Biblical Contradictions & the Hebraic Mindset

Editor's Notes

• #3 One of the most fundamental differences between the Western, Hellenistic mind and the Hebrew mind is found in the area of knowing vs. doing.  In fundamentalist Christian circles, it is often more important to believe and espouse "the right thing," than to live the right way. This is why we are so obsessed with creeds, doctrinal statements, Systematic Theologies, orthodoxy vs. heresy, and creating various theologies. This mode of thinking is thoroughly Western, utterly Greek.
• #7 Like the prophets before him he gave concrete biblical answers to the questions of daily life such as the payment of taxes, the issue of poverty, family feuds, etc. The Apostle Paul was the same – his letters also addressed very concrete, specific and contemporary questions.  These prophets and their followers did not simply think truth they experienced truth. 
• #8 As they appreciated that everything came as a gift from the Creator, the Rabbi’s even went so far as to say: “It is forbidden to a man to enjoy anything of this world without a benediction, and if anyone enjoys anything of this world without a benediction, he commits sacrilege” Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 35a). --Thus a common expression to this day among orthodox Jews is “BarachattahAdonaielohenu, melekhha’olam” (Blessed are you O Lord, King of the Universe)  followed by thanks for the specific pleasure before them whether is be food or drink or a fragrant flower, the hearing of good news or bad news, even the ability to urinate! Everything is theological! Thus we can perhaps better appreciate the Apostle Paul’s call to ‘pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17). We also need to find the divine in the mundane; in the commonplace; in the mysterious reversals of life and like Job to bless God whether he gives or takes away (Job 1:21). After all Paul tells us that ‘all things work together for the good of those who love Him” (Rom 8:28). If a person knows God then he is daily at God’s disposal and walks in close fellowship with Him, along the road of life.  
• #9 Here is one of the apparent contradictions. It was God who instituted the ceremonial laws of burnt offerings, etc and yet God appears to be saying He now despises them?!  
• #10 We see in the last verse that God has not changed his mind; but that all offerings to Him are to be done from a pure and loving heart, not with insincerity and double-mindedness.  Rather we are to act justly, to love mercy and walk humbly with God (Mic 6:8). Thus the essence of life is relationships; with our Father and our fellow man.If we are to understand the Bible, and what it means to be a follower of Yeshua ha Mashiach(Jesus the Messiah), then we will have to understand it hebraically, not hellenistically. This requires a philosophical and intellectual paradigm shift on our part. It means coming at Scripture from an entirely different angle. It means learning to think like the Hebrew who thought more like God.
• #11 As part of this distinctly different approach, we may note that the Bible appears to be full of contradictions. The Bible in many ways is not a Book of strict logic and rationality. Up is down; High is low, first is last, infinitely wide is God’s grace and yet narrow is His Way.To a scientifically trained mind like mine, there is much that can be seemingly discarded as error or lies or myth and yet, it is not. The deeper we go, the closer we get to the source, the Hebraic worldview or mindset, the more clarity and comfort that comes as contradictions become revelations. The Greek or Hellenistic way is to find the strict path of logic, which while mathematically and rationally valid is not always ideal but worse the Hellenistic mindset starts with a set of core principles and approaches that are so much in opposition to the One True God that the application of such rigorous logic only leads us further from not closer to the truth. Let us investigate this issue a little to clarify the need to reassess our approach and then let us try, through the lense of Hebraic thought to grasp at the revelations that lie behind the contradictions, remembering also that, in the Hebraic approach, contradictions don’t always need to be answered. The Hebraic way allows for thoughts to remain in tension, in conflict because much more important than ‘thinking’ truth is ‘living’ truth.  Marvin Wilson "Concepts were expressed in self-contained units or blocks of thought. These blocks did not necessarily fit together in any obviously rational or harmonious pattern, particularly when one block represented the human perspective on truth and the other represented the divine. … Hence, polarity of thought or dialectic often characterized block logic....Consideration of certain forms of block logic may give one the impression that divine sovereignty and human responsibility were incompatible. The Hebrews, however, sense no violation of their freedom as they accomplish God's purposes. The back and forth between human freedom and divine sovereignty is a function of block logic and the Hebrew mindset.
• #12 This is one of the clearest and simplest examples of the human’s perspective vs God’s. In any ordering of human talent or gifts or stature, etc., those whom the world thinks are top of the tree or in the first places are often very much in the last places from God’s perspective. God measures the heart not the external things of the world; he measures our giving; our loving; our serving not our power or toys. 
• #13 Did God harden the Pharaoh’s heart or did he do it himself? Rabbi Yaakov Youlous in his book ‘A Better Understanding of the Biblical Hebrew Exodus’ (p 33-35) argues that many of the verses here are mistranslated. He states than Ex 7:13; 7:22; Ex 8:15, etc are actually phrases that indicate that it was actually the Pharoah that hardened his own hard. However in Ex 9:12, he states that with the plague of boils it was God who hardened Pharoahs heart, not the Pharoah. Also he argues that in Ex 10:1, 10:20,10:27 and 11:10 it was God who hardened Pharoah’s heart. Yaakov goes on to explain that these later choices were really the result of the habit that the Pharoah had instilled, a habit of evil choices. God’s role was to institute the law of nature involved in our tending to repeat the choices that have become habitual. Rabbi Yaakov sees no obstruction of the Pharoah’s free choice in this episode. God arranged the circumstances but the ultimate choice was still there for the Pharaoh. 
• #14 To offer us true freedom, true choice God must offer alternatives and alternatives to Him that appear desirable and attractive – so therefore God create’s the evil that the world finds attractive and yet no matter how far we fall into the calamity of this present evil age, God’s mercy is always on offer as well.
• #15 This is really no conflict but two very different roles that the Messiah was predicted to fulfil. Judaism has always taught that there would be two ultimate Messiah’s – The Son of Joseph (representing the Lamb) & the Son of David (the warrior King – the Lion). In his life 2000 years ago he came as the Lamb; in his return he will come as the Lion.
• #16 Again, these apparent contradictions in the ultimate destiny of the wicked are really no contradictions at all but just two different stages – in the first where He burns up the wicked and their evil and in the second where there is the darkness of their permanent
• #17 the belief that all have been marked before birth and nothing we do can chance whether we end up ‘saved’ or condemned. Part of the error here is that God does indeed draw everyone; he offers a universe that declares Him and a community within which there are always people who declare his virtues and His love. But the choice is always ours.
• #18 Again a seeming contradiction, but a reality I believe we can probably all testify to. Before knowing our God and our Messiah we thought we had a life, but when we find God we realize that any life without Him is really meaningless, a life of vanity and ultimate emptiness, because it is a life without true purpose. When we give up this ‘life’, when we ‘lose it’ to God, when we surrender to God, then we find true life, the life of real peace, real love, real satisfaction and purpose and we look we great anticipation to a time when:
• #20 Again, we are to thank God for all that comes our way. When we see everything as from our loving Father we recognize that in our struggles, in our weakness, we can turn the struggles over to our God and our Messiah and then find the strength that they supply, knowing that they will never desert us nor forsake us. We become stronger in our relationship with God.
• #21 Very much like the first vs last scripture, we see here that putting God first brings true joy, true gain and true achievement. In Him we find true exaltation. 
• #22 Yeshua will bring peace ultimately at his return. After his victory the whole world will know true peace. But for now, we can also know peace when we put him first in our life’s then his peace falls upon us. Until the Messiah’s return he has brought division and separation as all who follow him may be called to walk a different path from their mother or brother or family. In putting God and His Messiah first, believers may be called to a very different lifestyle from their family, their friends and community because they are called to a life of justice and mercy.
• #23 God’s perspective versus ours
• #24 So what are you supposed to do?  Answer a fool according to his folly or not?  This leads us to a fourth kind of contradiction - Intentional.  Here you need to get into the Hebraic mindset, where one learns by contrast and contradiction.  The point?  When dealing with a fool, it's always a lose/lose situation.  Either you will join the fool in his foolishness, or you will make him think he's wise in his own eyes.  The only way to avoid the dilemma may be not to deal with a fool at all. 
• #26 The Hebrew view of the world was grounded in the earthy, material reality in which they lived, and yet it was overshadowed at every point with spiritual truth.  In contrast to the Greek view that the highest human experience was knowledge, to a Hebrew scholar like the Apostle Paul, moral beauty and righteousness was the highest human experience. In today's common view influenced by Greek dualism, faith is a mystical, non-rational thing, not related to reason. Dualism leads to asceticism which is a debasement of life. Physical appetites and pleasures are considered unworthy indulgences which foster entrapment – the abstention through dietary limitations, self imposed silences, forfeiting of possessions, social seclusion, glorification of hardships and other austere observances are a result of a Greek mindset. Such an approach is rejected to the apostle Paul (Col 2:21). In stark contrast, the Hebraic approach is not the ascetic denial of such pleasures, but to humbly dedicate these to God and to be a responsible steward of the Creator’s good gifts. The Rabbi’s consider that to not enjoy every legitimate pleasure is in essence to be an ingrate before the Master of the Universe! (1 Cor 10:31)  
• #27 In the Hebraic approach faith and reason are inextricably intertwined; they are not in competition. Instead, faith is a posture of the heart toward God. The heart of the believer will seek knowledge of God at some level. Knowledge is not irrelevant. But it will be an outworking of the heart of faith rather than a prerequisite for it. The primary issue of the gospel is the problem of moral bankruptcy and God's deep grace that reaches into the heart to change its natural posture. And only this change will allow us to seek and to embrace truth. Our moral problem is deeply involved with our willingness (or unwillingness) to seek and embrace the truth about ourselves and about God.  Practically speaking, how does holding a Greek mindset differ in everyday life from holding a Hebrew mindset? To separate our experience into spiritual and material, leads us to place value on the pursuit of "spiritual" things over the pursuit of "earthly" things.  Since God is not in "the flesh," the most valued vocations for a Christian are those involving spiritual things. Thus, for the Christian mother, tending to the needs of her children becomes "fleshly," and perhaps frustrating to her, when she would rather pursue loftier, "spiritual" things. She may consider ministry, Bible study, and church activity the "better" things to do; when in reality, loving her children the best she can is the higher task. 
• #28 If instead we carry with us an integrated view of the spiritual and the material worlds, we are free to pursue the plethora of options God has laid before us. If the highest human experience is moral beauty, then it matters less what I do (non-moral) and more how I do it (moral). I can pursue expressing myself in the arts, literature, or science as a joyous expression of the creature God created me to be.  The fragmentation fostered by Greek dualism ultimately breaks down any relevance for Christianity in the post-modern world. Because Christians are called to live "spiritual" lives, our dealings with the material world become less and less relevant to us; we separate ourselves from our neighbors, our co-workers, and our culture at large. And we will have little impact on our world because we have little contact with it. As a Christian sub-culture, we have abandoned the arts, literature, films, music, and science to post-modernism. And we have called this abandonment spiritual. Greek dualism has also led to the loss of community, to the exaltation of the individual. Human beings were created to be social. Our true and most complete meaning is derived from and experienced through our relationships with God and with other human beings (Mark 12:28-34). Jewish prayers emphasis ‘we’ not ‘I’; and express the ‘cry of the whole community’. This is seen in the first line of the Lord’s prayer ‘Our Father in Heaven’. A community of people dedicated to God have a corporate personality which in the Jewish understanding involves not only those now present, but those who have gone before and even those who are to come (i.e. future generations – see Deut 29:15). 
• #29 The community accountability and shared values is also seen in the Mishnah saying: “he who destroys a single life is considered as if he has destroyed the whole world, and he who saves a single life is considered as having saved the whole world” (Sanhredrin 4:5). 
• #30 We see Paul calling us to the same corporate identity in his famous ‘Body of Messiah’ dissertation (1 Cor 12). We should read this chapter regularly and reflect on how we live it; how we rejoice together but also grieve and suffer together.Because the Christian world was Hellenized very early in its life (within 70 years of the ascension), the Greek philosophical mind tried to address these apparent contradictions from a false basis (seeking to know yourself rather than know God), and as a result the church developed a great many false concepts and doctrines which were then perpetuated and unthinkingly acceptable by the great majority of church goers. .  
• #31 Our challenge is to recognize the great error of church history in disconnecting from its Jewish foundations.  The times we live in now involve much uncertainty, pessimism, rootlessness, dishonesty and great change. Many may be seeking something permanent, stable and truthful to bring hope and encouragement. We need not be rootless – As Paul tells us in Romans 9-11, the ‘root that supports us’ is the godly living faith of Israel. This is our foundation, it is to know the God of history, Israel’s history. Hebrews 11 tells us a beautiful summary of the people of Israel and their trust in God. When we align ourselves which such men of faith as Abraham, Moses, King David and even Jephthah we align ourselves with Israel and we are not alone. We also have a secure future because the God of Israel has began to restore His people and the time of their redemption draws near when their Messiah and ours, the Jew Yeshua will return as the warrior King of Ps 2.By accepting and learning to think Hebraically, we are not calling for a return to Judaism, we are not calling for Gentiles to become Jews, but for us to really understand what our Messiah Yeshua is calling us to.  To understand that true faith is faith in action, it is faith that is evidenced by obedience to God. This obedience is very simply identified in one who loves God with all his heart and loves his neighbour as himself. Such a person will, in fulfilling the two greatest commandments, actually fulfill the Ten Commandments from which these are but a summary.  The true fulfillment of the Ten Commandments though must be an obedience from a circumcised heart, a heart that recognizes that, where it’s desires are towards actions that would dis-honour God, he/she needs to repent, to cry to God for His help and to change his/her behaviour so as to reduce or eradicate the circumstances that bring such wrong desires into prominence.  
• #32 May you all embrace life, enjoy the blessings that the Almighty has bestowed upon you and constantly thank Him for all that comes your way because regardless of your comprehension of it, God can and will use it all for your benefit if you love Him.  Use the talents that He has given you to glorify and honour Him and so draw others to Him as they see joy in your life in good times and bad.