Theology Archives - Reading Acts

Michael Wittmer, Urban Legends of Theology

Wittmer, Michael. Urban Legends of Theology: 40 Common Misconceptions. Brentwood, Tenn.: B&H Academic, 2023. 258 pp. Pb; $19.99. Link to B&H Academic

Part of B&H Academic’s Urban Legends series, Michael Wittmer takes on forty common misconceptions about Christian theology. Wittmer is a professor of systematic and historical theology and director of the Center for Christian Worldview at Cornerstone University. In addition to Heaven is a Place on Earth (Zondervan, 2004) and Don’t Stop Believing: Why Living Like Jesus Is Not Enough (Zondervan, 2009), he recently published The Bible Explainer: Questions and Answers on Origins, the Old Testament, Jesus, the End Times, and More (Barbour, 2020).

The Urban Legends series defines an urban legend as an untrue popular belief in church or culture. Some of these urban legends are more wrong than others. In his introduction, Whitmer observes that some “will damn you to hell” (ix). He points out that even though dismantling myths is fun, replacing the myth with the truth is far better. This is the book’s goal, to clarify popular theological and replace them with accurate theological teaching.

A book like this runs the risk of theological arrogance, or the author comes off looking like a real jerk. Whitmer avoids both extremes. He answers these myths with good-natured humor: the book is fun to read! His goal is to point the readers to the truth. Notice that the truth is defined within a conservative and evangelical framework.

The book covers forty urban legends in four categories (“in theological order”): God and theological method, humanity and sin, Jesus and salvation, and church and last things. He also includes ten mini-myths, slight variations on the theme of the chapter. Unlike other books in this series, Wittmer includes six “suburban legends.” These are updated versions of the classic urban legend covered in the chapter.

The urban legends covered in the book are usually the kind of trite sayings that describe Christian belief used by outsiders. They are often cliches, like “theology puts God in a box” or “faith begins when knowledge ends.” Sometimes these legends seem like “bad Facebook memes from grandma.” Others deal with serious theological errors. For example, everyone has likely heard the common saying defining justification as “just as if I never sinned.” Not only does this little phrase only rhyme in English, but it is also terrible theology!

Perhaps my favorite in the book is entitled “Grandpa went to Heaven and plays outfield with the Angels.” The chapter deals with the perception that humans go to heaven and get to do whatever they like doing on earth for eternity. Although vaguely comforting, they don’t stand up to a biblical description of heaven. Sometimes the urban legend is derived from a classic hymn, such as “I’ll Fly Away,” which appears to teach that we will live forever in heaven. In this chapter, he deals with what scripture says about the new heaven and earth and the consummation of the age. Wittmer concludes the chapter by changing the lyrics of “I’ll Fly Away” to correct this urban legend. Although theologically correct, I can’t imagine this is catching on at the bluegrass festival.

Each chapter begins with a short description of the legendary belief, often illustrated with some popular culture reference. Wittmer then deals with the legend in a section entitled “Unraveling the Belief.” He deals with what is wrong with the commonly assumed belief and what is actually taught in Christian theology. Remember, his goal is to present theological truth rather than simply tear down a trite cliche. These sections are well documented, with footnotes pointing interested readers to additional literature so that they can go deeper. Each chapter concludes with a short section entitled “Application.” Here we are often treated to Wittmer’s pastoral heart As he attempts to help readers to understand the importance of good theology in living out their Christian life.

Urban Legends of Theology is an entertaining book that presents traditional (conservative) theology as an antidote to popular assumptions about what Christians believe. I’ve often observed that good theology or good exegesis ruins popular preaching. This book might challenge a pastor who has made an emotional point like “Christianity is not a religion, it is a relationship,” or “the safest place to be is in the center of God’s will,” or “God won’t give you more than you can handle.” Undoubtedly, everyone has heard sermons (or worse, preached sermons) where these urban legends were met with vigorous amens and nodding heads. But as Wittmer says, it is better to have good theology and pass on these kinds of false (and sometimes dangerous) ideas about Christian theology.

Thanks to B&H Academic for kindly providing me with a review copy of this book. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work.

Published on Reading Acts, May 26, 2023

The Sixth Seal – Revelation 6:12-17

The sixth seal contains apocalyptic imagery drawn from the whole canon of the prophets. In fact, the sixth seal seems to be a combination of all the stock imagery found in the Old Testament, Second Temple apocalyptic literature, even Greco-Roman imagery of disaster. This does not necessarily mean John used other apocalypses, however. Just as John drew on the Hebrew Bible for this apocalyptic imagery, so too did other Jewish apocalyptic literature.

The apocalyptic elements in the sixth deal (earthquakes, mountains melting, the sun and moon growing dark, etc.) are “stock apocalyptic images.” Just a few examples: Haggai 2:21-22 the Lord will “shake the heavens and the earth.” In Joel 2:10 the earth and sky trembles and the sun, moon and stars no longer shine. In Isaiah 24:18-23 the earth reels like a drunkard and splits apart. Amos 8:9 describes the day of the Lord as “a day of darkness and gloom.” These examples can be easily multiplied in the Hebrew Bible and are found throughout the apocalyptic literature of the Second Temple Period (2 Apoc. Bar. 27; 4 Ezra 4:52-5:13; 6:20-24). For example:

T. Mos. 10:5-6 The sun will not give light. And in darkness the horns of the moon will flee. Yea, they will be broken in pieces. It will be turned wholly into blood. Yea, even the circles of the stars will be thrown into disarray.
Sib. Or. 8.231–238 A lament will rise from all and gnashing of teeth. The light of the sun will be eclipsed and the troupes of stars. He will roll up heaven. The light of the moon will perish. He will elevate ravines, and destroy the heights of hills. No longer will mournful height appear among men. Mountains will be equal to plains, and all the sea will no longer bear voyage. For earth will then be parched with its springs. Bubbling rivers will fail.

Even the Romans considered these types of things to be signs of impending doom. David Aune cites Lactantius’s Epitome 71 (Revelation 2:414, compare to Tacitus, Hist. 1.3.3):

Lactantius Epitome 71 To these plagues will be added also miraculous signs [prodigia] from heaven, that everything may combine to increase human alarm. Comets will frequently be seen. The sun will be darkened with perpetual gloom; the moon will be dyed in blood, nor will it renew its lost light; all the stars will fall, nor will the seasons observe their proper course, for winter and summer will be confounded.

In Rev 6:17, all of the people of the earth who are afflicted by these plagues attempt to hide themselves in the rocks and caves because the “great day of God’s wrath” has come. The reaction is similar to several Old Testament passages, such as Isaiah 2:19-21. But even this reaction is found in other apocalypses. For example:

Sib. Or. 3.601–607 Therefore the Immortal will inflict on all mortals disaster and famine and woes and groans and war and pestilence and lamentable ills, because they were not willing to piously honor the immortal begetter of all men, but honored idols made by hand, revering them, which mortals themselves will cast away, hiding them in clefts of rocks.

What should we make of this parallel material? Is this “revelation or research”? Or, is this like the throne room scene in that John uses the sort of language for the “great and dreadful day of the Lord” that would be expected by Jewish readers (drawn from the Hebrew Bible) and even the Greco-Roman world (drawn from the prodigia)? More difficult, how literal are these stock apocalyptic images? Perhaps John’s point here is to simply describe the standard cosmic catastrophe in terms that everyone in the first century would understand. To say that God is going to judge the world and not use this sort of language would have made little sense to his original readers.

The whole point is to strike terror into the readers because the “great and dreadful day” has come. It is not really necessary to worry over what sorts of natural disasters John is witnessing in his vision, and it is especially not appropriate to declare some modern even “fulfills” this seal. John’s point is that Wrath of the Lamb of God is fearsome indeed!

The Trumpets and the Plagues of Exodus – Revelation 8

How are the plagues from Exodus used in the book of Revelation?

There are a remarkable number of parallels between this series of judgments and the ten plagues in Exodus. For example, trumpets are associated with the theophany at Sinai (Exod 19:13-19; 20:18). The first trumpet judgment is similar to Exodus 9:13-25, hail and fire fell upon the Egyptians. The third trumpet resembles the plague of the freshwater in Exodus 7:20, except that there the waters turned to blood. The locust in Rev 9:3 is an apocalyptic version of the eighth plague (Exod 10:12-20).

Richard Patterson traced Exodus Motif in the Prophets, showing that the Exodus was a significant source of imagery for the rest of the Old Testament. The reason for this is the common “Divine Warrior” and “Divine Redeemer” themes in the Prophets. In the Exodus events, God fought for this people in order to redeem them out of their slavery. The prophets pick up those twin themes and apply them to their current situation. Israel has persisted in their unbelief and is once again under oppression (the Exile). God will once again fight for them and redeem them from the nations in a New Exodus.

While Patterson’s article does not continue to follow his argument into the Second Temple Period, the New Exodus theme is present in this literature. But plague imagery is not as common in Jewish sources as we might have guessed. In his detailed survey of the imagery of the Exodus in later Jewish writings, David Aune only finds the plagues in an eschatological sense in the Apocalypse of Abraham. There are ten plagues, although they do not track with the original ten plagues or the seven trumpets from Revelation.

Apoc. Abr. 30:3-8 And he said to me, “I will explain to you the things you desired in your heart, for you have sought to know the ten plagues which I prepared against the heathen, and I prepared them beforehand in the passing of the twelve hours on earth. Hear what I tell you, it will be thus. The first: sorrow from much need. The second: fiery conflagrations for the cities. The third: destruction by pestilence among the cattle. The fourth: famine of the world, of their generation. The fifth: among the rulers, destruction by earthquake and the sword. The sixth: increase of hail and snow. The seventh: wild beasts will be their grave. The eighth: pestilence and hunger will change their destruction. The ninth: execution by the sword and flight in distress. The tenth: thunder, voices, and destroying earthquakes.” (Rubinkiewicz, OTP 1:704)

Nevertheless, Revelation seems to be re-using imagery from the Ten Plagues. Since John is standing on the shoulders of the Hebrew Bible. This is not a surprise. But it is important to at least wonder why it is important that the Exodus Events were chosen as the main backdrop for John’s apocalyptic description in Revelation 8-9. The purpose of the original ten plagues was for God to show his power to Israel. The ten plagues were not “evangelistic,” hoping that the Egyptians would see them and somehow “convert” to being Jewish. The plagues prove to the people of God in Egypt that he is a God who acts on their behalf to redeem them out of their slavery. The children of Abraham need to be convinced that the God of their ancestors is active and that he cares for them.

This may also be the function of the judgments in Revelation. By the time of the eschatological age, Israel will have been in a state of unbelief for a long time. Like the original Exodus, they certainly need a reminded of the righteous character of their God. Revelation is using the language of the Hebrew Bible, how God has worked in the past, to describe how he will work again in the future.

Bibliography: Richard D. Patterson, “Wonders in the Heavens and on the Earth: Apocalyptic Imagery in the Old Testament” JETS 43 (2000): 385-403.

Books in Apocalyptic – Revelation 5

Revelation 5 uses the metaphor heavenly books. This is common in both the biblical and apocalyptic materials and is a stock image drawn from a court room scene. In Dan 7:10, for example, thrones are set in place and the Ancient of Days takes his place at the head of the court. Once the court was seated, “the books were opened.” Based on the content of these books, the blasphemous “little horn” is thrown into blazing fire. So what is the content of an “apocalyptic book”?

Sometimes these books record the names of the redeemed; or conversely, the names of the wicked are “blotted out” of the books. This is probably based on Exodus 32:32–33. In this non-apocalyptic text, the Lord says “Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book.” The Psalmist asks God to blot out the names of his oppressors from “the book of the living” (Ps 69:28). Originally this meant a name carved in stone that would be obliterated if the named-person offended the king. Perhaps this was based on a citizenship roll or something of the sort, but the idea a text exists containing the names of those who are part of the kingdom. Isaiah 4:3 some people have been destined to survive in Jerusalem, “everyone who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem.” In 2 Baruch 24:1, the opened books contain both the righteous deeds of the righteous and the wicked deeds of the wicked. These books are opened after a period of oppression, “When horror seizes the inhabitants of earth, and they fall into many tribulations and further, they fall into great torments” (2 Baruch 25:3) after which the messiah comes.

In other apocalyptic contexts books contain hidden secrets sealed up to be revealed at the appropriate time. In Daniel 12:9-10 there are secrets sealed up in a book “until the end of time.” In Rev 10:4 John was prepared to write down what the seven thunders said, but he is told to “seal it up” and not writer it down. The seven thunders are therefore some hidden secret not to be revealed at that time. There are examples of this phenomenon in other apocalyptic books as well. In 1 Enoch, the seer has a great deal more revealed to him that he is permitted to write at that time,.

1 Enoch 81:1-2 Then he said unto me, “Enoch, look at the tablet(s) of heaven; read what is written upon them and understand (each element on them) one by one. So I looked at the tablet(s) of heaven, read all the writing (on them), and came to understand everything. I read that book and all the deeds of humanity and all the children of the flesh upon the earth for all the generations of the world.

In an expansion on the biblical story. Jubilees 32.20–22, at Bethel Jacob is given seven tablets determining everything that would happen to his sons in the future.

Jubilees 32.20–22 And Jacob watched until he went up into heaven. And he saw in a vision of the night, and behold an angel was descending from heaven, and there were seven tablets in his hands. And he gave (them) to Jacob, and he read them, and he knew everything which was written in them, which would happen to him and to his sons during all the ages.”

But more commonly the books contain the sins of the person under judgment. In Jude 4 the judgment against the false teachers was written down (προγράφω) long before they secretly crept into the churches. In the Animal Apocalypse, the names of the good and bad shepherds are carefully recorded in books for future judgment (1 Enoch 89:62; 90:14-22). In 1 Enoch 104:7 sins are investigated and “written down every day.” In Jubilees 5:13-14 sins are carefully written down and judgments are “are ordained, written, and engraved.” Describing the judgment awaiting the sins of Lot’s daughters, the writer of Jubilees says:

Jubilees 16:9 “And behold it is commanded and it is engraved concerning all of his seed in the heavenly tablets so that he will remove them and uproot them and execute their judgment just like the judgment of Sodom and so that he will not leave seed of man for him on the earth in the day of judgment.”

Bringing this back to the throne room in Revelation 5, the scroll functions similarly the last category in that the opening of the scroll subjects the world to judgment. The final judgment is the coming of the Messiah to set up thrones and render justice (Rev 20:1-6). By taking the Hebrew Bible as the immediate background and tracing the development of a metaphor in the Second Temple Period apocalypses, we are more likely to understand the metaphor as John intended.

What is the Scroll in Revelation 5?

The “one on the throne” holds a seven-sealed scroll with writing on both sides (Rev 5:1). No one in all of creation can be found worthy to open the scroll except the “Lamb that was slain” (5:2-5). This scroll is an important symbol in this chapter, but also for chapters 6-7 since a series of things occur as the seals on the scroll are opened. How did John intend for us to understand this scroll?

Normally a scroll is only written on one side (the inside), a two sided scroll is rare. Because of this there are several variations in the textual tradition to try and explain to “fix” the phrase. For example, by changing the wording slightly, one might read the text as “within, on the inside.” David Aune offers several suggestions for the “form of the book.”

First, the book could be an opistograph, or a scroll “written on both sides.” The main problems with this view are the parallels to Ezekiel’s vision of a scroll in Ezekiel 3, and the original reading of the text; if this were an opistograph, it should be described differently. It is possible, however, John did not know this technical term.

Second, the book could be a doppelurkunde, or “doubly written legal document.” It was common enough for a legal document to be written twice with a short gap between the two parts. Jeremiah 32:9-15, for example, describes a double-written deed. A brief description would be written on the outside of the scroll so the general contents might be known without opening the seals.

Third, Zahn argued the scroll is not a scroll at all, but rather a codex (i.e. book). The Greek word used here is βιβλίον, but in the first century the word meant simply “a document” or scroll. While this view has been criticized because there are clear parallels to the scroll Ezekiel, it is a fact that early Christians were very quick to adopt the codex for their collections of letters and gospels. In addition, a book could be sealed so that individual pages could be opened while later ones remained sealed.

This scroll has been identified as any number of things, including “a bill of divorce for Jerusalem and a nuptial contract for the New Jerusalem” or a sealed copy of the Torah. But the most common suggestion is that the scroll as having something to do with the revelation which follows. In the most general sense, the scroll contains the eschatological punishments inflicted on the world by the will of God.

The contents of the scroll begin to occur with the opening of the first seal in 6:1 to the seventh seal in 8:1.
The events of the scroll cannot occur until the scroll is completely opened. This does not happen until 8:1, therefore the contents are 8:2ff.
If the scroll is “doubly written legal document,” then it is possible the section 6:-7:17 is the exterior while 8:1-22:5 is the interior, the actual content of the scroll. (D. Hellholm made this suggestion)
The contents of the scroll is Rev 6:1-22:6. The Lamb reveals to John the contents of the scroll after he receives it.
The scroll is the whole of the book of Revelation. The book is described as prophetic (1:11; 22:7, 9, 18-19) and 22:10 commands John not to seal his book.

It is possible the book does not contain the prophecies which follow. There are several suggested ideas for the contents of the book, such as God’s plan for human beings and the world or even a record of the sins of humankind. After the scroll is opened in chapter 6, it appears that the contents of the book are the seven trumpet and seven bowl judgments. If this is the case, then the book is the “decree of God” for the judgment of the world described in those sections.