You're listening to
Tim Bulkeley's 5 minute Bible Several of the things that I've been doing or reading
recently have caused me to
think about the way in which our presuppositions and what we're trying to
do with biblical texts
impacts on how we understand them
and often warps and twists how we understand them
I came across an example of it
just today, i'm looking through the
fine book, Grasping God's Word, by Duval and Hays, about
"a hands-on approach to reading interpreting and applying the Bible"
it's a superb book aware planning to use it for our
understanding and interpreting the Bible course next year but
at one point they make a mistake, they're talking
about the biblical author's background they say
"consider Amos, a prophet who preached around 760BC
though Amos was from Tekoa in Judah, the southern kingdom
God called him to preach in Israel, the northern kingdom, Amos says about himself
I was neither a prophet nor prophet's son but I was a shepherd
I took care of Sycamore fig trees (Amos 7:14)"
they go on: "Amos was not being paid to be a prophet
nor was he following in his dad's footsteps, the prophetic task was completely
new to him...":
and so on, now in essence they're right
but that phrase: "nor was he following in his dad's footsteps"
is simply wrong! There is no place
that I can find in the Bible where
son and prophet go together in such a way that your understanding
the meaning to be that so and so
is the son of a prophet, that the prophet is the father
in every place where I come across the phrase "son of a prophet"
or "sons of the prophets" or anything like it, it seems quite clear to me
what's being talked about are those bunches
of prophetic enthusiasts who went around as gangs
you remember the ones that Saul joins in 1 Samuel Chapter 10
the ones that Elijah and Elisha
train up later on in the book of Kings "son of a prophet" mean a member one of
those gangs, or guilds of prophets
so what's going on with Duval and Hays is that they misunderstand
because surely they know that
but the very least J Daniel Hays who's an
Old Testament specialist must know it. It's not a new or a
abstruse fact and any way it's one they could have checked
simply by looking it up in the Bible. What I think is going on
is they're doing what we often do and letting our rhetoric
carry us away. They're
keen on the idea they're expressing that
Amos isn't paid to be a prophet,
that Amos is called by God to be a prophet and that he's called from being something else
and seems logical enough to
express that, among other ways, by saying
that "he isn't following in his dad's footsteps" that fits with
most cultures, but it's not
what Amos 7:14 says! Incidently, I think
that the NIV mistranslates Amos 7:14 by rendering it in the past
"I wasn't a prophet" it's not what Amos says
it's quite clear in the Hebrew
lo nabi 'anoki - I'm not a prophet (present tense)
because there's no tense - there's no verb
where there's no verb almost always only a present sense involved
I'm not a prophet, "no prophet me"
Mind you, that's difficult since a loss is clearly prophesying
right, left, and center, and even his opponent Amaziah, in chapter 7
recognizes that he prophesies
so the NIV not wanting the Bible to seem
to fail to make sense, corrects it, and puts a past tense
So, in the one little passage, one verse
two examples of how we let our
interests and rhetoric get the better of us, and misrepresent the Bible
of course, it's not just the NIV translators or Duval and Hays, I do it too
we all do it. So when you're reading what we write
you need to read critically, and watch out for where we've let our rhetoric
run away with us. It really is a good book Duval and Hays
I recommend you get it if you haven't looked at it already
bye for now