The anti-intellectualism I encountered in various places growing up impassioned my motto. In the church and among some of my peers at OBU, I perceived not just a lack of deep theological reflection, but an outright distaste for it. As a former professor used to say, “Just because the tomb is empty doesn’t mean our minds need to be empty too.” My goal was to bring a biblical and theological richness to bear on all aspects of life – to help those both in the pews and behind the pulpit see the essential theological character of everything they do. No more checking minds at the door of the sanctuary – no more self-help bible studies and sermons – orthopraxy emerges rightly from orthodoxy, I preached.

The purity of academic rigor funded my mission. Immersion in the intensity of academia was meant to equip me with tools to build the bridge over the dark chasm that separates the church from the academy. The bridge-building was mostly unidirectional for me: what I meant when I announced my mission was that the church needs more academy in it. But my experience in the academy yielded a different perspective. By the time I was writing the last sentences of my thesis, I found myself looking from the other side of the chasm – realizing how desperately the academy needs the church.

Somewhere in the recesses of my consciousness I knew that the bridging was a reciprocal affair, but I didn’t really get it deeper down in my body. I had to learn it the way I learned not to squeeze the front-wheel brake on my bicycle while traveling rapidly downhill. After tumbling over the handlebars several times, I looked at my arms and legs decorated with blood, dirt, and rocks and realized that something wasn’t working. It took less than a year in the academy to get the sense beat into me, or better, to get the spirit beat out of me.

My awakening was prompted by what I lived and witnessed. In a meeting with the same professor who asked me about being Reformed (see Part 1), we discussed my plans and goals for a career in the academy. This time he asked about my undergraduate GPA. After proudly sharing my accomplishment, he stared back at me without expression and muttered, “We’ll see what your GPA is after this semester,” as if he already knew the outcome. I quickly learned what was required of a graduate student in New Testament who wanted a PhD. He must stand out. Standing out took every ounce of intellect and energy I could muster because the playing field was packed with other competitors who had more intellect, energy, focus, and time, and we were all vying for the same attention. Standing out also meant sacrifice. Most assignments had no real end – there was an indefinite amount of time one could give to preparing for class or completing tasks. Moreover, most syllabi had two levels of reading: the “required reading” level for the common seminary folk, and the “suggested reading” level for those aspiring for academic greatness. Throw in a part-time job and a family – something had to give. I wasn’t graded on those times I chose not to stay another three hours in the library in order to spend time with my wife whom I had not seen all day. But that did often mean a lower grade on the quiz the next morning.

I woke up to the nature of academics as a stumbled through this cut-throat world (I mean that with no exaggeration). I woke up to the reality that the system training people to be experts in Scripture and theology is often spiritually de-formative. It can easily push people out of rhythms of grace and into cycles of earning. And, frankly, it will make an ass out of you. It was becoming clear to me that the academy needs an ecclesial detox. But I realized this slowly.

In the third year of my program, the semester I was both studying for comprehensive exams and beginning my thesis, I journeyed to the annual Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) meeting. This event was a compact form – an intense, non-diluted version – of what I experienced only in bits and pieces the previous two years of my graduate career. It was total immersion in the system. If the character of the academy is most revealed in a particular place, it was here at this meeting. During this trip I finally peeked behind the curtain for an uncensored view of theological academia.

For the uninitiated, SBL is a gathering of the sharpest minds in biblical studies from around the world. Scholars make their yearly pilgrimage in order to listen to one another present their research in various theological disciplines. Two of the largest hotels in downtown Atlanta hosted the event that year. Attendees picked from dozens of presentations or panel discussions occurring in conference rooms simultaneously every hour, all morning and afternoon. In addition, there were two banquet halls packed with books – half priced books – and representatives from publishing companies present to discuss new contracts. After hours everyone gathered with their constituents at restaurants and receptions for more informal, but no less significant, schmoozing.

The previous two years prepared my eyes for that week at SBL. Had the ground not already been tilled in my heart, I might have missed it. What I saw, like Ebenezer Scrooge’s haunted visit from Marley’s ghost, were images of my death – a harbinger of the miserable future ahead if I continued unchanged. From my perspective, SBL was thick with the empty posturing and vain striving that characterizes theological academia when it exists for its own sake. Beneath the intellectual flurry was a malicious mechanism of success. In this world you make it by proving yourself, and participating in a conference like SBL has a legitimizing function in that system. Any aspiring scholar knows that a curriculum vitae without the proper signifiers (e.g. a paper presented at SBL) is debilitating for a career in academics. The problem is not necessarily what is required but the types of attitudes and postures formed by what is required. I could see it in the eyes, hear it in the tone, and sense it the body language of those formed by decades of making their way in this world: resigned desperation.

The realization that I wanted no part fell on me as I sat in a presentation from a scholar who is a veteran in my field of research at that time (the apocryphal NT). His countless hours of research and personal sacrifice (which I’m sure included time away from his family) culminated that day in a presentation before a total of eight people, one of which was there because she accidentally stumbled into the wrong room. I was struck by the realization that the kind of beating I received the past two years was standard fare for continued participation in academics. All of that for this?

I realize that the academy isn’t equally vicious for all who enter, but it is especially for those with a certain personality: one that has learned to find meaning in achievement and performance. The mixture of these variables without the proper vigilance or mechanism for critical, communal introspection produces a potent compound. For me the ratio was especially volatile, so the reaction was particularly violent and immediate. I realize now that God was gracious to me in this way. Not everyone is so fortunate to have his or her dreams quickly implode. If I had actually succeeded in this academic system, that would have been truly troubling. The system could have easily spit me out the other end feeling affirmed at the heart of my idolatry – set up to perpetuate that very evil in the name of theology. Although I would be climbing the ladder in all the appropriate ways that someone like myself does – all the ways of climbing promoted by the system – I would have become, like Jesus said, twice the son of hell I was before I started.

But the church saved me. I found (am finding) healing because the church subverted my attempts to earn acceptance there through the means I used in the academy by persistently opening avenues unto submission to Jesus’ Lordship. I was thus re-trained in the Eucharist, in the proclamation of the word, in the difficulty of practicing community, in the corporate confession, and in the working-out of reconciliation. The church was brought to bear on the academy in my life.

Just over 2000 years ago in the region of Judea – in the town of Bethlehem – a movement was birthed. It all took place during the reign of Herod the Great, king of Judea, when Quirinius was governor of Syria. By this time Herod had been in power for over 30 years – appointed by the Roman Senate in the midst of political turmoil. Never fully embraced by the Jewish people, he was always considered an outsider, and his expensive building projects and lavish lifestyle caused financial strain. He was a client-king – operating primarily under the interests of Rome – not the true King.

Also in those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree through the Senate that everyone living in the Empire must be registered for tax purposes, including the Jews. Since general Pompey secured control over Judea 60 years earlier, the Jews were subjects of Rome. This census was yet another reminder that they lived in exile – captives in their own land. Although Judea had experienced a brief period of independence after the Maccabean revolt, the often-corrupt Hasmonean priesthood was characterized more by vying for power through political means than returning to God with true sacrifice and praise. These times were a pale reflection of generations past, before the Assyrians and Babylonians conquered the people and desecrated the Temple, like the Golden years under the great King David. They were living in the land again – the Temple rebuilt – but life was not the same. Exile was, after all, the inevitable consequence of the nation’s obstinacy. Jewish oppression under Roman rule was linked, ironically, to the oppression that the Jews first perpetrated.

Things were business-as-usual in those days some might have said, at least up in Jerusalem at the Temple. Sacrifices, festivals, Sabbath, circumcision, Torah-keeping, dietary restrictions – all the right markers of Jewish identity were in place. But everyone also knew that things were not as they should be.

In the midst of their exile the Jews were actually quite expectant for an occupy movement. Beginning with the first exile, the prophets spoke in veiled images of a time when God would return to occupy His people in His land in order to make things right. Justice would flow like a river and God’s law would be written not in stone, but on hearts. This hope grew over the years and assumed different forms. It was said that God’s occupation would be realized under the leadership of the Anointed One. By the first century the image that predominated was one of a military ruler who would come wielding a sword to gather his people together and overthrow Rome outright.

The time was pregnant with revolution. Nothing would be the same after the movement took root, and everything that came before would be seen differently. And so, in the midst of socio-economic, political, and religious crisis, it began: Joseph returning to his hometown, Bethlehem, to register, and Mary with child.

Occupy Bethlehem was birthed. Quietly.

The thing about Occupy Bethlehem is that it did not begin as Occupy Jerusalem, or Occupy Rome, as some might have expected. There was no grand entrance heralded by the horns of war. No march on the steps of the Temple Mount. Rather, the movement was inaugurated with an announcement to shepherds in a field. Other occupy attempts previously emerged in different regions around Judea – like the occupy movement led by one called Judas. He raided the palace at Sephoris and seized the armory. That movement burned out bright and fast. But none like Occupy Bethlehem. It was a real threat to the powers-that-be, however. Its Anointed leader, Jesus, threatened the essence of Caesar’s lordship – the heart of Herod’s kingly reign – the uniqueness of the high priest’s sacrifice.

Occupy Bethlehem was in every way characterized by the margins: a marginal birth on the outskirts of the city, a recruitment that drew from the margins of society, a message received by those on the margins of power, and an execution reserved for the most marginal dissidents. This occupation on the margins was about redeeming those who were in captivity and inviting in those who were not in by rights. Jesus said it himself when he quoted those who spoke long before in hope of this movement, “The Spirit…has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and the regaining of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed.” This was the Jubilee.

This movement Jesus led was no empty politic. It was the occupation of one kingdom by another – the invasion of the faux by the Real. It was not legislated, but inaugurated. It was not an uprising, but a descent. Not a massive footprint, but a mustard seed. The Pax Romana met the Via Crucis. The occupation of the Roman state signaled a reversal in its modus operandi: prevailing systems were no longer self-apparent because there was a new Benefactor, thus a new way of being human.  The implication of Occupy Bethlehem was that those who were poor, sorrowful, hungry, and persecuted were really blessed. Those who were first were really last, and the last first.

It must be remembered that the telos of this movement was comprehensive in scope – no realm un-occupied. Its leader, the Son of God, came to occupy all of creation. Because, as his followers would later affirm, that which is not “occupied” cannot be redeemed. So he became every bit of us. He invaded all of our space by setting up his tent here. His protest – his mission – was one of reconciliation, not through force but by willing submission to the worst of our mess. Death. And so his occupation was our liberation out of death and into life because he triumphed over the powers that held creation in captivity. The Son’s successful occupation, in fact, was a victory march – a procession with the defeated foes in tow. They were disgraced by the occupation’s counterintuitive means: the cross. Indeed, the Son’s great Demonstration was his humiliation there. It was only through his emptying that there was vindication as he was raised the true Lord over creation.

Soon Occupy Bethlehem went viral. Throughout the Roman Empire other movements took hold: Occupy Judea, Occupy Samaria, Occupy Ephesus, Occupy Corinth, Occupy Rome, and beyond. The Good News of the movement grew by the force of its inherent power and the witness of its followers.

Now we join in Occupy Bethlehem by participating in the self-emptying demonstration – becoming occupied ourselves. All of our allegiances are thus redirected and redefined, and we submit to being transformed by the same Spirit that always energized Occupy Bethlehem with the Son and Father. Outward now we move into the public and private spaces of occupation – to the 99 and the 1% – witnessing to the character and power of Occupy Bethlehem.

In recent years, however, a peculiar fascination has grown up alongside my reverent intrigue for the nativity. I am fascinated by the persistent appearance of the features, portrayed in both the miniature scenes and the stories, that are simply not part of the original story. How did they get there? And why are they still there?

It is a common refrain that the Scriptural account of Jesus’ birth does not include many of the details that tradition has attached to it. No rude inn-keeper; no barn; no specification regarding the number of Magi. And, most importantly, no ox and ass lowing. It’s the animals that intrigue me the most. Especially because this particular tradition is explicitly apocryphal, which makes the animals the most ancient and scandalous of the nativity add-ons.

The ox and ass first appear in literature in the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew. This work is part of the New Testament Apocrypha. Like its (more familiar) Old Testament counterpart, the NT apocrypha is a collection of writings resembling the form of its canonical parent, but often quite different in content, which was written chronologically after the 27 books in the NT (2^nd century AD and later) though it recounts events from the same period as the NT. I don’t have the space to explain why and how these books were not included in the New Testament canon. For now, understand that many of these works fall into the category of “Infancy Narratives,” which re-tell and expand (often in fantastic fashion) the birth and early childhood of Jesus. In fact, there were a proliferation of infancy narratives circulating in different communities the first thousand years of Christian history, and the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew is one of them (not the earliest, but one of the most popular). Some Christians and heretical groups were so fascinated with these stories that they continued to survive even though church officials repeatedly condemned and expunged them.

The presence of the animals in Pseudo-Matthew is an interesting case in itself. The ox and ass actually appear in art (e.g. on a 4^th century sarcophagus in Milan) well before the earliest manuscript of Pseudo-Matthew. It’s possible that an oral version of the apocryphal tradition is early enough to be the source for the art, but because of the lack of manuscript evidence, the opposite is also possible (in case you’re interested, “art generating text” would be a unique ancient phenomenon). More complicated still, in ancient depictions of the nativity, the ox and ass are (nearly) always present with Jesus – appearing even when Mary is absent. This begs the question both for the NT Apocrypha and for our front yards, “How did they get there?”

The short answer is that it’s hard to say. Throughout the centuries Christians have used Old Testament texts like Isaiah 1:3 in order to explain their presence and significance. Isaiah mentions the beasts in the context of Israel’s ignorance. The implication is the ox and ass would be symbols of judgment against the Jews who do not perceive Jesus as God’s messiah: i.e. the animals get it but some of God’s chosen people don’t. This explanation makes sense, but neither Matthew nor Luke allude to the Isaiah passage. And although the author of Pseudo-Matthew uses the ox and ass as a fulfillment of Isaiah 1:3 (and the Septuagint’s translation of Habakkuk 3:2), the beasts certainly do not serve to highlight lack of perception in the apocryphal story. They’re just there – like a vital feature of the landscape.

And they’re still there – carved out of wood, fashioned out of a plastic mold, and sung in our carols. This is ironic to me – especially as it appears among Scripture-alone Protestant types (like myself). I wonder how they deal with that tension (assuming an awareness of it)? All those extras are reasonable deductions from the story, they might argue. Maybe. But why didn’t Matthew or Luke include those details? I would argue that they did not include the details, whatever they really are, on purpose. We often forget that authors say a lot in what they choose not to say. And we short circuit what can emerge from that silent space when we rush to fill in the gaps. We miss the significance of what is already there.

I encourage you this advent and Christmastide to dwell in the mystery of the nativity by taking a look at what’s there. Look at the art (animals and all) – read the Text(s) – and take it in. Don’t fill in either space too quickly and wait to see what emerges. Be drawn in by real-ness of Incarnation and be shaped by it. Listen. Emmanuel.

As a result of this process I walked away with the impression that any self-respecting scholar in biblical studies was Arminian. My arrogance was palpable as I rode high on the wave of intellectual assurance. The main danger was that this assurance was a key piece of my identity: I was the guy who could confidently articulate what I thought about the intersection God’s sovereignty and humanity’s freedom. I drew meaning for myself from that function, and comfort from rallying others to my side.

Less than two weeks after pulling into Deerfield, IL with Caralisa, well before classes had even begun, my theologically-familiar rug was yanked out from underneath me. I don’t remember what the first clue was. I don’t know why I was so ignorant. It was a slow, and then very quick, realization. Like when Indiana Jones is finally able to light his torch to discover that he fell into a pit of snakes. When the light finally came on for me, and I was able to survey the extent of the mess I was in, I saw that I was an Arminian stranger in a mostly Calvinist land. Even my advisor, the man who was supposed to be integral to my academic growth and success, was not just one of them, but was the one to whom they looked for inspiration [During one of our first meetings, he looked me square in the eye and asked, “So…how Reformed are you?” It was a trick question, I think].

But this story is not so much about my theological journey as it is about my spiritual formation. This was just one of many events to come. It is a symbol of the slow-but-steady deconstruction of the identity I built for myself – the first rupture in the walls of my tightly packaged scheming. This story is one that I will try to recount for you in its different shapes and colors in the installments to come. It is about how the familiar became strange for me, how the strangeness opened up places of deep confusion and disappointment, how I learned to listen to God in the midst of deconstruction, how that strangeness became familiar and good, and finally how what was once quite familiar is now very strange (sort of).

The first year of grad school was nothing short of a crisis for me. [I’m sure things weren’t objectively as bad as they seemed to be.] But I found a small group of Arminian dissenters, I read and read and read, I took a course called “Calvinism/Arminianism,” I discussed, and I listened – a lot. I settled down and, eventually, stopped freaking out. I learned that I was misinformed, careless, and just plain wrong in so many ways. I also found new clarity and confirmation in many ways, all while learning to respect and love them, my brothers and sisters.

Most importantly, the church came around me and encouraged me to see this crisis as God’s gift – an opportunity to get a good look myself and see what was really there – a magnifying glass on the content of my heart. In the midst of rubble was the place where renovation could really begin. This renovation, however, took root in my mind long before it was played out in my body. I understood the kind of work that needed to be done in my life before I actually stepped into it – stubborn and scared as I am. The prospect of forfeiting control over idolatrous scripts that direct our lives is frightening. In fact, where I am now, emotionally and geographically, is one of the material ways of doing my best to live into this work in my life, which is certainly ongoing.

This autobiographical-ness is not normal for me. I hope that you can tolerate it for the time being as I work on vocalizing my introspection. Others have pointed out that I am far more emotionally guarded than I realize, so this series partly functions to create a venue for vulnerability. I also hope this series is less the result of narcissism and more the result of a desire to communicate from the space I actually inhabit rather than those places I wish I existed. Or better, I’m not sure how else to use my true voice, devoid of the crap it’s usually wrapped in, without first narrating my failure.

So I invite you to come and listen with me. God is near. Repent. Believe.

Reading Peterson’s journey as a pastor, the features that formed him and his vocation, is helping me navigate my own vocational confusion – words that I can use in the meantime while I search for my own. I need these words because daily I struggle through the failure to make a name for myself here in Little Rock – to find my pastoral (or other) vocation so I can begin living out of my newfound purpose and significance. The truth is that this desire is really just a mirror image, a new instantiation, of the three-year struggle that eventually led Caralisa and me to this place: the frantic attempt to find my niche in the academic world so I could start living out of the significance of my degrees and intellect.

But Peterson’s witness to the nature of his vocational formation subverts my attempt to grasp my identity in the midst of the ecclesial mob. It reminds me how my desire for significance and purpose emerges from a broken imagination – one that, although fueled by images I’ve absorbed from the church, is not truly funded by the shape of God’s kingdom. Peterson’s story reminds me that I cannot manufacture the identity I desire. What I want cannot be delivered through the resources I seek. My identity (my vocation), rather, emerges from the margins, from a minority community with an alternate social cadence.

Right now this looks like seeking to be present in the seemingly mundane particulars of my day – seeking to understand how God is at work in my apartment, with my brother, and while substituting 6^th grade PE (for instance). Yesterday I told Caralisa that as I’ve observed God’s work in the lives of others, as I think about the times when it is really evident that someone’s decisions flow out of submission to Jesus, it seems to me that work in the Kingdom is something that we back in to, or wake-up to, rather than accomplish through strategy and good planning. The problem is that somewhere in my body, beneath my cognition, is the desire for the safety of knowing that I am in control of determining my vocation – the satisfaction of knowing that what I’m doing is significant in tangible ways that others can notice and find impressive. I want plow my way forward into the life I’ve idolized (even if it is the church-y kind) instead of patiently waiting to receive it. I need to be reminded that the kingdom, especially as it is manifested in my day-to-day, does not come by force.

As Peterson says, this is the process of living into my emerging identity – the slow waking-up-to how God is at work in my life and the world around me. The renewal of this blog is part of that process. This is meant to be a space where I can get words on “paper” and you can think through them with me.

What do you think of a vocational identity that is necessarily a minority working from the margins – in ways that resist the prevailing images of significance and purpose? How have you backed into God’s work in your life?

In New Testament and the People of God, Wright suggests “ it is the odd nemesis of the Protestant principle of sola scriptura that one of the basic models to which it has given rise has little place within its hermeneutical structure or authority system for Jesus himself, since he was the author of no New Testament book” (22). What Wright is getting at is the axiomatic principle among scholars over the past several hundred years that when we read the New Testament (particularly the Gospels), we are not getting direct access to Jesus himself, but only to what the evangelists think about what Jesus said and did. In this way, the idea that sole authority rests in the written Word actually privileges the authority of the text over against the authority of the Son because Jesus did not author a text.

For the time being, let’s ignore the issue of the value and meaning of sola scriptura and the issue of whether or not the evangelists faithfully recorded the actually words and deeds of Jesus and move on to what really happened in the wake of the Jesus conundrum: some scholars decided that they didn’t need Jesus in flesh and blood. The first move in this direction was the rejection (by Reimarus) of the idea that the Gospels actually reflect any resemblance of the historical Jesus. After this notion had been chewed and digested (and assumed), the idea that a historical Jesus was not necessary for the theology and preaching of the New Testament was birthed. In other words, the “real” Jesus was displaced for the pursuit of timeless theological truths which transcend what took place in space-time history. The point, for these scholars, is not Jesus himself, but the truths gleaned from the analysis of the text. This is liberal scholarship at its best. (Note Rudolf Bultmann – pictured above)

First, I want to suggest that many popular, conservative, evangelical voices sound a lot like mid-20^th century liberal scholars when it comes to theology and interpretation of the New Testament. If some conservative evangelicals, especially laity, knew just how liberal they are theologically, I think they might implode. For far too many conservative, evangelical Christians, the point is not Jesus himself – the point is the truth or application that can be gleaned from reading the New Testament. The most important thing is what the New Testament says about me. In this way, we are ignoring the real Jesus – jumping right over him to get to the real thing: that which applies to me and my life. This is not a question of the relevance of the text to our lives, this is a question of missing what the New Testament is about because our theology and interpretation is very poor. Like mainline liberal theologians of old, many conservative Christians do not need a historical Jesus. I realize that my evidence (in this short space) is only anecdotal. But I think its a fair indictment. I could point to a plethora of pop Christian literature regularly consumed by the evangelical masses, but my guess is that many of you can testify to the same reality – experienced in Sunday school, small groups, and from the pulpit. What can we do to encourage the practice of reading the New Testament and talking about it in a way that recognizes that the historical Jesus really matters?

[Parenthetically (I’m about to take the gloves off for the first time), I would also suggest that the most pressing issue in evangelical churches today is the deteriorating theology implicitly affirmed in the way the Bible is read, not politics and not the economy. Conservative evangelical churches most certainly should be concerned about liberalism, but most immediately the theological liberalism systemically affirmed in some of the literature they read and ways they interpret the Bible.]

Second, I want to suggest that I am still unsatisfied with the false antithesis described above: either authority rests in the text or it rests in the person/work of Jesus. I do want to affirm that all authority belongs to God, and God is made known supremely in Jesus and all authority has been given to Jesus, and I also want affirm that it is the same God who chose to make himself known, by the Holy Spirit, through the text (in which case I suppose we could say that we have direct access to Jesus because God is ultimate author) This issue has been worked over many times by others much more qualified than I am, so I’ll only take this space to ask why this is a problem in the first place. What is it that caused us to differentiate between the authority of Jesus and the authority of the text?

Any ideas?

grace and peace,

seth

Seeing the Word

The image of Jesus to the left is the first I remember seeing as a child. His soft features and wavy locks graced the wall of our Sunday school room. I stared at him – he stared off into the great unknown…probably a flock of white, fluffy sheep.

How should we see Jesus? How is Jesus portrayed in the New Testament, really?

In the final chapter, “Seeing the Son of David,” Bockmuehl explores the historical and theological implications of Jesus’ Jewishness. For many, it is nothing new to emphasize the Jewish character of the New Testament – exploring the background of the New Testament in the context of Second Temple Judaism, Qumran, Jewish apocalyptic literature, and later Rabbinic writings. Publications in this vein have grown exponentially since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 20th century, and good work has been done especially over the last several decades under the banner of the “Third Quest” for the historical Jesus.

Although “Jesus the Jew” is something of a platitude these days, positive identifications of Jesus’ Jewishness are fairly rare and recent in the history of interpretation. Within a generation after Jesus’ death Ignatius (the first Gentile bishop of Antioch) declares “it is monstrous to talk of Jesus Christ and to practice Judaism” (To the Magnesians 10.3). Indeed, it was a common assertion among the ancient that though Jesus may have appeared Jewish, he definitively put an end to Jewish ways of living based on the Torah. The tendency since that time (until recently) has been to emphasize the universalizing aspects of Jesus’ person and teaching over the Jewish particularities. Thus the wedge was driven by both Jews and Christians alike. Not only have such affirmations been unfortunate for New Testament interpretation, the denial of Jesus’ Jewishness gave birth to anti-Semitic interpretations which produced unfathomable atrocities.

Interestingly, some recent and popular portraits of Jesus are uncircumcised – if you will – despite the wealth of scholarship on 2nd Temple Judaism, etc. Jesus is painted more as a “liberal-minded, egalitarian social reformer conversant with populist philosophical aphorisms rather than religious dogma or observance” (195). Most of us have seen, by this point, a TV special around Easter, an article in TIME, or a new book displayed front-and-center at the local BooksaNoble in the spirituality section which essentially gives a more “digestible” Jesus: “a less judgmental, more inclusive peasant philosopher of timeless universal wisdom and countercultural charisma”. This is a “Jesus largely neutered and declawed as to Jewish religious specifics” (196).

As Bockmuehl points out, what is surprising when we read the Gospels is the remarkable lack of Gentile glossing. The Gospels do not adapt to meet the needs of a post 70AD Gentile community in theological or descriptive details. Bockmuehl writes that the Gospels present a “Jesus who manifests a great deal more Jewish particularity than was often found congenial by Gentile Christians” (211).

I would encourage further reflection not only on the assertions of the previous paragraph, but also on the extent to which, in our own ways, we make Jesus something other than who is affirmed to be in his resurrection – “both Lord and Messiah.” I would suggest this is not just a doctrinal issue – a matter of right belief, but also a volitional one – a matter of right practice. In all the ways we fail to submit our desires, in all the ways we privilege our own aspirations, and in all the ways we attempt to manage brokenness and sin ourselves, we fail to recognize Jesus as Lord and Messiah.In other words, properly “seeing the Word” implies proper practice of the Word. True recognition of Jesus identity implies obedience and trust.

In our recognition that others have mishandled the text, may we not paint Jesus in our own image but instead, in our recognition of him as both Lord and Messiah, faithfully participate in the Kingdom of God through love and obedience by the power the Holy Spirit. Amen.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with international soccer, FIFA has classically resisted the use of technology as an aid for regulating the game – i.e. unlike other professional sports, FIFA refs cannot use instant replay to review a call. This fact has resulted in a good deal of anguish for soccer players and fans in the 2010 World Cup. Most recently, English striker Frank Lampard’s goal against Germany was disregarded even though the cameras showed it was clearly a legitimate goal, and the header from Argentina’s Carlos Tevez was counted even though the cameras showed he was clearly offside. The refrain resulting from these two bad calls has sounded something to the tune of this: “The only people who missed those calls in the entire world were the referees.” In other words, those refs could not see from the subjective position in the game what everyone else could clearly see from the objective view of instant replay. Basically, fans and players are upset because they feel that FIFA has written their own version of “soccer history” which is based on the poor (perhaps biased) memory of those referees.

What I find striking (pun intended) in this story is that many people (scholars and laity alike) have the same sorts of feelings about the first few centuries of Christian history. The refrain goes something like this: “The orthodox Christianity we know today from the New Testament is really a product of the biased memories – history subjectively written by the winners. But through the objective work of historical-critical scrutiny, we can see what they couldn’t see – they were wrong.”

The point is not that those FIFA refs should be given more credit and are probably correct in their decision (although we could be more graceful in our critique – unless there is a conspiracy of course). Those were definitely bad calls. The instant replay makes this clear. The point is that some are looking at the reception history of the New Testament like they are looking at FIFA. Some scholars give the impression that the subjective bias of the early “orthodox” community is obvious – those early Christians had bad memories – while the objectivity and accuracy of historical deconstruction is also obvious – from our vantage point we can clearly see the facts. However, the story of some critics is not so obvious.

In the chapter “Living Memory and Apostolic History” Bockmuehl addresses the issue of the “reception history” or “effect history” of the New Testament. He writes, “When everything is said and done, can history generated by the text shed any light whatsoever on the history and world of meaning represented by the text itself?” (166) In short, the story that some scholars tell is what early Christians said about the text, or what the first believers wrote about Jesus cannot reflect the actual historical intention and reality. Both the effect of the text and the memory of its authors is the product of an optical illusion which takes place as time passes. In other words, as time passes memories of events tend change or grow to fit the ideological interests of the group (i.e. the fish gets bigger).

In contrast to this “evolutionary” reading of history Bockmuehl follows recent scholars (like Samuel Byrskog, Richard Bauckham, and Martin Hengel) in emphasizing the role that living memory plays in the evaluation of the first several centuries of Christian history. Bockmuehl argues for a 150-year window of living memory: the apostles of Jesus (e.g. John) – those who were taught by the apostles personally (e.g. Polycarp) – those who were in turn taught by these students (i.e. Irenaeus). This means that by around AD 130, the last eyewitnesses of apostles was very old or had recently died, and the “grandchildren” of these eyewitnesses were probably around until 200. That is, essentially, 150 years of eyewitnesses testifying to what was guarded as truth. The role of eyewitness testimony and of memory in ancient Jewish communities cannot be elaborated here but must be stressed as vitally important.

In an age when memory is both Freudinized and not widely practiced it is easy to miss and undervalue the significant role it played in the first few generations of Christian history. Early Christian history did not operate like the telephone game, and there is no instant replay that we can watch but the apostles cannot watch. Bockmuehl summarizes this chapter well,

Jean-Paul Sartre once said that whether the past lives or dies depends on the here and now…however, [we] have affirmed exactly the opposite: whether there is life in the present depends wholly on the remembrance of God’s saving acts – and hope in his promises. Until the end of the second century, that Christian point of view was rooted in part in a living memory of the original actors in the saving story of Jesus of Nazareth – those whom Irenaeus called the eyewitnesses of the Word of Life. (188)

peace,

Seth

In Chapter 4, Bockmuehl explores the assumption in much of New Testament scholarship (since F. C. Baur) that there existed in the first century a deep rift between the law-free mission of Paul — “justification by faith alone” — and the Judaizing mission led by Peter, James and others in the Jerusalem church. In Galatians 2, some scholars argue, this theological disagreement is clearly demonstrated with Paul’s retelling of his feud with Peter at Antioch over the nature of Christian faith and the Gentile mission.

F.C. Baur (and his students) argued that Jesus preached/lived two contradictory conceptual worlds: universal morality and Jewish-messianic nationalism. Jesus’ followers then attached themselves to one of these two worlds. This factionalism, for Baur, is seen at Antioch and at Corinth – i.e. the Cephas party and the Paul party. It is a common refrain, but one worth repeating, that Baur’s view of early Christian history was deeply influenced by the Hegelian dialectic: thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. In this vein, Baur saw early Christian history as a struggle between the poles of the Gentile mission and the Judaizing mission. This struggle (thesis – antithesis) eventually gave birth to early catholicism: the inevitable synthesis of the tensions in the earliest Christian communities. This synthesis is represented in the book of Acts, which Baur dates conveniently to the mid 2nd century. In Acts, the tension between the two poles are watered down — Paul is made to look like Peter and Peter like Paul, the situation at Antioch is glossed over, and the church is unified in its mission. For Baur and some contemporary scholars, Acts does not represent history as much as it is just wishful thinking.

And so we come to our icon above. For the historical-critical school, which Baur represents, this icon of Peter and Paul would have no basis in reality. Are they correct? Criticisms of Baur’s reconstruction of early Christian history have been leveled frequently and (many would say) accurately over the past 100 years, and yet his influence still lingers. Do Baur and his sympathizers have insight into the first 50-100 years of the church that everyone before them missed? In the early church, it was only the Marcionites and the Ebionites who stressed the conflict between Paul and Peter. The early church actually took for granted that Peter and Paul were apostles of the same Christ to different people. It is this assumption which produced images like the icon above.

Although some scholars today stress this apparent gap between history and theology, careful reading of the New Testament and analysis of early Christian history effectively demonstrate the fact that the historical situation and the theological articulation of first several centuries is basically one and the same. The point of this piece is not to rehearse the details of that analysis (as important as it is) but to look at the conclusion that some scholars like Bockmuehl reach in this matter. In distinction from Baur and his constituents, Bockmuehl rejects the idea that the disagreement between Paul and Peter represented an irreconcilable disunity in the early church. He writes,

Against the inherent volatility of this construal of their relationship, it may be that the uneasy unity of Peter and Paul simply reveals the extent to which the life and health of the church has always, at its worst no less than at its best, depended on the creative negotiation of precisely that same tension between charismatic and episcopal polity. To dismiss one in favor of the other is always to court either the tyranny of convention or the tyranny of revolution. (133)

Bockmuehl writes about the tension between Peter and Paul at Antioch as if their argument resulted in a sort of negotiation – agree to disagree. The picture he paints is that although Peter and Paul are fundamentally in agreement regarding their belief in the gospel of Jesus, they are, nonetheless, in fundamental disagreement with regard to their understanding of the ecclesial outworking of that belief. Is the situation at Antioch an example of “unity in diversity” or of an apostle in sin? In Galatians it seems that the thrust of the story is not just that Paul disagrees with Peter, but that he thinks Peter is wrong: “I opposed [Peter] to his face, because he stood condemned.” Did Peter go away from the event perturbed because of minor points of disagreement, or did he go away in repentance?

If I understand Bockmuehl correctly, it seems that his reading of the relationship of Peter and Paul in the New Testament still goes against the grain of the text and the early church fathers. I do not think that we have to be so naive as to think that Peter and Paul were unified in every detail or even that Paul articulated every detail of the gospel precisely in the same manner as the Jerusalem church (although I would insist that the content of the gospel was the same). But can we conclude that the disagreement at Antioch was just that, a disagreement? Or was Peter fundamentally mistaken in the way lived out the implications of the gospel in that particular instance?

We really have two questions here. The first (micro question) is about Peter and Paul in Galatians 2. As I (and others) read the text, it seems that Peter was wrong. The second (macro question) is this: just how much disagreement existed in the first 50 years of the church? Even if we can conclude that the Gentile church and the Jewish church were basically in agreement on the most important issues of “the faith,” we still need to ask what (if any) areas of disagreement existed beyond this. And what difference would it make? This is a difficult and complex issue, and I don’t have the space to attempt an answer here (and I’m sure others can answer it better than I). My hope is that this will leave you asking questions like what does the New Testament actually say? what do the early church fathers say? and on what basis can we claim that there was disagreement?

peace,

seth

*Before I begin, I want to acknowledge the fact that after reading this post, some might say, “I didn’t know there was problem.” One of the unfortunate consequences of the gap between the academy and the church is the fact that each camp is often unaware of the other camp’s “big issues.” The major discussions or points contention in the ecclesial world often aren’t even on the radar of the academic world – and vice versa. This is a problem for a number of reasons, but for the following discussion I think it is best to point out that often the church should be aware of discussions taking place in the academic world even though those discussion might not have sprung from the immediate needs of the church. In other words, it is a healthy exercise to be pointed toward the things which we don’t know that we don’t know. I have a feeling that this is one of those issues.

In the chapter entitled “The Wisdom of the Implied Exegete” Bockmuehl writes,

At a time when even to sympathetic outside observers it often seems that modern theology is primarily the study of modern theologians and New Testament studies is primarily preoccupied with rearranging the deck chairs of New Testament scholars, it could be a fruitful exercise to take time out and ponder what has gone amiss. We have lost sight of the real thing. We are accustomed and indeed trained to confuse text and commentary, the Word and the words, contentedly submerging the former under the deluge of the latter.(89)

Bockmuehl is exploring how we should read the text of the New Testament (and really, all of Scripture). The history of New Testament interpretation over the past 200 years has seen a wide divergence in interpretive methodology (hermeneutics) – a polyvalence of “ways of reading” – which greatly contrasts the methods in the 1800-ish years preceding. Much can be said in this regard, but suffice to say that the past 200 years of reading have been characterized a hermeneutic that privileges the autonomous rational subject. In other words, the individual seeks to understand the text basically through the power of rational/intellectual faculties. More recently, these readings have given way to a “deconstruction” of the text which has led to interpretive pluralism: “the text demands nothing but can yield anything under the proper caress.”

Bockmuehl suggests that what the academy has (sometimes intentionally) ignored is that the implied interpreter of Christian Scripture is a disciple. The text is best approach not with reason, but with wisdom. Scripture itself offers little in the direction of critical reason and inquiry. In fact, both the New and Old Testaments are quite skeptical about autonomous reason (See Ecclesiastes and Romans 1). That is not to say that interpreters are to be un-reasonable, but that our reason needs transformation (Romans 12), and it is only the transformed mind that can discern and embrace the text. In other words, it is wisdom of God (Christ-centered and Spirit-driven) that the interpreter needs. “Only reason thus renewed by the Spirit can behold the beauty of God.” And, importantly, interpretation should be a communal and ecclesial task.  Why do even Christian scholars refuse to exegete this way?

Maybe this all seems rather obvious. The discussion is trickier and more complicated than I make it sound in 500 words, but perhaps all the complicated details shroud the fact that, to Christians at least, this task should be far more simple than the academy has made it. The academy wasn’t always to blame – for 1800-ish years the greatest Christian minds bathed themselves in Scripture and depended on the Spirit for guidance. It is actually the testimony of those saints that has recently prompted scholars to reevaluate what biblical interpretation is all about – to move aside all the debris of the Enlightenment and get back to reading what is there and listening to what the Spirit says.

Where do you fall in the midst of all of this? Do you see a problem with the way that we read Scripture?

grace and peace,

Seth