#eisegesis

🚫 Millennialism Debunked

By Eli Kittim

The Contradictions of Millennialism

Millennialism is a belief that there will be a paradise here on earth before the final judgment. There are, of course, various scriptural discrepancies within this view, as I have often pointed out in my other papers. For example, how will people live here on earth if the earth itself will be destroyed in a great conflagration? 2 Pet. 3.10 reads:

“the heavens will pass away with a loud

noise, and the elements will be dissolved

with fire.”

Besides, there are other contradictions. For instance, how could the same people who would not be resurrected “until the thousand years were completed” (Rev. 20.5) simultaneously live and reign with Christ for a millennium? (Rev. 20.4). They cannot be both dead and alive at the same time! There are other contradictions as well. For example, Millennialism directly contradicts scripture by implying that there will be at least 2 additional comings of Christ, 2 appearances by Satan, 2 Great Wars, 2 Great tribulations, 2 resurrections, 2 apocalypses, 2 Armageddons, 2 judgments, 2 Great Ends, and so on. This is preposterous. In Scripture, there is only one of each. Scripture mentions only one resurrection (Dan. 12.2) and only one Armageddon (Rev. 16.16)! Where else does it mention a second resurrection or a second Armageddon? Besides, 1 Thess. 4.17 says that after the rapture “we will be with the Lord forever,” not just for 1,000 years. And the Book of Daniel is clear that both the Saved and the Damned will be resurrected simultaneously, not successively (12.2). Therefore, this DOUBLING of scriptural events is unwarranted and without merit! It is worth mentioning that the doctrine of millennialism was formally condemned at the Second Ecumenical Council in 381 AD.

Millennialism Repeats Events a Second Time; But Revelation is Recording Single Events

The same event that is mentioned in Ezekiel 38 is repeated in Revelation 20. The endtime Gog/Magog war that Satan is said to unleash at the end of the millennium (Rev. 20.8) is the exact same Gog/Magog war that is mentioned in Ezekiel 38, which is also alluded to in Luke 21.20! The Book of Revelation isn’t saying that the exact same Gog/Magog war of Ezekiel will repeat 1,000 years later. That’s ridiculous. It’s actually talking about one and the same Gog-Magog war; not 2. In fact, the phrase that is used to indicate that Satan will be released “for a little while” (Rev 20.3) is actually a reference to the Great Tribulation, which only lasts for “a little while,” namely, only 3 and a half years, or 42 months, or 1,260 days, or a time, and times, and half a time (cf. Rev. 11.2; 12.6, 14; 13.5)!

Moreover, the narrative in Rev 19 & 20 is basically telling the reader what will happen when God no longer restrains Satan (see 2 Thess 2.7)——that is, when the restrainer is removed——and the Antichrist is finally revealed at the end of a thousand years. That’s when Satan will be unleashed, once and for all, to wreak havoc “for a little while” (i.e. for 3 and a half years, during the Great Tribulation)!

Why would the Book of Revelation REPEAT the exact same story TWICE, like the film “Edge Of Tomorrow”? Why would Satan (Incarnated; Rev. 12.9) come out TWICE “to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth [from the exact same location, Gog & Magog (Ezekiel 38)] in order to gather them for the [exact same] battle” (Rev. 20.7-9)? And why is it that “fire came down from heaven and consumed them” (Rev 20.9) exactly as it did in Ezekiel 38.22? And why is it that they “surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city” exactly as they did in Luke 21.20? Are you kidding me? What is this, a repeat of “Groundhog Day”?

There’s an Interpretive Mixup: Millennialists Conflate Scenes that Occur Before 1,000 Years with Scenes that Occur After 1,000 Years

If Jesus appears BEFORE the millennium on a white horse, and the beast and his armies are killed, and the beast is then captured and “thrown alive into the lake of fire” (Rev 19.19-21), then how does Satan manage to escape “the lake of fire” and mount a comeback? Notice that following Christ’s FIRST encounter with the Beast, BEFORE the millennium (Rev. ch. 20), the Beast was captured & immediately “thrown alive into the lake of fire” (Rev. ch. 19)! But the lake of fire is the second death! It’s game over! No one survives the lake of fire and comes back to to tell stories about it. That’s another red flag. It would be a scriptural contradiction to state that AFTER being “thrown into the lake of fire,” the Antichrist escaped and mounted a comeback. That would constitute a scriptural contradiction. Notice the description of the “lake of fire” in Rev. 20.14:

“Then Death and Hades were thrown into the

lake of fire. This is the second death, the

lake of fire.”

This event is final! It is the final separation of life and death. So, it’s completely bogus to say that Satan survived the lake of fire in chapter 19 & came back physically to fulfill chapter 20. It’s complete nonsense! Moreover, Satan’s activities in Rev. 20 suggest that he’s incarnate, otherwise how does a nonphysical being fight a war on earth? Besides, Rev. 12.9 tells us that Satan will be incarnated on earth! So, the Millennialists are mixing apples with oranges. They’re conflating scenes that happen BEFORE the 1,000 years (Rev. 19) with scenes that take place AFTER the 1,000 years (Rev. 20)! And if the description in Rev 20.10—-concerning what happens to Satan AFTER the supposed 1,000 years——turns out to be the exact same version of Rev 19.20—-about what happens to Satan BEFORE the 1,000 years——then we obviously have one story, not two!

Conclusion

One of my bigger frustrations with dharma practice in the west (and that of Zen in particular) is the unbridled freedom that every practitioner grants themselves in being interpretive experts on the tradition, despite having no particular training or schema to guide such eisegetical opining.

What’s more? When this lack of training and schema is pointed out, many fallaciously appeal to “Bodhidharma’s Sacred Verse” (as a scripture) to justify not responsibly using scripture, tradition, or reason. In other words, Zen in the west has a problem with the primacy of experience.

This is where, as Westerners, we can truly benefit from the culturally relevant constructs that have been developed in the west to responsibly engage our traditions. I suggest we start with some basic grounding in historical-critical textual criticism, which demands an understanding of the difference between exegesis and eisegesis, and a model akin to the Wesleyan Quadrilateral (which for Zenists, I would argue, should give equal voice to the authority of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason in the interpretation of our practice-rooted Experience) to guide the process.

~Sunyananda

The world is full of terrible movies with ellipsis-laden, glowing reviews on their posters. You might read “...a great movie...” when the original quote was “I really wish this was a great movie.” It happens all the time. 

It seems obvious that context is important. Words get their meaning from how they are used with other words, not as isolated units. Even words that everyone agrees are absolutely awful, such as n----- or c---, can be not-awful when used in a particular context by particular people. 

Unfortunately, claiming that something was taken “out of context” has become popular as a counter-argument, and it’s rarely questioned. If someone confidently avers “out of context” as a response to anything, it’s completely reasonable to ask for that missing context. If they are unable or unwilling to provide any, then you have outed them as a purveyor of nonsense.

You can have similar fun with people who claim something is “ethnic” just by asking them which ethnicity they’re referring to.

If you remove the context of a quote to line up with an ideological opinion you have, it’s called eisegesis, sometimes called “proof-texting”. If you do this repeatedly, it’s called “quote mining”, and advertises the poverty of your argument.

An example of how removing context from a quote can dramatically alter its meaning is here, where removing the last few words promoted the exact opposite of the original message. It’s so blatant that it can only have been intentional (which makes me wonder why, if the message is that everyone should learn to pronounce difficult names, they didn’t use a source that actually supported that idea, instead of hacking the context away from a source that didn’t). 

How Old Was Abraham When He Left Haran?

By Bible Researcher Eli Kittim 🎓

The Apparent Contradiction

There’s a seeming contradiction in the Bible concerning Abraham’s age when he left Haran. The apparent contradiction is as follows. If Terah died when he was 205 years old, but fathered Abram when he was 70, then Abram must have been 135 years old when his father Terah died (as Gen. 11.26, 32 suggest), not 75, as Gen. 12.4 indicates. For the story to work without any discrepancies, Terah would literally have to be 130 years old when he fathered Abram. But it seemed as if he were only 70 years old. Hence the apparent contradiction. Below are the relevant citations that appear to contradict each other.

—-

Genesis 12.4 (ESV):

So Abram went, as the LORD had told him,

and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-

five years old when he departed from

Haran.

Acts 7.2:

And Stephen said: ‘Brothers and fathers,

hear me. The God of glory appeared to our

father Abraham when he was in

Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran.’

Acts 7.4:

Then he went out from the land of the

Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his

father died, God removed him from there

into this land in which you are now living.

Genesis 11.26:

When Terah had lived 70 years, he fathered

Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

Genesis 11.32:

The days of Terah were 205 years, and

Terah died in Haran.

—————

Apologetic Exegesis

The key passage is Gen. 11.26. The Hebrew text doesn’t explicitly say that *when* Terah was 70 years old he begat Abram. Rather, it puts it thusly (Gen. 11.26 KJV):

And Terah lived seventy years, and begat

Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

Nowhere is it explicitly mentioned that Terah had all 3 children when he was 70 years old. Nor is there any direct evidence that these children were triplets, or that they were born on the exact same date, month, or year. The verse in Gen. 11.26 merely indicates that after Terah reached a certain age——namely, 70 years old——he began to father children. But exactly when these children were actually born is unknown. The only thing that’s clear from Gen. 11.26 is that they were born after Terah had reached a certain age.

It’s quite possible, for example, that some of his children could have been born when Terah was 130 years old. Nothing in the text would contradict the timing of such a birth. As long as Terah fathered at least one child after he was 70, the rest could have been born anytime between Terah’s 70th and 205th birthday.

The order in which the names of Terah’s sons are listed may not reflect the precise chronological order in which the children were actually born. The text is simply indicating their order of importance. Given that Abram is a key figure in the Old Testament and the common patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, he’s obviously mentioned first:

there is yet a question whether Abram was

born first as listed, or perhaps he is listed

first because he was the wisest similar to

Shem, Ham, and Jafeth where Shem was

not the oldest, but was the wisest. … the

Talmud leaves the above question open.

(Wikipedia)

—————

Conclusion

Actually, Abram could have been 75 years old when he left Haran, as the text indicates (Gen. 12.4). And maybe he did leave Haran “after his father died” (Acts 7.4) at the age of 205 (Gen. 11.32). There is no contradiction with regard to the dates. The assumed contradiction is actually based on fallacious reasoning and speculation. It’s based on an eisegesis, that is, a misinterpretation of the text. Readers often assume that the text is telling us that Abram was born *when* Terah was 70 years old. But that’s a conjecture. The text doesn’t say that at all. All the text says is that once Terah reached a certain age, he began fathering sons. But exactly when each and every son was born is unknown.

In the Bible, Do Past Tenses Imply Past History?

By Author Eli Kittim 📚

——-

The Past Tense Versus the Conditional Tense

If we are to see things as they really are, not as we would wish them to be, we must free ourselves from ingrained religious systems of indoctrination, which always end up in some kind of a *confirmation bias* (i.e. the inclination to interpret new evidence as verification of one's preexisting presuppositions or beliefs). That’s why this way of reading and interpreting scripture is not called “exegesis” (i.e. drawing out the meaning according to the authorial intent), but rather “eisegesis” (i.e. reading into the text). One such Biblical preconception is that past tenses *always* refer to past actions that occurred in history.

Any Bible *interpretation* of past tenses that lays primary emphasis on a historical orientation is partly due to a confusion of terms and context. Insofar as the New Testament (NT) is concerned, verbal aspect theory, which is at the cutting edge of Hellenistic Greek linguistics, demonstrates that *tense-forms* do not have any temporal implications. According to Stanley E. Porter, “Idioms of the Greek New Testament” (2nd edn; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999), p. 25:

Temporal values (past, present, future) are

not established in Greek by use of the

verbal aspects (or tense-forms) alone. This

may come as a surprise to those who, like

most students of Greek, were taught at an

elementary level that certain tense-forms

automatically refer to certain times when an

action occurs.

In other words, we should never interpret Biblical tense-forms as if they’re corresponding ipso facto to past, present, or future events (i.e. past tense doesn’t equal (=) past action; present tense doesn’t equal (=) present action; future tense doesn’t equal (=) future action). To further complicate matters, there’s another tense in grammar called the "historical present,” which employs verb phrases in the present tense to refer to events that occurred in the past. In narrative accounts, the historical present is often used to evoke a dramatic effect of immediacy. It’s variously called the "historic present, the narrative present, or the dramatic present.” And there are also past tenses that refer to future events. For example, Revelation 7:4 uses the perfect-tense “those who were sealed” to refer to an event that has not happened yet. Bottom line, tenses serve a literary function and should not be confused with the time when an action takes place. Koine Greek, especially, relates aspect rather than time!

Many of the Bible’s tenses suggest various events taking place without specifying the precise timing of their occurrence. Some of these verses are in the “conditional mood.” The conditional mood is used in grammar to convey a statement or assertion whose validity is dependent on some specific condition, possibly a counterfactual one (e.g. what if?). The conditional mood may refer to a particular verb form that expresses a hypothetical state of affairs or an uncertain event that is contingent upon the independent clause. It is sometimes referred to as the "conditional tense.” The following examples will show you that the Biblical statements are conditional or contingent on the happening of an event. In other words, if Christ truly died (condition), then the TIMEFRAME (result) would be mentioned in the Biblical verses. But since the TIMING is not given, in these particular examples, the premise remains conditional upon the happening of this event.

Proper exegesis does not ask us to fall back on personal opinions, private interpretations, presuppositions, or conjectures when we encounter biblical difficulties, but that we pay close attention to the EXACT words of a verse, always asking ourselves WHEN did this happen. Does this or that particular verse tell us? For example, 1 Peter 3.18 (NRSV) is in the conditional mood. It says:

For Christ also suffered for sins once for all,

the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to

bring you to God. He was put to death in the

flesh, but made alive in the spirit.

But Does 1 Peter 3.18 tell you precisely **WHEN** Christ died? No! All of the past tenses are still in the conditional mood. The timing is still hypothetical. In other words, it’s as if the text were saying:

For Christ also suffered for sins once for all,

[at some point in history], the righteous for

the unrighteous, in order to bring you to

God. He was put to death in the flesh, but

made alive in the spirit [at some point in

human history].

That’s why it is conditional. It doesn’t specify when or at what point in time this took place. And 1 Pet. 3.18 employs the exact same word that is used in Hebrews 9.26b, namely, “once for all” (hapax). But Heb. 9.26b **DOES** tell you PRECISELY when he dies: “in the end of the world” (KJV). A concordance study of the phrase ἐπὶ συντελείᾳ τῶν αἰώνων (“the end of the age”; Dan. 12.4 LXX; Mt. 13.39-40, 49; 24.3; 28.20; Heb. 9.26b) demonstrates that this particular time period, indicated by the aforesaid phrase, could not have possibly occurred 2,000 years ago. And 1 Peter 1.20 (NJB) confirms that Christ “was revealed [initially] at the final point of time”!

——-

Proof that Passages Set in the Past Tense Can Actually Refer to Future Prophecies

Notice that we are not speculating, here. We are using the analogy of scripture, allowing the Bible to define and interpret itself. This hermeneutical method will not be questioned by any credible expositor who has a competent knowledge of exegesis!

The notion that past tenses are not necessarily referring to the past can be proven. It can be demonstrated. The undermentioned passage from Deutero-Isaiah dates from the 6th century bce (500’s). That’s about 500 years BEFORE the purported coming of Christ. But a perfunctory reading of the Book of Isaiah would suggest that Christ ALREADY DIED in the 6th century bce. Notice that Isaiah 53.3-5 (NRSV) is saturated with *past tenses*:

He was despised and rejected by others; a

man of suffering and acquainted with

infirmity; and as one from whom others hide

their faces he was despised, and we held

him of no account. Surely he has borne our

infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we

accounted him stricken, struck down by

God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for

our transgressions, crushed for our

iniquities; upon him was the punishment

that made us whole, and by his bruises we

are healed.

Judging from the PAST TENSES that are used, it appears as if Christ already died in the 6th century bce, prior to Isaiah’s written account. That’s certainly what the past tenses imply.

What do you think? Did it happen? No! Of course not! Isaiah is not writing about a past event. He’s writing about a PROPHECY. But he sets the entire prophecy in the past tense as if it already happened. That’s EXACTLY what the NT is doing. It’s writing about a prophecy, but setting it in the past tense as if it already happened. The author of Isaiah 53 composed this work 500+ years PRIOR to Paul and the NT writings. A cursory reading of Isa. 53 would suggest that Christ died in the 6th century *before Christ* (BC). We tend to read the NT in like manner. Isaiah’s text therefore *proves* that prophecy can be set in the past tense!

Similarly, 1 Peter 2.22-24 (a NT passage) seems to be modeled on Isaiah 53, and is therefore very telling in that regard:

‘He [Christ] committed no sin, and no deceit

was found in his mouth.’ When he was

abused, he did not return abuse; when he

suffered, he did not threaten; but he

entrusted himself to the one who judges

justly. He himself bore our sins in his body

on the cross, so that, free from sins, we

might live for righteousness; by his wounds

you have been healed.

It is the same with Hebrews 1.3. It sounds as if this event already occurred. But, on closer inspection, notice that the text doesn’t explicitly say that this event took place in history. It just tells you that it took place at some unspecified time period. Therefore, it would not be incorrect to read it as follows:

When he had made purification for sins, [at

some point in human history] he sat down

at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

The text just gives you the outcome. It doesn’t tell you when this event actually took place. But there are certain passages that DO tell you when. And if you run a concordance study, you’ll realize that they refer to the end of the world. I’m referring to verses like Hebrews 9.26b, 1 Peter 1.20, and all the passages that refer to the REVELATION of Jesus. Remember, if Jesus has already been manifested, he cannot be revealed again. Apokalupsis (revelation) refers to a first time disclosure. I have written extensively about these topics. They should be clear by now!

——-

The Phrase “Christ Died for Our Sins” is Almost Always Misinterpreted as Referring to a Past Event

Let’s explore another popular verse, namely, 1 Cor. 15.3, which people love to quote as proof “that Christ died for our sins”:

Χριστὸς ἀπέθανεν ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν

ἡμῶν κατὰ τὰς γραφάς.

All it’s saying is “that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15.3 NIV). Notice, this verse is not certifying that Christ in fact died in antiquity. Rather, it’s saying that Christ died for our sins (at some unspecified time in human history, the timeframe of which is unknown and not given) according to the prophetic scriptures, or just as the Old Testament (OT) scriptures had predicted. In fact, it doesn’t say that Christ died according to the historical accounts, but rather according to the prophetic writings (γραφάς). In short, Christ died to fulfill the scriptures. But the TIMING of this event is not specified.

Let’s look at another passage that is often taken to mean that “Christ died for the ungodly” (NRSV) 2,000 years ago. Observe what the verse says, but also what it doesn’t say. Romans 5.6 suggests that Christ “died” (ἀπέθανεν) at some unspecified time of human history by using the phrase κατὰ καιρόν, which means “at the right time” (cf. 1 Tim. 2.6), or at “the proper time,” and does not necessarily warrant a reference to history:

Ἔτι γὰρ ⸃ Χριστὸς ὄντων ἡμῶν ἀσθενῶν ἔτι

κατὰ καιρὸν ὑπὲρ ἀσεβῶν ἀπέθανεν.

So, although scripture once more reiterates that “Christ died for the ungodly”——and even though this is often uncritically assumed to refer to a past event that supposedly happened in antiquity——the text is NOT saying that this event already happened (cf. Rom. 5.8; 14.9; 1 Thess. 5.9-10). The problem is not with the text. The problem is with our *interpretation* of the text.

Similarly, in 2 Pet. 1.16–21, the eyewitness testimony of Jesus’ transfiguration in vv. 16-18 is not historical but rather a vision of the future. That’s why verse 19 concludes: “So we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed.” The same goes for the apocalyptic passage in 1 Pet. 1.10-11 (see my article “First Peter 1.10-11 Suggests An Eschatological Soteriology”: https://eli-kittim.tumblr.com/post/184378109027/by-author-eli-kittim-concerning-this-salvation).

Therefore, the church’s dogma that Jesus died in Antiquity appears to be a proof-text fallacy that is out of touch with the *teaching* of the epistles. Case in point, there are numerous passages in the epistles that place the timeline of Jesus’ life (i.e., his birth, death, and resurrection) in *eschatological* categories (e.g., 2 Thess. 2.1-3; Heb. 1.1-2; 9.26b; 1 Pet. 1.10-11, 20; Rev. 12.5; 19.10d). For example, 1 Cor. 15.22 puts Christ’s resurrection within an eschatological timetable.

——-

Conclusion

If the canonical context demands that we coalesce the different Biblical texts as if we’re reading a single Book, then the overall “prophetic” message of Revelation must certainly play a significant exegetical role. Accordingly, the Book of Revelation places not only the timeline (12.5) but also the testimony to Jesus (19.10d) in “prophetic” categories.

The *apocalyptic theology* of the NT epistles is multiply attested in the OT canon, which confirms the earthy, *end-time Messiah* of the epistolary literature (cf. Job 19.25; Isa. 2.19; Dan. 12.1-2; Zeph. 1.7-9, 15-18; Zech. 12.9-10)!

A revelation by default means “a first-time” occurrence. In other words, it’s an event that is happening for the very first time. By definition, a “revelation” is never disclosed twice. If we examine the NT verses, which mention the future revelation of Christ, we will find that they are not referring to a second coming, a coming back, or a return, as is commonly thought, but rather to an initial appearance (see e.g. 1 Cor. 1.7; 16.22; 1 Thess. 2.19; 4.15; 2 Thess. 1.10; 2.1; Heb. 10.37; Jas. 5.7; 1 Pet. 1.7; 2 Pet. 1.16; 3.4; 1 Jn 2.28; Rev. 2.16; 22.20). See my article “Why does the New Testament Refer to Christ’s Future Coming as a ‘Revelation’?”: https://eli-kittim.tumblr.com/post/187927555567/why-does-the-new-testament-refer-to-christs

Due to time constraints, it is beyond the scope of this paper to illustrate either the “unhistorical” nature of the gospel genre or the scant external evidence for the historicity of Jesus. Suffice it to say that the gospels appear to be written beforehand (or before the fact) through a kind of foreknowledge or prognósis (προγνώσει; cf. Acts 2.22—23; 10.40—41; Rom. 1.2). They are conveyed from a theological angle by way of a *proleptic narrative,* a means of *biographizing the eschaton* as if presently accomplished. For further details, see my article, “8 Theses or Disputations on Modern Christianity’s View of the Bible”: https://eli-kittim.tumblr.com/post/638877875512262656/8-theses-or-disputations-on-modern-christianitys

All in all, this paper has demonstrated that Biblical past tenses do not necessarily imply past history. In fact, it can be shown from various passages (e.g. Isaiah 53.3-5) that prophecies can also be set in the past tense!

Was Jesus Born Again?

By Goodreads Author Eli Kittim

Jesus’ Baptism in the Holy Spirit

In discussing Jesus’ baptism in the Holy Spirit, I’m not referring to John the Baptist’s water baptism. Rather, I’m referring to a Spirit baptism or a conversion experience where Jesus had a personal encounter with the power of God. Many Christian denominations emphasize that without such a “born-again” experience no one can enter the kingdom of God (Jn 3.5). From the outset, scripture emphasizes the need for a baptism of the Spirit (Mt. 3.11 NRSV):

‘He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and

fire.’

In Mk. 16.16-17, it’s not merely by faith alone but by spirit “baptism” that salvation is accomplished! Given that the born-again Christians “will speak with new tongues,” it’s clear that the text isn’t referring to a symbolic immersion in water but rather to a baptism of the Holy Spirit! And although Baptism is defined as a rite of admission into Christianity——by immersing in water——this ritual is *symbolic* of being cleansed from sin (1 Jn 1.7) by the death of the self. First Peter 3.21 (NIV) reads:

and this water symbolizes baptism that now

saves you also—not the removal of dirt from

the body but the pledge of a clear

conscience toward God.

In Rom. 6.3-4, Paul talks of a baptism Into Jesus’ death! It’s a believer’s participation in the death of Christ to allow them to “walk in newness of life.” It’s part of the same regeneration process which comprises the death of the old self & the rebirth of the new one (Eph. 4.22-24). The best example of Spirit baptism is in Acts 2.1-4! Colossians 2.12 (NIV) similarly says:

having been buried with him in baptism, in

which you were also raised with him through

your faith in the working of God.

Keep in mind that, in the gospel story, Jesus didn’t start his ministry prior to his regeneration. Nor was Jesus revealed prior to his rebirth. Mt. 3.16-17 (NRSV) suggests that Jesus’ regeneration began with John’s baptism and was followed thereafter by his encounter with the devil in the wilderness:

And when Jesus had been baptized, just as

he came up from the water, suddenly the

heavens were opened to him and he saw

the Spirit of God descending like a dove and

alighting on him. And a voice from heaven

said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with

whom I am well pleased.’

This is a symbolic account of his rebirth. Notice that it was Jesus *alone* who saw (εἶδεν), presumably for the first time, the Spirit of God (cf. Jn. 3.3) who would later indwell him. If Jesus already had the Holy Spirit, there would have been no need for a temptation in the desert. Jesus already had the fullness of the Deity within him in bodily form (Col. 2.9) but, being innocent, he still had to receive the Holy Spirit in order to energize it and be transformed. The next verse says (Mt. 4.1 NRSV):

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the

wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

This is a continuation of the earlier baptism motif in the previous chapter. If “ ‘John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance’ “ (Acts 19.4 NIV), as “Paul said,” then Jesus would have had to necessarily confront his sin nature at some point. For those who object to the notion that Jesus had a sin nature, how could he have been “like His brothers in every way” (Heb. 2.17), fully human, if he were unable to be tempted? Not to mention that it would also render the temptation pericope ipso facto meaningless because how could the devil tempt someone who is unable to be tempted by sin? That’s why scripture says that “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us” (2 Cor. 5.21 NIV)!

So, as part of his rebirth experience, Jesus had to confront the devil. That’s why the text emphasizes that he didn’t do it on his own. Rather, “he was led up [ἀνήχθη] by the Spirit.” Jesus then confronts the devil head on. He is persistently tempted in order that he may prove his loyalty to God. He faces various temptations and is put to the test. He experiences what the German Protestant theologian Rudolf Otto (1869–1937) calls the “mysterium tremendum”:

A great or profound mystery, especially the

mystery of God or of existence; the

overwhelming awe felt by a person

contemplating such a mystery (Oxford

English Dictionary).

The text shows that, by the end of his temptation experience, Jesus had been reborn in God by following the same principle as the one found in James 4.7 (NRSV):

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist

the devil, and he will flee from you.

Jesus does precisely that. Notice that the spirit of God and the angels did not minister to him prior to his rejection of Satan (Mt. 4.10-11 NIV):

Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan!

For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God,

and serve him only.’ “Then the devil left him,

and angels came and attended him.

This is a clear demonstration that even Jesus himself had to be reborn in order to both see & enter the kingdom of God (Jn. 3.3, 5). Given that he’s fully human (Heb. 2.17), he’s not exempt from the regeneration process, which is the necessary means by which a human being can become united with God.

This concept creates an obvious oxymoron. For example, if Christ was purportedly born-again, does this mean that Jesus got saved? Or that Jesus became a Christian? This is the kind of paradox that such an experience can suggest. In a certain sense, the answer is yes. Think about it. Being fully human, even Christ has to undergo a dangerous temptation in order to encounter God. But if that’s the case, then it means that there was a time when Jesus didn’t know God; a time when he didn’t have a personal and intimate relationship with him. Lk. 2.52 (NRSV) says:

Jesus increased in wisdom and in years,

and in divine and human favor.

If “Jesus increased in wisdom,” then this means that there was a time when he didn’t have much wisdom. The above verse also suggests that the divine favor towards him increased as Jesus got older. All these passages clearly show that Jesus grew up as a normal human being who underwent all of the spiritual experiences for regeneration and rebirth that we all encounter. He was not exempt from any of them, including that of regeneration & rebirth!

Conclusion

Scripture, then, shows that in being fully human, Jesus had to go through everything that we also face, including suffering, pain, depression, rejection, and so forth. Yet there are some pastors who teach that Jesus didn’t have a sin nature, never sinned, could not be tempted, was not reborn, and the like. Remember Isa. 53.3 (NLT)?:

He was despised and rejected— a

man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest

grief.

“Reading into or reading out of: reading scripture should make us uncomfortable and ask us to learn.”

[First given as a sermon on August 24, 2025]

Find this interesting? Please register for the upcoming class inspired by it: Original and Amendable: Reading the US Constitution in Light of Rabbinic Legal Methodology

Once, when meeting an African American minister for the first time, I was asked, more interrogated: “Do you do exegesis or eisegesis?”

I must admit, no one had used both those words to me since classes in rabbinical school!

After giving the apparently correct answer, namely “exegesis”, the minister told me that he observed serious caution in new relationships with faith leaders and wanted to know if I read scripture in ways that would justify enslaving African Americans. We can use the texts that we hold sacred and important to rationalize abhorrent behavior. This minister, understandably, would refuse partnership with someone who would use texts to justify their own unethical opinions.

In Deuteronomy, Chapter 13, Verse 1, the Divine says: “don’t add or take away from anything I tell you.”

This seems to say we must take the entire teaching literally, word for word.

And yet, none of us do.

Truly – no one adheres to all that is written in Scripture – it is not possible.

Some people try, that’s for sure, but everyone must interpret, and our texts often demand contradictory things from us.

Furthermore, Jews have never taken the entire text literally. Reading farther on in the Deuteronomy, Chapter 13:6, it says: “Now that prophet or that dreamer of dreams is to be put-to-death.”[1] This contrasts with the caution against the death penalty in Jewish traditions. We have a much later text, from the Mishnah, which dates to around 200 CE, over 1,800 years ago, that shows the reluctance with which the death penalty was used for a capital crime. This long discourse shows that ancient Jewish courts made the death penalty so difficult to impose that it almost never happened. The early rabbis supported this with this teaching:

Adam the first person was created alone, to teach you that regarding anyone who destroys one soul, the verse assigns them blame as if they destroyed an entire world, as Adam was one person, from whom the population of an entire world came forth. And anyone who sustains one soul, the verse ascribes them credit as if they sustained an entire world.[2] 

Recognizing that it is all well and good for the ancient rabbis to have interpreted away literal readings, while also admitting that Jewish culture reveres the writers of our ancient texts as bearing more authority than we ever can, how can contemporary Jews claim authentic interpretations when the text says: “add and subtract nothing”?

For methods of interpretation, we often divide into two general camps, those of us who try to do exegesis, and those who use eisegesis. Exegesis asks us to learn from the text –reading out of the text. We use the entire canon to help us create context to understand what it says. Eisegesis uses what we think already as a lens on what the text says – reading into the text.

Let’s dismiss most eisegesis from the outset – those who use it often flagrantly bring a text to prove what they already think. They are not endeavoring to learn something from the text. They attempt to teach their own perspectives using the text for their own devices. This seems to be clearly “adding and subtracting” from the text and makes it difficult to adhere to our text today. We will return to all the people who nonetheless do this.

For those of us trying to engage scripture in “good faith” – we need to learn from it, to use it as a source of wisdom not a proof of how we are already wise. In our death penalty example, we see ancient rabbis clearly dismissing an entire form of justice from the Five Books of Moses, the central canonical text for the Jewish people. There are a lot of death penalties enumerated in scripture – for violating the Sabbath (Exodus 31:14), for idolatry (Deuteronomy 17:5), even for being a disobedient child (Deuteronomy 21:18-21), plus the text we read today about the false prophet being put to death. How do the rabbis, who claim absolute devotion to doing what the text says, not only as a religious observance of faith, but also most importantly as a civic law for the basic functioning of their society, allow themselves to so clearly “subtract” from the text while also adhering to it?

The rabbis start with principles that the entirety of the teachings of Judaism lay out clearly. We cannot say that life is important, as shown by the story that tells us that we are all descended from one person and therefore every person contains the potential for an entire world, and be so cavalier about life’s importance that people are put to death all the time. The rabbinic tradition of reading text this way in Jewish society dates back formally at least to the Babylonian Exile, when the earliest academies were founded and Jews needed to figure out how to apply Biblical teachings away from the centers in Jerusalem – that’s more than 2,500 years ago. That means that from the very earliest days of attempting to use Biblical texts as a guide for all of the Jewish people, Jewish scholars developed a system of reading and interpretation that was not based on a slavish literal interpretation – “do this because it says so” – but in fact started with fundamental questions about what the text was trying to teach us as a whole. What are the principles of the society that we hope to build together?

The real principles are often found in the stories, and they help us to understand how to read texts that are often inconsistent. The story shows us the teaching and serves as a more powerful example than any listing of “thou shalt’s” and “thou shalt not’s”.

Jewish exegesis is informed by principles of the text that require us to NOT do literal commands that are contrary to the principles found in the stories that show us what society could be like when we work together. These readings receive support from Jews throughout history in large part on account of the inherently communitarian and democratic approaches of Jewish culture – Jewish authorities really do “serve at the pleasure” of the Jewish people historically.

We see this all the time today because people in power regularly say they “only do what the law says” while reading it entirely differently from its plain language or ignoring plain meanings altogether. Public textual interpretations go directly at the flawed usage of eisegesis that we dismissed and that the African American minister cautioned me about. So many tell us that they can or can’t do things based on their readings of texts. We have leaders claiming that the plain text of the US Constitution doesn’t say what it clearly says, like that every person has certain rights regardless of citizenship. We have religious people saying that their interpretations of scripture must apply to all of us, regarding our own relationships, women’s health, and personal identity.

The Supreme Court used a tortured reading of the Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution to requalify Donald Trump to run for president. Here’s what the text says:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.[3]

The Supreme Court decided that this part of the Constitution was not “self-activating” and used what was clearly tortured reasoning to deny the State of Colorado the power to remove a candidate from the ballot because the State has no jurisdiction over Federal candidates (despite States’ Constitutional responsibilities to run Federal Elections), reading the Congressional power to “remove such a disability” as an additional requirement that Congress must first impose the disability.[4]

Apologies for getting into the weeds of Supreme Court decisions.

Yet, this is the point, and this is the problem with these two terribly “my eyes are glazing over terms” – exegesis and eisegesis – they are stand-ins for the real thing that’s happening, which is about power, the use and abuse of authority, and the denial of rights and power to the people.

When someone uses a text to explain why they get to tell us what to do:

- especially claiming a tortured reading as a plain reading that we must obey, like the Supreme Court’s machinations above, or their use of “originalism” or the phony history that they attempt to do with “history and tradition” arguments, or not even telling us their reasoning at all, as they have repeatedly done on the so-called “Emergency Docket”;

- or a faith leader attempting to end discussion by saying “Scripture says so”;

- or a political leader claiming that they have the power to do something because they looked for and found an obscure legal decree;

what they are really saying is that they have power over us, they have the authority to tell us what language and text mean, that they can make any argument they like to perpetuate their power at the expense of our powerlessness.

In contrast, when we offer a set of principles to read a text with one another, to explain why this way makes sense and that other way makes less sense, we engage in the conversation because we are in community together, because we respect that each of us is a reflection of something sacred, something infinite in the universe, and a fundamental principle behind that is that I don’t get to tell you what to do because I said so. We honor the teaching of the rabbis that we think of ourselves as all descended from one source and that therefore we are all equally endowed with reason, and merit, and value, and wisdom to interpret. We accept that our difference of opinions, often uncomfortable, is the source for productive discussion, out of which will emerge something greater than your opinion or my opinion, namely our shared opinion.

The most important aspect of life together is building community and power collaboratively, through community, so that we can work with one another. This isn’t easy. It takes work, and listening, and admitting that we don’t know everything ourselves, and that solutions are found in compromise and collaboration. When instead we follow a less arduous path and submit to the sovereignty of a one-opinion, one source of wisdom for all of us model, then we give up our rights to self-determination and freedom for all of us together.

Let us learn with one another, develop principles that we can all work on together, and build something better, more inclusive, with liberty and justice for all.

 [1] Fox, E. (1997). The Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Schocken, p. 912

[2] Steinsaltz, A. (2007). Mishnah sanhedrin 4:5. Sefaria: a Living Library of Jewish Texts Online. https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Sanhedrin.4.5?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en

[3] The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. (1866, June 13). National Constitution Center – The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/amendments/amendment-xiv

“Reading into or reading out of: reading scripture should make us uncomfortable and ask us to learn.”

[First given as a sermon on August 24, 2025]

Find this interesting? Please register for the upcoming class inspired by it: Original and Amendable: Reading the US Constitution in Light of Rabbinic Legal Methodology

Once, when meeting an African American minister for the first time, I was asked, more interrogated: “Do you do exegesis or eisegesis?”

I must admit, no one had used both those words to me since classes in rabbinical school!

 After giving the apparently correct answer, namely “exegesis”, the minister told me that he observed serious caution in new relationships with faith leaders and wanted to know if I read scripture in ways that would justify enslaving African Americans. We can use the texts that we hold sacred and important to rationalize abhorrent behavior. This minister, understandably, would refuse partnership with someone who would use texts to justify their own unethical opinions.

 In Deuteronomy, Chapter 13, Verse 1, the Divine says: “don’t add or take away from anything I tell you.”

This seems to say we must take the entire teaching literally, word for word.

And yet, none of us do.

Truly –no one adheres to all that is written in Scripture – it is not possible.

Some people try, that’s for sure, but everyone must interpret, and our texts often demand contradictory things from us.

Furthermore, Jews have never taken the entire text literally. Reading farther on in the Deuteronomy, Chapter 13:6, it says: “Now that prophet or that dreamer of dreams is to be put-to-death.”[1] This contrasts with the caution against the death penalty in Jewish traditions. We have a much later text, from the Mishnah, which dates to around 200 CE, over 1,800 years ago, that shows the reluctance with which the death penalty was used for a capital crime. This long discourse shows that ancient Jewish courts made the death penalty so difficult to impose that it almost never happened. The early rabbis supported this with this teaching:

Adam the first person was created alone, to teach you that regarding anyone who destroys one soul, the verse assigns them blame as if they destroyed an entire world, as Adam was one person, from whom the population of an entire world came forth. And anyone who sustains one soul, the verse ascribes them credit as if they sustained an entire world.[2]

 Recognizing that it is all well and good for the ancient rabbis to have interpreted away literal readings, while also admitting that Jewish culture reveres the writers of our ancient texts as bearing more authority than we ever can, how can contemporary Jews claim authentic interpretations when the text says: “add and subtract nothing”?

For methods of interpretation, we often divide into two general camps, those of us who try to do exegesis, and those who use eisegesis. Exegesis asks us to learn from the text –reading out of the text. We use the entire canon to help us create context to understand what it says. Eisegesis uses what we think already as a lens on what the text says – reading into the text.

Let’s dismiss most eisegesis from the outset – those who use it often flagrantly bring a text to prove what they already think. They are not endeavoring to learn something from the text. They attempt to teach their own perspectives using the text for their own devices. This seems to be clearly “adding and subtracting” from the text and makes it difficult to adhere to our text today. We will return to all the people who nonetheless do this.

For those of us trying to engage scripture in “good faith” – we need to learn from it, to use it as a source of wisdom not a proof of how we are already wise. In our death penalty example, we see ancient rabbis clearly dismissing an entire form of justice from the Five Books of Moses, the central canonical text for the Jewish people. There are a lot of death penalties enumerated in scripture – for violating the Sabbath (Exodus 31:14), for idolatry (Deuteronomy 17:5), even for being a disobedient child (Deuteronomy 21:18-21), plus the text we read today about the false prophet being put to death. How do the rabbis, who claim absolute devotion to doing what the text says, not only as a religious observance of faith, but also most importantly as a civic law for the basic functioning of their society, allow themselves to so clearly “subtract” from the text while also adhering to it?

The rabbis start with principles that the entirety of the teachings of Judaism lay out clearly. We cannot say that life is important, as shown by the story that tells us that we are all descended from one person and therefore every person contains the potential for an entire world, and be so cavalier about life’s importance that people are put to death all the time. The rabbinic tradition of reading text this way in Jewish society dates back formally at least to the Babylonian Exile, when the earliest academies were founded and Jews needed to figure out how to apply Biblical teachings away from the centers in Jerusalem – that’s more than 2,500 years ago. That means that from the very earliest days of attempting to use Biblical texts as a guide for all of the Jewish people, Jewish scholars developed a system of reading and interpretation that was not based on a slavish literal interpretation – “do this because it says so” – but in fact started with fundamental questions about what the text was trying to teach us as a whole. What are the principles of the society that we hope to build together?

The real principles are often found in the stories, and they help us to understand how to read texts that are often inconsistent. The story shows us the teaching and serves as a more powerful example than any listing of “thou shalt’s” and “thou shalt not’s”.

Jewish exegesis is informed by principles of the text that require us to NOT do literal commands that are contrary to the principles found in the stories that show us what society could be like when we work together. These readings receive support from Jews throughout history in large part on account of the inherently communitarian and democratic approaches of Jewish culture – Jewish authorities really do “serve at the pleasure” of the Jewish people historically.

We see this all the time today because people in power regularly say they “only do what the law says” while reading it entirely differently from its plain language or ignoring plain meanings altogether. Public textual interpretations go directly at the flawed usage of eisegesis that we dismissed and that the African American minister cautioned me about. So many tell us that they can or can’t do things based on their readings of texts. We have leaders claiming that the plain text of the US Constitution doesn’t say what it clearly says, like that every person has certain rights regardless of citizenship. We have religious people saying that their interpretations of scripture must apply to all of us, regarding our own relationships, women’s health, and personal identity.

The Supreme Court used a tortured reading of the Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution to requalify Donald Trump to run for president. Here’s what the text says:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.[3]

The Supreme Court decided that this part of the Constitution was not “self-activating” and used what was clearly tortured reasoning to deny the State of Colorado the power to remove a candidate from the ballot because the State has no jurisdiction over Federal candidates (despite States’ Constitutional responsibilities to run Federal Elections), reading the Congressional power to “remove such a disability” as an additional requirement that Congress must first impose the disability.[4]

Apologies for getting into the weeds of Supreme Court decisions.

Yet, this is the point, and this is the problem with these two terribly “my eyes are glazing over terms” – exegesis and eisegesis – they are stand-ins for the real thing that’s happening, which is about power, the use and abuse of authority, and the denial of rights and power to the people.

When someone uses a text to explain why they get to tell us what to do:

- especially claiming a tortured reading as a plain reading that we must obey, like the Supreme Court’s machinations above, or their use of “originalism” or the phony history that they attempt to do with “history and tradition” arguments, or not even telling us their reasoning at all, as they have repeatedly done on the so-called “Emergency Docket”;

- or a faith leader attempting to end discussion by saying “Scripture says so”;

- or a political leader claiming that they have the power to do something because they looked for and found an obscure legal decree;

what they are really saying is that they have power over us, they have the authority to tell us what language and text mean, that they can make any argument they like to perpetuate their power at the expense of our powerlessness.

In contrast, when we offer a set of principles to read a text with one another, to explain why this way makes sense and that other way makes less sense, we engage in the conversation because we are in community together, because we respect that each of us is a reflection of something sacred, something infinite in the universe, and a fundamental principle behind that is that I don’t get to tell you what to do because I said so. We honor the teaching of the rabbis that we think of ourselves as all descended from one source and that therefore we are all equally endowed with reason, and merit, and value, and wisdom to interpret. We accept that our difference of opinions, often uncomfortable, is the source for productive discussion, out of which will emerge something greater than your opinion or my opinion, namely our shared opinion.

The most important aspect of life together is building community and power collaboratively, through community, so that we can work with one another. This isn’t easy. It takes work, and listening, and admitting that we don’t know everything ourselves, and that solutions are found in compromise and collaboration. When instead we follow a less arduous path and submit to the sovereignty of a one-opinion, one source of wisdom for all of us model, then we give up our rights to self-determination and freedom for all of us together.

Let us learn with one another, develop principles that we can all work on together, and build something better, more inclusive, with liberty and justice for all.

  [1] Fox, E. (1997). The Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Schocken, p. 912

[2] Steinsaltz, A. (2007). Mishnah sanhedrin 4:5. Sefaria: a Living Library of Jewish Texts Online. https://www.sefaria.org/Mishnah_Sanhedrin.4.5?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=en

[3] The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. (1866, June 13). National Constitution Center – The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/amendments/amendment-xiv