Somewhere, you wrote about the mass media, including the computer industry, conspiring to pervert our need for community. That the dream of having all this information at our fingertips to make us godlike is really doing the opposite and making us forget our humanity. Could you elaborate on that?

It's not really that they're conspiring to, but they might as well be. If you sit down in front of the television with 700 channels, there's probably something on those channels that's going to interest you. It's a very good way to get stupid very quickly.

There's nothing you get from television? The information is just a delusion?

I absolutely think so. If there's any information, it's purely accidental. Furthermore, I don't think there is any information to be gotten from television. I think it's an illusion. It's an interesting narcotic.

Even documentaries or historical programs?

No, it's television.

What about the Internet and the promise of all this information becoming available?

I don't know anything about it, but I'm sure it's worse.

The Nature of Biblical Criticism Author: John Barton ISBN: 9780664225872 Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press         Release: May 2007 Format: Paperback         Pages: 206 My Rating:

Every so often there is a movement to ‘reintegrate’ biblical studies and theology, or to ‘give the Bible back to the Church’. I personally believe that scholars have never really taken it away from the Church, and have often indeed been if anything too ‘reverent’, avoiding hard critical questions. But there can be no doubt that many people do feel there is a division between the scholar in the study and the worshipper in the pew, with the preacher in the pulpit uneasily wedged between them. And a repeated reaction to this perception has been to try to develop some way of making biblical study more ‘theological’.

Older biblical criticism was often practised by scholars who did have a high commitment to the inspiration and authority of Scripture. But they thought the proper way to study it was first to analyse it critically in the ways I have described, and only then to move on to questions of its religious significance. This was true of Catholic and Protestant biblical scholars alike. The newer movement denies that this division of labour is desirable, or even possible.

Dr. John Webster
Professor of Systematic Theology, King's College, University of Aberdeen
Dr. Lewis Ayres
Associate Profesor of Historical Theology, Candler School of Theology, Emory University
Dr. Kathryn Greene-McCreight
Assistant Rector, St. John's Episcopal Church, New Haven, Connecticut
Dr. Nathan MacDonald
Lecturer in Old Testament, St. Andrews University
Dr. Ephraim Radner
Professor of Historical Theology, Wycliffe College, University of Toronto
Dr. Christopher Seitz
Professor of Biblical Interpretation, Wycliffe College, University of Toronto
Dr. Peter Widdicombe
Associate Professor of Religious Studies, McMaster University

The second to appear, in November, was Egbert Ballhorn and Georg Steins, eds., Der Bibelkanon in der Bibelauslegung: Beispielexegesen und Methodenreflexionen (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2007). It contains 21 essays by 17 scholars. I quoted from this volume here recently, and I will certainly link my review once RBL processes it.

William Robertson Smith Conference

Programme

Nach der dritten Strategie ist „Kanon“ ein „anachronistischer“ Begriff, weil er in den biblischen Texten selbst nicht auftauche. Dieses neben den genannten Strategien ebenfalls in mehreren Beiträgen von Hubert Frankemölle ständig wiederholte Argument ist wenig überzeugend, eigentlich sogar unwissenschaftlich, weil es den Status von „Kanon“ als Reflexionsbegriff ignoriert. Mit dem gleichen Argument müsste man den anachronistischen Begriff „Theologie“ mit Bezug auf das Neue Testament streichen; denn weder kommt dieser Terminus im Neuen Testament vor, noch wird er heute in der gleichen Weise gebraucht wie etwa in der profanen oder christlichen Antike. Die auch bei Frankemölle zu Recht weiterhin verwendete gewohnte exegetische Fachterminologie hat ebenfalls keinen Anhalt in den zu untersuchenden Texten; aber das ist auch wissenschaftlich überhaupt kein Problem. Mit der unverzichtbaren Differenzierung von vox und res und der Einsicht in die Wandelbarkeit von Begriffen entspannt sich die Situation und verlieren auch die Vorbehalte gegenüber einer Reihe gängiger exegetischer Begriffe ihren Grund. Im Übrigen ist jede Bibelauslegung notwendigerweise „anachronistisch“, wenn sie relevant sein will.

Unausgesprochen scheint mir den genannten Vorbehalts-Strategien die Sorge zugrunde zu liegen, dass die Exegese sich unter der Hand von einer primär historischen in eine dogmatische Disziplin wandeln könnte, also Weichenstellungen des späten 18. Jahrhunderts revidiert werden könnten. Diese „Weichenstellung“ bedarf jedoch ihrerseits der Kritik, denn sie hat verhindert, im 19. Jahrhundert den Kanon als historisches Phänomen in die Exegese zu integrieren. Der Kanon ist gewissermaßen als Phänomen der Verfremdung der Bibeltexte aus der kritischen Bibelwissenschaft ausgeklammert worden. Dass in der gegenwärtigen Diskussionslage ein anderer Umgang mit dem Kanon in exegetischer Perspektive möglich ist, sehe ich als großen Fortschritt an; die Gefahr des Dogmatismus besteht immer, ist aber kein Argument.

Giants of the Recent Past

Christopher Seitz, Wycliffe College, University of Toronto, Presiding
Gary Anderson, University of Notre Dame, Panelist
Erhard Gerstenberger, Philipps Universität-Marburg, Panelist
Richard Hays, Duke University, Panelist
Alan Cooper, Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Panelist
Kavin Rowe, Duke University, Panelist
Mark Elliott, University of St. Andrews-Scotland, Panelist
Ephraim Radner, Wycliffe College, University of Toronto, Panelist

Samuel Balentine, Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education, Presiding
William Abraham, Southern Methodist University, Panelist
Joseph Blenkinsopp, University of Notre Dame, Panelist
Douglas Knight, Vanderbilt University, Panelist
Archie Lee, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Panelist
Mervyn Richardson, Leiden University-The Netherlands, Panelist

Psalms

Esther Menn, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, Presiding
Medieval Jewish Psalms Interpretation
Adele Berlin, University of Maryland College Park, Panelist (30 min)
Alan Cooper, Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Panelist (30 min)
Moshe Bernstein, Yeshiva University, Respondent (10 min)
Heidelberg Psalms Project
Manfred Oeming, Panelist (20 min)
Andreas Wagner, University of Heidelberg, Panelist (20 min)
Joachim Vette, Panelist (20 min)
Discussion (20 min)

Rolf Jacobson, Luther Seminary, Presiding
Scott R. A. Starbuck, Whitworth University
Afterlives of Royal Psalm Lyrics (30 min)
Tze-Ming Quek, University of Cambridge
"I will Give Authority over the Nations": Psalm 2:8-9 in Revelatiom 2:26c-27 (30 min)
Scot Becker, University of Aberdeen
The Magnificat among the Biblical Inset Psalms (30 min)
Aaron Canty, Saint Xavier University
The Nuptial Imagery of Christ and the Church in Augustine's "Enarrationes in Psalmos" (30 min)
Janet A. Timbie, Catholic University of America
Psalm Recitation in the White Monastery (30 min)

Theological Exegesis

Edith Humphrey, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Presiding
Stephen B. Chapman, Duke University
The Canon Debate: What It Is and Why It Matters (20 min)
Thomas Holsinger-Friesen, Spring Arbor University, Respondent (10 min)
Discussion (15 min)
Daniel J. Treier, Wheaton College
A Looser "Canon"?: Relating William Abraham’s Canon and Criterion in Christian Theology to Biblical Interpretation (20 min)
William Abraham, Southern Methodist University, Respondent (10 min)
Discussion (15 min)
Richard Paul Thompson, Northwest Nazarene University
Scripture, Community, and Conversation: Rethinking Theological Interpretation Canonically (20 min)
Jacqueline Lapsley, Princeton Theological Seminary, Respondent (10 min)
Discussion (15 min)

Christopher Seitz, University of St. Andrews-Scotland, Presiding (10 min)
Kathryn Greene-Mccreight, St John's Episcopal Church, Panelist (10 min)
Robert Wall, Seattle Pacific University, Panelist (10 min)
John Goldingay, Fuller Theological Seminary, Panelist (10 min)
Christopher Wright, Langham Partnership International, Panelist (10 min)
Murray Rae, University of Otago, Panelist (10 min)
Discussion (45 min)

Bill Arnold, Asbury Theological Seminary, Presiding
J. Richard Middleton, Roberts Wesleyan College
The Significance of the Call of Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3) for a Canonical Reading of Scripture (30 min)
Discussion (15 min)
R. R. Reno, Creighton University
Satan, Temptation, and the Fall (30 min)
Discussion (15 min)
Jeffrey L. Morrow, University of Dayton
Genesis 1-3 in a Liturgical Context: The Role of Liturgy in Christian Theological Interpretation of Scripture (30 min)
Discussion (15 min)

Gary Anderson, University of Notre Dame, Presiding
Martti Nissinen, University of Helsinki, Panelist
David Petersen, Emory University, Panelist
Marvin Sweeney, Claremont School of Theology, Panelist
Christopher Seitz, University of St. Andrews-Scotland, Respondent

Stephen Fowl, Loyola College in Maryland , Presiding (10 min)
Mark Elliott, University of St. Andrews-Scotland
Theological Insights on and from Leviticus 1-7 (30 min)
Gregory W. Lee, Duke University
Calvin and the New Perspective: Covenant as Ground for a Nuanced View of the Law (30 min)
Break (10 min)
Clayton Libolt, River Terrace Church
A Conversation with Nicholas Wolterstorff's Divine Discourse (30 min)
George C. Heider, Valparaiso University
Atonement and the Gospels (30 min)

Michael Bird, Highland Theological College
The Faith of Jesus Christ: Problems and Prospects (15 min)
Stanley Porter, McMaster Divinity College
Lexical and Semantic Reflections on Pistis (30 min)
Douglas Campbell, Duke University
The Faithfulness of Jesus Christ in Romans and Galatians (30 min)
Preston Sprinkle, Aberdeen University
Pistis Christou as an Eschatological Event (30 min)
Break (15 min)
Ardel Caneday, Northwestern College, St. Paul
The Faithfulness of Jesus as a Theme of Pauline Theology (30 min)
Francis Watson, University of Aberdeen - Scotland
The Faith of Jesus Christ (30 min)
R. Barry Matlock, University of Sheffield
The Faithfulness of Jesus Christ in Romans and Galatians (30 min)
Mark Elliott, University of St. Andrews-Scotland
The Faith of Jesus Christ in the Church Fathers (30 min)
Benjamin Myers, University of Queensland
The Faithfulness of Christ in the Theology of Karl Barth (30 min)

Canon

James E. Bowley, Millsaps College, Presiding
K. L. Noll, Brandon University
Rethinking Literary Function in the Emerging Hebrew Canon (25 min)
Francis Borchardt, University of Helsinki
Concepts of Scripture in 1 Maccabees (25 min)
Ian W. Scott, Tyndale Seminary
Is the Bible always Scripture?: The "Low" View of the Pentateuch in the Letter of Aristeas (25 min)
Sara Parks, McGill University and Aaron Ricker, McGill University
Harry Potter Canon Discourse and the Biblical Canons (25 min)
Robert A. Kraft, University of Pennsylvania
Finding Adequate Terminology for "Pre-canonical" Literatures (25 min)
James E. Bowley, Millsaps College
Terminating Terminology (25 min)

Susan Niditch, Amherst College, Presiding
Joachim Schaper, University of Aberdeen
The Textualisation of Israelite Religion in the Context of the "Orality and Literacy" Debate (30 min)
Frank Polak, Tel Aviv University
The Voiced Text in the Hebrew Bible: From Epic Song to Biblical Narrative and Midrashic Exegesis (30 min)
William M. Schniedewind, University of California-Los Angeles
Rethinking Inner-biblical Exegesis and Biblical Criticism in Light of Orality & Textuality (30 min)
Werner H. Kelber, Rice University
Implications of the Oral-Scribal Approach to Tanach Studies (30 min)
Discussion (30 min)

Lee Martin McDonald, Acadia Divinity College, Presiding
James A. Sanders, Ancient Biblical Manuscript Center
Non-Masoretic Literature in Early Judaism and its Function in the New Testament (20 min)
Craig Evans, Acadia Divinity College, Respondent (5 min)
Discussion (5 min)
James H. Charlesworth, Princeton Theological Seminary
The Book of the People from the People of the Book (20 min)
Discussion (5 min)
Lee Martin McDonald, Acadia Divinity College
What Do We Mean by "Canon"?: A Look at Some Ancient and Modern Questions (20 min)
Loren Johns, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Respondent (5 min)
Discussion (5 min)
Ken M. Penner, Acadia Divinity College
Citation Formulae as Indices to Canonicity in Early Jewish and Early Christian Literature (20 min)
Jonathan Soyars, Princeton Theological Seminary, Respondent (5 min)
Discussion (5 min)
Sarah L. Schwarz, Haverford College
Pseudepigrapha Among the Pagans?: Exploring the Boundaries of Audience (20 min)
Discussion (5 min)

S17-79 :: Synoptic Gospels

Theme: Panel Review of Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006)

Scholar-bloggers fall into two categories. Those that keep a blogroll and interact with a community of other bloggers, and those that don't. Those that don't abuse the genre. Here is a list of the worst offenders: [omitted by a thoughtful editor].

Hi John,

I have been very reluctant to get drawn into the debates that have recently surfaced online even though, as you note in the sidebar, there has been some "astoundingly thoughtful comment." That's because (a) I'm working against several deadlines at the moment, (b) I've been working on the particular problem of Childs' reception too long probably, so little seems fresh on the Q to me, and (c) I have some doubts about blogs as a medium for advancing the state of the Q here when so much energy has been expended on it in more traditional media over the last 2.5 decades. Also, though the reasons why I was drawn to my PhD topic are complex and rightly point to an appreciation of Childs' work on my part, this is not uncritical. I find myself wondering about how to get out from under this first project in the next.

Nevertheless, you have drawn me. I'm still facing immanent deadlines, so I'll have to get to it.

James makes a good point, and so do you, John, in response. It has often been claimed that Childs frequently changes his mind (so Barr above all, but by no means exclusively), and typically I think this perception has been overstated. On this precise point, it is unquestionably true that Childs had to rethink some of his initial work on what he calls "the mystery of Israel" (see chapter 4 of my forthcoming dissertation). Fishbane is a great figure to bring up at this juncture.

Rolf Rendtorff, as a self-professed Christian canonical reader, is another. He fell out with Childs over precisely this issue (see his review of BTONT in JBTh 9). I don't know if you've seen his Leviticus commentary yet, but it represents a career-long effort to give the Jewish reception of the Hebrew Bible its due. For Rendtorff this is an imperative for Christians reading the OT.

On the other hand, though Childs moved from talk of midrash (Jewish in his view) to allegory (the traditional Christian reading strategy—I know that can sound over simple, but its how he sees it), he still strove to be a student of the Jewish tradition. When I interviewed him in Cambridge I pushed him exactly here. Why no midrash anymore? His answer came out as advice to a student—you'll never master the material; trust me, I've tried. Also, Jewish readers themselves don't agree on these things.

To my mind the best further reading here is Childs' 1999 essay "The Almost Forgotten Genesis Commentary of Benno Jacob." Not only does it tell the the story of Jacob's Genesis commentary, it also alludes to Jacob's Exodus commentary, which Childs used heavily in his own commentary of 1974. The astonishing thing is that Childs, when in Jerusalem [in 1963], secured a copy of the then almost unknown manuscript and brought it back to Yale. He was making serious use of it decades before it was printed (first in English translation [1992], and only very recently in its German original [1997]). There is a deep commitment to Jewish readings which really never leaves, even though he gains clarity over the years on what an explicitly Christian reading of the tradition entails.

Personally I haven't sorted out where I stand on these issues. At the seminar paper I gave on the topic last week there seemed to be quite a bit of sympathy for Rendtorff's position over against Childs'. Still, the latter is (in a sense) the lectio difficilior. Should a Jewish and Christian scholar really come to different results on that basis? (If no, why not?) I agree with your general point, however. It would be ironic indeed if Childs became a warrant for "canonical readers," what ever that may mean, to neglect Jewish reception in preference for Christian. Fortunately, some of the best theological readers today (who follow Childs at times and do not follow Childs) avoid this: Walter Moberly, Markus Bockmuehl, etc.

Incidentally, I also agree with your comment on Cook's blog about the neglected works. The only real Wirkung the NT Intro got seems to have been among Roman Catholic scholars in Germany. And James Kugel explicitly mentioned the sensus literalis essay in his respectful comments at the small Childs session at SBL Vienna this summer, but who has worked with it seriously?

Points of note:

1. Childs lines up with Frei (indeed, partly learns from Frei) on "the heart of the problem: that for Calvin, the sensus literalis IS Jesus Christ. And it was only when you have the eighteenth century identification of the literal sense with the historical sense that you’re just hopelessly lost."
   
   
2. When they say this (Frei: "That's right.") nobody knows what they're talking about.
   
   
3. Allegorical readings can't be dismissed out of hand for either Childs or Frei.
   
   
4. But when it comes down to a few finer details, Childs differs from Frei on the matter of reference.
   
   
5. Specifically, for Childs the "ontology" issue at stake means "the scope of the canon; namely, the reality which is in dialectic with the text, defined by its canonical context. I don’t see how you can avoid a dialectic between text and reality, in some sort."
   
   
6. For Childs, this is why "the new hermeneutic is not only mistaken, but it one colossal cul de sac."
   
   
7. 1969 is incredibly early—the year before Childs' Biblical Theology in Crisis, and five years before Frei's Eclipse of Biblical Narrative.

The full discussion (minus a few digressions):

STUDENT: I have a question. You’ve commented tonight on the truthfulness of Barth’s use of scripture. You’ve commented on the wide-ranging homiletical force of much of his writing. But when you look at it closely enough in some respects in some places, it is not textually predicated or warranted sometimes, and may even sometimes be allegorical. How do you appropriate, still, some of this live genius that’s there, and yet at the same time remain more controlled by the text? That would probably be one question.

And the second question would be, Do you see any person on the horizon who shows promise of being as crucial, as forceful, and yet takes more seriously what the text is saying—controlling himself at this point more than Barth?

BREVARD CHILDS: Well it seems to me for the last twenty or thirty years people have been trying to combine the orthodoxy of Barth with the historical-critical approach. It seems to me that this enterprise has now come to and end and has proven unfruitful—that you are now at the turn of the road, you have to go either right or left; that the type of move that said Barth is right in seeing theological dimension, but now we have to take history more seriously and bring in the whole baggage—I don’t think this can—

In other words, I’m suggesting that the problem is far deeper than this. It’s a problem that certainly didn’t just arise with Barth. (And much of what I’ve learned about this has come from talking with Hans Frei.) But it has often bothered and puzzled me. You see, when you read Calvin, he fights against the whole medieval tradition by saying it’s the sensus literails that counts—it’s the literal sense—and you have page after page against the whole church dogma. But then you read Calvin on the Old Testament, and here’s Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ. How could it possibly be? And everybody just says that Calvin is just inconsistent.

It seems to me that this doesn’t at all touch the heart of the problem: that for Calvin, the sensus literalis IS Jesus Christ. And it was only when you have the eighteenth century identification of the literal sense with the historical sense that you’re just hopelessly lost. And it seems to me that it’s something along that line—that we’ve just been unable to understand what Barth is doing.

HANS FREI: That’s right.

JULIAN HARTT: Would you mind repeating that?

CHILDS: It sounds better in German, though.

STUDENT: Is it something we can do today?

FREI: Sure, because you see [tape unintelligible] in his exegesis he’s looking at the text. He’s not looking through the text at the person who wrote it. He is, I think, a highly literal reader—what’s set before you there—whereas I noticed that one goes back (in questioning his exegesis) constantly to and earlier version of Barth that he pretty clearly forsook very soon: namely, the Barth for whom the letter became transparent and pointed him to something deeper, something else.

I think, because one thing about Barth is that he’s very much controlled by the letter—no spirit without letter—very much controlled by the letter, and in regard to that and historical criticism, he simply made the move: when you’re doing historical criticism, you’re doing a pretty fine thing, I’m sure. But it’s just logically different from reading the text, burrowing under it, and cropping out all over it, lots of nice things. And I’m sure that there’s an awful lot of illumination to be gained by that. But you’re not reading the text, you see. Barth reads the text. It cannot be qualified with other things.

In Scripture we know that when we read a story, a historical investigation of the story is a very good thing to do. But we need to know how that text works, what’s in the text. And though we have a hard time describing how we do that, in fact when we compare about what we think it says we often find that we can agree on things, and I think fundamentally it is as simple as that. That’s how it works for Barth.

SALIERS: . . . [But the] assumption that we can treat things as a literary whole which gives us a certain critical concept of literalness, which we can then employ, is a thing that the Biblical people, at least the ones who knit their brows when you said that, are probably worrying about.

CHILDS: Well, it’s a real problem. I wouldn’t go quite with Hans in this direction. It seems to me that the problem came up very early in church history when Jerome attempted to translate the Bible from Hebrew. Augustine called him into question. He said the New Testament and the Church is receiving the Old Testament in terms of the Septuagint, and therefore this is the context and there’s no use going behind it. You can’t go behind it. And Jerome of course just killed him at this point in defending the need for seeing the original context.

Here, it seems to me that both had a point. Obviously, Augustine was right in taking seriously the fact that the Old Testament had taken another form and had assumed another context by being passed through the Septuagint. But Jerome obviously was right in claiming that the next context of the church did not obliterate the older context in which it was seen. In other words, what I’m saying is that the problem that remains the most thorny one is how the various contexts relate. And Barth, in criticizing the historical critics’ insistence that you read the original context but take seriously the theological-confessional context, it seems to me, is in the danger—just as Augustine—of obliterating the need for dealing with the original context.

[. . . After a few minutes, the discussion returns to Childs’ differences with Frei.]

CHILDS: But you see [Barth] doesn’t use the term “context,” but he talks about the canon, namely: that Scripture is the apostolic, prophetic testimony all linked together. Don’t go behind this, don’t separate it. And this is a context; in other words, this is a theological context—

ROBERT JOHNSON: You’re speaking, then, of the historical context that Barth says is in the word “history.”

CHILDS: No, no. That’s the whole point: that Barth objects to everyone who does this.

JOHNSON: So, from the point of view of what Hans is arguing, what he’s really talking about is not the historical context but the literary context.

CHILDS: That’s where Hans and I differ somewhat. I move in a little different direction here. In other words, it seems to me that there are problems when you get—I would agree fully with Hans when he’s combatting those historical critics who would want to go behind the text, but it’s interesting when you begin to deal with the narrative text, as a context. One has to keep in mind that the early church, in the controversy with Judaism, took quite a different move. When the Jews were saying, read the text! read the text!, the Christians said, there’s something behind the text. It’s what the text points to, namely: Jesus Christ. And there was a dialectic between the reality and the text.

It seems to me, what buttresses this from getting into the kind of ontology you’re talking about is the scope of the canon; namely, the reality which is in dialectic with the text, defined by its canonical context. I don’t see how you can avoid a dialectic between text and reality, in some sort.

[. . . The conversation turns to a student, Johnson and Frei momentarily.]

CHILDS: It seems to me that this question about the Jesus that Paul—excuse me, that Barth—raises, was very much a part of the mood of the early churchmen. They are concerned: How do you know what the Old Testament is talking about? You hear the Gospel; that is, the dialectic between old and new. Who is Jesus? You don’t get it just from reading the narrative of the Gospel. That’s the whole point that the early church worked on: He’s the Servant; He’s Suffering Israel; He’s the eye of the Sun; all this sort of thing. It seems to me, therefore, that I fully agree that the new hermeneutic is not only mistaken, but it one colossal cul de sac.

[This is Childs’ last comment for the evening.]

• Augustine (and here and here in the Confessions)
• Thomas (OK, not yet to 102, but mentioned here etc)
• Calvin (esp here and here; cf Gn 36, 25, Ex 15, 32, Lam 5, Is 16, 29, 37, 49, 51, 54, 63, 66, Jonah, Dn 2, 7, Jer 19, 31, Ps 22, 51, 72, 114, 109, and here, here, here, etc)
• Adolf Harnack on Athanasius
• Metered by Isaac Watts
• Calvin and Augustine are also here

Doug Wilson, 54, the pastor who spearheaded New St. Andrews’ founding, puts the college’s purpose simply: “We are trying to save civilization.”

The school has adopted trappings of Oxford and Cambridge: professors are called “fellows,” and students dress in academic gowns for thesis defenses and public final exams. Proudly Anglophile, faculty members lead a summer tour of English castles and abbeys. C. S. Lewis and G. K. Chesterton are ubiquitous on class reading lists — revered for their godly wit and their fondness for fine drink. N.S.A.’s campus is proudly wet, in deliberate contrast to the average fundamentalist Bible college.

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•Sheppard, Gerald T. “Between Reformation and Modern Commentary: the Perception of the Scope of Biblical Books.” Pages xlviii-lxxvii in A Commentary on Galatians, William Perkins. Edited by Gerald T Sheppard. Pilgrim Classic Commentaries New York: Pilgrim Press, 1989.

•Seitz, Christopher R. “'We Are Not Prophets or Apostles': The Biblical Theology of B. S. Childs.” Pages 102–109 in Word Without End: The Old Testament as Abiding Theological Witness. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1998.

Charles Augustine Briggs, a 19th-century pioneer of modern biblical scholarship, declared that by sweeping away the “rubbish” of centuries of biblical interpretation, modern scholars would finally “recover the real Bible.” Professor Kugel admires the audacity and genius of scholars like Briggs, but he believes that in their contempt for the “rubbish” of ancient interpretation, modern scholars have let the “real Bible” elude them. They have been left, instead, with “the raw material that made up the Bible.”

S17-108

Book of Psalms

11/17/2007
4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
Room: Windsor BC - GH

In recent years, some attention has been paid to Psalm 102 by scholars interested in the canon’s final form, though in very different ways. Odil Steck, for instance, has argued not just that the psalm be read as a whole (contra an older form-critical understanding), but that its singularity be explained with reference to a body of scripture largely extant at the time of its composition. For him, the psalm arises at a late redactional phase in the formation of the canon, testifying to the confluence of distinctive prophetic and sapiential streams of tradition. Somewhat differently, Brevard Childs has discussed Psalm 102 as an instance of the authority scripture increasingly accrued in textualized form: it was “recorded for a generation to come” (19a). Despite fairly substantial disagreements in a number of areas—including about the place of intentionality as such—Steck and Childs agree that the intended audience is in the remote future. On analogy with late prophecy, perhaps, the generation addressed is not near, but distant; in Steck’s word, the psalm voices “Fernerwartung.”

The burden of the present paper is to query the history of reception of Psalm 102, particularly verse 19, to see whether there is any “family resemblance” (Childs) with these more recent interpretations. Which generations have been found in the psalmist’s purview? The results may have an important bearing on Childs’s program, which has long sought to hold the history of interpretation together with modern research (most recently, cf. The Struggle to Understand Isaiah as Christian Scripture). If preoccupation with an original cultic context is a modern oddity, what can be said for the theory of a radicalized eschatology?

S18-50

Reflections on Brevard Childs

11/18/2007
1:00 PM to 3:00 PM
Room: 30 E - CC

*Brandt, Peter. Endgestalten des Kanons: Das Arrangement der Schriften Israels in der jüdischen und christlichen Bibel. Bonner biblische Beiträge 131. Berlin: Philo, 2001.
*Dohmen, Christoph. Exodus 19–40. Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Alten Testament Freiburg/Basel/Vienna: Herder, 2004.
*———. Die Bibel und ihre Auslegung. 3rd, revised edition. Munich: C. H. Beck, 2006.
*Levin, Christoph. Das Alte Testament. 3rd, revised edition. Munich: C. H. Beck, 2006.
*MacDonald, Neil B. Metaphysics and the God of Israel: Systematic Theology of the Old and New Testaments. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007.

24-09

EABS: The Closure of the Hebrew Bible Canon: Inside and Outside Perspectives / Der Abschluss de Kanons der Hebräischen Bibel. Innen- und Außensichten Session I

7/24/2007

8:30 AM to 11:30 AM

Room: HS 28 - Hauptgebäude

24-35

EABS: The Closure of the Hebrew Bible Canon: Inside and Outside Perspectives / Der Abschluss de Kanons der Hebräischen Bibel. Innen- und Außensichten Session II

7/24/2007

1:30 PM to 4:30 PM

Room: HS 28 - Hauptgebäude

Childs’s control of the history of ideas, especially continental scholarship; his immersion in the apparatus of classical theological reflection from the Reformation period and from the wider history of biblical interpretation; his technical training in Hebrew language; and his deep love of and concern for the church, and the way the Bible made its renewing voice heard, as the speech of God for every age: these characteristics of the man and his work mark him off as a scholar whose best analogies are to be found in figures like Jerome, Chrysostom, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, or his teacher from a more recent day, Karl Barth. No one who ever heard him lecture will forget his carefully composed prayers, and no one who heard him preach or pray will have failed to note a man of great learning, humility, Godly fear, and deep Christian hopefulness.

...

As we mark and mourn his passing, we lean into the confident hope that Brevard Childs will be read and heard, and his work continued, well beyond the years he gave us. He was never a man to call attention to himself, but rather to point to the God who in every generation raised up women and men of faith, to extend the legacy of prophet and apostle in their own way, in their own generation. This challenge never failed to energize Brevard Childs, and we who give thanks for his life do so in gratitude to the God who sent him and gave us these years of service and proclamation, always to his greater glory.
May God grant him joy and rest eternal with his saints from every age.

I am certain of Brevard Childs’ rest with the saints.  But he will be missed in a great way.  There have been and are Old Testament scholars of enormous gifts and contributions.  But Childs almost single-handedly—single-mindedly and single-heartedly—wrested serious Biblical studies away from the diseased grip of historical-critical irrelevance, with its fragmenting of the divine text, with respect to Scripture’s reality as the Word of God. The movement of renewal he inititiated is still in its infancy, and its future for the Christian faith and Church still uncharted. I pray we may be worthy of the legacy he has left. But I would not be surprised if, when histories are written of Scriptural scholarship, he is not viewed as among the greatest in the last 50 years.  That he fulfilled his vocation while being a man of humble faith, prayer, and warm affection for students and colleagues is a testimony to the marvelous grace of God.  May the Lord bless him in His Kingdom, and may our hearts be thankful.

Childs grew up in Southern Presbyterian churches [sic—He was baptised Episcopalian in Columbia SC. It was only when he moved north to Queens (a consequence of his father's ill health) that the family attended the Presbyterian Church. He and Ann attended an anglican church in Cambridge.] and studied at the University of Michigan (A.B. and M.A.). After serving in the army in Europe during World War II, he earned his B.D. at Princeton Theological Seminary before pursuing a doctorate at the University of Basel, Switzerland. At Basel Childs studied Old Testament with Walther Eichrodt, among others. In addition to his studies in Basel, he took advantage of Near Eastern scholarship at Heidelberg University.

In Basel Childs met his wife, Ann, who had attended some of Karl Barth's lectures with him. This was an exciting period for theological study. Besides the vigorous table talk among the visiting and local students, inexpensively published journals of essays and debates between theologians, biblical scholars and historians further stimulated the intellectual atmosphere.

At the University of Basel Childs completed his dissertation on the problem of myth in the opening chapters of Genesis just at the the time when Walter Baumgartner replaced Eichrodt as the senior Old Testament scholar. Creating consternation at the time, Baumgartner informally refused to accept the methodology of Childs's dissertation, so Childs had to change his plans in order to undertake a full revision, now informed by a new grasp of form-critical analysis. That obligation helps explain why Childs became one of the leading tradition historians in North America. The revised dissertation, Der Mythos als theologische Problem im Alten Testaments (1953), was never published, though Childs circulated major portions of it under the title A Study of Myth in Genesis 1–11 (1955) among his wide network of English-speaking scholarly friends.

In 1954 Childs began teaching Old Testament at Mission House Seminary and in 1958 accepted a teaching position at Yale Divinity School...

Twenty-five years ago, when I returned home from four years of graduate study in Europe, the area within the field of the OT which held the least attraction for me was Introduction. I supposed that most of the major problems had already been resolved by the giants of the past. Even allowing for the inevitable process of refinement and modification, could one really expect anything new in this area? I was content to leave the drudgery of writing an Introduction to someone else with more Sitzfleisch.

Two decades of teaching have brought many changes in my perspective. Having experienced the demise of the Biblical Theology movement in America, the dissolution of the broad European consensus in which I was trained, and a widespread confusion regarding theological reflection in general, I began to realize that there was something fundamentally wrong with the foundations of the biblical discipline. It was not a question of improving on a source analysis, of discovering some unrecognized new genre, or of bringing a redactional layer into shaper focus. Rather, the crucial issue turned on one’s whole concept of the study of the Bible itself. I am now convinced that the relation between the historical critical study of the Bible and its theological use as religious literature within a community of faith and practice needs to be completely rethought. Minor adjustments are not only inadequate, but also conceal the extent of the dry rot.

In the Blogosphere

Official Notices and Obituaries

Didn't someone write a book on the biblical roots of capitalism and free enterprise? How did he handle this episode? Our hero Joseph abolishes private property, turns freeholders into serfs, and transforms a decentralized farm economy into a command-economy dictatorship. This is bad economics and worse public policy. This is China, 1949. Joseph is Chairman Mao. (And, to speculate a little bit, perhaps this centralized dictatorship established by Joseph is what ultimately led to the Israelites enslavement in Egypt. Once you create a voracious state apparatus, it must be fed. Is it a surprise that slavery became part of its diet? In a less totalitarian state, perhaps slavery wouldn't have been as necessary or as feasible...)

35 Date Settings
The occurrence of the 06/06/06 date has increased interest in numerical date speculation.

Multiculturalism is the opposite of nationalism; it highlights the differences between people while ignoring the similarities. Multiculturalism is not about ethnic, racial, or religious diversity -- that which once made America into a "melting pot" of nations. Under the influence of liberal thinking, America came to consist of many different "pots" of cultures, each separate from the others.

There's nane that's blest of human kind,
But the cheerful and the gay, man,
Fal, la, la, (&c.)

HERE'S a bottle and an honest friend!
What wad ye wish for mair, man?
Wha kens, before his life may end,
What his share may be o' care, man?

Then catch the moments as they fly,
And use them as ye ought, man:
Believe me, happiness is shy,
And comes not aye when sought, man.

The disturbing superficiality of the discussion here and at other points gives the book a kind of "sound-bite" quality, like a half-hour TV program on how to perform brain surgery.

1. Today RapidWeaver costs $34.95. Friday it will cost $39.95. But the upgrade is free. Buy today and save five bucks.
2. I've only had two objections to RapidWeaver—no PermaLinks, and formatting disappears when you cut and paste—and they'll both disappear on Friday. (Read about some of the new features.)

1. Even if you already have iWeb—yes, all this assumes you operate a Mac—RapidWeaver is several generations ahead of the iApp that tried to take its place, even before Friday. Integration with iPhoto or .Mac is every bit as convenient.
2. Supporting small software developers is probably a good in itself, but it becomes fun when you also get the best product in its class on the market.

It is generally accepted that the first speech of Moses in Deuteronomy (i 1-iv 40) is not of one piece, and that a clear distinction needs to be recognized between the rhetorical parenesis of chapter iv and the narrative recapitulation in chapters i-iii. This analysis has even proved determinative for scholars interested in the final form of the biblical text, despite the recognition that the chapters are portrayed canonically as Moses's first speech. A lack of substantive thematic connections between the two parts of the speech prevents any attempt to trace unity across the whole. This article argues that the consensus on the literary history of these chapters may be more problematic than commonly thought. Further, it is proposed that common to both the narrative and the parenetic sections of Moses's first speech are the complex interrelationship between the themes of divine presence, human obedience, election and the land.

The final results are:

It is obvious from the structure of the book that in Childs’ view the principal issues and practices of Christian hermeneutics were developed in the patristic period, debated and refined in the medieval, and blurred in the modern as the genre of the literature as scripture began to lose its defining role in the presuppositions of its interpreters.

But Barr is harshest on the scholar to whom he refers as "my friend Professor Brevard Childs," the distinguished Yale Old Testament theologian known for his advocacy and practice of the "canonical method" of biblical interpretation and his sympathies with Barthian theology. Time and again, Barr returns to Childs, almost always critically, devoting two whole chapters and two subsections of another chapter to his work.

Barr’s distaste for Childs’ work is not surprising. Childs is explicit that his labors are in the service of the Christian message (though, like Barr, he is also learned in and deeply respectful of Judaism) and that historical–critical study, though indispensable, can never be an adequate foundation upon which to build a theological affirmation. Some of Barr’s criticisms are quite plausible, such as his point that Childs uses the word "canon" in several discrete and not self–evidently compatible senses.

But Barr vitiates his own potentially formidable case against Childs by continually allowing himself to be diverted from the great hermeneutical issues to attack Childs for this or that comment, some of them mere obiter dicta. For example, in response to Childs’ claim that "feminist positions . . . imply modalism in place of sound trinitarian doctrine," Barr remarks, "No feminist will find this argument other than laughable." Even if this unlikely claim be so, how does it answer Childs’ criticism? And what point does James Barr score against the canonical method by telling us (in the text, not the notes) that Childs’ indices are so poor that "the name of Karl Barth (or, indeed, my own) is cited in the text at numerous places which have been overlooked in the index"?

It is odd that a scholar so sympathetic to the history of religion should lack a characteristic absolutely essential to the proper practice of that discipline—the characteristic of empathy for what is strange and foreign and the eagerness to present it as fairly as possible before attacking it. To read Barr on Childs, one would have great difficulty guessing the identity of the perceived weakness in the older liberal theology that accounted for the rise and rapid spread of the dialectical alternative.

Part of the explanation for Barr’s acute distaste for Childs’ work may be biographical. Since Barr tells us he once believed in dialectical theology himself, perhaps his relentless attacks on it, and on Childs as its foremost exemplar in the biblical field, derive from the convert’s scorn for his past orientation. But there is also a larger and more important difference in their respective confessional stances. Whereas Childs is a Presbyterian committed to reformulating the classical Calvinist doctrine of sola scriptura in response to the challenge of historical criticism, Barr’s more modernistic position, as we have seen, awards a much smaller role to the Bible in the ascertainment of truth and a large role to post–biblical tradition, which he often sees as a corrective and an improvement over the Bible. Their differences on matters of biblical theology go back to more fundamental differences of religious identity of which neither scholar seems sufficiently cognizant. Their debates over method are mostly the old religious arguments carried on in a new idiom. One wishes that Barr had addressed this more fundamental point head–on, and without all the captiousness.

Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon Old Testament: Study Edition, 2 Volume Set
Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament - HALOT
Edited by Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner
Brill Academic Publishers,2002
cxii + 2094 pages,English
Cloth
ISBN: 9004124454


Needless to say I'm very excited and have had to resist the temptation to look up new words every ten minutes.]]>http://www.danieldriver.com/blog_files/dfe8f08411d3042dabf61bae132e2691-47.php#unique-entry-id-47Daniel R. DriverMisc2006-03-12T20:47:12+00:00http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OccasionalPublications/~3/XS3kjPFSMqE/c60daab890b464579e7c2a0718c6117a-48.phphttp://www.danieldriver.com/blog_files/c60daab890b464579e7c2a0718c6117a-48.php#unique-entry-id-48
About a month back, my Roundel-mate Ted brought back a haggis and chips for my lunch because a nearby chip shop was offering the supper for the special price of £2. Jokes were made about the appearance of the haggis, particularly as another office-mate, who has the same has the emotional hang-ups with the food as I have with root canals, had never seen one up close before. Decency prevents my spelling out the nature of the comments in a public forum.

I ate ceremoniously at first, but by the time I had four bites to go nobody was watching anymore. So nobody saw me wince in pain as I bit down hard into a stray bit of bone. I discretely binned what remained of lunch.

The tooth was sore for the next few days, but seemed to improve by the next week. After another week, however, the soreness still had not gone away completely, and I began to obsessively tongue the back of the lateral incisor that was giving me trouble. By last Sunday, I knew in detail every irregularity of its surface.

On Monday I bought a coffee on the way to work. After one sip, I gave it away to a friend. I spent the morning fretting about the what nightmare getting dental care in the UK might turn out to be (local dentists stopped taking university students as patients this year), wondering irrationally if it could wait to the next trip home (in November!).

I went home for lunch and called the dental emergency hotline, then drove out the next day to small village, about 40 minutes out. It would be uncharitable to describe in any detail the office as it appeared to me. Suffice it to say that as I climbed into the avocado green examining chair I felt like I was in one of those Rockwell paintings of scared kids. The doctor put some waxy stuff on the ailing tooth and told me to wait a few days to see if it got worse. I would have asked for an X-Ray except I there wasn’t one. I received a small bill of £9.87.

I took courage at having paid a professional to tell me I have beautiful teeth, but by Saturday (last night) I was in the throws of the worst toothache imaginable. Phil came over to watch A Clockwork Orange, and I had to pause the movie twice to walk off the pain. After he left I watched The Life of Brian and didn’t laugh. When I realized there was no getting to sleep, I watched to the bonus material, but turned it off when I realized I was staring obsessively at the teeth of each Pythons as he got interviewed in turn.

At three I called dental hotline, then lay in bed & sweating cursing until morning. I drove over 5 inches of new snow to Kirkcaldy—the 20 mile drive took over an hour, but by then I was already becoming philosophical about my brush with suffering—and had a positive encounter with a friendly receptionist who said I was daft for coming out in such weather. She turned out to be the dentist as well, and I’ve felt great ever since she opened the abscessed tooth for draining. My bill came to £6.56. (Thank you NHS.)

Estimating £25 for the petrol, the experience has cost £44, including the haggis. I’m to have root canal therapy later in the week, so I expect the final bill will exceed £50. Not bad, from one perspective, but quite a nice bottle of single malt from another.]]>http://www.danieldriver.com/blog_files/c60daab890b464579e7c2a0718c6117a-48.php#unique-entry-id-48Daniel R. DriverMisc2006-03-10T19:56:45+00:00http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OccasionalPublications/~3/342ZEByPIq0/849e99ee75f939167972e8a7b946a6c5-49.phphttp://www.danieldriver.com/blog_files/849e99ee75f939167972e8a7b946a6c5-49.php#unique-entry-id-49
Instead of squeezing in a run before breakfast, I sleep straight through to mid-morning. Instead of going in to the office, I read on the sofa in my underwear until I'm hungry, at which point I fry an egg in the pan that's still sitting on the stove from the day before.

Eventually I shower and get dressed (perhaps even going for a jog first, though only if I feel like it) and make my way to the library or the Roundel. After all, there are other enticements for going out.

For example, I usually buy an interesting bottle of whisky to keep me company at home (often I sip some while reading in my shorts). This time I got a signatory cask strength bottling of Glen Garioch 1988, aged 16 years. It is less exciting than other cask strength whiskies I've tasted recently, but it is still turning out to be a good companion.

I also make sure to always have a pipe with me when out of doors. Normally I bring it out for special occasions, but when I'm in indulgent bachelor mode just making it out the front door before dinner seems reason enough to light up.

There's one other recurring pattern I'll mention: when Adriel leaves, I major in a film director she's not likely to go for. We watch Tarkovsky films together—she got me started on him in fact—so it's not that she doesn't go for good films that can be hard to watch. But it would be hard to both find time to watch several Coen brother films back to back, and still harder to work through Bresson's career in two consecutive evenings. (Both have been my diet on past occasions.)

She wouldn't go for David Lynch for somewhat different reasons, I guess. My director this time may appear to fall in this class, though I've found him more, uh, edifying, if that's the word. This week it's been Stanley Kubrick.

Dr. Strangelove is an amazingly easy film to watch for something filmed in 1964, thanks largely to the comedic efforts of Peter Sellers. I'll try to talk Adriel into watching Eyes Wide Shut with me at some point, too, but will feel the need to explain myself. Kubrick thought it was his best film, and many seem to have been disappointed that the nudity wasn't as titillating as hoped, two facts which taken together probably indicate that the film is worth watching. One helpful article I found analyzes the film from a sociological rather than psycho-sexual perspective, though I would want to add that for those who don't think the institution of marriage is obsolete the Hartfords's "Victorian" mores are a relevant point of interest.]]>http://www.danieldriver.com/blog_files/849e99ee75f939167972e8a7b946a6c5-49.php#unique-entry-id-49Daniel R. DriverMisc2006-03-03T14:51:47+00:00http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OccasionalPublications/~3/60D1FnoeISk/278ea11b46648297ae0a56a4109f4e9f-50.phphttp://www.danieldriver.com/blog_files/278ea11b46648297ae0a56a4109f4e9f-50.php#unique-entry-id-50
I am looking forward to the weekend, though, and it should afford some blog-worthy material. For one thing, I'm planning to make my way through VanderKam's critical translation of Jubilees (see two posts back, on 27 Feb). The one in English, not Ethiopic, of course.

Perhaps more importantly, I've reconvened IWER (the Institute for Whisky Effects Research). We'll meet at my flat Saturday evening, and by Monday I should by able to type about it coherently. And because I can, I've added a page under Research for the proceedings of IWER. If you're coming along, check there to see what malts remain unclaimed.]]>http://www.danieldriver.com/blog_files/278ea11b46648297ae0a56a4109f4e9f-50.php#unique-entry-id-50Daniel R. DriverMisc2006-02-27T10:38:28+00:00http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OccasionalPublications/~3/YwGSv1n21Jc/3621ab715c32c42526396c68f5642429-51.phphttp://www.danieldriver.com/blog_files/3621ab715c32c42526396c68f5642429-51.php#unique-entry-id-51still watching the winter Olympics anymore, which is too bad because it's about the only guilt-free TV I can watch. I feel edified, somehow, even if I'm watching 15 back to back runs of 4 man bobsled, where the only difference I can see is the paint job and the number at the bottom of the screen when each team finishes.

I do have to say that the Olympics—and somehow this seems especially true of the winter Olympics—are less exciting now that the Cold War is over. Maybe this is just because the first Olympics I watched were in the twilight of that era and I'm nostalgic for my youth. But somehow the geo-political tension just wasn't there for me when Russia lost their bronze medal match in ice hockey, or even when Japan stood over America and Russia on the podium for women's figure skating.]]>http://www.danieldriver.com/blog_files/3621ab715c32c42526396c68f5642429-51.php#unique-entry-id-51Daniel R. DriverHB/OT2006-02-27T09:17:03+00:00http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OccasionalPublications/~3/74M93kSPTIE/e77bb735fada2cc0c89d51d83b46e2dc-52.phphttp://www.danieldriver.com/blog_files/e77bb735fada2cc0c89d51d83b46e2dc-52.php#unique-entry-id-52Early Jewish Writings online, disappointed that his link to the text had rotted, but was happy again to find a different host of the R. H. Charles translation. (The advantage of this site over the link provided on Wikipedia, which appears to be the new destination for Kirby's link, is that it has page numbers, so can be cited in a pinch.)

My emotions have stabilized this morning, back at my desk, now that I have have the O. S. Winermute translation (in Charlesworth, Vol 2) for comparison. Still, I feel somewhat chastened at the thought of: (a) the link rot I must have caused when I rashly deleted my old blog at the start of this month, and (b) the upkeep involved in making a good web page. Kirby's page is still an impressive online resource, but the internet is a volatile medium. And given the limits of public domain, understandably even with translations of ancient texts, online resources like these are almost invariably out of date.

Ah, the joys and perils of the world wide web.]]>http://www.danieldriver.com/blog_files/e77bb735fada2cc0c89d51d83b46e2dc-52.php#unique-entry-id-52Daniel R. DriverMisc2006-02-22T15:10:24+00:00http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OccasionalPublications/~3/Z3I0zSlt6ng/6f3f315980aaeae20eeb9f6aae784bdd-55.phphttp://www.danieldriver.com/blog_files/6f3f315980aaeae20eeb9f6aae784bdd-55.php#unique-entry-id-55Slate skewers corporate blogging. I recognize that there are several reasons for blogging, but I thought glamorizing and formalizing the time a person spends not working were near the top of the list. The blogging-for-profit motive is almost antithetical to the genre.]]>http://www.danieldriver.com/blog_files/6f3f315980aaeae20eeb9f6aae784bdd-55.php#unique-entry-id-55Daniel R. DriverHB/OT2006-02-22T13:43:57+00:00http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OccasionalPublications/~3/ziQ-XnOPhjw/ee22bf46d17e87a50b9933d11219a3b0-56.phphttp://www.danieldriver.com/blog_files/ee22bf46d17e87a50b9933d11219a3b0-56.php#unique-entry-id-56g-megillot), both involving Gabriele Boccaccini.

First: "A New Generation of Enochic Studies," at the University of Michigan, May 2-4, 2006

Second: The Fourth International Enoch Seminar, in Camaldoli, Italy, July 9-11, 2007

I wouldn't be able to make the first (if it's even open to me), but the summer following sounds like a great reason to go back to Italy. I would be excited to hear from anybody attending the U Michigan conference in a few months.

Boccaccini's recent work with Enoch is turning out to be a hot potato, it seems. Two titles of his are on my current reading shelf as they pertain to the Enochic Judaism course I'm auditing this semester:

Many who would admit that we can reproduce the NT writers' exegesis of the OT, nevertheless hesitate to recommend that we do so, fearing past abuses. But why must we fear that this is warrant to find anything anywhere in Scripture? What it is warrant to do is to find Christ in the OT exactly as the NT does (emphasis added). We have clear guidelines and safeguards …

Why then do evangelicals continue to produce so many excellent textbooks and studies on hermeneutics, with yet hardly a word on how students should learn biblical interpretation from the practice of the apostles? Why do we still often speak of the NT "use" of the OT? Those NT writers do not see themselves as only "using" or "applying" or "appropriating" the separate meaning of the OT for their new circumstances. They proclaimed what it meant (emphasis added). That meaning was what the Lord himself had explained to them (Luke 24:27) and opened their minds to understand (v. 45) concerning himself. It was the meaning which was in all the Scriptures (v. 27), and which must find its fulfillment in him (v. 44). Dare we say that we have not been foolish and slow of heart to believe it?