OnScript

Jaco Gericke - A Philosophical Theology of the Old Testament

Episode: How should we read the Old Testament? Is there only one valid interpretation or a plurality of interpretations? If the latter, then how do we maintain intellectual humility and find valid methods for addressing the texts of Scripture? For a first-ever joint episode with the Center for Hebraic Thought, Dru talks to Dr. Jaco Gericke of North-West University, South Africa about his journey to philosophical theology, and some of his current research, particularly his recent book, A Philosophical Theology of the Old Testament: A historical, experimental, comparative and analytic perspective. Along the way, they discuss atheism, the necessity of bringing a philosophical perspective to biblical studies, developing reliable methods for reading Scripture, and even some terrible jokes.

Guest: Jaco Gericke is Associate Research Professor of Theology and Philosophy at North-West University, South Africa. He is also the author of What is a God?: Philosophical Perspectives on Divine Essence in the Hebrew Bible (Bloomsbury) and The Hebrew Bible and Philosophy of Religion (SBL Press).

Event: A socially-distanced live (outdoor) event at Nashotah House Theological Seminary on July 21st. More info HERE.

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Shownotes:

• 1:18 Introducing Dr. Jaco Gericke and his research
• 8:06 Why Dr. Gericke doesn’t like to call himself an atheist and why he still studies the Old Testament
• 13:41 The difficult with the terms “biblical theology” and “philosophical theology”
• 24:55 The necessity of humility and openness to a plurality of interpretations for understanding scripture
• 30:06 James Barr and the renewed philology movement
• 35:20 Ways to do philosophical theology in the Old Testament
• 46:32 How philosophical theology prevents us from reading our own philosophical categories into the text
• 50:43 Speed Round

Brant Pitre & Michael Barber - Paul, a New Covenant Jew

Episode: Who was Paul? How might we understand him as a Jew? What type of Jew was he? How do our answers impact our interpretation of Paul’s theology of justification, Christology, the death of Christ, and more besides? In this episode, Matthew Bates and Chris Tilling talk to two of the co-authors of the new book, Paul, a New Covenant Jew: Rethinking Pauline Theology, by Brant Pitre, Michael P. Barber and John A. Kincaid (Eerdmans, 2019). After presenting a case for thinking about Paul as a new covenant Jew, the authors discuss Paul and apocalyptic, Pauline Christology, the cross and atonement theology, justification through divine sonship and the Lord’s Supper. Sparkling with fresh insights, this book contributes to numerous debates in exciting ways. This is, as one reviewer put it, “Paul the pop-up book”!

Guests: A future episode with Chris Tilling will include an interview with John Kincaid, particularly his chapter on justification. In this episode, Matt and Chris talk to Michael Barber and Brant Pitre. Michael is Associate Professor of Scripture & Theology at the Augustine Institute in Denver, CO. Brant Pitre, (Ph.D., University of Notre Dame). Brant Pitre is Professor of Sacred Scripture at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans and Distinguished Research Professor of Sacred Scripture at the Augustine Institute. He is the author of numerous books, including Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile (Baker Academic, 2005), Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist (Image Books, 2011), Jesus the Bridegroom (Image Books, 2014), Jesus and the Last Supper (Eerdmans, 2015), and The Case for Jesus (Image Books, 2016).

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Joshua Farris - Theological Anthropology

Episode: What am I? Why am I here? Why do I exist? In this episode, co-host Amy Hughes talks to Joshua R. Farris about the existential crisis-inducing subject of theological anthropology. Farris has written a new book An Introduction to Theological Anthropology: Humans, Both Creaturely and Divine (Baker Academic, 2020), a treatment of all of the central questions of what it means to be human from a broadly Reformed perspective. There's no way to have a short conversation on the nature of the soul or what constitutes a human person or death or really anything having to do with what it means to be human - good thing there's a new book on the subject!

Guest: Joshua R. Farris (PhD, University of Bristol, UK) is the Chester and Margaret Paluch Professor at Mundelein Seminary, University of Saint Mary of the Lake, and part-time Lecturer at Auburn University Montgomery. He was a Visiting Fellow at The Creation Project, Carl F.H. Henry Center at TEDS (Spring 2018) and Assistant Professor of Theology at Houston Baptist University. He was born in South Carolina. Raised a charismatic who later became a Southern Baptist and arrived at the Reformed Episcopal Church. Joshua is a chief editor (with Charles Taliaferro) of the Ashgate Research Companion to Theological Anthropology (Ashgate, 2015). He is co-editor (with S. Mark Hamilton) of Idealism and Christianity: Idealism and Christian Theology, Vol. 1 (Bloomsbury, 2016), co-editor of Christian Physicalism: Philosophical-Theological Criticisms(with R. Keith Loftin). Additionally, he has co-edited Being Saved: Explorations in Human Salvation. He has published his monograph, The Soul of Theological Anthropology: A Cartesian Exploration and An Introduction to Theological Anthropology: Humans, Both Creaturely and Divine (Baker Academic, 2020). He is co-editing (with Benedikt Paul Gocke) Rethinking Idealism and Immaterialism: A Historical and Philosophical Study. Joshua is also co-editor of Re-envisioning Reformed Dogmatics series (with Cascade) and the international advisor/editor for Perichoresis, Journal of Biblical and Theological Studies, and the European Journal of Philosophy of Religion. Joshua has published Around 40 refereed articles many of which are in top-tier journals as well as reviews for both philosophical and theological journals. He serves as a referee for several philosophical, theological, and interdisciplinary journals. Joshua has also presented at various academic conferences on inter-disciplinary studies, philosophy, theology, and ethics. He preached for three years at a Presbyterian church and has varied ministry experience with youth and adults. He is married with one child whom they adopted as an embryo (called ‘snowflake baby’). For fun, he reads, watches film, and hikes (although not nearly enough).

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Erin Heim with Dru Johnson – Resurrection and the #MeToo Movement (Part 1)

Episode: Erin Heim and Dru Johnson discuss Erin's paper "Resurrection and the #MeToo Movement," which is part of a larger project that Erin is working on as she wrestles theologically with the sexual abuse that she experienced as a child. In this paper, she probes the connection between the abuse Jesus suffers in his crucifixion and his resurrection body.

Content warning: This episode contains some language and descriptions of torture and sexual assault.

Hosts: Erin Heim is one of OnScript's regular hosts, and she is also tutor in Biblical Studies at Wycliffe Hall in Oxford. She specialises mainly in Pauline literature, though she sometimes dabbles in theological interpretation of Scripture. Her latest book, Adoption in Galatians and Romans (Brill, 2017), was awarded the Manfred T. Lautenschlaeger Prize for Theological Promise. She's currently working on the Zondervan Critical Introduction to the New Testament volume on Galatians, and also the volume on Galatians for The Bible in God's World Commentary Series (Wipf & Stock).

Dru Johnson is an OnScript host, the director for the Center for Hebraic Thought, an associate professor of biblical and theological studies at The King's College, and finishing a book called Biblical Philosophy: An Hebraic Approach to the Old and New Testaments (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).

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Christopher Hays - Isaiah and Assyria

Episode: Christopher B. Hays sits down with Matt Lynch to discuss one of the most important and hotly contested sections of Isaiah. Among the only Old Testament texts to mention resurrection from the dead, Isaiah 24-27 have long perplexed and intrigued biblical scholars. In this episode, we talk about these texts and ... corn whisky, colonizing Mars, and other important subjects related to Chris' recent book.

Guest: Christopher Hays is D. Wilson Moore Chair of Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary. In 2013, he was one of ten scholars around the world to receive the Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise. Hays served as President of the Pacific Coast Region of Society of Biblical Literature in 2017-18. Hays is the author of Hidden Riches: A Textbook for the Comparative Study of the Old Testament and the Ancient Near East(Westminster John Knox, 2014) and Death in the Iron Age II and in First Isaiah (Forschungen zum Alten Testament 79; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011). He is writing the Isaiah commentary for the Old Testament Library series, having translated the book for the Common English Bible and written the entry on Isaiah for the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Books of the Bible. His most recent book and our topic for today is The Origins of Isaiah 24-27: Josiah's Festival Scroll for the Fall of Assyria (Cambridge, 2019). 

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Lincoln Harvey - Theology of Robert Jenson

Episode: In this episode we discuss Lincoln Harvey’s thrilling guide to the work of Robert W. Jenson (1930-2017). Jenson, arguably America’s most important theologian, is so because he thinks Jesus of Nazareth is always and for ever one of the Trinity. “Mary’s boy and Pilate’s victim” is the Father’s eternal Son, so there has never been an unfleshed Word. It follows from this that the God of the Gospel is much stranger than we imagine. Harvey’s book presents an astonishingly lucid and penetrating guide into Jenson’s remarkable proposal. Demonstrating Jenson’s signature moves, as well as his fundamental re-working of the dogmatic tradition, Harvey shows how only an evangelized metaphysics can make sense of the identity of Jesus Christ. Our discussion in this episode thus plunges into strange territory, raising odd questions and answers to such weighty matters as the nature of time, space, God’s act of creation, the centrality of Jesus, substance metaphysics and much more.

Guest: Dr Lincoln Harvey is Assistant Dean and Lecturer in Systematic Theology at St Mellitus College, UK. He has a PhD from King’s College, London, and is author of Jesus in the Trinity: A Beginner’s Guide to the Theology of Robert Jenson (2020) and A Brief Theology of Sport (2014). Lincoln has also edited two collections of essays, The Theology of Colin Gunton (2010) and Essays on the Trinity (2018).

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Sandra Richter - Stewards of Eden

Episode: Environmental lawyer Gus Speth said, "I used to think that the top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse, and climate change. I thought that thirty years of good science could address these problems. I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed, and apathy, and to deal with these we need a cultural and spiritual transformation. And we scientists don't know how to do that" (qtd Richter, 106). In this episode Matt L speaks with Prof Sandra Richter about the ways that Scripture lays the foundations for the kind of cultural and spiritual transformation that Speth identifies. She shows how the Bible, and especially the Old Testament, commends environmental stewardship, and challenges many contemporary practices, from food production and acquisition to Mountain Top Removal for coal mining, and military practices. This episode will provoke and challenge listeners to heed and take action to address the long environmental emergency that we currently face, and to see in Scripture a word of Edenic hope.  Our discussion is rooted in her recent book Stewards of Eden: What Scripture Says about the Environment and Why it Matters (IVP, 2020). 

Guest: Professor Richter is The Robert H. Gundry Chair of Biblical Studies at Westmont College in California. She has a Ph.D. from Harvard University, and is the author of several books, including The Epic of Eden: A Christian Entry into the Old Testament (IVP, 2010), The Deuteronomistic History and the Name Theology (de Gruyter, 2002). Her most recent book is Stewards of Eden: What Scripture Says about the Environment and Why it Matters (IVP, 2020).  She is writing commentaries on Deuteronomy and Isaiah, and has also written a series of Bible studies, with accompanying DVD's) for church groups with Seedbed.  

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Nyasha Junior - Reimagining Hagar: Blackness and the Bible

Episode: Nyasha Junior is back on the show to discuss her new book Reimagining Hagar: Blackness and the Bible. Matt Lynch hosts a discussion on race, ethnicity, and color in biblical interpretation. Taking the character of Hagar, Junior traces a fascinating and at times disturbing history of biblical interpretation on these themes, and helps readers (and listeners) untangle what is often confused. We also cover growing up with implicit segregation in Florida, the history of mosquitoes, book and music recommendations (like Stony the Road), and much more!

Guest: Nyasha Junior has a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary, and is Associate Professor of Religion at Temple University, Philadelphia.  She will be visiting faculty at Harvard University in the 2020-2021 academic year. She is the author of Womanist Biblical Interpretation (WJK Press) and Reimagining Hagar: Blackness and Bible (OUP), discussed in this episode.  She has a new book coming out this year, co-authored with Jeremy Schipper, called Black Samson: The Untold Story of an American Icon (OUP). Her public facing scholarship has been featured in The Washington Post, Inside Higher Ed, Religion and Politics, and other media outlets. To learn more about Nyasha, check out her website.  

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Christian Hofreiter - Making Sense of Old Testament Genocide

Episode: In this re-run of a 2018 episode, Matt Lynch interviews Christian Hofreiter (RZIM) on one of the most vexed issues in biblical studies ... genocide in the Old Testament. Christian Hofreiter has been pondering this question for a long time, and has written a groundbreaking work on the subject - Making Sense of Old Testament Genocide: Christian Interpretations of Herem Passages (Oxford University Press, 2018).

Guest: (from the RZIM site) The Revd Dr Christian Hofreiter is Director of RZIM Austria, Germany and Switzerland, the Zacharias Institut für Wissenschaft, Kultur und Glaube, a Research Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics, and, most recently, the author of Making Sense of Old Testament Genocide: Christian Interpretations of Herem Passages (Oxford University Press, 2018). A native of Austria, he has studied, lived and worked in Innsbruck, Brussels, London, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, and Oxford, and now lives with his family in Vienna, Austria.

From 2008-2012, Christian served with the Oxford Pastorate as a chaplain to the graduate student body at Oxford University, working closely with senior academics, leaders of various churches, and a broad variety of students. An ordained Anglican minister, he was also a member of the leadership team at St Aldates Church, Oxford.

In addition, Christian studied theology at Oxford University, earning three degrees (MA, MSt, DPhil), winning several prizes and scholarships, and gaining the top first class award in 2008. His doctoral research focused on the Christian interpretation of “genocide texts” in the Old Testament.

Before arriving in Oxford, Christian worked in a government relations firm in Washington, DC, which represented the interests of foreign governments and other clients to the United States Congress and Administration, and also served as deacon at the Church of the Resurrection on Capitol Hill.

Book: Making Sense of Old Testament Genocide: Christian Interpretations of Herem Passages (Oxford University Press, 2018) takes an historical look at how Christians through the centuries have addressed, wrestled with, and re-interpreted the 'herem' passages in the Old Testament. Herem is the practice of devoting people or objects to destruction (or removing them from use) at the behest of a deity. Hofreiter provides a critically rich and illuminating tour of the history of Christian engagement with these challenging biblical passages. ***For a 30% discount on the book, use the promo code AAFLYG6 on the global website (oup.com)***

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Fleming Rutledge – A Fireside Chat on The Crucifixion, Advent, and Preaching

Episode: In this episode, Erin hosts Fleming Rutledge for a fireside chat before a live audience at Wycliffe Hall, University of Oxford. Listen as Fleming shares pearls of wisdom from her decades of ministry as a preacher and a writer.

Guest: Fleming Rutledge was ordained to the diaconate in the Episcopal church in 1975, and was one of the first women to be ordained to the priesthood of the Episcopal Church in January 1977. She holds an MDiv from Union Theological Seminary, and has been awarded two honorary Doctor of Divinity degrees, from Virginia Theological Seminary and Wycliffe College in the University of Toronto.  Since then she has had a lengthy career in ministry (she served in parish ministry for 19 years), and as an author, speaker, and teacher of other preachers. She has twice been a Fellow in residence at Princeton Seminary’s Center of Theological Inquiry, and she is invited regularly to preach in prominent pulpits in the United States and abroad.

Rutledge is the author of numerous books, including Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus (Eerdmans, 2018) Christ (her self-professed favourite), and The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ (Eerdmans, 2015), which was the winner of Christianity Today’s book of the year award in 2017.

In his forward to her first book, The Bible and the New York Times (Eerdmans, 1998), William Willimon remarks that Fleming Rutledge, “does not want just to speak to our world; she wants to change it. She wants to reorder our time, to reconfigure our year into the church’s year of grace…Is this preacher conservative? Feminist? Evangelical? Liturgical? Fleming Rutledge challenges our conventional labels. I believe the word for which we’re groping to describe her is Biblical.”