The Way of the Rabbi (2)

Therefore it says, “When He ascended on high, He led captive a host of captives, and He gave gifts to men.”  Ephesians 4:8

It Says – Yesterday we learned that it was common practice among rabbis to employ both halachah and haggadah, the first for explanation of the way of life and the second for speculating on the details of the Scripture.  Wouldn’t it be nice if there were some clues about when Paul is speaking halachah and when he is merely opining with haggadah?  After all, if every rabbi knew that haggadah was opinion (not binding), then it’s important that we are able to tell the difference.  This verse helps give us a common framework for halachah.  Halachah is always application of the Scripture, so when Paul provides halachah he usually quotes his source.  Whenever he expects his teaching to be binding on the community, he cites the Scriptural reference.  In this verse, “It,” of course, is the Hebrew Scripture.  That’s the only Bible Paul had, and it was always the final authority on any life issue.  That means whenever you find Paul quoting the Old Testament text, you can be pretty sure that he is employing halachah. 

Of course, that also means when Paul does not use an Old Testament reference there is the possibility that he is employing haggadah and offering his opinion on the matter.  Consequently, it becomes far more important to follow Paul’s arguments from beginning to end and not simply grab a verse out of context.  A verse taken outside of the context of the full argument could easily lead us to think that haggadah is really halachah and then we would believe that Paul is enforcing what was really only suggestion.

Of course, the way that Paul quotes Scripture is also very rabbinic.  It’s not the same way that we would use Scripture today.  We are so influenced by the Greek idea of education, truth and accuracy that we commonly expect references and citations to be directly connected with the subject matter.  We wouldn’t quote statistics about car accidents in order to make an argument about retirement planning unless we could draw a direct connection between the two.  But that’s not the way a rabbi thinks.  No one ever accused a rabbi of contextual accuracy in quotations.  It is quite common in rabbinic argument to take a single word or phrase, even just a few letters of a word, to demonstrate a point.  This often seems to us to be nothing more than sophistry, but in rabbinic thought, this is genius.  That’s why Paul’s quotations sometimes seem to come out of left field.  This verse is a perfect example. 

Paul’s quotation comes from Psalm 68:18.  The Psalm is not about the Messiah at all.  At least it doesn’t appear to be about Yeshua.  It is about God’s deliverance of the people of Israel.  It is a song of praise to the Lord.  It is about the majesty of God over all the earth.  The one verse that Paul picks for his argument doesn’t even say that God gives gifts.  It says that God receives gifts.  That’s right!  Paul changes the Greek verb from “receive” (elabes) to “give” (edoken).  Why does he do that?  Because the verse in its altered form fits his rabbinic argument.  As long as the principle is correct, the citation can be altered to fit the application.  By the way, the New Testament authors all do this.  Makes you wonder if we really understand them, doesn’t it?  Makes you wonder if our strict insistence about taking everything as if it were halachah makes any sense at all.

So, it’s back to the drawing board.  Now you’ll have to work a little harder to get at the meaning of Paul’s remarks.  It’s not quite as easy as just reading the words and interpreting them according to our culture.  After all, Paul didn’t write to us yesterday, did he?

Topical Index:  Halachah, Haggadah, Psalm 68:18, Ephesians 4:8, elabes, edoken, rabbinic argument, citations