Idiom of Permission

[T-Bone]

3 hours ago, Nathan_Jr said:

James Sebastian sounded like a wierwille acolyte to me. I thought someone here might recognize his name. Could be Mike's pseudonym.

Judging by the statement of beliefs on his blog  see     here  – doctrine-wise (looks mainstream) and practice-wise (they help underprivileged Children with their schooling, work among illiterate adults,  help the poor and needy, conduct educational seminars, workshops etc., conduct special classes for character building and spiritual development) I don’t  think Sebastian is a fan of wierwille…he might have just come across Bullinger’s stuff on his own. Bullinger's work is popular in some markets. I bought my second Companion Bible at a local Barnes & Noble bookstore…My only complaint with Bullinger’s work on idioms is that it lacks more depth from the philosophy of the cultural. 

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with using Bullinger – like anything else I think a student of the Bible should exercise good cognitive skills. I do that with any study Bible, commentaries, systematic theologies, and studies.

I do like Bullinger for his detailed literary analysis of correspondence in Scripture and some of his appendices. The focus and detail of most of his work is astounding. 

 

For me, about the only thing wierwille’s body of plagiarized material is good for is documenting the manipulative and indoctrinating tactics of a harmful and controlling cult-leader.    Comes in handy when certain Grease Spotters come here and regurgitate or mutate wierwille's theology - I can wade through the bull$hit. sort of like - let's get back to the "original" wierwille barfed word - PFAL and look at it for what it is - in all of its illogical and signature winging it, Gnostical Spiritualistic Fundamental glory.

[T-Bone]

9 hours ago, T-Bone said:

More to come on this…I'm looking into some reputable sources (books by legitimate and straight forward authors   ) on how God's sovereignty relates to all of this.  

Picking back up on this – I just wanted to share 3 different sources commenting about   I Chronicles 21   to offer you some more thoughtful insight on this interesting chapter in light of the idiom of permission.

 

 In    The Bible Knowledge Commentary – Old Testament on page 610, notes a similar thing about God’s supremacy in I Chronicles 21:1-7:

The chronicler did not state David’s motivation for taking a census of Israel except to say Satan…incited him to do so and David wanted to know how many…fighting men there were. In 2 Samuel 24:1, however, the historian revealed that the Lord was angry with His people and used David’s census as an occasion to punish him and them…In His sovereignty God’s ultimate authority extends even to the workings of Satan.

~ ~ ~ ~

 

From     The MacArthur Study Bible NASB  , comments on    I Chronicles 21:1

Then Satan stood up against Israel and moved David to number Israel.

Satan …moved. Second Samuel 24:1 reports that “the anger of the Lord burned against Israel.” And this “incited” David to take the census. This apparent discrepancy is resolved by understanding that God sovereignly and permissively uses Satan to achieve His purposes. God uses Satan to judge sinners (cf. Mk 4:15; 2Co 4:4), to refine saints (cf. Job 1:8-2:10; Lk 22:31,32), to discipline those in the church (cf. 1Co 5:1-5; 1Ti 1:20), and to further purify obedient believers (cf. 2Co 12:7-10).

Neither God nor Satan forced David to sin (cf. Jas 1:13-15), but God allowed Satan to tempt David and he chose sin. The sin surfaced his proud heart and God dealt with him for it.

number Israel. David’s census brought tragedy because, unlike the census in Moses’ time (Nu 1, 2) which God had commanded, this census by David was to gratify his pride in the great strength of his army and consequent power. He was also putting more trust in his forces than in his God. This angered God, who moved Satan to bring the sin to a head.

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

In the book   Demons and Spirits in Biblical Theology: Reading the Biblical Text in Its Cultural and Literary Context  authors John H Walton and J Harvey Walton explain on pages 212 - 214 about Satan in the Old Testament:

The English proper name Satan is a transliteration of the Greek Santanas, which in turn is a transliteration of a Hebrew word that means “accuser” or “adversary”. In the Old Testament the word is possibly used once as a proper name (1 Chr 21:1) and elsewhere as a title; despite the common English translations in Zechariah 3:1-2 and Job 1-2 as proper names, the Hebrew of these passages includes a definite article (haś-śā-ṭān lit. “the satan”) and Hebrew does not use definite articles for personal names. Further, the title is not always applied to the same individual. The title is given to humans (Hadad the Edomite in 1 Kgs 11:14 and Rezon son of Eliada in 1 Kgs 11:23; NIV “adversary”), to unspecified divine beings (Zech 3:1-2; Job 1-2), and once to the Angel of the Lord (Num 22:22; NIV “to oppose”; lit. “as [a] śā-ṭān”).

Further, in no instance is the bearer of the title portrayed as a fallen being in opposition to God. Hadad and Rezon are raised up against Solomon by Yahweh; Yahweh dispatches the śā-ṭān to strike to strike Job (Job 1:12) and also takes credit for the devastation (Job2:3). The Angel of the Lord of course is an agent of Yahweh. “Satan” in the Old Testament, but not an adversary   of   God; the various individuals who fill this role are appointed   by  Yahweh as adversaries of those that   Yahweh   wished to oppose…

…The point of both 2 Samuel 24 and I Chronicles 21 is that David earned a punishment and God relented from carrying it through because of his love for Israel (2 Sam 24:16; 1 Chr 21:15), thus confirming David’s affirmation that “[the Lord’s] mercy is [very] great” (2 Sam 24:14; 1 Chr 21:13). The exact nature of the offense and the agencies involved are not meaningless but are nonetheless ultimately incidental to this point.

~ ~ ~ ~

[T-Bone]

Thought I’d reference that other thread again – the post that inspired me to look more into the idiom of permission – here

 

And I’m reposting below what I recently said on that thread  ( here  ) ... if you want to check the hyperlinks in the reposting below you'll have to go to my post on the Absent Christ thread...anyway here it is:

It seems to me you’re trying to   reconceptualize   the book of Job with a    confirmation bias     I suspect you may have. I’m aware that you tend to interpret or recall information in a way that supports your belief in the value of wierwille / PFAL.

wierwille often interpreted the Bible through several myopic lenses – a couple of which are fundamentalism and spiritualism. That much is evident by your comments. wierwille’s tendency to enforce his rigid dogma and pretentious pseudo-spirituality never failed to play havoc with the linguistic and cultural resources embedded in the Bible.

 

NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible: Bringing to Life the Ancient World of Scripture        editors John H. Walton and Craig S. Keener  offers some scholarly insight of the book of Job & Kings – on pages 615, 819 and 820. Here are verses  in I Kings 22 and Job 1 that speak of a spiritual assembly that the study Bible addresses on those pages:

 

19 Micaiah continued, “Therefore hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne with all the multitudes of heaven standing around him on his right and on his left. 20 And the Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab into attacking Ramoth Gilead and going to his death there?’ “One suggested this, and another that. 21 Finally, a spirit came forward, stood before the Lord and said, ‘I will entice him.’

22 “‘By what means?’ the Lord asked. “‘I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all his prophets,’ he said. “‘You will succeed in enticing him,’ said the Lord. ‘Go and do it.’ 23 “So now the Lord has put a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours. The Lord has decreed disaster for you.”         I Kings 22:19-23

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”    Job 1:6

~ ~ ~ ~ 

My summary of The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible comments on the above verses:

In the ancient world, most cultures believed in many gods, imagining that the business of the gods was done in council – as typically happened in human governance. Unlike Israel’s understanding of Yahweh, the gods of other cultures had no overarching plan – it seems most decisions were made ad hoc. This corporate operation reflected an idea in the ancient world that one’s identity was found in their community. Just as the most significant identity is in one’s own clan, so the gods also acted in corporate solidarity.

The idea that the gods operated in community, however posed serious problems in Israel’s theology, in which only Yahweh had the ultimate divine authority over all other “gods”. Israel’s theology did not eradicate the concept of a divine council from their thinking – instead the council was transformed. Rather than being comprised of various gods, the council featured the “sons of God” over whom Yahweh presided and whose activities he delegated. These council members were not considered gods with autonomous divine authority equal to Yahweh’s. Rather they were spirit beings given a role in Yahweh’s governance of the world. This may also lend credence to the idiom of permission.

The pantheon of gods was often characterized by a hierarchy - cosmic gods, national gods, city patrons, clan deities, ancestral deities - and also differentiated by jurisdiction, manifestations ( NOT  the PFAL kind file:///C:/Users/techj/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image001.gif )  and attributes. We can surmise that it was very difficult for the Israelites to adjust to a single God spanning all levels of hierarchy and all categories of jurisdiction.

 

Another factor that debunks wierwille’s literal interpretation of the divine council in Job is that every time the word “Satan” occurs in Job it is preceded by the definite article “hassatan”. This is strong evidence that  satan  is  NOT  a personal name, because Hebrew does not put a definite article in front of personal names. There’s little reason to equate this character with the devil since it can be used to describe other individuals by function – Numbers 22:22;  I Samuel 29:4;  I Kings 5:4;  11:14, 23, 25;  Psalm 109:6.

God’s policies are the true focus of the challenge in the divine council. Job’s character is only the test case. The challenge therefore does not necessarily imply some flaw in God or Job.

 

Central to the book of Job is the question of human suffering – especially why people who are seemingly innocent suffer, which in turn raises the question about the righteousness of a loving God. Job deals with the question of retribution, the popular theology that the righteous prosper but the wicked suffer – this attempts to vindicate God – theodicy  . Wisdom accounts of innocent suffering are found across the ancient Near East – which shows a universal concern from olden times and is still a contemporary issue.

 

Hope that helps 

[rrobs]

“Church father Hippolytus of Rome (170 – 235 AD) rendered it this way several centuries ago when he wrote: ‘….the word of Isaiah, I, the Lord, make peace, and create evil; meaning by that, I maintain peace, and permit war.'” (J. H. MacMahon (translator) “On Psalm LXXVII” in The Refutation of All Heresies by Hippolytus, Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1868, p429)

 

“He gave them up … that is, he permitted them to rush by their own will, or as impelled by the devil: for this signification of permission is extremely frequent in the Hebrew verbs …” (Philip Melanchthon, as quoted in The Dark Side of Things: An Exposition in The Evangelical Repository: A Quarterly Magazine of Theological Literature, Vol. 1 Glasgow: Lang, Adamson, 1863, p100)

Note that, while the reference above is quoted form a source published in 1863, it is attributed to Melanchthon, an associate of Martin Luther from hundreds of years earlier.

 

“When God is said to harden men’s hearts,-to deliver them up to a reprobate mind,-to send them strong delusions, that they should believe a lie, and the like;- it is infinitely far from being meant of an efficacious impulse in God Almighty. That all those verbs,- to harden, to blind, to deliver up, to send delusions, to deceive, and the like,-are by an ordinary Hebraism only permissive in signification, though active in sound, is placed without all controversy.” (Thomas Pierce, I, p23-24 edition of 1658 as quoted in Jackson, The Providence of God, p401)

 

“For pray, take notice, God is said in scripture to send what He can but doth not hinder from being sent.” (Edward Bird, Fate and Destiny, Inconsistent with Christianity: or, The Horrid Decree of Absolute and Unconditional Election and Reprobation Fully Detected, 1726)

(Note: they tended to have very long titles in those days.)

 

“… in the language of Scripture God is sometimes said to do what he only permits to take place under his moral government.” (Kendall, James, A Sermon, Delivered at the Ordination of Rev. Oliver Hayward, Samuel T. Armstrong, 1816, p7-8)

 

“In the language of scripture, natural consequences are sometimes spoken of as though they were pre-ordained and irrevocable decrees. What happens solely through the permission of the Almighty, in the ordinary course of his Providence, is described as though it had taken place through some special and irresistible intervention of his hand. This is a mode of writing peculiar to the Hebrew idiom; an idiom which prevails everywhere throughout the New Testament, as well as the Old. Thus, when the sacred writers represent God as “blinding the eyes of men that they should not see, and hardening their hearts that they should not understand;” their meaning generally is that he does not powerfully interfere to prevent those evils which are the natural fruits of our own folly, perverseness , and impenitence.” (John Goodge Foyster, Sermons; London: Ibotson and Palmer,

1826, p90)

 

Adam Clarke (~1761-1832) was a British Methodist theologian and Biblical scholar who spent 40 years writing a commentary on the entire Bible following the Wesleyan-Arminian traditions of interpretation. The work included 6 volumes of about 1,000 pages each. His commentary can be accessed at www.studylight.org/commentaries

/acc.html. The quotes below are from his commentary The Holy Bible Containing the Old and New Testaments; New York: J. Emory and B. Waugh, 1831.

“All those who have read the Scriptures with care and attention, know well that God is frequently represented in them as doing what he only permits to be done. So because a man has grieved his Spirit and resisted his grace he withdraws that Spirit and grace from him, and thus he becomes bold and presumptuous in sin.

Pharaoh made his own heart stubborn against God, Exodus 9:34; and God gave him up to judicial blindness, so that he rushed on stubbornly to his own destruction.” (Adam Clarke, Commentary on Exo 4:21, 1831)

“By withdrawing the Divine protection the idolatrous Israelites were delivered up into the hands of their enemies, from whom the gods in whom they had trusted could not deliver them.” (Adam Clarke, Commentary on Exo 20:5, 1831)

“He hath permitted, or suffered, a lying spirit to influence thy prophets. It is requisite again to remind the reader, that the Scriptures repeatedly represent God as doing what, in the course of his providence, he only permits or suffers to be done. Nothing can be done in heaven , in earth, or hell, but either by his immediate energy or permission.” (Adam Clarke, Commentary on 1 Kings 22:23, 1831)

 

“This passage evidently implies, that it was in the power of these nations, by accepting peace, to escape extermination; but that they were permitted to harden their hearts against all the wonders of divine Providence, in behalf of the Jews, and by this obstinacy exposed to suffer the full weight of that punishment which their crimes deserved, and which God had denounced against them. All who are conversant in the language of the Old Testament know, that it speaks of every event which God permits, as proceeding directly from him; and describes his as hardening the hearts of those who abuse the divine dispensations.” (Richard Graves, Lectures on the Four Last Books of the Pentateuch, Dublin: William Curry, Jun, and Company, 1831 p194)

The quote above is from a commentary on this verse:

“For it was of the LORD to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favour, but that he might destroy them, as the LORD commanded Moses.” (Josh 11:20)

 

“But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened his heart, as the Lord had said. Exod. viii. 15; and chap. ix. 34. He sinned yet more, and hardened his heart. God purposed not to interpose by his mollifying grace, and, in the idiom of the eastern language, employed in the Bible, and which, when viewed under established rules of fair interpretation, cannot be easily misunderstood, is therefore said to harden the tyrant’s heart. The purpose of God was not to prevent it.” (Alexander M’Leod, The American Christian Expositor: Designed to Promote the Influence of Sound Principles and Social Order, Volume 1 (New York: H. C. Sleight, 1831, p458)

 

“We find in the 45th chapter of Isaiah, that the Lord determined to raise up Cyrus to be the instrument of restoring the Jews from their captivity in Babylon; and though it was nearly two hundred years before Cyrus was born, he addressed him, as though he were present, and called him by name. The religion of his native country contained the belief, that there were two co-eternal Beings, the one the author of all good; the other the author of all evil: and that these were continually opposing each other. These absurd opinions, according to Lowth and Scott on the passage, were the special reason why Jehovah should have spoken of himself, at that time, in the following manner: “I am the Lord, and there is none else; there is no God beside me. I form the light; I create darkness; I make peace; I create evil; I the Lord do all these things.†That Jehovah is the direct source of all good no one disputes. When he is said to create evil, we may understand that it is agreeable to the Hebrew language, in which the Old Testament was written, to ascribe directly to God, that which he permits to be done. Thus we often read of the Lord’s hardening the heart, which may mean simply, that he permits sinners to go on in their own chosen ways.” (The Independence of God Vindicated in The Evangelical Magazine, Volume 2, Hartford: Peter R. Gleason & Co., 1834, p309)

 

“According to the idiom of the Scripture language, words of an active signification are often used to express, not the doing of the thing said to be done, but the permission, or the prediction of it.” (David Russell, Letters, Practical and Consolatory: Designed to Illustrate the Nature and Tendency of the Gospel, Volume 1,

Philadelphia: W. Marshall & Co., 1836, p199-200)

 

“The 1st. Aorist Passive has generally a reflex sense, when intransitive almost always so. This is according to the Hebrew phraseology which attributes to God, the actions he permits to be done, “I make peace and I create evil—I the Lord do all these things (Isaiah xlv. 7.) Shall there be evil in a city and the Lord have not done it (Amos iii. 6) which can only be interpreted like the present of permissive agency.” (William Houghton, Calvinism Scripturally Examined, and Shewn to be Inconsistent with the Statements and Totally Opposed to the General Tenor of the Word of God; London: C. J. G. and F. Rivington, 1836, p37)

 

“God is often said to do that which he merely commands, causes, or permits to be done.” (George Bush, Notes, Critical and Practical, on the Book of Genesis, Volume 1; Chicago: B. C. Greigs & Co., 1838, p88)

 

“He ‘hardened Pharaoh’s heart:’ He ‘shuts the eyes of sinners, and makes their ears heavy, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears.’ … God, in righteous judgment gives the presumptuous sinner up to his own evil impulses, permitting him to ‘harden himself even under those means which he useth for the softening of others.’ Misapprehension of this idiom led many excellent men in New England, to profess without scruple or limitation, their belief, that unholy volitions were the immediate effect of divine agency.” (Alexander McClelland, Manual of Sacred Interpretation: For the Special Benefit of Junior Theological Students; New York: Robert Carter, 1842, p112-113)

 

“We are told, in the same verse, that the Spirit of God departed from Saul. This must mean that the Holy Spirit withdrew his influence, and, consequently, Saul lost the gifts, the ability for government, and managing the affairs of his kingdom, which had been imparted to him, when ‘the Spirit of God came upon him, and he became another man,’ 1 Sam. x. 6. Does it not follow from this, that the tempers which he afterwards manifested, were the effects of the influence of and evil spirit, opposite to the Spirit of God? And, as it came upon him in consequence of the withdrawment of the Divine Spirit, and by the permission of the Divine Being, and also as a judgment, it may, with the greatest propriety, and especially in the Hebrew idiom, according to which God is often said to do that which he permits to be done, and renders subservient to his purposes, be represented as from God. This is the natural interpretation of the passage, and that which best agrees with the general doctrine of the Bible respecting evil spirits.” (Walter Scott, The Existence of Evil Spirits Proved: and their Agency, Particularly in Relation to the Human Race, Explained and Illustrated, Jackson and Walford, 1843, p94-95)

 

“Everywhere in scripture God is said to do what He permits whether good or bad and especially if the thing done be uncommon and out of the ordinary course of things.” (Richard A. F. Barrett, A Synopsis of Criticism upon those Passages of the Old Testament in Which Modern Commentators have Differed, 1847)

 

Below is a comment on a verse similar to Isaiah 45:7:

“The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.” (Pro 16:4) “Wicked they are of themselves. He made them not so. He compels them not to be so. He abhors their

wickedness. But he foresaw their evil. He permitted it, and thou ‘he hath no pleasure in their death,’ he will be glorified in them in the day of evil,’ as the monuments of his power, his justice, and his long-suffering. Clearly therefore God is not the Author of sin. He cannot impart what he has [not] … He can decree nothing but good. If he permits evil, so far as not to hinder it, he hates it as evil, and permits it only for the greater good.” (Charles Bridge An Exposition of the Book of Proverbs, Volume 1, New York, Robert Carter, 1847, p199)

 

“In Isaiah, God says, ‘I create evil.’ At the same time we know, from the whole tenor of Holy Writ, that God is not the author of evil. Yet Isaiah’s expression is correct and idiomatic. Whatever is done by an agent, is said to be done by the power restraining and directing that agent. In like manner, it is usual in Scripture to attribute to the Supreme Power, acts which are virtually those of his instruments, and which he merely permits, in order to overrule and evolve good from them. There are diversities of agents at work, but one God; and there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. All acts are primarily those of God, from whom all powers and permission of acting proceed; secondarily, those of his agents.” (Charles Edward Fraser-Tytler, New View of the Apocalypse: or, The Plagues of Egypt and of Europe Identical; Edinburgh: Johnstone and Hunter, 1852, p66)

 

“Nobody that knows anything about Hebrew idioms wants to be told that the Hebrew writers frequently speak of a person’s doing a thing, or appointing a thing, which he only permits or does not prevent.” (T.O. Summers,

The Theological Works of Thomas Paine in The Quarterly Review of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Volume 8 Richmond, VA: Stevenson and Owen, 1854, p501)

 

“It is then so common in Holy Scripture to speak of God as actually doing that which He simply permits, and does not absolutely hinder men from doing, that this may be justly regarded as an idiom of eastern speech.” (Thomas Jackson, The Providence of God, Viewed in the Light of Holy Scripture, London: John Mason, 1862, p304)

“… this authority our Saviour expresses according to a well-known idiom of the Jews’ language. It is no wonder, then, that God is said to do that which He permitted men to do, when they had by their sins provoked Him to withdraw from them the restraints of His providence and grace. Inattention to Scripture forms of expression is one of the most fruitful sources of theological error.” (Ibid, p300-301)

 

“But how does God ‘create evil’? By a special exercise of power, such as he put forth when he created the world? Or is he said to cause, to create, that which comes to pass in the regular course of his providence, and which he puts forth no special effort to prevent? It is in this latter sense, undoubtedly, that God is sometimes said in the Scriptures to harden the hearts of men, and to create evil. Pursuing the courses they do, men’s hearts become hard under the providence of God, and nothing but a miracle could prevent it. Another phraseology, however, is very often used in the Bible, implying a sufierance of evil, a permission of it, rather than a direct causation. “Who in times past sufiered all nations to walk in their own way†(Acts xiv. 16). “I gave them up to their own hearts’ lusts†(Ps. lxxxi. 12). He “gave them over to a reprobate mind†(Rom. i. 28).” (Enoch Pond, Lectures on Christian Theology; Boston: Congregational Board of Education, 1867, p343)

 

“It can scarcely be necessary to insist that such expressions as represent God as the author of evil, the most remarkable of which is perhaps found in Isaiah—“I make peace, and create evilâ€â€” must be understood in the sense either of permission or of punishment.” (H. L. Dox, The Power of Darkness; The Lutheran Quarterly, Volume 8; Gettysburg: J. A. Wible Printer, 1878, p574)

 

“Those that drive the good Spirit away from them do of course become a prey to the evil Spirit. If God and His grace do not rule us, sin and Satan will have possession of us. The devil, by the divine permission, troubled and terrified Saul by means of the corrupt humours of his body and passions of his mind.†(Ralph Fenwick, “David Playing Before Saul†in The Primitive Methodist Magazine for the Year of Our Lord, 1880.VOL.III, London: Ralph Fenwick,1880, p585)

 

“That is, in the course of my providence I will permit this to be done. Such phrases in Scripture do not mean that God either does or can do evil himself; but only that he permits such evil to be done as he foresaw would be done, and which, had he pleased, he might have prevented.” (Treasury of Scriptural Knowledge by Canne, Browne, Blayney, Scott, and others about 1880, with introduction by R. A. Torrey.)

 

“Our translators have not only made mistakes in what affects men, but in what regards the honour of God, in making him the author of sin in wicked men, that he might find occasion to destroy them.” (John Hale Murray, A Help for English Readers to Understand Mistranslated Passages in Our Bible; London: S. W. Partridge & Co., 1881, p133)

 

“Predictions of evils that God permits, but does not desire, are often expressed in the language of command; this circumstance simply indicates that such results of human depravity will not be prevented.” (Charles F. Schaeffer, Annotations on the Gospel According to St Matthew: Matthew XVI-XXVIII. Part II, New York: Scribner & Sons, 1895, p206)

 

“The verb there is permissive, not causative. Dr. Robert Young in his Hebrew Concordance of the Scriptures agrees with me in that interpretation. I said it years before the Concordance appeared. As a matter of satisfaction, I am glad that a scholar has agreed to hat which I declared years ago … The last clause is properly translated in the permissive sense: ‘I will permit to be put upon thee none of the diseases which I have permitted to be put upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lord that healeth thee.'” (John Alexander Dowie, Leaves of Healing, volume 8, Zion Publishing House, Chicago, IL, 1901, p362)

The quote above is from a commentary on Exodus 15:26, KJV:

“And said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon

thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the LORD that healeth thee.” (Exo 15:26)

 

“Active verbs were used by the Hebrews to express, not the doing of the thing, but the permission of the thing which the agent is said to do.” (E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1968, 2008, p823)

Note that Bullinger is often considered to have been one of the foremost authorities on Biblical figures of speech.

 

“All this (the Spirit departing from Saul) happened by the permission of God rather than as a result of his direct will, for God cannot be the author of anything evil.†(Walter C. Kaiser Jr., (Old Testament scholar) Hard Sayings of the Bible, Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 1996, p212)

 

“It is possible that some references to direct divine involvement in events may reflect a view of divine pancausality that was popular in the ancient Near East. In the deterministic idiom of the culture, actions that were simply permitted by God, mediated through agents, or accomplished through the laws of nature, can be attributed directly to God … In the context of such a worldview, it is possible and perhaps likely that references to Yahweh closing wombs (1 Sam. 1:6), creating handicapped babies (Exod. 4:11), giving Saul’s wives to David (2 Sam. 12:8), and the like, are an accommodation to the mindset of the culture … his involvement may be more indirect than the language of the text suggests, The situations described may reflect His permissive will, rather that his ideal or His moral will.” (David M. Howard and Michael A. Grisante. Giving the Sense: Understanding and Using Old Testament Historical Texts, Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2003, p58)

 

 

Edited August 27, 2023 by rrobs
Mistake

[Rocky]

4 hours ago, rrobs said:

“Church father Hippolytus of Rome (170 – 235 AD) rendered it this way several centuries ago when he wrote: ‘….the word of Isaiah, I, the Lord, make peace, and create evil; meaning by that, I maintain peace, and permit war.'” (J. H. MacMahon (translator) “On Psalm LXXVII” in The Refutation of All Heresies by Hippolytus, Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1868, p429)

 

“He gave them up … that is, he permitted them to rush by their own will, or as impelled by the devil: for this signification of permission is extremely frequent in the Hebrew verbs …” (Philip Melanchthon, as quoted in The Dark Side of Things: An Exposition in The Evangelical Repository: A Quarterly Magazine of Theological Literature, Vol. 1 Glasgow: Lang, Adamson, 1863, p100)

Note that, while the reference above is quoted form a source published in 1863, it is attributed to Melanchthon, an associate of Martin Luther from hundreds of years earlier.

Hey Rrobs,

Long time no see.

For the record, TL;DR, however I read some of your post and find the apparent point quite intriguing.

In so doing, it occurs to me that not only is or could be "idioms of permission" a truly BFD [idiom used NOT in any political sense but rather just to invoke a colloquial definition/usage] in an of itself, instead this notion/concept as you present it herein seems to dramatically illustrate the wideness of the chasm in modern day cultural interpretation and understanding of JudeoChristian scriptures and how the writers of said scriptures actually understood their words and intended messages.

So, more succinctly, thanks for posting that information. 

Edited August 27, 2023 by Rocky

[cman]

ultimately God is liable for everything that has ever taken place, and can be blamed, all of it good or bad

if something I invented did something wrong then I'm liable

so what is it really saying when the devil did something?

[cman]

or that God did something ungodly?

“Grace is wildly irreligious stuff. It’s more than enough to get God kicked out of the God union that the theologians have formed to keep him on his divine toes so he won’t let the riffraff off scot-free. Sensible people, of course, should only need about thirty seconds of careful thought to realize that getting off scot-free is the only way any of us is going to get off at all." - Fr. Robert Capon

[rrobs]

4 hours ago, Rocky said:

Hey Rrobs,

Long time no see.

For the record, TL;DR, however I read some of your post and find the apparent point quite intriguing.

In so doing, it occurs to me that not only is or could be "idioms of permission" a truly BFD [idiom used NOT in any political sense but rather just to invoke a colloquial definition/usage] in an of itself, instead this notion/concept as you present it herein seems to dramatically illustrate the wideness of the chasm in modern day cultural interpretation and understanding of JudeoChristian scriptures and how the writers of said scriptures actually understood their words and intended messages.

So, more succinctly, thanks for posting that information. 

I think you are right. There is indeed a, "wilderness of the chasm in modern day cultural interpretation and understanding of JudeoChristian scriptures and how the writers of said scriptures actually understood their words and intended messages.'

Put another way; the scriptures were not written last year in New York or LA. They were in fact written some 2 to 3 thousand years ago to a culture whose worldview was radically different than our own modern Western culture. One of the major differences in worldviews is the role of the spiritual world and its relation to the physical world. We of course, thanks largely to Greek philosophy, magnify the physical while mostly discarding the spiritual altogether. If it can't be weighed and measured, it doesn't exist. The Ancient Near Eastern folks saw the world around them quite differently.

To them there really was no such thing as a material world and a spiritual world. The distinction simply did not exist in their minds. Every so called natural phenomenon was caused by some god or another in the so called spiritual world. The sun god was the same thing as the sun. The river god was the same thing as the river. The sun rose and set because the god did that. The river flowed because the god did that. If the river god was appeased by humans, it stayed within its banks and allowed for irrigation to grow the crops. But if they made the river god mad (nobody really knew why he was mad), the river would overflow and flood the town. Every natural phenomenon was by dint of the gods. To them floods did not occur because of too much CO2 in the atmosphere.

The Hebrews shared fully in this motif. So here comes Yahweh and tells them He is the most powerful god. He rules over all the other gods. So if the river flooded or the locusts overran the land it would have either been Yahweh that caused it or some other god. But here's the rub; had God let Israel think the river god cause the flood, then it would appear that the river god was more powerful than He. So Yahweh was left with something of a quandary. How did He solve it? By letting Israel think that He, the most powerful of all gods, caused the problem. He took the hit so to speak.

But Yahweh knew that down the road he'd straighten it all out. That would have been when Jesus appeared on the scene and fully revealed the true nature of his Father. Jesus was also able to expose the other gods for what they really were, i.e.,evil spirits. With the coming of Jesus Yahweh was able to redeem Himself, to reveal Himself as the one who is all light with no darkness. Now we know who really runs this cosmos, the one who runs it since Adam thought he could determine what was good (functional) and what was evil (dysfunctional). He didn't do a good job of that and nobody since him has done a very good job either. In any case, with the coming of Jesus, God no longer has to take the blame for the dysfunction that all too often manifests in our material world.

That may be hard to fathom if we impose our worldview on the scriptures, which is of course incredibly easy to do, almost impossible not to do in fact, but I don't think the audience to whom God originally spoke would have had any problem with it. They simply were not as analytical in their way of thinking as we are. They could easily accept things that to us appear as a non-sequitur.

Is all of that true? I'd be loathe to impose it on other, but it does have a ring of truth to me. At least to the degree I can think like they thought. Otherwise I'd have to accept that God causes death while the devil sits back passively and cheers Him on, "Hit 'em God...Oh that was good one! Hit him again! Don't let him get up!" Of course Plato would think such thinking as pure nonsense. But not the Ancient Near Eastern person.

 

Edited August 28, 2023 by rrobs

[Rocky]

2 hours ago, rrobs said:

Is all of that true? I'd be loathe to impose it on other, but it does have a ring of truth to me. At least to the degree I can think like they thought. Otherwise I'd have to accept that God causes death while the devil sits back passively and cheers Him on, "Hit 'em God...Oh that was good one! Hit him again! Don't let him get up!" Of course Plato would think such thinking as pure nonsense. But not the Ancient Near Eastern person.

Wonderfully eloquent way to envision the story nature of scriptures. I came to a personal realization/recognition not too very long ago that the Bible is an anthology of stories. I see the main truth as being since we are humans, in a radically different culture than then, all we can do is imagine. And I go back to my current favorite passage Proverbs 2:1-5.

Thanks for sharing your perspective. 

[rrobs]

14 hours ago, Rocky said:

Wonderfully eloquent way to envision the story nature of scriptures. I came to a personal realization/recognition not too very long ago that the Bible is an anthology of stories. I see the main truth as being since we are humans, in a radically different culture than then, all we can do is imagine. And I go back to my current favorite passage Proverbs 2:1-5.

Thanks for sharing your perspective. 

For a couple of years now I've been doing a lot of reading about the culture of the Ancient Near East (ANE), especially as it relates to religion and worldview. In the last 5 decades or so there has been a plethora of their writings uncovered and interpreted. While, as you said, we have to use some imagination, scholars are nonetheless able to paint a fairly accurate picture of how they thought. It has a huge impact on how the scriptures read. The very first verse in the scriptures is a good example of the differences between how they read it and how we read it.

I think we tend to take Genesis 1:1-2:4 as a description of how God created the material universe. It's funny how we then try to squeeze our science onto it (photons, evolution, expanding universe, etc.). For 50 years or so I'd read Genesis 1:1 and a picture of blue, round earth floating in space popped into my mind. But that's not even close to what popped into Moses' mind when he wrote it.

The word most Bibles (KJV included, the only Bible we were permitted to read ) translate the Hebrew word "erets" as "earth" when that is not its real meaning to the ANE. "Erets" means "land" as opposed to the sea or the sky. They had no concept of a round globe. They saw what we call a "flat earth." It makes sense. I mean go outside and look around. Is the "earth" not flat? In any case, God saw no reason to correct their established cosmology so He didn't. He had other reasons for Genesis.

Here's a fairly representative way the ANE and the Jews saw the cosmos:

 

The ANE had no such interest in the things of our modern science, let alone the ability to grasp things such as gravitational forces, or nuclear fission. Instead, they were interested in how to please and appease the gods. They didn't want the rain god to cause flooding, the agriculture god to cause a famine, or the locust god to cause pestilence, etc. As you can see, there are many verses that describe their cosmology while there are basically 0 verses that fit with our own cosmology. Were they ignorant? I don't know, but if all I had was my two eyes to observe the world around me, I'd probably come to some similar picture. In any case, that is pretty representative of how all ANE folks viewed their world.

I think what God wanted to communicate in Genesis was His desire to dwell with humans in a paradise. God wanted to tell them that He tamed the chaotic deep (Gen 1:2), a realm totally unfit for humans and a place dreaded by their culture, and make the land fit for humans. To the modern West Genesis 2:3 (God rested) is almost taken as an afterthought or a postscript. At least I always took it that way. I now think it is perhaps the most important verse in the creation account. In the ANE gods resting meant that the crisis was over, the problem solved and the god could now settle down to the day to day activity of running the cosmos. There are many other verses that would back up that idea.

Of course Adam screwed up God's plan of dwelling with humans, but God set out to rectify that. That will culminate in the new earth (land) that's coming. In the meantime there are countless verses in the OT that talk about God temporarily living in the land with people. There is the stone Jacob slept on, hills, mountains, the Ark, the Tabernacle, the temple, Jesus, and Christians. It's a major theme that runs through the whole book. I never saw it because I saw Genesis as a science book instead of a religions book with the simple message of Yahweh living with people, the very thing the ANE folks were interested in.

Anyway, Genesis is but one of the things that makes way more sense to me after having studied ANE culture. It's the scholarly field called "comparative studies." The Jews were brought up in the same culture as the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Egyptians, etc, so it makes total sense that they all shared a common cosmology. Scripture critics are quick to point out the similarities between Egyptian and Babylonian creation accounts to the Bible. And of course the other accounts were written way before Genesis, so it "must" be that Moses merely copied their accounts. But that's a rather quick and not well thought out conclusion. Could it not be that all ANE (Jews included) drew from the same body of ancient knowledge in writing their accounts? Why not? And then there is the fact that the differences in the Bible account from all the others are many and have major ramifications. But I've blathered on long enough, so I'll let it go at that!

Here's the book that got me started: Ancient Near East Thought and the Old Testament, John H. Walton

Edited August 28, 2023 by rrobs

[Rocky]

I love it. However, with the one caveat that I haven't put enough study into the perspective you've shared to say I can agree with it without reservation. 

Yet, on the surface, it makes sense to me. Thanks again. 

[rrobs]

1 hour ago, Rocky said:

I love it. However, with the one caveat that I haven't put enough study into the perspective you've shared to say I can agree with it without reservation. 

Yet, on the surface, it makes sense to me. Thanks again. 

Thanks for the astute observation. The Bereans didn't believe everything Paul told them without their own study. Needless to say, I'm sure not Paul.

In general I think it good to have a certain reservation about everything we think about the scriptures. I know for me, what I believe after 50 years of study has little resemblance to what I believed at the start. Kind of like science I guess. in that we should always be open to further evidence as it crops up. It's a process of refinement. The days of me knowing it all are long gone. I think life is more interesting when we are not dogmatically dogmatic.

[Twinky]

Thanks very much for your contributions on this thread, rrobs.  Really helpful.

16 hours ago, rrobs said:

For a couple of years now I've been doing a lot of reading about the culture of the Ancient Near East (ANE), especially as it relates to religion and worldview. In the last 5 decades or so there has been a plethora of their writings uncovered and interpreted. While, as you said, we have to use some imagination, scholars are nonetheless able to paint a fairly accurate picture of how they thought. It has a huge impact on how the scriptures read. The very first verse in the scriptures is a good example of the differences between how they read it and how we read it.

Just as a bit of an aside: It's not just ANE that has a different worldview.  If we consider European medieval worldviews, they were a long way from where we are now, and some of the writings from that time (say from Chaucer to Shakespeare) contain thinking that is hard for us to get our heads around.  

You might even find that your grandparents and great-grandparents' worldview is rather different from your own.  And their use of language, or rather meaning of words, differed.  

For those with ancient indigenous cultures in their lands (Australian aborigines/first peoples, NZ Maori, US native Americans), again there are different cultural worldviews that may be hard to reconcile with "known" facts of today.

It could well be that, should human life still exist in 1,000 years time, they will think that what we now accept as "facts" is quaint, strange, primitive.

While human beings have been "the same "for millennia, human beings' thinking, worldviews, etc haven't been the same.

 

There was obviously an explosion of interest in the early 1800s in studying the ancient Hebrew worldview in the early 1800s and in attempting to understand both the Bible and the ancient mindset (going by the reference dates you quote).  But it started much earlier, dating back to the Reformation in the 1500s (Luther's time).

Two articles from that found of knowledge, Wikipedia: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reformation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_the_19th_century

The latter period would give rise to the scholars' work quoted by rrobs.

 

[rrobs]

6 hours ago, Twinky said:

 

Just as a bit of an aside: It's not just ANE that has a different worldview.  If we consider European medieval worldviews, they were a long way from where we are now, and some of the writings from that time (say from Chaucer to Shakespeare) contain thinking that is hard for us to get our heads around. 

You bring up a good really point. I thought about it and came to realize that a worldview is not binary; "our way" vs "their way." I think it is actually about as analog as analog gets.

Technically, I am the only one that has the worldview I have just as you are the only one that has the worldview you have. Now your worldview and my worldview are certainly more alike than the worldview of the ANE, Chaucer, or Shakespeare, but they are nonetheless slightly different. I would guess that's why opinions are a thing. I've always thought that if I had walked in someone else's shoes I'd be right where they are, be it Adolf Hitler or Nelson Mandela.

But, like so many things in life, we shouldn't take it to an extreme. Even though every individual in the ANE had a slightly different worldview, there was nonetheless a certain amount of common ground, which common ground differed greatly from those who lived in the Elizabethan age, whose common ground in turn differed from our own. I think it fair to say that, different as they may be, our worldview was much closer to that of the Chaucer and Shakespeare than that of the ANE. But the difference does exist.

Dare I say that everybody's worldview is to some degree or another out of alignment from the worldview of the one who made the world? If that premise is true and accepted, and an attempt by everyone was made to adopt that worldview, I think it would go a long way towards ending everything from petty arguments to war. Of course, such a thing is out of the  question as things stand today. But the day is coming...

Anyway, thanks for initiating a new train of thought.

 

[cman]

I've followed the Sunday school type teachings for a while now. About genesis and it's stories, and agreed mostly till about 20 years ago when things started making more sense to me.

No problems with any who still subscribe to that schooling. 

[cman]

Yeah.....I'm not an idiom of permission fan at all.

Some beliefs hold that the God of the old testament and the new are 2 very different gods. Bleehhh....whatever.

The belief in the old was one of fear mostly it seems.

In the ,'end' you know things are different and many have seen it before their short time in this body was done.

[rrobs]

On 8/31/2023 at 1:51 PM, cman said:

Yeah.....I'm not an idiom of permission fan at all.

Some beliefs hold that the God of the old testament and the new are 2 very different gods. Bleehhh....whatever.

The belief in the old was one of fear mostly it seems.

In the ,'end' you know things are different and many have seen it before their short time in this body was done.

Yahweh certainly does appear to be rather nasty, but even on the surface, compared to all other ANE gods He was very benevolent. At least he was forthright in telling people what would be the results of their actions, whether for better or worse. No other god was as frank with their people. People suffered one thing or another but had no idea what they did to "deserve" that suffering, nor did they have any idea as to how to get back into the god's good graces (if such a thing as grace even existed with those gods). For the most part the people of the ANE understood their god to basically hate people, that people were an annoyance, that humans were meant to be used and abused. I don't see Yahweh like those gods in that regard. He did seem to have a genuine care for humans despite their constantly going against the grain of what was functional, of what worked to ensure a good life.

Of course the Jews were products of that culture. Maybe Yahweh could only go so far with them in revealing His true self? It's awfully hard to make a radical change in a people's established worldview. Not being there and then, I really don't know. In any case, I think that reading my modern Western view into the scriptures is likely to skew them into something they were never meant to be.

 

Edited September 16, 2023 by rrobs

[Rocky]

2 hours ago, rrobs said:

It's awfully hard to make a radical change in a people's established worldview.

Isn't that what cultural hegemony is all about? 

[rrobs]

7 minutes ago, Rocky said:

Isn't that what cultural hegemony is all about? 

Yup.

[rrobs]

On 1/16/2012 at 4:03 PM, Twinky said:

Outside of Waydom and mini-me Waydom (splinter groups), has anybody ever heard of the "idiom of permission"? If yes - in the sense promoted by VPW? Bullinger has an article on it which VPW has picked up on (plagiarized from someone else's work), of course, but apart from that?

Anybody out there who has a degree in English Lit or is a grammar teacher who can shed any light?

I got into a discussion with my church's "vicar theologian" (a highly educated man, with real research papers to his name) - suggested something could be this "idiom of permission" - he gave me that pained, patient "what planet are you from?" look that Wayfers become all too familiar with when speaking with "church" people.

So just wondering...

Just came across a book by Troy Edwards, "The Hebrew Idiom of Permission." He referenced many scholars who predated VP. It can be found on Amazon or read online here: The Hebrew Idiom of Permission

Did VP not give Bullinger credit on this matter? I don't know...just wondering. I'm pretty sure he did often give Bullinger credit for other things.

Edited October 29, 2023 by rrobs

[Twinky]

Thanks, rrobs, I'll take a look at this lengthy document.  

I had thought that this man's ministry was connected distantly with TWI but if it once was, it's now moved a long way from original TWI-type beliefs.  Author appears to be a "pastor" in his own non-aligned church, in Rhode Island, but no credentials offered.  However, we do know to our detriment that credentials too can be deliberately misleading.

Edited October 29, 2023 by Twinky

[Nathan_Jr]

There may be something to the proposition that Hebrew grammar allows for a passive shading of an active verb, but it leads to more questions.

What is the rule? How does one know when to use it? Does it only work for Yahweh? Does this rule apply to texts outside of the Torah? Or is it merely a theological coating to ease the swallowing of a difficult pill?

Do any of the early Church Fathers allude to this idiom?

A paper by a Hebrew scholar could be helpful.

 

 

Edited October 29, 2023 by Nathan_Jr

[cman]

it's more like a figure of speech deal

[Nathan_Jr]

Right. An idiom is a figure of speech.

But how does one know to switch from the literal to the figurative? Only when Yahweh’s actions need smoothing?

Literal: “Yahweh caused him to stumble.”

Idiom of Permission: “Yahweh permitted his stumbling.”

 

But here?

Literal: ”Yahweh delivered them...”

Idiom of Permission: “Yahweh allowed them to be delivered…”

 

Does the idiom apply to ALL of Yahweh’s actions? 

Edited October 29, 2023 by Nathan_Jr

[Nathan_Jr]

In the beginning Elohim permitted the creation of the heavens and the earth?