Read any good books lately?

One of the activities I spend most time doing is reading; what better way, then, to invite our possible readers into a discussion than by posting some reflections on a few recent books?

Thirty seconds ago I finally finished Rainer Riesner's massively researched and meticulously written book, Paul's Early Period: Chronology, Mission Strategy, Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), and I am in unabashed awe. This is a translation of his German Habilitationschrift, a sort of second thesis German researchers do to earn their full status within the university system there. Riesner takes issue with the habit of scholars like John Knox (NOT the Reformer) and Gerd Ludemann of basing their chronologies solely on the pauline epistles while discounting the evidence of Acts, and spends several hundred pages demonstrating step-by-step why Luke's information in Acts can and should be trusted and employed in any reconstruction of Paul's early period. Along the way he offers loads of stimulating insights into how the NT aligns with 'secular' ancient history, the exegesis of individual pauline letters, and the situation of early Christianity more generally. Maybe the most exciting argument for me was his contention that Paul's mission strategy was not a geographic crapshoot, but that the apostle to the Gentiles took his marching orders from the information contained in the LXX of Isaiah 66:19, and systematically tried to pursue the places there named as fields of mission. In Riesner's version, Isa 66:18-21 reads: "But I am coming to gather all nations and tongues; they shall come and shall see my glory. I will set signs among them. Some of those who have escaped I will send to the nations, to Tarshish, Put, and Lud, Meshech and Tubal and Javan, to the farthest islands that have not heard of my fame or seen my glory [Riesner gives the contemporary identifications of these places in the Greco-Roman period]; and they shall declare my glory among the nations. They shall bring all your kindred from all the nations as an offering to Yahweh, on horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and on mules, and on dromedaries, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says Yahweh, just as the Israelites bring a grain offering in clean hands to the house of Yahweh. From these I will take priests and Levites, says Yahweh." Brilliant! (in the British and the American senses of the word).

In a different vein, I also recently read Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. Dubbed by at least one of his critics as 'the founding father of the African novel in English,' Achebe is a West African author and Things Fall Apart is a West African novel - and freighted with significance for all those who care and think about the vices and virtues of Christian mission in the world. The story is a challenging portrayal of Okonkwo, a great warrior in a tribe whose coherence is threatened by the entrance of Christianity and, more than that, the Western 'civilization' the latter commends. I was put on to the book by reading Edward Said's even more challenging Culture and Imperialism, which should likewise be required reading for anyone thinking about cross-cultural mission.

Finally, I'm now in the middle of the literary critic Harold Bloom's How to Read and Why. It's an unashamedly high-handed series of recommendations of the best short-stories, plays, poems, and novels along with some indication of why they're worth reading. Bloom staunchly opposes those who brush aside notions of a 'canon' of Western literature, and he makes a good, and an entertaining, case for his side.

So enough about my reads. Got any good recommendations?