I recently finished the book mentioned in the title by Michael Oren. It is an excellent book on the history of the Middle East from the US's perspective. The main point of the book is in the title: the US has always viewed the Middle East with a mixture of power, faith, and fantasy. The power is the military might, all the way from the confrontation with the Barbary pirates to the second Gulf War. The faith is the missionary movement and the influence from reading the Bible. The stories about the early missionaries are exciting and somewhat chilling. The Middle East just seems to attract strange people. The fantasy is the unreal image that the Middle East holds over American's view of the land of the Bible and the 1001 Arabian nights. America has always had difficulty in the region because of the interrelation of these three aspects. The first part of the book is best as he talks about history that is not discussed very much, but once he gets past WW2 he goes much quicker, althought this quick picture of the past sixty years was helpful as a grand overview. If you want help to understand the Middle East tody, this is a great book to read. This is also a great book to see how we can learn from history and how while things change greatly over time others never seem to go anywhere. The book is worth it just to read the stories about hte missionaries. Highly recommended!

One of the odd facts surrounding Jeremiah is that he never mentions Josiah's reform. Shouldn't Jeremiah have been excited about it? He was alive and seems to have been active during the time period. Why didn't Jeremiah praise Josiah and the reforms? This oddity has produced a number of speculative theories. But the more I thought about it the less odd it became in my mind for two reasons. One is a parallel: Isaiah and Hezekiah. Hezekiah enacted similar reforms to Josiah, but we read nothing about them in Isaiah. Why not? Which leads to a second reason: the purpose of the prophets. Prophets go from central to peripheral in the course of the OT. The earliest prophets, such as Abraham and Moses, are the center leadership. The next group of prophets are still associated with the central government, but are not the center themselves, such as Nathan and Gad. But by the time we get to Elijah and Elisha and the writing prophets, we mostly have prophets who speak from the outside (there are exceptions, and in postexilic times the prophetic role seems to return to a more central role, it seems). But the peripheral prophet works to challenge sinners and abuse; in other words, the prophets come in when the times are evil. Hence, if the king is enacting reforms, there is little role for peripheral prophets. They are needed most when the king and leaders are opposed to God. Hence, it is not surprising that Jeremiah does not mention the reforms: that was the not the time when prophets were in action.

In my final year of Greek in seminary I found New Testament Greek Vocabulary, an audio recording of the Greek word frequency lists. And my score on the vocabulary tests improved. Since that time I have been looking for audio of the Greek New Testament that I can bear to listen to. There has been a freely available version out for a few years, but now there is a new one on the horizon. Logos has a new Greek Audio Bible in the works, but it has a karaoke twist to it. As you listen to the text, Libronix will highlight the text of the passage.

Currently Logos is finding out if enough people are interested in a, to publish it. When I signed up to show my interest, there was only 25% of the necessary interest. Now it is up to about 75%. Head on over there, see a video of it in action reading John 3:16 and 1 John 2:1, and sign up for it too. I am eager for this to be published.

I received the happy news this morning that my proposasl for a paper at ETS in Boston has been accepted. Here is the title and the abstract. I'll probably post the full paper in a few months.

THEOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE:

REFLECTIONS FROM AN EVANGELICAL BIBLICAL STUDIES PERSPECTIVE

The Theological Interpretation of Scripture (TIOS), focusing on the importance of the hermeneutical significance of the canon and reading the Bible in a theological manner, has been gaining popularity recently, giving rise to a variety of articles, books, and commentaries. But there has been little reflection from evangelical biblical scholars. Should evangelicals embrace TIOS? Should it cause them concern? This paper will give a short history of TIOS, present the beneficial aspects of TIOS for evangelical biblical scholars, discuss some potentially unbalanced directions taken by some TIOS advocates, and briefly evaluate the recent TIOS commentaries in the Brazos and Two Horizons series from the perspective of evangelical biblical studies.

McCann Jr., J. Clinton. A Theological Introduction to the Book of Psalms. Nashville: Abingdon, 1993.

This is an excellent introduction to the Psalms as a book for today. McCann wrote this book in order to “assist readers to hear the book of Psalms itself” (9). While mentioning critical views and questions about Psalms, he spends the majority of his time determining how the Psalms are relevant for us today.

The book is easy to read, which makes sense since it written by a professor with extensive pastoral experience. It is also fairly short, making it a relatively quick read (I actually read the entire book on a plane ride from Chicago to Seattle). The chapters are filled with illustrations and applications like a good sermon rather than an academic work. But this is no fluffy devotional work: McCann knows what he is talking about and presents solid insight into the Psalms. The intended audience seems to be a student, a pastor, or a lay person, although a scholar could derive much of value from this book as well. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the Psalms. Follow the link for a summary and critique of the book.

On the way to Cornerstone we listened to a lecture and question and answer time by Walter Brueggemann, one of my favorite Old Testament theologians. These lectures can be downloaded for free from Christianaudio.com, a great site which also gives away a free audio book each month (July is the Practice of the Presence of God). He has many great ideas, although he takes almost all of his ideas too far in my opinion. I disagree with much of what he says, but he helps me think about the Old Testament in new and very helpful ways. Anyway, in this lecture he talked about how we are each scripted into a certain script by our surroundings: family, friends, culture, etc. The Christian life is all about being re-scripted into a different script. The problem is that we always have a tendency to go back to our old script, and so we always have to be re-scripting ourselves. Nothing unusual in this statement besides different wording. I didn't think about this lecture much once we got to Cornerstone, until something brought it to mind a few days later. We camped next to an Eastern Orthodox group, who had set up a tent with several icons. Several times a day they would hold services in the tent with various readings of the Bible, creeds, and other theological formulations. I didn't think much of this either, until it dawned on me the connection between the two: the Eastern Orthodox services were a way to re-script themselves. They would spend time each day reminding themselves of theology and the reality of God through these procedures. Essentially it is not all that different of a goal from the evangelical daily bible reading and prayer: the point is to re-script ourselves into the proper script. Now, I am not advocating that we become Eastern Orthodox: while I admire their goal, I am not as happy with their means. But it is also good to remember that daily Bible reading is nowhere commanded in the Bible: it is no doubt a good idea, but the option was not even available to most Christians through church history. But however we do it, we must be often re-scripting ourselves out of the script of the culture that surrounds us and into the script of the Gospel.

Some of you, Charlie in particular, thought this post series was finished...but that was only wishful thinking.  In this, the last in this series, I attempt to provide some thinking about the application of this paper.  I have not forgotten those of you who have commented on the previous entries.  I will do my best to respond to you within the next 2 months.  Actually, in Charlie's case, this may provide some manner of response.