Alfredo Valentin is a Nuyorican (a member of the Puerto Rican diaspora in New York city), whose specialty is “urban apologetics.”
This is a genre of apologetics that addresses questions especially relevant to the black and brown Christian demographic who are being targeted for proselytizing by religious groups like the Nation of Islam , the Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ, or Israel United in Christ. Such groups often play on issues of identity and race, suggesting that orthodox Christianity is a religion of whiteness.
Alfredo tries to educate his listeners in an intelligent way about the claims of genuine Christian orthodoxy, often by interviewing scholars and practitioners in the faith who has particular insight to share about Scripture or theology.
Since one of the primary issues in urban apologetics is identity (Who are we? and What is our purpose in life?), the topic of the image of God is directly relevant.
Having written a book on the image of God (The Liberating Image), as well as various articles and blog posts on the subject, I’m looking forward to the conversation.
The latest issue of the Canadian-American Theological Review (the journal of the Canadian-American Theological Association) has just been published. This is a theme issue, which collects the papers presented in a panel discussion at the Society of Biblical Literature last year (November 2019) on Shai Held’s two-volume work, The Heart of Torah, (Jewish Publication Society, 2017). These papers were given by Jewish and and Christian biblical scholars.
Although it hadn’t been planned that way, the presentations (hence the published essays) all focused, in one way or another, on the question of the relationship of biblical exegesis to theology. Or, to put it in Jewish terms, the relationship between peshat (literary-contextual readings of the Bible) and midrash (readings that go beyond the intent of text, in order to explore contemporary significance).
While all the articles are agreed that these are both legitimate approaches to the Bible, there is some disagreement about how these should be related, and Held’s response addresses this issue head on.
This has a parallel with recent discussion among Christian biblical interpreters about the value of the “Theological Interpretation of Scripture” and whether this is at odds with historical-critical study of the Bible. For an excellent discussion of why these two shouldn’t be severed, see Joel Green’s essay, “Rethinking ‘History’ for Theological Interpretation,” published in the Journal of Theological Interpretation (2011).
An Introduction to Shai Held
Rabbi Shai Held is Dean and Chair of Jewish Thought at the Hadar Institute, an ecumenical egalitarian study center in New York City that he helped found in 2006, along with Rabbis Elie Kaunfer and Ethan Tucker.
My initial introduction to Shai Held was in January 2015 when he contacted me to discuss the imago Dei in Genesis 1, in preparation for a public lecture he was going to give on human dignity and police violence against African Americans. He had read my book The Liberating Image and wanted to clarify some aspects of the interpretation. We first communicated by email, then had a telephone conversation on the topic.
Middleton with Rabbis Elie Kaunfer and Shai Held at Hadar, July 2016
Shai Held (son of Ugaritic scholar Moshe Held) has written an in-depth study of the theology of Abraham Heschel (Abraham Joshua Heschel: The Call of Transcendence) that explores the complexity of his thought. This is his published dissertation, written under the supervision of Jon D. Levenson at Harvard.
Along with approximately 7,000 others, I subscribed to receiving these essays every week by email; and I have been profoundly moved by Held’s insights. So when I found out that the essays would be published in a two-volume collection, I contacted a number of Christian biblical scholars to join me in writing endorsements for the publication.
The conference title, God’s Wisdom and the Wonder of Creation: Exploring the Intersection of Scripture, Theology, and the Sciences, is based on the expertise of our keynote speaker, Prof. William Brown of Columbia Theological Seminary. For his lectures Brown will draw on his love of the Old Testament—especially creation texts and the wisdom literature—in making connections between theology, science, and faith.
Brown’s Lectures for the Barnes Symposium Earlier in the Week
Although the conference is Friday night and Saturday (October 25-26), Brown will be speaking in Rochester earlier in the week, in advance of the theology and science conference proper.
The Barnes Symposium begins with Brown’s chapel talk at 11:00 am on Wednesday, October 23, entitled “Terra Sapiens and the Wonder of Creation.” This will be held in the auditorium of the Cultural Life Center.
That evening (October 23), Brown will give a public lecture at 7:00 pm entitled “The Cosmic Temple: Science and Faith in Genesis 1.” This event will be held in the Lake Auditorium of the Smith Science Center.
Brown’s third talk for the Barnes Symposium is also the opening public lecture for the theology and science conference at Northeastern Seminary. This talk is entitled “From Ardi to Adam: The Garden and Human Origins.” It will be held in the Schewan Recital Hall of the Cultural Life Center.
After a light breakfast, a welcome, and an opening liturgy, Brown’s lecture on “Job, Astrobiology, and the Science of Awe” kicks off the conference.
Brown’s lecture will be followed by three sessions of concurrent conference papers (thirty papers in all).
I hadn’t planned to present a paper, but since J Gerald Janzen needed to pull out, I have stepped into his slot with a paper entitled “From World Picture to Worldview: Reading Genesis 1 in Ancient and Contemporary Contexts.”
CREATION to ESCHATON 