During the Jewish Passover, each Jewish family would put the family name around the neck of their lamb they were taking to the Temple to be sacrificed. Well, when Jesus, the Lamb of God, was on the cross, a sign was hung over his head that read, "Jesus the Nazarene, the King of the Jews." Interestingly, in paintings of Jesus' crucifixion you will find the initials 'INRI'. These are the first letters of each of the nouns in the inscription in Latin ("Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum"). When this phrase is translated into Biblical Hebrew the inscription would read: "Y'Shua HaNatzri V'Melech HaYehudim." When you take the first letter of each of these words you get "YHVH", the name of God! Jesus is the Son of God!Sounds pretty amazing doesn't it! But really all it amounts to is a Biblical fallacy. Why? First, the New Testament authors don't translate this phrase into Biblical Hebrew to make this point. They easily could have done this but they didn't! In fact, most of the Biblical authors give an abbreviated version of what the sign on Jesus' cross read: King of the Jews. And Mark even makes it clear that this inscription described the charge against Jesus (not a hidden reference to the name of God).
Second, notice that the Latin translation does not include any definite articles ("the") or conjunctions ("and"). It literally reads, "Jesus Nazareth King Jews." But the supposed Hebrew translation given here literally reads, "Jesus THE Nazarene AND King of THE Jews." "Ha" is a definite article in Hebrew that is not always needed and the "V" is a conjunction ("and") that isn't even in the Biblical greek phrase to begin with. If you want to compare apples to apples (that is, Latin to Hebrew) then the Hebrew phrase (without the definite articles or conjunction) would be "Y'Shua Natzri Melech Yehudim." And this translation doesn't register the name of God using the first letter of each of these nouns! This is Parallelomania in action! And it is thoughtlessly embraced by many.
THE HIDDEN DANGER OF PARALLELOMANIA
Why am I making such a big deal of this errant Bible study method? Here's why. Parallelomania adds uninspired meaning to the text that the inspired authors (and by extension God) never intended to communicate! As D.A. Carson bluntly puts it in his book Exegetical Fallacies,
Conceptual parallelomania is particularly inviting to those who have taken advanced training in a specialized field (psychology, sociology, some area of history, philosophy, education) but who have no more than a serious Sunday-school knowledge of the Scriptures. Many of the specialists who fall into these fallacies are devout believers who want to relate the Bible to their discipline. They think they have a much firmer grasp of Scripture than they do; and the result is frequently appalling nonsense.Adding historical details to unearth new or hidden meaning in the Bible is an abuse to God's inspired Word (sorry if that sounds harsh!). Historical backgrounds should only be used to help clarify the details already in the text (not used to add new details!).
Let me give you another example to help clarify further what I mean. I recently read a book on the Jewish Feasts in Leviticus. Here are the details and hidden meaning given regarding the manner in which the Paschal lamb for the Passover Feast was prepared:
The Paschal lamb was roasted upright on a pomegranate pole with a crossbar through its shoulders. This would obviously bring to mind the cross of Jesus. But not only this, the entrails were tied around the head so everything could be roasted evenly without boiling (which was prohibited). This, of course, resembled Jesus' crown of thorns. Jesus was truly our Paschal Lamb who died on the cross and wore a crown of thorns!Wow! This is an exciting teaching! Jesus' crucifixion was predicted (or at least pictured) in the Passover Feast! But wait. There is a problem here. Even though lots of details are given in the inspired book of Exodus regarding the protocol for preparing the Passover lamb, none of these "historical," Jesus-esce details or practices are mentioned. NO. Rather, this information is based on debatable historical "facts" from Justin Martyr (a person who was alive in the 2nd century, well after the time of Jesus and the destruction of the Temple and its sacrificial system). Parallelomania is certainly capable of jumpstarting a person's interest in the Bible but the irony is that it is grounded in extra-Biblical sources (that is, its information comes from outside of the Bible). This violates the principle of sola scriptura (Scripture alone).
PAUL'S LETTERS
So how does Parallelomania relate to where we are at in the Eat this Book Challenge? SIMPLE. There have been some Parallelomania trends surfacing regarding Paul's letters to the Philippians and Colossians. These parallels have centered around the prominence of the imperial cult (that is, the worship of Caesar) during the time of Paul. Paul certainly uses some political terms in his letter to the Philippians in verses 1:27 (politeuesthe; "exercise your citizenship") and 3:20 (politeuma). Paul also describes Jesus as Savior (2:5-11) even though this is not one of his common titles for Jesus.
Because of this, many believe that the profession "Jesus is Lord" is in response to the proclamation "Caesar is Lord" that Roman citizens were expected to make. Based on this interpretation, Paul wants believers to worship Jesus and not the Roman Caesar. The problem surfaces when this Roman background is generalized to the point that Paul is understood as ONLY confronting the influence of the imperial cult in the lives of Christian believers in his letter to the Philippians. While there might be a hint of truth to this interpretation, the term politeuesthe can also be traced to Jewish sources where it means "following the Jewish way of life." And Paul does, in fact, show in his letter to the Philippians that he is primarily concerned about wayward Jewish influences that have surfaced in the church. We see this when he mentions "the circumcision" in Philippians 3:3. And so Paul is NOT writing primarily to confront the imperial cult (and the same is true in Paul's letter to the Colossians)! But Parallelomania would have you believe otherwise (just check out the book Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire)!
THE BOTTOM LINE
Many people embrace Parallelomania (in my opinion) because they have become bored with the Bible and therefore want something "deeper," something "new," something "novel." In other words, they've heard all of the same Bible stories before (that is, they've been over-churched) and want something "new" to spice up their Christianity. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing bad with wanting to gain a deeper understanding of Scripture! But what people often fail to realize is that maybe they've grown bored because they are not living out what they already know from the Bible. And so they don't need to learn more. NO. They just need to put what they already know into action and transition from being primarily "takers" to becoming "givers", from "disciples" to "disciple-makers." This doesn't mean that you completely stop "taking." NO. But it does mean that you begin passing on what you have come to know about following Jesus to the next generation. This includes both "head" knowledge and knowledge in "action." And so my prayer is that you would resist the allure of Parallelomania and find excitement Jesus' way (the old fashioned way!): By being a disciple of Jesus and making disciples for Jesus!
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