The Expository Times http://ext.sagepub.

com/

Matthew and the History of its Interpretation

Dale C. Allison, JR The Expository Times 2008 120: 1 DOI: 10.1177/0014524608096265 The online version of this article can be found at: http://ext.sagepub.com/content/120/1/1

Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com

Additional services and information for The Expository Times can be found at: Email Alerts: http://ext.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://ext.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav

>> Version of Record - Sep 9, 2008 What is This?

Downloaded from ext.sagepub.com by guest on February 9, 2013

Volume 120Number 1 Pages 17 Copyright SAGE Publications TH E 2008 EXP OSI TORY TIMES (Los Angeles London New Delhi Singapore Washington DC) DOI: 10.1177/0014524608096265 http://EXT.sagepub.com

Matthew and the History of its Interpretation Y

By DALE C. ALLISON, JR Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
Over the past two decades, scholars have become increasingly interested in the history of the interpretation (Wirkungsgeschichte) of Matthew. Four lessons are already obvious. First, the history of interpretation helps us to evaluate contemporary proposals about intertextuality. Second, some credible interpretations that were once popular have unaccountably fallen out of the modern commentaries and need to be recovered. Third, engagement with earlier interpreters helps us to understand better our own context and to appreciate our limitations. Finally, the post-history of texts can be viewed as belonging to the revelatory process itself. KEYWORDS Matthew, history of interpretation, intertextuality, context, historical criticism

hen I began, in the late 1970s, to do serious work on Matthew, I was chiey interested in historical-critical questions. Was the books author a Jewish Christian or a Gentile? When did he write? Where did he write? What sources did he use, and how did he redact them? What was his relationship to the synagogue? What might his rst-century Christian readers have made of this verse or that paragraph? Although my answers were informed by the redaction-critical studies that began appearing in the 1950s, most of my questions were not much different than those addressed in the critical commentaries of W. C. Allen and A.H. McNeile shortly after the turn of the twentieth century.1 Today, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, I still pursue with much curiosity the old questions. Like many contemporary students of Matthew, however, I have come to have additional concerns, chief among them perhaps the history of the interpretation of the Gospel. Although there are a number of reasons for our newly found interest in this eld of study, much of the credit must go to Ulrich Luzs magnicent four-volume commentary, published in the series, Evangelisch-Katholischer
1 W. C. Allen, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to St Matthew (ICC, 3rd edn; Edinburgh, 1912); A. H. McNeile, The Gospel According to St Matthew (London: Macmillan, 1915).

Kommentar zum Neuen Testament.2 It is a gold mine if one wishes to learn what Matthews text has effected over the centuries. The rst instalment, on Matthew 17, appeared in 1985, the nal volume, on chapters 2628, in 2002. All four volumes have now been translated into English and printed as three volumes in the Hermeneia series of Fortress Press.3 The verse-byverse commentary is in many respects conventional. Certainly Luz does not ignore historical-critical subjects. But his greatest contribution lies in the instructive and fascinating sections on the History of Interpretation (Auslegungsgeschichte). These are learned resumes of what the reading of Matthew has wrought over two thousand years. Luz does not, moreover, conne himself to reviewing commentaries. He is equally concerned with Wirkungsgeschichte, or the texts history of the inuence, which for him means understanding how Matthew has been received and actualized in media other than commentaries in verbal media such as sermons, canonical documents, and literature, as well as in non-verbal media such as art and music, and in
2 Ulrich Luz, Das Evangelium nach Matthus (4 vols, EKKNT; Zrich/Neukirchen-Vluyn: Benziger/Neukirchener, 19852002). 3 Ulrich Luz, Matthew: A Commentary (3 vols, Hermeneia, MN: Fortress Press, 200107). The rst volume covers 17, the second 820, and the third 2128.

Downloaded from ext.sagepub.com by guest on February 9, 2013

THE EXPOSITORY TIMES

the churchs activity and suffering, that is, in church history.4 In short, Luz is interested in the effective power of the texts themselves.5 Surveying the history of the interpretation and inuence of the text is, for Luz, of more than antiquarian interest. It is rather an integral part of faithful interpretation. It helps to shed light on ones own locus of understanding and thus contribute to ones own modern understanding at precisely this locus. Such an understanding is always contextual and always partly new and different, although or, more accurately, precisely because what is at stake is an understanding of the ancient biblical texts that are permanently given to us.6 Luz wants to recover older, pre-critical readings precisely in order to understand how the contemporary church should appropriate Matthew. He wants to pass beyond traditional historical-critical questions and answers and bring Matthews text into our present world. One scholar has shared with me his judgement that Luzs attention to the history of interpretation runs the risk of burying the text itself. Although one understands the sentiment, we should not, to quote Luz, reject as illegitimate everything that is exegetically not justied in the forum of the biblical text. It is rather part of the biblical texts own power that they themselves are able to open up new dimensions in new people.7 It is additionally relevant that, at this point in exegetical history, there are probably more discoveries to be made regarding Matthews Wirkungsgeschichte than regarding the meaning of the Gospel in its rstcentury context. Beyond that, moreover, the history of the interpretation of a passage is sometimes far richer and more theologically suggestive than either its literary or original historical intent. For example, although the little phrase in 12:31, blasphemy against the Spirit, has led to a host of fascinating (and often very troubling) ruminations, as Luz documents, he can summarize its meaning for the evangelist in a couple of simple sentences. This phenomenon of a texts Wirkungsgeschichte being more colourful and theologically consequential than a proposed rst-century reading occurs often in Matthew, another example being the promise of
Luz, Matthew, vol. 1, p. 61. Luz, Matthew, vol. 1, p. 61. Luz, Matthew, vol. 1, p. 65. 7 Luz, Matthew, vol. 1, p. 197.
4 5 6

5:8, they will see God. We have few clues as to what this assertion, unadorned by editorial commentary, might have meant to Matthew or to his intended audience, which is why recent critical commentators have so little to say about it. If, however, one turns to the premodern exegetes, it is an altogether different story.8 They debate whether God has a body. They ruminate on the nature of mystical experience. They ponder how one can perceive the invisible. Of this fascinating discussion there is little hint in contemporary commentaries. In addition to his multi-volume commentary, Luz has written a small book illustrating his approach to Matthew and further produced a volume of collected essays, several of which concern the history of the interpretation of Matthew and its inuence.9 While these publications make him the major and most important contributor to Matthews Wirkungsgeschicthe, he has not laboured alone. In 2003, Indiana University Press published The Gospel of Matthew and Its Readers, written by Howard Clarke, an American classical scholar.10 Aside from its brief introduction, this distinctively personal commentary mostly ignores historical-critical issues, focusing instead on how various Western readers have understood and responded to Matthew. Here, in addition to meeting church fathers, medieval theologians, Reformers, and modern biblical scholars, we run into musicians, poets, novelists, artists, politicians and fundamentalists. The names of Boccacio, Michelangelo, Lord Byron, Joseph Smith, William Miller, Dostoevsky, Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, Flannery OConnor, Ronald Regan and Nikos Kazantzakis ll its pages. Even popular musicals, including Porgy and Bess and Jesus Christ Superstar, put in appearances. Although one might complain that the chief principle of selection seems to have been whatever Clarke himself found interesting, the result is undeniably highly entertaining.
8 See further Dale C. Allison, Jr, Studies in Matthew: Interpretation Past and Present (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005), pp. 4363. 9 Ulrich Luz, Matthew in History: Interpretation, Inuence, and Effects (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1994); Studies in Matthew (Grand Rapids, MI/Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 2005). 10 Howard Clarke, The Gospel of Matthew and Its Readers: A Historical Introduction to the First Gospel (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2003).

Downloaded from ext.sagepub.com by guest on February 9, 2013

THE EXPOSITORY TIMES

The commentaries of Luz and Clarke are not the only resources available for the study of Matthews Wirkungsgeschicthe. Sean Kealy has aspired to give us a two-volume survey, in chronological order, of all the signicant commentaries and books on Matthew ever written in the Western world.11 Malio Simonetti has produced a pericope-by-pericope catena of patristic remarks on Matthew for InterVarsitys series, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture.12 The rst part of my own book, Studies in Matthew, offers several chapters on the history of the interpretation of Matthew. There is also, from an earlier time, Harold Smiths little-known but still valuable AnteNicene Exegesis of the Gospels, in six volumes.13 This, like Simonettis work, is a compendium of patristic quotations. Perhaps some enterprising publisher will, given the growing interest in the history of interpretation, see t to reprint Smiths volumes, which are now so hard to come by. Finally, there is, from medieval times, Aquinas Catena Aurea on Matthew, which has become available over the internet through Christian Classics Ethereal library (http://www.ccel.org/). Focus on Matthews Wirkungsgeschichte is, for New Testament scholars, a relatively recent development, and future work will surely instruct us in ways we cannot yet guess. The work of Luz and others marks only the beginning. We have, however, already learned much: 1.The history of interpretation, so far from being an opponent of historical-critical work, can sometimes inform the decisions of the latter. Although earlier commentators failed to ask many of our questions, especially our literary and historical questions, they did share some of our other concerns, among them the relationship between Matthew and the Jewish Bible. Some theologians, such as Tertullian and Eusebius, were ardent to expose intertextual links in order to refute the likes of Marcion, whose theology postulated discontinuity between the two Testaments. Others, such as Albert the Great and
11 Sean P. Kealy, Matthews Gospel and the History of Biblical Interpretation (2 vols; Lewiston, NY: Mellen Biblical Press, 1997). 12 Malio Simonetti, Matthew (2 vols; Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2001, 2002). 13 Harold Smith, Ante-Nicene Exegesis of the Gospels (Translations of Christian Literature; 6 vols; London: SPCK, 1925).

Hugo Grotius, were simply so steeped in the Bible that, when writing on the First Gospel, they regularly espied Old Testament parallels. These facts encourage us to pay some heed to pre-critical commentators when investigating Matthews intertextuality. Espying an allusion to the Old Testament that no one has yet remarked upon is surely problematic. If a text or series of texts has not reminded any of its earlier readers of a particular Old Testament passage, then, as so many of those readers were intent on and capable of catching even subtle allusions to the Bible, should we not be a bit sceptical? The converse also holds. If a Matthean text has turned the minds of at least some informed readers through the centuries back to a specic verse or paragraph in the Tanak, then investigation is probably in order. Let me offer an illustration. Many modern commentators find an extended Moses typology in Matthew, one that is particularly strong in the opening chapters. When Israels saviour is born (1:1825), a wicked king is on the throne (2:112). This king, upon learning of the redeemers advent, orders infants to be slaughtered (2:1318). The hero miraculously escapes (2:1923). Then the narrative passes from his infancy to adulthood, and we nd him going down into and coming out of water (3:117) and then entering the desert for forty days and nights, where he is tempted by hunger and idolatry (4:111). After this, he goes up onto a mountain to deliver his commandments (5:12), which he sets beside words delivered to Moses on Sinai (5:2148). The rough correlation with the story of Moses and the exodus is patent; and when one takes further account of the extracanonical traditions about Moses infancy (for instance, Josephs contemplation of what to do about Mary recalls the story of Amram in Josephus, Ant. 2:21016) and then observes that Matthew 2:1921 borrows the language of Exodus 4:1920, that Paul, like the church fathers, saw a typological relation between baptism and the crossing of the Red Sea (1 Cor 10:15), and that the Scriptures Jesus cites in the temptation narrative are all, in their original context, about Israel in the wilderness (Matt 4:4 = Deut 8:3; Matt 4:7 = Deut 6:16; Matt 4:10 = Deut 6:13), one might well infer that the last redeemer, Jesus, is being presented as like the rst redeemer, Moses the law-giver. Some commentators nonetheless remain hesitant. One of their objections is that the proposed typology

Downloaded from ext.sagepub.com by guest on February 9, 2013

THE EXPOSITORY TIMES

is utterly quiescent. Not once does Matthew say out loud: Jesus is like Moses. There are, moreover, any number of differences between Matthew 15 and the story of Moses and the exodus. Moses ees from Egypt, Jesus to Egypt. Moses is an adult when he escapes, Jesus a child. Moses himself decides to ee and whereto, while Joseph, Jesus father, follows the instructions of an angel. Perhaps, then, modern scholars, victims of parallelomania, have read too much into Matthews rst few chapters. One good retort to these objections is to observe that, as a matter of the historical record, nding a Moses typology at the beginning of Matthew is nothing new. Readers from early times spotted the correlations some modern scholars have observed. Here is the testimony of one, Aphraates, the fourthcentury church father known as the Persian sage:
Moses also was persecuted, as Jesus was persecuted. When Moses was born, they concealed him that he might not be slain by his persecutors. When Jesus was born they carried him off in ight into Egypt that Herod, his persecutor, might not slay him. In the days when Moses was born, children were drowned in the river; and at the birth of Jesus the children of Bethlehem and in its border were slain. To Moses God said: The men are dead who were seeking thy life, and to Joseph the angel said in Egypt: Arise, take up the child, and go into the land of Egypt, for they are dead who were seeking the life of the child to take it away (Demonstrations 21.10).

(17:1; cf. Exod 24:12, 1518; 34:3). May we not then gather that Jesus is the prophet like Moses, foretold in Deuteronomy 18:15, 18, the prophet to whom Israel should listen? Despite the parallels just noted, the modern commentaries are not united in nding a Moses typology in Matthew 17:18. Some mute or even dismiss the correlations, urging that there are even better parallels with prophecies of eschatological glory. They may further stress that Jesus skin is not mentioned (cf. Exod 34:29), or that many stories from antiquity attribute radiance to others beside Moses, so why should this motif be especially associated with him? Once again, however, the best response to such protests is to observe that Matthew 17:18 has, from antiquity onwards, reminded readers of Moses on Sinai. Here is Eusebius:
When Moses descended from the mountain, his face was seen to be full of glory; for it is written: And Moses descending from the mountain did not know that the appearance of the skin of his face was gloried while he spoke to him. And Aaron and all the elders of Israel saw Moses, and the appearance of the skin of his face was gloried (Exod 34:29). In the same way, only more grandly, our saviour led his disciples to a very high mountain, and he was transgured before them, and his face shone as the sun, and his garments were white like the light (Demonstration of the Gospel 3.2, quoting Matt 17:2).

Aphraates is not a lone voice; Ephraem the Syrian and Matthew Henry the Puritan say similar things. In other words, Matthew 12 has undeniably induced some of its pre-critical readers to suppose that Matthews Jesus replays the story of Moses. Does this not suggest that the narrative may have been partly constructed for this very purpose? The transguration, Matthew 17:18, offers a second illustration of the principle that intertextual proposals gain support from traditional readers. Here we read that, six days later (17:1; cf. Exod 24 : 16 ), Jesus face shone like the sun ( 17 : 2 ). This calls to mind Moses face on Sinai (cf. Exod 34:2935; Philo, Moses 1.70; Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum 12.1). Further, as in Exodus 24:1518 and 34 : 5 , a bright cloud appears, and a voice speaks from that cloud. The onlookers a special group of three (17:1; cf. Exod 24:1) are afraid (17:6), which also has its analogy in Exodus (cf. 34:2930). And all this takes place on a mountain

As similar sentiments appear in Tertullian, Ephrem the Syrian, John Trapp, and dozens of other writers, presumption seems to favour their reading. If Matthew 17:18 was not designed to recall Moses on Sinai, then why has it so often done so? 2.Although one may be inclined to think that any worthy interpretation will, once it nds its way into the commentaries, not fall out of them, the history of interpretation gives the lie to this. Chrysostom, in his commentary on Matthew, writes that the star of Bethlehem did not remain in the heavens, for it is not possible for something high in the sky to lead people to a precise location. For by reasons of its immense height, it could not sufciently distinguish so conned a spot and reveal it to those desiring to see it. Chrysostom asks, How then did the star point out a spot so conned, just the space of a manger and shed, unless it left that height and came down and

Downloaded from ext.sagepub.com by guest on February 9, 2013

THE EXPOSITORY TIMES

stood over the very head of the child? (Homilies of Matthew 6:2(3)). The question is perfectly reasonable, and the vast majority of ancient and medieval commentators agree with Chrysostom in supposing that, in Matthew 2, the guiding light leaves heaven and comes down to earth, and that it functions as did the pillar of light for the Israelites in the desert: it travels right in front of the magi and even enters the place which holds the young Jesus. Remigius of Auxerre, Theodore the Studite, Ishodad of Merv, Aquinas, and Maldonatus even believed or wondered whether the star is not in fact an angel in disguise, descended from heaven to earth. This is a plausible reading in view of the fact that several ancient Jewish texts equate stars with angels.14 Recent commentaries, however, seeing the text through the eyes of post-Renaissance astronomy, are unaware of the traditional interpretation and have unwittingly adopted the irrelevant discourse of modern science. Maybe the star was really a supernova. Or a planetary conjunction. Or a comet. Attention to the history of tradition reveals how anachronistic and foreign to Matthew 2 such speculation is. Matthew 5:2124 offers another example of a credible reading that many older commentators knew but which recent commentators do not. Matthews Jesus, after citing the commandment not to kill, goes on to forbid anger. He illustrates his demand with a word picture: If you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there, before the altar, and go; rst be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. The church father Cyprian found in these words recollection of a famous story in Genesis: One who comes to the Sacrice [of the Eucharist] with a quarrel he [Jesus] calls back from the altar and commands him rst to be reconciled with his brother and then, when he is at peace, to return and offer his gift to God. For neither had God respect for Cains offering, for he could not have God at peace with him, who through envy and discord was not at peace with his brother (Unity of the Catholic Church 13). This is an intriguing intertextual association. The concatenation of murder, hate, brotherly conict, and the offering of a gift on an altar might well move someone steeped in the Bible to think about Cain and
14

Abel in Genesis 4. This is especially true as Matthew 23:35 (the blood of righteous Abel) presupposes that Matthews readers know that story and as it was traditionally used to illustrate the relationship between anger and murder (cf. Wisd 10:3; 1 John 3:15). So it is unfortunate that Cyprians intertextual correlation, although also found in Tertullian, Chrysostom, Chromatius, Paschasius Radbertus, Hugh of St Cher, Albert the Great, Grotius and Matthew Henry, does not appear in the modern commentaries.15 A third illustration of exegetical amnesia concerns Matthew 22:3440, where Jesus says that the law and the prophets depend upon two commandments You will love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind (Deut 6:5) and You will love your neighbour as yourself (Lev 19:18). If one is familiar with the theological literature of the church, one knows that Christians have often seen in these twin imperatives a summary of the Decalogue. The New Catholic Catechism, the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, Jonathan Edwards, John Gill, Matthew Henry, Matthew Poole, the Westminster Catechisms, John Calvin, Thomas Aquinas, the Apostolic Constitutions (2.5.36) and Irenaeus (Adv. haer. 4.16.3) all regard the instruction to love God and neighbour as the Decalogue in brief. Given that this reading occurs as early as Irenaeus, given that Matthew 19:1819; Romans 13:9; and James 2:813 associate Leviticus 19:18 with the Decalogues second table, and given that Philo divided the ten commandments into two sets of ve, the rst having to do with love of God, the second with love of human beings (Decal. 5051, 10810), the common ecclesiastical tradition stands a decent chance of disclosing what a rst-century reader or hearer of Matthew might have made of 22:3440. Yet here our contemporary experts fail us. A little investigation reveals that the once standard understanding of the double commandment to love as a prcis of the Decalogue unaccountably dropped out of the commentaries in the nineteenth century. It should re-enter them. 3.The history of interpretation bestows humility on its practitioners. Years ago, when I was nearing completion of the rst volume of a commentary on Matthew, I decided out of curiosity to look at some
15

See further Allison, Studies in Matthew, pp. 1741.

See further Allison, Studies in Matthew, pp. 6578.

Downloaded from ext.sagepub.com by guest on February 9, 2013

THE EXPOSITORY TIMES

of the older German commentaries, which until then I had paid little heed, on the assumption that they would not contribute much to my work. I discovered that I had been the victim of chronological snobbery. To my surprise, most of the exegetical issues that I had assumed were rst addressed in the twentieth century had already been thoroughly discussed in the previous century, and often with similar results. The newer commentaries that I had until then conned myself to were far more indebted to the past than I had presumed. Around the same time, I began to immerse myself in some of the church fathers. I learned that, despite all sorts of deciencies, they nevertheless had much to teach me. They were theologically interesting. They were rhetorically memorable. And some of them, as already indicated, were intertextually astute. I came away feeling a bit as I did after reading the old German commentaries for the rst time: we are often less original than we imagine. The years since have only reinforced this conviction. I recently spent some time working on the history of the interpretation of the darkness that falls upon the crucied Jesus in Matthew 27:45.16 After going through as many relevant sources from as many times and places as I could get my hands on, I realized that, on the exegetical level, modern scholarship has added next to nothing to the traditional discussion. Earlier commentators know about the allusion to Amos 8:910 (On that day, says the Lord God, I will make the sun go down at noon, and darken the earth in broad daylight. I will turn your feasts into mourning and your songs into lamentation ... I will make it like mourning for an only son). They also note the verbal parallel with Exodus 10:22 (darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days). Older sources also, just like modern commentaries, sometimes draw a line between Matthew 27:45 and 24:29 (the sun will go dark), observe that the deaths of other signicant persons, such as Julius Caesar, were associated with celestial signs, and regularly discern in the darkness at noon judgement and mourning and almost all of the other themes found in commentaries recently written. All this, however, should not surprise. Contemporary exegetes are reading the same text as earlier exegetes, so repetition in interpretation must be the rule, new discoveries, or at least plausible new discoveries, the exception.
16

See Allison, Studies in Matthew, pp. 79106.

Of course, when one goes through the older ecclesiastical commentaries, one also nds what, from our point of view, are implausible readings, dated prejudices, and uninformed judgements. And yet reading sentences only to discard them also has its value. For it should dawn upon us that the fate of our predecessors will be our fate, too. Just as we see the time-bound limitations of previous commentators, so will those after us see our limitations. Modesty thus should become us. Beyond that, if cultural pluralism in Western society has generally encouraged tolerance, perhaps the exegetical pluralism exposed by the history of interpretation will similarly lead to an exegetical tolerance. Certainly effective history supplies reason for questioning the doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture, or at least its presentation in Luther and like-minded others, who have explained disagreements among the commentators as due partly or largely to their moral or spiritual failings. The history of interpretation highlights that readings are always changing because the world is always changing, and so too its people. Cultural trends, evolving religious contexts, personal experience and new knowledge are always remaking interpreters, who accordingly see the old with new eyes. It follows that attributing exegetical disagreement to bad faith is fallacious. It likewise follows that those hoping to recover and assent to nothing but the original intentions of Matthew are misguided, for the world in which those intentions were at home has ceased to be: we live in a different time and a different place. If context determines meaning, and if the interpretive context is always changing, then meaning cannot be xed but is necessarily variable. The history of interpretation conrms this. It shows us that most pre-Constantinian Christians, who were not responsible for the institutions of society, tended to understand Matthew 5:3848 If any one strike you on the right cheek, turn to him the also, Love your enemies in pacistic terms, and that, later on, Christians who found themselves responsible for governing institutions appropriated 5:3848 very differently. Similarly, Luz is surely right to observe that Matthews words on divorce will be received differently in the future than in the past because, in the modern West, women are no longer property, and marriages are no longer arranged but entered out of romantic love, and increasing life spans make

Downloaded from ext.sagepub.com by guest on February 9, 2013

THE EXPOSITORY TIMES

for longer and longer marriages.17 It is true that the plain sense of any passage typically ensures some continuity of meaning over time. Nonetheless, such continuity always coexists with fresh understanding and inventive applications, so that, in Matthews idiom, we bring forth treasures old and new. 4.Lastly, every Matthean text is only a point on a line of development, a point situated between a pre-history and a post-history. Modern historical criticism helps us to uncover the former the evolution of words, ideas and literary forms. The history of interpretation helps us to uncover the latter, the varied effects of a text over time. We require both approaches, because understanding the
17

Luz, Matthew, vol. 2, p. 495.

part requires understanding the whole. To suppose otherwise is to conne attention to a single frame while ignoring the rest of the motion picture. This circumstance moves at least this writer to wonder about the conventional wisdom of conceptualizing revelation as the words on the biblical pages. Does not the identication of the beginning and end of the canon with the beginning and end of revelation not only implausibly sunder the Bible from its antecedent and attendant traditions but also detach the scriptural texts from their on-going inuence, as though divine speaking occurred only in bygone times? I prefer to think that the history of interpretation confronts us with the Spirits continuing revelatory activity, and with the never-ending dialogue between humanity and God.

HALF A CENTURY OF PhILOSOphY OF RELIGION

Andy F. Sanders and Kristof De Ridder, Fifty Years of Philosophy of Religion: A Select Bibliography (Leiden: Brill, 2007. 214.00. pp. xliii + 617. ISBN 9789004148239). Listing fractionally under 8,000 titles, Fifty Years of Philosophy of Religion is a substantial work. Bibliographic details are given for single author books, collections, and individual articles published between 1955 and 2005. The bulk of the material is drawn from the electronic databases ATLA Religion and the Philosophers Index. However, as other sources include two previous bibliographies (Galama and Sanders 1974 Logic, Epistemology, and Analysis of Religious Language, and Blaakmeer, Huiser, and van der Plas Philosophy of Religion: A Select Bibliography (19741986), published in 1988), it also lists a light scattering of items not found in either. The works are categorized under eleven thematic headings: Surveys and Introductions; Religious Language; Religious Experience; Religious Epistemology; Theism; Hermeneutical and Phenomenological Philosophy of Religion; Religion and Science; Religion and Aesthetics; Religion and Morality; Pluralism; and Feminist Philosophy of Religion. A few chapters have further sub-divisions, and books and articles are listed separately in each section. The references are unannotated. While perhaps not absolutely exhaustive, this volume certainly details an extremely generous representative selection of scholarship in philosophy of religion and philosophical theology over the last few decades. It is regrettable, therefore, that this considerable body of information is not presented in a more accessible form. The book does offer an index of names, but this includes only references to pieces by an author, not those written in response to an authors work. More seriously, there is no subject index. Hence the only way to locate material on any topic more specic than those given as chapter headings is to skim through the relevant sections: a time consuming and inevitably inefcient process. However, while more comprehensive indexing would undoubtedly have improved the usability of this work enormously, it is difcult not to wonder why conventional print was chosen as the sole medium for this bibliography in the rst place. As a CD-ROM or a subscription Web resource, the material would be easily searchable, and hence many times more useful. As it is, I fear the inaccessibility of the information will result in this volume being underused, which seems a sad fate for something with the potential to be a valuable resource. MERIEL PATRICK Intute: Arts and Humanities, Oxford

Downloaded from ext.sagepub.com by guest on February 9, 2013