Almost 2007

While I’ll be back to blogging as usual in the New Year (and finishing the series on Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses), just a quick post to point to Dan’s superb Six Propositions on What Makes Good (Christian) Theology. I certainly gelled better with his suggestions than those to which he responded.

I thought about writing a best/worst post/series, best new blog etc., but I’m not sure I can be bothered, and I’d only be linking to myself all the time - unless we are talking about the worst post of the year, of course.

Running this blog is a tremendous amount of fun, as is the correspondence that sometimes takes place behind the scenes. And it has been fascinating to see how extraordinarily fast the readership of Chrisendom has grown in the last year (here is a graphic of the visitor, not page load, statistics produced by my web server - if you find that sort of thing interesting). Gladly, some publishing houses have noticed and I shall be making book reviews of NT works something more of a feature in 2007. In fact, I have already received some, and will receive more superb and important works to review on Chrisendom for next year, and hopefully I’ll manage to work in a few interviews with some authors, too. All rather exciting really!

If anyone has anything they would like to see discussed or improved on Chrisendom for 2007, then leave a comment. But be very sensitive and complimentary, or I’ll cry. (If you don’t like my blog at all, please go here)

Happy New Year to you all, and don’t forget the ‘Lords Per Minute’ competition.

The Lords per minute competition

OK, so I won the Father Christmas competition rather convincingly, if you don’t count one reader’s son who sounds like a mini-‘patron god of the Philistines’ in the making.

For the New Year I have another little competition for you.

Many of us theological types often get involved in various prayer meetings over some part of the New Year celebrations, so this game is to calculate who prays at the highest ‘lords per minute’ (l.p.m) level in any of the prayer meetings we attend. The idea is that you count the number of ‘Lords’ said in a typical 15-second clip, and then multiply by four to get a rough idea.

The rules are simple.

1. It can be anyone you pray with or even hear, but they must be in the same meeting as yourself.
2. You can attempt to record a high ‘Lord per minute’ yourself if you want, but experience tells charismatics tend to clock higher speeds than any theologian, even if they be on steroids or fizzy sticks.
3. An interpretation of tongues, yours or another’s that involves the claim: ‘Wow, that was clocking record speeds in the tongues of angels’, doesn’t count.

The tips are equally simple.

1. Very important is that you try to get along to a really charismatic meeting. I mean really. In other words, if you want a chance of winning, then you need to get along to a foaming mouthed, chandelier swinging, microphone blowing, anointed-jacket swatting, Holy Spirit waving, everybody-laying-hands-on-everybody, ‘I had a picture’ meeting, or you’re lost. I’m telling you, some of these precious brothers and sisters can clock extraordinary high ‘lords per minute’: ‘Lord, we pray, Lord, that, Lord, you’ll save, Lord, the lost, Lord’ etc. Mix that with earnest fervency and you have a potent, unbeatable cocktail (legend has it that in some cases over 60 l.p.m has been clocked).
2. Depending on your denomination and role, try steering the prayer meeting with mention of devils, popes, territorial spirits, homosexuals, the lost, whatever gets the most likely high clockers worked up, then grab a calculator.

Being a little charismatically inclined myself, I intend to win this one too (but either way, I will announce the winner in the New Year)

A thought about the last two thoughts

One book that is provoking me to worship like few before is Moltmann’s, The Trinity and the Kingdom – whenever the holy Trinity is the subject of meditation and thought I usually find delighted worship a natural response.

Returning to the theme of atheism, and in the context of a discussion about the Trinity, Moltmann argues:

‘If there were no God, the world as it is would be all right. It is only the desire, the passion, the thirst for God which turns suffering into conscious pain and turns the consciousness of pain into a protest against suffering’ (p. 48, italics suppressed).

I like the proposal and I think there is truth here to play with, but I’m actually not so sure the argument as formulated here is entirely watertight.

Not Really a Thought of the Day

Rather unlike the previous, the following snippet of ‘wisdom’ comes from a certain Rev Gerald Ambulance (cf. his Ministry Manual here). This creative minister has been known, for the purpose of enticing people back to church, to spike the church incense with questionable, and in some countries illegal, substances.

Clever.

He was once asked the old chestnut: ‘I’m confused about the Trinity. How can God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit all be God, if there’s only one God?’. He memorably answered:

‘Look at it like this: once upon a time there were three little bunnies called Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail. One day a nasty man caught them and put them in a rabbit pie. They were still three rabbits, but only one pie’

That one smeared a guilty smile across my face.

Thought of the day

Back to blogging today, so I wish all of my readers a belated Happy Christmas!

Rather off topic, but I've been thinking quite a bit about atheism recently; here is a thought I just gleaned from Pannenberg:

‘So long as faith in God the Creator holds firm, the question of theodicy can be no real threat to it because this faith also carries with it the conviction that God and his counsels are above all creaturely understanding. Only when we deal with the existence of the Creator as a debatable postulate that we have to support by argument does the problem of theodicy carry a weight that can easily tip the scales in favor of atheism’

Pannenberg, Systematic theology, vol. 3, p. 634 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997)

The Father Christmas Competition

Often, us theological types are allowed to speak to children’s groups over the Christmas season, and so I wanted to start a competition. Namely, how many children can you persuade over the next couple of days that Father Christmas doesn’t exist.

The rules:

1. Only those who you manage to convince before Christmas Eve count.
2. One point per child
3. Two points per child if you are able to convince them that Father Christmas is really Beelzebub.
4. If you manage to reduce one to tears, then double your score. I.e. if you have three points already, add one for this victory (=4), then double it making eight.
5. If you also manage to succeed in getting them to believe the ‘I’m even going to be eating Rudolf the Red-Nose Pie on Christmas day while you’re eating Turkey’ line, add a bonus point.

I’m hoping to top my personal best over the next couple of days but I doubt I’ll manage, as a couple of years ago I had a ‘double your score’ run of three kids in a row, totalling to over 40 points. That was magic.

Tips:

• If you are fat enough, put your name down to act as a shopping mall Santa Claus – and they do tend to trust Reverends.
• Persuade the Sunday school teacher to allow you ‘bible study’ time with the toddlers.
• If you are going for the two-points bonus (see 3 above), don’t bother with the old: ‘See what happens if you rearrange the letters of the name “Santa”’, logic, as it tends to get lost on those of typical target age.
• If you get a job as a shopping mall Santa, when little Johnny is bobbing on your knee, wait till mum has turned her back and pull down your beard, tell him your real name and job, and then expand on the hoax that ‘only babies believe’. If mum turns back overhearing a protest, deny everything. If mum is not around for a few minutes, go for the double your score (4 above - the best way to increase your points). Experience tells that this is facilitated when one tries to mix in the Red-Nose Pie bonus at the same time.

Thus far:

Chris Tilling has accumulated 5 points.

(I’ll add your scores to a league as the results come in)

Cardinal Spin’s Thoughts for the Day

Guest post by Cardinal Spin.

‘Practically everything is false teaching if you look into it enough, so you have to choose your battleground’

This snippet of wisdom comes from my good friend, the Rev Gerald Ambulance (cf. his Ministry Manual here), who has been known for the purpose of enticing people back to church, to spike the church incense with questionable, and in some countries illegal, substances. Clever.

So what is one to do surrounded by such evils as the reading of the NIV bible, and women who are allowed to teach in church? Who is right?

To paraphrase Ambulance, again:

‘For all those millions who have succumbed to various degrees of stupidity, thankfully at least God and I can agree’

Then that makes three of us who can see eye-to-eye.

He is also a clever apologist. For example, he was once asked: ‘I’m confused about the Trinity’, to which he brilliantly answered:

‘Look at it like this: once upon a time there were three little bunnies called Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail. One day a nasty man caught them and put them in a rabbit pie. They were still three rabbits, but only one pie’

Bauckham responds III

My thanks to Richard Bauckham who has once again taken the time to dialogue with some of the comments, this time those made to part 8 of my summary series on his work, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (I’m getting rather adept at typing the word ‘eyewitnesses’ quickly these days!). He writes:

“I’m grateful to Richard Fellows for his interesting suggestions, and for directing me to his on-line discussions, which I didn’t know. I haven’t thought much about changes of name, and the topic clearly deserves more attention. I wonder if Richard knows my article on ‘Paul and other Jews with Latin names in the NT’ which has some other ideas about names in it.

To James: My point about the names is not just that they are authentically Palestinian ones, which certainly anyone who had lived in Palestine could have known. It is that, when all the data in the 4 Gospels and Acts is put together, the relative frequency of the various names corresponds closely to what we can calculate from other sources (Josephus, inscriptions, Judean desert scrolls etc). No one could have achieved this by design

Happy Christmas”

I would simply add that the article Bauckham mentions, ‘Paul and other Jews with Latin names in the New Testament’, was published in Paul, Luke and the Graeco-Roman world (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), on pages 202-220 to be precise.

I want to also point to C.K. Barrett’s review of this interesting volume in the Journal of Theological Studies, 2005 56(1) pp. 168-170. He had this to say of Bauckham’s contribution in the above mentioned article: ‘Richard Bauckham makes an exhaustive study of Paul and other Jews with Latin names. This contains much interesting information, spiced with a measure of speculation’ (p. 169).

Reconciliation – Vertical and Horizontal Dimensions

A Guest Post by Volker Rabens

Below in the link you’ll find my short article that reviews a fascinating conference on reconciliation held last August in Prague. Chris and I thought that for those of you who have not been able to attend this biennial conference of the Fellowship of European Evangelical Theologians it would be a good idea to make this review available online. In the article you’ll find among other things a summary of high-quality papers like these:

• “Reconciliation in the New Testament: Its Centrality and Relevance”, Prof. I. Howard Marshall (University of Aberdeen, Scotland)
• “Human Reconciliation in the New Testament with Special Reference to Philemon, Colossians and Ephesians”, Prof. Max Turner (London School of Theology, England)
• “Reconciliation and Inter-Church Dialogue in Post-Marxist Societies”, Prof. Johannes Reimer (Unisa, South Africa; GBFE, Germany)

Interested (and able to read some German)? Then click HERE.

Interested – but not able to read German? Then perhaps you want to read on a bit (or even have a look at the FEET homepage: http://www.feet-europe.net/).

What is FEET? “The Fellowship of European Evangelical Theologians was established almost thirty years ago as the result of an initiative by John Stott. At that time scholarship that combined the highest academic standards with a commitment to the authority of Scripture and to an orthodox, biblical theology was comparatively rare in Continental Europe. Stott saw the need to encourage evangelical biblical scholars and theologians in Europe by providing the kind of network that already existed in the United Kingdom through the Tyndale Fellowship and in North America through the Evangelical Theological Society and the Institute for Biblical Research. [For those of you who have followed Chris’ blog on the ETS, you may be relieved to hear that the FEET does not prescribe the Chicago Declaration. I got the impression at the conference that FEET members are concerned with a “positive”, integrative theology.] Since then an international conference has been held every two years on some specific theological theme.”

The conference in August dealt with both vertical and horizontal aspects of reconciliation. Here are some of the questions that were raised with regard to horizontal reconciliation: “How can the narrow gate of salvation and the wish for a European or global good be integrated? What about the burning questions of what it is to be European and Christian in the West, Centre and East of that Continent, and how are old wounds to be remembered but not glorified? How can we balance even our own personal priorities, how reconcile the parts of ourselves that pull us in different directions?” These and other questions were the focus of a number of papers and lively discussions at the conference.

Well, by now even those of you who don’t read a word of German may want to have a look at the article linked to above, because…it has pictures :-)

Not Short on Humour

I mentioned a few days ago Stephen Tomkins’ little book, A Short History of Christianity. It really is a great read, almost unputdownable. For those who are looking for a quick and readable overview of 2,000 years of church history, you could do a lot worse. Besides, Tomkins is one of the funniest Christian writers alive, which sometimes helps to get through the depressing bits such as the Crusades. For example, when describing the pathetic horrors of the third crusade and the bid of the coalition between Frederick Barbarossa, King Philip and Richard the Lionheart to reach Jerusalem in yet another bloody slaughter he writes:

‘They finally came upon a great river, and Frederick Barbarossa dived in a drowned. His son preserved the royal corpse in a large barrel of vinegar and took him on to fulfil his vow of reaching Jerusalem. The army, unhappy at being led into battle by a pickle, largely went home’!

For more of Tomkins comical genius, I highly recommend his Loose Canons column for the Ship of Fools webpage, here. For example, when writing under the heading ‘Boniface: interfaith dialogue wasn't his thing’, he explains: ‘In Germany, Boniface came across a tribe called the Catti, who worshipped an enormous tree in the forest of Geismar, Thor's Oak. He tried to tell them about the cross of Jesus being a much better tree, but they just kept going on about how good their tree was. So he hacked it down’! His description of certain events in the life of the snooping St Aelhaiarn is one of my favourites: ‘Idle curiosity not being commendable, the Lord rustled up a pack of wild beasts, who tore the hapless lackey limb from limb, and bit of limb from bit of limb’. His story can be found here. Also, though not for Fundies nor the easily offended, is his highly irreverent little book, My Ministry Manual by Rev.Gerald Ambulance. Funny as hell, but may also take you there if you laugh too hard.

Danke Eerdmans

Many thanks to the kind folk at Eerdmans for a review copy of Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, which gladly arrived in the post today!

*Jumps up and down with glee and does a little break dance*

By the way, Bauckham’s book is evidently selling like wildfire and is the Eerdmans December featured book of the month, as can be seen here.

Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses - Part 8

Click here for the series outline.

Chapter 4. Palestinian Jewish Names

A new resource for study of the Gospels

In this key chapter Bauckham takes a small ‘time out’ from the main thrust of his argumentation in order to pursue an investigation of Palestinian Jewish names in the first century. He does this to inform his approach in the following chapters.

Bauckham’s foundational claim is that, in light of the work of Israeli scholar, Tal Ilan, and her Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity: Part I: Palestine 330 BCE - 200 CE (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002) names are now a valuable resource for historical study. Indeed, Ilan has collected the names ‘of as many as three thousand Palestinian Jews who lived during the five centuries’ she covers.

However, Bauckham does not uncritically appropriate Ilan’s work, and he differs in his understanding of certain criteria, which Ilan used to generate the statistical calculations. Bauckham’s purpose is primarily to gauge the popularity of each name and so where ‘Ilan counts persons’, Bauckham counts ‘occurrences of a name’. Thus his statistical analysis produces different results in such a way that indicates that a considerably smaller number of names were actually used.

The relative popularity of names

Based upon his foundational claim that the study of Palestinian Jewish names in the first century is of importance, Bauckham proceeds to assert the significance of the fact that ‘there were a small number of very popular names and a large number of rare ones’. Comparing the results of the broader statistical analysis with the names found in the NT, Bauckham can maintain, despite some anomalies, that the statistical results offered concerning the relative popularity of various male and female names is very plausible.

A comparative study of the names of Palestinian Jews in general and those found in the Gospels and Acts leads to an important observation:

[T]he names of Palestinian Jews in the Gospels and Acts coincide very closely with the names of the general population of Jewish Palestine in this period, but not to the names of Jews in the diaspora. In this light it becomes very unlikely that those in the Gospels are late accretions to the traditions

Why were some names so popular?

The fact that ‘six of the nine most popular male names are those of the Hasmonean family’ indicates that the popularity of certain names is understandable as patriotism in light of Roman rule. Other names were popular because they included, or in some way implied, the divine name. Indeed, many of the names seem to reflect a strong hope for Israel’s restoration and for deliverance from pagan oppressors. While Bauckham does not deny that names do not have to be popular for any specific reason but remain popular simply because they are popular and would, for the sake of family tradition, be repeated from one generation to another, he still suggests that ‘these are secondary factors that do not nullify the rather clear general reasons for the really rather extraordinary popularity of a rather small number of names’. Furthermore, in light of the above reasons Bauckham offers for the popularity of certain names, it may come as a surprise that the most famous Biblical names (Moses, David, Elijah) were not used hardly at all. Bauckham reasons (and the book is filled with fascinating and creative snippets such as this):

It may have been thought that to use these names for one's own children would be a presumptuous expectation that these children were actually the expected eschatological deliverers. So the non-use of these names is itself a kind of negative form of evidence for the messianic hopes of the period.

How to tell Simon from Simon

While some of the above may be interesting, it is not as central to Bauckham’s developing argument as what follows. Given that ‘about half the population of Jewish Palestine were called by only about a dozen personal names’, this means that a single name was not sufficient to distinguish one (e.g.) Simon [the most popular male name] from the next Simon. So how did these Jews go about distinguishing people with the same name from each other? Bauckham observes eleven strategies including the use of variant names, the addition or substitution of the patronymic, or husband’s or son’s name, or the use of a nickname, or place of origin, occupation etc. (cf., e.g. Mark 15:40; Luke 24:10; Acts 9:43; 10:7; 21:38).

While this chapter lays some important groundwork for the following chapters, there are some immediate implications. The names found in the Gospels ‘could not possibly have resulted from the accretion of names outside Jewish Palestine, since the pattern of Jewish name usage in the diaspora was very different’. Indeed, given that the gospels evidence typical strategies for distinguishing one person from another with the same name, it would be difficult to explain this data ‘as the result of random invention of names within Palestinian Jewish Christianity, and impossible to explain as the result of such invention outside Jewish Palestine’. Therefore, the authenticity of the names in the Gospel traditions is affirmed, which thus also ‘underlines the plausibility of the suggestion made in chapter 3 as to the significance of many of these names: that they indicate the eyewitness sources of the individual stories in which they occur’.

Küng and Hengel

What a busy last few days! However, a delightful gift came in the post a couple of days ago from none other than the great theologian, Hans Küng! One of the items in the package was a signed copy of the Lew Kopelew Prize ‘order of ceremony’, including speeches (mentioned here). What a lovely surprise!

As I read the speech it became clear that the translation we offered a few days ago on this blog was faulty. Rather than stating that Americans have been misguided ‘by a President arrogantly presenting himself as a Christian’, the German actually says: ‘daß sie von einem arroganten, sich “christlich” präsentierenden Präsidenten ...’ which is, if anything, an even stronger formulation!

Yesterday I was pleased to take part in the 80th birthday celebrations of the great NT scholar, Martin Hengel, in the Tübingen Theologicum. I made a couple of short videos (but as shall become abundantly clear – I will upload them later –, I’m really not film director material!) and managed to get a picture of the back of David deSilva’s head (I’m not paparazzi material either)! The wonderfully friendly, and massively learned, William Horbury gave the honorary lecture in pretty convincing German. Given that I deal with and take issue with Horbury’s thesis concerning early Christology in my doctoral work, it was a delight to hear direct from the ‘horses mouth’, even if I’m still profoundly unconvinced. I’ll blog more about the celebrations later.

By the way, for those who have e-mailed me in the last few days, thank you. I will reply as soon as possible.

Bauckham responds II

Prof Richard Bauckham has been reading your comments in my series on his Jesus and the Eyewitnesses again, and he has this to say in response to a strand of criticism that has surfaced a number of times from a certain Mr Carr (cf. e.g. the comments in part 7):

“Stephen Carr makes the same point over and over. He accuses me of making mere assertions without proof. He does not understand the nature of my arguments. I am offering historical hypotheses to account for the data. This is a normal part of historical method. Historians do it all the time. We have certain data (in this case some aspects of the text of the Gospels) and we must try to find a hypothesis that adequately explains them (as well as being consistent with all our other relevant historical knowledge). So, for example, why is that, whereas most recipients of Jesus’ healings are unnamed in the Gospels, a few are named. I offer a hypothesis that explains this. I know of no other hypothesis that does. Or why do the names of the women vary at different points in a Gospel or between the Gospels? I offer a hypothesis that explains this.

To ‘prove’ such a hypothesis is a judgment of probability based on how adequately a hypothesis accounts for the data. The way to engage critically with this form of historical argument is (a) negatively, to show that the hypothesis does not account adequately for the data or that it is inconsistent with other known data, (b) positively, to offer another hypothesis that accounts better for the data (or, at least, equally well).

This is the kind of discussion - often at a very sophisticated, nuanced and detailed level - that goes on all the time in NT scholarship, as well as in other fields. NT scholarship differs only in that in many cases the discussion is more intensive and extensive, so that in fact all the possibilities are weighed more rigorously than in some other fields of ancient history where far fewer scholars are at work”.

Cf. Bauckham’s first response here.

Prosperity Praise

I particularly liked the gold 'Paul and Silas prison chains'!

Death Haiku

‘[T]he historical passion of Christ reveals the eternal passion of God ... the self-sacrifice of love is God’s eternal nature’

Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, p. 32

I am absolutely loving this book; I cannot express how much pleasure it is giving me. I’ll stop now before I burst into poetry - and anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that that is not a good idea. This is certainly my favourite Moltmann volume thus far.

Too late, I feel a Haiku bursting out:

“Shouts: Mind the Bus,
Answers: ‘What Bus?’
... Splat”

Undeniable genius. I’m calling this genre of poetry ‘death Haiku’, to read when listening to your favourite ‘death Christian Rock/hymns’ etc.

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UPDATE

One reader has pointed out to me that Moses stipulates that a Haiku must mention an aspect of nature.

*Mutters*

So, I’ve written a new ‘death Haiku’, which I’m calling ‘John takes a walk near Dover’ (the first one above I’ve decided to call ‘Ron left his glasses at home’):

“John and the cliff edge. Trips.
AWwhhhhhssshhiiiiiiiiittt.
Splat”

With talent like this it is sometimes difficult to remain humble.

Once again Bronstein

Once again Bronstein: Here is a fabulous video (via Chessbase) by GM Yasser Seirawan about Bronstein made shortly before he died. Yasser is uninhibited in his praise of the man, undeniably one of the world’s greatest players of the middle of the 20th century.

Three books

I wanted to share a few spontaneous and simple thoughts on three books that I recently put back on the shelf. While the level of the first two are what could be called ‘popular’, the third is in a league of its own - and in more ways than one.

The first is Peter deRosa’s The fatal flaw of Christianity with the snappy subtitle: He did not rise from the dead and the dogma of Original Sin is pure invention. I know that not everybody likes doing this, but every now and then I get the strong urge to read something that wants to tell me that all I believe and affirm is utter bollocks. Besides, I think it is wisdom to give very different opinions at least a hearing. However, while some of the arguments were insightful, this passionately written book continually sets up a ‘straw man’ Christianity (as many militant Atheists and Fundamentalist Christians do), betrays an appalling lack of balance in the treatment of the evidence, and gets numerous factual issues muddled that first year theological students could correct. Though I’m tempted to write: ‘A useful resource if you’ve run out of loo roll’, as it wasn’t all bad I’ll simply limit myself to: ‘Not the best’.

Much better was Marcus Borg’s, The Heart of Christianity in which the author presents his case for an emerging Christianity over against the traditionalist/fundamentalist vision. I have very mixed feelings about this one. One the one hand, there was much in this easy to read book that helped and inspired me. His ability to perceive truth in the Christian story at various levels beyond the literal-factual was a pleasure to follow, and his gentle and gracious tone throughout encouraged my engagement. He covers a lot of ground but I honestly didn’t ever feel like it was rushed. Always informative and insightful, he focuses upon such issues as love for justice and spirituality, pluralism, panentheism, and the historical Jesus.

Nevertheless, and on the other hand, despite the undoubted strengths of this little volume, I felt it was let down at a few crucial points. While it was all part of Borg’s deliberate argument, I was very uneasy with the relegation of Jesus to what I saw as a ‘nice spiritual metaphor’ for westerners, and was left wondering: if this is how wishy-washy we should be, then why bother. His Jesus simply doesn’t inspire me to radical faith. Arguably his commitment to the distinction between the two ways of Christianity (between the ‘emerging’ and traditional) detailed in his first chapter, has led him to over press the division such that either one is all in one model, or all in the other. Besides, I’m pretty sure many ‘emerging Christians’ I know would argue this use of ‘emerging’ language is a dubious piece of PR. I personally prefer to take some things from his own particular spin on the emerging model, and leave the rest. I don’t think that all in traditional Christianity is as desperately in need of the particular radical overhaul he proposes. Among other things, it leaves any serious kind of need or motivation for cross-cultural mission hanging in thin air. And that, for me, just isn’t acceptable. In this respect, when any book refers favourably to Paul Knitter’s No Other Name? in the footnotes, as this one does, then it quickly receives a large dose of my immediate suspicion. I think my feelings about this book are clear: I found it a real mixed bag.

The third book is the exceptional Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire, by Brian J. Walsh and Sylvia C. Keesmaat. I’ll probably post on this book in more depth another time, but I will simply record now that this is one of the most challenging, inspiring and enlightening books I’ve read in a very long time. It is essentially an exercise in a particular hermeneutical reading of Colossians, one informed by a study of post-modern culture (which admittedly not all will like). The results they suggest are worthy of serious consideration, and I hope this book does provoke healthy debate, even if, in the process, some of the details of their hermeneutical approach and moral vision are Tim LaHayed (left behind). You’ll certainly never read Colossians the same way again! Click here for the table of contents and sample text (the preface and first chapter).

To Bronstein's memory

Hardly a theologically or biblically related post, but some readers may be interested.

Sadly, a few days ago, David Bronstein, the great chess Grandmaster died. Born in Ukraine, 1924, he dazzled the world with spectacularly creative chess. I remember playing through some of his games for the first time and decided to give up trying to understand the mathematics of the combinations, and instead let myself simply enjoy the aesthetics and colossal imagination they demonstrated! The ICC had this to say about him:

‘Bronstein was a truly original thinker, creative genius and master of tactics who believed the game to be more art than science or calculation – for him, the aesthetics was always more important than the result’

One of the most enjoyable chess books I have ever read is the second part of Kasparov’s My Great Predecessors series (my copy is signed by the great man himself!). Kasparov summed up Bronstein’s unmistakable style with the words: ‘For the sake of brilliance it is worth taking a risk!’ (191).

In honour of this great chess artist I have uploaded two of his notable victories.

Click here for his 1946 game (as Black) against Zita. You will be taken to a java board to follow the moves on a chessboard.

The second is a simply breathtaking game to which I have added a few notes – no detailed analysis, just a spattering of thoughts along with a few of Kasparov’s comments from his above mentioned book. Click here for this beautiful victory over the great Keres.

Bronstein, may you rest in peace.

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By the way, if anyone is interested in starting chess as a hobby, here is some essential information for you. Essential.

Hans Küng receives the Lew Kopelew Prize!

I’m happy to inform the biblioblogging community that Tübingen based Theologian, Hans Küng, received the Lew Kopelew Prize for Peace and Human Rights last Sunday, for his ‘unermüdlichen Einsatz um ein besseres Verständnis zwischen den grossen Religionen der Welt’. It was a real joy to watch the whole presentation on TV. As to his speech, I was both surprised and pleased how bold and forthright he was in his criticisms of the Bush administration. For example, in the context of peace among the world religions, he courageously claimed that he:

‘considers it a positive development, at least since the loss of the congress elections in Nov 2006, and the long over due outing of the incompetent and warmongering defence minister, that most of the American citizens are slowly coming to realise – one has to say this clearly – that they have been misguided, yes misguided, by a President arrogantly presenting himself as a Christian, by a neo-conservative ideologist, and by a passive congress as well as willing mass media’ (translation ours).

Earlier he spoke that (our translation shortens the original German considerably):

‘Instead of effectively fighting a criminal network, this president thought he had to announce a war, marching into Afghanistan and, despite his father’s wisdom, into Baghdad, thereby turning his father’s idea of “the new world order” into a “new world disorder”!

Küng has never been one to duck a fight, at least one in the service of peace and human rights!

By the way, I hope the person from New Jersey, United States, found what he or she was looking for when their Google search for ‘The Biblical Significance of a Sneeze’ landed on my blog! Why oh why would anybody want to search Google for that?!

Something is stuck in my New Perspective Piper

I had a sizeable number of visitors today from a Christian blog (Between Two Worlds by Justin Taylor) that, to judge from the sidebar links, is a tad more conservative than mine. Still, I not only enjoyed skimming through the highly recommended contents, but also landed on a link to a recent John Piper article on ‘Jesus, Islam, Pharisees, and the New Perspective on Paul’. Though ‘Pastor John’ is undoubtedly more conservative in many of his theological judgments than I, I have learnt much from him - especially from his book The Pleasures of God, which really helped me to think through and enjoy the glory of the Father’s delight in his Son in a profoundly moving way.

In the above article Piper takes a few shots at the Pauline New Perspective – some of which land on target, while others, in my opinion, are a little muddled – as also is the implied parallelism in overall theme (cf. the final paragraph of his article). To pick up on one of the potential problems, he argues against Wright’s stab at the caricature of 1st century Judaism as ‘self-help moralism’ with the claim that:

‘People don’t go to hell for “keeping the law out of gratitude” as a “proper response to grace.” People go to hell for relying on themselves instead of grace’.

In other words, Jews weren’t ‘covenantal nomists’ relying on gracious election into the covenant as the basis for law-obedience, but were rather trying to earn their salvation and were hence in danger of hell. Not only is this, in my opinion, a category muddle, I would suggest that Piper is anachronistically reading back later concerns and dogmatic considerations back into the Gospel texts (and Paul) that are concerned with paralleled yet not equivalent problems. A historical study of the real problems at stake, as evident in the narratives that shaped first century Jewish (and early Christian) identity, I think makes this clear. This is another way of saying that the process of contextualisation is such an important moment in exegesis, as it guards against eisegesis.

To put it more poetically, and to mimic George Tyrrell (no, not Schweitzer - that is a myth of Bultmannian proportions):

‘We have to be so careful, when peering into the puddle of water at the bottom of the u-bend of history, that we don’t allow ourselves to get enamoured with our own reflection, however turd-ridden the waters be’.

I should have been a poet - that is bloody genius. Yes, admittedly, this picture springs oh so easily to my mind given my long, painful night, a couple of days ago, puking into the ‘big white telephone’. But that is beside the point.

By the way, don’t know what a turd is? Discover all here (the third definition in particular wrinkled my face into a smile).

Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses - Part 7

Click here for the series outline.

Chapter 3. Names in the Gospel Traditions

In the following I briefly summarise the general argument Bauckham employs in justification of his case as detailed in the previous post. His focus concerns the significance of the naming of i) the women at the cross and the tomb, ii) Simon of Cyrene and his sons and iii) certain recipients of Jesus’ healing miracles.

i) In all the Synoptic Gospels the role of women as eyewitnesses is, as Bauckham notes, crucial: ‘they see Jesus die, they see his body being laid in the tomb, they find the tomb empty’ (Here I must refer to Bauckham’s excellent work, Gospel women: studies of the named women in the gospels [Grand Rapids, Mich. : Eerdmans, 2002]. Click here for more information on the Eerdmans website, with access to a free excerpt – the whole introduction!). A comparison of the difference in variation of names of the women mentioned in the Synoptic Gospels could suggest that the writers were not interested in historical accuracy at this point. However, Bauckham insists that the variations are evidence of ‘the scrupulous care with which the Gospels present the women as witnesses’. The Gospel writers were careful only to name those who were known as eyewitnesses of specific events, even when this left the edges of the narrative unpolished. Furthermore, these women arguably remained prominent in the early church and were associated with the transmission of these traditions.

ii) While readers of Mark would naturally assume that the Twelve disciples were the major sources of the traditions within the Gospel, when they vanish from the narrative (at 14:72) the reader is left wondering who the witnesses to these events were until the mention of the women in 15:40. Who, then, witnessed the events in 15:1-15:39? Enter Simon of Cyrene. The only variation in the Synoptics is that Mark names his two sons, while Matthew and Luke omit them. Bauckham argues that Mark cites them as he appeals to Simon’s eyewitness testimony not first-hand but through his sons. And they were named as they remained well-known figures in the early church and could be asked about the events themselves, whereas by the time of Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospel, they were no longer available or well known.

iii) The recipients of Jesus’ healings were not often named so appeal to genre cannot explain why some were named in specific stories. To take an example:

‘In the cases of Jairus, whose name is dropped by Matthew, and Bartimaeus, whose name is dropped by both Matthew and Luke, we encounter once again the phenomenon of a character who must have been named by Mark because he was well-known in the early Christian movement but whose name was dropped by one or both of the later Synoptic evangelists, presumably because at the time at which they wrote or in the part of the Christian movement with which they were most familiar this figure was not well-known’

This alleged eyewitness function of the recipients of Jesus’ healings is also suggested by the words of Quadratus (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 4.3.2), who reminisces about a time in his life ‘of which it could credibly be said that some people healed by Jesus were still alive’.

Finally, and displaying the fair and honest judgment that typifies Bauckham’s handling of matters throughout the book, he notes that while the existence of vivid detail within a story is not strictly evidence for or against it be reflective of an eyewitness retelling, ‘it is at least interesting that some of the stories we have suggested come from those who are named in them are among the most vividly told’.

(Artwork via https://www.scholarsresource.com/browse/work/258952936)

Chris Caragounis on NT Greek

What a horrible frigging last day. I tell you, these evil German ‘tummy bugs’ don’t take prisoners; they mercilessly cause you to throw up for the whole night long – literally –, and then wake you up for the next day with the mother of all headaches, and a fever so malicious you could fry eggs on your cheeks.

Thank God that I’m feeling a bit better now.

Anyway, enough self-pity; time for good news. Some of you may remember that I posted about Chrys Caragounis’ excellent and important work, The Development of Greek and the New Testament. Morphology, Syntax, Phonology, and Textual Transmission, last January. The work generated some surprisingly strong debate with Moses Silva, yet Chrys has helpfully detailed the dispute and uploaded his response on his webpage, here.

Chrys e-mailed about a week ago to happily inform me that Baker Academic is about to publish a considerably more affordable paperback edition. It should appear around Christmas 2006.

For more information with endorsements of the book, click here. I for one wish Chrys much success with this deeply insightful and learned work.

Bauckham responds

Time for the promised e-mail comments from Professor Richard Bauckham in response to certain criticisms. As I mentioned under point two of the previous post, Richard naturally doesn’t have the time to get muddled into all of the debates and questions in the comments of my posts on his work, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (cf. here for the series outline). I am very grateful that he nevertheless wanted to dash off a few thoughts in relation to some of the criticisms, posted in the comments in parts 4 and 5 of my review, directed against his understanding of the significance of the Papias evidence. Do have a look at those posts and the following discussion, and enjoy Richard’s comments below:

“(1) Papias wrote 5 books of Gospel traditions with commentary. Why do writers who knew Papias quote so few of these traditions? Because most of them paralleled material in the canonical Gospels and they had no interest in quoting such material. For them, the canonical Gospels were a better source of this material, so why bother with Papias? What they quoted was interesting, otherwise unknown or otherwise paralleled only in apocryphal sources, material. I know no better explanation of why we have so few quotations from Papias’s book.
(2) Eusebius was highly prejudiced against Papias. The ‘strange parables’ is his evaluation of them. Especially if they were ‘millenarian’ in character he would have thought them worthless.
(3) I do not think Papias knew the Gospel of the Hebrews. Rather the story he told about the woman accused of many sins is a story that Eusebius knew in the Gospel of the Hebrews. Eusebius is interested in tracing references to use of canonical and noncanonical scriptures in the early period. I think if Papias clearly referred to the Gospel of the Hebrews we would expect Eusebius to make this clearer.
(4) However, supposing Papias did make use of the Gospel of the Hebrews, I don’t see any particular problem in this. We have very few fragments of this Gospel and so it’s very difficult to make judgments about it. But it may have contained lots of authentic traditions. Why not? I’m not in the business of claiming that the canonical Gospels were the only Gospels preserving good early traditions about Jesus. Why should Carr think I am? Because he casts me (without reading the book) in some kind of fundamentalist role.
(5) Doubtless the tradition about the death of Judas is legendary. I expect most oral history includes some legendary material along with good reminiscences. I’ve no problem with this.
(6) The story about Justus Barsabbas may be true. Who knows? It appears to be related to the Longer Ending of Mark.
(7) To say that Papias thought of himself as a historian and knew what good historical practice was supposed to be, is not necessarily to say he was particularly good at implementing such practice. I do not claim he was and it’s not the point I was interested in. We have far too little of his work to be able to judge the matter, I think, given that the quotations we have from him are likely (for reasons stated above) to be unrepresentative of his work as a whole. But there were plenty of historians in the ancient world who knew what good historical practice was supposed to be but didn’t practise it very well”.

At the end of his e-mail Richard made a point that I’ve been stressing throughout: ‘In general, this kind of criticism is much more worthwhile from someone who’s read the chapter itself, rather than just your summary (good as it is)’.

Indeed! I would add that I think this is all the more the case for those who seem - as far as I see it - to be finding Richard’s arguments somehow threatening.

Three points

First, I wanted to point to the excellent discussion that has followed in the comments to my previous post. I think I’ll pursue these issues with an extended comment of my own in which I’ll try to be more concrete about my own position concerning the pros and cons of the NP. I continue to learn much from my readers, so I look forward to more interaction on these matters.

Second, and speaking of comments by readers, Richard Bauckham has been following with interest the discussions prompted by my review/summary posts of Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. In response to various criticisms on his arguments, as they were presented in parts 4 and 5 of my review (i.e. those concerning Papias), Richard has written a response for me to post on the blog which I shall probably upload tomorrow.

Naturally, Richard doesn’t have the time to read and get muddled into all of the debates and questions in the comments of my posts; he was simply kind enough to make some time this once. And hopefully it will help to clarify his position in light of certain criticisms.

I’ll say this as clearly as possible: if you want to seriously engage with the arguments Richard presents in Jesus and the Eyewitnesses then please don’t rely just on my overview of his argument. Read his book yourselves and delve into the arguments and the associated evidence before making a judgment. I simply cannot detail all of the evidence he cites nor the reasoning he uses. Not only do I not have the time, but I would then simply be re-writing the book, and my effort won’t ever be as good as Richard’s original!

Third, I have really enjoyed reading the numerous stimulating comments on a few of my posts recently, many of which I would love to engage further. However, I’ve been rather busy with other matters and have not found the time to do so. I simply wanted to say that I will try to comment on some of the matters in due time. I have not ignored them.

Footnote: Why the ethically dubious picture of three scantily clad beauties? Well, first off, it’s art. OK? Only uncivilised and uncouth yobs see anything else. Admittedly, some works of art do tend to push out the boat a bit, but it’s still art.

Besides, the image reflects the fact that I have written three points.

One woman per point, in other words.

I’ll perhaps try to sort out more points on a later post as I’m hoping to make a cheerleader squad. An arty cheerleader squad, of course.

Judgment and Justification

I was browsing the biblical study section of the webpage of Hendrickson Publishers tonight, and I happily noticed that they often serve up a generous sample chapter for a number of their titles. And one book that has caught my eye recently, which I look forward to reading in due course, is Chris VanLandingham’s Judgment and Justification in Early Judaism and the Apostle Paul (Hendrickson, 2006). In the sample chapter VanLandingham starts off with an astonishing and to my mind counter intuitive claim (how far the NP has brought us that this should seem ‘counter intuitive’!):

“Countering E. P. Sanders’s notion that in Palestine and Diaspora Judaism obedience does not earn God’s grace, election, or salvation, I take up in this chapter the issues of election, grace, and their relationship, and in the next chapter salvation, grace, and their relationship. I contend that election (like salvation) is not a gift of God’s grace, but a reward for proper behavior” (italics mine)

Can this thesis really be sustained? I look forward to this book!

The inerrancy series

Just a quick post as I’m short on time. With all the discussion surrounding the ETS adoption of the Chicago statement, I thought I’d link to my old series on inerrancy. It goes without saying that my opinions on these matters are not inerrant (did I hear some of my more conservative friends shout ‘Amen’?!), and my thinking has developed since then. To be honest, the podcast was never that great, and I would formulate things differently now. But apart from that, I still stand by the general thrust of these posts.

The links to the inerrancy posts are as follows:

Part 1. What I meant by inerrancy, and have Christians always believed it?
Part 2. Does the bible assert its own inerrancy?
Part 3. intro and main post. What errors in the bible?
Part 4. The original manuscripts were inerrant?
Part 5. Four more problems with inerrancy.
Part 6. The concluding post in this series was a podcast suggesting a way forward. As I mentioned above, my thinking has, however, significantly developed since this was recorded, so I would reason things rather differently now – and that partly because of feedback and debate with you, my readers.

UPDATE

See now the three part series in which I develop my thinking more constructively:

A new statement of biblical inerrancy – part 1

A new statement of biblical inerrancy – part 2

Is the ‘Tilling Statement’ really a statement about inerrancy?

Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses - Part 6

Click here for the series outline.

Chapter 3. Names in the Gospel Traditions

The thesis to be pursued in this chapter is very simple yet at the same time bold and highly original: ‘many of these named characters [in the Gospels] were eyewitnesses who not only originated the traditions to which their names are attached but also continued to tell these stories as authoritative guarantors of their traditions’. While it is perfectly intelligible why some persons in the Gospels are even named at all, with others an explanation is necessary. For example, why is it that Luke only names one of the disciples in the Emmaus road story (cf. Luke 24:18)? Other related questions shall be dealt with in chapters 5 and 8, but this chapter analyses ‘the presence in the Gospel traditions of names other than those of members of the Twelve and other than those of public persons’.

If one of assumes Markan priority, then ‘material common to the three Synoptic Gospels therefore shows an unambiguous tendency towards the elimination of names’. The Johannine material adds a few names additional to those appearing in the Synoptics, and also identifies some left anonymous in the Synoptics. However, this should not be seen as a Johannine novelistic tendency for it cannot answer why John would leave quite a number of characters anonymous, especially when some of these characters are more prominent than those he names. Even in the extra-canonical Gospels there are only a few examples ‘of invented names for anonymous characters in the Gospels before the fourth century’ (though this argument assumes that one must not include the naming of characters that have been freshly invented within a narrative).

Given the common Jewish practice of giving, within ‘rewritten biblical narrative’, names to characters not named in Scripture, the fact that Christians did not do this in the Gospel traditions is even more noteworthy. Bauckham himself concludes that most of the named characters in the Gospel traditions are original. Given that names tend to be the least well remembered elements of events, it follows that the Gospel tradition will evidence their reduction. This makes it all the more important to ascertain why some names have be kept in the narratives.

In light of this evidence concerning the appearance and disappearance of names in early Christian traditions, Bauckham wants to suggest a ‘comprehensive hypothesis’ that enables one to account for the named characters in the Gospel traditions. In a nutshell he suggests that, with the exception of a few, the named characters are ‘people [who] joined the early Christian movement and were well known at least in the circles in which these traditions were first transmitted’. Not only is the assumption that many of these characters joined the early Christian communities in Judea or Galilee explicitly affirmed in a few cases (e.g. the four brothers of Jesus), but the sort of spread of people evidenced is exactly what one would have expected these earliest Christian groups to consist of. The tendency of Matthew and Luke to omit some of these names can be explained as a result of a realisation that some of them would have become, ‘by the time Matthew and Luke wrote, too obscure for them to wish to retain the names when they were engaged in abbreviating Mark's narratives’.

However, more needs to be said than simply that the named persons were known in the early Christian communities:

‘If the names are of persons well known in the Christian communities, then it also becomes likely that many of these persons were themselves the eyewitnesses who first told and doubtless continued to tell the stories in which they appear and to which their names are attached’

Bauckham first examples this argument with reference to the character called Cleopas (cf. Luke 24:18; John 19:25 and Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 3.11; 4.22.4). Three further cases lend strength to Bauckham’s case: ‘the women at the cross and the tomb; Simon of Cyrene and his sons; and recipients of Jesus' healing miracles’. For the rest of the chapter, Bauckham will analyse each in turn.

Proposition this!

Gladly, my paper at the Tübingen colloquium went well, and it gave me a good deal of pleasure that all agreed with the thrust of my thesis in affirming a Pauline divine-Christology.

I was also glad to be informed by Prof. Lichtenberger (a delightful man, by the way) that the brilliant NT scholar, William Horbury, will be heading Tübingen-way next month to present a paper in honour of Martin Hengel’s 80th birthday. Oddly enough, I mentioned Horbury in my paper Monday evening, and though he is really not the sort of exegetical opponent one would want to have, I’m nonetheless convinced his take on early Christology is faulty. Thus I take issue with him at numerous points in my work. I’m sure looking forward to his lecture!

I was also pleased to see how much dialogue has been generated below in the comments concerning the ETS adoption of the Chicago statement on inerrancy (and on blogs all over the place). David Wilkerson (from whom I learn a lot) wrote something in the comments that has stuck with me and I have taken the following from it: I would now speak about affirming the Scriptures as ‘true’ (not CS inerrant) without always having to feel that I need to be sure what I mean by such an affirmation. I suppose I wouldn’t feel comfortable anymore with any ‘statement’ qualifying inerrancy through a thousand deaths. Why the need? Can we define the concept of ‘childhood’ in propositions? Can we exhaust or capture the meaning of ‘sin’ or ‘love’ in propositions? Why should we feel able to express the truth of Scripture in just such a way without either missing the point or even getting it ‘one size fits all’ wrong, as arguably the Chicago statement does?

The ETS can of course make all the doctrinal definitions they want - that is up to them. They are defining the limits of what counts as evangelical within their own society, not worldwide (did someone say ‘thank God!’?). But their actions still send out a message to all evangelicals, so perhaps others need to be reminded – and I’m pretty sure many members of the ETS will agree with this – that while numerous things, not least believing the evangel of Jesus Christ, make an evangelical, one is not qualified or disqualified as an evangelical because, to put it bluntly, one does or does not happen to believe that the bunnies literally hopped up into the Ark two-by-two (cf. Article XII).

Perriman on reading NT eschatology

What do you think of Perriman’s four hermeneutical points, listed at the start of his fascinating book, The Coming of the Son of Man, for dealing with NT eschatological language?:

1) ‘We will try to read forwards from the first century rather than backwards from the twenty-first century … We must also make an attempt at a much harder task, which is to imagine that we share their ignorance about what lies in the future’ (3).

2) ‘New Testament apocalyptic relates meaningfully to the world as it was seen from the first century’ (4).

3) NT ‘apocalyptic is thoroughly allusive … [and] borrowing language and imagery is not inconsequential but must be taken into account in at least three important respects’ (6).

• ‘First, it brings into view a surrounding argument or narrative that is likely to have a significant bearing on how the New Testament argument or narrative is to be interpreted’ (7).
• ‘The borrowing is virtually an admission on the part of the author that the future is not seen clearly … If we find, for example, that Jesus describes what is going to happen in terms of what has already taken place, this is surely because he is less concerned to give a literal account of events than to draw attention to certain underlying theological continuities’ (7).
• OT prophecy is often better understood not as fulfilment but as reapplication.

4) He ‘will endeavor to construct an integrated and consistent apocalyptic narrative for the New Testament’ (8).

This last point is reflective, of course, of the wider problem concerning how one constructs an argument. What comes first, context or context, and how do they relate? For Perriman, important is ‘narrative coherence’ as ‘not every interpretation can be properly defended on intrinsic grounds, either because we lack space or because texts out of context are often irreducibly ambiguous. It is important that we do not lose sight of the wood because we have our noses up against the bark of the trees’ (9).

This last point hits on a massively controversial area. To no doubt over generalise, I suggest that German speaking scholarship is happier to leave inconsistencies in Paul, and to build either developmental hypotheses around this perception (cf. Schnelle. I.e. Paul changed his mind about this, that and the other, and this is perhaps why), or simply posit blatant contradiction. Anglo-American scholarship, on the other hand, tends to prefer to at least attempt a reading that bears in mind the intrinsic weight of the bigger picture as in a greater measure significant for understanding individual elements.

But who is right?

Stunningly naïve or great marketing?

‘[T]he hermit tradition reached its pinnacle in Simeon Stylites. After such monastic achievements that he was expelled from a monastery to save the lives of his imitators, his cave was constantly besieged by fans. So, failing to escape outwardly from the world, he escaped upwardly. He took to living on a ten-foot pillar, but of course (whether you call it stunningly naïve or great marketing) this only swelled the crowds. So he extended it, until he was sixty feet in the air, and Syria’s major tourist attraction – the first hermit, it has been said, to achieve solitary confinement in public ... He finally descended after thirty-six years, dead’ !!

A Short History of Christianity (Oxford, Lion: 2005), by Stephen Tomkins, p. 56.

This is a helpful, short, lively and amusing account of Church history, even if Tomkins seems to have more time detailing the undisputable negatives, than mentioning the also indisputable positives. Still, it makes for the occasional chuckle!

Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses - Part 5

Click here for the series outline.

Chapter 2. Papias on the Eyewitnesses continued

The final section of this chapter concerns an analysis of the difference between the scholarly understanding of ‘oral tradition’ and ‘oral history’. Part of the importance of the association of Papias’ statement with Luke’s Prologue is that ‘these informants - whether the Twelve or other disciples - were not only eyewitnesses but also prominent teachers in the early Christian movement’. However, the assumption in most scholarly discussion concerning the transmission of Jesus traditions orally is that this took place in collective groups, in the collective memories of anonymous communities, rather than with individual carriers of tradition, and thus ‘presupposes that the origins of the traditions were far removed, by many stages of transmission, from the form the traditions would have taken by the later first century’ [italics his]. Bauckham’s analysis of Papias’ statement is clear evidence against this assumption.

Furthermore, and building on the work of Jan Vansina, Bauckham’s exegesis of Papias stresses the difference between what may be called oral tradition and oral history. And later on, through an analysis of material in Josephus (C. Ap. 1.49-50 and Life 361) and the use of the word paradosis, Bauckham will point out that association of ‘oral tradition’ with cross-generational distance and orality to the exclusion of written records is an anachronism. Essentially, and citing Vansina, the difference may be understood as follows:

‘The sources of oral historians are reminiscences, hearsay, or eyewitness accounts about events and situations which are contemporary, that is, which occurred during the lifetime of the informants. This differs from oral tradition in that oral traditions are no longer contemporary’

While it is clear that Papias was collecting sayings at a time ‘oral history’ as defined above was becoming impossible, and thus dealt with traditions that were being transmitted beyond the lifetime of the original eyewitness, ‘we can certainly suppose that Papias, with his aspirations to best historical practice, would have valued particularly those traditions that the Elders had received directly from named disciples of Jesus’. Papias was concerned to hear what the elders said the disciples said/were saying, and not what surfaced in the collective memory of churches. While such community tradition certainly existed, this did not, and this is Bauckham’s argument in a nutshell, exclude or take the place of individual carriers of tradition.[Hence contra Dunn: J. D. G. Dunn, 'On History, Memory and Eyewitnesses: In Response to Bengt Holmberg and Samuel Byrskog,' JSNT 26 (2004) 483-484 and Jesus Remembered [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003] 198-199 n. 138] Indeed, the general scholarly presuppositions about oral transmission neglect the importance played by often very mobile individual leaders. [I refer the reader to the book edited by Bauckham in which it was argued that ‘the Gospels were written with the intention that they should circulate around all the churches’, and not simply for a specific church or group of churches such as the so-called Markan community, Johannine community etc (The Gospels for All Christians: Rethinking the Gospel Audiences, ed. Bauckham [Edinburgh, T&T Clark: 1998], p. 1)].

Through a brief analysis of Irenaeus’ recollection of Polycarp, Bauckham can also claim that the model of tradition transmission pursued in his thesis – through named individuals – is one ‘with which later second-century Christian writers worked’, a model also shared with second-century Gnostic teachers. But of course the important question is whether the analysis of the handling of tradition by Papias is really applicable to the Gospels:

‘We might well ask why, if Gospel traditions were known as the traditions told by specific named eyewitnesses, they are not attached to such names in the Gospels themselves? Perhaps they are. Perhaps we need to look at the names in the Gospels more carefully and with fresh questions’.

In the following chapters Bauckham will address just such concerns.

If you spare the rod ...

One of the commentators on UTube wrote the following in response:

"This video would have been funny if it happened at a different time and different place. Baptism symbolizes the cleansing of sins and the union of the believer with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection so that he becomes one of Christ's faithful, I am very sorry to say; it is obvious that neither this young man nor the audience -- who were cheering, laughing, and clapping their hands -- understands the seriousness of baptism"

Probably right, I suppose, but this just made me laugh all the more!

(HT: http://middlekid.typepad.com/paul/2006/11/proper_mode.html)

Presenting a paper in Tübingen

This Monday evening I’ll be presenting a paper in Tübingen on ‘Christology and 1 Cor 16:22’, at the ‘English-German Colloquium in New Testament’ (the forum formerly known as Das Kolloquium für Graduierte). Among others, the author of one of my favourite NT introductions is in Tübingen at the moment and has taken part in the Colloquium thus far, so I look forward to hearing his feedback.

However, I realised that may paper just wasn’t long enough for a good 45 minute presentation followed by a 30-40 minute discussion. I originally thought that I could perhaps simply waffle a bit about my thoughts on 2 Cor 5:21 if we ran out of things to talk about, but that just didn’t seem appropriate. So instead, tonight, I had fun writing, among other things, the following extended and self-indulgent ‘introduction’ which echoes deliberately with vocabulary I use in the conclusion.

“At the beginning of the last century the great theologian Herrmann Lüdemann dictated in one of his lectures, to Barth and the rest of his young colleges, the following thesis: ‘Kraft seines religiösen Bewusstseins weiß der Christ…! Das religiöse Bewusstsein, also ein empirisches Faktum, sei... das Löchlein, durch das wir hineinblicken ins Transzendente’.[fn1] However, after his studies when Barth started to preach in the church of Safenwiler in Switzerland, it soon became clear that das Löchlein was not wide enough. One day as he observed through his church window the happy residents of Safenwiler walking arm in arm in the sunshine, those without a single urge to enter his Church, a dark thought entered his mind and he decided the people walking happily outside were better off where they were![fn2]

His liberal theological heritage was evidently not helping this young preacher, and Barth was confronted with a serious predicament. Nevertheless, this struggle was to be one of the main forces that lead to the production of one of the most significant works of theological literature of the 20th century, Barth’s commentary on Paul’s letter to the Romans. To oversimplify, he argued that instead of squeezing Christianity through ‘das Löchlein religiösen Bewusstseins’, things needed to be done rather differently. Instead of a squinted ‘hineinblicken ins Transzendente’, the proper starting point should be none other than Dominus dixit, the Lord has spoken! As summarised later by Zahrnt, Barth discovered: ‘Der Theologe kann die Wahrheit Gottes ... nicht psychologisch aus dem frommen Bewusstsein des Menschen ableiten ... sondern er kann nur eines tun: auf das Wort Gottes hören und es auslegen’.[fn3] For Barth, all of a sudden the window to the panorama of God’s strange new world was flung open. ‘Within the Bible’, he preached in a sermon in the church of his friend Thurneysen, ‘there is a strange new world, the world of God’.”

You may be wondering what this escapade into the realms of theological history has to do with Christology and 1 Cor 16:22! Well, to continue in the spirit of the Barthian dialectic: everything, and yet nothing! ...”

The text continues, but you get the idea! Not your normal NT paper intro! It was fun to write, and even more enjoyable to echo in the conclusion. Though I’ve now run out of time to respond to your comments to previous posts tonight.

Fn 1. Cf. Eberhard Busch, Karl Barth: His Life from Letter and Autobiographical Texts, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976), 46.
Fn 2. Cf. the summary of the episode in Heinz Zahrnt, Die Sache mit Gott: die protestantische Theologie im 20. Jahrhundert (München: Piper, 1966), 16.
Fn 3. Zahrnt, Sache, 18.

ETS adopt Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy

My friend Jim West brought this to my attention earlier today, and though I am an evangelical myself I believe this is a deeply disturbing development.

I’ve just ranted my full frustration about this to my dear wife so I won’t repeat all that here. But while it is crucial to formulate our doctrine of Scripture so that it encourages respect for the texts and expectancy that God speaks through them, lets not pretend the texts are something they are not (and this business about perfect original manuscripts is a self defeating position, as I discussed here).

This is a step back, guys, and will only exclude those who are committed to church, Scripture and the gospel, those who are a vital, God fearing, creative and life-giving part of your own tradition. In truth this breaks my heart and is, in my opinion, a sign of immaturity.

Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses - Part 4

Click here for the series outline.

Chapter 2. Papias on the Eyewitnesses

An earlier (and less well presented) version of Bauckham’s argument in the second chapter can be found in his article in the inaugural Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus (for which I translated an excellent article written by Rainer Riesner: Back to the historical Jesus through Paul and his school, 1. 2003, 2. - page 171-199). The chaps at Apollos.ws have uploaded the whole article here, and the relevant pages are pp. 31-44.

Papias was a third-generation Christian, ‘and therefore to a generation that had been in touch with the first Christian generation’, who, in his last years, lived in Hierapolis. The passage Bauckham analyses is from the prologue to his major work, Exposition of the Logia of the Lord, as recorded in Eusebius (of Caesarea), Hist. Eccl. 3.39.3-4. Bauckham’s translation can be found on page 31 of the above linked to article, and it will be important to keep that before you as I summarise his case.

His argument involves analysis of:

1) The categories of people mentioned in the material (suggesting four groups, building on the works of Schoedel)
2) The date about which the material testifies (arguing that it speaks about a period around the 80s – even if it were written much later). This dating ahs the consequence that ‘what Papias says in this passage can be placed alongside Luke's reference to the eyewitnesses (Luke 1:2) as evidence for the way the relationship of the eyewitnesses to Gospel traditions was understood at the time when the Gospels were being written’.

Of course, the immediate upshot of this line if reasoning is clear: ‘The oral traditions had not evolved away from them but continued to be attached to them, so that people like Papias wanted to hear specifically what any one of them said’.

3) The authenticity of the material. Not only does the geographical location of Papias (Hierapolis) suit very comfortably a collection of Jesus traditions, but the tone of the passage is quite modest, and is therefore unlikely a mere apologetic exaggeration.
4) The phrase, ‘a living and surviving voice’. This is not evidence of a prejudice against written materials in preference of oral tradition as many have supposed, but rather is alluding to a common proverb which meant to indicate that ‘what is preferable to writing is not a lengthy chain of oral tradition, but direct personal experience of a teacher’ - a typical piece of wisdom reflected in Greco-Roman historians such as Polybius.

To appreciate Bauckham’s argument, that Papias prefers not oral tradition to books, ‘but access, while they are still alive, to those who were direct participants in the historical events - in this case “disciples of the Lord”’ it is necessary to understand that his reading of Papias is set against a historiographical background. While ‘a living and surviving voice’ points in this direction, Bauckham wants to argue that ‘Papias deliberately uses the terminology of historiographical practice’. Thus he also notes the significance of Papias’ use of the verb anakrinein, a word appearing in Lucian of Samosata’s historiographical work and prominently in that of Polybius. Furthermore, the first sentence of the Prologue, accepting Kürzinger’s revised translation, indicates that: ‘Papias is describing the stages of producing an historical work precisely as Lucian, in his book on how to write history, describes them’.

However, it is to be noticed that Papias adds his own words to this proverbial historiographical wisdom alluded to in ‘a living and surviving voice’. Given the time concerning which Papias reminisces, and that the ‘voice’ refers to the very real voices of eyewitnesses associated with specific groups of people, the words ‘and surviving’ can be better appreciated. What Papias ‘seeks are the reminiscences of those who knew Jesus and in which the passage of time has now been such that few of those people are still alive’. Not only is this how Jerome understood Papias, but this would then make sense of the immediate context of the Prologue in which Papias mentions that which ‘Aristion and the elder John ... were saying (legousin)’. The ‘surviving voices’ here are thus like those mentioned in 1 Cor 15:6 (and cf. Joh 21:22, 23).

Can anything good come out of Wales?

Our friend, the Exiled Preacher from Wales (though we should be gracious and not blame him for being Welsh; it’s not his fault), has written a helpful summary/review of Vanhoozer’s newish work, The Drama of Doctrine. I read the first 100-200 pages or so of the volume and was distracted, so I’m grateful that I can read Guy’s summary to catch up with where I left off.

Thus far I can confirm that it is an exceptional, excellent book and makes a buddle load of sense. The only other serious competitor to Vanhoozer’s approach is, I think, that of the cultural-linguistic model. But Vanhoozer rightly asks: if doctrine is nothing other than the grammar of the practices of the Christian community, then how can doctrine critically assess its own proclamation?

As Barth said:

‘Dogmatics is the science in which the Church, in accordance with the state of its knowledge at different times, takes account of the content of its proclamation critically, that is, by the standard of Holy Scripture and under the guidance of its confession’ (Dogmatics in Outline, p. 9)

I would have added something more explicit about the guidance of the Holy Spirit, but the point is in the emphasis.

Here are the Exiled Preacher’s recommended posts who, being Welsh, comes from the small village of Gwywingethleeshlmosziopscheuwlesqusqe.

Dialogue and Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses

I don’t usually like to spend much time on this sort of thing, but I’ll do so this once.

It can be frustrating to read comments on Bauckham’s new book that come across so confident in criticism even though they arguably miss the point entirely. And though I would love to go through each and every argument raised on this blog, point by point, admitting a good point when it is made, and contesting those that are unfair, I just don’t have the time. But this once I wanted to try my best, with what time I have to hand, to make a few simply points in light of comments one reader has been making on my Bauckham posts, and which the same has been posting across blogdom. However, this is a plea, first and foremost, for proper listening and dialogue, especially as I know that I sometimes struggle to give some an honest hearing.

I value the fact that one reader, Steven Carr, has such a different perspective on Bauckham than most others who visit my blog. To have (and listen to) different opinions can be refreshing and we should be able to learn from each other. This is the great benefit of blogging, I think.

However, sometimes opinions can be so ingrained and negative that discussion doesn’t proceed, and I hope this post will facilitate future discussion. And I mean discussion!

In this post thread I suggested to Steven that the ‘tone’ of his pronouncements were hardly encouraging dialogue. He then quickly responded (again at the bottom of that thread) – he perhaps has more time on his hands than me! – in such a way that invited response about more than the mere content of his propositions. My comments on his new points are in colour in italics below.

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(For his whole comment, cf. here)

“I was merely stating facts”

Oh come on, Steven! You can surely do better than that! But then if you think metaphysics is about ‘how many angels can dance on the head of a pin’ (to quote one of your earlier comments on my blog), then perhaps you truly think this counts as ‘fact’! ;-)

“People who praise McGrath's books about atheism don't use any of the arguments in them. Why not? If they are so good?” (bold emphasis mine)

To use the terminology of logicians, this sentence involves a non sequitur. I know plenty who have found his argumemnts hepful, and thus use them.

“And Bauckham *will* come up with zero evidence that for example, Matthew had another name of Levi.”

You’re sure about that are you?

Really sure?

Before I call your bluff, I think I am noticing a trend in your comments again that could be unhelpful. You cannot enter into dialogue with someone, and their arguments, unless you can respect the other. It can be a difficult thing, but it is necessary if we are to learn from each other.

Just to make the point as to how completely off track one can go, and as you go, when one doesn’t truly dialogue with another opinion, let me quote Bauckham on whether Matthew is the same person as Levi:

‘I have argued that the identification of Thaddaeus and Judas the son of James as the same man is a very plausible harmonization, in the light of plentiful onomastic evidence. But the identification of Matthew with Levi the son of Alphaeus - a traditional case of harmonizing the Gospels, in view of the parallel passages Matthew 9:9 (about Matthew) and Mark 2:24 [sic. This is a typo. He means Mark 2:14] (about Levi the son of Alphaeus) - must, on the same grounds of the onomastic evidence available to us, be judged implausible’ (from Chapter 5)

So, you are right that Bauckham produces no evidence that Matthew is the same as Levi! Why? Because he doesn’t argue that Matthew is the same person as Levi!! By the way, Bauckham is the leading NT scholar in the field of onomastics, so you should show some respect when it comes to NT names...

By the way, what you need to do now to prove you can dialogue is to admit that you got it totally wrong, and that you had this wide of the mark because, I think, you are not trying to truly dialogue. You are reacting like a Fundie, and I’m sure that is not what you really want.

“As for not being interested in learned debate, have you read Bauckham’s pdf at http://www.apollos.ws/nt-historical-reliability/BauckhamRichardJHRG1.pdf
I simply could not believe how bad it was, how totally lacking it is in any idea of producing a testable hypothesis and testing it against actual data, or exploring the explanatory power of one hypothesis against another.
Instead Bauckham just pulls stuff out of thin air, such as claiming that Bartimaeus died in between Mark writing and Luke writing.”

Yes I have read it. The only point of weight here is that concerning the death of Bartimaeus (the rest is silly and totally unfair rhetoric for which I respond in this sentence accordingly). You are getting muddled between what Bauckham considers corroborative evidence, and the scholarly attempt to understand all the evidence in light of a particular scheme – something we all must do. In other words, this argument is a consequence of the position the main strands of evidence lead. In chapter 3 of Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, Bauckham makes clear that his argument that the name Bartimaeus is dropped by Matthew and Luke is simply an inference from the wider argument. Hence he uses the word ‘presumably’. His argument at this point is entirely plausible actually. It is not about ‘pulling stuff out of thin air’, as you claim. You need to respect a scholar if you can truly engage with them, to listen first. ‘Learned debate’ is more than reading another, it is also, as a first step, respectfully listening, truly listening to another.

“Apart from making things up, Bauckham also selects his evidence to fit what he says.
Bauckham writes 'In no case does a character unnamed in Mark gain a name in Matthew or Luke'.
What about Annas and Caiaphas , I hear you cry?
Well, Bauckham says he is excluding chief priests.
Why? Why should chief priests not be relevant to Bauckham's hypothesis that people were named if they were well known to Christians at the time of writing.
Silence. There is NO methodology.
Unless Bauckham cooked the data by ignoring chief priests simply so he could claim 'In no case does a character unnamed in Mark gain a name in Matthew or Luke'”

This, again, is not about arbitrarily making evidence fit what he says, and if you could try to really dialogue with Bauckham’s arguments, rather than just throwing ‘what an idiot’ type blanks at him, then you might have noticed this. Bauckham spends a while justifying his methodological considerations I think in chapter 3. Yes, there is methodology; I must flatly contradict you. Bauckham is trying to understand why some names came to be left out or added. If they are public people then it is no surprise if they get added to the tradition, especially when Bauckham provides good reasons as to why Mark would not mention the name Caiaphas, and why the name was only later added (cf. chapter 8 and the issue of ‘protective anonymity’ building on the work of Theißen).

So, I think Bauckham's argument makes astonishing sense!

All the time, whether with Caiaphas or those less well-known, Bauckham's goal is to ask why names are added or deleted from the tradition. He provides his reasons for the exceptional addition of Caiaphas, and likewise for those, which are the majority, of deleted names. Why were these names dropped? That is the question he is addressing. And this is why his methodological considerations fairly treat Caiaphas elsewhere.

“Well, if you are going to ignore cases where that does happen, you can certainly claim there are no cases where that does happen.
Making stuff up and cooking the data.
Such is the state of NT scholarship.... ”

These stabs only hit the target if you ignore the question he is addressing, what he does in fact treat elsewhere, and his methodological considerations! I will sound patronising now, by, hey, what the heck. You need to learn to truly dialogue and truly listen to the opinion of another. Especially when Bauckham’s learning is, lets be honest, considerably greater than yours in these matters. As to the sate of NT scholarship, you have clearly no idea. All the more reason to listen, instead of firing off ‘what an idiot’ type of comments that display only your lack of insight.

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Though I find some of your comments frustratingly Fundamentalist, I want to make it clear that I appreciate many of your comments and the fact that you have a different opinions on matters, for this is reason to listen to you. But do yourself a favour and listen carefully to others before you attempt criticisms, otherwise they’ll be as hopeless as the ‘he will produce no evidence for Matthew being Levi’! I'm sure you'll respond to this and attempt to take the above apart. But I only have time for response to matters of substance, and no more time for correcting complete misunderstandings and misrepresentations. If you rustle up only the latter, don't consider my silence evidence that your points are meaningful. And though I personally like Bauckham as a man as well as a scholar, I have no ground to defend him for the sake of it - I didn't wite the book -, so I appreciate all points of substance I will honestly think them through.

By the way, I am still not sure how to pronounce that name :-)