Book Notice: I (Still) Believe – Leading Bible Scholars Share Their Stories of Faith and Scholarship

John Byron and Joel N. Lohr (eds.)

I (Still) Believe: Leading Bible Scholars Share Their Stories of Faith and Scholarship
Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2015.
Available at Amazon.com

This is a refreshing and inspiring read about Christian scholars who have retained a vibrant and earnest faith throughout a career in biblical scholarship. The many biographical vignettes covers how each person got into biblical studies, how they understand biblical criticism in light of their faith, and describes some of the personal and professional trials that each contributor has been through.

So many highlights!

Richard Bauckham at 13 years of age was reading the ICC Ezra-Nehemiah commentary.

Walter Brueggemann’s love for justice in the prophets was formed by a childhood of relative poverty.

Gordon Fee’s ambition was to be a “scholar on fire.”

Scot McKnight talks about the delights of watching students grow in knowledge of the Bible and then go into their own ministries.

Don Hagner writes about the Fuller controversy over the Bible in the 70s and 80s.

Edith Humphrey shares her story of going from Salvation Army to Anglicanism to Greek Orthodox.

Beverly Gaventa offers advice “not to trust anyone who claims never to experience writer’s anxiety”

J. Ramsay Michaels is done calling himself “evangelical” and now just identifies as a “baptist”. For him retirement means reading lots of Flanner O’Connor.

John Goldingay shares about the loss of his wife Anne and is humble about his own relative insignificance. I was particular taken by his comments here: ” Americans like to believe in legacies; I expect to be forgotten, in fulfilment of Ecclesiastes’ warning. I know that individual students gain from classes I teach and from books that I write … but in general my work makes no significant contribution to the l ife of the church or to the purposes of God in the world. As far as I can see the church in the United States will continue to decline. Our situation is a little like Judah’s in the late seventh century. The nearest I can get to an explanation of why I continue as a professor is that I have to do as Jeremiah did in that situation. I don’t imply that I think of myself as a kind of Jeremiah or that I am important in the way that Jeremiah was, but I appreciate the inspiration to faithfulness that he provides. I appreciate his example as someone who continued to teach and write, even though he suspected in the short term that it was pointless.”

Finally, Phyllis Trible describes her relationship with the Bible like Jacob wrestling with God: “I will not let go of this book of words unless it blesses me. I will struggle with it. I will not turn it over to my enemies that it curse me. Neither will I turn it over to my friends who wish to curse it. No, over and against the cursing from either Bible-thumpers or Bible-bashers, I shall hold for for a blessing. But I am under no illusion that the blessing will come on my terms – that I will not be changed in the process. After all, Jacob limped away.”

I’ll be making this mandatory reading for my PhD students, something encouraging and a delight to read.