So many questions about Balaam

In Numbers 22-24 we first meet Balaam (or Bil'am, בלעם) son of Beor, a prophet hired by Balak king of Moab, to curse Israel. 

Amazingly, we know Balaam son of Beor also from extra-biblical material; the Deir 'Alla Plaster Inscriptions (Context of Scripture 2.27, Baruch A. Levine) writes about and translates the reconstructed fragments of an inscribed plaster wall from the 9th-8th century BC, slightly north of Moab in Ammonite territory. 

In those inscriptions he is a prophet who receives messages from the gods, providing a remarkable parallel to the biblical story. 

Balaam gets mentioned quite a lot in the Bible, which is surprising for a bit-player. His name comes up 60 times in the OT and a further three times in the NT. However, 51 of those 63 times are in Numbers 22-24, which is some impressive name repetition! He is mentioned again in Numbers 31, Deuteronomy 23, Joshua 13 and 24, Nehemiah 13 and Micah 6. The emphasis in the OT seems to be varied. 

He is also mentioned in the New Testament as an archetypal incitement to greed, in 2 Peter 2:15, Jude 11 and Revelation 2:14. 

In Deuteronomy 23, Joshua 24, Nehemiah 13 and Micah 6, God's determination to bless Israel despite human attempts to curse them. However in Joshua 13 the problem is his sinning through divination and being put to death as a cleansing of the land. 

Later on within Numbers (31) the Balaam/Balak saga is conflated with what becomes known as the Peor incident, in Numbers 25. In Numbers 31:15-18 Moses is upset that women who are not virgins, as well as boys, have been allowed to live in an attack on Midian. The reasoning is that the women who are not virgins are those who followed Balaam's advice to seduce Israelite men, which occurs in Numbers 25 but is not linked to Balaam in that place. 

That said, there are a few issues in Numbers 25 which are not clear, such as a plague which is stopped but is never explicitly said to begin (although 25:3a, "Yhwh's anger burned against Israel", may be an elliptical reference to the plague beginning). All this is to say the lack of a reference to Balaam is perhaps not that unexpected.

I do have some questions about Balaam, which are about 1) his location and 2) his patronym. 

Balaam of Pethor 

Numers 22:5, Balaam is at Pethor, his native land (NIV), that is the land of the children of his people (ASV), which is by "the river", i.e. the Euphrates. This description is filled out in Deuteronomy 23, as Pethor is further explained as in Aram Naharaim, or Aramea by the (two) rivers, which is identified as north-west Mesopotamia. You can see it right up the top of this map in red (made in Accordance Bible), while Beth Peor and Bezer are the names in red down the bottom, which are part of Moab, also in red below those towns. I've overlaid modern borders for some scale.

It doesn't take long to work out why people have problems with Pethor as Balaam's base and hometown. The plains of Moab, opposite Jericho either side of the Jordan River, are almost 600km away from each other as the crow flies, which is a long long way away. One might even suggest prohibitively far away to make sense in the story. If the details are correct, that Balak sent his messengers 600km to ask, and then they returned unsuccessful, and then they were sent back, whereupon he was willing to come with them (the talking donkey notwithstanding), then they have walked upwards of 2,500km in order to gain some support. The distances are staggering. 

Added to this is when Balak meets Balaam, he asks why he didn't come immediately in response to his "urgent summons" (22:37), which is laughable - the amount of time it would have taken to make two return trips of that distance would make haste or delay essentially negligible. 

It is of course possible that The River is a different river. The Nile could justifiably also be called The River, and the Jordan, for those in that area, could similarly be their The River. Further to this, it is always possible that Aram is Adam, a place attested to elsewhere in the Scriptures (such as in Josh 3:16, as well as a suggestion elsewhere in place of Aram), due to the easily confused pair of letters, the Hebrew daleth and resh, ד/ר. 

If Balaam was indeed from Adam, not Aram, and The River was the Jordan and not the Euphrates, then Balaam is slightly less exotic and the story becomes much less confusing, from that aspect at least. That would also fit more with the archaeological evidence discussed above. 

Balaam son of Beor or Bezer

The other issue I want to try to understand is why, in 2 Peter 2:15, Balaam is called the son of Bezer and not of Beor, as he is throughout the OT. Where has Peter got this from?

The patronymic, Beor, is written both plene and defectively within the same passage; that is, both בעור and בער. 

There were two things I immediately noticed upon hearing the name Beor. First off, there is a nice assonance between the three names in the passage: Beor, Balaam, Balak. This is nice, and a lovely coincidence (if it is that). Second, Beor sounds a lot like Peor, and apart from the B/P exchange, Peor is spelled the same as Beor (the plene spelling). 

I don't know what to make of that. Peor is clearly a real place in the Transjordan, known elsewhere as Beth Peor (not to be confused with another Peor within Canaan). 

If I had to guess, I would say Beor is how you spell Peor if you want it to rhyme with Balak and Balaam, so that Beor, rather than being a patronym, is a toponym. 

If this were the case, it could mean that 2 Peter preserves the name of Balaam's father, Bezer, so he is Balaam son of Bezer of Peor. 

However, it's not that easy. Bezer rhymes just as easily as does Beor, and you don't have to change anything. And Bezer is also a place, near to the plains of Moab (Deut 4:43; Josh 20:8; 21:36; 1 Chr 6:78; 8:78). 

So which place is his place? Is it Peor, Pethor, or Bezer? 

I think it's safest to go with what the OT has to say, rather than imagining that Peter has access to something that has escaped everyone else's notice for a millennium. This still doesn't explain how the patronym Bezer turns up in 2 Peter. 

The Greek behind it is Bosor, which is how the LXX consistently translates Bezer. However, it seems some scribes had some issues with that, as Vaticanus has Beor, and the original hand of Sinaiaticus combines Beor and Bosor into the horrific portmanteau Beorsor, which I take it is Beor + Bosor. UBS5 gives Bosor an A rating, suggesting that this is the most likely reading and that Siniaticus represents an attempt to correct the text.

There has been much work on 2 Peter and Jude's sources (very little of which I'm across), but I'm unaware of where the Bezer (Bosor) source may have come from, or why Peter didn't go with Beor (unless Sinaiaticus alone preserves the original text). 

Edit/update - I checked Norman Hillyer's UBC (1,2 Pet; Jude) and he suggests Βοσορ (Bezer) is a play on בשר (flesh); Peter then thinks Balaam is then a son of the flesh rather than being confused about who is father is. Why confuse us with the nearby town Bosor/Bezer I'm not sure. That said, the Greek has του, the genitive article, so it broadly means "belonging to", either as the son, or another type of belonging, as Hillyer suggests. 

Conclusion

All in all, there are a whole bunch of riddles associated with Balaam, son of Beor, of Pether. I don't know if I solved any of them, but I hope I have at least scratched the surface and edged towards some possible resolutions. 

grumbling - moi?

sermon #1 at new church: Philippians 2:12-30

2:14-15 Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.

sermon #2&3 at new church: Jude

v16 These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires; they are loud-mouthed boasters, showing favouritism to gain advantage.

sermon #4 at new church: Exodus 16-17

16:2 And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, [...]
16:7-9 "and in the morning you shall see the glory of the LORD, because he has heard your grumbling against the LORD. For what are we, that you grumble against us?” And Moses said, “When the LORD gives you in the evening meat to eat and in the morning bread to the full, because the LORD has heard your grumbling that you grumble against him—what are we? Your grumbling is not against us but against the LORD.” Then Moses said to Aaron, “Say to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, ‘Come near before the LORD, for he has heard your grumbling.’ ”

Norman Hillyer writes*, "the splendidly onomatopoeic gongystai [...]" (p258)


now even in English "grumblers" or "grumbling", is a great word, but you do start to wonder if someone's trying to say something to me...

*1 and 2 Peter, Jude, New International Bible Commentary, 2000, Hendrickson, Massachusetts

Jude: whaddya do?

the context for Jude is v4:

For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a licence for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.

so the question is: whaddya do? do you withdraw? By no means!

rather, you

1. look after yourself, v20-21:

   But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.

   
   
2. look after others, v22-23:

   Be merciful to those who doubt; snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear— hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.

   
   
3. look to God, v24-25:

   To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— to the only God our Saviour be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and for evermore! Amen.

hopefully someone who hears (or heard: I, II) my sermons will add this to the list of stuff i told them

oprah dreaming

doing some thinking for my Jude sermons i came across this clip on the church of oprah

now i realise this clip is a little alarmist, but it makes a good point:
when you hear something from the bible you find immediately hard to reconcile with how you've got God pictured, you can immediately reject your instincts and blindly agree with the bible; you can think some more about what the bible's on about, do a bit of thinking, reading and praying and work out where either your understanding was wrong or what you first thought it was saying isn't; or you can reject what the bible says, trusting your gut.
it seems Oprah has done the latter.

but that’s what happens if you’re relying only on your own instinct,
instead of God’s wisdom,
his word,
his commands,
the counsel of Godly brothers and sisters God has given us.

i don't want to particularly hammer Oprah, but as the vid says, she does have a viewership of millions, who respect and listen to her.

But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.

Jude 17-23

in Christ alone

today marked the final in a series we've been doing at CBS Core* on church; what it is, what it isn't, when it is, and isn't, what it should, shouldn't be and so on.

as pontius pilate asked, the ultimate postmodern question, what is truth?**, when you think about it -

do you believe the same thing you did 10yrs ago?

will you have arrived at "the truth" by the time you die?

after my recent jude extravaganza, the question of truth - what it is and who arbitrates over the grey, fuzzy areas, came up again.

"we" would of course say that truth is what we declare it to be; what we teach, exposit, explain, live.
but we must humbly admit, as per the above questions, that even our own understandings will shift over our lives.
therefore to rule others out of God's kingdom (very risky business indeed! c/f 1Cor4) is extremely short sighted considering our own unsteadfastness.

so, for example, the lovely jehovah's witness ladies who visit me every now and then, whose hope is 100% rooted in the propitiatory act of Christ's death, whose lives speak volumes by their prayerfulness and other-person centredness - apart from continuing to try and show them how the Bible speaks of Christ's divinity, and the personhood of the Holy Spirit, what am i to say to them?

stepping back and trying to focus on what is of central importance, am I to exclude them, or anyone who believes an alternative doctrine, from God's kingdom?

* also known as i can't believe it's not SOCM
** John 8:28

the author of this blog reserves the right to make inflammatory posts, raising questions that he may or may not have completely resolved, in order to either help him or others be more sure of what they may or may not believe. ätsch!

s(un)shine

a question i've raised once before (here) has asked itself again, courtesy of a new film, sunshine.

without giving too much away, this film is set in the not too distant future, in a world where they've discovered that the sun is cooling down a little, and they need to "zap" a little more life into it!

so my question is to what extent will we (humanity, God's image bearers) be witnesses to the destruction, collapse of the physical universe?

this idea of the dying sun is not a new idea (arthur c. clarke thought of it yonks ago, and my recollection is that j.g. ballard also mooted the idea half a century ago), it is simply a device for bringing cosmic catastrophy into the present (much like that asteroid film with that guy and the girl and the father and stuff).

the waning sun postulated in the film is one thing, but:
what of the bomb-race that looks like it's getting a second-wind?
what of the disastrous state of the evironment?
what of the increased ability for those who would do great harm to many, to accomplish their desires?

at what stage is enough going to be enough? will ther ever be any of us around to see that day when evil will be completely vanquished?
OR, might there be a similar pattern to the death and resurrection of Christ?

ie, all that is evil - conquered. all that is good - gone.
then, bursting forth, the Lord, with (to quote Jude quoting Enoch) ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

that would include, i guess, doing their very best to destroy this good world that we have been given stewardship over, perverting this good creation for their own wicked ends.

but then again, i wonder, might it ever get that far?

*no points for guessing what i've just been preaching on!

jude's saucy sources

anyone who may've been trying to keep up with jude, may well be asking the question, "where did he get it from?"

this table* shows us where he gets them from, the sources he's drawing on for his attacks on those who would pervert the grace of God into a license to sin.

click on picture to enlarge

now, don't go trying to find the Assumption of Moses - it isn't the Testament of Moses, nor is it the Apocalypse of Moses, fun as they are to read. it hasn't been sighted for over 1500yrs.

you can get a hold of Enoch if you want tho - enjoy the 119 chapters of hilarity, hijinks and slap-stick action, as the good angels take on the bad angels, in a do-or-die battle of cosmic proportions (the film version will be called License to Sin, or it should be. i still don't know why the makers of Bond chose against it.)

but both Enoch and Assump. Moses are typical examples of this apocalyptic, pseudepigraphical literature that was going around back in the day (ie C1 BC - C1 AD and thereabouts). Hence my attempts to contemporise his message with a previous post.

to really make sense of Jude's letter, copy it into a word document, and delete or move aside the examples, it's a really clear and easy read then, and when you put them back, Shazzam - It's super straight-forward!

big ups to mark for making that plain to me!

it's been really helpful in the way i read apocalyptic literature - thinking about the big picture, not getting ground down trying to understand the minutae - it's actually been an emancipating experience, not to put too high a note on it!

anyway, have a try, tell me what you think.

*not sure if you can make a table in blogger, hence the screen grab...

my best line

still tapping away, trying to get this sermon sorted, but i thought i'd share my best line so far:

i'm trying to explain the harshness of the examples jude uses from the OT, 1Enoch, the Assumption of Moses (a non-extant text - we have the rest), in terms that we might understand today.

... it's like saying, "these turkeys are as useless as wet toilet-paper, as destructive as the asian tsunami, as untrustworthy as paedophiles, and as mentally unstable as britney spears."

jude & today

for my upcoming sermon on Jude, i'm trying to work out, who are these people today?

4 [...] certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

and what about these kids?

10 But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.

i've been listening to some sermons from the US - talk about a different world! they're talking about pastors who receive 7-figure salaries, viewing themselves as CEOs responsible for big companies, and should be rewarded as such. there are some extravagant churches around, but i think by-and-large any who have pursued such excesses are recognised as having [...] abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's error [...](v11)

so can we say is it even talking about the church of today? who should we be looking out for? who is it today perverting the grace of our God?

ooooooh. ghosts!!!

fatima asked an interesting question about ghosts. well, that was basically the extent of the question, posed in response to my first (and yes, still only) review of Enoch. coincidentally, at the same time i was pondering what the bible has to say on the topic, i happened upon a talk on 2 Peter, which, as does Jude, refers implicitly (Jude explicitly), to Enoch.
this section in particular was telling:

2 Peter 2:10-15 Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones, whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them before the Lord. But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction, suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, they feast with you. They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray.

the point the speaker was making, was those who go on about the supernatural, described as "angelic ramblings", are perhaps those who are possibly not the best examples of Christian leadership.

that in mind (!), on to ghosts.

as far as i can tell, there are 3 words translated "ghost" in the good book:
obe (ghost, spirit of a dead one), as found in Isaiah 29:4,

And you will be brought low; from the earth you shall speak,
and from the dust your speech will be bowed down;
your voice shall come from the ground like the voice of a ghost,
and from the dust your speech shall whisper.

fantasma (apparition, apparition, spectre), seen in Matthew 14:26 (c/f Mark 6:49),

But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, “It is a ghost!” and they cried out in fear.

pneuma (spirit), found twice in Luke 24:36-43,

As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit (ghost). And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit (ghost) does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them.

now i'm sorry, but all this says is that people were, just as today, aware of ghosts. i mean heck, even i "know" that ghosts have neither flesh nor bones. just as i "know" leprechauns wear green and have little beards and fairies have wings and wands.

all this proves nothing (nor disproves, i might add).
what i'm still not sure of is what the saul/samuel narrative (1 Sam 28), nor the transfiguration with jesus chatting with moses and elijah (Mark 9:2vv) adds to this question. can God retrieve people from sheol? why not! and they were all highly symbolic appearances, God obviously appropriating them for good cause.

so i don't know. did you think i would? the bible is silent, and how am i to dispute people's own experiences? i can imagine the conversation now:

i saw a ghost once
no you didn't
oh. but-
-no, you didn't
...oh. ok.