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Against All Odds

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Against All Odds

Category Archives: Exegesis and Interpretation

Revisiting Foh’s View of Women vying for Dominance over Man in Genesis 3:16

27 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by Prime Theologian in Adam and Eve, Biblical Interpretation, Christian Ministry, Exegesis and Interpretation, Gender Issues

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Adam and Eve, Biblical Intepretation, coercion, Curse, Domineer, Fall, Forceful, Genesis 3:16

“Is Foh’s view of Gen. 3:16 still the correct view to hold or are the more modern interpretations of the verse better fitting? Is man’s ruling over woman a result of the fall, or the fact that woman was made from man as a help mate mean man’s ruling over is part of God’s original design. I hope this isn’t too much of a curve ball question!”

A friend of mine asked the question above. Foh’s interpretation of Gen. 3:16 in 1975 was a break with the traditional understanding of “Your desire will be for your husband, but he will rule over you.” It seems that the majority view down through history was that the woman would desire her husband to an unhealthy extent, supplanting her desire for God with her desire for her husband. Since this sentence appears in the curse, whatever the desire is or how it manifests, it cannot be good or healthy. Foh looked at the only other two verses in the OT that used the same word for “desire,” which in Hebrew is teshokah: Gen. 4:7 and Song of Solomon 7:10. We may dispense with Song 7:10 because the supercharged sexual talk just before it all but guarantees a translation of the word to bring out this heated passion: “I am my beloved and his passion is for me.” The underlying meaning of the Hebrew word is “urge,” obviously denoting a certain “forcefulness” as illustrated in Song 7:10. This is not to say that the Beloved was domineering in his “urge,” but the potency of sexual desire with two willing partners (as in Song 7:10) is plainly an “inexorable drive.”

More important is the Septuagint’s (Greek OT) translation of the Hebrew term into Greek because obviously Hebrew scholars around 200 B. C., still speaking Hebrew and fluent in Greek, would know better than us — in most cases — what the meaning was. It is apostrofe, and roughly is the idea of turning aside, turning back, or turning against someone. I have to opt for a negative meaning for Gen. 3:16 since it is a curse, and so “turning against” fits nicely. Further, the same negative meaning fits the context of Gen. 4:7 as well, where God says that sin lies at Cain’s door. “It turns against you, but you must rule over it” (trans. mine from Greek).

Even if the Christian church has traditionally not understood Gen. 3:16 to have the meaning of “your desire (forceful urge) will be for/against your husband,” the earlier Hebrew translators and interpreters of the Septuagint’s Gen. 3:16 opted for a Greek term that, taken negatively, displays hostility and dominance. What cannot be missed is the contrastive and hostile aversion man has to woman and woman to man: “Her domineering urge will be against him, but he will rule over her” (Gen. 3:16, trans. mine from Hebrew). With this preface, I am ready to answer the above question.

What enters at the fall and is enforced by God’s curse is the manner of male and female relations. When God says that “he will rule over her,” the Hebrew term is the verbal form of king (Mashal), but it is neither of the terms God used in the original mandate to man and woman to “subdue” the earth and have “dominion over it” in Gen. 1:28. Something has changed; now woman wants to lead, taking the dominant role, and, it seems, that man is equally as hostile in return, reigning like a monarch over her. They have turned on one another. What was an original peace, that is, a co-rulership as both man and woman were given God’s command to subdue and have dominance (Gen. 1:28), has now become a perpetual vying for position. All this to say that Foh’s insights largely stand. The only nuance I am adding is the fact that man’s “ruling like a monarch,” which is to say, in an autocratic fashion, is the outcome of the fall and God’s spoken curse. Woman was created for man’s assistance, but there is little doubt, from a high view of God’s image in both man and woman alike in Gen. 1:27 – 28, that man and woman were to rule together, in harmony. There was a order to the rule, man then woman, but not a superiority or dominance just as there is an order to the Trinity, Father then Son, but not inequality among any of the Persons of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit.

For my questioner, if you have a specific contemporary interpretation of the text you’d like me to take a look at, post it on my wall, and I will revisit this topic again.

Dr. Scalise

Appearances of Evil: Ephesians 5:3 & 1 Thessalonians 5:22

19 Sunday Oct 2014

Posted by Prime Theologian in Biblical Interpretation, Christian Ministry, Exegesis and Interpretation, Human Experience and Theology

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1 Thessalonians, appearance of evil, Ephesians, exegesis, interpretation

Appearances of Evil

Ephesians 5:3 &1 Thessalonians 5:22

I think Eph. 5:3, “But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints” (all Translations are mine unless otherwise indicated), could be one of the texts for the cliché about Christians not have an “appearance of evil.” The phrases, “or any” is literally from the Greek, “and all impurity.” I suppose, then, the question becomes named by whom? Of course, “immorality” and “greed” are quite narrow in their meaning but “all impurity” does look to be a catch all “heart” category in terms of the corruption found therein. The term, “impurity” is akatharsia (ακαθαρσια) meaning “uncleanliness” but can be translated as “immorality” but here, since a more specific term for immorality is on the list, it is more likely, especially with “all” attached to the front (all impurity), emphasizing the preconditions for an actual action of immorality. It is the filth, “uncleanliness,” in a man that is the problem. This term is used by Jesus in the Gospels in an interesting comparative text, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness” (Mt. 23:27: Italics and Bold mine). Now that I see this comparison and notice that the Eph. 5:3 list does include a non-sexual sin, namely, “greed,” I doubt if the emphasis is on “uncleanliness” as sexual immorality and, instead, emphasizing more broadly, like Jesus, the state of corruption in a man, likely pointing to what both greed and sexual sin have in common, namely, covetousness. In both Matt. 23:27 and Eph 5:3 the phrases are the same in the connection between “all” (Gr.: pas) plus “uncleanliness”. Therefore, greed and sexual immorality are concrete “fruit” of the inner corruption of “all uncleanliness.” This text is not so much concerned with the worry of looking like we are doing evil so much as it is concerned with the heart-mind condition leading to actual acts of evil. This teaching has as a long and abiding foundation in the 10th commandment: “You will not covet . . .” which centers on the the inner attitude of coveting rather than “just anything evil.”

The other text that could be translated as the “appearance of evil” is 1 Thess. 5:22: “Abstain from every appearance/form of evil.” Most modern translations opt for “form” because the word itself has as its central meaning, “that which is seen,” i.e., “from every seen form of evil.” In other words, we have here a confusion of different English meanings for the word “appear,” that is, there is more than one way to understand it: the word is equivocal, having more than one meaning. What the Greek text has clearly in mind is not “what might appear evil” in the sense of “appear” meaning “what might suggest evil” or “what might be confused with evil” or “what might look like evil.” The Greek word, eidos, means what is concretely seen: a clear form, and in this case, a notable form or concrete practice of evil. This is especially clear when compared to some other places in the NT this term appear. Luke 9:29 is the narrative about Jesus’ transfiguration, “As he was praying, the appearance of his face was transformed, and his clothes became very bright, a brilliant white” (Bold and italics mine). This text is not using the term eidos (appearance) to say that Jesus’ face “might suggest transformation” or “might be confused with transforming” or “might look like it transformed.” Indeed, for something “to transfigure” is precisely for it (Him, in Jesus’ case) to change. Literally from the Greek, its says, ” . . . the form of his face became different (or “another”).” In another text after

Jesus is resurrected, it states, “And his appearance was like lightning . . .” (Bold and italics mine). I think this text is noteworthy because Matthew felt the need to add that little word “like.” If “appearance” were to mean “what might look like evil,” in the sense of “what might be confused with evil” or “what might suggest evil,” as noted formerly, then why would Matthew feel the need to add that little word “like” to clarify that Jesus was not made (in the form of) of lightning? The addition of “like” moves “appearance” away from its typical meaning of “what is concretely seen” towards a metaphorical meaning: “what is seen looks like lightning.” In the same way, then, in 1 Thess. 5:22, if the meaning was abstaining “from everything that looks like evil” would we not expect, then, the addition of the word “like” (Greek: hōs)? For further verification of this usage of the word, that is, having the meaning of “what is concretely and clearly seen,” also confer John 5:37, Luke 3:22 (another example of “like” added), & 2 Cor. 5:7. This is every example of the word in the NT, all meaning, “what is concretely seen” with two examples of “like” having to be added to move its meaning towards “looks like” and away from “what is concretely and clearly seen.” Finally for a comparison and to answer a discernible objection, 2 Tim. 3:5 says, “having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power” (Bold and italics mine). “Appearance” here is morfōsis, not eidos.

B. T. Scalise
Copyright, Wild-Theology, © Brian Scalise 2014

Can questioning your faith be fulfilling God’s command?

14 Tuesday Oct 2014

Posted by Prime Theologian in Difficult Texts, Exegesis and Interpretation, Human Experience and Theology

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2 Corinthians 13:5 – 6, Christian Ministry, communal shame, Doubt, God's command, questioning faith

Since God speaks in His word, we believe that St. Paul was writing at the behest of the Spirit’s voice. Often people of faith feel that they have betrayed God or the Faith because they doubt or question what they believe. Certainly, there are good reasons for thinking this, but to feel this way without also knowing the good we do in our questioning is unfortunate. 2 Corinthians, one of Paul’s Epistles to the Christians in the Greek city of Corinth, was dealing with a body of believers who were growing in discord with St. Paul. There were false teachers and persons among them that were “poisoning the well,” creating doubt about St. Paul’s character, ability, and motivation. Paul then writes 2 Corinthians to this group with the hopes of reestablishing the rapport he once enjoyed so that these “untrue persons” causing trouble would not succeed in derailing the Corinthians from their faith in God. Near the close of this Epistle, St. Paul writes:

“Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test! I hope you will find out that we have not failed the test.”

Much could be said on these two verses, but I want to focus on the first two commands: “Examine yourselves . . .” and “Test yourselves.” To question yourself to see if you hold to the faith (. . . to see whether you are in the faith”) is fulfilling a biblical command or God’s command. The doubt we might feel or the questions we pose — which we could be shamed for in our communities of faith — should not be greeted by others as patently or clearly sinful or worrisome. Indeed, we may be fulfilling what God commands in 2 Corinthians 13:5 – 6 by this very questioning. It is a striking fact that failure to question one’s faith would be disobedience to this explicit biblical command. It is clear that someone’s doubt or questioning of the faith could evoke worry from us; and it is equally as clear that in some cases or in some ways it should. Nevertheless, it should evoke genuine joy in their fulfilling of God’s command. There is a careful balance that must be struck in communities of faith where persons are truly doubting and questioning. On the one hand, we must care for them in great concern to guide, help, and point to the “right” direction — assuming we have it ourselves. On the other hand, we should be inspired and glad for their questioning of their faith in accord with what God commands.

To question may be an indication of God’s activity in your life, not the absence of it.

Dr. Scalise

Women, child bearers & God, Spirit Creator: a harmony of creation

17 Sunday Nov 2013

Posted by Prime Theologian in Creating, Exegesis and Interpretation, Theological Interpretation

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1 Peter 1:3, birth, born, child bearing, creating and birthing, god, Spirit, spirits, women

1 Peter 1:3 “. . . [God] who beget us again . . .”

Woman is not the birther in 1 Peter 1:3 but, rather, God the Father, the One after whom woman’s giving birth is patterned.  God, on the one hand, creates all things and so births all things whereas, on the other hand, women are the physical medium of this spiritual birthing.

Where is the spirit or who can say from where the soul arrives? No medical procedure will ever turn up some substance called the spirit or soul.  Only the Spirit births spirits; only the Holy Spirit births spirits of endless variety.

Humans think too lowly and narrowly about the nature of birth even if calling birth a real miracle.  Mircle, indeed, for as many humans have a spirit, there are likewise that many miracles.  Birth is an interruption in the flow of time and space for at this moment God intervenes, heaven meets earth, and a divine kiss happens with a new spirit born alive.  Women contain in themselves a unique presencing of God while He weaves His creational work of birthing a new spirit together with the woman’s body’s physical weaving of a new baby.

It is truly amazing that God does not fully override personality qualities of the parent when birthing this new spirit.  No, God incorporates, by means of genes and DNA, some personality qualities of the parents (parent spirits) into the newly born baby (newly born spirit).  What freedom is this that God partners with woman (and man) in making this new baby (spirit).  But all parents know that there is something different about their children, differnt from them.  What is this we see in these personalities of our children that are so different from our own? Are we not seeing a glimpse of God, the Orginator of all human personality?

Woman, giving birth, do a dance with the Divine, sub-creating with Him. Women are not the source of the new creation of lives but are bearers of miracles, coordinated with God, even as David said (Ps. 139:13):

For you formed my inward parts;

you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.

Entitlement IV

09 Saturday Nov 2013

Posted by Prime Theologian in Christ and the Politico-Economic, Exegesis and Interpretation

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Returning to the point that Paul was unwilling to command ‘giving’ let’s do a bit more unpacking: “. . . see that you excel in this act of grace also.  I say this not as a command . . .” (2 Cor. 8:7-8)  He then goes on to note that Christ became poor so that Christians can become rich and implies we ought to mimic this (2 Cor. 8: 9 – 10).  That he does not command this is no surprise since only several verses later St. Paul states, “Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor 9:7).  If Paul commanded it, the giving would be under compulsion; if Paul commanded it, it would no longer be gracious giving but obligatory paying–it would be difficult to call obligatory paying an “act of grace”  (2 Cor. 8:6).  The point is that we should give because we want to–not because we have to–and we must recognize that mimicking Christ requires such “willing giving.”  Everyone who names themselves a disciple cannot say, “But what if I don’t want to?”  Certainly we may feel like this from time to time but, in such cases, we pray, give thanks, and renew our view to our Master, the Christ, Jesus our Lord.  Notice, Paul’s logic: “for God loves a cheerful giver.”  And if God loves this and we love Him then we are inclined and desire to please Him (as our loving Father), approve cheerful giving (as God does), and enjoy seeing other do the same (just as God does and loves seeing us do).  It follows, then, that fellow Christians who are able to provide are not entitled to ignore the needs of fellow Christians.  But needful fellow Christians cannot covet and demand, only receive.  Those rich Christians are not entitled to give begrudgingly or out of compulsion, only freely and cheerfully “for the Lord loves a cheerful giver.”   Accordingly, those Christians who have not cannot compel those Christians who have to give–or else giving would no longer be giving (Rom. 4:4).  All of these Christians, whether Christians who have or those who have not, places them solely before the throne of the Lord Jesus: how should I act, as a Christian, as I relate to the Lord? This is the first and most important question inasmuch as the Greatest command has preeminence (Love the Lord with all mind, soul, strength).

Hebrews 6:4

05 Tuesday Nov 2013

Posted by Prime Theologian in Difficult Texts, Exegesis and Interpretation, Hebrews

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Exegesis and Interpretation, Hebrews 6:4

Regarding Hebrews 6:4 – 6 Here are some textual points with interpretive inlays.  My translation below is from the Greek and clarifies, in English, the relationship of the verbs (participles) in this long sentence.
1) those participating in the life of God (v.4 – 5) can fall away
2) whatever “restore them again to repentance” means–personally I like the points about jewish culture and the temple practices, specifically returning to blood sacrifices rather than trusting Jesus’ blood sacrifice of Himself, at the time as the historical cultural backdrop here because the book is written to Jews likely in Jerusalem–once a full fledged rejection of the life of repentance based on the crucifixion occurs, there is no way to return to God because this was the only way to get to Him in the first place.  Sure, if we are Jews living in Jerusalem at 65 A.D. then our attempt to  be “restored to repentance” might be the action of bringing a blood sacrifice to the temple. But if we are secular Americans today, our rejection of the faith might look like a return to the party life, perhaps thinking this is the way to “make the most of life.”
3) Additionally on this last point, the question remains whether the person cannot ever return once they fall away; a quick reading of the text might suggest this; however, I think the text is more fully pointing to that while in this “falling away status” they cannot return to repentance.  Take this translation for this point, paying attention especially to the tenses (time) I have in parenthesis next to each bolded verb below:
“For to restore (literally, “to be restoring”: present) to repentance again—those who, to their own eyes, are crucifying (present) again the Son of God and disgracing Him (present)—is impossible in regard to those who once were enlightened (past) and tasted (past) the gifts of the heavenly realm and became (past) sharers of the Holy Spirit and tasted (past) the good word of God and the powers of the age to come.”  
I hope it is clairvoyant that the crucifying and disgracing is happening presently and at the same time as the impossibility of the restoring. So when presently crucifying again and disgracing Jesus they cannot be restored.  There is a time line here; this person is someone who had tasted and was enlightened but presently is disgracing Jesus and so it is impossible for him/her to repent.
“to restore to repentance again”: I would point out here that it does not say “to restore to repentance ever again”
“who once were enlightened”: the word “once” here could equally mean “at one time” or “once for all.”  Either way, there would not have to be a “new enlightenment” for a fallen believer to take up and accept and trust the knowledge formerly imparted by the Holy Spirit.
“to their own eyes”: This shows us that those who abandon the faith after first accepting it are saying that Jesus got what He deserved.  It is not that somehow Jesus is out there (metaphysically) getting re-crucified every time someone loses his or her faith.  The “to their own eyes” means in their attitude or according to their understanding.  This person would have believed in Jesus at some point and learned of Jesus’ unjust crucifixion at the hands of those who did not believe in Jesus and these thought He deserved to die. Think of this person standing with John and Jesus’ mother during the crucifixion, watching in sorrow. But when this person falls away he or she joins the side of the crucifiers, saying effectively, “I once was with those sorry about Jesus’ death but now I do not believe in Him and so, hand me the spear and give me the nails, I’ll pound them in
 and stab Him because He is only getting what he deserves.”
4) Some people use their theology to decide what this passage should say; I am trying to avoid that.  For instance, I generally believe in eternal security (that you cannot lose your salvation) but I am not so arrogant as to silence this text by making it fit my theology.  The word “fall away” literally means “apotasize” or “to commit apostasy” and so, unless we want the author of hebrews describing something that could never happen, but making it seem like it could, we should accept its possibility, even if it does not fit with the rest of our theology.
I would point out that, in day to day interactions, we might readily feel deceived or misled if someone we trust presented something to us as though it were a real possibility when it was not. Imagine this: “If you speed and get caught, you are going to jail.”  Then imagine the anxiety you would have once pulled over only to find out that your “trusted friend” was just making up a worse case scenario to get your attention.  We might credit this “trusted friend” with true care but the trustworthiness of that friend will be in question if their trustworthiness is not already downgraded from this one situation.  Simply, the use of hyperbole will not wholly satisfy the notion that our “trusted friend’s” tactic was on the level.  But, then again, who ever said God was safe or “on the level?”
5) This is one of the most difficult passages in the Bible to interpret so we should not feel too much pressure to have to agree with anyone but, rather, measure and think through the reasons for ourselves.  But do not just pick whatever version you might like best (this is basically to play god with God’s word: dangerous) but weigh the interpretations according to their convincing reasons and arguments.
6) lastly, the book of Hebrews is packed with threats about the possibility of losing one’s salvation (e.g., Heb. 10, 4, etc.) and so the real possibility of it occurring and being described in Heb. 6 would fit the broader context well. I do not find categorizing the whole Book of Hebrews as “sermonic” or “homiletical” as solving the problems these threats pose.  This categorization is designed to explain why all of the threats are just “hypothetical” and so cannot happen.  This is not convincing to me because of the terrible seriousness the threats impose.  And let’s forget the human author of Hebrews for the moment.  So God the Spirit says, “As I swore in my wrath, they [the disobedient] shall not enter my rest” (Hb. 4:3) . . . Let us therefore strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience (4:11).”  But really, following the “hypothetical threat logic” above I find unconvincing, the Spirit is saying by way of this, “I am only saying this to make sure you make it and do not fall by the way side even though I swore an oath not to let the disobedient enter it.”  So now God can swear and oath and not mean it; this is more trouble them its worth to affirm eternal security because if I have to pick which one is more central to God’s character and is more consistent with the Scriptures, I am going with God’s goodness (and inability to deceive or do evil) over eternal security ever time.  There would be no such possibility for eternal security, after all, if God were not good in the first place.
And for those who might find my citation of Hebrews. 4:3 objectionable because you might think that that text only applies to those from the book of Numbers (14, 20), I would point out that the author of Hebrews is citing that passage in Numbers in the first, then citing Ps 95 (which is citing Num) which holds out the fact that people can still not enter God’s rest due to disobedience, and then the author of Hebrews, frighteningly, applies those OT texts to the church.
B. T. Scalise
Technical Greek stuff here (so ignore it if its a bore!):
1) And for those Greek scholars out there, the difference in the aspect (following aspect theory) between the present and the aorist tense would still indicate a similar conclusion.  The emphasis of the present tense following aspect theory would be on its continuous, and so current, nature: “For to be restoring (continuous/imperfective aspect) to repentance again—those who, to their own eyes, are crucifying again the Son of God and disgracing Him (both continuous/imperfective aspect) . . . .” Even if the objection is raised that the aorist tense itself is only indicating aoristic aspect (or undefined) the author of Hebrews begins his list of verbal ideas describing this person (enlightened, tasted, became, tasted) with hapax which establishes some former time (hapax = at one time, once, once and for all) via this adverb rather than the verbs (ptcs) at all.
2) And for those who might be suspicious of my translation which differs at the beginning from almost all other translations, my transition resists displacing the true referent (subject: anakainizein, to restore) with the ambiguous “it”: “it is impossible . . .” is the typical way 6:4 is rendered but the “it is” is implied.  I, of course, do not disagree that “it is” is a completely legitimate translation.  Implying only the “is” after bringing the infinitive up next to the adjective “impossible” as in my translation (For to restore again to repentance is impossible) follows typical predicate adjective construction.  The Greek, moving the infinitive up would look like this: ανακαινιζειν γαρ παλιν αδυνατον . . . .” By doing this, the nominative element (in this case, anakainizein) is brought to the front and, following my proposed translation above, all of the accusative elements are grouped together

Why does Jesus say no one is good but God?

31 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by Prime Theologian in Exegesis and Interpretation

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Apologetics, Gospels, Jesus' divinity, No one good but God

This text is a difficult one and it is frequent that Muslim apologists cite this text to demonstrate that Jesus denied divinity.  I am not sure this follows from the various accounts of this narrative in the different Gospels, especially not Matthews’ account.

Matt:19:17

τί με ἐρωτᾷς περὶ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ; εἷς ἐστιν ὁ ἀγαθός

“Why ask me about the Good? The Good is One (or One is the Good) (trans. mine).”

Mark 10:18

τί με λέγεις ἀγαθόν; οὐδεὶς ἀγαθὸς εἰ μὴ εἷς ὁ θεός.

“Why do you say me to be good? No one is good except One, the God.”

Or “No one is good except God alone.”

Luke 18:19

τί με λέγεις ἀγαθόν; οὐδεὶς ἀγαθὸς εἰ μὴ εἷς ὁ θεός. (same as Mark)

Translating the Greek word heis (bolded above) as “alone” is not very apt because Greek has a better word for this task, “monos,” from which we get “monotheism.”  Heis means “one” and is a noun, not an adjective.

Luke and Mark’s account are the same and Matthew’s differs a little but the point in all three is the same: all goodness comes from God so claims that persons are “good” ascribe the attribute of “goodness” inaccurately.  It is better to say that God is good and we all share in that goodness.  Some might think that saying only God is good implies that everyone else is evil but I think this is too strong based on God’s cosmological (i.e., at the beginning of the world) declaration, all creation is “very good.”

There are three ways to settle this matter: 1) rhetorically, 2) grammatically, and 3) theologically-philosophically.  Most commentators and theologians combat the Muslim claim that Jesus is denying divinity by saying that Jesus is asking the question to help the man realize the significance of calling someone good and to help him realize that he is calling Jesus good without properly understanding who Jesus is.  I have always found this unconvincing because it takes so much interpretation of the text, namely, adding a lot of rhetoric to the text, to make this point.  And so I do not find the rhetorical (1) argument very potent.

But there is a grammatical point that most assume or concede when speaking of this text: that “except” is the only way to translate the Greek ei mē  (εἰ μὴ).  Just as legitimate, grammatically, are the translations “if not” and “except that.”  Trying these two options results in the following:

No one is good if not One, the God.

No one is good except that One (is), God.

If this is correct–and certainly grammatically warranted and plausible–then Jesus is not saying that He is not good or that no one else is good but rather making everyone else’s goodness dependent upon and sustained by the “One,” the God.  Therefore, we need not concede this grammatical point to the Muslim detractor but can stand firm on this translation as a very real option and, actually, as my following points will show, align better with the Book of Genesis. So, (2) the grammatical point is worth holding out there in any conversation.

But (3), Jesus saying that “no one is good except God” faces the difficulty that God originally called everything “good” and that all things come from God, “the Good,” and so their very existence implies their goodness. Further, humans have the image of God, even after the fall and the Book of Genesis repeats that man was made after God’s image (9:6) as the reason for not shedding men’s blood.  But what makes fine order out of these points is Jesus saying “No one is good if not One, the God.”  This would indicate that both the image of God and everything else have their goodness derivatively from God’s creative activity.  And so it is not that nothing else is good but, rather, nothing would be good without the fountain of all goodness to supply it, namely, God.

Next time, I will deal with Jesus’ Trinitarian status in relation to this question of His goodness as it relates to God.

B. T. Scalise

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