Matthew Skinner, Luther Seminary

8/24/2009

The Trial Narratives: Conflict, Power, and Identity in the New Testament

During my year at the Center of Theological Inquiry, I completed, among other projects, a monograph exploring the trials of Jesus, Paul, and others, as the canonical Gospels and book of Acts present them. (The Trial Narratives: Conflict, Power, and Identity in the New Testament will be published by Westminster John Knox Press in January 2010.)

Unlike most of the previous century’s investigations of these “trial narratives,” this book eschews efforts at reconstructing the actual historical details of Jesus’ and others’ judicial showdowns. Instead, it probes the literary functions of these pivotal scenes (their manipulation of irony, heightened suspense, contested values, and so forth) and reflects on their ability to characterize the gospel’s precarious relationship to the sociopolitical structures that regulated the ancient world. It is a work of biblical theology, in that it explores the trial narratives’ significance for the depictions of God, Jesus Christ, the gospel, and human society that we encounter in the Gospels and Acts.

The CTI’s community of scholars provided a stimulating context as I worked on a project deeply shaped by theological concerns. Of course, those colleagues most familiar with my discipline’s methods and bibliography shared substantive conversations with me about the technical details of my biblical exegesis and cultural analysis. But also those in other academic and theological fields of study influenced my work and my attitudes toward it in constructive ways.

My CTI colleagues were excellent, knowledgeable readers who could engage my ideas and see where my book pointed: they discerned my arguments’ implications for their own disciplines and their own particular research. They helped me refine my theological proposals, especially when those were too timid or one-dimensional. They urged me away from assuming that my book’s audience would always make the same connections I make. Because of the composition of our community, our conversations were not only interdisciplinary; they were also international and cross-cultural. Therefore, they were generative and dynamic. Because it was written and discussed at the CTI, my book offers stronger, clearer, and hopefully more interesting arguments than it would have had I written it in isolation or only in communication within my usual conversation partners.

Some books, because of their intended audiences, can afford to occupy themselves with specialists’ jargon and insiders’ assumptions. My book cannot, for I wrote it not for experts but primarily for students, to help them think intelligently and theologically about a collection of biblical material. My time at CTI has, I trust, equipped the book to do that job better.