Journal article help?

I thought I'd ask for some help from my readers: does anyone have Stephen Westerholm's article from Svensk Exegetisk Arsbok 51-51 (1986-7) titled "On Fulfilling the Whole Law (Gal. 5.14)"? I'm sure if I went digging I could probably find a hardcopy somewhere and scan it, but I thought I'd give it a try here first to see if anyone might have a PDF or something they can send along...

Much appreciated!

Minority rules?

Thanks to my wife's suggestion, I started reading an interesting new book titled The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, by Alan Jacobs. It seems to be a semi-response (though this is only a minor impetus for the writing of this book as far as I can tell) to the classic, How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler. In it, he references a recent research conducted by the National Endowment for the Arts titled "Reading on the Rise: A New Chapter in American Legacy" (For the full report, go here). The first conclusion found in this research caught my eye:

What surprised me was that the findings found in 2008 showed that for the first time in 26 years(!), the percentage of adult readers increased. In other words, since 1982, they conducted this survey 5 times and they have only witnessed a downward trend of adults in America who read a work of literature in the past 12 months. I suppose the advent of eBook readers may have contributed to the recent findings, but more than the increase in % readership, what intrigued me was that for the first time in almost a decade, the "majority" (by the slightest of margins; 50.2%) of Americans read some work of literature in the last 12 months.
I've been thinking about the kind of problems that the seemingly infectious aversion to reading creates in our society, and in my view, I don't know what other conclusion one can come to besides negative ones. It has shocked me more than a few times to hear some folks declare that they have not read a single book cover to cover since high school, claiming this feat as a badge-of-honor. And if not the detriment to society in general, then what about to our families and our churches? The study proved that the American-reader is now the "majority" over against the "minority" of American-illiterates, but it certainly feels as if minority rules strong in the overall American culture.

What interesting reads have you come across lately and what are some ways to battle this ubiquitous aversion to reading?

Handmade

In our modern culture of industrialized goods, often there is a big premium placed on "handmade" goods. Handmade things are special in the sense that they are unique (if they are handmade, it's more than likely that no two are alike) and more often than not, personal (I think of friends who knit things for friends — handmade).

In the LXX and NT, the same word can be found: χειροποίητος. It's interesting that the word means, literally, "handmade." However, in the Scriptures, handmade things are seen in quite the opposite light; they are symbols of idolatry and if I'm not mistaken, the majority (if not all) of the occurrences of the word is used negatively. To make this point clear, translators of OT will make this case by rendering the Greek word as an "idol" or "image" (E.g., Lev 26:1; Isa 2:18).

In the OT, the critique appears to be against the handcrafted item of a god as opposed the unimageable YHWH (See the two examples above). And in the NT, the invective is against "handmade" circumcision as opposed to the spiritual/heart circumcision and the "handmade" temple as opposed to the spiritual temple (E.g., Mk 14:58; Acts 7:48, 17:24; Heb 9:11). While this might have been a prominent theme that flowed through Jewish thought, I didn't think that Greco-Roman culture gave all that much thought to this until I came across Seneca's letters today (albeit his very different angle). In it he writes:

"You are doing the finest possible thing and acting in your best interests if, as you say in your letter, you are persevering in your efforts to acquire a sound understanding. This is something it is foolish to pray for when you can win it from your own self. There is no need to raise our hands to heaven; there is no need to implore the temple warden to allow us close to the ear of some graven image (simulacri), as though this increased the chances of our being heard. God is near you, is with you, is inside you (prope est a te deus, tecum est, intus est). Yes, Lucilius, there resides within us a divine spirit, which guards us and watches us in the evil and the good we do. As we treat him, so will he treat us. No man, indeed is good without God — is any one capable of rising above fortune unless he has help from God? He it is that prompts us to noble and exalted endeavors. In each and every good man: A god (what god we are uncertain) dwells" [this last sentence is seen as a quote from Virgil's Aeneid].
--Seneca, Epistle 40.1-2

Though I'll probably have to study more about the kind of theology (if any) Stoic philosophers subscribed to, this paragraph from Seneca is an interesting parallel.

2 Baruch 72

These days, I've been reading 2 Baruch in Syriac to keep up with the ancient language (using this text here), and so far, it's been a very interesting book to read. I've really enjoyed taking Syriac for the past year now (great professor [Dr. Lucas Van Rompay] as well as a bunch of interesting texts [Ephrem's commentary, Aphrahat's Demonstrations, NT/OT Peshitta, Odes of Solomon to name just a few]). This morning I was reading 2 Baruch 71-73, and if I'm not mistaken, this critical text contains a translation error (his transl.):

72.1 "Hear, now, also concerning the bright waters which are to come at the end, after these black (waters): this is the word. 72.2 After the signs have come, of which I have spoken to you before, when the nations become confused and the time of my Messiah comes, he will call all the nations; and some of them he will spare, and some of them he will kill. 72.3 These things, therefore, will come upon the nations which are not spared by him. 72.4 Every nation which does not know Israel and has trodden down the seed of Jacob, will live. And this because some from all the nations will be subjected to your people. But all those who have ruled over you or have known you will be given over to the sword."

My question concerns 72.3, which the critical text reads (I'm using a font called Estrangelo Edessa, so if you don't have Syriac fonts installed, it might not show correctly):

ܗܠܝܢ ܗܟܝܠ ܐܬܝܢ ܥܠ ܥܡܡܐ ܐܝܠܝܢ ܕܥܬܝܕܝܢ ܕܢܚܘܢ ܡܢܗ

Gurtner translates this as, "These things, therefore, will come upon the nations which are not spared by him". But the difficulty for me concerns the second to last word in the sentence which is from the root ḥy’, which is of course in this form means to give life, save, or spare. If my reading is right, it should be read: "These things, therefore, will come upon the nations which are spared/saved by him."

Quote of the Day: Seneca

As I wrote in a previous post, I've been reading a little bit of Seneca's Epistulae morales ad Lucilium, and today, I wanted to quote him on one function that letters seemed to play during his time.

"Thank you for writing so often. By doing so you give me a glimpse of yourself in the only way you can. I never get a letter from you without instantly feeling we're together. If pictures of absent friends are a source of pleasure to us, refreshing the memory and relieving the sense of void with a solace however insubstantial and unreal, how much more so are letters, which carry marks and signs of the absent friend that are real. For the handwriting of a friend affords us what is so delightful about seeing him again, the sense of recognition (agnoscere)."
- Seneca, Letter 40.1

In our modern age of easy travel, texting, phone calls, and even video chatting (FaceTime, Skype, etc!?), it might be difficult for us at times to imagine how letters might have been perceived and accepted by their recipients. Consequently, when we come across letters in the NT, we are prone to search out possible universal apothegms that we would like to apply in our current situations. However, a quote like above shows the tender and personal (also in some ways private?) nature of letters that insists on our more careful attention to particular situations, expressions of friendship (or enmity?), etc., that exist in the NT epistles.

Testimonium Flavianum

I've been just trying to understand a bit more about what Josephus offers in NT studies, and today's post is just one small intersection between Josephus and the NT. The title of the blog post is about a passage (which scholars call testimonium flavianum) from Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews, which contains the following (at least as the text we have today):

About this time comes Jesus, a wise man, if indeed it is proper to call him a man. For he was a worker of incredible deeds, a teacher of those who accept the truth with pleasure, and attracted many Jews as well as many of the Greek. This man was the Christ (ὁ χριστὸς οὗτος ἦν). And when, in view of [his] denunciation by the leading men among us, Pilate had sentenced him to a cross, those who had loved at the beginning did not cease [to do so]. He appeared to them on the third day alive again, for the divine prophets had announced these and countless other marvels concerning him. And even now the tribe of the "Christians"—named after him—has not yet disappeared.
Ant. 18:63-64

What's striking is the sentence in the Greek shown above, a succinct and unqualified assertion that Jesus was the Christ. In all of the Josephus corpus, he only uses the term "Christ" twice (here and in Ant. 20:200). I think most (if not all) scholars would be agreed that Josephus was not a Christian by any means, and therefore, this statement is somewhat at odds with how Josephus normally thought and wrote in the rest of his literature. This then engenders a few questions:

(1) Is this testimonium original to Josephus?
(2) Is this a later whole cloth creation by later Christian scribes?
(3) Did Josephus mention Jesus in some other way that provided the foundation from which later editors were able to create this assertion?
(4) Was Josephus a Christian? (if we were allowed to entertain this as a viable option)

I can understand why most scholars view this as a later redaction (or insertion) by Christian scribes, but I suppose if that was true, why only here and why in such a brief note? I would think that if they wanted to make Jesus available within Josephus' writings, they might as well scatter a few more pieces of information elsewhere (and possibly in larger chunks)...

UCLA and manuscripts

Just found out today that my alma mater, UCLA, now holds the largest repository of Ethiopic manuscripts in North America. Some excerpts of this article:

he UCLA Library has acquired the largest private collection of Ethiopic manuscripts and scrolls in the U.S., given by Gerald and Barbara Weiner. Together with the library's existing collections, this gift makes the UCLA Library the leading repository for Ethiopic manuscripts in North America. A classical Semitic language, Ethiopic is used as the liturgical language of the Christian church in Ethiopia. Dating from the 18th to the 21st centuries, the collection of 137 bound manuscripts and 102 scrolls is particularly rich in elaborately illustrated liturgical texts. Highlights include a late 19th/early 20th-century version of the Gospels containing 78 miniatures; a 19th-century "lives of the saints" with 40 miniatures; a 20th-century compilation of a table blessing and miracles performed by Jesus with 37 miniatures; and a 20th-century collection of prayers with an image of John the Evangelist and 26 miniatures.

"Words cannot express our deep thanks to Jerry and Barbara — first, for building this gorgeous collection, then for giving it to us," said UCLA University Librarian Gary E. Strong. "These extraordinary items, noteworthy both for their research value and their beauty, will be of great interest to students and scholars, as well as to the extensive Ethiopian community in Southern California." ...

To see more, go to the UCLA newsroom here.

HT: PaleoJudaica.com