A sheet full of treif

Acts 10:1 - 11:18 covers the story of Peter's thrice-repeated vision of the sheet full of unclean animals and its interpretation. This exegesis concludes that the meaning of the vision is only about Gentiles - that they are not to be regarded as unclean by Jewish believers - and that it has nothing to do with them eating unclean foods or with the Law of Moses supposedly being terminated. It should, therefore, not be used to substantiate the claim that the Law is obsolete since it does not address that topic. One of the demands of good hermeneutics is to see how one's exegesis fits in with the overall sweep of scripture but I am going to restrict the discussion to the selected passage because I'm trying to show that Acts 10:1 - 11:18 on its own does not support the claim that the Law is done away with.

You can read through this article briefly and get the gist of what I am saying, but I suggest you set aside a couple of hours to do it thoroughly and resolve all the issues. This study requires absolute honesty of interpretation. I encourage you to put aside your own theology and join me in looking simply at what the text says. If you come with the idea that you already know what the story is about before studying it, you may fall into the trap of eisegesis - reading into the text what you think (and perhaps want) it to say, instead of exegesis - reading the meaning out of the text.

To start, read the entire passage. The story describes:

• Peter’s visions of the sheet during his stay with “Simon the tanner” in Joppa, 
• his mission and preaching to Gentiles in Caesarea (Cornelius and his household), 
• their reception of the gospel and baptism in Spirit and water, and 
• Peter’s defence of his actions to believers in Jerusalem leading to the revelation of God’s inclusion of the Gentiles in his Kingdom.

I say "visions" (plural) because Peter saw the same vision three times over. Repetition in the Bible is a technique to emphasise a message strongly, and a triple declaration is the strongest possible statement. In Isaiah and Revelation, for example, God is praised with the cry, "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD God Almighty!" (Revelation 4:8, almost verbatim in Isaiah 6:3) By saying "holy" three times in succession, the creatures are emphatically stating that God could not be more holy. So Peter's triple vision was something of great importance.

The narrative is a crucial part in the historical spread of the gospel (hence, the Kingdom) to every nation. First it went from Jews alone to semi-Jews (outcast Samaritan “half-breeds”) in Acts 8 and then, in the same chapter, to the Ethiopian eunuch. (He was either a proselyte to Judaism or a God-fearer, but in either case unable to enter the Temple due to his emasculation, Deuteronomy 23:1). In Acts 10, the gospel is preached to God-fearers (Gentiles who worshiped the God of Israel together with the Jews) and by Acts 11 it was being presented to all Gentiles - even pagans! Peter's vision of the sheet was pivotal to this development. In Acts 15:14, Jacob ("James") affirms to the Jerusalem Council Peter's claim that Israel itself was selected by God "from among the Gentiles". The vision Peter saw was God's directive to the chief apostle to open wide the door to the Gentiles, and it changed the course of history forever.

Purim: a time for thanksgiving and a call to intercession

Did you see the full moon last night? It's the Jewish feast of Purim this weekend, a celebration of the salvation of the Jewish people from the satanic attack of their enemies during their exile in Babylon in the 6th century BC. The story is recorded in the book of Esther, a young Jewish lady who was married to Xerxes, the king of the Persia. One night she put her life on the line to appeal to her husband to spare her life, and the lives of her people. Xerxes, whose empire stretched all the way from Egypt to India (!), could not annul the decree to kill all the Jews in the empire but he did authorize them to defend themselves on the day planned for their extermination -- and even to kill their attackers. Thus the Jews survived one of the greatest threats to their existence, and now celebrate their victory in the feast of Purim.

Purim is a time for us to read the book of Esther. It has incredible relevance in our day, even as radical Islamists seek to exterminate the Jewish people worldwide. Read these words by Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary General of Hezbollah:

We have discovered how to hit the Jews where they are most vulnerable. The Jews love life, so that is what we will take from them. We are going to win, because they love life and we love death. [Source]

Purim is a time for us to pray for the Jewish people to come to know their own Messiah, Yeshua (Jesus). Circumcision is not enough; it never saved anyone from his sins. People need Jesus! Jews are loved by God on account of the patriarchs, but they are enemies of the gospel for our (Gentiles') sake (Romans 11:28) and unsaved (11:14). This is the Church that has persecuted them for 19 centuries, instead of loving them and interceding for them as it should have.

Purim is a time for us to pray for Messianic Jews (Jewish believers in Jesus). They are generally rejected by mainstream Judaism and by mainstream Christianity (unless the "de-Judaize" themselves by forsaking all things Jewish). Messianic Jews are facing increasing persecution, especially in Israel, as this short video shows.

Purim is a time for us to give thanks for the Jewish people, through whom we have received the Bible and the Saviour of the world! It was with Israel that the New Covenant was made (Jeremiah 31:31-34), and by their preaching to the Gentiles that we came to share in the wonderful gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:44). It is into the Olive Tree (Israel) that Christians have been grafted, connecting us to the blessings of Abraham (Romans 11:17), through whom all nations have been blessed (Genesis 18:18, 22:18, 26:4). Purim is a time for Christians to:

remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. (Ephesians 2:12-13)

Purim is a time for us to stand up for the rights of Jews to life and to their homeland, Israel. Esther put her life at risk to save her people. The ultimate outcome of this is that Jesus was born! Similarly, the Jews -- and particularly the religious establishment in Jerusalem -- have a crucial role to play in bringing about Jesus' return (Matthew 23:37-39). This is why Hitler was, and Ahmadinejad is, inspired by Satan to exterminate the Jews -- just like Haman in the story of Esther. Haman was hanged and you know what became of Hitler. Internationally, pressure is mounting for Christians to condemn Israel regarding the Palestinian conflict, but we who form the bride of the King are to speak up for Israel and to intercede for the Jews. If we fail to do so, deliverance for them will rise from another place, but we will have failed to fulfil God's calling on us. It is time for the Church to take up the challenge of Mordecai to Esther (4:13-14):

Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, "Do not think to yourself that in the king's palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"

More great biblical language resources online

In addition to the New Testament resources I pointed to in my post last week (SBLGNT, HEB and more), I just discovered some super Greek and Hebrew study resources at Lionel Windsor's interesting blog Forget the Channel. These include spreadsheets listing:

1. the entire vocabulary of the Greek New Testament (5393 root words) together with an English "gloss" (not a full definition but a couple of words explaining the most common meaning);
2. over 800 root words from the Hebrew Old Testament*.

The great thing about the spreadsheet format is that you can manipulate the data; you're not stuck with having to copy it from a PDF and losing the field delimiters.

*Note: I had to install the obsolete SIL Ezra font to get the Hebrew spreadsheets to work, even though I had the newer Ezra SIL font installed. All the instructions are given, however.

What's in a word: διακρίνω (diakrino) - doubt, discrimination or distinction?

Bible translators have a tough job. In fact, in some ways they can never win. There is just no 1:1 mapping between words and phrases of one language and those of another. Bill Mounce, an expert in biblical Greek who was on the Translation Oversight Committee of the ESV, offers a brilliant lecture on this in his free course, Greek for the Rest of Us. (Go to www.teknia.com, create an account and then look for lecture 1b of this course.) Mounce emphasises,

All translations are interpretive

and goes on to explain that all translators are biased. Bible publishers have to decide in advance what kind of translation they are aiming for.

For example, do they want to use gender-inclusive language? If so, they might translate "your sons" as "your sons and daughters", since that appears to be what is meant in many places of the text (because men were representative of the whole population). Today we no longer see men as representing the general population so it may make more sense to say "your sons and daughters" in a modern English translation. Translators constantly have to wrestle with the issue of whether to interpret words or meanings, and we should not be quick to accuse them of deliberately mistranslating certain texts. If they translate those same texts differently, then other people will be clamouring against them. The only way to win is for every Christian to become thoroughly competent in the biblical languages -- and that ain't gonna happen!

With that background in place I do want to raise a challenging question for the translators of several modern translations, the English Standard Version (ESV, 2001) in particular. It seems to me that they have imposed their theology on a word in Acts 11:12, theology that they probably drew out of other parts of the Bible.

Great New Testament resources online

I recently discovered the new (2010) Lexham English Bible (LEB, New Testament only) which I am very excited about, not least of all because of everything that comes with it. And, like the best things in life, it's free (in electronic format, including PDF and e-Sword).

You can find the LEB at http://www.lexhamenglishbible.com/. Here's what I like about it:

• from a quick scan, it looks a great translation to modern English. See the "About" page on the LEB website for some examples. I noticed the translators are amongst the few to dare to change the traditional "For God so loved the world..." in John 3:16. (See my post on this not-so-good interpretation here: http://templeswallow.blogspot.com/2011/02/what-do-john-316-and-romans-1126-have.html.)
• the LEB is based on good source material: the latest (27th) edition of the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament (GNT), or NA27;
• and, like the New English Translation (NET), it's free. Here's a quote from the licence agreement: "You can give away the Lexham English Bible, but you can't sell it on its own."

I found the LEB in PDF format through a search engine, but there is currently no link to the PDF format (only to the other formats), so I am putting a copy here for you: Lexham English Bible in PDF. It's 2.7MB.

Things get better when you follow the link from the LEB downloads page to the website of the Society for Biblical Literature (SBL) to get the LEB Reverse Interlinear (woohoo!) - that's an interlinear Bible which uses the English word order. The English text is from the LEB and the Greek is from the SBL Greek New Testament (SBLGNT). It also gives the transliteration for those who don't read Greek, and the Strong's number for each word. Every English word is linked to the original Greek, so you can see where it's coming from. Here's what it looks like (click on it for detail):

Any biblical Greek student has got to be excited about this!

Now that we're onto the SBL website, let me point out some of its great treasures:

1. the SBLGNT is free in various electronic formats (including PDF), and it has critical apparatus to let you know where every word is coming from (i.e. which manuscript compilation);
2. the reverse interlinear New Testament (mentioned above);
3. a fantastic Greek-English 'glossary' as an appendix to the reverse interlinear. Click here for the Strongs Greek-English Glossary.
4. SBL Hebrew keyboard drivers. The one called SIL is the best thing since sliced bread! It's terrific because it matches the Hebrew letters and vowel points logically to the letters of our alphabet. For example, if you want a dalet you press D, and for a lamed you press L. The silent letters aleph and ayin take silent characters (> and < respectively), and the vowels also make sense: press I for a chiriq, O for a cholam, and so on.
5. Book reviews (free e-mail subscription) - a great way to keep abreast of books published;
6. SBL academic journal (not free);
7. SBL Greek and Hebrew fonts.

Use of the cross as a symbol

In a recent forum discussion at the South African Theological Seminary a student expressed concern that: "There is an emerging theology discrediting the display of the cross as a symbol of the Christian faith..." He tackled the following four common objections to the use of the cross to symbolise Christianity:

1. that the cross had pagan and even occultist origins;
2. that the cross brings credit to Satan;
3. that a crucifix detracts from Jesus' victory over death by portraying him as defeated;
4. that salvation is in Christ, not the cross itself.

His answers to these arguments respectively were as follows:

1. true, but this does not detract from the fact that God's greatest work took place at the cross;
2. Jesus died in our place "not to Satan but to God";
3. don't use the crucifix [the cross with Jesus on it] to discredit an empty cross [without Jesus, because he is no longer on it!];
4. this is a mute point because evangelical Christians don't put their faith in the cross, but rather in Christ. If a pastor discovers people in his congregation trusting in the cross itself, then the solution is "exegetical teaching and preaching".

I think he got it right. The following was my own response:

It's all well that people are questioning, but it seems that many are not doing any real investigation, possibly for lack of time - but then they should reserve judgment till they have done so. ( ... There is a kind of apathy to first-hand investigation; it's easier to hear and pass on a rumour. This, I think, highlights the lack of true discipleship in the modern Church.)

I have been reviewing a lot of our traditions and came to similar conclusions as you on the cross as a Christian symbol. However, I am not enamoured of the symbol, and its use by the Church will always bear some risk of idolatory - yet if someone is inclined to idolatory then he will find an idol in anything, whether it's a cross or something else. Moreover, the cross is a symbol of death; the paradox of our faith is the life that comes from Christ's death - but not everyone sees that. A symbol of life might be more appealing! I can't say I see any need of the cross as a symbol; I can and do quite happily abide in the Vine without it. The reality of the indwelling Holy Spirit eclipses the need for a symbolic reminder.

The cross has been used as a symbol of Christianity since the 2nd century (see Wikipedia: 'Christian Cross'). That can't really be used to argue either way, since there were plenty of heresies around by then. But, as Dan Juster says so emphatically,

The meaning of a symbol is its use in the community that defines and practises it – not some deep dark secret. In logic, that is called the genetic fallacy, which means that you define the meaning of a practice from a deep, dark secret that nobody is thinking about when they do it!

I also noticed that Frank Viola, in his book Pagan Christianity, didn't mention the cross at all. That's significant, because Pagan Christianity questions and criticises (rightly or wrongly) practically every tradition of Christianity, from the pulpit to the usher. It is unthinkable that he did not investigate the possibility of the cross being a pagan symbol, so one has to conclude that he could not find such a link.

In summary, I think the use of the cross by the Church is acceptable; it should be unnecessary for our faith, but it can also be useful, e.g. as an explicit sign of Christianity that is recognised in every nation, language and form of writing.