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Book Plunge: The Lost World of the Torah

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  • Book Plunge: The Lost World of the Torah

    How should we read the Law?

    Link

    ------

    What do I think about Walton and Walton's book published by IVP? Let's plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

    Several years ago, Weird Al came out with a song called "Everything You Know Is Wrong." One could say that if the Waltons are right, everything you know about the Law is wrong. The Waltons come with a new way of reading the Torah that is not without controversy, but those who disagree will still have something to think about.

    The book starts the usual way with the idea that Torah is an ancient document. This seems like something so simple and obvious, but it is easily missed. Too many times, we take the text and then thrust it into our modern context and assume the writers of the Old Testament were writing from the same cultural context that we are.

    What is important in understanding any ancient work is not just what is said, but the world in which it is said. The background knowledge of the text makes all the difference. There are some things my wife and I can say to each other that will make each of us laugh that you are not likely to understand as an outsider. The reason is the simple word or words bring out memories that are funny based on our background knowledge.

    Getting into the meat of the matter, the first major section is that the law codes are not legislation. If we took just one law in America in all of its fullness, it could very well be longer than the Torah itself. We cover every possible rule and scenario we can think of. Not so in the ancient world. It was more guidelines there. It could be seen as wisdom literature. One scenario I was surprised was not mentioned at this point was Solomon. Solomon wanted to know how to rule over the people. He never figured, "I have the Law so I have everything that I need." No. He asked for wisdom and in his famous scenario of the two prostitutes and the baby, that wisdom won the day.

    The next is that other cultures had rituals serving to meet the needs of the gods. The gods needed food and everything else and man was meant to supply them in exchange for blessings from the gods. Not so with YHWH who needed nothing. Israel was chosen for entirely different reasons.

    Instead, Israel was chosen and rituals were done to maintain covenant order, which is the next major point. We should read the Law as a covenant. In this, the recipients of the covenant would swear loyalty to the sovereign and in exchange, the sovereign would give them blessings. Covenant is so huge in understanding the Law that we will go wrong if we do not see it that way. If we see it as just a random set of rules to be followed, we miss the point.

    From there, we get to the ongoing usage. For one thing, the New Testament quotations of the Law do not show how it was necessarily understood by its first recipients. The purpose of the Law was also not to provide salvation. It also should not be divided into different kinds of law such as ceremonial and cultic. Most challenging today perhaps is that we should not go and get prooftexts to settle moral disputes today. We should read it as it was written.

    There is also a very helpful section at the end dealing with the Ten Commandments. It's a quite thorough look that can actually deal with many atheistic statements about the Ten Commandments one encounters today. The Waltons show how the Ten Commandments fit into a covenant system.

    I thought it would have been helpful to have more examples of how the Torah should be read. Perhaps take a section and show how we read it today and then give an explanation from there on how they would have understood it. There is much in the book that will be debated and I can't say I'm entirely sold on it yet, but there is certainly a lot of food for thought to consider.

    In Christ,
    Nick Peters

  • #2
    Is there a reason they had to be told to not murder, steal, lie(perjury?), or commit adultery? I thought everyone knew those things were bad!
    If it weren't for the Resurrection of Jesus, we'd all be in DEEP TROUBLE!

    Comment


    • #3
      We have the same laws with murder and theft. Those are just issues meant to establish order. They weren't new news to the Israelites.

      Comment


      • #4
        I know. It's just that I bet some idiot out there thought the Hebrews didn't know murder was bad. And you also have dum dums that complain that the Bible doesn't list every single sin and evil. You know who I mean. And the whole Law can be summed up as to love God and love people.to simplify the two greatest commandments. Fundy atheists are more ignotant than the 5-7 year olds in Bible Buddies that I help in. And they are not even in second grade! Pretty bad that young children have more of a clue. Mainly because they were taught the information.
        If it weren't for the Resurrection of Jesus, we'd all be in DEEP TROUBLE!

        Comment


        • #5
          . It also should not be divided into different kinds of law such as ceremonial and cultic.
          This obviously creates pastoral challenges for the church, as it would have implications on how we answer questions every young believer asks about what is/isn't a sin now.

          I saw the article that Get Religion posted about this, which forced Walton to clarify that he does still hold that homosexuality is a sin. Maybe this would force us to use Gordon Fee's hermeneutic of simply stating that sins are the ones that are also banned in the New Testament. I'm not sure this is satisfying, because when Paul lists sins, they're generally presented as examples of the type of behavior that characterizes unbelievers rather than a strict list of do's and don't. In other words, he seems to assume that we already know those things are wrong.
          "I am not angered that the Moral Majority boys campaign against abortion. I am angry when the same men who say, "Save OUR children" bellow "Build more and bigger bombers." That's right! Blast the children in other nations into eternity, or limbless misery as they lay crippled from "OUR" bombers! This does not jell." - Leonard Ravenhill

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Christianbookworm View Post
            Is there a reason they had to be told to not murder, steal, lie(perjury?), or commit adultery? I thought everyone knew those things were bad!
            Human nature being what it is, if these things weren't explicitly listed as something they couldn't do, somebody would conclude that they had the go-ahead to do it. Look at the gymnastics that people use today to justify their pet sins. I'm pretty sure every youth leader has had to answer the question "where does it say we can't have sex before marriage" millions of times.
            "I am not angered that the Moral Majority boys campaign against abortion. I am angry when the same men who say, "Save OUR children" bellow "Build more and bigger bombers." That's right! Blast the children in other nations into eternity, or limbless misery as they lay crippled from "OUR" bombers! This does not jell." - Leonard Ravenhill

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by KingsGambit View Post
              Human nature being what it is, if these things weren't explicitly listed as something they couldn't do, somebody would conclude that they had the go-ahead to do it. Look at the gymnastics that people use today to justify their pet sins. I'm pretty sure every youth leader has had to answer the question "where does it say we can't have sex before marriage" millions of times.
              And the youth leader answers with Biblical truth, perhaps?
              or does it follow the more usual course, as when a person questions whether Jesus is God?
              The usual answer to the latter is "Don't spout heresy."
              Last edited by tabibito; 03-26-2019, 09:49 PM.
              1Cor 15:34 Come to your senses as you ought and stop sinning; for I say to your shame, there are some who know not God.
              .
              ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛
              Scripture before Tradition:
              but that won't prevent others from
              taking it upon themselves to deprive you
              of the right to call yourself Christian.

              ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by tabibito View Post
                And the youth leader answers with Biblical truth, perhaps?
                or does it follow the more usual course, as when a person questions whether Jesus is God?
                The usual answer to the latter is "Don't spout heresy."
                When I asked back then, I was told it fell under "fornication", which I consider an acceptable answer.
                "I am not angered that the Moral Majority boys campaign against abortion. I am angry when the same men who say, "Save OUR children" bellow "Build more and bigger bombers." That's right! Blast the children in other nations into eternity, or limbless misery as they lay crippled from "OUR" bombers! This does not jell." - Leonard Ravenhill

                Comment


                • #9
                  Hello. I'm new here. Anyway, I think John Walton's book is going to be AWESOME. I have it on my reading list. John Walton's Lost World books on Genesis One and Adam and Eve totally revolutionized the way I read Genesis 1-3. It was quite the paradigm shift! I'm sure his book on Noah's Ark, The Torah, and Scriptural Authority will also be just as eye opening. I've got my eye on his "Genesis 1 As Ancient Cosmology" as well. From what I can tell, this book is to The Lost World Of Genesis One as Bill Craig's Reasonable Faith is to On Gaurd. In other words, it's the more academic version. I'll look at your other book plunge posts in time, ApologiaPhoenix.
                  Last edited by RationalChristian315; 04-05-2019, 08:22 PM.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by RationalChristian315 View Post
                    From what I can tell, this book is to The Lost World Of Genesis One as Bill Craig's Reasonable Faith is to On Gaurd. In other words, it's the more academic version. I'll look at your other book plunge posts in time, ApologiaPhoenix.
                    One isn't a popular version of the other. They're different books with different focuses.
                    "I am not angered that the Moral Majority boys campaign against abortion. I am angry when the same men who say, "Save OUR children" bellow "Build more and bigger bombers." That's right! Blast the children in other nations into eternity, or limbless misery as they lay crippled from "OUR" bombers! This does not jell." - Leonard Ravenhill

                    Comment

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