Over the last months, I have picked up a more critical view of the text of the New Testament and have begun to notice several things. One of which is the function of prophecy in the NT.
I used to be very excited about reading prophecies being fulfilled in the NT because I saw it essentially as one of the ‘proofs’ for my faith. I hardly ever doubted their accuracy and never entertained the thought that the verses may have meant something very different. I saw these verses as recorded in the Tanakh as divinely inserted which the NT authors faithfully extracted, in response to what they witnessed.
Several things have made me cast doubts on this idea:
1. Authorial intent
It is far from clear that the authors in the Tanakh ever thought of their words to include any more than the near future or current events. Take for example Isaiah 7:14, that reads: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”
These words were directed to King Ahaz, and most probably referred to the birth of a Davidic prince that would deliver Judah from its enemies. The word virgin in all likelihood did not refer to a virginal conception but to a young girl that had reached the age of being eligible for marriage.
Another example is the famous vision in Daniel 7, where the son of man most likely refers to the nation Israel and not, at least not in the first place to the messiah.
While this can still be reconciled by saying that maybe the authors of the Tanakh werent aware of the depth of their own writing, the next point is much more difficult.
2. Prophecy Historicized
In examining the stories in the NT, it is apparent that there are many parrallels with stories from the Tanakh. For example the stories contained in the first chapters of Matthew are largely following a combination of the birth of Moses and other stories. What follows is largely based on the work of R.E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah:
- Matt 2:13-14 Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” 14 And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt
Ex 2:15 When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian. And he sat down by a well.
- Matt 2:16 Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under
Ex 1:22 Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”
- Matt 2:19 Herod died
Ex 2:23 the king of Egypt died
- Matt 2:19-20 an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, 20 saying, “Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child’s life are dead.”
Ex 4:19 And the Lord said to Moses in Midian, “Go back to Egypt, for all the men who were seeking your life are dead.”
- Matt 2:21 And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel.
Ex 4:20 So Moses took his wife and his sons and had them ride on a donkey, and went back to the land of Egypt.
The parallels are amazing, and I remember very well that I used to think, “Great! Look, this too is prophecy fulfilled”, but it could very well be that this is not history prophesied, but as Dominic Crossan put it: “Prophecy historicized”.
Many other stories in the NT can be treated in this way as well and this makes me have doubts on how much you could talk about prophecies being fulfilled. As in my opinion it is more the hand of the author the Gospel in these accounts than sober history being recorded. And this feels uncomfortable because its evident that they had an interest in polishing the stories to reflect their beliefs concerning Jesus.
3. Authority of the Tanakh for the authors of the NT; reading Scripture Christian-ly
This point was driven home well by James Dunn in the chapter titled “The Use of the Old Testament” in his Unity and Diversity in the NT, he says:
In short, the first Christians valued the OT not as an independent authority so much as an interpreted authority. p. 102
The Tanakh was read through the eyes of the ‘new’ revelation, and as such there were few problems in ‘establishing proofs’ for Jesus as:
[...] where the old revelation did not fit with the new there was little question for the mainstream of first-century Christianity but that the old had to be adapted to the new or else abandoned. p. 110
A footnote brings this out even more eloquent:
The place of the Old Testament in the formation of New Testament theology is that of a servant, ready to run to the aid of the gospel whenever it is required, bolstering up arguments, and filling out meaning through evocative allusions, but never acting as the master or leading the way, nor even guiding the process of thought behind the scenes. p. 110 n. 33
Taking this into account it doesnt really make sense to see ‘all’ those prophecies as proofs for Jesus messiahship… true there are some general events that are hard to be denied such as his suffering and vindication, not to mention the expansion of the God of Israel across the globe (however tainted that may have been), but in light of this it doesnt make alot of sense to draw up whole lists of parallels between the gospels and the Tanakh as it seems often these are not cases of history prophesied but prophecy historicized…
Daniel,
I understand you inquiry into the historicity of the Brit Chadasha. The only problem is that Dominic Crossan is not a real historian/theologian, but he has an agenda. Have you seen his interviews? He always wants to come up with outrageous claims and create new innovative theories. In a sense “Prophecy historicized” is a good theory coming from this Jesus Seminar “scholar”. But I can come up with a better one.
As devout religious Jews the Schluhim of Meshiach, took themes and religious language of that day to communicate their experiences. If Dunn’s theory is right then he denies their Jewish identity, because they regarded the Tanak as holy, they would not make up crazy interpretations of these texts because it would undermine their identity. If you notice they were persecuted for their commitment to the revelation of Meshiach, not for tampering with sacred texts. If you try to say that the Schluhim felt that their messianic hopes were being fulfilled in their lives, just like the Essenes and ended up dead waiting for redemption. That is a good parallel, but thinking that they made things up to support their claims has already been brought up by other pseudo-scholars like Amy Jill Levine.
This being the case what this boils down to is that all of these authors think that Y’shua Melech Ha Moshiach was just a nice guy with some innovative ideas and that’s it! The same can be applied to Moshe Rabenu and other Neviim. I just think that if we are going to argue that there is not enough evidence for Y’shua’s claims, I would expect deeper concerns about human existence and purposed of G-d that what is brought up in that book.
The biggest concern that I have is that they do not take into consideration the mystical elements of Jewish revelation and blow everything off as mythical narratives. They are not interested in the developments of Jewish history or G-d’s interaction with humanity. That is where the biggest claim for Moschiach is, G-d provided redemption at a time of turmoil and right before “The Great Exile”. I think that we need to have a perspective that takes everything into consideration and looks at the big picture. Y’shua appeared and blessed us with his wisdom and a path to repentance, and then he walked away from the scene in a mystical fashion just like Melchizedek did in the Genesis account. Now we just have to reconcile that with our religious convictions and responsibilities in relation to G-d’s attributes and plan.
Hope you are doing well! Daniel T.
Hi Daniel T,
Thanks for stopping by.
To start off I would like to point out that the argument of Dominic Crossan does not diminish when you point out that he is not a real historian/theologian. First of all, he is recognized by most academics as one, and its not for naught that he is a member of SBL.
I agree that the Jesus seminar isn’t among the best contributors of NT scholarship but my argument was mainly based on Raymond Brown’s observations and the quote came from Dale Allison’s new book, who doesn’t agree with Crossan on many things, but does on this one.
The same observations I would make when reading the rest of your argument that puts Dunn and Amy-Jill Levine in the realm of pseudo-scholars, which they simply aren’t. To have a scholar disagree with your predispositions doesn’t make them pseudo-scholars.
I know its difficult to imagine the authors of the NT, being this flexible with blurring the lines of theology and history, but a careful look at the parallels does seem to indicate that there is more going on than simply recording history.
Blessings,
Daniel
Daniel,
The reason that I call them “pseudo-scholars” is because they are not intellectually honest. They use one set of rules when it comes to the NT and another set of rules regarding the rest uf scripture or other sources. I am afraid that in their zeal to show a new way of looking at the NT they forget threat the text fairly. I would like to see where is this research taking you and how do you feel about the different approaches by messianic groups.