My daughter, Jasmine

Jasmine

This bundle of cuteness is one reason for my lack of posting of late. She arrived a tad early, but the birth was without complications and all in all she's as fit as a fiddle. I do hope to get back to posting, but getting used to my transformed Sitz im Leben will take a while. In addition this, the doctorate is drawing to a close and I have a number of translation jobs (German-English) in the pipeline, which will leave me with less time than usual. However, this blog has been such a blessing that I don't intend to let it die off altogether. For those who are interested, my current thread consists in a treck through Childs' Exodus and Isaiah commentaries with an eye to examples of exegesis which illustrate what I consider to be the building blocks of his canonical approach. For an overview of posts to date, go here.

Oh, and being a father rocks. Though I'm still struggling with its ontological implications, I can say with certainty that it constitutes the next big boundary crossing moment after these two.

I'm doing fine!

An explanation of my last blog post is required, as some have worried that my doctorate is not going well. Nothing could be further from the truth, so please, so worries! I said I was exhausted, but being exhausted isn't necessarily a bad thing ... it just means I've been very busy over the past few months. I mentioned that my doctorate was "sucking out my energy," but that is not because I'm not making any progress but because the subject matter is huge and its demanding me to think in a number of fields in which I have little experience. I recently discussed my overall thesis (which I do have) with my supervisor and have received very positive feedback. So, a lack of blogging due to being überfordert is not a sign that things aren't working out in life in Bonn. Rather the opposite, it means that things are demanding and I have to set priorities.

Here's the kind of thing I'm trying to achieve in the second half of my thesis (the first being about Childs' "canonical approach"):

I'm wanting to get to the "substance" of Psalm 24, which for me means reading it not only in the context of the canon, but also in the context of Christian theology in general. As such, I'm looking at its diachronic development, its poetics, the final form, its position within the structure of the Psalter, its relation to the theology of the Psalter, is relation to the rest of OT, possible connections with the NT, its history of interpretation, and finally, its position within the context of dogmatic theology. I should add that I already have an overarching thesis, one which tries to uncover something of the "ontological unity" behind this mass of material.

If that sounds like a lot, then it explains (amongst other things), why I'm a tad exhausted. Trying to be actively involved in my church also robs me of blogging time and energy. I do intend, however, to keep letting the odd post through.

This blog is not dead

... it's just resting a bit. The various obligations of life here in Bonn and the strains of a thesis that is sucking out most of my energy have left me somewhat überfordert (I love that word; I wish there was an adequate English translation).

But worry not - when the muse takes me (and carries me) I will put fingertip to keyboard and rattle out something profound, moving, or simply confused.

Foreign languages and Biblical scholarship

I honestly didn't marry my wife in order to keep up to date with German scholarship, but I have to say, doing so was really a great move as far as my doctorate is concerned. For one thing, two doctorates have already been published on my thesis (Psalm 24), and they are both in German! I may well have been able to learn the language well enough to plough through the languages with a dictionary, but living here and speaking the language on a daily basis has made reading in German a pleasure rather than a chore (well, most of the time. Barth was a bit of a headache at first).

Which brings me to my Bockmuehl quote:

A generation ago, lip service was still paid to “keeping up” with scholarship in other languages, even if it was already a custom more honored in the breach than in the observance. For anyone inclined to the old-fashioned view (still widely held in the natural sciences) that serious scholarly inquiry is at least in principle a global enterprise, it can only be disheartening to observe how ofen footnotes in English remain remarkably untouched by directly pertinent recent publications in German, French, or Spanish—and vice versa. Rare is the scholar who bothers comprehensively with the key international publications (Bockmuehl, Seeing, 35)

Bockmuehl finds some comfort in the fact that

at least an Anglophone dialogue continues despite the accelerating continental drift separating Europe and America in religious, cultural and geopolitical respects (36).

Picking up posting again

Almost precisely a year ago, I posted my last post in a thread that has yet to be finished: my overview of what (I think ought to) constitute Christian theological exegesis, inspired by the work of Brevard Childs. You can see an outline of all posts in my summary: Faithful and Critical Scholarship: Interpretation within Boundaries.

I've decided to pick this thread up again and try to invest more time in blogging. As people may have notice from the dearth of posting, I've been busying myself of late with far too many extra-doctorate-related things (well, extra in the "academic" sense of the word; involvement in Church life is not exactly tangential to theological research, whether Old Testament or not). I've set my priorities and will now hopeful get back into the swing of things.

The next section of my task with be dedicated to "the Christological content of the Christian Bible," as Childs put it. A contentious, complex, and important issue. This will be the subject of my next post. For now, here are some links from the past where I have already attempted to deal with the issue:

1) Is Christological Interpretation OK?
2) Jesus in the Old Testament?

Feel free to tell me I'm making a huge mistake (oh, and point out how/why).

That Bible you're reading ...

I think I can safely say that my summer holidays have finally come to an end. I've been around a fair bit this summer: the North of England to go hiking with a friend, the South to visit my brother's wedding, then off to Italy to visit SBL Rome and finally a two week hike through the former GDR visiting the sites where Luther lived and did his stuff. The highlight of the the whole thing was finally meeting up with John Hobbins in Rome. My favourite location was, oddly, was the concentration camp Buchenwald in Thuringia. Not that Buchenwald competes with Rome in any aesthetic sense (!), but the place simply has more pathos. And I like pathos. I also don't like Baroque architecture.

Anyway, I really need to get on with this doctorate of mine. I'm currently working through Fokkelman's 18 questions to ask a Psalm. If I have anything interesting to say I'll be posting in the near future. Till then, here's an awesome picture of someone famous looking saying something cool (I got this a while back from Douglas of Biblia Hebraica):

Update: This image was created by James McGrath of Exploring our Matrix (amongst other blogs, for which go here).

I'm off on holiday, again!

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Having just returned from a two-week trip to Rome (OK, the first week was "work," but when you're writing a doctorate in a subject you love I'm not sure the boundaries are clear as they could be) I'm off again, this time to East Germany. I've often wanted to visit this spot of Deutschland, but it isn't a place one normally associates with summer holidays, especially when one lives within driving distance of numerous coasts (Baltic Sea, North Sea, English Channel, Mediterranean, the Bit Between-Italy-and-Croatia ...). East German, however, does happen to be the home of that firebrand of the Early Modern Era: Martin Luther. And for a couple of Protestant "theologians" living in Germany like my wife and myself, it is simply unthinkable to have lived here and not followed, at least once, in his footsteps.

So, we'll be taking off tomorrow and returning, probably, on the 30th of July (after a brief visit to the in-laws in Berlin, my favourite city after Tel Aviv; the route has been embedded above). The dearth of posting from the last two weeks, will have to continue, I'm afraid, but once I get back I hope to get back to my earlier output.

P.S. For those who speak (and read) German, you can do the route yourself with the help of the guide book: Mit Martin Luther Unterwegs: Ein biografischer Reiseführer.

I'm back from SBL Rome!

So, I'm finally back from Rome after what has been for me one of the most fruitful experiences I have had in a long time! Before leaving I was filled with a certain trepidation that I would end up sitting in hours of lectures that I wouldn't understand (for some reason I can hardly listen to lectures) and then spend the evenings sat in cafés in Rome on my own trying to catch up on my reading. As it turned out, I had the great pleasure of getting to know John Hobbins, author of one of the best biblioblogs on the net, who pretty much took me under his wings and made the whole experience unforgettable. John wrote his doctorate at the Waldensian institute around the corner from the SBL venue (on Isaiah and imperialism) and thus knew his way around well. Apart from taking me to the best ice-cream and coffee shops in Rome (and the world?), the highlight of the whole trip was for me by far the conversations we had amongst ourselves and with the various friends he introduced me to along the way. Learning really is a community thing, and if its theology you are learning, then you really need role models. John is for me one of those rare breeds of scholar-Christians who strives to and manages to integrate personal faith, pastoral concern, and high level academic work. In addition to the various notes I've haphazardly jotted down over the course of my stay (plus the e-mails of helpful scholars), my lasting memory will be the Gestalt effect of hanging out with John in the context of his Waldensian community, fueled by good coffee and good conversations.

Oh, and in case you didn't believe that John is the bees knees when it comes to quality dining in Rome, you can see him above leaving one of Romes most prestigious diners.

I'm off to SBL Rome

Blogging will cease for the next two weeks as I try and make the most of the Society of Biblical Literature's international meeting in Rome. I wrestled with the question of whether it would be worth going or not. On the one hand, listening to lectures is not something I particularly enjoy (I'm told it's ADHD ... Give me a book any day!), on the other hand, I may well meet some important dialogue partners and make connections for the future (I plan to get this doctorate finished by July 2010). The thing that sold me on the idea is a paper by Phil J. Botha of the University of Pretoria. Check out the abstract and you will see that a Psalm 24 junky couldn't wish for more:

Answers Disguised as Questions: Rhetoric and Reasoning in Psalm 24

Psalm 24 seems to be a post-exilic composition comprising of mostly pre-exilic material: a hymnic introduction (vv.1-2), a so-called entrance Torah (vv.3-5), and a liturgical piece once used at the temple gates (vv.7-10) to which a post-exilic identification of the true Israel was added (v.6). One aspect of its exegesis which has possibly been neglected thus far concerns the rhetorical techniques it employs and the argumentative objectives its composer(s) and editors pursued. The questions used in two of its four distinct sections possibly had a different function in their contexts of origin, but the exegete of the Psalter is confronted with the effect and impact of these questions (as well as other tropes employed) in the present composition and literary setting of the psalm. In this paper, the stichometric and poetic structure of Ps 24 is analysed and the possible argumentative objective of the choice of poetic stratagems is discussed.

How interesting is that!

The second paper that I will have to visit is this one:

Ida Zatelli, University of Florence

Biblical Origins of the Ritual Practice of Pilgrimage

The ritual and popular practice of the pilgrimage is widespread in various cultures and religions. In the present work the Biblical links of the rite are examined especially from a linguistic approach. The use of the verb gur, "to wander", "to roam” and that of the noun ger, "wanderer", "foreigner” or even “refugee”, prevalent in the epic narratives of ancient Israel (cfr. for ex. Gen 47,9) convey to the Jewish population the awareness of being “errant”, “itinerant”. Another key word is hag, “feast”, which in many cases involves rites of circumambulation. It is applied to the three principal Jewish celebrations: Sukkot, Pesah, Shavuot; particularly interesting is the analysis of the festival of Sukkot. A specific attention is dedicated to the frequent use of the verb 'ala, "to ascend" (the noun 'aliyya comes to mean "ascent" in post-biblical Hebrew). One ascends to the sacred mountains, to the sanctuaries, and finally 'ala becomes the technical verb that indicates the ascent to the Temple in Jerusalem or to Zion. This verb and yasa, "to exit" appear in Exodus where they describe the journey from Egypt to Canaan and in some post-exilic texts 'ala also refers to the return of the people of Israel. In conclusion, a detailed analysis is devoted to the expression lir'ot (et) pne yhwh , "to see the face of the Lord". (cfr. for ex. Is 1,12), which shows clearly the ultimate aim of the ascension to the Temple, very frequently not appropriately rendered in translation. The analysis of the above mentioned terminology allows us to define the origin of the rite of 'aliyya leregel, "pilgrimage" in post-biblical texts and to throw light on a very popular and widespread ritual in those religions that are based on the Bible.

Unfortunately, the timing of the various papers is not ideal. From my perspective, all of the most interesting subjects are on the first day at take place at the same time, which means I will have to miss a bunch. The two papers above back on to each other, meaning I will have to rush from one room to the other in order to make it on time, missing another interesting paper on the reception history of Psalm 1 (though luckily Gillingham is coming to Bonn soon, where I believe she will be repeating the paper). Oh well, one of my favourite activities is reading in cafés with a cigar and decent cappuccino, and where can one do that better than in Rome (really, the cappuccino there is in a class of its own)?

Ingrid (my wife) will be flying out on the Saturday, so we'll be spending another week in the city doing the regular tourist stuff (though I intend to thoroughly explore the Jewish quarter, probably the most interesting thing Rome has to offer).

Anyway, I wish who ever is reading this a enjoyable and erholsamer (restorative) summer break. :)

Dear Logos

Dear Logos,

I've just spent the past four days tinkering around with your Andersen-Forbes syntactically tagged Hebrew Bible and I have to say: I love it. Honestly, I'm such a geek I have to force myself to take a day off on Sundays. This programme is seriously enriching the way I understand Biblical Hebrew and the way I deal with difficulties in exegesis. I couldn't imagine owning a Bible software programme without it ...

There are two things I'd love to see come out at some point in the future:

1. The database could do with having its semantic tags refined. I think if I had a sophisticatedly tagged semantic database I'd run the risk of never getting off my computer. And I used to hate computers at school! Oh, and given the subjectivity involved in all things semantic and syntactical, perhaps you could get different scholars to make their own contributions. You could then further refine your search engine by adding a button for toggling between different search modes, depending on what scholar we like best.
2. And while we're at it, why not create a poetically tagged database? Again, you could just ask someone like Fokkelman and a few of his competitors to tag the Bible according to colon, strophe, and stanza length, metrical counts, assonance, cases of metonymy and various types of parallelism. Then we could do things like search for cases where subjects and objects cross strophe boundaries, or where particular types of parallelism tend to accumulate. Ooh, I tremble at the thought of it ...

I'm sure that none if this would be particularly difficult to do. After all, Andersen and Forbes have only been working on their project since the '70s. In fact, if you ever do get these projects off the ground, I generously offer to receive a review copy of each programme.

Yours sincerely,

Phil.

I don't blog Sundays

There are a couple of helpful responses to my latest post A canonical approach to the twelve Minor Prophets, once again affirming the academic merit of blogging. I don't know what it is like doing a PhD on campus with an available bunch of doctoral colleagues, but blogging puts you in touch with great brains around the globe.

The relevance that this has to the title of my post is that I won't be responding till Monday. I've decided that taking a breat from lap top at least one day a week is incredibly healthy, so I don't even switch the thing on in order to resist the temptation of getting lost in reams of RSS feeds. So thanks guys - I'll get back to you (and for the others, feel free to join the conversation!).

I should add that I am currently making a (rather challenging) transition in my doctoral studies. Having soaked up Brevard Childs and the scholars that have influenced him over the past two and a half years, I'm now trying to actually do some of my own exegesis (i.e. Psalm 24). This involves making a major switch in consciousness - no longer do I have to trade in broad sweeping concepts such as "the text as witness" or "the dialectic between text and res." Rather, I have to look at multiple textual variants, poetic structures, redactional schemes and historical context. The amount of intricate knowledge needed to do this is really quite extraordinary; I have full respect for bloggers such as John Hobbins , Douglas Mangum or John Anderson who have seemingly mastered the material and can effortlessly summarize entire universes of information in the sweep of a single post. I've updated my RSS feeds lately in order to try and immerse myself in this "alternate reality" (I've been reading far more dogmatics than Old Testament). I look forward to participating in these lively and edifying conversations.

A Biblical curse generator

How awesome is this! Douglas Mangum of Biblia Hebraica links a Biblical curse generator. Here is the description of this handy tool:

Lost for a smart remark to see off your enemies? Unable to deliver that killer insult? Put an end to unscriptural restraint with the amazing Biblical Curse Generator, which is pre-loaded with blistering smackdowns as delivered by Elijah, Jeremiah and other monumentally angry saints. Simply click the button below, and smite your foes with a custom-made curse straight out of the Old Testament!

Finally, something of real practical use from the biblioblogasphere.

Spring Book Giveaway

Bitsy Griffin is giving away a copy of Ravi Zacharias’ The Grand Weaver: How God Shapes Us Through the Events of Our Lives.

Here’s the giveaway rules:

-Reply to [her] post letting [her] know you want to be entered.
-This is just a plain old drawing - names in a hat. One will be drawn.
-Your name can be added a second time by posting this info on your blog.
-All entering must have a USA mailing address, and the book will be mailed by USPS Media Mail.
-Contest begins immediately and will continue through midnight on Sunday March 22nd (EST).
[She’ll] draw Monday when [she] get[s] home from school.

I'm always up for a free book so I'm in (and yes, I do not live in the States, but my cousin does so I'll get it sent to him, if I win).

The best blog name ever

Sibboleth: Pronunciations Which Can Get You Killed.

(cf. Judges 12:6).

Call for Papers: Genesis and Christian Theology

I doubt I'll be there, unfortunately, but it looks interesting!

Call for Papers: Genesis and Christian Theology

14-18 July 2009

St Mary’s College, University of St Andrews

The University of St Andrews is pleased to announce its third conference on Scripture and Christian Theology. Since the first conference on the Gospel of John in 2003, the St Andrews conferences have been recognized as one of the most important occasions when biblical scholars and systematic theologians are brought together in conversation about a biblical text. The conferences aim to cut through the megaphone diplomacy or the sheer incomprehension that so often marks attempts to communicate across our disciplines. We invite you then to join us and some of the best theological and biblical minds in careful and often lively interaction about one of the most theologically generative of biblical books: the book of Genesis.

We are now calling for papers that integrate close readings of Genesis with Christian theology. While we are particularly interested in explorations of the dynamic relationship between Genesis and Christian doctrine, we also welcome proposals that combine careful reading of the text of Genesis with theological attention to art, creativity, ecology, ethics, the history of interpretation, or Jewish and Christian dialogue.

The call for paper proposals closes on 15 March 2009. Please visit our website for further details or to submit a proposal: www.st-andrews.ac.uk/divinity/rt/conf/genesis09/.

Why don't we write "Biblical"?

I recently posted the following question to the Biblical Studies List:

What explains the growing tendency to spell the adjective Biblical with a small "b"? "Bible" is a proper noun isn't it? Only the Germans don't capitalize their adjectives.

I got the following answer:

You'll find that most publishers' instructions to authors require l.c. for all adjectives. Thus also deuteronomic rather than Deuteronomic. I think the only exceptions are adjectives derived from personal names, such as Josianic, Isaianic.

Here's my response:

This is interesting as there is no reason given here. According to English grammar adjectives are capitalized if they refer to Proper nouns, e.g. "English," "Bultmannian," "Jewish." The question is, is the "Bible" a proper noun? Here's a definition of proper noun:

A proper noun has two distinctive features: 1) it will name a specific [usually a one-of-a-kind] item, and 2) it will begin with a capital letter no matter where it occurs in a sentence.

The SBL handbook of style spells it with a capital: Bible. Not only that, it's logic on the rules of capitalization can only mean that Bible is a proper noun:

4.4.5. In general, a word or phrase used as a title of the whole or a specific part of the Bible is capitalized; the name of a genre is not capitalized. Thus any ancient and modern designation for the Bible, a book of the Bible, a division of the biblical canon (e.g., Pentateuch), or a discrete section of a biblical book (e.g., Primeval History) may be a proper noun and so capitalized.

What is the Bible (not bible) if not "a word ... used as a title of the whole"?

Here's an instructive example, again taken from SBL:

Psalms of Ascent is the name of a discrete subsection of the book of Psalms, but psalms of ascent is a genre of psalms like royal psalms.

In Biblical studies, the term "Bible" is not used to refer to a genre but to a particular collection of books. When we say "Bible" we know what it means without having to qualify it. The only context in which it is no longer a proper noun would be where it is just a genre designation, e.g. "The Silver Spoon is the bible of Italian cooking."

Writing "biblical" just feels ... I don't know ... disrespectful. Would you feel comfortable writing "bultmannian"? It somehow dissolves his identity into some larger category of phenomena.

Update: I'm delighted to see that I'm not the only one who thinks about such things. Kevi Edgecomb of biblicalia posted a related complaint three years ago in biblical or Biblical? He points out the logical inconsistency of the Chicago Manuel of Style, the role model for the SBL Handbook of Style.

Is this my blog's reading level?

I have to say, I was hoping for super-genius-incomprehensible-to-mortal-humans level. Does that exist? If they introduced it I would consider redoing the test. I'm sure I've slipped through a crack here!

On my lack of responses

Dear all, I seem to have gotten myself involved in several conversations at once - which is great! - only that it's come at a time of stress. I'm writing this in a hurry as I have a Hebrew tutorial to organize and a Bible study to lead. I will endeavor to give the responses you deserve ... tomorrow ...

It's my blog's first birthday!

O.K., I'm three days overdue, but it's O.K. I forgive myself.

One year of prolific blogging! This is probably the time to do some kind of progress report, but to be honest I'm stuck in the middle of writing an essay that is taxing my braincells beyond their normal capacity and I'm behind my deadline, so I will have make do with congratulating myself and wishing myself all the best for the coming year.

O.K., briefly:

What have I achieved?:

I've had a bunch of great dialogues, where intelligent and informed critics have challenged me and forced me to either rethink the nature of "theological exegesis" or at least to better formulate my position (O.K., Childs' position). I've made useful contacts, have received practical help, and will be soon receiving a couple of my very own free review books! And most importantly of all, this blog has helped me maintain my sanity. Honestly, writing a doctorate on a subject you know little about can be very taxing when you have no dialogue partners. Even when I get no responses to posts I would most surely like critiqued, the mere fact that I get them "out there" is enough to give me the feeling that I'm not the only one obsessing about my subject.

What would I like from the next year?:

More self-discipline concerning the time I spend on this thing. The returns on my time investment don't always justify the expenditure. But then, every now and then, a conversation materialises which makes the whole thing worth while. I guess what I'd like most is more intelligent, informed dialogue - energetic debate from those who care more about the truth than polite chit-chat. So, if you're interested in any of the issues highlighted in the banner of this blog, feel free to dig in. I can't promise I'll enlighten you, but you will get a response.

[Hat Tip: John Poirier, probably my most prodigious interlocutor].

[P.S. This is also the date I asked my wife to start dating me - six years ago! I thought women were supposed to get less attractive with age? That's one investment that has payed off!]

Eisenbrauns' August Web Sale

As James Spinti has informed us. You can get roughly 60% discounts. Two books that caught my eye:

David and Zion
Biblical Studies in Honor of J. J. M. Roberts


Edited by Bernard F. Batto and Kathryn Roberts
Eisenbrauns, 2004
xxvi + 444 pages, English
Cloth, 6 x 9
ISBN: 1575060922
List Price: $55.00
Your Price: $11.00
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~BATDAVIDA

and

A God So Near
Essays on Old Testament Theology in Honor of Patrick D. Miller

Edited by Brent A. Strawn and Nancy R. Bowen
Eisenbrauns, 2003
xviii + 439 pages, English
Cloth
ISBN: 1575060671
List Price: $59.50
Your Price: $17.85
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~STRGODSON

Unfortunately, by the time I got to check out I realised that postage and packaging (for Germany) had doubled the price ($22), so I decided to stick to interlibrary loan in Germany. Nevertheless, a bargain for those who live in the States (who represent the bulk of my readership)!