E-readers, note-taking, and why I'm still a non-adopter

Over at Jesus Creed, Scot McKnight discusses a report of a University of Washington study regarding e-readers and higher education. One of the big results of the study is basically to show that an e-reader like a Kindle as some setbacks for study and learning. I found this article enlightening because it more or less reinforces my main reluctance to make the transition to e-books. I love to underline and mark up book as I read, and in fact that's one of the key ways I learn. Being able to flip through a chapter I'm in the middle of and scan the underlined or annotated sections helps me pick up an argument when I come back to a book, and being able to review all of these markings when I'm done reading helps me to review a book adequately. That's not even to mention the usefulness of these markings and annotations months or years later when I'm looking for an citation or a thought from a past reading. And I know that there are some bookmarking and notetaking capabilities built into most e-readers. But they can't replace underlining, marginal notes, arrows, etc. So, so far, I'm a non-adopter. And there are other reasons I'm not adopting on top of the mark-up reasons. One, my life doesn't need any more screen time, it needs less. Two, I love books, the feel of the binding, the turn of the pages, the movement of the bookmark through the book. And I love libraries! A kindle or nook on a shelf doesn't call to mind great ideas, exciting stories, or unexplored countries like a room full of beautiful bindings. And last, there is cost. I'm not interested in shelling out a rather sizable sum just for a reader, before paying for books, which I then only license instead of own. Instead I pinch pennies and buy used books.

The one way I can see using an e-reader is basically like a mass-market paperback, a way to read fiction that is purely for fun. But it's a pretty expensive vehicle for that. I'm still intrigued by e-readers, and watch the technology and its effect on the publishing industry with interest, but I'm not much closer to making the leap myself.

Carlson and Longman, Science, Creation and the Bible

In this brief and general-reader-friendly book, physicist Richard Carlson and Biblical Studies professor Tremper Longman III undertake an attempt at a solution to the perceived conflict between the Genesis creation accounts and modern science. They advocate a reconciliation between the two disciplines, and they do this by making the following argument (their thesis statement, which appears on page 14):

The first two chapters of Genesis, which accurately present two accounts of creation in terms of ancient Hebrew scientific observations and heir historical understanding, are neither historical nor literal in the twenty-first-century literal sense. Instead, the underlying message of these chapters applies for all time and constitutes a complete statement of the worldview of the Hebrew people in the ancient Near East. They accurately understood the universe in terms of why God created it but not how in the modern scientific and historical sense. This worldview, markedly different from those of their pagan neighbors articulates the principles underlying their understanding of the relation of God to the universe, their relation to the true God, and their relation to each other and to the created order.

This book has a number of strengths, as the authors seek to make their case for this thesis. The principle strength is that it distills a lot of technical and academic thinking and writing into a very readable presentation that introduces some of these concepts and arguments to people who aren't otherwise familiar with them. For instance, the writers use some of John Polkinghorne's work to present a vision of the relationship between science and theology that goes beyond the popular conflict motif to a much more nuanced understanding of two disciplines with different spheres of study and different aims. The second major discussion that lays the groundwork for their thesis surrounds biblical hermeneutics, that is, how we read the Bible. Here again the authors present in simple terms an approach to reading the Bible that pushes people to be self-conscious in how they are interpreting the Bible and opens up the question of genre, the more of less formal conventions that guided both author and audience in understanding the type of text being presented. They discuss at length an incarnational model for understanding the Bible as both a divine and a human book. They also push for the category of myth as being helpful when looking to Genesis 1 and 2 and make a case from some contemporary authors such as C. S. Lewis for the usefulness and legitimacy of Christian myth.

The authors then move on to a reading of the major creation texts in the Old and New Testaments, preparing the way for a careful reading of Genesis 1 and 2 to investigate its place in the canon, its teaching, and its context in the ancient Near East. They assert that Genesis 1 and 2 should be read as a worldview statement for the ancient Hebrews, a statement that is made in a two-layered story, one layer being that of a story of the experiences and understandings of the ancient Hebrews, and a second layer consisting of the theological story they wanted to convey. It is the second, theological layer that is important for us today. They also point out both the similarities and the difference between the two Genesis accounts, concluding that the differences cue us in that these stories aren't meant to be read literally, since the author left in what would otherwise be viewed as conflicting details.

I have many reasons to commend this book. It is readable, and it helps to get people thinking in a critical way about what is perceived as a major conflict for Christians today between science and the Bible. I think many of their ideas are very helpful, and I do think that reading Genesis 1 and 2 against the back drop of the ancient Near East gives much greater understanding of these passages than a surface reading by someone in the twenty-first century alone could. I am also in agreement with the basic outline of the relationship they sketch between science and theology and hope this popular-level treatment brings that understanding to a wider audience. There were, I thought, a few weaknesses in the book. For me the largest one was the lack of useful summaries at the end of the two chapters investigating the creation texts in the NT and OT outside of Genesis 1 and 2. I thought these were interesting chapters, but they didn't seem to add much to the argument. Or, at least, their place went largely unstated beyond a few allusions. I also thought they ignored one of the most important "losses" as they term it, if their non-literal approach to Genesis 1 and 2 is adopted, namely the question of the historicity of Adam and Eve and the implications of that discussion for our understanding of humanity, the image of God, and the origin and character of sin. Although it is a complicated question, its exclusion seems a glaring omission (though it could be argued that it is technically outside their scope in focusing on Genesis 1 and 2, but Genesis 2 and 3 clearly for a unit of story, so decisions about one would likely have implications for understanding the other).

In conclusion, I hope many people read this book, and I do happily recommend it. There are pieces that could have been stronger, but it is overall a very clear statement of a better way of thinking about science and the Bible than the conflict model, and it helpful points Christians in a better direction.

Mark Yarhouse, Homosexuality and the Christian

Thanks to Bethany House for the review copy.

In this book that reflects many years of dedicated thought, counseling, and discussion, psychologist Mark Yarhouse steps right into the controversial waters of a Christian response to homosexuality. In it, he approaches the issue from a number of different angle. The first point in his discussion is a brief survey of the biblical evidence, which includes a helpful discussion of how not to misuse it, and he also helpfully contextualizes the discussion of Scripture in a wider discussion of sources of theology (covering the traditional quadrilateral of Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience), which helps to make readers aware of how they are approaching this difficult issue and also helps people to understand how others are approaching it. I think this is a helpful move, which helps people to be aware of how others are approaching these controversial questions, and helps us to appreciate the type of reasoning they are using instead of simply dismissing them. And I think this move of driving toward listening and understanding as a key component of dialogue is indicative of Yarhouse's book, which demonstrates that type of sympathetic listening and determination not to jump too quickly to facile conclusions.

The chapter that I think was for me the most helpful is his second chapter, where he looks at sexual identity. He advocates a three-tiered understanding of homosexuality: attraction, orientation, identity. The level of attraction is purely descriptive, people experience same-sex attraction. The second level, homosexual orientation, takes a step beyond attraction to a declaration of a settled pattern of attraction. The third level, gay identity, extends beyond either of the first two largely descriptive categories to a statement of identity formed around the sexual orientation, a self-attribution of who a person is that now integrates and endorses the sexual attractions. In our culture, there is a "gay script," as he describes it, that seeks to draw people from the first tier, attraction, through the second and into the third tier, all the while seeking to show that they aren't really tiers at all but one integrated whole. This script is based on the ideal of "self-actualization" and discovery. Yarhouse, on the other hand, posits the possibility of another more traditionally Christian script, which he describes as "Identity 'In Christ.'" He details this script as follows:

-Same-sex attraction does not signal a categorical distinction among types of persons, but is one of many human experiences that are "not the way it's supposed to be."
-Same-sex attractions may be part of your experience, but they are not the defining element of your identity.
-You can choose to integrate your experiences of attraction to the same sex into a gay identity.
-On the other hand, you can choose to center your identity around other aspects of your experience, including your biological sex, gender identity, and so on.
-The most compelling aspect of personhood for the Christian is one's identity in Christ, a central and defining aspect of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. (p. 51)

It is this alternative script that forms the basis for his prescribed response.

Yarhouse, as a practicing psychologist and professor of psychology, is well qualified to speak to the medical issues surrounding the discussion of sexual orientation, and his brief chapter detailing some of the important research demonstrates again that he resists facile conclusions but instead allows sometimes complex data to bring him to nuanced statements. As he discusses what causes homosexuality, he concludes that it likely has many causes, which are weighted differently in different people, and that we must be careful not to blame a person who is experiencing same-sex attraction as though they have chosen to experience it. His discussion of orientation change is likewise nuanced, as he endorses the fact that change can occur, but also cautions that only some people experience change, and most of those are only an incremental change as opposed to a complete reversal.

These chapters form the foundation of the book, and lay the groundwork for the real practical discussions that follow. The second part of the book investigates how to respond to a adolescent child, adult child, or spouse who is dealing with this issue. In the third part, he turns the focus on the church's response. I won't detail these here because my review is already longer than I had intended, but I will simply state that he uses the groundwork he has laid to good effect as he helps Christians to look at this issue from a somewhat different, and I believe helpful, perspective. I do not hesitate in recommending this book. I think he strikes a very warm and irenic tone, even as he seeks to correct people on both poles in this often acrimonious debate. Instead, he puts a very human face on the issues, interspersing his discussion with anecdotes from his own practice and people he has encountered over the years. In the end, I think the question that forms the title for his discussion of the church's response, "Whose people are we talking about?" puts things just the right way, and his answer is emphatically that Christians who struggle with homosexuality are "our people," people who need our support and encouragement as we all the while acknowledge to being fellow travelers on the road to Christlikeness. This doesn't mean compromise of biblical standards of sexuality, but it does mean a different approach toward those who are sincerely struggling. In all, I found this book a great resource, and I have gained a broader and more nuanced perspective that will be beneficial going forward.

Uncorrected proofs . . . cool.

I have recently been invited by Amazon to participate in their Vine reviewers program, which means they allow me to select books and other products through their review program. I was happy to see Jeff Shaara's The Final Storm come up for review. I just read his WWII trilogy (The Rising Tide: A Novel of World War II, The Steel Wave: A Novel of World War II, No Less Than Victory: A Novel of World War II) last summer and really enjoyed them, so this sequal volume dealing with the final stages of the war in the Pacific really piqued my interest. But when it arrived in the mail, I was even more excited: uncorrected proofs.

The book doesn't actually release until May 17, so I get to read it a month and a half before it's even available. Now I've been in the book business for years, so it's not like I've never held uncorrected proofs in my hands, but I guess, being a book person, book stuff amuses me. So here's to enjoying the small pleasures of life.

Recovering the Scandal of the Cross, 2nd ed.

IVP Academic has announced that Mark Baker and Joel Green are releasing a second edition of their relatively controversial Recovering the Scandal of the Cross (link to the first edition here) this coming September. This is one of the books that has sought to broaden the evangelical understanding of atonement, and it has been met with a good bit of resistance. It will be interesting to see what they have to say a little more than ten years after the release of the first edition. You can also get a feel for Joel Green's approach to atonement in The Nature of the Atonement: Four Views.

Ben Witherington, Roman Numerals

Roman numerals is the second Art West adventure from Ben and Ann Witherington. Ben is a prolific and widely respected biblical scholar who has written widely in new testament history, exegesis and theology. Ann is his biology-professor wife. And together they have crafted this series of adventure mysteries. In this second installment, Art West finds himself investigating a major antiquities heist, and he is later abducted by an Islamic group that wants to silence his christian witness. The books are relatively well written, and have lots of action as well as some interesting characters. Much of the action takes place in Jerusalem and in archaeological sites in its surrounding hills, and the Witheringtons show sensativity to the complex historical, cultural, and theological situation there. Also a major theme in this book was Art's ficticious investigations into the presence and extent of the emperor cult in the first century, and especially in Palestine. this theme especially is helped by a brief author's note at the end of the book that details which archeological finds and ancient artifacts were real and which were ficticuous. I won't ruin the plot by outlining it here, but there is enough action woven together with thoughtful and authentic historical detail to make these great books, especially for people with interest in Biblical history and archaeology, and not to mention an ability to explore the content and implications of Christian faith. I look forward to reading the third installment.

Choosing OT commentaries

I love owning commentaries. I have continually found that it is so worthwhile to have great commentaries on hand when I am studying a passage or a theme. It's the area of my own personal library that has been growing the fastest over the last few years, especially as my own interests have turned from systematic theology to biblical theology (though of course not eschewing the former). But, commentaries are expensive! So as I've been trying to choose, I've been combing the web for wisdom. And I've been especially digging for ideas on some Old Testament resources, the area where my own library is the most lacking. I'm particularly looking for good commentaries on Genesis and Daniel (two important but highly contested books in OT, which seems to complicate buying commentaries), so that has been driving my search. I feel like I've got a pretty good handle on NT commentary series, authors, etc. But the OT is somewhat different territory. So, I thought I'd share a few resources I've been digging through. Some are rather obvious, others less so, but for what it's worth, here they are.

John Walton, professor at Wheaton and prolific and respected OT scholar and author, has made a list of "go-to" commentaries available on the web. Obviously a great resource.

Denver Journal (from Denver Seminary) has a great annotated bibliography for both OT and NT resources authored and updated by their faculty. I've found this to be a great list (especially the NT version) for a number of years and have been pointed to some great resources. 

Tremper Longman, who has authored an OT commentary survey, as well as a number of top flight OT commentaries of his own, has a list of recommended commentaries that is available on BestCommentaries.com.

Which brings me to BestCommentaries.com. This great web site is a creative and increasingly useful resource for evaluating different commentary series and volumes, getting some hints about what is forthcoming and from whom, and seeing various reviewers' and recommenders' estimations of various volumes. It includes input from sources such as Tremper Longman (mentioned above) from his OT commentary survey, as well as D. A. Carson's corresponding NT input, info from Denver (Seminary) Journal's recommended resources (another great source mentioned above), input from R. C. Sproul and Ligonier Ministries, John Piper and Desiring God, John Glynn's commentary survey, as well as from numerous individuals. I'd say it has a distinctly conservative and reformed bent, and it seems (based on the age of many of the input lists) heavily weighted toward resources that are at least five or ten years old. But these weaknesses aside, it is a great source of reviews and rankings.

This list is certainly incomplete, and leaves off things like Amazon (where reviews are a mix of helpful and less-than-helpful). But it shows that there are some good and worthwhile resources out there. And I'd love to find more. I will try to update as more come my way.

Addition: I have come across a neat resource from Grove City Books (which is associated with Ridley Hall, Cambridge). They publish the Biblical Studies Bulletin, and they also have a book-by-book index of "Commentaries on Commentaries." I've only looked at a few so far, but they seem to be short synopses of important commentaries across the theological spectrum, dated between 1996 and 2006 (so they are slightly dated), and written by scholars (Genesis was written by Gordan Wenham, for example).

Nelson's Biblical Cyclopedic Index

Thanks to Thomas Nelson for the review copy.

I picked up this book to review because I was intrigued by the concept. Quite simply, it is a combination between a concordance, a topical index, and a Bible dictionary. It covers around 8,000 entries. Almost every entry has a brief descriptive phrase or short definition (for example, "Lute—musical instrument" or "Evil—that which is morally injurious"). Then the entry contains a list of descriptive phrases linked with a scripture reference or two to explore how a word is used, or to point to key uses of a word in the Bible. More extensive entries are broken down into groups to help orient the reader to various approaches the Bible takes concerning an idea or various ways the word is used (for example, the heading "difficulty" is broken down into four subgroups: "kinds of," "examples of," "negative attitudes toward," and "positive attitudes toward"). As an abbreviated concordance or subject index, this cyclopedic index does function quite well. I have obviously not looked at every entry in detail, and I have no doubt that one could squabble endlessly about the various passages chosen for various topics. But overall, it seems to be a great quick reference to get an overview of some of the key teachings about various people and subjects. Many of the entries could easily turn into outlines for a group study of a word, with the subgroupings giving some helpful direction about ideas to emphasize.

A second key feature of the cyclopedic index is that it serves as a miniature Bible dictionary, with around 300 brief word studies. These are short (one small to medium paragraph) definitions of important words that help to orient the reader as to their meaning. They usually include comments about the word in the original language and point to some of the range of meanings it has and how it is used in the Bible. In all, these short entries seem to be helpful, at least as a starting point. But herein lies one of the greatest difficulties. The authors are obviously making an attempt to bring original-language scholarship to a wider audience, but they rarely if ever specify if a word they're talking about is in Greek or Hebrew. A knowledgeable reader will find it obvious, because they go on to refer to how the word is used in either the OT or NT, making it clear which language they are talking about. But they never make this explicit. Nor to they differentiate in the entries between Greek and Hebrew words. I can imagine much difficulty and complexity that would come from trying to be thoroughgoing in differentiating between the two languages, and think that in the index proper, it's probably okay to mix the two languages by focusing on the English words. But in the word studies, when they are quite transparently looking at either the Greek or Hebrew word behind the English translation, they should have specified which language they were studying, to help readers understand which testament their insights apply to most directly. This is especially the case in the handful of cases where a word is defined twice, first with a view to its Hebrew origin and then with regard to its Greek, so people would know roughly how the definitions should fit with the entries that follow (key words such as "rest" or "judgment" get this more expansive treatment). It should be stated that the authors give the Strongs number for each entry they define in this broader way, so, again, more study will quickly make plain the language the word is based on, but this seems like it would have been a helpful, if not essential, addition, especially as it would help warn readers about some of the perils of word studies across the two testaments.

So, in all, I'd have to say this is a handy quick reference, an entry-level tool with some nice features for those beginning in Bible study, or a guide for quickly making sense of a more complex topic by putting references into helpful groups. So it clearly has value. But it also has some shortcomings, as do almost any reference works, and maybe this one more than some because of the number of functions it seeks to perform. It's an intriguing concept to put out a reference with this blend of information packed together, but I think particularly some additional information and guidance regarding OT and NT uses of words would further enhance its value.