In Chapter 3 of Science Speaks, Peter Stoner discusses an alleged prophecy from Malachi:
2. "Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me" (Mal. 3:1).
Our question here is: Of the men who have been born in Bethlehem, one man in how many has had a forerunner to prepare his way? John the Baptist, of course, was the forerunner of Christ. But since there appears to be no material difference between the people born in Bethlehem and those born any other place in the world, the question can just as well be general: One man in how many, the world over, has had a forerunner to prepare his way?
The students said that the prophecy apparently referred to a special messenger of God, whose one duty was to prepare the way for the work of Christ, so there is a further restriction added. The students finally agreed on one in 1,000 as being extremely conservative. Most of the members thought the estimate should be much larger. We will use the estimate as 1 in 103.
According to Peter Stoner, Malachi 3:1 should be interpreted as making the following prediction:
(2) A special messenger of God will prepare the way for the Messiah.
This interpretation will not work, however, because there is no objective and reliable test for determining whether a given person is a special messenger of God. Even if John the Baptist had performed amazing miracles, and there is no reason to believe that he performed any miracles, one could still raise reasonable doubts about whether John the Baptist was a special messenger of God (or any sort of messenger from God). First of all, one can reasonably doubt whether there is any God in the first place, and second, one might attribute alleged miracles either to deception, or magic, or to demonic power. It would beg the question to assume that John the Baptist was indeed a special messenger of God, so in order to have any chance of using Malachi 3:1 as evidence for Jesus being the Messiah, one must first come up with a more neutral and objective prediction based on this passage.
Here is a more objective and testable prediction that is close in meaning to Stoner's interpretation:
(2a) Someone claiming to be a special messenger of God will prepare the way for the Messiah.
One difficulty here is that anyone (who can speak or write or communicate in sentences) can claim to be 'a special messenger of God'. So, it is easy for anyone who wishes to to satisfy this condition. If John the Baptist wanted to fulfil this prophecy and to thus provide 'evidence' that Jesus was the Messiah, then all John had to do was to claim to be 'a special messenger of God' and to proclaim that Jesus was the Messiah. Thus, this prediction is easy for anyone to intentionally fulfill.
A second diffuculty is that the phrase 'prepare the way for X' is vague, leaving many possible ways for this prophecy to be fulfilled. Think about the following question:
Has anybody prepared the way for me?
I can think of many different people who have 'prepared the way' for me.
As a teenager I was a very devout Evangelical Christian believer. I carried a Bible with me to school every school day, and I led Bible Studies during lunch period at high school. Did anyone 'prepare the way' for me to become a devout Christian? Yes. My parents made me go to Sunday school when I was a child, and that provided me with a background about the Bible and basic Christian beliefs. So, my parents and Sunday school teachers 'prepared the way' for my teenage Christian faith.
Although as a child I unthinkingly accepted belief in God and belief in the Bible as God's primary communication to mankind, I did not become a devout follower of Jesus and the Bible as a child. I had a conversion experience as a teenager that resulted in a decade of life as a devout follower of Jesus and the Bible.
Did anyone 'prepare the way' for this conversion (besides my parents and Sunday school teachers)? Yes. I was invited to attend various prayer meetings and Bible studies led by Charismatic 'Jesus People' when I was a young teenager, and the leaders and others at these meetings influenced me and persuaded me to become a dedicated follower of Jesus and the Bible. I can think of three or four individual people who were leaders or enthusiastic followers in these meetings, who 'prepared the way' for my conversion experience. So, we are now up to around eight people who directly and personally 'prepared the way' for the decade of my life in which I was a devout follower of Jesus.
Of course, I could not have been a devout follower of Jesus, if there had not been a Jesus to follow, or at least stories about Jesus and written teachings allegedly from Jesus for me to read. Where did these stories and writings come from? The authors of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (whoever they might have been) are clearly among those who 'prepared the way' for my years as a devout follower of Jesus. Furthermore, many scribes worked diligently for centuries to preserve the Gospel texts by manually copying these texts, so all of those scribes 'prepared the way' for my teenage conversion.
Also, I was not a textual scholar nor could I read ancient Greek as a teenager, so many NT textual scholars and translators also 'prepared the way' for my teenage conversion to Christianity. In addition, I would not have been able to read the English translation of the Gospels had I not been taught how to read English, so I must also acknowledge that my elementary school teachers had also 'prepared the way' for me to read the Gospels in English.
The Gospels have not always been available in translations into commonly used languages. Some people had to fight and to die for the sake of the practice of translating the NT from Greek to commonly used languages like English, French, and German. So, among others William Tyndale also 'prepared the way' for my conversion to Christianity. There would have been no English translation of the Bible by Tyndale apart from the influence of Martin Luther and Desiderius Erasmus, so those men also 'prepared the way' for my conversion.
The early NT manuscripts probably would not have survived for two thousand years if Christianity had not spread quickly and widely through the Roman empire in the first and second centuries. But this would not have happened apart from the missionary effort of Peter and Paul and other early preachers of faith in Jesus. So, Peter, Paul, and other early Christian leaders also 'prepared the way' for my faith in Jesus.
It appears that, with a little bit of effort, I could identify hundreds of people who played a significant role in 'preparing the way' for my conversion experience as a teenager. Furthermore, this conversion experience represents only one particular aspect of my life. Another important aspect of my life is that I became a student of philosophy, critical thinking, and skepticism. Again, it would be fairly easy to identify hundreds of people who played a significant role in 'preparing the way' for me to become deeply involved in philosophy, critical thinking, and skepticism. There are, of course, still other important aspects of my life: my musical interests, my political views, my marriage and family, my health and physical activities, my career and financial status, etc.
In conclusion, with a little bit of thought and effort, I could generate a list of thousands of people who have 'prepared the way' for various important aspects of my life.
Another way of looking at this is that everything has a history. Cups and silverware have a history. Cups and silverware have not always existed. They were invented, and they developed over the centuries. Nearly every artifact has such a deep history. Natural objects and natural activities also have a history. The universe has a history; the Milky Way has a history; our solar system has a history; the Earth and life on Earth has a history. Human values, beliefs, and practices all have histories, and the histories of human values, beliefs, and practices typically include many people who played a significant role in either creating or developing that idea or practice.
To be continued...
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Friday, March 30, 2012
Messianic Prophecy - Part 8
According to Peter Stoner, Micah 5:2 should be interpreted as making the following prediction:
(1) The Messiah will be born in Bethlehem.
There are three parts to this interpretation:
(a) The Messiah
(b) X will be born in Y
(c) Bethlehem
I have previously argued that there are reasonable doubts about the subject of the passage being 'The Messiah', because the term 'the Messiah' does not occur anywhere in Micah, and only occurs in one single passage in the entire Old Testament. I have also previously argued that there are reasonable doubts about the form of the predicate being 'X will be born in Y'. The passage does not use the term 'born' and there are other ways that one can be 'from' a specific town or city besides having been born in that town or city.
There is also reasonable doubt about the third component of Stoner's interpretation. The passage does explicitly refer to "Bethlehem of Ephratha", but it is not clear whether this is a reference to the town of Bethlehem.
Some background information will be helfpful here. Consider the word 'Israel'. To what does this Old Testament word refer? You don't have to have a Bible dictionary to answer this question. An ordinary dictionary will do the trick (from my old American Heritage Dictionary):
Israel1 1. A republic, founded in 1948… 2. The kingdom of ten tribes founded in northern Palestine by Jeroboam in 933 B.C. and destroyed by the Assyrians in 721 B.C.
Israel2 1. The decendants of Jacob. 2. The whole Hebrew people, past, present, and future, regarded as the chosen people of Jehovah by virtue of the covenant of Jacob. 3. The Christian church, regarded as...
Israel3 A name of the patriarch Jacob.
Some of the definitions are obviously not relevant to the Old Testament (i.e. "A republic founded in 1948" and "The Christian church"). But we can see that there are three or four different meanings that are relevant. The word 'Israel' can refer to a specific person (Jacob), a collection of people (the decendants of Jacob or the Hebrew people), or to a kingdom or territory. According to the Old Testament, a man named Jacob was re-named 'Israel' and his decendants became the Hebrew people (the nation of Israel) which took possession of cities and land in Palestine, part of which became the Kingdom of Israel, for about 200 years.
A similar ambiguity exists with several other proper nouns in the Old Testament. For example, the word 'Judah' has a similar ambiguity:
Judah1 Son of Jacob and Leah; ancestor of one of the twelve tribes of Israel.
Judah2 The tribe of Israel decended from Judah.
Judah3 An ancient kingdom in southern Palestine, occupied by the tribes of Judah and Benjamin and governed by the decendants of Solomon.
The proper noun 'Judah' can refer to a person, a tribe, or a kingdom/territory.
Because proper names in the Old Testament can have multiple references, to people, tribes, kingdoms, and places, we need to be aware of the possibility that the phrase "Bethlehem of Ephrathah" might also be ambiguous and have more than one referent. Obviously, one plausible interpretation is that this phrase refers to the town of Bethlehem. But one can reasonably ask whether there might be some other intended referent.
A parenthetical phrase that follows the words "Bethlehem of Ephrathah" strongly suggests that the author was not referring to a town or place:
But you, O Bethlehem of
Ephrathah,
who are one of the little clans
of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me...
In the parenthetical phrase, 'Bethlehem of Ephrathah' is referred to as a 'clan' not as a city or town. A clan is a subdivision of a tribe. The people of Israel were made up of twelve tribes, and each tribe was subdivided into clans. A 'clan' is thus something like an extended family, as in "We are having a family reunion". So, the parenthetical comment implies that the referent of the phrase 'Bethlehem of Ephrathah' is a group of people who are part of an extended family, a part of a subdivision of a tribe of people. The specific tribe is mentioned explicitly: Judah (unless 'Judah' here means the person Judah, but in that case since the tribe of Judah consists of the descendants of the person Judah, there is at least an implied reference to the tribe of Judah, to the people who descended from the person Judah, or who are considered to be descendants of the person Judah).
The tribe of Judah is of special significance because it is the tribe from which the king David came. The town of Bethlehem is also known for being the town from which king David came, and it was the town of his ancestors (for example, his grandmother Ruth lived in Bethlehem).
'Bethlehem' is the name of a person, as well as the name of a town. The same is true of the proper noun 'Ephrathah' :
Ephrathah...(PERSON)
Another name for Ephrath, the wife of Caleb (1 Chr. 2:24; 4:4).
Ephrathah...(PLACE)
A place name used in reference to Bethlehem and the surrounding region (Ruth 4:11; Mic. 5:2). Jesse, the father of David, is called an Ephrathite of Bethlehem (1 Sam. 17:12), as are Naomi, her husband, and their sons (Ruth 1:2). The LXX includes Ephrathah in the list of places near Bethlehem which it inserts after Joshua 15:59.
Ephrathah also appears as the name of a woman (1 Chr. 2:19) who is identified as an ancenstor (eponymous) of Bethlehem, Tekoa, Beth-gader, and Kiriath-jearim (1 Chr. 2:24, 50-51; 4:4-5), well-known towns in northern Judah. It is unclear whether the kinship group associated with this territory took its name from such a person or whether the name is merely a personification of the territory for genealogical purposes. ...
(Eerdman's Dictionary of the Bible, p.417)
Clearly, the words 'Bethlehem of Ephrathah' have the same sort of ambiguity as the word 'Israel" and the word 'Judah'. And since the parenthetical comment implies that Bethlehem is a 'clan', it is doubtful that the phrase 'Bethlehem of Ephrathah' is simply a reference to a place or town. Rather, given that king David's father Jesse was an 'Ephrathite of Bethlehem', it seems more likely that Micah 5:2 is talking about the tribe and clan that the 'one who will rule in Israel' is to come from, namely from the same tribe and clan as king David. One can come from that tribe and clan without having been born in a specific town, such as Bethlehem.
So, there are at least three different plausible interpretations of Micah 5:2:
1. The one who is to rule in Israel will be born in the town of Bethlehem.
2. The one who is to rule in Israel will come from the town of Bethlehem.
3. The one who is to rule in Israel will come from the same clan as king David.
Because of the parenthetical comment that implies 'Bethlehem of Ephrathah' to be a 'clan', I believe that interpretation (3) is most likely to be correct, and because the word 'born' does not occur in Micah 5:2, interpretation (2) is more likely to be correct than interpretation (1). I believe it is very likely that one of these three is the correct interpretation, so I will assume that the probabilities of these interpretations will add up to a total of 1.0.
Here are my probability estimates:
P(Interpreation 3 is correct) = .5
P(Interpretation 2 is correct) = .3
P(Interpretation 1 is correct) = .2
Because the concept of 'The Messiah' arose after the Old Testament was completed, Peter Stoner's interpretation of Micah 5:2 is almost certainly incorrect. However, there was a hope in the Old Testament that a new king or ruler would arise and bring back the golden age of the Kingdom of Israel under king David. So, interpretation 1 is fairly close to Stoner's interpretation.
If we take the correctness of interpretation 1 to be good enough to say that Stoner's intepretation was correct, then we can calculate the probability that Stoner's conjunctive claim about Micah 5:2 is correct:
Interpretation (1) is correct AND Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
Each of the conjuncts has a probability of about .2 (two chances in ten) of being true, and we can reasonably assume that there is no significant causal influence between the truth or falsity of the two conjuncts, so we can use the simple multiplication rule here:
.2 x .2 = .04
The probability that Stoner's conjunctive claim about Micah 5:2 is correct is less than .1 (less than one chance in ten).
(1) The Messiah will be born in Bethlehem.
There are three parts to this interpretation:
(a) The Messiah
(b) X will be born in Y
(c) Bethlehem
I have previously argued that there are reasonable doubts about the subject of the passage being 'The Messiah', because the term 'the Messiah' does not occur anywhere in Micah, and only occurs in one single passage in the entire Old Testament. I have also previously argued that there are reasonable doubts about the form of the predicate being 'X will be born in Y'. The passage does not use the term 'born' and there are other ways that one can be 'from' a specific town or city besides having been born in that town or city.
There is also reasonable doubt about the third component of Stoner's interpretation. The passage does explicitly refer to "Bethlehem of Ephratha", but it is not clear whether this is a reference to the town of Bethlehem.
Some background information will be helfpful here. Consider the word 'Israel'. To what does this Old Testament word refer? You don't have to have a Bible dictionary to answer this question. An ordinary dictionary will do the trick (from my old American Heritage Dictionary):
Israel1 1. A republic, founded in 1948… 2. The kingdom of ten tribes founded in northern Palestine by Jeroboam in 933 B.C. and destroyed by the Assyrians in 721 B.C.
Israel2 1. The decendants of Jacob. 2. The whole Hebrew people, past, present, and future, regarded as the chosen people of Jehovah by virtue of the covenant of Jacob. 3. The Christian church, regarded as...
Israel3 A name of the patriarch Jacob.
Some of the definitions are obviously not relevant to the Old Testament (i.e. "A republic founded in 1948" and "The Christian church"). But we can see that there are three or four different meanings that are relevant. The word 'Israel' can refer to a specific person (Jacob), a collection of people (the decendants of Jacob or the Hebrew people), or to a kingdom or territory. According to the Old Testament, a man named Jacob was re-named 'Israel' and his decendants became the Hebrew people (the nation of Israel) which took possession of cities and land in Palestine, part of which became the Kingdom of Israel, for about 200 years.
A similar ambiguity exists with several other proper nouns in the Old Testament. For example, the word 'Judah' has a similar ambiguity:
Judah1 Son of Jacob and Leah; ancestor of one of the twelve tribes of Israel.
Judah2 The tribe of Israel decended from Judah.
Judah3 An ancient kingdom in southern Palestine, occupied by the tribes of Judah and Benjamin and governed by the decendants of Solomon.
The proper noun 'Judah' can refer to a person, a tribe, or a kingdom/territory.
Because proper names in the Old Testament can have multiple references, to people, tribes, kingdoms, and places, we need to be aware of the possibility that the phrase "Bethlehem of Ephrathah" might also be ambiguous and have more than one referent. Obviously, one plausible interpretation is that this phrase refers to the town of Bethlehem. But one can reasonably ask whether there might be some other intended referent.
A parenthetical phrase that follows the words "Bethlehem of Ephrathah" strongly suggests that the author was not referring to a town or place:
But you, O Bethlehem of
Ephrathah,
who are one of the little clans
of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me...
In the parenthetical phrase, 'Bethlehem of Ephrathah' is referred to as a 'clan' not as a city or town. A clan is a subdivision of a tribe. The people of Israel were made up of twelve tribes, and each tribe was subdivided into clans. A 'clan' is thus something like an extended family, as in "We are having a family reunion". So, the parenthetical comment implies that the referent of the phrase 'Bethlehem of Ephrathah' is a group of people who are part of an extended family, a part of a subdivision of a tribe of people. The specific tribe is mentioned explicitly: Judah (unless 'Judah' here means the person Judah, but in that case since the tribe of Judah consists of the descendants of the person Judah, there is at least an implied reference to the tribe of Judah, to the people who descended from the person Judah, or who are considered to be descendants of the person Judah).
The tribe of Judah is of special significance because it is the tribe from which the king David came. The town of Bethlehem is also known for being the town from which king David came, and it was the town of his ancestors (for example, his grandmother Ruth lived in Bethlehem).
'Bethlehem' is the name of a person, as well as the name of a town. The same is true of the proper noun 'Ephrathah' :
Ephrathah...(PERSON)
Another name for Ephrath, the wife of Caleb (1 Chr. 2:24; 4:4).
Ephrathah...(PLACE)
A place name used in reference to Bethlehem and the surrounding region (Ruth 4:11; Mic. 5:2). Jesse, the father of David, is called an Ephrathite of Bethlehem (1 Sam. 17:12), as are Naomi, her husband, and their sons (Ruth 1:2). The LXX includes Ephrathah in the list of places near Bethlehem which it inserts after Joshua 15:59.
Ephrathah also appears as the name of a woman (1 Chr. 2:19) who is identified as an ancenstor (eponymous) of Bethlehem, Tekoa, Beth-gader, and Kiriath-jearim (1 Chr. 2:24, 50-51; 4:4-5), well-known towns in northern Judah. It is unclear whether the kinship group associated with this territory took its name from such a person or whether the name is merely a personification of the territory for genealogical purposes. ...
(Eerdman's Dictionary of the Bible, p.417)
Clearly, the words 'Bethlehem of Ephrathah' have the same sort of ambiguity as the word 'Israel" and the word 'Judah'. And since the parenthetical comment implies that Bethlehem is a 'clan', it is doubtful that the phrase 'Bethlehem of Ephrathah' is simply a reference to a place or town. Rather, given that king David's father Jesse was an 'Ephrathite of Bethlehem', it seems more likely that Micah 5:2 is talking about the tribe and clan that the 'one who will rule in Israel' is to come from, namely from the same tribe and clan as king David. One can come from that tribe and clan without having been born in a specific town, such as Bethlehem.
So, there are at least three different plausible interpretations of Micah 5:2:
1. The one who is to rule in Israel will be born in the town of Bethlehem.
2. The one who is to rule in Israel will come from the town of Bethlehem.
3. The one who is to rule in Israel will come from the same clan as king David.
Because of the parenthetical comment that implies 'Bethlehem of Ephrathah' to be a 'clan', I believe that interpretation (3) is most likely to be correct, and because the word 'born' does not occur in Micah 5:2, interpretation (2) is more likely to be correct than interpretation (1). I believe it is very likely that one of these three is the correct interpretation, so I will assume that the probabilities of these interpretations will add up to a total of 1.0.
Here are my probability estimates:
P(Interpreation 3 is correct) = .5
P(Interpretation 2 is correct) = .3
P(Interpretation 1 is correct) = .2
Because the concept of 'The Messiah' arose after the Old Testament was completed, Peter Stoner's interpretation of Micah 5:2 is almost certainly incorrect. However, there was a hope in the Old Testament that a new king or ruler would arise and bring back the golden age of the Kingdom of Israel under king David. So, interpretation 1 is fairly close to Stoner's interpretation.
If we take the correctness of interpretation 1 to be good enough to say that Stoner's intepretation was correct, then we can calculate the probability that Stoner's conjunctive claim about Micah 5:2 is correct:
Interpretation (1) is correct AND Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
Each of the conjuncts has a probability of about .2 (two chances in ten) of being true, and we can reasonably assume that there is no significant causal influence between the truth or falsity of the two conjuncts, so we can use the simple multiplication rule here:
.2 x .2 = .04
The probability that Stoner's conjunctive claim about Micah 5:2 is correct is less than .1 (less than one chance in ten).
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Messianic Prophecy - Part 7
According to Peter Stoner, Micah 5:2 should be interpreted as making the following prediction:
(1) The Messiah will be born in Bethlehem.
There are three parts to this interpretation:
(a) The Messiah
(b) X will be born in Y
(c) Bethlehem
I have previously pointed out that the word 'Messiah' does not appear anywhere in Micah, and it only appears in one passage in one book of the Old Testament, in certain translations. Thus, the subject of the interpretation by Stoner (i.e. 'The Messiah') is a matter of inference which can be questioned, and is subject to reasonable doubt.
The general form of the interpretation is also subject to reasonable doubt. The idea that
'X will be born in Y' is not stated in Micah 5:2. The word 'born' does not appear in Micah 5:2. What it states is this:
But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.
(Michah 5:2, NRSV, emphasis added)
One can be from a city or town without being born in that town. I am from Healdsburg, California, because that is where I grew up. But I was born in Santa Monica, California. I am also from Cambria, California, because that is where I attended High School. I am from Santa Rosa, California, because that is where I got my first real job, and where I lived when I was first married. I am from Santa Barbara, California, because that is where I lived for many years while my wife and I attended UCSB. I am from Kirkland, Washington, because that is where I have lived for the past decade. Most of us can be said to be from many different towns and cities, because we have lived in a number of different towns and cities over the course of a lifetime. But each of us was born in only one location.
Micah 5:2 does not specify that the Messiah will be born in a certain town; it states that 'one who is to rule in Israel' will be from Bethlehem of Ephrathah. The author of Micah might have had in mind the birth of the Messiah, but since he did not say this explicitly, we cannot be sure that is what was intended.
It doen't matter much what probabilities we assign to these two interpretations, because the only way that Jesus would have been 'from' the town of Bethlehem is by having been born there, which probably was not the case.
(1) The Messiah will be born in Bethlehem.
There are three parts to this interpretation:
(a) The Messiah
(b) X will be born in Y
(c) Bethlehem
I have previously pointed out that the word 'Messiah' does not appear anywhere in Micah, and it only appears in one passage in one book of the Old Testament, in certain translations. Thus, the subject of the interpretation by Stoner (i.e. 'The Messiah') is a matter of inference which can be questioned, and is subject to reasonable doubt.
The general form of the interpretation is also subject to reasonable doubt. The idea that
'X will be born in Y' is not stated in Micah 5:2. The word 'born' does not appear in Micah 5:2. What it states is this:
But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.
(Michah 5:2, NRSV, emphasis added)
One can be from a city or town without being born in that town. I am from Healdsburg, California, because that is where I grew up. But I was born in Santa Monica, California. I am also from Cambria, California, because that is where I attended High School. I am from Santa Rosa, California, because that is where I got my first real job, and where I lived when I was first married. I am from Santa Barbara, California, because that is where I lived for many years while my wife and I attended UCSB. I am from Kirkland, Washington, because that is where I have lived for the past decade. Most of us can be said to be from many different towns and cities, because we have lived in a number of different towns and cities over the course of a lifetime. But each of us was born in only one location.
Micah 5:2 does not specify that the Messiah will be born in a certain town; it states that 'one who is to rule in Israel' will be from Bethlehem of Ephrathah. The author of Micah might have had in mind the birth of the Messiah, but since he did not say this explicitly, we cannot be sure that is what was intended.
It doen't matter much what probabilities we assign to these two interpretations, because the only way that Jesus would have been 'from' the town of Bethlehem is by having been born there, which probably was not the case.
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