Paula Gooder, Searching for Meaning: An Introduction to Interpreting the New Testament (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008), xxi +230 Pps., $24.95; Rick Kennedy, Jesus, History, and Mount Darwin: An Academic Excursion (Cambridge: The Lutterworth Press, 2008), 111 Pps., $14.00.
The search for textual meaning seemingly never ends. The two volumes under review here both address this perpetual pursuit, although in differing manners. One title is a textbook of sorts for the interpretation of the New Testament, whereas the other is an application of one’s search for meaning and the quest for the historical reliability of sources. One is explicitly academic in orientation, and the other is an experiential journey akin to Henry David Thoreau’s travel-thinking essays, exemplified in his nature classic, Walden. The first is edited by Paula Gooder, who is a visiting lecturer at King’s College, London, and the second is written by Rick Kennedy, who is Professor of History at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, California. In what follows, the contents of Gooder’s volume will be highlighted as, and the overall thrust of Kennedy’s text will be highlighted, understanding that Gooder’s volume is the foundation of which Kennedy’s is an explication.
Gooder compiles a series of essays written by experts from around the world and across many disciplines. Each expert offers specialized explanations, while Gooder’s discussions of each approach apply the form of criticism to actual New Testament textual examples. In a clear and comprehensive, student-friendly textbook, Gooder describes and illustrates a wide range of approaches to interpreting the NT, following the common typology of behind the text, within the text, and in front of the text. More precisely, the behind the text approaches covered include historical criticism, social science criticism, form criticism, source criticism, and redaction criticism. The seven within the text approaches delineated are textual criticism, translation theory, canonical criticism, rhetorical criticism, narrative criticism, structural criticism, and poststructural criticism. Gooder has selected eleven approaches of criticism that move from text to reader, otherwise known as in front of the text, from the virtual plethora of examples; these include reception history, theological interpretation, reader-response, feminist, queer, liberation, sociopolitical, black, postcolonial, Asian, and ecological criticisms.
Each of the twenty-three chapters is composed of five distinct parts: 1) a definition by Gooder of what the form of criticism is; 2) a historical introduction to the form of criticism written by the specific expert; 3) a selection of landmark publications for the form of criticism in question; 4) a practical example of the particular criticism as applied to a biblical text; and 5) a short list of books that explores the form of criticism in question further. The practical examples of the criticism span the entire NT, coming from individual texts, with eleven examples coming from the Synoptic Gospels, two from John, five from Paul, and one each from Acts, Hebrews, and Revelation. The only outliers from this singular text approach are the examples of queer criticism coming from the Pastoral Epistles, and of Black criticism, covering the Household Codes, which draws from Ephesians, Colossians, and I Peter.
I must confess that I am always a little apprehensive, as a former practicing scientist, when I approach a book about science written by non-scientists. Kennedy’s book, although mentioning Jesus, history, and Mt. Darwin in the title, is really about the historical reliability of sources, however, which dovetails into the methodology book from Gooder. More specifically, Kennedy examines the reasonableness of biblical Christianity in universities. Within the title, Kennedy treats science and Christianity as both being based on evidence, facts, and inferences drawn from textual sources. The book itself is based on reflections from a weekend trip to Mt. Darwin in Sand Diego, California. And though I question many of Kennedy’s historical reconstructions of what Darwin may have believed (e.g. on page 9 Kennedy writes that the young Darwin had little interest in God, and claims that Darwin came from a family with little interest in piety, both of which makes me wonder if Kennedy has fully read the letters of Darwin), as well as how Darwin reacted to the death(s) of his children, I have found value in the overall contention: that university students should realize that it is reasonable to believe the history of Jesus along with the natural history proposed by Darwin.
All in all, a very broad range of methods is introduced by Gooder, from traditional criticisms more modern methods, and an example of fleshed-out historical criticism is provided by Kennedy. The intention behind Gooder’s volume is not to persuade the reader as to the merits of one particular approach, or to adjudicate on the virtues of any particular form of criticism and interpretation, but to describe how the NT is interpreted instead. Readers of Gooder’s volume will understand how different meanings and emphases can be drawn from a text depending upon the method of interpretation chosen, as well as be given the requisite skills to start analyzing and examining texts for themselves in a meaningful way. The only drawback from Gooder’s text, one that I wish was employed, is that there were seemingly no pains taken to give an example of how each approach differed on a specific text (or group of texts). Such an approach, I contend, would have greatly strengthened the volume, but nevertheless one will find Gooder’s text to be a quintessential base, or introductory, textbook for hermeneutics courses, and Kennedy’s volume could well be used as a supplementary text for such courses.
Bradford McCall, Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA