Mark (Belief) -- Review

MARK (Belief).  By William Placher.  Louisville:  WJK Press, 2010.  272 pages.

If your commentary budget has not yet run dry, check out William Placher's new book on the Gospel of Mark, the first in a new series of theological commentaries from Westminster John Knox. Placher, who died in 2008, was to be the co-editor of this series with Amy Plantinga Pauw. This volume, the last thing he wrote, is a fitting legacy.

I appreciate a commentator with deep theological sensitivity, someone who can build a bridge from the ancient text to the present faith experience. Though a theologian by training and not a biblical scholar, Placher demonstrates a keen understanding of the critical issues--but without letting this overwhelm the text's theological insights. As he notes (tipping his hat to Barth), critical scholarship is but the first step toward commentary. In Placher's hands the text comes alive as he interacts with it in the company of Augustine, Calvin and Barth.

Although Mark is the briefest teller of Jesus' story, Placher suggests that we should attend to Mark's presentation because of its historical, political, literary and theological perspectives. Mark's Gospel is closest to Jesus' own lifetime; it demonstrates awareness of the political issues of the day. While it might in some ways lack literary polish, its storytelling is sophisticated. As for theology, in the text we encounter a God who is a fellow-sufferer, one who understands our situation.

Placher takes us through Mark passage by passage, drawing from other theologians as needed and offering occasional "further reflections" on specific topics (Satan, ransom theory). The commentary begins by noting that Mark's original audience was familiar with a "book that started with archē (beginning)." Mark's opening lines suggest "a comparison between this story of a recently crucified teacher and the story of God's creation of the whole universe, the beginning of God's sacred Word." This gospel of a new beginning concludes with Mark's shorter ending (16:1-8), which leaves us at the empty tomb, hanging, needing more information.

Placher finds confirmation of the resurrection in Mark's inclusion of the women as witnesses. But the end of Mark is consistent with what Placher calls his "cryptic, dark theology"--which other gospel writers couldn't tolerate. Mark ends without appearances or commissions, offering only an ambiguity that might fit well our contemporary age, "when a Gospel that ends with Christ triumphantly present is harder to reconcile with the horrors of the world around us and doubts within us. Mark throws the ball to us, as he did to his first readers." Having heard the story, it's our responsibility to keep it alive in our lives and in our testimony.

Reposted from the Century Blog

The People's New Testament Commentary -- Review

THE PEOPLE’S NEW TESTAMENT COMMENTARY. By M. Eugene Boring and Fred B. Craddock. Louisville: WJK Press, 2009. x + 827 pp. (Paperback)

Back in the late nineteenth century Disciples preacher B.W. Johnson published an annotated edition of the New Testament (with King James and Revised Versions in parallel columns) that carried the name The People’s New Testament with Notes. Being that Disciples believe(d) that each person has the right and responsibility to interpret the scriptures for themselves, it is not surprising that a Disciple pastor/scholar would create a resource intended for a lay audience. Now, early in the 21st century two spiritual descendants of B.W. Johnson have produced a commentary on the New Testament intended for use by lay people that carries on the spirit of the original. Originally published in hardback, it is now available in a paperback edition.

The authors of this commentary are distinguished scholars with a heart for the church. Fred B. Craddock is best known as a preacher, but he is also a very well regarded biblical scholar, having taught both preaching and New Testament at Candler Seminary as well as having authored numerous commentaries on New Testament books. Gene Boring may not be as well known as Craddock, but he too is a highly regarded New Testament scholar who taught for many years at Brite Divinity School.  His previous works include a commentary on Revelation in the Interpretation series, a commentary on Mark for the New Testament Library,  as well as an important historical study of biblical scholarship within the Stone-Campbell movement, Disciples and the Bible (Chalice Press, 1997). While both men are critical scholars, who bring to the discussion their years of engagement with critical biblical scholarship, they understand that the New Testament is also a sacred text that has great meaning for the church and for individual Christians. Because of their scholarly background and their spiritual sensitivity, both are highly qualified to lead the serious reader of the Scriptures deeper into the text.

Unlike the nineteenth century original, this book doesn’t include the biblical text, though it is based on the New Revised Standard Version. In addition to providing commentary on each of the New Testament books, the authors (without delineating who wrote which part) off a brief introduction to the “New Testament as the Church’s Book,” by which they mean that everyone within the church has access to the text and may read it for themselves. They note as well that by church they don’t mean a specific tradition or denomination, but the church at large, a church that wrote, selected, edited, transmitted, translated, and interpreted the text. In regards to the latter, they write that they “have called [their] volume the ‘People’s Commentary’ because we believe the ‘common’ people of the church – the laity, the people of God – are able and authorized to study the Bible on their own” (p. 5). Beyond this general introduction, they provide introductions to the gospels and to the Pauline Epistles, and a series of excursuses on topics they believe are germane to the reader. These excursuses are scattered throughout the volume and cover such issues and the interpretation of the resurrection, reflections on doctrines such as predestination and the practice of the Lord’s Supper.

Special attention might be given to one specific excursus that originally appeared in Boring’s Disciples and the Bible. It is entitled “The Biblical Story as a Drama in Five Acts.” Although Boring doesn’t mention it here, the idea of a five-act drama borrowed from an evangelistic tool used by one of the Disciples founders, Walter Scott. Scott used what he called the five-fingered exercise to teach his version of the way of salvation. Boring borrowed the exercise and laid out a brief and memorable summary of the biblical story – Creation (Genesis 1-11) Covenant (Genesis 12-Malachi 4), Christ (Matthew-John), Church (Acts-Jude) and Consummation (Revelation). Boring created this little mnemonic device as a way of breaking the spell of biblical illiteracy that infects our churches. Using this little device, people have a basic outline upon which to hang the biblical story. Attending to this excursus, which the author’s placed within their Ephesians commentary will pay great dividends.

This is a text that should be in every church library, on the desk of every pastor, and of course sitting nearby one’s Bible – at home. The Protestant Reformation delivered the Bible to the people in the vernacular. It was believed that the people had the right and responsibility to deal with the text of Scripture. History and experience demonstrate that while the individual has this right, we all need good instructors and guides to the text. I can name no better or more up-to-date text than this. And, because it’s now in paperback, it is quite affordable.

Genesis for Everyone Parts One and Two -- Review

GENESIS FOR EVERYONE: Part One, Chapters 1-16. By John Goldingay. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010. 197 pp. GENESIS FOR EVERYONE: Part Two, Chapters 17-50. By John Goldingay. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. 186 pp.

Genesis is the beginning of the story, starting creation and moving toward the creation of a people called Israel. Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah and Rachel, and Joseph and brothers, these are the foundational stories, but the distance between that book and our day is quite wide and thus we need good and helpful guides. John Goldingay, David Hubbard Professor of Old Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary, seeks to offer us that guide.

The title of the book defines the audience quite well. This a set of commentaries – two in all – that focus on Genesis, written with a broad set of readers in mind. It doesn’t presuppose any expertise in the Bible, even providing at the end of each volume a glossary of words that might need some defining. A similar set of commentaries on the New Testament is being written by N.T. Wright, Bishop of Durham.

In style and scope these commentaries remind this reader of William Barclay’s Daily Bible Study series that Westminster Press published a generation earlier. The difference in these two approaches is that while Barclay tended toward historical and cultural analogies, Goldingay largely integrates his commentary with stories from his life – family, friends, students. Each set of passages is usually introduced with a story from life, drawing the reader into the ancient story through the modern one. Whether that is helpful, only the reader can decide.

In terms of approach to the text, Goldingay is a scholarly British evangelical. He views the text as divinely inspired and guided, but that doesn’t mean that he takes the text with wooden literalness. He recognizes that the text Genesis came into existence over time, at the hand of multiple authors, though he doesn’t go into any detail as to the nature of that process. Indeed, he doesn’t deal with traditional authorship questions – JEDP. One would assume that the author doesn’t believe that such a discussion would further the conversation about interpreting the text at hand. Suffice it to say that God was involved and that the number of authors was several.

Goldingay sees history in the Genesis account, but he also sees parables. He likes the word parable rather than myth, due to the way many use the word myth (in a negative fashion). As he reads the text, he’ll suggest where the story is moving into the realm of history or the realm of parables, recognizing that often there is a gray area. Genesis 1 and 2 and the story of Noah, they are much more likely to be parabolic, stories that teach us about God and our relationship to God. As we get toward Abraham and the stories that follow, they are more in the realm of history, though even here there is some room to maneuver.

With regard to Genesis 1, which is often at the center of debate, he writes:

God did not design Genesis 1 to tell us what a camera would have caught if it had been present to film creation. Faulting it for failing to do so misses the point, and defending it to show that it does do so also misses the point. We have no need to try to show that science is wrong and that actually the world was created in six days, just a few thousand years ago. Equally we have no need to try to conform the "facts" of Genesis with science, for instance, by suggesting that a "day" in Genesis need not mean twenty-four hours but could cover a longer period (1:27-28).

To try to make the biblical text conform to science, or the reverse, simply misses the point that the text (and God) intend to make. The point he wants to get across is that this text has meaning for us, in our day.

If we needn’t be concerned about history and science in Genesis 1 and 2, which he sees as being a historical parable. To say this doesn’t mean that it’s not true, only that the truth is carried in a picture. But as we move along there is a movement, around Genesis 11 and 12, where parable begins to merge and then give way to history. But again, the point is not the historicity, but the story of God’s desire to reconcile and bless the world that God created (and recreated after the days of Noah). Of Abraham, he writes that here the story becomes more about real people and real places. He notes that the scholarly consensus has moved back and forth as to whether Abraham existed, so it’s wise he says, not to “hitch one’s wagon too firmly to whatever is the current scholarly consensus. Ultimately, he suggested that there will never be the kind of historical evidence that can make for “definitive judgments” (1:141). But, Goldingay sees in the way the story progresses signs that it is more than a parable.

Goldingay is open and yet cautious. Yes, I would use the word cautious rather than conservative. He seeks to anchor his commentary in the scholarly mainstream, but doesn’t push the envelope too far. There are not many surprises to be found here, but then this is written not for scholars but for lay people seeking to understand an ancient text so that they might find instruction for the faith.

On a personal level, I was interested in seeing how he handled the Sodom and Gomorrah story. He starts out his comments with an acknowledgment that this text stands at the center of contemporary debates. He writes about friendships with homosexuals, and recognizes their humanity and decency. As to where he stands on the issue, he writes:

I don’t take the view that same-sex relationships are just as valid as heterosexual relationships, but neither do I think they are inherently more terrible than various other ways of falling short of God’s vision for sexual relationships (2:27).

With that introduction to his own sensibilities, he goes on to say that this passage doesn’t speak to the nature of same-sex relationships that are under discussion today. The outcry that reaches God’s ears, that leads to judgment isn’t the sexual behavior of the people of Sodom, but rather “the violent way weak people are being treated by powerful people. The implication is that the issue in Sodom is the affliction of the powerless by the powerful” (2:28). The attempted rape of Lot’s visitors is just one more example of the violence and faithlessness of this city.

The book of Genesis is central to the Jewish and the Christian faith traditions. In it we find the roots of our faith. We hear of creation and covenant. We receive our commissionings from God and yet we see the ways in which we can be faithless. Goldingay, is in the end, a trustworthy guide. One need not agree at all points, to find in these two volumes a lively and instructive commentary on this most important text of scripture.