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The Gospel of the Son of God

In Bloomsbury, Book of Psalms, Christology, Gospel of Mark, Intertextuality, Kendall A. Davis on August 20, 2024 at 8:44 pm

2024.08.05 | James M. Neumann. The Gospel of the Son of God: Psalm 2 and Mark’s Narrative Christology. LNTS 688. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2024. 

Review by Kendall A. Davis, University of Edinburgh.

In this published version of his dissertation completed at Princeton Theological Seminary under the supervision of Dale Allison, James Neumann argues not only that the title “son of God” is a central part of the Christology of Mark’s Gospel, but that Psalm 2 is as well. As Neumann writes, “I contend that Mark portrays Jesus’s earthly life from baptism to crucifixion as the actualization of Psalm 2…. To say so is not merely to say that Psalm 2 is the primary background behind Mark’s Son of God, but rather that, for Mark, to call Jesus the ‘Son of God’ is to locate the entire progression of the psalm unfolding in the person and work of Jesus” (p. 20; emphasis original). Neumann’s study is therefore particularly interested in the intertextual and narrative dynamics of Mark’s Gospel and its presentation of Jesus.

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The Things that Make for Peace

In Gospels, Jesse Nickel, Kendall A. Davis, Second Temple, Violence on March 13, 2024 at 8:29 pm

2024.03.02 | Jesse P. Nickel. The Things that Make for Peace: Jesus and Eschatological Violence. BZNW 244. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2021.

Review by Kendall A. Davis, University of Edinburgh.

In this revision of his PhD thesis, Jesse Nickel seeks to answer the following question: “how does understanding eschatology and violence together … enable us to make better sense of the presence and/or absence of violence in Jesus’ life and ministry?” (p. 3). In particular, Nickel seeks to refute what he calls the “seditious Jesus hypothesis” (SJH), the idea that the historical Jesus was really a violent revolutionary and that Jesus’ rejections of violence are later additions to the Jesus tradition. Scholars who hold to the SJH, according to Nickel, include S. G. F. Brandon, Dale Martin, and Fernando Bermejo-Rubio. Nickel argues that such perspectives fail in large part because they misunderstand Jewish eschatology. In particular, they assume that eschatology is “other-worldly” and therefore “irrelevant to ‘this-worldly’ matters” (p. 5). By contrast, Nickel argues that “certain elements of Jewish eschatology … inherently involved violence; and that such expectations played a motivational role in the revolutionary violence that was frequent during the Second Temple period” (p. 7). Nickel calls such violence “eschatological violence” and argues that Jesus’ “nonviolence” should be understood as a rejection of this pervasive concept of eschatological violence. 

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Markan Typology

In Bloomsbury, Gospel of Mark, Intertextuality, Jonathan Rivett Robinson, Kendall A. Davis, Typology on June 27, 2023 at 7:13 pm

2023.06.06 | Jonathan Rivett Robinson. Markan Typology: Miracle, Scripture and Christology in Mark 4:35–6:45. LNTS 678. London: T&T Clark, 2023.

Review by Kendall A. Davis, University of Edinburgh.

In his recently revised dissertation, Jonathan Rivett Robinson explores the use of typology in several miracle passages in Mark’s Gospel. Robinson’s study contributes to the study of intertextuality in the Gospels by focusing on typology as a particular dynamic of intertextual discourse. He also seeks to contribute to discussions of divine Christology in Mark’s Gospel, engaging in dialogue with Richard Bauckham, Richard Hays, and Daniel Kirk. 

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Luke in His Own Words

In Bloomsbury, Jenny Read-Heimerdinger, Kendall A. Davis, Luke-Acts, Manuscript Studies, Manuscripts, Textual Criticism on October 31, 2022 at 12:00 pm
cover of book

2022.10.08 | Jenny Read-Heimerdinger. Luke in His Own Words: A Study of the Language of Luke-Acts in Greek. LNTS 672. London: T&T Clark, 2022.

Review by Kendall A. Davis, University of Edinburgh.

As anyone who looks at a critical apparatus for the New Testament knows, a significant number of textual variants involve subtle differences like the presence of an article, the order of words, and so on. Many readers will gloss over such variants as being merely “stylistic,” by which they mean to say, “relatively unimportant and meaningless.” Jenny Read-Heimerdinger’s new collection of previous published essays, Luke in His Own Words, challenges this assumption through a thorough analysis of Luke’s Greek as it is preserved in the Alexandrian text (as represented by Codex Sinaiticus [א01] and Codex Vaticanus [B03]) and Codex Bezae (D05). Read-Heimerdinger combines text-criticism, discourse analysis, and New Testament interpretation to argue that many variants between D05 and the Alexandrian text that are often perceived to be merely stylistic are in fact intentional and meaningful. Read-Heimerdinger further argues that the Bezan text of Acts is not necessarily a later expansion of Acts, as frequently assumed, but may preserve a form of Acts that is earlier than the version preserved in the Alexandrian tradition.

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