Today’s New Testament Gospel reading comes from from Matthew 2.13-18.  In this passage, Matthew cites two Old Testament texts, namely Hosea 11.1 (only part of the verse) and Jeremiah 31.15.  Here are Hosea 11.1 and Jeremiah 31.15, as they are quoted in Matthew:

Hosea 11.1

Out of Egypt I called my son.

Jeremiah 31.15

A voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be consoled, since they were no more.

…………………………..

It is clear here that Matthew is not treating these texts as predictive prophecy.  In fact, Hosea 11.1 is not predictive in any manner whatsoever, it is simply a statement.  And, it is unfortunate that so many today treat prophecy primarily in terms of predicting the future. At this point, I defer at this point to an article by James McGrath where he discusses Matthew’s use of the these two texts and others if you are interested in seeing what Matthew was likely doing.  You can read the article to see how Matthew is likely using these two texts to show Jesus in a sense reliving the history of the people of Israel.  I would have discussed this much the same way, so there is little point in me rehashing this.  The section I am referring to is entitled “The Problem of Fulfillment of Prophecy in Matthew 1-2.”

Recommended Reading:

Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament

Related Posts:

Micah 5.1-4 – Thomas Paine on Prophecy

Haggai 1.2 -The Historical Context

Isaiah 45 – A Litany of Monotheistic Texts?

Today’s Old Testament lectionary reading is from Micah 5.1-4a.  This text reminded me of a discussion I had in one of my classes when I was teaching prophets to seminarians.  We dealt a bit with the New Testament treatment of the Old Testament and the problems of thinking of prophecy as prediction.  One of the outside texts I brought in was Thomas Paine’s “Examination of the Prophecies.”  It is a quintessential demonstration of a modern approach to the New Testament use of the Old Testament that attacks the idea of prophecy as prediction.

The Text of Micah 5.1-4

Thus says the LORD:
You, Bethlehem-Ephrathah
too small to be among the clans of Judah,
from you shall come forth for me
one who is to be ruler in Israel;
whose origin is from of old,
from ancient times.
Therefore the Lord will give them up, until the time
when she who is to give birth has borne,
and the rest of his kindred shall return
to the children of Israel.
He shall stand firm and shepherd his flock
by the strength of the LORD,
in the majestic name of the LORD, his God;
and they shall remain, for now his greatness
shall reach to the ends of the earth; he shall be peace.

This text is used in Matthew 2 as a demonstration of where the Messiah was to be born.  It is not the text in Micah, but rather Matthew’s use of the text that Paine takes issue with.

Paine on Matthew’s Use of Micah 5.1-4

Here is what Paine says about Matthew’s use of this text:

The book of Micah, in the passage above quoted, v. 2, is speaking of some person, without mentioning his name, from whom some great achievements were expected; but the description he gives of this person, ver. 5, 6, proves evidently that it is not Jesus Christ, for he says, “and this man shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land: and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise up against him [that is, against the Assyrian] seven shepherds and eight principal men. And they shall waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod on the entrance thereof; thus shall He [the person spoken of at the head of the second verse] deliver us from the Assyrian, when he cometh into our land, and when be treadeth within our borders.”

This is so evidently descriptive of a military chief, that it cannot be applied to Christ without outraging the character they pretend to give us of him. Besides which, the circumstances of the times here spoken of, and those of the times in which Christ is said to have lived, are in contradiction to each other. It was the Romans, and not the Assyrians that had conquered and were in the land of Judea, and trod in their palaces when Christ was born, and when he died, and so far from his driving them out, it was they who signed the warrant for his execution, and he suffered under it.

Having thus shown that this is no prophecy of Jesus Christ, I pass on to the third passage quoted from the Old Testament by the New, as a prophecy of him…

Paine of course is correct only if his assumption concerning Matthew’s use of Micah 5.1-4 is correct.  He is assuming that Matthew is using the text as predictive prophecy.  In my opinion, scholars in subsequent generations have shown that the approach of the New Testament authors was more nuanced than this and fit within the interpretive framework of Second Temple Judaism.  However, people have continued to approach the text in Matthew in much the same way as Paine (e.g. Spong).  And, though I think this approach too marrow, I also think this is in some way useful to us in the sense that they can help us to see the problems associated with narrowly treating prophecy as prediction.

I do not really have the time this morning to go into more detail, and I’m not sure the confines of a blog post can make way for a fuller discussion of how the New Testament authors actually used the Old Testament.  For that, I would point to Peter Enns’ Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament, which I think is a helpful, accessible introduction.  In addition, I think it is important to ask right questions.  Even if Micah 5.1-4 is not a predictive prophecy about Jesus, what was it about Jesus that made people look for him all over the text of the Old Testament?  It must have been something extraordinarily significant.

Related Posts:

Haggai 1.2 -The Historical Context

Isaiah 45 – A Litany of Monotheistic Texts?

In Revelation 1.3 one reads, “Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of the prophecy,…”  In the Old Testament sense of the word, what does it mean for something to be a prophecy?  This is not meant to be an across the board assessment.  I am certain that ideas concerning prophecy developed into New Testament times.  However, if the Old Testament concept  is at work here in any way, it could possibly add to one’s understanding of Revelation as a prophecy.

The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, examining the Old Testament background for “prophecy,” draws out a number of salient features about the term, though recognizing that the actual information concerning prophecy in the Old Testament is very varied.  I will list the salient features below and draw out some of my own implications for you (the bold statements below paraphrase points made in the dictionary):

1. Old Testament prophecy is first and foremost “the word of the Lord.” If the Old Testament concept of prophecy is at work, whoever has written the introduction to the Book of Revelation would be communicating from the outset that he considers the message of the book to be from God.
2. Old Testament prophecy most often transmits an imminent message. Some readers of Revelation will likely disagree here; however, if Revelation follows in the line of Old Testament prophecy, it was most likely not intended to speak of some far off distant future.  This may also be indicated by the use of “soon” in Revelation 1.1.
3. The form of Old Testament prophecy is unique to the prophet/book.  There are common elements to prophecy.  For example, there are some common prophetic phrases like “Thus, says the Lord.”  There are other common elements like “symbolic speech actions.”  However, when one reads the Old Testament prophets they are all very different in a literary sense.  Therefore, though Revelation is called a “prophecy” this in no way diminishes its capacity for uniqueness.
4. Old Testament prophecy was often intent on getting people to do something. It is sometimes the case that Old Testament prophecy says “this is what is going to happen and that is that.”  However, often times the focus is “here is what is going to happen if things continue in this way, so change what you are doing.”  If Revelation is in this vein, then this is contrary to those who view the book as a manual to discern when the world is going to end.  The book then would have been written to influence the behavior of those to whom it was written.
5. Visions are commonplace in Old Testament prophecy. Those who have read the Old Testament prophets will be no strangers to weird visions.  I’m thinking here of the first part of Ezekiel.  Yet these visions can again key one into how to interpret the book.  The early visions in Ezekiel are weird, but they spoke to the people in the time period preceding the Babylonian Exile.

Again, this is an attempt to provide a brief overview of what Old Testament prophecy was like.  Of course prophecy changed, so one is free view the prophecy of Revelation as more different than similar to Old Testament prophecy.  Yet if one accepts that the Old Testament concept may be at work here, this overview may help to give some interpretive clues for the book.

Other posts of interest:

Barack Obama is not the Antichrist … I am

Is the Antichrist Supposed to Glow?