Themelios 50, 3 (December 2025)

I’m late to this, but the most-recent Themelios is online here (and available here as a single pdf), containing the below articles.

Editorial

Brian J. Tabb

Preparing Well: Encouragements for Aspiring Pastors

In every generation and in every place, there is a need to identify, equip, and encourage new leaders for Christ’s church. Where are these future pastors and teachers now? What sort of preparation and encouragement do they require to move from aspiration to faithful action? This column reflects on the need for leadership development in the church and offers encouragement for aspiring ministers.

Strange Times

Daniel Strange

The Three R’s

Andrew T. Walker & Kristen Waggoner

The Unchained Word: A Public Theology of Free Speech

This essay develops a distinctly Christian theology of free speech in response to mounting threats of censorship across Western societies. We argue that freedom of speech is not merely a political concession of liberal democracies but arises from humanity’s nature as rational agents made in the image of God, created to be seekers and speakers of truth. Speech is both a constitutive feature of human selfhood and an instrumental good through which individuals and communities pursue moral goods and the common good. After examining the biblical purposes of speech, the limits of civil government’s authority, and the moral logic of human rights, we contend that a Christian account of free speech requires a dual affirmation: positively, that individuals have a duty to speak truthfully; and negatively, that governments bear a heavy burden of proof before restricting expression. Free speech thus serves as a shield against government overreach, a safeguard of human fallibility, and a vital condition for truth-seeking in a pluralistic world. While not absolute, free speech must enjoy a presumption of liberty if societies are to order themselves toward truth and resist the perennial temptation of tyranny.

John Goldingay

Leviticus 8–10 as Narrative

Leviticus 8–10 is the one substantial narrative in Leviticus. The paper considers six contemporary approaches to the interpretation of narrative – setting, point of view, plot, theme, characters, and language – in order to see how they illumine the interpretation of these chapters. It thus further aims to see how their application to these chapters might suggest that these contemporary methods may be useful in biblical interpretation, not least in connection with narratives that might not seem to engage modern Western readers.

Jared August & Jonathan Lough

Achan and Annihilation? Hyperbolic Language and the Justice of Yahweh in Joshua 7

The conquest language of Joshua is often taken as hyperbolic, particularly in chapters 6–10. This essay attempts to apply a hyperbolic reading to Joshua 7 and the Achan account, proposing that such a reading deals best with the larger context as well as the textual details. This interpretation suggests that by making himself an enemy of Yahweh, Achan suffered the same fate as the pagan Canaanite nations: Achan, as the enemy combatant, was executed, his livestock killed, his possessions destroyed, and his family dispossessed from their inheritance in the land.

Joanne J. Jung & Eric B. Oldenburg

The Right-Side-Up Kingdom: A Lexical, Contextual, and Theological Study of Acts 17:6 and Its Implications

The kingdom of God is sometimes referred to as an upside-down kingdom. This descriptor originates from translating ἀναστατόω in Acts 17:6 as, “to turn the world upside down.” A lexical study will show that such a translation is misguided. A contextual study will show that using the phrase “upside down” to describe the kingdom is similarly problematic. Finally, a theological case will be made for prioritizing “right-side-up” over “upside-down” language for the kingdom of God. When God empowers success in our efforts to reconcile, redeem, and transform that which is upside-down, the kingdom of God is actualized in the world, and “right-side-up” is more appropriate in describing such realities.

Jonathan D. Worthington

The Pastors and Teachers in Ephesians 4:11

Paul’s reference to “the pastors and teachers” in Ephesians 4:11 is regularly discussed and often misunderstood. In conversation with some key voices in the debate, I argue this double-sided thesis: (1) Paul’s grammar portrays pastors and teachers as two recognizably distinct groups – i.e., in general, pastors are not teachers and teachers are not pastors – and (2) they nevertheless must serve the saints in closer connection together than the other groups of leaders mentioned. On this sound foundation, I offer constructive possibilities with reference to the connected Greco-Roman systems of home and education for who within Pauline circles the pastors likely were, who the teachers likely were, and how they were likely meant to work together.

Adam Ch’ng

Transposing Genre: Reading Hebrews 12:4–13 as Proverbial Wisdom

By citing Proverbs 3:11–12 (LXX) in Hebrews 12:5–6, the author of Hebrews transposes the wisdom genre of the proverb into his broader exposition (12:4–13). This article integrates and applies the theories of John Frow and Tremper Longman III, and argues that the strong literary connections between the proverb and Hebrews 12:4–13 indicate the incorporation of the wisdom genre. Accordingly, Hebrews 12:4–13 should be read as proverbial wisdom, and its characterisation of human suffering as divine discipline should be understood not as a universal theodicy but as a circumstantial truth.

Bradley Gray

From Logizomai to Luther: The Great Exchange and the Development of the Imputed Righteousness

Martin Luther’s theology of imputation, which is often understood through the paradigm of “the great exchange,” is a formative albeit misunderstood tenet of Reformation doctrine. Even though Luther never explicitly deployed the phrase, nevertheless, the gospel is conveyed in the language of a two-way transaction, wherein Christ’s righteousness is imputed to sinners as their sins are imputed to him. The pastoral necessity to preach the good news of imputation is best understood against the backdrop of historical and contemporary challenges to the doctrine itself. Imputation, therefore, remains vital not only for doctrinal clarity but for the believer’s assurance of salvation.

Cameron Schweitzer

Does Edwards’s Exegetical Typology “Always and Only Point to Spiritual Things Related to Christ?” A Response to Drew Hunter from the Evidence of the Blank Bible

This essay responds to Drew Hunter’s 2019 article, “Hebrews and the Typology of Jonathan Edwards,” challenging his thesis that Jonathan Edwards’s exegetical typology “always and only points to spiritual things related to Christ.” Through an analysis of Edwards’s Blank Bible, the essay identifies 143 notations where Edwards employs typology to uncover antitypes that are not strictly Christological. The evidence presented suggests that Edwards’s exegetical typology is broader and more complex than the Christological framework in which Hunter situated it. This article argues that, instead, Edwards’s exegetical reflections in the Blank Bible highlight that typology was, for him, a spiritual, historical, teleological, and eschatological hermeneutic for interpreting God’s work in redemptive history.

Adrian P. Rosen

The Christocentric and Christotelic Nature of Johannine Pneumatology

Several years ago, a highly regarded Pentecostal ecumenist suggested that the Paraclete’s work in the “world” supports a more inclusive soteriology. This article responds to this proposed theological trajectory within Johannine pneumatology, seeking to contribute to broader conversations regarding christological exclusivism and pneumatological inclusivism. An exegetical survey of the Spirit’s work in John’s Gospel – including the Spirit’s activity in Jesus’s earthly ministry, within the believer, and in the world – demonstrates that Johannine pneumatology remains decidedly christocentric and christotelic from start to finish. When one gives careful attention to the text, it becomes clear that John’s view of the Spirit’s work is decidedly and firmly anchored in his christological particularism.

Brian A. DeVries

Missio Trinitatis: Theological Reflections on the Origin, Plan, and Purpose of God’s Mission

Trinitarian theology provides the basis for understanding missio Dei. The divine sendings of the Son and the Spirit explain the origin of God’s mission, while the divine council with the pactum salutis helps us comprehend the whole plan of God’s redemptive mission. God’s external work of mission, accomplished and applied across the history of redemption, highlights the eternal purpose of God’s mission and helps us align our participation in it. Using this time-tested Trinitarian language helps us avoid divergent definitions of this important concept, while clarifying ambiguities and guarding against common misuses. It also helps us better understand the church’s evangelistic witness in relation to the Triune God and his mission.

Nicholas J. Weyrens

Toward a Christian-Household Philosophy of Technology

Internet-connected digital technologies are having deleterious effects on children. In a world shaped by the digital, Christian parents have a moral duty to have an intentional philosophy of technology – a set of principles and practices – that will help their children flourish in Christ. In this essay, I propose four principles for a Christian-Household Philosophy of Technology to help parents understand how and why technologies shape children. By establishing the idea that we are what we attend to, I will connect the deformative effects of internet-based digital technologies with the spiritual deforming language of idols in Scripture. This highlights the importance for parents to protect their children’s attention and cultivate their children’s ability to attend, most notably to God, by integrating proposed practices into their own contextualized Christian-Household Philosophy of Technology.

Jon Horne

The Scandal of Marriage: Towards a Theology of Sexual Differentiation

This essay argues that monogamous sexually-differentiated marriage (MSDM) is uniquely revealed through Christ’s relationship with the church in Ephesians 5:30–32. Through a trinitarian reading, marriage is understood as the Father’s initiative, sexually differentiated because it follows the form of Christ (groom) and church (bride), and perfected by the Spirit. The bride-groom metaphor is not merely illustrative but constitutive of marriage’s form. Therefore, because Jesus is biologically male, marriage cannot be relativized to accommodate same-sex unions. This makes marriage a scandal not unlike that of Christ’s particularity (1 Cor 1:23), which resists absorption into non-Christian notions of the divine.

Book Reviews

Guy Brandon on Eating Blood

The Jubilee Centre has published a piece from Guy Brandon, the third in a series on the laws in Leviticus, this one looking at the command in 19:26 which prohibits the Israelites from eating blood.

Whilst agreeing there are no kosher laws for Christians, he takes more seriously than many do the letter from the Jerusalem Council sent to Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia, in which they say… ‘You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality (see Acts 15:23-29; cf. 21:25).

‘To summarise: the prohibition on eating blood is one of the only demands made of Gentile Christians (i.e. most of us) in the New Testament. Paul, Peter and other giants among the apostles and elders all agreed on it, and – while ensuring the burden on non-Jewish converts was as light as possible – they nevertheless felt this important enough to state unequivocally. It reiterates a command given by God to Noah, and by extension to all humanity, and that remains consistent across the entire arc of scripture. Hermeneutically, it is very difficult to argue that it is now irrelevant.’

The article is available here, and from here as a pdf in the Jubilee Centre’s Engage magazine.

Guy Brandon on Learning to Love Leviticus

The Jubilee Centre has published a piece from Guy Brandon, the first in a series on the laws in Leviticus, this one looking at the ban on mixed-fibre clothing. The article is available here, and from here as a pdf in the Jubilee Centre’s Engage magazine.

More Videos from the Bible Project

The Bible Project continues to put together a series of helpful short videos, some of which introduce the structure and themes of biblical books, and others of which trace some major themes through the entire Bible.

Since I lost posted on this, several other Bible book videos have been made available (including on Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Song of Songs, and Mark), and a themed video on The Gospel of the Kingdom.

Check them out from here (click on ‘Videos’ or scroll down to the ‘Videos/Study Guides/Posters’ section) or see them all via YouTube here.

The Bible Project on Leviticus, Romans, Holiness, and Covenants

The Bible Project is continuing to put together a series of helpful short videos, some of which introduce the structure and themes of biblical books, and others of which trace some major themes through the entire Bible.

I’ve just noticed the next Bible book videos have been made available, one on Leviticus, and two covering Romans.

In addition are two others that are new to me in the ‘Themes’ section, one on holiness and one on the covenants.

Check them out from here (click on ‘Videos’ or scroll down to the ‘Videos & Study Guides’ section).

Christianity Today on the God of Two Testaments

The July/August 2013 edition of Christianity Today carries several articles related to the issue of ‘Grappling with the God of Two Testaments’. Some of them are available online.

Mark Buchanan, ‘Can We Trust the God of Genocide?’

Yes – if we set our eyes on the Cross of Christ. A pastor’s response.

Phillip Cary, ‘Gentiles in the Hands of a Genocidal God.’

We’re troubled by God’s commands for Israel to wipe out entire peoples. Why we should be encouraged.

Christopher J.H. Wright. ‘Learning to Love Leviticus.’

Even those passages about shellfish, mixed fibers, and animal sacrifice.

Christopher J.H. Wright, ‘Sex in Leviticus.’

It’s part of a much broader teaching in Scripture.

Horizons in Biblical Theology 33, 2 (2011)

The latest Horizons in Biblical Theology carries four interesting-looking main essays, with the following summaries:

Nicholas Ansell

On (Not) Obeying the Sabbath: Reading Jesus Reading Scripture

This essay examines the sabbath controversy of Mark 2:23-28 to see how Jesus faces the challenge of biblical interpretation as he models what it means for his disciples to image God in freedom. In dominant approaches to the Gospels, the interpretive process set in motion by this passage, which I characterize as ‘reading Scripture reading Jesus reading Scripture,’ is confined to its earlier stages – a reductionism that calls for hermeneutical reflection. If a narrative has a ‘life of its own’ beyond authorial intention (indispensable though the author may be), can we say the same about a character who is central to a narrative? If so, is ‘the Jesus of Mark’s Gospel’ ‘more than’ the ‘Markan Jesus’ of much scholarly concern? This essay seeks to develop an intertextual, Christocentric hermeneutic by attending to the implicit as well as explicit ways in which Jesus’ reading of Scripture takes place ‘within’ the Gospel narrative.

James E. Robson

Forgotten Dimensions of Holiness

This article explores a sometimes forgotten dimension of divine holiness, divine holiness as love. It starts by reflecting on an apparent incongruity between the New Testament summary of the law, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Lev 19:18) and that verse’s context in Leviticus, where a more probable summary is the call, “Be holy for I, YHWH your God, am holy” (Lev 19:2). It examines the significance of the conjunction of Lev 19:2 and 19:18, and argues that it is appropriate to speak of love as a dimension of divine holiness. In the main part of the article, which looks at the Old Testament more widely, including Exodus, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Hosea and the prayer life of Israel, divine holiness as love is evident on closer examination in three ways: holiness and self-disclosure, holiness and saving activity, and holiness and divine presence.

Yung Suk Kim

“Imitators” (Mimetai) in 1 Cor. 4:16 and 11:1: A New Reading of Threefold Embodiment

When it comes to the language of “imitation” (mimesis) in Paul’s letters (1 Cor. 4:16; 11:1; Phil. 3:17; 1 Thess. 1:6-7; 2:14), divisions among scholars are most clearly manifest. At one end of the scholarly spectrum, Paul follows a Stoic model of imitation, according to which the teacher exhorts pupils to follow him, based upon his authority established (demonstrated) by good conduct. Accordingly, Paul is viewed as an advocate of the Hellenistic ideal of unity at the expense of diversity. At the other end of the spectrum, Paul is seen as a social conservative and an obstacle to true liberation. Here the idea of imitation serves as a means of control and domination of others, as post-colonial and feminist scholars have pointed out. So Paul’s exhortation to “be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1) is understood as a demand for sameness, an appeal to copy Paul. However, the language of imitation can be read through the eyes of “embodiment” – a way of life, as an alternate meaning of imitation in 1 Corinthians, which will lead to the involvement of three aspects of God, Christ and the believer. I argue that imitation in 1 Corinthians is neither a copy or sameness nor a type or model to be emulated by the Corinthians. Rather, it should be understood as a way of life rooted in the image of Christ crucified, which plays a central role in the letter, deconstructing abusive, destructive powers in a community and society and reconstructing a beloved community for all.

Mark McEntire

The God at the End of the Story: Are Biblical Theology and Narrative Character Development Compatible?

If the end goal of theology of the Hebrew Scriptures is a description of God and God’s relationship to the world, then the Hebrew Scriptures present us with a dilemma. It is increasingly apparent that the Tanak provides a wide variety of portraits of the divine being. There are two basic possibilities for making use of all of these portraits. The first option is to lay all of them out on a level surface and allow them be in dialogue and tension with one another. The second option is to place these portrayals on a trajectory which gives a position of privilege to those which are at some particular point along the path. Of course there are three choices of trajectory: Historical, canonical, or narrative. The last two differ far more for the Christian Old Testament than for the Tanak. A strictly narrative approach, which reads the biblical story from Genesis to Nehemiah, presents a divine being who is changing and developing as a character, a process which has been well demonstrated over the past decade by Jack Miles, Richard Elliot Friedman, W. Lee Humphreys, Meir Sternberg, Jerome M. Segal, and others. There is general agreement that the divine character portrayed at the end of this narrative trajectory is the one which matches the religious experience of those who were putting the literature, both the individual books and the canon, into its final form. This conclusion would seem to point toward a narrative method of doing theology which gives this endpoint a place of privilege, an observation which raises two questions. First, does this match the actual use of texts by those who are attempting narrative approaches to biblical theology? Second, what role do those portrayals which present earlier stages in the divine character development play in a narrative approach to a theology of the Hebrew Scriptures?

Michael Horton on the Old Testament Law

When references in Leviticus are appealed to in discussions about same-sex sexual relationships, the argument is often trotted out along the lines of, ‘Well, what about all the other (silly/odd/outmoded) laws we no longer obey...?’ as if that becomes a clincher, barring the witness of Leviticus from having a voice in the ongoing debate.

I confess I’ve always groaned inwardly when I’ve heard or read this argument... as if no-one has ever thought before about the difficulties involved in – and thus the necessity of a hermeneutic for – moving from the ‘there and then’ of the Old Testament law to the ‘here and now’ of the Christian church.

Michael Horton offers some brief reflections here in response to that line of questioning, encouraging us to understand the law in the light of the history of redemption.

Derek Tidball on Leviticus (4)

Derek Tidball, The Message of Leviticus: Free to be Holy, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester: IVP, 2005).

Leviticus, according to Derek Tidball, is ‘elegantly structured and carefully arranged’ (23). He notes Mary Douglas’ proposed ‘ring structure’, in which the book comes full circle with chapter 19 as the turning point, with the concerns of the opening chapters being matched by the concerns of the later chapters but in reverse order…

But he opts for a more linear structure, as follows:

Part 1. The manual of sacrifice: enjoying God’s presence (1:1 – 7:38)

1. Consecration to God: the burnt offering (1:1–17)
2. A gift for God: the grain offering (2:1–16)
3. Fellowship with God: the peace offering (3:1–17)
4. Forgiveness from God: the sin offering (4:1 – 5:13)
5. Amendment before God: the guilt offering (5:14 – 6:7)
6. Instructed by God: the priests’ responsibilities (6:8 – 7:38)

Part 2. The manual of priesthood: entering God’s service (8:1 – 10:20)
7. Anointed for service (8:1–36)
8. The glory of the Lord appeared (9:1–24)
9. Fire from Lord (10:1–20)

Part 3. The manual of purity: encountering God’s design (11:1 – 15:33)

10. Purity and the diet (11:1–47)
11. Purity and the body (12:1–8; 15:1–33)
12. Purity and disease (13:1 – 14:57)

Part 4. The manual of atonement: ensuring God’s forgiveness (16:1–34)
13. For all the sins of Israel (16:1–34)

Part 5. The manual of holiness: enacting God’s word (17:1 – 26:46)

14. God’s word about life blood (17:1–16)
15. God’s word about family health (18:1–30)
16. God’s word about society’s welfare (19:1–37)
17. God’s word about the penal code (20:1–27)
18. God’s word about spiritual leadership (21:1 – 22:33)
19. God’s word about times of celebration (23:1–44)
20. God’s word about safeguarding the sacred (24:1–23)
21. God’s word about radical economics (25:1–55)
22. God’s word about future prosperity (26:1–46)

Part 6. The manual of dedication: enamoured of God’s grace (27:1–34)

23. God’s word about consecration (27:1–34)

Ephraim Radner on Leviticus

Ephraim Radner, Leviticus, Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2008).

Ephraim Radner contributes the volume on Leviticus to a series which is self-consciously devoted to offering a theological reading of the Bible as Christian Scripture.

Brazos have made the introduction to the commentary available online here.

Radner begins with a lovely quote on Leviticus from Origen:

‘If you read people passages from the divine books that are good and clear, they will hear them with great joy… But provide someone with a reading from Leviticus, and at once the listener will gag and push it away as if were some bizarre food. He came, after all, to learn how to honor God, to take in the teachings that concern justice and piety. But instead he is now hearing about the ritual of burnt sacrifices!’ (17)

For Origen, of course, we must understand ‘that the dull details are filled with promise’ (17).

Leviticus is among the least-read biblical books by Christians today, and the least-cited in the New Testament (albeit that 19:18 – ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ – is significant in Jesus’ teaching).

Moreover, Leviticus has become a ‘dark bogeyman’ (18), in particular with its commands against certain forms of sexual behaviour, the interpretation of which is further complicated by other commands Christians have left behind.

Radner avers that, slowly but surely, interpretation of Leviticus has ‘narrowed through ever elaborated historical interest in the sociological details of ritual, to the point that the text’s even potential Christian character has disappeared almost wholly’ (18).

Even Origen’s exegesis of the book was a response to the widespread sense in his own time that Leviticus was difficult, irrelevant, or even hostile to Christian concerns. Origen’s ‘spiritual’ reading of the book sought to open its details ‘to the broad range of divine action and purpose in the world of creation and of history as a whole’. Important in this respect is the letter to the Hebrews, showing that ‘the spiritual reference of Leviticus would be primarily bound to the body and acts of Jesus as the Son of God’ (19).

Radner also highlights Blaise Pascal’s reading of Leviticus which follows Origen’s lead (20-22, 25).

‘Although the forms for reading Leviticus are not given in advance, we… know that any proper Christian reading of the text will somehow detail the redemptive work of the humiliated Christ upon the broken hearts of human beings and of the whole created order. “Figural” reading is the name we give to the outworking of this “somehow”’ (22).

Tertullian and Augustine tended to approach the book in terms of its place within the history of God’s teaching of Israel, but Origen’s spiritual exegesis dominated the interpretation of specific texts, and medieval exegesis largely followed suit – though increasingly Leviticus became little more than a handbook of Christian tropes, disconnected from salvation history (23-25).

Radner describes his own approach to Leviticus as that of ‘a Christian reading, bound to the life of the church and its reality as the body of Christ, but deeply informed by the Jewish discipline of treating the Scriptures as a still-inhabited universe’ (27).

Derek Tidball on Leviticus (3)

Derek Tidball, The Message of Leviticus: Free to be Holy, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester: IVP, 2005).

The core message of Leviticus, according to Derek Tidball in the Introduction to his commentary on the book, is holiness – that which is set apart – and it flows back and forth in three currents through the book in a statement, a promise, and a command:

• The statement: God is holy
• The command: ‘Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy’
• The promise: ‘I am the Lord your God, who makes you holy’

‘The summons of Leviticus leaps across the yawning cultural divide and the intervening centuries to call us once again to holy living’ (33).

Derek Tidball on Leviticus (2)

Derek Tidball, The Message of Leviticus: Free to be Holy, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester: IVP, 2005).

In the Introduction to his commentary on Leviticus, Derek has a section headed ‘direction-finders’ (25-31) in which he discusses four issues of orientation to the book.

1. The meaning of sacrifice
Derek notes that there may be shades of meaning in Leviticus in a number of different views on the meaning of sacrifice (e.g., anthropological explanations, thanksgiving meals, acts of communion), but ‘uppermost, in a way many wish to avoid, is the offering of blood to make atonement’ in order ‘to secure forgiveness, provide cleansing and restore a broken relationship with God’ (26).

2. The geography of holiness
Holiness is not a one-dimensional status but ‘a spectrum on which something may be more or less holy’ (26). Borrowing from Philip Jenson’s work, we may think of ‘grades of holiness’ – the Most Holy Place (where only the events of the Day of Atonement take place), the Holy Place (where routine sacrifices occur), the courtyard, the camp, and outside the camp.

3. Holy and common, clean and unclean
These terms are not synonymous. Holiness ‘is a status indicating that a person or object is dedicated to the service of God’; clean ‘is the normal state of things’; uncleanness may be temporary or permanent; common is (in the words of Gordon Wenham) ‘a category between the two extremes of holiness and uncleanness’ (27-28). There is a fluidity in the categories: something that is clean may be holy or common; clean things can be made holy; clean things or people can become unclean, etc.

4. Understanding the law
Derek points out the difficulties of holding to a ceremonial-civil-moral distinction in the law, not least because ‘all three strands are woven together in such a way as to make it hard to separate them’ (28-29). He follows Chris Wright in seeking to study the laws ‘in their original social context with a view to understanding the moral principles behind them all rather than assuming that only some continue to be relevant today’ (29).

While some interpreters (e.g., Richard Bauckham, J. Daniel Hays) adopt a ‘principlising’ approach to the laws, Chris Wright prefers to see Israel as a paradigm, ‘a model or pattern for other cases where a basic principle is fixed – which enables one both to critique other claims and to reapply the principle to other contexts’ (29). His paradigm gives weight to the theological angle of God’s choosing, redeeming, and covenanting with Israel, to the social angle of Israel structuring its life and relationships around the covenant, and to the economic angle of the land as promise, gift, and responsibility. Wright’s paradigmatic approach includes the isolation of principles (along the lines of the principlising approach), but ‘cannot be reduced to that alone, and ensures that the particular historical reality of which the Bible speaks is not lost sight of, as can easily happen if we are in too much of a hurry to look for principles’ (30).

C.S. Rodd argues against both principlising and paradigmatic approaches since neither, he holds, allows the text to speak for itself. He calls for the Bible to be abandoned as an external authority, and says we should visit the Old Testament as we would visit a ‘strange land’ and not try too hard to make it fit our own culture. The value in doing so, he says, is to open our eyes ‘to completely different assumptions and presuppositions, motives and aims’ that question our own (30, citing C.S. Rodd).

While Rodd’s approach reminds us of the ‘strangeness’ of the text, and warns us about moving to it too quickly, yet his structure ‘is based on a weak foundation of biblical authority…, plays up diversity and ambiguity, revels in complexities and questions, but yields very few answers and gives very few directions’ (31).

Derek himself concludes that ‘providing we exercise appropriate caution, the search for principles and paradigms is the most credible way to interpret Leviticus, and gives due weight to it as divine revelation and historical document and as having contemporary relevance’ (31).

Derek Tidball on Leviticus (1)

Derek Tidball, The Message of Leviticus: Free to be Holy, The Bible Speaks Today (Leicester: IVP, 2005).

Derek Tidball, former principal of London School of Theology (and, in the interests of full disclosure, friend and former boss), has written an excellent mid-level commentary on Leviticus for IVP’s Bible Speaks Today series.

The IVP (USA) site makes available as pdf excerpts the Preface, the Introduction, and the comments on 1:1-17.

This is how he starts:

‘Leviticus is good news. It is good news for sinners who seek pardon, for priests who need empowering, for women who are vulnerable, for the unclean who covet cleansing, for the poor who yearn for freedom, for the marginalized who seek dignity, for animals that demand protection, for families that require strengthening, for communities that want fortifying and for creation that stands in need of care. All these issues, and more, are addressed in a positive way in Leviticus’ (17).

The Introduction contains an opening section on authorship and date, in which Derek briefly surveys several views before concluding that ‘there seems to be no weighty evidence proving that the material of the book is later than the time of Moses’ (20).

In a section on the style of language and style of thought, drawing on work by John Sawyer, Mary Douglas, and Gordon Wenham, Derek notes that (contrary to popular conception), Leviticus is marked by an absence of imperatives and by an infrequency of statements of facts.

Leviticus address its readers by encouraging them ‘to use their imagination and conceive of an ideal society where, because it is ideal, certain things are done and certain things are avoided’. In Leviticus, God lives ‘exactly where Exodus (40:34-35) places him – right among his people – and he constantly finds a way of removing all obstacles that might hinder their relationship so that they can enjoy each other’s company’ (21).

In terms of forms of thought, ‘Leviticus works on the basis of analogies, with experience of the daily practice of religious rituals serving as a microcosm for Israel’s understanding of the larger picture of God’s relationship to his creation’, which means we need to look beyond immediate statements ‘for the larger analogy that lies behind them’ (22).

Commentaries on Leviticus

Jeremy Pierce who blogs as Parableman occasionally provides very helpful reviews of commentaries on biblical books. A few years ago, he profiled Leviticus here, which is worth looking at for his succinct summaries of the major English-language commentaries on Leviticus published up to July 2006.

Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart on Leviticus

Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible Book by Book: A Guided Tour (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002), 48.

‘Leviticus is the part of God’s story where the Israelites are given instructions on how to be holy, on how to be truly acceptable to God and in good relationship with one another – which they could not achieve without his special provision.’