DSDS surprise

I can’t flippin believe that! Francisca Urio, easily the best talent on Deutschland sucht den Superstar (the German Pop Idol) was voted out of the competition tonight!

*mutters something about theodicy*

Paul Duff on 2 Cor 3

I recently read an excellent article on 2 Cor 3 that I want to recommend to readers. As many know, this chapter in 2 Cor is perhaps the Mount Everest of exegetical challenges for Pauline scholars. What Paul B. Duff does, in his article ‘Glory in the ministry of death: gentile condemnation and letters of recommendation in 2 Cor. 3:6-18’ (Novum Testamentum, 46, 2004, 4, pp. 313-37) is to deny vv. 6-18 are a polemic against Judaism at all! Instead, the pitting of the old covenant against the new is part of an argument that maintains that the status of the gentiles before God has changed. The old covenant was a covenant of death only for those who didn’t follow the law, i.e. the gentiles (here he gathers evidence that the law was also meant for the Gentiles). This is why Paul can speak of its glory at the same time as referring to it as a ministry of death. In Paul’s ministry, the Spirit reaches the gentiles without the need for law, and thus without its condemning power. His reading is then justified in relation to the argumentation structure of vv. 7-11 and later vv. 12-18, the latter involving a rereading of ‘Israel’s hindered vision’. The veil refers to that which blinds people to the reality of the change of status gentiles enjoy in the new covenant. This reading is then tied nicely into the overall context of 2 Cor 2:14-7:4 showing that, according to his reading, 3:7-18 fits the wider context without problem, and is thus not an abstract aside on Israel, salvation history and the gentiles.

Do give this extremely thought-provoking paper a read!

Just a few quick thoughts in response before it gets too late: Does Duff’s case sit well together with the argument that Paul understands that the law brings death (and the curse) to all, not just gentile? Hence the universality of sin in Paul’s teaching. Duff claims his theory best explains the apparent paradox of Paul’s speaking of the glory of the new covenant at the same time as calling it a ministry of death. However, I wonder if Hafemann’s thesis (in his book Paul, Moses, and the History of Israel, which I reviewed here) has more to speak for it, in that the death refers to ‘the events surrounding the giving of the Law itself’ (334). One also wonders if Duffs argument, which he claims ‘has the added advantage of seeing Paul much more in sympathy with his own tradition’ (321 n. 30) can make sense of Paul heart’s desire and prayer for the Israelites to ‘be saved’ (Rom 10:1).

Any thoughts?

Quotes

‘[M]any systematic theologians . . . have become impatient with waiting for the mountains of historical footnotes to give birth to the mouse of theological insight’

- N. T. Wright

OK, it is going to get a bit silly now, but while on the subject of citations, during a recent exchange someone wrote this about good ol' me:

‘Chris Tilling: a pluralistic, relativistic butt muncher feasting on the postmodern swill of Derrida’

- Simon Hardwick

Clever, undoubtadly clever. But also a bit nasty really.

And untrue. Simon you git.

My chosen come back at the time was something like this:

‘Simon Hardwick: jumped up, post-propositionalist, ‘emergent’ loving pansy, critical realist d*ck weed with the philosophical subtlety of a randy walrus at the mating season’

But this left me feeling like I had somehow been out done, which is naturally not ideal.

Any witty insults that you'd recommend as belated response to this Simon chap? Would be appreciated.

Book reviews on Chrisendom

In the following months I will be posting considerably more book reviews (short than the Bauckham review! I.e. typically between 500 and 800 words) of some of the most exciting New Testament related works being published at the moment.

However, I was thinking of featuring in considerably more detail one or two of those sent to me for review, much as I have Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses – though perhaps not quite as thoroughly!

First off will be Gordon Fee’s fresh off of the press, Pauline Christology (my deepest thanks to the kind folk at Hendrickson for this!). Certainly in terms of my own thesis, this is probably the most important book on my ‘to read’ pile at the moment. Hendrickson have been so kind as to send me a number of great books for review that I hope you are going to really enjoy hearing about.

I am thinking of also featuring Francis Watson’s Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith and/or Westerholm’s Perspectives Old and New on Paul.

Do any of my readers have a preference as to which of the last two to feature? Or are there any other NT related books recently published that you would enjoy reading a series about here?

(A feature, by the way, will probably involve about 10-15 posts, while a review will be 1 post)

Deserving of a good slappin'

A guest post by Cardinal Spin

Kim Fabricius has written another ‘ten propositions’ for Ben Myers’ Faith and Theology, this time ‘on being a theologian’.

Naturally, were I to meet this Kim fellow I would kick the big Jesse out of him just to see what would happen (he is a pacifist). Apart from that, I’d want to ask what the flaming hell possessed him to write this post.

For example, under point 9 he writes that ‘all believers are theologians’. Fair enough. But then in the first paragraph he claims that ‘[t]heologians are like horse manure’. Putting them both together, it becomes blatantly obvious this chap thinks all Christians are nothing but horse manure! That’s right, your believing mum, Kim Fabricius wants to tell you, is nothing but a stinking pile of shit. He waxes lyrical that your beloved believing mum has the ontological worth of a cowpat, and is as attractive as the contents of an average u-bend.

Then there is the racist anti Nile pro Zionist ranting under point 3.

While he is sure that there ‘will be no theology in the eschaton’, I’m not so sure. I’m personally expecting to daily deliver my ‘Authoritative Opinions’ (I have opinions about almost everything) on all manner of subjects for the eternal enjoyment of the elect. So there will be theology in the eschaton.

Mine.

He also notes that ‘Karl Barth famously said that when he gets to heaven he will seek out Mozart before Calvin’ adding ‘Quite right’. Seeing as I’m probably going to hell for this post anyway after the last paragraph, I might as well let my hair down and make the most of it. So: Me, I’m heading straight for a privileged place at the right hand of Majesty (secured by a prayer of faith a while ago). I suspect Barth will be heading for me as well to be honest. Especially after he hears my ‘Authoritative Opinions’. But Kim continues: ‘Me – I’ll be heading for the choir of angels, to find Sandy Koufax, to see how he made the baseball sing’. What! Every sound minded person knows that baseball is just a pansy version of ‘rounders’ and so obviously was invented by a ‘spirit from underneath’. Any theologian worth his meat and two vegetables would know that (notice I don’t feel I have to capitulate in fear to feminist extremists every day by speaking of the theologian as ‘she’ all the time). Besides, after calling every Christian who ever lived a stinking pile of rotting shit I don’t think St. Peter will be unlocking the Pearly gates with too great a measure of enthusiams for Mr Kim Fabricius.

He finishes by claiming that ‘theologians do not know what they are talking about’.

Speak for yourself buttercup!

The resurrection

‘[The resurrection] is unique, but it is not just a series of events that break all the known laws of nature. It is something that reveals in an extraordinary way the true spiritual basis of all physical nature, and the ultimate spiritual goal towards which all laws of nature are directed. The resurrection of Jesus is not a bizarre divine interruption in a purely material universe. It is a disclosure of the ultimate nature of reality as spiritual, and of the final goal of the material universe as the perfected unity of all things in God’

Keith Ward, Christianity: Guide for the Perplexed (London: SPCK, 2007), 37

You think you've had a bad day?

The new Journal of Theological Interpretation

The Marketing Director of the Book Sales Division at Eisenbrauns e-mailed me a few days ago with a copy of the initial volume of the Journal of Theological Interpretation. The first volume has articles by Richard B. Hays (‘Can Narrative Criticism Recover the Unity of Scripture?’), Murray Rae (‘Texts in Context: Scripture and the Divine Economy’), Michael A. Rynkiewich (‘Mission, Hermeneutics, and the Local Church’), R.W.L. Moberly (‘Christ in All the Scriptures? The Challenge of Reading the Old Testament as Christian Scripture’), and a review article by Michael J. Gorman (‘“A Seamless Garment”: Approach to Biblical Interpretation?’).

Joel Green introduces the sort of questions the journal sets out to address as follows (p. 3):

• What is the status of the theological tradition, including the tradition of biblical interpretation, in theological interpretation today?
• What is the role of history and historical criticism in theological
  interpretation?
• What is the status and role of the OT in the two-testament canonical
  Scriptures?
• What is the place of exegesis in theological method?
• What is the nature of the “unity” of Scripture?
• What is the role of the canon in theological interpretation?
• Does theological interpretation extract theological claims or principles
  from the Bible?

This is honestly one of the most exciting new journals I have ever seen, engaging just the sort of questions with which many of us struggle daily. Actually, this is an area that fascinates me especially, all the more so as my Doktorvater, Max Turner, is editing (together with Joel Green) the Two Horizons Commentary Series. In the first volume you will find stimulating, highly relevant and deeply interesting material, and much more is promised for the future. It is difficult for me to welcome the concept behind this journal more enthusiastically.

Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses - Part 28

Following is the summary of the last chapter of Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. After that I have two posts planned, the first an attempt at a humble critique of aspects of the book (Part 29), the second a short podcast over viewing the book together with a few other reflections (Part 30).

Click here for the (continually updated) series outline

Chapter 18. The Jesus of Testimony (The Final Chapter!)

If, as has been argued, the Jesus of the Gospels is the Jesus of eyewitness testimony, then it is necessary to examine the category of testimony further, namely ‘its epistemological status, its role in historiography and its significance as a theological category’.[1] In a nutshell, Bauckham argues:

‘Testimony ... is both the historically appropriate category for understanding what kind of history the Gospels are and the theologically appropriate category for understanding what kind of access Christian readers of the Gospels thereby have to Jesus and his history. It is the category that enables us to surmount the dichotomy between the so-called historical Jesus and the so-called Christ of faith’.[2]

Drawing on the work of K. Vanhoozer and especially C.A.J. Coady, he notes how depended humans are on testimony in the run of daily life. Furthermore, Coady has shown, against the grain of modern individualistic tendencies, ‘that testimony is as basic a form of knowledge as perception, memory and inference’.[3] This means that it is necessary to ‘understand our epistemic situation in less exclusively individualistic terms, more in communal or inter-subjective terms’[4] which involves a fundamental attitude of trust. Testimony invites trust, but not blind uncritical trust. Rather, it is ‘important to appreciate the complex relation between trust and critical appraisal’.[5]

‘The situation is in principle no different than in the case of our individual perceptions, memories and inferences, which we have no choice but to trust fundamentally, while also being aware that they can mislead us and require critical evaluation in suspicious cases. It is only the excessive individualism of the modern western ideology that tempts us to the view that testimony should regularly and generally incur our suspicion, while our own perceptions, memories and inferences should not’.[6]

How does this relate to historical study? While ‘Graeco-Roman historians achieved results that we should not be too ready to suppose a historian equipped with modern historical methods could easily have surpassed’,[7] it is true that there are significant differences between ancient and modern ways of approaching historical study. Significantly, modern scholars now focus heavily on extracting evidence from the testimony of witnesses in spite of themselves, which is an important insight (cf. M. Bloch and especially R.G. Collingwood). ‘But’, Bauckham proceeds, ‘we should also note that nothing about modern historical method prohibits us from reading the explicit testimonies of the past for the sake of what they were intended to recount and reveal’[8] even if some deny that the ‘past voluntarily “gives” the historian anything’.[9] This is all the more true as this denial tends to lead to the unsustainable assertion that ‘whereas in everyday life we treat testimony as reliable unless or until we find reason to doubt it, in scientific history testimony is suspicious from the outset and can only be believed when it is independently verified’. But at this point ‘it ceases to be testimony’.[10] Testimony, despite the attitudes of much modern Gospel scholarship, invites to be trusted; comprehensive doubt is impossible.

Turning to Paul Ricoeur (and his major recent work, Memory, History, Forgetting) who makes ‘testimony as the record of memory indispensable for historiography’,[11] Bauckham seeks a ‘more adequate philosophical account of historiography than Collingwood’s’.[12] This leads to the conclusion: ‘In the end, testimony is all we have. For the historian, the testament, as a record of memory, is bedrock’.[13]

Examining in more detail the dialectic of trust and critical assessment of testimony, Bauckham argues that the evaluation is essentially an assessment of whether the testimony is trustworthy or not. In other words, ‘[w]hat is not possible is the independent verification or falsification of everything the testimony relates’.[14] While archaeological findings, for example, can ‘to a degree corroborate or discredit testimony ... [t]hey cannot replace testimony’.[15] Furthermore, ‘for the sake of maintaining the quest for the truth of history, we must allow the testimony to resist the limiting pressure of our own experiences and expectations’.[16]

This leads to an analysis of Holocaust testimonies, how this sheds light on Gospel testimony and the argument that ‘testimony can be checked and assessed in appropriate ways, but nevertheless has to be trusted. In the uniquely unique [a phrase adopted from Ricoeur] events we are considering, this is all the more true’.[17] Testimony can yield truth about the past that nothing else can. We cannot ‘suppose that we can extract individual facts from testimony and build our own reconstruction of events that is no longer dependent on witness’.[18]

The traditions in the Synoptic Gospels are, despite being close to how the eyewitnesses told them, actually told by others. However, the extra interpretive element this adds ‘does not come in between us and the realistic character of the story, as interpretation can. The authenticity of the eyewitness memory, if that is what it is, is not compromised or obscured by literary contrivance’.[19] Nevertheless, Bauckham argues that the distinction between ‘plain narratives and narratives that embody interpretation through literary devices such as intertextual allusions’ may help us to better understand the differences ‘between the narratives of the crucifixion and those of the resurrection’.[20]

‘For all the ingenuity of scholars ... [the resurrection] stories remain strangely sui generis and lacking theological interpretation. None of the standard Jewish formulae or images of resurrection occur. We seem to be shown the extraordinary novum, the otherness of resurrection, through the eyes of those whose ordinary reality it invaded’.[21]

Where does all of this lead us? ‘Reading the Gospels as eyewitness testimony’ Bauckham argues, ‘differs therefore from attempts at historical reconstruction behind the texts. It takes the Gospels seriously as they are; it acknowledges the uniqueness of what we can know only in this testimonial form ... This does not mean that historians must trust testimony uncritically, but rather that testimony is to be assessed as testimony’.[22] Especially in terms of some ‘uniquely unique’ events, testimony discloses something and ‘disclosure is what makes the category of testimony not only the appropriate one for the kind of history the Gospels are, but also the theologically appropriate one for understanding the Gospels’.[23]

‘In summary, if the interests of Christian faith and theology in the Jesus who really lived are to recognize the disclosure of God in this history of Jesus, then testimony is the theologically appropriate, indeed the theologically necessary way of access to the history of Jesus, just as testimony is also the historically appropriate, indeed the historically necessary way of access to this “uniquely unique” historical event. It is in the Jesus of testimony that history and theology meet’.[24]

[1]. Ibid., 472–73. [2]. Ibid., 473. [3]. Ibid., 475. [4]. Ibid., 477. [5]. Citing Coady (Bauckham, Eyewitnesses, 478). [6]. Bauckham, Eyewitnesses, 478–79. [7]. Ibid., 480. [8]. Ibid., 483. [9]. Ibid., 484. [10]. Ibid., 485. [11]. Ibid., 488. [12]. Ibid., 487. [13]. Ibid., 489. [14]. Ibid., 490. [15]. Ibid. [16]. Ibid., 492. [17]. Ibid., 502. [18]. Ibid. [19]. Ibid., 504. [20]. Ibid. [21]. Ibid., 505. [22]. Ibid., 506. [23]. Ibid., 507. [24]. Ibid., 508.

Quote for the Day

‘[M]uch evangelical eschatology, dominated as it is by dispensational premillennialism, fails the test of evangelicalism’s own passion that it should above everything else be all about Jesus Christ. Here, whatever judgment one makes about Barth’s Christology, his posture seems right: eschatology too must be about Jesus Christ’

(John Bolt in Karl Barth and Evangelical Theology: Convergences and Divergences [Carlisle: Paternoster, 2006], 216)

A couple of good purchases

I return to England tomorrow, and whilst here I must boast that I showed tremendous restraint in my book buying. I only bagged two from the LST bookshop (with one very near miss). Just two! Frigging miracle! (and Anja breathes a sigh of relief)

*Lucky Git Mode*

Admittedly I have numerous review books to get to work on for this blog, so many of the most exciting books I would have wanted to buy I already have.

*Mode Off*

The near miss, which I still intend to get soon, is Neil MacDonald’s new book, Metaphysics and the God of Israel: Systematic Theology of the Old and New Testaments (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2006). He seeks to write a systematic theology of God in light both the Old and New Testaments, in particular dialogue with such a variety of names as von Rad, Barth, Wright, Bauckham, Aristotle, Augustine etc. Mouth wateringly fascinating. But for another day. Jim West mentions an important link about this book here.

You may have heard of him before in relation to his monograph on Barth: Karl Barth and the Strange New World within the Bible: Barth, Wittgenstein, and the Metadilemmas of the Enlightenment 2nd edition (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2001).

Which leads me to my first buy: Karl Barth and Evangelical Theology: Convergences and Divergences (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2006). Being an evangelical enormously interested in all things Barth shaped, I snapped this up with less than a second thought. The book involves discussion on various theological themes by a variety of evangelical authors, themselves representing various evangelical perspectives. For example, John Bolt examines Barth’s eschatology in light of both academic evangelical eschatology but also its more popular face in writers such as Frank Peretti and the Left Behind series. A Pentecostal theologian examines Barth’s pneumatology, John Franke looks at Barth in terms of the ‘postmodern turn’, etc.

While he is certainly not to every evangelical’s taste, I try to read whatever Keith Ward writes. I find him to be one of the most engaging and creative Christian writers around, and he argues in a no nonsense manner which I most enjoy. His latest, Christianity: A Guide for the Perplexed (London: SPCK, 2007) was a definite and I’m already loving it.

Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses - Part 27

Click here for the (continually updated) series outline

Chapter 17. Polycrates and Irenaeus on John

Key clues to the identity of the author of the Gospel of John can be found also in the witness of Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus in the late second century. Important is his letter to Bishop Victor of Rome concerning the Quartodeciman controversy which, Bauckham argues, is good evidence that Polycrates refers to the author of John’s Gospel as a John other than the son of Zebedee. This is especially clear in Polycrates’ curious mention that John was ‘a priest, wearing the high-priestly frontlet (to petalon)’. It would appear to be, given the reference to the petalon, an unambiguous indication that Polycrates portrayed John as high priest in the Jerusalem Temple. After detailing the various views on this matter, Bauckham strongly argues that, based in Acts 4:6 (and possibly facilitated by John 18:15), the tradition ‘that John the Beloved Disciple was a high priest is neither metaphorical nor historical, but exegetical’.[1] Rather typical of Bauckham’s manner of argumentation, the punch line awaits a strongly formulated conclusion:

‘[W]hen the Ephesian church looked for its own John, the Beloved Disciple, in New Testament writings other than the Gospel of John, they did not identify him with John the son of Zebedee. The identification of him with the John of Acts 4:6 makes it impossible to identify him with John the son of Zebedee’.[2]

Bauckham’s developing argument maintains that ‘in the second-century Christian traditions of the province of Asia, and especially in Ephesus, the John who wrote the Gospel of John and was the disciple that Gospel calls the disciple Jesus loved was not identified with John the son of Zebedee’.[3] This conclusion is further strengthened through an examination of Irenaeus on John. Notably, Irenaeus’ references to John do not lend at all to the opinion that the son of Zebedee is to be understood. Even though he speaks of John as an apostle, Irenaeus could use the term flexibly to include far more than just the Twelve, even to the extent of calling John the Baptist an apostle. ‘There is therefore no reason to think that either Irenaeus’s Asiatic sources or Irenaeus himself thought the author of the Gospel of John to be one of the Twelve’.[4]

But there is clear evidence in ‘two Christian works of the second century that clearly identify the John who wrote the Gospel with John the son of Zebedee’,[5] namely the Acts of John and the Epistle of the Apostles. Given recent research as to the date and place of composition of these works, Bauckham admits: ‘I am no longer confident of my earlier argument that [these works] indicate that the identification of the author of the Gospel of John with John the son of Zebedee probably originated in Egypt in the second half of the second century’.[6] Rather, the emerging definition of ‘canon’ in contrast with the Gnostic Gospels meant that ‘apostle’ came to indicate ‘reliable authority, authorized by Christ himself and generally recognized in the churches’.[7] The local Ephesian tradition identifying the author of John’s Gospel with a John other than the son of Zebedee was later lost sight of, and once John the Elder became regularly termed an ‘apostle’, he ‘very easily became indistinguishable from John the son of Zebedee’.[8]

[1]. Ibid., 451. [2]. Ibid., 452, italics suppressed.
[3]. Ibid., 452. [4]. Ibid., 462.
[5]. Ibid., 463. [6]. Ibid., 465.
[7]. Ibid., 467. [8]. Ibid., 468.

Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses - Part 26

This rather extensive summary of Bauckham's book is almost at an end - only two posts left (Pts 27 and 28). The whole series shall then be completed with two final posts (Pts 29 and 30) offering some critical reflections and general remarks. A 30 part review! I need to get a life!

Click here for the (continually updated) series outline

Chapter 16. Papias on John

In the previous two chapters Bauckham has argued that the Gospel of John portrays, and plausibly so, its author as the disciple it calls ‘the disciple Jesus loved’. This argument entails that the Beloved Disciple was not one of the Twelve, namely John the son of Zebedee. This is affirmed by the absence of a list of the Twelve disciples in the Gospel of John as is made in the Synoptics which, as was argued earlier, was indicative of an acknowledgment of indebtedness to the traditions of the Twelve. The names in John’s Gospel rather indicate that it draws on traditions ‘not simply from the Beloved Disciple himself, but from a particular circle of disciples of Jesus in which the Beloved Disciple moved’.[1] This conclusion is further strengthened with reference to the ‘protective anonymity’ scheme detailed earlier.

This does not mean that the question of the identity of the John ‘the Beloved’ should remain closed. Indeed, and drawing on Hengel’s work again, he asserts: ‘That the author of John’s Gospel was a John other than John the son of Zebedee is not at all unlikely’.[2] Furthermore, the evidence of what Papias said about the origin of the Gospels can be used to argue that the author of the Gospel of John is none other than ‘the disciple of Jesus whom Papias calls John the Elder’.[3] This leads to an extensive analysis of the Papias material once again that firmly associates the Gospel author with ‘John the Elder’, and not John the son of Zebedee. To strengthen this case Bauckham investigates the meaning of the John 21:23 ‘rumour’ that the Beloved Disciple would survive until the parousia, and the title ‘the elder’. To facilitate this examination, Bauckham also addresses the question as to why ‘no explicit comments by Papias on the Gospel of John have survived’[4] and argues that Eusebius had good reason to edit out much material original to Papias. However, and again breaking fresh ground, Bauckham argues in detail that some remnant of Papias’s comments on the Gospel of John can be found in the Muratorian Canon. His reasoning at this stage is a powerful blend of deep familiarity with early Christian literature and exact reasoning, which maintains that, for the author of the Muratorian Canon who drew to an extent from lost Papias material, John was a disciple but not a member of the Twelve.

‘We may conclude that what Papias said about the origin of John’s Gospel was that John the Elder, the disciple of the Lord, wrote it. He may have said that John was urged to do so by the elders, the leading Christian teachers in the province of Asia, who had known other disciples of Jesus. Papias also, very likely, said that these elders vouched for the truth of the Gospel (referring to John 21:24). He then quoted part of 1 John 1:1-4 in order to show that its author, John the Elder, was both himself an eyewitness of the events of the Gospel history and himself wrote them in his Gospel. Therefore he alone, among the Gospel writers Papias discussed, wrote the logia of the Lord in order’.[5]

The chapter ends with an appendix making several significant qualifications to the arguments of Charles Hill that Papias’ ‘views on John’s Gospel ... are preserved by Eusebius in Hist. Eccl. 3.24.5-13’[6] as Hill’s thesis would negate much of Bauckham’s work in isolating dependence on Papias in the Muratorian Canon.

[1]. Ibid., 414.
[2]. Ibid., 416.
[3]. Ibid.
[4]. Ibid., 422.
[5]. Ibid., 433.
[6]. Ibid.

(Picture is of Eusebius)

Conferences

It’s been a busy few days. Friday and Saturday involved participation in a German Evangelical theological conference (the Arbeitskreis fuer evangelikale Theologie - AfeT). Among other things I met Phil, an Englishman and reader of Chrisendom, whose humour appears to be as inappropriate as mine. Which equals great fun!

This week I’m in England for the London School of Theology NT conference (which also means that I’m unhappily logging on with a dial up. All 56k dial ups will certainly be ‘Left Behind’ when the days of Tribulation finally come. By faith I have already ordered an especially toasty corner of Hell to be dedicated to them and their inventors)

In London I shall be presenting a paper on 2 Cor 5:21 and leading a discussion on Richard Bauckham’s book, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses which I’m really looking forward to.

Once again you may want to pray with me:

‘Oh Lord. Smite Chris’ critics with delayed trains, soggy lettuce for lunch, lost socks, tea that’s too milky, ugly nose pimples and other such inconveniences. And we invoke copious blessings on all who pretend he has everything right. May the fruit of their loins inherit the land. And help Chris to also succeed in feigning that he knows more than he does, and to pull the wool over their eyes as to the state of his knowledge of NT Greek etc. Amen’. (from the CTRVHM liturgical calander prayers)

A new blog

One of my favourite new blogs is that of Josh McManaway, namely: A New Testament Student. I asked him to introduce himself and his blog

“In order to understand my blog, I suppose a little bit about me is in order. I’m 22 and in my 3rd year of study at Southeastern College at Wake Forest. I’m double-majoring in Biblical Studies and History of Ideas, which is essentially a “Great Books” program. I’m planning on pursuing a Ph.D in New Testament and eventually teaching at a university. I’m particularly interested in: inerrancy, textual criticism, history of doctrines, ancient Greek philosophy/literature, early Christian literature, and Jesus within His Jewish context.

I began reading blogs by guys like David Alan Black, Mark Goodacre, and of course, Chris Tilling [ed. comment by CT: 'a wise, agreable statement. Especially the "of course"']. However, I noticed there aren’t any academic (and I use this term loosely for my own blog) blogs by people who are pursuing an undergraduate degree. So, I started my blog in hopes that there’s an interest in reading what someone who’s just starting out is going through. Also, I consider myself to be extremely ecumenical in my thinking, so I hope to use this blog to further meaningful discussion between those who have varying ideologies. It probably also benefits my relationship with my girlfriend as I now have a whole new set of people upon whom I can unload my geekiness.”

Having spent a while chatting with Josh via Instant Messenger I can tell you that he has a sharp mind. Be sure to give his blog a visit!

Guest Post by Richard Bauckham - Ossuaries and Prosopography

Ossuaries and Prosopography

Richard Bauckham

One benefit of the debate over the alleged Jesus family tomb may be that it has got people interested in ossuaries and onomastics (the study of names) who had never thought about them before. The article by Christopher Rollston on the SBL Forum (‘Prosopography and the Talpiyot Yeshua Family Tomb: Pensees of a Palaeographer’) is particularly helpful in relating the debate to the wider issue of identifying people named in epigraphic sources (inscriptions on ossuaries and the like) with people known from the literary sources. He rightly stresses that scholars have become more cautious about this than some used to be.

It occurs to me it could be useful to look generally at all those instances in which names on ossuaries or tombs of the late Second Temple period have been identified with reasonable plausibility as individuals known from the literary sources (Josephus, rabbinic literature, New Testament). Some of these identifications have been all but universally accepted; others are still debated. In my judgment the list below is of the ones for which there is a good case. I have given references (pages in E or H) to useful discussions in these books: Craig E Evans, Jesus and the Ossuaries (Baylor University Press, 2003); Rachel Hachlili, Jewish Funerary Customs, Practices and Rites in the Second Temple Period (Brill, 2005). The latter, by the way, is a very informative work that I have not seen referred to in this debate; it has much more about tombs, ossuaries and inscriptions than the title might suggest (but frustratingly lacks proper indices).

1. Theophilus the high priest, named on the ossuary of his granddaughter Yehohanah (E 108-9; H 173-4).
2. Nicanor of Alexandria (E 91-94; H 172-3, 286).
3. Queen Helene of Adiabene (called Sadah/Sadan on her tomb) (H 168-9).
4. Simon son of Boethus and Martha daughter of Boethus (members of the high priestly family of Boethus) (E 111; H 263-4; Ilan 269-70).
5. Joseph son of Caiaphas (E 104-8; H 264-8).
6. Alexander son of Simon of Cyrene (E 94-96; H 279-82, 300).
7. Ariston of Apamea (H 275-79, 300).

There may be other plausible cases I have missed.

It is notable that all except perhaps (6) are either members of the high priestly families or other seriously wealthy people. This reflects the bias of our sources (Josephus and rabbinic traditions) but also the use of ossuaries.

In every case there is something more than a very common name (or even combination of very common names) to make the identification plausible. In this respect they are all very different from the case of the alleged Jesus family tomb.

I think the case for (6) is probably ripe for a re-examination in the light of what we now know about the frequency of these names not only among Jews in Palestine but also among Jews in Cyrenaica.

Tomorrow

I’m delighted to announce another guest post by Prof. Richard Bauckham entitled Ossuaries and Prosopography. I'll post it tomorrow. Be sure to give it a read.

Rudolf Bultmann - a poem

Ben Myers of Faith and Theology has already made an amateur attempt at writing poetry about Rudolf Bultmann. But what is clearly needed is a bit more class. Admittedly some of the poetry thus far on Chrisendom hasn’t necessarily been altogether too inspiring (I can’t help it if I find poetry a bit poncie). But such is the pained genius of a literary artist such as myself. Some days you’re hot, others days you’re not. Which leads me to my poem:

Rudolf Bultmann

Though some conservatives may without a thought Bultmann dismiss,
That’s surely gotta be taking the piss.

They focus on one matter so exclusively, that the whole project is misread,
As so Dr Jim West is not alone in wanting such folk dead.

They think Bultmann is self evidently a theological road accident,
And this when they haven’t a clue what on earth he really meant.

But some may say that Bultmann’s critics had a point,
That some of his theology was truly a little out of joint

But to claim this one must understand,
His thinking was far from merely liberal, shallow and bland

You see, in an age of electricity and light switches,
Those stories of angels and demons left him in stitches,

And so he pursued a course of demythologising,
But his results were for some unpleasantly surprising,

None can doubt the sheer brilliance of theological and exegetical vision,
Even if some may be forgiven for detecting and unhealthy fission,

As plotted into a theological Lutheranism,
His historians ‘works of the law’ could give today’s historiographicians a spasism

And so was this giant from Marburg City,
Whose theological results were sometimes astonishingly pretty.

Even if some of his ideas have been shown to be off track,
He still set the agenda; he was certainly no slack

But when all is said and done of course,
He could have done with a bit of Tom Wright to lead him away from the dark side of the force.

Chris Tilling, March 2007

Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses - Part 25

Click here for the (continually updated) series outline

I’ve divided my notes on this fascinating chapter into two parts.

Chapter 15. The Witness of the Beloved Disciple (part 2)

While evidence in the Gospel presupposes that the Beloved Disciple experienced a lengthy time of relationship with Jesus, it is not necessary to maintain that he was ‘personally present at all the events he narrates, since it is also clear from the Gospel that he belonged to the circle of disciples of Jesus and would have had direct and easy access to the eyewitness testimony of those who had been present at events he himself did not witness’.[1] Indeed, the Gospel doesn’t have a list of the Twelve (which Bauckham has argued in earlier chapters were made to ‘cite their authority as the official sources and guarantors of the main body of Gospel traditions these Gospels contain’[2]) as the Beloved Disciple was likely not one of the Twelve. His Gospel draws both on his own direct autopsy of Jesus as well as that of other individual disciples and so ought not to list the Twelve.

In John 1:14 it states that ‘we have seen his glory’. While this can be cited to suggest that already in the Prologue the Gospel is claimed to be based on eyewitness testimony, Lincoln notes that ‘in the discourse of the Fourth Gospel, seeing and testifying are the equivalent of believing and confessing’.[3] Ergo, the seeing of the eyewitnesses is not literal but rather interpretive. Bauckham, while maintaining a mixture of historiographical and theological notions of ‘witness’ in the Gospel, strongly contests Lincoln’s conclusion by pointing to the temporal and historical nature of the seeing in the Gospel, and argues that:

‘It is the testimony of those who did see and believed that enables those who have not seen also to believe, and it is the Gospel that mediates the testimony of those who have seen to those who have not, so that the latter may also believe’.[4]

But why is the Beloved Disciple’s role as principal witness and author not revealed until the end of the Gospel? Because the Beloved Disciple was not a well-known disciple, he had to be careful how he advanced his own claim to be qualified to write a Gospel of Jesus as an eyewitness. The postponement of is thus due to a ‘combination of modesty and temerity’.[5]
However, can we really believe the Beloved Disciple wrote the Gospel? Isn’t the claim simply pseudepigraphal?

‘The question is by no means easy to answer. All of our arguments so far go to show that the Gospel portrays the Beloved Disciple as its principal witness and author, making a historiographical claim about his eyewitness evidence as well as a theological one about his perceptive understanding’.[6]

However, one strong argument can be said in favour of the authenticity of the Gospel’s claim to have been written by the Beloved Disciple: ‘why should a pseudepigraphal author in search of a suitable pseudonym choose such a character? Why not write, as the authors of other pseudepigraphal Gospels did, in the name of a well-known disciple - Philip or Andrew or Thomas? Why make the task of establishing the credibility of this Gospel narrative so hard for himself/herself?’.[7]

The high degree of interpretation in the Fourth Gospel’s presentation of the story of Jesus actually, as was seen earlier in relation to Papias on the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, qualifies the Gospel as a more serious work of history in the eyes of Graeco-Roman historians. Far from the highly interpretive element suggesting distance from eyewitness sources, ‘[t]he author’s eyewitness status’, claims Bauckham, ‘authorizes the interpretation’![8]

This mixture of ‘empirical sight’ and ‘spiritual perception’ in the Gospel’s presentation is not something to be feared. ‘If this history was in fact the disclosure of God, then to have the report of some uncommitted observer would not take us nearer to the historical truth but further from it’. The Gospel’s interpretive nature is thus ‘wholly appropriate to the historical uniqueness of the subject matter’. This Gospel surely presents a perspective outside the circles from which the synoptic traditions derive. It is idiosyncratic. However, ‘[a]s with all testimony, even that of the law court, there is a point beyond which corroboration cannot go, and only the witness can vouch for the truth of his own witness’.[9]

[1]. Ibid., 402. [2]. Ibid., 403.
[3]. Ibid., 404. [4]. Ibid., 405.
[5]. Ibid., 408. [6]. Ibid.
[7]. Ibid., 409. [8]. Ibid., 411. [9]. Ibid.

Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses - Part 24

Click here for the (continually updated) series outline

I’ve divided my notes on this fascinating chapter into two parts.

Chapter 15. The Witness of the Beloved Disciple (part 1)

In the previous chapter it was argued that the Beloved Disciple is portrayed as ‘the primary witness’ and author of the Gospel. But what does ‘witness’ mean? While the argument of the book thus far would strongly imply that we should understand the Beloved Disciple’s ‘witness’ in an historiographic sense, it needs to be noted that the marureō word group used in the Gospel for ‘witness’ derives not from historiographical contexts, but rather those legal. A.T. Lincoln has argued that the Isaianic motif of a cosmic trail ‘forms a broad metaphorical framework’ for this Gospel. ‘In that framework witness is a legal metaphor and the Beloved Disciple’s witness cannot be equated with “literal” eyewitness’. The ‘Beloved Disciple’s testimony’ for Lincoln, is thus ‘a literary device in the service of the theological agenda of witness, not a serious claim to historiographical status’.[1] However, and while agreeing with much in Lincoln’s case, Bauckham nonetheless insists that the Beloved Disciple can only interpret the various witnesses in the trial metaphor throughout the Gospel, ‘if at the same time it does in some sense report them’.[2] The Gospel understanding of witness coincides with and should not be played against ‘historiographic autopsy’. Indeed, in comparing this suggestion with material in Luke-Acts, Bauckham strengthens his argument that the Fourth Gospel intentionally used both a historiographic and metaphorical-theological understandings of ‘witness’. Furthermore, the posited inclusio of eyewitness testimony (cf. chapter 6) indicates a historiographical element. Bauckham extends his earlier analysis to suggest a ‘quite elaborate use of the inclusio of eyewitness testimony’ in John.[3] Not only that, but the role the Beloved Disciple plays in the narrative of the Gospel coheres well with the hypothesis that he is the primary witness and author.

To make this case, Bauckham strongly argues against false notions associated with the portrayal, in John, of the Beloved Disciple as the ‘ideal disciple’ in contrast with Peter. While there is a sense in which the Beloved Disciple is superior to Peter, they represent two types of discipleship: active service (Peter) and perceptive witness (Beloved Disciple). There are four elements that lend to an understanding of the Beloved Disciple as ‘perceptive witness’: his intimacy with Jesus, his presence at key points in the story of Jesus, the observational detail involved in the narrative when the Beloved Disciple appears (cf. the chapter for important qualifications), and the spiritual insight of his witness. Together they ‘qualify him to be the ideal witness to Jesus, his story, and its meaning’.[4] Suggestively, in arguing that these two portrayals of Peter and the Beloved Disciple in the Gospel are made to denote their two different ways of following Jesus, he notes that this is done so precisely as it would relate to their role in the church after the resurrection. In other words, the Beloved Disciple is framed as the ideal author of the Gospel.

[1]. Ibid., 386.
[2]. Ibid., 388.
[3]. Ibid., 393.
[4]. Ibid., 399.