The Upper Register Blog

A reader pointed me to Ben Witherington’s well-argued defense of the theory that John was written by Lazarus. At first this may seem crazy, but it is actually a semi-plausible theory. It was first suggested over a century ago and was triggered by noting that at John 11:3 the sisters of Lazarus send word to Jesus saying, ”Lord, the one you love is sick,” which is similar to the language at 13:23 (although the verbs for ”love” are different). This theory has the drawback of going against ecclesiastical tradition, which uniformly attributes the Fourth Gospel to “John” (whether the elder or the apostle), but it has the advantage of making the author of the Gospel of John an eyewitness.

As attractive as this theory may be, I’m not convinced. You should read the entire article by BW3, but this paragraph is the critical one, with emphasis on the sentences in bold:

At John 13.23 we have the by now very familiar reference to a disciple whom Jesus loved (hon agapa this time) as reclining on the bosom of Jesus, by which is meant he is reclining on the same couch as Jesus. The disciple is not named here, and notice that nowhere in John 13 is it said that this meal transpired in Jerusalem. It could just as well have transpired in the nearby town of Bethany and this need not even be an account of the Passover meal. Jn. 13.1 in fact says it was a meal that transpired before the Passover meal.

Contra BW3’s claim, there are very good reasons to think that John 13 is the Johannine parallel to the Synoptic Last Supper. Consider the order of things in the Synoptics, and see how it fits perfectly with John 13-18:

Jesus celebrates the Passover with his disciples in an upper room, during which Jesus predicts that one of the Twelve will betray him (cp. John 13:18-30), and that Peter will deny him three times (cp. John 13:36-38). After the supper, they leave the upper room, cross the Kidron Valley, and go to a garden on the Mount of Olives (cp. John 18:1). Judas comes and betrays Jesus in the garden (cp. John 18:2-3). 

BW3 appeals to the phrase “before the Passover” in John 13:1. But he is reading too much into the phrase. It need not be taken to mean that the entire John 13-17 meal & discourse was prior to the Passover, but that the immediate paragraph describing the foot-washing was prior to the Passover. This is related to the whole debate on whether John views the crucifixion as occurring on the day of the Passover. Many scholars think so, but this violates the Synoptic account which clearly says that the Last Supper (on Thursday evening) was a Passover, so that Jesus would have been crucified on Friday, the day after the Passover. See D. A. Carson’s commentary for more on this, but he does a good job of defending the view that John is in agreement with the Synoptics with regard to chronology. See also Geldenhuys’s outstanding excursus on the date of the crucifixion at the end of his NICNT commentary on Luke. 

So – if John 13 is describing the Last Supper, and since Mark 14:17 makes clear that Jesus celebrated the Last Supper “with the Twelve,” it follows that the disciple who is described as leaning on Jesus’ breast (John 13:23) must be one of the Twelve.

Dith Pran died of pancreatic cancer on Sunday. He was the Cambodian who helped the American journalist Sydney Schanberg report the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge to the West. The LA Times has a good obit today:

He saved Schanberg from death at rebel hands before facing it himself many times during the four years of the Khmer Rouge’s bloody reign. When Schanberg won the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for his Cambodia reporting at the New York Times, he shared the honor with Dith …

For Dith, life became an unremitting nightmare. The Khmer Rouge were hellbent on a radical restructuring of Cambodian life, abolishing religion, separating families, driving city dwellers to rural labor camps, closing hospitals and schools, and exterminating professionals, intellectuals and anyone with ties to Westerners or the U.S-backed government of President Lon Nol. The atrocities he witnessed, particularly the murders of children, plagued him long after he was free.

One of the most heart-breaking aspects of this story is the sad tale of Dith Pran’s futile search for justice. Note that in the following paragraphs, justice is elusive:  Pol Pot dies in peace, Dith’s friend is murdered by robbers in LA, and at last he himself dies of cancer:

In 1989 he returned to Cambodia with members of the Cambodian Documentation Commission, including Haing S. Ngor, the Cambodian doctor who portrayed Dith in “The Killing Fields.” Ngor won an Oscar for his wrenching performance, in part because he, like Dith, had lived through unimaginable horror.

He and Dith shared a common goal: to see Pol Pot stand trial for leading one of the worst slaughters of the 20th century. But Ngor died in 1996, shot to death by robbers on a Los Angeles street. Dith vowed to continue their fight to make the former dictator answer for his crimes.

Two years after Ngor’s death, Pol Pot died under house arrest in Cambodia within hours of an announcement that the Khmer Rouge was turning him over to an international tribunal. His death — reportedly from heart failure but possibly from suicide — thwarted Dith’s hope for justice and a measure of peace.

Dith Pran may have died a deeply disappointed man. But for those of us who believe in Christ, our hope for justice lies beyond this world in the eschaton. None of the unspeakable crimes that have been committed on this earth escapes God’s notice. Secular people talk a lot about ”justice,” but in fact it is we Christians who believe in real justice. We have a solid hope that every injustice will be punished and every wrong will be made right. By raising Jesus from the dead and installing him as Lord of the cosmos, God has assured us that perfect justice will come and will reign forever.  Pol Pot and his wicked gang will be punished with perfect justice. They will not escape.

Here’s a great quote from Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (ch. 34):

I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement [or punishment] of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that they’ve shed.

[Quoted by Timothy Keller in The Reason for God, p. 33. I’ve added the words “or punishment.” Undoubtedly Dostoevsky had a more universalistic interpretation. I do not believe in universalism. The Lamb’s eschatological wrath will have objects.]

In my previous post on this topic, I mentioned that I would like to see the Rev. Jeremiah Wright publicly apologize. Interestingly, last Friday on The View Obama seemed to claim that his former pastor had done just that. In response to a great question from Barbara Walters, Senator Obama said:

Had the reverend not retired, and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn’t have felt comfortable staying at the church.

Yet no one can document such an apology. Oops. So Obama’s PR guy tried to spin Obama’s words in a different direction:

Sen. Obama was clearly saying that were Rev. Wright not retiring, he would need to be assured that the reverend understood why what he had said had deeply offended people and mischaracterized the greatness of this country.

Sorry, but that’s not what Obama “was clearly saying.”

All of this is very troubling to say the least. It’s troubling that Obama is not being totally honest with himself or with the country about the nature of his relationship with the Rev. Wright and his extreme views. 

The traditional view that the Gospel of John was written by one of the twelve, namely, John the son of Zebedee, is not widely held any more. At least in the US the majority view today follows the Martyn-Brown theory which attributes the Fourth Gospel to the Johannine community which may have had some historical roots tracing back to a relatively unknown ”beloved disciple” who may or may not have been an eyewitness, but not one of the twelve and certainly not the apostle John.

Even Richard Bauckham in his magisterial Jesus and the Eyewitnesses argues against apostolic authorship, although he does so not because he is convinced of the Martyn-Brown theory but primarily because, based on his reading of the external evidence, he identifies “the beloved disciple” with an “elder” named “John” who lived in Ephesus toward the end of the first century. This gets into the whole debate about whether Papias and Irenaeus viewed this “John the elder” as one of the twelve. Bauckham thinks they didn’t; many other scholars such as Charles Hill disagree. But at least Bauckham thinks John was written by an eyewitness, an unknown disciple of Jesus who was not one of the twelve.

My point is that if even as conservative a scholar as Bauckham is not convinced of apostolic authorship, then that provides an interesting window on the scholarly landscape. In other words, scholars like Leon Morris, Craig Blomberg, and D. A. Carson who are notable evangelical apologists for the apostolic authorship of the Gospel of John, are in the extreme minority and would appear to most mainstream scholars to be little more than fundamentalists. This can be intimidating to those of us who have conservative views of Scripture but who don’t want to be classed with the unthinking “fundies” whose default position is always the most conservative one possible. When I read Carson’s defense in An Introduction to the NT (co-authored with Douglas Moo), I kept wondering “What is at stake here? Why is Carson so intent on defending the seemingly fringe view that this Gospel was authored by John son of Zebedee? Is it just a commitment to tradition? After all, the text itself only claims to have been written by an anonymous eyewitness.” In other words, while Bauckham’s view is not traditional, neither is it to be lightly dismissed as liberal. It is a credible position that could be consistent with a high view of Scripture, particularly since he highlights the notion of eyewitness authorship of the Fourth Gospel.

How excited I was, then, to read that Craig Keener in his massive 2-volume commentary on the Gospel of John defends the seemingly fringe view. Keener is not a fundamentalist with his back against the wall defending the most conservative positions at all costs. For example, he does not think the apostle Matthew wrote that gospel, contra the testimony of Papias. 

I won’t get into all the arguments, but I thought I would quote a bit to give you a taste of his approach to the authorship of the Gospel of John (all quotes from volume one):

The extant historical evidence for the Fourth Gospel’s authorship is hardly certain, but the evidence is more than adequate to question the dogmatism with which many scholars have opposed it. (p. 81)

Conservative circles in biblical studies are more apt to accept early church tradition (external attestation), whereas in some academic circles the mere acceptance of views which can be denigrated as “conservative” brings into question one’s academic integrity.  Because most scholars write academic works for the latter community, scholarly consensus exerts a pressure of tradition no less coercive than its analogues in more conservative church circles. For this commentary I might therefore have preferred to arrive at conclusions more amenable to the scholarly consensus; but after weighing the evidence, I believe that traditional conservative scholars have made a better case for Johannine authorship of the Gospel (at least at some stage in the process) than other scholars have made against it. (pp. 81-82)

… this is where I honestly believe the evidence surveyed below points. (p. 83)

The approach used by Westcott in the nineteenth century, which narrows down evidence for authorship to the Apostle John, is often dismissed as unduly traditional today. Nevertheless, his arguments remain valuable and marshall more significant internal evidence than do any of the competing hypotheses. As Craig Blomberg notes, although Westcott wrote long ago and his position requires nuancing, “No full-scale refutation of Westcott has ever appeared.” Rather, in the nineteenth-century aftermath of historical skepticism’s successes, many scholars abandoned Johannine authorship more on the basis of the shift in outlook than of any appeal to previously overlooked evidence. (p. 89)

Keener’s entire argument (pp. 81-139) is worth reading. But I thought the above quotes were helpful in establishing Keener’s scholarly objectivity and credibility as one who would not really mind going with a less conservative approach but who simply finds the evidence intrinsically compelling. So if D. A. Carson comes off too much as having an axe to grind or simply a knee-jerk defender of evangelical traditionalism, give Keener and Wesctott a shot. Maybe they’ll convince you.

So what are the actual arguments that Keener uses? I can’t get into all the details, but basically Keener relies on Westcott’s process of elimination or, perhaps better, a process of narrowing-down via concentric circles. In other words, on the basis of internal evidence, there are good reasons to conclude that the author of the Gospel of John was:

1. A Jew
2. A Palestinian Jew
3. A Palestinian Jew from Galilee
4. An eyewitness
5. One of the twelve
6. One of the inner circle:  Peter and the two sons of Zebedee
7. John

Focusing on the last three steps in the narrowing down process, this particular quote stands out in my mind as something that I would want to press Bauckham on, since he goes only as far as step four:

The internal evidence also claims that the author was an eyewitness, a claim that should not be lightly dismissed or reinterpreted to suit more ambiguous evidence [so far Bauckham would agree]. Westcott argues further that the eyewitness must have been one of the Twelve, given the scenes to which he was an eyewitness, including the scene parallel to the synoptic Last Supper (Mark 14:17). These scenes and the disciple’s role further narrow him down to the innermost circle of Jesus. The Synoptics list as the three closest disciples to Jesus:  Peter, James, and John. Since Peter is contrasted with the beloved disciple, and James died early in the century (Acts 12:2), this leaves John for the special role of the “disciple whom Jesus loved.” (p. 90)

At the end of the day, while Bauckham’s position is credible and not to be dismissed, I find the traditional view not only convincing but very helpful in approaching the text itself. I just recently read it in Greek but with this new-found commitment to apostolic authorship. It is amazing how certain things leap out at you when read from this point of view. The authority of the Gospel of John is heightened. It is not merely one man’s religious experience of what Christianity means to him. It is the historical eyewitness testimony, not merely of an unnamed disciple, but of one of the twelve, whom Christ himself appointed and sent to be an authoritative witness to his person and work. And since it was the last Gospel written, and written late in the first century (ca. 98-100), it is the testimony of an aged apostle who is now able to reflect theologically, even doctrinally, and from the point of view of the later church, on what he experienced as a very young man. The overall effect is quite amazing and exciting.

So thank you, Craig Keener, for your defense of Johannine authorship. I realize that your arguments are not new, but coming from someone like you, they are all the more impressive.

Justin Taylor has a good interview with Craig Blomberg today. (The timing is funny because just the other day I was thumbing through his very helpful book The Historical Reliability of the Gospels.) I particularly enjoyed Blomberg’s answer to this excellent question by Justin:

Are there certain mistaken hermeneutical presuppositions made by conservative evangelicals that play into the hands of liberal critics?

Absolutely. And one of them follows directly from the last part of my answer to your last question. The approach, famously supported back in 1976 by Harold Lindsell in his Battle for the Bible (Zondervan), that it is an all-or-nothing approach to Scripture that we must hold, is both profoundly mistaken and deeply dangerous. No historian worth his or her salt functions that way. I personally believe that if inerrancy means “without error according to what most people in a given culture would have called an error” then the biblical books are inerrant in view of the standards of the cultures in which they were written. But, despite inerrancy being the touchstone of the largely American organization called the Evangelical Theological Society, there are countless evangelicals in the States and especially in other parts of the world who hold that the Scriptures are inspired and authoritative, even if not inerrant, and they are not sliding down any slippery slope of any kind. I can’t help but wonder if inerrantist evangelicals making inerrancy the watershed for so much has not, unintentionally, contributed to pilgrimages like Ehrman’s. Once someone finds one apparent mistake or contradiction that they cannot resolve, then they believe the Lindsells of the world and figure they have to chuck it all. What a tragedy!

One of the things I appreciate about my training at Westminster Seminary California was that they taught inerrancy in a way that avoids the Lindsell problem. For example, John Frame (he was still on the WSC faculty in my day) strongly emphasized what Blomberg says here, namely, that inerrancy means “without error according to what most people in a given culture would have called an error.” In other words, we must define “error” not according to the conventions of modern science or modern historiography, but according to the standards of the pre-modern world.

Another qualification, not mentioned by Blomberg, is that we affirm that the Scriptures are inerrant in all that they affirm. This qualification can be abused, of course, but it is still a valid one nonetheless. For example, the Scriptures do not affirm that there is a literal solid crystal dome overhead, even though it does speak of something called the raqia or firmament.  

Qualifications such as these provide some important hermeneutical wiggle room that goes a long way toward alleviating many of the apparent difficulties raised by the opponents of inerrancy.

John Fonville (of Gospel Driven Blog) has created some very helpful chapter-by-chapter outlines of Walter Marshall’s 1692 book The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification, using the modern English version edited by Bruce McRae. I highly recommend this book as well as these tools enabling us to access its contents more readily. Do you desire to grow in sanctification? Are you tired of legalistic, law-driven approaches? Let Walter Marshall show you the way as he points you to Christ and your union with him in his sin-killing death and life-giving resurrection. See also my three lectures on sanctification that draw heavily on Marshall.

Since I’ve indicated my attraction  to Obama in the past, I feel I owe it to my readers to comment on the revelations about his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, as well as Obama’s speech this morning in response. I say “attraction” because I’m not committed to voting for him if he wins the Democratic nomination, primarily because I’m also attracted to McCain. I am a Republican after all, so I would need very good reasons to vote against my own party, especially since my party has settled on a nominee I can live with. But, still, I am attracted to Obama for a number of reasons, including the symbolism of his post-boomer, post-racial character.

To begin, I have to admit that watching the YouTubes of Rev. Wright was disturbing and has indeed made me doubt my attraction to Obama. It is troubling that Obama would willingly associate himself with a man and a church that do not embody the sort of racial reconciliation that Obama claims to stand for. He not only associates with the Rev. Wright, but even acknowledges that he came to his Christian commitment precisely through Rev. Wright’s ministry. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to believe that Obama was entirely ignorant of the racist attitudes and Afrocentric theology of his pastor. Obama even admits that the latest revelations were known to him when he first began his run for the presidency over a year ago, and yet he still had Rev. Wright on one of his advisory panels. To say the least, this presents a contradictory picture that causes me to question who Obama really is and what he really stands for.

However, having watched the video of his speech, I have to say that he did a pretty good job of convincing me that he really is committed to overcoming the racial divisions and attempting to move beyond old wounds and the cycle of victimhood. I do not believe that Obama can be fairly accused of secretly harboring the Afrocentric racist attitudes that Rev. Wright seems to espouse. 

The thing that convinces me that Obama is not guilty is that he has taken an amazingly strong stand against the statements of his own friend and mentor on this point, something that I am sure was no easy thing to do.  For me, the key paragraph in Obama’s speech was the following:

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society.  It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old — is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past.  But what we know — what we have seen – is that America can change.  That is true genius of this nation.  What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In saying this, Obama was not merely going up against his own pastor, whom he greatly respects, but against the entire Jesse Jackson generation which refuses to accept that American can and has changed, and whose political power depends on being able to convince blacks that America continues to be a deeply, irrevocably racist country.

As John McWhorter wrote today:

It must be understood what a maverick statement this is from a 40-something black politician. In the black community one does not sass one’s elders. One is expected to show a particular deference, understandably, to the generation who fought on the barricades of the Civil Rights movement. That is, to people of Jeremiah Wright’s vintage. For a light-skinned half-white Ivy League-educated black man to repudiate, in clear language and repeatedly, the take on race of people like Julian Bond and Nikki Giovanni is not only honest but truly bold.

So, yes, Obama’s speech was very impressive and goes a long way toward rebuilding the trust of those who, like myself, may find him an attractive person but who as independents or Republicans may choose to go with McCain if given a strong enough shove such as the Wright affair has the potential to be.  

However, I believe there is still more that can be done to rebuild trust. In particular, I would like to hear the Rev. Wright go on national TV and apologize for his utterly unacceptable statements. Or, failing that, I would like to hear Obama explain that he asked the Rev. Wright to apologize but that he refused, and because he refused, he is now severing his friendship with him. In other words, I don’t like the ambiguity of Obama’s relationship with Rev. Wright. It is one thing to make clear that you denounce and repudiate the things that were said from the pulpit of your church. But it is another thing to have a close friendship with the pastor who said them. It is not as though Rev. Wright was merely a member of the pastoral staff with whom Obama had no close friendship. The “crazy uncle” analogy just won’t work here. This was the man through whom he came to his Christian commitment. The man who officiated at his wedding and baptized his children. The man who inspired the title and theme of his book, The Audacity of Hope. Obama even continues to say that he refuses to repudiate the man, even though he repudiates some of his statements. 

I believe something must be done to clarify Obama’s present relationship with his pastor. In my view, the best way to heal the wound is for the Rev. Wright himself to get up and confess that he said things from the pulpit in the heat of emotion, coming out of his deep pain at the racist things he has experienced and seen in this country, that he now regrets and which he now realizes are deeply hurtful to many people, both black and white. He could even add that he has begun to realize that a black man may indeed have a shot at winning the presidency, something that he deeply doubted until recently, and that his faith in America and her ability to overcome her original sin and move toward a more perfect union is in the process of being restored, bringing him a measure of inner healing about his attitudes toward his own country.

Imagine the fiery Rev. making such a speech with Obama standing at his side. Wouldn’t that be great? 

Since Misty and I have been homeschooling our two daughters for many years now, we have taken an interest in the controversial February 28 ruling of the California Court of Appeal against homeschooling.  

Here is the text of Judge Croskey’s ruling. It’s only 18 pages long and not hard to read. Here is the critical paragraph (from page 1):

The trial court’s reason for declining to order public or private schooling for the children was its belief that parents have a constitutional right to school their children in their own home. However, California courts have held that under provisions in the Education Code, parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children. Thus, while the petition for extraordinary writ asserts that the trial court’s refusal to order attendance in a public or private school was an abuse of discretion, we find the refusal was actually an error of law. It is clear to us that enrollment and attendance in a public full-time day school is required by California law for minor children unless (1) the child is enrolled in a private full-time day school and actually attends that private school, (2) the child is tutored by a person holding a valid state teaching credential for the grade being taught, or (3) one of the other few statutory exemptions to compulsory public school attendance (Ed. Code, §48220 et seq.) applies to the child. Because the parents in this case have not demonstrated that any of these exemptions apply to their children, we will grant the petition for extraordinary writ.

All of this is understandably threatening to homeschoolers. However, I think the impact of this ruling is being exaggerated and overstated in the media and the blogosphere. It is not the end of the world. What it does show is that the status of homeschooling in California needs to be legislatively clarified.

But, in my opinion, the ruling itself has not changed the legal status of homeschooling in California.

The California Homeschool Network believes nothing has changed:

The CA state group leaders along with national HSLDA are in agreement that nothing has changed, and it is as legal to homeschool in California today as it was before this ruling.

The State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jack O’Connell, says nothing has changed in terms of how he will interpret and apply California law:

I have reviewed this case, and I want to assure parents that chose to home school that California Department of Education policy will not change in any way as a result of this ruling. Parents still have the right to home school in our state.

Judge Croskey certainly appears to have a prejudice against homeschooling and wanted his ruling published in order to make his prejudice known. However, in spite of his prejudice, I personally believe that he correctly interpreted and applied California’s compulsory education law to the case before him. The law states that: 

Each person between the ages of 6 and 18 years not exempted under the provisions of this chapter or Chapter 3 (commencing with Section 48400) is subject to compulsory full-time education.

So let’s take a look at Section 48220 et seq. to see what the exemptions are.

Exemption number one - private school: 

Children who are being instructed in a private full-time day school by persons capable of teaching shall be exempted. Such school shall, except under the circumstances described in Section 30, be taught in the English language and shall offer instruction in the several branches of study required to be taught in the public schools of the state.  The attendance of the pupils shall be kept by private school authorities in a register, and the record of attendance shall indicate clearly every absence of the pupil from school for a half day or more during each day that school is maintained during the year.

Exemption number two - private tutoring by credentialed tutor:

Children not attending a private, full-time, day school and who are being instructed in study and recitation for at least three hours a day for 175 days each calendar year by a private tutor or other person in the several branches of study required to be taught in the public schools of this state and in the English language shall be exempted.  The tutor or other person shall hold a valid state credential for the grade taught. 

Judge Croskey correctly applied the law to the family in question and pointed out that they did not fall under either one of these exemptions. He was therefore instructing the lower court that it did in fact have the right to enforce the compulsory education law with respect to this family.

In my view, even this would not be a disaster for the family in question. For if they want their homeschooling situation to be “kosher” according to the California Department of Education, they have two options: either send in the affadavit registering as a private school, or get the mother credentialed as a private tutor.

Section 33190 of the California Education Code provides more details about what is required for filing an affadavit as a private school. Suprisingly, the code does not require that the teachers of private schools have teaching credentials. So it is probably best to do what Misty and I do — send in the affadavit and become a small private school.

I think the main thing that is upsetting people is the fact that Judge Croskey said that the California Constitution contains no right to homeschool — which is actually true. But this doesn’t change the fact that the California Education Code allows exemptions, and that the current State Superintendent of Public Instruction interprets those exemptions in a manner that allows homeschooling. Undoubtedly, Judge Croskey believes that the current Superintendent is bending the law, but he did not officially instruct the State Superintendent to stop allowing homeschooling families to register as small private schools. The key is, you have to follow the law as it is currently understood and applied by the civil authorities in charge.

Now I don’t want to give the impression that there is no cause for concern whatsoever. There is, because the exemption concerning private schools is ambiguous and could be interpreted and applied in radically different ways. In the end, we are at the mercy of the bureaucrats in the California Department of Education. The previous State Superintendent apparently interpreted the California Education Code to exclude homeschooling. Even then, however, it was up to the local school officials to apply the truancy laws in their district, which was apparently almost never done against homeschoolers. Bottom line, it depends on the good will of the local public school officials and of the State Superintendent. Thus, the California Legislative Analyst’s Office thinks there is a need for the law to be clarified on this point in order to give homeschoolers a clearer picture of where they stand. I would agree.

So for the time being, nothing has changed.

In the About section of my website one can read the most important documents related to my trial in the OPC. If you’re interested in finding out more, the best place to start is the chronology which I have recently expanded and updated. Here are the key documents to check:

Expanded and updated chronology (PDF 6 pp.)
My letter of withdrawal from the OPC (PDF 6 pp.)
Final presbytery action (PDF 2 pp.)

I want to draw my readers’ attention to these documents because from time to time I come across various things on the Internet where people who have no direct knowledge of my case comment about what happened. It is amusing but also disappointing to read some of the uninformed and uncharitable opinions out there.

For example, it has been said that rather than submitting to the censure I left the OPC before the censure was pronounced thereby making me a fugitive from justice. This is simply false. I vividly recall standing up before the entire presbytery on October 18, 2003 while the censure was pronounced upon me by the moderator and prayer was offered for my theological “repentance” (i.e., that I would change my view of the Decalogue from containing the moral law to being the moral law). I remained under censure from that date until February 7, 2004, when the presbytery accepted my letter of withdrawal from the OPC and erased my name from the ministerial rolls. 

Another odd rumor I have heard is that some people believe I am still under censure! This one is particularly bizarre, since the presbytery’s act of erasure automatically terminated the censure. I was under censure for 3 1/2 months, from October 18, 2003 to February 7, 2004. I am reminded of a catch-phrase I heard one OPC ruling elder cry in a particular case (not mine), “Jurisdiction! Jurisdiction! Jurisdiction!” The fact is, the OPC accepted my renunciation of its jurisdiction, erased me from its rolls, and thereby terminated the censure. Since censure presupposes jurisdiction, and since the OPC’s jurisdiction over me ended on February 7, 2004, the censure also ended at that time.

Still others complain that my decision to leave the OPC signified a rebellious spirit, a failure to submit to my fathers and brethren as promised in the fourth ordination vow. But it is exactly the opposite. I left the OPC out of submission to them. The 2003 General Assembly determined that my exceptions surrounding WCF XIX:2 (the near equation of the moral law with the Decalogue) were not acceptable. Out of respect for that decision, I had two choices:  either change my view, or peaceably withdraw. I could not change my view, so I peaceably withdrew in submission to the 2003 GA. As I wrote in my letter of withdrawal:

Therefore, I have come to a firm decision, motivated by a sincere desire to be respectful of the presbytery’s verdict and the GA’s affirmation of that verdict. I have decided that I must “peaceably withdraw” from the OPC. When I took “The History of American Presbyterianism” with Mr. James Dennison at WTS/CA, he taught me the following little device that the American Presbyterians came up with during the controversy over the Great Awakening: When the synod rules on any given matter, the members of the synod must “actively concur, passively submit, or peaceably withdraw.” I have never forgotten his words, and I have always been firmly convinced that they are true and wise. In fact, I believe these three options are implicit in our fourth ordination vow, in which we promise “subjection to our brethren in the Lord.” In my case, I cannot actively concur, because I have not been persuaded from the Word of God that I am in error. I cannot passively submit by refraining from teaching my views, because I believe that would be a sinful violation of my higher responsibility to preach the whole counsel of God. Therefore, I can see no other option but to peaceably withdraw.

Of course, it was very painful for me and my family to have to leave the OPC. It was also very difficult for the members of the church (mission work) I was pastoring to see their pastor disciplined and their church fellowship dissolve. But as painful as these things were, the bottom line is that any Reformed communion has a right to define the system of doctrine required of its officers as broadly or as narrowly as it wants. In this case, the 2003 GA of the OPC chose to take a hard line and not permit my exceptions to WCF XIX:2. Out of respect for that decision, I chose to leave. Another Reformed denomination that has adopted the Westminster Standards could draw the line in a different place and permit my exceptions. That is up to them. They decide. I submit.

Anyway, those are just some of the misconceptions and rumors out there, but I trust the links above will make everything clear.

The following are my Greek Syntax Notes thus far. I plan to bring them out in installments throughout 2008. They are intended to assist those reading the Greek New Testament using my annual program. To take advantage of the booklet form:

(1) Print the odd pages on one side
(2) Print the even pages on the other
(3) Fold in half and collate
(4) Optional: staple using booklet stapler

Introduction (PDF 2 pp.)
Matthew (PDF 13 pp.)
Mark (PDF 12 pp.)
Luke (PDF 15 pp.)