Buswell Bulletin: Book Highlights – September 2022
Each issue we highlight recently acquired books that are of particular interest or importance. (Inclusion on this list is not an endorsement.)
Agents of Flourishing: Pursuing Shalom in Every Corner of Society
Amy L. Sherman
InterVarsity Press, 2022
Publisher Description:
God calls Christians to participate in his redemptive mission in every sphere of life. Every corner, every square inch of society can flourish as God intends, and Christians of any vocation can become agents of that flourishing.
Amy Sherman offers a multifaceted, biblically grounded framework for enacting God's call to seek the shalom of our communities in six arenas of civilizational life (The Good, The True, The Beautiful, The Just, The Prosperous, and The Sustainable). Because we believe in what is good and true, we strengthen social ethics and contribute to human knowledge and learning. Because we value beauty, we invest in creative arts. Because we are committed to a just society, we work toward restorative justice and a well-ordered civic life. And our desire to see society prosper sustainably means that our business practices seek the economic good of the community while protecting the physical health of our environment.
This comprehensive volume showcases historical and contemporary models of faithful and transformational cultural engagement, with case studies of all kinds of churches advancing human flourishing. It provides a roadmap for leaders wanting to participate in Christ's mission of holistic renewal. Discover how being God's agents of flourishing can change our communities for the better and offer a winsome witness to a watching world.
In the Fullness of Time: An Introduction to the Biblical Theology of Acts and Paul
Richard B. Gaffin Jr.
Crossway, 2022
Publisher Description:
In this book, Richard B. Gaffin Jr. gives readers an accessible introduction to Acts and Paul. Building on a lifetime of study, Gaffin teaches on topics including the redemptive-historical significance of Pentecost; eschatology; and the fulfillment of redemptive history in the death and resurrection of Christ. In the Fullness of Time is an exegetical “textbook” for pastors, students, and lay leaders seeking to learn more about Acts and Paul from a Reformed and evangelical perspective.
Marjorie Lindner Gunnoe
IVP Academic, 2022
Publisher Description:
Integral to a Christian worldview and to psychology are foundational questions about personhood: What characteristics are essential? What is our purpose? Do we naturally incline toward good or bad? Are we accountable for self and responsible for others?
In The Person in Psychology and Christianity, developmental psychologist Marjorie Gunnoe demonstrates how the integration of theological and psychological perspectives offers a more comprehensive understanding of personhood than either approach alone. Gunnoe opens with a brief summary of biblical and theological perspectives on four organizing themes (human essence, purpose, moral tendency, and accountability). She then examines the intersection of this faith-based depiction with five theories of social development proposed by
· Erik Erikson
· John Bowlby
· B. F. Skinner
· Albert Bandura
· Evolutionary PsychologyFor each, Gunnoe includes a biography, a summary of the theorist's broad perspective on personhood, and an analysis of the theorist's stance on the four specific themes. This book is written for a general audience and suitable for undergraduate and graduate instruction.
Edited and translated by Stephen C. Carlson
Oxford University Press, 2021
Publisher Description:
This work is the most complete edition of the remains of the lost five-volume work, Exposition of Dominical Oracles, by Papias of Hierapolis, a second-century Christian commentator. In all, some ninety-eight separate mentions of Papias and his work are documented, from the second century to the age of printing in the fifteenth century, both in their original language and in English translation. This body of evidence is scattered over fourteen centuries across fifty-seven different authors writing in five different languages (Greek, Latin, Syriac, Arabic, and Armenian).
This edition adopts the distinction between his fragments proper, for what we know of his work, and the testimonia, for what we know of his reception. In addition to these, Stephen C. Carlson provides a list of potential citations of Papias, potential uses of Papias, and fragments falsely attributed to Papias. The volume features an extensive introduction treating the most important instances of reception of Papias and his work.
Psalms Through the Centuries (Vol. 3)
Susan Gillingham
Wiley-Blackwell, 2022
Publisher Description:
This third volume completes the set of a groundbreaking reception history of the Psalter, the culmination of two decades’ work.
In Volume Three of Psalms Through the Centuries: A Reception History Commentary on Psalms 73-151, the internationally recognized biblical scholar Professor Susan Gillingham examines the Jewish and Christian cultural and reception history of Books Three to Five of the Psalter. She examines the changing ways in which psalms have been understood in translations and commentaries, liturgy and prayer, study and preaching, music and art, poetic and dramatic performance, and political and ethical discourse.
Lavishly illustrated with thirty colour plates, several black and white images and a number of musical scores, this volume also includes a comprehensive glossary of terms for readers less familiar with the subject and a full, selective bibliography complete with footnote references for each psalm. Numerous links to website resources also allow readers to pursue topics at greater depth, and three clearly organized indices facilitate searches by specific psalms or authors, or types of reception for selected psalms.
This structure makes the commentary easy to use, whether for private study, teaching or preaching. The book also offers:
• A one-of-a-kind treatment of the reception history of the psalms that starts where most commentaries end—beginning with the trajectory of the Psalter’s multi-faceted reception over two millennia
• Specific discussions of both Jewish and Christian responses to individual psalms
A Companion to the Theology of John Webster
Edited by Michael Allen and R. David Nelson
Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2021
Publisher Description:
At the time of his death, John Webster was widely hailed as one of the leading Christian theologians in the world. Over the course of three decades, he produced groundbreaking studies on the theologies of Eberhard Jüngel and Karl Barth and, especially since the turn of the millennium, numerous books and essays on various themes in Christian dogmatics. He then intended to write an encyclopedic systematic theology—a project he was unable to complete.
No substitute is possible for that lost opus, but the contributors offer this volume as an homage to Webster and an aid to those who want to learn from him. A Companion to the Theology of John Webster begins with an introductory section on Webster’s theological development, then continues into an extensive overview of Webster’s contributions to contemporary discussions of particular doctrines. An epilogue suggests how Webster’s theology might have unfolded had he lived longer and imagines the continuing influence of his work on the enterprise of Christian dogmatics. Readers hoping to understand the legacy of this great theologian, and also those eager for fresh insights into the present state and future trajectories of contemporary Protestantism, will find much to offer here.
Calvin and the Christian Tradition: Scripture, Memory, and the Western Mind
R. Ward Holder
Cambridge University Press, 2022
Publisher Description:
John Calvin lived in a divided world when past certainties were crumbling. Calvin claimed that his thought was completely based upon scripture, but he was mistaken. At several points in his thought and his ministry, he set his own foundations upon tradition. His efforts to make sense of his culture and its religious life mirror issues that modern Western cultures face, and that have contributed to our present situation. In this book, R. Ward Holder offers new insights into Calvin's successes and failures and suggests pathways for understanding some of the problems of contemporary Western culture such as the deep divergence about living in tradition, the modern capacity to agree on the foundations of thought, and even the roots of our deep political polarization. He traces Calvin's own critical engagement with the tradition that had formed him and analyzes the inherent divisions in modern heritage that affect our ability to agree, not only religiously or politically, but also about truth. An epilogue comparing biblical interpretation with Constitutional interpretation is illustrative of contemporary issues and demonstrates how historical understanding can offer solutions to tensions in modern culture.
Calvin's Ecclesiology: A Study in the History of Doctrine
Tadataka Maruyama
Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2022
Publisher Description:
In this fresh and original monograph on the ecclesiology of John Calvin, Tadataka Maruyama sifts exhaustively through the corpus of Calvin’s writings—in both Latin and French—to crystalize the French reformer’s conception of the Christian church. After elucidating Calvin’s influence from other reformers such as Jacques Lefèvre, Guillaume Farel, and Martin Bucer, Maruyama shows how Calvin’s ecclesiology evolved throughout his life while remaining firmly rooted in key principles and interests.
Maruyama discerns three phases in Calvin’s ecclesiology:
• Catholic ecclesiology—in which Calvin saw the church as a unified and ideal institution situated both above and within history
• Reformed ecclesiology—in which Calvin described the concrete, historical form of the Christian church over against the Catholic Church
• Reformation ecclesiology—in which Calvin came to understand the Christian church as an eschatological reality situated in a broader European context, which Calvin portrayed as the “theater of God’s providence”
This trajectory mirrors the way the Protestant Reformation was focused on reforming particular churches while also reimagining the Christian world as a whole. Indeed, as Maruyama thoroughly illustrates, Calvin never lost sight of his original vision of reforming the church of his French homeland even as his work grew into a much larger movement.
From Prisoner to Prince: The Joseph Story in Biblical Theology
Samuel Emadi
Apollos, 2022
Publisher Description:
The story of Joseph is prominent in the book of Genesis and yet is rarely mentioned in the rest of Scripture. How then do we understand Joseph's significance in redemptive history? When Christians have addressed this question, the conversation has frequently turned toward typology: Is Joseph a type of the Messiah?
Messianic interpretations of the Joseph narrative have often lacked methodological rigor or have simply failed to make a convincing case. Most often interpreters have simply noted historical correspondences between Joseph and Jesus, without considering the narrative's function in the context of Genesis, its redemptive-historical significance, or its appropriation by later biblical authors.
In this New Studies in Biblical Theology volume, Samuel Emadi offers a more comprehensive canonical treatment of the Joseph narrative. He considers Genesis 37–50 in its own literary and theological context, intra-canonical development of the Joseph story via inner-biblical allusion, and New Testament references and allusions. Emadi defends the notion that Joseph functions as the resolution to the plot of Genesis and that this story typologically influences how later biblical authors narrate redemptive history, culminating in the New Testament's portrayal of Jesus as an antitypical, new and final Joseph.
The Biblical World of Gender: The Daily Lives of Ancient Women and Men
Edited by Celina Durgin and Dru Johnson
Cascade Books, 2022
Publisher Description:
What were the lives of women and men like in ancient Israel? How does it affect their thinking about gender? Recent discussions of "biblical womanhood and manhood" tend to reflect our current concepts of masculinity and femininity, and less so the lived world of the biblical authors. In fact, gender does not often appear to be a noteworthy issue in Scripture at all, except in practical matters. Nonetheless, Genesis 1 invests the image of God itself with "male and female," making sex central to what it means to be human. Instead of working out gender through Genesis's creation and Paul's household codes, we want to ask: What was life like on an ancient Israelite farmstead, in a Second Temple synagogue, or in a Roman household in Ephesus? Who ran things in the home, in the village, in the cities? Who had influence and social power, and how did they employ it? Taking insights from anthropology and archaeology, the authors of this collection paint a dynamic portrait of gender in antiquity that has been put into conversation with the biblical texts. The Biblical World of Gender explores gender "backstage" in the daily lives and assumptions of the biblical authors and "on-stage" in their writings.
The Oxford Handbook of the Septuagint
Edited by Alison G. Salvesen and Timothy Michael Law
Oxford University Press, 2021
Contents:
Part I: First Things -- What Is the Septuagint? / Cameron Boyd-Taylor -- The History of Septuagint Studies: Early Modern Western Europe / Scott Mandelbrote -- The History of Septuagint Studies: Editions of the Septuagint / Felix Albrecht
Part II: The Context of the Septuagint -- The Social and Historical Setting of the Septuagint: Palestine and the Diaspora / James K. Aitken -- The Social and Historical Setting of the Septuagint: Hellenistic and Roman Egypt / Livia Capponi -- The Nature of Septuagint Greek: Language and Lexicography / Trevor V. Evans -- Theology in the Septuagint? / Mogens Müller -- The Letter of Aristeas / Dries De Crom -- Manuscripts, Papyri, and Epigraphy: Papyri and Epigraphy Relating to the Septuagint / Michael P. Theophilos -- Manuscripts, Papyri, and Epigraphy: Manuscripts of the Septuagint from Uncials to Minuscules / Luciano Bossina -- Translation Technique / Hans Ausloos
Part III: The Corpus of the Septuagint -- The Pentateuch / Dirk Büchner -- Joshua and Judges / Natalio Fernández Marcos -- The Books of Samuel / Anneli Aejmelaeus -- The Books of Kings / Tuukka Kauhanen, Andrés Piquer Otero, Timo Tekoniemi, and Pablo Torijano -- Chronicles/Paralipomena / Laurence Vianès -- Isaiah / Rodrigo F. de Sousa -- Jeremiah and Baruch / Matthieu Richelle -- Ezekiel / Katrin Hauspie -- Daniel, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon: Old Greek and Theodotion / Olivier Munnich -- The Twelve Minor Prophets / Cécile Dogniez -- Megillot (Ruth, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther) / Robert J. V. Hiebert -- The Psalter / Staffan Olofsson -- Proverbs / Lorenzo Cuppi -- The Book of Job / Maria Gorea -- Deuterocanonical and Apocryphal Books / Alison Salvesen
Part IV: The Septuagint in Its Jewish Context -- Philo and the Septuagint / Sarah J. K. Pearce -- Josephus and the Septuagint / Tessa Rajak -- The Scrolls from the Judean Desert and the Septuagint / Eugene Ulrich -- Kaige and 'Theodotion' / Siegfried Kreuzer -- Aquila / Giuseppe Veltri with Alison Salvesen -- Symmachus / Michaël N. van der Meer -- Quinta, Sexta, and Septima / Bradley John Marsh, Jr. -- The Samaritan Pentateuch in Greek / Bradley John Marsh, Jr. -- The Constantinople Pentateuch and Medieval Jewish Use of Greek Biblical Texts / Julia G. Krivoruchko
Part V: The Septuagint as Christian Scripture -- Citations in the New Testament / David Lincicum -- The Proto-Lucianic and Antiochian Text / Tuukka Kauhanen -- Origen's Hexapla / Peter J. Gentry -- The Use of the Septuagint in the Liturgy and Lectionary of the Greek Orthodox Church / John A. L. Lee -- Reception of the Septuagint among Greek Christian Writers / Reinhart Ceulemans -- The Septuagint in the Latin World / Michael Graves
Part VI: The Septuagint in Translation -- The Vetus Latina (Old Latin) / Pierre-Maurice Bogaert -- Armenian, Georgian, and Church Slavonic Versions / Pablo A. Torijano -- The Syrohexapla / Marketta Liljeström -- Coptic, Arabic, and Ethiopic Versions / Andrés Piquer Otero -- Modern Translations of the Septuagint / Eberhard Bons
Part VII: Conversations -- Textual Criticism / Bénédicte Lemmelijn -- New Testament / J. Ross Wagner -- Christian Theology / John Barton -- Illustrated Manuscripts of the Septuagint / Maja Kominko
Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament: The Evidence for Early Composition
Jonathan Bernier
Baker Academic, 2022
Publisher Description:
This paradigm-shifting study is the first book-length investigation into the compositional dates of the New Testament to be published in over forty years. Jonathan Bernier argues that the majority of the New Testament texts were composed before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE--which, with the notable exception of the undisputed Pauline Epistles, is twenty to thirty years earlier than typically supposed by contemporary biblical scholars. Bernier also considers several early Christian texts that are often dated around the same time as the New Testament--namely, 1 Clement, the Didache, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Shepherd of Hermas. Whereas these texts are usually dated to the late first through the mid-second century, Bernier argues that most should be dated to the first century.
What emerges is a revised view of how quickly early Christians produced what became the seminal texts for their new movement. New Testament scholars, professors and students of the New Testament, pastors, and church leaders will value this work.
The Gospel and the Gospels: Christian Proclamation and Early Jesus Books
Simon Gathercole
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2022
Publisher Description:
Do the four New Testament gospels share some essence that distinguishes them from noncanonical early Gospels? The tendency among biblical scholars of late has been to declare the answer to this question no—that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were grouped together by happenstance and are defended as canonical today despite there being no essential commonalities between them.
Simon Gathercole challenges this prevailing view and argues that in fact the theological content of the New Testament Gospels distinguishes them substantially from noncanonical Gospels. Gathercole shows how the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John each include four key points that also formed the core of early Christian preaching and teaching: Jesus’s identity as messiah, the saving death of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus, and Scripture’s foretelling of the Christ event. In contrast, most noncanonical Gospels—like the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Truth, and Marcion’s Gospel—only selectively appropriated these central concerns of early Christian proclamation.
Speaking across Generations: Messages That Satisfy Boomers, Xers, Millennials, Gen Z, and Beyond
Darrell E. Hall
IVP, 2022
Publisher Description:
Different generations communicate differently. With fresh research from the Barna Group on how generations communicate, Darrell Hall sheds light on how each generation receives verbal messages, from Boomers and Xers to millennials and Gen Z. Discover how generational science can bridge the gap between speaker and listener so people of all generations can hear clearly
Jesus and Disability: A Guide to Creating an Inclusive Church
Chris H. Hulshof
B&H Publishing Group, 2022
Publisher Description:
Drawing from his personal, pastoral, and academic interests, Chris Hulshof offers biblical wisdom and comfort to those seeking to understand the topic of disability in the church. He explores how Jesus’s involvement with the disabled can be instrumental in laying a foundation for disability-inclusive church leadership and practice. Ultimately, this book provides a blueprint for how pastors and congregations can become disability friendly in the church and in the broader community.
Edited by Andrew J. Schmutzer
Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2011
Contents:
Part 1. Understanding Sexual Abuse through the Social Sciences -- Definitions and prevalence rates of sexual abuse: quantifying, explaining, and facing a dark reality / Steve R. Tracy -- The dynamics of the sexually abusing family: a family systems perspective / Cheryl Clayworth Belch -- Sexually abusive relationships: their kinds and dynamics / Joyce Wagner -- Characteristics and typologies of sex offenders: understanding abusers and the risks they pose / Justin Smith -- The role of dissociation in sexual abuse: current research and approaches in healing / Heather Davediuk Gingrich -- Wife rape: personal realities and hope for the future / Gary H. Strauss -- The impact of sexual abuse on sexual identity: exploring the relationship between childhood sexual abuse and adult sexual identity / Elisabeth C. Suarez and Mark A. Yarhouse
Part 2. Engaging Sexual Abuse through the Theological Disciplines -- A theology of sexuality and its abuse: creation, evil and the relational ecosystem / Andrew J. Schmutzer -- Sexual abuse in the Old Testament: an overview of laws, narratives, and oracles / Richard M. Davidson -- Experiencing God's healing power: a New Testament perspective on sexual abuse / J. Edward Ellis -- Forgiveness in sexual abuse: defining our identity in the journey toward wholeness / Jim Sells and Emily G. Hervey -- Sexual abuse and a theology of embodiment: incarnating healing / Joy A. Schroeder -- The nature of evil in child sexual abuse: theological consideration of oppression and its consequences / Philip G. Monroe
Part 3. Addressing Sexual Abuse through Pastoral Care -- A charge for church leadership: speaking out against sexual abuse and ministering to survivors / Nancy Nason-Clark and Stephen McMullin -- What every minister should know about sexual abuse: a counselor shares some concerns / Diane M. Langberg -- Spiritual formation and the sexually abused: redemptive companionship / JoAnn A. Shade -- Counseling the abuse victim: integrating evidence-based practice guidelines with spiritual resources / Terri S. Watson -- Confronting abuse: fostering a sense of healthy responsibility in the abuser / Kelvin F. Mutter -- The adult survivor: what healing is and is not / Janelle Kwee -- Healing the wounded heart through ritual and liturgy: accompanying the abused in their healing / James B. Gould -- The effect of sexual abuse on a woman's view of God: the impact of incest / Morven R. Baker -- The spouses of adult survivors: how to respond Christianly / Clark Barshinger -- Childhood sexual abuse survivors as parents: navigating a difficult path / Patrice F. Penney.