Mark W. Elliott

Effective-History and the Hermeneutics of Ulrich Luz

The background of a short description of the recent growing interest in the effective-history (Wirkungsgeschichte ) of the biblical text precedes a foregrounding of Ulrich Luz and his work. His interests in recent forms of hermeneutics and ecumenism are considered alongside his role as an academic within the scholarly guild of biblical studies. A discussion of what Luz is trying to achieve in a sample section of his famous Matthew commentary leads, through consideration of some reviews and Luz’s own recent thinking, to a conclusion that an emphasis on religious spirituality as that which persists through the ages, from Bible to present times is problematic for downplaying the doctrinal concerns taught in these passages.

Reading Paul with the Reformers. Reconciling old and new perspectives, by Stephen J. Chester, Foreword by John M.G. Barclay, Grand Rapids, Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2017, 500 pp.,

Stephen Chester, professor at North Park University, Chicago, has pulled off the seemingly impossible! A New Testament scholar has written a book with learning, clarity and nuanced insight on Reformation exegesis, a book from which Reformation historians could learn much. The purpose of the exploration of the Reformers (occupying over two-thirds of the book) is to enable contemporary biblical scholarship to hear what the Reformers had to say aboutPaul. It is also to receive a corrective inplaceswhere theyhaveused their exegetical forebears as strawmen.However, there is no intention of repristinatingReformation exegesis, and Chester in fact feels grateful to discoveries of the modern, Paul specialist, E.P. Sanders, as well as the earlier, historical Jesus researcher, Albert Schweitzer. This is not only because our knowledge of ancient Judaism since the 1970s has grownmarkedly, but also because Sanders promoted a ‘union inChrist’or ‘participation’ as the key toPaul’s soteriology; thiswill prove to be important for what Chester encounters in the Reformers. After giving a brief, but useful tour of the pre-Reformation approaches, in which Thomas Aquinas is shown to have re-worked Augustine, with reference to Galatians 5:1 (‘It is for freedom Christ has set us free’) we learn that martyrdom was understood as freely chosen, and hence meritorious, suffering, but that ‘initial justification’ was considered to be totally gratuitous, so that merits for non-martyrs were properly speaking the merits of Christ. Subsequent nominalist theologians questioned this gratuitousness, believing that ‘sinners may congruously merit initial justification’ (102) and prepare themselves for it. However Luther’s break with such nominalism started in 1512 and was complete with his Romans lectures of 1515–1516 (96). It is all God’s doing, even to the extent of a rejection of infused grace in Luther’s Against Latomus of 1521, which, as well shall see, is a critical text for the evaluation of Luther’s thinking. ‘Relationship’, rather than habit and virtue, was the keynote; it takes the cross to save, since the project of the human self is lost in ongoing covetousness and concupiscence.

60 (hardcover), ISBN 978-0-8028-4836-9

In some ways this is what research is all about: here non-‘household names’ from the nineteenth century receive unusual exposure, e.g. the uneducated Norwegian pietist Hans Nielsen Hauge – for whom the state church was just a framework for spiritual friendships – in A.B. Amundsen’s essay. The reader soon realises that it is popular, even folk, devotion that occupies most of the attention in this volume: in S. Gilley’s account of the ‘Devotional Revolution’ among the Irish, there flourished Eucharistic and ‘sacred heart’ devotion (to which were added guidebooks to help intensify the experience, of which Newman and Popes approved, but had little influence on.) The comparative late-coming Redemptorists’ mission to Ireland by invitation of Archbishop Cullen of Armagh enabled the dissemination of Alphonsus Liguori’s spiritual teaching –prayer and restraint as a means of salvation against the background of threatening judgement. Again this was not about elite devotional theology shaping the ordinary folk. Anna Maria Taigi (S.F. McLaren tells us) was canonised because, not despite, of being a married ‘saint of the hearth’. It can be argued that Liszt’s Via Crucis’ lack of musical sophistication was compensated by its primal power (P. De Mey and D.J. Burn). H. von Achen contributes a piece on medieval revivalism as an attempt to recover a sense of the spiritual as resisting the inevitability of a fragmenting secularization, finding its refuge in the family unit and the obstinate Gothic church. P. McGrail shows how a Protestant hymnody which was losing its dogmatic hard edges could be used by Catholics, while supplemented by staunchly Catholic paeans to Mary and her martyrs, not least by Cardinal Wiseman. The wish of Leo XIII to reinforce the decision of the Congregation of Rites in 1765 to recognise the Feast of the Sacred Heart helped a symbol that was anti-Jansenist in its inclusivism to become pro-monarchist in France, then anti-communist in the Spanish Civil war, as E. Klekot tells us in the pick of all the essays. All in all a pot-pourri, but research which is valuable to help us grasp the currents on which movements, doctrine and church leaders were carried along.

Book Review: Devotional in European Christianity, 1790-1960: Henning Laugerud & Salvador Ryan (eds), Devotional Cultures of European Christianity, 1790-1960LaugerudHenningRyanSalvador (eds), Devotional Cultures of European Christianity, 1790-1960 (Dublin: Four Courts, 2012. £24.95. pp. 240. ISBN: 978-1-84682-303-9).

According to this chapter, In assessing how much and in what way the Protestant Latin bible was important for Protestants one needs to evaluate what such a thing meant to those who came decades after the main flurry of Latin bible production. It is considered how it featured in the work of two theologians who were active in the early and mid- Seventeenth Century, one Calvinist and the other Lutheran, namely Piscator and Calov. In his Preface to New Testament Epistles Commentary Piscator contends that Scripture contains three kinds of things: the true and certain, the useful and necessary, and also the pleasant. Unlike Piscator, Calov on his passage in Ephesians made his own translation, as for all his biblical commentary on Pauls Epistles. One might draw from the evidence presented that the Reformed place the emphasis on the letter of the text, and Lutherans on the spirit behind it. Keywords:Calov; Calvinist; Ephesians; Lutherans; Piscator; Protestant Latin bible; Scripture

Looking Backwards: The Protestant Latin Bible in the Eyes of Johannes Piscator and Abraham Calov

McDonough summarizes his results and offers ‘tentative steps towards theology’, engaging briefly teachings about Jesus as mediator of creation in Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Athanasius, Pannenberg, Moltmann, and Barth. To my mind, perhaps the most debatable part of McDonough’s study is chap. 2, where he contends that ‘memories of Jesus’ as miracle-worker contributed to the belief that he had participated in creation. I also think that he could have underscored more the likely significance of the logic of apocalyptic thought, final things seen as also first things, redemption related to creation, so Jesus as eschatological redeemer suggesting that he was somehow part of the divine plan from the beginning. But McDonough’s study deserves the attention of anyone working in NT Christology.

Book Review: A Theological Commentary on Genesis: R.R. Reno, Genesis, Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids, Brazos Press, 2010.

Abstract This article considers Calvins late work, the Harmony of the Pentateuch (1563). It takes account of previous attempts to illuminate Calvins purpose in this production by De Boer, Blacketer, Thiel, Wright and Balserak. There follows a consideration of Calvins view of the ceremonial law for Christians, and a distinction is drawn between the Old Testament cult and the Old Testament law concerning that cult. It finally takes soundings from the work itself to argue that for Calvin, the timeless spirit of worship could be understood behind its outward expression. What matters is that God is seen to call believers out of the flow of everyday occurrence into worship.