To distract me from dissertation research, I’m grateful for a number of commissions and occasions for reading some Bible passages. Here’s what’s coming down the pike. Please tell me what you notice, if you find yourself reading and thinking about similar things:
Levitical purity masterclass
I’m taking, not teaching, a class from Peter Leithart. Look out for structural, symbolic readings of Leviticus 11-12, 13-14, and 15.
There is an amazingly clear correspondence between the five-part sequence of topics in Genesis 3:14-21 and Leviticus 11-16 that I hope to explore.
The seven last words of Jesus
On Good Friday, I’m to offer an extended reflection on the word, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”
My entry point is that the phrase σήμερον μετ ἐμοῦ ἔσῃ ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ is, more literally, “Today with me you will be in paradise.” Jesus mentions himself first. My insight is that the source of Jesus’s words of encouragement to this man is the hope he already has for himself.
I’m thinking about what it means for Jesus to have developed the theological virtue of hope, and how hope begets hope in others.
Reading the parables backward and forward
I think I’m most excited for this one. I’ll be teaching four parables alongside my friend Dr. Matthew Messer. We’ll teach alongside each other, offerings readings of Jesus’s parables in the light of Torah, and in the light of the Fathers and Aquinas.
I’m backwards, he’s forwards.
Anyway, I’ve finally cracked the final parable, and identified my entry points:
The Parable of the Sower: The sower is introduce as speirōn speirein, or “a sower sowing.” This evokes God’s act of creation in Gen. 1:11 (LXX), which is speirōn sperma. This is a parable of the fourth day of creation. Also, the only man in the Bible to “sow” a field that yields a “hundredfold” is Isaac in Gen. 26:12. What is it about Isaac that makes him a good template for composing this parable?
The Parable of the Hidden Treasure: Jesus tells a story about a man who buys a field. There are only two OT men who buy fields: Abraham (Gen. 23, 33) and Boaz (Ruth 4). Abraham buries Sarah there (when she dies), and Boaz had found Ruth hidden in a field, as it were. What do they have to do with this story?
The Parable of the Prodigal Son: At first glance, Leviticus 14 is about where a skin-diseased man must go, and when. At second glance, these are instructions for a priest who, implicitly, is supposed to lead such a man through these zones and across the boundaries dividing “outside the camp,” from “the camp,” from sancta. In this parable, the father leads his son through these same zones (from pig land, to the fields, to the festal center) and offers a sacrifice on his behalf. What does the figure of the father have to teach us about what it means to be a new covenant priest?
The Parable of the Good Samaritan: The defilement laws for priests in Leviticus 21:1-4 seems offer the priest and the Levite legal justification for passing the man by. The Samaritan’s response, it turns out, powerfully reinterprets this passage and teaches us what the Old Testament means by “mercy” and what it means that the law was made for man.
Reading Hebrews
Another friend, Dr. Matthew Rothaus Moser, has invited me to lead a seminar discussion of the Book of Hebrews for his New Testament class.
I don’t yet have an angle into this book. But following the work of Dr. Madison Pierce, I think we may pay attention to divine and divinized discourse. What God says, what the Son says, what the Spirit says, and what the Church says. In short, what does this book’s vision for speaking with God.
Hegel, Paul, and the alienation of labor
For better or worse, my wife has gotten me hooked on a lecture series that explains Hegel. These lectures remind me of the way Paul addresses servants and masters in Ephesians 6:9.
I find the alienation of labor very interesting these days, so I expect to find myself tugging on this thread here and there. Maybe an essay will come of it.
Besides these, I’m writing curriculum on Joel and Acts for churches, but those aren’t my intellectual property, so I won’t share any of that here.
The Levitical reading reminds me of Mark Garcia's work at The Greystone Institute. Don't know if you're familiar with it but here's a link to some blog posts that discuss it https://www.greystoneinstitute.org/wince-sing/category/The+Levitical+Woman
Reading the parables in light of OT stories sounds fascinating. I’m curious about the Isaac connection… will have to think about that more.