Walter R. Dickhaut, in his small volume, Building a Community of Interpreters: Readers and Hearers as Interpreters, proposes that listeners and hearers of a sermon, story or biblical text function as interpreters of the meaning of each of these types of expression or forms of communication. Dickhaut’s thesis maintains that the hermeneutical process is better perceived as a spiral, rather than a circle with a closed circuit, because the reader of any text can influence its interpretation (12).

Dickhaut presents his proposal in two parts. The chapters in part one explain the process of listening, which involves the numerous occasions when one meets the text, the particular angle of vision of the reader and the metaphorical filters and lenses applied in each hearing. Every time a reader encounters or meets the same text, it is not the same reader who encountered the text previously (18). Time and the circumstances of the reader have changed. He may have acquired new learning or modified certain perspectives (18). A filter applied by a reader or listener removes what the reader prefers not to engage (21). The reader is often unaware the presence of these filters. Information that does not conform to the reader’s beliefs or opinions is filtered out. Dickhaut wants the reader to be aware he is wearing these unexpected blinders in the form of biases and prejudgments. When mindful of the blinders, the reader is better able as to make appropriate adjustments (25).

Lenses, on the other hand, focus the listener’s attention on specific interests and features that aim to discover something new (21-22). Lenses empower interpreters to discover “mystery, surprise, and expectation” in biblical texts (34). Lenses function to enhance or enlarge certain details (22). The reader’s angles of vision also shape interpretation. Angles of vision are shaped by the listener’s personal experience, family history, theological and political positions and social and cultural location (27).

The second part, chapters seven through fourteen, is an expanded discussion on the lenses of
mystery, surprise, and expectation, punctuated with three of the author’s sermons. The author encourages the reader to view texts through the lens of mystery and read and listen in such a way that he is satisfied with a sense of the mystery of God rather than needing explanation and rationalization. To read with expectation is to read and listen as one dissatisfied with certain aspects of the world we inhabit (86-87). Surprise in a biblical text can be achieved by searching for things one does not understand, because in doing so the reader “is more likely to learn something new, something that surprises him” (67).

The book’s strength is its reflection on the various factors that potentially effect the listener’s interpretation of a sermon or biblical text. Thus, preachers and teachers are introduced to features that influence the listener’s interpretation of a text or sermon. The author delivers on his goal to encourage building a community of interpreters. In the Afterword, Dickhaut maps out sessions for a Bible study group that explores what happens to meaning when a reader opens a book or listens to a sermon from various angles and when wearing a variety of spectacles.

Reviewed by David Seal

Publisher’s page: http://wipfandstock.com/building-a-community-of-interpreters.html

Preview Building a Community of Interpreters: https://books.google.com/books?id=YkxNAwAAQBAJ

In The Presence of God: Its Place in the Storyline of Scripture and the Story of our Lives J. Ryan Lister, seeks to trace the theme of God’s presence throughout redemptive history. The bulk of the volume is devoted to tracing the “vistas and valleys of God’s mighty acts in redemptive history to show where God revels his presence … and help us understand why he does so” (23). Lister’s major argument is twofold. First, that the “presence of God is a central goal in God’s redemptive mission” (23). Second, that the “presence of God is the agent by which the Lord accomplishes his redemptive mission” (24).

The argument is presented in three parts. The chapters in part one attempt to show “how the presence of the Lord is a central eschatological purpose in the Lord’s redemptive mission” (33). Lister helpfully begins his study by providing a definition of the presence of God as the “manifestation of God in time and space—mediated in some sense—working to bring forth redemption and redemption’s objectives and simultaneously, the unmediated, fully relational, and eschatological manifestation of God first experienced in Eden and awaiting the elect in the new creation” (51). Lister’s thesis is then accomplished by looking at Genesis 1-3 and Revelation 21-22 in order to establish that “what Eden was in potential, the New Jerusalem is in full” (86). God’s presence in the Garden and the promised dynasty begun with Adam, though unfulfilled, find their completion in the new heaven and new earth (86).

J. Ryan Lister

Parts two and three set out to demonstrate that in both the Old and New Testaments God accomplishes his purposes “by becoming present” (33). Part three deals with God’s presence in light of the person and work of Christ. Here Lister also presents the theme of Church as temple and the implication of this for evangelism and missions.

Lister is to be applauded for doing good biblical theology. This in itself makes it a valuable study. However, while he acknowledges that space limitations precluded him from addressing some books, such as the Wisdom literature, Ruth, Song of Songs and Esther (146, n.1), this omission is unfortunate. If excluded books were included, it would have made this a more comprehensive work. Perhaps limiting certain sections (over fifty percent of part two is spent on the Pentateuch) and scaling back on certain elaborate footnotes would have made room for the inclusion of omitted and sparsely addressed portions (the Minor Prophets) of the Old Testament.

Reviewed by David Seal

Publisher’s page: https://www.crossway.org/books/the-presence-of-god-tpb/

Editor Note: This corporate review is a first for PneumaReview.com. David Seal, professor at Cornerstone University (Grand Rapids, Michigan), approached us about having his entire New Testament Survey class write a review together. They selected a book on prayer to draw out the most practical application of biblical theology.

John DeVries, Why Pray? 40 Days—From Words to Relationship (Grand Rapids: Mission India, 2012), 243 pages, ISBN 9780978855154.

John DeVries, author of Why Pray? 40 Days—From Words to Relationship, has written a daily devotional book on why prayer is so vital in our lives. The author is a pastor, has served as a missionary in India for thirty years and is the founder of an organization called Mission India. He has also written many other books, including Pictures of Perfect Peace, A Christ Appointed Ministry, and Why Give?

This book is organized into five weeks of reading. Each week has a short chapter to be read daily. The chapters are short yet filled with content. The chapters conclude with a Reflect/Discuss thought and a Meditate thought, making this a good book choice for reading not only as an individual but as a group. The book concludes with a short epilogue, which further expands the author’s thoughts and challenges the reader to deepen their prayer life. Each week of daily readings focuses on different aspects of prayer, such as the simple ideas of why prayer is essential to a Christian’s daily life, the importance and urgency of praying first, why it is essential to be aware of our neighbor’s needs, how prayer should be done, how to build a home on the foundation of prayer, and how to be consistent in daily prayer.

DeVries begins his book by inviting readers to H.O.P.E., which stands for Homes of Prayer Everyday. He encourages families to pray together daily, seeing prayer as not something on their to-do list, but rather the necessary maintenance of relationships. The author’s intent is that his book is indeed used for daily reading—not to be read in one sitting—so there is time to reflect, apply and meditate on the truths learned with that day’s lesson.

Why Pray? maintains a reader’s interest quite easily. Not only is the subject matter timeless, but each day’s reading offers a different glimpse into living a life of prayer. Each chapter contains a short anecdote, a real life story or scriptural references that relate to an aspect of prayer. DeVries uses these stories and references to convey his thoughts on prayer and to make his book easily applicable and informative. These illustrations are captivating and thought provoking. He shares not only personal family stories, which are easily related to, but stories about his time in India. One striking example was how prayer by out-castes for upper castes was answered, resulting in the conversion of a family from the upper caste (119‒122). His time in India has certainly given him a unique perspective on prayer.

DeVries causes the reader to reflect in fresh ways on prayer, encouraging not only the new believer but the scholar as well. For example, he uses the illustration of a young boy riding a tractor with his grandfather as “they” do the work on the grandfather’s fields. As he furthers his analogy he writes, “This image strikes me as a picture of myself in prayer. Prayer is the dependent relationship in which I sit on the lap of my heavenly Father and put my hand on His as He steers the tractor. After all, He not only owns and drives the tractor, but He owns the farm!” (30‒31). As DeVries continues his analogy he comments that sometimes we fall asleep in prayer, as a child may fall asleep in their father’s lap. Perhaps that is because we feel safe “sitting on God’s lap.” While that is a comforting picture, it seems important for the author to have acknowledged that falling asleep while praying should not become habitual.

In his book Medicine, Miracle and Myth in the New Testament, J. Keir Howard has a simple aim, “to apply modern medical knowledge” to the study of miracles and illnesses recounted in the New Testament (vii). His intended audience consists of the modern reader, ministers and students. Howard holds doctorates in medicine and theology and therefore possesses the necessary background to converse about these topics.

Howard writes that disease and pathology have not changed significantly through the centuries, but the understanding of the causes of illness, their prevention and treatment have changed (viii). Consequently, he feels medical explanations are better suited to interpret the miracles in the New Testament instead of what many scholars usually employ—details of magic and spirit possession (viii).

Medicine consists of five chapters, a glossary, bibliography and a Scripture index. Howard’s use of medical terminology throughout the work, which will be unfamiliar to most readers, makes the glossary a nice feature of the book. The first chapter serves as an introduction to diseases and medicine in the first century. In this chapter, Howard introduces the term “abreaction,” defined as a type of treatment, which results in a discharge of emotion leading to a rapid and often temporary resolution of medical symptoms (9). This term is important for many of Howard’s conclusions about the miracles recounted in the New Testament.

In the each of the remaining chapters, Howard addresses the miracles described in the Gospel of Mark, the remaining gospels, the book of Acts and the Epistles. A final chapter is dedicated to medical metaphors and allusions in the New Testament.

One criticism of the book is the absence of references at important junctures in the text. While Howard shares some important background about medicine in the first century, he fails to provide references for this information. For example, he discusses some of the techniques utilized by folk healers, supposedly practiced during the time of Jesus’ ministry (7). One of these techniques, known as couching, purportedly would grant some healing or relief of cataracts. However, the reader is not provided with the source of this information. The entire work, consisting of one hundred and twenty-one pages, contains less than a dozen footnotes.

Matthew E. Gordley, in his monograph Teaching through Song in Antiquity: Didactic Hymnody among Greeks, Romans, Jews and Christians, explores the variety of means that ancient poets, over time and in numerous locations, employed hymns to instruct their audiences. Gordley argues that many Greek, Roman, Jewish and Christian hymns of antiquity, beyond praising a deity, also had the primary function of instructing and shaping the writer’s community (1-2).

The author maintains, “Didactic hymns, prayers and religious poetry are those which employ the stylistic and/or formal conventions of praise and prayer, but whose primary purpose was to convey a lesson, idea, or theological truth to a human audience” (5).

In this comprehensive work, the author claims through a study of form, content and strategies of a hymn, insight can be gleaned about issues facing the communities for which these texts were composed (2). Gordley also asserts that by comparing didactic hymns from a variety of cultural traditions, a greater appreciation and understanding of how ancient instructional strategies functioned can be achieved (2). A final goal of the author is to explore the types of lessons and instructions conveyed through hymnody (8).

Gordley’s book consists of eleven chapters, a bibliography, an index of references and an index of modern authors and subjects. Chapter one is critical as it conveys the methods Gordley utilizes to identify hymns intended to have a teaching function (9). The features, which may indicate that a hymn had a didactic purpose, are first, a poet’s invitation to his audience to learn from him, (such as Psalm 78:1, which opens with “Give ear, my people, to my instruction …”). A second indicator of a teaching purpose is the presence of prominent instructional language in the hymn.

When these explicit indicators are absent, Gordley notes other characteristics in the hymn that can point to a text with a didactic purpose. They are 1) the direct address of the audience by the author, 2) the presence of direct claims about the deity being praised and/or explicit claims about the community offering the praise, 3) the recounting of an event, in the form of a narrative, from the mythic past or recent past (10). Gordley also claims psalms or hymns that are embedded in a narrative or an epistolary text of the Bible or in other early Jewish and Christian literature could have had an instructional function in its new context (11). Gordley’s methodology leans on reader-response criticism, discourse analysis, performance criticism and the analysis of how communities have remembered themes over time (15-20).

In the Beginning Was the Word: Language—A God-Centered Approach, authored by Vern Sheridan Poythress, intends to articulate a Christian understanding of language and demonstrate how language reflects God’s character (9).

In the Beginning is organized into six parts. The first part addresses the relationship between God and language. Here Poythress states that language reveals the divine attributes. For example, the beauty of God is revealed in language because it allows for beauty in communication such as through the medium of poetry (75).

In part one, Poythress also notes the significance of the existence of language prior to creation, emphasizing it was not created, nor did it evolve (25–28). Language existed eternally and was a part of God’s being. People have language because it is part of being created in the image of God—it is not a human construct or cultural phenomenon as is often argued (29–30). Language is a gift of God through which God himself can speak.

Part two of the book discusses language in the context of history. Some of the topics covered in this section include the implications of the fall on language. People often use language to deceive and manipulate others (103). From a biblical perspective, Poythress also looks at the diversity of languages among the many cultures of the world.

Part three is about discourse. Here Poythress acknowledges the imprecision that is present in communication and the variation in the meaning of words and sentences (169). However, the author asserts that the existence of impreciseness does not negate the stability of language and our ability to communicate with others with some level of effectiveness. Poythress also includes in this portion of the text a discussion on biblical interpretation. He offers some principles for biblical Interpretations such as using the clear parts of Scripture to interpret the unclear ones (182). He also allows for some level of creativity in adducing meaning if that meaning is not in tension with other clear passages of the Bible.

Part four is about stories. The author discusses the value of biblical narratives, to communicate God’s work of redemption, even noting that myths are mini-stories of God’s work of redemption. Part five of the work analyzes the smaller units of language, sentences and words. For Poythress, even the smaller units of language are derived from God (256).

Part six addresses application. Poythress concludes this section of the book by moving beyond the study of language to discussing its relevance for living. God requires truthfulness and moral responsibility in a person’s use of language. The author stresses that moral standards with respect to language need to be embraced; otherwise, communication would be useless and untrustworthy. The book concludes with many appendices engaging various modern and postmodern concerns related to philosophy of language, including speech-act theory and deconstruction.

The primary weakness of In the Beginning is the topics it does not address in relation to language and speech. First, Poythress discusses phonemes, which would have been an opportunity for the author to address the sound-meaning relationship associated with words. However, this area of study is not even mentioned. Second, the author emphasizes the role of the Spirit as both “hearer” of the divine message and as the “breath,” thereby serving as carrier of the message to recipients. Here would have been an occasion to deal with the neglected study of how the Spirit takes the ancient sacred text and generates its meaningfulness for the present day reader. This topic is only briefly mentioned (22).

David G. Firth and Jamie A. Grant, eds., Words and the Word: Explorations in Biblical Interpretation and Literary Theory (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2008), 317 pages, ISBN 9780830828982.

Prior to the post-modern period, many of the critical methodologies used in biblical studies such as redaction criticism, form criticism and source criticism were used in biblical interpretation in order to aid the critic in the interpretation of a text’s pre-history. In contrast, literary theory focuses on the final form of the text. The editors of this collection seek to expose the reader to many of the multiple methods of literary theory as they relate to biblical interpretation.

Eight essays are included in Words and the Word and they fall into two parts: First, two general articles. Grant Osborne lays out the components of narrative theory, focusing specifically on how this can be used with the Gospels. Fanie Snyman provides a “responsible” and “non-technical” approach to exegesis of Old Testament narrative (61). Both Synman’s and Osborne’s discussions are clear and comprehensive.

Part two of the book is comprised of six essays, which discuss specific literary approaches to interpretation. First, Richard Briggs offers one of the most helpful explanations on speech-act theory I have encountered, including well-defined key terminology that is necessary for comprehending this concept. Speech-act theory understands that language has the ability to govern significant aspects of human life. Briggs claims the biblical writers were very cognizant of the profound power of words (85).

Jeannine Brown’s chapter on genre criticism is characteristic of all the essays in this collection—the methodologies all aim at discovering authorial intention. Brown reminds us that even genres were tools that biblical authors employed to communicate a specific message (143).

Many literary scholars assert that at certain times in their writing authors of the Bible intentionally employed ambiguity and willfully invited “readers to enjoy and play with the text” (183). David Firth argues for this practice as his contribution to the collection of articles. In an interesting piece, Firth attempts to show how William Empson’s taxonomy of ambiguity is a useful tool in which to explore biblical narrative. While Firth’s explanation and presentation is thorough and includes plenty of examples, I remain unconvinced (but open) that any ambiguity in the text is anything but unintentional.

Jamie Grant contributes an essay on poetics. The bulk of the essay deals with the significance of editorial shaping within anthologies like Proverbs and the book of Psalms. Grant demonstrates the importance of discerning a passages’ theme based on its placement by the editor within a particular thematic section of the book. Plenty of examples help to clarify this form of analysis. His chapter also includes a section on poetic parallelism and an even smaller discussion about New Testament poetry.

Peter Phillips explores the philosophical development of rhetoric, the art of persuasion. Although his essay contains some biblical examples to demonstrate his approach, this chapter and the next are two of the more theory-laden of the collection.

The final piece on discourse analysis, written by Terrance Wardlaw, might be one of the least known of the literary approaches discussed in the book. Wardlaw’s definition of discourse analysis is “the analysis of language and its use beyond the sentence. Moreover, one may describe ‘discourse’ as a unit of speech (either oral or written) treated by interlocutors as a complete utterance” (268). Wardlaw applies his analysis to both an Old and New Testament passage in order to help illuminate this theory.