Exam review summary

I've gotten a few questions about the exam so far. I'm going to post my responses to emailed questions to benefit everybody rather than just the people who've asked so far.

The principle of analogy is something we covered the first day of class. It is part of historical criticism and makes it possible to "fill out the picture" given some historical data about a period or group (like we find in the Bible). The principle of analogy (found in the first chapter we read of To Each Its Own Meaning) says that we fill out the historical picture by assuming that there are certain things about the period, nation, group, etc. we are studying that are analogous to other periods of history that we know more about: our own period or well-documented periods of history, and other contemporary Near Eastern societies. One of the examples given in the text is that we are given names and titles of David's court advisers, but no information about their duties in the Bible. However, we have records of other royal courts in the ancient Near East that have some of the same titles, so we assume that David's court was similar (analogous) and we can deduce the duties of his main court advisers. We can also use knowledge of our own time, but we have to be much more cautious about applying that kind of knowledge to Biblical times.

Prophets were considered to be authoritative and were listened to with respect because they were considered to be "messengers of the LORD." "Messenger" was a legal role in the ancient Near East that meant you spoke on someone's behalf and had been authorized to make certain decisions for him or her. (Very much like a "power of attorney" today that allows a specific person to make important decisions on behalf of someone who is very ill, has dementia, or is unconscious -- except that messengers were used much more often, and when the problem was simply distance.) To be the "messenger of the LORD," then, meant that a prophet had received a specific proclamation from God and was authorized to transmit it to God's people. Messenger formulas, like the ones I listed on your study sheet, were used in the prophet's speech to let the audience know that his or her words were the words of the LORD and not merely his own thoughts.

Hosea was a departure from the understanding of covenant we studied in Exodus and Deuteronomy because the previous writings about the covenant mostly interpreted it as a binding legal agreement. Hosea, drawing on the fact that marriages are also a binding legal agreement using the same form (Hittite treaty form), reinterpreted it as a marriage between Israel and YHWH. He pointed out that Israel had been unfaithful (by worshiping other gods) but said YHWH would still be faithful and in fact would bring them back by his unfailing love for them.

Second Isaiah, as we discussed in the class on prophets, was written during the Babylonian exile to give the people hope that God would give them a purpose again as a nation. Second Isaiah initiated the idea that Judah was meant to be "a light to the nations (or Gentiles)," that their purpose in the world was to be a witness of Yahweh's power and goodness to all the nations around them. This theology inspired Judah to begin to try to make converts of the nations around them (and thus set the stage for the emergence of Christianity and its conversions a few centuries later). This approach was a drastic change from the Deuteronomistic theology, which advocated wiping the other nations around them out by holy war! Behind this change was a deeper one: the Deuteronomistic history saw the identity of Judah and Israel as wrapped up in the kings descended from David, and its basic take on history is that if there's a good king, God is happy with Israel/Judah, and gives them success in their battles. If there's a bad king, God curses them and they lose their battles. In other words, the relationship between God and his people is basically tit-for-tat, and can be seen practically by just charting their success or failure in warfare. In Second Isaiah, on the other hand (as well as Hosea), the prophet stresses God's faithfulness to his people in the covenant regardless of whether they are faithful to it or not. In fact, God's faithfulness is used to motivate Israel's return to the covenant (from gratitude).

Matthew's Messiah is the topic we covered on Thursday in class. We talked about how Matthew (similarly to Peter's sermon that we looked at a few weeks ago) tries to portray Jesus as the perfect fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies for the coming Messiah -- king, priest, prophet. The difference is where that sermon focuses on Christ's resurrection as this fulfillment, Matthew uses this as a theme running throughout his portrayal of Christ's life. A good king makes justice for the poor. Jesus did this especially in his miracles and his refusal to suck up to the powerful, instead preferring to look after the needs of the helpless and other despised people (like gentiles and tax collectors). A good priest teaches, protects the holiness of the Temple, and offers good sacrifices on behalf of the whole nation. We saw this in the overturning of the tables of the moneychangers, where Jesus showed zeal for the purity of the Temple and also gave a lesson in what good priests ought to do. A good prophet is one who makes social critique when the nation is not living up to the covenant and who accurately conveys the message of Yahweh. We saw this, again, in the overturning of the tables (social critique) and also in Jesus' teaching about divorce, where he makes himself such an authoritative messenger of Yahweh that he can actually correct the Torah's teaching on divorce.