Author: ppadmin

Reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

        Emeritus Professor of New Testament Languages and Literature at the U of Nottingham, Casey stresses the need to see Jesus against the background of first century Judaism, to see the historical Jesus as Jewish.  Further for Casey, the reconstruction of the Aramaic sources of the synoptic gospels is an essential step in understanding Jesus against the background of his own culture.

        (While Casey carefully points out implications for exegesis of an Aramaic background, he does not do so in a way that negates the value of the exercise for a lay reader who does not have fluency in Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic.)

Reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

        It’s an older book but of current relevance.  It is a contextual picture of Jesus, understood in the context of Judaism and the local, social and political history of his time.  The Historical Jesus details the sources for our knowledge about Jesus, and explores the historical and social context of Jesus and his activity.  It’s a book that not only summarizes the ways in which Jesus is studied, but the results of that study and the process by which a fuller picture of Jesus emerges. 

        At 642 pages it’s a large volume that contains not only study of the Christian canon but of the apocryphal gospels and other relevant material.  The book is wondrously inclusive and dialogical, giving key components of the biblical material.  Eg geographical and social framework (Galilee), the activities and preaching of Jesus (including a section on the women around Jesus), concept of the Kingdom of G-d, Jesus’ miracles and parables, Jesus’ ethics, the Passover, the risen Jesus and the beginnings of Christology.

Reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

        The victims of war are not only the soldiers, but women, children and the elderly, and the biblical record invites us to contemplate how violence affects the weakest members of society, and even the enemy.  It would have been significant if the Hebrew bible would have included descriptions of how Yahweh’s holy wars might have felt for a Philistine child.

        But violence was part of daily life in the first century.  The idea that Jews in Jesus’ day were primarily concerned with matters of dogmatic theology does not reflect cultural reality.  The pressing needs of most Jews of the period had to do with liberation from oppression, from debt, from Rome.

Reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

        We sometimes imagine the New Testament milieu consisting of contented farmers and jolly fishing families who gave up a few hours of words to hear the message of a religious teacher speaking about the deeper meanings of life.  It is more accurate to say that ‘desperation, deprivation and resentment characterized the lives of most people in Galilee and Judea’ (p 24).

        Hunger was prevalent in first century Palestine. King points out that the parables are grounded in socio-economic, spiritual and political realities that challenged the status quo and confronted the powers, principalities and system.  ‘It was dangerous for Jesus to talk about the kingdom of G-d in a land ruled by an emperor who commanded legions of troops.  It would have been a safer option to speak about the family of G-d or the age of the Spirit’ (p 6).

Reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

        Meeks, of the Department of Religious Studies, Yale University, explores a fascinating range of studies embracing social theory, history and literature, from the figure of the androgyn to New Testament pictures of Christianity’s separation from Jewish communities.

       (Androgyn:  myth of a bisexual progenitor of the human race, using metaphors of clothing symbolism, spiritual marriage, even baptism; ‘there is no longer male nor female’ cf. Galatians 3:28.  Androgyny.)

Reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

        Most of us assume that when we read the New Testament we are reading an exact copy of Jesus’ words or St. Paul’s writings.  Yet, for almost fifteen hundred years these manuscripts were hand copied by scribes who were deeply influenced by the cultural, theological and political disputes of their days.  Mistakes and intentional changes abound in the surviving manuscripts, making the original words difficult to reconstruct.

        Ehrman reveals when and why these changes were made.  He had a ‘born again’ experience in high school, and attended Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton College, concentrating on Greek; the more he studied Greek the more he became interested in the manuscripts that preserve the New Testament for us.

Reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

        Stjerna’s primary goal is to present stories of several women (eight have a chapter to themselves) in varied visible leadership roles in different Reformation contexts (politics, religious matters, households, writing, teaching, hosting, partnering). (One chapter treats Katharine von Bora, Martin Luther’s wife.)

        Second, the women’s lives are interpreted in light of the reformers’ teachings about women’s place in the church and in society.  Stjerna examines whether the Reformation had a distinctive appeal to women, what Protestant women did to bring about religious change, what impact the Reformation had on their lives (and vice versa).  Stjerna sketches the concept of reformation, the different reforming movements and actions (church, theology, religious practises, resulting in the formation of distinct denominational traditions).

Reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

        First-century Palestine was an age awash in political and religious zealotry, of scores of prophets, preachers and would be messiahs bearing messages from G-d.  An age of zealotry, a fervent nationalism that made resistance to the Roman occupation a sacred duty for all Jews.  Zealot talks about a Jewish revolutionary who gathered followers for a messianic movement with the goal of establishing the kingdom of G-d.  And of how his followers reinterpreted Jesus’ mission and identity.

Reviewed by Vern Ratzlaff

        Smith’s book is an intriguing extended metaphor, using weaving as a central lens of understanding.  Weaving is an art, an expression of our time, and Smith uses the components of weaving as illustration, as an organizing image in women’s lives:  weaving, loom, warp, weft.  Weaving involves interlocking threads to create joyful instances of textures and colours.  Loom: keep threads in order and under tension.  Warp: binding together differing threads.  Weft:  the most prominent threads.  This is Smith’s extended metaphor for preaching.

        Herzog focuses on the parables from the social/cultural analysis of Paulo Freire, Brazilian educator, whose work with the poor brought new attention to what could help people accept a perspective that would move beyond the immediate poverty and loss of hope.

        Herzog traces carefully the shifting interpretation systems of Jesus ‘the Parabaler’ and presents an interpretational approach that compares it with Freire’s methodology. Jesus and Freire have much in common. They both worked with the poor and oppressed. Both lived in advanced agrarian societies, an imperial or colonial situation. In both Palestine and Brazil religion plays a leading role (religion can both liberate and oppress).

        Jesus used parables shaped by the Torah, spelling out the justice of G-d’s reign. He was shaped by his social location as the son of a village artisan who became an itinerant rabbi, wandering through the client kingdom of Herod Antipas and the Roman administered province of Judea (p 17). The parables give details of everyday life, but they by themselves remain isolated and contentless.