[I’ve already posted a version of the below as a web article for the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, and thought I’d post it here as well before March turns into April. It’s along the same lines as a list I did for 2008 and another one I did for 2009. Although this one is fuller, as with those entries, the idea has been to profile some books published on the Bible during 2010 (or, in one case below, a book that came to my attention in 2010). The usual caveats apply... I’ve limited myself to books on the Bible (Bible overviews, hermeneutics, biblical theology, commentaries, etc.). I’m not suggesting these were the best books of 2010; the list is limited by my own limitations and is also somewhat driven by work-related commitments, among other things. As with previous years, the mention of an item here does not preclude either earlier or subsequent mention elsewhere on the blog. So, with all those qualifications in place...]
2010 added to the already-considerable pile of books from recent years expounding and exploring the storyline of the Bible. Among them was D.A. Carson, The God Who is There: Finding Your Place in God’s Story (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2010), which guides readers through the big story of the Bible with a special focus on the God who all the time takes the initiative in his relationship with men and women. A separate leader’s guide for groups is also available, containing discussion questions and broader theological and pastoral reflections.
In Remaking a Broken World: The Heart of the Bible Story (Bletchley: Authentic, 2010), Christopher Ash offers a stimulating Bible overview based around the theme of the ‘gathering’ and ‘scattering’ of God’s people in the biblical storyline, emphasising that ‘the local church is at the heart of the Bible story, that it is close to the heart of the purposes of God, and that it is how a broken world will be remade’. His book nicely complements others in this genre which, for the most part, take a more ‘kingdom’-oriented approach to the biblical story. It also signals a helpful move from merely outlining the storyline of Scripture (crucial though that is in a time of increasing biblical illiteracy) to reflecting on its implications for Christians and the church today. Another one which moves in this direction is Mike Erre, Why the Bible Matters: Rediscovering Its Significance in an Age of Suspicion (Eugene: Harvest House Publishers, 2010). About half the book works its way through the biblical story while the other half explores the significance of finding our place in the story. This book would now be one of my top recommendations in accessible treatments of the Bible’s big story.
How the ‘biblical story’ approach might be worked out in the interpretation of a particular biblical book is seen in Timothy G. Gombis, The Drama of Ephesians: Participating in the Triumph of God (Downers Grove: IVP, 2010). It’s not a commentary so much as what the author calls ‘a cultural and theological engagement with the text of Ephesians’. Ephesians, he says, is not a ‘collection of facts or theological truths that need to be extracted’ but ‘a drama in which Paul portrays the powerful, reality-altering cosmos-transforming acts of God in Christ to redeem God’s world and save God’s people for the glory of his name’. Through the death and resurrection of Christ, God has defeated the powers of darkness, and the church is called to reenact this drama as we are transformed into a mature, cross-shaped people.
Two more worth mentioning before we move on are Michael R. Emlet, CrossTalk: Where Life & Scripture Meet (Greensboro: New Growth Press, 2009) and Ron Martoia, The Bible as Improv: Seeing and Living the Script in New Ways (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010). Both, in different ways, explore the significance of the Bible’s story for how we appropriate Scripture for today. Largely from the perspective of using the Bible in counselling, Emlet offers a readable and very helpful treatment, looking particularly at how God’s ‘story’ in the Bible connects with our ‘stories’. Martoia uses the increasingly pervasive ‘improvisation’ model as a way of thinking through what applies from the Bible to today and what doesn’t.
More generally on biblical interpretation, Robert Plummer, 40 Questions About Interpreting the Bible (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2010) provides a helpful resource for concise answers to questions, organised in four main sections: getting started (on text, canon, and translation), approaching the Bible generally (on interpretation and meaning), approaching specific texts (focusing particularly on the Bible’s literary types), and issues in recent discussion. 2010 also saw the publication of the second edition (though only lightly revised) of Richard Bauckham’s The Bible in Politics: How to Read the Bible Politically (London: SPCK, 2010). It remains useful in its self-conscious reflections on methodology, and in providing worked examples of ‘political exegesis’ of sample passages across Scripture.
J. Todd Billings, The Word of God for the People of God: An Entryway to the Theological Interpretation of Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010) shows that ‘theological interpretation’ is now well and truly on the landscape, seen not as a separate method so much as ‘a wide range of practices we use toward the goal of knowing God in Christ through Scripture’. Billings offers a very helpful guide to those wanting to know more about this area, and includes exegetical examples of theological interpretation at work.
In The Virtuous Reader: Old Testament Narrative and Interpretive Virtue, Studies in Theological Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010), Richard Briggs provides a well-written treatment, with worked examples from narrative texts, of the ‘spiral’ that exists between the virtues necessary for reading Scripture and the virtues that Scripture itself inculcates in such ‘virtuous’ readers. Those who already come with some philosophy or literary theory or virtue ethics will cope better than those who don’t, but all will benefit from reflecting on how we might be shaped by Scripture into the kind of reader that is most appropriate for reading Scripture – those who read with humility, wisdom, trust, love, and receptivity.
On the biblical theology front, 2010 saw the launch of a new series from Zondervan – ‘Biblical Theology for Life’. The first volume was by Christopher J.H. Wright, The Mission of God’s People: A Biblical Theology of the Church’s Mission (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010). Following previous works which argue that the whole Bible can and ought to be read from the perspective of the mission of God – his redemptive purpose for the whole of creation – this book explores the mission of God’s people. The bulk of the book outlines the kinds of people we were created to be (caring for God’s creation, walking in God’s way, representing God to the world, etc.) and the specific tasks we are called on to do (bearing witness, proclaiming the gospel, living and working in the public square, etc.). The world, the gospel, and the church frame the book and dominate the discussion, their treatment flowing out of the overarching story of Scripture, demonstrating the significance of biblical theology in handling these themes, and showing mission as the all-encompassing purpose of God to restore creation.
In the same ‘Biblical Theology for Life’ series, Jonathan Lunde looks at discipleship – Following Jesus, the Servant King: A Biblical Theology of Covenantal Discipleship (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010) – where the main theological drivers are covenant (its grace and its demands) and christology (Jesus as the Servant King). If these first two volumes are anything to go by, this will be a series to watch out for.
Worth noting in publications on the doctrine of Scripture is John M. Frame, The Doctrine of the Word of God (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2010), a comprehensive (682 pages) and theologically conservative treatment of the doctrine of Scripture as God’s revelation and how it is communicated to men and women, forming the fourth volume in Frame’s ‘Theology of Lordship’ series. The discussion itself takes place without much interaction with wider scholarship in 300 pages or so, with the rest of the book containing a number of appendices of articles and reviews written over the years, conveniently gathered together here. In addition is D.A. Carson, Selected Writings on Scripture (Nottingham: Apollos, 2010) which also helpfully gathers together essays published elsewhere over the years, along with a number of reviews (some of them lengthy, reviewing significant books on Scripture).
It’s difficult to know what to mention in the area of commentaries, but we’ll limit ourselve to highlighting three series. First of all, the ‘Pillar New Testament Commentary’ series – billed as commentaries which ‘interact with the most important, informed contemporary debate yet avoid undue technical detail’. With the exception of D.A. Carson’s 1991 commentary on John, I was fairly disappointed with the first few volumes in this series. However, more recent volumes, in my opinion, have been excellent; the last few years alone have seen the release of commentaries by Douglas J. Moo on Colossians and Philemon (2008), David G. Peterson on Acts (2009), and G. Walter Hansen on Philippians (2009). 2010 saw the addition of Peter T. O’Brien, The Letter to the Hebrews (Nottingham: Apollos, 2010) – to join his earlier excellent entry on Ephesians – and Roy E. Ciampa and Brian S. Rosner, The First Letter to the Corinthians (Nottingham: Apollos, 2010). Now the series taken as a whole is shaping up to the best, if not the best, of commentaries written from an evangelical perspective at this level.
Secondly, hard on the heels of the ‘Two Horizons Commentary Series’ (Eerdmans) and the ‘Brazos/SCM Theological Commentary on the Bible’ (Brazos and SCM), both devoted to a more self-consciously theological reading of Scripture, comes a new series from Westminster John Knox – ‘Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible’ – which aims to focus ‘less on traditional historical and literary angles in favor of a theologically focused commentary that considers the contemporary relevance of the texts’. 2010 saw the publication of two volumes: William C. Placher, Mark (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010) and and Justo L. Gonzalez, Luke (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010). Others are on the way.
Finally in commentaries, those familiar with N.T. Wright’s ‘For Everyone’ series on the books of the New Testament may be interested to know that John Goldingay is writing a similar series – following the same general formula – on Old Testament books. Genesis came in two volumes: Genesis for Everyone Part 1: Chapters 1-16 (London: SPCK, 2010) and Genesis for Everyone Part 2: Chapters 17-50 (London: SPCK, 2010). The rest of the Pentateuch is dealt with in a further two volumes: Exodus and Leviticus for Everyone (London: SPCK, 2010) and Numbers and Deuteronomy for Everyone (London: SPCK, 2010). Again, 2011 will see the release of others. Even those who don’t see eye to eye with Goldingay on some matters of interpretation could benefit from using these books as devotional aids or in preparation for preaching and teaching.
2011 sees the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible. We should anticipate a veritable glut of books to be released as the year goes on, exploring its history, its influence on culture and politics and language. In the run up during 2010, a number of books caught my eye, including Gordon Campbell, Bible: The Story of the King James Version 1611-2011 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) and Derek Wilson, The People’s Bible: The Remarkable History of the King James Version (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2010), both of which do a great job of telling the story surrounding the publication of the King James Bible. In addition, David Crystal, Begat: The King James Bible and the English Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) explores the influence of the language of the King James Bible (itself based on earlier translations) on language today in the continued use of phrases like ‘lamb to the slaughter’, ‘as old as the hills’, ‘written in stone’, ‘sour grapes’, showing how the Bible ‘begat’ such phrases in the English language – now found in newspaper headlines, TV sitcoms, song lyrics, and book titles.
In line with the interest that will be generated by the King James Bible anniversary comes Biblefresh – a movement of churches, agencies, colleges and festivals seeking to encourage and inspire churches across the UK to a greater confidence and appetite for the Word of God. The vision of Biblefresh is ‘to make 2011 a year of the Bible to help individuals and the whole church gain greater skill in handling the scriptures and a greater passion for hearing and obeying the Bible’. As part of the initiative, a manual – Biblefresh (Milton Keynes: Authentic, 2010) – was published, containing lots of helpful short articles containing ideas for individuals, small groups and churches to take practical steps in reading the Bible, being trained in handling the Bible, supporting translation work, and experiencing the Bible in new and creative ways.
