The Pneuma Review » levison

John R. Levison: The Holy Spirit before Christianity

Joseph Girdler — Mon, 10 Jul 2023 22:00:42 +0000

John R. Levison, The Holy Spirit before Christianity (Baylor University Press, 2019)

The book consists of Acknowledgments, five chapters, thirteen excurses, varied notes, selected bibliography, and detailed indexes of subjects, ancient names, modern authors and ancient sources.

Chapter titles include: “The Emergence of the Spirit: Recasting Exodus”, “The Essence of the Spirit: Retelling Exodus”, “The Absence of the Spirit: Recalling Exodus”, “The Assurance of the Spirit: Rekindling Exodus”, and “The Significance of the Spirit: Rediscovering Exodus”. Each chapter brings a varied and deep-well resource for the study of pneumatology.

This work offers detailed, personable, opinionated, and indispensable tedious research. From his descriptions of German theologian Hans Leisagang and more to his Greek or Jewish tracing of the origins of historical pneumatology, you’ll find detailed promise of the divine presence of God. The weight of God’s glory is depicted through Israel’s birth and early years. Pillars and angels, Clouds and fire are described as leading the Israelites to outpace the Egyptians. While God’s presence is described as durable, unshakable, and reliable.

The Spirit is active now.

It is focused reading; deliberate; not a mindless read; not casual reading and genuinely fundamental tenets of the Spirit’s work.

Levison’s description of the Babylonian exile offers intriguing storylines where the Spirit is an active agent in cross-cultural contexts. He offers rich parallels of Moses and Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Zechariah and more with concepts of the Spirit of God 1) rushing upon, 2) pouring over, and 3) resting upon individuals.

Jack Levison holds the W.J.A. Power Chair of Old Testament Interpretation and Biblical Hebrew at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University. Levison was raised in New York, attended Wheaton College, received an MA at Cambridge University, and pursued his doctoral studies at Duke University. Faculty page.

He offers a unique study of consequences regarding modern assessments of early Judaism including a discourse of NT Wright’s deep appreciation for the contributions of 2^nd Temple Judaism and Shekinah Glory’s indwelling presence. He proclaims clearly, the Spirit is active now.

Levison ends this work with thirteen brief two to four page excurses. An excursus (from Latin excurrere, ‘to run out of’) is a short outbreak or narration in a work of literature. Excursuses often have little to do with subject matter discussed by the work, used to lighten or add insight to the story. He does it with brilliance.

Reviewed by Joseph S. Girdler

Publisher’s page: https://www.baylorpress.com/9781481310031/the-holy-spirit-before-christianity/

Jack Levison: Fresh Air

J. P. O’Connor — Thu, 13 Aug 2015 19:36:07 +0000

Jack Levison, Fresh Air: the Holy Spirit for an Inspired Life (Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press: 2012), 217 pages, 9781612610689.

Jack Levison, in his work Fresh Air: the Holy Spirit for an Inspired Life, aims to clear a foggy, often caricatured view of the Holy Spirit in today’s church. Does one feel a move of the Spirit only through mountain-top, ecstatic experiences? Or may one also drudge forth in the mundane of the daily with full-confidence of the Spirit’s presence? Levison’s honest piece, filled with top-notch exegetical work, answers a resounding “yes” to the question of the Spirit’s presence in our daily work. In fact, as Levison defines it, the spirit functions not only as the third person of the Trinity, but also as “the breath that animates and motivates all people” (17). For this reason, he keeps the title Holy Spirit in lower case throughout his work. Levison presents a convincing case for the spirit as “the breath within” every person, offering a Fresh perspective on how one understands the spirit’s role in a person’s life (36).

Does one feel a move of the Spirit only through mountain-top, ecstatic experiences?

The form of Levison’s work is loveably pragmatic. He sprinkles personal stories, study-guide tools, and practical advice on how one may experience the spirit in daily life. Levison’s warm stories draw the reader in and his gift to teach leaves the reader with plenty to consider. At the outset, he advises in a devotional tone, for the reader to “keep a Bible handy,” “take time to breathe,” and to “write” (18). Following, Levison investigates the full range of the spirit’s role in Scripture. He explores the role of the spirit in individuals such as the depth of Job’s agony “where grief stomps on our chest,” (25) in Daniel’s “dogged faithfulness” toward good discipline (59), and even “violently” in Jesus’ journey into the wilderness (173). Levison also explores how the spirit functions in communities, such as in the outpouring at Pentecost in the early church as well as in present day Christian communities. For the Pentecostal pastor, Levison provides a helpful reminder of the diversity of the spirit in individuals and communities. As he puts it, the spirit is present in the programmatic “Salsa and Chips Crowd” as well as the charismatic “Cane Ridge, Kentucky” crowd (198).

Levison’s hope for unity among churches, centered in our understanding of Jesus and our study of the Scriptures, should be heeded by all.

Occasionally rough around the edges, Levinson’s strategy appears at times corrective. This is apparent from the outset when he decides to render Spirit as spirit (which may cause eye-brow-raising for some). Levison’s view of the spirit (as life-breath) is also quite universal. As on the day of Pentecost, the spirit’s work is present in every person, indiscriminate of age, gender, socio-economic class, or even religious affiliation. Levison’s sensitivity arises from misappropriations of the spirit and he seems to have specific works and movements on his mind as he writes. In one example, he refers to the misleading of “popular books” which articulate the spirit’s power for one “to do with ease things that would otherwise be difficult or impossible” (88). In another place, Levison insists that the promise of the spirit is “not an excuse for failing to study, think, consider, plan, ponder, muse, read, and contemplate” (181). For this reason, Levison’s own academic posture (of which he is keenly aware!) appears to flavor how he views the spirit to function, namely in a more studious, programmatic sense. Thus, my lingering question for Levison is if he understands the spirit to also function positively in one’s ecstatic experience. Certainly, education and reason provide coherency to (at times) irrational experiences of the spirit. However, might also the spirit move in ways that surprise or even contradict one’s rational expectations?

Finally, Levison concludes with hope for the “uncommon unity” of the spirit (212). Regardless of background or experience, Levison believes that the spirit should bring us together and not tear us apart. Levison’s hope for unity among churches, centered in our understanding of Jesus and our study of the Scriptures, should be heeded by all. For if there is division in the household of God, it is unlikely to remain standing (cf. Mark 3:20-30). Overall, Levison’s work embodies the spirit’s own ability to inspire freshness. After reading, every Pentecostal pastor should experience a renewed excitement to return to the biblical text and to re-examine how the spirit works both in the individual and the community, in the mountain-top and the valley.

Reviewed by JP O’Connor

Publisher’s page: http://www.paracletepress.com/fresh-air-the-holy-spirit-for-an-inspired-life.html

John Levison: Filled with the Spirit

James Purves — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 22:28:19 +0000

John R. Levison, Filled with the Spirit (Eerdmans, 2009), 490 pages, ISBN 9780802863720.

As Pentecostals and Charismatics, we are people who have been confronted by an intense experience of the Holy Spirit. This has led us to reappraise the importance we attach to the Holy Spirit within our Systematic Theologies, as well as reviewing our understanding of the Holy Spirit’s ministry. But this can lead us into territories of exciting and worrying discoveries. Does the Holy Spirit really do that? Can that person really have the Holy Spirit too, as they claim?

Fundamental to Levison’s thesis is his discovery that the Spirit is not only the bearer of charismatic endowment, but the very spirit of life that brings our life into being and on which we, as living beings, are contingent. From the Genesis narratives onwards, Levison traces life itself as contingent on the presence and empowering of the Spirit: the breath of God or wind of God are synonymous with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is there in Creation and giving birth to all life of all kind.

“Pentecost encapsulates not merely the ecstatic or the intellectual but a rare, inspired blend of both.” – John Levison

It is this refusal to dichotomise the activity of the Holy Spirit, into that of the Creator Spirit and the Regenerative Spirit, that is the distinctive mark of Levison. He sees the action of the Spirit of God in the perception and experience of those without the Judaeo-Christian tradition as well as within it. So it is that he can refer to experience of ecstasy in the Graeco-Roman cults, comparing these writings to contemporary Jewish and Christian texts (see for example page 346).This is very much engaged at the level of literary comparison.

The challenge arises in that, in this reviewer’s perspective, Levison does not appear to engage with the challenge of discussing where the real experience and engagement with the Spirit of God ends and that of counterfeit and demonic spirits begins.

“The Spirit exists in the community in a way that transcends individual believers.” – John Levison

Levison emphasises the vision of the Spirit in Ezekiel, and the dynamic dimension of the Spirit, life-giving in phases from prediction, to partial reality to complete fulfilment (p 97). He argues that we need to build our reading of the early church’s intensified experience of the Spirit on this basic perspective.

This insight is found by Levison in the writing of Luke. The Pentecostal experience is seen to combine both comprehension and incomprehension, not either or: “To opt for either ecstatic tongues or comprehensible foreign languages in the interpretation of the Pentecost experience, not to mention subsequent moments of inspiration in Acts, is to diminish the fulness of the spirit and to deplete the levels of resonance that Luke, like Philo and the author of 4 Ezra, preserves. Pentecost encapsulates not merely the ecstatic or the intellectual but a rare, inspired blend of both” (p 345).