Public Work by A.J. Culp
Ethics in Conversation, 2024
Some will wonder how the Pentateuch could contribute to public theology. After all, these first f... more Some will wonder how the Pentateuch could contribute to public theology. After all, these first five books of the Bible – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus Numbers and Deuteronomy – contain some of the strangest and most ancient parts of Scripture. Are we to believe that texts containing things such as talking donkeys, genealogies and rituals are the basis for speaking into contemporary issues such as medical ethics, artificial intelligence and identity politics? Perhaps surprisingly, the answer is a
resounding “yes!” The Pentateuch is, in fact, fundamental to the rest of the Bible and, therefore, fundamental to the Christian worldview as well. It does nothing less than set out the origins and destiny of humanity.
A Pilgrim in Narnia, 2021
Available here: https://apilgriminnarnia.com/2021/02/02/an-older-wardrobe/
Center for Hebraic Thought, 2020
Available here: https://hebraicthought.org/memory-in-the-bible-deuteronomy/
Onscript - Conversations on Current Biblical Scholarship
Available here: https://onscript.study/podcast/a-j-culp-memoir-of-moses/
Books by A.J. Culp
Fortress Academic Press, 2020
This monograph seeks to understand Deuteronomy as a key agent in shaping ancient Israel's identit... more This monograph seeks to understand Deuteronomy as a key agent in shaping ancient Israel's identity through memory. The approach stands in contrast to the prevailing ones in biblical studies, which analyzes texts as products, not producers, of memory. By leveraging key areas of memory research, therefore, it seeks to illumine Deuteronomy's mnemonic function in Israel. Theologically, the study has significant implications for how we understand the monotheistic and aniconic worship envisioned in Deuteronomy.
Lexham Press, 2019
This is a small volume on Deuteronomy for the Lexham Press Transformative Word Series. It is aime... more This is a small volume on Deuteronomy for the Lexham Press Transformative Word Series. It is aimed at lay readers in hopes of helping them understand, clearly and accessibly, the theological significance of Deuteronomy for their own lives.
Book Chapters by A.J. Culp
The interest in wonder has been a welcome trend in theological education. Curiously, though, it h... more The interest in wonder has been a welcome trend in theological education. Curiously, though, it has happened without much reference to the Bible's own witness on schooling. This essay seeks to address the gap, therefore, by looking at a key text in the study of Israelite education: the book of Proverbs. It does so is by locating wonder within Proverbs' vision of education. Since metaphors are central to this vision, the study especially considers the ones that are foundational. What it finds, though, is that the usual suspects—the 'way' and the father/son relationship—do not provide a truly governing metaphor for education. Instead, such a metaphor may be found in the idea of the 'house' and 'house-building'. Viewed through this lens, wonder takes on new significance. It becomes the animating spark that connects the two 'houses' of education: the 'house' of the father and the 'house' of God. If humans are to 'build' their homes like God built the cosmos, they must imitate Woman Wisdom; and the ideal portrait of Woman Wisdom, in Proverbs 8, characterises her chief attribute as wonder (vv 29-31). The governing ethos of wisdom education, therefore, is divine hospitality: God has made the world as our 'playhouse' and he invites us to learn through wonderment.
Journal Articles by A.J. Culp
The world of the Old Testament is one many students see as a “strange land” (Rodd, 2001). For tho... more The world of the Old Testament is one many students see as a “strange land” (Rodd, 2001). For those who teach the Old Testament as scripture, this is a significant problem, for that land and its people are part of our faith story—something we need to identify with. The aim of this article, then, is to show how memory research might provide a way forward in helping students identify with scripture. Leveraging false memory research in particular, it is argued that by carefully embedding sensory features within storytelling we can facilitate a pseudo-experience, thereby helping students to “see” themselves in biblical events. This seeing, in turn, accomplishes meaningful and long-term identification, for it shifts students’ memory of biblical events from the perspective of an observer to that of a participant. The book of Deuteronomy is used to show how this can be put into practice.
Crucible Journal, 2017
How do the Psalms prophesy the Messiah? The New Testament writers like to cite the Psalms to show... more How do the Psalms prophesy the Messiah? The New Testament writers like to cite the Psalms to show Jesus of Nazareth is Israel’s Messiah, but they do so in ways that surprise us. This has caused a long-standing interpretive problem, for while the reasoning may have been clear to them it is not clear to us. This article therefore speaks to that issue. It makes a case for a canonical approach to the Psalms as a window into the interpretive practices of the New Testament writers. Psalm 45, an Israelite wedding song cited in Hebrews 1 as evidence of Christ’s exalted nature, is used as test case.
Conference Papers by A.J. Culp
Theological education finds itself in uncertain times, with questions about its future coming fro... more Theological education finds itself in uncertain times, with questions about its future coming from many angles. With religion losing its pride of place in society, with increased government scrutiny and decreased government funding, with fewer full-time students (and fewer students all together), with increasing ambivalence toward traditional training within churches and without, and with serious questions being raised about its very nature and value—many wonder what the future will look like for theological education, if it even has one. None of these questions is answered, at least not directly, by Volf and Croasmun’s new book, For the Life of the World. But it does address the most fundamental issues of them all: What is theology and what is it for? And in doing so, it provides a point of departure for the most foundational issues in theological education, too: What is it and what is it for? This paper reviews the book with an eye toward its contribution to these questions.
A response to Jeremiah Unterman's Justice for All: How the Jewish Bible Revolutionized Ethics as ... more A response to Jeremiah Unterman's Justice for All: How the Jewish Bible Revolutionized Ethics as part of the Scripture and Hermeneutics Seminar, Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting, Denver, CO, 2018.
The distance between the student and the world of the Bible seems an impassible gulf, but that is... more The distance between the student and the world of the Bible seems an impassible gulf, but that is what the lecturer is asked to bridge. So how do we do this? Eugene Peterson has said that the critical part is self-implication, that is, causing students to feel the weight of biblical events as if they themselves were there. In essence, Peterson is expressing a basic principle of education called identification. The better students can identify with a story’s characters the better they will understand the world the characters inhabit. Yet again, though, we must ask how we might achieve such a thing? For this paper, I would like to suggest a way in which cognitive science offers us insight here. Namely, it shows that visual memory plays a pivotal role in shaping our perspective on things. If we learn about events purely informationally, our memory of them will be from a distant perspective, from a bird’s-eye view. If, however, we learn about events and people through visual cues, our perspective will shift to first-person. That is, we will remember things as if we had seen them through our own two eyes. It really does sound far-fetched, I know, but research into false memories has shown this to be strangely true. I therefore explore how as educators we might employ the idea in helping students identify with biblical people and events. I use the book of Deuteronomy as a test case.
Book Reviews by A.J. Culp
Bulletin for Biblical Research, 2022
Review of Stephen D. Campbell. Remembering the Unexperienced: Cultural Memory, Canon Consciousnes... more Review of Stephen D. Campbell. Remembering the Unexperienced: Cultural Memory, Canon Consciousness, and the Book of Deuteronomy. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2020
Review of Biblical Literature, 2019
This is a review of Daniel I. Block, The Triumph of Grace: Literary and Theological Studies in De... more This is a review of Daniel I. Block, The Triumph of Grace: Literary and Theological Studies in Deuteronomy and Deuteronomic Themes. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2017.
Journal of Hebrew Scriptures
Uploads
Public Work by A.J. Culp
resounding “yes!” The Pentateuch is, in fact, fundamental to the rest of the Bible and, therefore, fundamental to the Christian worldview as well. It does nothing less than set out the origins and destiny of humanity.
Books by A.J. Culp
Book Chapters by A.J. Culp
Journal Articles by A.J. Culp
Conference Papers by A.J. Culp
Book Reviews by A.J. Culp
resounding “yes!” The Pentateuch is, in fact, fundamental to the rest of the Bible and, therefore, fundamental to the Christian worldview as well. It does nothing less than set out the origins and destiny of humanity.