Exegetica
11papers
Longer, footnoted work on exegesis, the biblical languages and the history of interpretation, grouped by field.
Hermeneutics and Method
Reading Scripture faithfully across the canon
How should Scripture be read? These studies address the principles and methods by which Christians interpret the Bible faithfully, from patristic allegory to canonical criticism to the New Testament's use of the Old.
- Allegory versus Typology: The Use and Misuse of Scripture in Patristic ExegesisTwo patristic habits of reading are set side by side: Alexandrian allegory, with Origen, Clement and Augustine, and Antiochene typology, with Diodore, Theodore of Mopsuestia and Chrysostom. Working from scholarly definitions by Beale, Davidson, Goppelt, Young, Kelly and Dani hat carries stronger coherence, since it insists that the exodus genuinely happened and genuinely prefigures baptism, while allegory can lay a reading over the text rather than draw one from it. Disputes over whether the distinction is a modern imposition are noted honestly. Much of the available material traces Philo of Alexandria in detail: his allegorising of Eden and the patriarchs, his Logos doctrine, and the ways Christian interpreters both borrowed and reshaped his method under the Rule of Faith. The stated aim is a hermeneutic combining typological discipline with allegory's theological richness for preaching and teaching.
- Canonical Criticism: Exploring Scripture as a Unified Theological NarrativeHistorical-critical method gave the church a Bible dissected into sources, forms, and redactional layers, and with it a loss of theological coherence. Working from Childs, Sanders, Barr, and Barton, the piece names that fragmentation as the problem canonical criticism was designed to answer: Scripture read as canon, in its received final form, with the arrangement of books, their groupings, and their internal cross-references treated as purposeful rather than accidental. A survey of source, form, and redaction criticism shows their real gains alongside their tendency to lock the text into the past. Earlier scholarship, it argues, treated canon merely as a historical list. The text then traces Childs from Biblical Theology in Crisis through his 1979 Introduction and later works, and breaks off there, with a roadmap of case studies and critiques still ahead.
- How the New Testament Interprets the Old Testament: A Study in Biblical HermeneuticsA study of how New Testament writers actually handled the texts they treated as Scripture, laying out its method before its conclusions. The opening sections define typology and predictive prophecy, argue that the two are better read as a spectrum than a rigid pair of categories, and distinguish typology from allegory while noting how often early Christian readers blended them. Second Temple practice is surveyed at length: pesher, midrash, allegory, and rewritten Scripture, with Qumran offered as the closest parallel to New Testament usage. The distinctive Christian element is located in christological focus rather than in method. The text then turns to the debate over sensus plenior and authorial intention, weighing Kaiser against Moo, Carson, and Longenecker, before the four announced case studies.
Pauline Theology
Law, covenant, and the apostle to the Gentiles
The letters of Paul reveal a sophisticated theology of law, covenant, and grace. These studies examine his key arguments (justification, covenantal membership, the role of the law) and their ongoing significance for the church.
- Intertextual Echoes in Paul’s Letters: Methodology and Theological SignificancePaul argues by revoicing Israel's Scriptures, and reading him well means learning to hear the echoes and asking what work they do. The opening sections define intertextuality carefully, distinguish quotation, allusion, and echo, and set out Hays's seven criteria of availability, volume, recurrence, thematic coherence, historical plausibility, history of interpretation, and satisfaction. Refinements follow: index lexical volume, watch word order, rule out Greco-Roman and para-biblical sources, take metalepsis as controlled expansion rather than free association, and reckon with Paul's Septuagint text and his rhetorical adaptations. Stanley's worry about Gentile scriptural literacy is weighed and answered without dismissal. The stated plan is four case studies on Adam, exodus and Spirit, wilderness discipline, Abraham, and Isaianic lordship; the text here breaks off in the methodology.
- The Role of the Law in Pauline Theology: A Study of Romans and GalatiansPaul's puzzle is stated plainly at the outset: how can the same apostle call the Law holy and yet insist believers are no longer under it? The study proposes a salvation-historical answer, placing Torah in the sequence of promise to Abraham, Law through Moses, fulfillment in Christ, and reads that alongside the social pressures of mixed Jewish and Gentile congregations. Method is laid out carefully, along with definitions of nomos, works of the Law, new covenant, and "under the law," while resisting both post-Reformation law-versus-gospel framing and readings that soften Paul's radicalism. The extended work then lands on Romans 7:7-25, tracing how sin exploits a good commandment, and surveys four competing accounts of the speaking "I." The text breaks off within that survey.
Biblical and Covenant Theology
The grand arc of redemptive history
From creation to consummation, these studies trace the grand narrative of redemptive history: the kingdom of God, the covenant framework, the temple motif, and the eschatological hope that shapes present Christian practice.
- The Kingdom of God in Biblical Theology: A Study from Eden to EschatonAn extended study of the Kingdom of God as the unifying thread of Scripture, opening with a survey of its scope and method and then working carefully through the early canon. Genesis 1 is read against ancient Near Eastern background as a cosmic temple inauguration, with the seventh day marking God taking his throne. Humanity is presented as royal image-bearers and vice-regents whose commission to fill the earth extends sacred space. Detailed parallels between Eden and the later tabernacle and temple are set out, followed by the fall as a contested kingship and the first promise of restoration. The text then turns to the Exodus and Sinai, presenting Israel as a kingdom of priests, and breaks off mid-discussion of Sinai as cosmic mountain.
- The Temple Motif from Genesis to Revelation: Sacred Space, Divine Presence, and Eschatological HopeGod has always intended to dwell with his people, and the temple motif traces how that dwelling was established, lost, and progressively restored. The study lays out a ten-movement canonical arc from Eden to the New Jerusalem, then works carefully through the opening stages. Eden is presented as the first sanctuary: Adam serves and guards as a priest, cherubim mark the boundary of holiness, gold and precious stones and the tree-shaped lampstand reappear in later sanctuaries, and Genesis 2 geography implies three zones of graduated holiness. Walton's cosmic temple reading of Genesis 1 and Ancient Near Eastern sacred mountain traditions are weighed. Genesis 1:28 becomes a mandate to extend sacred space. The tabernacle then appears as a portable Eden and miniature cosmos, with the sh-k-n root grounding later Shekinah language.
Christology and Second Temple
Christ in the Hebrew Bible and early Jewish thought
Who is Christ in the Scriptures? These studies trace his identity through the Hebrew Bible and early Jewish thought (the divine council, angelomorphic traditions, the Son of Man, and the Servant Songs) into New Testament Christology.
- Angelomorphic Christology: Early Jewish Backgrounds and New Testament ImplicationsSecond Temple Judaism had a rich vocabulary for heavenly mediation: the Angel of the LORD, Michael and Gabriel, Wisdom, Logos, Name and Glory. Early Christians reached for that vocabulary to describe Jesus as messenger, revealer, throne attendant, warrior, and commander of the host. The argument here is that this borrowing never reduces the Son to a creature, because the same writers hand Him what no angel receives: the divine Name, the throne, agency in creation, and worship. Function and being are held apart carefully. The material presented surveys the scholarly turn away from Greco-Roman apotheosis explanations, notably Hurtado, Bauckham, Gieschen, and Carrell, defines the term precisely, and sets out method and controls, including canonical priority over background sources, before the exegetical work of later sections.
- The Son of Man in Daniel 7: Apocalyptic Identity and Messianic ImplicationsWorking through the linguistic evidence, this study first shows how "son of man" ordinarily marks human frailty and mortality in Hebrew usage, dominating Ezekiel and surfacing in Numbers, Job and the Psalms, with hints of royal function in Psalm 80. It then argues that Daniel 7 shifts the phrase decisively: the comparative "like," the cloud imagery of theophany, the universal dominion and the everlasting kingdom together set this figure apart from the beasts rising out of the sea. Second Temple witnesses including the Enochic Similitudes, 4 Ezra and 4Q246 are surveyed to show messianic and judicial readings already circulating. Jesus' three usage patterns, present authority, coming suffering, and future glory, are identified. The text breaks off within the literary analysis of Daniel 7.
- The Servant Songs of Isaiah: Typology, Prophecy, and Christological FulfillmentIsaiah's four Servant Songs are set out for close study, beginning with the frank admission that no reading of the servant's identity has won consensus. The stated plan moves through each poem's structure and themes, then to the collective and individual proposals, then to Second Temple and New Testament reception, drawing on Sproul, Witherington, Strauss, Brown, Bonhoeffer, Edwards, Spurgeon and the Fathers, and arguing for typology and a fuller sense unveiled in Christ. The material actually worked through here is the setting of Isaiah 40 to 55: the exile, Cyrus, the repeated naming of Israel as God's chosen servant, and the tension that the servant nation is itself deaf and blind. The song-by-song exegesis is announced rather than completed in this portion.
Apocalyptic Literature
Visions, symbols, and the unveiling of divine purpose
Visions, symbols, and divine unveiling. These studies explore the genre of apocalyptic literature through the shared imagery and divergent meanings of Ezekiel and Revelation, and what they reveal about God's purposes in history.