Philo's Etymology

I'm entering into my final week of the semester and am in the process of finishing two more final papers. One of them is for my Jewish milieu seminar where my teacher has given us a variety of choices for our final exam, which is really a written exam that he gave us about 10 days ago. I've chosen to look at Barrett's The New Testament Background and critique it in a constructive/comprehensive way given all that we have discussed in the semester.

I'm currently on Barrett's section on Philo and I thought his excerpt from De Abrahamo 81-3 was quite interesting:

"What has been said is attested by the alteration and change in his name, for his original name was Abram, but afterwards he was addressed as Abraham [Greek, Abraam]. To the ear there was but the duplication of one letter, alpha, but in fact and in the truth conveyed this duplication showed a change of great importance. Abram is by interpretation 'uplifted father'; Abraham, 'elect father of sound'. The former signifies one called astrologer and meteorologist, one who takes care of the Chaldean tenets as a father would of his children. The latter signifies the Sage, for he uses 'sound' as a figure for spoken thought and 'father' for the ruling mind, since the inward thought is by its nature father of the uttered, being senior to it, the secret begetter of what it has to say. 'Elect' signifies the man of worth, for the worthless character is random and confused, while the good is elect, chosen out of all for his merits."

Fun stuff.

Carmichael-Walling Lectures

One of my teachers here, Carl Holladay, recently gave a set of lectures, the Carmichael-Walling lectures at Abilene Christian University. These lectures are quite distinguished, as they have invited other well respected scholars from the guild such as Margaret Mitchell, Luke Timothy Johnson (another Emory prof.), J.D.G. Dunn, Gail O'Day, James VanderKam, etc.

He gave two lectures a few weeks ago, "The Church of the Spirit" and "The Spirit of the Church."

Check them out below:

Scholarly Lingo

As I continue to read more and more journals, books, monographs, etc., that are more "technical" in nature, I can't help but notice the tiresome way that certain "academic lingo" insert themselves into the prose. That is, some words or phrases just get repeated over and over... I'm not so against using the words/phrases per se, but sometimes it seems rather unnecessary and even downright confuses/weakens the argument. I'm all for attempting to write eloquently, but sometimes there is value in brevity + clarity.

Here is my short list thus far (with variables inserted):

1. a is "part and parcel" of b

2. the "Scylla" of c and "Charybdis" of d

3. "indeed" e
4. f can "cut the Gordian knot"

I recall reading a blog post by Marc Cortez (here) with a graphic showing the average length of dissertations by discipline. I for one do not want to write a 500 page dissertation. This might mean that I'll have to cut the fat in terms of rhetorical flourish, but so be it (plus I doubt my doktorvater and committee members would want to read 500 pages anyway...)

Have you come across any other phrases I could add to this list?

Books Carousel

It's been a while since I've really updated anything substantial on my blog. I don't want to keep apologizing to my readers but the school semester is certainly very busy! My books carousel has been updated and some of the books should give you an idea of what's been taking up my time these days.

Lighter stuff:

(1) Parenting Without Borders: I don't have children right now but I do have a lot of friends who either have children already or will in the near future. This is a subject that has always fascinated me, particularly given my own background that was a mixture of both Asian and American style of parenting (though mostly the former?). Gross-Loh is a Harvard trained Asian historian and this book is a very accessible account of her experience overseas in various cultures (Asian, European, etc.) and how parenting is done elsewhere. I'm not a big fan of her writing style but some of the lessons she learned overseas is fascinating and it should be something that all American parents should be aware of.

(2) Bonhoeffer, Christ and Culture: If I remember right, this was a collection of papers presented at the annual Wheaton Theology Conference a few years ago. As I have mentioned before, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's life and thought is something of a side hobby for me so when I saw that these conference papers were available, I had to check it out.

(3) Forgery and Counterforgery: I just happened to see this recently published Oxford volume by Ehrman on the library shelves, so I picked it up. As always Ehrman has a flair for rhetoric and his writing style is cogent. This is a thoroughly researched monograph (comes in at 600 some pages!), but it doesn't bog down like some technical work. This isn't an area that I'm terribly interested in, but I think it's fascinating (whether you agree with Ehrman or not) and so far I'm enjoying the read. 

 (4) Thinking, Fast and Slow: Kahneman is a Nobel Prize winner in economics, so he definitely knows what he's talking about. This is a fascinating study into how the human mind works and though I haven't been able to get into this book lately due to my schedule, so far so good.

Heavier stuff:

(5) Theology of the New Testament (Bultmann + Strecker): Need I say more? Just read through the Paul section of Bultmann (I should get to his John stuff soon) and the Johannine material in Strecker is next.

(6) Translation and Survival: I just finished T. Michael Law's When God Spoke Greek and I figure I should just continue along in this study of the LXX. Coincidentally, one of my seminar session this week will be on that topic, so I'm looking forward to continuing the research.

(7) Architecture and Meaning on the Athenian Acropolis + Greek Architecture: I'm taking an art history seminar right now on the connections between gods and people in ancient Greece. These two books are a must read for anyone interested in this topic, and though I'm just getting my feet wet, the class has been thoroughly enjoyable and informative.

There's probably a few more books here and there that's always jumping in and out of my to-read list, but these were the main ones that I could think of right now. I just wish I had more time and ability to read/digest all these books faster than my current pace. Read anything very interesting lately? Let me know!

New Issue of Novum Testamentum

I'd like to point out that a new issue of NovT came out recently (Vol. 55.4). Great to see that my colleague here at Emory, Chris Holmes, has an article in this issue. Here's the line-up:

James R. Harrison, "Paul's 'Indebtedness' to the Barbarian (Rom 1:14) in Latin West Perspective," 311-348

Christopher T. Holmes, "Utterly Incapacitated: The Neglected Meaning of ΠΑΡΕΣΙΣ in Romans 3:25," 349-366

Jam Lambrecht, "1 Corinthians 2:14: A Response to Laura B. Dingeldein," 367-370

Jacqueline Assaël, "L'allègement du chagrin partagé: 2 Co 2:5," 371-372

John A.L. Lee, "Etymological Follies," 383-403

Check it out here.

Who Do People Say I Am?

This is the title of a forthcoming book from one of my teachers here at Emory, Vernon K. Robbins. It's his look into the Christology (or Christologies if you'd like) of early Christians at the time when things were being written about Jesus' origins and life outside of what we find in the NT canon. Over at EerdWord blog, you can check out his brief thoughts about the work (see part 1 and 2).

JSNT - September issue out

It's not even August yet, but I just saw that JSNT has released their September issue. I'm also happy to see that I've had the chance to cross paths with a few of the authors in this issue.

One of the articles is written by a friend of mine, John A. Dunne, who's writing his dissertation at St. Andrews under N.T. Wright: "Suffering in Vain: A Study of the Interpretation of ΠΑΣΚΩ in Galatians 3.4." I continue to maintain a deep interest in Galatians, so I'll definitely read this article sometime in the next week or so.

Another article is written by one of my teachers here at Emory, Dr. Walter Wilson, titled: "The Uninvited Healer: Houses, Healing and Prophets in Matthew 8.1-22." We've had a chance to talk about this piece earlier last year, and it's one that brings into the text various insights from architecture and social norms to think deeper about what exactly is happening in Matthew 8.

A third article is one by a German professor, Thomas Schmeller, who was a visiting scholar here at Emory last semester. I had a chance to talk to him briefly, and though I missed the seminar in which he discussed some portions of this piece, I was quite fascinated to find that he was arguing for the unity of 2 Corinthians. I'll be sure to add this to the to-read list.

It's been quite a busy summer with a few unexpected events, but I've been reading as much as I can and doing a lot of research assistant work for one of my teachers here, so that has been keeping me busy. Another semester looms in a month or so, hopefully it will continue to open up new questions for me as I enter into my second year of coursework in my doctoral program.