20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cohorts of Wonder, May 24, 2010
This review is from: The Seven Pillars of Creation: The Bible, Science, and the Ecology of Wonder (Hardcover)
Bill Brown's latest book strikes me as an invitation; specifically, an invitation to persons of biblical faith and to persons devoted to science to communicate with one another as what he calls "cohorts of wonder." Too many books posit faith and science as mortal enemies, with arguments that often draw from the best of one side to derail the worst of the other. Likewise, too many books blithely ignore the fine details and hairy nuances of biblical faith and science in order to reach some kind of happy coincidence between them. Brown's book does neither. With the kind of hermeneutical insight that one might expect from an Old Testament Professor at Columbia Theological Seminary, but with a surprising breadth of understanding over the various fields of science, Brown offers a true platform for respecting the integrity of both science and faith in dialogue.
The Seven Pillars of Creation is a look at seven different creation traditions in the Hebrew Bible, beginning with the two creation stories of Genesis and moving on to Job, Psalm 104, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Second Isaiah. In each case, Brown approaches the text like a true biblical theologian, not only utilizing the best in biblical scholarship for interpreting the text, but also displaying a deep appreciation for the theological cosmology that animates the text. From the biblical studies found in this book, one gains a great appreciation for the varied ways that early communities saw God in relation to God's world. God spoke creation into being, then `saw' that creation was good. God has productively dirty fingernails in one tradition, sports with Leviathan in another, and delights in daughter wisdom in yet another. This book is valuable for its insights into a spectrum of theologies and cosmologies in the Hebrew Bible.
But, Brown does not stop with biblical studies of creation stories. He also brings the best, most wonder-filled insights of science into dialogue with those stories. There is not always happy coincidence - in fact, there are places of outright contradiction if one imagines that the biblical texts are making scientific statements - but there is always room for dialogue, where biblical faith and science can have their say and perhaps discover that they are marveling at very similar things. And that is the point. Brown is not insisting that the biblical writers knew of the Big Bang (or better, the Big Flash) when they identified "light" as first in the order of creation. But, the fact that an ancient community perceived the primacy of light in its hymn of creation and that science traces our world's origin to a primal flash of light is something worth wondering about - together, as cohorts of wonder.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Hermeneutical journey", May 25, 2010
This review is from: The Seven Pillars of Creation: The Bible, Science, and the Ecology of Wonder (Hardcover)
This is a really wonderful book. Brown begins with that which is common to both scientific and religious explorations of creation -- the experience of wonder. He states that his goal is "to recapture something of the awe that fostered the spirit of inquiry among the ancients," and bring it into conversation with contemporary science. The goal, he says, is to arrive at "wisdom" -- how we are to live within a created order that is increasingly under stress from our own actions.
There are several things that I really like about this book. First, its erudition. William P. Brown is obviously deeply familiar with the biblical text, but surprisingly conversant with the state of scientific inquiry.
Second, he reminds us that Scripture itself is multi-perspectival. There is no one single "biblical view of creation." Brown delineates seven -- in the two creation stories of Genesis, as well as the Book of Job, Psalm 104, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Second Isaiah. He lays out the incredible richness of biblical creation traditions.
Third, he sets up a conversation between the Bible and science without a) reducing one to the other (fundamentalism and materialism), dichotomizing them (a la Stephen Jay Gould's "Non-Overlapping Magisteria") or falsely harmonizing them (quantum theory explains EVERYTHING!)
Fourth, Brown honors the integrity of the biblical text. This is harder to do than one might imagine, given the far-reaching impact of historical biblical criticism. But Brown clearly delights in the text and reads it on its own terms. He describes his method as "entering the back door" (understanding the original context) and moving towards the "front door" (assessing its meaning for today.) This, in contrast to the modernist tendency to "stand as a guest peering in[to the text], unwilling to cross the threshold and roam about inside."
The fifth reason I like this book is that it is just such a joy to read. Brown himself is clearly not standing at an analytical distance from his material, but entering into it with joy and commitment.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Biblical Thought Taking Advice from the Sciences, August 15, 2010
This review is from: The Seven Pillars of Creation: The Bible, Science, and the Ecology of Wonder (Hardcover)
William P Brown's "The Seven Pillars of Creation: The Bible, Science, and the Ecology of Wonder" is a scholarly but readable reflection on seven perspectives of creation in the Hebrew Bible. Brown follows the same pattern with each: a new, original translation of the text is followed by analysis of its structure and meaning and consideration of its socio-historical context. These lead to a discussion of scientific connections and collisions with the text, and finally a fresh interpretation of the text for our day, keeping relevant scientific knowledge in the forefront.
The seven pillars refer to the seven perspectives he chooses:
Genesis 1:1-2:3, the "Cosmic Temple"
Genesis 2:4-3:24, the "drama of dirt"
Job 38-41, "Behemoth and the Beagle"
Psalm 104, the "passion of the Creator"
Proverbs 8:22-31, "Wisdom's World"
Ecclesiastes, the "dying cosmos"
Isaiah 40-55, the "fabric of the cosmos"
Each is allowed to speak in its own voice, without the typical Christian attempt to merge them into a single, coherent account of creation. Consequently, Brown highlights their differences with each other in celebration of the Hebrew Bible's diversity of voices. The author even revels in the conflict between Ecclesiastes and Second Isaiah, imagining the two shouting at each other across the divide of years and of the canon.
I was particularly taken with his reading of Job and want to pursue competing interpretations. Brown imagines God calling Job into the wilderness to realize himself the brother of Behemoth. Typically, we preachers see Job humbling himself before the power and creativity of God, whose thundering "Can you...?" questions knock Job to his knees in repentance. Brown instead sees God teaching Job perspective on his own humanity by the awareness of his kinship with the rest of creation, particularly the monstrous Behemoth. Verse 42:6 is typically translated, "Therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes," but Brown renders it, "Therefore, I waste away, yet am comforted over dust and ashes" (p. 124). The author is aware of the controversial nature of his translation, and explains himself well; he must do so, because this verse is key to his understanding of Job's experience of God's oration.
Persons without a background in Hebrew or in Old Testament criticism will find parts of the book difficult. For example, Brown translates Genesis 2's "adam" as "groundling" (p. 80), with little explanation of his purpose in doing so. One could easily miss the point of the wordplay of "adam" (human being) and "adamah" (ground), which follows the translation. We are so accustomed to the word rendered as the proper name "Adam" that more explanation may be necessary. Still, these difficulties may be simply fussy and can be skipped over by the reader who wants to focus on the ways natural science illuminates these texts.
That same section includes an example of one feature of Brown's writing that will appeal to some and annoy others: the love of English wordplay. Contrasting Genesis 1 with Genesis 2, he writes, "If in the Priestly account God is King of the cosmos, in the Yahwist account God is King of the compost" (p. 82). These wordplays keep the text grounded (as it were) in our ordinary experience, and no doubt reflect the author's own experience of the playfulness of Hebrew writing.
Since, like the author, I am not a scientist, I am not qualified to evaluate his use of science. From my outsider's perspective, however, I find it appropriately evaluated and applied to the text. He uses popularizations of difficult scientific concepts to illuminate the Hebrew text and suggest interpretations appropriate to our age, as well as to revel in the ways ancient writers anticipated realities we live with. If the earth exists for God, not for us (as his reading of Job and Proverbs suggests), then it is not ours to use up, damage or even destroy. Ecclesiastes' sense of a dying cosmos imaginatively prefigures entropy.
I have contended that the theologian must be aware of modern science in order to speak sensibly about the work of God in the world that we know. Brown shows that the Biblical scholar also can benefit from becoming scientifically literate. It used to be said that theology is queen of the sciences, which I take to mean that theology needs to take advice from the natural sciences and change her policies and procedures accordingly. Biblical scholarship, likewise, takes good advice from the natural sciences, and Brown's book beautifully fills the bill.
Robert A. Keefer, President
Presbyterian Association on Science, Technology and the Christian Faith
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