Translation

This past year, in my work as one of the SIRE (Scholarly Inquiry and Research at Emory) Graduate Fellows, I had the wonderful opportunity to work with a team of other fellows in a variety of fields including Biology, English, Environmental Health, and Physics. One of the things we had to learn, as part of our professional development. is how to talk about research to an interdisciplinary group of researchers. This is certainly not easy, even less so when you start mixing humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences altogether. Still, I think this is supremely important in the current climate of academia, and there seems to be a real push (and not just in words) for interdisciplinary dialogue and getting out of our mini silos.

During the school year, then, we taught a group of undergraduate researchers on how to create an "elevator pitch," basically a ~3 minute presentation about their research that even the most novice of listener should be able to reasonably comprehend. This is important, as it shows the listener the value of the research being conducted as well as providing a helpful bridge between serious scholarly inquiry and the general public (= translation).

All this to say, I just finished a wonderful book by Professor Susan Eastman, who was one of my first teachers at Duke Div. She was an amazing teacher and a great person overall, who seemed to have that gift in straddling the academician/practitioner divide. Her book titled, Paul and the Person: Reframing Paul's Anthropology, is a great example of how she melds her interests in serious scholarly inquiry as well as in practical outcomes (the so what question) of that research:

This is a serious book. She wrestles closely with even contemporary discussions in neuroscience, personhood, etc., all in the service of her bigger questions in thinking about Pauline anthropology afresh. Her use of other disciplines, however, is not amateurish or faddish, she seriously took the time to digest and understand what contemporary scientists and thinkers are saying about these issues.

Anyway, in her concluding reflections, she wrote some words that really struck me as being a wonderful example of translation (or at the very least provoking translatable questions, as we will see with her probing questions at the end):

"... the complex overlapping of relational systems means that social institutions must live with imperfection rather than demanding closure and a resolution of differences that will inevitably benefit some and harm others. One aspect of Christian witness is thus to name the lack of closure and the continued ruptures and suffering in all humanity, including the body of Christ. To fail to do so betrays the bodily interconnectedness that underlies Paul's thought; when a community claims to have achieved perfect unity, one wonders who has been left out; when an individual claims to have achieved wholeness, one wonders at what expense that 'integration' has happened. Rather than pushing for some kind of personal or social perfection, perhaps speaking truthfully about the lack of wholeness most perfectly manifests Paul's realism about Christian existence this side of the eschaton … 
I suggest that a conversation between Paul and current work on the person affords new opportunities for resourcing Paul's thought in pastoral and clinical settings … the participatory logic of his gospel needs interpretation and articulation to address particular contexts of care in churches and other institutions today. Those contexts include situations in which the worth and identity of the person seems to be at risk, such as the understanding and care of those who suffer from dementia and those who care for them; the articulation of personhood and relationship among and with autistic persons; support for people suffering the aftereffects of trauma; and articulating real hope in the face of death. All of these situations often result in social isolation; all of them are unavoidably embodied; all of them require care in interpersonal networks. How might Paul's understanding of the body as a mode of connection and communication be deployed in such care? How might his depiction of sin as a hostile, enslaving agent be deployed diagnostically in some traumatic situations? Does his view of persons as relationally constituted overlap with debates in psychology and psychiatry about the relationship between biomedical care and talk therapy? Does the understanding of personhood as a criteria-free divine gift speak to debates about the human status of limit-cases, such as fetuses, those in comas, extreme dementia, and so forth?"

If you are currently engaged in research, how do you imagine "translating" it for others and what kinds of provocative questions could be raised on the basis of that research?

New editors of NIGTC

Very happy to hear that Mark Goodacre has been named as one of the editors of the NIGTC series. With the passing of I. Howard Marshall and Donald Hagner scaling back his duties, Eerdmans named Mark and another, Todd Still, as the new editors of the series.

Congratulations!

HT: Eerdword

RIP: D. Moody Smith

I received word through the grapevine that Professor D. Moody Smith passed away a couple days ago at the age of 84. He was already retired by the time I took my masters degree at Duke, but obviously his influence there continued. In one of my first seminars at Duke, I took a Greek exegesis course on the Gospel of John with Dr. Joel Marcus. One of the main textbooks assigned for his class was Dr. Smith's John commentary in the Abingdon series. It was great to work through the entire commentary over one semester, and to this day I recommend it to those who are seeking a concise but insightful commentary to supplement their reading of the Fourth Gospel.

I did not have the privilege to learn from him personally but I'd like to think that my teachers at Duke were influenced by their senior colleague with the result that his knowledge was also translated down to the next generation of students such as myself.

RIP, Dr. Smith.

For details about a memorial service, please see here.

BOOK NOTICE

I just saw that Professor Kavin Rowe from Duke University Divinity School has a new book which is set to come out very soon, titled One True Life: The Stoics and Early Christians as Rival Traditions (Yale University Press, March 2016): 

I know he's taught NT and Greco-Roman philosophy at Duke Div on multiple occasions and I'm sure that was part of what he was working on here as well as his earlier book. The blurb from Yale is as follows:

In this groundbreaking, cross-disciplinary work of philosophy and biblical studies, New Testament scholar C. Kavin Rowe explores the promise and problems inherent in engaging rival philosophical claims to what is true. Juxtaposing the Roman Stoics Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius with the Christian saints Paul, Luke, and Justin Martyr, and incorporating the contemporary views of Jeffrey Stout, Alasdair McIntyre, Charles Taylor, Martha Nussbaum, Pierre Hadot, and others, the author suggests that in a world of religious pluralism there is negligible gain in sampling from separate belief systems. This thought-provoking volume reconceives the relationship between ancient philosophy and emergent Christianity as a rivalry between strong traditions of life and offers powerful arguments for the exclusive commitment to a community of belief and a particular form of philosophical life as the path to existential truth.

I also noticed that he is listed as a full professor now on Duke's website which is quite amazing (if it isn't an error) because he finished his PhD not that long ago at Duke. This probably speaks to his scholarship and other contributions to the school which from everything I've heard has always been very positive. It'll be interesting to see how this book is received once it's out; I wouldn't be surprised if there will be a future SBL session engaging with his book.

Christian Theology and the World of Law? (VIDEO)

One of the great things about being at Emory is that it is a school that values the study of religion and maintains on its campus the Center for the Study of Law and Religion. Early last year, Richard Hays of Duke Divinity School and Michael Welker of Heidelberg University came to give the McDonald Distinguished Scholar Lectures about the subject of Christian theology and Law.

Check out the video below:

VIDEO: Richard Hays @ Lanier Theological Library

Recently, Professor Richard Hays of Duke Divinity School was involved in a panel discussion on what's called "figural reading" of OT in NT. This recalls his earlier work on Paul as well as the more recently work on the Gospels (Reading Backwards), the latter which is part of a larger ongoing project (likely to be completed sooner with his stepping down as the Dean of the Divinity School).

See the video below:

HT: Crux Sola Blog

RIP: J. Louis Martyn (1925 - June 2015)

I was saddened to hear the passing of one of the great NT scholar/theologians of the current generation, Professor J. Louis Martyn (see a tribute by Prof. Gaventa here). During my first semester at Duke Div, I took a course on Galatians with Dr. Susan Eastman, in which we worked through his wonderful AB commentary on Galatians. Thanks to her friendship with Prof. Martyn, we had the great privilege of having him join our last class session in which we talked about Paul and Galatians for three hours. I still remember his graciousness and humility, and he was very much interested in hearing from all of us as much as we wanted to hear from him. He fully engaged with all of our (and I'm sure in many ways, amateur) questions and it was such a great way to end the seminar. Whatever the various criticisms (or praises) that could be had of his AB commentary, to this day I tell my friends/colleagues that it is one of the most readable and interesting commentaries that I have ever come across. 

RIP Professor, it was truly an honor to have met you.

CNN miniseries: Finding Jesus

I saw on my social media feed that one of my teachers from Duke University, Mark Goodacre, recently served as the lead consultant to a six-part miniseries airing this Sunday (March 1) on CNN called Finding Jesus: Faith, Fact, Forgery (see here). Should be interesting! The miniseries will kick off with the first episode looking at the Shroud of Turin.

For more info, see the CNN website here.

Kenneth W. Clark Lectures @ Duke Div

One of my teachers here at Emory University, Carl Holladay, mentioned to me sometime last year about giving the Kenneth W. Clark Lectures at Duke Divinity School in 2015. I'm glad to see that the details are now available for those of you that are interested (see here). If you are in the area, you're definitely in for some good talks and conversations. Carl is a fantastic teacher as well as a great mentor for all of us here so I hope the students/faculty at my alma mater will benefit also from his time spent at Duke in February.

On another note, he will be giving the presidential address for the SNTS meeting later this year in Montreal so if you are part of that society, look forward to his address then as well.

HT: NT Blog


EDIT: I should note an error above: Carl is giving the presidential address for the SNTS meeting in the summer of 2016.

Yet Another Book Notice

I guess November can be chalked up as a Duke month for my blog, as I have yet another post featuring a book by a Duke University professor. This book is a bit outside of my area of expertise, though still interesting. It is written by Grant Wacker, Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Christian History at Duke Divinity School. If I'm not mistaken, he is a premier American religious historian, and I remember when I first got to Duke a few years ago, I talked with him for a while for a job as a research assistant that involved working on a book on Billy Graham. I should mention though that I did not get the job, but given my own area of interest that was completely incongruous with his project, he was still very gracious enough to meet with me and was great fun to talk to. Over four years later, his book seems to have come to completion with America's Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation (according to Amazon, published Nov. 7, 2014). If you're at all interested in modern American religious history, this is a book you want to pick up.

Two Books

In keeping with the theme of Duke Div from my latest post, I want to bring to your attention two books that are out now, both written by my former teachers at Duke.

The first book is written by Richard Hays and if his earlier book Echoes reimagined the way we understood Paul's reading of the OT, then his new book, Reading Backwards may be akin to rethinking about how the four canonical Gospels have appropriated the HB. When I took my OT in NT seminar with him a few years back, he shared with us some portions of that book, and it seems that it has finally come to fruition this November. 

The second book is written by Douglas Campbell, titled Framing Paul: An Epistolary Biography and like Hays' book, it's going to be important in how one conceives of Pauline chronology and the relationship between the epistles/Acts, the idea of a 'Pauline corpus,' etc. 

Both Hays and Campbell have a fair share of critics and a large number of supporters, though whatever side you may be on regarding their hermeneutical strategy(s), historical work, etc. etc., you will want to at least take seriously their arguments in these two books. I assume SBL will probably have a sale on them (and if I'm not mistaken there will be a session devoted to Hays' book), so go check them out.

Duke Divinity School & NT Wright

Just this past week, N.T. Wright was at my alma mater, Duke University's Div School and it appears that the school has recorded two videos: first a panel discussion with NT Wright that included three of my teachers at Duke (Profs. Campbell, Eastman, and Hays) and Ross Wagner (who was not at Duke at the time). The second video is titled "Why and How Paul Invented 'Christian Theology,'" a lecture by NT Wright on this issue.

Enjoy!

Douglas Campbell (new book + video)

One of my former teachers at Duke Divinity School, Douglas Campbell, is coming out with a new book titled Framing Paul: An Epistolary Account (see here). He's been teaching a course on the life of Paul at Duke for a few years now I think and I remember him describing to us about working on a book about the chronology of Paul's letters, and this seems to be the working out of that project. His Deliverance of God certainly made some waves in Pauline scholarship and I have no doubt that this book will also do the same on discussions about Paul and his letters. He is certainly a provocative thinker and you can love him or hate him but I don't think you can ignore his work. The book should be out late this year, but for now, check out this video:

Sad news

I was saddened to hear that Professor Allen Verhey of Duke Divinity School passed away today (see the schools news here). He was the Robert Earl Cushman Professor of Christian Theology at Duke and his field of expertise was in Christian ethics (he was the recent president of The Society of Christian Ethics). I took a seminar on Christian Ethics & Scripture with him which was co-taught by Stephen Chapman, and while I did not know him well, he seemed to me to be a very careful thinker and a teacher who demonstrated genuine concern for the students at Duke Div. I'm sure his presence will be sorely missed.

JSNT - June 2013 and Promotion

It looks like the new issue of the Journal for the Study of the New Testament is out and it seems like a pretty good issue. Here's the line-up:

Mark Goodacre, "How Reliable is the Story of the Nag Hammadi Discovery?"

Anna C. Miller, "Not with Eloquent Wisdom: Democratic Ekklēsia Discourse in 1 Corinthians 1-4"

Jonathan Knight, "The Political Issue of the Ascension of Isaiah: A Response to Enrico Norelli"

Robert A. Derrenbacker, Jr., "Texts, Tables and Tablets: A Response to John C. Poirier"

F. Gerald Downing, "Waxing Careless: Poirier, Derrenbacker and Downing"

Simon Gathercole, "Jerusalem and Caesarea Inscriptions and New Testament Study: A Review Article"

I'm glad to see Mark Goodacre frontlining this issue, as this article was something we discussed with Mark in his class. I took a history of interpretation course this semester and when we were discussing the Nag Hammadi documents, I was thinking about some of the things Mark told us about concerning the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library. It looks to be a very interesting study into how the story came to be told and retold, so go ahead and check it out.

Oh, and Mark Goodacre has just been promoted to full professor at my alma mater, Duke University, so that is great news indeed (it's about time!). You can check out his blog here.

Prosperity Gospel?

This is somewhat out of my own arena of expertise, but I wanted to introduce all of you to a forthcoming book:

Beautiful cover, no? Oxford University Press seems to always do a good job creating some nice looking volumes and this one is no exception. It's a book titled, Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel, due out next month (May 2013) from Oxford University Press (check it out here). It's written by Kate Bowler from Duke Divinity School. During my time at Duke, I wanted to work as a research assistant and Kate was nice enough to take me on despite my zero-knowledge of American Christianity. 

This is the publication of her dissertation written at Duke under Grant Wacker and from my conversations with her as well as preliminary reviews of her book (e.g. from Mark Noll and Jonathan Walton), I think it's going to be a fantastic addition to the library of any Americanists. If you're mildly interested in the prosperity gospel, then I highly suggest you go ahead and pick up a copy of this book as soon as it's out.

Get to know Thomas and the Synoptics.

If you're interested in that fascinating book called the Gospel of Thomas, there is one book fresh off the press (not even 6 months old) that might interest you from one of my teachers at Duke University, Mark Goodacre (see his blog here), titled, Thomas and the Gospels: The Case for Thomas's Familiarity with the Synoptics. I'm very happy to see this out in print as it was a book that was in its final stages when I took a course with Mark in my last year at Duke on the Greek Non-Canonical Gospels; he even let us read a chapter of the book that pertained to what we were discussing in class and it was great fun looking at the Greek fragments of Thomas that we currently have available. Check out the very chic cover:

I recently borrowed this book from Emory library and have been slowly reading it for leisure when I have some time to spare, and so far, I think it's vintage Goodacre. He is superb at doing careful analysis with various synopses which is a tool so often ignored in studies like this that compare two (or more) texts that are possibly related to each other literarily. I hope he's glad to know that I even recently used his method of using a colored synopsis when comparing Synoptic texts. I am TA-ing a class in the Candler School of Theology for their second semester NT interpretation class and as they are focusing right now on Luke 22:15-20, I hope it was helpful to the students to see a colored synopsis of Matt 26:26-29 // Mark 14:22-25 // Luke 22:15-20 to see what's happening in Luke at least from a redaction-critical standpoint. 

Eerdmans Publishing also released a video yesterday interviewing Mark about Thomas and his book. Check it out!



Now that you got that wonderful 8-minute introduction, what are you waiting for? Go purchase this book from Eerdmans (here) or even Amazon if that's your thing (here).

Did Jesus Exist?

Over at Unbelievable?, this week's program features one of my teachers from Duke University, Mark Goodacre and a Columbia trained historian, Richard Carrier. The topic is "Did Jesus Exist?" Carrier espouses the "mythicist" view that claims that the historical Jesus never existed and Goodacre the opposite. Seems like an interesting debate and this radio program is usually well-moderated (by the host Justin Brierley), so go check it out.

Interested in Jesus research?

In a fairly recently started blog by Anthony Le Donne and Chris Keith, they asked Helen Bond who she would recommend doing Jesus research with (UK and US). It was nice to see her vote of confidence in one of my former teachers at Duke, Mark Goodacre (he also has his own blog with a lot of interesting posts, check it out here). You can see the rest of her interview in the post above, but in her own words, she said she'd "go for Dale Allison or Mark Goodacre." So there you go! If you're interested in doing some Jesus research, you have two options, go to PTS to work with Allison (not Princeton, but Pittsburgh) or Duke University to work with Goodacre. He was gracious enough to  agree to serve as my MTS thesis advisor even though he's housed in the Religion Department and not the Div School, and both classes I took with him (Synoptic Gospels and Greek Non-Canonical Gospels) were very good. I might be biased, but if you're in the search for programs to apply to do PhD work in Jesus research, I would definitely tell you to put Duke at the top of your list!

Update (9.29.12): Just saw that Le Donne and Keith are also interviewing Mark on their blog. Check it out! (Part I, II, III, and IV). Also, he has a book coming out on the Gospel of Thomas, parts of which he showed us in class last semester, I recommend purchasing it when it's out next month!

Sad

Just found out that one of my former teachers at Duke University, Professor Susan Keefe, passed away unexpectedly at the age of 58. I took a class with her last year titled, "Between Augustine to Anselm," a church history class where I was exposed to a time period that otherwise would have remained in my mind as the "Dark Ages." She was an amazingly knowledgeable teacher who, by her own enthusiasm for the subject, made this oft-forgotten time period of church history a fascinating topic of study. We read a ton of primary sources (this seemed to be her pedagogical focus in all her history classes, which was awesome) and all of us had a chance to share different ideas about our final paper. I presented on the topic of the dormition of Mary and how in some of the earliest documents where Marian theology began to take shape (esp. influenced, I think, by the Protoevangelium of James), Mary appears to be a cipher or entrance to discussions of orthodoxy which was undoubtedly important during the early centuries of Christianity. I think there were a lot more I could have said and done but Dr. Keefe was always very encouraging and provided helpful guidance for my dabbling in an area which I was not very familiar with. I hope her charitable spirit will continue to be remembered among the Duke community and that she will now forever rest in peace.