Most prophets are not young? Prove that. Seems like in my life prophets have always been young. Biblically speaking, Jeremiah was young. Isaiah began his ministry while young.
Most prophets are not young? Prove that. Seems like in my life prophets have always been young. Biblically speaking, Jeremiah was young. Isaiah began his ministry while young.
Which Isaiah?
On second thoughts perhaps we shouldn't go there.
One could argue that Anna is explicitly mentioned as old as otherwise there's nothing to hint at it, whereas the whole "you'll not die before you see the Messiah" thing sounds like the thing said to an old man wondering whether he'll ever see what he's been waiting for. Especially when Simeon's response is "I can die a happy man now".
Every time I've pondered this passage, and as a church musician who's conducted many a Choral Evensong that's been often; I've been reminded of Jesus saying that some standing in his presence wouldn't taste death until the coming of the Kingdom (Mark 9:1 -- Matthew 16:28 -- Luke 9:27). Anybody else link Simeon with this?
In Orthodox hymnody for the Feast of the Meeting in the Temple, Simeon is always referred to as "Simeon the Elder" who takes the Christ Child in his "elderly arms".
One could argue that Anna is explicitly mentioned as old as otherwise there's nothing to hint at it, whereas the whole "you'll not die before you see the Messiah" thing sounds like the thing said to an old man wondering whether he'll ever see what he's been waiting for. Especially when Simeon's response is "I can die a happy man now".
I don't read the "sounds like the thing said to an old man" as given at all. Children get prophetic messages, even terrible ones - cf Samuel, whom we just heard about in the RCL. Young men get news of their impending death. Granted, older men are likelier to receive such a message than younger men, but I don't see why that ought to be assumed.
I think you're on to something about the way we read literature, and what we can infer from our own cultural understandings... and try to guess at the way they might have been heard and understood by earlier audiences of the New Testament.
"A man and a woman were in the Temple, and the woman was very old." Her age was noteworthy; his was not. I would read, by the omission of this detail, "he was not as old as she". Perhaps a New Testament audience might understand, "and therefore he must have been old too" but that's not how I read omission of a detail.
I don't read Simeon's response as a paraphrase of "I can die a happy man now." He recognizes that he is being let go in peace (using a classic formula of manumission of a slave, IIRC) and that he has seen salvation. The New Testament is not as interested in describing interior emotional states as our current culture is. How did he feel about it? We don't know, but I would guess at a complicated mix of emotions.
To bring in a possible Epiphanic note: almost everyone who has attempted to convince me that Simeon was an older man has been... an older man! I wonder if there's some sort of sensitivity to what might feel like erasure?
In Orthodox hymnody for the Feast of the Meeting in the Temple, Simeon is always referred to as "Simeon the Elder" who takes the Christ Child in his "elderly arms".
I live in a sola scriptura understanding of authority. While I'm interested in and respect Tradition - on a spectrum from "possibly true and helpful" to "wtf is that, nope" - I do not consider myself bound by it. That narrows what I am willing to consider as evidence in support of one interpretation or another.
One could argue that Anna is explicitly mentioned as old as otherwise there's nothing to hint at it, whereas the whole "you'll not die before you see the Messiah" thing sounds like the thing said to an old man wondering whether he'll ever see what he's been waiting for. Especially when Simeon's response is "I can die a happy man now".
I don't read the "sounds like the thing said to an old man" as given at all. Children get prophetic messages, even terrible ones - cf Samuel, whom we just heard about in the RCL. Young men get news of their impending death. Granted, older men are likelier to receive such a message than younger men, but I don't see why that ought to be assumed.
I think you're on to something about the way we read literature, and what we can infer from our own cultural understandings... and try to guess at the way they might have been heard and understood by earlier audiences of the New Testament.
"A man and a woman were in the Temple, and the woman was very old." Her age was noteworthy; his was not. I would read, by the omission of this detail, "he was not as old as she". Perhaps a New Testament audience might understand, "and therefore he must have been old too" but that's not how I read omission of a detail.
I don't read Simeon's response as a paraphrase of "I can die a happy man now." He recognizes that he is being let go in peace (using a classic formula of manumission of a slave, IIRC) and that he has seen salvation. The New Testament is not as interested in describing interior emotional states as our current culture is. How did he feel about it? We don't know, but I would guess at a complicated mix of emotions.
It's the being specifically told that death was not impending that would be more notable for most young or middle aged.
From Sunday, I connected that it takes place outside the men's court (Mary is there, obviously.).
Also that Simeon comes from the city, rather than being a temple lurker.
I do wonder if there's a (even if unconvincing) case for him not being Jewish, and them going in deeper to meet Anna?
In Orthodox hymnody for the Feast of the Meeting in the Temple, Simeon is always referred to as "Simeon the Elder" who takes the Christ Child in his "elderly arms".
I live in a sola scriptura understanding of authority. While I'm interested in and respect Tradition - on a spectrum from "possibly true and helpful" to "wtf is that, nope" - I do not consider myself bound by it. That narrows what I am willing to consider as evidence in support of one interpretation or another.
Nah. Sola scriptura is no more sustainable than any of the other 'solas'.
As @KarlLB observes, the canon of scripture (however defined, it varies across Christendom as a whole) is itself a tradition.
From an Orthodox perspective, scripture is part of Tradition.
We can, of course, fall into a kind of 'Church Fundamentalism' or 'Tradition Fundamentalism', a 'Patristic Fundamentalism' say, as well as forms of biblical fundamentalism.
I get that 'sola scriptura' can be more nuanced than it's often portrayed but I don't see how we can receive or understand scripture outside of a small t or Big T Tradition of some kind. The two are inextricably linked. 'The Church through the Bible and the Bible through the Church' as someone has expressed it.
Annoyingly, it's one of these both/and not either/or things I like to tout around.
If we say, 'That's all very well and good but we must allow scripture to have the last say on the matter' then we somehow have to all agree what the scriptures do have to say on any particular matter.
Two thousand years of church history and millenia of Jewish 'midrashes' and debates show that this is easier said than done.
I'm not saying it's simple as saying, 'Well, the Orthodox hymnody has Simeon as an 'Elder' so that settles it,' but I'm perfectly prepared to accept he was an older guy. That doesn't mean he was ancient necessarily as some very conservative Orthodox seem to believe.
Ultimately, it's of academic interest only. Which of us is going to become more holy or Christ-like by believing that Simeon was 20, 40, 60, 80 or 600 years old?
Gamma Gamaliel: I am okay with your not being okay with my, and my faith community's, approach to scripture.
Possibly this thread is of "academic interest only". Or maybe it has opened up some lines of thought about eisegesis, the way we read literature, our perceptions about the authority of scripture and tradition, erasure of vulnerable people, and pastoral and homiletical care of men with terminal illness.
Meanwhile, I refer the honourable shipmates to this comment of mine:
@Leaf, I've been waiting for someone to take you up on that!
What intrigued me here was that most of the time we can figure out why certain traditions or apocryphal beliefs or popular legends derived some detail from an early [mis]translation or implied content in the text. Tradition and text work together in tandem much of the time. But Simeon's age is always presented in images or commentaries as elderly and I had never thought about this before. So much is inferred from Anna, his 'companion,' being elderly.
It has also occurred to me that the concept of age has been differently understood at various historical junctures. Life expectancy in the first century would have averaged about 35 years. A woman in her 40s with grandchildren, or a man in his 40s could be seen as elderly, especially if they had suffered hair or tooth loss, or had severe arthritis or mobility problems.
If Anna was so much older than Simeon, would we read some kind of seniority into her role in the narrative? Is it important to see a man who is wise, righteous and devout as being older or at least mature in years? Suppose Simeon was 27 years old, not a boy but a young man who had impressed others with his prophetic vision since his teens. We've been reading accounts of the young Samuel's calling in the OT readings for the Mass this past month and I kept seeing Simeon as another youth called and set apart because he foresees the coming of the Messiah.
Don't forget the average life span Biblical times was around 35-45. Even though Simon was, say around 27 (hypothetically), he would be considered middle aged. That's not to say there were much older people around. We are talking averages.
Nope (this comes up again and again). The only reason the mathematical average “middle” was so low was because so very, very many young children and infants died early). That skews the math but not human psychology, which would still have considered middle age to be roughly where we’d put it (and so on). At 27 a man wasn’t even old enough to be permitted to do a man’s work as a priest in the temple (and would continue in that role till fifty, when he would lighten the load a bit). Thus Jesus starts his public ministry when he’s 30, and Thurs off full adult age. And the religious leaders sneer at him saying, “You’re not even fifty…”
@Lamb Chopped , @Gramps49, my own thinking on this has changed and I'm inclined to go back to the idea that people were more short-lived. In the last decade, there has been more impetus in paleopathology studies on illness and longevity in first-century Palestine and the use of molecular-DNA by paleo-DNA researchers examining ancient bone fragments in tombs has shown that leprosy (Hansen's illness) and tuberculosis were more prevalent than suspected. Outbreaks of typhoid and cholera would have been endemic. The hygiene and sanitary regulations practised by the Jewish population were effective against certain illnesses but not others.
There are also findings to do with epidemiology and sea ports, the diseases carried back and forth across the Mediterranean -- the Romans were probably responsible for high rates of venereal disease affecting fertility and women's health, especially among slave women, but they would also have suffered from recurring bouts of malaria contracted on their travels or back home, so that some researchers see the centurion's daughter as falling into a malarial coma. Although the climate of the Levant was healthier than many other places (thinking again about Rome as a malarial swamp), the quality of life was not good: the high incidence of blindness, once thought to be due to cataracts, is now viewed as relating to genetic markers for diabetic retinopathy as well as trachoma. The killers though would have been the bacterial diseases like leprosy and tuberculosis, so that many of the 'beggars' mentioned in gospel texts might have been disabled and indigent through tubercular bone diseases or leprosy. This is of course only a contemporary scientific medicalised approach and not the 'cleanliness/purity' understanding or the influence of 'sin' as understood at the time and found in biblical texts.
For those interested -- and I'm hoping a post on ageing, illness and longevity isn't out of place here -- paleo-DNA studies from Middle Eastern university departments are changing a number of earlier theories on the historical geographical distribution of these diseases and the archaeological exploration of disease in antiquity.
People did often die in their 40s and 50s - but what I'd suggest is that that was because dying of old age was a bit of a rare luxury, not because people were considered old at 40. While many people didn't make 60, virtually everyone would know some outlier in their community who had made nearly 90 so would have a similar idea of human longevity potential to us.
Knowing how life experiences can cause what we now consider to be premature aging, and that lives were generally hard by modern standards in former times, I don't doubt that 40 was the new 50, to adapt a phrase. But I don’t think the idea that 40 year olds were considered old stands up. Bear in mind also that childbirth took many women prematurely.
So yes, people, even if they made it to adulthood, were shorter lived, but not as much so as the average life expectancy as a raw figure would indicate.
People did often die in their 40s and 50s - but what I'd suggest is that that was because dying of old age was a bit of a rare luxury, not because people were considered old at 40. While many people didn't make 60, virtually everyone would know some outlier in their community who had made nearly 90 so would have a similar idea of human longevity potential to us.
Knowing how life experiences can cause what we now consider to be premature aging, and that lives were generally hard by modern standards in former times, I don't doubt that 40 was the new 50, to adapt a phrase. But I don’t think the idea that 40 year olds were considered old stands up. Bear in mind also that childbirth took many women prematurely.
So yes, people, even if they made it to adulthood, were shorter lived, but not as much so as the average life expectancy as a raw figure would indicate.
That is a useful distinction. The difficulty as I understand it is that many of those in their 30s and 40s would have been in poor health (one reason I thought about Simeon being someone with a significant disability). I'm not sure that chronological age was so closely related to perceptions of immaturity though, that is another kind of argument. I would expect reverence for age and wisdom but not as a fixed or rigid attitude excluding younger men.
@KarlLB it's possible fewer women died in childbirth in stable communities where you would expect to find experienced midwives. Dangerous situations would include a young woman giving birth in an unknown place, stressed and exhausted from travel. The toll of giving birth year after year for decades would lead to many deaths. Widows who lost husbands when young and who inherited enough to maintain their own households and who were freed from the need to remarry and go on having children were likely to live much longer. I don't know enough about infant mortality in this context to think of any reason it should be been unusually high other than the vulnerability of newborn children in a hot climate with too many infectious illness around. Malnutrition would not have been a major issue, nor dirty drinking water.
I'm not saying it's simple as saying, 'Well, the Orthodox hymnody has Simeon as an 'Elder' so that settles it,' but I'm perfectly prepared to accept he was an older guy. That doesn't mean he was ancient necessarily as some very conservative Orthodox seem to believe.
Orthodox hymnody also has him as a "Priest". I do not know where that has come from.
With regard to how long people lived in the time and place of Simeon and Jesus, it seems to me there’s a distinction between a “natural” expected lifespan and a higher expectation that life could cut short by disease, childbirth, etc. In other words, it may have been more common than it is now for various factors to cut a life short, but even so there could still be an otherwise-expected lifespan not that so different from today.
After all, the psalmist wrote: “The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong . . . .” (Ps. 90:10, NRSV)
With regard to how long people lived in the time and place of Simeon and Jesus, it seems to me there’s a distinction between a “natural” expected lifespan and a higher expectation that life could cut short by disease, childbirth, etc. In other words, it may have been more common than it is now for various factors to cut a life short, but even so there could still be an otherwise-expected lifespan not that so different from today.
After all, the psalmist wrote: “The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong . . . .” (Ps. 90:10, NRSV)
That would be my point. We expect to live into old age now; in previous ages this was the exception rather than the rule, but that does mean that people were old in the 40s.
With regard to how long people lived in the time and place of Simeon and Jesus, it seems to me there’s a distinction between a “natural” expected lifespan and a higher expectation that life could cut short by disease, childbirth, etc. In other words, it may have been more common than it is now for various factors to cut a life short, but even so there could still be an otherwise-expected lifespan not that so different from today.
After all, the psalmist wrote: “The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong . . . .” (Ps. 90:10, NRSV)
That would be my point. We expect to live into old age now; in previous ages this was the exception rather than the rule, but that does mean that people were old in the 40s.
That’s slightly different from the point I’m making, I think. The psalmist, at least, presents living to 70 as the norm or expectation—not the exception, but the rule. Then, as now, some people won’t live that long, while some will live longer. The difference is that, compared to now, a higher percentage of society then wouldn’t live that long.
But that doesn’t translate, I don’t think, to 40 having been considered “old” then. It translates to more people not growing old then than is the case now.
Going through my genealogy, I would say even around the 1800s the average life span was around 50. Yes, I can find people living into their 80s, and even a few centurions, even though I think some of this could be attributed to poor recording of dates. It is not until modern plumbing is established people started living longer. As MaryLouise pointed out, there were many diseases that cut human life short.
@Nick, your quote of the psalm says one can live into their 70s, even 80s, IF they are strong. But, we know it is more than that. Take the last pandemic. We can all think of many strong people whose lives were cut short. Yet, I am one of those who would not be considered strong in any way, and I have yet to catch that little bug in spite of all its variations.
Note to Lamb Chopped. Where do the religious leaders sneer at Jesus for not being 50? Give me a verse. The one time when the religious elders comment about Jesus' age was when he made a pilgrimage with his parents to the temple as a young adolescent and they were amazed at his knowledge.
They sneer at him for claiming to be something more than a man.
Going through my genealogy, I would say even around the 1800s the average life span was around 50. Yes, I can find people living into their 80s, and even a few centurions, even though I think some of this could be attributed to poor recording of dates. It is not until modern plumbing is established people started living longer. As MaryLouise pointed out, there were many diseases that cut human life short.
@Nick, your quote of the psalm says one can live into their 70s, even 80s, IF they are strong. But, we know it is more than that. Take the last pandemic. We can all think of many strong people whose lives were cut short. Yet, I am one of those who would not be considered strong in any way, and I have yet to catch that little bug in spite of all its variations.
Note to Lamb Chopped. Where do the religious leaders sneer at Jesus for not being 50? Give me a verse. The one time when the religious elders comment about Jesus' age was when he made a pilgrimage with his parents to the temple as a young adolescent and they were amazed at his knowledge.
They sneer at him for claiming to be something more than a man.
John 8:57. Though no doubt we will have different opinions of why they latched on to to that particular number.
The BBC has a nice article about life spans. The tl:dr version (AIUI) is that life "expectancy" was shorter in ancient times--but that is an average warped by there being so many childhood deaths. If you made it past childhood in ancient times, your life span was not all that much different from our current day.
Back in 1994 a study looked at every man entered into the Oxford Classical Dictionary who lived in ancient Greece or Rome. Their ages of death were compared to men listed in the more recent Chambers Biographical Dictionary.
Of 397 ancients in total, 99 died violently by murder, suicide or in battle. Of the remaining 298, those born before 100BC lived to a median age of 72 years. Those born after 100BC lived to a median age of 66. (The authors speculate that the prevalence of dangerous lead plumbing may have led to this apparent shortening of life).
The median of those who died between 1850 and 1949? Seventy-one years old – just one year less than their pre-100BC cohort.
@Nick, your quote of the psalm says one can live into their 70s, even 80s, IF they are strong.
No, that verse, at least according to every English translation I’ve looked at presents 70 as a norm, with 80 being the age some might live to if they’re strong. Granted, the comma in the NRSV is ambiguous. But I note that the 1985 Jewish Publication Society translation has:
“The span of our life is seventy years,
or, given the strength, eighty years . . . .”
And of course not everyone, even every strong person, would live that long. The verse simply reflects the psalmist’s understanding of what was common.
I'm not saying it's simple as saying, 'Well, the Orthodox hymnody has Simeon as an 'Elder' so that settles it,' but I'm perfectly prepared to accept he was an older guy. That doesn't mean he was ancient necessarily as some very conservative Orthodox seem to believe.
Orthodox hymnody also has him as a "Priest". I do not know where that has come from.
Gamma Gamaliel: I am okay with your not being okay with my, and my faith community's, approach to scripture.
Possibly this thread is of "academic interest only". Or maybe it has opened up some lines of thought about eisegesis, the way we read literature, our perceptions about the authority of scripture and tradition, erasure of vulnerable people, and pastoral and homiletical care of men with terminal illness.
Meanwhile, I refer the honourable shipmates to this comment of mine:
Almost everyone who has attempted to convince me that Simeon was an older man has been... an older man!
Perhaps that might generate reflection instead of reaction.
Eh?
As far as I can remember, back when I was an earnest young card-carrying charismatic evangelical I thought of Simeon as an older bloke. If you'd have asked me at the time why I took that view I'd have probably answered, 'Because it's implicit in the text. "Lord now lettest Thy servant depart in peace ...'
I was in my 20s back then. My answer now wouldn't be that different. I think it's implicit in the text - if we wanted to take an apparently sola scriptura approach. I say 'apparently' because I don't think a strictly sola scriptura approach actually exists but that's another thread topic probably.
Assuming that Simeon was at least a man of some maturity - not necessarily ancient - has got nothing to do with the fact that I'm now in my 60s.
'I'm a grumpy old git or a privileged white middle-class middle-aged male so I'll imagine Simeon in my own image ...'
I could understand the call for reflection if I was actually arguing for the 'erasure of vulnerable people.' How do we know that Simeon wasn't vulnerable in some way? Anna the Prophetess as a long-standing widow may very well have been. Widows and orphans were in a very vulnerable position back then.
The assumption that Simeon was elderly or at least of mature years appears to be based on scripture and tradition / Tradition. I can't see that it matters tremendously how old he was. The passage is about the fulfilment of Messianic expectation not whether Simeon was elderly, middle-aged or in the full flush of youth.
I'm more than happy to engage in debate about eisegesis, scriptural authority, the erasure or marginalisation of vulnerable groups or the pastoral and homiletical care of men (or women) with terminal illness.
But I don't really see how we can draw out a great deal about marginalisation or pastoral care for the terminally ill from this particular passage in isolation.
I'm not saying it's simple as saying, 'Well, the Orthodox hymnody has Simeon as an 'Elder' so that settles it,' but I'm perfectly prepared to accept he was an older guy. That doesn't mean he was ancient necessarily as some very conservative Orthodox seem to believe.
Orthodox hymnody also has him as a "Priest". I do not know where that has come from.
Really?
It's in the Tradition so it must be right. 😉
After following this thread the expression rather jumped out at me when I heard our choir singing Vespers on Thursday evening.
Interesting. In our parish, we only have Vespers on a Saturday evening and although I read the scriptures associated with the Presentation of Christ in the Temple - usually referred to as The Meeting of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in Orthodox circles of course - I'm unfamiliar with the hymnody.
I'm now wondering to what extent our understanding of the story would be shaped or altered by Simeon having a priestly role. Does it make any more difference than if we imagine him to have been 27, 33, 46, 60 or 90 years old or 600 years old or whatever else?
I'd venture it has more significance than his actual age.
It could certainly be challenged on the grounds of 'arguing from the silence of scripture' or it could be seen as a reasonable inference.
At the time of Jesus, a infant was not considered a full person until the age of two. I think that was because of the high infant death rate.
By the Romans. I don’t think the Jews took that approach.
Well, there is the story of Herod the Great killing all the baby boys under the age of two in Bethlehem after he realized the Wise Men from the East by passed him after seeing the baby Jesus. He likely thought he could get away with it since those babies had not reached the age of personhood. Now, was he following Roman law, or was it the custom of even the Jews at the time?
BTW, it would be a mistake to think this was the murder of hundreds of babies. Bethlehem was a small village, so likely it was the killing of just a handful of toddlers. Josephus wrote extensively about Herod the Great, but he does not mention the massacre of the baby boys leading many Biblical scholars to argue if it ever happened. My thought, if it were only a handful of boys, Josephus did not think it significant enough to mention.
@Nick, your quote of the psalm says one can live into their 70s, even 80s, IF they are strong.
No, that verse, at least according to every English translation I’ve looked at presents 70 as a norm, with 80 being the age some might live to if they’re strong. Granted, the comma in the NRSV is ambiguous. But I note that the 1985 Jewish Publication Society translation has:
“The span of our life is seventy years,
or, given the strength, eighty years . . . .”
And of course not everyone, even every strong person, would live that long. The verse simply reflects the psalmist’s understanding of what was common.
If forty year olds in that time were physically similar to eighty year olds and sociologically similar then our intuition can be mapped across, (I think that's probably the case for eighty and seventy, but not eighty and forty).
If they used the word old differently(or in this case we're using it on their behalf) then we need to be aware of it.
Simeon does get to the temple from Jerusalem (with no mention of help), which does suggest some mobility. Although it's also a special trip.
At the time of Jesus, a infant was not considered a full person until the age of two. I think that was because of the high infant death rate.
By the Romans. I don’t think the Jews took that approach.
Well, there is the story of Herod the Great killing all the baby boys under the age of two in Bethlehem after he realized the Wise Men from the East by passed him after seeing the baby Jesus. He likely thought he could get away with it since those babies had not reached the age of personhood. Now, was he following Roman law, or was it the custom of even the Jews at the time?
Can you find any example anywhere to indicate that it was a custom of Jews at the time, or at any time? You made the claim, so it’s on you to back it up.
Given the Exodus story—which Matthew, who wants to show Jesus as the new Moses, is clearly echoing—I’d be very surprised if Jews in the days of Jesus thought killing babies was in any way acceptable. I’d say Herod likely thought he could get away with it because he was king, and Rome, given the legal status of infants under Roman law, wouldn’t second-guess him.
Indeed. Sorry @Gramps. You are out-voted on this one ...
I believe in conciliarity. 😉
Meanwhile, back to Simeon.
Ok. So the scriptures don't mention bath-chairs, zimmer frames or walking sticks.
I still fail to see what difference it makes if we are to envisage Simeon as ancient and venerable or mature but not elderly or younger than he is generally portrayed.
What's the big deal?
Why is it so important what age he was?
Ok. So the scriptures don't mention bath-chairs, zimmer frames or walking sticks.
I still fail to see what difference it makes if we are to envisage Simeon as ancient and venerable or mature but not elderly or younger than he is generally portrayed.
I’m not sure it’s important per se. But I think the OP was aimed at something particular: Do we read the text through a lens the text doesn’t actually contain? (This is Kerygmania, after all.) That is to say, do we start with an assumption that Simeon was old even though the text doesn’t explicitly say he was old? And if we do start with that assumption, might we miss what Luke was actually trying to convey, or some nuance the story might provide?
My short answer would be that all of us read these texts through a lens - or series of lenses.
How can it be otherwise?
As well as the lenses of our sociological and cultural backgrounds we have the lenses of whatever Christian affiliation or tradition we come from - if we are Christians of course. People of other faiths and none will have different lenses.
I read the scriptures through the lenses worn by a white middle-class, university educated middle-aged Anglophone male with a nominally Anglican background to kick off with subsequently filtered through evangelical Protestant and more recently, Orthodox influences.
If I was Jewish I'd have a different set of varifocals, if Muslim another, if Hindu, atheist or agnostic a different set again.
That's not to devalue, debase or relativise the text beyond any possibility of meaning or value.
Far from it.
But it is to say that we can't peel away 2000 years of Christian tradition as if we can somehow approach the scriptures as though for the first time.
Or that we can adopt a strictly naked 'sola scriptura' position.
Reformed folk often say of 'sola fide' that the 'faith that saves is never alone.'
Any apparent 'sola scriptura' position must accept that the scriptures are 'never alone' either - and to be fair, more nuanced applications of this Reformed / reformed watch-word/catch-phrase/trope do of course acknowledge as much.
FWIW, when it comes to the example of Simeon's age I'm afraid it's one of these Gamalielesque both/and things. I see it as scripture and tradition. Not one without the other.
We can deduce or assume that Simeon was a relatively older guy - 'Lord, now lettest Thy servant depart in peace ...' from the text.
Tradition, informed by scripture, claims that he was an older fella.
Both/and
To my mind that doesn't mean we have to accept early Christian 'midrashes' that he was a translator of the Septuagint and unfeasibly and miraculously old.
But it does suggest, that on the balance of probability, on the grounds of scripture and Tradition- and Holy Scripture is part of Holy Tradition and not divorced from it - he was an older fella.
Scripture is not divorced from small t tradition either, I hasten to add. They are all interlinked.
We could, of course, argue that Simeon may not have existed and that's he's purely a literary invention concocted by the Gospel writers to give weight and credence to Messianic claims.
In which case his age is purely an incidental part of the narrative.
Or we could argue that there may very well have been a priest or Temple official called Simeon who may have 'received' the infant Jesus of Nazareth according to custom. Then the Messianic stuff was redacted in by those with a vested interest in promoting Jesus as the Christ.
There's all sorts of positions we could adopt.
It all depends on which set of lenses we are wearing.
My short answer would be that all of us read these texts through a lens - or series of lenses.
How can it be otherwise?
Of course. The OP is simply asking if a lens commonly used with this particular passage is faulty, and what might we see if we traded it for a different lens?
And again, this thread is in Kerygmania, where the focus is on what the text says. It’s not automatically a sola scriptura issue to focus on the text. It’s just asking “what does the text itself say and what does it not say?” Scripture vs Tradition is irrelevant to that question.
It's not irrelevant if you work with a model of Scripture within Tradition ... 😉
Sure I get the OP and hope I haven't rankled @Leaf too much for getting into Scripture vs Tradition (which some Orthodox and RCs I'm sure would say is an oxymoron as you can't have one without the other).
I'm not being awkward or Awkwardox for the sake of it.
I s'pose what I'm trying to say is that in this instance - Simeon's age - I can't see it making a great deal of difference if the lens commonly used with this passage is faulty. I can't see what a blind bit of difference it makes- ha ha see what I did there and apologies ...
If Simeon was 25 rather than 45 or 55 or 505 what possible difference does it make to the understanding of the text?
I could understand it if someone was insisting that Simeon was 600 years old and was one of the translators of the Septuagint as some early traditions have it.
As it is, if we were to 'isolate' Scripture, as far as that is even possible, we have what to my mind is the not unreasonable inference that Simeon was a man of mature years. 'Lord now lettest Thy servant...'
I don't see any indication within the passage itself to suggest that he was anything other than a mature bloke.
What I do see are posters who claim to be 'sola scriptura' in their approach embarking on all manner of speculations that don't appear to be supported in any way by the text itself.
That's what Big T Tradition types are often accused of doing.
Can you not see the irony of this?
It's the Protestants here who ate indulging in extra-biblical speculation.
I’m confused. Is there anyone here but me who claims a sola scriptura approach (which isn’t in fact a way of saying “We won’t look at anything but the text, such as culture etc”—that’s a mistaken idea of what sola scripture means)? Because while that stance is home to me, I haven’t in fact invoked it. And I’m not coming up with anyone else here who has. Have you maybe picked up a straw man to fight by mistake? Or am i missing something?
Oh, and being Protestant is not the same thing as holding to sola scriptura. Quite a few do not. Maybe even most.
It's not irrelevant if you work with a model of Scripture within Tradition ... 😉
It’s irrelevant if the question asked is “what does the text itself say?” That can be answered without looking at Tradition. “How does the Tradition interpret the text?” is a different question, as is a question like “What does what we know about the culture in which the text was written inform how we read the text?”
What I do see are posters who claim to be 'sola scriptura' in their approach embarking on all manner of speculations that don't appear to be supported in any way by the text itself.
The only shipmate I’m aware of who’s mentioned sola scriptura—other than you, and in response to you me, and now @Lamb Chopped —is @leaf, a Lutheran, who said:
I live in a sola scriptura understanding of authority. While I'm interested in and respect Tradition - on a spectrum from "possibly true and helpful" to "wtf is that, nope" - I do not consider myself bound by it. That narrows what I am willing to consider as evidence in support of one interpretation or another.
I don’t recall Leaf “embarking on all manner of speculations.” And please note the “while I’m interested in and respect Tradition” that she included.
What I’m trying to say, GG, is that it gets rather tiring and predictable to see every thread of this kind move into another discourse on sola scriptura. Those of us from traditions with a sola scriptura understanding—i.e., Lutherans and Reformed (at least those of us on the Ship I can think of)—understand the concept, including its intent, its historical context, its nuances, and its limitations, better than you seem to give us credit for. We also understand where the Orthodox and Catholic traditions are coming from better than you seem to give us credit for.
As Leaf said, we’re okay with you’re not being okay with our, and our faith communities’, approach to scripture. Really, we are. We don’t need to rehash it all again and again and again.
Thanks for reminding me of Leaf. And yes, the sola Scriptura bashing on the Ship does get old after a while. It’s what caught my attention this time, in fact.
Apologies. I'm caught up in a variety of household and family things, including a funeral involving car travel today. I'll look forward to engaging soon.
I don't think I've ever done any 'sola scriptura bashing' aboard Ship before now - if that's really what I'm doing. If my memory fails me there then I stand to be corrected.
FWIW the Reformed and small r reformed and other Protestant positions are positions I respect even though I see things differently.
Shipmates may remember my starting a thread on Lutheranism in order to learn more about it. I don't recollect arguing with anyone there. If anything I sat back and listened to what Lutherans had to say.
I do argue points hyperbolically at times in order to stretch a point until the tension kicks in and the elastic band pulls me back.
I'm struggling to express what I'm trying to say here, hence my getting myself into hot water.
My frustration derives from there being an apparently 'sola scriptura' approach to this particular text that hasn't come up with anything substantially different to how it has generally been understood across Christendom as a whole.
The fact is, I'm really struggling to see what purpose it serves to question what we might get out of the story of Simeon if we change the lens. I'm not saying we shouldn't challenge or question assumptions but in this particular instance I really don't see any mileage in doing so.
Ok, I overstated my case on the accusation about 'speculation' but I honestly can't see any contributions here that have caused me to revise or modify my approach to this particular incident in the Gospels in any substantive way.
All we've had is whether people in their 40s in antiquity were equivalent to people in their 80s today. Or similar.
Nobody's come up with an 'alternative' reading as it were. Nobody's come up with anything that's made me want to dive back into the text to examine it with fresh eyes. 'Gracious me! Now why hadn't I seen that before?'
I don't think I'm stupid. I'd like to think I'm not closed minded. But I really can't see what I'm supposed to be missing.
If we are going to consider eisegesis or to question received wisdom on the interpretation of biblical texts then by all means let' do so. But let's do it with a passage where they might be something to be gained or some value in doing so.
Nobody's yet explained to me what difference it would make if Simeon was younger than he's generally taken to have been.
When I took Biblical scholarship classes even at a conservative Lutheran Seminary I was always taught to look at the history of traditional understandings of Biblical passages. When I studied at a seminary that practiced historical critical methods, I was also taught to look at how a passage was understood through history.
This is not exactly what @Gamma Gamaliel is saying, I know; but the point is there is a place for tradition in Biblical interpretation.
To the argument I was trying to make about the reasoning behind Herod's murder of the babies under two, I am rather limited in resources now since I have given away many of my theological books (I sent them to a seminary in Africa). I did come across a current link that might answer some of my points, but am temporarily limited from reading it. I will post it in hopes some of you can access it. https://www.timesofisrael.com/theres-more-than-one-jewish-view-to-answer-the-question-of-when-life-begins/
My frustration derives from there being an apparently 'sola scriptura' approach to this particular text that hasn't come up with anything substantially different to how it has generally been understood across Christendom as a whole.
Aside from Leaf’s observation that coming from a sola scriptura understanding, Tradition doesn’t carry the same weight it does in Orthodoxy, I don’t think anyone has employed a “sola scriptura approach.” That seems to me to be something you’re reading into the conversation.
The fact is, I'm really struggling to see what purpose it serves to question what we might get out of the story of Simeon if we change the lens. I'm not saying we shouldn't challenge or question assumptions but in this particular instance I really don't see any mileage in doing so.
And that’s perfectly fine. No worries at all.
But just because you don’t see mileage in the question or the conversation doesn’t mean no one else can.
I <snip>My frustration derives from there being an apparently 'sola scriptura' approach to this particular text that hasn't come up with anything substantially different to how it has generally been understood across Christendom as a whole.
<snip>
It shouldn’t be a surprise that a scriptural Ku focussed approach substantially agrees with what wider tradition has to say. After all scripture is part of that broader tradition. Tradition as received by contemporary Churches doesn’t tend, AFAICT, to contradict scripture, but rather to amplify or embellish it. Any contradiction appears usually to be indirect, by implication.
The traditional parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Anne and Joachim, don’t in any sense contradict scripture. It is nowhere suggested that she didn’t have parents. They do, however, add to the record of scripture. Likewise the Assumption or the Dormition of Mary.
OTOH there are some exceptions. The Immaculate Conception and the doctrine of Mary’s freedom from personal sin seem to parts of the Church to be contrary to what scripture has to say about the common lot of humankind and about the uniqueness of Christ.
And the perpetual virginity of Mary seems to stand in direct contradiction to biblical references to the brothers of Jesus.
Yeah, I get all that @BroJames and would have made the same observations and arguments in my Protestant days of course. And yes, I'd be lying if I said I didn't struggle with some elements of Holy Tradition as understood by the Orthodox - and certainly some Big T Roman Catholic Tradition too such as some of the examples uiu cite.
That wasn't my point though.
My point was that I can understand how or why people might wish to challenge received traditions / Tradition when they cross over into disputed territory and where there are disagreements between Christians. The Perpetual Virginity of Mary, for instance or whether Christ's apparent siblings were blood relatives or cousins or children from Joseph's previous marriage and so on and so forth.
I get all that.
What I don't get is the need to question, challenge or review something like the age of Simeon when very little seems to hang upon it.
Not because I think that it's profane to question or challenge received interpretations but because in this particular instance there doesn't seem to be a great deal of point. What possible difference does it make?
Upthread @Leaf said something about older men's health care and wellbeing - I'm paraphrasing from memory. I'm struggling to see any relevance or bearing on that particular issue from this passage.
That's what triggered my knee-jerk response about sola scriptura abd so on - because I can find no relevance or application to that issue within the text itself.
I wasn't trying to inita debate about Mariology or extra-biblical hagiography and so on - those issues have been addressed elsewhere and no doubt will be again.
No, rather I found it ironic that some of the Protestant posters here who come from traditions that rightly pride themselves on biblical exegesis appeared to looking for meanings and applications that don't appear to me to be warranted within the text itself.
That may sound contradictory coming from someone operating within a Big T Tradition but heck, I'm with the Antiochian Orthodox and traditionally we've always gone for the 'plain meaning' of scripture and not allegorical interpretations.
I have expressed myself clumsily and been a bit mischievous at times but I have made it clear that I accept that a 'sola scriptura' position is more nuanced than its opponents often suggest.
Sure, I get what @Nick Tamen says that just because I don't see the need to interrogate the story of Simeon in this way doesn't mean that other people shouldn't. Granted.
But so far I've seen diddly-squat that expands my understanding of the text. All we've had is fruitless speculation. I'm not being rude but I'm still waiting for someone to show me otherwise.
Comments
Which Isaiah?
On second thoughts perhaps we shouldn't go there.
One could argue that Anna is explicitly mentioned as old as otherwise there's nothing to hint at it, whereas the whole "you'll not die before you see the Messiah" thing sounds like the thing said to an old man wondering whether he'll ever see what he's been waiting for. Especially when Simeon's response is "I can die a happy man now".
Rimshot!
I don't read the "sounds like the thing said to an old man" as given at all. Children get prophetic messages, even terrible ones - cf Samuel, whom we just heard about in the RCL. Young men get news of their impending death. Granted, older men are likelier to receive such a message than younger men, but I don't see why that ought to be assumed.
I think you're on to something about the way we read literature, and what we can infer from our own cultural understandings... and try to guess at the way they might have been heard and understood by earlier audiences of the New Testament.
"A man and a woman were in the Temple, and the woman was very old." Her age was noteworthy; his was not. I would read, by the omission of this detail, "he was not as old as she". Perhaps a New Testament audience might understand, "and therefore he must have been old too" but that's not how I read omission of a detail.
I don't read Simeon's response as a paraphrase of "I can die a happy man now." He recognizes that he is being let go in peace (using a classic formula of manumission of a slave, IIRC) and that he has seen salvation. The New Testament is not as interested in describing interior emotional states as our current culture is. How did he feel about it? We don't know, but I would guess at a complicated mix of emotions.
To bring in a possible Epiphanic note: almost everyone who has attempted to convince me that Simeon was an older man has been... an older man! I wonder if there's some sort of sensitivity to what might feel like erasure?
I live in a sola scriptura understanding of authority. While I'm interested in and respect Tradition - on a spectrum from "possibly true and helpful" to "wtf is that, nope" - I do not consider myself bound by it. That narrows what I am willing to consider as evidence in support of one interpretation or another.
Having said that, I don’t feel bound by either. I don't see how anything can be incapable of being wrong.
From Sunday, I connected that it takes place outside the men's court (Mary is there, obviously.).
Also that Simeon comes from the city, rather than being a temple lurker.
I do wonder if there's a (even if unconvincing) case for him not being Jewish, and them going in deeper to meet Anna?
Nah. Sola scriptura is no more sustainable than any of the other 'solas'.
As @KarlLB observes, the canon of scripture (however defined, it varies across Christendom as a whole) is itself a tradition.
From an Orthodox perspective, scripture is part of Tradition.
We can, of course, fall into a kind of 'Church Fundamentalism' or 'Tradition Fundamentalism', a 'Patristic Fundamentalism' say, as well as forms of biblical fundamentalism.
I get that 'sola scriptura' can be more nuanced than it's often portrayed but I don't see how we can receive or understand scripture outside of a small t or Big T Tradition of some kind. The two are inextricably linked. 'The Church through the Bible and the Bible through the Church' as someone has expressed it.
Annoyingly, it's one of these both/and not either/or things I like to tout around.
If we say, 'That's all very well and good but we must allow scripture to have the last say on the matter' then we somehow have to all agree what the scriptures do have to say on any particular matter.
Two thousand years of church history and millenia of Jewish 'midrashes' and debates show that this is easier said than done.
I'm not saying it's simple as saying, 'Well, the Orthodox hymnody has Simeon as an 'Elder' so that settles it,' but I'm perfectly prepared to accept he was an older guy. That doesn't mean he was ancient necessarily as some very conservative Orthodox seem to believe.
Ultimately, it's of academic interest only. Which of us is going to become more holy or Christ-like by believing that Simeon was 20, 40, 60, 80 or 600 years old?
Possibly this thread is of "academic interest only". Or maybe it has opened up some lines of thought about eisegesis, the way we read literature, our perceptions about the authority of scripture and tradition, erasure of vulnerable people, and pastoral and homiletical care of men with terminal illness.
Meanwhile, I refer the honourable shipmates to this comment of mine:
Perhaps that might generate reflection instead of reaction.
What intrigued me here was that most of the time we can figure out why certain traditions or apocryphal beliefs or popular legends derived some detail from an early [mis]translation or implied content in the text. Tradition and text work together in tandem much of the time. But Simeon's age is always presented in images or commentaries as elderly and I had never thought about this before. So much is inferred from Anna, his 'companion,' being elderly.
It has also occurred to me that the concept of age has been differently understood at various historical junctures. Life expectancy in the first century would have averaged about 35 years. A woman in her 40s with grandchildren, or a man in his 40s could be seen as elderly, especially if they had suffered hair or tooth loss, or had severe arthritis or mobility problems.
If Anna was so much older than Simeon, would we read some kind of seniority into her role in the narrative? Is it important to see a man who is wise, righteous and devout as being older or at least mature in years? Suppose Simeon was 27 years old, not a boy but a young man who had impressed others with his prophetic vision since his teens. We've been reading accounts of the young Samuel's calling in the OT readings for the Mass this past month and I kept seeing Simeon as another youth called and set apart because he foresees the coming of the Messiah.
There are also findings to do with epidemiology and sea ports, the diseases carried back and forth across the Mediterranean -- the Romans were probably responsible for high rates of venereal disease affecting fertility and women's health, especially among slave women, but they would also have suffered from recurring bouts of malaria contracted on their travels or back home, so that some researchers see the centurion's daughter as falling into a malarial coma. Although the climate of the Levant was healthier than many other places (thinking again about Rome as a malarial swamp), the quality of life was not good: the high incidence of blindness, once thought to be due to cataracts, is now viewed as relating to genetic markers for diabetic retinopathy as well as trachoma. The killers though would have been the bacterial diseases like leprosy and tuberculosis, so that many of the 'beggars' mentioned in gospel texts might have been disabled and indigent through tubercular bone diseases or leprosy. This is of course only a contemporary scientific medicalised approach and not the 'cleanliness/purity' understanding or the influence of 'sin' as understood at the time and found in biblical texts.
For those interested -- and I'm hoping a post on ageing, illness and longevity isn't out of place here -- paleo-DNA studies from Middle Eastern university departments are changing a number of earlier theories on the historical geographical distribution of these diseases and the archaeological exploration of disease in antiquity.
Knowing how life experiences can cause what we now consider to be premature aging, and that lives were generally hard by modern standards in former times, I don't doubt that 40 was the new 50, to adapt a phrase. But I don’t think the idea that 40 year olds were considered old stands up. Bear in mind also that childbirth took many women prematurely.
So yes, people, even if they made it to adulthood, were shorter lived, but not as much so as the average life expectancy as a raw figure would indicate.
That is a useful distinction. The difficulty as I understand it is that many of those in their 30s and 40s would have been in poor health (one reason I thought about Simeon being someone with a significant disability). I'm not sure that chronological age was so closely related to perceptions of immaturity though, that is another kind of argument. I would expect reverence for age and wisdom but not as a fixed or rigid attitude excluding younger men.
@KarlLB it's possible fewer women died in childbirth in stable communities where you would expect to find experienced midwives. Dangerous situations would include a young woman giving birth in an unknown place, stressed and exhausted from travel. The toll of giving birth year after year for decades would lead to many deaths. Widows who lost husbands when young and who inherited enough to maintain their own households and who were freed from the need to remarry and go on having children were likely to live much longer. I don't know enough about infant mortality in this context to think of any reason it should be been unusually high other than the vulnerability of newborn children in a hot climate with too many infectious illness around. Malnutrition would not have been a major issue, nor dirty drinking water.
Orthodox hymnody also has him as a "Priest". I do not know where that has come from.
After all, the psalmist wrote: “The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong . . . .” (Ps. 90:10, NRSV)
That would be my point. We expect to live into old age now; in previous ages this was the exception rather than the rule, but that does mean that people were old in the 40s.
But that doesn’t translate, I don’t think, to 40 having been considered “old” then. It translates to more people not growing old then than is the case now.
@Nick, your quote of the psalm says one can live into their 70s, even 80s, IF they are strong. But, we know it is more than that. Take the last pandemic. We can all think of many strong people whose lives were cut short. Yet, I am one of those who would not be considered strong in any way, and I have yet to catch that little bug in spite of all its variations.
Note to Lamb Chopped. Where do the religious leaders sneer at Jesus for not being 50? Give me a verse. The one time when the religious elders comment about Jesus' age was when he made a pilgrimage with his parents to the temple as a young adolescent and they were amazed at his knowledge.
They sneer at him for claiming to be something more than a man.
John 8:57. Though no doubt we will have different opinions of why they latched on to to that particular number.
No, that verse, at least according to every English translation I’ve looked at presents 70 as a norm, with 80 being the age some might live to if they’re strong. Granted, the comma in the NRSV is ambiguous. But I note that the 1985 Jewish Publication Society translation has:
“The span of our life is seventy years,
or, given the strength, eighty years . . . .”
And of course not everyone, even every strong person, would live that long. The verse simply reflects the psalmist’s understanding of what was common.
Really?
It's in the Tradition so it must be right. 😉
Eh?
As far as I can remember, back when I was an earnest young card-carrying charismatic evangelical I thought of Simeon as an older bloke. If you'd have asked me at the time why I took that view I'd have probably answered, 'Because it's implicit in the text. "Lord now lettest Thy servant depart in peace ...'
I was in my 20s back then. My answer now wouldn't be that different. I think it's implicit in the text - if we wanted to take an apparently sola scriptura approach. I say 'apparently' because I don't think a strictly sola scriptura approach actually exists but that's another thread topic probably.
Assuming that Simeon was at least a man of some maturity - not necessarily ancient - has got nothing to do with the fact that I'm now in my 60s.
'I'm a grumpy old git or a privileged white middle-class middle-aged male so I'll imagine Simeon in my own image ...'
I could understand the call for reflection if I was actually arguing for the 'erasure of vulnerable people.' How do we know that Simeon wasn't vulnerable in some way? Anna the Prophetess as a long-standing widow may very well have been. Widows and orphans were in a very vulnerable position back then.
The assumption that Simeon was elderly or at least of mature years appears to be based on scripture and tradition / Tradition. I can't see that it matters tremendously how old he was. The passage is about the fulfilment of Messianic expectation not whether Simeon was elderly, middle-aged or in the full flush of youth.
I'm more than happy to engage in debate about eisegesis, scriptural authority, the erasure or marginalisation of vulnerable groups or the pastoral and homiletical care of men (or women) with terminal illness.
But I don't really see how we can draw out a great deal about marginalisation or pastoral care for the terminally ill from this particular passage in isolation.
After following this thread the expression rather jumped out at me when I heard our choir singing Vespers on Thursday evening.
I'm now wondering to what extent our understanding of the story would be shaped or altered by Simeon having a priestly role. Does it make any more difference than if we imagine him to have been 27, 33, 46, 60 or 90 years old or 600 years old or whatever else?
I'd venture it has more significance than his actual age.
It could certainly be challenged on the grounds of 'arguing from the silence of scripture' or it could be seen as a reasonable inference.
You pays your money, you makes your choice. 😉
Well, there is the story of Herod the Great killing all the baby boys under the age of two in Bethlehem after he realized the Wise Men from the East by passed him after seeing the baby Jesus. He likely thought he could get away with it since those babies had not reached the age of personhood. Now, was he following Roman law, or was it the custom of even the Jews at the time?
BTW, it would be a mistake to think this was the murder of hundreds of babies. Bethlehem was a small village, so likely it was the killing of just a handful of toddlers. Josephus wrote extensively about Herod the Great, but he does not mention the massacre of the baby boys leading many Biblical scholars to argue if it ever happened. My thought, if it were only a handful of boys, Josephus did not think it significant enough to mention.
If forty year olds in that time were physically similar to eighty year olds and sociologically similar then our intuition can be mapped across, (I think that's probably the case for eighty and seventy, but not eighty and forty).
If they used the word old differently(or in this case we're using it on their behalf) then we need to be aware of it.
Simeon does get to the temple from Jerusalem (with no mention of help), which does suggest some mobility. Although it's also a special trip.
Given the Exodus story—which Matthew, who wants to show Jesus as the new Moses, is clearly echoing—I’d be very surprised if Jews in the days of Jesus thought killing babies was in any way acceptable. I’d say Herod likely thought he could get away with it because he was king, and Rome, given the legal status of infants under Roman law, wouldn’t second-guess him.
I believe in conciliarity. 😉
Meanwhile, back to Simeon.
Ok. So the scriptures don't mention bath-chairs, zimmer frames or walking sticks.
I still fail to see what difference it makes if we are to envisage Simeon as ancient and venerable or mature but not elderly or younger than he is generally portrayed.
What's the big deal?
Why is it so important what age he was?
My short answer would be that all of us read these texts through a lens - or series of lenses.
How can it be otherwise?
As well as the lenses of our sociological and cultural backgrounds we have the lenses of whatever Christian affiliation or tradition we come from - if we are Christians of course. People of other faiths and none will have different lenses.
I read the scriptures through the lenses worn by a white middle-class, university educated middle-aged Anglophone male with a nominally Anglican background to kick off with subsequently filtered through evangelical Protestant and more recently, Orthodox influences.
If I was Jewish I'd have a different set of varifocals, if Muslim another, if Hindu, atheist or agnostic a different set again.
That's not to devalue, debase or relativise the text beyond any possibility of meaning or value.
Far from it.
But it is to say that we can't peel away 2000 years of Christian tradition as if we can somehow approach the scriptures as though for the first time.
Or that we can adopt a strictly naked 'sola scriptura' position.
Reformed folk often say of 'sola fide' that the 'faith that saves is never alone.'
Any apparent 'sola scriptura' position must accept that the scriptures are 'never alone' either - and to be fair, more nuanced applications of this Reformed / reformed watch-word/catch-phrase/trope do of course acknowledge as much.
FWIW, when it comes to the example of Simeon's age I'm afraid it's one of these Gamalielesque both/and things. I see it as scripture and tradition. Not one without the other.
We can deduce or assume that Simeon was a relatively older guy - 'Lord, now lettest Thy servant depart in peace ...' from the text.
Tradition, informed by scripture, claims that he was an older fella.
Both/and
To my mind that doesn't mean we have to accept early Christian 'midrashes' that he was a translator of the Septuagint and unfeasibly and miraculously old.
But it does suggest, that on the balance of probability, on the grounds of scripture and Tradition- and Holy Scripture is part of Holy Tradition and not divorced from it - he was an older fella.
Scripture is not divorced from small t tradition either, I hasten to add. They are all interlinked.
We could, of course, argue that Simeon may not have existed and that's he's purely a literary invention concocted by the Gospel writers to give weight and credence to Messianic claims.
In which case his age is purely an incidental part of the narrative.
Or we could argue that there may very well have been a priest or Temple official called Simeon who may have 'received' the infant Jesus of Nazareth according to custom. Then the Messianic stuff was redacted in by those with a vested interest in promoting Jesus as the Christ.
There's all sorts of positions we could adopt.
It all depends on which set of lenses we are wearing.
I'm going for the bifocals.
And again, this thread is in Kerygmania, where the focus is on what the text says. It’s not automatically a sola scriptura issue to focus on the text. It’s just asking “what does the text itself say and what does it not say?” Scripture vs Tradition is irrelevant to that question.
Sure I get the OP and hope I haven't rankled @Leaf too much for getting into Scripture vs Tradition (which some Orthodox and RCs I'm sure would say is an oxymoron as you can't have one without the other).
I'm not being awkward or Awkwardox for the sake of it.
I s'pose what I'm trying to say is that in this instance - Simeon's age - I can't see it making a great deal of difference if the lens commonly used with this passage is faulty. I can't see what a blind bit of difference it makes- ha ha see what I did there and apologies ...
If Simeon was 25 rather than 45 or 55 or 505 what possible difference does it make to the understanding of the text?
I could understand it if someone was insisting that Simeon was 600 years old and was one of the translators of the Septuagint as some early traditions have it.
As it is, if we were to 'isolate' Scripture, as far as that is even possible, we have what to my mind is the not unreasonable inference that Simeon was a man of mature years. 'Lord now lettest Thy servant...'
I don't see any indication within the passage itself to suggest that he was anything other than a mature bloke.
What I do see are posters who claim to be 'sola scriptura' in their approach embarking on all manner of speculations that don't appear to be supported in any way by the text itself.
That's what Big T Tradition types are often accused of doing.
Can you not see the irony of this?
It's the Protestants here who ate indulging in extra-biblical speculation.
Oh, and being Protestant is not the same thing as holding to sola scriptura. Quite a few do not. Maybe even most.
The only shipmate I’m aware of who’s mentioned sola scriptura—other than you, and in response to you me, and now @Lamb Chopped —is @leaf, a Lutheran, who said: I don’t recall Leaf “embarking on all manner of speculations.” And please note the “while I’m interested in and respect Tradition” that she included.
What I’m trying to say, GG, is that it gets rather tiring and predictable to see every thread of this kind move into another discourse on sola scriptura. Those of us from traditions with a sola scriptura understanding—i.e., Lutherans and Reformed (at least those of us on the Ship I can think of)—understand the concept, including its intent, its historical context, its nuances, and its limitations, better than you seem to give us credit for. We also understand where the Orthodox and Catholic traditions are coming from better than you seem to give us credit for.
As Leaf said, we’re okay with you’re not being okay with our, and our faith communities’, approach to scripture. Really, we are. We don’t need to rehash it all again and again and again.
FWIW the Reformed and small r reformed and other Protestant positions are positions I respect even though I see things differently.
Shipmates may remember my starting a thread on Lutheranism in order to learn more about it. I don't recollect arguing with anyone there. If anything I sat back and listened to what Lutherans had to say.
I do argue points hyperbolically at times in order to stretch a point until the tension kicks in and the elastic band pulls me back.
I'm struggling to express what I'm trying to say here, hence my getting myself into hot water.
My frustration derives from there being an apparently 'sola scriptura' approach to this particular text that hasn't come up with anything substantially different to how it has generally been understood across Christendom as a whole.
The fact is, I'm really struggling to see what purpose it serves to question what we might get out of the story of Simeon if we change the lens. I'm not saying we shouldn't challenge or question assumptions but in this particular instance I really don't see any mileage in doing so.
Ok, I overstated my case on the accusation about 'speculation' but I honestly can't see any contributions here that have caused me to revise or modify my approach to this particular incident in the Gospels in any substantive way.
All we've had is whether people in their 40s in antiquity were equivalent to people in their 80s today. Or similar.
Nobody's come up with an 'alternative' reading as it were. Nobody's come up with anything that's made me want to dive back into the text to examine it with fresh eyes. 'Gracious me! Now why hadn't I seen that before?'
I don't think I'm stupid. I'd like to think I'm not closed minded. But I really can't see what I'm supposed to be missing.
If we are going to consider eisegesis or to question received wisdom on the interpretation of biblical texts then by all means let' do so. But let's do it with a passage where they might be something to be gained or some value in doing so.
Nobody's yet explained to me what difference it would make if Simeon was younger than he's generally taken to have been.
Could someone please explain.
This is not exactly what @Gamma Gamaliel is saying, I know; but the point is there is a place for tradition in Biblical interpretation.
To the argument I was trying to make about the reasoning behind Herod's murder of the babies under two, I am rather limited in resources now since I have given away many of my theological books (I sent them to a seminary in Africa). I did come across a current link that might answer some of my points, but am temporarily limited from reading it. I will post it in hopes some of you can access it. https://www.timesofisrael.com/theres-more-than-one-jewish-view-to-answer-the-question-of-when-life-begins/
And that’s perfectly fine. No worries at all.
But just because you don’t see mileage in the question or the conversation doesn’t mean no one else can.
I could understand it, though, if it were a question about whether Christ had brothers and sisters or whether Mary and Joseph had other children.
But Simeon's age ... ?
@Gramps49 of course there is room for 'tradition' in biblical scholarship and interpretation.
We wouldn't be able to engage in those activities otherwise.
The traditional parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Anne and Joachim, don’t in any sense contradict scripture. It is nowhere suggested that she didn’t have parents. They do, however, add to the record of scripture. Likewise the Assumption or the Dormition of Mary.
OTOH there are some exceptions. The Immaculate Conception and the doctrine of Mary’s freedom from personal sin seem to parts of the Church to be contrary to what scripture has to say about the common lot of humankind and about the uniqueness of Christ.
And the perpetual virginity of Mary seems to stand in direct contradiction to biblical references to the brothers of Jesus.
That wasn't my point though.
My point was that I can understand how or why people might wish to challenge received traditions / Tradition when they cross over into disputed territory and where there are disagreements between Christians. The Perpetual Virginity of Mary, for instance or whether Christ's apparent siblings were blood relatives or cousins or children from Joseph's previous marriage and so on and so forth.
I get all that.
What I don't get is the need to question, challenge or review something like the age of Simeon when very little seems to hang upon it.
Not because I think that it's profane to question or challenge received interpretations but because in this particular instance there doesn't seem to be a great deal of point. What possible difference does it make?
Upthread @Leaf said something about older men's health care and wellbeing - I'm paraphrasing from memory. I'm struggling to see any relevance or bearing on that particular issue from this passage.
That's what triggered my knee-jerk response about sola scriptura abd so on - because I can find no relevance or application to that issue within the text itself.
I wasn't trying to inita debate about Mariology or extra-biblical hagiography and so on - those issues have been addressed elsewhere and no doubt will be again.
No, rather I found it ironic that some of the Protestant posters here who come from traditions that rightly pride themselves on biblical exegesis appeared to looking for meanings and applications that don't appear to me to be warranted within the text itself.
That may sound contradictory coming from someone operating within a Big T Tradition but heck, I'm with the Antiochian Orthodox and traditionally we've always gone for the 'plain meaning' of scripture and not allegorical interpretations.
I have expressed myself clumsily and been a bit mischievous at times but I have made it clear that I accept that a 'sola scriptura' position is more nuanced than its opponents often suggest.
Sure, I get what @Nick Tamen says that just because I don't see the need to interrogate the story of Simeon in this way doesn't mean that other people shouldn't. Granted.
But so far I've seen diddly-squat that expands my understanding of the text. All we've had is fruitless speculation. I'm not being rude but I'm still waiting for someone to show me otherwise.