When Archelaus succeeded his father in Judea Joseph was warned not to return to that area (Mt 2:22), a clear indication that Archelaus shared his father’s propensity for cruelty. This soon became evident. For example, one Passover protestors threw stones at Archelaus’ soldiers. Archelaus responded by “sacrificing” 3000 Israelites, filling the Temple with their corpses.

Herod died in 4 BCE. In accordance with his will Archelaus ruled over Judea and Samaria. Archelaus went to Rome wanting Augustus to give him the authority to declare himself a king (his army had already acclaimed him as such). However, an embassy of his subjects pleaded with Augustus to take note of Archelaus’ cruelty and asked that Judea be annexed to Syria. Augustus compromised. Archelaus was named ethnarch.

It is possible that in Luke 19 Jesus had in mind this protest by the embassy when he gave the example of “a man of noble birth” (Archelaus?) going “to a distant country” (Rome?) “to have himself appointed king” (by Augustus?) “and then to return” (v12). Significantly, Jesus told this parable after he had entered Jericho and was passing through on this way to Jerusalem. Jesus’ exceptional detour into Samaria (John 4:4) suggests that normally he would have travelled the Jordan valley route via Jericho, thus passing Archelais, a town built by Archelaus and named after himself.   

Like his father Archelaus had a passion for building. During his time as ethnarch he restored the royal palace in Jericho and constructed an irrigation aqueduct there and also built Archelais in the Jordan Valley, north-east of Jericho, on the main road heading north. This site has been excavated for more than a decade. Though this settlement was located in a desert area it was well supplied with water, not from the lower-lying Jordan river, but through a system of aqueducts and springs and reservoirs. Archelaus built for himself a massive, luxurious mansion. Inside the building was a large courtyard, over 300 square metres (around 1000 square feet) with a mikveh, that is, a Jewish ritual bath in the north-western corner.

After Archelaus’ exile Augustus gave Archelais to Herod’s sister Salome. Later Herod’s grandson Agrippa 1 ruled the area (41-44 CE). In addition to expanding the settlement Agrippa built a road house for pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem which occupied four acres. This too contained a mikveh. Archelais was destroyed by Vespasian at the time of the Great Jewish Revolt, 66-70 CE.  

 It is quite likely, therefore, that Jesus had just passed through Archelais, the settlement built by Archelaus. Besides the presence of Archelaus’ royal palace in Jericho, would have encouraged Jesus to tell a story that built on the events surrounding Archelaus. Ironically, Jesus finds parallels in what happened to Archelaus and in his own life.

In Jesus’ parable the subjects of this king “sent a delegation”, saying, “We don’t want this man to be our king” (v14). While Jesus may have used the events concerning Archelaus in his parable he is really referring to himself as the rejected king. One point of possible discontinuity with the story of Archelaus is suggested at verse 15: “He was made king, however, and returned home.” It might be wise not to over-press this. Though, technically speaking, Archelaus returned without the title “king” Augustus had effectively granted him the right to rule.

A decade later another embassy complained to Augustus about Archelaus’ rule. There were two grounds for complaint: (1) Archelaus’ continued cruelty; (2) his expression of contempt for God’s law since he had married his brother Alexander’s widow while his own wife was still alive. Augustus responded by exiling Archelaus to Gaul in 6 CE.

The terrible irony of Jesus’ parable in Luke 19 is that the people treated their good and gracious Messianic king in the same way as they treated the cruel and tyrannical Archelaus. 

Reference: Hananya Hizmi, “Archelaus Builds Archelais” in Biblical Archaeology Review 34/4 (August/September 2008) 48-59

Posted September 8, 2008

The complaint and its movie world representation is crass. Indeed, the very opposite is typically the case. So, as Keller notes, Miroslav Volf maintains that it is the lack of belief in a God of vengeance that “secretly nourishes violence”:

If God were not angry at injustice and deception and did not make a final end to violence - that God would not be worthy of worship… The only means of prohibiting all recourse to violence by ourselves is to insist that violence is legitimate only when it comes from God… My thesis that the practice of non-violence requires a belief in divine vengeance will be unpopular with many… in the West. ….. [But] it takes the quiet of a suburban home for the birth of the thesis that human non-violence [results from the belief in] God’s refusal to judge. In a sun-scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, it will invariably die… [with] other pleasant captivities of the liberal mind.

Source: “A God of judgment can’t be a God of love?” in Evangelicals Now (September 2008) 24 

This is what the Bible teaches. Let the apostle Paul have the last word:

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary:

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;

if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.

In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (Romans 12:17-21)

Posted September 5, 2008

For Kant ultimate or absolute goodness is only to be found in the good will, humanistically conceived. For Christians this is found in God’s good will which is an expression, however, not of cold rationalism but of the entire nature and character of God in all his richness and fullness. If we are to live lives of God-pleasing compliance with his perfectly good will then our minds need to be transformed so that we will learn “to test’, to value and profoundly appreciate God’s will, how “good, pleasing and perfect” it truly is (Romans 12:2). 

In the continuing context Paul goes on to indicate that central to the transformed mind and the experience of this perfectly good will of God is love. Near the end of the sub-unit constituted by Romans 12-13 he exhorts,

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” Love does no harm to its neighbour. Therefore love is the fulfilment of the law (Romans 13:8-10).

Kant commented on this command to love our neighbour as ourselves. He maintained that this means doing our duty towards our neighbour, no matter how unloving we might feel or even hard-hearted.

In that loving our neighbour as ourself is our ultimate and perpetual debt this does seem to approach Kant’s conception of duty.  But the corresponding section near the beginning of this sub-unit indicates that Paul is not thinking in a simplistic duty-based way:

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love (Romans 12:9-10a).

Elsewhere Paul teaches that love is the fruit of the Spirit, expressed in qualities often closely associated with emotions: “joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). While we are responsible to love our neighbour as ourself we cannot do this just out of a sense of repaying a debt, out of a sense of duty. We know that the Lord himself, through his Spirit, must produce this ability within us. Arguably, Romans 8 is all about the Spirit’s work of making us more like Jesus, and there Paul teaches:

Those who live according to [the flesh] have their minds set on what [the flesh] desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires (Romans 8:5).

 The love that the Holy Spirit engenders in us is a love that does not merely comply with some cold, rational divine will but with godly desires.

Obedience is indeed integral to the Christian life. But it is a great error to think this means that Christian ethics are essentially deontological. We are concerned to fulfil our responsibilities and obligations but our obedience is “the obedience of faith”, an obedience that consists in and is expressed by the life of faith, depending on the Lord through the Spirit to make us full-orbed people who learn to love with all that makes us human. So it is that the first and greatest commandment (to which the command to love our neighbours corresponds), as re-stated by Jesus himself, is this:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind (Matthew 22:37).

Posted August 29, 2008

Sermon on the Mount Bible Study Series 6: Loving Enemies (Matthew 5:38-48)

Sermon on the Mount Bible Study Series 5: Faithfulness (Matthew 5:27-37)

William Grimshaw was born in September, 1708. The son of a farm worker he graduated from Christ’s College, Cambridge and became an ordained clergyman in Todmorden, near Halifax, England. He was a disgrace, spending his time hunting, fishing, socialising and getting drunk. After but four years of marriage his young wife died, leaving him with two small children. He plunged into dark despair, developing suicidal thoughts. Now fearing God’s wrath he tried to straighten himself up, morally speaking, but failed again and again.

Then, in 1742, he read John Owen’s Justification by Faith and learned, as he put it, “to embrace Christ only for my all in all”. He spoke of the light and comfort that entered his soul and of his “taste of the pardoning love of God”.

Grimshaw then became curate of Haworth in Yorkshire, later to achieve fresh fame for its association with the Bronte family.

Grimshaw was an 18th century clergyman and things were done differently in those days. Novelist Elizabeth Gaskell wrongly represented him as using a horsewhip to drvie people into church. But he did use a horsewhip on thugs who were assaulting defenceless people who came to a cottage for a prayer meeting.

In those days the Church of England had its own canon laws which prohibited a preacher from ministering beyond the bounds of his own parish. But his friendships with people of the ilk of the Wesleys, George Whitfield and John Newton made him put the gospel first. So he defied the Church of England’s man-made anti-gospel rules and became well known as a preacher over a very wide area of north England. During a slack week he preached 14 times. During a busy week over 20 times. On Sundays he preached in Haworth. George Whitfield and the Wesley brothers were frequent visitors to Haworth.

In 1763 an epidemic of typhus fever swept through the village. Succombing to this fatal disease Grimshaw said,

My last enemy has come, the signs of death are on me, but I am not afraid! No, blessed be my God, my hope is sure and I am in his hands.

Wracked with violent headaches and a burning fever he told Henry Venn:

I am as happy as I can be on earth and as sure of glory as if I were in it.

Source: Faith Cook, “Heavenly fire… which shattered the terrain” in Evangelicals Now (August 2008) 24

Posted August 28, 2008

It struck me that this is precisely the same mentality that opposes any talk of people being accountable for their lives to almighty God on a day of judgment. The podcaster, even in his critique of utilitarianism, shared the same humanistic understanding of happiness - that it was something that only applied to this life. To the extent that utilitarians and others have any warrant in pursuing happiness as an end in itself  - whatever “happiness” is (see prior blogs) - then what must be considered is whether there is life after death. For anyone with an ounce of common sense must realise that it is pretty pointless to achieve rapturous happiness in this life if after death one will experience eternal misery. Further, can it be assumed that if there is a life after death that we, by our actions in this life, can ensure our own happiness in that life hereafter? Buddhists certainly hang everything on this humanistic assumption as do many others, even if they say they are not sure if there is an after-life or not.

Of course, things are greatly complicated for us if our experience of “happiness” after death or otherwise is something which is controlled and determined not by ourselves but by another, God. At a popular level many seek to reassure themselves that they are basically decent people whom such a God, if he exists, would not deny entrance into his heaven of delights. But this presupposes a concept of God who is prepared to “wink his eye” at our failings, that is, a God who is less than morally perfect. The moment we entertain the notion that any experience of eternal bliss in the life hereafter presupposes a perfectly good and generous God then we are in big trouble. For why should such a God lower his standards by granting us admittance into his paradise and thereby polluting it?

The Westminster Confession defines “the chief end of man” as being “to glorify God and enjoy him forever”. Any utilitarian or other goal of “happiness” that does not consist in enjoying God must inevitably arrive at the very opposite of what it seeks. Given that we are all tarred with the same brush of serious moral deficiency we are dependent on God himself to bring this end about in a way that does not compromise his moral perfection. The cross of Christ is his solution! Apart from this there is no possible solution to this conundrum!

Posted August 27, 2008

Theology of the Former Prophets 3: Kingship

1 Samuel 7. Samuel as Prophet-Judge

1. Slaughtering a goat for the spring sacrifice and smearing its blood as protection
2. Eating unleavened bread baked quickly on open coals
3. Celebrating an autumn festival that includes living in the desert in booths made of palm trees

It was and continues to be common for nomadic Sinai tribes to seek pasturaga for their flocks in Egypt during years of drought. Ze’ev Meshel notes an ancient Egyptian document that records the permission given to nomads from Edom to enter the Nile Delta area during a drought year around 1200 BCE. In return for being allowed to encamp at the edge of irrigation channels and elementary food provisions the nomads would provide cheap manpower.

 Meshel speaks of his personal acquaintance with Bedouins and recalls their resourcefulness in finding water in the desert, observing that some are even able to strike rocks to get water, instead of digging, as Moses himself did on one famous occasion (Num 20:11).

Exodus 16 tells how God provided quails for the people to eat in the desert. Meshel notes that in October thousands of quails reach the beaches of northern Sinai after crossing the Mediterranean Sea. He provides a photo the nets used by Bedouins to capture some of the quail for food. 

The Bedouin make an annual pilgrimage (Zu’ara) to the wilderness tombs of their tribal sheikhs and enjoy festivities there. Meshel suggests that the Israelites may have been alluding to a known nomadic custom like this when God, through Moses, told Pharaoh, “Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness” (Ex 5:1).

Meshel witnessed a Bedouin spring ritual (Rabi’ah) at ‘Ain Fortaga in Sinai, at the time when herds are taken into the mountains for seasonal pasturage. The Bedouin sacrificed a goat and then smeared its blood on camels’ necks and their children’s foreheads, expressing their desire for health, abundance and good fortune. He compares this with the Passover sacrifice which also involved smearing blood (Ex 12:22-23). The contexts and meanings of these sacrifices are very different, but the Bedouin practice does add weight to the plausibility of the biblical account. 

The Bedouin call unleavened bread libeh (cf. Jewish matzah) and bake this on the burning coals of an open fire two to three times a day, using a quick mixture of flour, water, a pinch of salt and no leavening.

It is also common for Bedouin to construct temporary booths made from date palms. Posts are made from the trunks and walls and roofs from the fronds. Date fibre is used to make ropes to fasten the parts of the booth. The Bedouin live in such booths for but a few weeks, at the end of summer and during early autumn near oases. During autumn nights the Bedouin Date Festival celebrates, in addition to the harvest of dates, the in-gathering of the previously scattered tribes at this location.

Source: Ze’ev Meshel, “Wilderness Wanderings” in Biblical Archaelogy Review 34/4 (July/August 2008) 32-39

Posted August 26, 2008