John 1:6-13 The Baptist and the True Light

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John 1:6-13 ESV

6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. 8 He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.

9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

There was a man sent from God...

Interestingly, John breaks up his prologue (some see this as a hymn) to introduce us to John the Baptist. He takes three sentences to explain that John was the witness to Jesus' coming. Why would John do that? Why break up the prologue, in the middle, just to introduce John as Jesus' witness only to pick up John's story at vs. 19? 

John was not the light, yet he came to give witness of the light. This is what the Evangelist (I am going to use this term to distinguish between John the Apostle and the Baptist) plans to do here. The Baptist is mentioned in all four Gospels: Matt. 3:1-6; Mark 1:1-6; and Luke 3:1-6. Later, in John's Gospel, the Evangelist talks in depth about the Baptist and his mission and message. What did it mean for John to be a witness, though? According to Malina and Rohrbaugh, to be a witness in John's day meant that you affirm one's honor (Malina and Rohrbaugh, John, 32). This testifying was also to be done publicly, out in the open for all to see. Now, we need to look at the meaning of light to understand what the Evangelist is saying.

The True Light...

John is telling us that Jesus is the very opposite of darkness, that Jesus is not just a/the light, but that He is the True Light. The word true in Greek is alethinos and means it is not just the name, but it is the description and meaning of the word it describes. Also, the word means the complete opposite of falsehood. So, here the John is telling us that the light is not just a metaphor for Jesus, but that he is the light. He is so much the light, that he is not the darkness. The word light in Greek is phos, which in this context is used of a metaphor for truth and reasoning. It harkens back to the use of the word logos which also meant reasoning. Which is what leads us into the next portion, that Jesus was rejected. Why would He, the basis of reasoning, be rejected? 

...The World did not Know Him...

What we have here, is John's explanation of the coming of the Messiah. In vs. 9, the Evangelist presents us with the truth that the Light has come (present tense) into the world. Here, we see the rejection of the coming Messiah. The world does not know Him, meaning that they do not have the reasoning needed to recognize the true Light. Barclay states that God's Logos has always been in the world and that man has always been able to see it (Barclay, John, 56-58 ). 

The Greek word here for know is ginosko, which means to know or get to know. Malina and Rohrbaugh tell us that John uses an OT understanding in his context of know--it was a very intimate way to know someone, "face to face" (Malina and Rohrbaugh, John, 32). Haenchen explains how God answers the willingness of the world to refuse to know its Creator--

"For the Logos did not give up in the face of this rejection. On the contrary, he now does the highest, the final, thing that was still possible: he becomes man himself, in order to be received by humankind" (Haenchen, John, 118). 

However, becoming flesh and blood was not good enough, because not only does the world not accept Him, neither does His very own possession--Israel. 

...His own did not Receive Him...

Israel, the place that redemptive history was to be brought did not receive their Lord. Michaels says that Israel and Judaism would be the place of Christ's ministry, yet the context of the word world might mean that the world was the main point of Christ's purpose of salvation (Michaels, John, 23). Either way, the point seems clear--Jesus was not accepted by either His own portion and the world as a whole. However, there are some who will accept Him. 

In the ancient world, a person's name meant something. Now, in America, we have meanings for our names, but the definition of our name does not define who we are. However, to people in the first century Palestine, their name defined them as a person. Here is how Malina and Rohrbaugh explain this phenomenon: 

First, it is the closest term for what we mean by 'person.' Since first-century Mediterranean persons were collective persons, their 'name' represents the entire family, along with the family's honor in the community (Malina and Rohrbaugh, John, 32).

This was what John means by believed in His name. Here we step into new life, we are literally adopted in Jesus' family. The notion here, in Greek, is the idea that God is giving us the right to be born again (Barton, et al., John, 9). John Calvin sees this verse as a grace of God. To Calvin, we do not have the choice, but were made to believe in God. However you see this, as a free-will choice or divinely appointed as Calvinists do is not important. What is, is that we are made children of God and welcomed into his family. Why is this important? Aside from the notions of being saved by Christ, it deals with the notion of the law at the time (by law, I actually mean Roman). In the Roman world, your bloodline was very important, it established your place in society. Mostly, the wealthy Romans are the ones who would be concerned with this law. Here is how it worked: Marriage was a big deal, the dowery was mostly land given to the newlyweds, who would have children to pass it on to. This was important because it kept the wealth that the land gave in the family. This was why being born of blood and of will by flesh was important to those in Palestine and in the Roman Empire, because of the way the marriage laws worked. Here, Jesus makes it possible to be born into His family easy, anyone is capable of becoming a child of God. His kingdom then becomes our inheritance. Jesus breaks the notion of human laws by saying that you can become an heir of His. We become a child of God and thus, are allowed access to his authority and protection. 

What did You Think?

Was this how you read the text? What thoughts did you glean from this? What did I miss? What was something new to you? Let me know in the comments section. Be blessed and leave me your thoughts; thanks, guys. 

C. Bohall

Bibliography

Barclay, William. Gospel of John. vol. 1. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975.

Barton, Bruce B. Philip W. Comfort, David R. Veerman, and Neil Wilson. John. 1993. 

Calvin, John. "Commentary on John 1:1". "Calvin's Commentary on the Bible".    "http://www.studylight.org/commentaries/cal/view.cgi?bk=42&ch=1". 1840-57.

Haenchen, Ernst. John 1. Trans. Robert W. Funk. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984.

Malina, Bruce J. and Richard L. Rohrbaugh. Social-Science Commentary on the Gospel of  John. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998. 

Michaels, J. Ramsey. John. Peabody: Hendrickson Press, 2005. 

John 1:1-5 Jesus' Divinity Made Clear

John 1:1-5 NASB

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. 5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

In the Beginning...

Every story has to start somewhere. For John, he takes it further than the other Gospel authors, it begins before everything. In Matthew, it starts with Abraham, Mark just passes it all and heads straight for the baptism, and Luke only goes as far back as Adam. Why does John go all the way back to before the beginning of everything? Who is this Jesus that John believes is before everything, ahead of even the universe? For John, the answer is simple--Jesus is the Word, the very being of God. Jesus is God; the Creator Yahweh. 

John is saying something very important with his statement that this Word is God. J. Ramsey Michaels believes that this is a cosmological statement, "[the] purpose of the Gospel writer is to place the story of Jesus in a cosmic perspective" (Michaels, John, 21). Most scholars agree that John is placing Jesus (John purposefully hides the identity of this Word as Jesus till the end of his prologue) as "the personification of God's creative word" (Michaels, John, 21). This is how I understand John's prologue. John tells us, in this order, that the Word was God, was with Him, created everything, life, light, and humanity of which who will not understand Him. This misunderstanding of the Word led to a rejection of Him. Yet, He also came to proclaim the Message of God.

It is very important that we remember that this prologue is meant to tie in with the first chapter of Genesis. By labeling Jesus as the Word, John is making a very significant point. John Shelby Sponge (I do not agree with everything from this man though he does make some good points from time to time) makes a statement, as he loosely translates Genesis 1 and 2: "In the beginning there was the oneness of God. Then out of God came God's word, 'Let there be light.' Now the singularity of God shared creation with a new power...the anonymous Jewish writers who wrote this creation story attributed  to the 'word' of enormous creative power, seeing it as separate from God, but God's very essence" (Spong, Fourth Gospel, 43). This statement is a good way to sum up John's use of the Word to mean this separate but equal essence of God, though I chose to say it this way so as not to mistake our Trinitarian orthodoxy with a weird pseudo-Arian misunderstanding: God was the Creator, Jesus, as God was the power as the Word, and the Holy Spirit as God was the action that made the creation. All three similar, one, and yet separate at the same time--the Three in One.

  

...was the Word...

The Word was God, His message, and the Messanger. The Word in Greek is logos and it has a lot of meanings packed into it. Basically, it meant logic, reasoning, a saying of or from the divine, doctrine, or discourse.  Interestingly, John might have written in Greek, and the audience may have been Hellenistic, is it possible that the logos might have a Semitic background to it? For Thomas Oden, it does. The main source, according to Oden, of the logos Christology of John is rooted in the ancient Hebrew phrase dabar Yahweh which means “Word of God” (Oden, Word of Life, 69). In the OT, logos is not only spoken, it is also “personified.” It is shown through the prophets (Isa. 55:10-11 and Jer. 1:4, 2:1) and as wisdom in the Proverbs (Prov. 8:22-30)--as well as in the Apocrypha (Oden, Word of Life, 69-70 and Barton, et al, John, 2-3). For Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh, the Logos is less Hellenistic and more socially Israelite. For them, the Logos is not an abstract theory of Reasoning but “self-revelation and self- communication” (Malina and Rohrbaugh, Gospel of John, 35-39). However, we must see this word as both Hebrew and Hellenistic in thought. 

 As mentioned earlier, the Greeks had several ways of using the word logos, in the first century. It could have been the thoughts of someone or their reasoning, or a person’s speech. In philosophy, it meant “the rational principle that governed the universe, even the creative energy that generated the universe” (Barton et al, John, 3). To the Greek's, logos was an abstract thought (Wright, John, 4). This abstract thought was the power to make a man choose right from wrong and gave order to the universe--it was the divinity of god in man (Barclay, John, 35). 

Philo of Alexandria

Philo of Alexandria took both the Hebrew understanding and the Greek belief of the logos and combined them. I believe that it is possible that John had copies, especially if he wrote this in Ephesus (which had a rather large library at one point), of Philo's works there. I think that John was influenced by Philo's logic of the logos and believed this to be the best way to understand Jesus and his relationship with God. Because of this, John could say that Jesus was the Logos, this reasoning of God, the divinity of God in man today, the one who helps us to make the right from wrong decisions. This is why John can say that Jesus is the life and the light. Through Jesus, we have the life of God that was given to Adam in the Garden, which he lost at the fall. The light that has been given is that which will guide us with reasoning. Jesus is the reasoning we must follow. Whatever Jesus did and said we are to do the same, Jesus only did as the Father told him to do. If we are followers of Jesus, then we are followers of God, and if we are followers of God, then we must do as we see and hear Jesus do, because he followed God. If you follow Jesus, then your life must show it.--Tweet that!

I hope to have the rest of John 1:1-18 up throughout this week. If I do not, then it will be up as I am able to post them. Thanks for reading; what do you find interesting about this text? What interpretations have you seen that I have not mentioned? Leave all your responses and comments in the comment section below. Thanks for reading and sharing, have a blessed day!

C. Bohall

Bibliography

Barclay, William. Gospel of John. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975.

Barton, Bruce, Philip W. Comfort, David R. Veerman, and Neil Wilson. Life  

Application Bible Commentary: John. Carol Stream: Tyndal House Publishers, Inc.,  

1993.

Malina, Bruce J. and Richard L. Rohrbaugh. "Word." In Social Science  

Commentary on the Gospel of John. (35-39). Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998.

Michaels, J. Ramsey. New International Biblical Commentary: John. Peabody:  

Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1989.

Sponge, John Shelby. Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic. New York: Harper Collins,  
2011.

Wright, Tom. John for Everyone: Part One. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 

2004.

Be on the Look Out For a Books Page

Today, finding information is really easy. Look no further than this very blog. The internet has made it extremely helpful for anyone to write what they want. To see this, go to any Wikipedie article--the authors are usually anonymous. Then, there are those who blog about books. Usually, these guys tell you what books to read and badly at that. They will have a bias toward whatever they are reading. For that, I want to make a page, one where I will review books. In history, the historian is forced to look up the information if the author, where they studied, and who they studied with. Because of this, historians are pretty good at finding an author's argument, their stance, and how they reason. Historians are trained to think critically, meaning they use reasoning to figure things out--they are objective. Most people are afraid of being objective, after weren't the philosophies (a French word for really smart philosophers of the Enlightenment) Objective, which led them to be atheists? Well, no. They were very objective, but it was because they had to be. Because they were objective in thinking, they gave us things like almanacs, dictionaries, and encyclopedias. Because of their objectivities, we are able to think for ourselves today. That is the goal of my book review page. I will help give you skills needed to think for yourself when reading a non-fiction book. You will learn how to reason and analyze the material in front of you. So, be on the look out for a book review page. 

C. Bohall

In Case You Thought I was Missing or Just Dropped the Mic and Left...

Hey guys, I just wanted to swing in and let you know that I had to make some changes to my plans for the post this week. First, it is Thanksgiving week (Happy Thanksgiving everyone), which means that I have not had a lot of time to work on my post. Second, God has been working in me recently in regards to this site. I have no other choice but to listen and obey.

What does God want? He wants us to slow down while we read and learn about Him in our studies. Because of this I had to change somethings. One of the first things I had to change was that I dropped the second part of the Background post for John. Mainly, I felt the deep desire to just dive right into the text of John. The Spirit led me to do this, so therefore, I must attend. Besides, there is always plenty of room in the study of the text to talk about the background info on Rome, Palestine, Jewish Religion, etc. Also, I have been thinking about writing a book on John, not a full commentary, again I am not trained in that field, but in a theological and historical area I am well trained (anyway). Second, because I have been feeling God speaking to me to slow down in my hermeneutics and exegesis of the passages, I have decided to redo the first portion of Genesis. I made the huge mistake of consulting my secondary sources before, and more than, the Bible itself. I did not pray over the portion of the Word I was studying and I did not let God work in me while I researched. Therefore, I have decided to make a Genesis 1 and 2 version 2.0. With that said, I hope that this does everyone a better service than it had before. I must remember to do the blog this way, otherwise these are just words with no meaning. 

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave them. If you want to say anything then please leave a comment. May you go in God's blessings, grace, and peace. 

C. Bohall

Name Change

I hope everyone is enjoying the blog so far? I am writing this post to inform everyone that I felt the need to change the name of the site. I was struggling with my walk in Christ, at the beginning of this journey. I started reading a Bible plan on grace. What I found was that God's grace was sufficient enough for me. This has been weighing on my heart since I read that verse in 2 Corinthians. With that said, the idea of the blog is still to find God, but this time the theme is changing a little bit. I feel that we, together, need to discover God's grace for us in the Bible. I have been negligent toward God and His grace for me. Because of this, I have forgotten what experiencing and living in grace even felt like. So, I want to share this with all of you. In deciding this, the focus of discovering God and His grace, we will still look at the Bible weekly, but I feel that we need to see more than just the Bible (please do not misunderstand me, for the Bible has life in itself I just want to hear from those that came after it too), so I plan to have a page up, soon, on the history of the Church from the Apostolic Fathers to today. We will look at Catholicism, Orthodox, and Protestant histories as well. The most important thing is the teaching on the Bible, so it will stay the main goal and the biggest portion of the site. Along with this, there will be a page on book reviews that will help arm us all on good material to keep us focused on God's grace.

I want to thank you all for joining me on this mission. I can't do it alone, so if you have any comments, thoughts, or questions, then please leave them. I wish to interact with everyone on this site. I can't do it, if no one is brave enough to speak up or even ask a question. Also, it would be most helpful, if you enjoy what you're reading and discovering God's grace for yourself and others, that you would subscribe to this site. I want to do so much more, but I need more followers who are willing to join me. So, please subscribe and leave me your thoughts. May the blessings of God and His grace and peace be with you all.

C. Bohall

Background Information on the Gospel According to St. John Part One

This is an info graph of the infancy and early ministry of Jesus taken from:http://biblia.com/books/fsbinfographics/media/path/final_images_png_thelifeofjesusinfancyandearlyministry.png

Introduction

John's Gospel is usually the one that pastors or teachers of the Bible will tell their new converts to read before starting any other books of the Bible. Why is that, at least, I have always wondered? It is because John's version of Jesus' life has been seen more as a theological interpretation of Jesus' time on earth. Some scholars believe that John complements the Synoptic Gospels. He fills in the missing pieces that are not there. John is a good starting point for getting to know God the Son--Jesus our Lord.

Icon of St. John taken from:http://catholic-resources.org/Images/Evangelists/john-icon.jpg

Who was the Author?

Raymond Brown was a Catholic priest and New Testament and Johannine Scholar. He wrote an outstanding introduction to the New Testament. In it he explains the traditional view of authorship: "Irenaeus (ca. AD 180) identified the Disciple as John (one of the Twelve) who lived  at Ephesus till Trajan’s time (ca. 98). (As a boy Irenaeus had known Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, who is supposed to have known John)” (Brown, Introduction to the New Testament, 368). The reason tradition held to John as an the author comes from the last portion of the text: 

This is the [Beloved] disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true.  (John 21:24, NRSV).

However, Brown tells us that most scholars today do not believe that the traditional view of John, son of Zebedee, was the Beloved Disciple. He states that they have found that the 2nd century beliefs came from a sense of needing authority from the writer more than the actual author (Brown, Introduction, 368). Brown, also tells us that there are three theories on who the Beloved Disciple actually was: He was an actual NT person; that he was not a real person at all, but meant to portray the perfect disciple; and last he was someone, not an important NT figure, but one who was there that started the Johannine community and became the ideal disciple opposite of Peter in the Synoptic Gospels. For Brown, the answer is the third option (Brown, Introduction, 369).

Mark Allen Powell, a professor of New Testament at Trinity Lutheran Seminary, explains a bit more of what we just saw from Brown. For Powell, the author is John the Elder (the author of the Johannine Epistles), edited the material of the community of the beloved disciple; thus the name of John being forever attached this Gospel. This is because, as he states, there were three or four possible authors to the Johannine corpus--John the Apostle, the beloved disciple; an unknown author of the first epistle; the Elder (known as John); and John the Seer, who is also the author of Revelation. Powell says that most scholars believe that a whole community was involved in the penmanship of these texts. He says they call this “a Johannine school." This is because, whoever the beloved disciple was, he was more of an interpreter than an eyewitness (Powell, Fortress Introduction to the Gospels, 124-25). As for me, I do not see why this Gospel could not have been orally presented by the Apostle John and later compiled into a Gospel and a rule (much like the Scroll of Discipline in the Qumran community). I believe this, because there are we statements in this Gospel. Just look at John 21:24 again.

When did the Author Write?

The dating of the text falls around the beginning of the second century. This is what most scholarship believes. For me, I think it was compiled at the beginning of the second century, which took from oral traditions of the Apostle John in the middle of the first. Powell states that this Gospel has always been seen, by the early Church, as a late one. He then says that most modern scholars align themselves with this thought. However, Powell believes that there is evidence that states an earlier composition. According to this evidence, the use of Rabbi as a title for Jesus was still being used (this was dropped by Christians in later generations), the Temple was still standing (the significance of this is that in the original Greek of the Gospel, the Temple is presently standing at the very moment of the writing), and that there are differences between the followers of John the Baptist and Jesus’ own disciples. In order for this to work, Powell says, scholars have attributed a belief that this Gospel was written in stages. In other words, it took almost fifty years for the text to be completed. Believing this, Powell thinks that the final version of the text should be dated around 90-100 C. E. (126).

John's Christology

In the late Roman Empire, Jesus was mixed with the view of the Emperor. Romans saw beards as barbaric. When Constantine was converted to Christianity, the image of Jesus began to change too. Jesus was seen as the Emperor of the Universe and the Caesar was His vicar (representative to the people).Image taken from: https://media.biola.edu/gbb/photos/2012/Oct/19/cache/christ%20triumphant_half.jpg

In Ernst Haenchen's Hermeneia commentary, he says of John’s Jesus: “in this Gospel Jesus is pictured and extolled in many narratives as the great miracle worker and his miracles are thus conceived as proof of his divinity” (Haenchen, John, 94). In Jesus, the spiritually dead find life. We need not wait till death, to find our salvation--it is here and now. Haenchen puts it like this: 

It is not important that Jesus causes a lame man to ‘rise’ (5:8), but that he causes the (spiritually) dead to rise (5:21: [the Greek means ‘make alive’]), like the Father does. It follows that the time of salvation does not just dawn on the other side of the grave but here and now, at the moment any one whom the Father has given to Jesus hears his word (Haenchen, John, 95).

Jesus is sent to do what the Father wants. Jesus did not come because he wished it, but because the Father sent him. Therefore, Jesus does not speak and act on his own merit, but on the Father’s (Haenchen, John, 96). Jesus acts, kind of like an apostle, yet he is more than an that. The word apostle comes from the Greek, apostolos, which means one sent. However, it actually has a deeper meaning than this. This word was used politically. When someone was an apostle of their master, it meant they carried that lord's authority. For example, if a lord of a city had two other places under his charge, he could not be in all three cities at once. What he must do is send an apostolos, someone who could carry out the authority of the master since he could not be there himself (are we following?). Haenchen explains it like so:

Jesus is the divine legate and a legate fulfills his commission all the more thoroughly the more he is simply the expression, the mouth and the hands of his lord. It is then and only then, when he has no political ambitions of his own, but lives entirely in the service of his master, indeed, lives precisely out of this service (4:34), that he is one with his sovereign and has genuine claim to the honor that is due his lord...for us he stands in the place of his lord, the Father, as the one sent, who has devoted himself entirely to his master (Haenchen, John, 96).

Rudolf Bultmann, former professor emeritus of New Testament at the University of Marburg in Germany, says that John's Jesus was very different than the traditional view made by the Synoptic versions: 

In John, Jesus appears neither as the rabbi arguing about questions of the Law nor as the prophet proclaiming the breaking in of the Reign of God. Rather, he speaks only of his own person as the Revealer whom God has sent (Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, 4).

For the more conservative view of the Christology of Jesus in John's Gospel, three scholars help us out. D. A. Carson, J. Moo, and Leon Morris. In their introduction to the New Testament, it's all about the title of the "Son of God." In John’s Gospel, Jesus is the “Son of God,” though this term can also be used of the Messiah it is vitally important to the Christological status of Jesus. Only Jesus can show who God is, since Jesus is the “Son of God” and God is the “Father.” Therefore, Jesus can only say and do as God tells and shows him, John 5:19 (Carson, Moo, and Morris, Introduction to the New Testament, 174).

With this information in mind, we will do better when we dig into the Gospel of St. John. Later, this week, I plan to have up more background information on the Gospel of St. John. We need to understand first century Judaism and we need to know about the socio-political setting of Palestine and the Roman Empire before we head into the text. Till next time fellow followers. 

C. Bohall

 Bibliography

Brown, Raymond E. Introduction to the New Testament. New  

York: Doubleday Press, 1997.

Bultmann, Rudolf , Theology of the New Testament, vol. 2, trans. 

Kendrick Grobel. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1955.

Carson, D. A., Douglas J. Moo, and Leon Morris. Introduction to 

the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992.

Haenchen, Ernst. John I. trans. by Robert Funk. Philadelphia: 

Fortress Press, 1984.

Powell, Mark Allan. Fortress Introduction to the Gospels. 

Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998.

Background Information on Genesis

Genesis is the story of beginnings. The beginning of the world, humanity, and the establishment of Israel as the chosen people of Yahweh. Most importantly, Genesis is a story about God. We are introduced to God right from the beginning. We meet this supreme being, who is so powerful that when He speaks things come into existence. What kind of God is this, that He speaks and things happen, He doesn't need to fight other gods, He isn't birthed, wasn't made, nor does He need to create from other things? How is He able to do this? What does this story tell us about God? How did the author of Genesis know that God even did all of this? Where did he get his information from?

Part of studying history is the methodology involved. Every historian needs to know how to find the information from the sources they pull from. In this case, we are looking at the Bible. The word Bible has a meaning to it. It comes from the Greek and Latin word, biblia, meaning books. The best way to look at this is it is a multi volume collection of works, by different authors, that all have different theses on who God is. Each book has a different style of genre. Some are histories, some are proverbs, some are gospels, some are narratives, and some are letters. Part of the methodology of a historian is knowing the source: I call them the who, what, where, when, and why. Sometimes, you can get all of them, and other times you will only get a few of these to work with. In order for this to work, you must have a sound methodology, the historian needs to read broadly. To fully comprehend what the original authors wanted to say, we need to seek out as many sources as possible. For example, the first part of our study is the creation story; in order to understand the paradox of creation and God, we will need to read other creation stories (i.e. Mesopotamian creation myth, and the Egyptians). Do not let this scare you, because what we will find out is that our God is very different than those of the other cultures. Reading fully also helps us to understand the people and their cultures. Here we will be looking at the who, when, and why of the text.

Tradition tells us, as well as Philo of Alexandria and Josephus, that the first five books of the Bible (Torah in Hebrew, Pentateuch in Greek) were written by Moses. I believe that the source of the material in Genesis (as well as the other books of the Pentateuch) belong to Moses. I believe he orally passed on the stories, possibly wrote them down, after all he was a prince of Egypt, which means he could read and write. There is a theory out there by some scholars that think any writing in the ancient times (Ancient Mesopotamia up to the birth of the Middle Ages) were written by pseudonyms. The reasoning goes like this: most of the writings were penned after the supposed author, therefore whoever wrote this did so meaning to give it the authority of the supposed author. Back then, plagiarism was not a thing, as well as not citing sources. However, I do not believe every ancient manuscript was created under that pretension. It is possible that Genesis, or the rest of the Torah/Pentateuch were written this way, but there is no reason to believe this. Holding to a Mosaic authorship is ok. Who wrote it, at this point, is not important. What is important is that it gives us a clear message of who God is, why God does what He does, and how God is relate able to us.


The text never gives us an actual date of composition. This makes knowing when harder, but not impossible. Some scholars say it was written, or compiled, or added to in different periods: Judges epoch, United Kingdom era, post-exilic period. For me, I hold to a Mosaic authorship, which Deuteronomy ends after Moses’ death, so therefore someone else finished the work or edited it all with his permission before Moses passed. So, to place a date, I would have to say that most of it was put together during their desert wandering. It’s not to difficult to see that Moses would have done this then. They left Egypt, after having been slaves to another nation for around 400 years. Now, when one is a slave under someone they usually pick up the culture, habits, and religion of the master. In this case, it is an entire nation enslaved by another, which means that they would have taken on some of the Egyptian culture and religion. For Moses, who is being led by God, there needed to be change and understanding. Moses, educated under the Egyptians, would have understood and known Egyptian and Mesopotamian creation myths and other stories, so also would have the newly freed ancient Israelites. It’s easy to see then, that Moses would have been influenced by these stories (changing them to fit his theology), to make a difference of their (our) God and the other so called gods/ess of the neighboring cultures. When I say influenced, I do not mean that Moses took the whole story, changed them, therefore making our Genesis account sacrilegious. What I mean is this, Moses used what the people would have known and changed it, added some things he knew of his God, and came out with the book of Genesis. I am thankful to Jeremy Myers for this knowledge, it has really helped me get a grasp on God in Genesis (Myers, “Genesis 1:1, In the Beginning,” One Verse Podcast). This understanding of the period in which I believe Moses wrote is known as the Sitz im Leben (German, pronounced seets eem ley-ben, which means setting in life).

Why is this book important for us to study? First off, Genesis is not an answer book for scientific information (Myers, “Genesis 1:1, In the Beginning,” One Voice Podcast). I am not going to put creationism against science (evolution or intelligent design). As Myers has said, we have to look at the text with questions that the original audience would have asked, not what we would ask today (Myers, “Introduction,” One Verse Podcast). Alister McGrath holds, as do I, that creation was in conflict with and victorious over chaos, which matches with ancient Mesopotamian creation mythologies. McGrath states it like this: 

It is clear that there are parallels between the Old Testament account of God engaging with the forces of chaos and Ugaritic and Canaanite mythology. Nevertheless, there are significant differences at points of importance, not least in the Old Testament’s insistence that the forces of chaos are not to be seen as divine. Creation is not to be understood in terms of different gods warring against each other for mastery of a  (future) universe, but in terms of God’s mastery of chaos and ordering of the world (McGrath, Christian Theology an Introduction, 296-97).

Secondly, this book is about God and his relationship with us. Martin Luther, in his Small Catechism, writes that God created him and everything else, that within the everything else is meant to be a way for man to support himself, and that this is a divine gift from God as our heaven father (Luther, Small Catechism, bookofconcord.org). Thomas Oden, in his first volume of systematic theology The Living God, states that the creation story is more of a ‘drama’ than a scientific observation. He continues to say that it’s a story of a relationship. Oden puts it like this: 

The creation narratives do not pretend to describe in empirical detail, objectively, descriptively, or unmetaphorically, the way in which the world came into being; rather, they declare the awesome primordial fact that the world is radically dependent on the generosity, wisdom, and help of God, the insurmountably good and powerful One (Oden, Living God, 233). 

Basically, God is seen as the all powerful deity who places order out of chaos. As Myers has stated several times in his podcast, God is seen combating chaos peacefully, not with violence as the other so-called gods had done (Myers, “Genesis 1:2, Formless and Void, One Verse Podcast).

Beginning with Genesis, we find the starting point of everything. We will look at who God is, why He is important, and what kind of relationship exists between God and humanity. We will learn about God, His character (as best as we can, since God is still a mystery, even today), and maybe even why He cares so much for us. We will be using the historical method, the who, what, when, where, and why, to find all the information to our questions. The goal, will be to combine what we learn in the Old Testament readings with what we find in the New Testament. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them in the comment section. I will read them and respond as best as I can. I look forward to this study and what we can learn together.

Bibliography

Luther, Martin. Small Catechism. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing, 1921.  

      http://bookofconcord.org/smallcatechism.php#creed

McGrath, Allister. Christian Theology: Introduction. 3rd ed. Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2003.

Myers, Jeremy. "Introduction." One Verse Podcast. Itunes. https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/one-verse-

       podcast/id1037949897

--------------- "In the Beginning." One Verse Podcast. Itunes. https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/one-

       verse-podcast/id1037949897

--------------- "Formless and Void."  One Verse Podcast. Itunes. https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/one-

       verse-podcast/id1037949897

Oden, Thomas C. Living God. Systematic Theology. Vol. 1. Peabody: Prince Press, 1998.

Introduction

Finding God is not easy. In Lutheranism, God finds you. The Holy Spirit brings us salvation, but all we can do is reject it. There is one question though: Who is this God that brings salvation to us? This blog plans to understand who this God is, through the original meaning of the texts we have before us. This blog will be primarily a methods blog, but the hope is to find God. By using the historical-critical method, which will entail history, social sciences (sociology, political science, and economics), and the arts (art history, literature analysis, and original language analysis).

I want to do a section of the Old Testament every other week and a section of the New Testament in the opposite week. I am following a specific Bible plan that is established by Eugene H. Peterson's The Message Remix: Pause a Daily Reading Bible. I am using this, merely, for the structure of my study. I will be using the New Revised Standard Version, mostly. I won't be able to address the whole passage, as I am not fully trained to do a verse by verse commentary; therefore, I will be breaking each portion down to themes, if I can. The first week will be an intro to Genesis, followed by Genesis 1-2; with the next week beginning an intro to John, followed by John 1:1-18. I will be finishing with the last week in the Old Testament in 2 Chronicles 34-36 and in the New Testament it will be Revelation 22. (This is provided I have enough time, I haven't done the math, in which case I will end where I can or revamp the blog to fit).

I hope to pick up new insights as I read and study God's word. I know that I may not see every interpretation as some of my followers will; if this happens, I apologize now. At this moment I am posting this Intro, with, hopefully, the first post next week. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them. I will do my best to reply to all comments. I want to thank you a head of time for your support and comments. PS, if this works out like I hope it does, then there may be a podcast in the future.

C. Bohall