Westminster Theological Seminary

History of Interpretation, Prof. Philip E. Hughes

December, 1981

Some Influences ofApologetic Motivation

on BiblicalExegesis

Robert C. Newman

Introduction

Biblical exegesis, like science, tends to be idealized byits practitioners as a pure and disinterested search for the truth.  Indeed, most Christians would agreethat truth is what both these activities should be striving to attain.  Yet life is short; man's capabilitiesare finite; the responsibilities which press upon him are many; and not one ofus is without bias. Such problemsaffect science and exegesis equally. In exegesis, however, the stakes are higher and the results are morepersonal, so the struggle between opposing points of view has often beenstronger, more protracted, unyielding and bitter in spite of the amelioratingeffects of Biblical ethics.

In this paper we would like to consider how such struggleaffects the quality of exegesis produced. What is the influence of apologetic motivation upon exegesis?  Let us understand"apologetic" in the sense "defending in writing or speech,"an adjective from the noun "apology," which means "argument toshow that some idea, religion, etc. is right.[1]  We will not restrict the religion toorthodox Christianity, although the exegesis will be confined to theinterpretation of the Bible.

Our study will proceed more or less chronologically from theintertestament period to the present. Obviously it will not be comprehensive; a complete study would have toexamine every extant apology, commentary, sermon and letter containing exegesiswritten in the past two thousand years! Instead we will sketch the history of (mostly Christian) exegesis overthis period, sampling some of the major expositors and controversies to seewhat sorts of influence apologetic motivation actually has had.  We will seek to avoid characterizingexpositors, making vast generalizations, propounding universal negatives, orarguing from silence, yet in the end we hope to compile a list of some actualeffects which apologetic motivation has already produced.

For convenience, let us divide our discussion intohistorical periods as follows: early Jewish, early Christian, post-Nicene, medieval, reformation andmodern. Each case will be numberedfor purposes of reference in drawing conclusions. In most of the cases considered, the works from whichexamples are drawn will be explicitly apologetic. In a few cases, however, due to lack of historicalinformation, apologetic motivation is only inferred. The Biblical text used is the NASB.

Early JewishExegesis

Before the rise of Christianity, the principal opponent ofJudaism was paganism. WithinJudaism, however, there were various groups with differing views which arguedamong themselves. We are mostfamiliar with the Pharisees, who came to dominate Judaism shortly before thefall of the second temple. We knowless about the Essenes, Sadducees, and Hellenistic Jews other than Philo.  Other sects we know only by name.[2]  A number of phenomena occur in Jewishwritings of the intertestamental and early Christian periods which seem toindicate apologetic motivation; we suggest paraphrase, expansion and omissionof the Biblical text, and literal and allegorical exegesis.  Let us look at each of these in turn.

Paraphrase

In the centuries following the Babylonian captivity, manyJews came to be less familiar with Hebrew than with another language.  For some the more familiar language wasAramaic; for others, Greek. Consequently Bible translations were made into Aramaic (at first oral,later written) and into Greek. TheAramaic translations are called Targums; the earliest Greek translation, theSeptuagint (LXX). The Targums,especially the Palestinian, tend to be periphrastic. The Targum of Onkelos and the LXX are less periphrastic, butall have paraphrases to soften the Old Testament anthropomorphisms.

1. For example, the theophany of Exodus 24:10 is renderedmore or less literally in the KJV: "And they saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as itwere a paved work of a sapphire stone…" The LXX paraphrases this: "And they saw the place, where the God of Israel stood; and that which was under his feet was like a work of sapphirebrick…"[3] The Targum of Onkelos has:  "And they saw the Glory of the God of Israel, and under the throneof His Glory as the work of a preciousstone…"[4] The Palestinian Targum reads:  "And Nadab and Abihu lifted uptheir eyes, and saw the glory of the God of Israel; and under the footstoolof His feet which was placed beneath His throne, was like the work of a sapphire stone."[5]  In these paraphrases there isapparently an apologetic motivation, though its exact nature is uncertain.  Such paraphrases may be directed atpagan defenses of image-making ("Your God has human form, too"), orthey may be attempts to reconcile this passage with others (e.g., Ps 139:7-10)which picture God's omnipresence. The effect in this passage, however, is to obscure the details of an importantOld Testament theophany.

2. A milder example of paraphrasing away an anthropomorphismoccurs in the LXX of Joshua 4:24. Here the literal translation "hand of the Lord" is replaced by"power of the Lord."[6]  Most interpreters would agree that thisparaphrase accurately represents the meaning of the author, even though hiswording has not been retained.

Expansion

Early Jewish exegetes also expanded the Biblical texts toresolve difficulties.

3. One example involves Jacob's dream at Bethel.  McNamara[7]claims that Genesis 28:11 pictures Jacob using several stones for a pillow andthat Gen 18:18 has him using only one. He suggests that the Palestinian Targum seeks to resolve this bypostulating a miracle: "… thefour stones which Jacob had set for his pillow he found in the morning hadbecome one stone."[8]  It is not possible to be sure whetherMcNamara is right in seeing this expansion as an attempt to resolve adifficulty. The RSV, NEB, NASB andNIV all translate the Hebrew מאבני as "oneof the stones." If they are right, there is no difficulty here.  It may, however, be a place wherepeculiar exegesis is used to build up one of the patriarchs by multiplying themiraculous. In either case, thisseems to be an example of apologetic motivation distorting the text.

There are a number of examples of expansion designed to makethe good characters of the Old Testament better and the bad ones worse.

4. The Book of Jubilees is an intertestamental work whichretells Genesis, restructuring the whole into a chronology of seven-yearsabbatical cycles and jubilees, and reading back many Mosaic laws into thepatriarchal period. Here Abrahamis pictured (Jub 11:6ff) as rejecting idolatry in his youth:

And the child began to understand theerrors of the earth, that all went astray after graven images and afteruncleanness … and he separated himself from his father that he might notworship idols with him.[9]

5. Jacob doesn't quite lie to Isaac when his father asks himif he is really his son Esau. According to Jub 26:19, Jacob answers "I am thy son"[10]instead of the Biblical "I am" (Gen 27:24).

6. In Jub 35:12, Jacob is called Isaac's "perfect andupright son," and his mother Rebecca testifies (35:6):  "My son, I have not seen in theeall my days any perverse but (only) upright deeds."

7. By contrast, Isaac says of Esau (Jub 35:13):

… now I love Jacob more than Esau, forhe has done manifold evil deeds, and there is no righteousness in him, for allhis ways are unrighteousness and violence.

According to McNamara, avoidance of anthropomorphism andbuilding up Israel and its elders were standard features of early Jewishexegesis.[11]  This latter feature also appears to beapologetically motivated. Whateverits original cause, its effect appears to have been to scale down recognitionof the real pervasiveness of sin, aiding in the rise or maintenance of the sortof legalism which Jesus so scathingly attacked among the Pharisees.

Omission

As expansions of the Biblical text were designed to make theelders look better, so were omissions. In the synagogue reading of Scripture, certain passages were nottargummed (translated into Aramaic). The Mishnah (Meg 4.10) listsseveral such passages.[12]

8. One, the blessing of the priests (Numbers 6:24-26), waspresumably omitted because the translator might not be a priest and thereforeunqualified to pronounce the benediction. The others, however (Reuben's incest, the golden calf, David andBathsheba, Amnon and Tamar) were clearly omitted for apologetic reasons,whether to protect the reputation of Israel and its patriarchs or to avoidplanting sinful ideas in the minds of the worshipers.

The Jewish historian Josephus also is involved in thisactivity. His Antiquities ofthe Jews was written to Gentiles (amongother purposes) to impress them with the great age of the Jewish nationrelative to the Greeks and to demonstrate Jewish virtue and the wisdom of theBiblical laws.[13]

9. To Josephus' credit, he does not omit an account of theslaughter of the Shechemites by Jacob's sons (Genesis 34).  However, he does omit the fact theyaccomplished this feat with the aid of a false covenant and the Shechemites'pain due to their recent circumcision.[14]  It certainly would not have helped theJewish proselytism of the time for Josephus to advertise that Jews had onceslain Gentiles who had entered a covenant of circumcision with them!

10. Josephus also omits Moses' slaying of an Egyptian innarrating his departure from Egypt as a young man (Exodus 2:11).[15]

11. The golden calf episode (Exodus 32) is also omitted.[16]

To be fair to Josephus, it was not his purpose to give everyOld Testament incident in his Antiquities. There is also something to be said fornot advertising one's shortcomings to others. Yet for all of this, the result is an interpretation ofScripture which plays down the real sinfulness of God's people.

Literal Exegesis

If Josephus was not exactly fair in defending the Jews, hewas far more balanced than some of his pagan opponents.[17]  In his defense Against Apion, he mentions Lysimachus as claiming Moses taught theJews to hate all men, give misleading advice, and destroy temples.[18]  Apollonius Molon, he reports, calls theJews "atheists and misanthropes … cowards … the most witless of allbarbarians … the only people who have contributed no useful invention tocivilization."[19]

One might be inclined to doubt the testimony of Josephus inthis matter, were it not for the fact that extant pagan authors speak the sameway. The Roman historian Tacitus,for instance, cites considerable anti-Semitic material from the Greek authors,[20]for example:

The Jews regard as profane all that wehold sacred; on the other hand, they permit all that we abhor … the othercustoms of the Jews are base and abominable, and owe their persistence to theirdepravity … the Jews are extremely loyal toward one another, and always readyto show compassion, but toward every other people they feel only hate andenmity.[21]

In answering these kinds of charges, Josephus often employsstraight-forward exegesis:

12. To the charge of Apollonius Molon that the Jews will notadmit pagans to their society, Josephus admits this is true.  The reason, he says, for Godprohibiting such mixture is to keep out "persons with other preconceivedideas about God" and to avoid association with "those who have chosento adopt a different mode of life." He compares this regulation to Plato's Republic in which foreigners were kept out so that the statewould be "pure and confined to law-abiding citizens."[22]  This is certainly a fair representationof the Old Testament laws separating Jew and Gentile, seeing that they bothwarn the Jews against being tempted to idolatry by pagans and also provide forGentiles becoming proselytes.

More surprising, perhaps, is the fact that Philo ofAlexandria, the great proponent of allegorical exegesis, also used literalexegesis to answer pagan attacks:

13. Against the Gentile claim that the Jews were taught tohate them, Philo responded by noting in detail the very important place whichlove for mankind has in the Mosaic laws. Philo discusses this virtue, among others, in a literal andstraight-forward way in his work On Virtues.[23]

Allegorical Exegesis

Allegory in the strict sense is usually associated with theJewish philosopher-exegete Philo, who, as we shall see below, made considerableuse of this technique. If,however, we define allegory broadly as "an attempt to find in a texthidden meanings for which there is no explicit evidence," then the rabbisalso used allegory apologetically.

14. Already before the time of Christ, Hillel set forthseven rules,[24] which wereexpanded to thirteen by R. Ishmael in the second century AD.[25]  At first sight, these rules seem merelyto be logical principles. Asactually applied, however, they were used to uncover "deepermeanings,"[26] some ofwhich are clearly fantastic.[27]  Vermes suggests these rules weredesigned to link the Oral Law (however tenuously) to the written Torah.[28]  The apologetic motivation in all thismay have been to reformulate Judaism after the fall of the second temple, asVermes suggests,[29] or todefend the Pharisaic position against the Sadducees who rejected the Oral Law.[30]  Probably both were involved.

15. There is a little allegory here and there in Josephusalso. He refers, for example, tothe tabernacle as a symbol of the universe.[31]  So little point is made of this byJosephus, however, that it is not clearly apologetically motivated.

But allegory comes into its own as an apologetic device withPhilo. Borrowing a tool which theStoics had used to avoid embarrassment from Homer and the Greek myths and tofind their own philosophy therein, Philo put it to use in the service of hisbrand of Judaism. As Beryl Smalleynotes:

The chief function of allegory wasapologetic. It enabled him to readphilosophy into the Scriptures and to exalt such details as might seem trivialor scandalous to a higher level.[32]

This is seen in Philo's rules for excluding the literalsense. The literal meaning is notonly rejected when Scripture itself allegorizes, but also when it statessomething unworthy of God, or when literal interpretation would produce acontradiction.[33]

One prominent type of allegorization for Philo involvesanthropomorphisms, which earlier interpreters removed by paraphrase.  Philo's solution is characteristicallyGreek:

The whole question of"personality" in God had not been raised by either Jew or Greek, andit never entered Philo's head to raise it. The matter had reached only the stage of questioning"anthropomorphism" and here Philo stands firmly with the Greekphilosophers, to the point of saying that the anthropomorphic passages in theBible are nonsense if taken literally.[34]

16. As an illustration of Philo's treatment ofanthropomorphism, consider his comments on Genesis 4:16, "… Cain went outfrom the face of God…":

Let us here raise the question whetherin the books in which Moses acts as God's interpreter we ought to take hisstatements figuratively, since the impression made by the words in theirliteral sense is greatly at variance with truth. For if the Existent Being has a face, and he that wishes toquit its sight can with perfect ease remove elsewhere, what ground have we forrejecting the impious doctrines of Epicurus, or the atheism of the Egyptians,or the mythical plots of play and poem of which the world is full?[35]

Philo goes on to say that God has no "parts" or"passions,"[36]and so far most interpreters who take the Bible as God's revelation wouldagree. But when we reach hispositive suggestion, Philo allegorizes "to go out from the face ofGod" to mean "to become incapable of receiving a mental picture ofHim through having lost the sight of the soul's eye."[37]

The apologetic motivation is quite obvious here, and suchpassages have caused Philo and other early Jewish interpreters to do somethinking. Yet the context of thepassage (sacrifice, Cain and God talking) suggests the possibility of some sortof local theophany, perhaps analogous to God's later manifestations inconnection with Sinai, the tabernacle and temple. If so, "face" might be understood as "visiblepresence," and leaving "God's face" as departing from the placeof His manifestation. That Philodoes not suggest some such possibility may well indicate the heavy influence ofPlatonic philosophy on his exegesis.

17. Much ofPhilo's other allegorizing may be understood as an implicit answer to the pagancharge that the Jews had contributed nothing to civilization.  Philo answers, on the contrary, thatall that is greatest in Greek philosophy comes from Moses:

He insisted always and on everyoccasion that the Jewish Scriptures taught Greek mysticism in a perfect waywhich the Greeks themselves never approximated. To show this he had to do some amazing things with thescriptural texts. But he refusedto believe that anything so sublime as Greek philosophy and mysticism couldhave been unsuspected by Moses and the Patriarchs.[38]

18. Clearly Philo understood that he was not interpretingthe Genesis narratives literally when he saw in the lives of the Patriarchs andtheir wives complex allegories of how the soul may attain to true philosophyand union with God,[39]yet the Greek philosophers he admired were doing similar things to their sacredliterature. Allegory allowed himto find timeless truths about the soul and God in passages which thecontemporary Greek culture would have considered mere and unedifying history:

When these difficulties are past,Philo's ideas of psychology become much easier. The Stoic eightfold division of the soul … the Platonicdivision … the Aristotelian division … all these Philo can use interchangeably,guided largely by the numbers or details involved in a scriptural passage hemay at the time be allegorizing.[40]

We see here the danger of allegory, a tool which can makeany text say anything. Coupledwith apologetic motivation, the text can be interpreted to fits one's owntheology, to appeal to some target audience, or to match the unchallengedpresuppositions of contemporary society. In fact, Philo appears to have been doing a little of all three.  His own theology is eclectic, bothaccepting and rejecting elements of Greek philosophy, but also doing the samewith the normal understanding of Scripture. He is seeking to reach cultured pagans and to keep Jews inthe fold who are in danger of apostasy to Hellenism. He accepts without question a Platonic contempt for thebody, history and literal interpretation and a corresponding exaltation of thesoul, philosophy and allegory. Philo's methodology, through Origen and others, later brought the sameproblems into Christianity.

19. Yet Philo did not see himself as paganizing, but ratheras a faithful Jews who through Greek philosophy had found the right questionsby which to understand the Bible:

What had this mystical life to do withJudaism? It was Jewish for Philoin every particular. True, thewhole formulation of escape from matter … of the higher knowledge, mystic union… were all foreign to any natural meaning in his Bible, and came to him and hisfellows directly from the pagans about him. But Jews felt that though the pagans had asked the rightquestions about how man was to come to a higher reality, still the pagananswers were nonsense. Judaism hadthe true answer, and Judaism alone.[41]

Early ChristianExegesis

In Christianity the apologetic concerns were somewhat morecomplex, as orthodox Christians faced a war on three fronts, against paganism,Judaism and heresy.

Against Judaism

The earliest apologetic of Christianity was directed againstJudaism, since Christianity began its mission in Jerusalem.  Two main concerns of this apologeticinvolved (1) the Messiahship and deity of Jesus, and (2) the continuation ofthe Old Testament law.

Regarding the first of these, the groundwork for Christianapologetic exegesis was already laid by Jesus and the New Testament writers intheir use of Old Testament passages.

20. We see somegood exegesis of such materials not only in Justin's Dialogue with Trypho (the Jew), but also in Origen's AgainstCelsus (the pagan) and Tertullian's AgainstMarcion (the heretic). Messianic prophecy was not only avaluable apologetic against Judaism, but also against paganism and certain ofthe heresies.

21. Christians also fastened upon a number of Old Testamentpassages which indicated that God was not a strict unity in the senseunderstood by Jews. For example,Justin argues that one of the three men who appeared to Abraham in Genesis 18was God (18:1, 2, 22, 33; 19:1), but also distinct from God, as seen in Gen19:24, "the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from theLord out of heaven."[42]

22. A reaction to this sort of argument appears in thePalestinian Targum in Genesis 18, where it is explained that all three men areangels, three being needed because "… it is not possible for a ministeringangel to be sent for more than one purpose at a time."  One is sent to announce Isaac's birth,a second to rescue Lot, and a third to destroy Sodom.[43]  The Targum clearly distinguishes Godfrom the three angels in verses 2 and 3, and especially at verse 22:

And the angels who had the likeness ofmen, turned thence and went toward Sodom. And Abraham now supplicated mercy for Lot, and ministered in prayerbefore the Lord.[44]

23. Yet we also see Christians involved in some very weakallegorical argumentation in this area. Justin argues that the cross is prefigured by the tree of life, byMoses' rod, by the tree that sweetens the waters of Marah, by Jacob's peeledrods, by Aaron's rod that budded, and even by Jacob's staff which Tamar took asa pledge![45]

24. Of the same stripe is the argument in Barnabas 9:8 thatAbraham's 318 servants prefigure the cross of Christ. In Greek alphabetic numerals 318 is ΤΙΗ;[46]T = cross, and IH are the first two letters of "Jesus."

The second line of argumentation involved the Jewish beliefthat the law was eternal. Theapocryphal book Baruch speaks in 4:1 of "the law that endurethforever." Josephus, after thefall of Jerusalem, says: "Robbed though we be of wealth, of cities, of all good things, ourLaw at least remains immortal."[47]  Rabbinic argumentation sought tosupport this belief from Scripture:

25. Leviticus 27:34, "These are the commandments whichthe Lord commanded Moses for the sons of Israel at Mount Sinai," wasunderstood[48] to teachthat no prophet coming after Moses could introduce any innovations.

26. Another rabbinic argument was based on Deuteronomy30:11-12, "This commandment … is not in heaven":

Moses said to Israel:  "Do not say:  'Another Moses will arise and bring usanother Torah from heaven'; I therefore warn, IT IS NOT IN HEAVEN, that is tosay, no part of it has remained in heaven."[49]

The first known Christian martyr Stephen was put to death forallegedly saying "that this Nazarene, Jesus, will destroy this place andalter the customs which Moses handed down to us" (Acts 6:14).  Since Stephen is not allowed tocomplete his defense, we do not know whether or not this is a fairrepresentation of his teaching.

The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews wrote to JewishChristians facing a persecution in which they were tempted to abandon theirChristianity and return to safety in Judaism. One of his grounds for arguing that they must not do this isthat the law has been superseded. He proceeds to demonstrate this with a brilliant literal exegesis ofthree Old Testament passages:

27. In Heb 7:11-25, he argues from Psalm 110:4, "TheLord has sworn and will not change His mind, 'Thou art a priest foreveraccording to the order of Melchizedek,'" noting that a change inpriesthood from the Levitical requires a change in the law.

28. In Heb 8:1-13, he cites Jeremiah's prediction of a newcovenant (Jer 31:31-34), arguing that God would not mention a new covenant ifthe old were adequate (8:7) and that the term "new" implies theobsolescence of the Mosaic one (8:13).

29. In Heb 10:1-9, the author of the epistle cites Psalm40:6-8, arguing that the animal sacrifices and offerings of the Mosaic covenantwere not God's ultimate purpose, but that they foreshadowed the sacrifice ofthe Coming One predicted in Scripture, who "takes away the first in orderto establish the second."

30. In striking contrast to this exegesis is that found inthe epistle of (Pseudo-) Barnabas. Rather than argue for a change in the law, the writer contends that Godnever did intend the kosher laws to be literally observed.  Regarding, for example, the prohibitionon eating pork:

Therefore it is not God's commandmentthat they (literally) should not eat, but Moses spoke in the spirit.  For this reason, then, he mentions the"pig": Do not associate,he is saying, with such men – men who are like pigs.  That is, men who forget their Lord whenthey are well off, but when they are in need, they acknowledge the Lord; justas when the pig is feeding it ignores its keeper, but when it is hungry itmakes a din.[50]

In such debates between Jews and Christians, disagreementsoon developed over the text of the Old Testament. The Jews claimed that the Masoretic text must be followed;the Christians responded that the Jews had deleted Christological materialsfrom it.[51]

31. For apologetic reasons, therefore, Origen determined touse the Jews' own text with them in debate. It thus appears that an apologetic motivation was involvedin Origen's massive Hexapla project, by which he made the Masoretic textavailable in Greek for Christians.[52]

Against Paganism

As a sample of early Christian exegesis against paganism,let us consider Origen's work Against Celsus. Celsus, a second centurypagan philosopher, was the author of The True Discourse, a lengthy and fairly sophisticated attack onChristianity which employed both Jewish and pagan materials.  Origen's reply, which is unquestionablyapologetically motivated, has several interesting methodological remarks:

32. Origen admits the difficulty of proving the historicityof an account at some later time. Responding to Celsus' skepticism regarding the voice at Jesus' baptism,he says:

Before we begin our reply, we have toremark that the endeavour to show, with regard to almost any history, howevertrue, that it actually occurred, and to produce an intelligent conceptionregarding it, is one of the most difficult undertakings that can be attempted,and is in some cases an impossibility.[53]

33. Origen admits that some of Celsus' arguments areweighty. For instance, Celsusobjects that Jesus did not appear to everyone after his resurrection.[54]  Origen spends several chapters toprovide an answer, yet he does not appear to have been totally successful.

34. Origen occasionally suggests stronger arguments whichCelsus could have used but apparently overlooked. For instance, Celsus' objections to Jesus' genealogy do notinvolved the apparent discrepancies between Matthew and Luke.[55]  Celsus claims the flood narrative isfalsified from that of Deucalion, but does not pounce on the problem of gettingall the animals in an ark of the size reported.[56]  Apologetic motivation, then is notnecessarily inconsistent with recognizing problems and allowing due weight tothe arguments of opponents.

35. Origen seeks to be fair to Celsus, but complains thatCelsus is not fair with the Scripture:

… Celsus ought to have recognized thelove of truth displayed by the writers of sacred Scripture, who have notconcealed even what is to their discredit …[57]

… observe in what a spirit of hatredand falsehood Celsus collects together the statements of sacred history; sothat wherever it appeared to him to contain a ground of accusation he producesthe passage, but wherever there is any exhibition of virtue worthy of mention– as when Joseph would not gratify the lusts of his mistress, refusingalike her allurements and her threats – he does not even mention thecircumstance![58]

Although Origen is inclined to allegorize the Old Testamentheavily, much of his apologetic exegesis is literal:

36. In discussing the word almah in Isaiah 7:14, Celsus adopts the Jewish argumentthat it merely means "young woman," but Origen argues that itliterally means "virgin." Origen considers its usage elsewhere in the Old Testament (though notexhaustively).[59]  He then discusses its context,especially the reference (7:11) to its being a "sign," noting thatthe normal birth of a child would hardly be a sign as "high asheaven" or as "deep as Sheol." He notes that the title "Immanuel" (God with us)is also more appropriate to the Christian interpretation.[60]

37. When Celsus claims that Paul's remarks in 1 Corinthians3:19 ("the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God") show thatChristians are trying to appeal to "the ignorant and foolish alone,"Origen explains that the reference is to "wisdom of the world," thatis, human wisdom rather than divine wisdom.[61]  He later goes on to say that Christiansdo not despise even human wisdom, pointing to the education of Moses and Danieland noting that some such also exist among Christians.[62]

38. Origen even refuses to use allegory in defending Lot'sdaughters for their incest with their father, though he intimates that thepassage has allegorical significance. Instead he suggests that the girls supposed all the rest of mankind hadbeen destroyed (not an unreasonable interpretation of Genesis 19:31) and wereseeking to preserve the human race.[63]

Yet allegory is also a part of Origen's apologetic.  He does not deny Celsus' charge that"the more modest of Jewish and Christian writers" use allegory,though he is not willing to grant that they do so "because they areashamed of these things."[64]  Origen responds that if Celsus is goingto attack Christians for this, the Greek literature which is allegorized is farmore shameful! Instead he arguesthat the Bible gives evidence that it is intended to be allegorized without, however, denying the historicity of itsevents:[65]

39. Origen (literally exegeting) gives examples of Paul'sreference to muzzling the ox (1 Cor 9:91-0), to marriage as a picture of Christand the church (Eph 5:31-32), to the Israelites being "baptized" inthe Red Sea (1 Cor 10:1-2) and being followed by Christ the spiritual rock (1Cor 10:4). Less aptly, perhaps, heclaims that Asaph's remark "I will open my mouth in a parable, I willutter dark sayings of old" (Psalm 78:2) indicates "the histories ofExodus and Numbers to be full of difficulties and parables."[66]

40. When Origen actually applies allegory to the OldTestament in answer to Celsus' ridicule against the Bible recording trivia, theresults are not so happy. Jacob'sdevices to get Laban's livestock (Genesis 30) prefigure the salvation of theGentiles. The narratives ofpatriarchal well-digging (as opposed to cisterns) point to their reception ofblessings from God, the real source of blessing. The patriarchal marriages and intercourse also havespiritual meanings which, however, Origen prefers to discuss in hiscommentaries.[67]

As in Philo's allegorizing, so in Origen's we see theinfluence of Platonism – the debasing of history and the allegorizing ofsacred literature. Though Origenrefuses to deny the historicity of Biblical events, he is not able to see theirplace in salvation history. Withsuch a tool as allegory ready at hand, we should not be surprised to see itused in apologetics as well as in other exegetical activities such as teachingand preaching.[68]

Against Heresies

As an example of early Christian apologetic against heresy,let us consider Tertullian's work Against Marcion, which has been characterized as "one of the finest pieces ofscriptural exposition in Christian antiquity."[69]  Marcion, raised a Christian, came toteach that the God of the Old Testament was a different being than the God ofthe New Testament. Both existed,but the former was harsh, the latter merciful. The former was the creator of matter; the latter, above andbeyond creation, was the Father of Jesus. In his Antitheses Marcionsought to demonstrate his thesis by collecting apparent discrepancies betweenthe Old Testament and the New.

By and large, Tertullian responds to Marcion by means of astraight-forward literal exegesis.

41. To Marcion's claim that the law-gospel distinctionpoints to different Gods behind the Old Testament and the New Testament,[70]Tertullian responds that such a change was actually predicted in the OldTestament. He cites Jeremiah 31 onthe new covenant; Hosea 2:11 on putting an end to Israel's festivals; Isaiah1:13-14 on God's hatred of Israel's ceremonials; Jeremiah 4:4 on circumcisingthe heart; and (far less cogently) Isaiah 43:19, "Behold I will do a newthing."[71]  All of this is fairly literalinterpretation, though one could well question whether every passage is likelyto be referring to the coming of the new covenant in Christ.

42. Tertullian also notes that in all of Paul's remarksabout the law-grace distinction, there is not the slightest hint that he knewanything of some new God, unknown in the Old Testament.[72]  This is certainly straight-forwardexegesis, and it attacks through a gaping hole in Marcion's position, usingMarcion's "own" apostle against him!

As noted earlier (case 20), Tertullian uses Old TestamentMessianic prophecy in his apologetic. As it happens, a literal exegesis of such material is well-adapted tofight Marcion's particular heresy, as it demonstrates a vital link between Oldand New Testaments.

43. Though obviously apologetically motivated, Tertullianhas thought over some of the hermeneutical principles involved in theinterpretation of prophecy. He isaware of the larger figurative element in this material:

… very many events are figurativelypredicted by means of enigmas and allegories and parables, and … they must beunderstood in a sense different from the literal description.[73]

Tertullian is also aware of the prophetic perfect,[74]probably through the literal nature of his Latin version of the Bible, as henotes that "future events are sometimes announced as if they were alreadypassed."[75]

44. Tertullian responds to Marcion's characterization of theOld Testament God as severe and the New Testament God as merciful bygeneralizing his exegesis to the level of theological synthesis.  There is only one God, says Tertullian,who always demonstrates his attributes of both justice and mercy.[76]  This is certainly based on astraight-forward exegesis of numerous passages in both testaments.

On occasion, Tertullian will seek to answer Marcion'scharges by making distinctions or by attempting to go "behind thetext" to the author's (God's) inferred intention:

45. Marcion, for instance, attacks the Old Testament God as"creating evil" (Isaiah 45:7). Tertullian responds by distinguishing between "sinful evil" and"penal evil" (disaster brought upon people by God), claiming that Godis the author of the second kind only.[77]  This is certainly a reasonableinterpretation of "evil" in Isa 45:7, based both on its context(God's control of history) and its other occurrences with the word"peace." Today we wouldprobably say the Hebrew word רע means both (moral) "evil"and "disaster."[78]

46. Apparently Marcion saw the Old Testament law ofretaliation (Exodus 21:24 and parallels) as the unmerciful God's"permission to mutual injury." Tertullian responds that God reserves vengeance to himself (Deut 32:35),and then goes beyond any explicit statements in the text to suggest that such apenalty is to the contrary a deterrent, even to "hot-blooded injury."[79]  This is a very reasonable guess as toGod's purpose behind the law.

47. Less successful is Tertullian's response to Marcion'smockery of the distinction between clean and unclean foods.  Tertullian sees the prohibition ofcertain meats as a regulation to control the appetite, to encourage fasting, andto inhibit the related vices of "lust and luxury."[80]  It is easy to see here an apologeticdesire to have a ready answer when the correct one is unknown, though we cannotrule out the possibility that this interpretation was originally motivated by adesire to find Biblical warrant for ascetic practices.

Tertullian makes little use of allegory in his apologeticscompared with Philo or the Epistle of Barnabas, yet he is not entirely freefrom the vice:

48. When discussing the Old Testament prohibition on eatingcuttlefish (see Deut 14:9-10), he sees the regulation a figurative one foravoiding heretics,[81]using much the same argument as in Barnabas 10:5, 10b.

Post-NiceneExegesis

With the legalization of Christianity (and later, itsestablishment), paganism and Judaism become less of a threat.  Yet apologetic motivation remained anintegral part of exegesis. According to Theodore of Mopsuestia, the task of the exegete was (1) toexplain hard words in the text, and (2) to defend orthodoxy.[82]  As samples of apologetic exegesis inthis period, let us consider Jerome's work Against Helvidius and Augustine's Harmony of the Gospels.

Jerome Against Helvidius

Helvidius was a fourth century Christian theologian whosought to defend marriage against asceticism. He wrote attacking the theory that Mary had continued avirgin after the birth of Christ, arguing rather that Jesus' brothers andsisters were younger natural children of Joseph and Mary.  Jerome's reply, actually entitled Concerningthe Perpetual Virginity of the Blessed Mary Against Helvidius, maintains that Mary was always a virgin and thatthe brothers and sisters of Jesus were actually cousins, children of Mary'ssister Mary, the wife of Alphaeus.[83]  The debate is conducted exegeticallythough somewhat abusively!

49. Helvidius argues from Matthew 1:18 ("before theycame together") that Mary and Joseph later did "come together"to have children. Jerome does notdeny the sexual meaning of "come together," but he argues that thephrase "before …" can be used for an action contemplated but notsubsequently carried out.[84]

50. Helvidius argues from the use of the term"wife" to describe Mary (Matt 1:20, 24) that she and Joseph wereactually married. Jerome showsthat the term is used in the Old Testament for those who are only betrothed aswell.[85]

51. Helvidius then questions why God waited until Mary wasbetrothed to Joseph before her conception occurred. Here Jerome must speculate, but he suggests threereasons: (1) to show Mary's originby means of Joseph's genealogy (assuming they were relatives); (2) to protectMary from stoning on a charge of adultery by having Joseph to be commonlyregarded as Jesus' father; (3) to provide Mary "some solace, though it wasthat of a guardian rather than a husband" during Mary's escape to Egypt.[86]

52. Helvidius argues that Matthew 1:25 ("Joseph knewher not till she gave birth") implies they had sexual relations afterJesus' birth. Jerome responds withexamples of "till" where no change occurs when the time limit isreached (e.g., Isa 46:4; Matt 28:20; 1 Cor 15:25).[87]

53. Helvidius responds that Matt 1:25 would have been wordeddifferently if the Bible really taught Jerome's view, as for example with Judahand Tamar in Gen 38:26: "And he did not have relations with heragain." Jerome respondsabusively, arguing from Lev 12:2-3 that Joseph could not have had relationswith her immediately after childbirth:

Otherwise how can the words stand good,"he know her not, till she had brought forth a son," if he waitsafter the time of another purifying had expired, if his lust must brook anotherlong delay of forty days? Themother must go unpurged from child-bed taint, and the wailing infant beattended by midwives, while the husband clasps his exhausted wife.[88]

54. Turning to Luke, Helvidius argues from 2:7 ("shegave birth to her first-born") that the term "first-born" isinapplicable to an only child, so Jesus must have had at least one brother orsister. Jerome responds fromNumbers 18:15 that "first-born" must be applicable to an only child,for how could priests claim the firstlings if they had to wait forsuccessors? He notes that theredemption price may be paid as early as one month, long before a successorcould be born. Finally Jeromenotes how this law applies to Jesus in Luke 2:23-24.[89]

55. Helvidius now points to the passages mentioning Jesus'brothers, two of whom are James and Joseph (e.g., Matt 13:55-56) and claimsthat the "Mary, mother of James and Joseph" at the crucifixion (Matt27:56) is Jesus' mother. Jeromecompares the latter passage with its parallel in John 19:25 and claims thatMary the mother of James and Joseph" is actually "Mary the wife ofClopas." This Mary, he says,is the sister of the virgin Mary and mother of the apostle James the Less(identifying his father Alphaeus with Clopas). James and his brothers were thus called brothers of Jesus,though they were actually only cousins.[90]

56. Regarding Helvidius' reference to Jesus' brothers,Jerome notes that "brother" is used in four senses in Scripture:  (1) natural brothers, such as Jacob andEsau; (2) racial brothers, in the sense that all Jews are brothers; (3)relatives, as Abraham and Lot (Gen 13:8, 11), Laban and Jacob (Gen 29:12),where in each case a nephew is called "brother"; (4) brothers byaffection, as all Christians are brothers. Jerome argues that Jesus' brothers are not (2) or (4); hethen opts for (3), dismissing (1) with the remark that these"brothers" are nowhere called sons of Joseph or Mary.[91]

Looking back at this exchange, it is clear that Jerome isthe better-equipped scholar of the two, and that both in the heat of argumentover-reach themselves. Apologeticmotivation clearly can cause one to overstate his case.  Jerome does succeed in showing that hisview is actually possible, but itdepends on unusual interpretations of several words and phrases and a whollyspeculative relationship between Mary of Clopas and Jesus' mother. Such an exchange, however, does havethe merit of bringing out the best arguments on both sides, and of drawingattention to what the text actually says and what is its possible range ofmeaning. Apologetic motivation canalso obscure understanding, but the clash of opponents with such motivation canalso clarify it.

Augustine's Harmony of the Gospels

Let us move on to Augustine. His Harmony of the Gospels was the first attempt to give a complete discussion harmonizing allthe incidents of the Gospel narratives. True, Tatian (late 2^nd century) had produced a singleinterwoven account in his Diatessaron; Eusebius (early 4^th century) had compiled lists of allparallel passages; and various commentators had dealt with particularpassages. Augustine was nottherefore completely innovating, yet his accomplishment was still substantial. Taking the traditional order of theGospels as the order of their composition, he sees mark as merely preparing acondensation of Matthew.[92]  Thus Augustine first goes throughMatthew in order, discussing all events with parallels in other Gospels; thenhe starts over again, discussing all events with parallels which are not inMatthew.

57. In discussing the differing genealogies in Matthew andLuke, Augustine proposes that "Joseph may have had two fathers, onenatural and one adopted."[93]  Luke, he thinks, probably lists theadopted father, as he is the one who uses "as was supposed" forJoseph being the father of Jesus.[94]  This is, in fact, one of severalpossible harmonizations consistent with the accuracy of both Gospels, thoughprobably not the most likely one.

58. Examining each genealogy separately, Augustine countsthe generations in each and indulges in some typical number mysticism.[95]  It is difficult to tell whether or notthis is apologetically motivated, and if so, in what way.  Allegory loves numbers, and the need toget edifying teaching and preaching material from genealogies is probably asufficient motivation. Augustinetakes no note of the fact that several names are missing from Matthew'sgenealogy; doubtless it would have confirmed his belief that the numbers werechosen for their mystical significance!

59. Comparing the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke,Augustine develops a general principle which he will apply elsewhere aswell. Each evangelist, hebelieves, constructs his narrative on a plan of his own to give it theappearance of completeness and order. Any incidents which the evangelist does not plan to include will bepassed over in silence.[96]  This is a reasonable suggestion (thougha guess) – one more favorable to the Bible's own claims for itself thanmodern liberal views that such differences were due to invention, bias orfaulty transmission during the oral period. One might add the suggestion that the unusual shortness ofthe Gospel narratives (designed, perhaps, to facilitate their circulation in anage of expensive books) is the main reason behind the principle Augustine hasproposed.

60. Augustine's principle by itself does not guarantee theproper reconstruction of the Gospel chronology, however.  Augustine puts the visit of Joseph andMary to the temple (Luke 2:22-38) after the visit of the Magi (Matt 2:9-112)instead of before,[97]making problems for himself later on.[98]

61. Regarding difference in order of events, Augustine notesthat Matthew and Luke have Jesus' second and third temptations reversed.  Having insufficient information, hedoes not arbitrarily try to solve the problem, but rather leaves the orderuncertain.[99]

62. In discussing the relative order of the cleansing of theleper and the healing of Peter's mother-in-law, Augustine asks:

… of what consequence is it in what placeany of them may give this account; or what difference does it make whether heinserts the matter in its proper order, or brings in at a particular point whatwas previously omitted, or mentions at an earlier stage what really happened ata later, provided only that he contradicts neither himself nor a second writerin the narrative of the same facts or of others?[100]

63. Regarding differences of wording, Augustine adoptsvarious techniques. For theapparent discrepancy between John the Baptist's words to Jesus at his baptism(Matt 3:14): "I ought to bebaptized by you," and John's words later to his disciples (John1:33): "I knew him not,"Augustine suggests that John did know Jesus in advance, but did not realize hewas the one who would baptize with the Holy Spirit until the sign of the doveoccurred at his baptism.[101]

64. On the other hand, in the case of different words usedby Jesus and his disciples when he calmed the sea, Augustine points out thatall the accounts have the same general significance and the various words usedmake no real difference. Regardingthe exact words actually spoken, he suggests the possibility that the variouswords of the disciples may all have been spoken by different individuals; thevarious words recorded of Jesus may each be parts of a longer statement.[102]

65. Regarding differences in number, Matthew mentions twoGadarene demoniacs, but Mark and Luke only one. Augustine presumes that one of the two was more noteworthy;perhaps he was particularly lamented or there was unusual anxiety for hisdeliverance.[103]

In all these matters, Augustine is surely motivated todefend the detailed historical accuracy of the evangelists.  Those who deny such accuracy willnaturally see a detrimental effect on his exegesis here.  Yet if Augustine's assumption iscorrect, something of the sort must be done. Augustine in fact established the general approach to theseproblems that Bible-believers have followed ever since.  In contrast to some harmonizingattempts, Augustine generally demonstrates "simplicity and goodsense."[104]

This is not to say that Bible-believers agree in detail withAugustine's particular solutions or his reasons for them.  Fifteen hundred years of further workhave produced many alternative suggestions which seem more likely.  In addition, in spite of Augustine'sbrilliance, spiritual insight and love for Scripture, he was weak both inlinguistic and historical knowledge.[105]

66. Because Augustine knew little Greek, he harmonizes adiscrepancy between the Latin of Matthew and Luke by postulating that part ofthe large herd of swine was "around the mountain" and part "onthe mountain."[106]  There is no such problem in the Greek,where both Gospels have the herd on the mountain.

67. Similarly, Augustine uses the Latin to harmonize thelocation at which the palsied man is healed (Matt 9:1-8; Mark 2:1-12).  Matthew says the event occurred inJesus' "own city," which was at Augustine's time understood to beNazareth. Mark explicitly puts theevent at Capernaum. Augustineplays on the double meaning of the Latin civitas, "city" or "state," to claim that Matthew's phrasemeans Galilee rather than Nazareth.[107]  Today most expositors would seeCapernaum as Jesus' "own city" in the sense that he lived therebetween preaching tours during his Galilean ministry (e.g., Matt 4:13:  "leaving Nazareth, He came andsettled in Capernaum").

68. Augustine's historical knowledge is also weak.  Though he rightly guesses that theHerod at Jesus' birth and trial are different persons, he is not aware ofJosephus' histories which would make this explicit.[108]  Later he is unaware of the length ofArchelaus' reign, also available in Josephus.[109]

Medieval Exegesis

The medieval period was especially the time when allegorydominated Biblical exegesis. Apologetic motivation was apparently one of the forces leading to thedominance of allegory, but it was also a force in delivering exegesis fromallegory.

69. As noted above, fulfilled prophecy was valuable inargument not only with Jews and pagans, but also with some heretics.  It also helped strengthen Christians intheir faith.[110]  In the course of early church history,allegory more and more came to replace literal exegesis in the interpretationof prophecy, while the rabbis in defense sought to abandon it altogether.[111]

70. Yet the dominance of allegory was itself attacked inChristian circles, and that for apologetic reasons. Isidore of Pelusium (died about 450) was concerned about thetype of exegesis that found Christ everywhere in the Old Testament.  This, he complained, only made iteasier for opponents to reject the real Christological passages.[112]  Yet in spite of Isidore's protest,allegory won out for centuries. Itwas not until the twelfth century that the Victorine school, under theinfluence of the Jewish literal exegesis of Rashi and his followers, began torevive literal interpretation in Christian circles.

71. Richard of St. Victor, for instance, saw both theinfluence of allegory in earlier handling of Biblical problems passages and thevalue of literal exegesis for the same:

The ancient Fathers … were glad to findpassages which according to the letter could not stand.  These "absurdities" of theletter enabled them to force certain persons, who accept Scripture but mockedat allegorical interpretations, to resort to a spiritual meaning …. This is thereason, in my opinion, why the ancient Fathers passed over in silence theliteral exposition in certain more difficult passages, or treated it rathercarelessly, when by perseverance they could doubtless have found a much moresatisfying explanation than any of the moderns.[113]

72, Andrew of St. Victor used literal exegesis in thereconciliation of Genesis chapters one and two. Unlike Augustine and many of the fathers, he did not use theapocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus to claim that everything was really createdsimultaneously. Instead he paysclose attention to the words of the Scripture text. Unlike modern liberals, he accepts the historicalreliability of both passages. Thushe arrives at the conclusion that Genesis 2 is a recapitulation of selectedparts of Genesis 1, much as Bible-believers see it today.[114]

73. Yet Andrew's exegesis of fulfilled prophecy raised quitea stir in Christian circles. Perhaps influenced by Jerome to view the Jewish interpretation as theproper literal interpretation, [115]Andrew thought Isaiah 53 literally referred to righteous Jews rather than toChrist.[116]  In Andrew's defense, it should be notedthat he, together with most medieval Christians, had come to associate Christiantheology with allegorical exegesis. Thus he saw no need to argue that the Christological interpretation ofOld Testament prophecy was the literal.[117]

74. By way of contrast, Andrew's contemporary Bartholomew ofExeter, no literalist himself, saw the Jews departing from the literal sense atjust these crucial points:

The chief cause of disagreement betweenourselves and the Jews seems to be this: they take all the Old Testament literally, whenever they can find aliteral sense, unless it gives manifest witness to Christ.  Then they repudiate it, saying that itis not in their books, or they refer it to some fable, as that they are stillawaiting its fulfillment, or they escape by some other serpentine wile, whenthey feel themselves hard pressed.[118]

75. The upshot of this controversy was that Christians,influenced by apologetic motivation and by contact with Jewish exegesis, wereforced to re-examine the relationship between the literal and theologicalmeanings of the Biblical text. Wasthe Jewish view of such passages as Isaiah 53 the true literal meaning (and theChristian view the true allegorical meaning), or was the Jewish view simplywrong?[119]

76. Apologeticmotivation was also a stimulus to the renewal of language study in the MiddleAges:

… so technical a subject needs verystrong stimulus to keep it healthy. Zeal for converting the infidel supplied the motive.  It accounts largely for Roger Bacon'sand Raymond Lull's pleas for the study of the language and for the arrangementsmade at the Council of Vienne.[120]

Science, too, began to revive with the rediscovery ofAristotle in the thirteenth century, after having been nearly defunct sincebefore the Christian era. This ledto attempts to reconcile the Bible with Aristotle, just as it had earlier beenreconciled with Plato.

77. The Jewish scholar Maimonides went so far as to seeBiblical prophecy as merely a natural phenomenon. However, he would not deny the doctrines of creation,providence, rewards and punishment.[121]

78. A milder form of reconciliation is seen in William ofAuvergne, who supported Ecclesiastes 1:7 – "All the rivers flow intothe sea, Yet the sea is not full. To the place where the rivers flow, There they flow again." –by reference to Aristotle's Meteorics. Unfortunately for William's argument,his version of Aristotle was faulty, giving as Aristotle's view that of Platowhich Aristotle was attacking![122]

79. The rediscovery of Aristotle also brought Biblicalexegesis into contact with the scientific outlook:

… a person accustomed to reading ascientific text, to reflecting on the mechanism of the universe and itscomponent parts, will proceed to the study of any other text with neweyes. He will not be content toknow that things happened but will ask how they happened.  And he will fasten on to anything thatadds to his stock of scientific knowledge.[123]

ReformationExegesis

Two of the most influential figures of the reformationperiod were Martin Luther and John Calvin. It is only proper in a quick sketch of apologetic motivationto examine samples of their exegesis.

Martin Luther

Luther was unmistakably an apologist, an occupation whichmay put real strain on one's exegesis:

80. The theological controversies inwhich Luther engaged dealt with issues and opinions that came out of hisexegesis. He often charged thathis opponents had permitted controversy to blind them to the true meaning ofthe Scriptures, and his opponents often made the same charge against him.  If these charges were true it was notthe first time in the history of theology that this had happened, not yet thelast.[124]

Yet Luther's apologetic motivation was not only negative inits effects. Pelikan also suggestsa positive influence:

81. Nevertheless, it is also possiblethat something quite different was happening in Luther's theologicalcontroversies…. Possibly it wasonly in controversy that Luther found the true meaning of the Scriptures at oneor another crucial place. As adebater, lecturer, and preacher accustomed to think on his feet, Luther seems frequentlyto have developed insights ad lib whichhad escaped him during the calm reflection of his study. Thus the problem of mutual influence ofcommentary and controversy in Luther is a complex one.  He was not merely defending his view ofthe exegesis of the Scriptures in a controversy, he was shaping previousexegesis; he was re-examining his exegesis in the light of further study of theScriptures.[125]

In looking at samples of Luther's exegesis, let us considerthe two controversies discussed by Pelikan in his chapter "Commentary andControversy": (1) Luther'sdebate at Leipzig with John Eck over papal primacy, and (2) his arguments withvarious Protestants over the nature of the Lord's Supper.[126]

82. In the former controversy, Luther dismisses Eck's argumentfrom John 5:19 as irrelevant to the controversy. Rather than proving a hierarchy throughout the universe ofwhich the ecclesiastical hierarchy is an analogue, it merely demonstrates theequality of Christ with the Father.[127]  Here Luther is certainly on the sounderexegetical ground.

83. The main passage at issue between Eck and Luther wasMatthew 16:18, the "rock" passage. Eck saw Peter as the rock; Luther identified the rock with"faith."[128]  It is fair to say, with Luther, thatfaith in the person of Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God, is the main pointof the context, and that the church is surely built upon this.  Yet in Eck's favor, Jesus does make aword-play between "Rock" and "Peter," which are similar inGreek and possibly identical in Aramaic. It thus appears that apologetic motivation is distorting theinterpretation somewhat in order to win the argument. Surely a church that is "built upon the foundation ofthe apostles and prophets" (Eph 2:20) is therefore built upon Peter, eventhough Christ is the corner stone. To justify the Roman Catholic position, one must still prove that Peterdesignated successors and that these are the bishops of Rome.

84. The Leipzig debate also had hermeneutical consequences:

At Leipzig, Luther came to see thedifference between Biblical exegesis and traditionalism.  For traditionalism, as exemplified byEck, the church fathers determined the meaning of the text; for Luther'sexegesis, on the other hand, what the fathers said illumined but did notdetermine what the text meant …. Luther's method was to call upon the resources of the Bible and oftradition to help him, not in the substantiation of a traditional position butin the clarification of the text.[129]

85. Turning to the controversy over the Lord's Supper,Luther argues against Zwingli, Carlstadt and Oecolampadius that John 6:63– "It is the spirit which gives life; the flesh profitsnothing. The words that I havespoken to you are spirit and are life." – is irrelevant to thecontroversy.[130]  The context, he admits, does refer tothe Lord's Supper in verse 55, but the phrase "the flesh" in verse 63does not refer to Christ's flesh (for which Jesus always uses "myflesh"), but to unregenerate human nature, as in Genesis 6:3 and John3:6. Thus verse 63 means we cannotunderstand Jesus' words unless we are regenerate.[131]  The context refers to the spiritualeating and drinking of the believer in Christ (i.e., to "faith"), notjust to the sacrament.[132]  Here again, one feels that Luther hasmade a real contribution to understanding the passage, but that he has gonebeyond the passage in the interests of defending his own peculiar view of theLord's Supper. May not the passagebe Jesus' explanation of another symbolic significance of the Lord'sSupper? That just as the supperwill look back to Christ's death and forward to the Messianic banquet, so itwill remind believers that our daily life is sustained by faith in the death ofChrist?

86. Positively, Luther maintained that "this is mybody" must be understood literally. He admitted only three reasons for departing from the literal sense of aBiblical text: (1) an explicitstatement in the text indicating it is figurative; (2) strong evidence fromanother passage that the text should be understood figuratively; or (3)disagreement of the literal sense with "a clear article of thefaith."[133]  When his opponents countered with theBiblical statements: "I am the vine" (John 15:1) and "the rockwas Christ" (1 Cor 10:4), Luther replied that Christ really was a vine anda rock, only not a natural rock or vine.[134]

87. Finally Luther was driven to a sort of irrationalism:

Nothing avails here but to say:"Indeed in the matter of eating Christ's body and drinking Christ's bloodI am not going to confer with reason; I shall give heed to what Christ Himselfsays on the subject." Reasonsuggests one evil thought after another to you. It continually turns up its nose at these words.  But he who can overcome reason entersthe spiritual school and the spiritual sphere …. It is immaterial to me that I cannot see this or cannotreason it out.[135]

Admitting that God's ways are beyond our full comprehension,it still seems that apologetic motivation defending a weak cause has here beendriven to adopt a hermeneutic which, applied elsewhere, would be the end of allcommunication. Surely some sort offigurative sense for "this is my body" better fits the whole scope ofScripture. Yet Luther's strongemphasis on the literal was largely beneficial, especially when compared withthe dominant allegorism that preceded him.

John Calvin

Let us turn now to John Calvin, generally conceded to be theoutstanding exegete of the period. Calvin urged restraint in exegesis:

88. Since in this life we cannot hopeto achieve a permanent agreement in our understanding of every passage ofScripture, however desirable that would be, we must be careful not to becarried away by the lust for something new, not to yield to the temptation toindulge in sharp polemic, not to be aroused to animosity or carried away bypride, but to do what is necessary and to depart from the opinions of earlierexegesis only when it is beneficial to do so.[136]

89. The same caution carries over into apologetic exegesis:

We must always be careful not to givethe Jews any reason to claim that we split hairs in order to find reference toChrist in passages not directly related to him.[137]

Yet Calvin, too, was involved in apologetics per se, not just in the apology that all commentatorspractice in defending their own interpretations. As a sample, let us consider his response to the letterwritten by Cardinal Jacopo Sadoleto in 1539 to the Genevans urging them toreturn to the Catholic Church.[138]

90. To Sadoleto's claim that salvation is our chief and onlygood, that nothing is more disastrous than the loss on one's soul,[139]Calvin notes that man's "prime motive for his existence" is notsalvation, but "zeal to illustrate the glory of God," citing Romans11:36. Calvin does concede,however, that concern for one's salvation comes second behind this.[140]  Though Calvin does not remark on thematter, the examples of Moses (Ex 32:32) and Paul (Rom 9:3) being willing tosuffer destruction for Israel's sake would seem to favor Calvin here, or evento put one's salvation third behind the salvation of others.

91. Calvin agrees with Sadoleto regarding the danger offalse worship to our salvation,[141]citing 2 Samuel 15:22. Calvinadopts this as the basis of his defense: Which group, Catholicism or Protestantism, has the true worship andwhich the false? The answer, saysCalvin, must be decided by determining which worship is based on Scripture,citing John 10:27, Ephesians 2:20 and 1 Peter 1:23.[142]  The passages are not exegeted inCalvin's letter, but all relate to God's people being obedient to God's word.

92. Sadoleto, surprisingly, argues that salvation is indeedby faith alone, but that faith is more than mere "credulity and confidencein God":

When we say, then, that we are saved byfaith alone in God and Jesus Christ, we hold that in this very faith love isessentially comprehended as the chief and primary cause of our salvation.[143]

To this plausible presentation, Calvin responds that Paul'sphrase "righteousness of faith" refers to an imputed righteousness,not one we have earned, since God is spoken of as "not imputing oursins" (2 Cor 5:19). Paul, hesays, always speaks of justifying faith in the narrow sense of dependence on"a gratuitous promise of divine favor," and thus Paul may reason"if by faith, then not be works" and vice versa.[144]  Calvin goes on to argue that althoughgood works have no place in our justification, they must be present in ourlives if indeed we are really Christians, that they are the very purpose of ourcalling and election (Eph 1:4, 1 Thess 4:7).[145]  Regarding the relation of our love toour salvation, Calvin responds:

… who can assign any other cause forour adoption than that which is uniformly announced in Scripture, viz., that wedid not love Him, but were spontaneously received by Him into favor andaffection?[146]

93. To Sadoleto's claim that Christians have their sinsremoved by performing "whatever expiation, penances andsatisfactions" are commanded by the Church ("always" accompanied"by the grace and mercy of God"), Calvin responds sharply:

Your ignorance of this doctrine leadsyou on to the error of teaching that sins are expiated by penances andsatisfactions. Where, then, willbe that one expiating victim, from which, if we depart, there remains, asScripture testifies, no more sacrifice for sin? Search through all the divine oracles which we possess; ifthe blood of Christ is uniformly set forth as purchasing satisfaction,reconciliation and ablution, how dare you presume to transfer so great an honorto your works?[147]

94. Sadoleto claims that the Church "cannot err, sincethe Holy Spirit constantly guides her public and universal decrees andCouncils." But even if (forargument's sake) the Church did err, God would not hold anyone responsible whosincerely and humbly obeyed its authority.[148]  In response, Calvin appeals to theBible and the early church fathers to show that major features of RomanCatholic doctrine and practice did not exist in early times, citing images,indulgences, purgatory, auricular confession, and prohibiting the communion cupto the laity.[149]  He notes that Christian leaders mustlead within the bounds set by Scripture (1 Pet 4:11) and that their decisionsare to be tested by the congregation (1 Cor 14:29).[150]  God, he adds, does not patronize evenignorant error, citing Matt 15:14, "… if a blind man guides a blind man,both will fall into a pit."[151]

95. If one were to raise the question whether Calvin's viewrequires infallible human interpretation to avoid disaster, Calvin repliessoberly:

I do not, however, dream of aperspicacity of faith which never errs in discriminating between truth andfalsehood, is never deceived; nor do I figure to myself an arrogance whichlooks down as from a height on the whole human race, waits for no man'sjudgment, and makes no distinction between learned and unlearned.  On the contrary, I admit that pious andtruly religious minds do not always attain to all the mysteries of God, but aresometimes blind in the clearest matters – the Lord, doubtless, so providingin order to accustom them to modesty and submission ….  I only contend that so long as theyinsist on the Word of the Lord, they are never so caught as to be led away todestruction, while their conviction of the truth of the Word of God is so clearand certain that it cannot be overthrown by either men or angels.[152]

To summarize: though here and there we find a Scripture quotation that is not whollyapt, and once a spiritualization of a prophetic passage that seems to beliteral,[153] Calvin'sexegesis in this apologetic situation is as careful and incisive as any we haveexamined. Apologetic motivationneed not distort the exegesis of Scripture.

Modern Exegesis

Recent centuries have seen the rise of a scientism thatdenies the occurrence of the miraculous and of a historicism that "looksdown as from a height" on all past generations. Much of the apologetic motivation in recent centuries hasbeen a reaction to or an accommodation with these trends.  Alan Richardson perceptively comparesthe situation to that of the early church:

96. The allegorical interpretation haddone for the cultured and philosophically-minded Fathers of the ancient Churchwhat the historical method was to do for the Victorians and theirsuccessors: both methods helped toreconcile the scriptural teaching with changed views of the universe, whetherPtolemaic or Copernican, whether Stoic or Darwinian, and they made it possibleto explain away ethical injunctions and practices which no longer commendedthemselves to the enlightened conscience.[154]

Wellhausen and Green

One of the most influential figures in the application ofscientism and historicism to the Old Testament was Julius Wellhausen.  In 1878, Wellhausen presented inreadable form a theory for the explanation of the Pentateuch that combinednearly a century of work in analyzing Scripture into hypothetical documentswith the view that religion is continually evolving from more primitive to moreadvanced stages.[155]  Within a generation Wellhausen's JEDPtheory had swept the field, and with slight modifications it still dominatesliberal Old Testament studies today.

Several responses to Wellhausen were written, though nonewere able to stem the tide which carried nearly all the major Protestantdenominations into liberalism in the twentieth century.  One of the most successful responseswas that written by the Bible-believer William Henry Green.[156]  Let us examine some of the debatebetween Wellhausen and Green on the important matter of the location of worshipin ancient Israel.

97. Basically, Wellhausen's argument is that a multiplicityof altars was standard practice in Israel to the time of King Josiah (7^thcentury BC), and that no regulations existed prohibiting such until the writingof Deuteronomy (D) at that time. But Deut 12:1-14 projects a single-altar commandment back into the timeof Moses, and the later priestly writers (P) assumed such a commandment wasMosaic.[157]  Wellhausen's argument thus resemblesthat of Marcion in his Antitheses,except that the antitheses alleged are between largely hypothetical documents– the early J, E, Judges, Samuel and Kings (multi-altar) on the one hand,and the later D and P (single-altar) on the other – rather than betweenthe extant Old Testament and New Testament. Since Wellhausen can adjust the boundaries of his documentsand bring in redactors (editors) to account for troublesome details, hisposition is harder to attack than Marcion's. Green's response is basically to show that the phenomena ofthe Old Testament make sense taking the material as it stands, that thesingle-altar regulation of Deuteronomy is not a late invention, but comes fromthe time of Moses.[158]

98. Specifically, Wellhausen claims that from the time ofthe Judges onward there is no trace of a single sanctuary until the building ofthe Jerusalem temple:[159]

If people and judges or kings alike,priests and prophets, men like Samuel and Elijah, sacrificed without hesitationwhenever occasion and opportunity presented themselves, it is manifest thatduring the whole of that period nobody had the faintest suspicion that such conductwas heretical and forbidden. If atheophany made known to Joshua the sanctity of Gilgal, gave occasion to Gideonand Manoah to rear altars at their homes, drew the attention of David to thethreshing floor of Araunah, Jehovah Himself was regarded as the proper founderof all these sanctuaries – and this not merely at the period of theJudges, but more indubitably still at that of the narrator of these legends.[160]

Green's response is that the "unity of the altar"goes back to patriarchal times in the sense that "no rivalsanctuaries" existed, but that during the patriarchal and wildernesswanderings, the site of worship moved with the group.[161]  Green further maintains that before thetime of Solomon, Deuteronomy 12 would not yet take effect:

… Deuteronomy xii looks forward to thetime when Israel should be permanently settled in the land which Jehovah theirGod was giving them to inherit, and he should have given them rest from alltheir enemies round about …. Theseconditions were not fulfilled until the peaceful reign of Solomon, who bydivine direction built the temple as Jehovah's permanent abode.[162]

99. These two principles propounded by Green do not coverall the wide variety of phenomena found in the Old Testament.  Green notes that all of Wellhausen'salleged legal codes normally restrict sacrifice to some central location, butthat Exodus 20:24 also handles certain unusual circumstances as well.  (1) A special theophany would allowsacrifices temporarily at that location (e.g., the cases of Gideon andManoah). (2) The withdrawal of Godmight leave the people without a sanctuary (as, for example, when the ark islost and then secluded during the time of the judges, or the people of theNorthern Kingdom are prohibited from going to Jerusalem), in which case theymust worship where they can.[163]  Naturally, the disobedience of thepeople to God's law is a factor as well. With these additional principles, it appears that Green can fit all thedate, though one might question whether exception (2), above, is not morespeculation than exegesis.

100. The same, however, can be said for Wellhausen's muchmore extensive treatment, for if Green has several variables to cover the data(moving altars, theophanies, withdrawal of God, and disobedience), Wellhausenhas hundreds (the exact placement of boundaries between his documents and theeditorial activity of various redactors). He puts the erection of an altar by the trans-Jordan tribes (Joshua 22),which clearly pictures concern over a competing altar in the time of Joshua, inthe later P document.[164]  The remark of 1 Kings 3:2, set in thetime of Solomon ("The people were still sacrificing on the high places,because there was no house build for the name of the Lord until thosedays"), and the censures of later kings for not removing the high places,are all dismissed as the work of later redactors.[165]  Wellhausen speculated that the allegedpatriarchal worship sites were really only Canaanite and that non-patriarchalsites are later Israelite.[166]  Though arguing for purely localsanctuaries in the time of the judges, Wellhausen admits that Shiloh wasimportant enough for Elkanah to cross tribal boundaries to visit it yearly.[167]

101. Wellhausen must also postulate a scheme to end themultiplicity of altars. He suggests that the preaching of Hosea and Amosagainst the corruption of the Northern Kingdom, followed by its destruction,not only left Jerusalem with its temple supreme, but also caused people to viewthe destruction of the Northern Kingdom as God's judgment.[168]  Wellhausen brushes aside the attemptsof Hezekiah to abolish the high places (before the writing of D) as of doubtfulauthenticity[169] (thoughmentioned by both the narrator and an Assyrian general, 2 Kings 18:4, 22) andplaces the actual reform in the time of Josiah (trusting the same narrator, 2Kings 23), but finally admits that the Babylonian captivity was necessary tobring a complete end to the multiplicity of altars.[170]

Such a sketch does not really do justice either toWellhausen or to Green. Both havesome valuable insights, and both are trying to reduce a complex historicalsituation to a set of logical rules. The desire to give an answer defending one's position is involved aswell: Green is defending the Bibleas a historically reliable revelation from God; Wellhausen is defending anevolutionary reconstruction of Israel's history. Yet it must be said that Green is attempting astraight-forward exegesis of the text as it stands, whereas Wellhausen is attemptingexegesis of hypothetical and radically reconstructed texts.

Bultmann

Moving from Old Testament to New Testament, and from thenineteenth century to the twentieth, we come to Rudolf Bultmann, the Wellhausenof New Testament studies. Let ushere consider one of the most important aspects of Bultmann's theology andexegesis, his demythologizing of Scripture.

102. Bultmann believes that the worldview of the Bible is nolonger tenable, having been refuted both by science and by history.[171]  Thus we cannot expect modern man toreceive the Biblical message as it is:

Now that the forces of nature have beendiscovered, we can no longer believe in spirits, whether good or evil.  We know that the stars are physicalbodies whose motions are controlled by the laws of the universe, and notdemonic beings which enslave mankind to their service….  Sickness and the cure of disease arelikewise attributable to natural causation…. The miracles of the New Testament have ceased to bemiraculous…. Even occultismpretends to be a science…. It isimpossible to use electric light and the wireless and to avail ourselves ofmodern medical and surgical discoveries, and at the same time to believe in theNew Testament world of spirits and miracles. We may think we can manage it in our own lives, but toexpect others to do so is to make the Christian faith unintelligible andunacceptable to the modern world.[172]

103. To make the Christian faith intelligible to modern man,Bultmann proposes not merely that we adopt the ethics of the New Testament (asold liberalism advocated) but also that we accept the message hidden in itsmythology:

We must ask whether the eschatologicalpreaching and the mythological sayings [of Jesus] as a whole contain a stilldeeper meaning which is concealed under thecover of mythology.[173]

104. To find this deeper meaning Bultmann treats myths astranscendent truths disguised in "an immanent, this-worldlyobjectivity."[174]  These concrete myths must betranscendentalized by a process that Bultmann calls demythologizing.  For instance, the mythological language"God lives in heaven" really means "God istranscendent." Hell and itsdarkness are merely concrete pictures of the truth that evil, too, istranscendent, powerful and fearsome. The myth of Satan and evil spirits is a primitive insight into the factthat men sometimes lose control of their passions to commit inexplicable evils.[175]

105. Eschatology is similarly demythologized:

As in the conception of heaven thetranscendence of God is imagined by means of the category of space, so in theconception of the end of the world, the idea of the transcendence of God isimagined by means of the category of time.[176]

Bultmann believes eschatology reveals in the "end ofthe age" the transitory nature of our world and life; in "the lastjudgment," God's judgment of our actions, calling us to repentance; and inthe "eschatological hope," a call to be "open to God's future inthe face of death and darkness."[177]

107. Thus the whole message of Jesus as demythologized byBultmann has an existential cast:

This, then, is the deeper meaning ofthe mythological preaching of the Jesus – to be open to God's futurewhich is really imminent for every one of us; to be prepared for this futurewhich can come as a thief in the night when we do not expect it; to be preparedbecause this future will be a judgment on all men who have bound themselves tothis world and are not free, not open to God's future.[178]

If one can distance himself somewhat from our modernworldview dominated by historicism and scientism, it is obvious that Bultmannis doing the same thing that Philo and the Christian allegorists were doing– interpreting the Biblical message in terms of a dominantphilosophy. For Philo it wasPlatonism; for Bultmann, it is existentialism, most nearly that of MartinHeidegger.[179]  The interpretive technique is also verysimilar, a form of allegorizing in which certain words and phrases aretransposed to an entirely different thought system. The results likewise are similar: some significant Biblical themes are retained (for Philo,ethics and union with God; for Bultmann, the existential choice) which may evenremind Bible-believers of features they have neglected; yet the scheme as awhole is drastically divergent from any Biblical theology that an inductivemethod would produce.

To end our survey, let us briefly mention two other recentinterpreters, Edwin R. Thiele and Harold Linsdsell. In contrast to Bultmann, both are conservatives in Biblicalmatters and have written defending the accuracy of the Bible.

Thiele

Thiele set out to find a solution to the vexing problem ofthe chronology of the divided kingdom era in Israelite history.  He outlines his procedure as follows:

107. Without deciding a priori that either the data regarding the synchronisms orthe lengths of reign must necessarily be late and probably largely in error, Imade an attempt to ascertain whether there might exist some method ofchronological procedure whereby the numbers which seemed so obviously andhopelessly contradictory could be fitted together into a harmonious pattern ofreigns.[180]

Thiele does not explicitly reveal an apologetic motivationanywhere in his book, but the fact that it arose from a doctoral dissertationdone at the University of Chicago is significant. Chicago is not noted for its Biblical conservatism, anddoctoral candidates do not intentionally spend their time researching hopelesscauses. Thiele must have felt somereasonable assurance that a reconciliation of the Biblical data with itself andwith secular chronology existed.

And Thiele was vindicated. His advisor at Chicago, William A. Irwin, writes:

… the astonishing fact is that hedemonstrates conclusively the precise and dependable accuracy of Hebrewchronology of the times of the kingdoms.[181]

His accomplishment has been widely recognized in bothliberal and conservative Old Testament circles. Though not universally accepted, Thiele's work is seen asepoch-making, "by far the most valuable" among the "mostimportant studies" of the chronology of the Hebrew kings.[182]

Lindsell

Harold Lindsell's Battle for the Bible has created quite a stir in evangelical circles bydocumenting the abandonment of Biblical inerrancy in various denominations andchurch organizations, most notably at Fuller Seminary.  Lindsell is to be commended for hisadherence to inerrancy, a crucial Biblical doctrine; less commendable is thequality of his defense of Scripture against alleged discrepancies.  In two cases at least, it seems to thiswriter that problems have been solved using poor exegesis.

108. In 2 Chronicles 4:2 we are told of the large bronzewater tank made for Solomon's temple:

Also he made the cast metal sea, ten cubits from brim to brim, circular in form, and itsheight was five cubits and its circumference thirty cubits.

To the common objection that such a tank either would not becircular or demonstrates a crude value of pi (3 instead of 3.141…), Lindsell maintains that the diameter wasmeasured to the outside of the tank ("a handbreadth thick," verse 5),but the circumference was measured around the inside, thus giving a value of pi accurate to two decimal places.[183]  Unfortunately this solution cannot beright, for the phrase translated "its circumference thirty cubits" isliterally "a line of thirtycubits encircling it round about." Try to measure an inside circumference with a measuring line! Perhaps the proper solution is thatboth 10 and 30 are round numbers; there is a range of values which round off to10 (9.5-9.7) that multiplied by piround off the 30. Or perhaps,since the brim of the tank was shaped like a lily-blossom (verse 5), thediameter was measured at the flared brim, but the (outside) circumference wasmeasured below the flare, where a line could be gotten around the tank.

109. In seeking to reconcile the various Gospel accounts ofPeter's denials, Lindsell adopts the view of J. M. Cheney, that Peter actuallydenied Jesus six times, three before the first cock crowing and three betweenthe first and second.[184]  Here again, the solution departs fromthe Biblical data, for if anything is clear in the text, it is that all fourGospels agree on three denials, notsix. A more likely resolution isthat Peter's three denials are three occasions of denial, each separated bysome time. On each occasion, oneperson charges Peter with being a disciple of Jesus, others chime in, and Peterexperiences increasingly more difficulty in silencing them.

Conclusions

We have now completed our brief survey of examplesillustrating some effects of apologetic motivation upon Biblical exegesis.  It only remains for us to gathertogether our observations into some sort of summary. Before doing so, however, let us consider what theseexamples are likely to be worth.

First of all, these examples are not intended to present abalanced picture of any of the exegetes mentioned. Some of these men are surely better interpreters than theexamples would lead one to believe; others are probably worse.

Second, the author of this paper has definite theologicaland exegetical views which are doubtless erroneous in some points.  Therefore the assignment of particularexamples to some of the categories below will not meet with the approval ofevery reader. The author feelsconfident, however, that each category given has been a real influence ofapologetic motivation upon Biblical exegesis and that at least some of theexamples under each category will be admitted as valid.

Third, the categories below are not exhaustive.  Certainly other categories could bedevised and examples found for them, probably even from among the examplesgiven here. The categories usedhere were derived from the examples, and they cover some very importantmatters.

With over one hundred examples given, the relative number ineach category probably has some statistical significance.  Those categories with numerous examplesare presumably the more common influences; those with few examples, the rarer.

Let us consider first some negative influences of apologeticmotivation upon exegesis:

Negative Influences

1. Apologeticmotivation may obscure the actual intent of one or more Biblical passages (1,3, 4-7, 22, 24, 40, 48, 49-56, 58, 69, 73-74, 80, 83, 96, 97, 100, 104-106).

2. Apologeticmotivation may encourage one to defend an erroneous position which ought ratherto be abandoned (4-7, 14, 17, 25-26, 30, 40, 69, 77, 85, 87, 97, 100, 102-106).

3. Apologeticmotivation may cause one to yield to the temptation to go beyond the exegeticalevidence (14, 17, 23, 24, 39, 47, 51, 54, 55, 57, 83, 85, 97, 99, 100, 101,108, 109).

4. Apologeticmotivation may distort the Biblical message by seeking to make it moreacceptable to one's own generation or peer group (8, 9-11, 16-19, 39, 40, 73,77, 96, 102-106).

5. Apologeticmotivation may lead one to give a quick solution to a problem when the truesolution is unknown or unacceptable (22, 30, 47, 53, 57, 60, 66-67, 69, 71, 78,87, 108, 109). Notice, however,evidence of restraint here (61, 62, 88, 89).

6. Apologeticmotivation might even lead one to amend or restructure the text to support one'sown views (97, 98, 100, 101).

Yet the pictureis not entirely a bleak one. Therehave also been positive influences of apologetic motivation upon Biblicalexegesis:

PositiveInfluences

1. Apologeticmotivation may lead to a more careful examination of the Biblical text itself(27-29, 34, 36, 49-50, 52-56, 57-65, 71, 72, 81, 82-83, 85-86, 92, 98, 99,107).

2. Apologeticmotivation may force one to deal with difficult passages that would otherwisebe ignored (33, 38, 41, 45, 49-55, 57, 59-65, 72, 83, 85, 86, 97-99, 107).

3. Apologeticmotivation may help to deliver the actual meaning of the Biblical text frommisunderstanding (2, 12, 13, 16, 36, 37, 44, 45, 54, 63, 64-65, 72, 82, 83, 92,97, 107).

4. Apologeticmotivation may encourage the reconsideration of one's own hermeneuticalprinciples (39, 43, 62, 64, 65, 70, 71, 75, 79, 84, 86, 87, 89, 91, 94,95). Of course, this is not goodif one decides to abandon a good hermeneutical principle!

5. Apologeticmotivation may lead one to new exegetical and theological perspectives throughthe errors or insights of one's opponents (32, 35, 44, 45, 46, 56, 70, 74-75,81, 85, 92).

6. Apologeticmotivation may locate real evidence for the truth of Christianity or thefalsity of particular forms of opposition (20, 21, 27-29, 41, 42, 92, 93, 107).

7. Apologeticmotivation may lead one to study the original languages of Scripture (76).

8. Apologeticmotivation may lead one to study textual criticism (31).

---

[1] Webster'sNew World Dictionary of the American Language.College ed. (Cleveland: WorldPublishing Co, 1955), 68.

[2] See, e.g.,Marcel Simon, Jewish Sects at the Time of Jesus (Philadelphia: FortressPress, 1967).

[3] AlfredRahlfs, ed., Septuaginta 7^thed., 2 vols. (Stuttgart: Württembergische Bibelanstalt, 1962), 1:127. My translation and italics.

[4] J. W.Etheridge, ed., The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan ben Uzziel on thePentateuch, with Fragments of the Jerusalem Targum, from the Chaldee, 2 vols. in 1 (London: 1862-65; reprint ed., NewYork: KTAV Publishing House, 1968), 1:400. Italics mine.

[5] Ibid.,1:526. Italics mine.

[6] Rahlfs, Septuaginta, 1:360.

[7] MartinMcNamara, Targum and Testament (Shannon,Ireland: Irish University Press,1972; American ed., Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1972), 71-72.

[8] Etheridge, Targums, 1:252.

[9] R. H.Charles, ed., The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913), 2:30.

[10] Ibid.,2:53.

[11] McNamara, Targumand Testament, 33-34.

[12] Ibid., 48.

[13] H. St. JohnThackeray, Ralph Marcus, Allen Wikgren and L. H. Feldman, eds., Josephus, 9 vols., The Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press andLondon: William Heinemann, Ltd.,1926-65); Antiquities 1.5-25(Preface). Parentheticalreferences will be to the Whiston edition.

[14] Antiquities 1.337-340 (1.21.1).

[15] Ibid.,2.254-256 (2.11.1).

[16] Ibid.,3.75-101 (3.5.1-8).

[17] See thematerials collected in Menachem Stern, ed., Greek and Latin Authors on Jewsand Judaism, vol 1: FromHerodotus to Plutarch (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences andHumanities, 1976).

[18] AgainstApion 1.304-311 (1.34).

[19] Ibid.,2.148 (2.15).

[20] EncyclopaediaJudaica, s.v., "Anti-Semitism. In Antiquity," by JosephHeinemann, Joshua Gattmann and staff.

[21] Tacitus, Histories 5.4-5; cited in Sterm, Greek and LatinAuthors, s.v. "Tacitus."

[22] AgainstApion 2.257-258 (2.37).

[23] Erwin R.Goodenough, An Introduction to Philo Judaeus, 2^nd ed. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962), 44.

[24] Brieflydiscussed in Frederic W. Farrar, History of Interpretation (London: Macmillan and Co., 1886), 18-22.

[25] Brieflydiscussed in Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v."Hermeneutics" by Lewis Jacobs, 8:367-370.

[26] Ibid., 366.

[27] Seeexamples in Farrar, Interpretation,20-21.

[28] GezaVermes, "Bible and Midrash: Early Old Testament Exegesis" in The Cambridge History of theBible, 3 vols., ed. P. R. Ackroyd and C. F.Evans (Cambridge: UniversityPress, 1963-70), 1:222.

[29] Ibid.

[30] A. Cohen, Everyman'sTalmud, rev. ed. (New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1949; reprinted., New York: Schocken Books, 1975), xxi, 146.

[31] Antiquities 3.123 (3.6.4).

[32] BerylSmalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, 2^nd ed. (Oxford:  Basil Blackwell, 1952; reprint ed.,Notre Dame, IN: University ofNotre Dame Press, 1964), 4.

[33] Farrar, Interpretation, 22.

[34] Goodenough,Philo, 87.

[35] F. H.Colson, G. H. Whitaker and R. Marcus, eds., Philo, 12 vols., The Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press and London: William Heinemann, Ltd., 1929-53), 2:329; On the Posterity ofCain and His Exile 1.2.

[36] Ibid., 1.4.

[37] Ibid.,2.7-8.

[38] Goodenough,Philo, 88.

[39] Allegoriesof the Sacred Law.

[40] Goodenough,Philo, 114.

[41] Ibid., 153.

[42] AlexanderRoberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, eds., The Ante-NiceneFathers, 10 vols. (Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing Co.,1885), 1:223-224; Dialogue 56.

[43] Etheridge, Targums, 1:209.

[44] Ibid.,212-13.

[45] Justin, Dialogue 86.

[46] John J.Davis, Biblical Numerology (GrandRapids: Baker Book House, 1968),43.

[47] AgainstApion 2.277 (2.39).

[48] IsidoreEpstein, ed., The Babylonian Talmud, 35vols. (London: Soncino Press,1935-52); Meg 2b; Shab 104a.

[49] H. Freedmanand Maurice Simon, eds., The Midrash Rabbah,5 vols. (London: Soncino Press,1977); Deut. R. 8.6.

[50] Robert M.Grant, gen. ed., The Apostolic Fathers,6 vols. (New York: Thomas Nelsonand Sons, 1964-68), vol. 3: TheDidache and Barnabas by Robert A. Kraft,110; Barn 10:2b-3.

[51] See, e.g.,Justin, Dialogue 81-83.

[52] M. F.Wiles, "Origen as a Biblical Scholar" in The Cambridge History ofthe Bible, 1:456, 458.

[53] Roberts,Donaldson and Coxe, Ante-Nicene Fathers,vol. 4; Against Celsus 1.42.

[54] AgainstCelsus 2.63.

[55] Ibid.,2.32.

[56] Ibid.,4.41.

[57] Ibid.,4.45.

[58] Ibid.,4.46.

[59] Ibid.,1.34.

[60] Ibid.,1.35.

[61] Ibid.,6.12.

[62] Ibid.,6.14.

[63] Ibid.,4.45.

[64] Ibid.,4.48.

[65] Ibid.,4.49.

[66] Ibid.

[67] Ibid.,4.43-44.

[68] See thesummary on the apologetic value of allegory in Smalley, Bible in the MiddleAges, 2; on Origen's treatment of problempassages, see Wiles, "Origen as a Biblical Scholar," 463.

[69] R. P. C.Hanson, "Biblical Exegesis in the Early Church" in The CambridgeHistory of the Bible, 1:427.

[70] Roberts,Donaldson and Coxe, Ante-Nicene Fathers,vol. 3; Against Marcion 1.19.

[71] AgainstMarcion 1.20.

[72] Ibid.,1.21.

[73] Ibid., 3.5.

[74] E.Kautzsch, ed., Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar,2^nd ed., translated A. E. Cowley (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910), §106n.

[75] AgainstMarcion 3.5.

[76] Ibid.,2.29.

[77] Ibid.,2.14.

[78] FrancisBrown, S. R. Driver and Charles A. Briggs, eds., A Hebrew and EnglishLexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907), 947-949;William A. Holladay, ed., A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of theOld Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,1971), 341-342.

[79] AgainstMarcion 2.18.

[80] Ibid.

[81] Ibid.,2.20.

[82] Theodore, Commentaryon John; cited in M. F. Wiles,"Theodore of Mopsuestia as Representative of the Antiochene School"in The Cambridge History of the Bible, 1:491.

[83] OxfordDictionary of the Christian Church (1958),s.v. "Helvidius."

[84] PhilipSchaff and Henry Wace, eds., A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-NiceneFathers of the Christian Church, 2^ndseries, 14 vols. (reprint ed., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, n.d.), vol. 6; Against Helvidius 3-4.

[85] AgainstHelvidius 4.

[86] Ibid.

[87] Ibid., 5-6.

[88] Ibid.,9-10.

[89] Ibid., 12.

[90] Ibid.,13-16.

[91] Ibid.,16-17.

[92] PhilipSchaff, ed., A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of theChristian Church, 1^st series, 14vols. (reprint ed., GrandRapids: Eerdmans, 1956), vol. 6; Harmonyof the Gospels 1.3-4.

[93] Harmony 2.5; Augustine later changes his explanation tonormal and levirate marriage, Retractions 2.16.

[94] Harmony 2.5.

[95] Ibid.,2.8-9, 12-13.

[96] Ibid.,2.16.

[97] Ibid.,2.17.

[98] Ibid.,2.24.

[99] Ibid.,2.33.

[100]Ibid., 2.51.

[101]Ibid., 2.32.

[102]Ibid., 2.55.

[103]Ibid., 2.56.

[104]Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers,1^st series, 6:72.

[105]Ibid., 6:71-72.

[106]Harmony 2.56.

[107]Ibid., 2.58.

[108]Ibid., 2.20.

[109]Ibid., 2.23.

[110]G. W. H. Lampe, "The Exposition of Scripture to Gregory the Great" inThe Cambridge History of the Bible,2:162.

[111]Ibid., 2:163-164.

[112]Ibid., 2:178.

[113]Prologus in visionem Ezechiels 527-28;cited in Smalley, Bible in the Middle Ages, 208.

[114]Smalley, Bible in the Middle Ages,132-35.

[115]Ibid., 170.

[116]Ibid., 164-65.

[117]Ibid., 170.

[118]Dialogue against the Jews; cited inSmalley, Bible in the Middle Ages,170-71.

[119]Smalley, Bible in the Middle Ages,364-65; Beryl Smalley, "The Bible in the Medieval Schools" in TheCambridge History of the Bible, 2:214.

[120]Ibid., 2:219.

[121]Erwin I. J. Rosenthal, "The Study of the Bible in Medieval Judaism"in The Cambridge History of the Bible,2:274-75.

[122]Smalley, Bible in the Middle Ages,310-11.

[123]Ibid., 309.

[124]Jaroslav Pelikan, Luther the Expositor,companion volume to Luther's Works (St.Louis: Concordia Publishing House,1959), 109.

[125]Ibid., 109-110.

[126]Ibid., 109-134.

[127]Ibid., 111-112.

[128]Ibid., 113-115.

[129]Ibid., 118-119.

[130]Ibid., 110, 121-22.

[131]Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut T. Lehmann, eds., Luther's Works, 55 vols. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, and Philadelphia:  Fortress Press, 1958-67), 23:166-67.

[132]Pelikan, Luther the Expositor, 122-23.

[133]Ibid., 126-27.

[134]Ibid., 132.

[135]Luther's Works, 23:168.

[136]Corpus Reformatorum 38,405; cited inHans-Joachim Kraus, "Calvin's Exegetical Principles," Interpretation 31 (1977): 11-12.

[137]Corpus Reformatorum 59,644; cited inibid., 15.

[138]John Calvin and Jacopo Sadoleto, A Reformation Debate, ed. John C. Olin (New York:  Harper and Row, 1966; reprint ed.,Grand Rapids: Baker Book House,1976).

[139]Ibid., 36-38.

[140]Ibid., 58-59.

[141]Ibid., 39, 59.

[142]Ibid., 59-60.

[143]Ibid., 35-36.

[144]Ibid., 67-68.

[145]Ibid., 68-69.

[146]Ibid., 69.

[147]Ibid., 37, 70.

[148]Ibid., 45.

[149]Ibid., 71-74.

[150]Ibid., 77.

[151]Ibid., 89-90.

[152]Ibid., 79.

[153]Ibid., 60-61; Zechariah 14:8 as the spread of the Gospel to all the world.

[154]Alan Richardson, "The Rise of Modern Biblical Scholarship and RecentDiscussion of the Authority of the Bible," in The Cambridge History ofthe Bible, 3:302-03.

[155]Julius Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel (Berlin: Reiner, 1883; reprint ed., Cleveland and New York:  Meridian Books, 1957).

[156]William Henry Green, The Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch (New York: Charles Scribners' Sons, 1895; reprint ed., Grand Rapids:  Baker Book House, 1978).

[157]Prolegomena, chapter 1.

[158]Higher Criticism, 147-153.

[159]Prolegomena, 17.

[160]Ibid., 21-22.

[161]Higher Criticism, 147.

[162]Ibid., 148.

[163]Ibid., 149-50.

[164]Prolegomena, 38.

[165]Ibid., 19.

[166]Ibid., 18.

[167]Ibid., 19.

[168]Ibid., 23-24.

[169]Ibid., 25-26.

[170]Ibid., 26-28.

[171]Rudolf Bultmann, Jesus Christ and Mythology(New York: Charles Scribners'Sons, 1958), 14-16.

[172]Rudolf Butlmann et al, Kerygma and Myth,ed. Hans Werner Bartsch (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1961), 4-5.

[173]Jesus Christ and Mythology, 18; myitalics.

[174]Ibid., 19.

[175]Ibid., 20-21.

[176]Ibid., 22.

[177]Ibid., 23-31.

[178]Ibid., 31-32.

[179]Antony C. Thistelton, The Two Horizons(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980),227-34; Stephen Neill, The Interpretation of the New Testament1861-1961 (London: Oxford University Press, 1964), 229.

[180]Edwin R. Thiele, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1965), vi-vii.

[181]Ibid., xx.

[182]The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible(1962), s.v. "Chronology of the O.T." by S. J. DeVries, 1:599.

[183]Harold Lindsell, The Battle for the Bible(Grand Rapids: ZondervanPublishing House, 1976), 165-66.

[184]Ibid., 174-76.