What I’m Reading

Here’s an update (12/15/2009):

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry.  The run of Plato is over in our reading group.  This novel to which we are turning our attention next is the selection of our newest member.

The Hellenistic World by F.W. Walbank.  This is a supplement to my study of the last chapters of Daniel.  The whole series (published by Fontana in the UK and Harvard UP in the US) is an excellent overview of ancient history.  I’m not sure of the target audience, but I’ve recommended them to several seminarians and church members looking for a solid introduction to the various periods of ancient history to supplement their study of the Scriptures.

Light in August by William Faulkner.  I’ve had a taste to read some Faulkner lately; I’m starting with this book, which I first read in high school.

The End of Ancient Christianity by R.A. Markus.  An examination, by a respected Augustinian scholar, of how the ancient church made the sect-to-denomination transition (sociologically and theologically).

After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre.  In preparation for Lee Camp’s Christian Ethics class in the spring, I and a couple of friends are going to read this.

I’m now well into that study of Daniel I mentioned a couple of months ago. A few items have been especially helpful:

1) Ernest C. Lucas’ commentary on Daniel in the Apollos Old Testament Commentary series.  Lucas is a British Baptist who comes, basically, to conservative conclusions on date and historicity, but who is not premillennial in his approach.

2) Daniel Smith-Christopher does the commentary on Daniel in the New Interpreter’s Bible. Smith-Christopher, on the other hand, comes to (now) traditional liberal-critical positions on the date and historicity of Daniel, i.e. it was compiled and put into its final canonical form in the years during and after the Maccabean revolt (167-164 BC).  Even so, this commentary is extremely valuable for Smith-Christopher’s political reading of the text.

3) Homer Hailey’s posthumously published commentary on Daniel.  This was published by Stanley Paher a few years ago.  Many of the comments are brief, not nearly as much detail as in his commentaries on Revelation or the Minor Prophets for example.  Even so, I have found it useful.  I’m not sure, though, if Paher has kept it in print.

4) David Lipscomb’s Civil Government (1889).  Lipscomb is especially helpful for understanding how churches of Christ have understood Daniel 2.44.  His own understanding is in line with Tolbert Fanning and Barton W. Stone before him and many others after him.

On deck:

I’m slowly working my way into patristic exegesis, a topic that has vexed me for years. That is to say, I’ve always known that there is a logic to the way that Scripture was used by the Fathers, I just haven’t understood what it was. To that end, I’m going to read Frances Young’s Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture and some others. To get ready for this, I’ll be (re)reading the following books:

Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature by Erich Auerbach.  At the least, I’ll be reading the relevant early chapters of this work.

The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics by Hans Frei.  Much of the modern effort to understand patristic exegesis afresh is a postliberal project.  Thus this book.

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While you’re at it, check out my library.