Silent Women Wearing Hats (Part I)

An Example of a Gnostic HierarchyIt is important when interpreting the Bible to look for patterns. One interesting pattern in 1 Corinthians may help us understand some very difficult verses that Paul wrote.

The first two examples of this pattern are in 1 Corinthians 6. I begin in the KJV:

¹²All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.

¹³Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.

¹⁴And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power.

¹⁵Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.

¹⁶What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh.

¹⁷But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.

First we need a little context. The Gnostics were a very odd group that existed in the Christian Church for many centuries. They were radical dualists. The general idea was that the body was bad and evil. This principle led to two false ethical patterns. The first is summarized in the idea "All things are lawful for me." The idea was that since the body was worthless, anything you did with the body was of no importance. If you are hungry you eat, if you are horny you ****. The main concern of theGnostics was that you did not really want to have children as the flesh is bad, so why trap more of God's spark into flesh? I do not want to go into much detail here, but imagine a philosophy that had no restrictions on sexual activity, yet did not want children. You fill in the blanks.

Can we take the phrase in verse 12 "all things are lawful for me" and apply this universally? I hope you agree with me that one should not do this. But this is exactly what the Gnostics at Corinth were saying. Paul is quoting them and then immediately disagreeing. "Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats" is also what the gnostics were saying. As Paul makes clear they are saying this as an analogy for sexual activity. It’s natural. Just Do It. I do not think this is what Nike has in mind (or maybe they do not care what you do as long as you wear Nikes when you do it.). It is certainly not what Paul thinks is correct.

So what is the pattern? Paul says something that makes no sense when you consider everything that is said in the Bible and what Paul says elsewhere. This statement is immediately followed by another statement that contradicts it. It thus seems obvious that Paul is quoting the letter that the Corinthians wrote to him, and is correcting them.

This is actually not a novel idea I invented, but the standard interpretation of these verses. Here is the NIV translation of this same passage, to show this point:

^{Gnostic Scriptures Were Discovered At Nag Hammadi12} “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything. ¹³ You say, “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both.” The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. ¹⁴ By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. ¹⁵ Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! ¹⁶ Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” ¹⁷ But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

It is a common, even expected, interpretation to look at 1 Corinthians this way. (Let me add here that I would put the quotation marks differently than the NIV did. “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy them both” should instead be, “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food," and God will destroy them both. The latter part is Paul's disagreement with the Gnostics.)

Understanding that Koine Greek had no punctuation marks and the Greek Scriptures were written in all capital letters with no spaces between the words, you can see how this would be confusing to people later. The Corinthians would have known the questions they asked of Paul, and they would know their own situation. We often do not know either of these. One thing we are told in 1 Corinthians 1 was that Paul was in contact with some people in Corinth. “¹¹ My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you.” Yes, Corinth was a mess.

The second version of Gnosticism was that since the body was bad, all sex, even between married couples, was forbidden—eating meat or drinking wine?—do not even think about it! This is what Paul is opposing when he wrote the book of Colossians, and he also addresses it in 2 Timothy.

In particular Paul was asked about this by the Corinthians. It is recorded in 1 Corinthians 7:

¹ Now for the matters you wrote about: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.”

In this verse it is rather explicit that Paul is responding to the letter he had received from the household of Chloe. If the pattern I am suggesting repeats itself then following this quote will be Paul's disagreement with this.

² But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. ³ The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. ⁴ The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife.

Note that the word for man and woman in verse 1 is the same word that is translated husband and wife in verse 2-4. So what the apostle Paul is being asked is this:

“It is good for a husband not to have sexual relations with his wife.”

Paul disagrees.

In fact Paul says it is wrong for a husband or a wife to deprive the other.

Two historical examples might help in our understanding.

Jerome, an early Church father who translated the Bible into Latin, would always ask married couples if they had had sex in the previous week. If they said yes, he would refuse them communion. Clement said that it was all right for a married couple to have sex, if they were trying to have children, but if they were not ... The impact of the Gnostics continued for centuries, changing the church into something entirely different than what it had been in the first century.

Paul was being used by some in the early church to make him out to be an advocate of things he disagreed with. Paul was not against married couples having sex. Paul is still misinterpreted today as we will see next time when I write about "Silent Woman Wearing Hats."

Judgment Day 's Not Coming

Ancient prophets often were musicians, or hired them for their presentations. In our modern society the role of the prophet is fulfilled by the musician. I am not saying that this song is in anyway inspired by God, but it is prophetic-suitable for the prophecypodcast.com. 

As the chorus of the following song tells us:

Judgment Day's not coming,
Judgment Day's not coming,
Judgment Day's not coming-soon enough. 

Why? The blood of our victims cries to us from the ground, like the ancient blood of Abel. We, like Cain, cannot hear the cries, we are deaf. What mark, like Cain, do we wear? Is it the mark of the beast? 

Probably not everyone's "cup of tea," but I like it. 

Here are the Lyrics:

Everybody wants to live in a lie,
But why should we delude ourselves?
It's not as if we can't see something's wrong,
Where's the duty to what's right?
Intentions end with empty words,
And chaos replaces order.
Those who shout loudest, impose their will,
Upholding laws that serve a few,
Declaring peace while the sirens sing,
In the name of progress, in the name of madness.
Drum beats faster, crowd shouts louder,
And chaos replaces order.
I want justice for a voice that can't be heard,
Vindication for every suffering and hurt,
Let retribution hold dominion over Earth,
Because judgement day's not coming,
Judgement day's not coming soon enough.
Because judgement day's not coming,
Judgement day's not coming,
Judgement day's not coming,
Judgement day's not coming soon enough.
I want justice for a voice that can't be heard,
Vindication for every suffering and hurt,
Let retribution hold dominion over Earth,
Because judgement day's not coming,
Judgement day's not coming.
I want justice for a voice that can't be heard,
Vindication for every suffering and hurt,
Let retribution hold dominion over Earth,
Because judgement day's not coming,
Judgement day's not coming soon enough.

Are You Perplexed?

I think that the reason many misinterpret the Bible is that they are too literal in the way they read it. I thought this was a modern problem, but that famous 11th century Rabbi, Maimonides, in his Guide to the Perplexed put it this way:

Ignorant and superficial readers take them in a literal, not in a figurative sense. Even well-informed persons are bewildered if they understand these passages in their literal signification, but they are entirely relieved of their perplexity when we explain the figure, or merely suggest that the terms are figurative. For this reason I have called this book Guide for the Perplexed.

I remember one ad I read when I was still living in Branson. The ad was for a “Bible Believing” church. They said that they took the Bible literally, except where it was symbolic. Well, isn’t that what everyone does? 

I do not remember High School English. I wish I did, as that is where most of us learn these things. For me it was EGO—Eyes Glazed Over. I only learned these things in graduate school—things like similes, analogies, metaphor, or poetry. If I had paid more attention in High School, I would have understood the Bible better earlier. 

Maybe you have heard the phrase, or seen the bumper sticker, “The Bible says what it means, and means what it says.” This is true of course, but sometimes the Bible says what it says in poetry, or in proverbs, or in symbols. If you take poetry as literal you have things like the book of Isaiah where trees clap their hands, or stars falling from heaven as referencing the fall of political leaders being viewed as literal heavenly objects falling. (Oh wait—people do make that particular mistake all the time … never mind.) 

Let me give you one example of the words of Jesus being taken in a way he did not intend. Luke 10 tells us Jesus said this. Yes, it is in red in some Bibles. 

18 He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” 

The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it. 

What is then done with this scripture in certain circles is to develop an elaborate theology of angels and demons, mostly apart from the Bible. 

My friend and ProphecyPodcast.com editor, Pam Dewey, has a site where she documents this.  

What they do is take this scripture literally and out of context, and combine it with other scriptures taken literally and out of context, and voila, a new doctrine is born. 

Is This What Jesus saw? You can go to Pam’s site to delve deeply into this if you wish, but let me give you the full context of  “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” 

Luke 10

Jesus Sends Out the Seventy-Two

1 After this the Lord appointed seventy-two[a] others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. 2 He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. 3 Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. 4 Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road.

   5 “When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ 6If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them; if not, it will return to you. 7 Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house.

   8 “When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is offered to you. 9 Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ 10 But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, 11’Even the dust of your town we wipe from our feet as a warning to you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God has come near.’12 I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town.

   13 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. 14 But it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you. 15 And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted to the heavens? No, you will go down to Hades.[b]

   16 “Whoever listens to you listens to me; whoever rejects you rejects me; but whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me.”

 17 The seventy-two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.”

 18 He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. 19 I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. 20 However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

So what Jesus says is in response to the success of the missionary journeys of the 72 “elders” he sent out to Israel on a missionary trip. It has nothing to do with a supposed primordial fall of Satan. Satan was defeated on the earth and was symbolically bought down from heaven. (This is a common motif in prophecy, the fall of “heavenly” things is caused by a defeat here on the earth.) 

So when one examines a scripture some questions need to be asked—the kind of questions we were supposed to learn to ask in High School English. Is the scripture a metaphor? Is it symbolic? Is it poetry? What is the context? Asking these simple questions will keep us out of trouble when we interpret the Bible. 

Death By Condoms

This is from the local Detroit CBS station. Do I really need to say anything? 

He said the customer bought a box of condoms, but made a comment that he was overcharged and could have bought them somewhere else for a cheaper price. After being told he couldn’t get a refund, the customer allegedly began tossing items off the shelves. That’s when, according to the employee, the overnight clerk came out with a gun and fired a warning shot, which struck the customer in the shoulder.

Police say the customer was taken to a local hospital where he later died from his injuries.

...

Other recent crimes in Detroit include a 27-year-old man who allegedly shot three people, two who died; a 14-year-old boy who apparently shot and killed his mother while she slept; two teens who are accused of shooting a 6-year-old boy during a carjacking spree; and a 9-month-old boy who died after someone sprayed his family’s home with bullets from an AK-47.

An Eye for an Eye

I was reminded recently of an old movie from 1946, Duel in The Sun. They spent an unheard of $5 million dollars on it. The wags called it Lust in the Dust. It is the story of a wealthy Cattle Baron and his two sons, one good (Joseph Cotton) and one bad (Gregory Peck), and the half-breed woman they both loved (Jennifer Jones). I do not remember the exact details, but one scene was burned into my mind. Lionel Barrymore (the evil banker in It’s A Wonderful Life), who played the wealthy father, sits in his wheelchair (Barrymore used one in real life), and shouts, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” He almost foams at the mouth as he says it. Barrymore was often over the top in his acting, but it worked in this scene. We all know people like that. 

Of course this attitude destroys his family. 

The assumption of Barrymore, and the viewer, is that this attitude is based on the Bible. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here is the relevant section from Exodus 21: 

But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, ²⁴ eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, ²⁵ burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

The assumption is that this verse means that if I damage your eye, I will have the judges damage my eye in compensation. This is shocking to modern sensibilities. Is this what it really means?  

An interesting place to look to answer this question is Hammurabi’s Code from roughly the same time as Biblical law.  

196. If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.

197. If he break another man’s bone, his bone shall be broken.

198. If he put out the eye of a freed man, or break the bone of a freed man, he shall pay one gold mina.

199. If he put out the eye of a man’s slave, or break the bone of a man’s slave, he shall pay one-half of its value.

200. If a man knock out the teeth of his equal, his teeth shall be knocked out.

201. If he knock out the teeth of a freed man, he shall pay one-third of a gold mina.

Note that the compensation is based on the status of the victim. If you hurt a noble, the noble can exact payment in similar damages to the perpetrator. But if the victim is a free person or a slave the compensation is different. I think most of us who are hurt in this way would much rather receive monetary compensation instead of exacting such punishment There is very little of class distinction in the Biblical law. The only example I can think of is that if a master hurts his slave, the slave receives no compensation, but the slave’s compensation is the slave’s freedom—not so in Hammurabi’s law. The master receives the compensation, and if the master does the damage, he does not have to pay anything. The basic point is that in Hammurabi’s Law the compensation was to be monetary unless the person you hurt was powerful. 

The law we Westerners are familiar with is that we are all equal before the law. (I would argue that this is not true in modern America). Biblical law is where this idea came from, here in Leviticus 24:

²² You are to have the same law for the foreigner and the native-born.

or Leviticus 19: 

¹⁵ ”Don’t pervert justice. Don’t show favoritism to either the poor or the great. Judge on the basis of what is right.

or Exodus 23

² ”Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you give testimony in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd, ³ and do not show favoritism to a poor person in a lawsuit.

How then should one interpret “an eye for an eye”?  It seems that as in Hammurabi’s Code, what is in mind here is monetary compensation. In other words, the phrase “eye for an eye” is idiomatic.  

If I could be so bold as to quote myself, here is what I said on this issue many years ago:

An example of this is the Rabbinical argument about the meaning of Exodus 21:24—an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. The Rabbis were not com­fortable with this at all. Jesus in Matthew 5 was not comfortable with the literal interpretation either. The Rabbis would then use Leviticus 24:22:  ‘‘You shall have one manner of Law.’’ They would then discuss the case of the one-eyed man who put out the eye of a man who had two eyes. Was it fair to put out his only eye in order to achieve the “required” punishment of “an eye for an eye”? This would leave him blind. His victim was not blind. Was that justice? The Rabbis then concluded that Exodus 21:24 meant that a monetary fine was to be paid. To use modern terminology, they decided that the eye for an eye statement was idiomatic and meant let the punishment (money), fit the crime. They did not say that Exodus was wrong, only that “an eye for an eye” can only be under­stood in light of Leviticus 24:22.1

Note that this was the majority opinion at the time of Jesus. The Sadducees disagreed, and modern Sadducees, the Karaites, disagree as well. 

Maimonides, the greatest Rabbi who ever lived, had this to say in Hilkhot Hovel uMazik 1, 3-6:

The text: “as he maimed a man, so shall it be rendered him” (Lev. 24:20) does not mean the literal inflicting of the identical maiming on the guilty person, but merely that though the latter deserves such maiming, he pays the monetary equivalent. For we are told: You shall take no ransom for the life of a murderer, implying that ransom is ruled out only in the case of a murderer, but is indicated in the case of one who maims another…

Here is quote from an article that discusses this issue from a Jewish perspective:

Benno Jacob also goes to this chapter for additional proof, citing the subject arrangement of the verses 18-22. They all deal with bodily harm, and are divided into two sections, the first of which is further subdivided as follows:

1. 1.     Bodily harm inflicted by man on his fellow:
   1. 1.     Deliberate: 18-19 (re slave: 20-21)
   2. 2.     Inadvertent: 22-25 (re slave: 26-27) 
2. 2.     Bodily harm inflicted by the ox of another: 28-31 (re slave: 32).

Not all Talmud, all the time for these boys. Now where is “eye for eye” or “tooth for tooth” mentioned in the text? Surely in connection with inadvertent action, whereas in the case of deliberate maiming, we are explicitly told (v. 19) that only loss of time and medical care has to be paid for. Were “eye for eye” to be taken literally, the penalty for inadvertent maiming would be greater than that for deliberate one.

Monetary compensation appropriate to the level of damage done is what the phrase “an eye for an eye” means. 

So now that we have a better understanding what the phrase “an eye for an eye” means, we can go to what Jesus said in Matthew 5: 

³⁸ You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ ³⁹ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. ⁴⁰ And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. ⁴¹ If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. ⁴² Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

Jesus is not disagreeing with the Old Testament, he is interpreting it properly. While one might have the right to monetary compensation, there is no reason to extract the last penny from your enemy. In fact Exodus 23 tells us how to treat our enemies. 

⁴ ”If you come across your enemy’s ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to return it. ⁵ If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under its load, do not leave it there; be sure you help them with it.

I remember a time when this scripture came to my mind. I was driving on my ranch and noticed a man stuck in a ditch on my property. I was immediately angry. If you wonder why, understand that it is difficult to hay your land if it is covered in ruts. The man was a trespasser! I am sure I chuckled to myself as I drove off. Then this verse overwhelmed me. I got a chain, and went back and pulled him out. We did not become best buddies, but I never looked at him in that negative way again.

How can I be sure that the interpretation that is often advanced that Jesus is against the law is wrong? Jesus tells us so just a few verses earlier in Matthew 5 (Here from The Message version)

^17-18”Don’t suppose for a minute that I have come to demolish the Scriptures— either God’s Law or the Prophets. I’m not here to demolish but to complete. I am going to put it all together, pull it all together in a vast panorama. God’s Law is more real and lasting than the stars in the sky and the ground at your feet. Long after stars burn out and earth wears out, God’s Law will be alive and working.

 ^19-20”Trivialize even the smallest item in God’s Law and you will only have trivialized yourself. But take it seriously, show the way for others, and you will find honor in the kingdom. Unless you do far better than the Pharisees in the matters of right living, you won’t know the first thing about entering the kingdom.

As the Psalmist said, the Law truly is a lamp unto our feet. 

[1] A. Cohen, Everyman’s Talmud,  (New York: Schocken,  1975), 327.