Steiner on the Bible as Inspired Literature

"I can--just--come to imagine for myself that a man of more or less my own biological and social composition could have written "Hamlet" or "Lear" and gone home to lunch and found a normal answer to the question "How did it go today?" I cannot conceive of the author of the Speech Out of the Whirlwind in Job writing or dictating that text and dwelling within common existence and parlance." (Steiner, "The Good Books," New Yorker [Jan 11 1988], 97)

Crossroads Conference UK

I'm happy to announce the Living at the Crossroads conference happening in Bristol. On the lineup so far is Mike Goheen and Mark Roques.

All the info is on the image above.

Click here to access the registration form. And please tell your friends!

The Paideia Centre for Public Theology

at the beginning of ends

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

(TS Elliot, Four Quartets, Little Gidding V: http://www.tristan.icom43.net/quartets/gidding.html)

. . . an evocative (and elusive) quote to give you an idea of the sort of direction my research seems to be taking me. No I am not doing research on early 20th century English poetry! I am at the beginning stages of trying to sort out if it would be worthwhile to consider the concept of closure in OT literature.

Opening up the Scriptures

I know it’s been a while since I posted last…not sure I’m cut out for this blogging thing.

Anyway, a couple of weekends ago I was in Boston at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. I only bought one book (for myself)—yes I do have willpower—which was an Eerdmans title called Opening the Scriptures: Joseph Ratzinger and the Foundations of Biblical Interpretation, edited by J. Granados, C. Granados and L. Sanchez-Navarro (Grand Rapids, 2008).

The first chapter is a translation of an essay by the then Cardinal Ratzinger, originally published in German in 1989: “Biblical Interpretation in Conflict: On the Foundations and the Itinerary of Exegesis Today.” In it he argues that a better synthesis between historical and theological methods is needed. Moreover, this synthesis requires a critical evaluation of the philosophical foundations of historical criticism: “the debate about modern exegesis is not at its core a debate among historians, but among philosophers” (19).

At the end of the essay Ratzinger lays out the following five desiderata:

1. a thorough critical examination of "scientific exegesis" (by which historical criticism is in mind) with attention to the philosophical assumptions involved, and testing the findings which rest upon these assumptions

2. exegesis needs to be acknowledged as a historical discipline. Situating the findings of scientific exegesis within historical context "will recognize the relativity of its judgments, on the one hand, while being better equipped to penetrate to the real, albeit always unfinished, understanding of the biblical Word, on the other" (28)

3. philological and literary methods are vital for interpretation but need to utilized with an awareness of the "philosophical implications of the interpretive process" (28).

4. a description of the whole narrative of the history of interpretation (including but not limited to the last 150 years) is vital for the future of biblical interpretation

5. claiming a position of neutrality with regard to biblical interpretation is no longer tenable. Rather the exegete must be properly situated within the context of the Church. "[T]he faith of the Church is precisely the sort of sym-pathy without which the text remains closed. [Exegesis] must acknowledge this faith as the hermeneutic, as the locus of understanding, which does not dogmatically force itself upon the Bible, but is the only way of letting it be itself" (28)

Even though I may want to nuance some aspects of these points and though I am left with some questions about the implications of this, the essay is welcome breath of fresh air.

Now Online

C. G. Bartholomew and Thorsten Moritz (eds). Christ and Consumerism: Critical Reflections on the Spirit of Our Age. Carlisle: Paternoster, 2000.

Contents:

1.Christ and Consumerism: An Introduction--Craig Bartholomew

2.Consumerism and the Spirit of the Age--Colin Greene

3.The Old Testament and the Enjoyment of Wealth--Gordon McConville

4.New Testament Voices for an Addicted Society--Thorsten Moritz

5.Consuming God's Word: Biblical Interpretation and Consumerism--Craig Bartholomew

6.Post-Modernism Is Consumption--Alan Storkey

7.Life and Death and the Consumerist Ethic--Gordon Wenham

8.Shopping for a Church: Consumerism and the Churches--Nigel Scotland

9. The Toronto Experience in a Consumer Society--Graham Cray

Only Nine Months to Wait!

Baker Academic has just posted the info for the latest in their Baker Commentary on the OT Wisdom and Psalms. Craig Bartholomew has written extensively on both the book of Ecclesiastes particularly and on theological interpretation in general, and the publication of this commentary will provide readers with an example of his conception of a theological commentary on the book of Ecclesiastes.

Ecclesiastes will be the penultimate volume in the series--Goldingay's third volume on Psalms is due out in Nov, and as I understand it Tremper Longman is writing on Job. For a list of the volumes in the series go here.