or may not be reliable, authoritative, compelling, powerful, inviting, and so on.  

   Imagine, for instance. that you comfort someone in distress over her deep personal loss and then the next day have her thank you profusely for your being so precise or aesthetically stimulating. It would not compute. Those terms would simply not capture the quality of the merits of your comforting actions that deserve appreciation and gratitude. "Inerrancy" often works like that. 

   Evangelical defenders of biblical inerrancy are used to the typical charge by more liberal critics that "inerrancy" is too strong, extreme, or demanding of a concept to accurately describe what the Bible is. What I am suggesting here is quite the opposite. "Inerrancy" is far too limited, narrow, restricted, flat, and weak a term to represent the many virtues of the Bible that are necessary to recognize, affirm, and commend the variety of speech acts performed in scripture. I suspect that most evangelicals, including biblicists, more or less intuitively know this. Nevertheless, lacking a richer and more appropriate vocabulary with which to work in thinking about and describing the Bible, far too many evangelicals---who understandably feel the need not to compromise on their "high view" of the Bible---stretch the technical term "inerrancy" to applications and meanings beyond its reasonable use value. But in the end it is not a helpful situation for enabling people to read, understand, and live from the Bible. 

   In sum, recognizing the distinctions between locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary speech acts forces upon Bible interpreters a difficult set of questions. God may be doing quite different things by "saying" quite different things. So, we need to ask not only what the text appears to say in our English translations and what is as a locution apparently said in the linguistic context in which it was originally spoken or inscribed. We also need to consider what illocutionary and perlocutionary acts the writers and divine inspirer were performing in expressing their various locutions. They could often be any number of things. Insofar as the Bible is at once both a fully human and divinely inspired collection of texts, as evangelicals believe, we also need to ask whether the illocutionary acts of the human writer are the same as the illocutionary acts of God in inspiring them.  

   ...The point of all of this is not to complicate scripture reading so much that we all collapse into exegetical despair, but rather to complicate the scripture reading of evangelical biblicists enough to provoke a shift away from their overconfident, simplistic readings of the Bible in problematic ways. It is never enough to argue, "Well, that's just what it says right there in black and white." If we believe that God wants to communicate to us through the mediation of the Bible, we have to ponder the various things God may be doing in, to, and among us through the locutions of scripture.1

1.  Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture [Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press; 2011], pp. 157, 159-162 

 

Taking God Down With Us

Commenting on Genesis 3, Farrar Capon writes:

Eve is not just "the woman" to Adam now; he tells the LORD that she's the woman "YOU gave me." Once the blame game has started, you see, it will stoop to anything to avoid a time out --- even if it might give us a respite from battling God's offensive line-up. On and on we've gone, complaining but never letting up. "Why does God allow terrorists to fly planes into buildings?" "What sort of God would let my innocent baby die of leukemia?" "If God is just, why do the wicked prosper?" "Why did he give me a wife who can't tell north from south?" We will take even God himself down with us, if that will assuage our indignation at a deity we ourselves invented.1

1.  Robert Farrar Capon, Genesis The Movie [Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company; 2003], p. 305

Truths are like puppies

Truths are like puppies. There's no point in arguing over whose truth is the best, any more than there is in quarreling about whose puppy is the cuddliest. Truths or puppies, we care about them because we find them delightful, not because we understand them. They appeal more to our sense of humor than to our sense of importance. So if there's even a grain of veritas in that vinous comparison, the most any of us can say is, "I like my truth-doggy better than yours." Anything more pretentious, and we forget that we can keep truth only as a pet. It's fun to have around, even if it wets our floors and chews up our slippers; but we really know very little about the beast. Only God knows the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. We just pat its head, pull its tail, and hope for the best. Only the Father, who holds Truth Itself in his beloved Son, actually owns it.1 

1.  Robert Farrar Capon, Genesis The Movie [Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.; 2003], p. 297

Book Review: The Bible Tells Me So (by Peter Enns)

The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It by Peter Enns
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A lot of factors affect the amount of stars I give each book: readability, the depth of research involved (footnotes/endnotes/bibliography/appendices), logical argumentation (to support the entire thesis), the goal or aim (telos) of the book (plot development), good humor/sarcasm, author's temper, etc... Peter Enns deserves 5 stars for every one of these factors except logical argumentation. For that, he deserves 4 stars at best. (To be fair, though, it's not as though Enns is being illogical; the book is actually very logical).

There are a handful of places in which Enns takes for granted certain controversial scholarly conjectures without much elaboration (e.g. "insufficient" evidence for a worldwide flood and certain ancient battles recorded in Joshua, Jesus being a Pharisee, the Four gospels being written after 70 A.D. by people who were not eye-witnesses of Jesus, non-mosaic and post-exilic authorship of Pentateuch--not simply a post-exhilic redaction of mosaic authorship, etc.), and I think that definitely weakens his thesis significantly; but since he includes a detailed list of recommended reading--some of which I have also read and would recommend--I figured it was reasonable to give give him 4 stars for that.

Admittedly, because his thesis is NOT about disproving the Old Testament's historical accuracy entirely, but rather is about helping Christians in their faith by reading their bible more honestly in light of scholarly research--in light of a God who is sovereign and perfectly comfortable with allowing whatever historical and scientific inaccuracies are there (from fallible human authors)--no one should be surprised to find out that Enns took certain scholarly conjectures for granted as he compiled the book.

Enns is an exceptionally talented communicator of complex historical and theological ideas, and for that alone this book is worth reading. He does promote an evangelical message of unwavering faith in Jesus Christ alone, the God of the Bible for salvation, and for that he should be commended. To be clear though, Enns considers the first seven books of the Old Testament scriptures as ancient near eastern myth, and the remaining books of the bible (including the New Testament) to be subject to scholarly scrutiny regarding its historical accuracies as well. For many Christians, this will become a stumbling-block to their faith in Christ; however I can imagine the opposite occurring as well. I imagine many well-educated Christians becoming invigorated by Enns message about the faithfulness of the God of the Old Testament, Jesus the Messiah, and the work of His Holy Spirit in renewing creation.

I don't think it is fair to rate this book poorly (with one or two stars) simply because I think it contains significantly debatable arguments. It was very enjoyable to read. I read it in two days. It was that enjoyable; and no book that enjoyable deserves 1 or 2 stars.

View all my reviews

Conformity to a pre-existing narrative

In a review and discussion of several hundred articles and dozens of doctoral dissertations written from the 1960s to the 1990s on the transmission of traumatic effects of the Holocaust to the second generation of survivors in North American families, Irit Felsen writes that the study of these descendants does not provide evidence of psychopathology—members of the second generation do not develop psychological disorders because their parents underwent psychic trauma, in other words—but suggests rather that we should discuss the transmission of trauma in terms of personality development. Individual psychic development is determined by both self-definition and one’s relatedness to others, and in normal development these two processes facilitate each other in the production of healthy individuals. In the context of development within an environment in which one must relate to parents, not to mention other family and community members, who suffered massive psychic trauma, development will reflect this context, and this is especially so within cultures that stress relatedness and interdependency within family and community. 

Worldview is inherited largely from family and wider community, and when both have been exposed to trauma, the second generation will also be affected. Members of this generation find themselves repeating and reenacting aspects of their parents’ trauma. They become obsessed with the lack of memory and the uncanny repetition of the trauma in their parents’ lives, identifying with these victims while seeing an unbridgeable gap between themselves and their parents. Because their parents have not themselves integrated the trauma into their autobiographical memories, the second generation feels the effect without directly experiencing the trauma that has caused it. As in the cases of their parents, the signifier—the effects of the trauma—are present, while the referent—the trauma itself—remains outside of conscious knowledge. 

...Whole communities can be affected by trauma, and Kai Erikson, in his own studies of communities destroyed by disaster and in his survey of research done on other such communities, has found no examples of such trauma creating increased senses of communal bonds or other positive effects. Nor should this be surprising. As Erikson has observed in his study of communities that have undergone trauma, it is the community that provides context for individuals and can cushion pain; when all or most of the individuals of a community suffer massive trauma, the community itself will be profoundly and negatively affected. Disasters that befall entire communities will fracture the social group, observes Erikson, and dominate the way the community sees itself and the imagery it uses. 

Communities can, of course, try to take control of traumatic events, whether they have affected individuals or the entire society, and fit them into existing social worldviews and stories in order to make the trauma understandable—attempt, in other words, to control the trauma by creating a recognizable narrative for it. As Kalí Tal points out in discussing the literature and art surrounding the Vietnam War, trauma shatters survivors’ worldviews, and so makes communication of the trauma, done within language that has meaning and significance only within the context of a worldview, impossible. This is why trauma survivors who try to create narratives of trauma often express so much frustration with the limitations of language. As Tal shows, however, the stories of the war produced by those who did not participate in combat tend to conform to pre-existing national narratives. The trauma is then erased within stories that do not actually address it, but subsume it within narratives of the struggle of good against evil and the like.1

1.  Janzen, D. (2012). The Violent Gift:Trauma’s Subversion of the Deuteronomistic History’s Narrative (pp. 32–34). New York; London; New Delhi; Sydney: Bloomsbury.