Month: December 2014

Top 5 Posts in 2014

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I have very much enjoyed my first year of blogging and even more being part of the blogosphere community! So thanks to all who have taken the time to read this blog and especially to those who have encouraged me along the way.

For the last Monday of the year, I thought it would be appropriate to provide links to my 5 most popular posts from 2014. For links to other “top posts in 2014” posts, see here.

1. Jens Schröter on the character of every historical (re)presentation – with special guests Chris Keith and Anthony Le Donne

2. Hengel and Schwemer on Historiography and the Messianic Claim of Jesus: with special guests Jens Schröter and Dale Allison

3. Gerd Theissen’s Critique of the New Perspective on Paul

4. Always Choose the Stronger Word and Beware of False Friends: A Translator’s Memories of Martin Hengel (1926-2009) and John Bowden (1935-2010)

5. Volker Rabens, “‘Schon jetzt’ und ‘noch mehr’: Gegenwart und Zukunft des Heils bei Paulus und in seinen Gemeinden” (JBTh 2013)

Other popular authors-topics-series included Schröter/Historiography, Schröter/Jesus of Nazareth, Käsemann-Baur-Lincicum, Frey/John, Schliesser/Pistis, Markschies/Theology-Institutions-Canon, Wolter/Quirinius, Wischmeyer/Bibelhermeneutik,  Bultmann-Käsemann/Righteousness,  Koch/Septuagint, Jüngel/Love, Konradt/Matthew, Paulus Handbuch Series, German Scholars Series.

I wish everyone a great 2015!

For three interviews with me about the BMSEC series, see here, here, and here.

For a complete list of my blog posts, please see here.

For tips on how to use this blog, please see here.

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German Mondays: Thank you for making it to the end of this blog post! Unfortunately, I have found it increasingly difficult to write a new post each Monday, but I hope to be able to write at least two or three Monday blog posts each month. We’ll see. Best, Wayne.

Matthias Konradt on Jesus as Son of God by Birth and Son of David by Adoption

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In today’s post I will share another key quotation from this year’s BMSEC volume, namely Matthias Konradt‘s book Israel, Church, and the Gentiles in the Gospel of Matthew, which has been translated with great precision and elegance by Kathleen Ess. For my other posts on this book, see here. 

Since it is nearly Christmas, I have chosen a quotation from Konradt’s discussion of Matthew 1, and since it is rather long, I have decided to forgo my usual grammatical analysis. (For a related post on Romans 1.4, see Chris Tilling/Tom Wright here; cf. also Jens Schröter, From Jesus to the New Testament, p. 233, which compares Rom 1:3-4 and Acts 13.32-34, and Michael Wolter, The Gospel According to Luke, which develops a similar line of argument as Konradt in relation to Luke 1.32).

Israel, Church, and the Gentiles in the Gospel of Matthew (p. 28-29; trans. K. Ess): With the correlation of Jesus’ divine and Davidic heritage that comes to light here—Jesus is, so to speak, the Son of God by birth, and the Son of David by “adoption”—Matthew is to be distinguished from other such correlations found in early Christian texts. In the Jewish-Christian tradition behind Rom 1.3-4, Jesus’ double sonship appears to be fixed in a two-level Christology, in which Jesus’ earthly mission is linked with his status as the Son of David, while his status as the Son of God is connected with his exaltation in the resurrection. Similarly, in conjunction with a quotation from Ps 2.7, Acts 13.33-34 (cf. Acts 13.23) links Jesus the Son of David’s divine sonship with his resurrection. In Ps 2.7 itself, God accepts as his son the king who sits on the throne of David in the sense of an “adoption” procedure (cf. Ps 89.27-28; 2 Sam 7.14). In Matt 1, however, we see an inversion of this process: rather than Jesus the Son of David being adopted as the Son of God, Jesus the Son of God is adopted as the Son of David. The status as Son of God, which expresses Jesus’ unique proximity to and affinity with God, takes precedence and appears as the overarching identity of Jesus. This appears, at first glance, to confirm Kingsbury’s approach. But Matthew does not thereby seek to diminish the value of the status as Son of David. Matthew 1 does not intend to express that Jesus is the Son of God and not just a son of David. Rather, the emphasis here lies on the assertion that Jesus the Son of God is integrated into the history of God’s promises to Israel and first makes his appearance as the Son of David—that is, he first has to fulfill the task that is assigned to him as the messianic Son of David. In other words, with the motif of the Davidic sonship, the fulfillment of the promises of salvation given to Israel emerges already in Matt 1 as a principal aspect of Jesus’ mission. One fundamentally misses the point of Matthew’s conception if the significance of Jesus’ divine sonship is pitted against that of his Davidic sonship. Indeed, already in Matt 1, the two sonships are positively correlated, whereby Matthew, as we have seen, takes up and modifies the Old Testament and Early Jewish tradition. At the same time, the inversion of the process of adoption goes hand in hand with the fact that Jesus’ status as the Son of God encompasses other and more extensive aspects than his Davidic sonship. The second framing text (22.41-46), where Jesus’ two sonships are again made the central theme, suggests this very idea. On the other hand, we must remain mindful of the fact that both titles form one conceptual nexus: behind Jesus’ appearance as Son of David lies his dignity and majesty as the Son of God, and conversely, the earthly ministry of the Son of God is centrally defined by the task assigned to him as the Davidic Messiah.

Israel, Kirche und die Völker im Matthäusevangelium (p. 30): Mit der hier zutage tretenden Zuordnung von Gottes- und Davidssohnschaft Jesu—Jesus is sozusagen von Geburt an Sohn Gottes, während er zum Sohn Davids durch Adoption wird—unterscheidet sich Matthäus von anderen Zuordnungen, die in frühchristlichen Texten griefbar sind. So erscheinen Davids- und Gottessohnschaft Jesu in der Röm 1,3f zugrunde liegenden judenchristlichen Tradition in eine Zweistufenchristologie eingespannt, in der Jesu irdisches Wirken unter dem Vorzeichen seiner Davidssohnschaft steht, während seine Gottessohnschaft mit seiner Erhöhung bei der Auferstehung verbunden erscheint. Ähnlich verknüpft Apg 13,33f im Zusammenhang einer Zitation von Ps 2,7 die Gottessohnschaft des Davidssohns Jesu (vgl. Apg 13,23) mit dessen Auferweckung. Blickt man auf Ps 2,7 selbst, so geht es hier darum, dass Gott den König auf dem Throne Davids im Sinne eines Adoptionsvorgangs als seinen Sohn annimmt (cf. Ps 89, 27f; 2Sam 7,14). In Mt 1 liegt dagegen ein umgekehrter Vorgang vor: Nicht der Davidssohn Jesus wird als Gottesohn adoptiert, sondern der Gottessohn Jesus als Davidssohn. Die Gottessohnschaft, die Jesu einzigartige Nähe zu und Verbundenheit mit Gott zum Ausdruck bringt, geht voran und erscheint als übergreifende Identität Jesu. Dies scheint prima facie Kingsburys Ansatz zu bestätigen. Aber Matthäus sucht damit gerade nicht die Davidssohnschaft abzuwerten. Aussageintention von Mt 1 ist nicht, dass Jesus nicht bloß Daviddsohn, sondern Gottessohn ist. Der Ton liegt hier vielmehr darauf, dass der Gottessohn Jesus in die Verheißungsgeschichte Gottes mit Israel eingestellt wird und zunächst wesentlich als Davidssohn, d.h. in seiner ihm als Davidssohn zukommenden Aufgabe in Erscheinung tritt. Anders gesagt: Mit dem Motiv der Davidssohnschaft lässt schon Mt 1 die Erfüllung der Israel gegebenen Heilsverheißungen als zentrales Moment der Sendung Jesu hervortreten. Man verfehlt Matthäus’ Konzeption grundegend, wenn man die Bedeutung von Davids- und Gottessohnschaft gegeneinander ausspielt. Schon in Mt 1 sind sie vielmehr positiv einander zugeordnet, womit Matthäus, wie gesehen, alttestamentlich-frühjüdische Tradition modifiziert aufnimmt. Davon bleibt unbenommen, dass die Inversion des Adoptionsvorgang damit einhergeht, dass die Gottessohnschaft Jesu noch andere und weiterreichende Aspekte umfasst als die Davidsohnschaft. Der zweite ‘Rahmentext’ 22,41-46, in dem Davids- und Gottessohnschaft Jesu erneut gemeinsam thematisiert werden, deuten ebendies an. Umgekehrt ist aber eben nicht weniger zu beachten, dass beide Titel einen konzeptionellen Zusammenhang bilden: Hinter Jesu Auftreten als Davidsohn steht seine Würde als Gottessohn, und umgekehrt ist das irdische Wirken des Gottessohn zentral durch die ihm als davidischem Messias zukommende Aufgabe bestimmt.

Substantive analysis

I like three things about this quotation. First, I think Konradt convincingly points out that in Matthew Jesus the Son of God is “adopted” as Son of David rather than vice versa. Secondly, I think he effectively shows both the problem with pitting the two sonships against each other and the value of fleshing out the particular associations of each sonship. Finally, while giving proper attention to the distinctive aspects of each sonship, I think Konradt rightly stresses the fact that the two titles belong to one conceptual nexus, so that they must be held together and allowed to mutually inform each other.

Facebook Page: To receive notifications of future blog posts, please subscribe to this blog and/or like my facebook page here.

For a complete list of my blog posts, please see here.

For tips on how to use this blog, please see here.

German Mondays: Thank you for making it to the end of this blog post! Unfortunately, I have found it increasingly difficult to write a new post each Monday, but I hope to be able to write at least two or three Monday blog posts each month. We’ll see. Best, Wayne.

Eberhard Jüngel: Love is Still Able to be Intensified

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As a preface to today’s post, let me note that I have recently discovered five promising German resources, which may also be of interest to readers of this blog: (1) In July 2015 the Johannes Guttenberg Universität Mainz will be hosting an International Summerschool on German (and) Theology; (2) the Conversational Koine Institute has announced that it will be offering a new Conversational German Class; (3)  the Goethe Institut has recently launched an online game entitled Lern Deutsch; (4) Alexander Sager has started a new blog on raising children bilingually, (5) finally, some German TV recommendations can be found here.

Today’s key quotation is taken from a recent interview with Eberhard Jüngel, which my friend Jay Weldon kindly drew to my attention.

German Text

Ich wende mich gegen eine Rede vom Jenseits, in dem alles “totaliter aliter”, in dem alles total anders ist. Dann müsste man ja schweigen. Das ist aber nicht die Einstellung der Heiligen Schrift. Hier greift das Modell der Analogie: Nicht “totaliter aliter”, wohl aber wird es “aliter”, also anders sein. Aber wie? Es gibt schon hier auf der Erde das Phänomen der Liebe in unterschiedlichster Gestalt. Weh dem Menschen, der das nie erfährt. Die Liebe, die uns widerfährt, wenn wir Gott von Angesicht zu Angesicht sehen, ist auch Liebe – aber gesteigert. Es gibt Phänomene hier in Gottes Schöpfung, die sind in der Ewigkeit steigerungsfähig: Lieben, Loben, Danken, Gemeinschaft.

English Translation

I am opposed to a speech about the beyond in which everything is “totaliter aliter“, in which everything is totally different. Then one would actually have to be silent. But this is not the outlook of Holy Scripture. Here the model of analogy comes into play: Not “totaliter aliter“, but it will be “aliter“, i.e. different. But how? There exists already here on earth the phenomenon of love in the most different forms. Woe to the person who has never experienced this. The love that befalls us when we we see God face to face is also love—but intensified. There are phenomena here in God’s creation that are able to be intensified in eternity: love, praise, thanksgiving, fellowship.

Selective grammatical analysis

For Jenseits I went with “the beyond” rather than “the hereafter”, since the latter shifts the force from place to time. In the second sentence I considered leaving ja untranslated but decided to render it with “actually’, which is hopefully on target. In sentence three I struggled with Einstellung and settled on “outlook” rather than “attitude” or “mindset”. I was uncertain how to render greift but opted for “comes into play”, which hopefully captures the sense. I am often uncertain about the force of wohl: sometimes it means “probably” but sometimes it seems to have a strengthening force so that the meaning is something like “surely”; I think the latter may be the case here, but I decided to leave it untranslated since the force was somewhat unclear to me. Though Gestalt is singular it seemed necessary to write “in the most different forms”. I was not exactly sure how to render das, which I translated as “this”, in the phrase der das nie erfährt. I am not sure if I have made the best choice in the translation of the key word gesteigert/steigerungsfähig: I settled on “intensified”/”able to be intensified”, but perhaps another alternative would be better such as “increased”/”able to be increased”? I chose to render Gemeinschaft with “fellowship”, though “community” might be preferable here.

Substantive analysis

I like this quotation, which I think conveys well something of the manner and content of Jüngel’s thinking. It allows one’s hopes for the world to come to extend beyond what one knows and experiences in this life, while connecting it to the best of what we experience in God’s good creation.

For more on Eberhard Jüngel, see here.

Facebook Page: To receive notifications of future blog posts, please subscribe to this blog and/or like my facebook page here.

For a complete list of my blog posts, please see here.

For tips on how to use this blog, please see here.

German Mondays: Thank you for making it to the end of this blog post! Unfortunately, I have found it increasingly difficult to write a new post each Monday, but I hope to be able to write at least two or three Monday blog posts each month. We’ll see. Best, Wayne.