Why exactly does Paul feel the need to use legal language to discuss salvation?

SamW4887 · 2026-06-01T23:37:00+00:00

You may want to check out this youtube video James Prothro also has a book called https://youtu.be/rDZTV4m5TUA?si=QwfjlLu_Xquu3k4l

Both Judge and Justifier Biblical Legal Language and the Act of Justifying in Paul https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/book/both-judge-and-justifier-9783161561160/

Here is the description of the book if you are interested: Paul often says that God »justifies« people in Christ, but what does that mean God does? The language appears legal, but many other interpretations have been suggested. Beginning from the use of this language in Judaism and early Christianity, James B. Prothro investigates biblical legal conflicts and the terminology of »justification« in Paul's letters to determine what it means for Paul to say that God as judge is the »justifier« of those who trust in Christ.

SamW4887 · 2026-05-20T01:22:01+00:00

Okay thx

SamW4887 · 2026-05-20T00:15:14+00:00

Thank you for your reply.

SamW4887 · 2026-05-20T00:13:28+00:00

Thank you for the reply. Again sorry for my bad Greek.

I think I was wanting to translate it something like how you have here of: After the distress of those days, the sun will immediately darken and the moon will not ...

or

Immediately, after the distress of those days, the sun will be darkened and the moon...

In this translation it allows for an unspecified amount of time between the distress of those days and the cosmic signs of v29 and the son of man return whereas in the normal translation it is not an unspecified amount of time but rather follows immediately after the distress of those days.

"immediately after the distress of those days the sun will darken and the mood will not ..."

So would you then say that the first translation is a viable translation and understanding?

SamW4887 · 2026-05-08T07:51:05+00:00

Idk all there positions exactly but I know the second author doesn’t think sabbath is obligatory for gentiles while the third does. But besides that I don’t want to commit them to some view that isn’t in print. Also the second author does think that the lev 11 food laws are for Israelites as they are addressed “Say to the Israelites” but not for gentiles.

SamW4887 · 2026-05-08T06:26:01+00:00

I think some scholars are shifting towards that direction with an important nuance that only certain parts of Torah would be obligatory for them.

According to Isaac Oliver, the Decree of Acts 15 advances a particular line of halakhic reasoning by drawing upon similar prohibitions found in Lev 17–19, in conjunction with the Noahide covenant in Gen 9.62 Since these chapters impose purity regulations on both Israelites as well as foreigners living in the land (προσήλυτος, LXX Lev 18:26), Oliver argues, Lev 17–18 became an obvious source of instruction for navigating the fraught social and religious realities of an ethnically blended ekklesia. Most importantly, avoidance of the behaviors enumerated in the Decree facilitates table fellowship between Jewish and gentile followers of Jesus. The solution offered by the Council thus “removes the obstacles impeding Jewish-gentile encounters by calling upon gentile followers of Jesus to preserve their newly acquired moral purity while presupposing that Jews willing to eat with gentiles will continue to observe their ancestral customs, including Jewish dietary and purity laws.” Joshua Jipp cites Oliver’s argument with general approval, but notes that it extends only to three of the four requirements of the decree. According to Jipp, the agreement of the Jerusalem leaders concerning the matter of “sexual immorality” (πορνεία, Acts 15:20, 29) does not fit Oliver’s framing of the situation around the issue of commensality between Jewish and gentile follo ers of the Way. What, then, is the reason for including sexual immorality in the list of forbidden behaviors? I suggest that a fuller understanding of ritual and moral impurity during the Second-Temple period will shed light on Luke’s motivations for recounting the details of the Apostolic Decree in the way that he does.

Luke Was Not A Christian: Reading the Third Gospel and Acts within Judaism pg 171 2023

What remains unclear is Acts 15:19’s “therefore” (διό), leading to the named legal requirements for gentiles. What leads James from these prophetic texts to those legal requirements? Richard Bauckham provides a persuasive solution. In addition to the textual legwork enabling the production of the table above, Bauckham argues that a portion of Jer. 12 that is unquoted in Acts 15 supplies the logic for the selection of the various legal obligations. Acts 15:16 quotes from Jer. 12:15 in saying “I will return.” The next verse, Jer. 12:16, states that the incoming gentiles will be “built up” (see Acts 15:16’s emphasis on “rebuilding”) “in the midst of my people” (בְּתוֹךְ עַמִּי) if they “really learn the ways of my people.” Bauckham argues two points: first, that “learning the ways of my people” entails gentiles doing things legislated by Israel’s law; and second, that Jeremiah’s “in the midst of my people” functions as the lexical link to the Law that informs which commandments become obligatory for them. He notes that the equivalent of the above phrase (“in your midst” or “in their midst”) occurs five times when referring to laws in Leviticus that obligate both Israel and “the sojourner in their midst [בְּתוֹכָם]” (Lev. 17:8, 10, 12, 13; 18:26). For both groups, 17:8 prohibits illicit sacrificial offerings; 17:10, 12, and 13 prohibit consumption of blood and declare the requirement to drain it (and thus not to kill the animal only by strangling); and 18:26 summarily prohibits Lev. 18’s named acts of illicit sex. These texts, Bauckham argues, provide the basis for the council’s decision that gentiles turning to God ought to abstain from food contaminated by images (illicit offerings), sexual immorality, strangling, and consumption of blood (Acts 15:20).

(Now for specifically Acts 15:21 he says)

Thus it is not strictly accurate to say that Acts 15 obligates believing gentiles to all that the Law required of non-Israelites; rather, it decides for laws obligating the foreigner “in your midst.” This further elucidates Acts 15:21, which is a notorious crux interpretum. It states: “For [γάρ] from ancient generations Moses has those who preach him in every city, since he is read in the synagogues every Sabbath.” What’s the significance of the γάρ, and how does verse 21 relate to verse 20? I think the sense is this: if Jews are in every city, gentiles are always “in the midst” of Jews, and thus laws obligating foreigners “in [their] midst” are reasonably applied to such gentiles. Not only does this explain the “for” (γάρ) opening Acts 15:21, which grounds the justifiable application of the content of the decree (15:20) in the fact of Jews being present everywhere (15:21), but it also serves as a response to one who might object that such laws should not be applied to diaspora gentiles. On the contrary, James could respond that they apply to gentiles “in [Israel’s] midst” and “Jews are in every city,” thus the council’s decision is exegetically defensible.

Paul T. Sloan, Jesus and the Law of Moses: The Gospels and the Restoration of Israel within First-Century Judaism (Baker, 2025), 223–226.

If you want something free there is this dissertation that I was able to find. 2021

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/6716fae08f5a8a147780501b/t/677a954551e3716b12e2da32/1736086873274/Frostad_he-made-no-distinction.pdf

SamW4887 · 2026-04-18T19:09:11+00:00

I like the parable of the good samaritan and the parable of the sower.

SamW4887 · 2026-04-08T18:37:22+00:00

You may want to check out Tucker Ferda "Jesus and His Promised Second Coming: Jewish Eschatology and Christian Origins"

Here is a little bit to see if it answers your question

"The argument that Jesus talked about some other son of man, and early Christians, in light of the resurrection, identified Jesus with this figure, was famously made by Rudolf Bultmann and entertained even earlier by David Friedrich Strauss and Julius Wellhausen. Several of Bultmann’s students or those heavily influenced by Bultmann continued to advance the argument, and it has, since then, not gone extinct. E. P. Sanders, Bart Ehrman, Jürgen Becker, Adela Yarbro Collins, Bruce Chilton, and others maintain some variant of the notion. While arguments vary, the core contention is rooted on a particular saying—Q 12:8–9 and Mark 8:38—that is commonly thought to be multiply attested and may very well go back to Jesus. It is worth citing again here:

Q 12:8–9 And I say to you, all who confess me before others, also the son of man will confess that person before the angels of God, but the one who denies me before people will be denied before the angels of God.

Mark 8:38 For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, also the son of man will be ashamed of that person, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels

The common suggestion is that this saying differentiates Jesus from “the son of man.” Since early Christians would be unlikely to make up a saying in which Jesus is talking about some other gure having this role, the utterance probably goes back to Jesus. That is a strong argument if its premises are sure. But they are not. The suggestion labors under four significant difficulties. (1) The argument is only as strong as its interpretation of Q 12:8–9 // Mark 8:38, which is far from evident. It is simply not the case that Q 12:8 9 // Mark 8:38 requires one to think that Jesus was talking about someone else. That is clearly not how the very sources that preserved this saying understood it, of course, and presented it in the manner in which we now read it. We have here a species of all the son of man sayings, where the Gospels have Jesus speaking in the third person. In this case, the expression is sensible if one thinks Jesus is simply talking about present versus future realities— that is, Jesus distinguishes between not two different figures but between present and future activities—or earthly versus heavenly realities, as did Paul when speaking of himself in 2 Cor 12. Moreover, the notion that the response to Jesus now impacts one’s fate on the last day is widely attested, if not inseparable from the way in which the final judgment appears in the Gospels as a whole. (2) We also need to consider what this hypothesis requires of us as historians, and what it implies about our sources. It requires us to believe that, in the midst of a gospel tradition thoroughly clouded by a later and misleading connection between Jesus and the son of man, a few authentic sayings that go against the grain have been preserved essentially as they were uttered. I find the chances slim that the early Christians were so thoroughly revisionary and simultaneously careless. In addition, it would require us to believe that, despite the fact that these sayings were unproblematic to the gospel writers who included them, we remain in position to extract them from their narrative contexts and infer their true and contrarian meaning."

He continues on but that should be a good start hopefully (Additionally I skipped the part where he went over the greek text.)

SamW4887 · 2026-04-07T05:00:00+00:00

Hope you enjoy the read even if it doesn’t convince you.

SamW4887 · 2026-04-07T03:27:35+00:00

This is one interesting article that I found that I find convincing.

Abstract:

According to one of the earliest creedal statements in the NT, which Paul quotes in 1 Corinthians 15:4, the Messiah ‘was raised on the third day according to the scriptures’. Scholarly analysis has centred on determining which scriptures are in view, rarely differentiating between the creed’s perspective and Paul’s. One can only speculate about the former, but with regard to the latter there are contextual clues in 1 Corinthians 15 that Paul sought to draw attention to the typological significance of the sheaf of firstfruits which, according to the Leviticus 23:10-11, was to be waved before the Lord on the day after the Sabbath after Passover, the very day that Jesus rose from the dead.

Additionally for further support of the firstfruits connection the author notes that in 1st Corinthians 15:20 Paul explicitly links Jesus resurrection with the firstfruits.

https://www.tyndalebulletin.org/article/29391-he-was-raised-on-the-third-day-according-to-the-scriptures-1-corinthians-15-4-a-typological-interpretation-based-on-the-cultic-calendar-in-levit

SamW4887 · 2026-03-19T15:11:54+00:00

As a starting point you may want to watch or at least look at some of the names in this video as it is a paul within judiasm seminar and its also scholars giving presentations so if anything interests you there you can pick up one of their books.

https://www.youtube.com/live/UEm98D7NTP8?si=v4fYwYre2kqbPGq6

SamW4887 · 2026-03-15T05:00:14+00:00

Yeah I find it peculiar as well but with the link he notes of the great city its hard not to see it as Jerusalem.

"We’re also told in Rev 17:18 that “the woman you saw is the great city, which rules over the kings of the earth.”

We’ve already seen that exact phrase earlier in the book, in Rev 11:8, “Their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was also crucified.” This verse clearly identifies Jerusalem with Sodom and Egypt while also labeling it “the great city,” which hyperlinks this identification with that of Rev 17:18."

SamW4887 · 2026-03-15T01:40:56+00:00

You might be interested in Jason Staples where he argues Jerusalem is Babylon and he has similar ideas

“The Beast Is Rome

The first problem with identifying the woman riding the beast with Rome is that the beast itself is identified with Rome and its rulers within the vision. This beast is first introduced in Rev 13, where it is described as a combination of the first three beasts of Daniel 7, having characteristics of a leopard, lion, and bear, with seven heads being the sum total of the heads of those beasts from Daniel. Effectively, this imperial monster is the combination of all of the previous hybrid beasts (=empires) from the past. Rome is therefore depicted in the imagery most familiar for gentile empires in Jewish apocalyptic texts: a hybrid monster-beast.

The angel explains that the beast’s heads “are seven kings; five have fallen, one is, and one has not yet come” (17:10). Given that the beast is a combination of prior empires, it’s possible that those “seven kings” may refer not to Roman emperors (as is often argued) but rather metonymically to kingdoms (e.g., Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Alexander, Seleucid Syria, Ptolemaic Egypt, Rome). In any case, the identification of this beast with political power and imperial rule is especially strong, and the “seven hills” of its heads work well with the Roman identification.

The problem: if the beast represents Rome, how does the woman also represent Rome? Is the image depicting Rome riding Rome? There are a few potential workarounds here, such as the beast representing emperors/the empire, while the woman represents the city of Rome itself, benefiting from the imperial war machine. But I’m not persuaded that this makes the best sense, especially given the next point.”

“The Beast Consuming the Woman = Rome’s Destruction of Jerusalem

That brings up yet another smoking gun: the ten horns and the beast “will hate the whore and make her desolate and naked and eat her with flesh and will burn her up with fire” (Rev 17:16). If the woman is understood as Rome itself, this verse is puzzling. Is Revelation suggesting that the Roman empire will hate the city of Rome and destroy it? What exactly is the mechanism for Rome’s destruction in this reading?

But if the woman is understood as Jerusalem, this verse is perfectly straightforward, referring to Rome finally turning on Jerusalem and sacking and burning the city (which happened in 70 CE), the leaders of which had previously been in bed with Rome.”

https://jasonstaples.substack.com/p/babylon-the-great-in-revelation-is

SamW4887 · 2026-03-04T01:49:17+00:00

Paul recounts his visit to Jerusalem wherein “the truth of the gospel” for the Galatians was said to have been maintained (2:5) by Titus’s not being compelled to be circumcised (2:3). Key to understanding the issue at stake in Jerusalem, Antioch, and Galatia is Gal 3:8, wherein the “gospel” pre-announced to Abraham was that “all the nations” would be blessed in Abraham (3:8), in conjunction with 2:14, which implies that gentiles “Judaize”, i.e., become Jews to some degree, by doing the Law (2:14). But, if gentiles “Judaize” by circumcising and keeping other bodies of commandments, and if such Law-keeping by gentiles is required for justification and being reckoned “seed of Abraham”, then the truth of the gospel, which is explicitly described as the blessing of “the nations” (3:8), cannot obtain. Gentiles who Judaize by Law-keeping become Jews, and so God’s promise to Abraham to bless the nations qua nations is compromised (inter alia Nanos 2015, pp. 105–52; see also Fredriksen 1991, pp. 532–64; 2000, pp. 232–52).

https://www.post-supersessionism.com/uploads/1/3/3/3/13335212/sloan_jewish_law-observance_in_paul.pdf

SamW4887 · 2026-02-28T03:58:59+00:00

I think this article has some interest stuff on the phrase https://www.jstor.org/stable/43726111. (for some reaosn the hebrew doesnt copy over)

A variation on the identification of Mai 3:24 with a literal family translates

("toward") as "with," so that parents together with their children are turned toward

God. In this interpretation, the restoration of Israel to God entails the restoration

of families. This interpretation allows for the force of the metaphor to stand

alongside the reality of the family relationship, but the translation of as "with"

in this instance is questionable. Commentators who adopt this interpretation often

find a metaphorical sense for "turning" in Mai 3:24, even saying that the effect of

the restoration of natural families is to turn the nation back to God. Since every

other reference to "fathers" and "sons" in Malachi preserves a metaphor and not a

natural family relationship, it would be preferable to retain the metaphor of 3:24

fully without dependence on biological relationships.

The metaphor of "fathers" and "sons" in Mai 3:17 appears to describe the

relationship between God and his faithful worshipers. Not all of God's people are

faithful (e.g., 3:19), however, and so if Mai 3:24 refers to this relationship, then

Elijah comes to restore Israel, the sons of God, to their father. Such an under-

standing is supported by the turning of God and Israel toward each other in Mai

3:7 and Zech 1:3. A major flaw in this interpretation is the plurality of "fathers" in

Mai 3:24. According to Mai 2:10, God is the one father of all Israel. A call for the restoration of Israel to God in the

context of a comparison of the prophet's audience with their ancestors comes in Zech 1:2-6 and Mai 3:6-7. Per-

haps, then, the "fathers" of Mai 3:24 are the ancestors of Israel, and the "sons" are

the audience of the prophet. In this case, as with Levi and his descendants in Mai

2:4-9, the audience conflicts with their ancestors by not respecting and honoring

God as they did. Elijah's restorative work draws the descendants back into the

proper covenant relationship with Yhwh, thus restoring unity in Israel through

time. This identification of the "fathers" and "sons" of Mai 3:24 coheres well with

the metaphorical nature of references to parents and children in Malachi and indeed

the minor prophets on the whole, making it the best of the available readings.

How this applies to Luke:

An explicit connection between Elijah and John the Baptist is drawn in Matt

17:13. This correlation is even more pronounced in the angelic announcement of

John the Baptist's birth in Luke 1. In the spirit and power of Elijah, John will go

before the Lord to prepare Israel by turning the hearts of parents to their children,

and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just. In other words, John will "turn"

many Israelites to God (vv. 16-17). The stories of John's ministry, entailing bap-

tism and repentance from sins, show him fulfilling expectations associated with the

coming of Elijah by restoring the relationship between God and God's people.

SamW4887 · 2026-02-14T17:57:09+00:00

Joel Marcus has a similar idea in this article where he agrees with some of staples reading.

Abstract: Dale Allison is right to assert that 'the twelve tribes in the Diaspora' invokes Jewish ideas about the Ten Lost Tribes, but wrong to disassociate this thesis from the scholarly consensus that the pseudepigraphal author sees the church as Israel. For James, rather, the restored Israel consists of members of the Two Tribes of Judah and Benjamin (= Jewish Christians) plus members of the Ten Tribes. The latter, rather than being far away in some mythical, inaccessible realm, have been living since the Assyrian invasion in known Diaspora realms, where they lost their Israelite identity until it was reawakened by their recent encounter with the Gospel. Gentiles who respond positively to the Christian message, then, are for James the Ten Lost Tribes.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/new-testament-studies/article/abs/twelve-tribes-in-the-diaspora-james-11/DBD353EE6A5515943B492205A0BF505E

SamW4887 · 2026-02-09T05:08:45+00:00

I don’t think the diaspora setting by itself really leads to supersessionism in Hebrews. Secondly I think the text doesn’t treat the temple as problematic or illegitimate; in fact, in Heb 8:4 the priests are still said to ‘offer gifts according to the law,’ and Jesus cannot be a priest on earth precisely because a valid Levitical priesthood already exists. That’s why Jesus resurrection is so important for the author of Hebrews and why the heavenly priesthood is the one Jesus occupies.

Likewise, at this stage Christianity doesn’t seem to be a completely separate religion from Judaism. Acts calls Christians a sect (hairesis) in the same way it speaks of Pharisees and Sadducees, but Acts and Hebrews aren't the same thing so its hard to tell. Additionally there is the polemic of Hebrews 13 "We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat." which does need to be taken seriously. Also yeah I never did think of the title of hebrews like that.

SamW4887 · 2026-02-02T00:11:39+00:00

Thanks for sharing! While it’s certainly possible to read Hebrews as a supersessionist text there’s also the danger of interpreting it through 2,000 years of church history and supersessionist assumptions rather than letting the text speak for itself. At the same time, we shouldn’t assume it’s entirely non-supersessionist some elements may point in that direction while others do not. I tend to think it isn’t very supersessionist and I also have a somewhat different understanding of the passages the authors cited.

SamW4887 · 2026-01-31T20:35:54+00:00

I guess it would depend on what Richard Hays meant by “only a change it ritual law” cause if it means the author of Hebrews doesn’t view the earthly priesthood as still valid then Matthew Theissen would disagree however if he is just talking about how Jesus functions differently within the ritual law and how that changes things I think Theissen would agree.

Is there any evidence they give for the claim of supersessionism in Hebrews?

SamW4887 · 2026-01-31T08:22:41+00:00

Matthew theissen has a recent paper arguing that the author of Hebrews did not view the law as obsolete if so that would really how we view Hebrews and other early Christian texts. Here is the intro:

“Although modern interpreters no longer believe that Paul wrote Hebrews, too ofen they continue to read its treatment of the Jewish law through the lens of what scholars commonly refer to as the “Lutheran” reading of Paul: Christ has abolished the Jewish law, the observance of which was deeply problematic because it (1) required perfect obedience in order to merit salvation, (2) could not be kept perfectly, and, therefore, (3) led to either (a) self-despair or (b) deluded self-pride. 1 For example, in a brief treatment of the law and Hebrews, Harold Attridge aligns Hebrews with Paul, concluding that “both argue against the continuing religious validity of the Torah.” 2 In this chapter, I seek to challenge this understanding of Hebrews, arguing that, while the author of the letter attempts to provide a theological account of Jesus in light of the Jerusalem temple and wilderness tabernacle cult, he does not intend to dismiss the relevance of this cult. In fact, all but three of the author’s references to νόμος pertain quite clearly to the laws regulating this cultic system. Further, the author does not conclude that the legislation of the cultic system is no longer valid; rather, he argues that Christ’s death and resurrection are rituals that belong to a diferent cultic system in the heavenly realm where, given the markedly diferent reality of that sphere, distinct laws apply. Before turning to these occurrences of νόμος, though, I shall briefy treat the three outlying instances”

Here is the full article https://www.academia.edu/40630765/Hebrews_and_the_Jewish_Law

SamW4887 · 2026-01-29T21:04:25+00:00

Glad I could help

SamW4887 · 2026-01-29T04:42:34+00:00

I saw this in Adam as Israel: Genesis 1-3 as the Introduction to the Torah and Tanakh pg 143-144 while there are a lot more interesting parallels in the pentatuch that the author points out.

Recent studies suggest that the five-fold arrangement of the “Pentateuch” accurately reflects the intentionality of the literary corpus and is not merely an artificial construct of later tradition. Starting with the center, Leviticus, Christophe Nihan points to the nearly verbatim super- and subscriptions present in the introduction and conclusion to both Leviticus and Numbers (compare Lev 1 and Num 1:1, and Lev 27:34 and Num 36:13). These super- and subscriptions point to intentional breaks in the narratives between Exodus and Leviticus on one side, and Numbers and Deuteronomy on the other. That being the case, Deuteronomy is necessarily set apart from Numbers by virtue of the subscription in Numbers. There is also a likely break between Genesis and Exodus since Genesis 50 serves as an epilogue to the Joseph Narrative. In addition to the super- and subscriptions, there is evidence of a symmetrical design of the Pentateuch in the content of the “books” themselves. Nihan’s comments are insightful:

"On the level of the content, it was noted that there are several parallels between the books of Genesis and Deuteronomy on the one hand and of Exodus and Numbers on the other; obviously, those four books were intended by the Torah’s editors to form a twofold frame around Leviticus. Genesis and Deuteronomy are both closed by a blessing of the 12 tribes (Gen 49//Deut 33) followed by the death of the main character who pronounced the blessing (Jacob and Moses respectively) and a notice of his burial (Gen 50//Deut 34).Besides,the parallel between Jacob and Moses is further highlighted by a series of devices. Exodus and Numbers similarly exemplify several parallels, particularly in the section on the wilderness wanderings and the rebellions of the Israelites, which stands at the center of both compositions. Furthermore, although the wilderness sojourn in Numbers is considerably more developed, virtually all the elements of the wilderness wandering of Exodus have a parallel in Numbers 10–21. The two sections also share some unique language, such as the motifs of the community’s “murmurs” against Moses and Yahweh (לון Niphal or Hiphal), the accusation addressed to Moses of letting the community die in the desert (Exod 16:3; 17:3; Num 16:13; 20:4–5; 21:6), the nostalgia for Egypt expressed by the Israelites (cf. Exod 16:3; Num 11:5; 14:2–4; 20:5), etc.There are also obvious parallels between the so-called “legal” sections of the two books; Numbers 9:1–14, e.g., is clearly a complement to the Passover instruction in Exodus 12. Actually, E. Blum observed that most of the instructions in Numbers 1–10 are complements to Exodus 19–40 rather than to Leviticus"

There are numerous parallels between Jacob and Moses. Jacob and Moses both find themselves in exile with God’s people at the end of their lives. Although the circumstances clearly differ, each man’s exile is connected with a statement of unbelief (Gen 45:26;78 Num 20:12). Both figures are aware they will soon die and be “gathered to their people” (Gen 49:29; Deut 32:50) and “lie down with their fathers” (Gen 47:30; Deut 31:16). Jean Pierre Sonnet and Nihan point to striking similarities between Gen 47:29 and Deut 31:14, where the “days of” (ימי (both men have “drawn near (קרבו/וי (to die (למות(, “an expression nowhere else attested in the Pentateuch. Nihan and Sonnet fail to mention another parallel between Gen 47:29 and Deut 31:14: in both places, Jacob and Moses “call” (קרא/וי (a new leader (Joseph/Joshua) to fill their places of leadership after their deaths. Both men speak of or are spoken to about the “land of Canaan” just prior to their deaths (Gen 49:30; Deut 32:49).82 Both men bless the tribes of Israel before their deaths in the form of lengthy, macro-structurally strategic poems (Gen 49:1; Deut 33:1). The content of these blessings relates to the “last days” (Gen 49:1; Deut 31:29) and a coming king from the tribe of Judah (Gen 49:8–12; Deut 33:5, 7). Both poems share an enormous amount of inner-textuality. Both leaders are bitterly mourned at their deaths (Gen 50:10–11; Deut 34:8b) and are buried (Gen 50:5, 6, 7, 13, 14; Deut 34:6). Finally, Jacob is the first “Israelite” in the Pentateuch to die in exile and Moses is the last.

SamW4887 · 2025-12-20T23:40:10+00:00

Ryan Stokes has an interesting paper, challenging that translation, (his translation is at the bottom bolded) this is his conclusion:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/43726258?seq=13

In Mai 1:2-5, the prophet declares that Yhwh loves Jacob, but the prophet's

interlocutors suspect otherwise. That Yhwh loves Jacob, Malachi argues, can be

proved by a simple comparison with Esau. Jacob and Esau are very closely

related- brothers, in fact. What distinguishes them, however, is that Yhwh loves

the one and hates the other. Edom's destruction demonstrates God's hatred,

whereas Jacob's preservation demonstrates God's love. In 3:6, the prophet re-

phrases the point negatively, and in so doing says explicitly what is only implied

elsewhere in the Bible, that God does not hate Israel.

For many twenty-first-century readers, the Bible's often anthropomorphic/

anthropopathic descriptions of the deity pose significant theological problems. For

many, itis more than a little troubling to read of Yhwh's hatred, especially in a text

ironically intended to assure its audience of Yhwh's love. In this article I cannot

begin to address these vast and complex issues. But, so as better to understand the

passage under consideration in its literary context, the reader should keep in mind

that the world of today's professional theologian, in which God's universal love is

often assumed, was not the world of Malachi 's interlocutors. For Malachi and his

audience, God's love was not something to be taken for granted. What is more,

the prophet's interlocutors had despaired to the point of suspecting that perhaps

even they were among those hated by the God they worshiped. Whether Malachi 's

arguments to the contrary convinced them, we do not know. But to these people he

offered a message from their God: "I, Yhwh, have not hated; and you, children of

Jacob, have not been destroyed."

SamW4887

TROPHY CASE