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Reading the Bible with the Dead: What You Can Learn from the History of Exegesis that You Can’t Learn from Exegesis Alone
by John L. Thompson
Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 2007. 336 pp. $20.00. ISBN 978-0-8028-0753-3.
Spurred on by the pioneering work of James Kugel and others, the history of exegesis has become a small cottage industry in recent years. Scholars are discovering that many of their exegetical insights have historical precedent. John Thompson, professor of historical theology at Fuller Theological Seminary, draws lessons for the church’s preaching and theological reflection, examining texts that preachers (and lectionaries) would rather ignore but that feminist scholars in particular have forced back into our awareness: “texts of terror” (Phyllis Trible), such as the story of Jephthah’s daughter; texts of revenge, such as Ps 137; and texts on topics controversial in the church today, such as Jesus’ sayings about divorce or Paul’s admonitions about women in leadership.
Thompson skillfully shows that these texts troubled historical exegetes as much as they do contemporary critics. The history of interpretation does not silence or suppress injustice to women. On the contrary, it demonstrates the church’s courageous confrontation of texts that it refused to excise but nevertheless could not allow to stand without comment. Luther and Peter Vermigli bitterly condemned Jephthah, even though Heb 11 makes him a hero of faith; Puritan Richard Rodgers went so far as to argue that Jephthah’s daughter belongs on Hebrews’ list of the faithful. Similarly, Reformation exegetes agreed that Paul’s words to the Corinthian prophetesses had to be read in historical context and did not compromise the spiritual equality of women and men. Thompson notes points at which medieval and Reformation interpreters succumbed to patriarchal assumptions. But he insists that these exegetes challenge us to engage the Bible’s hard texts more faithfully than we might otherwise.
Thompson writes in particular to those Christians who look for divine truth by going straight to one passage of the Bible or another. He persuasively demonstrates that attention to the tradition’s great interpreters will also teach us to think theologically and therefore to read individual texts in light of broad biblical themes of God’s covenant faithfulness and mercy. One might quarrel with Thompson about his selection of texts, for a comprehensive, biblically-based theology provides good reason to focus on the Bible’s central passages of salvation rather than its texts of terror. Preachers will nevertheless want to keep Thompson’s book close at hand; it will impel them to investigate the riches of the history of exegesis also for texts they preach more often.
JOHN P. BURGESS
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
Encounters with Jesus: Studies in the Gospel of John
by Frances Taylor Gench
Westminster John Knox, Louisville, 2007. 170 pp. $16.95. ISBN 978-0-664-23006-7.
Like many ministers, I have a tendency to “ride hobbyhorses.” For years I have been urging my colleagues to teach their congregations regularly during the Sunday school hour. Encounters with Jesus provides a wonderful opportunity for pastors to do just that. This book, which explores the unique vision of Jesus found in the Gospel of John and the implication of that vision for discipleship, is set up to be useful in Sunday school classes or weekly Bible studies. It is even divided into thirteen chapters, or one quarter’s worth of “lessons.” I used it this past summer for our adult Sunday school class, and the response was amazing. One member said it was like reading John for the first time.
Frances Taylor Gench writes in lively prose with many memorable turns of pharase. You will want to read the book just to discover why she borrows the phrase “Wordy is the Lamb” to describe the Fourth Gospel. A chapter discussing the woman accused of adultery entitled “Between a Rock and a Hard Place.”
This study of the church’s favorite Gospel brings out things “old and new.” Gench draws on the work of scholars from Raymond Brown to Gail O’Day, from Tom Wright to Adele Reinhartz. She succinctly presents traditional interpretations and startlingly innovative ones, inviting the reader to hear the text in a fresh way. Her pithy book answers many thorny questions, and more importantly raises dozens of interesting questions for discussion. Did you ever wonder why John opens and closes Jesus’ public ministry with scenes involving “the mother of Jesus”? Or why the story of the woman taken in adultery is a “truly homeless story” (p. 51)?
At the end of each chapter, one finds a series of “Questions for Discussion and Reflection.” These are not garden variety questions which readers pass by with neither thought nor regret. Many of them are quite stimulating, and provide great grist for the mill of a Bible discussion group.
This is a book that can be read profitably by lay and clergy alike, and used in preparation for both teaching and preaching. Academic jargon is used sparingly, yet weighty scholarly matters are taken up frequently and skillfully. Encounters with Jesus makes a marvelous addition to the preacher’s as well as the church’s library.
THOMAS J. WHARTENBY
Galax Presbyterian Church
Anger: Discovering Your Spiritual Ally
by Andrew D. Lester
Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, 2007. 126 pp. $16.95. ISBN 978-0-664-22499-8.
In writing his third book about anger, Andrew Lester demonstrates that ample fruit can be produced by plowing and tilling the same ground in different ways, at different times, with different equipment. This volume is both an update of Coping With Your Anger: A Christian Guide (Westminster John Knox, 1983) and a distillation of The Angry Christian: A Theology for Care and Counseling (Westminster John Knox, 2003). The “threat model,” Lester’s way of explaining anger as a response to an experience of threat, remains at the center of his thinking. Recent developments from the neurosciences and narrative theory clarify the physiological and psychodynamic origins of anger. Lester makes a persuasive case for understanding anger as a gift from God and a spiritual ally, precisely because of its capacity to reveal those things we value so highly that we experience a sense of threat when they come under assault. Anger clarifies what we love and trust, and sets us on a path toward discerning whether these things are worthy objects of our devotion or are “idols” in which we have become overly invested. In one sense, “they will know we are Christians by our anger” (my phrase, not Lester’s) as we passionately respond to injustice, violence, and indifference. At the same time, when we trace our feelings of threat to “false gods…not capable of bringing us real joy” (p. 110), anger clarifies our Christian shortcomings.
Throughout, Lester challenges what he sees as the pervasive notion among Christians that anger is bad, something “good” people do not show and the “best” people do not even feel. At times one wonders if this generalization is too sweeping or vague to hold sway. But as a pastoral theologian Lester offers a careful reading of real life situations, his own included, to demonstrate the extent to which Christians have been colored by this kind of thinking. After reviewing key biblical references, Lester concludes that our capacity for anger is a God-given characteristic of our human nature and not a distortion of it. Like any gift, it can be co-opted to serve malicious purposes, and Lester does not shortchange anger’s destructive potential. But in offering a clear and constructive process to deal with anger (key steps iinclude are understanding why we are threatened and evaluating the validity of the threat) he manages to keep the discussion going in a framework of hope.
Pastoral theologian Donald Capps, in reflecting on anger as a deadly sin, has written that “‘anger’ is the broadest term for emotional agitation aroused by great displeasure” (Deadly Sins and Saving Virtues, [Fortress, 1987], p. 30). A minor disappointment of this book was its lack of attention to more nuanced forms of anger that exist on a spectrum encompassing emotions like irritation, indignation, hostility, rage, fury and the like. But that is a quibble (hardly a criticism) arising from a desire to understand even more about anger, a desire that Lester can be rightly credited for helping foster. For those called to preach, teach, or otherwise make sense of anger in the context of the Christian faith, this book is a rich resource.
BRAD BINAU
Trinity Lutheran Seminary |
