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Archive for the ‘denkschrift’ Category

vintage García Márquez in short form: Gabriel García Márquez, Chronicle of a Death Foretold

Posted in denkschrift, reseña, tagged , , , , on September 17, 2007| Leave a Comment »

García Márquez did not win the Nobel Prize for Literature and become Colombia’s favorite son by accident. This book, among his best, anchors his reputation as one of Latin America’s greatest novelists. (more…)

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modern land conflict through the lens of ancient texts: Robert P. Gordon, Holy Land, Holy City. Sacred Geography and the Interpretation of the Bible

Posted in denkschrift, reseña, tagged , , , , on September 17, 2007| Leave a Comment »

The trajectory of this thoughtful book begins in the primeval history of Genesis, continues through texts of both Old and New Testaments, and finishes in the heated context of the contemporary Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the belligerent use that is frequently made of these same biblical sources. Holy Land, Holy City is well suited to the reader who is willing to engage complex argument on her way to a better understanding of the biblical and theological underpinnings of ‘land theology’ and contemporary conflicts over land. R.P. Gordon is the Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Cambridge and a highly regarded linguist and biblical interpreter. (more…)

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looking over Jesus’ shoulder as he reads his Jewish Bible: Christopher J. H. Wright, Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament

Posted in denkschrift, reseña, tagged , on September 9, 2007| Leave a Comment »

When scholars write popular books, it is sometimes evident that they are speaking a strange tongue. Chris Wright’s semi-popular biblical theology does not suffer this deficiency. Wright wears his scholarship lightly and writes with a good preacher’s respect for his audience’s intelligence and lack of awareness of the issues that detain and entertain the specialist. The result is a solid and enriching example of a mature hermeneutic that takes the Old Testament seriously in its own right, and then seeks in it a witness to Jesus. (more…)

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an important argument from a master contrarian: Niall Ferguson, Colossus. The Rise and Fall of the American Empire

Posted in denkschrift, reseña, tagged , , , on September 9, 2007| 2 Comments »

This troubling book by a prolific scholar of empire dissects the American version of that phenomenon in eight well-researched chapters and a conclusion. Ominously, his first four chapters are grouped under the title ‘Rise’ and the last four under ‘Fall?’. Ferguson’s personal interest in empire and his unusually positive appreciation of its role in human history is best understood by first reading Empire. The rise and demise of the British world order and the lessons for global power.
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a snapshot of the 1980s IOSCS and LXX lexicography: Takamitsu Muraoka, Melbourne Symposium on Septuagint Lexicography (Septuagint and Cognate Studies Series)

Posted in denkschrift, reseña, tagged , , , on September 9, 2007| 2 Comments »

The lexicographer T. Muraoka gathers in this slim volume a selection of papers that demonstrate the concern to upgrade the tools and methodologies available to Septuagintalists that was expressed among the members of the International Organization of Septuagint and Cognate Studies in the late 1980s. (more…)

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a plausible reconstruction: Raymond F. Person, Jr., The Deuteronomic School. History, Social Setting, and Literature (Studies in Biblical Literature, Number 2)

Posted in denkschrift, reseña, tagged , , on September 9, 2007| Leave a Comment »

Largely a rebuttal to claims of ‘pan-deuteronomism’, Person writes at a time when many assumptions about things deuteronom(ist)ic that have seemed settled since Noth are openly questioned in the perhaps unpromising search for a new consensus. An introduction (pp. 1-16) brings the reader up to date on the proliferating meanings assigned terminology of which the definition once appeared to have been agreed, as well as on the tendency to multiply redactional layers in the Deuteronomistic literature beyond the two (Harvard School) and three (Gttingen School) that until recently seemed a sufficient menu from which to choose. Against the perceived expansionistic tendencies of deuteronomistic influence and redactions, some scholars have leveled accusations of ‘pan-Deuteronism’. In the face of this, Person defends a relatively broad definition of Deuteronomic (his preferred term) influence and literatures, as well as proposing ‘a way out of the confusion’ by means of a four-angled approach that considers (a) text-critical controls on redaction criticism, (b) post-exilic Deuteronomic redaction, (c) evidence from ANE scribal schools, and (4) the Deuteronomic school’s social location in an oral culture. (more…)

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the luxury of tears (Homer: The Iliad, narrated audiobook)

Posted in denkschrift, reseña, tagged , , , , , , on September 9, 2007| Leave a Comment »

What happens upon earth when the gods make war in heaven? Many cultures have a treasured and conventional answer to this, even those deeply secularized societies that describe celestial violence in scientific language. Homer’s Iliad is one such tale-epic in its scope-that has deeply marked Western civilization down to its roots.

If you listen to just one audiobook this year, it should be George Guidall’s narration of Homer’s The Iliad. (more…)

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So are we exiles then?: Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, A Biblical Theology of Exile (Overtures to Biblical Theology)

Posted in denkschrift, reseña, tagged , , on September 9, 2007| Leave a Comment »

Building upon his The Religion of the Landless: The Social Context of the Babylonian Exile (Meyer Stone, 1989), the author has produced a thoughtful work on a central biblical concept that is both historical and theological. Works on biblical theology are almost compelled to begin with an apology for the method employed. Smith-Christopher does not fail to do so (‘Biblical Theology: On Matters of Methodology’, 1-26), signalling in his comment upon post-modern metaphysical critiques that he does not intend to allow a hyper-critical or hyper-sceptical critique to claim exclusive legitimacy in the conversation. While attempting to be critical of his own assumptions, Smith-Christopher is persuaded that both history and theology can be carried out with integrity, especially when focussing upon a discrete theme like exile. ‘Discrete’, however, does not mean `miniscule’, for the author is convinced that one must see the exile of Judah not only as human catastrophe-its actual happening can be defended on historical grounds-but also as an event that engendered significant new social and theological enterprises. Smith-Christopher writes from his own participation in an historical ‘peace church’ and finds a promising correlation between the ‘stateless existence’ that was the destiny of the Jewish exiles and the kinds of church community that is praised by some Christian theologians. As a result, he is eager to question both Constantinian and Wellhausian views of ‘exile’ as an intrinsically negative socio-religious matrix that lost something essential. (more…)

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a world far different from the one we thought we knew: Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom. The Coming of Global Christianity

Posted in denkschrift, missio dei, reseña, tagged , , on September 8, 2007| Leave a Comment »

In a memorable passage from the movie Apollo Thirteen, a military man in the tense Houston control room shares with a political figure his premonition that the tragedy unfolding before them will be *the* catastrophic moment for the space program. Mission control flight chief Gene Kranz overhears their conversation and addresses it: ‘With all due respect, gentleman, I believe this will be our finest hour.’ The scene could stand in for the hand-wringing that often accompanies the apparent demise of the Western church when it comes to prognosticating on its fate over against the perceived adversaries of secularism and post-modernism. Philip Jenkins reminds us that, when viewed through a wide-screen lens, the immediacy of threat often yields to a broad panorama of opportunity. (more…)

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the birth of apocalyptic literature in Jerusalem’s ashes: William R. Millar, Isaiah 24-27 and the Origin of Apocalyptic (Harvard Semitic Monographs, No. 11.)

Posted in denkschrift, reseña, tagged , , on September 8, 2007| Leave a Comment »

This revised doctoral dissertation is useful principally for the material it draws together into one place and for its methodology, which attempts to develop a relative chronology of the evolution of apocalyptic and then to place Isaiah 24-27 at the proper place on that scale. (more…)

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