Introduction to the Signs and Wonders in the Land of Egypt:
Exodus 7-12
By Andrew Gardner
Exodus
7:1-6 (ESV):
And the LORD said to Moses, "See,
I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your
prophet. You shall speak all that I
command you, and your brother Aaron shall tell Pharaoh to let the people of Israel
go out of his land. But I will harden
Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh will not listen to
you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and bring my hosts, my people the children
of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great acts of judgment. The Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD,
when I stretch out my hand against Egypt
and bring out the people of Israel
from among them." Moses and Aaron did
so; they did just as the LORD commanded them.
Throughout our
study this year, I struggled with the idea of polysemy, the idea that scripture
can have more than one meaning. This
problem stems from my Christian background, in which finding an absolute
meaning of scripture is usually stressed.
However, after studying Textual and Scriptural Reasoning, it became
clear to me that any one piece of scripture can have many meanings, intended by
God, for different people in different times, cultures, and struggles. I believe that God used the same verses of
scripture for different meanings at different times in my life. Does this mean that one of the readings was
wrong? Surely not. Myriad meanings portray God's will to me at
different times because I am constantly facing different circumstances.
A
few weeks ago, I was reading The Call
by popular conservative Christian writer, Os Guinness. The idea of polysemy hit home when I read the
following:
The fallacy of particularism stems
from the fact that God has not spoken definitively to us about everything. Obviously he did not intend to. It is an error for Christians to make
relative what God has made absolute. But it is equally an error for Christians to
make absolute what God has left relative [italics mine]. As G. K. Chesterson wrote,
"If there is one thing worse than the modern weakening of major morals it is
the modern strengthening of minor morals."
Put differently, where God has not spoken definitively, we can
legitimately say, "This practice (political decision, lifestyle, or whatever)
is not Christian-if it contradicts
the teaching of the Bible. But we cannot
legitimately go on to say, "This practice alone is Christian."[1]
In the above
quote, Guinness expresses the problem with the Christian tendency to "make
absolute what God has left relative." I
believe that this can be applied to troubling scripture. For example, the first commandment, I
believe, is quite clear, "You shall have no other gods before me."[2] However, the topic of discussion for this
journal, Exodus 7-12, suggests much that even seemingly straightforward texts
can have more than one meaning or be troubling, such as the reasons for the 10
plagues, the redemption in Egypt, and the hardening of Pharaohs heart, all of
which will be discussed in the following essays.
Without getting any further into the discussion of polysemy, I would like
to come to the point at hand, the use of Scriptural Reasoning in these
essays. First and foremost, I think that
the reader can see Scriptural Reasoning as addressing both personal and
religious issues. I will discuss this
topic in this introduction to the journal.
However, the real emphasis of Scriptural Reasoning is how the repair
work is performed on these troubling texts.
While every human being reasons in his or her own way, there are clear
commonalities in their approaches.
However, I will discuss them in the conclusion of the journal after the
reader has read the essays and can see the reasoning at work.
So what can we say in general about the problems in scripture that are
addressed in Scriptural Reasoning? In
all of these essays, the problems with the scripture arise from two main areas:
the personal and the religious. The personal
consists of emotional, situational, temporal, and cultural beliefs developed
out of one's own experiences. The
religious consists of the concerns developed from one's own religious beliefs. In all of these essays, both factors trouble
the text. The process of making sense of
these problems is what we call Scriptural Reasoning.
So what are the main contributions that each writer in this journal makes
here, and what in the Exodus text creates the problems that lead to the need
for Scriptural Reasoning? While I cannot
fully understand the motives behind each writer's scriptural concerns (nor,
likely, can they), I can point out classic American cultural ideas, as well as
situational ones that could create concerns in the text. First, the free-will of Pharaoh, as discussed
in Daniel Harris' essay, is largely a cultural concern. American culture places great emphasis on
individualism, and as a result, the idea of God taking someone's free-will
seems both foreign and unjust. Harris
writes, "If God can relieve man of his free-will, what are the conditions of
such degradation?"[3] That Harris, and American readers in general,
considers the relinquishment of free-will a degradation is evidence of this
cultural baggage that we carry to the text, which begs the use of Scriptural
Reasoning. In other times and cultures,
the idea of God taking someone's free-will may not have been as foreign because
people may not have valued it as highly.
The American idea of freedom also contributes to our problems with this
text. As in Daniel Crane's discussion of
the Egyptian people, the idea that the Egyptians were not free of Pharaoh's
will seems alien to us.[4] So, cultural baggage again can contribute to
a problem with a text, which Scriptural Reasoning seeks to alleviate.
The next main contributor to the personal arena that causes trouble with
these texts is situational concerns. All
of us are aware of social injustices committed against groups of people:
genocide, racism, and the Holocaust in particular. As a result, we are sensitive to any form of
general punishment toward a large group of people. This sensitivity is found in all of the
essays as they seek to address the large scale punishment toward the Egyptians
in the form of the 10 plagues. As
Jessica Kirzner puts it:
The events in
Exodus are very grandiose, perhaps even excessive. Why do there need to be ten plagues
Wouldnt
six plagues have been sufficient
why does each have to be so dramatic, so
extensive? I feel that, having seen the
great capability for human injustice towards other groups of humans, all of us
as readers beg the question: what is just about God's seeming injustice toward
the Egyptians?[5]
Lastly, and this is seen clearly throughout the journal, the writers
display religious concerns with the text.
Each brought the idea of God as just to the text, and, as a result of
reading of God's punishment of the Egyptians, must somehow explain Gods
reasons for the 10 plagues. How can a
God who is depicted by our religions as the exemplar of justice exterminate a
whole group of people? How can He
justify killing the firstborn children in each Egyptian household during the
Passover? How can He justify the mass
extermination of the Egyptians at the Red Sea? While each writer uses different explanations
of God's justice to justify the plagues, there are many similarities in the
process involved. This is the essence of
Scriptural Reasoning and I will discuss these details in the conclusion of this
journal.
Now, I will give a brief summary of the main issues discussed by each
author and how they reason through the Exodus scripture. To start, in Daniel Crane's "The Wickedness
of Egypt: Spiritual Slavery in the Land
of Pharaoh,"[6] the troubling moments in the text
evolve largely out of the punishment delivered to the Egyptians in the
plagues. The questions he addresses are
about God's justice and the reasons why He decided the people of Egypt should
receive the plagues.
Next, in Daniel Harris' essay "Pharaoh's Hardened Heart: Vengeance and
Redemption in the Story of Exodus"[7]
deals with the hardening of Pharaohs heart.
How can a just God take someone's free-will and then punish them for
their actions? How can He justify taking
free-will in the first place? Harris
seeks to answer these questions by reading the texts through both Jewish and
Christian reasonings. He draws from
Rashi, Nahmanides, Maimonides, and Origen to create a picture of how the
hardening of Pharaoh's heart can be justified.
Kirzner's essay "Unity in Thankfulness: The Establishment of Israelite
Peoplehood[8] attempts
to justify the plagues and Gods justice in them. She draws upon Rashi to examine the
possibility that God was justified in the plagues because He wished to create a
dramatic story to be remembered by all generations and to elicit thankfulness
from His people. This story would serve
to remind Jews, above all, that God is the one and only god, and that He is
their god.
Lastly, Ben Parziale's essay "Moses, a God to Pharaoh"[9]
seeks to answer questions of God's justice regarding the plagues. Drawing upon the New Testament and Moses'
relation to Jesus, he shows that in order for God to remain just, He cannot
deal directly with Pharaoh. Parziale
also reasons through ideas of redemption and fulfillment of prophecy.
In all, I believe that these essays are excellent examples of Scriptural
Reasoning. Not only do they deal with
many troubling ideas in scripture, but they also successfully address the
complicated issues associated with God's justice. So let these essays be a model of not only
how Scriptural Reasoning works, but also how these traditions justify the
actions of God, even when His actions do not easily fit with our paradigms for
justice. So relax, and enjoy reading
through these essays. I hope that you
benefit from the experience as much as I did.
ENDNOTES
[1]
Guinness, Os. The Call. (Nashville: W Publishing
Group, 2003) 98.
[2] Exodus
20:3.
[3] Harris,
Daniel. Pharaohs Hardened Heart:
Vengeance and Redemption in the Story of Exodus, p. 22 of this journal.
[4] Crane,
Daniel. The Wickedness of Egypt: Spiritual Slavery in the Land of Pharaoh. p.
7-21.
[5] Kirzner,
Jessica. Unity in Thankfulness: The Establishment of Israelite Peoplehood. (Below Essay). (p. 36).
[6] Crane,
Daniel. The Wickedness of Egypt: Spiritual Slavery in the Land of Pharaoh. (Below Essay). (pp. 7-21).
[7] Harris,
Daniel. Pharaohs Hardened Heart: Vengeance and Redemption in the Story of
Exodus. (Below Essay). (pp. 22-32).
[8] Kirzner,
Jessica. Unity in Thankfulness: The Establishment of Israelite Peoplehood. (Below Essay). (pp. 33-43).
[9]
Parziale, Ben. Moses, a god to Pharaoh. (Below Essay). (pp. 44-51).
© 2007, Society for Scriptural Reasoning
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