RE: [asa] On Job

Chris,

I agree, I'm not satisfied with a purely allegorical interpretation of Jonah
as well. If historians tell us that some of the things contained in the
book contradict known facts about Ninevah, etc., my first response would not
be to immediately assume it's allegorical, but rather seek for a less
literal but still historical interpretation. I.e., maybe some statements
are hyperbolized, or colloquialisms or figures of speech translated as if
they are literal statements, etc.

I think we can get in trouble by too quickly assuming the scripture is not
speaking at face value. I was making a statement just yesterday while
teaching a class at church (on a different subject) about the danger of
assuming that the Bible doesn't really mean what it says. In the back of my
mind, I was thinking to myself, "This statement may come back to me when
they find out that I believe Genesis doesn't necessarily mean a literal
seven days of creation, or a global flood, etc."

It is a slippery slope to begin allegorizing away all that we can't explain
with our present knowledge, but there is certainly a place for it, if
science and scripture are to be reconciled. Or we could do as a friend of
mine (an engineer) said just the other day, "science is just wrong." I want
to follow up with him to ask "which science is wrong?", and where does he
draw the line -- presumably he can accept physics and chemistry, but is
speaking of the biological and perhaps cosmological evidences that he can't
accept of an old, evolving universe. How can he accept one on the basis of
empirical evidence, and reject the empirical evidence for the other without
even considering it?

Jon Tandy

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Chris Barden
Sent: Friday, October 06, 2006 1:35 PM
To: tandyland@earthlink.net
Cc: asa
Subject: Re: [asa] On Job

Jon,

I appreciate the contribution. I agree with your friend that allegory
doesn't mean scripture can't be "true" in the broad sense, yet that
doesn't satisfy me with respect to this passage. Exigetically it
seems that Jesus speaks of history, if only because he makes analogous
reference to the (presumably historical) Queen of Sheba. Still, given that
the Markan narrative lacks the Ninevite reference entirely, merely
indicating "no sign will be given this generation", I'm willing to accept it
_could_ be a rhetorical device.

Commenting on the subject of allegory, I have a 1924 Peake's commentary that
so argues for Jonah:

".. the Book of Jonah is a protest of the most beautiful and most powerful
kind, calling on Israel to acept the mission appointed to it and save the
Gentiles by the proclamation of the truth." It goes on to assert that Jonah
is a stand-in for Israel, Ninevah the Gentiles, and his rescue by the fish
symbolically represents the Exile and the Restoration. Are we to really
believe that the original readers of Jonah understood the story as such? It
seems implausible.

Chris

On 10/6/06, Jon Tandy <tandyland@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Chris,
>
> I forwarded your question to a friend of mine who is a Christian, a
> Ph.D. student in history, and who talked with me some time ago about
> the historical/evidence issues that suggest that Jonah was probably
> allegorical rather than literally true; i.e. many of the statements
> given in the text contradict known facts about Ninevah of the approx.
> 7th century B.C. period, etc. At the time I was surprised with this,
> because I had always assumed it to be historical, and was a little
> uncomfortable admitting the possibility.
>
> Below are some of my questions and his response. I thought he made
> some worthwhile comments to be shared in this discussion.
>
> >>Jon Tandy wrote>>
> >I know you made some comments about Jonah possibly not being a
> >historical but rather literary work, and I was curious if you have
> >any reaction to the comment immediately below about Jesus' reference
> >to the "men of Ninevah" standing in judgment against this generation.
> >I realize Jesus' statement could be interpreted as a rhetorical
> >device without absolutely demanding historicity of the account; and
> >that the problems of the story are not just literary, but have to do
> >with historical verification of the facts
> presented
> >in Jonah. Yet, if those men were not literal, and were not literally
> >converted at the preaching of Jonah, Jesus' statement that the Jews
> >would
> be
> >judged by those men seems vacuous, even as a polemic argument, if not
> >founded in fact.
>
> His response:
>
> In response to your query, I can see at least four or five different
> approaches to the question that could still affirm Jonah as a parable.
> Not all of the approaches seems very satisfying (such as the idea that
> the words were not literally Jesus' words, but like all the gospels,
> somehow a traditional record of what Jesus spoke--which I find
> somewhat problematic--this idea is both true and not true). When we
> approach this question, we are suddenly plunged into all the problems
> of how narratives are constructed, transmitted, etc. These are not
> problems that can be given sound bite answers or neat slogans.
>
> In the end, I am inclined to see Jesus' words as a rhetorical device,
> like you suggested. Personally, I don't see how any of this means that
> we take Scripture less seriously if we interpret Jonah as a parable or
> Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 as separate creation accounts that
> significantly modify Babylonian creation stories. Some accounts in
> Scripture are more "historical" than others; some Scripture is
> obviously not history, but a different genre altogether. The real
> problem here is not Scripture itself, but us. We want Scripture to
> conform to modern ideas that "history=facts=truth." This is surely a
> very impoverished view of truth. If Christians for millennia could
> primarily interpret Genesis allegorically, surely we can, too.
> (Allegory was the primary way that "pre-modern" people read Scripture,
> hence Genesis being understood as something to do with the fall and
> salvation when it really does not say such a thing literally in the
> most ancient texts.)
>
> When we want a modern construct like science to apply to an ancient
> text not written in a world where people understood modern "science,"
> we place ourselves at the center of the universe. Scripture actually
> meant something meaningful to people other than ourselves (hence our
> myopic preoccupation with the book of Revelation without ever asking
> how first century Christians understood the work). Calvin is useful
> here with his idea that God accomodated His self to the understanding
> of people in their own times and places. When Scripture is turned into
> a divine "fact" book, we do violence to the text. When Scripture is
> taken as a reliable guide to living and the human condition, we
> glimpse its enduring, salvific power.
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]
> On Behalf Of Chris Barden
> Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2006 9:49 AM
> To: Don Winterstein
> Cc: asa; Robert Schneider
> Subject: Re: [asa] On Job
>
>
> If I may interject here -- and this may be slightly off-topic -- is
> the tendency to read Jonah as literal bolstered by Jesus' mention of
> the story? His analogy to the three days in the fish can be easily
> read as allegorical, true, but what about Matthew 12:41? "The men of
> Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn
> it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one[a]
> greater than Jonah is here." This doesn't sound like Jesus treated
> the story as allegory.
>
> Chris
>
> On 10/5/06, Don Winterstein <dfwinterstein@msn.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > I think the message of Jonah was intended for Israel, not Nineveh.
> > The purpose was to tell Israelites that God could easily be more
> > successful with other nations than he was at the time with his own,
> > so they'd better shape up. It was working the jealousy angle.
> > Hence the book is allegory or parable.
> >
> > Also, the most far-fetched event IMO is the zealous repentance of
> > king and citizens of what was probably the most dominant city of the
> > time at the word of a probably unknown foreigner speaking on behalf
> > of a probably unknown foreign God. The Bible tells us that God has
> > rarely (if ever) had anything like that kind of success in dealing
> > with human hearts; to expect it among foreigners who were dominating
> > the world at the time would be a s-t-r-e-t-c-h.
> >
> > Don
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Robert Schneider
> > To: Don Winterstein ; asa@calvin.edu ; Carol or John Burgeson
> > Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2006 5:16 PM
> > Subject: Re: [asa] On Job
> >
> >
> > I would follow some OT scholars who say that the Book of Jonah is
> > constructed in the literary form of a "mashal," an extended parable
> > with theological purposes. The purpose of the book is to teach that
> > the justice, mercy and forgiveness of God is universal. There is
> > another purpose: once God gives you a call, you can try to run away,
> > but you cannot escape his call. Now if anyone wants to believe that
> > it is literally and historically a fact that Jonah spent three days
> > in the belly of a great fish (not a whale), they are welcome to do
> > so. But the truth of this story for God's purposes is not dependent
> > upon their doing so.
> >
> > I suppose it is not easy always to discern what in the OT is to be
> > taken as a bald historical account or as story teaching theology. It
> > is best to keep an open mind. But there are elements of literary
> > form and story construction that can help one to make one's own
> > decisions about this. I don't doubt that God will forgive me if I
> > err on any single interpretation.
> >
> > Bob Schneider
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Don Winterstein
> > To: asa@calvin.edu ; Carol or John Burgeson
> > Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2006 4:32 PM
> > Subject: Re: [asa] On Job
> >
> >
> >
> > Would you assign Jonah similar status? Then, how about Elijah
> > calling down fire on the captains of fifty? Once we get started,
> > how do we know where to stop?
> >
> > Don
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Carol or John Burgeson
> > To: asa@calvin.edu
> > Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2006 6:37 AM
> > Subject: [asa] On Job
> >
> > Vernon commented: "Can such passages as Job 1:6-12 =
> > and 2:1-7 be 'interpreted' to mean something different from their =
> > account of actual meetings, actual discussions and actual
> > consequences? = And if, in your view they must be accepted as real
> > events, what might we = usefully glean from them?"
> >
> > The most reasonable interpretation of Job is that it is a morality
> > play. To consider it as sober factual history is ludicrous. Sort of
> > like believing ALICE IN WONDERLAND.
> >
> > Burgy
> >
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> >
>
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Received on Mon Oct 9 07:35:13 2006