How long does it take for a tradition to become a tradition? I have no idea. But I think I'll stick with one that began only twelve months ago, and commence the blogging year by mentioning some of the books that it is my intention to read in 2025. Some are part of ongoing projects and there are two complete series in view. And no doubt that there will be other "one-offs" that I’ve yet to encounter.
At the bottom of the pile (and still foundational in more than the obvious sense) is my Tyndale House Greek New Testament. The acutely observant with longish memories will remember that this was also at the bottom of last year's pile, but it was there perhaps more in hope than expectation. I had embarked on learning NT Greek with the help of resources from Union. At the time I thought I might eventually embark on further, formal language study. But alas my progress was rather slower than I had hoped (and slower than was necessary to undertake the courses I had in mind). However, by last September I had made sufficient progress to join a local group that met online once a week to read and translate the NT. So, for an hour each Wednesday morning that’s what we’ve been doing. Reading our way through John’s Gospel, there have already been some lightbulb moments. I confess that some are a bit nerdy; a verb in a tense freighted with meaning that is missed in the English. Others have come as a result of feeling the full force of the language John reports Jesus as using (albeit in his translation from Aramaic to Greek). The clarity with which Jesus claims not merely to be a prophet but God Himself was not lost on His original hearers who, in John 8:59, are literally ready to stone Him to death (ie they’ve got to the stone picking-up stage). But while this is clear in English translation, Jesus constantly taking up the language of Exodus 3:14 (I am) comes through loud and clear in the Greek. In the same section at least one other person uses the same words (once), but the context and repetition on Jesus’ part emphasise His claim.
My strategy for our sessions is to try to do several verses of translation each day over the preceding week, allowing me to spot difficult vocabulary or grammar (of which there’s still a lot) ahead of time. I am still very much in the foothills, but the Tyndale “Reader’s Addition” helpfully lists less familiar words in footnotes at the bottom of each page, meaning that one doesn’t constantly have to refer to a separate lexicon or the interweb, thus saving lots of time. This year I’ve also been trying to read a couple of verses in Greek from my daily Bible reading schedule. And to keep moving forward I thought I’d better try and advance my understanding of the grammar beyond the basics covered last year. To some extent this develops from the reading, for it quickly becomes clear that basic rules are, well, basic. As with any language (and English must be a nightmare in this respect) such rules are often more broken than kept. So on my pile is Mathewson and Emig’s “Intermediate Greek Grammar”. While admittedly not what you would call “ a right riveting read” this is none-the-less useful for understanding some of the rule bending and breaking that actually occurs with the language “in the wild”.
What I did have last year (although I didn’t discus it in the relevant post) was some serious theological reading - Calvin’s Institutes (edited by McNeill, expertly and entertainingly translated by Ford Lewis Battles). The “Institutes” represented some of the first “proper” theology I read when I began the MTh at Union. I had of course heard of the man before, and had enough reformed friends to have heard of the Institutes. But I had never actually read Calvin (and now I wonder if my friends ever had either). I initially approached the two substantial volumes of the McNeill edition with some trepidation. After all the Institutes were originally written in the 16th century, within a particular context and with some fairly specific polemical targets. I had already been exposed to some of Barth’s “Church Dogmatics” which was not an entirely happy experience. I needn’t have worried. The combination of Calvin’s clarity of organisation and thought (and his wit) on the one hand, and Battle’s skill as a translator on the other, made it an intellectual and spiritual treat. Even for those not of a reformed disposition, there is much to learn and admire in Calvin’s efforts. But that was last year. I wanted to continue reading theology, but what next? Providentially I picked N.T. Wright’s five volume “Christian Origins and the Question of God”. I say providentially because, a bit like Calvin (or was it Battles?) Wright has a way with words. I managed to get started on Vol 1 early, and finished it last week. It is written with verve and wit, but without sacrificing depth and thoroughness (and providing plenty of footnotes and an extensive bibliography). There are those occasions when one encounters writing dealing with difficult or potentially dense issues, but the author does so in way that provides assurance that they “know their onions”. Having learned lots about the Judaism that provided a key element of the context for Jesus’ arrival, life, death and resurrection, I’m now enjoying the second volume which concentrates on Jesus Himself. The plan is to complete all five volumes this year. So far, I have no reason to believe this will be a chore.
To digress from the theology for a moment (but not as far as you might think), I also plan to read Hillary Mantell’s “Wolf Hall” trilogy. Now it is true that she won the 2009 Booker Prize for the fist book in the trilogy, and this would normally scare me off. The books that critics deem worthy of awards and the books that I enjoy reading usually fall into two distinct and mutually exclusive categories. Prize-winning prose is usually not my thing. But I was was impressed with the BBC’s adaptation of the books, and enjoyed Mark Rylance’s portrayal of the central character, Thomas Cromwell. So I took the plunge and made the trilogy one of my 2024 Christmas asks. Some kind relative duly obliged and this has been my bedtime reading throughout January. Bedtime it may be, but “light” it is not. I’ll spare you the review, but I will be persevering. And the story of Cromwell (if not the man himself) is growing on me. I have two and a bit books to make up my mind.
Towards the top of the pile is reading for another “project”. I completed my PhD at the end of the 1980’s, and spent a good part of the 90’s in the Centre for Neuroscience at the University of Edinburgh. These were heady days in what we’ll call the “neurosciences” (really a collection of fields and techniques all aimed at understanding the operations of the brain and nervous system). As a subject it was reaching maturity and new tools, particularly those for imaging the brain in awake human subjects (ie while they were doing things like thinking), were becoming routinely available. The new techniques and results had not gone unnoticed by philosophers, who were beginning to think that there might be light at the end of the very long, very dark mind/brain tunnel. It was around this time that “eliminative materialism” came into its own with loud and confident statements made, asserting that things like beliefs were the product of a soon-to-be-refuted and redundant “folk psychology”. Soon we would all get used to the (correct) idea that beliefs were the phlogiston of the neurosciences and they would be properly replaced by talk about brain states. “I” am merely my brain and have no more basis in reality than the immaterial God who has already been routed and driven from polite public discourse. What I didn’t know at the time was that this was (of course) only a very partial view of the state of the philosophical (never mind the theological) world.
So my aim is to now read some of the rejoinders I should have read then. To be fair I was doing other things at the time like making my own modest contribution to trying to understand vision and eye movement. This time round I’m also specifically interested in the serious theology as well as the philosophy involved, because it turns out there is quite a lot of it. Including (as can bee seen in my pile) Barth. Actually Cortez's "Embodied Souls, Ensouled Bodies" has been very helpful on that front. Suffice to say that already I’m discovering that time has not been kind to the eliminativists, and that’s even before one begins to take on board what Divine revelation has to say about the constitution of human beings, mental and otherwise.
It turns out God has much to say about us as well as Himself.
