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AR 25:40 - Altering and reinterpreting "scripture"
In this issue:
ARMSTRONG, KAREN - the suspiciously slippery "art of scripture"
OCCULTISM - dubious "Christian" efforts to employ the Kabbalah
Apologia Report 25:40 (1,497)
October 7, 2020
ARMSTRONG, KAREN
"The Lost Art of Reading Scripture: For full human functioning, reason and myth must coexist" by Karen Armstrong -- adapted from her recent book, The Lost Art of Scripture: Rescuing the Sacred Texts [1], for the Buddhist quarterly, Tricycle (Sum '20).
Have you ever considered religion "an art form"? Armstrong begins with that concept and continues with other assertions you may find unfamiliar, uncomfortable, unsustainable - or all three.
"In the early modern West, people began to read the narratives of the Bible as though they were logoi, factual accounts of what happened. But scriptural narratives never claimed to be accurate descriptions of the creation of the world or the evolution of species. Nor did they attempt to provide historically exact biographies of the sages, prophets, and patriarchs of antiquity. ...
"Many would be in tacit agreement with the character in [Mary Augusta] Ward's novel Robert Elsmere: 'If the Gospels are not true in fact, as history, I cannot see how they are true at all, or of any value.' [2]
"This literalistic mindset subverts the traditional art of scripture. ... Science and scripture, therefore, are chalk and cheese, and to apply the disciplines of one to the other can lead only to confusion." (Uh, but the subtitle for this piece reads: "For full human functioning, reason and myth must coexist.")
"Scripture has never yielded clear univocal messages or lucid incontrovertible doctrines. ...
"Origen, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas had assessed current events as either negatively or positively reflecting patterns established in scripture. But during the Enlightenment, the biblical narratives began to be read as history in the modern sense. People forgot that they were written as stories that were merely 'history-like' and began to regard them as wholly factual accounts, and, therefore, for some they became incredible. ...
"In the past, scriptures were altered and reinterpreted quite dramatically to meet changing conditions, and [American theologian George] Lindbeck was convinced that we should continue this tradition. This requires intellectual skills that go against the grain of the modern academic reverence for the integrity of the original text. Yet unless scripture is made to reach out creatively to meet our current predicaments, it will fail the test of our time."
Armstrong concludes: "Even the inspired words of scripture must eventually segue into the silence that is an expression of awe, wonder, and unknowing." <www.bit.ly/33X9oM2>
Secular reviewers are offering rapturous praise for the volume's modern viewpoint, such as "dazzling" (New Yorker), "penetrating" (Booklist), "her most profound, important book to date" (Publishers Weekly), "a manifesto" (Washington Post), and "excellent" (Kirkus). Any questions?
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OCCULTISM
"Kabbalah and Christ: The Christian Use of Jewish Mysticism Since the Renaissance" by William Varner <www.bit.ly/2RMdj8G> (Biblical Studies, The Master's University) -- begins: "Around 1300 CE, a Hebrew book titled the Zohar began circulating in Spain and its adjoining countries. Meaning 'brilliance,' the Zohar was basically a mystical commentary on the Torah attributed to the second century rabbi, Shimon bar Yochai. ... [T]he real author was a contemporary Spanish rabbi named Moses de Leon. The philosophical theology of the Zohar formed a decisive stage in the development of the Jewish form of mystical speculation known as the 'Kabbalah.'
"From the emergence of the Zohar to the rise of the Haskala (the Jewish Enlightenment) over four hundred years later, the Kabbalah was the most influential molder of Jewish thought. Although never espoused by all Jews and always opposed by some, this mystical theosophy attempting to explain the true relationship between God and creation influenced the mind of every Jewish person. It can be safely stated that during the period following the Spanish expulsion in 1492, the Zohar ranked next to the Bible and the Talmud in its spiritual authority in the Jewish community. ...
"At the end of the fifteenth century, however, a movement began to develop in certain Renaissance 'Christian' circles that sought to harmonize the doctrines of the Kabbalah with Christianity. ...
"The two-fold purpose of this article is to explain the main points of this Christian interpretation of the Kabbalah, and then to examine its influence in some modern circles of evangelical thought. ...
"All agree that the founder of this approach was the Florentine prodigy Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494). ... The major source for Pico's Cabalistic conclusions was the Bible commentary by Menachem Recanati. ...
"Although Pico is always discussed as the founder of 'Christian Kabbalah,' an examination of his 'conclusions' reveals a rather incoherent and unsystematic approach to his subject."
Martin Luther's occasional academic colleague John Reuchlin (1455–1522) "is known in Jewish and Christian history for his eloquent defense of Hebrew literature against [Johannes] Pfefforkorn and the Dominicans. To Reuchlin, however, these contributions were phases of his interest in the Kabbalah. ...
"Reuchlin's De Arte Cabalistica ('On the Art of Kabbalah,' 1517) reveals a well-thought-out theoretical approach building on and extending Pico's scattered ideas. Reuchlin's main contribution was a series of bold speculations on the names of God which 'proved' or illustrated the Incarnation. ...
"During the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries a wave of conversions to Christianity induced by Kabbalah took place among the European Jewish communities. The most distinguished of these Cabalistic converts was Paul Ricci, who after his conversion became physician to Maximilian I and professor of Greek and Hebrew in the University of Pavia in 1521. ... Ricci unified the scattered dogmas of the Christian Kabbalah into an internally consistent system. ... Although there were many other Christian writers on Kabbalah down to the eighteenth century, these three 'founders' laid the basis for all later Messianic speculation on the Kabbalah." Descriptive material follows, including "three terms developed to describe three different kinds [of numerical/exegetical] methods employed by the Christian Cabalists." (Spelling note: Varner uses "Kabbalah" when referring to the writings and "Cabalist" for individuals and application.)
"Since it was believed that Hebrew was the original language, then there must have been embedded within the very letters of the language certain divine messages for the readers. ...
"The term gematria was used in the Middle Ages to describe all the practices of numerical equivalencies, transformations, and permutations involving the Hebrew letters. ... Gematria is the process of creating equivalencies from the numerical values of words. It is based on the fact that many ancient languages used the letters of the alphabet to also represent numbers. Notarikon is an acrostic system. The initial or final letters of the words in a phrase are joined to form a word which is then given occult significance. Temurah consists of transposing the letters of a word, or replacing them with artificial equivalents obtained from one or another of a group of anagrams."
Varner points out: "It is easy to conclude that almost any doctrine can be 'proven' or 'illustrated' when such methodology is employed. ...
"That an affinity existed between the theosophical beliefs of medieval cabalists and Christianity cannot be reasonably doubted. ...
"Kabbalah does not command the allegiance of the majority of Jews today, being confined mainly to the Hasidim. ... However, familiar Cabalistic hermeneutical methodology is still employed among some evangelical writers. ...
"At the turn of the century [Anglican clergyman E.W.] Bullinger's book Number in Scripture [(now available via print-on-demand), was a] thorough discussion of the spiritual significance of numbers throughout the Bible [3]. Although containing some useful material about the symbolic character of certain numbers [such] as 3, 7, and 40, Bullinger lists an additional fifty numbers that convey hidden spiritual truth to the reader! Bullinger, however, seeks to even establish authorship by this Christianized gematria." Examples follow.
"Another writer on numerology popular at one time among some evangelicals is Ivan Panin. Panin's elaborate system of 'Bible Numerics' actually attempted to establish the true text of the New Testament." Varner offers examples here as well.
"The thing that is of special interest, however, is the gross silence in works of the above men concerning the origin of their exegetical systems. No credit is ever given to Pythagoras the Talmudic or Cabalistic literature from which their methodology is derived." Instead, they claim credit for themselves.
Bottom line: "There is no objective basis for controlling this methodology. [And, there is] no proof that the Hebrews of the Old Testament used their alphabet in this manner (i.e., in Gematria). ...
"Another fairly recent literary effort in this area was the popular book on prophecy, 1994? [4], by Harold Camping. Camping concluded [his prophecy] by elaborate and detailed calculations...."
Besides these evangelicals, "the Renaissance Cabalists also left the example of citing Cabalistic writings to illustrate the teaching of a plurality in the Godhead. The most recent work in this vein is one entitled The Great Mystery, or, How Can Three Be One? by Rabbi Tzvi Nassi (Hirsch Prinz) [5], who is listed on the book cover and title page as 'Lecturer in Hebrew' at Oxford University." Discussion follows.
In conclusion, Varner writes: "The author fully recognizes that more recent popular writers can be cited for examples of these 'Christian Cabalistic' techniques. He has cited these earlier examples to avoid the controversy resulting from mentioning current authors and preachers. If readers see resonances of current teachers with these older writers, then his purpose has been fulfilled. ... Although [some Renaissance scholars'] motives may have been sincere, their hermeneutical methodology was so defective that more harm than good was done in its implementation. Their writings serve to warn us today about how not to conduct the Jewish-Christian discussion. Furthermore, their questionable borrowing of such Cabalistic techniques as gematria should serve as a serious warning to modern evangelical teachers to beware of straying from a grammatical-historical hermeneutic." Mishkan, 82 - 2020, pp5-17. <www.bit.ly/3kDtilN>
POSTSCRIPT, Dec 3 '22
I've been so enjoying the study of the OT's use in the NT, (currently reading Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (2007) G.K. Beale & D.A. Carson, eds.)
Here's what I (RP) learned from it, just today:
"The Sadducees were well known for not believing in the bodily resurrection.... Their hermeneutic required points of doctrine to be established from one or more texts of the Torah — that is, the first five books of Moses." (Significantly, Blomberg cites Josephus to certify this.) "Daniel 12.2 is the clearest OT text that teaches" this, but that was not good enough for the Sadducees. (How often over the span of history, hermeneutical error has derailed the transmission of biblical truth!)
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SOURCES: Monographs
1 - The Lost Art of Scripture: Rescuing the Sacred Texts, by Karen Armstrong (hardcover, Knopf, 2019, 624 pages) <www.amzn.to/2Ew8cXc>
2 - Robert Elsmere, by Mary Augusta Ward (Victorian Secrets; 2nd Ed, 2018, paperback 682 pages) <www.amzn.to/2Sw8Wic>
3 - Number in Scripture: Its Supernatural Design and Spiritual Significance, by E W Bullinger (CreateSpace, 2014, paperback, 216 pages) <www.amzn.to/362GIUc>
4 - 1994? by Harold Camping (Vantage, 1992, paperback) <www.amzn.to/33vr95T>
5 - The Great Mystery or How Can Three Be One? by Rabbi Tzvi Nassi (aka Hirsch Prinz) Yanetz Ltd., 1974, 2nd Ed. <www.amzn.to/3d08Ngu>
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