David Instone-Brewer
Forfatter af Divorce and Remarriage in the Church: Biblical Solutions for Pastoral Realities
Om forfatteren
The Rev. Dr. David Instone-Brewer is a research fellow at Tyndale House, a research library in biblical studies located in Cambridge, England. He previously served as a Baptist minister. His books include Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible, Divorce and Remarriage in the Church, and Traditions of vis mere the Rabbis from the Era of the New Testament. vis mindre
Værker af David Instone-Brewer
Divorce and Remarriage in the Church: Biblical Solutions for Pastoral Realities (2003) 257 eksemplarer
Traditions of the Rabbis from the Era of the New Testament, Volume I: Prayer and Agriculture (2004) 50 eksemplarer
The Jesus Scandals: Why He Shocked His Contemporaries (and Still Shocks Today) (2012) 27 eksemplarer
Traditions of the Rabbis from the Era of the New Testament, vol. 2A: Feasts and Sabbaths: Passover and Atonement (2011) 26 eksemplarer
Techniques and Assumptions in Jewish Exegesis before 70 CE (Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism) (1992) 12 eksemplarer
Church Doctrine and the Bible: Theology in Ancient Context (Scripture in Context Series) (2020) 10 eksemplarer
Moral Questions of the Bible: Timeless Truth in a Changing World (Scripture in Context Series) (2019) 6 eksemplarer
Science and the Bible: Modern Insights for an Ancient Text (Scripture in Context Series) (2020) 5 eksemplarer
Feasts and Sabbaths: Passover and Atonement 1 eksemplar
Temple and Priesthood 1 eksemplar
Associated Works
The World of the New Testament: Cultural, Social, and Historical Contexts (2013) — Bidragyder — 163 eksemplarer
Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Midrash: Volume 1, Matthew (1996) — Introduktion, nogle udgaver — 19 eksemplarer
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Divorce and Remarriage
The Old Testament allowed divorce for the breaking of marriage vows, including neglect and abuse, based on Exod.21.10f. Jesus was not asked about these biblical grounds for divorce, though Paul alluded to them in 1Cor.7 as the basis of marriage obligations. This book argues that God never repealed these biblical grounds based on marriage vows. They were exemplified by Christ (according to Eph.5.28f) and they became the basis of Christian marriage vows (love, honour, and keep).… (mere)
The Old Testament allowed divorce for the breaking of marriage vows, including neglect and abuse, based on Exod.21.10f. Jesus was not asked about these biblical grounds for divorce, though Paul alluded to them in 1Cor.7 as the basis of marriage obligations. This book argues that God never repealed these biblical grounds based on marriage vows. They were exemplified by Christ (according to Eph.5.28f) and they became the basis of Christian marriage vows (love, honour, and keep).… (mere)
David Instone-Brewer has made scandal his business. He is a Baptist minister, biblical scholar and Senior Research Fellow at Tyndale House, Cambridge. As scandalous as ministry and academia may be, it is not his profession which provides scandal. Scandal is his professional interest. In particular, he reads the Gospels with an eye for what sort of scandals are evident in the life of Jesus, his followers and his teaching. Why? Because scandals self-authenticate Christian truth claims. As Instone-Brewer writes:
Many of these 'coffee-break-length' chapters first appeared as columns in Christianity magazine (the rough UK equivalent to Christianity Today). So while Instone-Brewer is a scholar by day, this book is written for a popular audience. I will enthusiastically recommend this book for anyone interested in Jesus (i.e. Christians, seekers, apologists, evangelists, exegetes, the Doobie Brothers, etc.). I found it eye-opening.
The book's three parts discuss the different realms of scandal which surround Jesus: his life, his friends, and his teaching. Instone-Brewer brings his knowledge of first century Judaism and Roman culture to bear on New Testament texts and is able to uncover scandal in texts which contemporary readers may miss, which reveals fresh insights. For example, Instone-Brewer discusses how Jesus' illegitimate birth actually made him an ineligible bachelor, or nearly so. He also discusses the ways in which his healing miracles, his table manners, his 'alcohol abuse,' and the way his triumphal entry was socially suspect by the religious establishment, his confrontation of the temple money lenders and the events surrounding his crucifixion. I especially liked his discussion of Jesus' arrest warrant (preserved in Jewish literature) and the ways in which subsequent Jewish generations censored and rewrote the warrant. Instone-Brewer makes the case that the original warrant, describing the execution of Jesus on Passover for sorcery and enticing Israel, has the ring of truth to it but various additions by the rabbis seek to alleviate the scandal of it being an illegal trial, on one of Judaism's high holy days, and ways in which a charge of sorcery added validity to claims that Jesus' miracles were genuine.
Instone-Brewer's insights into Jesus' scandalous friendships were likewise revealing. Yes he talks about the way Jesus was friends with tax collectors and sinners (i.e. prostitutes) and he spills some ink clarifying Jesus' relationship to Mary Magdalene (not a prostitute but formerly possessed or possibly mentally ill). One aspect which I found interesting was his comparison of Jesus' disciples (who were at best second rate) with the disciples of the great rabbis which were extolled for their virtue and understanding. The way in which Jesus conducted his ministry and those with whom he spent time, was at complete loggerheads with the religious establishment of his day.
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="186"] David Instone-Brewer[/caption]
Perhaps the most fascinating part of this book for me is Instone-Brewer's discussion of Jesus' teaching. Two aspects of Jesus teaching with Instone-Brewer illuminates are his teaching about divorce and abuse. Instone-Brewer argues that when the religious leaders ask Jesus, "Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause? (Matt. 19:3)," they are using coded legal language. Divorce for 'any cause' is roughly equivalent to the modern concept of a 'no-fault' divorce. Jesus rejected these grounds and arguing that marriage should be a life long commitment; however this does not, and should not mean that a neglected or abused spouse should stay in a marriage (Jesus was not discussing the case of abuse but the idea of a 'any cause' divorce.
However Jesus does appear to address child sexual abuse when he says, "It would have been better for them if they'd had a millstone hung around there neck and cast into the sea than to have caused one of these little ones to stumble. (Matt. 18:6, Mark 9:42). The word stumble (skandalizo) most often refers to sexual sin within Jewish Greek literature. According to Instone-Brewer, Jesus is decrying sexual abuse of children, because of its long term consequences (a sexually abused youth becomes an abuser or continues to be abused).
As may be evident from the sample of topics I just profiled, Instone-Brewer is great at drawing comparisons between Jesus and his contemporaries. There are a lot of other aspects which Instone-Brewer explores (there are 29 chapters to his book). The short stand alone chapters makes this an easy book to read and it also means that you cover a lot of ground. Click here if you are interested in reading an excerpt.
Thank you to Kregel Publications for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for this review.… (mere)
Scandals are the best guarantee of historical truth in the Gospels. When disgraceful, embarrassing and shocking details about Jesus are recorded by his friends and supporters, it is much harder to disbelieve them.
Jesus was accused of being a bastard, blaspheming, abusing alcohol, partying with prostitutes, being mad and working for Satan--in other words, scandal followed him. And a huge part of his teaching and ministry tackled head-on the scandals that pervaded society and would therefore have been regarded as scandalous by his audience (11).
Many of these 'coffee-break-length' chapters first appeared as columns in Christianity magazine (the rough UK equivalent to Christianity Today). So while Instone-Brewer is a scholar by day, this book is written for a popular audience. I will enthusiastically recommend this book for anyone interested in Jesus (i.e. Christians, seekers, apologists, evangelists, exegetes, the Doobie Brothers, etc.). I found it eye-opening.
The book's three parts discuss the different realms of scandal which surround Jesus: his life, his friends, and his teaching. Instone-Brewer brings his knowledge of first century Judaism and Roman culture to bear on New Testament texts and is able to uncover scandal in texts which contemporary readers may miss, which reveals fresh insights. For example, Instone-Brewer discusses how Jesus' illegitimate birth actually made him an ineligible bachelor, or nearly so. He also discusses the ways in which his healing miracles, his table manners, his 'alcohol abuse,' and the way his triumphal entry was socially suspect by the religious establishment, his confrontation of the temple money lenders and the events surrounding his crucifixion. I especially liked his discussion of Jesus' arrest warrant (preserved in Jewish literature) and the ways in which subsequent Jewish generations censored and rewrote the warrant. Instone-Brewer makes the case that the original warrant, describing the execution of Jesus on Passover for sorcery and enticing Israel, has the ring of truth to it but various additions by the rabbis seek to alleviate the scandal of it being an illegal trial, on one of Judaism's high holy days, and ways in which a charge of sorcery added validity to claims that Jesus' miracles were genuine.
Instone-Brewer's insights into Jesus' scandalous friendships were likewise revealing. Yes he talks about the way Jesus was friends with tax collectors and sinners (i.e. prostitutes) and he spills some ink clarifying Jesus' relationship to Mary Magdalene (not a prostitute but formerly possessed or possibly mentally ill). One aspect which I found interesting was his comparison of Jesus' disciples (who were at best second rate) with the disciples of the great rabbis which were extolled for their virtue and understanding. The way in which Jesus conducted his ministry and those with whom he spent time, was at complete loggerheads with the religious establishment of his day.
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="186"] David Instone-Brewer[/caption]
Perhaps the most fascinating part of this book for me is Instone-Brewer's discussion of Jesus' teaching. Two aspects of Jesus teaching with Instone-Brewer illuminates are his teaching about divorce and abuse. Instone-Brewer argues that when the religious leaders ask Jesus, "Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause? (Matt. 19:3)," they are using coded legal language. Divorce for 'any cause' is roughly equivalent to the modern concept of a 'no-fault' divorce. Jesus rejected these grounds and arguing that marriage should be a life long commitment; however this does not, and should not mean that a neglected or abused spouse should stay in a marriage (Jesus was not discussing the case of abuse but the idea of a 'any cause' divorce.
However Jesus does appear to address child sexual abuse when he says, "It would have been better for them if they'd had a millstone hung around there neck and cast into the sea than to have caused one of these little ones to stumble. (Matt. 18:6, Mark 9:42). The word stumble (skandalizo) most often refers to sexual sin within Jewish Greek literature. According to Instone-Brewer, Jesus is decrying sexual abuse of children, because of its long term consequences (a sexually abused youth becomes an abuser or continues to be abused).
As may be evident from the sample of topics I just profiled, Instone-Brewer is great at drawing comparisons between Jesus and his contemporaries. There are a lot of other aspects which Instone-Brewer explores (there are 29 chapters to his book). The short stand alone chapters makes this an easy book to read and it also means that you cover a lot of ground. Click here if you are interested in reading an excerpt.
Thank you to Kregel Publications for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for this review.… (mere)
Excellent resource for pastors or the laity. Easy to read and understand, (not written on a scholarly level as his earlier work "Divorce and Remarriage in the Bible," but does a good job exploring the original biblical setting (and early Jewish setting), which is essential in understanding the biblical texts on divorce and remarriage. Includes real life emails of difficult situations and the authors response, as well as a guide for leading a biblical study.
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Part of the book’s cleverness consists in the fact that the Jesus of the New Testament, while not "scandalous" in a way that might attract a merely fantasy-seeking reader, was and remains profoundly scandalous, and this could be considered the most salient feature of his life, activity, death, and resurrection. Instone-Brewer enumerates and briefly discusses many of these scandals. The strongest and most helpful feature of the book is that he explains skillfully, concisely, and clearly what made them scandalous in the context of Jesus's time and place. Although, according to the author, Jesus intentionally performed, instigated and taught many scandalous (and a few of which are, to the objective, unregenerate mind, flagitious) things, he was perfectly righteous in doing and saying them because he did and taught only the will of God, which is absolutely and necessarily identical with righteousness (even if it is in some respects objectively cruel, abominable, and deleterious to mortal creatures). But the author seems to suppose that, once he acquaints his readers with the true nature and significance of the "Jesus Scandals", they will react with affection, admiration, and in the case of non-Christians, conversion; in fact, in the case of at least some readers, this is a reasonable hope. But it is far from clear that most readers will respond to all of Jesus's scandalous deeds and teachings in this welcoming way: non-Christians, who have no prior reason to assume that everything Jesus did and said was, ipso facto, righteous, should easily recognize that some of Jesus’s scandalousness consists in the moral enormity, indecency, and unrighteousness of some of his doctrines and other sayings. It hardly needs to be emphasized that, although many scandals can serve righteous and necessary causes (it is easy to think of both historical and current examples), many others are patently evil and appalling, and good people will recoil at them.
Incomparably the most truly scandalous, outrageous, and evil teaching of Jesus—which he clearly considered integral to his message, since he emphasizes it in each of the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke)—is that many, and probably most, human beings will be consigned by him and his God to extreme, enduring, post mortem torment. This doctrine is obviously, to de-contextualize and "re-purpose" a proposition of Anselm’s, the scandal than which [no] greater can be conceived: the most abominable, indecent, and anti-human teaching imaginable. Consider the fact that all, or at least almost all, modern states have abolished the penalty of burning at the stake, and most modern people rightly regard the idea of such inhuman torture and killing surpassingly appalling; yet that abominable process lasted far less time than sinners can, according to Jesus, expect to spend in the torture of Hell. The fact that it is God who sends people to Hell does not make this enormity righteous or just: we should expect a putatively loving God to instantiate perfect love, not perfect hatefulness. To call such overwhelming, infinite viciousness a manifestation of justice, or, as some claim, even of love, is supremely perverse. Thus, most people, who recognize that cruelty is a patent expression of wickedness, are inestimably more morally advanced than God in at least this respect. Instone-Brewer fully recognizes and acknowledges the scandalous character of the doctrine of Hell; but, as noted above, he finds it acceptable since it is perpetrated by Jesus and his "heavenly Father." What sort of "Father" can this be? Would a morally advanced human society not be right to deprive such a monstrous human father of his authority over such a grievously abused child, despite the fact that the cruelty of such a father could never approach that of the Christian God? The author’s attitude toward this purportedly just “eternal punishment” (Greek kolasis) is clear from the following statements about Jesus and his teachings on the subject:
"He spoke more about eternal hell and coming judgment than about the popular subject of God’s love—though he was also outspoken about this (p. 12)."
Apparently, Instone-Brewer would deny the perfectly obvious point that Hell and God’s vaunted love are radically incompatible and logically contradictory, however much Christian apologists feebly attempt to reconcile them.
"Hell was an important part of Jesus’s teaching. In fact, he taught more about it than any other Jew of his time (p. 179)".
If so, at least in this respect, Jesus was a more wicked and truculent teacher than “any other Jew of his time.”
"Jesus expressed anger when appropriate, but in [Matthew 5.21-22] he said that even calling someone a 'raca' (Aramaic for “idiot” or “oaf”) was an act deserving of punishment in hell."
One is bound to respond to the latter doctrine that although calling someone hurtful names is (usually, at least) wrong, the punishment does not fit the crime. There are many more examples in the gospels of speech and acts that, while much more innocuous than name-calling our fellows, are, according to Jesus, equally or even more damnable (e.g. "speak[ing] a word against the Holy Spirit", which is the "sin" that "will not be forgiven in this world or in the world to come": another teaching that occurs in all of the synoptic gospels). As Instone-Brewer well observes: “Hell is a subject that we do not often hear preached on today—perhaps because it is so offensive to most people.” Although the author might not agree, “most people” are absolutely right to be offended by it, because it is the apex of depravity and cruelty. Christian preachers, insofar as they are Christian and presumably dedicated to the teachings of Christ, should, from a religious point of view, preach damnation in Hell, because it was plainly and vociferously taught by Jesus himself. But it is, all the same, morally detestable and condemnable, for the obvious reason that post mortem torture cannot be justified by God or anyone else.
For Instone-Brewer, on the other hand, Hell is eminently just. Admittedly, however, his conception of Hell is less abominable than many: his exegesis, controversially, holds that Hell’s “fire” and “maggots”, are “metaphorical.” Yet he acknowledges that, according to Jesus, there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth—that is, the suffering of hell.” Thus, however metaphorical hell may be, for the innumerable persons condemned to it it is clearly an excruciating form of torment, if Jesus’s words are to be taken seriously. Instone-Brewer seems to conclude, although it is not quite clear that he is totally committed to this view (note his use of he word “if”, p. 182), that Hell comprises a period of torment for a time and at an intensity commensurate to the degree of our guilt, followed ultimately by annihilation; on the other hand, he admits that the Greek text can also denote eternal punishment in the usual sense. It is plain, however, that we must object to the author’s view that in “God’s justice”. . . “suffering will be proportionate to guilt.” Here again, it is apposite to remember that most moderns would rightly be morally repulsed at the proposition that human-inflicted burning at the stake would be “proportionate to guilt;” on the contrary, most would assert that it is extremely disproportionate, unjust, and appalling. Why should we consider God to be just for imposing a much longer and, probably, even more intense punishment than any human authority could inflict or even imagine? The perfectly manifest answer is that we should not do so: it is the ultimate expression of wanton and irresistible hatefulness and wickedness, and surely not of “justice” or “love.” The doctrine that it is God, rather than human beings, who casts the “wicked” into Hell does not make this “punishment” just. Surely we should expect better treatment and more indulgence from a god who, according the the New Testament, “is love.” So far as justice is concerned, no one more deserves "eternal punishment" than God himself, who created it: he enforces his will by overwhelming, ineluctable power and the promise of Hell for those who do not believe in or obey him. It is the ultimate expression of might makes right.
Since this essay is already excessively protracted, I will conclude it with the forgoing discussion of Hell. Those who are curious about Instone-Brewer's other “Jesus Scandals” may read the book and consider for themselves which of those scandals instantiate justice and love; certainly some of them do not, while others are less horrendous and some are even commendable (eminently including, for example, the parable of the Good Samaritan, which demands that human beings behave inestimably more benevolently and beneficently than Jesus's God). For me, the ultimate abomination—namely, Jesus’s doctrine that God will condemn innumerable human beings to enduring, post mortem torture—overwhelms everything salutary in his character and teaching.… (mere)