Sharon R. Chace - My First Introduction to the New Testament

Sharon R. Chace

A ll too infrequently, a believera person of faithwill take pen to hand and write about the Bible or some part of it with considerable scholarship as background but with the immediate goal of teaching the uninitiated without (a) putting them to sleep or (b) putting them off.

Conversely, how often have we whose lifetime scholarly interests have been in translating, analyzing, and interpreting biblical texts become lost in a welter of footnotes and qualifications of this tense or that, in competing translations of Hebrew or Greek wordsproudly setting down the result of our labors as major contributions to knowledge. Well, they may be, but your citys telephone directory is also a contribution to the knowledge of, say, the number and location of the nearest auto repair garage. Such knowledge is rightly deemed useful.

Another way for believers to write about the Bible is in that imperious way so many have; i.e., this is the Word of the only God there is, so pay attention. Hard-core, hard-edged evangelism, in other words.

Sharon Chaces My First Introduction to the New Testament will put no one but the terminal narcoleptic to sleep and certainly not put off any interested inquirer who may not, in fact, wish to become a believer but, rather, will want simply to know what all the fuss is about this thing called the New Testament.

Useful is one adjective that will come to mind as the reader leafs through, then digs into this bookuseful, as in introducing the history, provenance, and content of the New Testament to adult seekers either for their own edification or to equip them to teach it to fellow adults or to teenaged Sunday school students.

Accessible it is as well. Without talking down to her readers, Chace will be found in serious but not stilted conversation with them. She writes most often in simple declarative sentences, a rarity among many of us who deal in allegedly more academic ways with biblical texts. Chace employs mention of color and textureterms and concepts she used with remarkable success in her previous book An Artistic Approach to New Testament Literature .

The reader will smile at first when he or she encounters Chaces depiction of the author of Mark wearing dark sun glasses while Lukes are rose-colored. Eventually, the reader will nod and smile again, having seen, with Chaces help, the important differences between the two gospels.

When Chace discusses the setting apart of deacons depicted in the Acts of the Apostles she writes: Church administrators are picked to run the churchs meal program. Who cant grasp that?

Of John : she writes: Another interpretation [of the verse] is that people who believe in Jesuss ethic of service, compassion, and forgiveness will be part of an ongoing movement that will matter forever. No snide disabusing of the ignorant or the orthodox here, just a gentle suggestion that salvation may have to do as much with ordinary acts of mercy and kindness as with abstract theology.

Heres how you will see her deal with one of the major differences between the Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel according to John: People do not talk in normal conversations like Jesus talks in John. So the style of Jesuss speech is a big hint that this gospel is a theological document. Chace pretty much thinks the Synoptics are to a greater degree reportage.

This book is an important contribution to a cause that sometimes seems well-nigh hopeless. I speak of biblical literacy. Not that teaching the Bible need be thought of as a matter of evangelism and conversion, though it sometimes is. The enjoyment and understanding of so much of classic English and American literature is impossible for those who have not attained at least an elementary acquaintance with the Bible. Try to understand almost any line of Paradise Lost and many allusions in the plays of William Shakespeare, even the priceless treasures that are the speeches of Abraham Lincoln, without knowing something of the biblical text. Language lurking among laws and statutes and in the clauses of insurance policies mentions the good Samaritan. Much social critique references the prodigal son. And it wasnt your Great Aunt Matilda who first said, Pride goeth before a fall.

Chace knows all that. She obviously loves the texts of the New Testament and is well versed in their form and content. Her book will be a boon to many a busy parish minister, distracted Christian education director, and harried Sunday school superintendent.

Will it satisfy one who has made an idol of the Bible and insists that its contents are meant only to be read, marked, and inwardly digested as holy writ rather than to be investigated as to provenance, authorship, and place in history? No, it will not. And for that reason aloneamong many reasons My First Introduction to the New Testament is a welcome addition to the library of biblical studies.

The pedagogy recommended in its pages is enlightened and, as I have said, useful and accessible. When you turn over this page, you will find yourself in a very inviting and informative space. Even if you think you know a lot about the New Testament, Chace, as gallery docent, will point out light and shadow that may have escaped even the most erudite in their scholarly scrutiny of the text. Thanks to Chace, the non-scholar will be delighted and charmed by what a treasure the New Testament text is.

Harry T. Cook