{"id":431,"date":"2011-06-08T16:42:58","date_gmt":"2011-06-08T23:42:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=431"},"modified":"2011-06-08T16:42:58","modified_gmt":"2011-06-08T23:42:58","slug":"a-labor-of-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=431","title":{"rendered":"A labor of love"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anne Barnhill, a poet and novelist who often reviews books for this blog and in other forums, offers this note to readers:<\/p>\n

In more than 20 years of reviewing books, I have tried to maintain a certain objectivity.\u00a0 I may review books of acquaintances, but I do not let those ties cloud my interpretation of the book itself.\u00a0 Usually, I would excuse myself from reviewing a book by a dear friend or family member.\u00a0 This is one exception.\u00a0 On Dec. 1, 2007, my beloved daughter-in-law, Emily K. Arndt, passed away.\u00a0 She left behind her husband and two small children.\u00a0 She also left this book. Linda Brinson has kindly allowed me to honor Emily by writing a review of her book. I do not promise objectivity, but I will promise a careful and engaged reading of the text, something I hope will be pleasing to Emily.<\/p>\n

By Anne Barnhill<\/p>\n

DEMANDING OUR ATTENTION: The Hebrew Bible as a Source for Christian Ethics.<\/p>\n

By Dr. Emily K. Arndt. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 190 pages, paperback.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Emily K. Arndt\u2019s first book, Demanding Our Attention: The Hebrew Bible as a Source for Christian Ethics<\/em>, is a scholarly discussion of how we can approach stories in the Hebrew Bible that seem to contradict what we understand about living ethically, stories that challenge us to comprehend their meaning in the 21st<\/sup> century, stories we struggle to integrate into our religious lives. Arndt makes the case for taking the Hebrew Bible seriously ethically and morally, rather than discarding it as no longer relevant to us.\u00a0 As her example story, she uses the binding of Isaac from Genesis 22, or the Akedah.<\/p>\n

Reading any book from the fields of academia can be daunting, especially if the area is unfamiliar.\u00a0 This book is difficult in places, especially for those readers who are ignorant about the works Arndt is discussing.\u00a0 However, the reader is well rewarded as Arndt weaves these varying approaches to the Akedah into her own argument for approaching the Hebrew Bible with some of the tools of literary criticism, particularly the \u201creader response\u201d idea that the reader brings her own set of assumptions and biases to the text, and only a \u201cself-aware\u201d reader can move beyond these to approach the text in a more genuine way.<\/p>\n

By using interpretations of the Akedah from Kierkegaard to Philip the Chancellor to Genesis Rabbah to modern scholars, Arndt studies each, placing them side by side in the rabbinical tradition, to extract and discuss the relevance of this difficult story.\u00a0 After studying these arguments in great detail, Arndt avoids any definitive conclusions.\u00a0 Instead, in what I think is one of her most important ideas, she says:<\/p>\n

In continuing to engage (and be engaged by) the biblical text, the aim is not a perfect interpretation or an articulation of the right \u201cethic\u2019 but rather participation in an ongoing relationship.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

Theologian Jean Porter gives this estimation of Arndt\u2019s contribution to her field:\u00a0 \u201cThis is a fully formed, sophisticated and beautifully written book, offering an important contribution to the field of theological ethics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Yvonne Sherwood adds, \u201cI will go on turning it and turning it and reflecting on its implications for my own work for many years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

Establishing an ongoing relationship with the Hebrew Bible as a genuine source for ethical development, though the text is often alien or \u201cother,\u201d enables us to question our own assumptions when dealing with those in our lives whom we consider \u201cother.\u201d\u00a0 By such careful reading, we must return again and again as we struggle with meaning \u2013 a lot like the way we wrestle over and over with a God who transcends our mortal and moral understanding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anne Barnhill, a poet and novelist who often reviews books for this blog and in other forums, offers this note to readers: In more than 20 years of reviewing books, I have tried to maintain a certain objectivity.\u00a0 I may review books of acquaintances, but I do not let those ties cloud my interpretation of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,23],"tags":[99,98,97],"class_list":["post-431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contemporary-nonfiction","category-religion-contemporary-nonfiction","tag-christianity","tag-hebrew-bible","tag-relgion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=431"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":433,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions\/433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}