David Litwa on Deification in Paul

A belated congratulations to my friend and colleague, David Litwa on the publication of his book. I read parts while it was in progress, and it is a very learned volume. Litwa's approach is certainly more historical than most approaches to deification, but precisely therein lies its value. If you are interested in Paul, I recommend you read it. I will try to post a review in the near future.

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Cultural pessimism and our gravest error

Cultural pessimism is always fashionable, and, since we are human, there are always grounds for it. It has the negative consequence of depressing the level of aspiration, the sense of the possible. And from time to time it has the extremely negative consequence of encouraging a kind of somber panic, a collective dream-state in which recourse to terrible remedies is inspired by delusions of mortal threat. If there is anything in the life of any culture or period that gives good grounds for alarm, it is the rise of cultural pessimism, whose major passion is bitter hostility toward many or most of the people within the very culture the pessimists always feel they are intent on rescuing. When panic on one side is creating alarm on the other, it is easy to forget that there are always as good grounds for optimism as for pessimism--exactly the same grounds, in fact--that i, because we are human. We still have every potential for good we have ever had, and the same presumptive claim to respe...

Farrer on form and content of early Christianity

After mentioning 'the common hypothesis' that the transformation of images of the Old Testament that flowered in Christianity originated not with Jesus, but with his disciples, Farrer brilliantly observes, This elaborate and uneconomical supposition was the product of a prejudice which ought to outworn now. It was supposed that the Christian Faith could be divided into two parts, a vital content of ethical spirituality, and a mythological or theological frame constructed to set it off and give it emphasis. The spirituality, as being the primary fact and real motive cause, was then assigned to Christ; the theology could naturally be left to accumulate round it in the course of the Church's life. We shall not now accept such a distinction as corresponding with historical realities. It is, no doubt, always the pressing concern of religion to seek after and seize its own vital essence and spiritual centre, but that is a poor reason for supposing that spirituality came naked...

Now in (e-)print

My review of Experientia, Volume 2 has been posted at the Review of Biblical Literature website. A brief excerpt: "This volume offers an array of voices to think with, conversation partners to engage for those interested in examining ancient religious experience and the texts that reflected and elicited them. What it lacks in coherence it makes up for in verve. Experimentation may not provide the solid results we might desire, but it might just show us which paths are worth taking and which should remain untrod." If you're interested, read the review . If you're still interested after that, buy the book here or at Amazon .

Andrew Guffey

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