Seeing the Word: Refocusing New Testament Study

Studies in Theological Interpretation

by Markus Bockmuehl

At a time of deep disagreements about the nature and purpose of academic biblical studies, Markus Bockmuehl advocates the recovery of a plural but common conversation on the subject of what the New Testament is about.

Seeing the Word begins with an assessment of current New Testament studies, identifying both persistent challenges and some promising proposals. Subsequent chapters explore two such proposals. First, ground for common conversation lies in taking seriously the readers and readings the text implies. Second, Bockmuehl explores the text's early effective history by a study of apostolic memory in the early church.

All serious students of the Bible and theology will find much of interest, and much to discuss, in this first volume in the Studies in Theological Interpretation series.

Genres: Religion, New Testament, Theology, Biblical Studies

298 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2006

About the author

Markus Bockmuehl (PhD, University of Cambridge) is a Fellow of Keble College and professor of biblical and early Christian studies at the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. He previously taught at the University of Cambridge and the University of St. Andrews. Bockmuehl is the author or editor of numerous books, including Seeing the Word, Scripture’s Doctrine and Theology’s Bible, Paradise in Antiquity: Jewish and Christian Views, and Redemption and Resistance: The Messianic Hopes of Jews and Christians in Antiquity.

Reviews

[Phil · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whether you agree with Bockmuehl or not, this book is an absolute delight to read. His cunning insight and hilarious wit had me on the edge of my seat through the entire work. There are a couple chapters in the middle that slow down a bit, but overall Bockmuehl keeps landing punches and forming up the contours of what it looks like to approach the New Testament on its own terms.

[Sanjuro · Rating 3 out of 5]

I absolutely loved reading Bockmuehl's book, and yet, it is not without it's drawbacks. The content is excellent. The structure makes little sense to me at all.

As I see it, the book has two major aims: critique modern biblical studies, and appeal for a renewed commitment to theological readings. This commitment should mirror the nature of reading the New Testament for its first readers.

All of this is covered phenomenally well in the first 2/3 of the book. 4 stars, maybe 5. However, then in the final 1/3 of the book Bockmuehl enters into a discussion on the Jewish background of Jesus - all good, to be sure, really containing the best exegesis of the entire book - but this section seems almost entirely disconnected from the rest of the book. I have been unable to make sense of exactly how the sections of the book work for a common purpose, or what the title of the book has to do with the arguments contained within.

I loved much of the content, but I'm not sure I'm entirely clear on the purpose of the whole.

[Caleb Burkhart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bockmuehl's "Seeing the Word" is a helpful introduction and "rediscovery" of New Testament studies, and in some ways, theology in general. He takes seriously the history of interpretation, allowing that to shed light on the content of the NT, rather than seeing it as an abstraction. Unlike many in the historical-critical guild, Bockmuehl wants to use "the whole battery of historical-critical and synchronic tools" for "approaching the New Testament from its meaning and function 'in front of the text,' where it was in fact heard and heeded (or ignored)" (65). Such approaches are sadly an anomaly in the swath of ever growing methodologies that seem to be interested in anything but the text, yet Bockmuehl reorients the current discussion to offer a fresh (yet ecclesial) approach to reading Scripture.

The early chapters of Seeing the Word offer the best content. Most striking of his many helpful insights is that "The implied reader has undergone a religious, more, and intellectual conversion to the gospel of which the documents speak. Regardless of whether the texts instruct, narrate, or reprove, they implicitly assume that the readers share a stance of Christian faith, that they look to the Christian gospel as both formative and normative in their lives, and they they accept a Christian way of thinking about God, the world, and themselves... Almost without exception, the New Testament writings presume a close intellectual link between such conversion and true interpretation" (70). This might be the closest assertion outside of Reformed/Evangelical circles for a revelatory epistemology that is connected with Scripture. Essentially, for a true and proper interpretation of Scripture, there has to be a conversion of the reader. Even more, Scripture does not only give us an implied reader, "but in fact the shape of its own text elicits at least the outline of a certain kind of reading" (108). There is a canonical scope to Scripture that demands to be reckoned with. Within this canonical scope of the NT (and even the OT) is the "ecclesial location of the interpretative task" which "In spite of its foundational significance for Christianity, the New Testament does not create the church but rather presupposes and confirms it at every turn" (113). Bockmuehl's proposal for the "rediscovery" of NT studies and theology is not ex nihilo, but rather rooted in the historical witness of the church engaging Scripture throughout the centuries.

The latter portions of "Seeing the Word" offer occasional observations, yet can seem disconnected from the thesis / purpose of the book. Yet overall, Bockmuehl's "Seeing the Word" gives any reader of Scripture great content to think through as they join the symphony of voices throughout the history of the church exegeting the sacred text.

[Larkin H · Rating 3 out of 5]

I will freely admit a major mistake in my expectations: I was assuming this was going to be more a work of New Testament interpretation than a dissection of the entire field of New Testament scholarship. That being said, I both struggled and enjoy it.

At times I found it simply unreadable. The early chapters are purely academic. The in-text citations and expectation that the reader is familiar with Biblical studies terminology (much of which is of German origin) make it about as enjoyable as one would imagine a thesis on the subject to be. There is little to no flow.

However, I found the middle and later sections much more enjoyable as his argument started to be put together with actual examples. The primary argument, as I read it, is that Biblical studies should focus on the text as it is read by its readers and as it was written for its audience. He calls this “effective history” and I found the arguments to be really enlightening.

He couples this with a focus on Jesus’ personal “Jewishness” to critique postmodernists and the de-constructive movement common in 20th century New Testament studies. One misses the entire point of the NT when they take it apart piecemeal. It was written by certain people, for certain people, for a very specific reason.

Certainly not a book for everyone but I am glad I finished it despite the quite difficult start posed by the early pages.