eating the mushrooms

Okay, so the story behind this post's title is too long to share here; suffice it to say the title raises the question: What am I willing to risk to move my faith from belief in to acting upon. As I was challenged this morning to move from belief to action, the answer to that question was clear in my head. All afternoon, except during the nap that has become a Sunday tradition that I also try to observe on other days of the week, the words have echoed in my mind. Here's my answer:

I ask God to give us the strength to enter into the suffering of those in my community so that they might share in the blessings I've been given.

A brief explanation: My family and I live on the semi-rural campus of the college that employs me. Our house is provided and maintained by my employer (which has its problems, of course, but in the balance we are very well taken care of), so there's a whole area of life that we don't have to devote too much time or energy worrying about. Our neighbors are, without exception, faculty, staff, and students of this small private college. There isn't a single run-down, dodgy building within sight (even though there are three different trailor parks on campus). The things my neighbors worry about (and get upset about) include finishing midterm papers and preparing for exams, whether the neighbor mows his lawn with adequate frequency, whether the teenage children of my coworkers had permission when they accessed school facilities, and (this is a particularly pressing concern at the moment) whether residents observe the posted 15 mph speed limit in the residential areas of campus.

In other words, we are very sheltered.

In the midst of all of this, my greatest fears are these. First, that we will forget that outside this sheltered enclave is a real world where people have to worry about mortgages, neighbors, the cost of keeping their homes heated, dysfunctional and abusive domestic environments, and so on. My immediate world is untouched by these concerns. And while ours is a wonderful community to raise children, the fact is that many parents — single, teenage, homeless, unemployed, abused, underemployed, or whatever — cannot provide such a safe and caring environment for their children. Every day I run the risk of thinking, subconsciously if not on purpose, that these parents must not love their children as much as my wife and I love our daughter. I cannot imagine what it must be like to want to provide for your children and not be able to. This is a blessing that the vast majority of the world's population, I would imagine, have never known.

We are an explicitly and intentionally Christian community, but there is a real danger that as a Christian community we will forget that Jesus explicitly and intentionally sought out the hurting and poor around him. The paradox is striking and terrifying: Claiming to have committed to live lives faithful to him and his teachings, our day-to-day lives risk looking nothing like his. And how does that work? How do we who claim to be (or seek to be) his disciples live lives wholly unlike his?

Second, I worry that my daughter, who was seven months old when we moved here, will grow up thinking that the rest of the world is just like this little world she knows. The longer we stay here (and we have no plans to leave at the moment), the more she will think this place is "normal." What a shallow person she will be if she doesn't know that this place, rather than the city around us, is the oddity.

But I have a plan, a plan I've had in mind since my daughter was a bundle of elbows and knees poking and prodding my wife from the inside. I'm sure my plan, by itself, isn't enough to counter the pervasive secludedness of our community. But it's a beginning, a "square one" from which we can begin to take the blessings we've been given and share them with those around us. I can't give specifics here, but I'm coming to believe that now is the time to begin taking my daughter by the hand and introducing her, in measured doses at first, to the rest of the world.

But I also have a request. You don't need to live where I live to be sheltered like I'm sheltered. In fact, if you're a Western Christian, you probably know exactly what I'm wrestling with here. So, in the comments below, I invite you to answer the question, How have you poked holes in the bubble that protects you and your family from the rest of the world? What risks have you taken to keep from isolating yourself from the chaos outside?

RBL Newsletter (27 Aug 08)

The latest Review of Biblical Literature is out. Here's what caught my eye:

Michael F. Bird
The Saving Righteousness of God: Studies on Paul, Justification and the New Perspective
Reviewed by Martin Meiser

Reta Halteman Finger
Of Widows and Meals: Communal Meals in the Book of Acts
Reviewed by Steve Walton

Ronald E. Heine
Reading the Old Testament with the Ancient Church: Exploring the Formation of Early Christian Thought
Reviewed by Martin C. Albl

David M. Scholer, ed.
Social Distinctives of the Christians in the First Century: Pivotal Essays by E. A. Judge
Reviewed by Tsalampouni Ekaterini

Dead Sea Scrolls online

A number of blogs (HT: PaleoJudaica.com and Codex) have mentioned the New York Time's report that the Dead Sea Scrolls are being rephotographed and will be made available online. This is great news for everyone interested in all aspects of Second Temple Judaism (not least the New Testament and Christian Origins). This project is not just about access to the scrolls' contents but also the preservation of their substance. The number of recent efforts to photograph ancient manuscripts and make them accessible online is perhaps the most important thing happening in biblical and related studies today. What an exciting time!

too little, too late for Edwards

Today's Daily News reports that former Senator and one-time media darling John Edwards (oh . . . and he also ran for POTUS) is busily making phone calls to former supporters begging forgiveness and expressing regret for his affair with staffer Reille Hunter. Edwards, apparently, is not offering excuses or explanations; he's only expressing regret:

One source who compared notes with other former colleagues said Edwards makes no attempt to justify or rationalize his behavior in these desperate phone conversations. He simply expresses his regret for deceiving them and asks for their understanding and forgiveness.

Apparently, however, his regret does not strike one-time supporters as sincere, or at least not sincere enough:

Many think he's still not telling the truth.

"As painful as it will be for him, he needs to come clean," one of them said. "There's an overwhelming view that he's still lying."

The sad truth is that Edwards has fallen victim to the common human condition: Ever the idealist (whether honestly or merely for political leverage), Edwards could not avoid the cold, hard reality of human fallenness. Theologians identify "sin" as inherent in the human animal. Maybe; I'm not so sure. Regardless, sin is pervasive. Perhaps that's why the Daily News piece saddened me. Edwards deserves every bit of shame and scorn he receives. But so do those heaping the shame and scorn. While we're at it, so do I.

I sympathize with his former supporters: They saw in him a hope for the future, regardless of what the rest of us saw, and now they feel betrayed and humiliated. Of course, the real victim in all of this is the hapless Mrs. Edwards. Well beyond being publicly humiliated, the man who had promised to forsake all others and to cherish and honor her forsook instead his vow, and this when she needed him most. I emphasize the wrongs done to her not to draw our attention to Mr. Edwards's flaws but to put in perspective the failings that plague us all.

To be sure, Edwards' defeat in the Democratic primaries was a victory for America (perhaps not an unbiased assessment). But his moral failure is no one's victory, and the sad aftermath of this drama, including John's spurned pleas for a second chance, reveals the worst in human behavior and relationships. Edwards's story reveals precisely the problem that Jesus' story solves. Before we point our fingers and cast aspersions on a man who once hoped to have his mail forwarded to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., let's make sure we remember that our stories, too, would be tragedies were it not for a man who once blessed the poor, the meek, and those who make for peace.

tragedy in Cincinnati

Both my wife and I are recent graduates of Cincinnati Christian University. So our hearts were broken when we heard about the tragic death of Jenna Edwards (see here for the words of a CCU administrator). Please pray for the Edwards family and for the faculty, staff, and students at CCU. These stories always break my heart, not only for the innocence of the life lost but also because this could happen to any of us (or at least to me). May God receive Jenna's precious spirit and comfort her loving, grieving family.

Greek vocabulary resource

I generally add links to online Greek resources to the sidebar, but as this is a commercial product for sale, I've decided not to add it there. Nevertheless, over on Deinde Danny Zacharias has just made available the catchily (and descriptively) named NT Greek Vocabulary Expansion Packs, available here. I will post a response to the Expansion Packs in a couple weeks. But at a mere $8.00 (with an offer for $8 off Flash! Pro [for PC users], making the Expansion Packs free), some of you might find it worth the cost to try these out on your own.

[NB: David Alan Black has provided free online flashcards for his first year Greek Grammar Learn to Read New Testament Greek (see the link on the sidebar). Danny's Expansion Packs are keyed to four different first-year grammars, including Black's.]

seven years of plenty

Today (Monday, 18 August 2008) my wife and I celebrate our seventh anniversary. During the last seven years I have had an up-close and intimate look at what real, unconditional love looks like. In ways mostly unintentional I test my wife's patience and commitment almost daily, and at every turn she proves herself up to the challenge of living with me. Better men than I have expressed in more poetic words than I can string together their admiration and appreciation for the women who put up with them. I can only say that even their words don't express how much I love my wife. I love her more today than seven years ago.

RBL Newsletter (15 Aug 08)

A number of bloggers already reproduce the Review of Biblical Literature newsletter, either in whole or in part, which I find helpful and therefore unnecessary for Verily Verily. Even so, I've been thinking about listing the reviews of those books that interest me. The links listed here (as well as in future, similar posts), then, are to those reviews of books that pique my interests, whether they relate specifically to the New Testament or otherwise. [NB: This does not mean that books not linked to here are uninteresting.]

With all the necessary prolegomena out of the way, take especial note of these reviews:

Paul J. Achtemeier
Jesus and the Miracle Tradition
Reviewed by Michael Labahn

Roland Boer, ed.
Bakhtin and Genre Theory in Biblical Studies
Reviewed by David W. Williams

Maria Brutti
The Development of the High Priesthood during the Pre-Hasmonean Period: History, Ideology, Theology
Reviewed by Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer

Leslie Houlden, ed.
Decoding Early Christianity: Truth and Legend in the Early Church
Reviewed by Robert M. Bowman Jr.

Tom Thatcher, ed.
What We Have Heard from the Beginning: The Past, Present, and Future of Johannine Studies
Reviewed by Cornelis Bennema

Francis Watson
Paul, Judaism, and the Gentiles: Beyond the New Perspective
Reviewed by James D. G. Dunn

---

The previous RBL newsletter had a few interesting books, too; the most important, for my interests, should be mentioned here:

Oskar Skarsaune and Reidar Hvalvik, eds.
Jewish Believers in Jesus
Reviewed by Elizabeth Boddens Hosang and Bart J. Koet

diversity of Christian campuses

A few weeks ago I commented on an Inside Higher Ed piece concerning racial diversity on college campuses and on their promotional materials (see here). Today's Inside Higher Ed has this piece on the diversity of Christian college campuses. I have a couple thoughts.

1. First, this is good news. Diversifying Christian campuses, especially more conservative/evangelical campuses such as the one I proudly serve, is arguably more difficult than diversifying public or private non-religious institutions because requirements other than race have significant impact on the racial makeup of the student body. Christian campuses often have denominational affiliations that constrain the cultural and theological changes they can make to attract students from other faith traditions (read: races). Relatedly, those denominational affiliations also provide a major recruiting ground for Christian institutions, so colleges affiliated with traditionally White faith traditions already face an uphill battle in recruiting students of other races. Also, at many of these institutions (including mine) full-time faculty have to sign a statement of faith and/or attend a specific denominational church. As in the case of Calvin College, that means that professional and academic qualifications alone do not suffice to make one eligible to teach at Christian institution. The lack of diversity among full-time faculty is a major impediment to the diversification of the student body.
2. Second, despite being a good thing, the article suffers from a major weakness. As I pointed out in my post on Facial Diversity, too often in American discussions of race focus exclusively (or nearly so) on the Black population. This comes through in the current article in two ways. (a) Most obviously, the article focuses exclusively on the (commendable) increase of Black students on Christian campuses. Other minorities are mentioned only as an after-thought, as in the following quote from Paul R. Corts, president of the CCCU:

   Seeing that there are more black students enrolled is only part of the picture because one of the reasons you get more black students is because you’ve been making your campus more welcoming to blacks and other minorities as well.

   
   ". . . and other minorities as well." While I'm sure this is unintentional, as a member of a non-Black minority group, I can't help but read this as a marginalizing of non-Blacks as quasi-non-minorities (but still also non-White/non-majority). While Black and White is more racially diverse than just White, it still misses out on a lot (even most) of the potential diversity that the Church (and all its affiliated institutions) should be pursuing. (b) More subtly, the article nowhere addresses the responsibilities of the Black community to participate in the effort to diversify Christian (and other) campuses. The phenomenal increases in enrollment of Black students reported in the article are not simply the result of the efforts of predominantly White Christian colleges to attract a broader mix of students. Those colleges have had to develop relationships with other organizations, not least traditionally Black faith traditions and churches, colleges and social organizations, which themselves have had to participate in the efforts to encourage Black students to matriculate into those colleges. In other words, I think the credit for the good things going on among CCCU's member institutions ought to be more broadly spread.
3. Third, my own institution, as I've already said, still has a lot of work to do to diversify our student body, our faculty, and our staff and administration. That said, we already have a surprisingly diverse campus community, if race is not allowed to be the sole criterion of diversity. And while we do still have our work cut out for us, we also need to be up front that there are some aspects of diversity that our campus outright rejects. As the most obvious example, we will always be a Christian college, so religious diversity, beyond the boundaries of Christian praxis and theology, will never be welcomed here. That's not to say that Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, and atheist individuals, etc. will be driven off campus by angry students with pitchforks and torches. But those individuals will never be integrated into our identity as an institution.

I hope that the trends identified in the IHE piece continue in up-coming years; even more to the point, I hope these trends are already more broadly applicable and continue to be so in the future. My dream of a more diverse Church (in all its related institutions) jives with the politically correct emphasis on diversity, but it is not motivated by political correctness. Rather, I have in view the vision of John the Elder, who was granted a glimpse into heaven and was surprised by the gathering from every nation, tribe, and tongue to worship the Creator of the universe. Making our colleges and universities more accurately reflect the racial make-up of the country (or even the world) isn't a bad idea; a better one is to bring our institutions into conformity with the racial make-up of heaven.

translating Genesis 1–11 [LXX] — UPDATE

According to Murphy's Law, if it can go wrong, it will. I find this scarcely adequate; I'm often amazed at how often something that couldn't possibly go wrong suddenly goes pear-shaped.

Just days after announcing the "coming out" of a new wiki website for the translation of Genesis 1–11 [LXX], the wiki host I was using suffered a major attack and went offline for a couple days. Though the old site is still available, I have moved the whole wiki over to a new hosting service. The new website, GreekBible, is up and available for anyone interested. I have expanded the scope of GreekBible to include the entire, well . . . Greek Bible; as of right now, however, only the text of Genesis 1–11 is available.

I have added a link to GreekBible in my sidebar (under "collaboratives"). Feel free to check it out, join the community, and add to the discussion.

[UPDATE: I have just added the Greek text of Romans 1–8 to GreekBible (click here). More texts will be coming shortly, though probably not before next week.]

research resources

Over at Old in the New James Darlack has compiled a list of helpful starting points for biblical and theological research. As noted in the comments section, the task of compiling bibliographic resources is as gargantuan (and impossible) as documenting every instance of "manipulating the truth" in American presidential campaigns. Even so, a good starting point is a valuable ally. I hope you find this helpful.

in the Olympic spirit

Over on Targuman Chris Brady posted this video. I don't usually shamelessly reproduce other people's post, but this is hilarious. The first time I watched this I didn't even notice the other panda.

baptism and grace

I was baptized during the first week of January in 1997 at a small, rural church in NE Ohio. I was nineteen and (or so I thought) relatively creative and reasonably intelligent, even if no one else realized it. Even so, I never thought to do what this kid did, and now I will always wonder, What if? (HT: Thanks, Papa.)

BIBL 5107 Lesson 4:Galatia

Acts 13 — Barnabas's and Paul's adventures in Pisidian Antioch — represents a crucial narratological moment in the development of Acts's account of Paul's proclamation of the gospel throughout the Roman Empire. As R. Longenecker writes:

At Pisidian Antioch the typical pattern of the Pauline ministry was established: an initial proclamation in the synagogue to Jews and Gentile adherents and then, when refused an audience in the synagogue, a direct ministry to Gentiles. This pattern is reproduced in every city visited by Paul with a sizable Jewish population — except Athens." (Acts, 422)

I think Longenecker is spot on, for the most part. The extended account in Acts 13 establishes a basic pattern of ministry that is invoked in abbreviated form in every subsequent account of Paul's experiences in the cities of the Mediterranean. Luke, I think, does this deliberately as a way of instructing the reader on appropriate reading strategies (I'm incorporating here some of John Miles Foley's appropriation of Iser's and Jauss's Receptionalist work; cf. Foley 1995:42ff.) by which we can more faithfully read his account of Paul's proclamation. This is why I think Longenecker is spot on only "for the most part": If Luke intends for us to incorporate this pattern into each account of Paul's activities (with, of course, the explicit modifications to this pattern that Luke provides), then even Paul's experiences in Athens may incorporate this pattern (cf. Acts 17.17a). This is a narratological suggestion rather than a historical one.

This point becomes especially important, I think, because some scholars have suggested that Luke espouses a supersessionist theology in which God has abandoned his old people, Israel, and has chosen his new people, the Church. But this fails to notice that, in every possible instance of Paul's ministry (i.e., even in Rome [Acts 28] but not in Lystra [Acts 14]) Luke presents Paul as ministering explicitly to Jews, even after his caustic exclamation, ""It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken first to you. Since you reject it and judge yourselves to be unworthy of eternal life, we are now turning to the Gentiles" (Acts 13.46). In Luke's presentation, Israel continues to be at the heart of both God's people (see, inter alios, Paul and Barnabas) and God's mission (e.g., Paul's proclamation).

As concerns the importance of Galatia as an aspect of "the world of the NT," I note two things. First, as already suggested, the pattern of Paul's ministry throughout the Roman world was established (again, at least narratologically speaking) in Galatia. This might be a minor point, but I want to connect it with another point (perhaps equally minor): Famously, Luke's account of Paul's and Barnabas's experiences in Lystra (i.e., in Galatia) is strikingly parallel to his account of Peter's and John's experiences in the Jerusalem Temple in Acts 3–4. In terms of Acts' story, then, I wonder if these observations can be pressed to pry open Luke's perspective on the interaction of continuity and discontinuity between (a) Christianity as it developed under Paul's influence in the context of the wider Greco-Roman world (again, in Galatia) and (b) Christianity as it originally found expression as a Judean (or, in Luke's presentation, as a Jerusalem) sect.

BIBL 5203 Lesson 4:Antioch vs. Alexandria

I have to admit that I'm not sure what I think about the Antioch||Alexandria schema that seems ubiquitous. There are obvious differences, of course, and if (I'm genuinely ignorant here) the ancients understood themselves — as Antiochenes and as Alexandrians — in terms of their not being the other, then this schema appears more helpful. But if not, if Antioch did not intentionally see itself as an antidote to Alexandrian allegorism (and/or vice versa), then I can only wonder what this schema causes us to miss even as it reveals something about both schools.

But I lack the qualification to propose another solution, so, within the traditional schema, I'd like to offer a few thoughts regarding the two approaches to biblical interpretation. First, the debate between (or dichotomization of) Aristotelian empiricism and Platonic mysticism not only has a lengthy pedigree but also continues to influence contemporary biblical exegesis and theology. As an example, Eerdmans is currently putting out a series of commentaries, The Two Horizons New Testament Commentary, that seeks "to bridge the existing gap between biblical studies and systematic theology." I haven't looked through any of the four currently available volumes in this series, but the very perception of this "gap" corresponds to contemporary empirical analyses of texts, on the one hand, and a more philosophical theological enterprise. I'm not disparaging the THNTC series; indeed, this seems to me a strength in light of other series' failure to recognize the difference between these approaches (e.g., compare this commentary on Romans with this on I and II Thessalonians). I'm not, at this point anyway, disparaging either approach to biblical interpretation; but the differences between them should be recognized and respected.

With respect to the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches, I should first admit that I am whole-heartedly persuaded of the methodological superiority of an Antiochene approach to Scripture. I'm not here arguing for a literal rather than allegorical approach to exegesis so much as I am advocating an approach where texts are read within a reconstruction of their original socio-historical context rather than simply from an uncritical acceptance of our (the readers') contexts. Because allegorical interpretation generates meanings from a text that apply more directly (to say things kindly) to their readers than to their authors, this approach "de-natures" texts and treats them like contemporary rather than ancient artifacts. In other words, reading allegorically is akin to deciphering hieroglyphic inscriptions without need of the Rosetta Stone and the insights it affords: Who cares what the ancient Egyptians might have meant as they painted falcons and ankhs on the walls?

That said, I'm also wary of the reductionist potential inherent in emphatically literal interpretations of biblical texts. Some people, for example, insist so strongly on a particular, "literal" interpretation of certain texts that they fail to recognize the violence they themselves do to the texts they claim to be interpreting. In this way, ironically, I suggest that my own readings of the Genesis narrative are both more "literal" readings of the texts and yet do not necessitate specific literal events behind those texts. Not every text intends to communicate historical truth (see, e.g., Jesus' parable of the sower); reducing every biblical text to a historical statement fails to respect the other purposes texts — and language more generally — can serve. What is more, the significance a text can have for its readers does not depend on its original significance, at least insofar as this significance inheres between the text's author and original audience. In other words, "literal" interpretation does not end at a literal interpretation but can also raise questions the author never intended to raise. This last point, of course, lies at the heart of evangelical hermeneutics.

My last point, perhaps, is my most controversial. Let me first say that I am intentionally a biblical scholar and not a theologian. In recent years I have begun to appreciate the contribution theologians make, especially scholars such as Kevin Vanhoozer, John Franke, William Placher. (If my readings in theology appear narrow, that's probably because they are.) But earlier in my education I had only been exposed to theologians whose work seemed formulaic and rigid. That said, let me suggest that what we actually have in the Antioch||Alexandria dichotomy is not so much two approaches to biblical interpretation but rather two different methods of constructing Christianity. The Antiochene project (exegesis, in a broad sense) is biblical interpretation, whilst the Alexandrian project (theology, similarly broad) is not biblical interpretation but theological reflection. In the former, the text is primary and theological conclusions must be suggested by proposed interpretations of publicly available texts. In the latter, the text is a vehicle for expressing theological propositions that are not necessarily suggested by the text but are rather legitimated through them. The text, in this project, is ancillary to the allegorical meanings mapped onto the texts.

This tension between theology arising from the biblical text (Antioch), on the one hand, and theology finding expression through the biblical text (Alexandria), if I am correct in so naming this tension, has left an indelible mark on the Church (and its history of reading its sacred texts). Since Irenaeus at least — and arguably since the late-Pauline tradition — the purpose of biblical interpretation has often been to justify previously established theological conclusions rather than to refine and reform those conclusions. The naming of certain individuals and groups as "heretical" often — though not always — relies on theological convictions whose simplicity is at odds with the complexities of the texts themselves. I would suggest, tentatively, that many of the early Christological heresies fell victim to this move. It seems to me, for example, that Arius's portrayal of Jesus as the first born son of God, the instrument God created for the creation of the world, attempts (inadequately, in the end) to preserve the tension in the biblical text in the face of a (perceived?) denial of the distinction between God, the Creator of the world, and Wisdom/his Word, through whom God effected his creation. Similarly, the condemnation of emphatically Jewish expressions of Christianity as "heretical" seems, at least to me, at odds with the complexity of, for instance, Paul's arguments regarding the Law, the Jews, and God's covenant with humanity throughout Romans.

Perhaps some of these observations are too blunt to be of any historical, exegetical, or theological use. Perhaps the dichotomization of Antioch||Alexandria, as I first suggested, obscures some things even as it brings other things into view. But the tensions I'm trying to identify lie at the heart of my own faith tradition which seeks to marginalize Alexandria and to epitomize Antioch in slogans such as, "No creed but Christ; no book but the Bible" (see also my comments here). Even despite this slogan (or perhaps especially because of it), theological conflict in my tradition has often employed polemic and philosophical argument explicitly and neglected to pursue questions and answers through biblical interpretation. I suspect, in the end, that this is rooted in the oft-felt but rarely spoken recognition that sola Scriptura doesn't always (doesn't even usually, perhaps) support our own conclusions as clearly and as forcefully as we would like. In these cases, Alexandria becomes eminently useful; Antioch, not so much.

[For an Orthodox discussion of Antioch||Alexandria, see this article, though recognize that this site is remarkably partisan.]

reading Jesus of Nazareth

This week I started reading Joseph Ratzinger's Jesus of Nazareth. I thought I'd give a few of my first impressions, and then make a few comments as I read the book.

Up to this point (I've read the Introduction and the first four chapters) this book doesn't strike me as a particularly academic book, though I am impressed by Ratzinger's reflectiveness and, for lack of a better word, sheer poeticism. It's easy to forget, as I read this book, that these are the thoughts of the man who epitomizes, for many people across the globe, the kingdom of God on earth. Ratzinger's writing is far from dogmatic, which came as a pleasant surprise given media reports, at the time of his appointment to the papacy (and since), that emphasized Ratzinger's nickname, God's Rottweiller. Some reviewer's on Facebook have referred to Ratzinger's humility, which I think goes a bit too far. That is, I'm not denying Ratzinger's humility, but I think the welcoming tenor in which Ratzinger wrote Jesus of Nazareth is more a function of his having written a legitimate contribution to the on-going conversation about Jesus taking place in the academy and the church. Ratzinger recognizes (and interacts with) this on-going conversation, and, to his credit, he doesn't hide behind the magisterium to silence that conversation or privilege his voice within it.

Otherwise, much of Ratzinger's comments on Jesus of Nazareth are fairly standard within the arena of historical Jesus research and do not necessarily advance the academic discussion of the historical Jesus very far. He makes some intriguing connections from time to time. For example, in his discussion of Jesus' third temptation (according to Matthew), Ratzinger connects Satan's taking Jesus "to a very high mountain" and offering him all the kingdoms of the earth (Matt. 4.8–9) with Jesus' taking his disciples to a mountain in Galilee and announcing, "All authority in heaven and upon the earth has been given me" (Matt. 28.16–20). Similarly, Ratzinger reads the temptation to "command these stones to become loaves of bread" (Matt. 4.3) in light of two other events in Jesus' ministry involving bread: the feeding of the five thousand and the Last Supper. These, I think, are insightful connections. At other times, Ratzinger's discussion avoids difficult issues. For example, his discussion of Jesus' baptism rightly stresses John's baptism as a rite of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, but he too quickly assumes that Jesus sets out to assume humanity's sin in his baptism in order to "fulfill all righteousness" (cf. Matt. 3.13–15). This too-quick assumption raises questions about the necessity of Jesus' crucifixion for humanity's sin, if his baptism already "fulfilled all righteousness" in this sense.

Even so, I'm excited as I read this book and am glad that I have assigned it for some of my freshmen Gospel Narratives students. Everyone should read the Foreword and the Introduction, especially as Ratzinger, in these sections, reveals his heart and pastoral intentions to a greater extent than he does in the book's actual chapters. For example, at the conclusion of his methodological discussion in the Foreword (which is well worth the read even if beginning students will sometimes wonder what all the fuss is about), Ratzinger nearly exclaims, "I trust the Gospels" (xxi; my emphasis). This affirmation of faith is all the more poignant for coming, as it does, at the end of a discussion in which he accepts as necessary and helpful the historical-critical analysis of these sacred texts (cf. Fitzmyer's similar discussion in The Interpretation of Scripture, which I have reviewed in a forthcoming volume of the Stone Campbell Journal). Whatever we ultimately think of Ratzinger's detailed utilization of the historical-critical method, he is certainly at least attempting to keep his portrayal of Jesus of Nazareth from being merely an exposition of the Nicene Creed.

As I've suggested above, the Foreword and the Introduction alone are worth the price of the book. I'd like to finish by interacting with two of Ratzinger's comments, one from the Foreword and one from the Introduction. First, in his discussion of the unity of Scripture, Ratzinger writes:

Modern exegesis has brought to light the process of constant rereading that forged the words transmitted in the Bible into Scripture: Older texts are reappropriated, reinterpreted, and read with new eyes in new contexts. They become Scripture by being read anew, evolving in continuity with their original sense, tacitly corrected and given added depth and breadth of meaning. This is a process in which the word gradually unfolds its inner potentialities already somehow present like seeds, but needing the challenge of new situations, new experiences and new sufferings, in order to open up." (pp. xviii–xix)

Ratzinger's subject here is in dire need of more attention, but his point is well taken. He states in theological terms (which we best understand in terms of the doctrine of the fourfold meaning of Scripture) what I think is more accurately and helpfully explained in terms of sociolinguistics and Immanent Art (for the latter, cf. the works of John Miles Foley, esp. 1991; 1995). That is, language that invokes one particular meaning (or set of meanings) within a given community will invoke another meaning (or, again, set of meanings) within another community. This happens as texts move geographically, but it also happens as texts move temporally, through history. But in the latter case, social memory theorists such as Barry Schwartz (Abraham Lincoln and the Forge of National Memory) and Michael Schudson (Watergate in American Memory) challenge us to account for the ways that the new contexts in which texts find themselves being read are already shaped by those texts. The issue here isn't simply how old texts accrue to themselves new meanings in new contexts (though this is, obviously, an important issue), but also and at the same time how those new contexts have already and even subconsciously been framed by those old texts. If we can modulate the question half a step (to use a musical metaphor), the issue isn't simply how the early Christians began to reinterpret Israel's biblical traditions in light of Jesus of Nazareth, but also how they already understood Jesus of Nazareth in terms of their biblical traditions.

Second, Ratzinger begins in the Introduction by framing Jesus in the context of Moses (though later he will make a predictable move and insist that Moses is woefully inadequate for understanding Jesus), which I think is one of a couple exactly right moves. If the Evangelists say anything at all about Jesus, they say that we cannot understand Jesus if we haven't first understood Moses (and vice versa, especially in John's gospel). Ratzinger is gold here:

The most important thing about the figure of Moses is neither all the miraculous deeds he is reported to have done nor his many works and sufferings along the way from the "house of bondage in Egypt" through the desert to the threshold of the Promised Land. The most important thing is that he spoke with God as with a friend. This was the only possible springboard for his works; this was the only possible source of the Law that was to show Israel its path through history. (p. 4)

This, I think, is exactly right and well worth exploring. I'm especially impressed with Ratzinger's correct assessment of Moses' miracles and their significance. These were not offered as proofs that Moses was who he claimed to be or that legitimated his assumption of considerable power from among the people of Israel (even appointing his brother's family as the nation's priests). Rather, these were themselves instances of God achieving the relationship with his people that he had always intended and which he had more concretely with Moses. The same point goes for Jesus: the healings, exorcisms, and miracles did not "prove" anything about Jesus' identity or legitimate his claim to stand at the head of the restored twelve tribes (as symbolized in his gathering around himself twelve disciples). Rather, they were themselves instances of the gospel working in power to restore humanity to the creator God. This is precisely the point of traditions such as Matt. 11.2–6||Luke 7.18–23, and Jesus says as much in Luke's account of his response to the accusation of collusion with Beelzebul (cf. Luke 11.20; the language of "the finger of God" is significantly more relevant in this specific instance than is the otherwise similar language in Matt. 12.28 regarding "the Spirit of God").

The next chapter I have to read is on the Sermon on the Mount. Given that, to this point, the longest chapter has been the 21-page discussion on Jesus' temptations (pp. 25–46), the 64-page chapter on Jesus' inaugural sermon (according to Matthew, for which gospel Ratzinger seems to have a penchant; cf. pp. 64–128) promises to be the most comprehensive discussion thus far. I'll let you know what I think, assuming what I think rises to the level of worthy to be mentioned on this blog (a scandalously low standard, indeed).

translating Genesis 1–11 [LXX]

I'd like to announce a new addition in the "collaboratives" section of Verily Verily's sidebar. I am currently developing a wiki that, I hope, will facilitate a community-driven translation of (portions of) Genesis 1–11 [LXX], including discussions of translational, linguistic, and interpretive issues involved in such a translation. This project is currently motivated by a seminar led by one of my colleagues on critical issues of Genesis 1–11, including literary, theological, and historical issues and expanding also to include issues of these chapters' reception, whether in the Hellenistic or modern eras (the LXX and a canon of Western literature, respectively).

The wiki is publicly accessible, but I have required a password in order to save changes made to any pages. If you're interested in participating in (rather than simply observing) this project, please leave a comment letting me know how to contact you and I'll send you the password. If you leave an e-mail address, be sure to leave it "in code" (e.g., rafael [at] yahoo [dot] com).

an excellent video

This video (HT: Steve Cook) is well worth the sixty-eight seconds it takes to watch it. This makes a similar point, I think, to what I was trying to say in my post on my surprise at my own biases.

Redneck Stonehenge

You have to love American approaches to conflict resolution. My favorite line from this story is when Rhett Davis, the farmer who erected this "fence made out of cars," admits, "It went a little beyond, you know, ordinary . . ."

Yes, Rhett . . . just a little.

UPDATE: Another example of Americans dealing with their problems in life-affirming ways, this time reported by the Cincinnati Enquirer. Keep in mind, this is a 71-year-old preacher on his way to church!

The Gospel of Israel

Over at Theological Scribbles Robin is engaged in a series of posts on "The Gospel of Israel." Robin's comments are insightful and well worth following up; I recommend you check out the series when you have a chance. Also, I've noticed that there is one reader who seems to consistently offer very intriguing comments . . .

:D