Monthly Archives: January 2019

Perspectives on Israelite Wisdom: Proceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar edited by John Jarick

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Perspectives on Israelite Wisdom: Proceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar edited by John Jarick

Jarick, John, ed. Perspectives on Israelite Wisdom: Proceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar. Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016, pp 520, $128, hardback.

Proceedings of the Oxford Old Testament Seminar focuses on ‘Perspectives on Israelite Wisdom,’ and covers broad issues in the wisdom tradition and corpus.  The volume has no overarching thesis, hermeneutic, or methodology, but provides essays from diverse theological perspectives.  After an introduction by John Jarick, the book divides into three sections.  The first section covers ‘Issues in the Study of Israelite Wisdom.’  Stuart Weeks evaluates the watershed article by W. Zimmerli ‘The Place and Limits of Wisdom’ and finds his conclusions wanting.  John Barton writes on four different issues on ethics in the Old Testament but unfortunately covers each briefly with no conclusion or synthesis.  Jenni Williams employs Samuel and Proverbs to illustrate women’s relationship to wisdom.  Aulikki Nahkola offers a paremiological study of Proverbs to understand the worldview of Israel.  Will Kynes ends the first section with a fundamental critique of wisdom literature.

The second section covers ‘The Wisdom Corpus of the Hebrew Bible’ with two essays on Proverbs, two on Job, and three on Ecclesiastes.  In the first essay on Proverbs, Gary A. Rendsburg connects literary and linguistic issues in the book of Proverbs.  The next essay on Proverbs, James E. Patrick defends a connection between Proverbs and Deuteronomy through ‘the fear of the Lord.’  David J. A. Clines pulls imagery from Job to draw a picture of the universe from Job 38 in light of the Ancient Near East cosmology.  Terje Stordalen argues a conservative redactor tamed the rebellious Job by inserting material.  John Jarick shows Hellenistic influence in the structure of Ecclesiastes.  Jennie Grillo examines Jerome and Gregory of Nyssa interpretation and their value for modern study (p. 248).  Mette Bundvad concludes with applying a psychoanalytic spatial theory to Qohelet.

The final section covers contributions on ‘Other Texts in Relation to Wisdom.’  Susan Gillingham probes the Psalms to see what they tell us about the wisdom tradition.  Edmee Kingsmill SLG compares the Song of Songs with wisdom literature to demonstrate its affinity to the wisdom corpus.  John Day digs into the Garden of Eden to determine if there is a relationship from the ‘the knowledge of good and evil’ and the ‘tree of life’ to wisdom themes.  Phillip Y. Yoo highlights the lack wisdom in the wilderness tradition demonstrates the rebellion of Israel.  Katherine J. Dell positions Jeremiah as a renegade sage who uses tropes to oppose the wise (p. 381).  The final three essays focus on non-biblical material in Ben Sira and Handel’s Nabal.  Deborah W. Rooke compares the biblical account in 1 Samuel 25 against Handel’s Nabal.  The next two essays cover Ben Sira, which is a deuterocanonical wisdom book.  James K. Aitken and James E. Harding use Ben Sira to argue for Hellenistic influence on the text of Ben Sira.

The Oxford Seminar proceedings provide a significant collection of essays to the study of Old Testament wisdom.  The essays cover a broad range of issues which enable students the ability to familiarize themselves with wisdom issues.  A few essays stand out above the rest.  First up, Weeks essay on Zimmerli’s creation theology provides an updated critique to his creation theology.  Creation theology proposes justification through the created order (p. 10), which provides an alternative for justification apart from the covenant.  Weeks demonstrates Zimmerli’s lack of biblical support, and his root in Lutheran and scholarly context (pp. 10-11).  Wisdom literature revolves around the resemblance and difference of wisdom and historical literature.  Weeks provides a way forward by stating “the more that we stress the resemblance, the greater that tension becomes.” (7)  Tensions must exist within scripture and handled on their own terms.

Next on the list, Kynes’ essay criticizes the foundation of wisdom literature and shakes the very foundation.  He deconstructs the dilapidated categories and suggest scholars form categories natural to the text.  Wisdom literature as a technical term came from higher criticism and its desire to construct a category outside the text.  Kynes proposes the next step in wisdom literature begins with examining the text on its own account.  Readers will easily agree that categories should arise from the text, but Kynes fails to provide them within this essay.  Kynes will hopefully provide it within his new book An Obituary for ‘Wisdom Literature.”

In the third essay, Patrick unites Proverbs with the Deuteronomic revelation at Horeb through the fear of the Lord.  His essay readjusts current scholarship from a late deuteronomic date, which disallows contemporaneous usage by Proverbs.  He suggests that pre-exilic Israel shows a clear interest in the stories of Israel’s History (p. 166), for the fear of Lord begins at Mount Horeb with the giving of the ten commandments (p. 164).  This foundational story lays the structure for Proverbs 1-24.  His essay provides a welcome readjustment to Proverbs dependence upon Deuteronomy.  He perhaps stretches the imagination at times with calendar dates but provides a thoughtful examination of the material.

The fourth essay, Phillip Y. Yoo argues that the wilderness generation perished because a lack of the fear of the Lord (p. 370).  Wisdom remains absent from the wilderness generation because they challenge Yahweh’s authority rather than submitting to him in fear (p. 363).  Yoo hinders his argument by referring to JEDP but provides overarching implications for interpreting wisdom literature.  His solution provides possible answers to the presence and absence of wisdom in other scriptures.

These essays weigh in on multiple topics, but some stretch the categories for the ‘Perspectives on Israelite Wisdom.’  Rooke’s essays fails to fit within the category because she provides no insight to the Israelite perspective, but sets her essay in 1700 A.D.  The essays on Ben Sira focus on friendship and table manners which are at best sub-themes in the wisdom tradition.  These issues mentioned above agree with Kynes’ essay that wisdom literature is an artificial category that often expands to the needs of the community and fails to distinguish unrelated materials.  The diversity provides a broad range of essays, but a definition of wisdom literature remains allusive.

The Oxford Seminar has compiled a great resource for scholars and students to wade through the issues.  The brevity on each topic provides a launching point in each topic so that students and scholars will benefit in their studies.  A student new to the study of Old Testament should begin with Kynes’ essay to consider the validity of the genre.  Next, one should consider Patrick’s essay for hermeneutical methodology in interpreting Scripture.  Scholars will benefit from Dell’s essay on Jeremiah’s use of wisdom as a trope against his opponents.  She argues that Jeremiah’s use of wisdom sets the stage for the next transition in Old Testament scholarship (pp. 377-79).

Nicholas Majors

Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

Review of Integrative Preaching: A Comprehensive Model for Transformational Proclamation

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Review of Integrative Preaching: A Comprehensive Model for Transformational Proclamation

Anderson, Kenton C. Integrative Preaching: A Comprehensive Model for Transformational Proclamation. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2017, pp. 208 pages, $22.99, paperback.

Kent Anderson’s contribution to the field of homiletics is multifaceted. In addition to authoring several books in the field, he has provided an online preaching resource, www.preaching.org, for more than two decades. Anderson describes his recent contribution to homiletics, Integrative Preaching, as his “most comprehensive [book]” and “the best that [he has] to offer” (p. vii).

In the final chapter of his previous work, Choosing to Preach (Zondervan, 2006), Anderson introduced his idea of the integrated sermon. Thus, Integrative Preaching is the full expression of this homiletical model, and it is presented in the following four parts.

In Part One, Anderson suggests that the imagery of a cross as the best way to understand his integrative model. Among various points, the cross shows the intersection of vertical and horizontal axes, and it pictures the addition of diverse elements without compromising the nature of each element. In this way, integrative preaching is “not a choice between options but the addition of one to the other – head plus heart and heaven added to the human” (p. 9). In Anderson’s view, “The cross aspires to a new and heightened form of unity, expecting something greater, beyond the possibility offered by less holistic [homiletical] options” (p. 6).

In Part Two, the author describes four functional elements of his preaching model. Anderson writes that “the first move of a sermon is to engage the audience” (p. 45), and he contends, “The best was to engage listeners is to tell a story” (p. 46). Next, “the second move is to instruct” (57). At this juncture, biblical teaching intersects contemporary life. For its third move, Anderson asserts that “the sermon must also convict” (p. 67). The declaration of the gospel takes center stage here along with an anticipation of God’s transforming work in the lives of people. Lastly, inspiration comes into view for the fourth move. Anderson writes, “A great sermon will result in something … until the sermon inspires its listeners, it will be incomplete” (p. 77).

In Part Three, the author discusses the homiletical materials and various postures preachers assume in communicating an integrated sermon. First, preachers present a problem with a pastoral tone. Thus, integrative preaching begins inductively. Second, the points of the sermon help listeners see how the biblical text addresses this problem. Here the preacher assumes the posture of a theologian. Anderson urges, “[Preachers] are not offering opinions … Our challenge is to read the text and discern its meaning by careful exegesis” (p. 99). Third, prayers are the main thrust at this stage of the integrative sermon. In this movement, the preacher functions “in the mode of the worshiper or worship leader” (p. 105). Anderson writes, “Preachers need to hear from God themselves” (p. 107), and with humility, “the preacher speaks in the voice of the fellow traveler, though as one a little further on the journey” (p. 108). For the final move, the preacher paints a picture in the mode of a prophet. A vision of the future is cast for listeners to see what God can accomplish for all who embrace His truth.

In Part Four, Anderson presents practical points for integrative preaching. He begins with guidance on identifying the biblical text and topic as well as pulling together ideas for the movements of the sermon. The preacher also distills the major theme for the sermon. All of this is developed with an eye towards the audience, since Anderson urges preachers “to read the text and to read the people” (p. 127). The author then addresses the assembly of the sermon which needs to be precise and intentional so that there is a strong unity and finish to the message. Anderson next challenges preachers to prepare for delivering the sermon in ways which move beyond mere rehearsal and memory techniques. Rather, preachers should strive for the message to become a part of them. The author explains, “If our sermons are not true to us in the deepest way, they will not be powerful for those who listen” (p. 148). Finally, preachers need to deliver the sermon. Practical matters here relate to the tone of verbal delivery, the physical posture of delivery, and the use of a pulpit and notes in delivery. In all these facets of delivery, preachers should seek to maximize the opportunities of specific preaching events.

Anderson’s effort to present a holistic homiletical model in a single volume of less than 200 pages is an ambitious one. A strength of his model is the mixture of diverse elements. He constantly challenges readers to resist the urge to retreat to false dichotomies such as heaven or earth, head or heart, objective or subjective, etc. Yet, it is precisely at this point where a weakness in the book emerges. Its contents may overwhelm preachers with a deluge of details. For instance, when Anderson populates a pictorial representation of his integrative model at the end of Part One, twenty ideas flood the image. Yet, readers are only a quarter of a way through his book at this stage.

At this juncture, Paul Scott Wilson’s counsel in Preaching and Homiletical Theory (Chalice, 2004) comes to mind. Near the beginning of Wilson’s survey of homiletical theories, he poses an important question about their utility: “Can a typical preacher readily understand a proposed method and implement it effectively?” (p. 21). Doubtlessly, Anderson has given thorough reflection in his book-length version of his initial thoughts concerning the integrative sermon. However, perhaps a more streamlined dispensing of its main thrusts might help preachers to implement it. Currently, readers will have to wade through the significant number of the moving parts in the integrative model as they cull from it some key ideas to use in their preaching.

Consequently, Integrative Preaching will probably be most useful to seasoned preachers, since they will likely discern where their preaching is less than holistic in nature. They will also be aware of some of the basic homiletical building blocks for sermon development. For novice preachers, they would be better served by learning to first develop messages from the instruction offered in Bryan Chapell’s Christ-Centered Preaching (third edition, Zondervan, 2018). Towards the end of his work, Chapell offers the following wise homiletical counsel in relation to sermonic structures: “Just as a musician practices scales to develop the skills for more nuanced compositions, preachers who have knowledge and mastery of these basic components of sermon structure are best prepared to alter, adapt, mix, or reject them in order to take the approach most appropriate for their particular text, congregation, and circumstance” (p. 389). Interestingly, Anderson first illustrated the idea of the integrative sermon with musical compositions in Choosing to Preach. So, it would be helpful for beginning preachers to learn the homiletical scales of biblical exposition before trying to compose a complex sermonic score like the model presented in Integrative Preaching.

Pete Charpentier

Grand Canyon Theological Seminary

Review of The Prince of this World by Adam Kotsko

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Review of The Prince of this World by Adam Kotsko

Kotsko, Adam. The Prince of This World. Stanford: California, Stanford University Press, 2017, pp. 240, $22.95, paperback.

In this engaging study of the Devil, Adam Kotsko, assistant professor of humanities at Shimer College, offers a rigorous piece of political theology. Whilst making a trenchant contribution to critiques of contemporary modernity, this book will appeal to both specialists and a general audience alike. The introduction recalls the testimony of police officer Darren Wilson, who claimed to be frightened of Michael Brown, the young, unarmed black man he shot and killed. Brown was “no angel”—Wilson euphemistically positioned his victim as not just criminal, but as actively demonic. Yet, if anyone is the demon in this situation it must be the personification of racist structural violence. From somewhere has sprung “a profound theological reversal,” (p. 4) where the demonic, once the theological tool of the oppressed seeking to explain their sufferings, becomes a weapon of those who oppress. With this context, Kotsko argues that this theological discourse on the devil, the demonic and of evil emerges from a long and under-acknowledged heritage and sets himself the task of tracing the story of how this reversal has taken hold.

Chapter one explores the confrontation between the people of Israel and Pharaoh, a figure that Kotsko sees as the “most relevant biblical antecedent for the devil” (p. 22) because within the paradigm of political theology unfolded at this point, what Kotsko calls “the minority monotheism of the Hebrew biblical tradition, God’s wicked rival could only be a rival king” (p. 23). By the time of Christ and the New Testament (chapter two) the relationship between the God’s implacable foe and God becomes complicated by the figure of the Messiah. The older apocalyptic paradigm must be rethought—by the time of eschatological visions of Revelation, the enemy of God is not just a King, but it is now the greatest Empire on Earth, Rome itself. There is a “play of mirrors” (p. 54) as Christ and anti-Christ, city of God and Whore of Babylon confront one another forming an apocalyptic image of contemporary politics. In Revelation, “the sufferings of the wicked serve to enhance the joy of the saints” (p. 55) and given the extravagance of their torture in the lake of fire, the “stark opposition of good and evil [is] beginning to break down” (p. 56). God becomes dangerously close to his mirrored foe of the Devil and the New Jerusalem forms the counterpoint to Babylon and Rome.

This apocalyptic confrontation between Babylon (the Roman empire) and the New Jerusalem (the emerging Christian community) is complicated by much of Paul’s New Testament writing. Kotsko quotes Romans 13, and analyses how whilst Paul insists that all authority is “instituted by God”, in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, these political authorities have “forfeited any legitimacy” (p. 62) and moral authority is, instead, handed over to the Christian community.

These questions of authority and the relationship between the political present and the more intangible realm of faith is what begins the shaping of another paradigm—the patristic paradigm. After a discussion of Irenaeus and Tertullian, Kotsko argues that there is a downplaying of the political because the devil’s agents are no longer the “the kings of this world but the antibishops of the antichurch of heresy” (p. 70). The apocalyptic paradigm, irrevocably set in motion by the death and resurrection of Christ, is dangerous and these early Christian writers have de-politicized it, shifting the polemic onto the realm of belief and displacing the political into the theological. As a result, “purely symbolic or theological explanations of the cross followed naturally” (p. 74).

Here, there is a moment of opportunity—a gap between paradigms—as the relationship between Rome and Christianity shifts between persecution and adoption. In this space of possibility emerges Gregory of Nyssa’s Address on Religious Instruction, which positions Christ’s salvific work on the cross as not only saving humanity “but the devil as well” (p. 80). Yet, the optimism of Nyssa’s approach is later repudiated by theologians from both East and West. Kotsko provides a reading of Anselm, who puts forward a God “jealous of his honour—which is to say, proud—and he is absolutely unforgiving of any debt or obligation.” In short, “it makes sense that God would not be merciful to the devil, because he is not even merciful to humans” (p. 100-1). As Kotsko puts it, “the entire life of the devil . . . is overshadowed by divine vengeance” (p. 105).

Following on from this Kotsko traces the “debates surrounding the devil’s fall from grace” (p. 110). Building on the problem of freedom and the will in Augustine’s account of his own conversion, Kotsko notes that Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas “all arrive at a broadly similar account of the devil’s fall: he fell at the earliest possible moment, due to an act of will that was inexplicably insubordinate to God” (p. 130). The Devil is portrayed as evil as possible, for as long as possible, dividing off the Devil’s rebellion “into a conceptual space excluded from God’s realm of direct responsibility” (p. 131). The problem (and here the connections to the current political moment seem clearer) is freedom. Freedom is, in many ways, the founding myth of Western liberal modernity, emerging into this “empty space discovered by medieval theology” (p. 133).

By chapter five, Kotsko points out that secular modernity still has its own demons “and for those demonized populations” (women, Jewish people, the victims of racialised slavery) “the modern earthly city is surely a living hell” (p. 167). It is then from hell that we might launch a critique on secular modernity, and so at the close of the book Kotsko turns to Dante’s Inferno. In Dante, Satan is presented as the (semi-literal) foundation of all of God’s creation. In his journey through hell Dante never questions those he finds there and ultimately joins in with the devil’s henchmen in torturing the damned. As Kotsko notes, “the God who has become the devil turns his followers into demons” (p. 183). From Dante, Kotsko turns to consider both the prison and the concentration camp, sites of disciplinary punishment which, like hell, serve as gruesome spectacle and ultimately a distraction (see p. 188, 191). In a final twist, there remains something that God cannot control. The damned who refuse to submit to the will of judgement cannot be redeemed—the production “of bare life as pure victimization is never the last word” (p. 192).

For Kotsko, those unruly wills, wallowing in their obscene jouissance, become the foundation of God’s rule. In contrast to the stasis of God and his saints, in hell we see the truth of Milton’s Satan, “Here at least we shall be free… Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.” At the close of Paradise Lost, Adam and Eve weave their way from the Garden. Earlier, the Prince of this World promises them that “league with you I seek/And mutual amity so strait, so close/That I with you must dwell or you with me.” For Kotsko, this serves as “a kind of fable of the transition from Christianity to secular modernity” (p. 197). We are, it seems, still dwelling with Satan. This is not cultural baggage to be discarded, as this legacy is bound up within “the core value of Western modernity . . . freedom” (p. 198). Yet this kind of freedom is not freedom at all it seems but it “results in a claustrophobia . . . more extreme than that of the medieval paradigm” (p. 200). Kotsko’s critique of freedom is far ranging but the question remains: how to break the “apparatus for generating blameworthiness?” (p. 200)

What hope there is can be found in liberation theologies that represent bold attempts to create “a new and unprecedented Christianity in the wreckage of Christianity’s modern afterlife” (p. 205). As we rethink, rework, and repurpose might all—even the devil(s) themselves – finally be saved?  As a work that seeks to re-politicize political theology, explicitly connecting theological discourse to contemporary material reality, the book is a welcome corrective to dry scholasticism about evil and contemporary politics, accessible, engaging and consistently challenging to political theologians of all levels.

Jon Greenaway,

Manchester Metropolitan University, U.K.