Textual appeal: confessions of a New Testament teacher

Christian Century, Nov 1, 2003 by Michael Joseph Brown

IT'S THE TOUGHEST JOB you'll ever love. And no, it's not the Marine Corps. Teaching an introductory course in New Testament can be worthy of combat pay. This is especially tree when must of the students are Christian.

Biblical scholars and their students have very different presuppositions regarding the Bible. If I could explain these presuppositions to my students, I thought, then we could begin to communicate. This strategy eased tensions tremendously. My students began to understand my reasons for making certain moves in interpretation and textbook selection. Nevertheless, teaching Christianity's sacred texts to Christians can be dangerous--a danger I try to deal with by structuring my New Testament course in a certain way,

Two new introductory textbooks for New Testament studies help clarify why I organize my course as I do. Delbert Burkett uses the historical-critical method as a means of reconstructing early Christian life and faith, Paul J. Achtemeier, Joel B. Green and Marianne Meye Thompson emphasize the New Testament canon as the foundational document of the church. Thompson's syllabus includes a statement on the course's relevance for ministry.

I have a particular preference--actually a bias--regarding how a course in New Testament should be taught, and I begin my course by making that preference clear. Like Burkett, I practice the historical-critical method. This means that I read scripture with an eye toward how the text fits into its larger historical context. There are, of course, other ways scriptural texts can be read: for their literary and aesthetic value, for example, or as a model for determining how one should conduct one's life, which is the way most of my students read scripture. They are concerned with what the text means, whereas I am concerned with what the text meant. Acknowledging this difference is important because it informs the instructor's theological perspective and has implications for her pedagogical style.

Achtemeier, Green and Thompson structure their book around their joint preference for studying the New Testament primarily as "the decisive witness to Jesus Christ and hence as normative for shaping Christian belief and practice." They approach the New Testament as a body of literature with a theological content that has meaning for the modern reader. By contrast, Burkett structures his work around his preference for historical investigation. This explains why his book begins with a chapter that emphasizes "the differences between the historical-critical method and the confessional method of studying the New Testament."

Though Burkett attempts to bring modern relevance to his investigation by adding discussion questions at the end of each chapter, these questions are few and far between. Bridging the chasm between past and present is difficult, and his book only underscores that difficulty. I prefer Burkett's method over Achtemeier, Green and Thompson's, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't use the latter work at all. If I used it, however, I would probably define my perspective over against that of the authors.

After explaining nay perspective, I have to clarify what I want my New Testament course to accomplish. This breaks down into at least two additional questions. First, do I want the course to be an introduction to the discipline of biblical scholarship, or do 1 want it to be an introduction to the New Testament texts? An introduction to the discipline involves familiarizing students with the history of interpretation and its present practitioners. An introduction to the texts involves orienting students to the various types of literature that make up the New Testament, aim the claims or arguments of each. The lectures in nay introductory courses are aimed at acquainting students with the texts themselves, while the textbooks I choose introduce them to the discipline.

Second, do I want this course to be an exercise in intellectual or ill theological formation? Emphasizing intellectual formation means making connections between this body of literature and the wider project of humanistic inquiry. Theological formation means looking at the New Testament as a document of the church meant for the edification of practitioners of the faith. Since I teach students working for their master of divinity degrees, I want the course to be an exercise in theological formation and thinking. I want my students to see the New Testament as a basic document that informs preaching, teaching, counseling and administration. They should view it as a resource for constructing modern theological claims.

BURKETT'S BOOK is more of an introduction to the discipline. It discusses such issues as the two-document hypothesis, the quest for the historical Jesus, proto-orthodoxy in the New Testament and the authorship of the disputed Pauline letters. In addition, it includes discussions of various noncanonical Christian materials, including the apocryphal gospels (e.g., the Infancy Gospel of Thomas). This gives the reader a broader perspective on Christianity as a historical movement involving various manifestations of the faith. It complicates our understanding of Christianity's development because it follows the historian's method of not privileging an orthodox theological perspective. Thus, it is an exercise in intellectual formation. Because Burkett, associate professor of religious studies (New Testament and early Christianity) at Louisiana State University, teaches in a liberal arts setting, he is obligated to make connections between these Christian documents and other forms of humanistic inquiry.