_______________________
18. Once I became a Teaching Fellow, the plan was to go on and do doctoral work in New Testament. The Joe Dongell track of course was a thought--Union in Virginia. That's also where David Bauer had gone. Paul "Bud" Achtemeier taught there. Could I perhaps study Paul with him?
The thing was that he was apparently nearing retirement. The worst nightmare stories of doctoral students come when you switch advisers. It had happened to Ron Crown at Oxford when George Caird died suddenly.
By the way, I had a lot of respect for G. B. Caird in that period of my life. Bauer had first exposed me to him with his article, "The Exegetical Method of the Epistle to the Hebrews." This short piece highlighted the way the argument of Hebrews could be seen as structuring around certain key scriptures. [1]
My second exposure to him was a book that Bill Patrick used in intermediate Greek, called The Language and Imagery of the Bible. It was one of those books that was like genius. As I read I kept thinking, "Of course." "Of course!" "Of course!"
I remember Steve Lennox saying he was with him until the later chapters. This is where he talks about phrases like "the sun was darkened" being similar to our "earth shattering events." Caird suggests that Acts sees the Day of Pentecost as the fulfillment of Joel on this score.
A key light that Caird turned more fully on was an understanding of the difference between what is literal and what is figurative. There is a tendency in certain circles to fight over whether the Bible is "literally" true. However, these discussions often do not really understand what the word literal means in this context. If something is taken "literally," then the words are taken in their normal sense. [2]
Dunn used to tell a story of a student that vehemently argued with him over whether the expression, "the trees will clap their hand" was literal (Isa 55:12). Clearly it was not meant so but the student insisted it must be because everything in the Bible (for him) was literal. The student later lost his faith, clearly being set up by his background to believe completely indefensible things. If trees literally clap hands, then they must at some time sprout hands like ours and make sounds putting them together.
A paper about which I am very proud, the first paper I gave after we started the Hebrews Group at SBL, is "An Archaeology of Hebrews Tabernacle Imagery." It looks at the sacrificial metaphors of Hebrews in layers. This, to me, is a key to understanding Hebrews and it makes moot a host of studies trying to pin Hebrews down to one sacrificial perspective.
Some of Paul Ricoeur's thought on metaphor has been helpful to me here. It seems like there is a vast swath of earlier thought that is sheer rubbish on this subject, going back to Aristotle. Metaphors are typically more powerful than literal language, not mere flourishes of language.
The older Reformers spoke of the "plain sense" of Scripture and distinguished it from the literal sense. Sometimes the plain sense of Scripture is literal and sometimes it is figurative.
So it's no surprise that Tom Wright studied under Caird, given his penchant to take things like this figuratively. I was struck with Wright's suggestion that Mark 13:26 is about the Son going on the clouds rather than coming. I don't agree, but it's genius. And it's exactly what I would expect of a Caird pupil.
Two other students of Caird were Lincoln Hurst and Marcus Borg. I read Hurst the first semester of my doctoral program. I also read some Borg in my doctoral work in preparation to teach some Christology. I found him interesting but unattractive in his thought.
19. Another possibility was to apply to Notre Dame. Harry Attridge was still there at the time, and he had recently written one of the best commentaries on Hebrews for the Hermeneia series. I'm embarrassed to say that I got a little confused over New Testament study there being under Theology. Of course it was the same at Durham.
In any case, Attridge left for Yale soon enough anyway. Interestingly, Greg Sterling followed the same pathway about 15 years later.
I did apply at Duke, thinking I might study with Richard Hays. Of course Hays wasn't working on Hebrews at that time. I'm not sure if Duke even took three doctoral students at the time. They did not accept me. Durham, England was a much better result for me than Durham, North Carolina, although I continue to like Duke Divinity School and Duke's basketball team. :-)
20. I should perhaps back up a little and talk about Hebrews and James D. G. Dunn. I've already mentioned a little of my Hebrews path. It starts with my interest in holiness as a Wesleyan and thinking of Hebrews as the Leviticus of the New Testament. Then it moves to my independent study with Bauer and the paper I presented both at Asbury and at the regional SBL in Atlanta. It was known for being difficult Greek and difficult to understand, and I considered it a challenge.
I mentioned how I had been attracted to the work of James Dunn--the way he thought and approached questions. He seemed to me a real truth seeker. Come to find out, his background was not entirely dissimilar to mine. He was raised in conservative, Scottish Presbyterianism. He had a somewhat mathematical background in economics and statistics. He used to say he was Presbyterian north of the border and Methodist south of it.
He was a popular person to study with if you were an open-minded conservative or an evangelical on the edge. Scot McKnight was one of his early pupils when Dunn was still at Nottingham. Graham Twelftree as well. Both are now renowned scholars with a strong faith. [3]
Asbury conveniently had him come to campus to speak the year of my searching. I met him there. He was the head of the theology department, the Lightfoot Professor of Divinity. Another way that he was like me is that he understood that universities survive if they have students. He took a number of students, some part time, some full time.
21. When he was on the Asbury campus, I seem to remember that he was questioned about one of his more idiosyncratic positions in the question and answer session in Estes chapel. Although I suspect the focus was his new book, The Partings of the Ways, he argues in his book, Christology in the Making, that the Philippian hymn of Philippians 2:6-11 is not about the pre-existence of Christ. He argues that it is a Last Adam argument. Here's a paraphrase of his interpretation
- Although he was in the image of God, like Adam,
- Jesus did not try to grasp after equality with God, unlike Adam.
- But he emptied himself...
Few have followed Dunn in this interpretation, and I don't agree with his interpretation of this passage. However, when I read Christology in the Making, he did convince me that many passages in Paul that are glibly taken of Christ's pre-existence may not actually be saying that.
For example, take 1 Corinthians 15:49: "Just as we have born the image of the earthly man [Adam], so we will bear the image of the man from heaven [Christ]." It is tempting to read this verse in relation to Christ's pre-existence, but what is this chapter about? The chapter is about our resurrection body. The man from heaven is the resurrection man. We are not going to be like Christ in his pre-existence. We are going to be like Christ in his resurrection.
I find this convincing. It is another example of how we read later theology into earlier texts. Take Ezekiel 37, about dry bones coming to life. If we listen carefully to this text, it is not about the individual Israelites who died. It's about the resurrection of Israel as a whole. It is not about the end times. It is about the return of Israel from captivity and its reconstitution as a people.
Dunn helped me overcome my later theological glasses to see biblical texts in context as they were originally meant. Not perfectly of course because no one can completely overcome their biases and unreflectivity. I will confess that I encounter many a New Testament scholar today that I do not think has learned to listen to biblical texts on their own terms. I have a hunch that the rise of theological interpretation has given a green light to a fundamental inadequacy in the scholarly community.
If I might toot my own horn, my article in the Journal of Biblical Literature titled, "A Celebration of the Enthroned Son" does with Hebrews 1 what Dunn did with some of these other passages. I have taken positions about which I have significant doubts, but I am quite proud of most of this article.
When I read, for example, Richard Bauckham's interpretation of Hebrews 1, as well as some other friends of mine I won't name, I frankly think they have not been able to overcome their theological glasses to hear this chapter for what it seems to say. Hebrews 1:5 is not about the eternally begotten Son. I believe that Jesus is "eternally begotten of the Father," but this is just not what Hebrews was saying. Hebrews 1 is primarily, perhaps completely a celebration of the resurrected and exalted Son.
22. Dunn and his generation saw the development of early Christology as following a pattern something like this:
- The earliest Christian faith focused on the resurrected Jesus. To say Jesus is Lord was to confess that God had raised him from the dead and enthroned him as Lord, Christ, and Son of God.
- I don't remember if Dunn thought this, but some would then argue that Mark located Jesus as becoming Messiah at his baptism, a kind of adoption of him by God at that point.
- Then perhaps Matthew and Luke saw Jesus becoming Son of God at his virginal conception.
- Finally, John saw Jesus as the pre-existent, incarnated Logos.
Of the first point, Dunn easily convinced me. Romans 10:9, Philippians 2:11, and other passages clearly locate Jesus as Lord at the point of his resurrection. Acts 13:33 locates Jesus as Son of God to his exaltation. Acts 2:36 locates Jesus as Lord and Christ to his resurrection.
It is at least a legitimate observation that John 1:14 is unique among the Gospels in its sense of incarnation. Matthew and Luke teach the virgin conception, but they do not mention that Jesus existed before then. Mark doesn't mention the virgin birth.
Simon Gathercole, a student of Dunn after me, has tried to argue that the Synoptics do teach Jesus' pre-existence, but I find most of his arguments strained. The Transfiguration might indicate his pre-existence. Mark 12:35-37 might imply Jesus' pre-existence, but it seems clear to me that the Synoptics say almost nothing about it.
Silence doesn't mean they didn't believe it. Absence of presence is not presence of absence. I hope it's obvious that I believe in the pre-existence of Christ. But, once again, Dunn helped me to see how many assumptions I brought to the biblical texts that the biblical texts do not clearly say.
[1] Asbury had this "elenchus" in the library basement that had article file cards in relation to various verses. It was a spectacular research tool in the day before the internet, Google, and electronic databases. The old time scholars almost had to keep all this information in their heads. Many of them could! Tenley Horner once challenged me to find a book in my library. I succeeded immediately.
Craig Keener is of course bizarre in this regard. From what I hear he has a complex and extensive filing system in his basement with notecards from things he's read and studied. I also here he is practically nocturnal.
[2] I am fully aware of Lakoff and Johnson's Metaphors We Live By, another book that Bill Patrick first clued me in on. They argue that language has its roots in metaphor and thus that even things we now think of as literal were once figurative. A scholar once tried to put me in my place by pointing this out when I already knew it. I used to be intimidated by senior scholars, but I've gotten over it.
[3] "Doctor father," the person you got your PhD with. Dunn is my Doctor Father, C. F. D. "Charlie" Moule was his, and C. H. Dodd his.
No comments:
Post a Comment