Interpretation articles from January 2001

Interpretation archives from January 2001

Editorial.
January 1, 2001... An unprecedented media event occurred in North America that provoked little or no notice among audiences in the United States. Canadians were treated recently to a $25-million television series entitled Canada: A People's History. Its...

RETHINKING THEOLOGY: A Postmodern, Post-Holocaust, Post-Christendom Endeavor.
January 1, 2001... A new intellectual climate is emerging for rethinking the God of revelation who is unreservedly for and with human beings and who, in turn, calls us to be for and with the Other. The first comprehensive theorist of postmodernity,...

Walk This Way: Repetition, Difference, and the Imitation of Christ.
January 1, 2001... An ethics of imitation risks trivializing, aggrandizing, and homogenizing the company of disciples. Should followers of Jesus even try to walk this way? By now, the "WWJD" craze has probably peaked. Savvy entrepreneurs have saturated the...

PREACHING AND POSTMODERNISM.
January 1, 2001... Although rejecting the core values of the modern worldview, postmodernism may prove to be more blessing than bane for worshiping communities. From deconstruction to apologetics, the postmodern context calls for new ways of preaching the gospel....

Bounded Openness: Postmodernism, Feminism, and the Church Today.
January 1, 2001... The church can benefit from the critical impulses of both postmodernism and feminism. As a community of bounded openness, the church adopts certain rules and normative claims, while remaining open to God, others, and the world. I was...

Deuteronomy 10:12-22.
January 1, 2001... THIS TEXT IS A MESSAGE FROM THE EDGE, ADDRESSED to a community caught between a past of doubt and a future of promise. It could be the literary community standing between the wilderness and the promised land; or the historical community that...

Luke 13:10-17.
January 1, 2001... Hand-wringing about biblical illiteracy notwithstanding, sometimes the congregation knows a Bible story too well. In the story of the woman stooped for eighteen years by a "spirit of infirmity," hearers may come to the text already knowing what...

Acts 12:1--19.
January 1, 2001... LIFE IN THE MIDST OF DEATH Certainly this passage has the potential to distress today's readers. It begins and ends with death. In Acts 12:2, Herod Agrippa I executes James the brother of John. In 12:19, "he examined the guards and ordered...

2 Corinthians 4:1-18.
January 1, 2001... OUR LEGITIMATION CRISIS "WHEN DO YOU ENROLL IN INTRODUCTORY PREACHING?" I asked a group of divinity students. They admitted that they put it off. Was it because they wanted stronger foundations in theology or Bible? No. Did they dislike...

Exodus 1-18: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary.(Review)
January 1, 2001... William H.C. Propp AB 2. Doubleday, New York, 1999. 720 pp. $44.95 (cloth). ISBN 0-385-14804-6. THIS VOLUME CONSTITUTES A MAJOR CRITICAL COMMENTARY on the first eighteen chapters of the book of Exodus. This division of Exodus is...

The Religion of the Earliest Churches: Creating a Symbolic World & Between Two Worlds: Structures of Earliest Christianity.(Review)
January 1, 2001... Gerd Theissen. Translated by John Bowden. Fortress, Minneapolis, 1999. 408 pp. $29.00. ISBN 0-8006-3179-X. Between Two Worlds: Structures of Earliest Christianity by Christoph Markschies. Translated by John Bowden. SCM Press,...

First and Second Samuel.(Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Eugene H. Peterson Westminster Bible Companion. Westminster John Knox, Louisville, 1999. 270 PP. $19.95. ISBN 0-664-25523-x THIS COMMENTARY COMBINES language of the laity with spiritual and academic insights. Drawing from pastoral and...

Judges.(Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Tammi J. Schneider Bent Olam: Studies in Hebrew Narrative & Poetry. Liturgical Press, Collegeville, 2000. 336 pp. $34.95 (cloth). ISBN 0-8146-50850-3. THIS COMMENTARY DEMONSTRATES that Judges is a unified piece of literature tied...

Job.(Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... James A. Wharton Westminster Bible Companion. Westminster John Knox, Louisville, 1999. 191 pp. $16.95. ISBN 0-664-25267-2. "CAN THERE BE A HUMAN BEING of such incorruptible integrity toward God and people that not even the worst...

Gender in the Book of Jeremiah: A Feminist-Literary Reading.(Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Angela Bauer Peter J. Lang, New York, 1999. 203 pp. $47.95 (cloth). ISBN 0-8204-3899-5. THIS BOOK OFFERS A COMPREHENSIVE overview of the female images employed throughout the book of Jeremiah. From passages with a woman as the clear...

The Jesus Seminar and its Critics.(Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Robert J. Miller Polebridge, Sonoma, 1999. 157 pp. $17.00. ISBN 0944344-78-X. THE JESUS SEMINAR created a media sensation by deciding the authenticity or inauthenticity of the sayings of Jesus by casting colored beads into a basket....

Jesus Christ in History and Scripture: A Poetic and Sectarian Perspective.(Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Edgar V. McKnight Mercer University Press, Macon, 1999. 332 pp. $20.00. ISBN 0-86554-677.0. THIS BOOK HAS an almost magisterial scope: to examine the study of Jesus and the Gospels within the context of hermeneutical and literary...

Jesus, Justice and the Reign of God: A Ministry of Liberation.(Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... by William B. Herzog II Westminster John Knox, Louisville, 2000. 316 pp. $26.95. ISBN 0-664-25676-7. AMIDST THE SPATE OF BOOKS about the third quest of the historical Jesus, this study is a valuable and needed addition to the...

The Theology of the First Letter to the Corinthians.(Review)
January 1, 2001... Victor Paul Furnish New Testament Theology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999. 167 pp. $49.95 (cloth). ISBN 0-521-35252-5. PERHAPS TO A GREATER EXTENT than the other Pauline letters, 1 Corinthians manifests an ongoing...

The Letter to the Ephesians.(Review)
January 1, 2001... Peter T. O'Brien The Pillar New Testament Commentaries. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1999. 536 pp. $40.00 (cloth). ISBN 0-8028-3736-0. THIS IS THE FOURTH VOLUME to appear in a series that has quickly established itself as among the best of...

James: New Testament Readings.(Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Richard Bauckham Routledge, New York, 1999. 246 pp. $29.99. ISBN 0-415-10370-3. THIS VOLUME offers scholars and laity alike a fresh treatment of the major questions faced in the study of this small but very important New Testament...

The Letter of James.(Review)
January 1, 2001... Douglas J. Moo The Pillar New Testament Commentary Series. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 2000. 287 pp. $28.00 (cloth). ISBN 0-8028-3730-1. IN KEEPING WITH THE FORMAT of this series, Moo gives a verse by verse exegesis of the letter of James....

A Spirituality of Perfection: Faith in Action in the Letter of James.(Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Patrick J. Hartin Liturgical Press, Collegeville, 1999. 192 pp. $17.95. ISBN 0-8146-6895-4. HARTIN SETS OUT FOUR AIMS for his study: "discovery of a unifying theme" for James, analysis of its concept of "perfection" and its...

Just James: the Brother of Jesus in History and Tradition.(Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... John Painter Studies on Personalities of the New Testament. Fortress, Minneapolis, 1999. 288 PP. $22.00. ISBN 1.57003-1746. James the Just and Christian Origins Bruce Chilton Craig A. Evans Supplements to Novum Testament...

1-2 Peter, Jude.(Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Erland Waltner J. Daryl Charles Believers Church Bible Commentary. Herald Press, Scottdale, 1999. 352 pp. $19.99. ISBN 0-8361-9118-8. THIS FINE COMMENTARY offers a fresh perspective from the Believers Church tradition...

Gnosis and Faith in Early Christianity: An Introduction to Gnosticism.(Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Riemer Roukema. Translated by John Bowden. Trinity Press International, Harrisburg, 1999. 212 pp. $23.00. ISBN 1-56338-299-7. THIS EMINENTLY READABLE introduction acknowledges the notorious problem of defining "gnosticism," but handles...

Healing in the New Testament: Insights from Medical and Mediterranean Anthropology.(Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... John J. Pilch Fortress, Minneapolis, 2000. 180 pp. $18.00. ISBN 0-8006-3178-1. IN THIS COMPILATION OF ARTICLES, Pilch proposes a synthesis of medical anthropology with Mediterranean anthropology as a hermeneutical tool for the study of...

Way of Blessing, Way of Life.(Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Clark M. Williamson Chalice, St. Louis, 1999. 335 pp. $27.99. ISBN 0-8272-4243-3. AT ITS BEST, CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY has always sought to walk the fine line between relevance and prophetic witness. That is, theologians have recognized...

The Believing Heart: An Invitation to Story Theology.(Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... C. S. Song Fortress, Minneapolis, 1999. 338 pp. $27.00. ISBN 0-8006-3142-0. SONG SEEKS TO GIVE VOICE TO a Christian faith that would be more than the proprietary language of a closed Western religion, but rather the language of life's...

Ancient-Future Faith: Rethinking Evangelicalism for a Postmodern World.(Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Robert Webber Baker, Grand Rapids, 1999. 240 pp. $15.99. ISBN 0-8010-6029-X. THE MOST URGENT ISSUE facing evangelicals, according to Webber, is the shift from "modernity," with its rationalism and individualism, to "postmodernity,"...

Theology and Contemporary Culture: Liberation, Postliberal and Revisionary Perspectives.(Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... David G. Kamitsuka Cambridge University Press, New York, 1999. 211 pp. $54.95 (cloth). ISBN 0-521-65005-4. THE CENTRAL CONCERN of this book is the recasting of the apologetic task of theology in the light of the unavoidability of the...

Christian Ethics and Contemporary Moral Problems.(Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Michael Banner Cambridge University Press, New York, 1999. 325 pp. $59.95 (cloth). ISBN 0-521-623820. FOLLOWING IN THE FOOTSTEPS of Barth, Banner argues for a dogmatic ethics, one that understands itself in relation to the action of...

Women Leaders and the Church: Three Crucial Questions.(Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Linda L. Belleville Baker, Grand Rapids, 2000. 217 pp. $13.99. ISBN 08010-5351-X. IN WHICH MINISTRIES CAN WOMEN be involved? What roles can women play in society? Can women hold positions of authority? These are the "three crucial...

Pastoral Care of Gays, Lesbians, and Their Families.(Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... David K. Switzer Fortress, Minneapolis, 1999. 156 pp. $17.00. ISBN 0-8006-2954-X. SWITZER MAKES A SIGNIFICANT contribution to pastors, laypersons, and congregations that want to offer appropriate pastoral care to lesbians, gays, their...

The Gold Coast Church and the Ghetto: Christ and Culture in Mainline Protestantism.(Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... James K. Wellman University of Illinois Press, Chicago, 1999. 257 pp. $21.95. ISBN 0-252-06804-1. WELLMAN PRESENTS AN INTRIGUING systematic approach to issues affecting an affluent church adjacent to a slowly decaying fabric of...

Sundays Down South.(Review)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... James O. Chatham University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, 1999. 224 pp. $25.00. ISBN 1-57806-175-X. THIS BOOK IS PRESBYTERIAN James Chatham's collection of stories from various ministries in Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, and...