More Treasures Coming Home
BBC is reporting that Iraqi National Museum has received “some 700 artefacts looted after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.” The items in question were seized by the Syrian government in various raids and represents the largest return of artifacts since the museum’s looting in 2003. It’s a small drop in the bucket of the thousands of artifacts still missing, but every bit helps.
Postmodern Herodotus
I’ve always had a soft spot for Herodotus. This might possibly owe to his apparent ADD or to his cameo in Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. Regardless, Daniel Mendelson reviews The Landmark Herodotus (ed. by Robert Strassler) and several other recent titles on the “father of history” in the latest New Yorker. Strangely and wonderfully, Mendelson goes a long way to show the importance of Herodotus to what might be referred to as postmodern history.
The following quote gave me all sorts of postmodern, web 2.0 pedagogical ideas:
He [Herodotus] pauses to give you information, however remotely related, about everything he mentions, and that information can take the form of a three-thousand-word narrative or a one-line summary. It only looks confusing or “digressive” because Herodotus, far from being an old fuddy-duddy, not nearly as sophisticated as (say) Thucydides, was two and a half millennia ahead of the technology that would have ideally suited his mentality and style. It occurs to you, as you read “The Landmark Herodotus”—with its very Herodotean footnotes, maps, charts, and illustrations—that a truly adventurous new edition of the Histories would take the digressive bits and turn them into what Herodotus would have done if only they’d existed: hyperlinks.
With the technologies afforded to us as educators through software packages like Blackboard, it would be possible to create a customized wiki-Herodotus wherein all of his zany tangents and digressions were relegated to hyperlinks. I, for one, would find the work worse for the effort; but it might provide an interesting pedagogical experiment if only to show students that all of Herodotus’ digressions are what make the work so much fun to read.
Evolution, Atheism and Popular Culture
Probably due to Ben Stein’s new film, I’ve been noticing a lot of discussion on evolution and atheism in the media in recent days.
Christopher Heard has capped a series of interesting posts on Expelled with a personal review of the movie. It’s quite good, and I recommend it highly.
New York magazine has a piece by Sean McMans entitled Do Atheists Need a Church of their Own? discussing issues of religious structure among those who deny the supernatural.
Yesterday, Marty Moss-Coane from WHYY‘s Radio Times interviewed Chris Hedges, author of the new book I Don’t Believe in Atheists ( Listen to this show via Real Audio | mp3). Despite the provocative title, Chris doesn’t have problem with the bulk of atheists or theists, but takes exception to those of both camp that operate with a militant fundamentalism. Many of the players from Expelled and the New York magazine piece show up in the discussion of how neo-Atheist neocons are impacting the discussion of religion in the larger global political structure.
Finally, this week kicks of the Year of Evolution celebration running now through the end of May here in Philly. I’m hoping to get over to the Penn Museum for some of the lectures over the next few weeks.
David Noel Freedman, Rest in Peace
The blogosphere is a buz about the death of David Noel Freedman on April 8th, 2008. He was a giant of the field, a proficient scholar, prodigious editor, and pleasant man.
My interactions with Professor Freedman were conscribed to a few meetings at WESCOR. He was always generous with student papers, seeking to help those of us just coming up through the ranks. On one occasion, I had dinner with him and several other scholars from the regions (including Bill Schniedewind, Beth Alpert Nakkai, Ed Wright and Joel Hunt). But, being the youngest and most junior scholar at the table I was reticent to say much.
He will be sorely missed.
Eschatological Errors?
This morning I taught on 1 & 2 Thessalonians. I take both letters as written by Paul and hold that they were written in Corinth soon after Paul was run out of town at Thessalonica (as per Acts 17). All this is standard, orthodox and happy in the evangelical environment in which I’m teaching NT. However, what struck me as odd is that Paul seems to be somewhat mistaken in both letters. I shrugged the problem off in class; but in light of John Hobbin’s post on What counts as an error in the Bible?, I’m begging to wonder if the issue is bigger than I thought.
In 1 Thes, it becomes evident that Paul didn’t quite teach the poor Thessalonians everything they needed to know. As such, he’s having to send a letter to explain his eschatology. In and of itself this doesn’t seem to constitute error of Scripture. The canonical corpus, no Paul himself, would be the issue. Paul’s correction of doctrinal confusion caused by the extenuating situation of his persecution doesn’t provide us with a smoking gun in this regard.
In 2 Thes, the saga continues. Paul’s vagueness in terms of an eschatological time line in 1 The has led some folks to abandon all work and take up waiting for Christ’s return as a full-time occupation. Paul is quite vexed by this. He sets them straight both doctrinally and practically. The former is my concern here.
In his discussion first in 1 Thes and then in 2 Thes as well Paul is working with an immanent eschatology. He really thinks that Jesus is coming back soon. In later letters, Paul (or “Paul”) takes a longer view on eschatology and ecclesiology, seeing the need to prepare for a longer haul in light of the delay of the Parousia. But, here in Paul’s earliest canonical letters, he believes that Jesus will return in the immediate future.
Does this constitute and error in Scripture? Can one hold that Paul is wrong and hold a “high view” of Scripture? Not being encumbered by ETS’s doctrinal statement and the Chicago Statement of Inerrancy, I’ve never really thought about this; but I’m beginning to wonder…
Interpreting Hermeneutics
There is a “Hermeneutics Quiz” at Leadership Journal.net put together by Scot McKnight (Jesus Creed). While the quiz is designed to make explicit one’s (often implicit) hermeneutical strategies, I found myself wondering if it succeeded in this task.
Scott designed the quiz and ran it with a sampling of twenty “pastors, professors, and former students.” Based on this sample (small, to be sure) he came up a the following rubric:
< 52 Conservative
52-65 Moderate
66-100 Progressive
I took the quiz and scored an 88, which makes me squarely in the “progressive” camp of hermeneutics — no surprise here, really. I find it hard to believe there is no such thing as a “plain meaning” of any text. Everything is culturally conditioned, both Scripture and our interpretation of it. As such, understanding the community that Scripture was addressed to and the community that is interpreting it is crucial.
However, it occurred to me that this entire quiz falls apart if you come from a confessional background. For example, question 13 states:
The context for reading the Bible is: 1. The individual’s sole responsibility. 2. I fall somewhere between No. 1 and No. 3. 3. The individual in conversation and respect for Church traditions. 4. I fall somewhere between No. 3 and No. 5. 5. The confessional statement of one’s community of faith.
Is it “progressive” or “traditional” to go with answer 5? How different would a postmodernist and a conservative Catholic answer this question? I wonder how some of my Eastern Orthodox friends would score on the post (yes, I’m trolling). Would having a second metric indicating how important a question was to them be able to indicate more accurately someone’s hermeneutical paradigm?
As is often the case with these sorts of quizzes, I think that the metrics show more about the kind of person who wrote it, than those who took it.
(HT: Tyler Williams)
Biblical Studies Carnival XXVIII is up
Chris Weimer from Thoughts on Antiquity is hosting The Real Biblical Studies Carnival XXVIII. He had already posted the not-so-real BS Carnival on April 1st (why are there so many scatological references in the blogosphere?); but this carnival was eminently more authentic and definitely less odious.
April 1st Sales at Eisenbrauns
Click here for info on Eisenbrauns’ now famous April 1st sale. This year my favourite would have to be that all-time greatest band, Nuzi and the Hurrians:
Nuzi and the Hurrians
Greatest Hits Collection
Winged Bull Press, 2008
Hurrian
CD-ROM
ISBN: APRIL2008D
List Price: $19.98
Your Price: $17.98
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~APRIL2008D
Description
Now with all the hits:
Hurrian Slow
Sweet Home Anatolia
Amarna Letters (Made You Cry)
Mari, Mari, Quite Contrari
Ya Had Me at Yamhad
Knock, knocking on Hatti’s door
… and all the Songs of Ullikumi!
This rare collection was recently uncovered in a controlled archaeological dig, so there is no doubt of its authenticity! Nuzi fans will definitely want to complete their collection with this digitally remastered* compilation!
Also available on vinyl LP, 8-track, and clay tablet.
Look for Nuzi and the Hurrians this Spring, on tour with The Mesopotamians.
*The scribe managed to get all five fingers into the transcription.
Paul, Authorship, and Ephesians
In teaching Paul this past week issues of authorship loomed large. The order I chose to teach the epistles was dictated not by supposed date or authorship issues but by archaeological presentations that my students will be giving on various cities. Unfortunately, this caused some thorny problems when I taught Ephesians.
The order of the Pauline material I chose was Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, Corinthians, Romans and then the pastorals at the end. My rational in this was that Gal and Eph had archaeological issues I wanted to address specifically before letting students give group presentation on the latter epistles. However, this caused problems.
First off, it entailed dealing with the problem of authorship before that of Colossians. While I consider both to be Pauline, my general rational has traditionally been the links between Colossians, Philemon and Ephesians. Doing Ephesians before Colossians messed that up. I was able to address authorship issues, but the argument for Pauline authorship is obviously not as strong when Colossians in left out of the equation.
Second, the recipient of Ephesians is far from clear. I’m of the opinion that the text-critical evidence points away from a specific church being mentioned in 1.1. It was slightly odd moving from a fifteen minute discussion of the archaeology of Ephesus and a ten minute discussion of Paul in Ephesus in acts and then begin explaining that neither Paul as author nor Ephesus as destination was certain.
I believe that Ephesus is at least one of the destinations for Ephesians, and probably the primary point of dispersion. My thoughts on this stem from the discussion of armor in ch.6. I’m becoming more of the opinion that the recently discovered gladiator and graveyard gives an adequate context for this (see earlier discussion of the graveyard here). Additionally, Ephesus leadership role in the province of Asia makes it a likely spot of distribution.
I’m still of the opinion that Ephesians was a regional letter written by Paul, but sending it to Ephesus for dispersal to the wider province of Asia seems likely.
Peter Enns Suspended from WTS
Daniel Kirk has the details on the suspension of Peter Enns from Westminster Theological Seminary. His suspension stems stems from faculty disunity over his book Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament.
This problem has been brooding for some time and makes me wonder whether Biblical Seminary will soon find itself with another Westminster ex-patriot (they already picked up Steve Taylor earlier this year).
Update 1 (3/28): Ted Olson has a note on Enns’ suspension, and Daniel Kirk has a bit more of the skinny on the board meeting. No official statement on WTS’s website as of yet. Stay tuned….
Update 2 (4/1): There was a special Q&A Chapel at WTS today concerning Enns’ suspension. Audio can be found here. CT now has a longer, more detailed piece here. Daniel Kirk has the minority report from the board meeting here. Arthur Boulet has more on the skinny from his perspective here. So much fun….
Ketuvim: the Writings of James R. Getz Jr. 