Justification and Politics?

I'm currently reading through Douglas Campbell's Deliverance of God as mentioned in my previous post. So far it's been pretty good but one consistent critique that I've encountered in virtually every review I read of this book is its length. One particular scholar, Beverly Roberts Gaventa, summarizes this critique as such in Christian Century:

"This is a book that deserves to be read, but virtually every conversation I have heard about the volume has touched on its formidable length (some of which is in small print). Campbell insists that his project requires such length if he is to bring down the citadel of Justification theory. I fear that the length is self-defeating, as it means that only the most determined specialist will work through to the end, and Campbell will have lost the readers he most wants to persuade."

On some levels, I think I can agree, I'm currently on page 305 and he's still clearing the ground, so to speak, so that he can eventually lay down his own interpretive framework, namely, an apocalyptic reading of Paul. Be that as it may, it's been very instructive so far and in this subsection titled 'Justification and Liberal Political Individualism,' Campbell looks into John Locke's political theory to see how the Justification paradigm fits with Locke's own program, furthering its own agenda while circumventing the need to have a tight connection to the Pauline texts themselves to establish the paradigm as viable. In one subpoint, Campbell lays out a pretty strong critique:

"In addition to its enjoyment of four significant affinities with liberal politics — individual contracts, the notion of consent, the privatization of religion, and the characterization of all human relationships in terms of a discourse of currency — Justification is unable to protest very vigorously against liberal politics ... Special revelation associated with either the Scriptures or the Christian dispensation is limited to the private sphere and constrained by the individual's need for faith alone. And tradition and institutional control are repudiated as not genuinely religious. Moreover, Justification finds it notoriously difficult to generate any significant ethical observance from its converts (indeed, it arguable cannot generate this). The theory is hostile to any religious activity beyond faith, labeling it derisively as "works." The ecclesia constituted by the theory remains similarly weak; it is fundamentally individualist, confessional, and voluntarist, rooted in consent. It can ask very little from its converts. And these limitations raise a frightening prospect."


I'm still on this chapter, so we'll see where this all leads. Meanwhile, it seems that the axe that Campbell is grinding is getting bigger and bigger...

Tome

Pronunciation: \ˈtōm\

-noun
1. a book, esp. a very heavy, large, or learned book.
2. a volume forming a part of a larger work.

From time to time, I've seen various books referred to as "tomes," but I don't think any of them comes close to this one:

Amazing! The book comes in at 1248 pages (at least that's what Amazon says, though the page numbering actually ends at 1218 [probably earlier unmarked pages = 30 pp.]), with four parts that are broken down into 21 chapters. I'm really excited to start on this "tome," as I was given permission by Dr. Campbell to enroll in his PhD seminar on Pauline theology for the Spring semester. I've done work on Corinthians, Galatians, and 1 Thessalonians, but not much on Romans, so this should be an exciting but also challenging class to help me think after Paul's thoughts.

I hope I can walk away from this with some measure of confidence that I have grasped a little bit more of Paul's theology. From what I heard, Campbell has an interesting take on it which should make our classes very interesting. He mentioned in the introduction to the book that this work is over ten years in the making, so it's no surprise that it is so hefty. I was already intimidated by books that come in at pages number counts such as 535, 718, 740, 741, and 876, but this one is at 1248! Hope I can get through this in a timely manner...

Spices

First there was this ultra-funny Old Spice commercial:



Then there's this, New Spice:




HT: Near Emmaus

Non-canonical Gospels

There's always talks about what Gospel actually has "real" data in terms of the historical Jesus, more accurate historically, etc. etc. And one document outside of the canon is the Gospel of Peter, which I just read today from the NT Apocrypha (it's not that long, so if you're interested go here to get the Greek text). In this document, there is an interesting little section:

9.34. Early in the morning, when the sabbath dawned, there came a crowd from Jerusalem and the country round about to see the sepulchre that had been sealed. 35 Now in the night in which the Lord's day dawned, when the soldiers, two by two in every watch, were keeping guard, there rang out a loud voice in heaven, 36 and they saw the heavens opened and two men come down from there in a great brightness and draw nigh to the sepulchre. 37 That stone which had been laid against the entrance to the sepulchre started of itself to roll and gave way to the side, and the sepulchre was opened, and both the young men entered in.

10.38 When now those soldiers saw this, they awakened the centurion and the elders - for they also were there to assist at the watch. 39 And whilst they were relating what they had seen, they saw again three men come out from the sepulchre, and two of them sustaining the other, and a cross following them, 40 and the heads of the two reaching ot heaven, but that of him who was led of them by the hand overpassing the heavens. 41 And they heard a voice out of the heavens crying, 'Hast thou preached to them that sleep?', 42 and from the cross there was heard the answer, 'Yea'.

I've heard this passage being referred to from time to time to show the fantastic nature of these "later" Gospels, in particular with respect to a talking cross. I was just reminded by Brian LePort that one scholar, Mark Goodacre recently blogged about this. His suggestion is "that we conjecturally emend the text from σταυρον to σταυρωθεντα, from "cross" to "crucified", so that it is no longer a wooden cross that comes bouncing out of the tomb but rather Jesus, the "crucified one" himself." I haven't personally looked at the Greek text yet, but this is an interesting post that has generated some discussion, so go and read the Gospel of Peter if you're interested and join in the discussion at the NT Blog.

Quote of the Day

Francis Watson on Paul and Habakkuk:

If it seems self-evident that the apostle and the prophet can have little or nothing in common, this betrays the continuing influence of a hermeneutic according to which texts are addressed to and contained by their immediate circumstances of origin, and that all subsequent usage marks a deviation from their "original meaning". In the present discussion, the limitations of this hermeneutic have become clear at point after point. The text of Habakkuk explicitly presents itself as written for a future of unknown duration; it privileges the reader over the author, and confines its reference to an identifiable historical situation toa single allusion to the "Chaldeans". It is the same "canonical process", but at a more advanced stage, that leads to the incorporation of this book within the larger collection of the Book of the Twelve. While the arrangement of the book is designed to reflect the unfolding canonical history, it also expresses the conviction that these products of earlier historical situations continue to lay claim to the present, and that their pastness is to be subsumed in the message they address to the present. There is clear continuity between the text's orientation towards its future reader and the logic of the larger canonical collection. Indeed, since we possess the text of Habakkuk only within the canonical Book of the Twelve, and as part of that larger book, the attempt to restore the entire book to a Sitz im Leben within the obscurity of "pre-exilic" Judah can only be regarded as historically naive and hermeneutically perverse."

How many?

Language, לָשׁוֹן, γλῶσσα / διάλεκτος, ܠܶܫܳܢܳܐ, sprache, lengua, 언어

These are some of the languages that I've interacted with over the years and while learning a new language is hard, I suppose it's also rewarding to be able to read something in a language that looked like scribbles just a few months ago. I'm just wondering where this will end... I'd much rather be very good at a few languages than knowing a little bit of many, but with PhD applications, ability to interact with a broader scope, etc., it seems like having "acquired" numerous languages is more advantageous. This is hard though! The more I get into one language, the more I'm prone to neglecting another and then I start wishing I had some type of time-freezing machine so I can just study these languages for 5000 hours in one day. One of my professors amazes me with the ease at which he moves from one language to another, not just in terms of translations, but its linguistic tendencies, idioms, etymological background, etc. He seems to be pretty comfortable at all of the following (and this is probably not even exhaustive!): French, German, Greek, Latin, Syriac, Aramaic, and Hebrew! I hope someday I can know half as much as he does...

Hab. 2:4

I've been reading through some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and today in particular, I was reading through 1QpHab (A commentary on Habakkuk) and found something interesting with regard to Habakkuk 2:4. The tradition of this text is not unanimous, as seen in the differences in the MT and LXX:

MT (2:2-4)
2 Then the LORD answered me and said: Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it. 3 For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay. 4 Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith.

LXX (2:2-4)
2 And the Lord answered me and said: Write a vision, and clearly on a tablet, so that the reader might pursue them. 3 For there is still a vision for an appointed time, and it will rise up at the end and not in vain. If it should tarry, wait for it, for when it comes it will come and delay. 4 If it draws back, my soul is not pleased in it. But the just shall live by my faith.


Hab. 2:4b in particular is cited three times in the NT: Rom. 1:17, Gal. 3:11, and Heb. 10:38 with all sorts of interesting questions surrounding those passages. It makes me think that this verse in Habakkuk was received in various but also in important ways, evinced, for example, by how Paul goes to it twice in important discussions regarding Law and faith. Now, how does this connect to the Dead Sea Scrolls? While the translators and early NT writers seemed to take this verse as an interesting point of departure for all sorts of discussions, the 1QpHab has only three lines about this verse that's relatively straightforward:

Col. VIII, 1-3
1 This refers to all those who obey the Law among the Jews whom 2 God will rescue from the place of judgment, because of their suffering and their loyalty 3 to the Teacher of Righteousness.


This is interesting because with Paul and the other witnesses, the big deal is with the "subject" of the faithfulness, i.e., individual believers, a Christian community, God, etc. But here, the focus seems to be on none of that, but rather on being loyal to the Teacher of Righteousness. It just made me wonder how else the Dead Sea community modulated faithfulness as faithfulness to their Teacher.

Complaint

Does anyone else think transliterations of original languages (e.g. Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, etc.) in books are cumbersome? Not that I know every word in those languages but these wanna-be Romanizations are annoying!

Book review

New Testament Apocrypha, Volume One: Gospels and Related Writings

Editor: Wilhelm Schneemelcher
Translator: R. McL. Wilson
Publisher: Westminster John Knox, rev. ed., 2003
Paperback: 560 pp.

WJK (Thoughtful Christian)
Amazon

Thanks to Emily Kiefer and the team at Westminster John Knox for this review copy. I already had volume 2 of the NT Apocrypha and was hoping to get my hands on the first volume, so this is a very welcome addition to my library.

From the Table of Contents, I can see that this book is well organized. It first begins with a General Introduction by Schneemelcher on things such as the history of the NT canon, apocrypha, testimonies of the early fathers, the history of research in apocryphal literature, and an introduction to non-biblical material about Jesus. These first 70-some pages are very helpful for one to gain some knowledge about this topic. Then it is divided into twelve sub-sections, each devoted to specific materials from the perspective of various scholars.

They are divided into: (I) Isolated Sayings of the Lord (Otfrid Hofius), (II) Fragments of Unknown Gospels (Joachim Jeremias and Wilhelm Schneemelcher), (III) The Coptic Gospel of Thomas (Beate Blatz), (IV) Jewish-Christian Gospels (Philipp Vielhauer and Georg Strecker), (V) The Gospel of Philip (Hans-Martin Schenke), (VI) The Gospel of the Egyptians (Wilhelm Schneemelcher), (VII) The Gospel of Peter (Christian Maurer and Wilhelm Schneemelcher), (VIII) Dialogues of the Redeemer (various), (IX) Other Gnostic Gospels and Related LIterature (Henri-Charles Puech and rev. Beate Blatz), (X) Infancy Gospels (Oscar Cullmann), (XI) The Relatives of Jesus (Wolfgang A. Bienert), and (XII) The Work and Sufferings of Jesus (various). These chapters contain some very interesting books that we might have heard of (from say... a certain movie?) such as the Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Truth, Gospel of Philip, Gospel of Mary, Protevangelium of James, and more.

At the beginning of each chapter, there is an overview of some important topics such as the literature (e.g. different editions, translations, etc.), attestation, tradition, genre of text, provenance, theological themes, relationship to canonical Gospels, etc. [each chapter varies because not all contain any relevant information for each sub-topic]. Overall, this is an excellent volume that will be of benefit for anyone interested in the canonical and non-canonical Gospels. There is a wealth of information from a whole array of scholars that are contained in this book. I have some interest in possibly pursuing some research in this topic so this is a very important volume that I will start digging into bit by bit in the coming months.

Verdict::Recommended! (Granted that this is not really a "book" but more of a reference volume.)

Spring '11

Here at Duke, it seems like there's a mad rush to get into the classes of your choice, and it was no different this week as registrations opened up for the Spring semester. I had my eye on a bunch of classes and it looks like this will be my coursework for the upcoming semester:

Calvin and the Interpretation of John with Prof. David Steinmetz

Exegesis of Acts with Prof. C. Kavin Rowe

Seminar on NT and Ancient Greco-Roman Philosophy with Prof. C. Kavin Rowe

Greek Exegesis: Synoptic Gospels with Prof. Mark Goodacre

[informal] Readings in Syriac with Prof. Lucas Van Rompay (hopefully...)

There was a Greek Exegesis in the Gospel of John by Prof. Joel Marcus that was super tempting, but due to schedule conflicts, this is how it ended up. There's still a few kinks that needs to be worked out, but I think this will end up being my classes for the Spring. I'm loving the classes this semester, but am also excited for the Spring semester!

Review copies

Checked the mail today and got two books for review copy. Big thanks to Emily Kiefer and the generous folks at Westminster John Knox, I received these two books:

New Testament Apocrypha, Volume One: Gospels and Related Writings, Revised ed. Edited by Wilhelm Schneemelcher, trans. R. McL. Wilson

The New Testament World, Insights from Cultural Anthropology, Bruce J. Malina

It's been a while since I received books for review, so I'm excited to have received these two titles. Both of course are books in fields I am interested in (i.e., NT vs. the non-canonical Gospels and the sociological background of the NT), so these two books should be welcome additions to my library. Look for reviews in the upcoming weeks.

What's up, Michelangelo?

I always wondered why some sculptures of Moses, including this one from Michelangelo, looked like this (do you see what I see?):

Moses has horns!?! I learned today that it was due to a mistranslation of the Latin Vulgate of the theophany described in Exodus 34. Exodus 34:29 reads, "Moses came down from Mount Sinai. As he came down from the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant in his hand, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God." The word "shone" here is the verb קָרַן which is a very rare verb in the OT (which can cause translation problems as we can see here). In one sense, it can mean "to send out rays" but in another "to display horns." The Latin Vulgate translates this verse as: "cumque descenderet Moses de monte Sinai tenebat duas tabulas testimonii et ignorabat quod cornuta esset facies sua ex consortio sermonis Dei." The verb here is translated as cornuta which is a derivation of the word cornu for "horn." I guess it's too bad for Moses that one of the greatest artists of the Renaissance didn't read Hebrew...

Why not Cain's?

Have you ever wondered why Abel's sacrifice was acceptable to God but not that of Cain? You might have heard these answers that I've heard: (1) Cain's attitude was wrong, or (2) Cain did not offer his very best. As I see it, I don't think the text actually says any of that explicitly (though I guess you could argue that the explicit mention of Abel bringing the "fatty" portion or "firstlings" of his flock is an implicit criticism of Cain doing otherwise...) Anyway, I'm currently reading through this book on the Septuagint, and I must say, this is a very fascinating subject! I never knew that there were so many text-critical issues surrounding the LXX and with my interests in intertextuality, I think getting to know the LXX a bit better will do me some good. For instance, see how bringing the LXX into our discussion sheds (or darkens?) light on the issue:

Genesis 4:6-7
⁶The LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? ⁷If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it."

This is a pretty straightforward passage of the narrative, and I never thought much about it, but its meaning is actually much more difficult to figure out than evidenced in our translations. For example, here is verse 7:

MT
הֲל֤וֹא אִם־תֵּיטִיב֙ שְׂאֵ֔ת וְאִם֙ לֹ֣א תֵיטִ֔יב לַפֶּ֖תַח חַטָּ֣את רֹבֵ֑ץ וְאֵלֶ֙יךָ֙ תְּשׁ֣וּקָת֔וֹ וְאַתָּ֖ה תִּמְשָׁל־בּֽוֹ׃

LXX
οὐκ ἐὰν ὀρθῶς προσενέγκῃς ὀρθῶς δὲ μὴ διέλῃς ἥμαρτες ἡσύχασον πρὸς σὲ ἡ ἀποστροφὴ αὐτοῦ καὶ σὺ ἄρξεις αὐτοῦ

The English translation above follows the MT, but the Hebrew in verse 7 is awkward and difficult, so they often rely on the Greek text, which also show evidence that the translator himself had a difficult time with his Hebrew text:

NETS
"If you offer correctly but do not divide correctly, have you not sinned? Be still, his recourse is to you, and you will rule over him."

Very different from our regular English translations, no? As Jobes states, "Part of the translator's motivation, undoubtedly, was a desire to understand why God should be upset with Cain for bringing an offering that is approved in the Mosaic legislation. His rendering may be evidence of an ancient interpretation to the effect that the reason Cain's offering was defective was that he failed to follow the proper cultic rituals." So why not Cain's? Maybe he did it wrong afterall.

What do you want to know?

In my Greek Exegesis of Galatians class, Dr. Eastman informed us early in the semester that the author of our main textbook, J. Louis Martyn, has agreed to come to our class the last week of class for an informal discussion/interview where we will get to dialogue with a premier NT scholar. She asked us this week to start thinking about some questions that we might want to bring up, and as our class is only about eight or nine people, I think there will be plenty of time for everyone to get their fair share of questions in. So I thought, I could elicit some questions from all you fellow bibliobloggers and blog about it afterwards as a small gift to you. Does anyone have anything they would like me to raise with Dr. Martyn? Of course there's no guarantee that I will ask everything, but still, I'm curious to know what you guys are thinking.

Ask away!

The Sabbath

For my OT interpretation class, my professor assigned a PDF chapter out of a book titled, The Ten Commandments: Interpretation: Resources for the Use of Scripture in the Church by Patrick Miller, a retired professor from Princeton Seminary, and just as Dr. Portier-Young said, his chapter did not disappoint. I'd like to quote to you a short section from the chapter on the Sabbath:

"The people of ancient Israel were far more concerned about release from toilsome labor than about ensuring that the work got done. For those who think that divine judgments of Genesis 3 created a fixed order that cannot be ameliorated, the Sabbath command is one of the things at work in God's way to offset their force. The power of work to control human life is forever relativized in the Sabbath. There is no eternal assembly line in the community that lives by these guidelines. The Sabbath helps to guard against one of the primary idolatries to which many, if not all, are prone: idolizing our work by making it the center value and meaning for our lives. The Sabbath relativizes human work and makes it possible regularly to set aside our goals and plans, our ambitions and accomplishments, to think and care about the God who created us and God's work, about God's plan and our place in it. The Sabbath, therefore, is both a safeguard against one of the central ways in which we violate the First Commandment and also a barrier against the constant inclination to justify ourselves and to define ourselves by our work, what we do. The Sabbath cuts human beings loose from their work and calls them to do nothing but give praise to God. It is a constant reminder—and exemplar—of what the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism says is the goal of human existence: "to glorify God and to enjoy him forever." (emphasis original)

Know that phrase!

I've been really enjoying Dr. Eastman's Greek Exegesis of Galatians class, and if you've looked through this text in Greek, there are a few phrases that biblical scholars have been wrestling with for... oh, I don't know, decades? I might be wrong, but it seems like the debate will never end. Anyway, here's two phrases that you might be familiar with:

(1) ἔργων νόμου
(2) πίστεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ

The first phrase, most often translated as "works of the Law" occurs seven times (if I'm counting correctly) in the NT: Rom. 2:15, 3:20, 3:28; Gal. 2:16, 3:2, 3:5, and 3:10. The problem lies in what Paul actually meant by "works of the Law." Is it some type of legalistic adherence to Jewish law, customs, traditions, etc. as the Reformers have understood Paul? Or is it the food laws, circumcision, etc., that are the "markers" or "badges" of the ones in the covenant? In addition, this phrase is very odd and the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls with 4QMMT (one of the texts from the find), we now have another understanding of the phrase "works of the Law" or מעשי התורה.

The second phrase, most often translated as "faith in Jesus Christ" is actually not as neatly translatable as it seems in the popular English versions. It occurs in this construction five times in the NT: Rom. 3:22, Gal 2:16, 3:22, 3:26, and Phil. 3:9. It is in what's called the genitive construction and in this particular case, most often understood as objective genitive (i.e., faith in Jesus Christ, where Jesus Christ is the object of the faith) or subjective genitive (i.e., faith[fulness] of Jesus Christ, where Jesus Christ is the subject of the faith). Plenty of ink has been spilled on this topic and while the traditional view of seeing it in objective genitive relationship prevailed for a long time, recently the subjective genitive has been gaining support.

Why am I bringing this up? Well I'm still trying to wrap my mind around this whole debate and wanted to know what you all thought about these phrases. We haven't hit either of these phrases yet in my seminar class, but I'm looking forward to the lively debate.

Desert Spirtuality

In my class called Introduction to Christian Spirituality, we're currently in a section regarding the "Desert Fathers" and the spirituality that they showed and taught. One of our readings for this week comes from John Climacus who lived around 6-7th century CE, writing a book titled Κλίμαξ or Scala Paradisi in Latin, meaning the Ladder of Divine Ascent. We're only reading a portion of it, but it was interesting to read what I was used to seeing from Reformers & Puritans almost a thousand years before they said it:

Let us fear the Lord not less than we fear beasts. For I have seen men who were going to steal and were not afraid of God, but, hearing the barking of dogs, they at once turned back; and what the fear of God could not achieve was done by the fear of animals. Let us love God at least as much as we respect our friends. For I have often seen people who had offended God and were not in the least perturbed about it. And I have seen how those same people provoked their friends in some trifling matter, and then employed every artifice, every device, every sacrifice, every apology, both personally and through friends and relatives, not sparing gifts, in order to regain their former love.

I wonder if the Reformers & Puritans and others of the "Western" Christian persuasion read the Desert Fathers?

Say 'ma'?

ܝܶܫܘܽܥ ܕܶܝܢ ܐܷܡܰܪ ܠܗܴ̇ܝ ܐܱܢ̱ܬܬܴܐ. ܗܰܝܡܳܢܘܽܬܷܟܝ ܐܱܚܝܰܬܷܟܝ. ܙܶܠܝ ܒܰܫܠܴܡܳܐ

If you know Hebrew, you would know my post title means, "Say what?". I say that because at least some words (like 'what' for example) are the same in Syriac (thankfully), and therefore, you'd be thinking "say what?!" as you read (or saw) the above script (at least that's what I thought when I first started reading Syriac last week!) This is my first attempt to type one verse from the NT Peshitta (anyone know from where?) in Syriac, and I have to say, this is tough! Dr. Van Rompay started to pick up the pace, so I better get to studying.

What's in a letter?

Q.

J.

E.

D.

P.

These are all letters that are short for certain hypothetical documents that according to source criticism, redactors have used to form certain documents of the Old Testament (e.g. the Pentateuch) and the New Testament (e.g. the Gospels). Obviously I'm not at the level of a, say, Julius Wellhausen, but still, these hypothetical sources still confuse me at best and annoy me at worst. How do scholars posit such a certainty of these documents when as far as I know, no independent sources apart from the current "redactional" states (i.e. the forms as it is appropriated in the Scriptures) exist? I'm currently in an OT interpretations class, and the lectures have been very stimulating so far, but when it comes to the issue of Documentary Hypothesis, I've never been fully convinced no matter where I hear it (not when I heard it first at Talbot and not now at Duke). Is there something to these conclusions through source-criticism that I'm not getting? I guess I'm not too terribly off-track on some levels because even one Professor here at Duke, Mark Goodacre, rejects "Q."

Anyone else have any thoughts on this? What's your take on source-criticism in general, and these specific sources specifically?

New school

To all my patient readers, thank you for not deleting me from your blog rolls! In the past month, we packed twice, had three wedding receptions, went on our honeymoon, shipped our cars, moved into a whole new city across the US, so please forgive the month-long silence. Anyway, I'm starting school finally this week and here's my prospective schedule so far:

Greek Exegesis of Mark with Dr. Joel Marcus (waitlisted...)

Greek Exegesis of Galatians with Dr. Susan Eastman

Old Testament Interpretation with Dr. Anathea Portier-Young

For my fourth class, it's still a toss-up I guess depending on what they let me do, but I guess if I can get my way, it might be:

The Septuagint with Dr. Melvin Peters

Elementary Syriac with Dr. Lucas Van Rompay

Some words of appreciation go out to various people I've met through online venues, a few who I don't even know their names/blogs, and one John Anderson who is a Duke-MTS alumnus who helped me from time to time along this whole process. Much appreciation to all of you!

And finally, I also need a job.

From now on, blogging will be from Durham, North Carolina!

Weird writings

Every now and then, I come across some very bizarre statements from ancient documents, and today I ran into one.

This is a fragment from Clement of Alexandria:

But those who set themselves against God's creation because of continence, which has a fair-sounding name, quote also those words which were spoken to Salome, of which I made mention before. They are contained, I think (or I take it) in the Gospel according to the Egyptians. For they say that `the Saviour himself said: I came to destroy the works of the female'.

--Strom. iii.9.63

What's up with the Egyptians?

Eyewitness Testimony

I'm reading through Bauckham's book, and in a subsection titled Eyewitness Testimony, he says some things which I found helpful. I'm somewhat puzzled that critical scholars tend to pit the Synoptic Gospels against the Gospel of John in terms of history and theology and regarding this issue, Bauckham briefly comments:

"The vital importance that was attached, in Greco-Roman historiography, to the firsthand testimony of eyewitness participants in the events, and the way in which the Gospels reflect this concern, has been highlighted recently in Samuel Byrskog's Story as History—History as Story, and I have discussed the Gospels in this light at length in my book, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. So a brief treatment will suffice here. The historiographical ideal, which meant that strictly speaking one could write only contemporary history, history that was still within living memory, was that the historian himself should have been a participant in many of the events and that he should have interviewed eyewitnesses of those events he could not himself have witnessed. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, for example, praises the historical work of Theopompus of Chios because "he was an eyewitness (αὐτόπτης) of many events, and conversed with many of the eminent men and generals of his day" (Pomp. 6). In a literary context of this kind John's Gospel would seem readily to meet the contemporary requirements of reliable historiography, probably better than the Synoptic Gospels. Its claim, whether authentic or not, is to authorship by a disciple of Jesus who notes his own presence (in the third person as was the normal historiographical convention) at key events in the story he tells, and makes it plain that he belonged to a circle of other disciples from whom he could be reliably informed of other events. Widespread failure to recognize that this Gospel's claim to eyewitness testimony is at least a straightforward historiographical one (doubtless it has also a theological dimension) has resulted from the influence of the dictum that this Gospel is theology, not history, and consequent isolation of it from its literary context in ancient historiography."

Blogging and the 'biblioblog' dilemma

There's been some recent discussions here, here, and here about what biblioblogs should and should not be doing, and with the proliferation of blogs, one might be inclined to quickly remove a blog that has not posted anything recently regarding biblical studies. Unfortunately, I think I fall under that category, and I hope my readers have not removed me from their feeds! With graduating two months ago, to wedding planning, to moving, etc., there's been absolutely no time for me to really think about anything interesting in biblical studies, so apologies to my readers if they've been seeing a huge drop-off in anything interesting lately. I hope as I enter back to school in the Fall at Duke, I'll have some more interesting thoughts, but until then, bear with the random musings!

WWJHLL

What would Jesus have looked like? (WWJHLL) Here are some popular and past depictions:

Many popular depictions show Jesus with light-brown hair, sharp blue eyes, and a well trimmed beard with very European features. One of the pictures above even shows an Asian depiction of Jesus. In Popular Mechanics 2002, they think he looked more like this: I suppose that does more justice to his Palestinian roots, it was just very different than any other depictions of Jesus I've seen. WWJHLL?

The age of digital readers

It seems that the past few years has brought on a whole new age of reading: the age of digital readers. Some of the devices vying for your reading pleasure:

1. Sony PRS-900

2. Barnes & Noble Nook

3. Apple iPad

4. Amazon Kindle 2 and Kindle DX


I'm not really that serious in buying one, but I suppose it would be nice to have one instead of carrying all my books, not to mention the ability to access the hundreds of journal articles I have on my computer on one portable device. However, I have not really had a chance to actually mess around with any of these devices and from what I can tell there are some shortcomings of these devices. First, if they are quick, full-color with multi-touch capabilities (e.g., iPad), the battery life is very low, the price is very very steep, and for reading, they would be terrible for your eyes. Anyway, I think iPad is not really meant to act as an e-reader. Second, if they are basic and focused on reading (e.g., the other devices), the response times are slow and most of them lack any ability to mark up the books (though I might be wrong here). The only exception I think is the Sony PRS-900 with its stylus; unfortunately, this device only has a 7-inch display, the response times seem slow, and the book store is Sony's instead of an already well-established source like Amazon. Who reads books without marking them up?

I guess if I could have it my way, it would be something like the Kindle DX that is less than $200, with a stylus, with SD-memory support, and strong PDF support. Does anyone own one of these devices that want to weigh in?

Carnival

When I think of the word "carnival," I just think of something like the picture above, with some fun games and ferris wheels, but in literary terms, I learned that it has been used in a different way to understand a given text. I'm trying to read books that introduce different "criticisms" of the New Testament, and the book that I'm currently reading is James L. Resseguie's Narrative Criticism of the New Testament. I'm not sure if I can agree with all the tenets of narative-criticism that I've read so far, but it's still interesting. In a subsection titled, "Carnivalesque," Resseguie says something about carnival that I want to quote in full:

"Carnivalesque is a concept, popularized by Mikhail Bakhtin, that highlights the upside down, inside out, top to bottom, inverted world of carnival. Carnival predates Christianity and expresses "life drawn out of its usual rut" and "the reverse side of the world ('monde à l'envers') in which everyday social hierarchies are turned upside down and mocked by normally suppressed voices of the culture. Carnivaleque is prominent in the passion scenes of the Gospels, where symbols and actions mock a staid, authoritarian society and provide the transforming regenerative power for an alternative society. Opposites that underscore the relativity of all structure and order are paired in carnival: king with slave, crowning with de-crowning, exaltation with debasement, and sacred with profane. Similar opposites are paired at the crucifixion: an innocent man dies while an outlaw goes free (Barabbas); the sun fails at noon; the temple veil is torn from top to bottom; a carnival procession mocks the king, which, in turn, mocks the triumphal processions of conquering heroes; a cross serves as a throne; jeers (carnivalistic laughter) deride while ironically affirming truth. The images of carnival are linked to the paradox of death and rebirth. Carnivaleque is never simple negation but has a second, positive level of meaning. The downward, negative movement that characterizes the crucifixion world of abuse, curse, debasing, profanation, mockery, and death contains within it the regenerative power of an upward, positive movement of rejuvenation, renewal of life, and transformed symbols of power. In this sense, carnivalesque is like a U-shaped plot with a downward turn that moves upward to a new stable condition."

Pervasion

When I took a class on the history of rock and roll at UCLA specifically focused on The Beatles, I found out just how pervasive their lyrics/songs were, even decades after their time. I started seeing/hearing references and allusions to The Beatles and it became clear to me that they were even more influential than I had previously imagined. It seems to me that the culture of ancient Greece as well as the Roman adaptations of it in the Roman Empire had a similar impact on Western culture. In my class on the cultural context of 2 Corinthians, we talked briefly about the different gods being worshipped in the city of Corinth in the first century. One of them is Asclepius, the god of healing:



Also, here is Hermes:

Do you notice anything? One of the primary symbols for Asclepius is his rod, a rod with an intertwining serpent. And relatedly, Hermes also carries a caduceus, a serpent with serpents in double-helix formation with winged tips. Both of them look very similar to the modern symbol for medicine.

I visited the website for Yale School of Medicine and this is at the top banner:

Interesting, no?
Seems that long before The Beatles were taking us by storm, the Greeks have been influencing the centuries following.

Luke

I've been reading through C. Kavin Rowe's Early Narrative Christology: The Lord in the Gosepl of Luke lately. I had heard that he's been doing excellent work and as you can see from his Duke profile, it's pretty obvious that he's one of the young bright NT scholars in the world. I corresponded briefly with Dr. Richard Hays at Duke and he also pointed to Dr. Rowe's works for my own interest in the biblical studies department at Duke.

"Jesus is κύριος from the inception of his life. This is not simply an "anticipation" or foreshadowing of Acts 2:34-36, though it is that. More importantly, that Jesus' very existence and his identification as κύριος are coextensive means that κύριος is in a crucial way constitutive of his identity. The root idem in identity is proper here: for Luke there is no point at which Jesus is not κύριος. Lukan christology, therefore, does not allow for a separation between Jesus and his identity as ὁ κύριος."

I wish...

the entire Loeb Classical Library was on my computer in digital form! I really hope someone starts creating some kind of software that has them all... Anyway, does anyone know how I can get access to translations of Stobaeus? He seems to have collected a bunch of sayings from Greek authors, and I can find the Greek texts alright, but can't seem to find any English translations. If anyone knows anything, let me know!

Maundy Thursday

This year, it happens to fall on that odd day we call April Fool's. Well, today happens to be a much better day than that: Maundy Thursday, the day that Jesus enjoyed the Last Supper with his disciples.

I always wondered why they called it "Maundy", so I just did a little bit of digging regarding the origin of the name. There are various theories, but I think there was one that was particularly fitting: It is a derivation of a word from Old French, mandé from the Latin mandatum. This happens to be the first word from John 13:34 in Latin:

Mandatum novum do vobis, ut diligatis invicem; sicut dilexi vos, ut et vos diligatis invicem.

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another.

There are two other important statements from the Gospel accounts that are titled after the first word that appears in Latin: (1)The Magnificat, the Song of Mary in Luke 1:46-55 and (2) The Benedictus, Song of Zechariah in Luke 1:68-79. So, in my opinion, the Latin verse origin of Maundy Thursday seems like a good guess. Also, if we follow the Gospel accounts of Jesus' activities, John 13-17 happens to fall on Thursday, so that seems to fit. Of course this is all in the realm of conjecture, but better than April Fool's.

How did the disciples...

know what Moses and Elijah looked like? I never gave it much thought but today, I just started wondering about this scene in Mark 9:2-10 (pars. Matthew 17:1-9, Luke 9:28-36) when Jesus took his inner circle (Peter, James, and John) up to the mountain where he talks with Moses and Elijah in transfigured form. I don't know if this is an irrelevant question, but honestly, in a day without pictures or videos, how would you be able to identify someone a thousand years past? Would they tell their children, "Look son, if you ever see a man with a long white beard with a cool staff, he's Moses, and if you ever see a man wearing a garment of hair with a leather belt, he's Elijah"...? Or did Jesus say, "By the way guys, this is Moses and Elijah, say hi"? I might be missing something altogether, but this was very odd to me as I was reading the passage today... Anyone have any thoughts?

Institutio oratorio, Part 1

Quintilian was a Roman rhetorician, a contemporary of Paul (ca. A.D. 35-100), and supposedly a teacher of Pliny and Juvenal. I just started reading his The Orator's Education volume 1 in the Loeb Classical Library because I have some interest in rhetorical-criticism as well as Hellenistic influences on the New Testament. Also, I might do a research paper sometime this semester on Paul and rhetoric so here I am. Anyway, so far it's been a very fascinating and quick read, so I thought I'd just post some quotes from it as well as my thoughts:

"There is one point which I must emphasize at the start: without the help of nature, precepts and techniques are powerless. This work (i.e., his books), therefore, must not be thought of as written for persons without talent, any more than treatises on agriculture are meant for barren soils. And there are other aids also, with which individuals have to be born: voice, strong lungs, good health, stamina, good looks. A modest supply of these can be furthered developed by methodical training; but sometimes they are so completely lacking as to destroy any advantages of talent and study, just as these themselves are of no profit without a skilled teacher, persistence in study, and much continuous practice in writing, reading, and speaking."

-- Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, 1.26-27

This must be the type of perspective that pervaded Roman Corinth in the first century as the Corinthians were apparently unimpressed by Paul's rhetorical skills:

"For they say, "His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible.""

-- 2 Cor. 10:10

More quotes from Quintilian to come.

The Animal Apocalypse

I've been reading through 1 Enoch these days for a possible research paper, and I have to say the section known as the Animal Apocalypse (1 Enoch 83-90) is the weirdest (and kind of the funniest) so far. I would like to quote you something from this very interesting section (I think you will have a knowing smirk by the time you're through reading it):

"But thenceforth I saw how the wolves even intensified their pressure upon the sheep. They, the sheep, cried aloud--they cried aloud with all their strength. Then their Lord came to the rescue of the sheep, whereupon they began to whip those wolves. So the wolves began to make lamentations, but the sheep thereafter became quiet and stopped crying aloud. I continued to see the sheep until they departed from the presence of the wolves, and the wolves until their eyes were dazzled; yet the wolves went out to pursue those sheep, with all their might. But the Lord of the sheep went with them as their leader, while all his sheep were following him; his face was glorious, adorable, and marvelous to behold. As for the wolves, they continued to pursue those sheep until they found them at a certain pool of water. Then the pool of water was rent asunder, and the water stood apart on this and on that side before their very eyes, and their Lord, their leader, stood between them and the wolves. Those wolves were still not able to see the sheep, and the sheep walked through the pool of water; then the wolves followed the sheep and ran after them into that pool of water. Then when they saw the Lord of the sheep, they turned in order to flee from before his face. But that pool of water gathered itself together and immediately returned to its normal state, the water became full and rose high until it covered completely those wolves. Thus I saw till the wolves which pursued those sheep perished and were drowned."
-- 1 Enoch 89:19-27

Does the story sound familiar? Oh, and do you remember Animal Farm from George Orwell? I kind of got reminded of that allegory as I was reading through this section. Maybe Orwell read 1 Enoch.

Umm...

I know publishers need to make money but...



What!?

Done

I'm finally done submitting all of the applications! I guess it's in God's hands (and the admissions committees') now... I'm really hoping I get into a few schools with good financial packages. The above is basically what it seemed like in my head, although everything nowadays is all online... All these personal statements, writing samples, CVs, transcripts...

It's over! For now.

Paul's Use of the OT

Romans 1:16-17 stands as one of the great statements of the apostle Paul, capped by Paul's quotation of Habakkuk 2:4. Notice the slight difference in Paul's quote from the OT context:

Romans 1:17
For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, "The one who is righteous will live by faith." (ὁ δὲ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεως ζήσεται)

Hab. 2:4 MT
Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith. (וְצַדִּ֖יק בֶּאֱמוּנָת֥וֹ יִחְיֶֽה)

Hab. 2:4 LXX
If he should draw back, my soul has no pleasure in him: but the just shall live by my faith. (ὁ δὲ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεώς μου ζήσεται)

Richard Hays writes in his book:

In the Hebrew text of Habakkuk, God's answer to the prophet is an exhortation to keep the faith: "The righteous one shall live by his faithfulness," that is, the person who remains faithful will be rewarded in the end by God. The LXX, however, has reinterpreted the dictum as a promise about the character of God: "The righteous one shall live by my faithfulness," that is, God's own integrity in preserving the covenant with Israel will ultimately be confirmed. As Paul allows the quotation to reverberate into the text of Romans he elides the crucial personal pronoun, so that we hear only "the righteous one shall live by faithfulness." Whose faithfulness? We are not told. The ambiguity thus created allows the echoed oracle to serve simultaneously as a warrant for two different claims that Paul has made in his keynote formulation of the gospel: in the gospel God's own righteousness is revealed; and the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

I think Hays comment is very shrewd and Paul's use of the Scripture is brilliant!

The Maker

One of my favorite bands is Dave Matthews Band, and here is Dave Matthews jamming with Tim Reynolds... great song:



"The Maker" (by Daniel Lanois)

Oh, oh deep water, black and cold like the night
I stand with arms wide open
I've run a twisted line
I'm a stranger in the eyes of the Maker
And I could not see for the fog in my eyes
I could not feel for the fear in my life

From across the great divide
In the distance I saw the light
Of John Baptist walking to me with the Maker
My body is bent and broken by long and dangerous sleep
I can't work the fields of Abraham and turn my head away
I'm not a stranger in the hands of the Maker

Brother John, have you seen the homeless daughters
Standing there with broken wings
I have seen the flaming sword
There over east of Eden
Burning in the eyes of the Maker
Burning in the eyes of the Maker
Burning in the eyes of the Maker

Oh, river rise from your sleep
Oh, river rise from your sleep
Oh, river rise from your sleep

Synoptics vs. John

In a subsection titled, "The Question of the Kingdom of God," R. Brown says:

"The omission in John of the formula basileia tou theou, "kingdom of God [or of heaven]," except for 3:3, 5, is a difficult problem, although not so formidable an obstacle to Johannine ecclesiology as it might first seem. The Synoptic emphasis on the basileia making itself felt in Jesus' activity seems to have become in John an emphasis on Jesus who is basileus ("king") and who reigns. John refers to Jesus as king fifteen times, almost double the number of times that this reference occurs in any of the other Gospels... If the Synoptic basileia is like leaven working in a mass of dough, the Johannine Jesus is the bread of life. If there is a Synoptic parable of the shepherd and the lost sheep, the Johannine Jesus is the model shepherd. If the Synoptics record a parable where the basileia is like the vineyard that shall be handed over to others (Matt 21:43), the Johannine Jesus is the vine. This change of emphasis means that in John there is less apparent reference to collectivity than there is in the Synoptic concept of basileia. But we must not exaggerate. If the Johannine Jesus is "the King of Israel" (1:49), he has an Israel of believers to rule over; if Jesus is the shepherd, he has a flock that has to be gathered; if Jesus is the vine, there are branches on the vine."

Raymond Brown, An Introduction to the Gospel of John, 229.

Book review

History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel

Author: J. Louis Martyn
Publisher: Westminster John Knox, 2003
Paperback: xvii + 182 pp.

WJK
Amazon

Thanks to Emily Kiefer and the folks at Westminster John Knox for this review copy! I lament this is way overdue because I've been swamped with finals and traveling and getting engaged. Anyway, this book is part of the New Testament Library series, which seems to have a pretty good lineup of scholars writing commentaries on the NT as well as 'Classics' (which this book falls under) and 'General Studies.' J. Louis Martyn's perspective as seen in this book is setting John against Jewish (not Christian) background. There are two major assumptions for Martyn as an impetus for his understanding the Gospel of John: (1) the prevalence of the hostility of "the Jews" toward Jesus & co. representing a genuine historical setting and (2) that this setting could not be that of Jesus and his original opponents. As D. Moody Smith writes in the foreword, "Martyn is actually invoking the modern, form-critical principle that the Gospels bear testimony primarily to the life-setting in which they were produced, and only secondarily to their subject matter."

Martyn states that the problem that often plagues any interpreter of the Gospel of John is the tendency to read this Gospel apart from its original setting. He lists a slew of questions that he will attempt to answer such as: In what general thought-world did John move? Whom did he wish to have as his readers and for what purpose? Where did he live? And as far as method is concerned, Martyn wants to focus on how exactly 'traditional material' has been assumed and reinterpreted by John.

Martyn begins in chapter 1 with a form-critical analysis of John 9. The rest of the book is largely devoted to establishing his thesis of the 'two-level drama' that seems to play itself out in the Gospel of John. Basically, Martyn sees within the fourth Gospel not just facts about the times of Jesus' day but also that of the evangelist and the circumstances surrounding his own life. Martyn understands the motivation for writing the Gospel to have stemmed from a major fallout between the leaders of the Jewish synagogue and the local Christian community.

I think one interesting section of this book is the one titled 'Glimpses into the History of the Johannine Community.' It seems to be an essay which he printed earlier that was included in this book. In this section he traces the development of the Johannine community starting from the 'Early Period' that developed within the synagogue, the 'Middle Period' with its excommunication from the synagogue followed by martyrdom of some of its members, and the 'Late Period,' with the community forming its own theological and sociological identity.

This book was definitely challenging because it assumes one to be well versed in the discussions surrounding the Fourth Gospel. Not only that, Martyn seems to take the reader down many different rabbit holes, filled with many brilliant ideas that are nonetheless conjectures. I think this book is one that I will definitely pick up again in the future to think deeply about the situation surrounding the Gospel of John, and for those interested in that sort of thing, this seems to be a must-read.


EDIT (Jan. 22, 2010): This book would have been much easier and more enjoyable to read if I read Raymond Brown's introduction first...