Kings and Priests

Uche Anizor writes to thank me for my review of his recent Kings and Priests, and to correct some misstatements.

First, I complained in my review that he didn’t give attention to the role of the pastor as lead priest-king-reader in a community of readers. In fact., he does. While emphasizing the Reformation notion of priesthood of believers in his chapter on Luther, he does not that Luther makes a distinction between private and public ministry of the Word. Some are authorized with the official duty of teaching the word of God to the congregation (155-6).

Second, I raised the question of what reading meant to ancient people who relied on oral rather than written communications. Anizor gives attention to precisely this question in a section on orality and reading late in the book (229-34).

My apologies to Prof. Anizor for the sloppiness of my review.