More books!
"Opening Israel's Scriptures" by Ellen F. Davis
I had to use interlibrary loan to get my hands on this tome, which I'd been wanting to read after going through Davis's book "Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible" last year. It's a collection of 36 essays about the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), going through book by book and focusing on cultural context, history of the manuscripts, literary aspects, and theology. As a scholar and theologian, Davis brings a powerful perspective in each essay, often honing in on the most "problematic" parts of each book and covering a range of ways to interpret or understand them.
I particularly appreciated her essay about the book of Joshua: the story of the conquest of Canaan, how it was used to justify colonialism and genocide, the lack of archaeological evidence that the conquest ever happened, how the original audience (Hebrew exiles in Babylon) might have understood it, and an extended treatise on the ancient Near Eastern genre of conquest literature— and how the book of Joshua continually subverts the conventions of that style. Also excellent was her examination of the startlingly violent and nearly pornographic metaphors in the book of Ezekiel, a subject of hot debate among scholars and theologians alike (you'll have to go read the book, but her argument is that the Babylonian exiles, many of whom had witnessed the violence and rape of being conquered firsthand, were given a way of reframing their conflict so that they were not the victims of a conquering kingdom, but opponents of God in a personal battle of obedience and disobedience, therefore giving them a sense of agency and power).
Reading this book reminded me of how much I enjoy really digging into theology and scholarship, particularly learning about historical context, literary genres, and alternate hermeneutics. I'd been introduced to many of these ideas in passing in other books, so it was good to sit down with an Oxford-University-Press tome and read a thoroughly-researched book that helps me imagine different ways of reading the Bible. If you like this kind of thing and can get your hands on a copy, I highly recommend it.
This book was another homework assignment from my counselor, since the vast majority of my problems in life stem from a lack of boundaries. To be honest, I found the writing itself to be annoying, particularly the author's way of ramrodding out-of-context Bible verses into every other paragraph. With that said, though, the book's techniques for processing situations, analyzing the boundary problems associated with them, and figuring out what to do next were really helpful to me; they gave me language and solid footing for beginning to establish and honor my own inner and outer boundaries. If you struggle with boundaries and you don't mind some Christianese, it's a good starting point.
Sarah Bessey is a darling of the deconstruction movement, and it's easy to see why: she is open, honest, raw, and refreshingly charismatic; reading her work makes me fall in love with the Holy Spirit in ways I didn't know I needed to. This memoir covers the span of time through a life-changing car accident, a trip to Rome to meet the Pope, a miraculous healing, and a diagnosis of chronic illness, and how she experienced God in ways and places she never expected to.
I hadn't read any of Bessey's works before, and since this is her most recent memoir, I felt as if I was jumping into the middle of her story, making me wish that I had backtracked and read her books in order. After reading this book I became a paid subscriber to her articles on Substack (sort of like Patreon) because I really appreciate her perspective, the wholehearted way she embraces mystery, and her radiant love for God, Jesus, and the Spirit. I highly recommend this book, and look forward to reading more of her books in the future.
This book explores the ways that we as humans try to position ourselves in relation to God— over God, under God, for God, and from God— and the author's argument that the healthiest and best way is none of these, but a fifth preposition: "with." (I'm a sucker for grammatically-organized arguments, and so the book being divided into sections by preposition soothed some obsessive part of my brain.) Although I don't necessarily agree with everything in the book, I found a lot of wisdom in his arguments, and particularly related to the chapters focusing on living "for" God, as this is the trap that I fall into most often. A pretty quick, thought-provoking read for Christians.
Others in this series:
~~~
No comments:
Post a Comment