Duke Newt

Almsgiving is the ‘the commandment’ in 1 Timothy

2011-12-14T21:33:00.000-05:00

The new issue of New Testament Studies includes my short article, “Almsgiving is ‘the Commandment’: A Note on 1 Timothy 6.6-19”.

Here’s a link to the full text.

There are two thorny problems in 1 Timothy 6:6-19. First, why does the author interrupt two discussions of money with a charge to Timothy to “keep the commandment”? Second, what on earth is “the commandment”? In this article I argue that there is one surprisingly simple solution to both of these questions.

In Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and various rabbinic texts ‘the commandment’ refers to almsgiving. This idiom also has precursors in earlier texts such as Sirach. If one reads 6:6-19 on the hypothesis that the author was employing this idiom the whole passage snaps into focus. Verses 6-10 describe how the pursuit of moneycan lead to spiritual ruin. In vv.11-16 Timothy is given the antidote to such ruin. He is to A) flee fromthe love of money, B) pursue instead righteousness, godliness etc., and C) takehold of eternal life (ἐπιλαβοῦ τῆς αἰωνίου ζωῆς) and keep the commandment until Christ appears. Verses 17-18 repeat this advice, adapting it toapply to the rich. They are A) not to be proud because of theirmoney nor put their hope in it; B) rather, they should put their hope in God,and C) give their money away in order to take hold of true life (ἐπιλάβωνται τῆς ὄντως ζωῆς). If “the commandment”here refers to almsgiving then the author would simply be telling Timothy the samething that Timothy is to tell the rich: instead of pursuing money, pursueeternal life and give alms. The idiom of almsgiving as ‘the commandment’ notonly explains why the author simply speaks of ‘the commandment’ with no furtherclarification; it also fits hand in glove with 6.6-19 as a whole.

Also, check out the article by Duke’s own Robert Moses in the same issue. "Jesus Barabbas, a Nominal Messiah? Text and History in Matthew 27.16-17.

More Moffitt

2011-12-14T18:24:00.000-05:00

Check out this review of Moffitt's book at Chrisendom.

Dave Moffitt and resurrection in Hebrews

2011-12-10T14:55:00.000-05:00

Recent Duke PhD grad Dave Moffitt (ass. prof at Duke div and Campbell University) has a new monograph out from Brill, Atonement and the Logic of Resurrection in the Epistle to the Hebrews.

Here's the description from Brill's site:

Scholars often explain Hebrews’ relative silence regarding Jesus’ resurrection by emphasizing the author’s appeal to Yom Kippur’s two key moments—the sacrificial slaughter and the high priest’s presentation of blood in the holy of holies—in his distinctive portrayal of Jesus’ death and heavenly exaltation. The writer’s depiction of Jesus as the high priest whose blood effected ultimate atonement appears to be modeled upon these two moments. Such a typology discourages discrete reflection on Jesus’ resurrection. Drawing on contemporary studies of Jewish sacrifice (which note that blood represents life, not death), parallels in Jewish apocalyptic literature, and fresh exegetical insights, this volume demonstrates that Jesus’ embodied, resurrected life is crucial for the high-priestly Christology and sacrificial soteriology developed in Hebrews.

This is good stuff. Check out the controversy brewing because of Moffitt's argument on this blog.

Joel Marcus, Richard Hays, and Lori Baron play (I can't get no) satisfaction

2011-08-29T16:03:00.000-04:00

On the lighter side of student life

2011-07-30T20:12:00.001-04:00

I apologize for such a silly post, but this struck such a chord with me, I couldn't resist:
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1413
Cheers,
Rebekah

Thiessen removes the scales from our eyes

2011-07-23T14:02:00.000-04:00

Matt Thiessen, an erstwhile Duke Newt contributor, has a new book out with Oxford University Press, Contesting Conversion: Genealogy, Circumcision, and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Christianity.

Note that classy Oxford comma in the title.

See what Daniel Boyarin, John Barclay, and Daniel Schwartz say about it:

"Contesting Conversion addresses an important topic in a fascinating way. It's convincing, makes a highly significant argument cogently, and is extremely well written. The remarkable thing about the book is that Thiessen demonstrates, over and over, that texts that have been understood to support the idea of conversion via circumcision say precisely the opposite. It is not that he has come with an agenda to the texts and discovered that for which he searched, but rather that scholarship till now has done that. Thiessen removes the scales from our eyes."---Daniel Boyarin, Professor of Near Eastern Studies and Rhetoric, University of California-Berkeley

"This is a fine piece of historical investigation which successfully challenges a scholarly consensus. Exploring the insistence on eight-day circumcision in the Hebrew Bible, some strands of Second Temple Judaism, and Luke-Acts, Thiessen unearths a robustly genealogical conception of Jewish identity that defies modern notions of religion. The result is a highly significant contribution to current debates about conversion, Jewishness and ethnicity in ancient Judaism and early Christianity."---John M. G. Barclay, Lightfoot Professor of Divinity, Durham University

"Contesting Conversion argues convincingly, on the basis of a wide range of biblical and post-biblical evidence, that the notion that being a Jew is determined by birth alone, and so cannot be affected by choice, was current in antiquity and alive and well among many Jews in the Second Temple period down to the first century C.E. With regard to circumcision, which many took to be part of a process of conversion, Thiessen argues that many other Jews limited its religious efficacy to male Jewish babies and therefore denied that it could turn a Gentile into a Jew. This book is a welcome and important balance to research into the ethnic vs. religious nature of ancient Jewishness, especially insofar as such research often builds its notions on the basis of rabbinic and Christian universalism."---Daniel R. Schwartz, Professor of Jewish History, Hebrew University

Seth Schwartz on Gospel Communities

2011-06-02T14:58:00.000-04:00

But to conclude [along with Neusner] that we must assume the falsity of attributions [in rabbinic literature], that therefore (?) the documents are essentially pseudepigraphic and can be assumed to provide evidence only for the interests of their redactors, is in fact no longer a skeptical but a positivist position and is less plausible than the one it replaced.

[...]

Here Neusner, along with many other scholars of ancient Judaism, was influenced by an important tendency in New Testament scholarship, though he applied its methods in an uncompromising way. It is not uncommon among New Testament scholars to posit a discrete social context to serve as a hermeneutical framework in which to set each Gospel. This method has an element of circularity to it, since the hypothetical context is inferred mainly from the Gospel itself, but it is not unilluminating. However, scholars are frequently seduced by their own creations: the hermeneutical models are reified into real communities, which are supposed to have existed more or less in isolation from each other, so that each literary work is approached as if it here the hypostasis of a single monadic community. When the same technique is applied to Jewish literature of the Second Temple and rabbinic periods, the result is "Judaisms," a term introduced by Neusner and widely adopted. Once again, what started as interpretive restraint ended in implausible positivism: because it is advisable to read the literary works on their own, even though they obviously have close relatives (and because their social context is on the whole poorly known), each work begins to seem utterly different from its congeners and so must be the product of an impermeably discrete social organization.

Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 8-9. Emphasis added.

Baptism in Paul

2011-05-06T15:38:00.000-04:00

For some reason the "screen" is too small on the blog. The only way to see the whole thing is to click on it to go to Youtube.

Breaking: Lead Codices Revealed to be the Q Document

2011-04-01T10:56:00.000-04:00

The lead codices found in Jordan have been identified as the Q document, a hypothesis no more.

Until today there was no evidence for Q except for the fact that Matthew and Luke have material in common that isn't in Mark, so this is obviously a huge find.

Read the full story here.

Goodacre's Way through the Maze online in toto for free

2011-03-29T16:33:00.000-04:00

Mark Goodacre's fantastic popular introduction to the synoptic problem is now available online for free.

T.J. Lang on Luke 17 in JSNT

2011-03-03T15:38:00.000-05:00

"The days are coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it" (Luke 17:22).

In the new JSNT T.J. Lang argues that there are two kinds of "seeing" in this verse. The upshot is a fresh and convincing read of the passage as a whole. From the abstract:

This article argues for a reading of Lk. 17.22 as antanaclasis, which is a form of rhetorical wordplay in which the same (or a similar) term is repeated, but in two different senses. According to this reading, Jesus introduces his discourse to the disciples (vv. 22-37) with the prediction that in the coming days they will desire to ‘see’ (as in witness) one of the days of the Son of Man but they will not ‘see’ (as in comprehend) these days when they occur among them so long as they fail to understand that suffering is primary to the Son of Man’s identity. Such a reading coheres with the larger Lukan theme of the blindness of the disciples to the necessity of Jesus’ passion. Such a reading also requires a rethinking of the assumption that the subject of Jesus’ discourse in 17.22-37 is the parousia.

The day in question, then, is the Passion, which the disciples do not "see". The implications are significant: contrary to the assumption, common since Conzelmann, that Luke presents a wholly deferred eschatology, Lang shows that Christ's apocalypse begins at the cross.

The same issue also has a discussion of Kavin Rowe's World Upside Down, including Matthew Sleeman, John Barclay, and a response from Rowe himself.

Mere metaphor?

2011-02-07T14:47:00.000-05:00

Janet Martin Soskice on the problem of assuming that biblical metaphors are always "mere" metaphors:

Jesus' phrase 'this bread is my body'. Is this metaphorical or not? The question is frequently asked as though one's answer will settle an enormous theological controversy...as though, could we but acknowledge that phrases such as this one were metaphorical, we would be freed from the metaphysical difficulties which have troubled centuries of theological debate. But to think in this way is to fall back into the ornamentalist theories of metaphor against which we have been arguing from the beginning of the book. Even a conservative, catholic Christian could acknowledge that Jesus' phrase 'this is my body' is, or was, metaphorical but in doing so he would make a linguistic and not an ontological point. It would be analogous to acknowledging that the phrase 'there is a strong electrical current flowing through the wire' is, or was, metaphorical. The point at issue is not really whether we have metaphor here, but what the metaphor is doing: is it simply an ornamental redescription, so that Jesus has redescribed bread in an evocative way? or is the metaphor genuinely catachretical, not a redescribing but a naming or disclosing for the first time? It is one's metaphysics, not metaphor, which is at issue. To put it another way, the question is not simply whether we have a metaphor here or not, but what, if anything, the metaphor refers to or signifies.

Metaphor and Religious Language, (OUP, 1985).

Details on Richard Bauckham at Duke

2011-02-04T11:16:00.000-05:00

What was once whispered in the hallways is now proclaimed from the Divinity school website. Here are the details on this year's Clark lectures:

Established in 1984, the Kenneth Willis Clark Lectureship Fund honors the life and work of Reverend Professor Kenneth Willis Clark, a Divinity School faculty member for 36 years. Each year this fund enables the Divinity School to offer a distinguished program with special emphasis on New Testament studies and textual criticism.

These are free public lectures. No pre-registration is necessary.

Individualism and Community in the Gospel of John

Guest Speaker: Richard Bauckham
Richard Bauckham was until recently Professor of New Testament Studies and Bishop Wardlaw Professor in the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, and is now Professor Emeritus at St. Andrews. He retired in 2007 in order to concentrate on research and writing, and is Senior Scholar at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, where he does some teaching for the Cambridge Federation of Theological Colleges. He is also a Visiting Professor at St. Mellitus College, London. From 1996 to 2002 he was General Editor of the Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series. He is an Anglican (but not ordained), and was a member of the Doctrine Commission of the Church of England for some years. In 2009 he was awarded the Michael Ramsey prize for his book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, and in 2010 the Franz-Delitzsch-Award for a volume of collected essays, The Jewish World around the New Testament. His other publications include God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament (1998) and The Theology of the Book of Revelation (1993).

Schedule
Lecture 1
Thursday, February 24, 2011
4:00-5:15 p.m.
0016 Westbrook, Duke Divinity School

Lecture 2
Friday, February 25, 2011
12:20-1:20 p.m.
0016 Westbrook, Duke Divinity School

Please contact Jacquelyn Norris at (919) 660-3529 with any questions.

HT: Mark Goodacre

SBL postpones implementation of new policies for students

2011-01-17T16:33:00.000-05:00

From the recent mass email:

The Executive Committee of Council met on 12 January 2011 to discuss concerns over the recent policies regarding student participation in the Society’s Annual Meeting. The policies that were announced in November 2010 required all students without a doctoral degree to submit to the Program Unit Chair the full text of the paper they intended to read and limited the number of sessions student can participate in (as panelist, presenter, and respondent) to one.

The action taken by the Executive Committee of Council, effective immediately , is to postpone the implementation of these policies and to undertake additional discussion of these matters at the Spring 2011 Council meeting. This action thereby sets aside these requirements and restrictions until 2012, pending further review.

I want personally to thank the members of the Student Advisory Board and the network of OSRs for the conversations we have had concerning these matters. They are active advocates for student interests. Please do continue these conversations with me or with representatives on SAB. SAB will provide a report directly to Council in April.

[...]

John F. Kutsko
Executive Director
Society of Biblical Literature

A wise move, I think.

Happy Newt Year and an SBL Student Survey

2011-01-01T10:21:00.000-05:00

First of all, Happy Newt Year to you all! Here's to a year filled with the passing of courses and prelims, progress on dissertations, graduations, publications, jobs, and success wherever you are along the way.

As you probably know, SBL recently changed the criteria for student papers at the Annual Meeting. The main two changes are as follows:

1. All students without a doctoral degree are required to submit to the Program Unit Chair the full text of the paper they are proposing to read.

2. The number of sessions a student without a doctoral degree can participate in will be limited to one.

The first point has generated quite a bit of discussion in the blogosphere. For some examples, see the original email from SBL Executive Director John Kutsko on Pat McCullough's blog and a response by James McGrath. The most obvious problem from my point of view as a student is that I am not going to take time away from my dissertation in February to write a paper that may or may not be accepted for the Annual Meeting. Nor is it clear why this step is necessary for students who have successfully presented papers in the past. This rule will severely limit my ability to participate in future meetings and, I feel, diminishes the benefits of my SBL membership. No doubt there have been valid complaints about the quality of papers at the meeting, but this blanket rule assumes that (1) students are the only ones submitting poor quality papers, and (2) steering committees for the individual sections are incompetent at screening the abstracts they receive. I am sure you can come up with additional points in favor of or against these changes.

The good news is that it seems that SBL wants to hear from us. Pat McCullough posts some good suggestions here, one of which involves completing a survey that will provide data directly to SBL's Student Advisory Board. Pat mentions January 10 as a deadline for completing the survey and for submitting formal written responses to the Board. So I just wanted to encourage y'all to fill out the survey and make your voices heard.

Dr. Seuss does Gnosticism

2010-12-20T09:13:00.000-05:00

Colby Whittaker, a first year Duke Divinity student, composed this Dr. Seuss-inspired version of a Gnostic creation story:

One day the first principle was feeling a bit down,

his glumdiferous magnificence turned in a frown.

he pondered and thunk and he thunk and he thought

and oh what a surprise when he saw what he'd wrought

there in the light of his emanated glow,

sat the second principle, the barbelo!

The barbelo in its barbelo suit, with its barbelo spirit munching
spiritual barbelo fruit.

And that barbelo

in its barbelo suit,

with its barbelo thoughts and its barbelo fruit,

why it looked on ole dad with his emanated glow his splendiferous
magnifence and before you know

there came a loud pop, a gnarf and kabangs

And out of the ole Barbelo came 4 more things

And not any ole things

no not any would do

but the best and the brightest, the shiny and new.

First Logos and Life, for who doesn't need a buddy

Then Man and then Church that fuddy old duddy

and they came and they spread

oh they spread and they spread

but they looked around and you know what they said?

Our world is too small oh far far too small

For our father is so so great, so grand and so tall

his world must be sad, such a tiny little world

and so they thought and they thought and thought unfurled

they expanded and grew and then they knurled.

What is knurl I hear you ask?

Why a wonderful thing in which we all should bask.

For out of their knurling

their thinking and thought

their swirling and whirling

they found what they sought

10 little aeons all in a lot.

Well not all at once you must understand

They came out in pairs!

Like a 10 man band.

10 aeons sprung forth, all shiny and new,

and fresh out in the world, they knew and they grew,

and they knew and they grew as good aeons ought

and then, as you'd guess, they too had a thought!

With their 12 aeon friends 22 strong,

they thought and they thought all the day long.

They thought of great things, such marvelous things

spirit-God kings and androgynous rings,

and they thought and they sang

their beautiful song

they sang and it rang

till something went wrong.

Poor little Sophie

said its much too crowded

with all your spirit singing I've been quite out-louded!

And then as you see poor Sophie was outed.

For Sophie had passions what a terrible lot

For silence and thinking is what a good aeon thought.

But Sophie wanted more, oh so much, more

she looked at her Aeon-friends and said “What a bore!”

So she sought out First-Principle,

grand ole Abyss,

and strung up in her passions

she gave him a kiss.

But oh what a kiss and such a kiss to miss

For Abyss would be having with none of this

he sent rough old limit,

that crabbity sort

to sort all this out

all this huffing and snort.

So limit did his limit-y best

and Sophie was purified

and returned to the nest

she returned to the rest

of her Aeon-y friends

but as we know things

take turns and bends

Cause Sophie's desire was not easily undone

It said “I'm still here! I'll still have my fun!”

That desire, misshapen and lumpy and cross,

It looked at that world and gave it the toss.

It said “Forget you Spirits” I've had my fill

of your Aeon-y sounds,

of your Aeon-y rules

of limits and bounds

and with a great whabumph,

and a sickening slumph

why gross ole desire

made some crumph,

and that crumph

it had mass and growth

so Desire became Ii-al-da-both.

And Ialdaboth was a bit of a fool

a bit of a munchkin, a bit of a tool

He forgot all that spiritual, gnosticky junk

and out came some matter with a resounding plunk

And out of that plunk came the moon and the earth

the clouds and the sky and so matter gave birth!

It gave birth to it all

All you can see

The rocks and dolphins

the birds in the trees

But all was not right

Oh certainly not right

Because all that world

was sad without light

Not normal light that pale thin drink

but the light of the Spirits!

Their old thoughty-think!

But Ialdaboth when he messed it all up,

he accidentally brought some spiritual stuff!

He dragged some gnosticy thoughty-thinking souls

And those souls fell into meat-mattery holes.

Those souls became psychics and gnosticky sorts

forming all new secret spiritual cohorts.

Poor Abel who died right off the bat,

And Cain who might have had a hand in that.

But then came Seth, marvelous Seth,

cause inside his chest was the spiritual breath

And inside his heart was the spiritual stuff,

the wonderful mystical spiritual stuff,

the stuff of which theres never enough,

So the children of Seth learned to think a humdinger thought

and this secret they took and they went and they taught

they taught about Sophie and they taught about her weird child

And they told the stories of how he went wild.

They taught about how all this matter is bunk

and all about Ialdy the maker of junk.

But with their humdinger secrets safe in your head

you too could go back, or so they said.

Go back to the start, to the place they still miss,

back home with the Spirits and good ole Abyss.

Resurrection of what?

2010-12-18T16:34:00.000-05:00

I have been reading a lot of secondary literature on resurrection lately, and I have noticed a confusing ambiguity in the language employed in these discussions: In the common phrase "resurrection of the X," X can refer either to the thing that undergoes the process of resurrection or to the thing that has undergone the process of resurrection (that is, either to the raw materials or to the end product).

Thus, for example, the phrase "resurrection of the flesh" can be taken to denote either a view affirming that dead corpses will exit their graves (even if they are transformed radically in the process) or the view that the end product of resurrection will have all the "fleshly" qualities associated with our current form of existence.

This ambiguity is frustrating, but I am not sure what to do about it. Any suggestions?

Video interview of Douglas Campbell

2010-12-12T17:50:00.000-05:00

Campbell is here talking about participation in Christ.

HT: Michael Gorman.

SBLGNT

2010-12-01T09:49:00.000-05:00

My colleague Stephen Carlson has made a few insightful comments on the SBLGNT apparatus.

Here is another take on the Holmes edited volume:

SBL 2010

2010-11-09T11:28:00.000-05:00

I went to the SBL 2010 online program book and searched for "duke". This is what came up, in the order that it came up.

If I missed something let me know.

See you in Atlanta!

Donyelle McCray, Duke Divinity School
When Illness Calls: Insights from Julian of Norwich’s Call to Frailty (20 min)

Carol Meyers, Duke University
Sustenance and Sacrality: Household Foodways in Ancient Israel (20 min)

Tom McGlothlin, Duke University
Patristic Rhetorical Analyses of Romans 3:1-8/9 (30 min)

Andrew D. Rowell, Duke University
John Howard Yoder’s Missional Exiles and Jeremiah 29: A Case Study for Missional Hermeneutics (20 min)

Richard B. Hays, Duke University
Intimations of Divine Identity Christology in Luke's Reading of Scripture (30 min)

Kavin Rowe, Duke University
The Return of Allegory: Scholarly Exegesis and the Literal Sense of Luke-Acts (30 min)

Nathan Eubank, Duke University
To Fulfill All Righteousness: Kenotic Glory in Matthew (20 min)

T.J. Lang, Duke University
Luke’s ‘Little Apocalypse’ is not about the Parousia: Reconsidering the Subject and Setting of Luke 17.22-37 (30 min)

Erin Darby, Duke University
Icons in Context: Judean Pillar Figurines from the Top Down or the Bottom Up? (30 min)

Jill Hicks-Keeton, Duke University
Rewritten Gentiles: Joseph and Aseneth and the Greek Bible (30 min)

Lori Baron, Duke University
Did Matthew Misunderstand Mark? The Shema in the First Gospel (25 min)

Matthew Thiessen, Duke University
Proselutos in Light of the Translation Techniques of the LXX Translators (30 min)

Laura Lieber, Duke University
The Poetry of Creation: Amittai’s Yotzer le-Hatan (25 min)

Dave Nielsen, Duke University
Singular Readings in the Text of the 'Unknown Gospel' (30 min)

C. Kavin Rowe, Duke University
The Grammar of Life: the Areopagus Speech and Pagan Tradition (30 min)

Stephen C. Carlson, Duke University
Eschatological Viticulture in 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, and Papias (30 min)

David M. Moffitt, Duke University
Blood, Life, and Purification: Reassessing Hebrews’ Christological Appropriation of Yom Kippur (20 min)

Rebekah Eklund, Duke University
The Identity of the Crowds in the Passion Narrative (30 min)

Matthew Thiessen, Duke University
Circumcision in the Early Church according to Acts (28 min)

T.J. Lang, Duke University
Critical Interaction with Paul’s Exodus Exegesis (1 Cor 10): Origen and Augustine (30 min)

Dave Nielsen, Duke University
Singular Readings and the Community Behind the 'Unknown Gospel' (20 min)

Bradley R. Trick, Duke University
The Singular Abrahamic Seed and the Law’s Supplementing of the Promise in Gal 3:15-20 (30 min)

Ken Olson, Duke University
Eusebius, Porphyry, and the Testimonium Flavianum (35 min)

Susan Eastman, Duke University
"The evil I do not want is what I do": Sin and Evil in Romans (30 min)

Stephen M. Wilson, Duke University
David’s Initiation into Manhood: Reading 1 Samuel 17 as a Rite of Passage Narrative (30 min)

Presian Burroughs, Duke University
Ethical Readings of Romans 8: Compassionate Attention or Liberative Action in a Groaning World (30 min)

Timothy Wardle, Duke University
Mark as a Sectarian Document? An Investigation into Mark’s Views on the Law (35 min)

Christian Theology and the Bible
11/21/2010
4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
Room: International South - Hyatt Regency
Theme: Book Review: C. Kavin Rowe, World Upside Down: Reading Acts in the Graeco-Roman Age (Oxford, 2009)
Stephen Fowl, Loyola College in Maryland, Presiding (10 min)
Beverly Gaventa, Princeton Theological Seminary, Panelist (25 min)
Robert Wall, Seattle Pacific University, Panelist (25 min)
Douglas Harink, King's University College (Edmonton), Panelist (25 min)
Stephen Fowl, Loyola College in Maryland, Panelist (25 min)
C. Kavin Rowe, Duke University, Respondent (25 min)

Ideological Criticism
Theme: Book Review: James Crossley, Jesus in an Age of Terror (Equinox, 2008)
Randall Reed, Appalachian State University, Presiding
Mark Goodacre, Duke University, Panelist (25 min)
Zeba Crook, Carleton University, Panelist (25 min)
William Arnal, University of Regina, Panelist (25 min)
Roland Boer, University of Newcastle, Australia, Panelist (25 min)
James Crossley, University of Sheffield, Respondent (30 min)

Finding Your “Niche” in Biblical Scholarship
11/20/2010
4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
Room: Hanover Hall AB - Hyatt Regency
Theme: Hosted by the Student Advisory Board
Patrick George McCullough, University of California-Los Angeles, Presiding
Christopher B. Hays, Fuller Theological Seminary, Panelist (10 min)
Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, Princeton Theological Seminary, Panelist (10 min)
Dale B. Martin, Yale University, Panelist (10 min)
Mark Goodacre, Duke University, Panelist (10 min)
Paula Fredriksen, Boston University, Panelist (10 min)
Discussion (90 min)

Mounce on Deponent Verbs

2010-10-22T16:23:00.001-04:00

The third edition of Mounce's Greek textbook has a little note in the margin on p. 152 where he discusses deponent verbs:

There is some interesting research currently happening that questions whether there is such a thing as deponency. For example, many deponent verbs are intransitive (36.10) and therefore cannot be passive. See the class website for an ongoing discussion.

I join those who feel that the notion of deponency in Greek is problematic, and I will be instructing my class that the so-called deponent verbs should really be thought of as (inherently) middle verbs.

Again, Reno on places to study theology

2010-10-21T21:52:00.000-04:00

Rusty Reno has once again offered his thoughts on where to study theology and once again has Duke at the top, this time alongside Notre Dame.

p.s. Reno again says that Duke's PhD is offered through the Religion department, which is false. This common misconception was debunked by Mark Goodacre the last time Reno wrote about this.

Duke's Graduate Program in Religion is at the top of the NRC rankings. In other news, Duke fails to mention their reception in the SBL program book

2010-10-15T11:41:00.000-04:00

Good news and bad news.

The good news: while there are different ways of reading the data, the recent study of U.S. doctoral programs by the National Research Council ranks Duke's Graduate Program in Religion either at #1 or something close to it. The significance of all this will be debated, no doubt.

The bad news: according to the SBL program book there is no Duke reception. There is a rumor, however, that the reception is at this place and time:

11/21/2010 (Sunday)
9:00 PM to 11:00 PM
Hyatt Regency
Room: International North

Can anyone confirm this?

Update: as you can see in the comments, this is the correct place and time.
Thanks to Lisa and Mark!

Matthew Thiessen's new Canadian BS blog

2010-09-29T15:52:00.000-04:00

Matthew Thiessen, a recent Duke NT PhD grad and current Senior Lecturer in New Testament College of Emmanuel and St. Chad and Lutheran Theological Seminary at the University of Saskatchewan, has a new blog.

Here's his description of the blog's purpose:

Greetings. Having just moved to Saskatoon, I thought it would be a good idea to begin blogging about teaching New Testament at the College of Emmanuel and St. Chad and the Lutheran Theological Seminary, member colleges of the Saskatoon Theological Union at the University of Saskatchewan. I hope to post notices of exciting events that are happening around here, as well as musings on the study of religion.

I hope you come by often!

Check it out.

Debugging Mounce: "Contraction" (?!) in the Neuter Plural

2010-09-08T09:06:00.000-04:00

We are all using the very popular Mounce textbook for the introductory Greek course in the Duke Divinity School. On the Duke Newt blog, we are planning on blogging some of our experiences with this textbook.

Occasionally, Mounce's explanations don't seem quite right. One example occurs on p. 32 of the 3d edition, in section 6.12 on case endings. As a bit of background, Mounce takes the unusual approach of giving the first and second endings apart from the stem-vowel (alpha/eta or omicron, respectively), rather than, as more common, expect students to learn the endings with the stem vowel.

Mounce's approach, however, runs into a wrinkle for the second declension, nom./acc. neuter plural ending, as in ἔργα (from singular ἔργον), because the omicron stem vowel is no longer there. Here's how Mounce attempts to explain it:

6.12 ... The underline (α means that the case ending joins with the final stem vowel.⁵ ...

⁵ This is called "contraction," and I will discuss it in detail later. For example, the stem of the noun ἔργον is ἔργο. When it is in the neuter plural its form is ἔργα. The omicron and alpha have "contracted" to alpha. ἔργο + α > ἔργα.

This explanation is simply wrong. In particular, omicron and alpha do not "contract" to a (short!) alpha. Rather, omicron + alpha contracts to a (long) omega (as Mounce later recognizes in the chart on p. 343).

The explanation is also wrong as a historical matter. The alpha of the neuter plural is not the result of an o-vowel plus an alpha ending; rather, it is the ordinary reflex of the Proto-Indo-European ending of *-eH₂, which the vowel *e plus the a-coloring laryngeal H₂. In this case, the stem vowel *o changes to *e by ablaut, which then is colored to α by the following H₂.

Now, I don't expect introductory grammars of Biblical Greek to be giving the details of Proto-Indo-European morphology, but I do expect that their explanations of the Greek be correct. In this case, a more accurate explanation is that the neuter plural nom./acc. ending -α simply replaces the second declension stem vowel. There is no need to appeal to "contraction," which never occurred historically here and which apparently behaves differently from how omicron and alpha normally contract.

Nathan Eubank in JBL

2010-09-06T09:44:00.000-04:00

Duke Newt's very own Nathan Eubank has a new article out in the latest JBL 129/3 (2010): 521–536.

A Disconcerting Prayer: On the Originality of Luke 23:34a

Besides making a persuasive case for the long reading of Luke 23:34 (Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing), Eubank also demonstrates the important (and so often ignored!) methodological point that "if the goal of transcriptional probability is to determine what a scribe is most likely to have written, it would seem prudent to examine what the scribe’s near contemporaries wrote about the passage in question" (536).

Eubank's article is an excellent example of the importance of the history of exegesis for textual criticism.

2010 Opening Convocation at Duke Divinity School

2010-09-05T13:09:00.000-04:00

Prof. Richard B. Hays was installed as the Dean of the Duke Divinity School at the 2010 Opening Convocation. Here is his sermon (preceded by the readings):

The Our Father in Greek

2010-09-03T16:09:00.000-04:00

My Greek class is memorizing the Our Father. One resourceful student found this video and wanted to share it with the class. I included the Greek text (as found in the NA27) below:

Πάτερ ἡμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς•
ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου•
ἐλθέτω ἡ βασιλεία σου•
γενηθήτω τὸ θέλημά σου,
ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς•
τὸν ἄρτον ἡμῶν τὸν ἐπιούσιον δὸς ἡμῖν σήμερον•
καὶ ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰ ὀφειλήματα ἡμῶν,
ὡς καὶ ἡμεῖς ἀφήκαμεν τοῖς ὀφειλέταις ἡμῶν•
καὶ μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν,
ἀλλὰ ῥῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ.

Learning the Greek Alphabet

2010-08-31T21:09:00.000-04:00

Introductory Greek courses are kicking off this week at Duke, and Mark Goodacre has posted a few songs to help those who are learning the alphabet.

Here's a nice clear one:

Here's a hilarious one.

Finally, here's a link to a free 26 minute video of Bill Mounce teaching the alphabet.

Student Journal for New Testament Studies

2010-06-30T17:31:00.000-04:00

It has come to my attention (via ETC), that there is a new on-line (and traditional) publication called the Student Journal for New Testament Studies, featuring articles written by grad (or advanced undergrad) students.

The journal currently has three articles to read: one on the Didache, one on Luke 23:32-43, and one on the Historical Jesus.

Marquette Scripture Project blog

2010-06-23T16:20:00.000-04:00

Graduate students and professors at Marquette are discussing theological interpretation of Scripture on this new blog.

Gal 2.1-10 = Acts 15: How firm a foundation?

2010-06-09T14:03:00.000-04:00

The identification of Gal 2.1-10 with the events of Acts 15 often serves as a foundation for interpreting both texts based on the tendencies evident in their differences. I have seen assignments for undergraduate surveys, discussion prompts for graduate seminars, and doctoral exam questions that ask the student to compare the two passages, identify their differences, and discuss what those differences suggest.

But how confident can we be in this identification? At first glance, it might seem that we can be very confident: Both texts describe trips to Jerusalem to discuss the circumcision-free gospel, and dating Galatians after Acts 15 might allow Paul to have been in north Galatia (Acts 18.23). Addressees in north Galatia are said to be preferable to south Galatia because of Paul's use of the “ethnic” term “Galatians” (3.1) and the double silence about ethnic Jews: Unlike 1 Corinthians and Romans, Paul does not address Christians with Jewish backgrounds separately, and we have no evidence of a Jewish population in north Galatia. Based on these factors, influential commentators like Betz and Martyn assume the identification of the passages with almost no argument.

I want to suggest that this confidence is misplaced. The argument from north Galatian addressees, based as it is on an ambiguous use of an ambiguous term (Paul could be using it sarcastically—imagine a European calling a Dutch Boer a “foolish African” fifty years ago) and a double argument from silence, is too weak to settle the argument. All we really have, then, is the prima facie similarity between the two accounts.

The problem is that there is a third account, Acts 11.27-30, that also deserves consideration. When the three accounts are compared, the identification of Gal 2.1-10 with Acts 15, although still possible, becomes less of a foregone conclusion.

Gal 2.1-20	Acts 11.27-30	Acts 15
Trip occasioned by “revelation.”	Trip occasioned by Agabus's prophecy.	No revelation or prophecy.
Second trip to Jerusalem (critical for Paul's argument).	Second trip to Jerusalem.	Third trip to Jerusalem.
Private meeting with “pillars” to discuss circumcision-free gospel.	No meeting mentioned.	Public discussion of circumcision-free gospel.
Spying “false brothers.”	No mention of “false brothers.”	Mentions of Christians teaching the necessity of circumcision.
“Pillars” require care for the poor, Paul was already eager for this.	Trip undertaken for material relief of Christians in Jerusalem.	No mention of poverty or material needs.

Acts 11.27-30 thus has three seemingly unrelated correspondences (prophecy, trip sequence, and material needs), no contradictions, and two silences, the most important of which is plausibly explained by Gal 2's description of a private meeting. Acts 15, on the other hand, has two correspondences (subject of discussion and presence of opponents), at least two contradictions (trip sequence and the nature of the discussion), and two silences.

Naturally, conservative commentators such as Longenecker and Bruce, who seek to avoid contradictions whenever possible, have gravitated towards Acts 11. Even if one is not committed to avoiding contradictions, however, I think this comparison shows that Acts 11.27-30 is a viable candidate. Whether or not to correlate Galatians with Acts is not at issue; the question is which is the best correlation, and with what degree of confidence we can make that correlation.

In the end, both are possible, but the degree of confidence often accorded to the correlation with Acts 15 seems unjustified. It can be a tentative conclusion, but interpretive edifices built upon it must, by definition, be at least as tentative. Studies that do so, while not invalid, should acknowledge the shakiness of their foundation.

Software for SBL style??

2010-06-02T13:02:00.000-04:00

Does anyone know of bibliography/footnote software that includes SBL style?

I've tried to use Endnote but it's never worked out.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!!

2010-05-29T09:25:00.000-04:00

The latest NTS has an article from our own Stephen Carlson, "The Accommodations of Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem: kataluma in Luke 2:7."

Amongst Stephen's weaponry is his knack for beginning papers with a hook. Here's a preview:

RBL Review of Mounce, 3d ed.

2010-05-27T18:10:00.000-04:00

The Review of Biblical Literature has a detailed book review by Laurence M. Vance of William D. Mounce, Basics of Biblical Greek: Grammar (3d ed., 2010).

Bauer apud Martyn on Ascertaining Intention

2010-05-20T08:50:00.000-04:00

There has been much discussion over the role of authorial intention in exegesis. I will not rehearse it here, but I've found a quotation from Walter Bauer and conveyed by Lou Martyn in his Galatians commentary (AB 33A, p. 42) that gets it right (IMHO):

On the way toward ascertaining the intention of an early Christian author, the interpreter is to ask how the author's document was understood by those who first read or heard it.

Richard Bauckham will come to Duke

2010-05-17T22:42:00.000-04:00

... to give next year's Clark lectures, according to his website.

Why people don't like the Synoptic Problem

2010-05-05T11:41:00.001-04:00

Yesterday Mark Goodacre suggested three reasons why people don't like the Synoptic Problem:

(1) People find it dull because it is taught badly. In fact, the Synoptic Problem is often not taught at all. In so far as New Testament introductions and introductory courses teach it, they focus on one particular solution (the Two-Source theory) and then they refract all the data through that theory. Simply setting out a solution deprives students of all the interest in the process of history, all the enjoyment in puzzling out the literary enigma.

(2) People find it dull because they do not actually study it. The only way to engage in serious study of the Synoptic Problem is to get down and dirty with the Synopsis, and to spend enjoyable time working with the texts, ideally doing some colouring. It's one of the guilty secrets of the guild that too many scholars simply do not do the work with the texts that they should, preferring instead to keep wading through the pile of largely mediocre pieces of secondary literature.

(3) People find it dull because they think that there is an obvious solution (the Two-Source Theory). Alternatives are thought to be unpersuasive and not worth attention. To an extent, Mike's post bears this out -- he engages only the Two-Source Theory and the Griesbach Theory. I think that this is a shame given the strong case that can be made for the Farrer Theory, engagement with which can make the Synoptic Problem interesting again.

This all rings true for me. I first became interested in the Synoptic Problem when I had the chance to spend time coloring an old synopsis and saw for myself - though I had already been told by teachers and friends - that the data did not fit as neatly into the schema of the Two-Source theory as I had supposed.

Has anyone else had this experience?

Quote of the day

2010-04-23T20:33:00.000-04:00

On the question of whether Judaism was legalistic or not:

"the correct answer is: Of course, and what of it?"

From Seth Schwartz's Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E. (2001) p.63n36.

Paul and the Imperial Cult

2010-04-22T10:11:00.001-04:00

One of the wonderful things about Duke's Graduate Program in Religion is the support and encouragement we receive from faculty to publish while we are still students. Colin Miller, who recently defended his dissertation, has just published a piece entitled "The Imperial Cult in the Pauline Cities of Asia Minor and Greece," in CBQ 72 (2010): 314-32.

Here is a snippet: "[M]y aim has been to survey the evidence for the imperial cult in important Pauline places in Pauline times. I have shown that the evidence for the imperial cult in those cities is not nearly as vast as it has been assumed in recent studies, nor was it nearly as vast at this early point as it was to become later. Moreover, the evidence reveals that, even where the cult did exist, it was marginal. It is thus anachronistic to say that Paul's message was directed at a culture permeated by Roman dominance as evidenced in the imperial cult" (331).

Reconfigured Torah

2010-03-16T22:11:00.000-04:00

Richard Hays's article, "The Gospel of Matthew: Reconfigured Torah", is finally available online. This is an excellent piece, but it used to be rather hard to find.

The 'Canonicity' of Romans 1:18-32

2010-03-05T11:27:00.000-05:00

I was recently at UVa presenting a paper on Douglas Campbell's re-reading of Romans 1-4. It was an interdisciplinary conference (so, not all biblical scholars/theologians) and therefore the focus of the discussion was perhaps not the same as it might usually be (focusing on textual markers and the like).

One of my respondents, however, made a very interesting comment to me after the questions had ended. She asked whether adopting Campbell's reading of Romans 1-4 meant that 1:18-32 (along with the other segments of the text assigned to the Teacher) meant that we, as theologians, no longer were obliged to wrestle with the theology represented by this passage, as it is no longer 'canonical'.

This strikes me as a good question. I don't know whether the following responses might be adequate. First, some of the theological themes 'removed' by this passage (e.g. natural theology, issues concerning human sexuality) are also found elsewhere in the canon - and therefore we would still have an obligation to wrestle with them (although they would not perhaps carry the same weight).

Second (and this is a question rather than a response), how far are we obliged to consider seriously rival theologies that are presented in the Bible? For instance, should we consider whether Job's friends provide an adequate response to his predicament? Should we consider whether the Pharisees might be right that Jesus does not show proper respect for the Law? Perhaps an implication of Campbell's reading of Romans 1-4 is that Paul does want us to consider rival theologies - even if he ultimately wants us to accept his.

Does anyone actually prefer endnotes?

2010-02-18T16:25:00.000-05:00

Why do academic publishers use endnotes? Does anyone actually like them?

Quizzes by Quibblo.com

Teresa Okure to give 2010 Clark lectures

2010-02-15T21:31:00.000-05:00

From the Divinity School's website:

Teresa Okure, professor of New Testament and gender hermeneutics at the Catholic Institute of West Africa, will present the 2010 Duke Divinity School Clark Lectures on Feb. 17.

She will present “Reading the Gospel Miracles as Parables: Mark 5:1-20 as an Example” at 8:30 a.m. in Room 0016 Westbrook. She will present “Rediscovering ‘the New’ in the New Testament,” at 12:20 p.m. in Room 0016 Westbrook.

Both lectures are open to the public.

Okure, who lives in Nigeria, is a Sister of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus. She also has served in various leadership roles at the Catholic Institute of West Africa, including academic dean, dean of student affairs, and head of the Department of Biblical Studies.

A member of various national and international theological and biblical associations, Okure is a well-known biblical scholar who has lectured widely both nationally and internationally. She is the founding president of the Catholic Biblical Association of Nigeria (CABAN) and a co-editor of the new Biblical Commentary Series, Texts@Contexts, the first volumes of which are due to appear in November, published by Fortress Press.

Neusner and the Pope

2010-02-09T03:28:00.000-05:00

This is actually quite amusing.

http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/pope357908.shtml

"If you think our walk to the heart of Catholic Christianity precipitated long, long thoughts of history and family — what would the first Jacob Neusner, my grandfather from Koretz in Volhynia Gubernya and Beverly, Massachusetts, who died seventy-seven years ago, a few months before I was born, have thought today, how many Jewish scholars had had occasion to walk through those palatial rooms and what brought them to call on the Pope, and as guard after guard saluted my wife and me how often kippah-wearing visitors received the Swiss guards’ salute — if you thought it was these thoughts of who and where I was, you’re mistaken. Midway through the walk from room to room, I had the awful thought that my fly was open. I checked. It was — but not for long."

Wrede helped invent "the community"

2010-02-03T12:00:00.000-05:00

As Stephen mentioned in these comments, Richard Bauckham has suggested that Streeter (The Four Gospels: A Story of Origins, 1924) was one of the first scholars to read the Gospels as if they were written for insular communities, a shift which led to the contemporary notion that the Gospels are, in part at least, about these communities.

It appears that William Wrede was an earlier, more important precursor to the "community" approach.

In The Messianic Secret (1901), Wrede criticizes his contemporaries for forgetting that the Gospels are "just a later narrator's conception of Jesus' life." Coming to grips with this fact, Wrede argues, entails paying more attention to the way the Gospels served the needs of their communities:

I should never for an instant lose sight of my awareness that I have before me descriptions, the authors of which are later - albeit relatively early - Christians. These Christians could only look at the life of Jesus with the eyes of their own time and describe it on the basis of the belief of the community, with all the viewpoints of the community, and with the needs of the community in mind. (Introduction, emphasis added)

Of course, this assumption is essential for Wrede's explanation of the messianic secret as an attempt by Mark and his precursors to make non-messianic Jesus traditions conform to a growing belief that Jesus was the messiah, not just after his resurrection, but during his earthly ministry as well.

Given the influence that The Messianic Secret had on form criticism, I think we should look here when assigning blame or credit for the looming presence of "the community" in our exegetical imaginations.

Subjective genitive of πίστις in Ignatius's letter to the Romans?

2010-01-31T10:31:00.000-05:00

I was recently reading Ignatius's letter to the Romans and found an instance of the famous "πίστις Χριστοῦ" construction. Here's the passage (Ehrman's text, minus punctuation):

Ἰγνάτιος ... τῇ ἠλεημένῃ ἐν μεγαλειότητι πατρὸς ὑψίστου καὶ Ἰησοῦ τοῦ μόνου υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ ἐκκλησίᾳ ἠγαπημένῃ καὶ πεφωτισμένῃ ἐν θελήματι τοῦ θελήσαντος τὰ πάντα ἅ ἔστιν κατὰ πίστιν καὶ ἀγάπην Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν ... (Ignatius, Rom. salutation)

As far as I can tell, the only way to construe the highlighted phrase as an objective genitive is to read it as as a second prepositional phrase modifying πεφωτισμένῃ (after ἐν θελήματι ...) instead of as a phrase modifying θελήσαντος.

I hear that JTS has just accepted an article arguing that "πίστις Χριστοῦ" appears throughout the Apostolic Fathers as a subjective genitive. I'm looking forward to seeing what it has to say.

In the meantime, does anyone see any considerations that would swing the construal one way or the other?

Mistaken Hebrew tattoos

2010-01-30T09:10:00.000-05:00

Check out this funny post at Codex on mistaken Hebrew tattoos.

Also see Josh McManaway's comments.

Graduate School? Just Don't Go

2010-01-21T13:56:00.000-05:00

...says Thomas H. Benton in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Here's a memorable excerpt:

Nearly every humanities field was already desperately competitive, with hundreds of applications from qualified candidates for every tenure-track position. Now the situation is becoming even worse. For example, the American Historical Association's job listings are down 15 percent and the Modern Language's listings are down 21 percent, the steepest annual decline ever recorded. Apparently, many already-launched candidate searches are being called off; some responsible observers expect that hiring may be down 40 percent this year.
What is 40 percent worse than desperate?
The majority of job seekers who emerge empty-handed this year will return next year, and for several years after that, and so the competition will snowball, with more and more people chasing fewer and fewer full-time positions.
Meanwhile, more and more students are flattered to find themselves admitted to graduate programs; many are taking on considerable debt to do so. According to the Humanities Indicators Project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, about 23 percent of humanities students end up owing more than $30,000, and more than 14 percent owe more than $50,000.

Sin: A History

2010-01-16T05:26:00.000-05:00

I just read a brief but very interesting review of Gary Anderson's new book, Sin: A History, here: http://lorenrosson.blogspot.com/2010/01/nature-of-sin-in-biblical-tradition.html

Then I found Bruce Marshall's take (this is really worth reading): http://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/12/treasures-in-heaven

Then I learned about this upcoming conference on Anderson's book at the Augustine Institute in Denver: http://www.augustineinstitute.org/sai/

I have not read the book; but I plan to, as soon as possible. It looks like it will be a helpful work for people with New Testament questions and a challenge to many assumptions that have become so familiar they are no longer even seen as such. Even if, in the end, you strongly disagree with Anderson, I suspect that being forced to grapple with his arguments should in the long run sharpen your own.

Is there anyone out there who has worked through it or is aware of other reviews?

A new interview with Richard B. Hays about his background, influences, and work - Andy Rowell | Church Leadership Conversations

2010-01-11T07:50:00.000-05:00

It must be a Richard B. Hays megathon! Andy Rowell has much more material about Dr. Hays. (Also mentioned by Mark Goodacre.)

Stephen Chapman on Canon

2010-01-09T20:17:00.000-05:00

Karyn Traphagen has some remarks about an article by Stephen Chapman on Canon.

John Anderson's Interview w/ Richard B. Hays of Duke University

2010-01-08T14:20:00.000-05:00

John Anderson, formerly of Duke but now a doctoral student at Baylor, has an interesting Interview w/ Richard B. Hays of Duke University. Dr. Hays does most of the talking, er, writing.

Matthew Thiessen's new JBL article on Gen 17:14

2010-01-04T20:50:00.000-05:00

Fellow Duke PhD student and Duke Newt contributor Matthew Thiessen has a fascinating article on Genesis 17:14 in the new issue of JBL. Thiessen argues that critical texts of this verse ought to read as follows (By the way, can anyone tell me how to use Hebrew and Greek characters in blogger? I don't know how so here's the translation):

And the uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin on the eighth day, that soul shall be cut off from his people, he has broken my covenant. (p.642 emphasis added)

The crucial part is "on the eighth day", which the MT and every modern translation I am aware of lack.

There are lots of reasons why this variant is important, but the thing that interests me the most is the fact that the longer reading is found in all extant LXX manuscripts, the Samaritan Pentateuch, Jubilees, (and possibly 8QGen frag. 4), and yet it is almost universally dismissed in favor of the reading found in the MT.

I don't think it's unfair to say previous discussions of this verse have relied on an uncritical confidence in Codex Leningradensis, and a corresponding excessive suspicion of anything that contradicts this codex. Check out Thiessen's entire argument to see why.

Does the existence of text types support the idea that the Gospels were written for relatively insular communities?

2009-12-21T20:57:00.000-05:00

A handful of prominent critics of Richard Bauckham's famous essay, "For Whom were the Gospels Written?", have argued that the existence of text types (Alexandrian, Western, Caesarean, Byzantine) is evidence against Bauckham's view that the Evangelists wrote, not only for their own "community", but also with an eye toward wider dissemination.

The argument goes something like this: the existence of distinguishable text types testifies to the strength and relative isolation of the individual churches which produced and preserved those manuscripts. This suggests, it is argued, that early Christian literature was produced primarily by and for individual communities.

I confess that this argument strikes me as specious, and I'm wondering if someone can help me see if I'm missing something.

While the list of commonly acknowledged text types may look impressive, it is misleading. The Byzantine text is thought to be, in part, the result of conflation of earlier text types, so it actually testifies to the interpenetration of streams of textual transmission in Christian antiquity, not to their isolation. Similarly, Bruce Metzger described the Caesarean text as being characterized by a mixture of Western and Alexandrian readings and as "the most mixed and the least homogeneous of any of the groups that be classified as distinct text types" (The Text of the New Testament, 2005 p.310-12).

Now we're left with just the Alexandrian and the Western texts, both of which appear to have emerged at some point during the second century, in the case of the the Western text the latter part of the second century. The existence of two identifiable text types does attest to some degree of isolation. Nevertheless, the significance of this relative isolation for the question of Gospel audiences is greatly attenuated by the fact that we're talking about a period of time 50 to 100 years after the composition of the Gospels. And of course both text types attest to all four canonical Gospels.

To sum up: when it comes to the debate over Gospel audiences, it seems to me that only the Alexandrian and Western texts count as evidence of the relative isolation of streams of transmission of Christian literature, and this evidence is too late and too weak to tell us much, if anything, about the concerns of the Evangelists.

I'd love to be shown if I'm missing something. That's what blogs are for, right?

Cast your vote! What are the Gospels?

2009-12-16T17:52:00.000-05:00

Everyone who votes will receive a free copy of Joel Marcus's Mark commentary!

Quizzes by Quibblo.com

David Kelsey on the New Perspective on Paul

2009-12-11T20:22:00.000-05:00

A friend recently emailed me the following quotation from David Kelsey's new book, Eccentric Existence: A Theological Anthropology. It's illuminating, I think, to listen to a theologian attempt to summarize the insights of the last few decades of work on Paul.

“When Paul inveighed against justification by works of the law, the law he had in mind was Torah, God's revealed positive law that specifies what God wills that human creatures ought to do. It might well be interpreted as including a positive duty to forgive others. In seventeenth-century Protestant-Roman Catholic theological polemics, Protestant theologians held that Paul’s critique of the project of ‘justification by works of the law’ included works evaluated by ‘law’ more broadly understood as moral law, whether revealed in Scripture or rationally discerned in the structure of created reality as natural law. Such law might well include a duty to forgive others. It has not been uncommon in modern Protestant theology for Paul’s critique to be broadened to cover the project of justifying one’s life by ‘works of the law’ where ‘law’ is understood to cover any social convention that serves as a criterion for excellence in behavior…

These successive broadenings of what Paul meant by ‘law’ move entirely outside the theological context in which he framed his critiques Paul’s concern was highly particularist and Christocentric. He was concerned to reconcile the unbrokenness of God’s covenant with Israel, and the continued validity of Torah as the expression of God’s will regarding life in the covenant, with the Gospel claim that in Jesus Christ God enacted reconciliation with estranged human creatures, including Gentiles outside the covenant and not subject to all the demands of Torah. Successive broadenings of understanding of ‘law’ in ‘justification by works of the law’ do not develop Paul’s theological point. They simply change the subject.”

(I'm sorry I don't have the page number. I asked my friend for the full reference, but he said he was busy updating his Facebook profile or something. Ah, the life of a PhD student in theology...)

I do have one question (similar to something pondered here): what's the difference between developing Paul's point and simply changing the subject? I don't dispute that there is a difference, but I'd be interested to hear how new perspective folks answer this.

Chris Tilling, Michael Gorman, and Douglas Campbell talk about Douglas Campbell

2009-11-27T11:28:00.000-05:00

Chris Tilling posted a few thoughts about the session on Campbell's Deliverance of God and an interesting conversation ensued in the comments. Campbell and Gorman both make appearances, as does Richard Hays via Tilling's memory.

Audio from the SBL session on Douglas Campbell's Deliverance of God

2009-11-24T10:01:00.000-05:00

Thanks again to Andy.

Audio from Romans as Christian Theology Session

2009-11-22T12:22:00.000-05:00

Thanks again to Andy Rowell for recording this.

The papers are from Beverly Gaventa, Richard Hays, and Michael Gorman.

Update: the file only contains Gaventa's presentation.

David Knauert Memorial at SBL

2009-11-19T14:58:00.000-05:00

Matt Schlimm has just organized a memorial session at this year's SBL meeting in New Orleans to remember the all-too-brief life of our friend and colleague David Knauert (Hebrew Bible PhD, Duke 2009). It will be held Sunday (Nov 22) 7-8:30pm in Napolean A1 at the Sheraton Hotel.

More SBL info

2009-11-19T09:13:00.000-05:00

Andy Rowell has discovered that a good number of presentations are missing from the list below. Here's one that looks particularly interesting (I will buy beer for anyone who records this):

21-212

Development of Early Trinitarian Theology
11/21/2009
1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Room: Studio 7 - MR
In this introductory session, scholars in biblical studies and patristics will discuss the state of the conversation in each discipline. Presentations followed by moderated discussion among the panelists and audience.

Mark Weedman, Crossroads College, Presiding
Christopher Seitz, Wycliffe College, University of Toronto, Panelist
Kavin Rowe, Duke University, Panelist
Matthew Levering, University of Dayton, Panelist
Matthew Drever, University of Tulsa, Panelist

I have an idea of what Kavin is going to say, and it's very interesting, to say the least.

SBL Program changes

2009-11-17T21:02:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to post one update on the information that Nathan posted about Duke students presenting at SBL.

Tommy Givens and I were to present on Sunday morning in the Matthew section, but we are now presenting Tuesday morning at 9am in Rhythms Ballroom 1-SH. So if you go to hear us on Sunday morning, you will be sadly disappointed...

Wish I were going to SBL 2009

2009-11-15T19:04:00.000-05:00

I'm staying home this year. I feel a little left out, so this is my attempt to involve myself.

Here's a list of Duke-affiliated presenters (thanks Stephen).

Lots of these presentations sound great. There is one, however, that I've actually read, and it's fantastic: Hans Arneson's "Vocabulary and Date in the Study of Wisdom: A Critical Review of the Arguments”. If you're at all interested in the question of when Wisdom of Solomon was written, you do not want to miss this paper. I don't want to spoil the surprise, so I'll just say that it appears Arneson has demolished the widely accepted argument for determining Wisdom's date.

Saturday, November 21, 2009 at 4:00 PM

Kathy Barrett Dawson, “Intertextuality and Mimetic Reversal in Galatians 1-2: Pauline Autobiography and the Inclusion of the Gentiles” in 21-308 Biblical Criticism and Literary Criticism

Jill Hicks-Keeton, “Remember and Believe: Psalm 69:9 in the Johannine Temple Logion” in 21-322 Intertextuality in the New Testament Consultation

Richard B. Hays, “Spirit, Church, Eschatology: The Third Article of the Creed as Hermeneutical Lens for Reading Romans” in 21-336 Theological Hermeneutics of Christian Scripture

Lauren K. McCormick, “Ba'al's Guiding Light: Shapsh and Magic in the Ba'al Cycle and Other Texts” in 21-337 Ugaritic Studies and Northwest Semitic Epigraphy

Sunday, November 22, 2009 at 9:00 AM

Matthew Thiessen, “Abolishers of the Law and the Early Jesus Movement” in 22-129 Matthew

George Thomas Givens, “From the Lost Sheep of the House of Israel to All the Nations: A Challenge to Supersessionist Readings of Matthew” in 22-129 Matthew

Anathea Portier-Young, “Toward a Theory of Early Jewish Apocalypses as Resistance Literature” in 22-145 Social Sciences and the Interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures

Jill Hicks-Keeton, “Diasporic Space in Tobit” in 22-146 Space, Place, and Lived Experience in Antiquity

Bradley R. Trick, “Misinterpretation as Interpretive Key: Jesus’ Use of Ambiguous Parables to Harden Hearts” in 22-147 Synoptic Gospels

Sunday, November 22, 2009 at 1:00 PM

Eric Meyers, “From the Upper Galilee to the Lower Galilee: Reflections on the Rural-Urban Divide” in 22-203 Archaeological Excavations and Discoveries: Illuminating the Biblical World Joint Session With: Archaeology of Religion in the Roman World, Archaeological Excavations and Discoveries: Illuminating the Biblical World

Sunday, November 22, 2009 at 4:00 PM

Elizabeth A. Clark, “Christian Literary Culture in Late Antiquity: A Response” in 22-317 Eusebius and the Construction of a Christian Culture Consultation

Erin Darby, “Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Ghost?: The ‘Apotropaic’ Clay Images of Iron II Judah in Neo-Assyrian Context” in 22-327 Israelite Religion in its West Asian Environment

Monday, November 23, 2009 at 9:00 AM

Bradley R. Trick, “‘Lest Their Hearts Understand’: Hardening Hearts through Misunderstanding in Isaiah 6:1-9:6” in 23-119 Formation of Isaiah

David M. Moffitt, “New Papyrological Evidence Regarding the Meaning of the Term Proselyte” in 23-136 Papyrology and Early Christian Backgrounds

Hans Arneson, “Vocabulary and Date in the Study of Wisdom: A Critical Review of the Arguments” in 23-141 Pseudepigrapha

Monday, November 23, 2009 at 4:00 PM

Albert McClure, “Solar Functions of Messengers in Zechariah 1:7-6:15” in 23-305 Book of the Twelve Prophets

Mark Goodacre, “How and Why the NT Gateway was Rebooted, Revitalized and Relaunched” in 23-308 Computer Assisted Research

Ken Olson, “A Eusebian Reading of the Testimonium Flavianum” in 23-319 Historical Jesus

Tuesday, November 24, 2009 at 9:00 AM

Lori Baron, “Interpreting the Shema: Liturgy and Identity in the Fourth Gospel” in 24-109 Construction of Christian Identities

Stephen C. Carlson, “Origen's Use of the Gospel of Thomas” in 24-112 Function of Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphal Writings in Early Judaism and Early Christianity

Tendencies of the Pre-Synoptic Tradition

2009-11-11T20:51:00.000-05:00

Anyone interested in the Historical Jesus of course needs to have some theory of the pre-synoptic tradition, that is, the sources (oral and/or literary) that lie behind Matthew, Mark, and Luke. For several decades, the dominant paradigm has been that originating with the form critics, with Rudolf Bultmann's History of the Synoptic Tradition being perhaps the classic statement of this approach. This paradigm, however, has recently been challenged by several scholars, notably James Dunn and (even more so) Richard Bauckham.

Dunn and Bauckham argue that the understanding of the pre-synoptic tradition derived from the form critics is defective (and one consequence of this is that it hinders our study of the Historical Jesus). Their main bone of contention is that the form critics have failed to appreciate the importance of distinctively oral modes of tradition transmission, by examining the pre-synoptic tradition through the lenses of a 'literary' paradigm. Dunn argues, instead, that the community as a whole would keep a close guard on the original tradition, whilst allowing limited variety within original pattern; Bauckham, of course, argues that this regulation comes from eyewitnesses.

The strengths and weaknesses of their positive proposals have been much debated, and I do not intend to engage them here. The question that I do want to engage is whether a broadly 'form critical' approach is really so unhelpful in understanding the pre-synoptic tradition.

The basic proposal which I would like to advocate is that the tendencies we see operating between the synoptic gospels provide us with evidence of the kinds of tendencies that would have been operative in the pre-synoptic period. This is what I take to be at the heart of the 'form critical' approach. Consider an example: in the synoptic gospels, it is widely agreed that there is a tendency to make more explicit and/or pronounced the subordination of John the Baptist to Jesus (seen, for instance, in the accounts of Jesus's baptism). From this, it is suggested, we can infer that in the pre-synoptic tradition, there may have been a similar tendency to increase subordination of John the Baptist to Jesus. One practical outcome of this approach might be that where, in the Markan tradition, we see subordination of the Baptist to Jesus (e.g. Mark 1:7), we might suspect (though not necessarily affirm) that this subordination is itself the result of a tendency that was also found in the pre-synoptic tradition. (I probably should emphasize that this is only a possible example of the kind of thing I am talking about; I am not especially interested here in making a strong claim about this particular tradition!)

As I see it, there are two possible objections to this line of reasoning. The first is that it is inappropriate to speak of 'tendencies' of the synoptic tradition at all. This criticism, if made, would probably be justified with reference to E.P. Sanders' Tendencies of the Synoptic Tradition (which of course was the inspiration for the title of this post!). However, the kinds of 'tendencies' of which Sanders is rightly critical are not those I am suggesting we should detect in the synoptic and (hence) pre-synoptic tradition. Sanders criticizes detection of 'mechanical' tendencies such as length of pericope, addition of names, and so on. It is not clear, however, that his criticism would apply to a tendency such as 'subordination of the Baptist to Jesus', which does not require a dubious regularization of the development of the tradition.

The second objection is this: that we cannot move from characterization of the synoptic tradition to characterization of the pre-synoptic tradition, because the pre-synoptic tradition was in some way 'fundamentally different'.

I would like to argue, however, that this objection does not go through. Firstly, this objection is often made from the perspective of 'oral vs. literary': the synoptic tradition (as we have it in our gospels) is of course written, and therefore it is illegitimate to infer from it the tendencies of the pre-synoptic tradition, which was oral. Even if this were true of oral traditions (see below), this objection would not apply to any of the written sources that Mark and the other evangelists used. So wherever we postulate a written source, it does not seem unreasonable to see some similarity between the tendencies of the synoptic tradition and the tendencies of the pre-synoptic tradition.

What, then, of 'oral' sources (to which Mark especially presumably had some access)? If we are to make any claims about developments of the tradition in cases where that tradition was orally transmitted, we need a theory of oral tradition, which in turn needs to be based on evidence, and I would suggest that the best evidence we have for how oral traditions were treated and developed is in fact the synoptic gospels themselves (rather than theories drawn from totally different geographical and/or temporal contexts). I am not saying, as does, for instance, Dunn, that the variant synoptic traditions themselves directly attest to oral traditioning (though this may be true in some cases). All I am suggesting is that the closest evidence we have to the treatment of Jesus traditions in the pre-synoptic period are the synoptic gospels themselves, and therefore, despite being written documents, the synoptic gospels should be given pride-of-place as evidence in our discussion of pre-synoptic tradition.

In conclusion, then, if the synoptic gospels are our most temporally and geographically proximate evidence for the pre-synoptic tradition, then in our discussion of the pre-synoptic tradition (whether oral or literary) the best place to start is with an examination of the tendencies that can be detected between these documents. From there, we can move on to tentatively identify possible tendencies in the pre-synoptic tradition. This is not an illegitimate construction of non-existent 'tendencies', nor is it a failure to understand 'oral tradition': it is simply an employment of the best evidence we have for the pre-synoptic tradition, namely, the synoptic gospels themselves. Therefore, recent criticisms of this sort of approach (e.g. from Dunn and Bauckham) are arguably misguided.

More on Douglas Campbell's DOG

2009-11-09T15:55:00.000-05:00

Andy Rowell has organized all (or nearly all) the online reactions to The Deliverance of God to date.

Thanks for doing this Andy!

AAR Montreal

2009-11-06T21:24:00.000-05:00

Today I arrived in Montreal for the Annual Conference of the American Academy of Religion. I forgot how fantastic Montreal is! To those who are currently in Montreal, here are a few things you must hit:

Schwartz’s Montreal Hebrew Deli. This restaurant, just up the road from the Palais de Congrès (at 3895 St Laurent Boulevard), will blow you away. It is a Montreal institution that has been around for 80 years.
Mont Royal. This is just west of Schwartz’s. There is a nice park at the base of the hill and an invigorating but brief climb to the top of the mountain that affords you a beautiful view of the city. Those who have watched the movie “Jesus of Montreal” will find this place rather familiar. Those of you who haven’t watched the movie should.
The Old City (Vieux-Montreal). This is just south of the Palais de Congrès. Apart from some beautiful buildings such as the Basilique Notre-Dame, there are numerous great restaurants and bars on the picturesque cobblestone streets.
Don’t be afraid of poutine. Yes, it consists of three forms of fat (French fries, beef gravy, and melted cheese curds), but life is short.

I wish I had more time here to enjoy the sights, not to mention Tim Hortons (which is on the ground floor of Palais de Congrès), but after some conference-related activities, I have to make my way back to Durham tomorrow afternoon. My only solace is that the weather in Durham is supposed to be in the 70s, while here it is in the 30s.

In two weeks, I hit New Orleans for the annual conference of SBL. So the French connection continues, but the weather will improve.

J. Z. Smith on Pedagogical Lying

2009-10-24T12:05:00.000-04:00

Jonathan Z. Smith has a provocative piece at the Chicago website for the Center for Teaching & Learning, called "The Necessary Lie: Duplicity in the Disciplines". Here are two excerpts:

We lie, it seems to me, in a number of ways. We sometimes cheerfully call the lie words like 'generalization' or 'simplification,' but that's not really what we're doing. We're really lying, and lying in a relatively deep fashion, when we consistently disguise, in our introductory courses, what is problematic about our work.

I think there is very little to justify introductory lying. In the case of the introductory courses, we produce incredibly mysterious objects because the students have not seen the legerdemain by which the object has appeared. The students sense that they are not in on the joke, that there is something that they don't get, so they reduce the experience to "Well, it's his or her opinion."

I realize that Smith's "lying" is a harsh term and he's doing it to be provocative. But maybe that's how we should regard our temptation to over-generalize and over-simplify in our teaching. Sometimes we're torn because sometimes the easiest examples we can use to make a profound point with our students aren't quite right and explaining them correctly loses the point we're trying to get across. What are we to do?

Let me give an example. It would really be pedagogically useful if Q (the hypothetical saying source that Matthew and Luke independently used) actually existed. Then we can start to get our students thinking about historical sources for Jesus that lay outside the canon. Q was never canonized but its contents are in the canonical Matthew and Luke. Thus, Q lies halfway between our canonical sources and non-canonical sources. Q's contents are not strange to our students but its structure and organization are. Indeed, Q promises a different way about early Christian thinking about Jesus, a way that was not relentlessly focused on the cross. But to make this point with intellectual integrity, we have to point out that the extent of Q isn't really known with much clarity (it could have had a passion for all we know) and even that are serious problems with its very existence. What are we to do?

The deus ex machina of context

2009-10-20T15:40:00.000-04:00

One way Christians all over the theological spectrum attempt to deal with troubling passages in the Bible is by emphasizing the difference between the writer's historical context and our own. For instance, I recently heard a theologian who wished to avoid making exclusive claims on behalf of Christianity explain away the exclusive claims of 1 John by arguing that 1 John is about the conflict within the Johannine community. 1 John does not, therefore, address contemporary inter-religious dialogue.

My intent here is not to say anything about 1 John or inter-religious dialogue, but to address this method of dealing with problem passages.

Every word in the Bible was originally addressed to someone else, to some situation other than our own. This point is probably a truism. But, if this is correct, then one of the tasks of those who accept these texts as normative or relevant for today is to ask how those words from the past can "leap the gap" - to use Richard Hays's phrase - and address very different situations. This leap is necessary not only when the Bible seems foreign and obsolete, but also when it sounds familiar and comforting. This leap is an unavoidable consequence of reading words addressed to someone else as addressed to us. That is, this leap is an unavoidable consequence of having Scripture.

If I'm on the right track, then the otherness of the biblical writer's context cannot, of itself, render a text irrelevant for contemporary questions. The question for those who read the Bible as Scripture is not whether a given biblical author speaks immediately to our situation - they never do. For this reason, I don't see how arguments such as the one mentioned above can avoid special pleading.

I am not saying that historical context is irrelevant for reading the Bible as Scripture. Quite the opposite. I am saying that any attempt to limit the significance of a particular passage to its Sitz im Leben implies that there are some other passages which speak immediately and simply to contemporary situations.

The Deliverance of God

2009-10-13T12:24:00.000-04:00

As many of you know, Duke's very own Douglas Campbell has a new book out--The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Reading of Justification in Paul. Many of us at Duke have been involved in some fashion with the production of this gargantuan volume.

The good news is that so far DOG (as it is known among initiates) is receiving quite the praise in the blogosphere.

Loren Rosson (The Busybody) writes: "Let me start by saying that I'm in awe of The Deliverance of God. There hasn't been a book of its kind since Sanders, pressing us to take a long look behind ourselves and then ahead again with new lenses. Parts of it need to be read at least twice for proper digestion, so don't expect to breeze through it curled up on the couch with a brandy snifter. In addition to the required mental exercise is the physical, which you'll get from lugging the damn thing around: it comes in at 936 pages, 1218 including endnotes. Is it worth all the effort? Unquestionably."

http://lorenrosson.blogspot.com/2009/09/deliverance-of-god.html

Chris Tilling (Chrisendom) has even gone so far as to call it "the most important book to have been published since Sanders' Paul and Palestinian Judaism."

http://www.christilling.de/blog/2009/10/seven-things-to-do-to-cheer-yourself-up.html

http://www.christilling.de/blog/2009/09/deliverance-of-god-doug-campbells-new.html

I’m sure there will be many more reviews to come; I just thought it worthwhile to report the good news so far.

And here's a link to go and buy the book:

http://www.amazon.com/Deliverance-God-Apocalyptic-Rereading-Justification/dp/0802831265

Translation Contest: Bultmann!

2009-10-10T05:00:00.000-04:00

This is the first ever Duke Newt translation contest/suggest a better sign contest.

This street sign comes from Rudolf-Bulmann Straße in Marburg.

The sign reads:

"Prof. D. Bultmann D.D. (1884-1976) suchte die christliche Botschaft gegenüber dem Wahrheitsbewußtsein der Neuzeit zu verantworten."

The challenge is:

A: Offer your own tranlation of the sign

or

B: Create your own description of Bultmann--your own "Rudolf-Bultmann-Straße" sign

Bultmann's Birthday

2009-10-09T10:00:00.000-04:00

It was a warm afternoon in Marburg.

A Thursday. August 20.

His 125th birthday.

I sang "Zum Geburtstag viel Glück!" to him.

We talked a bit.

And then I rubbed his nose for good luck.

That was all.

Duke #14 Worldwide!

2009-10-08T12:43:00.000-04:00

The Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings 2009 are now out. Duke students will be happy to know that Duke has basically stood its ground, coming in at #14 worldwide this year. For those graduate students considering Ph.D. studies in Religion, these overall rankings confirm Rusty Reno’s recent assessment of Duke’s merits at First Things.

As a Canadian, I was also elated to see 11 Canadian universities make the top 200:

McGill University moved up from #20 to #18.

University of Toronto moved up from #41 to #29.

University of British Columbia slid from #34 to #40.

University of Alberta moved up from #74 to #59.

Université de Montréal slid from #91 to #107.

University of Waterloo moved up from #129 to #113.

Queen’s University basically stood its ground at #118.

McMaster University slid from #117 to #143.

University of Calgary moved up from #170 to #149.

University of Western Ontario moved up from #159 to #150.

Simon Fraser University slid from #164 to #196.

For students thinking of pursuing doctoral work, let me make a plug for the University of Toronto. Toronto’s #29 ranking (again in conjunction with Reno’s recent rankings of Graduate programs in Theology) indicates a little-known secret: the University of Toronto is a fantastic place to pursue graduate work in Religion, and biblical studies in particular. I actually have a hard time believing Toronto only ranks 29^th in the world, but perhaps I am unduly influenced by the fact that it is so strong in my own field of study. Toronto School of Theology (which is made up of a federation of seven theological schools and 105 regular faculty members!), the Centre for the Study of Religion, the Centre for Jewish Studies, and the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Studies together provide abundant resources to study biblical literature. Further, the U. of Toronto library system is the fourth largest academic library in North America (after Harvard, Yale, and Berkeley). All of this offered in the heart of a vibrant, cosmopolitan city!

The Pauline "Mystery"

2009-10-07T12:11:00.000-04:00

Last week, during my stay in Marburg, I had the opportunity to meet with Friedrich Avemarie, who is Professor of NT at Philipps-Universität Marburg. (Marburg, by the way, seemed to me to be a wonderful place to do research or graduate work in NT. I did some work of my own in their library and had the chance to meet with a few of their doctoral students, who were all very friendly and hard at work on interesting projects). Professor Avemarie is, of course, the author of important works such as Tora und Leben. Untersuchungen zur Heilsbedeutung der Tora in der frühen rabbinischen Literatur, for which he is perhaps most widely known. He is also a very generous host; and I say this not just because he paid for my coffee and gave me some books.

Professor Avemarie is currently one of the editors (along with J. Frey, M. Bockmuehl, and H.-J. Klauck) of the WUNT II series. One of the books he gave me is from this series: Pablo T. Gadenz’s Called from the Jews and from the Gentiles: Pauline Ecclesiology in Romans 9-11. The dissertation on which this monograph is based was completed at the Pontifical Gregorian University (Rome) and directed by Prof. Jean-Noël Aletti.

The book is a fascinating study of Rom 9-11 in many respects, but I wanted to offer one extended quotation that I found especially provocative. This comes from the chapter on Rom 11. The specific issue under discussion is the mystery in 11:25 and the function of this verse in the larger argumentative context. I won’t waste space with further explanations. I’ll just give you the quotation.

“It thus appears that there are no scriptural passages which reveal this information. The reason is that it is something new, belonging to Christian revelation; Paul himself is the one that reveals this mystery (vv. 25b-26a), explaining that the hardening that has come upon a part of Israel will last until the incoming fullness of the nations, and so all Israel will be saved…Since it is something new, the mystery in 11,25b-26a is not contained as such in the (OT) Scriptures. The mystery itself goes beyond the Scriptures (but not against them), and indeed, the Scriptures can be re-read in light of the revealed mystery. As a result of the mystery, therefore, the proofs in Paul’s argument necessarily have to change…The proofs are no longer based on Scripture, nor can then be. This shift is often misunderstood by scholars…It is helpful to emphasize this point because it shows a limit in how Paul uses the Scriptures. We see here that Paul does not automatically cite Scripture to prove whatever point he wants to make, but rather that he respects the content of what is revealed in the Scriptures and realizes that in this case the issue at stake goes beyond them” (209-13).

Thoughts?

Oh, and stay in touch; in the coming days I'll post a few pics of me and Bultmann in Marburg. We celebrated his birthday together.

Rusty Reno on Duke

2009-10-05T15:22:00.000-04:00

Theologian Rusty Reno has, once again, offered his "crude and impressionistic" musings on what he takes to be the best graduate programs in theology, opining that Duke's program is the best, followed by Notre Dame.

While his claims are sure to ruffle feathers, perhaps especially at Duke, I thought readers of this blog might be interested in what he says about biblical studies at Duke:

There is a further reason why Duke is a remarkable place. In the mid-twentieth
century, Karl Rahner pronounced the Bible off limits for theologians. Systematic
theologians, he argued, should not presume upon the domain of properly
“scientific” historical exegesis. To my mind, this untenable divide between
theology and biblical interpretation has crippled both systematic and biblical
theology. Duke’s program works against this divide. Richard Hays, Kavin Rowe,
Stephen Chapman, and Ellen Davis are biblical scholars who can (and want) to
talk to students about Augustine, Aquinas, the Reformers, Karl Barth, and even
Karl Rahner. Moreover, Stanley Hauerwas has written a biblical commentary, and
Reinhard Hütter and Paul Griffiths are working on commentaries as well. Duke is
the ground zero for a restoration of theology to biblical exegesis, and biblical
exegesis to theology.

Feel free to raise objections!

BC/AD vs. BCE/CE: Pitre + Wrong = Right

2009-10-01T22:21:00.000-04:00

[Correction: Michael Barber was not the author of the post over at the Sacred Page - it was Brant Pitre! Whoops. Apologies to both.]

Robert Cargill's article in The Bible and Interpretation has triggered discussion on whether one should use BC/AD or BCE/CE, as Cargill argues.

Brant Pitre offers what I take to be an insightful criticism of the BCE/CE label:

The primary reason is that "B.C.E." and "C.E." are vacuous: they don't mean
anything. What actually is the "common era"? Can anyone actually tell me what is
"common" about the years 1-the present? And what was it that happened "before
the common era" so as to make it, well, 'un-common'?
It seems to mean the terminological shift is nothing but a rather facile attempt to take a dating
system which clearly places the Incarnation at the center of human history and
secularize it. But the attempt ultimately fails, since whether you use
B.C.E/C.E. or B.C./A.D., the Incarnation is still at the center of the system.
There's no other identifiable historical event that marks the transition from
one age to the other, whatever one concludes about the chronological controversy
regarding exact calendar date of Jesus' birth.

Pitre goes on to add: "If others find this confession of faith in the Incarnation offensive, then it seems to me that the consistent thing to do would be to create entirely different system, a secular system of dating that is based on some other event--rather than cloaking a Christocentric calendar in secular clothes."

Interestingly, N.T. Wrong makes a similar argument (as cited by Mark Goodacre):

By using ‘C.E.’ and B.C.E.’, we universalize a peculiar tradition. We make it
out to be ‘common’ or ‘natural’, not requiring any special marking or
qualification. As a consequence of the fact of Western power, the Gregorian
calendar has been adopted as the most-used calendar in the world, and so does
have some degree of ‘commonality’ in day-to-day use. But the change from A.D. to
C.E. (and from B.C. to B.C.E.) obscures the particular Christian basis of this
‘common’ calendar, misrepresenting it as ‘normal’ - as somehow transcending
historical particularities. By contrast, the other calendars are made out to be
the only ‘localized’ and ‘particular’ calendars. While the Christian calendar is
‘naturalized’ by its designation as ‘common’, other calendars (Jewish, Persian,
Islamic, Chinese, Hindu, Ethiopian, Thai, etc) are ‘artificial’ and
‘contingent’.Stop this neo-colonialism! Use A.D. and B.C. again!! The specific
marking of these older terms, which refers to the Christian concept of ‘Christ’,
may well be offensive to some people. But this offence is substantial and
systemic, not removeable by changing the name of the year which is dated from
the birth of Christ. The hegemony of the Western calendar is a fact, and just
one of the many effects of Western power in the world today — a minor but not
insignificant fact, given the universal importance of local calendars in shaping
culture. To obscure the Western calendar’s particularity by making it into a
false universal is a double injustice – both the initial violence of changing
local calendars, and then its covering up with the misleading term “common”.
This is ideology at work.

What does all this mean? I think I just proved that Brant Pitre is N. T. Wrong.

Prospects for Newly Minted Ph.D.s

2009-10-01T16:13:00.001-04:00

Duke today just had its "Teaching and Learning Lunch" for students in the Graduate Program in Religion, with panel consisting of a provost, a dean, and a former head of an academic society. The topic was job prospects in religion and the humanities. I took away the following points:

No doubt about it, the humanities job market will be soft for a long time.
Economic pressures affect different schools differently. Particularly, the mix of funding sources (endowments, tuition, etc.) will have different effects in a tight economy.
The erosion in the jobs is mainly from the bottom. Weaker candidates are more at risk than ever before.
The weaker schools are also being hit harder. Fewer job openings there.
The top research schools may be less harder hit, but they will be as competitive as always (perhaps even more so).
Second and third private colleges are finding that tuition payers want more prestige from their bucks and are therefore facing a loss in enrollments.
On the other hand, public universities are faced with shortfalls from the state legislators. They are having to raise their tuitions, which may end up making the second and third tier colleges less uncompetitive price-wise for students.
The age of (over-)specialization may be over. Candidates should show that they can both research and teach in a broader range of subjects.
The religion faculty in most schools is tiny, 4-7 professors. Breadth of teaching subjects is important for such schools.
Ethics is hot now. Professors in religion should figure how to tie their teaching into ethics.
Those getting narrow doctorates from U.K. programs may be at a disadvantage compared to those graduating from American programs due to the their coursework requirements.
As schools squeeze administrative positions, new hires may be asked to take on more administrative responsibility than before.
Catholic colleges may represent some of the best opportunities for theological faculty in terms of openings. At many of these schools, religion courses are still required and their facing a spate of retirements among the teaching priests.
As for Protestant affiliated colleges, mainline denominational schools are shrinking in their enrollments, but evangelical schools seem to be more vibrant.

Miracles and the Historical Jesus 2

2009-09-28T18:55:00.000-04:00

Thank you, all, for your feedback, especially the discussion on Phil Harland's blog. Here I would just like to offer a couple of clarifications, and possibly point towards some responses to people's comments.

Harland's argument
On the whole I agree with Harland - and I did not read his remarks as intending to supply a 'refutation'! I especially agree with the remark that historians should recognize the fact that Jesus and others were regarded as 'miracle workers' (something which I did not deny in my original post). In fact, this acknowledgement leads on to the very question that I wanted to ask, namely, that if we acknowledge that Jesus was regarded as a miracle-worker, why was he thus regarded? To me this seems like a normal historical question, and I was asking why this is 'off-limits' in the case of Jesus. In the case of Alexander of Abonuteichos (mentioned by Harland), for instance, I doubt anyone would deny that he was regarded by some as a miracle worker. And I expect that few historians would refuse to ask why he was regarded as a miracle-worker, on the basis of the limitations of the historical method.

Possible explanations for belief in Jesus as a miracle-worker
When we are faced with the question of why Jesus was regarded as a miracle-worker, there seem to be three main alternatives: the supernatural explanation (that he really was a miracle-worker), the rationalistic (e.g., that he successfully employed basic medical techniques), or the mythical (that Jesus was not actually a miracle-worker and that these stories were attributed to him at a later date for theological reasons). This tripartite division of possible solutions of course derives from Strauss, and the purpose of my original post was not so much to make a new contribution to this discussion as to ask why more recent scholars reintroduce 'miracle' as a category appropriate for talking about Jesus (at least with regards to his reputation), and rarely (if at all) discuss these three candidates for explaining this reputation.

At least two of these explanations (the rationalistic and the mythical) would not seem to be especially controversial as explanations in themselves (even if we would question the plausibility of some 'rationalistic' explanations). I expect that one or the other of these would normally be invoked in discussion of ancient (or even more modern) figures to whom miracles have been attributed - and yet scholars do not frequently invoke either of these explanations in connection with Jesus, but stop with his 'reputation'.

The 'supernatural' explanation and Hume's view
The 'supernatural' explanation would seem to be the most controversial, for the reason that few would regard it in most cases as an adequate historical explanation of a miracle report in the case of most historical figures (though, of course, many believers would regard it as appropriate in the case of Jesus). One reason we might reject the supernatural explanation is Hume's view. As I read Hume, his argument is not circular (or at least it is not obviously so). At the very least, we can state a weaker form of his argument that is not circular:

(1) Supernatural events (like 'miracles', if they occur) do not occur very often (they are 'very unusual'; I hope this is uncontroversial!).
(2) Very unusual events require extremely strong verification, especially if there is an alternative explanation that would require less strong verification.
(3) Therefore, we would need extremely strong verification to assert with justification that a miracle had occurred.
(4) If this extremely strong verification is absent, we should accept a non-supernatural explanation as more probable.

These premises all seem to be quite plausible, and if the argument is circular I do not see where it begs the crucial question. And even if the argument is not true in general terms (so as to rule out a miracle ever verifying that a miracle had occurred), it would surely be valid in the case of ancient texts such as the reports of the miracles of Alexander of Abonuteichos. If it is valid in cases such as this, then if we are treating the Gospels as historians normally treat other historical texts then this judgement should apply to them as well: and therefore we would be obliged to accept a rationalistic or mythical explanation of the origin of Jesus's reputation as a miracle worker.

Conclusion
The option remains open to the reader of the Gospels to reject Hume's argument (and any similar argument) and suggest that Jesus was regarded as a miracle-worker because he was a miracle worker (though I think this would have to be done on theological grounds rather than on any logical charge of circularity). Some scholars do this quite openly - for instance N.T. Wright. But many scholars do not, and instead choose to stop at Jesus's 'reputation' as a miracle-worker without asking the question of why he was so regarded. The purpose of my previous post was to suggest that the history of scholarship has provided us with at least two historically possible explanations of why Jesus was regarded as a miracle-worker (the rationalistic and the mythological), and therefore if some scholars choose not to examine this question they need to do so for reasons other than that it is not an historically proper question, or that an historically proper explanation cannot be provided.

Miracles and the Historical Jesus

2009-09-27T21:12:00.001-04:00

We have recently been reading through a number of classic Historical Jesus texts - including D.F. Strauss's famous Life of Jesus Critically Examined (originally published in 1840; available online at Google Books), and a question has come up from Strauss that has been troubling me.

Strauss is of course famous for his application of the category of 'myth' to the Gospels - especially in connection with Jesus's miracles. As an Enlightenment historian, he rejects supernatural explanations of Jesus's miracles, but also any 'rationalist' explanations (which 'explain' Jesus's miracles non-supernaturally). The 'third way', for Strauss, is the category of myth: that the miracles attributed to Jesus are to be regarded as creations of the early church, often on the model of similar Old Testament 'miracles'.

With this argument, Strauss is said to have knocked miracles out of the arena of historical discussion of Jesus - at least until the Third Quest (see Dunn, Jesus Remembered). Many Third Quest scholars, however, argue that we cannot understand Jesus historically unless we pay proper attention to his 'deeds' - and in particular, his miracles (especially his healings). This re-raises the problem of Strauss's challenge to the miraculous.

A position adopted by Dunn (and I think by a number of other scholars) is that we can state with confidence that Jesus was 'remembered' as a miracle-worker - and we can go no further than that (by, for instance, asserting that Jesus actually was a miracle worker). I have been wondering, however, whether this limitation can actually successfully reintroduce 'miracles' into the discussion of the historical Jesus.

My main reason for this derives from Hume's famous argument against the possibility of ever verifying (with a degree of probability sufficient for justified belief) that a miracle has occurred: the evidence that a miracle has not occurred will always be greater. Regardless of whether we want to follow Hume all the way, it seems that the Gospels do not provide the kind of evidence that would be sufficient, from an historical point of view, to reasonably hold that a miracle had occurred (and this seems to be the kind of argument presupposed by Strauss in his discussion of miracles).

I presume that the reason that most historians wish to stop at 'reports' of miracles is that they accept an argument similar to Hume's. But if this is the case, we can and should go one step further, and say that regardless of the reports concerning Jesus's miraculous activity, from an historical perspective these must be regarded as false (unless we opt for a rationalist interpretation) - it is unjustified to stop at the reports and not go beyond these to consider the events being reported. Therefore I cannot see how Third Questers (or anyone interested in the historical Jesus) can 'rediscover' Jesus's miracles from an historical point of view: if they are regarded as miracles, they must be regarded as unhistorical (so Strauss, on the strength of a Humean argument).

The obvious retort to this is that the Strauss/Hume position presupposes an Enlightenment paradigm that the historian needn't accept (so, for instance, N.T. Wright). But unless we want to abandon any claims to 'historical' study altogether, I do not see how we can get round the anti-miracle argument put forward by Hume, and presupposed by Strauss. Any thoughts?

Other Duke Blogs

2009-09-24T16:36:00.000-04:00

Duke University has two blogs of note and relevance for students in Duke's Graduate Program in Religion:

The Duke University Religion Department blog; and

Spotlight, the Duke Divinity School Library blog.

The Gospel of the Hebrews: Did I just say something dumb?

2009-09-22T21:34:00.000-04:00

In his Dialogi contra Pelagionos 3.2 Jerome quotes a gospel which he calls the Gospel according to the Hebrews. Here is A. F. J. Klijn’s translation:

In the Gospel according to the Hebrews which was written in the Chaldaic and Syriac language but with Hebrew letters, and is used up to the present day by the Nazoraeans, I mean the Gospel according to the Apostles, or, as many maintain, the Gospel according to Matthew, which is also available in the Library of Caesarea, the story runs: “Behold, the mother of the Lord and his brothers were saying to him: John the Baptist is baptizing for the remission of sins. Let us go and be baptized by him. But he said to them: ‘How have I sinned, that I should go and be baptized by him? Unless perhaps something which I said in ignorance.’”
Jewish-Christian Gospel Tradition (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 103.

And the Latin:

In evangelio iuxta Hebraeos, quod Chaldaico quidem Syroque sermone sed Hebraicis litteris scriptum est, quod utuntur usque hodie Nazareni, secundum apostolos, sive ut plerique autumant iuxta Matthaeum, quod et in Caesariensi habetur bibliotheca, narrat historia: Ecce, mater domini et fratres eius dicebant ei: Joannes baptista baptizat in remissionem peccatorum; eamus et baptizemur ab eo. dixit autem eis: Quid peccavi, ut vadam et baptizer ab eo? nisi forte hoc ipsum quod dixi ignorantia est.

The thing that interests me is Klijn’s translation of the last sentence. Klijn interprets the words nisi forte hoc ipsum quod dixi ignorantia est as an admission that Jesus may have sinned in ignorance, translating it “Unless perhaps something which I said in ignorance.” Assuming that hoc ipsum quod dixi refers to hypothetical past sins of ignorance, Klijn’s translates it as “something which I said.” This assumption seems questionable to me for a number of reasons: 1) hoc (this) is used to describe a thing close to the speaker, as opposed to illud (that). 2) hoc is not indefinite. One would expect aliquid or quoddam or the like if “something” were the correct translation. 3) ipsum intensifies the definiteness of hoc. 4) The use of est rather than erat also points to the immediate context rather than past sin, unless it’s a historical present. 5) hoc is restricted by quod dixi, so according to this interpretation hoc would refer only to past sins of speech.

For these reasons it seems far more likely to me that hoc ipsum quod dixi refers to Jesus’ immediately preceding words. Thus, the sentence may be paraphrased “Unless that which I just said is incorrect.”

Recently I stumbled on J. K. Elliot’s translation in The Apocryphal New Testament: “But he said, ‘What have I committed, that I should be baptized of him, unless it be that in saying this I am in ignorance?’” Sounds good to me.

Here’s why this question is interesting to me: according to my favored translation, Jesus dithers almost comically, objecting to the thought of baptism but then shrugging his shoulders and admitting that he might be speaking nonsense. This depiction would be at loggerheads with that other Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus overcomes John the Baptist’s objection with the words, “Let it be so now, for it is fitting for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness” (3:15).

Would anyone like to defend Klijn’s translation? Am I missing something?

Duke Newt?

2009-09-22T19:44:00.000-04:00

I had to acknowledge the goofiness of the name. I promise to stick to NT stuff from now on.

Welcome to Duke Newt

2009-09-22T17:39:00.001-04:00

Greetings. This is a new blog that is intended to provide an informal forum for students and others associated with the PhD in New Testament at Duke University to share their questions, concerns, opinions, or anything else related to the New Testament. So, if you feel you have something to say, please do share it - and hopefully this will prove to be a useful resource. All the best!