Biblical interpretation

Review: Reading the Bible with Ten Church Fathers

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Cover image of "Reading the Bible with Ten Church Father" by Gerald Bray

Reading the Bible with Ten Church Father

Reading the Bible with Ten Church Father, Gerald Bray. Baker Books (ISBN: 9781540905147) 2026.

Summary: How the generations after the apostles interpreted and preached the Bible.

One of the things any growing Christian aspires to is to better read and understand the Bible. Gerald Bray believes that is one of the reasons why we should learn how the early church fathers read, understood and preached the Bible. We follow in the footsteps of two millenia of Christians and the ten church fathers profiled here were among the first. Not only that, what they understood and taught played a crucial role in the formation of the church’s understanding of key doctrines. They contributed, even in their disagreements, to clarifying what we believe about the Trinity and the person of Christ. And, yes, they differed. But even their differences helped shape the church’s interpretive practices.

In this readable account, theologian Gerald Bray offers a concise biography of each of the ten fathers, highlighting their works and how they read scripture, and what this means for us. For example:

Justin Martyr was an apologist to the Jews. He argued for the idea that all scripture pointed to Christ but that the Jews had failed to see this. His Dialogue with Trypho and how the two men concluded is a model of respectful dialogue.

Origen was the first to write commentaries and practice careful textual criticism. He set forth principles of interpretation and guarded against excessive spiritualization of the biblical text, yet used the literal sense as a basis for allegorizing scripture.

Gregory of Nyssa came from a family of theologians with older brother Basil and sister Macrina. He stressed God’s initiative through the Incarnate Word, Jesus, and the written word of scripture. He not only contributed to the formulation of God as one in nature and three hypostases. Gregory sets forth Abraham as the archetype of faith.

Ambrosiaster is a kind of “mystery man” among the church fathers. However, he left us with commentaries on Paul’s letters and a discussion of questions of interpretation of the whole Bible.

John Chrysostom was known for his preaching, eventually being elevated to patriarch of Constantinople before become embroiled in controversy and exiled. He sees scripture as God’s accommodation to the limits of human understanding. John described Old Testament prophets as sowers and the New Testament apostles as reapers. He believed salvation to be for all people and modeled diligent exposition of the whole of scripture.

Theodore of Mopsuestia was a friend of John Chrysostom. He was a monastic and scholar, writing commentaries on most of the Bible and rejecting fanciful allegorization for literal reading of the text. He got in trouble after his death for his views of the two hypostases of Christ.

Jerome is best known for his Latin translation of the Bible, known as the Vulgate, based on the Hebrew Masoretic text rather than the Septuagint. He was a model of careful translation that returned to the sources as well as an author of several commentaries.

Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo in north Africa models the work of a theologian grounded in the biblical text, confronting both the Donatist schism and Pelagianism.

Cyril of Alexandria met the challenge of Nestorianism over Christology. He read the Old Testament as history that pointed to Christ, a pioneer of typological reading. Cyril also modeled the theological interpretation of the New Testament, particularly the gospel of John. He was clear in proclaiming Jesus as God incarnate who, divine and human in one person, died for our salvation.

Theoderet of Cyrrhus was a disciple of Theodore of Mopsuestia, but models for us the willingness to be convinced by scripture that the ideas of Christology he received from Theodore were inadequate and that the Chalcedonian account was truer to the text of scripture.

This is a wonderfully concise introduction to the fathers, suitable for a class or personal study. Reflection questions help the reader discern the relevance of each father for today. They also recognize the timeless questions with which both they and we must wrestle. Each chapter also includes texts for further reading on each father.

Bray helps us realize the crucial role these fathers played in clarifying orthodox belief. Not only that, he helps us see how they grounded the defense of the faith in scripture carefully interpreted. Bray encourages us to give thanks for their lives, anticipating the day we will be in eternal communion with them at the table of the Lamb.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Four (and a half) Dialogues on Homosexuality and the Bible

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Four (and a half) Dialogues on Homosexuality and the Bible, Donald J Zeyl. Cascasde Books: Eugene, OR: 2022.

Summary: A fictional dialogue between four students representing four different interpretive approaches to the Bible regarding homosexuality and same sex marriage.

It might come as a surprise to some readers of this review that theologically conservative Christians who believe in the authority of the Bible in their lives come to different conclusions about homosexuality and whether same sex marriage is morally permissible. Yet the fictional dialogue portrayed in this book represents actual positions (and some discussions) between believing people who take the Bible seriously enough to not dismiss its statements about homosexuality as archaic, culture-bound anachronisms, or as having nothing to do with present day expressions of homosexuality.

Donald J. Zeyl uses the classic device of a fictional dialogue (he’s a philosophy professor!) to not only tease out the different approaches to interpreting the key texts pertaining to homosexuality. He also models in this dialogue for Christians who really are committed to loving each other and maintaining the unity of the body of Christ across differences. Each person represents clearly thought-out and biblical supported convictions but is also open to questions, and listens carefully to others, treating them with respect. The four are students at a Christian college.

Amanda identifies as same-sex attracted and committed to living celibately, believing that scripture prohibits both same sex desire and intimacy, reading the passages as written. Phil identifies as gay and believes that homosexual intimacy is permissible in marriage and is engaged to a gay man. He holds that the binaries of scripture are not definitive statements and that gay persons are not “exchanging” natural relations for unnatural ones. David is heterosexual as is Stephanie. David believes that a person may be gay in orientation but only sins when engaged in any homosexual practice, that orientation per se, and even desire are not sin. Stephanie, while believing that by design, marriage was meant for men and women, holds that, post-fall, just as God creates others with disabilities (consider his statement to Moses), so he also accommodates those created but not creationally designed aspects of human experience, including homosexuality and thus God permits homosexual marriage.

This briefly summarizes their interpretive approaches. There were two things they all held in common. One was that Genesis 19 and Judges 19 were not relevant to the discussion. The other was that all agreed that sexual intimacies outside of marriage as they understand it were sinful–gay or straight. Their discussions focused on the prohibitions of Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, Paul’s teaching in Romans 1:18-27, and the vice lists in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and 1 Timothy 1:8-11, as well as the creation of man and woman in Genesis 1:26-27 and the reaffirmation of these verses by Jesus in the gospels and Paul’s teaching in Ephesians 5 about husbands and wives reflecting the relationship of Christ and the church.

Some of the interpretive questions they discuss include:

  • Do the prohibitions represent universal principles applicable for all time or may they be culturally contextualized?
  • Are the types of homosexual expression described and prohibited in scripture the same as covenanted same-sex relationships?
  • Is the male-female distinction supportive of an absolute binary or is their room for a continuum of gender and sexual identities?
  • When Paul speaks of “exchanging” natural relations for unnatural ones in Romans 1:26-27, how might this relate to gay and lesbian persons who never had opposite but only same sex attraction and never “exchanged” one for another?
  • Is it wrong in light of biblical teaching to identify as “gay” or “lesbian” (Amanda will only identify as same sex attracted and believes same sex desire as well as intimacy to be wrong and thus will not identify as lesbian)? Is there a distinction between desire and lust? Desire and sexual intimacy?
  • What bearing ought our scientific knowledge, which differs from Moses or Paul, have on our reading of texts, particularly given other instances where our interpretation of scripture takes science into consideration?
  • Can the idea that God creates mouths, ears, and eyes and can make mute, deaf, or blind a warrant for saying (at least post-fall) that God made someone gay? And does this warrant permitting marriage, as Steph argues)?

The four participants do not pull their punches in asking hard questions. And they sometimes mispeak and push back against others who mispeak. They don’t have this difficult conversation perfectly but they do remain committed brothers and sisters in Christ with each other. They don’t reach agreement, and while each gives the others much to think about, they do not change their minds in the course of this conversation. The final “half” conversation explores the question of how their practice of mutual respect and unity in Christ extends to churches and denominations. They raise another interesting question: can churches within a denomination hold to different understandings?

One “imbalance” in the book is the space given Stephanie’s interpretive approach (which reflect’s the author’s) versus the other three. While none is treated in a “straw person” fashion, this gets nearly double the space of the others. It is a more complicated argument, as indicated in the parameters she lays out (p. 88). Far more could be said about each of the other three positions (and perhaps has been, whereas this, the author believes, is novel).

Donald J. Zeyl offers a thoughtful and sensitive dialogue for those who think what the Bible says about homosexuality to be important. It won’t be satisfying for those whose “staked out” position is more important than what those who differ really think. It won’t be satisfying for those who want all the differences to be resolved. I’m glad that the students didn’t change their convictions, even while being driven back to the biblical text to search further to “see if these things are so.” I appreciated when each challenged the other on how much weight they were putting on a particular statement or an argument from silence. There is a wonderful model here of good argument–both in the reasoned statements of each and the respect afforded each other. It shows what students, and hopefully other adults ought, under God’s grace, be capable of doing.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: Methodical Bible Study

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Methodical Bible Study. Robert A. Traina. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2002 (First published in 1952).

Summary: The foundational text and manual in the inductive Bible study movement.

I am a product of inductive Bible study. As a young Christian, I struggled to understand the meaning of scripture for myself and to be sure that the ways in which I applied it didn’t simply reflect an imposition of my own desires on the text of scripture. My life was revolutionized by a soft-spoken woman of scripture at an InterVarsity training conference in the summer of 1974. Barbara Boyd taught us how to carefully observe what was in a passage of scripture, giving titles to paragraphs, observing repeated words, contrasts, comparisons, and other of what she termed “laws of composition.” She taught us to identify significant observations, that tied parts of passages together and to turn them into interpretive questions that led us to wrestle with the passage’s meaning, often distilling that into a sentence describing a central theme. She then suggested ways we might apply this truth–a promise to trust, an example to follow or avoid, a command to obey, and so forth. She taught us how to turn our own study into Bible studies we could lead with fellow students. What I learned that summer not only made me a better student of scripture–it made me a better student as I applied what I learned to carefully reading other texts–whether the poetry of Wordsworth or a text in physiological psychology. And what I learned that summer, I continue to use and teach to this day.

I don’t know whether it was Ms. Boyd or someone else who mentioned that this approach derived from the work of Dr. Robert A. Traina, He served as a professor at the Biblical Seminary in New York, and later at Asbury Theological Seminary. Methodical Bible Study was first published in 1952. It quickly became the reference text for the growing inductive Bible study movement. “Inductive” refers to the inference of general principles from particular observations. It contrasts with deductive reasoning, which begins with general principles and infers particular instances from them. With regard to Bible study, it is the process of coming to the text, as far as possible, without preconceptions of what one will find, and carefully observing the details of the text using the reporters questions (who, what, when, where, how), our senses and imagination with narratives, and looking for the devices writers use to point to meaning.

Traina’s text truly is methodical, offering very detailed instruction. For example, the outline of his chapter on observation covers three pages. He begins with definition, purpose, and requisites of observation, and then looking at various kinds of things one observes in the text: definitions of terms, the atmosphere of the passage, the structure of a passage, utilizing paragraphs in the English Bible, various literary devices that reveal structure (what we later called “laws of composition”), and the various literary forms of scripture. Similar outlines follow for the steps of interpretation, evaluation and application, and correlation. He provides exercises for the student throughout the process.

The bulk of the book is devoted to observation and interpretation. In interpretation, he teaches moving from observations to interpretive questions. He gives an example of a study of Psalm 23 where he has 52 observations about which he asks interpretative questions. He recognizes both subjective factors in interpretation including personal experience, and objective factors including etymology, inflections, context, literary forms, atmosphere, author’s viewpoint, historical background, and other factors. The challenge is to integrate and summarize all these factors. He allows that there is never a perfect or uniform outcome, but that the outcome should arise from careful interpretive questioning of our observations of the text.

The last two parts concern, first evaluation and application, and second correlation. In the first, the focus is on discerning between the the truths that are local and particular to the original readers, and those of timeless character that bear on our own lives. Correlation then relates the insights from a particular passage to our study of other passages within a book, and to other books in scripture. In my experience, this step is often omitted, which can be a serious problem of inductive study. We see the “trees” of particular passages, but miss the “forest” within which they live in scripture. Sadly, Traina spends only five pages on this final step.

Traina also includes appendices on the use of charts in study, on word studies using the example of the word “Holy,” various kinds of logical outlines, and how to use the book (which he refers to as a manual) in teaching.

Inductive Bible study has been criticized as being too “cognitive.” The terms “inductive” and “methodical” no doubt contribute to this perception. Traina encourages the use of imagination, and affective aspects in one’s work. What is evident is a disciplined and rigorous approach to biblical texts, considering them worthy of the careful study we give other texts.

As mentioned above, failing to correlate what we learn with other scripture, can lead either to fragmented understanding, or sometimes doctrinal distortions built around one text the neglect of others. I also think greater thoughtfulness about the role of deduction in this process could be helpful. Would not our understanding of larger themes of scripture sometimes inform or even modify truths inductively arrived at in a particular text?

I would also like to see a greater consciousness of the cultural backgrounds and other presuppositions and preconceptions we bring to the text. In 2014, an updated posthumous work, co-authored work with David R. Bauer was published under the title Inductive Bible Study. At least from the table of contents, I see no discussion of the cross-cultural applicability of these methods. This is increasingly urgent as abolitionist, decolonized, and feminist readings of scripture (responses to oppressive, Western imperialist, and patriarchal readings) are put forward. Inductive study at its best comes to the text with a radical openness to what we might find in the text. However without clarity and discernment about the implicit biases each of us bring (true of all the readings just mentioned), and perhaps study with those who come from different cultural situations, we will simply reproduce these biases in our study findings, apart from the radical intervention of God’s Spirit.

Traina’s method is based on the use of the English text of scripture, with limited discussion of the use of original language resources (the 2014 work with Bauer includes an appendix on this). The focus on vernacular is helpful for lay readers. He does not discuss application of his methods to other languages than English.

The overall experience of reading this book left two impressions. One was, “so that’s where the training came from that so influenced me!” I found myself profoundly grateful for that. Second, I was reminded of the rigor and care we learned in studying a passage of scripture. I recognize in myself the times when I’ve cut corners or prepared sloppily to teach or lead others into the text. I suspect for many of today’s readers, Traina may seem “over the top.” But I also realize the hours of work any musician or other artists, creating works of excellence, put into their craft. Traina’s work seems directed to forming individuals who will become like these in their study of scripture and like Ezra, who “devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the LORD, and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel” (Ezra 7:10).

Review: Interpreting the God-Breathed Word

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Interpreting the God-Breathed Word, Robbie F. Castleman. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018.

Summary: A book for all who want to be students of scripture focusing on how to study and understand the texts employing inductive study, speech-act theory, and canonical interpretation.

Robbie Castleman, not unlike this reviewer, discovered the joys of studying and understanding the meaning of scripture through what is known as inductive Bible study. She eventually became a biblical studies professor at John Brown University. This book reflects both her joy of discovering scripture and additional practices that address some of the ways inductive study may go off the rails in interpretation unrelated to what the passage meant for its intended audience, interpretation that fails to account for the rest of scripture and the framework of biblical theology.

Castleman begins with one of the great strengths of inductive study–careful observation of the text. She speaks of the attentive disciplines involved in hearing the God-breathed Word. Reading it over and over (including aloud!), printing out and marking up the text, asking questions of genre, setting, who, what, when, where, and how, and using our senses. One is looking for what the text says and how it says it. She shows the difference between exegesis and eisegesis–reading out of rather than into the text. I love the image of being careful to not cast our own shadows onto the text. She offers another image–that of studying as a surgeon rather than a pathologist, studying something alive to which we are attentive rather than something dead over which we assert mastery.

Castleman addresses the story or narrative character of much of scripture, and how important the particularities of time and space are. It is vital to grasp the “there and then” before we consider “here and now.” Drawing upon speech-act theory, she calls our attention that scripture is a God-breathed record of how God has spoken and acted out his will in those particularities of space and time. But something else is at work as well. Through God’s Spirit this Word of scripture speaks into our present, accomplishing God’s intentions in our lives as well.

The next three chapters further develop this idea of the three voices. The first is the actual event in which God speaks and acts that we only know indirectly through the biblical record, a voice we must listen to by faith, as we attend to the details of the text. The second voice then is the voice of the writers of the text, the time, and the circumstances in which they wrote as God breathed upon them. She uses the four gospels to illustrate this idea, accounting for both the distinctive voices and the one Lord to whom they attest. With the third voice, we step into the story as we grasp through the Spirit’s illumining work the “here and now” implications in the second voice’s “there and then.” She also shows how “third voice” dynamics work within the canon as later Old Testament writers act upon earlier material, and likewise, as the New Testament writers reflect on the Old Testament voice in light of Messiah come. Using the language of theatre, we must pay careful attention to our lines, and then step up onto the stage, loving the one who has spoken so much that we even risk “flubbing our lines.”

In the final chapter, Castleman advocates the importance of canonical interpretation, speaking of the centrality of creation, the gospel of Christ, and biblical theology as shaping how we read all of scripture. She uses C. S. Lewis image from “Meditation in a Tool Shed” to speak of how we look both at the light cast by a passage of scripture and along it, seeing how it is connected to the whole story of scripture. She then concludes with an epilogue reminding us that the God who has spoken is a fire before whom we take off our shoes and bow and listen, that scripture is not a vending machine to dispense the answers we want, and that our interpretation of scripture is music best made as we play in sync with the rest of the orchestra, stretching back to the earliest fathers, not a solo act.

There are several features that make this book a valuable resource for the person wanting to grow in reading and understanding scripture. One is the author’s warm love of scripture, that breathes in the pages. Second is the distillation and integration of some of the best practices of good hermeneutics into a brief, 120 page text. Finally, she offers numerous examples and praxis exercises that show and then allow us to practice what we are learning. This is both a good introduction for the student learning to study scripture and as well as the Bible teacher who wants to review and sharpen his or her understanding of how to lead those instructed, not only to understand the God-breathed Word but to heed and obey the One who has spoken and is speaking.

Review: Reading While Black

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Reading While Black, Esau McCaulley. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2020.

Summary: A study of biblical interpretation in the traditional Black church that emphasizes the conversation between the biblical text and the Black experience and how this sustains hope in the face of despair.

Esau McCaulley describes his journey from southern roots to white evangelicalism and progressive scholarship and back to the Black church tradition. He recognized that both evangelical and progressive traditions didn’t offer the wherewithal to deal with the Black experience of slavery and racism and to sustain hope amid despair. McCaulley found this by going back to the Black church, both its biblically rooted resistance to slavery and injustice, and its message of hope of liberation, not merely spiritual but in terms of bodily status.

McCaulley offers this description of biblical interpretation how one reads the Bible while Black:

  • unapologetically canonical and theological.
  • socially located, in that it clearly arises out of the particular context of Black Americans.
  • willing to listen to the ways in which the Scriptures themselves respond to and redirect Black issues and concerns.
  • willing to exercise patience with the text trusting that a careful and sympathetic reading of the text brings a blessing.
  • willing to listen to and enter into dialogue with Black and white critiques of the Bible in the hopes of achieving a better reading of the text.

The next six chapters address issues facing the black community and how the tradition of Black church reading of scripture addresses each. The issues are: policing, political witness, the pursuit of justice, Black identity, Black anger, and slavery. The treatments are not exhaustive but are meant to point toward the resources of biblical interpretation open to the Black community. The concluding chapter centers on hope, which is the outcome of engaging the biblical text and looking for answers to these pressing issues. A “bonus track” goes further into the ecclesial, or church-centered aspect of this approach to biblical interpretation.

I will not go through McCaulley’s discussion of the six issues but focus on the first as an example of the approach he commends. First he begins with context, and his own experience of being stopped by police while at a gas station, as he was driving friends to a party. He then turns to Romans 13:1-2, often weaponized against the Black community. He observes how we often look at the instructions for citizens without considering the powers subject to God, and why, in Paul’s context the recipients of his letter are subjected to an evil empire by God. What the passage raises is a form of theodicy. McCaulley reads this passage canonically, setting Rome alongside Pharaoh (cf. Romans 9:17) in which God is glorified through his judgment upon wicked kings. If Moses was not sinful in his resistance to Pharaoh, then submission to authorities does not preclude calling evil by its name. Furthermore, verses 3 and 4 of Romans 13 speak to the just use of authority, to reward good and punish evil, and not the reverse. Policing that treats citizens otherwise ought to be reformed. It should not engender fear in those who do right, no matter the color of their skin. McCaulley observes then that how Paul deals with the evil Roman empire is not to refer to their evil but to talk about how just rule is exercised in a way that assures rather than arouses fear in the lives of the governed who do what is right.

I look at this and ask the question of how often have I heard the text taught in this way in the white church? Yet the implications for how those with police powers ought exercise them, as well as the obligation of submission, are both in the text. Both Pharaoh and Rome are in Romans. Yet where has this connection been made that speaks of how God judges evil empires and glorifies himself? Those whose social location is in the Black church in America see these realities in the text more readily than many of us.

I cannot read while Black. I read from a social location that makes me more aware of some aspects of scripture while missing others. What I’ve come to recognize as I’ve grown older is how much I’ve been blind to in scripture. I can only understand the whole counsel of God with the whole church. While I cannot read while Black, I can read with the Black church, to listen to their readings, always searching the text to see if these things are so. And what I find in many instances is that they are, and I had not had eyes to see. Open my eyes, Lord!

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: The Gospel According to Eve

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the gospel according to eve

The Gospel According to Eve, Amanda W. Benckhuysen. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2019.

Summary: A history of women who have written on Genesis 1-3 since the fourth century, treating their worth, education, their roles as wives and mothers, whether they may teach and preach, and as advocates of social reforms.

One more book on women and issues of biblical interpretation? Yes, but the reason you want to add this book to your library is that Amanda Benckhuysen has done something I’ve not previously seen. She has dug through history and found over sixty women spanning the time from the fourth to the twentieth century who have written on Genesis 1 to 3, either in works focused on interpretation of these passages, or works that reference the passages. [The work also includes one paragraph biographies of the women mentioned in this work in the back matter.]

Why is this important? When it has come to the interpretation of Genesis 1 to 3 with regard to women, most of the work through history has been done by men. For many, the focus has been on the deception of Eve, and the authority or dominance of men over women. While some of these women have taken similar approaches to Genesis, Benckhuysen shows that long before the contemporary discussion, women have been looking at Genesis 1 to 3 and many have reached very different conclusions that anticipate contemporary findings.

A few that stood out to me:

  1. Many women interpreters focus on Genesis 1 that presents men and women equally as made in the image of God. The only stated dominion is over the other creatures.
  2. In the Genesis 2 account, interpreters noted the creation of woman from Adam’s side, an image of partnership. God forms her separate from Adam so that she has a relationship with God before being brought to Adam, who recognizes her as a helper (ezer), the same language used of God’s help of his people. Nothing in the text indicates any inferiority of Eve to Adam, who celebrates Eve as like him in flesh and bone.
  3. While many interpreters read Eve as the one leading Adam astray in the fall, these interpreters suggest other motives to Eve, including Adam’s benefit in growth in knowledge. Instead of putting all the blame on Eve, they note Adam’s culpability, particularly if Adam was present, as the text suggests. What these interpreters emphasize is that each bears responsibility equally in this tragic episode.
  4. In Genesis 3:14-19, these interpreters noted that only the serpent was cursed. Many observe that the statements about men and women are descriptive of the consequences of the fall, not prescriptive of role relationships as God meant them to be.

Benckhuysen organizes the book around the way women interpreters who had insights like those above applied these to concerns of women of their day. She begins with tracing the interpretations of the early fathers of the church and subsequent interpreters. She then considers how women used the material on Eve to advocate for the worth and dignity of women when they were treated as chattel, how they advocated for greater educational opportunities for women, befitting their equal status with men and how they wrestled with Eve’s story as they considered the role of being a wife and mother.

Benckhuysen considers women as teachers and preachers of the gospel. One of the things that mark interpreters here, and elsewhere, is their canonical approach to scripture, interpreting scripture by scripture, noting not simply prohibitions, but the many examples of women in both Old and New Testament of women preaching and leading God’s people, all with the apparent approbation of God. We are introduced to Margaret Fell, a seventeenth century interpreter, along with other seventeenth century millenarian writers: Antoinette Bourignon, M. Marsin, and Rebecca Jackson. She considers the contribution of Deborah Peirce and Harriet Livermore, who speak of the gospel being entrusted to women, and Catherine Booth and Francis Willard, whose careful exegetical work defended the role of women in preaching. This is an example of the pattern followed in each chapter.

Concluding chapters focus on the representation of women in children’s Bibles and literature and the contribution of women to this literature, and the use of Genesis 1 to 3 in advocacy for social reforms in working conditions and opportunities, suffrage, and advocacy against the exploitation and abuse of women. The last two chapters consider the history of patriarchy in the church and the value of listening to these interpreters from other times. These women both questioned the foundations for patriarchy that male interpreters established in Genesis, and offered cogent alternatives. They used this to advocate for the flourishing of women in the home, the church, and the wider society, and against the ways they saw their sisters being abused in these different spheres.

Someone might argue against this gendered reading of Eve. But isn’t that what men have been doing for two millenia, often to the great harm of women and to the church? Benckhuysen doesn’t argue that women’s reading is superior to men. The truth is, her women vary in their interpretations and disagree, just as do men. Rather, what was striking to me was to listen to their collective voices through history as a man and to realize that they see things we have missed. We need their voices if we are truly to hear the whole counsel of God in this very important area of how men and women live together, upholding each other’s dignity, worth, and gifts as image bearers of God, and experiencing the redemptive work of Christ in relationships marred by the Fall, but intended for better.

Review: The Violence of the Biblical God

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the violence of the biblical god

The Violence of the Biblical God, L. Daniel Hawk, foreword by John Goldingay. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2019.

Summary: A study of the narratives of violence in scripture and the multiple perspectives one finds in the text regarding God’s involvement in that violence.

The incidents of violence in scripture, and particularly those where God commands, or actively participates in that violence, pose a great challenge for any thoughtful believer both in his or her own reading of scripture, and in discussions with skeptics who point to these passages, and especially the book of Joshua. Does not this deeply conflict with the New Testament witness to the love of God in Christ?

L. Daniel Hawk takes a different approach than others who I’ve seen address this question who either rationalize the violence of God against the Canaanites, or in various ways argue that it actually wasn’t nearly as bad as it appeared. Hawk’s approach argues that “it may be more important to think biblically than to seek biblical answers” (p. xiv). He proposes that one of the reasons there are so many different responses to this question is that the canon itself speaks with multiple voices that do not all agree. He seeks to take an approach that sees all of the canon as authoritative scripture without muting portions that are in conflict with others.

His work begins with a survey of the approaches taken to this question through church history, and then outlines his own narrative approach, eschewing the “quest for a Theory of Biblical Everything” (p. 18) to listen to the biblical narrative in its complexity as it tells in multiple voices the story of God’s work to redeem a fallen world that is violent by “coming down” and entering into that world. He traces this through the fall, the slaying of Abel, and the flood as an accelerating death spiral that God sorrowfully brings to conclusion with the flood, while saving both creatures and one human family to begin anew.

With Babel, Hawk sees a new approach of a God who “comes down,” first confusing the languages of those who would make a name for themselves, and then coming down to make great the name of Abram (Abraham) through whom he begins a redemptive work. He consults with Abraham in his plan to violently destroy the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah, and honors his plea for the righteous. To stand with Abraham means to stand against others, as in the case of Abimelech, who Abraham had deceived. As evident in the deliberation between Abraham and God regarding Sodom and Gomorrah, violence is not a paroxysm of anger but what it means to do what is needed within the context of fallen creation to set things to rights.

He then studies the narratives of God’s descent into Egypt to break the power of Pharoah that held Israel in slavery. Only through violence will Pharoah recognize a power greater than his, and to create a new people through the overturning of the power of Egypt. Hawk notes that no emotion or expression of caprice or anger is evident in these episodes, but rather God doing what was needed to deliver and establish this people of the promise, to show God supreme over all other powers. The narrative then continues with this new people as he establishes this covenant, deals with the disobedience of his people (an incident that evidences God’s anger), and the violence that both responds to sin, and yet restores his relationship with the people to whom he has committed himself.

Before turning to the text of Joshua, and Israel’s conquest of Canaan, he jumps forward to God’s assent to give Israel a king like other nations. God first commits himself to Saul, and then to David and his family. His work in the nation becomes taken up with the power dynamics and violence of these kings while acting as a check against their ungodliness and injustices. With the fall of Israel comes an end to this way of working in the world through the instrumentality of the nation as a political entity. His approach will still work through human agents but in another way.

Finally, Hawk comes to Joshua. He contends that exodus and conquest are inextricably connected to God’s decision to renew the world by forming a people. He states, “No exodus, no conquest. No violence, no Israel” (p. 165). He demonstrates the focused character of the invasion against the kings of Canaan that arises neither from caprice or judgement to establish a space in which Yahweh alone, and not the gods of the kings is worshiped. In this book there are narratives both attributing violence to God and counternarratives in the latter part of Joshua that indicate this is not God’s “preferred mode of working in the world.” Hawk notes that while God’s coming down and entering into the making of Israel as a nation involves God in violence, this is not a warrant for other wars.

With the fall of Jerusalem and the exile, Hawk sees a move of God “to the outside.” Instead of working in and through human systems, God refuses to meet violence with violence, or engage the earthly powers, but takes the violence of the world upon himself in Christ, and in the resurrection, establishes a rule outside the world’s systems.

The conclusion Hawk reaches from this narrative survey is a call to move from debates over who is reading scripture rightly to a dialogue that listens to the full complexity and the biblical text. He doesn’t argue for “anything goes” but sets interpretive parameters that include an understanding of divine violence that doesn’t arise from petty caprice, that often God does not use violence in judgment but to accelerate already evident deterioration (as in Sodom), that biblical accounts are testimonies, not templates, and cannot be use to justify wars advancing national or group agendas. Yet Hawk also seems to recognize that the diverse voices of God’s work inside, and from the outside, create the basis for respectful dialogue between Christians who base a peace stance on the narrative of God’s work from the outside, and Christians working “within the system” who face the choice of engaging in state-sanctioned violence in the resistance of evil.

For me, Hawk’s work challenged a long held assumption of how we read scripture. Do we believe that the Spirit of God speaks with one voice. Or does our understanding of scripture allow for a complexity of voices that reflect the complexity of being both in and not of a fallen world? Where one comes down on this may well affect one’s response to Hawk’s reading. What commends that reading to me is that it does not gloss over or mute the hard passages or seemingly conflicting testimony (for example, the commands to utterly devote to destruction the Canaanites and a strategy of gradually supplanting the people).

More profoundly, we see a God who neither remains aloof in the face of human evil and violence nor acts with petty flashes of anger, but rather a settled purpose to redeem through a covenant people, one that involves God in that violence, yet ultimately ends with the taking of that violence on God’s self in Christ. We also find in Hawk a model of an interpreter of scripture taking the text as it stands, listening humbly, and promoting dialogue between different perspectives rather than ruling everything not one’s own out of court in a “Theory of Biblical Everything.” Such models are all too rare and greatly needed in a time where people seem to polarize around everything.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: The Lost World of the Torah

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lost world torah

Review: The Lost World of the Torah (The Lost World Series Volume 6), John H. Walton and J. Harvey Walton. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2019.

Summary: Like other books in this series, argues that Torah must be understood in its Ancient Near East context as a legal collection teaching wisdom and covenant stipulations rather than legislation, and cannot be appropriated into a system of moral or social ethics today.

The first five books (Torah) of the Bible are challenging for any person who believes the Bible inspired by God and having authority in one’s life. John Walton, joined in this volume by his son, have written a series of books premised on the inspiration and authority of the Bible, as well as the fact that it is an ancient work, reflective of its Ancient Near East context. The Walton’s argue that we often read these texts through our own cultural lens of how law and legislation work, and may be used to establish biblical “positions” or “precedents” for all sorts of modern moral questions. This is problematic not only because what we have is not a codified system of laws (there is much that is not addressed), and some of the laws support practices like slavery or requiring that a rapist marry the woman he has raped, that we would judge unacceptable. Like other “Lost World” books, they proceed by a series of propositions, with an appendix on the Decalogue.

The Walton’s, identifying similarities between Torah and other ancient legal collections, argue that the purpose of these collections is not legislation but to articulate wisdom about how society is to be ordered under the ruler of the state. The purpose is order that reflects well upon the king. Additionally, in the case of Torah, it is a covenant document similar to Ancient Near East (ANE) suzerainty treaties, where the various provisions outline how the people are to remain loyal to their suzerain, in this case Yahweh or God. The statement, “you shall be holy for I am holy” is a conferral of status rather than an objective for the people of Israel, and Torah is wisdom for how they might be who they are by status. There is a distinction between ritual instructions in Torah and other codes. For others, rituals serve to meet the needs of the gods. Yahweh has no such needs and instead, these serve both as means of worship, and maintain and restore covenant order.

The Walton’s then move beyond noting the similarities and differences of ANE codes and Torah to consider similarities and differences of context. They note that many of the similarities in provisions reflect not dependence on other codes but rather that they are both embedded in the same cultural “river.” What differentiates Torah from these other codes is that it also reflects God’s covenant with Israel and God’s presence among them, instructing them how they might retain the enjoyment and blessing of that presence.

The final part of their work addresses the church’s use of Torah and particular focuses on what Torah is not, and what interpretive practices are invalid. They discourage the common practice of dividing Torah into moral, civil, and ceremonial law, arguing that these divisions are both artificial, and undermine understanding Torah in context as an integral whole. Typically, we lift out the “moral” teachings, and seek to derive principles for our contemporary situation, perhaps along with New Testament teaching, which is situated in a different, Greco-Roman cultural river. They point to a number of areas in the Torah where this is problematic: marriage, economy, political system, social status and hierarchy, international relations, warfare, and diplomacy, respect of personhood, taxation, property ownership and rights, crime and punishment, and sexual ethics. They contend that Torah was not for salvation, but arose as instruction for living under the covenant. It is a metaphor of health, not a system of moral instruction, and cannot be used as prooftexts for contemporary problems. Taking Torah seriously reads it as a wisdom text disclosing the gracious character of God toward his people and God’s intention that they flourish under his care as their suzerain, as they pursue covenant faithfulness in adhering to his wise instruction.

There is much here that is helpful. Instructions we would find morally objectionable (those upholding slavery or patriarchy, for example) fall in line with the kind of order one would expect in the Ancient Near East and commend Yahweh as ruler of his people, but do not serve as legislation for the contemporary church.

What I find missing, and perhaps troubling is how then we are to read scripture, including the New Testament, also embedded in a cultural river, and according to the Walton’s, also not a source of moral instruction for us, but rather “wisdom.” They write:

“The decision between ‘do not conform to the pattern of this world’ (Romans 12:1-2) and ‘become all things to all people so that by all possible means [we] might save some’ (1 Cor 9:22) does not default in either direction. It means that we exercise wisdom in knowing where to conform to the culture of our day. This wisdom must be exercised by those who can understand the culture well enough to understand the cost of either decision, and it is these people whom we should appoint to lead the community. But making those decisions is not the same thing as following a rigid set of rules, especially not a rigid set of rules that was written to a different culture” (p. 230).

I recognize the value of reading contextually and avoiding prooftexting, but I’m troubled here with language that seems to elevate the wise interpreter above the “rigid set of rules” they interpret. The language of “rigidity” reveals a disposition toward scripture that seems troubling. Were Paul’s instructions to the Ephesians or Corinthians about how to lead a life worthy of their calling rigid? Or those of Jesus on divorce, grounded not in a particular culture but in God’s creational intent? I agree that the Bible is not primarily a book of moral instruction, yet does not scripture aid those saved by grace, God’s workmanship, who created for good works in which we are to walk (Ephesians 2:8-10)? The Waltons’ conclusion smacks of a “hidden knowledge” accessible to the wise that seems a long way from the perspicacity of scripture. I would have been helped if they would spell out more of how scripture may be appropriated, and not mostly by how it may not.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: The Lost World of the Israelite Conquest

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the lost world of the israelite conquest

The Lost World of the Israelite Conquest, John H. Walton and J. Harvey Walton. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2017.

Summary: Explores the biblical accounts of the Israelite conquest of Canaan, looking closely at the ancient Near East context and arguing that this was not a divinely commanded genocide or Holy War.

One of the more troubling parts of the Bible are the narratives of Israel’s conquest of Canaan, and the apparent genocide of the Canaanite people at God’s command. Often this is justified as a judgement on the wickedness of the Canaanites. It is even more disturbing when these texts are appropriated to justify other “Holy Wars” or culture wars against evil in society.

In this fourth installment to the “Lost World” series, John H. Walton is joined by his son J. Harvey Walton, in a close study of the biblical texts often understood as God’s command of Holy War against Canaan as divine judgement. Similar to Walton’s approach in other books in this series, the authors combine careful work on cultural backgrounds with close reading of the pertinent biblical texts. Like other books, they present their study as a series of propositions, grouped into six parts.

First, they lay groundwork in asking the question of how we interpret the Bible, emphasizing that it is an ancient document and that often our problem is what our expectations of what the Bible is, which differs from its true nature. In this case the Bible is neither defining what goodness is for us nor telling us about how to produce goodness, but rather in the context of God’s covenant with Israel, how God is bringing about the goodness he purposes. Thus, we must never read these texts as warranting Holy War or a kind of jihad in our own context.

Second, the Walton’s argue that the Canaanites are not depicted in scripture as guilty of sin and that the usual textual indicators for divine retribution against the Canaanites are absent. Critical to their argument is showing that Genesis 15:16 does not indicate that the Canaanites were committing sin, but that God is deferring his action against the Amorites, with whom he had allied.

Third, they argue that the Canaanites are not guilty of breaking God’s law because they did not partake of the covenant and its stipulations. Their expulsion from the land is not analogous to the expulsion of Israel from the land for their unfaithfulness to the covenant.

Fourth, the Waltons look at the language and imagery of the conquest and contend that the descriptions of the Canaanites follow ancient Near East conventions for describing an enemy as “invincible barbarians” Likewise, the behaviors described as “detestable” are from the framework of God’s ideals for Israel under the covenant and not indictments against the Canaanites for crimes against a covenant they are not under. And finally, the language of conquest recapitulates that of creation, in which disorder (chaos) is replaced with order (cosmos). Disorder must be cleared, not as punishment against the Canaanites, but to establish God’s covenant order through Israel.

The fifth part is perhaps most significant in its discussion of herem, most often translated as “utterly destroy.” They argue rather that it involves the idea of removing something from use, so that a new order or use can be established. Killing people is not inherent in herem, but rather the destroying of the identity of a community, particularly the identity markers associated with idolatrous worship. Killing may happen in the course of this, as it tragically does in all ancient wars, but this is not the focus of herem.

Finally, the authors contend that this offers a template for understanding the New Testament, not in attacking those outside the community of faith, but making herem all identities in conflict with absolute allegiance to the Lordship of Jesus. What is to be attacked and removed from use is not outsiders, but our own false allegiances, false identities or any identity that competes for paramount status with our identity in Christ.

This, along with the argument that God does not command ethnic genocide in these passages is important. Yet this argument left me troubled. The plain reality is that even if this wasn’t genocide, people died to set up this new order of God. If they died, not because they were guilty of sins or crimes against God (because they were outside the covenant and its stipulations), but simply as part of a process of destroying the identity of a community, this seems a distinction without a difference. The idea of retributive action at least seems to carry the sense of a just judgment, even if it does involve bloodshed. “Removing an identity from use” driving them from the land, seems more humane, except that the same number of people die, only as “collateral damage” of the conquest. There is something about this that seems more heartless. It also seems to dance around the plain sense of texts that herem in the context of the conquest does involve the destruction of lives in city after city. I did not feel the authors dealt adequately with this problem.

What I’m left with is that these are difficult texts, similar to Genesis 22 in which God commands the sacrifice of Isaac. The last minute substitution of the ram does not make this less challenging. Likewise demonstrating that these texts offer no warrant for genocide is only marginally comforting. Perhaps our difficulty is that we expect God to be nice, a “tame lion” as it were. We would rather a God who remains above the fray than one who gets involved in wars of conquest to effect his purposes. We don’t like the idea of trying to justify the ways of God when they seem unseemly. We likewise are uncomfortable with a God who takes on flesh and blood and dies for us. Many Christian heresies are efforts to sanitize this event. I don’t want to say that is what the authors are doing here. They obviously care deeply about scripture. But I also don’t think we can soften the shocking effect of these passages, or should. These passages remind us both of the tragedy of the human condition, and that God accommodated that human condition in not remaining aloof from war and death even as God worked out redemptive purposes for humankind, first through Israel, then for all of us.

 

 

 

Review: Interpreting Old Testament Wisdom Literature

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interpreting old testament wisdom literature

Interpreting Old Testament Wisdom Literature, Edited by David G. Firth and Lindsay Wilson. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2017.

Summary: A collection of articles on the wisdom literature of the Bible, discussing each book as well as recent developments in Wisdom literature scholarship.

Many of us find the Wisdom books (commonly Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs) as both confusing and compelling. Is there some rhyme or reason to the organization of Proverbs? What is the point of Job, his suffering, and all those long speeches? Is everything really hebel or as it is sometimes translated, empty, as Ecclesiastes would tell us? And Song of Songs, is it a sensuous love story, or something more?

The collection of essays in this volume touch on all these questions and more in their survey of the recent scholarship of the Wisdom literature. The work begins with Craig Bartholomew’s overview of current Wisdom literature scholarship. I found his framework of seeing this scholarship in terms of a series of “turns” quite helpful: historical criticism, then literary criticism, followed by postmodern criticism, and finally theological criticism. He surveys the important contributions of each. His most helpful advice:

“What Christian scholars should not do is continue to work away at sites in wisdom studies determined by others who have no interest in reading Old Testament wisdom as Scripture. We always need to be in dialogue with scholars of diverse views, but a Christian perspective will alert us to particular work sites crying out for hard labour if we are to retrieve Old Testament wisdom as Scripture today” (p. 33).

Part Two of the work devotes a chapter each to Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs. Ernest Lucas covers a wide range of issues from questions of structure in Proverbs, the focus on character and consequences in its nuances and contradictions, the personification of Wisdom, and the use of women in various personifications, questions of gender in who is speaking at different points in Proverbs, and the connection of wisdom and creation. Lindsay Wilson’s essay of Job focuses on the faith of Job, and how this is expressed both in the trial he undergoes, and the trial to which he would subject God. Katherine J. Dell’s essay reviews recent scholarship in Ecclesiastes, considering particularly the question of the unity of the book and the tension between pessimism, realism and joy, all of which one will find at some point. Rosalind Clarke explores the question of what wisdom might be found in the Song of Songs, finding evidence that there is wisdom for women, parallels to the personified Woman Wisdom of Proverbs, and in the role of Solomon.

Part Three on Themes considers broader issues. It begins with a delightful essay asking “Is Ruth Among the Wise?” In Hebrew scriptures (as opposed to those most of us read) Ruth follows Proverbs 31 and Gregory Goswell proposes that this “encourages an appreciation of its heroine as an example of the wisdom ethic that is taught in the book of Proverbs” (p. 117). Leonard Boström takes on the theme of retribution in Wisdom literature, that our actions will bring good or bad consequences based on the character of the act–that the righteous will prosper and the wicked suffer. The discussion of the differing portrayals of this principle in different books was helpful under the common but sometimes challenging understanding that retribution traces back to a sovereign creator who ordains in his creation certain consequences for actions, but that this does not reduce to an uncomplicated formula as, in the case of Job, the righteous suffer, and the wicked sometimes prosper. David G. Firth looks at wisdom in Old Testament narrative, and the paradox that the wise often are not approved by God, when “wisdom” is not accompanied by obedience to God. Christopher B. Ansberry considers the contribution of Wisdom literature to biblical theology, where there often seems to be a disjunct between the two. He highlights contributions to cosmology, anthropology, and ethics, and also how Jesus is presented as the wise man par excellence. Simon P. Stocks calls our attention to the “wisdom psalms” and the way their voicing parallels Lady Wisdom of Proverbs 8. Brittany N. Melton concludes the book with what I thought was one of the highlights of the collection, an exploration of “divine absence” in the Wisdom literature. She concludes:

“Wisdom is the way to God, but is not always attainable. As such, the determination to find wisdom was fuelled by the sages’ search for divine presence. And yet, even if wisdom is found, the mystery of God is preserved. In the wisdom literature we have a prime example of the tension between divine presence and absence. Insofar as wisdom is personified and takes on a much larger literary presence than God in these books, this speaks to divine absence. Where is God? He is hidden behind Wisdom (p. 216).

What I appreciated about this collection of essays was not only the many connections they made for me (including that of thinking of Ruth in light of Proverbs 31), but also that they exemplified Craig Bartholomew’s exhortation to scholars. Each studied these works as scripture, and engaged in their retrieval as scripture today, nourishing in this reader the desire to read these works of wisdom once more to hear in them the word of the Lord. This is an important resource not only in the academic setting, but for all who would teach the Wisdom literature, and who want their students or congregants to not only be informed of the latest scholarship, but to be shaped by hearing these books afresh as “scripture today.”