Buswell Bulletin: Journal Articles – February 2023

Buswell Bulletin

Mar 2

Covenant’s librarians keep an eye on the new journal issues coming into the library and then each issue we highlight recent articles and reviews that strike us as interesting and/or important to the scholarly conversation. (Inclusion on this list is not an endorsement.)

Linked items marked “Open Access” are accessible to anyone. Otherwise, a Covenant library account may be required for access. Alumni may access items marked “Alumni Access Available” by visiting the Alumni Portal and selecting the identified resource on the library resources page.

The Hidden Prophet Bursting Forth: John the Baptist’s Appearing According to Luke

David H.Wenkel
The Expository Times 134, no. 5 (February 2023): 201–210

Open Access

Abstract:

This study offers a fresh reading of John the Baptist’s infancy and childhood narratives in the Gospel of Luke. It argues that Luke utilizes the motif of “hiddenness” to create tension so that John bursts forth into his public ministry in Israel from a place of obscurity. John suddenly appears in public to prepare the way for the messiah. This reading offers for a unifying concept of “concealing-then-revealing” which provides an explanatory lens for several opaque textual units in Luke’s Gospel.

The Flame of the West: A Perspective on the Oxford Inklings’ Vision for Imaginative Learning in Christian Scholarship

Jay Lennon George Williams
Christian Education Journal, January 24, 2023 (Online First)

Alumni Access Available: SAGE Journals

Abstract:

This article will address the power of imaginative learning in Christian formation in personal pedagogy as exemplified in the writings of the Oxford Inklings. Foreseeing the dehumanizing effects caused by an overemphasis on utilitarian education, their collective scholarship in literary fiction helped preserve many ideas that were the treasures of Western thought for millennia. As successful as the Oxford Inklings were in influencing their generation through literary fiction and its power to engage the imagination, using literary fiction for Christian formation remains a largely neglected mode of learning in a culture facing even greater idiological challenges—such as those presented by the Simulation Theory Hypothesis.

Infant Baptism and the Disposition to Saving Faith

Oliver D. Crisp
Scottish Journal of Theology 75, no. 4 (November 2022): 363-73

Open Access

Abstract:

Reformed accounts of infant baptism are usually covenantal and promissory in nature. They are about bringing the child into the ambit of the visible church in the hope the infant will own the faith upon reaching the age of reason. This paper sets out an alternative Reformed account of baptism, drawing on the Scottish confessional tradition. On this account, infants have a disposition to faith conveyed to them in baptism that will in due course become dispositional faith exercised in saving faith. Thus, baptism involves regeneration – or something close to it.

Can ἀλλά and γάρ Really Mark an Inference? A Defense of the “Core Constraint” Approach to Conjunction Lexicography

Aaron Michael Jensen
Biblical and Ancient Greek Linguistics 10 (2021): 49–72

Open Access

Abstract:

This article examines passages where the typically corrective ἀλλά and the typically explanatory γάρ are claimed by BDAG to have an inferential sense. By demonstrating that the inferential senses are unnecessary and that here specialized manners of correction and explanation persist, it serves to support an approach to conjunction lexicography which recognizes the fundamental unity of conjunction semantics, known as the “core constraint” approach.

The Tabernacle Manual: Exodus 25:1–31:18 in Light of the Cuneiform Procedural Genre

Brian Donnelly-Lewis
Journal of Biblical Literature 141, no. 4 (December 2022): 617–33

Alumni Access Available: Atla Religion Database

Abstract:

The end of the book of Exodus centers on the construction of the tabernacle, both the divine commands and the descriptive fulfillment. While several studies have attempted to explain the form and function of the descriptive fulfillment, the form-critical features of the divine commands have eluded explanation. In this article, I present a form-critical reanalysis of the tabernacle instructions, suggesting that the most salient features of the instructions (second-person directives, technical vocabulary, and descriptive nonrestrictive clauses) accord well with the features of the procedural genre known from Akkadian literature. I compare grammatical, lexical, and pragmatic aspects of the tabernacle instructions to the central features of a variety of "instruction manuals," which include glassmaking and perfume-production manuals. I argue that the similarities between the tabernacle instructions and these manuals from Mesopotamia evidence a shared genre background, making the tabernacle instructions a tabernacle "manual" of sorts. The consistency in features additionally presents new evidence for the formal unity of a broad core of texts throughout Exod 25:1–30:10, shedding new light on various segments of the text broadly considered secondary (29:10–46; 30:1–10, 11–17, 23–38; and 31:2–6). The conclusion of the study presents avenues for future inquiry.

Augustine’s Biblical Hermeneutics: Its Three Characteristics and Significance for Today

Hyoseok Kim
The Expository Times 134, no. 3 (December 2022): 97–114

Alumni Access Available: SAGE Journals

Abstract:

In focusing mainly on Augustine’s De Doctrina Christiana, this paper discusses three major characteristics of his hermeneutics. First, he understands the Scriptures as signs that point to the transcendent reality of God. This understanding of the Scriptures anticipates today’s reader response theories and the hermeneutical concept, the ‘surplus of meaning’. It also rules out biblicism, by reminding us that the role of Scripture is provisional and instrumental. Second, Augustine’s hermeneutics has existential and moral tendencies. He emphasizes the essential connection between interpretation of Scripture and the interior attitude and moral quality of the interpreter. In this regard, Augustine’s hermeneutics anticipates and has influenced contemporary hermeneutical theory according to which a life-relation to the subject matter is essential to understanding. Third and finally, the rule of charity and the rule of faith are the most important criteria in Augustine’s hermeneutics. Such an emphasis on the rule of charity and the rule of faith is consonant with contemporary hermeneutics, which underscores that understanding takes place in a particular tradition.

Setting the Boundaries: Reading 1 Timothy and Titus as Community Charters

Adam G. White
Biblical Theology Bulletin 52, no. 4 (November 2022): 242–252

Alumni Access Available: SAGE Journals

Abstract:

Those attempting to interpret 1 Timothy and Titus face a myriad of uncertainties. No less amongst these is determining the type of the literature that they are. While they are clearly framed as epistles, they do not resemble anything that is known from the Hellenistic literary theorists. What is generally agreed, however, is that the purpose of the two letters is community formation. That is, 1 Timothy and Titus were written to instruct the recipients on various matters of community structure and organisation. Building on this assumption, it is my contention that the two letters share many of the same characteristics as community charters found in similar, contemporary groups. In what follows, 1 Timothy and Titus will be compared side by side with formal charters found in associations as well as in the Essene community, noting the many similarities between them.

Divine Moral Inspiration: Unity in Biblical Theology

Paul K. Moser
Biblical Theology Bulletin 52, no. 4 (November 2022): 220–229

Alumni Access Available: SAGE Journals

Abstract:

Scholars of the Bible have long sought a theme that can identify substantial unity in the various Biblical writings without disregarding their undeniable diversity. In this context, scholars have explored the nature and limits of Biblical inspiration in considerable detail, but the moral inspiration of humans by God has received relatively little attention. This neglect is striking, because such divine inspiration of humans is arguably a silver lining throughout the Bible and a source of robust unity for Biblical theology. This article contends that the moral inspiration of humans by God is a substantial unifier for Biblical theology. It also shows how this approach yields (a) a new understanding of the fruit of the Spirit as divine filial values in human experience and (b) a needed veracity check on the unified Biblical theology offered.

Sacred Stories for Human Beings with Bodies and Brains

Bart B. Bruehler
Biblical Theology Bulletin 52, no. 4 (November 2022): 204–219

Alumni Access Available: SAGE Journals

Abstract:

Recent studies on the dynamics and purposes of storytelling have highlighted the ways that stories employ embodied, affective, and conceptual elements in order to reinforce cultural values and prompt further ethical reflection. These aspects of storytelling are supported and enriched by insights from ancient rhetoricians and contemporary cognitive scientists who have shown how vivid description, mental simulation of embodied activity, and conceptual blending work through our bodies and brains to move us affectively and mentally. The sacred stories of the Bible, strengthened by their divine dimensions and existential issues, work with the same elements to move their audiences. Luke 5:27–39 (Jesus’s encounter with Levi) and Luke 7:11–17 (Jesus raising a widow’s son) are explored as test cases to illuminate the power that embodiment, emotion, simulation, and conceptualization can have in stories that touch upon the sacred, prompting their audiences to ethical reflection and action.

Human Forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer

Robert Morgan
The Expository Times 134, no. 4 (January 2023): 164–172

Alumni Access Available: SAGE Journals

Abstract:

The second half of the petition for forgiveness has troubled some who think its relating divine and human forgiveness by Matthew’s ‘as’ makes the former conditional on the latter or allows human goodness to be motivated by self-interest. Luke’s alternative to Matthew’s ‘as’ may offer a way of out of this apparent dilemma if kai in the phrase kai gar at Luke 11.4b is given its ascensive meaning and the phrase translated ‘for even’, as at Luke 6.32f., and elsewhere in Luke-Acts, Paul and Hebrews.