I've moved!

This blog will close soon. You can find me here, still at blogspot (thanks to recent improvements), but with a new url, title, and theme.

If there's anyone out there who still frequents this blog or has it on a reader, I invite you to join me in my new effort in blogging mediocrity.

Quote of the Day

"Innocent suffering is a hippopotamus."

D. Clines, Job WBC, 1:xlvi

A Bizarre Dream about Christian Hermeneutics

Last night, I had a bizarre dream in which the fittingness of New Testament anti-types from Israel's history was allegorically tested by the ability of an archer to lodge arrows in my back. I managed to elude his offenses, running madly and throwing obstacles in the way.

True Story.

"What is Man?" CSBS Abstract

Come the end of May I will be reading a paper for the following abstract at the annual meeting of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies:

“What is Man?” Creation and Anthropology in the Hebrew Bible to the Hodayot

A prominent form critical element of the Hodayot found among the Dead Sea Scrolls has been termed “Doxologies of Lowliness”, after the so-called “Doxologies of Righteousness” of the Hebrew Bible. These Qumran texts share with their biblical counterparts an emphasis on the righteousness of God, but along with amplifying the emphasis on human sinfulness they ground human lowliness and sin in humanity’s very creatureliness rather than simply its behaviour. This paper will investigate select Hebrew Bible texts which combine the themes of creation and anthropology, including the P and J sources in the primordial history of Genesis, Psalms 8 and 139, and a selection of texts from the Book of Job, in order to compare their own formulations of the tension between human creatureliness and sinfulness and to uncover any tradition-historical connections which may illuminate the Doxologies of Lowliness.

I invite any suggestions regarding bibliography, especially in the Hebrew Bible material.

Creation, Theodicy, and the Divine: A Biblical Scholar Talks LOST?

Reading Jon D. Levenson's Sinai and Zion I was struck by how well his discussion of the problem of monotheism in the Bible via the flood narratives parallels what is going on in the television series LOST (I've italicized the most relevant part):

But there are reasons to doubt whether the religion of Israel was really monotheistic. Consider an illustration: Once there were two gods. One held high hopes for creation and would not tolerate evil in it; the other was more a realist and was prepared to bear with man, even though the latter's impulses were evil from his youth on. The first god brought a flood to destroy the world with the exception of one family of righteous people, for he regretted having created the world. But, after a while, he was overcome by the second god, who caused the flood to subside and swore that he would never allow such a thing to occur, even though man is still evil. Now this story is surely polytheistic; there are two gods. But is it essentially different from the story of Noah in Genesis 6-9? In the latter, God determines to destroy the whole world, except for Noah and his family, because of its corruption (6:13),but then he promises that he will not bring a flood again, even though man has not reformed. "The inclinations of man's mind are [still] evil from his youth" (8:31). In other words, God changes his mind twice in the story of Noah. First he regrets having created the world (6:7), and then he decides that he will not bring another flood even though man's evil, the cause of the flood, continues. My question is this: Is this one God or more than one? . . . Wherein lies the continuity of identity? (Jon D. Levenson, Sinai and Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible. New York: Harper, 1985. p. 57)

Of course, the parallel is not exact, but substitute "the island" for "creation" and you get a fairly good description of the kind of conflict portrayed between Jacob and his nemesis on LOST. Just to be clear: I'm not suggesting LOST wrestles with the philosophical problem of monotheism, only that its dualism has a parallel in the biblical traditions' struggle to reconcile a-sort-of-monotheism and human evil.

No Wonder I Couldn't Find It...

...Walter Brueggemann's Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy on Chapter's website. Here's a screenshot of how it appears. Note that the author is missing, an editor is listed (is there actually an editor?), and the title is badly misspelled!

BibleWorks 8 Review Index

Here I've gathered together links to my BibleWorks 8 review:
Part 1, Contents and Modules
Part 2, Using BibleWorks
Part 3, Conclusion