Bully's Blog

“What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have gazed upon and our hands handled concerning the word of life—and the life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and announce to you the life, the eternal one, which was toward the Father and was manifested to us—what we have seen and heard, we announce also to you…”

IF I BELIEVE that the first resurrection occurred around AD70 [1], and that the New Covenant administration consists of saints living and reigning with Christ in heaven [2], these “joint-heirs” become co-mediators in some fashion. Does this open the door to the Roman Catholic practice of praying to glorified saints, or to the Eastern Orthodox love for beautiful icons?

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or Preterism is not a Dirty Word

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One thing that has struck me since becoming a preterist is how much evangelicals play down the badness of the baddies in the New Testament, i.e. the unbelieving Jews and Christian Judaisers.

Evangelicals would never believe that Jesus and the apostles were mistaken in their warnings of an imminent judgment (and let’s face it, this imminence is a facet of the New Testament that is inescapable). So the only other option they see as viable is a position that defies logic: an event that was near, at the doors, yet could happen at any time over next few millennia.

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Psalm 114 – Family of Blood

Psalm 114 is one of those weird passages of Scripture that makes you wonder if the author was high on something. Without an understanding of the significance of the place of this song among these seven Psalms, the lyrics appear to be either the overly-clever, sophomoric crypticism of an ancient Bono or the fragmented derivatory prattlings of a madman.

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After reading (“orthodox”) preterists for a few years, the failure of modern evangelicals to read the New Testament in its historical context, and to understand its constant allusions to Old Testament event structures now floors me. How is it that we so easily underestimate the importance of the destruction of Judaism in AD70? And worse than that, how is it that we fail to understand that the imminent warnings of the apostles as prophets related to that event? Here’s a perfect example that hits both these ugly birds with one stone; some pure gold from Peter Leithart this week:

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Full preterist Samuel Frost has kindly reviewed the book:

Mike Bull recently sent me a copy of his book, Bible Matrix: An Introduction to the DNA of Scriptures, 2010, Westbow Press. Peter Leithart, who I began reading when studying the book of Samuel, writes the introduction. Leithart, as many of you may know, is a close student of the works of James B. Jordan, who is perhaps closer to our view than most, but nonetheless stays within the “orthodox” limits.

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or There Is No Last Supper

A quote from N. T. Wright on Pentecost (pilfered from Uri’s blog):

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Bible Matrix is now available on amazon in both paperback and hardcover. Bit late to worry about typos now, I guess. Thanks to everyone who encouraged and proofed and edited and especially to Dr Leithart whose uncommon accessibility shows where his heart is.

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I said, “You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High. But you shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.” Psalm 82:6

As discussed elsewhere here, the five-point Covenant model as it gets played out in history becomes seven-point. The central “Ethics” gets split into three: Law-Testing-Law.

Moses, the Covenant head, ascends and receives the Law. He opens it for Israel as Mediator. Israel, as body, is tested under the Law. The Law is given again to a “resurrected” Israel, the next generation.

In microcosm, we see this in the incident with the golden calf. Moses is given the Tablets, Israel is tested, and the Tablets are broken. Moses brings the Law a second time.

In macrocosm, the Law is given from Sinai, Israel is tested for forty years, and Moses brings the Law again in Deuteronomy to a “resurrected” Israel, the next generation.

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Great stuff from Peter Leithart’s blog:

Michael Stead (The Intertextuality of Zechariah 1-8 (Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies)) points to a number of intertexual connections between Ezekiel 1-11 and the vision of Zechariah 5:5-11.  He concludes that the vision of Zechariah is an inversion of the Ezekiel’s vision of Yahweh’s departing glory: “Ezekiel 1-11 describes the departure of Yahweh from Jerusalem because of the idolatry (Ezek 8), iniquity (Ezek 4) and wickedness (Ezek 5) of his people, and his departure is attended by winged creatures riding on the wind.  But, now that Yahweh is returning to dwell in Jerusalem, idolatry/iniquity/wickedness is being forced to depart, in a parody of Yahweh’s earlier departure.”

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The content of this post has been revised and included in Bible Matrix II: The Covenant Key.