Tyndale Fellowship conference catch up

What I got up to and some key highlights

Welcome to my newsletter, ‘Bible, Mission, and More’, where I share what’s on my mind as I teach, research, and write on the Bible and mission, children-at-risk in the Bible and contemporary society, Psalms and Wisdom Literature, and a range of other topics. I teach at All Nations Christian College in the UK, though views are my own. You may also like to check out my Bible and Mission website.

Conference report – Tyndale Fellowship

It is conference season and last week I was able to go to the annual gathering of the Tyndale Fellowship held in the UK. TF has been instrumental in my development as a biblical scholar, giving me opportunities to learn, connect with people, and offering a generous, sharpening place to present my work.

In recent years the annual gathering has brought together its various study groups in one place, including OT, NT, Biblical Theology, Christian Doctrine, Practical Theology, Biblical Archaeology, and Philosophy of Religion. Each year members share and discuss papers within their study groups. Each group also puts on an annual lecture which is open to all other groups to attend. Attendees are also free to sit in on other groups’ proceedings, though in practice this means missing papers in your own group. There is also an additional session for those involved in theological education to get together.

I am part of the Old Testament study group, which is chaired excellently by Brittany Melton and Chris Ansberry. I go most years and usually present a paper as a way of ensuring I get some writing done. My past papers have included a study of the term yatom (fatherless) in the OT, a missional reading of Ecclesiastes, and a child-attentive reading of Genesis 1-12. Sometimes the different papers in a given year are published in an edited volume. The ‘fatherless’ and Ecclesiastes chapters are due to be published in this way in the coming months.

This year’s theme of the OT group was ‘Wrestling with Difficult Texts’:

‘All texts present difficulties, ranging from text-critical and semantic questions to syntactical, literary, or structural issues. Old Testament texts are no different. And as Christian Scripture, Old Testament texts also present ethical or moral difficulties. The 2025 Old Testament Study Group will seek to wrestle with difficult texts, specifically Old Testament texts that raise ethical or moral problems and open helpful horizons for thinking through these issues.’

I decided to give a paper on ‘Difficult Joy in the Book of Job.’ I wanted to revisit my work on Job but combine it with some recent work I’ve been doing on the Bible, joy, and flourishing. Using Miroslav Volf’s framing of joy I traced some ‘encounters’ with joy in the book and explored how, by the end of Job, we might have a more nuanced picture of joy and the book itself.

I’ll post more about the paper another time. For now, though, I wanted to share a few highlights from other papers. As you can see from the screenshot of the sessions, we covered a lot of different themes and texts. I learned from each of them but in particular…

Isabelle Hamley’s intertextual reading included a comparison of Gen. 22 and Judg. 11, which brought out connections between these texts I’d never considered before. She also observed the traumatic background of Jepthah which, again, I’d not thought about before. I really like this kind of careful and sensitive reading of the biblical text.

Beth Stovell’s paper looking at particular texts in the Book of the Twelve (aka the Minor Prophets) was incredibly insightful, highlighting the role of women and children in situations of war and violence. Her historical insights really grounded it in sobering reality.

Israel Steinmetz’s exploration of the imprecatory psalms was similarly powerful, and I appreciated his link to the idea of moral injury.

I took something away from each of the other papers, whether given by seasoned scholars or postgrad students. It was such a privilege to be in a room with people who love God’s word, are committed to the text, yet want to have honest and hard conversations as well.

A further takeaway from the study group was how it connected with my two main interests in missional hermeneutics and children-at-risk. By virtue of looking at difficult texts, children came up again and again in the presentations. It was a sobering reminder of how often children and young people are caught up in situations of violence and warfare; not only in biblical times but also in our own. Regarding missional hermeneutics, it was an encouragement and a challenge for those of us working on this method of reading the Bible: when are we going to address some of the harder texts? Certainly there is work already done on a number of complex passages and books of the OT, but much work still needs to be done on how missional hermeneutics equips us to read, for example, texts containing warfare and violence.

Finally, I should mention Steve Walton’s New Testament group annual lecture. He spoke on ‘Acts and the Eye-witnesses’, building on Richard Bauckham’s work on Eye-witnesses and the Gospels. I found it so interesting that he argued that Rhoda, the slave girl in Acts 12, may well have been Luke’s eye-witness source for that story. I came away wondering what the implications of this are for child-attentive readings and theology. This is so rich with possibilities and something I will definitely return to.

For more information about the Tyndale Fellowship visit the website: Tyndale Fellowship

Thanks for joining the journey and see you next week,

Tim

P.S. at the end of next week I’ll be doing a sponsored bike ride for the UK charity Safe Families Home for Good. Would you consider sponsoring me? Find out more on the fundraising page. Thanks!