He's Not a Tame Lion

That is one of the greatest quotes from The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It is spoken of the lion, Aslan, who represents Jesus.

The wildness of God has really appeared to me as we have been studying the book of Judges in our Bible class. Try looking for it...it's quite clear. God loves the children of Israel, wanting to give them the best, and is their best friend. But time and again the people sin and God becomes their worst enemy.

The words of the Angel of the Lord in chapter two are especially telling:

...you have not obeyed m voice. What is this you have done? So now I say, I will not drive them out before you, but they shall becomes thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you (2:2-3, ESV).

This is certainly not limited to the time of the Judges, by any means. I came across a remarkable passage in Isaiah:

I will recount the steadfast love of the Lord...and the great goodness to the house of Israel...for he said, "Surely they are my people, children who will not deal falsely." And he became their Savior. In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them...but they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit; therefore he turned to be their enemy, and himself fought against them. 

 It's quite amazing. God's love was abundant, but their rebellion turned him into their enemy.

My friend John has three children. He's a great dad, in my opinion. He shows affection and there is no doubt his children know their dad loves them, but he is also quite strict. I recently asked him about how he found this balance. I can't quote him (and he said it much better than I will recall), but he said he looks at his relationship to his children like our relationship to God. He wants to be their friend and have fun with them, but if they want to know the joy of their father, they have to obey him. Otherwise, he is not their friend.

I don't know about you, but I thought that was pretty awesome. What a great philosophy.

Our heavenly Father isn't safe. Jesus certainly isn't safe either (try reading Revelation--a guy with fiery eyes, iron feet for crushing his enemies, and a sword coming out of his mouth isn't a guy to be taken lightly). But He is good. And he wants to have a good relationship with us, but he leaves the ball in our court.

Through the fog

This morning on my way to work there was an incredible fog. I could hardly see as I pulled into Sam’s to get gas. In fact, I had to roll my window down and stick my head out Ace Ventura-style to be safe before I pulled into the parking lot. The fog continued as I drove my usual course “the back way” to the office. But then I turned onto Co Rd 23 and it was like the lights came on. This is normally one of my favorite parts of the drive, but this morning was especially great...fog hovering over the water to my right, fog circling the hills just ahead, but right above that was blinding light. It was like God was welcoming me into the day after having passed through the fog.

Sometimes I wonder if God is hiding right behind a thin veil, that I can almost see him if I look hard enough. I wonder how Adam felt walking with God. Perhaps that is what the new creation will bring. Earth was good but sin messed everything up. Maybe that “thin veil” is our sin which, like a "spiritual cataract," that blinds us to his presence. Like the picture above (which I took last week), there is a mask that hides him from us. One day it will be removed.

marana tha

e¶rcou ku/rie ∆Ihsouv

And I thought they were just conserving paper...

Over on Larry Hurtado's blog, Dr. Hurtado has a nice idea about the nomina sacra, which is the abbreviation of sacred names in early Greek manuscripts. He describes the nomina sacra as words...

written in a unique abbreviated form with a curious horizontal stroke placed over the abbreviation. The earliest and most consistently treated words are the Greek words for “God,” “Lord,” “Jesus,” and “Christ. These words are written as nomina sacra in the earliest clear instances of them in Christian manuscripts, which take us as far back as the second century CE.

Here is an example of the nomina sacra in action. This is John 1:1-2 from Codex Sinaiticus...

Here is the translation, with the circled words in bold: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with GOD and GOD was the Word. The same was in the beginning with GOD."

The word theos (or theon in the accusative case, as in the two circled words on the right) is here abbreviated to ths. Since I first saw this about a year and a half ago, I just thought it was a smart way to conserve paper, which wasn't as easy to come by 2000 years ago as it is today. However, Dr. Hurtado suggests that this was a sign of reverence the early Christians had for the divine name(s). Perhaps it compares to the Jew's reluctance to pronounce YHWH (the "tetragrammaton"). In other words, perhaps Christians felt that God's name is too great even to be written!

I'm a latecomer to the nomina sacra debate, but Hurtado's point makes sense, especially considering that the name of God, Jesus, and Christ are the ones usually abbreviated. However, I have not read enough Greek manuscripts to develop an educated opinion, nor have I read other arguments on the matter, so I'll just file this away in my mind and on my blog as very feasible.

A Treat for My Neck of the Woods

It is not every day that world-class Bible scholar visits good ol' Alabama, but next month Craig Evans will be speaking at a conference at the 2010 Bible Legacy Conference at Southeastern Bible College in Birmingham on a fascinating subject: "Jesus in Light of Ancient Evidence."

Here is the roster:

October 25, 9:30am--"The Biblical Sources"
October 25, 7:00pm--"Can We Trust the Bible Manuscripts?"
October 26, 10:30am--"The Dead Sea Scrolls"
October 27, 7:30am--"Why is Scholarship Important to those in Pastoral Ministry?"
October 27, 9:30am--"The Archaeology of Burial"

New Manuscripts!

My professor just informed me that the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, headed by Daniel Wallace, has discovered over 125 manuscripts in 8 locations that they will be photographing over the next year. This is huge! These manuscripts add up to over 6000 pages of text! This is not going to revolutionize the New Testament, but it will rather strengthen our confidence in the reliability of the Bible and deepen our understanding of the transmission of the New Testament text.

The massive evidence for the reliability of the New Testament continues to grow! I am excited to see what new information these discoveries will bring to textual criticism.