The T & T Clark Blog

An Interview with Adam Kotsko

Adam Robinson has posted an Interview with Adam Kotsko on his blog. Adam is the author of Zizek and Theology in our Philosophy and Theology Series. 

Great interview, Adam!    

Margaret Barker on Temple Music

The new Temple Studies Group met for their second symposium on Saturday, most appropriately at London's Temple Church. The subject of the day was "Temple Music". Here is the paper Margaret Barker gave at the symposium. Enjoy!  

 

 

Margaret Barker on Temple Music

 

Music was an important element in temple worship, but it was also controversial.  There was something about temple music that was not acceptable to those who changed the ways of the temple in the seventh century BCE, the time of King Josiah.  Piecing together the other elements that were purged or discouraged, a picture emerges of the role of music in the temple which is consistent over many centuries, a role that passed into the Church. . 

There are two accounts of the temple in the Old Testament, both compiled after the time of Josiah, and both drawing on ancient source material.  One account, in the books of Samuel and Kings, was written by a group who based themselves on the characteristic teachings of Deuteronomy, a puritanical group who thought that both temple and monarchy were a departure from their people’s desert origins; and the other account, in the books of Chronicles-Ezra and Nehemiah, was written by a priestly group who favoured both monarchy and temple. 

When the Deuteronomists described David bringing the ark to Jerusalem (2 Sam.6), they mentioned musicians in the procession - but no names were given - and said that the ark was set in its tent, David offered sacrifices and blessed the people, and there was a feast.  The priestly account, however, (1 Chron.15-16) describes in detail a procession of named Levites singing, accompanied by named musicians playing cymbals, harps, and lyres, and by named priests blowing trumpets.  Did they possess, centuries after the event, records of temple musicians? 

 

Marilynne Robinson wins Orange Prize for Fiction 2009

I red with great joy that Marilynne Robinson was awarded the 2009 Orange Prize for Fiction in a ceremony yesterday evening at London's Royal Festival Hall (actually just a stone's throw from our offices!). This was for her new novel Home which revisits places and characters of her earlier novel Gilead. 

Well, none of them was published by us, obviously, but I must admit that I cannot think of a novel from the past four of five years that I found so deeply moving and at the same time so unashamedly theological as "Gilead". Stanley Hauerwas has dubbed it the "first Barthian novel" as you can read in Ben Myers' fine review. 

Here is what the Guardian writes about the event:     

"Fi Glover, the broadcaster who chaired this year's judging panel, admitted the decision had been straightforward and unanimous. Home, Robinson's beautifully crafted exploration of family relationships and redemption, was the easy winner from the six shortlisted books, she said. "All of the judges brought a couple of books to the table which they thought were definitely the contenders and Home was in all of our choices. We were in agreement."

I was also intrigued by this passage:

"Readers were desperate for more but Robinson did not return to fiction for 24 years, winning a Pulitzer prize for Gilead five years ago. In between she wrote a polemical book about the British nuclear industry and a book of essays on such unfashionable subjects as theology and Calvinism."

Unfashionable subjects, well...

Robert D Hughes is awarded Poullart Libermann Award

We congratulate Robert D .Hughes III one being awarded the inaugural Poullart Libermann Award in Pneumatology for his book Beloved Dust: Tides of the Spirit in the Christian Life.

The Poullart Libermann Award in Pneumatology honors the individual who has made the most significant scholarly contribution to the area of pneumatology in the preceding five year period. The award will be presented at the Holy Spirit Lecture and Colloquium where Hughes has also been asked to present a lecture on a theme from the book.

Beloved Dust takes a realistic and contemporary view of human being as entirely physical (dust) and then shows it immersed in three great tides of the Holy Spirit, the traditional threefold rhythm of conversion, transfiguration, and glory.

Denis Hurley - A Brief Biography

 

This is a guest post by Paddy Kearney, a long time confederate and friend of Archbishop Denis Hurley. His book Guardian of the Light is available in the US and will publish in the UK in June. 

"Denis Eugene Hurley was undoubtedly the most significant Catholic leader in South Africa during the twentieth century. Appointed bishop one year before the National Party came to power in 1948, he retired as archbishop in 1992, two years before the Nationalists ceased to be the ruling party, when the country’s first democratically elected government came to power.

Hurley had a profound effect upon the Church’s struggle against apartheid and played a major role in the process of renewing the Catholic Church through the Second Vatican Council (1962 – 1965). Tall and impressive, he was an eloquent speaker, years ahead of his time not only in his views on South Africa’s racial problems, but also on the reforms needed in the Catholic Church. His outspoken views on taboo subjects such as birth control, married priests and the ordination of women are thought to have prevented his being chosen as a cardinal, though many thought him eminently qualified. As a young matriculant in the early 1930s, Hurley shared the typical racial prejudices of white people of the day. He was a solid supporter of the British Empire and thought Mahatma Gandhi was spoiling things by his opposition to British rule in India. Gradually his attitudes changed as he opened himself to new ideas and admitted the inadequacies of his earlier thinking. He was always a keen learner, even in old age. While studying for the priesthood in Rome, he was strongly attracted to the Church’s social teaching, though initially only in an academic and cerebral way.

The official Church was nervous of anything that smacked of activism or revolution; Hurley seemed to reflect that nervousness. In his first assignment as a curate at Durban’s Emmanuel Cathedral in the early 1940s, immediately after his priestly studies and return to South Africa, he was a cautious young man. Though excited by attending a meeting about the establishment of black trade unions, he accepted the advice of older priests that this was not the sort of thing in which a priest should involve himself.

BBC4 "In our Time" on Saint Paul

Just in case you have missed it this morning: BBC Radio 4 had an interesting discussion on Saint Paul in their "In our Time" programme this morning. It will on air again at 9.30pm this evening.

Melvyn Bragg is joined by two T&T Clark authors: Helen Bond and John Barclay.

You can also listen to the programme online.

In Our Time on St. Paul

Enjoy!

Church Dogmatics Study Edition: Prefaces

 

Dear all,

there has been some discussion going on in the blogosphere about the new Study Edition of the Church Dogmatics. Ben Myers had a very friendly post on his blog about the new set. The main criticism was that the prefaces and forewords both by the editors of the old set and by Karl Barth himself were not included in the new Study Edition.

In response to this we will make all prefaces available as pdf-files to all who have bought the Study Edition. In order to get access to the website, please send the postcard back to us which you had in the set or go to www.continuumbooks.com/dogmatics to register for the update service. You will then receive an email with a password which will give you access to the forewords (and eventually to the indexes for all individual volumes).

   

Review: Signs of God's Promise

 The International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church has published a review of Gordon Jeanes' book on Thomas Cranmer, Signs of God's Promise by Bridget Nichols:  

"This book has been impatiently awaited by those who have encountered it at earlier stages of its evolution. Their reward is a study of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer’s developing sacramental theology that is likely to take its place as a definitive account, if it is legitimate to speak in those terms of such a fiercely contested subject.

Through much of his career, Cranmer seems to have been engaged in a quest to define the nature of a sacrament and what it signifies. Jeanes picks up the trail in the late 1530s, drawing on an awe-inspiring range of material. Discussion of contemporary documents, including the anonymous, but probably Cranmerian treatise, De Sacramentis (which the author has edited), ancient sources, a large corpus of secondary literature (some of it usefully re-examined) and very recent publications ensures an invaluable presentation of the current state of research. Here, we see the beginnings of the Archbishop’s commitment to a sacramental theology that keeps both dominical sacraments in view. Indeed, it is Jeanes’s contention throughout that Cranmer’s thinking on baptism and the Eucharist was closely interlinked. In particular, his understanding of consecration, sacramental grace and growth in the Christian life involve parity between the major symbolic components – bread, wine and water – as well as between eating and drinking at the Eucharist, and the application of water in baptism.

Humanity in the Mystery of God

 

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Although this volume has already been mentioned on our blog, I think it would be good to draw your attention to it once again. One of the reasons for me writing about Jennifer Cooper’s work is its publication date – yes, it will be out this summer. The second reason for my mentioning Humanity in the Mystery of God is an attempt to whet your appetites with endorsements it has received.

Herwi Rikhof, Mary Catherine Hilkert and Fergus Kerr, figures well known to all interested in Systematic Theology, have written very commendable reviews of this volume:

‘Stories of the part that Edward Schillebeeckx played as a backroom theologian at the Second Vatican Council, and then his equally controversial reconstruction of Christology on the basis of recent biblical studies, have overshadowed the first phase of his work, which culminated in his book 'Christ the Sacrament', now brought to light and back on to the agenda in this lucidly written and scholarly book by Dr Jennifer Cooper: a very welcome contribution.’ – Fergus Kerr, School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh, UK.

‘Jennifer Cooper’s book is a pleasant surprise. It provides us with the anthropology Schillebeeckx never wrote. And, perhaps more importantly, it challenges the picture, often encountered in the secondary literature, of rupture and discontinuity in Schillebeeckx’ thinking before and after the Second Vatican Council. While rereading after some years Christ the Sacrament, I was struck by the deep similarity with Jesus: an experiment. Cooper’s analyses of questions of method and content have confirmed my impression. Precisely this continuity may well force us to rethink the easy and lazy distinction between conservative and progressive.’ – Herwi Rikhof, Faculty of Catholic Theology, Tilburg University, The Netherlands

‘In an astute analysis of the early writings of Edward Schillebeeckx on revelation, grace, incarnation, and resurrection, Jennifer Cooper identifies an important recurring anthropological theme: at the core of the mystery of human lives and relationships is the mystery of God. This volume makes a valuable contribution not only to an understanding of Schillebeeckx’s thought and to the history of theology in the twentieth century, but also to the field of theological anthropology.’ - Mary Catherine Hilkert, University of Notre Dame, IN, USA

Paul and the Dynamics of Power - Another Endorsement!

Just last week Dominic has announced the publication in paperback of Kathy Ehrensperger’s volume on Paul and what a great welcome it has received from scholarship!

I would like to draw your attention to another commendation of this volume, by Derek R. Brown, which has been published in the Expository Times:

‘In Paul and the Dynamics of Power, Ehrensperger’s focus is ‘the network of power within early Christianity’ rather than ‘power’ terminology or an ethics of power in Paul. In listening in on the early Christians’ conversation on power, Ehrensperger hopes to ‘stimulate and illuminate contemporary conversations’ on the dynamics of power in churches and societies (p.13). In the end, she contends that ‘the exercise of power within the early Christ-movement was guided by the Scriptures and the Christ-event’ and intended to empower others for a life of ‘response-ability’ to the call of God (p.15).

Following an overview of the contours of contemporary thought on power (chap 2), Ehresnperger addresses the relationship between power and networking in early Christianity (chap 3). She argues that Paul’s ‘discourse of grace’ was not a form of dominating power but rather a subversive one aimed at mutual empowerment (chap 4). Paul’s understanding of the authority and function of apostleship is then addressed (chaps 5 and 6). Ehrensperger next turns to Paul’s exercise of ‘transformative power’ as a teacher within his churches, a role which she argues was intended to teach the early Christians about Christ’s life (chaps 7 and 8) and empower them for a life of ‘response-ability’ (chap 9). Ehrensperger concludes by suggesting that this discourse of power is only made possible by trust which is rooted in the Scriptures and the character of God (chap 10).

Ehrensperger’s study is an excellent (re)consideration of the Pauline exercise of power in light of contemporary thought. Impressively, she takes seriously both the historical context of the early church and the language and concepts of recent studies on power (e.g. Derrida, Arendt and Foucault). The result is a well-balanced reading of the Pauline discourse of power which will benefit those interested in the social dynamics of early Christianity and Paul in general.’ – Derek R. Brown, School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh, UK

Paul and the Dynamics of Power is available to customers in the UK now and the customers in the US will be able to purchase this volume in July 2009.