Biblical studies

Review: Creating the Canon

/ rtrube54 / 1 Comment

Creating the Canon, Benjamin P. Laird. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2023.

Summary: A survey of the scholarly discussions about the production, formation, and authority of the New Testament Canon, including the composition and circulation of the books, the role of theological controversies and councils, and the importance of apostolicity.

How did the collection of books that we know as the New Testament come together and why these books and not others? Did they just reflect who had the most political power in the theological controversies of the early centuries of the church’s life? And why should these and not other sources be authoritative for the church? In recent years, scepticism has grown in some quarters about the particular collection of books we call the New Testament.

In this work Benjamin P. Laird offers a helpful introduction to the scholarly discussions concerning the canon that offers answers to many of these questions affirming this collection as it stands, showing that the basis for affirming the canon rests on much wider basis of evidence than church councils, and that the canonical books of the New Testament are not simply authorized but authoritative for the life of the church and the individual believer.

Laird’s book is broken into three parts. First is a discussion of the producfion of the New Testament writings. He shows how many of the documents arose from collaborative efforts including those often mentioned to be with the writer, secretaries who actually wrote (and often made copies of the documents), letter carriers who were often part of the company, eyewitnesses and oral traditions, perhaps written down upon which gospel writers drew. He discusses the difficulties of original autographs, not only their absence but also that there might be multiple autographs, ranging from copies retained by the writer to versions sent to different recipients that may have been edited accordingly. Textual criticism of Romans reveals, for instance, multiple locations for the doxology. What textual criticism does is establish what is likely the most accurate rendering while honestly showing the alternatives. As already suggested, the notion of a singular “intended” audience may be erroneous as well as letters often reflecting concerns of nearby congregations that may also read.

The second part of the book moves to the formation of the canon. Laird begins by surveying the different theological controversies of the second through fourth centuries and argues that the canon neither arose as a response to Marcion nor that any particular council definitively established the canon. The various lists of the time showed the growing consensus of the wider church of the books they recognized as authoritative. He buttresses this contention by considering the eyewitnesses, those who composed lists of canonical books that were prior to the councils, ranging from the Muratorian fragment to Origen, Clement, Eusebius, Cyril, Athanasius, Gregory and others, and of the various early codices. He notes the wide agreement upon all the books except for Hebrews, some of the Catholic letters, and Revelation, and that none of the other books pointed to by those who say the council excluded certain works are mentioned. An important part of this story is the canonical subcollections that began circulating in the early centuries including the thirteen epistles attested to Paul and Hebrews, the four gospels, Acts and the catholic epistles, and Revelation. Laird considers the testimony to each of these. He also notes the awareness of and rejection of pseudonymous writings, including the fact that none of the writings attested to Paul were rejected, though 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and Revelation were questioned by some. He draws a picture of growing consensus even concerning the contested writings, especially the catholic epistles.

The final part of the book, then, deals with the authority of the canon and the importance of apostolicity, that is, that the canonical books were the product of either apostles or those in the apostolic circle (such as Mark and Luke, making the assumption of this with the anonymous author of Hebrews). He demonstrates the evidence that apostolicity was a major concern, especially when it came to the disputed books, and that those books which were not disputed enjoyed that status because of their evidence of apostolicity. In the final chapter on apostolic authorship and the authority of the canon, he explores the ideas of God’s providential work in the formation of the canon including Brevard Childs’ ideas that focus on the authority of the canon as a whole rather than the status of individual books, which emphasizes the church’s role in the shaping of the canon and the importance of divine inspiration in the authority of the canon. He also notes and briefly engages the challenges to apostolicity and authority in contemporary scholarship, including broader definitions of apostolicity related to the reception of non-canonical works in some parts of the early church and the challenge to the idea of a “closed canon.”

No doubt, some will challenge this account of the production, formation, and authority of the twenty-seven books that were recognized as the canon of the New Testament, whether in the form of challenging the apostolic authorship of books, the recognition of other books circulating and used in some churches or arguing that the councils decided what was in and what was out to buttress their theological and perhaps political concerns. What this book particularly contributes is that such arguments must deal with the early, pre-conciliar evidence (much of it from as early as the second century), both from witnesses and circulating subcanonical texts that reflected the growing consensus of the church about what books were widely recognized as apostolic and authoritative. While the author advances this claim and the corollary of the continuing authority of these works, he recognizes the ongoing scholarly discussions and those who would disagree with his conclusion. For the reader wishing to read a scholarly account of the case for the canon cognizant of dissenting views, this is a clear and helpful account with notes and bibliography for those who wish to dig more deeply.

________________________________

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

Review: Life in the Son

/ rtrube54 / 3 Comments

Life in the Son (New Studies in Biblical Theology #61), Clive Bowsher. Downers Grove and London: IVP Academic/Apollos, 2023 (UK publisher link).

Summary: A study of the idea of “in one another” participation in the Johannine literature.

The idea of union, oneness, of participation in Christ has been a significant discussion in Pauline studies. In this monograph, Clive Bowsher explores this same idea in the Johannine literature, particularly in the various references to God, Christ, and believers being “in one another.” After setting out the current discussions and his approach, Bowsher exegetes the relevant passages first in the gospel of John and then in 1 John. His approach is to focus on what each says individually rather than reading them in light of each other. Then he takes the findings from each study and synthesizes them, finding similar themes in both the gospel and the letter.

He then considers the journey theme in the gospel of John and the letters and traces our participation with Christ in that journey: begotten–walking–suffering and laying down life–resurrection–going to the Father. Following this, Bowsher considers “one anotherness” in the eschatological culmination of the covenant: life everlasting in the age to come. Finally, he pulls together the Johannine theology of participation from these various approaches. There are several salient ideas running through the Johannine literature:

  • Union with Christ or oneness is expressed in terms of the one-anotherness of the Father, Son, and believers.
  • That in-one-anotherness is evident in intimate loving relationship and loving obedience.
  • This union is closely correlated with the life of the age to come.
  • The propitiatory work of God in Christ and his resurrection is the source of this union.
  • Union in Christ means sharing in his missional journey from commencement to walking to destination, sharing in proclaiming his words, his suffering, sacrificial laying down of one’s life, and resurrection.

In appendices, Bowsher briefly interacts with the Pauline idea of union and of oneness and participation in Revelation. He also offers an original language analysis of John 14:15-24 and the “Hortatory-imperatival use of the third-person indicative in New Testament Greek outside 1 John.”

If I were to make one quibble, it would be that the structure of the study results in the repetition of the same ideas or slight variations of them through much of the work. The shared journey part of the study is the one place where this is less the case. What Bowsher does do is elucidate a Johannine perspective of participation that, while consonant with Paul, uniquely emphasizes loving relationship and the close connection between being in that relationship and having entered into the reality of the life of the age to come. This work, as part of a renewal of Johannine studies, is a welcome complement to the extensive Pauline literature, not least on union or participation with Christ.

________________________________

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

Review: Nobody’s Mother

/ rtrube54 / 2 Comments

Nobody’s Mother: Artemis of the Ephesians in Antiquity and the New Testament, Sandra L. Glahn. IVP Academic, 2023.

Summary: Through a study of literature, epigraphic, art, and architectural evidence, proposes that Artemis, far from being a fertility goddess, was a virgin, who aided women in childbirth, and considers the implications for our reading of 1 Timothy 2:11-15.

1 Timothy 2:11-15 is a critical text in discussions of the role of women in the church, and whether women may teach. The apparent prohibition and its tie to “being saved through childbirth” is alternately understood as a universal principle or occasional instruction based on the situation in Ephesus, where Timiothy is working to consolidate the ministry begun there during Paul’s time there. Those who would argue the context refer to Ephesus as the center of the worship of Artemis. A path-breaking work in that regard was Richard Clark Kroeger and Catherine Clark Kroeger’s I Suffer Not a Woman, arguing that the worship of Artemis as a fertility goddess led to false teaching with women asserting themselves, also referencing the goddess’s role in enabling childbirth. This offered a basis for treating these verses as “occasional” instruction to correct a particular abuse.

This work would make the same argument but from a very different assessment of the nature of Artemis worship. Glahn cites the explosion of epigraphic and inscriptional evidence in recent decades and the research tools to access the information as contributing to this very different portrayal of Artemis. The portrait is of a goddess whose painless birth was in contrast to her twin, Apollo, whose birth came after days of agonizing labor, leading Artemis to pursue a virgin life. She became the goddess who aided women as a midwife in labor, either reducing their pains in labor or granting them, through her arrows, a painless death or at least, a release from pain. She also considers the Artemis cult in Ephesus and the women who elaborately adorned her statue, and the women who served as priests. Women looked to Artemis to save them through childbirth.

But what about the statuary showing Artemis with a multitude of breasts, a symbol of fertility? Glahn argues that these are not breasts at all for anatomical reasons, but rather a type of necklace. With different nuances that arise from Artemis as a virgin and helper of women with child, she argues that this was what Paul had in mind when he referred to women being saved through childbirth. Where Christian converts might be tempted to revert to trusting Artemis, he argues for their trusting Christ. Offering this reading, she contends that 1 Timothy 2 is teaching specific to the situation in Ephesus, not an abiding teaching for the whole church, helping to explain why Paul himself speaks of women teaching and prophesying elsewhere in his letters, and of trusted co-workers who were women.

Glahn leads us through the literary, epigraphic, artistic, and architectural evidence from which this portrait of Artemis, the goddess especially worshipped in Ephesus, emerges. She also traces her own journey as a woman, wrestling with the interpretation and application of texts, and her growing realization that the story she’d always been told just wasn’t so. Her own research gave further warrant for that. For her, none of this led to a denial or diminishment of biblical authority, but rather a growing understanding of this contended text, and a growing sense of the liberating gospel of Christ for men and women.

Whether or not one agrees with Glahn’s conclusions, the study of Artemis is so important as a backdrop to Paul’s Ephesian ministry. Glahn points to a number of references in writings with an Ephesian audience that show the superiority of Christ to Artemis without ever mentioning the goddess. Her work acquaints us with the latest evidence that contradicts in important ways earlier understandings of Artemis. For all these reasons, this is a valuable study.

________________________________

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

Review: Flood and Fury

/ rtrube54 / 1 Comment

Flood and Fury, Matthew J. Lynch. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2023.

Summary: A searching study of the biblical texts on the flood in Genesis and the conquest of Canaan, facing the issue of violence and God’s participation, against the backdrop of the shalom of God.

Violence has been a sad part of the human story since the fall, and its continued existence and the havoc it wreaks in human lives is something any thoughtful person wrestles with. What is also troubling to many thoughtful, believing or not, is the violence in scripture, particularly in the Old Testament, that is either God-sanctioned or God-perpetrated.

Some approaches to this defend the violence as necessary, as God’s warranted judgment. Others are basically arguments that try to eliminate the problem by saying it didn’t really happen that way. Matthew J. Lynch takes a somewhat different approach in this book, one that at some points says there is more (or perhaps less) to the perception of violence than meets the eye, and yet does not deny the reality of violence but also tries to set in a larger context of God’s shalom and God’s great compassion.

Lynch begins by contending that we need to face the problem without “burning down the house.” which he argues Marcion did in trying to excise violence from scripture. To do so is to eliminate a tension that leads to greater insight. He then briefly surveys the different approaches to the violence in scripture and then contends that we need an approach that reads slowly and carefully, reads problematic texts in light of the whole, that is willing to be surprised and shocked, that continues to allow the Bible to “bite back,” speaking into our own situation, and that keeps wrestling.

The next two parts take two major concerning passages on violence–the flood narratives in Genesis and the conquest of Canaan including the practice of herem. First, in Genesis 1-8, he explores the theme of shalom and its shattering. In contrast to other origins narratives, he notes the shalom that is part of the DNA of creation–of wholeness, of harmony, of human rule causing all to flourish. This ended when sin entered in. He traces the development of violence, not only against Abel, but against women through polygamy, military and political violence. He develops the idea of the spread of creation-destroying violence and God’s conclusion to bring it to an end through the flood to restore shalom through returning the world to the formlessness at the beginning of creation. It should be noted that he does allow questions both about the universality and historicity of the flood, opening the way to treating this as story of how God pursues shalom.

He then turns to the conquest narratives. Perhaps the most interesting thing in his discussion here is that he shows that there are two “reports” in Joshua, and we usually hear only one. The Majority Report focuses on the utter destruction of cities and their inhabitants. The Minority Report is of the settlement of Canaan little by little, sometimes settling with the peoples around them, sometimes displacing them, and sometimes enslaving them, all of which are far more merciful. He shows how both are in the text, but often only the more violent texts are focused on, and these may in fact have been limited to key military outposts and political cities, some with relatively small populations. At times, he allows for hyperbole in the accounts. More controversial, and less grounded in the biblical text, he allows for the possibility of not a “conquest” but a gradual “infiltration” consisting of some coming from outside and others already in the land. Also, he suggests that Joshua’s conquests of the “kings” of Canaan completes the Exodus, as these kings would have been vassals of Egypt–an intriguing idea. What he proposes is that the literary art of Joshua is to display Joshua as a second Moses, who completes what Moses began. This allows us to resolve discrepancies between biblical accounts of Jericho and the archaeological evidence (or lack thereof) of a conquest.

The concluding section, perhaps was the most helpful. He sets these accounts against the larger Old Testament narrative in which he believes the covenant-keeping love and faithfulness of God predominates. He does argue that accounts of wrath and judgment are embedded in this larger picture and that this is a “wicked” problem, one he would deem “irresolvable.” There is mystery here, and as he has observed earlier, to try to pull out violence and judgment diminishes, yet its presence troubles.

I particularly appreciate in this work the way he looks closely at the biblical text while reading it within larger themes–the shalom of God in Genesis, the love and mercy of God, evident even in many places in Joshua (e.g. Rahab). His insistence that we credit both the majority and minority reports in Joshua and ask what is the larger narrative purpose of incorporating both is important. His willingness to not settle for simple answers and even to allow scripture to question us–for example about our own ecological violence and exploitation of others for our benefit–is a strength of the book. I do find unsettling his willingness to go along with scholarship that basically concludes that some texts really can’t be read as they would most plainly be understood, or that history really didn’t happen the way it is rendered in Joshua. I realize these pose challenges. I’d rather live with the discrepancies than deny the biblical text, and hope for further illumination.

However one comes down on these questions, Lynch has written a thought-provoking study of two important sections of the Old Testament dealing with God-sanctioned or -perpetrated violence. If you are looking for a resolution, it is not here. But you will find valuable insights along the way, and a posture in approaching the questions that, apart from concessions to critical scholarship, is one worthy of imitation.

________________________________

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

Review: Being God’s Image

/ rtrube54 / 1 Comment

Being God’s Image, Carmen Joy Imes (foreword by J. Richard Middleton). Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2023.

Summary: A study of what it means to be God’s images as representative rulers in God’s good creation, what was lost in the fall, how we might live well in a good but fallen world, and how we see in Christ’s coming the fulfillment of God’s image in humans and of God’s purposes for the creation.

One of the fundamental assertions of the first chapter of Genesis is that when God created human beings, he made them in (or as Imes contends as) his image. In this book, Carmen Joy Imes explores what this means for what it means to be human.

She begins with creation noting the pattern of the first three days that established domains and the second three that filled them with their residents. She explores biblical cosmology and the idea that creation is God’s cosmic temple. Humans, who rule under the divine King follow his pattern in work of six days working and sabbath. Humans then are God’s embodied, royal family representing God and exercising responsible rulership stewarding the creation. All humans, regardless of sex are the image of God. What Imes establishes in these chapters is the integral relationship between our embodied life as God’s image and our engagement with God’s creation of the earth. Our work is how we participate in this rule. It doesn’t define us but brings satisfaction.

What was lost in the fall was not the imago dei but rather rebellion, distrust, and fear replaced love and trust in our relationship with God, and this affected both our human relationships and that with the creation, which was marked by thorns and thistles and toilsome work. The endurance of the imago dei means that all must be treated with dignity. The rebellion was costly and eventuated in violence beginning with Cain. It led to the flood, an act of un-creation to afford a chance for a fresh start (Imes includes a wonderful chart of the chiasm of the flood account that centers in God’s remembrance of Noah). God continued to resist the violence of militaristic power at Babel, that prevented nations and cultures from flourish and filling the earth.

Before moving to Christ’s fulfillment of our failed call and restorative work, Imes explores what it means to live wisely and well in a fallen world. It means heeding the wisdom of the Word and the world. She particularly explores living well as sexual creatures and trenchantly points the way to sexual fulfillment, and in a sidebar article, explores the pervasive and problematic character of pornography. Looking at Ecclesiastes and Job, she explores living with joy amid the fleeting character of our lives and what it is to trust God when we feel we are unfairly suffering.

Jesus is the image of the invisible God, revealing what it means not only to be true God but truly human in bodily form. Although male, he honors women in being born of Mary, and able to represent all humanity. He participates in every aspect of human culture, often prophetically and restoratively, ultimately dying, taking on himself the consequences of our rebellion. In his bodily resurrection, he affirms God’s ongoing purposes for embodied humans. Imes proposes that the scars of the risen Lord point to their being continuity in our resurrected bodies while our mortality points toward the restoration of all things. Meanwhile, Jesus ascended empowers his people to carry on and multiply his work, even as we learn from him what it means to be in his image.

One manifestation of that work is the healing of human relationships in the beloved community of God’s people, undivided by gender, race, or any other factor that divides humans. Jesus intent is that we work this out in physical presence, not in some virtual or ideal world. All this anticipates the return of Jesus. Imes challenges views of the rapture in a sidebar and the idea of God’s people being removed from an earth that will be burned up. She argues from study of the passages that “the taken” are those taken in judgment, that the fire cleanses, and that Jesus will rule a renewed creation in which the bodily resurrected rule with him, fulfilling their calling as people ruling in his image, restoring creation.

The book includes a number of informative sidebars, for example comparing the creation accounts to other ancient accounts. Each chapter includes summaries and further resources including QR code links to further resources from the Bible Project as well as other written resources. For group study, a discussion guide is offered.

Imes makes a powerful statement for our embodied lives and work both now and in the new creation as the imago dei. She also speaks compellingly that the imago dei, in creation and redemption transcends all distinctions between human beings. The book complements her earlier Bearing God’s Name (review), on our calling, in addressing our identity as an embodied royal family representing our great King as we rule over and care for his creation–forever.

________________________________

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

Review: The Spirit, Ethics, and Eternal Life

/ rtrube54 / 1 Comment

The Spirit, Ethics, and Eternal Life, Jarvis L. Williams. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2023.

Summary: The saving work of Christ in its vertical, horizontal, and cosmic dimensions is the reason for why the Galatians are able and commanded to walk in the Spirit, living lives of Spirit-empowered obedience, participating both now and into the age to come in eternal life.

Often, discussions of Paul’s letter to the Galatians focus on justification through faith in the work of the crucified and risen Lord and not on the basis of works of the law. Jarvis L. Williams addresses what he believes to be a neglected aspect of this letter. He believes that Christ’s saving work has vertical, horizontal, and cosmic dimensions that are realized in the life of the believer in the gift of the indwelling Spirit, in whom we may and must walk in ethical lives of empowered obedience. The believer must do so, not turning back to flesh-empowered adherence to the law. To do so is to cease to participate in the gift of eternal life, both now and in the age to come. To walk in the Spirit is to participate in eternal life now in anticipating of the age to come.

The author begins with a literature survey of other scholars who have addressed these questions in Galatians from Hermann Gunkel through David de Silva. He follows with a chapter on the death and resurrection of Jesus showing that the apocalyptic inbreaking of God’s rule is connected with the outpouring of the scripture, demarcating the old age of the flesh and the new age of the Spirit, freedom from bondage under the law and the elemental spirits and freedom in the Spirit to love God and each other (the vertical, horizontal, and cosmic dimensions of salvation). He argues then that those justified in Christ can, will, and must walk in the Spirit in order to inherit the kingdom. Those who do so enjoy empowered personal agency and ethical transformation. Paul’s anxiety, then, over the Galatians in turning away from the gospel for works of the law is that they will cease walking in the Spirit and participating in the reality of eternal life and will not inherit the kingdom. Williams then concludes with observations about the dangers of separating soteriology and ethical transformation and eternal life. He also makes observations about Christian social engagement around issues of race and ethnicity, and the implications of being one new people for how we pursue that engagement.

I thought the thesis of this work an important one, and indeed, often overlooked in Galatians. My problem with the book was the over-repetition of that thesis as well as the organization of the material. The author confines the literature survey to one chapter, without extensive interaction with the scholars in subsequent ones. The chapters following are thematically oriented and move back and forth throughout Galatians and other scriptures. I found myself wondering if a more effective approach would have been a consecutive theological exposition of the text of Galatians, showing how Paul develops the ideas that form the basis of his thesis, incorporating relevant scholarship in his commentary. I think that would have offered a more integrated, persuasive, and understandable rendering of the author’s thesis. Perhaps the author might consider this in a follow-up work for a more general audience.

That said, the author’s argument, that Galatians connects the saving work of Christ to God’s empowering presence in the Galatians’ lives as part of the new thing God is doing, is an important one. His contention that we must not disconnect theology, and particularly soteriology, and ethics is a trenchant one that we do well to heed. Likewise the warning, that to claim to be among the justified but to not walk in the Spirit in freedom from bondage to the cosmic powers and love for God and others, and the implications for participating in the kingdom, is one we ignore at our peril. It’s literally a matter of (eternal) life or death.

________________________________

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

Review: Bearing God’s Name

/ rtrube54 / 2 Comments

Bearing God’s Name: Why Sinai Still Matters, Carmen Joy Imes. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2019.

Summary: What the law given at Sinai and the Old Testament has to do with the lives of Christians.

Carmen Joy Imes wants to puncture the myth once for all that the Old Testament is about law and the New about grace. In this book, which begins with Israel’s deliverance from Egypt and provided for in the wilderness, she stresses that the law reflects how those who have been the recipients of such grace may live under such grace, and that the scriptures speak of the joy and delight that God has shown them how they ought live with Him.

A key point in this book is her reading of what she would consider the second commandment, the first being to have no other gods nor images of God. She contends that what we often translate “you shall not take the name of the Lord in vain” is better translated, “you shall not bear the name of Yahweh, your God, in vain.” She considers Israel’s calling to be, as those who worship only Yahweh, to represent well, or bear, God’s name to the nations. The rest of the commands, then, articulate how they do this well.

She then discusses how God ratifies his covenant purpose and provides for their covenant-breaking in the whole system of sacrifices, yet another note of grace. Then she traces how they are prepared to enter the promised land through census, blessing, and marching orders. She then covers all the ways Israel strikes out, from the unbelief surrounding the report of the spies, the compromises with the Gibeonites and other failures under Joshua, and the failures of David’s dynasty. The prophets reveal Israel’s problem, and it is not with the law, but what the law reveals of their hearts. They point to restoration, new hearts on which the law is written.

Enter Jesus, whose name means Yahweh saves. He is one who fulfills the name bearing at which Israel so miserably failed. His whole life as the true Israel, one greater than Moses, revealed in the transfiguration and raised from the dead reveals him as the true name bearer. There is no other name, his name is above all names, and those who are saved by grace bear that name and represent him well as they obey him. And this includes the Gentiles, who together with the Jews are formed into one new people bearing the name, living out the law written on their hearts, reflecting God’s “tattoo” upon them to the nations.

Along the way, Imes includes sidebars with informative background on such things as “How Many Hebrews?”, in which she discusses the question of the numbers given of those in the wilderness. She offers resources for further study, including an appendix of QR codes to relevant videos from The Bible Project. A discussion guide for group study is also provided.

Through a style that includes references to Narnia, personal stories, and word studies, and scholarship, she traces the arc of how God has worked to call out a people who bear His name from Sinai through Jesus to the church. She both demystifies the Old Testament, including matters like the sacrificial system and traces the story arc of all of scripture. She shows the continuity between Sinai and Zion, between Moses and Jesus and what all this means for us.

________________________________

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

Review: The Apostle and the Empire

/ rtrube54 / 2 Comments

The Apostle and the Empire, Christoph Heilig (foreword by John M. G. Barclay). Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2022.

Summary: Focusing on 2 Corinthians 2:14, Heilig argues for an alternative to either hidden or unexpressed criticism of the empire in Paul’s writings, proposing that we might also consider texts that have been overlooked.

Until N. T. Wright, most commentators on the Pauline works considered Paul to be silent on or even supportive of the Roman empire. Wright changed that with an article in 2000, “Paul’s Gospel and Caesar’s Empire,” proposing that subtexts could be found in Paul’s writing of an anti-imperial nature, referred to as hidden subtexts. John M. G. Barclay responded with a critique outlining five necessary conditions that would need to be met to accept Wright’s hypothesis that Wright answered in a chapter of Paul and the Faithfulness of God in 2013. A more recent paper by Laura Robinson questions the “hidden subtext” idea proposing that they are not hidden but just are not there, and that the concerns evoked by Wright about surveillance by the empire were unwarranted.

In this work, Heilig seeks to move the discussion to a new place. In addition to challenging Robinson’s assessment of the dangers Christians faced, invoking for example, the Pliny-Trajan correspondence, and the troubles Paul actually found himself in, he proposes the idea that Paul’s criticism is not so much hidden as perhaps, at least in some passages, overlooked. After mentioning passages like 1 Corinthians 2:6 and 1 Thessalonians 3:3, he focuses much of this monograph on 2 Corinthians 2:14:

But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere.

2 Corinthians 2:14, NIV.

A significant part of Heilig’s argument, overlooked in most commentaries, is the contemporary context of the victory procession of Claudius in 44 AD, celebrating his victory over Britannia. The Corinthians actually had an emperor cult that celebrated this victory. References to a triumphal procession would readily evoke this event in the minds of the Corinthians, not simply a general military practice. He explores the challenge to empire implicit in the reference God leading this procession, spreading the knowledge of the victory of Christ. Heilig argues that this, at very least expresses a sense of “unease” with the empire. He also suggests that this may be found even in the “clearest” of the passages on the empire, Romans 13:1-7, although I am surprised the author does not explore the standards for the just exercise of power implied in these passages, that is an implicit judgment against the much more arbitrary exercise of “the sword” in actuality.

In the last chapter before the conclusion, he decries the woeful state of access to the most current scholarship on context for biblical commentators, illustrated by the “overlooked” material on Claudius. I felt that, while this may be valid, I would have been more greatly helped by a discussion of further research along the lines of this work, and at least a preliminary overview of other passages where he thought criticism may have been overlooked rather than hidden.

That said, I do think this proposal offers new ground for work on Paul’s unease with empire and the realities faced by early Christians navigating Roman society, one that recognizes both Paul’s courage and discretion.

_______________

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

Review: The Old Testament Law for the Life of the Church

/ rtrube54 / 3 Comments

The Old Testament Law for the Life of the Church, Richard E. Averbeck. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2022.

Summary: A study of for what God intended the law in its original context, how it was fulfilled in Christ, and its continuing relevance for the church today.

Let’s face it. For many in the church, the Old Testament is more or less unknown territory, especially the parts of the Old Testament concerned with the law.

Richard Averbeck has spent much of his life studying the Old Testament as well as other ancient Near East writings and he is persuaded of the continuing relevance of the law to the church, understood through the ministry of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit. He contends that this was the scripture Paul asserted to Timothy as being “God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” But how is this so for the church today?

Averbeck asserts three theses that he develops throughout the book:

  1. The law is good. It instructed Israel how to live holy lives under God’s covenant love and it may also instruct us in holiness, particularly how to live under the law of Christ, loving God and neighbor.
  2. The law is weak. It does not have the power to transform the heart; only the Holy Spirit can transform our sinful nature and write the law on our hearts.
  3. The law is one unified whole. Averbeck sees no biblical basis for dividing the law into categories of moral, civil, and ceremonial, and while every law is not simply brought over into the life of the church, there are ways under Christ in which the whole law continues to be relevant to the church’s life.

To develop these theses Averbeck begins with an extensive treatment of the context of Old Testament law. First of all, he charts the covenants, of Abraham, of Moses, and David, each under those that precede, and then their fulfillment in the New Covenant. He follows this with looking at the Mosaic law in context, delineating the law collections, discussing the place of the Sinai narrative and the Decalogue, the book of the covenant and the other parallel collections of law, offering a comparative study of debt slavery as a case study, showing transformations even between collections. He shows how holiness, ceremonial, and civil law together shape Israel as a kingdom of priests oriented around the presence of God in their midst. He discusses in detail the significance of the various offerings and sacrifices and how they sustained the holiness and purity of the people.

He turns to how Jesus fulfills the law in life and teaching, as demonstrated in the antitheses in the Sermon on the Mount. and in his treatment of questions of purity and sabbath. At the same time, he focuses attention on the law of love for God and neighbor in which the whole law is fulfilled. Then he considers the New Testament church and how this was handled, particularly in the incorporation of Gentiles in which Jewish believers continued to observe the law while Gentiles followed the council of Jerusalem, the moral instruction, and the transforming life of worship pointed to in the Old Testament law, made possible by the Spirit of truth. Averbeck then returns in two chapters to show how the law is good, how it is weak but empowered by the Holy Spirit, and remains a unified whole.

He also includes on Jewish Messianic believers and the Torah, offering one of the best defenses I’ve seen for such groups remaining observant Jews while staying gospel focused, citing the practice of the early church.

I appreciated the careful explanation of the contents of the law collections and the importance of these as well as showing how the law continued to be relevant in Christ. The discussion of the law’s weakness and the ministry of the Holy Spirit is much needed. He also shows the arc between offerings and sacrifices, and our calling as a “kingdom of priests” who are “living sacrifices.” Perhaps more needs to be said about the civil aspects of the law and the parallel being, not the secular state, but the church and how it governs itself. What may be gleaned from the law on how the church is ordered and governed under Christ? And to what degree ought the law shape our pursuit of just, though not theocratic, societies?

That said, this is one of the best studies I have seen of Old Testament law and its continuing relevance. His argument that all of the law continues to be relevant, albeit in altered form because of Christ, is a different approach worth considering that avoids explaining how we have dispensed with some aspects and not others. And his love for the Old Testament may encourage readers to explore what in fact were the scriptures for the early New Testament church.

____________________

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

Review: The Apocalyptic Paul

/ rtrube54 / 2 Comments

The Apocalyptic Paul: Retrospect and Prospect (Cascade Library of Pauline Studies), Jamie Davies, Foreword by John Barclay. Eugene: Cascade Books, 2022.

Summary: A survey of the major contributors to the Apocalyptic Paul movement within Pauline studies, as well as a discussion of some outstanding areas for discussion and proposals of bringing biblical scholars in the Apocalyptic Paul movement, theologians focusing on apocalyptic, and those studying the Jewish apocalyptic tradition into conversation.

In the field of Pauline studies, one of the recent developing schools of thought has been that of the Apocalyptic Paul. I’ve found myself grappling to understand this school. What is meant by apocalyptic? How is Paul apocalyptic? As it turns out, even this is a point of discussion according to this helpful survey by Jamie Davies. As indicated by the subtitle, Davies spends the first part on retrospective, surveying the leading scholars in the lineage of Apocalyptic and Apocalyptic Pauline studies. Then the second part deals more with future trajectories in Apocalyptic Pauline studies, looking both at critiques and possible engagement between Apocalyptic Pauline studies and systematic theologians and scholars studying Jewish apocalypticism. He concludes with delineating a number of outstanding questions that these three fields of study might pursue together.

The first chapter in part one traces the history of apocalyptic studies from Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer who focused on the apocalyptic character of Jesus, through Rudolph Bultmann’s demythologizing of apocalypticism and his student Ernest Kasemann’s assertion that apocalypticism is the “mother of all Christian theology.” The chapter concludes J. Christiaan Beker’s focus on apocalyptic in Paul emphasizing the triumph of God and J. Louis Martyn’s that elaborated this triumph around the theme of invasion. Chapter two then introduces more recent scholarship: Martinus de Boer’s two tracks of cosmological and forensic apocalyptic eschatology, Leander Keck’s ex post facto approach that reasons from the resurrection of Jesus to understand salvation history, Beverly Gaventa’s focus on the singularity of the gospel in the apocalyptic Paul, Douglas Campbell’s critiques of foundationalism in theology, Susan Eastman’s focus on language, identity, and agency, particularly Paul’s use of maternal language, and Lisa Bowen’s work on epistemology, heavenly ascent, and cosmic warfare. Chapter three completes part one by reviewing the apocalyptic turn in systematic theology and some of the representative scholars in this “turn”: Walter Lowe, Nathan Kerr, Philip Ziegler, and Douglas Harink. All of these wrestle with the idea of the divine interruption of apocalyptic theology, the invasion of God into the present age.

Part Two moves from survey to a constructive engagement between Apocalyptic Paul scholars and both systematic theologians, especially Barth, and Jewish apocalyptic scholars. In chapter four, he identifies unsettled questions and outlines the discussions from scholars in these three areas. The questions include whether apocalyptic means eschatological, de Boers “two tracks” of cosmic and forensic apocalyptic eschatology and whether this dichotomy may be overcome, the compatibility of wisdom and apocalyptic theology, and how retrospective approaches understanding salvation history reading back from the revelation of Jesus versus progressive salvation histories like that of N. T. Wright. Then in chapter 5, Davies utilizes this threefold engagement to look at three specific matters: the “two ages” with interesting proposals of seeing it rather as this present temporal age intersecting with the eternal through the revelation of Jesus, a study of 1 Corinthians 2 and what we can learn of Paul’s apocalyptic epistemology, and finally a study of Sarah and Hagar in Galatians 4, considering the interplay between cosmology and eschatology.

Davies concludes then for an appeal for this constructive theologizing to go on rather than for scholars to remain in siloes. Davies also raises the issue of the necessity of avoiding a Pauline canon within a canon, emphasizing the importance of engagement with other biblical scholarship. The challenge is between the necessity of specialization versus being a “jack of all trades.” Yet what Davies does both retrospectively and prospectively is offer a good example of the benefit of such engagement. He shows how each needs the other and cannot operate in a silo. What he does then is offer not only a valuable survey for someone new to the discussion of “the Apocalyptic Paul” as well as gesturing toward future fruitful avenues of research and engagement. Such a work is of value for both the prospective scholar and the “pastor-theologian” who seeks to make God’s whole counsel clear to God’s people.

____________________

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