Notes on Luke 13:1

  

The situation reported concerns certain Galileans—the number, unspecified, need have been no more than a couple (Easton, 213)—who had been offering sacrifice at the temple in Jerusalem. The occasion could have been Passover, the only time when the laity slaughtered their own animals (Jeremias, Words, 207 n. 4), and the incident involved the killing of the men while they were sacrificing. Thus Pilate could be said to mix (μίγνυμι, Mt. 27:34; Rev. 8:7; 15:2) their blood with that of their sacrifices (cf. SB II, 193). The expression need not be taken literally, but could simply be a gruesome metaphor for the two events taking place simultaneously. (I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text [New International Greek Testament Commentary; Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1978], 553)

 

Here is the text of Strack and Billerbeck Marshall references:

 

13:1: Galileans, whose blood Pilate mixed with their sacrifices.

 

This was possible because the slaughter of the sacrificial animals was primarily the responsibility of the person who offered the sacrifice. The activity of the priests did not begin until the blood was collected and sprinkled.

 

Mishnah Zebaḥim 3.1: The slaughter is valid if it is done by non-priests, by women, by slaves, and even by unclean people. Even for the most holy sacrifices, only those who are unclean may not touch the sacrifice.—Babylonian Talmud Zebaḥim 32A: Because it says, “But you and your sons with you shall observe your priesthood with regard to every matter of the altar” (Num 18:7), one might think that this also applies to the slaughter of the sacrifice (that this is also to be done by the priests). However, the Scripture teaches, “And he is to slaughter the young ox before Yahweh, and the sons of Aaron, the priests, are to offer the blood” (Lev 1:5). From the collection (of the blood) onward, the commandments are applicable to the priesthood. This teaches that the slaughter can be done by every human being in a manner that is valid.—This baraita can be found in SLev 1:5. ‖ ἔμιξεν = עֵירֵב.—Midrash on Psalms 7 § 2 (32A): R. Samuel b. Nahman (ca. 260) said, “David swore to Abishai, son of Zeruiah, and said, ‘As the true Yahweh lives’ (1 Sam 26:10)! If you touch the blood of this righteous one (Saul), I will mix your blood with his blood אני מערב דמך בדמו.” ‖ Exodus Rabbah 19 (81C): God said to the Israelites, “If you do not circumcise yourselves, you are not permitted to eat (of the Passover lamb),” see Exod 12:43. Immediately, they gave themselves over to be circumcised, and the blood of the Passover sacrifice was mixed נתערב with the blood of circumcision. (Hermann L. Strack and Paul Billerbeck, A Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Midrash, ed. Jacob N. Cerone, 4 vols. [trans. Andrew Bowden and Joseph Longarino; Bellingham, Wash.: Lexham Press, 2022], 2:225)

 

Robert Alter on Ecclesiastes 2:3

  

not grasping folly. The Masoretic Text reads “grasping folly” (leʾehoz besikhlut), but this translation adopts a frequently proposed emendation, assuming that a scribe inadvertently dropped “not” (loʾ) in copying because it had the same two letters, lamed and aleph, that begin the next word, leʾehoz. The idea is that Qohelet gave himself over to drinking and revelry yet clung to his perspective of wisdom because his purpose in indulging the senses was to see if, indeed, that was part of “what is good for the sons of man that they should do under the heavens.” (Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible, 3 vols. [New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2019], 3:682)

 

 

Robert Alter on Proverbs 27:16

  

Who conceals her conceals the wind, / and her name is called “right hand.” The Hebrew is unintelligible, as the translation indicates, and even with emendation it is hard to make sense of this verse. The “her” may refer to the nagging wife of the previous verse, in which case the idea is that it is impossible to hide her because she is everywhere. (The verb for the initial “conceals” is plural in the Hebrew but has been emended to a singular to accord with the second “conceals.”) The literal sense of the second verset in the received text is “and the oil of his right hand will call [or will be called],” weshemen yemino yiqraʾ. This has been emended, partly in accordance with the Septuagint, to read weshemah yamin yiqareiʾ. Even so, the meaning is unclear. Perhaps, by a stretch, it could mean, she is thought of as the right hand—that is, powerful—because there is no way to conceal or repress her. Amid all this confusion, Fox interestingly detects a pun: tsafan, “conceal,” suggests tsafon, “north”; and yamin, “right hand,” is an alternate term for “south.” (Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible, 3 vols. [New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2019], 3:438)

 

Francisco Marín-Sola on the Kind of Dogmatic Evolution That Has Been Condemned by Roman Catholicism

  

WHAT IS THE KIND OF DOGMATIC EVOLUTION THAT HAS BEEN CONDEMNED BY THE CHURCH? - The Church has not condemned the evolution of dogma in the same meaning - as in the case of homogeneous evolution —; what she has condemned is the evolution of dogma into diverse meanings, and, therefore, much more dogmatic evolution into contrary meanings, as happens in all transformist evolution. “I utterly reject the heretical phantasy of dogmas evolving into other meanings diverse from the meaning previously held by the Church.” The evolution of dogmas keeping within the same meaning is so far from being condemned that it is taught by the Church: “Let it therefore grow ... but in the same sense.” Or in the words of St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure: “There are two ways of adding: either by adding what is contrary or diverse, and this is erroneous or presumptuous; or by exposing to view what was implicitly contained, and this is praiseworthy.” “There is an addition whereby what is added ’ is contrary; another whereby what is added is diverse; and another whereby what is added is consonant. The first addition pertains to error; the second, to presumption; the third, to faithful instruction since it explicates what is implicit. ” What is to be understood by implicit is explained by the same St. Thomas: “Whenever many things are virtually contained in one thing, they are said to be in it implicitly, as the conclusions in the principles.

 

“The distinction of reason changes nothing on the part of the thing. Thus, the so-called new dogmas introduce no change at all in the primitive or revealed datum, provided that they do not differ really, but only conceptually, from the primitive dogmas. The newness is conceptual or subjective, not real. Something somehow new (secundum quid), not substantially new. There is a new mode, a new aspect; but the objectivity, which is the substance, is not new but the same. The Lirinensis expressed it felicitously: “When you say, newly, do not mean new.” “From one to an other according to reason which is not an other in reality. ” Such is the case with every conceptual conclusion, with every rigorously theological conclusion.

 

When an old tree puts forth a new branch, the branch is new, but it is neither totally new nor new in substance since it grows out of the same substance or sap of the tree. This analogy of the tree and the revealed deposit is not a perfect analogy because in the case of the tree the sap is made up of elements originating from without. If the tree’s sap were exclusively made up of the substance itself of the tree without any intussuception of any foreign element, there would be a more adequate analogy between the development of dogma and the development of the tree. (223) Such is the case with the new dogmas defined by way of implicit virtuality: they are new shoots of the ancient tree of the revealed deposit.

 

For this reason we have elsewhere (180) said, and we say it again now, that dogmatic development after the Apostles is neither merely subjective nor merely objective, but subjective-objective. To speak in rigorous scholastic terms it is formally or “simpliciter” subjective, but “secundum quid” objective.

 

It is “simpliciter” subjective because the distinction, and thus the newness of the development are not in the object itself independently of the subject, but are effected by the subject, as happens in every virtual or conceptual distinction.

 

It is “secundum quid” objective because the foundation of the distinction, and thus of the newness, is not in the subject alone, as happens in the case of any merely logical distinction or in any distinction of mere formulae, but is found in the object itself, viz. in the fecundity and wealth of objective aspects, already implicitly contained from the very beginning, in the object itself, that is, the primitive deposit.

 

Some excessively scrupulous theologians shy away from saying that the deposit itself grows, and imprison themselves in the sacred phrase that that which grows is “our” explication of the deposit. They overlook the fact that what they call “our explication of the deposit” does not, simply because it is “ours”, cease to be also an explication “of the deposit”. Since that new explication, or better still, since the explication made by the Church becomes incorporated into, and made an integral part of, the deposit, to say that the explication of the deposit grows is the same as saying that the deposit itself grows as regards its explication. (186)

 

It is one thing, therefore, to say that the deposit grows with regard to itself, that is with regard to its real objectivity and quite another thing to say that the deposit itself grows, not with regard to its objectivity, but with regard to its explication. The definitions of the Church do not make the deposit grow with regard to itself; nonetheless the deposit itself grows because its explication grows and that same new or greater explication becomes an integral part of itself. It is a development of explication but a development of the revealed deposit itself. (173) (Francisco Marín-Sola, The Homogeneous Evolution of Catholic Dogma [trans. Antonio T. Piñon; Manila, Philippines: Santo Tomas University Press, 1988], 553-555)

 

Cyrus H. Gordon on the Potential Background to the Tenth Commandment

  

It must strike the modern man as strange that the Ten Commandments end with a prohibition against coveting, something which is neither criminal nor punishable in any society, including ancient Hebrew society. We understand all right the Commandments against stealing and adultery-acts which are punishable in nearly all legal systems, including ancient Israel's. But no one has ever proposed that people be jailed or fined for coveting, as long as it has not led to actual theft of the other fellow's property or adultery with the other fellow's wife. In fact, we can go farther. Coveting is recognized as necessary for success in modern society. A man who does not want to raise his standard of living to that enjoyed by the other fellow is considered ambitionless, and as such reprehensible. To be sure, if coveting results only in unconstructive greed, ostentation, or pushiness (e. g., "keeping up with the Joneses"), and therefore entails an unseemly response to the potentially desirable stimulus of coveting, it may be frowned upon. But when coveting impels us to greater effort, so that we may rise constructively toward the level of our more affluent neighbors, we are on the path that universally leads to approbation. Why, then, does the Bible make a great issue of coveting, grouping it with such evil offenses as murder?

 

I

 

Much of the Old Testament was prompted by the opposition of the Hebrew leaders to the usages of their neighbors. Sometimes those usages were immoral to the extent that they still appear immoral to us, e. g., child sacrifice, sacred prostitution, and carnal relations with animals. But sometimes they appear rather innocent; cf. the prohibitions against making a statue of any living creature, against masquerading, and against cattle performing any work on the sabbath (Deut. 5:8; 22:5; 5:14). Can any of us wax indignant over Abraham Lincoln's statue in Washington, or a children's Halloween party, or a horse taking his master to church on the sabbath? The principle involved is clearly enunciated in Scripture many times. For example, "According to the deeds of the land of Egypt where ye have dwelt ye shall not do; nor shall ye do according to the deeds of the land of Canaan whither I am bringing you, nor shall ye go by their usages" (Lev. 18:3). This is the key to solving the problem before us.

 

We may formulate as a principle that opposition to alien customs is at work whenever the Hebrews make a great issue over something that is not recognizable as wrong. There was a time when biblical scholars had to formulate principles without any outside controls. This led to a theoretical approach to Scripture with results that were subjective and therefore often erroneous. We are now in a more advantageous position because of extra-biblical sources unearthed by archaeologists working in the Near East. For understanding the Old Testament, by far the most important literary texts ever discovered are the clay tablets from Ugarit, written between the fourteenth and twelfth centuries B.C. at a north Syrian coastal city and in a language closely related to Hebrew. The Ugaritic myths and epics are a kind of Canaanite Bible, portraying the culture against which the Hebrews rebelled. For instance, a great heroine called Pughat disguised herself as a man and wielded a sword to exact blood revenge. The honored place given in Ugaritic literature to wearing the clothes of the opposite sex and to the use of weapons by a woman explains the strong opposition to these usages in the Bible (cf. Deut. 22:5).1 Again, the death penalty for copulation with cattle (Exod. 22:18) becomes readily intelligible when we read in the sacred myths of Ugarit that the great god Baal mated with a heifer. Baal was the most popular god in Canaanite religion and was therefore the object of revulsion among the spiritual leaders of Israel. Hence, anything ascribed to Baal, whether abominable or innocent, is likely to be condemned in Scripture.

 

II

 

With this introduction we are prepared to understand the commandment against coveting. Baal is described as coveting tauromorphic creatures with "horns like bulls." The word used is hamad, "to covet," exactly as in the Ten Commandments. This Ugaritic text (#75) has been known since 1935 when it was published by the French cuneiformist Charles Virolleaud. I am now reading proof on the fourth revised edition of my Ugaritic Textbook for the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. To help me bring it up to date, Professor Virolleaud has generously placed at my disposal the proof sheets of his forthcoming volume of newly discovered Ugaritic texts, Palais royal d'Ugarit V. In the very first text of this important book, Baal is described as coveting (the same word hamad is used) in a context mentioning fine agricultural terrain. It is no accident that the Bible specifies the bull and the field of our neighbor as objects that we must not covet, for these are precisely what Baal covets in the two texts just mentioned.

 

One of the main scenes in the religious texts of Ugarit is the story of how Baal obtained a house. He complained that "he had no house like the (other) gods, nor a court like the the Sons of Asherah," which means in plain prose that he coveted the houses of his neighbors. Instead of sulking in silence, Baal behaved like a man destined to succeed. He bestirred himself and in the end secured a superb house built of the finest materials by the greatest of all architects. The scene of "The House of Baal" constitutes a major part of Ugaritic literature. Apparently the emphasis upon it prompted the biblical author to begin the commandment in Exod. 20:17 with "Thou shalt not covet the house of thy neighbor."

 

Moralists may make of the tenth commandment what they will. They can say that if we do not covet, we will not embark on the path that leads to theft and adultery. If coveting could be detected and treated as crime, the commandments and laws against stealing and adultery would be superfluous. But this is not the case. Biblical and modern laws provide penalties for theft and adultery. But the Bible could not punish coveting because it comprises a universal aspect of human behavior that no court of law - whether in ancient Israel or in the modern West- can stop. However, what we can now do is to understand why coveting - though not immoral or illegal - is included as a prohibition in the Ten Commandments. Whatever had an honored place in Baalism is likely to be condemned in Scripture. This is a principle repeatedly expressed in the Bible, but one which we can now for the first time control because of the materials placed in our hands by archaeology. (Cyrus H. Gordon, “A Note on the Tenth Commandment,” Journal of Bible and Religion 31, no. 3 [July 1963]: 208-9)

 

Richard A. Muller on the View of Scritpure Held by Duns Scotus (d. 1308)

  

As Minges carefully noted, Scotus’ dictum “Sacra scriptura sufficienter continet doctrinam necessariam viatori” should not be taken as an indication that Scotus viewed Scripture as sufficiently clear to be interpreted apart from the church’s tradition or that he believed that the entire sum of doctrine could be elicited from Scripture alone. Nor did Scotus intend to set up Scripture as the sole norm of doctrine: he could argue that the ancient symbols of the church summarize the truth of revelation and even that, beside the authority of Scripture and creeds, stands that of the “authentic Fathers” and the “Church of Rome.” Even so, he held that the “substance of the faith” derives equally from Scripture and the declarations and determinations of the Church—a view resembling what Oberman called “Tradition II,” namely, a view of Scripture and tradition as coequal norms. (Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725, 4 vols. [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2003], 2:50-51)

 

Further Reading:

Yves Congar on Medieval Writers and the Material Sufficiency of Scripture

Richard A. Muller on Post-Reformation Reformed Orthodox Distinguishing Between “Word” and “Scripture”

  

The Reformed orthodox did not, as is commonly assumed, make a rigid equation of the Word of God with Holy Scripture. To be sure, they identified Scripture as the Word of God, but they also very clearly recognized that Word was, ultimately, the identity of the second person of the Trinity. They also recognized that the second person of the Trinity, as Word, was the agent of divine revelation throughout all ages. These basic doctrinal assumptions concerning the meaning of the term “Word of God” led the Protestant scholastics to a series of distinctions in their definition of Word: the Word was, first, either the essential Word of God or the Word of God sent forth in the work of creation, redemption, or revelation and, therefore, present in a knowable manner to the finite order. In addition to the Word incarnate, the Word could be understood in a series of three interrelated distinctions and definitions: the unwritten and the written Word, the immediate and the mediate Word, the external and the internal Word.

 

The historical and covenantal aspect of the Reformed doctrine of the necessity of a written Word, a Scripture, was connected, early in the Reformation, with a doctrine of the Word of divine revelation as unwritten (agraphon) and written (engraphon). The Word was first heard and later recorded. This historical path of the Word from moment of revelation to written text not only appears in the ancient histories of the Bible that refer to the events that took place before Moses but also in the prophetic writings, where divine revelation to the prophet preceded the production of the text. The Reformers and their orthodox successors not only recognized this pattern in the production of Scripture, they viewed it as of utmost importance to their conception of Scripture as Word and to their doctrine of the authority of Scripture. Related to this point, particularly in view of the question of authority, is the problem of the way in which the Word operates — it is heard and written and, therefore, known both internally and externally, the former knowledge or impression having a profound impact on the individual and on the individual’s ascription of authority to the Word: as a corollary of the doctrine of Scripture as Word, Protestantism must also include a discussion of the reading and hearing of the Word in the locus de Scriptura sacra.

 

These considerations stand in some opposition to the view of orthodoxy as holding to a rigid definition of Scripture and Scripture alone as “Word” in distinction from the view of the Reformers, according to which Scripture “contains” the Word and “witnesses” to it. The Reformers are associated with a “dynamic” approach to Word and Scripture that allowed a distinction between the living Word or the Word incarnate in its revelatory work and the written text, while the orthodox are associated with a static view of Word that rigidly identified “Word” with “text.” Contrary to Brunner’s assertions, the orthodox were not at all blind to the message of the Johannine Prologue that Jesus is the Word of God. If they did not allow the words of the Prologue to undermine their sense of Scripture as Word and as the source of revealed doctrine, this does not mean that they forgot the fact that in some sense Christ is himself the revelation of God or that he is the Word preeminently and immediately in a manner beyond the manner of Scripture. Whereas Brunner was led by his affirmation of Christ as Word to relativize the Scripture, the orthodox tread a fine doctrinal balance in their distinction between the essential, the unwritten and written, the external and internal Word.

 

A similar critique of the orthodox perspective is found in Althaus’ characterization of Polanus’ theory of knowledge as a variety of dualism: on the one hand, Polanus holds Scripture to have an objective certainty reflected in the scientific character of theology and the self-authenticating nature of the scriptural revelation; on the other hand, Polanus insists on a subjective and inward working of the Spirit which confirms the truth of Scripture. Althaus describes the gift of revelation in Scripture as an “isolated supernatural act,” set beside the event of the inward work of the Spirit. But is this a genuine dualism and, therefore, a substantive departure from the thought of a Calvin or a Bullinger?

 

Concerning the relationship of the divinity to the truth of Scripture, Polanus wrote, “Faith in the divinity of Scripture is by nature prior to faith in the turth of Scripture; we, however, first believe that it is true and subsequently believe that it is divine. Unless you believe first that Scripture is true, you will never believe that it is divine.” This argument, according to Althaus, is tantamount to an assertion that “all knowledge, faith, doctrine, and theological demonstration finally ends in some ultimate, immutable, and first truth . . . which is some other than holy Scripture, the Word of God.” Althaus sees this as a combination of a formal supernaturalism with an empirical attitude in theology. But we must distinguish between an autonomous scientific empiricism and an empiricism of divine evidences, of the inward working of the Spirit, and of the revelatory working of God in his word: in the latter, the conviction of the divinity of Scripture comes, via faith in the truth of Scripture, as a work of God rather than as a realization of man, with the result that the “formal revelatory character” and the “formal Authority” of Scripture are not — as Althaus would have it — distinct from the content of the faith. Indeed, the inseparability of the external Word of Scripture from the internally known Word was integral to the Reformed response to Roman Catholic emphasis on an internal Word of spiritual tradition known to the heart of believers.

 

The contrast between the formal, self-evidencing character of Scripture as divine and the inward confirmation of Scripture’s truth and divinity by the testimony of the Holy Spirit is created by the logical, rationalizing nature of Polanus’ argument rather than by an real sense of rift between the objective truth of Scripture and its subjective apprehension: it is not as if the Spirit testifies inwardly to the truth of Scripture apart from actual encounter with the scriptural Word, or as if the Spirit that, by the act of inspiring the original writers of Scripture, gives to the text its character as Word can be any other than the Spirit that testifies to the believer of his work and of the truth of his work. This interpretation follows from Polanus’ insistence, in an Aristotelian fashion, upon the undemonstrable nature of all principles. As Althaus himself admits, the separation between in se and quoad nos breaks down at this point — leading us to conclude that Althaus’ insistence on “two souls” in Polanus’ doctrine of Scripture mistakes a logical, dichotomizing method of exposition for an objective dualism. (Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725, 4 vols. [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2003], 2:182-84)