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THE

Princeton

SEMINARY

BULLETIN

VOLUME XVII NUMBER 3 NEW SERIES 1996

Commencement 1996

Jehovah’s Bystanders? THOMAS W. GILLESPIE

Leaders with Heart LEONORA TUBBS TISDALE

Neumann Lecture

The Actualization of Christ’s Achievement in Our Historical Existence:

Breaking out of the New Babylonian Captivity HERMAN C. WAETJEN

Thompson Lecture

A Plethora of Epiphanies: Christology in the Pastoral Letters JOUETTE M. BASSLER
Stone Lecture

Health, Disease, and Salvation in African American Experience JAMES H. EVANS, JR.
In Memoriam

David Weadon: A Tribute KATHARINE DOOB SAKENFELD

Remembering David MICHAEL E. LIVINGSTON

Index Vol. XVII (1996)

PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

Thomas W. Gillespie, President
BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Robert M. Adams, Chair

Ralph M. Wyman, Vice Chair

Louise Upchurch Lawson, Secretary

Clarence B. Ammons
Fred R. Anderson
M. Craig Barnes
Robert W. Bohl
Warren D. Chinn
Stewart B. Clifford
Gary O. Dennis
John H. Donelik
Peter E. B. Erdman
Rosemary Hall Evans
Mary Lee Fitzgerald
John T. Galloway, Jr.
Francisco O. Garcia-Treto
C. Thomas Hilton
David H. Hughes
Jane G. Irwin
F. Martin Johnson
Justin M. Johnson

Thomas R. Johnson
Curtis A. Jones
Johannes R. Krahmer
Henry Luce III
David M. Mace
Kari Turner McClellan
M. Scott McClure
Julie E. Neraas
Young Pai
Earl F. Palmer
Thomas J. Rosser
Arthur F. Sueltz
Thomas K. Tewell
Virginia J. Thornburgh
Jay Vawter

Barbara Sterling Willson
George B. Wirth

TRUSTEES EMERITI /AE

Frederick E. Christian
Sarah B. Gambrell
Margaret W. Harmon
Bryant M. Kirkland
Raymond I. Lindquist
George T. Piercy

William H. Scheide
Laird H. Simons, Jr.
John M. Templeton
William P. Thompson
Samuel G. Warr
David B. Watermulder

THE

PRINCETON

SEMINARY

BULLETIN

VOLUME XVII

James F. Kay, EDITOR

Daniel L. Migliore, BOOK REVIEW EDITOR

Steven R. Bechtler, ASSOCIATE EDITOR

CONTENTS

Commencement 1996

Jehovah’s Bystanders?

Thomas W. Gillespie

279

Leaders with Heart

Leonora Tubbs Tisdale

rr\

00

n

Neumann Lecture

The Actualization of Christ’s Achievement in

Our

Historical Existence: Breaking out of the New

Babylonian Captivity

Hainan C. Waetjen

29I

Thompson Lecture

A Plethora of Epiphanies: Christology in the

Pastoral Letters

Jouette M. Bassler

310

Stone Lecture

Health, Disease, and Salvation in African

American Experience

James H. Evans, Jr.

326

In Memoriam

David Weadon: A Tribute

Katharine Doob Sakenfeld

348

Remembering David

Michael E. Livingston 351

ii THE PRINCETON SEMINARY BULLETIN

Book Reviews

Homosexuality and Christian Community, ed.
Choon-Leong Seow

W. Eugene March 353

Karl Barth’s Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology:
Its Genesis and Development, 1909-1936,
by Bruce L. McCormack

B. A. GetTish 354

Numbers, by Dennis T. Olson

Thomas B. Dozeman 35b

Making Sense of New Testament Theology: “Modern”
Problems and Prospects, by A. K. M. Adam

Deirdre Good 359

Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin,
by Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.

Stephen L. Stell 360

The Decalogue and a Human Future: The Meaning of
the Commandments for Making and Keeping Human
Life Human, by Paul L. Lehmann

Barry Harvey 362

Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections on the
Claim That God Speaks, by Nicholas Wolterstorff

George I. Mavrodes 363

A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament
Period, 2 vols., by Rainer Albertz

J. J. M. Roberts 365

The Social World of the First Christians: Essays in
Honor of Wayne A. Meeks, ed. L. Michael White
and O. Larry Yarbrough

Brian K. Blount 367

The Sermon on the Mount: A Commentary on the
Sermon on the Mount, including the Sermon on the
Plain (Matthew 5:3-7:27 and Luke 6:20-49),
by Hans Dieter Betz

A. K. M. Adam 369

The New Testament and Psalms: An Inclusive Version,
ed. Victor Roland Gold et al.

Moma D. Hooker 371

Earthing Christologies: From Jesus’ Parables to Jesus
the Parable, ed. James H. Charlesworth
and Walter P. Weaver

James D. G. Dunn 373

CONTENTS

iii

Revelation, Redemption, and Response: Calvin’s
Trinitarian Understanding of the Divine-Human

Relationship, by Philip Walker Butin

Charles Partee

375

John Calvin’s Exegesis of the Old Testament,
by David L. Puckett

Gary Neal Hansen

376

Jonathan Edwards and the Catholic Vision of Salvation,
by Anri Morimoto

Don Schweitzer

00

Sworn on the Altar of God: A Religious Biography of
Thomas Jefferson, by Edwin S. Gaustad

James H. Moorhead

379

King among the Theologians, by Noel Leo Erskine

Peter J. Paris

381

A Fire in the Bones: Reflections on African-American
Religious History, by Albert J. Raboteau

Stephen D. Glazier

00

A History of Christianity in Africa: From Antiquity to
the Present, by Elizabeth Isichei

Mercy Amba Oduyoye

00

Daughters of Anowa: African Women and Patriarchy,
by Mercy Amba Oduyoye

Willette A. Burgle

386

Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty in
Christian Discipleship, by Lesslie Newbigin

Frederick R. Trost

00

00

Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon:
Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil,
by Gerard Colby with Charlotte Dennett

Alan Neely

390

Scripture and Homosexuality: Biblical Authority and the
Church Today, by Marion L. Soards

Robin Scroggs

392

The Cry of Tamar: Violence against Women and the
Church’s Response, by Pamela Cooper- White

Maureen A. Wallin

393

In the Name of All That’s Holy: A Theory of Clergy
Malfeasance, by Anson Shupe

Donald Capps

395

IV

THE PRINCETON SEMINARY BULLETIN

Review Article

Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History and

Development, by Helmut Koester; New Testament
Apocrypha, rev. ed., 2 vols., ed.

Wilhelm Schneemelcher and R. McL. Wilson;

The Apocryphal New Testament: A Collection
of Apocryphal Christian Literature in an English

Translation, by J. K. Elliott James H. Charlesivorth 399

Index Vol. XVII ( 1 996) 404

The Princeton Seminary Bulletin is published three times annually by Princeton
Theological Seminary, Princeton, New Jersey.

Each issue is mailed free of charge to all alumni/ae and, by agreement, to various insti-
tutions. Back issues are not available.

All correspondence should be addressed to James F. Kay, Editor, The Princeton Seminary
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The Bulletin publishes lectures and sermons by Princeton Seminary faculty and adminis-
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unsolicited material.

Jehovah’s Bystanders?

by Thomas W. Gillespie

Farewell Remarks to the Class of 1996
by the President of the Seminary

COMEDIAN Flip Wilson once quipped, “I’m a Jehovah’s Bystander.”
“They wanted me to be a Witness,” he explained, “but I didn’t want to
get involved.” There is a sense in which that sentiment belongs to us all.

Consider Israel in the time of its Babylonian captivity. Five hundred
eighty-six years before Christ, Jerusalem fell to the army of King Nebuchadn-
ezzar. The city was sacked, the temple destroyed, and the leadership of the
nation carried off to Babylon. There they found their place among the many
other military and political victims of the conquering Babylonians.

The people of God found themselves in the midst of cultural, ethnic, and
religious pluralism of the first magnitude. Without the cultural support of
their king, their temple, and their holy land, they were compelled to keep faith
alive as best they could improvise. As the Psalmist lamented:

By the waters of Babylon,
there we sat down and wept,
when we remembered Zion.

On the willows there
we hung up our lyres.

For there our captors
required of us songs,
and our tormentors, mirth, saying,

“Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

How shall we sing the Lord’s song
in a foreign land?

(Ps. 137:1-4)

Clearly, Israel would have preferred to circle up the wagons, go into laager ,
and keep a low profile. In that situation, however, they heard the prophet of
God declare to them:

“You are my witnesses,” says the Lord,

“and my servant whom I have chosen,
that you may know and believe me
and understand that I am He.

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THE PRINCETON SEMINARY BULLETIN

Before me no god was formed,
nor shall there be any after me.

I, I am the Lord,

and besides me there is no savior.

I declared and saved and proclaimed,

when there was no strange god among you;
and you are my witnesses,” says the Lord.

(Isa. 43:10-12)

In an exposition of this text, philosopher Paul Ricoeur calls attention to the
fact that in passages like this the biblical authors use the terms “witness” and
“testimony” metaphorically.1 Their literal sense is located socially in the
institution of a court of law, where there is a judge and a jury, a prosecution
and a defense, and an issue to be tried. The prophet of God, according to
Ricoeur, uses the concept of a trial as a metaphor for human history. History
is the trial where the disputed issue is Who is God? Who is God really? Who
is really God? Thus the ringing challenge:

Bring forth the people who are blind, yet have eyes,
who are deaf, yet have ears!

Let all the nations gather together,
and let the peoples assemble.

Who among them can declare this,
and show us the former things?

Let them bring their witnesses to justify them,
and let them hear and say, It is true.

(Isa. 43:8-9)

Ricoeur points out further that the testimony a witness gives has a quasi-
empirical character. We testify to what we have seen and heard, or to what we
have at least experienced. But testimony also has a convictional dimension. It
represents what we believe in the depth of our being. Moreover, testimony in
a trial is never a neutral act. We bear witness in behalf of either the
prosecution or the defense.

This is the biblical context in which we hear the New Testament call
Christians to the witness stand. Following the resurrection, the disciples asked
Jesus if the trial of history was about to conclude. His answer was this: “It is
not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own

! Paul Ricoeur, Essays on Biblical Interpretation, ed. Lewis S. Mudge (Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1980), 119-54.

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JEHOVAH'S BYSTANDERS

authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon
you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria
and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). History continues. The trial proceeds.
The issue remains unresolved: Who is God? Who is God really? Who is
really God?

The God who claimed Jesus as his Son and raised him from the dead still
calls his people to give their testimony, to bear their witness. That responsibil-
ity falls especially upon those whom God calls to leadership roles in the
church. That responsibility falls particularly upon the Class of 1996 as you
graduate this day from Princeton Theological Seminary and go forth to places
of ministry across the world.

It is a world very much like ancient Babylon with its ethnic, cultural, and
religious pluralism. It is a world very much like the Greco-Roman civilization
into which the risen Christ sent his apostles armed only with his Spirit and his
gospel. The world into which you go now is called by many postmodern,
meaning a world without intellectual foundations, a world that views truth
claims as matters of opinion and moral convictions as personal preferences, a
world that considers what William James called “Truth with a big T and in
the singular” evidence of false consciousness.

Speaking on this theme last month at a west-coast pastors’ conference, a
minister attested to the validity of this assessment from his own ministry on a
university campus. “Years ago,” he said, “my witness to Jesus Christ was
greeted with the demand ‘What evidence do you have for that claim?’ [the
modern question]. Today my witness is met with the sneer ‘What right do you
have to make such a statement?’ [the postmodern question].” It is no wonder
that our time in history is known as “the age of suspicion.”

Nathan A. Scott, Jr. picks up on the metaphor suggested by the Russian
literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin and renames our time “the age of carnival.” A
carnival is a scene at which everyone is trying to get your attention, to lure you
into their sideshow, to play their game, to take their ride. No attraction has a
privileged position, and the arrangement is without rhyme or reason. By
comparison, a three-ring circus is a model of organization and rationality.
According to Scott, “What Bakhtin takes to be the most fundamental fact
about carnival is that, under its strange kind of dispensation, ambivalence of
viewpoint is the prevailing sentiment: nothing is accorded a privileged status,
and everything is relativized.”2

At such a time and into such a world, you now go forth to assume leadership

2 Nathan A. Scott, Jr., “The House of Intellect in an Age of Carnival,” in The Whirl-wind
in Culture , ed. D. W. Musser and J. L. Price (Bloomington, IN: Meyer-Stone, 1988), 43.

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roles in the church of Jesus Christ. It is admittedly an awesome task. But no
more awesome than the task to which the prophet called Israel in its time of
Babylonian captivity. And certainly no more daunting than the mission the
risen Jesus laid upon his disciples.

Do not look to the culture for support of your views or your vision. Do not
be surprised if even the church resists your witness and is indifferent to your
testimony, for the church today is an acculturated institution. But remember
that the Lord Jesus Christ does not send you forth alone to bear witness in
your own strength and according to your own wisdom.

Ever remember his promise, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit
has come upon you.” Today, the Seminary has accredited you academically.
Your respective churches will authorize you ministerially. But only God can
empower you for the task to which he has called you and to which you now
turn your hand.

May the Spirit of Christ be upon you and with you all the days of ministry
that are before you, and may you be found credible and authentic witnesses in
the trial that human history is.

Leaders with Heart

by Leonora Tubbs Tisdale

Leonora Tubbs Tisdale , Associate Professor
of Preaching and Worship at Princeton
Theological Seminary , preached this ser-
mon at Princeton Seminary's Baccalaure-
ate Service , held at Nassau Presbyterian
Church on May 19, 1996.

Texts: 1 Samuel 16:1-13
Philippians 1:3-1 1

IT WAS not until a month ago that I finally got around to seeing the movie
that some of you had been telling me for weeks that I should see: Dead Man
Walking. And by the time I went, I had a good idea what to expect. I had seen
an extensive interview on the “Today” show with Susan Sarandon, and so I
expected to like the real-life character she plays, Sister Helen Prejean. I had
heard discussions about the movie’s balanced treatment of the death penalty,
so I expected it to leave me free to make my own decisions. I knew that the
movie would probably be emotionally draining, so I waited until a time when I
was viscerally ready for it, packed in plenty of Kleenex, and went with trusted
friends. And I had listened to no less than five student sermons that used some
incident from the movie as an illustration or example (some of them very fine
sermons preached by some of you), so I waited expectantly throughout the
movie for those already familiar scenes to appear.

But what I didn’t expect— didn’t fully expect at all— was that there, in the
East Windsor Cinema, on a Friday afternoon in April, I would encounter on
the Hollywood big screen (of all places!) a leader who would make me both so
proud, and so challenged, to be a Christian.

Here, at last was a movie that didn’t paint believers as insensitive, legalistic,
moralistic jugheads who go around beating everyone over the heads with their
KJV Bibles. Here, at last, was a movie where the minister type (ironically, in
this instance, a nonordainable Roman Catholic woman) didn’t mount the
pulpit to preach pious platitudes or to hurl hateful epithets of prejudice
against some out-group. Here, at last, was a movie in which the Christian was
not hopelessly naive, blatantly stupid, or sickeningly sweet.

Here, instead, was a movie that portrayed a Christian leader with heart
— a heart big enough to embrace in love both the families of the murder
victims and the one convicted of committing the murder;

— a heart wise enough to interpret the gospel, in all its costly grace, in
language that a death-row inmate could hear and receive;

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— a heart vulnerable enough to enter into the heartache, anger, and pain of
another and to walk with suffering ones, even through the valley of the
shadow of death;

— a heart brave enough to take a stand for justice and to refuse to
compromise or apologize for it, even when grossly misunderstood and
misinterpreted;

— and a heart humble enough to admit its wrongs and to seek, through
prayer, a wisdom that comes from God alone.

In Sister Helen Prejean, I encountered, in a most unlikely place, a leader
with heart. And I left that local theater both deeply moved and profoundly
challenged. For by comparison, I found my own heart lacking.

In our Old Testament reading this afternoon we are reminded that what
matters most to God in the quest for good leaders is not the outer appearance —
the way we look, the charm we manifest, the ranks we attain, the degrees we
possess— but what is on our hearts.

Our story begins when Saul was king in Israel, and Saul, as the scriptures
tell us, was the kind of king who, from the outward appearance, had it all. He
had wealth; he had charm; he had charisma; and he had good looks. Indeed,
the Bible says that “there was not a man among the people of Israel more
handsome than [Saul]; from his shoulders upward, he was taller than any of
the people” (1 Sam. 9:2).

But the Bible also tells us that God, in time, repented for having made Saul
king over Israel. Why? Because Saul lacked that one criterion absolutely
essential for leadership under God: a good heart. Instead of obeying and
serving God, Saul had looked out for his own vested interests. Instead of
heeding God’s commands and doing that which best profited God’s people,
Saul had done that which profited himself. Instead of erecting altars for the
worship and glory of God, Saul had erected a monument unto himself. And
God was not pleased.

And so, in the passage we read this afternoon, God basically stages a coup
d’etat— an overthrow of Saul. While Saul is still king, still officially in power,
God sends the prophet Samuel out to the tiny village of Bethlehem, to the
house of Jesse, to do a very risky thing: to anoint a new king over Israel. And
this time, God makes it very clear what the primary criterion should be. For
when the oldest of the sons of Jesse— a big, strapping, handsome lad— comes
before Samuel and Samuel says, “Surely, God, this must be the one,” God
quickly intervenes.

“Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature,” God says,
“For I have rejected this one. The Lord does not see as mortals see; they look
on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (v. 7).

LEADERS WITH HEART

285

As many of you graduating Hebrew scholars know, we really don’t have a
word in English that does justice to the Hebrew understanding of “heart.”
When we think “heart,” we tend to think Valentine’s Day, love, and warm,
sentimental feelings. A “soft-hearted” person is one who is quick in empathy;
a “big-hearted” person is one with a generous spirit. And those sentiments
certainly capture a part of what the Bible means by “heart.”

But heart in the Bible means more, much more.

The heart to the Hebrews was not only the seat of emotions; it was also the
seat of reason. It was through the heart that a person gained knowledge and
understanding, made plans, and pondered the deepest things of life. It was the
heart that gave a leader the discernment to rule justly and wisely, making fair
and equitable choices on behalf of a people. To say that a person had a good
heart in Israel was also to suggest that the person had that intangible quality
called “wisdom.”

The heart was also the locus of conscience in Hebrew thinking. When the
Psalmist prays, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit
within me,” that Psalmist is asking God for a renewal of conscience. From a
hardened or uncircumcised heart could flow forth wickedness or deceit or
hatred. But from a tender heart, an upright heart, a cleansed and renewed
heart, flowed goodness, honesty, and compassion.

It was the heart that guided a leader’s will. If the leader’s heart was centered
on God and God’s desires for a people — attending to God’s special concern
for the poor and the oppressed — then the leader was able to guide the people
in the ways of justice, righteousness, and truth. But if other desires ruled the
heart— pride, self-promotion, greed, a lust for power— then the leader fol-
lowed other paths.

And it was the heart that revealed where a leader’s ultimate loyalty lay. A
ruler with a good heart was devoted to God, worshiped God, and stayed ever
open to God’s guidance, teaching, and correction. But a ruler with a bad heart
shut God out and often went after other gods— whether they were the gods of
other peoples or, as in the case of Saul, the god of self.

The heart, in short, represented the essence of the human person. From a
good heart could flow traits like wisdom, integrity, commitment, courage,
compassion, justice, and ethical decision making. And it was for that rare and
elusive leader— a leader with heart— that God sent Samuel seeking in Bethle-
hem that day.

It is graduation weekend here at Princeton Seminary, and while a lot has
changed in the three thousand years since God sent Samuel to Bethlehem,
one thing has not: This world still desperately needs leaders with heart.

We certainly need such leaders in political life — leaders who are not simply

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media darlings like Saul or attuned to what the latest popularity polls would
have them say but compassionate and knowledgeable visionaries, modeling, in
both their public and private lives, the justice and righteousness of God.

Several weeks ago, I was transporting a group of teenagers from one place
to another, when the conversation turned to the upcoming presidential
election in this land. I was distraught to hear one of them say that she had two
friends who, though they would turn eighteen this year and be eligible to vote
for the first time, probably would not. “But why?” I asked (breaking my usual
rule about not interrupting such conversations when I am in the role of the
eavesdropping adult). Because, the general consensus from the back seat
seemed to be, there is no candidate in this election with the kind of vision,
integrity, and compassion that inspire trust. No leader with heart.

Earlier this week, I opened the Trenton Times to see an article regarding the
ongoing debate over teaching values in the public schools. And I thought, as I
read it, how much we continue to need leaders with heart in our school
system. Not only do we need teachers who love their subject matter and instill
in their students a love for it, too. We also need teachers who, through their
care for and respect of students, model values far beyond words in the
classroom. Our children are hungering for such leaders with heart.

In the workplace , too, there is a longing for leaders with heart: people who
not only go about their own work with intelligence, commitment, and high
ethical standards but who also inspire others with whom they work toward
greater character and faith.

My husband and I recently attended the wedding of a wonderful couple in
our church who had been introduced to each other by the groom’s boss, also a
member of our church. It was a joyous wedding, one made all the sweeter by
the compatibility of this couple and the fact that they had been waiting until
well into their thirties to discover one another. And as the wedding festivities
proceeded into the evening in typical New Jersey style— with a four-course
Italian meal, much toasting, and dancing— it became increasingly apparent
that there was another special relationship being celebrated on this night,
namely, the love and affection shared between this groom and his older
mentor, the boss. Not only was the boss reported to have been driving by the
church all afternoon in nervous anticipation of this marriage as if it were his
own; not only did he appear about to pop his buttons every time he was
recognized for having introduced these two wonderfully suited people to one
another. What was also apparent, at every turn, was the devotion, admiration,
and respect this groom had for his boss. For this young man had discovered in
his workplace a boss with heart— one who not only mentored him in his work,

LEADERS WITH HEART 287

but who also cared enough to mentor him in other aspects of his life as well.
And that leader had obviously made all the difference.

The world needs leaders with heart. And so does the church. Pastors and
Christian educators, chaplains and teachers, scholars and administrators

—who excel not only in knowledge but also in wisdom;

—who have not only a seminary degree but also a high degree of humility;

—who are capable of loving not only those who agree with them but also
those who disagree with them;

— and whose lives are spent not in erecting monuments unto themselves
but in leading others to the altar of God.

The truth of the matter is, Princeton Seminary Class of 1996, this world
desperately needs you (as it needs all of us who call ourselves Christian) to be
such leaders with heart— in whatever place or ministry you find yourself
placed by God.

But that call, as many of you have shared with me in recent weeks, can be
somewhat daunting.

“Who am I,” some of you have said to me, “to think I am ready to leave this
pasture where I have been busily tending books and papers and exams and to
take on the mantle of pastor or teacher or educator, tending a flock of God’s
people?” “Who am I, ordinary person that I am, to think God might use me
to preach the gospel, to comfort the afflicted, to guide the confused, or to be a
role model for anyone?” “Who am I, average person that I am, to think that
God might be calling me to be a leader who makes a difference in my country7
back home or in the community to which I am called?” “Who am I, woman
that I am, to think that God actually called me — and not one of the seven
sons— to this ministry?” “Who am I, who know so well how far short my own
heart falls of reflecting the heart of Christ, to think that God can use me to
inspire other hearts to turn to God?”

It is precisely at this juncture that I believe our Old Testament text for
today offers us good news and encouragement. For it reminds us of that which
is at the very heart of the gospel itself: God’s way is often to choose that which
the world deems weak to put to shame the strong; to choose that which the
world deems foolish to shame the wise.

Samuel went to Bethlehem, to the house of Jesse, looking for a leader with
heart. And for a while it looked as if he would not find one. Like contestants in
a beauty pageant, Jesse’s sons paraded before Samuel — first Eliab, then
Abinadab, then Shammah. . . . From the oldest to the youngest they came, and
each time Samuel and God, judges in search of a beauty that had nothing

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whatsoever to do with external appearance, would confer: “Is this the one?”
“No, not this one. I’m looking for the one with heart.”

Finally, when all seven sons had filed by and none had been found to be
king, Samuel asked Jesse in exasperation, “Are all of your sons here?” And
that’s when Jesse sent out to the pasture to bring in his youngest, David — one
who had no resume, no history of grand accomplishments, no wealth, no
power, no impressive stature — a mere child. But it was this one, this totally
unexpected one, whom God deemed to have that most important leadership
trait of all: a good heart. It was this one whom God anointed to be the next
king over Israel.

Several weeks ago, I went back to the town where I had graduated from
college, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to preach at the University Presbyte-
rian Church there. And the weekend became something of a pilgrimage of
remembrance for me, as I reflected upon a leader with heart whom I
unexpectedly encountered there twenty-five years ago and who profoundly
changed my life.

The year was 1971, and the time was one of great turmoil and upheaval in
the life of this nation. Students were mounting protests on college campuses
in opposition to the Vietnam War. The President of this nation, Richard
Nixon, and many other high national leaders were being publicly investigated
regarding their roles in the Watergate scandal. College campuses across the
land were troubled places where students, cut loose from the old moorings of
authority and truth, sought to find their way to meaning through drugs or
multiple sexual partners or other self-destructive means. And the church —
once strong and respected in the era of the 1950s— seemed to be losing its
voice.

When I decided to transfer out of my private, church-related women’s
college after two years and go to a large, secular state institution — the
University of North Carolina— my parents were not altogether thrilled. But I
went anyhow, searching for direction and purpose in my life; searching for a
major (for I had by then run through several); searching for some wisdom and
guidance for my future; and searching to see if there was a way to think about
my Christian faith that made sense in light of the troubled world in which I
found myself.

It was in a large lecture hall on the UNC campus that I encountered my
leader with heart— though I, like Samuel, didn’t immediately recognize him
as such. He was a short, wiry man with a face weathered from many hours
spent in the sun. And as he lectured to that packed hall of two-hundred-plus
students, he paced, back and forth, back and forth, without a note in his hands.

LEADERS WITH HEART

289

What initially astonished me, frankly, was that his courses were filled to
overflowing with students. Because in the heart of this secular university in
this secular era, this man taught not math or political science or literature or
economics. He taught the Bible.

But what also became readily apparent to me — even my first day in his
class— was that he taught it with his heart.

He taught with wisdom and reason, allowing me, for the first time, to
explore the world of historical criticism and to be able to ask all the hard
questions of biblical texts I had always wanted to ask.

He taught with integrity and character, introducing me to the world of the
Old Testament prophets, and modeling— by his living and by his stances on
critical social issues of the day— the ethics he taught from the scriptures.

Above all, he taught with a passionate love for God and God’s Word that
shone through in every word he spoke and that caused me to trust him to lead
me also in ways of deeper understanding and truth.

His name was Dr. Bernard Boyd, and though I cannot begin to estimate the
influence this one leader with heart had on the lives of students who passed
through his courses at UNC, I can tell you something of the influence he had
on my life.

Because of this leader with heart, I changed my major yet one more
time — to religion — and took every single Bible course he taught. When I
went to seminary some years later, it was not because I wanted to be a
preacher. (That vocation caught me totally by surprise.) It was because Dr.
Boyd had whetted within me an appetite and a desire for more knowledge of
the Bible, and I wanted to study it in its original languages.

Because of this leader with heart, I was invited to take courses not only in
the classroom but also in the home of the Boyds— where I attended not only
to the subject matter of the course we were taking on Deuteronomic history
but also to the obvious love and affection shared by Bernard Boyd and his
wife, Thelma. Their home was a place of warmth and welcome for students,
and the love shared between these two people, who were obviously devoted to
one another, became a model for me when I began thinking of the kind of
home I wanted in the future.

And because of these leaders with heart, I got my first job after college — as
director of youth ministry in a church in Spartanburg, South Carolina, a job
that not only set me on my vocational course toward ministry but also led me
to the man who has been my beloved spouse these past twenty-one years, A1
Tisdale.

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Never did I imagine as a young woman sitting in Dr. Boyd’s lecture halls in
the early seventies and listening to him tell stories about his days as a seminary
student— his days as a Princeton Seminary student— that my own path would
lead me to this place. But as I walk the campus these days, I often do so with an
awareness of one who has walked them before me and with a prayer of great
thanksgiving that God, at such an impressionable time in my own life, sent me
a leader— a graduate of this place— with heart.

The church and the world today are desperately in need of leaders with
heart. And the good news of the gospel is that God chooses very ordinary
people — a David from Bethlehem, a Helen Prejean from Baton Rouge,
Louisiana, a Bernard Boyd from Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina; a Diana
Brawley from Wilmington, North Carolina, a Cleo LaRue from Corpus
Christi, Texas, or a Geetha Arulmohan from Bangalore — and calls them forth
to be such leaders. Not because they have it all together. Not because they can
wow and dazzle with their external accomplishments or appearance. And not
because they are perfect people (for, as we all know, King David was by no
means perfect). But because they have that most important of all leadership
qualities — hearts that are open to God.

And with such hearts, through the Spirit’s anointing, God can do amazing
things in church and world. Using that which the world may deem weak, to
show forth God’s own strength; using that which the world may deem foolish,
to show forth God’s own wisdom; using that which the world may deem very
ordinary, to be extraordinary proclaimers of God’s goodness and grace.

The movie Dead Man Walking ends with a scene in which, through a church
window, we see Sister Helen Prejean and the father of one of the murder
victims on their knees at prayer— opening their own hearts to God for God’s
cleansing, God’s wisdom, God’s guidance. As the movie ends, so would I like
to end this sermon: with a prayer, offered many years ago by the aposde Paul
for a group of people who, as he openly admits, had captured his own heart (as
many of you in this graduating class have captured mine). A prayer offered
from the heart, for the hearts of those he loved.

“And this is my prayer [for you], that your love may overflow more and
more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so
that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the
harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and
praise of God.” To God be all honor now and forever. Amen.

The Actualization of
Christ’s Achievement in
Our Historical Existence:
Breaking out of the New
Babylonian Captivity*
by Herman C. Waetjen

Herman C. Waetjen, the Robert S. Dollar
Professor of New Testament at San Fran-
cisco Theological Seminary and author of A
Reordering of Power: A Socio-Political
Reading of Mark’s Gospel, gave this
Frederick Neumann Memorial Lecture in
the Main Lounge of Mackay Campus
Center on April i, 1996.

IN JOHN 14:12, more or less at the beginning of his long Farewell Speech,
Jesus issues a startling pledge to his disciples: “Amen, amen, I say to you,
the one who believes into me will do the works that I do, and greater than
these she or he will do because I am going to the Father.” Throughout most
of the history of the Christian movement, such a promise of fabulous
possibilities has tended to be regarded as unimaginable and unfulfillable. Not
only has the church subjected its members to a hierarchical relationship of
dependency vis-a-vis the Christ that would preclude the actualization of such
a divine potentiality, but as a participant in the culture of the Western world,
the church has been captive to a five-hundred-year trajectory of material
rationality that has eclipsed the reality of possibility. Both the verticality of the
faith relationship between Jesus and his disciples and the delimitations of the
materialist paradigm, which originated in the nominalism of William of
Ockham,1 have foreclosed the fulfillment of the covenantal promise of John
14:12. Accordingly, those who have embraced the Christian faith throughout
this period have been confined to a kind of Babylonian captivity that has
prevented them, like the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda in John 5:5, from
entering the promised land of health and wholeness and beginning to
experience the transcendence implied in Jesus’ summons “Keep on rising,
take up your mattress, and keep on walking.”

Concomitantly, this very same trajectory of material rationality has exerted
a dominant influence on the exercise of historical reason in its scientific
evaluation of the New Testament’s witness to the Easter event. A materialist
paradigm determined by causal-calculating reason cannot affirm, much less
corroborate, the reality of Jesus’ rising from the dead, and contemporary New
Testament scholarship that operates within this paradigm either compro-

* Dedicated to my beloved father, Henry Waetjen, in his ninety-third year, in profound
gratitude for his unconditional love and faithful support.

1 My thanks to D.R. McGaughey of Willamette University for the insights from the last
chapter of his forthcoming hook, Strangers and Pilgrims: On the Role of Aporiai in Theology.

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mises the witness of the New Testament or relegates it to the realm of faith.2 3
A very recent example is Gerd Luedemann’s 1994 monograph, The Resurrec-
tion of Jesus. In the concluding chapter, entitled “Can We Still Be Christians?”
Luedemann writes:

So it is here on the historical Jesus, as he is presented to me by the texts and
encounters me as a person through historical reconstruction, that the
decision of faith is made, not on the risen Christ as I would have liked him
to be, or as, for example, he is accessible archetypally to all human beings as
a symbol of the self. However, I believe that this Jesus was not given over to
annihilation through death, and the notion of his being with God, his
exaltation, his resurrection and his life follow almost automatically from
our communion with God— but in constant relationship to Jesus’ human-
ity—without, however, it being possible to make statements about his
present being. He is hidden from us as the Exalted One; only God is
manifest. We must stop at the historical Jesus, but we may believe that he is
also with us as one who is alive now. 3

Why must we stop at the historical Jesus? For Luedemann, of course, it is
necessary because the resurrection was nothing more than a hallucination.
But is the post-Easter memory of the early church invalid? And should that
memory be disregarded because its formulations, which intimate a new,
indeed, a divine possibility of human existence, cannot be subjected to
enlightened, materialist reason? Moreover, why is it impossible to make
statements about Jesus’ present being? Must the directions the post-Easter
Gospels offer for such projections be dismissed? And why is Jesus hidden from
us while God is manifest? Is it no longer possible to experience the post-
Easter Jesus in the narrative worlds of the four Gospels or in those arenas of
historical existence that the Gospels indicate? Why, after Richard R. Niebuhr’s
formidable critique of earlier interpretations of the Easter event, is New
Testament scholarship’s investigation of the Gospels’ resurrection narratives
still determined by the dualism of Kantian epistemology?

Luedemann acknowledges that he has conducted his investigation of the
resurrection traditions under the “treasured” influence of Wilhelm Herr-
mann, and therefore inherently within the framework of Herrmann’s loyalty

2 See Richard R. Niebuhr’s critique of biblical scholarship’s interpretation of Jesus’
resurrection in terms of Kantian epistemology in Resurrection and Historical Reason (New
York: Charles Schribner’s Sons, 1957), 1-7 1.

3 The Resurrection of Jesus: History, Experience, Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), 183.
See also his more recent book, What Really Happened to Jesus: A Historical Approach to the
Resurrection (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995), 131-37.

ACTUALIZATION OF CHRIST’S ACHIEVEMENT 293

to nineteenth-century historical criticism and its determination by Kantian
epistemology. Like other Kant-oriented theologians, Herrmann identified
history with nature as the realm of necessity and therefore presupposed that
the scientific methods employed in the investigation of nature could also be
applied to the historical-critical analysis of biblical texts. Christian faith
cannot find a resting place or a foundation for itself within this Kantian
domain of The Critique of Pure Reason. While the resurrection traditions of the
Gospels may be subject to critical analysis, the reality of Jesus’ rising from the
dead to which they bear witness is suspect because, like the other miracles, it
cannot be integrated into the causal nexus of either nature or history.
Ironically, neither can it be regarded as a “noumenal reality” and appre-
hended under The Critique of Practical Reason, because in his analysis of the
antinomies of reason, Kant postulates that the thinking self is an immortal
soul. The human body is a material reality, subject to the categories of
substance and causality. Its finitude cannot actualize the summum bonum of
perfect harmony between human reason and moral law. Practical reason,
therefore, presupposes the self-evident proposition of the immortality of the
soul, rather than the resurrection of the body, to enable the moral faculty of
human being to achieve its perfection.

Like Wilhelm Herrmann, Luedemann makes a Kant-like differentiation
between historical criticism and existential faith, but, unlike Herrmann, the
“living personality of Jesus” is not encountered in the domain of practical
reason but in the historical-critical reconstruction that New Testament
scholars have derived from the texts of the Gospels. To quote Luedemann
again: “The man Jesus is the objective power which is the enduring basis of the
experiences of a Christian. Through Jesus we are ‘first lifted into a true
fellowship with God’. Jesus grasps me, makes me bow down, exalts me and
makes me blessed, loves me, through all the strata of the tradition. He is the
ground of faith. ”4 5 But can a historical-critically reconstructed Jesus serve as an
adequate foundation on which to build faith? Like Gerd Luedemann, John
Dominic Crossan seems to think so. He concludes his critical investigation in
The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant with the
astonishing sentence “If you cannot believe in something produced by
reconstruction, you may have nothing left to believe in. ”5 Yet no critical
reconstruction of any kind can achieve a representation of the original reality
of Jesus’ career beyond the realm of probability. And if such a reconstruction

4 Resurrection of Jesus, 182.

5 (San Francisco: Harper, 1991), 426.

THE PRINCETON SEMINARY BULLETIN

2 94

were to be adopted as the ground of faith, faith would be nothing more than
intellectual consent.

Luedemann’s form- and redaction-critical analysis of the Easter stories
results in a virtual identification of the interpretations of the post-Easter Jesus
by the earliest Christians with the critical reconstruction of the pre-Easter
Jesus. “Finally, our historical reconstruction led to the insight that the
structural characteristics of the Easter experience ... of the forgiveness of
sins, the experience of life, the experience of eternity, are contained in the
words and story of Jesus. So we have to say that before Easter, everything that
was finally recognized after Easter was already present.”6 For Luedemann the
Easter event, whatever it was, is nothing more than the reinforcement of
earlier experiences conveying to the disciples a better understanding of the
Jesus they had known. But can this or any historical reconstruction constitute
a provenance of human transformation? Can a historically reconstructed Jesus
empower us to do his works, much less greater works than those the Gospels
attribute to him? What is the basis of the extraordinary possibility that Jesus
presupposes for his disciples? It appears that Luedemann’s investigation of the
resurrection of Jesus leaves us captive to a Kantian epistemology, which, as
Richard R. Niebuhr has recognized, absolutizes the categories of Newtonian
science and cosmology as the forms of sensibility and the categories of reason
by which the mind organizes and interprets the exogenous world.7 But if the
universal structure of thought is essentially a sign process, that is, if the
mediation of thought is always subject to a historically determined linguistic
system, then no epistemological theory can ever establish the limits of pure
reason. Luedemann, however, is content in his reductionism to embrace an
elementary faith. As a last word he acknowledges that “the unity with God
experienced in faith continues beyond death.”8 9 10 That evidently is enough, and
consequently he exhorts “Christians to live by the little that they really
believe, not by the much that they take pains to believe. ”9

A postmodern approach to the New Testament witness to Jesus’ resurrec-
tion, as it is developed by Marianne Sawicki in her book Seeing the Lord:
Resurrection and Early Christian Practices ,to is more efficacious in enabling
access to the reality of resurrection than any analysis of the biblical texts that is
determined by a critical methodology founded on a Kantian epistemology.
The reality of the Easter event is not established by academic scholarship

6 Resurrection of Jesus, 181-82.

7 Resurrection and Historical Reason , 1 19.

8 Resurrection of Jesus, 184.

9 Ibid.

10 ( Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994).

ACTUALIZATION OF CHRIST’S ACHIEVEMENT 295

performing autopsies on those Gospel narratives that bear witness to the
Easter event but rather by engaging in those activities prescribed by them,
that is, identifying with the hungry and the poor, obeying the teaching of
Jesus, and devoting oneself to liturgy. Evidently influenced by Jacques
Derrida’s dictum “There is nothing outside of the text,”11 Sawicki contends
that the continuity of the risen Lord’s presence and the experience of “seeing
the Lord” are constituted by the reality of intertextuality. Of course, if there is
nothing outside of the text, there are many different kinds of texts that are
inscribed with meaning: not only the great diversity of printed matter but also
culture and human beings. Ironically, however, the texts of the New Testa-
ment Gospels are, like Jesus’ tomb, empty.12 They will not enable us to
encounter the risen Lord. At best, they are “professional training manuals,”
which convey bodily and textual strategies that indicate those contexts and
activities in which the risen Lord will be seen. According to Matthew, that
experience will occur in the practice of the ethics of the Sermon on the
Mount; according to Luke-Acts, it will take place in our participation in and
our response to a community of hungry people. '3 The referents of the term
“resurrection” are established by the Gospels and are always beyond the New
Testament texts, enabling readers to identify and recognize the living pres-
ence of the risen Lord in the texts of the world. Accordingly, Sawicki argues,
“It would be a misconception to regard the gospel words as referring, after the
fact, to some event separate and self-contained that happened independently
of those words and that subsists apart from them somewhere in the human
past.”'4 And “those who want to see the Lord must devote themselves to
liturgy and the poor (better yet, the liturgy with the poor) as well as to printed
texts.”'5

Certainly the Gospels are not historical reconstructions that re-present the
actuality of the unfolding of Jesus’ career in its original Palestinian context.
But are they simply “professional training manuals,” designed to instruct us
where we will see the risen Lord? As artistically constructed texts, they, by the
signs that constitute them, put forward potential narrative worlds; and we, by
the activity of reading, (1) transform those signs into people, places, actions,
and teaching and (2) concomitantly create discrete, self-contained story
worlds. Our own discipleship is not deferred as we engage in this aesthetic

“Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976),

t58.

12 Sawicki, Seeing the Lord , 84-89.
n Ibid., 83, 89-91.
o Ibid., 93. See also 302-3.

‘5 Ibid., 303.

THE PRINCETON SEMINARY BULLETIN

296

activity. But we are the advantaged disciples because we are listening to an
omniscient narrator informing us of events and actions in the life of Jesus that
his original disciples do not experience. For example, as the disciples from
outside the text, in contrast to the disciples inside the text, we learn from the
narrator of Mark’s Gospel the words the heavenly voice spoke to Jesus as the
Spirit descended into him at his baptism, “You are my beloved Son; in you I
began to take pleasure.” How will we, privileged with this knowledge, answer
the question the disciples verbalize when they have experienced Jesus’ author-
ity over the forces of chaos in the stilling of the storm, “Who then is this for
even the wind and the sea obey him?” How will we evaluate Simon Peter’s
confession, “You are the Christ,” or how will we judge his subsequent
elevation of Jesus to the rank of Elijah and Moses in response to the
transfiguration? What happens to us, or what do we do when we reach the
conclusion of Mark’s Gospel and discover there is no closure? The end proves
not to be the end! According to the youth of Mark 16:5, Jesus has been raised
from the dead, and, even as he is no longer in the tomb, he is no longer in the
text. He is on his way to Galilee, most likely to inaugurate a second career that
will be similar to the first. Inexplicably, the three women who came to
complete the burial of Jesus’ corpse remain silent in spite of the ecstasy of
their revelatory experience. What will be our response? Will we believe the
good news of Jesus’ resurrection? Will we, the disciples outside the text,
create a continuation of the narrative by following Jesus to Galilee? Evidently
that is our only recourse to determine the truth of the youth’s testimony.
Words cannot deliver the certainty of Jesus’ resurrection, even in the light of
the witness of Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus inscribed in the
Gospel according to Matthew. Nevertheless, their empirical experience of
both seeing the risen Lord and grasping his feet is indispensable in establish-
ing the ontological reality of his resurrection.

Jesus did not merely rise into the Christian proclamation, as Rudolf
Bultmann maintained; nor did he rise into intertextuality, as Sawicki pro-
poses. At the same time, the Easter event is not to be reduced to a hallucina-
tion or a psychological episode that occurred within the consciousness of the
disciples. In his post-Easter appearances, Jesus presented himself to his
disciples as an objective — not physical! but objective — reality; and a number
of Easter stories utilize attributes of physicality to express that objectivity.
According to Luke 24:34, Jesus invites his disciples to “Look at my hands and
my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have
flesh and blood as you see that I have.” To provide additional confirmation,
he asks for and receives a piece of broiled fish, which he eats in their presence.

ACTUALIZATION OF CHRIST’S ACHIEVEMENT 297

The ontological reality of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead can only be
experienced in terms of physicality. Sawicki, therefore, rightly connects
resurrection with the bodily imaging of God.16 Seeing the Lord occurs
concretely in “sharing the necessities of life,”17 that is, feeding the hungry,
clothing the naked, giving hospitality to the stranger, caring for the sick and
visiting the imprisoned, as the parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew
25:31-46 discloses. Nevertheless, resurrection is more that caring for the
poor and celebrating the liturgy. Resurrection is more than engaging in
bodily and physical strategies. Resurrection is more than something that
happens between and among persons.’8

Resurrection is the entry into a new moral order that is constituted as a
terrestrial reality by the creative act of God, and therefore it is something that
happens to individual human beings. It is a principle component of the
eschatological projection of a new heaven and a new earth that originated in
the millennialism of Jewish apocalypticism, and it seems to have made its
earliest appearance in the Apocalypse of Isaiah (Isaiah 24-27), specifically in
Isaiah 26:19.

Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise.

O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy!

For your dew is a radiant dew,

and the earth will give birth to those long dead.

Daniel 12:2 enlarges this eschatological vision to include the despicable and
the ignoble. “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake,
some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”
Resurrection and its attendant reconstitution of all things is preceded,
however, by a cataclysmic judgment that terminates the old moral order. The
process of redemption in society has disintegrated. J9 New forms of power
have been introduced that have altered the distribution of wealth. The old
rules that governed the ordering of power no longer guarantee the truth of
things. As political oppression and economic exploitation intensify the social
unrest, those who become aware of their disenfranchisement isolate them-
selves from the current moral order and form communities that are oriented
toward the search for a new kind of social being. Intellectual activity aided by

16 Ibid., 336.

17 Ibid., 84.

18 Ibid., 79.

19 See Kenelm Burridge, New Heaven— New Earth: A Study of Millenarian Activities (New
York: Schocken, 1969), 4-14.

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scriptural interpretation endeavors to comprehend the changes that have
occurred in the social construction of reality.

Exemplifying this phase of millenarian formation is book 1 of 1 Enoch,
which, by an appropriation of the myth of Genesis 6:1-4, attributes the
disintegration of the current social order to the birth of giants who “con-
sumed the produce of all the people until the people detested feeding them.
So the giants turned against the people in order to eat them” (1 Enoch
7:3-4).20 These giants are identifiable as systemic structures and social
institutions that transcend the power and control of the peasantry and extract
the surplus of their agricultural production. The injustices that prevail cannot
be eradicated by a reformist response. A new condition of being is required,
and therefore the irremediable moral order that predominates must be
terminated.

Book 1 of 1 Enoch foretells the eternal punishment of the watchers, “the
children of heaven,” as well as the destruction of the giants. Daniel foresees
the annihilation of the four chaos monsters that devour much flesh. First
Enoch’s Apocalypse of Weeks anticipates the final judgment to occur during
the tenth week of human history:

there shall be the eternal judgment; and it shall be executed by the angels of
the eternal heaven. . . . The first heaven shall depart and pass away; a new
heaven shall appear; and all the powers of heaven shall shine forever
sevenfold. Then after that diere shall be many weeks without number
forever; it shall be a time of goodness and righteousness, and sin shall no
more be heard of forever. (1 Enoch 91:15-17)

The Messiah apocalypse of 2 Baruch offers essentially the same vision. The
creation will be returned to primordial chaos during the thirteenth epoch of
human history, and the fourteenth and final age will mark the beginning of
eternal justice and peace.

Resurrection is God’s re-creation of the deceased elect, those who are
identified in Isaiah 26:19 as the dead who belong to God: “Your dead shall
live; their corpses shall rise.” Resurrection opens the door to a joyful
participation in the reconstitution of all things. In the Similitudes of 1 Enoch,
Enoch is assured:

The righteous and elect ones shall be saved on that day. . . . The Lord of the
Spirits will abide over them; they shall eat and rest and rise with that Son of

20 All quotations of 1 Enoch are taken from the translation by E. Isaac, in The Old
Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2 vols., ed. James H. Charlesworth (Garden City: Doubleday,
1983-85), 1:13-89.

ACTUALIZATION OF CHRIST'S ACHIEVEMENT 299

Man forever and ever. The righteous and elect ones shall rise from the earth
and shall cease being of downcast face. They shall wear the garments of
glory. These garments of yours shall become the garments of life from the
Lord of the Spirits. Neither shall your garments wear out, nor your glory
come to an end before the Lord of the Spirits. (1 Enoch 62:1 3-16)

The Easter appearances of the risen Jesus to Cephas, the twelve, and “to
more than five hundred sisters and brothers at one time” unquestionably
engendered intellectual ferment (1 Cor. 15:5-6). Recognition was vital,
requiring the identification of the risen one with Jesus of Nazareth and
alternately determining the significance of both the event and the person.
Among the variety of interpretations that emerged was the myth of resurrec-
tion, derived from the eschatology of Jewish apocalypticism and imposed on
the event of Jesus’ rising from the dead to signify the inauguration of the
millenarian vision of a new heaven and a new earth. Attendantly, from within
this millenarian orientation, Jesus himself was identified with the barnasha of
Daniel 7:13-14, a type of new Adam, who, on the basis of his appearance
before the Ancient of Days, recovered the characteristics that distinguish the
human being created in the image and likeness of God: dominion, glory, and
kingship (see Ps. 8:4-8). In the Hellenistic Jewish-Christian community, the
identification of Jesus with the barnasha of Daniel 7:13-14 was translated into
the christological, but corporately oriented, title: ho huios tou anthropou. By
raising Jesus from the dead, God appointed him to be the founder of a new
humanity. Accordingly in 1 Corinthians 15:45, the apostle Paul acknowledges
him to be the “Last Adam” who is a “life-giving spirit,” the image of the glory
of God into which those who follow him are being metamorphosed from one
degree of glory to another (2 Cor. 3:18).

A number of passages in the letters of the apostle Paul indicate that he
embraced this interpretation of the Easter event. Above all, of course, is 1
Corinthians 15, where it is especially obvious in his circular argumentation of
verses 12-13: “Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can
some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection
of the dead, then Christ has not been raised.” What the Corinthian Christians
evidently are rejecting is the eschatology of the resurrection of the dead, a
reality of the future when “the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised
imperishable, and we will be changed.” In an effort to convince them, Paul
utilizes the analogy of a grain of wheat in order to develop the difference
between two kinds of bodies, the flesh-and-blood body of the present, which
has its own glory, and the spiritual body of the future, which will be superior
in glory to the physical body as one star is superior in splendor to another.

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But the millennial myth of resurrection, as applied to the Easter event, not
only guarantees the future resurrection. Above all, it identifies the reality of
Jesus’ rising from the dead as the beginning of a new creation as well as the
birth of a new humanity. The realized eschatology of the new creation is the
hub of Pauline theology from which the spokes of his contextualizing
interpretations radiate. J. Christiaan Beker has articulated it well. The apoca-
lyptic reality of the regnum Christi is the “deep structure” or “coherent
center” from which “a variety of symbols” is drawn in response to the
contingencies of Paul’s evangelizing contexts.21 Paul himself acknowledges it
as such in Galatians 6:15. “For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is
anything, but a new creation. And as many as follow this rule, peace on them
and mercy and upon the Israel of God.”

If the Easter event of Jesus’ rising from the dead, as interpreted by the myth
of resurrection, signifies the establishment of a new creation, Jesus’ death,
accordingly, must denote the end of the old creation. In this respect the
millennialism of Jewish apocalypticism also functions as the “deep structure”
of Pauline theology. For if Jesus’ death terminates the old moral order, Paul
can simultaneously declare, as he does in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “old things
passed away; new things have happened.”

Moreover, Jesus’ death, like his rising from the dead, becomes a vital factor
in the establishment of a paradigmatic experience into which all humanity can
enter, namely, dying and rising with Christ. Paul enlarges on this in Romans
6:4. “Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death so that
even as Christ was resurrected from the dead through the glory of the Father,
so let us walk in the newness of life.” The myth of resurrection, accordingly,
provides the key to the interpretation of Jesus’ rising from the dead and,
retrospectively, to the interpretation of Jesus’ death.

But the consequence of participating in Jesus’ death must be clearly
apprehended. “If,” as Paul says, “one died on behalf of all and consequently
all died,” that death must be claimed as the end of my involvement in the old
moral order. “Old things passed away.” My eschatological death, therefore,
terminates my participation in the human condition of sin that dominates the
old moral order as well as the alienation that that disease engenders. The
wonderful outcome is reconciliation with God. Paul’s understanding of
atonement is derived not from the temple cult but from the interpretation of
Jesus’ death as the end of the old creation.22 “For if being enemies we were

21 J. Christiaan Beker, Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought (Philadel-
phia: Fortress, 1980), 17.

22 See Matthew 27:51-53 for the influence of the millennialism of Jewish apocalypticism.

ACTUALIZATION OF CHRIST’S ACHIEVEMENT 301

reconciled to God through the death of his Son, how much more, being
reconciled, shall we be saved by his life” (Rom. 5:10). We are reconciled to
God through the death of his Son, but not without our own participation in
that death. We are also saved by his life, but not without our participation in
his resurrection. There is no cheap grace here!

“Being saved” begins with an entry into the reality of resurrection. It is
analogous to the experience of Lazarus, the Beloved Disciple in the narrative
world of the Fourth Gospel. After the stone, which seals the cave of nonbeing
in which he is buried, has been rolled away and Jesus has issued the call to
come forth, he, with hands and feet bound and eyes covered with a burial
cloth, by some prodigious effort succeeds in exiting from the tomb. Re-
created or resurrected, he is ready to begin a journey into a new moral order.
But unbinding must first take place before he is able to walk and to see; and
since he is unable to set himself free, he needs some assistance from the
community to which he belongs. Like Lazarus’, our salvation, our being
saved, lies in our being unbound and set free. By entering the new creation,
which God constituted through the Easter event, we have been resurrected
with Christ, and therefore we have become members of a new humanity
bearing the identity of “life-giving spirits.” As Paul says in 1 Corinthians
15:45, “The first human Adam became a living being; the last Adam a
life-giving spirit.” Those who are “in Christ,” the last Adam, are “life-giving
spirits”! That, however, is a paradoxical identity. For although we have died
with Christ and have been raised with Christ, and therefore are participating
in the new humanity of “life-giving spirits,” we are undergoing a metamorpho-
sis that is transfiguring us into the image and stature of our pioneer, the
resurrected Christ. The process of transformation gradually enables us to
“rule in life” and to engage in the activities of the dikaiosyne ton theou , the
justice of God (Rom. 5:17).

It is in this domain of being “in Christ,” the last Adam, and consequently
also being on the way into a reordering of power that all the possibilities of
this new creation become realizable. The scale and scope of those possibili-
ties, disclosed by Jesus in the narrative world of the four Gospels, are
originated and activated by God’s breath, the Holy Spirit. We, who are
“life-giving spirits” because we belong to a new humanity and are therefore
being metamorphosed from one degree of glory to another (2 Cor. 3:18), are
called to incarnate those possibilities as God’s surrogates with and for our
fellow human beings.

The Easter event, as interpreted by the myth of resurrection, has inaugu-
rated the long awaited reconstitution of all things. This is the time of the

3°2

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regnum Christi , the reign of Christ. Paul characterizes it as the age in which
the Christ abolishes every rule, every authority and every power; that is, all the
forms and forces of death that prevent all who have been created in God’s
image and likeness from “ruling in life.” Only after this work has successfully
been completed will the Christ return the kingship to God and become
subordinate to God, as Paul states in i Corinthians 15:28. This reign of
Christ, however, must not be construed as the elite sovereignty of the Lord
Jesus Christ. The new creation is not a reconstruction of a hierarchical
ordering of power. The kingship of the risen Christ is a horizontally struc-
tured rule in which all the members of the new humanity have an equal share.
For the Christ, as Paul contends in 1 Corinthians 12:12, is the community of
the one and the many: “For even as the body is one and has many members,
and all the members of the body being many are one body, so also the
Christ.”2}

The objective of this corporate, horizontally constituted kingship is the
deliverance of the creation from its bondage, the redemption of the old moral
order and all who participate in it. This is the work that God has reserved for
and entrusted to the new humanity; and the languishing creation is awaiting
its manifestation. “For,” as Paul declares in Romans 8:19-21, “the eager
expectation of the creation is waiting for the unveiling of the sons and
daughters of God. For the creation was subordinated to futility, not willingly,
but on account of the one (who) subordinated it in hope. Because the same
creation will be liberated from the enslavement of corruption into the liberty
of the glory of the children of God.”

This is the assignment the new humanity is called to fulfill. To say the least,
it is an awesome undertaking, and, as each year passes, it seems more
preposterous. Nevertheless, God will not rescue the creation unassisted.
Incarnation is the instrumentality by which this objective will be achieved. All
who participate in the new humanity of the risen Christ and therefore are
“life-giving spirits” are called to collaborate with God and fulfill this commis-
sion to save the creation. There is no other legitimation for Christian identity.

The undertaking is realizable only if the reign of Christ is a horizontally
shared kingship. Jesus himself acknowledged that in his confession at his trial
before the Sanhedrin, “You will see the Son of the Human Being (the new
humanity) seated on the right hand of power.” Christian self-understanding
humbly but courageously embraces this privileged position of being co-
enthroned with the resurrected Jesus and therefore also being co-enthroned

2 3 See Beker, Paul, 306-10.

ACTUALIZATION OF CHRIST'S ACHIEVEMENT 303

with God. It is from this source that divine possibility originates and becomes
actualizable in historical existence.

The Synoptic account of the stilling of the storm dramatizes this reality.
Jesus falls asleep in the middle of a storm while sailing across the Sea of
Galilee. From fear of drowning, his disciples awaken him, not because they
want a miracle to save them but because Jesus, who in view of his location “in
the stern on the pillow” is the pilot, has, by falling asleep, lost control of the
boat. They simply want him to get his hand back on the rudder and guide the
boat through the storm. They are acting according to the old paradigm of
Psalm 107:23-32. To quote the most pertinent verses, “Then they cried to
the Lord in their trouble, and he brought them out from their distress; he
made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed.” Jesus delivers
them, but in an unanticipated manner, namely, by assuming the role of the
Lord and calming the wind and the sea. But immediately afterwards he
reproaches them for being cowardly and not having faith. Yet, at least
according to the old paradigm, they had faith. They had cried out to the Lord
in their trouble. Why does Jesus reprimand them? Evidently, the old para-
digm of dependence is no longer valid to those who are following Jesus into a
new moral order. Verticality promotes dependence and paralysis. “Having
faith” now involves acting out of the empowerment of participating in the
resurrection of Jesus from the dead. When Jesus subsequently sends the
disciples across the Sea of Galilee alone, they are hesitant to go without him
because they remember how safe and secure they were when he was in the
boat with them. Consequently, it is necessary for him to compel them to get
into the boat (Mark 6:45). In view of the time when he will be taken away from
them, they must learn how to be pioneers in his place for those who will
follow them into a reordering of power. As they begin to sail across the sea,
Jesus ascends “into the mountain” to pray for them; when he descends at dusk
he observes that they have made little progress. Yet he does not interfere.
During the fourth watch of the night he comes to them walking on the sea,
and, as the narrator informs us, “he was wanting to pass them by” (Mark
6:48). Jesus is anxious about them, but he refuses to be paternalistic. They
must be trained for the future, for their exercise of sovereignty and power will
be essential for the fulfillment of their commission. They must learn the limits
of the authority they bear as members of the community of the Son of the
Human Being.

The disciples, however, see Jesus walking on the sea and, imagining him to
be a ghost, cry out in fear. He responds to their alarm immediately, “Keep on
being courageous! I AM. Stop being afraid!” In his self-disclosure he employs

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3°4

the phrase ego eimi, the Septuagint translation of Yahweh’s self-identification
to Moses at the burning bush, and also the Septuagint translation of Yahweh’s
declarations of transcendence and matchlessness in Isaiah 41-48. In perform-
ing an act that is traditionally limited to God, as Job 9:8 indicates, Jesus by his
use of “I AM” reveals the identity and destiny of the new humanity, that
community of “life-giving spirits” that is willed by God to be transformed
into the image and stature of the risen Lord. When Jesus climbs into the boat,
the wind ceases, but his disciples are profoundly unsettled: “They went out of
their minds!” They do not understand the significance of what they have
witnessed because, as the narrator explains, “they did not understand about
the loaves, but their heart was hardened” (Mark 6:53). The sovereignty that
Jesus manifested by walking on the sea is the same as that by which he fed the
multitudes; it is the sovereignty of the New Human Being whom God gave
birth to and who therefore is God’s Offspring. The disciples, however,
continue to let their society and its culture determine the limitations of
possibility in historical existence.

Marianne Sawicki is right when she states, “The first evangelists find that
they cannot bring anyone to the possibility of resurrection through the mere
telling of a story.”24 Her insistence, however, is on the teaching that succeeds
the wonder working of the early prophets, teaching that will enable the
disciples “to reach and recognize the risen Lord,” to see “what they literally
cannot see: Jesus in the hungry, the thirsty, the strange, the naked, the sick,
and the imprisoned. ”25 But the possibility of resurrection is not established
simply and only on the basis of “seeing the Lord” in the communities of the
poor and the oppressed. Personal participation in Jesus’ resurrection and its
entry into a reordering of power is paramount. If the disciples and Peter
follow the risen Jesus to Galilee where he is initiating a second career, they
will not only “see the Lord” as he continues his ministry among the
marginalized masses, they will also participate in his resurrection, even as they
participated in his death; and consequently, like him at the beginning of his
career in the narrative world of Mark’s Gospel, they will be called into being
as God’s beloved daughters and sons and simultaneously be empowered to
actualize the possibilities of the reign of Christ.

At the conclusion of Matthew’s narrative world, the eleven representatives
of the new Israel “see the Lord” on the Sinai-like mountain of Galilee where
the risen Jesus appears to them. “But some doubted” (28:17). What they
doubt is not clarified, but most likely the reader is to assume that it is the

Seeing the Lord, 84.

Ibid., 87.

ACTUALIZATION OF CHRIST’S ACHIEVEMENT 305

reality of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. Nothing is said or done to resolve
their doubts. The risen Jesus claims to have received “all authority in heaven
and on earth,” thereby intimating the fulfillment of Daniel 7:13-14 and the
confirmation of his identity in resurrection as the bar nasha or the New
Human Being. He issues the so-called Great Commission and at the same
time insinuates the means by which their doubts will be resolved. By fulfilling
their authorization to make disciples of all ethnic communities in the same
way Jesus disciples them, any doubts of the reality of his resurrection that
might persist will be dispelled.

But there is more than the teacher’s teaching that is to be taught to disciple
others. Eleven ascended the cosmic navel of the mountain in Galilee; twelve
descend. The teacher joins the eleven, and as the twelfth, constitutes the new
Israel and imparts equal participation in his identity as the bar nasha , the New
Human Being, and equal participation in the fullness of his authority in
heaven and on earth. The I AM, with which he identified himself to his
disciples while walking on the Sea of Galilee (14:27), now encloses them — and
us! “See, I with you AM ( ego meth hymon eimi) even to the consummation of the
age.” Drawn into the I AM of Emmanuel, “God with us,” the community of
the New Human Being, which the risen Lord constitutes on this Sinai-like
navel in Galilee, is empowered to continue the world-transforming ministry
of Jesus.

In the Acts of the Apostles, the evangelist Luke draws his readers into the
Pentecostal experience of the disciples, after Matthias has been chosen to
replace Judas as the twelfth representative of the new Israel. “All were
together in one place; and suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the
rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.
Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on
each of them” (2:1-3). All of them, both the women and the men, receive
empowerment through the same gift of God’s Spirit that had descended upon
Jesus at his baptism. While Jesus was anointed by the Spirit’s settling upon
him in the physical appearance of a dove, signaling that he was being
sanctioned by heaven, his disciples are ratified by a supracephalic flame that
signified the dawn of the new age and their participation in the apotheosis of
the risen Lord.26

In the Fourth Gospel, Jesus breathes the Spirit on his disciples on Easter
evening (20:22), and as a result his earlier promise of 14:1-3 is fulfilled, “In

26 For the significance of the “tongue of fire,” see Richard Oster, “Numismatic Windows
into the Social World of Early Christianity: A Methodological Inquiry,” Jottrnal of Biblical
Literature 101 (i982):2 12-14.

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my Father’s house are many rooms; and if not, I would tell you because I am
going to prepare a place for you. Again I am coming and I will receive you to
myself so that where I AM ( ego eimi ) you also are.” As bearers of God’s
presence they become “rooms” in “the Father’s house,” rooms that Jesus
prepared by going away into death and resurrection. Accordingly empowered,
they will begin to fulfill Jesus’ promise, “the works that I do you will do and
greater works than these because I am going to the Father.”

The Gospels are not “about” access to one who died. Their generic content
is not to communicate the means of approaching someone dead.2? All of them,
in their own distinctive modes, end without closure indicating or intimating
where and by what means the reality of the Easter event can be experienced.
The “seeing” that is required results from a personal entry into death and
resurrection with Jesus and concomitantly actualizing the divine possibilities
that belong to the legacy of the new humanity. Seeing clearly is a divine gift,
but sometimes, as in the story of Jesus’ opening the eyes of a blind human
being in two stages, the sight that is gained is imperfect, and a second remedial
touch is necessary (Mark 8:22-26).

Lazarus, as the Beloved Disciple of the Fourth Gospel, offers an apposite
epistemological model. Although he is not identified by the narrator as the
Beloved Disciple, we as the readers can make that identification on the basis of
the first of the Easter episodes in the Fourth Gospel. When Mary Magdalene
reports her discovery of an empty tomb, two disciples, Simon Peter and “the
one whom Jesus loved,” scramble to investigate. The details the narrator gives
are crucial for the identification of the Beloved Disciple.

The two were running together, and the other disciple ran ahead faster
than Peter and came to the tomb first and bending over he sees the strips of
linen, but he did not enter. Then Simon Peter comes following him and he
entered the tomb. And he views the strips of linen and the face cloth that
was on his head, not lying with the linen strips but folded up into one place.
Then the other disciple entered, the one coming to the tomb first, and he
saw and believed. (20:4-8)

There is no way to account for the strange conduct of the Beloved Disciple
except to identify him with Lazarus. He outruns Peter but does not enter the
tomb. He has surmised what has happened, but he is hesitant to enter the
tomb because he himself came out of a tomb. Nevertheless, he eventually
enters, stands beside Peter, eyeballs the same empirical objects of Jesus’ burial
garments, and believes. His faith is not simply a leap into the dark, nor is it

o Against Sawicki, Seeing the Lord, 302.

ACTUALIZATION OF CHRIST’S ACHIEVEMENT 307

based on scriptural proof. “For,” as the narrator observes, “they did not yet
know the scripture that he must rise from the dead.” He believes because of
his own experience of resurrection. When he sees the strips of linen folded up
into one place, he remembers that he himself came out of his tomb, bound
hand and foot, and had to be set free. Jesus, in his resurrection from the dead,
had the authority of the New Human Being “to lay down his life and to take it
up again.” The seeing and believing of the Beloved Disciple are determined
by his own experience of resurrection as Lazarus. That is the epistemological
foundation of his faith.

Marianne Sawicki ends her inquiry into Christian origins by contending for
a postmodern theology that does not “insist on a God beyond text or on
causality from beyond the textual world.”28 “As modern theology worked out
a place for God in the ‘depth dimension,’ postmodern theology must work out
a place for God in/as some dimension of textuality.”2? But the Easter event is
not simply Jesus’ rising into the texts of hungry and naked bodies. Those are
texts that belong to the old moral order. Certainly Jesus is alive and active in
these texts. As the youth in Mark’s Easter story declares, “He is going before
you into Galilee.” Jesus, however, enters those texts from the new text of the
rule of God, which he established and which God constituted ontologically by
raising Jesus from the dead.

Is Jesus alive? Did he really rise from the dead? Or to phrase the question as
Sawicki does toward the end of her book: “Could he recognize himself? Did
his personal awareness continue; was he himself still around to enjoy whatever
happened after Calvary? Did he come out of the tomb laughing? Will I?”i°
Sawicki considers these questions important but does not answer them. Those
who, like Lazarus, have responded to the call to exit from the cave of nonbeing
and follow Jesus into the metamorphosis of resurrection can answer with a
joyful affirmation.

Martin Luther designated the papacy of his time “the kingdom of Babylon
and the power of Nimrod the mighty hunter.”3' In his treatise “The Babylo-
nian Captivity of the Church,” he identified the configurations of bondage in
the seven ecclesiastically constituted sacraments that controlled Christians
from birth to the grave and prevented them from realizing their freedom in
Christ. The biblical scholarship of modernity, insofar as it continues to be
captive to the dualism of Kantian epistemology, is another kind of Babylonian

28 Ibid., 332.

29 Ibid., 333.

3° Ibid., 336.

31 Trans. A.T.W. Steinhaeuser, in Works of Luther, vol. 43 (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg,
1 943)i I7I-

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THE PRINCETON SEMINARY BULLETIN

captivity, which debars the signs of identification and recognition by which
the risen Jesus made himself known. 32 Instead it substitutes a reconstructed
historical Jesus “as the clue to God in our life” and closes the door to
participation in the new moral order of the resurrection and its inherent
possibilities. The ecclesiastical promulgation of transcendent Christologies,
informed by ancient creeds torn out of their historical contexts, is another
kind of Babylonian captivity that restrains Christians from entering into a
horizontal relationship with the risen Lord and enjoying the ecstatic sense of
self-worth that he wills to share by drawing them into his I AM. Postmoderni-
ty’s intertextuality into which the risen Jesus disappears without the perspec-
tive of the new creation is yet another kind of Babylonian captivity. Although
it acknowledges the identification of the risen Jesus with the hungry and the
homeless, the sick and the diseased, the immigrant and the imprisoned, its
efficacy is limited by its denial of the gospel’s referent of the text of a new
humanity.

The apostle Paul acknowledges the empirical reality of this text in 2
Corinthians 3:2-3, where he identifies the Corinthian Christians as a “letter.”
“You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all human
beings, and thereby made visible that you are a letter of Christ being
ministered to by us, not written with ink but with the Spirit of the living God,
not on stone tablets but on the physical tablets of the heart.” The old
covenant was inscribed on stone tablets and issued to Moses in an ambiance of
glory for transmission to the people of Israel. Its splendor, however, which
was reflected in the face of Moses, was temporary; and to conceal its fading
character Moses covered his face with a veil. The new covenant, in contrast, is
a text inscribed on the tablets of the human heart. Accordingly, it is a text
within a text, and insofar as it is inscribed on the tablets of the human heart, it
may remain concealed and invisible. The text of the new covenant becomes
legible only when it is expressed externally through the text of the physical
body in terms of deeds and words. The Word, God’s speech activity, must
become flesh. Incarnation is the medium of the textuality that discloses the
ontological reality of the new moral order that was constituted by the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Those who embody the new
humanity are letters of God addressed to the world. They are texts that make
the reality of the new creation readable; they are texts that glow with an
ambiance of glory. To quote Paul again: “Now if the ministry of death,
chiseled in letters on stone tablets, came in glory so that the people of Israel
could not gaze at Moses’ face because of the glory of his face, a glory now set

i2 Niebuhr, Resurrection and Historical Reason, 175.

ACTUALIZATION OF CHRIST'S ACHIEVEMENT 309

aside, how much more will the ministry of the Spirit come in glory? . . . What
once had glory has lost its glory because of the greater glory” (2 Cor. 3:7-8,
10). But where is that “greater glory”? If the text of the new covenant
supposedly manifests itself with a greater glory than that of the old covenant,
in what ways does it make that glory visible? How is it disclosed in the lives of
human beings? Somehow the effects of participation in the new creation must
shimmer in and through the lifestyle of those who are “life-giving spirits.”
That kind of lifestyle would radiate the supremacy of life in the face of all the
forms and forces of death that tend to dominate the sociocultural order. That
kind of lifestyle would reflect an increasing diminishment of alienation and,
conversely, a flowering reconciliation with God and fellow human beings.
That kind of lifestyle would exhibit a freedom that struggles to remain outside
the vicious cycle of exchanging rejection for rejection, an eye for an eye, a
tooth for a tooth. That kind of lifestyle would display the integrity of the five
wise virgins of Jesus’ parable, who expressed their identity of being light
bearers by their vocational activity of bearing light. That kind of lifestyle
would reveal a dedication to the subversion of any and every pollution system
that divides the world into the realms of the clean and the unclean, and
disadvantages and dehumanizes those who are identified as the unclean.
Accordingly, that lifestyle would be engaged in service and ministry to, with,
and for all humankind, but always out of the freedom and unobligedness of
participating in the lordship of Jesus Christ.

Involvement in this kind of a lifestyle is not a journey into diminishment
but an odyssey into the fullness of life and, simultaneously, a transfiguration
into the glory of God. As Irenaeus articulated it, “The glory of God is the
human being fully alive.” Yet as the Apostle reminds the Corinthians,

We have this treasure in clay pots, so that it may be made clear that the
immensity of power belongs to God and does not come from us. Oppressed
in every way but not crushed, uncertain but not despairing, persecuted but
not abandoned, thrown down but not destroyed; always carrying in the
body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus is made visible in our bodies.
(2 Cor. 4:7-10)

A Plethora of
Epiphanies: Christology
in the Pastoral Letters

by JOUETTE M. BASSLER

Jouette M. Bassler is Professor of New
Testament at Perkins School of Theology,
Southern Methodist University, and au-
thor of several books, including God and
Mammon: Asking for Money in the
New Testament (1991) and the forthcom-
ing Deception in the Garden (Indiana
University Press) and Vie Remains Faith-
ful (Abingdon Press). She gave the Alex-
ander Thompson Lecture in the Main
Lounge, Mackay Campus Center, on Feb-
ruary 28, 1996.

I AM OFTEN asked, and frequently ask myself, some variant of the question
“What is a nice woman like you doing working in a place like the Pastoral
Letters?” First and Second Timothy, together with Titus, are, after all, not
noted for their rhetorical power or theological depth, and they are certainly
not supportive of women in my role as teacher; they are, in fact, not
supportive of women in any roles except those of submissive wife and bearer
of children.1 They have occupied a relatively marginal place in Pauline
scholarship, only rarely attracting serious attention, and then usually over
predictable issues. Yet these documents exert, I must confess, a strange
fascination for me. On the one hand, their pseudonymity (which I assume)
raises interesting questions about their origin, their purpose, and their
relationship to each other and to the undisputed letters in the Pauline corpus.
Their content raises questions about the social location of the intended
audience, the identity of the opponents, the circumstances that evoked this
particular epistolary response, and — not least— the nature of it. On the other
hand, my own personal response to the social agenda imparted to the church
by these documents is so negative that it has been difficult to engage them
fairly. If I am to respond convincingly to them, I need to understand the
author’s context and his theology. I need to understand the logic and
presuppositions of his argument, and I need to discern the interconnectedness
of things within his discourse. One cannot effectively critique what one does
not understand. What follows, then, is an exercise in understanding one
critical aspect of these letters: their Christology.

Such an exercise presupposes, of course, a modicum of theological and

1 The women mentioned in 1 Timothy 3:11 may be women deacons, but the text is very
cryptic and is open to other interpretations as well; see Jennifer H. Stiefel, “Women
Deacons in 1 Timothy: A Linguistic and Literary Look at ‘Women Likewise New

Testament Studies 41 (i995):442-57- Older women are encouraged to teach other women
(Titus 2:3-5), hut what they teach is submission!

A PLETHORA OF EPIPHANIES

3 1 1

rhetorical skill on the part of the author of these letters, and scholars have not
always been willing to grant that. Indeed, the letters have been dismissed in
the not-too-distant past as “a miscellaneous collection of material” with “no
unifying theme ... no development of thought.”2 3 4 5 Recently, though, some
scholars have begun to recognize in the author a theologian of some skill and
subtlety. They do not, to be sure, tend to regard him as Paul’s equal, but
neither do they pillory him as an inept collector of diverse materials. Frances
Young expresses an opinion that is emerging with some frequency in these
circles: “These epistles may not make sense as Pauline theology, but they do
have a theology of their own.”-' Lewis R. Donelson concurs: “The author has
a cogent and consistent theological system. ”4 Moreover, “it is time,” says
Young, “to reassess the theological material and to reconsider its function in
the argument of the whole. ”5 It is on this suggestion of a cogent and
consistent theological system and in response to this call for a reconsideration
of its function that I present the following thesis: The epiphany Christology
of these letters functions as the foundation of a pervasive epiphanic pattern
that touches almost the whole of the letters’ contents.

My argument rests on several presuppositions that should be laid out
clearly at the outset. I will not argue these points. Though others have
differing opinions on them, I have not yet encountered any compelling
evidence to the contrary, and for the purposes of this discussion I simply
mention them as my position on these issues. I presuppose that the author and
addressees of these letters are pseudonymous, that all three letters were
written by the same author and reflect the same historical circumstances, that
they circulated together as a “minicorpus” from the beginning, and that one
can therefore speak of the theological system of the corpus as a whole.

I. An Epiphany Overview

Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, when serious questions
began to be raised about the Pauline authorship of the Pastoral Letters, much
of the discussion of their Christology has been conducted explicitly or
implicitly in an apologetic or polemical mode, defined and fueled by the
intense debate over authorship that ensued. Those holding to Pauline
authorship saw the Christology of the Pastorals as an obvious extension of the

2 A. T. Hanson, The Pastoral Epistles (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 42; see also E.
Lohse, Die Entstehung des Neuen Testaments (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1972), 63-64.

3 The Theology of the Pastoral Letters (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 73.

4 Pseudepigraphy and Ethical Argument in the Pastoral Epistles (Tubingen: Mohr-Siebeck,
1986), 66.

5 Young, Theology, 48.

3 12

THE PRINCETON SEMINARY BULLETIN

Christology of the homologoumena, tempered, of course, by the impact of
time and experience on the aging apostle, but recognizably Pauline. J. N. D.
Kelly, for example, points to a veritable “mass of convincingly Pauline
material” in these letters as evidence that they are “in substance and spirit”
Paul’s own work.6 7 Those regarding the letters as pseudonymous have used the
same Pauline yardstick but point to what they see as the Pastorals’ obvious
inferiority vis-a-vis the apostle’s theology as confirmation of their non-
Pauline character. “The writer’s ideas,” says Fred D. Gealy, “are more
practical than profound. Unlike Paul, he does not himself rise to lyrical
heights of religious expression. ”7 Like so many commentators of this period,
Gealy then defines the Pastorals’ theology by listing the differences between
Paul and “Paul,” with the authentic letters establishing the categories and the
criteria. As long as Pauline authorship was the issue or the assumption,
appreciation for the author’s distinctive Christology was difficult to achieve.

Though one can hardly speak even now of a prevailing consensus on the
authorship question, some recent investigations of the letters’ Christology
have moved beyond the agenda established by that debate. Assuming, but not
defending, the letters’ pseudonymity, some scholars have begun to explore the
Christology of these letters on its own terms and not in terms of its
relationship to Paul’s thought. Some interesting observations are resulting
from this, particularly regarding the significance of the “epiphany” language
found in these letters.

As is well known, in the Pastoral Letters, Jesus’ return at the end of the age
to judge the world is consistently described as an emcjxiveia, not, as in the rest
of the New Testament, as a Ttapouoaa: “I charge you to keep the command-
ment without spot or blame until the em(j)dveia of our Lord Jesus Christ,
which God will bring about at the right time” (i Tim. 6:14-15); “For the
grace of God has appeared . . . training us ... to live lives that are
self-controlled, upright, and godly, while we wait for the blessed hope and the
em((>dveia of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). The noun
em<}>dveia is found in only one place in the New Testament outside the
Pastorals: in 2 Thessalonians 2:8, as part of a pleonastic expression describing
the second coming (iq emcjxiveia Tfjs Ttapouaias auTou, NRSV: “the
manifestation of his coming”). The verb emct>cavu> appears nowhere else in the

6 A Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles: I Timothy, II Timothy, Titus (New York: Harper &
Row, 1963), 34; see also Gordon D. Fee, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, rev. ed. (Peabody, MA:
Hendrickson, 1988), 16.

7 The First and Second Epistles to Timothy and the Epistle to Titus (New York: Abingdon,
J955). 364-

A PLETHORA OF EPIPHANIES

3*3

New Testament in connection with this event.8 Thus, although describing the
second coming as an “epiphany” is not absolutely unique to the Pastoral
Letters, it is not common outside those letters, and only in them is this event
presented purely and simply and repeatedly as an emc|>dv€ia. This is striking
and, one suspects, significant.

Even more striking, and probably more significant, is the fact that the first
coming of Jesus is also called an em4>dveia:

Join with me in suffering for the gospel, relying on the power of God, who
saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but
according to his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in
Christ Jesus before the ages began, but it has now been revealed through
the appearing [em^aveia] of our Savior Christ Jesus who abolished death
and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. (2 Tim.
i:8a-io)

The author of these letters, but no one else in the New Testament canon, uses
the same Greek noun, em4>dveia (and the related verb em<j)aCvci>), to refer
both to the past event of Jesus’ first coming and to the future event of his
second coming. What is the significance and function of this distinctive
terminology?

The two epiphanies do not define a process — for example, from lowliness
to exaltation.9 Instead, each reveals a previously hidden divine reality. The
first, however, is not a revelation of the preexistent Christ or a revelation
through Christ of God but a very specific revelation of God’s saving purpose
and grace (2 Tim. 1:9-10), God’s goodness and lovingkindness (Titus 3:4).
This is important and sometimes overlooked in discussions of this topic. At
least when applied to Jesus’ first coming, the epiphany language does not refer
primarily to a revelation or manifestation of Christ but to the revelation,
through the Christ event, of a reality about God. This does not mean that we
should not speak of an epiphany Christology,10 but that when used of the
Pastorals, we must understand it to refer primarily to Christ as the vehicle,
and not the content, of the epiphany. Moreover, in the first epiphany the

8 Outside the Pastorals, the verb emc(>cuva> is used only in Luke 1:79 and Acts 27:20, and
in these texts, it refers to quite different events. The lexeme 4>avep6w appears much more
frequendy in the New Testament, but without the special nuance of the prefixed form (see
below).

9 So Victor Hasler, “Epiphanie und Christologie in den Pastoralbriefen,” Tbeologische
Zeitschrift 33 (i977):2oo.

10 Hans Windisch comes close to this conclusion: “von einer Epiphanie-Christologie in
den Past, nur mit grossen Einschrankungen gesprochen werden darP’ (“Zur Christologie
der Pastoralbriefe,” Zeitschrift fur die neutestcnnentliche IVissenschaft 34 [19351:227).

3W

THE PRINCETON SEMINARY BULLETIN

entire Christ event— birth, life, death, resurrection, bestowal of the Holy
Spirit— is compressed into a single revelatory moment (that seems, at least, to
be the import of 2 Timothy 1 : 10, which describes the effect of this “epiphany”
as abolishing death and bringing life and immortality to light),11 and this
moment is presented in isolation, not as part of God’s past salvific activity.
This epiphany— and the plan of salvation that it reveals — is not presented, for
example, as the climax of a covenant, whether with Abraham or with Moses. It
is not interpreted in terms of the fulfillment of earlier promises to Israel;12 it is
not linked with earlier prophecies to Israel; ‘3 and it is not interpreted in terms
of earlier saving interventions such as the exodus or the return from exile or
the Maccabean revolt. In short, these letters do not view the Christ event as
part of a salvation-historical scheme, the ongoing historical drama of God’s
saving actions. When the historical Christ event is presented as an emtjxiveia,
the understanding seems to be that it opens a window on, or provides a
glimpse of, an eternal, transcendent reality. It reveals God’s saving purpose
and grace, but there is no obvious sense that this purpose has been unfolding
through history; it has simply existed from eternity.

The second epiphany reveals the eschatological glory of Jesus when he
returns as judge of the living and the dead to consummate God’s saving
purpose (Titus 2:13). When the parousia is thus presented as an em(j)tiveia,
the emphasis shifts from apocalyptic judgment of human persons and empires
to the revelation of divine reality. Epiphany language thus seems to promote a
static picture of a curtain going up twice to reveal tableaux of the divine
reality, but not a live drama. This perception is flawed, however, in at least
two significant ways.

First, Dieter Liihrmann, in his careful 1971 study of em4>av€ia, has
demonstrated that in the Hellenistic age this had become a fixed term for the
intervention of a god or goddess on behalf of his or her devotees. ^ In the
writings of this period, emcjxxveioi did not refer simply to an “epiphany” in

11 See Lorenz Oberlinner, “Die ‘Epiphaneia’ des Heilswillens Gottes in Christus Jesus:
Zur Grundstruktur der Christologie der Pastoralbriefe,” Zeitschrift fiir die neutestamentliche
Wissenscbaft 71 (i98o):202-3.

12 The only promises mentioned in these letters are promises made “before the ages
began” in the eternal will of God (Titus 1:2).

'3 The prophecies referred to in 1 Timothy 1:18 and 4:14 are Christian prophecies
associated with Timothy’s ordination. They do not suggest the fulfdlment of Old Testa-
ment prophecies (see Jurgen Roloff, Der erste Brief an Tbnotheus [Zurich: Benziger Verlag;
Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1988], 10 1-2).

"4 “Epiphaneia: Zur Bedeutungsgeschichte eines griechischen Wortes,” in Tradition und
Glaube: Das Friihe Christentum in seiner Umwelt: Festgabe fiir Karl Georg Kuhn zum 65.
Geburtstag, ed. G. Jeremias, H.-W. Kuhn, and H. Stegemann (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 1971), 185-99.

A PLETHORA OF EPIPHANIES

3X5

the contemporary sense of the word, that is, a sudden revelation of divinity
(with the emphasis on revelation per se). Instead, though revelation remains a
component of the event, the emphasis was on the concept of a helpful
intervention (“ helfendes Eingreifen ”) by the deity on behalf of that deity’s
worshipers, often in military conflict but in other concrete ways as well.
Liihrmann found this same association with a “saving intervention” present in
the Pastoral Letters and signaled with particular clarity by the title “Savior”
that is applied to both God and Christ with striking frequency in these
letters. ’5 Thus, he insists, the epiphany language of the Pastoral Letters
signals not merely a revelation but also an intervention that has salvific results.
We will need to explore later the nature of that saving intervention, but it
promises to augment the more static concept of revelation.

Second, the two christological epiphanies are part of a more comprehensive
concept. This does not mean — as we have seen — that they are situated within
a broad historical vision of God’s prior saving actions. Rather, the period
between these two epiphanies is filled with a whole series of epiphanic
moments, which relieve the otherwise static picture and indeed suggest the
nature and locale of the active intervention that is constitutive of emtjxiveia.

Some hints about the complexity of the development and deployment of
the epiphany concept in these letters appeared in a 1935 article by Hans
Windisch.16 Windisch agreed that the epiphany concept in the Pastorals had
two primary components. He identified the first, however, with the revelation
of God’s plan of salvation through Christian proclamation and teaching,
which then worked itself out through Christian renewal in baptism and
through the work of the Holy Spirit. The second component was the future
double appearance of the great God and of our Savior Jesus Christ (Titus
2:13). Windisch did not regard the historical appearance of Jesus as an
epiphany, and in that he was mistaken.1? His recognition that Christian
proclamation and teaching are significant components of the Pastorals’
epiphany scheme was, however, an important one. Windisch did not follow
through on this insight, though, and instead went on to promote the trctis

'5 Ten of the twenty-four occurrences of the tide “Savior” in the New Testament are
found in the Pastoral Letters: 1 Timothy 1:1; 2:3; 4:10; 2 Timothy 1:10; Titus 1:3, 4; 2:10,
13; 3:4, 6. See Paul Wendland, “SflTHP: Eine religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung,”
Zeitschrift fur die neutestamentlicbe Wissenschaft 5 (1904): 3 3 5-5 3.

16 “Zur Christologie,” 2 1 3-38.

17 Windisch discounted 2 Timothy 1:10 as good evidence for this since the focus in this
verse is on the activity and efficacy of the Resurrected One, not the Incarnate One (ibid.,
224), but that introduces a distinction foreign to these letters. The Resurrected One is the
Incarnate One and the work of the resurrection is of a piece with the incarnation (1 Tim.
3:16; 2 Tim. 2:8).

316 THE PRINCETON SEMINARY BULLETIN

0eou Christology that he saw in several hymnic and liturgical fragments in the
letters.

Lorenz Oberlinner, on the other hand, not only identified Jesus’ historical
appearance as an epiphany, he saw this as the key to the letters’ Christology:
the decisive manifestation in Christ of God’s will to save. He also recog-
nized—as Windisch did — the dynamic quality of the epiphany concept in
these letters. It defines not just a single point (Jesus’ appearance in judgment)
nor even two discrete points (incarnation and parousia). The epiphany
concept encompasses the totality of the helping intervention of God in Christ
and therefore includes not only the initial revelation, through the Christ
event, of God’s will and plan to save but also (as Windisch had shown) the
ongoing revelation in and through the proclamation of the gospel and the
final revelation of salvation itself at the parousia. Oberlinner then demon-
strated how the traditional christological materials — the hymns and liturgical
fragments scattered throughout these letters— have been reinterpreted in
light of this epiphany “ Grundstruktur .”l8 This was a decisive step in the
investigation of the concept, for it shows that emtjxiveia controls the
meaning of other material and not the other way around. l9 Oberlinner does
not, however, explore how the rest of the material in these letters— and there
is a lot of it— might fit into, or be interpreted by, the epiphany schema.

Lewis Donelson has approached the Christology of the letters from the
broadest perspective, looking for the logical connections among the ethical
statements, christological statements, and “other dicta” (which includes the
rest of the material in these letters).20 His work is filled with insightful
observations, but he is primarily interested in the inner logic of the author’s
ethical system and the role pseudonymity plays in it, so he focuses on the
deductive and inductive logic that binds the statements together, and many
good theological insights get lost in his technical discussion. There remains
work to be done on a different level, namely, clarifying the connections
between the epiphany Christology of these letters and other activities de-
scribed in them.

This is what I propose to outline here: the connections between the
epiphany Christology and other epiphanic aspects of the letters, in the hope of
showing with greater clarity than has heretofore emerged the function (or a

18 “Heilswillens Gottes,” 192-2 13.

■9 See also Hasler, “Epiphanie,” 205. Others, however, disagree: See, e.g., Hejne
Simonsen, “Christologische Traditionselemente in den Pastoralbriefen,” in Die paulinische
Literatur und Tbeologie, ed. Sigfred Pedersen (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980),
61.

10 Pseudepigraphy, 129-54.

A PLETHORA OF EPIPHANIES

3T7

function) of this Christology within these letters. To be more precise, it seems
clear that the second coming, though called an epiphany, has essentially the
same function in these letters as it does — under another name — in other New
Testament documents, namely, to motivate the ethical behavior prescribed in
these letters.21 But how does the first coming, with its distinctive presentation
as a manifestation of God’s saving will and grace, function in these letters?
Why does the author of these letters emphasize precisely this concept
(incarnation as epiphany), which did not enhance the fiction of Pauline
authorship and indeed somewhat undermined it, since epiphany Christology
is not found in this form in Paul’s undisputed letters? How does this peculiar
epiphany scheme enhance the author’s message? It serves, of course, as a
warrant for the message of God’s saving grace. God’s nature as a saving God
and the extent and nature of God’s plan of salvation are revealed in the Christ
event. Is it possible, though, to identify a connection between this epiphany
concept and other aspects of the letters similar to the connection between,
say, the christological hymn of Philippians 2:6-11 and the surrounding
exhortations, or between the christological emphases of 1 Corinthians 1:18-25
and Paul’s description of the church and himself as weak and despised? Let us
review the evidence, starting with the first epiphany.

II. The First Epiphany

God’s gracious nature, saving will, and eternal plan of redemption are
definitively revealed through the incarnation, that is, through Jesus’ earthly
life viewed as a whole. This is most clearly indicated in 2 Timothy 1:9-10, the
text I cited earlier. Like so many passages in these letters, this one seems to
bear in its measured cadences the imprint of a liturgical origin; but that does
not mean it cannot also convey accurately the author’s views. In fact, because
the basic idea expressed here is echoed in so many places in these letters (a
point I will argue below), the fragment seems to be an important statement of
the author’s christological perspective. “[God] saved us and called us with a
holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and
grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, but it
has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who
abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the
gospel.”

The basic revelatory pattern here is a familiar one from other letters in the

21 See Donelson, Pseudepigraphy, 146-52.

3l8

THE PRINCETON SEMINARY BULLETIN

Pauline corpus: a mystery present from eternity is now revealed.22 But unlike
these other earlier texts, it is not the mystery of the inclusion of the Gentiles
that is revealed (cf. Col. 1:26; Eph. 3:5-12) or God’s mysterious wisdom
hidden from the world in the cross (1 Cor. 2:6-10). Instead, it is God’s
fundamental salvific purpose and saving grace that are revealed through the
public event of the “appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ.” In Titus 2:11 and
3:4, the language is somewhat more oblique, but the message is no less clear:
“For the grace of God has appeared [eTrecjiavT)], bringing salvation to all,” and
“when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared
[eTTec))dvT]], he saved us according to his mercy.”2?

What is striking about these passages is that Jesus is not presented as the
agent of God’s plan, that is, as the one through whose death and resurrection
God’s saving will was implemented, but as the revealer of it. The author, by
citing traditional material, certainly knows and affirms the message of the
efficacy of Christ’s death (1 Tim. 3:16), but the emphasis here is on Christ’s
role as revealer. In the formulations in Titus, Christ even disappears behind
the revelation. That is, Christ himself is not mentioned, only that which is
manifested by his “appearing”: God’s grace and goodness and loving-
kindness.

This emphasis on the revelatory aspect of the Christ event can also be seen
in a passage that does not speak directly of revelation at all, 1 Timothy 2:5-6:

For there is one God;

there is also one mediator between God and humankind;

Christ Jesus, himself human,

who gave himself as a ransom for all.

The christological content of this fragment is striking, but the concept of
Christ as mediator is not reflected anywhere else in these letters. The
insistence on the humanity of Christ may be directed at some level against the
docetic Christology of the opposing teachers — though this is speculative since
we do not have direct evidence of their Christology. It may also be reinforced
by the reference to Jesus’ Davidic descent in 2 Timothy 2:8. In 1 Timothy,
however, the passage is cited as a warrant for the author’s argument in 2:1-7,
and Jesus’ humanity is not in any way relevant to that argument. Thus, this
point— though of interest to later theologians — cannot reflect the author’s
primary interest in the passage. The final line of the fragment, “who gave

22 See Nils A. Dahl, “Form-Critical Observations on Early Christian Preaching,” in Jems
in the Memory of the Early Church (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1976), 30-36.

23 On the interpretation of these two verses in terms of the incarnation, see J. D. Quinn,
The Letter to Titus (New York: Doubleday, 1990), 212.

A PLETHORA OF EPIPHANIES

3J9

himself as a ransom for all,” contains the familiar christological motif of Jesus’
self-giving (see Titus 2:14; 1 Tim. 1:15; Mark 10:45; Gal. 1:4; Eph. 5:2). The
emphasis on the universal object of this self-giving (“ransom for all' ’) is
characteristic of these letters, 2* and, more to the point, it picks up the
language of verses 3-4, for which this fragment serves as an immediate
warrant: “This is right and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who
desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
Surely, then, it is this statement about Jesus giving himself as a ransom for all
that accounts for the author’s interest in the fragment and led to its incorpora-
tion at this point in the text: it reinforces and confirms the author’s statement
about God’s universal salvific will.25

For understanding the author’s development of the epiphany theme,
however, the comment he has appended to the fragment is even more
significant than the fragment itself: to piapTupiov Kcapois l8£ols.26 This
phrase is variously translated by such phrases as “this was attested at the right
time” (NRSV), which raises the question “by whom?” and “this was the
testimony at the proper time” (NAB), which raises the question “what
constitutes the testimony?” The variety' of translations suggests the inherent
ambiguity of the phrase: Who or what does the attesting, and what is
attested?2? The phrase is indeed terse but not completely enigmatic. It
probably refers to Jesus’ act of self-giving on behalf of all that is described in
the preceding verse. This is the testimony to God’s desire to save all (v. 3) and
this testimony occurred at the proper time (Koupois l8£ois), a phrase that
clearly refers in these letters to the time determined by God (see 1 Tim. 6:15;
Titus 1:3). Thus construed, and as Hasler notes, the expression of verse 6b
belongs to the linguistic field of the revelatory concept.28

This clause thus provides a dramatic reinterpretation of the significance of

24 See, e.g., 1 Timothy 4:10; Titus 2:11.

25 Oberlinner suggests that it was the author of these letters who added the self-giving
formula of verse 6a to the one-God acclamation of verse 5 and that he did so in order to
emphasize that the ultimate significance of Jesus’ death lies in the fact that it reveals God’s
saving will (“Heilswillens Gottes,” 203-5). The same point concerning the significance of
Jesus’ death emerges, though, with the usual assumption that verses 5-63 were already a
unified piece of tradition when the author incorporated them into his argument. See also
Klaus Wengst, Christologiscbe Eormeln und Lieder des Urchristentums , 2d ed. (Giitersloh:
Giitersloher Verlag, 1972), 72-73.

26 It has been suggested that these words were also part of the quoted fragment (see, e.g.,
Martin Dibelius and Hans Conzelmann, The Pastoral Epistles [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1972],
41), and they are printed as such in the 26th and 27th editions of Novum Testamentum
Graece. The words Koapots ihCois, however, reflect the author’s vocabulary (see 1 Tim. 6:15;
Titus 1:3), and the thought of verse 6b is continued seamlessly in verse 7.

27 Hanson, e.g., calls it “very obscure” ( Pastoral Epistles , 69).

28 Hasler, “Epiphanie,” 205.

32°

THE PRINCETON SEMINARY BULLETIN

Jesus’ death. His death not only had “ransoming” power, as the tradition
confirms, but it also — and perhaps especially— had testamentary power, as
this author affirms. That is, Jesus’ self-giving death witnessed to, and thus
revealed, God’s saving will and plan at the time that God decreed. As an
important corollary to this, the author notes elsewhere that the God whose
saving will and plan is thus revealed “is faithful . . . and cannot deny himself ”
(2 Tim. 2:13). That is, the Christ event (understood broadly) attests to God’s
saving nature and plan, and the author affirms God’s fidelity to that nature
and plan.

This epiphany was also, of course, a saving intervention. It abolished death
(2 Tim. 1:10) and introduced a mediator whose own death functions as a
ransom for all (1 Tim. 2:5-6).

IQ. The Next Epiphany

Because the author understands the first epiphany to be not simply a
revelation of Christ himself, or of God, but a revelation of God’s saving will,
this revelation is not limited to the Christ event itself. As Windisch and others
have recognized, these letters also affirm that this saving will is revealed
through proclamation — first Paul’s and then the church’s.29 That is, like the
Christ event, proclamation is an epiphanic event (as this author understands
the concept): it reveals and actualizes God’s will to save. This is already
indicated in 1 Timothy 2:7, the verse that follows immediately after the
interpretation of Christ’s death as a testamentary, that is, a revelatory, event:
“for this [that is, for testimony to God’s saving will] I was appointed a herald
and an apostle . . . , a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. ”3° Paul’s
appointment was for the purpose of continuing the testimony to, and thus the
revelation of, God’s saving will through the proclamation of the gospel.

The identification of both the Christ event and the proclamation of it as
successive revelatory events is explicit in 2 Timothy 1:96-10. 1 have cited the
text twice, but it is easy to miss the striking revelatory language of this pas-
sage: “This grace was given to us [by God] in Christ Jesus before the ages
began, but it has now been revealed [4)avepa>0eicrav] through the appearing

29 Windisch, “Zur Christologie,” 227; Hasler, “Epiphanie,” 202; Donelson, Pseudepigra-

phy’ I34' r ,

3° Some argue that verse 6b refers only to Paul’s testimony to the Christ event, yielding
the translation found in the NRSV: “This was attested at the right time”— i.e., by Paul.
George W. Knight is probably correct, though, when he says, “The solution is probably to
be found in a both-and rather than an either-or understanding,” that is, the testimony
mentioned in verse 6b refers both to the Christ event and to Paul’s proclamation
(1 Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992], 124).

A PLETHORA OF EPIPHANIES

32 1

[8ia tt|s em4>ave£as] of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and
brought life and immortality to light [(J>amcravTo<;] through the gospel.” Two
things are described here in identical ways. The first event, the Christ event,
reveals God’s saving nature and grace. The participle 4>avepo)0etaav and the
noun em(j>dveia emphasize the epiphanic character of this event. The second
event, the proclamation of the gospel, again brings to light this salvation (that
is, life and immortality). A different word is used here — <j>om£eiv, not
4>avepow— but it too belongs to the vocabulary of revelation. 31 The appear-
ing of Christ and the proclamation of the gospel both have the same
revelatory function and point to the same transcendent truth— salvation as the
eternal purpose and gift of God.

In Titus 1:2-3 the revelation through the gospel is described in more detail:

. . in the hope of eternal life that God, who never lies, promised before the
ages began — in due time he revealed his word through the proclamation with
which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior.” In many
ways this passage is parallel to 2 Timothy 1:9-10, with one significant
difference. In 2 Timothy the saving grace of God, given before the ages began
('TTpo xpdvtov auovuov) is revealed (cj)avepa>0eicrav) through the incarnation.
Here the promise of salvation made before the ages began (Ttpo xpdvcov
aiwviwv) is revealed (etjxxveptocrev) through the proclamation entrusted to
Paul. 32 This passage thus confirms that the Christ event and proclamation are
construed by this author as parallel epiphanic events. This has a significant
corollary: As long as the revelatory aspect of the Christ event is emphasized,
that event and the proclamation of it are functionally equivalent.33

IV. Other Epiphanic Events

This recognition is very helpful, as far as it goes, but I think the influence of
this epiphany pattern is even more extensive. If, for example, the proclama-
tion of the gospel is an extension of, or repetition of, the epiphany of the
Christ event, the proclaimers become themselves agents of epiphany. Then,
just as it is important to affirm God’s faithfulness in the context of the first
epiphany, it is also important in the context of the next one to affirm the
faithfulness of these agents. Paul, of course, is the first of these agents: “I am
grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he
judged me faithful and appointed me to his service” (1 Tim. 1:12). Paul is also

31 Cf. 1 Corinthians 4:5, where 4>om£ei,v and (fxxrepow are clearly synonymous.

32 Philip H. Towner correctly identifies the Xoyos (word) of v. 3 as the promise of eternal
life mentioned in v. 2 (1-2 Timothy and Titus [Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1994], 220-2 1).

33 See also Hasler, “Epiphanie,” 205; Oberlinner, “Heilswillens Gottes,” 206.

THE PRINCETON SEMINARY BULLETIN

322

instructed to entrust the gospel to other “faithful people” who will serve as
agents after him (2 Tim. 2:2). More importantly, the letters insist that Paul’s
role as “herald, apostle, and teacher” (1 Tim. 2:7; 2 Tim. 1:11) was itself part
of God’s preexistent-but-now-revealed plan of salvation (2 Tim. 1:9). The
author even affirms that Paul’s life — that is, his conversion— reveals God’s
saving will: “The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ
Jesus came into the world to save sinners — of whom I am the foremost. But
for that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus
Christ might display the utmost patience, making me an example to those
who would come to believe in him for eternal life” (1 Tim. 1:15-16). The
Greek word used here is evSei^Tai, but it has the same semantic range as
emckctveiv and should also be considered part of the epiphany vocabulary of
these letters. Thus Paul is not only the proclaimer— by God’s plan, command,
and will — of the gospel that reveals God’s saving will. His dramatic conver-
sion also has an epiphanic quality insofar as it reveals, not simply to him but
especially to others, God’s saving grace embodied in the utmost patience
(p.aKpo0up,Ca) of Christ.

The words and lives of other church leaders are also an important aspect of
the wider epiphany scheme. They are agents of epiphany insofar as they
proclaim — and thus make manifest— God’s saving intent. Their behavior,
their instructions, and their exhortations, however, also contribute to the
“epiphany,” for “epiphany,” as Liihrmann has demonstrated, includes not
only revelation but also the active component of saving intervention. We need
to consider what shape “saving intervention” can — and must— take.

It is necessary at this point to note that for this author salvation is both gift
and achievement.^ That is, the author retains a strong Pauline message of
grace poured out “not because of any works of righteousness that we had
done” (Titus 3:5). At the same time, though, the believer attains salvation by
responding in obedience through very specific and prescribed patterns of
behavior. Both gift and attainment are necessary, and saving intervention, to
be effectively salvific, should address both spheres of the salvation process.
We have seen that the first epiphany, the Christ event, is saving intervention
insofar as it alters the cosmic order to effect grace. The author also affirms
that this event intervenes in the arena of human behavior: “The grace of
God,” says the author, the grace that is the basic content and gift of the
revelation, “has appeared, bringing salvation to all and training us to live lives
that are self-controlled, upright, and godly” (Titus 2:11-12). This suggests
that the first epiphany provides “saving intervention” in two ways: it provides

n See Young, Theology, 57.

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323

the gift of a ransom and the training necessary for the attainment of saving
virtue. That statement (“grace . . . trains us”) is too abstract, though, to
provide by itself much insight into the way the author understands this
epiphanic “training” to occur. The author does not appeal with any regularity
to the Holy Spirit as the vehicle of this training, though it is perhaps
presupposed, ?? and Christ himself does not seem to remain actively present
between the two epiphanies.?6 What these letters do stress, however, is the
moral teaching and upright behavior of church leaders, which, I suggest,
constitute in this author’s mind a second-level epiphanic intervention. In
cooperation with the Holy Spirit and as agents of the pedagogical function of
divine grace, church leaders not only make present the epiphany of the
incarnation through their proclamation; through their teaching and exhorta-
tion they also provide the ethical information and concrete intervention that
enables the moral progress that brings salvation; and through their lives they
model that moral progress (i Tim. 4:15-16).

There is one final but, I think, highly significant aspect of the epiphany
concept that percolates through these letters. I have shown that the primary
components of emc^aveia, as this author understands it, are (1) the revelation
of God’s saving intent and grace through the Christ event and through
Christian proclamation and (2) the active intervention that takes place on one
level through the soteriological consequences of Christ’s incarnation, death,
and resurrection and, on another level, through the teaching, exhortation, and
example of faithful church leaders. Once that is established, the conclusion
seems near at hand that these pseudonymous letters themselves are epiphanic
vehicles.

The Christ event reveals God’s eternal saving purpose and grace, the
proclamation reveals God’s reliable promise of eternal life, and the letters
reveal God’s “sure” plan of salvation. In fact, this epistolary epiphany is
emphasized by the formulaic phrase moros 6 Xoyos (NRSV: “The saying is
sure”), which appears five times in these letters to attest to the reliability of
the revelation: “Christ came into the world to save sinners: faithful/reliable is
the word!” (1 Tim. 1:15). “A woman will be saved through childbearing,

35 Only in Titus 3:5 is the Holy Spirit mentioned as the “divine power to effect those
things that lead to salvation” (Young, Theology, 69); cf. 1 Timothy 4:1, where the Spirit is
linked with prophecy, and 2 Timothy 1:14, where the author links the Spirit with the work
of the ordained church leader (see also 2 Tim. 1:6).

3* Donelson insists that the epiphany Christology relegates Jesus “to two appearances,
one in the past and one in the future, with no present contact” ( Pseudepigrapby , 153). This
seems confirmed byj. A. Allan’s study showing that the “in Christ” formula in these letters
does not retain the Pauline sense of mystical identification with Christ (“The ‘In Christ’
Formula in the Pastoral Epistles,” New Testament Studies 10 [1963]:! 15-2 1).

THE PRINCETON SEMINARY BULLETIN

324

provided they continue in faith and love: faithful/reliable is the word!” (i
Tim. 3:1). 37 “Godliness . . . holds promise for both the present life and the life
to come: faithful/reliable is the word!” (1 Tim. 4:8). “If we have died with
him, we will also live with him: faithful/reliable is the word!” (2 Tim. 2:11).
“God has poured out on us the Holy Spirit, so that having been justified by
grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life:
faithful/reliable is the word!” (Titus 3:8). Moreover, the letters serve as
vehicles of intervention, for just as the grace revealed in the Christ event trains
us to lead the godly lives that result in salvation, and the exhortations and
teaching of the church leaders do the same, so too the letters are filled with
instructions on the moral life that is necessary to attain salvation.

By presenting the Christ event as an event that reveals God’s saving will and
pedagogical grace, the author allows a number of other things to be
understood as epiphanic and thus to be linked functionally to the Christ event.
Proclamation, Paul’s conversion, the lives of church leaders, and the letters
themselves all reveal — as the Christ event did — God’s saving plan. And if the
Christ event was the cosmic intervention that abolished death and redeemed
us from iniquity, it is particularly through these church leaders and these
letters that quotidian intervention occurs in the form of tutelage in the
behavior that yields salvation.

None of these individual points is antithetical to views found in Paul’s own
letters, but the epiphany framework is not present there to interpret and
reinforce them, and the very richness of Paul’s thought dilutes their impact.
The fox, it has been said, knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big
thing.38 The author of these letters is a hedgehog to Paul’s more christologi-
cally diverse fox, and he knows one big thing: God’s saving grace has been
manifested in Christ, through the gospel, in Paul’s life, in the words and deeds
of the ordained clergy, and through these letters themselves. Outside of this
structure lie speculation and disaster; within it, truth and salvation.

This is a cogent and consistent theological system, but there are obvious
dangers here. Presenting the Christ event and the proclamation and exhorta-
tion of church leaders as functionally equivalent reinforces the clerical
hierarchy that is evident elsewhere in these letters. 3? Suggesting that the

37 Though all recent English translations and most recent commentaries associate the
phrase “Faithful is the word” with the statement about the office of bishop that follows, the
phrase is used elsewhere in these letters always to emphasize a statement about salvation.
That suggests that it should be linked, as here, with the comment on women’s salvation in
2:15 (see Dibelius and Conzelmann, Pastoral Epistles, 51).

3s The saying is attributed to various people, the earliest being Archilochus, a seventh-
century B.C.E. Athenian.

3’ See Young, Theology, 146.

A PLETHORA OF EPIPHANIES

325

letters themselves stand within the trajectory of epiphanic events reinforces
the message projected by their pseudonymity: These are authoritative
documents whose messages of salvation and of exclusion from salvation, of
submission and silence and subordination, are to be taken with utmost
seriousness. By taking these letters into its canon, the church has, of course,
confirmed this. What I am suggesting is that the letters themselves contain
the seeds of this suggestion, quite apart from the disputed verse about the
inspiration of scripture (2 Tim. 3:16). On the other side of the ledger, the
pattern also suggests a norm by which to judge the words and deeds of church
leaders and even biblical texts: to be truly epiphanic they must reveal, as the
Christ event did, that God’s saving grace embraces all of humankind.

Health, Disease, and
Salvation in African
American Experience

by James H. Evans, Jr.

James H. Evans, Jr. is President and
Robert K. Davies Professor of Systematic
Theology, Colgate Rochester Divinity
School/Bexley Hall/Crozer Theological
Seminaiy. His most recent book is We
Have Been Believers: An African-
American Systematic Theology (199 2).
This address, the fifth of his Stone Lectures,
was delivered in the Main Lounge, Mackay
Campus Center, on February 15, 1996.

FOR MANY people in the African American community, life in the contem-
porary world should carry a warning similar to that found on tobacco
products. It can be hazardous to your health. The threats to the health of
African Americans are deeply rooted in the social structures of Western
culture. Those threats are obviously manifested in the ubiquity of advertising
for tobacco products and alcoholic beverages in many African American
communities. (However, the problem is more deeply rooted than the images
of Joe Camel selling cigarettes and a bull selling malt liquor.) The healing and
wholeness of black people is obstructed by powerful forces in American
society that are difficult to isolate and even more difficult to resist. The
tremendous growth in medical technology, scientific advances in treatments,
and new discoveries in various medical fields have complicated the issue of
what it means to be healthy in our culture. Yet for African Americans the issue
of their physical health is inseparable from the ravages of racism upon their
humanity. There is a deep suspicion of the medical delivery system among
many black people in the United States. This suspicion is rooted in the
collective memory of incidents like the infamous Tuskegee experiment.
Beginning in the 1930s more than four hundred black men were either
infected with syphilis or simply diagnosed and left untreated. The disease was
allowed to progress in these men even though effective treatments were
readily available. The sole purpose of this experiment was to chart the
progress of the disease until the subjects died. This experiment was conducted
within the boundaries of the law and was halted in 1972 as a result of public
outcry. The horror of the willingness to sacrifice the health and lives of these
black men for the sake of advancing medical science is exceeded only by the
insult of being consistently denied access to the medical delivery systems.
(The historical experience of being denied access to “white only” hospitals
during legal segregation has been overlaid with the contemporary experience
of being denied quality health care.) The nightmare of the Tuskegee experi-
ment is the backdrop for the persistent rumors that AIDS is the result of a

HEALTH, DISEASE, AND SALVATION

327

genocidal plot in which the virus was artificially developed and intentionally
introduced into the black population in Africa, the Caribbean, and the United
States. It is less important that irrefutable substantiation of this rumor would
be difficult to produce and more important that African Americans often feel
vulnerable and live in an environment of fear and trepidation. This in and of
itself is not healthy.

One of the tasks of ministry is to advance the spiritual health of the
Christian community. Ministers are called to be “physicians of the soul.”
However, for people of African descent one cannot separate the health of the
soul from the health of the whole person. The health of the whole person may
include but is not the same as the full function of all the biological systems in
the physical body. The health of the whole person simply suggests that we are
more than flesh and bone; that we are our bodies and more. There are other
religious and even Christian groups that harbor their own suspicion and
ambivalence toward modern Western medicine (e.g., Christian Scientists).
The health problems of black folk, however, are deeply rooted in their
inclusion and marginalization within Western culture and societies.

The purpose of this lecture is to address the notion of health in African
American experience as a theological problem. By exposing the religious
underpinnings of this issue, insight might be provided that will enhance the
work of those who minister to African Americans. The basic assumption is
that this is not a problem of medical ethics but something much more
fundamental. The question of who receives quality medical care in our society
is, at heart, a question of who shall be saved? The theological issue here is
soteriology. The language of soteriology is almost never used in discussing
this issue because that language is associated with narrow theological discus-
sions of sin. When the concept of health is discussed, it is most often
juxtaposed with the concept of illness. However, it is my thesis that the
concept of health, when referring to black people, is discussed in muted tones
and within the narrative framework of a rhetoric of disease.

We will begin with a brief examination of the most animated public
discussion of health in recent years: the debate on the Health Security Act
proposed in the early 1990s. The truncated character of this debate suggests
that the deeper issues remain unaddressed. A conceptual overview of the
major scholarly discussions of disease in the field of medical anthropology will
provide the context for a brief examination of this concept in the experience of
black people in Western cultural systems. It will be important to note how the
Bible speaks to the notions of health and disease, before concluding with a
proposal for revising our theological understanding of salvation.

328 THE PRINCETON SEMINARY BULLETIN

I. The Health-Care Debate: More Than a Question of Ethics

In the early 1990s the debate over health care in the United States was
initiated by the realization that many of the nation’s social problems were
actually health problems. Tens of millions of people lacked either the
resources to obtain quality medical care or the insurance coverage to
guarantee access. While a significant portion (14%) of the national gross
product was spent annually on health care, a large percentage of the
population found such care beyond its reach. The response to this problem
was the introduction of the 1993 Health Security Plan by the President of the
United States. The aim of this plan was to guarantee that every American
citizen had access to quality medical care. For our purposes, the details of the
plan and its relative merits or faults are less important than the way in which
the issues were rhetorically framed. The introduction of the notion of
universal coverage spawned four major questions, but in the final analysis
those questions left unaddressed the fundamental issue.

First, the idea of universal health care presented a political/economic
question. “How can we provide universal access to quality health care and at
the same time control spiraling costs?” Here the issue is one of determining
the principles, in terms of money and power, by which this commodity called
health care is allocated. Second, it presented an ethical question. “Is not
health care a fundamental good to which each American citizen is entitled?”1
Or is the case, as former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop put it, that “what’s
good for each American is not necessarily good for all Americans and what’s
good for all Americans is not necessarily good for each American”?2 3 Here the
issue is one of determining whether health care is a fundamental good or a
relative good; whether it is primarily an individual possession or a community
possession. At this point the public conversation reached its most heated and
unproductive stage. It simply pitted individual rights against group responsi-
bilities, and given the propensity toward individualism in U.S. society, the
conversation was doomed to futility. Third, the debate on health care in the
United States presented a cultural question. “Is not the issue of universal
entitlement to health care shaped by a Darwinistic bias toward the survival of
the fittest amidst the inexorable forces of the marketplace? ”3 The issue here is
whether the idea of universal health-care coverage is antithetical to our

1 See William F. May, “The Ethical Foundations of Health Care Reform,” The Christian
Century 3, no. 18 (June 1-8, 1994): 573; and Allen D. Verhey, “The Health Security Act:
Policy and Story,” The Christian Century 3, no. 3 (January 26, 1994): 74.

1 “The Ethics of Health Care: An Interview with C. Everett Koop,” The Christian Centuty
3, no. 3 (January 26, 1994): 78.

3 Verhey, “The Plealth Security Act,” 76.

HEALTH , DISEASE, AND SALVATION

329

closely held notions of what it means to be an American. The fourth question
emerging out of the debate was a moral one. Quentin D. Young, a physician,
offered these reflections on the formation of that moral question in his
experience at Cook County Hospital in Chicago:

Whatever there was, County had. And you see the most disenfranchised,
the most impoverished, the wretched of the earth. I was just a middle-class,
kind of liberal person, but it became clear that a doctor at County could
adopt one of two philosophies — and the staff was about evenly divided
along these lines. About half the doctors felt that they were witnessing
divine justice, a heavenly— or Darwinian — retribution for evil ways, for
excesses in drugs, in booze and everything else. Patients came to the
hospital with their breath laden with alcohol, with needle marks on their
arms, their babies illegitimate and all the rest. The other half decided that
here was the congealed oppression of our society— people whose skin color,
economic position, place of birth, family size, you name it— operated to
give them a very short stick. When you saw them medically and psychologi-
cally in that broken, oppressed state, it was clear that you had to address
issues of justice, not just medical treatment. I had to decide which of these
value systems was fair and just, and which one I could live with. It seemed to
me the first approach is judgmental and harsh and simplistic. Taking the
alternative view gave me a shot at being a part of the human race.4

Although the cultural and moral questions had the potential to open public
discourse to the deeper theological questions involved, that potential was
unrealized because of the absence of significant theological analysis and
because the underlying question centered around who would take care of the
poor. The ethical debate on health care stalled because the problem was
subtly recast as a problem of the poor. Since the end of the mass immigration
of persons from Europe early in the twentieth century, the poor has become a
way of referring to those persons who are marginal to society. While various
ethnic groups have and will continue to move in and out of this category, the
term the poor has always been, in many important ways, synonymous with
black people. As Toni Morrison notes in her brilliant essay Playing in the
Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, black people have historically
been a cipher in our national discourse.5 It is my contention that within the
deep narrative structures and beneath the broad cultural connotations of

4 “Health Reform and Civic Survival: An Interview with Quentin D. Young,” The
Christian Century 3, no. 31 (November 2, 1994): 1014.

5 (New York: Random House, 1993).

33°

THE PRINCETON SEMINARY BULLETIN

health in our society lies a rhetoric of disease. Unless this rhetoric is critically
examined it will be difficult, if not impossible, to understand the meaning of
health in our times and why human wholeness has proven to be so allusive for
the Christian community.

II. A Conceptual Overview of Health and Disease

Concern with health and disease has always been a part of human
experience. In every age and culture, life and well-being have been threatened
by those conditions we call disease. Disease is as old as life itself “because
disease is nothing else but life, life under changed circumstances.”6 * It is
precisely the different ways in which the forces that control those circum-
stances of human life are construed which result in the major medical theories
and the concomitant views of health and disease.

Among the oldest understandings of health and disease is that of ancient
Egypt. The Egyptians developed a sophisticated understanding of human
biological systems. This knowledge enabled them to develop the embalming
processes for which they are famous. Beyond their knowledge of human
anatomy, they understood the processes by which matter decomposed. They
developed the knowledge to delay or virtually halt the process of decomposi-
tion, which they referred to as putrefaction. This notion of putrefaction was
the basis of their understanding of health and disease. Disease occurred when
nutriments were taken into the body but not absorbed. These nutriments
remained in the organs, were warmed by the natural heat of the body, and
underwent putrefaction, which resulted in disease. 7 The Egyptian notion of
health is the reverse of disease. Health is restored and maintained by ridding
the body of these residues. This was the aim of medical practice in ancient
Egypt. In spite of the attempts of some scholars to claim the contrary, ancient
Egyptian medicine had a rational basis. This rational basis and many of its
fundamental ideas were the legacy of ancient Egypt to Greece.8

The most influential theory of health and disease in Western culture is
derived from the ancient Greeks. As far back as the time of Homer, the
Greeks were concerned about physical health. Health was a highly desirable
state, and illness was a sign of the presence of evil. Homeric medicine made a
distinction between what we would refer to as disease and illness. Illness

6 Henry E. Sigerist, A History of Medicine, 2 vols. (New York: Oxford University Press,
I951-61), 1:38.

7j. B. deC. M. Saunders, The Transitions from Ancient Egyptian to Greek Medicine
(Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1963), 21.

8 Many of the ideas that made their way into that body of works called the Hippocratic
Collection bore striking similarity to medical ideas from ancient Egypt.

33 1

HEALTH, DISEASE, AND SALVATION

basically referred to those threats to health that persons encountered on the
battlefield. To be ill was essentially to be wounded. This is why The Illiad and
other Homeric poems so vividly recount the horrors of war. On the other
hand, disease was inflicted by the gods. Zeus, Apollo, and Artemis could show
their displeasure by sending infirmity to plague their human subjects.9
Homeric physicians refused to treat persons with diseases, limiting their
practice to those wounded in battle. Following the Homeric period, Greek
notions of health and disease fell into two fairly distinct traditions.

The first and dominant tradition developed in the emergent philosophical
schools. In this philosophical tradition, health was defined as the state of
balance or equilibrium within the body; that is, those substances that make up
the body must be maintained in specific proportions and in specific relation-
ship to each other. Disease occurred when this balance or equilibrium was
upset. Both Plato and Aristotle discussed health and disease in their attempts
to describe the nature of human and cosmic reality. Likewise, Pythagoras, the
mathematician, related health and disease to his view of reality. For
Pythagoras, all of reality could be explained in numerical terms and existed in
an ideal mathematical harmony. Therefore, “harmony, perfect equilibrium,
perfect balance, were the goal of the Pythagorean life and also the key to
health.”10 Disease occurred when that delicate balance was upset, and the cure
was to restore that balance through diet and, surprisingly, music. (Of course,
this view of health as balance and disease as imbalance was also characteristic
of other ancient cultures, in particular, the pre-Columbian societies of the
Maya. Like many other philosophical ideas, the presence in Greek thought of
this view of health and disease does not necessarily prove its origin in Greek
thought.)

The dominant figure in Greek medical thought was Hippocrates. Although
some scholars have argued that he never really existed, it is generally believed
that he was born about 460 B.C. on the island of Cos and died about 370 in
Thessaly.11 Hippocrates is credited with bringing the power of unrelenting
rationality to the practice of medicine. He is best known for the body of
writing that bears his name, the Hippocratic Collection, a massive work that
systematically sets forth a significant portion of the medical knowledge of the
day. Although it is not likely that Hippocrates wrote the entire corpus, its
main ideas are attributed to him. Its major topics are anatomy, physiology,
general pathology, therapy, diagnosis, prognosis, surgery, gynecology, obstet-

9 Sigerist, A History of Medicine, 2:20-2 1 .

10 Ibid., 97.

11 Albert S. Lyons and R. Joseph Petrucelli II, Medicine: An Illustrated History (New York:
Abradale, 1978), 207.

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THE PRINCETON SEMINARY BULLETIN

rics, mental illness, and ethics. In these treatises, the foundations of modem
Western medicine were laid. Hippocrates is also remembered for the
Hippocratic Oath12 and for the method that bears his name. The Hippocratic
method refers to the unrelenting rationalism of Greek medical thought.
Eschewing religious and magical explanations for illness and disease, this
method was built on four major principles: observe all; study the patient
rather than the disease; evaluate honestly; and assist nature. With Hip-
pocrates, the physician is the scientist, medicine is the mastery of nature, and
health and disease are no longer matters of mystery.

The second and subordinate tradition in Greek medical thought deals more
specifically with the persistent notion that disease was connected with the
wrath of the gods. When the Homeric physicians would not treat persons
with internal diseases, they went to various cultic priests who helped the
patients to placate the offended deities. Even during and after the time of
Hippocrates, persons sought alternative causal explanations of health and
disease. This religious system of medical thought centered around the
mythical figure of Asclepius, the Greek god of healing. Numerous elaborate
temples and a sophisticated system of medical treatment evolved from the
adoration of Asclepius, beginning about the sixth century B.C. This medical
system existed side by side with the practice of secular medicine in Greece,
and the temples functioned as hospitals. Since the cause of disease in religious
medical thought was the wrath of the gods, health could only be restored by
appealing to the god of healing. In Asclepian temples, patients underwent a
series of treatments, including dietary prescriptions and ritual bathing.
However, the most important component of the healing, called incubation,
involved creating an atmosphere in which the patient fell into a sleep-like
state. During the night the patient would be visited by a priest dressed like the
god Asclepius. The priest, along with the temple assistants, would administer
a series of treatments that included traditional and secular methods. In this
system the cure took place in the patient’s dreams. In one important text in

12 “In summary, this famous testament contains both affirmations and prohibitions. It
begins with pledges to the gods and to teachers as well as future students. The prohibitions
are against harm to the patient, deadly drugs, abortion, surgery, sexual congress with the
patient or his household, and revelation of secrets discovered while ministering to the sick.
The duties are to act with purity and holiness. The Oath is the most widely known
document associated with the name of Hippocrates. Graduating medical students for
centuries have stood to swear to its provisions (either unaltered or with modifications). Yet
it is probably not a part of the Hippocratic teachings, was not in all likelihood sworn by
physicians on Cos, and is at variance with some of the principles and practices of
Hippocrates” (Ibid., 115).

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HEALTH, DISEASE, AND SALVATION

the field of medical history, the following observation is offered:

Clearly the most important ingredient in the effectiveness of the temple
cure was faith. The suppliant’s belief in the efficacy of the god was aided by
accounts of cures on tablets and probably by oral descriptions given by
temple assistants. . . . The religious and spiritual atmosphere was inspiring,
and the appearance and ministrations of the priest acting as Asclepios, with
his accompanying retinue, were doubtless impressive. ‘3

The persistence of religious medicine in ancient Greece was due to some of
the dramatic cures accomplished there. However, a contributing factor was
the refusal of secular physicians to treat what they thought were hopeless
cases. For these patients there was nowhere else to turn for the restoration of
the balance that constituted true health.

While Greek ideas of medical practice set the course of Western thought,
four other major notions of health and disease were articulated in subsequent
centuries. In the naturalistic view, health is defined as an appropriate lifespan
that ends in natural death. Disease is the interruption of this natural process.
The tragedy of disease is not that it may result in death but that it interrupts
the natural processes of life. Philosophically speaking, disease is a permanent
historical phenomenon that signals the historical existence of humanity.
Disease takes a natural and historical course over time, just as human
experience does. In this sense, the history of disease is part of human history.
Nevertheless, disease is also a sign that nature has been violated. This view is
most clearly articulated by the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
According to Rousseau humanity enjoyed perfect health in its primitive,
paradisiacal state. Disease was the result of civilization. However, it was not
merely the changed environment that brought about disease but the fact that
in civilization, humanity strove for more than was needed for life. This
journey from a natural state to the mastery of the universe resulted in pain and
disease. 14 In the religious view, as we have already noted, disease is associated
with divine punishment, sin, and impurity. In the moral view, the source of
disease is the inner struggle of humanity to control primitive impulses and
desires. In Freudian terms, as human beings seek to limit aggression, unful-
filled desires often result in an assortment of maladies. Here disease is the
result of sin defined as transgression against internal moral laws rather than

o Ibid., 183.

14 VValther Riese, The Conception of Disease: Its History, Its Versions and Its Nature (New
York: Philosophical Library, 1953), 1 1.

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THE PRINCETON SEMINARY BULLETIN

against the external rule of the gods or against the laws of nature. In the social
view , the roots of disease are found in the living conditions of modern
industrial life. Health is restored by the provision of adequate sanitation,
inoculation, and education. In this case, diseases are social “not because of the
social nature of their causes, but because of their social implications. ”‘5

The Greek system of medicine has continued to define Western medicine
at the level of rational thought and scientific practice. Other medical systems
have emerged, all with their distinctive economies of health and disease, for
example, homeopathy, hydrotherapy, phrenology, osteopathy, chiropractic,
and Christian Science. Some of these systems have stood over and against the
dominant medical paradigm, while others have almost merged with it.
However, discussions of the philosophical connotations of health and disease
have lost their centrality in medical thought with the emergence of germ
theory and the role of bacteria in the causal explanation of sickness. Yet, the
notions of health and disease continue to function in our culture as rhetorical
markers that help us to define our reality and to make sense of that which we
do not fully understand.

Several important moments in the development of the rhetoric of disease in
Western culture merit brief mention here. First is the discovery by Rudolph
Virchow (1821-1902), a pioneer in the field of pathology in European
medicine, that what we call disease is not one thing but a series of symptoms
for which we have no other explanation. Disease is not caused by outside
agents acting on the body but is the result of the response or lack thereof by
the body to internal or external changes. Disease, in the view of Virchow, “is
but a figurative, imaginative and abstract unity ... it remains an abstraction or
pure thought , stimulated , however , by the concrete reality of observable phenomena
and , above all , not denied by them.”16 The significance of this insight is that the
difference between health and disease is blurred and the criteria for distinguish-
ing between them become quite relative. Therefore, disease becomes a label, a
rhetorical convention, rather than a solution to a problem. H. Tristam
Engelhardt, Jr. notes that “disease language is complex. . . . Further, disease
language is performative; it creates social reality.”'7 This purely formal
definition of disease makes it possible to fill the category with a variety of
content. For example, disease can take on a primarily social meaning. This has

'5 Ibid., 72.

16 Ibid., 62.

'7 “Understanding Faith Traditions in the Context of Health Care: Philosophy as a
Guide for the Perplexed,” in Health/Medicine and the Faith Traditions: An Inquiry into
Religion and Medicine, ed. Martin E. Marty and Kenneth L. Vaux (Philadelphia: Fortress,
1982), 174-75.

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335

been true of syphilis throughout the centuries. As a disease, it has no timeless
meaning.18 It has been a symbol for the defilement of Europe by so-called
pagan cultures, and it has been the symbol for the defilement of non-Western
cultures by Europeans. Further, the development of the notion of disease as a
rhetorical category makes it possible to use it to refer to that which we do not
understand and/or by which we feel threatened, for example, people of other
races. On one hand, racial difference was sometimes admired because certain
racial groups seemed resistant to certain diseases. This romantic view was
applied to European Jews in the early nineteenth century.1? More often,
however, the rhetorical category of disease made it possible to identify certain
racial groups as threats to public health. In the 1930s German National
Socialist propaganda associated Jews with the Black Plague. Some medical
historians linked Africa with leprosy. Disease became a convenient conceptual
category within which to couch a purely irrational racism. The construction
of a rhetoric of disease was enhanced by a debate on the nature of contagion.
Humankind has always recognized that disease can be spread from person to
person. However, this fact has often been overshadowed by the belief that
there were divine or cosmic reasons for its spread. In the eighteenth century in
the United States and Europe, a battle emerged between those persons who
believed that disease was contagious and those who believed that disease was
caused by environmental changes or internal bodily changes. The contagion-
ists emerged victorious in this struggle, thereby enforcing the principle of
quarantine. Disease as rhetorical device proved quite effective in buttressing
arguments for racial segregation, isolation, and finally, genocide, or ethnic
cleansing. This rhetoric has had a significant impact on the experience of
African Americans and has been especially potent when linked with religious
discourse.

ID. Health and Disease in African American Experience

One of the ways to understand the complexities of African American
experience is to examine the ways in which the rhetoric of health and disease
has been employed in setting limits and conscribing life chances. This
rhetoric has taken a shape peculiar to the culture of the United States. Its
roots, however, like those of many other ideological forces in the nation, lie in
Europe. Within European culture the rhetoric of disease developed with

,R H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr., “The Social Meanings of Illness,” Second Opinion 1 (1986):
27-

ly See Benjamin Ward Richardson, Diseases of Modem Life (Union Square, NM: Berming-
ham & Co., 1982).

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distinct racial overtones. One of the more celebrated examples of this was the
pornographic fascination of the European medical-scientific community with
the physiognomy of Sarah Bartmann. Sarah Bartmann was a woman of the
Hottentot tribe in South Africa who was exhibited as the “Hottentot Venus”
throughout Europe for more than twenty-five years. Large European
audiences gathered to view her naked body, which was of such scientific
interest because of the size of her buttocks and her sexual organs. Even after
her premature death in Paris in 1815, the fascination with her body continued
as her private parts were preserved for viewing and study. Her black body was
sacrificed in the interest of others. This account is important because the
obviously sexual fascination of her captors was camouflaged by the rhetoric of
disease. That is, it was argued that her body and the difference that she
displayed was the result of disease. Therefore, the study of her body was
critical to the health of the general public. Black women and black sexuality
were related to disease. This is the reason for the intermittent European
fascination with and aversion to black sexuality.

The rhetoric of disease was a critical factor in the maintenance of American
slavery. Although the argument that Africans were diseased was not the
primary reason given for their enslavement, it was instrumental in the
maintenance of the system of chattel slavery. One writer notes that “there is a
long history of perceiving this [black] skin color as the result of some
pathology. The favorite theory, which reappears with some frequency in the
early nineteenth century, is that the skin color and physiognomy of the black
are the result of congenital leprosy.”20

In the view of Benjamin Rush, a major architect of the rhetoric of disease,
the greatest threat to public health was the presence of black people.21 In
scholarly papers Rush argued that the black skin of African Americans was the
result of a form of leprosy. Other marks of this diseased state were the size and
shape of their lips and noses and the texture of their hair. Interestingly, Rush
argued that this disease does not impair the physical health of black people
because it was not infectious within the race. However, he notes it is highly

20 Sander L. Gilman, Difference and Pathology: Stereotypes of Sexuality, Race, and Madness
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985), 101.

21 Ronald Takaki, Iron Cages: Race and Culture in Nineteenth Century America (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1990), 16-17. Rush was a founder of the Pennsylvania Society for
Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, a member of the Continental Congress, a signer of the
Declaration of Independence, an influential educator, and a philosopher of republican
ideology. Moreover, he was a doctor of medicine, surgeon-general in the Revolutionary
army, professor of the theory and practice of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania,
and the head of the Pennsylvania Hospital’s ward for the insane. Author of seminal books
on the diseases of the mind, he would later be regarded as the Father of American
Psychiatry.

HEALTH , DISEASE, AND SALVATION

337

contagious, and it is quite possible for whites to become infected. He reports
that “a white woman in North Carolina not only acquired a dark color, but
several of the features of a Negro, by marrying and living with a black
husband”22 (There is no mention, curiously enough, of whether this physical
change was observed in white men who cohabitated with black women.) The
contagious nature of the disease of blackness required that black people be
quarantined. Rush argued that it was necessary to separate the races for
reasons of public health. The creation of huge racial leper colonies was only a
temporary measure. The final remedy, according to Rush, was to cure black
people of their blackness. Only by turning their skin white could people of
African descent be healed of their infirmity. Rush recommended the ancient
practice of bleeding, or purging, to accomplish this task.

The rhetoric of disease was not always associated with the physical color of
the African’s skin. Black people were also thought to suffer from a variety of
mental diseases:

One of the interesting sidelights of [this issue] was triggered by the sixth
national census of 1840. When the results were published in 1841, it was for
the first time possible to obtain data concerning mental illness in the
United States. The total number of those reported to be insane and
feeble-minded in the United States was over 17,000, of which nearly 3,000
were black. If these staggering census statistics were to be believed, free
blacks had an incidence of mental illness eleven times higher than slaves
and six times higher than the white population. The antiabolitionist forces
were thus provided with major scientific evidence that blacks were congeni-
tally unfit for freedom. 23

In 1 85 1 , as scientific theories of racial inferiority emerged, Samuel Cartwright
published a paper in the New Orleans Surgical Journal, in which he identified
certain psychopathologies to which black people, alone, were prey. Chief
among these was “Drapetomania,” a disease that caused black slaves to run
away.2* The desire to be free and resistance to the institution of slavery were
thus diagnosed as a mental illness. The function of slavery was to cure black
people of this condition. Many in the medical profession saw black people as a
disease in the body politic. Only when that disease had been eradicated could
the nation reach its destiny.

One of the lesser observed sources of the rhetoric of disease as blackness is

22 Ibid., 31.

23 Gilman, Difference and Pathology, 137.

2 4 Ibid., 138.

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THE PRINCETON SEMINARY BULLETIN

found in the theological discourse of early and medieval Christianity. The
propensity of early Christian writers to employ the racially charged symbols
of blackness and whiteness to denote evil and good, disease and health, is well
documented. Much of this discourse was set by the commentaries of St.
Ambrose and St. Bernard of Clairvaux on the Song of Songs. In reading that
book of the Bible, both assume that the color of the Shulamite maiden is a sign
of her fall from grace. Blackness is associated with sin, and sin is associated
with disease. Moreover, in this line of thought it is also permissible to sacrifice
the body of black people to enhance the health of white people. One of the
most revered legends within the medieval church involved the twin physicians
Cosmas and Damian.

Born in Cilicia in the third century, they were physicians who in the hope of
gaining converts to Christianity provided their services without fee. They
suffered a grotesque martyrdom in the year 278 during the reign of
Diocletian but soon gained a following, at first in the East and later in the
West, for numerous miraculous cures both in life and after death. . . . Their
most famous miracle occurred at a church named after them in a formerly
pagan temple at the edge of the Forum in Rome, where they appeared
posthumously to replace the gangrenous leg of the church’s sacristan with
the leg of a Negro who had died of old age.2?

Not only does this legend buttress the unspoken assumption that the bodies of
black persons can be sacrificed for the health of white persons, there is an
interesting twist given to this story in a sixteenth-century painting, attributed
to Fernando del Rincon, depicting this famous miracle. In this painting not
only does the sacristan have the healthy leg of the black person grafted onto
his body, but lying on the floor is the black man with the diseased white leg
grafted onto his body. It is this unspoken and almost unconscious assumption
that the black body can serve as a kind of ritual victim that bears the sin of
disease that lends complexity to the rhetoric of disease as blackness. Theophus
H. Smith argues convincingly that black people have functioned in American
religious discourse as a pharmakon.l(> A pharmakon can be both a poison and a
cure; both a sign of disease and an avenue to health as purity.

The categories of health and disease furnished a powerful set of metaphors
and binary oppositions for a culture radically divided by race. The idea of
disease is deeply rooted in the history of attempts to make sense of the

25 Lyons and Petrucelli, Medicine: An Illustrated Histo?y, 291.

26 Conjuring Culture: Biblical Formations of Black America (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1994), 81-109.

HEALTH, DISEASE, AND SALVATION

339

unknown. The Tuskegee experiment simply confirmed the historical assump-
tion that black bodies could be sacrificed for the health of others. The debate
on providing health care to every American citizen resurrected the submerged
language of health and disease. It was a debate that could not be solved at the
policy level, because it raised much deeper questions. Who shall be saved
from this disease called sin? How shall we be saved? Who shall heal our
sin-sick souls?

IV. Health and Disease in the Bible

Within the history of medical thought in the West, a rhetoric of disease
emerged. This rhetoric persisted through the rationalistic development of
medical thought and practice because it provided a way to account for the
strange and unknown in human experience. In the course of time, that
rhetoric was associated with people of African descent. This association was
buttressed by Western philosophical and cultural discourse and by certain
aspects of Western Christian narratives. The system of chattel slavery in the
United States found support in this rhetoric of disease, because black skin was
deemed pathological. The question confronting us at this juncture is: What
resources does the Bible offer to counter this rhetoric of disease, especially as
it is associated with blackness?

The contribution of the Hebrew scriptures to this topic is found in (i) their
purity codes and hygienic restrictions and (2) their focus on the relationship
between health and wholeness. The dietary and sanitary restrictions found in
the Pentateuch and described in the older commentaries stress the point that
these mandates had their source and ultimate purpose in obedience to God.
However, later scholars have argued that the dietary restrictions against
eating certain animals had a basis in the maintenance of human health and the
prevention of disease. In addition, the practice of circumcision is, in this view,
not only an act of obedience to God but also said to be recognized by the
medical profession as good preventive medicine. One could point to the
biblical injunctions requiring those who are diseased to remain separate from
the community as a form of quarantine, or to the command for the ritual
washing of the hands as a good antiseptic practice. The emphasis on showing
that the mandates of the Hebrew Bible are consistent with good secular
medical practice is meaningful to those for whom good medical care is readily
available, but it says very little to those whose lives are circumscribed by the
rhetoric of disease.

A more critical perspective on the origin and derivation of these biblical
mandates would recognize that, in all likelihood, the Israelites inherited a

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number of their beliefs about disease from ancient Mesopotamian cultures.27
Putting the biblical mandates regarding dietary restrictions in a broader social
context might yield a different perspective on dieir origin and function:

Much has been made of a presumably medical basis for the food prohibi-
tions in Jewish tradition, but there may be other explanations. One recent
suggestion is that the taboo against pigs was originally related to their
competition with humans for water and grain (scarce commodities in a
barren land), in contrast to cattle and sheep which consume relatively little
water and graze on forage inedible to man. Since transmissible parasitic
diseases and infestations such as tapeworm are also found in sheep and
cows, singling out trichinosis in pigs would not be wholly logical. However,
to discourage the raising of swine so as to conserve water and grain
resources for human consumption, a strict religious taboo may have been
necessary— considering man’s nearly universal agreement on the delectable-
ness of pork. Medical observations may indeed have been at the core of
hygienic codes, but the Biblical listing of seemingly unrelated creatures
prohibited as food is difficult to associate with purposes entirely hygienic.28

While one cannot deny that the prophylactic measures found in the Mosaic
law have significance as preventive medicine, there may have been other
factors involved in their development.

The ideas of health and disease in the Hebrew Bible must be understood in
the individual contexts in which they are discussed. This means that health, as
defined in the Mosaic law, is similar to the description adopted by the World
Health Association in 1946. Health is “a state of complete well-being and not
merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”2? In the Hebrew Bible, health
involves the unity of the mind, body, and spirit. “The healthy person is the
person who exhibits physical, mental, and spiritual wholeness. This sense of
wholeness, of shalom, of well-being, is not confined merely to the individual
person, but extends beyond the individual to the community as well. The
healthy person is an integral part of the community.”?0 Health and disease are
complex notions in the Hebrew Bible. Health is not merely the absence of
affliction but involves a unique quality of life. Disease cannot be explained
simply as divine punishment for sin — a common belief among ancient Meso-

2 ? Lyons and Petrucelli, Medicine: An Illustrated History , 71.

28 Ibid.

2? Cited in John J. Pilch, “Reading Matthew Anthropologically: Healing in Cultural
Perspective,” Listening 24 (Fall 1989): 285.

3° Karen S. Carter, “A Biblical Vision of Wholeness,” Brethren Life and Thought 33, no. 1
(Winter 1988): 60.

HEALTH, DISEASE, AND SALVATION

341

potamian cultures — as the story of Job reveals. It is an indeterminate aspect of
human experience that derives its meaning, in large part, from its context.

The principal biblical resources that have traditionally been used to address
questions of health and disease are found in the New Testament. Here the
presence of disease is often associated with questions of theodicy. Within the
New Testament there is evidence for at least six different explanations for
infirmity.3’ (i) Disease may be the result of possession by demons or evil
spirits (Luke 13:10-17). (2) God may inflict disease to punish the sufferer for
his or her sins (John 5:1-15). (3) Disease may be punishment for the sins of
one’s parents (John 9:3). (4) Disease may be punishment for sins in a past life
(John 9:3). (5) Disease may be permitted to show God’s power to heal (John
9:3). (6) Disease may be permitted to show God’s power to sustain the
sufferer even if the disease is not healed. While there is textual evidence to
support these theodicies in the New Testament, there are deeper issues
involved that are important in understanding the revolutionary significance of
Jesus’ healing ministry.

In the field of medical anthropology crucial distinctions are made between
disease, illness, and sickness. One of the most influential writers in the field
describes them in the following manner. “DISEASE refers to abnormalities
in the structure and/or function of organs and organ systems; pathological
states whether or not they are culturally recognized. . . . ILLNESS refers to a
person’s perceptions and experiences of certain socially disvalued states
including, but not limited to, disease. SICKNESS is a blanket term to label
events involving disease and/or illness.”32 The key to these definitions is that
disease refers to some inherent abnormality in the person. Both illness and
sickness include a focus on the subjectivity of the sufferer. Most definitions of
disease, illness, and sickness in the field of medical anthropology share the
emphasis on disease as a thing that overshadows or renders meaningless the
subjectivity of the sufferer. Illness and sickness are determined by asking the
patient how he or she feels in anticipation of treatment. Disease is associated
with some external and observable feature of the person. Here the subjectivity
of the sufferer is obscured, and quarantine is prescribed. This explains the
tendency of some New Testament scholars to discount the significance of the
category of disease and to emphasize illness as the most appropriate concept

31 Robert M. Price, “Illness Theodicies in the New Testament,” Journal of Religion and
Health 25 (Winter 1986): 309-15.

32 Allan Young, “The Anthropologies of Illness and Sickness,” Annual Review of Anthro-
pology 11 (1982): 264.

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to relate to healing and health. 33 It is my contention, however, that it is
disease, with all of its connotations, that Jesus addresses in his ministry of
healing. The function of disease is that it removes the person from the
community. It prevents wholeness and solidarity among people. It overshad-
ows the personhood of the sufferer. It consigns the sufferer to an existence
within the company of the afflicted. This is why Jesus never looked down on
or shunned the sufferers of disease. In many of his healing miracles he brought
the sufferer of disease into community. Those who are ill or sick elicit
compassion because they are recognized as human beings by others in the
community. Thus, one way to understand the healing ministry of Jesus is that
he takes disease and removes the stigma associated with it, so that the person
is seen as one who is ill or sick. The oppressive nature of the physical
condition of the sufferer is alleviated, and true healing can begin to take place.

The most explicit example of disease in the New Testament is leprosy.
Jesus’ willingness to approach those suffering from this dreaded disease is
especially significant in light of the stigma involved. Most biblical scholars
agree that what is called leprosy was not one thing but a variety of symptom-
atic conditions associated with the skin. This points to the function of disease
in any culture. It does not invite close investigation. It is a marker for that
which we fear. (Some scholars have observed that AIDS is the name for a
variety of symptoms that are observable.) This is the reason that black people
have been associated with dreaded diseases since at least the sixth century.
What African Americans find in the miraculous healing ministry of Jesus is a
way out of the company of the afflicted and into the community of the
redeemed.

The Bible provides resources for the deconstruction of the rhetoric of
disease that often attended the experience of people of African descent. The
Bible does not give a definitive answer to the question of why disease afflicts
some and not others. Even Jesus does not attempt to explain the presence of
disease. He simply affirms that as creatures of God, the sufferers of disease are
promised wholeness and salvation. Jesus brought hope, dignity, and liberation
to the sick and afflicted. His ministry of healing is central to a revision of our
understanding of the meaning of salvation. This brings us to the final task of
this lecture, that is, the articulation of a proposal for revising our theological
understanding of salvation.

33 John J. Pilch argues that the concept of disease was foreign to the world of Luke-Acts
and that illness is a more appropriate category to juxtapose to health and wholeness
(“Sickness and Healing in Luke-Acts,” in The Social World of Luke-Acts, ed. Jerome H.
Neyrey [Peabody: Hendrickson, 1991], 191).

HEALTH, DISEASE, AND SALVATION
V. Is There a Balm in Gilead?

343

African American Christians have creatively used the resources at hand to
articulate an understanding of salvation suited to their own circumstances.
Those resources include traditional Western notions of salvation and notions
of healing in African traditional religions and African Christianity. The blend
of these elements in the unique context of the experience of black people in
the New World has yielded new insights into the nature of health and
salvation.

One of the more perplexing questions in the history of Western Christian
thought concerns the rationale for the salvation of humanity. Since at least the
time of Athanasius, soteriology has been intimately connected with Christol-
ogy in Christian thought. That is, questions about the salvation of humanity7
are wound up in questions about the identity of Jesus Christ. The various
older theories of salvation involved a commerce between Jesus Christ and
God. It is the mystery of this interaction that gives rise to, and ultimately
supersedes, each theory. The ransom theory, associated with Origen and
Gregory of Nyssa, held that humanity had wandered away from God and had
fallen into the hands of the devil, who demanded a price for the release of
humankind. The price demanded was the blood of Christ. The satisfaction
theory, associated primarily with Anselm, proposed that by sinning, humanity
had dishonored God. Only the life of Jesus Christ could restore that honor.
The moral or exemplarist theory, generally associated with Abelard, held that
the purpose of the life and death of Christ was to model the righteousness and
love inherent in humanity. The penal or judicial theory, which emerged in the
Reformation period and is associated with John Calvin and Hugo Grotius,
proposed that human sin was a crime for which the justice of God demanded
punishment. In this theory, Christ accepted the guilty verdict for us. The
sacrificial theory, which is consistently present in Western Christian thought
from the time of Augustine through the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment,
asserted that the forgiveness of human sin required a blood sacrifice. Jesus
Christ, the lamb without spot, was therefore slain for our transgressions. The
goal of the salvific act has been described in numerous ways, as the deification
of humanity, the imputation of righteousness before God, union with Christ,
moral perfection, authentic humanity, and political liberation, among others.
They all point to the removal of the barriers between God and humanity as
requisite for human wholeness and well-being. Most modern notions of
salvation also point in this direction. Barth’s reconciliation, Bultmann’s
authentic existence, Reinhold Niebuhr’s restoration of original justice,
Tillich’s participation in New Being, Rahner’s self-offering of God to the

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world, Gutierrez’s liberation from class oppression, and Ruether’s original
wholeness of humanity as found in Mary all imply the reconnection of
humanity with God. All of these theories of salvation, both ancient and
modern, focus on the effects of sin upon the sinners. This is an element of the
doctrine of salvation that has found a home in African American Christian
thought. African American Christians, however, have asked more of soteriol-
ogy. What does salvation mean to the victims of sin?

In African traditional and African Christian thought, health is understood
as harmony and disease as disharmony. One African writer notes that in
African traditional thought, “Any sickness [is] viewed not only as a threat to
one’s existence but also as a destabilisation of cosmic harmony, as there was no
real distinction made between the natural and the supernatural.”^ In African
traditional as well as African Christian thought, health and disease are
intimately associated with matters of the spirit. There is an overriding belief
in the spiritual causation of illness, even while the efficacy of Western medical
innovations and practices is acknowledged. The spirit is not only involved in
the causation of disease, but, in African Christian thought, it is also involved in
healing. The role of the Holy Spirit has been central to the self-understanding
of many indigenous African churches. Among African Pentecostal churches
the power of the Holy Spirit effects healing by defeating the spiritual causes of
illness. This healing includes “not just bodily recuperation, but finding
remedies for unemployment, family disputes, racism, marital discord, and
controversies between factions in a tribe or village. ”35 In African traditional
thought the sick person is not simply a subdued recipient of medical
treatment. In this view “the sick person is seen not as a passive ‘patient,’ the
suffering object of the active therapist or as the determined occupant of a ‘sick
role,’ but as an agent, a subject seeking health, engaged ... in a ‘quest for
therapy,’ in problem solving, and manipulating the resources available in the
environment— and, if need be, changing that environment.”^6 On this quest
for therapy, the patient might seek a number of treatments, including the use
of herbs, ritual cleansing, and incantations or prayers. In African traditional
thought, the concept of salvation as healing focuses on the plight of the victim
of disease and on the alleviation of the suffering that accompanies it. This is

34 Andrew Olu Igenoza, “Medicine and Healing in African Christianity: A Biblical
Critique,” AFER 30, no. 1 (February 1988): 15. It is interesting to note how often this
notion of health as harmony appears in the medical lore of people outside the Greco-
Roman world. It suggests that the idea has its roots deep within human consciousness.

35 Harvey Cox, “I Iealers and Ecologists: Pentecostalism in Africa,” The Christian Century
hi (November 9, 1994): 1044.

36 Peter Worsley, “Non-Western Medical Systems,” Annual Review of Anthropology 1 1
(1982): 325.

HEALTH , DISEASE, AND SALVATION

345

often done by attempting to placate the offended spirits. African American
Christians, however, have asked more of the notion of healing. In what way
does human healing reflect God’s providential care, through the power of the
Holy Spirit, of the entire created order?

James Lapsley and Donald Bloesch, among others, have argued, convinc-
ingly, that health and salvation, or health and forgiveness, are not synony-
mous.3? Not everyone who enjoys health will be saved. Not everyone who is
saved will enjoy physical health. Health and salvation are, however, related
terms. Within the context of a rhetoric of disease as blackness, both ideas need
to be revised.

Health, as symbolized by access to quality health care, has become in our
time a privatized commodity. It has lost its social, communal, and convenantal
character. “This loss of shared public understandings of health contributes to
an unhealthy national and international situation in which consumer expecta-
tions converge and contend over costly resources. ”^8 The pursuit of perfect
health has raised the volume of discussions of health care but has also skewed
its role and importance in human existence. The fact that health is not
synonymous with salvation or forgiveness suggests that health, like salvation,
is a gift. Health is a relative term; it is not to be thought of as some ideal
human condition. Health, while important, is only one aspect of a life worth
living. A spiritually balanced life seeks harmony. A measure of good health is
valuable to the degree that it allows one to give glory to God. This is why
traditional prayers in African American Christian worship will often begin by
thanking God “for a reasonable portion of health and strength. Thank you for
letting me awake this morning clothed in my right mind, with the blood
running warm in my veins.” Health is a penultimate good. Life in the
presence of God is the ultimate good.

Salvation, like health, is a gift from God. Too often, salvation becomes a
private affair, referring to the redemption of the individual from guilt, despair,
fear, and death. Salvation, however, is social because sin is social. The social
character of sin is not simply its manifestations in institutions. Theologians
like Walter Rauschenbusch highlighted this aspect of sin through the Social
Gospel. Sin is social because the sin of an individual is not just an offense to
God; it injures other people. The social character of salvation is not merely its
focus on groups. The notion of salvation in the Hebrew Bible emphasizes this

37 See James N. Lapsley, Salvation and Health: The Interlocking Processes of Life (Philadelpia:
Westminster, 197 2), 31-45; and Donald G. Bloesch, The Christian Life and Salvation (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967), 33-46.

38 James P. Wind, “Health,” in A New Handbook of Christian Theology, ed. Donald W.
Musser and Joseph L. Price (Nashville: Abingdon, 1992), 2 14.

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aspect of redemption. Salvation is social because the redemption of the
victims of sin can be the avenue through which those whose sinfulness wreaks
havoc in the world are also saved. This means that our description of salvation
must include those who are wounded by sin. In African American experience,
salvation is not an escape from the challenges of creaturely existence.
Redemption is not exemption. In African American experience, racism is
recognized as a cultural pathology. In spite of an environment created by the
rhetoric of disease as blackness, people of African descent have always known
that they are the victims of the pathology of racism and not the carriers of
social disease. This knowledge is encoded in the cultural form of the blues. 59
In the blues the awareness of one’s status as a victim of racism is the first step
toward transcending that status. The diagnosis of the association of blackness
and disease is the first step toward the therapeutic affirmation that blackness is
healthy.

Salvation as healing is a central concern in African American Christianity.
The ways in which this salvation is experienced draw upon traditions of
African healing and Western soteriology. Salvation occurs through the
prayers of the faithful. It recalls the incantations used in African healing and
the salvific power of the Word in Reformation theology. Prayer is essential to
salvation as health, because it overcomes the alienating affects of disease by
bringing the victims into union with God. Salvation occurs through the
gathered community of faith. It recalls the ecstatic presence of the spirit
experienced by the collective group in African traditional healing rituals and
the patristic emphasis on the church as the means of salvation. The
worshiping community enables, sustains, confirms, and shares in the healing
of its members and thereby becomes the means of salvation. Salvation occurs
through the sacraments or ordinances of the Lord’s supper and baptism. It
recalls the ingestion of herbal medicines and ritual bathing as healing
practices in African traditional religions and ancient Christian views on the
efficacy of bread, wine, and water. These ritual practices emphasize the
participation of each member of the community in the salvific presence of
Christ.

Salvation and health are interrelated in human experience. This is because

There is a striking similarity between the blues in African American experience, and
ban in the experience of Koreans. This similarity has led to a view of the nature of salvation
that is quite compatible with that described here. Andrew Sung Park observes that “in the
efforts to heal the victims of their sins or the sins of others, sinners can experience
salvation. . . . The idea that sinners can achieve salvation by confessing their own sin
regardless of the welfare of their victims is a narcissistic illusion” ( The Wounded Heart of God:
The Asian Concept of Han and the Christian Doctrine of Sin [Nashville: Abingdon, 1993],
102-3).

HEALTH , DISEASE, AND SALVATION

347

the notion of disease continues to function as a symbol for that which we do
not understand. The limits of Western medicine are evident in “the
appearance of new strains of disease and of disease carriers ... of diseases
generated by alterations in the environment . . . and the inability of doctors to
deal with the social sources of illness . . . [and] the appearance even of new
‘diseases of affluence.’ ”4° Healing will continue to occupy the imagination of
the Christian community for reasons other than the failures of modern
medicine. Healing brings to the fore the power of the salvation of God and
serves evangelistic purposes. F. D. Bruner states that “nothing attracts men
and attests the Gospel . . . quite like the healing of infirmities. Indeed healing
fills out the full gospel of a full salvation.”41

In African American worship references to Jesus as the restorer of health
and wholeness are numerous. “Jesus is a doctor who has never lost a patient.”
“Jesus is the one who gives me all my medicine.” “Jesus is the balm in Gilead
to heal the sin-sick soul.” In a society where the means to health have become
a commodity ruled by the marketplace and where people of African descent
have too often found themselves circumscribed by the rhetoric of disease,
salvation must mean more than the escape from the natural processes of living
and dying. Salvation must give ultimate meaning to life itself.

40 Worsley, “Non-Western Medical Systems,” 322.

4‘ Cited in Igenoza, “Medicine and Healing in African Christianity,” 23.

David Weadon:

A Tribute

(Aug. 8, 1956-Dec. 30, 199 5)
by Katharine Doob Sakenfeld

Katharine Doob Sakenfeld is the W. A.
Eisenberger Professor of Old Testament
Literature and Exegesis and Director of
Ph.D. Studies at Princeton Theological
Seminary. She gave this tribute at two
memorial services for David A. Weadon,
the C. F. Seabrook Director of Music and
Lecturer in Church Music at Princeton
Seminary. The first service was held in
Miller Chapel on January 51, 1996 ; the
second was held in Princeton University
Chapel on February 10, 1996.

IT IS an honor to be able to speak a few words of remembrance of my friend
and esteemed colleague David Weadon. As I prepared these reflections and
spoke with others about David, I was struck afresh by the limited angle of
vision, the tininess of the window that each one of us has into the life of
another. I realized, for instance, that I knew very, very little about David’s
professional life beyond Princeton Seminary. Yes, I knew of his choir work in
New York, but then there were his benefit concerts, his workshops for church
musicians all across the country, his efforts to build new bridges between
Westminster Choir College and the Seminary. Most of us at this service
probably knew David primarily through his Seminary work, but even there,
each of us knows only a little of the marvelous whole that was David. So I
encourage each of you to honor and cherish your own memories, beyond the
words spoken in this service.

For more than a decade, the Seminary chapel staff has known me as a
faculty member who would agree to lead chapel only if it included the
opportunity to work with David on a music-centered service. Such services
gave me an excuse to learn about some new music, to debate the theology of
hymn texts, and to spend official time with David. Always he was forthright
with me the amateur— improving and shaping ideas, willing to experiment,
yet insistent on a musically polished and theologically sound service. Last
summer, as I prepared to preach for the opening communion service, our
vacation schedules precluded our regular give-and-take about the hymns. So I
chose them, only to find on my return that David had changed them and the
bulletin was already in press. I was steamed, at first— my choices had been so
right, but true to form, David’s were better. He’d understood what was
needed better than I had myself.

A great musician like David doesn’t need a Ph.D. But David set himself to
achieve that goal anyway— to deepen his knowledge of the intersection

DAVID WE A DON

349

between theology and sacred music in the history of the church. Those of you
who know about Ph.D. demands, just imagine deciding to take on such a
program when you already have more than a full-time professional job. My
responsibilities for Ph.D. studies here made me one of David’s sounding
boards for survival during his studies at Drew. Oh, how he agonized over
those French and German requirements. Oh, how he quaked over comprehen-
sive exams. Oh, how he held his breath to hear what revisions might be
required on his dissertation. And oh, what parties there were to celebrate the
completion of his degree!

And David did love to give a good party. Labor Day picnics, Christmas
open house in Freehold — dozens of people from all walks of life— very special
times.

David came to Princeton Seminary as a very young professional (only
twenty-six years old)— younger than any faculty, younger than most any
administrator or staff support person, younger than most of the students at
that time. Right from the start, his lively humor and southern drawl captured
my affection as much as his great musical talent. Under his inspired and
inspiring leadership the choir program grew from a handful of students to the
multiple choirs that now grace our community and share their gifts with
churches throughout the area and across the world. He “grew” our music
program at PTS the way the best of our seminary graduates grow a congrega-
tion: growing our choirs not only in numbers but in commitment to the task,
commitment to deeper understanding, commitment to excellence, commit-
ment to sharing the good news with others, commitment to Jesus Christ.

Yet as I think back, David and I talked very little about his magnificent work
here. Our occasional conversations tended to be brief, but they touched on
the deeper things, hidden things, illness of our relatives, grieving over deaths
of our parents. Both sides of David’s usual exterior presence, the happy-go-
lucky and the perfection-demanding, would suddenly be set aside as we
struggled to understand the mystery of God’s way with the world.

In the last months, as that mystery encompassed his own life so directly,
David chose not to include most of us. He did not choose the way many of us
would have wanted him to choose. And his choice in itself is part of the
continuing mystery for us, as we see through a glass, darkly. But David has
crossed over Jordan and now sees face to face the God who carried him from
the womb even until the end. As David has laid down his burden and joined
the celestial musicians— Bach and Brahms and Clarence Dickinson (the
subject of David’s dissertation research) and Eric Routley (David’s teacher at
Westminster Choir College), and even my father, a part-time amateur

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THE PRINCETON SEMINARY BULLETIN

organist to whom David was very kind — so let us here on earth lay down our
burden of frustration over being separated from David even before his death.
Let us be grateful for the love and care extended to David on our behalf by the
chapel staff, namely, Michael Livingston and Carol Belles. Most especially, let
us be thankful for the care and steadfast love shown to David by his beloved
companion, David MacPeek.

We cannot by an act of will turn off our pain and sorrow. Nonetheless, let
us do what David Weadon, a man of great faith, would wish us to do: Let us
join our earthly voices with those heavenly voices, celebrating David’s pres-
ence among them as we sing praise to God, who promises resurrection to
eternal life through our Savior Jesus Christ.

Remembering David

by Michael E. Livingston

Michael E. Livingston, Campus Pastor
and Director of the Chapel at Princeton
Theological Seminary, offered these re-
marks at the Seminary's memorial service
for David A. Weadon on January 31,
1996.

DAVID AND I interviewed Carol Belles separately before she was hired as
Chapel Secretary. At the end of her interview with David, he asked if she
had any questions of him. “If you hire me and I accept, what is it that I might
do that would drive you over the edge?” He thought about it and then said,
“What you need to know about me is that I am a church musician. Tempera-
mental, sensitive, a prima donna.” Only one of those things was true. David
Weadon was a church musician. He wasn’t simply a gifted organist who found
employment in about the only setting an organist can play any more, the
church; he wasn’t a church musician because he was not skilled enough for a
teaching post in a secular academic setting. David wasn’t a choral director
who settled for church work because the hormones in a junior high school
choir would have driven him batty.

David was a believer, a Christian of deep commitment who would have
claimed a pew in the church even if he could not have told the difference
between a Bach Cantata and a Sandy Patty gospel song. David found a
profound joy in the just and saving message of the gospel. God gave David the
gift of faith and called him to that organ bench, to a ministry of music.

This could get too clinical and professional — “church and seminary com-
munity loses gifted church music professional”; as true as that may be, it is
partial. Daniel Beckwith, a conductor at the Metropolitan Opera in New
York, told me that David could “pick up a stone and teach it to sing a
descant.” That’s the man we are celebrating!

David was a great guy; a bright, gifted, funny, lovely person. For all his
Manhattan sophistication, he was refreshingly down to earth. Sure, he would
treat his student assistants to lunch at the Peacock Inn, but if you wanted to
find David during the lunch hour on most days you had to go to Harry’s
Luncheonette on Witherspoon Street, where he’d be devouring a greasy
cheeseburger. Do you know, as I do, what a delicious pleasure it was to be in
his good company?

“Michael honey, that’s enough.” We were in his hospital room and I was
trying, too diligently, to get him to finish a cup of water. Enough, “that’s
enough.” David had had enough of the fight, the struggle he waged for life.
He fought longer than any of us knew, and he fought on his terms. Much to

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THE PRINCETON SEMINARY BULLETIN

our regret, our sorrow, perhaps even our anger, he chose to struggle without
inviting our love and support in the ways we would have wished to give it.

Had we known, we would have called to talk with him, prayed with him,
visited with him— we would have lovingly invaded his life for his sake and for
ours. He did not ask this of us. Instead, he asked us, begged us, to let him
work; to let him play and conduct. David had a desire for normalcy, which was
disconcerting, unfathomable to us — but there was no denial, rather an
urgency wed to a commitment to task. I asked him once, in the hospital, why
he insisted on continuing when it was so clear he was seriously ill. “I had to get
the work done, I had too much to do,” he said.

David came to the Seminary chapel day after day, of course, with less
frequency toward the end. He kept teaching his courses and rehearsing the
choirs and traveling with the touring choir. He kept this up for longer than he
was able to be effective. Left alone, David would never have stopped; he
would have died sitting on the organ bench or traveling with the touring
choir.

When we insisted that he rest, finally, he did just that. In the company and
care of his dear companion, David MacPeek, he laid down until he died.

Many of the tensions, paradoxes, pathologies in our church and society
were enmeshed in the tortured silence, the whispered painful conversations,
the fear and grief— present and anticipated — that were part of our experience
with David these last months. He would have abhored being made an object
lesson, and that is not my intent, but God help us if we do not mine what
treasures of truth and grace, justice and love are buried in our hearts by his
graceful presence and his grand work in our community.

I will miss watching him direct the choir. For our annual Service of Lessons
and Carols at the Seminary, I sat at the lectern and watched from the side, just
a few feet away, as he passionately led our gifted singers through hauntingly
beautiful music. His face, hands, arms were alive with speech as he talked with
the choir by baton, facial nuance, subtle gesture. With his direction the choir
could shake the chandeliers or sing in sustained whispers of thrilling intensity.

With his death we must be content with our memories of him. We must
find some comfort in his release from the agony of awful disease.

David died too young and too soon. I pray you share my confidence in the
new life David has found in the promises of God. And I pray you trust that the
God who welcomes David will not leave us alone. May God’s grace and peace
surround us all.

BOOK REVIEWS

Seow, Choon-Leong, ed. Homosexuality and Christian Community. Louisville:
Westminster John Knox Press, 1996. Pp. xiii + 159. $14.99.

As Nancy J. Duff writes near the conclusion of her contribution to
Homosexuality and Christian Community , “the real dilemma resides in the
question of whether we can live together as members of the one Body of Christ
even when divided by an issue on which both sides know with such certainty
that they are right.” While not resolving the dilemma, Homosexuality and
Christian Community certainly addresses this challenge and provides resources
for those willing to struggle with it for the sake of Christian community.

Choon-Leong Seow, editor and contributor, has done an excellent job of
bringing together thirteen quite varied essays, written by his faculty col-
leagues at Princeton Theological Seminary. Seow provides a helpful introduc-
tion, setting the context for the essays and summarizing each. Vigorous
discussion has gone on at Princeton during the three-year period mandated
by the 1993 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for a
study of homosexuality. Seow and his colleagues offer the wider church the
opportunity to reflect with them on the multitude of concerns involved in
consideration of this issue and its impact on Christian community.

Besides the two contributors already mentioned, Nancy J. Duff, theological
ethics, and Choon-Leong Seow, Old Testament, the other eleven participants
in the project include: A.K.M. Adam, New Testament; Charles L. Bartow,
communication; Brian K. Blount, New Testament; Thomas W. Gillespie,
New Testament; James F. Kay, homiletics; Thomas G. Long, homiletics;
Mark McClain-Taylor, theology and culture; Ulrich W. Mauser, biblical
theology; Patrick D. Miller, Old Testament; Max L. Stackhouse, ethics; and
Richard E. Whitaker, Old Testament. All write clearly, having in mind a
broad audience of church members, students, and pastors, as well as special-
ists.

Among the contributors there is a great variety of positions. They are
arranged into three sections: part 1: “What Do the Scriptures Say?” part 2:
“How Do the Scriptures Inform Our Theological Reflection?” and part 3:
“How Do We Live Faithfully?” Some are certain the Bible and confessional
tradition call the church to acceptance of homosexuals into every phase of
institutional church life. Others are equally convinced that the tradition
precludes such participation on the part of gays and lesbians. Whether
same-sex relationships should be recognized and blessed is likewise debated.

354

THE PRINCETON SEMINARY BULLETIN

Biblical texts, confessional statements, pastoral issues, and personal experi-
ences are examined. Some may say that there are no new arguments presented
in these essays, but there is a clarity, freshness, and conciseness that many will
find most helpful.

Furthermore, there is a “tone,” a “quality, a “spirit” about these essays that
is refreshing and instructive. While the writers know they differ (dramatically
at times) with each other in their conclusions and suggestions, they also
recognize they belong to a larger company. There is conviction and humility,
critical argument and a recognition of remaining unanswered (unanswer-
able?) questions. An example is offered of how to struggle with one another
around a difficult issue where agreement is unlikely if not impossible. All who
read this volume will gain from the respectful, clear, passionate arguments
presented with the aim of strengthening, not destroying, the church. It is
possible for sincere, faithful Christians to disagree and yet continue to love
one another and work for the common good.

Near the conclusion of the introduction, Seow summarizes the character of
the volume well and underscores its importance for those concerned with life
in the church. He writes: “Clearly, the contributors to this volume are not of
one mind on the issue of homosexuality. Like our forebears in biblical times,
we find ourselves in substantial disagreement. At stake for us all is the gospel:
How are we to understand our obligation as a people of faith? We struggle to
balance two biblical portrayals of God: a God whose name is Jealous and a
God whose name is Compassionate. There are risks that we may err by
overemphasizing one or the other divine reality. Yet it is imperative that the
church live with this risk and decide what it means to be faithful to the gospel
in our day and age.”

W. Eugene March
Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary

McCormack, Bruce L. Karl Barth's Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology: Its
Genesis and Development, 1909-1936. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995. Pp. xx +
499. $65.00.

In this expanded version of his Princeton Seminary dissertation (1989),
McCormack, now a member of the Seminary’s faculty, has surely provided a
benchmark for any future discussion of Barth’s theological development.
Making good use of materials newly available in the Gesamtausgabe, and in
continuous dialogue with other Barth specialists in Germany and America, he
has challenged the dominant view that Barth’s progress was marked by two

BOOK REVIEWS

355

decisive turning points: from Protestant liberalism to dialectical theology and
from dialectic to analogy. Against this reading of the story, associated with the
name of Hans Urs von Balthasar, McCormack states his thesis: “Subsequent
to his break with ‘liberalism’ in 1915, Barth became what we shall call a
critically realistic dialectical theologian — and that is what he remained through-
out his life” (p. vii). No second turning point ever happened.

The importance of this formidable, richly documented study goes far
beyond the cogency of the thesis, which I must leave for the Barth experts to
assess. (The firmness with which McCormack puts down their mistakes
guarantees that some of them will respond energetically on other disputed
questions as well.) I have been asked to comment on the author’s placement of
Barth in the history of Protestant theology, especially in view of his insistence
that however critical Barth may have been of modern theology, his own
dialectical theology was a “thoroughly modeni option” (p. 466). I have space
only to raise three questions.

First, would not a thoroughly modem “theological epistemology” (as McCor-
mack calls it) use Kant to challenge revelation claims rather than to insulate
them against philosophical criticism? Barth cheerfully appropriated Kant’s
critical philosophy insofar as it blocked the old theistic arguments from the
empirical world to its putative source or ground in a first principle (God). But
to move from there to the announcement that God has revealed Godself does
not look like progress in the project of modernity. It is a bit Pickwickian even
to speak of a “theological epistemology” here at all. The move is reminiscent
rather of the misuse of Kant by his contemporary Gottlob Christian Storr,
who appealed to Kant only to clear the way for some very old-fashioned
revelation claims of the sort Kant judged even more suspect than metaphysical
arguments for God. Right or wrong, Barth’s project, like Storr’s, was at most
only half modem.

From the perspective of Barth’s place in modem theology, one of the most
valuable features of McCormack’s study is the care with which he portrays
Barth’s relation to his teacher Wilhelm Herrmann. Barth carried some things
over from this “great nineteenth-century liberal theologian,” and yet it was
Herrmann’s variety of liberalism that he rebelled against. But— my second
question — is not the price paid for this important contribution a surprising
curtailment of the much more urgent question of Barth’s relation to Schleier-
macher? When it comes right down to it, it is as unhelpful to call Schleierma-
cher “liberal” as to call Barth “neoorthodox.” And it was, after all, on
Schleiermacher that Barth trained the muzzle of his gun (as he put it) in 1921.
If there was in truth only one break in Barth’s theological progress, the “break

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THE PRINCETON SEMINARY BULLETIN

with liberalism,” then it becomes all the more critical to determine its precise
nature. McCormack would agree, I think, that this calls for more detailed
tracking of Barth’s thoughts on Schleiermacher than could be offered even in
this marvelously rich volume. And if the question is about Barth’s place in the
history of theology, not simply his own development as he himself saw it, then
the truth or falsity of his interpretations of Schleiermacher must also be held
up for scrutiny.

Finally, the question of Barth’s place in the theology of the last two
hundred years is not unrelated to the continuing debate about the legacy of
the Reformation. By 1922, Barth was claiming an affinity between his
theology and Luther’s theologia cruris, and he traced an ancestral line that ran
back through Kierkegaard and the Protestant Reformers (but not through
Schleiermacher!) to Paul and Jeremiah. But he later testified that the Luther
renaissance associated with Karl Holl did not impress him favorably, and that
in 1919-20 the Reformers still did not evoke much of a response from him.
The truth appears to be, as Barth himself said, that a new interest in the
Reformation was not the source, but a consequence, of his efforts. Still, the
question of material continuity remains— all the more so because Barth knew
perfectly well what some of us seem to have forgotten: that the liberals, too,
claimed to be Luther’s offspring. Barth took their claim seriously enough to
warn that anyone who aimed a blow at Bultmann, for instance, should take
care not to hit Luther; and he conceded that Herrmann represented an
authentic, if narrow, continuation of the Lutheran tradition. It is by no means
self-evident who the legitimate heirs of the Reformation are — the liberals or
the critically realistic dialectical theologians. My third question, then, quite
simply, is whether McCormack should tell us more than he does about Barth’s
ancestral line through the Reformers. Perhaps he will, when he turns to the
second part of his project: a study of Barth’s Gottingen lectures on dogmatics
(1924-25). I, for one, look forward to its completion. It will no doubt be as
learned, instructive, and provocative as part one.

B. A. Gerrish

Union Theological Seminary in Virginia

Olson, Dennis T. Numbers. Louisville: John Knox Press, 1996. Pp. 196.
$22.00.

In his doctoral dissertation written for Brevard Childs at Yale University,
Dennis Olson proposed that Numbers was structured around two census lists

BOOK REVIEWS

357

in Numbers i and 26. Numbers 1 is a census of the first generation of
Israelites to leave Egypt. They die in the wilderness as a result of their fear to
follow God into the promised land of Canaan. Numbers 26 is a census of the
second generation, who survive the wilderness march and are on the verge of
claiming the promised land of Canaan. The thematic development of this
repetition was captured in the title of Olson’s published dissertation, The
Death of the Old and the Birth of the New: The Framework of the Book of Numbers
and the Pentateuch (1985). Other commentators also saw this repetition, but
they tended to structure Numbers around Israel’s journey toward Canaan
rather than the transition between generations. Dennis Olson’s contribution
was to focus firmly on character development (the two generations) as
opposed to setting (the journey through the wilderness) in determining the
central theme of Numbers.

This commentary provides Olson the opportunity for a more thorough
interpretation of character development in Numbers between the first and
second generation of Israelites who left Egypt. And, indeed, this is the
strength of the commentary. A primary goal of the commentary is to explore
how faith is transferred from one generation to another. The census of the
first generation introduces a story of rebellion and death in Numbers 1-25.
The census of the second generation, by contrast, introduces a story of hope
and life in Numbers 26-36. Within this framework, Olson looks for other
repetitions that serve as points of comparison. Examples include the census of
Levites (Numbers 3 and 26), laws involving women (Numbers 5 and 27), as
well as narratives like the spy story (Numbers 13-14 and 32:6-15). Olson uses
these repetitions to explore character development between the two genera-
tions. Thus, for example, the rebellion of the first generation in refusing to
enter Canaan (Numbers 13-14) contrasts with the negotiated settlement of
Reuben and Gad, who also initially refuse to enter Canaan (Numbers 32).
Differences within the repetition contain a message: “The final lesson in
[Numbers 32] is not judgment but promise and encouragement. Rather than
rebel against Moses and the old tradition, Reuben and Gad take Moses’ words
to heart and propose a compromise” (p. 182).

In addition to the emphasis on character development, Olson keeps his eye
on larger structural developments in the Pentateuch that influence interpreta-
tion of Numbers. Parallels to the exodus in the wilderness stories of Numbers
11-20 and in the quotation of confessional material like Numbers 14:18 are
two examples of how earlier passages in the Pentateuch inform one’s interpre-
tation of Numbers. Olson also explains literature that has become obscure to

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modern readers. Much of Numbers is written by priestly theologians, who
construct their theology around the purity laws issuing from the presence of a
holy God in the midst of Israel. Such purity laws are essential for understand-
ing Christian sacramental theology, yet they are all too often neglected in the
contemporary church. Olson provides a helpful introduction to “Purity in the
Bible” and illustrates how purity law provides an important hermeneutic for
interpreting priestly tradition.

No commentary can explore all the dimensions of a rich biblical book like
Numbers. With that in mind, two reservations linger after reading through
this commentary. The first is that the contrast of rebellion and obedience or
death and life between the two generations is too rigid. Certainly, this
contrast is firmly anchored in Numbers, but there is far more to Numbers
1-25 than illustrations of rebellion. These chapters are replete with positive
stories of healthy community organized around a holy God (chapters 1-10)
and ideal models of leadership in the wilderness march of the first generation
(chapters 1 1-25). Many of these stories have no parallel in literature surround-
ing the second generation of Israel (chapters 26-36).

The second reservation is that the focus on two generations as the organiz-
ing device for Numbers is too narrow. It gives the impression that salvation is
only about character or community development rather than God’s quest to
reclaim creation itself. Character development between the generations is
important to the book of Numbers. In fact, the birth of the second generation
in the wilderness carries forward one of the central organizing themes in the
Pentateuch, namely the promise of descendants to the ancestors (see Gen.
12:1-4). But the Pentateuch is also organized around the theme of land,
beginning with the divine promise to the ancestors in Genesis 12:7. And the
theme of land anchors Numbers more broadly in a theology of creation,
which is also essential to the Pentateuch. Numbers is about both community
and creation. In fact, by incorporating more clearly the promise of land, it
may be possible to avoid a too rigid contrast between the first and second
generation in Numbers, since neither generation actually inherits the land.

There is much in Numbers that can speak to contemporary Christians. As
Olson notes in his introduction, the wilderness has reemerged as a powerful
symbol of contemporary religious experience. His commentary provides an
excellent map for preaching, teaching, and studying Numbers.

Thomas B. Dozeman
United Theological Seminary

BOOK REVIEWS

359

Adam, A. K. M. Making Sense of New Testament Theology: “ Modern ” Problems
and Prospects. Macon: Mercer University Press, 1995. Pp. x + 238. $18.00.

A. K. M. Adam, Assistant Professor of New Testament at Princeton
Theological Seminary, propounds in this book a simple but provocative
thesis: since the operating principles that govern the production of New
Testament theologies are neither transcendent nor necessary, the way is open
for the formulation of nonmodern New Testament theologies.

These operating principles are familiar to those of us trained in the
historical-critical approach to the biblical text whether in seminary or else-
where, even if we’ve never thought about them. They are: the Renaissance
humanists’ claim to stand over against the Classical tradition; the compulsory
power that time exercises over modern consciousness; the pivotal importance
of disciplinary autonomy and specialization; and the distinction in kind
between an expert’s knowledge of a subject and a commoner’s knowledge.
Their perceived hegemony derives not from insights into the nature of
interpretation but from the cultural situation of modernity. This condition
Adam proceeds to analyze in detail in the opening chapters of the book.

After a composite sketch of modernity, the work of three influential New
Testament scholars, Johann Philipp Gabler, William Wrede, and Krister
Stendahl, is shown to presuppose modernity. Adam thus constructs the
IVredestrasse, the path of modern New Testament theology. He then chal-
lenges the exclusive legitimacy of this highway. Other criteria for evaluating
New Testament theology than the strictly historical exist. Theological,
ecclesial, aesthetic, and ethical gauges, in addition to local criteria such as
defending biblical inerrancy or the liberation of women from structures of
oppression, are some of them.

The last chapter, “Prospects for Nonmodern New Testament Theology,”
examines whether any other sort of New Testament theology is legitimate.
The answer is “Yes, for those interpreters who do not grant primary alle-
giance to the imperatives of modernity.” If, for example, Elisabeth Schiissler
Fiorenza is certain that gender equality is the basis of any sound relation
between Christians and their Bible, then she may rightly reject modern
readings that limit the theme of sexual equality to the margins of the Bible.
Charges of anachronistic tendentiousness do not show the necessity of
modern New Testament theology since there are no transcendent criteria for
interpretation but only local customs and guild rules. Such charges merely
demonstrate imperialistic xenophobia.

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Thus, historical gauges provide only one among many approaches to
judging a New Testament theology. However, Adam does not propose to
jettison historical judgment but merely to describe its contingencies. His book
paves the way for recognizing and legitimizing alternatives. If he spends more
time in creating a clearing within the forest than actually exploring the paths
that already exist alongside the Wredestrasse, that is perhaps the consequence
of where he himself stands today. For some of us, this book may be a very
helpful exercise in epistemology. For others, it may serve as a reminder of how
far we have come.

Deirdre Good
General Theological Seminary

Plantinga, Cornelius, Jr. Not the Way It's Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin.
Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.; Leicester, England: Apol-
los, 1995. Pp. xiv + 202. $19.99.

“Theologically astute” and “entertaining” are adjectives not usually con-
joined. But Cornelius Plantinga’s treatment of the nature and dynamics of sin
summons both. Combining his gifts as a professor of systematic theology (at
Calvin Theological Seminary), Reformed minister, and discerning observer
of contemporary culture, Plantinga brings to life this neglected, suppressed,
unstylish doctrine.

Plantinga initially defines human sin in relationship to God: God’s shalom
is the blessed harmony and flourishing intended for creation; sin is “blamable
human vandalism of these great realities and therefore an affront to their
architect and builder” (p. 16). With captivating illustrations throughout, he
sharpens this definition by comparing sin with its relatives (crime, immorality,
disease, error) and by making distinctions within the conception of sin
(objective and subjective, “wrongness” and “badness,” voluntary and involun-
tary). Engaging the reader with examples from literature and life, Plantinga
unfolds sin’s corruption of goodness, the spread of that corruption, and the
“spiritual hygiene” that opposes its “perversion, pollution, and disintegra-
tion.” In his consideration of the parasitic and deceptive natures of sin,
Plantinga gives full voice to the complex intertwining of good and evil, to the
ambiguities, hybrids, and tragic ironies of sin. With creative precision,
Plantinga portrays sin’s affinity with folly and opposition to wisdom. The
chapter on the relationship of sin and addiction uncovers complex interac-
tions, though the ways in which addiction is distinct from or similar to other

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encounters with sin is not always clear. The book concludes with two
characteristic “postures” or movements of sin: attack and flight. The epilogue
reminds us that sin is part of a larger story, defining and being defined by
God’s grace.

Plantinga’s goal is not to break new ground; someone desiring theological
reflections on genetic discoveries or the latest sociological/psychological
theories and their relationships with traditional doctrines of sin must look
elsewhere. Nor is Plantinga proposing solutions for the social and intellectual
forces that have challenged the centrality of sin. Rather, Plantinga’s work is a
powerful restatement of this Christian doctrine, persuasive in his vibrant
illustrations and penetrating analyses. The result is a coherent, substantive
theological treatise with a wealth of homiletical insights and real-life connec-
tions.

Acknowledging the limited purposes of his exposition, the reader may still
desire elaboration of certain positions. What is the relationship between
corporate and individual sin? Plantinga elucidates a personal, individualistic
understanding of sin. Although sin is related to wider social-cultural realities
in its transmission and its effects and in discussions of culpability, it is not at all
clear that one can speak of sin itself as a social reality. Plantinga’s brief
references to original sin come closest to exploring this corporate dimension,
but it is not clear how the elaboration of a corporate nature of sin would
cohere with his individualistic framework. This is particularly pertinent given
Plantinga’s apt conjunction of sin and redemption. Does corporate sin
correspond with corporate atonement?

Such questions internal to Christianity raise a further issue concerning
Plantinga’s intended audience. Plantinga rightly acknowledges the way in
which his presentation of sin is shaped by a Christian framework, yet he
nevertheless hopes to address adherents of other religions and secularists, as
well as Christians. Yet it is not at all certain that those rejecting his Christian
context and presuppositions will find central affirmations of the book entirely
comprehensible. Our pluralistic world is able to offer alternative conceptions
of “the way things ought to be,” the nature of the present disparity, and the
proposed remedy. I will leave this question to secularists and members of
other religions; this book clearly deserves their attention. As a Christian, I
highly recommend it to pastors and laity alike.

Stephen L. Stell
Austin College

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Lehmann, Paul L. The Decalogue and a Human Future : The Meaning of the
Commandments for Making and Keeping Human Life Human. Grand Rapids:
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995. Pp. 232. $17.99.

With the posthumous publication of this book, Paul Lehmann fulfills a
promise he made over thirty years ago to produce a volume on the role the
commandments properly play in Christian life. To this end he creatively
brings together catechetical insights from Martin Luther; doctrinal guidance
from John Calvin, Karl Barth, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer; the sociological
categories of Louis Dumont and Peter Blau; the feminist critiques of Phyllis
Trible, Carol Christ, and Elisabeth Schiissler Fiorenza; and the artistic
sensibilities of Auden, Milton, Shakespeare, and Yeats.

In the first of the book’s two sections, entitled “Disregard, Disarray, and
Discovery,” Lehmann sets forth the methodological framework that shapes
his contextual approach to the decalogue. In the first chapter he rejects a
prescriptive reading of the decalogue that emphasizes “a calculus of permis-
sions and prohibitions,” arguing instead that the commandments are descrip-
tive statements that enable humans to discern the pathways and patterns
marking the way toward the future that God is making fit for human life. In
chapters 2 and 3 Lehmann brings catechetical insights and sociological
analyses to bear on the question of what constitutes the contours and
boundaries of human relations, concluding that patterns of reciprocal respon-
sibility form a tertium quid beyond the inadequacies of hierarchical and
egalitarian social structures.

In the second part, “Pathways and Patterns of Reciprocal Responsibility,”
Lehmann examines what he considers to be pressing moral implications of
each commandment. He covers a broad range of topics, for example, the
patriarchal co-optation of God’s name, the family caught between the expan-
sion of rights and the abrogation of responsibilities, abortion, homosexuality,
and the humanizing relationship that properly exists between the possession
and use of property. With each new commandment Lehmann gives the reader
a compelling argument, inviting us to take up and take seriously the matters
under consideration and to probe even further into the questions and oppor-
tunities that make up the moral fabric of human life.

There are, nonetheless, questions in the book that need to be addressed.
Most pressing is the need to elaborate more precisely the redemptive nature
of the connection that Lehmann identifies between the behavioral thrust of
the decalogue’s “structural realism” and the sociological categories supplied
by Dumont and Blau. He states, for example, that the decalogue is the sum of
what the gospel affirms about life in this world, and he alludes often to the

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covenantal-messianic story, yet he rarely takes time to show us how a
descriptive reading of the commandments is decisively shaped and directed by
the face-to-face encounters that comprise the story of Messiah Jesus’ life,
death, and resurrection.

In like fashion, insufficient attention is paid to the church as an eschatologi-
cal gathering or koinonia. As Nancy Duff points out in her excellent introduc-
tion to the book, ecclesiology is crucial to Lehmann’s theology. The point
here is not that the church is a perfect company of the sinless, in possession of
concise moral formulas into which one only need plug in the variables to
know exactly what to do. Rather, as Lehmann puts it in his best known work,
Ethics in a Christian Context , the continuing life of the koinonia is the context
within which the discernible difference that the triune activity of God makes
in the world comes into view.

All things considered, however, The Decalogue and a Human Future repre-
sents a fitting conclusion to a distinguished career that spanned seven decades,
leaving to future generations a legacy of artistry and erudition that will inspire
and instruct for years to come.

Barry Harvey
Baylor University

Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections on the Claim
That God Speaks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Pp. x + 326.

$59.95/$i8.95.

This book, based on the Wilde Lectures at Oxford in 1993, is probably the
most extensive and penetrating philosophical discussion of the idea of divine
speaking ever undertaken. In part, it is an essay in conceptual analysis,
attempting to clarify the concept of a divine speech and to distinguish it from
revelation and other related notions. It explores the possibility of such speech,
and the possible modes in which it might be actualized. And it includes an
extensive discussion of what Wolterstorff takes to be the appropriate proce-
dure for biblical interpretation as a way of hearing that speech.

When Wolterstorff writes about the divine speaking, he intends “speech”
in much the same sense as that in which we say that humans speak. So he
explores the various ways in which we can say speakers make statements, ask
questions, etc. He then explores the analogous possibilities for the divine
speaker.

Wolterstorff construes speech as essentially a method of altering the
normative landscape. When I speak, according to him, I acquire new rights

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and duties, and I confer new rights and duties on others. The same goes for
God. The divine speaker enters into a normative interchange with us and thus
generates, and accepts, a new normative configuration.

It is important to WolterstorfPs argument to observe that there are many
modes of human speech — it is not limited to making vocal sounds or marking
paper with one’s own hand. Wolterstorff is especially interested in two modes
of “mediated” speech. There is “authorized” speech, in which one agent
authorizes another to speak for him or her. When the second agent speaks (in
the specified circumstances), that counts as a speech by the authorizing agent.
He or she thereby acquires the corresponding normative status. Wolterstorff
cites examples like that of the ambassador who is authorized to speak for the
president, and the secretary who is authorized to write letters and sign them
on behalf of the boss.

Another form of mediated speech consists of one agent’s “appropriating”
something said by someone else and making it his or her own. So, in a public
meeting, someone may hear a speech and follow it up by saying, “That
expresses my sentiments, too.” Or, in writing an article, one may quote
another author “approvingly.” And Wolterstorff takes both authorization and
appropriation to be among the most important modalities for the divine
speaking.

Two areas invite further exploration. Wolterstorff seems to construe
authorization as essentially a two-agent relation. President Truman autho-
rizes Kennan to speak for him in the Kremlin, the boss authorizes the
secretary to sign letters, and God authorizes a prophet to speak in God’s
name. But this seems to leave out an important element. The fact is that
nothing that transpires between Truman and Kennan can make Kennan’s
words, spoken in Moscow, count as Truman’s message to Stalin. Kennan’s
authorization cannot be a private affair between him and the president. It
must be “public” in a sense. Kennan needs credentials, and credentials of a
sort that can be recognized in Moscow. (I suppose there are standard forms
for diplomatic credentials.) Without such credentials, nothing that Kennan
says in the Kremlin will confer the desired normative status on Truman in the
White House. To whatever extent the divine speech to us is construed
according to this model, must there not be some element that is analogous to
the ambassador’s credentials? How, when, where, and to whom are these
credentials presented?

The second problem involves one of Wolterstorff s principles of biblical
interpretation. More than once, he says that our interpretations must never
attribute a falsehood to God. But he gives no reason, I think, to support this

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rule. One might, however, think that a speaker utters a falsehood either as a
result of some ignorance or mistake, or else as a deliberate attempt to deceive.
In the one case it stems from a cognitive defect, in the other from a moral
defect. But God has neither of these defects. So God says nothing false.

The possibility of mediated speech, however, undercuts this argument, for
it suggests a way in which God may come to assert falsehoods without either
of these defects. If I authorize someone to speak for me, then I accept the
responsibility for what she says, even if I would not have said that thing with
my own mouth. If the governors of Baring’s Bank authorize an agent in
Singapore to trade on the Tokyo stock exchange with bank money, then
Baring’s Bank sustains the losses, even if none of the governors would
themselves have made those trades. But according to Wolterstorff s analysis,
acquiring the normative status associated with the assertion of a certain
proposition is essentially what saying that proposition amounts to. Perhaps we
should explore the possibility that God authorizes someone to speak for him,
and thus (willingly) accepts the responsibility for what is said, including the
falsehood that is said, even if God would not have said those things in an
unmediated way.

George I. Mavrodes
University of Michigan

Albertz, Rainer. A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period. 2 vols.
Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994. Pp. 740. $32.00; $32.00.

Rainer Albertz, Professor of Biblical Exegesis and Biblical Theology at the
University of $iegen, Germany, first came to prominence in 1978 with the
publication of Personliche Fronmiigkeit und offizielle Religion: Religionsinterner
Pluralismus in Israel und Babylon , a comparative study of the contrast between
personal piety and official religion in Israel and Babylon. The present
two-volume work, originally published in German in 1992, represents a
continuation and broadening of the research interests found in that earlier
work.

Albertz wants to rehabilitate a history-of-religions approach to the study of
the Old Testament in contrast to the biblical-theology approach that he
thinks currently dominates the field. He has also made a serious attempt to
incorporate the results of recent sociological study of the Old Testament. Yet
the structure of his treatment is strikingly similar to historically arranged
theologies of the Old Testament, such as that of Gerhard von Rad. History or
the history of religious traditions is actually more important in Albertz’s work

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than the nuts and bolts of religion. This is not the work to consult to learn
about the actual cultic practices in ancient Israel. In contrast to such a work as
Mark S. Smith’s The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in
Ancient Israel (1987), which has detailed discussions of the various symbols,
sites, and practices of the Israelite cult, Albertz’s discussion of such phenom-
ena as the cultic stela, the ashera, the high place, sacrifice, etc., tends to be
cursory, scattered, and episodic. One never gets much sense how the various
elements of the cult cohere in any kind of system at any particular period.

Moreover, Albertz’s reconstruction of the historical development of Israel’s
religious traditions depends on a number of problematic literary judgments.
He assigns a very late date to the whole process of Pentateuchal composition,
rejecting the traditional preexilic sources J and E. He also assigns the Book of
the Covenant (Exodus 2 1-23), traditionally dated to the early monarchical or
even premonarchical period, a date in the reign of Hezekiah in the late eighth
century B.C. Further, while offering no explanation for Deuteronomy’s
obvious northern elements, Albertz turns it into a purely southern work
whose composition could not have begun before 631 B.C. There was no
preexilic edition of the deuteronomic history; according to Albertz it took
shape only gradually after 561 B.C., developing out of the work of theological
discussion groups. Neither Albertz’s late datings nor the prominence he gives
to composition by committee provide adequate explanations for the literary
character of these works. If his literary judgments were correct, one would be
able to say very little about the nature of Israelite religion prior to the very end
of the eighth century, and even what one could say about the eighth and
seventh centuries would be suspect as revisionist deuteronomistic ideology.
Albertz wants to say a great deal about the earlier periods, but his treatment of
the sources has provided no convincing rationale for why one should trust any
reconstruction of Israelite religion for the periods prior to the eighth century
B.C.

Despite his failure to isolate early sources, however, Albertz’s reconstruc-
tion of the royal theology of the Davidic-Solomonic period is probably the
strongest part of his work. His recognition of the strong Egyptian influence
on the Israelite coronation ritual and his refusal to allow apologetic concerns
to undercut that observation is a case in point. Yet methodological weaknesses
still undermine confidence in details of his sketch of the historical develop-
ment of the monarchy. He tries to draw a very sharp distinction between the
tribal chieftainship of Saul and the full-fledged monarchy of David, but when
he begins describing the taxation necessary to support the changes under
David and Solomon, he actually cites texts purporting to deal with the

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situation under Saul. If taken seriously, these texts suggest a significant
development of the monarchy already under Saul.

Albertz makes a great deal of the supposed contrast in the early period
between the personal piety of Israelites, directed toward many gods, and the
state religion, directed toward the national deity, Yahweh. His evidence for
this is primarily based on Israelite personal names, many of which, on his
source analysis, cannot be assigned an early date, and his results are contra-
dicted by Jeffrey Tigay’s more thorough and judicious study of the biblical
and inscriptional material ( You Shall Have No Other Gods: Israelite Religion in
the Light of Hebrew Inscriptions [1986]). But if the supposed contrast between
personal piety and state religion is hard to demonstrate for the earlier period,
one must be very dubious of Albertz’s claims that a change in personal and
family piety in the later period played a major role in the transformation and
preservation of Yahwism at the time of the exile. His dating of the idea of the
covenant between Yahweh and Israel to the late seventh century B.C. is also
problematic. It must cavalierly delete the contrary evidence in the eighth-
century prophet Hosea and ignore obvious contrasts in important structural
elements between the Israelite covenant and Assyrian covenants of the first
millennium. Oddly, Albertz also follows the apologists in dismissing the
evidence for child sacrifice in Israel. The attempt to turn the burning of the
child on the tophet into a harmless dedication ritual analogous to infant
baptism will not wash. Such allusions to the practice as that found in Isaiah
30:33 clearly imply the fiery death of the human sacrifice.

These critical comments should not be misconstrued as a totally negative
judgment on the books. Albertz offers many acute observations, and his
construals of Israelite religion, even when one remains unconvinced of his
historical schema, are often suggestive and productive of new lines of thought.
It is a work worth reading both for its ideas and for its marvelous bibliographi-
cal resources. But it has not adequately met the need for a reliable reference
work on the history of Israelite religion in the Old Testament period. Such a
work remains to be written.

J. J. M. Roberts
Princeton Theological Seminary

White, L. Michael, and O. Larry Yarbrough, eds. The Social World of the First
Christians: Essays in Honor of Wayne A. Meeks. Minneapolis: Fortress Press,
1995. Pp. xxix + 418. $54.00.

Social World is a fitting tribute to the legacy of social analysis that Wayne A.
Meeks leaves for future biblical interpreters. The book is divided neatly into

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four parts. Nine essays in part 1 deal with Paul and his communities. The first
five “treat patterns of argument in Paul’s letters as they relate to the social and
interpretive context of his communities.” The last four examine Paul’s
method of organizing and exhorting his communities; in the process they help
to demonstrate how social conventions of the time influenced both the
content and manner of the Apostle’s activities. In part 2, themes that highlight
writings from other Christian communities, those represented in Matthew,
Luke-Acts, John, and James, are considered in light of their social contexts.
Part 3 extends the study away from a direct consideration of Christian issues
into the broader social environments of magic, pagan Greek religious sacri-
fice, and gnosticism. Finally, the brief concluding section looks at the impact
of Pauline traditions in shaping later Christian life and thought, especially as
it develops through an Augustinian lens.

I find parts 1 and 2 extremely exciting. Direct links are established between
the social context in which the biblical materials were written and the manner
in which conclusions about the meaning of those materials are acquired. Each
of the authors helps us to see how the material would most likely have been
understood given the sociohistorical filters of the period. Often implied is the
suggestion (and I believe it appropriate) that Paul and his audience, because of
their shared social circumstance, assumed a common meaning for many of the
rhetorical terms and devices that now seem puzzling to contemporary readers
and interpreters.

Ronald F. Flock’s article, “A Support for His Old Age: Paul’s Plea on
Behalf of Onesimus,” is a case in point. Paul does not spend time explaining
terminology like upeCTPirrqs (old man or ambassador) in Philemon 9 because
he knows his readers understand him. We, however, do not. We know that
Paul wanted Philemon to allow his slave, Onesimus, to return to Paul’s side.
We are not certain, however, whether the Apostle based his appeal on the
authoritative self-designation “ambassador” or on the self-effacing qualifier
“old man.” We must, therefore, reconstruct the rhetorical relationship that
existed between Paul and his intended audience in Philemon’s household.
Hock does this through the use of Greco-Roman literary and social parallels.
The comparisons prompt the conclusion that Paul referred to himself as an
old man; in so doing, he represented Onesimus as a son whose proper place is
at the side of his aging spiritual father, Paul. Common social convention
demanded compliance. Paul, then, like Greco-Roman literary figures of the
time, personalized his relationship with both the slave Onesimus and his
owner, Philemon, in order to make his point and obtain his desire.

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This work is a substantial one that has much to contribute to the field of
New Testament research and professional biblical interpretation. I do have
two concerns. My first has to do with the final two sections of the book. While
I find the material illuminating and often provocative, especially Segal’s
discussion of magic, the material in the end seems less “useful” for illuminat-
ing issues of interpreting the New Testament. Certainly this is not the case
with Stowers’ study on Greeks who sacrifice and those who don’t. Indeed, his
work gives the reader a clearer understanding of the importance of sacrifice in
the ancient world and, therefore, the precarious position into which a
Christian who refused to sacrifice would place him- or herself. For the most
part, however, these latter materials serve their own historical purposes of
social evaluation and investigation; the reader is left to connect the conclu-
sions drawn from the studies of the social world of the first Christians to the
interpretation of the literature those Christians produced.

My second concern stems from the apparent unwillingness to make the
move from considering the first-century context of interpretation to examin-
ing the contemporary context. Certainly, this concern is often implied and/or
stated; rarely, however, is the investigative skill, patience, and resolve that
went into these articles directed toward contemporary social-analytical issues
and how they affect not only how we reconstruct the first-century social world
but also how we interpret the biblical materials that developed in it.

Brian K. Blount
Princeton Theological Seminary

Betz, Hans Dieter. The Sermon on the Mount: A Commentary on the Sermon on
the Mount, including the Sermon on the Plain (Matthew 5:5-7:27 and Luke
6:20-49). Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995. Pp. xxxvii -I- 695. $72.00.

With this addition to the Hermeneia commentary series, Hans Dieter Betz
brings to a magisterial culmination his exegetical labors on the Sermon on the
Mount. This massive examination of the Sermon draws on Betz’s intimate
familiarity with Hellenistic rhetorical culture, on his thorough acquaintance
with the history of interpretation of the Sermon, and on his immersion in the
exegetical tradition of source and redaction criticism. With these tools, he
constructs a powerful argument that the Sermon as it appears in the Gospels
of Matthew and Luke represents independent, pre-Gospel redactions of a
shared collection of sayings; the compilers of these collections have shaped
the two “sermons” into epitomai, compendia of Jesus’ teachings, for catecheti-
cal purposes.

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The introductory section rehearses the history of the interpretation of the
Sermon, from the earliest Christian writings to the present. Betz then
considers the structure, the genre, and the function of the Sermon(s),
concluding that these categories all support his hypothesis that these texts
represent divergent complementary representations of the Jesus movement’s
central doctrines— the Sermon on the Mount compiled by Jews for their
mission to other Jews, and the Sermon on the Plain compiled by Jews for the
mission to Gentiles. He supports his introductory explanations with detailed
rhetorical outlines of the two Sermons.

The remainder of the volume undertakes a detailed analysis of the two texts
(first the Matthean Sermon, then the Lukan). Betz devotes almost a hundred
pages to the beatitudes (Matt. 5:3-12; Luke 6:2ob-26), more than a hundred
pages to the antitheses (Matt. 5:21-48), and copious attention to virtually
every aspect of this crucial text. He calls constant attention to illuminating
material from the Greek primary sources, though he alludes to rabbinic
sources principally through secondary reference works. The commentary
follows the Hermeneia pattern of translation, general analysis, and detailed
verse-by-verse examination (with copious footnotes) into which Betz incorpo-
rates significant excursuses on “Jerusalem,” Socrates’ defiance of the law,
oaths, and ancient theories of vision, to name but a few. A select bibliography
concludes the volume (Betz allows works of limited importance simply to
remain in the footnotes to the passages they illuminate).

This commentary is a treasure of insights from ancient parallels, from the
history of interpretation, and from the author’s encyclopedic familiarity with
the best of contemporary scholarship. Even if one is not convinced by Betz’s
suggestion that the Sermon(s) reflect separately redacted presynoptic versions
of a common stock of material, the notes and analysis are quite valuable
(Betz’s familiarity with the Greek literature is evident on every page). It is
regrettable, though, that he devotes less attention to specifically Jewish
traditions, especially since much of the Sermon(s) involves legal/ethical
reasoning (and since his thesis proposes the Jewish origin of both Sermons
and the Jewish destination of the Matthean Sermon). While there is much
that is precious in this volume, the high cost and the attention to minutiae
mean that many pastors would find this monumental reference volume an
expense disproportionate to its usefulness.

A. K. M. Adam
Princeton Theological Seminary

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Gold, Victor Roland, et al., eds. The New Testament and Psalms: An Inclusive
Version. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Pp. xxii + 535. $14.95.

Any translation of the New Testament described as “an inclusive version”
is likely to have an immediate appeal for many readers. But it is no use having
politically correct language if the meaning of the original text is not conveyed.
Unfortunately, in spite of its extravagant claims, this version fails to live up to
its promise to present the true meaning of the text.

In the preface, the editors set out the reasons for “another version.”
Changes in the English langage and developments in our understanding of
Greek and Hebrew have necessitated new translations, and the New Revised
Standard Version and Revised English Bible are excellent examples of such
translations. In fact, however, the only differences between this present
“translation” and the NRSV, on which it is based, are concerned with issues
of “inclusive language.” It is these changes that “justify” the present version.

The NRSV itself had already made numerous changes to the RSV in the
interest of using inclusive language. Many of the changes were simple and
necessary: There can, for example, be no justification for modern translators
using the word “man” in any passage in which there is no reference to a man
in Greek. The changes made in this version, however, go far beyond this. The
editors attempt to remove “all gender-specific language not referring to
particular historical individuals, all pejorative references to race, color, or
religion, and all identifications of persons by their physical disability alone.”
In doing so, they claim that they have brought out “the underlying meaning
of the text more explicitly than ever before.” In fact, they have done the very
reverse: by attempting to make the text “relevant,” they have succeeded in
hiding its original meaning. At the same time, a few passages remain, still
expressed in politically “incorrect” langage, to show how impossible it is to
conceal the Bible’s cultural relativity.

The New Testament was written in a male-dominated society. One should
not try to disguise this. Paradoxically, in their attempts to do so, our editors
lose one of the points they are trying to emphasize — the universality of the
gospel. One of the remarkable things about the New Testament is how often,
in a male-dominated world, women were being treated as equals. By removing
references to “Son” and “sons” in Galatians 3-4, for example, we lose sight of
Paul’s remarkable claim that women were now being treated as “sons of
God”— sons of God and therefore (like men) inheritors of God’s promises. Of
course the language of sonship jars us— and so it should, but at the time it
must have jarred ancient readers far more, because the very idea it expressed

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was so shocking! Ancient readers must have been shocked, too, by the
references to the three women who are specifically named by Matthew in his
version of Jesus’ genealogy. All three are gentiles and outsiders. Why does
Matthew mention them, and what is he hinting about the gospel? These
gentile women (doubly second-class!) had fulfilled an important role in God’s
plan. But our editors miss the point entirely, by inserting the names of other
(perfectly “acceptable”) women into the list!

So, too, with the references to people with disabilities. The editors have
rejected the normal translations such as “the blind,” “the lame,” or “lepers,”
in favor of phrases such as “people who are blind,” “those who are lame,” and
“persons with leprosy,” on the basis that “they are people first and they have
disabilities second.” But the point of the gospel story is that in the biblical
world these people were not regarded as “people first”: they were regarded as
maimed, imperfect, unclean, outsiders. And Jesus healed even them! Not only
that, he made them members of the community. Women, gentiles, the sick,
and the unclean were all members of God’s people.

It is a strange phenomenon that the attempt to achieve “greater specificity”
in language in fact often succeeds in making it more remote: there is nothing
more impersonal than the word “person”! Take, for example, the story in
Mark 1:40-45. Gone is “the leper”; instead we have “a person with leprosy.”
Instead of touching “him,” we have “Jesus . . . touched the person.” When we
come to Mark 14, however, we find that the woman who anoints Jesus is still
“a woman”! There is surely sexist bias here: the women remain real people,
but the men are reduced to being “persons” and lose their personality.

This version will, of course, have nothing to do with masculine terms for
God. “Father” has become “Father-Mother.” This can hardly be said to
convey the meaning of the original! Certainly it avoids the danger that it
might be taken literally. But does it function successfully as a metaphor? It jars
because it is so obviously artificial and conveys nothing of the sense of a loving
relationship. Again, the editors have dropped “Lord” as a designation for
Christ, but in doing so they obliterate very interesting and significant
evidence regarding the development of Christology. The one change that
could perhaps be regarded as an improvement is the use of “dominion” for
“kingdom” — not because it avoids the “sexist” term “king” but because it
arguably conveys the idea of rule as well as realm. Here, at last, we have a
change that does convey the underlying meaning of the text better!

Verbs, as well as nouns, convey the mores of another era. Take the
admonition to women to obey their husbands in Ephesians 5:22. The revisers
have changed this to “Be committed to your husbands.” But this is not what

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the verb hypotasso means; it means “to be subject to” or “to obey.” And if
women in the ancient world were expected to obey their husbands, children
were also expected to obey their parents (Eph. 6: i), not to “heed” them. In
this version, parents are no longer said to “discipline” their children in
Hebrews 12:7 but to “guide” them, for fear that the passage might be used to
justify child abuse (p. xx)! But Romans 13, used by some Christians in Nazi
Germany to justify their failure to withstand Hitler, remains unchanged, to
remind us that the New Testament was in fact written in a very different
world.

The Bible was written in another age and another culture, and it is foolish
to try to disguise this fact by tinkering with the language. In attempting to do
so, the editors of this version have in fact obscured the radical nature of the
gospel. We shall never understand the Bible if we treat it in this way. We may
not like what it says, but we are not being true to its underlying meaning if we
change the bits that do not fit with our modern perceptions.

Morna D. Hooker
University of Cambridge

Charlesworth, James H., and Walter P. Weaver, eds. Earthing Christologies:
From Jesus' Parables to Jesus the Parable. Valley Forge: Trinity Press Interna-
tional, 1 995 . Pp. xiv + 1 1 1 . $ 1 3 .00.

This is a revised and updated edition of a collection of essays first published
by Exodus Press, Nashville, in 1989. The essays constitute a fresh attempt to
assert the significance of the historical Jesus in the light of and in response to
the issues still raised particularly by Rudolf Bultmann.

Walter Weaver of Florida Southern College begins the sequence by
relating his own personal odyssey on the importance of the historical Jesus
(through Bultmann, the New Hermeneutic, and so on) and drawing out
conclusions that are in effect those of the so-called New Quest before
outlining the model that has proved fruitful for him, namely, Jesus as Parable.
This model has four characteristic elements: “identity with the dispossessed,”
“true life as cruciform,” “God as parabolic,” and “eschatological hope.”

James H. Charlesworth of Princeton offers an interesting comparison
between the Teacher of Righteousness and Jesus. Assuming that iQH 8:4-1 1
is a psalm composed by the Teacher, we have an insight into his self-
understanding. The position is somewhat similar with regard to Jesus in Mark
12:1-9. Despite these similarities, the endings of the story are rather different,

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which raises the question: Is there a clue to the diversity of these outcomes in
the different albeit similar self-understandings?

Leander Keck of Yale provides a finely nuanced treatment of Jesus and
Judaism in the New Testament. Jesus in Judaism is no answer to the question
Who is Jesus? To answer that question adequately an “interpretive frame-
work” is required; otherwise, “Jesus in Judaism is just another interesting
first-century Palestinian teacher.” Keck proceeds to set the answer within the
frameworks of Matthew, John, and Paul. In the first case, it becomes clear that
Jesus and Judaism cannot simply be set in antithesis. “Matthew’s Jesus stands
over against Judaism just like the Old Testament prophets stood over against
the religion of Israel.” John uses his material to force his readers to face the
same decision regarding Jesus as had the Jews. Paul is different again. Keck
concludes that we need to continue speaking of the historical Jesus in Judaism
“to keep us honest,” and that “the formulation ‘Jesus AND Judaism’ is
essential theologically if the integrity of Christianity is to be preserved,” but
that they are not the same.

Hugh Anderson of Edinburgh winds up with a somewhat wandering piece
perhaps appropriately entitled “Christology: Unfinished Business.” It in-
cludes a rather stringent critique of C. F. D. Moule that seems to have been
somewhat misdirected. The real thrust of the essay is its poignant attempt to
speak realistically of the resurrection of Christ in a world where death still
seems unfettered. Anderson can achieve no confidence regarding Jesus’
resurrection, but his challenge is effective in its own way: “Where Christian
believers have opportunity to improve the human condition, and yet death is
somehow permitted to stalk all around them in life, by oppression, injustice,
falsehood, and lovelessness, then we can say that Jesus is not risen.” In his
conclusion to the whole, Weaver notes that the point of Anderson’s essay was
well summarized by Keck: “The real test of the validity of the Christ idea is
not in its theoretical appeal to reason or logic, but how the divine-human
Christ is experienced by men and women and the effect that has on their
lives.”

The collection is something of a mixed bag, but in the honesty of Weaver’s
and Anderson’s testimonies, in the fresh insights afforded by Charlesworth’s
comparison, and in the sharpness of Keck’s theological observations and
analysis, there is a goodly amount of grain to be gleaned.

James D. G. Dunn
University of Durham

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375

Butin, Philip Walker. Revelation, Redemption, and Response: Calvin's Trinitarian
Understanding of the Divine-Human Relationship. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1995. Pp. xiii + 232. $39.95.

Revelation , Redemption and Response is a splendid study of Calvin’s understand-
ing of the divine-human relationship (“the knowledge of God and ourselves”)
expounded, as Calvin does, in terms of the doctrine of the Trinity. This
trinitarian reading of Calvin’s theology— from which his anthropology can-
not be separated — is not only a major contribution to Calvin studies but— one
would hope — to twentieth-century dogmatics as well.

Concerning the first contribution, modern Calvin studies (and debates)
between and among Brunner and Barth, Dowey and Parker on God the
Creator and Redeemer, Willis on Christology, and Krusche on pneumatology
prepared and produced the need for this synoptic trinitarian reflection. To
the studies of what God has done for us, and in us, this one focuses on what
God does with us. Additionally, using the doctrine of the divine triunity as
integrating paradigm advances the continuing discussion concerning whether
Calvin thinks from a single, central dogma or from an interlocking set of
essential doctrines. The doctrine of the Trinity offers a synthesis (perichore-
sis) to the discussion of Calvin’s starting point— or points — and one based on
the theological dialectic of revelation rather than on a philosophical dialectic
of reasoned opposites. As an interpretation of Calvin’s theology it has the
immensely persuasive advantage of being obviously read directly off the form
and content of the Institutes.

Concerning the second contribution, Calvin’s trinitarian understanding of
anthropology— based on confidence in divine revelation rather than appeal to
human reason — is a denial of, and perhaps a recoverable alternative to, the
pervasive Cartesian model of the self in essential separation from God, whose
very existence is a secondary and logically derived inference from the undoubt-
able certainty of human existence. According to Calvin, human being is
properly understood from the revealed being of God as Father, Son, and
Spirit. Butin underlines the essential fact that Calvin, unlike Thomas, does
not develop a doctrine of God in general and then proceed to the Trinity in
particular.

The discussion in part 1 (chapters 1-3) includes the importance of the
academic approach to Calvin as an historical figure while correctly insisting
that judicious and careful study does not exclude Calvin from being seen as a
continuing resource for the church’s theology. The central section (chapters
4-6) focuses on the revelation of God and what we can learn about ourselves

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in reflecting on the divine perichoretic reality. Chapter 4 considers the
revealed basis of the authentic knowledge of God the Father who is both the
source and “subject” of revelation. Chapter 5 expounds the redemptive
pattern as demonstrated in God the Son. Chapter 6 considers the dynamic
response as enabled by the work of God the Holy Spirit. Part 3 (chapters 7-9)
carries the trinitarian thesis through the doctrine of the church (and election),
with special focus on the sacraments.

The “central problem” of the study is defined as “How can what God does
in us also and simultaneously be authentically human response?” (pp. 92-93).
Butin grants that book 3 of the Institutes , with its “apparently Christological
title” (p. 80) and its “absence of a discrete discussion of the deity of the Spirit”
focuses not on the person but “on the specific work of the Spirit in the
divine-human relationship” (p. 81), thereby appearing “to shift attention to
the human side of the divine-human relationship” (p. 76).

Butin’s carefully nuanced conclusion is that while “faith and the Holy Spirit
sometimes appear in Calvin’s thought to represent two complementary levels
of explanation for the same phenomenon” (p. 86), “there is no intrinsic
incompatibility between attributing the same human actions primarily and
fundamentally to God’s grace, and yet concurrently (in a second and wholly
derivative sense) to human beings” (p. 78). According to Butin, the divinely
enabled human response means that believers, as members of Christ’s body,
are included in the divine perichoresis (p. 43).

Butin helpfully reviews and evaluates the state of Calvin studies in general
and specifically in regard to the doctrine of the Trinity. Ministers will read
this study with intellectual joy and spiritual profit.

Charles Partee
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary

Puckett, David L. John Calvin's Exegesis of the Old Testament. Louisville:
Westminster John Knox Press, 1995. Pp. ix + 179. $17.00.

Rather than being a general study, as the title might imply, David L.
Puckett’s John Calvin's Exegesis of the Old Testament is built around a focused
question. The question grows from a late-sixteenth-century polemical accusa-
tion: The Lutheran theologian Aegidius Hunnius charged Calvin with being
too “Jewish” in his interpretation of the Old Testament. In Reformation
polemics every Christian faction accused its opponents of being “Judaizers”
on all manner of issues, and biblical interpretation was no exception. The
contemporary methods of interpretation of the Old Testament ranged from

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traditional Christian attempts to find Jesus Christ on every possible page to
Jewish commentators who, not surprisingly, found no such references. Puck-
ett sorts out the reality behind the polemics, and he finds Calvin exemplifying
a middle way that critiques both extremes.

After laying out this scenario in the first chapter, Puckett examines the
question piece by piece. The second chapter lays out two of Calvin’s primary
presuppositions about the Bible: First, the scriptures are of both divine and
human authorship, so the exegete’s task is to discern the very thoughts and
intentions of these two sources. Second, there is a deep unity throughout the
Bible between the Testaments and within the Old Testament. Both Testa-
ments proclaim salvation through a mediator, promised in the Old and
present in the New. Within the Old Testament, the prophets are interpreters
of the law.

The third and fourth chapters comprise the core of Puckett’s argument,
respectively discussing aspects of Calvin’s exegesis that seem “Jewish” and
“Christian.” He is taken as Jewish for reading the text in light of its human
author’s historical context. Calvin was critical of traditional Christian interpre-
tations of Old Testament texts that supported Christian doctrine by ignoring
the original meaning. Hunnius thought Calvin was supporting Jewish posi-
tions and undercutting Christian ones even though Calvin did not critique the
doctrines themselves but only the faulty interpretations used to support them.
Calvin also risked appearing a Judaizer for his careful attention to the proper
understanding of the Hebrew language. He attempted to determine the
meaning of words and passages based on their usage throughout the Hebrew
scriptures and on the literary and historical contexts of passages being
interpreted. He even gave favorable judgments on conclusions of rabbinic
commentators regarding the definitions of words.

The more traditionally Christian aspects include Calvin’s critique of the
conclusions of Jewish interpreters and his use of the New Testament as a
guide to his interpretation of the Old. Calvin strained to affirm the New
Testament’s use of Old Testament texts, and he used Jesus and Paul as
authoritative guides to understanding the Old Testament. Anti-Semitism is
not among the most prominent features of Calvin’s theology or his exegesis.
However, Puckett shows that Calvin held the negative assumptions typical of
his age. Calvin portrayed Jews as blind to the christological meaning of
scripture because they lacked piety, and he accused them of twisting the
scriptures away from true meanings willfully and even diabolically.

In the fifth chapter Puckett illustrates Calvin’s middle way by examining
the troublesome issues of allegory, typology, and prophecy. In each of these

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Calvin approves less than some Christians, who deny the historical reference
of the text, but more than Jews, who deny its christological reference. In each
area the question of literal fulfillment weighs heavily: Old Testament passages
that were not fulfilled literally or fully before Christ are more open to
christological interpretations. Some allegory is approved when the literary
characteristics of the text require it. A great deal of typology and predictive
prophecy can be related to Christ and his reign, though usually the text must
be allowed to have at least partial reference to its own time.

Puckett’s study is useful for those interested in Calvin’s biblical interpreta-
tion and how it fits within the polemics of his age. We see Calvin standing
confidently in the middle with his intellectual and spiritual integrity intact. It
also provides a good window into the sources of Reformed theology. Puckett
shows Calvin’s priority on honest, open-minded study of scripture, and his
trust that, when studied rather than twisted, scripture will provide the
resources for the church’s doctrinal reflection.

Gary Neal Hansen
Princeton Theological Seminary

Morimoto, Anri .Jonathan Edwards and the Catholic Vision of Salvation. Univer-
sity Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995. Pp. vii + 178. $33.50.

Anri Morimoto, currently teaching theology and ethics and University
Minister at International Christian University in Tokyo, is the author of this
accessible and well-written study of Jonathan Edwards’ understanding of
justification and sanctification. Morimoto shows how Edwards tried to do
justice to the Pauline affirmations that “we are justified by faith” and that “in
Christ we are a new creation.” His thesis is that Edwards combined the
Protestant concern that justification is the work of God with the Roman
Catholic emphasis that God’s saving action produces an abiding change in the
believer, thus providing a unique, ecumenical understanding of justification
and sanctification.

Morimoto argues that Edwards’ view is able to preserve the meaningfulness
of the Christian message while including nonbelievers and members of other
religions in a Christian understanding of the economy of salvation. The key to
this lies in Edwards’ conception of justification and sanctification in terms of
his dispositional ontology. All this is argued through a careful study of
Edwards’ understanding of conversion, justification, and sanctification, which
compares Edwards to classical and contemporary Roman Catholic and Prot-
estant positions along the way. The result is a very readable and thought-

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379

provoking study introducing one aspect of Edwards’ thought and showing its
relevance for the present. Those used to understanding justification as God’s
paradoxical acceptance of a sinner will find a very different view here.
Justification according to Edwards follows upon conversion, in which the
Holy Spirit establishes in the person a new saving disposition of love for God.
In justification, this new saving disposition, “though not counted as the
qualification for justification, is given due recognition.” For Edwards justifica-
tion is not so much the acceptance of the ungodly, though it is that, as God
crowning God’s own previously given gift of faith.

While he admirably shows how Edwards holds together many traditional
concerns of Protestant and Roman Catholic theology, Morimoto does not
suggest how Edwards’ position could be expressed today. How are we to
understand the change wrought in the believer in conversion by the Holy
Spirit? If grace is infused into the believer as a new disposition, where does it
lodge? Edwards attempted to answer this question in a realistic way with his
notion of the new spiritual sense, pointing to the imagination as the place
where the change of sanctification occurs. Gregory Baum and Garrett Green
have recently developed similar positions, though without reference to Ed-
wards. The believer becomes a new creation as the symbols of the faith come
to structure the imagination, thus shaping the perception, judgments, and
actions in the world. It would be worthwhile to bring Edwards into this
contemporary discussion. But even without this, Morimoto has succeeded in
showing the ecumenical relevance of Edwards’ understanding of how God’s
grace takes effect in people’s lives. Through this he has contributed to the
understanding of Edwards and the Christian faith.

Don Schweitzer
Wesley United Church
Prince Albert, SK

Gaustad, Edwin S. Sworn on the Altar of God: A Religious Biography ofTho??ras
Jefferson. Grand Rapids: Win. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1996. Pp. xiv +
246. $15.00.

Once again Edwin S. Gaustad has demonstrated that first-rate scholarship
and sparkling prose can live together happily in the same book. One of the
premier historians of American religion and a former guest professor at
Princeton Seminary, Gaustad turns his skills in Sworn on the Altar of God to
depicting the religion of America’s third president. Conventional wisdom
often defines Jefferson’s religious views in terms of what he opposed. For

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example, he stood against efforts to breach what he called “a wall of separation
between Church and State,” denied that the doctrines peculiar to individual
denominations had moral significance for the welfare of society at large, and
railed privately against the corruptions with which he believed Christians had
overlaid the teachings of their founder. While recognizing and brilliantly
illuminating these aspects of Jefferson’s thought, Gaustad shows that there
was much more to Jefferson’s religion than negations.

Shaped by the Enlightenment, Jefferson’s faith centered on nature and
reason. Nature, though a concept filled with shifting and sometimes contra-
dictory meanings, signified for Jefferson primarily an orderly, benevolent
universe sustained by the God who created it. Through patient observation,
reason discerned the laws of nature (thus of God, too), disclosed the path of
virtue, and permitted humankind to cooperate with these laws to build a
better world. To realize the promise of reason, one needed only to leave the
mind free to investigate, for in Jefferson’s matchless phrase, “truth is great
and will prevail if left to herself.” The quest for truth moved away from the
local or provincial to the universal and cosmopolitan. Jefferson ardently
believed that all religions, however perverted and encrusted with error, had a
common essence. All alike taught the existence of a moral God, the necessity
of virtuous living in accord with laws applicable to every place or time, and a
future life in which cosmic justice would reward people according to their
moral desserts. Jefferson believed that this simplified creed would serve as the
basis for a reformed Christianity, and he looked for the triumph of Unitarian-
ism. Although we might style him a deist, Jefferson considered himself a
Christian, at least according to his understanding of Jesus. He spent evenings
in the Executive Mansion cutting and pasting portions of the Gospels to
create a condensed Bible embodying what he deemed the genuine sayings of
Jesus. It was a text shorn of the miraculous and the mysterious, a text
presenting Jesus as a teacher of simple moral truths rather than as the divine
Son of God.

Jefferson often avowed that individual religious belief was of no concern in
the public domain. “It does me no injury,” he declared, “for my neighbour to
say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my
leg.” Yet as Gaustad ably illustrates, this was not Jefferson’s last word on the
subject. Although he wished to exclude sectarian dogmas from the civic realm,
the president’s belief in the self-evidence of the laws of nature and nature’s
God pushed him toward a public theology of sorts. The universal moral laws
visible to reason’s eye provided the moral commitments that sustained shared
discourse and civility within society. Of all his ventures, his labors on behalf of

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education most clearly testified to his belief that religion, rightly understood,
played an essential role in public life. Believing that an educated populace was
essential for the success of democracy, he strove to create in Virginia a
comprehensive system of schooling from grammar schools to a university. All
sectarian religion was, of course, to be excluded from this instruction or at
least relegated to its margins; but the moral precepts allegedly taught by
nature and reason were to be an essential component of a system designed to
produce virtuous republicans.

In assessing the abiding significance of Jefferson’s legacy, Gaustad suggests
that the third president has much to teach us about civility and the common
moral good in an era when “racial, ethnic, and gender tribalisms” may cause
us to wonder if the nation is tied together “by something more than a network
of interstate highways.” Gaustad also offers the provocative suggestion that
evangelical Christians ought to take another look at Jefferson, for he and their
spiritual forebears may have had more in common than is commonly sup-
posed. Jefferson and many nineeteenth-century evangelicals shared a passion
for republican values, an emphasis upon private and public morality, a
“spirited optimism,” and a similarly primitivist desire (albeit differently
interpreted) to repristinate the earliest forms of the Christian faith.

In several places, Gaustad notes the inconsistencies between Jefferson’s
soaring affirmations and his attitudes toward slavery. One might wish that the
author had explored this issue a bit further. But this minor reservation aside,
Gaustad has produced in Sworn on the Altar of God one of those gems
increasingly rare in scholarly publishing: a volume equally valuable to special-
ists and to beginning students of American religion alike.

James H. Moorhead
Princeton Theological Seminary

Erskine, Noel Leo. King among the Theologians. Cleveland: Pilgrim Press,
1994. Pp. xv + 208. $13.95.

Claiming that very little attention has been given to Martin Luther King,
Jr. as a theologian, the author of this book aims at providing a corrective to
that neglect. His laudable endeavour will certainly give readers many impor-
tant insights into the theological thought of America’s foremost twentieth-
century theologian.

In order to demonstrate the truth implied by the title of the book, King
among the Theologians , Noel Erskine, himself a theologian, decides to place
King in conversation with a few of the most representative theologians of our

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time. Thus, the first two chapters focus on the two most renowned theolo-
gians of King’s day, namely, Paul Tillich and Karl Barth. Similarly, the third
chapter centers on James H. Cone, the most important African American
theologian since King’s assasination and the progenitor of the Black Theol-
ogy Movement. After a splendid constructive chapter on King’s theology,
Erskine discusses in an all too brief chapter King’s relation to womanist
theology.

Although this reader was a bit frustrated in his discovery that Erskine
devotes more than half of the book to the perspectives of the above-named
theologians, Erskine’s wisdom in doing so becomes clear in chapter 5, where
he gives a splendid, comprehensive analysis of King’s theological perspective.
Here we can see the author’s methodological wisdom. The analytical work of
the first three chapters enables him to demonstrate the ways in which King
could affirm and reject varying aspects of the theologies discussed. Most
important, the reader is given an excellent, constructive analysis of King’s own
theology, the most distinguishing characteristics of which are the concepts
love and reconciliation. More specifically, Erskine argues that King’s theology is
praxiological. In other words, King works from within the struggles of
oppressed peoples to relate the Christian faith to their struggles for freedom.
Thus, the claims of social justice assume a central place in King’s theology,
and liberation and reconciliation, rather than being contraries, are viewed by
him as necessary dimensions of the same process.

Thus, King rightly places his argument for nonviolent resistance in that
context. The doctrine of reconciliation designates God’s convenantal relation-
ship with the world, and that covenant requires that the means to liberation be
commensurate with its end, namely, the restoration of God’s sovereign rule
over the world. Hence, instruments of hate and violence can never serve the
goal of restoring God’s covenant of love, justice, and peace.

It would seem that Erskine’s argument is complete at the end of chapter 5.
Yet the author does not end there. Rather, he introduces an abbreviated sixth
chapter on “King and Womanist Theology.” Despite the accuracy of his
analyses of womanist theologians Jacqueline Grant and Katie Cannon, the
chapter has all the marks of being an addendum and does not fit well into the
overall argument. Further, given the title of the book, King among the
Theologians, does the author really wish to imply that King is king among
womanist theologians as well? If he does, then much more needs to be said
about King’s contribution to womanist theology in order for such a claim to
become palatable.

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383

Finally, both the subject matter of the book and Erskine’s constructive
argument concerning King’s theology merit a more substantive conclusion
than the one he provides. Nevertheless, in spite of these minor shortcomings,
the book is a notable contribution to the corpus of King scholarship, and
theological scholars especially will be greatly helped by it.

Peter J. Paris
Princeton Theological Seminary

Raboteau, Albert J. A Fire in the Bones: Reflections on African-American Religions
History. Boston: Beacon Press, 1995. Pp. xi + 224. $23.00.

In this long-awaited volume Albert J. Raboteau, the Henry W. Putnam
Professor of Religion at Princeton University and a former dean of Prince-
ton’s graduate school, offers eleven insightful essays focusing on the religious
history of African American peoples. Seven of the eleven essays have been
published previously. Collectively these essays document the persistent and
dynamic faith that has helped to shape African American lives, religious
institutions, and social ethics. In addition, these essays cogently demonstrate
how this same faith gave African Americans the courage to fight injustice and
continue the struggle for civil rights in the United States. A common theme
throughout is the abiding belief that God is an actor in all of African American
history.

Raboteau touches on a wide variety of African, European, and African
American religious traditions, topics, and concerns. The volume includes
lucid and illuminating discussions of Richard Allen and the origins of the
African Methodist Episcopal Church (chapter 4), black Catholics in the
United States (chapter 6), the chanted sermon (chapter 7), and the conversion
experience itself (chapter 8), as well as useful data on Pentecostals, Baptists,
Methodists, and Orisha- based religions in the New World such as Haitian
Voodoo, Brazilian Candomble, and Cuban Santeria. An epilogue presents an
elegant and heart-felt testimony of the author’s own life and spiritual journey
as a black Catholic.

Chapter 9 is a sensitive and insightful comparison of the spiritual lives of
Thomas Merton and Martin Luther King, Jr. Raboteau points out that at the
time of his assassination King had planned a retreat with Merton at Our Lady
of Gethsemani Abbey. He underscores commonalities that would have brought
the two men together. Both men’s lives, he contends, were changed by
unexpected events; both men converged on the issue of civil rights; and both
men became committed to nonviolence. Merton’s path and King’s path, the

384 THE PRINCETON SEMINARY BULLETIN

author concludes, “met at the symbol of reconciliation and compassion — the
cross.”

Raboteau argues forcefully that the history of African American religions is
a history that has value for all Americans. He asserts that the “inclusion of
African-Americans and other previously invisible groups in the history books
is an extremely important development not just for academic study but for our
understanding of American society and ultimately our understanding of
ourselves, for history functions as a form of self-definition. In its pages we
read ourselves” (p. 5).

A Fire in the Bones is an outstanding contribution to African American
religious history. It possesses a unity of vision often missing from volumes of
collected essays written over a period of years. The essays are of uniform
quality, and the author provides a balanced treatment of his subject matter.
Despite Raboteau’s low-key presentation and his commitment to scholarly
detachment, these essays are engagingly written and highly accessible. His
prose is moving, especially as he attempts to come to grips with his own faith,
the faith of his ancestors, and the place of Catholicism within his life and
scholarship.

Stephen D. Glazier
University of Nebraska

Isichei, Elizabeth. A History of Christianity in Afi-ica: From Antiquity to the
Present. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.; Lawrenceville, NJ:
Africa World Press, 1995. Pp. xi + 420. $19.99.

In 353 pages of text and fifty-nine pages of notes, Isichei succeeds in giving
us a panoramic view of Christianity in Africa, well written, insightful, and with
striking departures from current historiography of the African past. The
author provides a balanced survey of the three families of Christianity extant
in Africa touching even the most recent versions often referred to as “New
Religious Movements.” This review will highlight what in my judgment are
the elements often excluded or not given enough space in writings on
Christianity in Africa currently available to readers in Africa.

The shift from church history to the history of Christianity allows many
actors hitherto undocumented or used only as foils and antagonists to play
more direct roles in projecting the course of Africa’s history. African religion
(traditional) and Islam are shown as forces that, together with Christianity,
are at work in the lives of Africans. Africa’s full size and complexity are

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constantly kept in view through the maps Isichei provides at crucial stages of
the survey.

The section of church history usually designated “early church history”
and often described as if it were solely European history is nuanced so that the
relevant sections that are African are more accurately named as such. This is
very important because many tend to forget that Christianity in Africa
belongs to the genesis of that religion, and others would prefer not to
recognize Christianity as an integral part of Africa’s history. The first chapter,
“North African Christianity in Antiquity,” speaks of St. Mark in Alexandria
(Egypt) and St. Augustine in Hippo (Tunisia) and thus reminds us that
Africans and their continent have known Christianity since its inception. We
are also reminded that the Sahara was a highway linking Mediterranean Africa
with the rest of the continent, while the Mediterranean Sea linked Africa with
Europe, making Africa part of the arena of Christian antiquity. By calling
attention to the vitality of monasticism and to the theological debates that
took place in Africa during this early period, Isichei reinstates the factor of
religion in history, making God the active core of Africa’s history.

The middle years (1500-1800), often passed over in studies of this kind, are
not only germane but crucial to the understanding of Nilotic Christianity,
especially of the ancient Churches of Egypt, Ethiopia, and Nubia (Sudan),
which belong to the Orthodox family of churches. Here, as in Mediterranean
Africa, we meet Christianity and Islam vying for converts from each other and
from African religion. We see how division in the Coptic Church in Egypt
made it easy for Islam to succeed. We come across cathedrals that were once
traditional African shrines and mosques that were once cathedrals. We are
reminded of “the fruitless attempts of Western Christians to convert Mus-
lims.” Often ignored is the Latin (Catholic) presence in the middle years,
which produced African Christian bishops and scholars. Isichei has sketched
profiles of these pioneer African Christians, some of whom were said to have
been missionaries to places beyond Africa. She puts on record African
churches that contributed to the relief of people outside Africa. We are led
into the experience of “ambiguity and marginality” of converts to a faith
whose adherents and propagators traded in human beings.

An important contribution to the study of Christianity in Africa is the
profile of African evangelists. It is a great service that Isichei lifts up the
agency of Africans in the Christianizing of Africa, but most significant is her
naming of women and their acts. She does not simply give women a section;
she integrates them fully. Eschewing the “unconscious sexism” that makes us
talk about “Church Fathers,” she recalls that Carthage was founded by a

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woman, that Ethiopia’s identity is grounded in the Queen of Sheba, and that
thirty-year old Hypatia, the Neoplatonist philosopher and mathematician,
was murdered by a Christian mob. These women come alive as one reads
Isichei. They are bound to inspire more studies of women in Africa and
especially of the contemporary African women’s movements, which are often
treated as if they have no roots in Africa’s history.

Another ground-breaking vista opened in this work is the emphasis given to
the social location of missionaries to Africa, which is often omitted from the
hagiographies that pass for chronicles of achievements of Western missionar-
ies. There were some saints, but there were villains too. Isichei does not gloss
over uncomfortable facts like racism in the church, rivalry between Africans
and Euro-American leaders, “the chronic lack of personnel,” and the insecu-
rity of Euro-American career missionaries.

A departure from current historiography of Africa that makes this book
unique is the intentional citing of parallel phenomena that appear outside
Africa. The author locates African Christianity in the development of world
Christianity. Packed congregations, belief in witchcraft and magic, and
“animistic worship of trees and stones” with Christianity as a veneer were
features common to medieval and seventeenth-century Christianity in both
Europe and Africa. Further, Isichei illustrates how classical issues such as
religion and politics, church and state, were manifested in Africa, and she
examines the role of economics, politics, and militarism in the Christianiza-
tion process. Descriptions of the relationships between colonists, settlers, and
missionaries, along with some crisp studies of contemporary African politi-
cians, give the reader several points with which to connect.

Isichei has demonstrated a depth of understanding of Africa and African
history that is remarkable. Reading this book was both elucidating and
enjoyable.

Mercy Amba Oduyoye
Emmanuel College
Victoria Chhversity

Oduyoye, Mercy Amba. Daughters of Anowa: Afi'ican Women and Patriarchy.
Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1995. Pp. 229. $18.00.

Critically plumbing the depths of the Akan and Yoruba cultures and
histories, as well as Christian traditions, Mercy Amba Oduyoye wends her
way through the morass of patriarchal structures and customs — both native
and imported to Africa — and births visions of new ways of being for African

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women and men. Writing on the basis of her Christian conviction that the
Christ event served as a commissioning of Jesus’ followers completely to
uproot “all limitations to the fullness of life,” Oduyoye argues that it is
African women’s voices— not African men’s— that must both articulate the
current status of African women and name their vision of their response to
God’s gift of fullness for their future. In Daughters of Anowa, Oduyoye lends
her voice to this corporate task.

To decipher the nature of “woman” in the psyche and culture of Akan and
Yoruba peoples, Oduyoye carefully examines roles and representations of
women, and manifestations of patriarchy, in three “cycles.” The first cycle, on
language, inspects teachings about the value and roles of women as found in
mythical images, folktales, and proverbs. Next, the relationship of Akan and
Yoruba women to their cultures; to Western feminism; to familial, economic,
political and military power and authority; and to religion are all investigated
in the cycle on culture. Particular attention is paid to marriage, procreation,
and religion, as well as to issues of women’s autonomy. The final cycle,
“Dreams,” is the point of synthesis where Oduyoye draws on the strengths of
the Akan and Yoruba heritages and the normative core of the Christian faith
to sketch a vision of wholistic social human being for African women.

While Oduyoye is critical of the oppressive dimensions and interpretations
of Christian traditions and the Akan and Yoruba cultures, there is no tossing
out of the baby with the bathwater here. Oduyoye’s study is highly nuanced
and finely balanced; her critiques are incisive and precise. This incisive
precision enables her to pinpoint cultural and religious phenomena that are
unjust while— virtually simultaneously— locating alternative, liberative phe-
nomena from within the same pools of religious and folk resources.

Oduyoye’s penchant for accuracy is evident in her refusal to make blithe
generalizations about “Africans” or “African women,” a practice not infre-
quently indulged in by Western writers, as well as some African scholars. She
is consistently careful to make her claims with specific reference to the two
ethnic groups with whom she is most familiar: the matrilinial Akan, to which
she was born, and the patriarchal Yoruba, into whose group she married.
When Oduyoye does suggest the generalizability of one of her observations,
she takes care to justify the grounds on which she does so. The result is
prescriptive analysis that is rooted in specificity, with sociopolitical and
religio-hermeneutical implications that follow fluidly from the analysis.

“Anowa” is “the mythical woman, prophet, and priest whose life of daring,
suffering, and determination is reflected in the continent of Africa.” As such,
Oduyoye considers Anowa to be Africa’s ancestress. Oduyoye’s vision for the

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daughters of Anowa is a life free of patriarchy, wherein women will be able to
fulfill their God-given potential in just religious and sociopolitical community
with men. This will involve not only the replacement or revision of some
social and political structures but also the reinterpretation or abandonment of
many folk proverbs, tales, and myths that shape and saturate the consciousness
of so many of Anowa’s children. The churches, too, bear grave responsibility,
to organize ecclesial structures and engage in biblical-interpretive practices
that embody the central Christian affirmation of the equality of all human
beings. On the basis of her meticulous examination of folklore, history, social
structures, and church practices, Oduyoye offers some praxiologically mean-
ingful suggestions as to what changes are called for and how they can be
approached, and she does so in a manner that invites and welcomes other
African women to engage in the dialogue and the work. Oduyoye’s is a project
done, ultimately, in hope. As she says in closing, “Myth, history, and faith
agree: people can change.”

This book is not only of use to those with a specific interest in Christianity
in Africa or in women’s issues. Oduyoye’s project also serves as a case study,
marvelously illumining some of the interpenetrating dynamics among reli-
gion, culture, and society.

Willette A. Burgie
Princeton Theological Seminary

Newbigin, Lesslie. Proper Confidence: Faith , Doubt , and Certainty in Christian
Discipleship. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995. Pp. 105.
$7.99.

Seventy-five years ago Karl Barth was pleading for the church to acknowl-
edge the God who is truly God, not a god crafted by our own hands, inspired
by our own desires, molded by our own longings, a production of our own
experience, but God who is beyond our control, whose purpose for the world
and for our lives is revealed in the incarnation, in the life, passion, death, and
resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Now, Lesslie Newbigen summons the church to recover the biblical story,
to be grasped by the truth about God revealed in the Word made flesh, of
whom the prophets and apostles passionately spoke, not the god of the
philosophers or the mechanics of the Enlightenment but the God of Abra-
ham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of whom the women testified breathlessly on
Easter morning, the God who shatters all our preconceived notions of how

BOOK REVIEWS 389

God should be, the God who takes a place alongside our broken, shattered,
prejudiced, violent, fallen world and makes a home here.

This book offers a concise but incisive look into the religion shaped since
the time of the Enlightenment by the human mind; a religion of the
philosophers, great and impressive but lacking the compelling power to
require the radical obedience to which the Gospels summon the church today,
a religion inspired by the brilliance of Descartes, marked by a polarization
between objective truth (science) and subjective claims to knowledge (art,
poetry, literature, religion), a religion that shifted “the location of reliable
truth from the story told in the Bible to the eternal truths of reason.”
Newbigin brilliantly explores how the Cartesian program has come crashing
against the rocks in the age of postmodernity, in which there is a suspicion of
all claims to universal truth, where skepticism rages like a howling wind
through church and society, and where the truth about God is often bent out
of shape in the vice of deconstruction.

This is an important book for pastors and teachers serving in church
settings where the temptation to soften the scandal of the cross is present or
where the good news, for all its outward acceptance, is thought (deep down) to
be a source of embarrassment. It is a book for all of us for whom a god who can
appeal to the many religious winds that blow, a god who will accommodate
truth to the longings that move the human heart, is never far away. It is a book
that takes seriously the mighty ideas that have been shaped by the Enlighten-
ment and reveals how they have devastated the proclamation of the church, a
book that beckons us to recover the biblical story, apart from which Christian
discipleship cannot breathe.

Lesslie Newbigin writes for those who are called to preach and teach, to
administer the sacraments, and to summon the community of faith to a joyous
discipleship that is passionate, humble, marked by hope, and vital for our
times amid the many variations on the theme of “God” that would divert our
attention and devour our energies. The book is beautifully written, a powerful
statement of faith in God, whose incarnation has changed the nature of
human life forever and whose call to the church cannot be altered by the
temptation to believe that the human being is the center of the universe.

Newbigin challenges not only natural religion but Christian fundamental-
ism and liberalism. Acknowledging the reality of doubt and the frailty of our
faith, Newbigin affirms the ultimate mystery and wonder of human existence.
That mystery and wonder have little to do with “the infinity of space and
time” and everything to do with the “mystery of the incarnation and the cross,
of the holiness that can embrace the sinner, of a Lord who is servant, and of

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the deathless one who can die.” With Augustine, Newbigin argues that a
Christian believes in order to understand. Proper theological work begins with
the gospel. The gospel is the lens through which we look in order “to begin to
truly understand our experience in the world.”

Faith and doubt exist. They are companions. But faith, Newbigin insists, is
always primary. Doubt is secondary. Borrowing from Bonhoeffer’s Ethics ,
Newbigin begins this book with the stunning confession that “Faith alone is
certainty. Everything but faith is subject to doubt. Jesus Christ alone is the
certainty of faith.” To look elsewhere for certainty, Newbigin concludes, “is
to head for the wasteland.”

Frederick R. Trost
Wisconsin Conference, United Church of Christ

Colby, Gerard, with Charlotte Dennett. Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the
Amazon : Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil. New York:
HarperCollins Publishers, 1995. Pp. xvi + 960. $35.00.

This book, say the authors, took eighteen years to research and write.
Readers who have the tenacity to read the entire 927 pages of text, appendices,
and notes will see why. Colby and Dennett simply could not bring themselves
to leave out anything. They first went to the Amazon Valley in 1976 to
investigate allegations being made against missionaries of the Summer Insti-
tute of Linguistics, better known as the Wycliffe Bible Translators, allega-
tions that they were aiding U.S. business interests in ways that were destruc-
tive to the indigenous peoples, and that they sometimes acted as intelligence
gatherers for the CIA. This initial probe eventually led Colby and Dennett far
afield — how far readers will quickly discover— and after nearly two decades,
resulted in this massive work detailing the authors’ findings, findings that will
not surprise those acquainted with some of the questionable and sometimes
seamy aspects of U.S. involvement in Latin America. Less clear, however, is
the relationship between Nelson Rockefeller and the founder of the Wycliffe
Bible Translators, William Cameron Townsend.

In many respects, no two people could have been more different. Rock-
efeller was a child of privilege, born into exorbitant wealth, who throughout
his life moved in the highest circles of political, economic, and religious
power. Townsend, on the other hand, came from a working-class family and
was a college drop-out who served briefly as a “faith” missionary in Central
America before deciding that his calling was to give the Bible to every tribal
group in the world in their own language. Through faith, dogged determina-

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tion, and opportunism, he founded in 1934 what became the largest indepen-
dent missionary agency in the world.

Colby and Dennett’s conclusions, though unambiguous, are debatable.
While not totally negative toward the missionaries, the authors obviously
believe that contacting, evangelizing, educating, and attempting to integrate
isolated tribal peoples into their national societies and cultures are not in their
best interests. Neither is providing them with Bibles in their own languages,
for usually, the authors assert, this is followed by indoctrination to make them
submissive to governments, even governments that are oppressive or geno-
cidal. Multinational business expansion into Latin America is likewise delete-
rious because it destroys indigenous lives and cultures. Finally, since World
War II, a vast strategy has been in place to bring all of Latin America, along
with other parts of the world, into the capitalist orbit regardless of the
ecological consequences or the cost in human life. Nelson Rockefeller and
William Cameron Townsend, Colby and Dennett maintain, were active
promoters of this strategy.

Few will fault the benevolent intention of the authors to protect indigenous
peoples from exploitation and extermination. Neither should readers fail to be
impressed by the incredible amount of research Colby and Dennett have
done. Their case has merit and is passionately argued, but their inferences at
points are forced if not fabricated. Moreover, they see little if any good in
what Rockefeller or Townsend accomplished. In terms of the overall record,
other than mountains of detail, the book discloses little new about Latin
America, Rockefeller, or Townsend.

The story nonetheless is fascinating and engrossing, albeit entirely too long
and cluttered with minutiae. The authors simply try to cover too much
territory and are in fact all over the map. For example, no scandal in U.S.
politics is omitted. Franklin Roosevelt’s infidelity, Watergate, and Iran-
Contra are all dragged into the story. Likewise, Rockefeller’s and Townsend’s
actions are routinely portrayed as crass examples of self-interest, calculation,
or intrigue, whether it is a program of dispensing medicines along the
Amazon or teaching indigenous people to read. Furthermore, Colby and
Dennett see conspiracies everywhere, from the establishment of the Wycliffe
JAARS base in Waxhaw, North Carolina, to Rockefeller’s agricultural pro-
grams in Venezuela and Brazil. Not a little distracting are the mistakes made
in names, places, and events, as well as certain inexplicable oversights.

Unquestionably, the book merits reading by anyone seriously interested in
the history of Latin America during the last fifty years, particularly those
concerned with the role of Protestant missionaries, but what the authors say

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would be more persuasive — diough not necessarily more widely read — were
the text less an expose and more a focused recounting and impartial analysis of
that history.

Alan Neely
Princeton Theological Seminary

Soards, Marion L. Scripture and Homosexuality: Biblical Authority and the
Church Today. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995. Pp. x + 84.
$9.99.

Marion L. Soards, Professor of New Testament Studies at Louisville
Presbyterian Theological Seminary, has undertaken in this book to argue for
an ecclesiastical judgment on the place of homosexuality in the church based
on what he calls a Reformed understanding of scripture. For him the
cornerstone is the authority of scripture, as defined in various confessions
(which he liberally cites) of the Reformed Church. The author knows, of
course that scripture means interpreted scripture and that interpretation
requires a basic perspective, which he calls a “standard.” For him the basic
standard is “Jesus Christ himself.” What that can mean is not very clearly
stated, but Soards will return to that standard later in his argument.

The author discusses succinctly the few scriptural passages that are relevant
for the issue but finally leans on Romans 1:26-27 as the decisive text. His
general conclusion is sharply stated: “Homosexual activity is not consistent
with the will of God . . . and there is no way to read the Bible as condoning
homosexual acts” (p. 24). At this point Soards returns to his “standard” of
interpretation, “Jesus Christ himself,” which now seems to mean the teaching
of the historical Jesus. While Jesus made no judgment on homosexuality, he
does express, in the pericope on divorce (Mark 10:2-9), views that lead the
author to conclude that, from Jesus’ perspective, “Marital heterosexual unions
and abstinence from sexual involvement are the options for human sexual
behavior that accord with the will of God” (p. 29).

The author boldly takes on other points of view that would ameliorate his
single-minded conclusion. He rejects John Boswell’s reading of church
history. He rejects my arguments about the Greco-Roman cultural context.
Similarly, he rejects Victor Paul Furnish’s suggestion that, had Paul known
what we now know, the Apostle might have expressed himself differently. The
matter is ultimately very simple. For one who accepts the authority of
scripture, the univocal (a word he uses several times) rejection of homosexual

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acts is enough to settle the issue. Homosexuals may be admitted to the church
(God accepts all sinners), but practicing homosexuals should not be ordained.

I think it is fair to the author’s intent to suggest that in his book he
summarizes the arguments, as he sees them, from the Reformed tradition.
There is little that is new (what can one do in eighty-four pages?). The value of
the monograph lies in its summary character, w ritten from the standpoint of a
professional scholar. It will be read with joy by those who accept his
conclusions.

For those wrho disagree, there is, again, little newr that can be brought to
bear. Everything has been said over and over. At the cost of repeating,
however, I point out to the reader some places where it seems there are
slippery slopes.

(1) To appeal to Jesus Christ as the perspective from which scripture
should be viewed is tricky, since it is only through scripture that Jesus Christ is
known (apart from claims to present experience). It is, in fact, a circular
argument. Furthermore, to read out of the pericope on divorce (assuming it is
authentic Jesus material) the sweeping conclusions Soards does is not, I think,
very careful exegesis.

(2) I can only be disappointed by the superficial manner with w'hich the
author deals with my discussions about the model of pederasty. It is not
apparent that he understands the significance of howr models function. His
attempted counterexample of Julius Caesar, taken from Suetonius, actually
strengthens rather than weakens my argument.

(3) Finally, I return to a very old argument. There are many issues about
which the New Testament is very sure and univocal, that the church blithely
(and no doubt correctly) ignores. As far as I know, there is no counterclaim in
the New Testament to Paul’s contention that female worship leaders should
wear something on their heads. That is univocal New Testament witness.
Granted, that is a trivial counterexample; but it highlights the question of the
logic one uses, and to pay attention to the logic of arguments is not trivial.

Robin Scroggs
Union Theological Seminary

Cooper- White, Pamela. The Cry of Tamar: Violence against Women and the
Church's Response. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995. Pp. xiv + 334. $19.00.

Pamela Cooper- White offers the reader a comprehensive look at the issue
of violence against women in contemporary culture. Her aim in writing this
book is twofold: to educate those who seek to learn more about violence

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THE PRINCETON SEMINARY BULLETIN

against women, and to advocate for institutional and pastoral strategies that
utilize both theology and theory to evoke change.

In the first section Cooper- White frames the issue by positing a power
model of male domination over females as operative in this culture, a
“power-over” model that originates from loss of connection with the world
and other human beings. This loss of relationality lies at the center of violence
against women. In the second section Cooper- White focuses on “one central
cluster of abuses” traced back to the patriarchal imbalance of power that
forces women into positions of vulnerability. She describes a spectrum of
violence, beginning with an exploration of the connection between pornogra-
phy and violence against women, proceeding to an examination of sexual
harassment, rape, battering, clergy sexual abuse, child sexual abuse, and
ending with an assessment of ritualistic abuse. The final section offers
suggestions to pastors and churches on how effectively to advocate for victims
of abuse, as well as how best to minister to abusers themselves.

The first two sections offer prolonged and sometimes wandering accounts
of theological, psychological, legal, and cultural perspectives on the position
of women in a misogynist world. Whiile Cooper- White’s task was to organize
into one work the various strands of the violence-against-women movements,
the text often becomes weighed down with extraneous and disparate informa-
tion. She relies on standard traditional feminist arguments of power and
female positionality while omitting more recent feminist scholarship on
female desire, the history of the body, psychoanalysis, and subjectivity.
Cooper- White operates on the absolute truth of the assumption that the
power differential between men and women is a given, always fraught with
danger. Relegated to a footnote are several more interesting and complex
theories of power through which Cooper-White could have examined male
violence. By employing the “power-over” model she leaves her position
vulnerable to charges of oversimplification. Also, readers may wonder at her
glossing over of some crucial theological issues that impact women’s lives in
churches and seminaries. One such example is her unwillingness to engage the
theory that suffering can be redemptive. Surely this issue raises crucial
questions around the importance of the atonement and Christology. Such
powerful images deserve more space.

In spite of these shortcomings, the first two sections offer help for those
with little previous knowledge of theological or secular literature on violence
against women. While Cooper- White’s arguments may often be too simplis-
tic, and her profiles of people at risk as abusers or abused too general, she

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presents enough valid information for readers to begin effectively to analyze
violence and its patterns.

It is in the third section that the book takes off and Cooper- White’s own
skills as a priest and pastoral counselor come to the fore. She opens with
caveats to the “wounded healers” who seem to occupy the ministry in such
high percentages. Her advice is beautifully simple, a mixture of common
sense, astute psychology, sound theology, and deep spirituality. “Know your
limits,” she warns— solid advice to the newcomer as well as to the old pro. She
includes immediate crisis response to sexual assaults and suicides, with
guidelines for counseling beyond the emergency. These guidelines alone
make it necessary to keep this book within reach of any ministerial hand. She
also details the differences between pastoral care and psychotherapy, a must
read for anyone who finds her/himself in the position of pastoral counselor.
Included in this section is a concept that challenges many Christian sensibili-
ties. Here Cooper-White takes the reader “beyond an ethic of instant
forgiveness” and reconsiders turning the other cheek. She reminds us that
forgiveness is a gift of grace. Until there is “reconciliation” and thorough
change, forgiveness need not happen.

Seminarians, pastors, pastoral counselors, and facilitators of church groups
will find this book quite useful. Although one may have to wade through long
introductory sections, the end rewards are substantial.

Maureen A. Wallin
Drew University

Shupe, Anson. In the Name of All That's Holy: A Theory of Clergy Malfeasance.
Westport: Prager, 1995. Pp. xii + 173. $52.95.

Anson Shupe, Professor of Sociology at the joint campus of Indiana State
University-Purdue University at Fort Wayne, is author of numerous books
and articles on family violence, religious movements, and criminology/
deviance theory as applied to religion. His focus in this book is clergy
malfeasance, and his method is application of deviance theory to this phenom-
enon. By “clergy malfeasance” he means “the exploitation and abuse of a
religious group’s believers by the elites of that religion in whom the former
trust.” The types of malfeasance that most interest him are instances where
clergy have misused funds or engaged in acts of sexual exploitation. As a
sociologist, not a psychologist of religion, he does not discuss what may
predispose individual clergy to exploit and abuse the trust vested in them.

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Instead, his interest is “structural” issues, the institutional aspects of clergy
malfeasance.

He focuses on power and specifically on the fact that power is unequally
distributed in every organization. This power inequality is complicated in the
case of religious organizations because they are “trusted hierarchies” in which
“those occupying lower statuses . . . trust and believe in the good intentions,
nonselfish motives, benevolence, and spiritual insights/wisdom of those in the
upper echelons (and often are encouraged or admonished to do so).” Thus,
paradoxically, religious organizations, as “trusted hierarchies,” offer special
“opportunity structures” for potential exploitation and abuse. Rather than
attributing clergy malfeasance to the fact that there are “a few bad apples in
every bushel,” Shupe argues that “the nature of trusted hierarchies systemati-
cally provides opportunities and rationales for such deviance and, indeed,
makes deviance likely to occur.”

He distinguishes two types of religious organizations, hierarchical (with
episcopal and presbyterian subtypes) and congregational. Hierarchical organi-
zations have relatively more levels of accountability than congregational
organizations. This distinction is his primary unit of analysis throughout the
book. Thus, in discussing the problem of recidivism he offers these proposi-
tions: (ia) Hierarchical groups promote more long-term recidivism of clergy
malfeasance than do congregational groups, but (ib) hierarchical groups
ultimately do better in discouraging normalization of clergy malfeasance than
do congregational groups.

In other words, the offender is able to get away with it longer in a
hierarchical group, but the hierarchical group is less disposed to view these
activities as acceptable behavior. For example, the Roman Catholic Church
(hierarchical) has systematically protected its malfeasant priests but has not
accepted their actions as “normal” or “acceptable.” In contrast, the elite in
pentecostal groups, new religious movements, and televangelism (congrega-
tional) are more vulnerable to sudden disclosures leading to mass defections
but are more successful in persuading their members or supporters that what
the world calls “deviant behavior” is a higher form of spirituality.

In discussing the fact that religious elites try to “neutralize” victims’
complaints, Shupe offers these propositions: (2a) Hierarchical groups pro-
vide greater opportunities for neutralization of clergy malfeasance than do
congregational groups, but (2b) hierarchical groups ultimately are more
likely to develop policies addressing clergy malfeasance than are congrega-
tional groups. In other words, there are more ways in which cover-ups may be
employed in hierarchical groups, but in the end hierarchical groups are more

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likely to develop policies for controlling clergy malfeasance. Methods of
neutralization (or cover-up) include bureaucratic inertia, sentimentality, “re-
assurance and reconciliation,” bargaining, and intimidation.

In discussing the fact that organizational polity is an important factor in
whether victims will succeed in having their grievances redressed, Shupe
offers these propositions: (3a) Victims in hierarchical groups tend to experi-
ence more ambivalence and reluctance to whistle-blow about their abuse than
those in congregational groups, but (3b) victims in hierarchical groups are
more likely to become empowered to focus their grievances on group-specific
reforms than those in congregational groups. His point here is that hierarchi-
cal groups are less permeable to grievances, as there are various levels of
authority that a victim needs to confront, and each of these levels is strongly
motivated to neutralize the complaint (to do “damage control”) so that the
complaint does not reach the next organizational level. On the other hand,
hierarchical organizations provide “paradoxical” advantages, first to elites but
ultimately to their victims, as victims eventually “obtain a structural focus for
redress that aids their mobilization of grievances.”

Shupe distinguishes between “primary victimization,” or the immediate
realization one has been exploited or abused, and “secondary victimization,”
the long-term consequences of primary victimization. Common to the former
are feelings of ambivalence, fear, guilt, and shame, while typical of the latter is
the suppression (or in some cases repression) of emotional pain. Victim
mobilization, a third response, involves redressing injuries and wrongs and is
more common among hierarchical than congregational groups. One reason
for this is that hierarchical-group members are more likely to believe that the
group to which they belong is their only choice, so they choose redress rather
than defection. The episcopal type of hierarchical organization is more likely
to retreat to formal guidelines or procedure, protocol, and legality, whereas in
presbyterian hierarchical organizations the initial neutralization attempts by
elites are more likely to inspire efforts to redress, and such grass-roots redress
activities become institutionalized.

Much of his discussion of victims focuses on children who have been
sexually abused by Catholic priests and adult women who have had non-
consensual relations with Protestant clergy. Like Fortune, LeBacqz and
Barton, Cooper- White and others, Shupe contends that “consent” cannot be
present when there is a power imbalance, which is invariably the case in
pastor-parishioner relations. He also considers the victimization suffered by
the clergyman’s family (noting the expectation that his wife will “forgive and
forget with the best of the congregation, an extension of her expected role as

398

THE PRINCETON SEMINARY BULLETIN

his primary supporter”) and by the congregation itself, a volatile situation that
is likely to create future victims, as such congregations often become locked
into complementary and destructive conflict with successor clergy.

By viewing clergy malfeasance as deviant behavior made possible by the
very fact that religious institutions are “trusted hierarchies,” Shupe shows
that the “a few bad apples in every bushel” explanation is itself a rationaliza-
tion in behalf of the institution and its trusted image. His theory also explains
why clergy malfeasance is more scandalous than similar malfeasance in other
institutions (as religious organizations are “trusted hierarchies”) and why
religious institutions are so slow to hear and redress grievances (as preserva-
tion of their “trusted hierarchy” status encourages denial and efforts to
suppress the charges). But this leads to still another paradox that Shupe does
not explicitly identify, namely, the fact that when the elite close ranks behind
the clergy offender in order to maintain membership trust, it thereby damages
trust by seeming to condone behavior that it would otherwise denounce.
Moreover, the unscrupulous offender may thereby play the institutional elite
and his victims off one another. Normalization of his conduct is officially
rejected but recidivism is subtly encouraged.

Shupe goes further than most writers on clergy malfeasance in addressing
the structural issues involved. Because he does, his book breaks important new
ground on this vexing and volatile issue. However, his theory is strongest in its
exposure of institutional bureaucracies. It is less effective in explaining why
clergy malfeasance occurs in some local congregations and not in others. Is
this due entirely to psychological factors, or is there something structural
going on here as well? Do some congregations provide greater opportunities
for neutralization of clergy malfeasance than others? It should not be too
difficult to study congregations where clergy malfeasance has and has not
occurred, and to determine whether the primary methods of neutralization
(inertia, sentimentality, pseudo-reconciliation, bargaining, and intimidation)
are more typical of the ways that the former regularly function.

Donald Capps
Princeton Theological Seminary

REVIEW ARTICLE

Koester, Helmut. Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History and Development.
Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1990. Pp. xxxii + 448. $19.95.

Schneemelcher, Wilhelm, and R. McL. Wilson, eds. New Testament Apocry-
pha. Rev. ed. 2 vols. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1991-92. Pp.
560; 771. $32.00; $40.00.

Elliott, J. K. The Apoayphal New Testament: A Collection of Apocryphal Christian
Literature in an English Translation. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. Pp. xxv +
747. $45.95.

Where can one obtain insight regarding what is reliably a New Testament
apocryphal or pseudepigraphical work? The search begins with the definition
of such a corpus. A working definition seems to be the following: The New
Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha is a modern collection of writings
that were composed before the end of the fourth century, when there was not
yet an accepted definition of orthodoxy, heresy, or canon; they were usually
written in imitation of the documents eventually considered canonical; hence,
the New Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha contains letters (or
epistles), gospels, acts, and apocalypses. Fortunately, now is an opportune
time to assess what is available. I shall focus on three major publications that
have appeared this decade: Ancient Christian Gospels (1990), New Testament
Apocrypha (1992), and The Apoctyphal New Testament (1993).

Ancient Christian Gospels (1990). The John H. Morison Professor of New
Testament fitudies and the Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History at
Harvard Divinity School, Helmut Koester, is famous for his insistence that
Christian origins must not be reconstructed with only, or primarily, the
canonical writings in mind. He has argued since the early sixties that some
so-called apocryphal writings are early and independent of the New Testa-
ment works. For example, he claims that the Gospel of Thomas is not
dependent on the canonical Gospels; it often preserves sayings of Jesus as
early and reliable as those in the Synoptics and John. In Ancient Christian
Gospels, Koester argues persuasively that the Gospel of Thomas was composed
in eastern Syria. Most important— in contrast to R. M. Grant and E.
Haenchen, who brand it heretical and reject it as a fabrication — he contends
that the tradition of Jesus’ sayings in the Gospel of Thomas predates the
canonical Gospels. The author of this work “was certainly not trying to
compose a ‘gospel’ of the type that is known from the Gospels of the New
Testament” (p. 80), and the sequence of sayings is “most puzzling” (p. 81). In

400

THE PRINCETON SEMINARY BULLETIN

light of the penchant among many scholars to view the Gospel of Thomas only
with an eye on the Synoptics, Koester shows how important it is for an
interpretation of the Gospel of John. He argues that in certain passages
Thomas and John preserve early traditions about Jesus, which each developed
in often strikingly different ways.

Koester demonstrates that originally “gospel” ( euangelion ) denoted not a
literary genre but the message of salvation (i Thess. 3:6; 1 Cor 1:17; 15:1-15;
cf. Acts 15:7; 20:24). He shows that the titles of the “Gospels” were clarified
only in the late second century (a claim that will be debated by experts,
notably M. Hengel) and that none of the Nag Hammadi “gospels” were
designated by their authors with this term.

Koester’s book begins with an examination of the development of “gospel”
from oral preaching, through “memoirs of the apostles,” to a literary genre.
After examining collections of Jesus’ sayings (in Paul and the postapostolic
writings, the Gospel of Thomas, and Q), he traces the development of gospel
dialogues from the Dialogue of the Savior through the miracle catenae to the
Gospel of John. He then studies the Synoptic Gospels in light of such
compositions as the Secret Gospel of Mark and the Proto-Gospel of James.
He concludes by exploring the origin of Gospel harmonies, which do not
appear for the first time with Tatian (who composed the Diatessaron in
Syriac) but can be traced back through Justin Martyr to harmonizations in
Matthew and Luke. Particularly appealing is Koester’s full view of Christian
origins, his recognition that we must be sensitive to the ways many early
Christians revered writings that Western culture eventually rejected or
ignored, his perception of the significance of Eastern Christianity, and his
appreciation of Thomas and his importance in the development of Christian-
ity.

New Testament Apocrypha (1992). After the fervent interest in early sources
and the intermittent excitement with the discovery of such treasures as Codex
Sinaiticus, Syrus Sinaiticus, the Didache, and the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, the
need was felt for a handy edition of the New Testament Apocrypha. A
scholarly yet convenient collection of translations was required. This was
supplied by Edgar Hennecke in 1904, and a subsequent edition was edited by
Wilhelm Schneemelcher of Bonn University and translated into English by
R. McL. Wilson of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. In 1989 the
fifth edition of volume two and in 1990 the sixth edition of volume one
appeared in German. They were edited by Schneelmelcher alone, since
Hennecke had died in 1951, and were then edited and translated into English
by R. McL. Wilson.

REVIEW ARTICLE

401

The first volume contains the so-called apocryphal gospels and related
writings. It also presents a general introduction that discusses the time in
which these apocryphal works were composed and the processes, sociological
and theological, that led to a closed canon. Of considerable interest to pastors
and laypersons will be the discussions not only of unknown and lost gospels
but also of “gospels” attributed to Jesus’ disciples and people linked with him
according to the canonical Gospels, notably introductions to and translations
of the following: the Secret Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of Thomas, the
Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of the Twelve Apostles, the
Gospel of the Seventy, the Gospel According to Matthias, the Gospel of
Judas, the Gospel of Bartholomew, the Gospel of Mary, the Protevangelium
of James, the Gospel of Nicodemus, the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, and the
Gospel of Gamaliel. Sections on the infancy and on the passion of Jesus, as
well as on the relatives of Jesus, are full of data important for an understanding
of Christian origins.

The second volume presents introductions to and translations of docu-
ments attributed to the apostles, apocalypses, and related subjects. The
volume also contains a reliable introduction, including a section on “apostle”
in early Christian tradition. The various Books of Acts attributed to Jesus’
apostles Andrew, John, Paul, Peter, Thomas, and Peter and the Twelve
Apostles are also discussed. The second volume further contains a study of
apocalypticism in early Christianity and apocalypses attributed to Peter, Paul,
and Thomas. Wisely included are the Christian sections of the Ascension of
Isaiah, the Fifth and Sixth Books of Ezra, the Sibyllines, and the Book of
Elchasai. More than a dozen European New Testament and early church
history experts have contributed to these volumes. R. McL. Wilson informs
the reader that while the English is based on the German introductions, the
German translations of the apocryphal works themselves have been checked
with “the Latin, Greek or Coptic” — he should also have included Syriac.

The Apocryphal New Testament (1993). Long before Hennecke and
Schneemelcher’s massive work was first translated into English in 1962-65,
the need was felt in the English-speaking world for a translation into English
of the major apocryphal works. This desideratum was supplied in 1924 with
the handy volume of translations by M. R. James, Provost of Eton and
“Sometime Provost of King’s College, Cambridge.” It was titled The Apoay-
phal New Testament. Now this work is updated in a volume about the same
width but an inch taller by J. K. Elliott, Senior Lecturer in Theology and
Religious Studies at the University of Leeds. It is not as extensive as New
Testament Apoaypha, and it perpetuates some of James’ errors; but it is

402 THE PRINCETON SEMINARY BULLETIN

intermittently more up-to-date and a direct English translation of the ancient
texts.

These modem collections of the “noncanonical” gospels, epistles, and
apocalypses present in attractive formats documents that were written in the
early centuries of this area and were once considered authoritative and
inspired within numerous Christian circles. In some communities several
were accepted as part of the New Testament canon, and many were read with
the understanding that they were full of God’s revelation. As well as the
so-called Patristics, the New Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha are
simply indispensable documents for reconstructing the origins of Christianity
and its sacred texts.

Unfortunately, the word “apocrypha” connotes that which is spurious or
unauthentic, and hence, some Christians avoid the writings as if they would be
contaminated by reading them. These writings should not be considered
“scriptural” in a theological sense, but they were considered scriptural by
some early Christians and are as important for understanding the early
centuries as some of the writings of the early scholars of the church (like
Ignatius, Justin, Irenaeus, Origen, and Eusebius). They also are essential in
discerning the developments in the transmission of Jesus’ sayings, and they
contain insights for helping us reconstruct what Jesus intended to teach. It is a
pity that they do not receive the attention they deserve in theological and
academic circles and in seminary and university curricula.

What is most surprising about these new editions of the New Testament
Apocrypha? It is the incorporation of the so-called Secret Gospel of Mark. An
introduction to and translation of this work appears in each collection, but it
may well be spurious and late. It was allegedly found in 1958, but searches for
the document have all ended in failure. Elliott includes the work but rightly
warns that “its antiquity and genuineness are questioned by scholars.”

Perhaps a section concerning documents not to be considered among the
New Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha would be a helpful addition
in future editions of the two major collections. Likewise, many works listed in
The New Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha are not even mentioned
in any of the recent collections. It is disappointing also to observe that none of
the recent collections offers the reader a translation of the earliest Christian
hymnbook, which is attributed to Solomon. One was included in earlier
editions of Hennecke and Schneemelcher’s collection, but it was relegated to
an appendix in the English translation of 1965. R. McL. Wilson justified the
omission of the Odes of Solomon because the volumes needed to be reduced
in size and the Odes were available in other editions. These “Odes” are

REVIEW ARTICLE

4° 3

poetical compositions that are full of beautiful theological insights and are
worth reading for numerous reasons, including devotional ones.

If one is looking for a full introduction with comments by an international
team of experts, then the best collection of the early Christian apocryphal
works is the New Testament Apocrypha. If one prefers a more succinct collec-
tion with translations by an English scholar, then the choice is The Apociyphal
New Testament.

James H. Charlesworth
Princeton Theological Seminary

INDEX TO VOLUME 1 7

1996

Articles and Sermons

Bartlett, David L. “Preaching as Interpretation” 1 54

Bartow, Charles L. “Who Says the Song? Practical Hermeneutics as Humble
Performance” 143

Bassler, Jouette M. “A Plethora of Epiphanies: Christology in the Pastoral

Letters’ 310

Evans, James H., Jr. “Health, Disease, and Salvation in African American

Experience” 326

Faculty Publications (1995) 225

Florence, Anna Carter. “The Voice You Find May Be Your Own” 2 1 1

Gaventa, Beverly Roberts. “Our Mother St. Paul: Toward the Recovery of a

Neglected Theme” 29

Gillespie, Thomas W. “Growing in the Knowledge of God” 1

“Jehovah’s Bystanders?” 279

Guthrie, Shirley C. “The Way, the Truth, and the Life in the Religions of the

World” 45

Hanson, Geddes W. “Heavenly Soundings” 219

Jacks, G. Robert. “Just Do It” 202

Juel, Donald H. “ ‘Your Word Is Truth’: Some Reflections on a Hard Saying” 9
Livingston, Michael E. “Remembering David” 351

Long, Thomas G. “Bruised Reeds and Dimly Burning Wicks” 196

Macleod, Donald. “Conrad H. Massa: A Personal Tribute” 129

Mattison, Joel. “Secondary Gain” 216

Migliore, Daniel L. “Mission in a Violent World” 71

Sakenfeld, Katharine Doob. “David Weadon: A Tribute” 348

“Fences and Neighbors” 58

Seow, Choon-Leong. “The Socioeconomic Context of ‘The Preacher’s’

Hermeneutic” 168

Tisdale, Leonora Tubbs. “Leaders with Heart” 283

“Preaching as Local Theology” 132

. “Serving Lessons” 64

Waetjen, Herman C. “The Actualization of Christ’s Achievement in Our

Historical Existence: Breaking out of the New Babylonian Captivity” 291

Book Reviews

Adam, A. K. M. Making Sense of New Testa?nent Theology: “ Modern ” Problems

and Prospects (Deirdre Good) 359

INDEX

405

Albertz, Rainer. A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period , 2 vols.

(J.J. M. Roberts) 365

Allen, Joseph J. Widowed Priest: A Crisis in Ministry (Edward M. Huenemann) 127
Anderson, Herbert, and Susan B. W. Johnson. Regarding Children: A New

Respect for Childhood and Families (Carol A. Wehrheim) 126

Ashjian, Mesrob. Armenian Church Patristic and Other Essays (S. Peter Cowe) 1 1 3
Banker, Mark T. Presbyterian Missions and Cultural Interaction in the Far
Southwest, 1850-1950 (Paul E. Pierson) 1 19

Betz, Hans Dieter. The Sermon on the Mount: A Commentary on the Sermon on
the Mount, including the Sermon on the Plain (Alatthew 5:5-7:27 and Luke
6:20-4.9) (A. K. M. Adam) 369

Boyarin, Daniel. Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity (Robin Scroggs) 101

Brueggemann, Walter. Texts under Negotiation: The Bible and Postmodern
Imagination (Thomas G. Long) 249

Brueggemann, Walter, Charles B. Cousar, Beverly R. Gaventa, and James D.
Newsome. Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV—

Year A (Ronald J. Allen) 242

Butin, Philip Walker. Revelation, Redemption, and Response: Calvin's Trinitarian

Understanding of the Divine-Human Relationship (Charles Partee) 375

Calhoun, David B. Princeton Seminary. Vol. 1, Faith and Learning, 1812-1868

(James H. Moorhead) 266

Camp, Carole Ann, ed. From Flicker to Flame: Women's Sermons for the Revised
Common Lectionary Year A. Vol. 1, Advent to Pentecost (Leonora Tubbs
Tisdale) 250

Carter, Warren. What Are They Saying about the Sermon on the Mount?

(A. K. M. Adam) 100

Charlesworth, James H., ed. The Lord's Prayer and Other Prayer Texts from the

Greco-Roman Era (Randall D. Chesnutt) 88

Charlesworth, James H., and Walter P. Weaver, eds. Earthing Christologies:

From Jesus' Parables to Jesus the Parable (James D. G. Dunn) 373

Cherry, Kittredge, and Zalmon Sherwood, eds. Equal Rites: Lesbian and Gay

Worship, Ceremonies , and Celebrations (Ruth C. Duck) 262

Colby, Gerard, with Charlotte Dennett. Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the
Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil (Alan Neely) 390

Cooper- White, Pamela. The Cry of Tamar: Violence against Women and the

Church's Response (Maureen A. Wallin) 393

Davis, Ellen F. Imagination Shaped: Old Testament Preaching in the Anglican

Tradition (W alter Brueggemann) 2 54

Duck, Ruth C. Finding Words for Worship: A Guide for Leaders (N. J . Robb) 2 6 1

Elliott, J. K. The Apocryphal New Testament: A Collection of Apocryphal Christian

Literature in an English Translation (James H. Charlesworth) 399

Erskine, Noel Leo. King among the Theologians (Peter J. Paris) 381

4°6 THE PRINCETON SEMINARY BULLETIN

Fernandez, Eleazar S. Toward a Theology of Slruggle (William Greenway) 108

Fortune, Marie M., and James N. Poling. Sexual Abuse by Clergy: A Crisis for the
Church (Donald Capps) 82

Gaustad, Edwin S. Sworn on the Altar of God: A Religious Biography of Thomas
Jefferson (James H. Moorhead) 379

Gaventa, Beverly Roberts. Mary: Glimpses of the Mother of Jesus (John T.

Carroll) 271

Gold, Victor Roland, et al., eds. The New Testament and Psalms: An Inclusive

Version (Morna D. Hooker) 371

Goldingay, John. Models for Scripture (Donald K. McKim) 90

Greenspahn, Frederick E. When Brothers Dwell Together: The Preeminence of

Younger Siblings in the Hebrew Bible (Patrick D. Miller) 93

Guthrie, Shirley C. Christian Doctrine. Rev. ed. (A. J. McKelway) 273

Harris, James H. Preaching Liberation (Alyce M. McKenzie) 248

Hodgson, Peter C. Winds of the Spirit: A Constructive Christian Theology (Cyril
O’Regan) 106

Hubbard, Dolan. The Sermon and the African American Literary Imagination

(Henry H. Mitchell) 245

Hunsinger, Deborah van Deusen. Theology and Pastoral Counseling: A New
Interdisciplinary Approach (Elisabeth Koenig) 272

Isichei, Elizabeth. A History of Christianity in Afi'ica: From Antiquity to the

Present (Mercy Amba Oduyoye) 3 84

Jacks, G. Robert. Getting the WORD Across: Speech Communication for Pastors

and Lay Leaders (Neil Clark Warren) 244

Koester, Helmut. Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History and Development

(James H. Charlesworth) 399

Lehmann, Paul L. The Decalogue and a Human Future: The Meaning of the

Commandments for Making and Keeping Human Life Human (Barry Harvey) 362

Long, Thomas G. Whispering the Lyrics: Sermons for Lent and Easter: Cycle A,

Gospel Texts (Patrick J. Willson) 241

Luedemann, Gerd. The Resurrection of Jesus: History , Experience, Theology.

Trans. John Bowden (Reginald H. Fuller) 98

Mays, James Luther. The Lord Reigns: A Theological Handbook to the Psalms

(W erner E. Lemke) 9 1

McCormack, Bruce L. Karl Bank's Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology: Its

Genesis and Development, 1909-1936 (B. A. Gerrish) 354

Meier, John P. A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus. Vol. 2, Mentor,

Message, and Miracles (W arren Carter) 96

Minear, Paul Sevier. Christians and the New Creation: Genesis Motifs in the New

Testament (Kathryn Greene-McCreight) 95

Morimoto, Anri. Jonathan Edwards and the Catholic Vision of Salvation (Don

Schweitzer) 378

INDEX

4°7

Myers, William H. God's Yes Was Louder Than My No: Rethinking the African-
American Call to Ministry (CleoJ. LaRue, Jr.) 246

Neely, Alan. Christian Mission: A Case Study Approach (Dana L. Robert) 269

Newbigin, Lesslie. Proper Confidence: Faith , Doubt , and Certainty in Christian

Discipleship (Frederick R. Trost) 388

Norton, David. A History of the Bible as Literature. Vol. 1, From Antiquity to

1700; vol. 2, From 1700 to the Present Day (Bruce M. Metzger) 276

Oduyoye, Mercy Amba. Daughters of Anowa: African Women and Patriarchy

(Willette A. Burgie) 386

Olson, Dennis T. Numbers (Thomas B. Dozeman) 356

Pannenberg, Wolfhart. Systematic Theology , vol. 2. Trans. Geoffrey W. Bro-

miley (Ted Peters) 105

Pelikan, Jaroslav. Christianity and Classical Culture: The Metamorphosis of Natu-
ral Theology in the Christian Encounter with Hellenism (Edward F. Duffy) 1 1 2

Plantinga, Cornelius, Jr. Not the Way It's Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin

(Stephen L. Stell) 360

Puckett, David L. John Calvin's Exegesis of the Old Testament (Gary Neal

Hansen) 376

Raboteau, Albert J. A Fire in the Bones: Reflections on African-American Religious
History (Stephen D. Glazier) 383

Robb, Nigel. Let All God's People Say Amen (Donald Macleod) 252

. Sermons at St. Salvator's (Donald Macleod) 252

Rohler, Lloyd. Ralph Waldo Emerson: Preacher and Lecturer (Charles L. Bartow) 258
Sakenfeld, Katharine Doob. Journeying with God: A Commentary on the Book of
Numbers (W alter Brueggemann) 2 68

Sample, Tex. Ministry in an Oral Culture: Living with Will Rogers, Uncle Remus,
and Minnie Pearl (John W. Stewart) 256

Schmidt, Gary D .John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Illustrated by Barry Moser

(Conrad H. Massa) 260

Schneemelcher, Wilhelm, and R. McL. Wilson, eds. New Testatnent Apocrypha.

Rev. ed. 2 vols. (James H. Charlesworth) 399

Seow, Choon-Leong, ed. Homosexuality and Christian Community (W. Eugene
March) 353

Shupe, Anson. In the Name of All That's Holy: A Theory of Clergy Malfeasance

(Donald Capps) 395

Sloan, Douglas. Faith and Knowledge: Mainline Protestantism and American
Higher Education (Daniel Sack) 1 2 1

Soards, Marion L. Scripture and Homosexuality: Biblical Authority and the Church

Today (Robin Scroggs) 392

Stern, Ephraim, Ayelet Lewinson-Gilboa, and Joseph Aviram, eds. The New
Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, 4 vols. (James H.
Charlesworth) 275

408 THE PRINCETON SEMINARY BULLETIN

Tamburello, Dennis E. Union with Christ: John Calvin and the Mysticism of St.

Bernard (Luke Anderson) 116

Thistlethwaite, Susan B., and George F. Cairns, eds. Beyond Theological
Tourism: Mentoring as a Grassroots Approach to Theological Education (David L.
Lindberg) 122

Torrance, Thomas F. Preaching Christ Today: The Gospel and Scientific Thinking

(Robert A. Cathey) no

Wakefield, Gordon. Bunyan the Christian (Conrad H. Massa) 1 18

Westerhoff, John H. Spiritual Life: The Foundation for Preaching and Teaching

0. Randall Nichols) 253

White, L. Michael, and O. Larry Yarbrough, eds. The Social World of the First

Christians: Essays in Honor of Wayne A. Meeks (Brian K. Blount) 367

White, Susan J. Christian Worship and Technological Change (W. Jack Coogan) 264

Willimon, William H., and Richard Lischer, eds. Concise Encyclopedia of

Preaching (James F. Kay) 238

Wind, James P., and James W. Lewis, eds. American Congregations. Vol. 1,
Portraits of Twelve Religious Communities ; vol. 2, New Perspectives in the Study
of Congregations (John W. Stewart) 85

Winter, Miriam Therese, Adair Lummis, and Allison Stokes. Defecting in Place:

Women Claiming Responsibility for Their Own Spiritual Lives (Janet R. Wal-
ton) 1 24

Witherington, Ben III. Paul's Narrative Thought World: The Tapestry of Tragedy

and 'Triumph (John Reumann) 103

Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections on the Claim

That God Speaks (George I. Mavrodes) 363

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