OBST830: Discussion Board | Paul Whitehorn | Theologian, Scholar, and Evangelist

OBST830: Discussion Board

March 16, 2026     OBST830: Discussion Board
Discussion Board

OBST830

Prophets 1

Phd Liberty University
from Discussion Thread: Intro to the Former Prophets

Jan 20, 2026 at 5:34 PM

Paul Whitehorn
 
Deuteronomistic Surgery
As a strength, McKenzie demonstrates genuine awareness that the Bible functions as more than just ancient literature. In his discussion of canonical criticism, he acknowledges that "in addition to being, in some sense, history and literature, the Bible is also Scripture," and insists that "this acknowledgement is fundamental."1 He even traces how the David narrative contributes to messianic expectation, noting that "in the New Testament and for the Christian community, Jesus is the fulfillment of the messianic hope that is founded in David and is thus given the title 'son of David.'"2 This is commendable. In this respect, McKenzie stands in real agreement with writers that I love such as Frederick Buechner, who insists that Scripture communicates truth precisely because it is more than bare chronicle. As Buechner puts it, “beneath the words…something rings out which is new because it is timeless…the truth that is unutterable, that is mystery, that is the way things are,” and he argues that Scripture speaks truth not merely as information but as reality encountered.3 Therefore, McKenzie, at least in principle, recognizes that the texts he analyzes function authoritatively within believing communities.
Yet this recognition makes his methodological weakness all the more puzzling to me. McKenzie frames the former prophets as literature "composed over time" and "shaped by later editors," particularly through the lens of the Deuteronomistic History.4 Deuteronomy becomes for him a theological filter through which earlier traditions were selected and reshaped to address the concerns of a later historical situation. Scholars trained in this tradition often fancy themselves surgeons of a peculiar sort, able to trace every incision left by previous editors, every suture where one hand gave way to another. McKenzie operates comfortably within this guild, arguing that Deuteronomy and the Former Prophets passed through multiple stages of theological "shaping" before reaching their present form.5 What is comical to me, however, is that McKenzie openly acknowledges the scholarly consensus regarding the Deuteronomistic History has "largely dissipated" and that no single reconstruction commands broad agreement.6 Well then, the surgeons, it seems, have fallen to quarreling. One sees three incisions where another sees seven; a third insists the patient was never operated upon at all. One might expect such an admission to introduce methodological restraint, a certain tentativeness about the scalpel. Nope, they are cowboys. McKenzie proceeds as before. The hypothetical editorial processes continue to function as controlling explanatory frameworks, guiding his interpretation as though they were established facts rather than provisional models built upon other provisional models. It is rather like a surgical team that cannot agree on where the organs are located but insists on performing the operation anyway. The patient, meanwhile, lies waiting on the table, largely ignored.
This tendency becomes clear in McKenzie's handling of the David and Goliath narrative in 1 Samuel 17. He classifies the account as "legend," defined as "a story focused on a personality of special religious or political significance that had its origin in oral tradition and grew and developed over time".7 Although he concedes that "there is nothing physically impossible about what David does in this story" and that there is "no direct intervention of God or explicitly miraculous element",8 he nevertheless treats the account as historically unreliable, speculating that "David grew younger and less inexperienced with warfare" as the tradition developed.9 The story, McKenzie suggests, likely served to "praise and promote David as a national and military hero" and "may well have been popular as entertainment".10 He even compares the account to American legends about Washington or Lincoln, narratives that "idealize" national heroes and embody "national spirit".11 Yes, you read that correctly. McKenzie would have us read 1 Samuel 17 the way we read Parson Weems's cherry tree fable. No one picks up that story expecting historical fact. McKenzie, apparently, believes we should approach the inspired text of Scripture with the same expectations. The circularity of the method is difficult to ignore. Diachronic reconstruction posits layers of development, then uses those posited layers to question the historical reliability of the text, which in turn justifies further reconstruction. The scholar has constructed a wheel and then congratulated himself for inventing locomotion. McKenzie himself later acknowledges that "all methods are merely means to the end," and that "there is no single 'right' understanding of a biblical book or passage," even while insisting this does not undermine the Bible's authority.12 Yet when meaning and historical reliability shift depending on the methodological lens applied, interpretive authority has quietly relocated from the text itself to the interpreter's chosen method. The scholar no longer stands under the Word; he stands over it, sorting its sources like a man sorting his mail.
 
Elephant in the Whale's Mouth
McKenzie, to be fair, does offer some strength in his methodological balance. He distinguishes between diachronic methods, which "explore the vertical depth of the text as it developed over time," and synchronic methods, which "explore the horizontal richness that it presents to readers".13 He acknowledges that synchronic approaches like narrative criticism treat "the text as a whole" and find meaning through "plot and structure, characterization, and creative use of language".14 This instinct is solid and puts McKenzie in methodological agreement with a much broader interpretive tradition. Even Robert Bly, one of my favorite non-christian authors, insists that stories must first be received in their finished narrative form rather than dismantled into hypothetical stages of origin. Reflecting on myth, Bly observes that “all the story leaves us with is the image … and we can make of it what we can,” emphasizing that meaning emerges from engagement with the completed narrative, not from reconstructing what lies behind it.15 I think that McKenzie is at his strongest when he honors this principle, recognizing that texts communicate meaning as coherent wholes before they are subjected to our analytical dissection. His willingness to hold diachronic and synchronic approaches in this tension is therefore commendable, even if he does not always remain consistent with this balance in practice.
Yet when McKenzie turns to Jonah, we see another major weakness and the balance evaporates. McKenzie, explicitly argues that "Jonah is best characterized as satire or parody," claiming that the book's exaggerated features indicate it was intended as "something other than straightforward reporting of the past."16 At the same time, he concedes that "there is nothing in Jonah that explicitly identifies its genre," yet insists that reading the book as history is merely one assumption among others.17 On this basis, he concludes that "interpreting the book as history is like reading science fiction or fantasy as history," because such a reading allegedly undermines the book's purpose.18 The difficulty with this move is not simply the classification of Jonah as satire, but the methodological precedent it sets. Nothing in Jonah's formal structure signals that it should be read as parable or allegory. The book employs the same narrative conventions found throughout the Former Prophets: temporal markers (Jon. 1:3, 1:17, 4:8), geographical specificity (Jon. 1:2–4), dialogue (Jon. 1:9, 2:2), and the prophetic call formula (Jon. 1:1–2, 3:1–2). If that's not enough, the superscription identifies Jonah ben Amittai, a figure who appears in 2 Kings 14:25 as a historical prophet during Jeroboam II's reign (Jon. 1:1). In the absence of explicit genre markers, McKenzie's approach effectively relocates interpretive authority from the text's narrative presentation to modern genre judgment.
This raises a broader hermeneutical concern, and I do not say this lightly. If exaggeration or the miraculous becomes sufficient grounds for reclassifying biblical narrative as non-historical, where does this path really end for us? I think the criterion proves too much precisely because it assumes what it seeks to demonstrate: that certain kinds of events cannot occur and therefore must be literary invention. Yet this path reaches far beyond this single exegetical dispute. I think the ripple effects are massive and very dangerous. Consider the progression. If Genesis 1–2 presents not historical anthropology but ancient cosmological poetry, then its male and female ordering of humanity loses prescriptive force. If we apply McKenzie's hermeneutic consistently, the Sodom narrative becomes etiological legend rather than divine judgment, and its moral witness dissolves. If the Levitical prohibitions reflect merely ANE cultural anxiety rather than revealed ethics, they become artifacts to study rather than commands to obey. The hermeneutic that begins by questioning whether Jonah really spent three days in a fish concludes by questioning whether Paul's appeals to creation order in Romans 1 or 1 Corinthians 6 bind the contemporary church. The method determines the outcome. Those who treat miracle as myth will inevitably treat biblical ethics as culturally conditioned opinion. McKenzie's reading of Jonah may seem a small concession, but small concessions in hermeneutics compound into large departures in doctrine and practice. Now let's look at the elephant in the whale's mouth. Jesus repeatedly appeals to Jonah not as a fictional or satirical figure but as a real prophet whose experience functions as a historical sign. He explicitly grounds His own death and resurrection in Jonah's three days in the fish (Matt. 12:40) and appeals to the repentance of Nineveh as an eschatological reality, declaring that the men of Nineveh will rise at the judgment (Matt. 12:41; Luke 11:32). In Luke's account, Jonah himself becomes the sign, not merely his message, as Jesus states that "For just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation⁠
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" (Luke 11:30). At no point does Jesus reclassify Jonah as satire, parody, or didactic fiction in order to preserve its theological meaning. Instead, He treats Jonah as part of Israel's prophetic history and then deepens its significance through typology. Here, then, is the boundary question: if Jesus affirms Jonah's historical and prophetic character, by what authority do modern scholars presume to know better?
 
Salt with No Saltiness
So what do we do with McKenzie in the pulpit? The honest answer is: very little. McKenzie's strengths are real but limited by the ivory tower he built for himself. I personally think this is the danger of calling yourself into the ministry instead of being called by God. Like any pagan, he knows the rules of the game: public recognition that the Bible functions as Scripture, but behind closed doors its just like ANE literature. That is, when the rubber meets the road, he flounders. His errors strike at the heart of what it means to preach the Bible as the Word of God. If the Deuteronomistic History is a useful heuristic for tracing thematic connections across Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, let it be so. But the moment it becomes a scalpel for excising historical reliability, it has overstepped its bounds. And when McKenzie reclassifies Jonah as satire despite the absence of any genre marker in the text itself, and despite Jesus treating Jonah as a historical prophet whose experience prefigures His own death and resurrection, we have moved from interpretation to heretical invention. The scholar who does this is like a man who, having been invited to dinner, spends the evening explaining to his host why the food cannot possibly be real. In my prison ministry, these men do not need a chaplain who can reconstruct hypothetical editorial layers. They need a man who can stand before them and say, "Thus says the Lord." They need to know that when Jesus spoke of Jonah, He was not winking at a clever literary fiction but pointing to a real prophet who really spent three days in the belly of a fish and really preached to a real city that really repented. The typology only works if the type is real. The method determines the outcome. Ministers who adopt McKenzie's hermeneutic will eventually find themselves unable to preach large portions of Scripture with confidence. 
My counsel, then, is this: read McKenzie the way you would read any skilled unbeliever. Learn what you can. Or better yet, don't read him at all. Because in truth he is neither an academic nor a believer, but something in between that serves neither master well. The Bible is not a patient to be dissected. It is a Word to be received, proclaimed, and obeyed. 
 
 
 
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*All English Translations of the Bible come from New American Standard Bible
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(La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 2020).
1. Steven L. McKenzie, Introduction to the Historical Books: Strategies for Reading (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2010), 36.
2. McKenzie, Introduction to the Historical Books, 36.
3. Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale (San Francisco: HarperOne, 1977), 27.
4. McKenzie, Introduction to the Historical Books, 14.
5. McKenzie, Introduction to the Historical Books, 14–15.
6. McKenzie, Introduction to the Historical Books, 18.
7. McKenzie, Introduction to the Historical Books, 33.
8. McKenzie, Introduction to the Historical Books, 33.
9. McKenzie, Introduction to the Historical Books, 33.
10. McKenzie, Introduction to the Historical Books, 33.
11. McKenzie, Introduction to the Historical Books, 34.
12.  McKenzie, Introduction to the Historical Books, 38.
13. McKenzie, Introduction to the Historical Books, 36.
14.McKenzie, Introduction to the Historical Books, 36.
15. Robert Bly, Iron John: A Book about Men (New York, NY: Da Capo Press, 2015), 25.
16. McKenzie, Introduction to the Historical Books, 6.
17. McKenzie, Introduction to the Historical Books, 6.
18. McKenzie, Introduction to the Historical Books, 6.


from Discussion Thread: Intro to the Former Prophets

Jan 22, 2026 at 2:48 PM

Paul Whitehorn
A Tyrannical Master
Good to see you again this semester, and congratulations on entering the final stretch of phase two. I'm interested in what direction you're considering for your PhD; feel free to email me if you're so inclined.
For this week's discussion, I find myself in agreement with some of what you've written, particularly your observation that we inevitably approach biblical texts with our own lenses. Yes, McKenzie's attention to genre can definitely help us recognize the baggage we all bring to the text.1 As Richards and O'Brien have shown, we Western Christians are remarkably good at reading our own assumptions into Scripture without realizing we've done so.2 On this point we are both fully in agreement: we ought to read biblical texts with attentiveness to their original purpose rather than through the lens of our modern preoccupations. Yet here I must also strongly disagree with you. You write that genre should be "determinative rather than descriptive," and you rightly ask whether God intended His Word to fit our categories or whether our categories ought to serve the Word. My concern is this: when you and McKenzie suggest that certain narratives should not be read as actual events in order to preserve "genre harmony," you have shifted from describing how ancient texts functioned to prescribing what the text is allowed to claim.³ At that point, genre stops serving interpretation and starts governing it. The tool has become the master, and in my opinion, a rather tyrannical one at that. Consider prophets like Jonah. The narrative presents itself with all the earmarkings of historical reporting: named figures, specific locations, chronological sequence, covenantal causality, etc. But If our genre analysis leads us to treat such narratives as fairy tales, then the theological force of God acting supernaturally in history gets quietly undermined. When I was called, it was a miracle. Heaven opened and God spoke. You know this experience as well as I do; we both cried out "Father" to the God who reached down and claimed us. So here's my question: if we believe in the miracle of our own salvation, why should Jonah in a fish give us pause? Why should a virgin birth or a worldwide flood seem too much? The God who called us is the same God who authored these accounts, and He has never asked our permission to act. The problem isn't whether these texts belong to a particular genre; the question becomes who gets to define what that genre permits. And here's the rub: genre analysis might help us understand how Israel interpreted God's actions, but it cannot retroactively change whether those actions occurred. We may argue about how the courtroom testimony was framed, but the video footage remains what it is.
I think this problem comes into greater focus when we consider McKenzie's handling of the Deuteronomistic History. He openly follows Martin Noth's framework despite acknowledging that scholarly consensus has largely fragmented.⁴ Surveying decades of debate and then selecting one model because it "makes sense" risks oversimplifying the real issue. It's a bit like summarizing every theory about who wrote Shakespeare's plays and then announcing, "I'll go with Bacon because I like him more." Furthermore, as David Glatt-Gilad has shown, narrative tension within Kings, for example, does not automatically signal late ideological manipulation; the text is perfectly capable of holding positive and negative portrayals together without requiring redactional explanation.⁵
At the end of the day, brother, my concern is proportionality. When diachronic reconstruction becomes the primary lens, confidence in the text's coherence quietly erodes. That erosion has consequences. They are not just academic but pastoral. Readers are left unsure which parts of Scripture can be trusted as historically meaningful and which are merely rhetorical devices. A canonical approach acknowledges theological shaping while affirming the integrity of the received text. This strikes me as more faithful both to Scripture's nature and to the job we have as interpreters of it. So yes, McKenzie helps us ask the right questions. But the real trick for us as PhD students is making sure the method doesn't predetermine the answers. That door swings both ways, but that is a totally different discussion. 
 
Have a blessed week!
 
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1. Steven L. McKenzie, Introduction to the Historical Books: Strategies for Reading (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2010), 1.
2. E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 97.
3. McKenzie, Introduction to the Historical Books, 12.
4. McKenzie, Introduction to the Historical Books, 18.
5. David A. Glatt-Gilad, “The Deuteronomistic Critique of Solomon: A Response to Marvin A. Sweeney,” Journal of Biblical Literature 116 (1997): 701.

The submissions for this assignment are posts in the assignment's discussion. Below are the discussion posts for Paul Whitehorn, or you can view the full discussion.
from Discussion Thread: Issues in Judges

Feb 1, 2026 at 11:05 PM

Paul Whitehorn
The Calling
 
I hope everyone is having a good week. It's freezing in Florida and I'm ready for Jesus to turn the thermostat back up. On a more serious note, before getting into this weeks discussion, lets put our cards on the table. We are not studying Scripture just to know God better. We are studying Scripture because we have had an encounter with Him, and we cannot pretend otherwise. We do not struggle with Noah’s Ark. We do not struggle with creation in a few days. We do not struggle with the virgin birth, or the miracles, or the resurrection. Those are, if anything, the easiest part of our lives as Saints. I don’t care if this posture doesn't satisfy every academic expectation that McKenzie has. Having said that, I do not believe our supernatural connection with the living Christ represents a rejection of scholarship. Rather, I see it as a faithful confessional starting point that needs to be admitted up front. Why? Because starting point’s matter. Why, because starting points can have eternal consequences.
 
Starting Points: Diachronic vs. Synchronic
Imagine two conductors standing before the same orchestra with the same symphony on the stand. Webb raises his baton and conducts what is there. McKenzie stops the rehearsal, pulls the score apart, and tells the string section that half the movements were added by later editors who misunderstood the original composer’s vision. Now, those two conductors are not offering slightly different interpretations. They are not even conducting the same piece anymore. One trusts that the composition arrived intact. The other believes he knows better than the manuscript in front of him. As Phd students we must decide which conductor we are going to follow, and Jesus gives us the sensible starting point: sit down first and count the cost before you start building (Luke 14:28). In music as in theology, choosing the wrong conductor does not just produce a bad performance. It produces an entirely different song. The diachronic and synchronic methods each take their readers to very different places, and before we set out on that journey we need to look honestly at where each road logically ends. Follow the diachronic method far enough and you will arrive at a liberal church. That is, you arrive at congregations that have traded the authority of Scripture for the authority of the scholar. Am I going too far? I don’t think so. Follow the synchronic method and you arrive at churches that still open the text on Sunday morning and believe that God is speaking. However, when every voice of authority has been dismantled and every claim to meaning has been edited away, what remains is precisely what Macbeth found at the bitter end of his own story: a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing (Macbeth 5.5.26–28).1 The diachronic method promises scholarly sophistication. What it delivers, in the end, is a Bible full of sound and fury that the church can study but no longer trust, and a congregation left with nothing solid beneath its feet.
As we discussed last week, McKenzie’s diachronic method focuses on how the Bible developed over time. He wants to break the narratives apart and determine where everything came from, treating books like Joshua as “the endpoint of a long process rather than the primary locus of interpretation.”2 In other words, Joshua can only be properly understood by reconstructing how it was formed. For me, this amounts to educated guesses about editorial layers and redactional stages that we simply cannot verify. And in that sense, I think McKenzie operates with just as much faith as I do, or as Webb does. His faith is simply placed in a different object. We do not have a signed confession from a Deuteronomistic editor breaking down how and why each text was composed, and I believe Webb would argue that we do not need one. That is, Webb works from a totally different starting point. Instead of attempting to reconstruct the Bible he accepts the final form of Scripture as intentional.3 I understand that this position may not satisfy every expectation that critical scholarship will throw at it. But as I said from the start, I take this on faith. I am content not understanding everything. I simply trust that God has preserved the book of Joshua in its current form for a reason. Webb himself argues that “any formulation of authorial purpose would have to emerge from a consideration of the object and formal characteristics of the text as a whole, and would take account of the fact that an author may conceivably have more than one purpose, not all equally in view in any one paragraph or section.”4 The point is that we must read the whole book. Purpose emerges from the totality of the text, not from parts disassembled and reassembled according to scholarly jigsaw puzzle. I do slightly disagree with Webb on the point of themes. I believe Webb is right that multiple purposes can coexist within a given book, but I also believe that there is ultimately one governing purpose that holds the whole together. The lesser themes orbit around a center, but the center holds a singular vision. Even in a book as morally tangled and narratively relentless as Judges, the text presses toward a unified theological claim. This emphasis on the integrity and theological intentionality of the received text is shared not only by Webb, but also by David M. Gunn and J. P. Millar, both of whom privilege the final form of the narrative and its theological coherence over speculative reconstructions of its compositional history.5 
 
Ministry
In a ministry context, this distinction is not academic. It is urgent. A synchronic, canonical reading allows Judges to function as Scripture rather than as a historical artifact without overarching authority. When I am speaking to a congregation, or sitting across from an inmate in a prison chapel, those men and women do not need me to reconstruct hypothetical editorial layers. They need to hear what God has said. They need proclamation, not perpetual qualification. The Book of Judges presents a deliberate portrait of covenant collapse, and the slow, terrible consequences of a nation doing what was right in its own eyes. Read synchronically, that message is coherent, convicting, and pastorally devastating in the best sense of the word. Its truth's can be preached with authority. I believe that those are the kinds of truths that change lives. Having said all of that, I do not dismiss McKenzie entirely. His work provokes careful reflection and sharpens interpretive discipline. It's good to have a smart enemy, it keeps the troops on guard. It also helps us see what we are fighting for: when diachronic reconstruction becomes the controlling lens, confidence in the coherence of Scripture quietly erodes, and that erosion has consequences that reach far beyond this classroom/canvas. Webb’s approach allows the Book of Judges to do what it was always meant to do: confront God’s people with the reality of their own unfaithfulness and point them, however painfully, toward the sufficiency of the One who judges rightly.
 
 
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1.William Shakespeare, Macbeth, in The Riverside Shakespeare, ed. G. Blakemore Evans, 2nd ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997), 1337.
2.Steven L. McKenzie, Introduction to the Historical Books: Strategies for Reading (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 20.
3.Barry G. Webb, The Book of Judges: An Integrated Reading (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1987), 29.
4.Webb, Judges, 29.
5.David M. Gunn, Judges, Blackwell Bible Commentaries (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005), xii–xiv; J. P. Millar, Judges, The Preacher’s Complete Homiletic Commentary (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1892), 1–3.


from Discussion Thread: Issues in Judges

Feb 2, 2026 at 10:50 PM

Paul Whitehorn
Distrusting Hemingway
Justin, I usually try to respond to posts where I have at least some disagreement to spur conversation, but here I think we are on the same page. I entirely agree that Samson must be understood as a real historical figure, especially in light of Hebrews 11. The real question to me is hermeneutical: how should we read the text that presents him? Webb argues that "any formulation of authorial purpose would have to emerge from a consideration of the object and formal characteristics of the text as a whole."1 That is doing serious theological lifting, and I think he is right. McKenzie, by contrast, treats books like Judges as "the endpoint of a long process rather than the primary locus of interpretation,"2 which pushes the reader into a corner with no edge. For some personal context, this week I have been reading For Whom the Bell Tolls with my son, and it offers, I think, a useful parallel. The books that we usually read only work when read as an integrated whole. That is, the books moral weight does not come from knowing that Hemingway drank too much, or that he wrote chapter three first, or that he was going through a divorce in chapter six, or that his daughter lost a tooth in chapter eleven. Me hypothesizing about what happened behind the narrative is virtually irrelevant to the point of the book. Ok, I admit I am being a bit dramatic, but the point is still valid: over-analysis ruins the reader for the text rather than clarifying it.
From an artistic standpoint, collaboration often transforms a work beyond its original version. I literally just went through this with a song originally about Paul's Damascus road experience: Grace
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. It was written for a male voice because it was supposed to be sung by Paul, but I was forced to put a female vocalist on it, and due to that change the entire song had to change. In the end it became something better than I had originally imagined. We do this all the time with our papers. Even this little response has gone through many changes. The bottom was at the top and so on. What sometimes begins with a specific subject can, through the involvement of creating it, become something radically better than we hoped. In the case of Scripture, that other voice is God's voice over the author's life, and the result is a text that belongs not to a single contributor but to the interaction itself. I personally think this is what Webb means even if he does not directly come out and say it like that. As my favorite High School teacher use to say, “The medium becomes the message.”
This is why I stay cautious about stretching genre categories to the point where they become an excuse to throw out the baby with the bathwater. I think we share the same concern here. A strongly diachronic posture can begin by distrusting Scripture before it has even been heard on its own terms. Imagine doing that to my son with a classic novel. What if, instead of handing him For Whom the Bell Tolls and saying, this is a great book, one of those defining works that helped me when I lost my best friend in combat, read it. What if instead I bury him under manuscript history, source theories, and background lectures on the life of Hemingway? I could take him to the six-toed cat museum where Hemingway ate every morning, and we could sleep in his favorite room at the Waldorf. If I did all of that I would be training him to meet the book with suspicion rather than with the attention it deserves. That novel matters because of what it does to a reader, not because of what scholars say about its composition or the person who wrote it. It forces you to stare at courage and fear without romantic varnish, especially in the bridge sequence where Robert Jordan accepts the moral weight of killing and proceeds anyway for the sake of the mission.3 It wrestles with what it means to act when the cause itself is compromised and success is uncertain, a tension that dominates Jordan's reflections as the operation unfolds.4 It asks whether love strengthens resolve or deepens vulnerability, particularly in Jordan's relationship with Maria, where devotion intensifies rather than diminishes the cost of sacrifice.5 Even if a reader disagrees with Hemingway's outlook, the novel presses him to think seriously about integrity and self offering, culminating in Jordan's final decision to remain behind, fully aware of its consequences, for the sake of others.6 That is the difference I am trying to protect in biblical interpretation. Background, genre, and diachronic questions can be useful, but they are not the doorway. The doorway is trustful reading. Let the text speak. Let the canon shape the hearing. Then, once you have actually listened, bring in genre and history as servants, not as gatekeepers.
 
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  • Barry G. Webb, The Book of Judges: An Integrated Reading (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1987), 29.
  • Steven L. McKenzie, Introduction to the Historical Books: Strategies for Reading (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 20.
  • Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1940), 432.
  • Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls, 437.
  • Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls, 463.
  • Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls, 468.
    • The submissions for this assignment are posts in the assignment's discussion. Below are the discussion posts for Paul Whitehorn, or you can view the full discussion.
    from Discussion Thread: Issues in Samuel

    Feb 18, 2026 at 12:24 PM

    Paul Whitehorn
    Personal note
    I hope everyone is having a blessed week. An inmate who just finished a 20 year sentence and who has worked for me in the prison chapel for several years is finally out, so we are very happy for James. Please pray for him this week if you have time. I completed Prompt 1 without reading Prompt 2, and because Prompt 2 involves music, which intersects directly with my main paper in this class and my love for music, I felt compelled to work on both. I wrote a song specifically for Prompt 2 because I wanted to try and hear David's words as they might sound today. That said, the lyrics and everything surrounding it are part of another song I am working on, so this version in its current form will not leave this classroom. I hope you enjoy it, and I apologize to the professor for answering both prompts. I pray you won't dock me for that.
     
    99.9% the Same?
    If there is one thing my life has taught me, it is that human beings are not nearly as different as we like to pretend. I have known white supremacists and Hebrew Israelites, cold blooded murderers and military heroes, and both have wept over remarkably similar problems. I have lived in Germany for ten years, Afghanistan for another ten, and a good number of other places around the world where the languages and ideas were nothing like my own. The culture changes slightly. The people do not. Strip away the tattoos and the vestments, the uniforms and the prison jumpsuits, and you will find the same human heart beating in every chest. The same fears keep us up at night. The same sins trip us in the morning. And the same fragile ego gets us out of bed anyway. If that is true about people across cultures, then it must also shape how we approach the biblical text. One of my main takeaways from this class is a question about hermeneutics. We all come to the text with baggage, and I will admit that freely. But where I would sharply disagree is how far we take that. We have made a cottage industry out of something that ought to be a footnote. Dealing with culture matters, but it should inhabit only a small portion of our hermeneutical consideration. Grammar, syntax, and narrative give us the overwhelming majority of what we need.
     
    Prompt 1
    From the perspective of an idolatrous Israelite, what happened at En dor in 1 Samuel 28 would have been understood as a real encounter with Samuel. In the ancient world, the dead were commonly believed to be accessible through ritual means, and Mesopotamian ancestral practices assumed that departed spirits could reveal hidden knowledge.¹ Such an encounter would have been entirely plausible in Saul’s setting. The Hebrew conception of Sheol envisioned the dead continuing on as conscious shades rather than ceasing to exist.² From that standpoint, Samuel would most naturally have been understood as a disembodied spirit rising from the underworld, something later Roman Catholic theology would analogize to the limbo of the fathers.³ The grammar of the passage reinforces this reading. The woman is described as a בעלת־אוֹב “possessor of an ʾōb,” a term that can refer both to the spirit associated with necromantic speech and to the practitioner who mediates that spirit.⁴ When she reports that Samuel is coming up from the earth and Saul recognizes from her description that it is Samuel, the narrative proceeds without hesitation.⁵ There is no editorial aside, no qualifier, and no suggestion that what is happening is anything other than what it appears to be. The syntax and narrative presentation treat the encounter as real within the story.
     
    Much of the tension modern scholars find in this episode reflects assumptions brought to the text rather than difficulties within the Hebrew itself. McKenzie observes that similar tensions appear throughout the historical books and often arise from modern expectations.⁶ As a critical historian, he treats Samuel primarily as theological historiography. Yet from Saul’s vantage point, the ritual worked. The prophetic word spoken through the apparition reiterates earlier judgment rather than introducing new revelation, confirming what had already been declared.⁷ The chapter begins with divine silence through legitimate means and ends with judgment confirmed through illegitimate means. Even if an idolatrous Israelite believed Samuel had been successfully raised from Sheol, the broader biblical witness consistently places divination in tension with reliance upon Yahweh’s authorized revelation. In ministry context, this passage serves as a sobering warning. Spiritual experiences, no matter how dramatic or convincing, must be evaluated within the boundaries of divine revelation. Illegitimate spiritual substitutes never overturn the sovereign word of God.
     
    Prompt 2
    Second Samuel 23:1 to 7, often called David’s swan song, functions as a theological summation of his kingship.



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    To let the contrast speak for itself, David’s words can be set alongside Brandon Lake and Jelly Roll’s “Hard Fought Hallelujah,” currently one of the most prominent Christian worship songs.⁸ Modern worship music often begins with the singer’s struggle, perseverance, and personal journey toward God. David begins somewhere else entirely. He opens not with what he has endured but with what has been spoken through him: “The Spirit of the LORD speaks by me; his word is on my tongue.” This is not devotional autobiography but prophetic proclamation. The poem piles up royal titles: “the man raised on high,” “the anointed of the God of Jacob,” and “the sweet psalmist of Israel.” Some scholars view this as retrospective idealization of David’s reign, especially in politically sensitive contexts.⁹ When read alongside the wider ANE world, the elevated language is not surprising. Egyptian and Mesopotamian kings frequently described themselves in exalted terms and portrayed their rule as divinely sanctioned. Imagery such as righteous rule being “like the light of morning” echoes common ancient royal metaphors of order, stability, and blessing. Comparative material therefore broadens our understanding of the royal imagery. Yet the differences matter far more than the similarities. David does not claim divinity or cosmic self sufficiency. He explicitly identifies himself as “the anointed of the God of Jacob,” grounding his authority not in what he has achieved but in what God has chosen. Firth emphasizes that leadership in the Former Prophets is defined by covenantal submission to Yahweh rather than inherent royal status.¹⁰ The central line of the poem makes this unmistakable: the one who rules over humanity must do so “in the fear of God.” That phrase decisively distinguishes Israelite kingship from ANE divinization. In surrounding cultures, the king could function as the source of justice and order. In David’s song, justice flows from obedience to God, not from the king himself. As Gunton reminds us, theology operates within boundaries that prevent categories from being absorbed uncritically into foreign systems.¹¹ David’s swan song is not royal propaganda masquerading as piety. It is a covenantal vision of kingship under God. In ministry terms, the message is clear. Authority is real, but it is always accountable. The king is not ultimate. God is.
     
    ______________________________
     
     

  • Meir Malul, “‘Out of the Mouth of Babes and Sucklings You Have Founded Strength …’ (Ps 8:3): Did Children Serve as Prophetic Mediums in Biblical Times?” Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages 33, no. 2 (2007): 3.
  • Eugene E. Carpenter and Philip W. Comfort, Holman Treasury of Key Bible Words: 200 Greek and 200 Hebrew Words Defined and Explained (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 2000), 168.
  • Donald K. McKim, The Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms, 2nd ed. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2014), 185.
  • A. F. Kirkpatrick, The First Book of Samuel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1896), 216.
  • Kirkpatrick, The First Book of Samuel, 219.
  • Steven L. McKenzie, Introduction to the Historical Books: Strategies for Reading (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 9.
  • Ralph W. Klein, 1 Samuel, Word Biblical Commentary 10 (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1983), 270.
  • Brandon Lake and Jelly Roll, “Hard Fought Hallelujah,” King of Hearts (Provident Label Group, 2025).
  • Steven L. McKenzie, Introduction to the Historical Books (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 88.
  • David G. Firth, Including the Stranger: Foreigners in the Former Prophets (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2019), 174.
  • Colin E. Gunton, Intellect and Action: Elucidations on Christian Theology and the Life of Faith (Edinburgh: T and T Clark, 2000), 1-10.
    •  


    from Discussion Thread: Issues in Samuel

    Feb 18, 2026 at 2:14 PM

    Paul Whitehorn
     
    Ouija Board
    Ed, as I was reading your post, I realized I failed to address something critical, and I only noticed it because it appears we made the same oversight. We both did good work reconstructing the ANE background, and I genuinely appreciated your handling of that material. But in doing so, we may have stepped over the most important question of all: did this actually happen? Did a dead saint in some real sense rise and speak? The grammar of 1 Samuel 28 reads as though he did. The text does not signal some kind of vision, or metaphor, or literary device. Nope, it’s clear. Saul perceives Samuel. The woman reacts in shock. Samuel speaks in a way entirely consistent with what he had already declared earlier in the book, and the narrative moves forward as if it was real.¹ Also all of our ANE work only proves that such an encounter was real and possible.² To me the question remains: what are we meant to believe actually happened here, and why does it matter theologically? If we say it did happen, the implications stretch far beyond this single scene. Samuel was dead and yet personally identifiable and capable of speech. That assumes ongoing personal identity after death.³ It presses firmly against any notion that death is the extinction of consciousness. It also raises a more unsettling question: does God ever permit a unique manifestation of the dead, even in the context of a forbidden act? We see at least one other moment in Scripture where the departed appear and speak, namely at the transfiguration. The pattern suggests that necromancy works, and God remains sovereign over it. If, however, we follow McKenzie and treat this as theological historiography unconcerned with whether the event occurred, the consequences do not stay contained to En-dor.⁴ If this is not history, then the OT is no longer a record of God acting in time. It is just tradition. It is just theological reflection. And that changes how we think about revelation, authority, and judgment across the entire canon. That is not a small shift. I am persuaded that the text intends to describe a real event and a sober warning about the occult, precisely because the spiritual realm is not imaginary. Scripture does not present this as superstition. It presents it as judgment. The text tells us something happened, and it expects us to wrestle with it seriously rather than explain it away. Either way, thank you for your contribution this week!
     
    __________________
     
    1. A. F. Kirkpatrick, The First Book of Samuel, Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1896), 216, 219.
    2. Eugene E. Carpenter and Philip W. Comfort, Holman Treasury of Key Bible Words: 200 Greek and 200 Hebrew Words Defined and Explained (Nashville, TN: Broadman and Holman Publishers, 2000), 168.
    3. Ralph W. Klein, 1 Samuel, Word Biblical Commentary 10 (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1983), 270.
    4. Steven L. McKenzie, Introduction to the Historical Books: Strategies for Reading (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 9.


    from Discussion Thread: Issues in Samuel

    Feb 19, 2026 at 8:22 PM

    Paul Whitehorn
    Michael,
    I am sorry the words were difficult to hear for you. The video itself was not connected to this particular song in any way (It was just cobbled together from other songs). In most of my videos I place the lyrics alongside the music for clarity, especially for those who have difficulty hearing:     Eye Will See
    Links to an external site.
    . Part of the issue is that this song has not been properly mastered yet, so the balance between the vocals and the instrumentation is a bit off. That said, if you opened up your Bible and read David's swan song in 2 Samuel 23, you would see the lyrics. I went ahead and did a minor master pulling the vocals forward for you and provided the lyrics: below. Hope this helps. 






     
    Lyrics:

     
    The Spirit of the Lord spoke through me
    His word was set upon my tongue
    On my tongue
    The God of Israel said it
    Said it
    The Rock of Israel spoke to me
    The Rock spoke to me
     
    He who rules in righteous measure
    Righteous measure
    Who rules in holy fear
    In holy fear
     
    Like the light of the morning rising
    Morning rising
    Like the sun on a cloudless sky
    Like fresh grass after rain has fallen
    After rain
    Shining bright in His light
    In His light
     
    Is not my house secured before Him
    Secured before Him
    Everlasting covenant made
    Covenant made
    Ordered in every matter
    Every matter
    Firm and unafraid
    Firm and unafraid
    Will He not cause my salvation
    My salvation
    Will He not grow my delight
    Grow my delight
     
    Like the light of the morning rising
    Morning rising
    Like the sun on a cloudless sky
    Cloudless sky
    Like fresh grass after rain has fallen
    After rain
    Shining bright in His light
    In His light
     
    But the worthless are scattered thorns
    Scattered thorns
    Not to be held in hand
    Not in hand
    The one who dares to touch them
    Touch them
    Must stand with iron in hand
    Iron in hand
    Armed with spear and burning fire
    Burning fire
    They are consumed where they stand
    Consumed where they stand
     
    Like the light of the morning rising
    Morning rising
    Like the sun on a cloudless sky
    Like fresh grass after rain has fallen
    After rain
    Shining bright in His light
    In His light
     
    The Rock of Israel has spoken
    Has spoken
    The Rock of Israel stands
    Stands

    The submissions for this assignment are posts in the assignment's discussion. Below are the discussion posts for Paul Whitehorn, or you can view the full discussion.
    from Discussion Thread: The Foreigner in the Former Prophets

    Mar 8, 2026 at 9:34 PM

    Paul Whitehorn
    Hermeneutics 101
    According to Firth, stories such as Rahab in Joshua and Naaman in 2 Kings invite readers to rewrite how God defined Israel, suggesting that faith in Yahweh rather than ethnicity defines "who God's people are".¹ That is a theological leap that has no place in serious scholarship.² We do not get to read later theological developments back into the OT at the level Firth is attempting to do. C.S. Lewis, my favorite author, warned that one of the great intellectual errors is to assume that later clarity was always present at earlier stages, simply waiting to be noticed (He was probably quoting uncle Toby). Regardless, carrying the fully developed theology of the NT backward into the Former Prophets is precisely that error. It is smuggling conclusions into premises. Yes, there are moments where foreigners interact positively with Israel or come to acknowledge Yahweh, and Jesus even references Naaman, but it is a radical stretch to read these episodes as evidence that the Former Prophets are primarily anticipating the later inclusion of the Gentiles within the people of God. The dominant emphasis throughout Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings is not the gradual opening of the covenant community to all nations. It is the preservation of Israel as a distinct covenant people, set apart from the surrounding world. In Joshua, Rahab is spared because she recognizes the power of Israel's God, and her inclusion is the result of personal allegiance to Yahweh. In Judges, surrounding nations function primarily as a source of temptation and oppression. Israel repeatedly falls into idolatry by adopting the religious practices of foreign peoples, which is precisely the point: these nations are a danger, not a preview of future salvation. If Yahweh had intended at this stage to signal that all peoples would one day be brought into covenant, he could have made that plain. Instead, far more passages point in the opposite direction (Duet. 7, 23; Josh. 23; Judges 2; 1 Kings 11, Ezra 9). In Samuel, foreigners appear as both enemies and occasional witnesses to God's power, but the narrative stress falls on conflict, not integration. In Kings, Naaman's acknowledgment of Yahweh after witnessing his power demonstrates the superiority of Israel's God over the gods of the nations. It does not constitute a call for the Assyrian empire to come under the covenant. Lewis observed somewhere that we are far too easily pleased, willing to settle for thin readings when the richer and harder truth is staring at us from the page. The harder truth here is that the Former Prophets are not quietly cheering for Gentile inclusion. They are sounding a sustained warning. Israel must not intermarry with surrounding nations or adopt their religious practices, and the narratives in Judges and Kings demonstrate again and again what happens when that separation collapses. The presence of foreigners in the Former Prophets is not a sign of future inclusion. It is a reminder of the constant threat posed by idolatrous cultures pressing in on every side. This reading is consistent with the broader theological framework of the OT. Wright notes that Israel's covenant relationship with Yahweh created a unique identity in which Israel was known as the people of God and Yahweh was known as the God of Israel.³
     
    The election of Israel was particular. God chose a specific people through whom his redemptive purposes would unfold. While I reject dispensationalism in favor of covenant theology, Kaiser makes a compelling case that the promise of blessing to the nations in the Abrahamic covenant does not eliminate Israel's distinct identity, and Israel remains the historical instrument through which God's salvation would eventually reach the nations.⁴ Lewis was fond of pointing out that a story must be read on its own terms before it can be read in light of what comes after. The Former Prophets have their own terms. For these reasons I find it hermeneutically problematic to argue that these books themselves present a theological trajectory toward universal inclusion. That trajectory becomes visible only with the coming of Christ and the expansion of the Gospel in the NT. The OT may contain foreshadowings of this development, but we must be careful not to impose the fully developed theology of the NT back onto earlier texts. Doing so risks obscuring the primary message of the Former Prophets, which emphasizes Israel's calling to remain faithful to Yahweh as a holy nation distinct from the surrounding peoples.
     
    NT Foreigners
    The NT reveals a significant expansion of the people of God beyond the ethnic boundaries of Israel. Jesus repeatedly interacts with Gentiles and praises the faith of individuals outside Israel, demonstrating that the knowledge of God is not confined to one nation. Yet this expansion does not appear as a sudden break from the OT. It arrives as the fulfillment of God's larger redemptive plan. I think this the Gospel story retold: the story that was always true finally stepping into history with boots on. The earlier narratives show that foreigners who abandon their former allegiances and recognize Yahweh may experience mercy and transformation, and in the NT this principle becomes universalized through the work of Christ, as the Gospel goes out to all nations and Gentiles are incorporated into the people of God through faith.
     
    Implications
    The stories of figures such as Rahab and Naaman demonstrate that the knowledge of the true God was never completely confined to ethnic Israel, and foreigners who recognized Yahweh were able to find mercy and transformation when they turned toward him. I would call this the reach of the true myth, the light falling further than the lamp was pointed. From a ministry perspective this reminds believers that while God calls his people to live in holiness and distinction from the surrounding world, his mercy remains open to anyone who genuinely turns to him in faith. This fills me with great hope for many I deal with daily in prison ministry. 
     
    Note: I really enjoyed this class. Enjoy the small break!
     
    __________________________________

  • David G. Firth, Including the Stranger: Foreigners in the Former Prophets, New Studies in Biblical Theology 50 (London: Apollos; Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2019), 5–6.
  • Firth, Including the Stranger, 175–176.
  • Christopher J. H. Wright, Salvation Belongs to Our God: Celebrating the Bible's Central Story, ed. David Smith and Joe M. Kapolyo, Global Christian Library Series (Cumbria, UK: Langham Global Library, 2013), 42.
  • Walter C. Kaiser Jr., Recovering the Unity of the Bible: One Continuous Story, Plan, and Purpose (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009), 118–121.
    •  


    from Discussion Thread: The Foreigner in the Former Prophets

    Mar 8, 2026 at 10:01 PM

    Paul Whitehorn
    Brick Quota's
    Edward, I always appreciate your contributions: this week is no exception. That said, I think your conclusion overstates what the Former Prophets are actually doing. Yes, individual foreigners sometimes respond positively to Yahweh. But the dominant theological concern of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings is not the gradual inclusion of the nations. It is precisely the opposite. It is the preservation of Israel as a distinct covenant people. The scriptures consistently frame foreigners as a danger to Israel's covenant faithfulness rather than as a developing model for Gentile inclusion. The clearest evidence of this is the repeated prohibition against assimilation with surrounding peoples. You cannot simultaneously execute a man for marrying outside his people and claim that your vision is one of open arms toward the nations. The two do not fit together. It is like saying that Pharaoh's brick quotas was just job creation initiative for Hebrew immigrants. That is, Israel is explicitly commanded not to intermarry with the nations because such relationships lead directly to idolatry, and this warning appears throughout the historical books as a primary cause of Israel's decline. The narrator explains the fall of the northern kingdom by stating that Israel walked in the statutes of the nations whom Yahweh drove out before them and that they feared other gods (2 Kings 17:8, 12). The problem in these narratives is not that Israel failed to integrate foreigners into the covenant community. Nor does the text even point in that direction. If the Former Prophets were intentionally preparing Israel for the full inclusion of the nations within the covenant people, we would expect that idea to surface in the religious expectations of Israel. Yet the reaction of Jesus' audience in Nazareth tells us something important. When Jesus refers to the widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian, both examples of divine favor shown to foreigners, the people of his own hometown become enraged and attempt to throw him off a cliff (Luke 4:25–29). These people were not stupid, nor did they misunderstand the OT: the dominant expectation within Israel was not gradual inclusion with other nations but the preservation of a distinct covenant identity. The Former Prophets shaped that expectation. The Nazareth crowd proves it. Here is the thing: a story must be read on its own terms before it can be pressed into service for what comes later. The larger trajectory of Kings moves decisively in the opposite direction, as Solomon's marriages to foreign women are explicitly blamed for leading Israel into idolatry and national decline, and the narrative makes clear that the greatest threat to Israel is not ethnic exclusivity but religious compromise (1 Kings 11:1–4). For this reason it seems hermeneutically problematic to treat the occasional positive portrayal of foreigners as evidence that the Former Prophets are intentionally constructing a trajectory toward Gentile inclusion. That development becomes explicit only in the NT. Kaiser argues that the promises to the nations embedded in the Abrahamic covenant unfold progressively across the biblical narrative rather than being fully realized within the historical books themselves.¹ The Former Prophets therefore emphasize covenant fidelity rather than inclusion, and while foreigners may occasionally recognize Yahweh, the central concern of these narratives is whether Israel itself will remain faithful to the God who called them.
     
    _________________
  • Walter C. Kaiser Jr., Recovering the Unity of the Bible: One Continuous Story, Plan, and Purpose (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009), 118–121.

    • Blog author title



    Chaplain WHITEHORN
    I'm honored to serve as the State Prison Chaplain at Avon Park Correctional Institution. My journey into ministry was deeply shaped by my military experience as a Combat Veteran Sergeant and later as an Officer in the U.S. Army. Alongside my military career, I've pursued a lifelong passion for theology and scholarship, beginning with a Bachelor’s Degree in Biblical Studies from Crichton College. I continued advanced studies at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, earned a Master of Divinity from Liberty University, and I'm currently completing my Ph.D., driven by a desire to understand and faithfully communicate God’s Word.

    3/16/26
    © Copyright 2025 [Paul Whitehorn] Contact Me
    © Copyright 2025 [Paul Whitehorn] Contact Me

    About me

    These theological reflections represent my current understanding and thoughts. I recognize that my beliefs are always subject to change as I continue to study and grow in God’s holy and precious Word. As a fallible human being, I am capable of change, and my views may evolve over time. Therefore, the positions expressed in these musings and papers may not necessarily reflect my final stance.

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