Month: <span>December 2019</span>

I reflect here on some of the books I read in 2019. My Book of the Year? Well, read and find out!

Biography/Memoir

https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Murray-MCheyne-Andrew-Bonar/dp/085151085X

This summer for the @themcckc Pastoral Internship, I read biographies with interns. This was one they chose. Amazed by M’Cheyne’s love for the Scriptures and people of his congregation and city.

https://www.amazon.com/Theology-My-Life-John-Frame/dp/1532613784
I love memoir and biography, and this is a good one. Frame is so candid and I could sympathize in many places. I appreciated his concluding section on lessons learned and his emphasis on love and relationships as well as orthodoxy and fighting for truth.

@JGDuesing suggested this at an @mbts faculty meeting. I enjoyed reading Chesterton’s reflections. Chesterton’s wit is remarkable. He shows how Aquinas made Aristotle palatable for theology even though Aquinas was rejected for what many considered was a foray into philosophy. Chesterton argues powerfully that deductive reasoning eclipses inductive (Not sure I am fully persuaded). There are places where I had to put the book down; “hard to state the idea better than that,” I would say.

https://www.amazon.com/John-Stott-Ministry-Dudley-Smith-2001-11-02/dp/B01K17X5V2
I read this with @themcckc Pastoral Interns. Just a delight. How did Stott do all that?! Stott, like M’Cheyne noted above, had such a heart for God’s word and the people of his church—but saw the global Anglican and Evangelical community as his parish.

Church Leadership

@RobertJMatz and @jmyeats have written what should be one of the most important books of 2019 for SBC leaders. They use narrative to argue for the validity and priority of the Cooperative Program.

Greek Grammar

https://www.amazon.com/Articular-Infinitives-Greek-New-Testament/dp/1905048416
I adopted this book for my Advanced Greek Grammar Ph.D. course @mbts. Burk provides a helpful analysis of articular infinitives and sets our principles of linguistics that students might apply to their particular areas of research. Excellent tables in the Appendices.

https://www.amazon.com/Cohesion-English-Language-No/dp/0582550416
Another book I adopted for my @mbts Advanced Greek Grammar Ph.D. seminar. This volume exhibits principles of Halliday’s linguistic grid but does so in an accessible way. The charts in the final chapter are worth the price of the book.

https://www.amazon.com/Grammar-Discourse-Topics-Language-Linguistics/dp/0306452359

I want students to appreciate linguistics and see how this line of study can help them to better understand Scripture. Longacre does that here. Charts are remarkable. This is a top-tier book for my @mbts Advanced Greek Grammar Ph.D. Seminar.

https://www.amazon.com/Structural-Lexicology-Greek-New-Testament/dp/1463205341
@toddlprice, a translator with Pioneers, is one of my best friends and has been for almost 20 years. We prayed each other through Ph.D. studies so it is a personal joy to use his book in my @mbts Advanced Greek Grammar Ph.D. seminar. Word-sense-possibility-disambiguation? We are more likely to know what a word means if we identify words it is most often associated with and forms it most often occurs in. Price argues that structural lexicography can help us better understand what words mean in the New Testament (as with other languages).

History

https://www.amazon.com/Fate-Rome-Climate-Disease-Princeton/dp/0691166838
Harper demonstrates his creativity here. His prose is bright, making what could seem a boring book (ancient climatology) readable because he connects climate with politics, economic trends, and religion. Harper notes that climate change contributed to the downfall of the Empire. Harper noted that Christianity grew because Christians united to care for one another during catastrophe and hardship that resulted from climate instability. I have a full review here (https://www.mbts.edu/downloads/journal/fa19_mjt_final_web.pdf).

https://www.amazon.com/Avenue-Spies-Espionage-Resistance-Nazi-Occupied-ebook/dp/B00PEPR6QW
Remarkable evil was the Nazi regime and though France and Paris fell quickly, some fought under Hitler’s nose—for a time. Kershaw is a great writer. This is a page-turner.

https://www.amazon.com/Pioneers-Heroic-Settlers-Brought-American/dp/1501168681
A fun evening read but not my favorite McCullough book (Truman and Adams are hard to beat). The Pioneers were a courageous lot and exemplify perseverance. I read this with my wife, so that made it more enjoyable.

New Testament Studies

Really enjoyed Blomberg’s emphasis on theology and mission. He prioritizes Biblical Theology but does not exclude Systematics. Blomberg’s arrangement of how to do theology distinguishes it from its contemporaries. I have a full review here (https://www.mbts.edu/downloads/journal/fa19_mjt_final_web.pdf).

For a few years now I have been intrigued by the questions of the Greek New Testament so when I heard of Estes’ book, I got right to it. I enjoyed reading it with a couple of colleagues @mbts. Estes takes the questions of the New Testament and categorizes them into an external, logical framework. At times exegetical analysis proves fruitful but too often I had to wade through Estes’ categorizations first. I would like to see something like G.D. Fee’s Analysis/Synthesis grid in his books on Paul and the Spirit or Jesus and Christology be applied to questions in the Greek New Testament. (Any Ph.D. students reading?)

Hays’ volume is a must-have for students and teachers and pastors. I had hoped to get to it last year but was delayed until 2019. I read it with a colleague @mbts, making it all the more fun. Hay’s grid would require ancient readers to be very familiar with the Jewish Scriptures. I appreciate his thorough analysis of echoes but I am not persuaded that the average reader in the ancient world could hear all that he (and we) hear in the New Testament use of the Old Testament. I like Hays’ view that the Old Testament prefigures the New but advocate for a sharper line marking Jesus as a post-figural Being. Once Jesus arrives, the figuring is done.

https://www.amazon.com/New-Testament-Its-World-Introduction/dp/0310499305
Because it was released just last month, I have not yet read every page of this 900-plus page tome, but I have read enough to get the general scope of the book. It is my 2019 choice for Book of the Year. This volume combines some of Wright’s work in the Christian Origins and the Question of God Series with what might be expected in a New Testament introduction. Kudos to Michael Bird for pulling this off! Chapters 2-4, begin by setting out the History-Literature-Theology grid the authors adopt throughout the book. In other words, they start with hermeneutics. Then come three chapters on backgrounds. Wright’s Jesus and the Victory of God is reworked into Part III (chs. 8-11), The Resurrection of the Son of God into Part IV (chs 12-14), and Paul and the Faithfulness of God into ch. 15 in Part V. Analysis of the Pauline corpus follows in Part V (chs. 16-23). The authors then turn to the Gospels in Part VI (chs. 24-28). The authors present their analysis of the Catholic Epistles and Revelation in Part VII (chs. 29-34), Early Christians and the Mission of God. Part VIII (chs. 35-36), The Making of the New Testament, provides an introduction to NT textual criticism and the New Testament Canon. Part IX, Living the Story of the New Testament, contains just chapter 37 titled, “Bringing It All Together: Making the New Testament matter for today.”

            A few specifics: Argues that ideas of resurrection, as presented in the New Testament, would make sense in a Jewish worldview but not in a Roman one (314-15). Galatians was written to churches in South Galatia and was written prior to the Jerusalem Council (Gal 2:1-10 corresponds to Acts 11:27-30) (406). Romans 7:7-25 is Israel and not a Christian (519).

https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Testament-Produced-Tyndale-Cambridge/dp/1433564092
Provides an under-the-hood perspective on principles that guided Jongkind and Peter Williams as they edited the THGNT. The book serves as a primer on New Testament textual criticism. I appreciate the discipline the editors followed in using older Greek manuscripts. External evidence is foundational but the THGNT incorporates readings that accord internal evidence as well—and this introduction explains some of the readings that are based upon internal evidence. A commentary on the THGNT is in the works and Jongkind’s introduction whets the appetite for that volume.

Theology

@ostrachan writes an uncluttered doctrinal book that is accessible to readers. With chapters on work, technology, sexuality, and race, Reenchanting Humanity is a contemporary theology. This book benefits students and church leaders, marshaling Scripture to address the questions in the minds of church-goers young and old.

In preparation for the second Sunday of Advent, I decided to take a look at Matthew 1 in Vaticanus. I had read it a few times over the years and it stuck out to me because, at Matt 1:23, the copyist placed διπλῆ (>) (see Charles E. Hill, “‘In These Very Words’: Methods and Standards of Literary Borrowing in the Second Century,” in The Early Text of the New Testament [eds. Charles E. Hill and Michael J. Kruger], Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) marks next to the lines where Isa 7:14 is cited. These διπλῆ are visible in the left margin of the left column below (images of Vaticanus taken from https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.gr.1209). In the middle column, the copyist placed διπλῆ marks to note the citation of Mic 5:1, 3 in Matt 2:6.

When I turned to Matthew 1, I was struck again by the beauty of Vaticanus. The ornate first letter, the color combinations. And when I began to scan through the genealogy, I was struck by the beauty of the copyists’ literary discipline. When the name of the individual was the object of the verb ⲉⲅⲉⲛⲛⲏⲥⲉ(ⲛ) (“begat”), he placed it on its own line and then began the next line with that individual as the subject of the verb. This took foresight. The copyist’s arrangement of Jesus’ genealogy is visually striking. It is as if each name were a building block in the historical line that led to Jesus’ birth.

For comparison, I scanned Sinaiticus to see if the copyist of Matthew 1 had done the same. Though the text below is faded, it is clear that he did not (images of Sinaiticus taken from (http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/).

The differences in the copyists’ portrayals of Jesus’ genealogy in Matthew 1 in Vaticanus and Sinaiticus made me curious as to how the copyists of these manuscripts portrayed Jesus’ genealogy in Luke 3. There, the copyist of Sinaiticus took great care to list the family line of Jesus in a linear fashion. The names are arranged in a way that would immediately attract the reader’s attention. The names seem to be stacked upon one another like bricks of a building.

Intrigued, I turned attention back to Vaticanus to see if the copyist of Luke 3 set the genealogy off in some way. He followed the same pattern used by the copyist of Sinaiticus. On the second to the last line of the right column of the first image below, the copyist began the genealogy in Luke 3:23; Luke 3:24 (τοῦ Μαθθὰτ) begins on the final line.

As can be seen below, in the first and second columns of the next page of the manuscript, the copyist of Vaticanus shows the same methodology as the copyist of Sinaiticus.

And the copyist of Alexandrinus likewise stacked the names in Jesus’ genealogy in Luke 3 (Alexandrinus is vacant of Matt 1:1-25:6). That copyist listed two names per line, as can be seen below (images of Alexandrinus taken from http://www.csntm.org/).

A comparison of the way that the copyists of Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and Alexandrinus presented genealogies is beyond the scope of a simple blog. This would in fact not be possible since Sinaiticus is vacant in many of the genealogies listed in Numbers and Chronicles, and as noted, Alexandrinus is vacant of Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus.

One basis of comparison is the genealogies of 1 Chronicles in Vaticanus. There the copyist occasionally separates names with a raised dot, observable in the right column below in the image of 1 Chronicles 1.

I located only one place where the copyist of Vaticanus set off names in the genealogies of 1 Chronicles in a way that would visually attract the reader’s attention. The middle column of the image below is 1 Chron 1:51-54, the list of Edom’s chiefs.

I return again here to thoughts of Christmas and the genealogies of Jesus in Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and Alexandrinus. In The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006) et. al., the late Larry W. Hurtado argued that the nature and features of early Christian texts help us to understand the words written on those texts. The architectural arrangement of the names in Jesus’ genealogies inclines me to think that the copyists gave attention to presenting Jesus’ lineage in such a way that would create an image on the page. To me, the image looks like a building, a building of salvation history in reference to Jesus.

Isaiah’s prophecy of a child that would be born to a virgin and named Immanuel (Isa 7:14) and his statement that a child would be born to rule on David’s throne (Isa 9:6-7) are cited of Jesus at Christmas. These descriptions of the life and ministry of Jesus were first spoken as the solution to a political crisis in the days of Isaiah. During the reign of King Ahaz, the Arameans and Israel sought to bring Judah into an alliance that would strengthen the region of Palestine against the marauding Assyrians. To Judah’s crisis, Isaiah spoke of God’s eternal solution. Isaiah 7:14 and 9:6-7 are just two places in Isaiah 7-12 where the prophet detailed the progression of Messiah’s ministry, from His birth to His dominion.

(1) The Messiah would be born of a virgin. To King Ahaz, the prophet said, “the Lord Himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive, have a son, and name him Immanuel” (Isa 7:14)—a prediction that was fulfilled in the birth of Christ (Matt 1:23; Luke 1:31).

(2) The Messiah would have divine character and righteousness would characterize His rule.  Isaiah announced not only the destruction of Judah—with the salvation of only a remnant, but also a time when the Lord’s favor would be extended directly to the Gentiles (Isa 9:1-3), which Matthew said was fulfilled in Jesus’ early Galilean ministry (Matt 4:15-16) during which time He preached, “Repent, because the kingdom of heaven has come near!” (Matt 4:17). Isaiah predicted that the virgin’s child would grow to become a great ruler, saying, “The government will be on His shoulders. He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. The dominion will be vast and its prosperity will never end.  He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom” (Isa 9:6-7a)—a prophecy that the angel Gabriel quoted to comfort Mary in her role as the one who would give birth to Messiah (Luke 1:32-33). Luke notes that as an adolescent, Jesus’ “grew up and became strong, filled with wisdom, and God’s grace was on Him” (Luke 2:40), resembling Isaiah’s prophecy of Messiah: “The Spirit of the LORD will rest on Him—a Spirit of wisdom and understanding, a Spirit of counsel and strength, a Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD” (Isa 11:2). Isaiah announced that Jesus’ latter ministry would be characterized by righteous judgment. “He will judge the poor righteously and execute justice for the oppressed of the land. He will strike the land with discipline from His mouth, and He will kill the wicked with a command from His lips” (Isa 11:4), Isaiah said. This schema is reflected in John’s description of the return of Christ in Rev 19:15, “From His mouth came a sharp sword, so that with it He might strike the nations. He will shepherd them with an iron scepter. He will also trample the winepress of the fierce anger of God, the Almighty.”

(3) The Messiah would identify fully with His people—a group that would include Gentiles. While Ahaz and many of the nobility in Judah aligned themselves with Assyria, Isaiah and his companions, who together compose a faithful remnant, resolved to trust only in the Lord. The prophet confessed, “I will wait for the LORD, who is hiding His face from the house of Jacob. I will wait for Him. Here I am with the children the LORD has given me to be signs and wonders in Israel from the LORD of Hosts who dwells on Mount Zion” (Isa 8:16-18). The author to the Hebrews saw in Isaiah’s companionship with his children (the prophets under his care) an illustration of Christ’s identification with humanity; together they formed a faithful remnant that endured suffering and rejection and victory (Heb 2:1-13). Isaiah’s prophecy, “No one will harm or destroy on My entire holy mountain, for the land will be as full of the knowledge of the LORD as the sea is filled with water,” was followed by the announcement that, “On that day the root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples. The nations will seek Him, and His resting place will be glorious” (Isa 11:9-10). The apostle Paul saw in Isaiah’s words justification for Jews to accept the Gentile believers among them (Rom 15:12).

In a time of political turbulence, Isaiah announced a deliverer who would come. The New Testament authors cited Isaiah 7-12 to teach their audiences about Jesus. They understood that the Lord’s jealousy for His people to enjoy His presence would be realized through the one born in Bethlehem. In Jesus, they said, God would work out His plan to be glorified among them and bring direct blessing even to the Gentiles.