I just finished an interesting book recently, so I thought I would share a few points from it. The book is entitled “The Gods of the Nations” by Daniel Block, who teaches at Wheaton (I hope to write my PhD under him at some point). The subtitle gives the content of the book: Studies in Ancient Near Eastern National Theology.

Mark Noll has written a fascinating book on the early history of evangelicalism. It is the first book in a projected five book series. The third book, the Dominance of Evangelicalism is out and the second is due out next year, while the other last two are for the distant future apparently. Noll's book covers the time of Edwards, Whitefield and the Wesleys.

This book by David Bebbington is the third installment in the five-volume “A History of Evangelicalism” series from IVP (at this date only the first and third are published). The book covers the years from about 1850-1900, but does not take a chronological approach, instead topically examining various aspects of the evangelical movement during these years. The book is a great read because it explains a lot of our current practices as well as showing us how some things never change. I felt like I was reading a modern evangelical history book with the names changed: the same issues are being debated today with different characters. There is much that we can learn from our ancestors. There are lots of good stories and observations I could give from the book, but here are a few.

The latest book I read is by Steve Saint, the son of Nate Saint, who was one of the missionaries killed by Aucu people many years ago. The book is entitled “The Great Omission,” a play on words about the great commission. The book is based upon his work among the Aucu people and various other groups worldwide. His main point is to challenge the way we do missions and to suggest that some of our missionary tactics are unhelpful and downright contradictory to our goal of evangelizing the world.

Craig Blomberg set out several years to write a book that was a biblical theology of money and the resulting product is a fine example of how to do biblical theology. He surveys every important and most every minor passage that relates to money in some way and then draws conclusions based on those observations. I highly recommend reading this book for a balanced view of money. Here is an excerpt from his comments on James 2:14-17.

      So, too, professing Christians today who have surplus income (i.e., a considerable majority of believers in the Western world), who are aware of the desperate human needs locally and globally, not least within the Christian community (a situation almost impossible to be unaware of, given our barrage of media coverage), and who give none of their income, either through church or other Christian organizations, to help the materially desitute of the world, ought to ask themselves whether any claims of faith they might make could stand up before God's bar of judgment. This is not salvation by works any more than the examples of Abraham and Rahab in James 2:20-25, but it is the demonstration of a changed life, a heart begun to be transformed by the indwelling Spirit of God, which thereby produces an outpouring of compassion for those so much less well off than oneself (155).

I will begin this book review by saying that I normally hate devotional books. Either they are so cheesy I can not stand it or they say such intellectually ignorant things that I get too distracted from the point of the text. But Wayne Stiles has written a devotional book that I have found helpful. The theme of his book is the geography of the Bible, so each entry is based upon some geographical theme. While there are a few that I think are a stretch, overall they are well done and either challenging or encouraging. For example, he discusses the move of Jesus from Nazareth to Capernaum. He believes the reason for this move was to put Jesus on the International Highway so that he would have greater influence. The application then is that we need to think strategically in our lives and think about the big picture of what God is doing. Each entry also contains a prayer and a quote from someone in church history. Interspersed throughout the book are wonderful pictures from Israel and several maps to help the reader orient themselves. I highly recommend this book for an intellectually responsible but still encouraging devotional.  

Everyone loves Jonathan Edwards! I realize that this says more about my context and what I read than about the general attitude towards Edwards among the average person in United States, for whom Edwards is only known by a single sermon of his which they read in high school, but it seems that Edwards continues to gain in popularity in theological and philosophical circles. The latest Edwards book I read is the result of a Jonathan Edwards conference hosted by Desiring God ministries in 2003. The book is a collection of articles edited by John Piper and Justin Taylor and is entitled A God Entranced Vision of All Things. It is a good look at a few aspects of his life and a detailed look at three parts of his theology. Here are a few of my favorite chapters.

Marcus Borg is not a writer that most of us read very often. N. T. Wright, on the other hand, is probably someone that we have at least heard of, if not read at least a selection of his writing. This book is a debate of a sort between Borg and Wright. Well, debate is too strong a word. As the subtitles says: Two visions. They disagree, but accept the validity of the other’s view (very postmodern of them). I have serious problems with Borg’s vision of Jesus (heretic would not be too weak a term, I don’t think), although he does have some good thoughts. Here are a few comments on the first few chapters of the book.

What makes a good general? What is the relationship between the general and the troops and the front line? And what does this have to do with the Christian life? The first two questions are addressed by John Keegan, one of the premier military historians of our generation, in a work entitled Mask of Command (at least, writers of popular level military history: I’m very ignorant of scholarly military history). In this book he paints a portray of four types of military leaders: Alexander the hero (always at the front lines and lots of theatrics), Wellington the unheroic (sometimes at the front line and some theatrics), Grant the anti-heroic (sometimes at the front lines and no theatrics) and Hitler the false heroic (never at the front lines and lots of theatrics). Keegan draws some conclusions for military leadership in the nuclear age, but I think there are some interesting implications for Christians as well.

"Western Christianity since the Enlightenment has routinely colluded with its own privatization. Following the post-Reformation European wars in which religious allegiance played a major role, the Enlightenment offered a way of peace, though at a cost: make religion a matter of private opinion, and we will sort out the world without reference to God. The fact that one of the great monuments to the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, had to kill so many people to make the point gives one pause in accepting the Enlightenment’s rhertoric at face value. One might also observe that post-Enlightenment Europe and America have been involved in just as many wars as before, even without an official religious reason (and indeed, often enough, with both sides officially embracing the same religion). This suggests, of course, that the religions were all along just an excuse, another bit of surface noise on top of a dispute about other matters; and it seems likely that the Enlightenment’s rhetoric about the danger of religion was actually an excuse, an official reason fro banishing religion ‘upstairs,’ out of harm’s way, leaving the powerful, the politicians, the imperialists, and the industrialists to carve up the world how they wanted. But the rhetoric persists, being invoked by right-wingers in the United Kingdom every time a church representative speaks out on political issues and by left-wingers in the United States every time a fundamentalist speaks out on family values. Keep your religion as a matter of private spirituality, they say, and we shall continue to steer the world by other lights" (218).  

I have been out of the loop recently because we just moved to Wheaton (Hello across Chicago, Sam!). We drove across country and have been busy packing and now unpacking all our worldly possessions (4500 pounds of them, half of which were my books). And besides that I have a German test on Friday. I don't know how much I'll be writing now that I have started my PhD program, but I'll still be contributing sometimes. Here is a thought from a book I read over the summer. I've attached my full book report if you want to read it.  

Anything by Roger Olson is worth reading in my opinion. The Mosaic of Christian Belief is a fascinating new way to present systematic theology to students and I think it could be revolutionary to the way we teach theology and write doctrinal statements. The basic content of the book is not all that interesting, but the format is fascinating. Each chapter is a theological topic and is divided into several sections. One section surveys those views that are outside orthodoxy, then another section surveys the various options within evangelicalsim. The reason I think that this is great is that it gives a new model for statements of beliefs which are layered: the first layer is the essential layer, and then the second layer is the debated layer. For example, the belief that Jesus is coming back would be the first layer, while the second layer would be that his coming is premillennial. This format allows us to state what we believe without being dogmatic and condemning. I think that great potential lies in this direction.

The posting has been slow recently becuase life has been getting busy. I haven't been doing any writing, so I have little to show what I have been doing, but the amount of reading that I am doing is simply enormous. Some of the books will have reports written on them, so some of them might make it on here in the future. I'm also doing a fascinating project for Daniel Master (for whom I TA) making a list of all the times Ashkelon is mentioned anywhere up until about 1900. He wants the list since he is the dig director for Ashkelon. But not only is there the reference, there is also a paragraph context needed. So I am putting my search skills up for a serious test trying to find the random Egyptian papyrus and Crusader conquest testimony. But it is quite interesting.

 The review included here is for another volume in the Cambridge Companion series: Evangelical Theology. They define evangelicalism much more broadly than I am used, a trend that is becoming familiar to me at Wheaton. In the past I have associated evangelicalism with ETS: inerrancy. But a phrase that seems almost a technical phrase is used on occasion here: "big-tent evangelicalism." This includes non-inerrantists as well as inerrantists. There are some interesting articles here, including another fine piece by Vanhoozer. The strength of the book is its world-wide focus and so it is helpful to understand what is going in the rest of the world. 

The best introduction to the literature on war in the Old Testament easily is The Problem of War in the Old Testament, by Craigie. Not only is it easy to read, it is short (just over 100 pages), and easily available on Amazon for only a few dollars.  I would recomment this book to anyone interested in the topic. He provides a great introduction to the data about God as Divine Warrior and to the war texts of the OT, as well as previous research on the issue. 

All that being said, I'm not sure that Craigie actually offers a viable solution to the problem. Here are some of the main points of the book.

1. War is always fundamentally evil.

2. God can be called  the Divine Warrior because of accomodation to human language.

3. The OT contains so many stories about war because Israel was a state and states must fight. 

4. For a final conclusion about war he proposes a position between just war and pacificsm. He finds arguments against both sides compelling and so does not go with either side.  He says it is a matter of mystery, like divine sovereignty and human responsibility.

But I am not sure these are all that helpful. I agree that war often is evil. But is it fundamentally evil? The divine accomodation point is the weakest point for me. Sometimes this kind of language is used. But we don't see God being called the divine murderer. Or the divine rapist. Or the divine thief. As far as epithets, there doesn't seem this kind of process. His final conclusion is also unhelpful. I agree that the issue is difficult, but someone must say something about the topic, and appealing to mystery I think does not work in this situation. But perhaps my feelings on these things will change as I continue to study. 

This book by Longman and Reid is a helpful overview to the specific topic of the divine warrior. The great strength of the book is its descriptive ability of how war plays a role in how God interacts wit his people and how his people are to live. After a short overview of the history of research, the book is divided into two section: OT and NT. The OT contains chapters on the wars of faithful Israel, the war against unfaithful Israel, the day of the Lord, the war of God against chaos, and the comparison of battle in the Bible to the ANE. The NT contains the new Exodus as the new conquest, Jesus as the slain but triumpant warrior, Paul's discussion of the powers, Paul' talk of holy warriors, and Revelation and divine warfare.

The detriments of the book are twofold. Longman makes too many generalizations. For example, he claims that the ark was always present, even when the text does not mention it. He says that the early loss of the ark and selective historiography cut out the ark. (41) He also says that the plunder always belonged to the Lord, recognizing that some narratives do not match this reality. (46) He does recognize that some diachronic factors are at work, but doesn't detail what they might be. (47)
Second, he seems to find what he is looking for, particularly in the NT. While he does highlight some important points, some of them are stretched.

While the book is quite good in describing the motif, it does not do anything with the motif, sadly. What does this mean for a biblical view of war? Some concluding thoughts would have been nice.

Hermeneutics is a very important issue for us today in light of the rise of postmodernism. I got the feeling from the Christian attacks on modernism over the years that if modernism would just be shown to be false, then Christianity would be the victor. Instead, what we get is modernism dying and postmodernism rising to take its place, with Christianity still on the sidelines. How does the Christian respond to postmodernism? Is it good? Is it bad? Is it relevant? From what I hear, postmodernism is already passe in the French university system where it had its "point of birth". But I think that it is still alive and well here in the States and it has points to teach us. For the uninitiated, Vanhoozer's work is an excllent place to start. I've written a short review here, but clink the link to slog through a more detailed critique of the work.

 Vanhoozer divides the book into two: the first part is a study of modernism and postmodernism, while the second is a constructive study of how he thinks the author, the text and the reader should be viewed. If you want a helpful starting point for the thought of Derrida or the flaws of postmodern thinking, this is a good place to read. Here are just a few of the helpful thoughts from the book.

1. While Vanhoozer rejects postmodernism as a system, he accepts part of the postmodern critique, especially in the area of certainty. He says that Cartesian certainty is neither possible nor Christian. Hence, we should be more humble and tenative in our claims. But he says that while certainty is impossible, we can still be reasonably sure about claims to live by them.

2. He argues for a basic level of theological interpretation, in which one's theological beliefs affect one's reading of the text. The key point here is theism: whether one is a theist or not will dictate where you find meaning or if you think there is meaning at all. If you kill off God, you end up killing the human author of any work of literature and locate the meaning in the reader. He actually argues for a trinitarian reader, but I do not find myself as convinced of that, although that might just be due to my own inability of a reader of Vanhoozer's argument.

3. In contrast to the emphasis of Hirsch (and most of evangelicalism) on authorial intention, he places the focus on authorial action, a model that I think works better. This is built on the ideas of speech act theory. So we look not at what the author intended, trying to get behind the text and into the psychology of the author, but we look at the action of the author in what the author actually did.

Should you read this book? Well, it depends. It is the book about hermeneutics today. If you want to be a part of the discussion at all, you need to read it. Everyone quotes it and refers to it in some way when the topic is discussed. But, it is quite the book to get through. I only got through it on my second try and I had to read it for a class. It is dense writing and it is a big book. But it is so big because he takes his conversation partners so seriously.  

How does a postmodern read the Bible? A. K. M. Adam has given us a very helpful view for how a postmodern can read the Bible and use it in their life. The largest step which Adam makes (in my opinion) is that he moves away from determinate meaning and away from an overarching universal criterion for interpretation. But he does not thereby move to  complete relativism, since he says that some interpretations are only possible while others probable. The way that he draws this line is to bring in local criteria. For example, if he gave a bizarre interpretation of a particular text, then those around him would censure him in various ways, either directly or through ignoring him. Hence, this will define what can be a possible or a probable interpretation. But even with a bizarre interpretation he says that there would be some who would probably accept it, and then presumably it would be a valid view among that local group. He says that we should welcome a variety of interpretations because it reflects the diversity of creation: we should not try to stifle interpretations that are different than ours, because that just is a blatant power play, but we should glory in these various interpretations. Quoting Stephen Fowl, he says that texts do not have ideologies, but we bring our ideologies to the text. Hence, Matthew is not anti-Semitic for Adam because it cannot be anything. He does not like the imitation idea from Jesus and Paul, especially Paul, because he sees the command to imitate him as another power play. In its place he proposes the idea of repitition, where we repeat what others have done, but adjusted to our own context. Somewhat predictably, he ends the book with a strong defense of homosexuality in the church.

While the book is a fascinating and easy read, there are several unanswered questions for me. The first I will call the "stop sign" problem. Adam discusses the stop sign several times in the book. He notes that drivers stop at an octagonal red sign only because of a local concept: because in this culture that kind of sign signifies that one needs to stop. But if the sign was different and written in Chinese, then the American would not be held culpable for not understanding the sign. But then Adam adds that they would be held culpable for denying the  underlying command exists. This seems to go against Adam's whole thesis: the red stop sign might need to be translated, but the idea behind it is absolute for all. So why can't there be an ultimate meaning for a biblical text? The closest that Adam gets to explaining this is that the Bible is a literary text and different from a stop sign, which is more simple. But I think that there is more of a parallel between these two types than Adam grants. He could state that the stop sign is a single incident, which is different than the complex literature which we find in the Bible. But there is no text without a context: there is no abstract stop sign without contextual clues.

The other problem is what I call the "Nazi problem". The Nazi's are the whipping boy of ethical discussions, but they do provide a nice example because virtually everyone says they acted in a wrong manner. The problem is what happens when the local criteria are wrong, as in the Third Reich. An interpreter could present a strongly anti-Semitic viewpoint and be encouraged by his community and pass the local criteria. How does the local criteria function work when it is broken? Adam never addresses this issue in the book, and I think that this problem is the Achilles heel of any pure community or local model. One possible way around it is to say that the interpreter should have moved away from purely German criteria and brought in more criteria from other countries. But this moves us ever closer to universal criteria, which is exactly what Adam tries to avoid.  When he talks about his bizarre interpretation, he says that it would be accepted by some, so presumably the interpretation is valid as long as some accept it, so it cannot be rejected simply because it does not conform to a larger circle than the local circle. Presumably Adam would also respond to this charge with a call to ethics: the Nazi reading is not an ethical reading. But this simply creates another problem: What is an ethical reading? The Nazis certainly thought that they were being ethical, and if we say that they were wrong then we are simply executing a power play, in postmodern terms. I simply do not see any way that an indeterminate view of meaning can handle the Nazi problem.

            This past semester I did some reading in historical theology in the ancient church. I've put together some reviews of those primary and secondary sources I read, many of which were interesting. Happy reading! The first is a general overiew of the period.

            Wright wrote this book due to his concern for missions and its relation to the Bible. While growing up, he heard missions proclaimed using proof-texts such as the Great Commission. He became discontented with this approach, especially when he did his academic studies in Bible and did not talk about missions at all. This book is an attempt to relate God, his people, and missions in a more biblical fashion. Wright argues for the basic idea of the Bible being missional: namely, God’s mission, not our mission (Wright uses missions for cross-cultural missions and missional for anything relating to mission). He shows through this book how God’s mission can be used as a basic hermeneutic to read the Bible, not as an alien hermeneutic imposed on the text but as a natural hermeneutic arising from the text itself. Since this is an excellent book, I have included a short overview of the argument of the book. The book is well worth reading.