Moberly – Theology of Genesis

R.W.L. Moberly, The Theology of the Book of Genesis, Old Testament Theology (New York, CUP, 2009), xxiv + 252 pp.

R.W.L. Moberly, Professor of Theology and Biblical Interpretation at Durham University, has offered up the second book in the new series, ‘Old Testament Theology’ (the other being the volume on Jeremiah by Breuggemann). Many of those who would read this review know that Moberly is my thesis advisor, so I am naturally somewhat predisposed to appreciate his work, and this volume is no exception. Hopefully, however, this review will be helpful to others.

Moberly begins his work by discussing exactly what a “theology of Genesis” should be. He discusses traditional historical criticism and ideological criticism, but proposes his own canonical and confessional theology whereby Genesis is understood “within the context of continuing traditions of faith, life, and thought” (12). Thus, Moberly’s work is significantly different than many “theological” studies of the book of Genesis, and is, in fact quite different than one would expect of a book titled, The Theology of the Book of Genesis.

The content of the book is a series of nine studies of particular texts that have significance for Genesis as received Scripture today, as well as two methodological studies on reading Genesis 1-11 and Genesis 12-50. One of the strengths of this book is

 

Too HOT!!

The current temperature in Portland, OR = 107!!!

Way too hot!

 

Review: Treier’s Introducing Theological Interpretation

Daniel J. Treier, Introducing Theological Interpretation of Scripture: Recovering a Christian Practice (Grand Rapids, MI: BakerAcademic, 2008).

 

Daniel Treier begins his manual on theological interpretation of Scripture by tracing a brief history. Beginning with the reaction against historical criticism and the seminal work of Barth he traces the influence of Barth through his focus on the ‘subject’ of the text, the fact that  “one must enter into or participate in its meaning” and reading “with more attention and love” (p. 16). He traces briefly traces this trend through such scholars as Brevard Childs, David Kelsey, Hans Frei, George Lindbeck, Stanley Hauerwas and Francis Watson (pp. 18-20). After discussing the attempt to recover theological interpretation in the evangelical (pp. 21-25) and Roman Catholic (pp. 25-33) traditions, Treier turns to a brief examination of the ‘Postmodern turn’ (pp. 33- 36). This section functions as both a brief history of and introduction to the issues surrounding this thing called theological interpretation of Scripture.

 

Now Treier turns to the first part of his introduction to theological hermeneutics by examining three common themes held among those who claim to do theological interpretation. The first of these is the attempt to recover ancient Christian practices (ch. 1: ‘Recovering the Past’). Treier notes that there is a resurgence of those trying to recover their Christian heritage by practicing in line with historical Christianity. He identifies three practices that are used in an attempt to recover this ancient Christian practice: 1) reading as piety (pp. 41-45); 2) reading about Christ (pp. 45-51); 3) reading for Christian practice, with a special emphasis on the fourfold sense of Scripture (pp. 51-55).

 

The second chapter deals with the concern of “Reading within the Rule(s).” This chapter is about the practice of interpretation within the context of

 

Turned in!

I have been slightly inactive on this blog for a while but that is because my final deadline for my ThM thesis loomed large. Well, I can say that I have officially turned in the final draft of my thesis. Whew!

 

Book Review: Dines’ The Septuagint

Jennifer M. Dines, The Septuagint (New York: T & T Clark, 2004), xvii +196 pp.

The newest introduction to the Septuagint, by Jennifer M. Dines, is also perhaps the most brief on the subject. This is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because it successfully provides, for the uninitiated reader, an introduction that is accessible. It is a curse, however, because it is forced to only briefly interact with a subject that is among the most complex and technical in all of biblical studies.

Her study is broken down into 7 chapters. The first chapter is an attempt to get a working definition for the Septuagint, this discussion reveals the complexity of the term ‘Septuagint.’ She ends by reminding the reader that “at the material level, the LXX ‘is’: a vast diverse corpus of religios texts in Greek” (p. 24). The second chapter is the first to deal with the origins of the LXX; she interacts mainly with the Letter of Aristeas and the works of Aristobulus on the LXX. These sources, Dines, concludes “agree on situating [the LXX] in the early third century BCE, as an initiative of Ptolemy” (p. 38). The third chapter is the second on the issue of the origin of the LXX. Here Dines focuses on the various translations of the LXX, noting that even in Aristeas the first translation was just the Pentateuch, and the various modern hypotheses for the impetus of the translation and the translation style (e.g., interlinear vs. free rendering). She concludes by

 

Upcoming Book Reviews

So I originally intended to write book reviews on this blog for all of the books that I read in order to 1) force myself to summarize the content of the book after reading it, 2) to have a place where I can keep my summaries and 3) to allow others to benefit from my take on my readings. However, I have turned out to be a less than regular blogger and I haven’t been diligent in my book reviews. I am currently way behind in my book reviews but I intend to catch up. Below is a list of books that I have read recently and hope to have reviews of soon. This is my way of committing myself to finishing these reviews.

• Paul Rhodes Eddy & Gregory A. Boyd, The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition
• James D.G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered
• Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel
• R.W.L. Moberly, The Old Testament of the Old Testament: Patriarchal Narratives and Mosaic Yahwism
• Kenton L. Sparks, God’s Words in Human Words: An Evangelical Appropriation of Critical Biblical Scholarship
• Jennifer M. Dines, The Septuagint
• Martin Hengel, The Septuagint as Christian Scripture

 

Epistemological Humility

One of the benefits of doing graduate studies is you begin to be well versed in a few fields. One the things that this has instilled in me is a sense of epistemological humility. Another way of putting this is that there are very few things that I would say that I know and there are an extremely few things that I would say that I know and if you disagree, you are wrong. 

Here are some examples of what I’m talking about. I often read introductory books or listen to introductory courses on subjects that I have a fair bit of knowledge about. When I do this I am very aware of times when the author or teacher says things like, ‘scholars now say….’ While this type of statement is often true, other times it is merely a gloss for ‘really there is a lot of scholarly debate about this subject, but the best people that I have arbitrarily chosen based on my limited knowledge of the subject say this.’ 

What this type of rhetoric does is imply to the student, who is there to learn from the ‘expert’, that this statement that the expert has made is a ‘fact.’ Maybe I am too postmodern in my thinking but I am afraid there are very few things that can be said to be fact. Facts always are interpretations of data, and while data may just be data, for it to be meaningful it must be interpreted as fact. Interpretations, however, are always open to question. So what we may assume is fact is actually a careful argument made by experts that is actually based on a number of assumptions and other facts, which are in turn interpretations of their own. 

It is not only academics, however, that are guilty of what I will call epistemological arrogance. I recently heard someone say on a Christian radio station that “the more archaeology we uncover, the more the Bible is proved to be historically true.’ Now there are whole schools of thought that would take issue with this statement. The problem with this situation is that the person on the radio is not an archaeologist nor a biblical scholar, they are merely repeating what they heard ‘some expert’ say.

This kind of rhetoric is, I think, damaging, especially for Christians. For once we have begun to perpetuate things that are really arguments and points of view as fact we have begun to deceive those who are not in a position to know the difference. This is especially true in matters of faith. Once we have convinced people of the fact that the Bible is proved historically true by archaeology, then when that ‘truth’ is called into question by this or that archaeologist then people’s worldviews are questioned.

What I have come to treat as axiomatic for my life is a kind of epistemological humility wherein I am unquestionably sure of very few things so that I would say that I know them and if you disagree you are wrong, and in turn am questionably sure of a very many things wherein I would say that I think them and if you disagree then let’s have a conversation and see if we can’t get closer to the truth. 

I am not a pluralist, I believe there is objective truth. But I am drowning in the amount of information that I do not know for sure, and I have studied a few things extensively. I wonder if things like church splits, denominational fights and academic snobbery would be greatly lessened if we admitted that most of the things that we say we know we only think. And if we could, in epistemological humility, come together to try and find the truth, even if, in the end, we merely agree to disagree. We could, after all, both be wrong.

 

2009 NW ETS Paper

Well, the 2009 NW ETS meeting is over, and I am glad for it. It was a great time and I greatly appreciated the plenary session as well as the two parallel papers that I got to attend. Though, I did get some free books they were not exactly as enticing to me as the picks I got last year, so we’ll see if I actually read them. The main reason I am glad for this year’s NW ETS meeting to be over is my paper is off my plate for a while. I presented a paper on Judges 13 where I tried to show how reading this chapter as a type-scene (a la Alter) significantly helps our reading of it. Below is the title, abstract and a link to the full paper if anyone is interested.

Paper Title: What do Jacob, Joseph, Jesus and Samson Have in Common? A Study of Judges 13 as a Biblical Type-Scene

Abstract:

Jacob, Joseph, Jesus and Samson, and also Isaac, Samuel, John the Baptist, and possibly an unnamed boy in Kings are very different characters, and are appraised very differently by the biblical authors. However, their births are very and perhaps troublingly similar. Is Luke trying to tell us that John the Baptist is the new Samson? I hope not. This paper seeks to show that if we understand the biblical convention of literary type-scenes then not only are we in a better place to understand why these similarities or repetitions occur but we are also in a better place to understand how the biblical authors are portraying each character. This paper will focus on Samson’s birth story in Judges 13 as an example of how this type-scene analysis can illumine the meaning of a text.

 

WWJBAO: What Would Jesus Be Accused Of?

I just finished reviewing a really fantastic collection of studies edited by Scot McKnight and Joseph B. Modica called, Who Do My Opponents Say that I am: An Investigation of the Accusations Against the Historical Jesus. The idea was to study all of the things that Jesus was accused of by his opponents to ascertain what we can learn about the historical Jesus from said accusations. It was a fascinating book and made me think about the perception of one’s enemies as very revealing about oneself. Here are some of the highlights of the book:

1. Jesus was accused of being a ‘law breaker.’ Though Jesus as a good Jew, was certainly Torah observant, Michael Bird, who studied this accusation concludes that such was Jesus’ view of the importance of the Kingdom that “where the mission of the kingdom and Torah conflicted the Torah had to give way” (p. 25).
2. Jesus was accused of being ‘demon possessed.’ The fact that Jesus’ miracles were never denied but were instead accused to stem from a malevolent power rather than a divine one, says a lot about the historicity of Jesus as a miracle worker.
3. Jesus was accused of being a ‘glutton and a drunkard.’ This is more serious than perhaps it seems. Joseph B. Modica, who studied this accusation, shows how this accusation is really accusing Jesus of being a ‘stubborn and rebellious son’ from Deueronomy 21. The punishment of which is death! This means Jesus was seen as hanging out with the wrong sort and doing the wrong sort of things that a good Jewish boy would not be doing.
4. Jesus was probably accused of being mamzer (illegitemate child).  What this means is that there was sufficient ‘fishiness’ and lowliness concerning Jesus’ birth that his legitemacy was probably called into question.

All this leads me to reflect on the fact that everything that Jesus was accused of was directly related to his mission. He was accused of being a law breaker because he saw that righteousness needed to go in a new direction than it was in his contemporary setting. He was accused of being demon-possessed because he performed great miracles of power. He was accused of being a drunkard and a glutton because he went to parties and hung out with an unsavory crowd. He was accused of being illegitemate because his origens were lowly and his birth was questionable.

This begs the question, what are we, as Christians accused of? One of my professors in college used to tell the story of a time he was teaching an intro course on religion at a secular university. When it got time to teach the segment on Christianity he asked the class to shout out words that they associated with Christianity. The overwhelming response were words that related to ‘judgmental.’ We are most often accused of being judgmental. 

Nowhere is Jesus anywhere close to being accused of being judgmental. In fact, as Bird has pointed out (point 1 above), where Jesus’ all inclusive message of the Kingdom (including forgiveness) conflicted to the current understanding of the Law, the Law had to give way! Could we apply that to our current understanding of morality? I don’t think it’s too far of a stretch. But I digress, my main point is this: Christians today (myself included) are accused of things that Jesus would never be accused of. That says something about us. 

I ask myself this question, when was the last time I was so Kingdom focused, so forgiving that I was accused of not being concerned with the Law (or morality)? What your enemies think about you says something about who you are. I’m afraid that we have not followed Jesus in this matter. It bears some thought.

 

This Just In…

 

Some of you may or may not know that I have been applying to Ph.D. programs the last month or so. I haven’t really talked about it a ton because it’s the kind of thing that you don’t want to tell all your friends about only to find out that you’re not going because you can’t get in. At least that’s the way I have viewed it. However, I received this email today from the postgraduate secretary of the University of St. Andrews:

 

 

Dear Ben

I am happy, unofficially, to let you know that your application for postgraduate study has been successful.  The Postgraduate Committee is recommending to the University that you be accepted into the Ph.D programme ….  You will receive a letter from the University within the next two to three weeks.

Whoohoo! Now, we are still waiting to hear from several other schools, so we haven’t made any final decisions as to where we’re going yet (but St. Andrews is definitely one of my top choices), but it looks like, barring any unforeseen circumstances that we are going to the UK in the fall.

(The image above is the University of St. Andrews Coat of Arms)