I came upon a
very well-written post
via fides quarens intelllectum. Avery
Archer is a fine thinker. He takes aim at those he qualifies as "biblical literalists" and "biblical fundamentalists."
On the basis of Deut 18:22 and Jer 28:9, the gist of which is “If a prophet makes a prediction that does not come true, then that prophet is not sent by God,” Avery concludes that Jesus was not sent by God, because Jesus predicted that “the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and reward each person according to what he has done. Amen I tell you, there are those standing here who will not taste death until they have seen the coming of the Son of Man in his kingdom” (Matt 16:27- 28), but that isn't what happened. I concur: the prediction went unfulfilled.
A couple of comments.
If a biblical literalist is someone who "interprets the Bible at face value unless otherwise clearly indicated" (Avery's definition), then I am one. It is true, of course, that the epithet "literalist" is often hurled at someone because they take a text too literally, for example, by drawing unwarranted conclusions from it. In my view, that is what Avery does.
Most
interpreters of an authoritative text, the Bible, the Constitution, the rules
of the highway, are not, thank goodness, strict-to-the-second-power constructionists.
Unfortunately, my local policeman is, which is why I got a $217.00 ticket for
rolling through a stop sign the other day. Mitigating circumstances, like the
fact that no other car was anywhere in sight (not even his; he was hidden
behind a building), didn’t cut it with him. I made his day.
That’s how Avery
comes across to me, a bit like my local policeman. The terms he uses for
someone who takes a text at face value, literalist and fundamentalist,
are pretty loaded. He might want to find more neutral terms to describe standard
interpretive practices.
In any case, Avery’s
strict-to-the-second-power construction of the sense of Deuteronomy 18:22,
while not surprising from a logician like him, is a form of interpretation
virtually unattested in biblical tradition. That’s why the expectation of Jesus
and his first disciples that God would bring about the restitutio of the
kingdom of Israel (that’s what the “Son of Man”
prophecy in Daniel is primarily about, which Jesus cites in the Matthew passage) in their lifetimes,
when it did not occur, was not a deal-breaker, despite the offense to Deut 18:22.
This approach to prophecy has precedent in the Hebrew Bible. Let me
illustrate. In Ezek 29:17-21, the selfsame prophet
alludes to an unfulfilled prophecy he pronounced years before (Ezek 26), and proceeds to make a new,
compensatory prophecy. Interestingly enough, it also never came to pass. Does that mean that Ezekiel
is not among the prophets? Well, he is, and that's because it was understood
that prophecy is first of all about what should happen, not necessarily about what
will happen.
Examples like this abound. My favorite is one that involves two prophets, not one: Micah and Jeremiah. In the 8th cent. bce, Micah had predicted that Jerusalem would “be plowed like a field,” totally destroyed (Mic 3:12). It didn’t happen, even if it should have. The words of Micah were treasured nonetheless, and more than a century later, people cite them in Jer's defense, when he’s about to be done in for prophesying the same thing (Jer 26:18).
Jeremiah's prophecy of doom over Jerusalem and Judah did come true, in anticipation of which Jer lets God have it (Jer 8:18-22; 12:1-4; etc.). From Jer’s point of view, God should refrain from what he was planning to do. But He doesn’t. Jer goes on to prophesy dire things for Babylon, the instrument of the destruction of Judah (Jer 50-51). Things don’t work out the way Jer predicts, but Jer is still among the prophets.
The fact is, a double-standard
is at work. One standard is applied by Jeremiah to his
prophetic opponents (in Jeremiah 28:9, which Avery cites), another by tradition
to Jeremiah himself.
The
double-standard, in my view, is apropos. A prophet was considered a
prophet if he did not conceal bad news, no matter how unwanted,
received from God. If he also predicted things everyone hoped would
happen, like the destruction of the people's enemies at a future point
in time, or the advent of new geopolitical order with Israel on top
rather than on the bottom, the fact did not disqualify him from
prophethood if the predictions went unfulfilled. The double-standard
goes a long way towards
explaining why the Jewish and Christian faiths have been vital forces
throughout history.
A space was created for the critique of power. We tend to take it for granted that the press can criticize those in power. From a Jewish and Christian point of view, it is their responsibility to do so. If the prophetic witness is taken seriously, It is a right and duty of everyone to speak the truth to power.
A law like the one in Deuteronomy, on the other hand, doesn’t take one very far. Laws usually don’t, unless you’re a policeman. Boy did I get nailed.
For further
discussion, see Lena Sofia-Tiemeyer, “Prophecy as a Way of Cancelling Prophecy
- The Strategic Uses of Foreknowledge,” ZAW 117 (2005) 329-50.
This was an excellent post, John. Bob Chisholm, an OT prof at Dallas Seminary, read a paper that dealt with similar themes two years ago at an ETS regional. It was also excellent. Thanks for these thoughts on a little known problem/phenomenon.
Posted by: Mike Heiser | May 18, 2007 at 11:19 PM
Thank you for the very interesting article. I've linked to it from my blog (He is Sufficient, http://www.heissufficient.net) where I recently overviewed some of the strengths and weaknesses of preterism.
Posted by: ElShaddai Edwards | May 23, 2007 at 02:14 PM
Hello,
I've talked and ruminated on your input regarding Isaiah 65:17-21 a few months back. I just want to say thank you so much for your input, it's helped significantly.
So to my question,
I don't understand how a prophet can say "Thus Saith the Lord", be wrong, and still affirm something like the doctrine of inerracy or even inspiration.
To me it seems as if a prophecy doesn't come to pass (Ezekiel 26:7-14; 29:8-12, 19-20) then we have some issues to deal with.
Perhaps I'm too western in my thinking, but regardless, I would like your thoughts regarding this in further detail if possible. How do I reconcile as a Christian believer that God's word is trustworthy when in certain things such as the (what seem like) failed prophecies in Ezekiel occur.
Thank you so much for your time and thoughts,
Daniel.
Posted by: Daniel | May 18, 2010 at 07:49 PM
Hi John,
I'm having a conversation with someone on this topic at the moment and wonder if you could clarify something. Do you think that a) Christ prophesied truly but God changed the plan after that, or b) that the plan was always for a 2000+ year gap, and Christ was just limited in his knowledge and assumed he'd be returning within the apostles' lifetime. if b) in what sense would you say it is inerrant? I'm imagining it's to do with prophecy being about what should happen, as you say, but I'm interested in you opinion.
Posted by: Ben Smith | September 14, 2011 at 03:39 PM
I'm talking to another friend about this, now! My thoughts on what makes Jesus original prophecy inerrant: the inerrant value is in the declaration of the Kingdom of God breaking in in a definitive way; he was prophesying according to his and his contemporaries' understanding of what would happen when the Messiah appeared, an imminent national kingdom. If Jesus were to say (and if he had known?) how God would bring the gentiles in to be part of a new Israel, dwelling in them by the Spirit and taking the nations back through that method, I'm not sure if the hearers would have understood. Therefore, Jesus spoke without error from his and into their understanding, even if the prophecies were fulfilled partially in other ways (his enthronement on the cross, coming 'in power' through the baptism of the Spirit), and the full fulfilment is yet to come. I don't know if that's how you see it or not, but i think it means that we can still take Jesus original prophecies as Scripture and not 'mistakes'.
Posted by: Ben Smith | September 29, 2011 at 04:24 AM
Hi Ben,
What is necessary is an act of humility such that we have a chance at understanding what prophets and people who listened to prophets understood to be the truth value of their predictions. Note that neither Jeremiah nor his contemporaries thought of Micah as being in error because he prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem and it didn't happen in his lifetime (Jer 26:18).
Prophecy is speaking the truth about the future but God is also patient; his decrees are purpose-driven; prophets like Ezekiel do not seem to be upset when they have to revise their predictions in the light of intervening events.
Where Christians sometimes get trapped is that they assume unconsciously that that was the Old Testament when the concept of truth was imperfect but in the New Testament the operative concept of truth is like ours, rationalistic. But I see no evidence for that dichotomy.
Posted by: JohnFH | September 29, 2011 at 07:20 AM