David Gooding is one of my heroes, so I'm always delighted to come across another article he's written. In the The Word Became Fresh, Davis references the following article in a footnote:
David W. Gooding, “The Literary Structure of the Book of Daniel and its Implications,” Tyndale Bulletin 32 (1981) (n.d.): 43-80, http://98.131.162.170//tynbul/library/TynBull_1981_32_02_Gooding_LiteraryDaniel.pdf.
Showing posts with label hermeneutics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hermeneutics. Show all posts
Monday, December 20, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Review: Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: A Contemporary Hermeneutical Method
Preaching Christ from the Old Testament: A Contemporary Hermeneutical Method by Sidney GreidanusMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Note: this is not much of a book review, but more a collection of notes.
Who should read this book: Anyone who wants to see / share Christ in / from the OT without resorting to allegory (Rahab’s scarlet cord speaks of Christ’s blood) and irresponsible typology (on which see below). This book gives seven ways of moving from OT text to Christ responsibly and dare I say, exegetically.
Greidanus insists on two things: We must preach Christ, and we must preach from the OT. He gives some great reasons to defend the latter (e.g., the OT proclaims truths not found in the NT, p.27). A couple quotes will have to suffice:
Quoting Michael Duduit: “For us to neglect these books in our preaching is to abandon our congregations to theological shallowness and mediocrity” (p.28).
Quoting Bright: “The Old Testament holds the gospel to history. It is the surest bulwark against the assimilation with alien philosophies and ideologies, against a flight into a sentimental and purely otherworldly piety, and against that disintegrating individualism that so easily besets us” (p.32).
Willimon: “Unable to preach Christ and him crucified, we preach humanity and it improved” (p.34).
But there are difficulties in preaching Christ from the OT—a history of them. And so Greidanus surveys approaches from as early as the church fathers: allegorical (Justin Martyr and many others), typological (Chrysostom and others), Christological (Luther), theocentric (Calvin), and some modern Christological approaches (Spurgeon and Visher).
The literary context of the OT is the NT; therefore “every message from the Old Testament must be seen in the light of Jesus Christ” (p.51). And the reverse is true (p.53).
The most valuable contribution of the book is the seven ways of moving from an OT text to Christ:
* The way of redemptive-historical progression
* The way of promise-fulfillment
* The way of typology
* The way of analogy
* The way of longitudinal themes
* The way of contrast
Definition of typology: “New Testament typology is thus essentially the tracing of the constant principles of God’s working in history, revealing ‘a recurrent rhythm in past history which is taken up more fully and perfectly in Gospel events’” (quoting France, who quotes Lampe, pp.212-3).
Eichrodt: “Types are persons, institutions, and events of the Old Testament which are regarded as divinely established models or prerepresentations of corresponding realities in the New Testament salvation history” (pp. 254-5).
Three criterion must be met in order for a type to be recognized: correspondence, escalation, and theocentricity.
View all my reviews
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Beginner Bible study resources
I just emailed the following to a young friend of mine, who is developing quite a hunger for God's Word. What would you add to the list?
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Here is a list of solid resources to get you started. The list is not meant to intimidate you; these are resources you can work at accumulating. Books that I think you should purchase and use without a moment's delay are marked by a double-asterisk. I've marked 2nd priority resources with one asterisk. The rest are books you can work at over the years to come (Lord willing).
Please know that just because I recommend these resources, that doesn't mean that I think everything in them is right. Use discernment with everything you read.
Bibles (use a few translations)
Books on reading / studying Bible
Bible Software
You will learn a ton by always having some good expositional sermons on your ipod.
******
Here is a list of solid resources to get you started. The list is not meant to intimidate you; these are resources you can work at accumulating. Books that I think you should purchase and use without a moment's delay are marked by a double-asterisk. I've marked 2nd priority resources with one asterisk. The rest are books you can work at over the years to come (Lord willing).
Please know that just because I recommend these resources, that doesn't mean that I think everything in them is right. Use discernment with everything you read.
Bibles (use a few translations)
- English Standard Version
- KJV
- New International Version
- New American Standard Bible
- New English Translation - available online, with very useful notes
- New Living Translation
Books on reading / studying Bible
- Knowing Scripture by R.C. Sproul **
- How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth by Gordon Fee **
- How to Read the Bible Book By Book by Gordon Fee **
- 40 Questions about Interpreting the Bible by Robert Plummer
Bible Software
- Free: The Word **
- Expensive, but awesome: Logos
- New Bible Dictionary by Intervarsity **
- Mounce's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words, by William Mounce (I recommend this over Vine's dictionary, which is too out-of-date)
- New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology by Verbrugge
- Greek for the Rest of Us by William Mounce
- Hebrew for the Rest of Us by Fields
- Evangelical Dictionary of Theology by Elwell *
- Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem
- Introducing the New Testament by Carson, Moo, and Naselli *
- Encountering the Old Testament: A Christian Survey by Arnold
- New Bible Commentary by Intervarsity **
- go to Denver Seminary's NT bibliography and choose from the last three commentaries they list for each book of the Bible (the other commentaries they list will be too technical)
- The NIV Application, Tyndale, Bible Speaks Today, and IVP commentary series are for the most part excellent. Unfortunately, the What the Bible Teaches series rarely provides what a commentary should provide, but there are some exceptions.
- for the BEST commentary series of all, go here.
- For the Love of God, volume 1 and volume 2, by Carson. An excellent devotional.
- The Pursuit of God by Tozer
- Knowing God by Packer
- Desiring God by Piper
- What Jesus Demands from the World by Piper
- Mere Christianity by C.S Lewis
- any and all books by David Gooding
You will learn a ton by always having some good expositional sermons on your ipod.
- John Piper
- D.A. Carson
- Tim Keller (and here)
- Sinclair Ferguson
- you can all get mp3's of Jack Hunter and Albert Leckie
Monday, October 18, 2010
How to Read Exodus
How to Read Exodus, by Tremper Longman III.
The author clarifies that this book is not a commentary on Exodus, but a guide to an interpretive strategy (p.8). It features literary, historical, and theological approaches to this book.
A literary approach reveals that the main theme of Exodus is the presence of God, out of which two sub-themes emerge: the covenant, and bondage (p.39). A historical approach reads Exodus against the background of ancient Near Eastern literature (the Sargon Birth Legend and the Code of Hammurabi). It also examines the historicity of the events recorded in Exodus. Yes, it does matter that the Red Sea did in fact part (Chp. 6). However, some efforts to prove the Exodus events are not helpful: “Purported discoveries of the wheels of Pharaoh’s chariots beside the Red Sea are misleading if not fraudulent” (p.69, cf. p.80).
Longman provides helpful comments on the Law. The Ten Commandments begin the Book of the Law. They are more general principles of which the ensuing case laws are specific applications (p.60). “Israel’s obligation to keep the law is not to form a relationship with God, but rather to show gratitude to and maintain the relationship that it already enjoys with him” (p.121).
On the revelation of Yahweh’s name when he says “I Am Who I Am,” Longman writes: “God claims that he is self-defining. He is unable to be narrowed down. He is the ground of existence.” (p.104)
Longman has a very interesting section on the gods of Egypt (pp.107-9). Do they truly exist? “The answer to that question is much more complex than one might think” (p.107). Of course, there is only one God, the Creator of all that is. But Longman reaches for an emended text of Deuteronomy 32.8, the supernatural feats of the Egyptian magicians, and the testimony throughout Scripture to claim that these Egyptian gods were real spiritual powers, although created and “assigned their place by God” (pp.107-8).
The best section of the book is Part 5: ”Reading Exodus as a Christian." This section features the theological/canonical approach. The theme of the Exodus event, the law, and the tabernacle are masterfully traced from the OT to their NT fulfillment in Christ.
The author clarifies that this book is not a commentary on Exodus, but a guide to an interpretive strategy (p.8). It features literary, historical, and theological approaches to this book.
A literary approach reveals that the main theme of Exodus is the presence of God, out of which two sub-themes emerge: the covenant, and bondage (p.39). A historical approach reads Exodus against the background of ancient Near Eastern literature (the Sargon Birth Legend and the Code of Hammurabi). It also examines the historicity of the events recorded in Exodus. Yes, it does matter that the Red Sea did in fact part (Chp. 6). However, some efforts to prove the Exodus events are not helpful: “Purported discoveries of the wheels of Pharaoh’s chariots beside the Red Sea are misleading if not fraudulent” (p.69, cf. p.80).
Longman provides helpful comments on the Law. The Ten Commandments begin the Book of the Law. They are more general principles of which the ensuing case laws are specific applications (p.60). “Israel’s obligation to keep the law is not to form a relationship with God, but rather to show gratitude to and maintain the relationship that it already enjoys with him” (p.121).
On the revelation of Yahweh’s name when he says “I Am Who I Am,” Longman writes: “God claims that he is self-defining. He is unable to be narrowed down. He is the ground of existence.” (p.104)
Longman has a very interesting section on the gods of Egypt (pp.107-9). Do they truly exist? “The answer to that question is much more complex than one might think” (p.107). Of course, there is only one God, the Creator of all that is. But Longman reaches for an emended text of Deuteronomy 32.8, the supernatural feats of the Egyptian magicians, and the testimony throughout Scripture to claim that these Egyptian gods were real spiritual powers, although created and “assigned their place by God” (pp.107-8).
The best section of the book is Part 5: ”Reading Exodus as a Christian." This section features the theological/canonical approach. The theme of the Exodus event, the law, and the tabernacle are masterfully traced from the OT to their NT fulfillment in Christ.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Bible study software & online resources
The Tyndale Tech has a helpful post on New Ways to Study the Bible, with lots of links to different Bible study software programs and web pages.
One of the programs that caught my eye is BibleCrawler.
One of the programs that caught my eye is BibleCrawler.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Calvin on interpreting the Bible
Recently I reviewed Bruce Gordon's biography of John Calvin. This post is part four of a short series of snippets from the book.
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Calvin used all the means available to him to interpret the Bible, including the methods he learned as a humanist. And yet he encountered the living, Triune God in the scriptures. He placed great emphasis on seeing how the church fathers had interpreted the Bible, and his knowledge of their writings was incredible. “He saw himself engaged in a sustained conversation with ancient and contemporary interpreters, none of whom was infallible. It was a conversation in the service of the Church, guided by the Spirit and grounded in the Word of God” (p.108).
“Calvin, like the other reformers, understood that scripture could not stand without a framework of interpretation” (p.108).
References:
Bruce Gordon, Calvin (New Haven [Conn.] and London: Yale University Press, 2009).
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Calvin used all the means available to him to interpret the Bible, including the methods he learned as a humanist. And yet he encountered the living, Triune God in the scriptures. He placed great emphasis on seeing how the church fathers had interpreted the Bible, and his knowledge of their writings was incredible. “He saw himself engaged in a sustained conversation with ancient and contemporary interpreters, none of whom was infallible. It was a conversation in the service of the Church, guided by the Spirit and grounded in the Word of God” (p.108).
“Calvin, like the other reformers, understood that scripture could not stand without a framework of interpretation” (p.108).
References:
Bruce Gordon, Calvin (New Haven [Conn.] and London: Yale University Press, 2009).
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