Archives for June 19, 2009

The nature of Leithart’s theological commentary varies. At times he is connecting the passage to redemptive history (as with the introduction, noted previously). Other times he demonstrates how a passage sheds light on a theological issue (e.g., a discussion about the rightness of prophetic declarations of judgment concludes with a reflection on the justice of eternal punishment in Hell). Most often, Leithart identifies various typological connections between Scripture texts. Some of these typologies are probably legitimate (i.e., though I don’t see a Moses-Elijah typology as Leithart does, I do think that the text presents parallels between Moses and Elijah for the purpose of demonstrating that even the great prophet Elijah is not the Prophet like Moses that the people are to anticipate),in many cases the parallels are more dependent on Leithart’s imagination and clever phasing than on the text (e.g., taking the three year drought during Ahab’s reign to foreshadow the three days that Christ, “the true Israel,” was in the tomb [133]).

So while I enjoyed Leithart’s introduction (especially after having a read a number of non-evangelicals on theological interpretation), I’m not inclined to actually buy this volume.

Peter Leithart’s contribution to the “Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible” is clearly evangelical.

By contrast, Stanley Hauerwas in his BTCB contribution interprets Matthew according to his political paradigm.

Matthew’s gopspel is about ‘the politics of Jesus,’ which entails an alternative to the power politics of reading the gospel. a right reading of the gospel requires a people who are shaped by the ‘oblation familiar to the faithful,’ that is, a community whose fundamental political act is the sacrifice of the altar—an alternative to Herodian power politics. A theological reading of Matthew, therefore, reaffirms that the church be an alternative politics to the politics of the world. [28]

Leithart, however, interprets Kings according to the evangel.

He notes that in the Hebrew canon Kings is one of the Former Prophets. According to Leithart,

The message of the prophets is not, ‘Israel has sinned; therefore, Israel needs to get its act together or it will die.’ The message is, ‘Israel has sinned; therefore, Israel must die, and its only hope is to entrust itself to God who will give it new life on the far side of death.’ Or even, ‘Israel has sinned; Israel is already dead. Cling to God who raises the dead.’ [18]

Leithart also relates Kings to the wisdom books:

After Solomon, wisdom simply disappears from 1-2 Kings. The words ‘wise’ or ‘wisdom’ occur twenty-one times in 1 Kgs. 1-11, but never again after those chapters. Never again does Israel or Judah have a philosopher-king, a sage on the throne. Royal wisdom, touted so heavily at the opening of the book, fails to deliver, showing that Israel’s hope for restoration, blessing, and life does not lie in human wisdom, no matter what heights it attains. [18f.]

And to the Torah. He notes that Joshua 1:8 promises success to the one who obeys the Torah,

Yet, the only king connected to Torah in 1-2 Kings is Josiah, and we are no sooner assured that he keeps Torah to perfection (2 Kings 23:25) than we learn that Yahweh still intends to destroy Judah" (1 Kings 23:26). "Once Israel sins, wisdom cannot save Israel and Judah; nor can Torah obedience. [20]

The Temple plays a similar role. The Temple is the place to which Israel can pray when facing the curses (1 Kings 9:3).

But no Davidic king ever prays in or toward the temple until Hezekiah is threatened by the Assyrians (19:1), and in the following generation Hezekiah’s son, Manasseh, defiles the sanctuary more than any other king of Judah when he places a sacred pole for Asherah in the temple precincts. After a history of neglect and abuse, 2 Kings ends with an account of Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of the house. [20]

Leithart then relates all of this to the gospel:

Wisdom cannot save Israel from division; Torah cannot save Judah from destruction; and the last refuge of hope, the temple, is torn apart and burned by a Babylonian king. All that made Israel Israel—king and priest, Torah and temple—is destroyed. As a prophetic narrative, 1-2 Kings makes it clear that there is no salvation for Israel within Israel. Having broken covenant, it faces the curse of the covenant: in the day you eat, you will be driven from the garden. Dying, you shall die. [20]

Against this dark backdrop Leithart turns to discuss the longsuffering of God in Kings which points to the hope of the gospel.

I would like to see the gospel developed in terms of Jesus, the king who accomplished what Solomon, Hezekiah, and Josiah could not; the prophet who faithfully declares God’s word and turns people’s hearts as Elijah could not; the priest and sacrifice who fulfilled God’s Torah; the builder and sanctifier of a temple of living stones; and the Wisdom who will instruct those who fear him how to be like him.