GOSPEL AS WORK OF ART: Imaginative Truth and the OpenText. By David Brown. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company,2024. Xviii + 572 pages.

While the canon of the NewTestament might be "closed," or at least it is as complete aspossible. I realize that some argue for the inclusion of other texts includingthe Gospel of Thomas, but it would appear that we have we need to provide asufficient foundation for our Christian witness. When it comes to interpretationof the New Testament, and more specifically, the four Gospels, it is not quiteas simple. So there seems to be room for imagination and even an open text thatoffers new visions of the Christian faith. The question before us concerns howwe might best interpret scripture to gain new insight and perhaps even newrevelation when it comes to the things of God. With that question in mind, wemight ask how releasing the imagination might be part of the process. Many ofus, who preach and teach, have been well-trained in the historical-criticalmethod of biblical interpretation, which does a good job of getting us as closeas possible to the original context and even the original meaning of the text. Forthose of us who eschew doctrines of inerrancy, we are less worried byrevelations that the Gospel accounts might conflict with each other. While thismay be true, might there be more to the Gospel story than what thehistorical-critical method might reveal? So, with that in mind: might weenvision the Gospel as a Work of Art?

Gospel as a Work of Art isthe title of David Brown’s book, which serves as an invitation to explore theGospels through our imaginations, such that the text itself is understood to beopen. He does so by drawing on artwork, poetry, and other art forms, includingprose. In the course of this book, Brown seeks to challenge the idea that theBible, and especially the Gospels, form a closed system, “such that theimagination can at most illustrate propositional belief, and that revelationceased with the closure of the canon” (p. xxi). In inviting us to use ourimaginations to engage with Scripture he challenges both conservatives andliberals who are thoroughly influenced by the Enlightenment and often fail to embracethe imagination as a source of meaning and revelation. Rather their roots inthe Enlightenment often serve as a straight jacket on the religiousimagination. Readers will find that Brown doesn’t fit our stereotypes ofconservatives and liberals, such that it’s often difficult to place him on thatspectrum. That is refreshing in an age of polarization. What we will discoveris that Brown is a scholar and theologian of distinction. He is an Anglicanpriest who has taught at Oxford, Durham, and St. Andrews Universities. Hisscholarly work has focused on philosophy, theology, as well as religion and thearts.  He brings all of this scholarly backgroundinto conversation with biblical scholarship.

Brown is concerned that modernChristians, left and right, fail to recognize that the Gospels themselves areexpressions of imaginative truth, such that the Gospel writers often turned toinvention to get their understanding of truth across to their audience.Unfortunately, too often we are led to believe that invention in the case ofthe Gospels is somehow a pejorative thing. We read books that suggest that theGospels and other biblical writings are forgeries. Brown takes a differentperspective, one that allows for invention, such that the original writers madeuse of their imagination to convey truth. That same imagination can be releasedto embrace an open text that speaks anew in each era. This might not provide a “firmfoundation,” which many look for. However, it might open up new possibilities forinsight into the things of God.

With this commitment to releasingimaginative truth, David Brown offers us a book filled with artwork, poetry,and excerpts from literary works, all of which give imaginative expression tothe Gospels. The book is beautifully designed, having been printed onhigh-quality photographic paper. Since the book is over five hundred pages inlength, it is quite heavy. While there is an aesthetic quality to the book,that is not his primary concern. It is a question of the message that theseartistic forms provide. It is divided into three sections that focus on foundations,resources, and significance.

Part 1 is titled Foundations. Thisopening section of the book is comprised of four chapters. The first twochapters focus on the legacy of the Enlightenment when it comes to biblicalinterpretation. The opening chapter gives us a sense of Brown’s concerns, forit focuses on “Religious Control and the Spiritual Imagination." Here hesuggests, rightly I believe, that fundamentalism is essentially the fruit ofthe Enlightenment. We see this in the focus on propositional truth orrevelation. In the effort to discover precise definitions of theology, whetherfrom the right or the left, the imagination was shut down. Chapter 2 focuses onthe question of “Meaning and an Open Text.” Here he discusses such things asthe quest for the historical Jesus and what openness looks like when it comesto texts. These two foundational chapters are followed by two chapters thatfocus on discovering imaginative truth through art (Chapter 3) and Literature (Chapter4).

With these foundations set, we canturn in Part 2 to "Resources Then and Now." In the three chapters inthis section, Brown "explores the resources available to Jesus in shapinghis view of God and the divine purpose, but in a way that seeks to developparallels and analogies with subsequent reflection on these sources, includingin the present day" (p. xxvii). He writes that “for Jesus to function asthe basis for the Christian faith,” there must be sufficient overlap such that “hislife and values” are “intelligible to us” and when appropriately modified “functionadequately in their new context” (p. 252). The three chapters in this section focuson resources "Through Prayer and People'" "Mystical andNatural;" and "Responding to Inherited Traditions." He addressesthe question of the distance between the ancient and modern worlds, noting theprocess by which historians of the New Testament seek to address the distance.His focus, on the other hand, is identifying a solid core that “allows us to transitionrelatively easily between our world and that of Jesus Christ” (p. 258).

The third Section, which is titled"Significance," is the longest section of the book. It includes sevenchapters. The first of the seven chapters asks the question of why the Gospel?Brown writes that in this section he focuses on how the evangelists treatedwhat Jesus said and did. He notes three characteristics of what appears in thisfinal section— "a search for meaning in the present; various strategiesfor escaping the consequences of the past (not just sin but also fear, anxiety,and uncertainty); and, finally a future sense of purpose or vocation." (p.261). In this section, Brown explores what he calls layers of revelation,miracles as signs and symbols, and parables, along with chapters on death andresurrection. He concludes the book with a chapter titled "The Openness ofFaith." Before you get the idea that Brown is advocating a form of postmodernismor pushing for relativism, that is not the case. What he offers here is aninvitation to make use of our imagination as we engage with the Gospels so thatthese ancient texts might speak to the present. He is not dismissive ofhistorical-critical studies, but he believes there is more to the story thanwhat these tools of the Enlightenment reveal. As he notes in Chapter 14, “TheOpenness of Faith,” He shares his concern that “one of the most depressingfeatures of contemporary approaches in theology is the extent to which itsvarious subdisciplines maintain independence of one another. At their worst,biblical scholars assume that the Bible is all that is needed for Christiandoctrine. Systematic theologians sometimes behave no better.” So, he offers adifferent perspective, from a theologian’s perspective, what he believes is a “moreopen approach that seems demanded by the way in which doctrinal development hasin fact occurred” (pp. 498-499).   

By making use of art andliterature, both of which are expressions of the imagination, David BrownInvites us to envision the Gospel as a Work of Art. It is a vision of doctrinaldevelopment as we experience the Gospels anew through these art forms. To getthere, Brown (and Eerdmans) have produced a beautifully illustrated book thatpushes beyond the Enlightenment so that we might fully inhabit the message ofthe Gospels and an open faith. Even if and where we have differences of opinion,Brown provides the opportunity to break free of the religious controls thatprevent us from fully appreciating the message of Jesus.