The Journey Toward Proverbs 8

Big news! I've signed a contract to publish my dissertation in the Princeton Theological Monograph series. This is exciting because it means more people can interact with my work and sharpen it through critique and (hopefully) encouragement. The book's tentative title is Wisdom in the World: Toward a Renewed Christian Reading of Proverbs 8.

    As part of the publishing process I'm encouraged to think about why I started working on this project.

A few factors led to settling in on a study which focused on how Proverbs 8 functions as Christian Scripture. The first was the influence of my seminary professors. In particular, Don Collett was one who continually returned to Proverbs 8 in various lectures and conversations. He was and is committed to read the text of Scripture Christologically, informed by the early church fathers all the way through Calvin and more. His book, Figural Reading and the Old Testament, lays out his case for this kind of reading, along with various applications of it.

    Don's influence was more than just a focus on a particular passage. There was the passion to help Christians read the Old Testament as fully Christian Scripture, that is, as rendering the fullness of faith in Jesus Christ in its own distinct way. This witness of the Old Testament is supplement, not supplanted, by the New Testament. The Triune God made known in Christ by His Spirit stands in between the testaments, both historically and theologically. As such, mature Christian faith must be informed by both Old and New Testaments. Additionally, Don's approach to reading was not one that cast aside the insights of biblical criticism that had been developed over the past 200+ years. Rather, his was and is a critical reception of these insights in the service of a reading of the text which shapes Christian faith today.

    Don passed on this commitment, and it was stoked further by my reading in preparation for my doctoral program. In my early conversations with my eventual doctoral supervisor, Walter Moberly, several books were recommended to me. These delved into the dynamics of reading the Bible as Scripture. Specifically, how this designation ("Scripture") shapes our reading. When we open a passage of the Bible and seek to read it as Scripture, or when we end a reading with "The Word of the Lord" we are making a claim about these words. This claim is that somehow reality is shaped by what we have just read, not just a reality of the past, but our present life. Somehow through whatever passage has been read, the veil has been pulled aside and we have come to see as things really are, and we are invited to life our lives toward that greater reality, rather than the one that's most easily perceived through our conditioned eyes.

    One of the important books in this regard is Sandra Schneiders' The Revelatory Text. In a particularly memorable passage, she likens a reading of the Bible which is open to its transformative effect as Scripture to attending a powerful performance of a play. As we watch, we are drawn into the characters and the plot; we feel feelings and have concerns and commitments which are out of the norm for us. When the play ends, we are drawn back into the "real world" but not without change. We are invited to understand those normal concerns, feelings, and commitments in relation to the drama of the play. Doing so shapes the "normal" features of our existence; we come to see them in a new light, through new eyes, or in different connections. 

    So in a reading of an ancient document as Scripture, we can approach it in a similar vein. We can study it through classical critical tools in order to have some grasp of what it is saying, but to read it as Scripture involves imaginatively entering its world, getting caught up in its drama, and allowing that to shape our way of living in the world.

    This was the approach I brought to Proverbs 8. In my book, I have sought to understand the passage in its historical and literary contexts, as well as in conversation with its history of interpretation. However, the constructive work was to come to the passage in various ways to see how it might shape a Christian's experience of the world.