What Did You Sign Up For? – Part 2
A Review of Herman Hoeh’s “Which Old Testament Laws Should We Keep Today?”
By Neo
Part 1 of this article (link) was concerned with how Herman Hoeh’s Model of Biblical jurisprudence differed from the orthodox Christian model. A case was built in Part 1, based on the historical Christian view, that the eternal, moral law of God, that reflects God’s essential nature, was the source for both the OT litigation and the NT litigation. For this reason the OT and NT litigation share principles but not all implementation features. But the theme in Herman Hoeh’s Model was that the NT was derived from the OT and much of the Mosaic Law is binding on Christians and in its original form. As Hoeh wrote, “The purpose of Christ’s teachings in the “Sermon on the Mount” was to magnify the Old Testament law, not annul it.”
The Problem of Defining “The Law of Moses”
The Mosaic Law is the law mediated through Moses from Yahweh to Israel. This uncomplicated definition notwithstanding, it is a myth that the OT litigation was written by Moses as if he sat down and churned out text. The Torah may be in the spirit of Moses or it may originate in his experiences but it is not a monolithic body of text written by a single author. The Documentary Hypothesis convincingly identifies, based on language, at least four different sources of contribution. Somewhere in history, perhaps in Post-exilic times, these fragments were redacted into the Torah. Further, in parts of the Torah, Moses is referred to in the third person. This makes isolating a unit of text to which we can attach the moniker “Law of Moses” a great challenge. What constitutes the law of Moses may be traditional rather than paleographic.
The Torah encompasses the first five books of the OT and is referred to as Torat Moshe. In Judaism and Christianity, it is common to see the Torah as a unit consisting of sometimes 613 laws, including 100 sacrifices. But in spite of its acknowledged unity in principle, the Torah is also a literary composite. So Herman Hoeh’s interpretation, to be discussed in the next section, of the organization of the Torah as a particular kind of composite is based on his hermeneutics. His interpretation is not something that is incontrovertible or the only possible interpretation. In his article, he explains how he divides the Mosaic Law into its elements.
How Herman Hoeh Deconstructed the Law of Moses
Hoeh, similar to most Christians, had a high view of the Ten Commandments. He states of the Decalogue, “The Ten Commandments constitute the basic spiritual law which regulates human life.” He later draws a distinction between the Mosaic civil laws and the ritualistic law. Of the civil law, he states, “These statutes and judgments magnify the Ten Commandments.” The civil laws, in his view, have special status because they are derived from the Ten Commandments. He concludes, “The civil law of Moses expounds the Ten Commandments by revealing how the ten basic principles are to be applied. We are to keep this part of the law, not in the strictness of the letter, but according to its spirit and intent.” For him, the civil laws comprise the component of the law of Moses that is still in force and binding on Christians under the New Covenant and Christians must observe these laws with a new and avid heart.
Hoeh uncouples the ritualistic law, essentially the sacrifices, from the civil law of Moses. He asserts that sacrifices were not originally part of the litigation but were added later (Gal 3:17). This means that the rituals can be canceled without affecting the validity of the civil law of Moses. There are a number of flaws in this view:
1. The existing format of the text does not support the putative historical addition of the sacrifices at a later date (430 years later). Sacrifices are not segregated into a single text block appended to the already existing textual body of the Mosaic Law.
2. The sacrifices are scattered throughout the text of the Torah and some occur even in Genesis and Exodus, before Sinai and well before the 430-year milestone.
3. The sacrifices are just as validly derived from the Ten Commandments as the civil law of Moses. At a minimum, the sacrifices are part of the liturgical and ceremonial implementation of the First Commandment from the Decalogue.
4. The Jews considered the Torah a unity. They did not separate out the sacrifices from the rest of the Torah. The Jews would still be offering animal sacrifices but for the fact that there is no Temple - the only place where such sacrifices may be legitimately offered.
5. The idea that the sacrificial law was added because of “transgression” does not indisputably point to the Mosaic Law having already been in force 430 years earlier. Hoeh himself supports the idea that the Ten Commandments were in force before Moses and wrote a booklet addressing this. This early ethical code is likely what was transgressed not the later Mosaic Law.
6. Galatians 3:16-19 is referring to the Mosaic Law being added to the Abrahamic Covenant (3:16). Nowhere does Paul equate the “added” law to the sacrifices. Hoeh asserts the equivalency with insufficient exegesis in this article.
While each of the points above could launch a useful study, point 6 above will now be examined further. Paul writes in Gal 3:17:
“And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect.”
If Hoeh’s model is correct then the term “covenant” refers to the Mosaic Covenant and “the law” refers to the sacrifices in this verse. This approach has irremediable inconsistencies. How then could the sacrifices make the law of Moses of none effect? The sacrifices were an integral part of the Mosaic covenant, were the means of reconciliation with God under the covenant, and foreshadowed the sacrifice of Christ. From the surrounding text, Paul’s “covenant” refers to the Abrahamic Covenant and the “law” refers to the Torah known as the Law of Moses. It is the Mosaic Law that seems to challenge or “disannul” the Abrahamic Covenant because Israel could not keep the Mosaic Law. The Mosaic Law became a failure point for Israel. Paul is saying that Israel’s losses under the Mosaic Covenant will not disannul the promises under the Abrahamic covenant. It is participation by Jew and Gentile in the faith of Abraham that makes Christianity to be salvation for all people and not obedience to the culturally and racially bound Mosaic Law. And Galatians 3:19 should be read as follows. Notice the expiration condition assigned to the Mosaic litigation:
“Wherefore then serveth the law (the Mosaic litigation)? It was added because of transgressions (under the pre-Moses rendition of the 10 Commandments), till the seed should come to whom the promise was made (Jesus); and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator (Moses)”.
Herman Hoeh, by separating out and removing the sacrificial laws from the Torah deconstructed the holistic law of Moses. Paul said the law was a unity – if you want to keep one part of it, you must keep all of it. It may be a literary composite but it is an ideological whole. The inevitable conclusion is that the sacrifices were abrogated because they were a part of the OT litigation and the OT litigation was abrogated and replaced with the New Covenant by Jesus bringing his sacrifice and better promises.
Hoeh’s Disposition of the Non-Sacrificial Part of the Torah or What Did You Sign Up For?
According to Hoeh, we are to remember and keep the law of Moses comprised of the commandments, laws, statutes, and ordinances. He also argues for the inclusion of the judgments. All of these are binding on New Covenant Christians because they are rooted in the Ten Commandments. These are the laws that are written on the heart under the New Covenant. In addition to this cataphatic statement, Hoeh also has an apophatic statement, “Any other laws not included in Hebrews 9:10 were not a part of the rituals added because of sin!” Hebrews 9:10 mentions “only meats and drinks and diverse washings and carnal (flesh) ordinances, imposed until the time of reformation.” All else is still binding.
So how should this play in the average Twenty-first Century Armstrongist congregation? A case to consider: If a woman is menstruating she becomes unclean and can transfer this uncleanness to other people and physical objects. This is not an uncleanness that can be washed away. Everything she touches incurs a ritual necessity to be cleansed. Of this type of uncleanness, God states “Thus you shall keep the people of Israel separate from their uncleanness, lest they die in their uncleanness by defiling my tabernacle that is in their midst.” If somehow this uncleanness generated by female menstruation gets transmitted to the Tabernacle, people will die. In some branches of Judaism, the easiest solution is to have the woman isolate herself in a menstruation hut for the period of time prescribed to become clean. In the Hoehist model, this is an example of a requirement of the law that must be written on the hearts and minds of Christians under the New Covenant. It is an extension of the Ten Commandments. We could go into the fact that this same law states elsewhere that it is legitimate to purchase and keep Hebrew slaves. But the point has been made. Armstrongists do not keep the law that Herman Hoeh determined is binding on them. My guess is that it is also not written on their hearts and their salvation is in grim jeopardy by Hoeh’s standards. Did you really mean to sign up for this?
Coda – Hoeh’s Sabbatarian Hermeneutic
First, let me say that I am not suggesting that the Ten Commandments be done away with. That seems to be the false alarmist statement that Armstrongists resort to first. I believe in the Ten although I hold to a spiritual form of the fourth. I also still follow a modern version of the Levitical dietary laws though not for theological reasons. So, I am also not suggesting antinomianism – that anybody can do anything they want to. If you come away with these ideas you have not read this article thoughtfully.
In researching this topic, I came to have a feeling about why Hoeh struggled so fiercely to include parts of the OT litigation in the NT. I believe he was strategically trying to build a protective wall around the seventh day. If he could claim that parts of the OT litigation survived the change in covenants intact, Sabbatarianism could be preserved and, in consequence, Armstrongism could be legitimized. I developed this feeling from observing the many times that the arguments made by Hoeh seemed artificial or teleological.
Another idea I became aware of was the derision that Armstrongists have for Christians. Hoeh stated in this article, “Few religionists recognize the eternal binding authority of the Ten Commandments.” It is a calumny against Christian denominations to claim that they do not recognize the Ten Commandments when all of mainstream and evangelical Christianity does. But Armstrongists no doubt would claim that Christians do not recognize the Decalogue because they leave out the seventh-day sabbath. So once again the seventh day becomes pivotal in the Armstrongist dissension from Christianity.
The answer to the question “Which Old Testament LAWS Should We Keep Today?” is “Only those that Jesus and the NT writings approve.” Not the ones that Herman Hoeh supported through special pleading.
Note: Herman Hoeh, now deceased, became a Christian late in life as I understand. The reviewed article is a version that was distributed in 1971. My guess is that Herman Hoeh would not support the substance of his article after becoming a Christian. I take Hoeh’s becoming a Christian all the renunciation of the article that is needed.
In Christo Solo!
