Honzo April 9th, 2008
Given the content of some of our posts here, I was wondering what the perception of people is concerning the role of women in the early church.
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Honzo April 6th, 2008
As I am sure some of you know, there is a nice little conference going on at Lincoln College in Oxford on the Synoptic Problem starting Monday. There are quite a high number of high-quality papers being presented. Here are some that caught my eye.
April DeConnick has some harsh, but true words about the fundamental problem with synoptic problem scholarship.
To put it plainly, we have no idea what the Gospel of Mark actually said in the first century, or the Gospels of Luke or Matthew. We might act like we do. But the truth is we don’t. Our manuscript tradition is at best 3rd century, and variable particularly by geographic locations. To be honest, I don’t even know where Mark was written, although I can make a fairly educated guess. Textual criticism has created a wonderful eclectic Greek text for all of us to use. But it isn’t what Mark wrote. It isn’t what Matthew wrote. And it isn’t what Luke wrote. How we should handle this fact as a guild has yet to be worked out with any satisfaction. I think we mostly ignore it because dealing with the manuscript tradition is, well, just too complicated.
A part of me acknowledges this, but I think that as long as we recognize the nature of our physical sources and not become too dogmatic in our view of the manuscripts, then we can sucessfully work around this problem. We can only work with what we are given.
What are your thoughts on the synoptic problem? Do you buy it? Like/hate Q? Don’t think it is a worthwhile problem?
Honzo April 2nd, 2008
As I am reading chapter 6 of In Memory of Her, Fiorenza is examining the titles and positions of women in the ministry of Paul. I am double checking her claims and translations via BibleWorks in the ESV, NLT, NRSV, Young’s Literal, and both the BGT and BYZ Greek texts. While I don’t have time to get into specifics1 , the case is getting thiner and thiner for a lack of women in positions of power and leadership in the early Church that were endorsed by Paul.
As a side note, there is an inverse relationship between my hatred for Wisdom Ways and my love for In Memory of Her, both by Fiorenza.
Honzo April 2nd, 2008
In the Roman world, within the household, the position of child is the lowest in terms of power and hierarchy. Taking this into account, consider Mark 10:15:
I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.
Rather than assuming our standard in pouring of innocence and naiveté into the phrase “like a child,” perhaps we are better served with assuming a Roman view of children, of powerlessness over others into this phrase.
Also consider Luke 22:25-27
Jesus told them, “In this world the kings and great men lord it over their people, yet they are called ‘friends of the people.’ But among you it will be different. Those who are the greatest among you should take the lowest rank, and the leader should be like a servant. Who is more important, the one who sits at the table or the one who serves? The one who sits at the table, of course. But not here! For I am among you as one who serves.
Here again we see the same theme - the relinquishment of dominance as a command of Jesus to his followers, to the members of the Kingdom of God.
If we do not relinquish culturally inherited claims of dominance over others and see them as true equals then ours is not the Kingdom of God.
Seeing people as the imago deis involves the complete removal of claims of dominance and superiority. This must be applied in terms of race and gender. It is a command to give up our claims of dominance over others.
Honzo April 2nd, 2008
The 218th Christian Carnival is up over at Kiwi and an Emu.
Some highlights:
The Melchizedek Tradition from the Bible Archive
Cherishing Fidelity is an examination of Proverbs 3:3 over at Light Along the Journey
Why are people so anti-1 Corinthians 14:26-33? looks at why we can’t seem to apply what Paul writes here to the church today from carnival hostee Kiwi and an Emu.
Honzo April 1st, 2008
As I am going through part of of Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza’s book In Memory of Her I came across this nice, compact orienting passage of the various Jewish movements in Israel before 70CE and how the Jesus movement fit in with these other movements.
All these diverse Jewish renewal movements of the time were strongly concerned with how to realize in every aspect of life the obligations and hopes of Israel as the kingly and priestly people of God. … Some stressed and strongly utilized the cultic priestly traditions, some claimed prophetic authority, some reenacted the Exodus, and still others integrated wisdom teachings with an apocalyptic perspective. Regardless of differences in lifestyle and theological outlook, however, all these groups were united in their concern for the political existence and holiness of the elected people of Israel. the proclamation of the [kingdom] of God by Jesus and his movement shared this… However, the Jesus movement refused to define the holiness of God’s elected people in cultic terms, redefining it instead as the wholeness intended in creation. (Page 113)
Honzo April 1st, 2008
Honzo March 31st, 2008
This is an open call for links to add to the blogroll. What Christian-related links would you include and why?
Honzo March 31st, 2008
I, like a lot of the Christian side of the blogosphere, have taken more than a fleeting interest in the Enns/Westminster controversy.
For a run down of what the hub-ub is all about, check out Kingdom People :: The Peter Enns Controversy:
- Enns has been criticized for emphasizing the human nature of Scripture over against the divine.
- Enns has written that the first chapters of Genesis are firmly grounded in ancient myth, which he defines as “an ancient, premodern, prescientific way of addressing questions of ultimate origins in the form of stories.”
- Enns claims that Scripture is inspired and inerrant, however the way he describes Scripture seems to counter that belief.
- Enns does not seek to harmonize seemingly-contradictory parts of Scripture because he believes the diversity of Scripture is complementary.
- Enns rejects the idea of objective unbiased historiography.
Here is an exchange between Paul Helm and Enns about Helm’s review of Enns’ book.
Here is an interesting (and instructive) review of Helm’s review by Cdero’s Weblog entitled Bible Monopoly. Here are the central tenets of Bible Monopoly:
* An unwillingness to deal with the plural complexity of interpretation
* A failure to wrestle with the difficult matters of Biblical scholarship
* A failure to see the provisional nature of scripture
* An obsession with turning honest interaction with extra Biblical data into an evil foe of orthodoxy
* A tendency to use past theologians (the one’s they agree with) as the standard of Biblical interpretation
To say on top of what people are saying about this situation, check out Google’s Blogsearch and Technorati’s watchlist.
Honzo March 30th, 2008
Westminster Theological Seminary Suspended Professor Peter Enns effective at the end of this school year and will take steps to terminate his employment because of a book he wrote back in 2005 entitled Inspiration and Incarnation (review), which calls into question more conservative models of scripture while remaining wholly “[apologetic] and assum[ing] an evangelical faith in scripture from the outset.”1
Christianity Today has a write up on the suspension :Westminster Theological Seminary Suspends Peter Enns.
What do you think about the suspension? I know we have bloggers and readers that range from each end of the conservative to liberal spectrum when it comes to the verbal inspiration of scripture.
IMHO I don’t think that he should have been suspended at all, but then again, I tend to lean towards academic freedom and exploratory hypothetical theology which is left up to the students and readers to discern. I have not been in a position of power where Jesus’ words about causing one of these to stumble really apply as it would as being dean of a seminary. However, our view of scripture is not without its problems and it sounds like Enns has taken an honest and subtle look at the problem… and he is punished for it. Now, it is highly likely that this controversy will only boost his employability and sales of his book (my copy is on its way right now), but he now has to move his family, tear up his roots in a community, and evangelicals get a black eye from our own hand.
All of this reminds me about the unnecessary perils of venturing into the academic realm of evangelicalism. I want to be an evangelical scholar. We, as a community, are in desperate need of good scholarship if we are to both remain relevant and respected (listened to). But, if I teach or even consider that which is out of line, I am out of a job and perhaps blacklisted amongst the communities I wish/am called to serve. All of a sudden teaching at a small liberal arts college does not seem all that bad.
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