LTS Conference 1 Garry Millar

We are at the two day conference at the LTS/John Owen Centre in Finchley. Our first speaker was Ulsterman Garry Millar who considered with us the OT teaching on man. He began by noting how the book by Hans Walter Wolff on the anthropology of the OT has dominated thinking in this area since its appearance some twenty years ago. He then did two things - analysing the OT data and considering the question of change in the OT.
The obvious place to begin is Gen 1:27 but the theme of being in God's image is hardly taken up in the rest of the OT. It is better to go to Gen 2:7, although even there difficulties arise. Is the nephesh there the soul in a Platonic sense?

In fact the terms have a range of meaning in the OT.

Nephesh can be used anatomically (throat), to mean life force, for dead people, the organ of human emotions and feelings, also as something like a reflexive pronoun.

Ruach - breath, life force given by God, reason or will

Also note

Flesh - flesh, body, relations, etc

There is no spirit/flesh distinction in the OT.

The OT also often speaks of bowels and kidneys, etc, as the seat of emotions and feelings.

Heart (814 times) - the muscle, the whole gamut of feelings and reasoning, etc.

It is impossible to draw out an accurate anthropolgy from the OT. This should not concern us unduly if we are happy to accept that the NT gives the answers.

Since Wolf's book it has been common to speak of Hebrew thinking on the subject as holistic and quite different to Greek dualism.

Though there is truth in this the drift is now seen, for example in missiology, into ideas such as that mission must holistic. He points out that in Chris Wright's book on mission there is a chapter on Gen1:27 but not on the themes touched on here.

Another example of changes in teaching is from the annihilationists who jump from Wolf to the idea that the OT does not teach the immortality of the soul.

The OT makes no attempt to describe the inner workings of the soul. We must not be too quick to jump to conclusions from this. It is important not to confuse our ideas of self with the ideas that existed in Hebrew thought. For example, there is no disconnect between what is in the heart and what man does. Personal autonomy is also a given today but a sin in the OT. It is also important to note that the OT has a firm if shadowy idea of life after death.

The problem for us is that this leaves us with what seems a rather vague understanding of man. However, when we remember what it reveals concerning man in action and that reveals a great deal. Genesis 3 is vital in understanding anthropology even though it is seldom considered. In the OT human action is the key to understanding human nature. Adam and Eve in Genesis 3 set the trajectory for the rest of the OT. Human beings are innately unreliable, selfish, proud, idolatrous, insecure, deceitful, defensive, unwilling to take responsibility, etc. The OT is more interested in these basic traits rather than the inner workings of the soul. This theme of the utter corruption of human nature is seen in the rest of the OT - Deuteronomy, Joshua, etc.
The emphasis is on total depravity and the need for the new covenant. How then were people in the OT to change? Tentatively he suggested that in the OT they seldom do. God is at work in men's lives but is there real change? He extended this to the way there seems so little change in the run up to the exile and Jeremiah's words about the Ethiopian and the leopard. In the discussion there was a tentative acceptance of this view provided we do not suggest that the OT saints were not regenerate.