Abstract
These days there is a flood of books and articles on virtue. Levison’s new book Inspired: The Holy Spirit and the Mind of Faith also deals with virtue. In this book, however, its notion is different from the Aristotelian virtue theory Alasdair MacIntyre frames. For Levison virtue is a more adaptable term as a range of activities such as ‘dietary simplicity’, ‘courageous honesty’, ‘avoidance of greed’, ‘living according to reason’, ‘sexual purity’, ‘communal generosity’, and ‘countless other actions and attitudes’. This derives from his meticulous biblical exegesis of virtue. As an expert on pneumatology, he expounds the cultivation of virtue and learning in relation to the Spirit in that the Holy Spirit becomes present in the inspired interpretation of scripture. This book, which is midway between his Filled with the Spirit for a scholarly readership and Fresh Air: The Holy Spirit for an Inspired Life for a popular one, presents a far more straightforward message for the church by offering specific Christian belief and practice.
This book consists of three chapters. In the first chapter, he states that the Spirit inspires virtue and learning in the Jewish Bible. The Spirit is the source of virtue, a reservoir of learning. The early church embraced this symbiosis between inspiration, virtue, and learning. It is noteworthy that for Levison Bezalel was not filled with an initial endowment of the Spirit in God’s filling him but a topping-up since he already possessed spirit and wisdom of heart. The second chapter demonstrates the symbiosis between ecstasy and comprehension that pervades Jewish and Christian scripture. The third chapter shows that the presence of the Holy Spirit in Israelite, Jewish, and Christian literature is the inspired interpretation of scripture. Ancient Jewish corpora are inextricably linked to understanding the rise of early Christian pneumatology. In this book, one weak point is that the author does not clearly distinguish between spirit and the Holy Spirit even though their difference is huge. Those who translate the Hebrew term for spirit, ruach, or Greek work for it, pneuma, into English ought to decide whether to capitalise the term or leave it lower case in order to show the unique endowment of the Spirit. However, given that research on virtue has been relatively neglected in biblical studies in connection with pneumatology, Levison’s Inspired is well worth reading.