The Four: A Survey of the Gospels

Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom

From Behind the Veil: The Epistles of John

Deep Exegesis:The Mystery of Reading Scripture

Jane Austen
(A Biography)

Solomon Among the Postmoderns

The Baptized Body

1 & 2 Kings
Brazos Theological Commentary

The Promise Of His Appearing: An Exposition Of Second Peter

A Great Mystery: Fourteen Wedding Sermons

Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, And Hope In Western Literature

Miniatures & Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen

The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism

A Son To Me: An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel

Against Christianity

From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution

Ascent to Love: A Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy

Blessed Are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord's Supper

A House For My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament

Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature

Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide To Six Shakespeare Plays

Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life

The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church

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Bible - OT - Daniel: Date riddle

Al Wolters gave a very thorough and sophisticated explanation of the term peres in the writing on the wall in Daniel 5.  I can’t reproduce it all, but one of the cool things that emerged from it was that the weights mentioned add up to 181, and the date of the Persian conquest of Babylon was the 181st day of the year, right after the rising of Libra (the “scales”) and right after the beginning of the civil year.  So, it’s the end of the year for Babylon and the beginning of a new year for Persia.

Bible - OT - Daniel Bible - OT - Exodus: Liturgical satire

Jordan also cites an article from Hector Avalos arguing that the repetition of the lists of musical instruments and Babylonian officials in Daniel 3 is intended satirically.  Avalos writes:

“[Henri] Bergson argued that simple mechanical iteration is a great source of comedy.  When humans act as automatons or in an absentminded manner, they become subjects of comedy. . . . The four mechanical iterations of a lengthy list of musical instruments in vv. 5, 7, 10, 15 mirror the mechanistic behavior of the pagans before the image . . . . Indeed, as soon as the instruments sound, the pagans genuflect en masse before a lifeless image without a second thought.”

Bible - OT - Daniel: Political numerology

Jim Jordan points out that Daniel 3 lists seven ranks of Nebuchadnezzar’s officers, and also seven kinds of musical instruments.  The numerical link perhaps points to a connection of musical and political performance, musical and political “orchestration.”

Further, the word for “mighty man” (the Aramaic equivalent of gibbor) is used twelve times (suppressed in most English translations, but found in veres 8,  12 [2x], 13, 20 [2x], 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27).  And the story, of course, shows that the true mighty men are the Jewish ones, the mighty men who come from the twelve tribes.

Bible - OT - Daniel: Dual identity

Daniel and his three associates each had two names – a Jewish and a Babylonian.  Jim Jordan points out in his recent commentary that the Jewish names are used when the men pray and the Babylonian names when they advise the king.  They apparently have no moral qualms about this dual identity, this divided political and social self.

But it’s striking that in chapter 2 Daniel interprets the king’s dream as “Daniel.”  Nebuchadnezzar addresses him as Belteshazzar (2:26), but it’s as “Daniel,” the Jewish prophet, that he receives the answer to the mystery of the king’s dream (2:17-24).  Daniel takes on the identity of Belteshazzar before the king, but he still speaks in the name of the “God of heaven”  (2:37).

Bible - OT - Daniel: From the West

In his recent commentary on Daniel, Jim Jordan notes that the goat of Alexandrian Egypt (Daniel 8) is something new in Israel’s history – a power coming from the West: “Israel has always been the west-most power, with the Mediterranean Sea at her edge. All previous history has been involved with north, south (Egypt), or east.”

What does it mean in the Bible for a power to come from the West? So far, I haven’t found that Jordan develops this, but a couple of things occur to me.

Continue reading…

Bible - OT - Daniel: Aramaic in Daniel 2-7

Jim Jordan suggests that Daniel 2-7, written in Aramaic, is a fulfillment of the promise/threat of tongues (from Isaiah), and that this passage authorizes translation of Scripture into various languages. Which leads to several thoughts:

1) As Jordan points out, translation was not done until the intertestamental period, and is still not done by Muslims. Refusal to translate seems to be particularly connected with old world/old covenant systems (like Islam). The written word is kept close, hidden away, but with the coming of the new covenant the written word is spread abroad in many languages. This fits with the characterization of the post-exilic period as an “ecumenical age,” the age of the oikoumene.

2) The postmodern suspicion or critique of translation seems to be a reversion to a pre-Pentecostal mentality. For instance: The linguistic tribalism celebrated by Stanley Fish and other postmodern theorists. As I noted in an earlier post, Babel has become a dominant postmodern metaphor; which is to say, the reversal of Pentecost is a key postmodern theme. Social and linguistic fragmentation is inevitable when the Spirit withdraws, for the Spirit is the one who marries one to another.

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