Heilsgeschichte

C. Kavin Rowe is one of the most exciting up and coming N. American NT scholars. His 2009 book, World Upside Down: Reading Acts in the Graeco-Roman Age has received much attention, including a special book review session at SBL in Atlanta. Here, in the Journal for the Study of the New Testament, is another set of reviews by John Barclay and Matthew Sleeman with a brief overview of the book by Steve Walton. Rowe, in typical fashion, provides a tightly written rejoinder at the end.

Walton and Barclay are no strangers to the anti-imperial movement among NT scholars. Barclay strongly critiqued the movement at the 2007 SBL meeting, which Andy Rowell graciously recorded here. And Steve Walton's 2002 essay, "The State They Were In: Luke's View of the Roman Empire" was, in my mind, the first major re-assessment of Luke's relationship to the Roman Empire since the work of Paul Walaskay, Richard Cassidy and Phillip Esler in the 1980's (See Rome in the Bible and the Early Church [ed. Peter Oakes; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002], 1-41). Needless to say, these are exciting reviews!

Each year the University of Chicago's Border Crossing Project funds some M.Div. and Ph.D. students to work as a team on a theological problem at an area congregation. As an M.Div. student, I work as an interim pastor at a church where a Ph.D. student in theology from U. Chicago happens to attend—so, we applied as a team to the program and our project, along with a few others, was chosen be funded!

Our church is an urban Mennonite congregation committed to our peacemaking roots; however, we are seeking fresh ways to faithfully navigate the violence of our urban context. Thus, our project addresses the problem of urban violence from a theological and ethical perspective. I hope our project helps to dispel some of the bad information out there that peacemaking churches are “passive.” What follows is a little snapshot of our proposal (click "read more" to continue).

This fall was quite apocalyptic for me. No, I did not predict the end of the world, nor did I experience an otherworldly journey. I did, however, immerse myself in the ancient literary genre called apocalypse, which resulted in many late evenings confronted by many-headed beasts and ascents into heaven. Okay, it was not quite that dramatic, but two courses on apocalyptic literature at U. Chicago this fall were epic. The first course that I will write about is required of all first-year M.A. and M.Div. students, called “Introduction to the Study of Religion.” The course is designed to introduce students to the methodologies of each department in the Divinity School by focusing on one text—in our case, Ibn Tufayl’s famous Islamic novel Hayy Ibn Yaqtan. The structure of the course was a creative collaboration of professors from each department in the Divinity School (10 departments in total), each of whom lectured on the book from the angle of their own discipline, e.g., history of religions, history of Judaism, theology, biblical studies, etc.

At first I dreaded taking this course, since our primary text was outside my area of interest. To my surprise, Hayy Ibn Yaqtan—a story about an autodidactic child who grows up on a secluded island—was the inspiration for some of Kant’s philosophy and Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Since the story includes motifs of Jewish ascent literature (that is, a story with a character who ascends to heaven), we spent some time in the area of Jewish, Christian and Islamic apocalypses. A lecture by the prodigious Jewish scholar, Michael Fishbane, was by far the most exciting, during which he diachronically unpacked 1500 years of Jewish ascent traditions beginning with Moses’ ascent up Mt. Sinai, followed by a detailed discussion of the origins of apocalypses through the Enoch traditions and the Hekhalot literature. The best part of the class is that I was able to manipulate all three paper assignments to write on topics related to the New Testament as follows: (1) Paul’s ascent to the third heaven in 2 Corinthians 12 and the Coptic Apocalypse of Paul; (2) the role of asceticism in apocalypses; and (3) the qualities and function of John's ascent in the Book of Revelation. The opportunity to study with people from starkly variegated religious and philosophical backgrounds provided a stimulating environment for discussions. Despite my reservations, I strongly encourage U. Chicago to continue this course for first year students.

For those of you who are interested, I updated my "About" section. Thanks for your visits!

This Fall I have experienced some significant and wonderful transitions as a student of the Bible. For one, I transitioned from the neo-conservative environment of TEDS to the much more progressive U. Chicago Divinity School. This alone deserves some reflection! Furthermore, I also transitioned to a new job as an interim pastor at my urban Mennonite Church in Chicago. Needless to say, this Fall was not lacking in opportunities to learn and grow. Over the next few weeks (Xmas break!) I hope to spend a little time reflecting on these transitions and my work on apocalyptic literature this Fall. What follows is a brief reflection on my first quarter of classes at U. Chicago.

Thus far, U. Chicago has been a great and challenging environment for me. The Divinity school is far from perfect, but has afforded me many wonderful opportunities. The ethos of the Divinity school is one of genuine community and commitment to one another's scholarship. There are multiple events each week for students and professors to come together around good food, strong drink and great conversation. Professors are readily available to students, which is a welcome change from my experience at TEDS where professors are much more difficult to get time with.

I was warned by a few people at TEDS that U. Chicago is a "dark place." Apparently, if you go to U. Chicago you are automatically tagged as a liberal by many conservatives. This is troublesome for me. While there are "no orthodoxies" at U. Chicago, there are many people profoundly committed to the church and even various forms of evangelicalism. One of my T.A.s is a Westminster grad who studied under Peter Enns (Yeah, I know... Enns is also a crazy liberal by TEDS standards!). Nevertheless, in my own experience thus far, U. Chicago has provided a robust environment for me to become a multi-dimensional student of the Bible. At some point, I hope to do a short series on the advantages and disadvantages of attending a liberal versus conservative school. I have a lot to share on this topic!

This Fall I am taking a class that makes Bible nerds drool. We meet in the archives of U. Chicago's Regenstein library to hover over an illuminated Greek manuscript of Revelation called the "Elizabeth Day McCormick Apocalypse." The first day of class I walked into the archives and I had to sign in for security purposes and I was not allowed to bring anything into our classroom except my laptop and a pencil. Awesome! You know class is going to be good when you have to go through security. Nevertheless, the manuscript sits under a video camera in the ceiling and is projected onto a big flatscreen television. We are using Beale's commentary, however, we have the option to use Aune.

Yep-I am emerging from a long stint of inactivity on this blog. I finally finished my thesis last month and have taken a break from writing. How do some of these Bible blogging grad students find the time to blog so much? Do you all even sleep?

Scot McKnight has started a blog series on Acts and Mission here. He is using Beverly Gaventa's commentary on Acts and aims to move through Acts verse by verse with an emphasis on "the missional theology of the Acts of the Apostles." This will be an enjoyable series for students of Luke-Acts over the course of this next year!

Last week I posed a question: how do we factor in the Parousia (Jesus’ return) with regard to Christian conduct and ethics? This is a huge topic that goes well beyond the scope of a blog post! Nevertheless, it is a topic that I have spent much time working on during the writing of my thesis this year. What follows are some reflections on the relationship between the temporal proximity of the Parousia and Christian ethics.

New Testament scholars have long recognized the cause and effect relationship between Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom and Christian conduct. Even Albert Schweitzer recognized the relationship between eschatology and ethics. Schweitzer constructed an overly eschatological Jesus (konsequente Eschatologie) who preached an “interim ethic” that was intended to prepare disciples to enter into a kingdom that never materialized. For Schweitzer, the imminence of Jesus’ kingdom was the primary motivating factor for Jesus’ followers to act in a certain way. However, Schweitzer gave up on the Parousia, arguing that Jesus’ kingdom failed.

Unlike Schweitzer, I hold onto hope for the Parousia; in fact, I think that the Parousia is paradigmatic for Christian ethics. I am not trying to espouse some sort of crazy Left-Behind eschatology. On the contrary, I am trying to situate the Parousia within Jesus' own orientation of the kingdom. Jesus’ actions were rooted in the kingdom; in other words, the government of God has entered planet earth via Jesus’ life and teaching. Seeing eschatology with the kingdom in mind most fully captures Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom as events behind the church and as an event yet to be realized in front of the church. In other words, Christians are caught between the tension (or dialectic) of present and future. A common phrase among NT students that captures this line of thinking is the “now but not yet tension.” As far as I can tell, this thought goes back to Oscar Cullmann (See Christ and Time [Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1964], 145-46). More recent New Testament ethicists such as Wolfgang Schrage situate Jesus’ ethics within Jesus' proclamation of the kingdom. Schrage writes: “Jesus’ ethics is a direct consequence of his eschatological message of the kingdom and mercy of God. The imminent kingdom of God motivates people to act in a way appropriate to this kingdom” (The Ethics of the New Testament, trans. David E. Green [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988], 24).

All of this is to say that Jesus’ proclamation of the imminent kingdom causes people to act in a certain way. The challenge for us in the church today is to address the question: how do we hold onto the imminence of a kingdom that has failed to fully materialize over the past 1900 plus years? Is this intellectually credible? Is it even possible? In my next post I will introduce Hans Conzelmann’s thesis that Luke is writing his two-volume work under a crisis in the early church—the delay of the Parousia. Thus, Schweitzer argued that the Parousia is failed and Conzlemann argued that the Parousia is delayed. Both of these approaches to the Parousia have had significant implications, I think, for Christian ethics over the past 100 years.

Last week I posed a question: how do we factor in the Parousia (Jesus’ return) with regard to Christian conduct and ethics? Is it possible to live out Jesus’ ethics in light of a Parousia that is either pushed into an unforeseen future (Hans Conzelmann) or even failed (Albert Schweitzer)?

Over the next few weeks I am going to share some of my own reflections on the delay of the Parousia as it relates to Luke's eschatology. First, I am going to talk more about the cause and effect relationship between kingdom and ethics; second, I will talk about the role of eschatological delay in Second Temple literature; third, I will address Hans Conzelmann’s analysis of Luke’s presentation of salvation history. I hope that you can join me!