Jeremy Ive on Peacebuilding and the Ending of Apartheid

The latest Cambridge Paper from the Jubilee Centre is available online, this one by Jeremy Ive:

Jeremy Ive, ‘Peacebuilding and the Ending of Apartheid’, Cambridge Papers 23, 2 (June 2014).

Here is the summary:

‘The Newick Park Initiative (NPI) in South Africa was a Christian initiative which helped to build the trust and a shared national vision across the political spectrum in the years around the release of Nelson Mandela in early 1990. It also prepared the ground for the mediation of Professor Washington Okumu in 1994 which made possible the peaceful conduct of the first fully non-racial elections of that year. The relational principles governing NPI are a guide for Christian peacebuilding at a national level, applicable in other contexts as well.

Vern Sheridan Poythress on the Sovereignty of God

Vern S. Poythress, Chance and the Sovereignty of God: A God-Centered Approach to Probability and Random Events (Wheaton: Crossway, 2014), 357pp., ISBN 978-1-4335-3695-3.

The latest book from Vern Sheridan Poythress is freely available in its entirety as a 7.7 MB pdf here.

Here’s some of the blurb:

‘In this theologically informed and philosophically nuanced introduction to the study of probability and chance, Vern Poythress argues that all events – including the seemingly random or accidental – fall under God’s watchful gaze as part of his eternal plan. Comprehensive in its scope, this book lays the theistic foundation for our scientific assumptions about the world while addressing personal questions about the meaning and significance of everyday events.’

The Pacific Journal of Baptist Research

Just today I came across The Pacific Journal of Baptist Research, an open-access online journal published twice a year, ‘which aims to provide an international vehicle for scholarly research and debate in the Baptist tradition, with a special focus on the Pacific region’.

All issues are available online here as pdfs. Some of the essays are (understandably) focused on the history of, and issues related to, Baptist traditions in the Pacific region, but others offer a broader reach, including the following that caught my eye from a quick glance at tables of contents:

Graham Hill on atonement and healing – 8, 1 (2013)

Brendon Neilson on James McClendon – 7, 2 (2011)

A whole issue devoted to Stanley Grenz – 6, 1 (2010)

Andrew Picard on Baptist ecclesiology and missional church – 5, 1 (2009)

Myk Habets on anthropological dualism – 4, 1 (2008)

Centre for Public Christianity (July 2014)

This month, among other items, the Centre for Public Christianity offers a video interview with Professor John Swinton (Chair in Divinity and Religious Studies at Aberdeen University) about dementia, ‘the challenge it poses to Western ideas about identity and the importance of community for those who suffer from dementia’.

Journal for the Evangelical Study of the Old Testament 3, 1 (2014)

The latest issue of the Journal for the Evangelical Study of the Old Testament is freely available online. The main articles (listed below with their abstracts) are available from here, with a pdf of the entire issue available here – but it’s worth checking out for its book reviews as much as anything else.

Nathan Lovell

The Shape of Hope in the Book of Kings: The Resolution of Davidic Blessing and Mosaic Curse

The issue of hope in the book of Kings has long been a focal point of debate. This paper approaches the question from the standpoint of the final form of the book, rather than attempting to discern the voice of the Deuteronomist(s) within the text. I argue that the message of hope is exposed by a central theological tension within the book: that Yahweh has promised both blessing to David and curse for Mosaic breach. I conclude that in the resolution of this tension the book encourages hope in its exilic readership, but precludes a return to the monarchy as it was formerly. Rather, the purpose of Kings as it now stands is to reshape exilic hope towards a different type of kingdom, and to demonstrate to the exiles the new shape that this kingdom will take through the prophetic ministry amongst the powerless to gather a remnant. Messianic and nationalistic hope in Kings is shaped by the exile,  which  represents  a  new  beginning  for  Yahweh’s  people. 

Matthew R. Akers

The Soteriological Development of the “Arm of the LORD” Motif

A quarter of a century ago James Hoffmeier published his groundbreaking Biblica article “The Arm of God Versus the Arm of Pharaoh in the Exodus Narratives.” The same year, Manfred Görg released his study “Der starke Arm Pharaos” in the Festschrift honoring François Daumas. Both men demonstrated that the OT seizes Egyptian victory language and applies it to the God of Israel in order to portray him as the conqueror of Pharaoh. This paper builds upon these important works, arguing that the OT authors, particularly in the prophetical period, employed the theme to express several important theological concepts. The author of this paper explores a number of OT passages that depict the arm of the LORD as the deliverer of post-conquest Israel and the redeemer of the entire world.

Silviu Tatu

Making Sense of Melchizedek (Genesis 14:18-20)

Biblical criticism has debated for the last two centuries whether or not to include the Melchizedek episode (Gen 14:18–20) with the other incidents of the story in Gen 14. This article makes the case for the early integration of Melchizedek’s episode in the narrative concerning Abram recovering Lot and his properties and in the Abraham narrative cycle as a whole. In order to achieve that, several general issues had to be addressed: the integrity of the text itself with its syntactic relationships, literary genre and plot. An investigation of some particular issues follows: Melchizedek’s name, title, and actions, as well as assessing how well they fit the patriarchal context and the original plot. Since the debate is complex and multi-layered, various tools were employed: Hebrew grammar and syntax, form criticism, narrative criticism, and History of Religions. We found that, as it stands, Gen 14:18–20 is too well integrated in the story of Abraham and the fabric of its own world to need political agendas motivating its late addition as various source theories claim. 

Andrew C. Witt

David, the ‘Ruler of the Sons of His Covenant’ (מושל בבני  בריתו): The Expansion of Psalm 151 in 11QPsa

Since 1965, there has been great debate concerning the provenance of the Great Psalms Scroll (11QPsa).Building off recent analyses by Strawn and Debel, this article argues that Psalm 151A contains the sectarian phrase “sons of his covenant,” which was added to the psalm as part of its Qumranic revision. This puts into question Flint’s position that the 11QPsa-Psalter tradition had a provenance prior to the establishment of the Qumran community. In its final pages, the article examines some of the implications of its findings, particularly concerning the redactional history of Psalm 151, and how one might interpret Psalm 151A in light of its expansions.

Book Reviews

Matt Jenson on World Christianity

There’s a nice piece here by Matt Jenson very briefly highlighting some of the contributions (by, for example, Philip Jenkins and Mark Noll) to the discussion of World Christianity from a largely North American context.

‘We can – and do – take our experience for granted as “normal,” oblivious to the fact that American [and UK?] Christian experience is no more universal than, say, Indonesian Christian experience.’

Bible Odyssey

Society of Biblical Literature have launched Bible Odyssey, a website containing short articles by mainstream scholars. The contributions are divided into three areas – people, places, and passages of the Bible. It’s early days so far, but this could be one to bookmark and watch out for.