Quotes from John Goldingay

One question such events provoke is "What kind of God allows this to happen?" Another question we might ask is, "What kind of creatures are human beings that we should cause and allow this to happen?

The Torah itself sets obedience in the context of trust.

The covenant relationship between Yahweh and Israel and the way Yahweh shone his light of blessing in Israel's life was designed to become a revelation to other peoples, a means of opening their eyes and releasing them from darkness.

The idea is not that Israel returns to Yahweh and therefore Yahweh forgives it and restores it; it is rather that Yahweh forgives it and restores it, and this action must draw Israel to return to Yahweh (Is 44:21-22).

Ms. Babylon has thus come to see herself as God: "I shall always be here, mistress forever... I and I alone am still here" (Is 47:7, 8). No superpower can ever imagine it will cease to be in power, but this means its pretension is quasi-divine and must be corrected.

The prophets' task is to tell their own people what God intends to do with them, not to think about what people in hundreds of years' time may need to hear, though the preserving of their prophecies implies the conviction that they have ongoing significance.

Our relationship with God is not contractual, so that we could fulfill the right conditions and it would have the desired results, as if our relationship with God resembled putting coins in a vending machine. It is a personal relationship, and such relationships involve freedom on both sides. Joel

Jesus' disciples are not people lacking resources, but they are poor because they belong to this people under the oppressive and demoralizing dominion of a foreign power (e.g., Lk 6:20). They are indeed thus poor in spirit (Mt 5:3). Jesus does not focus on a concern for the poor in the sense of people who lacked resources.

The challenge to Jacob-Israel is to turn to Yahweh and be willing to submit to his intention regarding the fulfillment of his purpose, rather than continuing to insist on working with its own ideas about how that should work out (Is 55:6-13).

Memory relates to ethics as well as to spirituality (the distinction between ethics and spirituality is a Western one and does more harm than good). Memory places obligations upon you. The Israelites were to remember their experience of servitude in Egypt, and treat their servants accordingly.

The nature of the praise and prayer in the Psalms indicates how memory is key to praise and prayer.

Jesus does put radical demands before people, but so did Isaiah and so does Proverbs. The New Testament is new in the same way that Isaiah was new or that Genesis was new over against Exodus.21 While there are statements Jesus makes that no prophet or wise teacher could have made, these are statements such as the "I am" declarations in John's Gospel; they relate to his being the incarnate one and the Savior.