Receiving 2 Thessalonians
Theological Reception Aesthetics from the Early Church to the Reformation
Imprint: Pickwick Publications
Epochal voices in the reception history of 2 Thessalonians: an invective against the proud from the dais of a basilica in Constantinople; an indictment of clerical simony in a Carolingian monastery that nearly faded from historical memory; a theologically integrative vision of the epistle from Reformation Zurich. These readings participate in "beauty" all the while opening up new questions for later readers of Paul's letter, and their "meaning" is located in their fittingness to the form of Christ. This work offers a truly interdisciplinary methodology that brings together the wayward children of biblical and theological studies.
Andrew R. Talbert (PhD, University of Nottingham) is a humanities instructor at Caldwell Academy in North Carolina. He is the co-editor of Sola Scriptura in Asia (2018).
"Receiving 2 Thessalonians provides an eminently useful orientation to the promise of theological reception history, followed by lively examinations of how John Chrysostom (early church), Haimo of Auxere (medieval church), and John Calvin (Reformation) read 2 Thessalonians. Talbert explores how these readers of the letter actualize its interpretive potential in different historical moments, together with the potential, ongoing significance of these 'receptions' of the letter."
--Joel B. Green, Fuller Theological Seminary
"Dr. Talbert has produced a learned and distinctive example of reception criticism. It is distinctive in that it offers three very different samples of interpretation from the patristic, medieval, and Reformation periods. He combines this with a careful and useful understanding of 2 Thessalonians."
--Anthony Thiselton, University of Nottingham
"Talbert skillfully crystallizes a hermeneutical approach that gives careful attention to historical actualizations of biblical texts, resulting in informed interpretations that are sensitive to stabilized interpretive features, while open to new questions. This welcome approach is expertly modelled in an application to 2 Thessalonians. I highly recommend it, both for its theoretical clarity and for its genuinely interesting application to the Pauline letter."
--Matthew Malcolm, Universitas Pelita Harapan, Indonesia
"Talbert brings the reception of biblical exegesis into the postmodern world in this thoughtful reading of three 'epochal' interpretations of 2 Thessalonians. Reading against more traditional approaches, he challenges us to recover the beauty in these interpretations with their focus on the holistic meaning of this text for the Christian life. His Jaussian theological-aesthetical reading is carefully negotiated and surprisingly persuasive."
--Wendy Mayer, Australian Lutheran College, University of Divinity
"This book is the San Brizio Chapel of biblical studies. Just as the Renaissance painter Luca Signorelli there unfurled the drama of the Antichrist with undeniable beauty, Talbert accomplishes the same in this remarkable and unexpected scholarly achievement. In full command of a demanding field, Talbert restores to readers the aesthetic delight that draws so many to the Bible in the first place, and brings Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant thinkers into fruitful conversation over a matter that has famously divided them."
--Matthew J. Milliner, Wheaton College