John: Genre and Historicity

In preparation, I have been slogging my way through page after page of introductions to the Gospel of John. At the same time My wife has asked me to prepare some material on ancient Greek, Roman, and Jewish history and culture to aid her Bible reading. So, I've red\ad David Aune's masterful study The New Testament in Its Literary Environment (Library of Early Christianity). This is probably not a popular view, but I believe that these types of background study are indispensable - even more important to New Testament study than knowledge of Greek.

One of the commentaries I plan on using to study John is the masterful work of Craig Keener. I think he's one of the two or three best active Evangelical New Testament scholars. What I appreciate is his strong emphasis on background and his effort to place John within the proper genre for analysis. Keener, along with Aune, consider John to be a biography.[1] Ancient biography could span from pure fiction to an account of a person's life that was firmly rooted in history.

Where does John fall on that spectrum? In John 21:24 the author insists on the historical reliability of his testimony. Clearly, this means that he is intending to portray Jesus in a way that was consistent with the life he actually lived. That is not to that he did not shape what he wrote or invent discourses, a procedure perfectly acceptable in ancient biography. In fact, inventing discourses would be a necessity, unless the disciples had truly remarkable memories.[2] Speeches had to be made up, and were created to be appropriate to the setting and appropriate to the character of the individual. Ancient biographies would have been very boring otherwise.

So how historically reliable is John? There's really no way to know. To side with Dale Allison, we don't have enough independent sources to confirm or deny the historicity of many pericopes. The criteria typically used are of some value but I think are often misapplied.[3] This is why Keener's and Aune's work is so important. Given the way biography typically was written in the ancient world and its connections to the synoptic gospels, there's little reason to believe that John invented large blocks of material wholesale in a way that would mislead us from understanding who Jesus was. He does indeed seem to have cast Jesus ministry in a very particular mold, but he seems to respect his source material. In my estimation, on the whole, John does portray Jesus accurately and give us real insight into his significance. Yes, John could be deceiving us, and there's no way we could ever know, but does the author of the gospel seem like a deceiver? Not to me.

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[1] My biggest issue with Keener's work is that while depending on the work of Aune he obscures a distinction that Aune finds significant - that of biography from history. They were separate genres with separate conventions and expectations. When Keener discusses the historical reliability of John he sometimes draws analogies from ancient historiography.

[2] Keener discusses the ancient claims of the reliability of the memories of disciples of ancient teachers. While I believe that disciples could and probably did memorize teachers' sayings in a classroom setting or even public speeches, it is highly unlikely that they memorized disputes with other teachers or impromptu conversations. We need to deploy Keener's evidence cautiously.

[3] For example, multiple attestation in independent sources (e.g., of the crucifixion of Jesus by the Romans) does mean an even likely happened. However, given the paucity of independent sources, a lack of multiple attestation means very little as recently noted by deSilva.

Exploring the Christian Way of Life: Prolegomena Part 3

Initially I wasn't planning on a third post related to prolegomena, but I have realized that in my desire to gloss over it I have not fleshed out my position fully enough. I have stated how I approach the Bible and have given some rationale for why. However, I realize that I did not explain what that means for constructing theology and ethics. While the Bible is central for developing Christian theology, we need to beware of having too high a view of Scripture[1] and ground our hope in something surer.

As I stated in my earlier discussion of prolegomena, Barth's view of Scripture as witness to past revelation by God where it itself is not the Word of God (though through the agency of the Holy Spirit we often encounter it as such) is, in my opinion, basically correct. While I do not hold this position for "practical" reasons, there are "practical" and apologetic benefits.

As I listen to people who have left Christianity, I often hear the following tune. I was taught 'X' was essential to the Christian faith but it was disproved, therefore I stopped being a Christian. Typical values for X might be young earth creationism or the inerrancy of Scripture. In one hundred years I believe we will see the same phenomenon with different values for X. The issue isn't really the issue, it's the way some Christians approach the Bible. Since they believe that Bible is the Word of God, it becomes quasi-divine. It's inerrant, infallible[2], and only correctly understood when interpreted "literally."[3] This insistence, coupled with the eagerness to take a stand against the "liberals" on issue X, is very very dangerous. Once what they were taught about "X" is falsified, as it often easily is, the exodus of the (usually) young away from the faith they grew up with begins. Some will end up in less rigid forms of Christianity, but many will walk away from God altogether.

In these scenarios, I believe that the wrong object was receiving worship. Only one thing is strong enough to rely on, not the Bible, but God himself. The Bible is God's tool that he uses to change us, but we only change in the first place because we are in relationship with him, because we are united with him and with one another. Perhaps the Bible isn't what some people want it to be, maybe it has errors and contradictions, even meaningful contradictions at the level of theology. That's ok. God is all about redeeming fallibleness and mistakes and using them for his own ends.

Practically, this also makes life easier on the theologian. I don't need to spend undue time trying to harmonize the unharmonizable. I can define a center a work out, building a coherent and consistent theology from the Scriptures,[4] hopefully under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. For me, Matthew, Luke-Acts, 1 Peter and what I take to be the authentic Pauline letters[5] are my center.[6] They bring theology and ethics together in a way that has inspired and transformed me and drawn me closer to God. I am, though, as you may know, about to embark on close study of John. John is in tension at key points with my current preferred reading of Paul.[7] I'm hoping that by seeing the Christian way of life from a different angle that my vision will be enlarged and modulated from hearing a different perspective. Additionally, this will allow me to hear John on his own terms (hopefully), as I won't be trying to force him into the grid of Pauline theology.

For Further Reading:

Bible Made Impossible, The: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture by Christian Smith

God's Word in Human Words: An Evangelical Appropriation of Critical Biblical Scholarship by Kenton Sparks

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[1] My thanks to my friend John Kim who was the first I heard express his reservations this way.

[2] I mean the natural meaning of the word infallible - incapable of error.

[3] They don't actually mean literally, I think they actually mean ahistorically and, often, atomistically.

[4] This is what everybody does anyways; I'm just being honest about it. :)

[5] I leave myself free to change my mind, but as of now I would include the 7 undisputed letters, 2 Thessalonians, Ephesians, and Colossians. To what extent the Pastorals are Pauline is unclear to me and is something I wish to investigate more fully at a (much) later date.

[6] Someday I will study Revelation, and perhaps it will join the group.

[7] Drawn primarily from Campbell, Wright, Horrell, Dunn, and Stowers in that order. John focuses much more on personal belief than I believe Paul does. It's more than a difference in focus. I believe it is actual tension, which is not surprising to find. The early Christian movement was diverse, and, at times, barely unified. The three to four decades gap between the writings of Paul and of John also mean that the church was going through very different issues.

Doctor Who: The Old in the New

One of the things I most enjoy about the modern Doctor Who is the way it reuses elements of the classic series. In some cases it's overt, such as the flying of the Dalek in the episode, 'Dalek,' or the Autons in the episode 'Rose.' At other times it's subtle, such as the way they drew from the character Sil, the villain from the episode 'Vengeance on Varos,' for Cassandra, in 'The End of the World.' I came to the classic series via the modern series. I love the modern series, especially the seasons under the guidance of Russel T Davies, and wanted to deepen my understanding of it. So, I started watching the classic series after having completed watching season 6.

Today we'll explore my favorite usage of the classic series, the rewriting of the Robots of Death. A few minutes into the episode the 'Robots of Death' I was arrested by the red eyes in the killer robots. The article in the Tardis wiki about the episode Planet of the Ood suggests that there may be connection between the story of the Ood and the robots. I believe that the evidence is overwhelming, especially when one brings the initial episode with the Ood, 'The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit,' into the discussion. On a recent day off I decided to go back and fully investigate the similarities.

Often, the use of the classic series is nothing more than a case of homage. It's a way of continuing to draw fans of the modern series into the classic and reviving childhood memories of those who grew up watching the Doctor. This was much more ambitious in its interaction, a presentation of a fresh take on a previously explored theme. A risky tactic that succeeded here as strongly as it backfired, in my opinion, in the way The God Complex drew upon the ending of The Curse of Fenric.[1] In this post, I will begin by fully cataloging all of the connections and then will conclude by examining what I believe Russel T Davies and team were doing in the process. The connections are far too deep to be a tip of the cap to the classic series.

Both the 'Robots of Death' and the 'Impossible Planet' are set in isolation, on a human station on an uninhabited planet which experiences a storm shortly after the Doctor and his companion arrive. In both cases the crew displays some shock at the arrival of visitors and again in both cases the Doctor has no idea where they are. The Tardis also gets displaced in both episodes. In 'The Robots of Death' the humans are mining the planet for minerals and additionally have scientists on board. In 'The Impossible Planet,' the humans are drilling to a power source and have an archaeologist on board. These connections are all superficial but they're key to seeing the structural connection between the two episodes. Both the Ood and robots are similarly named - via a combination of letters and numbers.[2]  Interestingly, the main Ood in 'The Planet of the Ood' and the main robot deviate from that standard naming convention. The Ood is simply Ood Alpha, while the robot uses two letters, being name SV7. Clearly this difference in naming signifies something special about them. The next set of parallels is where things get really interesting.

Both the robots and the Ood have a shared mind, if the robots can truly be said to have a mind, that is controlled from some center. This allows both to be controlled by humans (or by the Devil in the 'Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit'). Because of this, both are very effective slave "races" who do a range of activities for the humans. Interestingly, the robots are portrayed as being more capable than the Ood. They take on skilled labor like mining[3] where the Ood never seem to be anything other than servants or manual laborers. The subservience of each is strongly underscored. Both are said to have no purpose except that which humans give them. The Ood are even said to have the desire to be subservient.

There also are strong fraternal themes in both episodes, especially as they relate to questions of power and control. In the stories about the Ood we learn about a group known as 'the Friends of the Ood.' These are people who find humanity's treatment of the Ood unethical. They identify themselves relationally as friends. In 'The Robots of Death' the human antagonist, Taren Capel, calls the robots 'his brothers.' He even goes as far as painting himself with metallic paint and wearing clothing similar to the robots. When the robot uprising becomes overt he changes his appearance as an act of solidarity. Capel is portrayed as a madman, believing he is giving the robots freedom through his attempted coup. It's a false freedom, however, as the controls were simply shifted to Capel himself. In the 'Planet of the Ood' the primary human antagonist, Klineman Halpan, gets turned into an Ood at the conclusion of the Ood revolution. It's the final event in the revolution prior to the emancipation of the Ood brain. Control of the Ood brain is leaving human hands. The Ood will look after Halpen to make sure he is being taken care of.

Why all of these points of connection? It's obvious that it's not incidental nor do I think it's just for fun, to pay homage to the classic series. I believe the writers had at least these points in mind. If you see more, or disagree, chime in in the comments! Intelligence and capacity in no way determine intrinsic value. The Ood seemed unintelligent and incapable in comparison to the robots, but are of more value because they are living beings. Just because you can control someone or something doesn't mean you should, even if by doing so you think you are doing it good, as some of the humans argued. Second, the oppressed should use violence minimally. As soon as they freed the Ood brain, they ceased fighting and began singing. One gets the impression that the robots would not have stopped until Capel had conquered the galaxy. Capel linked freedom with death, the Ood linked it with singing. Third is the importance of identification. We all should be willing to undergo the transformation that Halpan went through to understand the plight of the oppressed. While Halpan was forced, those in power should be willing to lay down their privileges to join together with the weak as one family. It is through relationship that we all attain equality and freedom, not through violence.

In many ways, I believe the story of the Ood contain a summary of the message of the first four seasons of Doctor Who. I also hope it also inspires in you the love and appreciation for the 'Planet of the Ood' and Doctor Who in general that it has in me. More importantly, I hope it helps all of us wrestle with these difficult ethical issues.

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[1] I consider the God Complex to be an unparalleled disaster in the modern Doctor Who era. Moffat's complete inability to develop Amy Pond into a coherent or interesting character is magnified when one compares her to Ace. The experience Ace has in the conclusion of the Curse of Fenric fits her storyline perfectly. It completely destroys the coherence of Amy.

[2] The Ood use Greek letters and the robots use English letters.

[3] The captain does argue, however, that the robots are not as good as humans at mining because of their lack of instinct.

Exploring the Christian Way of Life: Prolegomena Part 2

In my last post we began our prolegomena by sketching a doctrine of Scripture. In today's post we will look at some issues regarding hermeneutics. As I concluded in the last post, our job is to listen to the Scriptures. That stresses both posture and effort. This post will be a little technical. I apologize for that, but it is a technical topic.

I have learned a great deal from a variety of stances that could loosely be gathered under the heading of post-modern literary criticism. The biggest gain I see is the emphasis on voice and power. Whose voice are we hearing when we read a text? So often it's our own, or the voice of the tradition or social group we have aligned ourselves with. How, then, are these different voices using the text for their own ends? How do we think the author was using the text for his or her own end? The moment we begin to use Scripture for our own power plays we lose all hope of hearing God speak through it. Scripture is something to be listened to, together. For community, in all of its diversity and messiness, is the best safeguard against usurping the text of the Bible for our own ends.[1] At its heart, listening is about reading as well as possible, while hoping to encounter God. Philosophy of language and applied linguistics have given us some tools to help us read well.

A major breakthrough over the last fifty years in the philosophy of language is the realization that speech, oral or written, is an action. Human being write and say things for reasons. They are trying to do or accomplish certain things with their words. These intentional actions are part of the meaning of what we say and write. Utterances and writings mean things because by them we express intentional (psychological) states.[2]  That's another way of saying that utterances mean what speakers intend them to mean.

Therefore, if we want to understand what has been written, we must pay attention to the three elements of every utterance: the locutions, illocutions, and perlocutions of the texts as wholes.[3] Locutions refer to the propositional content of an utterance. If I say, 'the kitchen is clean,' then the propositional content is that the kitchen is clean. What am I trying to do by making that utterance (or what is my illocutionary force)? Am I using that propositional content to make an assertion or a complaint or both or something else? Last, look at the impact of the text. How do you feel reading it in context? What did the text accomplish? The significance of a text or utterance is part of the meaning (although certainly in a somewhat different sense). Also, when dealing with ancient texts we must ask how the earliest audience understand the text. Often reception history, especially during the first couple of centuries CE, is a clue back into what the author was trying to do with the text. To paraphrase Markus Bockmuehl, to understand what happened, look at what happened next and work your way backwards.[4] All of this must be taken into account to understand what a text means. Progressing through a text word by word seeking to understand lexical meaning is inadequate. Texts must be understood at the level of discourse and discourses are made up of speech acts.[5]

Everything I've said is all well and good but we will run into a few roadblocks that require us to be careful. We are not the intended recipients of any biblical text. It was written to someone else and intended to participate in some sort of conversation that we are not part of. We may not even know who either the author or the intended audience was. How then can we proceed?

Two things help us substantially. First, most speech acts have conventional ways of being performed. The text as it is should contain much of the material we need to properly interpret it. The author should, generally, make his aims clear.[6] We are not looking at detached fragments but at complete works. Bringing in literary tools appropriate to the genre will help us situate the individual utterances as a whole. Second, and most critical, we must do studies on background and comparative work. We must compare biblical texts to other similar biblical texts and to other texts both from within and without the Judeo-Christian tradition that are contemporary with the text we are studying. This will provide us with a range of possible uses for a given text, ruling out certain interpretations. For example, I firmly believe that when Romans is compared with both Jewish and Greco-Roman ethical treatises and when one understands first century Jewish attitudes towards the law and righteousness, it becomes clear that both traditional Catholic and Protestant interpretations, particularly of the first four chapters, are impossible.

Once we have understood both the literal content of the text and the aim of the author, we are left to react. We must ask, what is the proper response to the text?[7] How do we live and put into action what we hear God speaking to us when he makes the word come alive to us. As Vanhoozer has put it, how do we individually and collectively improvise on the text as we follow the leading of the Holy Spirit? Any interpretation that stops short of this point is incomplete.

For Further Reading:

On Biblical Hermeneutics:
Thiselton on Hermeneutics: Collected Works with New Essays by Anthony Thiselton
Essays on Biblical Interrpetation by Paul Ricoeur

Models for Interpretation of Scripture by John Goldingay
Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical Linguistic Approach to Christian Doctrine by Kevin Vanhoozer

On Speech Act Theory and Related Philosophical Issues:
Speech Acts - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Intentionality: An Essay in Philosophy of Mind by John Searle
Foundations of Illocutionary Logic John Searle and Daniel Vanderveken
Logics of Conversation by Nicholas Asher and Alex Lascarides**

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[1] And by community, I don't have in mind only the level of the local church, but the church as a whole, Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant.

[2] Though the challenge to this view by Asher and Lascarides needs to be considered, modification here doesn't overthrow my overall argument.

[3] Here I think Asher and Lascarides - against Searle - are on the right track by insisting that we must view individual speech acts as contributing to a conversation and that the conversation is the basic unit of meaning.

[4] This paraphrase is from a line in Simon Peter in Scripture and Memory that I am unable to track down at the moment.

[5] In my own analysis I will be doing speech act analysis and inserting it into a discourse analysis that is in the spirit of SDRT as outlined by Asher and Lascarides. I will not make the analysis explicit in my writing on this blog but it will lie behind my presentations of my exegetical work.

[6] Even ironic texts like (I believe) the Song of Songs do make their intentions clear at points, otherwise even the original audience would miss the point. It gets dicier with satire.

[7] Is the proper reaction ever repudiation or a refusal to follow the leading of a text? I am not sure, but it's hard to see how not to push back against certain texts like Proverbs 31 or Ezra 9-10, for example. Resisting a biblical text is not something to take lightly and we must listen hard to hear how God might still speak to us through it. One would also have to make a convincing biblical argument against the said text. But I do not see any apriori reason why God could not move us in a direction in conflict with a 'problematic passage' just as the apostles were so moved at the Jerusalem council.

** Note: This work is extremely technical and is intended for specialists only.

Exploring the Christian Way of Life: Prolegomena Part 1

As I mentioned in the introduction last week, I intend to write a theology that is centered on Jesus, and I also took shots at the dominance of prolegomena in Christian theology. Among other things, prolegomena often includes discussion of hermeneutics and doctrine of Scripture. Hermeneutics is interesting but I don't see it as actually being a theological topic. Doctrine of Scripture is important, but I don't believe that the beginning is the place for full length treatment. At the same time, I do believe I need to inform my readers of how I approach Scripture at the start, as that will have an impact on the use of Scripture in developing theology. Part one of my prolegomena will lay out the basics of my doctrine of Scripture. Wednesday I will post part two, which will cover hermeneutics.

When one reads Karl Barth there sometimes is some confusion. Is Scripture the word of God or isn't it? The answer depends on what you mean by the word of God. What is the word of God? Is Scripture that? In what sense is the Bible inspired? How does Scripture function authoritatively? Below I will briefly outline my views with minimal defense. I am deeply indebted to Barth so I would commend you to his very full discussion in Church Dogmatics I.1 and I.2.

We will pick up those questions in order. The word of God is the self revelation of God. Or as Barth puts it, "God's Word is God Himself in His revelation."[1] Drawing from John 1, the word of God is God the Son, and in the incarnation, Jesus. Any encounter we have with the word of God is an encounter with the second person of the Trinity and an encounter that will not leave us unchanged. In this sense, it would be odd to call Scripture the word of God. Instead, I would say that Scripture is the authoritative witness to past revelation, authenticated by God and his primary means to continue to speak today. Scripture itself isn't the word of God, but it often does become it when God the Holy Spirit uses it to speak to us; when he actualizes it as God's word to us as a people and as individuals.

That brings us to the third question. Working from this understanding of the nature of Scripture and the word of God it becomes clear that the Bible does not possess the same ontological status or character as God the Son. Scripture is inspired as a witness to the word of God.[2] It arises from certain experiences that people in the past had of the Word of God. God revealed himself to them and they wrote what they heard and experienced. Scripture is inspired because the people who wrote, wrote in response to an experience of the living God. Inspiration is of the person, not something directly tied to the process of writing as is assumed under the popular notions of inspiration. The Bible is the primary inspired witness to revelation. 

The authority Scripture possesses, then, is derivative and must be subordinated to the authority of Jesus Christ himself, the head of the church. However, since it is the authoritative record of past revelation and the means that God uses to facilitate revelation today, there needs to be an attentiveness to it, a humility in approaching it, and a general respect for it. Our job is to listen to Scripture hoping to hear God speak afresh today. The process of listening isn't simple and a matter of plainly, 'putting into practice what the Bible says,' but an exploration of how to listen to the Bible is the topic of our next post.

For further reading: 

Church Dogmatcis Volumes I.1 and I.2 by Karl Barth

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[1] Church Dogmatics Vol I.1 p. 295.

[2] As an aside, I believe this is what makes the doctrine of inerrancy unnecessary. The Bible isn't trying to give a perfect history in the modern sense. It's trying to witness to the character and actions of God. Of course this isn't always separable from history, but errors and contradictions in the text don't necessarily undermine the portrait of God revealed in the text. 

Johannine Resources

As I mentioned previously, I am going to be starting work on the gospel of John soon. There seem to be a lot of very solid resources out there. For those of you who have done significant study, what commentaries would you recommend? Also what monographs should I read on important topics related to John?

For commentaries, I own the following: Brown, Sloyan, Carson, Keener, McHugh, and Michaels. I will shortly be purchasing the just released translation of Cyril of Alexander's commentary.

I am strongly considering: Calvin, Bultmann, Moloney, and Lincoln.

Any other suggestions? Any of these you think are a waste of time?

Trying to Navigate Heterosexual, Sexual Ethics

If you're on Google+ and know me personally you may have seen a couple of recent articles I linked to and made brief comments on. I have a fair amount of frustration with the predominate approach of conservative Evangelicals in heterosexual sexual ethics (I also have frustration with their homosexual sexual ethics too, but that's for another time). In this post I want to briefly outline what I view as problems and try to work toward some solutions.

Often, conservative Evangelical sexual ethics are patriarchal and dehumanizing. When a man looks at a woman with desire, it's very easy to turn her into an object of sexual desire (I assume the same is true when women look at men, but of course I can't know for sure) and fail to see her as a person who should not be violated in that way. It's dehumanizing. He's guilty of two sins, lust and dehumanizing the woman. Typically, Evangelical sexual ethics only deals with one of the two sins, and honestly the less important of the two. The way Evangelical sexual ethics typically work (implicitly not explicitly), it grants that women are sexual objects as a premise and then moves from there. The primary strategy is avoidance. Don't talk to women or even look at them. You don't want to be tempted by them to lust. Women, cover up your bodies, don't wear skirts above the knee, short shorts, bikinis, or pants that are too tight. This goes whether you're married or single. It doesn't matter if your husband would enjoy seeing you in a bikini at the beach. It's important that you control others' behavior. Their purity is in part your responsibility. After all, your body is the playground of their desires and you need to keep them off of it.

The situation gets even worse when we get to the emphasis on purity. The value of a woman to potential husbands is partially determined by her degree of purity before marriage. I find that so appalling that I don't even know how to respond. Jesus accepts us and draws us into union with him without requiring perfection in any area, why can't men do the same? The other issue in all of this is that it lets men off easy. There's no real change that has to happen here. Just avoid the temptation. It doesn't matter what the implications of your action are. There's also a double standard here. Unless they're pastors or elders, male sexual misconduct like watching pornography, while condemned, is almost assumed to have happened.

How do we go forward? Men need to take primary responsibility for their conduct. In my deconstruction above I am not advocating anything goes in terms of attire or sexual behavior. Women shouldn't dress with the intention of being sexually enticing or seductive (this is different from trying to be attractive or beautiful) to someone who isn't their spouse. But if you garner some looks from men, that's ok, it's not shameful. They're responsible for their own actions. You should not want to stumble someone, but in normal settings (i.e., not bars or nightclubs), few women (granted I do believe that number is growing) objectify themselves to the degree that stumbling others is unavoidable.

The focus needs to shift from purity to treating one another with dignity. This includes the manner in which a man looks at a woman and in which he doesn't look at a woman. There is nothing wrong with noticing the physical beauty of the person; it's an integral part of who they are. It's what happens from there that can become a problem. We need to have our vision and desire transformed so that we can interact with women in a way that treats them as people with inherent value, not as sexual objects. Avoidance strategies need to be tossed in the garbage. We need to begin the truly hard work of honoring one another above ourselves and mortifying our sexual impulse.