Theological Book Recommendations - II - James B. Jordan

Time to follow up on the theological book recommendations. Previously I wrote about Dr. Leithart. Today, I want to speak of one of his great friends and mentors – James B. Jordan.
Mr. Jordan has received an A.B. Degree in Comparative Literature from The University of Georgia, and an M. S. and Th.M. in Theology from Westminster Theological Seminary, as well as a D.Litt. from the Central School of Religion. He has served numerous churches in various capacities, and currently operates Biblical Horizons in Niceville, Florida, which is linked on this blog.

Jordan’s gift is in understanding and explaining the depths of the biblical text. He does so much more than a simple straightforward wooden literlist interpreter would do – but not at the expense of the literal truth of God’s word. I hinted around in my post about Dr. Leithart what some of the interpretive principles are. Again, these include 1) typology 2) poetry 3) chiastic structures 4) panel layouts 5) parallelism 6) symbolism and many other principles – each of which in itself is a deep, textured, multi-faceted topic worthy of many lengthy blogs.

Mr. Jordan rails against what he terms ‘interpretive minimalism’ – that is, simply reading the text straight prose without digging deeper into these other interpretive methods. None of this is to deny or even downplay in the least the literal truth of what is literally the Word of God. Quite the opposite, really. So much deeper, more meaningful truth can be brought out when a broader, deeper, interpretive method is followed. Unfortunately, in these blogs, I simply do not have the space to really discuss all this, and the real purpose of these blogs is not to explain it in detail anyway, but to point my millions of followers in the direction of some great works to read for themselves.

That said, let me mention a few of Jordan’s works:

Through New Eyes

Subtitled Developing a Biblical View of the World. On my post concerning Dr. Leithart, I highly recommended his book A House For My Name. In his preface, Dr. Leithart semi-jokingly stated that he toyed with the idea of titling that book "Through New Eyes for Dummies." (In fact, in nearly all of Dr. Leithart’s works, he gives thanks to Mr. Jordan for his influence.) Probably even more so than A House… I would recommend Through New Eyes as a starting place for anyone seeking to get a deeper understanding of Scripture and even more importantly to get a deeper understanding of how to read, study, and interpret scripture in the future. I simply can not recommend this book highly enough.

If you do ever find yourself reading this book and get bogged down in the opening pages, please keep plodding through. Once some original groundwork is laid, the book to me actually gets much easier to read and understand.

While not as straight of an Old Testament Survey as A House…this book nonetheless at points does present something of an Old Testament history culminating in the coming of Christ – especially in Part 4. However, it is much broader than that, spending a great deal of the bulk of the book discussing the topics of typology, symbolism, etc. as interpretive tools. The chapter titles are as follows:

Part 1 The Nature of the World

1. Interpreting the World Design;
2. The Purpose of the World;
3. Symbolism and Worldview;

Part 2 The Features of the World

4. The World as God’s House;
5. Sun, Moon, and Stars;
6. Rocks, Gold and Gems;
7. Trees and Thorns;
8. Birds and Beasts;
9. Angels;

Part 3 the Transformation of the World

10. Breaking Bread – the Rite of Transformation;
11. Man – The Agent of Transformation;
12. Eden – The World of Transformation;

Part 4 The Movement of History

13. The World of Noah;
14. The World of the Patriarchs;
15. The World of the Tabernacle;
16. The World of the Temple;
17. The Worlds of Exile and Restoration;
18. The New World;
19. The Course of History.

There are also lots of diagrams which are usually helpful. This book has helped me more than any other single work in developing an understanding of the Biblical text. I highly recommend this work.

Primeval Saints

Subtitled Studies in the Patriarchs of Genesis this 150 page gem looks at such heroes and villains (often both found in the same person!) as Adam, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph among others. Some of the persons and events we have often associated as being negative are shown in a positive light – for example Abraham ‘lying’ about Sarah being his sister, Jacob tricking Isaac for his blessing, etc. Very simple read – very informative also.

Creation in Six Days

Subtitled A Defense of the Traditional reading of Genesis One. This book is not a ‘defense’ of creationism as opposed to some sort of Godless evolution. Instead, it is a defense of interpreting the creation account as teaching a six day, relatively recent creation as opposed to the interpretation of other Bible believing Christians who have tried to explain away the creation story as being somehow symbolic, poetic, or whatever. As should be obvious, Jordan see a Bible filled with poetry, symbolism, etc. and often this gives us deeper, richer theological meaning to the text. However, this does not mean that the straight reading is totally meaningless and can be ignored. The literary features add to the straight readings – it does not make it null and void.
According to Jordan, almost the ONLY people who have tried to make the case that the creation account actually does not teach a literal six day recent creation are Bible believing evangelical Christians. Liberals say that it teaches this, but the Bible is not the infallible Word of God, and therefore it is ok if it teaches this and is incorrect. Atheists and evolutionists say it teaches this which only shows that the Bible is unreliable and Christians are simply crazy to believe it because you know, obviously the world is gazillions of years old and species, including mankind, were not created whole but evolved over long periods of time. Faced with this, conservative, Bible believing Christians have been forced to say that well, The Bible is God’s infallible Word and can not be wrong, but since ‘obviously’ the world is gazillions of years old, and evolution has ‘obviously’ occurred, the Creation account must actually not teach a literal recent six day creation. Therefore, several alternate theories have cropped up, including a couple of varients of what is known as the ‘framework interpretation,’ an interpretation known as ‘anthropomorphic days,’ one known as the ‘limited geography interpretation.’ Jordan takes these on one at a time and shows they simply do not work as interpretations of the creation account. The only consistent, sensible interpretation of the creation account is the traditional one that the world was created in six, normal days, not so very long ago.

Now, if the actual interpretation of the creation account is that the world was created in six days and this relatively recently, then we as Christians have but two choices. Hold fast to the Word of God in the face of ridicule by modern science or somehow, someway, deny the Scripture (and therefore its author??)

Going on from there, a couple of brief books concerning worship/liturgy that are very worthwhile if you already have some interest are Liturgical Nestorianism and the Regulative Principle, and The Liturgy Trap. These two books are quite particular in their content, and if you do not already have some understanding of the various philosophies of worship – esp. as seen in reformed worship controversies, then these may not interest you. However, if you ever actually do read some of these recommendations, sooner or later you will have interest enough to read these works.

The only other book I currently own of Jordans is Covenant Sequence in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. At this point this is the only book of Jordan’s that I do not give a wholehearted recommendation for. This is not because I have some sort of disagreement with it, but because this is the only book of the ones I’ve mentioned so far that is just simply too technical for me to get much out of it. This book is only like 70 pages, but I’ve never been able to read it thorough because I keep getting bogged down. Actually, this book would have probably been much more readable at 300-400 pages instead of 70, because at 70 it is just too dense.

Other writings by Jordan that I have read include various essays which appear in essay collection books (a lot of the same ones as Leithart). His essay Merit Verses Maturity in the book The Federal Vision is worth the price of the book. He also has really countless essays available in various forms that can be found and or purchased for his Biblical Horizons website linked on this page.

For future reading for me, I desire at some point to find his commentary on the book of Judges. A reading of this book along with Leithart’s books on Samuel and Kings would really give one a solid basis for this period of Biblical history. (If my pastor Rich Lusk can ever get his book on Ruth done, that would be the icing on the cake!)

In addition to this, another book I long to get to is his Sociology of the Church which is really, I believe a collection of topical essays more than a full concept book. He also has a Brief Readers Guide to the Book of Revelation which is likely worth the effort. Finally, his most recent publication is his long awaited commentary on the Book of Daniel entitled Handwriting on the Wall. Unfortunately it is a bit pricey, and may be out of a philosophers budget right now!
Anyway, James Jordan would be an excellent choice to begin reading if you want to broaden you theological understanding. Start with Through New Eyes – followed by perhaps Leithart’s A House for My Name and you’ll be off and running!!