In Anthony
F. Buzzard's Abuse of B.W. Bacon, “Heb.
1:10-12 and the Septuagint Rendering of Ps. 102:23" (1902), I
discussed Anthony Buzzard's abuse of Bacon's article to support his
(eisegetical) reading of Heb 1:10-12. In this article, I wish to discuss his
appeal to F.F. Bruce's commentary on Hebrews (New International Commentary on
the New Testament; rev ed.; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1990).
Commenting on Heb 1:10-12, and how Jesus is,
in the theology of Hebrews, the personal agent of the Genesis creation, Bruce
wrote:
The words in which
the psalmist addresses God, however, are here applied to the Son, as clearly as
the words of Ps. 45:6f. were applied to him in vv. 8 and 9. What justification
can be pleaded for our author's applying them thus? First, as he has already said
in v. 2, it was through the Son that the universe was made. The angels were but
worshiping spectators when the earth was founded (Job 38:7), but the Son was
the Father's agent in the work. He therefore can be understood as the one who
is addressed in the words:
Of old thou didst lay
the foundation of the earth;
And the heavens are
the work of thy hands. (p. 62)
Commenting on the application of Psa 102
to Jesus, Bruce does not understand it merely as about the New Creation:
But to whom (a
Christian reader of the Septuagint might well ask) could God speak in words
like these? And whom would God himself address as "Lord," as the
maker of earth and heaven? Our author knows of one person to whom such terms
could be appropriate, and that is the Son of God. (pp. 62-63)
The footnote for the above further
confirms thus:
It is unlikely that
this passage is primarily responsible for our author's description of the Son
in v. 2 as the one through whom God made the universe--a description which
probably owes more to Prov 8:22-31 than to any other OT passage--but it could
be taken as corroborative testimony of the identification of Wisdom in Prov
8:22ff with the Messiah. (63 n. 103--Prov 8:22-31, the
same text Bacon appeals to in his article to support Jesus as agent of the
Genesis Creation, is not talking about the New Creation, but the Old)
Anthony Buzzard is forced to abuse Bruce
in an attempt to support his misreading of Bacon’s 1902 article and his
eisegesis of Heb 1:10-12 to defend his anti-biblical Christology, one that
rejects the personal pre-existence of Jesus.
