Review: Relics of Tomorrow

Relics of Tomorrow by Brandon Cleland
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Book: ***
Performance: **

A Very Simple Trope filled Dystopian Story

It is a basic coming of age story in a dystopian world that is divided into levels according to net worth. A young, orphaned thief, dreams of making it to a level above the smog where he can ditch the O2 mask and see the sun. Of course … there is something special about the young hooligan … who eventually teams up it a shape changing alien who becomes something of a mentor for the “big league” of possession liberation. There is a little force humor between the pair as they have encounter a few mishaps in each caper/heist, but nothing too unbelievable (and or unexpected). The story does come across as something of a “paint-by-the-numbers” piece all the way to the end (which was a tad on the rabbit/hat or comic book style). Overall it was entertaining, but fairly forgettable.

The Narration was pretty basic. The reader struggled to differentiate character voices, especially for women, and there was something off that made the delivery feel awkward and unnatural to me. It was not so bad that I couldn’t tolerate it, but it did highlight the rather formulaic nature of the story to the point of amusement.

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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Review: Homecoming

Homecoming by Jude Austin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Book: **
Performance: ****

The Cleanup from Book One

We get a little bit more world-building … which is basically just a SciFi veneer over today, with such weirdness as parking-lot asteroids and cryo-sleep for a three (3) day trip. Generally it is more of the same with Kata and Tau now on the run where they encounter more bad guys that want to take advantage of their unique abilities (mostly Kata). There is less violence, but impact of that experience lingers throughout the story here and gets a little long in the tooth towards the end (and less interesting as it devolves into a pseudo courtroom drama). The biggest issue was that it moved sooo slowly that it was hard to stay focused.

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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Review: Project Tau

Project Tau by Jude Austin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Book: ***
Performance: ****

An Interesting Clone Story

The world building in this story was interesting if a bit simplistic and anachronistic at times. The primary theme revolves around human cloning … called Projects … that are grown and used in place of humans in dangerous environments (mines) and experiments that have apparently greatly benefited humanity in general, but these clones are always property, treated more or less like animals. But they are hugely expensive and the labs that grow them operate on a very slim margin … so when the opportunity to pass off a human as a project lands in front of the lab executives, they just can’t pass that up … and Kalin becomes project Kata … with skills and abilities no Project has ever had before if only they can “break” his independent streak. And that is where the story turns very dark, especially for a YA genre.

When Project Kata is thrown in with Project Tau (an actual, advanced human clone), the interactions provide a backdrop to explore what is means to be human … and what it means for a human to be reduced to mere property (think chattel slavery). There is also a dimension of human psychology with respect to how these projects are trained (aka broken) that provides an opportunity to highlight the effects of abuse and violence, both physical and mental, that was designed to dehumanize the subjects (not human and clone) and how those in authority can justify their inhuman behavior. It all seemed plausible given my understanding of human history and psychology; although to be honest, I found the focus here a little difficult to take at times, but the protagonists were very sympathetic characters and I was pulling for them the entire time while anticipating a better situation at the end …

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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Review: Understanding the New Testament Use of the Old Testament: Forms, Features, Framings, and Functions

Understanding the New Testament Use of the Old Testament: Forms, Features, Framings, and Functions by Douglas S Huffman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“In the Old Testament the New is concealed, in the New the Old is revealed”
(Novum Testamentum in Vetere latet, Vetus Testamentum in Novo patet)
literal: New Testament in the Old lies, the Old Testament in the New is clear.
- St. Augustine, Quaest. in Hept. 2,73: PL 34, 623; cf. DV 16.

Within the Christian faith, there is an obvious connection between what is commonly referred to as the Old Testament (OT) and the New Testament (NT), with many of the NT authors being raised and well versed in the OT Scripture that they frequently referenced to varying intentions and purpose (hence the quote from St Augustine above). Recently there has been a resurgence of sorts to the intertextuality between the two in Christian studies and Huffman does a remarkable job presented the current state of research in an accessible manner that can’t help but contribute to a better understanding of both from the Christian perspective. After that, Huffman defines the various classifications and taxonomies by which we can evaluate the use of the OT in the NT, taking into account the Jewish exegetical methods/traditions (such Proem/Introduction, Midrash, Targum, Pesher and Peshat) and literary tools (such allegory, allusion, conflation, echo, paraphrase, recollection, typology, et al) available at the time the NT was written in order to better understand the author’s intent and purpose in his OT references using several different taxonomies of framing, form and function.

All of this takes place in the first third of the book, with the remaining parts taken up with appendices, citations, glossary, indices and call outs … so there is plenty there to support a deep dive into the topic.

The chapters and sections in this work are …

Preface
Abbreviations

1. Introduction to Studying the New Testament Use of the Old Testament
2. Form Classifications for the New Testament Use of the Old Testament
3. Features for Form Identification in the New Testament Use of the Old Testament
4. Framing Classifications for the New Testament Use of the Old Testament
5. Function Classification for the New Testament Use of the Old Testament
6. The New Testament Use of the Old Testament in Luke and Acts 

Appendix A: Apparent Citations Introduced in the New Testament but Difficult to Locate in the Old Testament
Appendix B: A Select Bibliography for the New Testament Use of the Old Testament
Appendix C: Applying the New Taxonomy of Forms to the UBS5 and NA28

Indexes of Old Testament Citations and Allusions for Luke and Acts
Glossary: Common Terms in the Study of the New Testament Use of the Old Testament
Index of Modern Authors
Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Texts

Some of the other points that really got my attention (regardless of whether or not I agreed with them) are:

In antiquity, Marcion of Sinope (ca. CE 85–160) rejected the deity described in the Hebrew Scriptures (i.e., the OT) as a warring creator god who had to be lower than the God of the NT.

The very development of the NT is dependent on the OT, even as faith in Jesus as the Christ of the NT is dependent on what the OT said about the Christ who was coming.

A NT writer may cite one of the OT texts while having the whole network in mind, so uncovering that network may well provide insight for properly understanding the NT author’s use of a particular OT passage.

Allusions and recollections are places in the NT that indirectly borrow from the words and/or ideas of OT passages.

One issue to be faced in charting a taxonomy of forms is the question of where to slot compressed citations, i.e., when a NT author quotes several key phrases from a particular OT source text while eliminating certain parts of the quotation.

Likewise, problematic is the question of composite citations or conflation, i.e. when a NT author cites two (or more) different passages (even from different OT books) as if they are one passage.

A specific allusion involves enough minimal borrowed OT language pointing to a specific OT passage, and a thematic echo is less particular and carries forward ideas and themes found in multiple places in the OT. … literary critics concur that allusion involves (1) the use of a sign or marker that (2) calls to the reader’s mind another known text (3) for a specific purpose.”

Despite the complications indicated above, fortunately most citations of the OT in the NT have introductions of some kind. [“It is written”, “to fulfill”, et al]

Here scholars make distinctions between various first-century practices such as targum (interpretive paraphrases), midrash (interpretation and/or commentary from searching the text itself), pesher (explaining eschatological mysteries), allegory (extracting symbolic meanings), and typology (noticing how historical events, institutions, places, and figures function as divinely ordained symbols of subsequent, greater realities).

I want to suggest that there may well be proper ways to use what scholars have dubbed first-century hermeneutical tools. If there are proper ways to use first-century tools, there are also improper ways to use them, and that means that varying degrees of errant interpretation could occur among ancient writers (even as they do among scholars today!).

The Jewish exegetical practices—resulting in commentary from searching the scriptural text itself—known by the Hebrew term midrash were not designated as such until the early fourth century CE.

The term targum is used to refer to this practice of making an interpretive paraphrase of an OT passage translating it from Hebrew into Aramaic (when referencing the written Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Bible, the term is capitalized as Targum).

It is better to understand pesher as something additional to midrash. More than apocalyptic midrash, pesher is particularly caught up with interpreting eschatological mystery.

Properly understood, typology sees actual historical figures and events portrayed in the OT as symbolic foreshadows of subsequent historical figures and events. … In this way typology is viewed as a kind of fulfillment function for the function of the OT in the New.

Peshat or literal interpretation: Understanding a passage to mean plainly and exactly what it says. Longenecker notes that the Hebrew word peshat (“to strip off, to flatten, to rush out, to flay”) has been associated with plain interpretation since at least the fourth century CE and came to be used somewhat synonymously (even if not by all commentators) with the word “to interpret.”

Written before the NT was compiled into Christian Scripture, the referent to “Holy Scriptures” here, or “sacred writings” (ἱερὰ γράμματα), is clearly the OT, and (to the chagrin of people like Marcion mentioned in chap. 1 above) clearly the OT is judged as applicable to the Christian life.

Scripture is fulfilled in one sense when a prediction comes true, in another sense when a promise is still kept or some other pattern is still followed, and in a third sense when a prefigurement comes to light. 

But I also want to acknowledge the possibility that a NT author may intend more than one function for his use of a particular OT text and that those multiple functions may not be next to each other on the continuum as I have sketched it. …

1. Ultimate truths: The author/speaker of the NT text may simply want to declare the message contained in the OT text.
2. Ethical wisdom: The author/speaker of the NT text appeals to the ethical directives of the OT text as applicable to the reading/listening audience.
3. Prophecy fulfillment: The event under discussion in the NT is viewed by the author/speaker as somehow fulfilling a prophecy recorded or indicated in the OT.
4. Promising patterns: The NT author sees God as continuing to keep to his promised and/or characteristic behavior as reflected or recorded in the OT.
5. Typological correlation: Divinely intended symbolism in history whereby historical figures, places, events, or institutions (the “types”) foreshadow subsequent greater realities (the “antitypes”).
6. Historical backdrop: The NT author/speaker uses an OT text to provide the reader/listener with historical information helpful for understanding the subject under consideration in the NT context.
7. Cultural background: The NT author/speaker uses a reference to the OT in order to explain some cultural behavior in the NT story by its background in the OT story.
8. Instructive exemplars: The NT speaker/author refers to the OT as giving an example that is to be followed by the listeners/readers of the NT text.
9. Illustrations and imagery: The NT speaker/author refers to someone or something in the OT as an illustration of the subject matter under discussion in the NT context or otherwise draws upon imagery from the OT.
10. Vocabulary and style: The NT writer borrows upon the vocabulary and style of OT writers without intending particular citations and interpretations.

Programmatic Motives

1. Evangelizing people to faith in Jesus Christ, the fulfiller of Scripture. As already indicated, in several key places in his narrative, Luke uses Scripture to justify the mission of Jesus and the expansion of the gospel message about him.
2. Extolling God’s sovereign plan for history. Luke-Acts proclaims the idea that God has a plan for history. Four Lukan texts make this particularly clear, and each of them references (or at least alludes to) the Israelite Scriptures (see Luke 7:24–28; 16:16–17; Acts 10:42–43; 17:24–31).
3. Authenticating the faith heritage of Christianity. His constant use of the Israelite Scriptures is another way for Luke to stress that the story of the Christian church is the continuation of the Jesus story even as the Jesus story is the continuation of the story recorded in Israel’s sacred writings.
4. Expanding the notion of God’s people to include gentiles in the church. Overlapping with the previous motifs related to evangelism, God’s plan, and faith heritage is Luke’s concern to appeal to the OT Scriptures to encourage the expansion of God’s people to include gentile believers.
5. Encouraging the interpretation of Scripture. As already noted, most citations of the OT in Luke-Acts occur in speeches, primarily with Jesus speaking in the Gospel of Luke and with apostolic preaching in Acts.

I was given this free advance reader copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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Review: The God Protocol: Dragon

The God Protocol: Dragon by D.L. Wilburn Jr.
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Book: **
Performance: **

A Simple, Tropey Alien Conspiracy Story

It was an interesting premise … a fringe podcaster seeking the truth behind all those alien/government conspiracies only to find out that some of them are actually true. Unfortunately … it was poorly executed. To begin with, there was absolutely no character development (or even differentiation) anywhere. Then the MC podcast dialog seemed to take up way too much of the story … the silliness would have been bearable if it didn’t take itself so seriously (either I didn’t get the humor or there just wasn’t any). Then there was the typical freshman pitfalls such as info-dumps and an incessant focus on trivial details that added absolutely nothing to the story. There is enough tech to call it SciFi … and the author gets most of it right, but it does go off the rails enough that I am pretty sure it is just a bunch of tropes stitched together without much understanding of the actual tech/science behind it. Must of this would have been fixed with a good editor … all of this was exacerbated by a narration that didn’t differential the voices well and delivered the excessive dialog just enough off to seem unnatural … taken all together, it was so boring that I almost DNF.

I was given this free advance review/listener copy (ARC) audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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Review: The Old Testament as Literature: Foundations for Christian Interpretation

The Old Testament as Literature: Foundations for Christian Interpretation by Tremper III Longman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ultimately the Old Testament is a collection of written works designed to communicate some idea or concept to a particular audience. The tools used by the various authors and redactors are not new; they relied upon the same forms and techniques used in contemporary literature that were already well known to their audience … sending signals to their readers to enable them to correctly interpret the intending meaning of the text. While much of the text has developed over time, and many scholars seem to be focused on extracting the original text and meaning, the author here recommends that we focus on the final version and how it has been traditionally interpreted through the ages since as a starting point. 

Part One covers the current state of scholarship for studying the Old Testament as Literature, including some background on how we got here and what literary devices and concepts are used in understanding the authors’ intent as well as how parts of the text or “books” work with other text or “books” of the Old Testament. And while this is an extremely academic undertaking, it remain accessible to the causal reader (although repetition and independent study would also be very helpful). What makes this work exception is Parts two and three where everything that was covered in Part one is illustrated with analysis of specific parts of prose and poetic text … although this also tends to be very technical and, at times, difficult to follow for me (which is why this is something to periodically come back to). Over all, this book can only help any student of scripture that is interested in biblical exegesis.

The chapters and sections in this work are …

Introduction: Scope and Procedure

Part One: Literary Theory and the Conventions of Biblical Narrative and Poetry
1. The Location of Meaning
2. History of the Study of the Old Testament as Literature
3. Genre Triggers Reading Strategy
4. Narrative Prose as Genre
5. Poetry
6. Intertextuality

Part Two: The Analysis of Illustrative Prose0 Narrative Texts
7. Literary Readings of Prose Narratives from the Torah
8. Literary Readings of Prose Narratives from the Historical Books

Part Three: The Analysis of Illustrative Poetic Texts
9. Literary Readings of Poetic Texts from the Psalms
10. Literary Readings of Poetic Texts from the Wisdom Literature
11. Literary Readings of Poetic Texts from the Prophets and Epic Poetry

Postlude

Some of the other points that really got my attention (regardless of whether or not I agreed with them) are:

• My most important conclusion is that authors send genre signals to their readers to convey how to take their words and thus trigger a reading strategy.
• Readers should primarily be interested in the final, canonical form of the biblical book. Even if a passage such as Elihu’s speech was added later, we must ask how it functions within the book as it is now.
• John the Baptist is thrown in jail, where he hears reports about Jesus’s ministry. Yet what he hears disturbs him because Jesus doesn’t seem to be executing the judgment John predicted. Jesus is healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, raising the dead, and preaching the good news. When John hears this, he thinks “I may have baptized the wrong person!” This is why he sends two of his disciples to Jesus to ask, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” (Matt. 11:3).
• Besides writing in an ancient language, the biblical authors used genres, literary conventions, and figurative language that were immediately familiar to their original audience but are likely unfamiliar to modern readers. Likewise, these authors refer to ancient institutions and customs that may be unknown to a modern audience or misunderstood by those who are outside the original historical context.
• It can be unsettling to consider that our reading of the biblical text is constrained by our status, previous experience, and level of education. But the obvious solution to this problem is to recognize that interpreters need to read in community. We understand the biblical text better when we listen to diverse voices.
• What went by the name “literary criticism” was not an analysis of the text in its present final form but rather a type of textual archaeology, an attempt to look behind the text to find its putative sources, often with the idea that these earlier sources were somehow more authentic or important than the final form.
• With its goal of recovering the original meaning of a text, historical-critical scholarship tends to downplay or ignore how the text has been interpreted through the ages.
• According to Gottwald, Israel originated in a revolt of the underclasses of Canaanite feudal society. Evidence for this revolt and the emergence of Israel is seen archaeologically in the dissolution of Canaanite coastal cities in the thirteenth to the eleventh centuries BC and the appearance of small towns in the highlands to the east.
• “Every culture, even every era in a particular culture, develops distinctive and sometimes intricate codes for telling its stories, involving everything from narrative point of view, procedures of description and characterization, the management of dialogue, to the ordering of time and the organization of plot.”
• Phelan and Rabinowitz tell us that the best reading takes place when actual readers do their best to acquire the competencies of the implied reader: “Readers typically join (or try to join) the authorial audience, the hypothetical group for whom the author writes—the group that shares the knowledge, values, prejudices, fears and experiences that the author expected in his or her readers and that ground his or her rhetorical choices.”
• The Hebrew narrator is often reticent to provide a moral evaluation of a character’s actions in the story. Rarely do narrators give explicit pronouncements that a character is doing the right thing or the wrong thing. This does not mean that the narrator does not subtly lead readers toward such moral evaluations, but readers must look hard for the clues.
• In contrast to life—where we are invariably confronted by an endless stream of incidents occurring haphazardly and disparately—the plot of a narrative is constructed as a meaningful chain of interconnected events. This is achieved by careful selection, entailing the omission of any incident which does not fit in logically with the planned development of the plot.”
• The Hebrew word for this area is midbar (cf. 1 Sam. 25:1–2, 4, 14, 21), which most translations render “wilderness” (NLT, ESV) or “desert” (NCV, NIV). The term “desert,” however, can be misleading and may evoke the idea of a barren, sandy expanse, whereas Nabal is able to raise sheep in this area.

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Review: McCabe's Luck: The Feud Goes On

McCabe's Luck: The Feud Goes On by Patrick Lindsay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Book: ****
Performance: ****

A Classic Western Well Told

I am a fan of westerns, growing up with the classics from Zane Grey, Max Brand and Louis L’Amour. This story has all the hallmarks of such a classic with a likable MC and the typical power hungry antagonist (although not really a good comparison, it did remind me a little of the Sackett Saga). Throw in a light romance and some gun play with a reasonable plot and you have the basic all American feel good story the genre is famous for, and I enjoyed it a lot. The narration was solid and comfortable for the story and gave it a bit more of an authentic feel with the first person POV. Most of all … it was a clean story, which I appreciated so much given what I have found in more recent western stories. Finally … it is in Kindle Unlimited … so it is definitely work a read in you subscribe to that.

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