I started reading "God's Holy Fire: The Nature and Function of Scripture" yesterday and I'm already troubled by the content. For you to understand what is troubling me, I have to ask you a question:
Why did Israel and the early Christians survive when the powerful kingdoms of the ancient world are now merely objects of historical and archaeological interest?
This is a question quoted directly from the book. The lead-in to the question is as follows:
The remarkable fact is that, not only do our children learn the same stories that we learned as children, but people continue to tell the story of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their descendants after more than 3,000 years. This fact is especially noteworthy when one recalls the incredible number of empires that have come and gone over the past three millennia. Indeed, Israel was only a tiny kingdom the size of Massachussetts, far smaller than the empires of the Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, or Persians. Most people today don't know much about Canaanites or Hittites, but they know of Israel, which survived despite the loss of its temple, monarchy, and land. In the same way, the early church flourished when no casual observer could have predicted that it would meet the challenge offered by the competition. Without the survival of Israel and the early church, Christians would not now be telling the ancient story.
The very next line is the question I asked above. Now, the writers of this book are three professors from the Graduate School of Theology at Abilene Christian University (http://www.acu.edu). More specifically they are (from the back of the book): "Dr. Mark Hamilton, Assistant Professor of Old Testament; Dr. James Thompson, Professor of New Testament and Associate Dean of the Graduate School of Theology; and Dr. Ken Cukrowski, Associate Professor of New Testament and Associate Dean of Academic Programs for the College of Biblical Studies."
So then, back to the question asked in the book:
Why did Israel and the early Christians survive when the powerful kingdoms of the ancient world are now merely objects of historical and archaeological interest?
And the author's answer:
Israel had a memory that no one could take away. The Israelites survived Babylonian captivity and returned to rebuild their devastated land because of a memory, which later was gathered into a book.
Amazing. One wonders if any of these distinguished professors of the New and Old Testaments have actually read the New and Old Testaments. You see, the question asked above is one that the Bible answers. When it comes to Israel surviving through Babylonian captivity, we find out many times how and why this happened in the Old Testament:
Job 12:23 - "He makes nations great, and he destroys them; he enlarges nations, and leads them away."
Jeremiah 25:11-12 - "This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. Then after seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, declares the LORD, making the land an everlasting waste.
Daniel 9:2 - "in the first year of [Darius'] reign, I , Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years."
Jeremiah 16:14-15 - "Therefore, behold the days are coming, declares the LORD, when it shall no longer be said, 'As the LORD lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,' but 'As the LORD lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them.' For I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their fathers."
The Old Testament even answers the question of why the ancient empires fell and are no more:
Jeremiah 25:15-27 - For thus the LORD, the God of Israel, says to me, "Take this cup of the wine of wrath from My hand and cause all the nations to whom I send you to drink it. They will drink and stagger and go mad because of the sword that I will send among them." Then I took the cup from the LORD'S hand and made all the nations to whom the LORD sent me drink it: Jerusalem and the cities of Judah and its kings and its princes, to make them a ruin, a horror, a hissing and a curse, as it is this day; Pharaoh king of Egypt, his servants, his princes and all his people; and all the foreign people, all the kings of the land of Uz, all the kings of the land of the Philistines (even Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron and the remnant of Ashdod); Edom, Moab and the sons of Ammon; and all the kings of Tyre, all the kings of Sidon and the kings of the coastlands which are beyond the sea; and Dedan, Tema, Buz and all who cut the corners of their hair; and all the kings of Arabia and all the kings of the foreign people who dwell in the desert; and all the kings of Zimri, all the kings of Elam and all the kings of Media; and all the kings of the north, near and far, one with another; and all the kingdoms of the earth which are upon the face of the ground, and the king of Sheshach shall drink after them. You shall say to them, "Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, "Drink, be drunk, vomit, fall and rise no more because of the sword which I will send among you."
Now, Jerusalem is mentioned in this list as well, but Jerusalem gets special treatment later in the book (note that the other nations do not):
Jeremiah 27:22 - "[The vessels of the Temple] shall be carried to Babylon and remain there until the day when I visit them, declares the LORD. Then I will bring them back and restore them to this place."
The New Testament answers the part of the question dealing with why the early church survived:
Matthew 16:18 - "I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it."
Luke 1:31-33 - "And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end."
Which is according to a great deal of clear Old Testament prophecy:
Daniel 2:44 - "In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be left for another people; it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever."
1 Chronicles 17:14 - "But I will settle him in My house and in My kingdom forever, and his throne shall be established forever."
There is nothing in these verses about a "memory" on the part of Israel. There is in fact nothing lauding any action on the part of any PEOPLE in any of these verses. They all have something in common, though, that being that they very clearly point to the answer to the question:
Why did Israel and the early Christians survive when the powerful kingdoms of the ancient world are now merely objects of historical and archaeological interest?
And that answer is: Because the LORD willed it to be so.
The LORD willed for Israel to survive and the LORD willed for the ancient kingdoms to become mere "objects of historical and archaeological interest" and the LORD willed for the early church to survive (and in fact he wills for it to survive today and forever). If the answer given by the writers of God's Holy Fire were correct then man could destroy the church by merely forgetting about it; but this isn't the case because God wills for the church to live forever as the verses above clearly demonstrate. It is not action on our part or the part of the Israelites which led to the maintenance of these kingdoms throughout time but rather action on God's part.
I remain disturbed by the fact that the writers of this book claim to be Christian and teach Bible classes at a "Christian" University and yet give a fundamentally atheistic answer to one of the most central themes in all of the Bible. I intend to continue reading the book, however, and I'll post more on it as it goes.
