On Not Being a Sausage

New Orleans and the SBL

2009-11-24T15:19:00.005-05:00

The SBL meeting was stimulating and it was great to catch up with friends, hear and discuss papers, and meet new colleagues from all over the world. Here are some highlights (in no particular order):

tea with Fortress Press to discuss US publication of Starting New Testament Study in 2010 especially companion website
good session of our LGBTQ/Queer Hermeneutics group and plans are underway for the next few years
useful discussions of several new books on Mark's Jesus by Elizabeth Struthers Malbon, Beyond Gnosticism by Ismo Dunderberg, Flora Tells a Story by Michael Kaler, Sin: A History, Gary Anderson
great presidential address on the importance of teaching, "Learning, Teaching and Researching Biblical Studies: Today and Tomorrow" by David Clines.

On Monday afternoon, I jumped from a lively session by Michael Theophilus, "Learning Greek Through Ancient Artefacts: Resources and Examples" to David Teeter's paper, "The Septuagint and Early Jewish Halakhah: Problems and Perspectives in Modern Research" to "Escargot and the Body You Sow; Or Be Aware Why Jonah's Bare" (analysis of the Jonah Sarcophagus in the Vatican: partial picture above) by Linda Moskeland Fuchs.

Wonderful also to be in New Orleans just a stone's throw from the French Quarter with its attractive little streets, restaurants and alleys.

OUP word of the year= unfriend

2009-11-18T08:39:00.002-05:00

It's interesting to note how many of these neologisms are prohibitions: intertexticated, paywall. And do we really want to circulate outright mistakes like "deathpanel?"

2009-11-14T15:26:00.002-05:00

What Should a Gay Catholic Do? by James Martin, S.J. over at America Magazine is very good and there are good comments as well. The article ends, smartly, on a question:

What kind of life remains for these brothers and sisters in Christ, those who wish to follow the teachings of the church? Officially at least, the gay Catholic seems set up to lead a lonely, loveless, secretive life. Is this what God desires for the gay person?

John 1:1--repetitious and shows restricted vocabulary

2009-11-12T12:23:00.002-05:00

The Guardian's Maev Kennedy riffs on the report of computer grading of mock-A Levels (the concluding exams for secondary or high schools):

I want to read to you a few extracts to demonstrate the scale of the problem we are tackling. Those of you whose names l mention, please stay behind after class to discuss your work in more detail.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God …

You will not be surprised to hear that the computer has marked this down for repetition and poor and restricted choice of vocabulary. I would like to add, class, that although John the Evangelist shows occasional flashes of inspiration, he is going to have to buckle down to some very serious work if he is to have any chance of achieving the grades he needs.

And as for

No man is an island.

Incomprehensible, the computer said. I say, John Donne, this is just a facile attempt to be smart. You might just as well write that no computer is a banana.

2009-11-11T09:40:00.000-05:00

Joel Marcus: Mark 8-16 (Anchor Yale Bible Series) Part 1

2009-11-10T11:17:00.007-05:00

Prof Joel Marcus completes his two volume commentary on Mark's Gospel with this new publication in March of this year. At 1182 pages, there's a lot to read but it is worth the price. What you get is a new translation, sound engagement with the text and with secondary scholarship. There are glowing reviews already out there making comparisons to other commentaries on the first gospel and concluding that this commentary joins a plurality of other good commentaries (Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark, 2007 R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark, 2002; Harrington and Donahue, The Gospel of Mark, 2005 etc.) that together shed much light on the text. If you've been preaching on the lectionary, you've already noticed these resources!

Since I cannot do justice to the whole commentary, I take here some soundings on what I think of as key passages in the second part of Mark's Gospel. The commentary opens at Mark 8:22, observing the narrative sequence of Mark 8:22-10:52 in which three healings are interspersed with six references to "the way" and three passion predictions. The way of Jesus and "the way of the Lord" in Second Isaiah was established first as a reading of Mark 1:2-3 and now sheds light on the healings of the blind (Is 35:1-7; 42:16) as God's way of power in healing and suffering is manifest in Mark as the journey to Jerusalem.

The narrative of the healing of a blind man in two stages (8:22-6) contains a wealth of verbs about sight: the verb blepein "to see" and three compounds of that verb (anablepein, diablepein, and emblepein) as well as another verb horan, also "to see." The adjective typhlos "blind" is used twice and the rare adverb telaugos, "in a far shining way," "clearly" (8:25) is used along with two different words for eyes: ophthalmoi (8:25) and ommata (8:23). Jesus' actions are to touch, spit, take someone by the hand and to lay hands twice. In the notes on the text, Marcus renders the Greek of 8:24 as "looking up and beginning to see again" thus rendering both nuances of anablepein as "look up" and "look again." What the individual sees is rendering the awkward Greek using two verbs for seeing, "I see people...because...I see people like walking trees" (8:24). Marcus proposes that the fractured grammar mirrors the fractured perception described.

Marcus renders 8:25 as "Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again, and his sight broke through, and he was restored, and he saw all things clearly from that moment on." The verb behind "his sight broke through" is diablepein, one of those blepo compounds which can mean "stare" or "see clearly" (the latter is in Matt 7:5 and Luke 6:42). But there are two verbs of sight in the verse. Following an extramission theory of vision in the ancient world according to which sighted creatures see by means of light beams that come out of their eyes rather than into them, the aorist verb diablepein reflects the breakthrough of the man's eyes past the barrier to the clear sight of the imperfect second verb.

I'd like to observe that while Jesus is the healer, the text of 8:25 doesn't actually identify Jesus. So a better more challenging rendering of the Greek would be "Then he laid his hands on his eyes again, and his sight broke through, and he was restored, and he saw all things clearly from that moment on." Jesus is not the narrative focus of Mark's text. The text emphasizes the reciprocity of healer and healed in the switch of subjects.

Marcus proposes that the first stage of the two-stage healing corresponds to the disciples' position of partial vision throughout the gospel. The second stage points to Jesus' resurrection as the stage of clear vision since the man whose sight is restored is sent home and forbidden to make the healing known. The next prohibition of 9:9 points to the resurrection as the place where secrecy ends. (To be continued...)

Open Yale Lectures: Prof Dale Martin on the New Testament

2009-11-09T16:21:00.003-05:00

Does everyone know Open Yale Lectures? Here's a link to Prof Dale Martin's lecture series at Yale on Studying the New Testament which is a good resource. His approach is historical and critical. He's not treating the New Testament as scripture. Here's the syllabus.

Reading Jesus by Mary Gordon

2009-11-09T08:10:00.002-05:00

Mary Gordon's new book Reading Jesus came out at the end of October. I've ordered a copy. Newsweek's Lisa Miller likes it. She says, "It's a book about writing. What Gordon loves about the Gospels is not the pat lessons of Sunday school. She loves what a writer loves: paradoxes and inconsistencies, moments of high drama and plot twists. She especially loves the character of Jesus: ascetic, radical, perfectionist—the childish, arrogant, demanding boy. (The magical healer curses a fig tree to death because he's hungry and it has no fruit.) The story of the prodigal son is a parable about the bounty of God's love. But it's also a story that has the message of much great fiction: life is not fair."

It's good to be reminded of progressive Catholics and their engagement with Jesus of the New Testament. Mary Gordon writes for them and also for Jews interested in the Gospels. She hopes that she can be found trustworthy by this latter group given that her father was Jewish.

In an interview with Nathan Scheider for Religion Dispatches she talks about the complications of reading the Gospels:

When interpreting a text, one always brings something to the process. What are you bringing? Is it experience, or reason, or even the Holy Spirit?

One of the things that I wanted to explore in this project is what kind of reading scripture demands. In one sense, it's reading, just like reading the instructions for your DVD player, or King Lear, or a graphic novel. But that verb isn't adequate for all these different experiences. This is a text that you may have thought—as I once did—was the Word of God, literally containing your salvation or damnation. It has a whole overlay of your personal history, your anguish, and the culture of the West. It has your coloring book and it has Bellini. It has the horrible ranting of anti-Semites and of people who hate the body, but it also has Oscar Romero and George Herbert. The Gospels carry so much in them, so the reading can never be simple.

Writing

2009-11-05T17:23:00.004-05:00

It was George MacRae who instructed us in graduate school to write every day. It's good advice that today's emails and postings could represent. But he meant academic writing--the kind of writing that works for publication. I've not been good at doing this every day but I am resolved to be more intentional about it.

One thing that helps me immensely is reading good writing. Last week I almost finished Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (before I left it for my father) and found it lively and engaging. Focused on Cromwell, Mantel doesn't tell us about him, she shows us his life and his skills. "He was a blacksmith's son who ended up Earl of Essex," Mantel told the BBC before winning the prize. "So how did he do it? That's the question driving the book." In fact, Cromwell is a man for our times: self-made polyglot and wheeler-dealer who succeeds in a world that fawns upon noble families surrounding the King. Sir Thomas More, on the other hand, is a peevish, vindictive bully.

The Times of London called Wolf Hall a "wonderful and intelligently imagined retelling of a familiar tale from an unfamiliar angle – one that makes the drama unfolding nearly five centuries ago look new again, and shocking again, too."

I've not read Diana Athill but she sounds wonderful. Here's an excerpt from her most recent book, a memoir called Somewhere Towards the End given in the New York Times in January of this year. It seems to be a vivid account of growing old and coming to terms with death.

It is so obvious that life works in terms of species rather than of individuals. The individual just has to be born, to develop to the point at which it can procreate, and then to fall away into death to make way for its successors, and humans are no exception whatever they may fancy. We have, however, contrived to extend our falling away so much that it is often longer than our development, so what goes on in it and how to manage it is worth considering. Book after book has been written about being young, and even more of them about the elaborate and testing experiences that cluster round procreation, but there is not much on record about falling away. Being well advanced in that process, and just having had my nose rubbed in it by pugs and tree ferns, I say to myself, 'Why not have a go at it?' So I shall.

Ian Jack in this week's Guardian calls her sentences "lucid and direct" and the result of a triumphant struggle to "get it right." There's a humility to her effort that he conveys in a conversation they had:

"I've never actually planned a book," she said. "I've never thought of readers." In the 47 years since, only six books have followed, which brings her total to eight. She said: "I've never written anything unless I've wanted to. I really am an amateur."

How different this is from the self-indulgent prose of Julian Barnes in his memoir on the same topic of coming to terms with death, Nothing to be Frightened Of. A friend lent it to me this past summer and I couldn't finish it. Time to visit the local library and see what the holdings for Diana Athill are.

2009-11-03T17:22:00.004-05:00

During a recent visit to the UK (to spend time with my parents as my father is having radiotherapy), I was fortunate enough to visit Diocesan House. Through the good offices of Wendy Dackson, Director of Studies, Local Ministry Training Scheme, I met staff and students (The Rev. Canon Robert Mackintosh, Director of Ministry and Training and Mr Neville Emslie, Ministry Development Office with a specialty in New Testament and a student Judy Vinson) over coffee and biscuits. We talked about our current projects and publications for the rest of the morning. It was exhilarating and a good opportunity to learn about ministry and training in the Diocese of Canterbury!

After a wonderful lunch with Wendy, I spent the rest of the day in Canterbury at the Cathedral and local bookshops and finished up at a Canterbury Festival talk given by Dame Joan Bakewell on her latest book, All the Nice Girls.

Explaining her foray into a novel as, 'Revenge on my English teacher,' she described how 'I longed to be a writer' – until the teachers at Stockport High School For Girls rejected her idea as 'daft.'

The basis for the novel was the discovery of documents from the British Ship Adoption Society during World War II describing her school's adoption of a ship. She realized there were three areas to be explored in the book: the school teachers, the sailors on the ships and the Battle of the Atlantic being waged at the time. So she visited the National Maritime Museum, and the Western Approaches Museum in Liverpool to do journalistic research. Bakewell says she was so enraptured by what she had learned about the women serving in the Women’s Royal Naval Service that she wanted to convey a story from their perspective.

What Authority Do Translations of Sacred Texts Have?

2009-10-22T18:58:00.002-04:00

Solange deSantis has a piece in RNS asking this question. She interviews Cheryl Peterson who has recently updated Christian Science's foundational text by Mary Baker Eddy, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,'' for a 21st century readership.

Christian Science headquarters, which is based in Boston, made no attempt to stop Petersen’s book, said Phil Davis, who manages media and legislative affairs for the church. “The copyright on `Science and Health’ lapsed many years ago, so certainly (the revision) is something someone can do if they wish,” he said.

Since “Science and Health” is regarded as a companion to the Bible, less a sacred text than a textbook, Petersen’s revision is not seen as blasphemous or as desecrating Eddy’s original writings, Davis said.

Still, Davis said he finds Petersen’s revision unnecessary. “The text as written by Mary Baker Eddy has had great import in my life. It has timeless impact and doesn’t need to be changed with the times,” he said.

Towards the end of the piece there's a quote:

Some believe a sacred text should be only studied in its original language, said Deirdre Good of General Theological Seminary in New York, and that translations are inevitably interpretations. But that view has limitations. “It looks as if Jesus spoke Aramaic. So should we learn Aramaic?” Good asked.

For a discussion of the authority of individual translations of the Bible, see my piece in Episcopal Cafe.

The Highline in Fall

2009-10-22T12:56:00.004-04:00

Having jumped from cold back to Indian Summer, Chelsea today is glorious. Our window geraniums are in full bloom and the Highline (ht: Patrick for the photo) is gorgeous. The seminary begins a fall break for a few days and I am en route to the UK to be with my parents as my father completes another week of radiotherapy. All being well, I will arrive in time to drive us to the hospital for the last treatment of the week tomorrow.

2009-10-21T09:27:00.002-04:00

Tonight's Columbia NT Seminar
Talk title: Possibilities for Parables from a Postcolonial Perspective

Abstract

The paper will explore postcolonial theory in relation to parable interpretation. Navigating through multiple perspectives on what postcolonial theory is and/or should be, Colleen Conway argues that some aspects of postcolonial theory open up new avenues for understanding the parables in their gospels settings. The discussion will include a "test case" of the usefulness of postcolonial theory for interpreting the Tenants in the Vineyard.

2009-10-20T14:13:00.000-04:00

2009-10-19T19:16:00.003-04:00

At the Metropolitan Museum until the end of November is Vermeer's The Milkmaid on loan from the Rijksmuseum by Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675). To celebrate this loan, the Metropolitan Museum will present Vermeer’s Masterpiece The Milkmaid, a special exhibition that will bring together all five paintings by Vermeer from its collection.

Curator Walter Liedtke discusses the painting in a podcast. The subject is a kitchen servant pouring milk from a jug into a bowl. On the table is bread which she may be making into bread porridge, a staple of Dutch diet. The woman seems to be smiling and musing about something else. To the lower right are a series of delft tiles and in front of her is a Cupid figure. The footwarmer is a symbol of amorous intentions. But Vermeer uses this artistic tradition to suggest what is in the mind of the milkmaid.

The soft focus and naturalistic daylight is striking. The viewer sees the daylight and the light through the crack in the window outside with the grainy bread on the table.

2009-10-19T17:33:00.001-04:00

"A Soulful Journey Among Ourselves"

Sponsored by The Psychotherapy & Spirituality Institute and offered in collaboration with Auburn Seminary, General Theological Seminary and Trinity Church Wall Street, this four-part series (November 11, 13,14,15) features conversations with women from across the spectrum of belief and tradition reflecting on the unique sensitivity to spirituality and God concepts that arise out of women's experience.

Facilitated by well-known author, spiritual director and corporate executive, Dr. Westina Matthews, this series promises to be a time of resource sharing, healing and renewal with and among women.

Part 1 begins on Wednesday, November 11 at Auburn Seminary (6:30 - 8:00 pm) and examines how women's spirituality inspires social engagement essential for the making of a just society. The Rev. Suzan Johnson Cook is the featured speaker. Auburn's president, the Rev. Dr. Katharine Henderson will introduce the evening.

November 11, 13, 14, 15.

Cost for the series $45; $12 for each session.

For complete information, including locations of additional sessions, a list of additional speakers and complete registration information please contact Mark D'Alessio at 212.285.0043, x11 or email mark@psi-mindspirit.org.

Interfaith Radio on Paul the Jew

2009-10-16T16:37:00.001-04:00

Paul the Jew

Begins at 22 min 45

Many people trace the roots of anti-Semitism back to a single moment: Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus. That’s when, according to traditional teachings, Paul rejected his Judaism for the new, improved version: Christianity. Bible scholar Pamela Eisenbaum says this interpretation of Paul is not only wrong, it’s dangerous.

Interview with Pamela Eisenbaum, author of Paul Was Not a Christian: The Original Message of a Misunderstood Apostle (Harper Collins 2009)

First Instance of the Seraph/im

2009-10-15T13:36:00.000-04:00

Letters to the Editor in TLS, Sept 23, 2009:

Seraphim

Sir, – Susan Weingarten, in noting (Letters, September 11) that the first appearance of “seraphim” is in the Book of Isaiah, is quite correct if she is referring solely to angels. The Hebrew word “seraph”, from the root to burn or scorch, however, appears in Deuteronomy 8:15, as being one of the elements faced by the Children of Israel in their forty-year trek through the Desert: “who led thee through the great and dreadful wilderness, wherein were serpents, fiery serpents \[seraph\], and scorpions”. This recalls the incident when, while encompassing the land of Edom, the Children of Israel once again murmured against God’s plan and “the Lord sent seraph serpents against the people. They bit the people and many died”, as recorded in Numbers 21:6.

YISRAEL MEDAD
Shiloh, Mobile Post Efraim 44830, Israel.

Salome, the unnamed daughter of Herodias

2009-10-14T13:37:00.002-04:00

"It probably is not completely accidental that this woman really came alive only when she was emancipated from the Bible...Theology should ask itself self-critically why this new regard took place not with but against the church's tradition."

Ulrich Luz on Matthew 8-20, p.309

See Aubrey Beardsley's illustrations of Wilde's Salome. And here is Salome Magazine:

My vision for this website is to create an safe online sanctuary where intelligent women may read weekly submissions, consider them, and provide thoughtful and respectful feedback on the issues and opinions discussed herein. Let us forge a community and come to our own individual and communal understanding about our authentic and rich veritable experiences as modern women.

James Tissott, The Life of Christ at the Brooklyn Museum

2009-10-13T13:59:00.001-04:00

Here's a description of the Tissott exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum Oct 17-Jan 17, 2010.

The exhibition James Tissot: “The Life of Christ” includes 124 watercolors selected from a set of 350 that depict detailed scenes from the New Testament, from before the birth of Jesus through the Resurrection, in a chronological narrative. It marks the first time in more than twenty years that any of the Tissot watercolors, a pivotal acquisition that entered the collection in 1900, have been on view at the Brooklyn Museum.

Born in France, James Tissot (1836−1902) enjoyed great success as a society painter in Paris and London in the 1870s and 1880s. While visiting the Church of St. Sulpice, he experienced a religious vision, after which he abandoned his former subjects and embarked on an ambitious project to illustrate the New Testament. In preparation for the work, he made expeditions to the Middle East to record the landscape, architecture, costumes, and customs of the Holy Land and its people, which he recorded in photographs, notes, and sketches. Unlike earlier artists, who had often depicted biblical figures anachronistically, Tissot painted his many figures in costumes he believed to be historically authentic, carrying out his series with considerable archaeological exactitude.

Sermon by The Rev. Anne Kitch at the funeral of Matthew Shephard

2009-10-12T19:19:00.001-04:00

Here's a link to the funeral sermon given by The Rev. Anne Kitch on the occasion. She is his cousin. A good time to read it.

How One Evangelical Changed on the Gay Issue

2009-10-09T08:13:00.001-04:00

My own mother challenged me in 2003 to look at my beliefs and the true intent behind the teachings I held in blind faith. "Do you think your views are Christ-like?" she asked me. Her question was dead on: once I walked away from the Church's teachings of rejection and condemnation, my relationship with God transcended to a higher spiritual plateau. I realized an unparalleled sense of spiritual clarity when I opened my heart and mind to a genuine expression of love, compassion, and acceptance of all sexual orientations and gender identities.

This new voice—Christ's voice—became the core principles of my faith: love, compassion, and respect. That voice I now realize was desperately wanting to be heard, a voice no longer comfortable with the place in which I had chose to confine it for so long—a place of bigotry, prejudice, fear, and misunderstanding.

Brent Childers in Newsweek.

Caring for the Widows and Orphans

2009-10-07T14:12:00.001-04:00

Over and over, from Deuteronomy via Isaiah and the Psalms to the first epistle of St James, the Bible singles out one group above all others - widows and orphans - for priority treatment. Making sure they are provided for is of the very essence of religion, St James declares. But what do they mean by widows and orphans? Centuries of interpretation of these Scriptural passages have broadened the category to include all who, like widows and orphans, are facing hardship through loss - loss of a breadwinner in the traditional sense, or loss of a job through unemployment, sickness or disability.

Clifford Longley on Thought for the Day.

In our present time, the people being left behind by this creeping return of economic optimism are those who lost their jobs, or who recently left school or college, and haven't been able to find work since.

They are the modern poor, the modern widows and orphans of our time. The International Monetary Fund tells us their number is still well below its peak. But far from being our number one priority as the Bible says, they are in danger of being forgotten.

What Has Happened to the Jesus Seminar?

2009-10-06T15:06:00.002-04:00

R. Joseph Hoffman sheds some light. Meanwhile, members of the Jesus Seminar seem to be in Dallas. And John Dart reports for the Christian Century last month that the Jesus Seminar is relocating to Willamette University in Salem, Oregon.

In between assignments state of mind

2009-10-04T13:11:00.010-04:00

This weekend marks one of those unusual occasions in my professional life when I am in between assignments and thus relatively unencumbered. All this hedging: it is rare enough to be noteworthy.

Done is a rewrite of a chapter that has been hanging over my head for months. Bearing down on me (but being ignored for the moment) are an essay on "The Lost Symbol" by mid-October and missing essays for Daily Episcopalian. On the not-very-distant horizon are book reviews--one for the upcoming November SBL meeting. And the chapter rewrite may receive a favorable assessment. Or it may not. On the far horizon next Spring are adjustments to a manuscript that will be published in the US after its UK publication this month, co-leading a workshop on Jewish and Christian Interpretation of Psalms and Canticles, and completion of committee work for public release. Outside speaking engagements are simply on-going.

It is so wonderful to feel (somewhat) guilt-free that I find myself thinking about trying to finish assignments more quickly. Or not agreeing to them. Truth to tell, being an academic is like spinning plates. When a grant application is submitted or a manuscript is sent off for review, or a contract for a new piece is signed, a plate spins up into the air. The trick is to stagger them so that when one plate is about to crash to the ground (a deadline), another plate is being sent spinning into the air. The problem with spinning plates is that they inevitably stop spinning and that the more you have in the air, the more successful you appear to be. Which means you must keep more and more plates spinning faster and faster.

Right now, NOT spinning plates seems like a much more attractive option. After all, there are far more tranquil images of scholars' lives. Here's a local one from the The Chinese Scholar's Garden at Snug Harbor Cultural Center on Staten Island. And being in-between assignments is a much better state of mind in which to enjoy the birthday party of a 7 year old god-child yesterday!