Page 6280 – Christianity Today (2025)

A dozen young men plan to embark at Derry in Northern Ireland in May, 1963. Partly Scots and partly Irish, they will represent several denominations. They will row and sail their craft so as to reach Iona at Pentecost, which this year falls on June 2, for it was on the eve of Pentecost in 563 that St. Columba, sailing from Derry with 12 companions, beached his coracle on the island of Iona, off Scotland’s western coast.

The modern craft will not be a replica of the Celtic one, because the art of building so large a coracle is lost. Instead, as its gift for these centenary celebrations, the Irish Presbyterian Church has offered a splendid boat, whose central mast and crossbar resemble the familiar symbol of the World Council of Churches. After the successful ending of her voyage, she will be in regular service with the Iona community.

To the island itself every branch of the Christian church has been invited. Anglicans will be represented by the Bishop of Durham, in whose diocese lies Lindisfarne, that daughter colony of the Iona monks. The Greek Orthodox will send a representative, recalling the ancient links between Celtic and Eastern Christianity. Members of both established and free churches, from England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, are expected—for although in these official celebrations the Church of Scotland will naturally play the host, Iona Abbey is one church in Christendom where every denomination has a legal right to worship. The sermon, on Whitsunday morning, is to be preached by the moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (Professor James S. Stewart). In order that the service may be ecumenical, with as wide a communion as is possible, Bishop Lesslie Newbigin of the Church of South India will celebrate the sacrament. Himself a Church of Scotland missionary, Dr. Newbigin comes to the divided West from a younger but reunited Church in the Far East.

After this great act of remembrance, to be relayed across Britain by teams of television cameras, there will be days devoted to the quiet of retreat: to prayer and discussion of the missionary challenge in the present age. And that in turn will lead on to the celebration, a week later, of St. Columba’s Day, for it was on June 9, 597, that Columba died. Special services will be held in most Scottish congregations, and a fleet of steamers will bring more than a thousand people to Iona. They will walk there on an ancient roadway, only in recent months uncovered—a broad road of granite boulders running from the sea to the old monastic buildings, traditionally named “the Street of the Dead.” It was by this road that kings and common folk were brought to burial, in the holy ground beside St. Oran’s Chapel where today a German pilot, his plane shot down in the last war, lies beside what are said to be the tombs of forty-eight Scottish, eight Norwegian, and four Irish kings. This year the living will seek to face the future in the spirit of Columba, as they gather in their hundreds for a vast open-air service of commitment and dedication. The Church’s mission, especially among young people, will be vividly presented by this remembrance of the past.

The Spirit of Columba

Such is the main outline of the plans envisaged. Roman Catholics also will be visiting Iona on pilgrimage. Episcopalians from the Church of Ireland have built a coracle, not quite of the traditional pattern but large enough for the traditional crew. What of the man whose memory has inspired and in part united so many churches from so many lands? Can we, across the intervening centuries, construct some picture of Columba as he was?

Adamnan, his eighth successor as Abbot of Iona, drew the portrait as he saw it a century after the saint had died. Written on the spot, amid the familiar beauty of sea and sand and hill, with personal memories lingering in the community, his work has great historical interest, but it is not a biography as we understand the term today. He called it The Virtues of St. Columba, attempting no more than a jumbled collection of edifying anecdotes. His account of prophecies, miracles, and visions presents the hero as a sort of Christianized Druid, in whose life the magical side predominated. “Forceful” would be too weak a word to describe the character sketched in Adamnan’s pages; Columba was tempestuous with the elemental violence of nature as he calmed the storm, silenced King Brude with the thunder of his melodious voice, or tamed a monster by the shore of Loch Ness. But there was a gentler side to the character of this imperious and wonder-working pioneer; he was united to his monks by deep affection, and when death was near even the old white horse came to lay its head sadly on his breast. And Columba was ardently a man of faith. That fact is clearly written in a few Latin verses which are his sole surviving work. Gradual though his spirit’s growth may have been, divine grace triumphed; in him, as was said of a later Scottish cleric, the old man and the new were both exceptionally strong.

Of royal blood on either side of his parentage, Columba was born in 521. He soon showed such intellectual promise that he was trained for the scholarly monastic life. At Moville, Clonard, and other Irish schools he obtained what was perhaps the best education that Europe could then provide, basically in the Latin Bible, but also with some smattering at least of the classics. Nonetheless, he remained warmly attached to the ancient literature of his native land, regarding the better elements in Druidism as a genuine praeparatio evangelica. The Christian Gospel was to him the fulfillment rather than the enemy of natural religion. Hence came his love of nature, above all his love for the ancient oak groves at Derry; this, the first of many monasteries which he founded in Ireland, was remembered by him to the end of his days with tender longing. And when, at the synod of Drumceatt, more rigorous ecclesiastics wished to suppress the writings of the Irish bards, Columba gave them a spirited and successful defense.

But it was his love of books that brought about his banishment from Ireland. Finnian, his teacher at Moville, had a particularly valuable text of the Latin Scriptures, which Columba copied out by stealth. The enraged owner demanded restoration, and Diarmit, high king of Ireland, gave a celebrated judgment on the law of copyright: “To every cow her calf, and to every book belongs its copy.” Other actions of the king, including a violation of the right of sanctuary, were resented by Columba’s kinsmen, who took the field and at the battle of Cooldrummon, near Sligo, slaughtered 3,000 of their foes. For this bloodshed Columba was held responsible; there was even talk of excommunicating him, and the prick of conscience may have begun the transformation of his character. At least he felt called, like Abraham, to go out from home and kindred on a penitential pilgrimage which would at the same time be a missionary venture. He sailed forth until, at Iona, he found that the hills of Ireland had vanished out of sight.

It was not the first evangelization of Scotland, or even of the Scottish Highlands. Iona was already a Christian center when Columba came. Mungo and others were working at about the same time in the central districts. And more than a century before, Ninian and his followers had begun to penetrate North and East from Galloway. But Columba, by his frequent journeys, his sense of strategy, and his gift for leadership, organized a church which spread from Iona across Scotland and down into the north of England. Though himself only a presbyter, he had bishops under his rule as abbot, and to the Celtic period of Scottish Christianity the name “Columban” is not unfittingly applied.

Sound statesmanship led him to seek the patronage of the pagan King Brude at Inverness. Similar motives directed his part in the election of Aidan as ruler of Dalriada, that petty kingdom in modern Argyll which was to become the nucleus of the Scottish nation. Aidan was the first king in Scotland to be crowned with a religious ceremony; according to perhaps dubious tradition, the same Stone of Destiny which still figures in British coronations was used for his enthronement. Whether or not such details may be true, Columba was at least in some sense a founder of the Scottish kingdom no less than of the Scottish church.

“Instead of monks’ voices shall be lowing of cattle; but ere the world come to an end, Iona shall be as it was.” So runs the old Gaelic saying. For more than 600 years, despite pillage and massacre by Scandinavian raiders, Celtic monks continued to garrison Iona; they were then succeeded by Cistercians until, at the Reformation, the old buildings were abandoned to decay. But early in the present century the abbey church was restored by public subscription, and the rest of the medieval monastery has now been rebuilt by the Iona community under the leadership of Dr. George MacLeod. Some earlier Celtic sites have come to light, including the very cell which Columba may have used. And the island, still haunted by his memory, is again a place of prayerfulness and peace.

G. S. M. WALKER

Lecturer in Church History and Doctrine

Leeds University

While the article by Dr. Cyrus H. Gordon in this issue is too technical for the average reader, its importance lies in the possibility that the suggested kinship of Minoan and Semitic languages may open up an era of Old Testament studies no less exciting than the New Testament inquiries prodded by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Dr. Gordon presents an exposition and defense of his theory that the language of the script known as Minoan Linear A is Semitic. He is obviously impatient because many scholars regard the decipherment of this script as still in the tentative or speculative stage. T. C. Mitchell, research assistant in the Department of Western Asiatic Antiquities, The British Museum, notes that Gordon’s suggestion that Linear A was used to write Akkadian has not been widely accepted (cf. the essay on “Crete” in The New Bible Dictionary, J. D. Douglas, organizing editor). Paul MacKendrick of the University of Wisconsin, in his book The Greek Stones Speak (1962), discusses Furumark’s theory that the language of Linear A is “of Anatolian origin.” He mentions Gordon’s theory and says: “Both cannot be right so the question remains open, but another large find of Linear A tablets would probably settle the matter.”

CHRISTIANITY TODAY is not technically endowed to make a final appraisal of these issues. Its contributing editors skilled in linguistic matters are themselves divided. One of them says bluntly that this magazine is “not the place for the airing of unproved theories.” Professor Charles Pfeiffer of Gordon Divinity School remarks: “Many of us have found that we can understand our Bibles better if we know something of the history and literature of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Syria-Palestine (ancient Canaan). Dr. Gordon reminds us now that the Greek world must be considered part of a cultural complex comprising the Eastern Mediterranean. Details will be argued for a long time, and no simple formula will answer the multitude of problems that arise from the study of the Biblical text, but Gordon’s concept of an Eastern Mediterranean cultural continuum seems irrefutable.”

Professor Gleason L. Archer of Fuller Theological Seminary considers “the field of new discovery in the area of early Semitic-Cretan linguistics and cultural interrelationships one of the most exciting developments of this century. The establishment of the West Semitic character of the Minoan inscriptions … will shed light upon many an obscurity which has hitherto baffled Biblical historians. The prominence accorded to the bull-cult by the idolatrous wing of ancient Israel becomes even more understandable than before, in the light of the centrality of this element in Cretan culture of the same period. It seems to me,” he adds, “that Dr. Gordon is in a fair way to carry the day against all scholarly opposition before this decade is over. Even if some Eteocretan inscriptions turn out to represent much earlier languages entirely distinct from those which have now been established as Semitic (as, for example, in the case of Hittite and Proto-Hittite), it will nevertheless remain true that the Semitic contribution was decisively dominant in Crete for at least a portion of the Second Millennium.”

But Dr. Archer pleads for caution in this new field of Cretan-Palestinian interrelationship: “From the linguistic standpoint it will be necessary to cope with some features of Philistine nomenclature which do not appear to be Semitic, so far as our present knowledge goes; such as the term seren applied to Philistine lords in Joshua, Judges and I Samuel, which Albright plausibly connects with the Greek tyrannos. City-names like Ashkelon and Ashdod seem to have a non-Semitic ring to them, although others like Gaza and Gath are well known in Hebrew. Caution in interpretation is of great importance for this investigation. In regard to the shophetim of the Book of Judges, Gordon suggests these leaders ‘always came from the ruling class’ or from the ‘aristocracy.’ Personally I fail to discover any significant trace of stratification in early Israelite society. But despite such minor questions of detail, I feel that the main thesis is adequately sustained, and the analogy drawn between the shield of Achilles described in the Iliad and the many-faceted record in the Pentateuch is of decisive significance in demonstrating the artificiality of Wellhausian Source-division.”

Dr. Gordon approaches the Old Testament writings with a respect and reverence that is characteristic also of Dr. William F. Albright, whom Gordon criticizes beyond the point of scholarly debate in this essay. It is this approach, in contrast to the critical temper of the Wellhausen theorists, that has endeared both teachers to many evangelical students pursuing doctorates in the Old Testament field. This does not mean, of course, that theological positions represented by Dr. Gordon or by Dr. Albright serve adequately as a dependable ally for evangelical Christianity. Both scholars are brilliant and gifted with creative ideas—some good, some bad. Gordon’s theory of the “inspiration” of the Judges is defective on any evangelical assessment, and his-comparison of Samson with Achilles as a warlord may be farfetched.

Dr. Gordon insists that certain cultural elements common to Greek and Semite had an origin which long antedates Alexander. He recognizes, of course, that Hebraism and Hellenism developed along different lines, and that the Maccabean conflict was real and violent. His underlying thesis, that the language of the script known as Minoan Linear A is Semitic, if true, opens a new frontier in Old Testament studies. We publish the essay in order to prod the linguists to serious assessment of a claim they cannot afford to ignore.

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A Call For Social Action: The Dignity Of The Body

A strange byproduct of Protestantism’s infatuation with social action is its preoccupation with doubtful pursuits to the neglect of far more proper concerns. At one time the conscience of Protestant churchmen was extremely sensitive to the matters of drinking alcoholic beverages and smoking; in fact, support of the Prohibition amendment even became a test of Christian vitality.

Today things are rather different. Major denominations lobby for specific political objectives of quite another sort; the Church ventures partnership with state social welfare projects, and wholly neglects personal concerns of moral welfare.

As everyone knows, the liquor traffic and its evils have multiplied almost beyond computation. The link between smoking and lung cancer, moreover, ought to stir anyone who maintains Christian views of the dignity and destiny of the body. But it is government and not the Church which today initiates and sponsors research to establish the baneful consequences of alcoholism and cigarette addiction. The clergy themselves often set a poor example. A leading New York clergyman commented recently that at certain ministerial functions he found only one other person who abstained from alcoholic drinks. And anyone who wants protection from the lethal billows of tobacco smoke at many ministerial meetings is often tempted to carry a portable oxygen tent.

It would be heartening to see the churches catch up with government researchers in such areas of physical, social, and, yes, spiritual concern. Churches that once identified the cause of Christianity with abstinence or temperance are hardly complimented by the fact that Alcoholics Anonymous is a basically secular movement, or by the fact that in many communities the agencies now promoting break-the-smoking-habit seminars are non-religious. If the churches want to get into social action, they have a wide open field right in the areas of alcoholism and cigarette addiction.

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Southern Baptists Are Now Bigger Than Anybody

Congratulations are in order. The Southern Baptist Convention is now the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. It has a membership of 10,193,052, compared to the second largest denomination, the Methodists, with a latest reported membership of 10,153,003. An increase of 2.2 per cent last year enabled it to displace The Methodist Church, which increased its membership last year by only 1 per cent.

Although congratulations are in order, few will be officially extended. Southern Baptists can scarcely congratulate themselves, and most religious publications—being house organs of a particular denomination—will feel too inhibited to do so. The spirit of ecumenical fellowship has not yet gone that far. We want, however, to join those who extend hearty congratulations to the biggest United States denomination.

Although the Calvinistic tradition regnant in the United States until about 100 years ago was most consistently embodied in the Anglican-Presbyterian-Reformed churches, it is not these which have become the big churches of this country. They were far surpassed by the Baptists (and Methodists). That the greatest growth has gone to the Baptists is due in part to the fact that they so thoroughly embodied the typical individualist American spirit, to the adaptability of their loose organization to the conditions of the American frontier, and certainly to a lively spirit of evangelism. Their contribution to the American tradition of separation of church and state has been unequaled. Theological and cultural impact has been considerably less.

One can only get dizzy attempting to assess the potential impact of more than 10 million Christians upon the life of our nation. Thankfully there are indications that, at this high point in its history, this great segment of the body of Christ is awakening to America’s larger challenges.

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Visser ’T Hooft Indicates Tests Of Vatican’S Ecumenical Spirit

Is the Roman Catholic Church prepared in its dialogue with other churches to approve concrete changes of policy in the aftermath of the refreshing first session of the Vatican Council?

The Vatican Council shows that the Catholic Church “has a greater capacity for renewal than had been considered possible,” Dr. W. A. Visser ’t Hooft, General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, recently told an executive committee meeting. The Catholic Church has emerged from its “purely monologic and self-centered period” and “has come to realize there are other Christian churches,” he added.

But Visser ’t Hooft singled out Rome’s attitude toward mixed marriages and religious liberty as “test cases of the reality and depth of the ecumenical attitude.” And, in truth, a revision of Roman Catholic discriminatory attitudes in these areas is long overdue, and of prime importance for improved inter-church relationships. Protestants are indeed hopefully awaiting future Vatican Council commitments touching these concerns.

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Ongoing Newspaper Strikes Attest Labor Bosses’ Power

For many of us breakfast without a good newspaper seems like a night’s sleep without a bed. New York and Cleveland residents are still deprived of local papers while union strikes stretch on and on. The vast injury done by the labor leaders’ tie-up of these communications media becomes increasingly apparent. Great newspapers are forced temporarily or permanently to suspend publication by labor bosses desirous of special economic objectives. The effective survival of publications with long records of community service is thus conditioned on the whim of union leaders who advance their partisan goals even when a strike lacks the sympathy of most of the employees and of the community as a whole.

The total news blackout in New York is doubtless the responsibility of the publishers. Four papers were struck; five others (including the Herald Tribune) could still be publishing if they so chose. Time points an accusing finger: “The N. Y. publishers themselves share the blame.… The publishers dillydallied around, waited almost until the strike deadline before they laid down their own terms—from which they have barely budged since.” But the strike initiative lay with the typographical union.

During early American history repressive government was the villain that most often threatened the right to a free press. Today, as The Washington Post observes, that right is just as seriously threatened by the arbitrary action of labor bosses, who exalt their prerogatives as labor leaders above those of the community and do not hesitate to topple giant enterprises largely engaged in the domain of public service.

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Ten Tricky Clichés On The Washington Frontier

A searching look at the past decade of American history alerts us to many clever clichés aimed to promote the special interests of politically ambitious and favor-currying groups. Ten objectionable clichés current on the Washington frontier ought to be closely scrutinized and openly repudiated.

1. Religious bigotry is the only reason people will not vote for a Roman Catholic candidate. This is sheer propaganda.

2. All Roman Catholic politicians adopt the political positions favored by the church hierarchy. This, too, is raw propaganda.

3. All Protestant politicians can be counted on to protect the historic concept of separation of church and state. This is mere propaganda.

4. Not to give sectarian schools the same access to public funds as the public schools is unjust if not immoral. This is a clever propaganda ruse.

5. The early American colonists, because they constantly needed spiritual revival, should be regarded as heathen rather than Christian. This is objectionable propaganda that minimizes our Christian heritage.

6. Because its citizens represent divergent religious affiliations, the United States in national life and in its public institutions should avoid any reflection of theistic affirmations made by the founding fathers in the country’s official documents. This is secular propaganda that serves to moderate our national distinctives.

7. Minor changes in the American Constitution in regard to separation of church and state signify progressivism instead of favoritism. This is sheer propaganda promoted by special-interest groups seeking to establish partisan precedents.

8. Violations of church-state separation cannot really be opposed on moral grounds if they are ventured on the smallest tolerable basis. This is a device of propaganda forces.

9. Religious freedom implies the right of atheistic minorities to conform public institutions to their own prejudices at the expense of the majority milieu. This is unabashed propaganda.

10. Protestants and Other Americans United is an ugly movement more interested in embarrassing Roman Catholics, or in destroying religious factors in American life, than in preserving our national tradition. This, too, is propaganda of the worst kind: it is a lie.

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Federal Aid And Control Are Like Love And Marriage

The President’s federal aid to education program is quite encyclopedic. It does not include everything from A to Z, however, and the absence of “RC” in this enumeration is especially displeasing to the Roman Catholic hierarchy.

The bill, of course, ought not to be favored just because the hierarchy disapproves it. Federal aid and federal control are, after all, like love and marriage. Free love may seem attractive for the moment, but in the long run Uncle Sam will want a wedding; nobody provides room, board, and research grants for long these days without wanting the marital due also.

But if the government is going to distribute public funds, the principle of public funds for public schools is still the only sound one. Neither Roman Catholicism nor any other ism has a right to expect the general taxpayer to support sectarian schools.

Newspapers report that because the federal aid program does not dole out public funds to their sectarian schools, Roman Catholic leaders call the program discriminatory against parochial schools and view it as punishing or penalizing Roman Catholic parents. But most Protestants gladly pay for whatever sectarian education their children get, and do not expect to assess the general taxpayer for this private rather than public education. If public funds are used to subsidize sectarian schools, the program will discriminate against public education and penalize the citizenry in general.

A Whisper To Be Muted—A Destiny To Be Fulfilled

Surveying the long sweep of the history of Christendom, one cannot fail to be impressed by the remarkable contribution of America to the missionary enterprise. On the other hand, America has had the wealth to devote to it, and it goes without saying that she could and should have done much better than she has. And these days you hear the whisper among Christians that, well, we just can’t give as much for missions because of the tax burden.

Assuming special significance in this connection are some facts, which were drawn from government statistics, presented by the Wall Street Journal. The average American family (setting aside for the moment the problems of low-income families) is doing better than ten years ago in terms of real income. In the last eight years, per capita disposable income—money after personal taxes, in constant dollars—has risen 16 percent. The average income for a family of four in 1939 was $2,148, or $4,848 in 1961 dollars. By 1961 the figure had soared to $8,120.

If Americans have not fully comprehended these facts, their spending habits have. We need but to compare current expenditures with those of 1955. There are twice as many once-a-week bowlers (36 million), and golfers are up 25 per cent. Population has increased 12 per cent while motor vehicles in use have mushroomed 24 per cent. Homes having television have increased from seven in ten to nine in ten. Individual consumption of beef rose from 55 pounds to 67 pounds. Married couples living with relatives are down from a million and a half to 900,000. New single family homes have about a third more floor space. Expenditures for health care are up also—hospital admissions are 40 per cent greater than they were in the middle ’50s.

The escalating process is accompanied by the rapid transfer of commodities from luxury to necessity status.

Someone has said that God’s manifest blessing has rested on America in large part for her devotion to world missions, and that if we fail here, we forfeit a divine calling and void a high purpose and destiny for the nation. Christians may disagree on their assessment of the Peace Corps, but there can be no differing on the stubborn fact that the Corps is no substitute for missions.

It is well to remember that the torch may be removed from the Statue of Liberty just as surely as Ephesus lost her candlestick through the waning of her church’s first love for the Son of man, whose voice of judgment was as the sound of many waters.

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Some day all men, Christians and unbelievers alike, will see life in retrospect, in the light of eternity and without the limitations of time.

For the Christian retrospect will mean the vindication of faith, and anticipation will become realization. Mysteries will merge into understanding; the baffling reflection in the mirror of the world’s experience will be clarified as we see reality face to face.

We all will be amazed at how seemingly trivial incidents will be revealed as God-devised turning points in our lives, while many things we have thought so important will be seen as mere trivialities.

Many seeming disasters will be seen as blessings, delays as of God’s appointing, frustrations as the restraints of his loving hand.

Probably our greatest surprise will be at our own obtuseness—our failure to accept and live by the clear teachings of God’s Word.

We will discover that the Apostle Paul was not indulging in a flight of fancy when he said, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28). This truth will be seen to be the dominating principle of God’s dealings with his own.

In retrospect the Christian will echo the Psalmist’s words, “I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me” (Ps. 119:75).

When we look back on our lives, the words of Psalm 103 will come spontaneously from our lips and hearts.

Another of the Christian’s reactions in his retrospect will be recognition of his failure to appreciate the supernatural forces with which he has been surrounded in this life. Then he will see the unseen and believe that of which only too often he has been oblivious; “the angel of the Lord” who has encamped around him, delivering him in time of peril, will be appreciated.

Spiritual vision will be given so that we, like Elisha’s servant, will see God’s hosts which have surrounded us again and again. We will cry’ out, “Who can utter the mighty acts of the Lord? who can show forth all his praise? (Ps. 106:2).

Who? Who can do just that? Right now we, the redeemed by faith. Then, the redeemed in retrospect.

If such a view in retrospect will be ours, surely we should live in its anticipation! Why stay so bound to the world that we lose sight of the heavenly prospect?

There is an old saying that “some people are so heavenly minded they are of no earthly use.” But it is our observation that those most concerned about eternity are now doing the most for the world. Humanism is not making the world better, but only a more pleasant place in which to serve the Devil.

How then should the Christian live? Eternity, heaven, should be so real that something of its glory should shine in his face and the splendor of its anticipation make others long to know the Way.

In the light of our heritage there are certain things which should characterize our faith. The love of God should dominate our attitude—to him and to those with whom we have to deal. Out of that love there has been poured his mercy, even the faith with which we believe being a gift of his grace.

Christians only too often live like spiritual beggars. On the one hand we fail to recognize his provision, and on the other we do not claim his promises.

Right now our perspective should be heavenly, not of this world. Instead of groping with the myopia of spiritual ignorance, we should walk in the 20/20 vision of God-given insight. Rather than stumbling over imagined handicaps, we should see them as stepping-stones to a closer walk with our Lord.

Only the Christian has communion with the God of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Only the Christian has been redeemed by the Christ who was, who is, and who is to come. Why then live and act like orphans? Living in the sureness of God’s foreknowledge, omnipotence, and sovereignty, what more could mortal man ask?

Retrospect will surely give us a new understanding of the magnitude of God’s forgiveness in Christ. We will see our sins in the light of his countenance and be lost in the wonder of his redeeming love. The picture we will see of ourselves will destroy every vestige of pride and also explain why nothing less than the death of God’s Son could make us acceptable in his sight.

We who have too often taken God for granted, who have never sensed his holiness, will suddenly see him as he is and fall prostrate before him.

When we see the Holy Scriptures in retrospect we will be amazed, and we will understand what our Lord meant when he said, “O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken” (Luke 24:25). We will wonder how men ever dared to sit in judgment on the written Word.

With the glorious prospect of the Christian, and the restrospection which will be ours at faith’s fruition, what manner of men should we be right now? While the world is vainly looking for security, hope, assurance, rest, knowledge of truth, we have them now. While others look to the created, we look to the Creator. While others are looking for answers, we know the One who is the ultimate Answer. While others talk about reality, we have the only one who is real. While others seek assurance, we can say with the Apostle Paul, “I know whom I have believed. I know he is able. I know that my faith is not misplaced.”

The world is hungry for such a faith to live by, but it is usually looking in the wrong direction. We who are Christians can demonstrate by our unswerving faith that we are looking for “a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God”—and we can help others look for it too.

Latin America is the only major area of the world in which the Protestant church is growing at a much faster rate than the population—this in spite of the fact that the demographic explosion in Latin America is the most rapid in the world. The population is increasing at the rate of some 2.6 per cent while the Protestant community is moving at 15.8 per cent.

But in spite of this highly encouraging set of statistics, many Christian workers in Latin America are deeply concerned about the future of the Church. In a recent meeting of some 300 evangelical leaders from all over Latin America at Huampaní, Peru, 54 per cent of those attending were missionaries. Although Latin Americans chaired most of the sessions, missionaries were still quite obviously pulling the important strings behind the scenes.

Where is our top-flight Latin American Protestant leadership? Or, more specifically, what have we been doing to provide theological training for those nationals who can and will do the same jobs of administration and teaching that missionaries have been handling for six decades?

The historic denominations have been hard at work on this problem for a long time, and their labors have borne fruit. Graduates of seminaries such as Union of Buenos Aires (Methodist, Presbyterian, Disciples, and others); Union of Matanzas, Cuba (Presbyterian, Methodist, Episcopal); Union of Río Piedras, Puerto Rico (American Baptist Convention, Methodist, Presbyterian, and others); and the Presbyterian Seminary of Campinas, Brazil, have taken doctorates in the United States and Europe and are now in positions of high responsibility in their own churches and seminaries. In fact the teaching and administrative staffs of these seminaries are largely made up of Latin Americans.

While the traditional denominations deserve the highest praise for what they have accomplished in the field of theological education, this does not mean that the job is done. The fact remains that the overwhelming majority of Latin American Protestants belong to the non-historic groups, including the faith missions and the newer denominations such as the Christian and Missionary Alliance, Free Methodists, and Pentecostals. Of the estimated ten million members of the Protestant community, at least one-third are affiliated with the Pentecostal denominations alone.

The only seminary that the non-historic groups have produced which attains the academic excellence of the four already mentioned is the Bible Seminary in San José, Costa Rica, founded by the Latin America Mission. But this in comparison to the others is not a mature work, since the administration and the bulk of the teaching responsibilities are still in the hands of missionaries from the United States. As a matter of fact, the men from the Bible Seminary who are now going abroad for their doctorates are not Latin Americans, but missionaries.

We of the non-historic groups have made outstanding progress in evangelism, in literature, in Bible translation, and in radio-television. We have done well in building multitudes of churches—but unfortunately we have been too little interested in building the Church. Our interest in theological education has been largely limited to providing pastors and evangelists for our local congregations, and therefore we traditionally have concentrated on Bible institutes. This has been an essential factor in the rapid growth of the Protestant work, and it is not my intention to slight the Bible-institute level of training in the least. We have done a good job with these institutes and have trained a large and competent force of national pastors for our churches. But our error has been to stop there.

The old cliché that “we missionaries are trying to work ourselves out of a job” has become sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal in the light of the little we have done to train nationals to take over as mission administrators or Bible-institute directors. In fact, we should confess that we have been guilty of a related and very parochial attitude that has done much to stunt the growth of the Church—that of considering promising and gifted young Christians as “our workers,” and failing to encourage them to go outside the fold of our own limited group for higher training because “they might be lost to the work.” The work referred to, of course, is “our work”—not that of the church of Jesus Christ.

There are some clear reasons why the non-historic groups have fallen short of providing training on the seminary level. For one, most of the missionaries themselves have not had more than a Bible-institute training, and therefore have neither the desire nor the preparation necessary to take nationals any higher. But the difference in the academic level of Latin American and Anglo-Saxon theological schools should be noted at this point. To an Anglo-Saxon entrance into a Bible institute presupposes high-school graduation; to a Latin only grammar school, three to six years. Latin American seminaries are on the university rather than the postgraduate level; they require only secondary school instead of university graduation for admission.

A second reason might be called “evangelistic myopia.” In the passion to get souls saved there has been too little interest in what the Church will do for leadership ten, fifteen, or twenty years from now. Missionaries have been content to train national evangelists with little thought of training those nationals who in turn would be able to train their own evangelists.

This shortsightedness is tragically reflected in the missionary giving of the home churches. Disproportionate emphasis is placed on the personal support of what someone has called “the dear, homebred missionary,” with slight concern for projects and causes, such as theological education, which are more impersonal but often at the same time more strategic.

In the third place, the very independent nature of the non-historic groups has put them at a disadvantage. Every mission has seemed to feel it necessary to set up its own program of theological education with no regard for what its neighbors are doing. In Bolivia, for example, there are some 20 Bible institutes and seminaries to serve a Christian community of perhaps 30,000. Now, especially in this day when the non-historic groups are waking up to the need of providing seminary training for their national workers, an important cue should be taken from the denominations: without interdenominational cooperation the job in all probability will never be done.

It is no coincidence that of the five top seminaries mentioned above, three are union efforts. Practically none of our faith missions, other than the Latin America Mission, has the personnel, the funds, the experience, or even the potential student body to tackle a seminary-level educational program on its own. Up to now there has been some talk and some experimentation, but very meager results in terms of actual cooperation in this vital field. Unfortunately it looks as if instead of pooling our resources to establish some key first-class institutions, we are going to see too many watered-down seminaries springing up in several Latin American republics during the next few years. It would be a dramatic step forward if somehow this trend could be arrested and, better yet, reversed.

The final reason for lack of achievement by the non-historic groups has been their failure to provide a suitable framework into which to integrate well-educated national workers. Despite all our talk about an “indigenous church” we have little to show for our efforts. With the rise in educational levels in Latin America and the coming of age of a second generation of Protestants, we face the new situation in which an important element of our Christian community will have secondary-school preparation and will be ready for further study.

Many gifted young men will have to choose between seminary and university. Whether it be a spiritual approach to the problem let someone else judge, but we find the young men asking: “Should I become a lawyer or a doctor and take my place as a well-paid and respected member of my community, or should I go to seminary and resolve myself to peon’s wages and status as a second-rate citizen?” Leaving pious platitudes to one side, this is an extremely difficult decision, and if a young man chooses law instead of the ministry, we have only ourselves to blame for our failure to provide a framework in which professionally trained nationals could approach the affluent living standard that missionaries as well as other members of the expanding Latin American middle class now enjoy.

A corollary to this is the need for scholarships for graduate study abroad. The best offered in Latin America at the present time is a Th.B. But many Latins are fully capable of work at the Th.M. or Th.D. level. The old-line denominations have figured this item into their budgets and are reaping great dividends from it. We cannot afford to continue to lag behind. Not only must we provide seminary training; we also must encourage the nationals to go just as far as their intellectual potentialities can carry them. Because of our failure in this area there already has been some painful shifting of top national workers from the non-historic groups to the older denominations.

When seen in the light of the explosive political situation in Latin America today, this problem takes on a terrifying urgency. The day of the Anglo-Saxon missionary, as his work is presently conceived, may be rapidly coming to a close. We who today are responsible for the welfare of the Latin American Church must also be prepared to stand judgment for its condition 20 years from now.

We cannot afford to rest until we have caught up to our age in providing theological education for our Latin brethren. To do so in the time remaining will mean an all-out push both by us who are on the field and by those who stand behind us in the homeland. We need a new vision for the task, faithful and believing prayer, a self-effacing willingness to cooperate with one another, and unprecedented financial aid for buildings, libraries, scholarships, and salaries. Perhaps most of all we need a dedicated corps of new missionary workers who have the academic and theological training necessary to help us get the job done.

The Bolivian Indian Mission

Cochabamba, Bolivia

More and more, even in places where least expected, signs are appearing with the announcement, “Open on Sundays.” To such an extent has the traditional Sabbath been exploited and commercialized that stores which still remain closed on Sundays are finding it necessary to display signs informing the public of this.

The secularization of the Sabbath day is cause for nation-wide alarm. The competitive operation of taverns, theaters, and commercialized amusements on the Lord’s Day has long been a problem to the spiritual forces of our country. And now we are witnessing a vast acceleration of this encroachment on the part of chain groceries and a variety of other stores, besides automobile agencies, real estate operation, and other enterprises, which previously have been at least neutral in the struggle to preserve the soul of our nation.

Sabbath observance is the center of gravity for the spiritual and moral life of a nation. A Sabbath-observing people, coming regularly under the illumination, stimulation, and discipline of the Word of God, give God a chance to do his best for them, in them, and through them. Such a people develop convictions and maintain standards of purity and godliness not otherwise to be attained. That which undermines Sabbath observance undermines the spiritual convictions and the moral behavior of a people.

It is in the Lord’s house, on the Lord’s day, with the Lord’s people, that a man is most likely to see himself as he is and to hear the call of God to higher ground. Thus bad men often become good, and good men become better. Unfortunately, the person who does not observe the Sabbath is generally leaving undone just about everything else that is expected of a Christian, such as praying, giving, witnessing, and living a consecrated life.

The family pew solves many problems before they arise, and is a major safeguard of the family hearth. Juvenile delinquency is reported to fall most heavily on Saturdays and Sundays. F.B.I. Director J. Edgar Hoover has noted for years, along with judges all across the country, that Sabbath observance and juvenile delinquency do not go together. But broken Sabbaths, broken homes, and broken hearts fall into a pattern which has become all too familiar.

“Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy.” This fourth commandment, like the rest of the Decalogue, has in it the wisdom and benevolence of Almighty God. The benighted peoples of the earth have no Sabbath; with the establishment of the biblical Sabbath and its observance, their darkness would soon be dispelled. Enlightened peoples, when they neglect or abandon the Sabbath, are turning their backs to the light and heading toward the jungle.

Nations which have officially abolished the Sabbath have returned to the seven-day week in sheer self-defense, to safeguard their physical and material well-being. France, revolting against Christianity after the Revolution, established the ten-day week in 1793 but returned to the seven-day week in 1806. Russia likewise abolished the Sabbath after the Bolshevik Revolution and established a five-day week, then a six-day week, but she restored the seven-day week in 1940. The seven-day week makes a natural cycle, like the musical scale of seven notes, and seems to fit the rhythm of the universe.

Probably the breaking of no other commandment is so directly avenged in terms of mental and physical complications and breakdowns as the law of the Sabbath. Experimentation has demonstrated that even machinery functions more efficiently with suitable rest periods. The familiar comment of industrial giant Henry Ford deserves thoughtful consideration: “We would have had our Model A car in production six months earlier if I had forbidden my engineers to work on Sunday.”

“The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” Christ made allowance, within the spirit of the law, for works of mercy and of necessity, and for taking care of the occasional “ox in the ditch.” But the moral responsibility of unnecessary Sabbath violation is not to be lightly regarded. Immeasurably greater is the moral responsibility of coaxing others away from Sabbath observance to the marts of trade. Still more serious is the policy of denying to employees the possibility of observing the Sabbath and taking care of their spiritual needs and responsibilities. Inevitably, the Sunday opening of stores means the Sunday closing of churches, as far as the employee is concerned. And this the divine economy does not countenance. The ultimate in human wisdom is to note which way God is moving, and to fall in step.

With sickening monotony, the statistics on all forms of evil are rising from year to year. Human devices and legislative panaceas have failed to arrest this trend, which corresponds to the progressive undermining of the holy Sabbath. Too largely the Sabbath day has been reduced from a holy day of spiritual replenishment, instruction, and correction, to a mere holiday for pleasure seeking or to just another day of merchandising. The obvious need is not for some new solution but for a nationwide reemphasis upon true Sabbath observance. Only thus can we build up those spiritual resources which are the true strength of a nation. It is already late, but not too late. Sabbath observance must not be allowed to become obsolete!—Dr. CHARLES W. KOLLER, President Emeritus, Northern Baptist Theological Seminary.

NO, I HAVEN’T BEEN at church lately—but

—I’m tremendously interested really

—there’s such a draught in my pew

—I always listen to the hymns on the wireless

—of course I always keep in touch

—I’m frightened I’ll start coughing

—everyone says the sermons have been good

—I really must go one of these days

—you see, my family like a long lie in bed

—I once won a prize at Sunday school

—there’s hardly a soul I know at church

—I must go when the weather improves

—the man comes with the papers about eleven

—I do think it’s frightfully important

—since my aunt died, I can’t face it somehow

—I was just saying to my friend it is time I went

—won’t you wait and have tea? The kettle’s on.

—J.W.G.M.

in Life and Work (Church of Scotland magazine).

To some members of the Christian world it is a matter for surprise that so strong an evangelical contribution should be made by the Anglican communion. There are, of course, reasons for this surprise. Particularly since the rise of the Oxford Movement, many practices have given Episcopal churches more of a Roman than a Protestant look, and there have been far too many prominent leaders whose personal opinions bear little resemblance to the established positions of their communion. Indeed, agitation to make the communion different from what it has been seems to be the mark of the twentieth-century ecclesiastic.

Nevertheless, there should be no real surprise at the presence of a more genuinely evangelical element. It is part of a long and powerful tradition which goes back through the leaders of the Evangelical Revival to the Puritans of the seventeenth century, and ultimately to the great Anglican reformers of the sixteenth. It is not an eccentric factor; it belongs to the very essence of the communion. Its members, far from being halfhearted churchmen, are among the most consistently faithful of all Anglicans. Its charter is the Anglican Confession, which was adopted by Convocation in 1563 and which, in spite of evasion, relegation to small print, and in some cases open opposition, still remains the basic doctrinal statement of the Church of England and its churches.

The Thirty-Eight Articles as they then were—the thirty-ninth was added a few years later (1570)—are clearly Reformed, and therefore evangelical, in their acceptance of the supreme authority of Holy Scripture (Article 6). They maintain that there is nothing which must be believed for salvation other than what is found in the 66 canonical books of the Old and New Testaments. While the church and the ministry have their own authority, this is subsidiary. Nothing can stand alongside the written Word of God in matters of eternal significance. On this basis, the constant potential of evangelical awakening is no surprise.

The Articles are also Reformed, and therefore evangelical, in their understanding of justification (Articles 11–14). By Christ alone, and therefore by faith alone, is no less a basic doctrine of the Anglican than of the Lutheran or Calvinist. Works have their own place, but it is not their office to justify before God. The heart of the Gospel is God’s free forgiveness by virtue of the reconciling work of Jesus Christ in his death and resurrection. Where the evangelical message rings out in Anglican pulpits, it is in terms of the classical declaration of faith, not in opposition to it.

Again, the Articles are Reformed, and therefore evangelical, in their sacramental teaching (Articles 25–28). If they avoid the bare symbolism of extremists, they are based on a rejection of medieval teachings concerning sacrifice, the real presence, and automatic efficacy. Positively, their statements are in substantial accord with the Reformed tradition enshrined in the confessions of Calvin and Bullinger. It is true that in 1563 the distinctive “ubiquitarian” tenet of the Lutherans was not yet flatly rejected, but this came shortly afterwards with the inclusion of the final article (Article 29). Evangelical use of baptism and the Lord’s Supper reflects neither alien intrusion into true Anglicanism, nor willful departure from it. It is a simple continuation of Prayer Book practice on the basis of confessional understanding.

The evangelical element persists in the Anglican communion because there are within the church ministers and laity who are ready to take the Articles seriously as the confession of their church. In England itself all clergy profess allegiance to the Articles, not once but many times. They do this publicly, before their congregations. But so far as doctrinal utterances and preaching are concerned, this often seems to be little more than a formality. For evangelicals, however, it is no formality. The verities expressed in the Articles are the essential verities of the Gospel which must be the confession of any true church of Jesus Christ. Acceptance of the Articles is acceptance of the Gospel. It is confession not merely of the faith of the Anglican communion, but of the faith once delivered to the saints. If there is place for revision in detail, there is none for hesitation as to essential content.

The evangelical element persists because there are ministers and people who see no reason for evasions, mental reservations, or fundamental tensions in their relation to the Articles. It is a significant fact that those who are so anxious to depreciate, to relativize, or to change the Articles are not evangelicals. Evangelicals have no fear of the 1604 canons, which declare to be de facto excommunicate all preachers—be they ever so eminent—who teach contrary to the Articles. They have no fear of the Laudian declaration, which insists—originally against extremer Puritans—that the Articles are to be taken only in their literal and grammatical sense. If they recognize that new developments may demand new statements and that not even the best confessions have the infallibility of Scripture, they are in no frenzy to discard or to amend.

Finally, the evangelical element persists because there are those who are convinced that from the time of the Reformation, the fellowship and ministry of the Anglican communion have been primarily with churches of the Reformation. They have no implacable hostility to Roman Catholicism, but they recognize that the Anglican Articles are incompatible with the unreformed Romanism, not merely of the Middle Ages, but also of the post-Tridentine period. They admire the loyalty of the Eastern Orthodox churches to the cardinal truths defined by early councils, but they cannot be content with a frozen orthodoxy which has nothing to offer in the face of new problems and which stifles evangelical vitality. They are not ashamed of the distinctive order of ministry and liturgy which their church has maintained in exercise of its relative authority, but they see in this no obstacle to the fellowship with other Protestant bodies which prevailed in the Reformation and post-Reformation period. They recognize that the Articles place them ineluctably among those whose task is to attest to the essential Gospel rediscovered at the Reformation.

In a church which has the Articles as its confession, it would in fact be surprising if there were no evangelical element. For here in the confession is the power of evangelical truth and life. Here in the confession is the dogmatic stratum on which, under the Spirit, there is the abiding hope of evangelical renewal.

Fuller Theological Seminary

Pasadena, Calif.

Valedictory

Sorry to interrupt, but I must be going. The ides of March have come; this, by painful count, is Communication No. 162 from Eutychus, and it’s time for a change. My inclination is to loiter a bit, hat and doorknob in hand, but the Eutychus image seems to call for a more abrupt departure, by another exit.

I need only insist, in tribute to the astonishing patience of the editor and my kin, that I wasn’t pushed.

My successor, Eutychus II, will make the windowsill fully pseudonymous once more, which is a Good Thing. You will understand the attractiveness of a pseudonym to a man called Clowney. Now that I must relinquish it, perhaps I should have my name legally changed.… Why not Edmund P. Kennedy?

Should I leave a note pinned to the windowsill for the next occupant? He won’t need my two embroidered pillows: “Well begun is half done” and “All’s well that ends well.” He doubtless knows already that only the middle of a column can be expected to write itself.

I could enclose a list of choice targets for his “lover’s quarrel with the church” (the phrase is Robert Frost’s epitaph rendered in Ecclesian). But, then, he will have his own way of dealing with Mrs. Fixture in the Sunday school or Dr. Eugene Ivy in the manse. The ambitious pseudo-surveys conducted by Eutychus Associates are his at the stroke of a pen.

A note won’t be necessary. A greeting card will do: a card to encourage Eutychus II to keep his balance, for Eutychus’ windowsill seems narrow at times. Between profane mockery and pretentious sobriety, there is a whole new world, but somehow we have difficulty finding even sitting-room.

My greeting to Eutychus is one that I know he will understand. It is the sign of the laughter of grace. It forms the coda for all service of Christ: not a bang or a whimper, but a shout of joy.

On the card I shall write, ISAAC.

One Great Peril

Your editorial in the February 1 issue … states the case with reference to the atheists in very strong terms.… I believe we are in great danger of the American heritage disappearing. The almighty secular state without moral absolutes and a transcendent judgment is one great peril of the hour.…

The National Presbyterian Church

Washington, D. C.

Re the editorial “What About the Atheists?”: I believe the challenge of James Russell Lowell still holds. He said, “When the microscopic search of skepticism, which has haunted the heavens and sounded the seas to disprove the existence of a Creator, has turned its attention to human society and has found a place on this planet, ten miles square, where a decent man can live in decency, comfort and security, supporting and educating his children unspoiled and unpolluted; a place where age is reverenced, womanhood defended, and human life held in due regard; where skepticism can find such a place ten miles square on the globe where the gospel of Christ has not gone and cleared the way and laid the foundations and made decency and security possible, it will then be in order for the skeptical literati to move thither and ventilate their views. But so long as these men are dependent upon the religion they discard for every privilege they enjoy, they may well hesitate a little before they seek to rob the Christian of his hope and humanity of its Saviour.”

The Rector’s Roost

Fair Haven, N. Y.

William F. Albright

In the January 18th issue Dr. W. F. Albright commented that he was unable to accept any of Dr. Cyrus H. Gordon’s “three successive decipherments” of Minoan Linear A. It is misleading to speak of “three decipherments.” In the course of deciphering any ancient language there are always many trials and many “false starts” before the solution is achieved. And even when that point is reached, there are some critics who will never acknowledge it. The late Michael Ventris worked for many years on the assumption that Linear B was Etruscan until he was confronted by conclusive evidence that it was in fact a very early form of Greek. His brilliant decipherment of Linear B is accepted now by the majority of classical scholars. Yet there are still some, such as Dr. A. J. Beattie of Edinburgh and Dr. E. Grumach of Berlin, who remain totally unconvinced by his evidence.

In Gordon’s case it would be more correct to speak of “three stages” in his progress toward a solution of the riddle of Minoan Linear A. In an article in Antiquity, Vol. 31 (1957), entitled “Notes on Minoan Linear A” he first proposed that the language was “a Semitic dialect from the shores of the East Mediterranean.” At this point he did not attempt to define more precisely its classification within the Semitic family of languages.

Later in the same year in another article in the same journal he took the next step. On the basis of many lexical identifications and a few syntactical observations (the conjunction u seemed to point to an East Semitic identification) Gordon tentatively proposed that the tablets were written in Accadian, the lingua franca of the Near East in the mid-second millennium B.C.

Up to this point evidence had been largely isolated lexical items with only a few syntactical clues. When early in 1962 he came upon an entire sentence of a dedicatory inscription incised on a stone altar with pure West Semitic vocabulary and syntax, it is to his credit that Gordon quickly retracted his earlier, tentative identification of the language.

Meanwhile his conclusions regarding the earliest stages of the Minoan language were receiving corroboration from simultaneous work on the later stages of the language of the Minoans, the in triguing Eteocretan inscriptions composed in a hitherto unrecognizable language written in Greek uncials. Gordon found that these latter inscriptions were also composed in a West Semitic language! The two astounding discoveries were presented together at the Spring meeting of the American Oriental Society and published in the July issue of the Journal of Near Eastern Studies.

Gordon’s treatment of Minoan grammar is scheduled to appear in a forthcoming issue of Orientalia, and further evidence from a sixth century B.C. Eteocretan-Greek bilingual will appear in a coming issue of the journal of Semitic Studies. We would venture to prophesy in words similar to those penned by Dr. Albright in a 1946 review article of Gordon’s Ugaritic Grammar that his future work on Minoan grammar and texts will be of greater lasting significance for O.T. and Homeric Greek research than any dozen assorted recent commentaries taken together.

Department of Mediterranean Studies

Brandeis University

Waltham, Mass.

Dr. Albright’s phenomenal scholarship together with his sincerity and candor of mind have caused many to look to him for leadership in research. Bible-believing Christians may be grateful that he has not advocated the views of some of the more liberal critics.

Serious objection, however, must be raised against the position which, as an “empirical historian,” he espouses (cf. From The Stone Age to Christianity, 1957 ed., pp. 390, 399). First, what ultimate authority is there to validate this viewpoint? Does it not assume the ultimacy of the human mind as capable of judging in such matters? Is it not, therefore, diametrically opposed to genuine Christian theism? Second, logically this position allows for the views of radical scholars as well as for those of Dr. Albright. It is only by a happy inconsistency that, having adopted this standpoint, Dr. Albright does not go as far as others. For this inconsistency we are grateful, but we wish Dr. Albright would examine the basis upon which he stands as an “empirical historian.” Indeed, we would sincerely say to him, Cum talis sis, utinam noster esses.

Westminster Theological Seminary

Philadelphia, Pa.

All of us are indebted to Professor Albright and to CHRISTIANITY TODAY for the exceedingly interesting interview.… Those of us who have been working with Cyrus H. Gordon feel that in addition to Albright’s concise remarks some further points may be made.

When asked what he thought of Gordon’s statement that the decipherment of Linear A was “more important to historians than the Dead Sea Scrolls” (news release, April 4, 1962), Albright replied that: (a) he could not accept Gordon’s decipherment; (b) the Dead Sea Scrolls surpassed all other discoveries for biblical studies. It should be noted that:

1. Gordon himself has stressed the importance of the Scrolls: “While Ugarit is revolutionizing the problem of Old Testament origins, the Dead Sea Scrolls are doing the same for the New Testament” (Adventures in the Nearest East, 1957, p. 11).

The Scrolls are indeed important. But it may be asked: Important for what? and important in what respects?

2. Gordon has said: “The numerous Old Testament documents found at Qumran are of importance for the textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible” (The Reconstructionist, May 4, 1956, p. 10). “Normative Judaism in Greco-Roman Palestine can explain some, but not all, of the background of the New Testament; the sectarian Jewish background (of Qumran) is also of great significance” (p. 11).

3. Albright similarly said in his introduction to From the Stone Age to Christianity, 1957, p. 1, “There have also been some utterly unexpected discoveries, such as that of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which revolutionize our knowledge of the text of the Old Testament and of the Jewish background, time of composition, and historical position of the New Testament.”

4. Two pages further Albright added: “My approach to the Hellenistic and New Testament periods remains the same in all fundamentals, though the Dead Sea Scrolls have revolutionized details” (italics ours). So also Miller Burrows of Yale declared: “For myself I must go farther and confess that, after studying the Dead Sea Scrolls for seven years, I do not find my understanding of the New Testament substantially affected. Its Jewish background is clearer and better understood, but its meaning has neither been changed nor significantly clarified” (The Dead Sea Scrolls, 1955, p. 343).

To summarize, the Scrolls are most important particularly for Old Testament textual study and for New Testament backgrounds, not so much in essentials but in details.

For readers who are not familiar with the terms, we might explain that: “Linear A is a syllabic script that was used by the Minoans of Crete from 1750 to 1450 B.C. Linear B which uses many of the same symbols as the former, nonetheless represents a different language. It was used from 1450 to about 1100 B.C. Eteocretan, which employs Greek letters, was used by remnants of the original Minoan population until at least 300 B.C.” (cf. further my article on the subject in the August, 1962, issue of Eternity).

5. Albright clearly recognized the importance of Linear B. In the same introduction to “From the Stone Age …” he said: “The most striking advance in decipherment is without doubt the decoding of the Minoan-Mycenaean Linear B script.… To the surprise of most scholars it turns out that the language of these tablets … was an early form of Classical Greek” (p. 5).

6. Before the decipherment of Linear B, the Bronze Age of Greece was not illuminated by any contemporary records. Professor Palmer of Oxford hailed Ventris’ feat as “a turning point in the study of the Late Bronze Age of the Aegean (that is 1550–1100 B.C.).”

7. Thus if we are to grant Gordon’s decipherment of Linear A-Eteocretan as Semitic—along with a growing number of outstanding scholars at home and abroad—we must admit that this development is as revolutionary if not more so than the decipherment of Linear B. Indeed the decipherment of Linear A gives us an altogether new understanding of the intertwining early roots of Western civilization.

8. What this would then show is that the early phase of Greek civilization was built on an essentially Semitic Minoan civilization. This leads to the observation, in Gordon’s own words, “that Greek and Hebrew civilisations are parallel structures built upon the same East Mediterranean foundation” (p. 9 of his latest book, Before the Bible, recently published by Harper, in which he sets forth in detail the evidence for this thesis; Arnold J. Toynbee in his review of this book in the London Observer, December 16, 1962, fully accepts Gordon’s historical reconstruction).

We may conclude that both the Dead Sea Scrolls and the decipherments of Linear A and Linear B are of outstanding importance: The Scrolls, on the one hand, contribute to biblical studies with a wealth of details in a more direct fashion; the decipherments, on the other hand, affect classical and biblical studies of the second millennium B.C. with more radical implications.

Department of Mediterranean Studies

Brandeis University

Waltham, Mass.

Dr. Albright’s statement regarding “authentic mysteries” still leaves me unsure of his attitude. Granted that biblical miracles are usually not “the kind of truth that an archaeologist can validate,” did they actually occur as recorded? The Feeding of the Five Thousand is recorded in all four Gospels as a “work” of Jesus, witnessed by a great multitude, many of whom were without spiritual discernment; but “they ate of the loaves and were filled.” Does Dr. Albright accept this miracle as an actual event, regardless of archaeology? When he says, “God is just as active … in the world as ever,” does he mean that such miracles as are recorded in the Scriptures have occurred in post-apostolic times and are occurring today?

Wayne, Pa.

Separation Of Covenants

I’ve just read the editorial (“The Winds of the Spirit”) in the January 4 issue and am delighted with it.…

My basic concern, apart from destroying the false legend about early America, was to emphasize the creative power of the great revivals and call for a new burst of evangelical strength (you are quite right that “culture-religion” is as much a curse of the liberal wing, historically speaking, as it is of the radical right). My own ancestors came to Massachusetts very early—1620, 1639, 1659—and the only section that wasn’t here before 1700 was the Huguenot line from which I got my name. All of them came for religious reasons so I’m quite aware, having been raised on it, of the devotion of some of the early settlers. The fact remains, however, that the colonists as a whole were unchurched and came for other reasons. The “Half-Way Covenant” was a concession to economic and political reality, and there were plenty of other examples in the colonial period of the fact that the facts of life were working against the high ideals of the early fathers. We should give them every honor where honor is due, but I think we need to avoid delusions as to what the masses of the people believed or didn’t believe.

I don’t think that we have a “wall of separation,” or have ever had it, or that it is necessarily a good thing if we should. This is what irritates me so, in the dogmatic secularism of Mr. Justice Black—which I think is just as contrary to good American principles as the romantic nonsense of Mr. Edwin Walker. What the first amendment raised up was the separation of the political covenant from the religious covenants, that is, a principle of religious voluntaryism. This we should affirm and strengthen.

To strengthen it means to strengthen the principle of religious liberty, but more than that to strengthen the voluntary support of the churches which makes this workable.

The Chicago Theological Seminary

Chicago, Ill.

Brother Daniel’S Exclusion

The ruling of the highest tribunal of Israel in the case of “Brother Daniel” (Editorial, Jan. 4 issue) brought to a focal point a series of anti-Christian attacks … here in our own land as well as in Israel.…

Why should a Jew who believes in Christ not be eligible to all the rights and privileges to which any other Jew is entitled? The answer … reads more like an excuse or an evasion. By adopting Christianity, the judges ruled, “Brother Daniel” has severed all his ties with the Jewish people. On what ground could they have based such a decision?… “Brother Daniel” came of Jewish stock.… I am sure that the judges … do not really believe that some baptismal water or some recitation of certain words is so potent as to magically transmute a person of one race into that of another. And “Brother Daniel” denied ever having severed his connection with the Jewish people. Biologically there was no change in Daniel, and so the only change involved was certain conceptions of religion for which he could be charged.…

One of the judges said that the nation cannot forget the persecution which Christendom has meted out against the Jewish people. They cannot forget this because the leaders have hammered into the Jewish brain the fiction that Christianity has been responsible for all the suffering of the Jews through all the ages.… It is extremely difficult to grasp why the intelligentsia of Israel should perpetuate such ludicrous falsehoods. There they have free libraries where history books can give the true facts which the leaders in the ghettos withheld from the people. Even the New Testament is no longer taboo in Israel. Everyone has access to it.…

Why keep on reminding the people about the horrors of the Inquisition, for instance? The Inquisition was no more Christian than it was Jewish. It burned more Christians (even bishops) who fell into its hands, than Jews. Most of the Jews whom it killed were converted Jews who, according to the ruling of the Israeli court … were not Jews at all. We might add here that the Inquisition was not based on … the New Testament, but on the teachings of the Old Testament with its laws of rooting out heretics.…

Why should Jews hold every Christian today … responsible for deeds of which he is altogether innocent? Is it not only because of the false conception that all people confessing one faith are responsible for each other’s deeds? Who more than the Jews should know how wicked such an idea is? Have they not experienced horrible tribulation because malevolent people have accused and punished them for deeds which some Jews, somewhere, sometime have done or were supposed to have done?

… The greatest crime ever perpetrated against the Jewish people was the slaughter of 6 million Jews by the Germans. Yet, the State of Israel has already established cordial relations with the German people.… It seems to be easier to overlook and forgive the Nazi crimes because it is not so easy to ascribe them to Christianity, although some Jewish fanatics attribute even these horrors to Christianity because (as I read recently in one of the American Jewish publications) “these butchers were nurtured in Christian homes”.…

The State of Israel came into being with the help of Christians. There was little if any help from non-Christian countries or individuals; and up to date the State has been kept intact only with the help of Christians.… Only Christians who believe in the Bible as the Word of God also believe that the Jews have a right to possess the Land of Israel. Non-Christians consider the Jews as usurpers in Israel, and feel that the dispossessed Arabs should be assisted in regaining their land.…

These are facts well known to many of the important leaders of Israel, but … they are pressured by a small minority of obscurants who … are gaining more and more power and pushing the people back into medievalism: (1) by forcing upon the majority laws which they detest; (2) by indoctrinating hate and contempt against the civilized world which is identical with the “Christian World.”

May the Lord bless the leaders of Israel and grant them grace and courage to lead their people to reconciliation with God and mankind.

President

International Board of Jewish Missions

Atlanta, Ga.

I must confess that I am a little surprised at your reaction to the Israeli High Court decision regarding Father Daniel.…

I suspect some of the reaction in the Christian community regarding this decision springs from a theological view of the continuity between Judaism and Christianity which Jews do not share. Because of my close, fruitful, and gratifying relationship with Christians, I have a sympathetic understanding of their views, … but I believe that a sympathetic effort should also be made on the Christian side to appreciate the widely held view that a Jew who converts to Christianity has disassociated himself from the Jewish people.

I would agree with you that the situation was different in the first century; I am sure we would not agree about the reasons for this.

Interreligious Affairs Department

The American Jewish Committee

New York, N. Y.

I am writing you in response to your comments on the recent important Israeli Court decision concerning Father Daniel which raises “the provocative question—‘who is a Jew?’” I certainly recognize your right to your opinion and to your interpretation, but I trust that you also recognize the possibility of other views, and if not agreeing, will at least try to understand. I cannot help but feel that your conclusion: “the Hebrew-Christian is twice rejected: he is disowned because he is a Christian, and on this ground is viewed further as legally not a first-rate Jew”—does a gross injustice to the entire controversy. (I can certainly understand from your theological position why you would want to maintain a unity between the term Jew and Christian but what is at stake here from a Jewish view is the realization that the terms Jew and Christian are mutually exclusive.) The issue in the Israeli Court decision is as follows:

1. Orthodox religious law takes the position that essentially, “once a Jew always a Jew”; even the apostate remains a Jew on the basis of the hope that at some stage in his life he may see the error of his ways and return to his true faith.

2. It is true that a non-orthodox Jew does not have equal religious status as yet, but there are signs of the beginnings of a liberal Jewish movement in Israel, which indicate that it is only a matter of time before this equality is achieved. The Israeli Court decision, contrary to Orthodox law, is a sign, of this trend.

Whereas the Orthodox religious Jew could conceivably accept Father Daniel under the broadest definition of “who is a Jew?,” for non-orthodox such a definition is not conceivable. The Reform and Conservative Jew would stress that the term Jew is meaningful not as a mere identity tag, but because it stands for a specific ever-evolving religious spirit and heritage. When one becomes a Christian (whatever he was at birth) he enters a separate religious heritage. The Israeli Court was simply making this clear. Father Daniel has every right to enter Israel as any other Christian would enter.… This was all the decision meant to accomplish.

Jewish Chaplain

Sepulveda Veterans Administration Hospital

Sepulveda, Calif.

The verdict of the Israeli Court and its motivation is unfair, unreasonable, and arbitrary. It is based chiefly on prejudice against Christianity and on religious fanaticism. Christianity is as much an offspring of biblical Judaism. No one should be denied his national status merely because he chooses this or the other form of Judaism.

The implication of the verdict is that any Jew, regardless of the fact that he may deny God or scoff at all the laws of rabbinic Judaism, is, in the eyes of the Court, still a Jew, but a God-fearing, upright man like Father Daniel, born of Jewish parents, who has shown his devotion to his Jewish kinsmen by risking his own life to save theirs—such a man “desecrates the concept of Jew,” just because he believes in Jesus who was also a Son of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob!

Just before the decision of the court, in a personal letter, Father Daniel stated: “I believe in the fairness and objectivity of the Judges of Israel.” We did also.…

VICTOR BUKSBAZEN

Philadelphia, Pa.

Philadelphia, Pa.

New York, N. Y.

• All are associated with the Hebrew Christian Alliance of America.—ED.

The Israel Law of Citizenship makes provision for those who wish to become citizens of Israel to do so on the basis of three years of residence in the country, not necessarily continuous residence but over the period of the previous five years. I understand that Brother Daniel, to whose case before the Israel Supreme Court you refer, has applied for naturalization as an Israel citizen under the Law of Citizenship. It is therefore quite incorrect to state … that the Israel High Court denied citizenship to Father Daniel.

First Secretary

Embassy of Israel

Washington, D. C.

• CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S editorial stressed that though a Jew Father Daniel was denied citizenship under the Israeli Law of Return, because he is a Christian Jew. He has since applied for, but has not yet received, naturalization under the Israeli Law of Citizenship.—ED.

ABRAHAM: Say, have you fellows heard about this Jesus of Nazareth?

ISAAC: Who hasn’t? I just came from Galilee. That’s all they talk about up there.

ABRAHAM: Did you actually hear him?

ISAAC: No, but our caravan passed within sight of him. We could see a big crowd on a hillside. I asked my camel driver what the excitement was, and he said Jesus of Nazareth was teaching. I would have stopped and listened, but I was down on the program for the opening prayer here and just couldn’t.

JACOB: I’ve got a classmate who lives in Capernaum. He’s heard Jesus several times, both in the street and synagogue. He’s eloquent, but does present a real problem. He’s a lot better speaker than any priest or rabbi around, although he’s a carpenter by trade.

ISAAC: So I’ve heard. It is strange.

ABRAHAM: What I can’t understand is why so many people fall for him. One man told me of a sermon he preached to a couple hundred disciples up on some mountain top. Already they are calling it “The Sermon on the Mount.” I understand it was a hodge-podge of illustrations, ancient Jewish sayings beautifully spoken but not original, and some advice of his own. No organization or form or real content.

ISAAC: Yes, I’ve heard the same criticism from men I respect. They say he just tells stories without any explanation sometimes. And you can’t pin him down. When you ask him a question he doesn’t give a straight answer. He either tells a story or asks you a question back.

ABRAHAM: Some people told me the other day they heard him tell three fables and then he just walked off. They were about a lost coin, a lost sheep, and a wastrel second son. And yet, people go for miles to hear the man.

JACOB: Well, whatever his faults, he must have something. He really packs them in.

ISAAC: Packs them out, you mean. He’s taking a lot more people out of synagogue and the Temple than he’s taking in. His congregations are all out on some hillside or in some back alley.

JACOB: I understand his own friends in Nazareth tried to kill him the first time he read from the Scripture in the synagogue there. If that’s true, I don’t blame him for preaching out-of-doors.

ABRAHAM: I don’t object so much to his methods as to his following. Most of them are uneducated—rabble more or less. They can be swayed easily by any demagogue. Practically none of the priests are going for him. You can judge a man pretty well by the kind of following he has. I think Jesus is dangerous. At least he will be if he gets out of hand.

JACOB: Perhaps, Abraham, but he hasn’t attacked the law in any way. His group are better Jews than the average. In fact, most of them live better than the law.

ABRAHAM: Well, yes and no. From what I hear he’s teaching them to live by the law of love. Sounds good. But what will the results be? The 300 rules we have will soon be superseded by a vague, meaningless emotion or feeling. People will lose their sense of direction. They need to be told what to do. Then they’re sure of themselves. They need inner assurance. This man’s giving them too much freedom for the good of the law and, in the long run, for their own inner satisfaction.

JACOB: But, Abraham, if they’re fulfilling the law in every requirement how can you fear he’ll destroy the law?

ABRAHAM: Just wait. You’re young, Jacob. If this Jesus got control of things, all the laws and customs we consider sacred would have a hard time.

ISAAC: I’m inclined to agree, Abraham. The man himself is a good man, but I’m afraid he stands for something destructive.

ABRAHAM: Another thing. He has no respect for authority. Remember, he’s only thirty-three years old. But let me tell you something that happened only last week. Three priests from the Temple here, all good friends of mine, went to investigate him. They wanted to ask him some questions. They got up to Galilee, found him, and what do you think he was doing? Talking to a bunch of children. Hundreds of them. He took each child on his lap, asked its name, placed his hand on its head, and blessed it. Why, his own disciples got sore. They rebuked him and pointed out the Temple delegation. He kept right on with the children, saying something about “forbidding them not.” My three friends had to wait so long to speak to him they missed the caravan for Jerusalem and had to wait over another day. That just shows you how much respect he has for the religious leaders of our nation.

JACOB: True, it was a foolish thing. He hurt their pride so much they’ll now do anything to destroy him. I’ll bet they turned in some report.

ISAAC: The meeting’s getting under way again. Let’s hurry and get a back seat.…

CHRISTIANITY TODAY’Sstaff of correspondents rings the globe, but does not include coverage of the world of demons. This inside report of activities in the regions below comes from the Rev. Graham R. Hodges, a Watertown, New York, minister, who somehow has gotten inside information about their strategy.

On the facing page Mr. Hodges contributes a second essay which imaginatively sketches a conversation in the religious hierarchy of New Testatment times.—ED.

Scene: Briefing room in Hades

HEAD DEVIL: We’ll now hear from the commander of the Division of Councils-Conventions-Conferences, whose work will be all-important in the sixties. Gentlemen, General Concern.

GENERAL CONCERN: (clearing his throat deeply) Before I begin I want to pay some overdue recognition and introduce to you two of my assistants who have burned the midnight brimstone these past few months—Major Address and Private Lukewarm. Actually, they’ve done most of the work while I just sat back. (applause as the two stand)

I do want to say, as our chief has indicated, that the sixties have started out in high gear in our CCC division of the Church. We are proud to report a 219 per cent increase of church meetings, with a 150 per cent average increase in national and international gatherings since 1955. We look forward to the day when the repeater delegates and employed staff will either be attending or going or returning to or from a meeting. Wash-and-wear shirts, suits, and underwear now make even a brief trip home unnecessary.

HEAD DEVIL: You might mention, General Concern, how the jet age helps.

GENERAL CONCERN: Indeed, sir. A bit of background. In the old slow days of railroad and steamship travel delegates could reflect and plan or even read advance reports as they journeyed to an occasional meeting. Jet planes eliminate any time for thought, thus making for completely planned sessions. Jets have made possible even what you might call “advance minutes” of the meeting delegates attend. Upon registration they are given a complete set of minutes containing all business, motions, secondings, and votes of the sessions they are to attend. This saves endless time and enables many a delegate who should be attending another meeting in a distant part of the nation or world to reboard his plane after initialing his “o.k.” on the advance minutes.

ALL: Hear! Hear!

HEAD DEVIL: General, I am sure they would be interested in our new specialist, Technical Sergeant Fraze Maker.

GENERAL CONCERN: Pardon me sir, I was coming to him. Sergeant Fraze Maker, seated on my right, comes from the advertising world and heads our ever busy phrase-coining department. Because of mass media, theological phrases which formerly lasted for a decade or two are now used up within several years. The constant demand for religious phrases in lectures, periodicals, and books grows heavier each year. As you know, a phrase well turned and oft repeated becomes a perfect substitute for action, especially when used in resolutions and formal policy statements. Sergeant, if you wish you may say a word about your important work.

SERGEANT FRAZE MAKER: As the General has said, the demand for catchy phrases gets heavier each year. If a scholar can turn out a fetching phrase and get it attached to his name, he’s a made man. When one gets worn out we give him another. It looks hard, but really isn’t. We’ve got some experts who used to work for greeting-card companies and soap-company advertisers.

GENERAL CONCERN: Thank you, Sergeant Fraze Maker. I must not overlook the work of Major Vestments and Colonel Protocol, who succeed more than a few times in completely taking over religious conferences, crowding out the most important business. For example, Colonel Protocol has increased the time devoted to Fraternal Greetings in a major religious gathering from ten minutes in 1940 to three hours in 1961. (applause)

HEAD DEVIL: Could you speak of Major Address’ work, General?

GENERAL CONCERN: Major Address, as you know, directs the all-important job of increasing the number and length of history-making religious speeches. We have working with us the natural inclinations of each speech-maker who is certain that his address is the most important one of the whole session and should be given adequate time. Again, we would like to report success, (applause)

HEAD DEVIL: General, as your entire staff must leave soon for an important gathering, could you remark briefly on Diversionary Funds and Diverted Attention efforts?

GENERAL CONCERN: Yes. Not the least result of the vastly increased amount of money spent on religious gatherings is the mission money diverted from its original purpose. Naturally it is hard to trace, but the final effect is lessened support for mission work.

As for Diverted Attention, which might be called the best result of all our work, we feel that local churchmen more and more regard the press reportings of religious gatherings the real work of the Church. Not what happens locally, but nationally, is the thing. Thus, the actual battlefront of the Church, namely, the local church, becomes a mere news outlet instead of news maker. But I must hurry, gentlemen, as I must see that the various jet planes converging on Rome and Geneva all get there safely. Their passengers are precious to us, and their briefcases are packed tight with policy speeches and original phrases, some never heard before. (applause)

The session breaks up.

END

Those of us who read our New Testaments beginning with the four Gospels need to remember that current scholarship finds in the Epistles the earliest writings preserved in the New Testament. Accordingly its consideration of the birth of Jesus starts with Paul’s references thereto: Galatians 4:4; Romans 1:3, 4 and 8:3, and Philippians 2:5–11.

In Galatians four, Paul is talking about our redemption from the bondage of the law and its curse into the freedom of the sons of God. Here he says that God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law that he might redeem those under the law. Thus he teaches the Divine Fatherhood and the human motherhood. He mentions neither a divine mother nor a human father.

Sonship By The Spirit

He declares, moreover, that our sonship is wrought by “the Spirit of His Son” and uses as an allegory the two sons of Abraham, one born according to the flesh, the other born under the promise “after the Spirit” (vss. 6, 22–31). In this context, the phrase the Spirit of His Son reaches its full implication only on the assumption that the Spirit acted in his most eminent way in God’s sending forth his Son born of a woman, of which action even his mighty works in making us sons of the Father and in Isaac’s being born according to God’s promise are but partial analogies.¹Likewise John 1:13 (cf. 3:3–8) seems to be built upon the same analogy of the Virgin Birth of Jesus. Furthermore, several of the fathers, including Irenaeus and Tertullian, whose writings were earlier than any extant manuscript of this part of John, used texts which carry this verse in the singular, thus: “in the Name of Him who was born not of bloods, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man but of God.” This reading is accepted by such scholars as C. C. Torrey and O. Cullman.

Again in the context, in Galatians 4:6 (cf. Rom. 8:15), Paul states that God’s sending the Spirit of his Son into our hearts enables us to cry “Abba, Father.” Now the fact that this word also occurs in Mark 14:36, which in its definitive written form is dated later than Galatians, does not prove that Mark fabricated this as part of a Gethsemane legend to justify Paul’s theology. So able a scholar as J. Jeremias accepts this as Jesus’ own word which Paul quotes. But if the Apostle cites a word from Jesus, may he not in the same context have in mind that event by which he who already had a divine Father received also a human mother, which same event was later recorded in detail by Matthew and by Luke?

In Romans 8:3 Paul stresses the wonder of the fact that God sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to deal adequately with the awful reality of sin. In Romans 1:3, 4 the Gospel concerns God’s Son, who is of the seed of David according to the flesh, but the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of Holiness. Ignatius (Smyr. 1:1, Eph. 18), understands Paul’s contrast here between the seed of David according to the flesh and the Son of God according to the Spirit as carrying with it as its necessary presupposition “born of a virgin,” even as Matthew, Luke, and the Creed unite conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the virgin Mary. It should also be kept in mind that in Romans 1:4 the divine side of Christ is designated in a mighty manner by the Resurrection from the dead, even as on the same miraculous note of the Resurrection Paul begins the Epistle to the Galatians. Both when he is quoting the primitive kerygma (as in Rom. 1:3, 4 and 1 Cor. 15:4, 5) and when he is writing without reference to that tradition (Gal. 1:1), he glories in the supernatural resurrection of Christ.

In Philippians 2:5–11 Paul cites a hymn or a creed from the primitive kerygma. According to this summary, a preexisting Divine Person was born in the likeness of men. He who was fundamentally in the form of God took the form of a servant. He did not like Adam grasp after equality with God but emptied or poured out himself unto death (cf. Isa. 53:12) for others. This presentation of him as an Eternal Person ought to alert us to the realization that Paul and the primitive disciples he is quoting did not think of our Lord’s birth in the same way as they did of the births of temporal persons. The stupendous miracle of the Incarnation here proclaimed implies a presupposition on the part of Paul and his precursors which is only adequately accounted for in that physical miracle of His birth found in Matthew and in Luke. Three years after his conversion, Paul conferred with “James, the brother of the Lord” (Gal. 1:19). Certainly Luke shared with Paul the fruits of his research into the beginnings of Christianity. And his account of the Virgin Birth makes intelligible how the Jesus whom Paul preached had only a Divine Father and only a human mother.

Sinless Life And Sinless Birth

Likewise the permanent dwelling in Christ of all the fullness of the Godhead in a bodily way (Col. 2:9) is highly congruent with his being conceived of the Holy Spirit (cf. Athanasius, contr. Arian, III.26.29–31). The plan of God provided that as Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners by his sinless life of obedience even unto death (1 Tim. 1:15; Rom. 5:19; Phil. 2:8), so the Holy Spirit averted from the virgin’s conceiving of Him the sin which marks sexual conception (Ps. 51:5). Thus being raised for our justification (Rom. 4:25), when he is made unto us righteousness (1 Cor. 1:30), God imputes unto us or clothes us with the wholly spotless garment of his righteousness.

Of course, if one approaches the subject on a purely naturalistic premise, then the Virgin Birth could not have occurred and the hypothesis of a legend to fit Paul’s Gospel may be the most reasonable assumption. But Paul is not anti-supernaturalistic when it comes to the things of Jesus Christ. He entered the Christian life by a supernatural encounter with the risen Lord Jesus, he glorified in the power of His resurrection, he lived in the blessed hope of His parousia. Accordingly, there is nothing in Paul’s Epistles, Gospel, or life which warrants the assumption that a legend must be constructed by Matthew and Luke to account for his teachings. Rather it is more in accord with Paul’s affirmations, his citations of the primitive kerygma, and his presuppositions to assume that he, like Luke, received from the first disciples and held as a fact the Virgin Birth of Jesus.

Probable Cause For Silence

If one wishes to go into the question as to why Paul and Mark do not explicitly mention the Virgin Birth, we are left to our surmises. And yet believing extrapolation is more likely to be in accord with the primitive community of faith than is naturalistic conjecture. It is probable that the primitive narrative and the passages speaking of the birth of Jesus which Paul cites from the primitive kerygma make no explicit mention of the Virgin Birth in order to protect Mary during her lifetime. The first and third Gospels were presumably written after her death. The inept way in which the opening of Mark refers to Isaiah, according to the critical text ascribing to Isaiah passages which are cited from Malachi and from Isaiah, could mean that he also had other passages from Isaiah in mind, such as 7:14, which is used in Matthew 1:23. When the Resurrection was proclaimed the unbelieving council of priests and elders paid the soldiers to say that the disciples stole the body of Jesus (Matt. 28:11–15). An imperial rescript from the middle of the first century has been discovered at Nazareth decreeing death for anyone who steals a corpse. This could well have been used by Herod in his execution of James and his plan to execute Peter (Acts 12:1–3). The third member of the inner circle was John. As a result of these acts inspired by the animosity of unbelieving Jews, the disciples may well have asked John to leave Jerusalem with Mary, whom Jesus had committed to his care. And in the same connection they could well have determined to keep even more complete silence on the Virgin Birth lest that lead to Mary’s death, as the proclamation of the Resurrection had led to the death of James.

END