Midrash Archives - Reading Acts

Acts 13 – Paul and the Interpretation of Scripture

Paul’s use of scripture in Acts 13 is a complicated issue, but it gives us insight into the way the early Christians used the Hebrew Bible. I want to focus on the description of David in verse 22. Paul combines several verses to describe David. This combination is significant since Isaiah 44:28 is clearly messianic. 1 Clement 8:1 uses the same texts together; it is unclear whether Clement is using them because he knows Acts 13, or that these texts were drawn together as messianic texts prior to Paul. This is possible, since there is reasonable warrant for the texts to be interpreted together in the rabbinic method of exegesis. To my knowledge, there is no evidence outside of Christian sources for this collation of texts.

Psalm 89:20– “I have found David…” In this verse David is described as the servant of the Lord who has been anointed with “sacred oil” by the Lord himself. In this Psalm, David is described as the one who is sustained by the Lord’s mighty arm verse 21), the one who will call out to God as father (verse 26), and the one who is appointed as the Lord’s firstborn (verse 27).
1 Samuel 13:14-“…a man after God’s own heart.” This description of David occurs in the context of Saul’s failure as king. Samuel states that the Lord as already sought out the man after his own heart; his kingdom will endure in contrast to Saul’s kingdom.
Isaiah 44:28– “…who will do all I want him to do.” The servant of the Lord in Isaiah 44 is Cyrus the Great, the man who allowed the Jews to return to Judea after the exile. This text calls him a shepherd and the Lord’s anointed.
Possibly 1 Sam 16:1, David as the son of Jesse.

By blending these three texts together, Paul is setting up his declaration that Jesus as the Messiah ultimate fulfills the messianic prophecy of the Hebrew Bible. he is the one who is in fact the son of God, anointed not with sacred oil, but with the Holy Spirit in power, and will be the ultimate fulfillment of the suffering servant anticipated by Is 53.

The Lord “raises up” David, Paul uses the word in verse 30 for the resurrection of Jesus. Just as The Lord raised David up to be the king, so too Jesus was raised up from the dead to be the ultimate king.

The reason Paul includes the preaching of John may be that there were disciples of John the Baptist in Asia Minor. We will return to this idea in Acts 19, but for now we can simply observe that there were disciples of John who did not follow Jesus. The reasons are unclear, but perhaps they simply left Judea for their homes in Asia Minor before Jesus began his ministry, and were therefore unaware of the ministry of Jesus. Paul’s point here is that John was not the messiah himself, but rather a witness to the coming Messiah. The words of this sermon reflect a knowledge of John’s words as recording in Luke 3 as well.

This weaving of texts to make a point is common in the Second Temple Period and shows that Paul’s way of thinking about scripture is not all that different than other contemporary Jewish scholars. In fact, the reason Paul gained a hearing in the Synagogue is that he read the same texts from the Hebrew Bible and offered a fresh perspective. Whether the Jewish audience agreed with Paul or not, they would have been impressed with his exegesis.

This is a good place to stop and think about applying the book of Acts once again. Few pastors would think of weaving texts together they way Paul does here. In fact, most Seminary exegesis professors would probably fail a student that tried to get away with this sort of thing. Yet here the method is in Scripture, modeled for us by the Apostle Paul. What are we to make of this?

Let me make a simple suggestion – Paul used the method of communication which was best for a Synagogue sermon. When he speaks on Mars Hill, his communication style is different, so scripture is cited although much of the theology of the Hebrew Bible is present. There is a certain pragmatism here, Paul uses his training in order to effectively communicate in the synagogue, the marketplace, or Mars Hill. Yet in each context, the message of Jesus is clear. The method of communication is adaptable, the message is not.

Jude and His Sources: The Hebrew Bible

Jude alludes to a number of stories from the Hebrew Bible. Jude rarely quotes the Hebrew Bible, but he alludes to key events which ought to be familiar to his readers. For example, in v. 5 alludes to the Exodus, v. 6, the Giants in Gen 6, and in v. 7 to Sodom and Gomorrah. He mentions the names of characters to invoke their stories as well. In v. 11 he lists Cain, Balaam and Korah as examples of rebellion against God.

In each of these cases, Jude wants the reader to hear not just the event or name, but to recall the whole story. To what extent does Jude expect the listener to hear the names and events as shorthand for the whole story? The story of the Exodus is common, but Baalam might not be as well known, and Korah is far more obscure. He is expecting a great deal out of his congregation by alluding to these stories.

It is significant that the majority of these examples come from the Wilderness traditions of the Hebrew Bible. The wilderness period was sometimes used in the prophets as an prime example of the rebellious nature of Israel. From the earliest history, Israel struggled to remain faithful to God. Jude makes use of this tradition much like the prophets did, drawing analogies from the first generation to describe his opponents.

While some of these traditions are obscure to us, they were likely well known by Jewish congregations. Paul alludes to the wilderness in 1 Cor 10, Jesus also creates an analogy between his own ministry at the generation in the wilderness (John 6 especially). The fact is that these stories turn up in a number of Jewish sources as examples of rebellion against God. Much of this literature either pre-dates Jude or is contemporary to the letter. “Probably this Jewish schema had been taken up in the paraenesis of the primitive church and used in the initial instruction of converts: hence Jude can refer to it as already well-known to his readers” (Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, 46-47).

Jude used texts from the Hebrew Bible to create a typology. He is evoking the memory of a story or event from the history of Israel and drawing out some implication which applies to the situation of the churches he is addressing. Balaam is therefore analogous to the opponents of the church in some ways, but not in every way. Jude’s approach to scripture is not unlike that of the writer of Hebrews. Usually described as a midrash, Jude combines scripture and interprets the scripture as applicable to the present situation of false teachers having “slipped in unaware.”

Perhaps a better way to describe Jude’s technique is to compare the letter with the Habakkuk commentary from Qumran. This style, known as pesher, placed interpretations from the Community’s teacher in between lines of scripture. This sort of running commentary was intended to interpret the text of Habakkuk as applying to the Community’s current situation.

If Jude can be rightly described as a kind of either midrash or pesher, then this can be used as additional evidence of an early, Jewish Christianity as the background to the letter. This observation will be beneficial in understanding the theology of this letter – keeping these images in mind, what is Jude saying about his opponents?

Core Beliefs of Second Temple Judaism: Torah, Tradition, and Scripture

After the national tragedy of 586 B.C. the study of the Law became a critically important practice for the Jews. They went into exile because they did not follow the Law, therefore they devoted themselves to the study and practice of Law. The first two divisions of the Hebrew Bible, Torah, Nebiim (Prophets) were “compelte” by the end of the exile, and the Kethubim (Writings) was likely completed by the beginning of the second century B.C. (depending on the date of Daniel).

All of the books were considered Scripture, but not all equal in authority. The Law was primary, the rest was commentary (Ferguson, Backgrounds, 540). By the first century the Pharisees attempted apply Torah to every aspect of life by developing an oral tradition, a “fence around the law,” a halakah or interpretation of the Law. Some of the oral traditions appear to be designed to circumvent some aspects of the Law, such as the prosbul (a method of making a loan near a Sabbath year which allowed for the loan to be collected rather than forgiven).

E. P. Sanders makes a good case showing this “relaxing of the law” is in the favor of the common people and was not intended as a way to get out of keeping the law. Modern (western) readers tend to think of some rabbinic discussions as overly legalistic, but most of these are interpretations the Law which apply the ancient Law to a new situation.

Because most of the early Christians were Jewish, the church inherited some of the methods of exegesis used by the Jews in the first century. Since Paul was a Pharisee he often engages in interpretation of Scripture using methods similar to the rabbis.

These methods included:

Literal. The straightforward meaning of the text, such as Galatians 3:16 interpreting the word “seed” as a literal child.
A Targum is an “interpretation by paraphrase” or running commentary on Scripture, usually in Aramaic.
A Typological interpretation uses some correspondence between older texts and some present situation. In 1 Corinthians 10:1-11 Paul uses the Exodus and Wilderness experience as an analogy for the experience of the Corinthian church.
Occasionally New Testament writers will interpret the Old Testament as Allegorical. Although this method should not be confused with the later methods used by the medieval church, Jewish writers did tease out spiritual truth and meaning without any connection to the original historical context. The allegorical method is best demonstrated by Philo of Alexandria, but Paul creates an allegory using Sarah and Hagar in Galatians 4:21-31.
Midrash and Pesher. Paul often connects Scripture to teach something new about Jesus. His synagogue sermon in Acts 13 is a clear example of midrash techniques, as are the two sermons preached by Peter in Acts 2 and 3. A pesher reading discovers meaning by means of a one-to-one correspondence between a word or phrase and some current situation. This method was used at Qumran and in the New Testament by Matthew and the book of Hebrews.

These Jewish views of Scripture and how to interpret Scripture were adopted by the early Church writers. To what extent ought these Jewish views on Scripture guide Christian exegesis today? For example, I think a high view of Scripture is essential for Christian exegesis, but is it necessary to have a “center” of the canon? If a Second Temple Jewish interpreter looked at the rest of Scripture through the lens of the Torah, should a Christian interpreter read the rest of Scripture through the lens of Jesus? Paul? The Sermon on the Mount? The book of Romans?

Although some of the methods of reading Scripture are similar to the modern grammatical historical method, most modern scholars would reject an interpretation which allegorized a text to mean something the original author could not possibly mean. But there are several postmodern approaches to Scripture which do just that. Is it possible reader-response hermeneutics reflect an ancient allegorical method and are somehow legitimate?