Brevard Childs and Biblical Scholarship

I returned to Brown in 1977 to pursue my doctorate in the history of religions, with a focus on early Christianity. Brown's Religious Studies Deparment, as almost all such places at the time, still divided up the theological and religious world according to the Germanic way of doing things. Thus, if you were going to study OT/Hebrew Bible, you would do it in the context of Semitic languages and the worlds of people surrounding ancient Israel in the 2nd-1st millennia BCE. I wanted to study early Christianity, and so we would look at the NT in the context of the Graeco-Roman or Hellenistic world and Judaism in Late Antiquity. Thus, I would have seminars in "Alexandria" from the 3rd century BCE to the 3rd century AD or "Disease and Healing in the Mediterranean World of Antiquity" or some such courses, in addition to an occasional seminar on a NT theme. Because of this setup I had no "use" for Childs in my doctoral training.

During my third year of doctoral study (1979-80), my mentor Prof. Horst Moehring suggested that I apply for a DAAD fellowship. This was a sort of "reverse Fulbright," where the German government generously supported the work of about 100 American students a year to study at the university of their choice in Germany. Brown University had traditionally been given one DAAD fellowship per year, and I was fortunate enough to receive it. I chose to study at the University of Tuebingen, the center of theological and biblical study in Germany at the time.

Tuebingen was an experience I will never forget. I audited lectures by Profs. Jurgen Moltmann and Eberhard Jungel; took an "Oberseminar" on the Gospels from Prof. Peter Stuhlmacher, where we had students from 7 different countries among the 21 students in the class; got to know Prof. Hans Kung as he welcomed Americans to his gracious home and regaled us with stories of his experiences with the Vatican and other things; and then attended Prof. Martin Hengel's "Sozietat," which met at his home from 8:00 p.m. until midnight on Friday evenings. At this latter venue we had graduate students and junior professors, as well as Hengel, all wrestling with aspects of Judaism in late antiquity.

During the end of my stay in Tuebingen, in the summer of 1981, the word circulated through the American theological community in Tuebingen that Brevard Childs was in town. He had a room, the story went, in the "Stift," the "Foundation" or large dormitory located downtown. It had been the place where Hegel, Holderlin and loads of other notables had lived, and apparently Childs was studying there for a month or two. I happened to run into him at one of the numerous "Institutes" in Tuebingen in which I was working. At first I didn't know it was him, but then I surmised it was. I overcame my doubts, asked him if he was Professor Childs and, learning that he was, promply invited him to dinner. He accepted.

And so, one warm summer evening the three of us, including my wife at the time, ate pizza together in one of Tuebingen's romantic restaurants overlooking the Neckar River. We spoke aobut his religious background (Southern Presbyterian), his academic career, his desire to connect the reading of Scripture with the needs of the community of faith--which had to read the Scripture each week as a message for itself. We laughed and shared stories about Yale and Brown, about his mentors and about the fields of Biblical Studies.

But try as I might, I cannot hear his "voice" as I recall our conversations. Well, now that I think of it, I can hear his voice at the end of our dinner together. The waiter came over to the table and asked if we would like anything else. We said "No." And then I recall Prof. Childs saying, "Zahlen, bitte" (check, please). He said it with ever so slight of a Southern accent. I still hear that today, and smile inwardly.

Conclusion

As is my experience with most authors, as long as you get their general drift and point they are trying to make you need not read every word they wrote--except if you want to immerse yourself in all their thought. I learned from Bard Childs to read the Scripture in a canonical context and be a Biblical scholar at the same time. I didn't reject my interest in the worlds of the Hebrew Bible or of Early Christianity. But my major interest in the Bible today, as I write several meditations per week on it, is how the Bible as a living document speaks to people of faith today. I owe my approach not only to my own thinking, to be sure, but to Childs' encouragement to "think canonically" when all my professors were trying to get me only to "think historically." I will be forever grateful for his insights.

Well, that is how I recall Prof. Childs. What are your memories?

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