May 01

Reading the Gospels Wisely: An Interview with Dr. Jonathan T. Pennington on his Newest Book

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Gospels, Interviews, SBTS

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(cross-posted from the Wheaton PhD Blog)

I had the pleasure of asking Dr. Jonathan T. Pennington a few questions about his new book from Baker Academic, Reading the Gospels Wisely: A Narrative and Theological Introduction, due out at the end of summer. Visit ReadingWisely.com more info on this book, including some cool videos. Enjoy – and read the book!

                                                            

PC: How long have you been working on this project? What sparked the idea to do an introduction to the gospels?

JTP: In many ways I have been working on this book — or at least wrestling with its issues — for about 10 years, ever since I began studying at St. Andrews. My years there were very stimulating hermeneutically and set me on a path that is reflected in part in this book. For the last seven years I have been teaching (and preaching) a lot on the Gospels, trying to figure out how the Gospels function and how we are meant to read and receive them as Holy Scripture. The result is this book.

In the course of my teaching I have developed lots of lecture material that is not found in traditional introductory textbooks. Particularly, I find myself talking a lot about the hermeneutical and homiletical issues related to the Gospel narratives. This book focuses on these topics. I’m trying to provide some content that is typically overlooked or simply not even considered when we think about interpreting the Gospels.

 

PC: You’ve written a more specialized book on Matthew’s gospel, Heaven and Earth in the Gospel of Matthew. How was the process of writing this book different? 

JTP: It was very different. That book is a slightly revised version of my PhD dissertation done in St. Andrews under Richard Bauckham. So, it was written in those golden — and scary — PhD years, where I was learning the guild and trying to make my own contribution, all with the impending viva (dissertation defense) on the horizon! I’m very happy with the content and style of that book. However, the RGW book was born out of a different kind of angst. As I continued to wrestle with the Gospels overall there were many questions that kept nagging me, pressing me to understand. For example, one of the biggest questions for me has been what kind of historical witness the Gospels provide and how their historical claims relate to their theological emphases.

In my reading and teaching and I kept stumbling toward answers to this question and others and this book is my attempt to write myself toward some answers. Now, having completed the book I have a great sense of relief that I’ve been able — at least for now — to figure out what I think on some big hermeneutical issues related to the Gospels.

 

PC: Could you describe your target audience(s) and goal(s) for this book?

JTP: This book is written for the theological student and pastor. It is a textbook in the sense that it is broad in its scope, not just a specialized study on one topic. I think (and hope!) that is an enjoyable read and I strove to not be overly technical. Yet, it does address some heady issues at times, especially in the first half of the book. I have in mind to write a simpler, mother-in-law version of the book as well.

 

PC: Reading the Gospels Wisely is called both an “introduction to the gospels” and “instruction in reading the gospels.” How have you balanced hermeneutical instruction with introduction to biblical content?

JTP: There are several very good Gospels introductory textbooks out there and my book is not intending to replace them. (In my classes I use Mark Strauss’s Four Portraits, One Jesus, and I highly recommend this.) Rather, as I’ve already hinted, my focus in this book is on issues that are either not addressed or underdeveloped in such textbooks. As a result, you will not find in RGW an introduction to each of the four Gospels or a survey of their content. That is easily found elsewhere. Instead, I am offering what I like to call “cradle to grave exegesis” of the Gospels. I talk about what the Gospels are, how they relate to the rest of the Scriptures, what our goal in reading them is, how to interpret them, and how to preach and teach from the Gospels.

 

PC: Why “Wisely?” What role does wisdom play in our reading of Scripture?

JTP: The idea of Wisdom is intentionally highlighted throughout the book because this is such an important biblical notion and because it gets at what our goal in reading the Gospels is. The end-goal of Holy Scripture is not mere knowledge but practical, lived-out, faithful wisdom, a way of being in the world imbued in every aspect by God’s grace. God’s speech as recorded in Holy Scripture informs, educates, and teaches, to be sure. But its goal is higher — to be used by the Spirit to transform us into the image of Christ as we follow after him. “Wisdom” points us toward something greater than becoming really knowledgeable about the Bible, as important as that can be.

 

PC:Reading the Gospels Wisely  is subtitled “A Narrative and Theological Introduction.” Do you see this book as a contribution to the movement(s) toward Theological Interpretation of Scripture?

JTP: Thanks for the softball. Yes, I would happily align myself with much of the amorphous TIS movement, and this book certainly relates to many of the same concerns. I hope, though, rather than making a contribution to this movement, it makes a contribution to the Church, helping God’s people be faithful and wise disciples of the Lord.

 

PC: Teasers? Any new projects on the horizon?

JTP: Currently I am writing the Pillar Commentary on Matthew (to replace the Leon Morris volume). It is slow going — don’t tell Carson — and I don’t know when it will be done. But it has already been a great discipline and I’m honored to be a part of this great series.

There are also a number of other projects in the works, several of which relate to the history of the interpretation of the Gospels, my main area of interest currently.

 

PC: Final thoughts?

JTP: RGW makes a great stocking stuffer for all your friends and relatives! Buy it in bulk! (I’ve got six kids to put through college.)

More seriously, thanks for your interest in the book. I hope the ideas therein will stimulate some dialogue, especially on the most controversial part of the book — my argument that the Gospels should be seen as the center of all of Scripture. But that’s for another interview…

                                                       

I had Dr. Pennington for quite a few classes during my time at Southern. He’s a wonderfully engaging and provocative (nicely) lecturer and writer, and if his first book, itself a published dissertation, is any indication, this newest work will be stimulating, edifying for the church, and a joy to read as well. Thanks, Dr. Pennington, for taking the time to answer a few questions – looking forward to the book!

Dr. Jonathan T. Pennington (PhD, St Andrews, Scotland) is Associate Professor of New Testament Interpretation at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, KY). Visit his website at JonathanPennington.com.

 

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Nov 08

Review of Perrin, Jesus the Temple

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Book Reviews, Wheaton

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My review of Jesus the Temple, by Wheaton’s own Nick Perrin, is up at Credo Magazine. It’s a great book – read it!

Jesus the Temple

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Sep 05

Word Processors…ugh. (or, “Why I Both Hate and Use MS Word”)

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Tech

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If I’m going to get any writing done during the day, I need big chunks of time. Little snatches here and there just won’t do. I need to get a good running start and keep going on that momentum for a while to get in the right “groove.” There’s nothing worse, though, than getting sidetracked by a technical or formatting issue in the heat of a good writing session. Using the wrong word processor for your purposes can cause these kinds of distractions.

I wanted to choose a word processor wisely at the beginning of my PhD program in order to avoid a possibly painful and time-consuming transfer and formatting process later in the program when I’d already written a lot of the dissertation. A few things are important:

  1. stability with long documents (saving the dissertation as separate chapters makes for problems later, I hear),
  2. ease and consistency of formatting (I want to type it in the right format from the beginning, and without constantly worrying about it),
  3. unicode functionality (for Greek, Hebrew, etc.),
  4. ability to save as .doc and PDF without losing formatting (for the constant back and forth with supervisor, second reader, and other poor folks who have to read and comment on the drafts!), and
  5. effective interface with acceptable citation management software (very  preferably Zotero, which supports Wheaton’s specific citation style).

MS Word

I’ve always used MS Word for Mac, and I used it almost exclusively through my MDiv. I know the program, and its ubiquity makes it attractive. It works with Zotero, and Wheaton’s style templates are Word-exclusive. However, it’s unstable with long documents from my experience, and it seems to hog memory. In fact, my frustration at seeing yet another MS Word-induced spinning beachball on my screen prompted my wanderings afield for an alternative. Word gives me #’s 3, 4, 5, and (maybe) 2.

But I’ve got friends who swear by a few alternatives:

Mellel

Since I’m a Mac user, many have recommended Mellel, an Israeli program that’s Mac-exclusive. It interfaces very smoothly with Bookends, a citation program. It is, by all accounts, very stable and even fast when dealing with especially long documents, and users rave about the ease with which they are able to manipulate the organization of the document without losing formatting.

By far the most tempting feature of Mellel is its complete compatibility with left-to-right text entry. Many biblical scholars and students have lamented Word’s lack of this seemingly obvious feature. Sounds great so far, right? 

Mellel is hard to use. (My Apple addiction is showing here, huh?) I’m sure it’s not hard once you’ve logged a bunch of hours finding your way around it, but the interface is not intuitive, and the blinding array of options as presented through the program’s outdated user interface is overwhelming. Bookends is not bad, but it’s not the best, it’s not Zotero, and it’s expensive. Finally, Mellel’s conversion from its native file type to .doc is inconsistent in preserving formatting. It’s also not perfect with formatting on PDF export, which is strange. Futhermore, while my (NT) dissertation will use a bit of Hebrew, of course, it should be so much at one time that I can’t simply manually wrestle it into a left-to-right environment.

I would love to dump MS Word for a Mac-native, cheaper alternative, but Mellel just barely won’t work, giving me only #’s 1 and 3.

Scrivener

Another entering PhD student at Wheaton has started writing using Scrivener. It’s by design a composition program, one that minors on formatting. Scrivener’s upside, much like Mellel’s, is that it makes it very easy to manipulate sections of the document so that you can focus on the shape of your argument. Very attractive. Scrivener’s fatal flaw is its inability to interface with citation software. Frankly, you just can’t keep up if you have to enter every citation manually.

Some folks have tried composing in Scrivener, dumped the text into another program, and then formatted, but that hassle seems to outweigh the benefits of the the program. Scrivener would be great for writing a novel, but it doesn’t have the features for a long academic document (it only gets #’s 1, 3, and 4, which isn’t much help without #2).

Some Others

I’ve met someone who claimed to have used Apple’s Pages to write his MA thesis, but he was working in an Apple store trying to sell me a Mac. I’ve used Pages a little, and it sure is pretty, but it doesn’t have the citation or formatting features of Mellel or Word.

I’ve also heard OpenOffice suggested, but word is that it now suffers from the same bloatedness as does Word and has formatting issues when using .doc.

So, it seems that, until you convince me otherwise (and I’m deeply longing to be convinced), I think I’ve got to stick with MS Word for the next few years of writing. I don’t think I can escape.

 

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Aug 21

Post-Summer Update, or, “Greek Never Looked So Inviting”

Categories:

German, Ph.D., Wheaton

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A update before the first week of the semester:

Prep

All summer, five days a week, for at least 4-5 hours most days, I’ve been trying to learn German well enough to read scholarly research in that language. Obviously, then, dissertation research and reading were almost completely put on hold as the August 19th German entrance exam loomed at Wheaton. What a great way to say, “Welcome to Wheaton College” – here’s some theological German! Such intensive study of a language doesn’t make for good blogging fodder, so not much has been going on here lately. That will change now that I can let myself read things in languages I already know!

As for the test, it was merciful: a section of a monograph called  Jesus und die Frauen with mostly reasonable sentence lengths. Most of my colleagues felt good about their performances. We’ll find out how we did on Monday, when we have our first official meetings with our supervisors (“mentors” in Wheaton’s terminology).

It’s likely that I won’t take a real seminar this semester other than the introductory ones on research methods and theological hermeneutics. Only three other seminars are required in six semesters, and neither of the ones offered this semester would be especially relevant to my dissertation topic. My (likely naive) goal, instead, is to work enough on my prospectus this semester to be ready to defend it a few months early.

Reading

I’ve been reading Nicholas Perrin’s Jesus the Temple for a review at CredoMag, and I’m impressed. I’ll post more thoughts in the review, of course, but it’s readable, the thesis is straightforward, and the argument is well-organized. In brief, if you read and liked N.T. Wright’s The New Testament and the People of God and  Jesus and the Victory of God, you’ll likely also be sympathetic with Perrin’s line of reasoning. Read it!

 

 

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Aug 04

Indices to Runge’s Discourse Grammar

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Greek

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I’m really thankful for Steve Runge’s accessible (for its genre) Discourse Grammar of the Greek New Testament. My copy, however, doesn’t have indices, only a bibliography, so I’ve previously had some trouble finding what I was looking for. Thankfully, Hendrickson has provided a PDF to solve this problem. Download it here.

 

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Jul 27

Translating Romans 1.5: A quibble and a question.

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Greek, Paul, Romans

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The point most often debated about Romans 1.5 is the meaning of ὑπακοὴν πίστεως (“the obedience of faith”). This a fascinating debate, but for now I just want to make a brief comment about the order of the translation of the the three prepositional phrases in this verse. Here is the whole verse and two representative translations:

…δι᾿ οὗ ἐλάβομεν χάριν καὶ ἀποστολὴν εἰς ὑπακοὴν πίστεως ἐν πᾶσιν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν ὑπὲρ τοῦ ὀνόματος αὐτοῦ…

“…through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name…” (NRSV, similar: KJV, ASV, NASB, NIV, NLT, NET)

“through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations…” (RSV, ESV)

The Quibble

To be clear: this is no knock against any translation, and no doctrine whatsoever hangs on the order of these phrases. I can’t help but wonder, however, what prompted the RSV committee to reverse the order of these phrases in the translation. I assume the ESV folks simply didn’t see enough reason to diverge from their parent text, but why the reversal in the first place?

Here’s why I think the RSV/ESV rendering could be misleading for many Christians: As it stands in the RSV/ESV rendering, it sounds like “among all the nations” is modifying “name.” For many Christians, “for the sake of his name among all the nations” would likely connote a focus on the spreading of God’s name to all the nations, with “the obedience of faith” being brought about generally. The verse, thus read, could be paraphrased this way:

Through [Jesus] we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith, so that God would be known among all the nations.

While this is certainly a worthy, Pauline aim, that’s not his main point here. By the order of the phrases, it seems like it is the obedience of faith that is to be brought about among all the nations, and then the motivation for that: God’s name. It’s only a slight difference in meaning, but it’s important, especially in Romans, in which the multi-ethnic, Jew/Gentile nature of the people of God is front and center. The RSV/ESV rendering makes it harder to see the scandal of Paul’s ministry: that the obedience of faith is being brought about among the Gentiles!

It’s just a quibble, but it seems like a strange decision to reverse the order of those phrases and create an (at best) ambiguity in English that is not there in Greek.

The Question

Recently there has been a lot work done in discourse grammar (see Steve Runge‘s excellent book, among others), but I can’t find anyone who can analyze the above problem from a text-linguistic or discourse grammar perspective. Is there a way to adjudicate this question grammatically/linguistically? Is there anything to be read on the order of prepositional phrases from a discourse perspective?

 

 

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Jul 27

Settling in at Wheaton

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Ph.D., Wheaton

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The whirlwind of the move from Louisville to Wheaton is dying down, and we’re settled and feeling like we’ve got a home again! After hanging blinds, unpacking boxes, hanging ceiling fans (?!), and the like, I’m finally getting back into the groove of working toward the beginning of the semester, which brings with it the German entrance exam. So, not too much exciting stuff going on exegetically to blog about, mostly pounding German grammar and those inexplicable idioms. Here’s a look at my new home away from home:

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Jun 23

Latest Library Additions

Categories:

Paul, Ph.D.

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I’ve gotten especially picky lately about which I books I’ll buy. Right now I’m only buying 1) books I’ve checked out more than once from the library, 2) standards in the field that I should have checked out more than once from the library, 3) books that I foresee being consistent interlocutors in my dissertation or 4) standard reference works. So, with some gift cards from seminary graduation and Father’s Day, I bought these (most fall either under #1 or #3):

 

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Jun 16

Summer Preparation, Pt. 2: Language Work

Categories:

German, Ph.D., Wheaton

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An inevitable part of graduate study in the humanities, especially in a field like Biblical Studies, is the seemingly endless accumulation of languages with which one is expected to be familiar. On the agenda for me this summer is German (1st year doctoral students at Wheaton have to sit for a German exam the Friday before the semester begins). Thankfully, a colleague at work is fluent and willing to help me through the throes of the initial plunge into the language. Although I’ve “only” got to know German well enough to read German research, to acquire really useful reading ability in a summer, from virtually nothing, is no small task if I plan on doing anything else with my study time!

So, after consulting with a few people who’ve done this before, I decided to use April Wilson’s excellent grammar, German Quickly, paired (eventually) with Ziefle’s Modern Theological German, which includes a good reader and a theological German dictionary. Wilson is geared directly toward humanities graduate students and is lighthearted and clear yet thorough

Don’t Neglect Vocabulary!

Based on my experience with learning other languages and some good advice from my Greek professor, I’m trying especially hard with German not to neglect vocabulary in favor of grammar, and I would advise the same for anyone trying to learn any language, even if only for “reading knowledge.” Especially in Hebrew, I have sometimes made the mistake of letting vocabulary learning slip in order to really get a handle on morphology and syntax. This approach is really tempting when time is short and lexicons are available. It’s easy to think, as the paradigms pile up and a parsing quiz looms, that vocabulary will take care of itself once the grammar is under control. However, too little emphasis on vocabulary, especially in the early stages of language learning, can really cripple a student’s progress. Proficiency is ultimately earned by consistent exposure to the language, and reading will quickly become burdensome and dreary if only one in five words is familiar.

Anki

Vocabulary learning is certainly not all about flashcards, but, used thoughtfully and paired with a rigorous reading schedule, they can be a really helpful way to memorize vocabulary quickly.

I have been using iFlash for years both for language and non-language study, but my friend Mark suggested that I look into Anki, a free flashcard program based on spaced repetition. I’ve been using it for a month, and I’m loving it. Each time it shows you a “card,” Anki asks you to rate how well you knew the word, then, based on a logarithm that keeps track of each card’s score, it shows you the card right at the time you’re likely to forget it. It’s a great way to both learn new words and maintain old ones. I’ve got 5-7 minutes of Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, and 20 minutes of German scheduled per day, and none of that time is wasted organizing and reorganizing cards. Anki keeps track of the introduction of new words and the necessary review. If you’re learning or trying to improve your proficiency in a language, definitely give Anki a look.

 


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Jun 10

Summer Preparation, Pt. 1: Read the text.

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Ph.D.

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There is no substitute for knowing the text, in the original, like the back of your hand. That might be an obvious point, but it’s very easy to get so involved with the ever-increasing flood of secondary literature on your niche area of Biblical Studies that actually reading the Bible gets neglected. There is always that new monograph you’ll need to read, there is always that book that everyone else has already read, and there are always new must-read articles being published. However, there is no article, no monograph, no hot new methodological treatment so valuable that it merits failure to consistently and deeply engage with actual text of Holy Scripture.

There is, of course, more than one way to read. We all have multiple “gears” in which we can read. We “read” our blog feeds much differently than we read an employment contracts or a note from a distant loved one. The Bible is no different, and all “gears” are profitable. We should (I think simultaneously) conduct close readings, stopping and investigating morphology or textual problems as they arise, and also and faster, “big-picture” readings that track larger arguments and narratives in the text. It’s a continuum, and most of us have a tendency toward one extreme or the other, so consciously switching “gears” can help keep the text, and our reading skills, fresh.

This summer, in preparation for entering doctoral work, I’ve begun reading Romans and Isaiah. With Romans, I’m in fast-reading mode. I’m using a reader’s edition of the Greek New Testament that supplies rarer vocabulary at the bottom of the page. I picked Romans because it’s the one of Paul’s letters I have read least recently, and I want to have his arguments fresh on my mind as I start to think seriously about how the lines of my own argument will fall. In Isaiah, I’m enjoying the freedom to read very slowly, with no deadline, to read the LXX along with the MT, and to chase all the rabbits I see in the text.

I’ve got no delusions of grandeur here; I will not get back through all of Paul’s letters this summer, nor will I finish Isaiah before the semester begins. From the title of this post, it’s obvious that there are other necessary aspects of preparation that will take up my limited study time this summer. This is only “Pt. 1.” However, pride of place goes to marinating in Holy Scripture.

 

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