New Issue of JSNT

I see that the new issue of JSNT is out and one article in particular seemed interesting:

"Whose Abraham, Which Promise? Genesis 15.6 in Philo’s De Virtutibus and Romans 4"

Here's the abstract: 

This article creates a dialogue between Philo’s and Paul the Apostle’s interpretations of Gen. 15.6 specifically, their understandings of Abraham’s faith. Both Philo and Paul see Abraham as functioning in a formally analogous way: for example, Abraham’s faith identifies him as a representative or paradigmatic figure for those who follow him. Yet Philo and Paul develop their interpretations in remarkably divergent fashions. Accordingly, this article will seek to discern the hermeneutical fault line that allows two near-contemporary readers of the same text to construe it so differently. As will be demonstrated, Philo reads Abraham’s story as the narrative of Abraham’s becoming virtuous, and thus how one attains virtue is the key to Philo’s hermeneutic; Paul, by contrast, interprets Abraham’s faith from the vantage point of the Christ-event, such that the focus is on the incongruity between God’s gift and the human recipient.

I haven't been reading much Paul scholarship lately (my coursework right now isn't dealing with any Pauline letters), but two of my classes (Acts and Greco-Roman Backgrounds) deals heavily with working with primary sources outside of the NT, so this seems like an interesting exercise in using a Greco-Roman source for NT exegesis. Also, in my Pauline theology seminar at Duke, we had to read some Alisdair MacIntyre, and I don't know if this author did it on purpose, but his title reminds me of a book by MacIntyre, so we'll see. I haven't read it yet, but for those that are interested, go check it out here.

Quote of the Day: Diogenes the Cynic

While reading through Diogenes Laertius' Lives of Eminent Philosophers, ran into this little piece from Diogenes of Sinope (6.42):

ἐνεκάλει τοῖς ἀνθρώποις περὶ τῆς εὐχῆς, αἰτεῖσθαι λέγων αὐτοὺς ἀγαθὰ τὰ αὐτοῖς δοκοῦντα καὶ ουʼ τὰ κατʼ ἀλήθειαν

"He criticized men about their prayers, saying that they asked for things which seemed good to them and not for the things which are actually good."

New issue of Interpretation

The October issue of the journal, Interpretation, is out. Over the summer, I read a book titled, The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture, by Christian Smith, so this issue is especially interesting given Joel B. Green's review of the book. He recognizes that he is not an "expert" in the field by any means (he is a Harvard-trained sociologist) but at the same time tries to give his own account of how some of the fundamentalist reading of Scripture has become untenable. I thought it was a bit of fresh air to see how someone outside the biblical-studies guild would engage this issue, and though I haven't read Green's review (I will later today), it should be interesting to see how an "expert" in the field receives Smith's account. One interesting fact: Christian Smith was a professor of sociology at UNC prior to his appointment at Notre Dame, and apparently, he is a good friend of one of my former teachers at Duke, Douglas Campbell (at least it seems that way from Smith's Foreword in the book).  

If you haven't read Smith's book yet, I highly recommend you do so (it's a quick read), then jump over to Joel Green's review and see how he understands Smith's arguments.

HT: Nijay Gupta

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!

New issue of JBL

Seems like the Emory folks (and grad) are represented well in the most recent issue of JBL:

On the Hebrew Bible side, we have a current student, Ryan Bonfiglio who has an article titled, "Archer Imagery in Zechariah 9:11-17 in Light of Achaemenid Iconography":

The last six chapters of the book of Zechariah (chs. 9-14) present numerous interpretive challenges. Though widely recognized as a product of a postexilic context, these chapters, known collectively as Second Zechariah, lack the clear chronological framework and explicit historical signposts that are so evident in First Zechariah (chs. 1-8). Therefore, when it comes to historical-critical approaches to Second Zechariah, there is considerable debate and disagreement in the scholarly literature. In view of this impasse, an increasing number of scholars have turned to alternative interpretive methods to advance the study of Second Zechariah.


On the New Testament side, we have a recent graduate, Joshua Jipp, who has an article titled, "Paul's Areopagus Speech of Acts 17:16-34 as Both Critique and Propaganda":

Interpretations of Paul's Areopagus discourse in Acts 17:16-34 are often radically incongruous. They range from seeing it as a placid pantheistic sermon on natural theology all the way to seeing it as a scathing demonization of Gentile religion. Interpreters who emphasize the speech's similarities to Greco-Roman philosophy incline toward the former view, while those attuned to the Jewish context incline toward the latter. Both types have a significant amount of supporting evidence and are able to provide strong readings for their argument, given that the speech does indeed utilize Hellenistic philosophical concepts and Jewish critiques of idolatry. I suggest, however, that matters are more complex than an either/or interpretation of the Areopagus discourse and that Luke's purposes are more subtle than either “accommodation” or “critique/resistance” would allow.


I'm glad to see Emory folks contributing in a productive way to the guild. Go check these articles out.

"The best book"

Some penetrating words from one of the giants in NT studies, Adolf von Harnack:

"No other book of the New Testament had to suffer so much as Acts, although despite its evident weaknesses, it is in more than one respect the weightiest (wichtigste) and best (beste) book in the New Testament. All the mistakes that have been made in NT criticism have come to a focus in the criticism of Acts. The book had to suffer above all because Paul and Paulinism have been understood in a one-sided way and simultaneously greatly overrated. It had to suffer because a false picture has been formed of the nature and relation of Jewish and Gentile Christianity. It had to suffer because (extraordinary survival of an unjustifiable reverence for the apostolic!) the most extreme demands have been made upon a companion of Paul--a sure understanding of Paul, congeniality, freedom from every independent tendency, absolutely trustworthiness, and an infallible memory."

--Lukas der Arzt, 87

Coursework

I'm officially starting the first semester of my doctoral program this week and though I'm pretty excited to be taking great classes, right now I'm struggling to fill that third seminar spot I need for my semester. So far, I know for sure I will be taking:

Acts of the Apostles (Carl Holladay)

Greco-Roman backgrounds (Walter Wilson)

But as for the third class, here are the options (with their class descriptions)

Questions of War (Ellen Ott Marshall):

Traditionally, ethicists refer to the debate over the moral justification of war as “the question of war.”  This course includes writings by Bonhoeffer, Reinhold Niebuhr, John Howard Yoder, Stanley Hauerwas, Jean Bethke Elshtain, and Michael Walzer to discuss the moral justification.  Increasingly, however, ethicists find themselves addressing multiple questions of war.  For this reason, “Questions of War” in the fall of 2012 will also examine contemporary issues, such as the ethics of exit, the use of torture, drones, genocide and humanitarian intervention, and the reality of child soldiers.

The Book of Jubilees and Related Works (William Gilders):

In this course, we will read and interpret the book of Jubilees, a work composed in Hebrew sometime in the second century B.C.E., probably in the land of Israel.  In connection with our focused study of Jubilees, we will look at several other works, which appear to be related to the book (such as the Aramaic Levi document, the Genesis Apocryphon, and the Temple Scroll).  Through our study of Jubilees and the related texts, we will explore questions about the varieties of Second Temple Judaism(s) and their literary expressions; the meaning and utility of the designation “rewritten Bible”; methods, forms, and purposes of biblical interpretation in early Judaism; and theoretical issues in the study of the “reception” of biblical literature.

People of the Book and Critical Ethnography (Don Seeman):

Ethnography has come relatively late to the critical study of the world’s most highly textual religious traditions. This course investigates issues related to textuality and scriptural authority as well as media and lived experience in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. We will ask whether there is something about these three broad traditions that justifies comparative analysis and we will explore the cultural politics of representation within both anthropology and the academic study of religion.  In particular, we will examine the possibilities and limitations of interdisciplinary research involving both textual and ethnographic research methods.

Special Topcs in History: Subalternity and Difference (Gyanendra Pandey/Bruce Knauft):

Focusing on concepts that have been central to writings on the history, society, and culture of marginalized, subordinated and disenfranchised populations, we set out in this course to investigate how notions of subalternity and difference intersect with, enable, or complicate one another in different times and places.  The seminar is centrally concerned with a question that critical theorists, feminists and other oppositional movements have raised, of how modern societies and states take account of, and manage, social, economic and cultural difference.  We shall examine at the same time how disadvantaged and subalternized groups -- women, blacks, dalits, ethnic minorities, conquered indigenous peoples, migrants and unsettled populations -- have in their turn deployed the category of difference to provoke a re-arrangement, if not an overturning, of prevailing structures of power.  The historical and ethnographic texts we read will explore the production of conditions of marginality and minority, subalternity and difference, across time and space.

It's always a struggle to pick a good class and now that these classes will likely contribute in some way to both my dissertation and my prelims, it's all the more difficult! Anyone have any thoughts on some of these classes?