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

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

T.J. Lang on Luke 17 in JSNT

"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?

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

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

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

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

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.