Archaeology is something most people think of as either Indiana Jones-like adventuring for strange artifacts in exotic settings, or as the realm of technicians using state-of-the-art equipment to almost magically analyze or date artifacts such as the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Shroud of Turin in scientific laboratories.
The reality, of course, is usually at neither of those extremes, and many people would be surprised to learn how archaeologists must often cope with very limited data or techniques that are far from perfect. An example is carbon-14 dating which most people presume can be applied to anything made from organic material to find its age. The reality here is that carbon-14 dating is actually hampered by the fact that for the period of approximately 800-400 BC it is affected by a calibration issue (called the Hallstatt plateau) which means that material from that period cannot be dated with any certainty.
This problem is particularly significant for biblical studies, as the period 800-400 BC is a vitally important one in Near Eastern history – a period in which many important biblical events such as the destruction of Jerusalem and other Judean cities occurred. But now the application of another dating method – that of archaeomagnetism – shows great promise for biblical archaeology in general and this period of biblical history in particular. The method works on things such as pottery sherds, bricks, roof tiles and ovens (which are found on most archaeological habitation sites) that record the Earth’s magnetic field as they are burned at high temperatures. Because the direction of earth’s magnetic field has changed over history – and the dates of the changing directions can be calculated – we can look at the magnetic field “fixed” in a burnt object and tell when it was burned. This is particularly useful in situations where biblical cities were affected by Aramean, Assyrian, and Babylonian military campaigns that left behind destruction layers.
The archaeomagnetic dating technique has actually been used by archaeologists for several decades, but is only now being used with success on archaeological sites of biblical significance. Recently, archaeologists working in Israel reconstructed the magnetic field recorded in twenty burnt destruction layers at seventeen archaeological sites. The study included the analysis of over a thousand specimens from some 144 samples, and the recovered data meshes well with what historical anchors we have for the time period.
As the Times of Israel reported: “The method utilizes excavation layers that have already been reliably dated to create baseline anchors for the archaeomagnetic data, which can then be applied to other sites that until now had been impossible to confidently date. The more anchors are created, the researchers say, the more finely calibrated the dating method will become” (25 October 2022).
This means that archaeologists working on biblically significant sites will now be able to date objects and whole archaeological layers that were previously difficult or impossible to date with accuracy – especially in the problematic period of 800-400 BC. So archaeomagnetic dating is now being used as a complementary dating tool that promises to further improve our understanding of the archaeology of biblical times – and ultimately, of the Bible itself.
We are all so familiar with the twenty-third psalm, “The Lord is my shepherd …”, that we do not tend to see the rest of the story – that the shepherd motif is only half of what this beautiful psalm is telling us. David begins the psalm “The Lord is my shepherd” and continues in verses 1-4 by developing the metaphor through the analogy of God’s looking after and providing for the needs of his followers – as a shepherd would his flock.
Those who know animals, as David did, realize that sheep are almost entirely dependent on their shepherd not only to find water and pasture for them, but also to protect them. The clear theme of the first half of the psalm, then, is that God protects his people and provides their basic needs. But the second half of the psalm, beginning in verse 5, changes the metaphor to show how much further God goes beyond this basic care for those with whom he has a closer relationship:
5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
God is no longer shown as the Good Shepherd in this second half of the psalm. Nothing that is said here applies to shepherds or shepherding. Rather, in this second half of Psalm 23 the metaphor used is that of God as the divine host of a great banquet, and we see the significance of this in every detail of the latter part of the psalm.
Here, “you prepare a table before me” is synonymous with preparing a “feast” – the blessings of the divine Host being symbolized by the good things of a banquet. Even “In the presence of mine enemies” is relative to a festive meal, as ancient kings would often celebrate their victories with banquets at which captured enemies would be placed on view. In the same way, “You anoint my head with oil” is not an allusion to the anointing of kings or religious leaders to office – which always uses a different word – but to the custom of anointing the head of those attending banquets (see, for example, Psalms 45:7; Amos 6:6; and Luke 7:46).
Although in verse 6 most older Bibles say something like “your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life”, many modern versions (such as the CSB, LSV, NET, etc. ) translate this more accurately as “your goodness and love will pursue me …”, and the small difference is important. God’s blessings do not so much follow – as though unable to quite catch up with us – but actively pursue us like a king actively sending servants to invite people to a great banquet (Luke 14:15-24).
The closing words of psalm 23 “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever” have been used of the afterlife in countless memorial services, but their original meaning may have been somewhat different. The Hebrew Scriptures actually never use the term “house of the Lord” for God’s heavenly dwelling, only for the earthly temple. In fact, the term “forever” that closes this psalm is literally “for length of days” – and connotes an extended time. The verse signifies that David looked forward to “dwelling in” or “returning to” the house of the Lord many times – a statement found in other psalms such as Psalm 27:4.
Although the concept of the afterlife is clearly seen in other psalms, Psalm 23 focuses, in fact, on God’s care for his people expressed symbolically as the care of a shepherd and a host, and the two are different. While the shepherd cares for all his sheep and provides for their needs, the host metaphor narrows this group by implying the added blessings God bestows on those he invites to his banquet.
For example, in verse 5, “my cup overflows” not only conveys the richness of the banquet the divine Host provides, but is in strong contrast to the statement “I have what I need” (CSB and other newer translations) in the first part of the psalm. While the opening of Psalm 23 celebrates God’s care and provision for all his people, the second part of the psalm gives the rest of the story – the greater blessings and fellowship of those who walk more closely with God.
Matthew sat alone in his cell staring at the letter. Imprisoned in a country not friendly to Christianity, Matthew (not his real name) was kept in relative isolation, and the only contact he had with the outside world was in the form of occasional heavily censored letters he was allowed to receive from his family. The letters had any words of encouragement – especially scripture quotations – completely covered over by the heavy black markers of the government prison censors.
In the long months Matthew had been imprisoned he had come to deeply resent those patches of blackness that cut him off from the love of his family. Until today. Now, Matthew looked at the patches of black obscuring much of the latest letter he had received and smiled. Matthew was a happier man.
The truth of the situation had dawned on Matthew like a personal revelation. He had come to see that the black marks and patches on his letters did not obscure his family’s love for him – they highlighted it. He saw that every obscuring black mark was not a denial of the love felt for him, but proof of it. Sometimes he could guess that there was a scripture behind the blackness from quote marks not obscured at the beginning or end of the marking. If the censors blacked out words individually he could guess from a short word blacked out after the quote marks that it was probably the reference to a quoted verse in Psalms, which his family knew was his favorite book of the Bible. Very occasionally, if he held the letter up to what light he had, he could make out faint traces of what was written and have some idea of what was being said to him.
As time progressed, Matthew came to resent the black marks less and less. Sometimes he would take out a letter and just look at the marks, because he knew that behind them was the love of his family, and understanding what lay behind the black marks – even though he could not see through them – sustained Matthew until he was eventually released.
Sometimes, when we go through the trials of life, it’s hard to see God’s love for us. We may even come to resent the black marks and clouds of life: the illnesses, job losses, persecutions, or whatever seems to obscure God’s love and concern for us. But if we learn to view them as we should, we can come to see behind the black patches in our lives. On occasion we may be able to make out the writing of loving correction in things that go wrong (Hebrews 12:6), but this is not always the case and often, like Job, we may see that we are being given an opportunity to learn or grow. But, again like Job, we don’t always see God for the storm – until we realize we are being taught something and we hear the voice of God speaking through the dark clouds (Job 38:1) or through the dark patches that seem to come between us and him.
In fact, if we come to see the black patches of life as we should, we realize that once we have committed ourselves to God, we can know that his love is always behind them even if we do not see it clearly (1 Corinthians 13:12). We can remember that every dark patch of life, although it might seem to obscure God’s love, in reality is being used to teach, guide, and form us or to help others in some way. We come to realize that the black patches of life do not deny Gods’ love for us; they actually affirm that it is there.
There is a very cynical saying that you can get through life with just two things – a good memory and a good lawyer. The fallacy of that saying is evident in every life made miserable by divorce, lost friendship and broken business arrangements – to name only three examples – where both a good memory and a good lawyer were involved.
The truth is, although there is a place for right legal counsel and representation, it doesn’t always work – and a “legal” opinion can sometimes hurt you. This applies on the personal psychological level, also. Everyone grows up with what we might call an “inner lawyer” – and it’s a defense attorney. We all have such a lawyer – an unscrupulous one – deep within ourselves, no matter how good our overall intentions may be. You may not remember hiring the lawyer within you, but that “lawyer” is certainly there and is always on call at a moment’s notice.
Remember the last time you made a dumb mistake and when you were challenged by someone about it, you had an almost instant answer or excuse? That was your inner lawyer talking. Remember the last time you debated whether you should do something that wasn’t really right, but you came up with some pretty good reasons why you should do it anyway? That may well have been counsel from your inner lawyer.
Our human nature just naturally learns to defend itself in some of the ways a lawyer might defend us. Human nature will tell itself it’s not to blame for something, or even blame a situation on others. It will tell us that a thought, word or deed is not that bad – especially if it is OK in the letter of the law – because no one can keep the law perfectly, right? (You may have noticed that inner lawyers can quote scripture.) But just as the Gospel of Luke tells us: “… the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves …” (Luke 7:30 ESV), although our inner lawyer’s arguments may sound good, they really are at odds with what God is trying to accomplish in and for us.
Unfortunately, as a result, we will never grow spiritually or find real transformation as a Christian as long as we retain that inner lawyer. Psychologists may call what we are talking about “self-justification,” but it helps to think of the process as an inner lawyer because this makes it easier to spot the manner in which it works. Whenever possible we need to take time to think before we let that inner lawyer speak – and what’s more, when the inner lawyer does start to wrongfully justify us, we need to be willing to fire him or her on the spot. It’s a kind of representation we really don’t need and are better off without. This is easier said than done, because we can fire the inner lawyer today and still have him or her show up again tomorrow – or even later today. It may take time to make this a habit, but if we want to really make progress in our Christian lives, to paraphrase Shakespeare, perhaps the first thing we need to do is fire all our inner lawyers.
Some five hundred years ago, in 1517, Martin Luther nailed his list of 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg. It was these “theses” or principles, of course, that triggered the Protestant Reformation, and in so doing changed the history of the modern world.
Most of Luther’s theses had to do with his rejection of the practice of selling “indulgencies” in the Catholic Church of his time – a means of raising money for the church which claimed that people might pay to have the souls of loved ones or others released from “purgatory.” Although this may seem like ancient history to most of us in the modern world, and most of us may not know what a single one of Luther’s 95 theses was, there are some timeless lessons to be found there.
In his very first thesis – which formed the basis of those that followed – Luther (citing Matthew 4:17) wrote: “Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said, ‘Repent’, willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance.” This statement was a remarkable one for its time. The Vulgate – the Latin version of the Bible used by the Catholic Church – translated the command to repent in Matthew 4:17 with the words paenitentiam agite, meaning “Go, and do penance.” But Luther found that in the Greek text of the New Testament the word for repentance used by the New Testament writers was metanoia, which has nothing to do with penance and means to change one’s heart and mind – to be changed or converted.
This deeper and more accurate understanding of the concept of repentance had a direct impact on Luther’s first thesis, for we obviously cannot constantly be doing penance throughout our whole lives; but as Luther stated, our lives as believers should be ones of ongoing repentance in the sense of continual change and ongoing conversion.
The truth that Luther had learned was that all of the Christian life is repentance. Certainly, the Bible speaks of a primary repentance when we first turn to God from our own sinfulness (Acts 2:38, 11:18), and we might call that “Repentance with a capital R.” But the Scriptures also show that our initial Repentance is followed by an ongoing repentance (with a small “r”) that is the continual mindset of the Christian. This does not mean constantly dwelling on our mistakes and failures, but continually and immediately repenting when we do find we have come short of God’s way.
We see this ongoing or additional repentance throughout the Bible. We see it frequently, for example, in the psalms of David where he expresses repentance on many occasions. We see it in the New Testament in scriptures such as Revelation 2:5 which commands members of the church to repent of errors into which they have fallen, and in 1 John 1:8-9 which tells us that: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
This is the ongoing reality that the apostle Paul had in mind when he wrote: “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him” (Colossians 2:16). Just as we begin our Christian lives with repentance and faith (Acts 2:38), so Paul says, we must continue – in repentance and faith.
We know that it is the Spirit of God that leads us to initial repentance (Romans 2:4), and as his Spirit continues to live in us (1 Corinthians 3:16) we are continually guided to repentance from ongoing mistakes and sins. The Scriptures are clear that this ongoing repentance is not done to try to earn salvation, but as a natural result of salvation occurring in our lives and our desire to become more and more like God. In other words, we are forgiven our sins through the occurrence of Repentance at the beginning of our Christian lives – but we continue to ask God to forgive us and spare us from the consequences of our sins after that point. Every small “repentance” reaffirms our original “Repentance.”
In reclaiming the concept of ongoing repentance Luther discovered something that every Christian must discover and act on also: that true repentance is not just an inaugural event in our Christian lives, it is also the very basis of our life in Christ from that time forward.
The concept of ongoing lifelong repentance is not a message that is commonly heard in many churches, but it is a message that we need to nail firmly to the doors of our hearts and minds.
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