Why read the Septuagint from cover to cover?

Pre-Christian fragments of the LXX

Last month we announced a two-year safari, reading through the Septuagint version of the Scriptures, from cover to cover!

Our friend David Baer (PhD from Cambridge, specialist in the Septuagint of Isaiah) has decided to join the group. He wanted to say a few words!

Why read the Septuagint? The whole Septuagint??!! Over two years??!! Are you nuts?

It’s not hard to imagine how such a project would be abandoned alongside the highway of our lives, a good idea that could never earn a space for itself among the daily priorities of busy lives.

Nevertheless, I’m in. I’m in because the reading of the Septuagint promises several benefits.

First, the student who has decided to study New Testament Greek has in fact only prepared himself to read a thin slice of the Jewish and Christian literature that comes to us in Greek. Those of us who’ve learned to read the New Testament in Greek have done a very fine thing. But we can’t really claim that we read Greek. Not yet.

Septuagint reading, precisely because it places on the table before us texts that are not as well known to us as the New Testament, is the very best way actually to learn Greek.

In the second place, the Septuagint was the form of the Bible that was best known to the first generations of Christians. Although it’s true that the difference between the Masoretic Hebrew texts and those of the Septuagint are hardly massive, it should not be denied that those differences do exist. Reading the Septuagint puts us in the shoes of the earliest Christians, spiritual family members of ours who knew the Scripture principally in Greek dress.

Third, reading the Septuagint is an open door that welcomes us into first-hand contact with the challenges that keep textual critics busy. This kind of reading confronts us with difficult decisions about the complex relationship that exists between texts that share a common origin but have come to be different from each other through the reverent reading to which both Jews and Christians have subjected them.

Finally, reading the Septuagint is fun! It’s even more so when a cohort of friends—or perhaps readers who will over time become friends—take up together the intellectual challenge of reading ancient texts slowly, for this is the pace at which we will inevitably read.

So let’s read the Septuagint! Let’s bend our shoulders to the plough together with our spiritual ancestors, whose hands and eyes fell upon Greek texts that they fully considered to be the Word of God.

Our Goal: A two-year excursion through the Septuagint, including the Deuterocanonical books, from January 1, 2019 through the close of 2020.

For more information read the DESCRIPTION HERE

To Join, go to Facebook: our page is under the name Septuagint2years or Septuagint in 2019-2020, go to the page and click LIKE in order to join.

“Why read the Septuagint from cover to cover?,” by Gary S. Shogren and David Baer

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Published in: on December 3, 2018 at 11:47 am  Comments (2)  
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Facebook Reading Club! – the Septuagint over Two Years

Our Goal: A two-year excursion through the Septuagint, including the Deuterocanonical books, from January 1, 2019 through the close of 2020. We will offer weekly reading plans that will average about a chapter and a half per day; for example, the week of January 1-6 we will read Genesis 1-12 LXX. The Psalms will be interspersed throughout the year, and we will have regular “Catch-Up” times. While en route, we will also take side excursions: reading Sinaiticus on its website, some Septuagint texts from the DSS, the Hexapla, the Theodotion version of Daniel, and the Fayyum fragments.

Why? Two excellent reasons. The best way to expand one’s knowledge of biblical Greek is to read the Septuagint. And the Septuagint was the Bible of the apostolic church.

Why Now? This group was sparked by the publication in November 2018 of Septuaginta: A Reader’s Edition, by Lanier and Ross. (http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/2018/08/new-readers-lxx-on-sale.html)

This edition of Rahlfs-Hanhart footnotes the lexemes which appear 100 times or less, beginning with ἀόρατος in Gen 1:2: the earth was “invisible, without form.” The list price is $109.95, but it is now discounted on Amazon for $87.96. it is highly recommended for participants in this group! (There is no Spanish equivalent edition).

How Much Greek Do I Need in order to Participate? The difficulty level of the LXX is not high, especially for people who have dominated the Greek of the New Testament. Nevertheless, the sheer quantity of text – over 1100 chapters! – means that we will be covering about a chapter and a half per every day. Even for the intermediate or advanced reader, that might require a half-hour daily. This is all to say that, reading the entire LXX and committing this much time for two entire years will be demanding. Let us count the cost!

To Join, go to Facebook: our page is under the name Septuagint2years or Septuagint in 2019-2020, go to the page and click LIKE in order to join.

Reading Plan – the Full Septuagint in 2 Years

“Facebook Reading Club! – the Septuagint over Two Years,” by Gary S. Shogren, Seminario ESEPA, San José, Costa Rica

Published in: on November 17, 2018 at 7:55 pm  Comments (1)  
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Romans Commentary, Romans 15:14-33

This commentary was prepared for Kairos Publications in Buenos Aires. It was composed specifically for the Latin American church. In some cases I have retained the words “Latin America,” at other times I have substituted “the Americas.” The bibliography reflects what is available to the Spanish-speaking church. We will publish it a section at a time, and eventually as an entire pdf file. The reader will notice that its purpose is to explain and apply this wonderful epistle to the church of today. Blessings! Gary Shogren

To download the full commentary as a pdf, click here Shogren_Commentary on Romans

OUTLINE:

VIII. The Priestly Ministry of Paul and his Itinerary (15:14-33)
A. His ministry is centered on evangelizing areas which have no church (15:14-22)
B. He plans on visiting Jerusalem, then Rome, and then on to pioneer territory in Spain
(15:23-33)

VIII. The Priestly Ministry of Paul and his Itinerary (15:14-33)

A. His ministry is centered on evangelizing areas which have no church (15:14-22)

Paul concludes in vv. 14-15a by affirming that the Roman Christians are “full of goodness”. Even if he had to speak strongly about some issues he is not giving them anything new; the epistle was designed to refresh their memories, to “remind you of them again”. No-one could complain that he was introducing some new doctrine.

It is fitting, given the language of worship earlier in this chapter, that he refers in vv. 15b-16 to his holy service as an apostle of Christ. The word he uses (leitourgos) could have a secular sense of “servant” (see Rom 13:6); nevertheless, in this context he is using it in the religious sense of one who enters the temple sanctuary to worship God (as in Heb 8:2). This has nothing to do with the doctrine that the clergy are “priests” who offer the sacrifice of the mass on the Christian altar, the so-called “ministerial priesthood” that is “directed at the unfolding of the baptismal grace of all Christians” (Catechism of the Catholic Church §1547). Rather Paul is a sacred worker in the sense that he ministers God’s grace to the nations. By receiving Christ the Gentiles are not only serving God, they themselves are transformed into an acceptable sacrifice (v. 16b). Reading this we return in our minds to 12:1-2, where even Gentile believers can offer sacrifices: not some animal on an altar in Jerusalem, but their very own bodies or persons to the service of God.

It is typical of the apostle to use the term “boast in” or “glory in” or (as the NIV) have pride in (see GNB, REB). It is a word group that when used negatively, sums up all that is wrong with the human race in its arrogance and fondness of creating gods according to its own tastes. It is invalidated by our sin and our utter need of Christ (Rom 2:17, 23; 3:27). On the other hand, it is proper to boast about God, that is, that we draw attention to him and give him glory (Rom 5:11). 1 Corinthians keeps both truths in tension: “so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (1 Cor 1:29 ESV, which improves on the NIV); and then, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord” (1:31 ESV; Paul quotes Jer 9:24).

In the mouth of today’s TV evangelists, what Paul says next might be a boast about their own power, anointing, gifts, money, etc. But when Paul talks about his mission, he glorifies God, who empowers him in what he says and does, and performs many miracles through him. The book of Acts mentions relatively few miracles of Paul; we must assume that he did many more than it records. (more…)

Published in: on November 16, 2018 at 2:40 pm  Leave a Comment  
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Romans Commentary, Romans 14:1-15:13

This commentary was prepared for Kairos Publications in Buenos Aires. It was composed specifically for the Latin American church. In some cases I have retained the words “Latin America,” at other times I have substituted “the Americas.” The bibliography reflects what is available to the Spanish-speaking church. We will publish it a section at a time, and eventually as an entire pdf file. The reader will notice that its purpose is to explain and apply this wonderful epistle to the church of today. Blessings! Gary Shogren

To download the full commentary as a pdf, click here Shogren_Commentary on Romans

 

OUTLINE:

VII. The Resolution of a Particular Conflict in the Church of Rome (14:1-15:13)
A. Christians are accountable to God with respect to ethical decisions (14:1-12)
B. Christians must not cause harm to others, but edify them (14:13-15:6)
C. God wants all believers to live in harmony (15:7-13)

 

VII. The Resolution of a Particular Conflict in the Church of Rome (14:1-15:13)

Chapter divisions are not part of the original text, and here is a case where must continue to read up through 15:13. In this section Paul raises the issue of how to deal with unspiritual “quarreling” which might divide the church. Some think he was dealing with some hypothetical situation, but since he gives so much detail, we conclude that he was describing an actual debate in Rome, in which Christian was divided against Christian.

People “in the flesh” cannot dwell in peace with each other; they are poisoned by “strife” and other social sins (1:29-31). Christians too might fall into “dissension and jealousy” (13:13). Their internal debate has to do with three practices observed by people called “the Weak”: some observed a sacred day; abstained from wine; ate no meat. The “strong” thought that all days were alike sacred; also, that it was permissible to eat meat and drink wine. The most likely explanation is that the Weak were those Jews who believed that these scruples represented God’s will for them (14:14, 20). Then Paul begins in 15:7-13 to speak of Jew and Gentile Christians. Paul, though Jewish, regards himself as one of the Strong (15:1) and does not agree with the scruples of the Weak, since “the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking” (14:17).

This section is Paul’s central teaching about how to handle the so-called adiaphora (the singular form is adiaphoron), “indifferent” matters: practices where one believer quotes some Bible truths, another emphasizes others, and they come to different conclusions. In fact, Christians cannot even agree on which practices are truly on the list of adiaphora. Hence, part of Paul’s task here was to convince both parties that their choices in these three areas were genuinely adiaphora.

Although this passage of Romans is similar to 1 Corinthians 8-10, it does not describe the situation faced in Corinth, in which there was uncertainty over whether one could eat meat sacrificed to idols. Paul’s answer in that epistle was long and complex, with several conclusions: (1) such meat is in no way “tainted” or poisonous to the spirit – meat is meat; (2) still, it should not be consumed if it damages someone’s conscience; (3) a meal offered to an idol in a sacramental meal, a parallel to the sacrament of communion, is a symbol of alliance to a pagan god – therefore a Christian must not participate (that is, the practice (3) is not adiaphoron). In Romans 14, Paul focuses mostly on (2), the damage that might be done to another believer.

This tension has its roots in the historical background of the Roman church. Years earlier the emperor “Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome” (Acts 18:2). Jews were technically not allowed in Rome between the years 49-54 d. C., at which time Claudius died and the order was revoked. The result was that the church had been predominantly Jewish beginning on the day of Pentecost; then it became a primarily Gentile church between 49-54; and Jews and Jewish Christians returned to Rome beginning in 54 and through the year 57, to the time when Paul wrote this epistle.

When the Jewish believers returned, they experienced culture shock. Whereas their practice of the faith had been Jewish Messianic, they came back to a church where the numbers and influence lay with Gentile believers.

The Jews expected to worship Christ on Saturday, but already in the 40s and 50s, the Gentile church was meeting on Sunday (see Acts 20:7; 1 Cor 16:1-2; see the reference to Pliny below). This explains the issue of the “more sacred day”, but what of the wine and meat? Most Jews drank wine, thus so too Jewish Christians in moderation (1 Tim 3:3). Jews ate meat, so long as it was kosher. The fact that Paul uses the Jewish adjective for impure meat in 14:14 (koinos, see Mark 7:2; Acts 10:14, 11:8; and the verb koinoō in Matt 15:11; Mark 7:15; Acts 10:15, 11:9; Acts 21:28), once again leads us think of Jewish purity concerns.

Some have suggested that the problem is that those Jews still did not have kosher butchers on whom they could rely; but since the Jews had inhabited the city for several years, this is unlikely. Another explanation lies in the story of Daniel and his three friends. “The king assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the king’s table” (Dan 1:5). Daniel 1:10 LXX even uses the same two words for food and drink (brōsis and posis) that Paul uses in 14:17. Thus the Jewish Christians were rejecting the meat and drink of Rome just as Daniel had refused the dainties of Babylon, as a protest against the imperial conqueror of Israel.

The law of love in 13:9-10 includes the active effort to seek good for the other and to do no harm to a neighbor, especially to another believer. If the Romans had followed the law of love, then both the Strong and the Weak would have known precisely how to act. (more…)

Published in: on November 2, 2018 at 2:00 pm  Leave a Comment  

Lost your Life? No problem! Christ has it in safekeeping

To download the entire file click here: SHOGREN_ILE conference 2018, Lost Your Life No Problem Christ has it in Safekeeping

Mark 10:28 – Peter said to him, “We have left everything to follow you!”

Note: This series was given to students at the Spanish Language Institute in San José, Costa Rica. Most of them were learning Spanish in order to serve God cross-culturally; hence the many references to missionaries and (part IV) to the stress of second language acquisition.

Spiritual emphasis week

Outline:

I. Lose your self, life, identity
II. Lose your family, friends, belongingness
III. Lose your possessions and opportunities
IV. Lose your tongue
V. …only to find them again

 

TEXTS:

Mark 8:34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.”

Mark 10:28-31 Peter said to him, “We have left everything to follow you!” “I tell you the truth,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

I. Lose your self, your life, your identity

Introduction

I lost my glasses! I lost my phone! I lost my keys! I lost my wallet! I lost my car, I don’t know where I parked it! I lost my train of thought! Well, such is the human condition; we probably did not lose these things, we just misplaced them.

But what do we do about this extreme language in Mark 10:28 – Peter said to Jesus, “We have left everything to follow you!” Jesus, we have lost our very lives.

That will be our theme is week will be: Lost your Life? No problem, Christ has it in safekeeping (more…)

Published in: on October 26, 2018 at 4:13 pm  Comments (2)  
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300th BLOG POST! Love: a simple command, not an easy one

I have been blogging on this site since 2010 and just realized that this is my 300th post (on my other site, http://razondelaesperanza.com, I’m up to 212). So in order to celebrate with a really important theme, here are some thoughts from my Romans commentary. Enjoy! And sign up to be notified when new articles come out. Gary

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. Romans 13:8-10

For those Christians who can relax only when they have lists of rules to follow, the simple command to Love one another seems vague, subjective, even perilous. They feel more in sync with those who believed that a walk of 2000 steps (1 kilometer) did not transgress God’s law, but taking one step more was a sin (see Acts 1:12); or that one is obliged to forgive seven times, but not eight.

On the one hand, the law of love is liberating. At the same time an exacting master.

Why? Because it obligates us to seek the Spirit’s guidance and power, rather than check off holiness boxes or to consult huge 3-ring binders which purport to give God’s answer to every question. We pray, not to get God to help us keep our own rules, but to ask him to remake our minds. We are forced to use those minds – and we are gifted with a transformed way of thinking! (Rom 12:2) – about what is loving behavior. We are pressed to behave in ways that are new and strange to our old selves. We are led to do more than seems reasonable; to be cheerful and generous when others think we are being taken advantage of. We find that love means in this moment to speak courageously and in another moment to close our mouths.

We find this all over the New Testament. The Lord Jesus shows that love might mean washing someone’s feet – and you wouldn’t have found that in the Torah. James shows how the rule of love makes in impact on how we seat people in our meetings (James 2:1-4). Paul insists that if people were really loving, they would think through what to eat for supper (1 Cor 8:13). And all three seem to leave the question hanging: Were you acting in love, you would have known what to do in these situations!

Love – Christ is our teacher

The definition of a loving Christian is not one those happy souls who go around with smiles and hugs for everyone; not the one who does nice things for their friends. Rather, they are the ones who cross boundaries, make costly choices, and take daring action in the name of Christ.

“Love: a simple command, not an easy one,” by Gary S. Shogren, Professor of New Testament, Seminario ESEPA, San José, Costa Rica

Published in: on October 10, 2018 at 12:25 pm  Comments (2)  
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Romans Commentary, Romans 12:1-13:14

This commentary was prepared for Kairos Publications in Buenos Aires. It was composed specifically for the Latin American church. In some cases I have retained the words “Latin America,” at other times I have substituted “the Americas.” The bibliography reflects what is available to the Spanish-speaking church. We will publish it a section at a time, and eventually as an entire pdf file. The reader will notice that its purpose is to explain and apply this wonderful epistle to the church of today. Blessings! Gary Shogren

To download the full commentary as a pdf, click here: Shogren_Commentary on Romans

VI. Details concerning how the New Life in Christ fulfills the Law (12:1-13:14)

A. Christians offer themselves as living sacrifices (12:1-2)
B. Christians live in love in the Church and in the world (12:3-21)
C. Christians have a political responsibility (13:1-8a)
D. Christians live according to the principle of brotherly love (13:8b-10)
E. Christians live in two ages (13:11-14)

 

VI. Details concerning how the New Life in Christ fulfills the Law (12:1-13:14)

Preachers like to divide Romans into two sections: the doctrinal (1-11) and the practical (12-15). It is better to read the epistle as one integrated message – Paul teaches how the gospel changes lives through Christ, and he then goes into the details of what the new life looks like. He does not and cannot teach an ethic as such, as if one could compile a list of basic Life Principles to share with the world. Rather, the Christian life is presented as a “sacrifice” (12:1). The Gentile believers of Rome had had plenty of experience with sacrifices in their old lives, when they “worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator” (1:25). Now they can worship the true God with the pleasing sacrifice of their very selves.

The apostle has already shown in Romans 6-8 that if a person tries to combine two good ingredients – Torah observance, the gospel – he will by no means end up with a superior brew. Rather, they will turn and poison him and ruin any possibility of pleasing God. Instead, the believer must be one with Christ and live and walk in the Spirit. Only then will he find power to fulfill God’s overarching purpose, which is that all people live in love – and love is the fulfillment of the Torah. And so supernatural love, directed from within, is the theme that holds Romans 12 and 13 together: “Love must be sincere” (12:9); “whoever loves others has fulfilled the law” (13:8); “love is the fulfillment of the law” (13:10), the Torah.

Paul does not give hundreds of rules (by the process of “casuistry”), to try and show the path of righteousness for every possible situation; that is what the rabbis would attempt to do in the Mishnah, collated and published around AD 200. The Christian must know the Scriptures and submit to the Spirit in order to understand what love is – it is a life based on a dynamic interaction with God himself.

A. Christians offer themselves as living sacrifices (12:1-2)

After he has reminded the reader about God’s mercies in Romans 9-11, Paul returns to the theme he had merely touched upon in 6:13 – “rather offer yourselves to God”. Now he shows that this is a way of life, to offer our whole person to God, not to earn acceptance, but because God has already forgiven and changed us by his “mercy” (see the same Greek word in 2 Cor 1:3). Let us explore some of the terms of this walk: for example, the word offer is a semi-technical term for offering a sacrifice (see its ironic use in Josephus, Wars 2.6.2 §89). Paul also calls the sacrifice living, that is, it is not an animal that is killed and then burned on an altar, for Christ’s people are, for the first time, truly alive: “live in accordance with the Spirit” (more…)

Published in: on September 28, 2018 at 1:44 pm  Leave a Comment  
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Thou shalt not bear DIGITAL false witness!

‘Thou shalt not bear false witness’ means, I think we can agree:

‘Thou shalt not tell speak falsely concerning that which thou knowest.’
‘Nor makest up thou stuff about that which thou dost not know.’

How can we apply it in the age of electronic media?

‘When thou canst not speak about the facts,
because thou art not a witness,
just because thou hast merely heard gossip
or hast seen a meme constructed by human hands,
then thou shalt forbear to speak.’

Also:

‘Thou shalt not state as truth that which thou canst not prove,
reasoning that those Liberalites/Rightwingites which dwelleth in the land dost the same,
– or that they didst start it! –
and thus the Lord needest thee to serve as a counterbalance.’

The Lord does not need us to bear false witness in order to get his work done.

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“Thou shalt not bear DIGITAL false witness!” by Gary S. Shogren, Professor of New Testament, Seminario ESEPA, San José, Costa Rica

Published in: on September 26, 2018 at 8:05 pm  Comments (2)  
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Church attendees should be seen and not heard…not!

In one of the only glimpses we have of an early church meeting, Paul observed: “When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation” (1 Cor 14:26). We would not say that 100% of the people always stood to lead the worship, but it certainly gives the impression that a broad percentage might. [1]

This verse was heavy in my mind when I wrote on Romans 16:

Today’s American church has become professionalized, and only a handful are allowed anywhere near the microphone. By contrast, the early believers did not meet as a megachurch, but as a network of house churches of fewer than 100 people. When Paul describes a meeting, he envisions a worship service where everyone had the chance to participate, not just by singing and giving money, but by teaching, leading a song, or giving a supernatural message.

Some indigenous tribes have used an object called a “talking stick”; in meetings, it was passed from hand to hand – whoever had the stick had the right to speak his mind.

talkingstick1

Traditional talking stick

Today’s church microphone has become the “talking stick” that is the domain of a few pros, usually men. (more…)

Published in: on September 10, 2018 at 12:35 pm  Leave a Comment  
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Paul had the Bible memorized!

It is common knowledge that the apostle knew by heart the entire text of the Hebrew Scriptures. He also was able to cite another version at will: the Greek version of the Bible known as the Septuagint. This is the version he almost always quote in his letters to Greek-speaking Christians.

emergence-judaism-lxx

Page of the Septuagint, 2nd century

Thus: when he quoted from the Scriptures, he didn’t have to look it up.

Just ran across this tradition concerning the rabbi Shammai, the important theologian who lived in the first century BC, that is, a couple of generations before Paul. He affirmed that in effect he owned two copies of the Bible:

There was the incident of a certain gentile who came before Shammai. He said to him, “How many Torahs do you have?” [Shammai] said to him, “Two, one in writing, one memorized.” [b. Shabbat 31A, Babylonian Talmud, Neusner edition, 2:127]

Two copies of the Bible, true for Shammai, true for Paul. How true is this for us?

“Paul had the Bible memorized!” by Gary S. Shogren, Seminario ESEPA, San José, Costa Rica

Published in: on August 25, 2018 at 10:55 am  Comments (5)  
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