DIVINE CONVERSATION:
READING THE BIBLE AS A DIALOGUE OF COMPETING STORIES
March 31st – CBFNC General Assembly – Tim Moore
Background for an Old Testament case
The Bible has two creation stories at its beginning. It has four gospels. There are (at least) three sets of Ten Commandments. There are two recordings of King David & King Solomon’s lives as well as duplicate histories from their days until Jerusalem was destroyed. There are at least two versions of God’s covenants with Abraham, Moses & David. At least two prophets spoke and recorded their oracles at each of Israel’s crises: Assyrian conquest of the North (722 BC), Assyrian siege of Jerusalem (701 BC), and Babylonian conquest of the South (587 BC). In fact, most events and ideas in scripture are recorded from at least two different sources, usually from contrasting theological positions.
While Christianity has usually taught over its 2,000-year-old history that the Bible is a singular document that is to be studied and obeyed, a closer reading of scripture suggests that it is a pluralistic document in which it argues with itself regarding God, faith, and Israel & the Church. These arguments invite the faithful to enter into this conversation in order to make the Bible a living word for another generation.
An Old Testament case: The Ten Commandments
Many Bible readers are familiar with the two versions of the traditional Ten Commandments found in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. These sets are nearly identical with only a variation in the 4th commandment regarding keeping the Sabbath. However, a 3rd set is found in Exodus 34. It is this set, and this set only, which is called the Ten Commandments by the Bible itself (v. 28).
The Ten Commandments of Exodus 34
1) You shall worship no other god, because the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God…
2) You shall not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land…
3) You shall not make cast idols.
4) You shall keep the festival of unleavened bread…
5) All that first opens the womb is mine…
6) Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even in plowing
time and in harvest time you shall rest.
7) You shall observe the festival of weeks, the first fruits of wheat harvest, and
the festival of ingathering…
8) You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven…
9) The best of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the
LORD your God.
10) You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.
The LORD said to Moses: Write these words; in accordance with these words I
have made a covenant with you and with Israel. He was there with the LORD forty
days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the
tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments [34:14-28, numbers
added, mine].
The argument in these versions of the Ten Commandments (the 2 familiar sets vs. the “ritual” set) is over the nature of God. The preamble of Exodus 34 set makes the most definitive statement about God in the Hebrew Bible. In the familiar sets this statement is embedded in the 2nd Commandment. However, the statement is flipped and its meaning changed. Both versions testify to God’s steadfast love and to God’s judgment. But in one version God’s love is primary, while in the other God’s judgment is primary.
This statement is later altered and/or quoted by Nahum, Joel, Job, Nehemiah and Jeremiah as well as by the author of Numbers. The Book of Psalms uses a portion of it numerous times.
Deuteronomy 5:9-10 & Exodus 20:5-6 Exodus 34:6-7
I the LORD am a jealous God, The LORD, the LORD, a God
merciful and gracious, slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love
and faithfulness,
Keeping steadfast love for the
punishing children for the iniquity of parents, thousandth generation,
to the third and fourth generation forgiving iniquity and transgression
of those who reject me. and sin,
But showing steadfast love Yet by no means clearing the guilty,
to the thousandth generation but visiting the iniquity of the parents
of those who love me upon the children and the children’s
and keep my commandments. children to the third and fourth
generation.
A Storyteller in Exodus 34 described God by several adjectives – merciful, gracious, slow to anger, steadfast love, and faithfulness. The Deuteronomist in Deut. 5 removed all those qualities and instead stated the LORD is a jealous God. This quality was not unknown to the Storyteller; in fact God’s jealousy was mentioned in the First Commandment of the Storyteller’s decalogue [Ex. 34:14]. For the Storyteller, however, the first thing you should know about the LORD is God’s amazing and enduring mercy. Notice the breadth of God’s love, according to Exodus 34. It is unbounded. Despite iniquity, transgression and sin, God forgives. There are some limits. The guilty will not be cleared, and punishment transfers to their children, but the guilty are undefined. We do not know who they are. Thus, the credo leaves it to the interpreter of God’s mercy or God’s judgment to make the charge.
The Deuteronomist begins with God’s jealousy. The breadth of God’s steadfast love is narrow. It is restricted to only those who keep God’s commandments. “Reversing the order of emphasis, the Deuteronomic decalogue appropriated the text to distinguish between those who hate and those who love the deity.”[1] The guilty are now named. They are the ones who reject the LORD, the ones who do not keep the commandments.
So, where do you enter the conversation? At the point of God’s love, or God’s judgment? Or somewhere inbetween?
Background for a New Testament case
Open the front cover of the Bible and anyone can see that there are four gospels that tell the story of Jesus’ life and ministry. There are two other gospels worth noting – one in the Bible, the other is not included. Mark’s gospel was written first. Both Matthew and Luke reused Mark’s material as a base for their own gospels – Matthew used 94% of Mark, Luke used 79%. Roughly a quarter of Matthew and Luke’s gospels contain common material between the two of them that is not in Mark. Scholars assume they were using an early source of Jesus’ teachings. This undiscovered source they called Q, from the German word quelle, which means “source.” Q, a sayings source, could be considered the 5th gospel. Thomas is the 6th gospel of importance. The Gospel of Thomas may have been written before the Gospel of John. It is a sayings source (so we know Q could have existed as one). While it is influenced by Gnostic teachings, Thomas repeats sayings and parables found in the synoptics, giving us another version of Jesus’ teachings.
A New Testament case: The Parable of the Banquet
The Parable of the Banquet was originally part of Q. Matthew (ch. 22) and Luke (ch. 14) both reused it for their gospels; it is also included in the Gospel of Thomas (saying 64). The storyline is the same in all three, though Matthew changes it significantly. Most importantly he adds an ending not included by the other two.
Luke Matthew Thomas
Subject Someone A King A person
Event A great dinner A wedding banquet A dinner
Announcement Excuses were made His slaves were killed Excuses were made
Reaction Invited all in the streets Killed the murders & Invited all in the streets
then invited those in the streets
Response The outcasts come & The good and the bad come NA
he compels his slaves filling the wedding hall.
to fill his house.
Ending NA The king notices a guest NA
without wedding clothes &
he throws him out.
Concluding Those who were invited Many are called, Buyers & merchants
Statement will not taste my dinner. but few are chosen. will not enter the places
of my Father.
In the original Q story a king’s invitation to a banquet was rebuffed by all those receiving invitations. So, the man opened the doors of his home and his servants encouraged anybody to come until the house was filled – end of story. Matthew changed the storyline significantly to the point it stops making sense and then added a new ending. After everyone had arrived the host spots one of the guests improperly dressed. “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?” the host asked. The man was speechless. “Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” [Mt 22:12-13]. The tax collectors, prostitutes and general run-of-the-mill sinners could be included in Jesus’ new community, but they would have to shape up. What did Matthew think the “wedding clothes” were? And whom was he speaking against? Who were the Christians not wearing the “wedding clothes”?
Matthew’s addition to the parable is consistent with many other changes Matthew made to Mark’s gospel and in diverging from Luke’s use of Q. Matthew wanted to keep some form of the Mosaic Law, some commandments for new Christians to follow. Christians were saved by what they did, not by what they said.
For Matthew, the wedding clothes were the commandments that Jesus’ taught. The old categories of “in” and “out” had been abolished, but that didn’t mean there weren’t standards. In Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount [Mt 5-7] Jesus reinterpreted the Mosaic Law. He used the formulaic phrase, “You have heard that it was said… But I say to you…” six times. In each case he took a statement from the Law, often one of the Ten Commandments, and reinterpreted it. Jesus had not “come to abolish the law or the prophets” but to “fulfill” them [Mt 5:17].
Matthew could have been aiming at Mark and Paul when he quoted Jesus saying, “Whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called the least in the kingdom of heaven” [Mt 5:19]. Certainly, Mark and Paul’s disregard for the Sabbath, dietary, and circumcision commands would qualify as teaching others to break the “least of these commandments.” Every place where Mark shows Jesus disregard for parts of the Mosaic Law, Matthew either removes those verses, or changes them to justify his actions.
In Mark “faith” is what transforms people, and causes miracles. Paul is famous for his doctrine of “salvation by faith.” But Matthew was not so easily persuaded. In his mind a follower was saved by what she did, not by her beliefs [Mt 10:22]. Matthew concluded the Sermon on the Mount by having Jesus say, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven” [Mt 7:21].
If you don’t wear your “wedding clothes” on you will be thrown from the banquet.
Matthew changed the parable because he thought that faith without works was dead. The Christian Church is still debating this today.
[1] Phyllis Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), p. 2.