I finished Jesus, Mary, and Joseph: Family Trouble in the Infancy Gospels by Christopher A. Frilingos a few days ago. I wrote a short “review” over on Goodreads. Preview: I think I prefer “Family Gospels” to “Infancy Gospels” as a way of describing the Proto-gospel of James and the Infancy Gospel of Thomas.
Recently read: Dochuk’s “Anointed with Oil”
Darren Dochuk, Anointed with Oil: How Christianity and Crude Made Modern America (Basic Books, 2019). (Amazon; Bookshop)
Darren Dochuk‘s Anointed with Oil mixes together numerous strands of American history: the separation of “liberal” and “conservative” Christians; the rise of the gas and oil industry; the emergence of powerful, capitalism-advocating families like the Rockefellers; the motivation for American foreign interests, especially in the Middle East; and much more. If you are interested in American history broadly and/or American religious history, specifically, you’ll want to read this book. It’s so extensive, that it’s difficult to review in a succinct blog. What I’ll say is this: the oil industry has had more to do with the modern shape of the United States, and the United States’ within world affairs, than you could’ve imagined, and American Christians—liberal and conservative—were highly influential.
Dochuk’s work intersects everything from the origins of many of the energy giants you know—BP, Chevron, Exxon, Texaco, Shell—to how the pursuit of “black gold” was shaped by “wildcat” theology, premillennial dispensationalism, modern ecumenism and interfaith efforts, and more. In fact, one thing many American Christians shared for a few generations was the belief that oil was a gift of God, though there were detractors who observed of and warned of environmental devastation from the beginning.
Rather than write more about the book, let me recommend episode 56 of The Way of Improvement Leads Home podcast where Dochuk was interviewed John Fea. This was the interview that inspired me to buy and read the book. It’s one I highly recommend.
Recently read: Steinberg’s “Age of Opportunity”
Laurence Steinberg, Age of Opportunity: Lessons from the New Science of Adolescence (First Mariner Books, 2015). (Amazon; Bookshop)
Laurence Steinberg is a psychologist who happens to be one of the foremost experts on adolescence (see his fuller credentials here). His book, Age of Opportunity, applies the insights gathered by psychologists into what is going on in the minds and bodies of emerging adults.
The first few chapters are an informative look at why adolescence is so important for the development of humans (probably the second most important developmental stage) and what’s happening in the human brain at this time. If you’re a parent or an educator, I guarantee these insights will help you become more patient with your evolving children/students.
Chapter 3, “The Longest Decade,” is important because it explains why “adolescence” can actually last about two decades. In other words, this stage of brain and body development isn’t over at 18 or 21…not even close. Think late 20s!
Chapter 4, “Protecting Adolescents from Themselves,” drives home the point that adolescents are “risk-takers,” far more than those of us who are post-adolescence. This comes with many risks and possibilities that parents/educators need to consider.
Maybe the most unique argument offered by Steinberg is that one of the most important things that must be developed in adolescences in “self-regulation”. This is the central thesis of chapter 6 but remains key to the rest of the book’s argument with gives advice to parents in chapter 7 and educators in chapter 8.
If you’re wondering what’s going on in the brain of teens and most twenty-somethings, this book is worth your time. As I’ve mentioned, it’s beneficial to parents and educators. And I think it’ll make you a more patient person!
Recently read: Bond’s “The First Biography of Jesus”
Helen Bond, The First Biography of Jesus: Genre and Meaning in Mark’s Gospel (Eerdmans, 2020). (Amazon; Bookshop)
I received my copy of this book from the journal Review and Expositor, so I’m saving my full review for them, but I’ll say here what I said on the website “Goodreads”:
This is about as good a case as I’ve read for reading Mark as a form of the ancient Greco-Roman genre of bioi. But it’s more than that, as Bond shows the practical implications of reading Mark this way. For example, one big takeaway would be the centrality of the main character in a biography and how secondary characters exist only to reflect upon the primary one. In other words, the reader should not see themselves in Peter or Judas or Pilate…but instead, compare themselves only to the moral/ethical example of Jesus. This approach could alter everything from scholarly to liturgical to devotional readings of Mark.
Recently read: Brown Taylor’s “Holy Envy”
Barbara Brown Taylor, Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others, (Harper One, 2019). (Amazon; Bookshop)
Barbara Brown Taylor’s Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others is a beautiful reflection from someone who has spent many years educating students in comparative religion while wrestling with implications of what she has learned from the process. As a Christian, Taylor admits that studying and teaching other religions can become a challenge to your confidence in your own tradition. She writes about how teaching a course on comparative religion has been enriching but also:
It has also shaken many of my foundations. Now when I explain to students why Jews do not believe Jesus is the messiah, the reasons make sense to me. When I tell the story of the night Muhammad received the first verses of the Qur’an in a cave outside of Mecca, I believe that the angel Gabriel stood in attendance. When I spell out the ways in which the Hindu concept of Brahman differs from the Christian concept of God, the Hindu concept strikes me as far more advanced. When I teach Buddha’s Four Noble Truths, they sound perfectly true.
Holy Envy, p. 208
Yet Brown Taylor has decided that the answer is not to abandon her own tradition of Christianity. She comments:
In the first place, no one can speak all the religious languages in the world, and there is no spiritual Esperanto. None of us can speak “language.” We have to speak a language before we can learn anyone else’s, and the carefulness with which we speak our own can make us better listeners to others. In the second place, my religious language is quite excellent at speaking of what it means to be authentically human.
It has also shaken many of my foundations. Now when I explain to students why Jews do not believe Jesus is the messiah, the reasons make sense to me. When I tell the story of the night Muhammad received the first verses of the Qur’an in a cave outside of Mecca, I believe that the angel Gabriel stood in attendance. When I spell out the ways in which the Hindu concept of Brahman differs from the Christian concept of God, the Hindu concept strikes me as far more advanced. When I teach Buddha’s Four Noble Truths, they sound perfectly true.
Holy Envy, p. 193.
Brown Taylor balances honest epistemology with authentic belief. On the one hand, there’s no need to try to create a brand new blend of religions. The blend creates something new—it doesn’t necessarily honor other religions. On the other hand, it’s perfectly normal to admit doubt about your own tradition. Christianity often has been a religion that demands triumphalism. Brown Taylor provides a path that allows the Christian to be Christian without posturing triumphalistically against other religions.
This is where the main theme of her book should be highlighted. Holy envy is a concept Brown Taylor derived from the great scholar of religion, Krister Stendahl, who had three rules for religious understanding (quoted here from p. 65):
- When trying to understand another religion, you should ask the adherents of that religion not its enemies.
- Don’t compare your best to their worst.
- Leave room for holy envy.
Holy envy is when you learn to love and respect the traditions of other religions but in a way that doesn’t try to create a colonialist museum out of them (an analogy she uses on p. 70). You may go to another well when the well of your tradition seems dry (p. 5) but that’s not the same as collecting and objectifying the religious beliefs and practices of others.
Brown Taylor sees her role as a Christian educating others about the world’s various religions as her “Christian duty”. She says (p. 25), “I believe it is the neighborly thing to do, the Christlike thing to do.” But it’s also nourishing for the self. It’s a way to see things from a new perspective and learn new ways of speaking about the world and our humanity in it.
As an educator who teaches students comparative religion from as objective and fair a place as possible, but for someone who also identifies as Christian, I found great joy in reading this book. It’s worth your time if you’ve ever wondered how being a Christian should shape your approach to/posture toward religious others. It’s a book of wisdom written in humility that’s worth your time.
Recently read: Junior and Schipper’s “Black Samson”
Nyasha Junior and Jeremy Schipper, Black Samson: The Untold Story of an American Icon (Oxford: OUP, 2020). (Amazon; Bookshop)
As I’ve aged, reception history/reception studies of the Bible have become more and more interesting to me. As much as I can enjoy a good socio-historical study of the Apostle Paul and his epistles (e.g. Barclay’s “Paul and the Gift” or Barber, et al., “Paul, A New Covenant Jew”), one has to wonder how much more can really be said about Paul from a historicist perspective (or Jesus, or, closer to home, John the Baptist). People are interested in the Bible primarily because of what it means to us now and what it has meant to people in the recent past, not because of what it meant to the earliest audiences (even studies about the Bible and its meaning to earliest audiences are attempting to answer contemporary questions about the Bible by connecting them to ancient ones). Judaism, Christianity, and Islam aren’t inherently more interesting than Zoroastrianism or Mandaeanism but there are more scholars of the former than the latter because of the influence of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam upon the majority of the modern world in contrast to the (direct) influence of Zoroastrianism or Mandaeanism.
A recent example of an excellent study of the Bible’s reception is Nyasha Junior and Jeremy Schipper’s Black Samson: The Untold Story of an American Icon. This book traces the depiction of Samson as a Black man throughout the history of the United States. As you read it becomes apparent that this theme of “Black Samson” is everywhere. I had no idea.
Junior and Schipper begin with early American commentary on how this nation is a “Temple of Liberty”. From a variety of angles, people began to connect how Samson was placed in the Philistine temple of Dagon only to bring it down upon the Philistines with how slavery (as represented by Black Samson) could be what pulls down the Temple of Liberty if not addressed. This imagery was used by abolitionists and defenders of slavery alike, though with very different intentions (see Chapter 1, “Black Samson in the Temple of Liberty”).
Chapter 2, “Black Samson of Brandywine,” traces the mythology around a enslaved man named Samson who is depicted as having fought against the British in the Battle of Brandywine. Chapter 3, “Samson and the Making of American Martyrs” shows how people who died, often having fought for the abolitionist cause, were remembered as a type of Samson: this ranges from John Brown (who is now the focus of Showtimes’ limited series “The Good Lord Bird”), to Frederick Douglass, to Nate Turner, and others. Chapter 4, “Black Sampson and Labor Movements” traces the theme’s relation to labor movements, popular song, and discusses the tension between African Americans and labor movements that often sought to exclude African Americans or saw them as undermining their cause.
Chapter 5, “The Samson Complex,” may have been the most fascinating to me. It focuses upon how “African American intellectuals and activists” who sometimes “claimed that the younger activists had a ‘Samson complex’ that would ultimately result in nothing but self-destruction” (p. 68). In this chapter we encounter Malcom X, Elijah Muhammad, Dr. King, and others who were involved in the Civil Rights Movement and debated the best way to go about fighting for their rights.
Chapter 6, “But Some of Us are Strong Believers in the Samson Myth,” examines how Samson-imagery finds its way into discussions around “the intersection of race and gender” (p. 93). Chapter 7, “Visual Representations of Black Samson” is self-explanatory and discussed the one example of Black Samson that might be familiar to many: Samson as depicted in The Bible television miniseries produced by The History Channel. I show this series to my students and they have noticed that Samson is depicted as a Black man while most of the other figures are white.
This book is exemplary. It shows the power of the Bible as part of culture making. Also, it shows how diverse interpretation of the Bible can be. For those interested in reception history or the intersection of the Bible and American culture, the Bible and race, the Bible and gender, the Bible and art and film, etc., this is a must read.
Recently read: Jennings “After Whiteness”
Willie James Jennings, After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2020). (Amazon; Bookshop)
Willie James Jennings (Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Africana Studies at Yale University Divinity School) has written a challenging reflection on the current state of theological education and what many institutions value in how they train students. His main concern is with the formation of students: What does a graduate become? What values do they receive? For Jennings, most institutions are preparing their students to function in a world that values “whiteness” which he defines not as “people of European descent” but “to a way of being in the world and seeing the world that forms cognitive and affective structures able to seduce people into its habitation and its meaning making” (p. 9). This is exemplified by “White self-sufficient masculinity” that “is a way of organizing life with ideas and forming a persona that distorts identity and strangles the possibilities of dense life together” (pp. 8-9). If I’ve understood him correctly, education, and even theological education, aims to create the self-sufficient man (and yes, I think our culture’s visions of masculinity is key), the Lone Ranger-type.
One example he uses is the Paterfamilias of the colonial plantation who is the self-sufficient center around which everyone else circles (see pp. 78-83). The foundation of the type of education that has been passed along to us was designed first and foremost for that male heir; that mythological “great man”. Jennings describes it this way:
A vision of the self-sufficient man—one who is self-directed, never apologizing for his strength or ability or knowledge, one who recognizes his own power and uses it wisely, one bound in courage, moral vision, singularity of purpose and not given to extremes of desire or anger—is a compellingly attractive goal for education and moral formation.
p. 31
In contrast to this elite man, Jennings writes:
We have failed to see that this is the ground of theological education and of all education that aims at the good. It is the crowd—people who would not under normal circumstances ever want to be near each other, never ever touching flesh to flesh, never ever calling in unison upon the name of Jesus, never ever listening together to anything except Roman edict or centurion shouting command, now listening to the words of Jesus. Yet the crowd is not Christian, nor is the crowd exclusively Jewish. The crowd is not a temporary condition on the way to something else. The crowd is the beginning of a joining that was intended to do deep pedagogical work.
p. 13
I don’t teach in a theological institution (though my school is supported by The Episcopal Church). Also, the book reads like you’ve sat down to have a chat with Jennings. He shares stories and poetry that weaves through his insights. It’s the type of book I’d never “review” because while its true that all acts of reading are subjective experiences, this one is subjective in the way a conversation is subjective. If each reader sat down and talked to Jennings about this same series of topics it would be a different experience depending on your identity and affiliations.
I don’t think you have to teach in a theological institution to learn from this book. Some of his insights on institutions in general were all too relevant, real, and challenging for me and I teach a very demographic than the one Jennings teaches. But if you’ve wondered about the model of education that’s primarily about the individual and not the community—the one that aims to set you up for success rather than bringing us together—then you’ll benefit no matter what age or topic you teach.
Recently read: Stokes’ ‘Satan’
Ryan E. Stokes, Satan: How God’s Executioner Became the Enemy (Eerdmans, 2019).
I began reading Ryan E. Stokes’ Satan this summer. I was teaching a class on the Hebrew Bible at the time. It made me have to revisit my lesson on the Book of Job in order to update how I presented Ha-Satan. And I felt like each chapter had that effect on me. It introduced new ways of looking at the figure of Satan and his evolution that I hadn’t considered.
Chapter 1, The Origin of Satan focuses on his this character is presented in Numbers 22, Zechariah 3, and 1 Chronicles 21. My key takeaway is that Stokes argues that this figure is an “Attacker” more than say as “Adversary”. I always thought of him as being a prosecuting attorney-type but his role seems to be more sinister.
Chapter 2, The Satan and the Innocent Job stood out to me because it showed how the Attacker, usually of sinners, is presented as attacking an innocent, righteous man. This is a major development, especially in the Hebrew Bible’s approach to theodicy.
The development of this figure (often by different names, though Stokes makes many observations that indicate that the same figure is in view) is traced from the Hebrew Scriptures through other works of Second Temple literature, most importantly in Chapters 3-8: Chapter 3, Demons, Evil Spirits, Fallen Angels, and Human Sin; Chapter 4, The Prince of Mastema and His Deceptive Spirits; Chapter 5, The Prince of Mastema, Enemy of God’s People; Chapter 6, Demons, Evil Spirits, The Satan, and Human Responsibility for Sin; Chapter 7, Belial, Sin, and Sectarianism; Chapter 8, Belial and the Power of Darkness). In these chapters there were several topics of importance in my view. First, as mentioned, the presentation of these different figures as being different expressions of a single figure (the one called “Satan” in the New Testament) was helpful. The role of determination and human will factors into most of these chapters. And ancient approaches to what we can theodicy runs throughout.
The final chapter, Chapter 8, The Satan in the New Testament was briefer than I anticipated but felt more like a capstone. For some reason I imagined it would be the main focus of the book but the emphasis is evenly spread across the various collections of literature.
If you are interested in the figure of Satan and his development, this is a great book.
Recently read: Taylor’s ‘What Did Jesus Look Like?’
Joan E. Taylor, What Did Jesus Look Like? (T&T Clark, 2018).
Joan E. Taylor’s What Did Jesus Look Like? is a unique intersection of historical Jesus studies and art history with some theological and liturgical history thrown into the mix. Chapters 2-9 focus on what we might call the ‘reception history’ of Jesus’ appearance. In these chapters we learn about how Jesus has morphed over the centuries, whether he is a white European man (with which we are accustom); the ‘Byzantine Cosmocrator’; a younger looking man; a new Moses; a wise, bearded philosopher; or an unkempt vagabond. Sacred images of Jesus ranging from ‘The Veronica’ (pp. 30-37) to the Turn Shroud (pp. 58-66) are treated along with various icons, paintings, statues, etc.
For those interested in historical Jesus studies, chapters 10-11 are key. Taylor reminds us that little is said about Jesus’ appearance and nothing is said about any unique characteristics. In other words, ‘He was ordinary-looking.’ (p. 155) As a Judean who lived in Galilee, the forensics from skeletal remains of similar men from Jesus’ time, and literary descriptions of Judeans, can help us better understand how he may have appeared. Taylor evaluates the average height, appearance (including skin color/tone), hair (head and face), physique, clothing, shoes, and other aspects of dress, including differences between wealthier and poorer people’s clothing and gendered aspects of clothing.
Physically, Taylor concludes that Jesus, if as average as we imagine him to be, ‘would have been about 166 cm (5 feet 5 inches) tall, with olive-brown skin, brown-black hair and brown eyes. He was a man of “Middle Eastern appearance”, whose ethnicity can be compared to Iraqi Jews of today.’ (p. 194) She ends the book noting that this discussion regarding Jesus’ appearance isn’t settled but that she hopes that this book contributes and that it challenges modern artists to rethink how they depict Jesus.
A final note on this book. Here’s the picture Taylor drew of how she imagined Jesus (obviously black-and-white so lacking other detail):
It reminded me of one of my favorite TV Jesuses: the Jesus from ‘Jesus: His Life’ by The History Channel. Here are a couple images of Greg Barnett from the miniseries:
Seeing that this series is from 2019, it shows vast improvement over the Jesus from The Bible miniseries from 2013. Here’s that Jesus played by Diogo Morgado:
This latter Jesus is too pretty. He looks like the Jesus of traditional European art. But let’s end on a positive note with another one of my favorite Jesuses: Selva Rasalingam from the 2014-2015 dramatized ‘word-for-word adaptation’ of the canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Here are a couple shots of this Jesus:
Recently read: Barclay’s ‘Paul and the Gift’
John M.G. Barclay, Paul and the Gift (Eerdmans, 2015).
John M.G. Barclay’s tome, Paul and the Gift, on Paul’s understanding of charis or a ‘gift’ is itself a gift to Pauline scholarship. If you’ve read literature from the ‘new perspective on Paul’, and the ‘old’ or Reformation perspective on Paul, and felt that both path get key things about Paul right, both paths get key things wrong about Paul, and yet the chasm between the perspectives seems too wide, Barclay’s work might build you the bridge you need.
It begins in Chapter 1, ‘The Multiple Meanings of Gift and Grace’ by examining the anthropological category of ‘gift’. One of the key takeaways is that the idea of a gift as a one-sided and altruistic is not only just one of many ways human cultures have understood the role of gifts but seemingly one of the more recent ways of understanding gifts. Since Paul was alive two millennia ago, we need to be careful when retrojecting modern standards back on Paul and his letters.
Chapter 2, ‘The Perfection of Gift/Grace’ is short but essential. In this chapter we find what is Barclay’s greatest contribution to understanding Paul. He lists six ‘perfections’ of gift/grace: superabundance, singularity, priority, incongruity, efficacy, non-circularity. Barclay shows that often when people interpret pure or perfected gift/grace they have one or more of these in mind. The danger is that our perfection(s) of gift/grace may not be Paul’s.
It’s with this in mind that Barclay engages reception history in Chapter 3, ‘Interpreting Paul on Grace: Shifting Patterns of Perfection’ where he summarizes the interpretations of Marcion, Augustine/Pelagius, Luther, Calvin, Barth, Bultmann, Käsemann, Martin, Sanders, as well as other ‘new perspective’ scholars and some philosophers (e.g., Alain Badiou). Barclay’s grid, the six perfections, help the reader see what aspect of gift/grace is being emphasized by their interpretation.
In Section II, ‘Divine Gift in Second Temple Judaism’, Barclay applies his grid to key Second Temple Jewish writings that show how variegated Jewish ideas about election, grace, and salvation could be. His focus is on The Wisdom of Solomon, the writings of Philo of Alexandria, the Qurman Hodayot (1QHa), Pseudo-Philo’s Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, and 4 Ezra.
It’s with the diversity of these texts in mind that Barclay engages Galatians in Galatians in Section III, ‘Galatians: The Christ-Gift and the Recalibration of Worth’ and Romans in Section IV, ‘Romans: Israel, the Gentiles, and God’s Creative Gift’. He not only juxtaposes Romans and Galatians with the aforementioned Jewish writings but also with each other showing that Paul’s thinking on the topic wasn’t static.
I highly recommend this book if you’re interested in Paul, his interpreters, his place within Second Temple Judaism, and his own unique theology of charis. It covers a lot of ground but the whole journey is worth it.
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