Interpretation articles from October 2000

Interpretation archives from October 2000

Editorial.(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... It is no news that biblical interpretation has become a fragmented discipline. As a program guide from any major academic conference on the Bible will indicate, biblical scholarship consists of a veritable smorgasbord of methodologies and...

UNTAMABLE TEXT OF AN UNTAMABLE GOD Genesis and Rethinking the Character of Scripture.
October 1, 2000... The power of scripture cannot be confined to any one model of canonical authority. Readers invariably discover the biblical text as a place of surprising encounter with the untamable God. Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him...

Humor and the Theology of Hope: Isaac as a Humorous Figure.
October 1, 2000... The Isaac narratives contain many rarely noticed elements of humor. While enhancing the reader's enjoyment, humor is also an integral component of a theology of hope in Genesis. There has been an unfortunate propensity to underemphasize or...

Rewriting the Messianic Script: Matthew's Account of the Birth of Jesus.
October 1, 2000... The presentation of Jesus in Matthew's narrative recasts the identity, character, and vocation of the Messiah. The Gospel thereby challenges all conventional notions of kingship, power, and social status. Matthew's Gospel is a messianic...

Four Stations en Route to a Parabolic Homiletic.
October 1, 2000... To preach the LORD'S word is to administer God's relief for this world's cardiac sclerosis with the shock of healing grace. I. NINEVEH The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and...

Reading Revelation Today Witness as Active Resistance.
October 1, 2000... The Book of Revelation commends bold witness-active resistance to powerful, deeply entrenched forces of institutional evil. This courageous witness may bring about suffering and even death but also, as in the example of Martin Luther King, Jr.,...

2 Kings 22:1-23:3.
October 1, 2000... IN THE DALLAS MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS hangs a painting by Thomas Hart Benton, the twentieth-century Missouri artist. The late afternoon sun casts harsh shadows across a twisted landscape. At the side of an empty road stands a man with a suitcase...

Malachi 3:1 - 12.
October 1, 2000... THIS PASSAGE CONTAINS THE MOST FAMILIAR MATERIAL from Malachi, a book that seldom gets attention in Christian worship. Malachi 3:1-4 is read at the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, not exactly a high attendance event in the church year....

Matthew 25:1 - 13.
October 1, 2000... THE PARABLE OF THE WISE AND FOOLISH VIRGINS appears in the Common Lectionary, Cycle A, a few weeks before Advent. Matthew's placement of the parable tilts it towards apocalyptic. In the preceding chapter, often called the Little Apocalypse, the...

Proverbs: The Old Testament Library & Proverbs: Word Biblical Commentary.(Review)
October 1, 2000... Proverbs Richard J. Clifford The Old Testament Library. Westminster John Knox, Louisville, 1999. 286 pp. $38.95 (cloth). ISBN 0-664-22131-9. Proverbs by Roland E. Murphy Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 22. Thomas Nelson...

The Elusive Messiah: A Philosophical Overview of the Quest for the Historical Jesus.(Review)
October 1, 2000... by Raymond Martin, Westview, Boulder, 1999. 236 pp. $25.00 (cloth). ISBN 0-8133-6705-0. PERHAPS IT IS IRONIC THAT ONE OF THE MOST interesting books on the quest for the historical Jesus is not itself a part of the quest, nor is it...

Now Choose Life: Theology and Ethics in Deuteronomy.(Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... By J. Gary Millar Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1998. 216 pp. $24.00. ISBN 0-8028-4407-3. MILLAR RAISES THE OLD BUT IMPORTANT question of Old Testament ethics. Shall we pick and choose from its moral teachings, jettison it completely, or...

Psalms.(Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... by Craig C. Broyles New International Biblical Commentary. Hendrickson, Peabody, 1999. 539 pp. $11.95. ISBN 1-56563-220-6. Tins COMMENTARY, BASED on the NW translation, is intended for laity and clergy who want a clearly written yet...

The Literary Structure of the Old Testament: A Commentary on Genesis-Malachi.(Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... by David A. Dorsey Baker, Grand Rapids, 1999. 330 pp. $34.99 (cloth). ISBN 0-8010-2187-1. DORSEY'S STUDY OF THE LITERARY structure of the Hebrew Bible opens with a brief introduction to basic tools for literary study of the text...

Jonah.(Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... by Uriel Simon JPS Bible Commentary. Translated by Lenn J. Schramm. Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia, 1999. 96 pp. $34.95 (cloth). ISBN 0-6276-0672-9. SIMON'S COMMENTARY IS a welcome addition to this excellent series. He...

The Covenanted Self: Explorations in Law and Covenant.(Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... by Walter Brueggemann Fortress, Minneapolis, 1999. 148 pp. $18.00. ISBN 0-8006-3176-5. THIS SMALL BOOK OF ESSAYS takes the reader into a direct interaction with two of the most troublesome concepts in modern Christianity: obedience and...

A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew.(Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... by Craig S. Keener Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1999. 1040 pp. $60.00 (cloth). ISBN 0-8028-3821-9. IT IS EVIDENT THAT NO COMMENTARY can address all the interpretive aspects of a biblical book. Keener acknowledges this limitation by...

The Prophethood of All Believers: A Study in Luke's Charismatic Theology.(Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... by Roger Stronstad JPTSS 16. Sheffield Academic Press, Sheffield, 1999. 136 pp. $31.95 (cloth). ISBN 1-84127-005-9. THIS NARRATIVE THEOLOGICAL READING of Luke-Acts through the lens of a Pentecostal understanding of prophecy provides a...

The Corinthian Body.(Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... by Dale B. Martin Yale University Press, New Haven, 1995. 330 pp. $17.00. ISBN 0-300-08172-3. MARTIN TRACES FIRST-CENTURY IDEAS of the body through the writings of Paul, specifically the Corinthian correspondence. He demonstrates that...

Elusive Apocalypse: Reading Authority in the Revelation to John.(Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... by Greg Carey Studies in American Biblical Hermeneutics 15. Mercer University Press, Macon, 1999. 209 pp. $18.95. ISBN 086554-632-0. IN THIS EMINENTLY READABLE EXPLORATION of how the author of the Apocalypse rhetorically constructs his...

The New Testament Today.(Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... by Mark Allan Powell Westminster John Knox, Louisville, 1999. 156 pp. $18.00. ISBN 0-664-25824-7. A DISTINGUISHED TEAM OF CONTRIBUTORS has compiled a remarkably handy overview of recent developments in New Testament studies. The...

Jesus the Seer: The Progress of Prophecy.(Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... by Ben Witherington III Hendrickson, Peabody, 1999. 427 pp. $29.95. ISBN 156563-344-X. THE AMBITIOUS GOAL OF THIS MONOGRAPH includes much more than adding a new aspect to the current scholarly debate concerning the historical Jesus....

A New Vision for Israel: The Teachings of Jesus in National Context.(Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... by Scot McKnight Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1999. 263 pp. $21.00. ISBN 0-8028-4212-7. THIS LATEST CONTRIBUTION to the "Studying the Historical Jesus" series seeks to interpret the teaching of Jesus in light of the political vision that he...

Whoever Hears You Hears Me: Prophets, Performance, and Tradition in Q.(Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... by Richard A. Horsley with Jonathan A. Draper Trinity Press International, Harrisburg, 1999. 310 pp. $25.00. ISBN 1-56338-272-5. THIS BOOK IS A COLLECTION OF eleven studies on the synoptic sayings source, Q, by Richard Horsley, with...

Looking for Jesus.(Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... by Virginia Stem Owens Westminster John Knox, Louisville, 1999. 267 pp. $18.00. ISBN 0-664-25819-0. THIS WONDERFUL BOOK IS ABOUT PEOPLE (characters in the Gospels, subsequent readers of the Gospels, the author herself) looking for...

When History and Faith Collide: Studying Jesus.(Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... by Charles W. Hedrick Hendrickson, Peabody, 1999. 179 pp. $16.95. ISBN 1-56563-235-4. OF ALL BIBLICAL TEXTS, the canonical Gospels have become a principal arena where history and faith collide. Hedrick elucidates the conflict between...

Stumbling in the Light: New Testament Images for a Changing Church.(Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... by Robert Kysar Chalice Press, St. Louis, 1999. 158 pp. $16.99. ISBN 0-8272-3441-4. IN THIS CONCISE AND READABLE BOOK, Robert Kysar couples his pastoral experience with recent scholarly work on metaphor theory to address the postmodern...

Remembering the Faith: What Christians Believe.(Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... by Douglas J. Brouwer Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1999. 188 pp. $14.00. ISBN 0-8028-4621-1. BROUWER INTENDS TO ARTICULATE the basic content of the Christian faith. He does this in a straightforward way, topic by topic: revelation, God,...

Who Do You Say That I Am? Christology and the Church.(Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... edited by Donald Armstrong Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1999. 143 pp. $20.00. ISBN 0-8028-3865-0. THIS COLLECTION OF ESSAYS grew out of an Anglican conference, the purpose of which was "to offer a thoughtful, authoritative, biblical, and...

Beyond Resurrection.(Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... by A.J.M. Wedderburn Hendrickson, Peabody, 1999. 306 pp. $19.95. ISBN 1-56563-486-1. WEDDERBURN INSISTS that because Christianity is rooted in an historical figure, critical evaluation of claims about him is necessary for assessing the...

What Pure Eyes Could See: Calvin's Doctrine of Faith in its Exegetical Context.(Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... by Barbara Pitkin Oxford University Press, New York, 1999. 260 pp. $55.00 (cloth). ISBN 0-19-512828-1. ON THE CONVICTION that discussion should not be restricted to the Institutes, this study traces the way Calvin's exegetical labors...

Imagining a Church in the Spirit: A Task for Mainline Congregations.(Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... by Ben Campbell Johnson and Glenn McDonald Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1999. 257 pp. $16.00. ISBN 0-8028-4683-7. THIS BOOK JOINS THE CHORUS OF VOICES ranging from Lyle Schaller to Douglass John Hall, declaring that the church is "in crisis"...

Beyond Maintenance to Mission: A Theology of the Congregation.(Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... by Craig L. Nessan Fortress, Minneapolis, 1999. 134 pp. $14.00. ISBN 0-8006-3152-8. THE FOCUS OF TI-ITS BOOK is best summarized in the author's own words: "In order to carry out its mandate [to make disciples of all nations], the...

Premarital Guidance.(Review)(Brief Article)
October 1, 2000... by Charles W. Taylor Creative Pastoral Care and Counseling Series. Fortress, Minneapolis, 1999. 115 pp. $16.00. ISBN 0-8006-2712-1. IN THIS GUIDE FOR PARISH MINISTERS, Taylor emphasizes the importance and appropriateness of guidance...