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        Wright maintains that the church has sold short the story of Jesus, and avoided the challenge of Jesus’ central claims and achievements. We have reduced the kingdom of G-d to private piety; the victory of the cross to comfort for the conscience. Simply Jesus re-examines from a basically conservative perspective the textual background of the New Testament writings, attempting to see the relationship between first century Jewish culture and history, and their implications for Jesus’ message.

        Wright uses the metaphor of three great rivers who come together, merging Jewish messianic dreams, servant perspectives, and G-d’s return to the people (p 169). ‘Instead of the frantic pressure to defend the identity of people, land and temple (cf the exilic experience), Jesus’ followers are to recover the initial vision of being a royal priesthood for the whole world’ (p 181), ‘the presence of Israel’s G-d no longer in cloud and fire, wilderness tabernacle, but in and as a Human Being Jesus himself. (p 181)

        Jesus’ kingdom is a different sort of kingdom: a kingdom without violence, a kingdom not from this world but through Jesus’ work a kingdom for this world’ (p 183) Wright deals strikingly with atonement. ‘Somehow Jesus’ death was seen by himself as the ultimate means by which G-d’s kingdom was established’ (p 185)(this is no reductionist or substitutionary atonement).

        ‘Rome was not the real enemy; the real enemy was the anti-creation forces of the Accuser.’ Jesus rules the world today not just through his people ‘behaving themselves’….Jesus rules the world through those who launch new initiatives that radically challenge the accepted ways of doing this: jubilee projects, housing trusts, sustainable agricultural projects.

        This book is a powerful call to see what it means to be ‘a kingdom for this world’.

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

        ‘The canonical gospels and the creeds are not in fact presenting the same picture’ (p 11). The creeds (eg Apostles Creed, Nicene Creed) make no mention of what Jesus did or said between his birth and his death. The creeds ignored the central theme of the four gospels; they omit the story of Jesus’ actual life and the meaning this story conveys.

        What Wright finds in the four gospels is the challenge that ‘G-d has really become king, in and through Jesus’ (p 27). And Paul repeats the theme: ‘the story of Jesus is the story of how Israel’s G-d became king. In the events concerning Jesus of Nazareth, the G-d of Israel has become king of the whole world’ (p 38).

        The key to understanding the New Testament writings is to centre on the cross that allows us to ‘take over the world not with the love of power but the power of love, when the kingdom of G-d overcomes the kingdom of the world’ (p 239).

        Key scriptures that emphasize this are the Suffering Servant songs (Isaiah) and Psalm 22. Key components of Jesus’ cross and kingdom motif are that ‘Israel is G-d’s priesthood, G-d as Saviour, Israel as a new community (‘suffering kingdom bringers’), and G-d’s confrontation with Caesar (of whatever generation. In and through Jesus, Israel’s G-d reclaims his sovereign rule over the world; this is not an excuse for triumphalism but the acceptance of a new dynamic: suffering.

        Wright presents a powerful treatment of Jesus, who is more than someone who wants us in heaven, or who is the source of nice stories. Cross and kingdom. A political theology.

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

        This is a fascinating compilation of writings of the church and government officials of the first five centuries of the CE. Why the animosity by government officials? ‘Once Christianity separated from Judaism and began converting pagans, some Romans began to suspect that Christianity had the potential of tearing the fabric of Roman society apart’ (p 4). ‘The persecutions were sporadic. The sum total of Christians who died as a result of the Roman persecutions in the era before Constantine was less than the number of Protestants who died at the hands of Charles V in the Netherlands’ (p 9). Of major significance (especially for research in John’s apocalypse) is lack of data on Domitian persecution; major attention should be paid to Trajan and Neronian persecutions (p 10).

        Of particular interest is Cook’s documentation of Christians ‘revenge’ on pagans once they had the political power (eg an 11-year old boy who is compelled to certify that he sacrificed to the gods ‘all his life’ (p 188). Pagans teaching in public institutions were not to receive public stipends (p 184). Synagogues were destroyed or converted into churches (p 287).

        Fascinating documentation of a difficult time in western thought in the transition of religious and political structures.

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

        Casey presents a careful look at all the fields of Jesus research, in a formidable historical and linguistic treatment. A major case is the one Casey makes for attempting reconstruction of Aramaic formations of key Jesus formulations (eg the Lord’s Prayer, the Eucharist).

        Emphasized in Casey’s research is that Jesus was a first century Jewish prophet; here, Casey relies most strongly on E. P. Sanders and Geza Vermes. Casey sees the Virgin Birth and the resurrection account as being in the same genre of story telling, using categories of authentic, re-written and secondary traditions, and pays careful attention to Jesus’ background in an observant Jewish family that gave two of its members to the early church leadership.

        He has a chapter on ‘G-d’: G-d’s Fatherhood and kingdom (kingship of G-d), and emphasizes Jesus’ activity as exorcist and healer; a chapter on ethics (translating ‘return’ as the Aramaic rather than ‘repent’ which is Hebrew). He details the polemic between Jesus and the scribes and Pharisees. Most of his followers, even after his death, continued to believe in his mission, and some came to believe in his resurrection (some of his closest friends claimed Jesus had appeared to them after his death).

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

        Markus outlines the nature of the changes that transformed the intellectual and spiritual horizons of the Christian community from the fourth to the sixth centuries. He summarizes how Christians, who had formerly constituted a threatened and beleaguered minority, came to define their identity as religious respectability, where their faith became a source of privilege and power.

        Markus details the transition from the Roman world to the established cultural life of the church, and points out the change in the way Christians understood what was involved in following the Lord (p xii).

        The central questions from the early church to the present ecclesiastical form, is ‘how tightly is Christianity bound to particular cultural forms’ (p 1); the emphasis on change has resulted more often in cultural disturbance than in conversion. He points out that Christians are generally more worried about what pagans are doing, than about what they believe, and explores the boundaries of Christianity, ‘what minimally will make a convert a Christian’ (p 6). ‘Pagan survival’ is seen as what resists the efforts of Christian clergy to abolish, to transform, to control (p 9).

        In the change of religion, how many ordinary details of daily life are bound to continue unchanged? Does Christianity have to develop ‘it’s own way of doing everything? What counts as decisive criteria of religious faithfulness?’ Asceticism was seen by some (emphasis on ‘some’) of the early church as normative. Thus the early church sometimes emphasized the common good, rather than implementing ‘Christian’ structures.

        The early Augustine held that games and races ‘belonged among those human institutions which could cause the laudable ends of seeing creative cohesion among people, even the theatre and actors’ (p 121). ‘Virtue, meekness, almsgiving, true wisdom of good—these are the things a city should be praised for’ (p 228). The early church worked hard at identifying the common good, not necessarily in rejecting all the structures that they encountered.

        It’s a book that forces us to see what social priorities should be; we tend to make religious criteria the evaluative tool for social institutions; the early church had a broader perspective—a helpful approach.

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

        It’s an old book, but Reicke’s treatment of the era remains insightful and helpful; his perspectives on the development of the early church remain balanced and helpful.

        Christ and the church were related in different ways to Judaism and also to Hellenism and the Roman Empire. Jesus and his disciples were particularly confronted with political, social and religious factors in Judaism, Hellenism and the Roman empire. Of crucial importance is the restoration of Judaism after the Babylonian captivity, and the emergence of institutions characteristic of Jewish society in the time of primitive Christianity, the intense cultural struggle of Judaism with Hellenism.

        My major interest is Reicke’s sketch of Palestine at the time of Jesus and the apostles: the institution (synagogues), the political tensions (Samaria, Roman administration), the groups (High Council, Sadducee, Pharisees, priests, Essenes. Reicke does a careful treatment of the data of the Last Supper, and he opts for the Johannine scenario. He also describes the crucifixion process.

        Reicke also presents a balanced perspective of the emperor Domitian (emperor from 81-96); much has popularly been made of Domitian’s persecution of the church; Reicke’s treatment is more balanced; Domitian’s attacks were against the senatorial aristocracy, against Hellenism and Christianity was only one of his targets. Reicke presents a more carefully balanced perspective. ‘As a builder of Rome, the only man who can be compared to Domitian was Augustus’ (p 273).

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

        The Jewish community underwent major upheavals through exile (the northern kingdom in 722 BCE, the southern kingdom in 587). The bulk of the common scriptures were written, shaped or edited by people in exile. ‘A deepened understanding of biblical texts that emerged from the crisis of exile can provide a higher degree of sensitivity for dealing with comparable catastrophes and migration or refugee problems in modern society’ (p 2)

        This volume looks not only at the biblical historical data about exile (Kings, Jeremiah) but to the ‘indirect’ sources (Ezekiel, Lamentations); a new interpretation is now taking place. Before, emphasis was given to the cohesive family life Judean deportees were able to pursue in Babylon, and little attention was given to the people and circumstances in the land of Judah between 587 and 539 (viewing Judah as a ‘virtually empty land’).

        Contemporary treatment of the situation focuses now on the experience of exile as a severe and traumatic personal, social and psychological crises, drawing on the experience of Japanese-American enduring internment and black South Africans in the midst of apartheid; the Jewish exilic community developed coping strategies (eg development of new folklore literature and heroes, such as Daniel and Joseph).

        Key is the third section of the book that looks at the psychology of exile, on aspects of trauma involved in experiences of forced displacement (p 33). The book’s final section examines the literature of the exile (eg Psalm 137, Esther, ‘those few brave texts show the exilic community’s refusal to mimic dynamics of domination’, p 374).

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

        Here is a delightful treatment of the early church’s marginality, from the perspective of Matthew’s gospel as a work of resistance. The gospel shapes the minority community’s identity and life style as an alternative community to resist the dominant Roman imperial and synagogical theological control, anticipating G-d’s reign over all (synagogue and empire)(p xvii).

        Carter focuses his analysis on the social functions of ‘centre’ and ‘margins’. Matthew is written to those at the social margins, with the synagogue and empire at the centre (he points out the contemporary relevance—the church in the west is becoming increasingly marginalized. ‘G-d’s blessing resides not in knowing the emperor or the central elite but in experiencing G-d’s empire’ (p 4).

        (Matthew must be read carefully; Matthew’s criticism of the culture has issues of ethnicity, gender and power that need careful delineation: all Jewish leaders are hypocrites, men are focused on more than women, the use of violence against those who resist.)

        Carter writes compellingly of the early church’s size that Matthew addresses (Carter cites a range of 19 to 150—or perhaps 1000 Christians—in Antioch, whose population was about 150,000. Carter identifies four features of the gospel audience’s marginal existence: small numbers, an urban setting that helps shape an alternative identity, religious groups as places of alternative understanding, voluntary associations (eg funerary, religious groups, guild associations).

        Matthew called for an alternative way of life in accordance with the establishment of G-d’s empire.

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

        Here is a massive 650-page treatment of the Jesus quest, summarizing the ways in which scholars study Jesus, not only the results they arrive at but also the process by which they identify their knowledge.

        It summarizes two centuries of historical critical study of Jesus, including the sources (the canonical gospels) as well as the apocryphal gospels, the Christian texts that mention Jesus, but also the non-Christian ones.

        There are frequent methodological and hermeneutical reflections in the book that identify the issues of research. Each section begins with a short introduction and contains a survey of texts and problems relating to the topic in question; each main part concludes with a summary.

        The section, ‘The Quest of the Historical Jesus’, begins with Reimarus and Strauss, citing five texts by contribution to the task. Then follow Christian sources (synoptics, gnostic writings, extra-canonical sources) and non-Christian sources (eg Josephus, Pliny). The section concludes with an evaluation of the sources.

        Material discussed includes the miracles, parables, apocalyptic preaching, Jesus’ ethics; also treated are specific issues such as ‘Was the last supper a Passover meal?” and a discussion of titles (messiah, Son of Man, Son of G-d).

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

        In Matthew and Empire Carter compellingly underlines the antithetical nature of the two empires presented by Rome and by Jesus; he shows from the biblical text how Matthew’s Gospel resists Roman imperialism and invites an alternative community of his disciples in anticipation of the coming triumph of G-d’s empire over all things.

        Matthew’s gospel presents a social challenge in offering a vastly different vision and experience of human community, theological challenge in asserting that the world belongs to G-d, not to Rome, and that G-d’s saving purpose and blessings are encountered in Israel and in Jesus, not in Rome (p 171). There is a startling similarity between key aspects of the gospel’s presentation of Jesus and imperial theology’s understanding of the role of the empire (see Carter’s ch 4 and ’Take my yoke’ exegesis in ch 7).

        The major problem Carter identifies is that the gospel, the alternative to Roman rule, cannot escape the imperial mindset—the alternative to Rome’s rule is framed in imperial terms. ‘The gospel depicts G-d’s salvation, the triumph of G-d’s empire over all things, including Rome, with the language and symbols of imperial rule (p 171), the irony of imperial imitation. (One of John Knox’s supporters commented that ‘presbyter’ was but ‘priest writ small’.) Carter’s issue applies to John’s Apocalypse—the Lamb’s violence embodied in cavalry battle. Walter Wink’s analysis of ‘the powers’ is helpful here.

Vern Ratzlaff is a pastor and professor of historical theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.