Apikorus

No! Deut 24 is discussing civic legislation. Do not confuse this with divine authority. That YHWH punishes children for the acts of their parents is abundantly clear in the Torah and in the Neviim Rishonim. E.g. Dathan and Abiram perish with their wives, their children and their infants (unesheihem ubneihem vetapam). Similarly, Achan was stoned along with his sons and daughters and even with his oxen and asses and sheep. Both of these are examples of divine justice. Finally, the nameless first son of King David and Batsheva is fatally stricken to atone for David's sin.

I'd write more but I have to pick up a pizza.

[ August 15, 2001: Message edited by: Apikorus ]

Nomad

I guess I get to write while Apikorus goes for pizza...

Actually, I am willing to use the RSV (or NASB, or NET, or even the KJV) translation of this passage, and still do not see it as a problem. At the same time, as a person who understands two languages, you must also appreciate the difficulty one very often has in conveying meaning from one language to the next. In my own case, I can translate French to English, and those two languages are far closer to one another than is English and Hebrew.

All of that said, the context of the text is very clear, and the arbitrary desire to look at the verse in isolation will not add to our understanding of the point trying to be made by Ezekiel. God has allowed the people to sin, to blaspheme, and to even sacrifice their children to false gods. Since He could very easily have prevented them from doing any of these things (by revoking their free will), He has given them bad laws to follow and obey. Yet He did not initiate these laws, nor do we see Him doing this in any other part of the text. This is why I referred you to the NT passages where we see the Church (through Paul) doing the very same thing to Christian sinners. When we sin, God will not stop us. He will insist that we stop, and that we repent, He will even allow us to sink into our own filth, but He will not let us off the hook.

Isaiah 65:1-2, 11-12 "I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me. To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, `Here am I, here am I.' All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations--
"But as for you who forsake the LORD and forget my holy mountain, who spread a table for Fortune and fill bowls of mixed wine for Destiny, I will destine you for the sword, and you will all bend down for the slaughter; for I called but you did not answer, I spoke but you did not listen. You did evil in my sight and chose what displeases me."

God offers us every chance to answer to His call. He is patient, but not infinitely so. At some point His judgement falls, and we are destroyed for our sins, in other words, for our evil choices.

Again, it is Pharaoh that first hardened his own heart against God (Exodus 9:7). So rather than force Pharaoh to soften his heart, God uses him as an example by which He could demonstrate His own power. Remember that Pharaoh was seen as a god, and ruler of the most powerful nation in the world at the time. By humbling him, the one true God demonstrated who had real power. Pharaoh even appears to have a change of heart, and repents for a time (9:27-28), but Moses sees through the hypocracy and lies. The lesson is very clear: repentance must be true, and sincere to be heard. It must come from the heart, and be given freely by one's own will.

No, I do not read Hebrew. At the same time I am well aware of the problems of translation, and conveying meaning, especially when one is very selective in one's choice of words. Let's look at the RSV, since both of us agree that it is a fine translation:

Ezekiel 20:5-9 Thus says the Lord GOD: On the day when I chose Israel, I swore to the seed of the house of Jacob, making myself known to them in the land of Egypt, I swore to them, saying, I am the LORD your God. On that day I swore to them that I would bring them out of the land of Egypt into a land that I had searched out for them, a land flowing with milk and honey, the most glorious of all lands. And I said to them, Cast away the detestable things your eyes feast on, every one of you, and do not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt; I am the LORD your God. But they rebelled against me and would not listen to me; they did not every man cast away the detestable things their eyes feasted on, nor did they forsake the idols of Egypt. "Then I thought I would pour out my wrath upon them and spend my anger against them in the midst of the land of Egypt. But I acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations among whom they dwelt, in whose sight I made myself known to them in bringing them out of the land of Egypt.

Thus, God reminds the Israelites that He chose them (not the other way around, see again the verses from Isaiah 65). He gave them good laws, and they rebelled. Yet God did not destroy them yet. What happened next?

Ezekiel 20:10-13, 17 So I led them out of the land of Egypt and brought them into the wilderness. I gave them my statutes and showed them my ordinances, by whose observance man shall live. Moreover I gave them my sabbaths, as a sign between me and them, that they might know that I the LORD sanctify them. But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness; they did not walk in my statutes but rejected my ordinances, by whose observance man shall live; and my sabbaths they greatly profaned. "Then I thought I would pour out my wrath upon them in the wilderness, to make a full end of them.
Nevertheless my eye spared them, and I did not destroy them or make a full end of them in the wilderness.

So for a second time the people rebelled, failed to follow God's laws, and He spared them.

Ezekiel 20:18-22 "And I said to their children in the wilderness, Do not walk in the statutes of your fathers, nor observe their ordinances, nor defile yourselves with their idols. I the LORD am your God; walk in my statutes, and be careful to observe my ordinances, and hallow my sabbaths that they may be a sign between me and you, that you may know that I the LORD am your God. But the children rebelled against me; they did not walk in my statutes, and were not careful to observe my ordinances, by whose observance man shall live; they profaned my sabbaths. "Then I thought I would pour out my wrath upon them and spend my anger against them in the wilderness. But I withheld my hand, and acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations, in whose sight I had brought them out.

A third time the people rebel, and God spares them for His own name's sake.

Ezekiel 20:23-26 Moreover I swore to them in the wilderness that I would scatter them among the nations and disperse them through the countries, because they had not executed my ordinances, but had rejected my statutes and profaned my sabbaths, and their eyes were set on their fathers' idols. Moreover I gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not have life; and I defiled them through their very gifts in making them offer by fire all their first-born, that I might horrify them; I did it that they might know that I am the LORD.

Finally God's patience has run out. They have rebelled for the fourth and last time, and God has elected to let them do their own thing, and disobey His laws. He no longer tells them what He wants of them. They have heard it four times in a row and failed to heed Him. Thus, judgement follows, and it is tied in with the opening passages of this very chapter:

Ezekiel 20:27, 30-35 "Therefore, son of man, speak to the house of Israel and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: In this again your fathers blasphemed me, by dealing treacherously with me.
Wherefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord GOD: Will you defile yourselves after the manner of your fathers and go astray after their detestable things?
When you offer your gifts and sacrifice your sons by fire, you defile yourselves with all your idols to this day. And shall I be inquired of by you, O house of Israel? As I live, says the Lord GOD, I will not be inquired of by you. "What is in your mind shall never happen--the thought, 'Let us be like the nations, like the tribes of the countries, and worship wood and stone.' "As I live, says the Lord GOD, surely with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and with wrath poured out, I will be king over you. I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries where you are scattered, with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and with wrath poured out;
and I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will enter into judgment with you face to face.

God held out His hand. He waited for the people to repent. They did not do this. Thus, He allowed them to "hit bottom", as they say, then pronounced judgement. Finally the people of Israel saw what they had become. It was then that they could see as clearly as could He that their sins were great, and His judgement was just.

Yes. As we can see, God is perfectly willing to use the disobedience of the unrighteous to teach the righteous a lesson. You are right that this theme is consistently shown here, and in many other places in the Bible.

I would modify this only slightly, and say that when someone refuses to repent and obey God in faith, then He will use that person's rebellion in a manner that will show others that they should obey, and why it is the right thing to do. The wicked do not need to be mislead by God. They mislead themselves sufficiently on their own.

Your understanding runs counter to the entire portrayal of God in the Hebrew Scriptures, and even the 20th Chapter of Ezekiel taken as a whole. God will use the actions of the righteous and the unrighteous alike to achieve His ends. What He will not do is compel someone to be righteous against their will.

Given that the Masoretic text only comes to us after the 10th Century AD, your willingness to hold it up as the superior translation to the 4th to 6th Century Targumim is interesting.

In any event, the picture of God, as I have said, is one of a just, patient and merciful God that WILL judge people, and He does so on the basis of their own choices. Take your pick of translations and ancient texts, but the message is very clear, and very consistent.

Yes, I know all of this. At the same time, even the orthodox Jews (possibly excepting extreme fundamentalists I suppose) do not condemn Christians as blasphemers, nor as the wicked. Of course, a Jew that converts to Christianity is classified as apostate, and worse than any atheist, but that is another matter.

No, the relavent point is that the prophets sent by God Himself condemned the worshippers of Baal as being evil. I do not believe the same can be said of Christians.

Peace,

Nomad

[ August 15, 2001: Message edited by: Nomad ]

Nomad

Fair enough, and thank you hezekiahjones. I can wait.

...heading off to bed now... it has been a long day.

Nomad

Apikorus

My, that was a tasty pizza.

Nomad, you said:

This remark is quite foolish and it betrays an unfamiliarity with the transmission history and text criticism of the Hebrew Bible. First of all, you are comparing the date of the earliest extant complete masoretic codex with the date of the composition of the Targum. I believe the earliest witness we have of Targum Yonatan is the Codex Reuchlinianus which dates to the early 12th century CE.

For various reasons (which are largely irrelevant to our discussion) scholars believe that the consonantal Masoretic Text stabilized by the early second century CE, by the time of Bar Kokhba, although the majority of the biblical mss from Qumran are of the "Masoretic text type". The Targumim of course have an old and largely unrecoverable history, likely stretching back to the Persian period itself. Targumim were used at Qumran as well. Any scholar will tell you that they are often expansive, paraphrastic, and tendentious, exactly as I said. Sometimes they almost ignore the Hebrew text entirely. The Targumim of Onqelos (Aquila) and Yonatan (Theodotion?) are the best known and generally the most literal (and in some sense authoritative for Judaism), but even they (especially Yonatan) contain expansive aggadic material and tendentious interpretations which stray from the Hebrew. (And please don't attempt that the Targumim were accurate witnesses to a different Hebrew Vorlage!) For these reasons, the Targumim have rather limited value in text criticism.

Now as it just so happens, Ezekiel poses a problem for lower text criticism since we have no useful Qumran witnesses. But my translation of Ezek 20:25 is supported by the LXX and the Vulgate, and by a majority of English translations as well.

It seems to me that you are simply unwilling to accept the incontravertible plain sense of the text. For example, Ezek 14:9 says quite explicitly that "I YHWH have misled that prophet". That this may serve as a lesson to others, as I proffered, is clear. But equally clear is the stark admission by YHWH that he misleads.

I think your reading of Ezek 20 is fine until you reach the denouement in verses 25 and 26. The Hebrew of verse 25 begins vegam ani natati lahem chukim lo tovim.... The inclusion of ani here (and in 20:23) renders this emphatic (since natati in context already conveys the subject) - an even better translation might be: Indeed I myself gave them no-good statutes... The reason given, lemaan ashemem = "so that I might desolate them", further conveys intentionality on the part of YHWH. I.e. YHWH hastens their destruction by misleading and then destroying them. Out of this crucible emerged a (notionally) faithful remnant. The parallels with the events of Ezekiel's own time are unmistakable.

These are difficult issues for bible believers, I understand. But the language is incontravertible. God did harden Pharaoh's heart.

[ August 16, 2001: Message edited by: Apikorus ]

Nomad

Actually, no, I am quite familiar with the trasmission history of the Masoretic text, and have had this discussion with Jews in the past (usually arguing over the reliability of the Septuagint). My point, very simply, was that those that claim that the Masoretic text is more genuine than others, yet fail to mention that it, as with all texts, has a built in bias for a certain theological point of view. So trying to discard one tradition over another, strictly on the basis of the presumed theological prejudice of the problematic text is merely question begging.

Personally, I am content to use whichever translation and text you wish to use in this discussion. My larger point here was to point out the double standard of poisoning the well against another tradition based on what you perceive to be "liberal" sentiments on the part of the authors. That is too easy of a game to play, and very often turns into a double edged sword.

That said, your point is taken, and I do not use the Targum in debates and discussions. I will, however, sometimes refer to the LXX as a better possible translation.

I agree, and that is why I am prepared to use the Masoretic text here. Yes, the point is largely irrelevant, but the larger issue can become important in many debates and discussions.

Yes, and as I have said, I am content to use even the English translations here, including your choice of the RSV over the NIV.

And for the reasons I have listed in my previous post, it appears that we must agree to disagree here. I do not see a means to escape our impasse at this point, but would be interested in finding out if your own understanding of the Hebrew text and resulting exegesis is in agreement with orthodox Jewish teachings on this matter. Do you know? What would the rabbis say in answer to your assertions and questions?

Yes He did. Of course, as I said previously, Pharaoh had first hardened his own heart.

Nomad

[ August 16, 2001: Message edited by: Nomad ]

Apikorus

Nomad, your last remark suggests that you have missed my entire point. As I explained to Ish, I am not saying that God misleads the pure to sin. However, what our texts here in Ezekiel show (and others I adduced Exodus, Isaiah, and 1 Kings) is that YHWH could mislead people who have already sinned.

The theological implications of this are obvious and quite disturbing. One might think himself pious and upright while he is instead being misled by God, eventually to serve as an object lesson to those very people who he regards as wrong or evil! One might speculate that he could be so misled as to not even remember his initial sin - he cannot trust his own thoughts. He is simply beyond hope because YHWH has singled him out for punishment.

[ August 16, 2001: Message edited by: Apikorus ]

Nomad

Yes, I got your point Apikorus. My question to you is, do orhtodox Jewish rabbis agree with your interpretation of the text, mine, or something else? I am genuinely interested in knowing this, and if you wish it, I will write to one to find out the answer.

Be well,

Nomad

Apikorus

Generally, Jewish tradition holds that teshuvah (repentence) always is possible. (Though there are certain sins which merit karet - spiritual excision.) Understandibly, when it comes to sins of the Jewish people themselves, tradition has viewed them as a consequence of our own free will and our yetzer hara (evil inclination). I think it fair to say that Jewish tradition is largely uninterested in YHWH's attitudes toward gentiles. This is generally true of the Hebrew Bible as well. While YHWH does use e.g. the Assyrians and Babylonians as instruments of punishment, and while some biblical authors such as the Jonah author and deutero-Isaiah allow that YHWH is concerned with the goyim, Judaism (and its Yahwistic precursors) remains ethnic, nationalistic, and particular. Nevertheless, many authors have discussed the fascinating and knotty problem of God hardening Pharaoh's heart. To responsibly answer your question I'd have to delve into some of the midrashic literature (e.g. Mekhilta, Exodus Rabbah) and also check medieval sources (e.g. Rashi, Rambam). It might take some time.

Incidentally, you are of course welcome to ask an Orthodox rabbi. The rabbis are very good with matters of halakha (Jewish law) but it can be hit and miss finding one who is knowledgeable enough to insightfully comment on a broad question such as "why did God harden Pharaoh's heart?" (broad because it inevitably raises complex issues of theodicy). And when it comes to nonhalakhic matters, there is often a tremendous diversity of opinion in the rabbinic literature. I'd guess you could find several divergent aggadic treatments of this issue. One place you might start is Bialik's "Sefer HaAggadah". That's a thematically organized anthology of midrashic literature. You'd probably find it very interesting.

Finally, regarding the primacy of the MT, the general opinion of most scholars is that the MT is the least problematic text, and for various reasons. However there are many instances where superior readings are provided by other witnesses, such as the LXX or the Samaritan Pentateuch or the Qumran scrolls. The Targumim, on the other hand, are almost never used to correct the MT. Again, the nature of the Targumim is that they are paraphrastic and often expansive. No serious scholar would ever suggest that the Targumim hold as much text critical value as the LXX or the DSS. At any rate, I of course agree that the MT and its proto-rabbinic ancestors were not necessarily immune to tampering, and it is false and diversionary (and obviously annoying) to suggest or imply that I am naively or slavishly assuming masoretic priority. (Indeed, the entire issue of ancient witnesses arose only in response to my remarks about the Ezekiel Targum.)

[ August 16, 2001: Message edited by: Apikorus ]

Apikorus

Incidentally, Nomad, of what consequence is it if my interpretations agree with Orthodox Jewish "teachings" (which, as I've explained, can be quite rich and diverse on nonhalakhic matters)? Simple pashtan that I am, I find Moshe Greenberg more compelling than RaDaK on Ezekiel. Progress is not always linear, though. RaShBaM on Exodus beats S. R. Hirsch hands down! (We secular modern pashtanut have a very soft spot in our hearts for the RaShBaM.)

[ August 18, 2001: Message edited by: Apikorus ]

Metacrock

Meta => To answer that you have to understand My views of Biblical inspiriation

The fact that the OT is highly redacted, largley mythological and has only a core of historical authenticity is in no way a liability to the NT Or the Christian faith.

First, mythology has a purpose, it's not just "a lie." Secondly, the Bible is a record of the people's experinces with God, not a history text book. What matters about it is the bestowing of grace, not the accurate transmission of histiorical mateiral.

The OT at least forms the basis for cultural historical background for Messiah. Without that Jesus' coming and fulfilling the role of Messiah would not make much sense. sceondly, we are still learning about God's action with people even if we learn by observing the redactors choices, since they are conditioned by their own expenirces of God. IN other words, we don't only learn from the actual history taught to us in the Hebrew Scritpures but we also learn by the choices the redactors made.