Arabic Christian Theology

A Contemporary Global Evangelical Perspective

Zondervan, Andrea Zaki Stephanous

• Publisher: Zondervan Academic
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780310555797
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

Theology is not done in a vacuum. Our theology is affected by the culture in which we live, and our theology can have unexpected effects on the lives of Christians who live thousands of miles away. This point emerges clearly as we listen to seven Arabic evangelical theologians address issues that are of critical importance to Christians living as minorities in the Muslim world. North American readers may find that many of their assumptions are challenged as they see how respected Christian thinkers from a very different context address issues of biblical interpretation, national and international politics, culture and gender.

Chapter One

ARAB CHRISTIANS AND THE OLD TESTAMENT

Magdi Sadiq Gendi

Rev. Dr. Magdi S. Gendi serves as Regional Director for the Middle East for the Overseas Council International (OCI). He was formerly professor of Old Testament at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo (ETSC). He holds a PhD from Luther Seminary, Minnesota, USA; an MTh from the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa; a BTh from ETSC; and a BSc from Assiut University.

SINCE THE ESTABLISHMENT of modern Israel as a religious state in the heart of the Middle East in 1948, there have been major changes not only in the composition of the nations of the region but also in their thought processes and religious ideas. One of the greatest changes, from my perspective, is how the adherents of each religion have come to view other religions. The escalating reciprocal violence that flows from the presence of a Jewish nation in a region with a Muslim majority has led to attempts to try to understand each other’s religious background. So we find Arab Muslims and Christians alike beginning to read the Old Testament in an attempt to understand the reasons for the violence, expulsions, and killings the modern state of Israel inflicts on Arab Palestinians, both Christian and Muslim.

Some violent incidents in the Old Testament, combined with a wrong understanding of the principles for interpreting religious texts and mistaken assumptions about the other side and their beliefs, has led some Arab Christians to believe that the Old Testament is full of violence and that the God of the Old Testament endorses murder and violence for the sake of his chosen people. This misinterpretation has resulted in deliberate neglect and marginalization of the Old Testament. Many Christians in Arab countries neither read nor preach from the Old Testament. They justify their refusal to do so by describing the God of the Old Testament as a God of bloodshed, murder, violence, and discrimination against all nations except the chosen nation of Israel.

The danger in their position lies not only in their misunderstanding of religious texts and wrong approach to the interpretation of God’s Word, but also in their allowing social and political changes to overshadow his Word. Thus the unchanging text becomes subject to changing events, giving it a secondary status while establishing the transient as the primary window through which we read religious texts.

Old Testament Israel is now associated with the modern state of Israel. The people of modern Israel (though of many ethnicities and nationalities) are seen as the continuation of God’s chosen people in the Old Testament. The establishment of modern Israel on Palestinian land is seen as the fulfillment of God’s promises to his people. Thus it has become accepted that the violence practiced by the modern nation of Israel is an expression of its understanding of itself and its theological and religious understanding of God and what it means for his will to be done on earth.

A superficial reading of the Bible may suggest that the God presented in the New Testament is radically different from the God of the Old Testament. In the New Testament, God is shown as loving all people and as giving up his Son to make peace between himself and humankind and among people. Meanwhile the Old Testament contains stories about violence and death, and there God declares his love for one particular people rather than for all peoples. It is not surprising that the majority of Christians prefer reading the New Testament!

There is nothing new about the idea of separating the Old Testament from the New. As early as the second century AD, a heretic by the name of Marcion taught that the God of the Old Testament is not the God of the New Testament and that it is necessary to separate the New Testament, with its God of love, forgiveness, and peace, from the Old Testament with its God of violence and destruction. The early church took a stand against this heresy. But the idea has continued to appeal to theologians and thinkers right up to the present. Rudolf Bultmann, for example, claimed that the Old Testament is a Jewish book and is thus irrelevant for Christians. He insisted that the way God is depicted in the Old Testament is different from the way he is depicted in the New Testament, and therefore there is no need for Christians to read the Old Testament. In other words, to put it more precisely, Bultmann did not consider the Old Testament to be God’s revelation to Christians as it was to ancient Israel. For Bultmann, the history of Israel was a history of failure of the rule of God and his people. Scholars from various schools of theology have completely rejected this idea.

What then is the image of God presented in the Old Testament? Is he really a God of bloodshed? Is he a racist, choosing one nation for himself and favoring them over the rest of the world? Can God be both loving and a killer at the same time? Does the presentation of God change in the New Testament from what it was in the Old Testament? Or is the God of the New Testament a different God from the one in the Old Testament? Did God’s being change though he is the unchanging eternal one? How can God be one when he deals with people and manifests himself so differently in the Old Testament and in the New Testament?

UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS AND PRINCIPLES OF INVESTIGATION

God Is the Central Character in the Old Testament

Given the long expanse of time over which the Old Testament was written and the variety of authors and circumstances in the different periods during which the writing and compilation took place, it is not surprising that there are different images and representations of the character of God. For example, God is the creator, but he also sends a flood that destroys his creation. God is the one who rescues his people from Egypt, but he destroys most of them in the desert. God is the one who chooses a special people for himself, and yet he sends them into exile. We also find an image of a loving God who yet orders Israel to destroy some cities and expel people from their land in order to give the promised land to his people, whom he then sends into captivity. No wonder we find that the way God is described by various Old Testament authors can seem quite contradictory.

The Old Testament Presents a Relationship rather than a Systematic Theology

It is important to recognize that the Old Testament does not present a systematic theology or definition of who God is; rather, it presents a description of God as he is known and experienced by his people Israel in a living relationship. Therefore, the representation of God by the different authors of Scripture is not drawn from their own imagination but is rooted in real experience. Although God is greater than any other being or any human experience, the biblical texts do present us with particular representations of his divine presence. Thus the writers of the Old Testament do not invent or create the image of God; rather, they present an experiential description of this divine supreme presence in terms of its relationship with humanity in the context of faith.

Faith, then, is what connects history with theology, and the Old Testament scriptures are a record of the relationship between historical events and the development of faith and theological concepts. We see God as the new and active subject in every event, and we see him as the one already present before the everlasting event. So the biblical text presents a description of what is new and what was known before. God is the active power recognized in historical events in the context of the faith community. The Old Testament itself is a document of faith, representing the character of God through Israel’s knowledge of and faith in him through various circumstances.

Consequently, the biblical narrative can be seen as a report or testimony to the divine revelation experienced in specific historical events. The story is the revelation, and so is the history. In other words, the history of Israel is part of this revelation, and the writers of the Old Testament are not merely external witnesses to this history, but have become, along with the biblical books, a part of this history of salvific revelation.

We must also recognize the divine role in inspiring this holy writing, for the writers of the Old Testament were not merely historians; they were also theologians as they were inspired by the Holy Spirit to record the history of God’s relationship with the human race.

The Old Testament Needs to be Read with an Understanding of Its Context

Understanding the background, also known as the context, is one of the most important principles in interpreting the Bible. The context of every verse includes the following elements:

The Textual Context

The textual context is the relationship between the text and the surrounding text (for example, the chapter or book in which it is found) and the remote text (for example, the group of books of which this book forms part, or even the entire Old Testament or New Testament).

The Historical Context

The historical context is the religious, social, political, and cultural background to the text.

The Literary Context

The literary context of a text is its form or genre. Every literary genre, whether a story, history, poem, sermon, or prophecy, has its own principles of interpretation. For example, when we are reading a poetic text and come across the statement that “the trees will clap their hands,” we recognize that this is poetry, not history or biology. The opposite is also true. So, for example, when the people of Israel cross the Red Sea, we cannot say that this is simply a metaphor, for it is presented as a historical event. In the same way, we need to approach the interpretation of biblical narratives differently from the way we approach prophetic texts that are intentionally written in specific poetic forms.

Different principles apply to the interpretation of each type of literary genre. Although there are certain foundational principles, we must also abide by the rules of interpretation that apply to each genre and avoid treating all texts as if they were written in the same genre.

The Context of the Whole Bible

We must not interpret any representation of God, or any biblical text, without reference to the whole picture of God presented in the entire Bible with both its Old and New Testaments. The written Word of God in both the Old and New Testaments is “useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:16–17).

How then does the Old Testament, with its various sections, present God and his actions in the history of the people of faith? Some think that God is distant and detached from any event in human history and consider everything that happens in history a natural consequence of human action. But we must realize that God works through people and human reasoning, and therefore when one of the biblical authors describes a historical event, he regards God as the real doer and main subject of the event.

The Old Testament Has Different Parts

The Jews divided the Old Testament into three main sections: the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings. We will be looking at the different representations of God in each of these sections.

The Old Testament begins with the five books of Moses, called the Torah, which represent the core of Jewish Scripture. The Torah sets the standard for the faith and life of the people of Israel; it is their living constitution. The Torah is followed by the Prophets, that is, books that confirm and explain the Torah. These books contain calls for justice and calls to repent and return to the teachings of the Torah. The Writings follow, representing Israel’s response to God or to each other. Sometimes the response is in the form of praise, songs, and lamentations, as in the book of Psalms; at other times it takes the form of wise instruction as in the Wisdom books.

SECTIONS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

Genesis 1–11 Introduces Many Old Testament Themes

The book of Genesis (the first book in the Torah) is considered an introduction to the constitution of the nation, and Genesis 1–11 is considered an introduction to the person of God and his divine nature. God is presented as the sole creator; there are no other gods. In the remainder of the book, we see the development of the bond between God the creator and his chosen people that connects them in a very special relationship. God’s command to the first humans to be fruitful and fill the earth is eventually fulfilled through the twelve tribes who form the core of the nation of Israel. As the story goes on, God is presented as the righteous judge and redeemer, attributes that continue to be spoken of throughout the Bible. God the creator is also the one who acts in righteousness to redeem his people from slavery and injustice, and release them to freedom.

The many depictions of violence, murder, and revenge in the Old Testament are all negative characteristics that cannot be part of the Divine Being. But we can recognize that the execution of justice may, at first glance, appear to be an act of injustice or violence. When God executes justice, some may see it as injustice.

Concepts like covenant and law in the Torah present a true picture of God. In Deuteronomy we see a mixed image of a loving and a jealous Go...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• 1. Arab Christians and the Old Testament
• 2. The Concept of the Covenant In Evangelical Thought and Its Impact On the Middle East and North Africa: A Historical, Biblical, Theological, and Ethical Study
• 3. Jesus and Judaism: His Identity and Relationship to Judaism
• 4. Religion and Politics: Ancient Prophecies and Contemporary Policies
• 5. The Christian Woman
• 6. The Cross and the Power Issue: A Middle Eastern View
• 7. Culture and Identity
• Scripture Index
• Subject Index