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

Race and Racism: Papers from North Park's 2015 Symposium on the Theological Interpretation of Scripture

Nyvall Hall, home of North Park Theological Seminary's
Symposium on the Theological Interpretation of Scripture
Photo by Max Lee ©2014

Following the Lund Lectureship, each year, North Park Theological Seminary also hosts its Symposium on the Theological Intepretation of Scripture. This year's theme is on the important and very salient issues of race and racism, especially in a North American context (#BlackLivesMatter, #TamarRice, #FreddyGray, #MichaelBrown, #immigrantlivesmatter). Klyne Snodgrass, formerly the Paul W. Brandel Chair of New Testament Studies and now an emeritus professor, spearheads the symposium, inviting speakers from across the country and at times internationally, and edits the plenary papers which are read for publication in the journal Ex Auditu. 

    One by one, I'm working my way through the videos that Cov.Tv streamed and also posted on their youtube channel. Sometimes, these videos are hard to find, so I'm organizing them here on this post, with the speaker names and paper titles. Chris Spinks, editor at Wipf and Stock, also posted on the symposium and included some very nice excerpts from each of the paper presenters. 
    Also, all the videos are unedited, so there are sometimes long gaps between start times. Be sure to look where to scroll for each video (red print) so you don't have to wonder where to begin.

    On Thurs evening Sept 24, the Symposium opened with Love Sechrest, Associate Professor of New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary, who gave the paper "Enemies, Romans, Pigs, and Dogs: Loving the Other in the Gospel of Matthew." The response was given by Rebecca Gonzales, Executive Director of Operations for the Evangelical Covenant Church. 

First Session with Love Sechrest (start at 9:18)

   On Friday Sept 25, for sessions 2-5, we had the following speakers. In the morning, Néstor Medina (previous CV), Visiting Scholar at the University of Toronto and author of Mestizaje: Remapping Race, Culture, and Faith in Latina/o Catholicism, gave the paper "What's Missing? Toward an Hermeneutics of Absence." The response was given by Bruce Fields, Associate Professor of Biblical and Systematic Theology at Trinity Evangelical School, and in the past a plenary speaker for our lectureships. 

2nd Session with Néstor Medina (start at 37:50)

In the late morning session, Emerson Powery (our Lund lecturer) gave the paper "Lost in Translation: Ethnic Conflict in English Bibles." The response was by our own university provost, Michael Emerson, author of the award-winning and prophetically challenging book Divided by Faith.

3rd Session with Emerson Powery (start at 2:31)

In the afternoon, Raymond Aldred, Assistant Professor of Theology at Ambrose Seminary presented the paper "An Indigenous Reinterpretation of Repentance," with a response by one of our North Park alumni, Mark Tao, Pastor of Immanuel Covenant Church, here in Chicago. 

4th Session with Raymond Aldred (start at 5:05)

Friday ended with the evening paper by Kyle Small, Dean of Formation for Ministry and Associate Professor of Church Leadership at Western Theological Seminary, who presented "What Kind of Enemy Are You? Gentile Privilege in the Gospel of Matthew," with the response by Alex Gee, Pastor of Fountain of Life Covenant Church. 

5th Session with Kyle Small (start at 8:40)

  On Saturday, the Symposium ended with its final three sessions. In the morning, Bo Lim, Associate Professor of Old Testament at Seattle Pacific University (also a Lund lecturer), gave the provocative paper "The Lynching of the Suffering Servant of Isaiah" with the response by Evelmyn Ivens, national staff at the Christian Community Development Association, and a recent North Park alumnus. 

6th Session with Bo Lim (start at 5:56)

In late morning session, Elizabeth (Lisa) Sung, Associate Professor of Biblical and Systematic Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, gave the paper "Racial Realism in Biblical Interpretation and Theological Anthropology: An Evaluation of Recent Accounts," with the response by doctoral candidate Valerie Landfair from Regent University, and adjunct instructor at North Park. 

7th Session with Lisa Sung (start at 4:00)

The last session featured the paper by Lewis Brogdon, Assistant Professor of Religion and Biblical Studies at Claflin University with the title "Reimagining Koinonia: Confronting the Legacy and Logic of Paul's Letter to Philemon." The response was given by Al Tizon, Executive Minister of Serve Globally for the Evangelical Covenant Church and soon a regular lecturer at the seminary. 

8th Session with Lewis Brogdon (start at 3:16)

Whew! That's it. Enjoy, be blessed, and be challenged by the sessions. MJL

The Apocalyptic Paul and Divine Initiative

This past Thursday Sept. 25th, on the 2nd day of the 2014 Nils W. Lund Memorial Lectureship, Dr. Beverly Gaventa, Distinguished Professor of New Testament at Baylor University,  gave two lectures on Paul's letter to the church at Rome. 
   In the first lecture, entitled "What Part of the Word "All" Don't We Understand?" Gaventa gives an apocalyptic reading of Romans, from beginning to end, highlighting points in the text where transformations (in life and the human condition) take place. Much in the spirit and exegetical legacy of Karl Barth, Ernst Κäsemann, and J. Louis Martyn (her doctoral supervisor), Gaventa emphasizes the essentiality of divine initiative, because the anti-God powers of Sin and Death have so thoroughly enslaved humanity that no amount of repentance will change the human condition. 
   Focusing on Romans 3, and seeing in Rom 5-8 a recapitulation of the same themes in Rom 1-3 but at a larger cosmic scale, in her own words, Gaventa offered this challenge: "The human problem is larger than that which can be handled by repentance and forgiveness. Slaves cannot repent their way out of slavery. They can only be liberated. Salvation is not about being forgiven but being delivered by God." 
   Gaventa then gives a really poignant illustration by comparing the sociological and psychological slavery of the child-soldier as an analogue to the kind of slavery experienced under the rule of Sin and Death. There is more to share, but I'll let you hear from Gaventa herself via the video link (below). 

Professor Beverly Gaventa delivering the first of two Lund Lectures
in Isaacson Chapel at North Park Theological Seminary

In the 2nd lecture, entitled "Free and Costly Grace," Gaventa caught me by surprise (in a good way!). Focusing on Rom 12, Gaventa argued that grace is free because Christ died for all (5:18; 8:32), but it is costly because having been liberated, the Christian worships God by becoming a "living sacrifice" (12:1). There is nothing easy or trite about worship. Genuine worship is returning to God what is God's. There is no limit to God’s claim on us. Worship leads to ethical living. 

   I thought this was a very powerful challenge to the church, and I deeply appreciated the prophetic call back to true worship that honors God where I don't throw my money into the coffers but instead "throw my whole body into the offering plate" (her words, not mine). 

   I did walk away with some questions, however, namely what role does human response to divine initiative have in Paul's soteriological scheme. In Gaventa's explanation, faith as trust does not appear to be a response that gets one into salvation. Faith is not an entry point. God saves all, but people have not heard about this good news yet. When they hear, and believe what they hear, they worship God for what he has done. And even here faith is a gift, not a human work. So the element of volition or choice plays a minimum role in this reading of an apocalyptic Paul. It's hard for me to think about faith as trust without including an element of volition or choice, though I would not reduce faith to just choice or cognitive assent. Faith is much more. 

   In any case, all I can say is: wow! Fantastic lecture and pastoral challenge! So grateful that Dr. Gaventa was here at North Park to share her work and words with us. To listen to her 2nd lecture yourself, again, see the video links below. Blessings!

Lecture 1: Jump to 3:55 to skip the introductions: 

Lecture 2: Video begins immediately with the lecture: 

The 2014 Lund Lecture Kicks Off with the Song of Songs and Human Intimacy

On Wednesday Sept. 24, the 2014 Nils W. Lund Lectureship launched with an excellent set of lectures from Dr. Tremper Longman III, the Robert H. Gundry Professor of Biblical Studies, at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, Calif. 
   The first lecture, entitled: "Celebration and Warning: Sexual Intimacy in the Song of Songs," was a brilliant summary on the history of interpretation on the Song of Songs, where he demonstrated that the allegorical interpretation of the Song was quite late, beginning with Jewish interpreters like Rabbi Akiba (c.a. AD 100), continued through the Targum traditions (Song of Songs 1:2-4), and was popularized in Christian discourse by Hippolytus, Origen, Jerome, Bernard of Clairvaux and medieval interpreters.  He gave some hilarious examples of Christian allegorical readings: e.g., Hippolytus (AD 200) read the verse "My lover is to me a sachet of myrrh lodging between my breasts" (1:13) as meaning the beloved is the Bride of Christ, the church, and each breast represents the Old Testament on one side, and the New Testament on the other. 
    Some warnings from both Jewish and Christian traditions were poignant. Rabbi Akiba, for instance, stated that anyone who treats the Song of Songs, not as an allegory of God's love for Israel, but as a cheap love ballad to be sung in banquet halls "has no share in the world to come!" A literal reading damns the reader to hell! But read as an allegory, the Song of Songs becomes "the Holy of Holies." 
    The Westminster Assembly apparently warned that a literal reading likens the Song of Songs to "a hot carnal pamphlet formed by some loose Apollo or Cupid" rather than the beautiful story of the Bridegroom's (Christ's) unrelenting love for the Bride (the church). 
    Longman takes to task the allegorical reading and argues that the Song of Songs is not a plot-driven story but a collection of love songs, an anthology, which nevertheless has a collective literary and theological coherence. The Song is about human intimacy and sensuality, and more importantly how they might reflect the image of God. Longman ends the first lecture with some, in his words, "R-rated" translations of the Song (vs. his older, collaborative PG-13 translation with the New Living Translation committee), including Song of Songs 4:1-5:1. I'll let you hear him give the R-rated version via video link (below). As one audience member said: "The man did not blush!" when translating the Hebrew, all of which can also be found in his Song of Solomon commentary with NICOT. 

The 2nd lecture was entitled: "God Loves Sex: A Theological Reading of the Song of Songs." Again, you can listen to his lecture directly (link below) but by way of summary Longman talked about relational brokenness, healthy sexual expressions in a marriage context as well as deviant ones, and attempts to outline a biblical theology of human sexuality in dialogue with the rest of the Christian canon. It was a great way to kick-off the Lund lectureship and the Symposium on the Theological Reading of Scripture.

Prof. Longman chatting with North Park seminarians
at the end of the Lund Lectureship

For links to video recordings of the lectures, please see the following: 

Lecture 1: Jump to 6:09 to skip the introductions:
    

Lecture 2: Jump to 1:17 to skip the introductions: 

Ancient Traveling or the War Machine: Vote!

Bronze Corinthian helmet (ca. 5th cent. BC)
Photo taken by Max Lee © 2014 Museum of Corinth

Here are a couple of announcements for this blog:

1. Throughout the week, I'll be posting on the Lund Lectureship and the North Park Symposium on the Theological Reading of Scripture (click for details). Especially if there are papers and lectures on the topic of Paul, his gospel, and theology, I will definitely make comments and provide links to video for anyone who wishes to hear the lectures themselves. The papers for the symposium will not be recorded (correction! there might be live-streaming for the papers and responses: here) but they will be published in the next issue of Ex Auditu and you can get a summary and review of some papers from my posts throughout this week. 
2. Want to have a say on the next set of topics I pursue on this blog? I'll be taking a vote throughout the week of the Symposium. I was thinking of starting a series of blog posts on either the topic of ancient traveling (by foot, sea, etc.) or military warfare or it can be something else if anyone has a good suggestion. Which topic are you interested in? To vote, become a subscriber to this blog. Look to the left of this page and click the button "Join this site" under the heading "Followers." You can sign up using a google, yahoo, twitter, and other accounts. Then reply to this post indicating what topic you would like this blog to pursue. Vote: ancient traveling, military warfare, or other (name the topic). Also, it would be great if you gave a quick intro and let me know who you are and your own interests in the ancient world or anything Apostle Paul (but this is optional). That's it! I'll let people know of the results next week. 

Hope to hear from the many anonymous readers of this blog out there in the world-wide web! Blessings!

The Antikythera Mechanism used to navigate sea-waters
Photo taken by Max Lee© 2014 Athens Museum

Grace and Gift according to Professor John Barclay of Durham University

There are others who take much better advantage of educational videos and lectures on youtube than I do. However, every now and then, I do stumble across a lectureship series by Tom Wright or other New Testament scholars that catch my attention. The biblioblogosphere has made several mentions of Prof. John Barclay's highly anticipated two-volume magnum opus on "Grace and Gift in Paul's Thought" (I have yet to see the definitive title for the work to be published by Eerdmans). 
   I had the pleasure of visiting Durham University back in 2010 for post-doctoral work, and Prof. Barclay was my patron and supervisor for a project on Philo of Alexandria (funded by the Lilly Theological Scholars Grant). Though my stay was short, I learned a great deal from him, Prof. Francis Watson, and Prof. Walter Moberly and am forever grateful for the warm welcome I received and the insights I was able to glean as I studied, wrote, and presented my work to them and others at the NT Seminar held by Durham's Department of Religion and Theology. 

photo credit: http://dunedinschool.wordpress.com

Needless to say, when I heard that John recently gave a lecture summarizing some of the basic tenets of his work on χάρις (translated as either "gift" or "grace"), I "youtubed" it (is this a verb?) and enjoyed the lecture thoroughly. His basic tenet: we in a North American and European context often associate with grace false/wrong/distorted notions on how gift-exchange operates. 
   Barclay attempts to outline a more nuanced understanding of how in the ancient world the complex relationships between giver, gift, and receiver operated from which Paul drew his own description of salvation as a divine gift to believers. The youtube link to the video is below:



   Quick highlights: after a fairly thorough explanation of his methodological (social-scientific) approach to understanding how gift exchanged worked in the wider Greco-Roman world, starting at 34:08 into the video, he explains the core of his argument: What constitutes the perfection of grace? Grace or gift has six common perfections or ideal components by which an ancient giver and receiver can measure the quality of the gift. 

1. Superabundance: the scale or size of the gift: The larger the gift, the more important the gift is.
2. Priority: manner in which the gift is given: the gift-giving is initiated by the giver without having received a previous gift from the recipient
3. Singularity: motivations behind the gift: the goodness / benevolence of the giver is what motivates him/her to give the gift.
4. Incongruency: relationship between the recipient and gift-giver: the more undeserved the gift is, the more perfect the gift. Or, in other words, this category focuses on the unworthiness of the receiver
5. Efficacy: goal of the gift-exchange: that gift accomplishes what the giver has set out to do for the receiver
6. Non-Circularity: the response of the receiver: this category does not mean that there are not expectations made of the recipient. This category means that no material response, or gift of equal value, was expected from the recipient. However, there were non-material expectations. Often this meant the loyalty of the recipient to the giver.

What do we mean by "unconditional gift" or "pure grace" depends on the interpreter. The challenge, then, is to de-aggregate the umbrella category of gift into its constituent parts so we can identify the particular emphases of a given interpreter. Barclay argues that the great 16th century German reformer, Martin Luther, focused on the feature of non-circularity: that is, God's grace is freely given to the believer without any expectation of receiving back anything from the recipient. It is arguably Luther's emphasis on free grace as non-circularity which has dominated Protestant views of justification, especially those from the Lutheran and Reformed traditions.
    Barclay provocatively insists, however, that Paul's emphasis lies elsewhere. Paul focuses on the incongruity of grace rather than the non-circularity. In fact, Paul expects the believer to respond to grace in concrete ways. Paul, for example, expected the Corinthians to participate in the offering to Jerusalem as a response to their having received God's grace (2 Cor 8:1-14). 
    Here, I break from Barclay to offer my own thoughts and reflections on this initial presentation. I, for one, never thought of grace as being "free" in the modern sense of the word. To me, this is just "cheap grace" to quote Bonhoeffer. Grace is costly. We can never earn salvation so it always remains a gift. But the response to the incongruity of the gift should be complete surrender. Faith is an absolute trust in God that is costly, not cheap. 
    If Barclay is correct in arguing that the Lutheran/Reformed emphasis of grace as non-circularity is incorrect, and this is not what Paul has in mind when the apostle talked about salvation as a gift (Rom 3:24 δικαιούμενοι δωρεὰν τῇ αὐτοῦ χάριτι), then Barclay has done us a great service in helping us to understand the particular emphases of gift language used by Paul. He has given us tools by which to evaluate past interpreters of Paul as well. I wonder how many Pauline interpreters have attributed to Paul a feature of gift-exchange that Paul himself did not emphasize. 
   Of course, we all have to read Barclay's work to see if he is correct in positing that Paul's focus was on incongruity (vs. non-circularity). I'm also curious to see how Barclay interacts with a previous study on grace and benefaction by James R. Harrison (Paul's Language of Grace in its Graeco-Roman Context - 2003). Nevertheless, even before the book is out, John has given us plenty to ruminate over. I, for one, cannot wait until his 2-volume work is published by Eerdmans. Hopefully, it will happen before this 2014 year ends. 

Anecdote: When I was in Durham, to my chagin, I never took a photo with John, Francis, or Walter. Hence I borrowed the above photo from John's time in New Zealand when he was working on his "grace and gift" project. Next time I'm in Durham, I'm going to remember to take more pictures. 

Postscript 02/20/15: Eerdmans announced the book's release date. Click here for more details.

Postscript 06/13/14: Exegetical Exercise: 1) Read the above post. 2) I suggest listening to the lecture directly but start at 34:08 minutes into the video and finish to the end. 3) Go to the bible dictionaries/encyclopedias in the reference section of library and learn more about "grace" or "gift" in the Greco-Roman world (in Greek charis/χάρις). 4) Interpret 2 Cor 8:9-15 ("For you know the grace (χάρις) of our Lord Jesus Christ...") drawing insight from your background study. In other words: how does understanding how grace was expressed, or gift-exchange operated, in the Greco-Roman world help you to understand Paul's message/exhortations in 2 Cor 8:9-15? 4) Be sure to consult at least one academic commentary on your biblical text from the reference section.