2016 Lund Lectures: Were the Reformers Wrong? by Iain Provan (Day 2)

Dr. Iain Provan asking the question: Were the Reformers Wrong?
for the 2016 Nils W. Lund Memorial Lectureship

This morning we held Day 2 of the 2016 Nils W. Lund Memorial Lectureship with Dr. Iain Provan, the Marshall Sheppard Professor of Biblical Studies at Regent College. The theme of the Old Testament lectureship was: Were the Reformers Wrong? Some Reflections on Protestant Biblical Interpretation. His two lectures are based on a current book project on Protestant Biblical Hermeneutics. 
  The title of the 1st lecture was: On the Meaning of Words: The Literal, the Spiritual, and the Plain Confusing. This presentation made my head spin a bit. Dr. Provan wanted to recover a proper understanding of a "literal" reading of Scripture that was not "literalistic" but was defined as the Reformers understood literal vs. an allegorical interpretation of the biblical text. He cited Calvin and Luther who demonstrated, to my surprise, a remarkable sensitivity to grammar, historical context, the text within the larger canonical context, and other communicative acts between the author and the reader. In the past, I always made a distinction between the historical critical method and a literal reading of Scripture, favoring the former over the latter. But under Provan's redefinition of "literal" according to Calvin and Luther, the historical critical method and a literal reading of biblical texts are not competing but mutually informing. Listen to what he has to say on this topic directly by watching the video of his lecture below:



    The title of the 2nd lecture was: Empty Speculations and Froth: The Reformers and Allegorical Reading. Here Dr. Provan traced the history of an allegorical reading of texts beginning with Homer, through the patristics, and into the Medieval Age. He argued that the primary purpose of allegory was to domesticate the text and remove its offense. Hence Heraclitus removed the embarrassment that the Greek gods of Homer were barbaric, crude, and no better than vicious humans were by allegorizing the gods as symbols of something else less offensive. When applied to Scripture, Dr. Provan argued that the allegorical reading seriously undermined the authority of Scripture because it often removed the offense of a "literal" reading (note: "literal" as redefined by the Reformers).
   Rather than allegorical, or typological, Dr. Provan believes the biblical authors employed "iconic mimesis" or a figural reading of Scripture, the example of which he gave was Paul's use of Sarah and Hagar in Galatians 4:21-31 translating ἀλληγορούμενα as "figuratively" and not "allegorically." Provan compared Philo's allegorical reading (i.e., symbolic mimesis) of Genesis with Paul's figural one (i.e., iconic mimesis), giving a clear example of the differences between the two. You can listen for yourself with the video lecture below: 


   With this last lecture, the Lund series concluded this morning. But the 2016 Symposium on the Theological Reading of Scripture began the same day later in the evening and will continue on the theme of Science and Religion through Saturday afternoon. Since the schedule is packed, I may not be able to post summaries and links to the video until after the symposium ends. But like the Lund Lectures, the sessions are being livestreamed here:  http://livestream.com/northpark/lund-and-symposium
   Stay tuned! MJL

2016 Lund Lectures: Paul and Personal Flourishing by Susan Eastman (Day 1)

Dr. Susan Eastman speaking on Paul and Personal Flourishing
for the 2016 Nils W. Lund Memorial Lectureship 

This morning was the first two sessions of the 2016 Nils W. Lund Memorial Lectureship with Dr. Susan Eastman, Associate Research Professor of New Testament at the Duke Divinity School. The theme for the New Testament lectureship was: Paul and Personal Flourishing. Here she presented research from her upcoming book with Eerdmans Reframing Paul's Anthropology. 
   The title of the 1st lecture was Being Bodies: Paul's Body Language and Ours. The content of the lecture was interdisciplinary and engaged literature from the ancient world of Paul, the cognitive sciences, and philosophers who engaged with the cognitive sciences. 
The central thesis of this lecture was that the internal logic of Paul's body language is solidarity. She shared how the cognitive sciences explain how our neural networks are designed to create cognitive space for "we". Our bodies want to communicate with each other. This is not willed. It is an innate response. It is a shared imitation, examples of which include how babies imitate facial expressions; that is, they see each other through another person's gaze even though the baby is not even aware he or she has a face. 
   Human beings are shaped by their environment. We imitate larger social realities. Ancient views of the body understood that the concept of self-hood includes input from the body, the brain, and "what is out there" which feeds information back into our conscience experience as a systemic loop. Self is a constant traffic between what is outside and inside. The physical body is not a barrier but a bridge to our surroundings, to people, and to God. Bodies are conductors between us and those around us. We internalize our relationships to the point where they become constitutive of who we are.
   If the social systems which we internalize through unconscious imitation are corrupt, fallen, and sinful, it results in damage to ourselves and ultimately death. It takes a divine action to set us free from the social systems and sin which we have internalized. 
   There is more, but I'll let you watch and hear the lecture yourself (below) courtesy of Covenant Church's youtube channel. Susan Eastman is outlining here what she calls a participatory anthropology (jump to 1:42 for the start of Lecture 1)



   The title of the 2nd lecture was: Knowing God: Cognition and the Spirit in Paul's Thought. Here she gave an exegetical interpretation of Romans 8 and explained the Spirit's role in cognition. She focused on divine communication between God and believers through the mediation of the Spirit. There are depths of human awareness that cannot be discovered by human agency alone but are revealed through divine intervention. We can only know when the Spirit gives us new modes of speaking and new ways of knowing. 
   One of the most profound moments in the lecture was when Dr. Eastman used the example of facilitiated communication among autistic children to describe how the Spirit works. "How do I talk and connect with others when my lips do not move and my body does not cooperate?" From this question and subsequent answer, she goes on to discuss how believers speak through our bodies as a shared speech act with the Holy Spirit who – through the interpersonal, interactive relations between the body of believers – mediates to us how to pray, how to speak to each other, how to know one another and God within the church. Hear more from Dr. Eastman directly through the video below (jump to 1:33 for the start of Lecture 2)

   Tomorrow we will have Day 2 of the Lund Lectures featuring Dr. Iain Provan of Regent College speaking on the theme of Were the Reformers Wrong? Some Reflections on Protestant Biblical Interpretation. 

    Come join us for the public lecture in Isaacson Chapel at Nyvall Hall starting at 9am CST on the North Park University campus. Or, you are welcome to watch the livestream of the lectures here: http://livestream.com/northpark/lund-and-symposium
    Hope to see you there! MJL

Coming Soon: The 2016 Nils W. Lund Memorial Lectureship (Sept 28-29, 2016) at North Park Theological Seminary

I can't think of a better occasion to resume blogging than to announce the upcoming 2016 Nils W. Lund Memorial Lectureship held at North Park Theological Seminary here in Chicago. Named after the seminary's 4th dean (1922-54), and held in conjunction with the seminary's annual Symposium on the Theological Interpretation of Scripture (this year's theme is "Science and Religion"), the #LundLectures feature leading scholars in the States and abroad invited to speak on cutting-edge issues in New Testament and Old Testament studies. 

Nils Lund teaching class as a professor of NT (1922-54)
Photo ©2013 Historical Photo Collection at NPU

This year, for the New Testament lectureship series on Wed morning Sept 28, Susan Eastman, Associate Research Professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity School, will be speaking on the theme Paul and Personal Flourishing. Her lecture schedule is as follows: 

9:00–10:30 am	Being Bodies: Paul's Body Language and Ours
10:30am–12pm	Knowing God: Cognition and the Spirit in Paul's Thought

    For the Old Testament lectureship series on the following Thurs Sept 29, Iain Provan, The Marshall Sheppard Professor of Biblical Studies at Regent College, will speaking on the theme Were the Reformers Wrong? Some Reflections on Protestant Biblical Interpretation. His lecture schedule is: 

9:00–10:30am	On the Meaning of Words: The Literal, the Spiritual, and the Plain Confusing
10:30am–12pm	Empty Speculations and Froth: The Reformers and Allegorical Reading

I'm really looking forward to hearing from both our invited lecturers. These lectures will be live-streamed (and hopefully also recorded; if so, I'll post the links on my blog later) and during the live-stream, listeners can send questions during the Q&A through the chat function. The livestream will be available either on the Cov.Church.tv website or on the Covenant Church's youtube channel. I'll try to post an updated link to the lectures once I hear from the tech crew exactly how they will be handling the livestream. But this won't probably be something I can do until early Wed morning before the 9am lecture begins. Stay tuned! MJL

Postscript 9/26/16: I received word from the tech crew. The livestream for the Lund Lectures will be here: https://livestream.com/northpark/lund-and-symposium