All Things are Better in Koine

Hilarious! I’m DEFINITELY using this with my students a few weeks into the semester for encouragement.

Favorite Line: “I’m gonna bust it out like Daniel Wallace / Watch me parse that verb ’cause my Greek is flawless…”

HT: Mark Goodacre who got it from Jim Davila who got it from Helen Ingram

Messiah in the Making

Over the next several weeks, I will be presenting a series of posts that attempt to explicate the manner in which the Old Testament conceives (or does not conceive) of the messiah.

It is often asserted, usually by conservatives, that Jesus fulfills a host of “messianic prophecies.” For example:

Gen 3:15 (victory over the devil)

Isaiah 7:14 (born of a virgin)

Isaiah 9:6 (he will be a divine son)

Dan 9:25-26 (sacrificial death?)

There are of course others which I will deal with, but these are those which one hears frequently.

However, it will be my contention that NONE of these passages directly prophecy a coming messiah. Moreover, I will argue that the there is no uniform messianic conception at the time of Jesus of Nazareth.

Stay tuned for more. In the next installment, I will layout the ground rules for messianic investigation in the OT.

More anon.

Greg Boyd on Open Theism

I highly recommend Greg Boyd’s lecture on Openness Theology, entitled “A Flexible Sovereignty: A Biblical Understanding of Providence and the Nature of the Future” at the Open Theology and Science Conference at Azusa Pacific University, April 11, 2008.

It’s well worth your time. Whether you espouse an openness theology or not, you owe it to yourself and the proponents of openness theology to learn about it from actual proponents. Greg is a sharp guy, and by the end of this presentation you’ll be in a better position to make a decision on this very difficult theological issue.

Here’s part 1 of 13:

Qumran-Messianism: A Short Review

Charlesworth, James H., Hermann Lichtenberger, and Gerbern S. Oegema, eds. Qumran-Messianism: Studies on the Messianic Expectations in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998. (xi + 237 pages)

This volume, edited by Charlesworth, Lichtenberger, and Oegema offers a collection of papers, most of which were presented at the SNTS Seminar Group on the Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Origins in Prague (1995) and Birmingham (1996). The focus of all these papers is the messianism(s) reflected in the extant documents that make up the OTP and and the library at unearthed at Qumran. While the discussions are diverse, considerable attention is paid to the “Son” texts in the Qumran library (1Q28a; 4Q174 [=4QFlor]; 4Q246; 4Q534; and 4Q369). The primary point of contention seems to be the referent of the “Son of God” in 4Q246 (i.e. a negative figure, a messianic figure, or a collective representation for the people of God). Zimmermann postulates that the potential relationship between Dan 7 and 4Q246 opens the doors to see a closer relationship to Jesus as “Son of Man” and “Son of God” than has usually be supposed. Evans posits that the miraculous birth attributed to Jesus in the Matthew and Luke may find its impetus in a realization of the “begetting” [יוֹלִיד] of the Messiah [הַמָּשִׁיחַ] in 4Q246. Charlesworth begins his first essay in the volume by averring that the most vexing question in Jesus studies is how he comes to be thought of as the Messiah since he does not fit the grid of the early Jewish expectations very well (e.g., Pss. Sol. 17 and 18) (page 6). This volume goes a long way to providing a helpful context in which further pursuit of a satisfactory historical solution to this problem may be found.

The Problem with a Deterministic God

Scott, over at Scotteriology, offered an insightful criticism of Bill Hybels and those like him in his post, Bill Hybels: Good Pastor, Not So Good Theologian. If you haven’t read Scott’s blog, you should give it a look (but not before finishing your visit here! : ) ).

Scott’s post arises from a remark that Hybels’ makes in The God You are Looking For (Thomas Nelson, 1997):

“He’s the God who has orchestrated every event of your life to give you the best chance to get to know Him, so that you can experience His love.”

Really, Bill?

Every event?

No exceptions?

All planned by God?

All so that you can experience his love?

Bill isn’t alone. I here this sort of dreck quite often from Christians, particularly from or to those who are mourning in the church.

Let me make sure I understand this:

Every woman’s life that has been ravaged by being raped by a man she thought she could trust…

Every man who grows up with no father…

Every teenager who is forced to have an abortion…

Every teenager who is ostracized by Christians for having an abortion (as if they knew what they would do in her situation!)…

Every victim of sex trafficking…

Every victim of genocide…

Every woman betrayed by an unfaithful husband…

Every man whose ego is destroyed by a acerbic remarks from his wife…

Every person who has been diagnosed with cancer or ALD or AIDS or Alzheimer’s…

To all of you… God did this to you. But don’t worry, he did it so that you could experience his love.

WHAT?!?!

A few years back, my dad died of lung cancer… five years after he quit smoking. Words cannot describe how terrible the last several months of his life were. They were torture, both for him and for his family. However, a teenager I knew became a Christian as a result of events that sprung from his illness. I know people (I used to be one of them) who would say that, MAYBE, that’s why my dad HAD to have cancer.

Hmmm…. Maybe. But if God is even half as smart as we say he is, that boy could have become a Christian some other way. Any other way.

I simply cannot reconcile a belief in the goodness of God with the idea that he orchestrated those things.

Honestly, there’s no good explanation for the suffering in this world. The best explanation is to simply (1) shut up, (2) stop offering explanations, and (3) grieve over the suffering in the world along with those who are grieving.

As I wrap this post up, I’d like to anticipate an objection. Before I made the shift to my present view, I heard people say that those who object to the Calvinistic model of God’s providence usually do so because they have experienced such a grave tragedy. Actually, this is probably true. However, I think that those of us who have experienced deep loss are in a better position to actually have their fingers on the pulse of the suffering in this world. Those who haven’t are simply content, and even comforted (!), to see God as a Master Designer who is both loving and terribly destructive at the same time. Those two categories seem mutually exclusive to me.

Craigslist: Clean up or be shut down

My wife and I are moving in a week, so we’re looking at selling some items on Craigslist. I’ve heard that CL has some “dark allies,” which border on facilitating prostitution, but I’ve never verified those claims until this morning.

Wow. To be frank, I didn’t know that this sort of thing actually went on. They need to clean up their act or they need to be shut down. Disgusting.

The “Unbreakable” Jesus?

Last night, I watched M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable last night with my wife. It’s not the first time I’ve seen it, but I found myself noticing a lot of parallels between it and some scholarly depictions of Jesus.

(Spoiler Alert!)

Basically, the premise of the movie is that the depiction of comic book superheroes is directly related to an ancient form of relating history (i.e. hieroglyphics). What’s more, in these comic books one finds kernels of actual “special” people who actually had powers that, as time went on, became embellished. The result is that, underneath the fanciful, supernatural depictions, there lies actual historical figures akin to, say, the X-Men.

Sound familiar? A rather popular line in the more radical pockets of scholarship has been to say that the gospels present a portrait of Jesus that is highly exalted, though fictitious, embellished by the early Jesus movement. There is a real Jesus under there somewhere, but he’s a mere shadow of the one in the gospels.

Am I the only one who noticed this? There are other parallels that could be mentioned, but these are the most striking.

On Factotums and Mavens

My friend Mike Bird has an article co-authored with Craig Keener on The SBL Forum making the case for the role of the biblical generalist in scholarship. The article, “Jack of All Trades and Master of None: The Case for the “Generalist” Scholars in Biblical Scholarship,” is of particular value for those of us just getting started in the guild.

Bird and Keener conclude the article with six suggestions for the budding scholar:

Several suggestions are helpful, though most scholars will not follow all of these.  (1) One obvious starting point is to develop competencies in as many of the ancient languages as possible. (2) To adapt I. Howard Marshall’s expression, one should endeavor to become the “master or mistress” of the primary sources and immerse oneself in the relevant literature of the ancient world.[3] That could mean placing a higher priority on reading the primary sources, even if it sometimes comes at the expense of reading all the secondary ones. (3) Hengel suggests that New Testament scholars (but the principle is equally applicable to other fields) should attempt to develop an expertise outside of the New Testament.[4] For instance, developing a side interest in certain writings from the Septuagint, Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, or Apostolic Fathers would hone one’s scholarly skills. (4) Read book reviews and summaries of research over a breadth of areas. Journals like Review of Biblical Literature and Currents in Biblical Research can expand one’s horizons about the state of scholarship in other fields. Similarly, it could be beneficial to attend seminars, conferences, and papers on a wide variety of biblical studies and related topics. (5) In terms of research a generalist might stagger one’s research agenda over a number of areas as time progresses. (6) An additional strategy is to write works (books and articles) for both specialist and generalist readers. For instance, concerted study of the Aramaic of the book of Daniel might be accompanied by publication of a textbook on Jewish apocalyptic literature. Alternatively, study of the textual history of Romans might well be followed by a more general volume on the history of the reception of Romans in the first four centuries. One can stay in the preferred “zone” and still produce specialist and generalist works.

Personally, I’m taking all of these to heart. It seems that the ideal approach would be to be scholarly factotum, who begins by specializing in one specific area of the disciple, along with one of its corollaries. However, this, as most things worth doing, takes time and with all the biblioblogging we do, it’s a wonder any of us get anything done!

Duke’s Symposium on Archeology and the Media

is now online. I know I’m a bit late on this, but here it is.

(Thanks to Jim West, who beat us all to the punch.)

___________

Audio of Duke Conference on Archaeology, Politics, and the Media

The following post contains mp3 files of papers presented at Duke University on April 23th and 24th, 2009. Thanks to the conference organizers, sponsors, and presenters for permission to post the audio.

For notes on the papers and the conference, see Robert Cargill’s blog (day 1 & day 2). Also note that some of these papers are available from Duke’s itunes.

DAY ONE
Eric Meyers, Introduction
Michael Schoenfeld, Welcome
Byron McCane, Scholars Behaving Badly: Sensationalism and Archaeology in the Media
Milton Moreland, Forged by a Genius: Scholarly Responses to History Channel Meets CSI
Christopher Rollston, An Ancient Medium in the Modern Media: Stages of Semitic Inscriptions
Jonathan Reed, The Lure of Proof and the Legacy of Biblical Archaeology: Scholars and the Media
Question and Answer Period
Eric Cline, Fabulous Finds and Fantastic Forgeries: The Distortion of Archaeology by the Media Pseudoarchaeology
Joe Zias, Response
Morag Kersel, The Power of the Press Release and Popular Magazines on the Antiquities Trade
Annabel Wharton, Response

Chad Spigel, Response
Mark Goodacre, The Talpiot Tomb and the Bloggers
A.K.M. Adam, Response
Patty Gerstenblith, Legal and Ethical Aspects of Cultural Heritage

DAY TWO
Nina Burleigh, Inside the Collector’s Lair and Other Tales from the Biblical Antiquities Trade in Israel and the USA
Mark Pinsky, The Holy Land Experience
Tony Cartledge, Walk about Jerusalem: Protestant Pilgrims in the Holy Land

Bert de Vries, Umm el-Jimal
S. Thomas Parker, Response
Eric Meyers, The Quest for the Temple Mount: The Settler Movement and National Parks in Israel
Rebecca Stein, Response
Ethan Bronner, Archaeology, Politics and the Media: A View from Jerusalem
Ray Bruce, Observations
Moira Bucciarelli, Observations
Eric Powell, Observations
Andy Vaughn, Summary of the Conference

John Anderson has moved

to WordPress! Check him out here. You’re bound to find plenty to chew on. He is a PhD candidate at Baylor University. Here’s what his blog says about his academic interests:

My academic interests include the book of Genesis, specifically the texts of deception in the Jacob cycle; Old Testament Theology; Psalms; historical Jesus; Gospel of Matthew; ancient and modern Jewish history and philosophy; and anything pertaining to the study and origins of Judaism.

Stop on by and pay him a visit!