Abstract
For the most part, biblical scholars have joined their secular counterparts in being vigilant—and even vigilantes—against anachronistic thinking and language. However, Scripture itself models a variety of apparently intentional anachronisms, such as the introducing of updated equivalents or of outdated archaisms. Such occurrences in both the Old and New Testaments invite us to revisit this complex phenomenon and to consider what anachronism (or some fresh, less pejorative designation) might contribute to our own contemporary interpretation and translation of the Bible.
The term “anachronism” typically red-flags an unacceptable misstep in communication. This equation is certainly drawn in biblical studies: “the text is plainly anachronistic—that is, in error” (Depuydt 2005, 244). We are warned against anachronistic interpretations of the Bible (e.g., Bolin 2010, 159–63), and translators especially are adjured to minimize any potential for readers’ misunderstanding (recently in The Bible Translator, Lawrence 2008). One of the most prominent Bible interpreters in conservative circles today continues to plead for vigilance in translation:
God has revealed himself to people in time-space history—to particular men and women, spatially and temporally and linguistically located. If we are not very cautious about the way we treat the historical particulars, we may introduce such substantive anachronisms that the story becomes intrinsically unbelievable—the more so as the receptor people grow in understanding and historical awareness. (Carson 2003, 100; reprising 1985, 209)
However, it is important to recognize that not all anachronisms are unhelpful or even accidental. In particular, we can detect a number of them occurring within the pages of Scripture itself. These draw attention to various communicative factors at work, and not all of these factors and adjustments should be viewed as theological anathemas. Without seeking to diminish the importance of translational and interpretive vigilance, my modest contribution seeks to extend the conversation. The following pages collate a number of biblical examples of acceptable anachronisms, in turn suggesting that more vigilance may be warranted in our reading even while more flexibility may also be permitted in our own communication.
Getting started
By definition, an anachronism occurs at some chronological distance from the correct setting, wherever that may be. Anachronistic language is usually that of a later narrator, introducing later vocabulary or idioms or illustrations into an earlier context. One secular study distils the crucial question, “Is it permissible for an historian to describe past deeds and past works in terms that were not available to the agents themselves?” (Jardine 2000, 251). In many historical disciplines the answer is resoundingly negative.
Biblical scholars work hard to detect potential anachronisms in the scriptural text, especially for any clarity that these might provide concerning the provenance of a particular document (which in turn aids in interpreting the stated or unstated interests of the author). Such anachronisms are allegedly found throughout the entire canon. Genesis narrates peoples and places (and camels) in ways thought to be inaccurate for patriarchal times. 1 The book of Judges is obviously concerned with Israel’s lack of monarchical leadership, even though such kings are yet in the judges’ future. Nearly two dozen Persian and Greek loanwords are presented as arguments for a late, ex eventu production of Daniel. 2 John’s Gospel is charged with addressing conflicts that arose only in future generations. 3 Luke’s words and foci in Acts are trawled for evidence that he is addressing a later, established ecclesiological context, as are letters such as the Prison Epistles and the Pastoral Epistles. Indeed, supposed anachronisms in language and theology lead a substantial swathe of scholarship to condemn someone if they dare describe these letters as originating with the apostle Paul.
One can easily vilify critical or conservative scholars for their working assumptions. Most of the animosity revolves around the authentication of proposed anachronisms, and it is not the task of this article to evaluate contentious examples. These debates usually concern material found in narrative books or in the historical elements of other works, such as the provenance of a prophetic book or epistle. Certainly interpreters of all hues acknowledge that the written narratives that have come to us in Scripture were recorded at some remove from the events they portray, whether that distance be measured in hours and days or in years and decades (and sometimes routed via several media and languages). This temporal distance is sometimes foregrounded by the biblical authors, as when Gen 14 and Josh 15 identify ancient locations by adding contemporary place names, as when 1 Sam 9.9 explains antiquated dialogue (expressly contrasting the titles used in “former times” and “today”), as when we find more than a hundred occurrences of the formula “until this day” and its variants. 4 New Testament narratives can be similarly transparent in explaining past events or terms or customs in language suitable for the consumption of contemporary readers. 5
Neither does anyone doubt that our narrators seek to serve a contemporary purpose and that they have been highly selective in the events they record. Among the evangelists, Luke and John overtly explain something of the present-day impact they intend from their recounting of select events of Jesus’ earthly ministry (Luke 1.1-4; John 20.30-31). John candidly concedes that “Jesus did many other signs/things” beyond those he has attested (20.30; 21.25), and even a superficial familiarity with Acts discloses the myriad events left unwritten and the many points of the compass left unexplored. Thus it is singularly unsurprising that such narrators employ a degree of functional equivalence as they recount past events for their contemporary readership. Some overtly demonstrate their explanation of unfamiliar terms and customs (see above). Some openly admit that their language of recording is not the original language of delivery (e.g., Gen 42.23; 2 Kgs 18.26 // Isa 36.11; Acts 20.40 // 22.2; 26.14; and several examples in footnote 5). And sometimes we can detect or suspect glimpses of other signs of contemporary alteration. We must then ask whether we should classify these instances as “anachronistic” and, regardless of the label we choose, what value judgment we might place upon them. As my article title already presages, I see many such so-called anachronisms as acceptable.
Evaluating anachronisms
There is value in scrutinizing the word “anachronism” itself. It commonly carries a pejorative sense, one borne out by formal definitions. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) describes the noun as “the relating of an event, custom, or circumstance to a wrong period of time.” Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary suggests “an error in chronology; especially: a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other.” Such definitions that invoke words like “error” (a term picked up also by the OED), “wrong,” and “misplacing” accord well with the negative connotations that “anachronism” usually solicits.
Significantly, while they consistently confirm the pejorative tone, dictionaries are less agreed on the chronological direction in which an anachronism is misplaced. Merriam-Webster’s proceeds to describe “a person or a thing that is chronologically out of place; especially: one from a former age that is incongruous in the present.” Taking the opposite approach, Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary determines that an anachronism is “an error assigning a custom, event, person, or thing to an age other, esp. earlier, than the correct one.” To me—and to the Bible—the question of direction hints at more nuanced ways to explore the issue, and it will permeate our remaining discussion.
Observable anachronisms
We have already noted several occasions where a biblical author readily updates a past identity, whether a name or title or custom, to make it understandable for his present readers. Certainly the perennial problem of explaining units of measurement was experienced by Scripture’s narrators. Within two months of leaving Egypt, the exodus generation was collecting an ʿōmer of manna per person. Occurring only here in Scripture, and much smaller than the more familiar ḥōmer, the narrator explains for his readers that “an omer is a tenth of an ephah” (Exod 16.36). Likewise, as Jesus observed a poor widow casting two lepta into the temple treasury, Mark clarifies, “that is, a kodrantēs” (a known Roman coin, Mark 12.42). 6
We could identify further minor examples. But several more substantial ones better propel our exploration.
The first often goes unobserved among Bible scholars. After Abram’s name is changed (Gen 17.5), Scripture uses his new name all but exclusively. Even when referring to events prior to this renaming, the Gospels, Acts, Paul, Hebrews, and James all eschew the historically accurate “Abram” in favor of the more familiar “Abraham” (e.g., John 8.58; Acts 7.2-8; Rom 4; Gal 3; Heb 7.1-10; 11.8-10; Jas 2.23). Even more confronting is the fact that the New Testament authors (and subsequent Christian writings) follow this convention to the point of revising the Old Testament text. Where the Hebrew record of Gen 15.6 reads “he believed Yahweh,” the Septuagint clarifies the subject and alters the object: “Abram believed God.” In the New Testament, James and Paul go one step further, revising the Septuagint quote to read “Abraham believed God” (Jas 2.23; Rom 4.3; cf. Gal 3.6). The revision is all the more bold given that both authors introduce their quotes with forms of “the Scripture says”! 7
A second example illustrates the same retrospective identification, though it is far more contentious. If Exod 6.3 means that God did not use the name “Yahweh” prior to his revelation to Moses, then roughly 165 times in Genesis (and thrice earlier in Exodus) the narrator has substituted the now-known name of Israel’s covenant deity, even onto the lips of characters and of God himself. 8
Further examples exist. Perhaps the next most well known are the ways that apostolic speeches in Acts revise the words of Old Testament prophets in light of the events of Easter and Pentecost. Where Joel spoke of some vague “afterward” when God would pour out his Spirit, Peter identifies that Joel intended “the last days” in which Peter is preaching; Peter also repeats that all “will prophesy” and adds a reference to “signs on the earth below” (Acts 2.17-21, interpreting Joel 2.28-32). More dramatically, when Stephen excoriates the present descendants of the southern kingdom of Judah, he adjusts the warning of Amos to northern Israel; where Amos threatened the north with exile “beyond Damascus,” Stephen alters the words of the prophet to reference the southern exile “beyond Babylon” (Acts 7.42-43, adapting Amos 5.25-27). (The interpretive horizons are further complicated by the recurring question of whether these speeches faithfully represent the apostles’ sentiments or have been adapted or even invented by Luke.)
Detecting anachronisms
The examples above can be identified because we possess evidence of revision: we have “before-and-after” snapshots or we otherwise know about the change. Scripture itself narrates Abram’s name change (Gen 17.5; Neh 9.7; cf. 1 Chr 1.27), reinforced by the way Genesis uses the different names before and after the event. We can see names of cities and titles for seers and units of measurement being compared precisely by the collocation of two different descriptors (and sometimes by the presence of an overt formula). We can detect the changes made in apostolic speeches by contrasting Old and New Testament passages.
But updating sometimes occurs with less fanfare. The Persian coin known as a “daric” or “drachma” came into circulation under the reign of Darius. Biblical texts of that era make reference to it (Ezra 2.69; 8.27; Neh 7.70-72). Another postexilic author narrates not recent history but events five centuries prior and, quite reasonably, uses the contemporary currency to marvel at how the leaders of Israel had contributed “10,000 darics of gold” (and plenty more) to David’s collection for the construction of the Jerusalem temple (1 Chr 29.7). This apparently trivial example carries our conversation quite some way.
First, we note that this is a perfectly sensible way to communicate. The Chronicler was at liberty to use units from David’s day but chose to employ a modern measure. Commentators on this passage recognize that Bible translators today often do much the same in many passages; the collected talents and darics here are sometimes expressed in terms of “tons,” just as trivial sums elsewhere are regularly passed off as “pennies” or “cents” (e.g., Matt 5.26; 10.29).
Second, how do we detect this anachronism? Though partly an argument from silence, scholars are confident from other sources that the daric was minted only after 515 B.C. 9 In this instance, we can comfortably identify an anachronism at work: an item is attributed a description not coined until five centuries after the events being narrated.
Third is the question of whether “anachronism” is the best label to describe this phenomenon. It remains the label in use, though commentators are not always united or clear in the value judgment that the term connotes for them. When Williamson calls the mention of darics “an innocent enough anachronism,” does he endorse the updating of texts for contemporary readers, or does he still hint that anachronisms are erroneous (though, at least on this occasion, tolerable)? 10
A fourth issue warrants discussion in a fresh section.
An anachronism’s perspective
We have observed that an anachronism can be anything out of place chronologically. The examples above foreground an important additional question: Concerning which temporal perspective are we passing judgment? Hartman takes the space to clarify some examples and their perspectives:
The reference to the “cities of Samaria” [in 1 Kgs 13.32] is anachronistic in terms of the time and setting of the story (not until Ahab’s reign, when he built Samaria, did the north acquire the name, Samaria), but it was not anachronistic to the time of writing. . . . [The “darics” of 1 Chr 29.7] were Persian gold coins, possibly named for Darius I (520–486 B.C.), and therefore anachronistic to David’s era, but not necessarily to the time of writing by the Chronicler. (Hartman 1994, 674, 798)
11
Although not essential to every analysis, many studies would do well to ask from whose perspective something is purportedly anachronistic. We might describe, from Hartman’s examples and explanation, some anachronisms as only “half wrong”—erroneous only from one perspective.
It is at this point that alert Bible readers appreciate the difference between the time frame or horizon of the original story and the later horizon(s) to which the narrative is addressed. While the New Testament epistles are relatively instantaneous in fusing these horizons, most other biblical genres traverse a recognizable temporal gap. 12
Thus it is entirely appropriate to admit, with due confidence or caution, the possibility of acceptable anachronisms. They are not inevitably the anathema that some scholarly traditions shun. Rather, they intimate and bridge the lag between initial events and their later recordings.
Of course some scholars seek to minimize or disregard this gap. It is quite right to agitate for an accurate measure of any time delay, and conservative interpreters are not automatically irresponsible to resist the extended lags often proposed for works like the Pentateuch, Isaiah, Daniel, Acts, and the contested Pauline letters. Yet it is naïve to ignore the textual evidence that some books provide that some passing of time has elapsed; to the examples above (e.g., Gen 14; Josh 15; 1 Sam 9.9; 1 Chr 29.7; 2 Chr 36.22-23) others can be added (e.g., Exod 16.34-35; Deut 34; Jer 52.31-34; John 20.23; Acts 28.30). 13
The direction of displacement
It is also important to recognize that anachronisms can work in either direction along the timeline. We noted above that English dictionaries allow displacement both later and earlier.
Certainly the majority of anachronisms that are studied tend to be the kinds of “updatings” discussed above and below. This clearly works in one direction, with an older text updated for later consumption.
We should observe, however, that reverse anachronisms are also possible. These are rather slippery, because they can occur in at least three ways (and because many elements of time travel can cause one’s head to spin!).
Christians commonly defend the permissibility of predictive prophecy and other ways in which an earlier text can foreshadow a later passage or event. This is part of the doctrine of inspiration, embracing a single unifying Author who is capable of introducing notions before their actual realization. Whether or not such foresight should be labeled “anachronistic,” we need to acknowledge its potential relevance to or interference with our topic. More than three hundred years of history and thirty chapters of selective narrative elapse between the recording of the name “Josiah” in Scripture and that individual’s appearance (1 Kgs 13.2; 2 Kgs 21.23-26).
The “flashforward” of Ezra 4.6-23 offers another variant. While recounting the opposition to the postexilic rebuilding of Jerusalem’s temple, the narrator records further objections raised by subsequent generations of protestors (against Jerusalem’s residents, the city, and its walls). This helpfully identifies the current resistance as a foretaste of the opposition that will be felt as both history and the narrative of Ezra–Nehemiah continue to unfold. Although formally anachronistic from one perspective, the phenomenon itself is recognized as a useful rhetorical strategy. “We may thus conclude that our author has consciously given this section a literary setting at variance with its strict historical setting, but that this was much to his purpose and that he has left clear literary markers to indicate what he was doing.” 14
Even more convoluted is where a later author intentionally archaizes a description. Here, for his own rhetorical purposes the later author returns his readers to a prior circumstance that no longer obtains. In texts such as Isa 11.11 and Zech 5.11, the prophet seems intentionally to invoke ancient “Shinar” rather than contemporary “Babylon” (Motyer 1999, 106; Boda 2004, 308). Similarly, centuries after its demise, Luke may intentionally name “the city of Samaria” in Acts 8.5 to draw attention to God’s pending work of reconciliation between southern and northern kingdoms (Thompson 2011, 115). Famously, Revelation repeatedly invokes “Babylon” (cf. 1 Pet 5.13) even when the actual Mesopotamian city’s prominence had dwindled to virtually nothing four or more centuries previously.
Ultimately, some examples are difficult to determine. It is unclear which perspective is anachronistic or whether there is any anachronism at all. The simplest example remains the heavily debated nature of Daniel’s prophecies. When they bear resemblance to ensuing history, is this because (1) they were inspired in advance; (2) original traditions were updated as future events came to pass; or (3) swathes of the book were composed later, with some elements intentionally backdated? Each option highlights the different horizons at work, and the term “anachronism” may be applied differently (or avoided altogether) depending on our own assumptions about that term and about Daniel.
Navigating anachronisms
It seems to me that the biggest problem with anachronisms—and thence the negative image the term has acquired—is when we, as modern interpreters (ourselves working in our own contemporary languages), carelessly confuse these horizons. Warnings against this form of misinterpretation abound, and it is often this facet in view when anachronism is summarily denounced. 15 And, again, the fact that we can identify the existence of such horizons within biblical narratives by no means entails that the parameters of these horizons are agreed.
Nonetheless, in recognizing the possibility of temporally distinct horizons for some biblical narratives and the certainty of such for others, we can more safely navigate the confirmed and alleged anachronisms as Bible readers and translators. I outline here a few suggestions, leaving open the invitation for others to contribute more.
First of all, there may be merit in developing less pejorative terms. Grisanti opts for “textual updating.”
16
Rightly noting the breadth of topics that get updated or translated for a new readership, and resistant to the ongoing denigration of anachronism, the secular study of Jardine coins the idea of interpretive “anatropism”—an idea or term or cultural expression that is “out of place”—though another of his phrases, “interpretive anachronism,” is a more accessible candidate (2000, 235). A descriptor such as “textual updating” or “interpretive anachronism,” or something like “contemporary equivalence,” certainly avoids misunderstanding while positively naming something of what a later narrator is doing. Speaking of Genesis, Yamauchi (2010, 16) both supports the interpretive point and adds some additional terms:
In view of the continuing need to make a transmitted tradition (whether oral or written) intelligible to later generations, there was the need to “modernize” or “update” terms, particularly the names of peoples and places. . . . So in some cases what appears to be an anachronism may be better understood as an adaptation.
Other elements of the broad phenomenon might warrant their own descriptors, if only in recognition of the multiplicity of perspectives for which “anachronism” is currently made to do duty.
Second, we must work hard at identifying occasions where the difference in horizons is important and be wary of confusing the two. If Exod 6.3 means that the name “Yahweh” was used by the narrator of Genesis but not by the patriarchs themselves, we must be careful how we reconstruct the language and theology of Abraham and his peers. If David’s collection included “10,000 darics of gold,” as recorded in 1 Chr 29.7 and nowhere else, we should be reluctant to identify the currency actually used five centuries earlier. It is too simplistic and potentially misleading just to quip, “The word is anachronistic here.” 17
Third, the points so far highlight that there are several different interpretive issues that can be labeled “anachronistic.” Are we concerned with a biblical author’s choice of term (e.g., “darics” in 1 Chr 29.7; “synagogue expulsion” in John 9; Gentile “elders” in Acts 14.23; 20.17)? Or are we warning against reading our own terminology or dogmatics into an ancient passage? With at least three different horizons in any given narrative—the event’s, the narrator’s (and subsequent redactors’?), and ours—there are several opportunities to confuse the chronological perspectives. Untangling these will sharpen our interpretive accuracy. 18
Fourth, we have already drawn attention to the different directions in which anachronisms occur. There are biblical examples of both later updating and intentional archaizing. At the least this spurs us to carefully scrutinize both the form and function of a passage. What we do with these depends on our ministry commitments.
Fifth, finding such phenomena in Scripture should spur on biblical interpreters to further refine the mechanisms for discerning potential anachronisms. Articles concerned with (different) forms of anachronism rely upon archaeological findings and forensic reconstructions (e.g., Lawrence 2008; Bolin 2010), as does the “darics” example of 1 Chr 29.7 and, indeed, any accusation of inaccurate descriptions such as “camels” and “Philistines” in Genesis. Room remains for further clarification of alleged anachronisms. What are the ground rules for identifying one?
Sixth, as we debate how to optimize our interpretation and communication of the Bible, we should recognize and appreciate these biblical examples. As time passed and different cultures were addressed, the inspired authors of Scripture were willing to update its terminology and even to alter its wording. This is not, of course, inviting us to be sloppy or inaccurate in our own modern renderings, but it does acknowledge more freedom than some translation philosophies prefer. Speaking of the examples in the very first book of the Bible, Fleming both admits and permits that “the stories are imbued with the details of their tellers’ own time, like Renaissance paintings of Mary and the baby Jesus” (2003, 251).
That we can find biblical examples of drawing past events into contemporary categories (and vice versa) introduces grist for many further explorations and raises many concomitant questions. Are all future interpreters and translators at liberty to “update” past narratives? Does this sanction or even demand that preachers and children’s leaders may modernize patriarchal narratives or monarchical showdowns or dominical parables? What interpretive boundaries might there be? Or is such modification the domain only of the inspired authors of Scripture? And is the reverse true? May we “archaize” contemporary events using the categories and language of the Bible? With what interpretive controls?
Conclusion
What we might call “the art of anachronism” is far more complex than is often realized. Certainly it can denote a cardinal error, a misreading of a text foreign to one’s own time frame. We should remain alert to such inappropriate uses of ancient documents.
Yet the Bible itself reminds us of ways in which strictly out-of-place terms can be put to effective ends. We ought not unthinkingly vilify such occurrences but instead consider first the rich range of possibilities. Moreover, in our own long-term renderings and short-term presentations of Scripture, we are invited to consider whether “contemporary anachronism” may be neither an oxymoron nor an abhorrent trap to be avoided but, rather, a divinely sanctioned instrument by which to convey proficiently God’s timeless words in God’s time-bound world.
Footnotes
1
In addition to commentaries, see the examples and independent analyses provided by Grisanti 2001 and 
.
2
Classically, see Driver 1913, 501–2; , 138.
4
The classic study of the OT formula remains Childs 1963, with additional variants noted by , 585–86. The majority of occurrences are found in the historical books. Although Grisanti confusingly insists that some uses do “not carry any chronological or compositional implications,” even he identifies some implications. He is likely distinguishing between speeches where the speaker draws a temporal distance between past and present, and passages where the narrator or subsequent redactor acknowledges the passing of time since the events recorded.
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8
The import of Exod 6.3 remains heavily debated (see now ). Even those who insist that “Yahweh” was a name known to the patriarchs in Genesis admit that it was not as fully understood as it was after the events of Exodus. So the international edition of NIV2011: “I did not make myself fully known to them.”
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10
Williamson 1977, 125–26. The same tension is evident when repeatedly contrasts “vicious anachronism” and “legitimate anachronism”; even though Jardine is seeking, like I am, to fashion “a more discriminating attitude towards anachronism” (e.g., 252), he still refers to “the problem of anachronism” (e.g., 253).
11
Pace Hartman, it was Ahab’s father, Omri, who founded Samaria (1 Kgs 16.23-24).
12
This is not the place to explore each genre in detail. I would, though, generalize and say that narratives rarely seek or claim to be temporally instantaneous. Wisdom writings often cast themselves as more timeless—though they, too, can appropriate or acknowledge details from past eras for contemporary purposes (see debates on the dating and purpose of Job and Proverbs). The writing prophets are harder to evaluate, with some narrowing the gap and others appearing to address later generations.
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14
This is the conclusion of , 56–59. While Williamson rightly suggests that the “digression” serves primarily to reinforce the concerns raised in 4.4-5 and resumed at 4.24, he also ponders if the narrator has included this as reassuring evidence of his access to official archives and correspondence (similar to suggestions sometimes made for Luke’s inclusion of first-person observations and other elements in Acts). That is, potential anachronisms may intersect with wider elements of good historiography.
15
Cross speaks of misapplying contemporary conventions to historical and biblical documents as “mak[ing] the cardinal error of anachronism” (1997, 41). For other general warnings about anachronistic interpretation, e.g., Kaiser 1998, 7; Witherington 2006, 542–43; , 115.
16
Grisanti 2001. For Scripture, he regularly qualifies this as “inspired textual updating”; see esp. his careful definitions (580) and general doctrinal explorations. Stuart likewise entertains willingly the possibility of “an inspired compiler’s later addition” (, 386).
17
Braun 1986, 278. I note a few other examples, including speeches of the Old and New Testaments, in , 159–63. My ensuing chapter then considers some of the limits of using NT descriptions to reconstruct OT events.