The Borrowed Text
If you say, “See, we did not know this,” does He not consider it who weighs the hearts? And does He not know it who keeps your soul? And will He not render to man according to his work? Proverbs 24:12 NASB
Weighs – How much of the Bible is borrowed from other cultures, even from other religious ideas? You might have thought that the Bible is unique with respect to its origins and sources. You might have thought that it was somehow transmitted from God to men in its original form. But that view of divine origin is a bit too simplistic. The Bible is God’s word. That doesn’t mean it all comes straight from God to the Hebrews. That means that whatever is found in the Bible, regardless of its source, is reckoned as the word of God to the intended audience. This verse from Proverbs is but one example of many that show the material in the Bible comes from other religious cultures. Waltke notes: “In Prov. 24:12 Yahweh is represented as the one ‘who weighs the heart.’ This figure goes back to the Egyptian god Thoth, who is often represented as standing at the judgment of the dead beside the scales with the human heart.”[1] In fact, entire sections of Proverbs are “borrowed” from other cultures and incorporated into Hebrew sacred writings. The same can be said for words and ideas in the five books of Moses.
Does this make you feel uncomfortable? Do you begin to question whether or not “Scripture” is really sacred? Perhaps a little clarification is necessary.
McDonald[2] distinguishes between inspired material, sacred writings and canon. Inspired material can be anything that moves a person toward some higher objective. In the case of religion, inspired material is whatever we encounter that brings us closer to God. It might be the written words of the Bible or some other religious composition, songs or music (e.g., the letters of Clement were considered inspired). “Inspired” is a personal evaluation. Sacred writings are a bit different. These are evaluated by a community as effective for religious belief and practice. The letters of Clement were considered inspired and sacred by several early Christian communities. They are not in the Bible because of another process, namely, canonization. Canon is the official designation by a authority that validates the acceptance of some sacred material but not all sacred material.
Applying these distinctions to Proverbs 24:12 demonstrates that this verse was considered inspired (regardless of its source) by individuals. It was incorporated into the sacred literature of the Hebrews and eventually canonized. It is in the Bible because the authorities of the believing community consider it inspired, sacred and canon. Where it comes from really doesn’t matter. The source is important for historical and technical issues, but it is not important for matters of faith and practice. What this means is that the Bible is a collection of material from various sources but as the Bible it is now acknowledged as God’s word to us. Once canonized, the case is closed on the matter of origins. So even if we find later that the original material came from pagan Egypt, the fact that it is now an authorized part of our view of God’s word means we can accept it as if God Himself spoke the words to our culture.
At least that’s the theory.
Now, what do you think?
Topical Index: inspired, sacred, canon, Proverbs 24:12, Egyptian gods
[1] Bruce Waltke, The Book of Proverbs: Chapters 1-15 (NICOT), p. 31.
[2] Lee Martin McDonald, The Biblical Canon (Hendrickson, 2007)
Now Skip you have opened a different can of worms. Which can confuse me to accept or reject what I read as pure… But that there.
Uncomfortable no, God is the author of our faith as Yeshua the forerunner of the new covenant. The true and only teacher be God through the holy spirit that reminds us of what is the truth.
So are there many occurrences in pagan approach that resemble the sacred way.
For me not to be debated but rather to acknowledge that does not matter how far we go to the left or right God will keep reminding us of the truth…
And when our time is come we will do and be exactly as He wants us yo be. Many roads that lead to the truth some are just quicker and shorter than others… IMO.
Skip, the ancient world was so tiny; so LOCAL; by our standards, anyway. It started off with two people, shrank back down at one point to merely eight, and milled around itself in the fishbowl of that Mediterranean, and at those two smallest points, the people were directly conversant with the Source of the truth. There was a reason, too, why Abraham was called to Canaan. Everybody had to squeeze through that funnel if they wanted to get from one side of the fishbowl to the other without risking the sea. That means they had to spend at least a week eating and sleeping in the neighborhood with a very visible living example of how the truth worked, and being impressed by it. Adam and Enoch and Methuselah before the flood, and Shem afterwards, were the original priests of this family, and we know Shem traveled around extensively (if we believe all the references to the people who claim to be descended from, as well as influenced by, him); and, as a priest to all his actual offspring, as well as to all his nieces and nephews, would have been actively teaching them. His life overlapped Abram’s by a good deal, too.
I also think this is where the Mosaic commands for the rituals, dress, etc. come in, as a means of identifying the Israelites as a distinct culture, as well as religion, in direct opposition to the way the nations around them were doing the same. They were planted (as well as dispersed in the diasporas, too) as deliberate salt and light. I mean, its not as if we were pulling out of some primordial spiritual slime bucket by our own bootstraps at all. All people are YHVH’s children and He sends His Spirit to all to knock on their doors, but the beauty of the truth is the children’s bread, first. That is what most anybody in the first century would have known, anyway – and Yeshua concurred- (evolutionary theory wasn’t big in those days.), and everybody else gets the crumbs, right?
People have to have at least some inkling of the truth to be able to correspond with how reality was created to work. The rest of us rapidly come to some sort of extinction – aka the Darwin’s Awards variety – as exemplified by all the vanished peoples. Wouldn’t it just be POSSIBLE that the heathen retained (and to the extent that they DID retain) some knowledge of the truth – and to the extent that they did – that they existed at all? We didn’t evolve our worship, after all, from some spiritual ape (sorry to all the spiritual evolution professors): no, apes are those who copy the ones who had it first. Wouldn’t it be just a tad more likely that the heathen learned the truth from the righteous, and not the other way around? Wouldn’t that be more like how it works?
I have had other thoughts on the chicken or egg first equation. Did the influence of earlier beliefs find their way into The Word? Certainly that is one way of seeing the influence. But what might be another way is to ask; did The Word influence the practices and beliefs of earlier cultures?
The creation story was not in the minds of those who came out of Egypt until it was given to them. At the least, the correct version given by the author of creation was not known to them, if they did indeed had a concept of creation derived from an Egyptian version to compare it to. Just because the version they came to know through Moses was similar, or had some aspects of an Egyptian version, does not mean it came after (as out of) that Egyptian version they knew, it means the version they knew was a derivative of the original.
Another way to look at this is to extend the story of Noah. Most certainly there were beliefs that Noah had been exposed to during his life that were founded on many generations and populaces that preceded him, we know that pattern has followed up to our present times and we would be correct to be somewhat assured that it was so up to his time. We also know if we accept the account of the creation of Man as presented in Genesis, that the creation of man story preceded all of the generations up to Noah. Thus any version (man created by a god) Noah may have been exposed to, if not accurately the original, would be a derivative of what those Israelites heard out of Egypt.
Unless we can’t get past God having created the chicken to allow for many versions to come from the egg of that chicken (women).
But without faith it is impossible to please Him. For he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. (Hebrews 11:6)
Acts 17:28 “For in him we live and move and have our being”…..
I loved that verse. For years i had it as a tag line on little cards i gave out to people i worked and ministered with.
The verse gave me courage, strength in day to day movement. When hard choices had to be made or i didn’t have the personal fortitude to look another day in the eye, i would remember that it was “in HIM that i lived, in HIM that i moved and in HIM i had my being”….. I would pick it up and go on, in those days – – IN HIM.
Imagine my shock, then, when i stumbled upon those very words in a poem given as required reading in a mythology class…Paul was being taken to Mars Hill (i do believe) to debate his stance with other orators of his day. He was drawing from the local culture; he knew that a certain individual had set up altars around the city to the “UNKNOWN GOD” and that individual had written a poem, within that poem was a line “In him we live and move and have our being….”
Paul was using local lore to present his Messiah; calling on the perception of an unknown god, putting Messiah’s name on it and, using a familiar line, confirming that yes, in HIM do we live and move and have our being…HIM as in MESSIAH, Paul’s Messiah.
There was no need, at the time, to explain all this, because every body knew who and what he was referring to. The got it. WE DID NOT!
All references to this poet and his existence, let alone acts and words became hidden in time. I had no one to teach me a different exegesis except the one i knew…that Paul as speaking about YHVH when he spoke those words. I accepted it as such.
The poet had a name: Epimenides, he served Zeus, not YHVH and those words were originally written to honor Zeus. The altars to the unknown gods were sprinkled around the city as spiritual insurance, a ‘just in case’ there were other, lesser gods that the locals didn’t want to offend by ignoring.
Now, there are certain religious authorities that vehemently deny all of the above and staunchly defend those words as being said by Paul as a tribute to YHVH, but there is this tidbit as well: the very next phrase in that sentence reads “as your own poets have said”….and with that Paul blatantly quotes yet ANOTHER poet/philosopher of the time, one Aratus “For we too are his offspring”, and uses this to segue into his next discussion. (quoted)
If he would quote Aratus so blatantly, he surely knew he was quoting Epimenides just as blatantly, and he was doing it for the benefit of those he was addressing. These people were well educated and well read, he was drawing from their sure understandings as way of leading to his Messiah.
He was, as Paul, “all things to all men that I might by all means, save some”
I like to use the example of Paul’s deft application of his knowledge of his audience’s culture on Mars Hill (at the meeting of the Aeropagus, which translates “hill of Ares”) as a means by which to evangelize. Interestingly Paul quotes from Epimenides again in Titus 1:12, and he quotes from the Greek poet Menander in 1 Corinthians 15:33 (“Bad company corrupts good morals”).
My favorite NT appropriation of extra-biblical texts is Jude’s use of the pseudepigraphical Jewish apocalyptic work I Enoch in verses 14-15. 1 Enoch is only extant in Greek, though it was probably ‘originally’ written in Hebrew or Aramaic (it appears that it was written in stages and may have multiple authors). Of significance is that Jude changes theos (“God”) to kyrios (“Lord”) in verse 14: See, the Lord is coming…to judge everyone.
The significance of this is that Jude refers to God explicitly as theos (or “God the Father”) in verses 1, 4, 21 and 22, while Yeshua is referred to explicitly as kyrios (Lord) in 4, 17, 24 and 25. So, why the change from “God” to “Lord” in verse 14? Is Jude trying to tell us that it’s Yeshua who will judge? That would correlate with Rev. 19:11-16 and other NT Scriptures like John 5:22-29.
Verse 9 is said to be based on the pseudepigraphical The Assumption of Moses. Of interest are the words “The Lord rebuke you!” Are we to understand “Lord” as a reference to YHVW as in Zechariah 3:2 from which it is alluded/quoted; or, is “Lord” supposed to refer to Yeshua here? Perhaps Jude left it purposefully ambiguous in his context, as he may have done with verse 14.
Of interest as well is that some early manuscripts have Iesous, “Jesus”, rather than “Lord” in verse 5. Of course, in the original context it was YHWH who delivered his people out of Egypt. But, why didn’t Jude just use theos instead?
Thank you, Craig. This was helpful!
You’re quite welcome! If you or anyone is interested, I explore in depth the particulars surrounding the variant readings in Jude 5 here:
https://notunlikelee.wordpress.com/2014/05/10/who-led-the-exodus-a-text-critical-study-in-jude-5-2/
Nice.
I’ve been wondering who the audience was that you have been writing to on here.
Thanks for sharing.
I think you’re misunderstanding me here, though I take responsibility for not being clear. In my first sentence in the comment today at 8:52pm, I meant that I tell others to look to Paul’s example in learning the culture of those he’s preaching to and using that as a springboard for the Gospel, as opposed to, e.g., speaking to a known Hindu and saying “the Bible says…”. Why would a Hindu care about a book they don’t even find authoritative? One has to find middle ground to reach the lost, as Paul masterfully did in Acts 17.
I am truly saddened when I see purported Christians stating on various secular forums, “Don’t they know their Bibles?”, as if everyone shared their worldview. Statements like that only push others away.
Paul tells the Corinthians how he preaches the Gospel in 1 Corinthians 9:19:23, using the principles exemplified in Acts 17.
No, the misunderstanding is on your part.
I looked at your link. You have an extensive blog. While others may have known that, i did not. I rarely post on here, i’m a very private person. The tenor of your posts has always had me wondering who you were writing to on HERE, as it was obvious that there was a larger audience involved in some way.
I am uncomfortable interacting with you at this point. Your presence on here has made a heretofore safe place unsafe.
I don’t know you or your intentions for being here.
Your blog is one that calls out different entities and people as unsafe, and while there are no specific bylaws or creeds for posting on here, there is a level of mutual trust that i’m not sure you you will abide by.
Neither i nor anyone on here need to be filleted over what they are believing, or learning, or think they are learning, and they CERTAINLY would not want to be the subject of any future posting or your blog.
Frankly, your blog is something i would save the link to for reference material, i’m familiar with most everything you have listed and we agree.
But i’m truly wondering why you have posted the manner in which you have and actually, since you find so much of this site troublesome, i wonder why you frequent it, honestly.
Rest assured I will not be quoting yours or anyone’s comments on here for any future blog post. In my view, comments are not usually well thought out theological treatises and should not be understood as fully indicative of one’s views.
There is no “larger audience” I’m addressing when I write on here. One of my readers sent me a few links to here (a LONG time ago), I followed them, and here I am. A few weeks ago, he wrote to me, telling me he’s read some of my comments. But I haven’t heard from him in weeks. That’s it. Me and (maybe) one other guy.
You may have noticed that my blog postings of the past 2.5 years or so center mostly on academic issues or other non-‘apologetic’ issues (though apologetics is tangential at times). That is my current interest. And I learn as I write and interact. I just reread the article of mine I referenced above, and I found a blatant anachronism, something I wouldn’t do today. Moreover, my argumentation in some parts would be less strong and more balanced were I to write it today.
Frankly, your blog is something i would save the link to for reference material, i’m familiar with most everything you have listed and we agree. Then, I hope that will allay your concerns.
My gut says you are looking for reasons to call Skip out and your blog shows that you would do it publicly. It’s not my job to protect him, and i hope i am wrong.
Do he and i agree on everything? Absolutely not, but that’s the beauty of this site, you are not expected to agree. It helps if you don’t drown the others with why, tho.
All your knowledge backs up a pretty predictable belief system, one that most people here have, or are in the process of walking away from. That is their right, they are not stupid, heretical or condemned by YHVH in any way for doing so.
That’s (supposedly) the beauty of the country we live in. Freedom to express what we believe in safety.
My recommendation that you get ahold of Skip’s teachings on Biblical World View and Biblical Leadership stands.
If that were my intention, why wouldn’t I just have done it rather than engaging on here? I certainly could have taken the time I had used to comment here and wrote an article or two by now. But I haven’t.
I’m giving you feedback on how you are coming across to at least one person.
As you know 1 person speaking up usually reflects the ideas of about 10. (i.expect a couple of people to speak up saying NOT ME!!) 😉
Use it as you will.
No need to defend me, but thanks. As for Craig’s blog comments, while they are pretty much in line with the theological perspective I once endorsed but no longer see as valid, I am happy that he takes so much time to provide critique. Unfortunately, I don’t always have the time to answer each one.
Skip,
And thanks for allowing me to offer critique.
bcp, Having the same thoughts here.
Many have come and left, those who are here to teach, not learn.
I think it’s disrespectful to Skip, though Skip would permit such to be here to open our eyes to the non-Hebraic paradigm they hold.
This website likes to point out how different Greek thinking is from Hebrew but it is also true how heavily ancient writers (Socrates, Plato, Cicero, Seneca and other philosophers) borrowed from the Hebrew Scriptures. As few people (any longer) study both, even less are aware of it, but in 1878 a Craufurd Tait Ramage published (in Edinburgh) an extensive study of it. In his preface he wrote,
“In bringing together the finer thoughts of Greek and Roman authors, it was impossible not to be struck by their great likeness to what is found in the inspired writings of the Old and New Testament . . . the Hebrew Scriptures must have been known to the educated Greeks and Romans”
An original of the book is at Cornell University Library. If anyone cares to look at over 400 pages of these “Biblical Echoes” you can find it here
https://archive.org/details/cu31924029269656
When Paul reached out to the pagan Greeks and Romans with his new religion, it might not have been as big a stretch to change as we think. Maybe that’s why it caught on so quickly.
A tantalizing link, to be sure, but before i can even begin to enjoy the book i have to know more about the author…who is he, what did he believe and stand for. What were his ‘religious’ or spiritual caveats, what prompted the book…..etc.
i have the inborn distrust of authors in general it seems, and 400 pages is an awful lot to weed through! 😉
Bruce Waltke is a world recognized Hebrew Old Testament scholar, contributor to many, many scholarly works and without question an expert in the field. ANY cursory search would demonstrate this. But that isn’t the point. Who cares who the author of the insight is if the insight is true. And yes, it is true. Many Proverbs texts are borrowed from other ancient material as confirmed by many scholars. Does it really matter who these people are? Why is it that someone would only accept material from those who meet certain “beliefs” or positions? Moshe Luzzatto was considered a heretic, even by Jews, but his material on musar is seminal and amazing. Luther, on the other hand, is widely held in esteem for his insight on Romans, but much of his material is truly repulsive. Take what’s good. Leave the rest.
Describing how i vet potential books was in no way intended to be a strike against either the recommendation or the author, just to be clear.
I want to UNDERSTAND where he is coming from, and, frankly, i’m in no position (as you may be) to judge that spending the time on a 400 hundred page book would be time well spent if, in the end or somewhere around the 24 hour mark i realize i was reading something that was written by someone like Luther, who you and i hold on the same level.
Saying i had an inborn distrust of books and authors i don’t know was truth. How many times have any of us picked up a book, really looking forward to the read only to hugely disappointed and, after doing some research realized that if they had known a little more about the author they wouldn’t have bothered in the first place.
I certainly have, and more then once.
Thanks for the added insight, i really appreciate it.
It’s hard for me to wrap my head around. I know that things that Buddah said were the same things that Yeshua said almost verbatim. It’s hard to navigate things. What does that mean for the other cultures that have these tidbits of truth in them? Did they not have an experience with God and they just misheard things? Did it get twisted by man?
Those are my questions. Obviously they had an experience with something unless it’s just a natural course of events that happened, and truths people stumble across. Then why does God say pretty much don’t learn from these other cultures and how they do things they are abominations when it comes to what they do, but technically, we are stealing the text? Obviously the Hebrew mindset is, ‘Don’t ask just do” and the Greek is, “Why?” but I am curious.
Derek, try looking up the ebook Truth Triumphant, by Benjamin George Wilkinson, available for free online. Carefully researched and extensively quoted from manuscripts he painstakingly copied in their original languages from all over Europe (some of these were subsequently destroyed in the Second World War, I understand), he makes the point that, outside the tiny cesspool of darkness that was the (non)holy Roman Empire, there was an amazing flowering of the church in the rest of the world, including in the very heart of that darkness (the Waldenses). He goes to a lot of effort to track down possible (and actual) documentation that Confucianism, Buddhism, and Islam, and others, were corruptions of, borrowers from, or just downright plagiarists of the truth that blazed across the planet. Sadly, he also documents the spreading darkness from Europe that was designed to quench that light, and how effective it has been.
I’ll have to check it out.
Does anybody really know about the breadth and scope of God’s truth
reaching man? Me thinks the good Lord has reserved this for Himself.
But hasn’t He given us a fairly accurate estimate as to how many thirsty
souls have received His living waters? It’s something like the number of
“the sand of the sea” or “as many as the stars in the sky.”
I may be having way too much fun with Mathewson’s Hermeneutics, but would somebody please tell me which is the chicken and which is the egg in this quote from Darmasteter, who wrote a summation of the fine points of the Zend-Avesta (sacred texts of the Persian religion, Zoroastrianism (this was way B.C.)):
“”The world, such as it is now, is twofold,
being the work of two hostile beings, Ahura-
Mazda, the good principle, and Angra-Mainyu, the evil
principle; all that is good in the world comes from the former,
all that is bad in it comes from the latter. The history of the “world
is the history of their conflict, how Angra-Mainyu invaded the
world of Ahura-Mazda and marred it, and how he shall be expelled
from it at last. Man is active in the conflict, his duty in it being
laid before him in the law revealed by Ahura-Mazda to Zarathustra.
When the appointed time is come, a son of the lawgiver, still unborn,
named Saoshyant, will appear, Angra-Mainyu and Hell will be
destroyed, men will rise from the dead, and everlasting happiness
will reign over the world.”1
Y’all, these people had Daniel, they had the Hebrew diaspora among them (along with their Scriptures), many of whom never went back home, and we think the wise men just appeared out of nowhere, or that the Hebrews got some bright ideas from these more ‘advanced’ religious guys?
In doing some reading today, by chance I came across something of which I’d not been aware, and which further explains this particular blog post. The following is found in F. F. Bruce’s New Testament Development of Old Testament Themes (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, {1968} 2004, p 16):
Bruce potentially (“possibly”) goes further than merely Proverbs 24:12 being part of Egyptian literature, but includes verses both before and after. Moroever, I was also unaware that Proverbs 30 was sourced from Arabian literature. (The bracketed remarks come from footnotes referencing the text.)
I think this becomes important as we look at how ancient near eastern legends compare to the Scriptures. To find that our deeply held beliefs had other origins freaks people out and brings some of them to tears. We need to stop, take a deep breath, and relax. Our faith need not be shaken. It’s canon. We can accept it. What I find frustrating is that people are rejecting the canon of the New Testament. They once believed Yeshua was Messiah and now they don’t for various reasons. Oh well. We just don’t agree.