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Originally Posted by Backwoods Presbyterian  Has anyone read this book before? If so what did you think of it and are there any meaningful critiques (either positive or negative) I should consult? I am about on Page 50 and I like where he is going in his commentary on Matt 5:17-20.
Thanks for your input. |
At the risk of blowing my own horn (note to Bawb - I need a pussycat playing trombone smilie ASAP) I have done a review of Bahnsen's exegesis of this passage in exhaustive detail and I found it appallingly bad. I have written a book on the subject, now in pre-publication review, which I hope will be out later this year. Let me list a couple of the most egregious errors. Bahnsen cites one commentator (Meyer) as supporting him on the correct meaning of a Greek word but when one checks Meyer's commentary, he contradicts Bahnsen. Second, when Bahnsen discusses alla (but) in TICE, the parallel passage (Matt. 10:34) he gives to support the idea that alla creates a total contrast between the words it separates actually won't support his claim. As Bahnsen was later forced to admit (in his paper The Exegesis of Matt. 5), such is not the case for this '… aphorism was not meant to be universally true for any and all senses of "peace," as commentators’ note. The Jews expected and supposed that the coming Messiah would suddenly in a single action (note the use of the aorist in Matthew 10:34) impose peace for them as the immediate and sole effect of His coming. Jesus utterly denied such an understanding. The sense in which He does bring peace must be supplied from somewhere else, not here. … Extracted from its context, of course, the denial of peace-giving in Matthew 10:34 would be an overstatement, to be tempered by revealed instruction elsewhere about the Prince of Peace.'
Unfortunately, Bahnsen failed to notice that he created a problem for himself when he conceded that the apparently absolute denial of peace – giving in Matthew 10:34 “was not meant to be universally true for any and all senses of ‘peace’” and must be qualified by Jesus’ teaching elsewhere. By his concession, he effectively admitted that the presence of alla does not always force a meaning of total contradiction between the words it separates. Moreover, Bahnsen’s comment is also an implicit recognition of a truth that any scholar knows; as is the case with all words with more than one meaning, the precise sense of alla in Matt. 10:34 does not determine the meanings of the words it contrasts. Instead, its own meaning must be determined by the otherwise established meanings of the words it separates. By conceding that the presence of alla does not force the total contradiction between “peace” and “sword” in Matt. 10:34, Bahnsen has effectively refuted his own argument that alla necessarily forces a contrast of exactly opposite meanings between the words it separates in the grammatically identical Matthew 5:17. Since one cannot maintain that Matt. 10:34 teaches ' … that there is no sense in which Jesus brings peace… [one cannot successfully] argue that there may be no sense in which Jesus abolishes the law …' (D. A. Carson,
Matthew loc. cit.) in Matthew 5:17. Therefore one can no longer maintain that alla necessarily forces the translation of pleroo as “confirm” in this verse. "
Finally Bahnsen does not consider all possible meanings of the Greek word pleroo (compare TICE with BAGD) and the meanings he overlooks (those involving the idea of "completing something already begun") can be demonstrated to be at least possibly relevant.
Here is my how I summed up my review of Bahnsen's exegesis of v. 17.
"At the beginning of this chapter we saw that Bahnsen's view of Mathew 5:17 would depend on whether at least four of five key premises could be established. Having examined each of Bahnsen's attempts to show that his chosen alternatives are either the only possible meaning of the words in question or are superior to all other relevant options, we now can evaluate his argument as a whole.
Bahnsen's first premise, that Christ meant His hearers to understand "the law or the prophets" as referring to "the ethical stipulations of the law," has been shown to be flawed by a number of methodological errors, including insufficient supporting arguments and a notable failure to check the original languages and the standard reference tools at key points. When we draw the logical conclusion and wonder why Christ bothered to add “or the prophets” at all, Bahnsen’s explanations are unsatisfactory. And Bahnsen does all this, in spite of Christ’s deliberate use of e, (or) (the meaning of which Bahnsen, by misrepresenting a source! misrepresents), which makes his reduction of the meaning of “the Law or the Prophets” from the entire Mosaic covenant administration to its “ethical stipulations” less likely. In addition, Bahnsen's refutation of the more likely meaning of the phrase "the law or the prophets," i.e. the Mosaic covenant, has been shown to be inadequate on two of his three grounds, and the third will be shortly be shown to be equally flawed. Thus Bahnsen's first premise, already highly unlikely, presently hangs by a thread shortly to be cut off.
Bahnsen's second premise, that katalusai must mean "annul" here is clearly unproven: Bahnsen failed to discuss why kataluo, which certainly took the meaning “destroy” rather than “annul” when used of the law in Gal. 2:18, cannot mean the same thing in Matt. 5:17, a particularly significant omission given that the KJV translators thought “destroy” was a better fit in the Matthean context. In addition, even if katalusai was intended to mean "annul" here, alla, as Bahnsen himself later recognized, does not always force a meaning of total contradiction on the words it separates, and thus Bahnsen's required third premise that katalusai must force the translation of pleroosai as "confirm" collapses.
Bahnsen's next error is his rejection, without sufficient discussion, of four known and decidedly relevant meanings of “fulfill” for pleroo despite the substantial Scriptural support that they enjoy, and their demonstrable relevance that each has in the context of Matthew 5:17. Instead, he opts for the uncertain translational possibility “confirm” in the sense of "establish the ongoing validity of," a possibility made considerably weaker by the lack of solid evidence that either the Hebrew mala or the Greek pleroo ever took the meaning "confirm" in that sense in the New Testament era. This lack of evidence destroys the fourth premise that pleroosai meant "confirm" in that sense. Finally, the now essential fifth premise: that "confirm" in the sense of "establish the ongoing applicability of commands" is a logical and legitimate implication of translating pleroo by "fulfill" has been demonstrated to be both illogical and false to the Scriptures.
Finally, Bahnsen makes Christ out to have made a massive error in His choice of words by using the misleading pleroosai to mean “confirm,” rather than the far more fitting istemi (“confirm/establish”) which was well known, available to Him, and would have established the Theonomic thesis beyond any possibility of doubt. In short, by inserting the meaning “confirm” for pleroo with no real lexical grounds for doing so, it is Bahnsen, not Poythress who is “…overlook[ing] the obvious…” and “…importing preconceived ideas into the text, rather than reading them out of the text” and doing violence to the context. Of Bahnsen's five premises, his first now hangs by a thread, his failed second premise has been made irrelevant by the failure of his third, and both of his last two premises have been shown to be insupportable.
Since Bahnsen has misunderstood the subject of Christ's thought, the relationship between the two verbs brought about by the conjunction 'but', and the meanings of both of the key verbs in this verse, his exegetical case for the Theonomic thesis has not met the burden of proof. Already it is clear that Bahnsen’s Theonomy is one thesis Christ is not teaching here."
Sadly, I must also report that I found his work on v. 18 equally shoddy.