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<\/a>Jonah<\/strong> Jonah is four short chapters. I\u2019ve done a lot with Jonah in the past,\u00a0addressing the short book several times, from several angles, including the history question. In brief, if you\u2019re focused on the \u201cwhale\u201d instead of\u00a0the last four verses of chapter 4, you\u2019re entirely missing the point.<\/p>\n When I taught the 8-yr old class in Primary, it happened to be all boys. During the Exodus lesson, we become seriously bogged down in a lively debate over whether the destroying angel of the Exodus\u2026wore a cape or not. It took nearly 10 minutes to rein in that discussion, which as adults know is completely irrelevant. So it is with the whale and questions of historicity; it\u2019s almost totally irrelevant. (Julie Smith makes a good comment hereabout how to head this off in class<\/a>.) \u00a0Jonah strikes me as very much as a satirical parable, and I explain this in the podcast. But what is ultimately important is the last few verses of the last chapter. Not whether the whale wore a cape, so to speak.<\/p>\n One of our difficulties\u00a0reading ancient scripture is that our assumptions lead us to read it as if it were written today, as modern journalistic history.\u00a0 I\u2019m skimming a short book by John Widtsoe<\/a>, in which he wisely says,<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Micah<\/strong><\/p>\n Nine different guys in the\u00a0Old Testament are named Micah, the shortened form (nickname?) of Micaiah (\u201cWho is like Yahweh?\u201d) and Michael (\u201cWho is like \u2018El?\u201d) As chapter 1 verse 1 shows, Micah is set in\u00a0the time of Ahaz and Hezekiah, and thus contemporary with Isaiah (8th century BC). Micah is the first of \u201cThe Twelve\u201d or \u201cThe Minor Prophets\u201d that we\u2019ll be reading.<\/p>\n The Book of the Twelve functions as a collection of twelve individual prophetic works and as a single prophetic book. According to the [traditional Hebrew text], the twelve prophets include Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi. \u2013Dictionary of the Old Testament: Prophets<\/em><\/a>, \u201cTwelve, Book of the\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n As we get into Micah, we encounter for the first time in our\u00a0Old Testament study (and definitely not the last) the problem of interpreting scripture in the future tense. To make this perfectly clear, I\u2019m going to use what I consider an over-the-top example.<\/p>\n Some Protestants get obsessed with what they call \u201cEnd Times Prophecy\u201d or figuring out the\u00a0specific historical events, dates, and groups connected with\u00a0Jesus\u2019 return, The End of Days, The Rapture\u2122<\/strong>, and other such quasi-technical terms that get capitalized because They Are Important. Many groups have predicted specific dates for this.\u00a0Wikipedia has a list of groups and individuals who did so<\/a>, though it includes non-Judeo-Christian predictions as well. There\u2019s another list just for Christian predictions<\/a>. Most recently, you might recall hearing about Harold Camping<\/a>, a non-denominational Protestant with a long-running radio show who predicted the end for May 21, 2011. Shortly after May 21, he pushed back to Oct 21, 2011, which even those of us without watches might note has come and gone.<\/p>\n As it turns out, Christians (and some Jews) have been predicting the end of the world since probably before Jesus was born (in the case of the Dead Sea Scroll community). Like Camping, however,\u00a0they<\/em> are never the ones predicting it. From their perspective, it\u2019s Scripture that\u00a0says so, not them; they\u2019re just helping us understand what the Bible \u201cclearly\u201d teaches, without interpretation. We\u2019ll return to that in a minute.<\/p>\n Sociologists and historians have noted that in religious communities, expectations of the End tend to increase under persecution. Think of it this way. You\u2019re a religious group, probably\u00a0a minority, holding out against the World and\/or the oppressive Majority. As persecution, real or perceived, increases, these groups tend to focus on scriptural passages talking about oppression and deliverance, but not in a spiritual way; rather, God as the warrior will sweep away the evil of the earth, justify his true believers, and thus usher in the\u00a0\u00a0Golden Age.<\/p>\n This is what the Dead Sea Scroll community did, isolated from the larger Judaic community, but then especially when encountering the Romans, who were The Enemy. This is what Christians have done numerous times, including in the New Testament (Paul and the Thessalonians) and many times since. (See\u00a0A History of the End of the World: How the Most Controversial Book in the Bible Changed the Course of Western Civilization<\/a> Joseph Smith was born into a place and time\u00a0laden with expectations of Jesus\u2019 imminent return, and then physical persecution of LDS increased that expectation.\u00a0Joseph Smith actually inquired at one point (in the D&C!<\/a>), but was given an ambiguous answer<\/a>. Wilford Woodruff kept a journal largely devoted to noting earthquakes, storms, wars, and other signs of the times. Given the\u00a0government persecution of the saints during his tenure (1889-1898), Woodruff died surprised that he had not seen Jesus return. (You can read his journals, published as Waiting for World\u2019s End: The Diaries of Wilford Woodruff<\/a> This general belief is called Millenariansm, and it\u2019s been studied a good bit. Note the very last very short paragraph at the bottom of the Encyclopedia of Mormonism\u00a0<\/em>article\u00a0\u201cMillenarianism\u201d<\/a>, written by BYU prof. Grant Underwood. His dissertation was published as The Millenarian World of Early Mormonism<\/a> Now, what does all this have to do with Micah?<\/strong><\/p>\n All of these groups grounded their expectation and predictions of the (imminent) future in scripture. Scripture, however, is not so clear, which is why so many groups have been so wrong so often. \u00a0In order to tease out certain things, you often have to use a certain translation, and combine this part of a verse in Isaiah with that snippet from Malachi. But when read in context, it\u2019s very difficult to make the argument that, e.g. \u201cthis piece is clearly prophesying of the Restoration\u201d but then it\u2019s immediately thereafter talking about The Millennium. Read in context, it\u2019s hard to see how these passages\u00a0are doing that at all, but especially with the claimed specificity. Anyone who makes a scriptural claim of the date\/time of Christ\u2019s return will be made up of very specific\u00a0non-contextual<\/em> interpretations of scripture, while simultaneously denying that any interpreting is going on.<\/p>\n Now, I\u2019m not denying prophecy in the least, but I am suggesting that the only way certain passages mean\u00a0certain things to us is because we say or think they do, based on tradition, culture, etc. It\u2019s a bit circular.<\/p>\n Scriptural timeframes tend to be blurred, both for grammatical, stylistic (again, see my paper<\/a>), and other reasons; even prophets \u201csee through a glass, darkly\u201d and our manuals, while \u201capproved\u201d are hardly revealed directly from heaven.<\/p>\n Look at Micah 4:1-3.<\/p>\n In days to come the mountain of the LORD\u2019s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised up above the hills. Peoples shall stream to it, and many nations shall come and say: \u201cCome, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.\u201d For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He shall judge between many peoples, and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more; 4 but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the LORD of hosts has spoken. (NRSV)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n First, the text\u00a0is nearly identical to Isaiah 2, Isaiah being Micah\u2019s contemporary. Who borrowed from whom?<\/p>\n Second, and more importantly, look at how the time is blurred, in our interpretation. Vss. 3-4 talk about beating swords into plowshares, typically understood as reflective of a time of peace when Jesus returns. But we also typically interpret vss. 1-2 as referring to the restoration of the gospel and the Salt Lake Temple. But from Micah\u2019s prophet perspective, they are just smushed together, in the same time period.<\/p>\n In other words, having seen how difficult it is to tease out what scripture actually says about the future AND how often and easily many intelligent people over 2000 years have gotten it wrong, I am very reluctant to commit to blithe discussions such as \u201cMicah says in the last days, x will happen because of Y. Who or what is Y?\u201d If, as Paul did, as Christians have done numerous times since then, \u00a0we assume we\u2019re in the last days and It\u2019s Going to Happen Soon, we\u2019re going to try to shoehorn something in. Clearly, Micah is talking about the Romans. Or the Russians. Of the US Government. Or Islamic fundamentalists. Or gay marriage. Or, maybe in a Gospel Doctrine classroom in 50 years, the Chinese. Whoever the big bad apocalyptic enemy happens to be at the time.<\/p>\n I\u2019m a practical guy. I figure I\u2019ll focus my life on discipleship, instead of trying to pin things down that we simply can\u2019t really do without further detailed and clear revelation. Let\u2019s not force those square pegs into round holes; that way lies naught but confusion and distraction from productive discipleship. For more detailed questions and thoughts on Micah, see Jim Faulconer\u2019s old lesson here.<\/a>\u00a0He is a BYU Philosophy professor who\u2019s done some very good work. Most recently, many of his scriptural questions and analyses have been published in volumes like The Old Testament Made Harder<\/a> As always, you can help me pay my tuition here<\/a>. You can also get updates by email whenever a post goes up (subscription box on the right). You can also follow Benjamin the Scribe on Facebook<\/a>. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jonah Jonah is four short chapters. I\u2019ve done a lot with Jonah in the past,\u00a0addressing the short book several times, from several angles, including the history question. In brief, if you\u2019re focused on the \u201cwhale\u201d instead of\u00a0the last four verses of chapter 4, you\u2019re entirely missing the point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1720,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gospel-doctrine","category-old-testament"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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