I’ve been tagged by the Hebrew heuristics genius Karyn to answer the question:
Name 5 books or scholars that had the most immediate and lasting influence on how you read the Bible.
So here they are, in no particular order:
—God’s Word in Human Words by Kenton Sparks. What this book did for me is enable me to read Scripture without the defensive knee-jerk reaction to critical scholarship. Far from undermining faith, critical scholarship can actually strengthen your faith and play a role in developing a more robust evangelical theology.
—Peter Enns. No surprise here, for those who read this blog. Pete’s book Inspiration and Incarnation played a key role in me not walking away from my evangelical faith. Taking courses with him opened my eyes to how rich and how exciting the Hebrew Bible actually is and how it relates to the Christian Scriptures.
—Jon Levenson. I took a course on Old Testament Theology under Pete where I had to read everything Levenson ever wrote (which wasn’t really work as I enjoyed it so much) and then write a paper describing his take on Old Testament Theology. It’s hard to name one book of his that had the most impact on the way I read the Bible or how I think about the Bible. Sinai and Zion and Creation and the Persistence of Evil are two of his books that I have read more than once and come back to often.
—James Kugel. Not only did his The Idea of Biblical Poetry change the way I understand the poetic genre, his How to Read the Bible and Traditions of the Bible shaped the way I approach the Biblical text and how I understand it. The interaction between our theological constructs and layers of extra-biblical tradition are shocking. “No creed but Christ?” Not quite.
—The Context of Scripture, eds. William W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger, Jr. This three volume collection places the Hebrew Bible into its cultural milieu and allows one to see the relationship between the biblical text and the various texts of its ancient neighbors. It changed the way I read the Bible in that it revealed that Scripture is a human book with divine origins, not a divine talisman that is divorced from human history.
I’ll tag Aaron Rathburn, Meredith Riedel, Douglas Mangum, G. Brooke Lester, and Joel Garver.
16 June 2009 at 1.34 pm
Very interesting, Art. Really like your choices. I’m particularly intrigued by your inclusion of Levenson, because he seems a lot more critical than you regarding the contributions of the academy to religion (and to Judaism in particular, since he views much of modern scholarship as being shaped by Christianity). Or have I misread you?
16 June 2009 at 4.28 pm
I just started the Kugel “How to read the bible” book last night – good so far, but a bit elementary if you have been reading around the historical/critical world a while. (although im only 50-60 pages in, so maybe it gets better)
Pax Christi…Nick
16 June 2009 at 4.35 pm
Traditions is the one that shook me the most (it’s the longer version of The Bible as It Was). Just to see all of the various traditions that developed from the text blew me away. I view How to Read the Bible as a sort of narrative version of Traditions.
I agree: it’s nothing that’s going to blow you away if you’ve been in the critical world for a while. It was, after all, written based on his undergraduate course at Harvard (‘The Bible and Its Interpreters’).
16 June 2009 at 4.37 pm
I think you’re right. I think, though, that the fact that much of critical scholarship in the Hebrew Bible in the American and European traditions are done by Protestants, which brings up Levenson’s guard more than it would mine.
16 June 2009 at 5.07 pm
The funny thing is on page 14 where he makes the comment ” they assumed that the Bible was a fundamentally cryptic text; that is, when it said A, it often really meant B.”
Having read his text of biblical poetry for Pete’s wisdom course, I read that line and laughed out loud – its amazing how we are all products of our own narratives.
Pax Christi…Nick
16 June 2009 at 6.10 pm
What do you think of Brueggemann and Childs? I have Prophetic Imagination(haven’t read it yet, though it is on the list) and am reading Biblical Theology: A Proposal by Childs (which is just a summary of one of his other books, but quite good imho). Do you like them at all?
16 June 2009 at 6.16 pm
Never really got into Brueggemann, although I’ve read a number of his books. Nothing really stuck out to me. I know people who love him. I’ll read his stuff, think some of its interesting, and then move on.
I’ve read quite a bit of Childs and find him interesting. I would be more into him if I was more interested in canonical readings of the Hebrew Bible or biblical theology. Neither are close to the top of my list of research interests right now. That’s not to say I don’t think there is a place for both canonical readings/literary readings and biblical theology. I think there is. They just don’t happen to be things that I’m necessarily very interested in right now. But if you are interested in those areas, Childs is great. If my interests ever shift then I’ll be sure to dive back into his work.
17 June 2009 at 7.32 am
art, did you read brueggemann’s OT Theology? not saying it should be on your list, but i am surprised that it did not “stick out to you.”
triple347, if you are reading Brueggemann and Childs, i would suggest Goldingay’s OT Theology. very good.
17 June 2009 at 9.06 am
Ditto, josh j., on Goldingay’s OT Theology.
I would also recommend Goldingay’s series of commentaries on the Psalms.
17 June 2009 at 12.38 pm
[...] Boulet at finitum no capex infiniti: Kenton Sparks, Peter Enns, Jon D. Levenson, James Kugel, William W. Hallo/K. Lawson Younger [...]
17 June 2009 at 12.44 pm
Oops! I listed my top five in the “consistent errancy” discusiion.
17 June 2009 at 5.08 pm
Just keep in mind who Kugel’s book is for. It’s for folks like you 2 yrs ago.
17 June 2009 at 8.37 pm
good point JD – I didnt mean to sound as if I was coming donw on the book, as it is well written and thought out and I plan on finishing it since it is kugel, after all, – He generally says really good things. I just thought the whole A whats moreso B thing was funny…
Pax Christi…Nick
17 June 2009 at 8.49 pm
Even though no one asked or tagged me, I will chime in. In somewhat chronological order…
(1) Ray Dillard, Faith in the Face of Apostasy, 2 Chronicles, WBC, various articles and essays, especially, “Harmonization: A Help or a Hindrance.” Dillard’s writings almost single-handedly sparked a relocation of my interests from Systematic Theology to Biblical Studies. He also introduced me to Biblical Studies for reading the Bible rather than, first-and-foremost, for defending important doctrines…and how this deeply sola-scriptura approach is truly Christian and edifying for the church.
(1a) V. Philips Long’s and Moises Silva’s entries in the Foundations of Contemporary Interpretation series. Though I remained in my inerrant paradigm with these, they got me onto thinking about issues of how language works, context, and wanting to read the Bible we actually have.
(2) Steve Taylor. Mostly from conversations with him since he has not published much. Steve helped orient my approach to the Christ, the Bible, and academic studies more than anyone else (I am not sure this is a good distinction to have…).
(3) Jon Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil. While I have read all his books and most of his essays and articles, this one radically altered the way I read the Hebrew Bible and thought about “myth.” I blogged about it here: http://tiny.cc/86tik . Levenson’s work also helped me start taking contemporary scholarship seriously in areas I still dismissed as “liberal” at the time.
(4) Richard Hays, The Faith of Jesus Christ and Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul. I do not know where to start. While Sanders (especially Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People), James Dunn, and Tom Wright also all stand at the beginning of my historical-academic forays into Paul, Hays had the biggest impact early on. His writings helped me re-understand the fundamentally CHRISTian dynamics of Paul’s writings, even when it comes to how Paul handles the Old Testament.
(5) Dale Martin, The Corinthian Body. Martin’s work, and Stan Stowers’, took studying Paul historically to whole ‘nother level for me. It stimulated my drive to study Greco-Roman literature, philosophy, religion, culture, etc., in their own rites and provided me with an even fresher set of questions and issues with which to approach Paul…and studying anything historically, for that matter.
*I should mention four specific theologians I read back in my more traditional-Reformed days. Though I currently read the Bible in ways they would reject, they instilled many basic instincts in me that served and serve me well, even when it comes to how I approach Paul now: John Murray, Geerhardus Vos, Richard Gaffin, Herman Ridderbos.
18 June 2009 at 3.45 am
1. “Age of Reason” by Thomas Paine.
2. “The Quest of the Historical Jesus” by Albert Schweitzer.
3. “The Dynamics of Faith” by Paul Tillich.
4. “Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism” by John Shelby Spong.
5. “Jesus Interrupted” by Ehrman.
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