Roger Hutchinson's response to my article ("Observations on the Use of Genea in the New Testament," November/December 1999, p. 11) was beneficial to my research concerning the use of this word in the New Testament. Through his article, he has in essence agreed with my view that the word genea cannot simply mean race but must be interpreted in the context of time as well. This all but kills the popular theory that when Jesus said, "This generation will not pass away until all these things take place" (Matt. 24:34), he meant that the Jewish race would not pass away until all of the things that he described had transpired. One interpretation down, one to go.
Hutchinson and I begin to go our separate ways when deciding on the "time" in which the word genea should be interpreted. I argue that genea (especially when this is used with it demonstratively as it was in Matthew 24:34) should be interpreted in a context contemporary to the audience. Hutchinson argues that genea should be interpreted based on the events being referred to in the passage and that these events are "common characteristics" that identify a genea. He sees the tendency to kill messengers and prophets as the "common characteristic" in Matthew 23:34-36. He also cited Matthew 12:39 as another example, when Jesus said that a wicked and adulterous generation seeks a sign, and argued that the "seeking of a sign" was the common "characteristic" of the generation. Hutchinson argued that Jesus may have been speaking to an audience of grandfathers, fathers, and grandsons whom he described as a "wicked generation." Therefore, Hutchinson claims that generation cannot be interpreted as a 40-year span, but rather as a time period that eventually terminated only when the "common characteristics" terminated. It seems as if he is arguing that when the New Testament said "generation" it was similar to when we use the word "age"--as in "the Age of Reason." Hutchinson is in essence arguing that an "age of reason" would end once the focus of the people shifted to "romanticism." And if Jesus would return to the times of Voltaire and say, "you wicked generation," he would mean those people in an extended age of reason and not a literal generation.
Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words has this cautionary statement at the very end of the entry for genea: "The word genea is to be distinguished from aion, as not denoting a period of unlimited duration." But Hutchinson is arguing just this. He is arguing that genea should be changed to mean what the word aion more suitably describes. In his explanation of the issue with the slain Zacharias, Hutchinson stated, "The period of time covered by this generation would begin with the event marking the death of Zacharias and extend over that period of time in which the future prophets would be killed. The generation would end when this activity had ceased (emphasis added)." In other words, Hutchinson's definition of "generation" is an indefinite duration of time marked only by events (which could theoretically go on until doomsday). But the word that more accurately matches his definition of "generation" is the word aion, not genea. Here is Vine's definition of aion: "an age, era (to be connected with aei, `ever' rather than with ao `to breathe'), signifies a period of indefinite duration or time viewed in relation to what takes place in the period. The force attaching to the word is not so much that of the actual length of a period, but that of a period marked by spiritual or moral characteristics."
Of my explanation of genea, Hutchinson said, "Rainey correctly determined that genea identifies with a period of time that was unique not because of the people involved, but because of the common events in which a group of people shared. If we can identify clearly the events common to a group of people then we can identify a generation by those events." Actually, I argued that the definition of genea involved a group of people with common characteristics. I didn't say anything about events!
Anyway, there is a better explanation of Matthew 23:34-36, which does not distort the definition of genea. Indeed, as Hutchinson said, in Matthew 23:34-35, Jesus said that the people to whom he was talking would share in the guilt of those that murdered prophets in the past. Verse 36, however, merely emphasized that the things about which Jesus was talking would happen to the people to whom he was speaking! According to Vine's Dictionary, the English word "truly" or "verily" in verse 36 is the Greek word amen which was often used by Jesus to introduce new revelations from God. The fact that Jesus even took time to say this statement in verse 36 shows that "generation" referred to his contemporaries. In no way should this passage be perverted to mean that a "generation" extended from the time Zacharias was murdered to infinity! Hutchinson has just snatched this interpretation out of thin air.
The New Testament concept of "generation" conveys a different idea from the one that Hutchinson wants to perpetuate. Let's look at Vine's definition of genea again:
Genea: signifies...a race of people possessed of similar characteristics, pursuits, etc... or of a whole multitude of men living at the same time, Matthew 24:34; Mark 13:30; Luke 1:48; 21:32; 21:32 and especially those of the Jewish race living at the same period, Matt. 11:16, etc.
Despite Hutchinson's accusations that I was manipulating the text to have a first century setting, my argument that the passage should have a first century setting came from Vine's Dictionary and a common sense reading of the passages in which "generation" is used. If Hutchinson doesn't like what Greek scholarship has concluded about the word genea and its use in Matthew 24:34, he can take it up with Vine's and Strong's!
Hutchinson criticized me at the end of his article for pointing out how fundamentalists were hypocritical about their exegesis, but he obviously did not understand what I was saying. I pointed out that although English Bibles clearly say that "homosexuals" will not inherit the kingdom of God and that Romans 1 appears to condemn homosexual activity, pro-gay theologians use equivocation tactics, very similar to those that Hutchinson used, to explain those passages away. People like Hutchinson would ridicule those pro-gay theologians and argue that they are trying to explain away the "face-value" of the passage and what the passage "clearly says." People like Hutchinson would also point out how pro-gay theologians had to stretch certain biblical passages so that they say what is convenient instead of what the passage says at face value.
Let's recap what Hutchinson has done. He cited Matthew 12:39 and Matthew 23:34-36 and tried to convince us that witnessing "common events" was a qualification for analyzing genea, when there is no indication, among Greek scholars or the text, that genea conveys the idea of witnessing "common events" except in Hutchinson's mind. Imagine the indignation Hutchinson would have if a denomination pulled interpretations out of thin air like this. I, on the other hand, cited a respectable Greek Dictionary, looked at the passages using "generation" at face value and concluded that the word genea is a "time word" that refers to a group of people with similar characteristics, and when someone says that something will last for a "generation" he is saying that something will last for the life span of that group of people.
(Brian Rainey, 313 Tudor Place, Chesapeake, VA 23325;
e-mail,
BRAINEY@norfacad.pvt.k12.va.us)
