Here is a short article about the book and my purpose in writing it, with a focus on a spirituality that can grapple with God in times of suffering. The article is written by a journalist for the Publishers Weekly supplement for the AAR-SBL annual meetings taking place this week (and next) in San Antonio.
The journalist, Holly Lebowitz Rossi, interviewed me by phone for the article. She also interviewed Jim Kinney, the vice-president at Baker Academic about the book. I’ve been honored that Jim has supported this project from the start and greatly encouraged me along the way as I worked on it.
Small correction: the six years mentioned in the article should be thirty-six years (the phone connection wasn’t perfect).
My Upcoming Ted-Talk on Genesis 22
I will be giving a presentation on the core argument of the book as an “unscripted” seventeen minute Ted-type talk, at the Institute for Biblical Research (IBR), which meets just in advance of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) in San Antonio.
I’ve given multiple presentations on this topic over the past ten years, as I’ve worked on the book. But this is the first time I will present entirely without notes. 🙂
I am privileged to teach at a Seminary that is associated with a liberal arts college. I have wonderful faculty colleagues at both institutions.
Northeastern Seminary is on the campus of Roberts Wesleyan College (in Rochester, NY) and while they are formally separate institutions, there is much practical overlap and collaboration between both the institutions and the faculty.
Of late, there have been joint meetings of the Seminary faculty with the faculty of the Department of Religion and Philosophy at the College. And, although faculty members find their home primarily in either the Seminary or the College, some of us teach in both institutions.
Here I want to highlight some of my faculty colleagues (in both institutions) who are presenting papers at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, which is being held virtually this year (the first time in this format since I began attending in 1991).
In his paper, David examines the changes experienced by those who receive cochlear implants, including new relationships and a different sense of selfhood, to “shed light onto the experiential and subjective dimensions of the transformations that Paul describes in Philippians 3,” including his sense that what he previously viewed as “gain” is now counted as “loss.”
In her paper, Kristin examines competing suggestions for where Zechariah got his image, and ends up suggesting that it is drawn not only from the network of persons in ancient Persia known as “the eyes and ears of the king” (suggested by some scholars), but also from the portrayal of Mithra in Persian religion, who is “associated with fire, light, and eyes that roam throughout the earth for the sake of seeking out injustice.” She apples this background to Zechariah 4:10b, suggesting that the text uses this imagery “to encourage the people that YHWH, the Emperor of the cosmos and maintainer of justice, is at work to bring about a hopeful, purified future.”
He insightfully demonstrates that both Deuteronomy and Luke give similar instructions to those who are sent out, including an offer of peace to those they encounter and two possible outcomes depending on the responses of those they meet. Yet while Luke’s Gospel presents a battle with the powers of evil and the disciples are parallel to Israel’s soldiers, the texts diverge in that in Luke it is God and not the disciples who bring judgment.
My Own Paper Presented on December 1
Although I was scheduled to give a paper at SBL in a session on the Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures, the organizers decided to postpone the session until next year, when (hopefully) the SBL will meet in person (in San Antonio, TX).
My paper, initially called “Herod as Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar: A ‘Political’ Reading of the Prophets in Matthew’s Infancy Narrative,” examined the way that Matthew’s Gospel cited Old Testament texts from the Prophetic books to address the political situation at the time of Jesus’s birth. The actual paper I gave had a slightly different title from what was listed in the program, since I adapted it to the timeframe I had for presentation.
The paper I presented was called “Herod as Pharaoh? Jesus as David? Matthew’s ‘Political’ Reading of the Prophets in the Infancy Narratives” (click here for the paper). I suggested that when we read Matthew 1–2 as a “feel good” story for the Christmas season, we miss the astute sociopolitical critique of the Jerusalem power structure that Matthew intended by his use of quotations from Hosea 11:1 and Micah 5:2 (with a line from 2 Samuel 5:2 spliced in). There is nothing sentimental about Matthew’s portrayal of the newly born king of the Jews, who would be a very different sort of leader not only from Herod, but also from David of old.
My Upcoming Presentation on December 7
I also have a short presentation coming up on December 7 (tomorrow) in a session on Science, Technology, and Religion at the American Academy of Religion (which meets in conjunction with the SBL).
Everyone who contributed a chapter in this book was invited to give a brief presentation on their chapter. Of the many who contributed chapters, eight of us, along with the editor, agreed.
Most of my other lectures in the UK were presented to divinity students and faculty at various universities and in a few cases to wider audiences that included non-academics.
Those lectures were all related to my teaching and research on the Bible, deriving either from my published writings (A New Heaven and a New Earth) or from material I am currently working on for publication (the lament psalms, Genesis 22, and Job).
The audience for the lecture was also different, being composed of scientists, theologians, and students, including people of different religious faiths, and even some skeptics.
This was the largest group I spoke to on my entire UK trip. Whereas some of the academic audiences I addressed were as small as 15 or 20, the Faraday organizers told me they counted 99 people in the audience, the largest turnout they had in recent memory for one of their seminars.
My approach in the Faraday lecture (which has also been my approach in my BioLogos blogs) was to use my expertise as an Old Testament scholar to help the audience notice what the relevant Scriptures were saying about the topic at hand, and then speculate (tentatively) on how this might connect with what we know about human evolution.
I had very diverse questions from people of different faith stances; I can only hope that my exposition of Scripture helped those in the audience (Christian or otherwise) realize the rich resources of the Bible, when it is taken seriously and read carefully.
Some Interesting People That I Met
Keith Fox is Associate Director of The Faraday Institute and Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Southampton. He was my initial contact with Faraday and the person who decided on the topic of my lecture (from the options that I suggested).
Jennifer Wiseman works for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as the Senior Project Scientist for the Hubble Space Telescope (having previously headed the Goddard’s Laboratory for Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics); I had previously met her at a BioLogos conference in the US. She was at the University of Cambridge to work on a short-term research project in astrophysics and was the next speaker for the Faraday Research Seminars, two weeks after my lecture.
Hilary Marlow, Lecturer in the Faculty of Divinity at University of Cambridge, is an Old Testament scholar well-known for her work on ecology in the prophetic literature. She is one of the editors of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Bible and Ecology, for which I wrote an essay on “The Image of God in Ecological Perspective.” I met Hilary last November when she gave the keynote address on ecology and justice at the 2016 meeting of the Ecological Ethics and Biblical Studies research group of the Institute for Biblical Research (I will be giving the keynote address on ecology and hope at the 2017 meeting).
Fox, Middleton, Weisman, and Marlow
Ruth Bancewicz, a biologist, is a Senior Research Associate at The Faraday Institute, who also writes for BioLogos. After my lecture Ruth interviewed me for the Science and Belief blog, which she is in charge of. The interview (both print and audio) can be accessed on the Science and Belief website. Ruth told me that the interview had been requested by the editor of The War Cry, a Christian newspaper in the UK published by the Salvation Army (since 1879). Unlike many Christian organizations in North America, it looks like the Salvation Army in the UK isn’t afraid of evolution!
Daniel Weiss is Polonsky-Coexist Lecturer in Jewish Studies, in the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge. After my Faraday lecture, Daniel took me aside and chatted enthusiastically about his work on biblical interpretation and the Jewish intellectual tradition. I was pleasantly surprised when he affirmed that my analysis of humanity as the image of God (in The Liberating Image) was helpful for his own work.
The Work of Michael Faraday
And now a word about Michael Faraday, the nineteenth-century English Christian (1791-1867) for whom The Faraday Institute is named. Although he had almost no formal schooling, Michael Faraday became fascinated with science in his teenage years and became an important experimental scientist as a young man. He was the first to demonstrate the relationship of electricity to magnetism, and he developed the first electric motor. Later on he demonstrated the connection of electromagnetism to light. In 1825 Faraday instituted a series of Christmas lectures on science for the public that continue to this day.
In the plane on the way home, I happened to watch a special episode of Cosmos (the science TV series) on Michael Faraday; it was quite inspiring.
CREATION to ESCHATON 