Some sobering but realistic advice from Ben Witherington. I especially resonated with his comment on the potential for teaching pastors. If I worked at an educational institution, I would suggest developing biblical studies programs that aim at equipping teaching pastors. :-)
Also, if you are going into biblical studies, be prepared to teach primarily online and in distance modes, as he also says.
Showing posts with label Witherington. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Witherington. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Ben Witherington in Kokomo
My wife Angie and I went to hear Ben Witherington speak at Grace United Methodist Church in Kokomo this afternoon. He had preached there in the morning and was speaking this afternoon on the singular rather than pluralistic Jesus. I imagine that there are any number of church settings where his presentation might be controversial, although this crowd was friendly to his message.
It was a good mix of scholarship cum evangelism. Jesus claimed to be divine, so either he was or he was a liar or a lunatic (the classic Lewis argument). But Witherington supported this argument with some scholarly reflections on what Jesus might have meant when he called himself the Son of Man, an allusion to Daniel 7.
W also went through texts most of us know well that claim that Jesus exclusively is the way to God. As W responded to a question from the audience, "there are sheep not of this fold" cannot mean other religions, or else John massively contradicts itself ("I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me").
There were also reflections on the importance that Christ be without sin in order to serve as a sacrifice. Ben dipped into the question of whether those who have not heard can be saved and he gave the classic Wesleyan-Arminian answer from Romans 1 and being judged according to the light we have.
He took questions at the end, including one about the Iraq war. Going where angels fear to tread--especially in semi-rural Indiana--he didn't flinch to say matter of factly that we couldn't have done more to hinder those who want to be our friends in the Middle East and empower our enemies there.
I told him afterwards that he was a brave man. He noted in response that he didn't get stoned.
It was a good mix of scholarship cum evangelism. Jesus claimed to be divine, so either he was or he was a liar or a lunatic (the classic Lewis argument). But Witherington supported this argument with some scholarly reflections on what Jesus might have meant when he called himself the Son of Man, an allusion to Daniel 7.
W also went through texts most of us know well that claim that Jesus exclusively is the way to God. As W responded to a question from the audience, "there are sheep not of this fold" cannot mean other religions, or else John massively contradicts itself ("I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me").
There were also reflections on the importance that Christ be without sin in order to serve as a sacrifice. Ben dipped into the question of whether those who have not heard can be saved and he gave the classic Wesleyan-Arminian answer from Romans 1 and being judged according to the light we have.
He took questions at the end, including one about the Iraq war. Going where angels fear to tread--especially in semi-rural Indiana--he didn't flinch to say matter of factly that we couldn't have done more to hinder those who want to be our friends in the Middle East and empower our enemies there.
I told him afterwards that he was a brave man. He noted in response that he didn't get stoned.
Sunday, December 09, 2007
Sunday Romans: 1:1-7 (Wk3: Dunn, Wright, Fitz, W3)
Today I glance at another set of commentaries. I'll do one more week after this one, since I have several more I haven't glanced at yet (like Stuhlmacher, Barth, Stott). With today's I hit what I consider some of the key original meaning commentaries. As such they may not contribute too much to the Arminian-Calvinist issue.
J. D. G. Dunn (Romans 1-8, Word Biblical)
Dunn has some interesting things to say about what it might mean to be called. The word in a weak form could mean to invite, such as to invite to dinner. A stronger meaning would be to summons, and certainly the call of God is much stronger than an invitation. Dunn goes further to suggest that "the called" in Paul's parlance are "those whose lives had been determined by God's summons" (8).
As to Paul being called as an apostle, Dunn says, "Within that [broader] calling, which is one of the features of all those belonging to Christ, Paul thinks of a calling to a specific task (1:1; 1 Cor. 1:1), though in both cases he takes care to ensure that the idea of a specific calling cannot be separated from the calling of all (1:6-7; 1 Cor. 1:2...)" (8-9).
Dunn has some very interesting thoughts on the phrase "called to be saints" also. He points out how striking it would have been to Jews to call uncircumcised Gentiles as "set apart as holy" in the way sacrificial items were set apart for God.
N. T. Wright (New Interpreter's Bible, Abingdon)
I found Wright's discussion of these verses excellent and relatively clear (which he isn't always). We will discuss some of his thoughts on what the gospel is tomorrow in our coverage of Piper.
Particularly interesting was his discussion of what "according to the flesh" might mean. Wright strongly disagrees that this might mean merely that Jesus was of the seed of David in terms of his humanity. Flesh, Wright argues, always has some negative connotation for Paul.
For our purposes, I am mainly interested in what he does with the language of calling in this section. For 1:2 he takes Paul's calling as a matter of his "conversion." " 'Call' in Paul's writings usually refers, not to the specific vocation of which a Christian may gradually become aware, but to the moment when the gospel message of Jesus first makes its saving impact on him or her" (415). "Here," Wright argues, "Paul's 'conversion' was also his 'vocation' to be the apostle to the nations." In other words, it refers not to some decree before creation but to something God did at a particular point of Paul's life.
In 1:7, Wright takes calling as "called to belong to Jesus Christ" (420). As before, Wright takes this calling in relation to the point in time when the audience was called: "the 'call' was God's powerful word, creating new life--creating, indeed, the response it sought, as a word of love is always capable of doing."
Joseph Fitzmyer (Romans, Anchor Bible)
Fitzmyer has some good thoughts on the name "Paul" in a Roman context, as well as other good thoughts on the "creed" of 1:2-3.
But for our purposes, his most significant thoughts are his understanding of "among whom you too were called to belong to Jesus Christ." Fitzmeyer takes this in terms of the fact that "their vocation is to belong to Christ along with Israel."
Witherington (Paul's Letter to the Romans) also notes that Paul "uses terms formerly used of Israel, namely 'beloved' and 'called,' even of his largely Gentile audience, because he believes that Jew and Gentile united in Christ and in his gospel are the eschatological people of God and stand in continuity with Abraham and OT Israel" (37).
I think Fitzmyer and Witherington are on to something here, namely, that when Paul says the Romans are "called as saints," the most striking thing is that he primarily has Gentiles in mind. These Gentiles are a part of God's holy people just as Jewish believers are. The point is not that they are called and others aren't, but that along with others God has summoned, they are too.
J. D. G. Dunn (Romans 1-8, Word Biblical)
Dunn has some interesting things to say about what it might mean to be called. The word in a weak form could mean to invite, such as to invite to dinner. A stronger meaning would be to summons, and certainly the call of God is much stronger than an invitation. Dunn goes further to suggest that "the called" in Paul's parlance are "those whose lives had been determined by God's summons" (8).
As to Paul being called as an apostle, Dunn says, "Within that [broader] calling, which is one of the features of all those belonging to Christ, Paul thinks of a calling to a specific task (1:1; 1 Cor. 1:1), though in both cases he takes care to ensure that the idea of a specific calling cannot be separated from the calling of all (1:6-7; 1 Cor. 1:2...)" (8-9).
Dunn has some very interesting thoughts on the phrase "called to be saints" also. He points out how striking it would have been to Jews to call uncircumcised Gentiles as "set apart as holy" in the way sacrificial items were set apart for God.
N. T. Wright (New Interpreter's Bible, Abingdon)
I found Wright's discussion of these verses excellent and relatively clear (which he isn't always). We will discuss some of his thoughts on what the gospel is tomorrow in our coverage of Piper.
Particularly interesting was his discussion of what "according to the flesh" might mean. Wright strongly disagrees that this might mean merely that Jesus was of the seed of David in terms of his humanity. Flesh, Wright argues, always has some negative connotation for Paul.
For our purposes, I am mainly interested in what he does with the language of calling in this section. For 1:2 he takes Paul's calling as a matter of his "conversion." " 'Call' in Paul's writings usually refers, not to the specific vocation of which a Christian may gradually become aware, but to the moment when the gospel message of Jesus first makes its saving impact on him or her" (415). "Here," Wright argues, "Paul's 'conversion' was also his 'vocation' to be the apostle to the nations." In other words, it refers not to some decree before creation but to something God did at a particular point of Paul's life.
In 1:7, Wright takes calling as "called to belong to Jesus Christ" (420). As before, Wright takes this calling in relation to the point in time when the audience was called: "the 'call' was God's powerful word, creating new life--creating, indeed, the response it sought, as a word of love is always capable of doing."
Joseph Fitzmyer (Romans, Anchor Bible)
Fitzmyer has some good thoughts on the name "Paul" in a Roman context, as well as other good thoughts on the "creed" of 1:2-3.
But for our purposes, his most significant thoughts are his understanding of "among whom you too were called to belong to Jesus Christ." Fitzmeyer takes this in terms of the fact that "their vocation is to belong to Christ along with Israel."
Witherington (Paul's Letter to the Romans) also notes that Paul "uses terms formerly used of Israel, namely 'beloved' and 'called,' even of his largely Gentile audience, because he believes that Jew and Gentile united in Christ and in his gospel are the eschatological people of God and stand in continuity with Abraham and OT Israel" (37).
I think Fitzmyer and Witherington are on to something here, namely, that when Paul says the Romans are "called as saints," the most striking thing is that he primarily has Gentiles in mind. These Gentiles are a part of God's holy people just as Jewish believers are. The point is not that they are called and others aren't, but that along with others God has summoned, they are too.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Witherington on Rob Bell
Scot McKnight's blog pointed me to some thoughts on Rob Bell on Ben Witherington's blog:
http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2007/02/velvet-elvis-and-king-has-he-left.html
I'm so bad at reading the culturally important, so what I know of Bell I know second hand. But interestingly I had a conversation just this week with Adam Thada about Bell and about how accurate some of his biblical/cultural comments are. My impression has been that he does what so many popular preachers do--he gives very memorable insights, "secrets" if you would, into the original context of the Bible that really drive points home... but they usually are a little off. This is a pervasive preaching phenomenon from Spong on the left to some holiness preachers I've known who really impress their audience with these little secrets that even the biblical authors didn't know ;-)
Adam and I were talking about him saying something about having to take a mark in the days of Domitian to buy or sell. I don't know of any evidence for anything like this and have never seen it in anything I've read on Revelation in the scholarly or popular domain. There is good reason to think the book of Revelation's imagery might connect strongly to current events in the late first century in Rome and Ephesus. But I really don't think this is one of them. I've wondered if this comment had something to do with the use of Roman coinage at this time, which indicated that Domitian was a god.
Witherington's review is overall very positive toward Bell and this is my current feeling toward him too. But Witherington has confirmed my impression as well, that Bell's knowledge of ancient culture, history, and context is not always all it's cracked up to be.
http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2007/02/velvet-elvis-and-king-has-he-left.html
I'm so bad at reading the culturally important, so what I know of Bell I know second hand. But interestingly I had a conversation just this week with Adam Thada about Bell and about how accurate some of his biblical/cultural comments are. My impression has been that he does what so many popular preachers do--he gives very memorable insights, "secrets" if you would, into the original context of the Bible that really drive points home... but they usually are a little off. This is a pervasive preaching phenomenon from Spong on the left to some holiness preachers I've known who really impress their audience with these little secrets that even the biblical authors didn't know ;-)
Adam and I were talking about him saying something about having to take a mark in the days of Domitian to buy or sell. I don't know of any evidence for anything like this and have never seen it in anything I've read on Revelation in the scholarly or popular domain. There is good reason to think the book of Revelation's imagery might connect strongly to current events in the late first century in Rome and Ephesus. But I really don't think this is one of them. I've wondered if this comment had something to do with the use of Roman coinage at this time, which indicated that Domitian was a god.
Witherington's review is overall very positive toward Bell and this is my current feeling toward him too. But Witherington has confirmed my impression as well, that Bell's knowledge of ancient culture, history, and context is not always all it's cracked up to be.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Book Review: The Pre-existent Son 1
I'm basically through the first two chapters of Simon Gathercole's new book. I've met Simon casually but I wasn't exactly sure what scholarly flavor he had. This book has helped me locate him within my categories.
Some impressions:
1. Simon is well read, including good interaction with German literature. With this book he is venturing into new territory that was not really his focus previously, so I sympathize with some material that reminds me of me when I'm writing in areas that aren't my specialty.
2. Simon has an apologist flare. He would fit in the N. T. Wright, Richard Bauckham vein, although perhaps a little more conservative in flavor even than them (with a Reformed bent?). Occasionally I feel hints of the conservative vanquishing the perverse liberal (especially in his Jude section).
3. I found his aquaintance with Tom Schreiner particularly interesting (vii). Schreiner to me is a good example of a recent hard core Calvinist resurgence that I might dubb, "it is hard for you to kick against the pricks of recent developments in Pauline studies." To be fair, Simon's first book on boasting in Romans seems pretty good (ironically written with Dunn as an advisor). I would categorize it as part of the current wave of backlash from the new perspective on Paul.
So much for personal impressions... now for discussion of chapter 2, "Pre-existence in Earliest Christianity."
I personally believe that Simon's second chapter takes too much for granted. He rides on the near consensus that Philippians 2:6 and 1 Corinthians 8:6 are about the pre-existent Christ and then sees pre-existence everywhere in Paul. By the end of the chapter he concludes that "references to preexistence would have been frequent in Paul's teaching" (42).
I found this movement staggering. Largely on the basis of two passages he assumes other marginal passages are about pre-existence and then finally extrapolates to conclude that Paul must have talked about Christ's preexistence all the time wherever he went! And so an idea that rarely pops up in Paul's letters (in fact I would argue only in somewhat poetic contexts) becomes something that was a major part of Paul's oral teaching!
Now I certainly believe that Christ was pre-existent, but I've worked real hard to try to let the text say what it says and not read later theology into it. This is one of my big things--let the text be the text and then work out any problems in your theology, not in your exegesis. I studied with Dunn because he seems to me a model of this sort of attempt at objectivity. That's not to say that I always agree with him--I actually disagree with him on a number of things. And no one is completely objective to be sure. But to me he is one of the best models of someone who lets the text say what he thinks it's saying come what may.
So what is particularly nerve racking to me is the fact that the "educated middle" will absolutely eat Simon's stuff up. By this I mean the hoards of intelligent non-Bibleheads, pastors, and "middle scholars" like me who really want Simon to be right. We are the ones who have made Tom Wright and Ben Witherington wealthy. We're groupies of a sort.
But to me, there is at times in these authors a tinge of special pleading, while to me Dunn is more Spock-like, more "follow the evidence wherever it seems to lead."
Let me give you an example where I think Dunn's exegesis is far superior to Simon's: 1 Corinthians 15:47--"the first man was from the earth; the second man from heaven." Simon reads this as a straightforward instance of Paul referring to Christ's pre-existence, of Christ "having come down from heaven." He dismisses the opposition with the simple phrase, "Despite attempts to argue to the contrary" (26). Later in the paragraph he dismisses without argument two suggestions for what he says the verse is not saying. Since the loyal following he will develop want to hear this, he is able to say such things without hardly any justification.
Now consider Dunn's more scrupulous argument on this verse in Christology in the Making. He notes the order of Paul's argument: "the spiritual is not first, but the natural (psychikos) then the spiritual" (1 Cor. 15:46). Adam first, then Christ. The natural first, then the spiritual. So far so good for either case really. For Dunn it's Adam, then the resurrected Christ. For Gathercole it would have to be Adam, then the incarnated Christ (although I'm making his argument for him here).
"The first man was of dust from the earth, the second man from heaven" (15:27). At this point Gathercole brings his later Christian ears to the text and hears overtones of John and the incarnation. The second man came down from heaven (in the incarnation).
But is this what Paul was really thinking?
What has Paul been talking about in this chapter? "The first man Adam became a living soul (psyche), the last Adam became a life-giving spirit" (15:45). But when, in this line of thought, did Jesus become a life-giving spirit? What is 1 Corinthians 15 about after all????? RESURRECTION!!! Paul has been talking about what the resurrection body will be like and saying it will be of a spiritual sort, a heavenly sort, just like Christ's resurrection body which was spiritual and "from heaven" (cf. Phil. 3:21).
So the context strongly pushes us to think of the "second man from heaven" as a reference to the resurrected Christ, with not a mention of the pre-existent, let alone incarnated Christ! The train of thought thus becomes seamless when we get to 15:48, "Of the same sort as the man of dust, so also are those of dust, and of the same sort as the heavenly (resurrected) man, so also are those of heaven." That is, so are we who will be resurrected one day.
You can see this is a matter of great frustration to me. The precision and correctness of Dunn's interpretation here is exemplary, yet Gathercole's interpretation will be eaten up quickly by the willful. Those like me who dare question the exegesis will be considered perverse for disagreeing even though, in my opinion, we are the ones actually listening to the text rather than shoving later theology down its throat.
In the rest of the chapter Simon deals with Hebrews and Jude, both of which he dates to the time before the destruction of Jerusalem. While I am prone to disagree with him on the dating of both, his thoughts on Jude were particularly interesting. He makes a good case that Jude 5 should read that Jesus destroyed those who left Egypt who did not believe. Very interesting. I haven't decided whether I agree on this but I was impressed with his knowledge of the issue.
More to come. Simon's argument in the overall book is a good one. If Paul believes that Jesus is pre-existent and if the gospels all come later, then wouldn't we be surprised if the gospel writers didn't know Jesus was pre-existent?
Simon is definitely an up and coming and someone to watch!
Some impressions:
1. Simon is well read, including good interaction with German literature. With this book he is venturing into new territory that was not really his focus previously, so I sympathize with some material that reminds me of me when I'm writing in areas that aren't my specialty.
2. Simon has an apologist flare. He would fit in the N. T. Wright, Richard Bauckham vein, although perhaps a little more conservative in flavor even than them (with a Reformed bent?). Occasionally I feel hints of the conservative vanquishing the perverse liberal (especially in his Jude section).
3. I found his aquaintance with Tom Schreiner particularly interesting (vii). Schreiner to me is a good example of a recent hard core Calvinist resurgence that I might dubb, "it is hard for you to kick against the pricks of recent developments in Pauline studies." To be fair, Simon's first book on boasting in Romans seems pretty good (ironically written with Dunn as an advisor). I would categorize it as part of the current wave of backlash from the new perspective on Paul.
So much for personal impressions... now for discussion of chapter 2, "Pre-existence in Earliest Christianity."
I personally believe that Simon's second chapter takes too much for granted. He rides on the near consensus that Philippians 2:6 and 1 Corinthians 8:6 are about the pre-existent Christ and then sees pre-existence everywhere in Paul. By the end of the chapter he concludes that "references to preexistence would have been frequent in Paul's teaching" (42).
I found this movement staggering. Largely on the basis of two passages he assumes other marginal passages are about pre-existence and then finally extrapolates to conclude that Paul must have talked about Christ's preexistence all the time wherever he went! And so an idea that rarely pops up in Paul's letters (in fact I would argue only in somewhat poetic contexts) becomes something that was a major part of Paul's oral teaching!
Now I certainly believe that Christ was pre-existent, but I've worked real hard to try to let the text say what it says and not read later theology into it. This is one of my big things--let the text be the text and then work out any problems in your theology, not in your exegesis. I studied with Dunn because he seems to me a model of this sort of attempt at objectivity. That's not to say that I always agree with him--I actually disagree with him on a number of things. And no one is completely objective to be sure. But to me he is one of the best models of someone who lets the text say what he thinks it's saying come what may.
So what is particularly nerve racking to me is the fact that the "educated middle" will absolutely eat Simon's stuff up. By this I mean the hoards of intelligent non-Bibleheads, pastors, and "middle scholars" like me who really want Simon to be right. We are the ones who have made Tom Wright and Ben Witherington wealthy. We're groupies of a sort.
But to me, there is at times in these authors a tinge of special pleading, while to me Dunn is more Spock-like, more "follow the evidence wherever it seems to lead."
Let me give you an example where I think Dunn's exegesis is far superior to Simon's: 1 Corinthians 15:47--"the first man was from the earth; the second man from heaven." Simon reads this as a straightforward instance of Paul referring to Christ's pre-existence, of Christ "having come down from heaven." He dismisses the opposition with the simple phrase, "Despite attempts to argue to the contrary" (26). Later in the paragraph he dismisses without argument two suggestions for what he says the verse is not saying. Since the loyal following he will develop want to hear this, he is able to say such things without hardly any justification.
Now consider Dunn's more scrupulous argument on this verse in Christology in the Making. He notes the order of Paul's argument: "the spiritual is not first, but the natural (psychikos) then the spiritual" (1 Cor. 15:46). Adam first, then Christ. The natural first, then the spiritual. So far so good for either case really. For Dunn it's Adam, then the resurrected Christ. For Gathercole it would have to be Adam, then the incarnated Christ (although I'm making his argument for him here).
"The first man was of dust from the earth, the second man from heaven" (15:27). At this point Gathercole brings his later Christian ears to the text and hears overtones of John and the incarnation. The second man came down from heaven (in the incarnation).
But is this what Paul was really thinking?
What has Paul been talking about in this chapter? "The first man Adam became a living soul (psyche), the last Adam became a life-giving spirit" (15:45). But when, in this line of thought, did Jesus become a life-giving spirit? What is 1 Corinthians 15 about after all????? RESURRECTION!!! Paul has been talking about what the resurrection body will be like and saying it will be of a spiritual sort, a heavenly sort, just like Christ's resurrection body which was spiritual and "from heaven" (cf. Phil. 3:21).
So the context strongly pushes us to think of the "second man from heaven" as a reference to the resurrected Christ, with not a mention of the pre-existent, let alone incarnated Christ! The train of thought thus becomes seamless when we get to 15:48, "Of the same sort as the man of dust, so also are those of dust, and of the same sort as the heavenly (resurrected) man, so also are those of heaven." That is, so are we who will be resurrected one day.
You can see this is a matter of great frustration to me. The precision and correctness of Dunn's interpretation here is exemplary, yet Gathercole's interpretation will be eaten up quickly by the willful. Those like me who dare question the exegesis will be considered perverse for disagreeing even though, in my opinion, we are the ones actually listening to the text rather than shoving later theology down its throat.
In the rest of the chapter Simon deals with Hebrews and Jude, both of which he dates to the time before the destruction of Jerusalem. While I am prone to disagree with him on the dating of both, his thoughts on Jude were particularly interesting. He makes a good case that Jude 5 should read that Jesus destroyed those who left Egypt who did not believe. Very interesting. I haven't decided whether I agree on this but I was impressed with his knowledge of the issue.
More to come. Simon's argument in the overall book is a good one. If Paul believes that Jesus is pre-existent and if the gospels all come later, then wouldn't we be surprised if the gospel writers didn't know Jesus was pre-existent?
Simon is definitely an up and coming and someone to watch!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
