When Was the Gospel of Luke Written?

When were the four Gospels written?

Ultimately, from a faith perspective, the precise dates do not matter. What matters is that they are divinely inspired and thus authoritative for faith.

However, by showing that the Gospels were written in the first century, within a few decades of Jesus’ life, we strengthen their credibility even from a secular perspective.

Today virtually all scholars—whether skeptical or believing—acknowledge that the Gospels are first century documents.

The real question is how early in the first century they were written.

That’s what we’ll examine in this series.

 

The Importance of Acts

More than a century ago, the liberal German scholar Adolf von Harnack published a work titled The Date of the Acts and the Synoptic Gospels in which he considered this question.

As the title suggests, he considered the date of Acts first, the reason being that it’s easier to establish this date and then determine the dates of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) with respect to it.

Acts is important because it’s the sequel to the Gospel of Luke (Acts 1:1-2), so the date of Acts determines the latest possible date for Luke.

So . . . when was Acts written?

 

Its Sudden Ending

The first twelve chapters of Acts are concerned principally with St. Peter, and from chapter 13 onward, St. Paul becomes the focus of the narrative.

Beginning in chapter 21, Paul makes a fateful trip to Jerusalem, being prophetically warned along the way that if he goes there, he will be arrested. This indeed happens, and the rest of the book is taken up with the consequences of this event.

Paul spends years in custody, and in chapter 25 a turning point occurs when the new Roman governor, Porcius Festus, arrives. To avoid having the outcome of his trial affected by the hostile Jewish authorities, Paul invokes his Roman citizenship and the right to have his case tried before Caesar (the Caesar in question being Nero at this time). Festus then replies:

You have appealed to Caesar; to Caesar you shall go (Acts 25:12).

The rest of the book is taken up with the events leading up to Paul’s voyage to Rome and what happened on that trip. Acts ends in chapter 28 with Paul under house arrest in Rome, awaiting his trial. Luke simply says:

And he lived there two whole years at his own expense, and welcomed all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ quite openly and unhindered (Acts 28:30-31).

That’s it! We get no resolution on what happened when Paul appeared before Nero.

 

The Significance of the Ending

Many scholars have pointed out that the book’s abrupt ending is highly significant for when it was written.

It makes no sense, if Luke knew the outcome of the trial, for him to cut off the narrative at this point. He has been building toward this climactic event for eight chapters, and yet he doesn’t tell us what happened!

This is all the more striking, because whatever happened to Paul would have suited Luke’s purposes:

  • If Paul was acquitted at this trial then Luke could portray Paul and the gospel as gloriously vindicated.
  • If Paul was imprisoned or martyred then Luke could portray Paul as gloriously and heroically suffering for the gospel, as he has done so often in the book.

We learn from later sources that the first is actually what happened, that Paul was released and conducted a further period of ministry, only to be re-arrested and martyred after Nero found it convenient to blame Christians for the Great Fire of Rome in A.D. 64.

Yet Luke gives us neither of these endings. The only reasonable conclusion is that he didn’t do this because he couldn’t: The trial had not yet happened.

Adolf von Harnack comments:

Throughout eight whole chapters St. Luke keeps his readers intensely interested in the progress of the trial of St. Paul, simply that he may in the end completely disappoint them—they learn nothing of the final result of the trial! . . .

The more clearly we see that the trial of St. Paul, and above all his appeal to Caesar, is the chief subject of the last quarter of the Acts, the more hopeless does it appear that we can explain why the narrative breaks off as it does, otherwise than by assuming that the trial had actually not yet reached its close. It is no use to struggle against this conclusion. If St. Luke, in the year 80, 90, or 100, wrote thus he was not simply a blundering but an absolutely incomprehensible historian! (pp. 95, 97).

Harnack also points out that Luke repeatedly records prophecies of future events in Acts, yet he makes no mention of Paul’s ultimate fate:

St. Luke allows Agabus to foretell a famine, to foretell St. Paul’s imprisonment in Jerusalem; he suffers St. Paul himself (on the voyage) to foretell, like a fortune-teller, the fate of the ship and all its passengers; he in many chapters of the book deals in all kinds of “spiritual” utterances and prophecies—but not one word is said concerning the final destiny of St. Paul (and of St. Peter)! Is this natural? There are prophecies concerning events of minor importance, while there is nothing about the greatest event of all! (pp. 97-98, emphasis in original).

This further reinforces the conclusion that Acts was written before the events to which it has been building were concluded.

 

The Date of Acts

So in what year was Acts written? When does its narrative break off?

This is disputed by scholars. The problem is that we do not know precisely when the governor Festus arrived in Judaea.

This is the key event for determining when Paul’s voyage to Rome began and thus when his two-year period of house arrest began.

Many estimate that Festus arrived in A.D. 59, and so Paul arrived in Rome early in 60, and his house arrest lasted from 60 to 62.

However, I have done a (currently unpublished) study of the issue, and I agree with scholars such as Jack Finegan and Andrew Steinmann that Festus arrived in 57. That would mean that Paul arrived in Rome in early 58, and his house arrest lasted from 58 to 60.

I thus conclude that Acts was written in 60.

 

The Date of Luke

The Gospel of Luke was written before Acts, but how much before? A careful study of the end of the Gospel suggests it was not long.

This can be seen by comparing its end with the end of one of Luke’s sources—the Gospel of Mark. The original ending of Mark may have been lost, but it concludes in a way that indicates what would have happened. An angel tells the women who have come to Jesus’ tomb:

But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you (Mark 16:7; cf. 14:28).

Mark thus envisions a post-Resurrection appearance of Jesus to the disciples in Galilee. This is also what happens in Matthew (see Matt. 28:7, 10, 16-20).

However, Luke omits this reference and focuses instead on post-Resurrection appearances that occurred in Jerusalem and its vicinity (Luke 24:13-53). He makes no mention of the disciples going to Galilee. Instead, Luke records Jesus telling the disciples:

Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; but stay in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:46-49).

Notice: Repentance is to be preached to all nations “beginning from Jerusalem” and the disciples are to “stay in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high.”

Although this difference has led some to see Luke as contradicting Mark and Matthew, in reality there is no conflict. The truth is that Jesus appeared to the disciples both in the vicinity of Jerusalem (John 20:19-31) and in Galilee (John 21:1-23). Luke simply focuses on the first location, while Mark and Matthew focus on the latter.

For our purposes, the question is: Why did Luke choose to end his Gospel as he did?

The obvious answer is that he was already planning what he was going to write in Acts. Thus at the beginning of the latter, he records Jesus telling the disciples:

But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8).

This directly echoes the end of Luke’s Gospel:

  • “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” refers to the events of Pentecost and corresponds to “stay in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49).
  • “You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth” is the outline of the book of Acts and corresponds to “repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in [Christ’s] name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things” (Luke 24:47-48).

Other elements of the end of the Gospel are also recapitulated in Acts, including the Ascension (Luke 24:51// Acts 1:9-11), the disciples return to Jerusalem (Luke 24:52//Acts 1:12), and their regular worship in the temple (Luke 24:53//Acts 2:46, etc.).

The presence of these elements at the end of Luke, and particularly the way he diverges from Mark, indicates that he was already planning what he would write in Acts.

This indicates that no long period of time can have passed between the composition of Luke’s Gospel and its sequel. If years had elapsed then we wouldn’t find the Gospel ending the way it does.

I therefore estimate that Luke was finished immediately before Acts, likely in A.D. 59, and that Luke used the two-year period of Paul’s house arrest in Rome to finish gathering material for and to compose his two masterworks.

In fact, much of the material found in the first twelve chapters of Acts—which focus on Peter—as well as some of the material unique to Luke’s Gospel, likely came from interviews that Luke conducted with Peter in Rome during this period.

We thus find there are good reasons for thinking that Luke and Acts were both composed in Rome, around A.D. 59 and 60, respectively.

What can we say about the other Gospels? That’s what we will turn to next.

Jesus’ Mysterious Prophecy About the Temple

The destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70AD —
a painting by David Roberts (1796-1849).

Skeptical scholar Bart Ehrman argues that the Gospels were written between A.D. 60 and 115.

I’d put the beginning of that range a little earlier and say they were written between 50 and 115, so he and I are in general agreement on the broad time frame in which they were composed.

Where we disagree is on the part of the range in which they were written.

I think they were written toward the first part of the range, between 50 and 70.

However, like many scholars, Ehrman thinks Mark was written around 70, Matthew and Luke around 80-85, and John around 90-95.

Why does he think that?

 

The Destruction of the Temple

A key event used—one way or another—by virtually all scholars when dating the Gospels is the conquest of Jerusalem and the destruction of its temple in A.D. 70.

The reason is that the Synoptic Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—all report that Jesus repeatedly predicted this event.

Many scholars, including Ehrman, think that this suggests they were written after the event. He writes:

It is frequently noted that the earliest Gospels seem to presuppose the destruction of the city of Jerusalem and of the Jewish temple, as happened in 70 CE.

And so, for example, in Mark’s Gospel Jesus indicates that the nation of Israel will be destroyed (12:9) and that the temple will not be left standing (13:1-2).

Matthew is even more explicit: here Jesus tells a parable in which God is portrayed as burning the city and killing its inhabitants (22:8).

Luke has similar passages (e.g., 21:24).

All these passages seem to presuppose that by the time the books were written, the destruction had happened.

Is Ehrman right about this?

 

An Objection

Ehrman considers an important objection:

Someone may respond by saying that in these passages Jesus is predicting the destruction of the [sic] Jerusalem, not looking back on it. Fair enough!

Good for Ehrman! He deserves props for acknowledging that not every prediction is made after the fact.

Jerusalem had been invaded an conquered multiple times, and its temple had already been destroyed once (by the Babylonians).

The fear of the nation’s holiest site being destroyed again—this time to the hated Romans—was real. Others worried about it (cf. John 11:48-50), and Jesus wasn’t the only person to predict that it would happen.

In fact, he wasn’t even the only person named Jesus to predict it would happen. The Jewish historian Josephus records that in A.D. 62 a man named Jesus son of Ananus began to prophesy exactly the same thing (Jewish War 6:5:3).

So the mere fact the Gospels record the prediction doesn’t mean they were written after the event.

To show that, you’d need more.

 

Ehrman’s Response

So how does Ehrman argue his case? He writes:

But when is a Christian author likely to record a prediction of Jesus in order to show that he predicted something accurately?

Obviously, in order to show that Jesus knew what he was talking about, an author would want to write about these predictions only after they had been fulfilled.

Otherwise the reader would be left hanging, not knowing if Jesus was a true prophet or not.

So even if we assume that Jesus did predict such things, the fact that they are written so confidently by later authors suggests that they did so after the events – that is, after the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 CE.

Ehrman’s argument is seriously flawed.

It is not true that “an author would want to write about these predictions only after they had been fulfilled.”

The authors of the Gospels were all Christians, and they believed Jesus was a true prophet.

The audiences for whom the Gospels were written were also composed of Christians who believed Jesus was a true prophet.

They therefore would want to know what this prophet foretold, and the authors would want to tell them.

 

Important Prophecies

Space limitations constrained the size of ancient books, so an author might not be able to record everything he knew a prophet said, but he would want to at least report the prophet’s most important predictions—even if they had not yet been fulfilled.

Thus the Evangelists—and other New Testament authors—also report that Jesus is going to come again in the future.

But we’d never accept the argument that the New Testament authors would want to report predictions of the Second Coming “only after they had been fulfilled”!

Like the Second Coming, the conquest of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple were important prophecies—important enough that they are mentioned explicitly and repeatedly in three of the Gospels (and reflected in the fourth).

They are precisely the kind of thing that the Evangelists would want to record to let Christians know what Jesus had said would be happening in the future.

 

A Pre-70 Evangelist’s Perspective

Suppose that you were a Christian writing a Gospel before the destruction of Jerusalem, for an audience that still has many, many Jewish Christians in it.

And suppose you know that Jesus prophesied the temple would be destroyed “in this generation.”

Do you say to yourself, “Should I record this? Nah! Nobody’s going to care about a national/religious cataclysm like that”?

Do you say, “Hmm. I better wait and see if this prophecy is fulfilled before I write about it”?

Of course not!

You tell your audience about this important, yet-to-be-fulfilled prophecy, just like you tell them about the Second Coming.

Ehrman’s argument is without merit.

 

On the Other Hand . . .

The fact the Gospels contain the prediction also doesn’t mean that they were written before 70.

They contain many prophecies of Jesus which were already fulfilled when they were written (e.g., “The Son of man will be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him; and when he is killed, after three days he will rise”; Mark 9:31).

So, like Ehrman, I also need to offer something more if I want to argue that Jesus’ prophecy about the temple was not yet fulfilled when the Gospels were written.

It so happens I’ve recently been doing a detailed, multi-angle study on just that subject.

Space limitations constrain the size of blog posts, so I can’t share anything like the full results of that study, but let me give you just one argument, in capsule form.

 

The Second Coming

We’ve already noted that the Gospels contain an important prediction that almost everyone agrees has not yet been fulfilled—the Second Coming of Christ.

What we haven’t previously noted is that the passages in which Jesus most extensively discusses the destruction of the temple (Matt. 24, Mark 13, Luke 21) also contain predictions of an event that looks very much like the Second Coming.

Either the Evangelists recorded prophecies of the Second Coming right next to prophecies of the destruction of the temple or they recorded prophecies of a different kind of coming in conjunction with those about the temple.

Either way, it would have been very easy for the first Gospel readers to think that Jesus predicted that the Second Coming would happen in proximity to the destruction of the temple.

That tells us something about when the Gospels were written, because if they were written after A.D. 70, the Evangelists would not want to give their audience the impression that the prophecy of the Second Coming had failed to occur on schedule, when the temple was destroyed.

Had they been writing after that event, they would have made it clear that the Second Coming was something distinct, that Jesus hadn’t said it would occur with the destruction of the temple.

We thus have good evidence that the Gospels—or at least those that explicitly contain the prophecy of the temple’s destruction (Matthew, Mark, and Luke)—were written before it was fulfilled, not after.

The Weekly Francis – 21 November 2018

This version of The Weekly Francis covers material released in the last week from 1 May 2018 to 21 November 2018.

Angelus

General Audiences

Homilies

Letters

Messages

Speeches

Papal Tweets

  • “Do not follow Jesus only when you feel like it, rather, seek Him every day. Find in Him the God who loves you always, the meaning of your life and the strength to give of yourself.” @Pontifex 16 November 2018
  • “Nobody can delude themselves by thinking, “I’m fine because I’m not doing anything wrong”. To be a follower of Jesus it is not enough not to do wrong, because there is good that we must do!” @Pontifex 17 November 2018
  • “Let us ask for the grace to open our eyes and hearts to the poor in order to hear their cry and recognize their needs. #WorldDayofthePoor
    http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/poveri/documents/papa-francesco_20180613_messaggio-ii-giornatamondiale-poveri–2018.html …” @Pontifex 18 November 2018
  • “You cannot love only as long as it is “advantageous”. Love manifests itself when it goes beyond one’s own self-interest, and when it is given without reservation.” @Pontifex 19 November 2018
  • “Faithfulness is the characteristic of free, mature and responsible human relationships.” @Pontifex 20 November 2018
  • “Since today is World Fisheries Day, let us pray for all seafarers and advocate for a global commitment to stop human trafficking and forced labor in the fishing industry. #WorldFisheriesDay” @Pontifex 21 November 2018
  • “May the Virgin Mary help us joyfully follow Jesus on the way of service, the royal road that leads to Heaven.” @Pontifex 21 November 2018

Papal Instagram

Emissary – Secrets of Star Trek

Emissary

The first episode of Star Trek: Deep Space 9 is perhaps the best first episode of any Trek series. Jimmy Akin, Dom Bettinelli, and Fr. Cory Sticha discuss the introduction of Sisko, his fatherhood, his resentments and reluctance, and the religious overtones that will last through the series.

  • Help us continue to offer the Secrets of Star Trek. Won’t you make a pledge at SQPN.com/give today?
  • You can watch most Star Trek series on Netflix or Amazon.
  • Join the conversation at the SQPN Facebook page.
  • Send your feedback or comments to trek@sqpn.com

Direct Link to the Episode.

Subscribe on iTunes. | Other Ways to Subscribe.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Kerblam! – The Secrets of Doctor Who

We celebrate our 100th episode with a BANG! Jimmy Akin, Dom Bettinelli, and Fr. Cory Sticha discuss “Kerblam!” and how it completely subverts your expectations and the usual tropes about technology, automation, and people.

Direct Link to the Episode.

Subscribe on iTunes. | Other Ways to Subscribe.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

God Under Another Name?

A reader writes:

Old Testament scholars like Knauf and Romer make a case for YHWH being a storm god related to Qos and Edomite religion, based on a linguistic case.

If their theory was plausible and you had to accept it, how would you reconcile that with your faith? Assume that their arguments are very convincing. How would you reconcile that with orthodox theology?

Since most people aren’t very familiar with the Edomites, let me begin my response with some background . . .

 

Meeting the Edomites

The Edomites were a people who lived in a region to the south of Israel. The Old Testament indicates that they were related to the Israelites. Their patriarch—Edom, also known as Esau—was the brother of Jacob, who was also known as Israel. The two peoples are thus deemed as being related by blood.

Just as Jacob and Esau had a sibling rivalry, so did the peoples that descended from them, and they often found themselves in competition and conflict, though they also had a shared sense of kinship that endured.

Thus one of the criticisms of the Edomites in the book of Obadiah is that they took advantage of Israel’s distress and even raided Jerusalem, despite the fact that they were kinsmen (Obad. 10-14).

This sense of kinship indicates a shared heritage that would likely includes religious elements. Thus we find archaeological evidence of the worship of Yahweh in Edom. Bert Dicou explains:

Evidence for an old connection of YHWH with Edom can also be found in extra-biblical sources. Some inscriptions found in Kuntillet ’Ajrud, mentioning the ‘YHWH of Teman’ besides a ‘YHWH of Samaria’, may even be interpreted as suggesting that in Edom (at least, in Teman) around 800 bce (the time of the inscriptions) YHWH was worshipped, since the expression ‘YHWH of Samaria’ clearly refers to YHWH as present in his cultic centre in Samaria (Edom, Israel’s Brother and Antagonist, 179).

 

The Deity Qos

The major Edomite deity was named Qos, and scholars have wondered about the relationship between Qos and Yahweh. Unfortunately, the Old Testament gives us virtually no positive information, although some have tried to mount an argument from silence. Dicou explains:

A problem within the religion history of Israel and its neighbours is the puzzling absence of the most important Edomite god, Qos, in the Old Testament. Whereas the gods of the other neighbours are rejected as well as mentioned by their names, neither happens to the Edomite god or gods. . . .

This can possibly be explained by assuming that Edom’s Qos did not differ very much from Israel’s YHWH—which must have made it difficult to reject him. It has been asserted that there are important correspondences between YHWH and Edom’s god Qos (176-177).

 

Same God, Different Name?

One possibility is thus that Qos and Yahweh are the same God being referred to by different terms.

This would not be surprising, as in the Old Testament itself, Yahweh is referred to by multiple terms: El, Elohim, Adonai, etc.

The same is true of other deities in the Old Testament. Thus the generic term Ba’al (Hebrew, “Master”) is also called Hadad, Chemosh, etc.

We often see how the same deity could be called by different terms across linguistic barriers. Thus the Latin-speaking Romans referred to the same deity by the names of Jupiter and Jove that Greek-speakers referred to as Zeus.

Even today, language barriers result in Christians all over the world using different terms for God:

  • Spanish-speaking Christians refer to God as Dios
  • Polish-speaking Christians refer to God as Bog
  • German-speaking Christians refer to God as Gott
  • Arabic-speaking Christians refer to God as Allah
  • Finnish-speaking Christians refer to God as Jumala
  • Hungarian-speaking Christians refer to God as Isten

You get the point.

Given all this terminological diversity, it’s quite possible that the Israelites and the Edomites, at least at times, simply used different terms for the same deity.

This is all the more plausible since the Edomites didn’t speak exactly the same language as the Israelites, and even in Hebrew, God can be referred to with terms as different as El and Yahweh.

Maybe in Edomite he was Yahweh and Qos.

This would explain why Qos isn’t condemned in the Old Testament the way other foreign deities are.

 

Yahweh a Storm God?

The reader referred to the idea that Yahweh and Qos may have been storm gods, but we need to be careful here.

In the Old Testament, Yahweh is not presented simply as a storm god. He is the God of everything, and everything includes storms.

Storms are very powerful, and thus they make a good metaphor for divine power. It’s thus no surprise that various Old Testament books use storm imagery in connection with Yahweh.

Despite the use of storm themes in the Old Testament, the biblical writers did not conceive of Yahweh simply as a storm god.

For them, he was the everything God—the Creator of the entire world—and they also use fire themes, harvest themes, healing themes, birth themes, death themes, battle themes, and many others. But that wouldn’t let us reduce Yahweh to simply being a fire god, a harvest god, a healing god, a birth god, a death god, or a war god.

 

Yahweh vs. Ba’al

There’s also another reason to be careful about thinking of Yahweh as principally a storm god: When the Old Testament uses such imagery in connection with him, it is often part of a deliberate attempt to subvert Ba’al worship.

In the Canaanite pantheon, Ba’al was the storm god. In Canaanite mythology, Ba’al also famously had a conflict with the sea god, Yam, who he conquered.

During much of the Old Testament period, Israelites were tempted to worship Ba’al (and the other Canaanite deities), but the prophets make it very clear that Yahweh and Ba’al are two different deities.

That’s why—if you’ll pardon a storm-related pun—they thunderously denounce Ba’al worship.

We thus find the biblical authors using Ba’al-related imagery to subvert Ba’al worship. By using storm imagery for Yahweh, they are saying, “Ba’al isn’t the true lord of the storm; Yahweh is.”

Similarly, the biblical authors subvert Ba’al worship when they make it clear that it was actually Yahweh who set the boundaries of the sea (Job 38:10-11, Prov. 8:29, Psa. 104:9, Jer. 5:22)—the Hebrew word for which is also yam.

We thus have to be careful that we recognize what the biblical authors are doing with storm imagery and not simply reduce Yahweh to being a storm god.

 

Revelation, Loss, and Clarification

The Bible depicts God and man as experiencing an original unity. This implies that God revealed himself to us at the dawn of our race.

However, as the Old Testament makes clear, our knowledge of God became disfigured by sin, and the worship of other gods was introduced.

The disfigurement became so bad that, prior to the time of Abraham, the ancestors of the Israelites worshipped the Mesopotamian deities (Josh. 24:2, 14-15).

But God began to rebuild knowledge of himself by calling Abraham and giving him new revelation. This knowledge was further clarified with the revelation given to Moses, and later through the prophets and other biblical writers.

We thus see a process whereby the original knowledge of God was largely lost, but God began to reintroduce knowledge of who he was and thus clarify our understanding of him.

This process was gradual and messy. At first, many of God’s people worshipped other deities in addition to him (Gen. 31:34-35, Lev. 17:7, Josh. 24:14). This continued even after God brought the Israelites into the promised land.

But through the prophets’ repeated calls, God made it clear to the Israelites that this must stop, and by the end of the Babylonian Exile, the practice was definitively ended.

 

Avoiding Overreach

One of the difficulties that scholars have in piecing together how this process worked is the small amount of information we have about this period in history.

Aside from the Old Testament, we have little literature about Israel and its immediate neighbors (Edom, Moab, Midian, etc.), and the Old Testament does not give us a great deal of information about many of these questions.

As a result, scholars are often left to simply guess at many issues pertaining to these early periods.

For example, one scholar (M. Rose) has proposed that Qos was not the same deity as Yahweh, and his worship was introduced only later. Dicou explains:

Rose maintains that only in later times, namely the eighth or seventh centuries bce, did the god Qos, of Arabian origin, come to be known in Edom. Nothing is known about the god who was worshipped before Qos, but it is not unlikely that it was the same god as the one of the Israelites, namely, ‘YHW’ (178).

In other words, the Edomites may have originally worshipped Yahweh, but later Qos was introduced and became their most popular deity.

How would that transition have happened? We don’t know.

Would it even have been clear to the Edomites from the beginning that Yahweh and Qos were different deities? We don’t know that either.

Scholars of religion have noted that there can sometimes be confusion about the identity or non-identity of deities, and it can go back and forth.

Sometimes—for some worshippers—Deity X will be regarded as the same as Deity Y. But other times—for other worshippers—Deity X and Deity Y will be clearly distinct.

Thus in different streams of Hinduism, the deities are sometimes considered to be separate, but in other streams they are all considered aspects of a single, ultimate God.

Closer to home, the God of the Bible was regarded by the first Christians as one, but heretics like Marcion and the Gnostics came to think of the God of the Old Testament as a fundamentally different being than the God of the New Testament.

A modern example of the same phenomenon can be seen in the fact that many Christians today are willing to acknowledge that God is also worshipped by Jews and Muslims, even if they have an incomplete or partially erroneous understanding of him. But others will vigorously deny that Muslims worship the same God as Christians.

The same phenomenon happened in the ancient world. Not everybody had the same understanding of whether this god was the same as that god.

Therefore, some Edomites may have understood Yahweh and Qos to be the same, but others may have disagreed, and the popularity of the two viewpoints may have gone back and forth over time.

We just don’t know.

This is why we have to be careful to avoid overreach—to avoid going beyond what the evidence allows us to say with confidence.

Scholars may legitimately speculate about how the identification or non-identification of various gods developed over time, precisely how the worship of these gods arose and when, etc., however we must always bear in mind that these are just speculations.

The truth is that we don’t have the evidence we would need to be sure.

 

“Not Without Witness”

Although the biblical evidence—as well as the archaeological record—makes it clear that man’s knowledge of the Creator was strongly disfigured, the New Testament establishes the principle that he did not leave himself without witness.

In Acts, Paul explains that he did so at least through the creation itself:

In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways; yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good and gave you from heaven rains and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness (Acts 14:16-17).

He makes a similar point in Romans:

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made (Rom. 1:19-20).

And thus people in various cultures have reasoned their way to the existence of the Creator. This included figures in polytheistic Greece, some of whom Paul quotes:

Yet he is not far from each one of us, for “In him we live and move and have our being”; as even some of your poets have said, “For we are indeed his offspring” (Acts 17:27-28).

If God cared enough to make it possible for us to always learn about him through creation—what is sometimes called “general revelation”—then it is reasonable to suppose that he also always continued to give “special revelation”—that is knowledge about him disclosed through visions, prophecies, etc.

This would apply even in the dark times before Abraham and Moses and even in communities other than Israel.

Thus we find figures like the Jebusite king Melchizedek, who “was priest of God Most High” (Gen. 14:18), the Midianite priest Jethro, who rejoiced at what God did for Israel under Moses (Exod. 18:9-12), and the Mesopotamian prophet Balaam, who prophesied for Yahweh (Num. 22:8-24:25).

We thus see a knowledge and worship of the true God outside of Israel in these early times.

At our remote date, we cannot know the details of this knowledge and worship. It may have—and in fact almost certainly was—partial and at times confused, for that is what we see within Israel itself, as the struggles of the prophets indicate.

However, we can say that God always preserved a knowledge of himself, however dimly he was understood in a particular age, and however hybridized his worship came to be with pagan ideas.

We may be thankful that he did lead the Israelites along the path he did, that he did restore knowledge of himself, that he did clear away pagan confusions, and that he finally gave us the full revelation of himself in Jesus Christ, his Son.

 

Summary

With the above as background, I would offer a short summary of the response to the reader’s initial query as follows:

  • The speculations about Yahweh and Qos being storm gods who were related is, in fact, not at all certain.
  • However, even if it could be proved, there are a number of ways to square this with an orthodox Christian understanding:
    • Yahweh and Qos may well have been the same deity being worshipped under two names.
    • Yahweh may have been the earlier deity and Qos only introduced later.
    • God has always preserved knowledge of himself in the world. Even though it has been partial and overlaid with misunderstandings, God eventually clarified it and gave us his definitive revelation through his Son.

What Every Catholic Should Know About Obadiah

A Short Book

Obadiah is only 21 verses long, which makes it the shortest book of the Old Testament.

Because it’s so short, it doesn’t contain as much data as other books, and that means we have less to work with when answering important questions about it, like who wrote it and when.

As a result, scholars have taken a wide variety of positions on the book, and the debate has been vigorous.

 

The Author

Obadiah doesn’t tell us anything about its author except his name, and even that is uncertain, because vowels can be added to the Hebrew letters in more than one way, so that it either means “Worshipper of Yahweh” or “Servant of Yahweh.”

Obadiah was a very common name in the Old Testament, and scholars think that the Obadiah who wrote the book is not mentioned elsewhere. We know him only from his own book.

He apparently was a prophet from the southern kingdom of Judah, for reasons we are just about to see.

 

What Is This Book About?

Obadiah consists of a single, sustained prophecy of God’s coming judgment on the nation of Edom for its wrongs against Judah.

Edom was a kindred nation to Israel. The latter was descended from the patriarch Jacob (akaIsrael), while the former was descended from his brother Esau (aka Edom).

The sibling rivalry between Jacob and Esau are reflected in the subsequent history of the nations that sprang from them, and they were often hostile toward each other—a hostility made more bitter by the fact they regarded each other as kindred.

At one point, King David conquered them (2 Sam. 8:14), but they later rebelled (2 Kings 8:22).

The Edomites lived in a mountainous hill country to the south of Israel. But, in the 400s B.C., another people—the Nabateans—invaded their territory and pushed them west (this will be important later).

When Alexander the Great conquered the area, the name Edom was Hellenized to become Idumea.

 

Relation to Other Books

In the Hebrew Bible, Obadiah is part of the collected edition known as The Twelve (i.e., the 12 minor prophets).

At some point, someone selected these 12 short works and put them together to form a whole.

The number 12 in this case is significant: The compiler likely picked these 12 books out of a larger body of prophetic writings in order to reflect the 12 tribes of Israel, and thus a kind of wholeness.

The Twelve—in a certain way—stand for the whole of the prophetic tradition, or at least the whole of the lesser prophets God sent to his people.

There are also clear links between Obadiah and other books. It contains passages which clearly echo things said in other prophetic books.

This could mean:

  1. Obadiah is quoting from one or more other prophets (making his ministry later than theirs)
  2. Other prophets are quoting from Obadiah (making his ministry earlier than theirs)
  3. The prophets are quoting from a common (lost) prophetic tradition
  4. God revealed the same thing more than once

Each of these is possible, and the parallel passages have to be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

In doing so, the passages that show the greatest degree of verbal similarity are most likely taken to indicate some form of literary dependence. If the similarities of wording and structure of the parallels are extensive, it suggests option 1 or 2.

The most significant parallel is between Obadiah 1-9 and Jeremiah 49:7-16. The two passages extensively share themes and wording, suggesting that one author is writing with direct knowledge of the other.

But who’s cribbing? Is Obadiah copying Jeremiah or the other way around?

Various factors, which we will cover below, suggest that Jeremiah is the earlier text, and Obadiah is writing in light of it.

 

Date

The date of the book is highly debated, with some scholars placing it as early as the ninth century B.C. (i.e., the 800s) and as late as the fourth century B.C. (i.e., the 300s).

Both of these extremes are unlikely, and we will look at the date of the book further as we proceed.

 

The Prophecy Begins (v. 1)

The book begins as follows:

The vision of Obadiah.

Thus says the Lord GOD concerning Edom:

We have heard tidings from the Lord, and a messenger has been sent among the nations: “Rise up! let us rise against her [i.e., Edom] for battle!”

The opening phrase—“the vision of Obadiah”—could mean that Obadiah only had this one vision or that this was the most significant vision of his ministry.

The latter possibility seems more likely since, if Obadiah only had a single vision in his whole career as a prophet, it would be less likely that this vision would become well-known enough to stand out against other revelations of the time and be included in The Twelve.

There were many minor prophets in this historical period—including many mentioned in Scripture whose works were not included in the Bible—and the fact Obadiah achieved such high status suggests that the prophet in question had a more substantial career, even if this was his principal (or only) literary work.

What we have is thus Obadiah’s most important vision, and possibly the only one that was ever committed to writing.

In Obadiah, God announces a coming judgment: A coalition from “among the nations” will rise up to do battle against Edom.

Taking the verse in a straightforward sense, word has already spread that the nations are gathering against Edom (“we have heard . . . a messenger has been sent among the nations”).

This suggests that the book was written after the attack (or preparations for it) were in motion but before its final outcome was accomplished.

 

The Predicted Outcome (v. 2)

The next verses announces what the outcome of the invasion will be: God will make Edom “small among the nations” with the result that it “shall be utterly despised.”

Smallness can be understood in terms of numerical size (depopulation), loss of influence (economic or political), or both.

In the ancient world, loss of these forms of status resulted in contempt. Numerically large, economically powerful, and politically influential nations despised numerically small, economically weak and politically impotent ones.

 

Edom’s Self-Deception (vv. 3-4).

God now reveals the arrogant self-deception that accompanies Edom’s fall.

The Edomites have prided themselves on the natural defenses their homeland has: They “live in the clefts of the rock” and their “dwelling is high.”

Having the high ground has always been a military advantage, which is why fortresses are often built on hills and why defensive structures are built with high walls: It is easier to project force down onto an attacker than up onto a target.

Various cities in Edom also could only be reached through narrow, winding passes with stone walls on both sides (i.e., “the clefts of the rock”). (There is also a mocking pun here; the Hebrew word for “rock”—sela‘—sounds like the name of the Edomite capital city, Sela. More puns will follow.)

In view of the inaccessible heights they occupied, the Edomites thus reasoned, “Who will bring me down to the ground?”

The answer is: Yahweh will. In fact, he had done so before, when David conquered the Edomites, so their homeland is not an impregnable fortress.

The prophet thus declares, poetically, “Though you soar aloft like the eagle, though your nest is set among the stars, then I will bring you down, says the Lord” (v. 4).

 

Edom’s Treasures Lost (vv. 5-6)

Obadiah describes the extent of the economic devastation that Edom will suffer by making two comparisons.

First, he notes that if thieves or plunderers suddenly strike a location, they will only steal what they can carry off with them.

Second, he notes that when grape gatherers harvest a vineyard, they inevitably leave behind some of the fruit.

By contrast, those who attack Edom will defeat it so thoroughly that they have time to make a thorough search for anything valuable. Edom’s treasures will be “sought out” and carted off, leaving the natives destitute.

 

Betrayed by Allies (v. 7)

In the ancient world, alliances could change suddenly, and this has happened to Edom.

The prophet declares how the nation’s own allies have deceived it and set a trap for it—something which they had not expected and which seemed to make no sense to the Edomites (“there is no understanding of it”).

This surprise reversal of affairs thus brings about a bitter defeat for the Edomites as their former confederates prevail against them.

 

The Wise and the Mighty Destroyed (vv. 8-9)

God indicates that “on that day” (i.e., when Edom is attacked and defeated), he will “destroy the wise men out of Edom”—a phrase which is poetically paralleled with the statement that he will destroy “understanding out of Mount Esau.”

“Mount Esau” is more wordplay. There was a famous mountain in Edomite territory known as Mount Seir (Gen. 36:8-9, Ezek. 35:2-3), and the prophet has rearranged the first two Hebrew letters of “Seir” (sin and ayin) to make it “Esau,” the patriarch from whom the Edomites descended.

Edomites had a reputation for being wise (cf. Jer. 49:7), and the loss of their wise men would be bitterly ironic.

The fundamental message here is that Edom’s wisemen—i.e., its leaders—will be killed, resulting in its army being “decapitated” in modern terms. As a result of this loss of leadership, its army will be disorganized and its mighty men “shall be dismayed” and will be “cut off by slaughter.” The death of the wise thus leads to the death of the mighty.

This passage invokes “Teman,” who was originally a grandson of Esau (Gen. 36:10-11). However by Obadiah’s time, his name had been given to either a city or a region within Edom (Ezek. 25:13, Amos 1:12).

 

The Cause Revealed (vv. 10-14)

The prophet now reveals the cause of Edom’s misfortunes: They are being betrayed by their allies because they first betrayed their own kinsmen in Judah. Calamity is coming upon them “for the violence done to your brother Jacob” (v. 10).

Obadiah speaks of an earlier time when strangers carried off Jacob’s wealth and entered Jerusalem’s gates. This is a probable reference to the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem. Instead of acting like kinsmen on that day, the Edomites refused to help and acted like foreigners (v. 11).

Worse, they undertook a series of positively hostile actions toward their Judahite kinsmen. In the day of Jacob’s calamity, the Edomites gloated, rejoiced and boasted (v. 12), they entered Jacob’s gates and looted (v. 13), and they stood at the crossroads to “cut off” (intercept? kill?) Judahite fugitives and “deliver up” those who survived the Babylonian assault (v. 14).

Precisely what is meant by the reference to Edomites entering Jacob’s gates and looting is unclear. Edom did not have the power to overcome Jerusalem by itself, which is why their allies (the Babylonians) are presented as the active agents in the siege of Jerusalem.

Consequently, some have proposed (1) that the Edomites assisted the Babylonians with the siege or (2) that they entered and looted after the Babylonians were finished with their own looting or (3) that they attacked and looted other Jewish settlements but not Jerusalem itself.

 

Judgment on the Nations (vv. 15-16)

Obadiah announces that “the day of the Lord is near upon all the nations.”

In the New Testament, the phrase “the day of the Lord” is associated with the end of the world (cf. 1 Cor. 5:5, 2 Cor. 1:14, 2 Pet. 3:10, etc.). However, in the Old Testament it has a much wider range of usage.

Most fundamentally, “the day of the Lord” refers to a time when Yahweh decisively intervenes in the affairs of men—either to carry out a blessing or a curse.

Notice that the day of the Lord in this case is said to be “near” and “upon all the nations.” In other words: God will soon mete out justice to the nations that have harmed Judah.

Obadiah thus declares to the nations, “As you have done, it shall be done to you, your deeds shall return on your own head.”

He then uses the metaphorical image of drinking both to signify what the nations have done wrong and how judgment shall be brought upon them. He first alludes to how the nations “have drunk upon my holy mountain” (i.e., Mount Zion in Jerusalem) and predicts that they will drink further: “all the nations round about shall drink.”

This continued drinking shall become the means of their own punishment, for “they shall drink, and stagger, and shall be as though they had not been.” The image is of a person who starts drinking and proceeds to get so drunk that he passes out and dies.

What does the image of drinking signify in this passage? It could be violence: The nations indulged in violence on Mount Zion, and they will keep indulging in violence until they are overcome by it. In that case, the thought would essentially mirror Jesus’ warning that those who live by the sword will die by the sword (Matt. 26:52).

However, there is another possibility. Drinking is also used as a metaphor for judgment, and the thought here may be that the nations executed judgment on Judah for its sins, but now they will experience judgment for their own sins.

This may reflect a thought elsewhere in the minor prophets—that God was only a little angry with his people and that the nations he used to punish them went too far and sinned by inflicting too much damage (Zech. 1:15).

 

Mount Zion Restored (vv. 17)

Although the nations will experience violent destruction, God assures his people that “in Mount Zion there shall be those that escape”—a surviving remnant will be left.

Furthermore Mount Zion “shall be holy”—a prediction of the restoration of the Temple.

And God’s people will reclaim their homeland, for “the house of Jacob shall possess their own possessions.”

Here “the house of Jacob” could be restricted just to the southern kingdom of Judah or it could refer to the entire family of Jacob, including Judah along with the northern kingdom of Israel.

 

Israel’s Military Might (v. 18)

Here we are told that the house of Jacob will be a fire and the house of Joseph a flame.

Joseph was one of Jacob’s most prominent sons and the patriarch of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, who were dominant in the northern kingdom of Israel. “The house of Joseph” thus refers to the northern kingdom.

In contrast, “the house of Jacob” could be used either to refer to the southern kingdom or to both kingdoms. Regardless of whether “the house of Jacob” is here used in the more restrictive sense, both kingdoms are clearly under discussion.

The fact they are said to be fire and flame indicate that they will have military might and will be used to punish the Edomites for their transgressions, for “they shall burn them and consume them.”

Obadiah then concludes that—in contrasts to the houses of Jacob and Joseph—“there shall be no survivor to the house of Esau.”

This is a case of hyperbole. Edom will not be fully destroyed, for the prophecy began merely by saying that Edom will be made small (v. 2), and it will end by saying that God’s people will end up ruling Mount Esau (v. 21).

 

Territorial Expansion (vv. 19-20)

Obadiah now covers in more detail the people’s recovery of their land predicted in v. 17. To understand this, we need to grasp several geographical terms:

  • The Negeb: A desert region in the south of Israel, near Edom.
  • The Shephelah: A lowland or foothills region bordering the land of the Philistines.
  • The land of the Philistines: Part of the coast of Israel that had been conquered by the invading sea people, the Philistines.
  • The land of Ephraim: Specifically, the territory of the tribe of Ephraim, but more generally the whole of the northern kingdom of Israel.
  • The land of Samaria: Another way of referring to the northern kingdom, which had Samaria as its capital city.
  • Gilead: A region on the east side of the Jordan river, originally occupied by the Hebrew tribes of Manasseh, Reuben and Gad.
  • Halah: A region in Assyria where some Israelites had been deported (2 Kings 17:6).
  • Phoenicia (lit., “Canaan up to Zarephath”): A coastal region to the north of Israel.
  • Zarephath: A city in the southern part of Phoenician territory, between Tyre and Sidon. This territory was within the ideal limits of the tribe of Asher’s territory (Josh. 19:24-29).
  • Sepharad: Most likely, a Median city where some Hebrews had been deported, though also possibly Sardis in Asia Minor.

With these terms in mind, we can understand how Obadiah describes God’s people reclaiming their land.

Jews who have been forced to live in the Negeb desert will come to control Edomite territory (“Mount Esau”), while those in the Shephelah lowland will recapture the territory taken by the Philistines, as well as the rest of the territory of the northern kingdom (the land of Ephraim/Samaria).

Scholars have generally thought that the last part of v. 19 contains a textual corruption. Benjamin was a tribe in the southern kingdom of Judah and had no historic claim on Gilead.

Hypothetically, this could indicate an expansion into new territory, but most interpreters have seen it differently and proposed alternate readings. One suggestion is that it refers to the retaking of parts of both Benjamin’s traditional territory and Gilead (Douglas Stuart, Word Biblical Commentary at v. 19). There are also other suggestions.

The beginning of v. 20 is understood in different ways. In the RSV, it speaks of “the exiles in Halah who are of the people of Israel” taking territory that rightfully belonged to Asher (Phoenicia as far as Zarephath).

However, the Hebrew of this verse is notoriously hard to translate, and others render the verse differently. One alternative is “the exiles in this army who are of the people of Israel.”

Either way, the first half of the verse refers to returning exiles from the northern kingdom retaking land that is rightfully theirs. By contrast, the second half of the verse speaks of returning exiles from the southern kingdom doing the same thing.

Thus it says that “the exiles of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad” will take the cities in the Negeb.

In this effort, God’s people are retaking land that is properly theirs—and that was once part of their land in David’s time.

The one possible exception is the reference to the inhabitants of the Negeb taking “Mount Esau”—i.e., Mount Seir. The status of Judah’s claim to this territory is unclear.

On the one hand, Deuteronomy 2:4-5 assigns Mount Seir to the Edomites as their rightful territory. On the other hand, Judah’s ideal border is said to extend to Mount Seir (Josh. 15:10).

Balaam also prophesied that Israel would dispossess Seir (Num. 24:17), and the principle of retributive justice is in play here: Edom took Judean territory, so Judah can legitimately take Edomite territory.

It also should be pointed out that the reference to the Judeans “possessing” Mount Esau does not necessarily mean annexing it to their territory. The Hebrew verb (yarash) has a variety of meanings, and it could simply refer to having military victory over it or reducing it to the status of a client state.

 

The Kingdom Shall Be the Lord’s (v. 21)

The final verse of the book refers to a group of people who “shall go up to Mount Zion.”

In many translations, this group of people are described as “saviors” or “deliverers”—the idea being that they are mighty men through whom God provides deliverance from enemies.

However, other translations describe this group as “those who have been saved.”

Both groups have been mentioned before, with mighty military men being in focus in vv. 18-20 and with surviving exiles mentioned in vv. 17 and 20.

Whichever way the verse should be translated, it says that this group will “go up to Mount Zion to rule Mount Esau”—i.e., the Edomites will become subject to God’s people.

The book concludes with the affirmation that “the kingdom shall be the Lord’s”—that is, God will be in control of all, and his people can look forward to his just and merciful reign.

 

Dating the Book of Obadiah

Now that we have reviewed the contents of Obadiah, we are in a better position to address the controversial question of its date.

While we can’t be certain on this issue and other dates—both earlier and later are possible—the following seems to be the most reasonable option.

The earliest possible date for the work is the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem. Obadiah speaks of there being exiles from both Israel and Jerusalem (v. 20), indicating that it took place after the Assyrian conquest of Israel in 723 B.C. and the Babylonian conquests of Jerusalem in 605 and 597 B.C.

The latter conquests are the only ones in which the Edomites are known to have played a role (see Psa. 137:7, Lam. 4:18-22, Ezek. 25:12-14, 35:5, 15; cf. 1 Esd. 4:45).

The latest possible date for the book would be the betrayal and conquest of Edom by its allies (vv. 1, 7), and in particular by the Babylonians.

This event is not recorded in the Bible but it is found in Babylonian records, which indicate that the last full king of Babylon—Nabonidus—undertook a military expedition against Edom in late 553 B.C (see Paul Raabe, Anchor Yale Bible: Obadiah, 54-55).

The probable date for Obadiah is thus sometime between 597 and 553 B.C.—and probably closer to the latter date since v. 1 seems to indicate that the campaign against Edom is already in preparation.

Obadiah thus seems to be later than the prophecy of Jeremiah, who ceased prophesying shortly after the conquest of Jerusalem in 597 B.C.

 

The Fulfillment of Obadiah’s Prophecies

Beyond the betrayal of Edom by its former allies, Obadiah also predicts:

  • the day of the Lord to repay the nations for their misdeeds (v. 15)
  • that exiles of Israel and Judah will return (v. 20),
  • that they will reclaim their former territories (vv. 17-19)
  • that they will defeat and of Edom (v. 18, 21).

 

The Day of the Lord

The first of these is often taken to be a reference to an eschatological event, where God metes judgment to all the nations all at once, but this is an unnecessary supposition.

Given its context, the passage is most naturally understood to mean that whenever a nation commits wrongs (and in particular, against God’s people), the Lord will soon bring them to justice—a phenomenon we see played out repeatedly in Scripture.

 

The Return of the Exiles

The exiles of Judah began to return in the 530s B.C., during the reign of Cyrus the Persian (2 Chr. 36:22-23, Ezr. 1:1-11).

The return of exiles from Israel requires more study to document:

  • We do have indications that many natives of the northern kingdom remained in their land at the time of the Assyrian Captivity (Amos 5:1-3, cf. 2 Chron. 34:1-6). This is to be expected since no deportation is likely to completely depopulate a land, especially in the less-efficient ancient world. Almost certainly, any deportation would involve removing the citizens with higher social status while leaving behind the small and the weak (cf. 2 Kings 24:14).
  • We also have indications that, later on, God’s people included members who were descended from the northern tribes (Luke 2:36), and that the overall community regarded itself as still having 12 tribes (Acts 26:7, Jas. 1:1).

While the Bible documents that there were Israelites still living in Palestine after the fall of the northern kingdom, it is harder to document a return of some of these exiles.

Nevertheless, the Chronicler speaks of the time when—after “Judah was taken into exile in Babylon because of their unfaithfulness”—the exiles began “to dwell again in their possessions in their cities,” and he remarks that “some of the people of Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, and Manasseh dwelt in Jerusalem” (1 Chron. 9:1-3; cf. Ezra 6:17, 8:35). Ephraim and Manasseh were two of the northern tribes, and they were so prominent among them this passage likely uses them as symbols of the entire northern confederation.

Josephus also mentions a return of northerners. First, he records that members of these northern tribes were living in Media (Jewish Antiquities 9:14:1[278-279]). He later recounts the letter in Cyrus’s successor Xerxes (aka Artaxerxes, Ahasuerus) commissioned the scribe Ezra to take others and return to Jerusalem (Ezra 7). Josephus notes that Ezra had this letter read to his coreligionists in Media and that, although the majority stayed there, “many” rejoiced at the prospect of returning to their homeland and did so, coming first to Babylon to join Ezra’s company of returnees (Jewish Antiquities 11:5:2[132-133]). He thus records a body of Israelites returning with the Judahites at the time of Ezra.

We also know of later travel by Median Israelites to Judah and Jerusalem. Indeed, it was common in the Second Temple period for pilgrims from Media to come to Jerusalem for the festivals (cf. Acts 2:9). Some of these travelers undoubtedly would have decided to resettle in their homeland.

Returns of these kinds may be seen as fulfilling Obadiah’s and the other prophets’ predictions of Israelite exiles returning. (For more on the status of these tribes, see Richard Bauckham, Gospel Women, ch. 4).

 

Reclaiming the Territories

This occurred over a period of time as exiles came back to the land, and it culminated after the Maccabees began their rebellion, which threw off foreign government and re-established an independent Jewish state.

For example, Gilead was conquered by Judah Maccabee (1 Macc. 5:24-52), and the land of the Philistines was included in the coastal area given to Simon Maccabee to govern (1 Macc. 11:59).

 

Judgment on Edom

This judgment received at least a partial fulfillment in the time of Judah Maccabee, who defeated “the sons of Esau in Idumea” (1 Macc. 5:3).

There was a complete conquest of the Edomites in 125 B.C. by the Jewish ruler John Hyrcanus, who then required them to convert to Judaism or leave their land. They chose the former (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 13:9:1[257-258]). This is why Herod the Great—an Idumean—could become the king of the Jews in Jesus’ time.

 

New Testament and Christological Significance

The book of Obadiah is so short that it is not quoted in the New Testament, and the fact its prophecies are so specific to Edom means that their literal fulfillment lies in the past.

However, with regard to the spiritual sense of the text, various interpreters have seen Edom as a symbol of evil and have thus understood the book as containing a typological prophecy of the ultimate defeat of evil.

In particular, the statement in the book’s final verse that “the kingdom shall be the Lord’s” has been taken as a prophecy of the Lord’s ultimate conquest of all evil in the final kingdom of Christ.

Would It Matter If We’re Living in a Simulation?

A reader writes:

My good sir, a baptized Catholic who is away from the Faith asked me at work this week: “How do we know we are not living in a computer simulation? What is wrong with Elon Musk’s simulation hypothesis?” What do I say in reply?

 

What the Simulation Hypothesis Is

Currently we use computers to run simulations of many different kinds of scenarios. For example, physicists use them to run simulations of how different kinds of subatomic particles interact.

The basic idea of the simulation hypothesis is that as computers get better and better, we will be able to run better and better simulations, and one day we could arrive at a stage where computers would allow us to run detailed simulations of the natural world as we experience it.

We might then choose to run simulations about the past and learn about what our ancestors did. Or we might run simulations just for fun, like a supercomplex, universe-sized Tamagotchi toy.

We might, in fact, run many, many simulations. Or if we don’t, aliens on other planets might.

If a very large number of simulations exists, each of which is indistinguishable from the natural world as we experience it, then how do we know we aren’t living in such a simulation?

This idea—as far out as it may sound—is being seriously entertained by some philosophers and scientists.

It’s essentially a modern variant of an ancient question: How do we know that the world we experience is as it seems? Could reality actually be very different?

 

Bostrom’s Trilemma

As Wikipedia explains, in 2003 the philosopher Nick Bostrom published a paper in which he argued that one of three propositions is very likely to be true:

  1. “The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage (that is, one capable of running high-fidelity ancestor simulations) is very close to zero,” or
  2. “The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor-simulations is very close to zero,” or
  3. “The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one.”

Bostrom himself does not consider any of these three to be especially more likely than the others, but some have definite preferences.

Option 3 is favored by industrialist Elon Musk, who has said that the thinks the odds are billions to one in favor of us living in a simulation, while astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson has put the odds of us living in a simulation around 50/50 (source).

Others have put the odds vastly lower.

 

Some Objections

Option 1 has been favored by those who have argued that there are insurmountable physical limits to the kinds of computers that can be built even by an advanced civilization, and these would prevent the kind of detailed simulations needed.

One might support Option 2 by arguing that any advanced civilization capable of creating such simulations would have progressed past the point of needing them—either for research or entertainment purposes (an electric wire connected directly to the pleasure center of the brain would be vastly more entertaining, just like Tamagotchi toys proved to be much less entertaining than other options we have).

Some have also challenged the whole trilemma—for example, by noting that we experience consciousness, but patterns of information in a computer do not. The fact of our consciousness means that we are not living in a simulation.

In other words, “the faction of all people with our kind of experiences”—i.e., consciousness—would be exactly zero (Option 3 is false), and computers cannot simulate experiences of our kind (making the kind of ancestor-simulations envisioned in Options 1 and 2 impossible).

And there are other objections, yet.

The simulation hypothesis is thus far from established. However, let’s consider what the implications for the Christian Faith would be if it were true.

 

The Christian Worldview

The Christian worldview contains three essential elements that are relevant to our discussion, and they are encapsulated in the Creed, when we profess our faith in “God . . . maker of heaven and earth”:

  1. God, the infinitely perfect Creator of everything is obviously essential to the Christian worldview.
  2. “Heaven”—i.e., the spiritual world which includes our souls, is also essential.
  3. “Earth”—i.e., the natural world as we experience it, is the final component.

What would we conclude about these three if the simulation hypothesis were true?

 

The Existence of God

Philosophical arguments prove that there is an infinitely perfect Creator outside of all Creation. Therefore, God exists.

The simulation hypothesis does not affect the existence of God. Even if we’re living in a computer simulation, that simulation exists within a computer somewhere in a higher universe.

That universe might itself be a simulation, so you could posit any number of worlds within worlds that you might like.

It doesn’t matter, for eventually there would be some final, created world (or set of worlds in the case of a multiverse) containing the computer(s) that run all the simulations.

That final world (or worlds) still needs an explanation, and that explanation is God.

 

The Physical World

People have wondered for a long time about the nature of the physical world that we live in.

According to the classical element theory, the natural world was made of four (or five) elements: air, earth, fire, and water (and maybe ether).

According to the modern atomic theory of matter, the natural world is made of patterns of subatomic particles that form atoms.

According to the simulation theory, the natural world is made of patterns of information that exist in some unknown computer medium that form simulations of atoms.

Either way, the natural world we live in exists. It’s just a question of what its fundamental components are—whether subatomic particles or patterns of information.

The fundamental nature of our world is an interesting subject, but it doesn’t change anything from a religious perspective. The natural world still exists. Whether it’s made of four/five elements, subatomic particles, or patterns of information, it’s still real.

So, the only thing the simulation theory would do is add at least one additional layer to creation—i.e., the layer containing the computer in which our natural world exists.

 

The Spiritual World

That leaves us with the question of the human soul and the larger spiritual world.

A key point of evidence for this is our subjective experience of consciousness. Although one can assert that consciousness is explained by subatomic particles (as materialists would) or by patterns of information in a computer medium (as simulationists would), one cannot prove this.

In fact, we have no scientific hypothesis at all explaining how consciousness could arise from these things. That is, nobody has produced a testable hypothesis that would account for how non-living things like subatomic particles or information could give rise to consciousness.

This is known in scientific and philosophical circles as “the hard problem of consciousness.”

Yet our consciousness remains as a brute fact that is unexplainable in scientific terms.

One is therefore entitled to set aside assertions that consciousness arises from physical phenomena and propose what our experience indicates—that there is something non-physical (a soul) that, however closely it interacts with our bodies, is responsible for consciousness.

The simulation hypothesis can’t explain this any better than the atomic theory of matter does. Therefore, the simulation hypothesis changes nothing with respect to the third component of the Christian worldview—the soul.

If the atomic theory is true, then our souls interact with the patterns of subatomic particles that form the base layer of the natural world.

If the simulation hypothesis is true, then our souls interact with the patterns of information simulating our bodies in the computer system that resides in the base layer of reality.

If one finds it implausible that souls would interact with such data patterns, that would give you reason to reject the idea that we’re living in a simulation, but it wouldn’t give you reason to reject either the existence of the soul or the existence of a natural world.

 

The End of the World

The Christian Faith holds that, at some point, the physical world in which we live will be renovated and replaced by a “New Earth,” where we will have a place for all eternity.

The simulation hypothesis would not prevent this. If our present physical world is a simulation, God might put us in a new, similar world—or he might put us in a base level reality and have our souls interact with that. Ultimately, that’s up to him.

Either way, whether the present world we experience is a simulation or a base reality doesn’t matter. The Creator who exists outside the entire created world—however many levels it may contain—has made contact with us, here, and told us that one day we will live in a new world.

The nature of that world is in his hands, as it has always been.

 

Conclusion

I thus don’t see how the simulation theory changes anything from a faith perspective. We still have the same three elements—God, the spiritual world, and the natural world—and all three interact.

The natural world used to be explained by the classical element theory, it is presently explained by the atomic theory, and if we ever get actual, robust scientific evidence that we’re living in a simulation then it would be explained by the simulation theory.

But all these theories do is shed varying degrees of light on the nature of the physical world as we experience it. They don’t change anything from a religious perspective.

Learning that the physical world as we experience it is contained in a larger, meta-world would be interesting, but it doesn’t alter the need for us to have a right relationship with the Creator, who is responsible for both the spiritual and the natural world—whatever the specific components or structure of the latter turns out to be.

Neither does the simulation hypothesis stop us from needing to live our lives in the world as we find it.

I’d note that it certainly hasn’t stopped Elon Musk from living his life as an entrepreneur and industrialist and undertaking all kinds of projects.

It hasn’t caused him an existential crisis, and neither should it us.

Was the JFK Assassination a Conspiracy? – Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World

MYS015

Was there more than one gunman? Didn’t two different government commissions come to different conclusions? What do we really know about the JFK assassination? Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli take a high-level look at the JFK assassination, the mysteries and conspiracy theories, and the evidence to conclude either that Oswald acted alone or there were others involved.

Links for this episode:

Mysterious Headlines

Direct Link to the Episode.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Possibly Lying in Confession? Help for the Scrupulous

A reader (who will remain anonymous per my usual policy) writes:

The other day I went to confession and confessed my sins some of which were of a sexual nature. I honestly confessed these sins. However, after my confession Father began to give me advice on overcoming these sins. One thing he said was that I should get a porn blocker for my laptop. I said to him “Okay, Father.”

In reality, I had no plans of putting a blocker on my laptop. I seldom if ever use my laptop anymore. Also, I’ve tried blockers before and end up finding away around them. I didn’t want to go into a whole rebuttal with him, so I just said “Okay, Father.”

As I left the confessional, I started to worry. Had I committed the sin of lying? What if I just invalidated my whole confession by possibly giving him the impression I would put a blocker on a laptop when I was not going to? Can you help me, Jimmy?

Please set your mind at rest.
In the first place, saying, “Okay, Father” is ambiguous in meaning. It can mean, “Yes, I will do that,” or it can mean, “I acknowledge your recommendation.”
“Okay” is an ambiguous word that we use in English as a way of helping conversations and social interactions along. It can even mean, “Please stop talking now” or “Let’s move to the next subject.”
Therefore, by saying this phrase, you may not have been lying. Whether you were will depend on your intention.
If you deliberately intended to cause the priest to falsely believe that you would get a blocker for your laptop then it would be a lie, otherwise not.
If it was a lie, we then proceed to the next question, which is whether this lie would have invalidated the confession.
There are two types of things the penitent says in confession–things that are integral to the sacrament itself (e.g., saying what your sins are)–and things that are incidental to the sacrament (e.g., greeting the priest, asking for advice, acknowledging advice, etc.).
If you did lie, the lie concerned an incidental matter (advice) rather than something that was integral to the sacrament.
We then progress to the next question, which is whether the lie would have been mortal or venial.
Several factors indicate that the lie would be venial:
  1. It doesn’t appear that we have grave matter (i.e., the priest doesn’t have a grave need to know whether you will or will not get a blocker for your laptop)
  2. You did not know for certain at the moment of telling the lie that it would be mortal, meaning you lacked the kind of knowledge needed for a mortal sin.
  3. You did not deliberately tell it anyway despite knowing that it would be mortal, meaning you lacked the deliberation needed for a mortal sin.
We thus lack the needed grave matter, full knowledge, and deliberate consent needed for a mortal sin.
Instead, it looks like–at most–you may have uttered a minor falsehood on the spur of the moment to move a conversation along, not intending to commit an act of grave harm.
This indicates a lack of deliberation about the act, as indicated by the fact you only started worrying about it after confession was over.
Therefore, at most you committed a venial sin on the spur of the moment and on a matter incidental to the sacrament.
Venial sins don’t need to be confessed, and therefore venial sins don’t invalidate confession. This is all the more true when they pertain to an incidental rather than an integral matter.
Therefore, put your heart at rest and be at peace!
Also, consider this an opportunity to figure out something to say the next time you’re given advice you think impractical in confession. “Okay, Father” is possible, but “Thank you, Father,” “Thank you, I’ll think about it,” or “Thank you, I’ll pray about that” might be better (assuming you do intend to do at least a little thinking or praying about it afterward to see if the advice might be practical after all).
Having a response thought out ahead of time will help avoid scrupling in future situations.
I hope this helps, and God bless you!