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Wondrous Depth: Preaching the Old Testament
by Ellen F. Davis
Westminster John Knox, Louisville, 2005. 162 pp. $19.95. ISBN 0-664-22859-3.
In this volume, Ellen Davis is trying to teach the church how never to be bored with scripture and preaching again. Reacting against the compartmentalization of exegesis and homiletics, Davis argues that “biblical interpretation and preaching are related precisely as arts” (p. xii). For Davis, the “arts” of interpreting scripture and preaching are traditional: the practitioner interprets the text out of a sense that he or she stands in a long line of interpreters and preachers, building on their work and expanding from their insights. Such interpreters practice what Davis calls “imaginative precision,” identifying “correspondences between ancient social contexts and contemporary ones . . . that freshen and deepen the meaning of a passage, even if we have read or heard it dozens of times before” (p. 68). As examples of how this works out in actual homiletics, Davis includes the texts of two great English sermons, a 1625 sermon by John Donne, and a 1604 sermon by Lancelot Andrewes. In addition, Davis includes four of her own sermons, each with a brief but enlightening commentary that connects the sermon with the argument of the book.
This book arrives at a moment when preachers are struggling with the nature and purpose of preaching (but when have they not so struggled?). The emergence of PowerPoint as a tool for proclamation tempts preachers to reduce the scripture, and particularly the Old Testament, to a set of propositional points or moral mandates. Davis would point us away from such shallow, utilitarian readings. Instead, she would restore an appreciation for the Old Testament as a complex literary creation, endlessly fascinating, endlessly productive, and endowed with an endless variety of interpretive nooks and crannies into which the curious reader/listener can peek.
It is tempting to characterize Davis’s approach to exegesis as “premodern,” since it depends less on the results of historical-critical analysis of texts and more on the literary quality of the text and the surrounding liturgical and sociological context of the hearers. In fact, her vision of exegesis is hardly “premodern” but rather “postcritical.” It does not ignore the value of historical-critical exegesis, but insists on appreciating the text as a work of literature— sacred, but literature nonetheless—that has a place in the long tradition of the theological reflection of the church. To read the text is to engage not merely history or dogmatics but imagination.
The question Davis does not answer, but that “artful” readers of the OT must engage, is what are the limits on exegetical imagination? When does a reading cross the boundary between imaginative precision and personal idiosyncrasy? My suspicion is that the answer to this question involves some methodological considerations that Davis does not address.
Both preachers attentive to the artistry of their craft and theological students learning how to think about the twin disciplines of exegesis and homiletics will find this book refreshing and challenging. It should lead to some interesting conversations about exegetical method. I hope that it will also lead to some “freshened and deepened” preaching from these ancient and powerful texts.
Paul K. Hooker
Presbytery of St. Augustine
Jacksonville, FLorida
Judges and Ruth (New Cambridge Bible Commentary)
by Victor H. Matthews
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004, 270 pp. $55.00 (cloth). ISBN 0-521-80606-2. Also available: $19.00. ISBN 0-521-80606-2-1.
Victor Matthews’ interpretation of the book of Judges fits well into mainstream biblical scholarship. The heart of the book, stories of heroes raised up by God to deliver Israel from oppression, are set against the settlement period and have deep roots in the oral folklore of the people. In final form, however, the book, along with Joshua and 1 Samuel through 2 Kings, was the product of the Deuteronomistic Historians working at the end of the Judahite monarchy five or six centuries later. The editors’ purpose was to urge the importance of covenantal faithfulness and to stress the need for central leadership. Toward that end, they heightened the wild lawless quality of the ancient folk tales to convey the turmoil that results when there is no king. Like other commentators, Matthews traces in the stories a downward spiral of sin and judgment expressed primarily through the increasingly questionable characters of the judges/deliverers. A number of other narrative threads reinforce the picture of Israel’s slow disintegration.
The author’s contribution lies less in his identification of the book’s overarching themes than in his rich treatment of concrete tales. A seasoned scholar, Matthews brings to the text a keen literary analysis and an unusual grasp of comparative ancient Near Eastern literature, archaeological data, and cross-cultural studies. At times, he presupposes too much knowledge on the part of his readers; his explanations can be almost cryptically brief. Nonetheless, the resulting commentary is well developed and illuminating. While his intended audience comprises preachers, teachers, and educated lay persons, Matthews’ familiarity with the material and social worlds of ancient Israel, and the extensive bibliographies he provides make the commentary worthwhile reading for biblical scholars as well.
The section on Ruth is brief (thirty-three pages plus bibliography). Matthews again draws heavily on anthropological as well as literary studies in his approach to the book. Ruth and Naomi are liminal characters whose stories follow what anthropologists call a “processional pattern” consisting of 1) social breach, 2) crisis, 3) adjustment, and 4) reintegration. Matthews also discusses the story in terms of private versus public spaces, ancient Israelite law, hospitality protocols, and the like. If his commentary on Judges is rich but occasionally cryptic, Matthews’ exposition of Ruth includes too many theoretical frameworks in too brief a space to achieve coherence. While it is not a good primary introduction to the book of Ruth, it is nonetheless a useful supplemental resource full of intriguing ideas.
Carolyn Pressler
United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities
New Brighton, MinNesota
Jeremiah
by Louis Stulman
Abingdon Old Testament Commentaries, Nashville, 2005. 400 pp. $39.00. ISBN 0-687-05796-5.
Following an introduction dealing with key issues in the study of Jeremiah, its overall genre and situation, historical and social contexts, and theological and ethical import, the body of this commentary divides into a series of tripartite treatments of literary units: an initial literary analysis demarcating the unit under consideration and describing its salient stylistic and structural features; an exegetical analysis discussing difficulties, peculiarities, themes, etc.; and a concluding theological and exegetical analysis underscoring the substance and message of the passage.
Stulman’s approach to Jeremiah will prove helpful to its readers in at least two significant respects. The first is Stulman’s concept of the coherence of the book of Jeremiah. Far from rejecting critical scholarship’s insights into the complex history of formation that produced Jeremiah, he incorporates a wide range of voices and stances. Stulman sees the polyphony, which the tradition both tolerated and relished, as the hermeneutical key to reading Jeremiah. The tradition responsible for two forms of Jeremiah, the Hebrew Masoretic Text and the Greek LXX—whose very existence attests to how the Jeremiah tradition valued multiple voices—did not consider the reality facing exilic and post-exilic Israel to be susceptible to simple, monolithic analysis. Instead, exhibiting a tendency now often associated with “inner-biblical” exegesis or rabbinic “midrash,” Jeremiah construes reality “not by standards of linear logic but as a rich labyrinth of voices and countervoices which emerge out of the wreckage of a national disaster that defies ordinary categories” (p. xviii). Stulman guides his readers through the labyrinth skillfully and confidently.
Second, the theological analyses on each section of the book do not shrink from grappling with the complexity of Jeremiah’s thought world. With great sensitivity to the exilic/post-exilic environment of dismay and confusion that produced Jeremiah, Stulman enters into the tension of crisis and thwarted expectation to return with authentic theological insights that speak to a modern world, itself subject to dismay, confusion, crisis, and lack of direction. Stulman deserves congratulations, in particular, for his theological treatment of the so-called “oracles against the nations,” which many commentators largely pass over as objectionable to modern sensibilities. While not slipping into naïve biblicism, Stulman hears testimony to God’s engagement with the totality of human history in these oracles.
Stulman’s Jeremiah assumes no specialized knowledge on the part of its reader, neither of Jeremianic studies nor of the Hebrew language. As appropriate, Stulman carefully, yet succinctly, situates his own observations and conclusions in the context of the history of Jeremiah scholarship and thoroughly explains pertinent Hebrew terms and idioms. This commentary will be a welcome addition to the libraries of colleges, seminaries, interested laypersons and ministers alike.
Mark E. Biddle
Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, Virginia
Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi
by Julia M. O’Brien
Abingdon Old Testament Commentaries, Nashville, 2005. 326 pp. $28.00. ISBN 0-687-34031-4.
This pair of books constitutes a commentary on the Minor Prophets of the Old Testament. Like all contributions to this series, the authors give a brief introduction to each book, including a literary analysis, a social and historical analysis, and a theological analysis. Then they comment on each major section of each book. The authors provide insight into the meaning of the text, based on their own careful reading of the Hebrew, and application of those meanings to modern life. O’Brien begins her volume with a discussion of prophets and prophetic literature. She notes the emergence of a view of the Twelve that argues for a unified editing of the Twelve, but concludes that the presence of the superscriptions suggests that the final editors wanted the books to be read individually. That is what she and Simundson do.
It is difficult to overstate how good these commentaries are. Both writers tackle the serious issues raised by a reading of the texts: does God use natural disasters to punish people (Joel)? Does God change God’s mind about punishment (Jonah)? Is God vengeful (Nahum)? The last of these questions will illustrate how both authors work. Both argue that the reader should not rob the Old Testament of its portrayal of one who holds people accountable for their sins and crimes. Still, O’Brien notes that how Nahum envisions God’s expression of God’s anger is troublesome, and the pleasure the author takes in imaging the pain of Nineveh is also to be challenged. Simundson highlights the contrasting words of doom and promise toward Judah that one finds in Micah. He reminds the reader that a “word that is false at one time ([a word of] peace when a warning is needed) can be true at another time ([offering] the promise of peace when all has been lost and hope seems impossible)” (p. 331). It is such nuanced readings of all the Minor Prophets that make these commentaries particularly helpful to college and seminary students and for serious Bible study for pastors and groups in a congregation.
Paul L. Redditt
Georgetown College
Georgetown, Kentucky
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