Kim Gentes

Reading and reviewing NT Wright's "Jesus and the Victory of God" is a monolithic task, as the book is both lengthy and highly academic. Its success is not in its volume of pages, however, but in its thorough treatment of Jesus and his work as historical fact leading to theological reality.

The portrait of Jesus of Galilee as the first century Jew who is both prophet/messiah is so profoundly unlike our 20th/21st Century thinking, that it is a shock treatment into the historical Jesus. It re-levels our Christian beliefs and theology from our arrogant "looking back on history" to a profound looking from the 1rst century forward, through the eyes of Judaism and its traditions and worldview. When we wake up from the shock, we find we are in a world that is thoroughly Jewish, thoroughly 1rst century, living as a conquered nation of Israel with its neck under the heel of the tyrannical Roman Empire.

Amongst a brood of  1st century revolutionary Zionists, Pharisees and "Jews-still-in-exile" within their own country, Jesus appears and draws on this climactic time, announcing in himself the arrival the kingdom-of-god message in which he comes to reconstitute the Temple, the Torah, and the Wisdom into his very person, reissuing their true essence into himself.  At the same time, he redefines the true people of God not as a swipe against Israel but as a reinstatement of the core of its vocation and character- to be the light of the world.

Once the core of who Jesus is, what he intended, and what he actually did is redefined, the entire synoptic readings need complete reinterpreting, and Wright provides that as well, exploring the parables, symbols, actions and praxis of Jesus as both a means and expression to his brilliant thesis.

Product Link on Amazon: Jesus and the Victory of God

Review by Kim Gentes

Dominion and Dynasty is a purposeful book meant to articulate the guiding narrative of the Hebrew scriptures by examining the original structure of Text (and texts within), re-envisioning a supportive literary approach as a hermeneutic for micro-interpretation within a macro-context, identifying the covenantal promises and blessings of land and lineage, and guiding the further interpretation of the narrative through understanding the symbols of Eden and David.

Structure to the narrative.

Reading through Stephen Dempster’s “Dominion and Dynasty” I found myself seeing the entire Old Testament (and the New Testament as well) as being a truly unified narrative.  Previously, I had always read the Bible based on the modern day arrangement/order of books. Along with this, the text seemed to lack a coherent timeline, appeared ambiguous on so many referential levels and not seem to be part of a grander plot. The first profound change for me was to encounter Dempster’s explanation of the book order (and  3 groupings of books within) within the Tanakh.  For the first time, I understood that the Hebrew Bible was architected as a narrative (even edited/ordered). It was grouped by three main sections within the overall volume- narrative, commentary, and concluding narrative. This may seem obvious or trivial to some, but in reading this one sentence below, my viewpoint of the Old Testament was changed forever:

The storyline begins with creation and moves to the exile of Judah in Babylon, from Genesis to 2 Kings; then the narrative is interrupted by poetic texts- largely prophecy, psalms and wisdom literature- before being resumed with Israel back in Babylon in the book of Daniel, moving on to the return of the exiles to Judah and concluding with a narrative summation of the entire history of Israel from creation to the exile in the books of Chronicles.[1]

Exegesis based on literary structure and synthesis.

With this introductory understanding of the structure of the Tanakh, I began to see a plan of the larger narrative of the entire Bible. Dempster pushes further on this point and holds that a broader literary approach to the Bible is itself a required hermeneutic for correct understanding of the specific texts in light of this larger, structured, progressive narrative.

Covenants of Land and Lineage.

The other major point that Dempster makes is that the major plot-line of the Hebrew Bible is centered on the covenant-making of God with individuals (primarily Adam, Noah, Abraham, David), tribes (the 12, and especially Judah) and nations (Israel). Specifically, this covenant-making pivots critically on two kinds of promise from God: provision and grants of land (dominion), and blessing and increase of the progeny of the covenantal figures (dynasty). In return, the human agents in those covenants were to agree to be bound to faithfulness in their devotion and service to Yahweh. God would give them land and children, if those in covenant with Him would remain faithful.

Lineage

Dempster is emphatic on this point of lineage, and it helps him explain why the Hebrew Scriptures have an insistence on including the genealogical record in key points of the narrative. He says:

A key purpose of genealogies in some contexts is to show a divine purpose that moves history to a specific goal.[2]

The book details the blessing of lineage as expressed through genealogy, especially in Genesis, where ten genealogical lists frame the movement of the storyline across both time and major characters.[3] In fact, the promise of descendants to Abraham becomes the pivotal salvation point for all of Israel, according to Dempster, when Moses is trying to plead for Israel’s sake against the judgment of God. Dempster says:

The sin forces God to threaten to destroy Israel in agreement with the covenant and to start again with Moses. But Moses pleads (certainly not on the basis of the recently broken Sinai covenant) on the basis of the descendants promised in the covenant with Abraham as grounds for saving Israel (Exod. 32:13). It is only this reason that decisively moves God to have mercy on Israel.[4]

Land

As much as the promise of descendants was a touch point of the promise made to Israel, so also was the identification with geographical space a sign of God’s blessing. Dempster highlights this extensively in his summation of Deuteronomy, where he says:

Consequently, the geographical motif is omnipresent. The final address of Moses to the people is saturated with references to the great prize awaiting possession. The land is at the forefront from the beginning to the end.[5]

The author is convinced that the Hebrew scriptures see the land as the clear external marker of both God’s blessing and Israel’s condition within the covenant. The various battles, successes and failures epitomise the faithfulness or sin of Israel, resulting in her consequence of acquiring or losing land. Dempster explains this at length in his section on the “Former Prophets”, where he talks both about the successes of faithfulness to the covenant:

The geographical nature of the promise is emphasized by the lengthy list of kinds and cities that were captured...what seems uninteresting to westerners was surely momentous to ancient Israelites. These were land deeds![6]

Likewise, later loss and rescinded access to the land (or rule over it) is seen as judgment for the break of covenant by Israel. This is highlighted when the author explains:

No sooner is the temple built and dedicated than it is duly noted that Solomon is guilty of polygamy, which leaders him to apostasy... The judgment that follows Solomon’s death splits the kingdom, dividing the tribe of Judah (and an assimilated Simeon) in the south from the ten northern tribes. With the failure of the Davidic scion, the promised land has begun to fragment.[7]

Thus, just as much as genealogy and descendants heralded God’s covenantal blessing, possession of land marked the barometer of Israel’s faithfulness (or failure) to that same covenant.

Major Narrative Symbols

Eden.

Symbols of Eden - from Egypt, to  Sinai, to the exile, to Solomon and beyond the typology for Eden is cast throughout almost every major story of the Hebrew bible. Covenant building, human failure, restoration and a spiraling into further sin and consequential desolation is the Edenic archtype that pervades the Tanakh.  Dempster sees the Eden image as a constant type that should be used to re-interpret later passages. For example, he treats Numbers 24:5-9 passage of Balaam’s blessing (3rd curse attempt) as if Edenic imagery is intended.

The passage draws from Eden and exodus imagery; Israel is compared to rivers and gardens, trees that the Lord has planted; the Israelite tents are like the trees planted by Yahweh. This was the divine intention when Israel was brought out from Egypt. It was to be planted in God’s mountain (Exod. 15:16); that is, it was to be returned to Eden.[8]

David.

David as the central character of the old Hebrew understanding of the complete man (Adam). David represented both the fulfillment of dominion and the blessing of dynasty that Israel could hold up as the archtype for their hope. And while Israel reaches her pinnacle in David/Solomon, even later hopes of restoration (for the sinful, broken Israel) come labeled as linked to the dynasty of David. It is a Davidic messiah that they wait for, a Davidic kingdom that they hope for politically, and Davidic dominion that they hope for militarily. Prophetic and narrative content replays David as the one on whom history pivots from the past into the future.

Dempster’s acute observations about the centrality of David to the Hebrew text is synthesized best in his last chapter. His description of the pinnacle role of David as a genealogical summation of humanity and a iconic figure that is hearkened back to by later generations (and texts) is clarified by the diagram on page 232, where he shows David as the pivot point of God’s efforts to draw humanity and creation back to himself.

These images of David and Eden, the covenantal components of land and lineage and the narrative structure (along with historical timeline) of the Hebrew scriptures are the key points of the excellent book, Dominion and Dynasty. Stephen Dempster has created an excellent guide for understanding how Jesus and the first century Jews may have understood the Hebrew scriptures. This is invaluable to those of us seeking to learn the context from which the message of Christ came forth, and gives us a greater understanding of what the New Testament writers were addressing through the gospel message and its revelation of Jesus as the Messiah who was to fulfill the Hebrew scriptures.

Product Link on Amazon: Dominion and Dynasty: A Theology of the Hebrew Bible 

[1]Stephen G. Dempster,  “Dominion and dynasty: a biblical theology of the Hebrew Bible”,(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), Pg 22

[2]Ibid., Pg 47

[3]Ibid., Pg 55, 56

[4]Ibid., Pg 104

[5]Ibid., Pg 118

[6]Ibid., Pg 128

[7]Ibid., Pg 149

[8]Ibid., Pg 115,116