By Angus Harley

My daughter did a philosophy paper on the movie Amadeus– yes, you read right, the movie about Mozart. According to her professor (and many agree with him) the movie was a pot of gold, philosophically speaking. I’m not convinced of this, but what does that matter? She made up a completely fake philosophical paradigm for ‘interpreting’ the movie. She contrasted Kant’s deontological model to Kant’s other belief in the sublime and read them both into the movie. Kant vs Kant. Salieri embodied Kant’s deontological model, whereas Mozart was the incarnation of Kant’s notion of the sublime. All utterly made-up drivel! Did this interpretation work? Yes, it did. Not because it really was present in the movie, but because it kinda, sorta, resembled something going on in the movie.

John Walton’s book

What it does

John Walton’s book Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament is one giant form of my daughter’s philosophy paper. It kinda, sorta attempts to show how Ancient Near Eastern texts and practices help interpret the Old Testament. Walton is, unlike my daughter, deadly serious about the value of his book and its approach. I’m not, for as we will see, the book is a series of imaginative, often useless, and sometimes destructive, ideas pumped out of his own mind.

Walton is one of the most esteemed Evangelical OT scholars of our generation, and some consider him the greatest. His book was published in 2006 and made a second edition in 2018. It focuses on ANE/Mesopotamian religious themes in particular, on which Walton spends most of his time, which are then applied to OT concepts and passages. Please note that order, for it is very important, revealing to us Walton’s mindset in the book, as it concerned primarily with ANE religious themes and how they might illuminate the OT.

Walton’s claim

Before the reader has taken even a step, Walton lays down how he’s merely comparing ANE/Mesopotamian sources, of which the bible is one. He is not, he says, ‘exegeting’ the OT text by letting the ANE sources control it. This is his claim. He tells you there are contrasts and differences at many points between the bible and the ANE sources, but the bible operates within that same ANE mindset or environment.

His method in action

His reviewers gush about his brilliant method of using ANE culture and practices- not just texts- to understand what is going on in the bible. In other words, these readers are perfectly aware that far more is going on than the Mesopotamian setting merely ‘shedding light’ on the biblical text.

For example, according to Walton, we don’t need to actually believe that the sun stood still, according to Joshua 10:12-13, for the lunar calendar of the pagan nations referred to the length of a day by its phases. The pagans, says Walton, believed that on the 14th day of that particular month, the sun and moon would be seen together, or, more specifically, over against one another. The sun and moon would metaphorically stand and wait for one another, stop, as both entered into sight together. To the pagans this was an omen from the gods of victory. However, what happened was that the sun and moon entered onto the scene on the day of…wait for it…the 15th, and that was no beuno, a bad omen. Joshua, being knowledgeable of Canaanite pagan religion, was calling on the Lord to use this fact of the omen calendar to deflate the pagans they were fighting against.[1]

How Walton sees himself: ‘defender of the text’

Walton considers his view to be faithful to the text, and actually believes that it provides a solution to those skeptics who deny the text’s events:

“Many modern readers of the Bible have responded with incredulity at the apparent suggestion that the sun and moon stood still. Unpersuaded that physics could be so tamed, they have offered alternative suggestions (e.g., that the army was protected from the heat of the sun), despite the problems that such suggestions posed for the text. Here I propose that Joshua 10 operates in the world of omens, not physics. Rather than ask what it would mean to us for the sun and moon to stop, we must ask what it would mean in the ancient context of celestial omens.”[2]

Walton: attacker of the text

Rather than being an Evangelical stalwart, Walton attacks the biblical text:

  • he has rejected the plain reading of the text of the historical narrative of Joshua 10;
  • he dismantles the entire content of the text that focuses on Joshua’s faith and the supernatural extension of a regular day through God causing the sun and moon to stand still (Josh.10:12-14);
  • in that regard Walton is no different to the skeptics;
  • he has replaced the text’s narrative and plain meaning with a Mesopotamian reading based entirely on how pagan religion and its lunar calendar responded to the sun and moon together in the ‘sky’;
  • moreover, Walton injects into Joshua a whole theology of pagan omens;
  • to that end, he ripped words from their context enlisting them as ‘obvious’ ANE indicators;
  • Walton’s system even goes so far to give to us the dates of the 14th and 15th, although neither are mentioned in Joshau 10;
  • so that, here in black-and-white, Walton openly states that we must interpret the text’s event according to ANE/Mesopotamian omen-theology; therein lies a clear-cut case of a non-biblical hermeneutic, or controlling interpretive model, imposed on the biblical text.

Ham sandwich exegesis

Walton’s method is what I call ‘ham sandwich’ exegesis, meaning that one can extrapolate anything from the biblical text, even a ham sandwich!

Let me make up my own ham sandwich interpretation. In the NT, Paul refers to ‘adoption’, huiothesia in the Greek. In ancient Rome, it usually referred to an adult being adopted into a family. So, using Walton’s ham sandwich hermeneutic, I propose the following reading of Romans 8:15, “For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!””

The Romans believed in a son being the heir to the name of the patriarch of the family. However, if a patriarch had no physical heir, he would have to adopt a male, usually- but not always- a man. The first thing we have to understand, therefore, is that only males are adopted in the family of Christ. We must note the surrounding presence of key words: ‘sons’, ‘heirs’, ‘adoption’, and other Roman terms such as ‘redemption’ that were in common use in Rome, and used most often of adults. This fits Paul’s overall theology of male adults being the heads of assemblies.

Secondly, we must appreciate that Romans believed in the evil eye and evil spirits. They would wear amulets and symbols to ward of these spirits. Slaves were not protected with those amulets and symbols, for they were mere slaves. So, when Paul refers to believers receiving the Spirit of adoption, he is referring to males receiving not only protection from evil spirits, but they were possessed by the Holy Spirit, and it spoke through them to say, ‘Father’. Slaves obviously could not say ‘Father’, and so they were not possessed by the Holy Spirit, nor had omen protection against the evil eye. In fact, in the ANE, slaves were sometimes demon possessed and said evil things, calling out for the evil spirit to come!

Just how did Liberalism come to dominate Evangelicalism?

What is the difference between my ham sandwich method, Walton’s approach, and that of classical Liberal theologians who interpreted the bible according to the surrounding ANE cultures and to then-modern science? How is Walton’s view any different to that of cults who mine the bible for their own specific doctrines that obviously relate to their own presuppositions and beliefs? The bible, especially the OT, has been the subject of ‘scientific’ investigation and ‘rational’ examination going on centuries, always leading eventually to ‘Evangelicals’ adopting a Liberal mindset. How else did the Liberals in Machen’s day and before arise? Many of them came out of Evangelical stock. Similarly, Spurgeon’s group of Baptists there in England were ‘Evangelical’ but had been given over to ‘Downgrade’, to Liberal ideology. Do you realize, modern Evangelical reader, that this downgrade and descent into Liberalism was marked by Evangelical scholars and teachers bit-by-bit defending and promoting aspects of the greater and growing Liberal theology of their day? Are you aware that these men considered themselves to be faithfully defending the biblical text and its content? Do you know that these ‘stalwarts’ took issue very openly with traditional teaching? Step out from the throng, take a look at the big picture, my friend, and you will see that Walton and his ilk are attacking the bible, and spreading manure for theological Liberalism to grow again in Evangelicalism. I appeal to fans of Walton, please, understand how Satan degrades the bible, how he manipulates and takes over parts of Evangelicalism to that end. Don’t be naïve, friend!

[1] John Walton, Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2nd ed., (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2018), 238-239.

[2] Ibid., 238.