Mark Goodacre wrote:
>
> PEIRASMENON DE KATA PANTA KAQ' hOMOIOTHTA CWRIS hAMARTIAS:
>
> What is the function of CWRIS hAMARTIA here? Is it (as it is usually
> taken) that Jesus was tempted in every respect as we are "yet without
> sin" (KJV, RSV, NIV, NASB), i.e. he was tempted but did not sin, or
> could it be something like this (paraphrased to draw out the sense):
>
> "tempted in every respect as we are are, except in relation to those
> temptations which proceed from sin"?
>
> In other words, the CWRIS hAMARTIA might be cautiously qualifying
> the PANTA, lest someone objects that Jesus could not have been
> tempted in *every* way that we are, because some of our temptations
> are the direct result of sin.
>
> This is not my own idea, but it belongs apparently to Montefiore --
> someone raised it in a recent class and I think it is possible.
>
> What do you think?
>
Mark,
I think the way you raise the question is skewed because of several
assumptions hidden within it:
1. that PEIRASMENON here means "seducted or enticed to sin" rather than
"tested (as to faithfulness).
2. that the "we" of the text is "us", namely, not only all believers,
but every human being who, given one's humanness, is destined to "suffer
the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and the thousand natural
shocks that flesh is heir to"; rather than *only* the recipients of the
letter who, according to the author of Hebrews, were going through the
same situation that Jesus went through, not because he was human, but
because of trying to live faithfully to his commission as "Son".
This way of skewing the text is ancient. It filters Heb. 4:15b throug a
particular reading of the first half of that verse (wherein Jesus is
referred to as a high priest who is able to "sympathize" with the
readers's "weaknesses") which agin sees the "our" of "our weaknesses" as
a referent to all human beings, and then reads "our weaknesses" as
referring to the human condition, especially as this is pictured in
reformation theology. I think, however, that a true understanding of the
text needs to keep in mind that the author of Hebrews was not writing a
treatise in systematic theology, but to a specific group of Christians
who, by the very virtue of their having chosen to be Christians, he did
not see as representatives of *all* humanity, and whom he is
despearately trying to call away from apostasy.
So I would see the verse as saying something like "tested in every way
as we are being tested now over our faithfulness, but who remained
faithful".
If we keep in mind that the reader's situation is likened to that of the
wilderness generation, who put God to the test in not trusting in his
faithfulness (chp. 3), then we have an obvious parallel between their
situation (what ever it is. I would say that it is to go over to the
nationalist cause during the Jewish revolt. But that's another question
entirely) and that of Jesus in *his* wilderness testing, a testing in
which Jesus, according to Matthew and Luke, recapitulates the wilderness
generation's experience, and in which *unlike* Israel, he remained
faithful. In the light of this, Hebrews 4:15 has little to do with
"temptation".
What do *you* think?
Yours,
Jeffrey Gibson
jgibson000@ameritech.net
jgibson@acfsysv.roosevelt.edu
3. as every Christian wh referedunexamined presupposition that