<SCARLET THREAD>
Blood in the Biblical Narrative

As Christians, it’s natural for us to associate bloodshed with redemption. In light of the Gospel, the idea seems intuitive.

That bloodshed can bring about redemption, however, is an unusual idea,… …which is revealed to us *gradually* as the Biblical narrative unfolds.

THREAD: Joseph, Jesus, & the Descent to Egypt

Joseph is a well known type/picture of Christ, so it’s natural for us (as Christians) to want us to map his experiences directly onto Jesus’s, all of which is well and good… …But we can learn a great deal from a contemplation of Joseph’s life in its original (OT) context. For a start, let’s have a think about Genesis’s general flow.

🧵 THREAD

The text of Mark 2.26 has caused quite a few folk quite a few problems.

Jesus seems to have thought David took the showbread from the sanctuary when Abiathar was the high priest, but the text of Samuel suggests he did it on Abimelech’s watch.

What’s gone wrong here? Well, first of all, we need to consider a couple of relevant historical questions.

► THREAD (🧵)

► Cleanness, Holiness, & Forbidden Mixtures: Some Thoughts

(The-platform-formerly-known-as-Twitter seems as good a place for them as any.) The Levitical system views the world in terms of four basic categories:

► clean,
► unclean,
► common,
► holy.

These are often thought of in terms of a three-tier hierarchy (with ‘unclean’ omitted for some reason),

i.e., ‘common’ ⇒ ‘clean’ ⇒ ‘holy’,

THREAD (🧵): Who exactly was Jeremiah?

Well, we’re told three main things about him in his prophecies’ first two verses:

🔹 he was a priest;
🔹 he lived in Anathoth; and
🔹 he was the son of a certain Hilkiah.

Below, we’ll consider these facts in a bit more detail. Let’s start with Anathoth.

Anathoth wasn’t just any old city; it was a highly significant one.

It was allotted to the line of Aaron, i.e., the line of Israel’s high priest (Josh. 21.13ff.).

As a result, it was where Eli lived.

🧵 THREAD:

Keen to tackle the big questions of the day, I wondered if some thoughts on the thorny matter of hedgehog words in Scripture might be in order (with thanks to the Christmas card below for inspiration). Modern-day Arabic dialects have quite an array of words for the hedgehog,

🧵: Sometimes animals have more sense than both men and angels.

Balaam’s donkey could see what the great seer couldn’t (Num. 22).

… Two wayward priests carried the ark into battle and lost it, but a couple of well-directed cows brought it back home. Unlike the priests, ‘they turned neither to the right nor the left’ (I Sam. 6.12).

NOTE: In Revelation 4, John is taken into heaven’s throne-room.

The appearance of the one seated there is compared to ‘jasper’ and ‘carnelain’ (σαρδιον), and around the throne is an ‘emerald’ rainbow.

Why these gemstones in particular? Well, the names of the twelve tribes are engraved on the high priest’s ephod in order of birth (Exod. 28.10),

so it would make sense to take the twelve gemstones on the high-priest’s breastplate to have been arranged similarly.

THREAD: The Chronicler’s Theology

Paul views Israel’s temple as an essentially human structure, fulfilled in believers on earth as they worship the God of heaven.

Yet Paul’s theology isn’t an NT innovation; it’s rooted in the Hebrew Bible, most particularly in Chronicles. Chronicles is few people’s favourite book.

The index to Walter Moberley’s ‘Old Testament Theology’ contains over 600 OT references, only two of which come from the book of Chronicles,

and neither of them has anything to do with its genealogical material.

THREAD: Easter, Esther, & the Third Day

In and through Jesus’ resurrection, the third day is associated with new life.

But the association of life with a third day isn’t a New Testament innovation; it’s deeply engrained in the Biblical narrative. In the very first chapter of Scripture, on the third day of Creation week, land emerges from the world’s watery depths—from a world full of raw potential and yet devoid of actual life.

Grass springs up from the earth, followed by fruit trees.

🧵 THREAD: Elijah, Some Patronyms, and an Egyptian Mongoose

For the details, scroll down. ⤵ In 1 Kings 19, Elijah is told to anoint three different folk (1 Kgs. 19.16ff.).

One of them is ‘Jehu the son of Nimshi’,

whose name is worthy of attention.

🧵 THREAD: Into the Christmas Narratives Again…

TITLE: The Shepherds, the Manger, the River Chebar, and the Siege of Jerusalem

As the time for nativity sermons draws near, may I suggest a reconsideration of the sometimes overlooked connections between Luke and Ezekiel 1–11? One of the primary themes of Luke’s birth narrative(s) is the return of God’s presence and glory to his Temple.

That theme is brought to our attention by Luke at in at least three different ways.

➡️ First, by means of his description of Mary’s pregnancy.

🧵 THREAD: Ezra’s clans, the Jubilee, and 153 Fish.

Exegesis by numbers.

Image by A. Levin. Ezra 2’s list of clans deserves serious attention.

Consider, for a start, some of its numerical properties:

➡️ It begins with the classic introduction to Biblical lists of people, viz. ‘Now these...’ (וְאֵלֶּה), which has a gematrial value of 42.

🧵 Lamentations is a book of pain & sorrow.

Yet amidst its pain, somehow, is beauty,

& its sorrow is underlain by hope, which briefly (& triumphantly) rises to the surface.

Moreover, the book’s lament provides us with an exquisite picture of the work and woes of the Messiah. One of the most important features to grasp in an analysis of Jeremiah’s lament is its direction of travel.

🧵 THREAD: Daniel and the Prayer of Nabonidus

THE QUESTION: Who borrowed what from whom? In 1948, a text known as ‘The Prayer of Nabonidus’ was discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

It’s pretty short (a hundred words or so) and badly damaged,

but the details below at least can be made out.

THREAD: Jesus’ Two Genealogies

Why two?

Why genealogies at all?

And what if we don’t know the answers?

For a few thoughts on the matter, please scroll down.

#GodIsInTheDetails Bart Ehrman says genealogies aren’t among most people’s favourite passages in Scripture.

He’s probably right (though there’s time for that to change: Eph. 4.11ff.).

THREAD: Would the real Priestly source please stand up!

Since today is a special day the in the UK, some thoughts about the *dates* recorded in Scripture might be in order (as might apologies for the rather weak visual pun). Question: What kind of events does Scripture assign exact dates to, and what kind of events does it leave largely undated?

Let’s consider a few events in Israel’s history and find out.

🧵 THREAD: Time in the Gospel of John

For John, Jesus’ crucifixion takes place at a highly significant moment: the 7th hour of a 7-week cycle of a 49th year.

For more, please scroll down. Symbolically, the climax of John’s Gospel is set against the backdrop of three ‘moments’:

a time of darkness at noon (the 7th hour),

the time of the feast of Weeks (Pentecost),

and the time for God’s Jubilee to be inaugurated (a 49th year).

Here’s how.

MINI-THREAD: Two different Lemechs.

Cain’s son Lemech is a man of sevens.

He is the seventh from Adam.

He heads up a family of seven (him, his two wives, his three sons, and his daughter).

And he says his death will be repaid with a seventy-sevenfold vengeance (Gen. 4.24). Seth’s line has a Lemech as well.

🧵 THREAD: The Theology of John’s Passion Narrative

In John’s Passion, Jesus dies a death which is substitutionary, penal, and propitiatory—a death which fully expends the wrath of God so it might not afflict his people. In recent years, many students of Scripture have become more interested in the intricacy and import of Biblical narratives.

At the same time, some of them have become less certain about the doctrine of Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA),...

NOTE (🧵): The name Abi-Melech is generally thought to have been bestowed on him by Gideon (Judg. 8.31).

In the context of the book of Judges, however, Gideon has just *declined* the offer of kingship on his and his sons’ behalf (8.23),... ...and Abi-Melech would probably have been named by his Shechemite mother anyway.

Furthermore, when the phrase ‘to set a person’s name on them’ (לשום שמ[ו] בן אדם) is used in Scripture, it invariably has the sense ‘to assign a *new* name’ or ‘to carve out a new reputation’,...