Glimpses of a Strange Land: Studies in Old Testament Ethics
by Cyril S. Rodd
T & T Clark, Edinburgh, 2001. 402 pp. $49.95 (cloth). ISBN 0-567-08753-0.
Story as Torah: Reading the Old Testament Ethically
by Gordon J. Wenham
T & T Clark, Edinburgh, 2000. 180 pp. $44.95 (cloth). ISBN 0-567-08767-0.

Twenty-five years ago only a small handful of books were available that addressed the relationship between the Old Testament and ethics. There were only a few works that connected the prophets and the Decalogue to ethics. These new books by Rodd and Wenham are the latest evidence that the situation has changed dramatically. There has been a growing tide of interest in this area, as evidenced by the comprehensive bibliography in Rodd’s volume. Some efforts have focused on the ethics of ancient Israel, while others have been interested in the use of the Hebrew canon and its multiple witnesses for the ongoing ethical concerns of church and synagogue. These two books, appearing in the Old Testament Studies series edited by David J. Reimer, are very different in focus and method but represent new and lively conversations on the contribution and significance of the Old Testament for Christian, Jewish, or human ethics.

Rodd is deeply impressed with the differences between the world of ancient Israel and our own. He is also highly suspicious of any “overall scheme, model, paradigm, dominant theme, underlying principle or any other attempt to discover a unifying motif by means of which the ethics can be packaged” (p. 4). For this reason, he offers us “glimpses” of the landscape of Old Testament ethics, partial views similar to those through the slit windows ascending a medieval castle tower.

Rodd is a careful and observant reader of Old Testament texts. His chapters offer important and provocative perspectives on a wide range of subjects, such as treatments of purity and honor and the importance of these concepts in determining behavior in Israel. His point, well taken, is that actions are often taken to avoid impurity or shame and not simply out of rational understandings of morality. Old Testament ethics, thus, is always intertwined with concerns of purity and honor.

Subsequent chapters include discussions of specific actions (adultery, lending at interest), important texts (the Decalogue), legal issues (homicide and intention, sanctions), and sources of ethical appeal (imitation of God). Rodd then considers five ethical arenas of contemporary concern and assesses the Old Testament material related to these issues: the poor, war, animals, nature, and women. In all cases, Rodd stresses the vast differences between Israel’s understandings of these matters and our own. Though he concludes that most scholars have imposed modern assumptions, interests, and understandings on the Israelite texts (p. 300), Rodd strives to see Israel’s ethics, as much as possible, on its own terms.

Rodd is correct in noting that the differences between our world and Israel’s have been too easily ignored or set aside. The problem with his book comes only when he moves to discussions of ethics as such. His view of normative uses of texts for Christian ethics is limited to propositional rules and narrow views of biblical authority. The possibilities and the literature are much broader than he seems to realize. He shows no appreciation for the mediation of these texts, and therefore their value for ethics, through communities of faith and their ongoing interpretive conversations with texts regarded as scripture. In the end, Rodd’s view of the Old Testament’s value for ethics is little more than a visit to an interesting museum.

Gordon J. Wenham demonstrates the importance of narrative traditions for understanding the ethics of the Old Testament. The books of Genesis and Judges serve as arenas to “investigate the ethical norms and values embodied in the stories of the Old Testament” (p. 5). Drawing on a wide range of methodologies now available in biblical studies, he gives us a tour through these narrative books, pausing to offer perceptive comments and insights on the ethical dimensions of these texts. His focus is on the perspective of the storyteller rather than simply upon the actions of the characters in the story. He detects in the implied authors of Genesis and Judges an implied narrative ethic rooted in testimony to God’s attitudes and interactions.

Wenham is not only a thoughtful exegete but a well-versed reader of the literature of Christian ethics. His own words adequately sketch the range of categories he brings to bear:

While an obedience-to-the-law ethic is central to most books of the Old Testament, including the narrative works, it is not the only strand: the Bible is also interested in the character of individuals and the virtue or otherwise of their actions, in the communal dimension of behavior, and in the call to imitate God. I shall therefore first argue that obedience to the rules is not a sufficient definition of Old Testament ethics, but that much more is looked for from members of the covenant people than this. Then I shall sketch briefly the importance of virtue, community values, and the imitation of God for an understanding of the values of the biblical narrators (p. 79).

In a very helpful chapter “Ethical Ideals and Legal Requirements,” he follows through on this declared agenda.

Wenham argues that his approach in Genesis and Judges more closely resembles New Testament perspectives on ethics than has usually been recognized. He then emphasizes that the character of God is marked by tolerance and faithfulness in his reading of these narrative texts, and he concludes that such texts still have the capacity to encourage hope for modern readers. In this reviewer’s opinion, the recognition of the importance of testimony to God’s character alongside witness to God’s action is an important corrective to the way narrative traditions have usually been regarded, particularly in looking to these texts for ethical resources.

Both of these books are valuable additions to a growing scholarly conversation between Old Testament scholarship and ethics. They also reflect the wide range of approaches to this conversation. Both authors have read widely despite some curious omissions of works on biblical ethics by American authors.

Bruce C. Birch
Wesley Theological Seminary
Washington, D.C.

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What is New Testament Theology?
by Dan O. Via
Guides to Biblical Scholarship. New Testament Series. Augsburg Fortress, Minneapolis, 2002. 148 pp. $15.00. ISBN 0-8006-3263-X.

This volume begins by noting that in 1979 Hendrikus Boers published a volume in this same series under the same title. Much has been written in the intervening twenty-four years about the nature, task, and even possibility of New Testament theology. Students would be well served by a volume that provided a reliable and insightful roadmap of this scholarship. Within the first several pages, however, Via makes it clear that his volume does not seek to address this need. Instead,

[t]he primary issue to be pursued in this book . . . is not how to structure a New Testament theology but how to identify and articulate theological meanings found in the New Testament whether one is dealing with a small text, a large text, or the whole of the New Testament canon. How does one discipline the movement from the theological potential found in the New Testament to theological articulation structured in some way? (p. 4).

These two sentences give the impression that “theological meanings” lie within the language of the New Testament but are unintelligible or unbelievable to modern people. Thus, the New Testament theologian must separate these theological meanings from the language of the New Testament and translate them into a more familiar idiom. Given this sort of understanding of the nature of New Testament theology, it is not surprising that Rudolf Bultmann plays a significant role in Via’s account.

Via proceeds to address a set of questions regarding the nature and practice of New Testament theology and some variant answers to those questions. He asks whether New Testament theology is “extra-textual or textual?” Extra-textualists apparently argue that New Testament theology is concerned with something outside the text and use the New Testament to gain access to that something. The key argument here is that, contrary to what many think, Bultmann was not an extra-textualist. Relying on James Robinson’s interpretation, Via argues,

Bultmann tracked down a level of meaning beneath the conscious level of the text and interpreted that meaning in existential terms so that the new terminology actually brings the subject matter of the text to expression. Thus while Bultmann’s existential understanding is not on the surface of the text, it is nevertheless latent in the text rather than being an intrusion from outside (p. 27).
It is not clear to me that this sort of rough and ready distinction between textual and extra-textual can do such heavy lifting. More significantly, however, is that the argument used to get Bultmann off the hook of being extra-textual is precisely the sort of argument a Marxist, some feminists, and the “experiential-expressivists” (as George Lindbeck labels them) might employ. The presumption is that New Testament writers, whether consciously or not, were actually expressing something other, deeper, and more universal than what they ostensibly express in their words. There is a great deal to argue about here, and the volume would have been much improved by engaging that argument rather than partially addressing it and then covering other views too briefly, if not superficially.

Chapter four addresses scholars who argue that New Testament theology should be strictly a historical project. This chapter comes the closest to presenting students with a map of the scholarly landscape. Via rightly argues that to keep New Testament theology as a strictly historical discipline is to cut New Testament theology off from both the life of the church and other forms of constructive theology. If a strictly historical New Testament theology is to speak to the concerns of contemporary Christians, there must be some hermeneutical structure that enables this to happen (p. 43). Via neglects to mention, however, that scholars such as Wrede and his heirs have no interest in the contemporary theological relevance of the New Testament. They want New Testament theology to be a strictly historical report on the religion of the first Christians as a way of keeping theological concerns at bay.

Via is certainly correct to note that if New Testament theology is to be historical—in the very narrow and limited senses in which biblical scholars tend to be historical—then it must develop some ways for appropriating the New Testament in the present. This leads quite well into the central chapter of the book, which presents New Testament theology as both historical and hermeneutical. Bultmann is the hero here. Students will also find useful discussions of some critics and proponents of Bultmann’s views. They will not, however, learn that Bultmann is one among many who assume that biblical or theological language is unintelligible until its true subject matter can be distilled and translated on the basis of modern philosophies or cultural and social practices. This tradition of theology has both a long pedigree, perhaps going back to Valentinus, and numerous modern examples, ranging from Schleiermacher to Tillich to Rahner, including Bultmann. There are numerous critics of this approach to theology, but students will not learn of them here.
Via is aware that Bultmann’s notion of transcendence and his account of human existence are subject to numerous criticisms. In addition, he knows that historical criticism has faced probing criticism as well. He addresses these by highlighting briefly the work of Derrida and “death-of-God” theologians such as Thomas Altizer and Mark C. Taylor. He says nothing, however, about Derrida’s theological critics such as John Milbank and Catherine Pickstock. In addition, rather than engage specific criticisms of notions of transcendence and human existence, Via attempts to run around them by questioning whether postmodernism is really here.

As a comprehensive guide to biblical scholarship, I could not recommend this volume to students or pastors. As a brief argument in favor of an updated Bultmannian approach to New Testament theology, this book has much to offer students. To persuade, however, Via would need to spend much more time addressing the numerous criticisms, both philosophical and theological, that can be lodged against this approach.

Stephen Fowl
Loyola College in Maryland
Baltimore, Maryland

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The Biblical World
edited by John Barton
New York, Routledge, 2002. 1120 pp. (2 vol.). $225.00. ISBN 0-415-16105-3.

This richly illustrated introduction to the world of the Bible begins with chapters describing what the Bible is: Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, Apocrypha, and New Testament. Volume one also includes a section describing the types of literature to be found in this collection and a chronological layout of the events mentioned in the Bible, augmented by other sources and evidences. Volume two deals with institutions (including languages, warfare, arts, law, and religious practices), biblical personalities (a select few), and religious ideas. It ends with sections on biblical translations and interpretation today.

Two features stand out in this attractive presentation of the Bible: the authors deal with a much larger body of Jewish and Christian literature than usually receives attention, including the large collection of Jewish apocryphal and pseudepigraphic writings now available for study. They also give more attention than is customary to the visual and the literary arts of the biblical world. The tone and spirit of the chapters are irenic, and the writing is appropriate for the general audience to which the volume is addressed.
There is some unevenness in the inclusion of illustrations. Some chapters are marvelously illustrated with photographs—for example, chapter sixteen on the Cairo Geniza, chapter twenty-seven on the Hebrew and Aramaic languages, and chapter thirty on the arts—while others have few or none at all. Particularly disappointing is the absence of illustrations of Hebrew inscriptions and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The chapters dealing with literary genres (chs. 4–11) cover a very wide area. Featured is well-known material from ancient Near Eastern myths and legends that contribute to our understanding of comparable genres and themes in the Bible. The subsequent chapters on historiography, prophecy, wisdom, and apocalypticism deal with both the genre in question and the Israelite community’s many and varied uses of the genre. These chapters indicate detailed efforts to elucidate both the genre and the distinctive ways in which the genre is employed in the Hebrew Bible. The same is true of the treatments of gospel and letter in the New Testament.

The section titled “Documents” (chs. 12–19) contains fascinating material, in particular the chapter on the Cairo Geniza (ch. 16) and the two on early Jewish and Christian interpretation (chs. 18 and 19). These three chapters demonstrate the variety and the intensity of biblical interpretation among Jewish and Christian communities throughout the early centuries of the Common Era. The chapter on the Cairo Geniza enables readers to recognize how crucial the Bible was for Jewish merchants, professional people, and ordinary citizens in medieval Jewish life around the Mediterranean. The chapter on early Jewish biblical interpretation clarifies terms and demonstrates the interrelatedness of translation and interpretation.

Among the most striking chapters of the work are those dealing with Jewish and Christian personalities and religious thought. Here one can see the extraordinary value of biblical research carried on by scholars from different religious traditions who work in close relationship with one another. The essays on Moses, David, and Solomon are brief, competent presentations of the state of current scholarship. The chapters on Jesus and Paul are longer, more comprehensive, and marked by critical efforts to clarify and advance current perspectives.

Even more valuable are the final chapters of volume two. Chapter forty-five contains a splendid sketch of the changing understandings of death and the afterlife in the ancient Near Eastern world and in the biblical literature (including Jewish and Christian apocrypha and pseudepigrapha). Chapter forty-six on purity is equally comprehensive and clear, as well as usefully illustrated. The chapters on Jewish and Christian translations of the Bible (chs. 47 and 48) introduce many readers to this well-known subject. The closing chapter on modern approaches to biblical translation (ch. 49) valiantly attempts to lay out the extraordinary variety in contemporary methods of biblical study and interpretation. The result is a fair and judicious evaluation of approaches that claim attention today, with more attention paid to the New Testament than to the Hebrew Bible.

Of special value are the three indexes that complete volume two: biblical references, authors, and a comprehensive general index. The beautiful cover illustration, taken from the Bible of Charles the Bald, depicts the Ark of the Covenant surrounded by scenes from Israel’s travels in the wilderness. That scene presents one way of understanding and interpreting the Bible. This fine collection offers students of the Bible a rich variety of additional ways. A costly set produced on excellent paper and well bound, these volumes would make a splendid gift for seminarians, pastors, and teachers, as well as greatly enrich church libraries. All students of the Bible will enjoy turning to these volumes and reading through them at leisure. And surely no reader will fail to learn fresh things about the biblical world.

Walter Harrelson, Professor Emeritus
Vanderbilt Divinity School
Nashville, Tennessee

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