Abstract
Richard Bauckham’s latest work, The Bible in the Contemporary World, is a collection of fourteen essays that seeks to engage critically with both the biblical text and the context of the contemporary world. The work incorporates ten essays from Bauckham’s previous work along with four original contributions. In each essay in the volume, Bauckham confronts readers with unique challenges of interpreting the Bible in a culture that is “currently a fluid mixture of modern and postmodern features, which we misunderstand unless we give full recognition to both” (p. xi). The nature of the volume prohibits a detailed summary of each essay in a brief review. Below I have summarized the essays most pertinent to understanding Bauckham’s approach to understanding contemporary culture through the lens of the biblical text.
Bauckham opens the work by defining and defending reading Scripture as metanarrative. Bauckham addresses the difficulty of using the term metanarrative to describe the biblical story. The modern conception of metanarratives focuses on the ability of reason to have complete explanatory power in a “grand narrative.” Toward the end of the twentieth century, postmodern scholars such as Peter Lyotard argued that modern metanarratives embraced a naïve understanding of the explanatory power of reason. Bauckham proposes that the biblical story is not a metanarrative in the modern sense, but is an example of a pre-modern metanarrative that is concerned with the meaning of all of reality. He argues that the nature of the metanarrative of Scripture makes it equally offensive to modernism’s insistence on universal reason and postmodernism’s insistence upon relativism (p. 11).
The second essay in Bauckham’s work calls the reader’s attention to an essay by C. S. Lewis titled “Fernseed and Elephants.” Lewis’s essay focused on the tendency of ministers to be skeptical about the historicity of the NT and embrace the work of NT criticism. Lewis contended that the focus of interpreters on the minutia of NT criticism caused them to miss the glaring truths of the NT text held by the people to whom they preached. Bauckham notes that the situation Lewis described in his essay is still often the case, and finds his critique of some applications of NT criticism helpful, though he does note that Lewis’s essay is lacking at points because of his background as a literary critic rather than a historian.
In the essay “Contemporary Western Culture,” Bauckham provides a biblical-Christian critique of Western concepts of consumerism, freedom, and individualism. Bauckham notes the propensity of Western culture to embrace all of these concepts to excess, and comments that “the biblical category for such an addiction to excess is idolatry” (p. 40). Bauckham moves from critiquing Western culture to discussing globalization in his essay “The Bible and Globalization.” This essay is more of a biblical theology of globalization than a critique of globalization in the contemporary world. Bauckham’s essay “Freedom and Belonging” continues the theme of examining the role Western culture plays in interpretation of Scripture. Here Bauckham critiques the concept of freedom Western culture inherited from the Enlightenment, noting that the tendency in Western culture is to understand freedom through a hyperindividualistic lens.
Four essays focusing on ecology and biblical interpretation comprise the heart of The Bible in the Contemporary World. In these essays, Bauckham considers how texts such as Genesis 1–3, Romans 8, and 1 Corinthians 13 inform a Christian approach to environment and ecology. These essays reflect Bauckham’s strong concern for the environment such as the ones expressed in his work The Bible and Ecology (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2010).
“Creation—Divine and Human” is one of the essays original to the current work. In this essay, Bauckham explores the ideas concerning the limits of originality in human creativity developed by George Steiner in his book Grammars of Creation (London: Faber, 2001). Bauckham finds some of Steiner’s points intriguing, but disagrees with the way in which Steiner classifies humanity’s role in creative activity. Bauckham notes, “I do not see evidence that the Bible actually envisages human activity that goes beyond the memetic to the kind of originality that Steiner is attempting to identify in great art” (p. 126).
One of the most challenging essays in The Bible in the Contemporary World is titled “God’s Embrace of Suffering.” In this essay, Bauckham shares his views on the connection between Jesus’ suffering on the cross and the undeserved suffering of humans. Bauckham argues that the gospels make clear that Jesus intends for his crucifixion to be an act of solidarity with those who feel abandoned by God (p. 131). The essay concludes with a discussion about the implications of Bauckham’s view and divine impassibility.
The remaining essays in The Bible in the Contemporary World focus on issues ranging from a Buddhist–Christian dialogue to a discussion of wisdom themes in Col 1:15–20. The diversity of these last essays demonstrates the breadth of material effected when a scholar engages critically with both the biblical text and the contemporary world.
Bauckham’s essays in the present volume demonstrate his willingness to interpret the Bible where he is—in contemporary, Western culture. Readers of these essays will find a compelling navigation of the confusing interchange of scriptural authority and cultural relevance. Bauckham’s method is to understand the realities of the contemporary world—realities like gratuitous suffering, ecological challenges, and the changing landscape of Western and global culture—in light of the metanarrative of the biblical text. The result is a poignant approach to Scripture that challenges readers to consider how the grand story of the Bible effects each aspect of the world in which we live.