The Journal of Biblical Studies

Jan- Mar 2002                                                                                                                Vol. 2  No. 1

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• On Heffalumps and Heresies by John Sanders
  
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  Abstract
  
  A rancorous controversy is swirling around in evangelicalism regarding open theism. This article first summarizes openness theology and clarifies what the main issue is, and is not, in this debate. Then the main accusations leveled against openness are examined: it is not biblical, it is not traditional and it is heretical. However, just as Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet got caught in their own trap that they set to catch Heffalumps, so the critics of open theism get caught in their own heresy trap. There are many attempts to short-circuit this debate by resort to name-calling and guilt by association and so a brief word is given regarding the virtues that should be displayed when debating important matters. The article concludes with an assessment of the power play being made by one group of evangelicals to hijack the movement.

• Realized or Future Salvation in the Hodayot by Ken Penner
  
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  Abstract
  
  Before the Dead Sea Scrolls discoveries, we had evidence that first-century Palestinian apocalyptic eschatology was totally future-oriented. In such a context, the eschatology of the teachings of Jesus, in which present-realized and future-expected salvation were juxtaposed, seemed to be an anomaly. With the discovery of the Qumran manuscripts, a revised picture of Jewish eschatology in the Second-Temple period emerged. Heinz-Wolfgang Kuhn argued on the basis of the Hymns of the Community in 1QHa that the Qumran sect believed in a present-realized eschatological salvation alongside of and overshadowing the usual future expectation. Émile Puech rejected Kuhn's conclusions, not by denying the tension between present and future, but by placing the emphasis on the future rather than on the present.
  
  Both Kuhn and Puech have made invaluable contributions to the study of the eschatology of the Hodayot, but were hampered by overlooking the associative nature of poetry and the ambiguity it produces. My approach, by its recognition of the sequential nature of oral poetry illuminates the movement of these two eschatological poems from the Hodayot and clarifies the reasons for the disagreement between Kuhn and Puech as to whether the eschatology expressed in them is mainly realized or mainly future.
  
  The eschatological salvation of these two poems has both present and future elements, as both Kuhn and Puech recognized. Though salvation was expected to be realized in the future, its course had already been set by entering the earthly community of God's people. The poetry links God's past actions and the poet's present experiences with the future destiny of God's people. The task facing the scholar today should not be to distinguish and separate the present from the future; instead it should be to understand how the Qumran community linked the two. Only then will we understand the context of first-century Palestinian Jewish apocalyptic eschatology in which present-realized and future-expected salvation might be juxtaposed.

• What Did the Biblical Writers Know & When Did They Know It? What Archaeology Can Tell Us About the Reality of Ancient Israel, by William G. Dever.  Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2001.

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