Category: Confessions of a Bibliophile

Now and again you get tired of superlatives, you begin to suffer from overstatement fatigue. Whether it’s the latest, coolest, fastest, cheapest, most reliable, healthiest, longest lasting, exclusive, superb, benchmark, unrivalled, bestest, very bestest, very bestest ever, really very bestest ever…see what I mean. Tediously repeated superlatives are like a dimmer switch attached to the brain; they’re as annoying as the monotonous musically vacuous bass beats of sound systems in passing cars; meant to communicate more or less justified enthusiasm, superlatives end up being a turn-off.

So what do I say about The Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters, the latest (note the only remaining superlative in this review) dictionary published by IVP? It’s a revision and expansion of a previous volume called A Handbook of Major Biblical Interpreters, which has served well as a reference book on the history of biblical interpretation. The new edition enhances that usefulness by widening the scope of the contents and bringing the entire volume up to date. It is plain fact to say there isn’t another volume that covers this ground, and this much ground, in such a comprehensive and representative scale. (1100+ pages). There are five chronological chapters adding up to over 100 double column pages, providing an overview of historical context, key personalities and important developments in scholarly examination of the Bible.

At a time when serious attention is being paid to the history of biblical interpretation, and the history of text reception within the community of faith is being given significant hermeneutical weight, such a reference book offers substantive discussion of key personalities, and opens up a diverse and crucial field of study. Most articles about the biblical interpreters selected explore four areas of their respective subject – the context, the life and work of the person, main interpretive principles, and continuing significance.

The selection has sought to be representative and inclusive, incorporating Catholic and Protestant, conservative and progressive, ancient and modern, men and (far too few) women, hugely weighted towards Europe and America, and spanning two thousand years. Intentionally, nearly all those included are dead – so living scholars either wait a later edition!, or another book is needed looking at contemporary practising interpreters. This editorial decision goes some way to explaining the Euro-American male dominance of entries, without excusing the history that underlies it. But Phyllis Trible and Schussler Fiorenza are there, and thankfully are still here – a wise editorial act of positive discrimination and inclusion.

However the Dictionary can only include those who are indeed the significant players in the history of interpretation, and this it does under the overall editorship of Donald McKim, an experienced and reliable editor who is himself a contributor to the academic discussions arising from biblical interpretation. As an indication of the range of interpreters treated here is a list of ten, chosen on a quick skim back and forwards through the book:

Hugh of St Victor, Gerhard von Rad, E Schussler Fiorenza, Pilgram Marpeck, John Owen, Paul Ricouer, Erasmus, Didymus the Blind, C K Barrett, C I Scofield.

As a Scot I am delighted that A B Bruce, James Moffatt and James Denney (pictured) are included – by the way, has any other church ever been more privileged in the New Testament expertise of its ministers than Broughty Ferry East Free Church which had these three influential Scottish scholars within the space of around forty years?

Then there are the premier league scholars of the 20th Century; from Europe Barth, Von Rad, Bultmann, Cullmann, Eichrodt, Kasemann, Lohmeyer; and from Britain C F D Moule, Vincent Taylor, G B Caird, C K Barrett, C H Dodd, T W Manson; from America H J Cadbury, Brevard Childs, Bruce Metzger, Walter Brueggemann (another thankfully still with us inclusion) G Eldon Ladd, Raymond E Brown; from the tradition of great commentators Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Matthew Henry, J A Bengel, J P Lange, H A W Meyer, Keil and Delitzsch. And so on. And the dictionary short changes none of them. No half column digests of facts – each a substantial article, and all articles supported by generous up to date bibliography.

For biblical interpreters, aspiring or established, who want to understand how we came to be where we are in the scholarly study of the Bible; and for those fascinated by the immense labour and human devotion that has gone into the faithful study of the biblical text; and for those like myself who are both captivated by the story of how the church has listened, learned and interpreted Christian scripture, this is a superlative book!

And in these days of required transparency and declared interests, I have to inform you that the article on James Denney was written by me, and the volume is much the better for it – not because I wrote it, but because Denney was a superlative interpreter of Scripture!

‘The most complete novel I know in the English language is….’ Now that’s a sentence that has an almost ulimited number of possible endings, depending on who is saying it. Some would say Middlemarch, by George Eliot. No doubt whatsoever, Middlemarch is a sumptuously long, intricately contrived, precisely plotted novel richly populated with characters whose inner lives are narrated and monitored by a knowing narrator. Others may stake a claim for Henry James, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, and we could all compile our listmania recommendations.

But the person who said to me, ‘The most complete novel in the English language is….’ was referring not to the great tradition, but to a novelist long out of fashion, and to a novel not recognised as her greatest. Yet The Dean’s Watch, by Elizabeth Goudge was passionately advocated by my friend while she was in hospital, and during a conversation ranging from Wordsworth to Ruskin ( we were both reading the latest biographies, she of Wordsworth, me of Ruskin), from Dickens to Manley Hopkins. So I read it, and I haven’t read enough novels to make the same exclusive claim that it is the most complete novel in the English language; but it is one of the most satisfyingly resolved novels I’ve ever read.

It is gentle but sharply observed, sentimental in a way that affirms emotion as an essential barometer of humanity, it avoids the unlikely coincidences that drive Charles Dickens, the fateful providences of Thomas Hardy, the mature and serious playfulness of George Eliot. Instead it draws you into a story where the characters are people, but also a city, and a cathedral, and a community that like a finely calibrated clock runs reliably until something jumps out of synchronic movement, and then needs repairing.

I’ve read it four times – and would have read it again this December but instead have leant it to a very good friend who will be the richer over Advent for reading it. The story revolves around the last months of a year leading up to Christmas, the plot centres around the Dean, his watch, the clockmaker, the apprentice, and the cathedral and city. And it does indeed, meander and twist and move towards completion until the entire story is resolved. Goudge constructs characters who are uncomplicated, lacking the ambiguity and complexity of  the modern ‘literary novel’. But her aim is to tell a story, to create place, people, circumstance within a providence that is merely hinted.

Eliot’s Middlemarch it is not. But a woman whose father, H L Goudge, was known for carrying the bags of local tramps up the hill to the vicarage and offering them a bath, or sitting on the pavement talking to travelling people, is someone who understands the hidden graces and glimpsed generosities of ordinary human lives. The Dean’s Watch is a tale of redemption, told within the ordinary, where sin is sin, and grace is grace, but grace abounds, people change, where life is told as a story framed in the goodness of and mystery of a Love both pervasive and elusive.

By the way that last sentence could stand as a good description of Advent… " a tale of redemption, told within the ordinary, where sin is sin, and grace is grace, but grace abounds, people change, where life is told as a story framed in the goodness of and mystery of a Love both pervasive and elusive". I am at Inverness with the good people of Hilton Church – some of whom regularly call by here. So I’ll return the compliment and go visit to share an Advent weekend.

Caution – long sentence looming. When someone spends more than half their life studying one of the Gospels, and takes over twenty years to write a three volume commentary of 1750 pages on Matthew, and remains an enthusiastic learner and teachable interpreter of all things Matthean, and writes out of a deep faith commitment and a familiarity with the vast range of previous Christian scholarship on the text, and the books themselves are the last word in sumptuous, crafted, book production….well then, it’s hard not to gloat without guilt, to handle each volume with exaggerated care, to imagine that the weight of knowledge must at least be equivalent to the heft of the book, to make space on the desk to lay it down, but carefully,to open it and do what you always ought to do with a good book and a piece of refined art, read it, contemplate it, enjoy it, let its truth soak into whatever part of you is thirsty.

So I did!

And so I have since these volumes thudded onto my desk a couple of months ago. Ulrich Luz has gifted to the church one of the greatest commentaries ever written on a Gospel. For years I’ve used his commentary on chapters 1-7 of Matthew. But now it’s been revised and expanded and along with the two other volumes completes the Hermeneia commentary on Matthew. The liturgical year 2007-8 focuses on the Gospel of Matthew – it will be serious fun and intellectual joy exploring the lectionary readings on Matthew, with Luz as guide.

A couple of months ago I played around with a few Haiku verses on the Hermeneia commentaries and posted them on Sean the Baptist’s blog, cos Sean is just as much of a bibliophile as I am, just as much of a Luz fan, and just as fond of the aesthetic pleasures of handling, reading and affectionately caring for beautifully produced books. Later this week I’ll post my Hermeneia Haiku as a celebration of these volumes, magnificent in content as in form. And come Advent I’ll take time to learn from Luz, about genealogies, annunciations, the baby called Jesus and three magi whose GPS Sat-Nav went on the blink and they found themselves in Bethlehem.

Ben Myers posts a timely reminder to all of us who like collecting books! It’s from the fly leaf of one of Karl Barth’s books, which he wrote for one of his friends.

Meaning of life?
Collecting books? No, read them!
Reading them? No, think about!
Thinking about? No, do something for God and for your neighbour!
—Karl Barth, Basle, 2.11.1954

Last week I posted on my first spiritual and pastoral mentor, Charlie Simpson. I mentioned his habit of reading reference books and announced my intention to remember this good man by reading a reference book, The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought. So far I’ve read amongst other things, about Peter Abelard, Abortion, Abraham, Adam and Allegory. And just read the article on Angels. Some of our hymns assume the reality and activity of these messengers from God – Wesley tells us to Hark! the herald angels sing; in Newman’s ‘Praise to the Holiest in the Height’, it’s the angels who are left gobsmacked (my word, Newman one of the finest prose stylists in the English language would eschew such slovenly syntax) – left gobsmacked at the coming of the second Adam to the fight and to the rescue. And Wesley again is the earth’s cheerleader, celebrating the mercy of God, ‘Let earth adore’, and then he advises angel minds to enquire no more.

The article clarified for me the status of angels, something I hadn’t thought much about –

the angels are not divine, but fellow servants of God with humanity, integral even if invisible elements of the cosmos, mightily influencing, for good and ill, according to their primordial option, the stage upon which the  history of salvation unfolds.

In the Bible angels appear and act at key moments in the story – the three guests of Abraham turn out to be the angels unawares (and are immortalised in Rublev’s magnificent icon of the Holy Trinity); Jacob’s wrestling partner at the brook Jabbok is an angel who leaves jacob with the blessing of a limp(which triggered one of Charles Wesley’s greatest productions). They are protectors of God’s people and proclaimers of God’s purposes. Isaiah six gives a stunningly image-rich portrayal of the heavenly courts busy with the synchronised traffic of adoring praise at the speed of light. The Annunciation and the Nativity stories make sense only because God’s messengers interrupt the long slow history of human longing, with the ultimate news bulletin. And in the wilderness, and Gethsemane Jesus is strengthened, accompanied, supported, but then they withdraw and we are left to ponder the loneliness of the Son of God.

The article finishes:

‘The angels serve God and humanity, and especially Christ, God incarnate, the sole mediator. They labour invisibly, throughout the cosmos, to further the final unity of all things, in heaven and on earth, in Him.

I’m not sure how carefully I’ve considered a theology of angels before; I’m well impressed that Karl Barth and Karl Rahner both made significant space to expound the ministry and mystery of God’s messengers. And maybe now and again, when the good things happen, we should be more alert to the presence and action of God’s gophers.

First, one of my favourite quotations from Thomas Merton, quoted in Shannon’s biography:

But questions cannot go unanswered unless they first be asked. And there is a far worse anxiety, a far worse insecurity, which comes from being afraid to ask the right questions – because they might turn out to have no answers. One of the moral diseases we communicate to one another in society [ and also in the church] comes from huddling together in the pale light of an insufficient answer to a question we are afraid to ask.

Back in the 80s and 90s I read the five volumes of Thomas Merton’s letters, borrowed for long periods from the University Library. Merton has been like a benevolent virus in my bloodstream ever since I read The Seven Storey Mountain. I struggle to identify with his monastic expression of Christian life, not because I disagree, disapprove or have any right to question the way another follows Jesus – and how Merton followed Jesus. At the same time few writers put into words the spiritual value of the interrogative mood, the maturing power of good questions, and at the same time expresses in beautiful words, the joy of the search for god – and the joy of knowing God seeks us.

So. In the Old Aberdeen bookshop, I bought the four of the five volumes on the shelf. My spiritual reading for a while is going to be an exercise in reacquaintance – and I’ll still be uneasy about the monastic preoccupations – but I’ll also find my own faith and my own way of following Jesus probed by a consultant on the inner life. The letters to friends, the letters to fellow religious, the letters on social justice and the letters on war and peace are likely to intrigue, frustrate, inspire, annoy, educate and certainly edify (build up) the faith of this baptist bibliophile – who readily confesses to yet another capitualtion, and is so saisfied it would be hypocritical to profess repentance.

Who else is a Merton fan?

Off to Aberdeen where I’m preaching on Sunday. Catching up with a number of friends, out for an evening meal with some of them tonight, and then making and taking time to worship together at Crown Terrace Baptist Church tomorrow. Amongst the other friends I’ll catch up with, will be Chris, who owns Old Aberdeen Bookshop.Whenever possible I try to encourage my friends by supporting them in whatever they do that matters to them in life. I don’t often leave Chris’s shop without buying – it’s what Dr Johnson used to call the wise habit of ‘keeping your friendships in good repair’. One way or t’other, a few inches of my shelfspace is about to fill – this is by way of pre-emptive confession.

And yet – Chris is a friend, and I want to support his business, so that’s all right then. Aye, but what about motivation – is buying books from him further unnecessary self-indulgence, masked by alleged goodwill? So good consequences for the other person, don’t rule out convenient excuse for me. Isn’t life complicated if you think about things too much – maybe that’s why the wise spiritual guides of the past warned against scruples. Evangelical Christians are not immune to this spiritual obsessive compulsive disorder. It takes the form of self-centred wallowing around in our own souls, supposedly concerned about sin when all the time we are self importantly putting our little selfish moral sensitivities at the centre of God’s attention as if God had nothing better to do than monitor our personal guilt thresholds.

In which case I’m going to just enjoy burrowing for an hour and happily and innocently buy some good books, from a good shop, at a good price, for a really good guy?

Or is that me rationalising – is that ethical spin doctoring –

aye probably, but there’s worse things than buying yet more books. One elderly lady we came to love in Aberdeen used to say dismissively to people going on…and on… with their moans and complaints, ‘Aye well – worse things happened at Culloden’.

I spent a wee while this morning, reading in the small chunky maroon buckram volume of The Letters of Thomas Erskine of Linlathen, my copy published in a fourth edition, 1884. It’s one of a small collection of ‘devotional books’ I turn to regularly. The inverted commas around devotional is a hat tip to C S Lewis who disliked the marshmallow niceness of devotional writing, and preferred hard books you had to read with a pipe gripped in your teeth. Apart from the pipe, I’m with CSL – his essay ‘On the Reading of Old Books’ is anthologised all over the place; written sixty years ago, it’s still a wise dissuasive from our ‘chronological snobbery’, by which we think the latest, newest, shiniest, easiest is best. The old has lasted till now – the newest still has to be tested – that’s CSL the pragmatist!

Thomas Erskine was one of those Scottish Christian leaders during the first half of the 19th Century, who fell under the criticism and at times manipulative severity of those who saw themselves as defenders and upholders of Westminster orthodox Calvinism. Thomas Erskine, John Macleod Campbell of Rhu, near Helensburgh, and James Morison of Kilmarnock who formed the Evangelical Union of the Congregational Church, were three Scottish theologians who taught that Christ died for all, and not for the elect alone; they challenged particular atonement and proclaimed a universal and free Gospel, to be offfered to all, that all might hear the good news of Christ and respond in repentance and faith. 

Morison and Campbell were tried before their church courts and deposed – though before the end of the 19th Century their theology of God’s universal love, Christ dying for all, and of the evangelistic imperative of a free gospel offered to all, had become the dominant position. P T Forsyth (Jason will concur!), described Macleod Campbell’s book, The Nature of the Atonement, as ‘a great, fine, holy book’. His endorsement is for some of us as near an imprimatur as Forsyth himself would allow!

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Now that I think of it, a number of books of letters are important in my own understanding of what it means to follow after Christ – The Selected Letters of Baron Von Hugel, the Letters of Samuel Rutherford, the five volumes of Letters of Thomas Merton, The Spiritual Letters of Fenelon, The two volumes of Letters of Principal James Denney, Collected Letters of Evelyn Underhill, Cardiphonia of John Newton, the Letters of John Wesley (much more interesting than his Journal), William Cowper (one of the best letter writers in the language). (A Roman Catholic intellectual, a Scottish Covenanter, a trappist monk, a French Catholic spiritual director, one of Scotland’s finest biblical theologians, an Anglican laywoman, an ex slaver turned Evangelical leader, the founder of Methodism, and England’s finest rural poet) – quite an impressively varied crowd – and what brings them together in my story, is their careful correspondence, their taking time to ‘connect’ by snail mail, and someone taking time to gather, edit and publish them.

If Baron Von Hugel had lived today, would we have his posthumous Selected E-mails, Blogposts and Text Messages of BFVH’@Typepad.com?? – instead of some of the wisest, most convoluted, but most spiritually patient guidance anywhere. Not only history, but biography and sheer human artefacts, and spiritual theology as lived and written, seem threatened by the transience, occasionality and excess of electronic communication.

For example the above scanned letter is from P T Forsyth about a letter in his coat pocket he’d forgotten to post!

Off to get ready for church………………………….