Logos Made Flesh

When Jesus Gave Birth (Part 7)

November 25, 2013 — Leave a comment

As I pointed out in the last post, the Gospel of John’s emphasis on a birth from God points to John’s thematic climax, the cross, as Jesus’ labor for the birth of the believer. And there’s simply no better picture of birth in this scene than the well-attested allusion to the creation of Eve in the depiction of Jesus’ pierced side (John 19:34).

Though she comes from the side of a man, Eve’s creation is in fact the first birth recorded in scripture. Note the implicit twist in the fact that the woman comes out of the man instead of the other way around. Genesis 2:21-22 reads,

So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was asleep, he took part of the man’s side and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the part he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This one at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one will be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.

The languages of the original readers also indicates they would have understood it this way. In Hebrew, the imagery of coming from a man is at the heart of several idioms referring to a man’s offspring.

the fruit of the man’s belly/womb. (Deut 28:4, 11, 18, 53, 30:9, Psalms 132:11, Mic 6:7)
One who will come fourth from the man’s inward parts (2 Samuel 7:12, I Chr 17:11)
That which comes out from the man’s loins. (Gen 46:26, Ex 1:5, Judges 8:30, 1 Kings 8:19)

These word-pictures allude to a male parallel to a woman’s labor and delivery, a fact which is somewhat obscured by our English translations. For instance, the Hebrew word for loins above is not exclusive to men. It’s the seat of a woman’s labor pains. And the Hebrew word “belly” has the broader meaning of abdomen which includes the womb.

The LXX, the first translations of the Bible into Greek 200 years before the time of Christ, moved further in this direction. It rendered “belly” and “inward parts” in the first two examples as koilia, a Greek word which mean’s “hallow” but by extension refers to the abdomen and womb. We might expect than that the translators would have rendered “loins” in the parallel expression of 1 Kings 8:19 in the same way. Not so. Instead they translated it as “sides.” (pleura). This is interesting. According to the earliest translation of the Hebrew Bible, a man’s child idiomatically comes from his belly, womb, and or sides. These idiom appear to be linked in no small degree to the “birth” of Eve.

To be continued…

In Bible, Gospels, Stories

When Jesus Gave Birth (Part 6)

November 21, 2013 — Leave a comment

I could have kicked myself. For more than ten years I’d recognized John 19:34 as the gospels climax, capstone and bloom. I’d seen how it’s allusion to the creation of Eve brought together the gospel’s theme of new creation, marriage and oneness with God. But until that moment I’d simply overlooked it’s relationship to the most well-known characteristic of John’s gospel, the new birth.

Like every Evangelical, I love the term “born again!” It perfectly describes how the Holy Spirit transforms hearts and lives. I’ve experienced it. But until then I’d never realized how this term points to an event other than conversion. I now see how John uses it as powerful metaphor for what Jesus did on the cross.

Have you ever seen the crucifixion as Jesus’ labor pains and his death as the moment of birth? That may sound odd. But its exactly what John wants us to see in Jesus’ pierced side and its flow of blood and water (John 19:34)

Apart from 1 Peter 1:22-23, the new birth is found exclusively in John’s Gospel and letters. We could say its his whole point. John summarizes his gospel this way,

These things have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (20:30-31)

How does this new life occur? Through a Divine birth of course. John spells it out for his readers four times.

(1) Born of God (1:11-13)

The nativity forms the heart of John’s introduction (1:1-18) But unlike Matthew and Luke it’s not Jesus‘. John 1:12-13 reads,

But to all who did receive him (Jesus), who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor the will of the flesh nor the will of man, but of God.

The significance of the believers birth is only underscored by its position within the prologue’s structure. These opening eighteen verses form a chiasm, an ancient rhetorical pattern which rotates around and points to a central core. And John 1:12-13 is that core. The new birth is John’s thesis statement, a parallel to his summary on the other end of the book (20:30-31). The gospel results in a spiritual nativity. Reception of Jesus leads to a birth from God.

(2) Born Again (3:3-6)

The birth metaphor next appears in Jesus’ conversation with the aged Pharisee, Nicodimus. Jesus tells him outright, “no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” Confused, Nicodimus asks, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time?” Jesus clarifies his statement by rephrasing it. “Unless a man be born of water and the spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”

The rephrasing here is important. Nicodimus has stumbled over Jesus’ use of the word again, the Greek word anothen. Anothen can mean a second time, but unlike the English translation, it can also mean ‘from above.’ The new birth of which Jesus speaks is not a second physical birth but an entirely new birth from God, a birth ‘of water and Spirit” or more accurately “water which is the Spirit.” Jesus’ here echos the words of the prologue. This birth is not from any human being but is entirely Divine in origin.

(3) New Sight (9:1-10)

The birth imagery is again found in the opened eyes of the blind man in John 9. Note how John over and over again tells us that the man’s blindness was from birth (9:1-2, 19-20, 32-33). Through the emphasis, John depicts Jesus’ miraculous gift of sight as the man’s birth to new life.

(4) Labor Pains (16:20-22)

The last clear use of the birth metaphor is found in Jesus’ upper room discourse. Here, Jesus compares the sorrow of the disciples to a woman in labor.

Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy. When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will turn your joy from you.

In the analogy, the disciples are mother’s in labor and it’s Jesus, in his death and resurrection, who is being born.

But the analogy also implicitly and more accurately points to Jesus as the one giving birth. The disciples are sorrowful but they don’t experience anything close to the physical pain of crucifixion. And of course their sorrow doesn’t produce the resurrection in the same way a mother’s pain produces a child or the way Jesus’ physical suffering brings about the believers new birth (1:12-13). Jesus’ use of the word “hour” for a woman’s labor pains (16:21) also reminds the reader of Jesus’ climatic hour which he has used as a reference to the cross so many times before (John 2:4, 7:6, 8, 30, 8:20, 12:23, 27, 13:1, 17:1).

Given the repeated emphasis on a birth from God, it seems highly likely that John intended his readers to see the further implications of this analogy. The cross is Jesus hour, his labor for our birth. A birth which quite fittingly comes from the side of God.

If we were to look for a birth in John’s depiction of the crucifixion we would find no better illustration than the flow of blood and water from the pierced side of Christ and its allusion to the creation of Eve in Genesis 2:21-24.

To be continued…

In Bible, Gospels, Jesus

Was Jesus’ Resurrection the Result of a Missing Page?

November 15, 2013 — Leave a comment

Wow! The History Channel is at it again. This time with Bible Secrets Revealed. And like Banned From the Bible and other programs like it, it’s doing a real bang-up job of distorting the facts with quick sound bites and brazen insinuation. I received this message from a troubled friend.

So they say the gospel of mark ended originally with the women going to the tomb to wash his body, but when they realized he was gone, they left & said nothing for they were afraid. Yet later on someone added the resurrection due to being unsatisfied with the original abrupt ending

You can find the segment of the program here between 19:27 and 21:21.

It’s true. I agree with the facts. BUT not the inference. Mark did originally end at 16:8 and that later Christians added a new ending because they were unsatisfied with the old. But its not at all for the reasons the program suggests.

The program implies early Christians later made up accounts of Jesus’ resurrection because of Mark’s missing ending. Wrong! Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, writing 20 years before Mark, tells us who and in what order more than 500 people saw Jesus bodily risen from the dead. A fact he had already received from others.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.

But the writers of Bible Secrets Revealed are apparently so ignorant they feel they can rhetorically ask,

“Is it possible that the account of Jesus divine resurrection, one of the most important tenants of Christianity, was the result of a missing page? (21:09 – 21:21)

NO! IT’S NOT!

Just read Mark! It’s obvious he knows of these early resurrection appearances! He points to them! Three times, he records Jesus predicting his resurrection.

And He (Jesus) began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. (Mark 8:31)

For He was teaching His disciples and telling them, “The Son of Man is to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him; and when He has been killed, He will rise three days later.” (Mark 9:31)

They were on the road going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking on ahead of them; and they were amazed, and those who followed were fearful. And again He took the twelve aside and began to tell them what was going to happen to Him, saying, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death and will hand Him over to the Gentiles. They will mock Him and spit on Him, and scourge Him and kill Him, and three days later He will rise again.” (Mark 10:32-34)

Mark also tells us that the angel at the empty informed the women that Jesus had fulfilled these predictions and would later meet his disciples in Galilee.

And he said to them, “Do not be amazed; you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has risen; He is not here; behold, here is the place where they laid Him. But go, tell His disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see Him, just as He told you.’” (Mark 8:6-7)

If Mark believes that Jesus was clearly correct about His resurrection, don’t you think Mark intends his readers to trust the predictions of the angel, that they did see Jesus in Galilee. “There you WILL see Him, just as He told you.” Any basic introduction to Mark would reveal this. But you won’t get this from the History Channel. They just let this leading questions dangle out there as if no one could possibly think of a better explanation.

So WHY doesn’t Mark end with a resurrection appearance of Jesus?

It’s vital part of his message. Throughout his Gospel, Mark has shown that true disciples follow Jesus wherever he goes. And that includes to the death. But the disciples of course ran away and abandoned Jesus in the hours before his death. The invitation from the angel is that Jesus is once again waiting for them. To find him they must follow. Mark ends his gospel, with that invitation still ringing in his readers ears. And the question he wants his readers to ask is, “will I follow?” “Will I start over and follow him in His death and resurrection?”

That point has been lost on a number of people, not least many readers in the early church. It’s a bit too subtle for some. That’s why someone felt it necessary to include Mark 16:9-20, which is itself a basic summary of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances from the book of Luke and Acts. The summary is accurate. It’s just not the point of Mark’s Gospel.

I’ve dealt with this topic in a couple of posts. You might find these helpful.

In Bible, Culture, Jesus

Do Symbols Always Hijack the Facts?

November 1, 2013 — 3 Comments

Over the years I’ve encountered many Christians concerned with symbolism in the Gospel of John. They’re particularly troubled with the notion that John intended objects and images to convey a coded meaning. They might be bothered for instance that

the “water jar” in John 4:28-29 points to the woman’s abandonment of tradition
the “night” in John 3:1 and 13:30 refers to more than just time of day.
the parenthetical naming of the servant in John 18:10 is included because it means kingdom.
Or that the water which flows from Jesus’ side in John 19:34 represents the Holy Spirit.

And they, of course, have reasons for their concern. Two come to mind.

(1) Symbols seem the product of an overly imaginative author tampering with historical fact. Like a story with too many coincidences, symbols rub at our confidence in an eyewitness report. We expect witnesses to give fresh, trivial details of what they’ve seen and heard. But the presence of meaningful objects point to a premeditated creativity. Where might history end and the authors imagination begin?

(2) Symbolic interpretations appear to bypass the plain meaning of the text. Good interpretation must be grounded in rules which cause readers of varying backgrounds to arrive at similar conclusions. Since the “discovery” of symbols has all too often varied from one interpreter to the next, they appear to arise from an “interpreter’s” whim and not the text itself.

Bottom line: symbols hijack history and or the author’s true intent.

I think we should heed these cautions. The way a symbolic reading is presented can indeed lead some to question the gospel’s veracity. Likewise without proper criteria the claim of symbolism is open to abuse. But while we should heed these cautions it doesn’t mean we must discount John’s or the Bible’s use of symbolism. Symbols are not antithetical to history nor is the discovery of deeper meaning damned to be divorced from proper interpretive criteria. Symbols can and often are faithful to the facts.

Symbolism in History

History is full of legitimate symbols. For example, we know Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on Good Friday 1865 just five days after Palm Sunday’s official end to the Civil War. Lincoln’s final week thus corresponds significantly to Jesus’ final week. Jesus entered triumphantly into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and on that first Good Friday he’s executed on the cross. But the correspondences do not end there. Like Jesus’s life and death, which brought spiritual freedom to humanity, Lincoln’s leadership and untimely death resulted in a “new birth of freedom” for the slaves. That authors have seen in these remarkable similarities Lincoln as a type or symbol of Christ by no means undermines their historic credibility.

Craig Koester states,

“We can discern symbolic significance in images, events, or persons without undercutting their claims to historicity, and we can recognize that certain images, events, and people are historical without diminishing their symbolic value.”

According to Xavier Leon-Dufour, Symbolism

“should be understood as putting together the surface and deeper realities rather than as evacuating the surface of the text simply to reach the deeper reality.”

Even St. Augustine saw no tension between the historical facts of John’s Gospel and the deep creativity involved in producing it. He says John,

‘is like one who has drunk in the secret of His divinity more richly and somehow more familiarly than others, as if he drew it from the very bosom of his Lord on which it was his wont to recline when He sat at meat’

The presence of symbolism in John does not mean he was an overly imaginative author. It means he reflected deeply on the significance of the events. John can faithfully record history while highlighting its profound connections and meaning.

Interpreting Symbols

Literature, both ancient and modern, is full of real and yet implicit symbols. We know that authors use symbols. But we also know not everything that is claimed as symbol is truly symbolic. So how do interpreters know which is which?

In How to Detect a Symbol, I described two ways of knowing. First, by an initiation into the author and audiences shared knowledge and experience. Like an inside joke, the author winks and the reader smiles while the uninitiated might simply be told, “just had to be there.” And secondly by the author defining the meaning of symbol within the text itself. If an author feels his audience may not readily understand his meaning, he or she will supply a definition for their audience.

In principle, people recognize the accuracy of these two criteria. It’s the extent to which they’re used which bothers some. Most, for instance, are not troubled by an author giving a word or an object an alternative meaning if and when they do so directly (i.e. x = 2). It’s troubling, however, when it’s too subtle, when we can’t connect the dots. Without a carefully considered argument, the claim of symbolism can appear as perplexing as a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat. But such tricks aren’t real magic, rather they’re a carefully crafted illusion arising from a systematic process. It appears bewildering only because we don’t know how it works.

It takes more than an interpreter declaring, “this means X” for an object to be a symbol. To a person bypassing a careful engagement with the text we would rightly respond, “that’s just your interpretation.” A true interpretation is a matter of carefully laying out the narrative evidence.

Authors can define symbols overtly (i.e. x = 2) but they can also do so covertly through such things as parallels in character’s speech or comparisons in narrative structure. We need to recognize, unlike the world in which we live, there is no real division in a story between a character’s words and those of events, objects and images. All have been carefully shaped and edited by an author. If a narrator or a character makes a meaningful comparison to an image in a figure of speech or the author invites comparison in the sandwiching of different scenes it opens up the the possibility that such object and images are used symbolically when they appear physically elsewhere within the the world of the story.

Its helpful to think of objects and images like words. A single world, like “hand” for instance, can have a verity of definitions which only become apparent in context

the hired hand fixed the railing
his hand was illegible
he wanted to try his hand at singing
on the one hand…, but on the other…
I didn’t hold a good hand all evening
The hands read 3:25
give the little lady a great big hand
hand me the spoon, please
hand the elderly lady into the taxi

Such a list of uses for a single word come ready made in our culture. But authors can also add their own uses to this list. The same is true for the meaning of objects and images. The metaphorical or symbolic meaning becomes one possible meaning which context alone helps us determine. Just because Jesus calls himself the light of the world in one sermon does not mean that light is symbolic of Jesus everywhere it occurs. But possibility becomes probability when a symbolic meaning is found to cohere in the images immediate context. So if Jesus defines himself as the light in a specific sermon, then related images of darkness within the story can given a specific context take on an opposing significance.

Perhaps I should end with a parting example.

In John 18:36 Jesus declares,

“My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.”

There is a glaring discrepancy in Jesus’ statement. Peter had just been fighting to stop Jesus’ arrest. He drew a sword and severed a man’s ear (18:10).

It’s interesting to note that while Matthew and Mark record this earlier incident, only John names Peter as the one who attacked the man and, in a concluding parenthetical statement, Malchus as the one whom he attacked. Is the identification of Peter and Malchus simply the fresh, trivial detail of an eyewitness? Or does John find the significance in the fact that Malchus‘ name in Aramaic truly means kingdom? Jesus statement about fighting and His kingdom certainly drives our attention back to this scene and causes us to look at it again with fresh eyes. It seems to me highly likely, given Jesus later statement and its apparent connection to Peter’s fighting, that John included this historic detail, not just because it was historically true but because it symbolically revealed something significant in Peter’s actions.

In Bible, Jesus, Theology

How to Detect a Symbol

October 27, 2013 — 2 Comments

A symbol is a physical representation of an intangible idea. Authors, both ancient and modern, use symbols to convey abstract meaning. The problem with symbols, however, is that they often appear as part of an implicit dialogue between author and audience. It’s thus possible to misread an image as a symbol or a symbol as simply an image. So how do we know when an image or object within a story is more than just that? How do we know when its meant to convey something deeper?

If an author intends an object or image to be symbolic he or she must either rely upon a community’s preexisting symbolic language or make an effort to define the symbolic meaning of the image within the text itself. Ruben Zimmermann in his book Imagery in the Gospel of John thus offers two criteria for weighing a symbols plausibility: (1) conventional plausibility and (2) textual plausibility. He returns to these two criteria in Anatomies of Narrative Criticism

With regard to the criterion of convention plausibility, if a motif such as “light,” “shepherd,” and the like holds a great deal of religious meaning within a linguistic community due to a Bildfeldtradition(traditional semantic field) that can be substantiated by means of older and contemporary texts, then there exists a high level of plausibility that the motif is being used symbolically, in line with conventional usage. Here we may speak of evidence of plausibility outside the text. The criterion of textual plausibility would hold that the way in which an author identifies a motif within a text as a symbol will be made clear by clues in the text. Thus I would speak here of evidence for plausibility within the text. The symbolism of a text can be identified from the specific interaction between social-traditional convention and the actual textual-evidence.

Conventional Plausibility

When an author assumes his audience will recognize his meaning he or she draws a curtain between his group and those outside his community. The only way for outsiders to peek behind this curtain is to acquaint themselves with the common sources from which the author and his community derived its symbols. For instance, the gospel of John’s symbolic language like the Greek language John speaks arises in part from his social setting. Giving heed to the material that evidently played a part in his writing can supply ample information for symbolic investigation. Thankfully, with regards to the religious books of the Bible, their sacred texts are by and large still with us today. The plausibility of a proposed symbol is thus first weighed by its continuity with known scriptural convention.

Textual Plausibility

But authors also take care to define their symbols within the text. This occurs in at least two ways. First the author can use the narrator or characters within the story to make an explicit connection or comparison between two unlike things. A good modern example of how this shift takes place can be found in the movie The Shawshank Redemption. Notice how Andy links music to hope and Red more specifically to a harmonica.

ANDY: (taps his heart, his head) The music was here…and here. That’s the one thing they can’t confiscate, not ever. That’s the beauty of it. Haven’t you ever felt that way about music, Red?

RED: Played a mean harmonica as a younger man. Lost my taste for it. Didn’t make much sense in here.

ANDY: Here’s where it makes most sense. We need it so we don’t forget.

RED: Forget?

ANDY: That there are things in this world not carved out of gray stone. That there’s a place inside of us they can never lock away, and that place is called hope.

Later in the film the mere image of a harmonica becomes a symbol by invoking the metaphor of the previous conversation. Andy gives Red a harmonica as a “parole rejection” present. When asked if he’s going to play it, Red responds, “no, not right now.” The gift has moved beyond a mere object and now points to the hope which Andy provides and Red doesn’t want to let in.

In John’s gospel the symbols most easily recognizable are those found first in metaphor. “I am the light of the world” Jesus says. The incongruity of Jesus speaking of one thing in terms of another pushes the reader passed a literal meaning to reconcile meaning abstractly. Metaphors clearly denote John’s core symbols, images that occur frequently and contribute most to the gospel’s message. For instance Christ’s claim to be “the light of the world” establishes light as a symbol. Its frequency and placement underscore its vital importance (1:9; 3:19; 8:12; 9:5; 12:46).

A second way an author can define a symbol is through narrative structure. For instance, Mark, the earliest of the four New Testament gospels, records the following scenes in this order.

Jesus looks for fruit on a fig tree but finding none curses it (11:12-14
Jesus enters Jerusalem and attacks the temple (11:15-19)
The disciples see the fig tree withered from the root and ask Jesus about it (11:20-25)

The sandwiching of these stories indicates that the fig tree is a symbol of the temple. The cursing of the fig tree and its subsequent withering represents Jesus attack on the temple and its subsequent destruction. Jesus’ later teaching on the mount of Olives (Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21) has this meaning in mind. Here, Jesus appeals to the meaning of the fig tree.

Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it is near, right at the door. I tell you the truth, this generation will not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth, will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

One further thought. The symbols arising from the original metaphor or structural association need not be restricted to their specific language. For instance if Red had never made the explicit connection between music and a harmonica the harmonica still would have been a plausible symbol for hope in the proceeding scene. That’s because a harmonica is a subset of the larger concept of music. For example, later in the Shawshank Redemption, we find Heywood listening to Hank William’s records in the Library Andy has built. While Hank Williams has not been explicitly connected to the metaphor his music falls under the same category.

This occurs repeatedly in John’s gospel. Beyond metaphors to light we find linked references to things like darkness, day, night, blindness, and sight. The conceptual link to a central symbolic image suggests that these images likewise are to be understood symbolically. Philip Wheelwright has observed that many symbols have “a bright focused center of meaning together with a penumbra of vagueness that is intrinsically ineradicable.” The core symbol established in metaphor and clearly defined in context acts as the “bright focused center” while the linked images appear to radiate out in more or less decreasing precision.

Some of these images are more transparently symbolic than others. For instance, when the statement “men loved darkness rather than light” appears at the end of Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus it suggests that Nicodemus’ approach by “night,” is more than simply setting. Likewise the regular reoccurrence of light in John indicates a similar symbolic sense for Judas’ final departure (13:30) though only “night” is mentioned in the immediate context.

Of course not all images related to a core symbol have this probability. Craig Koester states,

When attempting to identify elements that may function symbolically as part of a motif, we do well to say that some are almost certainly symbolic and that others are only possibly symbolic.

Frequency and or context are once again the clearest guides to establishing likelihood. For instance, John’s light motif may play an ironic role in the solder’s use of lanterns and torches to arrest Jesus, “the light of the world.” However, because lanterns and torches are not mentioned or connected elsewhere in John with the light motif, the probability of an intended symbol, though good, is not as great.

In Theology

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