Obviously steeped in reading from his doctoral pursuits, Brandon Wason has recently written a post on Bultmann’s theology of John. I spent a lot of time in Bultmann’s commentary on the Fourth Gospel during my doctoral program and of course while writing my dissertation. (What commentary written that many years ago is still regarded as essential reading?) However, I have always found Bultmann to be an enigma because although he asks all the right questions, he usually, in my humble opinion, arrives at all the wrong answers. Check out Brandon’s post if you get the chance.

Suburbanization: Evangelicalism's Physical Cultural Sequestering

So, Protestantism tore in two:  liberal and fundamentalist.

We must consider the affects of denying inerrancy on how we view the story of the Bible.  Recall that higher criticism read the Bible through rationalistic eyes.   The net result was the demythologization of the Bible.  Demythologization means exactly what it looks like – taking the supernatural and mythological elements out of the text.  So, liberal Protestants recast Jesus as a  more charitable/moral, kinder, gentler and better way to be human – rather than the substitionary sacrifice to save sinners from the wrath of God and an eternity in hell.  Jesus is boiled down to the moral teaching of the Sermon on the Mount.  The concept of the Kingdom of God is not salvific but merely social in nature.  For the deconstructed liberals, Jesus’ mission statement was something to the effect of:  I came to make society better by showing an unselfish way of living.  Jesus’ vision statement would be something like:  By showing a better way to live, people will follow my example and gradually make the world a better place.

The tragic thing about the liberal social gospel is that there is truth to be found, the problem is that the truths are imbalanced by a lack of their necessary counterweights.  The reality is that the Gospel is both salvific and social in nature.  When God’s people take the Gospel to a new place, God’s rule/reign/authority comes along with it.  Where God’s rule/reign/authority is manifest, His blessing is also manifest.  That blessing is not full, final, and complete in the manner that it will be at the Second Coming of Christ – but it is present.  Unfortunately, the early fundamentalists did not fully embrace this consequence of the Gospel.

What happened was simple… the fundamentalists saw that the liberals were embracing and engaging culture because they had bought into a merely social gospel.  Hence, the fundamentalists reacted against the liberal engaging of culture and they decided they would disengage from culture and sequester themselves.  The core issue was the fundamentalists did not develop a positive identity, rather they defined themselves anegativa (the not-liberals and hence not-socially-engaged).  Fundamentalism became a negative term and eventually conservative Christians grew to self-identify as being “evangelicals” to avoid the negative connotations of the pejorative title of fundamentalist.  Recall that most evangelicals were already highly anti-intellectual at this point (with the notable exception of the Reformed Old Presbyterian folk), so a movement to disengage further from culture was devastating.  Conservative Christians receded from the world of academia, art, media, and other American cultural institutions.  A cursory look at the history of American Universities during this same period (first half of the 20th century) will show a rapid de-Christianization and the beginnings of secularization.  The receding of the conservative Christians from cultural interaction combined with the suburbanization and white flight of the mid-20th century created a huge void of Christian witness in America, particularly in city centers, the hub of cultural life.

Evangelicals have decried how godless/liberal our schools, Universities, media, art… etc. have become and are upset with urban decay.  The problem with this is that we are substantially culpable.  If only the Gospel brings God’s blessing on a society, and the people who still hold fast to that Gospel completely disconnect from society, we can only expect serious moral, intellectual, and social decay to follow.

Next, we shall look at the methodology of mid-late 20th century evangelicalism…

An historical fact which involves a resurrection from the dead is utterly inconceivable…no matter how many witnesses are cited.

Rudolph Bultmann, New Testament and Mythology, in H.W. Bartsch (ed.), Kerygma and Myth, NY, 1961, p.39

The Resurrection cannot – in spite of 1 Cor. 15.3-8 – be demonstrated or made plausible as an objectively ascertainable fact on the basis of which one could believe.

Rudolph Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament I, 305-6

In other words, no amount of evidence would make the Resurrection plausible to a mind beholden to Naturalistic presuppositions.

Without faith in the resurrection there would be no Christianity at all.

Michael Green, Man Alive

The empty tomb of Christ has been the cradle of the church.

W. Robertson Nicolls, The Church’s One Foundation, page 150

Here’s some fascinating info on this book series from IVP that began with Colin Brown’s Philosophy and the Christian Faith (published way back in 1968).  That book is still a very fine explanation of how the ideas of major historical philosophers relate to the Christian faith.  A proposed revision of the book morphed into the Christianity & Western Thought series, of which volume 3 has just been released.

Over the past eight or nine years we have repeatedly been asked when volume three would be published. “It’s coming,” we’d say. Well, it’s here! The first two volumes have been widely used as textbooks in philosophy and theology courses, and we expect nothing less of volume three.

I received my copy several days ago, and I’ve been dipping into it here and there whenever I get a chance. I’ve already enjoyed a judicious treatment of Bultmann. And this morning I found that their discussion of the early Wittgenstein goes well with oatmeal and peach. This is exactly the kind of book that any academically minded person—whether philosophy or theology is their field or not—will value. Bruce Ellis Benson’s blurb says it well:

Covering the twentieth century’s major figures and movements in philosophy and theology in one volume is truly a feat! That the authors have managed to narrate the history of both analytic and continental varieties of thought in an engaging and lively way is even more impressive. But what is perhaps more remarkable is how judicious and measured the authors have been in their appraisals of the respective figures and movements. The result is a most welcome achievement.

Hey, good things take time. First the acorn, then the spreading oak forty years on.

(Via Addenda & Errata)

Though this book isn’t new, 20th Century Theology (Downers Grove, IVP, 1992) by Stanley Grenz and Roger Olson is one of those books that theology students need to read, like it or not.  It is basically a run-down of all the major theologians in the 20th century Western world (though a few transitional figures from the 19th century are also included).  Grenz and Olson discuss men like Kant, Hegel, Barth, Brunner, Tillich, and Bonhoeffer, among others (Moltmann, Rahner, etc.).

Here are a few introductory blurbs to give you the general tenor of this book which summarizes some teachings of these theologians.

“We see twentieth-century theology as the story of theology’s struggle along with culture through this transition from modernity to postmodernity” (p. 10).

“The theology of the twentieth century, flowing as it does out of that of the nineteenth, offers an interesting case study in the attempt to balance these two aspects of the relation of God to creation (my note: the two are transcendence and immanence).  In fact, the see saw of transcendence and immanence as a significant focus provides a handle for grasping the unity and diversity of the central current of theology that flowed through the century” (p. 12).

The book then unfolds first by discussing the Enlightenment and some aspects of 19th century theology.  Grenz and Olson then take the trek through the 20th century theologians.  I’ve enjoyed and appreciated this book which is a sort of textbook for those of us who want to get a good “feel” for what was happening theologically in the 20th century.

shane lems

sunnyside wa

It is impossible to make use of electric light and radio, and, in case of illness, to claim the help of modern medical and clinical methods and at the same time believe in the New Testament’s spirits and miracles.

Bultmann, Kerygma and Mythos, p.18

1 Cor.15.17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.

This closedness (of the universe) means that the continuum of historical happenings cannot be rent by the interference of supernatural, transcendent powers and that therefore there is no ‘miracle’ in this sense of the word.

[Rudolf Bultmann, Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate, ed.Hans WernerBartsch, trans. Reginald H. Fuller, (London: Billing and Sons, 1954), p. 292.]

1. This viewpoint is passé, or should be.

2. It’s another reminder not to be wedded to the spirit of the age because his thinking, though ‘cutting edge’ and trendy then, is very much ‘widowed’ now

This closedness (of the universe) means that the continuum of historical happenings cannot be rent by the interference of supernatural, transcendent powers and that therefore there is no ‘miracle’ in this sense of the word.

[Rudolf Bultmann, Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate, ed.Hans WernerBartsch, trans. Reginald H. Fuller, (London: Billing and Sons, 1954), p. 292.]

1. This viewpoint is passé, or should be.

2. It’s another reminder not to be wedded to the spirit of the age because his thinking, though ‘cutting edge’ and trendy then, is very much ‘widowed’ now.

… modern man acknowledges as reality only such phenomena or events as are comprehensible within the framework of the rational order of the universe. He does not acknowledge miracles because they do not fit this lawful order.

[Rudolf Bultmann, Jesus Christ and Mythology, (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958), p. 37.]

Body and Character in Luke and Acts by Mikeal C. Parsons

Mikeal Parsons has illuminated ancient attitudes about the body and its relation to morality in the ancient world that are fascinating and seem to on the whole make more sense of the biblical texts he has chosen to illuminate than other conjectures such as the immediate presupposition of inauthenticity. Parsons has shown continuity with the texts being examined and Luke’s overall message convincingly, while not completely persuaded, I feel that Parsons has done a great job of bringing an orthodox view of the text as plausible back into the academic arena through a brief and scholarly study which presents alternative views of the text informed by a largely ignored area in terms of biblical scholarship.

For those who are unfamiliar with the term physiognomy, it is an ancient pseudo-science about the relation of the physical body to the perception of character, namely ideal bodies were inclined to ideal morals and disabled or deformed persons were considered to have flawed morality corresponding to their physical appearance. Parsons has shown how this consciousness was permeating the ancient world’s perception of literary characters beginning with Greek poetry, and its use in making moral judgments about literary figures. He parallels this to Luke’s presentation of the four characters he has chosen to examine in his inspection of the use and subversion of .

Parsons has chosen four pericopes to cover in his short but penetrating study, the story of the bent woman, Zacchaeus, the man lame from birth, and the Ethiopian eunuch. He provides keen insight to each of these stories, and informs us of how these characters might have been received by Luke’s audience before he turns the tables on the audience by overthrowing the general pathos which their stereotypes have taught them to adopt.

It is interesting to see the way that the “physiognomic consciousness” plays into these stories and seems a plausible way that the authorial audience would have seen the text. I don’t know what my ultimate reservation is, but I feel that my suspicion of the work might lie in its lack of theological finale. While touching on various topics I thought he might delve into more, Parsons refrains, perhaps to keep the work objective, perhaps because he works best as an expositor, but I feel that the conclusions that could be drawn from the work were not present sufficiently, and left me curious to see more. Instead I was left with a brief epilogue whose last two sentences were a wonderful conclusion yet, seemingly unfinished. Although Parsons has invited theological inquiry based on his study, which I hope to see some of soon.

The book also has great virtue though, as a work which forces us to reconsider our own biases of morality based on outward appearance, and we are reminded that the early Christian community is radical, because it includes the weak, the frail, the outcast and the judged. In the formation of theology, especially moral theology in the advent of this century, it is an important work in historical ethics of the Christian community.

I feel that what was important to my observation and inquiry in the characters presented in the stories Parsons presented was the way healing played a role in the stories, because it has different effects on the person being healed at each turn. The bent woman is obviously healed of a disease which afflicted her 18 years, and is physically healed from what has made her outcast, and the same goes for the lame man. While the connecting factor between these two is a healing and common theme of weakness and morally dubious character, which is interesting in itself, my initial concern is with Zacchaeus and the Ethiopian Eunuch.

If Parsons is right about Zacchaeus being a dwarf by congenital defect, Jesus does not restore him to the community by their standards of what a moral person looks like, which while seemingly obvious is still significant. This means that Jesus in Luke’s narrative does not see dwarfism as barrier to the kingdom of God, nor does he see it as a lack of wholeness. For someone developing a theology disability or deformity, it is highly significant that this is the case. For Luke’s Jesus is a healing Jesus, and I think it is noteworthy that Luke’s Jesus does not make Zacchaeus taller. If we look at the text with its physiognomic dimensions Jesus challenges Zacchaeus to become magnanimous in character, which would seem difficult to the people who underrated him as a person small of character due to his physical stature. Jesus also calls him a son of Abraham, Jesus sees Zacchaeus as part of the eschatological community by virtue of the choice which he has made to bring restitution to his failures. His salvation is not merely a matter of his being good now, but is a reinterpretation of his social status as well, making him equal in the community of Jesus’ followers despite his physical differences.

While to us this may seem commonplace, or to be assumed, it is highly uncharacteristic of ancient religions at large and specifically uncharacteristic of Judaism. While it is noted that deformed persons had a popular place in the Roman culture it was as objects of ridicule, collected like trophies by the emperors Domitian and Nero, and Augustus even bought a congenitally short small person as a pet for his niece.

While Jesus encounters him, he makes no move to “heal” Zaccheus as in cure him of his congenital defect, even though in other cases he does, such as the man blind from birth. This raises interesting questions.

The Eunuch as well raises some interesting questions, if he is a castrated or sexually mutilated man is not restored sexually by baptism or by extreme unction as he is brought into the community through baptism which is just as important as if he had been. While he is through Parson’s argument given a new place in the community and a new honor in Christ, he is not healed at least in the sense of a physical restoration of function, and though the audience is forced to reconsider his character, his role in the community is reinterpreted by the early Christian community as one who is ritually pure.

The Christian polemic against the temple cult and a new and radical inclusivism are only part of the whole picture of the moral formation which Luke is using through these illustrations.

It seems that in light of physiognomy early Christians reject the assumptions of morality as inherently tied to physical appearance, which was not to remain so historically as some prominent Christian leaders that Parsons notes were persuaded by physiognomic interests. It might even explain what we moderns think absurd theological considerations when we read about some church theologians and the way in which they think Christians should laugh properly in society.

In conclusion, I feel that this book is important, and should be read by anyone with an interest in the Abrahamic community, healing, or outcasts as themes in Lukan literature. I would like to see the implications these texts have for Christian healing and a theology of disability. While books on the subject of disability and theology are coming from every angle and exploding in the contemporary interest, I think it’s of great value to examine why Jesus healed the way he did and what healing might have been in Christ’s idea of His mission. It seems important to me to know whether Jesus had a particular physiognomic concern, or whether he had a moral or ontological concern for the people he healed. While it would be largely speculation, the text might provide some insights, though we must allow that it was not built in such a way as to answer that question directly. I’d like to do some more work reading Luke-Acts and commentators on the text since it is of great interest to me.

In a new essay at Bible and Interpretation, Mark writes

Last week Rudolf Bultmann was 125 years old, but not everyone celebrated.

To which I reply- but all good and thinking people did!

Bultmann’s notorious claim that “I do indeed think we can know almost nothing concerning the life and personality of Jesus” is on one level overstated and easy to dismiss.

Notorious?  That sounds ominous, doesn’t it?  But Bultmann is right and, as we shall come to see, Mark agrees with him.

But knowing things about the historical Jesus is not the same as being able to write his biography.

Further, knowing what we know we must confess that every bit of it has been ‘refracted’ through the ‘memories’ of his followers (borrowing a few terms from Anthony Le Donne).

Mark concludes

The problem is that we are in denial. We simply do not want to admit that we do not have all the data we need to paint a complete picture of the historical Jesus. Good scholarship is sometimes born from a desire to fill in the gaps, and informed speculation can be a virtue. But over-confidence born out of an unrealistic expectation of the evidence will make future generations wonder what we were playing at.

Mark Karl Bultmann Goodacre, welcome to the fold of truth!  We’re glad to have you with us.

The EKD has published today a couple of nice pieces on the occasion of the 125th Anniversary of Bultmann’s birth.  Here’s the first, and here’s the second.  Oh Bultmann… all those of sense love you still.

Those who have been warned to steer clear of [Bultmann are urged] to read what he wrote. Because you’ll probably find that the warnings were given not because Bultmann is obviously wrong, but on the contrary, because so much of what he says is both persuasive and powerful. — James McGrath

In spite of the fact that Doug Chaplin doesn’t quite grasp Tilling’s willingness to express admiration, it makes perfect sense.  Anyone who has ever done any serious work in New Testament studies has had to deal with Bultmann one way or another.  But perhaps that’s why Doug doesn’t get it…

Just kidding, Doug, don’t get bent about it.

Using Bultmann

Bultmann was a significant figure for a number of reasons already outlined and for plenty of famous reasons I do not need to repeat (much). What I want to add to this is a short, critical appraisal of his place in intellectual history.

Bultmann was, as Maurice Casey pointed out, a notable critic of the Nazi party and for this alone it would be unwise to be churlish. Yet this also makes Bultmann a significant figure in the transmission of an anti-Jewish theological and cultural bias in NT studies because of the fact Bultmann was (and, to some extent, still is) so credible. The Nazi Aryan Jesus and the accompanying presentations of Judaism were far too extreme to take hold in any substantial way beyond a totalitarian fascist regime. A major figure such as Bultmann meant the long term anti-Judaism could be maintained (think of Bultmann’s presentation on Judaism and works-righteousness) without being overtly tainted by and overtly racist ideology. What Bultmann shows, thanks to the benefit of hindsight, is just how much a broader cultural context can dictate results.

On the other hand, Bultmann has now become something of a bogeyman among many post-Sanders (more precisely post-Paul and Palestinian Judaism [1977]) scholars who wish to present Judaism is a positive light and make their own intentions at least seem honourable. Yet this in effect becomes a means of maintaining theological and cultural anti-Judaism in a different manner – think, for instance, of Wright’s repeated stress on ‘Jewishness’ yet time after time Wright’s constructed ‘Judaism’ is nothing more than a poor second, somehow showing how wonderful Jesus, Paul and Christianity were in comparison to, and distinction, from everything else we keep being told about Judaism (with the convenient omissions of evidence, naturally). Is this any different really to the Bultmann era? Rhetoric aside, I think not.

If this sounds an unfortunate assessment of Bultmann, it ought to be qualified. Bultmann was, like all of us, a person of his time doing the best he could. And, of course, influence of cultural context does not necessarily equal ‘bad’. His demythologizing and emphasis on the significance of contemporary scientific worldviews seems, to many of us at least, plausible enough (!). Yet the very fact such arguments a) had to be stated and b) still cause controversy speaks volumes about the discipline of biblical studies. Whether the voluminous speaking is a good or bad thing I leave up to you. But when people (not exclusively conservatives) still criticize him for being ‘ethnocentric’ for ‘dismissing’ miracles then I can’t help but think something else is going on. If I were going to be naughty about it, I might phrase such an attitude as follows: ‘I love (for the time being) those strange non-European cultures in Africa or somewhere far away like that – you know, those lot who really believe in miracles, and assuming for a moment that they don’t do lots of idolatrous things, naturally! – because they [somehow] debunk Bultmann by helping me call him and those of his ilk ‘ethnocentric’ and bad, just like I love Judaism because it makes my supersessionism seem much more lovely.’ After using another other, laptops can be shut down, electric lights can be switched off, and snuggling can take place under an electric blanket…

Vor 125 Jahren wurde er geboren: Derjenige Theologe, den vielleicht als einzigen Theologen des 20. Jahrhunderts auch heute noch jeder evangelikale Normalchrist kennt. Und das nicht, weil man ihn liebt, sondern weil man ihn fürchtet. (Was vielleicht auch etwas über den Evangelikalismus sagt.) Aber warum eigentlich?

Ich schreibe die Tage an einer Arbeit über sein Entmythologisierungsprogramm, also die Forderung die christliche Botschaft von der antiken Weltanschauung zu trennen. Legendär sein Satz:

Man kann nicht elektrisches Licht und Radioapparat benutzen, in Krankheitsfällen moderne medizinische und klinische Mittel in Anspruch nehmen und gleichzeitig an die Geister- und Wunderwelt des Neuen Testaments glauben. Und wer meint, es für seine Person tun zu können, muß sich klar machen, daß er, wenn er das für die Haltung des christlichen Glaubens erklärt, damit die christliche Verkündigung in der Gegenwart unverständlich und unmöglich macht.

Davon abgesehen, dass ich inzwischen glaube, dass Bultmann hier in gewisser Hinsicht Recht hat (und in anderer Hinsicht auch wieder nicht), liegt mir jedenfalls daran, ein plattes Missverständnis auszuräumen: Bultmann war kein ‘Liberaler’ im landläufigen Sinne, ihm lag nicht daran, das Christentum in eine säkulare Philosophie aufzulösen. Sein Ziel war es, das Evangelium dem modernen Menschen nahe zu bringen. Bultmann war Missionar. Er hätte das zwar selbst wohl kaum  so ausgedrückt, aber wie anders soll man ihn verstehen, wenn er ausgerechnet sein Buch über die Entmythologisierung, Jesus Christus und die Mythologie, mit diesem Vorwort versieht:

Ich hoffe, daß diese Absicht deutlich wird, nämlich das Wort der Bibel für den modernen Menschen so verständlich zu machen, daß es als wirkliche Anrede gehört wird.

Man mag seine theologischen Lösungen mehr oder weniger stichhaltig finden – sein Anliegen muss man teilen.

On the Bultmann festivities.

Sort of, left handedly.  Read it for yourself.

Rudolf Bultmann

Maurice Casey

Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976) is justly famous as one of the most important and influential New Testament scholars and theologians of the twentieth century. He should be equally well known as a staunch and honest defender of the Christian faith as Nazi Christians deformed it, and other Nazis planned to destroy it.

Bultmann’s first major works were translated into English as The History of the Synoptic Tradition (original German 1921) and Jesus (original German 1926). These books put forward a more sceptical view of the traditions about the historical Jesus than we, with the benefit of subsequent research, should believe in. At the time, however, they were brilliant products of an independent and original mind, and Jesus put forward a picture of the historical Jesus in whom German Christians could honestly believe while they engaged with a world increasingly dominated by the Nazi movement. The Gospel of John (original German, 1941) centred on a profound picture of Jesus as the Revealer. His Theology of the New Testament (2 vols. Original German, 1948-51) presented Jesus as a presupposition for New Testament theology, and gave a vigorous picture of him confronting people with the urgency of decision still necessary when confronted with the Christian faith.

As the Nazi storm clouds brewed, Bultmann joined Barth and Bonhoeffer as one of the most important members of the Confessing Church. In 1933, he wrote a notable essay, ‘The task of theology in the present situation’, in which he attacked the anti-Semitism inherent in the Nazi movement. He initiated a declaration of New Testament scholars, ‘The New Testament and the Racial Question’, and he was the leading author of Marburg University’s critique of a church decree which required ecclesiastical appointees and their wives to be of Aryan extraction. In 1934, he signed the Synod of Barmen’s declaration, which rejected legislation banning people from the Christian ministry on grounds of race. His famous 1941 essay, ‘The New Testament and Mythology’ was originally presented at two conferences of Confessing Church ministers. While he has been much criticised for rejecting belief in the New Testament world of angels and demons, and important details such as the stories of the empty tomb, his aim was to preserve the preaching of the Gospel in a form which German Christians could believe in. Accordingly, he sought to bring out the real intention of myth, including its talk about a transcendent, unworldly power, so that German Christians could continue to find forgiveness and freedom when they heard and received the word of God. It is appropriate that when he was accused of heresy by a convention of Berlin pastors in 1942, he was defended by Bonhoeffer.

Bultmann was a scholar of integrity, who always told the truth as far as he could see it. In this, his example should be followed by all students of the New Testament, for whom these essential qualities ought to be infinitely more important than ephemeral concerns with status and careers.

A number of folk have arrived searching for

eta bultmann

*GASP*! She was Eta Linnemann, former student of Rudolf Bultmann who went off the bean and became a fundamentalist that even the fundamentalists cringe at when mentioned (the same way Republicans cringe at the name of Sarah Palin).

There’s no such creature as Eta Bultmann.  [Shiver].

Brevard Childs has argued that the process of canonization allowed for a certain ‘leveling,’ a general equality as it concerns the various books of the Bible.  Obadiah is just as authoritative as the gospel of Matthew, and Genesis just as seminal as Philemon.  While I do think there is great merit in such a view–quite a Jewish view, no less, as the Jewish Midrashim affirm just such an equality, using one text to interpret another–none of us is an entirely disinterested interpreter.  We all have our own experiences, ideologies, and idiosyncracies that inform our reading of texts.  And because of this, the canonical ‘leveling’ is in a way distorted.

I’m all for being an honest interpreter of the biblical text, noting that I have a particular set of spectacles through which I and I alone view the text.  I also have my own canon within the canon.  My view is not as limited as Bultmann’s, who emphasized essentially John and Paul alone as authoritative for teaching.  Nor do I agree with Bultmann here (though to be fair, he wasn’t making this point) that one’s canon within a canon bespeaks what one deems authoritative and what not authoritative.  Perhaps it is better to speak of gradations of authority?  To do so is only to be honest.

(A brief disclaimer: I am not intending to imply here that those books not mentioned are not authoritative for me or for anyone else.  Nor do I desire a reevaluation of the concept of canon or the results of canonization.  I am simply here trying to be honest about how I read.  It only helps me.  And those who read me).

So, I present to you my canon within a canon:

Hebrew Bible
Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy
Joshua
Judges
1-2 Samuel
1-2 Kings
Ezra
Nehemiah
Job
Psalms
Isaiah
Jeremiah
Habakkuk

New Testament
Matthew
Mark
Luke
John
Acts
Romans
Galatians
Revelation

Whew.  That was actually a lot harder than I thought it would be.   Any surprises?  There are a few that alllllllllllllllllllllmost made it on the list (Ruth, Esther, Daniel, Hosea, Amos, 1-2 Corinthians, 1-3 John), but as I reflect upon how I truly read the biblical text, this list seems a good fit.  For now.

And so I ask you . . . . what is your canon within the canon.  Why?