Presenting the issue: the human touch

The Scriptures contain a wide range of topics and issues that reflect a distinctively human dimension. While interfacing with the divine is always at issue in Scripture, the human dimension often prevails as the operative message.

This issue of BTB contains four articles that explore the human dimension, ways in which the meanings seem to be all about who and what we are in the sphere of distinctly human activities. This shouldn't be surprising, since what is revealed or inspired relates specifically to who we are and how the divine helps to shape our perceptions of what that means.

Robert Foster raises an interesting question about how Jesus spoke of the Father. The fatherhood of God is an especially human way of knowing the transcendent deity, made intelligible to humans by drawing a likeness to what it means to be one who gives life, to beget another, and how that relationship continues through the image of family. So conceived, Jesus speaks of his sonship to the Father. Like prophets of old, Jesus sometimes speaks of God only as "my Father," thereby distancing his disciples from that special relationship. A noteworthy observation that the Gospel of Matthew Contains the lion's share of this usage makes the author, in "Your, Ours, and Mine: Jesus' Use of the Prophetic Possessive in the Gospel of Matthew," seek out the ground for Matthew's special rhetorical usage. Sorting through the various interpretations of this usage, Foster comes up with a twist that Matthew may well be projecting into the meaning of this subtle possessive.

John J. Pilch searches through the musical references in the Gospel of Matthew for special meanings. Music certainly is a human medium that imbues settings with distinctive meanings to unite people who share the sense of hearing. In "Flute Players, Death, and Music in the Afterlife (Matthew 9:18-19, 23-26)," Pilch employs his own devotion to music to discern the distinctive messages that flute players convey at the time of death. Those not so acutely attuned may well have missed the allusions to music and instruments that Pilch here uncovers and relates to the Matthean passage. Engagingly illustrated, this article excels in helping readers appreciate how much music communicates meanings within Scripture.

Tim Hegedus moves readers into the world of commentary on biblical personalities. Once included within the biblical canon, in Codex Sinaiticus, the Letter of Barnabas emerges from the time of the Second Testament's formation. It is especially valued for its exposition on biblical themes. "Midrash and the Letter of Barnabas" relates to the process by which biblical personages evoke special meanings for the communities that preserve their memories. How the author of the Letter ingeniously shapes his biblical references to explore the meaning of Jesus is a dynamic example of how humans reach into scriptural texts to interpret present circumstances. Preachers continue to use this medium to form biblical collages that reflect the human mind at work, seeking light from the scriptural torch.

David J. Neville probes Willard Swartley's timely Covenant of Peace: The Missing Peace in New Testament Theology and Ethics, in an article-length review. War and peace seem inherent in human history of any age; yet Swartley makes peace a distinctive theme of New Testament authors. First Testament biblical images of God as divine warrior carry into the Second Testament, according to Swartley, in Jesus' battles against demonic forces. Yet, the goal is always peace within the human family. Neville deftly critiques the book, carefully weighing its merits and challenges. Like the Bible itself, this is an insightful commentary on a commentary, producing a dynamic work that relates front and center to today's human conditions.

Those who see religion only in cultic terms may fail to recognize the humanity within biblical texts. Interpreters can help people today to recognize themselves in the mirror of biblical dynamics, not as slavishly tied to what has gone before but as energized and nourished with the knowledge that the interaction of God with humanity is a living and growing reality.

David M. Bossman

Editor

COPYRIGHT 2007 Biblical Theology Bulletin, Inc
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning