The Gospel-Filled Wallet: A Review

My fellow blogger Milton Stanley has established Transforming Publishing, a publishing venture designed “to make new, high-quality Bible studies and commentaries available worldwide through free file downloads and low-cost hardcopy sales.” I congratulate Milton on this new venture. Transforming Publishing will introduce Christian writers and books to a wider audience.

Milton sent me a copy of Jeff Weddle’s book The Gospel-Filled Wallet: What the Bible Really Says About Money for review. This book is a study of what the Bible says about money, based primarily on an interpretation of Matthew 6:24. Jesus said to his disciples: “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24 KJV).

Weddle begins his book by saying: “I think I hate God” (p. 1). And the affirmation that he hates God appears several times in the book. The statement that he hates God is based on his interpretation of Matthew 6:24. Because we need money and spend most of our lives working hard to earn a paycheck in order to buy the basic necessities of life, because “Our lives are consumed with money,” and because “All of our life is centered on the pursuit, acquisition, and spending” of money, then “our lives prove that we love money,” and thus, “we hate God” (p. 5).

Weddle said: “If you love money, you hate God. If you hold onto money, you are at the same time letting go of and fleeing from God” (p. 3).

Weddle cites several passages of the New Testament to show what Jesus said about money (pp. 7-17), what Paul said about money (pp. 19-29), and what other New Testament writers wrote about money. The book contains a section that describes the attitudes of several people in both the Old Testament and New Testament towards money (pp. 39-51). Weddle then teaches his readers how to hate money and love God (pp. 53-63).

So, how can people then demonstrate that they hate money and love God? By spending the money they have. He said: “If you spend your money, you don’t have it any more, so it ceases to be a problem” (p. 56). Of course, Weddle suggests that people spend their money wisely, on things such as the poor, family, missions, taxes, and other worthy causes.

Weddle concludes the last section of his book with this statement: “The biblical principle on money is this: money is the enemy master opposed to God and it will destroy your faith, so get rid of it quickly” (p. 61). Then he adds: “To me, the fact that the Bible says the best thing to do with money is get rid of it quickly is totally awesome” (p. 62).

Weddle has written many good things about money, things that people in general should consider very seriously. People in general and many Christians in particular are so enamored with the acquisition of wealth that they forget the biblical admonition that “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains” (1 Timothy 6:10).

There are, however, some problems that readers must be aware of when they read this book. The ebionism advocated by Weddle does not reflect the teachings of the Bible. It is true that a passion for money can bring many problems to one’s life, but Paul does not say that money will destroy one’s faith or that people should get rid of money quickly so that they will not lose their faith.

There are some other issues in Weddle’s book that weaken his discussion on what the Bible has to say about money.

First, from my perspective as a professor of Old Testament, the title of the book is incorrect. The subtitle of the book is: What the Bible Really Says About Money and yet, Weddle does not cite one verse from the Old Testament dealing with money. He mentions a few passages from the Old Testament but none of them discusses what the Old Testament teaches about money and wealth. As I tell my students every year, the Bible begins in Genesis, not in Matthew.

Second, in a book dedicated to present the danger of mammon, it is surprising that Weddle does not explain mammon from a first century perspective. Mammon is an Aramaic word. Jews in the first century understood the meaning of the word, but Christians in the twenty-first century do not. To say that mammon means money is not enough.

The origin of the word is uncertain. The word in its original use was not always used negatively. The word acquired a pejorative use in the first century. If, as scholars believe, the word “mammon” comes from the Aramaic word ’mn (believe, trust), then the word “mammon” means “that which one places trust.”

Third, Weddle misunderstood the meaning of “love” and “hate” in Matthew 6:24. In the Old Testament, “love” and “hate” are words related to the covenant and the classical example is Malachi 1:2-3 where God “loved” Jacob but “hated” Esau. The words “love” and “hate” do refer to emotions but to choosing, choosing one person rather than another, choosing one thing and not the other.

Jesus used “love” and “hate” with this same meaning in Luke 14:26. He said: “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” No Christian hates father and mother. Hating father and mother means that Jesus’ disciples must put Christ above loyalty to family. When people place money above God they love money more than they love God.

Many Christians believe that Jesus’ denunciation of wealth means that his disciples must renounce material possessions. However, what Jesus is teaching is that service to God must be exclusive and total. God demands exclusive allegiance of his followers. This demand transcends all other claims on a person’s life.

However, according to the Old Testament, serving God does not necessarily exclude the possession of wealth, for wealth can be understood as a gift from God. Those who put the accumulation of wealth above their commitment to God have denied God’s exclusive claim on their lives because now money claims the allegiance of those persons.

The Bible does not condemn the accumulation of wealth. Deuteronomy 8:17-18 says: “Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.’ But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth.” If God is the one who gives us the “power to get wealth,” then the accumulation of wealth is not wrong.

What people must learn is that God is the source of everything they have. The Bible also says: “Take care that you do not forget the LORD your God, by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes, which I am commanding you today. When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the LORD your God” (Deuteronomy 8:11-14).

This is what I believe is behind Jesus’ words in Matthew 6:24. The writer of Deuteronomy says that silver and gold will be multiplied, but God holds his people accountable for the wealth he has enabled them to acquire and expects them to be generous and compassionate in sharing their wealth with others.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


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Tags: Money, Wealth, Mammon, Jeff Weddle

Sickle Cell Disease in Ancient Egypt

Image: King Tut



According to a news report, a group of scientists from the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg, Germany said that King Tut probably died of a genetic blood disorder known as sickle cell disease.

An earlier report by Egyptian archaeologists involving DNA tests and computerized tomography (CT) scans said that pharaoh Tutankhamun had died of malaria.

According to the report,

One of the most common genetic disorders, sickle cell disease causes blood cells to take the shape of a crescent instead of being smooth and round, thereby blocking blood flow and leading to chronic pain, infections and tissue death.

Read the article here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


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Tags: Archaeology, King Tut, Sickle Cell Disease, Ancient Egypt

The Chronology of Ancient Egypt

A team of researchers from England, France, Austria, and Israel have done a radiocarbon analysis of 211 samples taken from seeds, baskets, textiles, fruits, and other plants in order to develop a more accurate chronology of ancient Egypt. The result of this analysis, according to Christopher Bronk Ramsey, a physicist and mathematician at the University of Oxford, has provided scholars with an “accurate chronology of ancient Egyptian dynasties that agrees with most previous estimates.”

The following are excerpts from the article published in Science Daily:

For several thousands of years, ancient Egypt dominated the Mediterranean world -- and scholars across the globe have spent more than a century trying to document the reigns of the various rulers of Egypt's Old, Middle and New Kingdoms. Now, a detailed radiocarbon analysis of short-lived plant remains from the region is providing scientists with a long and accurate chronology of ancient Egyptian dynasties that agrees with most previous estimates but also imposes some historic revisions.

Although previous chronologies have been precise in relative ways, assigning absolute dates to specific events in ancient Egyptian history has been an extremely contentious undertaking. This new study tightly constrains those previous predictions, especially for the Old Kingdom, which was determined to be slightly older than some scholars had believed. The study will also allow for more accurate historical comparisons to surrounding areas, like Libya and Sudan, which have been subject to many radiocarbon dating techniques in the past.

****

The researchers' new chronology does indicate that a few events occurred earlier than previously predicted. It suggests, for example, that the reign of Djoser in the Old Kingdom actually started between 2691 and 2625 B.C. and that the New Kingdom began between 1570 and 1544 B.C.

Read the complete report about the study here and here.

Most people reading this information may not realize the importance of this study. Most Biblical scholars and Egyptologists have rejected Velikovski’s views. They also agree with a standard chronology for ancient Egypt, although the dates for the reign of some of the kings may vary by a few years.

However, a group of people, mostly influenced by Immanuel Velikovski’s book Worlds in Collision, have proposed to lower the chronology of Egypt by about 500 years.

I have evaluated Velikovski’s views in two previous posts: Immanuel Velikovsky and the History of Israel and Immanuel Velikovsky and the Old Testament. In these two posts I reject Velikovski’s attempt to synchronize a lower Egyptian chronology with Biblical history and provide several reasons why his views about the Exodus, the Hyksos, and the Amalekites are unacceptable.

The followers of Velikovski’s views will try to dismiss this new conclusion about Egyptian chronology as irrelevant. They will also try to discredit the reliability of radiocarbon dating, but as Ramsey said, “For the first time, radiocarbon dating has become precise enough to constrain the history of ancient Egypt to very specific dates. I think scholars and scientists will be glad to hear that our small team of researchers has independently corroborated a century of scholarship in just three years.”

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


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Tags: Egyptian Chronology, Carbon Dating, Christopher Ramsey, Immanuel Velikovski

The Historical Context of Zephaniah’s Ministry

Scholars are in agreement that Zephaniah exercised his ministry in Jerusalem prior of the reforms of Josiah. The editorial introduction to the book says that Zephaniah was active during the reign of King Josiah, the son of Amon, and the grandson of Manasseh. Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign in 640 B.C. and he died in Megiddo in 609 B.C. in a battle against Neco, the king of Egypt (2 Kings 23:29).

It is clear from Zephaniah’s oracles that his message provided the impetus for Josiah’s reform in 622 B.C. (on Josiah's reform, here and here). Zephaniah’s influence on Josiah’s reform will be the focus of my next post. In this study, I want to consider the historical context of Zephaniah’s ministry.

When Zephaniah began his prophetic ministry, Judah was a vassal of Assyria. At the end of the eighth century B.C., Hezekiah made an effort to gain independence from Assyrian domination. When the seventh century dawned on Judah, Hezekiah was still in power, and still a vassal of Assyria. Hezekiah’s attempt at independence and freedom from Assyrian control failed and he was unable to break the yoke of oppression.

During the reign of Sennacherib, king of Assyria, the Assyrian empire was the dominant power in the Ancient Near East. After the Assyrian army was decimated by a plague in the days of Isaiah, it is possible that Sennacherib invaded Judah for a second time and only Hezekiah’s death saved him from severe retribution at the hands of Assyria (on Sennacherib's invasion, here).

After the death of Hezekiah in 687 B.C., his son Manasseh (687-642) ascended to the throne of Judah. Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king. At the time Manasseh became king, he had two choices about the future of his kingdom. He could rebel against Assyria and refuse to pay the annual tribute or he could continue as a vassal of Assyria and guarantee the stability of his kingdom and receive protection from Assyria. Because of the dominance of the Assyrian empire in the Ancient Near East and the strength of its army, Manasseh had no other choice but to desist from any attempt to gain independence from Assyria. Manasseh accepted Assyrian sovereignty and declared Judah to be a loyal vassal.

Because of his voluntary subjugation to Assyria, Manasseh was highly criticized by the writers of the book of Kings and he was declared to be an evil king: “He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, following the abominable practices of the nations that the LORD drove out before the people of Israel” (2 Kings 21:2).

Since Manasseh chose to become a loyal vassal of Assyria, he abandoned the religious reforms of his father Hezekiah. During Manasseh’s reign, Assyria controlled the economic, religious, and political life of Judah with a strong hand.

Manasseh’s policy of submission greatly affected the religious life of Judah. Manasseh promoted the Assyrian worship of the “host of heavens” (2 Kings 21:3). These deities were Asshur, Ishtar, the Queen of Heaven, and the worship of the sun. Manasseh promoted Canaanite religious practices in Judah: the worship of Baal and Asherah (2 Kings 21:3). He also promoted other pagan practices: child sacrifice, fertility religion, magic, and divination (2 Kings 21:6). In addition, Manasseh persecuted the followers of Yahweh, driving them underground (2 Kings 21:16).

During the long reign of Manasseh, Assyria continued to dominate Mesopotamia. Assyrian power reached its zenith with Esarhaddon (680-669), who was the commander of the Assyrian army when his father Sennacherib died. After reestablishing Assyrian power in Babylon, Esarhaddon renewed the Assyrian policy of total conquest established by his predecessors by campaigning throughout his vast empire to confront rebellious vassals. In the chronicles of his kingdom, Esarhaddon boasted of conquering rebellious vassals in Palestine and deporting them to other regions of the empire.

Esarhaddon invaded Egypt, conquered Memphis, captured the royal family, and looted the treasures of Egypt. The prophet Nahum (Nahum 3:8) mentioned the conquest of Thebes by Esarhaddon in 663 B.C.

Manasseh reigned for 55 years, longer than any other king of Judah. During his reign Manasseh reversed the policies of his father. Hezekiah’s commitment to God did not influence the religious life of of his son. Manasseh’s evil deeds surpassed even the evil reign of Ahaz, his grandfather.

After Manasseh died, his son Amon became king of Judah and continued the political and religious policies of his father. After two years on the throne, some of Amon’s officials conspired against him and assassinated him in his palace. But, a group of landed Judeans, known as “the people of the land,” killed all those who had conspired against King Amon, and then made Josiah, Amon’s son, the new king of Judah.

Josiah (640-609) reigned for thirty-one years in Jerusalem. Josiah was considered one of Judah’s greatest kings: “Before him there was no king like him, who turned to the LORD with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; nor did any like him arise after him” (2 Kings 23:25).

When Josiah became the king of Judah, the Assyrian empire was on the verge of collapse due to internal strife in the struggle for the throne of Assyria. In the midst of the political struggle in Assyria, the Babylonians, led by the Chaldean prince Nabopolassar (626-605), gained independence from Assyria by defeating them outside Babylon in 626. Nabopolassar became the founder of the neo-Babylonian empire, an empire that lasted until its demise and fall in 539 at the hands of Cyrus the Great, the king of Persia.

It is within this political maelstrom that the prophet Zephaniah proclaimed the Word of the Lord. His ministry and his criticism of the religious practices of Judah served as a wake-up call to people who were against the religious innovations introduced by Manasseh.

The struggle between Assyria and Babylon provided a window of opportunity for Judah to embark on serious religious reforms. The preaching of Zephaniah set the stage for a radical transformation of the religious life of the people. The Lord called and sent Zephaniah to the people of Jerusalem to proclaim that the terrible Day of the Lord was at hand. This is the reason Zephaniah was compelled to proclaim the word of the Lord.

Other Studies on Zephaniah:

Prophets in Israel

Zephaniah the Prophet

Zephaniah and the Palestinians


Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


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Tags: Zephaniah, Josiah, Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amon

The Portraits of the Apostles Peter and John

Discovery News is reporting that the oldest known portraits of four of Jesus’ apostles have been found in a catacomb near St. Paul’s Basilica in Rome.

Dating from the end of the 4th century, the full-face paintings depict three of Jesus’ original 12 apostles -- St. Peter, St. Andrew and St. John -- as well as St. Paul, who became an apostle after Christ’s death.

Read the report and see a picture of the portraits by clicking here.

Read also: The Oldest Image of the Apostle Paul

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


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Tags: Peter, Paul, John, Andrew

Biblical Theology and Environmental Ethics

Last week I attended Acton University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Acton University is the annual conference of the Acton Institute, an organization dedicated to the study of religion and liberty.

As I mentioned in a previous post, the conference offered several seminars dealing with theology, ethics, economics, market and the family, and the environment. One of the lectures was “Biblical Theology and Environmental Ethics.” The seminar was taught by Ben Phillips, professor of theology at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Houston, Texas.

Environmental ethics is based on the theology of creation that is found in the Old Testament. There are three aspects that influence a Christian perspective of environmental ethics. First, that since God is the creator, the whole earth belongs to God. Divine ownership of the earth is proclaimed in Psalm 24:1: “The earth is the LORD’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it.”

Second, since the earth and all things in it belong to God, then, the earth and its riches have been given to humanity as a divine gift. As the Psalmist wrote: “The heavens belong to the LORD, but the earth he has given to mankind” (Psalm 115:16).

The theology of creation in the Old Testament affirms that God’s creation is good. In the creation story in Genesis, six times God himself affirmed that what he had created was “good.” Then, at the end of his work of creation, God saw all the things he had created and he said that “it was very good” (Genesis 1:31).

The whole creation, that which God said to be good, is a witness to the character of the God of the Bible. The good creation is the work of a good God. Thus, when God created the earth, he created it with a purpose. The problem humans face is understanding God’s purpose for creation. The fact is that creation exists to glorify the Creator: “All you have made will praise you” (Psalm 145:10).

While the heavens belong to God and all creation praises him, God gave the earth to become the place where humans would live. Yet, although human beings live on earth, the earth does not belong to human beings.

What makes human beings different from the animals is that only humans were created in the image and likeness of the Creator (Genesis 1:26-27). The meaning of the “image of God” in human beings has been much debated among theologians. What does it mean to be created in the image of God? Whatever the meaning of this expression might be, I believe the image of God in human beings refers to the role they play in creation.

The role humans play in creation is expressed in God’s words to the human beings he had created: “God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth’” (Genesis 1:28).

These words of God to the man and woman he had created mean that God entrusted the world to the ones created in the divine image. Thus, for better or for worse, the divine mandate giving humans dominion over the created order is necessary for the full development of what God had created. Human beings were made like God to rule over God’s creation.

It is this view of human dominion over God’s creation that concerns us today. Humans have taken the divine mandate to abuse their stewardship over God’s creation. Today we face many environmental crises. The massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is a clear example of the ecological catastrophe that is a result of mismanagement of the stewardship entrusted to us.

Other problems that have developed in recent years are the pollution of our environment, the problem of global warming, carbon emission, the destruction of arable land, deforestation, soil erosion, the extinction of several species, and other problems caused by humans that contribute to the destruction of the natural resources and of the environment in which we live.

What can people do in light of the responsibility entrusted to us and in light of the fact that God is the owner of the world in which we live? First, we must recognize that human dominion over God’s creation is not a license to kill and destroy. Human dominion over God’s creation describes what humans must do to control the environment so that they may live and not die.

Second, human dominion over God’s creation does not mean exploitation but care of what God has entrusted to us. Humans have been crowned “with glory and honor” and given dominion over the works of God’s hand (Psalm 8:5-6). This kingly authority delegated to humans means that humans reign over God’s creation in a way that their authority reflects the character of the Creator. That is, humans must exercise their authority aware that they are responsible for the welfare of other human beings, and in the end, that they are accountable to the creator God.



Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


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Tags: Environment, Ethics, Creation, Environmental Ethics

Avaris: The Capital City of the Hyksos

According to a news report, archaeologists have found an ancient Egyptian city which is believed to be Avaris, the capital of the Hyksos. The Hyksos were Asiatic people who ruled Egypt for about one hundred years (ca. 1650-1542 B.C., if the low chronology is followed). Others date the Hyksos conquest from 1664-1569 B.C.

To read the article about the discovery of Avaris, click here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


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Tags: Archaeology, Avaris, Hyksos

Acton University

Today I will be traveling to Grand Rapids, Michigan to attend the annual conference of the Acton Institute. The conference is called “Acton University.” Acton University "offers a unique opportunity for religious leaders and university professors to deepen their knowledge and integrate rigorous philosophy, Christian theology, and sound economics."

These are some of the lectures I will be attending at Acton University:

“Social and Economic Context of the New Testament”
“Wealth and Poverty in Scripture”
“Evangelical Social Thought: Justice Grounded in Love”
“Biblical Theology and Environmental Ethics”

I attended Action University last year and was greatly challenged by the lectures. This year, once again, I will be attending Acton University as a Kern Fellow. The Kern Family Foundation has graciously provided me with a scholarship that allows me to attend Acton University

So, I will be gone from June 15-18, 2010. After I return from Michigan, I will post about my experience at Acton University and what I learned from the lectures.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


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Tags: Acton University

The Death of Jacob Milgrom

Jacob Milgrom, a conservative rabbi, a well-known biblical scholar, and the professor emeritus of Near Eastern studies at the University of California at Berkeley, died on June 6 in Jerusalem of a brain hemorrhage related to a fall. Milgrom was 87.

Jacob Milgrom was best known for his comprehensive three-volume commentary on Leviticus published in the Anchor Bible series.

You can read more about Jacob Milgrom’s life and scholarship in the Jewish Weekly and in Haaretz.

HT: Jim Davila

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

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Tags: Jacob Milgrom

Temple Furniture from a 3,500-Year-Old Canaanite Temple

Archaeologists excavating at Tel Qashish have discovered the remains of a 3,500-year-old Canaanite temple. At the site archaeologists also found more than 200 items used in the temple.

The fallowing report about the discovery was published by Discover News:

Israeli archeologists have found a large cache of intact pagan vessels piled one atop the other in a natural hollow of bedrock in Tel Qashish, southeast of Haifa.

Used by the ancient Canaanite people in a pagan cult that worshiped idols, the 3,500-year-old vessels belonged to a previously undiscovered temple.

Most likely, the priests buried the temple's furniture in order to protect the items from destruction during an incursion of the ancient Egyptians.

Indeed, at the end of the Late Bronze Age (the Canaanite period), the region was vanquished, including Tel Qashish, which was destroyed by a fierce conflagration.

Discovery News has provided an excellent slide show which is narrated by archeologist Edwin van den Brink, the excavation co-director on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority. Make sure that you visit Discovery News and watch the slide presentation. Click here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


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Tags: Archaeology, Canaanite Temple, Tel Qashish, Edwin van den Brink

The Death of Don Browning

Don S. Browning (1934-2010), a renowned professor of practical theology at University of Chicago’s Divinity School died last week at the age of 76. Browning’s writings have been very influential in the religious formation of pastors and seminary students.

The following is Don Browning’s obituary that appeared in the Chicago Tribune. The obituary was written by Trevor Jensen, a Chicago Tribune reporter:

Don S. Browning brought Ivory Tower theological theory to earth by bridging the study of religion with fields including psychology and law, and issues such as marriage and family.

A professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School for nearly 40 years, Dr. Browning, 76, died of cancer on Thursday, June 3, in his Hyde Park home, said his son Christopher.

Dr. Browning was one of the architects of Practical Theology, which, as its name implies, looks into ways to link theology to law, psychology and pastoral care. The ideas were laid out in one of his most widely known books, "A Fundamental Practical Theology," which was published in 1991 and is about to be translated into Chinese.

"How does theology work on the ground?" was the key question that his scholarship explored, said Kristine A. Culp, dean of the Disciples Divinity House at the U. of C. (a post Dr. Browning held from 1977 to 1983), where she is also a professor.

Theology and the social sciences he held it up against are "not always contradictory. They try to explain the plights and possibilities of human life," Culp said.

The titles of Dr. Browning's many books attest to the breadth of his scholarship: "Atonement and Psychotherapy," "Religious Thought and Modern Psychologies," "Marriage and Modernization: How Globalization Threatens Marriage and What to Do About It."

He edited or contributed to several other books and publications. In his final days, he continued to work on a book covering family law and religion with Emory University law professor John Witte Jr.

His work was aimed not only at fellow academics but public policy leaders, pastors and health professionals. Theologian Martin E. Marty, his longtime friend and colleague, said Dr. Browning felt the most important theology was written both for the university and the church — academically sound theory that works for scholars as well as a pastor tending the wide-ranging needs of his congregation.

"He found those dimensions of religious thought that do have applications to the way lives are lived," Marty said. "Browning took (theological thought) and did not let it stay with the academy, but (examined) how it applies to the lives of people."

In 1990, Dr. Browning undertook a far-reaching project on religion, culture and family that brought together scholars from a variety of disciplines and delved into issues including family law and biblical perspectives on the family.

Raised in a small town in north central Missouri, Dr. Browning funded his undergraduate education at Central Methodist College (now Central Methodist University) in Missouri by preaching at a local church, his son said. He went on to receive his master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Chicago, and also was an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

During his long tenure at the U. of C., he oversaw thesis work for 85 master's of divinity and doctoral students, his son said. Serious in demeanor but with a ready smile, he was deeply involved in the lives and careers of his many students and was active in university affairs.

"He took responsibility for the institution. He didn't just live off of it," Marty said.

Dr. Browning also is survived by his wife, Carol; a daughter, Elizabeth; a sister, Carolyn Muncy; and two grandchildren.

Services are set for 2 p.m. Thursday at Hyde Park Union Church, 5600 S. Woodlawn Ave., Chicago.

R.I.P.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


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Tags: Don Browning

Google and Caffeine

Google has announced that they have developed Caffeine, a new search index that will provide up-to-date information results for people searching the web. The following is an excerpt from the announcement made by Google:

Today, we're announcing the completion of a new web indexing system called Caffeine. Caffeine provides 50 percent fresher results for web searches than our last index, and it's the largest collection of web content we've offered. Whether it's a news story, a blog or a forum post, you can now find links to relevant content much sooner after it is published than was possible ever before.

Some background for those of you who don't build search engines for a living like us: when you search Google, you're not searching the live web. Instead you're searching Google's index of the web which, like the list in the back of a book, helps you pinpoint exactly the information you need

Our old index had several layers, some of which were refreshed at a faster rate than others; the main layer would update every couple of weeks. To refresh a layer of the old index, we would analyze the entire web, which meant there was a significant delay between when we found a page and made it available to you.

With Caffeine, we analyze the web in small portions and update our search index on a continuous basis, globally. As we find new pages, or new information on existing pages, we can add these straight to the index. That means you can find fresher information than ever before—no matter when or where it was published.

Caffeine lets us index web pages on an enormous scale. In fact, every second Caffeine processes hundreds of thousands of pages in parallel. If this were a pile of paper it would grow three miles taller every second. Caffeine takes up nearly 100 million gigabytes of storage in one database and adds new information at a rate of hundreds of thousands of gigabytes per day. You would need 625,000 of the largest iPods to store that much information; if these were stacked end-to-end they would go for more than 40 miles.

Read the complete article by visiting Google’s official blog by clicking here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


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Tags: Caffeine, Google, Blogging

Disturbing Divine Behavior

“I believe in God.” These are the first words of the Apostles’ Creed. God also appears at the beginning of the Bible, “In the beginning God” (Genesis 1:1) and at the beginning of the Gospel of John. In fact, God is the main character of both Old and New Testaments. The question that seldom is asked by those who believe in God is: what kind of God do we believe in?

This question becomes very important when people begin to study the Old Testament and are confronted with some of the things God said and did. Many people who read the Old Testament, even those who are Christians and believe in God, are surprised and horrified at some aspects of God’s behavior and how he commanded the people of Israel to slaughter the Canaanites and kill all the people who lived in their cities.

The problem of divine behavior in the Old Testament is one of those issues that has caused believers and nonbelievers to question whether God is a good or an evil God. The Bible presents many of the actions of God that have raised moral and theological issues in the mind of readers. Some of these troubling images of God bewilder readers of the Bible. They struggle with these disturbing images of God and some even question whether the God who revealed himself to Israel and the God who was manifested in the person of Jesus Christ are the same God or whether this God is a God of love and mercy.

In his book, Disturbing Divine Behavior: Troubling Old Testament Images of God (Fortress Press, 2009), Eric A. Seibert seeks to address some of the passages where God’s behavior seemingly contradicts other passages in the Bible where God is presented as a loving and forgiving God. Seibert believes that it is impossible to reconcile (what he believes to be) these irreconcilable views of God and that these disturbing actions of God cannot be defended.

There is no doubt that some of the things God asked his people to do appear to be evil and unfair. How could God ask Abraham to kill his beloved son Isaac when God gave that son to Abraham in his old age and then promised Abraham that through Isaac and his descendants a great nation would emerge to bless all the families of the earth?

How could God order Joshua and the Israelites to conquer the land of Canaan and in the process destroy many cities and exterminate entire populations, including men, women, and children, young and old? How could God order Saul to attack the Amalekites and then order him to “utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey” (1 Samuel 15:3)?

If the God of the Old Testament waged war, the God who revealed himself in Christ told his followers to love our enemy. If the God of the Old Testament commanded entire nations to be destroyed, the God who revealed himself in Christ told his followers to turn the other cheek, to forgive, and not to kill. The issue Seibert raises in his book is whether the God of the Old Testament is different from the God of the New Testament.

These are questions with which most readers of the Bible struggle. And in response to this disturbing divine behavior, some people lose faith in God and become atheists and critics of the God of the Bible. Others, become like Marcion, who rejected the God of the Old Testament in favor of the God of Jesus. Marcion believed that the Old Testament was the gospel of an alien God. These neo-Marcionites reject the God of the Old Testament to become followers of the God of the New Testament.

Those who believe that the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are the one and same God, seek ways of understanding God’s actions and make an attempt at demonstrating that this so-called disturbing divine behavior is not inconsistent with what the Old Testament says about God as a gracious and merciful God. Can Christians accept the God of the Old Testament and his actions and still believe that he is a merciful and gracious God?

Fortress Press graciously sent me a copy of Siebert’s book for review. After reading Disturbing Divine Behavior, I came to the conclusion that Seibert’s solution to the problem of disturbing divine behavior is not acceptable. To say that some of the things God commanded the people of Israel to do never happened, destroys the historical underpinnings of the Bible. To say that the God of the text and the real God are different is to minimize the fact that all that we know about God is found in the text. In the same vein, most of the solutions proposed by Seibert are unacceptable.

During the Summer I will write a series of posts reviewing Seibert’s arguments and his proposed solutions. In these forthcoming posts, I will make an attempt at answering Seibert’s views and propose a different approach to Seibert’s argument, one which says that these divine actions indeed happened and that the God of the Bible is still a good and loving God.


Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


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Tags: Eric A. Seibert, Theodicy, Marcion, Marcionites, Genocide

The Graduating Class of 2010

Last Saturday was Graduation Day at Northern Seminary. Graduation Day is a time of pomp and circumstance. It is a day when students reach the goal of their theological education by completing their studies in preparation for a lifetime of service in the cause of Christ.

Obtaining a Diploma in Religious Studies, a Master’s Degree in Divinity, or a Doctor’s Degree in Ministry is a great achievement that deserves special recognition. A Master’s Degree in Divinity requires a minimum of three years beyond the baccalaureate degree and a Doctor’s in Ministry degree requires three to four years beyond the Master’s degree.

Many years ago, I heard Billy Graham say that when God calls a person to the ministry, the first call is always the call to preparation. Students pay a heavy price in preparing themselves for the ministry, but this type of preparation pays dividends. A seminary education is one of the key components (but not the only one) for a successful ministry.

People who have never attended seminary are not aware of the demands of seminary life. The first thing a freshman student discovers is that there is a lot of reading in seminary. I remember when I began my theological education and how I was shocked by the amount of reading seminary students must do in one year. I guess that in my first year of seminary, I probably read ten thousand pages for my classes. Here at Northern Seminary, we are on the quarter system. There is always more reading in the semester system, but in the quarter system, students are required to read a minimum of one thousand pages per course they take.

Then, in seminary there is a lot of writing. Each course at Northern requires a research component. This means that most professors require students to write a research paper, ten to fifteen pages in length. In my seminary days most papers were twenty pages long. Then, there are those famous book reviews. Depending how many books students are required to read for a course, there may be two or three book reviews in a quarter. Sometimes, even more.

That much reading and that much writing, not counting preparation for exams, quizzes, reports, class discussions, and special projects requires hours and hours of study and preparation. If one takes into consideration that today most students work full time, have a family, and serve either as a pastor or a lay leader in his or her church, the sacrifice students make to prepare themselves for a life of service is enormous. This is the reason graduation day is a day of celebration. Like Daniel’s friends, the students who make up the graduating class of 2010 were tried in the burning fiery furnace and they remained faithful until the end.

Now, these students will face the many trials of the ministry. These students are now sent to a society that has little regard for the things of God and to people who will in many cases reject the good news these students bring. They will also face church members who are set in their ways and who may be reluctant to accept the enthusiasm and the idealism these new graduates bring to their churches.

When students finish their theological education, they do so with the same enthusiasm and idealism that brought them to seminary in the first place. The call of God is the strongest motivator that provides students with the stamina to face the rigors of seminary life, with the strength to confront the demands of a seminary education, and with the courage to face the many challenges of the ministry. However, the indifference they encounter in the pew is what destroys that enthusiasm and kills that idealism. But faith in God and the certainty of that divine call will continue to provide the source of strength the new graduates will need for a successful ministry.

I salute the graduating class of 2010. These graduates have a noble call from God and an important mission in the world. Their mission is to bring men and women, young and old into a personal, intimate relationship with God. They must be faithful in the task God assigned to them and work hard until “the earth be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:9).

I am honored that I had a small part in the theological preparation of the graduating class of 2010.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


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Tags: Northern Seminary, Theological Education, Ministry

Searching for a Woman’s Voice in Psalms

Marc Zvi Brettler has published an interesting article in Biblical Archaeology Review dealing with a woman’s voice in the Psalms. His article is a study of Psalm 113. The following is the introduction to his article:

Feminist study often calls attention to what is absent, such as a female voice or point-of-view in a particular text. I am using this approach, among others, as I study the Book of Psalms. Upon first, second and even third reading, no psalm from Psalms was obviously recited by a woman. In contrast, tens of psalms deal with “male issues,” such as victory in war. Moreover, the Hebrew grammar does not suggest that any psalm was recited by or on behalf of a woman. Many that look gender-neutral in translation are not so in Hebrew; the Jewish Publication Society translation of the beginning of Psalm 1:1, “Happy is the man who has not followed the counsel of the wicked,” is more accurate than the New Revised Standard Version’s “Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked.” The Hebrew word ’ish is masculine singular “man.”

His conclusion:

“The psalm’s conclusion suggest that Psalm 113 is a thanksgiving psalm recited by a woman who had finally given birth. Psalm 113 is the exception that proves the rule that the Psalter is male-oriented.”

To read the article in its entirety, visit the Biblical Archaeology Review online.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


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Tags: Marc Zvi Brettler, Women, Psalm 113

The Significance of Pottery in Archaeological Research

Nava Panitz-Cohen of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in an article published in Biblical Archaeology Review explores the significant impact that pottery has in archaeological research. The following is an excerpt from the article:

Pottery is both the bane and the blessing of the archaeologist’s work. On the one hand, it is often ubiquitous to the point of uncontrollability; on the other hand, it is this very trait that makes it so valuable for archaeological research. Pottery has played a role in determining just about every facet of archaeological study: chronology, ethnicity, trade, prestige, building function, social complexity, level of technology, gender, age, cultic activity, mortuary beliefs—in short, almost every aspect of human culture and behavior we can imagine. More than any other artifact, pottery tells us how ancient people interacted with their environment and with each other.

To read the article in its entirety, visit the Biblical Archaeology Review online.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


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Tags: Archaeology, Nava Panitz-Cohen, Pottery

The Temple Mount in Jerusalem

Eisenbrauns has made available in PDF format an article by David Ussishkin, Professor Emeritus of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University. The article, “The Temple Mount in Jerusalem During the First Temple Period: An Archaeologist's View,” was published in Exploring the Longue Duree: Essays in Honor of Lawrence E. Stager (Eisenbrauns, 2009).

To read this article, click here.

HT: The Bible and Interpretation

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


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Tags: Archaeology, David Ussishkin, Temple Mount, Lawrence Stager

Abraham’s Children and the Genome Project

Newsweek Magazine has a fascinating article in which it reports the findings of scientists who studied the genomes of hundreds of European Jews. These scientists concluded “that the Jews of the Diaspora share a set of telltale genetic markers, supporting the traditional belief that Jews scattered around the world have a common ancestry.”

The following is the conclusion of the article written by Sharon Begley is Newsweek’s science editor:

Analysis of Jewish genomes has been yielding fascinating findings for more than a decade. A pioneer in this field, Michael Hammer of the University of Arizona, made the first big splash when he discovered that genetics supports the biblical account of a priestly family, the Cohanim, descended from Aaron, the brother of Moses: one specific genetic marker on the Y chromosome (which is passed on from father to son, as membership in the priestly family would be) is found in 98.5 percent of people who self-identify as Cohanim, he and colleagues reported in a 1997 paper in Nature.

The Cohanim DNA has been found in both Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, evidence that it predates the time when the two groups diverged, about 1,000 years ago. DNA can also be used to infer when particular genetic markers appeared, and suggests that the Cohanim emerged about 106 generations ago, making it fall during what is thought to be the period of the exodus from Egypt, and thus Aaron’s lifetime.

Read the article in its entirety here.

This study of Jewish genome contradicts the theory of Shlomo Sand, published in his book The Invention of the Jewish People in which he proposed that European Jews are the descendants of the Khazars, a Turkic group of the north Caucasus. According to Sand's theory, the Khazars converted to Judaism in the late eighth and early ninth century.

The view that the Jewish people have a common ancestry is clearly taught in the Bible, but, for some unknown reason, people still don’t believe what the Bible teaches.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


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Tags: Jewish Genome, Shlomo Sand, Cohanim DNA

Proverbs 19:17

“Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will repay him for his deed” (Proverbs 19:17).

Poverty is a tragedy that affects people in every country of the world. The poor are individuals who lack the necessary means to provide for their basic needs. In an ideal world, poverty would never exist. This is the view taken by the author of Deuteronomy: “There should be no poor among you” (Deuteronomy 15:4).

However, there is a basic condition if poverty is to cease in the world: “If only you obey the LORD your God and are careful to follow every one of these commands I am giving you today” (Deuteronomy 15:5). The reason for this caveat is because unless one learns from God how to be as generous as he is, people will fall in love with possessions and will do everything to increase their wealth. This is the kind of person “who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth” (Proverbs 22:16).

Fallen human nature is the reason the wise man took a realistic view of life: “There will never cease to be poor people in the country, and that is why I am giving you this command: Always be open handed with your brother, and with anyone in your country who is in need and poor” (Deuteronomy 15:11).

Poverty was a painful reality that affected many individuals and families throughout the history of ancient Israel. The reason many laws dealing with poverty were enacted by the community was because poverty was a fact of life in Israel and the number of people who became poor increased with the passing of time. These laws urged Israelites to be “open handed” with people in need.

There were many reasons for poverty in Israel. Most Israelites were farmers who lived from the produce of the land. Although natural disasters would bring times and situations in which Israelite farmers would be deprived of food and the benefits of their work, most Israelites had enough to survive and to maintain their families.

It was the establishment of the monarchy in Israel that changed the way Israelites related to the land. In the beginning, Israel was a communal society. An Israelite had to produce only enough to sustain his family and maybe to sell or trade with others for goods that he could not produce.

However, with the establishment of the monarchy, Israel became an exporter of goods and for this reason, Israelite families had to produce more goods in order to pay their taxes to the government. It is here that poverty took a turn for the worse, because now the average Israelite had to produce for his family, for small trade, and then produce more than they needed for personal consumption to pay taxes to the king.

And kings do not live on little. As Samuel warned the people: “He [the king] will take the best of your fields, vineyards, and olive orchards and give them to his officials. He will take a tenth of your grain and wine and give it to his aids and officials” (1Samuel 8:14-15). The government does not produce anything. Rather, government distributes the wealth of the people by taking it from some to give it to others.

When people were unable to pay their taxes to the government because of poor crops and other situations that did not allow them to produce a supply of goods, the government intervened and confiscated the land. In times of economic hardship, people had to borrow money to pay their taxes. Often people had to get loans to provide for their families.

Many times when people borrowed money, if their situation did not improve, they became unable to repay these loans. When that happened, the debtors were taken to court where dishonest judges ruled against them, took their land, and gave their land to the creditors. Since the land of Israel was an arid land and droughts happened from time to time, this situation probably was repeated many times.

The laws about poverty in Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Leviticus were enacted in order to address this sad situation that existed in Israelite society. When one compares the laws dealing with poverty in these books, one notices that the laws were changed and modified in order to address economic and social conditions that grew worse with the passing of time.

The ideal about the poor and poverty in Israel is expressed in Deuteronomy when the writer said that there should be no poor people in Israel. However, the same writer recognized the reality of Israelite society and affirmed in the same text that the poor would always be present in Israel.

Poverty could have been eliminated from Israel if the Israelites had lived by the demands of the covenant. Because they failed to become the kind of people God expected them to be, poverty remained in Israel.

One aspect of the law of poverty in Israel was that helping the poor was always the responsibility of individual Israelites, never the responsibility of the government. Another thing in these laws about poverty was that these laws required the poor to work for their food. This is completely contrary to what is done in our society today, where poor people become dependent on the government and do not work for what they receive.

The Bible presents a realistic view of poverty, but it does not mean that God approves poverty or that poverty should be accepted by society as a way of life. God urges his people to be generous with the poor. As the wise man said, “He who is generous to the poor makes a loan to the LORD; He will repay him his due” (Proverbs 19:17 ). Jesus said: “Give to the poor and you will have a treasure in heaven” (Luke 18:22).

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


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Tags: Hebrew Bible, Old Testament, Poor, Poverty, Proverbs

Glenn Beck and the Dead Sea Scrolls

Recently, Glenn Beck, the popular radio and television personality made a reference to the Dead Sea Scrolls on one of his radio programs. Listen to the section where Glenn Beck mentions the Dead Sea Scrolls. As you listen, pay close attention to what he says and try to find out how incorrect he is about the Dead Sea Scrolls. After you listen, I will comment on his misinterpretations of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Here is the transcript of what Glenn Beck said:





Now, let me show you how wrong Glenn Beck is:

1. Glenn Beck associated the Dead Sea Scrolls with Constantine and the Council of Nicaea.

This is incorrect.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are copies of Biblical books and other Jewish extra-biblical documents which were written prior to the birth of Christ, beginning circa 150 B.C. It is possible that some of these manuscripts were also written prior to the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. The Council of Nicaea was convened by the Roman Emperor Constantine in 325 A.D. Thus, the two events are centuries apart and they are not related.

2. Glenn Beck said that the Council of Nicaea put together the Apostle’s Creed.

This is incorrect.

The Council of Nicaea met in what is Turkey today in 325 A.D. and it dealt primarily with Christological issues. The Council expressed its consensus by issuing the Nicene Creed. The Apostles’ Creed “appears for the first time in a letter from a Council in Milan (probably written by Ambrose himself) to Pope Siricius in about 390.” Thus, there is no relation between the Council of Nicaea, the Apostle’s Creed, and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

3. Glenn Beck said that the Dead Sea Scrolls were put into caves because people “were destroying all the truth.”

This is incorrect.

As Robert Cargill said in his blog (Robert Cargill has provided a full transcript of the video in his blog), it seems that Glenn Beck is confusing the Dead Sea Scrolls with the Nag Hammadi manuscripts that were discovered in Egypt in 1945. This collection of manuscripts is the remnant of the Gnostic scriptures. Gnosticism was a religious movement in the early history of the church that was declared to be a perversion of Christianity.

4. Glenn Beck said that at the Council of Nicaea, “the Bible was first bound and everything else.”

This is also incorrect.

Although the date for the final canonization of the 66 books of the Bible as we have them today is disputed, it was not until the end of the fourth century that a list of the 39 book of the Old Testament and a list of the 27 books of the New Testament were put together. It is possible that the Vulgate, the Latin translation of the Bible made by Jerome in 400 A.D. produced the definite collection of books that form the Bible today.

So, what can I say about Glenn Beck’s view of the Dead Sea Scrolls? What can I say? Glenn Beck has presented an interpretation of the Dead Sea Scrolls that is completely devoid of any resemblance to truth.

When people who have little knowledge of historical events that predate Christianity and when their knowledge of church history is limited try to provide information to others without doing proper research, they will make foolish mistakes, mistakes that will misinform people and bring their presentation into ridicule. They will also convey wrong ideas that will be taken by many people to be the truth and nothing but the truth, when in reality what they are saying is nothing but falsehoods and misinformation.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

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Tags: Glenn Beck, Dead Sea Scrolls, Council of Nicaea