From Behind the Veil: The Epistles of John

Deep Exegesis:The Mystery of Reading Scripture

Jane Austen
(A Biography)

Solomon Among the Postmoderns

The Baptized Body

1 & 2 Kings
Brazos Theological Commentary

The Promise Of His Appearing: An Exposition Of Second Peter

A Great Mystery: Fourteen Wedding Sermons

Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, And Hope In Western Literature

Miniatures & Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen

The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism

A Son To Me: An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel

Against Christianity

From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution

Ascent to Love: A Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy

Blessed Are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord's Supper

A House For My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament

Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature

Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide To Six Shakespeare Plays

Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life

The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church

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Bible: Milbank’s Bible

In a discussion of the divergence of “romantic” and “classical” modes of contemporary theology, Milbank highlights the central role of the Scripture.  More fundamental than reason, or the “rational consideration of the propositions of faith” is “meditation on the liturgy, the eucharist and the scriptures.”  Meditating on the liturgy, we meditate on “all the words which wise men have ever uttered,” but especially on “the words of the Bible which contain the most sublime reasonings of all because they anticipate, echo, enforce and again anticipate the epiphanic descent of reason itself to humanity” in the incarnation of the Logos.

We can read the book of the world and the book of Scripture because “our intellectual is illumined (and so able to think at all) through its participation int he very mind of this same author.  The book of creation itself points obscurely to the paradoxically world-exceeding book of scripture.  At the same time the latter refers in the first place always to things of this world and so must be read through the world-book, just as the scriptures also refer to many languages and cultures and thereby assume and anticipate the whole of human history.”  Christian use of language and study of the natural world are “focussed on the Bible that it itself authorized by its critical place in enabling liturgy, the truth worship of the triune God.”

Bible: Totus Christus

Mike Bull is an graphic designer in the wonderfully named Katoomba, New South Wales, who writes about the Bible. He’s produced a massive “biblical theology of the whole Christ” entitled Totus Christus.  There are a lot of juicy details here, but the overall scheme is to follow the heptamerous chiastic pattern of Creation, Division, Ascension, Testing, Maturity, Conquest, Glorification from Genesis to the end of the Bible.  Some of it feels forced and schematic, but overall it’s a lively introduction to a richer reading of Scripture.  With a lot of quotations from James Jordan and me, it’s a good summary of what we’ve been up to for the past couple of decades.

You can get a taste of Mike’s graphic design work, and his biblical research, from his web site: http://www.bullartistry.com.au, which will take you to his blog that has a sample chapter of the book.

Bible: Establishing the law

Tertullian (Against Marcion, 4.16) offers an interesting explanation of the consistency of Jesus’ teaching with that of the lex talionis:

“He who counselled that an injury should be forgotten, was still more likely to counsel the patient endurance of it. But then, when He said. ‘Vengeance is ming, and I will repay,’ He thereby teaches that patience calmly waits for the infliction of vengeance. Therefore, inasmuch as it is incredible that the same (God) should seem to require ’a tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye,’ in return for an injury, who forbids not only all reprisals, but even a revengeful thought or recollection of an injury, in so far does it become plain to us in what sense He required ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth - not, indeed, for the purpose of permitting the repetition of the injury by retaliating it, which it virtually prohibited when it forbade vengeance; but for the purpose of restraining the injury in the first instance. . . .

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Bible: Growing house

New Testament metaphors of the church-as-temple are often confusing because they envision a growing building, a building that acts a lot like an organic body: “growing into a holy temple in the Lord” (Ephesians 2:21); “living stones” (1 Peter 2:5).

The conflation of organic and architectural imagery has an Old Testament root.  The house of Yahweh grew from the time of Moses on.  Under Moses, the “house” was simply the tabernacle; with Solomon, the “house of Yahweh” encompassed both the temple and Solomon’s palace complex (cmp. 1 Kings 6:1 and 7:51); in the time of Ezra  and Nehemiah, the “house” Cyrus authorized included the city walls.  Thus, over the course of Israel’s history, the “house” grew up from a tent into a city.  

So has, and will, the church.

Bible: Demythologizing

Bultmann notoriously claimed that no one who switches on an electric light or uses the cutting edge technology of the “wireless” can believe in a world of demons and angels.  That’s not much of an argument, but insofar as it is one, it seems to be: Electric lights show that humans can control the world; if angels and demons exist, human beings are impotent pawns of invisible powers; the electric light therefore disproves the mythological world of the NT.

But what if ancient peoples really were powerless before invisible powers?  What if ancient peoples really couldn’t control the universe?  What if, prior to Jesus, everyone really was under guardians and managers, elementary principles and angelic rulers?  What if God kept us safely under tutors while we were children, waiting for the time when he would give us our inheritance?  What if the Father sent the Son to make us sons, to restore us to Adamic dominion?

In short: What if God, not Bultmann, is the One who “demythologized” the world?

Bible: The City

Some reflections in spired by a paper on the biblical theology of the city by a student, Lisa Beyeler.

1) Genesis 1-11 is often treated as a “prologue” to Israel’s history, but that tends to detach it as “natural history” as opposed to “redemptive history.” It is a preparation for the history of Israel, but not because it is detached from Israel’s history.  Rather, Genesis 1-11 sets up the problems that Israel is designed to solve. Abram is called right after the collapse of the Babel project, and Hebrews 11:10 says that he looks for a “better city, whose builder and maker is God.” Abram never built a city, of course, but he’s an urban visionary. 

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Bible: Scapegoat

Priests used lots to select a scapegoat on the day of atonement (Leviticus 16:8-10).

Joshua used lots to locate Achan the troubler of Israel; Achan was a scapegoat, whose death cleansed the people so they could defeat Ai.

Haman threw lots, trying to pinpoint the time for offering the scapegoat Jews.

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Bible: Mission and culture

The First Things web site today posted some of my biblical-theological reflections on missions and culture: http://www.firstthings.com.

Bible: Synoptic problem

Scripture gives us two “synoptic problems” – the problem of harmonizing the gospels and the problem of harmonizing Kings and Chronicles.  That is, the history of the kingdom and the history of Jesus are each told more than once.

The parallel is intriguing.  It suggests that the two histories are parallel in other ways as well.  At the very least, it suggests that both are centrally about the fortunes of the Davidic dynasty.

Bible: Intoxicating reading

Augustine on John 2: “Read all the prophetic books without perceiving Christ: what will you find so insipid and so silly?  Understand Christ there, and what you are reading not only becomes savory but intoxicates.”

Hamann quotes this in his Aesthetica in nuce: Intelliges ibi CHRISTUM, non solum sapit, quod legis, sed etiam inebriat.

Bible: Biblical Studies and Classics

What is needed in biblical studies is something analogous to the classicism of French scholars like Vernant, Detienne, Vidal-Naquet, and their followers.  They were carefully attentive to the literary riches of classical texts, but were at the same time anthropologists and cultural historians.

I see a few moves in this direction in biblical studies, but not nearly enough.  Girard does something like this, but is too eccentric; his theory masters every text he looks at.  Perhaps biblical studies just doesn’t attract minds like those of Vernant and Detienne.

Bible: Sabbath

Eugene Peterson writes that the Sabbath “erects a weekly bastion against the commodification of time, against reducing time to money, reducing time to what we can get out of it, against leaving no time for God or beauty or anything that cannot be used or purchased.  It is a defense against the hurry that desecrates time.”

Bible: Blogging Toward Sunday

Another lectionary meditation at The Christian Century: http://www.theolog.org/blog/2008/06/blogging-towa-4.html

Bible: Israel and the nations

Knight has a lot of intriguing things to say about Israel and the nations, among them: “As Israel suffers the gentile onslaughts, Israel is half-persuaded that it has to compete with the Gentiles as an equal rather than as their lord; Israel has to fight them as thought it were one of them, rather than bear them as a parent does a child.  Inasmuch as Israel succumbs to this temptation, Israel sins – Israel gentiles.”

Bible: Blogging Toward Sunday

Another lectionary meditation at the Christian Century: http://www.theolog.org/blog/2008/06/blogging-towa-3.html.

Bible: Blogging Toward Sunday

Another of my lectionary meditations is up at the Christian Century web site.  You can find it at: http://www.theolog.org/blog/2008/06/blogging-towa-2.html#more.

Bible: Blogging Toward Sunday

Another of my lectionary meditations at the Christian Century web site: http://www.theolog.org/blog/2008/06/blogging-toward.html.

Bible: Blogging Toward Sunday

For the next several weeks, the Christian Century is publishing brief lectionary essays of mine on its blog. You can find a meditation on the readings for June 1 here: http://www.theolog.org/blog/2008/05/blogging-towa-3.html.

Bible: Inspiration and Incarnation

I’ve finally had a chance to take a closer look at Peter Enns’s controversial Inspiration and Incarnation and wanted to jot down a few comments. (I’ve known Pete since my seminary days, but I’ll call him “Enns” here to maintain a measure of scholarly decorum).

The book has a number of useful themes and emphases. He states a central point at the beginning: “The problems many of us feel regarding the Bible may have less to do with the Bible itself and more to do with our own preconceptions.” Throughout the book, Enns insists that we should work out our doctrine of Scripture by looking at Scripture itself, not by seeing how well it measures up to some prior conception of what a “holy” or “perfect” or “divine” book should look like. Enns also wants to learn hermeneutics from the New Testament writers, rather than complaining that they don’t conform to proper (which is to say, our) methods. His discussion of “God changing His mind” is good, and his notion that Scripture should be read “christotelically” is helpful. His incarnational model is sound as far as it goes, and much of what he tries to capture with that analogy has long been emphasized by the best evangelical scholars.

But this leads to a more critical comment. Enns, I think, has created a rhetorical problem for himself.

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Bible: Ingratitude and biblical criticism

I have described Descartes’s cogito as modernity’s founding ingratitude, the thought experiment that justified (doubtless against Descartes’s ultimate intentions) countless political, intellectual, and cultural erasures of the past.

So also biblical criticism, though the ingratitude takes a specific form here.  Insofar as biblical criticism arises from “inner light” sectarians (and it does in large measure; see Reventlow), it is grounded in a notion of revelation that detaches it from tradition, not only from the tradition of interpretation but even from the traditio of  the biblical texts themselves.

If God guides me by an inner light, what need do I have of texts, what need of the writers, what need of the careful copyists who kept the text alive for millennia?

Inner light thus becomes the pious form of ingratitude, as reason is the impious.

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