About Earth's Child: An Ecological Listening to the Gospel of Luke by M. Trainor (review)

Trainor's Earth Bible Commentary on the Gospel of Luke uses mainly the first three of the six principles of eco-justice hermeneutics (intrinsic worth, interconnectedness, voice, purpose, mutual custodianship and resistance) to engage this Gospel "with a hermeneutic of suspicion, identification and retrieval" (5). Although Luke "was not an ecologist," Trainor intends to apply his ecological sensitivity and to construct the third Gospel in a way that confirms his own "idiosyncratic, culturally limited, critical imprint" while dialoguing and respecting Lukan views (6–7) to avoid "any suggestion of 'eisegesis'" (7). This concern leads Trainor to adopt the method of intertextuality between his world (the world in front of the Gospel), Luke's world (the world of the Gospel) and Luke's audience (the world behind the Gospel, 7–15).

The commentary is divided into three parts. The first part comprises two chapters of which one deals with the Lukan audience's different attitudes towards Earth, depending on the social status of the people concerned: the elites, skilled artisans, merchants and peasants. Misusing their religious and political powers, the elites treated the land as a commodity that they could grab from debt-ridden peasants, accumulate, barter and dispense with (28–29). The skilled artisans "acted as mediators of nature" and "would have looked upon creation with respect" (30). The merchants would have looked at the natural world as "a source of economy" but treated it with "esteem" (30). The peasants represent most of the Lukan audience: they "lived by subsistence farming" and saw the land not as a commodity but envisioned the "need to attend to and work with" it "in synchronicity" (31, 38–39). The second chapter embarks on "intertextual engagement in Luke's gospel" (40). Intertextuality is viewed as a "neologism credited to Julia Kristeva who recognized the influence of different texts on writing, reading and literary interpretation" (41). The commentary deploys this method as a four-dimensional interpretative tool, which includes looking for Luke's inner play, listening for his ecological sounds, his social world, the theological or biblical text and finally Trainor's own ecological world (59–61).

The second part of the commentary comprises ten chapters (three to twelve). The third chapter addresses Luke 1:1–2:52 with "Jesus, Earth's Child" as the sub-title. The birth of Jesus is interpreted as a "divine Earthinclusive communion" that "has been brought to fruition among us (1.1b)" (64, 94). The fourth chapter treats Luke 3:1–4:30 in terms of "Luke's ecological principles" (98). For example, Luke presents three ecological principles in the temptation of Jesus (4:1–13): (1) Earth is to be cared for by human beings, not the subject of human greed; (2) communion with God helps deepen communion with Earth; (3) Earth's resources are for the good of all and not for manipulation or control over others (107, 115). Similarly, the preaching in the synagogue of Nazareth (4:61–30) is interpreted as exhibiting the ecological principle of liberating both the oppressed peasants and the "agriculturally maltreated and over-harvested" earth (112, 115). The fifth chapter analyses Luke 4:14–7:23 in terms of "Jesus' ministry in the Garden of God's earthly delights" (118). Jesus's public ministry in the Galilean garden (the calling of the disciples, preaching, healing, feeding) enacts "God's compassionate care in Jesus' words and deeds" of which earth elements constitute essential parts (143, 144).

The sixth chapter examines Luke 7:24–9:50 under the sub-title, "Feasting and Fasting in the Paradisiacal Garden" (145). This gently captures "the festive merriment of Jesus" and "the ecologically sensitive ascetic lifestyle" of John (7:24–35, 148). Nonetheless, for Luke "John and Jesus are children of Sophia, the maternal image of God's presence that gives birth, shapes the world and is responsible for...