Good Question

Is the “firmament” of the Genesis creation account “space” or a solid “dome”?

Q. In his book Genesis in Space and Time, Francis Schaeffer briefly argues that the word “firmament” in Genesis 1:6 should not be taken to mean a solid dome or brass covering, but is instead best translated as “expanse.” He says it is a fairly broad word that can be understood as “space” or “air” and that the notion that the Hebrews believed that the earth was covered by a solid dome is mistaken. How would you respond?

Here is what Schaeffer writes in his book:

“Some scholars who have tried to minimize the teaching of the Bible have said that the word firmament indicates that the Jews had an idea of a brass or iron covering over the world. But this is not the picture at all. Firmament simply means “expanse.” It is a rather broad word, as we can see from the fact that the firmament is where the moon and the sun and the stars are (v. 14). Perhaps for our generation the word space would be the best equivalent. But it is also the place where the birds fly (v. 20). In any case, the idea that it is merely a hard covering and reflects a primitive notion of a three-story universe is in error. Rather what is being referred to is differentiation in the area of being—a differentiation of the openness that is about us.” Francis A. Schaeffer, Genesis in Space and Time (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1972), p. 37.

We can evaluate Schaeffer’s claims here by considering both the derivation and the usage of the Hebrew term in Genesis that English Bibles variously translate as “firmament” (KJV), “expanse” (ESV, NASB, HCSB), “space” (NLT), or “vault” (NIV). (I don’t believe that respect or disrespect for the teaching of the Bible is at stake in this inquiry. We should determine the meaning of the word objectively and draw our conclusions from there.)

The Hebrew term in question is the noun raqiya’. It is derived from the verb raqa’, which means to beat out, stamp, or spread out a solid object, usually metal, to make it thinner, flatter, and broader. The verb is used, for example, in the description in Exodus of the construction of the tabernacle: “They hammered out gold sheets and cut them into threads to be woven in with the blue and the purple and the scarlet material.” Similarly in the book of Numbers, the bronze censers that were used by some rebellious Israelites to challenge Aaron for the priesthood were “hammered out to overlay the altar.” And Jeremiah speaks of “hammered silver” that is used in the construction of idols.

So if raqa’ means “to beat out, to flatten” (and thereby “to extend”), then raqiya’, by derivation, means “an extended surface (solid),” as the Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew-English Lexicon defines it, or “a beaten (metal) plate,” as Holladay’s Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon puts it.

Numerous biblical writers indeed reflect an understanding of the “heavens” as a solid object that God has “spread out” like beaten or molten metal. Elihu asks Job, for example, whether he can join God “in spreading out [raqa’] the skies, hard as a mirror of cast bronze.” Similarly in Isaiah God says, “My own hand laid the foundations of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens.” (In this case the verb is not raqa’ but the synonym tapach.)

Other biblical writers, using the further synonymous verb natah, say that God has “stretched out” the heavens. Isaiah, for example, describes God as “the Creator of the heavens, who stretches them out [natah].” Jeremiah says similarly that God “founded the world by his wisdom and stretched out [natah] the heavens by his understanding.” In some cases the biblical writers compare the “stretching out” of the heavens to the unfolding and spreading out of a tent or canopy (a metaphor drawn delightfully from their former nomadic culture). Describing the creation, for example, Psalm 104 says, “The LORD wraps himself in light as with a garment, he stretches out [natah] the heavens like a tent.” And so forth.

Whichever synonym is used, in all these cases the heavens are envisioned as a solid object that God has spread out above the earth. This consistent biblical understanding of the created world clearly extends into the Genesis creation account as well, as the use of the term raqiya’ shows, since it is identified directly with the “heavens.”

But what about Shaeffer’s claim that the “firmament” in Genesis can’t be a solid object, but must be an “expanse” of space or air, because it’s “the place where the birds fly”? In the creation account God actually says, to translate the Hebrew literally, “Let birds fly above the earth on the face of the raqiya’ of the heavens”–in other words, in front of the dome of the sky, that is, in the space between it and the earth.

Then what about the heavens as the place “where the moon and the sun and the stars are”? There’s no question that the Genesis creation account says that these are in the raqiya’ of the heavens. But I take this to mean that they were envisioned to on its solid surface, moving around there.

So do these conclusions minimize the teaching of the Bible, since we know today that the sky is not a solid dome? Not at all. They simply show that the biblical authors wrote consistently from within an observational cosmology. We should have no more problem with their idea of a solid sky than we do with their notion that the sun moved around the earth, even though we know today this only appears to be the case and it is actually the earth that is moving (revolving).

When we accept that the biblical authors were not supernaturally given a knowledge of cosmology that transcended the understanding humanly available in their own place, time, and culture, we can recognize their statements as accurate within that understanding, and we appreciate the points they are trying to make about God as creator and about creation as an ordered and harmonious whole–points that are still perfectly valid and well taken within our own understanding of cosmology, which is itself culturally bound and limited.

The so-called Flammarion engraving, thought to be intended to illustrate an ancient cosmology that included a flat earth bounded by a solid and opaque sky.

Why did God give Nebuchadnezzar so many chances?

Q. I’ve been reading through Daniel and have been struck by how much God seems to communicate with and pursue Nebuchadnezzar. Any theories on why the God of Israel gave so many chances to a pagan king?

God certainly gave Nebuchadnezzar repeated opportunities to acknowledge Him, even after Nebuchadnezzar rebuffed and defied His initial overtures. I explain the character of Nebuchadnezzar’s defiance in my book After Chapters and Verses:

I was recently part of a Bible study group that was looking at the book of Daniel. When we took up the third episode in the book, the participants were fascinated to hear how Nebuchadnezzar made a statue ninety feet high out of gold. Some of them glanced down at the notes in their Bibles and read them out loud to try to help the group understand this story better.

One note suggested that this was an ostentatious display of the wealth, power and prosperity of the empire. Another observed that a huge gold statue would have been overwhelmingly bright and dazzling. But I asked the members of the study to consider whether anything we’d encountered earlier in the book of Daniel would explain why Nebuchadnezzar made this statue out of gold.

They thought back to the previous episode, which we’d discussed the week before, and remembered that the king had had a dream about a statue. Its head was made of gold, but its chest and arms were silver, its torso and thighs were bronze, its legs were iron and its feet were made of iron and clay. Daniel’s interpretation of the dream was that Nebuchadnezzar’s empire, symbolized by the gold head, would be displaced by an inferior empire, which would then be replaced by another, and another, in the years to come.

In light of this dream and its interpretation, our group recognized that Nebuchadnezzar created a statue that was entirely gold to offer a direct and very public rejection of the message he’d received from God. He was saying, using the very symbolism of the dream God sent him, that his own empire would actually last forever and never be displaced. And by insisting that all the officials in his kingdom bow down to this statue, he was requiring them to join him in contradicting God’s revealed vision of the future, and to give their allegiance to him and his empire instead. No wonder Daniel’s friends felt they had to disobey!

And no wonder we marvel that the God of Israel continued to pursue a pagan emperor even after this.

One reason for the continuing pursuit may be that God had given Nebuchadnezzar an important trust to fulfill as the emperor of what was then the entire known world for the people of Israel, and also as their temporary lord during their exile. In this role it was crucial that Nebuchadnezzar ultimately acknowledge that “the Most High is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes.” God went to great lengths to win this acknowledgment. (See Blake’s illustration below!)

But I think we should also see Nebuchadnezzar as an individual example of a general principle. As Peter puts it in the New Testament, God is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” God goes to great lengths and makes repeated overtures to every soul, striving to bring it to repentance and salvation so that it can fulfill His purposes for it on earth.

And we can see how Nebuchadnezzar was offering small but positive responses as God reached out to him. Even though Daniel said his dream foretold the end of his empire, instead of punishing Daniel for disloyalty or treason, Nebuchadnezzar rewarded him, as he’d promised to do for anyone who could tell him a dream he’d had while asleep but forgotten once he woke up! In this way he tacitly agreed with Daniel that “there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries” that are beyond human capability.

Similarly, after Nebuchadnezzar saw God deliver Daniel’s friends from the fiery furnace, into which he’d thrown them for refusing to bow down to his statue, he decreed severe punishment against anyone who would “say anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.” And in the end, as I noted earlier, Nebuchadnezzar did acknowledge that “the Most High is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes.”

So in response to God’s repeated overtures, we see Nebuchadnezzar slowly recognizing and acknowledging more and more about God’s supreme claims. It shouldn’t surprise us that God would continue to pursue anyone who was steadily coming around like this. And we should be encouraged by similar signs, even small ones, that the people we dearly want to know and love God are being steadily pursued and are beginning to respond.

Why is “mene” written twice in the handwriting on the wall?

Q. In the handwriting on the wall in the book of Daniel, why do you think God wrote “mene, mene” twice instead of just “mene, tekel, upharsin”? Does the repetition mean something?

For one thing, “mene” might be repeated to fill out the poetic line, so that it will have two parts with four syllables and two stresses each: mené, mené; tekél, parsín. (The “u” is barely pronounced and simply means “and”; it’s a variation on the usual “w,” when it comes before “p.”) As I note in this post, solemn pronouncements, including judgments like this one, are often spoken in poetry in the Old Testament. Repeating “mene” allows the line to have a memorable poetic cadence.

But the repetition of the first word might also be a clue that each word actually has a double meaning. As I explain in my study guide to Daniel and Revelation:

The inscription is a play on words. In one sense, it lists the names of three coins of decreasing value: the minah (worth many shekels), the tekel (the Aramaic form of the word shekel itself), and the peres (half-shekel; parsin is the plural). This duplicates the image in the statue dream of materials of decreasing value, underscoring God’s purposes to replace the Babylonian empire with later ones. (The narrator echoes this image by describing how the goblets from Jerusalem were gold and silver, while the gods of Babylon were gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood and stone.)

But the meaning of the inscription also rests on the derivation of the names of these coins. Minah comes from a verb meaning “to count” or “to number”; tekel comes from the verb “to weigh”; and peres from a verb meaning “to divide.” Daniel explains how all of these meanings apply to Belshazzar and his doomed empire. (Peres is also a play on the word “Persian.”)

So this was a very dense puzzle; the last term actually has a triple meaning, disclosing the identity of the empire that would soon conquer Babylon. Even though the repetition of “mene” might have offered a slight clue to its interpretation, “all the king’s wise men . . . could not read the writing or tell the king what it meant.” But Daniel showed both his divine gifting and the certain fate of Babylon when he interpreted the puzzle.

Are these Bible studies available through the mail?

Q. Can I receive your Bible studies through postal mail?

Yes, you can get printed editions of all of the study guides in the Understanding the Books of the Bible series through the mail, even though they can also be ordered through your local Christian bookstore, or downloaded in electronic formats.

Probably the easiest way to get a printed copy of any of the guides, since you’re already on this blog, is to point to the link at the top right of this page that says “The Study Guides.” A drop-down menu will lead you to pages that describe each guide. On each specific page, you can click on the link that says “Printed Edition,” which will lead you to an amazon.com page where you can place an order to have the guide sent to you in the mail. (Just be sure to select “Paperback” rather than “Kindle.”)

Thanks very much for your interest, and I hope you enjoy using the guides!

Should we try to heal people today the way the apostles did?

Q. I passed a man in a wheelchair begging on the sidewalk one day and I wanted to say, as Peter did to the beggar at the temple, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk!” But I didn’t know whether that impulse came from God or from myself, and of course one doesn’t want to just say these things! How do you think the apostles knew it would work? Was it because they’d already done miracles earlier? But what about the first time? And since then, without Jesus here to actually say the words, “I give you the power to do miracles,” how does anyone know now if God is calling them to be used in that way?

St. Peter Healing the Crippled Beggar, H. H. Ambrose c. 1530

As I wrote in my last post, even Jesus’ own miracles depended on “the mysterious interaction between God’s sovereign disposition to act supernaturally at specific times and human receptivity to that disposition.” In other words, I don’t believe that if we just have the right amount and kind of faith, or the right understanding of how miracles work, or something along those lines, we can do miracles every time.

Healing of the sick is one sign of the kingdom, a proclamation that it is breaking into this present age, and God does sovereignly intend in certain situations to heal people as such a proclamation. But not everyone is healed. Even in the New Testament, Paul had to explain to Timothy, “I left Trophimus sick in Miletus.” So even members of the apostolic ministry team were sometimes not healed!

Instead, while healing of the sick is a sign of the kingdom, caring for the sick is part of the work of the kingdom. Jesus explains this in his parable of the sheep and the goats. In that parable, the king blesses those who did works of mercy, saying, among other things, “I was sick and you took care of me.” Not, “I was sick and you healed me.”

So depending on what God’s intentions are for a given situation, as followers of Jesus and citizens of the inbreaking kingdom, we are called either to be channels of miraculous healing of the sick, or else channels of merciful care for the sick.

We can only know whether our calling is the former one if we have previously cultivated the ability to hear God’s voice and discern God’s intentions on a day-to-day basis. Jesus was the ultimate example of someone who could do this. As I noted a couple of posts ago, Jesus explained, “The Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” Jesus discerned what God was doing and then joined in. I think the apostles learned that from Him, and that’s how they got started.

Moveover, we can only fulfill a calling to be a channel of God’s miraculous power if we have previously learned how to become such a channel starting in small ways. It is those who are faithful in small things who are entrusted with greater things.

So while the impulse to want to heal someone in a wheelchair is admirable and compassionate, I wouldn’t necessarily advise trying to start there. I believe it would take a great many experiences discerning God’s voice and trusting God to act in supernatural ways before we were equipped to play a role like that. (Remember, the disciples spent three years watching closely what Jesus did, and then they went out on apprenticeship journeys and discovered that God could do the same through them. So they had a lot of background and experience.)

Instead, I would see if you could discern something God had in mind for you to do with Him today by way of encouraging someone (for example), or meeting a practical need, or answering someone’s question. Begin that way to discover the secret of co-operation with God that Jesus modeled so well.

At the same time, see where God is calling you to exercise faith to believe for provision, or direction, or reconciliation, or opportunity, and learn that way to trust God for greater and greater things.

Over time, who knows? And in the meantime you can still offer a smile and an encouraging word to any beggars you pass on the street. (In most cases it’s not a good idea to give them money directly but you can always refer them to places that can help.) They’ll probably find this refreshingly different from being treated as invisible, and it might begin to show them Jesus’ love for them—which was really the point of the healing that Peter performed.

If Jesus gave up his divine attributes to become incarnate, how was he able to do miracles?

Q. I know that you believe in a somewhat qualified version of omniscience. I also know that it has been traditionally understood that Jesus gave up many of his divine attributes while on earth. In light of that, I’m wondering how you explain many of the things Jesus did that went beyond what a normal person could do. For example, he “sees” Nathanael before being with him, he also makes many specific prophecies that are perfectly fulfilled, and of course, he does many powerful miracles. Would you say that Jesus, while human, was relying on God the Father for his “power,” similarly to the disciples or the Old Testament prophets? Or that Jesus was “empowering” himself? Or something in between?

An icon of Jesus healing a blind man. Did the incarnate Jesus do such miracles by his own inherent power, or as a channel of the Father’s power working through him?

First, although this is not your main question, let me say that I don’t think my view of omniscience is really “a qualified version” of the historic Christian position. I believe, as followers of Jesus have throughout the centuries, that God knows everything that can be known. Where I may seem to differ with others is in my view that there are some things that cannot be known, and that it is no defect in omniscience that God does not know these things.

For example, does God know the value of pi (the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter) to the last digit? No, because there is no last digit—pi expressed in decimal form is a non-terminating, non-repeating number. God knows the value of pi to however many digits you care to specify, whether millions or billions or more, but not to the last digit, since there is none. In posts such as this one I have argued that the free decisions of moral agents are similarly unknowable in advance. But this doesn’t mean that “God doesn’t know everything” or that we need to “qualify” our view of omniscience to accommodate God not knowing what cannot be known. We may, however, need to qualify our view of knowledge, to move beyond the idea that if we can ask whether something can be known (e.g. the “last digit” of pi), then God should be expected to know it.

But now to your actual question. Yes, it has been understood and believed historically by Christians that in becoming incarnate as Jesus, the second person of the Trinity gave up certain divine attributes. This is what Paul means when he writes in Philippians that Jesus “emptied himself” in order to be “born in human likeness.” The Greek term for “emptying” is kenosis, and that term is used in Christian theology to describe Jesus’ act of giving up these attributes.

They are specifically what are known as the non-communicable divine attributes, that is, the ones that are unique to an infinite God and so cannot be passed on to finite humans: omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, eternity, etc. Communicable divine attributes such as love and holiness, on the other hand, can be taken on by humans, and this is what happens as we “put on the new self” that is “created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness,” as Paul writes in Ephesians.

So if Jesus gave up his divine attributes of omniscience and omnipotence when he came to earth to be our Savior, how was he able to know and do things so far beyond ordinarily human capabilities? I believe it was through the power and gifting of God, as in the case of the Old Testament prophets and Jesus’ own disciples. But Jesus was the ultimate exemplar of this; he served as the perfect conduit of divine power to meet human needs.

We have several indications in the gospels that this was the case. For example, Luke tells of an occasion when Jesus was teaching the crowds “and the power of the Lord was present for him to perform healing.” The implication is that when the power of the Lord was not present in this way, the human incarnate Jesus did not have supernatural power within himself to heal people. (In the same way, the Old Testament prophets knew only what God revealed to them. In one case Elisha, for example, who sometimes knew even things that had been spoken in secret at a distance, had to admit he didn’t know why a woman who came to him was in distress, because “the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me why.”)

Mark tells us of another occasion when Jesus returned to Nazareth, his home town, but “was not able to do any miracles there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he was amazed at their unbelief.” In his account of this same episode, Matthew says that “he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.”

In other words, the ministry of Jesus, like that of the prophets and apostles, depended on the mysterious interaction between God’s sovereign disposition to act supernaturally at specific times and human receptivity to that disposition. (For example, as I note in my study guide to John, Jesus turned water into wine at the wedding in Cana when “Mary’s persistent faith and implicit trust showed him that God was powerfully at work in that very moment.” One way we recognize the divine disposition is through human receptivity to it, which we call faith.)

If Jesus did miracles through his own inherent power, rather than in cooperation with the power and will of the Father, I don’t know how we can explain his statement that “whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these.” We certainly don’t have inherent power in ourselves to do even greater works than Jesus did. But this statement makes perfect sense if we believe, as I wrote in my last post, that “Jesus in his humanity provides an example and model for all of us of how to be a channel for God’s powerful works through attentive obedience.”

I hope these thoughts are helpful to you in response to your question, and I hope they encourage all of us to be aware of situations where “the power of the Lord is present” and just looking for an attentive, willing channel to work through.

Jesus: One with the Father, distinct from the Father

Q. Our Bible group is wondering if you can give us your thoughts on the following question from your John study guide so we can better understand what you were thinking when you asked the question (in Session 20, 2nd discussion section):

In the gospel of John, Jesus speaks both of his unity with the Father (“Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father”) and of their distinct personalities (“the Father is greater than I”). They are one, but they’re distinct. What are the dangers of losing sight of either side of this paradox, and saying either that the Father and Son aren’t distinct, or that they aren’t one?

As I mention in that particular discussion section, the unity that Jesus enjoys with the Father even while the two of them remain distinct persons is “one of the most profound and difficult concepts in the gospel of John.” So I’m not surprised that you’ve asked about this question, and I’m glad to have the opportunity to expand on it a bit further here.

Basically I wanted groups like yours that are working through the gospel of John to think about what is lost from the paradoxical but magnificently balanced picture we get in that book of Jesus’ relationship with the Father if we lose sight of either their unity or their distinctness.

For example, if we see Jesus as operating too independently from the Father (losing sight of their unity), we might conclude that he is able to do the significant things he does simply because he’s divine himself. In that case, we miss out on the way Jesus in his humanity provides an example and model for all of us of how to be a channel for God’s powerful works through attentive obedience. Jesus explains earlier in the gospel, “The Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.” This is the phenomenon of “co-operation” (working together) that I explain in Session 21 of the study guide and it is a model for all followers of Jesus today.

On the other hand, if we lose sight of the way Jesus is nevertheless a distinct person from the Father, we might make the mistake of believing that he was in some way just an “appearance” or “manifestation” of God on earth. In that case he would not have taken up our humanity and he would not have become the agent of our salvation as a representative of the entire human race, as a “second Adam” (as Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians). Or, as the second-century Christian theologian Irenaeus of Lyon expressed it (as described in this post), “What has not been assumed has not been healed.” If Jesus was just a “manifestation” of God and he did not take on our humanity, then he did not redeem that humanity.

In addition, if we don’t see Jesus and the Father as distinct, then we can fail to recognize the amazing community between persons that lies at the heart of the Godhead. John writes in his first epistle that “God is love,” and we come to appreciate some of what this profound declaration means when we recognize that a loving community between persons that has existed from all eternity, and which will have no ending, is a constitutive part of the very essence of God.

I wonder, however, whether in expanding on my original question here I might be introducing further profound and difficult concepts in order to try to explain the first one! But that’s the nature of John’s gospel: it poses profound paradoxes for our consideration, but it then rewards us with deeper insights into the character of God when we ponder them, even though we can never resolve them completely. Those are the rewards I wanted for groups like yours when I invited reflection on the paradox of Jesus’ simultaneous oneness with and distinction from the Father.

I hope you continue to have a good experience using the John study guide in your group, and thanks again for your question!

How does biblical literacy today compare with earlier generations? A case study

One of my recent freelance projects has been to proofread a new edition of John Wesley’s Plain Account of Christian Perfection (forthcoming from Whitaker House). In addition to learning from (and marveling at) Wesley’s profound theological insights, I was also struck by the way he referenced (actually, didn’t reference, in most cases) the quotations from Scripture that saturate his thought and writing.

Wesley provided actual Scripture references almost exclusively in the few places where he adopted a question-and-answer format. There he used them either on the part of his hypothetical interlocutor, or in the guise of the respondent. For example:

Q. Is there any example in Scripture of persons who had attained to [Christian perfection]?

A. Yes; St. John, and all those of whom he says, “Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because, as He is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17).

In other contexts Wesley may name the biblical author and book, but not provide a specific reference:

Did not St. Paul pray according to the will of God, when he prayed that the Thessalonians might be “sanctified wholly and preserved” (in this world, not the next, unless he was praying for the dead) “blameless in body, soul and spirit, unto the coming of Jesus Christ”?

Or, he may name the biblical author, but not even the book, expecting his readers to recognize the source of the quotation:

The words of St. Paul, “No man can call Jesus Lord, but by the Holy Ghost,” show us the necessity of eyeing God in our good works, and even in our minutest thoughts; knowing that none are pleasing to Him, but those which He forms in us and with us.

And in some cases, to support his points, Wesley quotes Scriptures from different places without even identifying the authors:

Be “slow to speak,” and wary in speaking. “In a multitude of words there wanteth not sin.” Do not talk much; neither long at a time. Few can converse profitably above an hour. Keep at the utmost distance from pious chit-chat, from religious gossiping.

Seeing how Wesley was able to quote the Bible this way, with the full expectation that his readers would recognize the source of his citations, to such an extent that chapter-and-verse references were not generally required, made me think that biblical literacy was much higher in his day than it is in ours, when a book like the Plain Account of Christian Perfection could hardly be published without chapter-and-verse references.

Can you identify the source of the last three quotations used as examples here (the biblical book, at least?)

Why does God call Ezekiel “Son of Man”?

Q. Ezekiel is constantly referred to as “Son of Man.” Since this is a reference often used for Jesus, why is it that Ezekiel seems to singled out for same designation?

Basically, the phrase “Son of Man” means something different in the book of Ezekiel than it does in the gospels.

In Ezekiel, “son of man” means “human being.” It’s a poetic Hebrew expression that’s used with that same meaning in several other places in the Old Testament, for example, in Psalm 8, where the ESV translates the Hebrew terms literally: “What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” The NLT expresses the meaning of these terms: “What are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them?”

Since “son of man” means “human being” in Ezekiel, in the Common English Bible, that prophet is addressed as “human one”; in the Good News Bible as “mortal man”; in the New Century Version as “human”; and in the New Revised Standard Version as “mortal.”

Why does God address Ezekiel in this particular way? Some have suggested that this is done to distinguish the prophet from the various supernatural beings in his visions–Ezekiel needs to know that God is speaking to him, rather than to one of them! But I think it’s more likely, as others have suggested, that by calling Ezekiel “son of man” (“mortal”), God is stressing the difference between His own powerful words and deeds, described in the visions Ezekiel receives (for example, breathing life into dead bodies, symbolic of restoring the exiled nation), and the few things, paltry by comparison, that the Judeans might accomplish without God.

In the gospels, “Son of Man” means something different. It’s an allusion to the Old Testament, though not to the book of Ezekiel, but rather to the book of Daniel. As I explain in my study guide to the gospel of Mark:

This expression comes from a vision the prophet Daniel had of “one like a son of man” who was given “authority, glory and sovereign power” by God. Jesus chooses this expression to describe himself because it communicates his divine mission without having the nationalistic and militaristic overtones of some of the other titles that were used for the Messiah at this time (such as “Son of David,” which he’ll be called later in the book). The title Son of Man particularly highlights the humanity and humility of Jesus. He will invoke this title repeatedly in the second part of the gospel as he speaks of his coming sufferings and death. But here it captures the authority he has, as a divinely-appointed representative of humanity, to forgive sins and determine how to make appropriate use of the Sabbath.

As I explain further in my study guide to Daniel and Revelation, commenting on Daniel’s vision of the “Ancient of Days,” books like these:

. . . use humans to represent divine figures. The person who’s presented to the Ancient of Days here is described as “like a son of man.” This Aramaic phrase means that he “looked like a human being,” but the implications within the vision are that he was divine. The Jewish people took the phrase “son of man” from this vision and used it as a title (“Son of Man”) to describe the divine savior figure they were expecting. Jesus often applied this title to himself, both to show that he was the Savior sent from God, and also, paradoxically, to show that he had given up his divine prerogatives and come to earth humbly, in human form, to identify completely with those he came to save.

So Ezekiel is not really being given a title that properly belongs to Jesus alone. Rather, the poetic phrase that meant simply “human being” in Ezekiel’s time had become a Messianic title by the time of Jesus.

Why is Daniel not among the Prophets in The Books of the Bible?

Q. I have two questions. Our group has read all The Books of the Bible series that are available to date and we are just finishing The Prophets. Why is Daniel not in the Prophets book and instead is slated for the Writings?

Second, Ezekiel is constantly referred to as “Son of Man.” Since this is a reference often used for Jesus, why is it that Ezekiel seems to singled out for same designation?

We have found The Books of the Bible to be an incredible read and one that I feel everyone should experience. Your blog is also a great source for thoughtful answers.

I’ll get to your questions in just a moment. But first, let me thank you very much for your appreciative words! I’m glad your group is having such a great experience engaging the Scriptures in The Books of the Bible format. We’ve heard the same thing from countless others–when the Bible is presented in a way that allows readers to recognize and engage its fascinating variety of literary forms, it indeed becomes “an incredible read.”

You’ve probably noticed that in my posts I often refer to the Understanding the Books of the Bible study guides. These were actually designed to accompany the new format and provide a “next step” for people who “read big” through large portions of Scripture using The Books of the Bible. After you “read big,” the next thing is to “go deep” by returning to one or more of the books in that part of the Bible to study in more detail.

For example, after you’ve “read big” through The Books of the Bible New Testament, you can “go deep” by using the study guides to John or to Paul’s Journey Letters. After reading through the Covenant History (Genesis-Kings), you can look at some of its material in more detail with the help of the Genesis or Joshua-Judges-Ruth study guides. Once you’ve read The Prophets, you can study Isaiah or the Minor Prophets Before the Exile. Ideally a rhythm of reading and studying, of “reading big” and “going deep,” will help a group become deeply steeped in the Scriptures over the years and steadily transformed by the power of God’s word. So if you’re enjoying the discussions here on this blog, I hope you might find the study guides just as helpful in understanding the Bible, but in an even more systematic way, and using the new edition you’re enjoying so much.

But now let me get to your questions. I’ll answer the one about Daniel and The Prophets in this post, and the one about Ezekiel in my next post.

As I describe here, I was a member of the team that created The Books of the Bible. We put the biblical books in a non-traditional order because we realized that the customary order can actually hinder readers’ understanding in many cases. As we explain in the Preface to The Books of the Bible (found in Biblica editions but unfortunately not in Zondervan ones), Paul’s letters “are badly out of historical order, and this makes it difficult to read them with an appreciation for where they fit in the span of his life or for how they express the development of his thought. . . . James has strong affinities with other biblical books in the wisdom tradition. But it has been placed within a group of letters, suggesting that it too should be read as a letter.”

Placing Daniel among the prophets is another way in which the traditional order leads us to have the wrong expectations about a book. Daniel is actually unlike the prophetic books, which consist largely of poetic oracles. Instead it’s made up of six stories of Judeans in exile, similar to the book of Esther, followed by a series of visions that have many characteristics of apocalyptic literature, like the book of Revelation.

In the Hebrew Bible, Daniel is not placed among the Prophets, but among the Writings. It was moved to the prophets in the Septuagint (Greek Old Testament), whose book order our English Bibles largely follow. We felt that the the distinctive kind of literature represented in the book of Daniel could be best recognized if that book were once again placed among the Writings, which we grouped according to literary type in The Books of the Bible. (For a broader discussion of the distorting effects of the traditional book order in the Bible, see pp. 67-75 in my book After Chapters and Verses.)

I hope this explanation is helpful, and thanks again for your encouragement!

The Books of the Bible: The Prophets from Zondervan