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Book Reviews / Pneuma 35 (2013) 87-156
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L. Stephen Cook, On the Question of the “Cessation of Prophecy” in Ancient Judaism. Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism, 145 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011). xi + 226 pp., $152.50 hard- back; paperback forthcoming.
L. Stephen Cook serves as an Associate Professor of Old Testament at Johnson University, a “restorationist” Christian institution in Tennessee. While his milieu could have prompted Cook’s interest in cessationism, this nuanced and thoughtful work is not an exercise in mod- ern polemics. Dr Cook maps out his project by insisting that the complex and often conflict- ing statements during formative Judaism about the cessation of prophecy render any modern, definitive conclusion futile. He therefore concentrates on two more attainable goals in “Part Three: The ‘Cessation of Prophecy’ in the Modern Debate” (179-94), that is 1) laying out the fluid definitions of “prophet,” 2) which, in turn, would shape conclusions, by both the ancients and moderns, as to whether or not prophecy continued after the era of the last prophets of Hebrew scripture.
Cook argues, however, that while “Second Temple texts present a relatively consistent picture of prophecy as a thing of the past, and perhaps the future,” from the late post-exilic period to the 2nd century CE rabbinic era, there seemed to be an abundance of “lower level,” pneumatic or prophetic activity within Judaism, reduced to expressions of the “echo” of God’s voice (the Bat Qol). Repeatedly the rabbis affirm: “It has been taught: With the death of the last prophets Haggai, Zechariah, an Malachi, the holy spirit [sic] departed from Israel, but still the Bat Qol was available to them” ( Cant. Rab. 8.9 #3, cited p.151). It is at this time that “prophecy has been taken from the prophets and given to the wise” (b.B.Bat.12a, cited p. 161). Accordingly, the prophets of the Hebrew scriptures gained a unique status, unattainable ever after even by the most worthy Rabbi, paralleling the notion of “apostle” or even “prophet,” which evolved in later Christianity. Cook appears to follow Grudem’s view (116-18) that, a class of authoritative scripture-writing NT prophets, who are also apostles, consti- tuted the non-repeatable stratum of the Church’s “foundation” in Eph 2:20! He applies Gru- dem’s semi-cessationist model of the Jewish scribes to the Church (118-21); this model, that of the Jewish and Christian scholastics, strikes at the very heart — the very essence — of the NT message; the thesis of Ruthven’s new book, What’s Wrong with Protestant Theology: Reli- gious Tradition vs. Biblical Emphasis.
By consciously limiting his study to the root word, “prophet,” Cook missed the revolution- ary message of the New Testament that the New Covenant, the goal of all the scriptures, was to restore and surpass the activity of the prophetic Spirit of the OT. The great shift in NT theology moves from the Old Covenant as an authoritative document to the internalized “law” (Jer 31:34) or empowering prophetic Spirit (Isa 59:21> Acts 2:39). The very “body” of Christ is comprised of prophetically inspired and empowered members (1 Cor 12-14). Paul spells out this great shift from scribal “letter” to prophetic Spirit in 2 Cor 3, which Cook ignores, thereby missing the NT answer to the question of “why cessation?” which he raised in his book.
Indeed, Cook’s schema for the NT echoes the choice of Jesus(and his followers): Does one do halakah (interpretation and application of scripture) in the Old Covenant tradition of the scribes or “by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God”? The answer: God’s ideal was the movement from an intellectualized “law” or doctrine to the immediate prophetic
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2013 DOI: 10.1163/15700747-12341300
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Book Reviews / Pneuma 35 (2013) 87-156
word in the heart as promised in the Hebrew scriptures (Isa 32:15; 44:3; Jer 31:34; Ezk 36:26-27; 37:14; 39:29; Joel 2:28-29). This last reference is familiar to Pentecostals, but less well-known is the climax, the “punchline” of one of the most important speeches in Christianity — the Pentecost sermon, which concludes in Acts 2:39 with an explicit quotation of Isa 59:21. This passage has been long ignored by cessationist (scribal) exegetes and describes the essential feature of the ideal recipient of the New Covenant: the Spirit of prophecy and the “words” in the mouth that will not depart forever. In Luke, Jesus is portrayed as the bearer of the Spirit (4:18-19>Isa 61:1-2); in Acts, the Bestower of the Spirit (Acts 2:39>Isa 59:21).
Accordingly, the very mission of Jesus guaranteed the end of the cessationist drought with the promised explosion of the prophetic Spirit, in that he introduced it (Mt 3:11 and parallels); modeled it (Jn 13:15; 1 Cor 4:16; 11:1; 1 Th 1:6); ratified it (Mt 26:28-29 and parallels); vindicated it by the power of his resurrection(Rm1:4-5; Phil 3:10-14; 1 Tm 3:16); commissioned it (Mt 10 and ||s; Mt 28:19-20; Acts 1:8); bestows it (Jn 14:16-18, 26; 16:7; Acts 2:33; Eph 4:7-11), and actually becomes the New Covenant Spirit (Jn 14:18; Jn 14:26; 2 Cor 3:17). Jesus contrasts the NT ideal of greatly enhanced prophetic revelation and empowerment among all of God’s people (Num 11:29; Joel 2:28-29; Mt 11:11-20;Jn 14:12) against the position of the cessationist, Old Covenant scribes who actually denied further revelation by interposing themselves as the unique arbiters of God’s will to His people.
This is proved by the Talmudic story of the “Oven of Akhnai” which became the definitive reason for normative Judaism to embrace cessationism ( Baba Mez’ia 59). This story, a test case about a non-kosher oven actually treated the crucial question of cessationism: Will the Old Covenant written law be replaced by the immediate voice of God who now reveals him- self in miracles? Normative Judaism chose cessationism, since Torah was “not in heaven” but given to the scribes. In this, they denied the Holy One’s intervention by mighty “word and deed” into the scribes’ halakah! Cook fails to allude to the profound significance of this piv- otal issue that Jesus so sharply addresses in John 5:37-47.
So “on the question of the ‘cessation of prophecy’” Cook discovers many answers (195-96) except the one emphasized in the New Testament.
Reviewed by Jon Ruthven
Professor Emeritus
Regent University, Virginia Beach, Virginia [email protected]
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