Re: Should I not be concerned?

Interesting. I just started reading the Slactivist in my RSS reader.

Johne Cook
| http://raygunrevival.com | http://authorculture.blogspot.com |*
*


On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 9:04 AM, Peter Chattaway
<petert-LOVM4QxV+tDq6eQxt3vRmLDks+cytr/[email protected]>wrote:

> I must say, I've always been intrigued by the spin that James/Acts puts on
> the passage from Amos that is quoted here.  Though I'm not sure about this
> "vowels" business.
>
> My understanding -- based, admittedly, on little more than a probing study
> of my Bible's footnotes -- is that Acts quoted the Septuagint version of the
> Amos passage, i.e. it quotes the version of that passage that was translated
> into Greek for Gentiles and diaspora Jews.  And it's not surprising that a
> Gentile-friendly translation of Amos would, well, make the passage in
> question more Gentile-friendly.
>
> The *really* interesting question is whether James would have defended a
> Gentile-friendly policy at the Council of Jerusalem by quoting a Greek
> translation of Amos and not the original Hebrew.  Then again, if there is
> anything to this "vowels" business, then maybe he would have.
>
> - - -
>
>
> http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/2011/03/should-i-not-be-concerned.html
>
> by Fred Clark
> Mar 02, 2011
>
> Or we could look at it this way. What we're really talking about here in
> our dispute with Team Hell isn't just "What about Gandhi?" -- it's also
> "What about Ninevah?"
>
> Scores of evangelical pastors and authors have condemned Rob Bell for
> asking "Will billions and billions of people burn forever in Hell?" and for
> expressing discomfort at the idea.
>
> But Bell's question echoes this earlier question:
>
>   And should I not be concerned about Ninevah, that great city, in which
> there are more than 120,000 people who do not know their right hand from
> their left, and also many animals?
>
> That question -- the last words, the punchline of the book of Jonah -- is
> nearly identical in substance to Bell's question, but the tone is much
> angrier. That makes sense. Bell is a step removed from the subject. He's
> asking, "Just what kind of cruel God do you think God is?" The latter
> question is more direct, more personal. It is God Almighty saying, "Just
> what kind of cruel God do you think I am?"
>
> I bring up the book of Jonah here because its place in the Bible provides
> one of the clearest examples of another dynamic that frustrates any attempt
> at a conversation between Team Love and Team Hell.
>
> Jonah is a polemic -- a guided missile of a story in which the author takes
> aim at the opposing point of view with the intent to destroy it utterly.
> It's a brutal piece of work. The author wasn't trying to present a civil,
> charitable, fair-minded assessment of the opposing viewpoint. The author,
> rather, was trying to ridicule that view out of existence, to burn it down
> and salt the earth and dance on the ashes and laugh.
>
> It didn't quite work out that way. The opposing point of view survived this
> broadside. It can be found in books of the Bible written after Jonah just as
> much as in books of the Bible written before this diatribe. And it lives on
> today in streams of Judaism and Christianity and Islam -- among every
> tradition that regards the book of Jonah as a sacred text, you can find
> factions or schools of thought in which the very ideas that book attacks are
> still embraced.
>
> There are two layers of conflict here and both create barriers to a
> meaningful conversation.
>
> First there is the conflict between the opposing views portrayed in the
> book of Jonah. And then there is the unspoken conflict over the existence of
> that conflict.
>
> What does it mean when we say that Jonah is a polemic? It means that we are
> encountering two opposite points of view -- two contradictory ideas. The one
> pole of this polemic is the author's own position -- for whom the author of
> Jonah, stacking the deck, has humbly enlisted God Almighty to be the
> spokesperson. The opposing pole is the position the book was written to
> attack -- the "Who cares if Ninevites die? They're $#@& Ninevites!" position
> for which the author, stacking the deck again, has made the bumbling,
> chauvinist titular antihero the spokesman.
>
> What is at stake in this argument is what it means to be God's chosen or
> God's children -- the saved, the elect, the faithful, the righteous, the
> RTCs, the "few select people" Bell talks about.
>
> For the character Jonah, this chosen-ness, this election and being one of
> the saved, means that he will be raised up to "possess the remnant of Edom,
> and of all the heathen." That which now belongs to the unchosen, unsaved
> wicked nations will one day be given to him and people like him.
>
> For the author of Jonah it means something very different. For the author
> of Jonah what it means to be chosen or elect or saved is to be called to
> participate in a divine plan by which "all other peoples may seek the Lord
> -- even all the Gentiles."
>
> Huge difference between those polar opposite view points. That's the first
> layer of conflict.
>
> The second layer of conflict has to do with the inconvenient fact that "the
> authority of scripture" can be cited in support of both of these
> incompatible views. The conflict here isn't over how to reconcile or choose
> between such competing views, but rather over whether or not the Bible ever
> presents opposing points of view at all. On one side of this conflict you
> have those who read this sprawling anthology of dozens of separate books
> written over hundreds of years and find in it arguments and disagreements
> and contentious disputes. On the other side you have those who assert that
> it is 100-percent unified and consistent, start to finish, Genesis to
> Revelation.
>
> This aspect of the conflict is particularly confusing because it's never
> wholly acknowledged. Someone like a Rob Bell will say that when the Bible
> presents us with these disputes and these contradictory ideas, we should
> look at the larger context of the character of God as revealed through Jesus
> Christ, making Jesus the standard by which we choose what side of the
> argument to embrace. But the other side doesn't know what to make of that.
> They don't see any need for such a standard for deciding between competing
> viewpoints because they don't believe that the authoritative scriptures
> include any such competing views. If the Bible were like that, how would it
> serve the function they rely on it to serve as the "paper pope" (in N.T.
> Wright's term) the ultimate arbiter of all disputes in the church? If those
> same disputes can be found within the Bible itself, then how could we use
> the Bible to resolve them?
>
> This second level of conflict -- this dispute over whether or not the
> scriptures include disputes -- frustrates many attempts to discuss the sorts
> of questions that people like Bell are trying to discuss.
>
> The concordance-driven proof-texting that provides Team Hell with its
> emphatic certainty is based on that premise of a 100-percent unified,
> consistent and never contradictory Bible. But because the Bible isn't like
> that -- because it does contain multiple points of view, endorsing or
> seeming to endorse different ideas in different passages -- this
> proof-texting approach is bound to lead one astray.
>
> Look again at the summaries above of the utterly incompatible ideas debated
> in the book of Jonah. Does being chosen/elect/saved mean that the righteous
> few who remain faithful will be given "the remnant of Edom, and of all the
> heathen"? Or does it mean that they have been given the privilege and duty
> of participating in the redemption by which "all other peoples may seek the
> Lord -- even all the Gentiles"? It cannot mean both. If one answer is true,
> the other cannot be true.
>
> But a proof-texting reader can find verses that support both of those
> ideas. Those summaries of those irreconcilable views are, in fact, citing
> scripture.
>
> And I'm not  just citing different verses to support the two different
> ideas -- I'm citing a single passage of scripture. Both summaries come from
> the very same words of the very same verse.
>
> Open an English translation of the Christian Bible and turn to the final
> chapter of the book of Amos. There, in Amos 9:11-12, the King James Version
> reads like this:
>
>   In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and
> close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up the ruins, and I will
> build it as in the days of old: That they may possess the remnant of Edom,
> and of all the heathen.
>
> Now flip over to the New Testament, to the book of Acts, and read along
> (Acts 15:15-17) as James, the brother of Jesus, reads from this same passage
> in Amos:
>
>   And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written, After this
> I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen
> down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up: That
> the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles.
>
> Same proof-text, opposite meanings.
>
> As it happens, thanks to the pliability of a written language that didn't
> include vowels, both of these readings are valid translations of whatever it
> was that Amos wrote. Plug in one set of vowels and you get a promise that
> the chosen people will one day "possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the
> heathen." Plug in a different set of vowels and you get a promise that God
> will work through the chosen people "that the residue of men might seek
> after the Lord, and all the Gentiles."
>
> Plugging in both sets of vowels is not an option. You can't read this
> passage both ways.
>
> You have to choose.
>
> Pick one.
>
> Which do you prefer? How should you decide?
>
> Some Christians will say that they don't need to decide. They'll shrug off
> the example here, or that of the book of Jonah, as some kind of
> liberal/intellectual/seminary trickery and insist again that the Bible never
> confronts us with such decisions. There's no need to choose sides, they say,
> because there's only one side, the Bible's side, and the only choice you
> have to worry about is whether or not you're going to submit to the Bible's
> authority. The paper pope will sort everything out for us.
>
> What that means in practice, interestingly, tends to be that they choose
> Jonah's side -- that they long for the destruction of Ninevah and the
> glorious day when they, the select few, are granted the spoils of Edom and
> of all the heathen. The suggestion that this might not happen, as we just
> saw with the response to Bell's video, makes them very angry. "Yes, angry
> enough to die."
>
>
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