Book Recommendation: James Edwards' Between the Swastika and the Sickle

I'll confess that one of my pet peeves in books is "hagiographies," those types of biographies that paint an unrealistic, un-human portrayal of Christian leaders and pioneers as saints who never have the same struggles as us mere "mortal" Christians. (As a side-note, may I suggest that Christian leaders generally speaking should not write auto-biographies, precisely because we Christians are not capable of honestly portraying our own faults and failures?!) A better model for biography is provided in inspired Scripture. When  James refers back to the story of Elijah to encourage us, he does not say, "Elijah was a super-Christian who never made mistakes, so watch and learn!" To the contrary, James states, "Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are . . ." and then goes on to state what Elijah accomplished despite his flaws (James 5:17-18). Whether it be David or Jehoshaphat, Jephthah or Moses, Scripture does not gloss over the (often tragic) failings of its heroes. Consequently, the Lord is glorified even more: "Behold what I can accomplish," He declares, "with even flawed men and women!"

Enter the story of Ernst Lohmeyer, Protestant New Testament scholar in Nazi-era Germany. Lohmeyer provides a model of conservative scholarship that simultaneously opposed Hitler and the Nazi regime, contested the popular liberal theology of his time, and also befriended and stood up for Jews (such as Martin Buber) at the risk of academic persecution and even personal harm. He was arrested on trumped-up charges and executed after WWII's end by the Soviet NKVD (precursor to the KGB), tragically leaving behind a wife and daughter.

Yet on the other hand, Lohmeyer's life provides a cautionary tale of what happens when scholarship, even conservative scholarship, becomes an end in of itself, an idol. Lohmeyer's marriage and spiritual life suffered as a result of his academic devotion, and as Edwards' book makes clear, Lohmeyer was not able to fully come to grips with his failing until shortly before his execution. Lohmeyer's story is both inspirational and cautionary, and thus very human.

When I first began teaching Hebrew History at Baptist College of Ministry, I found an excellent quote by Lohmeyer (of whom I really did not know much about at the time): "The Christian faith is only Christian so long as it has in its heart the Jewish faith," a quote which I incorporated into my Hebrew History syllabus and even study guide. 

Yet now I have just finished reading James R. Edwards' excellent book Between the Swastika and the Sickle: The Life, Disappearance, and Execution of Ernst Lohmeyer, and I now have a better context for that quote I include in my Hebrew History syllabus.

I highly recommend the book (click here for the Amazon link). James R. Edwards was professor for many years at Whitworth University and has written an influential commentary on Mark (in the Pillar series), as well as Is Jesus the Only Savior?, an excellent defense of the exclusivity of Christianity's claims in a post-modern world.

Between the Swastika & the Sickle is mostly about Lohmeyer's life, but also devotes significant portions to Edwards' own attempts to pierce the veil of forced obscurity that had descended down upon Lohmeyer's legacy due to the work of the Soviet NKVD. Consequently, Edwards' book is one part biography, one part a gripping story of research in once sealed-archives, and one part reclamation of a legacy, both the exemplary and the cautionary elements of that legacy.

The exemplary side of his legacy is illustrated by Lohmeyer's friendship of, and defense of, his Jewish friends and colleagues. For example, when Gerhard Kittel published his The Jewish Question, supporting Nazi ideology, he sent a copy of it with an open-letter to Jewish scholar Martin Buber. In response, on August 19th 1933, Lohmeyer sent a letter to Buber expressing his solidarity with, and support of, Buber against Kittel and Nazi ideology in general. Edwards well notes that "Lohmeyer's letter was one of the earliest and most definitive protests against Nazi anti-Semitism to be heard in Germany" (121).

Another example of the positive: Lohmeyer strongly rejected Rudolf Bultmann's theological "demythologizing" of Scripture; indeed, he called it an "existential philosophy that is no more than a secularized form of Christian theology" [trans. R. H. Fuller], and thus a threat to true Christianity (192).

The cautionary side of his legacy can be illustrated by Lohmeyer's relationship to his wife and his devotion to academia at the expense of his marriage (see especially ch. 17). Lohmeyer himself, in his last days before his execution, came to the following [radical!] conclusion: "It is now clear to me that for more than twenty years I have followed the wrong course" [trans. Edwards; p. 268] Lohmeyer, in his last letter, further admits to how his devotion to scholarship caused his love for his wife to be relegated to "second place," all the while immersed in a "stony bitterness." As Edwards writes, "His work became not merely the first thing in his life but virtually the only thing, separating him from other things, including Melie [his wife]." His arrest by the NKVD thus functioned as a spiritual wake-up call, one that allowed him to see his failures and reach out in love once more to his wife.

Edward's book Between the Swastika & the Sickle is a solidly-researched, well-written story, sad yet stirring, of a lesser-known New Testament scholar. For all his comparative obscurity, though, the tale of Ernst Lohmeyer has a lot to teach us about both academic courage and academic obsession.

Book Recommendation: Chester, Reading Paul with the Reformers

At Baptist Theological Seminary, I have the privilege of teaching New Testament Intro every two years and Exegesis of Romans every 4 years. As such, my job demands that I have a solid grasp of the New Perspective on Paul (really "New Perspectives," but that's a different story) and all the issues surrounding it. In light of that, I am happy to recommend Stephen J. Chester's book Reading Paul with the Reformers, which I just finished reading in its entirety (Amazon link here).

The point of the book, in a nutshell, is to moderately push back against NPP caricatures of Reformation theology while also providing an in-depth examination of what, exactly the Reformers (especially Luther, Calvin, and Melanchthon) believed about Pauline theology. 

The key term here is "exegetical grammar," i.e., what Luther meant about the term "justification" compared to his Catholic opponents, etc. Chester focuses a lot on the debate between Luther and Erasmus, including how they appropriated Augustine differently.

The last section of the book focuses on facilitating a dialogue between between a theology of the Reformers and the New Perspective on Paul. To be clear, Chester does not give the Reformers a free pass, and offers clear criticism of Luther, etc., when necessary. However, he generally argues (fairly, I believe) that the NPP has misunderstood Reformation Pauline theology; thus, for Chester, the NPP has "thrown out the baby with the bathwater," so to speak.

I believe Chester has written an extremely important book that offers an appropriate but irenic corrective to some of the excesses of the NPP. This book helped me understand both Reformation theology and the NPP much better. The one main downside of this book is that if historical theology, specifically Reformation-era theology, does not interest you, it takes a long time to get to the point where Chester dialogues directly with the NPP, and so some readers might lose interest. Those readers only interested in a critique of the NPP should skip to chapter 8.

For the interested reader: the best and worst of the NPP is, I believe, adequately summed up by Chester on page 361:

"The NPP does represent a very significant advance in its portrayal of Judaism. Former descriptions of Second Temple Judaism as a religion centrally concerned with earning righteousness were a distortion and the exegesis of the Reformers lay at the historical roots of this distortion. Their interpretation of Paul's contrasts between the law and his gospel almost exclusively in terms of self-achieved works-righteousness is unconvincing. . . Yet NPP scholarship simply perpetuates the opposite error. A theoretical acknowledgement that the phrase the 'works of the law' denotes the whole complex of conduct required by the law is coupled with an actual insistence that Paul's concern is always with the boundary-defining function of such works. This boundary-defining function is indeed important, but the exclusive emphasis upon it does not do justice to the multi-faceted and all-embracing nature of the conduct required by the law. . . . To say that justification does not result from human ethical achievement coheres with and is an inevitable consequence of saying that it does not result from Jewish ethnic identity. Paul is not always concerned with human ethical achievement, but in those texts where it does arise (e.g., Rom 4:4-5; 9:10-13; Phil 3:6) he means what he appears to say."

Book Alert! First Peter, Calvinism, and a Christian Autobiography

 Here’s some fairly recent books that my readers might be interested in.

Becky Lynn Black, My Life Story (Gonzalez, Florida.: Energion, 2014)

First off, lets step away from the strictly academic and focus on the practical and spiritually beneficial (not that “academic” and “spiritual” are necessarily mutually exclusive!) My Life Story, by Becky Lynn Black, is a blessing and a challenge to read. Mrs. Black was the wife of my doctoral advisor Dr. David Alan Black, and she recently pass away after a difficult struggle with cancer.

Mrs. Black is a missionary kid from Ethiopia with quite an interesting life story of ministry and struggle (by the way, the book includes full-color photos of ministry in Ethiopia, something which automatically elevates the “fun-factor” of any book, in my humble opinion!)  The book is a quick and enjoyable read (I finished it easily in a day, despite having to work), and the frequent pictures are a great bonus. The book is not meant to be an extensive autobiography, but more of a spiritual testimony. It is very exhortational and meant to challenge the reader. Thus chapter 9, for example, deals with the various “myths” that Christians are tempted to believe, myths that Mrs. Black herself had to deal with (e.g., the myth of the “Checklist Methodology that ‘Guarantees’ Positive Results”). Chapter 10, especially, is an important chapter since it provides us with a window into the very real struggle of a Christian dealing with terminal cancer (the last chapter, I believe, was written mere months before Mrs. Black passed away). Thus, although it is a quick read, it is not an “easy” read, nor is it meant to be. Ultimately this is a book that demonstrates the reality of Christian life, both struggles and joys, while challenging the reader to simply trust in Christ throughout it all.

Calvinism: A Southern Baptist Dialogue, eds. E. Ray Clendenen and Brad J. Waggoner (Nashville, Tenn.: B&H Academic, 2008).

 Calvinism: A Southern Baptist Dialogue provides the reader with an important conversation between Southern Baptist Calvinists and non-Calvinists, ultimately demonstrating (I hope!) that there is room for both sides within the convention. Various sections showcase the two sides of such issues as the role of Calvinism/non-Calvinism [seriously, we gotta get a better phrase to describe the latter, but rare is the SBC member who wants to be called “Arminian”] in SBC history, the doctrine of election, limited vs. unlimited atonement, etc., as well as concluding with a discussion of how both Calvinists and non-Calvinists can work together within the SBC’s mission.

Some of the essays are better written than others (and no, it has nothing to do with the particular author’s theological position!), and a couple of the essays come across as a bit too “preachy” in their presentation of their particular side, but overall I believe the book serves its purpose.  Both Calvinists and non-Calvinists have a place within the SBC, and both can contribute to the Great Commission. This is hardly the book that will convince somebody to change sides (or whatever), but if it causes somebody to be less harsh and more humble in the debate, than it has served its purpose. Personally, I wish somebody would write a book like this for my own Independent Baptist brothers and sisters, since we also tend to look down on those who disagree with our soteriological position, and we can definitely be guilty of creating strawmen and overacting (one of the few genuine independent Baptist scholars, Dr. Kevin Bauder, once said in a class I was in that “The problem with Fundamentalism is the shrill Arminians and the snooty Calvinists”; J ).

Two books on 1 Peter

Although I noticed it too late to include in my own published dissertation, I recently purchased and am looking forward to reading Justin Langford’s Defending Hope: Semiotics and Intertextuality in 1 Peter (Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf&Stock, 2013). I was able to hear Dr. Langford (adjunct prof. in NT at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary) present a paper on this topic at 2013’s ETS meeting in Baltimore, and shortly thereafter I ordered a copy of his book (Wipf&Stock published dissertations are a significantly more affordable than others! My own dissertation is being published by the company’s Pickwick imprint). Langford basically looks at OT citation in 1 Peter, especially the Isaiah quotations, through the lens of “Semitics” (or the study of “signs” within the context of linguistics). This should be a helpful book to those interested in NT use of the OT within the general epistles; I'm hoping to do a full book review later.

Finally, once again too late to be used in my own book, we have a new collection of essays on 1 Peter entitled Bedrängnis und Identität: Studien zu Situation, Kommunikation und Theologie des 1. Petrusbriefes, edited by David S. du Toit (Beihefte zur Zeitschrfit für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft vol. 200; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013). The title roughly translates to Distress and Identity: Studies in the Situation, Communication, and Theology of 1 Peter. This tome, written in memorium of the great Leonhard Goppelt, contains essays by many of 1 Peter’s top scholars, including Karen H. Jobes (“Foreigners and Exiles: Was 1 Peter Written to Roman Colonists?”), Reinhard Feldmeier, (“Basis des Kontaktes unter Christen: Demut als Schlüsselbegriff der Ethik des Ersten Petrubbriefes”/ trans. “The Basis of Contact among Christians: Humility as the Key Concept of the Ethics of 1 Peter”), and David G. Horrell (“Das im Unglauben verharrende Judenvolk: 1 Peter 2:4-10, Its History of Interpretation in Germany (1855-1978), and the Important Contribution of Leonhard Goppelt”). For my personal research at this point, I am also hoping to study the essays by Lutz Doering on the significance of “Israel” in 1 Peter and Thomas Popp on the “Theology of Recognition” (i.e., in regard to the “elect strangers” of 1 Peter 1:1).

Book Alert: Peter, Paul, and Prepositions

“Of making many books there is no end” (Ecclesiastes 12:12, kjv). Ah, if only the Preacher knew how true this would be in the modern era! Today we are overly-blessed (or cursed, perhaps) with a seemingly infinite influx of new books each year, and 2012 is no exception. Naturally, some books are more worthy of attention than others. While it is ultimately impossible to give a nod of recognition to every book in Biblical studies that deserves it, I’d like to highlight four noteworthy books from 2012 that caught my attention (and, subsequently, my credit card).

Note: the following are not reviews (though I might review one or all of them later), but rather just brief descriptions designed to pique the reader’s interest.

1. First of all, we have Larry R. Helyer’s The Life and Witness of Peter (Downer’s Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2012; 329 pages including indices).  To a certain degree, this is the book I’ve been waiting for the past few, ever since I decided to focus on Petrine studies. If you threw a stone, you could probably hit a dozen Pauline theologies or studies, but works focusing on Peter’s theology and writings are comparatively rare. Now Helyer’s book is not a pure Petrine theology per se, but rather a comprehensive study of both Peter and his writings (part of the book, then, is a Petrine theology; e.g., chapter 7, which deals with “Peter’s Christology”).  Much of The Life and Witness of Peter focuses on Peter’s role in the early church, but Helyer also devotes two chapters to 1 and 2 Peter, chapters which serve a similar role to their equivalent chapters in a standard NT Introduction (i.e., discussing issues of authorship, date, key themes, etc.). Other chapters, as mentioned above, deal with specific theological themes in Peter’s writings. Ultimately, The Life and Witness of Peter fills a very important, oft-neglected niche in scholarship. Furthermore, Helyer is a better writer than most; The Life and Witness of Peter is very scholarly but not at all stuffy, usually finding that right balance between overly-simple and too technical. This is a characteristic he carries over from his other  works, as well. In the doctoral seminary “Second Temple Literature,” Dr. Köstenberger required us to read Helyer’s Exploring Jewish Literature of the Second Temple Period (as well as George Nickelsburg’s excellent Jewish Literature Between the Bible and the Mishnah), and I remember being struck by how enjoyable Helyer’s book was compared to most required textbooks.

2. Secondly, we have my own advisor, Dr. David Alan Black’s, revision of an earlier monograph (and his dissertation) Paul, Apostle of Weakness: Astheneia and Its Cognates in the Pauline Literature (Eugene, Oreg.: Pickwick, 2012; 193 pages including indices). Throughout this book Black examines the concept of “weakness” in the Apostle Paul’s writings and how it is developed throughout. Chapter 5 contains both an excellent overview of “weakness” in Paul’s theology (culminating in the conclusion that Paul’s concept of weakness is "markedly theocentric," p. 161) as well as a very valuable section on “Pauls’ Relevance for Today” (a welcome  addition to any academic monograph!) with the following thought provoking statement, “Too many Christians are disheartened over their infirmities, thinking that only if they were stronger in themselves they could accomplish more for God. But this point of view, despite its popularity, is altogether a fallacy. God’s means of working, rightly understood, is not by making us stronger, but by making us weaker and weaker until the divine power alone is clearly manifested in our lives” (pp. 161-162).

Like Helyer, one of Dr. Black’s strengths in writing lies in the fact that his works are generally easily accessible and often enjoyable (the reason Learn to Read New Testament Greek remains one of the most popular 1^st year Greek textbooks). Even Paul, Apostle of Weakness, which is a monograph (and should, by definition, be incredibly dull!), still manages to be both interesting and surprisingly easy to follow. Despite the occasional citation of untranslated German (he did, after all, get his doctorate at the University of Basel), this is a book that most Christians, even those without much education, can get some value out of (especially chapter 5).

Let me emphasize again, then, that accessible, enjoyable writing is a skill that should be prized in Biblical studies. Now, granted, it’s not like we want our scholars making their academic works read like the next Michael Crichton novel (although, maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad idea . . . [Zondervan, give me a call! I’ve got a great idea for Minnesota Mounce and the Participles of Doom!]) Yet the fact remains that academic works in Biblical studies do not have to be dry! (two of the best examples of enjoyable NT writers, in my opinion, are Michael Bird and N. T. Wright, regardless of whether or not one agrees with them).

3.Thirdly, we have a book that is already making quite the splash within Biblical scholarship. Murray J. Harris’ Prepositions and Theology in the Greek New Testament: An Essential Reference Resource for Exegesis (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2012; 293 pages including indices) does not represent a new area of research per se, but is itself, to a certain degree, a refinement or expansion upon Harris’ essay in volume 3 of Colin Brown’s New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology. Harris provides a thorough overview of the Greek preposition in the New Testament, helpfully discusses “Dangers to Be Avoided in Any Examination of New Testament Prepositional Usage” (ch. 3), and then proceeds to examine every proper and improper preposition that occurs in the NT, paying special attention to important and/or controversial usage. At this point, Harris’ work does indeed seem to be turning into what the title promises: “An Essential Reference Resource.” See my friend Craig Hurst's review here. 

4.Finally, here’s a fantastic idea that makes you wonder why nobody thought of it sooner: Devotions on the Greek New Testament: 52 Reflections to Inspire & Instruct, ed. by J. Scott Duvall and Verlyn D. Verbrugge (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2012). This book is exactly what the title suggests: devotional treatments of Greek texts, basically Our Daily Bread for seminary students. The authors write in a casual, occasionally personal manner (sometimes including stories). Each writer focuses on one Greek text (a verse or two) and unpacks it, pointing the reader to its practical application in the Christian life. The authorial lineup is a partial “who’s-who” of New Testament scholarship (Darrell Bock, George Guthrie, Lynn Cohick, Ben Witherington III, to name a few) with a few “rising stars” (such as my friend Alan Bandy, recent doctoral graduate from SEBTS).

Well, there’s a whole lot more books worth reading from 2012, but hopefully these will prove to be helpful to those interested in New Testament studies. Looking forward to what 2013 will bring!