The T & T Clark Blog

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.

John 1-4 ICC

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Earlier this week we received advance copies for the latest volume in our International Critical Commentary series, John 1-4 by the late John McHugh.

I must admit to feeling a sliver of emotion about this. It is the first ICC which has been published during my time at Continuum, and I had the great privilege [I won't say pleasure, as it was fairly complicated] of preparing the manuscript to be handed over to our ever-excellent production team.

The publication of a commentary of this depth is always going to be momentous in its own way. Looking back through the files on John 1-4 displays years of correspondence between editors and the author - indeed the book has outlived [in terms of their time with T&T Clark] quite a number of editors. There is a great pleasure and privilege to seeing a book in print which the author has been working on for a great number of years, in which each word is considered with the utmost care. This, I'd hazard, is perhaps something which is at its most pronounced in a commentary on an ancient [or I suppose in the case of John not so ancient, but certainly old!] text.

Professor Charles Cranfield, an Editor of the ICC series has provided a preface to this volume, which introduces it far better than I ever could. I paste it below:

"John Mc Hugh was surely one of the most learned and able New Testament scholars of the latter part of the 20^th century and the first years of the 21^st.For some years a member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, he had a worldwide reputation. The great wealth of his learning was matched by penetrating insight, originality and clarity of mind. He was, I think, exceptionally well prepared to undertake the especially formidable task of writing a full-scale commentary on John's Gospel. It is a matter of profound regret that he did not live to complete it.

 

John was a splendid colleague, who could always be relied on to give wise counsel. Always generous in his readiness to assist other scholars, he sometimes allowed his altruism to hold up the progress of his own work. He was greatly appreciated by the students who heard his lectures, and those who had tutorials with him were specially privileged.

 

In addition to his knowledge of the Bible, of Rabbinic writings and of the Qumran texts, he had a wonderful familiarity with classical Greek and Latin literature, with mediaeval Latin, with a wide range of English and other literatures. He was fluent in a number of European languages. He had a notable feeling for language, which is reflected in the clarity and felicitousness of his own English style.

 

John McHugh had a keen realization of the need for theologians to be concerned about politics. He was always well informed about current affairs, and cared deeply for justice and compassion. He was, for example, deeply concerned about the injustices suffered by the Palestinians since 1948, though he was never forgetful of the sufferings of the Jews in the 1930s and 1940s or lacking in compassion for them.

 

He was a wonderful friend and a shining example of what it means to be a faithful Christian pastor."

 

Charles Cranfield, Emeritus Professor of Theology, University of Durham, UK

Paul and the Dynamics of Power

It is a great pleasure to announce the publication in paperback of Kathy Ehrensperger's book Paul and the Dynamics of Power.

The book was originally part of our LNTS series and did very well in hardback. In response the clamouring voices demanding a paperback for course use, we have issued this edition which includes a few brief revisions made by Kathy. The endorsements on the back cover of the book describe it very well;

‘This is a beautifully written and immensely stimulating book, with which every serious student of Paul ought to engage. One of its greatest merits is to show that even asymmetrical power relationships are not necessarily relationships of domination/subordination, nor temporally permanent, nor lacking in mutuality and interdependence. Not only might this encourage a rethinking of our images of Paul; it also represents a challenge for Christian life and practice within contemporary Church and society.’

Ian Boxall St Stephen’s House, Oxford, UK

'Ehrensperger’s Paul and the Dynamics of Power is the kind of book that appears once in a decade. From page one, it is exciting, well-defined in terms of its limits, but wide-ranging in its research’

Robert L. Brawley, Professor of New Testament Emeritus, McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago, USA

‘This is an excellent book for New Testament courses in Paul and in hermeneutics. Courses in Paul need to be engaging these contemporary approaches and this book provides an excellent and accessible discussion.’

Warren Carter, Professor of New Testament, Brite Divinity School, Fort Worth, Texas, USA

‘In the Pauline letters what we encounter is not a discourse of domination but of empowerment for life. Ehrensperger's insight emerges as the result of a careful and methodologically reflective reading of Pauline texts embedding them in Paul’s Jewish context under the conditions of the Roman Empire. This book is a milestone in the contemporary debate about liberating Paul.’

Professor Luise Schottroff, Professor of New Testament, University of Kassel, Germany

The paperback is available in the UK now and in the US in a couple of months.

Out of Exile - Biblical Studies update

The T&T Clark blog has been a little quiet of late, a fact which I deeply regret. This is largely because a lot of very exciting things have been happening and we simply haven't had time to tell you all about them. So, I thought I would give a little round-up of exciting sign-ups, manuscripts in [yes, some of our authors do finish their books on time] and books published, before giving a few 'stand alone' posts on books published.

Sign Ups

I am delighted to have signed up a new trade book from Henry Wansbrough,  the book 'The Use and Abuse of the Bible' looks at how the bible has been received and interpreted over the centuries. It's core market is really going to be 'interested lay-people' but if you are running a course on reception history, biblical interpretation this may well prove a good and pithy introduction.

Click here for more info

Equally exciting is a book on the infancy narratives entitled 'New Perspectives on the Nativity' which features contributions from Warren Carter, John Kaltner, Tom O'Loughlin and Ann Loades. The book gives a bit of an update on scholarship since Raymond E. Brown's magnificent work on the subject, and goes on to give new perspectives on these wonderful narratives in the New Testament. The manuscript has been a rare gift to publishers, in that it's here already, and we will be able to publish in September in the UK. It will, of course, be the perfect Christmas present. Expect more details soon.

Finally, in terms of sign-ups I want to mention a new commentary on Job, from a psychological standpoint. It is by Jeffrey Boss who was formerly Senior Lecturer in Physiology at the University of Bristol. The book is the result of many years of private research. John Barton, of Oriel College, Oxford says of the work; "I've been involved in discussion with Dr Boss over a number of years about his work on Job. The work is scholarly and very learned, and advances a distinctive position. He has worked on it over a long period of time and refined many of the arguments in the process". It's brilliant to have a new commentary on Job. Again, expect more details soon.

Manuscripts into production

In addition the nativity book, we've just received the manuscript for an edited collection on the work of Wayne A. Meeks entitled 'After the First Urban Christians'. The book is edited by David Horrell and Todd Still. On the LNTS side of things we've recently received the manuscript for a new book on Austin Farrer and Mark's Gospel by Robert Titley, which I think will be a particularly nice addition to the list.

Books published

Several books have come back from the printers recently. Lots of new testament monographs, as well as paperbacks of David Odell Scott's "Paul's Critique of Theocracy" and Kathy Ehrensperger's Paul and the Dynamics of Power. The new ICC on John 1-4 by the late John McHugh is a particular treat.

‘What’s Wrong with Sin’ by Derek R. Nelson

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It’s a pleasure to announce that ‘What’s Wrong with Sin. Sin in Individual and Social Perspective from Schleiermacher to Theologies of Liberation’ will be published in July.

This volume discusses two primary doctrines of sin that have been posited in the last half-century, namely ‘the structural sin’ type and ‘the relational self’ type. Nelson offers an interesting debate that includes criticisms of thinkers such as F.D.E. Schleiermacher and Charles Finneys, Gutierrez, Segundo or Boff. Nelson also touches upon doctrines of sin from Asian Christian theologians, emphasizing here Korean Minjung theology. ‘What’s Wrong with Sin’ concludes with recommendations drawn from the preceding analyses for further understanding of the social dimensions of sin: the need for clarifying the agential status of a “social structure;” the moral culpability of a relational self; and a call to integrate the structural sin and relational self types into a future doctrine of social sin.

We have already received some very interesting commendations for this volume:

'For the theological student or pastor, Derek Nelson’s study on the changing understanding of sin should become a vital reference. Nelson traces the critique of individualistic views of sin for more social views and the relational self in 19th century theology. He then shows the flowering of these new understandings in Latin American Liberation theologies, Feminist and Womanist theologies and Korean Minjung Theology in the last third of the twentieth century.' - Rosemary Radford Ruether, Claremont Graduate University, USA

‘Derek Nelson offers persuasive proposals about how better to formulate a social doctrine of sin. It is based on the most wide-ranging analytical map available of such doctrines of sin, a map that exhibits their differing senses of "sin" and "social" and the various strategies they use to avoid the individualism characteristic of older theologies. Placing them in a larger historical perspective, Nelson shows that although social doctrines of sin are widespread in the past half-century, especially in liberationist theologies, have instructive precedents in nineteenth century theology.’ – David H. Kelsey, Yale Divinity School, New Haven, CT, USA

'Hyper-individualism is everyone's favorite whipping-boy these days, but solutions to the problem too often end up flat or trite. Derek Nelson's survey of responses to individualism in the doctrine of sin in the last two centuries nicely sets the table for a constructive theology of social sin. A generous yet incisive reader, Nelson listens to and learns from wildly disparate voices (Schleiermacher and Finney and Gutierrez - oh my!). His critical patience and concern to engage in constructive Christian theology ensure that the strong medicine of contextual theology is not hopelessly diluted by mere description, the vacuous praise of the guilty holders of power, or the flattening of inter-religious generalizations. His proposal to integrate a structural account of sin and a relational anthropology, coupled with a call for analytic rigor in our understandings of both, brings clarity to a cloudy discussion. One only hopes that he will write the constructive theology of social sin for which he calls!' – Matt Jenson, Biola University, La Mirada, CA, USA

'What's Wrong with Sin' is available in the UK in July 2009 and in the US in September 2009.

Another Endorsement for 'The Apostles' Creed and its Early Christian Context

Last month it was announced that Piotr Ashwin-Siejkowski’s book will be available in May 2009. We have received some good reviews of this volume, and the one below, by Rev. Ruth Scott, sounds simply wonderful:

‘I must confess that a book about the Apostles’ Creed is not one that would appear on my list of ‘must-read’ books. To be honest, I cannot understand why this ancient creed continues to excite interest or have a place in modern liturgy. Not that I’ve always felt this way. Every Sunday in church as a child, I sat next to an elderly woman who always stood to attention when it came to reciting the Apostles’ Creed. For her, it was an unquestionable statement of fact and, moved by her respect for it, that’s how I accepted it as well. Today the recitation of this Creed, removed completely as it is from the context and culture in which it was formulated, leaves me cold. Far from opening a window on to God, its continued use in the Church has baffled and exasperated me.

It was with great relief and a sense of liberation that I read the Introduction to Ashwin-Siejkowski’s book. I was not being asked to approach this ancient relic of a Creed ‘on my knees’, but critically and with the purpose of understanding the issues and arguments through which it came to birth. Ashwin-Siejkowski makes it clear that the language of the Creed is of analogy, and that the images used were never intended to be taken literally. Speaking of how language is used to communicate an understanding of God, he writes,

Each language facilitates the encounter of a specific generation with God, but as language is rooted in particular sets of symbols and idioms, it may alienate other generations from the core of Revelation.

In these words my own sense of alienation in relation to the Apostles Creed was expressed with the result that I felt the book might well have something to say to me as well as to those, like the friend of my childhood, who hold the Creed in the highest regards. The major work of the book is to take each statement of belief from the Creed and to look at the theological debates and questions that lay behind it. Readers looking for clearly expressed detail will not be disappointed by Ashwin-Siejkowski’s scholarly analysis. His enthusiasm for his subject is engaging, as is his concern for accuracy. What becomes clear is that those responsible for the formulation of the Creed had no greater access to God than we do today. Just like us they debated the nature of faith and belief in the context of diverse theological perspectives about the man Jesus and his life and death, using the languages of that time and culture. The Creed itself might well be seen to tell us more about the power politics, theological arguments and faith perspectives of the time, than it does about that which we call God. To be true to the spirit of the faith of those who formulated the Creed is not to set their words on a pedestal, as the vast majority of Christians have done for centuries, but to be free to find and unfold our own understanding through on-going debate about, and exploration of God in this time and context, mindful of, but not bound by the languages of Christian voices from the past.

It is perhaps an indication of the value of Ashwin-Siejkowski’s book that at the end of it, I, the initially reluctant reader, found my perspective changed. I no longer want to eradicate the Creed from use in today’s Church, although I continue to question its use when disconnected from any understanding of its original context. When that background is understood, the Apostles Creed stands as a reminder that Christianity is about living faith not dead beliefs. It is an unfolding story rooted in a scriptural tradition that often raises more questions than answers, and which draws us into continual and creative dialogue and debate. We can learn much from the insights and ignorance of past Christian communities and their leaders, becoming aware not only of those voices that dominated the discussions, but also of those that were missing from them. In this sense the Creed also stands as a warning to us when we confuse truth with views that persist simply because they come from those who have the greatest power. Ashwin-Siejkowski’s work shows the Apostles’ Creed not to be a statement of belief set in stone, but one ‘snatch’ of a dynamic on-going conversation that continues today – the Living Word – and in which we are all invited to participate. As Ashwin-Siejkowski invites us to do in his conclusion, ‘we should treat the Apostles Creed as an ‘icon’, not an ‘idol’.’ – Rev Ruth Scott, Diocese of Southwark, UK

The Apostles’ Creed and its Early Christian Context is available in the UK in May 2009 and in the US in July 2009.