Books to Read

Herman Ridderbos, "Paul: An Outline of His Thought". Essential Reformed reading and a classic text on Paul's biblical theology highly regarded outside of Reformed circles. It is a gold mine.

 

Herman Bavinck, "Reformed Dogmatics, volume 1: Prolegomena". Essential Reformed reading, a truly monumental work. All four volumes have recently been translated into English. Bavinck was a Dutch Reformed theologian who died in the 1920's.

 

N.T. Wright, "The New Testament and the People of God." This is the first volume of his five or six volume New Testament Theology, three volumes of which have been published.

 

John Frame, "The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God". This is the first volume of his systematic theology, titled "A Theology of Lordship," on the topic of epistemology from a Reformed perspective.

 

Vern Pothress, "The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses". An important work from a WTS-Pa professor on the relationship between Christ and the Mosaic Law.

 

Karl Barth, "Dogmatics in Outline". A short book containing lectures that Barth delivered in the framework of the Apostle's Creed. I'd like to read this or his "Evangelical Theology" before beginning to read his massive "Church Dogmatics." There's also a Barth reader published by Fortress Press in the "Making of Modern Theology" series.

 

Augustine, "City of God" and "The Trinity". Important classic works.

 

Soren Kierkegaard, "The Essential Kierkegaard". A reader of selections from Kierkegaard's works, compiled by the editors who translated most of his works into English.

 

Gregory of Nazianzus, "The Theological Orations." In the Library of Christian Classics volume on "The Christology of the Later Fathers".

 

Robert Letham, "The Holy Trinity." Recent Reformed work on the Trinity, partially as a response to Robert Reymond's Systematic Theology. Discusses history (ancient and modern), scripture, and worship.

 

Craig Blomberg, "The Historical Reliability of the Gospels." Important scholarly work on the reliability of the Gospels from an evangelical perspective.

 

Eugene Peterson, "Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places." First volume of his multivolume "Conversation in Spiritual Theology.".

 

Frederick Copleston, "History of Philosophy," volume one of nine. It covers the origins of philosophy in Greece through Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle and a bit past them.

 

Jaroslav Pelican, "Credo: Histoical & Theological Guide to Creeds & Confessions". His magnum opus. Also, his five volume "History of the Development of Doctrine" is pretty important too.

 

Michael Horton, "God of Promise". Recent, short book on covenant theology.

 

Kevin Vanhooser, "First Theology." A collection of his stimulating writings on the topic of theological interpretation.

 

George Ladd, "A Theology of the New Testament" and Donald Guthrie, "New Testament Theology." Both are classic NT Theologies written in recent decades from an evangelical perspective.

 

Brevard Childs, "A Biblical Theology of the Old & New Testaments." Magnum opus of the founder of canon criticism.

 

Hans-Georg Gadamer, "Truth & Method". Massive work on hermeneutics.

 

Brian Gerrish, "Grace & Gratitude: The Eucharistic Theology of John Calvin." Important recent work on Calvin, in which he argues that all of Calvin's theology has a eucharistic shape, in which God as our Father is feeding us unto eternal life.

 

Ronald Numbers, "The Creationists: The Evolution of Scientific Creationism". Scholarly historical overview of creation science and young earth creastionism arguing that it has its origins in a Seventh Day Adventist approach to literal seven-day creationism. The author is an agnostic.

 

George Caird, "The Language & Imagery of the Bible". Highly regarded work on biblical interpretation and exegesis, focusing on linguistic issues related to interpretation.

 

H. Oliphant Old, "The Shaping of the Reformed Baptismal Rite in the 16th Century". Important work on, well, the development of 16th century Reformed Baptismal rites by a (the?) leading Reformed liturgical scholar.

 

H. Oliphant Old, "The Patristic Roots of Reformed Worship." The title says it all, by a (the?) leading Reformed liturgical scholar.

 

Thomas Oden, "Classical Pastoral Care". Four short volumes on various topics related to pastoral care in the early church, such as preparation for ministry, word & sacrament, crisis ministry, pastoring, etc.

 

Emmanual Tov, "Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible." THE book on the text of the Hebrew Bible.

 

Geerhardus Vos, "The Pauline Eschatology." The sequel to his "Biblical Theology."

 

 

R. Scott Clark, "Was There An Apostolic Hermeneutic And Can We Imitate It?"

http://heidelblog.wordpress.com/2008/09/19/was-there-an-apostolic-hermeneutic-and-can-we-imitate-it/

Was There An Apostolic Hermeneutic And Can We Imitate It?

September 19, 2008 in Biblical Exposition, Reforming Evangelicalism, contemporary evangelicalism, eschatology, hermeneutics | Tags: biblical interpretation, covenant theology, dispensationalism, hermeneutics |

Yes and yes. No, it's not in the Scofield Reference or Ryrie Study Bibles.

It seems that some of our dispensational friends have yet to read the memo. See this example sent to me a by a friend. This writer, whom I do not know, claims that folk such as we talk about the apostolic hermeneutic and claim to be able to replicate it but never say what it is.

One throws up one's hands in amazement and wonder.

It's isn't that complicated. Pay close attention here: The Apostolic hermeneutic is to see Christ at the center of all of Scripture. We're not reading him into Scripture. We're refusing to read him out of it. There, I said it. That's what it is. Perhaps the reason our dispensational friends cannot see it is because they are blinded by their rationalism. They know a priori what the organizing principle of Scripture must be and it isn't God the Son, it's national Israel. "What my net can't catch must not be butterflies." Do they ever stop to think that the trouble could be their net? Does it ever trouble them that any system that leads to the conclusion that one day the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29, 36), who is presently ruling the nations (Acts 2:36; Rev 5:12-13) is going to sit on a throne in Jerusalem to watch sinful human priests slaughter lambs? Does it trouble them that, effectively, they agree with the Pharisees? I'm pretty sure I remember J. Dwight Pentecost saying that the Pharisees had the right hermeneutic but they came to the wrong conclusions. Really? Is that what Jesus said about them? "You guys are really close to getting it right if you would just tweak this one little detail?" I think not.

Just so no one thinks that I'm pulling hermeneutical rabbits out of exegetical hats:

"Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified."

"Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!" And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!" (ESV)

"For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory" (2 Cor 1:20).

"For Abraham saw my day and rejoiced" (John 8:56).

Yes, Reformed folk (and others) have been reading the bible like this for a very long time. The earliest post-apostolic Christians, in contrast to the Jewish critics of the Christian faith, read the Bible to teach a unity of salvation organized around Jesus Christ. The entire medieval church read the Bible this way as did the Reformation and post-Reformation churches.

There were exceptions, however. In the patristic period the Marcionites radically divided Scripture and set the "Old Testament" god against the NT "God." In the medieval church the Albigenses did something similar as did the 16th-century Anabaptists (all of whom denied justification sola gratia, sola fide). Those groups all also had trouble with the humanity of Jesus. What ties those two things together? A Platonizing dualism that sets the material against the physical. This same tendency produces a similar hermeneutic among many American dispensationalists as well. This dualistic tendency explains why dispensationalists refer to the apostolic hermeneutic as "spiritualizing." Yes, rather, but not in the way they think. "Spiritual" in Paul's vocabulary does not mean "immaterial" but "of the Holy Spirit." The same Spirit who inspired Moses also inspired Paul. There is a "Spiritual" interpretation of Holy Scripture that focuses on the God-Man who entered history and around whom all of God's self-revelation is organized.

Where have Reformed folk specifically detailed, illustrated and practiced the apostolic hermeneutic? Here's a reading list:

E. P. Clowney, The Unfolding Mystery: Discovering Christ in the Old Testament 
Edmund P. Clowney, Preaching Christ From All of Scripture
Vern S. Poythress, The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses (Nashville: Wolgemuth & Hyatt, 1991).
Graeme Goldsworthy, Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics 
Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology .
Geerhardus Vos, Redemptive History and Biblical Interpretation 
Meredith Kline, Kingdom Prologue (PDF).

Here are some short popular attempts to mediate some of this stuff:

This Christian Life
The Israel of God
What Is the Bible All About?" (this link takes you to the MR page but the article is not online).

What method do we use? It's grammatical and historical! It reads the Old in the light of the new. It doesn't set up arbitrary a priori's about what can and can't be. We don't begin with an unstated premise, "All reasonable people know p." We don't think that any uninspired hermeneutic (system of interpretation) is superior to Paul's or James' or Peter's.

One need not be inspired to read the Bible the way the apostles did. I'm not even sure it's proper to say that their hermeneutic was inspired. We confess that Scripture is inspired, but was their way of reading Scripture inspired? I doubt it. As John Frame used to ask in class, were the apostolic grocery lists inspired? No. Can we observe how they read Scripture and imitate it? Yes.

One need not be inspired to see that when Ps 110 says, "Yahweh says to Adon, 'Sit at my right hand'" that David, whose bones are still in the ground, is not Adon! Jesus, who is ascended and ruling at the right hand of the Father, is Adon. There are two reasons one might not see this: 1) unbelief, as in the case of the Jews who rejected Jesus as Savior; 2) rationalism that says, "We know how the story turns out and this can't be the right ending! There has to be a restoration of the national people or it doesn't count. We want do-overs."

No Christian should find either one of those reasons compelling.

Update on Tuesday, September 25, 2007 at 01:21PM

Two items:

1) Paul Lamey at Expository Thoughts replies to my post. He complains about my rhetoric. Get in line buddy! I don't think he understood what I mean by rationalist. He says " I will also point out that many reformed interpreters have flattened the text and are quick to excuse elements of discontinuity." This is absolutely true. In over-reaction to dispensationalism, many Reformed folk have flattened out discontinuity between Moses and Christ.

That's not the issue here, however. The issue is whether it is possible to observe and follow the apostolic hermeneutic. The claim was that it either hasn't been done or it can't be done. In response I offer multiple concrete examples where it has been done and is being done.

Paul bristles at my characterization of his post as dispensationalist. Okay. Fine. "Evangelical." "Fundamentalist." Let's say "Bible Church." Indeed, there are nominally "Reformed" folk who would say something quite similar and be just as wrong and they don't represent the mainstream of the tradition.

He claims that there are dispensationalist interpreters who see Jesus at the center of Scripture. Fine. He doesn't cite any examples. Let's grant that the latest version of dispensationalism comes closer to an historic Christian hermeneutic, but they're still hoping not only for the conversion of Jews but the restoration of a national kingdom. Isn't this what John MacArthur said that Calvin would hold if he were alive today? Right.

Let me raise the stakes. He says, "Last time I checked, christology is a branch of systmematic theology and not a branch of hermeneutics but don't get everything bunched-up just yet." This is exactly what I'm talking about. This is what "evangelical" or "Bible church" folk don't understand. "Hermeneutics" is not a discipline that may be hermetically-sealed from "theology." This is where the "rationalism" creeps in. No one says, "Today I shall be a rationalist." What they do, however, is to set up an a priori whereby they establish what Paul or Peter can do and what we can't do when reading the Bible. Can a "Bible Church" hermeneutic do Galatians 4? I can. Why? Because I understand what Paul is doing their and, sola gratia I am learning, with the catholic church, to read the Bible the way Paul does. I don't think there's any way the typical "Bible church" hermeneutic can account for Gal 4.

I don't think there's anyway for the typical "Bible Church" hermeneutic to account for Gal 3 for that matter. Paul says that Moses works for Abraham and Abraham, as it were, works for Christ. That isn't the conclusion to which most "Bible Church" interpreters have come. Why not? Because they have a different hermeneutic than Paul. They don't really think that Moses was a temporary addition to the Abrahamic covenant. They think that the real action was in the Mosaic covenant, that Jesus came to re-establish it, and with the Jews having refused it, he's going to re-establish it the first chance he gets.

As Reformed folk read the Bible we not only see on occasional typology of Christ in the Hebrew scriptures we see the entirety of the Hebrew Scriptures as typological. The entire structure of it is typological. I really don't believe that they understand this. Yes, "Bible Church" types do typologies about the red thread and the like, but that's not really what I'm talking about.

The other thing I notice is that "Bible Church" interpreters do not give evidence of ever having read Vos or Clowney or any of the other titles that I mentioned. I say this on the basis of years of personal experience with folk in "Bible Churches." Typically they don't even know these works exist.

2) I omitted a text that I should have mentioned. My friend and colleague Dennis Johnson has just out a terrific new book: Him We Proclaim advocates the Christ-centered, redemptive-historical, missiologically-communicated, grace-grounded method of Bible interpretation that the apostles learned from Jesus and practiced in their Gospel proclamation. Moving beyond theory, it shows how apostolic preaching opens up various biblical texts: history, law, wisdom, psalm, prophecy, parable, doctrine, exhortation, and apocalyptic vision. Our Price: $17.36

R. Scott Clark, "Covenant Theology is Not Replacement Theology"

http://heidelblog.wordpress.com/2008/09/14/covenant-theology-is-not-replacement-theology/

Covenant Theology is Not Replacement Theology

September 14, 2008 in Covenant, Justification, Pastoral Ministry, I Get Questions, Reforming Evangelicalism, eschatology | Tags: covenant theology, dispenationalism, eschatology, replacement theology |

Recently I had a question asking whether "covenant theology" is so-called "replacement theology." Those dispensational critics of Reformed covenant theology who accuse it of teaching that the New Covenant church has "replaced" Israel do not understand historic Reformed covenant theology. They are imputing to Reformed theology a way of thinking about redemptive history that has more in common with dispensationalism than it does with Reformed theology.

First, the very category of "replacement" is foreign to Reformed theology because it assumes a dispensational, Israeleo-centric way of thinking. It assumes that the temporary, national people was, in fact, intended to be the permanent arrangement. Such a way of thinking is contrary to the promise in Gen 3:15. The promise was that there would be a Savior. The national people was only a means to that end, not an end in itself. According to Paul in Ephesians 2:11-22, in Christ the dividing wall has been destroyed. It cannot be rebuilt. The two peoples (Jews and Gentiles) have been made one in Christ. Among those who ae united to Christ by grace alone, through faith alone, there is no Jew, nor Gentile (Rom 10:12; Gal 3:28; Col 3:11). 

At least some forms of dispensationalism have suggested that God intended the national covenant with Israel to be permanent. According to Reformed theology, the Mosaic covenant was never intended to be permanent. According to Galatians 3 (and chapter 4), the Mosaic covenant was a codicil to the Abrahamic covenant. A codicil is added to an existing document. It doesn't replace the existing document. Dispensationalism reverses things. They make the Abrahamic covenant a codicil to the Mosaic. Hebrews 3 says that Moses was a worker in Jesus' house. Dispensationalism makes Jesus a worker in Moses' house.

Second, with respect to salvation, Reformed covenant theology does not juxtapose Israel and the church. For Reformed theology, the church has always been the Israel of God and the Israel of God has always been the church. Reformed covenant theology distinguishes the old and new covenants (2 Cor 3; Heb 7-10). It recognizes that the church was temporarily administered through a typological, national people, but the church has existed since Adam, Noah, Abraham, and it existed under Moses, David, and it exists under Christ. 

Third, the church has always been one, under various administrations, under types, shadows, and now under the reality in Christ, because the object of faith has always been one. Jesus the Messiah was the object of faith of the typological church (Heb 11; Luke 24; 2 Cor 3) and he remains the object of faith.

Fourth, despite the abrogation of the national covenant by the obedience, death, and resurrection of Christ (Col 2:14), the NT church has not "replaced" the Jews. Paul says that God "grafted" the Gentiles into the people of God. Grafting is not replacement, it is addition.

It has been widely held by Reformed theologians that there will be a great conversion of Jews. Some call this "anti-semitism." This isn't anti-semitism, it is Christianity. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). The alternative to Jesus' exclusivist claim is universalism which is nothing less than an assault on the person and finished work of Christ. Other Reformed writers understand the promises in Rom 11 to refer only to the salvation of all the elect (Rom 2:28) rather than to a future conversion of Jews. In any event, Reformed theology is not anti-semitic. We have always hoped and prayed for the salvation, in Christ, sola gratia et sola fide, of all of God's elect, Jew and Gentile alike.

Here are some resources for getting to covenant theology.

Here are Lig Duncan's lectures on covenant theology.

Noah and Covenant Theology.

LINK: Book of Common Prayer daily Lectionary Readings in ESV online

http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/devotions/bcp/

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt.


[My note: A good illustration of how the mind is active in interpreting something, to the point of being "transparent" to the reader. That is, the reader is amazed that they can read it; the mind is actively interpreting. The obvious misspellings make the reader aware of how much the mind is interpreting. How much more is the mind active in interpreting the biblical texts in ways that we are not aware of?]

Internet Monk Wonders about Where to Go for Spiritual Formation

http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/open-thread-so-where-does-a-baptist-go-for-spiritual-formation

John Frye on Our Reading the Bible and Others Reading Us

http://www.jesustheradicalpastor.com/the-b-i-b-l-e

The B-I-B-L-E. So?

Apr 1st, 2008 by John

"For every one man who reads the Bible, one hundred men will read you and me." D.L. Moody

Given the gender political incorrectness of Moody's statement, he still makes a startling observation: Christians not only have a Bible; they are the Bible to many people. Where would old D. L. get a thought like that?

You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. 2 Corinthians 3:2-3

I've noticed two undeniable ways that the Bible is not given its rightful place in our lives and in the church at large. First, there are those who shout about inerrancy, authority, inspiration and they "battle for the Bible" in the public square. We must not remove the 10 Commandments from the courthouse lobby! What are the 10 Commandments? "Well, uh, uh, something about no other gods…uh, don't kill…y'know." Some claim to be all about protecting the Bible, but they hardly ever read it. Secondly, there are those who read it…diligently…so they can slice and dice it and so they can slice and dice anyone else who does not slice and dice the Bible the way they do. Oh, they know it all too well…as a weapon to blungeon those who disagree with them. "We have the BIBLICAL view of the end times." "We have the BIBLICAL view of baptism." "We have the BIBLICAL view of women in the church." "We have the BIBLICAL view of the atonement." And on it goes. The Bible is used to winnow out the chaff from the otherwise pure church (and usually the "pure church" is some little tiny theological ghetto of adherents). They are the contemporary version of the Essenes of Jesus' day; God's pets.

Another version of those who do read the Bible a lot is that group who read the Bible as a diversion from the Holy Spirit. It's much easier to have a relationship with a book, than with a Person, especially the third Person of the Trinity. Some say in effect, "No thank you. The B-I-B-L-E that's the book for me. Don't talk to me about a growing, intimate relationship with God the Spirit. The Spirit freaks me out. I'm told the Spirit can sneak up on you like the wind. He comes and goes at his own will. No thank you. I need to stay in control. I prefer the book."

Some have so divorced the Bible, the written Word, from Jesus Christ, the living Word, that some feel they have the right, even the duty to use the Bible in very unChristlike ways. And do they feel righteous when they do! They're daring! They're prophetic! They're powerful! They don't compromise! And every unbeliever in their sight runs for cover thinking, "If that is the kind of person the Bible produces, I'm outta here fast!"

One of the reasons I think Jesus made up and spun out compelling stories about the kingdom of God was that he was so sickened by the way the Bible was used in his day by the Bible experts and teachers of the Law. He saw how people were jaded by the oppressive use of Scripture. Scripture was turned into heavy weights to carry rather than a vital Story to live. So Jesus told stories about the big Story. The common people heard him gladly. They hung on his every word. It was the professional exegetes who really got snotty with farm-boy Jesus. Alas, there is nothing new under the sun.

By the way, John Wycliffe didn't give his life so that we could read a page in "Our Daily Bread." He died giving us for the first time in history the WHOLE Bible in the English language so we could read about and live the big Story. Wycliffe was so hated by many that after his death, his body was exhumed and burned because Wycliffe had been declared a heretic by those who wanted to keep the Bible in their control. I wonder if Wycliffe were alive today, would he think he had lived, labored and died in vain?

We not only have a Bible; we are the Bible. What are people reading?

Michael Spencer on the Word of the Cross

http://jesusshaped.wordpress.com/2008/08/25/verses-the-word-of-the-cross/

Verses: The Word of the Cross

August 25, 2008 by Michael

I Corinthians 1:

18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written,

"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart."

20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

The cross is a word. It speaks.

That is why the communication God most values about the cross is the preaching and proclaiming of the Gospel in words.

The cross is, as Paul says elsewhere, an "appeal" from God to reconciliation. It is an announcement that contains an offer. It is a proclamation that has ultimate relevance. It is a word that divides the world into cross appreciators and cross enemies.

The word of the cross is foolishness to a religious world that demands God respond with a miracle when they pull the string. The God of the cross is not a performer. He is not a cosmic servant or entertainer there when religious people insist he show up and do what is necessary to convince the sleeping and the bored.

God has spoken his Word in Jesus, and we now speak that Word in the power of the Holy Spirit.

The word of the cross is foolishness to the wise of this age for whom God must present his case in order to win their approval. Because the cross does not play to the wisdom of the world or to the world's applause, it earns the contempt of those who demand intellectual fashionability for truth.

Do not miss this: God has purposely chosen to reveal himself in such a way that the demands of religion and worldly wisdom are utterly humiliated. The cross is the moment of contempt and degradation. There is no beauty about the cross that we would want to be associated with it. It cannot play on the world's stages or earn the admiration of the elites.

The wisdom of God is the God/man nailed to the tree, the sins of the world placed on the crucified one, the wrath of God poured out in the midst of the cruelty of human execution, the forgiveness of God a finished sacrifice that we neither deserve nor ask for.

The cross speaks of God, of his son, of his Gospel. To the ones who are being saved, it speaks the pearl of great price, the priceless treasure in a field, the one thing valuable. To the world, the cross speaks nothing but a fantasy.

There is no way to make the cross anything other than what it is. Every artistic portrayal of the cross must ask if it points beyond itself to the cross that saves, the cross where sin is condemned and the blood of the lamb purchases a people for God.

We live in a time when evangelicals and many protestants shun the cross for another Gospel. I thank God that so many of our Catholic brothers and sisters continue to value the cross. Even as we may disagree on its meaning, there is little doubt where one is more certain to hear the word of the cross these days. Luther and Calvin would be ashamed.

The word of the cross, proclaimed in scripture and placed at the center of a living faith, does what the cross does.

"If I am lifted up, I will draw all men to myself."

The word of the cross, if obscured, will be as powerful as ever, even in its humiliation at our hands.

The word of the cross is the power of God.

N.T. Wright on Jesus Studies from "The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions"

N.T. Wright on Jesus Studies

From Marcus Borg & N.T. Wright, "The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Part of the challenge of history comes from allowing suspicion a proper role. Suspicion, that is, of the texts themselves, of one's colleagues' readings, and particularly of one's own. However, a caution is necessary. The guild of New Testament studies has become so used to working with a hermeneutic of suspicion that we find ourselves trapped in our own subtleties. If two ancient writers agree about something, that proves one got it from the other. If they seem to disagree, that proves that one or both are wrong. If they say an event fulfilled biblical prophecy, they made it up to look like that. If an event or saying fits a writer's theological scheme, that writer invented it. If there are two accounts of similar events, they are a "doublet" (there was only one event); but if a singular event has anything odd about it, there must have been two events, which are now conflated. And so on. Anything to show how clever we are, how subtle, to have smoked out the reality behind the text. But, as any author who has watched her or his books being reviewed will know, such reconstruction again and again miss the point, often wildly. If we cannot get it right when we share a culture, a period, and a language, it is highly likely that many of our subtle reconstructions of ancient texts and histories are our own unhistorical fantasies, unrecognized only because the writers are long since dead and cannot answer back. Suspicion is all very well; there is also such a thing as a hermeneutic of paranoia. Somebody says something; they must have a motive; therefore they must have made it up. Just because we are rightly determined to avoid a hermeneutic of credulity, that does not mean there is no such thing as appropriate trust, or even readiness to suspend disbelief for a while, and see where that gets us. (pp. 17-18)

 

 

 

            Almost all scholars still believe that the earlier the material, the more likely it is to bring us into contact with historical bedrock. This assumption is by no means always justified, but let us remain with it for the moment. It at once opens us the long-standing problem about the sources that, whatever one's prejudices, are bound to play a large role at some point: the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke).

            Further stages of investigation are frequently undertaken. Prior to the writing of the gospels and their sources, the material probably circulated in oral forms, which can be studied in terms of their likely settings. When the gospel writers used their sources, they can be presumed to have selected, adapted, and arranged the material.  A three-stage development can then be postulated: (1) the shaping of preliterary oral traditions; (2) the collection of oral traditions into literary sources; (3) the collection and editing of these literary sources into polished gospels. In case this were not already sufficiently complex, it is frequently supposed that we can and should also investigate further hypothetical stages of the history of Jesus traditions between these three.

            If all this worked, and if most scholars agreed about it, it would be fine. But it doesn't, and they don't, and it isn't. Despite frequent claims, a century of research has failed to reach anything like consensus on a single one of the stages in question, let alone on the hypothetical developments in between. Thus:

 

1. There are dozens of different proposals about how to analyze the forms of the early tradition and about what elements of the life of the early church they may reflect. None commands widespread agreement.

 

2. There are at least two widely held, variously developed, and mutually incompatible theories about the literary sources of the synoptic gospels: (a) The majority still hold that Mark was written first  and that behind the passages in which  Matthew and Like overlap with each other but not with Mark was a source that scholars call Q. A vocal minority within this majority claims to distinguish different stages in the development of Q; many others, though believing firmly in Q, offer radically different explanations of its origin or, alternatively (like Marcus [Borg]), regard all such further theories as at best unprovable. (b) A minority, however, hold that Matthew was written first and was used by both Mark and Luke (so that Q never existed). Further, several who agree with the majority on Marcan priority agree with the minority that the overall between non-Markan passages in Matthew and Luke is better explained by Luke's use of Matthew than by a common source.

 

3. Mutually incompatible theories abound as to where, when, and why the synoptic gospels came to final form. Since there is no agreement about sources, there is no agreement as to how and why the different evangelists used them. If, for instance, we believe that Matthew used Mark, we can discuss Matthew's theology on the basis of his editing of Mark. If we don't believe Matthew used Mark, we can't.

 

4. In the nature of he case, if there is no agreement about how the tradition developed in these major stages, there is no chance of agreement on possible levels or layers in between.

 

            One reason for the continuing impasse on these questions is that they are often addressed, and solutions to them proposed, with more than half an eye on the probable outcome for the supposedly second-order questions concerning Jesus. The Q theory came to birth as a part of a conservative response to radical nineteenth-century skepticism; it provided, so it was said, a reliable and early source for Jesus' sayings. Now, however, some who promote it do so in the hope that, by isolating a hypothetical "early Q", they may offer a radically alternative vision of Jesus and early Christianity to that which appears in the synoptic tradition as a whole. Similarly, Marcan priority has sometimes been used as a way of affirming that the early church preserved a memory of Jesus' career, at least in outline; Matthean priority is now sometimes presented as a way of ensuring the authority of sayings (parables, for instance) which might otherwise be suspect as occurring only in one source, and that a late one. And so on, and so on. (pp. 20-22)

 

John Frye on "The American Sound Byte Gospel" [4-step 'Gospel' presentations]

http://www.jesustheradicalpastor.com/the-american-sound-bite-gospel

The American Sound Byte Gospel

Aug 5th, 2008 by John

I am stunned that some Christians still defend a sound byte gospel. You know, the 4 steps, the "bridge over troubled waters" packaged presentation. Shrimpy little things. The wondrous, thunderous, mind-boggling, heart-stopping gospel of the Bible and of Jesus himself is horribly reduced to bumper sticker phrases.

With what other literature or great story do we do this? None to my knowledge. Imagine the classic story (and movie) of Ben Hur reduced to…

• Ben Hur accidently killed a Roman soldier.
• Ben Hur was a galley-slave.
• Ben Hur drove in a big chariot race and won.
• Ben Hur met Jesus at the Cross when his mother and sister were healed.

Wow. I really know the story now. Do YOU believe in Ben Hur?

How about Anne of Green Gables?

• Anne Shirley meets Marilla and Matthew.
• Anne worries over her freckles and dyes her hair green.
• Anne doesn't like the Pye children.
• Anne becomes a teacher and serves blind Marilla.

Doesn't that story just rock? Do YOU believe in Anne of Green Gables?

Or, even Pilgrim's Progress.

• Pilgrim goes on a journey.
• Pilgrim carries a sack of sin.
• Pilgrim meets a lot of interesting people.
• Pilgrim ends his quest and his sack of sin falls off.

Wow! Pilgrim gets saved! Do YOU believe in Pilgrim?

You think, "John, this is so silly." I agree. But the question remains: Why do we reduce "the greatest story ever told" and confidently act as if we've done something noble, even holy? This horrible reduction is actually stupifying. The sweeping, rumbling, massive saga of the Bible and the Spirit-energized, Jesus-intense Gospels get miniaturized to…

• God loves you.
• You are a sinner.
• Jesus died for you.
• Believe in Jesus now.

Hand me my microscope so I can see this "gospel." Wow. Do YOU believe in Jesus? If so, you get to go to heaven when you die.

A bumper sticker gospel creates sound bite believers who parrot things rather than live into the sweeping Story of God's amazing, amazing grace. A reduced Gospel has produced no-different-from-the-sound byte-culture Christians. When will we wake up?