The relationship between Israel, the nations, and Israel's God in the eschatological future has long occupied exegetes and theologians. The meaning of the pilgrimage of the nations to Zion and the servant's charge to become a "covenant to the people (µ[ tyrb), a light to the nations (µywg rwa)" ) 193. 7 Deuteronomy also uses the term lsp to refer to graven images. However, Deuteronomy's use of this term need not imply the nonexistence of other gods, as it does in Second Isaiah. In fact, in two instances the term is in construct as "idols of their gods" (µhyhla ylysp), which may indicate that the idols and the gods were not one and the same (Deut 7:25; 12:3). 8 spa is never used to derogate foreign gods in Deuteronomy, however, this word is often used by Second Isaiah to indicate the sole existence of YHWH (Isa 45:6, 14; 46:9; 47:8, 10). 9 Exod 34:17 and Lev 19:4 prohibit the Israelites from making hksm yhla. Perhaps the fact that Second Isaiah does not use µyhla in construct with hksm heightens the lifeless nature of the image.
Recent scholarship has tended to see the book of Job as sweeping away an earlier, mechanistic theology of divine recompense. This essay argues that the widespread biblical notion that God rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked is more complex than generally recognized and that recovering its nuances not only helps one better understand the theological outlook of books like Deuteronomy, Proverbs, and Psalms, but also helps one better grasp the debates within Job. The essay is framed by some reflections on why our contemporary culture regularly misreads the Bible's language of divine retribution in spite of the fact that many contemporary readers affirm analogous ideas of reward and punishment.
N. T. Wright offers a systematic and highly influential metanarrative to account for Paul’s theology of Israel. However, Wright overlooks or underemphasizes important dimensions of Paul’s thinking, leading to problematic distortions. Thus, Wright claims that God rejected the historic people of Israel due to their failure to missionize the gentile nations, an idea not easily found in the Hebrew Bible texts Paul utilizes or in Paul’s own statements concerning his fellow Jews. Wright relies heavily on the diatribe of Rom 2 to build a Pauline theology of Israel, but he downplays the many positive things Paul says elsewhere about Israel’s status. Particularly troubling is Wright’s use of Rom 5 to argue that Paul characterizes Torah as divinely intended to draw sin onto Israel, with the expected consequence that human sin would reach its zenith within Israel, a view that moves Wright toward the very supersessionism against which Paul cautioned his gentile followers. These exegetical decisions, which form a tightly structured messiah-oriented understanding of Israel’s election, ignore what the Hebrew Bible and Paul affirm: while God accomplishes certain larger aims through Israel, God’s election of Israel is ultimately grounded in God’s inalienable love for Israel and Israel’s ancestors.
This essay critiques the widespread tendencies to assume that universalism is always progressive while particularism is always regressive and that the Bible over time moves away from an intolerant particularism toward a tolerant universalism. In the course of the study, one comes to see that utilizing these binary modern categories often impedes one’s ability to understand the text in its own context. The author concludes by arguing that the Bible’s election theology provides evidence that universalism arose not through a waning of Israel’s sense of her self identity as God’s chosen people, but rather through Israel’s ever deepening reflection on the meaning and significance of her elect status.
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