Luke Timothy JohnsonRecensioni

Good overview of primarily stoics from the greek and roman schools. Infectious enthusiasm on the part of the lecturer.

Colossians, Ephesians, 1 & 2 Tim, Titus

Constructive Conversation

Luke Timothy Johnson calls the bluff of the Jesus Seminar and other purveyors of trendy 'historical Jesus' marketing hype. This timely book offers an engaging account of what serious historical scholarship can and cannot say about the Jesus of history. Johnson refocuses the debate by posing fundamental questions about the relationship between history, tradition, and faith.

An excellent commentary on the gospel of Luke. Easy to follow and well laid out.

Johnson does his usual good job here as he performs a literary analysis not just of the four canonical gospels, but also of apocryphal works related to Jesus. Interestingly for a devout Catholic, he acknowledges:

* These works were often literary creations, not intended to tell a story as a biography does, and
* There are irreconcilable differences between texts, such as the radically different accounts of the events surrounding Jesus's birth in Matthew and Luke.

Still, he does contrast the canonical gospels' basic agreements about Jesus (as a savior who suffered and died) vs. the non-canonical accounts, particularly the Gnostic texts, where Jesus's suffering and death are not the point. Johnson also tells us about the infancy gospels, one of which is a major source for Catholic Mary-worship, and the other of which (The Infancy Gospel of Thomas) shows Jesus as a very dangerous child. Johnson seems to get as much a kick out of this portrayal as Bart Ehrman does.

After listening to these lectures, which don't get boring despite there being 36 of them, I have a better understanding of various aspects of the gospels and the intents of their writers. It would have been nice if Johnson could explain how to reconcile all the differences to justify a belief in the supernatural--but I think his point is that it doesn't matter for a true believer. I'm in no position to vouch for that! But I will continue to listen to Johnson's other Great Courses. He's an excellent lecturer and scholar.

Johnson provides a good overview of the development of the Jewish and Christian bibles, providing good scholarship about the various manuscripts, the lack of original sources, disputes over the best texts, the many translations and the difficulty of translation, and many of the personalities involved. As a Roman Catholic, his perspective may have aspects that Protestants, especially fundamental ones (or atheists for that matter) may take exception to, but overall, he does a good job of presenting an unbiased history of the bible's development. He is also blunt about the King James Bible: it is a great work of literature, but not the best translation, since it relied on later manuscripts (several centuries older than the earliest manuscripts.) If you are interested in the story of Christianity, I certainly recommend this course. It provides a slightly different shading perhaps, but it mainly reinforces other courses and books, such as John Barton's history of the bible or Diarmaid McCulloch's history of Christianity. Johnson is a smooth, superior lecturer.

This series of 36 lectures never drags thanks to the well-crafted content and almost flawless delivery of Luke Timothy Johnson. My only negative note is that his pronunciation of some words, especially "decades", seems a bit idiosyncratic. His grasp of the subject matter is beyond excellent, however. This course will not appeal to fundamentalists, since Johnson, a Roman Catholic, freely acknowledges the shortcomings of the Bible as history or as prophecy. He also makes the good point that we simply don't know as much about how Christianity was experienced by "normal" people during these long centuries, since almost everything that remains in the way of documentary evidence stems from the literate, educated classes to which the church leadership increasingly belonged after Christianity's humble beginnings. Still, this course is a great overview that tracks quite closely with the other courses and books I have read--or am reading, in the case of Diarmaid MacCulloch's Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. In this course, Johnson is a historian and he teaches as such. If you want to understand his views about the truth of the Bible, you can see that on YouTube, where he appears to say that we need to look on the Bible as a model for life, not as a history of the past or a prediction of the future. This seems a valid viewpoint for someone who so clearly understands the shortcomings of Christianity as practiced for the past 2000 years.½

A quality commentary on Hebrews by a respected scholar.

The author follows the conventions of the series and provides a robust explanation of the letter to the Hebrews. The Catholicism of the author is apparent in a few places: it does not hinder the author's interpretative position much and often provides some greater anchoring in the great tradition. He is in conversation with a lot of the other commentaries of the era.

A valuable voice in considering the letter to the Hebrews.

B

A sometimes dry and other times engaging book on the development of Christianity amongst Jewish and Greco-Roman culture.

Very useful for preaching!

The author wrote this to counter many of the claims in books by members of the "Jesus Seminar”. I began reading the book expecting the author to directly counteract many of the contentions of the JS members; however, it took the author so long with so much background and very difficult text to work through that when he finally got to the meat of the JS errors, it was so far into the book. Not what I expected. And, realize this book will be a challenge for you to read if you are not a theologian/academic, with a very significant vocabulary.

Authoritative, beautifully written and persuasively argued, this book challenges positions taken up by both liberals and conservatives, eloquently demonstrating that faith is a dynamic process not a static set of rules. It will be welcomed by members of every church community, students, clergy and lay people.

Wow! Another absolutely amazing Car Tech publication, this time covering Ford Motor's drag racing history during the 60s-70s. The amount of research, details, and the vintage photographs here are simply stunning. Charles R. Morris has done a fantastic job of collecting and assembling this material into a cohesive whole that tells the story of a bygone era. And....the cars! The many Cobras, Mustangs, Fairlaines, Galaxies, Comets, and Thunderbolts are covered in great detail, with plenty of specs and racing history. I drooled when I saw the photos of Carrol Shelby's "Super Snake", the "Lively One" Thunderbolts, the vintage maroon-colored '64 Mercury Marauder with factory 427, and the reproduced documents from Ford regarding engine specs and modifications, like "Some questions and answers on drag strip use of the 427." This was quite obviously a labor of love by Mr. Morris, who writes in the book, "Over the years I've had people remark about my ability to recall seemingly unimportant events from long ago in such great detail. What they fail to understand is the imagery and good feelings that these memories are able to conjure up in a middle-aged man who was once a teenager." Indeed, there are many, many good feelings in this amazing book. Kudos to the author and Car Tech -- keep 'em coming!

Johnson is an outstanding biblical scholar and biblical theologian - the two are not necessarily the same - and, while this book has been around for a good while now, it has not lost its punch or its importance. Indeed I could only wish it were at the forefront of reading for every theological college responsible for the formation of those in the ministry and/or priesthood of the Church.

Actually Johnson had me rolling with laughter during his much-needed hatchet job on some somewhat specious forms of biblical interpretations. I'm not sure Johnson would have approved, but as someone is constantly dealing with the aftermath of those whose belief in anything transcendent has been systematically dismantled by men and women in ecclesiastical teaching roles, it was a relief to be reminded that there are in fact some internal consistencies in belief in a God who is a little bigger than the small meanderings of human investigation. I know one or two people who assure me that the Jesus Seminar or John Spong have restored their faith, but I never hear any clear articulation of their newfound faith: faith in what, exactly, beyond a sort of "religionity" or perhaps aggressive anti-fundamentalism. Johnson is no fundamentalist - nor am I (and I distance myself from one of the previous reviewers of this book) - but neither does he inhabit a universe in which human investigation is the final arbiter of possibility.

Which is why this is a pastoral book - apart from the therapeutic benefits of side-splitting, belly-wobbling laughter. When I stand with parents at the bedside of their dead child I want to represent far more than the rather passé suggestion that Die Sache Jesu geht weiter (the cause of Jesus goes on), as proposed by that great (and gentlemanly) liberal theologian, Willi Marxsen (see 138). Marxsen and the Jesus Seminar and Spong and Geering and others are often tarred with the same brush: delightful gentlemen (and women), but given to confusing niceness with the gospel. Johnson's "real" Jesus isn't particularly nice, as such, but his is a narrative that has for two millennia entered into human darkness, including the darkness of those holding the limp body of a loved child, and breathed resurrection hope.

The key to understanding Johnson is that "if the expression the real Jesus is used at all, it should not refer to a historically reconstructed Jesus" (167). The problem with such reconstructions, as Johnson hints over and again, is that they too often culminate in a Jesus who resembles all too closely the interests of the re-constructors. A feminist Jesus, a left-wing Jesus, a right-wing Jesus (for, as Johnson notes, fundamentalists too are trapped in the myopia of post-enlightenment prejudice), a gay Jesus, a nationalistic Hitlerian or American or Australian or .... the reconstructed Jesusses are innumerable if the interpreters stand judge over the narratives of faith and dictate which parts are real and which are to be jettisoned. Johnson would prefer the myriad if piecemeal glimpses of Jesus available to us in the rich texture of canonical scripture be allowed to speak, as they have spoken to believers (for Johnson is not proposing a phenomenological approach!) for two millennia. Johnson reclaims a theology of canon, seeing in the very process of formation of the canon not the machinations of an oppressive cabal but a ratification of works that spoke to and transformed human lives in the formative centuries of faith. Johnson even, as if but not tangentially, reclaims the place of the creeds, but addresses that question more completely in his subsequent work The Creed.

This book, in turns humorous and deeply profound, should be essential reading for every Christian pastor, priest, prophet, indeed every Christian who reads the scriptures.

Luke Timothy Johnson masterfully shows how the Nicene creed was formed, the meaning of each line (especially those estranged to modern minds), and lifts up how the creed holds the middle by both offending the extremes. He then challenges the creed reader to see it as a rule of faith and guide to reading scripture and theology as one of the many tools the church at its disposal.

Johnson's commentary is filled with much spiritual and practical insights. He shows convincingly that the letter of James is not a hodge-podge of morally wise sayings - much like proverbs - but a a letter with a logical progression of unified thought. His unique discussion of the James-Paul debate puts their "differences" in an enlightening perspective that lends weight to their agreement rather than their supposed contradictory view of faith/works.

His delving into the word meanings and possible translations of particular texts is absorbing and the way he shows the coherent relationship between sections of texts with other sections and with the epistle as a whole leaves one with a better appreciation and understandng of James' divinely inspired insights. One interesting note that Johnson makes is that the letter of james is prophetic in line and in sympathy with the Hebrew prophets.

Johnson's commentary on James is semi-technical. But that shouldn't make anyone afraid to read it because, despite it's thorough exegetical investigation into language, context, historical background, it is rather easy to read and grasp. I would advise anyone having trouble undertanding James' epistle, the Paul/James debate, the logical inter-connection between sections of verses and ideas, should read this, especially for ministers desiring to preach or teach on this epistle.

Every now and again I pick up a book that has me gasping in raptures of delight, paragraph after paragraph after paragraph. My reviews probably reflect the fact that i am predisposed to buying books that I expect to find rewarding: some exceed my hopes, and The Creed is one. All the more fool I for taking so many years to get around to reading it!

On almost every page I wanted to shout my amens from the roof top. LT Johnson has always hung tenaciously to an orthodox but not conservative or narrow faith, and this is no exception. Working from the premise that the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed sets 'boundaries not barriers' (amen!) he works line by line through its affirmations, interpreting them for a thoroughly contemporary world, finding in them boundaries to give faith shape, but simultaneously permissions to engage intellectual and spiritual and indeed robust active missiological exploration of their implications. I could give example after example, but the review would approach the book in length. Suffice it to say he finds only in the filioque a short-coming in the creed. In all its other machinations he finds challenge, encouragement, and affirmation of a credible, challenging, extending faith that will not be limited by the myopia of post-Enlightment reason.

I cannot agree with the previous reviewer that Johnson's extrapolations from the creedal text for questions of the ordination of women are in any way a divergence from the main game. The subject appears, tangentially, only twice, and Johnson makes no more than a simple plea for ecclesiastical justice.

Johnson refuses to bestow on his Roman Catholic tradition any claims to superiority over other traditions, and indeed when addressing pneumatological questions affords the charismatic/pentecostal tradition integrity that I confess I for one have long been reluctant to grant it. As a result of his affirmation I am forced to review my own negativity, rather than to assume the tradition's inferiority! That can only be a good outcome from a truly ecumenical scholar's efforts (even if the non-liturgical traditions pay little enough attention to the creed).

This is an outstanding work that should be in the library of every faith community, and on the reading list of ever priest and pastor.

This 186-page book focuses on Luke-Acts through the lens of prophecy. The author draws from his rich knowledge based on his previous writings on those books. In fact, the book does not contain a single footnote. Johnson does not interact with the scholarly community in this book; instead, he focuses on the texts themselves. He describes five characteristics of the prophet and analyzes how these play out in the life of Jesus and the life of the early church: (1) The prophet is led by the Spirit of God; (2) The prophet speaks God's Word to humans; (3) The prophet embodies God's Word; (4) The prophet enacts God's vision; and (5) The prophet bears witness in the face of opposition. This is an interesting and relevant approach to the content of these books that make up one-fourth of the New Testament.

Very helpful in it's discussion of historicity.

Great analysis based on the discipline of "rhetoric" and how Paul's letters conformed to those styles existant in the Greco-Roman milieu. Helps to understand what he was trying to accomplish in each of them.

Many religious people choose to focus on those things that make their religion unique, ahistorically separating it from the cultures and other religions in and around which it originally formed. It makes sense that several kinds of contemporary Christianity would do the same. For those looking for a scholarly, well-argued position against the singular historical uniqueness of Christianity, Luke Timothy Johnson provides an excellent one in "Among the Gentiles."

Johnson feels that illustrating lines of continuity between Greco-Roman paganism, Jewish traditions, and nascent Christianity opens up the possibility of dialogue, as well as providing a space where the comparative history of religions can take place stripped of the limiting, often judgmental assumptions of contemporary conservative Christian apologetics. Any project with this type of scope requires tools which allow for the analysis of those types of continuity at which Johnson is looking.

Methodologically, he proposes a fourfold religious typology which claims will be useful in looking at all of these traditions; even though Johnson teaches in a school of theology, he avoids any theological language in any of these. What he calls "Religiousness A" is the participation in divine benefits, including "revelation through prophecy, healing through revelation, providing security and status through Mysteries, enabling and providing for the daily successes of individuals, households, cities, and empires." This type of religious practice is optimistic in believing that the world is a stage for divine activity, and pragmatic in that "salvation involves security and success in this mortal life." Johnson says that Greek orator Aelius Aristides embodies this type. In several of Aristides' orations, he singles out for praise Serapis (who protected him on his journey to Egypt) and Asclepius (who bestowed the gift of oratory upon him).

Religiousness B is moral transformation, which exemplifies the belief that "the divine [spirit] is immanent within human activity and expressed through moral transformation." The pagan example here is the Stoic philosopher Epictetus, whose Enchiridion is quite literally a "handbook for the moral life," detailing how to manage desires and emotions and learn one's social duties.

Religiousness C attempts to transcend the world, since "the divine is not found in material processes of the world but only in the realm of immortal spirit and light. Salvation is rescuing the spark of light that has fallen into a bodily prison and returning it, through asceticism and death itself, to the realm from which it first came. It is triumph through escape." Johnson selects as an example of Religiousness C the Poimandres, a selection from the Corpus Hermeticum (a complex set of texts of Egyptian origin associated with the revealer-god Hermes Trismegistus).

Religiousness D tries to stabilize the world, consisting largely of "all ministers and mystagogues of cults, all prophets who translated oracles and examined entrails and Sibylline utterances, all therapists who aided the god Asclepius in his healing work, all `liturgists' who organized and facilitated the festivals, all priests who carried out sacrifices, all Vestal Virgins whose presence and dedication ensured the permanence of the city." Johnson chooses Plutarch, the biographer, priest, and philosopher as the epitome of Religiousness D. Plutarch accepts the responsibility of exercising civic magistracies, shows a commitment to maintaining Apollo's temple at Delphi (as well as serving as a priest there), and expends a lot of effort in returning the temple to its former grandeur. Plutarch is a student of the social dimension of religion, and obviously is most concerned with how religion affects the reigning social order.

Johnson says that types A and B were already at work in the Christian world in the first century; he looks at type A in the apocryphal Gospels, Acts, and Montanism; type B is discussed in Clement of Rome, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Polycarp. Religiousness C, "transcending the world," Johnson argues, does not appear until the second century, where its predominant idiom is found in the Gnostic writings discovered at Nag-Hammadi, and especially Irenaeus' refutation of Gnostic doctrine in "Adversus Haereses." Religiousness D, stabilizing the world, first became recognizable after 313's Edict of Milan, which marked the beginning of Constantine's adoption of Christianity as the official imperial religion, and grew even stronger after the appearance of political and communal power within the bishoprics around the Christian world.

If there was one criticism I have of the book, it would be that the fourfold typology is sometimes applied too strictly to situations where it doesn't apply as well as others. It is clear from the way Johnson phrases the language of the four types that he anticipates the rise of Christianity, and therefore molds them to accommodate it. Also, Johnson represents the types as if they were compartmentalized and essential, when in fact they bleed together and inform each others' practice. Surely transcendence was sometimes thought of as a gift bestowed by the gods, or that moral transformation can stabilize society, and so forth. Surely Johnson realizes this, but he has already performed quite the feat in establishing his thesis in a mere 280 pages.

Johnson is a Catholic, and his scholarship in this book truly is in the spirit of the "Nostra Aetate," the Second Vatican Council's rallying exhortation for a thoroughgoing ecumenism. The truth is that Johnson does have an agenda: one of inclusion, one whose goal is the "embrace of a catholicity of religious sensibility and expression." At the heart of Johnson's book is a call for Christians to embrace the fullness and complexity of their past, and to view this as a means of starting a conversation instead of stopping one.

I have simplified and adumbrated some of the arguments that Johnson makes in the book, because they really are too rich and fully textured to give them the treatment they deserve here. I recommend this highly for anyone with a catholic (lower-case c) attitude toward Christianity and Christian history, and anyone who wants to learn about the ways that Christianity borrowed from paganism during its first few centuries.

University professors have a generalized reputation for being either dull or overly interested in minutiae that most people don't care about. Many embrace this reputation, writing articles and books that only specialized scholars will appreciate. This is particularly true in the field of religion and the study of the Bible. A few, though, buck the trend, writing books that are aimed at the general public which incorporate both learned research and good instincts about what questions most people have.

Luke Timothy Johnson, professor at Emory University's Candler School of Theology, has long been one such academic writer, producing books for a wide audience of those curious about Christian origins and the faithful within the church. Given his focus on the New Testament, one of his crowning achievements is a single volume overview: "The Writings of the New Testament: An Interpretation." The book has been especially popular in college classrooms, going through multiple printings and encouraging the second edition.

Johnson tries to carefully balance scholarship and accessibility in the volume, usually with much success. In particular, the chapters which offer guided readings and basic context and analysis of each of the New Testament books are excellent. They are brief without being cursory, they are intelligible and intelligent, and they follow Johnson's promise to present each work as a cogent whole. (Similar volumes by other scholars are usually limited because of their often fragmentary approach to the New Testament writings.)

Less successful, however, is Johnson's presentation of his overarching framework for approaching the New Testament writings. Although he begins with a good, if obvious, question – Why were these books written? – his answer, which centers on preserving communal memory among the first Christians, leads to unnecessary section of three chapters which detail the experiences of Christians between the time of Jesus in the writing of the New Testament. While Johnson's reconstruction of the time is admirable, the effort gives much more background than most readers will want or need; worse, the section precedes all of the chapters on the specific New Testament writings, which means that if a reader gets bogged down in the section, they likely will never read the excellent parts of the volume.

As such, the book overall is a mix of the very good with the very frustrating. The cultural introduction is good; the thematic introduction is unnecessary. The wise and faithful reading of the scriptural books is an excellent resource for students of the New Testament and Christians in general.½

Aside from a rather intemperate outburst towards the end of the book against Church teaching on the reservation of ordination to men, this is a very good review of the origin and role of the various historic creeds in Christian life.