NT Gateway Weblog

Back in February, I commented on an interesting story in The Observer on Amazon's anonymous reviews (Authors reviewing their own books on Amazon). Amazon have now, at last, acted on this and only allow real names with credit card numbers. This is from today's Guardian:

Amazon halts tit-for-tat critics
Authors and publishers face credit card barrier to anonymously puffing their books
Andrew Clark in New York

The change, which was quietly introduced earlier this month, is intended to put an end to authors and publishers anonymously showering their own books with praise while trashing the work of their rivals. An Amazon spokeswoman said: "This is the latest step in an ongoing effort to continually improve the content of the site." . . . .

. . . Reviews on Amazon's site are of variable quality and many are tongue in cheek. A review of the King James Bible from one reader in Indianapolis describes the tome as "a rollicking, non-stop, action-adventure which ends with a thrilling conclusion and a hearty 'Amen'". Meanwhile, Bill Clinton's recently published memoirs receives a rough ride from a New York customer, who advises buyers: "Give your money to charity instead of enriching this pants-on-fire liar."

I suppose we are a bit more lucky in the slightly more rarefied atmosphere generated by academic books on the Bible. But even here, there are some quite funny reviews, whether you agree with them or not. This, for example, is an excerpt from an amazon review on Crossan's Birth of Christianity from a certain "phranger":

When I got the book I was struck by how physically light it is for its size. The paper is made from pulp somewhat cleaner than newsprint, which is blown up during drying to perhaps twice the thickness good newsprint would have, using the same amount of pulp. The enclosed air makes it more opaque. This is a fine figure for Crossan's writing.

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One of the latest reviews I particularly enjoyed from Review of Biblical Literature (see previous) was Michael Kaler's Review of Bart Erhman's twin Lost Christianities and Lost Scriptures. I have recently obtained and begun reading Lost Christianities myself and am finding it compelling reading, full of interesting insights and well worth its cover price. I am a particular fan of scholarly writing that is accessible to the broader public and Ehrman is a master of the art. One of the things I particularly like about the way Ehrman goes about this is that he appears always to be thinking not just about that broader public but also about the graduate students and scholars too. I would defy anyone to find nothing new here. Anyway, Kaler is an enthusiast for Ehrman's books too, though he adds some useful points by way of criticism.

The point in Kaler's review that caught my attention was his footnote 2 on the first page, relating to the Secret Gospel of Mark:

While his discussion of the issue is gossipy (in a good way) and engrossing, I found Ehrman's conclusion to this intricate and fascinating affair to be artificially ambivalent. He spends most of the chapter clearly implying that Morton Smith forged the letter of Clement that contained the Secret Gospel and then at the end refuses to commit himself. "I am not willing to say that Smith . . . forged the letter which he claimed to discover. . . . But maybe Smith forged it. . . . Or maybe this is a genuine letter by Clement of Alexandria" (89). To my mind, Ehrman should either have taken an explicit and definite stand or rewritten the chapter so as to present the facts in a truly neutral, unbiased way."

I quite agree with Kaler here and found myself reacting in the same way to this chapter. In fact Ehrman's "artificially ambivalent" attitude surprised me somewhat given his robust presentation of the same material in a talk to the Textual Criticism section of the SBL Annual Meeting in Toronto (2002). My memory of that talk (other than my colleague David Parker flashing up on screen for some time a picture of his back garden as he attempted to get his powerpoint presentation together while Bart was speaking) was that it was strong in its implication, allowing the circumstantial evidence to point the finger at Smith; Ehrman's tone was at best faux naif.

So why is Ehrman so reticent to state more strongly in print that he thinks Morton Smith may have forged the Secret Gospel of Mark? His stated reason is the following:

I am not willing to say that Smith was a latter-day Dionysius the Renegade, that he forged the letter of Clement which he claimed to discover. My reasons should be obvious. As soon as I say I am certain he did so, those pages cut from the back of the book will turn up, someone will test the ink, and it will be from the eighteenth century." (Lost Christianities: 89).

I am not sure that this is strong enough. Scholarship of this kind is about taking risks, but risks that are staked on one's careful and considered reading of the evidence. I've written a book arguing against the existence of Q and attempted there, as well as elsewhere, to make quite clear that I do not think that such a document ever existed. I could have held back for fear that someone might dig it up and show me up for a fool, but it's a risk that I was willing to take because I am fully persuaded that the Q sceptical case is right. In other words, it's always possible that someone will produce Q and surprise me, but my research persuades me that this is unlikely to happen. I'm not sure what is gained by holding back for fear of future possibilities that one thinks are unlikely to materialise.

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New reviews added to the Review of Biblical Literature under the New Testament heading:

Cook, John Granger
The Interpretation of the New Testament in Greco-Roman Paganism
Reviewed by Thomas J. Kraus

Ehrman, Bart D.
Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew
Reviewed by Michael Kaler

Ehrman, Bart D.
Lost Scriptures: BooksThat Did Not Make It into the New Testament
Reviewed by Michael Kaler

Ehrman, Bart D.
The New Testament and Other Early Christian Writings: A Reader
Reviewed by Tobias Nicklas

Hurtado, Larry W.
Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity
Reviewed by Moschos Goutzioudis

Kok, Ezra Hon-seng
The Truth of the Gospel: A Study in Galatians 2:15-21
Reviewed by Arthur J. Dewey

Lee, Dal
The Narrative Asides in the Book of Revelation
Reviewed by Jan A. Du Rand

McLay, R. Timothy
The Use of the Septuagint in New Testament Research
Reviewed by Robert Hiebert

McLay, R. Timothy
The Use of the Septuagint in New Testament Research
Reviewed by Tobias Nicklas

Nodet, Étienne
Histoire de Jésus?: Nécessité et limites d'une enquete
Reviewed by Douglas Geyer

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Torrey Seland left a comment here and it made me wonder if he was blogging again after his summer break. And I notice that he has been blogging for a good week or so:

Philo of Alexandria Blog

It seems that one of the RSS feeds is not working, or at least is not working with Bloglines (this one). So it may be that others, like me, need to adjust to an alternative feed which is working (this one). Anyway, welcome back Torrey.

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Another one from my catch-up file, going back a couple of weeks. Congratulations to Philip Harland, author of the fine web site on Associations, Synagogues and Congregations, who receives this award for the book of the same name. This press-release is from Fortress Press:

Harland wins F.W. Beare Award from Canadian Society of Biblical Studies

MINNEAPOLIS (July 7, 2004) Fortress Press is happy to announce that Philip A. Harland’s book, Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations: Claiming a Place in Ancient Mediterranean Society, was awarded the 2004 Canadian Society of Biblical Studies (CSBS) F.W. Beare Award during the Annual CSBS Dinner, held on May 30th as part of the Society’s Annual Meeting in Winnipeg.

The F.W. Beare Award is offered annually by the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies in recognition of an outstanding book in the areas of Christian Origins, Post-Biblical Judaism and/or Graeco-Roman Religions written by a member of the CSBS and published during the previous two years. The Award is determined by a panel of judges drawn from members of the Society with a publishing record in at least one of the areas covered by the Award.

“A groundbreaking study. Harland’s focus on associations in Roman antiquity as a way better to understand civic social life and the social sensibilities of those involved in such associations sets the stage for a reconsideration of the place of ancient Christianities and Judaisms in the Roman order. What emerges is a realistic picture of the ancient Christian associations of Asia Minor that produced such texts as 1 Peter, the Apocalypse of John, and the Pastoral Epistles. This new picture emphasized the concrete, day-to-day ways in which ancient Christians did claim a place for themselves within the empire, and soundly dismisses conceptualizations of Christianity as an isolated sect. This is an indispensable step toward re-imagining ancient civic life, ancient religion, and the origins of Christianity as well.”

-—William Arnal, University of Regina, Saskatchewan

This award has been established in honor of Francis (Frank) Wright Beare, one of Canada’s most renowned New Testament scholars. He was born in Toronto in 1902, studied in Toronto, Paris and Cairo, and taught at the Presbyterian College in Montreal (1933-46) and Trinity College in Toronto (1946-68). He participated actively in the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies and was named President of the Society in 1942; he was also President of the Society of Biblical Literature in 1969.

The Canadian Society of Biblical Studies is the oldest humanities academic society in Canada. The Society provides a meeting place for those interested in all aspects of the academic study of the Bible — Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, New Testament — in its literary and historical context.

Philip A. Harland is Assistant Professor of Christian Origins in the Religion Department at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada.

Format: 272 pp. 6 x 9" paper 4-color cover

ISBN: 0-8006-3589-2

Price: $22.00 Publication Date: May 2003

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To order Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations please call Fortress Press at 1-800-328-4648 or visit the web site at www.fortresspress.com. To request review copies or exam copies please visit the website at www.fortresspress.com, click on “Contact Us” and follow prompts for requesting review copies or exam copies or call 1-800-426-0115 ext. 234. For interviews, speaking engagements, and writing assignments please call 1-800-426-0115 ext. 234 or email toddb@augsburgfortress.org.

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Still in catch-up mode (pretty much the story of my life), here's the table of contents for the latest Journal for the Study of the New Testament. What prompted me was seeing a copy on the bed-side table of Prof. Michael Goulder when I visited him in hospital the other day, where he is recovering from a stroke. (Get well soon, Michael!).

Journal for the Study of the New Testament Vol. 26 No. 4 (June 2004)

The Charge of Blasphemy in Mark 14.64
Adela Yarbro Collins

Ephesians 2 as a Narrative of Divine Warfare
Timothy G. Gombis

The Politics of Identity in Ephesians
Margaret Y. MacDonald

Questions of Method in James Dunn’s Jesus Remembered
Bengt Holmberg

A New Perspective on the Jesus Tradition
Samuel Byrskog

On History, Memory and Eyewitnesses
James D.G. Dunn

Compleat History of the Resurrection
Markus Bockmuehl

An Incompleat (but Grateful) Response to the Review by Markus Bockmuehl of The Resurrection of the Son of God
N.T. Wright

Book Reviews

Links are to abstracts of each article. Full text access is for insitutional or personal subscription only.

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The SBL International Meeting is currently underway in Groningen in the Netherlands. I cannot make it to this myself because of child care commitments and I have recently had to pull out of the SNTS in Barcelona for the same reason. But I'm on the look out for any bloggers who can give us a taste of the conference. Jim Davila is there but has not yet found time or place to blog; Pete Phillips, on the other hand, has filed his first, enthusiastic report. Meanwhile Tim Bulkeley of Sansblogue has been to AIBI (Association Internationale Bible et Informatique) and files a brief report with the promise of more to come.

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On Bible Software Review Weblog, Rubén Gómez draws attention to this blog belonging to David Alan Black, Professor of New Testament and Greek at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina:

Dave Black Online

The blog appears to be pretty frequently updated and it's been on-line since November 2003. The topics are wide ranging, often American politics, but there is some NT material in there. Unfortunately, there is no RSS feed, so it's one of those one has to try to remember to look at from time to time. The blog is part of a larger web site under the same name.

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In an enjoyable post on Hypotyposeis, Stephen Carlson suggests that the Farrer Theory's "fatal flaw" is that it is "too boring":

It is interesting to me that, although Kloppenborg explored in depth the theological stakes of the Griesbach hypothesis and the Q hypothesis, he did not really do so for Farrer except to point out that our present assumptions of Christianity probably aren’t going to change very much. And perhaps that’s exactly the problem with the Farrer theory--at a time when there are so many new, interesting areas of investigation (narrative criticism, socio-rhetorical criticism, post-modern criticism, etc.), what is going to motivate a young scholar to step back into the swamp of source criticism if the result is going to be upholding a conventional view of Christian origins? Where’s the fun in that?

Stephen is quite right, but I would take these comments as a challenge. Farrer theorists are themselves to blame -- they have simply not managed to show effectively what the "cash value" of their theory is. What problems does it help us to rethink? How does it help us to reimagine Christian Origins? As Stephen says, where's the fun? It's a problem I have become conscious of more since finishing The Case Against Q than I was before writing it. Had I have realised the difficulty, perhaps I would have tried to address it some more, or at least to think about the problem. But I've turned to something like this recently in a short essay called "A World Without Q" in a forthcoming collection of essays edited by Nick Perrin and me. A couple of excerpts:

As far as Q scepticism is concerned, it sometimes seems like the choice is between Griesbach, which is implausible because it dispenses with Marcan Priority, or Goulder, who is unpalatable because of his over-creative evangelists, or Sanders and Davies, whose view is too complex to offer a positive vision for the future. The world without Q might indeed seem like an unattractive place. What has been lacking is anything that will explain the appeal of Q scepticism to different elements in the New Testament guild . . . .

But while it remains a possibility in the abstract that a theory could be both plausible and unappealing, I suspect that a new theory can only be truly convincing if it is able to demonstrate its potential to help us rethink elements in the discipline in fresh, creative and appealing ways, to spark interesting new questions as well as to provide promising answers to old questions. In other words, for Q sceptics to gain a hearing, it is essential for them not only to provide plausible interpretations of the existing data but also to explain to scholars what the cash value of their theory is. If Q sceptics are not to be perceived as stubborn ‘nay-sayers’ who refuse to join the party, it is essential that they begin to explore in interesting ways the ramifications that dispensing with Q has on historical, literary and theological study of early Christianity . . . .

This point aside, I would like to focus briefly on two key features of a world without Q that may benefit future research. The first takes its lead from the legacy of Farrer, Goulder and Drury, all of whom stressed the creativity of the evangelists, a legacy that is consonant with recent literary appreciation of the Gospels. The second is in part a reaction against the extremes of that legacy, but which nevertheless coheres with elements of it, the importance of recognising the role played by oral tradition in early Christianity. To speak about ‘dynamic tension’ is something of a scholarly cliché, so I will instead suggest that there is a creative interaction between these two factors, an interaction that has the potential to provide some profitable reflection on Christian origins . . .

However much one might be able to make suggestions, though, of how successful or otherwise future research involving Q scepticism might be, in the end this is a proof of the pudding scenario. I suspect that Q sceptics will know that they are making head way when New Testament scholars find that their imaginations are stimulated far more effectively when working without Q than than when they were working with it. And this is something that no Q sceptic can foretell.

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As Stephen Carlson notes (Hypotyposeis), Rubén Gómez has new URLs for his web site and blog, having obtained the handy domain name http://www.bsreview.org/:

Bible Software Review

Bible Software Review Weblog

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