UPDATE: J. K. Gayle has offered some additional links specifically from women bloggers. (I will more fully incorporate them into the blog when I return from vac and have access to a computer. Back so see the bottom of the post for her links, but be sure to visit her blog as well for comments there.)
[Folks, I have worked on this for the last two days, I even have LOTS more links, but I am just out of time. Sometimes real work and family have to take priority over blogging.]
Bibliobloggers, creators of posts interesting and challenging, judges of all dilettantes and heretics: I acknowledge and bewail my manifold sins and wickedness, which I have from time to time most grievously committed. I have not read your blogs on a regular basis, I have not commented with consistency, I often have not posted on my own blog. I am truly sorry and I humbly repent. As penance, I make this offering from your own good gifts. Accept them, I ask, in the spirit in which they are intended and add to them also through your comments.
Welcome to the July Biblical Studies Carnival covering the month of June, 2011. As with all Carnivals this one reflects the host so this month it will be all photos and comics…. Not really. Well, not much. I am grateful to those who submitted entries and I encourage anyone who feels I have missed something important to post it in the comments. Questions of translation were big last month (or at least those folks were better at tooting the translation horn). And I know I have missed an awful lot of good discussion. So educate us all, if you don’t mind, and if nothing else, consider each link a reason to go a read whatever that author has on offer.
Trends and being trendy
A few things out of the way first. If you are interested in Zwingli (occasionally), people of Wal-Mart, and the detritus of humanity, you know where to go. And lately Herr Depravity has been rubbing off on Buddy Jesus. #justsoyouknow 1Not really into the whole hastag trend myself, particularly not outside of twitter, but Joel did it last month so with a need to be tragically hip, I follow suit. #justsayin
Early in the month, John Hobbins to us why he couldn’t recommend Patheos. It elicited some good discussion and James McGrath defended his move. Ben Myers of Faith and Theology also debated the move, generating just under a 100 comments. He had an invite. Others of us are just bitter. (I am still trying to figure out why so many are now cluttering their links with “NetworkedBlogs.” Those things drive me nuts, but I wonder if they are driving revenue or hits for some?) On other issues of little meaning, June began with a new #1 Biblioblog. I still don’t understand why Alexa doesn’t like me. I send her flowers…
As I have been writing this a flurry of posts have gone up about the Biblioblog Reference Library. Today (July 1) an open letter was posted by the curator, Steve Caruso.
Back to the Bible, First Matters
We should begin this section by congratulating John Anderson on his book being in press with Eisenbrauns, Jacob and the Divine Trickster. (He should also be commended for losing 71 pounds! [And that is not Sterling.] Well done mate.) And he is already thinking about God Gone Wild and his next book project.
The aforementioned author of Ancient Hebrew Poetry encouraged us all this month to get our Hebrew on by reading through Genesis. While I am on John’s blog and since I myself have been hard at work translating Targum Ruth, I would be remiss not to point out his several posts on the difficulties of biblical translation (there are lots, click through). One of the reasons I read John is because of his great reflection, but also his links. The article on “Dissatisfaction with the new NIV among Biblical Bloggers” is a great example.
Bob MacDonald had two posts on the topic and a mid-month round up of his own. He also offered observations by Joel Hoffman, who insists that G0d Didn’t Say That, on translating mistakes in the text. On matters relating to the Septuagint Brian D of LXXI asks What does 70 have to do with the Greek Old Testament?, PDF Version of the NA27 Marginal Notes and With Christ “in God”?
We shouldn’t lose site of the fact that before we can translate we have to have a text, and Adam Couturier, otherwise known as Mishlei_Adam, has some thoughts on the importance of reading handwritten manuscripts. Larry Hurtado coincidentally has some remarks on the longevity of manuscripts.
Finally, and turning to the New Testament, Ken Schenk asks how we should translate Paul’s “deterministic” language. A topic of great interest to many of us, he argues:
1. Paul himself does not follow through with this language philosophically in the rest of his theology and
2. It contradicts a fundamental principle in James 1:13, namely, that God does not tempt anyone with evil.
Moving from translation to questions of methodology, NT Mark pointed out several posts responding to Roland Boer’s Bible & Interp article on Reception History. Chris Heard started the responses, followed up by, guess who?, John “The Hobo” Hobbins, and Roland himself. (And be sure to see Mike’s notice about his paper for iSBL in London and his posts on the provenance of Mark.)
bob cargill, a new addition to the mighty big 10, has the 2010 debate on the reliability of scripture between bart ehrman and craig evans not to mention james mcgrath on our shifting view of literalism and reality in the bible (and a disturbing lack of capital letters).
Big News
There were a few big stories this past month. Well, technically the end of the world was last month, but cartoonist extraordinaire Dan Piraro (artwork and commentary found often on this site) addressed the topic in June.
The release of photographs and a statement from the IAA of an ossuary of questionable provenance made all the news last week. bob cargill has the most thorough roundup that i found, with plenty of links. But I should also note that both bob and Steve Caruso have great images with the inscription outlined for easy viewing:
Miriam, Daughter of Yeshua, Son of Caiaphas, Priest of Ma’aziah from Beth ‘Imri
And finally, in the last days of the month, news came out about a new software program created by Israeli computer scientist Moshe Koppel that analyzes writing styles. I have not seen a lot of comments on the blogs (yet) but I am sure more will come. From the news piece:
When the new software was run on the Pentateuch, it found the same division, separating the “priestly” and “non-priestly.” It matched up with the traditional academic division at a rate of 90 percent — effectively recreating years of work by multiple scholars in minutes, said Moshe Koppel of Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv, the computer science professor who headed the research team.
“We have thus been able to largely recapitulate several centuries of painstaking manual labor with our automated method,” the Israeli team announced in a paper presented last week in Portland, Oregon, at the annual conference of the Association for Computational Linguistics.
And with that I must sadly end this month’s carnival. It has been fun and I know I have missed many great posts and conversations. The Biblioblog Reference Library may not be the answer, but there are now so many great bloggers out there that this monthly round up can never do it justice.
I hope you enjoyed it and for my fellow Americans, happy 4th of July! (And Happy Thanksgiving to those in the UK.)
Additional suggestions from J. K. Gayle, specifically blogs by women:
Trends and being trendy
Rachel Marszalek bucked the trend of absolute male dominance in theJune BiblioBlog Top 50 by Alexa by being there, the sole woman Bible blogger blogging alone last month to make it into this esteemed group. And she writes this post (musing some about the trendy of the previous month): “Sometimes the most beautiful things can stink.” And then there was also this trend near-reversal to note: just under half (i.e., a full 40%) of the “Current Top 10” (albeit not a current list at all) are women; that’s 4 of 10, ladies and gentleman, for May.
Back to the Bible, First Matters
Did you see this one by The Velveteen Rabbi, Rachel Barenblat? Here’s a snippet from just the first of June:
The “kingdom of God” may be a term more comfortable for Christians than for liberal Jews. When we hear it, many of us think of The Lord’s Prayer — “for Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory” — and these don’t feel like Jewish ideas to most of us. But they are Jewish ideas! We use these words in our liturgy every day (though in Hebrew, so they don’t push the same buttons for us which may be pushed by the English terms of Christian liturgy.)
Big News
Suzanne McCarthy pointed out the big news that the Danvers Statement was inverted. She says: “I hope that it is not seen as cruel, but just as an alternative look at how scripture could be selected and prioritized. No sin in that, surely.” And don’t worry; she did not exclude anyone’s voice because she did also link to the un-inverse Danvers statement too.
And from commenters on her site (for inclusion, not to keep you from visiting JK’s site! By all means do so.)
Kristen said…
Here’s a blog I really like: The Happy Surprise by K. Bonikowsky:
http://kbonikowsky.wordpress.com/
She is doing, among other things, a series on the Church Fathers and another on Women in the Text.
Then there’s this one: Notations, by Naomi King Walker. It doesn’t get updated as often, but when it does, it’s well worth reading:
http://www.womanmusicminister.blogspot.com/
There’s also this really good one by Asian American Christian female church leaders:
Izzy said…
Best Blog on Genesis EVER… “Just Genesis” by Alice C. Linsley.
http://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/
Alice is an amazing Scholar and after 4 years of writing about “Just Genesis” I feel like there is still much to mine. She approaches both as a Anthropologist and Theologian.
She is a former Priest of the Episcopal Church who renounced the priesthood and converted to the Eastern Orthodox Church…partially as a result of her study on gender roles are drawn from anthropological study of Genesis and the conviction that Genesis is foundational to the Bible and to Christian theology.
It’s refreshing to read her research knowing you are not going to have to sort through hidden agendas-feminist, conservative, liberal, creationist, evolution etc…While there are many ways to approach Genesis, Alice approaches it as the “origin of Messianic expectation among Abraham’s Kushite ancestors”
Very enlightening…take a look…you won’t be bored.
Sue also put in our comments, but I add it here as well:
I’d like to balance out John’s post on the NIV by linking to
http://claudemariottini.org/2011/06/21/the-sbc-resolution-on-the-niv-2011/
http://blogs.bible.org/bock/darrell_l._bock/in_defense_of_the_niv_2011
http://www.cbeinternational.org/files/u1/free-art/2011-NIV.pdf
http://kenschenck.blogspot.com/2011/06/niv-2011-and-romans-161.html
I have tried to follow responses to the NIV that cross the spectrum.
- 1Not really into the whole hastag trend myself, particularly not outside of twitter, but Joel did it last month so with a need to be tragically hip, I follow suit. #justsayin
32 thoughts on “Updated: Biblical Studies Carnival for July 2011”
I look forward to reading many of these posts. Thanks for putting this together, Chris!
nice work man
Thanks, Chris. Good stuff.
The only correction that needs to be made is the link you provide from Eisenbrauns for my book. For some reason their website links are not static; there is, however, a permanent link for my listing: http://www.eisenbrauns.com/item/ANDJACOBA
If you could correct that link above to the one I list here I would greatly appreciate it. Danke!
Thanks! Correction made.
Excellent summary of the month, Chris. 🙂
Peace,
-Steve
I really have been hobo-ing lately. As in out in the garden with a pitchfork, turning over the ground for a Shared Harvest plot. Shared Harvest is a ministry which provides fresh vegetables at Farmers Markets for the indigent – a category that is swelling at the present time.
Thanks for pointing out a number of great threads I was unaware of.
Sounds like great work John and even with all that activity, you are still posting great stuff (and I know, preaching great sermons).
I’d like to balance out John’s post on the NIV by linking to
http://claudemariottini.org/2011/06/21/the-sbc-resolution-on-the-niv-2011/
http://blogs.bible.org/bock/darrell_l._bock/in_defense_of_the_niv_2011
http://www.cbeinternational.org/files/u1/free-art/2011-NIV.pdf
http://kenschenck.blogspot.com/2011/06/niv-2011-and-romans-161.html
http://rogueleaf.com/biblioblog-library/2011/06/16/official-announcement-i%E2%80%99m-buying-an-niv-2011/
I have tried to follow responses to the NIV that cross the spectrum.
I noticed you made a pithy tooltip for each link. Very clever. 🙂
I am glad someone noticed. It would spoil the fun if I pointed it out. 😉
Thanks, always enjoy reading the carnivals
Jim West congratulates: “nice work man.” And I’d agree. Except I also have to notice that this carnival written by a man contains not even one link to any of the wonderful posts of the month of June written by a woman. Is it because the Top 50 Biblioblogs are still so very conspicuously dominated by men? Where the carnival in the past has included some women bloggers, why the huge oversight this month?
JK – The reason is simple: no female blogger sent me links to their blogs nor did anyone else send me links to blogs by women. As my silly introduction meant to convey, I have not had time lately to read many blogs and so I relied upon links sent to me by others.
I also asked for people to correct and expand my offering by sharing links via comments. So what links would you like to share?
Thanks Chris. I’ve shared just a few links and some thoughts, here:
http://speakeristic.blogspot.com/2011/07/eve-sexting-in-carnival.html
jk- why dont you host one instead of complaining?
What a great idea, Jim. I hate having to complain but would love getting to host everybody.
JK,
Thank you for posting additional links on your blog. I will add them into the body of the post shortly.
I have to say that I find your tone quite offensive, implying that I intentionally did not include links to blogs by women and that I am being condescending by “kindly” giving you (plural) more time to send in links. I began and concluded this Carnival with the appeal to everyone to send it links. Why? because I know that I have not had the time and ability to appropriately represent everything out in the biblioblogging world over the last month. There is nothing intentional about the omission of posts by women.
As an aside, in (apparently) criticizing my choice of comic related to Adam and Eve you cite Gen. 3:12. Since your blog indicates you are interested feminist subjects, I thought you might like to read my interpretation of the related passages. I find Adam a full participant and read Gen. 1-3 as a surprisingly egalitarian text.
This entire experience, however, affirms my concerns about continuing the Biblical Studies Carnival. There are so many bloggers out there writing about so many subjects that it is (clearly) possible to inadvertently offend people by omitting their blogs. I sought to alleviate that by calling upon folks to submit their own recommendations and that call was kindly extended over various blogs. I am extremely grateful to those who submitted, links, but…well, we know how this has turned out.
Chris,
First, please know that I quoted you directly and fully and put a link to your comment and to this Carnival post and also to your blog generally. Despite any tone of mine, I hope readers can see for themselves exactly what you wrote and how you surely meant what you wrote in context. Second, I can only imagine the difficulty of selecting posts for such a carnival. Time is no friend when you have so very much and many to include, I’m sure. Third, your cartoon is funny. Didn’t I say that too? And please know that I was trying to add some humor by stacking Genesis 3:12 next to what you wrote. (Again, your own word speak for themselves.) Your intentions are very clear. No worries. Thanks also for linking to your post(s) on Genesis 3:6, to show that Adam is complicit and is silent, despite how a couple of English translations render it.
Nonetheless, it’s troublesome that women bloggers are entirely neglected. It’s not your fault that nobody sent you posts authored by women and that everyone who sent you posts sent ones written only by men. How is it condescending that you’re “kindly” allowing us all now — lest we be complicit and silent — to correct and to expand? You are right, and kind, to do this. And I’m glad the corrections and expansions aren’t only about women directly. It’s wonderful that you and Suzanne together now acknowledge the need for some balance with respect to the NIV 2011 posts. (But isn’t this a gender and an egalitarian issues too? It’s funny – strange funny, not humorous at all – how the advantage always goes to men who would silence women, would exclude their voices.)
I don’t really know Jim, but I am sincere in saying to him that, rather than just complain, it’d be good for me to attempt the burden of hosting a carnival. As I read your last paragraph to me, in your comment here, it makes me a bit sad to know how you’ve felt you’ve possibly inadvertently offended. Your tone, to me anyways, seems very welcoming now. Please know I also did not intend to offend, nor would I feel very good at all to know I’d even possibly inadvertently hurt you. Thank you so very much for talking further here, for explaining more. Thanks for asking me also to clarify. Sincerely hope this reply of mine helps some!
Dear J. K.,
Thank you very much for your kind response. I appreciate your time and graciousness. We all know how impersonal the internet can be and how easy it is to misunderstand and be misunderstood. Your reply clarifies matters for me and makes me freel much better about the whole endeavor and our exchange. Thank you again.
Fair enough. I didn’t send any links. While I usually enjoy reading the carnival, it is always with mixed feelings.
Chris,
Thank you very much for your explanation. First, I did not send you any links. Second, I am entirely disinterested in whether I am linked to or not in most cases, including this carnival. It doesn’t matter to me and I don’t mind.
But I do appreciate the explanation, because I was wondering why you would link to such a negative post about the NIV 2011, without linking to the various rebuttals of that post and supportive reactions. But you have now explained that it is because the link for the negative review was sent to you and other links, positive reviews of the NIV 2011 were not sent to you. That makes sense now.
PS I sincerely appreciate the extensive efforts of those who do host these carnivals.
Sue,
Thank YOU very much. I appreciate your understanding and your sending along those links. You could tell how cramped I was for time, I didn’t even link to my own blog posts on Boaz and Ruth which included your excellent comments. (I really do thank you for them, they are informing my article in a great way.)