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9/2/2008
Wow. September is here. Hard to believe. Classes start next week. I’m teaching two: Introduction to the New Testament 1 and Greek 1. People seem to have a lot of anxiety about taking Greek, but Greek is much easier than, say, theology or ethics. Greek is pretty cut-and-dry. You either know it or you don’t. There is no need to try to understand statements such as “God is that-no-greater-than-which-can-be-thought.” There is no need to try to comprehend how God can be one and three simultaneously, or to engage the mystery of atonement. In Greek, we do not consider ethical questions in light of their morally relevant circumstances, or dwell upon the nuances of the Greatest Happiness Principle. Case, number, gender. Tense, person, voice, mood. These are the bits and pieces that Greek is made of. If you can take these bits and pieces and put them together, then you can read Greek.
There was a point years ago when I considered studying ethics rather than New Testament. I was a seminary student at the time. In my Christian Ethics course, however, we read Kant’s Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. That was all it took. I said to myself, “Self, if studying ethics involves reading anything like this ever again, then I don’t want to study ethics.” And that was that.
On another note, I am making a solemn vow, right here in the blogosphere: I am not taking on any new writing projects until my book is with the publisher. (Please note: This does not include finishing up a couple of articles that have lain fallow for a while.) 8/27/2008
We recently handed out entry surveys to incoming students as our Introduction to Theological Education. On one question, we asked these students to describe their perception of the general theological position of United. We offered a number of choices: liberal, conservative, evangelical, progressive, radically liberal, fundamentalist, charismatic, orthodox, emerging, justice-oriented, moderate, and “other.” Students could choose as many of these categories as they wishes. Interestingly, the top five categories were:
- Missional
- Liberal
- Evangelical
- Progressive
- Conservative
Perhaps the reason that we have been described in these apparently conflicting categories is that the old “conservative” and “liberal” divide has become obsolete. In past decades, people would never have put labels like “missional,” “liberal,” and “conservative” together. Nor would they have linked “evangelical” and “progressive.” But the church has changed in recent years, and we are seeing theological and social commitments combined in new and exciting ways.
I have heard since I came to United that we have a reputation for being “liberal.” Then I hear from other people that we are too “conservative.” But the fact of the matter is, the education that one will get at United is neither classically liberal nor classically conservative, but combines elements of both of these traditions with an eye toward the renewal of the church. Emphasizing social holiness and justice does not mean that one rejects the doctrines of the historic Christian faith. In fact, I would argue that our doctrines, scriptures, liturgical practices, and Eucharistic practices are ports of entry into the life of the Trinity, and when we enter into the life of the Trinity, we are transformed. Our desires, volitions, and ideas about right and wrong change. Right belief, then, is crucial for a church that wishes to emphasize righteous practice, and righteous practice will be at the heart of a missional church.
8/14/2008
I was recently reading Carl R. Holladay's book, A Critical Introduction to the New Testament: Interpreting the Message and Meaning of Jesus Christ (Abingdon, 2005). The first chapter of this work is called “The New Testament as Theological Writings.” In this chapter, Holladay writes, “What we say and think about God derives ultimately from our experience of the Living God” (15-16). I wonder about this, because I think that he is giving a lot of epistemic authority to experience. This is of course one of the hallmarks of Liberal Protestantism: religious claims are authorized by individual experience. Holladay does go on to say, “However profound such encounters may be, they do not occur in a vacuum. Nor do we reflect on them by drawing on images and resources that we alone generate, however fertile our minds may be” (16). Yet experience is still primary in theological reflection.
I agree that experience has a place in theological reflection, but I think we have to consider not only individual experience, but corporate experience as well. Much of the corporate experience of Christians is preserved in tradition and scripture. One of the problems within United Methodism is that we adopted the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral” into our Discipline in 1972, with no clear parameters for using scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. In the absence of such parameters, theological reflection became a highly individualistic undertaking, a free-for-all in which each person was supposed to be able to draw on the whole of scripture and tradition (quite an ambitious undertaking, to say the least) and then reflect upon these coherently using reason and experience. What happened de facto was that experience became the chief criterion for the validity of theological claims, a great deal of lip service was paid to reason, scripture was deployed selectively, and tradition was almost entirely ignored or rejected. We therefore lost our sense of a corporate identity grounded in a common vision of God, and this has been very costly for the church. To a certain extent, some of these problems were corrected in the 1988 Discipline.
The point of all of this pontificating is: I think that I would amend Holladay’s statement by saying that what we think and say about God derives ultimately from scripture and tradition, supplemented by our reason and experience. 8/5/2008
At long last, I have submitted my manuscript for the Fortress Press New Proclamation Commentary, which is a commentary on the lectionary readings. I’m very glad to have this done. I needed until the deadline (plus two weeks) to complete it. This is, for the most part, why I have not blogged for forever and a day.
Next project: publish a revised version of the dissertation. Before I do that, however, I have to find a publisher. First things first…. I hope I can knock this out within one year.
I have not heard peep about a publication date for the Wesley Study Bible.
It looks like we’re going to have a good number of students begin at United this fall. I’m looking forward to beginning the semester.
I saw a roadside sign the other day that said “HELL IS REAL.” At first I thought, “Don’t I know it, on an eighteen-hour drive from Texas to Ohio in the middle of summer with my son’s giant dog who might jump in the front seat at any moment.” Then I thought, “Wow, of all the millions of things one could put on a billboard, this person thought that ‘HELL IS REAL’ was the best thing one could possibly put there.” I think that the intent must have been evangelistic, but before people start believing that hell is real, shouldn’t they start considering propositions like, “God is real,” or “Christ is real,” or even “Sin is real”? Maybe billboard evangelism isn’t the most effective way to lead people into the life of the Trinity. 7/11/2008United has a new video that describes our identity and programs. You can see it by clicking here. 7/9/2008
Maybe you’ve heard. The foundations of Christianity have been utterly shaken by a startling scholarly discovery (again). To make a long story short….
Ten years ago a three-foot high stone tablet was discovered. We’re not sure where it was discovered, but the best bet seems to be near Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. Yet this tablet was probably found in Jordan, on the other side of the Dead Sea from Qumran, which is in the West Bank. The stone seems to predate Jesus, and may date from the end of the first century B.C. It contains 87 lines of Hebrew text written in ink. Much of the text is legible, though some of it has faded and has become illegible.
The Stone was purchased from an antiquities dealer by an Israeli-Swiss collector named. David Jeselsohn. Some time after the purchase, scholars began to see connections between the stone and the Dead Sea Scrolls. It was dubbed “Gabriel’s Revelation.” Suddenly, it seems, Jeselsohn had a find of considerable significance on his hands.
Enter Israel Knohl, a professor of biblical studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. One of Knohl’s chief areas of interest is the political atmosphere in Israel at the time of Jesus. Here’s where things get weird.
Knohl argues that the text refers to a Jewish revolutionary leader named Simon who died in 4 B.C. Lines 19-21 of the stone read, “In three days you will know that evil will be defeated by justice.” The 80th line of the text also begins with a reference to three days, but then the line becomes difficult to read. It may, however, contain a form of the verb “to live,” and Knohl believes that it should be read as the imperative, “live.” Knohl also holds that three later words, also difficult to make out, should read, “In three days you shall live, I, Gabriel, command you.” When Gabriel says this, he is speaking to someone called the “prince of princes.” Knohl derives from this that the text of Gabriel’s Revelation is talking about a revolutionary leader, and he draws the conclusion that this text is speaking of a messianic figure who dies and after three days rises from the dead.
If you want to understand all of this in a bit more detail, check out the articles on this issue in Time and the International Herald Tribune.
What does all of this mean? Knohl wishes to argue that, in proclaiming Jesus as a suffering and dying Messiah who after three days rose from the dead, Jesus’ first followers drew upon a motif that was already a part of Second Temple Judaism. Essentially, the gospel accounts of Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection are not historical events, but appropriations of pre-existing theological concepts.
I have to admit that I am underwhelmed by this proposal. First and foremost, there is the issue of textual evidence. The sections of the text that are most crucial for Knohl’s argument are partially illegible. That’s quite a problem.
Second, the Hebrew word translated as a form of “to live” can also mean “arise,” “appear,” “come,” “be established,” “abide,” “remain,” or “continue.”
Third, even if Knohl is right, the fact that the concept of a dying and rising Messiah appears on one tablet does not mean that it was a common concept in Second Temple Judaism. If this was a motif in Second Temple Judaism, why is this the only instance of it that we know of outside of the early Jesus movement? Why does it not appear in any of the other DSS? And if it wasn’t a common theme, then why should we expect Jesus’ first followers to have known about it?
Fourth, I think I’ve seen this movie before.
I remember buying a ticket and standing in a very long line of scholars at the Society of Biblical Literature Meeting in Toronto a few years ago. We were waiting to see the ossuary box that many scholars believed had once held the bones of James, the brother of Jesus. As it turned out, the James ossuary was probably a forgery. It occurred to me today that I should ask for a refund.
And then there was the recent controversy surrounding the Gospel of Judas. As it turns out, it seems there were serious translation errors as well as a serious pressure to sensationalize the text. The Gospel of Judas was not quite as unique or interesting as it first appeared. I have a link to an article on this issue in a blog post below.
And how could one forget “Jesus’ family tomb”? I’d better not write more about this, or I might break out in hives. I’ve already blogged on this, anyway (click here).
Forgive me, then, if I’m hesitant to reevaluate the origins of Christianity based on Gabriel’s Revelation, but I don’t think that we will be able to assess the significance of this work for some time. Good historical scholarship is not something that one does quickly. It takes time, rigor, and discipline. It takes patience and a willingness to acknowledge the limits of the conclusions that one can draw from the data at hand. I often tell my students, “History is never neat, and history is never simple.” How this stone tablet will affect the study of early Christianity is yet to be seen, but I think it’s a safe bet to say that there will be twists and turns in this story. 6/28/2008
I recently arrived in Texas to visit family, but since I’ve gotten here I’ve been getting emails about how great Mike Slaughter’s Missional Church class was. I encouraged students to take this, and I’m glad that I did. The most extensive comments have come from Jenny Smith, who has blogged about the course during this one-week class. Check out her blog at http://www.journey4610.blogspot.com/. 6/20/2008
Yes, the great Steven Colbert interviews the great N. T. Wright about heaven and God's new creation. Good stuff. Check out the video.
6/19/2008
I recently ran across a website that I built years ago on Canonical Theism. It was when we were first getting the project off the ground. Billy Abraham had put together a number of theses on CT, and I published them on the web. Apparently SMU has graciously allowed them to stay up all this time, though I had completely forgotten about it. If you’re interested in learning more about CT (and haven’t bought the book yet), check out http://people.smu.edu/canonicaltheism/CTTheses.htm. 6/12/2008
I just returned from my first annual conference at Lakeside, Ohio. Having transferred up from the North Texas Conference, the West Ohio Conference seemed…unusual. It was a very nice environment for the conference, but I’m just not used to seeing pastors at annual conference wearing flip flops and shorts.
Lakeside is a gated community, a Chautauqua, right on the shores of Lake Erie. It is a beautiful place, and going there is kind of like taking a step back in time. The conference session are held in a very large auditorium that looks like something out of “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” Pastors bring there families. Kids eat ice cream and go fishing. In the evening people gather by the pier and watch the sunset. People walk the streets, even after dark, running into old friends and talking about the day’s events.
Apparently there is a longstanding debate over whether or not the conference should keep meeting at Lakeside. On the one hand, some people see it as backward-looking, “taking a bath in nostalgia,” as it was once put to me. On the other hand, how many annual conferences have the community and family-oriented atmosphere that one finds at Lakeside? Annual conference was actually enjoyable this year. When I attended sessions of the North Texas Conference, we usually held it at the Plano Center, just north of Dallas. It was more businesslike, and I’m sure that attendance at the sessions was higher than in West Ohio. But I think that there is something to be said for the idea that “holy conferencing” is not just about business. Yes, we have to get our work done, but I think that bringing people together in a place where they can really enter into community with one another is a great idea.
I’ve always found a very collegial and often warm atmosphere among pastors in the West Ohio Conference. Maybe our meeting at Lakeside has something to do with that. |
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