Notes to Chapter 10

Notes to Chapter 10

Notes to Chapter 10

1 . Most of the following appears also in Keener, Acts, 1:18–23.

2 . See Tyson, “History to Rhetoric,” 23.

3 . Tyson, “History to Rhetoric,” 25–30.

4 . Tyson, “History to Rhetoric,” 30–31. For one recent survey of “background” approaches to Acts, see Baslez, “Monde”; for collections of some relevant background, see, e.g., Evans, Texts, 373–78; Boring, Berger, and Colpe, Commentary; Green and McDonald, World.

5 . McKnight and Malbon, “Introduction,” 18; Donahue, “Redaction Criticism,” 45–48; Byrskog, “History,” 258–59, 283; Peterson, Acts, 41; Padilla, Speeches, 10–11.

6 . See, e.g., Malina and Pilch, Acts, 3–5, noting esp. Prickett, Origins of Narrative. For their plea for taking into account the original social contexts, see also Malina and Pilch, Letters, 5–9.

7 . See Kurz, Reading Luke-Acts, 173, also noting the extrinsic reality of this author and audience, regardless of our ability to reconstruct them. On the importance of the rhetor’s goal in modern rhetorical criticism, see, e.g., Brock and Scott, Criticism, 412.

8 . See Bauer and Powell, “Introduction,” 8n18; more fully, Powell, “Readings.”

9 . With e.g., Dunn, “Reconstructions,” 296 (though cf. qualifications on 309–10). For the necessity of taking into account cultural context even in translation, see, e.g., Wendland, Cultural Factor.

10 . See, e.g., Vanhoozer, Meaning, 242 (noting that reference to the author’s language necessarily implies reference on some level to an author’s intention). Thus not only idioms but even lexemes and smaller symbolic units depend on a shared cultural history for their meaning; even language is a facet of culture (cf. Malina, Windows, xi), so denying its relevance for reconstructing a communication is naïve.

11 . More than anticipated by the human authors, who did not expect us as secondary readers, and far more than anticipated in the confident assumptions that informed some of an earlier generation’s redaction-critical excesses.

12 . Cf. Hirsch, Validity, 102–11. The more specific to the context are our parallels, the more relevant is the evidence in question (183–93). From the standpoint of intention, cf. Shuler, Genre, 32.

13 . See Burridge, Gospels; idem, “Biography”; idem, “Gospels and Acts”; idem, “Biography: Ancient”; Keener, Historical Jesus, 73–94.

14 . E.g., Quint. Inst. 10.1.36; Max. Tyre 26.4; 38.4. Admittedly perhaps often not on the practical levels noticed by modern critics; see Conte and Most, “Genre.” Rhetoricians distinguished various categories for literary forms (e.g., Theon Progymn. 2.5–33). The library at Alexandria may have played a role in emphasizing genre for library classification (see Fuller, “Classics,” 189, summarizing George Kennedy’s oral contribution).

15 . See, e.g., examples in Malherbe, “Theorists.” Different genres of speeches invited different styles (Dion. Hal. Demosth. 45–46).

16 . Race, “Introduction,” 1.

17 . Burridge, Gospels, 27–29.

18 . Hengel and Schwemer, Between Damascus and Antioch, ix. For some, such ahistoricism permits their privileging of their scholarly tradition’s hypothetical constructs of early Christianity over the probably better-informed (albeit no less perspectival) reconstruction of Luke.

19 . Hengel and Schwemer, Between Damascus and Antioch, ix.

20 . Klauck, Context, 2; cf. Osborne, “Hermeneutics,” 391–95. On the importance of recognizing the texts’ ancient context, see also discussions in Malina, Anthropology, 153–54; Malina, Windows, xi-xiii; cf. Spencer, “Approaches,” 399.

21 . I used to write mythological fiction (in my childhood), science fiction, and a comic urban romance; these sorts of works all were shaped in part by my own limitations of knowledge, language, and to some extent genre (which I sometimes subverted) and even culturally and literarily shaped dimensions of my imagination.

22 . Kurz, Reading Luke-Acts, 173; on speech-act theory, see also, e.g., Brown, Scripture as Communication, 32–35. See the extensive theoretical reflection on texts as communicative acts (218–29) and authors as communicative agents (229–40) in Vanhoozer, Meaning (including Searle’s speech act theory on 243); for implications, see 240–65.

23 . Klutz, Exorcism Stories, 16.

24 . Klutz, Exorcism Stories, 17, emphasizing “the sociocultural facet of stylistics . . . developed . . . by the British linguist Roger Fowler” as a form of “linguistic criticism.”

25 . Smith, “Understand,” 48.

26 . For speeches (despite the fact that speeches were designed so as to invite hearers to follow the flow of thought; Theon Progymn. 2.149–53), see, e.g., Quint. Inst. 10.1.20–21; for Homer, see Hermog. Method in Forceful Speaking 13.428. Johnson, Romans, 19–20, rightly notes that an ideal reader will catch more of the meaning, reading a work multiple times if needed.

27 . Talbert, Mediterranean Milieu, 14–15 (citing Peter J. Rabinowitz and Hans Robert Jauss). See also Aune, Dictionary of Rhetoric, 229, as noted above.

28 . Talbert, Mediterranean Milieu, 15 (distinguishing this approach from W. Iser’s “implied reader,” who is inferred solely from the text; cf. Iser, Implied Reader ). Cf. Lang, Kunst, 56–89.

29 . See Bendlin, “Intertextuality,” 873–74. For ancient texts deliberately evoking earlier texts, see, e.g., Menander Aspis 426–29, 432; Libby, “Theseus”; for intertextuality in OT works, see Hays, Echoes, 14.

30 . Bendlin, “Intertextuality,” 874.

31 . For some relevant seminal works, see, e.g., Sperber and Wilson, “Précis”; idem, Relevance; Wilson and Sperber, “Outline”; idem, “Representation”; I owe these citations to Gutt, Relevance Theory, 77–79. With regard to biblical studies, see, e.g., Green, “Pragmatics”; idem, “Interpretation”; idem, “Relevance Theory”; Jobes, “Relevance Theory”; Brown, Scripture as Communication, 35–38; Sim, “Relevance Theoretic approach,” ch. 2. For its compatibility with speech-act theory (despite the different emphases), see Brown, Scripture as Communication, 35n16, 46–47.

32 . Communication within a shared framework always leaves some information implicit, economizing language (Gutt, Relevance Theory, 33).

33 . See further, e.g., Gutt, Relevance Theory, 27; Sim, “Relevance Theoretic Approach,” ch. 2.

34 . Gutt, Relevance Theory, 28; “context” here involves the hearer’s “cognitive environment” (Gutt, Relevance Theory, 21–22). Thus some messages cannot be communicated without background information for the speaker’s original context (Gutt, Relevance Theory, 35, 63–68, 71–74).

35 . Cf. Cartledge, “Theology,” who values both evangelical hermeneutical approaches (modeled by Anthony Thiselton and N. T. Wright) and charismatic interests, through the Paraclete who both preserves and develops Jesus’s message (John 14:26). Cf. also Tuppurainen, “Contribution.”

36 . Agreeing here with Autry, “Dimensions”; Waddell, “Hearing,” 175; Green, Practicing Theological Interpretation, 41, 124; idem, Seized, 59, 126–36.

37 . Green, Practicing Theological Interpretation, 45. For the historical particularity of biblical narrative works, see also 53–54. Cf. further Green, Seized, 9–10.

38 . Green, Practicing Theological Interpretation, 50–56. Others have often offered the same recognition, e.g., Marshall, Historian and Theologian.

39 . Green, Practicing Theological Interpretation, 126–27. Cf. Mulholland, Shaped, 74: hearing “the Bible within its cultural contexts” helps us hear its countercultural elements more decisively.

40 . With Spawn and Wright, “Emergence,” 7.

41 . Martin, “Psalm 63,” 269; for valuing both the original message and how it speaks to present readers, see, e.g., Martin, “Hearing,” 215. Following Brueggemann (Brueggemann, Message, 3–66), Martin, “Psalm 63,” 265, also favors a “postcritical” approach that draws on both the best of pietist devotion and the best of scholarly insight. Cf. also Pinnock in Spawn and Wright, “Emergence,” 9.

42 . Grey, Crowd, 156, citing Childs, Theology, 380, and emphasizing (Grey, Crowd, 156–58) our participation in the history of God’s people.

43 . Ervin, “Hermeneutics” (Pneuma version), 18, as cited in Wyckoff, Pneuma, 131.

44 . Hollenweger, “Contribution.”

45 . Pinnock, “Work of Spirit,” 241. Less restrictively, Grey, Crowd, 126–27, limits meanings to those that can be connected to the language or images of the text. Archer, Hermeneutic, 255–59, tests interpretations by the Spirit, the historical views of the church, cross-cultural evaluation, and evaluation by academic communities. Osborne, Spiral, 413, urges a “polyvalent attitude” that refines readers’ understanding in dialogue with the text as opposed to the relativism of “pure polyvalence.” Westphal, Community, 43, contends that no one really advocates complete hermeneutical relativism.

46 . When a sign designates a construct “not directly perceivable in extra-linguistic reality” it “must be supplied by the perceiver of the sign ” (Wittig, “Theory,” 85). Although the signified must be congruent with the signs (87), it need not designate the referent intended in an original context; systems such as Freudian and Jungian psychology or Marxism “providing meaning to the text rather than discovering meaning in the text,” requiring us to recognize explicitly the models being employed (90–91).

47 . Cf. Hirsch, Validity, 123: a text may permit various interpretations, but its genuine implications must reflect “the type of meaning” that the author could have intended. Because the author could not envision many situations, however, we might speak instead of recontextualizing in terms of how authors might have expressed themselves in the new situations.

48 . Spawn and Wright, “Emergence,” 15; see also 20–21, citing favorably works by Francis Martin, George Montague, and James O’Brien; see also Spawn and Wright, “Cultivating,” 193, 196–97.

49 . Anderson, “Pentecostal Hermeneutics”; see in this connection also the beginning of “Pentecostal Hermeneutics Part 2.”

50 . Dornisch, “Symbolic Systems,” 11. Cf. also Gross, Preach, 95–96 (commenting on Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory, 76–79). On probability theory in approaching meaning, see Osborne, Spiral, 406–8.

51 . Thiselton, Horizons, 439.

52 . Thiselton, Horizons, 445; cf. also xx.

53 . With Mulholland, Shaped, 19; cf. 133–34.

54 . See D. W. Kerr in Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 91–92, contrasting reading one’s views into Scripture with humbly submitting to it.

55 . With Green, Seized, 77.

56 . Vanhoozer, Meaning, 461; cf. 400 (noting Hirsch’s application of Kant). Cf. Hirsch, Validity, 244: “interpretation is the construction of another’s meaning.”

57 . John 19:37; Rom 9:17; 10:11; 11:2; Gal 3:16; 1 Tim 5:18; Jas 2:23; 4:5–6.

58 . See wisely Foskett, Interpreting, 32: “To read the Bible contextually is to take seriously that Scripture is composed, read, and interpreted in particular human situations and that the word comes to life anew in them.”

59 . See discussion in Keener, Mind, 206–15; in 1 John, see Keener, “Transformation.”

60 . Wyckoff, Pneuma, 137, terming the latter form of meaning “significance.” He follows here also work by Arden C. Autry. Others also prefer “significance” for a text’s contemporary implications; see, e.g., Osborne, Hermeneutical Spiral, 397–415; Stein, Guide, 38–39; Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard, Introduction, 401.

61 . Grey, Crowd, 132, 152, citing also insights from others, including David Parker and Wonsuk Ma.

62 . After discovering the original purpose of the communication, exposition should “drive this meaning home to our present society with the same impact it had when it was originally written” (Mickelsen, Interpreting the Bible, 56), contextualizing for new settings (172). Normally this will challenge modern hearers far more than the more common approach of simply giving them what they already think.

63 . See further Vanhoozer, Meaning, 201–452; Brown, Scripture as Communication.

64 . Archer, Hermeneutic, 207, citing the work of earlier scholars, emphasizes sufficient indeterminacy in biblical texts to permit “the possibilities of future meaning.”

65 . Cf. Aquinas on the literal meaning being foundational (Wyckoff, Pneuma, 19; Crites, “Intellect,” 18). For Aquinas, Scripture was the highest authority (Levy, Krey, and Ryan, Romans, 42, citing Summa Theologica 1.1.8 ad 2).

66 . Hirsch, Validity, 128.

67 . Hirsch, Validity, 131–32.

68 . Hirsch, Validity, 61–71. There is no limit to possible implications, insofar as one simply selects what to emphasize (139–40). Hirsch initially tied implications very tightly to the text’s original purpose (e.g., Validity, 113), but recognized that some authors expected their texts to be used beyond what they expressly intended (123; cf. further comment in Vanhoozer, Meaning, 264). “Significance” is essentially “application”; Gadamer’s conflict with Hirsch is whether this objective should be excluded from the interpretive process to prevent hermeneutical relativism (Westphal, Community, 111).

69 . Cf. Stibbe, “Thoughts,” 192, disavowing exalting “significance over meaning” or disconnecting the two.

70 . Brown, Scripture as Communication, 105–6n21, points out that, despite the authors’ differences, Ricoeur’s “potential meanings” are somewhat akin to Hirsch’s “implications.” Cf. also Gerhart, “Notion,” cited in Osborne, Spiral, 391–92.

71 . Here I do not venture into questions of the author’s subconscious mind and conscious will, as in Hirsch, Validity, 51–57 (esp. 51–53), but am thinking of the context the author simply takes for granted.

72 . Not in Iser’s sense of what a text in isolation from its formative context implies, but in the wider sense of what a text in connection with its formative context implies.

73 . Cf. Fee, Listening, 11: biblical texts are designed— to help people serve and worship God.

74 . See, e.g., Dion. Hal. Ant. rom. 1.2.1; Val. Max. 2.pref.; Lucian Hist. 59; Max. Tyre 22.5; Fornara, Nature of History, 115–16; Lang, Kunst, 7–13, 97–167; Marguerat, Histoire, 28–29; Keener, Acts, 1:148–65; Laistner, Historians, 113–14; Williams, “Germanicus.”

Notes to Chapter 11

1 . My use of the masculine pronoun defers to majority linguistic convention and is not intended to attribute biological gender to the transcendent deity.

2 . For the relationship, see, e.g., Thiselton, “New Hermeneutic,” 82; in Pentecostal literature, see, e.g., Hernando, Dictionary, 20.

3 . Stronstad, “Trends,” offers this contrast between the intrapentecostal discussion of Gordon Fee and the epistemological approach of Ervin, “Hermeneutics” (Pneuma version). For the Spirit’s epistemic role, as articulated by Bernard Ramm, Ian T. Ramsey, and others, see the summary in Wyckoff, Pneuma, 60–62.

4 . The self-defeating character of that assertion was one significant reason for the decline of logical positivism in philosophy (McGrath, Universe, 195; Geivett and Habermas, “Introduction,” 14).

5 . See discussion in, e.g., Copleston, Philosophy, 43–44; Gorsuch, “Limits,” 284–85; Gerhart and Russell, “Mathematics,” 122–24; Smart, Philosophers, 30, 40; Barbour, Religion and Science, 109–10; Polkinghorne and Beale, Questions, 26–27, 52; Jaki, Patterns, 200–201; Margenau, “Laws,” 62; Mott, “Science”; Salam, “Science,” 97–98; Townes, “Question,” 123; Granit, “Attitude,” 178; Snell, “Science,” 211; Szentágothai, “Existence,” 215; Hart, Delusions, 10–11; Licona, Resurrection, 102; also Ian Hutchinson, as cited in Ecklund, Science, 107–8.

6 . Technically one should also add that their past is less directly observable than that of galaxy or star formation that we may view through light that has reached us after billions of years.

7 . Cf. various discussions in Polanyi, Science, 41; Kuhn, Structure; Barbour, Myths; Gutting, Paradigms; Popper, Myth of Framework. Cf. the example of Kepler in Koestler, “Kepler,” 56.

8 . Cf. physicist Sylvester James Gates Jr., director of String and Particle Theory at the University of Maryland, as cited in Ecklund, Science, 108: “Science is about measuring things. It is not about truth, but it is about reducing the falsity of our beliefs.”

9 . In practice, one who approached relationships with a purely empirical epistemology, demanding replication for every claim, would likely find his or her pool of associates shrinking quickly. But then in practice no one presses empirical questioning this far, for example by mistrusting the accumulated records of many others’ experiments and thus repeating all experiments directly. David Hume sometimes pressed skepticism even further than this, finding in replication only a high degree of probability (e.g., that the sun would be observed to rise daily). But Hume’s concern at that point addresses certainty, which differs from sufficient probability for practical purposes. Hume did not employ his skeptical epistemology outside his study (see Taylor, Hume, 24–25).

10 . I am not rejecting here the value of general revelation but noting that it is not my subject.

11 . For the apostolic proclamation in Acts, see, e.g., Dodd, Preaching, 21–23; further discussion in Keener, Acts, 1:499–500.

12 . Cf. the same term for “convict” in John 3:20; 8:46; Jesus exposing the world’s sins in 8:21, 24, 34; 9:41; esp. 15:22, 24.

13 . Cf. Luther Sermon on Jn 16; Efferin, “Paraclete”; Tribble, “Work,” 278; Hunt, “Paraclete,” 94; Sanders, John, 350; Holwerda, Spirit, 52; Keener, John, 2:1029–30; Michaels, Gospel of John, 833.

14 . For testimony’s role also in shaping spiritual formation (cf. Matt 10:32//Luke 12:8), cf. Drury, Saying. For its importance in Latino/a spirituality, see, e.g., Chaván de Matviuk, “Growth” (e.g., 218–22); Pedraja, “Testimonios. ”

15 . This applies not only to unbelievers but also to believers (cf. 1 John 2:27); before elaborating the content of Ephesians, Paul had been praying that his audience would understand that content (Eph 1:17–18; cf. prayers in Phil 1:9–10; Col 1:9–10).

16 . Cf. children who know the Father in 1 John 2:14; knowing and understanding God is the right matter for boasting (Jer 9:23–24; 1 Cor 1:26, 31).

17 . Cf. also Mulholland, Shaped, 67. The gospel may be grammatically intelligible yet it remains foolishness to the person without the Spirit (1 Cor 1:18–25; 2:14–3:4; see Wyckoff, Pneuma, 88, citing an unpublished manuscript of Arden C. Autry).

18 . He defines faith as an act of decision, but sundered from a basis of objective evidence (Bultmann, Mythology, 38–39; cf. Thiselton, Horizons, 263) or concrete revelation in history (cf. Tenney in Ladd, Bultmann, v).

19 . See his comments on decision, Entweder-Oder, in Bultmann, Word, 31, 47; Bultmann, Theology, 9, though his demythologization of its eschatological value (Word, 35; Bultmann, Theology, 22–23) seems to resist Jesus’s authority, since Jesus understood it eschatologically (Word, 38) and eschatology should not be reinterpreted (Word, 122). This is not to imply that M. Heidegger’s existentialism fits the NT, but to point to an area of overlap valuable for highlighting and translating an element sometimes neglected by other forms of NT scholarship. Bultmann saw affinity between Heidegger and Luther (Thiselton, Horizons, 178–79), but claimed that the NT, rather than Heidegger, dictated his Heideggerian understanding (Horizons, 226, 232, 262). Theology can learn from philosophy (Bultmann, “Historicity,” 96), and Heidegger’s analysis can be fruitfully adapted through Kierkegaard’s Christian approach (Bultmann, “Historicity,” 101). Bultmann claimed that existential understanding is not a bias, but a necessary perspective (Bultmann, “Exegesis,” 149). Unlike Bultmann, Heidegger publicly supported the Nazi Party, although his extramarital affairs with Jewish students contradicted Nazi policy and might call into question his commitment to its ideology.

20 . Keener, Mind, 1–29.

21 . See Keener, Mind, 23–29.

22 . See Keener, Mind, 143–72, esp. 155.

23 . By this I do not mean, with Bultmann (Bultmann, “Mythology,” 38), that faith is an act of decision apart from objective evidence, a Kierkegaardian leap in the dark. Most believers would agree that Christ “encounters us in the word of proclamation” rather than in historical analysis (Bultmann, “Mythology,” 39), but this does not mean embracing information that we believe has been falsified by historical analysis.

24 . This may be easier for me to say than for some others because I once started from atheistic premises and became convinced that Christ rather than atheism was true. But I am especially grateful to Dr. Claude Black, my undergraduate philosophy professor, for bringing to my attention the matter of competing presuppositions. Everyone starts with some preunderstanding, and faith is a legitimate one (see, e.g., A. Mickelsen, Interpreting the Bible, 69–71).

25 . Epistemic certainty is not possible in ordinary matters to the degree possible, for example, in mathematics. See the helpful distinction between certainty and knowledge in More-land, Triangle, 121–26, 131–33; cf. others, e.g., Boyd, Benefit of Doubt, 71–72. The intellectual milieu in which we move often forces this issue on Christian scholars.

26 . For head coverings, as noted earlier, cf., e.g., Keener, Paul, 19–69; idem, “Head Coverings”; for kisses, idem, “Kiss.”

27 . Valuing both the original message and how it speaks to present readers, see, e.g., Martin, “Hearing,” 215; Pinnock, “Work of Spirit,” 241.

28 . Archer, Hermeneutic, 203–5 (here esp. 204; see also Vanhoozer, “Beyond,” 92–94, helpfully advocating instead canonical patterns). Archer, Hermeneutic, 205, even deems principlizing antithetical to narrative reading, but storytellers have long communicated “morals” or “lessons” in stories, and ancient historians and biographers expressly expected their hearers and readers to draw lessons from their works (see the sources in Keener, Acts, 1:148–65). See the appeal to universal principles in Grey, Crowd, 122, 126 (citing Ricoeur), although I believe that historical context helps us hear these more concretely (cf. also Grey, Crowd, 132, 145), providing its own sort of narrative framework; see also Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard, Introduction, 407, 421–25; Marshall, Beyond Bible, 55–79.

29 . Cf. the idea in Brown, Scripture as Communication, 264–67, that principlizing is useful, but more useful is contextualization guided by the text’s purpose.

30 . Also noted by Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard, Introduction, 350, in demurring from Fee and Stuart’s approach to narrative, including in Acts.

31 . See, e.g., Jennings, Good News, 111–16; Williams, Radical Reformation, 426–29; and other sources noted above at 311n16. For applications of Luke’s Pentecost narrative in various cultures, see, e.g., Chempakassery, “Jerusalem Pentecost”; Bediako, “African Culture,” 120; Forrester, “Pentecost” (addressing, e.g., castes); on 2:17–21, Prema, “Paradigm”; Lloyd-Jones, Christianity; nonviolent direct action in Alexander, “Action.”

32 . For the early Pentecostal fondness for narrative, especially Acts, see also Archer, Hermeneutic, 182, 187–89; Mittelstadt, Reading, 1–2, 14, 19–45 (esp. 19–31). Mittelstadt, Reading, 81, cites Jerry Camery-Hoggatt (in personal correspondence) thus: “Pentecostals have been doing narrative theology for years although without the added dimension of critical self-reflection.”

33 . See Fee, Gospel, 100–104, where Fee recognizes the value of Lukan narrative for theology and is merely more cautious how to discern it. Fee and his primary dialogue partners in these pages, R. Menzies and R. Stronstad, agree with his authorial intention hermeneutic.

34 . Fee, “Historical Precedent”; Fee, Gospel, 94–99, 108–11. Other Pentecostal scholars have pushed back on this point; see, e.g., the survey in Noel, “Fee”; responding to Anthony Thiselton, see (though largely favorably) Archer, “Horizons.”

35 . Redaction criticism provided a key tool used to support a Pentecostal reading of Luke-Acts (Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 168, 179).

36 . Fee, Gospel, 100–104. Fee accepts that Luke-Acts, taken as a whole, communicates theology (101) and that patterns in Acts suggest repeatability (102). His questioning as to whether Luke “intends his history to be precedent for the church in some way” (103) probably falls short of what we suggest here, but he is correct to note (103) the “diversity of patterns within Acts itself,” and reasonable in (104) his uncertainty based on Luke’s failure to narrate tongues in every instance (though it appears in three, “probably four, and perhaps five” cases).

37 . E.g., Plato Laws 1.636CD; 2.672BC; Cic. Nat. d. 2.28.70 (the Stoic); Dio Chrys. Or. 1.62–63; 8.33; 60.8; Max. Tyre 4.5–8; 26.5–9; Heracl. Hom. Prob. 6.6; 8.4–5; 22.1; 26.1, 7–8; 30.1, 4; 31.1, 11; 39.2–17; 52.4–6; 53.1; 60.1; 68.8–9; 69.8–16; Proclus Poet. K82.10–17; K90.8–14; K141.16–21; K153.25–29. Cf. Josephus’s criticism in Ag. Ap. 2.255; Gentile critiques in Sen. Ep. Lucil. 88.5; Lucian Zeus Rants 40.

38 . See Keener, Acts, 1:148–58 and sources cited there.

39 . See, e.g., Mittelstadt, Reading, 40–43.

40 . See, e.g., Marguerat, Histoire, 333; Marguerat, Historian, 152–54, 230; Rosner, “Progress,” 232–33; Keener, Acts, 4:3758–63.

41 . Chevreau, Turnings, 54–56, with further details.

42 . Salmon, Heals, 68; Baker, Enough, 76, 171–72, 173; Brown, “Awakenings,” 363 (on one eye, citing the testimony of a retired radiologist); Bill Twyman, interview, Corona, CA, Nov. 11, 2007; Chester Allan Tesoro, interview, Baguio, Philippines, Jan. 30, 2009; Gebru Woldu, interview, Wynnewood, PA, May 20, 2010; cf. the “flat and clouded” eyes restored in Robin Shields, personal correspondence, Feb. 7, 2009; cf. the claim in Ogilbee and Riess, Pilgrimage, 43.

43 . Cf. Montefiore, Miracles, 23–65; cf. also “extrabiological energy” in Hirschberg and Barasch, Recovery, 144, although not from a specifically skeptical standpoint.

44 . Keener, “Raised,” 79.

45 . Friends include Deborah Watson; Ayodeji Adewuya; Leo Bawa; Timothy Olonade; Thérèse Magnouha; Albert Bissoussoue; Julienne Bissoussoue; Jeanne Mabiala (three accounts); André Mamadzi; Patrice Nsouami; Elaine Panelo; beyond these, witnesses contacted through my brother or mutual friends.

46 . Hume deemed miracle witnesses as deceived or deceivers (Miracles, 32, 34, 36–37, 52–55; cf. 38: “nothing strange” that people “lie in all ages”), “fools” (39), and subject to “knavery and credulity” (43; 52: “knavery and folly”). Note the criticisms in Cramer, “Miracles,” 136–37; Breggen, “Miracle Reports,” 6; idem, “Seeds.”

47 . Cf. further Llewellyn, “Events,” 253; Keener, Miracles, 667.

48 . Sometimes in a preliminary way (John 2:23; 3:2; 4:48–53; 7:31; 10:37–38; 14:11; 16:30–32; 20:25, 29), but this could lead to greater maturity if one persevered (contrast 8:30–31, 59). Faith could also precede signs (11:40; 14:12).

49 . See esp. Fretheim, “Plagues.” From various perspectives, see, e.g., Hort, “Plagues” (challenged appropriately in Sarna, Exodus, 70–73); Stieglitz, “Plagues”; Duncan Hoyt, “Plagues”; Zevit, “Plagues.”

50 . See Hays, Conversion, 190–201. Cf. Provan, Long and Longman, History, 48, as cited in Spawn, “Principle,” 60; also Stuhlmacher, Criticism, as cited in Archer, Hermeneutic, 176n18. Most of these scholars do employ historical criticism, but where it is helpful for historical purposes, as opposed to embracing its earlier antisupernatural assumptions (e.g., Stuhlmacher, Criticism, 90, as cited in Wyckoff, Pneuma, 39).

51 . For criticisms of the inappropriate lengths to which a hermeneutic of suspicion is sometimes carried, see, e.g., Thurén, “Sincere”; Hengel and Schwemer, Between Damascus and Antioch, 119; for other relevant observations, see, e.g., Horrell and Adams, “Introduction,” 37; Brown, Death, 7–8; Carson, “Mirror-Reading,” 99. Of course, one may criticize an author’s perspicacity without impugning his or her motives (Whitehead, Science, 25, as cited in Cohen, Law, 31). For Pentecostalism’s distance from a hermeneutic of suspicion toward the biblical text, see, e.g., Waddell, “Hearing,” 191.

52 . Kurz, Reading Luke-Acts, 173–74.

53 . Vermes, Jesus and Judaism, 63.

54 . God seems more patient with those who had not yet witnessed signs (Judg 6:13–14; Matt 11:20–24//Luke 10:13–15). Passages that speak of past apparent “cessations” (such as Judg 6:13; Ps 44:1–3; 74:9) normally go on to speak of God’s renewed works or to plead for God to act again.

55 . This contravenes the normal historiographic approach outside miracles; see, e.g., Dilthey, Pattern, 141: “Even in contemporary accounts we must first examine the point of view of the reporter, his reliability, and his relation to the event.”

56 . See Sider, Christians. Ron is a close friend and former colleague (see Keener, “Biblical Fidelity,” 29). He is not a Marxist; he is driven by biblical conviction consistent with his evangelical Anabaptist heritage.

57 . Cf. Mulholland, Shaped, 135: “We should come to the scripture expectantly, receptively, openly, eagerly waiting” to meet God there.

Notes to Chapter 12

1 . Cf. Seneca Ep. Lucil. 108.30 (trans. Richard M. Gummere, LCL 3:249) on the complementarity of many approaches: “When Cicero’s book On the State is opened by a philologist, a scholar, or a follower of philosophy, each man pursues his investigation in his own way.”

2 . Cf. the arguments in Keener and Usry, Faith, 108–35, especially addressing the Christ-centered transitions involved in all the varied NT images related to soteriology. I confess that I still find the implications of this claim extremely painful; my attempts to exegete honestly do not always yield the outcomes I would have wished.

3 . Believers are not alone in experiencing these perceptions; see discussion of ancient philosophers and their detractors in Keener, Acts, 4:3537–38.

4 . See Keener, Mind, ch. 6. Viewed without faith in the God who raised Jesus, the cross itself is simply another travesty of injustice, of the powerful silencing the weak (cf. similarly Green, Seized, 153–54).

5 . Cf. Augustine’s “Believe so as to understand” (various sources cite Sermon 43.7, 9; Tract. Jn. 29.6) and Anselm’s faith seeking understanding (Proslogion 1, end), although they cited in support a Latin mistranslation of Isa 7:9 (in Tract. Jn. 29.6.2, Augustine more helpfully also cites John 7:17). Some other interpreters cite the need for spiritual rebirth for correct insight (e.g., Ervin, “Hermeneutics,” as cited in Spawn and Wright, “Emergence,” 6).

6 . This is not to say that in practice everyone is equally alienated; Paul and other biblical writers sometimes nuance these stark contrasts (a point to which I return briefly further below). Nevertheless, the stark epistemic contrast reinforces the texts’ demands.

7 . Note BDAG’s first definition for ἔλεγχος (proof), although BDAG translates more loosely here; and possibly BDAG’s fourth definition for ὑπόστασις (title deed or guarantee).

8 . I am grateful, however, that he is present whether we are conscious of his presence or not, because my ADHD-brain usually fails to remain conscious of anything for a very extended period of time except perhaps when hyper-focused on a train of thought while reading or writing.

9 . Spawn and Wright, “Emergence,” 5–6, 21, providing especially charismatic Lutheran examples. For a charismatic anthropologist’s discussions of worldviews, see, e.g., Kraft, “World-views”; idem, Worldview; for the historical development of and a challenge to the anti-supernatural worldview, see Long and McMurry, Collapse (Long and McMurry are renewalist Presbyterians).

10 . See BDB. We believe in or rely on God because of his faithfulness, and this reliance in turn reciprocates fidelity.

11 . Some argue that God uses chance to achieve divine goals. In this case, chance could be a mechanism in which God fixed the rules at the beginning to produce some desired outcomes. If one views chance as a divine mechanism, however, one still thinks in terms of ultimate design of the rules. “Design” need not be restricted to micromanagement.

12 . Many critical scholars reject the authenticity of 2 Thessalonians, but, at least in the Anglophone sphere, the majority of commentators—those who work most closely with the text—do accept its authenticity. I find implausible the idea that a pseudepigrapher would write, after the temple’s destruction in 70 CE, of someone desecrating the temple by enthroning himself there (2 Thess 2:3–4). Imperial worship on the site of the temple never included the emperor’s own presence, and the temple was destroyed before such worship in 70 CE took place.

13 . How one understands this causation depends on one’s theology, and I cannot digress so far here.

14 . I accept the authenticity of Ephesians but am aware of the debate. In support of authenticity, see the arguments in various commentators, esp. Hoehner, Ephesians, 2–61. Not everyone will agree, but I find Hoehner’s case persuasive and have nothing relevant to add to it.

15 . He similarly prays for them to be even more fully enlightened (Eph 1:18), even though they are already enlightened (5:8; cf. 3:9).

16 . See, e.g., Marshall, Blood; Hefley and Hefley, Blood; Shortt, Christianophobia; Doyle, Killing; N, I Am N; esp. Marshall and Shea, Silenced; Marshall, Gilbert and Shea, Persecuted.

17 . I later did review one of his books, and I did read it first. But I can well imagine that not every reviewer did.

18 . One could elaborate at length here, even from personal experience. One of my favorite reviews of one of my earliest books allows that my inaccurate view of ancient slavery is understandable, since, the reviewer notes, I am African American. (I am ordained in an African-American denomination, but he made inaccurate racial assumptions on that account.) I have read some glowing reviews of my own books that seemed to miss the point no less than some negative ones. Nevertheless, on other occasions some skillful reviewers have understood and communicated my point so clearly that I found myself wishing that I had articulated it so well.

19 . The expectation of fair evaluation is not an exclusively modern concept (cf., e.g., Gen 31:37).

20 . Although I have observed this often, I think of some comments appended to Candy Gunther Brown’s first post in the Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/candy-gunther-brown-phd/testing-prayer-science-of-healing_b_1299915.html , posted March 2, 2012). Although I have in mind here posts by some fundamentalist internet atheists, vituperative posts by some fundamentalist internet Christians can be embarrassing as well.

21 . I have oversimplified here to avoid digression. See fuller discussion with much greater nuance in, e.g., Copan, Monster; Copan and Flannagan, Genocide.

22 . Many of us would allow for coercive intervention to prevent genocide, but Jesus certainly would not have approved of forcing belief. A belief accepted by compulsion is not one’s true belief, at least so long as known alternatives remain intellectually viable.

23 . This passage provided a notorious crux in Zwingli’s argument with Luther regarding the Eucharist (combined with an unfortunate miscommunication due to Zwingli’s use of a Swiss idiom with which Luther was unfamiliar), but it also fits the larger Johannine emphasis on spiritual rather than earthly evaluation (3:12, 31; 7:24; 8:15).

24 . Also Andrew’s “following” Jesus (1:37–38, 40) connects him with Philip, whom Jesus summons to “follow” him (1:43), like his sheep (10:4–5, 27).

25 . To some extent this language may be simply Johannine idiom (cf. 11:34), but the clustering of this vocabulary in these parallel locations seems significant.

26 . John’s informed audience knows that Jesus’s place of origin is from heaven, i.e., from God; 3:13, 31; 6:32–33, 38, 41, 46, 51; 8:23, 42. This is precisely counter to what Jesus’s critics aver of him in 9:16, and to which the healed man responds in 9:33.

27 . Long ago argued by Aberle, “Zweck” (1861; as cited in Ashton, Understanding, 108); Wrede, Origin, 83–84; and more recently by Martyn, Theology; idem, “Glimpses”; since then, widely held, e.g., Koester, “Brown and Martyn”; Dunn, “John,” 302–4; Perkins, Reading, 249–50; Hasitschka, “Anmerkungen”; Rensberger, Faith, 26; Kysar, “Gospel,” 918; Quast, “Community.” See further discussion in Keener, John, 1:194–214.

28 . The back-and-forth exchange between the two verbs in 1 John resembles their largely random distribution also in the Gospel (for which see Keener, John, 1:243–46, esp. 245).

29 . The specific terminology that contrasts the Spirit of truth with a false spirit already circulated in Jewish circles; see, e.g., 1QS 4.3, 9, 21; 4Q544 i.10–14; ii.13–15; T. Jud. 20:1–2; Brown, Essays, 147–50; Duhaime, “Voies”; Tigchelaar, “Names of Spirits.”

30 . A majority of Johannine scholars take seriously the Fourth Gospel’s claim to an eyewitness tradition (John 13:23; 19:35; 21:24–25; e.g., Kysar, John, 12; O’Day, “John,” 500; Witherington, Wisdom, 15–17; Smith, John, 400; Ridderbos, John, 3; Beck, Paradigm, 6; Bruce, John, 4–5; Bauckham, Testimony, 33–72). I have argued that the Gospel’s author is also the epistle’s author, and that he was an eyewitness of Jesus’s ministry (Keener, John, 1:81–139; idem, “Beheld,” 15–17). This fits the epistolary writer’s claim (1 John 1:1–3).

31 . They probably sponsored some of his teaching in Ephesus; see Keener, “Asiarchs.”

32 . Keener, “Spirit Perspectives”; idem, Mind, chapter 4.

33 . For the ambiguity and complexity of characters’ belief in John, see, e.g., Sevrin, “Nicodemus Enigma,” 369; Grant, “Ambiguity”; and now esp. Hylen, Imperfect Believers.

34 . Osborne, Spiral, 341, quotes approvingly Larkin, Culture, 289: “Paul locates the barrier in the area of evaluation rather than cognition.” Nonbelievers may understand the textual meaning without believing it.

Notes to Chapter 13

1 . Mulholland, Shaped, 144, contends that “Spiritual reading of scripture also entails an awareness that in the Bible we have something more than simply a human literary production.” Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard, Introduction, 93, suggest that the most decisive line among interpreters is “the level of attitude toward the Bible’s trustworthiness. ”

2 . E.g., Archer, Hermeneutic, 166–67. Charles Parham and others in the movement assumed that Christian experience today should match that reported in Acts (Stronstad, “Trends”), an emphasis he undoubtedly carried over from the Holiness movement. Today, cf. Green, Practicing Theological Interpretation, 16: Scripture addresses the church (cf. also 42), so we should see ourselves addressed in Scripture.

3 . E.g., McGee, “Radical Strategy,” 72 (India in the 1850s), 73 (Indonesia in the 1860s). Cf. also a Methodist missionary in Africa in the 1840s, in Yung, “Integrity,” 174; McGee, “Regions Beyond,” 70; idem, “Miracles,” 253; idem, Miracles, 51, 242.

4 . Emphasized in some circles in the US as early as the 1860s (Curtis, Faith, 64–65).

5 . This is not to imply that it does not happen; for reports from the West, see, e.g., Keener, Miracles, 1:426–507; most of the accounts in Metaxas, Miracles.

6 . Spittler, “Enterprise,” 65.

7 . Scholarship cited in Grey, Crowd, 44.

8 . Ancient historiography and biography allowed greater flexibility in narrating details than do their modern academic namesakes, but skeptical modern approaches that dismiss from historical consideration all details not verifiable externally also run contrary to our concrete evidence concerning these genres (see Keener, “Otho”). The genre of Greco-Roman historiography does make an implicit claim about the authors’ historical intention, not merely recognition that a work is narrative in format.

9 . Historical reliability was not their battle, but was normally assumed (see, e.g., Mittelstadt, Reading, 44; Grey, Crowd, 149), sometimes even in fundamentalistic ways (see, e.g., the summary in Grey, Crowd, 146–48).

10 . E.g., Waddell, “Hearing,” 174–75, 181, 197.

11 . See, e.g., Ellington, “Authority,” 149–50, 162–63.

12 . On Calvin here, see Grant and Tracy, History, 96; Adhinarta, Doctrine, 37–38; Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 85; Bartholomew, Hermeneutics, 492 (noting also Aquinas); Calvin, Institutes, 1:90, as cited in Wyckoff, Pneuma, 26; also the Westminster Confession, as noted in Wyckoff, Pneuma, 31; and esp. Adhinarta, Doctrine, 36. Cf., e.g., Cartledge, “Text-Community-Spirit,” 133.

13 . See, e.g., Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 92; Ellington, “Authority,” 162; also the appeal to experience in respondents to the informal survey in 149–50. Ellington notes, however, that it was rapprochement with the broader evangelical community and its cultural battles that led to stricter inerrantist language (151–52, 156; see also Spittler, “Enterprise,” 58–60).

14 . Especially since the controversies of the 1920s, those who seek to defend God’s Word in Scripture have sometimes focused on “inerrancy” as a theological boundary. Others object that this way of framing boundaries may lend too much emphasis to incidental details. Some inflexibly defined inerrantism imposes preconceptions roughshod on actual texts while neglecting inductive study of those texts; it sometimes insists on detail in a manner that focuses on the letter as opposed to the Spirit (cf. Matt 23:23; 2 Cor 3:6). Some recent evangelical writers have defined inerrancy more generously, providing a larger tent that takes into account genre and focuses more on respecting Scripture as it is given; see Blomberg, Believe; Walton and Sandy, World (also some earlier scholarly definitions, as opposed to popular understanding of the term). For the range of conventional modern evangelical positions within and beyond inerrancy, see Merrick, Garrett, and Gundry, Views; Thorsen and Reeves, Bible, esp. 115–81. Some evangelicals argue that this narrower way of framing the debate over biblical authority reflects the legacy of distinctively American divide, and thus is of less value elsewhere (Bird, “Inerrancy,” 160–65). Pentecostals defined their belief more narrowly as “inerrancy,” and not simply inspiration (an intrinsically Pentecostal-friendly concept), when they joined 1940s evangelicalism (Archer, Hermeneutic, 87).

15 . Luther, for example, embraced what he saw as Paul’s message in Galatians while criticizing Paul for lapses in his logic (Wengert, “Luther,” 97–99). Jerome “corrected” Paul based on the Hebrew text (112) and complains about Paul (Ep. Gal. 3.5.12; Edwards, Galatians, xvii, 76).

16 . Especially in Keener, Historical Jesus; idem, Acts vol. 1; idem, Miracles, 1:22–33; idem, “Otho”; idem, “Assumptions”; idem, “Biographies.”

17 . Criticized for translating directly from the Hebrew text, Jerome countered that he also accepted, as did most Christians of his era, the inspiration of the Septuagint (Pollmann and Elliott, “Galatians,” 50–51).

18 . Hebrews quotes and builds on the LXX even when it varies from the Hebrew text. Christians do not recite Scripture in the original language as many Muslims recite the Qur’an, because we inherit a different concept of inspiration. Granted, in apparent allusions the New Testament sometimes evokes Old Testament wording more than direct meaning, but even in these cases it often suggests analogies (e.g., judgment language could be applied in new settings that invite judgment).

19 . Kitchen, Reliability, 423. Those who complain that a book can contain only a single genre have only to turn to Exodus, which contains laws as well as narratives, to refute their complaint. Our current division of the story between the close of Genesis and the early narratives of Exodus may have more to do with pragmatic questions of space than with cohesiveness of the narrative.

20 . LaSor, Hubbard, and Bush, Survey, 18–19 (cf. also some tensions in the patriarchal narratives in 44–45). Cf. the recent, firmly evangelical discussion also by Walton, Thought, 179–215; idem, Genesis One.

21 . Interestingly, in terms of information content, humans are the cosmos’s most complex physical beings that we know about.

22 . E.g., Luther resisted harmonizing Galatians with its source in Deuteronomy, embracing each text on its own terms (Wengert, “Luther,” 112).

23 . For this and some other biographic techniques, see Licona, “Biographies”; idem, Differences.

24 . Qureshi, Seeking, 19.

25 . Keener and Keener, Impossible Love.

26 . Jane Campbell, personal correspondence, Aug. 14, 2015.

27 . Probably the most notable are Jesus’s genealogies in Matt 1:2–16 and Luke 3:23–38; and the accounts of Judas’s death in Matt 27:3–5 and Acts 1:18–19 (which I treated briefly in Keener, Matthew, 656–62; idem, Acts, 1:760–65). There are points of contact but also striking divergences. Such wide variation in overlapping material is rare in the Synoptic Gospels (I am not counting omissions of material, which are less relevant), but it is one reason that most scholars, including myself, think that Luke and Matthew shared a common source or sources besides Mark, rather than that either Luke or Matthew used the other’s completed Gospel.

28 . See, e.g., Keener, “Otho”; Henderson, “Life”; Hillard, Nobbs, and Winter, “Corpus.”

29 . As Blomberg notes (Believe, 120), not only myself but D. A. Carson, Darrell Bock, and Craig Blomberg have been denounced as liberal by some scholars to our right.

30 . And certainly the sources contain very ancient traditions. E.g., Israel would not likely have invented its exodus generation being unable to enter the land, or their continuous rebellions against Moses. Likewise, Numbers preserves a song about Sihon, still sung, about Sihon’s exploits before Israel conquered him, apparently from before that conquest (Num 21:27–30). I addressed some of these issues in further detail in Keener and Usry, Faith, 147–65.

31 . That God did inspire Scripture does, I think, follow for Christians from respect for Christ’s multiply attested view of Scripture (see, e.g., Mark 12:24; Matt 5:18//Luke 16:17; Matt 26:54, 56; Luke 24:27; John 5:45–47; 17:12), pointed out, e.g., in Wenham, Bible; Piper, Glory, 98–113. For Jesus’s distinctive interpretive approach to Scripture, however, see pp. 211–16 in the present book.

32 . Also, e.g., 1 Clem. 45.2. The question of canon naturally arises here (especially for the NT), although prophetic inspiration is a wider category than canonicity. Here I can only refer readers to several more detailed discussions and debates, e.g., as noted earlier, McDonald and Sanders, Debate; McDonald, Canon; Evans and Tov, Exploring; Kruger, Question; Porter, Evans, and McDonald, New Testament.

33 . Thus when Green, Seized, 160–73, speaks of “renewing biblical authority,” he speaks of submitting our lives to its message.

34 . Ellington, “Authority,” 167, citing here Brueggemann, Texts under Negotiation, 12–13.

35 . Waddell, “Hearing,” 184.

36 . Reinforcing the importance of history (as a biblical concept, not, as some detractors complain, a purely modern one), the narrative structure of biblical salvation history provides a partial historical context for other biblical genres (poetic prophecies, poetic prayers, letters, and so forth) that teach us lessons by means of case studies. We learn more of God’s heart partly by observing how God addressed people in their various settings. Many scholars have grappled with the relationship of history to the present. For example, Dilthey values entering the past by historical imagination, but demands hearing the past first on its own terms (Rickman, “Introduction,” 44–47), although in different ages we will hear different aspects of it (48). History thus throws light on present reality (60), and is read in light of the present (Dilthey, Pattern, 161).

37 . Like other writers, biblical authors may also sometimes write in such a way as to seek to facilitate reader identification (see, e.g., Beck, “Anonymity”; idem, Paradigm ). Some scholars have also begun exploring the inner life of biblical characters (see Leung Lai, ‘I’-Window ), which further facilitates reader empathy and identification.

38 . See Walton, Thought, 165–78, 189; Walton and Sandy, World.

39 . This approach to nature should characterize Christians regardless of their view of origins. A theistic evolutionist, for example, may affirm that God used evolution as a mechanism to produce outcomes such as exist, and thus praise him for designing it and, if need be, guiding it to produce such outcomes. Skeptics may complain that, in their judgment, a God should not use such an inefficient process; biblical narratives are, however, full of God working in all sorts of different ways, including with human choices, yet achieving necessary outcomes. The church’s survival over the centuries (both from external threats and, perhaps more markedly, its members’ human failures) also appears as a cause for wonder. Instead of a sterile, robotic pure efficiency, God designed a world of glorious beauty and limited chaos and achieves his wise purposes in ways we can discover only in retrospect and only among those who recognize his wisdom (cf. Rom 11:33–36). That is also true of the way he brought about salvation (1 Cor 1:18–25).

40 . Anderson, Ends of the Earth, 138: “Pentecostal rituals exhibit a worldview that presupposes that worship is about encountering God, including a faith in an all-powerful God who is there to meet human needs.” Further, “the experience of the Spirit’s presence is seen as a normal part of daily life and is brought to bear upon all situations” (139).

41 . Our reading experience may also readjust our understanding of a text’s genre (Westphal, Community, 29).

42 . For one approach to engaging the Bible in dialogue as a friend rather than hiding from it, see Fraser and Kilgore, Friends.

43 . In Scripture, the devil does tempt directly in major cases (e.g., Mark 1:13; Luke 4:2; 22:3, 31; John 13:27; Acts 5:3); he also is involved in other lives, though (since Satan is not omnipresent) readers may sometimes debate how directly the action is intended (e.g., Mark 4:15; Eph 2:2; Jas 4:7; 1 Pet 5:8). But Scripture is also clear on another level that people are drawn astray by their own desires (Jas 1:14).

44 . This was my own misreading; my church was Arminian, but not that Arminian. I now understand that this was a misreading; see Keener, “Spirit Perspectives”; idem, Mind, 122–27.

45 . Torrey, “Supernatural Guidance,” 20–21 (excerpted from Torrey, Person and Work ), warns against “bondage” because of unclear leadings, noting that, “any leading that is not perfectly clear is not from him. . . . If it is His will, the heavenly Father will make it as day.” Elsewhere I suggest that we can trust God’s providence, his ordering of our steps (Prov 16:9; 20:24), and normally wisdom, as well as (and often in connection with) more intuitive forms of guidance (cf. Keener, Mind; the example in Torrey, “Guidance,” 18–19). Of course, even the commonsense realism that informed fundamentalism allowed for some pre-rational intuition (cf. Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 109), although this may have been understood as innate knowledge.

46 . As noted earlier, people in John’s Gospel often responded to signs with initial faith, but only when this faith persevered did it become mature faith; even when Bible reading does not feel like an exciting adventure, we persevere because we know that God does and will change us through it.

47 . Cf. Grey, Crowd, 155–59, on participation in God’s people and thus in God’s salvation-historical story (cf. also 171–72). Scripture’s story offers a metanarrative “in which the Pentecostal reader can locate themselves” (160).

Notes to Chapter 14

1 . Thiselton, Horizons, 439. For Ricoeur, the NT is the new lens through which the OT is understood; see Ricoeur, Essays, 49–72, summarized in Gross, Preach, 59–60.

2 . Bultmann, Christianity, 187: “The Old Testament is still [considered by the NT] the word of God, though not because it contains his word spoken to Israel in the past, but because it is directly typological and allegorical. The original meaning and context of the Old Testament sayings are entirely irrelevant. God does not speak to men through history but through Christ . . .”

3 . Paul’s use of “allegory” language in Gal 4:24 may reflect the more general ancient sense of the term (see the range of senses in Anderson, Glossary, 14–16; Witherington, Grace, 322–23); although it may include elements of what we call allegory (see esp. Cover, “Above”; de Boer, Galatians, 295–96) it also includes elements of more direct analogy (and typology) in the themes of promise, inheritance, and sonship (see Hays, Echoes, 116, 166; Tronier, “Spørgsmålet”; Martyn, Galatians, 436; Schreiner, Galatians, 300; Harmon, “Allegory,” esp. 157; Barclay, Gift, 415–16; Keener, Galatians ). Although Paul probably also polemically inverts his rivals’ argument here, too few clues support the suggestion (noted in Anderson, Rhetorical Theory, 178–79) that he employs allegory sarcastically.

4 . These could also certainly include prophetic or even Deuteronomic readings of the Torah (with Martin, “Hearing,” 216), but I shall retain a primary focus on NT readings, which are closer to my expertise. Others also appeal to how Jesus, Paul, and others interpreted the law to find models for Christian readings today (e.g., Brondos, “Freedom”), including models for charismatic reading (Stibbe, “Thoughts,” 193).

5 . Others have also considered the value of analogies with modern charismata for informing readings of biblical texts; see the thoughtful and nuanced essay by Spawn, “Principle.”

6 . NT readings of the OT have become a major area of study; a few seminal examples from various approaches include: Longenecker, Exegesis; Hays, Echoes; idem, Conversion; idem, Reading Backwards; Ellis, Old Testament; Evans and Sanders, Luke and Scripture; particularly extensively, see Beale and Carson, Commentary. For some concise but helpful observations on NT use of the OT, see also Brown, Scripture as Communication, 227–28; Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard, Introduction, 129–31. Intertextuality features prominently in some modern Pentecostal readings (e.g., Waddell, “Hearing,” 203).

7 . In John’s Gospel, Jesus also explains that earthly analogies were needed for humans to relate to God’s heavenly truths (John 3:12), perhaps including analogies of water (3:5) and wind (3:8).

8 . Probably implicit in Mark 4:20’s “accept” (signifying agreement), but explicit in Matt 13:23 (“understand,” fitting 13:13–15, 19, 51; 15:10; the verb appears in the quotation in Mark 4:12 and in Jesus’s invitations and reproofs in 7:14; 8:17, 21).

9 . Hays, Reading Backwards, 28–29, rightly suggests that Mark 4:11–34 addresses (29) “the hermeneutics of hearing and understanding the word”; Jesus’s parables function as (28) “paradoxical veiled communication,” which only some will hear. Late in the process of writing this book I was pleased to discover that Clark Pinnock also appeals to Jesus’s model in his approach to Spirit hermeneutics (Pinnock, “Work of Spirit,” 234–36).

10 . Some scholars advocate a hermeneutic that appreciates experience as in postmodernism, yet also recognizes limits to subjectivity; see, e.g., Fogarty, “Hermeneutic.” Delineating such limits, however, can become problematic, itself becoming a subjective process, unless we recognize some controls such as texts’ contextual and/or canonical meanings.

11 . See, e.g., b. Sanh. 38b; Instone-Brewer, Techniques, esp. 167; Keener, Acts, 2:1587–88. Some writers connected even disjointed material by the use of catchwords; see Perrin, Thomas and Tatian, 50; Longenecker, Rhetoric. In polemical setting teachers did sometimes adopt critics’ or opponents’ approaches (see Daube, “Johanan ben Zaccai,” 54; cf. Rom 10:5).

12 . Because Luke makes nothing of the connection, it seems logical to infer that the exegesis presupposed in this passage likely stems from the historical Jesus himself.

13 . See, e.g., m. Abot 2:1; 4:2; Sipra V.D. Deho. Par. 1.34.1.3; par. 12.65.1.3; Ab. R. Nat. 1, §8B; fuller discussion in Keener, Matthew, 551. Cf. Pinnock, “Work of Spirit,” 235.

14 . See, e.g., m. Abot 2:1; Hor. 1:3; Sipra Qed. Pq. 8.205.2.6; Behuq. par. 5.255.1.10; Sipre Deut. 48.1.3; 54.3.2; fuller discussion in Johnston, “Commandments”; Keener, Matthew, 178–79.

15 . Powell, “Answers,” notes Luther’s hermeneutical grid of law and gospel, the common Reformed grid of covenant, and so forth.

16 . Interpreters who rightly use Scripture to interpret Scripture often differ on which Scriptures to use. Popular interpreters sometimes nonsensically interpret Scripture by equating unrelated objects in diverse contexts; Jesus’s hermeneutic, by contrast, offers a model for us that reflects God’s heart. Speaking of an experiential hermeneutic, this is a message that I have repeatedly experienced (as Luther’s experience of justification made that message central for him); but I have also had other experiences, and I believe the centrality of this one in most texts relating to salvation history arises from inductive study of Scripture.

17 . See, e.g., b. Shab. 31a; fuller discussion in Keener, Matthew, 248–49.

18 . Sipra Qed. pq. 4.200.3.7; fuller discussion in Keener, Matthew, 531.

19 . Other Jewish teachers often linked texts based on a common key term or phrase; in this case, both texts in the Torah begin with “You shall love” (Deut 6:5; Lev 19:18).

20 . The other extreme is to vacate love of its divinely intended meaning by neglecting the particular commandments that it summarizes.

21 . See Sanders, Jesus to Mishnah, 43–48.

22 . Borg argues that Jesus’s mercy paradigm replaces the holiness paradigm of the Pharisees (Conflict, 123–43); yet the Pharisees would have agreed with the principle of mercy in theory, and particularly the School of Hillel emphasized it in legal interpretation.

23 . For the phrase “the Ten Commandments” (or “the Ten Words”), see Exod 34:28; Deut 4:13; 10:4; this was clearly a key part of the Torah, “the words of the covenant” (Exod 34:28; cf. Deut 5:2; 9:9–11, 15), written by God himself (Exod 31:18; 34:1; Deut 4:13; 5:22; 10:4).

24 . The parallel text in Deut 7:9 suggests that “thousands” here (and in Exod 20:6; Deut 5:10) refers to thousands of generations (cf. also 1 Chr 16:15; Ps 105:8, where this can mean “forever”), in contrast to his anger to the third and fourth generations.

25 . Cf. 1 Kgs 3:9; Ps 49:3; Prov 2:2; 14:33; 16:21; 20:5; Isa 6:10; 10:7; 44:18; Dan 10:12; the association also in Greek in Matt 9:4; Luke 1:51; 9:47; Acts 8:22; LXX 1 Chr 29:18; LXX Jer 38:33; Bar 1:22.

26 . See Keener, Matthew, 502–3; for Jesus’s likely bilingualism, see further my discussion in Keener, Acts, 3:3190–95.

27 . See t. Shab. 16:22; for various practices, see m. Eduy. 2:5; Shab. 14:4; 22:6; Yoma 8:6; t. Shab. 12:12; Keener, Matthew, 356–58.

28 . Keener, Matthew, 355–56. Cf. Jesus’s own preference for his friend’s honor over the consecrated purpose of waterpots in John 2:6–9; see more fully Keener, John, 1:509–13.

29 . Keener, Matthew, 356; see more broadly Keener, John, 1:716.

30 . On the custom, see Sanders, Jesus to Mishnah, 53–57; Baumgarten, “Korban ”; Carmon, Inscriptions, 75, §167; cf. m. Ned. passim (e.g., 3:2).

31 . See discussion in Keener, John, 1:509–13.

32 . 1 Macc 2:41; see Keener, John, 1:642n74.

33 . See, e.g., CD 11.13–14; b. Shab. 128b, bar.; Keener, Matthew, 358.

34 . On kavanah, see Bonsirven, Judaism, 95; Montefiore and Loewe, Anthology, 272–94; Pawlikowski, “Pharisees.”

35 . Very helpfully, and even before Sanders, cf. Odeberg, Pharisaism. For Sanders’s mature distillation of his view on Pharisaic ethics, see esp. Sanders, “Nomism.”

36 . See, e.g., 4 Ezra 8:52–54; T. Dan 5:12; T. Levi 18:10–12; m. Abot 5:20; Sipra Behuq. pq. 1.261.1.6; b. Ber. 28b; 34b; Tg. Neof. 1 on Gen 3:24; cf. Isa 51:3; Ezek 36:35; Rev 22:1–3; Ep. Barn. 6.13.

37 . Albeit with a different application, to royal polygyny; see CD 4.20–5:2; 11QT 56.18–19; Keener, Marries Another, 40–41; cf. Vermes, “Halakah”; Nineham, Mark, 265; pace Schubert, “Ehescheidung,” 27; Mueller, “Temple Scroll.”

38 . Keener, Marries Another; a more popular but up-to-date form of the argument appears in Keener, “Remarriage.” Note also Instone-Brewer, Divorce. William Heth, one of the authors of Heth and Wenham, Divorce, has now changed his position (see Heth, “Remarriage”).

39 . I do not believe that a single act of adultery or abuse necessarily renders a marriage irreparable. If the underlying character flaws that permitted these transgressions to begin with are not addressed, however, they are likely to repeat themselves. Both Roman and Jewish expectations of divorce after a wife’s infidelity were strong, enshrined even in law; while the same is less true today, we should never minimize the serious breach of the marriage covenant represented by either partner’s unfaithfulness.

40 . My revelation-interested charismatic readers might appreciate knowing that I witnessed Jesus doing this in a dream.

41 . I have adapted this section from Keener, “Expectation”; and Historical Jesus.

42 . Beasley-Murray, “Kingdom,” 27–32 (indicating Jesus’s Messiahship). On Jesus’s own Christology, see further Witherington, Christology of Jesus.

43 . Hengel, “Messiah,” 345.

44 . Cf. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 234, 307.

45 . Meyer, “Deed,” 171–72.

46 . Hengel, “Messiah,” 347.

47 . Cf. Judg 10:4; 1 Kgs 1:44; cf. discussion in Sanders, Figure, 254.

48 . E.g., b. Sanh. 98a; 99a; Gen. Rab. 75:6; Edgar, “Messianic Interpretation,” 48–49; Lachs, Commentary, 344.

49 . E.g., Moule, Mark, 87; Sanders, Figure, 242.

50 . Brown, Death, 473–80. On contemporary messianic expectations and Jesus’s role, see Keener, Historical Jesus, 256–67; Keener, “Parallel Figures.”

51 . See, e.g., Kingsbury, Christology, 150.

52 . So, e.g., Gundry, Use, 200; Witherington, Christology of Jesus, 190.

53 . Including some allusions, see, e.g., Acts 2:34–35; 7:55; Eph 1:20; Col 3:1; Heb 1:3, 13; 8:1; 10:12; 12:2; Mark 16:19; Justin 1 Apol. 45.

54 . See, e.g., CD 7.15–20; Mek. Nez. 10.15–16, 26, 38; 17.17; Pisha 5.103. Although the Hebrew terms are different, the divine name was pronounced simply as “lord.”

55 . On Jesus’s exalted lordship at an early stage, cf. further Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, 109–18; Marshall, Origins, 97–111. For various articulations of Jesus’s divine identity in some sense early in Christian tradition, see Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ; Bauckham, Crucified; Keener, Historical Jesus, 276–81; Hays, Reading Backwards.

Notes to Chapter 15

1 . Scholars divide on whether to translate nomos here as “law” or “principle”; the English choice may be forced, but if one must choose, the context has consistently employed the term for the Torah (Rom 2:12–27; 3:19–21, 28, 31). Cf. Marinus Victorinus Gal. 1.2.9 (Edwards, Galatians, 31).

2 . Most Jewish interpreters would have insisted that they belonged to the covenant because they belonged to God’s covenant people, a belonging that they confirmed by keeping the covenant. Paul is more rigorous in demanding righteousness and expects it from hearts transformed by the Spirit and obedient to God’s Messiah, but he undoubtedly uses some hyperbole; see discussion in Keener, Romans, 4–9, 122–23.

3 . Because many global Pentecostals are currently more hearing than reading communities, orality remains a valued element in Pentecostal appropriation of the text (see, e.g., Ellington, “Authority,” 159; Waddell, “Hearing,” 199; Martin, “Hearing,” 217–21, esp. 219–21). Reading literacy is increasingly available globally, but visual images are also frequently displacing texts even among Western youth.

4 . Note also the recent dissertation on obedience in Romans, Myers, “Obedience.”

5 . See at greater length Keener, Mind, 31–54.

6 . Cf. later rabbis’ comments on the different kinds of Pharisees in m. Sot. 3:4; Ab. R. Nat. 37A; 45, §124B; b. Sot. 22b, bar.; y. Sot. 5:5, §2; Moore, Judaism, 2:193; Sandmel, Judaism, 160–61.

7 . This is not to say that God ordinarily welcomed such breaches; disrespect to God’s presence in the ark brought death (2 Sam 6:6–8; 1 Chr 13:9–11; 15:2, 15), and God was angry with those who appointed priests who were not Levites (1 Kgs 12:32; 13:33; 2 Chr 11:14).

8 . For people who are “half-dead” appearing as if dead in ancient sources, see Eurip. Alc. 141–43; Apollod. 3.6.8; Callim. Hymn 6 (to Demeter), line 59; Corn. Nep. Generals 4 (Pausanias), 5.4; Livy 23.15.8; 40.4.15; Catullus 50.15; Quintus Curtius 4.8.8; Suetonius Aug. 6; Keener, “Invitations,” 204; in the rabbis, Bailey, Peasant Eyes, 42; for further details on the parable, see Keener, “Invitations,” 202–7.

9 . Some suggest that the Samaritan’s action is all the more shocking because of other Jewish parables in which the third and righteous actor is an Israelite (Jeremias, Parables, 203).

10 . See here Keener, Mind, chs. 2–4, esp. ch. 3.

11 . Patristic interpreters often welcomed the ethos of the law while rejecting its ceremonial aspects; see, e.g., Ambrosiaster in Pollmann and Elliott, “Galatians,” 46–47. Some distinguished between commandments of universal moral import and those limited to Israel (e.g., Theodoret Epistle to the Galatians 2.15–16 in Edwards, Galatians, 29). This recognition does not require us to suppose that Paul’s “works of the law” must be limited only to ceremonial law, the position of Origen, Jerome, and Erasmus opposed by Augustine, Luther, and Calvin (see Barclay, Gift, 103–4, 121; Wengert, “Luther,” 101; Hafemann, “Yaein,” 119).

12 . This might not be the case in Rom 14:5–6 (as opposed to Col 2:16), if the food context suggests that he refers to fast days here, as some suggest.

13 . The text sometimes cited for its abolition (John 5:18) in fact reflects the interpretation of Jesus’s enemies, an interpretation probably subverted in Jesus’s following discourse (see esp. 5:19, 30; further discussion in Keener, “Subordination,” 40–41; idem, John, 1:645–46).

14 . Brought to my attention by my friend Anthony Kent, whose dissertation (in process) involves this subject. There can be no thought of the day having been changed to something else, since Luke applies the term only to the time always observed by the Jewish community, namely from sundown on what we call Friday to sundown on what we call Saturday. Some Gentile Christian writers did advocate a shift to Sunday as early as the second century, though.

15 . For four views of the Sabbath, see Arand et al., Perspectives on Sabbath.

16 . For two helpful attempts to model a way through the morass, see Swartley, Slavery; Webb, Slaves.

17 . For some parallels and contrasts, see, e.g., Wells, “Exodus,” 227, 230; cf. Sarna, Exodus, 139.

18 . Cf. similar terminology and sometimes concepts for Canaanite sacrifices, plus some differences, in Pfeiffer, Ras Shamra, 38–39, 57; Rainey, “Sacrifice,”1 198; Rainey, “Sacrifice,”2 236–37; Carpenter, “Sacrifices,” 264–65; Ross, Holiness, 29; Averbeck, “Sacrifices,” 712, 715–16, 718, 720.

19 . Walton, Matthews, and Chavalas, Background Commentary, 25–26; Gane, “Leviticus,” 287.

20 . What some in antiquity, such as Clement of Alexandria (following Philo), viewed as divine condescension and accommodation of human weakness in understanding; see Mitchell, “Accommodation,” 205–14; challenging its presence in 1 Cor 9:19–23, cf. Glad, “Adaptability,” 26–27.

21 . Though the point could be protecting the slave, since she was abused rather than guilty, it also exempts her abuser from the level of punishment meted out to one who rapes a free person.

22 . We lack specific biblical prohibitions of polygyny; the “two” becoming one flesh (Mark 10:8; 1 Cor 6:16; Eph 5:31) reflects the LXX, which in turn reflects the Greek practice of monogamy. The requirement for respectable elders in 1 Tim 3:2 warns against infidelity and multiple concubinage, since polygyny did not exist in Ephesus. Narratives show that polygyny was not the ideal, and because I believe the trajectory of Scripture supports egalitarian marriage I support monogamy. But this ideal does not justify breaking up existing polygynous marriages as if they are not valid unions in God’s sight.

23 . Cf. LaSor, Hubbard, and Bush, Survey, 148; note herem in the Moabite Mesha inscription. See discussion in Copan, Monster; Copan and Flannagan, Genocide; and other works cited earlier.

24 . See further details in Quintus Curtius 4.3.23; Albright, Yahweh, 152, 234–35; idem, Biblical Period, 17; Stager and Wolff, “Child Sacrifice”; Stager, “Eroticism”; Rundin, “Pozo Moro.”

25 . Keener, Paul, 201–7; Keener and Usry, Faith, 37–41.

26 . E.g., tithes to rulers in 1 Sam 8:15–17; De Vaux, Israel, 140; Kitchen, Orient, 158; corporate, agrarian tithes on Canaanite villages in Heltzer, “Tithe,” 124. Cf. also Greek and Roman usage (e.g., the dedication in Val. Max. 1.1. ext. 4; Tertullian Apol. 14.1); for a tithe of grain as tribute to Rome, see Cic.Verr. 2.3.5.12; 2.3.6.13–15. For a tenth of military plunder dedicated to deities, see Gen 14:20; Xen. Anab. 5.3.4, 9, 13; Hell. 4.3.21; Val. Max. 5.6.8; Plut. Camillus 7.4–5 (for a tenth of plunder offered to a brave warrior, Plut. Coriol. 10.2; for the first or choice of the plunder to gods, Xen. Cyr. 7.3.1; 7.5.35).

27 . Admittedly, I may broach a risky subject here. Challenging major sources of ecclesiastical fundraising can be a sensitive issue, as Dr. Martin Luther discovered when challenging the extrabiblical practices of Friar Johann Tetzel.

28 . Although the terms for “burn” differ, the term for “overturn” is the same. The latter term admittedly appears some ninety-four times in the Hebrew Bible (many of these with a different sense), but only twice in Deuteronomy and only twice in Hosea, and in both it appears in the context of these cities.

Notes to Chapter 16

1 . Some other Jewish texts also reveal messianic readings of OT passages, though without naming Jesus as the Messiah (e.g., Shepherd, “Targums”).

2 . What Hays, Reading Backwards, 85, rightly calls “hermeneutical hindsight”; see further 93–109 (ch. 6, “Retrospective Reading,” including the Evangelists’ model on 93–103). Humans often can detect foreordained divine patterns and meaning only after God’s actions. See further Keener, John, 1:528–30, including concerning the disciples’ requisite dependence on the Paraclete (cf. 14:26).

3 . Pentecostals normally read what we call the OT from the Christian vantage point in the new covenant; see Grey, Crowd, 66–67.

4 . As James D. G. Dunn in particular has emphasized, the new perspective’s focus on Paul’s original context in writing Romans (useful for recontextualization; cf. Dunn, “Justice”) does not negate the principle of justification by faith that Luther found there (Dunn, New Perspective, 29–30; Dunn, “Old Perspective”; also Watson, Paul, Judaism, and the Gentiles, 346; Theissen, “Nouvelle perspective”; Westerholm, “New Perspective,” 231, 240–41). Luther recontextualized that principle for his own context, although sometimes reading the recontextualization too much into Paul’s original situation (though less than some have asserted; see Chester, “Introspective Conscience”).

5 . Historical figures may be real, their specific connection or interdependence being recognized by spiritual insight (Auerbach, Mimesis, 73, as cited in Hays, Reading Backwards, 2) or designed by rhetorical structuring (Keener, Acts, 1:556–57, 570–74).

6 . I draw the following chart from Keener, Acts, 2:1363–64. The OT promise theme is also critical (Keener, Acts, 1:483–86, 987; 2:2051; cf. Grey, Crowd, 96).

7 . On this motif, see Keener, Acts, 2:1426–27; more recently and fully, Turner, Prophet.

8 . The prophets foretold him beforehand, and his followers proclaim him afterward (1 Pet 1:10–12); that is, there is often significant continuity before and after.

9 . On the significance of paired visions, see Keener, Acts, 2:1644–45, 1760.

10 . Scholars often note how experience shaped Peter’s reading of Scripture in Acts 10 and 15 (Thomas, “Women,” 85; Pinnock, “Work of Spirit,” 236); and James’s interpretation of Amos and the community’s Spirit-led consensus (Acts 15:28); see, e.g., Moore, “God’s Word,” as cited in Johns and Johns, “Yielding,” 51–52; Green, Seized, 95–96.

11 . Keener, Acts, 4:3758–63.

12 . I have adapted the paragraphs about the christocentric readings in Matt 1–4 from my popular-level interpretation manual. Fuller detail and citation of other sources appear in my commentary (Matthew, loc. cit.). For Isaiah, cf. now also Witherington, Isaiah.

13 . For the expected new exodus, see, e.g., Isa 11:11, 16; 27:13; 40:3; 52:3–4; Jer 16:14–15; Ezek 20:34–36; Hos 2:14–15; 11:5, 11; Mic 7:15; Zech 10:10; t. Ber. 1:10; Daube, Exodus Pattern (esp. 11–12); Wright, Paul, 139–62; possibly (depending on reconstructed elements) 4Q389 f2.2. For the emphasis in Matthew, see Davies, Setting, 25–93; later, b. Ber. 12b; y. Ber. 1:5; Exod. Rab. 1:5; 3:4; 15:11; Deut. Rab. 9:9; Pesiq. Rab. 31:10; 52:8; in medieval Jewish interpretation, see Jacobs, Exegesis, 39–40.

14 . Keener, Matthew, 108. For the emphasis on God’s continued love for his people, see also Hays, Reading Backwards, 40–41, where Hays insightfully argues that Hosea provides the hermeneutical link between the first exodus story and Jesus.

15 . Jewish interpreters were familiar with connecting texts based on a common key term; for gezerah shevah, see, e.g., Mek. Nez. 10.15–16, 26, 38; 17.17; Pisha 5.103; b. Ber. 9a; 35a; B.K. 25b; Git. 49a; Ker. 5a; Kid. 15a; 35b; Men. 76a; Naz. 48a; Nid. 22b–23a; R.H. 3b; 34a; Sanh. 40b; 51b; 52a; Shab. 64a; Tem. 16a; Zeb. 18a; 49b–50b; Ex. Rab. 1:20; cf. CD 7.15–20.

16 . Some cite Matthew’s use of Isaiah here in support of a sensus plenior approach (Pinnock, “Work of Spirit,” 242). Matthew undoubtedly did find meaning beyond what Isaiah envisioned here, but it was not really unrelated to Isaiah’s contextual sense. Some others, including Brown, Answering, 17–32, have independently read this passage in similar ways.

17 . Granted, prophetic articulation of the ultimate Davidic ruler’s deity is rare, but it may appear less rare proportionately when we consider the paucity of direct texts about a future Davidic ruler distinct from David. Cf. also Jer 23:5–6, although by itself it may be explained differently (cf. Jer 33:16). On a different note, “Pentecostal readings” normally apply Isa 9:1–7 to Jesus; see Grey, Crowd, 77–82.

18 . “Spirit” in Matt 12:28 may be Matthew’s interpretation of “finger” (Luke 11:20), but it is a helpful one. It also allows Matthew to highlight the theme of the Spirit in this context, showing how Jesus’s activity fulfills Isaiah’s expectations for the servant’s mission.

19 . Keener, Spirit, 55–59, 98, 103–4.

20 . Not all church fathers supported allegory; Basil, for example, inveighs against it (Hall, Reading, 86–88; but cf. his extended analogies in 89–92); cf. also Victorinus in the mid 360s (Levy, Krey and Ryan, Romans, 9). Gnostic sects often employed allegory (Irenaeus Her. 1.18; Hippolytus Her. 5.15; Jonas, Religion, 91–97), but this was natural in a Greek philosophic milieu (e.g., Iamblichus Ep. 3, frg. 3–4; Cancik-Lindemaier et al., “Allegoresis”; Cook, Interpretation, 12–13), especially in Alexandria (cf. earlier Philo, e.g., Plant. 36, 129 [Greek myth]; Post. 7; Prob. 80; Som. 1.102; Badilita, “Exégèse”; Kugel and Greer, Interpretation, 82–85; Wolfson, Philo, 1:87–163; with limits, as noted in Wolfson, Philo, 1:57–68; Hay, “Extremism”; Long, “Allegory”), and in time it prevailed even in the West (e.g., Libanius Encomium 1.10). The approach was more common in Alexandria than in Antioch, but it prevailed widely, so that Jerome, for example, even viewed it as the higher, spiritual way to read (Pollmann and Elliott, “Galatians,” 56). After experiencing its medieval abuses (also found in medieval Jewish thought; cf., e.g., Ginsburg, Kabbalah, 127–29), Luther and subsequently Calvin rejected this approach (Bartholomew, Hermeneutics, 197–98; Luther’s Second Lectures on Galatians on 4:24 in Bray, Galatians, Ephesians, 159; Calvin Commentary on Galatians 4:24 in Bray, Galatians, Ephesians, 160), as did Bucer (George, “Introduction,” xxvi) and some Jewish exegetes (e.g., Ibn Ezra in the twelfth century; see Jacobs, Exegesis, 13–14).

21 . See Keener, “Tabernacle,” 838; idem, “Worship,” 130–31.

22 . Discussions of Pentecostal hermeneutics also often connect pneumatic hermeneutics with christological hermeneutics, since the Spirit comes to honor Christ (John 16:13–15; see Wyckoff, Pneuma, 137–38; cf. Grey, Crowd, 66–67, 188). This remains true of Christian hermeneutics in general; see Bloesch, “Christological Hermeneutic,” esp. 81, 98–101. Geerlof, “Augustine and Pentecostals,” argues that Augustine’s christological reading of Psalms is helpful for Pentecostal interpreters.

23 . E.g., for Luke, Jesus is the servant who represents God’s people (Acts 3:13; 8:32–35), a light for the nations (Luke 2:32), but so are Jesus’s agents (Acts 1:8; 13:47).

24 . Borrowed from Keener, Acts, 1:557. Although other echoes may appear also (Ps 111:9 in Luke 1:49; Ps 89:10 in Luke 1:51; perhaps God doing “great things” in Deut 10:21; 11:7; cf. 34:12), even here one allusion echoes the context of Hannah’s song (1 Sam 1:11 in Luke 1:48).

25 . Borrowed from Keener, Acts, 1:556–57.

26 . See Keener, Acts, 1:558–62; for more extensive discussion, see esp. Talbert, Patterns; Tannehill, Acts; idem, Luke.

27 . Cf., e.g., Plutarch’s parallel lives; Trompf, Historical Recurrence; Keener, Acts, 1:569–74.

28 . Keener, Spirit, 65–71.

29 . Waddell, “Hearing,” 186.

30 . Cf. Gillespie, “Authority,” 219: the full meaning of the text does not change, but understanding changes, since full understanding applies the text’s “significance.” Klein, Blomberg, and Hubbard, Introduction, 123, employ the same distinction. See the discussion in Osborne, Spiral, 366–96 (surveying views), 397–415; earlier, Hirsch, Validity, 8, 143.

31 . Pinnock, “Work of Spirit,” 242. Hirsch, Validity, 113, suggests that valid reapplication of a text should flow from its own intrinsic purpose. Yet framers of some documents in fact expected their “texts to have applications in situations that they knew to be beyond their explicit knowledge” (Vanhoozer, Meaning, 264, summarizing Hirsch’s later recognition; cf. also Hirsch, Validity, 123). Thus, for example, while one Athenian orator warns that inserting new laws was a crime (Lysias Or. 30.2, §183; 30.17, §184), he also recognizes that the fines in Solon’s laws had to be updated and some other matters conformed to subsequent usage (Lysias Or. 30.2, §183).

32 . Brown, Scripture as Communication, 26. Stanley Porter suggests that something analogous to “dynamic equivalence” in translation theory may be a helpful approach for offering concrete application today (see Porter, “Hermeneutics,” 125–27). A potential risk of dynamic equivalence in translation per se, despite its value, is that translators’ choices end up in the text (Fee, Listening, 18).

33 . Brown, Scripture as Communication, 105–6n21.

34 . Stanley Porter (“Comment[ary]ing”) has criticized this as a notable problem in “application” commentaries.

35 . Stibbe, “Thoughts,” 192n24, distinguishes evangelical application as obeying the text from charismatic encounter of God in the text, but both are responses to God (see Jer 22:16). His concern appears to be what he perceives as the sometimes mechanical character of the former, an Enlightenment method devoid of dependence on God. Although not in itself a method, recognizing our dependence on God is indeed necessary (cf. Ps 119:34; Prov 1:7; 2:3; 3:5) and characterizes the new covenant approach (2 Cor 3:6, 15–18).

36 . See comments in Keener, Revelation, 408–9, 412–14; cf. also Talbert, Apocalypse, 80; Beale, Revelation, 755; Aune, Revelation, 919–28; Reddish, Revelation, 277–78, 328; Stefanovic, Revelation, 513; Fee, Revelation, 196, 237. For examples of specifically “charismatic/prophetic” readings (esp. in terms of prophetic interests) of Revelation, see, e.g., Keener, “Charismatic Reading”; Macchia, “Spirit of Lamb”; Waddell, Spirit in Revelation; idem, “Adventure”; Herms, “Invoking.”

37 . For expectation of a new temple in early Judaism, see, e.g., 1 En. 90:28–29; 11QTemple 29.8–10.

38 . Keener, Revelation, 504.

39 . Grey, Crowd, 108.

40 . Grey, Crowd, 108. Grey, Crowd, 186, notes the value of the Pentecostal “approach of seeking to understand the text for its significance to the individual reader” (cf. also 161).

41 . Stein, Guide, 19.

42 . See already Luther and Calvin, though in their polemic against enthusiasm (Wyckoff, Pneuma, 24–25, 28); John Owen (Wyckoff, Pneuma, 33, noting that this is, in Owen’s words, “an internal subjective revelation, ” albeit without finding new truths not previously revealed). For Luther’s allowance of prophecy (regarding personal issues) and other revelatory experience under some circumstances, see Föller, “Luther on Miracles,” 337–42, 347–48.

43 . As Gordon L. Anderson notes, Pentecostal scholars’ approach to illumination by the Spirit “falls within the range of views held by other evangelicals” (“Pentecostal Hermeneutics”). In contrast to this, some Pentecostals writing on hermeneutics have borrowed liberal stereotypes of evangelical scholarship as a whole that are as unfair as some critics’ misrepresentation of Pentecostal scholarship (note also this concern about caricatures in Poirier, “Critique,” 2n12).

44 . As noted in, e.g., Holmes, “Challenge,” 274.

45 . McQuilkin, Understanding, 38, recognizes that the Spirit illumines the mind to the biblical text in a way that is subjectively meaningful, but strongly warns against claiming perfection for one’s illumined understanding.

46 . Graves, Inspiration, 43–48.

47 . See, e.g., the continuity between original inspiration and subsequent illumination suggested by Karl Barth (see Wyckoff, Pneuma, 47, citing esp. Mueller, Barth, 57); Pinnock, “Spirit in Hermeneutics,” 4, as cited in Ellington, “Authority,” 156; Hey, “Roles”; also Mulholland, Shaped, 44; Peter Stuhlmacher (“Ex Auditu,” 5, as cited in Wyckoff, Pneuma, 62–63); and others; cf. a connection in Osborne, Spiral, 340. “In Spirit-hermeneutics,” Pinnock opined, “I believe that the breath of God which inspired the prophets and apostles binds himself to their words and opens up the significance” (Pinnock, “Work of Spirit,” 241).

48 . Carl Henry expressed concern that depicting illumination as continuing inspiration risks confusing the Spirit’s communicating to us biblical truths individually with the Spirit’s original provision in Scripture of what were then often new truths (see Henry, God Who Speaks, 256–66, 275, 283–84, as cited in Wyckoff, Pneuma, 68, 79).

49 . See further discussion in the introduction, under “The Wider Christian Hermeneutic of the Spirit” (pp. 12–14).

50 . Compare also 1 Kgs 20:35–37 with Jer 35:5–14, 18–19; cf. also 1 Kgs 13:18–24. After negative guidance from the Spirit (Acts 16:6–9) and an interpreted dream (16:9–10), Paul and his colleagues used common sense to find a “place of prayer” where they would have people to preach to (16:13). When God called Saul, God already knew that he would turn out badly (cf. 1 Sam 8:10–18), but it was not yet time for David. David is anointed king in 1 Sam 16:13, but he is enthroned only after many years of hardship.

51 . See Graves, Inspiration, 32–37.

52 . Apart from his uncertainty as to whether Luke intended to provide precedent, I find little objectionable in Fee, Gospel, 100–104, as noted above (pp. 138–39, 166–67).

53 . See, e.g., Theon Progymn. 2.86–88; Hermog. Progymn. 8. On Syncrisis 18–20; Aphthonius Progymn. 10. On Syncrisis, 42–44S, 31–33R; Nicolaus Progymn. 9. On Syncrisis 59–62; Hermog. Inv. 4.14.212; Marshall, Enmity, 348–53; Anderson, Glossary, 110–11; Gärtner, “Synkrisis.”

54 . Brown, Authentic Fire, 315.

55 . For how miracle stories teach, see the examples in Cotter, Miracle Stories.

56 . Genre and subject influenced applicability, as in genres in Scripture: cosmological speculation (rarely offered in Scripture, certainly for its own sake) tended toward pure information; Pliny the Elder’s encyclopedia of knowledge collected information but still with a view to some of it having practical application (for example, his compilation of purported medical treatments); ethical reflections invited application for society or individuals.

57 . Traditional dispensationalism found propositional truth in the epistles rather than in narratives (Archer, Hermeneutic, 78), thus using a sort of canon within the canon even of the NT. Early Pentecostals, by contrast, used Acts as the controlling paradigm, along with the Gospels and only afterward the epistles (Archer, Hermeneutic, 124).

58 . Most cessationists would accept most material in the epistles as for today, but (following E. W. Bullinger) a minority of hyperdispensationalists (a far cry from progressive dispensationalists and even traditional dispensationalists) have argued that only the material in the prison epistles (and thus not, for example, the Lord’s Supper) is for the present era of the church.

59 . For the possible relationship between the Jeremiah and Ezekiel passages, and their special focus on interiority, see Boda, “Word and Spirit,” 35–39.

60 . This is Paul’s only positive use of “fleshly” (out of three uses of this specific Greek adjective); it is extremely rare in the Septuagint, and is used of hearts only in the two parallel texts in Ezekiel, 11:19 and 36:26. Paul could evoke 11:19–20 (and may well read the two Ezekiel texts together), but his mention of God’s Spirit suggests also Ezek 36:27.

61 . Charismatic interpreters often stress seeking the Spirit more than the letter; see, e.g., Pinnock, “Work of Spirit,” 240 (from Pinnock, “Interpretation”); Ellington, “Authority,” 156 (following an earlier article by Pinnock).

62 . Keener, Romans, 86.

63 . See, e.g., Quint. Decl. 331.3; Hermog. Issues 40.6–19; Inv. 2.2.110; Cohen, Law, 38–50. The “letters” could also refer to basics as opposed to deeper insights (e.g., Heraclitus Ep. 4).

64 . And certainly Paul was not thinking in Romantic “terms of outward form and inward feeling” (noted by Wright, Paul, 982).

65 . Cf. Luther’s use of the letter/Spirit contrast to value personal application and not simply grammar, noted in Gleason, “Letter.” Cf. the contrast in Mulholland, Shaped, 95 (cf. 135), between using Scripture “as a ‘rule book’ for self-transformation or winning God’s favor” and Scripture as a place to meet God.

66 . Note the warnings in Grey, Crowd, 120–21, 145, of prematurely fusing horizons, collapsing the text’s horizon into “the reader’s own narrative biography,” and thus hearing only the reader’s assumptions while silencing any independent, prophetic voice of the text (citing Thiselton, Horizons, 530); see also Bauer and Traina, Inductive Bible Study, 373. Establishing hermeneutical distance between the horizons could undercut positive proximity (Grey, Crowd, 122), but historical context offers a useful boundary on interpretations (132, 152).

67 . Thiselton, Horizons, 318–19, citing Stendahl and Luther. The goal of understanding the interpretive process is to prevent interpreters from simply hearing echoes of their pre-understanding in the text (Thiselton, Horizons, xx).

68 . Thiselton, Horizons, 319. Hirsch, Validity, 254, argues that an interpreter must first appropriate “the original perspective” in order to fuse it with one’s own, and contends that Gadamer fails to recognize this; he complains (255) that Gadamer should have distinguished these two different sorts of “meaning.”

69 . Thiselton, Horizons, 319. Most academic charismatic interpretation values both horizons (cf., e.g., Stibbe, “Thoughts”; although Lyons, “Fourth Wave,” deems the safeguards in Stibbe’s approach inadequate).

70 . Thiselton, Horizons, 15.

71 . Although employing different terminology, even older writers writing with a faith perspective usually recognized this (despite newer stereotypes about them); cf. the discussion of exegesis and exposition in Mickelsen, Interpreting the Bible, 56–57.

72 . Cf. helpfully Martin, “Renewal,” 4, as cited in Spawn and Wright, “Emergence,” 8. Archer, Hermeneutic, 126, suggests that (at least in the views of modernist critics) early Pentecostals blurred “the boundaries of the past and present as they exegeted Scripture.” Ideally Pentecostal readers can affirm the value of both horizons (e.g., Archer, Hermeneutic, 180; Grey, Crowd, 99, 120, 132, 164), as can readers in general (see Thiselton, “New Hermeneutic,” 100).

73 . Spittler, “Enterprise,” 76, emphasizing the value of both history and piety. For both history and knowing God by the Spirit, see also Autry, “Dimensions.”

74 . Keener, John, 246–47, 363–64.

75 . This word continues to be presented in the message (John 8:31, 37, 43, 51, 52, 55; 12:48; 14:23; 17:6, 14, 17, 20), because the Spirit continues to reveal the person of Jesus in that message (see my discussion of 16:7–11 on pp. 157–58). Others, including Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, have emphasized the presence of Christ in proclamation; see Bartholomew, Hermeneutics, 526–27, citing Barth, Doctrine, 135–36; Bonhoeffer, Ethics, 259; idem, “Lectures,” 126.

76 . Pinnock, “Work of Spirit,” 241, also notes this text in this sort of connection.

Notes to Chapter 17

1 . I am thinking not of pedagogical structure—sometimes conversational style communicates more effectively in our culture than tight-knit arguments such as those found in some brilliant eighteenth-century sermons. My objection here is to hermeneutical stream-ofconsciousness, one text arbitrarily reminding us of another.

2 . In practice it might function more like drawing lots, however, if the interpretation was transparent; see Walton, Thought, 271–72. Yet for all the biblical allusions to earlier Scripture, none reflect the random approach of bibliomancy (admittedly probably more difficult with scrolls than with codices). On bibliomancy and its practice, including among ancient Christians, see Van der Horst, “Bibliomancy”; cf. Roman priests’ early use of Greek Sibylline oracles to find solutions to omens (Rüpke, Religion, 18).

3 . See Wall, “Acts,” 139; Keener, Acts, 2:1527, 1813–14; cf. further Miller, Empowered for Mission.

4 . Archer, Hermeneutic, 62–63. The historical-critical objection to proof-texting was its assumption “that the Bible was equally inspired throughout” (Archer, Hermeneutic, 64); my most fundamental concern is that popular users of proof-texts often do not give attention to the texts’ contexts. Conservative teachers, however, did advocate inductive Bible study, reading each book of the Bible as a whole (Archer, Hermeneutic, 66–68), and proof-texting by academicians could presuppose proper exegetical work (Archer, Hermeneutic, 101n44).

5 . Smidt, Evangelicals, 22. Some Reformers such as Tyndale may have appealed to popular readers more than others, but in England as well as elsewhere, merchants, for example, remained more literate than farm workers. Working from the Anabaptist heritage of separating church and state, Baptists in the United States heralded democracy and religious liberty as their own values (e.g., Kidd and Hankins, Baptists, 72–75, 179, 194).

6 . For Finney’s commonsense hermeneutic focused on prayer and Bible study alone, see Hardesty, Women, 72; so with Phoebe Palmer (73). For populist, face-value interpretation in early Pentecostalism, see Martin, “Introduction,” 3; Archer, Hermeneutic, 102, 125–26.

7 . Boda, “Word and Spirit,” 44, comparing the Princeton intellectuals with the biblical scribal tradition and the Azusa Street revivalists with the biblical prophetic tradition. On Wesleyan thought as a protest against (mostly academic) Reformed Protestant orthodoxy, see Archer, Hermeneutic, 21–22 (following R. M. Anderson; D. Dayton).

8 . The latter pole also includes Calvinist Baptists in the revival tradition, who believed that they needed only the Spirit and a call to preach (see Kidd and Hankins, Baptists, 42).

9 . See Keener, “Teaching Ministry.”

10 . See Keener, “Rhetorical Techniques.”

11 . See, e.g., Menzies, Anointed, 138. For a list of prominent Assemblies leaders earlier nurtured in the CMA, see Menzies, Anointed, 72n37. For other connections with the CMA, see Menzies, Anointed, 56, 66, 70–72, 126–30; McGee, People of Spirit, 98–100, 109, 243; Miskov, Life on Wings (on Carrie Judd Montgomery).

12 . Grey, Crowd, 91, descriptively.

13 . Zaprometova, “Crisis,” 187.

14 . Most of this material is adapted and condensed from Keener, “Biblical Fidelity,” esp. here 38.

15 . In Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God (1741) and Religious Affections (1746) Edwards notes “bodily effects” (including swoonings) that accompanied the revival of his day but were incidental to its transformative character.

16 . See, e.g., Robeck, Mission, 12 (the Azusa Street Revival, 1906); Anderson, Ends of Earth, 173 (Methodists in Chile in 1909), 200 (Chinese Presbyterians c. 1929); Shaw, Awakening, 187 (the Shantung revival in northern China in the 1930s; on Baptist participation, see Crawford, Shantung Revival ). I also experienced this when, in 1975, two days after my conversion, I was first filled with the Spirit. All I knew about it at that moment was that, for the first time in my life, I experienced genuine, sublime joy. Spiritual joy (as opposed to celebrating sporting or family events) is one area where Western Christians have much to learn from, e.g., our brothers and sisters in Africa, Latin America, or even the earlier Celtic Christian tradition.

17 . Cf. both joyous “raptures” and, among the unconverted, lamentation among early Baptists in the United States in Kidd and Hankins, Baptists, 87. Swooning and other involuntary motor actions were also common in revival history (e.g., Dunn, Jesus and Spirit, 192; Wolffe, Expansion, 57–59; Vidler, Revolution, 238; Synan, Tradition, 12–14; Moore, “Quakerism,” 338; Rosen, “Psychopathology,” 235–37; Kidd and Hankins, Baptists, 89).

18 . Keener, “Biblical Fidelity,” 38.

19 . See Bakker, Wrong, 531–44.

20 . Keener, “Biblical Fidelity,” 39.

21 . Cf. the complaint in Green, Seized, 69, about using the Bible “as a book of quotations from which to draw authoritative support for one’s words, as a collection of proverbs for backing up moral convictions, or perhaps as a treasure chest of discussion starters.”

22 . Fanciful interpretations may appear in some Pentecostal circles, but they “are not taught at Pentecostal colleges and seminaries, and they do not represent a legitimate Pentecostal hermeneutic” (Anderson, “Pentecostal Hermeneutics”).

23 . If I need to offer another one, I was present when one candidate for freshman class president in a Bible college claimed that the Spirit had led him to run. After that claim he won handily, but after he endured a year of dealing with unruly classmates, the Spirit did not lead him to run for sophomore president the next year.

24 . E.g., Capps, Tongue, 17, 71.

25 . Hagin, “Authority in Prayer” (a lecture cassette tape).

26 . Or, Jesus is Lord and so is the Spirit (2 Cor 3:17, interpreting the language of Exod 33–34), so Jesus is the Holy Spirit; and if we are Jesus, then we are thus also the Spirit. If we have sinned, and we are Jesus, then has Jesus sinned?

27 . For history and criticism of some deliverance ministries, see Collins, Exorcism.

28 . In the Great Awakenings, crisis experiences functioned as part of the conversion narrative. These were, however, deep experiences of repentance that normally led to transformed lives, not simply repeated blessings. Walking with the Lord normally will yield many experiences with him, and charismatics are good at calling for experience in response to teaching. But the habitual pursuit of “new” solutions, in some circles, when the old ones did not effect the desired change, needs to be seriously qualified to focus more on serving God’s purposes.

29 . Lest one doubt that hostile spiritual power can be real, see, e.g., Exod 7:11, 22; 8:7; Num 22:6, 12; Matt 24:24; Mark 13:22; Acts 8:11; 13:6; 2 Thess 2:9; Rev 13:13. These examples represent different cultural formulations of such power; it can be expressed in various ways in various societies.

30 . We have biblical precedent for commanding the exit of demons that are in people; God also often honors such acts, if directed in faith toward him, regarding less direct spiritual activity. With regard to heavenly principalities, however, our conflict requires us standing (Eph 6:11–14) and continuing in prayer (Dan 10:12–13, 20–21), not addressing them or “casting them down” as in some charismatic traditions. The Spirit may direct us to symbolic prophetic actions with wider significance (e.g., Ezek 36:1, 4, 6, 8), but this is not a magic-like formula for casting down angelic powers if done enough (cf. 2 Pet 2:10–11; Jude 8–10). Contrast Copeland, Laws, 104 (on 105 he addresses Satan in a “sample prayer”); Capps, Tongue, 126.

31 . Hagin, What Faith Is, 3–4, 6, 12, 18, 20, 30; New Thresholds of Faith, 11; see also The Word of Faith (March 1983): 3. Even the English temporal word “now” is an adverb, not an adjective to modify a noun such as “faith.” Note that the popular-level works, especially by Hagin, went through numerous editions and the date of publication is not always clear on the book itself.

32 . Often consulting multiple translations would prevent this sort of problem, but in this case checking the Greek or an interlinear would be necessary.

33 . Pace Copeland, Laws, 63.

34 . For the thousand cattle indicating God’s wealth, see, e.g., Hagin, Redeemed, 9. Although this is not the point in the context, which emphasizes that God owns everything, it is true that God’s resources are unlimited. The hermeneutical problem is that in popular interpretation the application has superseded the text’s primary point.

35 . Pace Hagin, Visions, 126; Prayer Secrets, 20; Copeland, Laws, 104; Capps, Tongue, 57. Sending to spirits to work for one appears in some cultures in sorcery; see, e.g., Fuchs, “Techniques,” 129.

36 . E.g., Tob 5:22 (the informed reader will catch the irony here); Heb 1:14; Matt 18:10; L.A.B. 11:12; 59:4; t. Shab. 17:2–3; Sipre Num. 40.1.5; Gen. Rab. 44:3; 60:15; Song Rab. 3:6, §3; Hermas 1.5. Le Cornu, Acts, 654, cites in addition to some of these L.A.B. 15:5; Jub. 35:17; b. Hag. 16a; Ta’an. 11a; see also Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2:770–72.

37 . Guardian angels protect us as in Ps 91:11, at the orders of God (“He will give them charge over you”), but to go around using them according to our pleasure or discretion is to use Ps 91:11 as Satan uses it in Matt 4:6–7.

38 . Every single text cited in support of this by Capps, Tongue, 42, 65–69, 80ff., is used out of context.

39 . For the fuller context, see, e.g., Keener, Romans, 125–26.

40 . Pace Hagin, What Faith Is, 26–27. His exposition of Rom 4 also runs afoul of the textual variant, though we can at least appreciate his attempt to base his teaching about faith in Scripture, in contrast to many who ignore the theme in Scripture. He acknowledges that one cannot claim what Scripture does not promise; see Matter of a Mate, 1–2 (differently from Capps, Tongue, 20).

41 . Capps, Tongue, 103, 114, 126; cf. his perversion of the virgin birth and incarnation as positive confession in Tongue, 15–16. Such excesses do not stem from, but are consistent with, Hagin’s claim that believers are Christ or divine (Authority, 11–12; Zoe, 41; Name of Jesus, 105–6; cf. Zoe, 35–36, 40, 42; Copeland, Laws, 15). Associates who studied at Rhema assure me that he meant only that we depend on and serve Christ as his body; still, given the danger of Manifested Sons distortions (e.g., Sam Fife, Seven Steps to Perfection, 12; idem, Why All Things Work for Good, 9), it would have been helpful for him to have qualified such language explicitly.

42 . Hagin, Ministering, 8; Hagin Jr., Faith Worketh by Love, 3; idem, Itching Ears, 14. At least sometimes Kenneth Hagin did explain context carefully, e.g., 1 John 5 in Visions, 73; Acts 13:28–33 in Present Day Ministry, 11; parts of Eph 1:17–2:1 (Authority, 7–11, although much of this book simply repeats the work of John A. Macmillan; see McConnell, Different Gospel, 69–71). He also cites approvingly Greek scholars, even if it is to support a misconstrual of Greek; e.g., Zoe, 9. Perhaps most importantly, Hagin toward the end of his life criticized some of the movement’s current extremes (Midas Touch, esp. 131–204)

43 . Hagin, Ticket, 5; Ministering, 11; Visions, 20, 33; What Faith Is, 27; cf. Authority, 21; Led By the Spirit, 84; Hagin Jr., Faith Worketh by Love, 3; discussion in Harrell, Possible, 234.

44 . Gloria Copeland has suggested that Paul wrongly failed to take authority over his thorn in the flesh (“Thorn,” 5; this article was supplied to me courtesy of Jesse K. Moon). Some Word of Faith teachers distort the nature of Scripture into simply a contract spelling out Christians’ rights; see Capps, Tongue, 8, 14, 106, 116; Copeland, Laws, 40. Thus biblical “laws” work equally well for anyone (so Capps, Tongue, 103; Copeland, Laws, 20–21; cf. 32: “the Jews” use them). God is thus reduced to “a faith God” (Hagin, Name of Jesus, 11; Capps, Tongue, 103), not worthy of our faith if he causes suffering for his glory (Hagin, Don’t Blame God, 3–4) and to be called a liar if he does not live up to his covenant to supply needs confessed in faith (Hagin, Prayer Secrets, 22). See the criticism in Bishop, “Prosperity,” 14.

45 . Indeed, some of the contemporary faith movement’s ideas emerged originally, and with much greater overall balance, in nineteenth-century biblical faith teaching such as that of Hudson Taylor and A. J. Gordon; see extensively the documentation in King, Only Believe.

46 . This differs from the way Kenneth Hagin expresses himself in Prayer Secrets, 22: “The offering was about $20 short of what we had claimed . . . if it were not there, then I would have to go to every church where I had preached and tell them that Jesus was a liar and that the Bible was not so. If it did not work, I wanted to throw it away. I am just that honest.” In fact, in practice he probably would have come up with another explanation and waited (cf. Prevailing Prayer, 75), but inadvisable wording such as this can undermine people’s faith.

47 . Jesus’s disciples treat touching him (Mark 5:31) as the equivalent of touching his garments (5:30), as does Luke’s paraphrase of Mark (Luke 8:45).

48 . Keener, Background Commentary, 658: “It follows the frequent literary practice called historical retrospective, a summary of Jewish history to make a particular point, as in texts like Acts 7, 1 Maccabees 2:49–69 and Sirach 44–50. . . . The writer builds the chapter around a literary device called anaphora (repetition of an opening word or words), beginning each new account with the same Greek word, ‘by faith.’”

49 . In church ministry, I also noticed, in more than one church, that even though at least one person every week explained in our services how to know that one had eternal life, some regular attenders understood this only when I explained it to them personally.

50 . Also called cell groups, discipleship groups, Bible study groups, and so forth. In the first century these were house churches; in the 1700s, John Wesley called them Methodist Societies, Class Meetings, and Band Societies, not unlike his own earlier experience at Oxford in leading the Holy Club.

51 . Noncharismatic writers have also offered valuable and balanced expositions of passages about spiritual gifts; these include Carson, Showing Spirit; Hemphill, Gifted; on hearing God, Blackaby and King, Experiencing God. Although one may quibble with some points in these writers, we charismatics do not have unanimity among ourselves on every point.

52 . I address this question more extensively in Keener, Acts, 1:1012–28; on a popular level, see idem, “Money.” Particularly extensively and helpfully, see Blomberg, Poverty.

Notes to Chapter 18

1 . E.g., Spawn and Wright, “Emergence,” 16, cite here among others Yong, Spirit-Word--Community; idem, “Trialectic.” See also Wyckoff, Pneuma, 69; Grey, Crowd, 129, 170.

2 . Fee, Listening, 15. Going even further, see, e.g., Green, Seized, 66–79.

3 . With, e.g., Thomas, “Women,” 88, 91.

4 . Stibbe, “Thoughts,” 185, comparing the practice of liberation theologians.

5 . Though cf. also early manuscripts of Luke 11:2. Because prayer must never be for show, we also go into our inner room and pray so that only God who sees our heart knows (Matt 6:6).

6 . 1 Tim 4:13; Justin 1 Apol. 67; later, Murat. Canon 73–80. It does not appear in Acts 2:42, 46 (even if some members were literate, most would have access to Torah scrolls only through public readings in the temple or synagogues, unless, as in the case of Acts 8:27–28, they were wealthy), but the apostles’ teaching in 2:42 probably included the sort of material now included in the Gospels, what Justin later called “memoirs of the apostles” (1 Apol. 66–67; Dial. 100–107), and reading plus sound exposition was later the next best thing to an apostle’s presence (cf. “until I come” in 1 Tim 4:13).

7 . Luke 4:16; Acts 13:15, 27; 15:21; 2 Cor 3:15; CIJ 2:332–35, §1404 (the Theodotus inscription); Philo Embassy 156; Good Man Free 81; Josephus Ag. Ap. 2.175; Ant. 16.43; m. Ber. 1:2; see further Oesterley, Liturgy, 38–40; Levine, “Synagogue,” 15–17; Sanders, Jesus to Mishnah, 78–81; Aune, Environment, 202; Le Cornu, Acts, 692; Dunn, “Synagogue,” 219; Graves, “Reading”; Cohen, “Evidence on Synagogue,” 164–65, citing among Christian witnesses to the practice especially Justin Dial. 72.3; Ps.-Justin, Exhortation to the Greeks 13 (PG 6.268); Hippol. Ref. 9.12.8 = GCS 26.247; cf. also Justin Dial. 29; 55. Cf. earlier Deut 31:11; Josh 8:34–35; 2 Chr 34:30; Neh 8:3, 8, 18; 9:3; 13:1.

8 . Scholars often note their fondness for blood; see, e.g., Nichols, History of Christianity, 85; esp. Walker, History, 453. For Zinzendorf’s largely positive influence on hymnody, see Bailey, Gospel in Hymns, 334–37.

9 . Stibbe, “Thoughts,” 186. Contextually, I believe that Ezekiel’s image applies to the restoration of the coming age (as in Rev 22:1–2), but my concern here is Stibbe’s appeal to community.

10 . Beverley, Laughter, offers a balanced evaluation; supportive works include Poloma, Mystics; Chevreau, Catch the Fire. Historically, revivals and renewals have often initially overstated expected outcomes, yet exert a long-range influence on further renewals. Admittedly, my only direct experience is not with the Toronto Airport Church, but with Randy Clark, a friend who has labored commendably to bridge gaps between healing ministry and academics (see, e.g., his DMin dissertation, Clark, “Effects”).

11 . E.g., in most of the US Assemblies of God’s first century, pretribulationalism was the dominant eschatological view, but most scholars, including, so far as I can tell, most Pentecostal scholars, deem this view exegetically untenable. (I do concede that even a few of my own esteemed mentors, including Stanley Horton, with whom I dialogued about this matter, sincerely held this view, much to my astonishment.) Appealing to the Assemblies as a community for doctrinal assurance over against scholarship may sometimes appeal to popular traditions that influenced the Assemblies at its beginning against possibly less biased exegesis—to tradition rather than God’s Word or God’s Spirit. Many of today’s apostolic-type movements in the US, by contrast, are openly posttribulational (e.g., Randy Clark’s Global Awakening; International House of Prayer). Yet appealing to views of charismatic communities can be dangerous; some more extreme charismatic movements have, in the name of the prophetic Spirit, advocated Manifested Sons eschatology, which in its pure form (as espoused by Sam Fife) is false prophecy and which I and most other charismatics deem heretical (see Keener, Miracles, 2:612–13).

12 . The Didache (11.3–6) is somewhat closer to Paul’s usage, but in general the early church fathers adapt Luke’s usual usage: they simply add Paul to the Twelve. Both Luke’s and Paul’s usages are biblical, but it helps dialogue if we specify which usage we are following. Few apostolic movements today claim that their apostles belong to the Twelve (despite some historic anomalies, such as the twelve apostles of the nineteenth-century Catholic Apostolic Church [see, e.g., Strachan, Theology of Irving, 14; cf. Christenson, Message, 47–48, 108–9], and, further from historic Christian orthodoxy, the origins of the Mormon Church).

13 . For testing apostles and prophets, see, e.g., 1 Cor 14:29; 1 Thess 5:20–21; Rev 2:2; Did. 11.3–12.5. For one initial and mostly balanced challenge to some modern apostolic movements, see Geivett and Pivec, New Apostolic Reformation. I do recognize some ministers today as fulfilling these ministries, but I believe that others are employing the label too cavalierly.

14 . In the year 2000, for example, in terms of the numbers of global congregations, Pentecostals had 751,000 congregations, independent charismatic networks 413,000, Baptists 226,000, Lutherans 106,000, Anglicans 82,000, and so forth. There were nearly 200 million Pentecostals, whereas the other groups just named ranged between 75 and 100 million each (Johnstone, Future, 115).

15 . One could add views about subsequence of baptism in the Holy Spirit, but this is shared by some Wesleyan and most Holiness groups.

16 . See, e.g., Seymour in Robeck, Mission, 163. Even Parham focused more on a historical and apocalyptic metanarrative than on tongues (Oliverio, Hermeneutics, 53, following esp. Jacobsen, Thinking in Spirit, 28–35). Similarly, what was distinctive about Baptists differed from their focus (Kidd and Hankins, Baptists, 249).

17 . See Anderson, Pentecostalism, 11.

18 . Although word meanings are not primarily derived by etymology, this would be the sense of “charismatic” if we follow Paul’s discussion of charismata: they belong to Christ’s entire body.

19 . Personal correspondence, July 10, 2015 (quotation); July 11, 2015. He does not define himself as “charismatic,” but had previously observed (July 9) that “There’s hardly anyone around Calvin College or Calvin Seminary now that would buy into the ‘cessationist’ idea about apostolic miracles that John Calvin taught.”

20 . I have also found it helpful in times of intellectual or spiritual crisis or difficulty (or during unpleasant tasks such as reading magical papyri), as well as in times of physical pain. I have experienced it benefiting my ability to do my scholarly work; but I recognize that God also grants other gifts of his grace to others doing such work.

21 . This ministry began after his friend Jacques Vernaud, a Swiss Pentecostal missionary, laid hands on him.

22 . To borrow Joel Carpenter’s summary of my hope, cited above (personal correspondence, July 10, 2015).

Notes to the Conclusion

1 . I exclude here those who define cessationism as simply that God does not do the same thing all the time, who allow a greater degree of sovereignty in his giftings and outpourings of the Spirit. That broad a definition also embraces many charismatics, including myself. I would not define such a position as cessationist, but that is how some moderate cessationists have expressed it in conversation with me.

2 . Paul emphasizes the moral dimension of that in the context of these passages, but Luke emphasizes the missional dimension in his narrative illustrations of the Spirit’s guidance (Acts 8:29; 10:19; 16:6–7), and John a christocentric, revelatory dimension (John 16:13–15). The psalmist needs divine leading (Ps 25:5; 43:3; 143:10). Each writer emphasizes the aspect of the Spirit’s leading relevant to the context, but together they speak of a wider experience.

3 . Stormont, Wigglesworth, 114. Stormont personally knew Wigglesworth, who himself read only the Bible (a Bible now held by Canon Andrew White).

Notes to Appendix A

1 . See, e.g., Bauer and Traina, Inductive Bible Study, 377–78, summarizing the points of Robert Wall and others.

2 . Dilthey, Pattern, 81: “Even when they believe that their work is not based on presuppositions they are determined by their horizon,” including their generation and what it inherits from its predecessors. Nevertheless, human sciences should strive for objectivity. Cf. also 147–48.

3 . Dilthey, Pattern, 102, 123; for human connectedness (something like modern psychology’s systems approach), see chs. 4–6, esp. 122–23, 127, 131, 137–38, 161. Enamored with scientific objectivity, he hoped to overcome relativity by methodological rules (Westphal, Community, 32). By contrast, Gadamer, Truth and Method, 245, critiques as inadequate Dilthey’s starting points in “Self-reflection and autobiography” (cf. Dilthey, Pattern, ch. 2, esp. 85–86). For Gadamer, the text helps us find the universal, rather than the reverse (Truth and Method, 305); “A common world—even if it is only an invented one—is always the presupposition of language” (367).

4 . Like Dilthey, Bultmann sees the commonality between author and interpreter as a condition for the possibility of understanding (Bultmann, “Problem of Hermeneutics,” 73; cf. Poland, Criticism, 45). Bultmann emphasizes persons’ concrete existence in historical contexts (“Science and Existence,” 133; Perrin, Bultmann, 39; for Heidegger, see Thiselton, Horizons, 150); every encounter is possible only through commonality, through preunderstanding (cf. Bultmann, “Problem of Hermeneutics,” 85; idem, “Historicity,” 98; Perrin, Bultmann, 80; for Heidegger, see Thiselton, Horizons, 166).

5 . For Gadamer, prejudices are not always unfounded; against Enlightenment pretensions to objectivity, one starts with some knowledge or assumptions that may then be augmented, adjusted, or corrected; see Gadamer, Truth and Method, 239–40, 245–46; cf. also Gerhart, “Generic Studies,” 314; cf. Osborne, Spiral, 388, 412, regarding Ricoeur. Despite the work’s title, Gadamer is less interested in developing a detailed hermeneutical methodology than in articulating an epistemological foundation for hermeneutics.

6 . Cf. Gadamer, Truth and Method, 404: “language has its true being only in conversation, in the exercise of understanding between people”; personal worldviews are “disclosed.”

7 . Gadamer, Truth and Method, 258ff. Even translation, however, involves conversation, understanding something not precisely identical with the original message (348).

8 . Gadamer, Truth and Method, 289 (cf. 274 on Pietist application).

9 . Cf. Perrin, Bultmann, 70 (though the ideas of that world were in flux, cf. Perrin, Bultmann, 61).

10 . Manson, “Life of Jesus,” 220.

11 . Perrin, Bultmann, 15; Hasel, New Testament Theology, 85. Bultmann met Heidegger over ten years before the latter formally joined the Nazi party. Other influences include old liberalism (though cf. Bultmann, “Mythology,” 12–13; Poland, Criticism, 26–27, 29), Neo-Kantianism, and his extended form of Lutheranism (Thiselton, Horizons, 205–26; cf. Poland, Criticism, 19–20).

12 . Bultmann, “Mythology,” 23–25; Thiselton, Horizons, 178–79, 226, 232, 262. Bultmann averred that theology could learn from philosophy (Bultmann, “Historicity,” 96, 101), but that philosophy’s insights could not actualize existence; authentic existence is an ontological possibility but not an ontic one (Bultmann, “Historicity,” 95, 103; idem, “Mythology,” 25–27; Perrin, Bultmann, 30), and may be achieved only by a decision for Christ (Bultmann, “Mythology,” 28). All understanding rests on a particular way of asking questions (Bultmann, “Problem of Hermeneutics,” 72–73); only the question about God enables us to grasp revelation (Bultmann, “Problem of Hermeneutics,” 87).

13 . Bultmann, “Exegesis,” 149; cf., e.g., Bultmann, Word, 11. Thus what Thielicke charges is a corruption of the Bible by secular philosophy (Thiselton, Horizons, 3), Bultmann considers a necessary part of the theological enterprise.

14 . Bultmann, “Problem of Hermeneutics,” 86. One cannot presuppose the results of one’s exegesis beforehand (Bultmann, “Exegesis,” 145; Thiselton, Horizons, 284), though one cannot but presuppose one’s exegetical method (Bultmann, “Exegesis,” 146–47), which is determined by one’s goal (Bultmann, “Historicity,” 92).

15 . Bultmann, “Problem of Hermeneutics,” 72–73, 86. Johns and Johns, “Yielding,” 50, note that Bultmann was correct to emphasize preunderstanding, but Pentecostals differ from him in insisting on the text’s objective authority.

16 . Bultmann counters that Barth has misunderstood the point of existential analysis, in that humans exist only in encounters (“Problem of Hermeneutics,” 89). Yet he redefines Jesus’s God as something within humans (Word, 102–3), and seeks for our human nature to be “realized” (Mythology, 25; though cf. Paul’s understanding of conformity to the new Adam). While Bultmann’s theology may have become anthropology in practice, “this was never Bultmann’s intention” (Thiselton, Horizons, 223). Just as love and kindness are not objective phenomena (Bultmann, “Science and Existence,” 140), it is not possible to speak of a transcendent God as an object (cf. Perrin, Bultmann, 19, 50); he is thus outside the realm of scientific inquiry (Bultmann, “Science and Existence,” 131).

17 . Bultmann, “Historicity,” 94. For examples of anthropocentric interpretation, see Bultmann, Word, 55, 102–3. Much of German theology in the early twentieth century was anthropocentric, to Barth’s dismay; see Poewe, Religions, 50.

18 . Bultmann, “Mythology,” 32–35.

19 . Bultmann, “Demythologizing,” 110. He redefines God’s invisibility as excluding the visibility of his acts (“Demythologizing,” 122), even though the biblical sources that affirm his invisibility also affirm his acting visibly in history. To argue that God cannot cause an event in history or he would not be God (cf. Perrin, Bultmann, 86) redefines God’s activity in a manner antithetical to traditional monotheistic belief. Denying that God’s act can be considered apart from our existence, on the ground that “God is not a phenomenon within the world” (161), would seem to presuppose that God’s act is identical with God, and that he cannot be both above the world and capable of working in it. Instead of balancing God’s transcendence and immanence, Bultmann’s God is so wholly other that he resembles the god of deism, who does not act in history.

20 . Bultmann, “Mythology,” 4.

21 . “Demythologizing,” 95.

22 . E.g., Bultmann, “Exegesis,” 147.

23 . Bultmann, “Mythology,” 9.

24 . Bultmann, “Mythology,” 1.

25 . Bultmann, “Historicity,” 96–97.

26 . E.g., Bultmann, “Between Times,” 250–52, 256; idem, “Mythology,” 17–20, 38–39. Still, Jewish intermediate-era eschatology was not fixed (“Between Times,” 248).

27 . Bultmann, “Mythology,” 14–15.

28 . See, e.g., Jonas, Religion.

29 . See esp. Yamauchi, Gnosticism; idem, “Gnosticism”; Smith, Gnostic Origins. The Gnostic Redeemer myth is absent even in what some wish to call proto-gnostic trajectories (Drane, “Background,” 123; Bruce, “History,” 49; cf. Wilson, Gnostic Problem, 226).

30 . Thus Bultmann can regard Paul as being unintentionally inconsistent, because the resurrection cannot validly constitute a unity with the cross and yet remain an authenticating miracle (Bultmann, “Mythology,” 36–37).

31 . Hasel, New Testament Theology, 89.

32 . Thiselton, Horizons, 274; cf. 290.

33 . Cf. Ladd, Bultmann, 24, 26.

Notes to Appendix B

1 . See Moore and Segovia, Criticism; Punt, “Criticism”; England, “Criticism”; for examples, see Stanley, Colonized Apostle; the surveys in Kahl, “Bibelinterpretation”; Küster, “Kontextualisierung”; for the Gospels and Acts, Diehl, “Rhetoric”; for newer approaches in general, e.g., Runesson, “Treasure.”

2 . See, e.g., Joy, “Transitions”; Moore, “Empire”; idem, “Turn”; Punt, “Empire”; Barreto, “Affects What I See.”

3 . This appendix adapts material from my “Scripture and Context.”

4 . See already Ramsay, Letters, 231–32, 283, 366–67, 410.

5 . See arguments in Yorke, “Hearing”; Keener, Acts, 2:1799–1800; and most clearly on 1 Thess 5, on which see, e.g., Weima, “‘Peace.”

6 . See, e.g., Rukundwa, “Theory.”

7 . See helpfully here Lopez, “Visualizing,” 93; idem, Apostle, 10.

8 . Lopez, Apostle, 10, rightly warning that when the approach is applied with hostility toward Scripture, it ends up undermining Scripture’s potential for liberating and transforming people. Wheaton professor Gene Green, who supports an evangelical postcolonial approach, also warns that the approach must be constructive as well as critical. He further raises the need for genuinely evangelical interpreters to balance postcolonial criticism with evangelical “commitments to Scripture and Christ” (Green, “Response,” 22). Cf. the postcolonial but Asiacentric approach in Keener, “Asia and Europe.”

9 . Contrast, for example, the Moghul empire; British colonialism; the Soviet empire; ISIS; Japan in 1930s–40s; traditional US exploitation in Latin America; and Chinese expansionism in Asia today. The form of French colonialism differed even from one colony to another, making some more “French” than others. For different colonialisms, see Sunquist, Century, 18–20.

10 . See Fitzpatrick, “Carneades.”

11 . See Galinsky, “Cult.”

12 . Gundry, “Hearing,” contends that Richard Horsley wrongly reads Mark’s Gospel as anticolonial, but Horsley (in JSNT 26 [2, 2003]: 151–69) challenges Gundry’s reading of Horsley’s book.

13 . See discussion in Samuel, Reading, 14–34; cf. idem, “Mission,” 27–28. Cf. the warning in Moore, “Paul after Empire,” 21–23.

14 . See Levine, “Disease.”

15 . Lozano and Roth, “Problem,” 187–88, following Spivak, Critique, 358; and Rama-chandra, Subverting, 240–42.

16 . For postcolonial theory’s ability to accommodate multiple and at times even competing perspectives, see, e.g., Wills, “Response.”

17 . For concerns that theological reconstructions from Western-trained elites often neglect the actual grassroots beliefs of Majority World Christians, see, e.g., Chan, Grassroots Asian Theology, 22–27; cf. Hwa Yung, Quest ² , xiv; Johnson and Wu, Families, 11.

18 . Given Jesus’s teachings, a hybridized evangelical postcolonialism, like any other expression of Christian faith, must start with Christ as unrivaled Lord (cf. Usry and Keener, Religion, 140n4); an academic approach or an ethnic loyalty dare not become so hegemonic that it replaces Christ for Christians. The Jerusalem church effectively contextualized (Acts 21:20), but nationalism and ethnocentrism limited proper unity with other (in this case, Gentile) Christians (21:21; see discussion in Keener, Acts, 3:3118–32).

19 . While appreciating and employing the new approaches, Moore, “Manifesto,” points out that they do not offer new methodologies in the sense traditionally understood during the literary turn in biblical studies.

20 . I articulate this concern more fully in my “Biblical Fidelity,” 34–37.

21 . Interestingly, many early Christian abolitionists and feminists offered essentially liberationist readings that followed the tenor of Scripture itself, e.g., Sunderland, Testimony (1835); Booth, Women (1861).

22 . See again the complaint of Chan, Grassroots Asian Theology, 22–27. This observation is not meant to diminish the value of the academic voices, but to consider a wider range of perspectives.

Notes to Appendix C

1 . Cf., e.g., MacArthur, Fire, xviii, 113, and online clips. I also responded to this claim more briefly in Keener, “Review of Strange Fire, ” 46; this was the claim that initially prompted me to respond to his critique, as well as to beginning this (not previously published) list. If MacArthur’s critique focused only on certain kinds of charismatics, it would be true that they are not well-represented in academia, but his claims are more sweeping (see, e.g., MacArthur, Fire, xiii-xix, 137, noted in Keener, “Review of Strange Fire, ” 43–45). Other responses to MacArthur, Fire, include Brown, Authentic Fire; Graves, Strangers; and, most graciously, Kendall, Fire.

2 . Though some scholars at Pentecostal institutions also have affiliations elsewhere, e.g., John Christopher Thomas at Bangor University.

3 . To name just a few of the institutions where I know faculty, I could list many scholars, a number of them my friends, at Alphacrucis, Evangel, Lee, North Central, Northwestern, Southeastern, Southwestern, Valley Forge and Vanguard Universities, Emmanuel College, as well as Bible colleges (such as SUM), seminaries (Westminster Theological Centre, UK) and other institutions, for example. Some of these scholars are as published as other scholars listed below and not cited elsewhere in the book (e.g., Lee’s Daniela Augustine in theological ethics). Other published scholars, such as Paul King and Derek Morphew, are especially training leaders in less traditional settings, or are in research settings, such as Harold Hunter.

4 . One could name so many younger scholars, including Mary Catherine Brown (PhD Asbury), Matt Croasman (PhD Yale, working at Yale), T. Michael W. Halcomb (PhD Asbury, authoring books), Brittany Kim (PhD Wheaton, teaching at Roberts Wesleyan College), Kris Miller (PhD Durham, teaching at Lipscomb University), Jack Poirier (DHL Jewish Theological Seminary), Michael Raburn (PhD Duke, teaching at Wake Forest), David Sloan (PhD, Trinity), Joel Soza (Malone). There are large numbers of Pentecostals and charismatics working on PhDs at the time of my writing; just a few that have been mentioned to me: Joy Ames Vaughan (Asbury), Camilla Belfon (Iliff), Benjamin Dwayne Cowan (Claremont), Anna Marie Droll (Fuller), Wilmer Estrada-Carrasquillo (Asbury), Samantha Fong (Duke), Janna Gonwa (Yale), Alicia Jackson (University of Birmingham, UK), Thomas Lyons (Asbury), Caleb J. D. Maskell (Princeton University), Leila Ortiz (Lutheran Seminary of Philadelphia), Meghan Musy (McMaster Divinity College), Judith Odor (Asbury), and Ekaputra Tupamahu (Vanderbilt).

5 . Clearly the line between continuationist and charismatic is hard to draw; in fact, some self-identified as charismatic but were not known as such to their colleagues, or did not self-identify as charismatic (hence are not on this list) even though their colleagues identified them as such.

6 . For just a sampling of the diversity: Anglicans include Allan Anderson, Lyle Dorsett, Michael Green, Michael Knowles, and N. T. Wright; Baptists include myself, Loida Martell-Otero, Luke Powery, and William Turner; Catholics include Mary Healy and Peter Williamson (the two editors of the Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture), Teresa Berger, Luke Timothy Johnson, and George Montague (former editor of Catholic Biblical Quarterly ); Christian & Missionary Alliance includes Robert Gallagher and Paul King; Lutherans include Mark Hillmer, Mark Allan Powell, and Joy Schroeder; Mennonites include Alan Kreider; Presbyterians, Ogbu Kalu, and Lalsangkima Pachuau; Quakers, Richard Foster; and so forth. Outside of Pentecostals, Methodists might win the prize on my list, but only because my immediate location and the venue of my PhD work gave me access to learn of many more of them, including William Abraham, Valerie Cooper, Gene Green, Richard Hays, Israel Kamudzandu, Fred Long, Luther Oconor, Lester Ruth, Steve Seamands, Howard Snyder, Timothy Tennent, Robert Tuttle, David Watson, and Ben Witherington.

7 . Even apart from charismatic elements, many of John MacArthur’s followers might deem the less conservative elements as contaminating the entire sample; Pastor MacArthur belongs to a tradition that rejects Catholics and mainline Protestants and is highly suspicious of those who have fellowship with them. Nevertheless, I am guessing that most readers of this book will be interested in the wider list.

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