There’s a scene early in the recent film Noah in which Noah plants a seed from the garden of Eden. It sprouts and spreads into a lush and glorious forest as quickly as critics scrambled to find biblical precedent. The movie garnered righteous indignation over its fast and loose use of Genesis, but it reflects a two-part quest that is evident this year even in the most serious publishing on the Bible: to reconsider how we read and interpret biblical texts, and to illuminate biblical characters who endure as subjects of interest.
The Problem of the Bible
Fundamental to understanding the Bible is appreciating its problematic nature. In Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi (HarperOne, Sept.), Amy-Jill Levine revisits the parables with an eye to how even these simple and straightforward stories unsettle and challenge. The success of Seriously Dangerous Religion: What the Old Testament Really Says and Why It Matters (Aug.) by Iain Provan might indicate that today’s readers are especially willing to wrestle with such problems; Carey Newman, director of Baylor University Press, reports it has been a popular textbook adoption.
In The Bible Tells Me So... Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It (HarperOne, Sept.), Peter Enns addresses the problems of scripture from the position of an evangelical Christian who observes with candor and fresh humor that too often faithful readers approach the Bible with expectations it is not set up to meet. Michael Maudlin, senior v-p and executive editor at HarperOne, says that Enns “deals with all the problems [that come] with an overly literal understanding of the Bible without sounding like he is being merely critical or liberal.... Instead, [Enns] takes a C.S. Lewis–like stance of [asking], what would any reasonable, faithful Christian do when confronted with the facts?”
The Bible’s Beginnings
The Bible’s intriguing challenges and promise for readers today are not unique to our modern context, but reflect its deepest past. A number of new books discuss the Bible’s origins during problematic times. Jennifer Banks, executive editor at Yale University Press, calls Holy Resilience: The Bible’s Traumatic Origins by David M. Carr (Nov.) “a fascinating and provocative reinterpretation of the Bible’s origins that tells of how the Jewish people and Christian community had to adapt to survive multiple catastrophes.” Paul N. Anderson’s From Crisis to Christ: A Contextual Introduction to the New Testament (Abingdon, Aug.) also explores “various historical crises that provide the interpretive backdrop and context for the faith of Israel and the communities that produced the New Testament texts,” says David Teel, senior editor at Abingdon.
In Reading Backwards: Figural Theology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness (Baylor, Nov.), Richard B. Hays investigates how the gospel writers located Jesus’ identity in the Hebrew scriptures. He pushes readers to “read backward” with the Evangelists to appreciate anew the mystery in Israel’s story. In The Gospel of the Lord: How the Early Church Wrote the Story of Jesus (Eerdmans, Aug.), Michael F. Bird asks not only how the gospels took shape, but also how they shaped the early Christian movement. And the development of a single, favorite trope is at the heart of The Good Shepherd: A Thousand-Year Journey from Psalm 23 to the New Testament by Kenneth E. Bailey (IVP, Dec.) The book “is sure to get a lot of attention,” says Andrew Le Peau, associate publisher.
Reading anew for new times and exploring how the Bible might illuminate issues of contemporary concern is at the heart of N.T. Wright’s Surprised by Scripture: Engaging Contemporary Issues (HarperOne, June). He asks, what does the ancient text have to do with contemporary issues such as ordination of women, environmental problems, and terrorism? Race and class in modern America receive thoughtful treatment in Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus: Harlem Renaissance Theology and an Ethic of Resistance (Baylor, Oct.). Author Reggie L. Williams shows how Bonhoeffer’s experiences in Harlem churches furthered the theologian’s understanding of a Jesus who defies racial supremacies in standing with the oppressed.
Starring Roles
One notable current trend is reflected in books about major characters in the biblical narrative. The complexity of Herod the Great drives two new titles: The Many Faces of Herod the Great by Adam Kolman Marshak (Eerdmans, Nov.) and The True Herod by Geza Vermes (Bloomsbury, May). David, arguably the most developed human character in the Old Testament’s sprawling cast, also receives varying degrees of attention in two new books. David Wolpe contributes David: The Divided Heart (Sept.) to Yale’s Jewish Lives series as a brief introduction. Joel Baden writes that he seeks to uncover the historical David “by reaching back through the accumulated legend [and the] agenda of the biblical text, into the ancient world in which David roamed.” Roger Freet, executive editor at HarperOne, says of Baden’s The Historical David: The Real Life and Invented Hero (July) , now in paperback, that he has “high hopes for course adoptions in the coming years.”
Joseph of Arimathea: A Study in Reception History by William John Lyons (OUP, May) is one of the books in Oxford’s new Biblical Refigurations series, which associate editor Steve Wiggins explains are “not straightforward biographies. The series seeks new angles of approach to traditional characters, some of whom have received less attention than the usual suspects.” Deborah’s Daughters: Gender Politics and Biblical Interpretation by Joy A. Schroeder (OUP, Mar.) investigates how the biblical Deborah’s story has driven and informed gender debates throughout history.
Bart D. Ehrman’s How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher (HarperOne, Mar.) “has been a strong success,” says Freet. HarperOne distributed a pre-publication edition to evangelical scholar responders “by mutual agreement between all of the authors,” Freet reports, so that HarperOne’s sister imprint, Zondervan could publish a counterargument, How God Became Jesus: The Real Origins of Belief in Jesus’ Divine Nature—A Response to Bart D. Ehrman (Zondervan, Mar.). Jesse Hillman, senior director of marketing at Zondervan, says, “This [conversation] will be a big topic at the SBL.”
Author Stephen J. Davis writes that how “memories of the past are shaped by present day concerns [italics in original]” is at the heart of his Christ Child: Cultural Memories of a Young Jesus (Yale, May), which in exploring the extrabiblical Paidika is “not so much about the Christ child himself as about how, and by whom, he was remembered.”
Among biblical characters, the winner for scholarly attention in 2014 appears to be Paul. Thinking Through Paul: A Survey of His Life, Letters, and Theology by Bruce Longenecker and Todd D. Still (Zondervan, Sept.) provides an introduction, while Framing Paul: An Epistolary Biography by Douglas A. Campbell (Eerdmans, Nov.) asks not only what the letters might reveal of Paul the historical man, but also about the letters’ own biographies. Paul: Apostle and Fellow Traveler by Jerry L. Sumney (Abingdon, Nov.) also investigates the apostle through his letters, but concentrates on what they reveal of Paul’s theology and beliefs. Remembering Paul: Ancient and Modern Contests over the Image of the Apostle by Benjamin L. White (OUP, Oct.) shows how modern efforts to recover the historical Paul reflect ancient debates about the “real” Paul. And Barnabas vs. Paul: To Encourage or Confront? by C.K. Robertson (Abingdon, Mar. 2015) brings the lesser-known Barnabas into conversation with Paul in an effort to understand each man anew.
Noah director Darren Aronofsky eschewed a literal reading of the biblical text and allowed modern ecological concerns and contemporary preoccupations to inform his screen adaptation of a multifaceted biblical narrative. However critics evaluated the movie, there is general vindication for his approach in this year’s crop of books about the Bible. Plasticity of characters and an earnest investigation of the ways we read the Bible today can bring new insights to the ancient book.
The Bible continues to matter, and because the Bible is enormously complex, bears multiple meanings, and is as dynamic as the world in which it lives, biblical scholarship also matters.
In Reference to…
Among the fall books publishers hope will end up in personal and university reference libraries:
The Fortress Commentary on the Bible (Oct.), two hefty volumes, on the New Testament and Old Testament.
Daniel: A Commentary (Westminster John Knox, Nov.) by Carol A. Newsom. Acquisitions editor Bridgett Green calls it “a powerhouse reference tool and textbook.”
The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and Exegesis, edited by Moises Silva, revision editor (Zondervan, Nov.), in five volumes.
The first of three volumes of The Acts of the Apostles: A Newly Discovered Commentary by J.B. Lightfoot (IVP, Nov.), edited by Ben Witherington III and Todd D. Still.
The Oxford Handbook of the Psalms, edited by William P. Brown (May), and The Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature, edited by John J. Collins (May) are volumes in a new Oxford Handbooks series that provides critical background and examines contemporary issues and current debates.
Kristin Swenson is visiting associate professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia and the author of Bible Babel: Making Sense of the Most Talked About Book of All Time (Harper Perennial).
