It has become something of a biblioblogging convention to make lists of the top ten or twenty-five scholars or books in a given area of biblical studies. Personally, I couldn't hope to make such a list, except perhaps in Chronicles, without doing a great disservice to a whole number of scholars who have contributed to biblical studies or even more particularly, Old Testament/Hebrew Bible studies. However, I can make my own modest contribution to this convention by sharing with you a list of the seminal influences on my scholarship to date. The order of the list is not consistently an order of importance, which for much of the list I find difficult to assess (though I can state the first in my list is unequivocally the most important):
1. Peter Ristau: My father, an Old Testament professor of 25+, is the most seminal influence on my scholarship. He taught me to love and respect the Hebrew Bible. His passion for the Bible, and in particular for the stories of David and the writings of the major prophets, sparked my interest in biblical studies and have left a life-long, indelible mark on me. While my father sacrificed scholarly publications for ministry and family in a small bible college, I have no doubt that had he had the opportunities he has given me, he could easily have emerged as one the great scholars of the past twenty-five years. His sacrifice, however, is the gain of others who were able to learn from my father and also have their lives impacted by his generosity, scholarship, and passion in innumerable ways. I also am certain the Church is better for my father's service. Thanks Dad!
2. John Calvin: The Institutes of the Christian Religion was the first major work scholarship that I recall reading. Calvin's scholarship and theology have certainly inspired and challenged me. Perhaps most significantly, Calvin's doctrine of the reprobate taught me a very important lesson. Calvin, in his work, expresses the wish that the doctrine were not present in Scripture but, believing that it was, Calvin's fidelity to God, truth and Scripture compelled him to explicate on it. I always found that commitment to truth, even when it moves contrary to one's own presuppositions or leanings, an important, guiding principle of working in this field. It is a commitment I try to emulate.
3. Tyler Williams: In my undergraduate program at North American Baptist College, Tyler Williams' teaching and friendship led me from an interest in systematic theology to a profound passion for Hebrew Bible. It is largely because of him that I am working on Hebrew Bible and that I became interested in Chronicles and biblical historiography. He is also one of those professors who doesn't let you get away with crap, or at least, makes you pay for it when/if you get lazy. I learned my first lessons about rigorous scholarship from Tyler and I am certainly the better for having studied under him. He has also modelled something much more profound in my mind: the balance of dedication to work and scholarship with the much greater priorities of family, friendship, and faith. Much more than a great scholar, Tyler is a great person, a committed father, and a committed Christian.
4. Ehud Ben Zvi: Even before I started my graduate work with Ehud Ben Zvi, I already got to know him through the Edmonton Hebrew Scripture Satellite of the PNW Regional SBL. I've never been one to get too emotional when a professor criticized my work, mostly because none had ever done what Ehud did the first time I submitted a paper to him for review. Meeting with him to go over the paper, I sat in my chair devastated as Ehud tore apart my paper line by line by line. I couldn't believe it; after all, I'd presented that paper at the SBL Meeting in Toronto. I believed it was one of the finest things I'd ever written. Ehud, however, taught me what that paper was really worth and I confess it wasn't as good as I imagined. Over the course of my Master's program, Ehud continued to provide that sort of devasting critique and now, with every sentence of every paper I write, my standard is will Ehud call bullshit on me. I also have to thank Ehud for encouraging me to attend the EABS Meeting in Groningen, a very seminal experience. More than all this, though, Ehud is now a good friend and colleague, whose friendship I value greatly.
5. Francis Landy: Biblical studies is filled with anal retentive scholars, meticulous in their exactness, who strive for objective success with their scholarship. They want to be right. Francis, by contrast, is an artist. He takes pleasure in the design, the aesthetics of scholarship, and its deepest human significance. He is also one of the most caring, quirky, and all around wonderful men I have ever met. Francis challenges me to think outside the box, to look at fissures and discontinuities in texts, to refuse neat solutions and see the human conflict with the transcendent and the immanent in literature, and not to be worried if the answer is ultimately beyond our grasp. He also challenges me to consider my scholarship not simply as an objective task but also a highly personal, subjective, and artistic endeavour. He is another scholar and professor whom I am also grateful to call a friend.
6. Gary Knoppers: I will always remain deeply indebted to Gary, one of the leading biblical scholars in the world in my estimation, for taking such a personal and genuine interest in me when I was still an undergraduate. It is my opinion that it was Gary's interest and guidance that gave me my first opportunity to present a paper, namely the SBL Conference in Toronto, and also the necessary support to get accepted to the M.A. program at Harvard University. While I was not able to accept my invitation to Harvard University, my acceptance there is probably one of my most personal satisfying achievements. It was a dream come true to have the opportunity to attend there. When it came time though to apply to PhD programs, I applied to one school and one school only: Pennsylvania State University. Thankfully, I was accepted! Even now, Gary continues to provide guidance and support that I find truly humbling. With regards to scholarship, Gary is probably the scholar with whom I most consistently agree and whose work I find the most consistently erudite and insightful. His commitment to scholarship, thorough and careful scholarship, is second-to-none.
7. Frederick Buechner: While not a biblical scholar, Frederick Buechner's books, most particularly Telling the Truth and Son of Laughter, are among the finest pieces of literature I have read. Buechner's Son of Laughter is a stunning achievement that has left an indelible mark on my reading and understanding of the patriarchal narratives. That one book brought the Hebrew Bible alive for me in an unparalleled way. Theologically, Buechner's works reach me on a very intimate level because I associate with his interest in the power of grace in juxtaposition with the banality of sin, the silence of God, and the internal conflicts of the Christian experience. No author, no teacher has captured these things in a more moving or more truthful way. Buechner is the finest author, short of J.R.R. Tolkien or the biblical writers, that I have ever read. I owe Martin Friedrich, my undergraduate English teacher, a debt for introducing me to this author.
8. Paul & Pierre Martial: My brother-in-law and his twin brother have been the source of much frustration and debate over the years but their knack for theological explication and their ability to engage in open dialogue has also kept me challenged intellectually. I also appreciate that they have always forced me to keep an eye on the pragmatic, practical, and pastoral implications of my work. In the past year, I've also had the distinct pleasure of taking their money at the poker table, a welcome respite from the world of scholarship.
9. Brevard Childs: Definitely not B.S., the scholarship of Brevard Childs helped me to understand the importance of canon and community in the interpretation of Scripture, both past (in the ancient reading communities) and present (in the Church today). In my opinion, Childs is one of the great Hebrew Bible scholars of the past century and certainly seminal for a new type of Evangelical scholarship that respects the demands of scholarship as well as the authority of canon and Scripture. Childs helped me to see that good scholarship complements Faith.
10. Arnaldo Momigliano: It is unlikely that I would be pursuing my present research if I had not encountered the scholarship of Arnaldo Momigliano. His cross-disciplinary work on Hellenic and Jewish culture, thought, and literature is quite fascinating and begs so many unanswered questions.
11. Mario Liverani: Through my studies with Ehud Ben Zvi, I became aware of the scholarship of Mario Liverani. His monograph Prestige and Interest is among my favourite works in ANE studies. I greatly enjoy the way that he mines the documents of the Amarna period for the ideological and intellectual ethos of the period and it is this approach, informed also by the methodologies of other scholars in this list of my influences, that I attempted to apply in my reading of the Josiah narrative of Chronicles for my Master's thesis. Liverani's article, "Memorandum on the Approach to Historiographical Texts," is an important article that lays out an significant and important strategy for the use of literary texts in historical reconstruction.
12. Meir Sternberg: The tripartite streams of biblical narrative, ideological, aesthetic, and antiquarian, that Sternberg identifies in his biblical poetics are the foundation of my methodological approach to the Bible. For more on these tripartite streams, see Tyler Williams' excellent summary, particularly as it relates to methodology of historical reconstruction. Sternberg's primary contribution, though, is not on the antiquarian stream; rather, he is a literary critic. While I do not agree with Sternberg's notion of foolproof composition, I find that many of his literary readings are quite compelling and a model for sensitive exegesis.
13. Sara Japhet: As someone who works in Chronicles, I would be remiss not to mention the Dame of the Chroniclers, Sara Japhet. Along with H.G.M. Williamson, Sara Japhet rejuvenated this field. Her many articles, her monograph on the ideology of Chronicles, and her commentary on Chronicles are inestimable contributions to the study of this book. In particular, she and Williamson have successfully argued that Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah were likely written by separate authors, which is now the generally accepted position. Japhet also wrote what I regard as a significant rebuttal to some of the excesses of minimalism, namely an article entitled, "Can the Persian Period Bear the Burden?"
14. Michel Foucault: One of the great philosophers and historians of the past quarter century, Foucault's work on epistemology, power, discourse, the history of ideas, and religion are critical foundations of my historical methodology.
15. Raymond Brown: The Gospel of John was one of my fascinations in my undergraduate program and Raymond Brown, along with J. Louis Martyn and Rudolf Bultmann, were my primary interpretive conduits into the book. Raymond Brown impressed me for the depth and wealth of his scholarship in this modern age. His works are a model of judicious and reasoned scholarship, which, like Childs, were never divorced from the ecclesiastical implications of the work. Brown, like Childs, had an acute sense of responsibility to the community, and even communities, of the Christian Faith and their role as trustees of divine revelation. Yet, also like Childs, this never compromised his commitment to authentic scholarship; there was no fear in his scholarship that investigation and inquiry could upset the tenets of Faith but rather faithful scholarship, fidelity to the truth always, in his world, seemed to strengthen them and that is indeed something I learned from this eminent Catholic scholar.
More Influences: Thomas Thompson, Karl Barth, William Riley, David Vanderhooft, Christine Mitchell, Ann Killebrew, Donald Redford, Burke Long, Simon DeVries, Jacques Derrida, David Jobling, John Van Seters, V. Phillips Long, Rudolf Bultmann, J.P. Fokkelmann, fellow PhD students and friends Tim Goltz and Paul Evans, and still others.
The Seminal Influences on My Scholarship
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