A while back a meme circulated concerning books that had been influential in a blogger's life. Periodically since then I have lain awake at night thinking about what books I would choose. Partly in the interests of better sleep, then, here's my list. These are books that for various reasons were influential, not necessarily because they are the best books on their topic.
Richard Burridge, Four Gospels, One Jesus? A Symbolic Reading. This book, and a Synopsis on the Four Gospels, were the required texts for a course introducing the Four Gospels, which I took with Wes Olmstead in my undergrad. It was probably less the book and more the professor that was so influential; nevertheless, the book symbolizes for me the time in my life when the endlessly fascinating world of the Gospels opened up to me.
Stephen Westerholm, Perspectives Old and New on Paul: the 'Lutheran' Paul and his Critics. Besides being convincing on a great many points of contention in pauline scholarship, this book is a model of good writing and the use of humour.
Carol Newsom, The Self as Symbolic Space: Constructing Identity and Community at Qumran. If you already have a basic introduction to the Dead Sea Scrolls, this book works to immerse you in the symbolic world of the yahad. This brilliant, first rate-book solidified my already growing interest in the Scrolls.
Francis Watson, Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith. I was completely engrossed in this book, and it ignited an interest in the reception of Scripture. Absolutely must reading for pauline scholars.
Influential or important books I nevertheless have fundamental disagreements with:
Mark Nanos, The Irony of Galatians. A reminder of the limits of our knowledge about the Galatian "crisis," but ultimately unconvincing. To me, it feels like there's an a priori here about Paul and Judaism that skews the whole.
Seth Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society. Undoubtedly important, but finally unconvincing on its most distinctive point. I have fundamental problems with Schwartz's method and handling of the evidence. One important example: I think he mishandles the evidence concerning the role of synagogues in Jewish Society prior to 200 CE, and this in part allows him to argue for the collapse of Jewish identity following the two revolts of the first and second century.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Two (unrelated) Links: Scrolls Lectures and Concerts on Demand
This CBC website is a tremendous catalogue of over 800 concerts available on demand. A few of the artists who stand out to me include:
Bruce Cockburn
Rufus Wainwright
Sarah McLachlan
Joel Plaskett
Jim Cuddy
Steve Earl
Steve Bell
Nearly every genre's represented. Check it out.
And the Royal Ontario Museum is posting lectures on demand and for download in connection with the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit. Four lectures are already up, here.
Bruce Cockburn
Rufus Wainwright
Sarah McLachlan
Joel Plaskett
Jim Cuddy
Steve Earl
Steve Bell
Nearly every genre's represented. Check it out.
And the Royal Ontario Museum is posting lectures on demand and for download in connection with the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit. Four lectures are already up, here.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
The Espresso Files--Syrups
Not too long ago my wife, in keeping with her general awesomeness, bought me an espresso machine. Not just any espresso machine, either. This is the Delonghi Super Automatic espresso maker. I love it, absolutely love it. It has almost entirely cured me of my Second Cup/Starbucks addiction. (There are two exceptions to this statement: I still sometimes buy from either outlet coffee/espresso beans, and, once in a rare while, or when out of town, I buy drinks, primarily to compare with my own homemade versions.) Not long after I discovered the taste of espresso, primarily via the Americano, I turned my back on regular coffee. An Americano is espresso diluted with hot water, and fixed up as you would a regular coffee.
What's the difference in taste, you ask? It is the difference between milk and dark chocolate or a cheap, sweet red wine and a full bodied Shiraz. It is rich, with a hint of bitterness. And it is versatile. I haven't taken to straight shots of espresso but use it as a base for a continually expanding repertoire of varieties of drinks. Today, for instance, I made a first attempt at creating a strawberry latte. It is good, but the recipe needs perfecting. When I have perfected it, I'll post it.
One obstacle to making the perfect homemade latte is the price of the syrups. Starbucks' sell for $10.95 a bottle (in the US; probably more in Canada). The good news is that you can make your own. Make a simple syrup and add flavour extract. So boil a cup of sugar and a cup of water, add at least a teaspoon of extract, let simmer for several mintues, and you can now make a flavoured latte as good as any.
What's the difference in taste, you ask? It is the difference between milk and dark chocolate or a cheap, sweet red wine and a full bodied Shiraz. It is rich, with a hint of bitterness. And it is versatile. I haven't taken to straight shots of espresso but use it as a base for a continually expanding repertoire of varieties of drinks. Today, for instance, I made a first attempt at creating a strawberry latte. It is good, but the recipe needs perfecting. When I have perfected it, I'll post it.
One obstacle to making the perfect homemade latte is the price of the syrups. Starbucks' sell for $10.95 a bottle (in the US; probably more in Canada). The good news is that you can make your own. Make a simple syrup and add flavour extract. So boil a cup of sugar and a cup of water, add at least a teaspoon of extract, let simmer for several mintues, and you can now make a flavoured latte as good as any.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Summer Reading
I usually read a couple of novels during the summer. This year I also read two, one I had been intending to read for sometime and the other was a bit of happenstance, more or less.
The first book was Ernest Hemingway's, The Sun also Rises. This, my first exposure to the famed novelist, was a great disappointment. I found the writing so dull (not unlike some academic monographs) and the story so unremarkable (not unlike the theses of most undergraduate term papers) that it took two prolonged attempts to finally reach the end. If the author's only purpose was to recreate in the reader a sense of the lostness of the post-Great War generation, then, fine, he succeeded admirably. Fun aside, it is entirely possible that my own limitations prevented me from really getting this book. After all, it was included in Time Magazine's list of best 100 novels from 1923-2005.
The second book, Andrew Davidson's, The Gargoyle, I only read because my wife was reading and enjoying it, and we were on vacation in Vancouver. This is the story of the becoming-human of a pornographer through a relationship with a mysterious woman whom he meets after surviving a car accident severely burned--and emasculated. The book deals with some weighty and even theological themes. Part of its mystery involves a medieval monastery in Germany and mystic theology. The book walks many fine lines, between the sublime and the absurd, the profound and the silly or cliche, sometimes stumbling onto the wrong side. I doubt many critics would call it a literary masterpiece (but, after The Sun also Rises, so what?). And I sometimes tired of its many detours. Still, overall I enjoyed this and appreciated the author's grappling with big questions.
Update: An interesting coincidence between the books just occurred to me: the protagonists of each are men who are incapable of normal sexual functions. In one the lack is curiously only implied and though I want to say it is another signal of the senselessness of life, I'm guessing there's more there, and perhaps something different, than that; in the other of course it is instrumental (pardon the pun) of the protagonist's transformation.
The first book was Ernest Hemingway's, The Sun also Rises. This, my first exposure to the famed novelist, was a great disappointment. I found the writing so dull (not unlike some academic monographs) and the story so unremarkable (not unlike the theses of most undergraduate term papers) that it took two prolonged attempts to finally reach the end. If the author's only purpose was to recreate in the reader a sense of the lostness of the post-Great War generation, then, fine, he succeeded admirably. Fun aside, it is entirely possible that my own limitations prevented me from really getting this book. After all, it was included in Time Magazine's list of best 100 novels from 1923-2005.
The second book, Andrew Davidson's, The Gargoyle, I only read because my wife was reading and enjoying it, and we were on vacation in Vancouver. This is the story of the becoming-human of a pornographer through a relationship with a mysterious woman whom he meets after surviving a car accident severely burned--and emasculated. The book deals with some weighty and even theological themes. Part of its mystery involves a medieval monastery in Germany and mystic theology. The book walks many fine lines, between the sublime and the absurd, the profound and the silly or cliche, sometimes stumbling onto the wrong side. I doubt many critics would call it a literary masterpiece (but, after The Sun also Rises, so what?). And I sometimes tired of its many detours. Still, overall I enjoyed this and appreciated the author's grappling with big questions.
Update: An interesting coincidence between the books just occurred to me: the protagonists of each are men who are incapable of normal sexual functions. In one the lack is curiously only implied and though I want to say it is another signal of the senselessness of life, I'm guessing there's more there, and perhaps something different, than that; in the other of course it is instrumental (pardon the pun) of the protagonist's transformation.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Wrestling with German
One year ago I finished a two-part crash course on reading acadamic German. Unfortunately, I was unable to do much to keep up my German since then because of more pressing considerations (preparations for comprehensive exams). But now that I am finally embarking on my dissertation, I can no longer shrug off the inevitable.
I'm currently plodding through H. Lichtenberger's, Studien zum Menschenbild in Texten der Qumrangemeinde. Hardly do you encounter a book where you absolutely have to read every word. Even more so when the book is in German. Nevertheless, the monograph is so crucial for my topic, that I'll probably need to work through most of it. So far I've found Google Translate to be an invaluable aid. There is much more written in German on the topic of or texts relevant to my dissertation (very broadly: Qumran and Pauline Anthropologies and Genesis 1-3), so I look forward to the day when I can largely put aside something like Google Translate and work through a book with only a dictionary at hand (or is that a pipe-dream?).
I don't think it an efficient use of time to actually make my own translation. Rather I take notes summarizing the content I have deciphered.
How about others out there who have never spent much time in Germany, never actually studied the language in order to gain full mastery (both spoken and written), but who have a working knowledge of the basics of the grammar; how do you go about wrestling with German sources? How comfortable are you with the language and how long have you worked at it, or how many sources have you worked through?
I'm currently plodding through H. Lichtenberger's, Studien zum Menschenbild in Texten der Qumrangemeinde. Hardly do you encounter a book where you absolutely have to read every word. Even more so when the book is in German. Nevertheless, the monograph is so crucial for my topic, that I'll probably need to work through most of it. So far I've found Google Translate to be an invaluable aid. There is much more written in German on the topic of or texts relevant to my dissertation (very broadly: Qumran and Pauline Anthropologies and Genesis 1-3), so I look forward to the day when I can largely put aside something like Google Translate and work through a book with only a dictionary at hand (or is that a pipe-dream?).
I don't think it an efficient use of time to actually make my own translation. Rather I take notes summarizing the content I have deciphered.
How about others out there who have never spent much time in Germany, never actually studied the language in order to gain full mastery (both spoken and written), but who have a working knowledge of the basics of the grammar; how do you go about wrestling with German sources? How comfortable are you with the language and how long have you worked at it, or how many sources have you worked through?
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Hebrew Help - 1QHodayot a X
So I've been translating the Hodayot, and felt I was proceeding at a reasonable clip. And then I hit the first "teacher" hymn in Col X. A significant vocabulary shift occurs and I found myself even more consistently turning to the lexicon. In any case, I'm on the second such hymn and am stumbling over the language yet again. I don't know if I'm missing something completely obvious or what, so I'm feeling hesitant to make a fool of myself in this way. But perhaps you can help. Here is the phrase from Col X 27 of the editio princeps (line 25 in DSSSE):
ואני אמרתי חנו עלי גבורים סבבום
First, the word סבבום is probably a misspelling of סבבוני, but what is troubling me is the presence of חנו. Am I missing something totally obvious? I can't identify anything about the meaning or function of this word.
Update: see comments. I think I've figured it out. But when I have the time, I'll need to post a second update with the rest of what I now think is the relevant portion of the text.
Update 2: I misconstrued the Hebrew due to unfamiliarity with the sense of "encamp" for the root חנה. I missed the fact that the word סבב is parallel to חנה and does not go with עלי גבורים but with the words that follow it. Here's the whole:
ואני אמרתי חנו עלי גבורים סבבום
First, the word סבבום is probably a misspelling of סבבוני, but what is troubling me is the presence of חנו. Am I missing something totally obvious? I can't identify anything about the meaning or function of this word.
Update: see comments. I think I've figured it out. But when I have the time, I'll need to post a second update with the rest of what I now think is the relevant portion of the text.
Update 2: I misconstrued the Hebrew due to unfamiliarity with the sense of "encamp" for the root חנה. I missed the fact that the word סבב is parallel to חנה and does not go with עלי גבורים but with the words that follow it. Here's the whole:
ואני אמרתי חנו עלי גבורים
סבבום בכול כלי מלחמותם
Thursday, June 4, 2009
This Morning with the Hodayot
It's a glorious morning.
"[However, what is] the spirit of flesh to understand all these matters and to have insight in [your wondrous] and great counsel? What is someone born of a woman among all your awesome works? He is a structure of dust fasioned with water, his counsel is the [iniquity] of sin, shame of dishonor and so[urce of] impurity, and a depraved spirit rules over him. . . . Only by your goodness is man acquitted, [purified] by the abundance of [your]compassion." 1QHa V 19-23 trans. DSSSE 1.151 (in the editio princeps, actually lines 30-34)
And I'm set to spend part of it deciphering Column V of 1QHodayot.
"[However, what is] the spirit of flesh to understand all these matters and to have insight in [your wondrous] and great counsel? What is someone born of a woman among all your awesome works? He is a structure of dust fasioned with water, his counsel is the [iniquity] of sin, shame of dishonor and so[urce of] impurity, and a depraved spirit rules over him. . . . Only by your goodness is man acquitted, [purified] by the abundance of [your]compassion." 1QHa V 19-23 trans. DSSSE 1.151 (in the editio princeps, actually lines 30-34)
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