new testament book review

Book Review — The New Testament in Its World: An Introduction to the History, Literature, and Theology of the First Christians

Wright, N.T. and Michael F. Bird, The New Testament in Its World: An Introduction to the History, Literature, and Theology of the First Christians. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2019. 992 pp. $59.99

Biographical Sketch of the Authors

Michael F. Bird is Academic Dean and a lecturer in theology at Ridley College. He is the author of Evangelical Theology: A Biblical and Systematic Introduction and Jesus the Eternal Son: Answers to Adoptionist Christology and also co-authored Trinity Without Hierarchy: Reclaiming Nicene Orthodoxy in Evangelical Theology .

Introduction

We are blessed to live in a time when there are many Old and New Testament Introductions to choose from. As a seminary student and lay teacher in my church, I have grown to appreciate the helps that a good Introduction can provide. I have previously reviewed one example from Crossway and in the near future we will review a more recent example from G.K. Beale and Benjamin Gladd published by IVP .

The New Testament in It’s World comes from N.T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, published by the good folks at Zondervan Academic. The book originated with an idea from Bird to put together a distillation of Wright’s work up to that time and put it into the form of a NT Introduction. Quotes from the NT text are normally taken from Wright’s personal translation. I will also mention in passing that Wright makes the odd choice of referring to the person of the Holy Spirit in all lower-case lettering, ie. “holy spirit”, “the spirit”, etc. In the preface, the authors say that their goal was to provide help introducing Jesus, the early church, and the writings which came out of that context (25). As we will get to, the pros and cons of Wright’s scholarship will factor into if and how you should make use of this book.

Critical Evaluation

First, the effort and support that Zondervan has put behind this material and the book itself are commendable. There are vivid color photos and illustrations throughout. There is also a clever series of “Emails from the Edge” in which an imaginary student and professor write back and forth about the issues discussed in the book. There is a Bibliography (891), Scripture and Other Ancient Literature Index (925), and Subject Index (959). Zondervan has also produced accompanying DVDs, Study Guides, and online videos. They obviously intended this to be a widely used resource and reference work. My only complaint about the book itself was that because of the smaller height and weight, but thicker spine and stiff binding, it does not lay flat, much less stay open on its own.

Nevertheless, N.T. Wright has become known as one of, it not the primary advocate for the so called “New Perspective on Paul.” My friend George Alvarado and I go into detail about Wright and NPP here and here . You can also find my reviews of NPP critical books from the paedo-baptist and credo-baptist perspectives. Love him or hate him, it is a mistake to uncritically dismiss or celebrate Wright. He has made some serious claims about how we should understand the Apostle Paul and what the Bible teaches about how we are justified before God. For this reason, I will primarily focus my review on Wright’s claims about Pauline theology and the doctrine of justification.

When we get to the book’s section on “Paul and the Faithfulness of God”, Wright makes the interesting choice to begin with the Letter to Philemon as his “launching pad” to introduce Paul’s theology. He persuasively asserts that Paul’s theology is pastoral, “in the sense that the shepherd needs to feed the flock with clean food and water, and keep an eye out for wolves.” (366). So far, so good. Wright also explains that he sees Monotheism, Election (as he defines it), and Eschatology as the 3 primary emphases in Paul’s theology (370). However, in the section on Romans, Wright lays out his arguments for what Paul was saying.

Wright has been critiqued in the past for providing little or no acknowledgement or interaction with the primary sources from the Reformers he has been so critical of. With that in mind, I appreciated the decision in this volume to include a lengthy quote from Luther himself about his rediscovery of justification by faith (512). Luther dreaded the thought that “the righteousness of God” in Romans 1:17 referred to God’s justice in punishing sin. Luther knew his own sinfulness and how deserving he was of God’s wrath. When Luther came to see “the righteousness of God” as the righteousness whereby God justifies sinners by grace through faith, this crucial passage became a sweet “gateway to heaven.” For Wright, the focus of the passage is not about God’s gift of “a righteous status” given to people, although he seems to admit this gift is a consequence of “God’s faithful, saving action.” (513). Instead, he sees “the righteousness of God” as referring to “God’s own in-the-rightness, his faithfulness to both covenant and creation”.

In Part VII on “The Early Christians and the Mission of God”, Wright dedicates Chapter 31 to “Letters by Jesus’ Brothers: James and Jude”. This section was of particular interest to me since I have been teaching through the Letter of James at my local church. How does Wright handle the thorny issues surrounding James 2? He rightly (no pun intended) says that there has been “apparent … tension between James and Paul” (744) and “the apparent discrepancy between James and Paul dissipates when we observe what they are each arguing for and against.” (745). One might hope that Wright would stop there with the affirmation that Paul and James can and should be harmonized. Unfortunately, all that is undone on the next page. Wright says that James and Paul agree that “the word of truth brings salvation and transformation” (746), but then he continues:

“James and Paul do materially disagree on the significance of Genesis 15:6. Paul employs the passage to prove that Abraham was justified prior to his circumcision: James opts for a standard Jewish approach that read Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac (Gen. 22) as the reason he had righteousness credited to him proleptically in Genesis 15.6. Different readings of the same text merely show us that Paul and James are part of the richly diverse traditions of Jewish scripture-reading.”

If there were any doubts about what Wright is saying, they are cleared up by Table 31.2: “James and Paul on ‘Faith’ and ‘Works’”, on the same page, directly about this quote. In the column summarizing James’s supposed views on “works”, they are defined as “Loving expression of faith in action. Such works are required for justification.” (emphasis added). In other words, Wright seems to be saying that according to James, works are a necessary component of justification, not merely evidence that a person actually possesses saving faith. We are not given any interaction with the rich history of Protestant teaching and scholarship which has argued that James is not teaching that works contribute to justification. To be fair, while Wright does not interact directly with his theological opponents, many of them are included in the lists of recommended “Further Reading” at the end of each chapter.

The New Testament in Its World is a skillfully produced NT introduction with much to commend it. Zondervan has put a lot of effort and support into this volume across multiple platforms. It would be a mistake for any serious student to ignore the scholarship of NT Wright. At the same time, it would be a mistake to blindly accept Wright’s views about the doctrine of justification. His claims impact the blessed assurance sinners can have that they are truly saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone apart from any works. Let the reader beware.

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Book Review: An Introduction to the New Testament, 2nd ed. (David deSilva)

David deSilva has revised my favorite New Testament Introduction, and I wanted to review it again and give it a bit more promotion. As he says in his preface, deSilva has updated some paragraphs, rewritten others, taken some things out, expanded some sections or chapters (“Four Gospels One Jesus”), taken a lot more pictures, and left some sections (John’s Gospel) alone (mostly). It has been almost 15 years since his first edition came out, and deSilva’s knowledge and theology has been tweaked in different places and it is reflected throughout his book.

The biggest change you will find is i the book’s new color scheme and in all of the photos is now has. The original cover was quite bland (see below), there were few pictures, and the whole book was in black-and-white. Now the book cover has been changed, every photos is now in color, and the Ministry Formation, Exegetical Skill, and other sections and Excursuses are in a pink, orange, or purple box (that is, not gray). The font has been changed so that it is easier to read. It’s also been tightened up so that, somehow, the book is 100 pages shorter than before. The book is also a lot thinner than before (and not just because there are 100 fewer pages). Overall, it’s much more pleasing to look at than before, and it looks less daunting to dig into.

I reviewed the first edition in great detail than I will here. If you want to know about the book contents, you can read about that here . I will try to summarize the book in this review.

Rather than going through each NT book section-by-section, deSilva moves through them thematically, looking at what makes these letters so special. DeSilva seeks to bring together scholarship and devotional readings of Scripture. One seeks to “[understand] the text in relation to its historical context” while with a devotional reading, “hearing from God is the focus” (xix). One sees the distance between the modern reader and the ancient text, the other sees the “accessibility of the Word for the worshiper” (xix).

Social Rhetoric

In working to bring these together, deSilva employs a socio-rhetorical method which accomplishes this purpose in four ways:

He engages the text itself in detailed analysis,
He examines the ways the text converses with other “texts” in its environment,
He investigates the world that produced the text,
He analyzes how the text affects that very world.

While this sounds very scholarly, think about it like this: I’m from South Louisiana. People think about certain subjects in certain ways. We think about fishing and seafood differently than someone from Kansas would. We think about schooling and religion different than people from Seattle or New York City. To understand how someone from Boston thinks, I need to go to Boston and meet those people. I need to talk with them, read what they read, and get to know them. That’s at least easy enough to do because they are alive . More difficult would be if I moved to china or India. Both countries are so culturally and socially different that I would be foolish to think that I would just fit in without experiencing and culture shock or misunderstandings. One must be culturally aware so as not to offend people.

Or imagine reading the letters of WWII soldiers without knowing that they were writing in the middle of a war, or without knowing there was a war at all! What they say would make no sense unless we understand that there was a war between many other countries. The more we understand about the history and timing of WWII, the more we can understand the depth of the words in those letters.

In order to understand how the NT authors thought about life in Christ, DeSilva goes to the Bible first, and then he enters their world through the writings of that period. For example, how should a twenty-first century reader understand Paul’s lists of putting of the old man and putting on the new man—a list of vices and virtues? DeSilva reads what other Greco-Roman authors say about vices and virtues. Paul would be thinking about vices and virtues in a similar way, only Paul says that we are to pursue godly virtues because we are in Christ, the Son of God. We don’t pursue virtues to be “good” people, but because, as sons of God, we image God to the world around us, and we do it through right actions.

While this might sound complicated, deSilva has already done much of the work for us, and this book shows us the fruits of his labor. He believes: the New Testament came about as a pastoral response to believers who were trying to reconcile the Christian worldview with that of the secular, pagan worldview .

Such questions would be similar to the ones given below.

“How do we make sense of the world’s hostility toward the work of God, the alleged good news and the people of God?
If we are God’s children, why do we face shame and marginalization? How are we to maintain self-respect in the face of dishonor?
How should we relate to non-Christian family members? What effect does our commitment to obey Jesus have on our roles in the household?
How should we interpret what we see going on around us every day—our neighbors’ continued devotion to the traditional religions, Roman imperial presence and propaganda, the economics of empire and province—so we won’t be drawn back into the life we left behind?” (3).

Quick Summary

Chapter two and three look at the history leading up to the NT, the cultural and social life of those in the NT times (honor-shame, patron-client relationships), how both the Torah and the Temple were at the center of the Jewish mindset, and how there was diversity within Judaism (Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and the Qumran community).

Chapter four takes a look at the four Gospels and Jesus. The reader will see what a Gospel is, why the Gospels were written, why there are four, and how they were handed down and reproduced. The final section looks at the quests for the historical Jesus and the lessons to be learned.

Chapters five to twenty-four cover the 27 NT letters. Besides date, authorship, and the location the letter was written , deSilva looks at the themes of the NT letters. Some themes are

The continuity of the church and the heritage of God’s people in Matthew (219)
Who is the legitimate bearer of divine authority in Acts (313)
The death of Jesus as the hour of glorification in John (370)
Who is the heir of the divine promises? in Galatians (447, cf. 451)
The Law: Catalyst For Sin or Divine Remedy? in Romans (552)

Ministry Formation

Each chapter on a NT letter ends with a discussion on Ministry Formation . DeSilva’s book, with his “discussion of the message of each text, and… on how the text contributes to ministry formation” has a “distinctive focus on the church (from the local congregation to the global family of God) and the work of ministry (from the general ministry of all Christians to a variety of professional ministries)” (xx). These texts are “formative and transformative”—something that should not go unnoticed.

“These sections are intended

to keep the reader mindful of the ways that careful study can connect with careful application …
to stimulate thought and discussion about what I take to be the primary value and purpose of these texts—shaping faithful disciples, supportive communities of faith and ministry to the world” (xx, emphasis mine).

Recommended?

DeSilva’s Introduction is deep and accessible for both the scholar and the reader. He wants the 21st century church to be formed by the NT letters just as the 1st century church was, and this involves a knowledge of the culture leading up to the NT era, the social structure of the people in that era, and the how that comes through our NT letters. We can’t read the Bible and assume we’ll automatically understand everything we read. This is not basic, but it is beneficial. It is deep and very well worth your time.

If you have the first edition, there is not much that is so different and rewritten that you need to go out and buy this one (except that this volume looks so much better). Sell the first edition and buy this one. If you don’t have either edition, skip Starbucks this month and buy this.

Author: David A. deSilva
Publisher: IVP Academic (2018)
Read the Press Kit
Read a 108-page Sample (preface, introduction, chapters one and two, and an excursus on pseudepigraphy)
Enemies in Philippi
Money in the Gospel of Luke
Approval in Matthew
Mary, Martha, and the Good Portion
Romans 7, Who Am I?

Buy it on Amazon !

Disclosure: I received this book free from IVP Academic. The opinions I have expressed are my own, and I was not required to write a positive review. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html .

Amazon Affiliate Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

New Testament Bible Commentaries

Use the index below to select any New Testament book. On each page, you will find rankings and reviews on New Testament commentaries. Additionally, you can learn about the theological perspective of authors, the target audience for each resource—for example, pastors, Sunday school or small group leaders, individual self-studies—and much more.

Bible Commentaries on the New Testament

Best Matthew Commentaries

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Best Luke Commentaries

Best John Commentaries

Best Acts Commentaries

Best Romans Commentaries

Best 1 Corinthians Commentaries

Best 2 Corinthians Commentaries

Best Galatians Commentaries

Best Ephesians Commentaries

Best Philippians Commentaries

Best Colossians Commentaries

Best 1-2 Thessalonians Commentaries

Best 1-2 Timothy Commentaries

Best Titus Commentaries

Also see: Old Testament Commentaries (index)

Best Philemon Commentaries

Best Hebrews Commentaries

Best James Commentaries

Best 1 Peter Commentaries

Best 2 Peter Commentaries

Best 1-3 John Commentaries

Best Jude Commentaries

Best Revelation Commentaries

Also see the Best Commentary on Every Book of the Bible to learn more.

Top 50 Bible Commentary Series

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Daniel Isaiah Joseph

Daniel's seminary degree is in Exegetical Theology. He was a pastor for 10 years. As a professor, he has taught Bible and theology courses at two Christian universities. Please see his About page for details.

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Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament | Book Review

When were the books of the New Testament written?

Contemporary New Testament scholars agree that Paul’s seven undisputed letters — Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon — date to the 50s. They disagree about the compositional dates of the remaining New Testament books, however.

In Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament , Jonathan Bernier identifies three chronological frameworks used by contemporary scholars: (1) “lower” chronologies date the remaining books prior to 70, (2) “middle” chronologies date them from 70–100, and (3) “higher” chronologies date them after 100.

For centuries, Christian tradition taught that the named authors of New Testament books actually wrote them, dating the books’ composition to the Apostolic Era, roughly mid- to late-first century. In Bernier’s terms, Christian tradition was a hybrid of lower and middle chronologies.

Liberal scholars, most notably Ferdinand Christian Baur, challenged this tradition in the nineteenth century, arguing that aside form Paul’s undisputed letters, the New Testament was written in the Post-Apostolic Era, well into the second century.

Today, the consensus among scholars — whether traditional or liberal — favors middle chronologies for the bulk of the New Testament.

Bernier himself makes a case for lower chronologies, arguing that the majority of New Testament books was written prior to 70, with a handful of exceptions. For the Pastoral Epistles — 1–2 Timothy and Titus — he offers a date-range of 60 ( if the letters are authentic) to 175 at the latest (if they are pseudonymous). For 2 Peter, the date range is 60 ( if authentic) to 125 (if pseudonymous). He argues that 1 and 2 John have a range from 60–100 and that 3 John is no later than 100.

He also offers date-ranges for early Christian writings outside the New Testament, including 1 Clement (64–70), Didache (60–125), Epistle of Barnabas (70–132), and Shepherd of Hermas (70–125).

Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament is the first complete scholarly monograph on the topic of the New Testament books’ dates of composition since John A. T. Robinson’s Reading the New Testament (1976), which also argued for a lower chronology.

J. V. M. Sturdy set out to write a refutation of Robinson and thus make the case for a higher chronology but died before it was completed. Jonathan Knight edited Sturdy’s manuscript into Redrawing the Boundaries (2007).

Before Robinson, the most recent scholarly monograph to synthesize the data pertaining to the dates of New Testament books was Adolf von Harnack’s Die Chronologie der Litterateur bis Irenaeus (1897), which argued for a middle chronology but has not yet been translated into English.

Although both Robinson and Bernier argue for lower chronologies, the latter identifies “significant problems” with the work of the former: “Robinson’s tendency to approach the events of 70 [i.e., the destruction of Jerusalem] through arguments from silence”, his “Neronian error” of assuming that New Testament references to persecution must be dated to the 60s, when Nero reigned, and a “less-than-adequate attention to the method and organization of his study.”

It is on this last point, methodology, that Bernier makes his signal contribution to the chronological debate. He approaches the question as a historian, following “three fundamental steps”: “identify and define the research question, generate hypotheses that might answer the question, and adjudicate between competing hypotheses in order to determine the best answer.”

Here, the research question is when a particular book of the New Testament was written.

The hypothesis-generation step involves “basic procedures” that help historians explicate all the arguments for a range of dates. The first procedure is “synchronization,” which refers to “establishing the text’s temporal relationship to other events or situations, including the composition of other texts.” This is followed by “contextualization, which seeks to establish the text’s probable relationship to the general course of early Christian development in areas such as ecclesiology, Christology, gentile inclusion, and so on.” The final procedure is “authorial biography,” which identifies “what we know about the author and prompts us to ask when in her or his life a given text is best situated.”

Once historians have generated hypotheses, they must infer which proposed date of composition is most probable. Bernier argues that the preferable hypothesis “(1) employs the fewest number of logical fallacies, (2) can account for the greatest quantity of relevant data, and (3) can do so with the highest degree of parsimony.”

Bernier follows this methodology consistently throughout the book, showing that it can lead responsible historians to date the New Testament books earlier rather than later. He makes no appeals to tradition, authority, revelation, or miracle to sustain his arguments. And he draws no conclusions regarding the theological or apologetic implications of his work.

While the intended audience of Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament is New Testament scholars, I read the book as an ordained Christian minister and believe a wider readership may find it useful to understanding how the dates of Christian Scripture are determined. Though Bernier draws no theological or apologetic implications from his conclusions, I think lower chronologies tend to raise the historical value of the New Testament books because they shrink the timeframe between events and the writings about them.

That said, I do not agree with everything Bernier writes. For example, I am less open to pseudonymity than he is, even though he argues that most of the New Testament books are authentic. I have reservations about some of his remarks questioning Luke’s historical accuracy on certain matters. And I’m not sure he gets the details of the internal chronology of Paul’s letters right.

Even so, I recommend Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament to scholars and non-scholars alike. It is a fair-minded, methodologically rigorous treatment of the topic. And, given the fact that no similar defenses of middle and higher chronologies have been published in the last 125 years, it is the most definitive treatment currently available.

Book Reviewed Jonathan Bernier, Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament: The Evidence for Early Composition (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2022).

P.S. If you liked my review, please click “Helpful” on my Amazon review page .

Volume 1 - Issue 2

A Theology of the New Testament

It is refreshing to have an English New Testament theology making its appearance alongside recent continental works; it is greatly encouraging to have a full-scale work of this kind from the pen of a well-known conservative evangelical; and those who have profited from G. E. Ladd’s previous works will sit down to this magnum opus with eager anticipation. Whether or not they will be satisfied will depend on what they hoped for; we should be careful to judge the book in the light of its stated aims. The author tells us that he wrote it to meet the challenge of doing constructive theology rather than negative criticism of other views; but at the same time he makes it clear in his preface that it is the seminary student, and not the researcher, for whom the book is primarily intended. To that end, the bibliographies are confined almost exclusively to works available in English (though German technical terms are by no means always explained; perhaps the phrase ‘Sitz im Leben der Urkirche’ is now part of the American language?) and we are warned (p. 5) that the book ‘does not purport to be an original contribution or to solve difficult problems, but to give a survey of the discipline, to state its problems, and to offer positive solutions as the author sees them’. Greek and Hebrew words are transliterated (though again, oddly enough, not always translated). The material is set out clearly; unlike some recent works in this field, it is not difficult to find one’s way around in this book, whose chapters are conveniently subdivided into sections of between a paragraph and three or four pages in length.

My over-all impression of the book was mixed. There are a great many things in it for which I was profoundly grateful; yet at the same time I felt unsatisfied. This double reaction was particularly called forth by the basic methodology. Ladd argues clearly the need for an analytic method rather than a thematic treatment which draws material indiscriminately from all over; and yet, having thus divided the book up into sections on the Synoptics, John, Paul and the rest, he proceeds to give systematic treatments within each of these divisions, with almost no regard for the underlying principle of his original argument—that the particularity and individuality of each writer, and of different works by one writer, are all-important for true understanding of each text. Thus I was sad to find no treatment of, say, Matthew qua Matthew (Ladd acknowledges, when turning to John, that all the Gospels are ‘theological’, but does not allow this to determine the shape of his previous material), but rather a series of synoptic studies entitled ‘The Need of the Kingdom’, ‘The God of the Kingdom’, ‘The Mystery of the Kingdom’, and so forth; such ‘subjects’ seem inevitably to impose a pattern rather than to discover one. This is probably not so much a criticism of Ladd as of the idea of writing this kind of book at all; yet, in view of his stated preference for an analytic approach, to say nothing of the last decade or two of Gospel criticism, it seems only fair to ask whether he always does full justice to the material. The danger of the resultant halfway-house method is that the different writers can still be squeezed into the same mould; it may be true that the whole concept of the kingdom is the key to the synoptic Gospels, but to come to the other New Testament writers determined to ask questions about the different sorts of eschatological dualism they exhibit is not necessarily the best way of letting them speak for themselves. Ladd explicitly sets out to avoid a monochrome presentation (p. 33): but the indefinite article in the title is too accurate a description of the book for my liking.

It would be quite wrong, however, to suggest that this query about over-all structure undermines the book’s many great merits. As a summary of current debating-points it is often extremely lucid and helpful, giving due weight to all shades of opinion, treating opponents with courtesy and being scrupulously fair to those with whom the author disagrees, from Bultmann right across the board to modern American dispensationalists (whose frequent inclusion—J. D. Pentecost has as many references in the index as Käsemann—may seem a little odd to English readers). When dealing with the perennial problems of the historicity of the Gospel narratives and of Acts, Ladd hits several nails cleanly and firmly on the head, in a way which should help and encourage many young students as they meet continental scepticism for the first time. As one might expect, the eschatological problem is tackled at some length, and the ‘already-not yet’ conclusions reached by the author elsewhere are backed up at point after point. It is still not proven, however, that his analysis of the kingdom as ‘fulfilled but not consummated’ is the best possible way of tying the problem down; it would have been good to see a discussion of the respective merits of this analysis and, say, the ‘present but hidden’ view of Cranfield et al. There are very helpful charts—of, for instance, all the synoptic ‘Son of Man’ passages (pp. 149ff.). The whole question of the background to the New Testament—Hebrew or Greek—is discussed in some detail, though without letting the reader get bogged down in a morass of gnostic false trails; it might have saved trouble if the basic discussion at the heart of this issue could have been drawn together in an introductory chapter, instead of being repeated each time the problem reared its head. I liked in particular the clear and thorough discussion of propitiation (pp. 429ff.) and of the nature of Jesus’ resurrection (pp. 317ff.); it is a fine thing to have a scholar of international repute writing (p. 322) ‘Is faith its own support? In the case of the disciples, NO! Faith did not produce the visions, and visions did not produce faith. There is no adequate explanation to account for the rise of the resurrection faith except this; that Jesus rose from the dead.’

All these points, and many more beside, mean that the book deserves to be used and used again by students—and, despite the preface’s disclaimer, by research students; I heartily wish it had been available four years ago when I began my theology course. But at the same time there are weaknesses in its detail which mean that the student will need to watch his step. I was surprised, for instance, that the gnat of the ascension caused so much trouble once the camel of the resurrection had been swallowed so well; and the chapter on Paul’s view of the law I found confusing and confused. ( Inter alia , Murray’s commentary sees ‘an unregenerate man under conviction of sin’ in Rom. 7:7–13 only, and not in the whole chapter as is stated on p. 500, n. 33: and, on p. 507, pareisēlthen does not mean ‘was added’!). It comes as something of a shock, again, to find that the Apostolic Fathers appear to have been ignored entirely. The bibliographies are sometimes too full and recherché for the ordinary seminary student, while not being full (or recherché!) enough for the research worker and some basic articles are not mentioned which might well be useful to conservative-minded students and others ( e.g. Cranfield’s in New Testament Issues , ed. Batey). English readers should take note that reference is to American titles of books where that is different from English ones; as there are no indications of the place of publication, this could cause frustration. Again, spot checks reveal that the indexes are far from exhaustive; and quite a few standard works are referred to in early editions now superseded ( e.g. , NBC for NBCR , and Guthrie’s Introduction in the three-volume set now combined in one volume: it is precisely the seminary student who could be confused by this). Finally, the book is marred throughout by misprints, of which the following are a selection. P. 137 n. 7 should read Amos 9:11, not 15.11; p. 266 1. 16 should read 1.18, not 1.12; p. 419 n. 40 should read F. F. Bruce, not E. F. Bruce; p. 447 1. 17 should read 9.7; 13.23, not 9.7, 13, 23; p. 495 1. 17 should read 10.5, not 1.5; p. 526 para. 3 1. 2 should read Rom. 1:29–32, not 29–37; p. 538 para 2 1.10 should read 2.28, not 3.28. Source critics will have fun with the statement on p. 461 that ‘we have already seen’ material ‘above ch. 34’, since p. 461 is in the middle of ch. 33 and the material in question does not appear for another twenty pages! Again, those who doubt the possibility of the same thing being said by the same man in two different ways within a short space of time should compare the two references to Ridderbos’ book on p. 57.

It is to be hoped that these blemishes will be removed in a second edition; the book deserves to be widely used.

N. T. Wright

Chaplain of Downing College, Cambridge

Psalms 73–150

1 Corinthians

Property and Riches in the Early Church

Judaism and Hellenism—Studies in their Encounter in Palestine during the Early Hellenistic Period

Reading Acts

Some thoughts on the book of acts and pauline theology, book review: james d. g. dunn, jesus according to the new testament.

Dunn, James D. G. Jesus according to the New Testament . Foreword by Rowan Williams. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2019. 211 pp. Pb; $20. Link to Eerdmans

Dunn observes in his postscript to his new book on Jesus that the impact Jesus initially made on his earliest followers continues to be felt today (p. 187). A study of Jesus cannot be simply a sequence of historical events or some ancient teachings with no significance for contemporary Christians. In fact, much of Dunn’s work has focused on the memory of Jesus among his earliest followers. See, for example, his magisterial trilogy Jesus Remembered (2003), Beginning from Jerusalem (2009) and Neither Jew nor Greek: A Contested Identity (2016), his collection of essays on The Oral Gospel Tradition (2016) or his earlier collection, Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels (2011). This new book targets a broader audience. It is written in a more popular style and Dunn does include many footnotes.

Dunn surveys the nuances of the three Synoptic Gospels in chapter two and John in chapter three. Since the canonical Gospels were written at least thirty to forty years after Jesus, Dunn briefly explains his view of the oral traditions about Jesus which circulated in this time. For each Gospel he briefly sums up their distinctive contributions (Mark’s messianic secret, Matthew’s focus on Israel, Luke’s focus on Jesus’s mission to sinners, John’s entirely different approach to demonstrating Jesus as the Messiah).

In “Jesus according to Acts” Dunn begins by comparing the commissions of Peter and Paul which may express Luke’s conviction that the greater mission to the gentiles was inspired by God (p. 77). It is the sermons in Acts which present the memory of Jesus, so Dunn examines these closely and makes note of the some disturbing absence of theology concerning the death of Jesus in the book. Luke presents the death of Jesus as fact, but it is not interpreted as it is in the Pauline letters.

Dunn includes two chapters on Jesus according to Paul, first focusing on the uniqueness of Paul’s Gospel as well as Paul’s own emphasis that his Gospel is not distinctive from the other apostles (with respect to the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus). Much of these two chapters reviews Paul’s metaphors for salvation as well as Paul’s view of the future. For the details, Dunn’s The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Eerdmans, 2006) is an indispensable resource.

The book of Hebrews is perhaps the most distinctive book in the New Testament with respect to how it understands Jesus. It is the only book which focuses on Jesus as a high priest. Dunn thinks it is remarkable the book was included in the canon not only because of its anonymity, but also for this presentation of Jesus as a Jewish priest. He observes that in Judaism priestly ritual gave way to expounding the word of God, but in Christianity the word was subordinated to the “revived priestly ritual” (155).

The contribution of James, Peter, John and Jude to the New Testament understanding of Jesus are combined into a single chapter. In fact, James has remarkably little to say about Jesus, at least directly. Dunn demonstrates James new the Jesus tradition, at least in its oral form, by drawing parallels between James and the Sermon on the Mount. So too for 1 Peter and 1 John (2-3 John are more or less ignored). Jude and 2 Peter are a troublesome pair of letters; Dunn asks “how much of Christianity would have been lost if Jude and 2 Peter had not been included in the canon?”

Finally, Dunn describes how the book of Revelation understands Jesus. This chapter is frustratingly brief considering how much Revelation says about Jesus. Dunn comments briefly on the initial vision of Jesus in chapter 1 and the letters to the seven churches before tracing the Lamb of God theme through the book. Much more could be said about how the end of the book presents Jesus as a conquering king who returns to restore God’s kingdom to the world.

Dunn hints this book could be extended into the early church (so, “Jesus according to Ignatius”), but also to any reader of the book (“Jesus according to Me”). Since everything we know about Jesus is due to the personal testimony of his followers, why not call on contemporary readers of the New Testament to continue to bear witness to the story of Jesus? This short book succeeds in laying a foundation for this contemporary reflection on Jesus.

NB: Thanks to Eerdmans for kindly providing me with a review copy of this book. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work.

5 thoughts on “ Book Review: James D. G. Dunn, Jesus according to the New Testament ”

Sounds like a decent little book on Jesus studies. I’ve only read a little bit of Dunn, but thought it worth it.

You should read everything by Dunn! Very stimulating…Beginning From Jerusalem is excellent (although pricey).

Reblogged this on Talmidimblogging .

2 cor 13:5 test yourselves to see if you are in the faith does Christ Jesus live in you or do you fail the test new world translation 2 cor 13:5 keep testing whether you are in the faith keep proving what you yourselves are or do you not recognize that Jesus Christ is in union with you ? QUESTION ” is in you ” or ” in union with you ” which one is right ??

The simplest translation of ὅτι Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς ἐν ὑμῖν is “that Jesus Christ [is] in you.” The New World Translation frequently over-interprets in their translation for theological reasons. In this case they have added “in union with you” to express the idea that the believer is united with Jesus (not a bad idea, and probably what the text means, but it is not what the text says). I checked a few other English translations, none have “in union.”

The NWT has also teased out the present imperative, “keep testing yourself.” The word “keep” is an attempt to show the action is continuous, on-going. That is not required by the grammar, “test yourself” is accurate and means more or less the same thing.

What Every Book of the New Testament Is About

Despite variations in the arrangement of early lists of the New Testament books, Matthew always comes first. Perhaps this is why one famous scholar called Matthew "the most important book ever written." All of the Gospels share certain traits, and all of them have unique features as well. A distinctive feature of Matthew is its arrangement into alternating sections of narrative and discourse. There are five discourse units, inviting comparison with the Pentateuch that starts the Old Testament. Each discourse answers a specific question: How are citizens of Christ's kingdom to live? How are traveling disciples to conduct themselves? What are the parables that Jesus taught? How should Christians conduct themselves in the church? How will it all end? The intervening narrative sections tell the story of Christ's life, death, and resurrection.

The shortest Gospel, and perhaps the basis for Matthew and Luke. Mark is the "action Gospel," with the word immediately appearing some 35 times. The genre is known as the "brief life"—a compilation of the minimum of what a reader wishes to know about a person. As a biography, Luke also fits the category of a documentary life, consisting of brief fragments that record a person's life and from which a biographer might collect data for a fuller account.

The humanitarian Gospel, with much attention to marginalized members of society. The longest Gospel, covering more of Jesus's life than the others. A very literary Gospel, with nearly thirty parables and four nativity hymns, it has exerted the most influence on painters and hymn writers. Despite the variety of material, this Gospel flows beautifully and is easy to read from beginning to end. A famous scholar called it "the most beautiful book ever written."

The poetic Gospel, embodying much of its meaning in great symbols such as light, bread, and water. Another literary aspect is its reliance on longer narrative and discourse units than characterizes the other Gospels. This book is built around seven great signs or miracles that Jesus performed, and these in turn are paired with surrounding discourses that tie into the preceding or following "sign." The unifying plot conflict is between belief and unbelief.

The storyline is accurately captured by the official title— The Acts of the Apostles (chiefly Peter and Paul). Another accurate label is ecclesiastical history (the history of the Christian church in various geographic regions), but with the focus on people and events rather than names and dates. The general framework is narrative, but a surprising three-fourths of the book consists of speeches and orations (including the settings in which they were given).

An important literary consideration for all the epistles is that they are modifications of the standard letter writing conventions of the ancient world. Variations are always possible, but the general paradigm consists of five ingredients: salutation, thanksgiving, body, paraenesis (list of moral exhortations), and close. Additionally, there are more specific epistolary genres that govern most of the epistles. Romans belongs to the genre of the letter essay. Set within the framework of letter-writing conventions, the main content is theological exposition on the subject of sin and salvation. Two styles mingle in Romans: the grand or elevated style and features of a form of vigorous street preaching called the diatribe.

1 Corinthians

The most important (and usually ignored) feature of the New Testament epistles is that they are occasional letters, not systematic essays. "Occasional" literature is literature written for a specific occasion. Another label by which to name this is the Latin phrase ad hoc ("for the occasion"). The writers of the epistles did not sit down to write an essay; they wrote in response to questions they had been asked or circumstances that needed to be addressed. In 1 Corinthians Paul speaks to problems that existed in a disorderly church.

2 Corinthians

There are so many references to Paul's own life that this epistle falls into the category of personal letter. Paul defends his reputation against false accusations, thereby placing the letter into a genre known in Latin as an apologia pro vita sua ("defense of his life"). In keeping with a recent approach to literature called "self fashioning," Paul carefully constructs a picture of his missionary life.

A thoroughly polemical (argumentative) letter written in response to a doctrinal crisis that had engulfed Christians living in a specific region (modern-day Turkey). The heresy was a form of Jewish ritualism, but the issue is perennial: whether Christ's atonement is completely sufficient for salvation or whether human works are also necessary ("works righteousness"). Two common designations for this epistle are helpful—"the angry letter" (denoting the polemical tone) and "the freedom letter" (denoting the theological argument of being free from the need to earn salvation by religious rituals).

A circular letter intended for the church universal. A case study in epistolary form: salutation (1:1-1), thanksgiving (1:3-22), body (2:1—4:16), paraenesis or list of exhortations (4:7—6:20), and close (6:21-24). Also characteristic of many New Testament epistles is the division into a doctrinal or theological half and a practical or moral half. Written in a polished and exalted style.

Philippians

A prison epistle written in Rome. Balancing numerous personal references dealing with Paul's relations to the recipients are famous passages with a universal "feel," such as the Christ hymn that celebrates Christ's taking the form of a servant (2:5-11) and the "whatever is true" list (4:8-9). Philippians is also a missionary update letter.

It is a rare New Testament epistle that does not make reference to doctrinal heresy, but in some epistles, including Colossians, the polemical task of countering heresy is a major part of the letter. Paul only briefly denounces the heresy (which claimed that something more than Christ is needed [2:8-23]), preferring to conduct his debate by declaring that Christ is all that is needed. This epistle is strongly Christocentric, climaxing in the famous Christ hymn that exalts the supremacy of Christ (1:15-20).

1 Thessalonians

An "open letter" intended for a group, but it is so suffused with statements of affection that it reads like a personal letter to an individual. There is a large autobiographical element, and like the letters that we ourselves write and receive, it ranges over a wide variety of topics, including Christ's second coming. A good way to assimilate the letter is to regard it as giving "program notes" on living the Christian life.

2 Thessalonians

Partly a sequel to 1 Thessalonians, arising out of misunderstandings about when Christ would return and the need not to live idly in anticipation of that return. A melodic line in the letter is the need to exert oneself in the Christian faith and "not grow weary in doing good" (3:13). As with other New Testament epistles, we should accept the informal, meandering structure and not attempt to force it into an essay format.

The first of a group known as the pastoral epistles written to individual pastors. 1 Timothy emerges as a manual for church life, with special emphasis on the role and conduct of the pastor.

Paul's last will and testament, written while he was on death row in Rome. While following the usual format of New Testament epistles, it is also dominated by the genre known as the farewell discourse. Merging with that are elements of spiritual autobiography and a defense of the author's life.

A pastoral epistle written to a pastor on the island of Crete, this letter filled with commands is understood to be a general guidebook for living the Christian life in a world where evil seeks to destroy the good. The style is very compressed, reading almost like an outline. There are also directives for church organization.

A single-chapter book known best for the story that lies behind it, namely, a runaway slave who had become a Christian and whom Paul is sending back to his owner (also a Christian) with the letter. The most literary aspect of the book is the delicate persuasion or rhetoric that Paul uses to induce Philemon to receive his slave with kindness.

A letter essay written in an exalted style. This Christocentric book asserts the supremacy of Christ to Old Testament foreshadowings. Christ is successively shown to be superior to prophets and angels (1-2), Moses (3), and the Old Testament priesthood (4-7); then the new covenant in Christ is shown to be superior to the old covenant (chapter 8 and following). A subtext is the need to hold fast to the Christian faith and not revert to Judaism in a time of persecution. Another theme by which we remember the book is faith, climaxed in the famous roll call of faith in chapter 11 (which adheres to the genre known as the encomium).

Literary Introductions to the Books of the Bible

Leland Ryken

In this collection of literary introductions to every book of the Bible, renowned literary scholar Leland Ryken helps readers navigate the genres and literary features found throughout Scripture.

Belongs to the genre of wisdom literature; accordingly, the basic unit is the proverb. The structure is stream of consciousness, not that of a systematic essay. The goal is to impart skill for living, and a good tagline for the book is "faith that works." The Greek form known as diatribe exerts a strong influence.

Another very loosely organized epistle. The general progression is (1) the riches that believers possess in Christ, (2) duties for living the Christian life, and (3) how to endure suffering for the sake of Christ.

An informally arranged reminder of selected foundational truths of the Christian faith. The emphasis on remembering stems from the fact that this letter has affinities with the genre of the farewell discourse. The last chapter is one of the great eschatological discourses of the Bible.

A letter built around the subject of tests by which people can know if they are Christians. An informal letter that yields a long list of separate topics instead of a tidy outline (but that is true of most New Testament letters, contrary to common viewpoint). 1 John resembles our familiar "position paper" or encyclical on a subject that needs clarification.

An abbreviated letter, perhaps because John expected to visit the church soon (v. 14). This epistle is a shorthand version of the customary epistolary conventions. The book falls readily into three parts: a reminder (4-6), a warning (7-9), and an instruction (10-11).

Like the books that precede and follow it, one of five one-chapter books in the Bible. A personal letter addressed to a specific person named Gaius, following the format of salutation, body, and personal greetings. It also fits the genre of the letter of instruction, with one of the topics being hospitality to traveling Christian teachers.

A "fireworks" letter, filled with vivid imagery and anger. The letter displays horror toward apostasy and the false teachers who induce it. The book is primarily a satire (an attack on evil). There is such an abundance of poetic imagery and figurative language that it becomes what literary scholars call poetic prose.

The most literary book in the Bible. The dominant idiom is poetry and symbolism. With that serving as the language in which the book is composed, several overlapping genres converge, including fantasy (unlifelike details used to portray people and events that really exist), visionary writing (the portrayal of realities that are envisioned rather than existing around us right now), prophecy, and apocalypse (literally "unveiling"). The book is structured as an unfolding series of pageants, each comprised of seven units (e.g., seven letters, seven seals, etc.).

Leland Ryken (PhD, University of Oregon) served as professor of English at Wheaton College for nearly fifty years. He served as literary stylist for the English Standard Version Bible and has authored or edited over sixty books, including The Word of God in English and A Complete Handbook of Literary Forms in the Bible.

What Every Book of the Old Testament Is About

Brief summaries of each book of the Old Testament.

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Robert Gundry reviews N.T. Wright’s Kingdom New Testament

Over at Books & Culture, one of my favourite scholars, Robert H. Gundry reviews a book by one of my other favourite scholars, N.T. Wright, specifically, looking at his Kingdom New Testament (also known as T he New Testament for Everyone Translation in the UK). Gundry’s review is called Tom’s Targum . After listing the pros and cons in the translation, Gundry concludes:

Does KNT work, then, as a translation in the sense taken for granted by J&J when reading both KNT’s subtitle, “A Contemporary Translation,” the back ad’s description of KNT as “modern prose that stays true to the character of the ancient Greek text … conveying the most accurate rendering possible,” and Tom’s own statement of having “tried to stick closely to the original”? No, not even by the standards of dynamic/functional equivalence, of which J&J are ignorant anyway. Too much unnecessary paraphrase. Too many insertions uncalled for. Too many inconsistencies of translation. Too many changes of meaning. Too many (and overly) slanted interpretations. Too many errant renderings of the base language. But there is a body of religious literature characterized by all those traits, viz., the ancient Jewish targums, which rendered the Hebrew Old Testament into the Aramaic language. So KNT’s similar combination of translation, paraphrase, insertions, semantic changes, slanted interpretations, and errant renderings—all well-intentioned—works beautifully as a targum. Which apart from the question of truth in advertising isn’t to disparage KNT. For the New Testament itself exhibits targumizing, as when, for example, Mark 4:12 has “lest … it be forgiven them” in agreement with the targum of Isaiah 6:10 rather than “lest … one heals them” (so the Hebrew), and as when 2 Timothy 3:8 has “Jannes and Jambres” in agreement with a targum of Exodus 7:11-8:19 , which in the Hebrew original leaves Pharaoh’s magicians unnamed. Hence, Tom’s Targum . Trouble is, J&J won’t know they’re reading a targum.

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A Theology of the New Testament – Review

There were many things I liked about it the biggest thing was that it is a model of evangelical biblical scholarship. Ladd was a strong evangelical and he interacted with broader scholarship rather than rejecting it. Although there is more recent research available, Ladd can be an inspiration for current and future evangelical scholars.

Ladd is most known for the work that he did on the kingdom of God. Many scholars saw the kingdom as either a present or a future reality. Ladd argued for a kingdom that was both. The kingdom began with the appearance of Jesus but will come in its fullness at his second coming. This interpretation is now widely held by scholars.

Ladd offers one of the most balanced biblical theologies out there. He avoids extremes and is able to find a middle ground that is faithful to historical Christianity.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading A Theology of the New Testament . It is dated and there are more contemporary theologies, but I expect to return to this book again and again.

In the second century, there was a religious teacher named Marcion who tried to put together…

I consider myself to be relatively well-read when it comes to theology. I at least…

Pursuing Veritas

Reflections by jacob j. prahlow, book review: encountering the new testament (elwell and yarbrough).

To help set the stage for a successful introduction to the Christian New Testament comes the third edition of Walter A. Elwell and Robert W. Yarbrough’s Encountering the New Testament: A Historical and Theological Survey (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013) . This textbook is designed to facilitate an understanding of the theology and history of the New Testament that enables students to undertake an honest and informed reading of the New Testament text for themselves.

Another strong point of this textbook is that the theological contents are essentially ecumenical in their presentation. While there are some occasional indicators of the authors’ Protestantism, the contents of this text will benefit students of any background. On the issue of varying Christian interpretations of the New Testament, the chapter on Revelation stands out as an area which could be improved. Although Revelation may be the hardest New Testament book to introduce, it would be beneficial to have seen more information of the varying ways in which this book has been and continues to be interpreted by Christians around the world. Given this book’s design for the classroom setting, even a basic outline of the four major ways in which the Apocalypse of John is interpreted would be a further stimulant to fruitful discussion.

The contents of Encountering the New Testament are laid out in canonical order. After an especially excellent encounter with the Second Temple Jewish context of the New Testament, students are introduced to each of the Gospels, the life and teaching of Jesus, and approaches to Biblical Studies. Each of these subsections contains a wealth of information and more than adequately provides an overview of the areas in consideration. While some may disapprove of “doing” Biblical Studies and then being introduced to the history of the field and the methods commonly employed by scholars, this presentation accords well with the authors’ conviction that one need not be a contemporary Biblical scholar in order to properly understand the meaning of the New Testament.

Next comes an introduction to the Acts of the Apostles and the early Church, which is (somewhat surprisingly) broken up into three chapters. These chapters trace the development of the church throughout its earliest years, providing not only an introduction to Acts but also offering an introduction to the study of Church History. A considerable section on Paul follows. Of the Pauline corpus, only Romans receives its own chapter and the rest of the letters are collected somewhat oddly. It may have been better to consolidate chapters along the lines of 1-2 Corinthians; Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians; 1-2 Thessalonians and Philemon; and 1-2 Timothy and Titus. As it is, some of Paul’s longer letters received less treatment than collections of his shorter letters.

Additionally, this entire text does a fine job incorporating historical information from non-canonical sources throughout the narrative, making it less disappointing that these writings were not introduced in an end section of the text. The lack of such a section was somewhat surprising, as one of the major themes of Encountering the New Testament is that of canonization. Indeed, in the introductory chapter the question is posed, “Why these 27 books?” Additionally, references to now-canonical books in the writings of the early Church are noted on several occasions throughout the text. Certainly the topic of canon is one that looms large in the minds of the authors, though it does seem possible to have drawn out the issue with additional clarity. This is especially true for the introductory chapter of this text, for while this section contains much valuable information for beginning an engagement with the New Testament, it felt disorganized and overcommitted.

I received this book from Baker Academic in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

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One response to “Book Review: Encountering the New Testament (Elwell and Yarbrough)”

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On Preaching the Main Point (Preachers Talk, Ep. 75)

How the Gospel Shapes Our Liturgy

Book review: the new testament deacon: the church’s minister of mercy, by alexander strauch.

What are deacons supposed to do? Are they to serve as the church’s executive board to whom the Pastor-CEO reports? Are they to be the church’s spiritual leaders?

Who should be a deacon? Is a deacon simply a long-serving member whom the church honors with a title, like a politician receiving an honorary doctorate?

If these questions were merely hypothetical, Alexander Strauch’s book The New Testament Deacon: The Church’s Minister of Mercy would be wholly unnecessary. But given that in many churches the role of deacon is defined more by tradition or corporate culture than by Scripture, Strauch’s solid treatment of the biblical teaching on deacons is more necessary than many church leaders may realize.

SOLID, EVEN-HANDED EXPOSITION

In this book Strauch simply walks verse-by-verse through Acts 6:1-7, Philippians 1:1, and 1 Timothy 3:8-13. The latter two passages are the only passages in the Bible where the term “deacon” is used of an office in the church (except possibly Romans 16:1). Acts 6 is generally regarded as setting forth a prototype of deacons, since the same division of labor between the ministry of the Word and caring for the church’s practical needs seems to apply to both the apostles and the seven and to elders and deacons.

Strauch’s book is filled with straightforward, even-handed exposition. He shows through Scripture that deacons are not a board of directors or the church’s spiritual leaders. Rather, deacons are to care for the “needy, poor, and suffering” members of our churches (11) and relieve the church’s elders of “many practical needs…so that the shepherds can attend more fully to teaching, guarding, and leading the whole flock” (12). In the first part of the book, Strauch highlights the division of labor between the ministry of the Word and caring for the church’s physical needs which Acts 6 and the qualifications listed in 1 Timothy 3 seem to imply. Then, after discussing the two offices seen in Philippians 1:1, he amply expounds both the meaning and importance of the qualifications for deacons Paul lays down in 1 Timothy 3.

Pastor, are you looking for a biblical primer on the role, responsibilities, and qualifications of deacons? Strauch’s book is a good place to start.

If you’re not looking for a biblical primer on deacons—and who is , really?—let me ask you, are your deacons more like a corporate board or like the biblically qualified servants of the church’s physical needs? Could it be that the biblical teaching on deacons is something that deserves further study for the sake of your own church’s health? If so, I commend Strauch’s book to you.

A FEW MINOR DISAGREEMENTS

That said, I’ve got just a few minor disagreements to register.

The first is that Strauch slightly reduces the biblical picture of deacons by referring to them as “ministers of mercy.” He speaks of the work of deacons almost entirely in terms of caring for the poor and needy within the church. His basis for this: the seven in Acts 6 were put in charge of the daily distribution of food, which apparently was the Jerusalem church’s benevolence ministry to its needy members. This left the apostles free to devote themselves to the ministry of the Word and prayer (see Acts 6:2-4). And Strauch argues that the division of labor between the apostles and the seven also applies to elders and deacons today, which seems legitimate in view of the differences in their titles and qualifications.

Yet Strauch seems to go just slightly astray here by assuming that because the seven in Acts 6 were put in charge of benevolence, caring for poor members is more or less the only responsibility deacons should have.

But what happens in a contemporary church in which there are many more time-consuming administrative matters than distributing food to poor members? Does the same division of labor apply? Can deacons be put in charge of sound systems and child care? If not, what protects the elders ability to devote themselves to the Word and prayer? The rationale of using Acts 6 as instructive for an elder/deacon division of labor seems to be lost. If the deacons are to handle the church’s physical needs, the job descriptions of deacons in many churches will need to extend far beyond caring for poor church members.

While Strauch doesn’t explicitly argue that deacons shouldn’t have more responsibilities than simply caring for the poor, his label “ministers of mercy” and his discussion of the role of deacons seem to limit deacons’ work to something narrower than what Scripture warrants. If the office of deacon was born (or at least foreshadowed) when a need arose that saddled the Apostles with too much administrative responsibility, it seems best to view deacons as servants who should handle all such administrative matters, rather than simply as “ministers of mercy.”

A second, related matter is that Strauch frequently treats Acts 6 as if it provides an exact description of the office of deacon. While I agree with Strauch that the seven in Acts 6 were prototypes of deacons, I think that we should be careful about seeing a one-to-one correspondence between them and the biblical office of deacon.

One final matter is that Strauch’s arguments against women deacons are not entirely persuasive. In part this is because he fails to make a compelling case that Paul’s prohibition of a woman exercising authority over a man in 1 Timothy 2:12 applies to the work of deacons.

A GOOD PLACE TO START

These minor disagreements aside, Strauch’s book is a solid overview of the Bible’s teaching on deacons. If you want to understand the Bible’s teaching on deacons, this is a great place to start.

Bobby Jamieson (PhD, University of Cambridge) is planting Trinity Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He previously served for seven years as an associate pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC. He is the author, most recently, of Everything Is Never Enough: A Surprising Path to Resilient Happiness (WaterBrook, forthcoming).

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An Introduction to the New Testament Essay (Book Review)

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Introduction

Book review.

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An Introduction to the New Testament by Carson and Moo gives an in-depth summary of the NT books about content, authorship, genre, date, place of authorship, and audience, among others, within historical contexts. The text further draws parallels between liberal and conservative perspectives, considers dissenting opinions, and explains the theological foundations of the individual NT books in standalone chapters. It considers not only the theological contributions of the NT books, but also their historical parallels, literary styles, and sociological aspects. This paper presents a review of the text to paint a detailed picture of the theological and historical perspectives on each of the NT books.

Chapter 1 offers a brief overview of the book. It uses a book-by-book approach to analyze the 27 NT books. Chapter 2-5 considers the three Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The authors identify the similarities of these books in terms of organization, content, and intensity related to the ministry of Jesus as aspects setting them apart from the Gospel of John.[1] Notably, Jesus’ “healings, exorcisms, parable teachings, and last-supper narrative” in the Synoptic Gospels are missing in John.[2] The authors consider the synoptic origins and historicity, literary forms, and a coherent message about Jesus propagated by the gospels. They conclude that the Synoptic books converge on their historical discussions about Jesus’ ministry. However, they diverge on the chronological relation between the episodes, an observation ascribed to the gospel authors’ temporal indifference.

Chapter 3 considers the book of Matthew, including its geographic, literary, and structural markers, while Chapter 4 depicts Mark’s story as a fast-paced narrative and earliest Gospel of Christ’s ministry recounting His healing, exorcisms, and teaching. Luke’s account of the Christian beginnings, Jesus’ journey in Galilee, and later in Jerusalem, the crucifixion and resurrection are given in Chapter 5 in substantial details.[3] While the three Synoptic Gospels follow a common sequence, John’s Gospel dwells on Jesus’ ministry in Jerusalem.[4] John’s eschatological tone, contributions, sources, and audience are explicated in Chapter 6 of the text.

Chapter 7 focuses on the Acts of the Apostles considered to be authored by Luke. The Chapter examines Luke’s account of early church history, miracles, and the spread of the Gospel in the Gentile world through the eyes of Peter and Paul. The authors identify the heroic deeds of the apostles and historical events such as Stephen’s martyrdom and the Pentecost as the genres of Acts.[5] They argue that the book’s aim is to edify believers by narrating how God’s plan was manifested in the early church.

Chapters 8-18 focus on the letters of Paul, the apostle, and theologian, his contributions to early Christianity, the righteousness of God revealed in the Scriptures and the edification of God’s grace among Christians. Paul’s epistles are letters addressed to the Romans, I and II Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, I and II Thessalonians, I and II Timothy, Titus, and Philemon and speaks against the Greco-Roman society. The authors note that 21 of the 27 NT books are letters authored by Paul. The authors write that the choice of letters as a mode of communication by the Apostles in 21 of the NT books was because they represented “atypical and convenient method of religious instruction among Jews”.[6] Letters were also a means of ministering to people from distant lands. The authors analyze the content, contribution, and destination of each of the letters based on historical and scriptural evidence.

Chapter 18 examines the book of Hebrews that draws heavily from Old Testament texts. It explicates the book’s central message, and perspectives on its uncertain authorship, geographical provenance, and date. According to the authors, Hebrews is primarily written for Christians, who are “urged to maintain their confessions”.[7] Chapter 19 analyzes the letter of James, its message of faith seen through the works, provenance, addressees, and theological contributions while Chapters 20-21 focuses on the letters of Peter and his message of atonement for sin. Chapter 23 discusses three short epistles of John, their structure, addressees (Gaius), authorship, provenance (Ephesus), and its message of first witness testimony.

Chapter 24 highlights the contents, authorship, contribution, and destination of the book of Jude. According to Carson and Moo, the writer of Jude comes across as a dogmatic bigot of conservative ways reminiscent of early Catholicism.[8] They ascribe the book’s neglected status to the writer’s dogmatic stance. In Chapter 25, the authors discuss the message, authorship, contemporary discussions, and sources, among others, in the book of Revelation. Finally, in Chapter 26, Carson and Moo give an epilogue on the origins of the New Testament canon and its relevance to the Old Testament.

A key strength of this text lies in its clear organization and methodical analysis of the books. Each Chapter contains a complete and independent study of various aspects of an individual NT book. The authors perform an in-depth study of each book’s core message, authorship, addressees, the date of authorship, and theological contribution, among others. They also give a balanced analysis by examining dissenting views and criticisms to paint an accurate picture of each book to readers. They use historical evidence, anecdotes, and textual references to support or refute interpretations of the NT books. Each aspect of the book is scrutinized from historical, literary, and socio-anthropological perspectives to determine its theological relevance.

The contextualization of the writers of the NT books helps the readers to understand the historical forces that shaped the literary forms in the individual books. The authors also contextualize the addressees and environments for Paul’s letters, which helps portray a clear picture to show the rationale for their authorship. The historical and contemporary controversies surrounding each book are analyzed in a scholarly tone based on evidence. The authors offer a critique of the dominant perspectives and draw useful conclusions for the reader.

The authors provide substantial footnotes at the end of each Chapter to help a reader seek further information on the issues discussed. Further, the book-by-book analysis follows the New Testament order and the significant contributions of each book to theology are highlighted. In addition, scriptural reference is made to support the arguments made or refute certain positions. However, in spite of its balanced nature, the book contains criticisms of dominant perspectives and positions on the Synoptic Gospels, John’s gospel, the apostle’s letters, and Revelation.

This text gives an in-depth overview of the NT books that greatly benefits the readers. The scholarly analysis of multiple perspectives, historical evidence, and scriptural references strengthen the authors’ conclusions on the content, contribution, geographical provenance, and authorship of each of the NT books and makes it a valuable text for bible scholars.

Carson, Andrew, and Douglas Moo J. An Introduction to the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 2005.

Philip Yampolsky: The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch
New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
The Development of the New Testament Canon of Scripture
Scriptural Authority and Theological Interpretation: Importance of Distinction
A Brief Introduction to the New Testament
The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch by Phillip Yampolsky
The Bible's Influence With Myracle Stories
Divine Mercy and Compassion in the Old and New Testament
The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch
Metthew’s and Mark’s Gospels and Their Historical Purposes
Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2020, November 23). An Introduction to the New Testament. https://ivypanda.com/essays/an-introduction-to-the-new-testament/

"An Introduction to the New Testament." IvyPanda , 23 Nov. 2020, ivypanda.com/essays/an-introduction-to-the-new-testament/.

IvyPanda . (2020) 'An Introduction to the New Testament'. 23 November.

IvyPanda . 2020. "An Introduction to the New Testament." November 23, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/an-introduction-to-the-new-testament/.

1. IvyPanda . "An Introduction to the New Testament." November 23, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/an-introduction-to-the-new-testament/.

IvyPanda . "An Introduction to the New Testament." November 23, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/an-introduction-to-the-new-testament/.

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Book Review - A New Testament Biblical Theology by G. K. Beale

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Christians today are blessed with a wide variety of resources for studying the Bible. In America, it seems that every few months some must-read theology book hits the press and promises to revolutionize our understanding of God’s Word. And many of these books truly are helpful. We really have no excuse for not understanding Scripture more and being more conformed into the likeness of Christ, given the endless resources meant to help us do just this.

At the same time, however, this abundance of resources can serve to puzzle us and leave us lost in an ever expanding maze of theological conundrums. The specialization in biblical studies doesn’t help. Specialists write on the Gospels, or on Paul’s letters, to the virtual exclusion of the input from other New Testament, or Old Testament books. OT specialists develop their understanding and grow in their study completely apart from their NT counterparts. And with the study of God’s Word being so cranial, simple insights and the role of the Holy Spirit’s illumination tend to be ignored. And then today’s scholars often ignore the insights of previous generations, who found Christ throughout the Old Testament, but weren’t versed in the latest scientific insights from form and redaction criticism or literary theory. Many have seen this widening gap, between academia and the church pew, and yearned for scholarship that matters: academic insight for average individuals. And some have hoped for a whole-Bible, biblical theology that would span the differing worlds of OT and NT scholarship and put the entire Bible back together again.

G. K. Beale may have given us just this. His magnum opus is an ambitious project that seeks to integrate the storylines of the Old and New Testaments, and unfold how the New Testament unpacks the promise of the Old as it unfolds for us the glories of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In A New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New , Beale displays a masterful grasp on the academy as well as an expert understanding of the second temple Judaistic literature, Ancient Near Eastern writings, and the latest scholarship on both biblical testaments. He is a humble servant of the church, however, and seeks to answer questions the average churchgoer will face and remains ever practical even as he explores a wide array of various topics. And while his book requires careful and (at times) strenuous reading, it truly integrates the entire canon of Scripture in a way that has promise to bring together Old and New Testament scholarship for the service of the church.

The Storyline of the New Testament

The task Beale sets out for himself is huge, and his book is too. With over 960 readable pages, this book will take the average reader some time to conquer. It took me about a year to wade my way through it, although admittedly I tend to be a fickle reader and so left the book for seasons at a time. Beale sets out to explore the unifying center of the New Testament and finds this in a storyline. Each part of the following storyline gets developed in detail and by the end of the book he has adequately proven his thesis. Here is Beale’s NT storyline:

Jesus’s life, trials, death for sinners, and especially resurrection by the Spirit have launched the fulfillment of the eschatological already-not yet new-creational reign, bestowed by grace through faith and resulting in worldwide commission to the faithful to advance this new-creational reign and resulting in judgment for the unbelieving, unto the triune God’s glory. (p. 958, italics and underlining removed)

Recapping the Old Testament

One of my favorite sections in Beale’s work was his few chapters spent detailing the Old Testament’s own storyline. He uses the first three chapters of Genesis as a key for unlocking the story of the entire Old Testament. Adam was to be a vice-regent of God, extending His rule throughout the world. But Adam failed, and was exiled from the Edenic paradise of fellowship with God in a garden-temple. From this wilderness, God called out his people Israel, referred to as God’s firstborn son, and they received an Adamic calling to be vice-regents of God extending the glory of His name as a beacon of light to the nations, centered in their garden-like promised land of paradise – where God would have His name dwell. But they too failed, and were exiled from their special place of fellowship with God. For those unfamiliar with Beale’s extensive work on developing the theme of the Temple throughout the Scripture (cf. Beale’s The Temple and the Church’s Mission , IVP 2004), it is touched on in this section and more fully developed later as Beale turns to the New Testament.

The Role of Eschatology

Beale’s emphasis on the already-not yet, new-creational kingdom, has led many to dismiss his book as one long extensive defense of amillennialism. I would contend that such a dismissal is short-sighted and a biased misreading of his work. His eschatology doesn’t neatly fit into any one theological system, and he prefers the description “inaugurated eschatology.” His discussion of the key terms for “the end times” in both the Old and New Testaments goes a long way toward proving his contention that “in order to understand the NT in its full richness, we must have a keen acquaintance with how the biblical authors viewed the ‘end times’” (p. 16). He argues that the New Testament sees the end times as here in one sense, but not yet fully here. And that the entire New Testament cannot be understood apart from realizing the role eschatology plays. The NT authors understand themselves to be living in the last days, in the beginning fulfillment of what the Old Testament foretold.

New-Creation and Kingdom

Perhaps Beale’s most distinctive contribution to NT biblical theology is his emphasis on the role new-creation plays both in how one understands the kingdom, and in how one understands everything from justification to judgment in the New Testament. Christ’s resurrection was the promise and presence of the new creation, invading our world of space and time. The uncreating of evil has begun, and the recreation of a new world has commenced – and our very spiritual lives with the progress we make in sanctification, is part of God’s making all things new (2 Cor. 5:17, Rev. 21:5).

The Church as End-Time Israel

This is where many people will stumble over Beale’s approach. Some will point to his embrace of the Sabbath and paedo-baptism as errors flowing from his fundamental misunderstanding of the distinction between Israel and the church. I would ask those who will differ fundamentally here to take time to read Beale as there is still much to be gained from his work. But I am convinced his unpacking of the biblical development of the church as end-time Israel is worth the price of the book. He continues his approach of reading Scripture from a grammatical, historical approach – treating the books as the original recipients would have, understanding the genre and tracing out the history of intertestamental biblical interpretation (as an insight into possible ways the NT authors would have understood OT Scripture), and methodically builds an air-tight case for the NT as presenting the church as the heir of the promises made to OT Israel.

Beale’s basis for seeing the church as true Israel lies in two of the hermeneutical presuppositions he claims underlie the exegetical approach of the NT authors: corporate solidarity (or “the one and the many”) and Jesus being identified as “the true Israel.” Since Israel was a corporate Adam — God’s firstborn — living in its own “garden of Eden,” tasked to do what Adam had failed to do, it follows that Christ as the Second Adam, actually fulfilled what both Adam and Israel was meant to do. Christ as such, is the New Israel – and Beale shows how numerous themes in the New Testament attest to this fact. Christ represents us, as we are joined to him by faith. So it is not so much the church replacing Israel as Jesus embodying and making up in himself the true restored Israel - and genile believers finding their place in restored Israel as we find ourselves connected to the head of the body - Jesus Christ. Beale points out that it is thus the “legal representative” or “corporate” hermeneutic which under-girds this identification of the church as true Israel, rather than an “allegorical or spiritualizing hermeneutic” (p. 655). Beale then goes on to systematically demonstrate that the OT prophecies that Gentiles will become part of the Latter-Day True Israel, using such passages as Is. 49, Ps. 87, Is. 19, Is. 56, Is. 66 and others. He also shows how the New Testament repeatedly claims that it is in the church that specific prophesies about the restoration of Latter-Day Israel are coming to pass, paying special attention to the variety of specific names and descriptors of Israel being applied to the church. With the land promise, Beale again unpacks how the Old Testament itself leads us to expect that the land is typological, pointing to a greater reality, and that it will become greatly expanded and universalized. And the New Testament shows us just this, as it also brings the church in to the recipients of that very promise (see Rom. 4:13, Matt. 5:5 and others).

Additional Themes

Beale’s work covers a host of additional themes my review cannot cover in detail. He highlights how the expected tribulation of Israel was being experienced by the New Testament church, and still is in most parts of the world today. He gives space to the new-creational marks of the church such as Sabbath observance (although his view on this finds it radically altered through Christ’s work), worship, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, church office and the NT Canon. He looks at the work of the Spirit as part of the inaugurated end-time new creation as a chief theme in the NT story. He also gives space to the Temple and to idolatry and the image of God being restored. He also explores questions such as how much the Old Testament saints would have enjoyed this same experience we do in the NT . And he concludes his book focusing on the glory of God as the purpose for the very storyline itself.

I was told that you don’t pick up a book like this and read through it. You just use it as a resource. And for many that is going to be how they will encounter Beale’s work. Thankfully, it is organized in a very clear way with helpful indexes and a detailed table of contents that is sure to help such a reader. Those who want a taste of Beale’s work could read the first few chapters, and chapter 27 – which recaps the entire work giving each theme a brief yet fairly detailed overview. Others might find it more useful to read through Beale’s section on resurrection or justification, or the question of Israel and the church as they study that topic out further. The footnotes will point you to other important discussions in the book so that you won’t miss something you need in getting Beale’s take on a given subject.

I differ with Beale on a few matters, most notably baptism, but I found the exercise of plodding my way through his work to be immensely helpful. My copy of the book has numerous notes, underlines, and countless dog-eared pages. I have already turned back to parts of this book for the second or even third time now, and know I’ll be returning to this book for many more years in the future. This truly is a monumental work, and one that even a layman like me can appreciate. Granted, I have had some theological training, and at times this book does go deep. But for the most part, Beale’s work is accessible and has takeaways that pastors and teachers as well as students, will benefit from. More importantly, Beale helps one find a compass through the maze of the two testaments of Scripture. And his work is detailed enough to stand the test of time. It carefully explains how the New Testament authors arrived at the conclusions they did, and follows their thoughts after them, reading the Old Testament in a careful and ultimately Christ-centered way. I encourage you to find some space on your shelf for Beale’s A NT Biblical Theology . Dip your toe in, get wet, then take the plunge and bask in the beauty of a fully developed Biblical Theology. You won’t regret it.

About the author

G. K. Belae (PhD, University of Cambridge) is professor of New Testament and biblical theology at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is the coeditor of the Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament and the author of numerous books, including the Handbook on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament and commentaries on Revelation and 1 and 2 Thessalonians.

Bob Hayton Bio

Bob Hayton has a BA in Pastoral Theology with a Greek emphasis and a MA in Bible from Fairhaven Baptist College and Seminary in Chesterton, IN. He is a happily married father of seven who resides in St. Paul, MN. Since 2005, he has been blogging theology at FundamentallyReformed.com , where he has also published over 190 book reviews. He can also be found occasionally at KJVOnlyDebate.com .

Good review Bob. One of the

Good review Bob. One of the best books I read last year.

Beale is a covenantist.

Beale is a covenantist. Right off the bat, you know he is wrong about the Sabbath, children, baptism, Lord’s supper circumcision, the church, and Israel, etc.

I wouldn’t say people stumble over that. People are right to conclude he is wrong. I don’t have to read 960 pages to figure that out either. I can read the NT .

His inaugurated eschatology is amill. He doesn’t believe in a future millennium. He is therefore amill. It isn’t that hard. Postmill doesn’t count since that is just the crazy little brother of amill.

1 Kings 8:60 - so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the LORD is God and that there is no other.

@JamesGlad you have your

Glad you have your mind made up. Don’t read anyone who doesn’t fit into your predetermined matrix of theology.

There are probably a few covenantalists who would take issue with Beale’s approach on the topics you mention and others in his book. He grapples with Scripture and how it fits together - and many of his insights are valuable even if one remains staunchly dispensational.

Striving for the unity of the faith, for the glory of God ~ Eph. 4:3, 13; Rom. 15:5-7 I blog at Fundamentally Reformed . Follow me on Twitter .

Yes Bob. I don't have to

Yes Bob. I don’t have to read every theology book to be able to identify bad theology. One only has to know and understand the Bible. Sadly, Beale and his ilk have to spend so much paper trying to make the Bible say what it doesn’t and not say what it does that it just isn’t worth my time.

“For the bureaucrat, the world is a mere object to be manipulated by him.” This isn’t a bad quote. In fact, I agree with it. I don’t have to read, embrace, or even like Karl Marx though. Saying something right once in awhile doesn’t mean a whole lot. The person who is so blind on NT theology, that he can miss so many major doctrines as Beale did, well, I just don’t care to waste my time. Sorry you had to.

Thanks for your review Bob. Although it will not surprise you to learn the startling news that I demur from Beale quite considerably, I do agree that this is an important work which all should think through!

Paul H.

Dr. Paul Henebury

I am Founder of Telos Ministrie s, and Senior Pastor at Agape Bible Church in N. Ca.

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Review of The Widening of God’s Mercy by Christopher B. Hays and Richard B. Hays

By Preston Sprinkle. Preston is the author of several books, including Embodied and Does the Bible Support Same-Sex Marriage? , and serves as President of The Center for Faith, Sexuality & Gender .

Dr. Richard Hays is one of the most prestigious New Testament scholars of the last four decades. His highly celebrated book The Moral Vision of the New Testament , published in 1996, includes a chapter on homosexuality . In that chapter, Hays argued that the best reading of the Bible prohibits same-sex sexual relationships both for early Christians and for the church today.

Hays’ forthcoming book The Widening of God’s Mercy , which releases on September 10, shows how he has changed his mind. [1] He now believes the New Testament “fully includes” LGBTQ people, by which he means that same-sex marriage is blessed by God and therefore should be blessed by the church.

Hays has cowritten The Widening of God’s Mercy with his son, Old Testament scholar Dr. Christopher Hays, who teaches at Fuller Theological Seminary. After a dual-authored Introduction, Christopher writes the Old Testament section (chs. 1-7), and Richard covers the New (chs. 8-16). [2] They come together to write the final chapter, which summarizes their main argument and applies it to the “full inclusion of believers with differing sexual orientations” today (p. 214). [3] Richard concludes the book with a brief epilogue where he explains his change of mind and how his current position relates to his previous work.

The central argument of the book is that God often changes his mind in Scripture. He changes his mind about various laws and customs (chs. 3-4, 14), whether to carry out judgment on disobedience (chs. 2, 6), and—most importantly—which kind of people are accepted in the covenant community (chs. 7, 11).

For instance, God used to reject eunuchs and uncircumcised foreigners from being full participants in the community (e.g. Deut 23:1), but now they are fully accepted (Isa. 56:4-5; cf. Acts 8, 15). Christopher writes, “Scripture reflects that God’s grace and mercy towards the whole world was always broader than one might expect. It also says that God may change his mind and his approaches to the world to broaden it further” (p. 108). In the same way that God now accepts foreigners and eunuchs, Christopher argues, God also fully accepts LGBTQ people.

Eunuchs are particularly important to Christopher’s argument because, as “castrated men,” they “were a sexual minority” (p. 98). He writes, “If conservatives today find scriptural warrant for excluding sexual minorities, how much more did religious leaders in Isaiah’s time have warrant to exclude eunuchs?” (p. 100)

To summarize the authors’ main argument, they write:

The many biblical stories of God’s widening mercy invite us to re-envision how God means us to think and act today with regard to human sexuality. The biblical narratives throughout the Old Testament and the New trace a trajectory of mercy that leads us to welcome sexual minorities no longer as “strangers and aliens” but as “fellow citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God” (Eph 2:19). (p. 206).

In this review, I’ll look first at some of the things I appreciate about the book (“The Pros”), then at my most significant disagreements (“The Cons”). I’ll include a lengthy addendum where I discuss several other noteworthy aspects of the book.

Hands down, my favorite thing about this book is that it exudes a desire to love LGBTQ people. I’ve never met either author, but if the tone of the book represents their hearts, they are zealous about seeing LGBTQ people flourish in the church. And they express righteous indignation for the ways LGBTQ people have been dehumanized by Christians. While I theologically diagnose the problem differently than they do, I found myself resonating with much of the heart behind the book. For what it’s worth, I too advocate for the full welcome and inclusion of people who experience different sexual orientations. I just disagree with the authors about what sexual ethic followers of Jesus are welcomed and included into, regardless of their sexual orientation.

The book is also very readable. The authors are top-tier scholars, yet they’ve managed to write a book that a popular audience will be able to understand. This is no small feat; it’s much harder than people realize. The Widening of God’s Mercy really does succeed in tackling complex topics and scholarly issues in a clear and winsome way.

I also found several chapters to be biblically compelling. Richard’s chapters on Jesus (especially chs. 8, 10, 11) were particularly beautiful. Jesus certainly “upset people” by challenging their nationalistic ideologies and by welcoming foreigners and outcasts. Stories of Jesus dinning with “tax collectors and sinners” are well known, and Richard does a fine job narrating their scandalous message. Jesus’s encounters with people like the Samaritan woman (John 4), the Canaanite woman (Matt 15), and the chief tax collector Zacchaeus (Luke 19) powerfully illustrate “how Jesus’s teaching and actions encouraged his followers to think more broadly about the expansive grace of Israel’s God” (p. 150). I also found Christopher’s deep dive into the often-neglected story of Zelophehad’s daughters (Num 27:1-3) illuminating. This story shows that “[t]he ability to hear the cries of the oppressed is a quintessential attribute of the God of Israel, who from the beginning of the nation’s story heard his people crying out under oppression (Exod 2:24, etc.) and took notice of them (2:25)” (pp. 56-57). I also appreciated how Christopher showed that, while the Old Testament was mostly ethnocentric, seeds of multi-ethnicity were sown along the way which burst into full bloom in the New Testament (see especially chs. 5 and 7).

Many of the book’s significant problems emerge as the authors begin applying their argument to Christian debates about marriage and sexual ethics today. In fact, one of my biggest critiques is that they don’t really apply their argument. The book contains no definition of marriage (the word marriage is hardly ever mentioned), [4] and there is virtually no biblical argument about how God intends for his followers to faithfully steward our sexuality. [5] There is a passing reference to the (rather secular) notion that any sexual expression is fine as long as it’s not “abusive or otherwise harmful” (p. 18). The authors also write that what they call “covenanted unions” between people of the same sex should be faithful and exclusive, just as opposite-sex marriages should be (p. 216-17). But they give no theological articulation of what marriage is or what sex is for . There is no theology of marriage or sexual ethic in the book. A rather large lacuna for a book that depends on a revised marriage and sexual ethic for their argument to succeed.

Instead, the authors rely on popular catch phrases like “full inclusion” (p. 214), “welcomed fully” (p. 216), and “excluding and harming people” (p. 11) to do the heavy lifting. But the current sexuality debate is not about (or shouldn’t be about!) whether gay people are to be accepted. The debate is about which marriage and sexual ethic they are accepted into .

Is sex difference an essential part of what marriage is? This question is never raised or answered. The authors reduce the theological debate about same-sex marriage to “endlessly repeated exegetical arguments about half a dozen isolated texts that forbid or disapprove of same-sex relations” (p. 2)—arguments they find to be “superficial and boring” (p. 206). [6]

I appreciate their reluctance to relegate this debate simply to six passages of Scripture. However, it seems a bit too convenient to wave a dismissive hand at the very passages that directly address the kinds of relationships the authors claim have been wrongly interpreted by the historic, global, and multiethnic church for nearly 2,000 years. More importantly, the authors ignore the very part of the debate that moves beyond these six passages: the way the whole witness of Scripture talks about marriage.

The fundamental theological and ethical question in this debate is whether sex difference is an essential part of what marriage is . This question is never mentioned, let alone answered, in The Widening of God’s Mercy . I was eagerly waiting for a robust reinterpretation of Genesis 1-2, which (according to the author’s viewpoint) must argue that sex difference is not a necessary part of the “one flesh” union we now call marriage. Or a rereading of Jesus’s interpretation of the creation story in Matthew 19:4-6, where he says that the two who become one flesh are “male and female.” I was a bit shocked that these fundamental issues are never addressed. The authors never even mention Matthew 19:4-6.

I find it telling that the authors think “[t]he most significant objection to our interpretation of the God of the Bible is one that simply says, ‘This God of widening mercy whom you describe is not one that I have ever experienced’” (p. 220). I’d say the most significant objection to their interpretation is that they offer a revision of the historically Christian view of marriage and sexual ethics without providing any argument for a revision of marriage and sexual ethics.

Second, the main argument of the book—we’ll call it a “trajectory argument”—is well known to anyone who’s been following the sexuality conversation. I’m not sure who the first scholar was to propose it, but it was pretty popular in the ‘90s and early 2000s. [7] The trajectory argument was thoroughly addressed (I would say roundly refuted) by William Webb in his book Slaves, Women & Homosexuals , a book-length treatment of this argument published in 2001. Others have also examined trajectory arguments and found them to be rather weak. [8]

It’s certainly true that many things change between the Old and New Testaments: food laws; circumcision requirements; the inclusion of uncircumcised Gentiles, eunuchs, and Samaritans. However, there’s no evidence of a similar trajectory where sex difference is no longer part of marriage or where prohibitions of same-sex sexual relationships are reversed. Some laws change, but not all laws change. We can’t just point to some changed laws and assume that others (of our choosing) have changed as well. There’s simply no evidence of a scriptural trajectory moving away from sex difference in marriage or same-sex sexual relations being accepted by God.

In fact, if a biblical trajectory does exist for sexual ethics, it would move towards greater strictness, not greater openness. Polygamy, for instance, is treated more leniently in the Old Testament, but we see the New Testament moving back toward the creational ideal of one man and one woman (Matt 19:4-6). Divorce too was allowed in the Old Testament (Deut. 24:1-5), but Jesus explicitly tightened Deuteronomy’s looser divorce laws (Matt 5:31-32; 19:1-10). Adultery is condemned across both Testaments. But in the New, Jesus says that even lust is adultery (Matt 5:27-30). When the Bible revisits its vision for marriage and sexuality, it moves towards a stricter ethic, not a more permissive one. [9]

To be fair to Hays and Hays, they don’t claim that they’re presenting any new ideas in the book. “We are not really introducing anything new here,” they say (p. 218). “Although we are informed by our years of scholarship, there are few new or controversial ideas here from the standpoint of biblical studies” (p. 4). Fair enough. But the book never addresses the many counterarguments to the trajectory argument. (Webb’s book, for instance, is never mentioned.) It’s one thing to say: This is a popular level book, so we’re not going to bog it down with endless interaction with other scholars . It’s quite another thing to repeat an old and often refuted argument without showing any awareness of how that argument has been treated in the scholarly discussion.

In short, The Widening of God’s Mercy is a book that makes no theological defense of same-sex marriage and chooses not to deal with the passages that prohibit same-sex sexual relationships. Instead, the book rehearses an old argument and doesn’t address how that argument has been refuted. Essentially, the argument runs like this: Since God changed his mind about foreigners and eunuchs, therefore… sex difference is no longer part of what marriage is.

The authors mention one other theological argument in passing which forms a significant part of their viewpoint (especially for Richard). They say that the kinds of same-sex sexual relationships addressed by the Bible are not the same kinds of relationships we have today (p. 12; p. 145 n. 2). This is a crucial claim which, again, has been treated extensively by scholars. Unfortunately, the authors state it in passing as if it’s a historical fact. (It is not.) [10]

Third, while I appreciate Richard’s description of Jesus hanging out with tax collectors, prostitutes, and sinners, he doesn’t always make a clear distinction between sinners and sin. Jesus wined and dined with tax collectors, prostitutes, and sinners, but this obviously doesn’t mean he supports tax collecting, prostitution, or sin. Richard is clear about the ethics of tax collecting; it was an “oppressive tax-farming operation,” and tax collectors who decided to follow Christ would need to repent by “the generous setting right of economic wrongs” (p. 136). Sinners who are accepted are still called to repentance.

But this clear ethical distinction between tax collec tors and tax collec ting disappears when Hays tries to map these gospel stories onto modern questions about sexual minority people and sexual ethics . It’s assumed throughout the book that God blesses same-sex sexual relationships and marriage. But the authors offer no biblical defense of how or why. God’s blessing is just assumed under the umbrella of catchphrases like “full inclusion” and “fully welcome.”

Fourth, the authors argue that the New Testament does not bring “complete and final closure to God’s revelation,” but that “the Holy Spirit will continue to lead the community of Jesus’s followers into new and surprising truths” (p. 3). They believe the modern church should not just listen to what God has said through Scripture in the past, but that we should join God by listening to what his Spirit might be saying to us today (p. 221). “Any religious tradition,” they say, “that fails to grow and respond to the ongoing work of the Spirit will stagnate or die” (p. 5). They imply that any church that doesn’t “fully accept” all people of differing sexual orientations by affirming same-sex marriage is not listening to the Holy Spirit. These churches should “repent of the narrowness of [their] earlier visions and…explore a new way of listening to the story that scripture tells about the widening scope of God’s mercy ” (p. 10, emphasis in the original).

I don’t necessarily disagree with the premise of this argument; God’s Spirit might open our eyes to fresh revelations, provided that these revelations follow the trajectory of the storyline of Scripture . This is, of course, debated, but let’s assume the Holy Spirit can open our eyes to “ a new way of listening to the story. ” Well and good. But the way Hays and Hays employ this argument is profoundly ethnocentric.

The global church is growing exponentially in the Global South, Southeast Asia, China, the Middle East, and elsewhere in the majority world. Almost all of these churches believe that sex difference is an essential part of what marriage is and that all sexual relationships outside this covenant of marriage are sin. The Widening of God’s Mercy implies that all these non-western Christians are not listening to the Holy Spirit, who is allegedly opening up fresh ways to read Scripture.

The ethical viewpoint advocated for in The Widening of God’s Mercy is held primarily by a relatively small number of (mostly white and affluent) modern Christians living in the West. Is the Holy Spirit really speaking much more clearly to western Christians than those in the majority world?

Christopher bemoans the fact that the Church is in decline. He must be thinking of the Western church, since the Church is not at all in decline in places like Nepal, China, the United Arab Emirates, or Saudi Arabia. [11] It’s bold of Christopher to argue that “the church…is in decline because of its lack of curiosity and hardness of heart” (p. 16). Not only is this a very Western perspective, but it also implies that Christianity’s explosive growth in hard-to-reach places is being carried out by hard-hearted Christians who aren’t listening to the Holy Spirit. The authors of The Widening of God’s Mercy essentially call on the non-Western church “to repent of its narrow, fearful vision” (p. 220) and “lack of curiosity and hardness of heart” (p. 16).

And so we come full circle. The authors paint a beautiful picture of the widening of God’s mercy, which includes the poor, the outcast, the marginalized—indeed, many of the same people who live throughout the majority world. But these same people end up being scolded and shamed for believing that sex difference is part of what marriage is. [12]

Conclusion

I have to admit, the scholarly side of me was excited when this book was first announced. Some Christians immediately trashed the book on social media—something no thoughtful Christian should ever do with books they haven’t read—but I was genuinely excited to read it. Richard is a brilliant scholar (I wasn’t familiar with Christopher’s work), and his article on Romans 1 in particular was one of the most thorough and exegetically responsible treatments of this tough passage. [13] I was deeply curious how he was going to refute his previous argument. I also wondered if The Widening of God’s Mercy would tease out a fresh argument for same-sex marriage that hadn’t yet been made.

To my surprise, the book did neither. Instead, it simply repackaged an old trajectory argument to make a questionable logical leap: since God welcomes foreigners, eunuchs, tax collectors, and sinners, therefore sex difference is no longer part of what marriage is.

In addition to what I’ve discussed in my main review, many things in The Widening of God’s Mercy struck me as uncompelling, unclear, or downright wrong. Here are six of the most notable.

1. Lack of interaction with, or apparent awareness of, scholarship in the sexuality conversation.

The book contains very little interaction with major scholarly works on same-sex sexuality, whether revisionary or historically Christian. There’s no mention of scholars like Robert Gagnon, Darrin Snyder Belousek, William Webb, or Stephen Holmes—not even scholars who address head-on the very argument Christopher and Richard Hays are advocating. There’s also no mention of key affirming works by James Brownson, Karen Keen, Robert Song, or Bill Loader.

Hays and Hays say up front that, while they’re scholars, they’re writing to “lay-people in the pews,” and “the reader will find few footnotes” (p. 4). This is fair. But my concern isn’t just that the authors don’t explicitly interact with important works in biblical sexuality; my concern is that, based on their arguments, they don’t seem to even be aware of these works. Many of the logical holes in The Widening of God’s Mercy could have been filled by paying attention to thoughtful scholars who have gone before them.

Plus, it’s not like Hays and Hays are neglecting scholarship altogether in this book. They cite Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics (p. 227), several articles from academic peer-reviewed journals (including one in German on p. 227), and an unpublished Ph.D. dissertation by Richard Gardiner (p. 230), among scholarly works. They know how to interact with a scholarly source when they want to. But for some reason, they’ve chosen to ignore large swaths of scholarship on biblical sexuality. And, if I’m honest, it shows.

They also talk about sexuality in a way that assumes a very strong essentialist view: that is, the view that sexual attraction is purely innate, never shifts, and must be expressed in sexual behavior. LGBTQ people are considered “fixed classes of human beings” (p. 207). Statements like this betray a good deal of ignorance about transgender identities and experiences (which are anything but fixed), but also seem unaware of scholars who hold more of a social constructivist view of sexuality including Hannah Blank, Lisa Diamond, and Rebecca Jordan-Young among many others. The authors’ view of sex and sexuality sounds like not just a revision of sexual ethics, but also a resurrection of the purity culture assumption that people can’t survive without a romantic and sexual partner. There’s no mention of Lisa Diamond’s work on sexual fluidity, the human capacity for celibacy, or the possibility that a gay person could have a flourishing marriage to someone of the opposite sex. Hays and Hays seem to assume a questionable (and, I would say, outdated) ontology of sexuality, where all humans exist in rigid, fixed boxes of sexual attraction and each person’s flourishing depends on acting on their desires.

2. An unclear posture toward those who hold the historically Christian view of marriage.

It’s unclear how Hays and Hays now feel about Christians who hold the historically Christian view of marriage. In chapter 16, they argue that such Christians are like the “weak” believers of Romans 14 who “fail to recognize the freedom that Jesus Christ offers” (p. 196), while the “strong” believers are “the liberated advocates of unconditional affirmation of same-sex unions” (p. 200). As in Romans 14, they say, the strong are “tempted to ‘despise’ the ‘weak’, narrow-minded, rule-following conservatives who would impose limits on their freedom” (p. 200). The authors encourage the strong today not to despise the weak but to seek the unity of the Body: “‘ Welcome one another, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God’” (p. 202).

But in many other places in the book, any church that holds the historically Christian view of marriage is “summon[ed]…to repent of its narrow, fearful vision” (p. 220). The authors accuse these churches of making “God’s offer of grace a lie” (p. 221), demonstrating a “lack of curiosity and hardness of heart” (p. 16), “continuing to do harm” (p. 68) against LGBTQ people, and “attempting to block God ” (p. 175) by not listening to the Holy Spirit.

I’m not sure if Hays and Hays are extending me a hand of grace or a millstone for my neck.

Moreover, invoking Romans 14 and calling historically Christian churches to repentance are conflicting messages. Paul never encouraged the “strong” to summon the “weak” to repentance in Romans 14, nor did he accuse the weak of making “God’s offer of grace a lie” or of being hard-hearted uncurious people clinging to a fearful vision of exclusion. In fact, if Hays and Hays want to map Romans 14 onto the current discussion and call those who affirm same-sex marriage the “strong” believers, wouldn’t it be the strong who should give up their freedom (to affirm same-sex marriage) for the sake of the weak?

As I said in my main review, it’s unclear how the authors feel about the overwhelming majority of global Christians who hold to a historically Christian view of marriage. Are they calling these Christians to repentance, or are they striving to welcome them as weaker siblings, just as Christ has welcomed us all for the glory of God?

3. Ambiguity about what has changed in Richard Hays’s view.

Richard now affirms the morality of same-sex sexual relationships. But his recollection of what he used to believe feels a bit unclear. In the two main sections where he reflects on his journey (pp. 5-10 and pp. 222-226), the primary concern he expresses about his past work is not that it was wrong but that “[m]any traditionalists and conservatives have seized upon that one chapter [in Moral Vision ] as the final word” (p. 9). According to Richard, his previous work was only intended to be “a thought experiment, a proposal for how to think about a certain type of methodological problem in theological ethics” (p. 224). He wanted to “ start a conversation rather than end one” (p. 9). But according to Richard, many conservative Christians—including his own brother—have wrongfully “appropriated” that chapter and used it as “ammunition” to argue for “the uncompromising ‘conservative’ position” (p. 8). This use of his words has, “contrary to my intention, caused harm to many over the past quarter century” (p. 224). He says he “bear[s] some responsibility for that, and [is] grieved by it” (p. 224). He has written The Widening of God’s Mercy in order to repent from the harm caused by his previous work: “I regret the impact of what I wrote previously” (p. 223).

While Richard’s repeated apologies and repentance felt at times like a mild struggle session, I admire his willingness as a scholar to change his mind about a previous publication. Still, it remains unclear what exactly Richard has changed his mind about. For the most part, he doesn’t seem to disagree with his previous exegesis of the New Testament. In one footnote, he writes, “I (Richard) stand fully behind the descriptive exegetical judgments I made there about the meaning of all these texts” (p. 245). But in the same paragraph, he argues:

The biblical authors did not have in mind the sort of homosexual relationships that the church now considers blessing, and it is not possible to imagine what they might have said about them. As it is, many of the passages are unambiguous in their disapproval of homosexual activity.

In other words, Richard does not disagree with his previous interpretation of Scripture. Rather, he now believes that the kinds of same-sex sexual relationships the biblical authors were thinking of aren’t “the sort of homosexual relationships that the church now considers blessing.” [14]

Unfortunately, Richard doesn’t provide any evidence for this assertion. He might say it’s beyond the scope of the book, which is fair. But it’s such an important point that it would have been helpful to at least note that this argument has been addressed and refuted by many scholars, even by scholars who affirm same-sex marriage . [15] The existence of consensual, committed, adult same-sex relationships in the ancient world has been well established. Even ancient forms of what we now call “sexual orientation” have been documented. [16] Richard, I assume, disagrees with these findings, but his argument would be more convincing if he showed an awareness that his assumption has been thoroughly challenged. As it stands, he seems unaware of where the conversation has been over the last few decades.

What about Richard’s frustration that his work was misused by conservatives and taken as a definitive treatment rather than a thought experiment? From my vantage point, his chapter in Moral Vision doesn’t feel like a thought experiment. It feels like a robust ethical argument. In that chapter, he says:

“[T]he New Testament offers no loopholes or exception clauses that might allow for the acceptance of homosexual practice under some circumstances. Despite the efforts of some recent interpreters to explain away the evidence, the New Testament remains unambiguous and univocal in its condemnation of homosexual conduct” (p. 394). “I think it prudent and necessary to let the univocal testimony of scripture and the Christian tradition order the life of the church on this painfully controversial matter. We must affirm that the New Testament tells us the truth about ourselves as sinners and as God’s sexual creatures: marriage between man and woman is the normative form for human sexual fulfillment, and homosexuality is one among many tragic signs that we are a broken people, alienated from God’s loving purpose” (pp. 399-400 emphases mine).

Hays himself quotes this last paragraph in The Widening of God’s Mercy and says his words were meant to “ start a conversation rather than end one” (p. 9). But his language in Moral Vision feels stronger and more confident than someone simply starting a conversation by engaging in a thought experiment.

Also, Richard never mentions in The Widening of God’s Mercy that his chapter in Moral Vision wasn’t the only time he published on the topic of same-sex sexual ethics. He also wrote a lengthy article on Romans 1:24-27 in 1986. [17] It’s one of the most thorough scholarly treatments of the passage. In this article, he argues, “There is no doubt that Paul condemns homosexual practice. We must determine, however, what normative force that condemnation carries in shaping our vision of a life lived faithfully before God” (p. 205, emphasis mine).

Hays goes on to explore this crucial question: “Does the practice that Paul condemns correspond exactly to the phenomenon of homosexuality that exists in the present?” (p. 209). He takes Paul’s explicit condemnation of same-sex sexual behavior and runs it through the Wesleyan quadrilateral: Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience. That final category is the most important for us to consider, since this is the primary category that has caused Richard to change his view more recently. I’ll quote his 1986 article at length:

“Experience” is notoriously difficult to employ as an authority for theological formulations. Whose “experience” counts, and where do we derive the categories for describing and evaluating the experience?

These are great questions, by the way. Unfortunately, he doesn’t provide the same scrutiny toward the role of experience in The Widening of God’s Mercy . In any case, he continues:

Nonetheless, the experience of some Christians in our time surely may function at least to raise questions about the authoritative role of Scripture and tradition in our deliberations about the morality of homosexual relations. If there are individuals who live in stable loving homosexual relationships and claim to experience the grace—rather than the wrath—of God therein, how are such claims to be assessed? Was Paul wrong? Or are such experiential claims simply another manifestation of the blindness and self-deception that Paul so chillingly describes? Or, beside these irreconcilable alternatives, could we entertain the possible emergence of new realities that Paul could not have anticipated? Could God be doing a new thing in our time? (Cf. Johnson, 1983:95-97.) Does the practice that Paul condemns correspond exactly to the phenomenon of homosexuality that exists in the present? If not, does the authority of present experience eclipse the authority of Paul's understanding of God's intention for human sexual relationships? These are the sorts of questions that we must grapple with as we seek to assess the place of Romans 1:16-32 in shaping normative judgments about sexual ethics. (p. 209, emphasis mine)

Having wrestled with these questions, Richard concludes that the only way to endorse same-sex sexual relationships in the church today is by prioritizing experience over the authority of Scripture and tradition:

Arguments in favor of acceptance of homosexual relations find their strongest warrants in empirical investigations and in contemporary experience. Those who defend the morality of homosexual relationships within the church may do so only by conferring upon these warrants an authority greater than the direct authority of Scripture and tradition , at least with respect to this question. (p. 211, emphasis mine)

Hays concludes by suggesting that he does not buy this sort of reasoning: “We must forthrightly recognize that in Romans 1 Paul portrays homosexual activity as a vivid and shameful sign of humanity's confusion and rebellion against God; then we must form our moral choices soberly in light of that portrayal” (p. 211).

It appears that he has now reversed his position. While he formerly prioritized the authority of Scripture and tradition over the authority of experience, he now prioritizes the authority of experience over the authority of Scripture, since, in his own words, he “stand[s] fully behind the descriptive exegetical judgments I made there about the meaning of all these texts” (p. 245).

Richard also states that he was aware of the “trajectory argument” when he wrote Moral Vision . He just says that he “rejected it in light of the New Testament’s few but emphatics statements—especially Romans 1:24-27—that portray same-sex intercourse as a tragic distortion of the created order” (p. 223). He describes himself as “straining out gnats, while neglecting what Jesus called ‘the weightier matters of the law’” (p. 223). In the end, he writes, “I have come to think I was wrong” (p. 223).

While he calls himself “wrong,” he doesn’t seem to believe his old exegesis of Scripture is wrong. Instead, he’s shifted in how much weight he gives to Scripture in answering today’s ethical questions.

4. Questionable assumptions about God changing his mind.

One of the book’s major premises, especially in the chapters authored by Christopher, is that God changes his mind (see, for example, pp. 1-2, 37-38, 40-41, 81, 85, 87, 108, 138, 205, 207). The authors argue that God changes his mind about whether he is going to judge people and about certain laws he once gave but later rescinded. Jeremiah, for instance, “may announce judgment only to have God change his mind about it” in Jeremiah 18:7-10 (p. 87).

Some Christians might quickly reject the theological assumptions of this argument. (“But God knows the future! He doesn’t actually change his mind!”) Personally, I’ll leave these theological debates to the theologians. I’ll just say that, as a biblical scholar, I wasn’t impressed with the exegetical arguments Hays and Hays offer for their position.

For instance, Jeremiah 18:7-10 says that God will judge the nations, but if they repent , he won’t judge them: “[I]f that nation… turns from its evil, I will change my mind ( nacham ) about the disaster that I intended to bring on it.” To say that “the prophet may announce judgment only to have God change his mind about it” doesn’t feel like the best way to frame what’s going on. There’s a big difference between God not judging people who repent and God changing his mind about whether a sin deserves judgment.

In another section, Christopher argues that God commanded child sacrifice early on in Israel’s history but later changed his mind about it (see ch. 4, especially p. 65). And he’s not just thinking of God telling Abraham to kill Isaac (Gen 22), though that does come up. Christopher says that God codified into law in Exodus 22:29-30 (cf. Ezekiel 20:25) that faithful people should sacrifice their first-borns.

The texts in question read:

“You must not hold back offerings from your harvest or your vats. Give me the firstborn of your sons. Do the same with your cattle and your flock. Let them stay with their mothers for seven days, but on the eighth day you are to give them to me.” (Exod 22:29-30)

“I also gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances they could not live by. When they sacrificed every firstborn in the fire, I defiled them through their gifts in order to devastate them so they would know that I am the Lord.” (Ezek 20:25-26)

Of course, the notion that God commanded human child sacrifice and then changed his mind about it is theologically disturbing. But for now, my primary concern is exegetical, not theological. The view that Exodus 22 refers to child sacrifice is held by some scholars, but from what I’ve read, it doesn’t seem like a popular view. I couldn’t find any evangelical Old Testament scholar who interprets the passage this way. Doug Stuart, for instance, says, “The firstborn male offspring of all other animals and humans were to be redeemed instead, bought back from God by the payment of a price that substituted for their lives.” [18] The text doesn’t say that firstborn sons given to God should be literally killed. Stuart goes on to point to Exodus 13:13-15 and 34:19-20, which explicitly say that an animal is offered as a substitute for the firstborn human male. [19]

Even non-evangelical scholars agree that the text is not commanding child sacrifice. Terence Fretheim says, “The consecration of the firstborn and the gift of first fruits are basically statements about God’s claim on all.” [20] W. H. C. Propp, in his massive commentary on Exodus, concludes after a lengthy discussion: “I do not imagine that this necessarily means sacrifice; it could simply indicate setting apart.” [21] John I. Durham says plainly, “Firstborn sons were dedicated in Israel to Yahweh both actually and vicariously, but in service, not by sacrifice,” and cites Roland de Vaux ( Early History , pp. 443–44) in support. [22] Keep in mind that none of these scholars is worried about protecting Scripture against uncomfortable laws.

Some scholars do interpret the phrase “no good laws” in Ezekiel 20:25 as a reference to child sacrifice, but they see this as Israel’s abuse or misinterpretation of Exodus 22, not a representation of what the law actually meant. [23] Also, Ezekiel 20 is notoriously rhetorical, much more than it is historical. “Ezekiel is a preacher, not a chronicler or a systematic theologian,” writes Daniel Block. “[H]e offers an interpretation of Israel’s history, not an objective record of the past.” [24] Several years ago, I threw my hat into this discussion by arguing that the “no good laws” which Israel “could not live by” (Ezek 20:25) directly correspond to the three-fold refrain of the law’s intention to bring life in Ezekiel 20:11, 13, and 21. God’s laws were intended for life, but Israel disobeyed, so the law ended up bringing death. God’s agency behind the “no good laws” is sort of like God hardening Pharaoh’s heart. God is responding to Israel’s prior disobedience. Good laws given to bad hearts constitute Ezekiel’s “no good laws.”

In any case, my main point is that regardless of how we interpret Exodus 22 and Ezekiel 20, these passages are exegetically complicated. The child sacrifice view (that God actually commanded child sacrifice) seems to be a rather fringe interpretation. Yet Christopher refers to God commanding child sacrifice in Exodus 22 as if it’s an undisputed interpretation.

I felt the same about how he handled the Hebrew word nacham , the word used in passage where God appears to change his mind. The word can mean several different things. It can mean “to regret,” have “a change of heart,” “repent,” “feel sorry,” “find comfort” or “consolation,” “obtain satisfaction” or “take relish in,” among other things. [25] Yet, Christopher consistently interprets the term in every passage he examines to mean that God “changed his mind.” He does mention in passing that nacham “has two primary meanings: it can refer to a change of mind and to a feeling of regret” (p. 40), but goes on to consistently interpret it to include the meaning of “to change one’s mind.”

While the picture of God painted by Christopher feels like a scatter-brained deity figuring things out on the fly (God changes his mind a lot according to Christopher’s reading of Scripture), my main concern here is not theological but exegetical. He takes a polysemous word like nacham and narrowly interprets it to mean “to change one’s mind,” which is problematic for at least two reasons. First, the term can easily mean “regret,” among other things, but regret isn’t the same as to change one’s mind. I can regret that I let my son take my convertible Mustang for a joy ride after he ran it off the road. But this doesn’t mean I changed my mind about my previous decision to let him take it. (Unfortunately, I don’t have a convertible Mustang.) Second, it’s possible to interpret the “change of mind” passages about God anthropomorphically—depicting God in human-like terms. From a human perspective, it seems like God is changing his mind, but this is the author’s way of trying to communicate humans about the mysterious activity of a God who is wholly other.

I’m not saying the God “changing his mind” passages are anthropomorphic. Some evangelicals punt to the anthropomorphic view, not for exegetical reasons, but because they are simply offended at the very idea of God changing his mind. I’m not at all arguing for this. I’m only saying that anthropomorphisms are a common part of the literary genre of the Bible (e.g. God walking in the garden, Gen 3) and should be considered as a legitimate exegetical possibility. To my recollection, Christopher never mentions this.

5. Traditional views on sexuality leading to LGBTQ suicides.

The book is filled with “harm” language, where traditional views on marriage and sexuality (and those who hold to these views) are said to harm LGBTQ people (e.g. pp. 5, 11, 67, 68, 70, 216). Included in this harm is suicide. Christopher cites one study from the APA, which says that “20.1 percent of sexual minority teens reported attempting suicide in 2017,” which is “3.8 times the rate of heterosexual teens” (p. 68). [26] While “religious adherence generally correlates with reduced suicidal thoughts and behaviors” for the general population, the same is not true for LGBTQ youth and adults. Christopher argues that such increase in suicidal thoughts and behavior is due, in part, to the “negative messages about their sexuality form people in their environments” (p. 68). Hays goes on to compare the biblical prohibitions against same-sex sexual behavior (e.g. Rom 1:26-27) with the “no good laws” that command child sacrifice in the Old Testament: “As with the law of the sacrifice of the firstborn, the laws about sexuality in the Torah have done harm to children” (p. 68). Whether the same-sex prohibitions have been misinterpreted (as Hays believes) or were simply “no good laws,” he believes that like the child-sacrifice laws, they “should not hold today” (p. 69).

I can think of few things more tragic than suicide. I’ve had loved ones who have committed suicide or struggle seriously with suicidal ideation. It’s a topic I care deeply about. While I appreciate Christopher’s concern as well, I found this section deeply problematic. He fails to mention (or is simply unaware of) that there have been many studies done on the suicide rates and causes among LGBTQ people. And the results are lot more mixed than Christopher would have us believe. [27]

For instance, one study looked at LGBTQ kids raised in religious (not just Christian) environments. It showed that “increased importance of religion was associated with higher odds of recent suicide ideation for both gay/lesbian and questioning students.” It also noted that “religious-based conflict over sexual identity is often associated with conversion therapy.” [28] I don’t love the imprecision of the language used in this study; “conflict over sexual identity” being “associated with conversation therapy” can mean many different things and describe a vast array of different scenarios. In any case, it certainly doesn’t show that traditional views of marriage and sexual ethic contribute to suicide attempts.

Another study showed that LGBT people who identified as religious reported higher levels of happiness than those who didn’t identify as religious . And, to the surprise of the leaders of the study, “there are no significant differences in subjective well-being between LGBT individuals who identify as evangelical Protestants… despite that conservative denominations do not affirm same-sex relations …compared to those who identify as mainline Protestant.” [29] So this study show the exact opposite of what Christopher was arguing for.

Another large study was performed on gay people living in the Netherlands. It revealed that, “contrary to our expectations, younger homosexual men were at higher risk than older homosexual men comparing them to their heterosexual counterparts for suicide contemplation.… In spite of a more tolerant society in the last decades, younger homosexuals were still at high risk for suicidality .” [30] This was shocking, since the Netherlands has been ranked the number one most LGBT-friendly country in the world. Again, this study puts into question Christopher’s assumptions about traditional sexual ethics and suicide attempts.

Another study agrees to some extent with the one cited by Christopher. It showed that “individuals who received religious or spiritual treatment had higher odds of later attempting suicide than those who did not seek treatment at all.” However, the closest this study came to defining “religious or spiritual treatment” was its mention of “therapists who focused inappropriately on sexual orientation or who suggested that sexual minority patients should change or hide their sexual identity.” [31]

A large US study on the religious background of LGBT people showed that 83 percent were raised in the Christian church and about 50 percent left after they turned eighteen. But only 3 percent of those who left said they left primarily because of the church’s theological teaching on marriage and same-sex sexual relationships. [32] This wasn’t a study of suicidality, but it showed that most of the 1,712 LGBT people surveyed left the church more for relational reasons than theological disagreements about marriage and sexual ethics.

Another study done by the Family Acceptance Project, showed that “suicide attempts nearly tripled for LGBT young people who reported both home-based efforts to change their sexual orientation by parents and intervention efforts by therapists and religious leaders (63%).” It also showed that kids who were “highly rejected” by their parents (that is, yelled at, shamed, verbally or physically abused, made fun of, etc.) are “more than 8 times as likely to have attempted suicide.” [33] So it was not simply traditional views on sexuality that contributed to suicide attempts, but a toxic and emotionally/physically abusive environment where kids were forced into conversion therapy.

This small sampling shows that the results about LGBTQ people and suicidality are quite mixed. This should prevent anyone from making blanket statements like, “Studies show that …” followed by some ideologically driven point about why traditional views of sexuality cause people to attempt suicide. The studies are mixed, sometimes contradictory. And no study has shown (and probably could never show) that simply being around a grace-filled church environment that believes in the historically Christian view of sexual ethics contributes to suicide attempts.

In short, it feels like Christopher selected one study that fit his narrative and weaponized the tragedy of suicide as an argument for his ethical position.

6. Unclear and uncompelling treatment of porneia (“fornication”).

Richard toys with the question of sexual ethics in his treatment of the term porneia (“fornication”) on pp. 183-87. In my opinion, his discussion, while crucial for his overarching argument, lacks the same exegetical precision so evident in Richard’s previous scholarly works.

In Acts 15, the Jerusalem council agreed that Gentile converts must abstain from porneia , which includes same-sex sexual behavior (Acts 15:20, 28). Richard agrees that porneia includes all the forbidden sexual activities of Lev 18 including “lying ‘with a male as with a woman’” (p. 183). He also agrees that this prohibition is applied to Gentile converts in Acts 15 through “ an imaginative reinterpretation of scripture ” (p. 184 emphasis his), since the apostles were applying laws about resident aliens in Israel (e.g. Lev 17-18) to first-century Gentiles being included in the church. This imaginative reading of Scripture is put in conversation with the Spirit’s work among the Gentiles and the community’s agreement about their acceptance (pp. 185-186)—an acceptance, to be clear, that according to Acts 15 and the rest of the New Testament, includes repenting from porneia .

Richard then suggests that “If the church today…decides that same-sex unions are no longer to be automatically classified as porneia ,” then “we would need to ask what analogous transformative guidance the church would offer its members of differing sexual orientations.” His language here feels muddy to me. But if I’m understanding him correctly, he assumes that accepting gay people means accepting same-sex marriage. This is a given. The only question is whether there are other aspects of a traditional sexual and marriage ethic that are applicable to gay couples. He goes on to say that “[t]his is a conversation that will require careful listening on all sides” and then proposes “One reasonable suggestion is that same-sex relationships should aspire to the same standard of monogamous covenant fidelity that the church has long commended and prescribed for heterosexual marriage” (p. 187).

“Covenant fidelity,” of course, means faithfulness to the stipulations the Creator has determined, which includes how we steward our sexual desires. In any case, the one requirement for same-sex couples—which the historic global church would consider immoral—is that they don’t cease this relationship.

So, on what basis can the church decide that porneia no longer includes same-sex sexual behavior? It really comes down to the church’s “imaginative attention to scripture.” That is, interpreting New Testament words like porneia against their clear meaning and revising the church’s historical and global consensus that sex difference is an essential part of marriage and all sex outside this covenant bond are sin. This would certainly be imaginative; I’m not sure it’s persuasive. He goes on to add that in order to revise the church’s sexual ethic, we must give “attentive listening to stories of how God is already at work, and careful conversation in community” (p. 187).

The reader will have to determine the whether she or he find this reasoning compelling. Personally, I’m not convinced. But it does reflect his position described in point 3 above, that the authority of modern (western) experiences trump the authority of Scripture and tradition.

[1] I’m grateful to Yale University Press for providing me with a pre-released copy of the book.

[2] While I would normally use authors’ last names in book reviews, I’ll use their first names in this review to distinguish between father and son.

[3] Sexual orientation is, of course, a broad category, and there are many different kinds of sexual orientations. By “differing sexual orientations,” the authors presumably are thinking of same-sex, opposite-sex, bisexual, and perhaps asexual orientations, rather than to every kind of “sexual and emotional attraction to another person and the behavior and/or social affiliation that may result from this attraction” (APA Dictionary of Psychology: https://dictionary.apa.org/sexual-orientation ). Hays and Hays never define what exactly they mean by sexual orientation, but they do say that “Not every sexual practice encourages human flourishing; some are abusive or otherwise harmful” (p. 18). Presumably, then, they would endorse every kind of sexual orientation they don’t perceive to be abusive or harmful.

[4] See pp. 8, 9, 187, 216-217, 224. On p. 216-17, the authors raise a question about “same-sex unions in relation to traditional Christian understandings of marriage.” But the discussion is woefully short, and they don’t appear to realize how crucial this question is to the book’s central argument.

[5] The best attempt from Richard comes on pp. 183-187, which I discuss in the Addendum.

[6] For example, Gen 19:1-9; Lev 18:22; 20:13; Rom 1:26-27; 1 Cor 6:9; 1 Tim 1:10.

[7] Letha D. Scanzoni and Virginia R. Mollenkott, Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? A Positive Christian Response , 2 nd ed. (HarperCollins, 1994); Jeffrey S. Siker, “Gentile Wheat and Homosexual Christians: New Testament Directions for the Heterosexual Church,” in Biblical Ethics and Homosexuality , ed. Robert L. Brawley (Westminster John Knox, 1996), pp. 127-152; Jeffrey S. Siker, “Homosexual Christians, the Bible, and Gentile Inclusion,” in Homosexuality in the Church: Both Sides of the Debate , ed. Jeffrey S. Siker (Westminster John Knox, 1994), pp. 178-194; Sylvia C. Keesmaat, “Welcoming in the Gentiles: A Biblical Model for Decision Making,” in Living Together in the Church: Including Our Differences , eds. Greig Dunn and Chris Ambidge (ABC Publishing, 2004).

[8] See, for instance, Darrin W. Snyder Belousek, Marriage, Scripture, and the Church , pp. 219-43. I’ve also addressed it in my book Does the Bible Support Same-Sex Marriage ?, pp. 167-176. In The Widening of God’s Mercy , Richard admits that he was aware of the “trajectory argument” when he wrote Moral Vision . He just says that he “rejected it in light of the New Testament’s few but emphatics statements—especially Romans 1:24-27—that portray same-sex intercourse as a tragic distortion of the created order” (p. 223). He confesses that he was “straining out gnats, while neglecting what Jesus called ‘the weightier matters of the law’” (p. 223). In the end, he says, “I have come to think I was wrong” (p. 223).

[9] This paragraph is from Does the Bible Support , p. 175.

[10] For a brief overview with literature cited, see my online post, “Did Consensual Same-Sex Sexual Relationships Exist in Biblical Times?” https://www.centerforfaith.com/blog/did-consensual-same-sex-sexual-relationships-exist-in-biblical-times-a-response-to-matthew

[11] See data from Gordon Conwell Seminary’s Center for the Study of Global Christianity, summarized at https://discipleallnations.wordpress.com/2013/08/25/the-top-20-countries-where-christianity-is-growing-the-fastest/

[12] This scolding and shaming posture appears in moments like these: “[O]ur argument is also a summons to the church to repent of its narrow, fearful vision and to embrace a wider understanding of God’s mercy” (p. 220, emphasis mine). “We believe that welcoming people of different sexualities is an act of faithfulness to God’s merciful purposes. Let’s not make God’s offer of grace a lie ” (pp. 220-221, emphasis mine).

[13] Richard B. Hays, “Relations Natural and Unnatural: A Response to John Boswell’s Exegesis of Romans 1,” The Journal of Religious Ethics 14 (1986), pp. 184-215.

[14] It’s not terribly crucial, but I’m a bit surprised that Richard is still using outdated language like “homosexual relationships,” when most gay people don’t prefer the term “homosexual.”

[15] Most notably William Loader in his many works on sexuality in the ancient world (see, for example, The New Testament on Sexuality ).

[16] See Bernadette Brooten, Love Between Women , among others.

[17] Richard B. Hays, “Relations Natural and Unnatural: A Response to John Boswell’s Exegesis of Romans 1,” The Journal of Religious Ethics 14 (1986), 184-215.

[18] Doug Stuart, Exodus , Vol. 2, p. 521.

[19] Christopher also mentions Exodus 13:13-15 and 34:19-20, but says these passages represent a later tradition where God changed his mind about child sacrifice.

[20] T. E. Fretheim, Exodus , p. 251.

[21] W. H. C. Propp, Exodus 19-40 , p. 270.

[22] Exodus (Word Biblical Commentary), p. 330.

[23] See my “Law and Life: Leviticus 18:5 in the Literary Framework of Ezekiel,” JSOT 31 (2007), p. 287, for a discussion with bibliography.

[24] Ezekiel 1-24 , p. 640.

[25] See the entry for nacham in the Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament .

[26] In a footnote, he cites one more study, which says we actually don’t know the “rates of actual suicide…because of limitations in the way suicides are (or are not) investigated” (p. 232).

[27] The follow is taken from my Does the Bible Support Same-Sex Marriage? 177-188.

[28] Megan C. Lytle et al., “Association of Religiosity with Sexual Minority Suicide Ideation and Attempt,” American Journal of Preventive Medicine 54, no. 5 (2018): 644–651.

[29] M. N. Barringer and David A. Gay, “Happily Religious: The Surprising Sources of Happiness among Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Adults,” Sociological Inquiry 87, no. 1 (2016): 75–96.

[30] Ron de Graaf et al., “Suicidality and Sexual Orientation: Differences between Men and Women in a General Population-Based Sample from the Netherlands,” Archives of Sexual Behavior 35, no. 3 (2006): 257–58.

[31] Ilan H. Meyer, Merilee Teylan, and Sharon Schwartz, “The Role of Help-Seeking in Preventing Suicide Attempts among Lesbians, Gay Men, and Bisexuals,” Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior 45, no. 1 (2015): 1–12, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4871112/pdf/nihms785567.pdf .

[32] See Andrew Marin, Us versus Us: The Untold Story of Religion and the LGBT Community (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2016).

[33] Caitlin Ryan, The Family Acceptance Project, https://familyproject.sfsu.edu/overview .

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Book Reviews

A collection of poems that offers an unlikely kind of hope.

Craig Morgan Teicher

The New Testament

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If further proof is needed — though of course it is not — that the tensions exploding in Ferguson have been brewing for centuries, this book is, among other things, proof enough. In the clean, clear lyrics of his second book, Jericho Brown, who was born in Louisiana and formerly worked as speechwriter for a New Orleans mayor, laments, with no small sense of sad resignation, a muffled kind of anger, and a pinch of sarcasm, that, as an African-American man he finds himself admitting, "Nobody in this nation feels safe, and I'm still a reason why."

These poems were written long before Michael Brown, an unarmed black man, was shot dead by police in the St. Louis suburb, but they attest deeply to the view from inside of the kind of everyday racial profiling that allowed Ferguson to blow up.

A cynical, skeptical tone pervades the whole book, as if Brown is trying to outrun losses and griefs while stating some grim truths plainly:

Show me A man who tells his children The police will protect them And I'll show you the son of a man Who taught his children where To dig.

These poems try to anticipate the kinds of cosmic disappointments African-Americans can count on in America, but they also buck at being too easily labeled: "I eat with humans who think any book full of black characters is about race," he writes.

But racism is just one of Brown's themes: he also writes with surprising freshness about male beauty, eroticism between men, and the vagaries of trying to come into one's own as a lover and sexual being, another ongoing battle that leaves plenty of scars: "I let a man touch me until I bled/ Until my blood met his hunger/ And so was changed."

And no gay poet has made such subtle and subversive use of the Bible since D.A. Powell's masterful Cocktails . He rewrites bits of the Gospels throughout the book and invokes "Him" like someone making fun of thunder. In the best moments, Brown weaves together strains of religious invocation with his uneasy identity as a southern, gay, black man into a beguiling self-myth in which,

I found myself bound to Him and bound to His Bidding. He left water without color and land With no motion to mention but kept me going Like a toy wound tighter than His one odd eye When I failed to deliver a message on time. He built bugs and beasts; I understood my Sexlessness. He invented men and women; I knew I had no father. He never told me What I was, what He could be.

This is something truer and more honest than anger: it's ambivalence — not apathy, mind you, but passions competing for dominance. Brown finds remarkably plain and accurate ways of describing this unresolvable inner tension:

I wander the other like any African American, Africa With its condition and America with its condition And black folk born in this nation content to carry Half of each. I shoulder my share.

What's most remarkable in these poems is that, while they never stop speaking through gritted teeth, never quite make the choice between hope and fear, they are always beautiful, full of a music that is a cross between the sinuous sentences of Carl Phillips, the forceful descriptions of Mark Doty, and hip rhythms of Terrance Hayes. They show Brown to be a part of a new guard of black and gay writers — Hilton Als in his extraordinary nonfiction book White Girls is another recent exemplar — unwilling in their writing to confine their identities. These poems offer an unlikely kind of hope: Brown's ambivalence is evidence of a fragile belief in the possibility of change, of the will that makes change possible.

Craig Morgan Teicher's latest collection of poetry is called To Keep Love Blurry.

Writing Out of Annihilation

September 19, 2024 issue

Ghetto Fighters’ House Museum, Israel/Photo Archive

Rokhl Auerbach testifying at the trial of Adolf Eichmann, Jerusalem, May 1961

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Warsaw Testament

On September 18, 1946, ten tin boxes were discovered underneath the rubble of what had been the Warsaw Ghetto. They contained an extraordinary artifact of the Holocaust: a major portion of a grassroots archive documenting the persecution of Warsaw’s Jews. Led by the historian Emanuel Ringelblum, a group of sixty archivists and chroniclers in the ghetto—many of them amateurs—had preserved evidence of the Nazi occupation: reports on the activities of the Jewish police, minutes of meetings held by community groups, song lyrics, tickets for the ghetto trolley, armbands and badges showing the Star of David, and many other items. They had also made their own notes, composing accounts and testimonies as the atrocities unfolded.

Ringelblum, who began to keep a diary on the day the Nazis invaded Poland, understood that the Jews of Warsaw had to write their own history. Before the war he had been a history teacher and an organizer for the Joint Distribution Committee, a Jewish relief organization. After the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, he became one of the leaders of the Aleynhilf, a Jewish mutual aid organization that established soup kitchens, hospitals, shelters, and other community service centers. He used this network to organize a team of “collectors” who met on Friday evenings or Saturdays, using the code name Oyneg Shabes, a Yiddish-inflected Hebrew phrase meaning “Joy of the Sabbath.”

The group buried their first batch of documents—stored in those ten tin boxes—in July 1942, as the Nazis began deporting Warsaw’s Jews to Treblinka, the closest extermination camp. In April 1943 Jewish insurgent groups in the ghetto staged the resistance now known as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, during which around 7,000 Jews were killed, as many as 20,000 went into hiding, and those who remained in the ghetto—around 50,000—were deported to extermination camps. Ringelblum survived the massacre and went underground, hiding in a bunker with more than thirty others. There he continued to chronicle the destruction, writing a book about Polish–Jewish relations during the war. The Nazis discovered the hideout in March 1944 and murdered everyone inside, including Ringelblum, his wife, and their twelve-year-old son.

Only three members of Oyneg Shabes survived the war. One of them was a journalist and translator named Rokhl (also known as Rachel) Auerbach, whom Ringelblum recruited in 1941 to document her work at a ghetto soup kitchen. After the ghetto was liquidated, Ringelblum arranged for her to live on the Aryan side of the city under a false Polish identity, where she could continue her work for Oyneg Shabes. During the day she worked for a paper-bag manufacturer. At night she continued to write in secret, recording her memories of people she had known in the ghetto: the original draft of her Warsaw Testament , first published in a revised version in Yiddish in 1974 and now translated into English in its entirety for the first time by the historian Samuel Kassow. In 1944, as the Soviets approached, she entrusted her papers to Polish friends, who buried them at the Warsaw Zoo.

Auerbach was able to dig up her manuscript, undamaged, as soon as the war ended. But the fate of the Oyneg Shabes archive obsessed her. All that remained of her beloved community of Yiddish writers was in the archive, as well as her own contributions, which included a lengthy document compiling interviews in which people who had escaped from Treblinka testified to what had happened there. Auerbach made it her mission to get the archive unearthed, personally accosting Warsaw’s Jewish leaders to insist that they do everything necessary to find it. At a ceremony in April 1946 to commemorate the third anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Auerbach delivered an emotional plea. “There is a national treasure under the ruins,” she told those assembled. “Even if there are five stories of ruins, we must find the archive.” The following September she watched as the first box was finally opened. “I had better luck saving documents than saving people,” she later remarked mordantly.

Kassow, the author of a magisterial account of the Oyneg Shabes archive titled Who Will Write Our History? (2007), argues that the group was unusual not only because of its emphasis on gathering contemporaneous testimony but also because of its focus on ordinary people rather than on the Nazis or the ghetto leadership. Auerbach’s approach in Warsaw Testament , though atypical for a Holocaust memoir, is emblematic of the group’s philosophy. Throughout these “testaments”—many of them vignettes devoted to a person or a place—Auerbach foregrounds the fates of others rather than her own experience. Though she surely starved alongside those she served at the soup kitchen, she doesn’t mention her own suffering. Nor does she discuss her personal life, though the war forced her longtime partner, the Yiddish poet Itsik Manger, to return to his native Romania in 1938. They did not meet again until 1946.

Auerbach edited her chronicle before publication, but the book is discursive and occasionally repetitive, with a somewhat undefined structure. The English volume also incorporates selections from The Last Journey , another manuscript of Auerbach’s published posthumously, “adding to the hybridity and collage-like nature of the text,” as an editor’s note puts it. Because Auerbach gives relatively few details about the Nazi persecution, readers will need to already have a sense of what happened to Warsaw’s Jews: first their confinement to the ghetto, where they were systematically starved, then their extermination en masse at Treblinka in the “Great Deportation” of July and August 1942. But by writing about the people she knew—primarily other members of Jewish Warsaw’s intellectual community—Auerbach memorializes an entire lost world.

Auerbach was born in 1899 in the borderland region that now straddles eastern Poland and western Ukraine, which was then known as Galicia. She studied at Lwów (now Lviv) University and became active in Jewish cultural and political organizations. Galician Jews were likely to speak Polish or Ukrainian as well as Yiddish. The question of which language Jewish intellectuals chose to write in was at once practical, political, and existential, but “never neutral,” the scholar David Roskies writes in a discussion of the Oyneg Shabes archive in his book Against the Apocalypse: Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture (1984). Polish Jews might write in Yiddish, Hebrew, or Polish, “depending on the future envisaged.”

Auerbach identified strongly with a movement called Yiddishism, the supporters of which placed Yiddish language and culture at the center of contemporary Jewish identity. Many Yiddishists looked down on those who chose Polish as their literary language, arguing that Jewish writers who wrote in non-Jewish languages were necessarily limited to certain topics and images and that “only in a Jewish language could the artist be truly free,” the scholar Karolina Szymaniak writes in a biographical essay about Auerbach. * At one point Auerbach tried unsuccessfully to persuade Bruno Schulz, who later became internationally known for his short stories, to write in Yiddish rather than Polish. She also cofounded a literary journal that promoted Yiddish culture, including the writings of women, to counter assimilation.

As the Nazis besieged Warsaw in the fall of 1939, Ringelblum, acting in his capacity as a manager of the Aleynhilf, resolved to find work for as many members of Warsaw’s intelligentsia as he could, trying to “rescue the human resources,” as Auerbach later wrote. She had moved to the capital in 1932, taking classes in psychology at Warsaw University and working as a translator and journalist in both Yiddish and Polish. After the invasion she planned to flee east, back to Galicia. Ringelblum asked her to stay and organize a soup kitchen. In an effort to appeal to her as someone deeply invested in Jewish culture and community, he told her, “Not everybody has the right to run away.”

Starting out with just a box of prunes, a sack of rice, and some dried fish, Auerbach managed to operate the kitchen until the ghetto was liquidated. In her essay “The Story of a Kitchen,” she observed that her role in the kitchen positioned her “at the epicenter of Jewish troubles, in the front lines of the battle against hunger, as close as one could get to the suffering of the Jewish masses.” Through her careful selection of details, a story emerges: the destruction of a community by starvation.

Auerbach’s method is to record facts but not to interpret them. Though at one point she calls for “a new Goya to come and draw the worst sufferings of this new ‘Jewish War’ that the Crazy Man is waging against the Jewish children of the sealed city,” she indulges only rarely in metaphor or other literary devices. But her dispassionate, utilitarian reports of debates over how to maximize the food provided by the Nazis—“of the worst quality and often half rotten”—offer a glimpse of the progress of the war from a crucial angle.

The anecdotes Auerbach chooses to recount are quietly illuminating. Just before Passover 1940, the manager of a kitchen serving religious Jews, a man with a blond beard and blue eyes, tries to persuade her not to cook and serve legumes, which are forbidden to observant Ashkenazi Jews during the holiday; whatever nutritional value the legumes might provide would be outweighed by the harm done to the Jews’ health by the “inner turmoil” of violating the law. A year later, Auerbach writes, “there were no longer any discussions about legumes. Nor was there any sign of the man with the blond beard.” On another occasion she notices a group of children, “strangely quiet,” hiding in a corner of the kitchen where there had been a basket of cabbage leaves: “Like a bunch of young rabbits…they packed their little bellies with a little bit of wormy, filthy vitamins.”

At first Auerbach is nearly paralyzed by the futility of her efforts. Paradoxically, as she quickly realizes, the only people who truly benefit from the food she serves are those who have access to food elsewhere and whose bodies are thus still healthy enough to digest it. But for many of the clientele, what she gives them is their only meal of the day, and it is not enough to keep them alive. Once they have begun to show symptoms of starvation, they cannot be saved.

Later, however, Auerbach recognizes that even if the food it provides is insufficient, the soup kitchen performs a second function as a community center. During the interwar period Warsaw had been a hub of Yiddish culture, with six Yiddish newspapers as well as other journals, two full-time Yiddish theaters, and artists and musicians of all kinds. What the Nazis perpetrated there was not just a genocide of the Jewish people but also a “cultural genocide,” as Kassow puts it, exterminating the artistic life and language of the community. In Warsaw Testament Auerbach memorializes the soup kitchen’s clientele, many of whom had been known to her for years as members of Warsaw’s Yiddish cultural community: the poets Kalman Lis and Yosef Kirman, the novelist Yoshue Perle, the actress Miriam Orleska, the Plato translator Shiye Broyde, the choir director Yankev Glatshteyn—once-famous figures who are now obscure.

Auerbach can sketch a character in just a few words, so those whose names go unrecorded are nonetheless memorable. One client of the soup kitchen invariably introduces himself as “Adolf as in Hitler.” A pair of sons can’t mention their father without adding, “May he live to 120.” A family of three sisters is notable for the shining aluminum pot, rescued from their former home, in which they collect the daily soup. First one sister comes to get soup for all three, until she becomes too sick. The second sister then replaces her, and finally the third replaces the second, carrying the same pot, still scrubbed and shining. “That pot,” Auerbach writes, “told volumes about a way of life, about a tidy home, about the dignified decline of yet one more Jewish family.”

The staff of the kitchen are not forgotten either. Halina finds aprons that Auerbach likes so much she refuses to take them off. The cook Gutsche, who names her favorite pot “Maciusz,” talks to the soup: “ Nu , start cooking, come to a boil, you rascal!” Later Auerbach reproaches herself for once having reprimanded Gutsche for stealing a little bag of beans and vegetables and wishes she had been more forgiving: “How blind we were then, how stupid—as we stood on the brink of death.”

“No one/bears witness for the/witness,” the poet Paul Celan wrote. Perhaps Auerbach’s most unusual contribution is the memorials she wrote for the zamlers —those, like her, who collected information. Among them is the folklorist Shmuel Lehman, who died of cancer in the ghetto in 1941. Before World War I, Lehman collected stories and songs in different regions of Poland, interviewing hundreds of people in fifty towns; after the war he published a study of Jewish wartime folklore. At the outbreak of World War II, he immediately set out to record puns, jokes, and other expressions demonstrating the Jewish reaction to Hitler as well as the Polish response to the fate of the Jews. Learning of Lehman’s illness, Ringelblum sent a secretary to help him type up his writings, but to Auerbach’s “deep pain and bereavement,” his archive was nonetheless lost.

This uncharacteristic moment of emotion in Auerbach’s text speaks to the powerful legacy of the Oyneg Shabes archive—and to her passionate drive to see that archive unearthed. Nearly three million Polish Jews were murdered by the Nazis, some 350,000 from Warsaw alone. The archive cannot compensate for the loss of their lives. But how much more tragic it would have been to lose both the people and the record of their existence. The archive allows their names and stories to live on in their absence.

The archive also provided a daily reason to live for those who might otherwise have lost their motivation. Auerbach remarks that she had tried to write about the Nazi persecution in September 1939 but stopped: “I couldn’t write just for myself.” (She also speaks for writers everywhere in confessing the difficulty of following through: “It’s easy to get excited about an assignment. Finishing it is harder.”) By charging her and others to write what they saw, Ringelblum created a movement that was not only literary but existential. “In a time of dreariness, bloodshed, and hunger, the writer suddenly realized that his talents were needed; that somebody was eager to read what he wrote; that he had the chance to analyze and describe the tragic events that tormented his soul,” Auerbach writes. “He saw that he could reach out to a future that he might never live to see.” The male pronoun notwithstanding, Auerbach is undoubtedly speaking of herself.

Of her own survival, Auerbach comments that she had “more luck than brains.” On the Aryan side of the city, she shared an apartment with Germans and Poles and worked in “nightly writing séances” from midnight to 5:00 AM , hiding her pages underneath food in a drawer. At one point the landlady’s German maid, spying on Auerbach through the keyhole, discovered that she was writing, but another tenant alerted her in time for her to hide her manuscripts. “Books have their own fates,” she writes.

Auerbach’s working title for her manuscript was “Together with the People: A Tragic Chronicle of the Murder of Jewish Writers and Artists in Warsaw.” She initially felt a “sacred obligation” to recount the fates of the members of the intellectual community she had loved:

Who died earlier and who later; who was killed by a bullet and who was struck down in an epidemic; who perished in the flames of the burning ghetto; who died in Treblinka, Chełmno, or simply on the familiar streets of his native city.

Underscoring the tone of lament, Auerbach’s cadences in these lines mimic the rhythm of an important prayer recited by Jews on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the High Holidays.

But as she continued to write, Auerbach realized that what was important about these figures was not their tragic deaths but the passion with which they embraced their work up to the end. Their “cultural activism,” she argued, was an equal partner to the armed resistance movement that staged the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: “an affirmation of life in the face of death and a part of our struggle for human dignity, beauty, wisdom, strength, and spirit.”

After the war Auerbach saw the “sole reason” for her survival as “bearing witness to the crime” of the Holocaust. Manger hoped to resume their relationship, but she told him that she no longer had room for anything in her life other than her mission to carry on Ringelblum’s legacy. She butted heads with some in the community of survivors in Warsaw, accusing the more assimilated among them (such as Władysław Szpilman, whose 1946 memoir The Pianist was later made into a film by Roman Polanski) of what Kassow calls the “othering” of Yiddish-speaking Polish Jews. Regardless of how extraordinary they were, the exploits of the ghetto fighters and other heroes of the war shouldn’t overshadow the memory of the vast majority of ordinary people, she argued.

Auerbach hoped that postwar Poland, nearly free of Jews, would also be free of antisemitism. Alas, this was not the case. As Stalinization progressed, she could no longer carry out the work that she was devoted to. “The only thing we can do is to say goodbye…. Those who are after those poor Jewish people won’t withdraw the hand that holds the murder weapon,” she wrote. Her choice to immigrate in 1950 to Israel, where Yiddish language and culture were largely marginalized in favor of Hebrew, was not an obvious one. Still, she wrote to a friend shortly afterward that “never in my life have I experienced so strongly the feeling of being in the right place.”

Auerbach was appointed to head the witness testimony department at Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust museum and research institute, in 1954. She brought Ringelblum’s methodology with her, emphasizing the historical value of collecting and recording survivors’ testimony at a time when academic historians were inclined to discount it as an unreliable source. Interviewing survivors, she used a technique she learned from the folklorist Lehman to awaken passive memories. Instead of questioning subjects immediately, he would loosen them up by reminding them of funny and creative regional expressions. When the sources heard these idioms, “they began to recall similar terms from their pasts, terms that had been long buried in their subconscious minds,” she explained. Her background in psychology was also clearly valuable in helping fellow survivors process traumatic memories:

Sometimes, all of a sudden, there’s a moment when a spark of shared feeling or interest brings two people together. And that’s when the memories of events suffered long ago spring to the surface.

Auerbach fought tenaciously against those who did not support her philosophy of honoring the survivors. In 1958 she published an attack on the Yad Vashem leadership for taking a more academic approach to the study of the Holocaust and cutting off ties with survivors. In response, Ben-Zion Dinur, then the president of Yad Vashem, tried and failed to remove her from her position, then resigned from the institute himself.

She also emphasized the importance of including survivor testimony in the trial of Adolf Eichmann. During the war years, as she collected testimony from Treblinka survivors, she had already begun to envision the ultimate indictment of Nazi perpetrators and realized how important documentation of their crimes would be in a tribunal. In 1960, as Israeli prosecutors prepared to bring Eichmann to trial in Jerusalem, they initially planned to focus only on events or actions to which he could directly be linked. Auerbach personally pressed the chief prosecutor, Gideon Hausner, to paint a picture of Eichmann’s crimes that would focus on the system of mass murder as a whole and the human pain it generated, granting him access to Yad Vashem’s huge collection of survivor statements and helping him conceptualize the historical framework for Eichmann’s crimes that ultimately guided the prosecution.

Auerbach was able to complete the manuscript of Warsaw Testament only when she was once again facing death: she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1972. “About thirty-one years have passed since I woke up early one morning, lit a lamp, and after lowering the blackout shades over the one window in the tiny room…began to write about our kitchen,” she writes. She explains that it took her a long time to revise and correct the manuscript, which required her to conduct further research, fact-checking her own reminiscences against the ghetto writings of others and interviewing additional survivors. She also notes, as if it were incidental, a major change she made: she rewrote the original text, nearly all of which was in Polish, in Yiddish.

Why did Auerbach initially compose her Warsaw Testament , a memorial to a community of Yiddish speakers that was disappearing before her eyes, in a language that she believed was incapable of fully expressing the Jewish experience? Kassow simply repeats Auerbach’s explanation: she had started making notes about the ghetto in a diary that she had begun in Polish before the war. Szymaniak, skeptical of this reasoning, argues instead that Auerbach’s writing uses insights from her university studies in psychology, a subject with vocabulary that was more familiar to her in Polish, noting that bilingual writers often find one language more congenial to certain subjects. As Auerbach once wrote, explaining why she refused to denigrate Polish culture, it was “a source from which we [Jewish intellectuals] drew…and you don’t spit in the well from which you drink.”

In her later writing, Auerbach describes herself as “no more than a pale shadow” of the young woman who had first responded to Ringelblum’s call. Still, she was driven by the same imperative: that Jews must write their own history. In Auerbach’s adopted land, the choice of language was just as fraught—politically, culturally, historically—as it had been for Polish Jews before the war. Begun in Polish, rewritten in Yiddish, and initially published in a Hebrew-speaking Jewish nation, her testimony embodies the cultural politics that it describes.

In 1974 the community of Yiddish speakers who embraced Auerbach’s book was already in decline—but the community of Polish speakers devoted to the study of the Holocaust was even smaller. If the choice of language for Polish Jews was dependent on the way they imagined their future, Auerbach’s decision to rewrite her manuscript in Yiddish is profoundly antiassimilationist: it asserts that her legacy rests with her own people, no matter how few they might be. In this light, the appearance of Auerbach’s major work in English—a future that she may not have imagined—is a natural continuation of the Oyneg Shabes project. Having outlived its original readers, her book can now go in search of a new audience.

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The recent documentary The US and the Holocaust is a scathing, even bombastic indictment of US immigration policy over the past 160 years.

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Why are we so eager to assign a single person blame for revealing the hiding place of Anne Frank and her family?

May 26, 2022 issue

Several groundbreaking new books chronicle the fate of the quarter-million or so Polish Jews who evaded Hitler only to wind up in the hands of Stalin.

October 21, 2021 issue

Ruth Franklin’s previous book, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life , won the 2016 National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography. Her next book, The Many Lives of Anne Frank , will be published in January. (September 2024)

Included in Catastrophe and Utopia: Jewish Intellectuals in Central and Eastern Europe in the 1930s and 1940s , edited by Ferenc Laczó and Joachim von Puttkamer (Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2018). ↩

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COMMENTS

Book Review: Preaching in the New Testament, by Jonathan I ...
Moving to exegesis of specific New Testament passages, Griffiths isolates 2 Timothy 3-4, Romans 10, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 2-6, 1 Thessalonians 1-2, and the book of Hebrews. While Griffiths' selected texts vary in length, all were carefully selected for their direct relevance to preaching.
Book Review
The New Testament in It's World comes from N.T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, published by the good folks at Zondervan Academic. The book originated with an idea from Bird to put together a distillation of Wright's work up to that time and put it into the form of a NT Introduction. ... You can also find my reviews of NPP critical books from ...
Major Review: A New Testament Theology by Craig L. Blomberg
Book review. First published online December 3, 2020. Major Review: A New Testament Theology by Craig L. Blomberg. Frank J. Matera View all authors and affiliations. Based on: A New Testament Theology by Blomberg Craig L.Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2018. 791 pp. $49.95. ISBN 978-1-4813-0226-5. Volume 75, Issue 1.
Book Review: Nijay K. Gupta, A Beginner's Guide to New Testament
Chapter 8 discusses Pseudonymity and the New Testament Letters. Since many introductions to the New Testament dispute the authorship of the Pastoral Epistles, 1-2 Peter, James and Jude and have serious doubts about 2 Thessalonians, Ephesians and Colossians, Gupta first explains why these books came to be doubted in the nineteenth century.
Theology of the New Testament: A Canonical and Synthetic Approach
Frank Thielman writes his theology of the New Testament to 'provide a service and make a case' (p. 9). As one would expect, the service provided by this work is to orientate pastors, students, and scholars alike to each book of the New Testament. This he does eminently well, through lucid and well-executed exegesis, discussion, and summary of the biblical text. Thielman also seeks to ...
Book Review: An Introduction to the New Testament, 2nd ed. (David
David deSilva has revised my favorite New Testament Introduction, and I wanted to review it again and give it a bit more promotion. As he says in his preface, deSilva has updated some paragraphs, rewritten others, taken some things out, expanded some sections or chapters ("Four Gospels One Jesus"), taken a lot more pictures, and left some sections (John's Gospel) alone (mostly).
New Testament Bible Commentaries
Use the index below to select any New Testament book. On each page, you will find rankings and reviews on New Testament commentaries. Additionally, you can learn about the theological perspective of authors, the target audience for each resource—for example, pastors, Sunday school or small group leaders, individual self-studies—and much more.
How to Understand and Apply the New Testament: Twelve Steps from
Andrew Naselli's recent publication How to Understand and Apply the New Testament is one of the best introductions to the topic in recent years. For brevity, in this review I limit my comments to what comes before and after the main body, namely the analytical outline, introduction, Appendix B, and glossary. This gloss over the "meat and potatoes" reflects my endorsement of the main body ...
Journal for the Study of the New Testament: Sage Journals
Journal for the Study of the New Testament is one of the leading peer-reviewed academic journals in New Testament Studies. All the many and diverse aspects of New Testament study are represented and promoted by JSNT, including innovative work from historical perspectives, studies using social-scientific and literary theory or developing theological, cultural and contextual approaches.
Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament
Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament is the first complete scholarly monograph on the topic of the New Testament books' dates of composition since John A. T. Robinson's Reading the New Testament (1976), which also argued for a lower chronology. J. V. M. Sturdy set out to write a refutation of Robinson and thus make the case for a ...
A Theology of the New Testament
A Theology of the New Testament. Written by George Eldon Ladd Reviewed By N. T. Wright. New Testament. It is refreshing to have an English New Testament theology making its appearance alongside recent continental works; it is greatly encouraging to have a full-scale work of this kind from the pen of a well-known conservative evangelical; and ...
Book Review: James D. G. Dunn, Jesus according to the New Testament
Much of these two chapters reviews Paul's metaphors for salvation as well as Paul's view of the future. For the details, Dunn's The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Eerdmans, 2006) is an indispensable resource. The book of Hebrews is perhaps the most distinctive book in the New Testament with respect to how it understands Jesus.
What Every Book of the New Testament Is About
Ephesians. A circular letter intended for the church universal. A case study in epistolary form: salutation (1:1-1), thanksgiving (1:3-22), body (2:1—4:16), paraenesis or list of exhortations (4:7—6:20), and close (6:21-24). Also characteristic of many New Testament epistles is the division into a doctrinal or theological half and a ...
Robert Gundry reviews N.T. Wright's Kingdom New Testament
May 9, 2012 by Michael F. Bird. Over at Books & Culture, one of my favourite scholars, Robert H. Gundry reviews a book by one of my other favourite scholars, N.T. Wright, specifically, looking at ...
Book Review: Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament
Preaching through a book of the New Testament? A great place to begin the study of that biblical book is this commentary, particularly in conjunction with articles in the New Dictionary of Biblical Theology. For example, I found the Commentary's treatment of the structure of 1 Corinthians particularly insightful. The discussion of 2 ...
A Theology of the New Testament
Stephen Bedard, April 26, 2019. I recently read George Eldon Ladd's A Theology of the New Testament. This book has been on my shelf for quite a while but I was looking forward to reading it. I was not disappointed. There were many things I liked about it the biggest thing was that it is a model of evangelical biblical scholarship.
Book Review: Encountering the New Testament (Elwell and Yarbrough)
Encountering the New Testament is an excellent example of this type of introductory text and is a text that will spend many years informing classrooms full of students encountering the New Testament. I received this book from Baker Academic in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.
Book Review: The New Testament Deacon: The Church's Minister ...
If these questions were merely hypothetical, Alexander Strauch's book The New Testament Deacon: The Church's Minister of Mercy would be wholly unnecessary. But given that in many churches the role of deacon is defined more by tradition or corporate culture than by Scripture, Strauch's solid treatment of the biblical teaching on deacons is ...
Best Commentaries
New Testament Backgrounds, Introductions, and Theologies NT Apocrypha & Pseudepigrapha Apostolic Fathers. ... Recent Reviews. Book and commentary reviews added by users and scholars. A New Testament Biblical Theology, A: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New. Beale, G. K. 2011. 2386.
A New New Testament: A Bible for the 21st Century Combi…
Ultimately, even with a two star review, I recommend this book. It may be exactly what you've been looking for. Like. Comment. Cynthia. 891 reviews 2 followers. November 23, 2022. ... Some are similar to the New Testament books, some contain new information/ideas, some are downright bizarre. At any rate, the purpose of the collection is to show ...
An Introduction to the New Testament Essay (Book Review)
Introduction. An Introduction to the New Testament by Carson and Moo gives an in-depth summary of the NT books about content, authorship, genre, date, place of authorship, and audience, among others, within historical contexts. The text further draws parallels between liberal and conservative perspectives, considers dissenting opinions, and ...
Book Review
The task Beale sets out for himself is huge, and his book is too. With over 960 readable pages, this book will take the average reader some time to conquer. It took me about a year to wade my way through it, although admittedly I tend to be a fickle reader and so left the book for seasons at a time. Beale sets out to explore the unifying center ...
Review of The Widening of God's Mercy by Christopher B. Hays and
By Preston Sprinkle. Preston is the author of several books, including Embodied and Does the Bible Support Same-Sex Marriage?, and serves as President of The Center for Faith, Sexuality & Gender. Dr. Richard Hays is one of the most prestigious New Testament scholars of the last four decades. His highly celebrated book The Moral Vision of the New Testament, published in 1996, includes a chapter ...
Book Review: 'The New Testament,' By Jericho Brown
In his second poetry collection, The New Testament, Jericho Brown weaves together strains of religious invocations with his uneasy identity as a southern, gay, black man into a beguiling self myth.
Writing Out of Annihilation
At night she continued to write in secret, recording her memories of people she had known in the ghetto: the original draft of her Warsaw Testament, first published in a revised version in Yiddish in 1974 and now translated into English in its entirety for the first time by the historian Samuel Kassow. In 1944, as the Soviets approached, she ...

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Good review Bob. One of the

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