Friday, October 21, 2005

Afterlife: Psalm 6

Psalm 6:4-5:

Hebrew (5-6): "Turn, LORD; deliver my life [nephesh]. Help me because of your faithfulness [chesed]. For in death there is no remembrance of you, in Sheol who will praise you?" [the last phrase is really neat--who will "throw" to you, an idiom for giving God thanks and praise]

LXX (5-6): "Turn, Lord, rescue my life [psyche]. Save me because of your mercy. For in death there is no one who remembers you, and in Hades who will confess you?"

It seems impossible to know the original context, date, and other particulars of this psalm. Many commentators think of it as a "psalm of sickness" (although it is one of seven penitential psalms of Christian liturgy). Yet to me the psalm seems more about fear because of enemies than sickness.

While some argue for a dependence of the psalm on Jeremiah, others argue that the turns of phrase are traditional enough formulations that no literary dependence can be proved. The author of the psalm clearly connects his (likely a he) sickness with God's anger.

By the way, I do not personally believe we have enough evidence to know whether David himself authored a psalm such as this one. The titles came later than the composition of the psalms themselves, and the expression they use ("mizmor ledavid") is itself a bit odd. I'm sure it can be translated something like "a psalm [attributed] to David." But it does not seem to me the most natural way to say a psalm of David.

In the end, it does not seem that we can date this psalm with any certainty to before or after the exile or or link it to the temple or determine any of these things we would like to know. Its presence in Book 1 of the Psalms may indicate an earlier rather than later date and in principle I am not opposed to it coming from David's mouth.

The most straightforward way to take this verse is that the psalmist does not believe that the dead are conscious of their shadowy existence. The dead do not "remember" God, and they do not "throw praise" His way. So the author asks God to rescue him from death, and affirms in faith that he will (6:9).

9 comments:

Scott D. Hendricks said...

Dr. Schenck, I'm excited to have the opportunity to read some of the results of your research. It's a downright "thrill a minute." And I'm not being facetious.

Anonymous said...

As the dead do not "remember" God, does this give credibility to the state of soul sleep?

Ken Schenck said...

Glen, thanks for asking this as it gives me a chance to give my theological reflections in relation to this study:

1. We cannot be fully orthodox, nor can we be "honest" in our interpretations of the original meanings of the books of the Bible, without concluding that revelation has taken place in somewhat of a flow. In other words, it is not Psalm 6 by itself that gives us the full revelation on the afterlife, but Psalm 6 in the flow of revelation. The flow of revelation leads definitively to the affirmation of resurrection in the New Testament and, one could argue, to the immortal soul in the later church. I was pleased to find that even the NIV Application Commentary on Psalms did not try to "cook the books" on the original meaning of this Psalm.

2. The problem with "out of the mainstream" Christian groups like the Seventh Day Adventists on this subject is that they are willing to read passages like this one in context--but they are out of the flow of revelation. They choose these verses as the paradigmatic ones while deeming the "orthodox" verses the "naughty" ones (cf. my analysis of paradigms as the selection and deselection of data as either paradigmatic or naughty, the first of which coheres with the paradigm and the second of which is either ignored or dealt with through various "coping" strategies).

3. The problem with the broader evangelical paradigm is that it "cooks the books" on naughty verses like this one. Because of the overreaction to a catholic paradigm in Luther (sola scriptura), they have difficulty allowing for development beyond the biblical text and, often, even within the biblical text. This leads them to "ignore" "twist" and otherwise "shove" orthodox theology "down the throat" of the biblical text--all in the name of a "higher view" of the text, ironically. How is a paradigm that leads you to violate the original meaning of the text a higher view (different from acknowledging it but deferring to a canonical meaning)?

I know you weren't asking for my Spiel (indeed, you've heard it before), but in the end, I don't think this text should be used to argue for soul sleep, for this is not the position of the church universal, in my opinion...

Unknown said...

Dr. Schenck, this was a great post. I was wondering though, regarding your comment on soul sleep, do you see it as an option to believe in the development, or flow, of the means we use to express orthodox theology and revelation while not believing in a development of orthodox beliefs in themselves?

Ken Schenck said...

Scott, I am willing to be shown a better solution to the "situation." I'm just not sure I can look at the biblical data and not conclude a genuine development of doctrine beyond development of the means by which doctrine is expressed. Could you give me an example of what that would look like in relation to this issue?

Unknown said...

I suppose your right, now that I think about it. My question doesn't sound as good now as it did in my head. Anyways, I guess my concern was more over development between what the New Testament says about Christ and what the Church councils have said about Christ and I tranfered that concern on to this issue. I guess part of that concern also comes from a desire to "let every scripture stand" as some say. I suppose what I was shooting for was a smoother transition between statements like this one in the psalms and statements in the New Testament about the afterlife which wouldn't neccesitate a contradiction between what both authors believe, but allowed for a "broader view" and a more "limited view." I guess it would be like saying that the psalmist's statements were not neccesarily an affirmation of belief in something like soul sleep, but an observation about what he saw in death and an actual question of what the afterlife is like.

Ken Schenck said...

I think I see what you are saying and I would be interested to see how you play it out.

For example, on this particular psalm, Dr. Lennox's commentary puts the focus, not on what it might say about the afterlife, but on how much worship God will get from the land of the living if he lets the psalmist live. His paraphrase is something like, "Let me stay around to praise you."

So this brings up another matter, namely, distinguishing between the main point of a passage and any worldview features that might be the vehicle for that point. So the point of Colossians 1:15 is not that Christ was created, even if it implies that. The point is that Christ holds preeminence over the creation.

Can you build on these thoughts?

Unknown said...

I wouldn't know where else to take it from there, but yeah, that passage in Colosians is a good example. The point of the passage is not that he was created first, especially given the rest of that pattern of thought (v. 16-20). So, when the the councils at Nicea and Constantinople met, the views espoused didn't contradict what Paul was saying, they just used different language because they were dealing with a broader issue.

Ken Schenck said...

I agree... fabtastic should definitely should be a word that only the fab-best people can use :)