Chris Wright on the "Great Climax"
On Koinonia, the blog hosted by Zondervan Academic, David Frees reviews Chris Wright’s views on the “Great Climax” in Wright’s book,The God I Don’t Understand: Reflections on Tough Questions of Faith. Here is Wright’s own summary of the relevant chapter (10) in the book:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsvZVAahQEs]
I have not actually read Wright’s book yet, but from Frees’ post, I think Wright is on the right track. The end of the age is not simply about the wicked getting their punishment and the righteous their reward, but in the Jesus tradition, it relates directly to how one lives life in the present. Here is a helpful comment from the post:
While his discussion of the resurrection of the dead and the final judgment are important, I connected most with the first section, concerning the return of Christ. Without commenting on the timing of Christ’s return, Wright speaks about the certainty of it. A certainty that he says should deeply impact the believer. He challenges us as readers to ask ourselves what the sure return of Christ means to our lives today. Do we live as though Christ could return at any minute? Does the truth that Christ is the reigning and returning Lord have any bearing on our daily activities? What Christ’s return means to us is a question that should transform the way we think, speak and live every day?
It is easy to think of the “Big Day” as a time when Christ will return to deal out judgment to those who have done us wrong. The Day of the Lord, however, is more than just a day of judgment for unbelievers; it is also a day of examination for believers.
Well said. I am currently trying to work through the difficult complications of the historical situation myself, but I think the present-day Christian’s theological assessment of apocalyptic expectation must emphasize this point.
Those Brits just don't get it (says John Collins)
In reading on apocalyptic things, I came across this fun bit by John J. Collins in Knowing the End from the Beginning: The Prophetic, The Apocalyptic, and their Relationships (note the use of “Apocalyptic” in the title), edited by Lester L. Grabbe and Robert Haak (T & T Clark):
Categories and definitions were the subject of sustained discussion in the 1970s and early ’80s, beginning with the work of Klaus Koch and Paul Hanson, and continuing through the SBL genres project and the Uppsala colloquium. One of the most widely shared points of agreement in that discussion was the use of ‘apocalyptic’ as a noun was a source of confusion, and that distinctions should be made between apocalypse as a literary genre, apocalypticism, whether as a social movement or as a worldview, and apocalyptic eschatology. It is true that these distinctions have not been embraced by British scholarship. In fact, there was very little British participation in those debates, and the objections to the use of ‘apocalyptic’ do not appear to have been grasped in that part of the world. [45]
He also clarifies that the objection to the use of “apocalyptic” as a noun is not grammatical, but because of the “intrinsic vagueness of the term.” Collins later adds, “To revert to this usage, in my view, is to set the discussion back to the state of confusion that prevailed before Koch wrote his monograph” (46). Oh ye British in “that part of the world”! Trying to confound us again, eh? There is a relevant discussion about this in the comments of a blog post on Ben Myers’ blog from awhile back, kicked off by Mike Bird’s comment (reflecting the trend that Collins has noted here) and reacted against by others.
I tend to side with Collins (and Mike Bird) here. It does provoke interesting questions related to transatlantic scholarly discussions, though. We already have a big enough problem crossing language barriers. And I must say that I find it amusing that Collins makes the point within a book using “apocalyptic” as a noun in its subtitle (which is what provoked Mike Bird’s comment in the aforementioned conversation).
I should note that I received this book courtesy of Abigail Cox at T & T Clark and it is on the docket to be reviewed! Thank you Abby!
Voting About God
Eric Sowell points to and discusses a very interesting looking book by Ramsay MacMullen, a giant in the social history of the Christianization of the Roman Empire. When awarding him with a a lifetime Award for Scholarly Distinction in 2001, the American History Association stated, “Ramsay MacMullen is the greatest historian of the Roman Empire alive today.” The work is called Voting About God in Early Church Councils (2006). I had missed this one. Check out the description:
In this study, Ramsay MacMullen steps aside from the well-worn path that previous scholars have trod to explore exactly how early Christian doctrines became official. Drawing on extensive verbatim stenographic records, he analyzes the ecumenical councils from A.D. 325 to 553, in which participants gave authority to doctrinal choices by majority vote.
The author investigates the sometimes astonishing bloodshed and violence that marked the background to church council proceedings, and from there goes on to describe the planning and staging of councils, the emperors’ role, the routines of debate, the participants’ understanding of the issues, and their views on God’s intervention in their activities. He concludes with a look at the significance of the councils and their doctrinal decisions within the history of Christendom.
Wow! I need to read this. Thanks for drawing my attention to it, Eric.
Book Review: Jewish Believers in Jesus, Pt. 1
Jewish Believers in Jesus: The Early Centuries
Editors: Oskar Skarsaune and Reidar Hvalvik
Hardcover: 930 pages
Publisher: Hendrickson
ISBN: 9781565637634
Buy: Hendrickson; Amazon
Though it is a bit overdue, I would like to extend my gratitude to Hendrickson Publishers for sending me a review copy of Jewish Believers in Jesus, edited by Oskar Skarsaune and Reidar Hvalvik. This weighty volume came out shortly before SBL 2007 and was the subject of a standing room only discussion (Session S19-116) at that meeting. Of particular interest to me at that time was Mark Nanos’ scathing review of Don Hagner’s contribution in this work. For anyone in the room at the time of its reading, the tension was palpable. An audio version of the session is available, as is a PDF of Nanos’ paper (which was not read in its entirety), and I have transcribed Don Hagner’s response to Nanos here. My friend Matt Barnes also did a few blog posts about the Nanos paper. Having said that, my interests in this topic have since expanded further.
I attended this session after having taken a course on “Paul and the Law” from Hagner (winter 2007). This past quarter (fall 2008), I was part of a seminar with Ra’anan Boustan at UCLA on “Jews, Gentiles, and Christians in the Roman World.” On the heals of this last course, I am excited to tackle some pieces of this massive work. After the Hagner course, I was interested especially in the issue of the New Perspective on Paul (which I found more helpful than did Hagner). After the Boustan seminar, I have a somewhat wider interest in this scholarship.
In his preface to the work, Skarsaune notes the challenges to the idea that there ever was a “parting of the ways” between “Jews” and “Christians”–he names Boyarin’s Dying for God and the edited work, The Ways that Never Parted. He says, “[T]his has meant that while we were at work, a paradigm shift was going on around us” (xii). That paradigm shift moves away from the idea that there was a clean break between something called “Judaism” and something called “Christianity.” That there was such a break is the traditional view. The idea that there was no such break is at the heart of newer scholarship, such as the recent publication of Paula Fredriksen’s Augustine and the Jews (I hope to do a review of that work on this blog as well). This idea that there was no such break was also at the heart of Boustan’s seminar. The work edited by Skarsaune and Hvalvik contains multiple viewpoints on this and other topics:
“Neither authors nor editors think of this volume as a definitive history of Jewish believers in Jesus during the early centuries (first to fifth centuries C.E.). Nor have the editors made any attempt at unifying and streamlining the points of view expressed in the different contributions. We have regarded it an advantage that the book contains more than one opinion on some of the problems treated. There is, at present, no established scholarly consensus on the different themes treated in this volume. This goes for the many large as well as many of the smaller questions. In this way it is hoped that this volume, rather than summing up current scholarship, may in some measure contribute to it.” (xii-xiii)
It seems important to begin this multi-post review with definitions. That is where the book begins and it seems to be the cause of some confusion for two unhelpful reviews on Amazon (reviews that are based more on assumptions of what the term “Jewish believers in Jesus” must mean rather than actual readings of the book itself!). Unfortunately, this book is not one that can be searched inside on Amazon nor on Google Books–so, it is difficult for those interested to check things out without a copy of the book in hand. That said, you can find the table of contents, the preface and Skarsaune’s chapter on definitions at Hendrickson’s site. You can also find a very lengthy review by Elizabeth Boddens Hosang and Bart J. Koet in RBL. I hope my own review can be a helpful contribution for those interested.
Skarsaune notes that their project seeks to consider “Jews” as something closer to an ethnic category than an ideological category. If we consider, say, “Jewish Christians” as those who “believed in Jesus, and at the same time continued a wholly Jewish way of life” (4), then we abandon an important group: that is, “Jews who believed in Jesus, and at the same time abandoned their Jewish way of life and were assimilated among the Gentile Christians” (4). Skarsaune would like to discuss a wide range of Jews who confessed Christ and thus the term, “Jewish believers in Jesus.” These are people who were born Jews and also believe in Jesus, whether or not they practiced the “Jewish way of life” (however that is defined).
The term “Jewish Christian” is unfavorable because of its (potentially offensive) connotations: “It has become a term denoting something by nature Gentile, and by implication, non-Jewish” (4). I appreciate their category of “Jewish believers in Jesus,” though it would be nice if we could have a term that not only focused on “belief.” I suppose this gets to a foundational issue in the book: once a Jew becomes a believer in Jesus, how does this affect his or her way of life? The issue is more complicated than whether the “Jewish way of life” is abandoned or retained. Even if we could define what a “Jewish way of life” means, certainly there must be middle ground between total abandonment or total retainment (or simple discontinuity vs. simple continuity–see Hagner’s remarks). The benefit of this term is that it encompasses any number of responses to the paradigm shift of belief in Jesus.
In response to the question of whether this term is merely a modern construction, Skarsaune offers a few relevant ancient examples (5-6). I would like to close this first post by sharing them here because I find them so interesting:
(1) “Jesus said to those Ἰουδαῖοι who believed in him . . .” (John 8:31).
(2) “. . . those of the Jewish people who have believed in Jesus [οἱ ἀπὸ τοῦ λαοῦ τῶν Ἰουδαίων εἰς τὸν Ἰησοῦν πιστεύσαντες]” (Origen, Cels. 2.1).7
(3) “Why . . . did he not represent the Jew as addressing Gentile instead of Jewish believers? [οἱ ἀπὸ Ἰουδαίων . . . πιστεύοντες]” (Cels. 2.1).
(4) “Notice, then, what Celsus says to Jewish believers [οἱ ἀπὸ Ἰουδαίων πιστεύοντες]” (Cels. 2.1).
(5) “. . . He failed to notice that Jewish believers in Jesus [οἱ ἀπὸ Ἰουδαίων εἰς τὸν Ἰησοῦν πιστεύοντες] have not left the law of their fathers . . .” (Cels. 2.1).
(6) “[Matthew published his gospel first] for those who from Judaism came to believe [τοῖς ἀπὸ Ιουδαϊσμοῦ πιστεύσασιν]” (Origen, Comm. Matt., in Eusebius, Hist. eccl., 6.25.4).
(7) “It is said that their whole church at that time consisted of believing Jews [ἐξ Ἑβραίων πιστῶν]” (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 4.5.2).
(8) “[Hegesippus] was a believer from among the Jews [ἐξ Ἑβραίων]” (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 4.22.8).
More to come!
Blog Action Day: (Ancient) Poverty
Today is blog action day and the theme is poverty. I would like to abbreviate it BAD: Poverty. I thought it might be interesting to look at an excerpt from the book I am currently reading, The Jesus Movement by Stegemann and Stegemann, that addresses poverty in the ancient world. Here is their reflection on the “relatively poor” (penētes) in Greco-Roman society:
Martial (12.32) states that the poor are thin from hunger and cold. And for the satirist Lucian of Samosata, the living conditions of these poor were defined by high levies and debts, freezing in winter, and illness, as well as the experience of being beaten by the powerful (Cat. 15). It is this very aspect of violence–even the violent appropriation of property–that shows the poor’s lack of power and rights. Assaults of powerful, rich people against their poor neighbors appear as stereotypical complaints in ancient texts, whether it is the rich occupying the property of an orphan (Philostratus Heroikos 285) or a rich man acquiring the cottage of a poor man (Apuleius Metamorphoses 9:35ff.). The poverty of fishermen was proverbial, and Lucian of Samosata (Fug. 13, 17) says that out of hard work artisans, “bent over their work from early morning to evening, cannot earn a living from such endeavors, in spite of their effort and exertion.” The Bible confirms this perception, for the itinerent “tent maker” Paul worked longer than usual–from sunrise to sunset–but he still needed the support of others in order to maintain a minimal existence. The situation of artisan families became dramatic when the husband and father died. Here again, Lucian describes the sad conditions for us rather precisely (Hetaera Dialogues 6). After the death of a coppersmith in Piraeus, his family experienced a drastic social decline. First, the widow had to sell the work tools and then try to secure a living for the family through spinning, weaving, and sewing: finally, however, the only course left was for the daughter to contribute to the family income as a hetaera [a sophisticated sort of prostitute]. [p. 91]
That gives us a little bit of an “on the ground” picture of poverty in the Greco-Roman world. The poor struggled to make ends meet and the rich took advantage of them. Not unfamiliar.
Interestingly, I never thought much of Paul as “poor” before. He seems to stand out. Though Paul is not a philosopher and his letters are situational, he certainly engages in the sort of thought and writing that is normally reserved for the wealthy. Most poor people struggled to merely provide for themselves and would have no time or resources to engage in theological discourse. Paul worked in his trade but was also supported by churches so that he could pursue his theological mission. With that in mind, Paul seems even more extraordinary.
Congrats to Danny
Congratulations are due to Danny who published a very interesting looking Master’s (!) thesis entitled “Raise up to them their King” – Psalms of Solomon 17-18 in the Context of Early Jewish Messianism. In case you were (like me) interested in his publisher, VDM, I looked them up. You can find their website here. I also found an interesting discussion thread about them at the board for The Chronicle of Higher Education. It seems they are actively recruiting theses in a variety of areas. Some folks on the discussion board worried about the availability of their theses if published with a German company, but Danny’s thesis is available at Amazon, so you can’t get much more accessible than that!
Book Review: Christian Origins by Jonathan Knight
I would like to extend my gratitude to Abby at T&T Clark (see their blog) for sending along a fabulous (brand) new survey on the origins of Christianity. Jonathan Knight’s Christian Origins [publisher link - find the table of contents there] is a comprehensive introduction to the Jewish origins of Christianity, with an emphasis on the eschatological connection between Second Temple Judaism and the beginnings of the Jesus movement. The book is particularly relevant for my own interests because (1) I have just begun my doctoral program in Christian origins at UCLA and (2) I’m crazy about apocalyptic eschatology.
Knight’s work is quite ambitious. Within these pages, you find 31 mostly bite-sized chapters ranging topics as diverse as the sources of Second Temple Judaism, Diaspora Judaism, “Who Did Jesus Think He Was?”, Pauline soteriology and ethics, the “breach” between Christianity and Judaism, and the rise of Gnosticism. Knight covers both social and theological topics. He is sensitive to matters of scholarly nuance and introduces readers to important names and arguments within scholarship, while also keeping his prose accessible. Before going to far, we should note that Knight serves as a Research Fellow of the Katie Wheeler Trust and Visiting Fellow in New Testament and Christian Ministry at York St John University, UK. Knight is an ordained Anglican priest and has also written a book on Jesus. His preface notes that his next book will be on apocalypticism, “as if this has become a theme which I cannot evade” (xiii).
Knight attempts to dispossess the reader of the concept of an unambiguous “fixed” Christianity (or Judaism for that matter). He would like to take the reader back past the councils of the early church to the rich complexity of early Christianity. The book is divided into four parts, “From Judaism to Jesus,” “Jesus and His Mission,” “Paul and Christian Beginnings,” and “The Birth of Early Christianity.” The second part, especially the eleventh chapter on “An Approach to Jesus,” is a good primer on “historical Jesus” studies. To my enjoyment, Johannes Weiss receives a whole page and is not simply subsumed as a sentence or two under Schweitzer. Knight’s section on Paul does not survey the history of scholarship in the same way that he does for the historical Jesus, but it does reflect that scholarship. He surveys the writings of Paul (undisputed and disputed), gives a “whistlestop tour” of Pauline soteriology, highlights his eschatology, and considers his ethics.
Having just finished a presentation on the history of Christian writings on Judaism, I was happy to see Knight guide the reader through that difficult issue. For example, when speaking of Christianity’s possible inheritance of apocalyptic eschatology from Judaism, Knight rightly cautions,
In saying this, we must be careful to note the differences between ancient Judaism and modern Christianity and not to impose the younger understanding arbitrarily on older and quite different texts. This is to call for sensitivity in interpretation which allows the ancient texts to speak for themselves and not through a Christian matrix. Christian readers should recognize their natural bias in this respect. [58]
On mentioning E.P. Sanders’ “covenantal nomism,” Knight observes, “Sanders criticizes earlier scholarship on Judaism–particularly Christian scholarship–for its presentation of that relation as dominated by the perennial balance between sins and merits” (33). Knight could have tread a bit more carefully in his chapter on the “breach” between Judaism and Christianity. Even calling whatever “parting of the ways” that occured between the Jesus movement and its religious heritage a “breach” seems a bit harsh (?). Knight’s comment to start off the chapter uncharacteristically lacks some sensitivity to reader reaction: “The separation that occured was the result of reaction against the Christians by people of Jewish descent” (266). Out of context, this statement could be read as “blaming” the Jews for the separation and that is certainly thin ice. The content of the chapter, however, does cover key issues, including christological developments, the “twelfth benediction” of the Jamnian Academy and John 9, the polemic against the Pharisees in Matthew 23, Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho, and so-called “Jewish Christianity” such as the Ebionites.
To give an idea of his comments on Jesus’ death and resurrection, Knight strongly dismisses the idea that Jesus did not actually die on the cross (148) and more gently suggests that we “need not doubt” statements regarding the empty tomb (155, cf. 260). Contrary to being an intentional apologetic, however, Knight’s agenda in discussing the resurrection of Jesus is in what Jesus’ early followers did with the event. Knight suggests that the empty tomb is an “ambiguous symbol” and that resurrection appearances are “apocalyptic visions in which a heavenly mediator appears to the disciples and communicates a revelation to them” (260).
The biggest oversight in the book from my perspective is its lack of addressing the issue of women in the church. Knight breezes past a comment that the first half of 1 Corinthians 11 is “controversial,” barely mentioning “a statement of the subordination of women to men” (181). In his endnote for this sentence, he does refer to work done by Morna Hooker and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. Curiously, in the next endnote, which is regarding spiritual gifts in 1 Cor 12-14, he refers to Wayne Grudem’s work on prophecy in 1 Corinthians without explanation. Grudem’s work in this area is highly tilted in favor of the subordination of women. The missing engagement of women’s roles is felt particularly strongly in his chapter on “The Development of the Christian Ministry.” Within this chapter, Knight has the following statement under his treatment of “deacons”:
A whole passage in the Pastoral Epistles (1 Tim. 3.8-13) prescribes rules for their [deacons'] behaviour, including the behaviour of women deacons. The fact that the same epistle forbids women to teach or to have authority over men (1 Tim 2.12) is an indicator of the subordinate role of deacons in the communities addressed at that time. [291]
As far as I can see, this is the only statement on women in ministry in Knight’s book. I believe a book like this must address the patriarchal and androcentric nature of the surrounding society. Regarding gender roles in the family, Knight only casually mentions the household codes (191) and even then does not mention the role of husbands and wives. Within the book’s index, there are no entries for any of the following terms: women, female, gender, family, feminism, patriarchalism, or androcentrism. Knight nowhere mentions Paul’s key text (however one interprets it) in Galatians 3:28, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
The book uses endnotes rather than footnotes, and 100 pages of them at that. While I know Nick Norelli prefers the latter (he demotes his reviewed books one star out of five if they use endnotes!), endnotes do seem appropriate for a book aimed at a survey introducing newcomers to the field. The “Index of Names” is a misnomer, as it is an index of names and topics, where it would be helpful to have them separated.
Any oversights aside, I would highly recommend this book for use in a Christian origins or introductory New Testament course (though the latter should probably supplement Knight with a New Testament introduction proper). My two favorite things about this book are: (1) Knight’s integration of the study of apocalyptic eschatology into nearly all aspects of Christian origins and (2) Knight’s adroit descriptions of complex scholarly arguments in an accessible manner. My most significant caution about using the book would be the need to supplement Knight’s work with solid coverage of gender roles in Christian origins. The material is certainly appropriate for seminarians or other graduate students and may be challenging to undergraduates, but in a positive way. As noted, Knight is a Christian, but his purpose is not to coddle conservative evangelicals–far from it. His insistence on nuance and ambiguity may just make a fundamentalist student’s head explode. But maybe they could grow a new one. On the other end, I do not believe it is too confessional for a secular classroom. With that said, I wish everyone happy reading!
Shame on who? (learning about women and "positive shame")
I am new to the world of honor/shame research and I am now diving in. I know some of the basics, but after reading Bruce Malina’s chapter on honor and shame in his New Testament World, I am still trying to get a hold of this “positive shame” business:
Positive shame, a sense of shame, means sensitivity about one’s own reputation, sensitivity to the opinion of others. To have shame in this sense is an eminently positive value. Any human being worthy of the title “human,” any human group worthy of belonging to humankind, needs to have shame, to be sensitive to its honor rating, to be perceptive to the opinion of others. A sense of shame makes the contest of living possible, dignified, and human, since it implies acceptance of and respect for the rules of human interaction. (49)
Note that “positive shame” is having shame (noun) rather than being shamed (verb). To get shamed or to be shamed occurs when people “aspire to a certain status and this status is denied them by public opinion” (50). So, being or getting shamed is negative shame, then? Malina doesn’t come out and use that term, but it seems implied. But, then, what is negative about the shame?
I tried looking around to see if Malina was just making this stuff up or whether he was misappropriating insights from another field. In addition to other (more scholarly) things, I did find an article in Parade Magazine (!) by Dr. Joyce Brothers (!) about positive shame, entitled “Shame May Not Be So Bad After All.” Brothers seems to connect “bad” shame with unnecessary humiliation or guilt, while relating positive shame to a healthy sense of social norms and respect for others. She relates the story of a man who yells at the refs too loudly at youth soccer games until the fellow parents get fed up and finally “shame” him (verb) by booing his actions. The act of being shamed, for this man, apparently led to a renewed sense of shame (noun) where he began to voice his displeasure with refs in a quieter manner.
Brothers says: “Positive shame occurs when we see ourselves as we really are—perhaps too self-involved to notice that our spouse needs our help, perhaps too scared of what others think to stand up for someone in trouble, perhaps too resentful of the past to allow a wound to heal.” Well, if it’s in Parade Magazine, it must be true. At least I know now that Malina did not make up this category of “positive shame.”
To complicate things, Malina suggests that (for Mediterranean society) “when honor is viewed as an exclusive prerogative of one of the genders, then honor is always male, and shame is always female” (49). I’m confused. Are we saying that only women have this positive sense of shame? But isn’t it required for all of humanity to have a sense of shame? Are we also saying that women in Mediterranean society are not capable of possessing honor?
It seems the male in this society is characterized by open boldness, while the female is characterized by private timidity. Get this interesting bit of symbolism:
First of all, male honor is symboled by the testicles, which stand for manliness, courage, authority over family, willingness to defend one’s reputation, and refusal to submit to humiliation [elsewhere he adds: courage, defense of family's honor, concern for prestige, and social eminence]. . . . Female honor, on the other hand, is symboled by the maidenhead (hymen) and stands for female sexual exclusiveness, discretion, shyness, restraint, and timidity [elsewhere he adds: modesty and blushing]. (47)
Malina says that all of the male behaviors listed are considered honorable behavior for a male in Mediterranean society. All of the characteristics of female positive shame listed “[make] her honorable” (49). This is one of the points that make my head hurt: a strong sense of positive shame for the female (but not for the male?) leads to honorable standing. The idea that some form of shame would be a prerequisite for honor seems like a paradox to me. I have long thought of honor and shame as opposites. I guess this post has been about me figuring out that they have a much more complicated relationship.
Any thoughts?
David Scholer on Libronix
I am certain that this was planned long before his passing, but it is interesting to note for those who love their Bible programs (like I do). I just noticed that Logos Bible Software is offering the Eerdmans Bible Reference Collection (5 Vols.) in their pre-publication program (basically, you purchase early so they can develop the product and send it to you when it’s ready). David Scholer’s 1973 edition of A Basic Bibliographic Guide for New Testament Exegesis (the second edition) is among the five volumes in the collection.
I have a tentative third edition that was printed for use in Fuller Seminary courses. I don’t know if he was working on publishing an updated version of it. The third edition is quite helpful. The problem with publishing bibliographies, of course, is that they go out of date so quickly. So, the second edition is not the best thing for keeping up on recent scholarship, but it will point out the interesting things that were going on in New Testament studies back then.
In a review published by the Catholic Biblical Quarterly in 1974, James T. Clemons writes:
Intended for theological students and seminary-educated persons, this guide should be quite serviceable for all those engaged in NT interpretation. Titles, almost entirely limited to books in English, are divided into 12 sections, including bibliographic surveys and tools; texts of OT and NT; concordances, lexicons, and grammars; introductions; dictionaries and encyclopedias; literature, history, and religions of the NT world, subdivided into pagan, Jewish, and early Christian; translations and commentaries; and interpretive principles of exegesis. Publication dates range from late 19th century through mid-1972.
[ . . . ]
S. has provided a basic tool and can only be commended for his work. I shall make good use of it in several areas of investigation and gladly call its values to the attention of my students.
In the Mail: The New Testament and Homosexuality by Robin Scroggs
Many thanks to Augsburg Fortress Publishers for sending a review copy of The New Testament and Homosexuality (publisher link) by Robin Scroggs, who is Edward Robinson Professor of Biblical Studies Emeritus at Union Theological Seminary in New York. This one goes back quite a few years, published in 1983. If you google “Robin Scroggs”, you will find all sorts of folks in the homosexuality debate using his book for various purposes. Scott Bartchy has required the text for his seminar this fall, “Spirituality and Sexuality in the Early Christian Movement” and I am intrigued. Here’s an excerpt from the preface:
For better or worse, I decided that somebody needed somehow to provide resources that would give both clarity and honesty: clarity about the real issues with which the Bible dealt, and honesty about how the Bible could or could not appropriately inform the debate [regarding homosexuality]. . . .
Perhaps this “personal confession” will signal my own interests and involvement with the topic. I am not a homosexual. Nor do I write this book as an advocate either for or against the ecclesiastical rights of homosexuals. I confess to a confusion about the merits of psychological arguments concerning homosexual inclinations, a confusion I know I share with many people. I just do not know whether homosexuality is or can be normal or whether it can be as fulfilling to the human person as heterosexuality.
At the same time I confess equally that I see no way of reading the Christian gospel except that it is one which totally accepts in love all persons, regardless of inadequacies or moral failings. And I have seen too many tragic rejections of homosexual persons in the name of Christian righteousness or even love. I thus offer these pages in the hope that, in addition to bringing clarity and honesty to issues of the relevance of the Bible, it may bring as well a little more light and a little less heat to the discussion, a little more acceptance of all persons on the “other side,” and maybe even an awareness that in Christ there is really no “other side” at all.
Ultimately, however, my purpose in writing is to make it as clear as possible what are the issues in the use of the Bible in Christian debates about the acceptance of homosexuals. Just what is a proper use of the Bible, especially the New Testament, in these discussions?
I don’t know if it’s possible for anyone to really bring “a little less heat” to this discussion, but I’m interested to see what Scroggs has to say nonetheless!
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Elsewhere . . .- Blog titles beginning with "A" to "Z" on your reader Mark Goodacre
- Of making many books there is no end Chris Brady
- Free Online: The Liddell-Scott Jones Lexicon S and C
- Does Higher Criticism Attempt to “Destroy the Bible”? II agathos
- Steven J. Friesen and the Identity of Satan’s Throne in Pergamum alan
- Does Higher Criticism Attempt to “Destroy the Bible”? agathos
- Bloomsbury buys Continuum Mark Goodacre
- Imperial America Peter J. Leithart
- C.F.D. Moule on the Birth of the New Testament d. miller
- Responding to Kostenberger (with comparisons to Marshall) Jeremiah
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