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Contesting Languages

In 1 Corinthians, Ekaputra Tupamahu, Heteroglossia, Isaac T. Soon, Oxford University Press, Paul, Spiritual Gifts on March 10, 2023 at 3:00 pm

2023.02.05 | Ekaputra Tupamahu. Contesting Languages: Heteroglossia and the Politics of Language in the Early Church. New York: Oxford University Press, 2023. 

Review by Isaac T. Soon, Crandall University, Moncton, NB.

The author begins the book with three subjects that experience struggle at the site of language: Medea, the Corinthian community, and Tupamahau himself. From its first pages, the reader becomes fully aware that this book is not only a critique of Paul’s handling of a multilingual community in Corinth but of the way that dominant languages, such as English (not least in the study of the New Testament), function as colonizing and suppressive forces. Tupamahu’s book is carefully written, and—more than any other academic monograph I have read in a long while—the distinct voice of the author comes across in its pages. The self-aware inclusion of first-person narratives detail the formation of the study and personal experiences that have shaped the research question and approach provides a refreshing frame for receiving Tupamahu’s work. At times, he even leaves expressions in German (e.g., p. 84) or in Greek untranslated to remind the reader of the way language (and its unintelligibility) can be othering for the person who is not proficient in it. Language is a political struggle, and Tupamahu’s book invites readers to learn about its dynamics in Corinth and to experience it themselves through his study itself. 

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The Shema in John’s Gospel

In Christology, Gospel of John, John, Lori A. Baron, Mohr Siebeck, R. B. Jamieson, Shema on February 24, 2023 at 3:00 pm
Cover of book

2023.02.04 | Lori A. Baron. The Shema in John’s Gospel. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament. 2. Reihe, 574. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2022.

Review by R. B. Jamieson, Capitol Hill Baptist Church, Washington, DC.

What causes John’s Gospel to stand out when set against the backdrops of the Synoptic Gospels, the whole New Testament, and early Judaism? In The Shema in John’s Gospel, a revision of the author’s PhD thesis submitted to Duke University in 2015, Lori A. Baron argues that one key factor is John’s unique development of the theology and ethics of the Shema.

After a brief introduction, the book surveys the role of the Shema in Deuteronomy (Ch. 2), the rest of the Hebrew Bible (Ch. 3), Second Temple literature (Ch. 4), the New Testament minus John (Ch. 5), and, finally, the Gospel of John, first considering chapters 5, 8, and 10 (Ch. 6), then the Farewell Discourse (Ch. 7). A brief conclusion considers the Shema’s role in John’s account of the crucifixion, John’s oft-alleged “anti-Judaism,” and the Johannine prologue. 

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Philosophy at the Festival

In Brill, Byron MacDougall, Festivals, Gregory of Nazianzus, Patristics, Robert G. T. Edwards on February 9, 2023 at 11:31 am

2023.02.03 | Byron MacDougall, Philosophy at the Festival: The Festal Orations of Gregory of Nazianzus and the Classical Tradition. Mnemosyne Supplements 461; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2022.

Review by Robert G. T. Edwards; University of Göttingen.

Gregory of Nazianzus’ seven Festal Orations, preached at Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, and Pentecost during his short-lived episcopacy in Constantinople from 379 to 381, have received minimal scholarly attention, especially compared to Gregory’s more famous Theological Orations. However, as Byron MacDougall shows, the disparity between the fame of the Theological and the Festal Orations is a decidedly modern and western phenomenon: Gregory’s festal sermons were hugely influential in the Byzantine world already in the fifth century. This book is not a general study of these orations, but focuses on a single aspect of them, namely how Gregory “performed philosophy at the festival.” This phrase, repeated in various iterations throughout the book, refers to Gregory’s participation in a longstanding Greek tradition in which philosophical—especially Platonic—speculation (theōria) was closely associated with festival-going. From classical antiquity until late antiquity, there was every expectation among the learned (pepaideumenoi) that the festival should include spectacles both corporeal (games, shows, races) and intellectual (philosophical discussions and orations). And Gregory’s orations, delivered at newly instituted Christian festivals, unquestionably played to these expectations. Through six chapters, MacDougall highlights in lucid prose Gregory’s participation in this long tradition of philosophizing at festivals.

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Hebrews’ Cosmogonic Presuppositions

In Benjamin Rojas Yauri, cosmology, Hebrews, Jewish Backgrounds, Judson D. Greene, Wipf and Stock on January 23, 2023 at 6:03 pm
cover of book being reviewed

2023.01.02 | Benjamin Rojas Yauri. Hebrews’ Cosmogonic Presuppositions: Its First-Century Philosophical Context. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2022.

Review by Judson D. Greene, Cambridge University.

In this revised version of his PhD dissertation at Stellenbosch University under the supervision of Jeremy Punt, Benjamin Rojas Yauri endeavors to answer the question, “What are the relationships between Hebrews’ cosmogonic presuppositions and its first-century philosophical context?” (7). “Cosmogonic” means related to the origin of the universe (p. 1, n. 4) and a “presupposition” is “a thought tacitly assumed beforehand at the beginning of a line of argument,” which he states means the same thing as “beliefs” (p. 234, n. 2). In answer to his question, Rojas Yauri advances the thesis, “there is no relationship of dependence in presuppositions but only in the usage of some general vocabulary” (p. 266).

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What John Knew and What John Wrote

In Elizabeth Corsar, Fortress Press, Gospel of John, John, Lexington Books, Synoptic Gospels, Synoptic theories, Wendy E. S. North on January 6, 2023 at 3:00 pm

2023.01.01 | Wendy E. S. North, What John Knew and What John Wrote: A Study in John and the Synoptics (Lanham: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2020).

Review by Elizabeth Corsar; St Padarn’s Institute, Cardiff.

In her monograph, what John knew and what John wrote, North successfully puts forward a positive case for John’s use of the Synoptic Gospels, and her innovative study makes a significant contribution to this perennial New Testament question. Moreover, as the pendulum continues to swing ever more so toward the notion that John was dependent on the work of his Synoptic contemporaries for the composition of his own gospel, North’s timely monograph serves as an important study within this trend. 

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