The latest of Catalyst (still, probably, my favourite free theological journal) is now online, with a selection of short articles, mostly excerpted or adapted from fuller works by the authors:
Premodern Biblical Exegesis:Why Does it Matter for Preachers and Teachers Today?
How John Wesley Read the Bible
Kenda Creasy Dean, edited and abridged by Nathan T. Stucky
Teenagers and the Art of Translation: Parents Matter Most
The latest Tyndale Bulletin contains the below articles with their abstracts:
David Seccombe
Incongruity in the Gospel Parables
Evidence is given of deliberate use of incongruity and the outright bizarre in some of the gospel sayings and parables. This is sometimes smoothed away by translators and commentators, who appear uncomfortable with it. Yet it has the marks of being one of Jesus’ characteristic teaching devices, the tendency of the transmission being to smooth out discordancies. With this in mind the parable of the leaven is re-examined, and it is argued that it contains three incongruities which strongly suggest its authenticity and could have made it a startling piece of communication for its original listeners. The results gained are employed to clear the way for a correct approach to the parable of the ten minas.
Carsten Vang
God’s Love According to Hosea and Deuteronomy: A Prophetic Reworking of a Deuteronomic Concept?
One of the most evident shared themes between the books of Hosea and Deuteronomy is the theme of God’s love for Israel. The usual scholarly explanation goes that Hosea fathered this notion which later was taken up in the Deuteronomy tradition. A close scrutiny of this theme in Hosea and Deuteronomy establishes that the lexical and structural agreements in the theme are considerable. However, it also reveals some major differences within the thematic parallel. The simplest solution seems to be that Hosea has reused an available Deuteronomic concept.
Allan Chapple
Getting Romans to the Right Romans: Phoebe and the Delivery of Paul’s Letter
How did Romans reach the people for whom it was intended? There is widespread agreement that Phoebe was the bearer of the letter (Rom. 16:1-2), but little investigation of or agreement about the exact nature of her responsibilities. By exploring the data available to us, especially that found in Romans 16, this essay provides a reconstruction of the events surrounding the transport and delivery of the letter to the Roman Christians. In particular, it proposes the following:
• Phoebe conveyed the letter to Rome, probably by sea;
• the church in Rome at this time consisted of house-churches;
• Phoebe was to deliver the letter first to Prisca and Aquila and their house-church;
• Prisca and Aquila were to convene an assembly of the whole Christian community, the first for some time, at which Romans was to be received and read;
• Prisca and Aquila were to be asked to arrange for copies of Romans to be made;
• Phoebe was to deliver these copies to other house-churches; and
• Phoebe was to read Romans in the way that Paul had coached her at each of the gatherings to which she took it.
Rodney K. Duke
Form and Meaning: Multi-Layered Balanced Thought Structures in Psalm 24:4
The complex literary artistry of Psalm 24:4 reveals it to be the focal point of this song of procession to worship. Standing in a catechism-like section, this verse provides the answer to the question about those qualified to approach God. This text exemplifies how artistic form was used to set this verse apart, complement the content, and highlight its theological message. It employs four levels of balanced thought structures that emphasise the total purity that is expected from one who would draw close to God. Theologically this verse functions as a call to holiness in response to God’s grace.
Gregory Goswell
Isaiah 1:26: A Neglected Text on Kingship
In recent studies of the theme of kingship in the book of Isaiah, Isaiah 1:26 has been neglected. This article seeks to demonstrate that this text is relevant to the theme. The future of leadership within the city of Jerusalem-Zion as forecast in Isaiah 1:26 is theocratic in shape, with Davidic kingship notably absent. The judges and counsellors spoken of are leaders appointed by Yhwh the King and act as judicial officers under him. The setting of Isaiah 1:26 in Isaiah 1, the immediate context of the section 1:21-26, the absence of any mention of kings in Isaiah 2–4, and the portrayal in the first half of Isaiah’s prophecy of Judaean kingship as a dying institution, all confirm this reading. Isaiah 1:26 is one of a number of texts in the first half of Isaiah that prepare the reader for what would otherwise be a radical shift to an exclusive focus on divine kingship in Isaiah 40–66.
Andrew J. Wilson
Hebrews 3:6b and 3:14 Revisited
Hebrews 3:6b and 3:14 have been central to Reformed interpretations of the warnings in Hebrews for several centuries. Today, however, there is something of an impasse in scholarship: on one side, there are those who see these verses as an interpretive key to the letter, and thus understand the warnings to refer to spurious or false believers; on the other, there are those who argue that since Hebrews warns real believers away from real apostasy, these two verses cannot mean what, at a grammatical level, they appear to mean. In this paper, I appraise the scholarly discussion so far, identify three key issues relating to grammar and context, and then propose a way through the impasse that has not been considered in modern scholarship.
David Instone-Brewer
Jesus of Nazareth’s Trial in the Uncensored Talmud
The Munich Talmud manuscript of b.San.43a preserves passages censored out of the printed editions, including the controversial trial of ‘Yeshu Notzri’. Chronological analysis of the layers in this tradition suggests that the oldest words are: ‘On the Eve of Passover they hung Jesus of Nazareth for sorcery and leading Israel astray.’ This paper argues that other words were added to this tradition in order to overcome three difficulties: a trial date during a festival; the unbiblical method of execution; and the charge of ‘sorcery’.
John Nolland
The Thought in John 1:3c-4
With a working assumption that the final words of verse 3 belong with verse 4, the article seeks to clarify the thought in the three clauses making up verses 3c-4. It concludes that the thought expressed is this: the mystery of animate life, existing as it does ‘in the Logos’, shines as a light upon humanity, a light intended to light up the divine presence in the world in that it reveals the presence and working of the Logos. A second alternative is possibly viable: creation is life-giving, and the life it gives acts as a light revealing the Logos.
Daniel S. Diffey
The Royal Promise in Genesis: The Often Underestimated Importance of Genesis 17:6, 17:16 and 35:11
There are three specific instances in which a royal promise is made to an individual in the book of Genesis. Scholarship has largely viewed these as incidental within the larger framework of the major themes found in the book of Genesis. This short note seeks to correct this misunderstanding by demonstrating that the promise that kings will come from Abraham, Sarah, and Jacob is integrally linked with the themes of fruitfulness, seed (offspring), and land. Thus, the theme of kingship is a much more important theme than is often held.
Dissertation Summaries
Andy Harker
Spiritually Called Sodom and Egypt: Getting to the Heart of Early Christian Prophecy through the Apocalypse of John
This work engages with and refreshes the debate regarding the nature of early Christian prophecy – a debate that has become somewhat deadlocked and stale – by placing Revelation at the centre of the debate and finding there a tertium quid challenging both sides of the debate. It is argued that Revelation is much more likely to be representative of regular early Christian prophecy than is often assumed and that what constitutes John’s prophecy (and potentially early Christian prophecy generally) as prophecy is essentially the way in which the text moves the affections – by a particularly powerful use of allusive metaphor to ‘name’ features of the contemporary world in such a way that the referent is completely swallowed up by the allusion.
[I contributed today’s ‘Word for the Week’, a weekly email service provided by the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity. It’s the first of two reflections on the Christmas story as told in Luke’s gospel; this one owes much to the inspiration of friend and former colleague, Conrad Gempf, Lecturer in New Testament at London School of Theology.]
The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favour with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.’
‘How will this be,’ Mary asked the angel, ‘since I am a virgin?’
Luke 1:30-34
While it has always been possible to make too much of Mary, it has been all too easy to make too little of her. Because, even if she is not an object of faith, she is an example of faith. And a very real example too.
Her story is elaborated in later Christian literature and art, with accounts of her own miraculous birth and childhood, accompanied by regular angelic visitations. Annunciation scenes sometimes portray Mary as reading Scripture or praying, or spinning purple thread for the temple veil – none of which is found in the gospels. Instead, like the fishermen and tax collectors who would be called, her heavenly encounter comes in the midst of everyday life – as an ordinary Galilean girl engaged to be married to Joseph. And, like the rest of us would be, she’s surprised and scared by the arrival of Gabriel.
Her response to his message is just as human, and wonderfully real. Faced with the increasingly amazing announcement – child, then son, then great, then Son of the Most High, then king, then eternal – Mary is frozen back at step one. A child? She’s young, but she’s not stupid; she knows how babies are made, and she knows she’s not been with a man. And so she says: ‘How will this be, since I am a virgin?’ No deep theological question. No amazing insight. No request for a sign. And no objection: ‘I am the Lord’s servant... May your word to me be fulfilled’ (Luke 1:38).
It’s a staggering response. Her reputation would be at stake, and her husband-to-be might want nothing more to do with her. She will play out something of the scandal of the gospel in her very self, and yet consents to do so as a servant of the Lord. She believes the word that is spoken to her, even if she doesn’t fully understand it, and her trust exercises itself in submission.
Then, as her story goes on, faith and obedience will give rise to joyful singing and quiet reflection – all appropriate responses of ordinary, everyday servants of God since, at Christmastime and all times.
Willem J. de Wit, On the Way to the Living God: A Cathartic Reading of Herman Bavinck and an Invitation to Overcome the Plausibility Crisis of Christianity (Amsterdam: VU University Press, 2011), x + 208 pages, ISBN 9789086595860.
Fans of Herman Bavinck will be interested to see that this book by Willem J. de Wit is available for free download here.
The blurb says:
‘Post-Christian Amsterdam is a place where life seems to be good without God, where Jesus is seen as a figure of a distant past, and where only a few people still go to church. However, it is also a context from which a deeply reflected invitation springs to face and overcome the plausibility crisis of Christianity.
‘By telling the story of the Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck (1854–1921) and his struggle to remain standing as a Christian over against the modern worldview of his day, this study offers interested readers all over the world a mirror in which to face their own struggle.
‘Moreover, in a world explained without God and marked by evil, it extends the invitation to adopt a binocular worldview and to live with open eyes on the way to the living God, even if this implies dying with Christ.’
The author, Willem J. de Wit, is Lecturer of Biblical Studies and Systematic Theology at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo, Egypt. Earlier he worked as a junior research fellow for the International Reformed Theological Institute at VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
The Evangelical Alliance UK is producing a series of reports from surveys into the beliefs, habits and practices of evangelical Christians in the UK.
They kicked off with an initial survey of more than 17,000 evangelicals (which I mentioned here), and they have followed it up with two further reports – one on ‘Does Belief Touch Society?’ and another (released last week) on ‘Are We Communicating?’
The December 2011 edition of National Geographic magazine carries an article by Adam Nicolson on ‘The Bible of King James’, which is available online here.
As the opening blurb says:
‘First printed 400 years ago, it molded the English language, buttressed the “powers that be” – one of its famous phrases – and yet enshrined a gospel of individual freedom. No other book has given more to the English-speaking world.’
At LICC today, we were asked what books about Christianity we might recommend to an unchurched person which could be given with confidence, without cringe or embarrassment. I thought Tim Keller’s Reason for God might fit the bill, and responded with the below blurb.
Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Scepticism (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2009).
A best seller, and rightly so, widely read and respected by believers and sceptics alike. The first part of the book examines seven of the most common objections and doubts about Christianity, while the second part explores seven reasons to believe in the claims of the Christian faith. Compelling without being forceful, Keller writes with intelligence, elegance and compassion, drawing on personal conversations as well as literature and philosophy.
