"Natural" Readings

...What seems "ordinary" or "natural" as a reading of a particular biblical text may owe everything to habituation within a tradition (Think of the medieval reading of "repent" as "do penance"!) and nothing to actual awareness of what Paul was talking about. The legend that makes the point most strikingly is the Calvinist commentator who headed the story of Salome's dance and the Baptist's beheading as "the dangers of dancing." That seemed natural enough at the time.

N.T. Wright, Justification (Downers Grove: IVP, 2009), 83.

Finishing the sentence began by exegesis with theology...

The church can and must, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, develop words, concepts, discourse of all sorts, out beyond the narrow confines of exegesis. That is what happened with Athanasius, holding out for the nonbliblical term homoousion to express, against Arius, the radically biblical view of the divinity of Jesus Christ. We cannot reduce the task of theology to that of biblical commentary.

N.T. Wright, Justification (Downers Grove: IVP, 2009), 81.

She's a witch!

Role of Tradition in Jewish Exegesis

R. Eliezer says: If they had not brought the circumcision knife on the eve of Sabbath it may be brought openly on the Sabbath; and in time of danger a man may cover it up in the presence of witnesses. R. Eliezer said moreover: They may cut wood [on the Sabbath] to make charcoal in order to forge an iron implement. R. Akiba laid down a general rule: Any act of work that can be done on the eve of Sabbath does not override the Sabbath, but what cannot be done on the eve of the Sabbath overrides the Sabbath.

Shabbat: 19

The Exaggerated Importance of Extra-Biblical Texts

It is remarkable how frequently there is the tacit assumption that we can be more confident about how we interpret secondary first-century sources than we are of how we interpret the New Testament writers themselves. But it seems to me that there is a prima facie case for thinking that our interpretations of extra-biblical literature are more tenuous than our interpretations of the New Testament. In general, this literature has been less studied than the Bible and does not come with a contextual awareness matching what most scholars bring to the Bible. Moreover, the Scripture comes with the added hope that there is conherency because of divine inspiration and that the Holy Spirit will illumine Scripture through humble efforts to know God's mind for the sake of the glory of Christ.

John Piper, The Future of Justification (Wheaton: Crossway, 2007), 34-35.

Gospel of Thomas

Careful examinations of the Gospelof Thomas by Klyne Snodgrass and C.M. Tuckett have shown that this text reflects not only a knowledge of all four canonical gospels but also familiarity with the editorial work of all the evangelists, including John, the so-called Fourth Evanelist. Thomas also reflects a knowledge of the editorial work of Matthew and Luke even in the Greek version of Thomas. It also reflects a knowledge of various of Paul's letters, Hebrews, 1 John, and perhaps even Revelation. One has to ask, Who could the author of this document have been, and when could he have written to know all these sources in detail? The answer is surely that he is someone who lived in the second century and had an admiration especially for James, who was martyred in AD 62.

Ben Witherington III, What Have They Done with Jesus? (San Francisco: Harper, 2006), 32.

Evolutionary Theology?

It is simply historically false to suggest that the intellectual boundaries of Christianity were not defined until well after the New Testament era. The evidence taht they already existed in the New Testament era is compelling. However, as offshoots and aberrations from the earlier and more apostolic faith arose in the second through fourth centuries, the church was forced to more clearly define Christological orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Then indeed the boundaries were more rigidly and firmly put in place. But this is not because before the fourth century what existed was a "free-range" Christianity that would have considered Gnosticism (or, for that matter, an inadequate Christology or polytheism or libertinism) a legitimate variant on a Christian theme. It is because the specific problems raised by such later deviations had not yet formed, or had not yet fully formed, in the New Testament era.

Ben Witherington III, What Have They Done with Jesus? (San Francisco: Harper, 2006) 224-225.