Ship of Fools: What are you reading?

Thread: What are you reading? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Hart (# 4991) on :

We have a lot of well-read people on matters biblical here, and I bet a lot of you are continuing to read well. I thought that by comparing what our bookmarks are stuffed in now, we might get our interests piqued and get some new ideas for that Amazon wishlist. What bible-related books are you reading right now?

I'm reading L.T. Johnson's "Sharing Possessions" and enjoying it a lot. I'd put it in the "Biblical theology" school as he's trying to use a diverse range of biblical texts to say something relevant now to a Christian struggling with questions of wealth ethics, without giving pat answers.

I'm also slowly working through Joel Green's commentary on Luke in the NICOT series. Slowly, because I'm reading along with the Sunday lectionary, so it'll take me a year to get through. It's a nice narrative-focused approach to the gospel that I can see being helpful for preaching.

Amazon tells me that my new Hebrews commentary (L.T. Johnson's -- yes, I'm a fanboi -- in the NTL series) will be waiting for me when I get back stateside from my Christmas travels. The Catholic daily mass lectionary presents us with a 5 week continuous reading of Hebrews beginning on the 14th, so I'm going to read this along with those lections.

How about you?

Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on :

An interesting idea, Hart. I've two main angles on bible-related reading. One is my hobby - chasing developments in hermeneutics, linguistics and philosophy of language; and the other keeps interrupting that flow to chase up information relating to threads in the Ship!

For example, I have Autenrieth Road to thank for opening the Amos thread and causing me to read in more depth a couple of studies related to that book: M. Daniel Carroll R., Contexts for Amos and Karl Möller's Prophet in Debate both providing a useful counter-offering to standard commentaries.

Then pimple keeps the John's Gospel thread going and forces me to approach the text again from different angles, not taking for granted the comfort of well-thumbed commentaries. R. E. Brown's An Introduction to the Gospel of John is proving a useful counterweight here.

The Numbers thread also provides opportunities to work through the text millimetre by millimetre, double-checking critical resources for possible settings.

Apart from that, I am currently working through John H. Walton's Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology, which is a fuller treatment of his studies on the sociological / worldview approach to understanding the background to OT texts.

I'm also just finishing off Alvin Plantinga's Warranted Christian Belief, the culmination of his work on warrant and belief.

Got a rather large wish list for 2013, though experience tells me that none of us will ever get more than 10% of the way through the lists we have!

Posted by Custard (# 5402) on :

Currently reading John in Greek sans commentary and Numbers accompanied by Roy Gane's commentary in the NIVAC series. Also near the burner is John Sailhamer on the Pentateuch as Narrative.

Posted by Mamacita (# 3659) on :

I love this thread!

quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:
Apart from that, I am currently working through John H. Walton's Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology, which is a fuller treatment of his studies on the sociological / worldview approach to understanding the background to OT texts.

This sounds intriguing. My book budget being a bit thin these days, I searched the local seminary library database and came up with what must be the precursor to that title, namely John H. Walton's Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the OT: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible. Might be worth a trip down to the stacks.

quote:
Got a rather large wish list for 2013, though experience tells me that none of us will ever get more than 10% of the way through the lists we have!

True, but it's good to hang out with people whose new year's resolutions are of the textual/literary variety.

Posted by A.Pilgrim (# 15044) on :

I'm throughly enjoying Daniel B Wallace's Greek grammar beyond the basics : An exegetical syntax of the New Testament which was a Christmas present. As mentioned in the review on Amazon by Anthony Forsyth, it is very well written and readable, and full of fascinating stuff.

BTW, NigelM, do you have time to do anything other than read books and post on here? [Big Grin]

Angus

P.S. Happy New Year to all Kerygmaniacs!

Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on :

Like most of us, I too am afflicted by an apparent need to take Gen. 3:17 literally (“...through painful toil you will eat food”). Despite valiant attempts to convince employers that God was having a laugh and we should take that verse figuratively, it seems that economics is built on literalism.

Happy greetings in return!

Posted by CuppaT (# 10523) on :

The Life of Father John of Kronstadt
by Bishop Alexander (Semenoff-Tian-Chansky)
The Epistle to the Hebrews A Commentary
by Archbishop Dmitri Royster
The Path to Salvation
by St. Theophan the Recluse
(and incidentally a novel by Alexander McCall Smith)

Alas, I am not a good and disciplined reader like I was when I was younger. Life has gotten in the way. Perhaps I should get back to my rule of a page a day, at least, in each maybe.

With Holy Scriptures and with prayers it is much easier for me to keep up.

Posted by Hart (# 4991) on :

quote:
Originally posted by A.Pilgrim:
I'm throughly enjoying Daniel B Wallace's Greek grammar beyond the basics : An exegetical syntax of the New Testament which was a Christmas present. As mentioned in the review on Amazon by Anthony Forsyth, it is very well written and readable, and full of fascinating stuff.

It's one of the most readable intermediate grammars (for any language) that I've ever come across. There are some things I disagree with, but it's just so much fun to read.

Posted by OhSimone (# 16414) on :

I was given two Tom/NT Wright books for Christmas: Simply Jesus and How God Became King. Having just finished the former, I'd cheerfully recommend that - sometimes I need a reminder that Christ is waaaay bigger than anything.

Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :

quote:
Originally posted by OhSimone:
I was given two Tom/NT Wright books for Christmas: Simply Jesus and How God Became King. Having just finished the former, I'd cheerfully recommend that - sometimes I need a reminder that Christ is waaaay bigger than anything.

Both those books had a big influence on me and on the way I think about Jesus. I'm reading N.T. Wright's translation of the New Testament now.

Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on :

Just started Rolf Rendtorff's Canon and Theology (originally published in German in 1991, English translation published by Augsburg Fortress in 1993 and again by T&T Clark in 1994).

The book is part of the Overtures to Biblical Theology series, edited by Walter Brueggemann. This series has reached some 43 volumes by different authors and it was Brueggemann's opening salvo to the series, The Land: Place as Gift, Promise, and Challenge in Biblical Faith (1977, 2002) that prompted me to work my way through the whole set over time.

The series attempts to find a way out of an impasse that has bedevilled studies into the Old Testament in particular; to bridge the gulf between historical (academic / 'scientific') studies into the bible and the theological (dogmatic), between college and church. Reading (sometimes re-reading after a gap of years) books in this series has launched some "Aha! So that's what it was all about at the time!" moments.

Rendtorff was one of the early students who recognised in the 1970s the need to break away from the (then) existing paradigm of OT research, based around developmental, evolutionary, and diachronic studies (dependent so much on Hegel's philosophy) to seek new ways of working with the text. He has been influential in rejecting the source-critical approach. Given that interest in that has indeed fallen off in recent decades (apart from lip service by some commentators who then move on in their works to pursue other interests), the biggie among questions has been: What paradigm / method of approach to the bible should take over?

The trouble is there does not seem to be one paradigm that takes the ground. There is just a general dissatisfaction with the assorted critical approaches and - as exemplified by this Overtures series - a host of alternatives: e.g., feminist, liberationist, existential, literary, canonical, political, and even (heaven forfend) theological!

I find that the challenge remains. To bridge the gap between history and theology that has existed for over 300 years now; many bridges have been attempted, but none appear to have opened for traffic. Is that why academic biblical research appears to have faltered? There are no Gunkels, von Rads, Eichrodts and so on today to develop a new model. Perhaps students are all still grappling with the plethora of approaches and trying to draw breath after the welter of material from the last century. The great question currently still seems to be: Whither?

My answer usually lies in a cup of tea.

Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on :

So what is wrong with von Rad and Eichrodt? I have long used both and still do.

Just because they are "old" doesnt mean that they got it wrong.

[ 24. March 2013, 18:23: Message edited by: shamwari ]

Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on :

The idea is fine that age does not of necessity carry built-in decadence, but the idea if elevated to a principle would of course mean that von Rad was wrong to react against his predecessors.

He, like all great commentators, are children of their times and are restricted by the philosophies that mark their times. Von Rad - among others - bought into Hegelianism. This shaping of life and work by preconditions and presuppositions is not always a negative thing - and indeed von Rad was quite aware of (and often cited) the influences upon his work - but it is time-bound. It is possible to see now, with the benefit of elapsed time, that the concept of developmentalism undercut von Rad's own method. He wanted to trace a history of the Israelite religion, but found he could not do it without artificially separating out the telling of history from theology. After decades of research, there is no 'history' (evidence) in support of his grand Salvation-History design. He selectively adopted methods from some of his predecessors, but detached them from reality - e.g., using Gunkel's form-critical methodology while ignoring the social settings.

Somewhat related to this is the criticism that he ignored the implications associated with the OT being a product of Judaism and with reading a too facile western European Christianity into the OT. There's a hint here of common cause between the German theologians of the earlier 20th century and those of the 19th - a pessimistic view of Israelite religion (in decline as ritual grew), brushed aside with the advent of Jesus. It wasn't really until the works of E.P. Sanders in the late '70s that Judaism was seen in a much more historical setting.

I've focussed on von Rad. His aim was a commendable one - to attempt a synthesis of the OT. I think his work did at least react favourably against static theologies of his predecessors (Eichrodt was one), but he also fell foul of some same weaknesses.

Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on :

The criticism which is levelled against von Rad can be levelled against every Biblical scholar and theologian from Day 1.

We. all of us. interpret in the light of philosophical paramaters and none of us can ever stand outside of them and claim a purely "objective" (and therefore "true" ) way of understanding.

I happily confess that I see things in an "evolutionary" framework since I believe that truth is coherent and that a thing cannot be theologically true if it is scientifically untrue. Hence I refuse to entertain a creationist view of Genesis.

And von Rad's analysis of "J" as an interpretive thelogian which underlies much of his work on the Hexateuch makes a hell of a lot of sense. What is more it is eminently preachable!

It is one thing to criticise the philosophical pre-suppositions of others. But the implication that anyone can stand outside all such pre-suppositions seems to be naive.

I have found much of what Nigel writes to be very helpful and informative. But he too seems to force everything into a "covenantal" framework which is as much interpretive as it is historical.

Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on :

It's a given, I would think by now, that presuppositionless work is impossible. That's not the point being made by critics of von Rad. What the critics say is that he did not have the historical evidence to support the paradigm he chose to adopt. The concept of a 'J' is a category, nothing more. It does not move from category to history in the slick way it was once thought.

Things have moved on; more information from the relevant times has come to light, more interaction with other disciplines has resulted in data from wider fields being made available. An evolutionary approach would surely say the time has come to move on, wouldn't it?!

Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on :

Just starting in on Old Testament Theology: An Introduction by Walter Brueggemann (published 2008 by Abingdon Press).

This is the first of a new series of works with the title “Library of Biblical Theology” under the joint editorship of Leo Purdue, James D. G. Dunn, and Michael Welker. The series is another in an string of series tackling the issue of biblical theology and where it goes in its attempt to articulate contemporary relevance for the bible without undermining the history of the text in its context.

The blurb on the back provides the aim of the series:

quote:
The purpose of the Library of Biblical Theology is to bring the worlds of biblical scholarship and constructive theology together. It will do so by reviving biblical theology as a discipline that describes the faith of the biblical periods on the one hand, and on the other articulates normative understandings of modern faith and practice. Thus, volumes in the series will move from a description of God or an element relating to God as it is found in the biblical text, to making a theological judgment based on one’s own contemporary worldview, forged within a community of faith.

It will be interesting to see how well the balance between past and present is maintained and indeed whether the two can in fact be balanced in the first place. Usually the history of biblical theology has been of one winning out at the expense of the other. Brueggemann has wrestled with this problem before with, I find, more outputs on the present and only unconformable attempts at a fit with the past, so I'm looking forward to see if he manages something more balanced with this new book.

Posted by Hart (# 4991) on :

Despite starting it, I'd forgotten about this thread! I'm currently working through New Testament and Christian Apocrypha, which is a collection of Francois Bovon's "greatest hits" -- his selection of his 18 best short papers, covering diverse topics including ethics in Paul, redaction in Luke, Christology in revelation, violence in the Apocrypha and some early reception history. Most of the papers are very fine, and they're all short enough that you can give them a reflective hearing in a spare half hour.

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :

I'm doing a unit at Uni on Sacraments and I've found the textbook to be really, really good.

Doors to the Sacred: A Historical Introduction to Sacraments in the Catholic Church. By Joseph Martos.

Starts in the early church and the biblical theology involved. Got a section on the Reformers too which I haven't read yet but would assume would take on a slightly different biblical angle.

The development of the theology of baptism over time is particularly intriguing. The whole original sin thing comes into baptismal theology quite late with St Augustine and gets full frontal by the Middle Ages.

Posted by Hart (# 4991) on :

I haven't read the whole Martos book, but we read the chapter on reconciliation for the practicum class and I remember really liking it. This is getting out of the realm of Kerygmania, but the approach to sacramental history Martos represents really strengthens my faith in the Spirit's role in guiding the church through what appear to be ordinary means. His book isn't just a history of the sacraments, but an approach to history as genuinely sacramental -- a visible sign of an invisible reality.

Posted by Mamacita (# 3659) on :

The Brueggemann and Martos books sound so interesting! Maybe we should retitle the thread "So many books, so little time!" [Big Grin]

[ 05. June 2013, 02:38: Message edited by: Mamacita ]

Posted by tclune (# 7959) on :

I have recently retired, and am browsing my bookshelf for things that I bought and never had the time to actually read. My first target is Robert Alter's "The Art of Biblical Narrative." I'm only a chapter into it so far, but it is a real treat.

--Tom Clune

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :

Mate. I found that book very difficult going.

Hope you don't! [Big Grin]

Congratulations on retirement btw. I'm jealous. [Smile]

Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mamacita:
"So many books, so little time!"

So very true!

Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body (Ecclesiastes 12:12).

Having said that, eating, drinking, and making merry takes far too much effort. I'll settle down with a good book.

Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on :

Interrupted my reading of Brueggemann to get through Katherine Doob Sakenfeld's Faithfulness in Action: Loyalty in Biblical Perspective, (borrowed from British Library – no renewals!). Published in 1985 this is one the Overtures to Biblical Theology series that I am working through, somewhat belatedly. It is interesting to see what directions the authors in that series follow as they attempt a reconciliation between historical studies of the bible and theology in practice. Sakenfeld offers insights into how 'loyalty' as a theme could play out in more modern settings, e.g. divorce issues, corporate loyalty claims, teenage gangs.

I had feared that this would end up with the all-too-common conclusion that there are no easy answers and Christians should judge each case on its merits. I often wonder when reading Christian pastoral / ethical books where the specifically and uniquely Christian approach is – after all, plenty of people with a religion or no religion can conclude the same as so many Christian books on ethics or morals; one doesn't have to be Christian to follow the herd here.

Sakenfeld, however, manages to pull at least one Christian rabbit out of the hat. She admits that there are no easy answers (tick common answer number one) and that we have “to struggle with the choices in the midst of our own situation” (tick box number two), but having noted from a range of biblical examples that covenant loyalty involves the more powerful partner engaging in acts of loyalty to the weaker partner when the former could very easily have backed out and the weaker would have had no come back, there is a note of alert to those in positions of power (whether family, business, state, or church) that they are called to show loyalty to the weaker members in the relationship exactly at times when it is inconvenient.

And so back to Brueggemann....

Posted by malik3000 (# 11437) on :

I've started Worship by Evelyn Underhill which I think is a wonderful and quite profound book but which bears careful and mindful reading. Since i've been interrupted by other things i think i'll have to start from the beginning again. (I've only got to chapter 2 anyway.)

[ 20. June 2013, 03:39: Message edited by: malik3000 ]

Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on :

Good cross-section of readings going on here. Shame time in this life is limited!

Am nearing the end of the second book in the Library of Biblical Theology series, Biblical Theology: Introducing the Conversation. Essays that review the history of biblical theology, where it has been over the past couple of hundred years and where it might be going. Useful overview, and an interesting view of biblical theology from a Jewish scholar, advocating a open-ended dialogue between the (Hebrew) Bible and tradition. That might be of interest to Orthodox and Catholic readers - among others.

Posted by MrsBeaky (# 17663) on :

It's not biblical per se but I'm reading "The Lion's World" by Rowan Williams and it is just beautiful.
Thought provoking,challenging, uplifting.

Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on :

I'm sure Rowan Williams's work has a touch of the bible as its source! It sounds an interesting read -interest being piqued by the title.

I've just started The Land is Mine by Norman C. Habel (Fortress Press, 1995), another in the "Overtures to Biblical Theology" series. Habel picked up on studies into ideology, which he defines in terms of biblical ideology as "a complex of images and ideas that may employ theological doctrines, traditions, or symbols to justify and promote the social, economic, and political interests of a group within society."

He wants to demonstrate how the theme of land reflects six different ideologies present during biblical times.

Posted by MrsBeaky (# 17663) on :

Thank you, Nigel!
I've just told my husband about the book you mentioned as it sounds very pertinent to the peace work we are doing here in Kenya where land is a root source of much conflict and we are trying to hammer out some sort of a theology of land.

And as regards Rowan Williams book, it's great, even if someone isn't a fan of C.S. Lewis, it's inspirational in its own right.

Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on :

Now I'm really hooked! A theology of the land? That sounds fascinating. I know it's not for this thread, but at some point it would be really interesting to hear your thoughts on that one. Land forms such a massive, potent and physical reality in the Old Testament - and then seems to disappear for Christians, so it's a good challenge to find an appropriate application through from the OT to the NT to today for that theme.

I wish I had more time here - perhaps in August (I'll have some time) we could kick off a thread on land (biblical) theology to see what people make of it. I missed the thread shamwari began last week on incarnation (moved to purg now), but it occurs to me that an incarnational missiology might meet with land theology.

Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on :

Jut started Larry Hurtado's God in New Testament Theology (Abingdon Press, 2010). This is the third volume in the "Library of Biblical Theology" series.

Hurtado's study was prompted by an observation made by the Norwegian theologian Nils Alstrup Dahl (died in 2001) that 'God' was a neglected theme in NT theology. He first observed that in 1975, and Hurtado agrees - Christology (discussing Jesus) largely replaced Theology (discussing God) in works on the NT since WWII. Hurtado undertakes a review of the literature since 1975 and seeks to discover how far the themes of Jesus and the Spirit replace the theme of 'God,' supplement 'God,' or otherwise assume 'God.'

I don't often have the time to dip my toes into NT studies (it's all there in the OT, etc. etc.), so this visit to old haunts may be something of a culture shock. I've got my insect repellent at the ready.

Posted by Hart (# 4991) on :

A few weeks ago, I finished Walter Brueggemann's commentary on Genesis in the Interpretation series. (The Catholic Lectionary was taking us through Genesis during Daily Mass, so I read the commentary along with the lections). It was masterful: a profound reading of Genesis that was distinctively and authentically Christian without at all undermining the Jewish reality of the text. It's a tough combination, but Brueggemann pulls it off.

I'm currently working through a collection of Ulrich Luz's essays on Matthew (preparing already for next liturgical year!). I'm discovering more and more that as much as I accept pretty much all of his conclusions on source criticism, they rarely interest me. His essay on christology by title, though, was easily the best take on that I've come across -- how exhilarating to take as your basic statement that the poor homeless man is the judge of the cosmos and take poverty and judgment equally seriously! His essay on the Matthean 'marks of the Church' as being poor and evangelizing is similarly provocative.

[ 08. August 2013, 13:19: Message edited by: Hart ]

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :

I'm preaching on the parable of the vineyard laborers in a few weeks and Luz's commentary on the passage was by far the best ( and I read over 20!). He's a name I will keep an eye out for in the future.

Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on :

Bernhard W. Anderson, From Creation to New Creation (Augsburg Fortress, 1994).

A collection of essays from 1955 to the mid 1990s from an OT theologian at Princeton Theological Seminary on the subject of creation is part of the Overtures to Biblical Thoelogy series.

Anderson was writing at a time when the subject of creation had been relegated to at best a secondary status by the historical-critical big hitters of the first half of the 20th century (especially Eichrodt and von Rad). He wanted to restore creation's fortunes. I'm just about to start the third essay and so far I can see that much of the work is specific to its time, but nevertheless contains a good summary of the arguments in favour of creation as a theme just as important to Israel as the history of salvation.

Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on :

Heil, John Paul. The Rhetorical Role of Scripture in 1 Corinthians. SBL Monograph Series 15, Leiden: Brill, 2005.

Had this on my list of books to get to eventually, but then a few interesting threads started up on the Board around 1 Corinthians so the good offices of my local library have once again been invoked to acquire it from the British Library. Am working my way through my notes now.

What originally attracted me to the book was the interest in rhetoric - an area of study that has flourished in recent decades in biblical research. James Muilenburg is generally credited with kicking this off with an address delivered in 1968 (published: James Muilenburg, “Form Criticism and Beyond,” JBL 88 (1969): 1-18). Although he wanted to test out the idea as an advance on form criticism, he and his successors later adopted the approach as a discipline on its own.

Whereas initially the discipline built on classical studies (i.e. what the Greeks and Romans did with rhetoric), from the 1990s studies started to focus much more on rhetoric as used in the ancient near east on its own terms. Some very fruitful insights have emerged. I'll see what Heil has to say about 1 Cor. 15. When I get there!

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

I'm reading 'Easter' by Michael Arditti. It's a novel set in a parish in London, and the author deals effectively with his Anglo-Catholic world. Basically, all the characters seem to represent church 'types'. The clergymen are mostly undergoing some kind of crisis, while the laypeople who attend or come into contact with the church are struggling with various issues.

Few of the characters are very appealing IMO. Their problems are more or less believable and you do feel sorry for them, but having all of these people in the same novel makes for heavy going! Still, it's well-written and interestingly structured piece of work, and certainly instructive for those of us who don't worship in quite that sort of environment.

Posted by Gramps49 (# 16378) on :

I just finished Beyond Belief by Elaine Pagels. I have also finished The Hour of Peril--but that is American History.

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

Host hat on

This board is for Bible-related topics. This thread is for Bible-related books.

The last two posts do not fall within the remit of Keryg.

Host hat off

Moo

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :

Back to bible related books: New Testament Words by William Barclay is an absolute ripper.

I refer to it time and time again and it never fails to impress. Handy for words like ransom, sin, love, etc. Goes through the Greek meanings and occurrences.

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

Evensong, that link takes me to a page that says that either this is unavailable for viewing or I have reached my limit. Since I've never been there before, I assume it's unavailable for viewing.

Moo

Posted by Mamacita (# 3659) on :

That's what popped up for me as well, but I found I could scroll up and down. The same thing happens if you click on a hyperlink on the contents page, but you can move up and down. Not all pages are included, which is par for the course with google books.

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :

Sorry. Here is an Amazon link.

It also looks like it might be free online as a download here!

Posted by Nigel M (# 11256) on :

It's a year already since this thread started and so, in keeping with the spirit of early 2013, Happy New Year to everyone!

Christmas break brought a long-awaited publication into focus: N. T. Wright's first two volumes on Paul (Paul and the Faithfulness of God, published by SPCK in UK and Fortress Press in USA).

I suspect others here are also reading or planning to read this.

About 200 pages in to Volume one and I can see that he feels the need to respond to assorted critiques of his methodology. Consequently there's a fair bit of overlap with his first volume in the whole series on Christian origins and the question of God (The New Testament and the People of God), but he is trying to focus on the background to Paul's upbringing, worldview, and mindset.

As always, a very readable style and much to chew on. At some point I expect he will be wheeling out the howitzers to deal with the question of justification, something that he has written and lectured on over the past few years and that has attracted war dances on behalf of some Calvinist and Lutheran theologians. Looking forward to that section!

Posted by Sarah G (# 11669) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Nigel M:

Christmas break brought a long-awaited publication into focus: N. T. Wright's first two volumes on Paul (Paul and the Faithfulness of God, published by SPCK in UK and Fortress Press in USA).

I suspect others here are also reading or planning to read this.

A very welcome Christmas present. Along with some slippers.

quote:

About 200 pages in to Volume one and I can see that he feels the need to respond to assorted critiques of his methodology. Consequently there's a fair bit of overlap with his first volume in the whole series on Christian origins and the question of God (The New Testament and the People of God)

His footnoted complaint is that scholars don't bother to read NTPG, and he regularly ends up repeating what's said there. You can almost hear him sigh with frustration.

Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :

Another buyer of NT Wright's latest blockbuster checking in here. I bought it before Christmas but haven't opened it yet. Soon I hope...

Yes, I too had noticed the gathering head of steam from certain quarters about certain issues. There's a long, rambling engagement with one typical critic in the reviews of this book on the Amazon.com website.

Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on :

I read, as I do every year at this time, Raymond Brown's "Birth of the Messiah"

Posted by A.Pilgrim (# 15044) on :

As I mentioned in the thread on the historicity of the nativity stories, I’ve just been reading Kenneth E Bailey’s book: Jesus through Middle Eastern eyes : Cultural studies in the gospels (SPCK, 2008). It has given me a new depth of understanding of many NT passages, including several of the parables, because Bailey refers to Arabic commentators and Bible translations for his sources – which have up till now remained untranslated and ignored for centuries. I particularly appreciate Bailey’s analysis of the rhetorical structure of the passages he discusses, showing the Jewish style in which the accounts were presented by the gospel-writers’ sources.

On the nativity thread Chris Styles criticised Bailey for exaggerating his points along the lines of the exotic east, but my view is that the NT is a Middle-Eastern text, so I would give more credibility to a commentator who has a Middle-Eastern background than to any commentator from a Western or Latinate background.

Angus

Posted by Latchkey Kid (# 12444) on :

A year of Biblical Womanhood makes for interesting and amusing reading. I like the contrast made between what some see as the ideals and the accounts of actual women in the Bible.

[ 16. January 2014, 19:56: Message edited by: Latchkey Kid ]

Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Latchkey Kid:
A year of Biblical Womanhood makes for interesting and amusing reading. I like the contrast made between what some see as the ideals and the accounts of actual women in the Bible.

Rachel Held Evans is always engaging, I find, both in her books and on her blog.

As for the latest NT Wright, I really need to gird up my mental loins and attack it. It's getting to feel a bit like George R.R. Martin and the Game of Thrones books now -- so long between each one, and I keep worrying he won't live long enough to finish the series.

Posted by Sherwood (# 15702) on :

I'm nearing the end of Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief by Rowan Williams.
I'm finding it to be an interesting and enlightening read and it is proving to be helpful in increasing my understanding of the Creeds and of Christ.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

A series of sermons by Barbara Brown Taylor called The healing Word - lyrical, evocative meditations on some of the lectionary passages -not just the gospels but the OT as well.

Posted by Gildas (# 525) on :

I recently read Marco Liverani's "Israel's History and the History of Israel". If I were a better person, I would appreciate it because it is erudite, humane and beautifully written. But actually I mainly appreciate it because a scholar of distinction has come to pretty much the same position as yours truly by using actual scholarship as opposed to Wild Mass Guessing. Seriously, why are you still reading this and not dialling it into Amazon?

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