Robert Kysar - John, the Maverick Gospel

In a recent post, I mentioned Robert Kysar's book John, The Maverick Gospel.  First published in 1976, it is now in an expanded third edition in paperback format.  Let me be direct.  Buy it.

This is one of the best introductions to the Gospel of John that I know.  But it is not the typical introduction that spends all its time on authorship, date, audience, etc.  Rather, Kysar wants to introduce us to the thought world and symbolism of this  literary/theological work in a non-technical fashion.  His hope is to accomplish three objectives:

1. to stress the uniqueness of the Fourth Gospel among the literature of the early Christian movement
2. to set the thought and symbolism in the broader context of the universal religious quest of humanity
3. to keep the reader engaged in the text of the gospel itself

It is the latter objective that initially attracted me to this book.  It is structured almost as a self-study course with various reading assignments, called Reader's Preparation, scattered frequently throughout the text.  As you might guess, this is not a linear approach to the gospel, but topical and conceptual.  The four major chapters of the book are:

Chapter 1:  The Father's Son - Johannine Christology
Chapter 2:  Two Different Worlds - Johannine Dualism
Chapter 3:  Seeing Is Believing - Johannine concepts of Faith
Chapter 4:  Eternity Is Now - Johannine Eschatology

Each time I begin a new study of the John's Gospel, the first book to come off the shelf is John, The Maverick Gospel.  That's why I've got at my desk right now.  It clearly has the revJohn Seal of Approval.

Dale Allison - Constructing Jesus

 Mark November 10 on your calendar.  That's the publication date of Dale Allison's highly anticipated new book on Jesus entitled Construction Jesus: Memory, Imagination, and History.  I'm really looking forward to the book's release.  Check out the information below.  I think you will be excited too.

Below is the Baker Academic's biography of Dale, publicity blurb, and  table of content.  For more at the Baker site, go here.  And for the Amazon listing, go here.
 
Dale C. Allison Jr. (PhD, Duke University) is the Errett M. Grable Professor of New Testament Exegesis and Early Christianity at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. His recent books include Resurrecting Jesus, Studies in Matthew, and The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus. He is also the author (with W. D. Davies) of the three-volume work on Matthew in the International Critical Commentary series.

Summary
What did Jesus think of himself? How did he face death? What were his expectations of the future? And can we answer questions like these on the basis of the Gospels? In Constructing Jesus, internationally renowned Jesus scholar Dale Allison addresses such perennially fascinating questions about Jesus.
Presenting the fruit of several decades of research, Allison contends that the standard criteria most scholars have employed and continue to employ for constructing the historical Jesus are of little value. His pioneering alternative applies recent findings from cognitive science about human memory to our reading of the Gospels in order to "construct Jesus" more soundly.
All scholars and students of New Testament and Jesus studies will want to interact with the data and conclusions of this significant work.

Contents

1. The General and the Particular: Memories of Jesus

2. More Than a Sage: The Eschatology of Jesus

     Excursus 1: The Kingdom of God and the World to Come

     Excursus 2: The Continuity between John the Baptist and Jesus

3. More Than a Prophet: The Christology of Jesus

4. More Than an Aphorist: The Discourses of Jesus

5. Death and Memory: The Passion of Jesus

6. Memory and Invention: How Much History?

Indexes

Will Campbell's Grandma Bettye

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Ethnotheological Hermeneutics - Model #2

The second of Kraft's models deals with interpreting scripture, what he calls ethnotheological hermeneutics. This model has four aspects to consider:

1. Human perception of God's truth may be adequate, though never absolute
2. Study of scripture must include awareness of the insights of contemporary anthropology and linguistics in addition to using the perspective of history and philology.
3. Attempting to understand supracultural meaning involves the necessity to discern differing levels of abstraction. Three levels are postulated: a) cultural specific level; 2) general principle level; 3) basic-ideal level.
4. The total process of biblical interpretation involves attention both to the original biblical cultural contexts and to the cultural context within which the interpreter lives.

Example focusing on aspect #3:

Basic Ideal Level:
Everything must be done in a proper and orderly way (1 Cor 14:40)

General Principle Level:
Christians should live according to the rules of the culture (as long as they don't conflict with Christian principles

Specific Cultural Form/Symbol Level:
a. Women should learn in silence in Greek culture (1 Tim. 2:11)
b. Women may speak up in mixed groups in the USA

How would you evaluate Kraft's models? Strengths. Weaknesses.

How might you use his models in teaching and communicating about the Bible?

Charles Kraft - Christianity in Culture

Let me recommend a book that was first published in 1979: Christianity in Culture: A Study in Dynamic Biblical Theologizing in Cross-Cultural Perspective by Charles F. Kraft. Kraft published the book from his missionary experiences and for use in in his classes in Fuller Theological Seminary's School of World Mission.

Kraft sees the aim of his book as helping us to communicate more effectively the Christian message in a multicultural world. His work grows out his frustration as a missionary because "much of the theology taught to us n our home churches, Bible schools, and Christian colleges, a and seminaries turn out to be extremely difficult to use in cross-cultural context in the form in which we learned it."

So Kraft's initial audience is cross-cultural witnesses for Christ, but he also sees as a second audience those whose primary interest is in theological methodology.

Kraft's work addresses such question as:

• What is the relationship between biblical content and the linguistic symbols in terms of which it is presented?
• How clearly can we see revealed truth?
• What is the core of Christian truth that we mus communicate to all peoples and what is peripheral?
• What is relative and what is absolute in Christianity?

In a subsequent post, we'll visit Kraft's two ethnotheological models and how they can be employed in faith communities.

Atlases for Touring Israel

Philip Long at his Reading Acts blog recommends for those considering a trip to Holy Land the best atlases for touring Israel. For Part 1, go here and for Part 2, here.

Mark Twain, Wales McCormick, and Alexander Campbell

Ron Powers, in Mark Twain: A Life, introduces us to Wales McCormick, a teenage chum of young Sam Clemens, who worked as typesetter along with Sam in the print shop of Joseph P. Ament in Hannibal, Missouri. Sam, writes Powers, was awed by Wales' "genial amorality."

As an adult, Sam, now known as Mark Twain, often told the story of what happened when Alexander Campbell, the famous preacher and a founder of the Disciples of Christ, preached in Hannibal. When Campbell's followers desired a copy of his sermon, he took his manuscript to Ament's shop and there encountered Wales McCormick.

In one version of the story, Twain insisted that when Campbell stopped by Ament's shop with the sermon, he overheard McCormick exclaim, Great God! The preacher took the the boy aside and admonished him that "Great God!" was blasphemy, and that "Great Scott!" would be one example of an acceptable substitute. McCormick apparently took this to heart; while correcting the proof sheet of the sermon, he dutifully changed Campbell's own pious use of "Great God" to "Great Scott." Taken with the spirit, he amended "Father, Son & Holy Ghost" to "Father, Son, & Caesar's Ghost," and then improved even that bit of euphemism - to "Father, Son & Co."

Wales's moment of divine reckoning approached when he removed the full name "Jesus Christ" from a line in the sermon to create more space, and substituted "J. C." For some reason, this infuriated Campbell as he read the proof sheet; he strode back to the print shop and commanded McCormick: "So long as you are alive, don't you ever diminish the Savior's name again. Put it all in." McCormick took this advice to heart: the revised line came out, Jesus H. Christ.

A Twain "tall tale" or truth?

Oh God, Oh God, Oh God

Hear Heather Godsey and Hillside Christian Church's Lara Blackwood Pickrel discuss their new best seller Oh God, Oh God, Oh God: Young Adults Speak Out About Sexuality and Christian Spirituality. The interview takes place on God Complex Radio and has a lead in with Rabbi Laura Winer.

New Books

Bill Tammeus has given us a sketch of new faith related books at Bill's Faith Matters' Weblog. Check them out here.

Among the Gentiles

Luke Timothy Johnson's latest book is entitled Among the Gentiles. In it, he argues that early Christianity followed many of the patterns of pagan religion. Johnson briefly discuss the book here.

Two of his remarks are important reminders for church folks:

• The danger of demonizing the religion of others (pagans, Judaism, etc.)
• How much we are like others (looking for/finding commonalities)

Baptism in the Early Church

Scott McKnight at Jesus Creed hopes to start a substantial Saturday book review. The initial post may interest members of the Stone-Campbell Movement. Reviewed by Marius Nel, the book by Everett Ferguson is Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries. Anyone researching the origins and practice of baptism will need to consult this major work. For those who don't know Ferguson's work, he is a highly respected teacher, church historian, and long-time member of the Church of Christ.

2009 New Testament Books

Ben Witherington gives us his Top 10 New Testament books for 2009. Any thoughts on his list?

Novels You Might Enjoy

Here are six novels that I really enjoyed this year, although all came out before 2009. I'm a little behind in my reading. In no particular order, the books are:

1. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold (heaven and healing)
2. The March - E. L. Doctorow (Sherman's march - get in step)
3. Winter's Bone- Daniel Woodrell (a 17 year-old holds a poverty stricken family together deep in the Ozarks; I think my cousins are in this)
   
4. The Yiddish Policemen's Union - Michael Chabon (an alternative history, murder mystery, word fest)
   
5. People of the Book - Geraldine Brooks (a mystery about a book - the Sarajevo Haggadah)
6. Gilead - Marilynne Robinson (an aging third generation preacher writes to his son about life and family and of course theology)
   

The Torah: A Women's Commentary

If you plan on doing Old Testament Studies this upcoming year, let me strongly recommend The Torah: A Women's Commentary edited by Dr. Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Rabbi Andrea L. Weiss. Here is the link to three comprehensive reviews of the volume at the Review of Biblical Literature. Three characteristics that make this volume unique are:

• It follows the liturgical division of Torah into 54 sections (parashah) for the public reading of Torah in they synagogue during the year (all of Torah is covered during the annual cycle of reading)
  
• It is written by scholars who are all Jewish and who are all women
• Contributors represent a variety of approaches (Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, as well as unaffiliated and secular)
  

There are five elements that make up the commentary of each Torah portion:

1. The Central Commentary - scholarly exegesis of the biblical text
2. Another View - a short essay that supplements or challenges the central commentary
3. Post-biblical Interpretation - rabbinical teachings on the text
4. Contemporary Reflection - a section by a rabbi or adult education expert on the meaning of the text for Jews today
5. Voices - creative responses to the Torah section (mainly poetry)

For more information, here is the Amazon listing.

Ben's Best for 2009

Ben Meyers at Faith and Theology gives us his take on the best theology books of 2009.

Illustrated Bible Commentary

Here is a new bible study resource that is on my wish list. The series is entitled the Zondervan Illustrated Bible Commentary: Old Testament. John Walton from Wheaton is the General Editor.
Perhaps this light-hearted marketing video will peek your interest:



For the website, click here.

Book Lists at Year End

Books are the perfect gift at Christmas time. Here are three sources of "best lists" that you may find helpful.

First, the people that inhabit Amazonia have given us a great list of their editors top 100 books from 2009.

Bill Tammeus On Faith Matters can always be counted on to provides an update on religious books. Here is a recent blog entry that has quiet a variety to pick from.

And finally, Scott McKnight at Jesus Creed gives us his list of theological books from an evangelical perspective.