Reading Green

Jeffrey S. Lamp

Reading Green

Tactical Considerations for
Reading the Bible Ecologically

PETER LANG

New York • Bern • Frankfurt • Berlin

Brussels • Vienna • Oxford • Warsaw

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Lamp, Jeffrey S., author.

Title: Reading green: tactical considerations for reading the Bible ecologically / Jeffrey S. Lamp.

Description: 1st [edition]. | New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2017.

Series: Studies in biblical literature; vol. 168 | ISSN 1089-0645

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017013134 | ISBN 978-1-4331-3534-7 (hardcover: alk. paper)

ISBN 978-1-4331-4154-6 (epdf) | ISBN 978-1-4331-4155-3 (epub)

ISBN 978-1-4331-4156-0 (mobi)

Subjects: LSCH: Bible—Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Ecotheology.

Human ecology—Biblical teaching.

Classification: LCC BS511.3 .L35 2017 | DDC 220.6—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017013134

DOI 10.3726/b10930

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.

Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de/.

© 2017 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York
29 Broadway, 18th floor, New York, NY 10006 www.peterlang.com

All rights reserved.
Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm,
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About the author

Jeffrey S. Lamp (Ph.D., Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) is Professor at Oral Roberts University. He is the author of First Corinthians 1–4 in Light of Jewish Wisdom Traditions and The Greening of Hebrews?: Ecological Readings in the Letter to the Hebrews, co-editor of The Theological Vision of N. T. Wright: A Pentecostal Engagement, and a translator and editor for the Modern English Version of the Bible. He has presented numerous papers at academic conferences and has published several articles in journals, dictionaries, and volumes of collected essays. His current research interests include ecological hermeneutics and ecotheology.

About the book

Reading Green: Tactical Considerations for Reading the Bible Ecologically operates on the premise that the Bible itself does not directly address the current ecological crisis and that expecting it to do so is anachronistic, for there was no ecological crisis on the agendas of biblical authors as they penned their works. The true challenge in the field is engaging biblical texts that do not present a positive ecological message (e.g., the stories of the flood and the plagues), or that seem to focus their messages so narrowly on human subjects and their interests that they marginalize or ignore the concerns of the other-than-human creation. To address this issue, this book provides a series of reading strategies which begin with the current ecological crisis. Present areas of interest, such as environmental racism and justice, film criticism, and reception history and exegesis, are employed to construct various approaches to mine the Bible for its contribution in addressing the current ecological crisis.

“It was good. And it still is. Increasingly, the need to engage the sacred Scriptures through the experience of the contemporary ecological crisis continues to present itself like an unsolved puzzle. The lurking danger with all biblical studies is that we are unable (or unwilling) to read Scripture in light of what is actually going on in our world. We have become excellent at answering eighteenth-century questions. This book is a game-changer. Within, Jeffrey S. Lamp actually helps us deal with twenty-first-century issues with eternal and biblical voices that draw us to the eternal. This is a much-needed volume. I wish I had it years ago.”—A. J. Swoboda, Pastor, Professor, and Author of Introducing Evangelical Ecotheology

This eBook can be cited

This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.

Table of Contents

Editor’s Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter One: Noah (2014) as Paradigm for Reading the Bible Ecologically

Chapter Two: Earth, the Poor, and the Bible: The Criteria of Ecological Hermeneutics Re-Visioned

Chapter Three: I Love to Tell the Story: The Narrative Subversion of the Bible’s Ecologically “Grey” Texts

Chapter Four: Just Who Is the Lorax? Cli-Fi, Reception Exegesis, and Reading the Bible Ecologically

Chapter Five: Creation as Judge: The Plagues, the Ecological Crisis, and the Book of Wisdom

Chapter Six: What When Jesus Isn’t Green? Addressing the Concern

Conclusion

Index of Names

Index of Ancient Sources

←vii | viii→ ←viii | ix→

Editor’s Preface

More than ever the horizons in biblical literature are being expanded beyond that which is immediately imagined; important new methodological, theological, and hermeneutical directions are being explored, often resulting in significant contributions to the world of biblical scholarship. It is an exciting time for the academy as engagement in biblical studies continues to be heightened.

This series seeks to make available to scholars and institutions, scholarship of a high order, and which will make a significant contribution to the ongoing biblical discourse. This series includes established and innovative directions, covering general and particular areas in biblical study. For every volume considered for this series, we explore the question as to whether the study will push the horizons of biblical scholarship. The answer must be yes for inclusion.