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Biblical Studies

Sabbatical begins

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Lots of reading ahead

After two delays, I am now two days into a sabbatical. I am amazed how many little details in my academic life need work. That work has begun with this website. With Flash gone as of 1 January 2021, I have had to re-record my New Testament lectures into .mp4 content. That work is done and they can be located under my Teaching menu. I have also linked in updated lectures from THL310.

But I have also started reading. First on my stack is Craig Keener’s Christobiography.

He articulates the genre of the Gospels and compares them to the conventions of the biographies produced in the early Empire. He is asking what ancient readers of such works would expect in terms of “historical information and flexibility in presenting that information” (p. 24). How this study might challenge a doctrinal understanding of inspiration and its corollaries (in the LCMS) will keep my interest.

Who matters?

Luke addressed his gospel to “most excellent Theophilus.” The designation “most excellent” points to an individual of status, perhaps the official in Nero’s administration at Rome who is hearing the case that Paul appealed to the emperor (Acts 25:11). Nero’s rule was tyrannical. He had recently murdered his mother. To address such power was a dangerous task. 

Nevertheless, Luke boldly speaks the truth (Luke 1:4) to Theophilus.  Luke asserts in the birth story that Jesus is Savior (Luke 2:11), a title reserved for the emperor as the savior of the Fatherland, that is, of Rome and its elites. To drive his truth home, Luke includes in his gospel a range of stories that occur nowhere else in the other gospels. These stories illustrate that Jesus is Savior of all, not just the few. In Luke’s gospel the poor and the marginalized matter. 

The birth of Jesus in Luke is announced to shepherds, because shepherds matter. The child Jesus is revered by two street people at the temple in Jerusalem because Simeon and Anna matter. Only in this gospel does Jesus interrupt a funeral procession because the widow of Nain matters. Only in this gospel does Jesus commend a good Samaritan and a Samaritan leper who returns to give thanks for healing because Samaritans matter. A sinful woman, a repentant tax collector, a woman who lost a coin, and two unknown disciples on the road to Emmaus experience God’s mercy because they matter. Luke alone tells of a father killing the fatted calf for a prodigal son because even this son matters. The Lukan Jesus speaks of a persistent woman who keeps demanding justice because she matters. And in this gospel alone Jesus says to a criminal being crucified with him, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” Yes, even a criminal matters. Jesus is Savior of all. 

Luke could have spoken the truth about Jesus by simply writing, “Jesus is Savior of all.” But Luke never uses that phrase. Instead, Luke makes the point by invoking the term “Savior” and then telling story after story about those who are marginalized and mistreated but who still matter to the Savior of all. 

It is not enough to say that everyone matters. One must also clearly name those despised by the culture, those mistreated, those denied justice, those with a knee to their necks, as people who matter to the Jesus who is Savior of all. 

We who follow Jesus do justice to Luke’s stirring portrayal when we do the same. In this moment, our opportunity as Christians is to speak the truth to power and say, “Black lives matter,” and then to work to make it so.

SBL on Monday … interrupted

Monday at #SBL2019 began with a most interesting session on Negotiating the Roman Imperial world. A paper on Imperial Rome as a borderland helped me better to understand places of connection and separation in an urban context. In Rome that was 14 administrative regions, 265 neighborhoods, 170 bathhouses, the Tiber River, not to mention public spaces and places of worship. The river sorted, but it was also a place of collaboration. A second paper demonstrated the messiness of migration by looking at burial inscriptions and teasing ideas out of biblical texts. As the next paper began, I got a message from Delta.

That was the interruption . . . a winter storm was expected to engulf the Twin Cities Tuesday evening, and I was scheduled to get back on the red eye, arriving after midnight. So, I skipped the rest of the section to reschedule my flight home. I was fortunate to get a seat on a flight first thing on Tuesday, which would get me home early afternoon before the storm.

The final session on Tuesday addressed Archaeology and the Bible. I learned that the four-space house, often found in Israelite areas of occupation, was well-designed to accommodate the keeping of ritual purity, as one did not have to pass through one space to get to another. Uncleanliness could easily be isolated. I also picked up the suggestion that the martyrion of Philip at Hieropolis may have been the antecedent for the octagonal churches found in the holy land (cp. also the Dome of the Rock).

And I did beat the storm home… #WeAreCSP

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