Monday, April 30, 2007
New from OUP
A couple of items of interest among new publications from Oxford University Press, announced in their Theology News email alert today and copied from there:
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 | Jesus of Hollywood
15 March 2007 | £17.99 | Hardback | 320 pages |
 | Christ Killers
22 March 2007 | £17.99 | Hardback | 337 pages |
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Labels: Adele Reinhartz, Bible Films, Oxford University Press
Friday, April 27, 2007
Richard Bauckham On-line Colloquium
It seems a long time since there's been a nice online colloquium with a top NT scholar. The good news is that Jim West announces a forthcoming colloquium on the Biblical Studies list, scheduled for 20-26 May, and to focus on Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. I notice in visiting the Biblical Studies list online that it now has over 650 subscribers, which is a pretty impressive number. I haven't been able to keep up with this list myself of late because its RSS feed has dropped, for some reason, and it doesn't seem to be possible to tap back into it again.
Labels: Biblical Studies List, Richard Bauckham
ITSEE News
ITSEE is the Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing, directed by David Parker, and located at the University of Birmingham. Its website has been updated today with pictures from the launch of ITSEE in September 2006 and pictures from the Fifth Birmingham Colloquium on the Textual Criticism of the New Testament held earlier this month.
Labels: ITSEE, University of Birmingham
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Type Greek
I've added a link to a fine new resource on my Greek Fonts page:
Type Greek
By Randy Hoyt: a very useful tool, describing itself as "a web-based software tool that converts text from a standard keyboard into beautiful, polytonic Greek characters as you type. Using an easy-to-learn and standardized system called beta code, TypeGreek converts your keystrokes into Unicode-compliant Greek in real-time."
If you are not yet typing in unicode, this may be just what you are looking for. It behaves in the same way as the Unicode Classical Greek Inputter by James Naughton, which has often been mentioned on this blog (see all my entries on Unicode).
One minor comment: I find that the iota subscript only works if I am using a standard US keyboard, so to get it to work on my current computers, I have to switch to a US keyboard from my default UK keyboard. My guess is that that is a peculiarity of using a US PC with a UK keyboard, so this issue may be unique to the tiny set of people like me. (And if you want to know why I use a UK keyboard, it's because the @ is in a different place; likewise inverted commas and the £ symbol; years of touch typing on a UK keyboard makes the switch to US difficult).
Type Greek
By Randy Hoyt: a very useful tool, describing itself as "a web-based software tool that converts text from a standard keyboard into beautiful, polytonic Greek characters as you type. Using an easy-to-learn and standardized system called beta code, TypeGreek converts your keystrokes into Unicode-compliant Greek in real-time."
If you are not yet typing in unicode, this may be just what you are looking for. It behaves in the same way as the Unicode Classical Greek Inputter by James Naughton, which has often been mentioned on this blog (see all my entries on Unicode).
One minor comment: I find that the iota subscript only works if I am using a standard US keyboard, so to get it to work on my current computers, I have to switch to a US keyboard from my default UK keyboard. My guess is that that is a peculiarity of using a US PC with a UK keyboard, so this issue may be unique to the tiny set of people like me. (And if you want to know why I use a UK keyboard, it's because the @ is in a different place; likewise inverted commas and the £ symbol; years of touch typing on a UK keyboard makes the switch to US difficult).
Labels: Greek NT Gateway, NT Gateway Updates, Unicode
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
PhD: UK or USA?
Correspondent Zerihun Dula asks about the respective advantages and disadvantages of PhD programmes in the UK and the USA. I have some experience now of the USA via Duke University, and more experience of the UK via the University of Birmingham, and other universities where I have studied (Oxford) or examined (Glasgow, St Andrews, Aberdeen, Surrey, London), and this brief sketch is based on that limited experience.
Each country has its own advantages, and I can see why individuals prefer one over the other. The major difference between the two countries is the presence of course work in the American system. Each Duke PhD student has at least two years' course work under their belt before they embark on their dissertation. This contrasts radically with most British Universities, where there is no course work requirement. The typical British PhD student in Religion or Theology will spend most of their time as a PhD student on intensive work for their dissertation. I am convinced that the American system is superior here, especially with respect to preparing students for employment as academics. They have a much better grasp of a greater range of materials, and the necessity for the submission of papers to individual course tutors means that graduate students are often preparing research-quality work that is outside their ultimate dissertation topic. It is now common for the best PhD students in America to get pieces of course work accepted for publication in major journals. This provides a major leg-up in the hunt for jobs. By contrast, I had published nothing by the time I had finished my PhD thesis in 1994. I had still published nothing until I got that thesis published in 1996. And of course that broader range also helps with preparation for teaching -- American PhD students are not getting launched into course preparation in subjects they have never studied.
One of the down sides, though, with the American system is that the two or so years of course work can seriously prolong the business of getting your PhD. Let's say you leave school at 18, take a standard American four year degree, a two year Masters and then at least four years PhD, and you are at least 28 before you can even get started on your career. In the UK, your BA is three years, your Masters sometimes only one year (sometimes two, depending on the programme) and your PhD can be done in three years. If you left school at eighteen, you are now 25 or 26. Those couple of years you have on your American counterparts you could use to travel the world, or to get some experience doing something completely different, and so improve your career prospects that way.
One of the things that has happened in the UK over the last generation is realization of the importance of PhD students getting a bit more grounding in the subject outside of the area of the PhD dissertation, which is why most universities now insist, as far as possible, on students coming in at least with a Masters. This did not used to be the case. And incoming PhD students will rarely jump straight into the PhD programme but will instead begin on "probationary" status and only be upgraded when the department is persuaded that the candidate has the ability and application to complete successfully.
Another major difference between the USA and the UK, as I have experienced the different systems in the two countries, is the presence, in the US, of the "committee". All the way through the American graduate student's life, s/he has the guidance of a three or four person committee. This committee has to approve the dissertation proposal, provides differing degrees of advice throughout the process, and is the ultimate examining body. In the UK, your supervisor is the ultimate authority until you get to the submission of your thesis, at which point you will be examined by an internal examiner and an external examiner. The internal is recruited from within the university and the external will be someone recruited from outside specially to read your thesis.
Both systems have strengths here. The involvement of an external is a strength of the British system, ensuring quality control across the different universities and providing expert comment in a way that can be greatly to the candidate's advantage, especially if s/he is looking to get a version of the dissertation published at some point in the future. It is perhaps worth adding, though, that American universities seem sometimes to recruit academics from outside the university to sit on dissertation committees, e.g. I am sitting on two committees at different universities in the US.
Having spoken in favour of the British external examiner system, I should add that I am very impressed so far with the committee structures here in the US. While it can mean that everything is all rather "in house", it has the advantage of exposing the student's ideas and writing to a greater number of a people at a much earlier stage. More pairs of eyes, more guidance, extra wisdom can greatly help the student to refine his or her project, and problems can get picked up earlier. The system feels rather more community based too; several faculty members in a given area have stakes in a given individual's research, and among other things that can also help in the process of scholars providing strong and informed references for job applications.
The big question, though, is the one about finance. There is a major differences here between the two countries, not widely understood. Many American PhD programmes come with money attached, so if you apply to somewhere like Duke, you are applying not only to be accepted into the programme but also to receive a scholarship. And the scholarships can be generous, paying not only your fees (which are massive) but also a stipend. As far as I understand it, it is not universally the case that being accepted equates to getting a scholarship, but the two things are closely linked. By contrast, this sort of thing is rare in the UK, and one should think about the process of application for a place as quite different from the business of getting financial help with the place.
For British PhD applicants, the process is in fact twofold. You apply to the university course and, if successful, you get your place. At the same time, you apply to the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) for funding. This is highly competitive, something like as competitive as getting a place to do a PhD at an elite American university. It used to be the case that anyone with a First would get funding, but that is no longer the case. (A "First" is a first class degree, received by only a fraction of students. Most students get a second class degree, either a "2:1", second class upper division, or "2:2", second class lower division; a minority get a third class degree). Now you need an exceptional First and exceptional references to get the AHRC funding. AHRC funding is only available to British citizens, so if one is applying from abroad, the big questions about funding remain, questions that are sharply focused given the current exchange rate, which is not at all favourable to American travellers.
I spent two years as Post-Graduate Admissions Tutor in the Theology and Religion Department at the University of Birmingham and during that time the most common question I received from international applicants was "what about money?" It was always pretty depressing because I was rarely able to give any good news about scholarships or financial aid for international students. The only good news is that the fees for a standard PhD programme in the UK are substantially less than their American equivalents, in spite of the fact that international fees will be double the home fees. Let me try to put some actual figures on this. When I was in Birmingham, international students paid roughly £8,500 a year in fees. Even at the current exchange rate, that is $17,000, much less than the $30,000 plus you will pay in top American universities. But if it is $17,000 a year you don't have, that is not exactly good news, is it?
I should underline that this is just a sketch based on personal impressions of what I have seen so far of the two different countries, and no doubt others' experiences and reflections will differ.
Update (7.48): Christopher Spinks comments on Katagrapho, adding some useful reflections from his experience at Fuller, in PhD: UK, USA or hybrid?.
Update (14.07): Kevin Wilson comments in Blue Cord.
Each country has its own advantages, and I can see why individuals prefer one over the other. The major difference between the two countries is the presence of course work in the American system. Each Duke PhD student has at least two years' course work under their belt before they embark on their dissertation. This contrasts radically with most British Universities, where there is no course work requirement. The typical British PhD student in Religion or Theology will spend most of their time as a PhD student on intensive work for their dissertation. I am convinced that the American system is superior here, especially with respect to preparing students for employment as academics. They have a much better grasp of a greater range of materials, and the necessity for the submission of papers to individual course tutors means that graduate students are often preparing research-quality work that is outside their ultimate dissertation topic. It is now common for the best PhD students in America to get pieces of course work accepted for publication in major journals. This provides a major leg-up in the hunt for jobs. By contrast, I had published nothing by the time I had finished my PhD thesis in 1994. I had still published nothing until I got that thesis published in 1996. And of course that broader range also helps with preparation for teaching -- American PhD students are not getting launched into course preparation in subjects they have never studied.
One of the down sides, though, with the American system is that the two or so years of course work can seriously prolong the business of getting your PhD. Let's say you leave school at 18, take a standard American four year degree, a two year Masters and then at least four years PhD, and you are at least 28 before you can even get started on your career. In the UK, your BA is three years, your Masters sometimes only one year (sometimes two, depending on the programme) and your PhD can be done in three years. If you left school at eighteen, you are now 25 or 26. Those couple of years you have on your American counterparts you could use to travel the world, or to get some experience doing something completely different, and so improve your career prospects that way.
One of the things that has happened in the UK over the last generation is realization of the importance of PhD students getting a bit more grounding in the subject outside of the area of the PhD dissertation, which is why most universities now insist, as far as possible, on students coming in at least with a Masters. This did not used to be the case. And incoming PhD students will rarely jump straight into the PhD programme but will instead begin on "probationary" status and only be upgraded when the department is persuaded that the candidate has the ability and application to complete successfully.
Another major difference between the USA and the UK, as I have experienced the different systems in the two countries, is the presence, in the US, of the "committee". All the way through the American graduate student's life, s/he has the guidance of a three or four person committee. This committee has to approve the dissertation proposal, provides differing degrees of advice throughout the process, and is the ultimate examining body. In the UK, your supervisor is the ultimate authority until you get to the submission of your thesis, at which point you will be examined by an internal examiner and an external examiner. The internal is recruited from within the university and the external will be someone recruited from outside specially to read your thesis.
Both systems have strengths here. The involvement of an external is a strength of the British system, ensuring quality control across the different universities and providing expert comment in a way that can be greatly to the candidate's advantage, especially if s/he is looking to get a version of the dissertation published at some point in the future. It is perhaps worth adding, though, that American universities seem sometimes to recruit academics from outside the university to sit on dissertation committees, e.g. I am sitting on two committees at different universities in the US.
Having spoken in favour of the British external examiner system, I should add that I am very impressed so far with the committee structures here in the US. While it can mean that everything is all rather "in house", it has the advantage of exposing the student's ideas and writing to a greater number of a people at a much earlier stage. More pairs of eyes, more guidance, extra wisdom can greatly help the student to refine his or her project, and problems can get picked up earlier. The system feels rather more community based too; several faculty members in a given area have stakes in a given individual's research, and among other things that can also help in the process of scholars providing strong and informed references for job applications.
The big question, though, is the one about finance. There is a major differences here between the two countries, not widely understood. Many American PhD programmes come with money attached, so if you apply to somewhere like Duke, you are applying not only to be accepted into the programme but also to receive a scholarship. And the scholarships can be generous, paying not only your fees (which are massive) but also a stipend. As far as I understand it, it is not universally the case that being accepted equates to getting a scholarship, but the two things are closely linked. By contrast, this sort of thing is rare in the UK, and one should think about the process of application for a place as quite different from the business of getting financial help with the place.
For British PhD applicants, the process is in fact twofold. You apply to the university course and, if successful, you get your place. At the same time, you apply to the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) for funding. This is highly competitive, something like as competitive as getting a place to do a PhD at an elite American university. It used to be the case that anyone with a First would get funding, but that is no longer the case. (A "First" is a first class degree, received by only a fraction of students. Most students get a second class degree, either a "2:1", second class upper division, or "2:2", second class lower division; a minority get a third class degree). Now you need an exceptional First and exceptional references to get the AHRC funding. AHRC funding is only available to British citizens, so if one is applying from abroad, the big questions about funding remain, questions that are sharply focused given the current exchange rate, which is not at all favourable to American travellers.
I spent two years as Post-Graduate Admissions Tutor in the Theology and Religion Department at the University of Birmingham and during that time the most common question I received from international applicants was "what about money?" It was always pretty depressing because I was rarely able to give any good news about scholarships or financial aid for international students. The only good news is that the fees for a standard PhD programme in the UK are substantially less than their American equivalents, in spite of the fact that international fees will be double the home fees. Let me try to put some actual figures on this. When I was in Birmingham, international students paid roughly £8,500 a year in fees. Even at the current exchange rate, that is $17,000, much less than the $30,000 plus you will pay in top American universities. But if it is $17,000 a year you don't have, that is not exactly good news, is it?
I should underline that this is just a sketch based on personal impressions of what I have seen so far of the two different countries, and no doubt others' experiences and reflections will differ.
Update (7.48): Christopher Spinks comments on Katagrapho, adding some useful reflections from his experience at Fuller, in PhD: UK, USA or hybrid?.
Update (14.07): Kevin Wilson comments in Blue Cord.
Labels: Graduate study, PhD, Post-Graduate study, UK Universities, US Universities
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Borg and Crossan on Holy Week
The March 20 2007 edition of Christian Century went online yesterday at the FindArticles site and it features an interesting piece by Historical Jesus favourites Borg and Crossan:
Collision Course: Jesus' Final Week
Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan
Of course the impact is not quite the same if one is reading it a month late, as I am, but there are still several features of interest, and I'd like to comment on a couple of features in the piece. It begins by posing the following question:
Of course when Crossan and Borg say "Now the world doesn't stop on Good Friday", they are using the word "world" to mean "USA" in the same way that the ancients used the word "world" to mean "the Roman Empire". I must admit that I found working on Good Friday for the first time ever last year a real shock to the system, so much so that I blogged on it, Working at Easter. This year I was lucky enough not to have any classes scheduled on Good Friday, but I did teach on Easter Monday, which felt very, very odd, especially with thoughts of the family together back home, celebrating it together.
Crossan and Borg's article is an enjoyable read, though, and ultimately argues for something like the kind of Holy Week that some celebrate in England. The irony there is that the time off work that some (not all) have is not used to go to church, where rates of attendance are far lower than they are in the USA, where there are no such holidays. That's one I'm still trying to figure out.
Collision Course: Jesus' Final Week
Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan
Of course the impact is not quite the same if one is reading it a month late, as I am, but there are still several features of interest, and I'd like to comment on a couple of features in the piece. It begins by posing the following question:
IF, AS JOHN'S GOSPEL suggests, Jesus went regularly to the annual festivals of his people in Jerusalem, what was so different that last time that it resulted in his execution? If, as Mark's Gospel suggests, he only went there once, why did he do it then? What, in other words, was Jesus' intention in making what proved to be his final, fatal visit to Jerusalem and its Temple that Passover of 30 CE?A minor comment, but does Mark suggest that Jesus "only went there once"? I would be inclined to say, rather, that Mark only narrates one visit, and gives no indication one way or the other as to whether Jesus had been there in the past, though we might guess that his Jesus would have attended pilgrim feasts given his endorsement of Torah commandments like the leper showing himself to the priest (Mark 1.44). Borg and Crossan continue:
One answer was given in Mel Gibson's 2004 film The Passion of the Christ. Jesus' intention, according to that film, was to sacrifice his life as a substitutionary atonement for the sins of the world and thereby obtain vicarious forgiveness for us all. Since God was offended by human sin, and since human beings were an inadequate subject for divine punishment, only a divine victim, the Son of God, was fully appropriate to suffer in our place.There is no question that The Passion of the Christ focuses in a major way on a substitutionary theory of the atonement, but as I argued in my article in Jesus and Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ (38-9), which appears next to Crossan's article in the volume, it is not the only perspective on the atonement in the film, which also makes a great deal of Christus Victor and exemplary ("no greater love") atonement theories. But the article goes on to make an interesting point about the celebration of Holy Week in Christian Churches and how that affects people's understanding of the Gospel narrative:
For more than one reason, the story of Holy Week--the whole week from Palm Sunday onward--is not as well known as it could and should be among Christians. One reason is a recent liturgical and lectionary change. In many churches, the story of Jesus' death has replaced Palm Sunday on the Sunday before Easter. The change was made largely because Good Friday has ceased to be a public holiday. Most of us over 50 recall a time when in many places there was no school on Good Friday. Many businesses closed. Good Friday was a day for going to church, and some of us can remember services from noon to 3 o'clock with sermons on "the seven last words."One does not have to be "over 50" to remember such things; indeed, it is still the case in the UK that no school meets on Good Friday, and most have the whole of Holy Week off too, depending on how late Easter is in the year (the later Easter is, the more certain it is that Holy Week will be taken off). Indeed, the three hour Good Friday service was very much part of my own upbringing. As a child I used to think that the point of the three-hour service was so that we could join our sufferings to Jesus's in the most obvious way, by having to spend three whole hours in church.
Of course when Crossan and Borg say "Now the world doesn't stop on Good Friday", they are using the word "world" to mean "USA" in the same way that the ancients used the word "world" to mean "the Roman Empire". I must admit that I found working on Good Friday for the first time ever last year a real shock to the system, so much so that I blogged on it, Working at Easter. This year I was lucky enough not to have any classes scheduled on Good Friday, but I did teach on Easter Monday, which felt very, very odd, especially with thoughts of the family together back home, celebrating it together.
Crossan and Borg's article is an enjoyable read, though, and ultimately argues for something like the kind of Holy Week that some celebrate in England. The irony there is that the time off work that some (not all) have is not used to go to church, where rates of attendance are far lower than they are in the USA, where there are no such holidays. That's one I'm still trying to figure out.
Labels: Christian Century, Good Friday, Holy Week, John Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg
Birmingham Dead Sea Scrolls Conference
Over on Evangelical Textual Criticism, Peter Williams has the details of a major Dead Sea Scrolls Conference with some really big names. I have searched around the University of Birmingham Theology and Religion (for nostalgia as much as anything) to see if there is anything on it yet, but not so far.
Labels: Birmingham, conferences, Dead Sea Scrolls
Maps
Over on Biblical Studies and Technological Tools, Mark Hoffman (mgvh) has a useful annotated list of free mapping resources on the web, Still more maps . . ., which provides some extras that it would be useful for me to add to my Maps page, so I will add it to my "things to do" file.
Labels: Maps, NT Gateway Updates
Wright's Blair Decade
The Daily Telegraph runs a feature today called My Blair Decade. As you'd expect from the Telegraph, it's all pretty negative, with the exception of a teacher in Nottingham who thinks, rightly in my view, that the Education System is now in better shape, but my reason for mentioning the article here is that it has a contribution from the Bishop of Durham, N. T. Wright, who is well known to all New Testament students these days. Increasingly of late, Wright has been willing to talk about politics, and here he talks only about politics, not a mention of Jesus, the kingdom of God, return from exile, Israel's God, the Scriptures or narrative. Perhaps the Telegraph took those bits out.
High hopes that died in the disaster of Iraq
Jonathan Petre
High hopes that died in the disaster of Iraq
Jonathan Petre
. . . With the disastrous escapade in Iraq, there was a sense of horror that the two world leaders who were most overtly Christian - Bush and Blair - should be lured into such a disastrous parody or caricature of the Christian imperialist, going around the world beating up Johnny foreigner and the infidel.On the last point, which I am better qualified to speak on than some of the others, and which has some relevance to this blog's topic, there is some truth, but things have got better for academics under Labour than they were a decade ago. My starting salary as a Lecturer in Birmingham in 1995 was something like £6,000 less than the starting salary for a lecturer now of the same age and qualifications, and the salary scale for academics overall has become much more competitive in the last decade, so that now many British academics are earning more than their American counterparts of similar age and experience. There is still some way to go, but I think that's one of the areas where progress has been made.
That's been a huge tragedy. There was a sense of something good and possible in Blair and his government which has been led to spend billions of pounds and hundreds of British lives on a fool's errand.
In the world of employment, we have seen the pulling apart of the high-earning professional fields, where there are massive rewards for young people in financially related fields, or the law. But not if you choose to do what our oldest son has done, which is follow me into the academic world. I was a theology don and he is a history lecturer at Durham University and he is paid not much more than a vicar . . .
Labels: academic salaries, N. T. Wright, politics
Monday, April 23, 2007
Review of Biblical Literature Latest
Latest from the SBL Review of Biblical Literature under the NT and related heading:
A. K. M. Adam
Faithful Interpretation: Reading the Bible in a Postmodern World
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5487
Reviewed by Joel B. Green
Peter Arzt-Grabner, Ruth Elisabeth Kritzer, Amfilochios Papathomas, and Franz Winter
1. Korinther
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5454
Reviewed by Joseph Verheyden
Matthew Brook O'Donnell
Corpus Linguistics and the Greek of the New Testament
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5362
Reviewed by Paul Elbert
N. T. Wright
Evil and the Justice of God
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5581
Reviewed by D. A. Carson
Arie W. Zwiep
Judas and the Choice of Matthias: A Study on Context and Concern of Acts 1:15-26
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5421
Reviewed by Loveday Alexander
I particularly recommend Carson's review of Wright for an entertaining and lively read. It is sympathetic with and appreciate of Wright overall yet profoundly critical on particular points, e.g.
And of course it is always good to see fellow-bloggers books getting favourable reviews, as Joel Green reviews AKMA, not least because it reminds us all that it is possible to blog and to write good books too. AKMA comments on his blog.
A. K. M. Adam
Faithful Interpretation: Reading the Bible in a Postmodern World
http://www.bookreviews.org
Reviewed by Joel B. Green
Peter Arzt-Grabner, Ruth Elisabeth Kritzer, Amfilochios Papathomas, and Franz Winter
1. Korinther
http://www.bookreviews.org
Reviewed by Joseph Verheyden
Matthew Brook O'Donnell
Corpus Linguistics and the Greek of the New Testament
http://www.bookreviews.org
Reviewed by Paul Elbert
N. T. Wright
Evil and the Justice of God
http://www.bookreviews.org
Reviewed by D. A. Carson
Arie W. Zwiep
Judas and the Choice of Matthias: A Study on Context and Concern of Acts 1:15-26
http://www.bookreviews.org
Reviewed by Loveday Alexander
I particularly recommend Carson's review of Wright for an entertaining and lively read. It is sympathetic with and appreciate of Wright overall yet profoundly critical on particular points, e.g.
Would Wright want to assert that there is no moral difference between those responsible for Auschwitz and the significant numbers of Dutch citizens who risked (and sometimes lost) their lives to give Jews sanctuary? Yes, we are all lost, and the line between good and evil goes down the middle of all people: there is an important theological truth there, for the alternative is that there are only good people and bad people. But to focus on this one insight and not complementary biblical emphases yields amateurish theology and slightly ridiculous politics.It is good too to see a thorough and appreciative review of Matthew Brook O'Donnell's book, a book that opens up new avenues in New Testament study and is well worth serious attention. I was one of the external examiners of the PhD thesis that formed the basis for this book, and it is good to see it now published and reviewed.
And of course it is always good to see fellow-bloggers books getting favourable reviews, as Joel Green reviews AKMA, not least because it reminds us all that it is possible to blog and to write good books too. AKMA comments on his blog.
Labels: Book Reviews, Review of Biblical Literature
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Harrington Reviews Fitzmyer
In America: The National Catholic Weekly, Daniel Harrington has a review of Joseph Fitzmyer's new book:
The One Who Is to Come
By Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J.
Eerdmans. 224p $18 (paperback)
The One Who Is to Come
By Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J.
Eerdmans. 224p $18 (paperback)
The words “messiah” and “messianism” are often used loosely not only in popular culture but also in religious discourse, even in biblical scholarship. This magisterial study of these terms in the Bible and related ancient sources by a premier biblical scholar of our time brings order and clarity into the understanding and use of what are obviously important words for both Christians and Jews . . .
Labels: America: The National Catholic Weekly, Book Reviews, Daniel Harrington, Joseph Fitzmyer, Messianism
Novum Testamentum latest
The latest Novum Testamentum is online for subscribers, with abstracts free for all:
Novum Testamentum 49/2 (2007)
Jesus as Archelaus in the Parable of the Pounds (Lk. 19:11-27)
pp. 105-127(23)
Author: Schultz, Brian
What Did Jesus Mean by την αρχην in John 8:25?
pp. 129-147(19)
Author: Caragounis, Chrys C.
Corpus suum tradere (Dan 3,28 [95]; 2Makk 7,37; 1Kor 13,3)
pp. 149-151(3)
Author: Bauer, Johannes B.
Diamonds in the Rough: A Reply to Christopher Stanley Concerning the Reader Competency of Paul's Original Audiences
pp. 153-183(31)
Author: Abasciano, Brian J.
The Gospel Commentary of Theophylact, and a Neglected Manuscript in Oxford
pp. 185-196(12)
Author: Brown, Andrew J.
Book Reviews
Rethinking the Synoptic Problem
pp. 197-199(3)
Author: Goodacre, Mark
The Purpose of the Gospel of Mark in Its Historical and Social Context
pp. 200-202(3)
Author: Iverson, Kelly R.
Calendar, Chronology and Worship; Studies in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity
pp. 203-204(2)
Author: Collins, Nina L.
Book Notes
Book Notes
pp. 205-208(4)
Author: Elliott, J.K.
My book review (see above) was actually written about three years ago, but it got lost in transmission. The best that I can reconstruct this situation is that NovT sent me the proofs in the summer of 2005 and I received them the day I was leaving Birmingham to come to begin a new life in North Carolina. I didn't send them back, they got lost, and I forgot about it until fairly recently when it occurred to me that I had not seen the review. I enquired and discovered that they had not published because they had not received the proofs. They looked them out and in no time at all, they have published it. So that's why this is a 2007 review of a 2001 book.
Novum Testamentum 49/2 (2007)
Jesus as Archelaus in the Parable of the Pounds (Lk. 19:11-27)
pp. 105-127(23)
Author: Schultz, Brian
What Did Jesus Mean by την αρχην in John 8:25?
pp. 129-147(19)
Author: Caragounis, Chrys C.
Corpus suum tradere (Dan 3,28 [95]; 2Makk 7,37; 1Kor 13,3)
pp. 149-151(3)
Author: Bauer, Johannes B.
Diamonds in the Rough: A Reply to Christopher Stanley Concerning the Reader Competency of Paul's Original Audiences
pp. 153-183(31)
Author: Abasciano, Brian J.
The Gospel Commentary of Theophylact, and a Neglected Manuscript in Oxford
pp. 185-196(12)
Author: Brown, Andrew J.
Book Reviews
Rethinking the Synoptic Problem
pp. 197-199(3)
Author: Goodacre, Mark
The Purpose of the Gospel of Mark in Its Historical and Social Context
pp. 200-202(3)
Author: Iverson, Kelly R.
Calendar, Chronology and Worship; Studies in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity
pp. 203-204(2)
Author: Collins, Nina L.
Book Notes
Book Notes
pp. 205-208(4)
Author: Elliott, J.K.
My book review (see above) was actually written about three years ago, but it got lost in transmission. The best that I can reconstruct this situation is that NovT sent me the proofs in the summer of 2005 and I received them the day I was leaving Birmingham to come to begin a new life in North Carolina. I didn't send them back, they got lost, and I forgot about it until fairly recently when it occurred to me that I had not seen the review. I enquired and discovered that they had not published because they had not received the proofs. They looked them out and in no time at all, they have published it. So that's why this is a 2007 review of a 2001 book.
Labels: journals, Novum Testamentum
Currents in Biblical Research latest
Over on Gospels, Acts and Hermeneutics, Patrick Spencer has details of the latest Currents in Biblical Research, which is Vol. 5, Number 3 (June 2007) and it includes a piece by Patrick Spencer himself.
Labels: Currents in Biblical Research, journals
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Scottish Journal of Theology latest
The new issue of SJT is available online, abstracts free for all, the rest for subscribers and subscribing institutions:
Scottish Journal of Theology
Volume 60 - Issue 02 - May 2007
There is one article of particular interest to NT studies:
Engaging scripture: incarnation and the Gospel of John
Angus Paddison
Scottish Journal of Theology, Volume 60, Issue 02, May 2007, pp 144 - 160
doi: 10.1017/S0036930607003171, Published online by Cambridge University Press 20 Apr 2007
[ abstract ]
Scottish Journal of Theology
Volume 60 - Issue 02 - May 2007
There is one article of particular interest to NT studies:
Engaging scripture: incarnation and the Gospel of John
Angus Paddison
Scottish Journal of Theology, Volume 60, Issue 02, May 2007, pp 144 - 160
doi: 10.1017/S0036930607003171, Published online by Cambridge University Press 20 Apr 2007
[ abstract ]
Labels: journals, Scottish Journal of Theology
Friday, April 20, 2007
Perseus back!
At the risk of speaking too soon, it seems that Perseus is back after the major crash. I've not spent long on it this morning, but what I have tried so far has worked.
Update (Saturday, 11.41): The good news is that Perseus is still working fine and now the Berlin mirror appears to be working fine too.
Update (Saturday, 11.41): The good news is that Perseus is still working fine and now the Berlin mirror appears to be working fine too.
Labels: Greek tools, Perseus
Books on the Gospel of Judas
April DeConick has recently finished a book on the Gospel of Judas called The Thirteenth Apostle: What the Gospel of Judas Really Says. In a recent post, Bibliography for the Gospel of Judas (in English), DeConick lists the several studies that have already appeared on Judas, or that are currently in print. A commenter adds another, and I can add one more:
Simon Gathercole, The Gospel of Judas: Rewriting Early Christianity (Oxford: OUP, Estimated publication date November 2007)
I have read the book in manuscript and am happy to say that is outstanding.
Simon Gathercole, The Gospel of Judas: Rewriting Early Christianity (Oxford: OUP, Estimated publication date November 2007)
I have read the book in manuscript and am happy to say that is outstanding.
Labels: Forbidden Gospels, Gospel of Judas, Simon Gathercole
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Liddell-Scott Lexicon Downloads
For those attempting to cope without Perseus, one can at least download Liddell Scott at the Internet Archive. Details:
A Greek-English lexicon (1883)
PDF
Flip Book
FTP
Thanks to Anh Michael on b-greek for the link.
A Greek-English lexicon (1883)
Author: Liddell, Henry George, 1811-1898The specific downloads:
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN
Usage Rights: See Terms
Book Contributor: University of California Libraries
Language: English
Keywords: Greek language -- English
Flip Book
FTP
Thanks to Anh Michael on b-greek for the link.
Labels: b-greek, Greek tools, lexica, Liddell-Scott, Perseus
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Pagels on Colbert
Ever on top of things, Dr Jim West mentions the appearance of Elaine Pagels on The Colbert Report last night. You can watch the segment online from the previous link. Pagels is pretty impressive given the difficulty of coping with Colbert's Biblical inerrantist persona; most of the time she just ploughs on regardless, but remains good humoured. And I must have been in the USA long enough now to be getting the sense of humour here. On the several occasions that I've watched the programme previously, I have found it pretty loud and irritating. When Bart Ehrman was on, I felt really uncomfortable. But on this occasion, I laughed out loud several times. The funniest line:
Pagels: Bishop Irenaeus mentioned it [the Gospel of Judas] nearly 2,000 years ago
Colbert (shaking his head and waving his finger): Bishop Irenaeus mentioned a lot of things. That guy [hand making mouth movements] was a chatty ?Cathy? [Didn't know the last word].
On the question of content, there's been an interesting thread on Xtalk, including raising the question about the lumping together of the Gospel of Judas with other Gospels when no one dates it in the first century. In this interview, Pagels dates it to "2,000 years ago".
Pagels: Bishop Irenaeus mentioned it [the Gospel of Judas] nearly 2,000 years ago
Colbert (shaking his head and waving his finger): Bishop Irenaeus mentioned a lot of things. That guy [hand making mouth movements] was a chatty ?Cathy? [Didn't know the last word].
On the question of content, there's been an interesting thread on Xtalk, including raising the question about the lumping together of the Gospel of Judas with other Gospels when no one dates it in the first century. In this interview, Pagels dates it to "2,000 years ago".
Labels: Colbert, Elaine Pagels, Xtalk
Latest Tyndale Tech: Biblical Fonts and Mac Woes
The latest Tyndale Tech email is now available online:
Biblical Fonts and Mac Woes: A Solution
April 2007
The good news for everyone is that Unicode has solved all our font problems.
The bad news for Mac users is that Hebrew doesn't work properly in Word.
The really good news is that NeoOffice now works as well as Word, with Hebrew, for free!
As usual, it's full of useful advice and great links. A couple of comments to come later.
Update (16:10): Danny Zacharias has some excellent comments on Latest Tyndale Tech: Some Clarifications.
Biblical Fonts and Mac Woes: A Solution
April 2007
The good news for everyone is that Unicode has solved all our font problems.
The bad news for Mac users is that Hebrew doesn't work properly in Word.
The really good news is that NeoOffice now works as well as Word, with Hebrew, for free!
As usual, it's full of useful advice and great links. A couple of comments to come later.
Update (16:10): Danny Zacharias has some excellent comments on Latest Tyndale Tech: Some Clarifications.
Labels: Deinde, Tyndale Tech, Unicode
Tom Wright on Easter
Here's one I missed over Easter, but it's linked on the N. T. Wright Page, from The Guardian's weekly Face to Faith column:
Face to faith
In these troubled times, Easter's message of resurrection is a powerful one, says Tom Wright
A couple of features of interest for academic NT geeks:
Face to faith
In these troubled times, Easter's message of resurrection is a powerful one, says Tom Wright
A couple of features of interest for academic NT geeks:
We reflect on, and mourn, the ruin of the world and the folly of humankind. We look in the mirror and see our own shame and sin. And then we contemplate Jesus's suffering and death at the heart of the whole thing: the place where the arrogance of empire, the frenzy of religion and the betrayal of friends all rush together and do their worst.Notice how central the motif of empire is becoming in Wright's thinking, and not just in discussion of Paul (cf. the fresh perspective on Paul and Empire). Also notice:
That's why the Easter stories tumble out in bits and pieces, with breathless chasings to and fro and garbled reports - and then, stories like nothing else before or since. As the great New Testament scholar EP Sanders put it, the writers were trying to describe an experience that does not fit a known category. They knew all about ghosts and visions, and they knew it wasn't anything like that.I like the characterization of Sanders, whom I once described in print as "the greatest living New Testament scholar", though I don't think he would be so keen on the sentence that follows here, about ghosts and visions, which is pure Wright.
Labels: E. P. Sanders, N. T. Wright, resurrection
British New Testament Conference 2007
Details have recently been sent out concerning the British New Testament Conference 2007 which is to be at the University of Exeter on 6-8 September 2007. The plenary papers appear to line up some top brass:
Professor Morna Hooker, "Paul the Pastor: The Relevance of the Gospel"
Professor John Riches, "Reception History as Literary History"
Professor Larry Hurtado, "Early Christian Manuscripts as Artefacts: An Illustrated Presentation"
Professor Morna Hooker, "Paul the Pastor: The Relevance of the Gospel"
Professor John Riches, "Reception History as Literary History"
Professor Larry Hurtado, "Early Christian Manuscripts as Artefacts: An Illustrated Presentation"
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Nifong Goes to Sunday School
It's not often that elements in the Duke lacrosse case are discussed in relation to the Bible, but one of our Religion majors here at Duke, Emily Thomey, has written the following today in her regular Et Religio column in the Duke Chronicle:
Nifong Goes to Sunday School
Emily Thomey
Nifong Goes to Sunday School
Emily Thomey
Labels: Duke Chronicle, Duke Lacrosse
Review of Biblical Literature latest
Latest from the SBL Review of Biblical Literature under the NT heading (and related):
Joshua Efron
Formation of the Primary Christian Church [Hebrew]
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5311
The Origins of Christianity and Apocalypticism [Hebrew]
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5310
Reviewed by Joshua Schwartz
Tikva Frymer-Kensky
Studies in Bible and Feminist Criticism
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5296
Reviewed by Jason R. Tatlock
J. L. Houlden
Jesus: A Question of Identity
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5401
Reviewed by Kari Syreeni
Bonnie Howe
Because You Bear This Name: Conceptual Metaphor and the Moral Meaning of 1 Peter
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5321
Reviewed by John H. Elliott
Morten Hørning Jensen
Herod Antipas in Galilee: The Literary and Archaeological Sources on the Reign of Herod Antipas and Its Socio-economic Impact on Galilee
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5509
Reviewed by Mark A. Chancey
Joseph A. Marchal
Hierarchy, Unity, and Imitation: A Feminist Rhetorical Analysis of Power Dynamics in Paul's Letter to the Philippians
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5536
Reviewed by Jennifer Bird
Christopher Rowland and Christopher Tuckett, eds.
The Nature of New Testament Theology: Essays in Honor of Robert Morgan
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5265
Reviewed by Craig L. Blomberg
Wolfgang Schrage
Kreuzestheologie und Ethik im Neuen Testament: Gesammelte Studien
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5449
Reviewed by Wolfgang Kraus
Robert A. Spivey, D. Moody Smith, and C. Clifton Black
Anatomy of the New Testament: A Guide to Its Structure and Meaning
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5557
Reviewed by Matthew Collins
Reviewed by David Trobisch
Peter Stuhlmacher
Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments: Vol. 1: Grundlegung. Von Jesus zu Paulus
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5464
Reviewed by Günter Röhser
Joshua Efron
Formation of the Primary Christian Church [Hebrew]
http://www.bookreviews.org
The Origins of Christianity and Apocalypticism [Hebrew]
http://www.bookreviews.org
Reviewed by Joshua Schwartz
Tikva Frymer-Kensky
Studies in Bible and Feminist Criticism
http://www.bookreviews.org
Reviewed by Jason R. Tatlock
J. L. Houlden
Jesus: A Question of Identity
http://www.bookreviews.org
Reviewed by Kari Syreeni
Bonnie Howe
Because You Bear This Name: Conceptual Metaphor and the Moral Meaning of 1 Peter
http://www.bookreviews.org
Reviewed by John H. Elliott
Morten Hørning Jensen
Herod Antipas in Galilee: The Literary and Archaeological Sources on the Reign of Herod Antipas and Its Socio-economic Impact on Galilee
http://www.bookreviews.org
Reviewed by Mark A. Chancey
Joseph A. Marchal
Hierarchy, Unity, and Imitation: A Feminist Rhetorical Analysis of Power Dynamics in Paul's Letter to the Philippians
http://www.bookreviews.org
Reviewed by Jennifer Bird
Christopher Rowland and Christopher Tuckett, eds.
The Nature of New Testament Theology: Essays in Honor of Robert Morgan
http://www.bookreviews.org
Reviewed by Craig L. Blomberg
Wolfgang Schrage
Kreuzestheologie und Ethik im Neuen Testament: Gesammelte Studien
http://www.bookreviews.org
Reviewed by Wolfgang Kraus
Robert A. Spivey, D. Moody Smith, and C. Clifton Black
Anatomy of the New Testament: A Guide to Its Structure and Meaning
http://www.bookreviews.org
Reviewed by Matthew Collins
Reviewed by David Trobisch
Peter Stuhlmacher
Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments: Vol. 1: Grundlegung. Von Jesus zu Paulus
http://www.bookreviews.org
Reviewed by Günter Röhser
Labels: Review of Biblical Literature
Monday, April 16, 2007
Best Blogs about Biblical Studies
Thanks to all those who have voted for the NT Gateway weblog on the Best Blogs about Biblical Studies over at Unspun by Amazon. I understand that the list was created by Airton Jose da Silva from Observatorio Biblico. I am flattered that the blog is currently coming out on top. Thanks for the encouragement.
Update (Sunday, 00:54): Airton José da Silva has a Roundup on this story on Observatório Bíblico.
Update (Sunday, 00:54): Airton José da Silva has a Roundup on this story on Observatório Bíblico.
Labels: Biblioblogs, Unspun
Sunday, April 15, 2007
SEBTS Conference on Mark 16.9-20
There was a conference down the road in Wake Forest on the "last twelve verses of Mark", at South East Baptist Theological Seminary, on Friday and Saturday. It's been very well blogged, by David Alan Black (with pictures), by Josh McManaway on A New Testament Student, by Lew A on The Pursuit and Alan Knox in The Assembling of the Church. Gosh, four separate reports on the conference, and there are more links on those blogs to more. This blogging lark is going to catch on one of these days!
I was not able to get down the road to the conference (my parents are in town), but we did manage to cash in on Keith Elliot's presence in North Carolina to grab him for one of our New Testament colloquia at Duke on Thursday evening, when he spoke on recent developments in New Testament textual criticism.
In a nice piece of synergy, Rob Bradshaw continues his fine work on BiblicalStudies.org.uk
with an upload of F.F. Bruce, "The End of the Second Gospel," The Evangelical Quarterly 17 (1945): 169-81.
I was not able to get down the road to the conference (my parents are in town), but we did manage to cash in on Keith Elliot's presence in North Carolina to grab him for one of our New Testament colloquia at Duke on Thursday evening, when he spoke on recent developments in New Testament textual criticism.
In a nice piece of synergy, Rob Bradshaw continues his fine work on BiblicalStudies.org.uk
with an upload of F.F. Bruce, "The End of the Second Gospel," The Evangelical Quarterly 17 (1945): 169-81.
Labels: Keith Elliott, Mark 16.9-20, SEBTS
Friday, April 13, 2007
Jewish Jesus and the Third Quest
Continuing her series of interesting posts on the Historical Jesus, April DeConick today posts on Why the Jewish Jesus is Essential (and Dangerous). One element in it underlines the problems over the use of the term "the third quest" on which I commented in my post on abandoning the terminology of "the third quest". DeConick writes:
As I look back over the long history of the Jesus quest (and its popularized sidekick, Jesus in cinema), I continued to be struck (and I admit ashamed) that Jesus rarely appears as a Jew. There have been occasional voices over the last century that have demanded we remember that Jesus was Jewish, but these have been occasional and against the communal representations of Jesus that were developing in those eras.I am puzzled by this characterization of recent research. If there is one thing that the term "the third quest" has been associated with, I would say that that is stress on the fact that Jesus was a Jew. The pioneering works of the third quest, Vermes's Jesus the Jew and E. P. Sanders's Jesus and Judaism make this their major contribution to the extent that "Jew" and "Judaism" appears in the title. As Tom Wright characterizes "the third quest" (his term), he places Jesus as Jew as its defining element. I realize that DeConick is using the term "third quest" somewhat differently, and applying it to those like Crossan and Funk who are actually excluded from "the third quest" by Wright, but I think this further underlines the problem I was trying to bring forward the other day, that the term is becoming useless, or worse, confusing.
And sadly this includes the Third Quest which largely has been trying to get around the fact that Jesus was Jewish by creating categories for Jesus as a Hellenized person living in Palestine or Galilee, but a person that doesn't look like any other Jew we know of who lived in Palestine or Galilee.
Labels: Forbidden Gospels, Historical Jesus, History of the Quest
Coping without Perseus
As many of you will know, one of the finest sites on the internet, Perseus, has been experiencing serious problems over the last couple of weeks. The latest announcement on the site is as follows:
On April 3, 2007, Perseus hardware was compromised. In order to protect our data and comply with university policy, a number of servers were removed from the network, making Tufts-hosted Perseus sites inoperable. Repairs are in progress to methodically restore services while improving their overall security. We apologize for the inconvenience.I was chatting to one of my students the other day about her frustration at trying to translate portions of the classics without the aid of Perseus. The upshot was that although it is frustrating, it is a reminder of the importance of really trying to understand the text, and not becoming over-reliant on what can become electronic prompts. In the same spirit, I enjoyed reading Elizabeth Kline's posting on b-greek this morning, Travelling Alone and the Death of Perseus, from which this is an excerpt:
Reading the GNT with all the electronic tools at your fingertips and all the printed resources isn't going to tell you if you know greek. All of these resources are great and I use them regularly but at some point along the way it is healthy to pick up a Greek text you have never read in your native tongue and spend some time traveling alone with LS (intermed.), LSJ and H.W.Smyth. It certainly trims some of the fat from your ego if nothing else.I agree, and the point is even more focused when it comes to reliance on the multiple electronic resources available as helps for the Greek New Testament. Useful as these are in teaching and research, and grateful as we are to their developers, perhaps we should all sponsor "electronic free April" every year and insist that everyone has a good month each year when they are only allowed access to print resources for Greek. Perhaps we could institute it as a kind of compulsory Lent abstinence for all NT scholars and students?
Labels: abstinence, b-greek, Greek tools, Perseus
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Tyndale Tech Latest
Over at Tyndale House in Cambridge, David Instone Brewer sends out occasional Tyndale Tech emails, which feature items of interest and advice concerning computers and the study of the Bible. After a short while, David uploads the emails to the web, and the January 2007 email has recently appeared:
January 2007: Searching for Academic Research on the Web
As always, it is full of useful and interesting items. David recommends his own TynCat, a particularly helpful resource, and points to the new searchbox available for it for IE7. One thought for future development: how about a Firefox search plug-in for those of us who stopped using IE7 some time ago? (Actually, I still use it to watch the cricket on Willow TV but only because they've not made it available for Firefox yet). I took five minutes to try to create a Firefox Search Plug-in for TynCat but had no success with it and don't have the patience to try again. But I, for one, would be happy to have a successful search plug-in to add to my browser.
Update (Sunday, 23.55): In comments, Holger Szesnat notes:
January 2007: Searching for Academic Research on the Web
As always, it is full of useful and interesting items. David recommends his own TynCat, a particularly helpful resource, and points to the new searchbox available for it for IE7. One thought for future development: how about a Firefox search plug-in for those of us who stopped using IE7 some time ago? (Actually, I still use it to watch the cricket on Willow TV but only because they've not made it available for Firefox yet). I took five minutes to try to create a Firefox Search Plug-in for TynCat but had no success with it and don't have the patience to try again. But I, for one, would be happy to have a successful search plug-in to add to my browser.
Update (Sunday, 23.55): In comments, Holger Szesnat notes:
I have written two quick and dirty TynCat search hacks for Firefox (author-search and title-words-search). They work for me, so presumably they'll work for others as well.Thanks, Holger. They are working well for me.
Save the following two files (tyncat-author.xml and tyncat-title.xml) to your firefox 'searchplugins' directory:
http://www.biblicalhermeneutics.net/tyncat-author.xml
and
http://www.biblicalhermeneutics.net/tyncat-title.xml
If you wish, adapt the XML code to a USA location (mine for is UK).
Labels: research tools, Tyndale Tech
NTS latest
The latest issue of New Testament Studies is now available online to subscribers, abstracts available for all:
------------
New Testament Studies
Volume 53 - Issue 02 - April 2007
Galilee as Laboratory: Experiments for New Testament Historians and Theologians
SEAN FREYNE
New Testament Studies, Volume 53, Issue 02, April 2007, pp 147 - 164
doi: 10.1017/S0028688507000094, Published online by Cambridge University Press 02 Apr 2007
[ abstract ]
Le (Fils) monogène dans les écrits johanniques: Évolution des traditions et élaboration rédactionnelle
MICHÈLE MORGEN
New Testament Studies, Volume 53, Issue 02, April 2007, pp 165 - 183
doi: 10.1017/S0028688507000100, Published online by Cambridge University Press 02 Apr 2007
[ abstract ]
Paulus und der Herodianische Tempel
FRIEDRICH WILHELM HORN
New Testament Studies, Volume 53, Issue 02, April 2007, pp 184 - 203
doi: 10.1017/S0028688507000112, Published online by Cambridge University Press 02 Apr 2007
[ abstract ]
The Meaning of the Phrase τα στ[omicron]ιχεια τ[omicron]υ κ[omicron]σμ[omicron]υ in Galatians
MARTINUS C. DE BOER
New Testament Studies, Volume 53, Issue 02, April 2007, pp 204 - 224
doi: 10.1017/S0028688507000124, Published online by Cambridge University Press 02 Apr 2007
[ abstract ]
There is Neither Old Nor Young? Early Christianity and Ancient Ideologies of Age
JOHN M. G. BARCLAY
New Testament Studies, Volume 53, Issue 02, April 2007, pp 225 - 241
doi: 10.1017/S0028688507000136, Published online by Cambridge University Press 02 Apr 2007
[ abstract ]
Diaspora Discourse: The Construction of Ethos in James
JOHN S. KLOPPENBORG
New Testament Studies, Volume 53, Issue 02, April 2007, pp 242 - 270
doi: 10.1017/S0028688507000148, Published online by Cambridge University Press 02 Apr 2007
[ abstract ]
To access this issue visit: www.journals.cambridge.org/jid_NTS Tables of contents and article abstracts are free to all on Cambridge Journals Online. Access to the full text is available to users whose institutions subscribe. If your institution does not subscribe why not recommend New Testament Studies to your librarian today and gain access 24-hours a day. Visit: www.journals.cambridge.org/recommend_NTS
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------------
New Testament Studies
Volume 53 - Issue 02 - April 2007
Galilee as Laboratory: Experiments for New Testament Historians and Theologians
SEAN FREYNE
New Testament Studies, Volume 53, Issue 02, April 2007, pp 147 - 164
doi: 10.1017/S0028688507000094, Published online by Cambridge University Press 02 Apr 2007
[ abstract ]
Le (Fils) monogène dans les écrits johanniques: Évolution des traditions et élaboration rédactionnelle
MICHÈLE MORGEN
New Testament Studies, Volume 53, Issue 02, April 2007, pp 165 - 183
doi: 10.1017/S0028688507000100, Published online by Cambridge University Press 02 Apr 2007
[ abstract ]
Paulus und der Herodianische Tempel
FRIEDRICH WILHELM HORN
New Testament Studies, Volume 53, Issue 02, April 2007, pp 184 - 203
doi: 10.1017/S0028688507000112, Published online by Cambridge University Press 02 Apr 2007
[ abstract ]
The Meaning of the Phrase τα στ[omicron]ιχεια τ[omicron]υ κ[omicron]σμ[omicron]υ in Galatians
MARTINUS C. DE BOER
New Testament Studies, Volume 53, Issue 02, April 2007, pp 204 - 224
doi: 10.1017/S0028688507000124, Published online by Cambridge University Press 02 Apr 2007
[ abstract ]
There is Neither Old Nor Young? Early Christianity and Ancient Ideologies of Age
JOHN M. G. BARCLAY
New Testament Studies, Volume 53, Issue 02, April 2007, pp 225 - 241
doi: 10.1017/S0028688507000136, Published online by Cambridge University Press 02 Apr 2007
[ abstract ]
Diaspora Discourse: The Construction of Ethos in James
JOHN S. KLOPPENBORG
New Testament Studies, Volume 53, Issue 02, April 2007, pp 242 - 270
doi: 10.1017/S0028688507000148, Published online by Cambridge University Press 02 Apr 2007
[ abstract ]
To access this issue visit: www.journals.cambridge.org/jid
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Labels: journals, New Testament Studies
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Duke Lacrosse Players Cleared
The news that everyone had been expecting for some time arrived this afternoon, that the Duke lacrosse players have been cleared of all charges. No one in the USA will be unfamiliar with this story, and many elsewhere in the world will have heard about it too since it has made an impact also on the world media. Today's Guardian, for example, has a good summary of the case that has cast a shadow over Duke for the last year or so.
I have often thought seriously about blogging on this issue because it has been on my mind a great deal, especially in recent months as it became clear that the case was collapsing. My reasons for not blogging on it were twofold. First, this blog is focused on academic New Testament studies and I generally keep all other unrelated material out of it. Regular readers will know that it is rare for me to stray outside of that mandate. Second, and more importantly, I felt profoundly uncomfortable about commenting in public on an ongoing criminal investigation. Some of the difficulties that have arisen in relation to the case are the result of people making public comment when it would have been wiser to use greater caution and to suspend judgement until more was known. The attorney general today spoke of the "tragic rush to accuse". Perhaps my decision to avoid public comment was wrong, but it was made, I hope, in good conscience. My lack of comment was not because of lack of interest in or concern about the case, which I have followed very carefully from the beginning.
Having heard the news today, my major reaction was one of no surprise. It has seemed clear for some time that the charges were likely to be dropped, and that there was no case against the three men. That reaction is combined with a feeling of profound regret and some degree of anger about the original prosecution of the case, which now appears to have been utterly flawed. I also feel a great deal of sympathy for the three players who have been cleared. I could not condone the behaviour of the lacrosse team at the party which was the catalyst for the false allegations, but it is important not to confuse one's condemnation of some student misbehaviour (which is common all over the world, not just here) with the making of one of the most serious criminal allegations that can be made. Indeed one of the most troubling elements in the early days of the media coverage was the confusion made between general student misdemeanour with very serious criminal allegation.
The most sensitive issue for those of us on the Duke faculty, however, is the question of our attitude to the members of the lacrosse team over the last twelve months, which was focused in particular by the placement of an ad in the The Chronicle by 88 members of the Trinity College of Arts and Sciences, one of the major divisions at Duke, of which the Religion Department, to which I belong, is a member. The ad achieved some notoriety and many saw it, I think rightly, as somewhat misguided. I was not one of the signatories of this ad, nor did I sign the follow-up "clarifying" letter produced last January. I should perhaps add that members of the lacrosse team have always been welcome to join my classes (and several have been in my classes). I regret that sometimes the Duke faculty have been characterized as not supporting their students. I made the decision not to talk in class about the case, though I was happy to talk to and listen to students outside of class when they wished to talk about it, and so to offer my support in that way.
The case has been a very unhappy one for Duke and Durham and I hope that in the long term important lessons are learnt. For me, as a relatively new member of the faculty, it has been an unpleasant welcome to a university that in so many other ways has so much to be proud of.
I have often thought seriously about blogging on this issue because it has been on my mind a great deal, especially in recent months as it became clear that the case was collapsing. My reasons for not blogging on it were twofold. First, this blog is focused on academic New Testament studies and I generally keep all other unrelated material out of it. Regular readers will know that it is rare for me to stray outside of that mandate. Second, and more importantly, I felt profoundly uncomfortable about commenting in public on an ongoing criminal investigation. Some of the difficulties that have arisen in relation to the case are the result of people making public comment when it would have been wiser to use greater caution and to suspend judgement until more was known. The attorney general today spoke of the "tragic rush to accuse". Perhaps my decision to avoid public comment was wrong, but it was made, I hope, in good conscience. My lack of comment was not because of lack of interest in or concern about the case, which I have followed very carefully from the beginning.
Having heard the news today, my major reaction was one of no surprise. It has seemed clear for some time that the charges were likely to be dropped, and that there was no case against the three men. That reaction is combined with a feeling of profound regret and some degree of anger about the original prosecution of the case, which now appears to have been utterly flawed. I also feel a great deal of sympathy for the three players who have been cleared. I could not condone the behaviour of the lacrosse team at the party which was the catalyst for the false allegations, but it is important not to confuse one's condemnation of some student misbehaviour (which is common all over the world, not just here) with the making of one of the most serious criminal allegations that can be made. Indeed one of the most troubling elements in the early days of the media coverage was the confusion made between general student misdemeanour with very serious criminal allegation.
The most sensitive issue for those of us on the Duke faculty, however, is the question of our attitude to the members of the lacrosse team over the last twelve months, which was focused in particular by the placement of an ad in the The Chronicle by 88 members of the Trinity College of Arts and Sciences, one of the major divisions at Duke, of which the Religion Department, to which I belong, is a member. The ad achieved some notoriety and many saw it, I think rightly, as somewhat misguided. I was not one of the signatories of this ad, nor did I sign the follow-up "clarifying" letter produced last January. I should perhaps add that members of the lacrosse team have always been welcome to join my classes (and several have been in my classes). I regret that sometimes the Duke faculty have been characterized as not supporting their students. I made the decision not to talk in class about the case, though I was happy to talk to and listen to students outside of class when they wished to talk about it, and so to offer my support in that way.
The case has been a very unhappy one for Duke and Durham and I hope that in the long term important lessons are learnt. For me, as a relatively new member of the faculty, it has been an unpleasant welcome to a university that in so many other ways has so much to be proud of.
Labels: Duke Chronicle, Duke Lacrosse
Abandoning "the third quest" of the Historical Jesus
On her always stimulating Forbidden Gospels Blog, April DeConick asks the question whether there is now a Fourth Quest for the Historical Jesus?. She sees the third quest as "dominated by the work of Crossan, Borg, Patterson, Funk, Mack, Downing and the Jesus Seminar, but also including Horsley, Kaylor, Witherington, Meier, and so forth". She feels that the "fourth quest" reacts to this and "pushes several items to the forefront" including Jesus as a Jew, the apocalyptic dimension to Jesus' teaching, problems with dissimilarity, stress on orality and so on. This fourth quest is populated by Bart Ehrman, Dale Allison, Paula Fredriksen, A.J. Levine, Jimmy Dunn and Gerd Theissen, and also N. T. Wright, though his work is "too apologetic for me". Well, if the terminology of the fourth quest takes off, remember where you heard it first.
I am not convinced, though, about the need for a new term. Indeed, I think the entire business of categorizing periods of the quest has now run into confusion and impasse and it should be abandoned. Briefly, these are what I see as the key points:
(1) The term "the third quest" was coined by N. T. Wright in 1986. He used it to describe the wave of scholarship that he felt had superseded the “new quest”. For Wright, the key players in this third quest were Geza Vermes and Ed Sanders alongside Ben Meyer, Anthony Harvey and Marcus Borg. If one is being a purest about the term "third quest", its originator has a quite different view of it from those who used it after him.
(2) The term came back to haunt Wright because the quest developed in all sorts of unexpected (to him) ways in the late eighties and nineties. Wright therefore attempted a new inventory ten years later in 1996, when he himself makes his major contribution to the quest in Jesus and the Victory of God, and he calls the newly emergent movement typified by the work of Crossan, Funk and the Jesus Seminar as "the renewed new quest". (And now Wright also moves Borg from the third quest to the renewed new quest). Although Crossan saw Wright's categorizing as somewhat condescending, Wright was actually echoing the characterization of the Jesus Seminar's work by Robert Funk, who was not keen on the third quest, and who saw himself in continuity with Bultmann, and who spoke of a renewed quest.
(3) Recently the situation has become more chaotic because many are simply describing all contemporary Jesus research as “the third quest”, whether the research is undertaken by Sanders, Wright, Crossan or Borg, e.g. the recent Biblica article by John P. Meier. As a result, some now mean one thing by "the third quest" and some mean something else. It is has therefore ceased to be a useful descriptor.
(4) The taxonomy of the Jesus research into these three distinct quests was in any case dubious from the start. Key to the notion of "the new quest" begun by Käsemann in the 1950s, and continued by others of Bultmann's students in the 1950s and 60s, was the idea that there has been a period of "no quest" from Schweitzer through to Käsemann. But this idea is highly dubious, as Dale Allison demonstrates in Resurrecting Jesus. There was in fact no such period of "no quest". Indeed several of the most famous works of historical Jesus scholarship emerge in this period, T. W. Manson, C. H. Dodd, Joachim Jeremias among them.
There is now good reason to abandon the unhelpful language of "the third quest". When I began my Historical Jesus course earlier this semester, I had a dilemma about how to characterize the history of research. In the end, I decided to introduce these terms, new quest, third quest, etc., but then to explain why I thought that they were inadequate.
I am not convinced, though, about the need for a new term. Indeed, I think the entire business of categorizing periods of the quest has now run into confusion and impasse and it should be abandoned. Briefly, these are what I see as the key points:
(1) The term "the third quest" was coined by N. T. Wright in 1986. He used it to describe the wave of scholarship that he felt had superseded the “new quest”. For Wright, the key players in this third quest were Geza Vermes and Ed Sanders alongside Ben Meyer, Anthony Harvey and Marcus Borg. If one is being a purest about the term "third quest", its originator has a quite different view of it from those who used it after him.
(2) The term came back to haunt Wright because the quest developed in all sorts of unexpected (to him) ways in the late eighties and nineties. Wright therefore attempted a new inventory ten years later in 1996, when he himself makes his major contribution to the quest in Jesus and the Victory of God, and he calls the newly emergent movement typified by the work of Crossan, Funk and the Jesus Seminar as "the renewed new quest". (And now Wright also moves Borg from the third quest to the renewed new quest). Although Crossan saw Wright's categorizing as somewhat condescending, Wright was actually echoing the characterization of the Jesus Seminar's work by Robert Funk, who was not keen on the third quest, and who saw himself in continuity with Bultmann, and who spoke of a renewed quest.
(3) Recently the situation has become more chaotic because many are simply describing all contemporary Jesus research as “the third quest”, whether the research is undertaken by Sanders, Wright, Crossan or Borg, e.g. the recent Biblica article by John P. Meier. As a result, some now mean one thing by "the third quest" and some mean something else. It is has therefore ceased to be a useful descriptor.
(4) The taxonomy of the Jesus research into these three distinct quests was in any case dubious from the start. Key to the notion of "the new quest" begun by Käsemann in the 1950s, and continued by others of Bultmann's students in the 1950s and 60s, was the idea that there has been a period of "no quest" from Schweitzer through to Käsemann. But this idea is highly dubious, as Dale Allison demonstrates in Resurrecting Jesus. There was in fact no such period of "no quest". Indeed several of the most famous works of historical Jesus scholarship emerge in this period, T. W. Manson, C. H. Dodd, Joachim Jeremias among them.
There is now good reason to abandon the unhelpful language of "the third quest". When I began my Historical Jesus course earlier this semester, I had a dilemma about how to characterize the history of research. In the end, I decided to introduce these terms, new quest, third quest, etc., but then to explain why I thought that they were inadequate.
Labels: Forbidden Gospels, Historical Jesus, History of the Quest
Reginald Fuller again
A further brief comment on my previous post which mentioned again the death of Reginald Fuller: there is a good summary of his life on Wikipedia, including a select bibliography:
Reginald H. Fuller
I think I remember hearing that Fuller's wife, Ilse Barda, is Rudolf Bultmann's daughter. Can anyone confirm that?
Reginald H. Fuller
I think I remember hearing that Fuller's wife, Ilse Barda, is Rudolf Bultmann's daughter. Can anyone confirm that?
Labels: Reginald Fuller, Wikipedia
SBL Forum latest
The April edition of the SBL Forum is now available. It covers several things that have been mentioned here in the past. In particular, it is good to see a prompt obituary of Reginald Fuller. I must admit that I have been surprised at how little other bibliobloggers have commented on the sad death of such a major New Testament scholar (mentioned here last Friday). Also, Mark Chancey has an article called Bible Courses in Public Schools: SBL's Response to a Growing Trend. I have often mentioned Mark's interesting work in this area here and it is good to see him carrying that work forward now with the SBL in a new consultation.
Labels: Mark Chancey, obituaries, Reginald Fuller, SBL, SBL Forum
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Blogging and Tenure 2
On Sunday I posted on the topic Should Blogs Count for Tenure? in response to Cathy Davidson's post of that title on Hastac. Kathy Asselin, a graduate student at Wayne State University, gets in touch as a result of that post, and asks if I would respond to four questions. I am answering them here:
1. How would you define the term blogging?
On occasions like this, I tend to have a look on Wikipedia to see if the multiple users there have come up with a good definition that might nicely encapsulate blogs and blogging, and on this occasion I am not disappointed:
2. What blogs-- including academic, institutional, corporate, business, or personal--do you currently participate in?
I am the author of this blog (NT Gateway Weblog), which has been running for three and a half years. It is an academic blog focusing primarily on academic New Te
1. How would you define the term blogging?
On occasions like this, I tend to have a look on Wikipedia to see if the multiple users there have come up with a good definition that might nicely encapsulate blogs and blogging, and on this occasion I am not disappointed:
A blog is a user-generated website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order.
Blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of most early blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual although some focus on photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), or audio (podcasting), and are part of a wider network of social media.
The term "blog" is a portmanteau, or, in other words, a blend of the words web and log (Web log). "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.
I would be foolish to try to improve on that.
2. What blogs-- including academic, institutional, corporate, business, or personal--do you currently participate in?
I am the author of this blog (NT Gateway Weblog), which has been running for three and a half years. It is an academic blog focusing primarily on academic New Te