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.

#UnderstandingtheNewTestamentUseoftheOldTestament #NetGalley.


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Review: The Scandal of Leadership: Unmasking the Powers of Domination in the Church

The Scandal of Leadership: Unmasking the Powers of Domination in the Church by J.R. Woodward
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was a very thought provoking book for me. The initial draw was an examination of the fall of high-profile [christian] leaders with an eye toward identifying the primary or root cause. It was intriguing because I felt it should be fairly obvious … pride; however, this analysis took a different approach and dove more deeply into the human mechanisms that contribute to the fall. It was not, as I had expected, a screed about personal responsibility, and yet it does not totally let our leaders off the hook. The basic premise where is that our leaders, like all people, are tempted (or influenced) by various communal forces that are generally identified as powers and principalities … so if they imitate worldly values instead of the image of Christ, they will become trapped in the cycle that eventually spirals out of control. It makes a solid point there and would be worth a read just for how it defines what the author calls a memetic cycle which operates on the principle of imitating what we love or desire. Along with that are plenty of anecdotal and/or practical stories on how to recognize when we come under the influence of the memetic desire and scapegoating. Still, there really is no “silver bullet” solution, so the practical applications were less helpful if still good (it mostly boils down to an exhortation to imitate Jesus).

Still … the introduction to several (for me completely new) scholars in a multidisciplinary effort to explain what the mimetic cycle was, as well as what the powers and principalities and powers might be (was well as how they work in a fallen world) was extremely well down and accessible (especially considering this is really based upon an academic dissertation). The idea of Satan as an emergent power (as well as the impact of fallen, human systems) were absolutely thought provoking and deserve careful consideration. To support the foundation of the author’s imitation based framework, he progresses brings in the likes of Wink, Girard and Stringfellow as he fills in a table that maps expression of principalities & powers to fallen and redeemed leadership across the dimensions of identity, praxis and telos which was very helpful in understanding the general concept as a whole.

The chapters and sections in this work are

Section One: The Challenge of Missional Leadership.
1. A Deeper Diagnosis of Why Leaders Fall
2. The Need for Missional Leadership
3. Domineering Leadership in the First-Century Church

Section Two: Missional Leadership and the Powers
4. Comprehending the Powers
5. Interpreting the Powers

Section Three: Missional Leadership and Imitation
6. Mimetic Theory
7. The Power of Imitation

Section Four: Missional Leadership and Subversion
8. The Work of the Powers
9. The Subversion and Resistance of the Powers

Section Five: Missional Leadership Worthy of Imitation
10. Toward a Theological Remedy
11. A New Way of Being and Belonging
12. The Scandal of Imitating Christ

Some of the other points that really got my attention are:

We can often be tempted to put guardrails around our leaders, try to keep them in line, or perhaps encourage a set of spiritual disciplines to keep their character in check. But there is no putting a Band-Aid over the problem of domineering leadership in the church.

High-profile “fallen” leaders often share common characteristics: pride, manipulation, seeking status, isolation, a lack of community to hold them accountable, using status to push an agenda, love of the crowds, an abuse of power and role, a push to “succeed,” and a sense of self-importance.

There is a growing resistance to institutions. But the church relies on people being a community, which requires organization, politics, systems, and structures. The answer, therefore, is not to demonize all forms of power and structure—for all living things have structure, power, and the capacity to cultivate a flourishing life.

And although the principalities and powers were designed to bring life, humanity experiences them in their fallen state, where they seek to master us. No longer do the principalities and powers bind us to God; they separate us from God, seeking to be gods themselves. The principalities and powers still fulfill half of their role, preserving society from utter chaos, but “by holding the world together, they hold it away from God.”

Roxburgh demonstrates how easily leaders tend to uncritically mimic the leadership style of the day, seemingly unaware that a leader’s telos and identity not based on Christ will ultimately lead to unfaithful praxis.

Collective Possession. The second manifestation of the demonic that Wink speaks of is collective demonization. He states, “In a highly individualistic society like ours it is rare to encounter single individuals who are possessed. Instead, the demonic has in our time taken the form of mass psychosis—what Rosen called ‘socially shared psychopathology.’”

The first word is thrones, which is more about the symbolic location of power, like the “county seat, the judge’s bench, the chairperson, the oval office,” more than it is about the person inhabiting that place of power.

Another key word is dominions (NKJV; kyiotétes), which refers to the sphere of influence over which the thrones hold sway. This sphere of influence could be “visible (the actual land or area ruled) or invisible (its capacity to influence other Powers by threat or persuasion).”

Principalities (NKJV; arché) specifies not so much the person themselves, but “the person-in-office, the agent-in-role.”92 In other words, it only applies to the person when they are in that office, like when a person is serving in Congress or the Senate.

Finally, there are authorities (exousiai), which Wink says refer to the way in which authority is maintained. “These are the invisible and visible authorizations and enforcements that undergird the chair. Legitimations would include the laws, rules, taboos, mores, codes, and constitutions by which power is licensed, and all the customs, traditions, rituals, manners, etiquette, and ideologies by which is it rationalized, justified, and made habitual.”

Mimetic desire pushes against the romantic notion that we are isolated individuals uninfluenced by others. Instead, it teaches us that we borrow our desires from our models.

When a mimetic crisis broke out in archaic (pre-state, nonlegal) societies, the scapegoat mechanism would be enacted as a way to establish and maintain social order. “When unappeased, violence seeks and always finds a surrogate victim. The creature that excited its fury is abruptly replaced by another, chosen only because it is vulnerable and close at hand.”

Croasmun considers these “superorganisms” social bodies, and he uses the category mythological to describe the social minds that emerge from these social bodies.

Girard deconstructs Satan as the mimetic cycle, while Matthew Croasmun reconstructs Satan as the “body of sin,” giving Satan cosmic personhood. Although Wink follows Jung and identifies Satan more psychologically as the inner spirituality of the domination system, Croasmun’s emergent view locates Satan as a cosmic entity, the mythical that emerges from the social and acts back upon it. In both cases, Satan is an emergent reality.

The relationships we form with others have profound effects on our lives, and because of mimetic desire, we will ultimately become like the people closest to us. This is why Scripture tells us that if we walk with the wise, we will become wise (Prov. 13:20) and that bad company corrupts good character (1 Cor. 15:33).

#TheScandalOfLeadership

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Review: The Foundry: A Hard-Science Fiction Space Opera

The Foundry: A Hard-Science Fiction Space Opera by J. Fitzpatrick Mauldin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Book: **** (3 1/2)
Performance: ***

A Typical Space Opera

This book was billed as a Hard SciFi Space Opera … which for most people would be an oxymoron … and in this specific case holds true; although there is an inconsistent attempt to keep the science good, the primary focus is on the drama at the expense of the science. Fortunately the story is still entertaining, once you get beyond the extremely boring and frustrating prospect of a very young child (age 5ish) stuck on a 40 year deep space mission (presumably because the original crew might not make it the whole way). Unfortunately … that takes up a good portion of the beginning of the book.

The mission is a response to an ET message saying come find us … so the earth, in a desperate attempt to find help that might save humanity from its poor stewardship of the earth, sends out a handful of ships (redundant missions show how desperate the situation is). There is a lot of juvenile drama on the trip out until the finally get to The Foundry … and everything falls apart. Not only are we not alone, there is a veritable menagerie of aliens and they are not all friendly. One one side are competing philosophies on how to protect ALL life and a few trippy parts exploring post humanism and genetic manipulation (just a little). It does get a little over the top and preachy at times … but you should expect that with a space opera … so set phasers to max and just bring it … and have a little fun.

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 Nicene Creed: A Scriptural, Historical, and Theological Commentary

The Nicene Creed: A Scriptural, Historical, and Theological Commentary by Jared Ortiz
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Most of Christianity is considered to be a creedal religion, that is, governed by a specific statement of faith that members of a particular church must assent to (from the Latin credo meaning ‘I believe’). While not emphasized much, the Protestant tradition in which I grew up held to the 7th century Apostle’s Creed. Once I was confirmed into the Catholic faith, I became more aware of the Nicene Creed as well (Catholics pretty much recent one creed or another at the drop of a hat) … and I learned a lot about how these creeds came to be (predominately in response to various heresies that the early Church was struggling with), so I was extremely interest in this book to see if it confirmed what I already knew and if it presented anything new [to learn]. I am happy to report it delivered in spades.

The book is organized into six (6) chapters, each taking part of the Nicene Creed to examine (in broad strokes or themes). Each chapter begins with a general introduction of the over all theme or topic before it is further divided into sections that go into details on a phrase or statement within the chapter theme (such as what it means to say ‘I believe’ or say ‘one God’ et al). Included with the section header are references to the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Catholic Catechism (so obviously this is a very Catholic centric book). In addition, we get this section of the creed in three (3) languages (English, Latin and Greek). Each section generally has four (4) parts: A Theological Exposition to talk about the theology behind this part of the creed, A Witness to the Tradition that references early Church thinking about an element of this theology with source citations (this can repeated for different elements and/or viewpoints), Contemporary Issues that talk about current thinking and/or struggles with this element of the creed, and finally a part called Living the Mystery which talks about how the faithful should live out this part of the creed. There are a generally number of callouts/sidebars under the headed of Lex Orandi that review how a particular element is reflected within the liturgy as well. Finally at the end we get a straight up side buy side comparison of the different creeds, including the latin and greek versions plus a glossary of terms that is simply fantastic on its own … making this book incredibly well researched and organized; I highly recommended it.

The chapters and sections in this work are

Introduction

1. Belief
2. God the Father
3. God the Son Divine
4. God the Son Incarnate
5. God the Holy Spirit
6. Life in the Trinity

Appendix 1: Three Creeds Compared
Appendix 2: The Nicene Creed in Latin and Greek
Glossary

Some of the other points that really got my attention are:

Faced with these considerable deviations in teaching, the Church needed to find a way to communicate and confess effectively the true faith received from the apostles. One response was the development of what we call “the †rule of faith” (or “the rule of truth”)

In the early Church, the primary form of the creed used in catechesis and especially in baptism was interrogatory—that is, it was delivered through question and answer: Do you believe in God, the Father almighty?

Creeds used in preaching, teaching, and worship were typically declaratory in form—that is, they confessed the faith through a declaration of the truth: I believe in God, the Father almighty, and so on.

The Creed serves as a fixed rule of faith, a measuring stick of what we as Christians believe. It helps us to interpret the Scriptures we just heard, to confirm the orthodoxy of the sermon just preached, and to unite our minds and hearts in confession of what we believe.

The important thing was “orthopraxy.” It did not matter that Polycarp was not truly devoted to the pagan gods; it did not matter that his heart was not really in his action; what mattered was the action. Roman religion was civic religion, and participating was required for everyone.

In the first category were groups such as pagan polytheists, †Marcionite dualists, and Gnostic emanationists. In the second category were modalists, like Noetus and Sabellius, and subordinationists, like the Arians who inspired the Council of Nicaea.

Paternal imagery was common when treating the ruler of the city and the divine ruler of the cosmos. In the ancient world, fatherly rule was the primary model for rightly ordered monarchy, so it was natural to think of the chief god as father over the world. Zeus was considered the father of the gods and humans.

In Christian theological terminology, to be “father” means “to pass on a nature” (this definition fits human as well as divine begetting). The Father is God; therefore, the Son is God (“God from God”). The Son is the same nature as the Father, which he receives not in time (that would make him a creation) but eternally.

This opening line, “for us men and for our salvation,” communicates three things: (1) the recipients of the Son’s work (those for whom he came); (2) the purpose of the Son’s work (why he came); and (3) the opening act of that work (how he came).

More generally, the Spirit leads the early Christians in mission (8:29; 11:28; 13:2; 16:6–7) and guides them as they seek to resolve difficult issues in the Christian community (15:28).

The Spirit not only distributes a multitude of gifts to the members of the Christian community (1 Cor. 12:3–13), but even reveals to us the mind of God (2:10–14). The Spirit is the one who dwells within us and sanctifies us in both body and soul (3:16).

Now it is a property of love to move and impel the will of the lover towards the object loved.”164 Because the Scriptures identify the Spirit particularly with the love of God (see Rom. 5:5), Aquinas concludes that it is fitting that we call this †procession of love by the name “Spirit.”

But in addition to this, if the Spirit is truly Lord, then we have an obligation to follow the Spirit and be utterly docile to him. Just as we follow and obey Jesus as Lord and follow him wherever he leads (Rev. 14:4), so too we should follow the Spirit, who is also our Lord.

The unique quality of the Spirit’s “speaking” is that the Spirit always makes use of a human being (and a human voice or pen) to speak. We never hear the Spirit’s words coming down the wind or out of the blue—the “Spirit speaks,” but he always speaks through the words of a human being.

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

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Review: Wisdom of Solomon: (A Catholic Bible Commentary on the New Testament by Trusted Catholic Biblical Scholars - CCSS)

Wisdom of Solomon: (A Catholic Bible Commentary on the New Testament by Trusted Catholic Biblical Scholars - CCSS) by Mark Giszczak
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a Catholic commentary on the [apocryphal] Book of Wisdom [of Solomon], which is organized on the three parts of the scripture: The Book of Eschatology, The Book of Wisdom and the Book of History. This is preceded by an extensive Introduction covering the history, structure and form of this scripture (with a summary of important connections with the New Testament). Each part is further divided into pericopes with references to the Old Testament, New Testament, Catechism and Lectionary (where applicable) before a brief summary and verse by verse [roughly] commentary. Where possible (as cited in the Introduction) there is a reflection/application or a discussion on the connections with the Gospel/New Testament to end a section. The commentary itself is fairly straight forward with few surprises, but it does a decent job of providing context as well as textual analysis. The Book of Wisdom is not really something a lot of folks spent much time on; probably why there were not a lot of commentaries for it … so given all that we get here along with the excellent organization, this work gets top marks.

The chapters and sections in this work are:

Part 1. Life and Death (1:1-6-21)
- Love Righteousness (1:1-15)
- Ungodly Reasoning Wisdom (1:16-2:24)
- The Just and the Unjust Wisdom (3:1-4:20)
- The Judgement of the Ungodly and the Reward of the Righteous (5:1-23)
- Honor Wisdom (6:1-21)
Part 2. Solomon’s Pursuit of Wisdom (6:22-9:18)
- Solomon’s Quest for Wisdom (6:22-8:1)
- Solomon’s Love for Wisdom (8:2-21)
- Solomon’s Prayer for Wisdom (9:1-18)
Part 3. Book of History (10:1-19:22)
- Prologue: Wisdom from Adam to Moses (10:1-21)
- Water from the Rock versus River of Blood (11:1-14)
- Excursus: God’s Mercy toward Egyptians and Canaanites (11:15-12:27)
- Excursus: Against Idol Worship (13:1-15:19)
- Unappetizing Animals versus Delicious Quail (16:1-4)
- Lethal Creatures versus Saving Bronze Serpent (16:5-14)
- Storms of Wrath versus Manna from Heaven (16:15-29)
- Plague of Darkness versus Pillar of Light (17:1-18:4)
- Death of the Firstborn versus Israel’s Deliverance from Death (18:5-25)
- Drowning in the Sea versus Being Saved by the Sea (19:1-9)
- Epilogue: Summary and Doxology (19:10-22)

Some of the other points that really got my attention are:

In its essence, wisdom has three distinct yet related meanings: (1) God’s perfect knowledge, (2) the knowledge of causes that human beings can come to possess, and (3) the habitual seeking of knowledge with integrity of heart.

Since the Wisdom of Solomon owes a debt to Greek philosophy, it contains many unique doctrinal perspectives that are only latent in the other books of the Old Testament. These ideas resurface in the New Testament and are incorporated into Christian teaching.

The Wisdom of Solomon stands at the very end of the Old Testament era and on the cusp of the New. It is the last Old Testament book to be written. Its meditation on salvation history allows us to take a deep breath and look back on the Old Testament before proceeding to the New.

Building on the imagery of Isa 59:16–17, the author describes the Lord putting on battle armor to mete out punishment on the ungodly. Each piece of armor is given a metaphorical meaning: the armor is zeal; the breastplate is righteousness; the helmet is justice (Greek krisis, “judgment”); the shield is holiness; and the sword is wrath.

Wisdom will grant Solomon not only virtue or honor but two kinds of †immortality—a personal immortality of the soul, as presented earlier (1:15; 3:1, 4; 4:1), and an everlasting remembrance, in which his memory will be held in honor by those who come after him (compare Sir 39:9–11).

The final verse of the prayer highlights the powerful effects of wisdom: (1) setting right one’s path—giving humans a sure route to living for God; (2) teaching humanity—likely a reference to the law of Moses; and (3) saving humanity. James Reese explains that “Lady Wisdom is a personification of God’s saving grace at work in the world.”

The idea corresponds to the wider biblical theology of retribution, that “those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same” (Job 4:8). Wisdom’s view of retribution also corresponds to the legal version of this concept, the so-called lex talionis, the “eye for eye, tooth for tooth” (Exod 21:24), wherein legal penalties are designed to be proportionate and befitting.

Though Wisdom teaches that God’s immortal spirit is in all things, it does not teach †pantheism (that concept that the universe is God), but rather it reasserts the biblical teaching that the “breath of life” that sustains all creatures comes from God (Gen 2:7; Job 27:3; Ps 104:29–30; Eccles 12:7).

Wisdom counters that God did not want to hurt them but wanted to save them. The bronze serpent then was not an animal idol (although some Israelites later treated it as one, 2 Kings 18:4) but a token of deliverance or “sign of salvation” (Wis 16:6 NABRE).

Instead of receiving the Hebrews as honored guests, they enslaved them. To explain how terrible their wicked acts are, the author compares them to others, the despicable men of Sodom (Gen 19:1–11), a biblical comparison for emphasizing the gravity of a sin (Lam 4:6; Matt 10:15).

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

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Review: Holy Hell: A Case against Eternal Damnation

Holy Hell: A Case against Eternal Damnation by Derek Ryan Kubilus
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the second book that I have read recently that tries to present the case for universalism (all are saved). Unlike the first, which seemed to be drive more by frustration, anger and anxiety … this one was well reasoned and calm … primarily focused on the Love of God and what that should mean for us. So let’s get this out of the way first …

1) I am not a universalist.
2) I would love to be wrong.

The author makes some compelling points about the incompatibility of a loving God and the eternal torment of Hell … an idea that could be has never set easily with me. To make these points, the author combs through scripture to highlight where exegesis/interpretation was perhaps more ambiguous that commonly believed … and that approaching them from the viewpoint of the universal love of The Father should coach us more toward a universal concept than an exclusive or selective interpretation … including an in depth look at the nuances of the Kone Greek that helps support a position of universal salvation. The author also discusses why this can be difficult for people to accept … imagine salvation for the likes of Hitler or other historical monsters. We just seem to have this internal need to see evil punished simply for the sake of justice … and this is actually not very Christ like. All told, this is a book that I will need to continually come back to and reflect on each point … and hopefully continue to deepen my own understanding and faith even if I can’t always [completely] accept some of what I find here. After all … one of the guiding principles about funeral homilies that I was taught is that we (the Church), should never place the departed in either Heaven or Hell … but to trust in the mercy of our loving God to hold our loved ones as dearly as we do ourselves.

The chapters and sections in this work are:
Chapter 1 - Haunted by Hell
Chapter 2 - What We Talk About When We Talk About Hell
Chapter 3 - A Hell By Any Other Name
Chapter 4 - A Paddle In The Hands Of An Angry God
Chapter 5 - Breaking Out Of Baby Jail
Chapter 6 - The Bureaucracy Of The Afterlife
Chapter 7 - The Great Work
Chapter 8 - Protestant Purgatory
Chapter 9 - The Circles We Draw
Chapter 10 - Kicking And Screaming
Chapter 11 - A Generous Heresy

Some of the other points that really got my attention are:

It seems that ever since her founding, the church in every age and place has secretly relied on a pernicious, unstated, but almost universal fallacy: the idea that the authority of our leaders is directly proportional to the amount of certainty they can project.

By definition, an everlasting hell neither heals nor teaches. That’s actually the express purpose of this version of hell: that no reform is possible, that the debt can never be repaid. The pain of hell is specifically unredemptive. Rather, the pain exists for its own sake; its only intended purpose is to be felt by the one who is suffering forever and ever.

Whenever we pick up the Bible, read it, put it down and say, “That’s just what I thought,” we are probably in trouble.—Ellen F. Davis, The Art of Reading Scripture

It has become so common and overused that few of us really know what it means anymore. Yet any goldsmith or metallurgist worth their salt would know immediately what the term means and why it has nothing to do with eternal torture. “Fire and brimstone” is an idiom that refers to purification. To be exact, it references the refinement of gold or other precious metals.

A harrow is a heavy rake that is used to “distress” a field. A farmer drags it over their soil to break up the dirt and remove any rocks or roots that might get in the way of the plow. Some people use harrows to glean, to pick up any produce that the harvest left behind. “Harrow” is also an idiom. To “harrow” a person is to distress them, to shake them up. To “harrow” a city or a region is to lay siege to it, to invade with an overwhelming force. Likewise, the Harrowing of Hell was said to be when Christ laid siege to hell itself, shaking its gates, terrifying its devils, and gleaning lost souls.

“When you hear of sepulchres, do not think only of visible ones; your own heart is a sepulchre and a tomb. . . . Are you, yourself, not a Hell, a tomb, a sepulchre, a dead man toward God? . . . Well, then, the Lord comes into souls that seek after him, into the depths of the heart-Hell, and there he lays his command upon death, saying, ‘Bring out the imprisoned souls that are seeking after me!’”

If you read other Greek literature of the time, it becomes clear that aiōnios has never meant “eternal” as in “the forward advancement of time into infinity.”2 In its most literal sense, the word means “of the age” or “of the eon.”3 (We can still hear the shadows of this original meaning in some traditional Christian prayers that end with the line “unto the ages of ages. Amen.”) There is another Greek word, aidios, that really does mean eternal as we think of it, but that is not the word that is used here or anyplace else in the New Testament where punishment in the afterlife is concerned.

Kolasis, the Greek word for “punishment,” is primarily a horticultural term used in gardening, orchard keeping, and vine dressing. The most fundamental translation of the word is “pruning,” and it was only used by way of analogy to represent the punishment of a person. Just as a tree or a vine must be pruned in order to produce fruit more efficiently, so a person must suffer a kind of pruning for the sake of their own fruit.

However, there are two mistakes we can make here. The first is to imagine that the people who are outside of our circle don’t deserve our love, care, or attention, whether it’s because of something they’ve done, someplace they’re from, or just who they are. The second is to imagine that they don’t deserve God’s love, or that they are outside of God’s circle, for those same reasons.

Apokatastasis isn’t just about putting something back where it was; it’s about putting something back where it’s supposed to be. It’s not just a return to a previous state but a return to a rightful state, the state that it was supposed to have been in all along.

To be fair, the Greek word that is usually translated as “tormented,” basanizō, is used elsewhere as a synonym for torture or torment, as one might do to extract information from an enemy, but even that is a kind of linguistic analogy. The most fundamental meaning of the word is, again, metallurgical. It is the word for testing a substance against a touchstone to see whether it is gold.

To be a Christian universalist is not merely to believe that we are saved from hell itself—indeed, we all may experience something of the purgative flames of Gehenna—but it is also to believe that we are saved from the dread of hell, the dread we might feel on our own behalf and, indeed, the dread we might feel for the whole human race.

The first thing that clergy and other leaders can do immediately is to stop using hell as the default translation for words like Gehenna, Sheol, and Hades. By swapping in the original Greek or Hebrew word, we can introduce nuance to our sermons and Bible studies and elicit questions for further discussion.

We wonder why the reputation of our religion is so bad while we bend ourselves over backward trying to find ways to make the case that either (a) God hates some people so much that God tortures them forever and ever or (b) God is somehow so disinterested in humanity that God would allow us to stumble into hell the same way a child might stumble into traffic.

For us, the salvation of an individual soul will never be an emergency. That means we will never be tempted to compromise the ethics of Christ for the goal of creating more Christ followers. It means that we would rather allow someone to pass through this life rejecting Jesus than become the reason that they reject him.

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

#HolyHell #NetGalley


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Review: Integrating Psychology and Faith: Models for Christian Engagement

Integrating Psychology and Faith: Models for Christian Engagement by Paul Moes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The was very interesting exploration of what we believe about ourselves with respect to agency/freewill, morality and self. The book is divided into two (2) parts with the first part looking at prevailing concepts and ideas within psychology and the second part looking at the integration between secular and religious approaches to understanding the human person. Each chapter was well explained in accessible language for somebody new to the concepts (without going into too much detail) and summed up with reflections and conclusions as well as questions for discussion.

Part one brings the reader up to speed on a large number of terms and concepts, such as cosmology, ontology, epistemology and teleology, that form the basis for knowing what we know about ourselves with respect to ideas and concepts such as is there free will (or are we completely controlled by environment and physical makeup … with behavior only determined by our firing neurons) … and even how much we can know for certain. What was especially interesting was the exploration of how our own worldview (or bias) is projected into our own understanding of self and how each of the typical worldviews today approach human psychology, with a comparison between what might be termed as secular vs religious influences. Amazingly enough it does an excellent job of explaining different approaches in Christian thought to nature and grace and how they are expected to engage with he world around them.

Part two begins the discussion on how to integrate the views fund in contemporary psychology and contemporary religion to gain a more complete picture and potential a more effective means of behavior modification, beginning with how each engages in reductionism (pro/con) to simply what is arguably a very complex reality. Ultimately there are a lot of terms and ideas that are presented here and if nothing else, you gain a good, layman’s understanding of what science and religion believe about what it means to be human from several different vantage points.

The chapters and sections in this work are:

Part 1 Philosophical Foundations
1. Worldviews and Natural Science Beliefs
2. Worldviews about Human Nature
3. Views in Contemporary Psychology
4. Views in Contemporary Religion

Part 2 Models of Integration
5. Scientific Reductionism
6. Biblical Reductionism
7. Complementary Models
8. Humanizers of Science

Some of the other points that really got my attention are:

Postpositivism. In recent decades, several investigators have become dissatisfied with strict positivism and have moved toward postpositivism. Perhaps the most common form of postpositivism, critical realism, accepts that there is an objective reality that can be discovered but that humans always understand that reality imperfectly.

Another example of teleology influencing psychology comes from the world of therapy. Therapists often differ on the best practices or processes in therapy, but they also differ on what constitutes a good outcome.

Because a person’s religious beliefs impact the way they view knowledge, science, human nature, and the wider society or culture—which in turn influences their view of psychology.

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

#IntegratingPsychologyandFaith #NetGalley

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Review: Shikaree

Shikaree by M.J. Oelkers

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the second of the Arnstead series; and the first that I have actually read. Although the MC of the first reappears here, he is primarily a support character in this work that is focused on a new MC PoV that actually seemed to be a more sympathetic protagonist just struggling to survive (as such, it can easily stand on its own, but I enjoyed the world enough to go back and read the first if I still had Kindle Unlimited). Here we also get a standard fantasy trope of a long vanished “magical” civilization now only known for their surviving artifacts and powerful relics (which drive the treasure hunter plot). 

I am sure I missed out on some of the world-building that was probably presented in the first book (likely covering much of the various races that inhabit the world and possibly more about the Ones Who Came Before aka demons), there was still quite a lot still happening here, as the MC and friends spend a fair amount of time in the World Below, leaving enough of a mystery to make it very interesting, along with the accelerating action in the back half of the book that made the book hard to put down until you get to a fairly satisfying ending. It all fit together quite well within the solid storytelling craft to make this a stand out achievement. Maybe the next installment will pick up the story of Chandra’s “blind” acolyte buddy for a peek at yet another aspect of the world.

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

#Shikaree #TheArnsteadChronicles #LibraryThing

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Review: Why the Bible Began: An Alternative History of Scripture and its Origins

Why the Bible Began: An Alternative History of Scripture and its Origins by Jacob L. Wright

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) is one of the foundational sacred scriptures for three (3) [Abrahamic] religions. Each tradition takes a slightly different approach to interpreting what it actually says (exegesis), but few commentaries explore why each story is told the way it is told … perhaps because of a presumption that because they were inspired by God, they did not actually change or evolve … a presumption that is no longer the general consensus of biblical scholars. In fact, there is a significant wing that promotes the exact opposite supported by recent discoveries of ancient versions of the text that appear to illustrate how they evolved over time for different jewish communities. Stepping into that academic line of questioning, Why the Bible Began begins with accepting this evolution as fact and then takes it one step further by suggesting that there was a specific purpose to the work of these historical redactors and a specific reason these changes endured (why the work).

Most biblical scholars are familiar with the document hypothesis … this appears to take a slightly different approach. It starts with the idea that there really never was a United Monarchy … in fact, the starting point very nearly aligns with the minimalists view of early Israel. As such, we start to see parts of what appears to be conflicting traditions woven together for a specific goal … to create the idea of a people define by belief and practice instead of by territory or ruler in order to help the community survive being under the heel of external conquerors. What I found interesting is how this was a concept that was mostly driven by circumstances … in other words, it was the fall of the Northern Kingdom of Israel that provided much of the skill and source material to weave together disparate traditions to make a unified national narrative. Then it was the subsequent fall of the Southern Judean Kingdom that forced the creation of a people narrative to united the community throughout all of the diaspora.

Over all, despite being more of an academic piece, it was well supported and very accessible if you are interested and open to this approach … it won’t work for everybody. There are a lot of references to assumptions that represent current research that make this more of a companion work that provides a solid overview with a deeper dive into the support to fully understand the why the author takes the stance that he does.

The chapters and sections in this work are:

Introduction
Part I - The Rise and Fall
Chapter 1 - Abraham and Sarah: From One to the Many
Chapter 2 - Miriam: Empire and Exodus
Chapter 3 - Deborah: A New Dawn
Chapter 4 - King David: Between North and South
Chapter 5 - Ahab and Jezebel: Putting Israel on the Map
Chapter 6 - Jehu and Elisha: Israel’s Downfall and Judah’s Jubilation
Chapter 7 - Hezekiah and Isaiah: Putting Judah on the Map
Chapter 8 - Josiah and Huldah: Judah’s Downfall and Deportation

Part II - Admitting Defeat
Chapter 9 - Daughter Zion : Finding One’s Voice
Chapter 10 - The Creator: Comforting the Afflicted
Chapter 11 - Haggai the Prophet: Laying the Foundation
Chapter 12 - Nehemiah the Builder: Restoring Judean Pride
Chapter 13 - Ezra the Educator: Forming a People of the Book
Chapter 14 - Hoshayahu the Soldier: Peoplehood as a Pedagogical Project

Part III - A New Narrative
Chapter 15 - Jeremiah and Baruch: A Monument to Defeat
Chapter 16 - Isaac and Rebekah: The Family Story
Chapter 17 - Moses and Joshua: The People’s History
Chapter 18 - Hannah and Samuel: The Palace History
Chapter 19 - Solomon and the Queen of Sheba: The National Narrative
Chapter 20 - Jonah and the Whale: The prophets as Survival Literature
Chapter 21 - Yhwh and His People: Codes, Covenant, and Kinship

Part IV - A People of Protest
Chapter 22 - The Matriarch: Women and the Biblical Agenda
Chapter 23 - The Hero: Redefining Gender Roles
Chapter 24 - The Other: Tales of War, Outsiders, and Allegiance
Chapter 25 - The Soldier: Sacrificial Death and Eternal Life
Chapter 26 - The Prophet and the Priest: Open Access, Public transparency and Separation of Powers
Chapter 27 - The Sage: Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes
Chapter 28 - The Poet: Song of Songs and Psalms
Chapter 29 - The Queen: Peoplehood without Piety
Chapter 30 - Conclusions: Nations, Nationalism, and New Bibles

Some of the other points that really got my attention are:

Through its destruction at the hands of the Assyrians and Babylonians, the nation became essentially a religious community held together by the cult. The precondition for this religious community was foreign control, which forced Jews from the political sphere into the spiritual

That Elohim created humans in his image was a radical claim. Traditionally, only the king is made in the divine image; here it is all humans.

Rather, the scribes who curated the biblical corpus consciously took what priests and palace members had long guarded as their special heritage and made it available, and indeed mandatory, for the education and edification of the entire nation.

Having forfeited territorial sovereignty, communities in both the North and South needed to create for themselves a space in a foreign empire. The space they carved out is not so much territorial and political as it is social, one demarcated by practice and behavior. And because this project was by and large the work of scribes, the tools they used for demarcating it were written traditions.

The answer to this question bears directly on two rival accounts of the nation’s origins. We have just explored how scribes created one account, the Family Story, by connecting the originally independent figures of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We now turn our attention to a competing work, the Exodus-Conquest Account, that begins with the stories of Moses’ birth and commission.

The People ’s History consists, as we saw, of two parts: the Family Story of Genesis and the Exodus-Conquest Account. At the heart of the Family Story are traditions related to Isaac, Esau, and Jacob; they likely originated before the downfall of the Northern kingdom in 722  but were clearly reworked – from both Northern and Southern perspectives – for centuries thereafter.

Over the centuries, Southerners came to see themselves as members of the people of Israel. As they did, the People’s History became a prehistory and preamble to the older Palace History, with the People’s History furnishing a framework for the most formative stories as well as collections of divinely revealed laws.

With this sacred object, scribes charted a path from Mount Sinai to Mount Zion. These two fixed points in the National Narrative correspond to two competing social circles, one that identified with the Torah and the study of texts, and the other that identified with the temple and priestly rituals. The Ark thread in the National Narrative ties them together by telling how Moses deposited the tablets of the Torah in the Ark, and then how later Solomon deposited the Ark containing these tablets in the temple.

The inception of the covenant thus provided a major impetus for scribes to embellish the National Narrative. Older portions of those books had already combined disparate histories into a common story, giving divided communities a shared past and sense of kinship. But after being reworked, the narrative’s overarching purpose is to demonstrate the validity of the covenant, culminating with the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of Judah.

The scribes who curated the biblical corpus clearly did not want make space for some form of heavenly afterlife. For them, future life and “resurrection”were to be sought in a revived community after its death in defeat–one with families finding their ultimate happiness in the enjoyment of the good, God-given earth that had been created to endure for eternity.

Thanks to these ambitious editorial moves, the Pentateuch punctures the bubble of priestly privilege. Prerogative becomes duty. It is no longer a matter of what the priests get to do but rather what they have to do. They are to perform their tasks on behalf of the nation, and they must neither shirk their duties nor bend them according to political influence.

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

#WhyTheBibleBegan #NetGalley



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Review: Godkiller

Godkiller by Hannah Kaner
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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

This is the first book in the Fallen God series and I am already looking forward to reading book two. To start … we have three MC/POV (with a minor viewpoint from the god of white lies). Kissen is the title character … the godkiller … who was for me the most interesting (and vaguely reminiscent of a Witcher … another series I really like). As Kissen’s backstory is progressively revealed, she quickly become my favorite, to my mind, she becomes a solid sympathetic character who was inherently good despite all the ills which she has had to suffer (both physically with her prosthetic leg, and mental growing up on the wrong side of side of the tracks). Despite her attempts to only care about herself, she is drawn into this adventure by the misfortune of a young girl who needs her help to solve a problem that could very well get her killed … because she is entangled with the fate of one of the tiny wild gods that had survived the god war and the general proscription of them that followed … making her association with a godkiller a solid part of the plot tension. Rounding out this adventuring trio is a former knight errant who had previous turned his back on the world and now hopes for a minor miracle when all three finally reach the ruined city of gods. All in all, I thought that the interplay and dialog between the characters felt natural and believable (and if fact worked well for character development). This was only enhanced by an excellent performance from the narrator. Each character was independent enough that even the conflicts between them were a natural extension of who they are and what they wanted.

The plot was a basic roadtrip trope where the three MCs were through together based upon their destination … and the need for a little illicit intervention from a surviving god to help solve their problems … but gods can’t be trusted, including the one making up the fourth member of their party. At any rate … they spent a lot of time on the road with an occasional bit of action until the finale within the city that reveals a few surprises and ramps up the suspense with, what I have come to believe, is a classic ending that explores the idea of love, loyalty and sacrifice (For a fantasy story, there was a surprising level of interesting philosophical situations to ponder … giving the world-building even more depth might otherwise be expected).

Finally … I absolutely loved the world-building … especially the treatment of the gods … what they were … how they worked … et al. On one level, there were are remarkable collection of differing deities that were focused on small, mundane human activities (white lies, broken sandals, etc) in addition to “the majors” (war, fire, sea, etc). On another level, there was a common nature that even the gods strongest could not escape … the quest for power which makes them a natural temptation to those humans that seek that. Added to this were god curses and boons/promises that left visible marks on the body and adds a little more to the plot suspense.

#Godkiller #FallenGods #Audiobook

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Review: A Jewish Paul: The Messiah's Herald to the Gentiles

A Jewish Paul: The Messiah's Herald to the Gentiles by Matthew Thiessen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Having written nearly 1/3rd of the Christian New Testament, it is difficult to ignore the significant contribute by St Paul to Western Christianity. Unfortunately, the 13 or so letters attributed to Paul can be difficult to interpret (Thiessen even notes that the Book of Acts says that many were confused by his teachings). The problem is exacerbated by the fact this we no longer have the same context as his original audience so a straightforward reading may often leads us astray. According to Thiessen, this is particularly true with Paul’s apparent rejection of Judaism that has frequently been used to support the concept of supersessionism, and by extension antisemitism. Placing Paul firmly within an early Jewish milieu under the influence of Greek [Stoic] philosophy can actually provide us with a better understanding of what Paul was trying to do as the Apostle to the Nations (Gentiles).

This is not a new concept for me. Paul is a self described Uber Jew, so after his Road to Damascus “conversion” and apparent rejection of Jewish tradition (for Gentile Jesus followers) has generally been seen as a hard break with the “Judaizers” of his past … except such a believe just doesn’t add up considering his deference to St Peter and the Church in Jerusalem. I have always been uncomfortable with many of the modern interpretations of Paul and have actively sought after an exegesis more in line with how I read the Gospels … this included a number of articles and discussions that attempted to incorporate St Paul’s view of how Gentiles fit within the larger salvific plan of the God of Israel. Thiessen does an excellent job of presented his [academic] argument in language that is clear and accessible to a casual reader with solid support for his positions. Even so, much of the evidence provided is circumstantial, so his conclusions are generally based on a “best fit” paradigm and largely subjective where some readers may not be persuaded of his point of view. This book is a welcome addition to my growing library from which a gain a better understanding of my own faith.

The chapters and sections in this work are:

Introduction
1 - Making Paul Weird Again
2 - Radically New or Long-Lost Reading of Paul?
3 - Judaism Doesn’t Believe Anything
4 - Paul, an End-Time Jew
5 - The Gentile Problem
6 - Jesus the Messiah
7 - The Gentile Problem and Cosmetic Surgery
8 - Pneumatic Gene Therapy
9 - The Bodies of the Messiah
10 - Living the Resurrected Life
11 - Resurrection as the Culmination of the Messiah’s Coming
12 - The Messiah and the Jews
Conclusion

Some of the other points that really got my attention are:

If a person is a Jewish follower of the Messiah, they should continue to be a Jewish follower of the Messiah. Do not try to change that identity now. If someone is a gentile follower of the Messiah, they also should not try to change that identity.

Paul argues that circumcision and adoption of the Jewish law in its entirety will not work for gentiles because Israel’s God never intended for non-Jews to undergo circumcision and adoption of the Jewish law.

This divine hardening of many Jews, Paul is convinced, is a temporary situation, one that serendipitously results in gentiles receiving deliverance (11:25). It is not permanent. It is not the final word, because God has elected Israel for the sake of their ancestors. And God’s call and God’s election cannot be undone.

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

#AJewishPaul #NetGalley

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Review: Eluthienn: A Tale Of The Fromryr

Eluthienn: A Tale Of The Fromryr by Sam Middleton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Another Vampire story with a twist.

After a slow start to introduce the two (2) PoV, the action picks up quickly and continues almost nonstop, making this hard to put down once it ramps up. First up is Lyander, a disgraced exorcist (aka demon hunter) for the universal church of the Fromryr, an alliance of peoples (humans, dwarves, elves, gnomes, et al.) that control most of the ancient magic and technology of a long vanished, advanced civilization that carved out the extensive caverns and tunnels deep below the surface world. Demons and their ilk get their power from the Immuratic dimension while some other monsters, such as vampires, are from the Aeturnic dimension … so when Lyander comes across a corpse that could be a living myth, he teams up with a sarcastic witch hunter to get to the bottom of it all, despite apparent antagonism from church authority, as the whole world seems to come apart at the seams. Along the way, we see the second PoV following Brazier, and his surviving crew from an ice mining ship lost in the vast caverns of Formoria, converge to help build a rich and extremely interesting fantasy world.

Woven into this well executed plot, is some amazing world building on top of a dystopian fantasy trope. Through the entire story, it is clear that we only see the tip of the iceberg here with the potential for discovery adding the the intense action … and for me … it all made sense … from the magical force that comes from the gyre ice (ref ice mining) to the dysfunctional politics to the steampunk like tunnel ships … it was all well done and awesomely fun (can’t wait to return to this world).

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

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Review: In the Beginnings: Discovering the Two Worldviews Hidden Within Genesis 1-11

In the Beginnings: Discovering the Two Worldviews Hidden Within Genesis 1-11 by David Harbater
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The subtitle for this book is “Discovering the Two Worldviews Hidden within Genesis 1-11.” The extensive Introduction proves the context (using the documentary hypothesis combined with an aspects approach) for understanding the next 12 chapters (attributed to one or both of the J and P traditions). While acknowledging the obvious contradictions between these two sources, the author cautions against the human tendency to harmonize them … subscribing to the "both/and" paradigm suggested by the very existence of such contradictions within a divine revelation over the more modern/western paradigm of "either/or.” In other words, the tension between the two opposites was on purpose … and the author uses the two creation stories to illustrate this.

“If He is to create the world as 'the Lord,’ reflecting the middat harahamim (the attribute of compassion), people will not be held accountable for their actions. But if He is to create the world as ‘God,’ reflecting the middat hadin (the attribute of judgement), how will the world survive, given the human propensity toward sin. Thus God decided to create the world by carefully balancing both dimensions of Himself in the hope that the world will be able to stand. In other words, the multifaceted God conducts the affairs of humankind by combining, in a way incomprehensible to us, two contradictory aspects of Himself.”

While I am very familiar with the various methods and theories surrounding Christian interpretation of Genesis, I am much less so with how traditions within Judaism do so. In that respect, I found this book to be very interesting and even helpful for my own exegesis and understanding of the scriptures. At the beginning of each chapter, there is a brief analysis on which tradition (J or P) the chapter belongs to and why. Each chapter also generally ends with a summary of, and/or conclusion about, the topics discussed. As the author takes the reader through each part of the story, he carefully points out where interpretation of the Hebrew is problematic and brings in various rabbinical traditions that try to explain it (often with opposition views) before posing several questions to which we just don’t have good answers to (such as what exactly is mention by Eve bing a fitting helper). In particular I enjoyed how the original word play was highlighted during the interoperation explanations. This textual approach is wonderful because it also highlights the ambiguities within the text that have at times been used for “proof texting,” or using small segments to prove an opinion or interpretation is correct, as opposed to a more holistic reading that seems to more accurately capture the essence of the original author/redactor's intent.

Introduction
1. The First Story of Creation (P)
2. The Second Story of Creation (J)
3. The Garden of Eden (J)
4. Cain and Abel (J)
5. From Adam and Cain to Noah (J & P)
6. The Stories of the Flood
7. The Story of the Flood (J)
8. The Story of the Flood (P)
9. Noah and His Sons after the Flood (J)
10. The Tables of Nations (J & P)
11. The Babel Building Project (J)
12. From Shem to Terah to Abraham (P)

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

#InTheBeginnings #LibraryThing

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Review: The Second Testament: A New Translation

The Second Testament: A New Translation by Scot McKnight
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

There are a lot of “New Testament” translations available, even ones that purport to be “literal renderings” of the original Greek (as this version does); however, there are still choices to be made by the translator as common words in any language often have multiple meanings. I have not the skill nor the training to critique these choices by the author, so I will presume all choices conform to at least one of the common meanings from the Greek and I can make a general attempt to select to best meaning or definition of the English word selected through context. The author does make clear that he is intentionally avoiding common theological language, so in that regard, this translation is a helpful new point of view to those of us that can’t do the translations on our own. The author also doesn’t try to simplify the Greek vocabulary, so if a rare Greek term was used in the source, he generally keeps the more obscure English term over more common one. he example used in the Introduction is the term using propitious instead of mercy (which provides a slightly different nuance to the phrase “be propitious/merciful to me." Over all I would say that there is not a significant difference when reading the complete text holistically and that actually gives me more confidence in the translation over all … because it provides a context that I would not otherwise see …

Additionally the author will provide an inline gloss on some of the more obscure terms that the reader may not be able to correctly associate on their own. For example:

“See many of the Observant [Pharisees] and Elites [Sadducess] coming to his dipping, he said to the, ‘Knot of vipers! Who exhibited to you to flee from the anger about to come?”

This is especially helpful with transliterated names: Yōannēs [John], Kaphar-Naoum [Capernaum], Ēsaïas [Isaiah] et al. Although sparse, there are also a few translation comments that are very help in understanding language usage/tone .. such in the First Letter to Corinth where before 4:7 we see [Sarcastic use of opponents’ language] before the bolded text of the pericope. All of this, along with a brief translators introduction to each NT book make this work an excellent companion to any NT Bible study that helps the reader/student break out of some of the familiar translation ruts we often find ourselves in. I think it is also important to point out the tremendous undertaking translating all the NT books is and the great respect that I have for the finished product that justifies rounding up to 5 stars.

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

#TheSecondTestment #NetGalley

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Review: Refractions

Refractions by M.V. Melcer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book as earned a place on my favorites shelf after reading through the more that 400 pages in one sitting.

In the near future (approx. 200 years), the world has changed in profound ways as it struggles under increasing human population until a global pandemic kills off enough to give us some time to plan.  The current hegemonies were reorganized with China ascendent on earth with an aggressive American Union that has lost its way and devolved into a quasi Christian theocracy in all but name, while the powerful elites escape to space orbitals owned and run by competing business conglomerates.  The advent of Chinese interstellar engines, a closely guarded monopoly, enables earth to attempt colonizing worlds in other star systems; so the Americans, with Chinese help, build and launch several colonies ships, leveraging cryogenic tech to help the crew through the decades long journeys and keep resources manageable for such a voyage.  The first colony at Bethesda landed and seemed to be doing well when it suddenly goes silent.  Quickly finding out what happened to the 5000 colonists may hold the key to the success of the remaining colony ships, so an international “rescue” is launched to find out.

The world building here was absolutely fantastic, with a hard science feel without the typically long, and potentially boring, tech descriptions that gave everything a natural feel.  That said, this story is almost completely character driven, with just enough action to maintain the dramatic tension.  The main character is an orbital pilot that was recruited at the last minute to replace the second in command for the rescue mission.  As a Canadian, with a Russian brother-in-law, working at the top of a Chinese space elevator in Kenya Africa, she quickly finds her “neutrality” the key to keeping the paranoid, multinational crew of the rescue mission together after the captain dies enroute in a “suspicious” compartment fire.  Everybody is keeping secrets and trying to figure out each mystery is really what drives this story forward … what happened to the colonists on Bethesda … who “sabotaged” the cryogenic chamber where 7 of the crew died and why … what are the secretive Chinese engineers (the only team allowed to maintain the interstellar drive) hiding … and who is the mysterious spy electronically watching over everything.  Each character is broken in some way and this is hinted at or revealed through crew interaction (reminiscent of a good murder mystery).  Some of the secrets are progressively revealed through flashbacks as we get the backstory of why the MC volunteered for the trip where everybody she knows will likely forget all about her before she returns (if they are even still alive by then).  Some become red herrings and feints that totally pulled me in (well done) with some great twists at the end that I didn’t see coming.  There is a light touch on a few philosophical questions on capitalism, human nature, and environmental depredation that, for me, added a lot to the story but are easily skimmed over if that is not your bag.

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

#Augmented #NetGalley

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