The Passover seder

PASSOVER INTRODUCTION
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Dr. Paul Manuel—1996

(When Dr. Paul and Linda lived in Madison they annually invited friends to celebrate the Passover seder with them. 
This is how Paul would introduce the service.)

God told His people to observe the Passover, and their obeying this command is one way they demonstrate their devotion to Him, as this rabbinic story illustrates. Why is the Exodus from Egypt mentioned in connection with every commandment?

...The matter can be compared to a king, whose friend's son was taken prisoner after the father's death. For the sake of his friend, the king ransomed the young man, though not as a son but as a slave, so that if he should disobey the king at any time, the king could say, "You are my slave." When the lad returned, the king said, "Put on my sandals for me and take my clothes to the bath house," but the young man protested. Then the king took out the bill of sale and said, "You are my slave."

So it was when God redeemed the children of Abraham, His friend, He redeemed them not as children but as slaves. If He imposed decrees upon them and they did not obey, He could say, "You are my slaves." When they went into the desert, He gave them some light and some heavy commands (e.g., Sabbath, sexual purity, fringes, phylacteries), but they began to protest. Then God said, "You are My slaves. I redeemed You on the condition that I would command and you would obey." (Montefiore 1974:117-118)

God's people have been observing the Passover annually for thousands of years, not only as a means of demonstrating their devotion to Him but also as a review of His care for them.

The Passover seder (service) we use today is a traditional one that dates back hundreds of years. We can trace most aspects of the seder at least to the late Second Temple Period, when Jesus ministered, and the major elements we can even trace to the exodus from Egypt that the Passover commemorates. We need two things to conduct the seder: certain symbols of the exodus and the story of the exodus.

Sufficiency

THE USE OF "THREE" IN THE BIBLE

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Dr. Paul Manuel—2010

Numerology sees particular meaning in the Bible's use of certain numbers. Seven, for example, is supposedly the number of God and, consequently, of perfection, marking His perfect work.

Gen 2:2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3a And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy....

Rev 21:9 One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came....

Indeed, the number seven does appear with reference to God but not exclusively so. Moreover, such a connection is nowhere stated. Silence, however, has not deterred some interpreters from making the link. To be sure, seven does occur with frequency and, in some settings, it seems to have significance, but what that import is, being unstated, remains uncertain.

One number that has significance, although in a cultural sense not a spiritual sense, is three.

Three often seems to indicate a sufficient amount of something.¹

Exod 23:14 "Three times a year you are to celebrate a festival to me.... 17 "Three times a year all the men are to appear before the Sovereign LORD.
Exod 34:23 Three times a year all your men are to appear before the Sovereign LORD, the God of Israel. 24 I will drive out nations before you and enlarge your territory, and no one will covet your land when you go up three times each year to appear before the LORD your God.
Num 22:32 The angel of the LORD asked him, "Why have you beaten your donkey these three times? I have come here to oppose you because your path is a reckless one before me. 33 The donkey saw me and turned away from me these three times. If she had not turned away, I would certainly have killed you by now, but I would have spared her."
Deut 16:16 Three times a year all your men must appear before the LORD your God at the place he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacles. No man should appear before the LORD empty-handed:
1 Sam 3:8 The LORD called Samuel a third time, and Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, "Here I am; you called me." ¶ Then Eli realized that the LORD was calling the boy.
I Sam 20:20 I will shoot three arrows to the side of it, as though I were shooting at a target.
1 Sam 20:41 After the boy had gone, David got up from the south side of the stone and bowed down before Jonathan three times, with his face to the ground. Then they kissed each other and wept together— but David wept the most.
2 Sam 24:12 "Go and tell David, 'This is what the LORD says: I am giving you three options. Choose one of them for me to carry out against you."

Contradictions?

CONFLICTING COUNSEL: SUPPOSED CONTRADICTIONS IN SCRIPTURE

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Dr. Paul Manuel—2016

A common objection people raise to the authority of scripture is that the Bible contains many contradictions undermining any claim to divine authorship. After all, how could a perfect God produce an imperfect work? Some critics settle inconsistencies by appealing to different strata in the Bible, to books or portions thereof composed at different times or written by different authors (i.e., source criticism). This brief study assumes that one author (God) supervised the entire composition process and that any solution to apparent inconsistency lies in a better understanding of the text itself.

Perceived inconsistencies often represent different circumstances or perspectives which become clear as one understands the context. To assume an inconsistency is an error may offer an easy resolution but not necessarily the correct resolution. Consequently, most Supposed Contradictions in Scripture fall into one of two categories, depending on the clarity of the context.

• Simple opposites: Apparent contradictions with insufficient context for resolution.

These are mainly passages that appear in isolation, such as doublets in the biblical book of Proverbs. The author probably intends each aphorism for a different set of circumstances and leaves to the reader the proper selection of those circumstances.

• Complex opposites: Apparent contradictions with sufficient context for resolution.

These are mainly passages that are part of a larger discussion. The biblical author regards the context of these to be clear enough for the reader to grasp the correct meaning.

Simple Opposites

Two proverbs warn against the dangers of responding to a fool, implying that it is best not to engage with him at all lest one's efforts prove unproductive or even detrimental:

Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself. (Prov 26:4)

One danger of responding to a fool is that a person's counsel will not only confirm the fool's conduct but will draw the counselor into the same bad behavior.

Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes. (Prov 26:5)

Another danger of responding to a fool is that counsel will actually have the opposite effect, confirming the fool in his bad behavior.

Parables

KINGDOM PARABLES IN MARK 4:
Seeking God with All Your Heart

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Dr. Paul Manuel—Seventh Day Baptist General Conference—2004

The gospels are the account of Jesus’ life and ministry, including a significant sampling of his instruction. One of his favorite teaching methods was the parable. The synoptic gospels record 41 parables by Jesus. Many of them comprise a special group called Kingdom Parables, because they often begin with the phrase, “The kingdom of heaven (or “God’) is (or “will be”) like…”¹ (Matthew collected most of them in chapter 13 of his book.) As the title suggests, they concern the future Messianic Age, when God will establish His rule through His regent. Several of them, however, have implications for the present, indicating how you, as part of God’s people should prepare for your future role and how you should conduct yourself even now as a citizen of that realm, by Seeking God with All Your Heart.

The best-known kingdom parable—indeed, the best-known parable—is Jesus’ story about “The Different Soils,”² which he uses to instruct the disciples about how they can interpret other parables. Our study this morning will examine Mark’s version of that story and of two other kingdom parables—“The Developing Seed” and “The Mustard Seed”—looking at what God has in store for the future and, equally important, what God expects from us in the present.³ As we begin, it is necessary that we be able to identify a parable and interpret it correctly.

I. Identification

A. What is a parable?

1. Fictional story

• Not history

2. True-to-life (common)

• Not a fable (where the non-human assumes human features)

3. Single point

• Not an allegory (which may have several points)

Please turn to Mark 4, which records the first of the kingdom parables and where Jesus explains something of their use.

Mark 4:10 When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. 11 He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables 12 so that, “‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’”[Isa 6:10]

B. Why does Jesus use parables? (Mark 4:10-12)

1. To reveal truth to the responsive (v. 11a)
2. To conceal truth from the unresponsive (vv. 11b-12

Jesus is probably addressing those whose who are predisposed against what he has to teach, who have no intention of accepting his message, regardless of how important or beneficial it might be. For them, the enigma of his parables—that they are difficult to understand—simply confuses them and confirms their unbelief.

Language

TOWARD MEANING: LANGUAGE—LINGUISTIC CONSTRAINTS

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Dr. Paul Manuel—2011

To have a better appreciation for what God has revealed in His word, it is helpful to understand how that revelation came about, not only the process of revelation but also the mechanics of recording it (writing, grammar, discourse).

1. Writing (Semiotics)

• Paleography

• Archaeologists have unearthed many inscriptions that date to biblical times, and they testify to a fairly high degree of literacy in Israel.¹ These inscriptions also help explain how our present system of writing developed. To see where they fit in the evolution of writing, we must survey five stages in the development of writing systems.

 1. Stage #1—Pictographic symbols (one symbol = one thing; before 5,000 BCE)

• During prehistoric times, people used a picture to represent a particular object (e.g., an ox head = "my ox").

2. Stage #2—Logographic symbols (one symbol = one word; c. 3100 BCE)

a. Later, a picture came to represent the name of that thing, a single word (e.g., an ox head = "an(y) ox").

b. This system was extremely cumbersome because if the basic vocabulary of a language contained 1000 words, writing in that language required as many symbols (most English dictionaries define 50,000+ words). Sumerian and Egyptian (two non-Semitic languages) both used logographs (pictorial symbols). For example, the simple sketch of an ox (or just its head) stood for the word "ox" (e.g., Summarian GUD).

c. As these languages developed, their symbols became more stylized, evolving into the cuneiform (wedge-shaped) and hieroglyphics (Greek for "sacred inscriptions") respectively (Carter 1984:11-12; Naveh 1982:12).

 3. Stage #3- Ideographic symbols (one symbol = one concrete or abstract concept; c. 2900 BCE)

• Eventually, logographs also came to mean abstract ideas associated with the things they represented (e.g., ox head = strength).²

Poetic justice

POETIC JUSTICE IN THE BIBLE

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Dr. Paul Manuel—2016

Of the various literary tropes biblical writers use, poetic justice (a kind of irony) highlights a particular reversal of fortune. In poetic justice, recompense, be it retribution or reward, is 'opposite' as well as greater than what one expects and is most evident (most 'poetic') when the opposite form of the original condition, the retribution or the reward, is comparable in kind (versus degree) to the original.

Most examples of poetic justice in the Bible are negative, with people receiving retribution after committing sin.

• Esau demonstrated disdain for his birthright by selling it to Jacob, which encouraged Jacob to steal, and Esau to lose, his blessing as well, leaving Esau with nothing.

Gen 25:33b lEsaul swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob.
Gen 27:36b [Jacob] has deceived me these two times: He took my birthright, and now he's taken my blessing!"

• Egyptian magicians duplicated Aaron's miracle of turning his staff into a snake but with dire results.

Exod 7:10b Aaron threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake. 11 Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts: 12 Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake. But Aaron's staff swallowed up their staffs.

• Aaron's sons died by fire "before the Lord" after burning incense "before the Lord," contrary to His command. (This may be the most explicitly parallel case of poetic justice in scripture.)

Lev 10:1 Aaron's sons Nadab and Abihu took their censers, put fire in them and added incense; and they offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, contrary to his command. 2 So fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD.

Cf. Num 3:4a Nadab and Abihu...fell dead before the LORD when they made an offering with unauthorized fire before him in the Desert of Sinai.

Num 26:61 Nadab and Abihu died when they made an offering before the LORD with unauthorized fire.

• The Philistine champion, a large, experienced soldier, was defeated by a small, untested shepherd.

1 Sam 17:4 A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. He was over nine feet tall.... 33 Saul replied, "You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth." ...42 He looked David over and saw that he was only a boy...and he despised him.... 50 So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him.

• David suffered for his murder of Uriah and his sinful affair with Bathsheba by losing his other wives as well as the son of the adulterous union.

2 Sam 12:10 The sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own....' 11 b Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. 12 You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel." ... 14 But because by doing this you have made the enemies of the LORD show utter contempt, the son born to you will die.

Oral Torah

EVIDENCE OF ORAL TORAH IN THE BIBLE

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Dr. Paul Manuel—2016

When Christians think about Old Testament law, they often consider only the Decalogue, but the people of Israel had one of the most detailed legal codes in the Ancient Near East (613 precepts in the Pentateuch alone by rabbinic count). These regulations covered many aspects of life—religious and secular—for many classes of people—priests, merchants, farmers, kings. Because even such an extensive list cannot encompass every contingency, including new situations, there arose a need to supplement the list with additional laws. Hence, two legal corpuses developed, one written and another oral. Written law, the main legal body, was copied and recopied. Oral law, a lessor legal body (with varying degrees of authority), was memorized and transmitted by word of mouth. Consequently, what was written was more enduring, whereas what was oral was less enduring (until some of it was codified, first in the Mishnah). Still, remnants of oral law remain even today, as do later additions to meet new situations.

I. Early evidence of Oral Torah (in the Old Testament)

A. Some unwritten laws existed alongside the written law.

There are hints in Written Torah of an Oral Torah that was transmitted with it. Two passages in particular suggest that God revealed more details to His people about what He expected than what Moses recorded:

If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise. (Exod 21:22-27)

Oral Torah explains that the second group of infractions has a greater monetary fine.

Throughout the generations to come you are to make tassels on the corners of your garments, with a blue cord on each tassel (Num 15:38).

Oral Torah explains that the blue dye come from a particular mollusk.

Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads (Deut 11:18).

Oral Torah explains the construction of tefillin.

If the place where the LORD your God chooses to put his Name is too far away from you, you may slaughter animals from the herds and flocks the LORD has given you, as I have commanded you... (Deut 12:21).

Oral Torah details the various requirements for ritual slaughter.

If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house (Deut 24:1).

Oral Torah details the various requirements for certifying divorce.

These laws came originally to Moses with additional information that explained how God's people should implement them.

Dreams and Visions

OTHER MEANS OF REVELATION¹

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Dr. Paul Manuel—2015

When God wants to communicate with man, He uses a variety of ways.² The most common method is verbal, as when He speaks to His people through an angel or a prophet.³ In addition to what is then recorded in scripture, God employs other means of revelation,⁴ both natural and supernatural.

I. Natural means of revelation

 A. Stellar creation⁵

Rom 1:20 …since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

B. Human conscience

Rom 2:15 …they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.

II. Supernatural means of revelation

A. Angelic visitation⁶

Gen 19:15 With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.”

Luke 1:13 But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John.”

B. Prophetic inspiration

Isa 7:7 Yet this is what the Sovereign LORD says: “‘It will not take place, it will not happen,’”

Mic 4:4 Every man will sit under his own vine and under his own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the LORD Almighty has spoken.

Theology Series Chapter 1: The Bible

Chapter I: Bibliology
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Dr. Paul Manuel—2013

The first aspect of theology to consider is the Bible. Why start there rather than with God? ...Our entire system of theology comes from information in the Bible. Therefore, it is necessary to establish the reliability of that source before we can proceed confidently that information we gather about other topics is trustworthy.

The whole process of validating a belief system is actually more complicated than this. If we were being thoroughly rigorous, we would have to begin with certain philosophical questions, such as "Does God exist?" We can skip those preliminary issues in this group; all of us agree on that point. If you were talking to someone who did not believe in the existence of God, however, you would not be able to jump straight to what the Bible says. Instead, you would have to start by explaining why you believe there is a God and convince your listener to admit the possibility of God's existence at least. Only then could you consider what that God might have communicated about Himself in the Bible.
[The end notes can be found in the linked pdf]

Understanding what God has said

"Be diligent to present yourself approved to God  as a workman who does not need to be ashamed,  accurately handling the word of truth."  (2 Tim. 2:15 NASB)

In this admonition from Paul, the apostle indicates that there is a right way and a wrong way to deal with what God has revealed, and that the right way is not necessarily easy. In fact, it may require considerable effort—"Be diligent"—to grasp the meaning of a passage.

At first, the task of interpreting Scripture may seem daunting. We live hundreds of years after the people who originally received these documents. We come from a different culture and speak a different language. Perhaps we have had little or no religious training and find the Bible a maze of confusing stories that talk about people with unpronounceable names.

How can we even begin to make sense of what we read in these ancient documents?

Despite the obstacles, understanding Scripture may not be as difficult as it sometimes seems. While there are, indeed, challenges that arise with the passage of time as well as with changes in culture and language, it is possible to overcome many of those hindrances.

The most important skill to develop is simply the ability to read carefully—to pay attention to detail and to be alert for potential problems or for areas that need further study.

The main principle to keep in mind is that "context controls meaning."