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  • Comparing Study Bible Introductions to Luke

    A few weeks ago I began looking at the new NLT Study Bible, and indicated that I would use it and then comment as I went along rather than writing a review as such.

    Introductory Comments

    Since I’m looking at the manuscript for a new study guide to Luke that that I intend to publish, I decided to compare this study Bible with a few others that I consult regularly to see which was best suited for certain purposes. In this case, my primary purpose is making a recommendation to readers of the study guide who are generally expected to be serious lay Bible students, but not Biblical scholars.

    Some of the things I look for include coverage of the critical data, particularly the traditional critical methodologies of form, source, and redaction criticism. In Luke, we would look for some discussion of the synoptic problem. Of course we’re looking for the history behind the book, the date it was written, authorship, historical background, and some chronology. I would generally expect to find most of this in a mainstream scholarly study Bibles such as the New Oxford Annotated Bible.

    All of that can be interesting information, but lay readers are likely to want to get to the meat of the matter–for them, at least–and look at some applications. Here we look for discussion of overall themes and application of the material to a particular community. In this area also we’ll find the greatest variety of material. An edition may include devotional thoughts on the text, going beyond direct application to reflection.

    Finally there are the “extras,” maps, illustrations, charts, and cross-references. I list “cross-references” as an extra simply because almost all study Bibles have some, and there is quite a bit of variation in how these are done. I’m not going to get into much detail on that in this post.

    I’m going to leave the NLT Study Bible until last, since it is the focus here, and first write a little bit about each of the other Bibles to which I compared it.

    The Learning Bible (CEV)

    I frequently recommend this study Bible to new students, because it provides an introduction to some of the serious themes of Bible study with a minimum of pain. Some people might call both the CEV, on which this study Bible is based, and the style of the notes “dumbed down.” I would disagree. “Dumbing down” is a pejorative phrase that gets applied to a variety of materials, including material that is clarified for non-specialists. Writing for non-specialists always appears a bit weak to those more specialized in the field.

    The Learning Bible introduction to Luke includes material on authorship and date. It discusses sources in a very general way, but does not go into detail on critical issues. (There is some additional information in the introduction to the gospels as a group.) It spends the greatest amount of time on themes in the book. While it doesn’t get generally devotional, it does provide notes on application both in the introduction and in the early text of the book. There is very little chronological information.

    In terms of extras, there are extensive illustrations, carefully selected cross-references and a variety of notes with icons indicating the general category. The editors clearly made a serious effort to make this Bible user friendly. The one downside to that effort is that all of the material and its layout result in substantial volume, not likely one you’ll carry to church with you. It’s easily the largest of the study Bibles I’m comparing here.

    The Oxford Study Bible (REB)

    This is one of my personal favorites, both because I like the REB translation style, and because I find the notes helpful for the type of study I do quite frequently. You will find substantially more discussion of critical and textual issues in introductions and in the notes here, while you will find less application. Themes that are discussed are more purely exegetical and less in terms of application to the community. I find almost nothing in the notes that is devotional.

    In the case of Luke, there is little in the introduction to Luke on critical issues, but this is again covered more in the introduction to the four gospels together. There is less discussion of themes, the outline is less thorough than the one in the Learning Bible, but the notes are more detailed, and there is no effort to limit vocabulary. Illustrations are generally nonexistent, except for a few maps in the back, and there is very little on chronology in the gospels.

    I should note here that one would not expect any study Bible to be strong in all areas that I have laid out in my introductory remarks. Such a Bible would require multiple volumes. Different study Bibles are suitable for different purposes.

    New Oxford Annotated Bible

    I include the New Oxford Annotated Bible, not because it is one I use that regularly. (Note that I link to the more current third edition, but I’m commenting based on the 2nd edition that I have on my shelf.) I generally prefer my Oxford Study Bible. Rather, it is the required Bible for those studying for the United Methodist ministry, at least in our conference. (I’m not really well enough acquainted with the system to comment more generally, though I’ve gotten the impression this is pretty widespread.)

    In some ways it is more comprehensive than the Oxford Study Bible. It’s joint introduction to the four gospels is more extensive, and it discusses themes in more detail in the introduction to Luke. It discusses critical issues in some detail for the lay reader. It also includes more information on chronology. In general, however, I would make the same comment on the notes that I make on the Oxford Study Bible–they don’t get too much involved in application to the community as such. I personally like it that way. I’ll make my own applications, thank you very much! But for those who are looking for a shorter path to sermon outlines, it will not be as helpful as a couple of others.

    Holy Spirit Encounter Bible

    You may think this one is out of place in this list, and you’re right. I wanted to include a Bible that displayed the kind of devotional material that none of these other Bibles do. If you lead study groups or teach Sunday School classes, you will likely encounter students who use such Bibles. They are not bad in themselves, but I do believe there is a danger of imbalance in the themes of scripture.

    The Holy Spirit Encounter Bible approaches everything with the question of how this relates to the Holy Spirit. If you used this for a single study, looking for the Holy Spirit in scripture, that could be useful. Just avoid using such a Bible as your regular reading Bible.

    It should be no surprise that the introduction to Luke in this Bible includes no outline, no discussion of when the book was written, the character of the author, communities to whom it was addressed, or any critical issue. In fact, the introduction is titled “the HOLY SPIRIT in Luke” which follows a pattern used for all the books.

    Rather than notes in a variety of categories or reflecting backgrounds, you find in the first few chapters of Luke several “Holy Spirit Encounter Moments,” two “Anointed by the Holy Spirit” inset boxes, one on John the Baptist and one on Elizabeth, and finally a “Holy Spirit Encounters” page that is not even related to the passages in which it is situated, but rather refers one to 1 Corinthians 12.

    Now these things are not bad in themselves, but it reflects the directed, devotional approach of the Bible. A study Bible that emphasizes one theme should not be used as a regular study Bible, nor should it be used alone, because it points to the theme chosen by the editorial board, and not to the themes emphasized by the authors of scripture.

    (Note that while this sounds a bit hostile, I have actually enjoyed studying a number of things in this particular Bible. I’m cautioning, not warning away.)

    New Interpreter’s Study Bible

    I purchases this Bible only a couple of months before I received my copy of the NLT study Bible. I was hopeful that it would have some of the theological notes that I’m used to finding in the Interpreter’s Bible or the New Interpreter’s Bible, both of which I value in their own way.

    I expected essentially a New Oxford Annotated Bible with a little more theological reflection. I was wrong. This is not like either of the two “Oxford” Bibles I mentioned. It focuses on serious theological reflection. Of course, consider the word “serious” in the context of the space they have available. Nonetheless I think that for the available space, this is the best theologically oriented study Bible I have encountered.

    There is much more discussion of themes. Such references are there are to critical issues come in that context, but they are really few and far between. Outlines are more detailed than any of the editions I have discussed previously. There is some material on chronology and on these broader themes in the material in the back, but if you go straight to the book of Luke (or another book), you’ll dive straight into theological themes and some application.

    Despite, or more likely because of the reduced emphasis on some of the more traditional critical methodologies, literary issues receive more discussion. If I were trying to prepare a sermon and didn’t have time to dig through mountains of history in order to make up my mind, this would provide me with the shortest path from scripture to major points in my sermon outline, while still being faithful to good scholarship and theological reflection.

    It is based on the NRSV, which is not my favorite, but it is not a bad version, especially for those accustomed to the KJV tradition. It is also not designed for the casual student. One should not assume that the vocabulary is light, or the treatment superficial just because it is less technical in the historical and critical sense. It is shifted from critical and historical issues to more serious theology.

    NLT Study Bible (Finally!)

    I finally arrive at the study Bible that got me started writing this. All in all, the NLT Study Bible is in many ways a pleasant surprise. It’s not another “light” study Bible. It’s not a devotional Bible. Ignore the hype on the cover–it’s not a revolutionary breakthrough. At the same time, it is good.

    The layout is better, but note that you will get less information packed onto a page. My New Interpreter’s Study Bible manages to get much more packed into its pages, but it does so at the expense of readability. Nonetheless, for me, the NISB would win.

    When I turn to the introduction to Luke, I see a map of the region in which the story takes place, a short bullet point style outline of the book. The introduction is divided up into friendly headings that lets you find what you want quickly, and there is room to add notes in the margin. The contents are a blend of the historical, literary, and theological, along with a bit of devotional here and there.

    Rather than having chronology separated in an article in the back (NISB, for example), there is a brief timeline on the right hand side of the page. The theological approach is evangelical, but not extreme. The date cited for Luke’s writing is 65-80 AD (they use AD, not CE). The description of authorship references both written and oral sources, but also eyewitness accounts.

    The notes are also a mix of background, theology, and application, and again the layout of the Biblical text, cross-references, and notes is quite user friendly.

    Summary

    Overall, while my personal study habits will not be altered by much, I will find time to consult this Bible, and I also expect to recommend it to quite a number of Bible students who are perhaps beyond the Learning Bible, but don’t really want to get into something like the Oxford Study Bible or the New Interpreter’s Bible. I will also recommend it to evangelicals who might find constant disagreement with their study Bible to be distracting. The NLT study Bible is a good addition to the Bible edition market.

    I will continue my discussion of this Bible after I have used it some more in my personal study.

  • The Bible Does Not Contain Science

    Jason Rosenhouse has a post at EvolutionBlog responding to an essay by Owen Gingerich in Frye’s Is God a Creationist?.

    In that essay, Gingerich makes some interesting claims, suggesting some special advance information provided by God in the words of Genesis 1. Rosenhouse quite correctly comments and then asks:

    It’s people like Gingerich I don’t understand. He cherry picks two verses that he wants us to take very seriously. In verse three we find that God begins by creating light, and, hey!, that’s kind of like what modern cosmology says. Then he turns to the end of the stroy and tells us we should ruminate on the verse that asserts we were created in the image of God.

    And the twenty-three verses in between? Where the Bible enumerates, in great detail, a sequence of events that is utterly fictitious? Well, just ignore that part.

    And right there is my major problem with several approaches to apologetics in Genesis 1-11. There is a common thread of trying to preserve the idea that God somehow provided scientific knowledge ahead of time, and described the origin of the universe in ways that would not have been known to the ancient world in which this literature first appeared.

    Sometimes, as in young earth creationism, interpreters take Genesis at face value as narrative history (I discuss what I believe the actual genre is here, and then demand that reality conform to their view. When reality fails to play nice, they simply deny it, or claim that in the future we will find out they were right all along.

    At other times, old earth creationists try to find ways of reconciling the statements of the first 11 chapters of Genesis with science, not in the strict sense of scientifically worded statements, but in the sense that as a narrative history, they don’t contradict science. Rather, they can be viewed symbolically as going along.

    Finally, we have the approach of Gingerich, which is to claim glimpses of great scientific ideas in the prose of the chapter. Admittedly, this requires reading past a great deal, and requires some imagination, but that has not prevented numerous people from trying and from publishing what they believe they have found.

    When I deny scientific content in Genesis, I am frequently confronted by someone who has read somewhere how closely aligned Genesis is with science, and they will point to some area of agreement. But these areas of agreement, even if one has the imagination to accept them in the first place, are very small, very narrow, and are surrounded by areas that are puzzling at best from the scientific perspective.

    I would apply here a standard I demand in comparative literature and comparative religion: Compare both the similarities and the differences. I also use a related requirement to search out what is regarded as critical within either the piece of literature or the religion in question. For example, to an evangelical Christian who believes firmly in salvation by grace received through faith, and regards that as central to his faith, the fact that another religion teaches love is only a minor point of similarity. It doesn’t make the two religions equal.

    So in comparing Genesis 1 and 2 to science, it is not valid so simply list points of contact without also listing points of dissimilarity. One interesting thing here is that those who point out that “let there be light” is in one of many ways similar to the big bang do not also note the spirit of God, or God’s wind moving across the waters before the light appears. One has to posit a strange mix of symbol and literal physical data to make this work.

    When Genesis is compared to scientific data as we know it on a broad basis, looking for both similarities and dissimilarities, it doesn’t come out so well. In addition to looking at both, it’s a good idea to look for accidental similarities, such as information that would be common knowledge anywhere. A reference to sunrise and sunset in two distant cultures would not be regarded as evidence that they had communicated, for example, because both would have observed the same phenomenon.

    To support the claim that the Bible contains science, one would need to find statements of physical fact stated in a well defined and testable way, in other words, statements made the way scientists might make them. You may believe I am putting too high a standard here, but to use such a thing as evidence one must eliminate other explanations, especially more plausible ones.

    If one thinks that the “waters” in Genesis 1:2 make some sort of statement of the place of H2O in chemistry, an implausible suggestion on its face, one should also consider the place of the waters or the deep in related ancient near eastern creation myths. Is it more probable to assume that the statement came from an unknown chemistry, or that God chose to cryptically convey information, information that would not be recognized until it was discovered in other ways, or that the waters here come from the same pool of mythological symbols used throughout the ancient near east?

    For me, this issue settled into place when I started to read this material in the context of ancient near eastern literature. It is not surprising that even one of my professors in graduate school, a Seventh-day Adventists school and fairly strong on young earth creationism and associated interpretation, was extremely concerned that I would not see Genesis as coming directly from God in its current form.

    Reading Genesis as ancient near eastern literature worked. It fit. I didn’t have to explain numerous loose ends. It was also something that the original hearer and/or readers might well have understood. There really wasn’t anything left to explain.

    Over time I learned to read Genesis again as theology, and specifically as theology suited to its time. It expresses, in the context of ancient near eastern cosmology, the relationship between God and the universe. Even that expression is time and culture related.

    Now I don’t expect atheists to like my position that much better. I know that they generally look down on views of inspiration that don’t result in error free texts with hard knowledge. After all, why couldn’t God get it right? But I think a better question is why would God get it “right” in that sense?

    Spirituality involves communion with God, and the Bible reflects that communion as experienced by my community and its antecedents. Every piece of scientific information people claim to have gotten from the Bible can be found elsewhere, better expressed, and more reliable. But as a Christian this is the core of the experience of my community.

    That doesn’t provide me with the means to convince others that my (or our) scriptures are better than others. That would have to work through the lens of the community. But the attempt to find scientific data is sure to be a failure.

    Doubtless the Bible will get some facts about the physical universe right, but unless those facts are more than incidental, they demonstrate nothing, and high claims for them can only result in a negative judgment on the text in which they are found.

  • I Like Sarah Palin

    . . . well, pretty much, to a certain extent, as politicians go. But I’m not going to vote for her.

    Come to think of it, I like John McCain pretty well also, but again, I’m not going to vote for him.

    I think it is unfortunate that so many Americans seem to feel the need not only to vote against a candidate, but to really despise that person and to think that they should not be regarded as even worthy of consideration.

    I am not unaware that Sarah Palin has said some questionable things about her own record, nor am I pleased that Republicans try to pretend she has more or better experience than Barack Obama. In fact, to Republicans who complain about what Democrats are doing to Palin, I would simply point out their own behavior. To Democrats who have been complaining, I would point again to their response now.

    It seems to me that many of the people who claim that they want cleaner and nicer politics are first to make snide remarks and insinuations about the candidates. They are quick to forgive similar behavior on their own side, and quick to condemn it on an opponent’s side.

    Not that politicians don’t give us plenty of opportunities, which is something we should also consider.

    Take, for example, the “bridge to nowhere” and Palin’s involvement in it. If a local politician doesn’t make every effort to get federal money for his or her city, county, district, or state, it’s likely he or she will not be re-elected. When one moves onto the national scene, one has to be against such pork-barrel projects.

    Why? Because we, the citizens don’t think it’s pork when it happens where we live. Here it’s “infrastructure development” and “investment in our future.” Over there it’s pork. As a politician on the national scale, of course, what was done locally is now pork, because it wasn’t where most of us live. In fact, it wasn’t in a place most of us have visited.

    This doesn’t excuse the spin. It just says that we won’t have politicians on the national scene who haven’t lived through the pork-gathering phase locally because we won’t elect them locally unless they bring us pork.

    Frankly, I like all four folks on the major presidential tickets, though I think Biden is the least inspired. Nonetheless, as politicians go, he’s not a bad guy either. I don’t think we’re electing pure scoundrels in either case. I am substantially in favor of Obama, and that’s how I plan to vote, but that’s a finely balanced decision based on policy, not on despising the other team.

    There are so many important issues before us, that if we spent our time simply going through the plans and potential policies of each team, we could profitably spend the time between now and election day. I don’t really expect that to happen.

    But even though I won’t get what I want, I’m tuning out all of this stuff. I’m bound to hear it, since I watch politics, but I’m just not interested. What little gets said about policy, I’m tuned in for. As for the rest of it, when I see a blog post title or a news headline that looks like it’s some more character nitpicking, I’m going elsewhere for my reading.

  • On Being Anti-Abortion and Pro-Choice

    While preparing this week’s Christian Carnival, which I hosted at my Participatory Bible Study Blog, I encounter a post on how Christians should make voting choices, What’s a Deal Breaker?, which is actually the end of a series.

    In general, this is an excellent article, in my view, because it discusses prioritizing one’s values and goals and thus making more intelligent choices between candidates. This would be a substantial improvement over the process of eliminating candidates based on a limited number of test issues, which sometimes results in an unnecessary and wasted third party choice.

    The “deal breaker” that the author, Chris Brooks, proposes, however, is abortion. Now I can easily understand how someone might make this a deal breaker issue. If one holds that all abortion is murder and should not be distinguished in any way from killing after birth, then one is probably painted into a corner simply by means of words. I would note that the logical conclusion of such a view, which few people make, is that the penalty should be the same for all involved. (Those who have drawn this conclusion have often made very tragic choices.)

    When I describe myself as “anti-abortion” I do not mean such a position. I don’t support the current exception-free Republican platform plank on the matter. I do, however, regard abortion as something we should sincerely hope to reduce to those specifically chosen exceptions.

    In calling this a deal breaker issue, Chris says:

    On abortion, I really didn’t want to argue whether abortion is wrong – both because people rarely change their minds in this debate and because I think most Christians already think it is wrong. Instead I focused on those Christians who believe abortion is wrong and yet support keeping it legal. I made the case that IF you think abortion is wrong, supporting its legalization makes you, in God’s eyes, guilty of “aiding and abetting” abortion. Supporting those who want to keep it legal is the same thing. [Note that the link here refers to his lengthier earlier discussion of this issue.]

    This is a position that I believe is logically flawed. I hear it expressed repeatedly. There is an unstated assumption in there, that “making something illegal” is always the best way to attempt to put a stop to it or reduce its incidence.

    Murder is illegal, and yet it happens every day. The sale and use of quite a number of drugs are illegal, yet we have one of the worst drug problems in the world here in this country where we are purportedly fighting a drug war. I could cite many examples, including the fact that speeding is also illegal, yet it happens more often than not on most roads here in my own county.

    The reason I cite murder and drugs, however, is that I would advocate different approaches to dealing with them. Willful taking of human life (outside the womb, and I do make such a distinction) should be illegal, and that is the key element in fighting that type of behavior, though I don’t think it is the only element.

    I personally would prefer at least some relaxation of laws on drugs, if not outright legalization, and an effort to reduce their use and the damage that they do by other means. It’s interesting that I often get similar responses to this call for legalization. I must want to get high without risking jail! But the fact is that I don’t use alcohol, much less illegal drugs, and I would have no intention of doing so were they legal. I am against them, but I believe that the best way to fight them is not through our current unproductive (or counterproductive) drug war.

    In the case of abortion, I believe that the fact that we are applying the law inside another person’s body is significant. The fact that the majority of people in this country do not see abortion in the same way as murder is also significant. Why? Am I arguing that people’s opinions changes moral imperatives? Not at all. But it does change what is the most effective approach to dealing with an issue.

    It’s not my purpose here to make a full case for abortion being legal, even though I deplore it in most cases. My purpose is simply to point out that people can and do differ on how to deal with a problem, even when they may agree on the desirable result.

    Crossposted to RedBlueChristian.com.

  • An Example of Checking Interpretation

    One of the things I suggest that people do to check their Biblical interpretations is to apply the same process they have just used to another passage on another issue. You ask the question, “Would my process of interpretation work on more than one passage or is it an ad hoc method used to get the result I want from this one?”

    This is a test that anyone can apply. You don’t have to be a Biblical scholar. You do have to take the time to think carefully about just why you believe a particular passage of scripture means what you say it means. It’s a good exercise. It’s great in debate, but it’s much more important to apply it to yourself.

    In preparing today’s Christian Carnival, I encountered this post by Jeremy Pierce in which he does precisely that to an argument based on Numbers 5.

    One should note that I’m one of those folks who is commonly called inconsistent because I believe that abortion is wrong in most cases, but also believe it should be legal. I might like to find a text that favored a pro-choice position, though this particular passage applied in that way would have some truly atrocious side-effects.

    In any case, Jeremy simply points out how the same approach could be used in other passages, with results that nobody desires, and that one could demonstrate are clearly contra-Biblical.

    My point here is to provide an example of the application of the method. It is one that more of us should pursue more often.

  • Book Notes: The Gospels for All Christians

    Bauckham, Richard, ed. The Gospels for All Christians: Rethinking the Gospel Audiences. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1998. ISBN: 0-8028-4444-8.

    I hesitate to call this a review. It’s more of an interaction with the text, a few thoughts as I read the book The Gospels for All Christians: Rethinking the Gospel Audiences. I’m going to allow myself to ramble! Also, as you will doubtless note, this was published in 1998, and thus is not “hot off the presses” and yet I think it is very relevant.

    This was one of the four books that I noted arrived via interlibrary loan on the same day, something marginally inconvenient, considering the size of the books and the height of my “to be read” stack. I had added it into the list at the last minute, because it was edited by the author of Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, which was one that was already on my list, and because a friend had recommended it.

    I will confess that I started reading this book with low expectations. The problem it addresses, as stated to me, did not appear incredibly urgent or gripping. I was tempted to start with a different book, but there was that return date staring at me, and I loathe returning interlibrary loan books that I have not completely read, so I dug in.

    If you were educated in a liberal school, especially if you come from a conservative perspective, you will probably respond to this material differently. I compared notes with a friend who had used different texts than I did (I was educated by fairly conservative professors at Seventh-Day Adventist schools), and he certainly reacted differently on his initial read. Since I started conservative and moved more slowly left, I never took quite the extreme position which Bauckham is addressing.

    In the first chapter, Bauckham addresses the consensus view, at least at the time of writing, though I think it largely continues, which is that the gospels were addressed to specific communities and that in interpreting them we must discover the beliefs and the situation addressed in the community in order to understand the message. A corollary of this is that we learn either largely or exclusively about the community, rather than about Jesus when reading the gospels.

    To get the negative out of the way first, I felt that Bauckham overstated the nature of the consensus to some extent. Unfortunately, however, I can’t deny that there are folks around who exemplify precisely the attitude he is addressing. In turn, I think he overstates his case, practically eliminating any study of the audience from interpretation of the gospels. There are cracks in this extreme case, though they occur much more in the other essays, and he displays what strikes me as a slightly more moderate approach in chapter 5, John for Readers of Mark.

    Since he is attempting to force a paradigm shift, perhaps all this is understandable. Paradigms rarely shift when only nudged; they have to be attacked with sledge hammers. Then moderates (perhaps like me!) come around and start playing “moderately,” but in the new paradigm.

    I think this reflects a fairly common problem in Biblical studies (and perhaps other disciplines, but that’s their concern), in that when someone proposes a new approach or tool there is a tendency to apply it broadly to just about everything. Form criticism provides a useful tool for studying certain sayings that are transmitted orally, and then find themselves part of a written text. Form critics tended to make their tool the tool for Bible study, and soon they were studying things that probably never existed separately as part of the oral tradition using a tool that was really only well suited to that one task.

    If a carpenter worked in this manner with his tools we’d call him crazy. When Biblical scholars do so, we call them pioneers. And to be honest, in general they are. Their critics reverse the situation and throw out the tool because it doesn’t do everything its initial practitioners claim for it. This would be much like observing a carpenter using a hammer in many places where it should not be used, and concluding that the best option would be to discard the hammer.

    In turn, redaction critics come along and discard much work that goes with form criticism. Quite regularly they correctly criticize form critical work, yet at the same time they want redaction criticism to be the tool for Biblical studies, and soon we have it applied to texts that really show no signs of redaction.

    My suggestion here is that we need to salvage something from each of these things and make it useful, as many commentators (Brevard Childs comes to mind quickly) have done, not dismissing the methodologies completely, but putting them in their place.

    In the case of the gospel audiences, it strikes me that there would be significant impact of the author’s more immediate community, but that the broader audience would certainly reduce the amount that one could properly deduce about about the audience. Yes, it’s a moderating position, to which I am naturally attracted, but I think it is a valid one, a case in which a moderating position is precisely what is called for.

    I would use one of my own sermons as an example. I am very likely to prepare a text, preach it to a specific congregation, and then also post it here on my blog. The sermon is designed with the congregation I’m addressing in mind, but my words are not exclusively for them, and you should not interpret all of my words in terms of addressing that congregation. My ideas have formed in conversation with many people who hold many differing views. Yet there would be points that would be specific to that group.

    Similarly the form critical approach which heard the voice of the community in everything and the voice of Jesus in nothing needed some moderation. If you think about a modern preacher telling a story, ask yourself whether the preacher’s story is determined by the lesson he’s teaching the congregation or by the facts of the story as history.

    For me, the answer would be that I am loathe to adjust a story. I seek one that fits the situation I’m addressing without too much fudging of the facts. Nonetheless I do adjust emphasis. I have used the same story in different situations to make different points. I also know preachers who are quite comfortable adapting a story quite substantially to their needs at the moment.

    Would the disciples do this to the story of Jesus? Intentionally? I doubt it. But unintentionally I think they could apply stories in very different ways as time went on, and thus the audience and the situation of the early church would impact the message. It may be difficult or impossible to determine just how much, but given the possibility, it seems useful to me to try.

    The second chapter, The Holy Internet: Communication Between Churches in the First Christian Generation (pp. 49-70, Michael B. Thompson) is probably one of the two most helpful chapters I’ve read in the last five years, and the other one is the third chapter, Ancient Book Production and the Circulation of the Gospels (pp. 71-112, Loveday Alexander). This information is available elsewhere, but not in such a compact and helpful format. It’s very easy to underestimate communications in the ancient world.

    I’m reminded of the difference between the way my children communicate and the way I did when I was their age. We were in South America during my teen years, and it cost several dollars a minute to make international calls. You just didn’t do it, unless things were really, really critical. Now I get pictures and videos of my grandchildren moments after whatever great milestone–or merely interesting moment–has passed. When I talk about it, they’re likely to look blank and say something about how we must have really been out of touch! But we weren’t. Those snail-mail letters actually did communicate.

    When you compare snapping a picture with your cell-phone and sending it to a list of folks from your contacts to taking the picture, getting it developed, waiting for it, writing a letter, mailing it, and waiting for it to travel the necessary distance, it might seem like nothing would get communicated. But we did precisely that all the time.

    In the same way, we might imagine that if we had to walk from days to weeks in order to visit a neighboring church, we wouldn’t do it. Yet the folks in the early church did, and they did it quite a bit. We might also imagine that few books would be distributed if they were copied by hand, but again, we would assume incorrectly. People did go to all that trouble, and produced quite a few.

    One further thought I got from chapter three was the close connection between oral and written forms. I have argued this before in terms of the New Testament autographs. It’s quite possible that texts were revised even by authors after they were written down. We consider something more set in stone once it is written, but they perhaps did not. Some variations in early manuscripts might be explained by such freedom rather than scurrilous scribes (Western non-interpolations?)

    About People, by People, for People: Gospel Genre and Audiences (pp. 113-146, Richard A. Burridge) is more dense and less useful than the preceding two chapters, but nonetheless is rather helpful and provides some of the very balance I was requesting in the first chapter. I think I would still lean a little bit more toward seeing an impact of the audiences, but the argumentation here is definitely worth considering.

    I found Bauckham’s second essay, John for Readers of Mark (pp. 147-172) to be more interesting than his first, but ultimately unconvincing. I say this not in the sense of having a ready refutation, but rather in the sense of having a tentative verdict of “not proven” regarding his case. There are some intriguing connections here, and I’m not going to try to summarize them. Bauckham provides a way to read John as complementary to Mark on the assumption that Mark could be expected to be available to his readers. I think some of his arguments would be considerably blunted if gospel stories were transmitted orally, and especially if Mark represents a great deal of that oral tradition. But that is too much to try to argue right here. Bauckham does address the issue of oral traditions, but rejects them as adequate explanations; I find his rejection premature.

    The sixth essay, Can We Identify the Gospel Audiences (pp. 173-194, Stephen C. Barton), is a discussion of how accurately we can determine the gospel audiences. I think we do well to be skeptical, especially of our own reconstructions, but I also think that we will be saying something about audiences if we interpret at all. In general, however, the chapter is quite balanced in my view.

    Finally we have Toward a Literal Reading of the Gospels (pp. 195-217, Francis Watson). Again, this probably pushes a little further than I would be comfortable with, but it is nonetheless a valid counterpoint to the tendency to believe the gospels have nothing to do with literal events. Note here that Watson is using the word “literal” as it would be used in literary discourse, not the more popular idea of “having greater truth value.” The literal reading that Watson is looking for is one that allows the gospel writers to talk about actual events and people, even if he also wishes to symbolize something else.

    Nicodemus is a good example. One can understand him as symbolic of a particular group of people with whom the community had to deal, yet there is no particular reason to assume that there was no Nicodemus, or that there is no underlying actual story. This is an area again that calls for careful nuance. I’d like to quote Watson:

    Is it possible to envisage a future Gospels scholarship in which person and text are reintegrated? This suggestion would not entail the naive positivistic assumption that the Gospels are to be understood, so far as possible, as a direct transcript of historical reality. Like the various incompatible models of the so-called historical Jesus, the Gospels are interpretations of the historical reality to which they refer. The Gospels represent the early Christian reception of the life and person of Jesus, and the eventual emergence of the fourfold Gospel canon represents the decision that the Christian community will henceforth appeal to this complex rendering of the received reality and no other. . . .

    All in all, this is a worthwhile goal.

    In conclusion I must say that while I approached this book without enthusiasm, it grew on me as I read, and I think that the authors and editor have done a great service. I commend it to those who are interested in the study of the gospels.

  • On the Troubles of Candidates’ Children

    I wasn’t going to say anything about this, because I wouldn’t want to have anything to do with spreading the story any further, but now that it has been discussed in the mainstream media, such as MSNBC.com, I want to make a short comment.

    I married late, in my early 40s, and picked up a ready-made family. My children are wonderful, and so are my grandchildren. Before I married, I understood that raising children was more complex than my experience would let me understand. Since getting involved personally, I realize that it is more complex than anything I imagined that I hadn’t been able to imagine!

    In my opinion, the stories circulated about Sarah Palin (to which she has responded by revealing that her oldest daughter is pregnant) should not have been repeated without absolute proof, and even were they absolutely proven, there would considerations of privacy. There seems to be a desire to find a major smear to put on her, and this one apparently looked good to some folks.

    I personally don’t share many of Sarah Palin’s convictions. Because I don’t, I’m not inclined to vote for her. But I think that her children should be given privacy, and any problems they have should not be a topic for public discussion. But more importantly, I disapprove in the strongest terms possible of the desire to see people of convictions fail, even to the extent of bringing their children into it.

    I would hope that this story would go away. In my view, responsible journalism should make every effort to kill it, and the rest of us should not repeat the story.

    Update: Some notes on Obama’s response here. I think he has done well.

  • Does God Care about 2% or 5%?

    Mike, at The Creation of an Evolutionist, calls attention to an article by Dinesh D’Souza on Townhall.com, in which D’Souza replies to an argument by Christopher Hitchens. Mike says this is worth thinking about, and I agree, but I’ve got some bones to pick with D’Souza’s approach.

    Hitchens’ argument is essentially that God has been absent for 98% of human history. According to this argument, humanity has been around for 100,000 years, while Christian history, which is apparently the only part of concern in this argument, has lasted only 5,000 years. Thus, man is unredeemed for 95% of human history. One hardly knows where to start in discussing this abuse of math and logic.

    Here’s the quote:

    Here’s what Hitchens said. Homo sapiens has been on the planet for a long time, let’s say 100,000 years. Apparently for 95,000 years God sat idly by, watching and perhaps enjoying man’s horrible condition. After all, cave-man’s plight was a miserable one: infant mortality, brutal massacres, horrible toothaches, and an early death. Evidently God didn’t really care.

    Then, a few thousand years ago, God said, “It’s time to get involved.” Even so God did not intervene in one of the civilized parts of the world. He didn’t bother with China or Egypt or India. Rather, he decided to get his message to a group of nomadic people in the middle of nowhere. It took another thousand years or more for this message to get to places like India and China.

    (Note that the move from 5% to 2% seems to happen in the time the message takes to spread.)

    We are assuming that because Jesus came at one particular time, and because what we count as the Christian Bible was initiated at a particular time, God must have been inactive before that time. But there is no particular reason to believe that. One also would assume, on this basis, that the massive destruction we can inflict today, and indeed have inflicted is a better indication of God’s absence than the misery of life as a caveman.

    Human misery is an issue for Christian apologetics, but the argument against Christianity is really not strengthened by this particular argument. Since I have been blogging on theodicy for some time, and am not nearly finished, I’m going to leave that issue aside at the moment. Whatever arguments apply to things like the holocaust will likely apply to the misery of cavemen.

    D’Souza justifiably attacks the numbers. He has discovered that only 2% of the 105 billion people who have ever been born were born in the time before Jesus came to earth. I haven’t checked those statistics, but let’s assume that they are essentially correct. D’Souza has put the math in perspective, a worthy accomplishment, but he hasn’t really answered the underlying problem. As one commenter on the article points out, if God can ignore 2% of the population, how can he know that he isn’t part of a 2% that God is ignoring now?

    D’Souza’s other argument, that human prehistory and the sudden explosion of civilization are much more of a problem for atheists, deserves a separate response. It is not an area that interests me nearly as much.

    There seem to be several assumptions regarding revelation and salvation on which this argument is based. The ones I noticed off-hand are:

    1. Revelation has only occurred in the written scriptures of Judaism and Christianity
      While many Christians may believe that, a substantial number of Christian theologians do not. C. S. Lewis, surely not a liberal leader, held that God revealed himself many times, and that myths in pagan religions bore truth that led toward the eventual truth about Jesus. Accepting the Bible as God’s revelation does not require that one deny that God spoke to other people, even to cavemen.
    2. Redemption only occurred in that same period
      I would not expect Hitchens, an atheist, to be concerned with this issue, but Christians surely should. The death of Jesus was efficacious for people who lived prior to his death, and even prior to the first written prophecy. If this is a critique of Christianity, Christian understandings on this issue should rule.
    3. Absence of records means actual absence
      We really have now idea how God might have related to cavemen. Amongst those who care about such things, there are debates about just when the image of God came to be. Personally, I’m not that interested, though if I were to argue, I would suggest that God’s image is not a binary thing. Those who look toward their creator, however fumbling that effort, are manifesting some aspect of the image of God. My own efforts to seek out God may well not be sufficiently different from the earliest caveman to even notice.

    D’Souza has place the numbers in context very effectively. As stated, the argument appears to suggest that God didn’t care about 95-98% of the people who ever lived, whereas we’re talking about 2%. But is this a good answer for a Christian? I think it simply buys into the assumptions of D’Souza’s debate opponent. Theodicy will continue to fail, I think, as long as we make the assumption that God’s “care” involves making us all comfortable. There’s a harsh reality in there that many Christian apologists don’t want to have front and center–God lets people reap what they so for the most part.

    Christian theology teaches that God cares about everyone, but it also teaches that he does not resolve everyone’s problems. He doesn’t prevent all wars, death, disease, or suffering. Why that should be is another subject. But whether it happens to 2%, 5%, or 95% is not the issue.

    I recall a sociology class I took in my first year of college. The professor was a communist. No, not a liberal I accused of being a communist. He was a self-proclaimed communist. In a discussion I brought up Solzhenitsyn’s figure of 66 million dead as a result of communism in Russia. (I’m working from memory here. Solzhenitsyn was citing a statistician who calculated the figure.)

    “I think you’re wrong about that,” he said. “The cost in lives was only about 40 million.”

    I was fairly stunned. Using “only” and “40 million” together with reference to people killed was pretty astonishing. The reduction of the estimate by 26 million didn’t make Russian communism look any better to me. Similarly, reducing the number of people ignored by God to 2% or 5% of human doesn’t help me here at all.

    What does help me is that I don’t believe God ignored them, any more than he ignored those 66 million people in Russia or 6 to 10 million in World War II. In all cases, the problem remains the same: Why doesn’t God make it better? It’s a good question, or better it’s one that will certainly be asked, and it remains the same despite the numbers.

    [Note that I leave this here even though someone is sure to note that I have not responded to the more basic issue of why God allows any of the things I’ve cited. I’m addressing those in the posts in my theodicy category, and will continue to do so over time.]

  • What Decides My Vote (or Silly Experience Arguments)

    McCain has just stirred the pot by making an unorthodox choice for his running mate, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska. Contrary to much of the response on the left, I don’t see this as cynical, though obviously there’s political calculation involved. It’s bold and risky.

    It is, in fact, the first thing that’s happened since the end of the primaries that has made me think better of a candidate than I did at that time. It isn’t enough to make me vote for John McCain this time around, but that’s not because I think Palin is stupid, excessively inexperienced, or someone who would make a bad vice-president. The bottom line remains that I disagree with her on a number of matters of policy, insofar as I know what she stands for. We’re certain to find out much more over the next few days.

    I think my belief that “experience” is an argument you use in favor of someone you already like for other reasons, and against someone you already dislike, also for other reasons, is confirmed by the Democratic response. Republicans who are trying to argue that Palin has a better resume than Obama need a reality check. Democrats who think that they can successfully make her look so much worse on the basis of her resume need to rethink. If there is one thing that has been used cynically throughout this campaign, it is the experience argument, and it’s at a crescendo (at least I hope!) at the moment.

    The most positive thing about this choice, from my point of view is that it shows McCain can still think outside the box. Romney and Pawlenty were candidates that the political commentators would like. Lieberman was to some extent as well, though he had extraordinary negatives as well, being a very recent ex-Democrat, now independent, who had been a VP nominee of the other party, and also one with a substantially liberal voting record would hardly endear him to the Republican party’s right wing.

    McCain stepped out of the standard reasoning and picked someone almost out of the blue. Not that she had never been mentioned, but the vast majority of commentators didn’t take that seriously. She’s conservative, she’s vigorous and forceful, she seems intelligent, and she has also shown integrity in an incredibly difficult decision–her decision to carry her current child to term. Skin-deep pro-lifers might have waffled at that point. She’s living up to her convictions and showing that those are not simply things she believes are true, but things that are part of her being.

    Obama’s choice, on the other hand, was someone the political commentators were sure to like. It was largely media-safe, but rather boring. I’m not saying that Joe Biden would be a bad vice-president. Rather, he’ll be much the same as other vice-presidents.

    Does that change my vote? No, it doesn’t. As I said much earlier in the campaign, all of these other points do impact my vote, but they aren’t at the core. If I was looking at two essentially equal candidates, experience might sway me. If I found one candidate who was consistently honest, that would probably sway me. I count the historic possibility of Obama becoming the first African-American president of the United States as a plus. But if I couldn’t stomach who he is and what he proposes to do, that wouldn’t get me to vote for him. I look with favor on the possibility of having the first woman as Vice-President, but that doesn’t overcome policy disagreements.

    Since the primaries, I have been disappointed. Barack Obama has sounded less like an agent of change, and more like he’s under control of Washington insiders. The decision not to engage in town-hall meetings with McCain, while understandable from the political point of view, took away a great opportunity to change the way campaigns are conducted and perceived. Having the two candidates one-on-one in numerous settings would, I think, go a long way to blunting the effect of misleading negative advertising. It was an opportunity for change, but it didn’t happen.

    Obama waffled on FISA. He was wrong to vote for that bill. I’m extremely disappointed.

    He waffled on campaign finance. Here I agree with the decision, but as best as I can tell, he really approves of public financing, but thinks it is disadvantageous this time around. Now if he would have said that he has proven how the little people can gather the money to overwhelm big money operations in this internet age and thus the value of campaign finance reform has diminished, that would be different. He could then recommend taking the axe to part of the federal bureaucracy.

    McCain, of course, has done his waffling as well, on issue after issue, but he did most of it before and during the primary season. I liked him in 2000. I don’t like him now. There’s apparently a little bit of the maverick McCain spark left, but not enough.

    Now you could take this as a terribly negative view of the election as a whole, but I really feel pretty good about this election, when seen in comparison to others. Choosing a candidate to support is always an exercise in compromise. I disagree with each candidate on some issues. I am disappointed with each candidate, but largely because they are behaving as politicians generally behave. While I would like to see that change, I know how to relate their behavior to the background noise.

    So here are my major issues:

    • Iraq War – I think the Republicans in general have a terrible strategy at all for the war on terror, and McCain is simply following the same. The reality is that our strategy involves invading countries that support terror and retaliating for strikes. I’m amazed that conservatives who recognize the futility of “talking nice” to terrorists because of who they are don’t recognize the fact that retaliatory strikes don’t actually accomplish anything. McCain’s military experience argument is blunted for me by one fact–he apparently doesn’t recognize that we don’t have the resources to fight terror according to the current strategy. Somebody needs to work on a scalpel approach to replace our current sledgehammer.
    • 4th Amendment – I’m still hoping that Obama remembers who he was and will be better than McCain on this point, including warrantless wiretapping, rendition, torture, and all related elements I’m loosely grouping under 4th amendment. McCain has failed to show integrity here, in my view.
    • Supreme Court nominees – Obama is likely to appoint people I don’t like all that much, but they will replace other people and maintain the balance. The idea of a court that is consistently lined up with Scalia and company is horrifying.

    Those are not my whole list by any chance, but I rank those highest. Even though the economy has become more important than the Iraq war to most people, it remains my highest concern. I cannot make the fruitless killing less than #1 in my thinking.

    I would add that there are third party candidates that are options for those who cannot support either of the two major candidates. I don’t regard voting third party as throwing away your vote. I’m not going to do it this time. Those who say that Nader is siphoning off Obama’s votes or Barr is siphoning off McCain’s seem to have the odd idea that someone “owns” or is “due” particular votes. You earn the vote when you convince the voter. It’s only your vote when that voter pulls the lever.

    In summary, I think voting is a matter of priorities and compromise, and I think we do have a field of candidates to work with. I would love to find a year when there was someone out there who thought just like I did. Unfortunately, I’m convinced that candidate would lose, so maybe not so much!

  • Culture11

    I received an e-mail from Joe Carter suggesting that I check out Culture11, of which he’s a managing editor. I’d feel real special, but I know that a bunch of my friends got such invitations as well, so probably Joe was inviting all the bloggers with whom he has contact, which is, after all, a good idea!

    I’m checking out Culture11, and thus far I’d say it looks a bit like Facebook, except that it is built around ideas more than light social interaction. It’s not that Facebook is not useful for exchanging ideas, though things tend to move too fast for me there, or that Culture11 doesn’t appear to have all the possibilities for social interaction, but it appears to be designed to keep the focus on ideas.

    Of course, this is just preliminary. I’ve barely started looking. If it is, in fact, an idea centered site, I’ll probably spend some time there. It will be interesting to see how people use it. The atmosphere cannot always be controlled by the management.

    In any case, I’d suggest checking it out, and if you do, look me up. My profile, such as it is, is here.

    Have fun!