My friend Dirk put me on to a review of my book The Coming of the Son of Man by Dr. Pieter Lalleman, who teaches New Testament at Spurgeon’s College in London. The review is in Dutch, so I have had to translate the main points of criticism as best I can. There is a rough summary of the argument of the book, in the course of which Lalleman, rather amusingly it seems to me, expresses his approval of Tom Wright as a biblical interpreter except with respect to what he has to say about the future, as though somehow eschatology can be disconnected from history: ’Tom Wright is een geweldig goede Bijbeluitlegger en vrijwel alles wat hij schrijft is zeer de moeite waard. Alleen als het over de toekomst gaat, ben ik het absoluut met hem oneens.’ Then he presents four main objections to my thesis and some concluding remarks, which I will attempt to address here.
1. Het is toch vreemd om te zeggen dat Christus door de gebeurtenissen in 70 verheerlijkt werd? Dat jaar was een ramp voor de Joden. Weet Perriman wel dat Jezus een jood is?
It is nevertheless strange that Christ is exalted through the events of AD 70. That year was a calamity for the Jews. Does Perriman know that Jesus is a Jew?
The point is not that Christ was exalted by the destruction of Jerusalem. Exaltation language belongs primarily to the resurrection - Jesus was raised to the right hand of the Father. But he waits then to be vindicated, not merely in some spiritual or transcendent sense but publicly, concretely, historically. When Jesus speaks of the future coming of the Son of man on the clouds of heaven to receive a kingdom, etc., he has in mind that set of events in the real world that will constitute the vindication of the path that he first chose in defiance of the Jerusalem authorities and which he then called others to walk, even though it would jeopardize their livelihoods and their lives. Of course, Jesus was distressed by the premonition of this calamity, but he nevertheless directly connected the desolation of Jerusalem (’Behold, your house is forsaken’ is a prophecy of judgment; cf. Jer. 22:5) with the recognition that he was the king who would be rejected but who would have victory over his enemies (Ps. 118):
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and; you would not! Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ’Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’ (Lk. 13:34-35)
In other words, Jesus believed that the destruction of Jerusalem would be the event that would vindicate his (implicit) claim to be Israel’s king - that is, to be the Son of man who at a time of crisis, when the loyalty of the people of God to the covenant would be severely tested (this is the story that is told in Daniel 7-12), would receive kingdom and authority from the Ancient of Days.
This is, in the first place, a technical question about the dating of the New Testament books which cannot be answered here. It is not inconceivable that the entire New Testament was written, perhaps subject only to later redaction, prior to AD 70. A date for Revelation between AD 64 and 70 certainly has its supporters, but the rather more popular later date (around AD 95) would permit us to argue that Revelation offers precisely the sort of reflection on the significance of AD 70 that Lalleman is looking for.2. Hoe verhoudt deze uitleg zich tot de datering van de boeken van het Nieuwe Testament? Als Perriman gelijk heeft, waarom wordt er in de boeken die na het jaar 70 ontstonden dan niet openlijk op dat jaar teruggeblikt?
How does this explanation relate to the dating of the books of the New Testament? If Perriman is correct, why is it that in the books which arise after AD 70 there is no open reflection on the significance of that year?
This is a difficult question to respond to because Lalleman does not explain in what way the continuity between the ’church’ and the Jews has been overstated. The suspicion is - in view of his subsequent remarks - that this is more a ’political’ response than an exegetical one. My view is that the authors of the New Testament, including Jesus, are at such pains to interpret the coming crisis in terms of Old Testament narratives about divine judgment on Israel, the deliverance of a faithful remnant, the defeat of the enemies of the people of God, and the renewal of the covenant, that we can hardly escape the conclusion that the ’church’ was seen at the outset as a continutation of Israel, marked out only (!) by the fact that this was Israel that had taken the risk of organizing itself entirely around the Jew Jesus.3. Ik geloof niet dat de eerste christenen zo door de Joden werden vervolgd als Perriman suggereert. Zeker gebeurde er wel een en ander, maar Perriman overdrijft de situatie.
I do not believe that the first Christians were so thoroughly a continuation of the Jews as Perriman suggests. Certainly there is something to this, but Perriman exaggerates the situation.
4. De verwoesting van stad en tempel in 70 was voor de Joden natuurlijk diep ingrijpend, maar veranderde er voor de christenen echt zoveel als Perriman suggereert?
The devastation of city and temple in AD 70 naturally had a profound impact on the Jews, but did it really change things for the Christians as much as Perriman suggests?
My argument is not really that AD 70 changed things for the Christians, which is a historical question. It has to do rather with what Jesus had in mind when he spoke of the coming destruction of Jerusalem and the temple as a vindication of himself and of the community of his disciples, which is a question about the purpose and meaning of prophecy. By AD 70 the church had spread into the Gentile world, and its spokesman was not Jesus but Paul. The outcome of the Jewish war may or may not have had an impact on the mixed communities of Jewish and Gentile believers, but it was the ’war’ against paganism and against Rome that increasingly preoccupied their prophetic imaginations. Nevertheless, it seems to me that a passage such as Romans 9-11 evinces considerable ’Christian’ concern about the imminent ruin of Israel. Paul is not writing for his own benefit as a Jew. He is writing to help a Jewish-Gentile church understand its relationship to a Judaism that, because of sin, has become subject to the wrath of God.
5. Zijn conclusies zijn voor mij ongeloofwaardig. Ik ben bang dat de visie van de schrijver op het eind van Gods bemoeienis met de Joden iets antisemitisch in zich heeft. Dit is een boek vol vervangingstheologie (die stelt dat de kerk in de plaats van Israël is gekomen) en daarop zaten we niet te wachten.
I find his conclusions unbelievable. I am afraid that the vision of the writer concerning the end of God’s dealings with the Jews has something anti-semitic about it. This book argues for a full replacement theology (which states that the church has been substituted for Israel) and that’s not what we’re in need of.
What I find unbelievable is that Jesus or Paul would speak with such urgency, seriousness and consistency about things to come in the near future (so the risen Jesus says to the suffering churches in Rev. 22:20, ’Surely I am coming soon’) and not have in mind foreseeable historical events that would impact communities of disciples opposed - sometimes violently - either by Jerusalem or Rome. I do not think that they spoke over the heads of a persecuted early church that cried out for vindication against its enemies to address a remote and inconceivable future.
The accusation of anti-semitism seems to me to be motivated by what are in effect Dutch Reformed ’political’ sensibilities rather than by strictly exegetical considerations. That the New Testament speaks of a decisive judgment on Second Temple Judaism is incontestable. That is why a ’new covenant’ is needed. In Romans Paul thinks that it is possible that as a consequence of judgment Israel will repent en masse and be reconciled to YHWH, but he does not appear optimistic - so historically we are left with the incorporation of Gentiles into the dwindling community of a redeemed remnant.
But why is this judged to be anti-semitic? It certainly constitutes a disagreement with Judaism over the inheritance of the promise to Abraham. That is unavoidable: the Jews have rejected Jesus as their messiah. But why anti-semitic? There is no reason why the predominantly Gentile church should not continue in principle to share Paul’s ’great sorrow and unceasing anguish’ (Rom. 9:2) over the fact that Israel of the old covenant ’stumbled’ over the stone of justice that YHWH placed in Zion (Rom. 9:32-33; cf. Is. 28:14-17). There is no reason why a replacement theology, if that is really what it is, should be incompatible with love for the Jews.
The point to keep in mind is that the New Testament was written for the most part, if not entirely, prior to AD 70 - that is, when there was still the possibility that Israel would either leave the broad path leading to destruction or would return to YHWH following punishment. Practical and theological issues of Jewish-Gentile cooperation and integration dominate the teaching of Paul because this is the reality that he had to deal with. The sort of conditions that have given rise to our very modern concerns about anti-semitism simply do not enter the picture.
