On Not Being a Sausage

Brick Presbyterian Church this Sunday

2012-02-08T11:21:00.000-05:00

As part of a series at Brick Presbyterian Church, The Power of the Word, I'll be speaking on the implications of being created in God's Image this Sunday.

Current Series: The Power of the Word


	A three part series exploring three perspectives on how we receive the Gospel. January 29: Found in Translation Dr. Dale Irvin, New York Theological Seminary Dr. Irvin will lead a discussion focusing on the implications of the Gospel being a translated text for nearly all Christians. February 5: The Sacred and the Cinematic Prof. Joseph Kickasola,Baylor University Professor Kickasola will explore the many ways in which film has portrayed and conveyed the Gospel. February 12: Created in God's Image Prof. Deirdre Good, General Theological Seminary Professor Good will lead a discussion of the considerations of our Lord Jesus Christ having been incarnate in a particular time, place, race and gender.

Lot's Wife by the Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska

2012-02-03T08:55:00.001-05:00

Lot's Wife

They say I looked back out of curiosity.
But I could have had other reasons.
I looked back mourning my silver bowl.
Carelessly, while tying my sandal strap.
So I wouldn't have to keep staring at the righteous nape
of my husband Lot's neck.
From the sudden conviction that if I dropped dead
he wouldn't so much as hesitate.
From the disobedience of the meek.
Checking for pursuers.
Struck by the silence, hoping God had changed his mind.
Our two daughters were already vanishing over the hilltop.
I felt age within me. Distance.
The futility of wandering. Torpor.
I looked back setting my bundle down.
I looked back not knowing where to set my foot.
Serpents appeared on my path,
spiders, field mice, baby vultures.
They were neither good nor evil now--every living thing
was simply creeping or hopping along in the mass panic.
I looked back in desolation.
In shame because we had stolen away.
Wanting to cry out, to go home.
Or only when a sudden gust of wind
unbound my hair and lifted up my robe.
It seemed to me that they were watching from the walls of Sodom
and bursting into thunderous laughter again and again.
I looked back in anger.
To savor their terrible fate.
I looked back for all the reasons given above.
I looked back involuntarily.
It was only a rock that turned underfoot, growling at me.
It was a sudden crack that stopped me in my tracks.
A hamster on its hind paws tottered on the edge.
It was then we both glanced back.
No, no. I ran on,
I crept, I flew upward
until darkness fell from the heavens
and with it scorching gravel and dead birds.
I couldn't breathe and spun around and around.
Anyone who saw me must have thought I was dancing.
It's not inconceivable that my eyes were open.
It's possible I fell facing the city.

Wislawa Szymborska

Clergy Conference of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Pennsylvania

2012-02-01T19:31:00.000-05:00

I'm one of two speakers at next week's Clergy Conference of the Episcopal Diocese of Central Pennsylvania from February 6-8th. Last fall I was there for a wonderful Deacon's Day with the Bishop (see picture) on a day when the snow fell endlessly. It was a pleasure to meet Episcopal and Lutheran Deacons doing varied and fulfilling ministries. I look forward to meeting the staff and clergy of the Diocese and the Bishop again.

Updating my c-v

2012-01-24T12:17:00.000-05:00

Very few people need or care to update a curriculum vitae but in the course of recommending a colleague for promotion to full professor, mine was requested to support the recommendation. Although we actually have an annual review with the academic Dean each Spring (which includes a few pages summarizing our recent professional activities), my c-v seems not to have been updated in a while. What have I published recently?

Looking back over annual reviews and trails of emails, I recalled that I had been invited to submit an article on "Elaine Pagels" for a multi-volume encyclopedia: Women in Today's World (published by MacMillan) and that in 2010 I had received an email from the publishers saying that a draft of my article had been accepted and would be published. And then I heard no more. This kind of reference work is likely only to be bought by libraries. So I went online and found that indeed the work had been published in 2011 with 2016 pages. How on earth would I find the page numbers to reference my tiny article?

Well, some of the material seems to be online because a search for the encyclopedia together with the article on "Elaine Pagels" brought the happy news that the article is on pp.1062-1063. So that's one article correctly referenced!

I've also updated an article I wrote on women in noncanonical texts for the 20th Anniversary edition of A Women's Bible Commentary (Westminster John Knox) eds Carol Newsom and Sharon Ringe. The book will be republished in 2012. This was far harder than the original as so much more material on women in noncanonical NT texts has been published in the last 20 years in addition to explosions of material on gender imagery and issues. Strictly speaking, there isn't even a limitation of dates on noncanonical texts. See the problem?

In my updated c-v I also include blog posts I write for Episcopal Cafe. These posts represent a different kind of writing that isn't strictly academic but it reaches a far wider audience than anything academic I ever write.

"Stuff Happens" (May 2007)

"Missing Saints and Psalms" (July 2007)

"Is It Morally Justifiable to Publish Mother Teresa's Private Letters?" (August 2007)

"Why Do We Need To Discuss Hospitality?" (September 2007)

"Who's On Trial? The Gospel and the Archbishop" (November 2007)

"Blood Isn't thicker than Water" (October 2007)

"What Has the Bible to Do With Sexuality?" (December 2007)

"Diversity of Pauline Traditions" (January 2008)

"Secret Mark" (February 2008)

"The Gospel of Truth" (March 2008)

"Female Prophets: A Lost Legacy?" (April 2008)

"Krister Stendahl" with Jane Redmont (May 2008)

"Mourning Diamond" (June 2008)

"Did Jesus Speak Greek?" (September 2008)

"Bill Maher's Religulous: An Exercise in Caricature" (October 2008)

"Our (Same-Sex) Marriage" (December 2008)

"Narnia: Christian Triumphalism or Imaginative Pluralism?" (January 2009)

"Racism, Injustice and Reparations" (February 2009) reposted in Ekklesia:

http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/8956

"Singing Judith's Song" (March 2009)

"Why Do You Seek the Living Among the Dead?" (April 2009)

"On Being Excluded" (May 2009)

"Fathers and Daughters" (August 2009)

"The Contribution of the Lone Translator" (October 2009)

"Go Forth From this World" (January 2010)

“To see and respect” (March 2010)

“A Trip that Changed my Life” (May 2010)

“White Light Festival” (December 2010) reposted in Religion at the Margins:

http://religionatthemargins.com/2010/12/the-white-light-festival/

“Buildings and Meanings” (February 2011)

“Elizabeth Johnson: Reliable Guide” (April 2011)

“Created in God’s Image” (July 2011)

“The art of waiting” (August 2011)

“Jesus & Abba” (October 2011)

“Is the Kingdom of Heaven a Ponzi Scheme?” (November 2011)

Long story short: the c-v is taking longer to update than I anticipated...

Meditations on Matthew 19

2012-01-21T19:29:00.000-05:00

Meditations on Matthew 19-21 coming up on a website for the Center for Biblical Studies of St Thomas' Church, Whitemarsh in Philadelphia. Here's the first on Matthew 19. The Daily Mediations are part of an ambitious plan of the rector and the parish via. the resources for the Center to encourage people to read the whole Bible in small bits. Kudos to St Thomas' Church Whitemarsh! Different people are writing meditations for each day over the course of the next few months.

So do you have Bibles in the pews of your parish? What about discussions of the passages of scripture in the lectionary each week? What about discussions of the context of each of these passages so that we don't loose site of the wood for the trees?

Speaking Events Spring 2012

2012-01-17T15:54:00.000-05:00

Starting this Sunday for 2 weeks I am at St James the Less Scarsdale speaking on Jesus the Meek King. January 22, Feb 2, 9, 16 I'll be giving one of four courses at the Cathedral of St John the Divine (see details below). Then I go to the Episcopal Diocese of Central PA Clergy Conference in February 2012 where I am one of two speakers. I'll be speaking on households in the New Testament. On Feb 12th I am at Brick Presbyterian Church in NYC speaking on humanity made in God's image. And on March 4th I am at St Luke's Darien CT speaking on the many faces of Jesus in a Lenten series.

More details about Lenten speaking events soon...

Exploring Genesis
Rabbi Leonard A. Schoolman
Four Tuesdays: January 24, 31, February 7, 14 7:00-8:30 p.m.
The biblical Book of Genesis has become the battleground for conservative and liberal thinkers. Its verses are widely used as proof texts for many arguments. Rabbi Schoolman will guide us in a consideration of the origins of the Book, and will help us to discern the original meanings and the various interpretations of the text itself. Among the topics will be Creation, Adam and Eve, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Binding of Isaac, and the Joseph cycle. Please bring a copy of the Bible.

Biblical Women of Worth
Dr. Phyllis Trible
Four Tuesdays: January 24, 31, February 7, 14 7:00- 8:30 p.m.
Unlike the book of Proverbs 31:10, this course offers different answers to the question, "A woman of worth, who can find?" Professor Trible will explore the phrase "woman of worth" through characters ranging from Eve and Miriam through Jezebel and Huldah to the Syro-Phoenician woman.

Introduction to the Gospels
Professor Deirdre Good
Four Thursdays: January 26, February 2, 9, 16 7:00-8:30 p.m.
The “good news” of the New Testament books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John is the telling of the life of Jesus. Dr. Good will help us to understand the origins of the Gospels, which came first and why, as well as the audiences for which the Gospels were written. These basic documents of Christianity form the basis for an understanding of the art and music of western civilization. Their message is crucial for the education of a well-rounded individual. Please bring a copy of the New Testament.

Introduction to Islam
Dr. Hussein Rashid
Three Thursdays: January 26, February 9, 16 7:00-9:00 p.m.
More than one million Muslims live in the greater New York area. How much do we know of their beliefs and practices? Dr. Rashid will guide us through a basic understanding of Islam as it is practiced in America and abroad. We will look at the Qur’an, Islam’s holy scriptures, and explore its relationship to the Bible of Jews and Christians. He will also help us to understand the many varieties of Islam, including Sunni, Shi’ia and Sufism. There will be ample opportunity for questions and answers, and for discussion.

Professor Larry Schiffman on the DSS at Times Square

2012-01-13T10:53:00.001-05:00

Onassis Foundation Exhibition: Transition to Christianity

2012-01-13T10:34:00.001-05:00

Currently the Onassis Foundation here in NYC is showing an exhibit Transition to Christianity: Art of Late Antiquity--3rd to 7th Century CE through May 14th, 2012 including items never seen outside Greece. Peter Brown says:

“This exhibition is devoted, in large part, to showing the strange and colorful life of an age which had once been consigned to the shadows, as an age of death and gloom…. Here was an other story, told under an other, more peaceful, eastern sky: the preparation, throughout the territories still ruled from Constantinople by Roman emperors, of a Byzantine civilization that would last for a further millennium.”

“It was the last and the most open of the great ages of antiquity,” Peter Brown continues. “Of this great story, an exhibition can show only fragments…. These poignant fragments of a long-lost age speak to us directly of what it was like, on the ground, to live through an era of mighty transition.”

There is an online course at the website giving you a flavor of the exhibit. And the Wall Street Journal published this review on January 4th.

January 8-19, 2013, Trip to Turkey: Christianity in Asia Minor with Profs Good and Shaner of GTS

2011-12-23T16:27:00.002-05:00

Join Professors Deirdre Good and Katherine Shaner of General Theological Seminary for an illuminating and informative journey to Asia Minor (modern day Turkey), exploring both the urban contexts ouf ot which early Christianity was shaped and some of the spaces in which Christianity grew to prominence. Through visits to some of the great archaeological parks of the world, we will examine the historical and cultural context in which the earliest Christians and their writings emerged.

Deirdre Good is professor of New Testament at General Theological Seminary. She has visited Turkey twice and after the second visit wrote this piece “Buildings and Meanings” – http://www.episcopalcafe.com/daily/interfaith/by_deirdre_good_my_last.php - on the meanings of religious buildings in Istanbul and elsewhere. She edited a 2005 book on Jewish, Christian and Muslim interpretations of Mary (Mariam, the Magdalen and the Mother) which contextualizes Mary traditions in and around Ephesus.

Professor Katherine Shaner is assistant professor of New Testament at General Theological Seminary. Her research focuses on slaves, women, and low-status persons in Pauline communities and especially the city of Ephesos, where she worked with the excavation team in the summer of 2010. She has also worked with excavators from Pergamon and Sardis. Her expertise in Roman archaeology provides an invaluable tangibility to the 1st century world – and will help us experience the lives, beliefs, practices and challenges of first-century Christians and their neighbors.

This is a unique opportunity to travel with New Testament experts who know how to bring history to life in some of the most fascinating archaeological sites in the world. We invite you to join us!

Please click on the link for information about itinerary, registration, costs and other travel details. For questions about the trip, please email Deirdre Good: good@gts.edu or Katherine Shaner: shaner@gts.edu

Christmas Cake

2011-12-17T14:43:00.002-05:00

Long ago and far away, when I was eleven years old, I took an exam called the 11+. Most children of that age at that time in the UK took that exam. It was thought to be able to determine academic abilities. If you passed the exam well, you went off to the academically rigorous schools of the day, namely, grammar schools. If you did reasonably well, you went off to slightly less challenging academic environments. And if you failed the exam, as I did, you went to a secondary modern school.

The 11+ exam was created by the 1944 Butler Education Act. It divided children into one of three streams: an academic, a technical and a functional strand. Determining a child's academic abilities at this point in their lives indicated likely career choices. Since I failed the 11+ I would most likely work in the service industry or perhaps education as some of my classmates in the UK now do.

So for the first year of my secondary modern school experience, in addition to main subjects like English and History and Mathematics, boys went off to do metalwork and woodwork whilst girls went off to iron handkerchiefs and bake Christmas Cakes.

The shortcomings of the 11+ exam are well-known and it has been largely abandoned but not before it consigned schoolchildren to particular streams of education far too early.

Differences amongst children were in future not to be measured but eradicated. Those arguments which had been used against the eleven-plus examination were now deployed against streaming or grading. Homogenising efforts were directed not only at differences of ability but also differences of gender. School books which depicted men going to work or women shopping were condemned for promoting sex-stereotyping. Girls were now encouraged to enrol for metalwork and boys for domestic science. Even the differences between teachers and pupils were now minimised; the former’s role was now to facilitate freedom of expression and group activity learning.

Had it not been for the foresight of my parents I would not be where I am today. They paid for me to attend a boarding school at the age of 15 where within one year I took O levels and then three A levels which enabled me to attend University. Pause for a moment to consider as I often do those of my classmates and several generations of UK children hampered and restricted by such an experience from which they would never recover. I met some of them one Easter when I took a job in Woolworth's selling Easter Eggs.

Letters received from complete strangers

2011-12-06T10:14:00.001-05:00

During the course of my teaching career, I've received letters and emails from complete strangers. Sometimes they simply send an entire paper which they ask me to endorse. Sometimes they have a query about a subject in the NT --more often than not from Revelation. Sometimes they send along a real question on an issue on their minds.

What I do depends on the query. I got one of them this week and since the author knew General Seminary and since the three pages concluded with a statement, "If I am mistaken, where have I gone wrong?" I am going to spend some time composing a letter in reply.

However, it's taking longer than I thought. It's about the rendering of DOULOS as "slave" in the NRSV as opposed to "servant" in the KJV. Apparently the author of the letter is exercised by Matthean parables in which "God" as slave owner evidences coercion. True, every Matthean parable featuring managerial slaves (unmerciful slave 18:23-35; wicked tenants 21:23-41; wedding banquet 22:1-10; overseer 24:45-51 and talents 25: 14-30) graphically shows the vulnerability of slaves to bodily harm. So what are we going to do with this imagery?

I'm starting with issues of translation. The NRSV choice of "slave" for DOULOS is to indicate legal subordination. For some, a translation "servant" indicates voluntary servitude. Another word DIAKONOS is generally rendered "servant"and occasionally the NRSV reverts to "servant" for DOULOS: see Gal 1:10.

I try next to differentiate ancient slavery from modern slavery. Race is not a factor in the institution of slavery in the ancient world. Ancient slaves were educated whilst education of American slaves was legally forbidden. Ancient slaves could own property (including other slaves) and most slaves could be emancipated by the age of 30 and could become Roman citizens. Ancient slavery is akin to a process; modern slavery is a permanent condition.

I'm still writing the letter to include the other complicating element: use of the term EBED in Hebrew Scriptures. EBED is rendered by DOULOS in the LXX and occasionally by OIKETES when indicating a household slave.

Here's my conclusion: "So taking the notion of slavery seriously means that we view the language of Paul and gospel writers describing Jesus's ministry to reflect on the one hand the normative reality of ancient slavery and on the other, metaphor. There's no evidence that Jesus or Paul were slaves. And in distinction to modern people, ancient writers do not customarily use language of free will and choice when it comes to allegiance and affiliation. Philippians 2, the text you mention, describes Jesus humbling himself even to death on the cross by “taking the form of a slave” to reflect that crucifixion was the punishment for slaves.

Also, taking the Bible seriously means taking the language it was written in and the social realities that shaped it seriously. We cannot escape slave language by softening the translation; rather our vocation is to reflect on the implications of that language, and to judiciously critique any attempt to replicate antiquity's social mores in today's world."

Inbetween times, I've solicited from colleagues their own examples of such letters. My favorite was the one that asked a colleague to confirm that bee pollen was eaten in the Garden of Eden. Of course they wanted him to endorse a health product.

Christmas at General Seminary: CBS 11.30pm Christmas Eve

2011-11-22T16:25:00.001-05:00

2011-11-21T20:11:00.001-05:00

The Right Reverend Sam B. Hulsey Chair in Episcopal Studies

Brite Divinity School, affiliated with Texas Christian University, invites applications for appointment to The Rt. Rev. Sam B. Hulsey Chair in Episcopal Studies. The field is open. Applicants in Pastoral Care and Pastoral Theology or in Theology are especially encouraged to apply. The appointment will be at the Assistant Professor level. The Ph.D. or equivalent is required. Demonstrated competence in teaching and scholarly research is expected. Teaching load is four courses per year at Masters and Doctoral levels.

Brite Divinity School is an ecumenical seminary related to the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). It has an active Episcopal Studies Program with its own director. Brite is an EEO employer and maintains a policy of nondiscrimination with respect to all employees and applicants for employment. Upload letter of application describing interests in teaching and research and dossier to https://tcu.igreentree.com/CSS_Faculty/CSSPage_Welcome.asp. Send three letters of recommendation to Dean Nancy Ramsay, Brite Divinity School, TCU Box 298130, Fort Worth, TX 76129. Review of applicants will begin January 9 and continue until the position is filled. The position begins Fall, 2012.

SBL/AAR in San Francisco + Update: My favorite moment

2011-11-19T22:18:00.001-05:00

At the large book exhibit for the combined American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature, there are some wonderful signs like this one. It's a chance to catch up on what has recently been published and what is about to appear. People are offered discounts not only for the duration of the convention but also until the end of December. I'm actually collecting such order forms for someone who couldn't be here so that option is a valuable one.

Editors are keen to converse about publishing possibilities with scholars. Authors can often be seen in the vicinity of presses that have published their work and the presses in turn will promote new publications with posters of titles and announcements of review sessions at the conference. I like to ask a press which of their books has sold well and what their new books are. Today I also asked a number of presses what Coptic texts they had published just to see what the level of interest for Coptic materials is. The answer is, not much. Does a portable Coptic New Testament exist?

Sometimes, you get a booth that doesn't draw much interest. But it should be said (inspite of the above pic) that the SBL encourages confessional diversity about which there has been some controversy here. More recently, in the Chronicle, Jacques Berlinerblau reports on a session he attended in SF run by the Society for Pentecostal Studies.

He asks:

If it is taken as a given that God exists, that the Bible is His word and His Truth, and that one’s job is to cooperatively identify that Truth, then what happens to the scholarly ideal of critical inquiry? To what degree does a professor in a Pentecostal seminary have the right to challenge these articles of faith? And what happens to her when she does that?

How do Berlinerblau or Hendel or anyone else who is not a member of this faith community fit into any of this? Is participation in an SPS session open to all members of the SBL?

It would be wrong to ask these questions solely of Pentecostals. What many of us in the SBL have been alleging for years is that the prevalence of organized religious blocs in the Society creates a state of affairs that is unhealthy for scholarship on the Bible and Bible scholars.

Update: my favorite moment at SBL was a social one. Over cocktails with a new friend one evening I heard about his first teaching experience. "Remember when you told us about your first teaching day?" he said. (I'd had a nosebleed out of sheer terror and retreated to the bathroom to staunch the bleeding). "Well, it was similar. I thought I'd throw up. My palms were sweaty...I was very nervous. I knew that the students would be very familiar with the text--more than you or I would ever be--so I got each of them to read the same passage from their bibles. And as each one read a different translation, people began to hear that the Word of God wasn't saying the same thing. So I said, 'How can we reconcile these differences...?' And we had a great discussion. Afterwards, one of them said, 'This was wonderful! I had no idea what to expect and I am already looking forward to the rest of the class...' And I sighed and went home."

A Theology of Marriage including Same-Sex Couples

2011-11-09T20:41:00.000-05:00

ATR 93 (2011) published the essay "A Theology of Marriage Including Same-Sex Couples: A View from the Liberals" written by myself, Willis Jenkins, Cynthia Kittredge and Eugene F. Rogers, as part of a theological colloquy on "Same-Sex Relationships and the Nature of Marriage." There are a few typos probably from the scanner not the original essay. The traditionalist view is here. There are responses of each group to the other's papers and finally some Anglican and Ecumenical responses. Bishop Parsley writes the foreword and Ellen Charry the preface.

2011-11-06T15:11:00.001-05:00

To me, this is an early picture of the faculty at General Theological Seminary. It was taken before 1997 at a time when Professor Wright was on sabbatical.

Front row: left to right, Professor James A. Carpenter, Professor Boyce Bennett, Dean and President James C. Fenhagen, Professor John Koenig and Professor Richard Corney.

Back row: Professor David Hurd, Professor Margaret Guenther, Professor William Doubleday, Professor Neil Alexander, Professor David Hurd, Professor Fred Shriver, Professor Elisabeth Koenig and myself.

Jesus and Abba

2011-11-06T13:50:00.001-05:00

In case anyone missed it, here is my post for Episcopal Cafe on "Jesus and Abba" written at the end of October. I put additional material in the comments and note with delight and gratitude that Thinking Anglicans has reposted it here. Such a piece gets far more readers than anything else I might publish!

White Light Festival of 2011

2011-11-03T17:21:00.001-04:00

We are off to the White Light Festival of 2011 tonight to hear the Schola Cantorum de Venezuela. This is its second year. The festival began as an exploration of ways music informs and enlightens our spiritual lives. Jane Moss, the festival director, interviewed by HuffPo, likens our 24/7 craving for technology to an addiction which the festival attempts to identify and overcome.

This year's festival, which begins on October 20 and runs to November 19, includes performances of Beethoven's "Missa Solemnis," an Olivier Messiaen organ recital, and the Huelgas Ensemble's performance of a capella choral music from the Renaissance, as well as a number of original contemporary offerings. Many of the performances will take place at Alice Tully Hall, though others are spread across the city. Prices range from free (the opening night performance and a light installation) to around $100.

While last year's lineup was overtly spiritual, this year's programming is more varied in content, though each piece has been selected based on some shared ineffable quality of "White Light"-ness.

"They're works that evoke in a very powerful way, themes or ideas of transcendence," Moss said. "By that I don't necessarily mean spiritual transcendence, but all those pieces of ourselves that are not related to our ego which many people have no time for anymore."

The festival will premiere a production of "Desdemona," a new take on "Othello," created through collaboration between Toni Morrison, director Peter Sellars and Malian musician Rokia Traore. Also making its debut is the silent film "The Passion of the Joan of Arc," presented with a score by Adrian Utley of Portishead and Will Gregory of Goldfrapp.

After each performance, attendees can visit a White Light lounge next to the venue, where they can drink sparkling water or sparkling wine and mingle with their fellow peace-seekers. It's this kind of artistic community that Moss wants to reinstate in contemporary performance.

"Performances are one of the few communal experiences with people remaining," Moss said. "In the course of a performance, you get closer to other people. You feel more connected to the human experience."

All Saints Day, November 1st, 2011

2011-11-01T13:33:00.003-04:00

Is. 26:19 Your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise.

O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy!

For your dew is a radiant dew,

and the earth will give birth to those long dead.

Dorothy Blake with my parents at Our Lady's Manor in Dublin. Dorothy died on January 27th of this year. She gave her whole life to establishing residences for disabled people in which they could live independently. I've been to two of the residences and they are wonderful homes. For Dorothy's life and witness, I give thanks today.

Peggy Pascoe: Referring a Manuscript

2011-10-28T05:59:00.002-04:00

(Shameless purloin from Edge of the American West) is this marvelous piece about reviewing a manuscript. Something none of us were taught, for sure, but what a gift, if done well!

2011-10-26T15:15:00.000-04:00

This week we are having the Paddock Lectures at the seminary and alumni/ae week. Today was the Alumni/ae Memorial Eucharist at which Dr Minka Sprague preached and Professor Emeritus Richard Corney read the prayers.

Dr Sprague's sermon was a wonderful reflection on the embodied and lived meaning of the prayer of Jesus in John 17 in the course of attending decades of these services at the seminary. What a treat to hear one of the best preachers in the Episcopal Church!

After the service, several generations of biblical faculty at GTS and NYTS (where Minka taught for years) met outside the sacristy of the Chapel of the Good Shepherd. We took the opportunity to discuss a history of how biblical courses have been taught and configured at the seminary as a basis from which to engage in future discussions around curricular review and reform.

James Romm, Ghost on the Throne, Nov 2nd, NYPL

2011-10-22T18:26:00.000-04:00

James Romm, author of Ghost On the Throne: The Death of Alexander the Great and the War for Crown and Empire (just published from Knopf) about the successors of Alexander, will be at NYPL on Nov 2nd at 7.pm. Here's a link to the book with author interviews and a podcast.

David Bellos, "Is That A Fish in your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything" (FSG 2011)

2011-10-18T14:23:00.000-04:00

Lots of people have noticed and are reviewing Davis Bellos' new book Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything (FSG, 2011). For example, Maureen Freely in the Daily Telegraph (UK) thinks the book "witty and erudite." Michael Hofman in the Guardian calls the book "brilliant (and) a disquisition of remarkable freshness on language, speech and translation...written in short punchy instructive chapters." For him, Bellos has "a wonderful, Scotch-educated temperament..He doesn't accuse, lament or gripe." The Economist says that while the book is ostensibly about translation, it is in fact a "richly original cultural history...of the effects of language and translation" starting with the Greeks who ignored other languages and the Romans who made everyone learn Latin. Frederic Raphael in the Literary Review writes a longer assessment and concentrates on Bellos' focus on best-practices of translation. He concludes:

Is That a Fish in Your Ear? is spiced with good and provocative things. At once erudite and unpretentious, Bellos saves his best trick for last, when he concludes that language is not necessary for communication, as theorists insist (other species communicate without it). He sees it as a way 'to establish rank or declare hostility' (or friendship?). Speech has more in common with the sociable rituals of eating - hence the polite rule against doing both at the same time - than with some Pentecostal notion of universal mutual understanding. The practical deposit of Bellos's scintillating bouillabaisse is that if you want your children to have a safe job in tomorrow's world, have them learn Arabic and/or Chinese, always assuming they come out of the current education system able to speak and spell comprehensible English.

Across the pond, Kirkus Review calls the book "erudite and occasionally dense but ultimately illuminating even transformative." PW helpfully notes that the title is a riff on Douglas Adam's "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" in which a "Babel fish" (think: Tower of Babel) when inserted into one's ear could translate any language. There's even a video in which the author gives us a flavour of his book and challenges our cultural presuppositions. (I note with delight that he sounds a little like Michael Kitchen).

You get the picture. Everyone likes the book and it's being reviewed positively in all sorts of places. And I too enjoyed reading the book and found it entertaining and engaging.

However, I want to describe one chapter in the book, "Bible and Bananas: The Vertical Axis of Translation Relations." Since reviews like those mentioned above are mostly brief, many note that there is a chapter on bible translations, but only a few delve into it. Frederic Raphael in the Literary Review is one who thinks about this issue.

Raphael notes that Bellos is no advocate of literal translation. Here's why. In a chapter called "The Myth of Literal Translation" Bellos cites Jerome's Letter to Pammachus (346CE) as perhaps "the first full formation of the lopsided dispute between translations that are "literal" and those that are "free."" Bellos renders Jerome's formulation of the issue:

Thus, I not only confess but of my own free voice proclaim that apart from translations of sacred scriptures from the Greek, where even the order of words is a mysterium, I express not the word for the word, but the sense for the sense.

Bellos notes that we don't know what Jerome's word "mysterium" means and so he leaves it in Latin. Maybe Jerome was describing a problem engaging every translator, namely, what to do with words you don't understand. In this rendition of Jerome into English, we don't translate the word but instead render it pronounceable in the target language. In the above paragraph Bellos leaves it in Latin. But is that enough?

Bellos next cites an alternative rendition of the passage from Jerome by a (mysterious) canon of Canterbury Cathedral:

For I myself not only admit but freely proclaim that in translating from the Greek (except in the case of holy scriptures where even the order of words is a mystery) I render sense for sense and not word for words.

Jerome is explaining, Belos says, what translators have always done. They transmit the sense and where the sense is obscure, they render the words of the original. So transmitting sense in a non-literal way is normative except when the original is obscure.

Here's my point: when we come to a subsequent chapter on bible translation, readers are already suspicious of a literal translation. Now in this chapter there are only two methods of Bible translation surveyed--a) adaptive translation used by an early Dutch missionary in Sumatra and the later American Bible Society under Eugene Nida and b) a more literal approach used by Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig to render the Hebrew Bible into German. The Buber-Rosenzweig version favors keeping closely to the Hebrew and using obscure (I would say "arresting") German words occurring more regularly in stories like Grimm's fairy tales. (I know this because I spent a happy morning in the reading room of the New York Public Library locating Buber and Rosenzweig's German words in dictionaries of old German). By the end of the chapter we haven't heard of a useful or even good way of translating the Bible. Those translations mentioned and the approaches they employ--well-intentioned missionaries using cultural substitution replace the fig tree of Matthew's gospel with bananas since there are no figs in Sumatra; Buber's "foreignizing" is described as incomprehensible--are critically assessed and implicitly dismissed.

Bellos would reply that his is not a book about how to translate but about what translation does. Fine. But when it comes to bible translations, we can't avoid assessments. And it is disingenuous not to mention up to date translators who use the method of Buber and Rosenzweig successfully: Everett Fox in the Schocken Bible for one.

A Week of Music and Ancient Art

2011-10-16T12:07:00.000-04:00

Last week was all about seminary events: the dedication of the new Christoph Keller Jr. Library on Friday, Convocation and the conferral of honorary degrees on Thursday, and the Board Meetings on Friday and Saturday. This week for me is going to be about musical events and an exhibit of ancient art in the city.

The chapel service for the dedication of the Christoph Keller Jr. Library included a moving address by Polly Keller from the altar steps ("Think of this chapel as the heart of the seminary and the library as it's head") and a sermon from the Dean of Candler School of Theology at Emory University, Jan Love. We have much to thank the Keller family for. And we thank Candler for access to the digital collections of Emory University as the result of a new agreement. There will be much more about the event on the seminary website soon.

It was wonderful to see so many seminary friends and graduates in chapel for the library dedication. I saw people whom I hadn't seen for a very long time and it was good to rejoice with them.

And so on to this coming week. Tomorrow we are going to the new production of Don Giovanni at the Met Opera. The FT is not impressed with the new production nor the leading roles. Sigh. When we bought the tickets, James Levine was to have conducted. Now it is Fabio Luisi. However, Anthony Tommasini in the NY Times is impressed by Peter Mattei as the new occupant of the title role. Donna Anna sounds promising as well. On Tuesday I am going to the 92nd Street Y to hear Paul Lewis play Schumann's late Piano music.

This coming Friday October 21st, Profs Shaner, Owens and I are leading a tour to the exhibit, Edge of Empires: Pagans Jews and Christians at Dura Europos. We will arrive in time for the tour at 6pm. Please join us!

2011-10-12T20:49:00.001-04:00

This weekend the seminary is part of OpenHouse New York. The dedication of the new library is on Friday and we have Board meetings at the end of the week in addition to normal classes (picture thanks to Robert Solon).