Edgework

We have, by now, made a number of claims about the Bible Jesus read. For one, we have noted the presence of multivocality, that is; the same events are sometimes told from different perspectives, with varying details and for differing purposes. Also some basic teachings in the Torah are later called into question in books like Job and some of the Prophets. And, perhaps most importantly, many stories are told in a way that portrays God to be the antithesis of who Jesus is. It is my contention that serious Bible readers must take these factors into account when reading the Old Testament.

To help us in our quest for honest Bible reading it will be helpful to illustrate how Jesus read his Bible. Some will be quick to point out that Jesus was in a unique position as God incarnate to draw new interpretations from a Bible that would ultimately find its fulfillment in him. Be that as it may, I think there also are some legitimate reading lessons we can draw from Jesus’ reading of the biblical text. In any case, Jesus’ example will keep us from moving too quickly and too directly from Old Testament texts to present-day applications.

We begin with an incident in Luke 9 in which Jesus’ disciples want to call down fire from heaven to destroy an unwelcoming Samaritan village. There is little doubt that they were drawing on the precedent set by Elijah in 2 Kings 1 where he called down fire from heaven to destroy an army captain along with fifty men. Jesus rebukes his disciples for suggesting such a move.  Some later manuscripts add an explanation, as seen in the KJV, “Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.” Even if this addition is disallowed, its intent is clearly stated in other texts like John 3:17.  As Derek Flood says in Disarming Scripture, “…Jesus ‘expects’ his disciples – expects you and me – to be making these same calls of knowing what to embrace in the Bible and what to reject” (43).

In The Nonviolent God, J. Denny Weaver points to another interesting example in which Jesus appears to be critiquing a biblical text (14). In Luke 4, Jesus reads a text in the synagogue in Nazareth from Isaiah 61 which speaks about good news to the poor and a proclamation of the year of Jubilee. Then he claims that this text is being fulfilled in his own life. What is significant about the quote from Isaiah is that Jesus left out the phrase his audience would have been waiting to hear, “…and the day of vengeance of our God.” In the dialogue that follows, it becomes clear that Jesus is deliberately discrediting the common understanding based on such texts that God was about to wreak vengeance on the Gentiles in order to restore the fortunes of Israel. For this they tried to kill him. Again, Jesus is doing some very careful dissecting of the prophetic writings, accepting some things but rejecting others.

On another occasion, while teaching his disciples what is commonly referred to as “The Sermon on the Mount” as recorded in Matthew 5-7, Jesus frequently uses the phrase, “You have heard that it was said…” a clear reference to an Old Testament text, followed by the statement, “But I tell you…” after which he redefines the intent of that text. Murder is murder even when only committed in the mind. The same is said about adultery. With respect to divorce, Jesus upsets the easy way out of a marriage by writing a certificate of divorce, basically forbidding it except in the case of marital unfaithfulness. With respect to swearing an oath or following the “eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” principle, as prescribed in his Bible, Jesus totally reverses the teaching: Do no swear at all and turn the other cheek. And with regards to loving neighbors and hating enemies, Jesus simply states we are to love both.

About these reversals, Peter Enns says in The Bible Tells Me So, “For Jesus, interpreting ‘and’ respecting the Torah meant – when necessary – not following the script, but being creative and adapting the past to speak to changing circumstances in the present. And in some cases…Jesus finds Moses’ words to be inadequate and in need of correction…Jesus adapts scripture creatively and at times even leaves some of it behind” (182-183). Of course, the question that presents itself is this: If Jesus treated the Old Testament in this way does that mean that those who insist on interpreting this same text in the light of Jesus are also called upon to read it with careful discernment, especially as to how it informs and instructs them about their lives as Christ-followers?

Enns points to another sub-set of texts in the Gospels in which Jesus deliberately distorts the original meaning of Old Testament texts in order to make a point. For example, in Matthew 22, the Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection, try to trap Jesus by asking him about marriage in the resurrection. In order to make a case for the resurrection, Jesus appeals to Exodus 3:6 in which God says to Moses that he is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Who would have thought to do that? Enns says, “No reasonable connection exists between what the burning bush story says and what Jesus says about it. Jesus is engaging in a bit of creative biblical interpretation. Specifically, Jesus is exploiting the ‘present’ tense verb, ‘I am,” meaning that God is, ‘right now as Jesus is talking,’ the God of an ‘alive’ – resurrected – Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” (169).

A question that needs exploring is whether we can identify the configuration of the interpretive grid Jesus used when reading the Old Testament?