Our Translated Gospels

[John Reece]

He thought the Synoptics date no later then the middle of the first decade? Wow. That would make them contemporary with Paul's letters, right?

Right.

[John Reece]

Continued from post #25 above ↑

Continuation of excerpts from the Introduction to Our Translated Gospels: Some of the Evidence, by Charles Cutler Torrey:

Especially important illustration is to be seen in Psalms 17 and 18 of the "Psalms of Solomon," in which the character and work of the coming Messiah are described. These poems obviously present no new doctrine, but give expression to long-cherished and very definite beliefs. To quote from my "Outcroppings of the Jewish Messianic Hope." published in Studies in Early Christianity, edited by S. J. Case, New York and London, 1928; referred to in the sequel as "Outcroppings": p. 289. "No one would ever be led ... to suppose that the Messianic doctrine was new to the poet or to his readers. He is obviously dealing with long-familiar ideas and expressions. He has no need to explain anything, nor even to cite the older scriptures." In the Introduction to the edition by Ryle and James (The Psalms of Solomon, 1891), pp. lii-liv, the idea of the Messiah in these poems is set forth. Every one of the many items in this list―the features of the Messianic kingdom and the distinctive characteristics of the person himself―is to be found, definitely and unmistakably, in Second Isaiah.

I interrupt the flow of Torrey's commentary at this point, to reflect back to TWeb exchanges above about his references to the book of Isaiah. My impression is that in this regard Torrey was in tune with critical scholarship during his day with regard to the authorship and composition of Isaiah. So far as I know ― robrecht would know for sure ― the concept of two or three authors of Isaiah may still be the consensus among critical scholars of the book of Isaiah. John N. Oswalt does not put it this way, but I gather from his comments that he is not following the consensus of historical or current critical scholarship when he concludes that Isaiah was written by Isaiah the son of Amoz. However, lest I misrepresent Oswalt, his comments are more complex than I may have represented them to be. From The Book of Isaiah Chapters 1-49 (NICOT; Eerdmans, 1986), by John N. Oswalt:

The end of these inquiries into the authorship of the book is at least twofold. First, it is very difficult to obtain agreement among scholars as to the date and authorship of any but a few chapters of the total book. The titles "I, II, and III Isaiah" are retained for convenience, but in fact are very misleading as to matters of date and authorship.

Second, the results of these inquiries have devalued the religious message of the book. Since it is agreed that the prophet can speak only to his immediate historical context and even then not in specific prediction, much of the religious argument of the book is reduced to rhetoric, and faulty rhetoric at that. Thus the argument that God is to be preferred to idols because he foretold the Exile is false (41:21-24). Likewise, the promises of a great messianic deliverance (which by definition cannot be long in the future) did not come true. Perhaps even more telling, the claims that God controls history and can be trusted were in fact manipulations of the record after the fact.

This is not to say that multiple authorship must be rejected because of its deleterious effects on the book's theological value, but it does raise the question as to whether the admitted influence of the book for at least twenty-five centuries does not weigh against some of these theories.

.... For this commentary the theological and ideological unity of the book is a primary datum. Other data, especially those relating to date and authorship, must be considered in the light of this datum. For instance, it must be asked whether the hypothesis of a complex redactional process functioning over several hundred years can satisfactorily account for that unity. Furthermore, it is questionable whether a group process ever produces literature of power. Note that Holladay and Achtemeier refer to "Third Isaiah" as an entity while agreeing that no such individual existed. They are reflecting the conviction that literature produced by committee does not display unity.

In this light, it is my conviction that the essential content of the book has come to us through one human author, Isaiah the son of Amoz. It is he who received the revelations from God and who directed the shaping of the book.

Oswalt goes on to say that the book of Isaiah is "like an anthology, a collection of sermons, sayings, thoughts and writings of Isaiah, all arranged according to the theological scheme outlined in the previous section. Thus it is not at all necessary to assume that all the materials of the book are in the chronological order in which they were first delivered. Nor is it necessary to deny that during the collection of the materials into book form brief editorial or transitional materials were added, either by Isaiah himself or those working with him."

I still have not done justice to the quality and scope of Oswalt's commentary, even after letting him speak for himself at such length. I heartily recommend his two volume NICOT commentary on Isaiah to all who may be interested in further study of the subject.

Back to Torrey's book next time...

[John Reece]

Continued from last post above ↑

Continuation of excerpts from the Introduction to Our Translated Gospels: Some of the Evidence, by Charles Cutler Torrey:

The Anointed One of these psalms is a divine being. In the Introduction just mentioned, p. lv, the editors deny this; but their contention, I think, cannot stand. Israel had been definitely promised, in Isaiah 9 and 11, a divine deliverer and governor, a superhuman king on the throne of David, destined to reign forever, and to perform just such wonders as are described in these psalms. The abandonment of great promises for small, when the benefactor is known to be omnipotent, is unthinkable; the Jews had suffered no loss of faith (read the Psalter!); the achievements predicted are out of the range of human possibility; and finally, in 17:39, where the editors rightly recognize a verbal citation of Isaiah 11:4, the power wielded by this Anointed One is said to be "forever," εἰς αιῶνα ! In these poems, then, as everywhere else, the Jewish Messiah is a divine-human person. It was not necessary to say this in so many words (as Ryle and James, on 18:6, would claim), for every Israelite had known it for centuries past.

To be continued...

[John Reece]

Continued from last post above ↑

Continuation of excerpts from the Introduction to Our Translated Gospels: Some of the Evidence, by Charles Cutler Torrey:

In my "Outcroppings" I showed good reasons why the doctrine of a Jewish king, reviving the throne of Judah and trampling on the Gentiles, was not often paraded in writings intended for public circulation. Palestine in the last centuries B.C. was a powder magazine ready to explode, as both Jews and Gentiles thoroughly understood. Read Ezra 4:15, 19 and John 11:48, and consider the lesson of the Maccabean uprising. "The Messianic hope was an underlying stratum rather than a field of thought open to the eyes of the world" ("Outcroppings," p. 285). It was also unnecessary to repeat what had already been given classical expression, and was firmly established in Hebrew theology.

Malachi, who wrote under a Persian governor, uses the terms "the Lord" and "the Messenger of the Covenant," 3:1 ff. (see Isa. 42:19 and 44:26), and every reader knew what was meant. Daniel, in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes, presents a pre-existent "man" coming in the clouds of heaven (7:13 f.), whose dominion will be everlasting; but when the historical interpretation is reached (verse 27), he wisely omits repetition of what was already definite enough (see Exhibit XXIII, D). Henceforth "the Man" was a definite Messianic title, admirably cryptic, and useful wherever ambiguity was desirable. The fact of its wide familiarity is obvious from the Book of Enoch, chapters 46-70 ("Son of Man"), the Four Gospels, and 1 Acts.*

*By this title, I mean to designate Acts 1:1-15:35, a Judean document of the early church, which, I think, I have sufficiently shown to have been originally written in Aramaic and translated into Greek by Luke (Composition and Date of Acts, 1916).

To be continued...

[John Reece]

Continued from last post above ↑

Continuation of excerpts from the Introduction to Our Translated Gospels: Some of the Evidence, by Charles Cutler Torrey:

As a matter of course, the Messiah was conceived as a pre-existent being, by Yahweh held in readiness for the time when he should be incarnated in a man of David's line. No other conception was possible after Isaiah 9:5 f. (!) [9:6The Beginnings of Christianity, p. 366), but to the Jews of that day, with their absolute faith in Yahweh's omnipotence, it could cause no difficulty whatever. It was in this very thing that their hope lay. The "mighty god" on the throne of David, the eternal king of the Messianic age, is not expressly declared to be a scion of David in Is. 9, though this is plainly implied; in 11:1 it is said in so many words. In the verse 4 Ezra 12:32 the Coming One is both pre-existent and "of the seed of David," and the same conception is fundamental to the christology of the Psalms of Solomon. The doctrine of the Prologue of the Fourth Gospel (in spite of the purely superficial term Logos, a mere up-to-date ornament borrowed from Greek philosophy) had been a commonplace of Jewish theology for three or four centuries. The documents, strangely neglected and misinterpreted, are before us, and their teaching is clear and consistent.

To be continued...

[Teallaura]

Um, wait, if that's so, why couldn't the Jews answer Jesus' question about David calling his son 'Lord'? Did they know the answer and not want to answer because of the implication or did they not understand the passage?

[John Reece]

Did they know the answer and not want to answer because of the implication or did they not understand the passage?

[John Reece]

Continued from post #35 above ↑

Continuation of excerpts from the Introduction to Our Translated Gospels: Some of the Evidence, by Charles Cutler Torrey:

The promise to David always maintained its place in the great expectation. The editors of Ps. Sol., quoted above, saw a very long interval in which the prediction was either forgotten or disregarded (Introd. p. liv). According to their view, Haggai was the last to emphasize it, until it was resurrected, for some reason, by the author of these psalms! In particular, they find it significant that the house of David is left out of sight in the considerable period of the Hasmonean period. As to this, there are two things to be said: (1) The Hasmoneans were not descendants of David, but of the priests, and therefore the prediction of triumph through a man of his line would hardly be dwelt upon in their time (though the cherished expectation is stated definitely enough in 1 Macc. 2:57!); (2) The dating of Hebrew literature is less easy now than it was in 1891.

Even before the time when the true "Messianic" doctrine took shape it had ceased to be possible to tell who were the descendants of David, and who were not. Genealogical lists were easily constructed, but less easily credited. After the divinity of the Anointed One had been firmly and permanently established in Hebrew theology, the "Son of David" was thought of more and more as a title, even while the lineage was held to be necessary. Yahweh, who would appoint the time, would provide the person. He who from the stones of the field could raise up children to Abraham could renew the blood of David in any man of his choice. (Somewhat similarly, John the Baptist was Elijah"; not the same who stood with Moses on the mount of Transfiguration, but a prophet "in the spirit and power of Elijah," Luke 1:17.) So it came about that such a saint and patriot as Rabbi Akiba could accept, whole-heartely, Bar Cocheba as the promised Messiah, though no one believed him to be a son of David by human descent.

To be continued...

[John Reece]

Um, wait, if that's so, why couldn't the Jews answer Jesus' question about David calling his son 'Lord'? Did they know the answer and not want to answer because of the implication or did they not understand the passage?

I cannot answer the questions as to what was in the minds of the Jewish auditors of Jesus' words; however, for whatever it may be worth, below is an excerpt from the exegesis of the biblical text of Mark 12: 35-37 (via Accordance) in The New International Greek Testament Commentary (NIGNT: Eerdmans, 2002), by R. T. France (brackets added by JR; footnotes omitted):

ʾᵃdōnı̂ [my lord] or the Aramaic mārı̂ʾᵃdōnay [my lord] pronounced in place of the divine name, a very similar wordplay would be achieved: nᵉʾum ʾᵃdōnay laʾdōnı̂

[Teallaura]

Thanks!

[John Reece]

Continued from post #38 above ↑

Continuation of excerpts from the Introduction to Our Translated Gospels: Some of the Evidence, by Charles Cutler Torrey:

The editors of The Beginnings of Christianity express surprise that the idea of a warrior king is so prominent in Ps. Sol.; and they are inclined to think that under the influence of "some Targums" Rabbi Akiba had been led to conceive of the Messiah as "a liberator" (p. 361). But the Messiah was always a liberator, always "a triumphant warrior"―in the initial stage of his glorious career. No portrayal, from the earliest time onward, is complete without this absolutely essential feature. The overthrow of the hostile nations was his first great task. Was Israel in no need of liberation? Were "the uttermost parts of the earth" to be peaceably annexed? All the prophets and psalmists foretold that at the end of the present age there must be a mighty conflict, a tremendous clash between Yahweh's hosts and the world powers representing his enemies. The divine champion pictured in Is. 11:4b (the passage verbally cited in Ps. Sol. 17:39, and seemingly derived from Is. 49:2) is expressly appointed to accomplish this task of conquest and deliverance. There is no accident in the prediction, nor is its repetition in Ps. Sol. an isolated fact. On the contrary, it was the usual conception of the latest Hebrew writers that the pre-existent Son of God was destined to lead his Father's hosts in the day of triumph. Not that the marvelous power wielded by the Son is his own; it is always the might of Yahweh, who holds the right hand of his agent, a distinctly subordinate being. The Messiah of the Book of Enoch is essentially the same as in the Psalms of Solomon (though the title "King" is avoided). See chapters 46; 48 f.; 52:6-9; 62; 69:27; 105:2. He wields the might given him by the Most High, is destined to universal dominion, and is appointed judge of all the world. Similarly in Second Isaiah the triumph is given to the Servant (42:6 f.), but Yahweh is the real victor (verse 13). This is put concisely, in a bit of late Hebrew mythology, in Hab. 3:13a, at the close of a highly figurative description of the final destruction of the powers of evil on earth:

Thou wentest forth for the rescue of thy people,
For rescue, with thine Anointed.*

*As I showed in "The Prophecy of Habakkuk," in Jewish Studies in Memory of George A. Kohut (New York, 1935), pp. 581 f., Hab. 3:12-14 (of course with emendation of the text) is based directly and in part verbally on Is. 41:15 f.

To be continued...

[John Reece]

.... it is worth noting that a few prominent scholars have continued to carry on with this approach, most notably Joachim Jeremias in German (a great deal available in English translation) and Matthew Black in English (An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts).

I just got around to googling Matthew Black and was surprised to learn that he was the same Matthew Black who served as one of the five original editors of the United Bible Societies Greek New Testament ― Kurt Aland, Carlo M. Martini, Bruce M. Metzger, and Allen Wikgren being the other four original editors.

The Wikipedia entry says that he is "noted, in his An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts, for being one of the few mainstream scholars to advocate an Aramaic ur-text [= the original text, according to Merriam-Webster -JR] behind the Gospels."

'Just shows how far removed I have always been from ever having been a scholar.

I have been trying to break my habit of buying books, but I'll have to make an exception in this case.

[robrecht]

I just got around to googling Matthew Black and was surprised to learn that he was the same Matthew Black who served as one of the five original editors of the United Bible Societies Greek New Testament ― Kurt Aland, Carlo M. Martini, Bruce M. Metzger, and Allen Wikgren being the other four original editors.

The Wikipedia entry says that he is "noted, in his An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts, for being one of the few mainstream scholars to advocate an Aramaic ur-text [= the original text, according to Merriam-Webster -JR] behind the Gospels."
'Just shows how far removed I have always been from ever having been a scholar.

I have been trying to break my habit of buying books, but I'll have to make an exception in this case.

You may also enjoy Maurice Casey as a more recent scholar. Sadly, I just heard yesterday that he died. Maybe he's speaking Aramaic with St Peter right now.

[John Reece]

You may also enjoy Maurice Casey as a more recent scholar.

Thanks for the suggestion.

[John Reece]

Continued from post #41 above ↑

Continuation of excerpts from the Introduction to Our Translated Gospels: Some of the Evidence, by Charles Cutler Torrey:

Another aspect of the deliverer is shown in Zech. 9:9 f., where the portrait of "the King"―like all the other portraits―goes back ultimately to Second Isaiah. It is on the other hand noticeable in the last chapters of this prophecy, with their repeated mention of the coming kingdom and the slaughter of the nations, that while "the glory of the house of David" (12:7) is emphasized, the occupant of the throne is Yahweh himself (14:9, 16 ff.); this picture, obviously, for reasons of caution.

In the songs of the Psalter, where the final triumph and rescue are naturally prominent ideas, we see frequently a picture like that in Habakkuk. Thus in 110:1-5:

Yahweh says to my Lord,
Sit thou at my right hand,
Till I make thine enemies thy footstool. . . .
Yahweh at thy right hand
Will strike down kings in the day of his wrath.

The interpretation attested by Mk. 12:35-37 [see France's exegesis in post #39] is certainly the one intended by the author of the psalm. We have already seen (above) that "Lord" is a title of the Messiah used by Malachi.

To be continued...