Читать книгу Who's Afraid of the Old Testament God? - Alden L Thompson - Страница 8

Another way in which the New Testament often gets in the way of the Old is also illustrated by the book of Hebrews. In particular, I am thinking of the famous “faith” chapter, Hebrews 11. If you read that chapter carefully and compare the stories there with the first accounts told in the Old Testament, you will notice a fascinating tendency in Hebrews to tell the stories in such a way that God’s men of ages past are all seen to be great men of faith. Perhaps it would not be too far amiss to compare what is happening in that list of stories to what often takes place at a funeral. Regardless of what kind of life a person has lived, the official memorial service remembers only the good. The deceased may have been a real villain, but you couldn’t guess that from what is said in public! Hebrews 11 doesn’t contain anything quite that extreme, but certainly the highlights of faith tend to exclude those less than complimentary features of the original Old Testament stories. Let’s note just a few examples.

The Genesis picture of Abraham is a man of faith—but one whose convictions often wavered when put to the test. His halftruths to Pharaoh about Sarah showed not only his lack of faith in God, but also his selfishness and lack of genuine respect for his wife (Gen. 12:1-20). Likewise, when he decided that Hagar could bear the child of promise (Gen. 16), he betrayed an uncertain faith. To be sure, these lapses of faith can actually be encouraging to us, for here is a man with serious difficulties yet who was adjudged to be faithful (Heb. 11:8-19). The point that I want to make, however, is that the original Old Testament story is essential if one is to reap maximum benefit from the story in Hebrews. Hebrews 11 taken by itself is a fine story, but taken alongside the Old Testament story it becomes superb.

The mention of Sarah and of Moses in Hebrews 11 provides further examples of a partial telling of the Old Testament story. Hebrews 11:11 says that “by faith” Sarah conceived. Would you have guessed that she actually laughed when God first made the promise to her—unless of course you had read the Old Testament story (Gen. 18:9-15)? And the contrast in Moses’ case is even sharper, for the Exodus story of the killing of the Egyptian and Moses’ flight from Pharaoh makes it quite clear that Moses fled because he was afraid (Ex. 2:14). But Hebrews 11:27 says that “by faith” he left Egypt, “not (!) being afraid” of the anger of the king. The apparent contradiction between the two stories is resolved by a clearer understanding of what “by faith” means in Hebrews 11, namely, that faith can work wonders even when the human agent does not really appear to be faithful. Yet that particular understanding of faith is possible only when one carefully compares the original Old Testament story with the interpretation of that story in Hebrews 11. Now I happen to believe that both the Old Testament and the New Testament stories have an independent value of their own and should be appreciated for their own sake, but linking the two together enhances our ability to understand God’s activities. I shall return to this point later, but now I want to note what has happened to the general interpretation of the Old Testament in view of the treatment that it receives in Hebrews 11.

Just as Hebrews 11 tends to focus on the highlights of Old Testament godliness, interpretation has tended to glorify this “royal line” of God-fearing people. Such an emphasis is valuable; in an age when heroes are characters, emphasizing their commitment, so their faithfulness, their subsequent Christian hard to come by, it is important to understand what a real hero is. Nevertheless, I remember my surprise when I actually got around to reading the Old Testament stories themselves after having heard only Christian interpretations of these stories. Some of the realistic and seamier aspects of the biblical characters came as real surprises. The horrors of polygamy didn’t really snap clear until I read the biblical edition of the story of Jacob’s family. The book of Esther is even more surprising. I had pictured her as a virtuous young lady without any taint—the feminine counterpart of Daniel. But when I actually read the biblical account, I began to realize that her standards of morality were quite different from mine. Not only was she willing to keep quiet about her convictions (Esther 2:10), but she was willing simply to be one of the girls, a part of the Persian king’s harem (Esther 2:12-18)! Daniel stood firmly for his convictions and his standards of morality line up rather well with what a modern Christian would consider appropriate. But then there is Esther …!

I began to realize that Christians have often taken a “high road” approach to the Old Testament, which, in my case at least, had left me quite unprepared for the reading of the Bible itself. Subconsciously I had formed an image of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as classic saints who could quite easily slip into twentieth century dress and, if called upon, could easily assume positions of leadership in the Christian community. I suspect that this glorified conception of Old Testament saints is at least part of the reason why many Christians tend to read interpretations and adaptations of the Old Testament instead of actually reading the Old Testament itself. The emphasis on the good qualities of biblical characters is very necessary, especially in the training of younger children, but I feel keenly about the need to prepare Christians for the actual reading of the Old Testament, and to prepare them for coming to grips with the real Old Testament stories, even though many of them are not pretty when viewed strictly from an aesthetic point of view.

I sometimes use the term “low road” to describe an approach to the Old Testament which takes account of the failings of the biblical characters and their strange, even barbaric, customs. The implications of this “low road” approach will be pursued further in chapter 2, but the point I wish to make here is, that the “high road” approach (cf. Hebrews 11), when not accompanied by the “low road,” leaves one quite unprepared for the reading of the Old Testament itself. Thus, when a sensitive person comes upon a story which depicts how far the people had fallen, rather than how far they had grown, the natural reaction is to shy away from the Old Testament and resort to safer reading in the Gospels. In a sense, then, the New Testament has got in the way of the Old.

This predominance of the “high road” approach in dealing with the Old Testament came rather forcibly to my attention one day in my elementary Hebrew class. The class was composed of upper division ministerial students who were, in most cases, not more than a few months away from entering the ministry. The exercises in our grammar book had been modeled on biblical phrases so as to prepare the students for the reading of the biblical passages, and it was one of these exercises that caused an interesting problem for several members of the class. Correctly translated, one particular exercise should have read: “And Samuel cut off the head of the king.” Since the Hebrew was not difficult even for first-year students, I asked why this particular sentence had been a problem. Most revealing was the reply volunteered by one of my students: “We thought that was what the sentence said, but we didn’t think that Samuel would do such a thing!” I suggested we take our Bibles and read (in English) the story of Agag in 1 Samuel. To one thoroughly familiar with the Old Testament, the story of Agag might raise certain questions, but the particulars would not be surprising. Yet it was a subdued group of ministerial students who listened in some astonishment to the following words: “And Samuel said, ‘As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women.’ And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal” (1 Sam. 15:33).

In the discussion that followed, it became evident that they had been deeply impressed with the “high road” picture of the innocent and obedient boy Samuel in the temple, saying: “Speak, for thy servant hears” (1 Sam. 3:10). How could that little boy take a sword and hew a man in pieces—even if it was before the Lord? Such a strange act for such a good lad! To come down to our own age, it would seem even stranger for my pastor to take a sword and to hew a wicked elder or deacon to pieces before the Lord. But that is part of the Old Testament picture which we must seek to understand and one to which we must return later.