Resurrection

Chapter One

The Method Called Midrash

When I was doing my theological training in the 1950s, the word midrash was not heard with any frequency. If employed at all, it referred to a running commentary on the Hebrew Scriptures done by the rabbis throughout history. This commentary was voluminous, and the manuscripts that contained it would fill libraries. Commentaries by the rabbis thought to be the greatest would be particularly noteworthy, we were told, and would be studied in more detail and referred to more frequently by contemporary Jewish teachers in a continuing effort to illumine their sacred sources. Midrash was not presented as a method by which the Bible was written and not, hence, as a method by which the Bible was to be understood. So it was that midrash was deemed not terribly important to the study of the Christian Scriptures.

I am amazed today at this blindness in those who taught me Scripture. I no longer accept the proposition that anyone can understand the Bible, and most especially the New Testament, without understanding the method of midrash.

Has Christian Scholarship Been Rooted In Anti-Semitism?

When I begin to explore why Christian scholars ... read full excerpt from Resurrection: A Bishop Rethinks the Meaning of Easter ebook