In yesterday’s post I looked at Beacham’s chapter in defense of literal interpretation of the prophets. Despite being somewhat critical of the chapter, I should acknowledge my appreciation of Beacham’s scholarship. My engagement with it here due to the fact that I find myself challenged by his arguments and helpful to work through a response to them.
Beacham’s article commendably makes its case directly from Scripture. However, I would have appreciated some engagement with how the New Testament interprets Old Testament prophecy. In footnote 54 Beacham does give a hint of his approach.
He argues that “Joel 2 … is applied argumentatively by Peter in his sermon recorded in Acts 2.” He further claims that this application “in no way necessitates or even suggests their actual fulfillment (59, n. 54). He is especially concerned that this prophecy not be “assign[ed] … to a different time, place, people, or outcome in contradistinction to those originally stated” (59, n. 54). Given this statement, and Beacham’s article, “Joel 2, Eschatology of” in the Dictionary of Premillennial Theology, I take him to locate the events of Joel 2:18-27 to latter part of the Tribulation and beginning of the Millennium.
Beacham does not understand the “afterward” in Joel 2:28 to refer to the immediately preceding verses “because those blessings are framed in terms of unending time” (“Joel 2,” 217). Rather, he relates the “afterward” to Joel 2:11. These are events that I’ll happen after “great and very awesome” day of Yhwh. On this reading, Joel 2:12-27 “constitute a digression that bisects the first and last sections of the chapter” (“Joel 2,” 217-18).
This interpretation, however, creates a tension with Peter’s statement, “But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel” (Acts 2:16). Beacham’s interpretation of Joel 2 precludes a fulfillment in Peter’s day, but it is difficult to read Peter’s “This is what was uttered through the prophet Joel” as anything other than a statement of fulfillment. Peter did not say, “This is like what Joel uttered” or “this is analogous to what Joel uttered.” He said, “this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel” (emphasis added).
Another reading of the Joel prophecy allows for a more harmonious understanding of Joel 2 and Acts 2. If 2:18-27 is read as telescoping together the restoration of the land after the locust plague recounted in chapter 1 as well as the restoration after the final day of Yhwh judgment from the first part of chapter 2, the “afterward” in verse 28 could take place anytime after the original restoration. Beacham himself provides a rationale for not tying the “afterward” to the ultimate restoration—it is never ending. The rationale for this telescoping in 2:18-27 would be that Joel 1 relates to a historic locust judgment in Joel’s day while Joel 2:1-11, as I understand it, predicts and eschatological judgment that will be fulfilled during the final Day of Yhwh. Thus the restoration section that follows telescopes both the historical and eschatological restorations.
This reading allows for a literal reading of Peter’s “But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel” and a literal reading of Joel. Peter replaced Joel’s “And it shall come to pass afterward” with “And in the last days it shall be.” As the New Testament elsewhere emphasized the last days began with the ascension of Christ. The events recounted in Acts 2:17-18 occurred in Acts just as prophesied at the beginning of these last days. The events in verses 19-20 will occur at the end of the last days. Peter, of course, did not know that this would be over 2,000 years later. Verse 21 is God’s call to people all through this time.