Episodes
Tuesday Oct 30, 2018
Christopher Seitz - The Elder Testament
Tuesday Oct 30, 2018
Tuesday Oct 30, 2018
Episode: Canon, theology, and Trinity are brought together in this episode featuring guest Chris Seitz. But here's the surprise: We are talking about Trinity in the Old Testament. Seitz has written an outstanding book, The Elder Testament, showing how the Old Testament's literal sense pressures us in a trinitarian direction. Along the way Seitz drops funny personal stories about noted biblical scholars Brevard Childs and Leander Keck. Hosted by Matt Bates and Matt Lynch.
Guest: Christopher Seitz is Senior Research Professor at Wycliffe College in the University of Toronto, a position he has held since 2007. Previously he was Professor of Old Testament at Yale University and the University of St Andrews. He is an ordained Episcopal priest. Some of his books include The Bible as Christian Scripture (SBL), The Character of Christian Scripture (Baker Academic), and theological commentaries on Joel and Colossians. The list could go on.
The Book: Christopher R. Seitz, The Elder Testament: Canon, Theology, Trinity (Baylor University Press, 2018). Canon to Theology to Trinity. This trilogy, as Seitz concludes, is not strictly a historical sequence. Rather, this trilogy is ontologically calibrated through time by the One God who is the selfsame subject matter of both the Elder and New Testaments. The canon makes the traditional theological work of the church possible without forcing a choice between a minimalist criticism or a detached, often moribund systematic theology. The canon achieves "the concord and harmony of the law and the prophets in the covenant delivered at the coming of the Lord" of which Clement of Alexandria so eloquently spoke.
Endorsement: Impossible. Sealed tight. The Christian doctrine of the Trinity cannot be successfully grounded in the Old Testament, read on its own terms. Or so scholars have claimed for hundreds of years. But the Old Testament’s witness to God’s complex reality contains volcanic pressure. Large cracks have already appeared. Christopher Seitz has blown off the lid. – Matthew W. Bates, author of The Birth of the Trinity
(Book description and endorsement from the publisher's website, abridged)
Help Support OnScript: Click through one of the links above to purchase one of the books (or others, while you're in there), and the OnScript Podcast gets a whopping 2.5% or so (at no loss to you). Each bit helps us keep this operation going. Or visit our Donate Page if you want to join the big leagues and become a regular donor. Don't let us stop you from doing both.
Monday Oct 15, 2018
OnScript Q&A - October 2018
Monday Oct 15, 2018
Monday Oct 15, 2018
Episode: Matt, Matt, Erin, & Dru discuss your questions. And YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT THEY SAY NEXT! Listen to find out.
Help Support OnScript: Visit our Donate Page if you want to join the big leagues and become a regular donor.
Monday Oct 01, 2018
Joshua Berman - Inconsistency in the Torah
Monday Oct 01, 2018
Monday Oct 01, 2018
Episode: Dru and Joshua Berman discuss his bold claims in his book—Inconsistency in the Torah—that suggest source-criticism might erroneously ignore cognate literary forms in the ancient Near East, favoring notoriously slippery histories behind each source in the Torah instead. Working through Egyptian and Mesopotamian parallels, Berman discusses how the old paradigm of sources might be insufficient in the face of other comparable literatures. We talk through the book's core arguments, krav maga, Judaism in Israel, Fijian vacations with Seventh Day Adventists, and more!
Guest: Dr. Joshua Berman is an associate professor at Bar-Ilan University. His books include Created Equal: How the Bible Broke With Ancient Political Thought and The Temple (OUP) and Inconsistency in the Torah: Ancient Literary Convention and the Limits of Source Criticism (OUP). Dr. Berman is an ordained Orthodox rabbi with a B.A. in Religion from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in Bible from Bar-Ilan University in Israel.
The Book (Inconsistency in the Torah, from the publisher): "This book proposes a new approach to the Pentateuch’s narrative and legal inconsistencies that scholars have taken as signs of fragmentation and competing agendas. ... The recent pivot to empirical models constitutes a major challenge to traditional historical-critical method, mandating a review of its premises. The book includes a critical intellectual history of the theories of textual growth in biblical studies tracing how critics were influenced first by the fascination with science in the eighteenth century and then by Romanticism and Historicism in the nineteenth. These movements unwittingly led the field to adopt a range of commitments and interests that impede the proper execution of historical critical method in the study of the Pentateuch. It concludes by advocating a return to the hermeneutics of Spinoza and adopting a methodologically modest agenda."
Help Support OnScript: Click through one of the links above to purchase one of Berman's book (or others, while you're in there), and the OnScript Podcast gets a whopping 2% or so (at no loss to you). Each bit helps us keep this operation going. Or visit our Donate Page if you want to join the big leagues and become a regular donor. Don't let us stop you from doing both.