Isa. 60:1 Arise, shine; for your light has come,

and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you.

2 For darkness shall cover the earth,

and thick darkness the peoples;

but the LORD will arise upon you,

and his glory will appear over you.

 

“God is Not in this Classroom” or Reading the Bible in a Secular Context

Description: Teaching biblical literature in a secular Liberal Arts environment requires allowing the texts to speak for themselves, so that students might hear what the texts have to say (which may not necessarily be what we want to hear). This is easier said than done since we must attempt to leave religious convictions, traditions, and specific agendas behind. At the same time, we must also recognize that we will not always be able to avoid our own historical context and bias. In light of these challenges and through my eight years experience as a Christian teaching courses in a Jewish Studies program at a secular university I have developed methods (and discarded others) for teaching the Hebrew Bible that include reading the texts critically as literary and historical sources while salting the course with Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and other interpretations. The goal is to use the potential handicaps of preconceived ideas and convictions as gateways into the material. God may well be in the classroom and miracles may well occur, but the students know that they have to determine that for themselves.

When I originally proposed this paper, as you can see from the description I intended to share with you how I sprinkled my courses on the Hebrew Bible with readings of various readings of the text. Next semester I will be teaching Genesis, for example, and in that course we will being by reading the biblical text itself and then read Bonhoeffer’s little work on creation. When we get to Noah we will read the Genesis Apocryphon and when we get to the story of Tamar we will look at a feminist reading of the text (and make oblique references to The Red Tent). But I think this approach is fairly self-evident, that by showing students multiple readings of the same or similar text they will begin to see the challenges and promise of reading a text that is so ancient and yet still so relevant to so many. I also realized, as I surveyed the field and looked at the other proposals for today, that this is an approach that many have found useful and I did not want to burden you with my rendition of this theme.

It seems that the sort of strategies most often employed in teaching the Bible in a secular liberal arts context involve teaching the Bible as something, e.g., “The Bible as Literature,” “The Bible as History.” Or we might provide “readings” of the Bible, such as a feminist, liberationist, modern, etc. Please note, this is not a criticism per se, these are legitimate and useful strategies and that I regularly employ, yet each of these methods is an attempt to read the biblical text as something other than it is.

Recently, and independently of preparation for these sessions, there has been a fair amount of discussion on the internet, on the so-called “biblioblogs,” about just how we teach the Bible in a secular, liberal arts context. On one site, Kevin Wilson’s BlueCord.org, a lively debate ensued as to whether or not one could read the biblical text purely as “historical” or whether or not, as Steve Cook asserted,

You are engaging a text whose existence is owed to the historical community’s valuing of it as Word/Witness to the transcendent. There is an inherent “theological” dimension to this text’s preservation until this very day and its existence in your hands.

In other words, by the very act of engaging with these texts that are both theological in content and theological in their preservation, we are dealing with theology.

I have become convinced that a very productive method of teaching the Bible, particularly where we are concerned with actually conveying some of the content of the text to our students, is to teach the Bible as what it is, a theological text. The vast majority of biblical texts are, after all, fundamentally theological texts and as Cook pointed out, Jews and Christians have viewed even the process of transmission as a theological matter. The challenge for us as teachers is that we are teaching in a fundamentally secular context. So how do we teach these theological texts without teaching or doing theology? Today I will offer a modest outline of a method for reading these theological texts.

This brings me back to my title, “God is not in this classroom.” This is the statement with which I begin my first lecture of most courses dealing with the Bible and I quickly follow it with the observation that it is not an assertion of fact since I cannot prove it and most religious traditions would argue otherwise. God may be in the classroom and God may not. God may be in the text and God may not. What is certain is that the authors (and most likely their audiences) believed that God was active and interactive and many of them, if not all, believed that God was indeed in the giving and receiving of the text. “The word of the LORD came to me.” The next question is what do we, the faculty and the students, believe about the texts?

Internal Inventory

We must first recognize that it is very difficult to isolate one’s own theological convictions (even and especially when we believe we do not have any) from that of the texts we are reading. It is difficult, but I do not think it is impossible. In an effort to deal with this I encourage students, without calling upon them to share out loud, to reflect upon what affect their own background and religious convictions or lack thereof has upon their reading of the texts. And I will then come back to that point throughout the course since often we are unaware of this influence upon our thought. This “internal inventory” is imperative, in my opinion. For example, I never ask my students to decide whether or not they believe the miracles in the Bible occurred, but I do ask them to consider whether they believe that miracles could occur and then consider how that conviction will influence their reading of the text.
At this point we also discuss briefly the history of textual reception, manuscript traditions, and translations. The task here is to make the students sufficiently aware of the complexities involved in textual criticism without causing them to despair of ever knowing what the text says in its simplest form. (I present the material following the Jewish canonical form for a variety of reasons, not the least of which because it is the most ancient structure and ordering that we have of these texts. See Childs.)

Historical-Theological Approach

Once a “base text” (as fictive as that may be) has been established we engage in a simple reading of the text. Trying to determine the basic meanings of the words we are reading and what they mean when placed together to form sentences and complete units. At this point we can begin to talk about content and ask “what is the text saying” and the related question “what does it mean.” This last question must be asked first and foremost, whatever later application one might have, in reference to the original author and audience. The challenge here is, of course, that we are radically removed from the author by thousands of years, miles, and cultures. But we must do our best.

I try not to present an extended lecture on the beliefs and practices of ancient Israel because any such reconstruction is bound to be a synthesis of disparate sources and mar the very object of our student. Instead I begin with the text in front of us and build out from there. As a result, for example, very quickly we being to discuss monotheism and the transcendence of God in reading Genesis 1 but only one chapter later we are discussing the immanence of the LORD God and the introduction of sin into the world. Both accounts provide very different “theologies” while also providing opportunities to discuss source criticism, literary criticism, and developing worldviews. We even touch on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design.
This is in many ways an “historical” approach. The quotes around “historical” are present because I do not refer to teaching the Bible as history, rather teaching the historical beliefs and theological convictions of the authors and the communities that preserved these texts, in so far as we are able to discover them. In our secular context, where we are not bound by a creed or code, this provides us with the reassuring protection of being able to say “they believed,” thus distancing ourselves from whatever we say following that clause and absolves us from making any judgment about the validity of that belief. We are merely observers. It also serves, I hope, to at once both challenge and disarm those students who might have more traditional or orthodox views of these passages.

This is, I think, the first and necessary step in engaging both our students and the texts. If we truly want our students to understand what they are reading they need to have some sense of its importance, if not for themselves, than at least for the people who wrote and preserved them. In describing what they believed we will invariably (or we ought to) consider why they held these convictions and this often leads to very relevant and contemporary concerns. For example, the Deuteronomic assertions that God punishes his people for their sins may be foreign and unacceptable to many of us, but once we understand that these convictions developed, at least in part, as a means of explaining the suffering of seemingly innocent people in this world, we may begin to better understand that view even if we do not espouse it ourselves.

The theological concerns of the biblical authors are not so different from our own, even if we do not identify them as theological, and of course the Bible deals with many issues that may well not be defined as purely “theological,” but are pertinent nonetheless. The Psalms, for example, are full of emotion and pathos that we all can relate to, not least of all college age students. Any number of wisdom psalms and the Book of Proverbs itself, while couched within “god language,” are espousing a way of life that most of us would still value, even if we do not call on the LORD. That similarity will allow discussion of the concept of “the fear of the LORD.”

The Problem of Miracles

Perhaps the most difficult passages of all for us to teach are not, however, the assertions of God’s might and law or the horrible tales of murder and rape, but are the accounts of the miraculous. I try to walk the fine line between appearing to espouse the plagues, the manna, and the miraculous births as “the Gospel truth” and rejecting them as fantasies and so much nonsense. I find neither extreme to be pedagogically useful. This via media does not, however, mean that I look for or teach naturalistic explanations for what the Bible clearly depicts as miraculous. That is certainly one possible interpretation that is included in our discussion, but I do not redefine “miracle” in such a way that it no longer means what the primary definition of the word clearly is.

The New Oxford American English Dictionary defines miracle as “an event that appears to be contrary to the laws of nature and is regarded as an act of God.” The biblical authors, whether Tanakh or New Testament, clearly know that these things that they are reporting do not usually happen. That is the whole point of a miracle! The very fact that such accounts are in the text speaks volumes about the fundamental beliefs of the authors.

Still, some scholars feel they are doing justice to the text and modern sensibilities to “rationalize” the miracles such as those who explain the plagues of Exodus as natural phenomena or the feeding of the thousands as actually acts of shame and charity. Others attribute genuine malice to the author, asserting that he invented the accounts of the miracle to justify a particular action, teaching, or tradition (usually, of course, something that the modern scholar rejects). In rationalizing away the historicity of the miracles such scholars are removing an essential element of the text and context.

When I teach such passages I again start from the historical-theological perspective and point out to my students that the authors did indeed know that such events did not occur in the natural order of things and yet (at least we can be certain in many cases) the authors believed that they had occurred and they believed that they occurred through the intervention of God. The origins of these stories are lost to us and it is impossible to reconstruct what may or may not have happened. (Although we do discuss the various possibilities.) So the next step is to ask how these stories functioned in the narrative and the life of the community. It is clear that many others at the time and since believed that these miracles occurred, “perhaps some of you in this room,” I always point out, and that is significant. Here we can assess the literary, social, theological, and historical impact of these particular narratives. Because at some point we can and should get past the question of whether or not something actually happened and acknowledge the effect of people believing that they occurred.

A prime example of this is the account of the Ten Plagues. The order, nature, and character of the plagues are themselves a commentary on YHWH’s victory over Egypt and their gods. I find it important to point out that this does not presuppose that the Israelites did not believe in the Egyptian deities, but that they believed their God was stronger, even on their home turf, than their gods. The power of this story of liberation continues to suffuse Judaism to this day and serves as one of the primary metaphors for interpreting the purpose of Jesus’ death/resurrection and Christian baptism. The import of the story is thus not reliant upon the “historicity” of the events, yet neither am I compelled to dispel a student’s conviction of their veracity.

Conclusion

The biblical texts are fundamentally theological and we ignore that to the detriment of our student’s education. The various historical critical methods that most of us were trained in and come to rely upon are still valuable. This approach to the texts should, in fact, lead to their employ. (I should note that Gottwald has outlined and demonstrated a similar approach of integrating all of these various concerns, including theological, in his Introduction. I find, however, that his organization of the textbook and insistence upon certain hypothetical reconstructions makes it far too cumbersome for use in an introductory, undergraduate class.) Once we have mined the text for as original a meaning as we can discover, we can then bring these other resources to bear as we trace textual and hermeneutical history of the text. It is then important to take the time, even if only briefly, to present other readings of the text. The student will then have an historical perspective to judge the development and adaptation of the text to meet later needs, themselves often theological.

[So my approach is somewhat like WC Smith not in that we need to begin with a history of the formation of canon, how the Bible became scripture, but in that I present the Bible and attempt to have my students glimpse it as, to use Smith’s words, “not merely as a set of ancient documents or even as a first- and second-century product but as a third-century and twelfth-century and nineteenth-century and contemporary agent” (p. 134).]

In many ways I am sure that I have not said anything new, certainly not to any of us in this room. Yet at the same time I believe there is a reticence for those of us teaching in a secular context to address the theology of these texts perhaps for fear that we will be perceived as doing theology. In our effort to show parallels with other ancient Near Eastern texts, provide feminist readings that cut across the text, and liberate the text from its patriarchal moorings I think we often miss and therefore fail to convey to our students, the fundamental power that these words had for their original audience. Once we have caught a glimpse of that original vision we can then more profitably see how others have read them. After all, God may not be in the classroom, but he may be in the Text.

 

With “Sacred Techs” we wanted to bring together information focused upon using technology in the real of biblical and ancient studies. It will be periodically updated, on a monthly basis at the least, with articles and interviews on various topics around this general theme. We are very hopeful that others will be willing to contribute to the site, there are many within the world of online ancient studies who are very (and more) adept in these areas, many who are creating the very technology that we will be reviewing, citing, and discussing. This is particularly true if you use something other than Apple products and MacOS, iOS, or Android software. It is not that we are prejudiced against other platforms, but the reality is that Robert and I both tend to use those products and platforms. If you are interested in contributing please drop us a line or leave a comment!

So welcome to Sacred Techs and stay tuned for what we hope will be a great year. First up on the podcast (see below!) is an introductory discussion and then we will follow up with a few interviews from 2011 SBL. Be sure to let us know whom you would like to hear us interview and what products you would like reviewed or compared.

@Targuman @sacredtechs @xkv8r Here’s one. How can Bible software help non-experts evaluate translations as never before? Long term effects?

 

The other interview was with British philosopher A. C. Grayling and former Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral in London Giles Fraser. They were discussing Grayling’s The Good Book: A Humanist Bible, which is just what its title suggests. What I wanted your opinion on is why anyone should consider this a “version” of the Bible? (As it was presented by the BBC’s John Humphrys who moderated the discussion.) Listen to the discussion which opens with a comparison of Gen. 2:15-17 with the opening lines of Grayling’s work.

15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

The Good Book

Chapter 1

1. In the garden stands a greed. In the springtime it bears flowers; in the autumn, fruit.

2. Its fruit is knowledge, teaching the good gardener how to understand the world.

3. From it he¹ learns how the tree grows from seed to sapling, from sapling to maturity, at last ready to offer more life;

4. And from maturity to age and sleep, whence it returns to the element of things.

5. The elements in turn feed new births, such is nature’s method, and its parallel with the course of humankind.

Of course this is not a translation or even a version of Genesis. It contains “truths” that I would suggest one could glean from the Bible and through natural revelation. This book that Grayling “modestly” offers (as the Canon pointed out, how modest can you be with your name on the spine of a book calling itself a “Bible”?) is intended to be a moral guide and text. Fraser rightly points out that the Bible is much more thank being about morality, it is about salvation. When Humphry said, but isn’t being saved all about doing good he was quickly corrected by Fraser. In fact, Fraser made my favorite point about the Bible, it is about real life and people, it is violent and messy with lots of things going on. That, to me, makes it far more compelling than a moral treatise (although the latter is no doubt better for battling insomnia).

Clearly Grayling is simply generating sales with the title of his book and perhaps it is the BBC’s fault for presenting this as a face-off between the KJV and the “Humanist Bible.”  Still, it irks me that this should be presented as a “version” of the Bible. Its not.

On the other hand, I can firmly recommend the version of the Bible that my daughter gave me for Christmas: The Brick Bible: A New Spin on the Old Testament. This is the print version of BP Smith’s http://www.thebricktestament.com/. This is as valid a version as the many graphic novels out there (or R. Crumb’s Genesis). I recommend it, but it is not the complete Old Testament. Ruth is missing, for example. And Smith has made certain interpretations with which I disagree. For example, he seems to depict Jonathan and David’s love for another as something more erotic than platonic. True, 1 Sam. 20:41 does say that they kissed and we know that they had a love for one another that went beyond that of a man for a woman and it is very much the trend to interpret this as a sexual relationship, but I am not convinced of that. My point? Not so much that Smith’s representation is wrong but that we can have a discussion about his interpretation. We cannot do that with Grayling’s “version” which isn’t.

Score:

LEGO Builders 1 — Philosophers 0

 

1. Not very progressive is he?

Advent is a time of expectation; we await the return of Christ even as we remember his first arrival as the baby Jesus. But what were the people of the first century expecting? We know that they looked for the Messiah, the “anointed one,” to arrive, but what kind of messiah were they looking, praying, and hoping for? In this series we will consider the biblical prophecies, contemporary Jewish texts like the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the New Testament to understand the historical question of Jesus’ messiahship. More importantly, we will also consider what sort of messiah we are expecting this Christmas.

I am sorry that I will be unable to be with you on this first Sunday of the series, 4 December. The time is not lost, however, since much of what we need to do is consider the biblical texts that form the background to the Jewish world that Jesus was born into. Indeed, this is “the Bible” that Jesus knew. The Gospels were not lived, let alone written, and the apostles and Paul had not yet been born. So today consider these texts from Scripture and discuss the questions presented. If the context of the text cited is unfamiliar by all means go back and consider the broader setting; that is always important and an appropriate thing to do. The questions are offered as nothing more than a catalyst to begin conversation so do not feel constrained by them but allow your thoughts and discussion to travel far and wide. I look forward to joining you in one week to continue the discourse.

— CMMB+

Son of David (Son of God?)

2 Sam. 7.11 “Moreover the LORD declares to you that the LORD will make you a house.  12 When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.  13 He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.  14 I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. When he commits iniquity, I will punish him with a rod such as mortals use, with blows inflicted by human beings.  15 But I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you.  16 Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever.”

This prophecy from Nathan to David assures David that his dynasty (unlike that of Saul, whom he replaced on the throne of Israel) shall last forever. How do you think this was received in David’s time or in those years following his own death?

By the time of Jesus this passage was understood as referring to someone more than simply a descendent of David. What do you think led to this “broader” interpretation? What historical events transpired in those several hundred years that led to Jews reinterpreting this passage?

Psalms 2:7  

I will tell of the decree of the LORD:

He said to me, “You are my son;

today I have begotten you.

8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,

and the ends of the earth your possession.

9 You shall break them with a rod of iron,

and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

Psalms 89:3 

You said, “I have made a covenant with my chosen one,

I have sworn to my servant David:

4 ‘I will establish your descendants forever,

and build your throne for all generations.’”

These are psalms often assumed to be “coronation” hymns that would have been sung at the anointing of the new king of Israel. The Hebrew term is משח (mesach), “to anoint,” and the one anointed is משיח (meseach), from whence we get the term “Messiah.” There were three groups of people who were anointed in the Bible: priests, prophets, and kings. These two psalms were clearly developed from the prophecy of 2 Sam. 7. Consider them in their contexts.

Immanuel – God with us

After Solomon’s death the kingdom of Israel split into two: Judah (with David’s heir on the throne) in the south and Israel (seen as the rebellious ones) to the north. Isaiah is prophesying to Ahaz in the famous verse. Consider it in context.

Isa. 7.14 Look, the young woman is with child and will bear a son, and will name him Immanuel. 15 He will eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good.

The historical setting was one of conflict and uncertainty. Isaiah was assuring Ahaz that all would be well and evidence of this was that his wife, who had been unable to bear children up until now, was with child and that son would be born and grown up. Why do you think we find this same passage used in a very different way in Matthew when the angel reassures Joseph that all will be well (Matt. 1.21-3)?

Isa. 9.6 “For a child has been born to us, a son given to us. Authority rests on his shoulders. He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7 His authority will continue to grow, and there will be everlasting peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and sustain it with justice and with righteousness from now and into the future forever. The zeal of YHWH of hosts will do it.”

Another prophetic text well known to us all from Christmas. This is the occasion, in its historical context, of the birth of Hezekiah, Ahaz’s son referred to above. Consider the titles ascribed to this child that “has been born to us.” Are these the epithets we would normally associate with a human king? Even considering that semi-divine attributes might at times be attributed to ancient kings (this is a debated point with reference to kings of Israel and Judah), what aspects of this passage do you think lent themselves to be interpreted by the time of Jesus as applying to someone more than a “simple” king?

A New Covenant

Jer. 31.31 The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.  32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD.  33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.  34 No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the LORD,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

The context for this passage is not about a king or a child’s birth, but rather it is about God’s relationship with his kingdom, his people Israel. It is just prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE and while God has declared through Jeremiah that Jerusalem would be destroyed for the sins of the nation, he also announces that a new covenant, a new contract with Israel would be forged. How do you think this would change the way Jews viewed the “old covenant” (the Law given at Sinai)? Does it change your view of the promise to David?

What kind of messiah do you think the ancient Jews living after the kingdom(s) had been destroyed, after the princes and priests and elite had been sent into exile, and after their return to rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple, living under first Persian, then Greek, then Roman rule had come to expect?

 

For my colleagues in biblical and rabbinic literature please bear with me in this post or simply skip towards the end. I found that this discussion led me to consider what is “content creation” in terms of biblical commentary, interpretation, homiletics and the like.

An altered image. Content created?

Last month my brother (The Professor Notes) wrote a post based upon a discussion/debate that we had. The debate began with the question of whether or not the iPad is simply (and predominantly) a device for content consumption (reading, videos, games, etc.) or, as I have contended, it is also a very powerful content creation device. Steve wrote,

I mentioned that, and my brother challenged me, arguing that he, and his colleagues, are using the iPad quite regularly for note taking and email.  I had to agree, but then…. we learned. See, for me the operational definition of “content creation” is something that is substantive.  I have a definition that looks at the degree, or dare I say it, quantity, of the “content” being created.  I never viewed writing emails, taking notes, or editing existing slideshows as real “content creation.”  And I certainly don’t view arranging photographs into a slideshow as a “content creation” event.  The creation of the content in that case was during the translation from the photographer’s eye to the sensor in the camera.

He goes on from there to discuss “Operational Definitions” and applied it to his field, that of business and business logistics. He concludes,

So then, we are now faced with the question, how do we define “Content creation”? Is it simply “creating a document of some sort and any size, so that something that did not exist, now does?” Or does it require a greater degree of creativity and involvement in the process?

While I am late to the discussion it intrigues me for a number of reasons, not least because I repeatedly reinforce (redundantly) to my students the importance of defining their terms. But let me first address my brother’s comments above, starting with “for me the operational definition of “content creation” is something that is substantive.” Defining “substantive” might be necessary here as well, since you can see all the items that my brother does not consider “content creation.” Most of those I would argue are indeed, or at least can be the creation of content. I would like to start first with his suggestion that in photography, “The creation of the content in that case was during the translation from the photographer’s eye to the sensor in the camera.” I would suggest that most photographers would argue that the taking of the photograph is merely the beginning of the content creation process. Occasionally yes, a photographer may have gotten it absolutely “right” in that first shot. But even then if they are to share that image they have to develop the film and enlarge/digitally manipulate and print the image or edit it into a digital show of some kind. Most often photographers do all sorts of work to edit and manipulate their image, whether in a darkroom or on the computer, before they feel they have the final product that they would like. Not coincidentally, there are several fairly powerful apps for image editing available for the iPad. The point is, “content creation,” assuming we mean something other than merely “creating a document of some sort and any size, so that something that did not exist, now does,” (which I believe my brother implied is  his view) is not simply the act of the photographer snapping the shot, but rather involved the manipulation of the data generated in that shot. To return the more mundane examples of emails and notes. Often these items can indeed be nothing more than “Yes, let’s go with that” or even a verbatim transcription of someone else’s words (although I am rarely so good as all that in taking notes). Very frequently for me, however, email exchanges are where new concepts, policies, and ideas are generated, disseminated, and exchanged. Just because the content (ideas in the form of words) is to be found in the utilitarian format of an email does not make it any less a creative product than if I had fired up Word or NisusWriter. Most often when I am taking notes I am not simply recording a transcription of what has been said, rather I am interpreting and commenting upon what I am hearing. And this leads me to biblical commentary. I remember when working on Targum Lamentations reading Westermann who argued for a lengthy oral period for Lamentations prior to recording and arguing that “the acrostic form was imposed on the text at a later stage of its development.” Whatever the truth about a lengthy oral period, once the source moved into acrostic form it became literature and very different kind of work. We do not possess that oral form yet we do have the four (five-ish) acrostic poems that make up our canonical Book of Lamentations. This act of imposition of the acrostic form upon the oral tradition was, I would suggest, very much a creative act. Yet Westermann, much like my brother it seems, would see it as a simply an imperfect kind of notation, not true content creation. Staying in the same arena, the targumim are also works that are derivative and yet I would argue they too are creative products in their own right. In fact, I have argued just this point in my book and articles. The targumist takes the biblical text and on the one hand merely ”translates” the biblical text into Aramaic, but on the other hand the targumist, even in the most parsimonious of targumim, adds something to the text by way of interpretation, even if only in word choice in the translation. Perhaps this is not as creative as beginning with a tabula rasa but it is creative. In some ways, targum is more challenging since the targumist was required to work with a base text that had to remain recognizable even when transforming the meaning of the biblical text. Of course I could pick more modern examples, such as musicians and artists whose works are made up of “sampling” the work of others and yet their own work is clearly something new and creative. To return to the mundane of the iPad. I know that many of my colleagues, students, and I regularly use our iPads for creating new content, whether that be the creation of emails (with new ideas in them), presentations, taking notes while reading articles in Sente, or creating from a blank document a completely new work. Many of us do it on a regular basis and I certainly view this sort of content being created as “substantive.” So yes, I still maintain that the iPad as an excellent content creation tool for certain situations. It is absolutely true that in terms of time spent on the iPad consumption of content is the dominant mode, but then again, that is true for my use of my desktop computer.

 

Solger MS TgLam 3:25, courtesy Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg

I now have little excuse to travel and see the manuscripts in person. Of course once can still make the argument, especially if one’s area of research is primarily focused on manuscripts themselves it is absolutely necessary. But for those of us who simply need the text to see textual variances and so on, a high quality digital image is often better than looking at the real thing.

Case in point: this gorgeous digital image of TgLam 3:25-26 sent to me from the Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg. The clarity is unbelievable. Plus, it gives me another opportunity to point out the even medieval scribes understood that footnotes are good and end notes are evil. (And note the image in that linked post. That copy of this same passage was scanned from color slides I received a decade ago. The new, direct to digital image is so much better, isn’t it?)

 

needs to know not only Hellenistic Greek, but more than a smattering of Aramaic, Hebrew (including Rabbinic Hebrew), Syriac, Coptic and Latin.

And if you are interested in Hebrew Bible, well let’s just say you better put your linguistic cap on.

A serious student will know Hebrew, Aramaic, Hellenistic Greek, Akkadian including peripheral Akkadian, Ugaritic, Phoenician, Egyptian, and Classical Greek. I think they also need know Hittite.

All of this glossolalia got me thinking about the fact that none of the authors of the NT or the HB knew all or likely even more than three of these languages. Most likely only knew a couple, which is still more than most people today, I will grant you that. But does Duane or any of us really think that the author of Ruth, for example, Akkadian or Ugaritic or Phoenician? Do we really think they knew historical grammar and the development of Northwest Semitic languages? Of course not.

I understand that for us as literary scholars, historians, theologians, archaeologists and the like we need to know a far greater breadth and depth than the author’s whose works we study. Often they are influenced in ways they were unaware of and that is often grist for our scholarly mill. Each scholar takes a different tack based upon our interests and training, some linguistic and others theological, and to investigate those niches we need specialized tools.

But it might just be worthwhile sometimes to remember the original context and the limitations and expectations of the author and his/her audience.

 

S21-203 Aramaic Studies 1:00 PM to 3:30 PM 11/21/2011 Room TBD Christian Brady, Pennsylvania State University, Presiding Aaron Koller, Yeshiva University Jewish Aramaic literature of Achaemenid times (20 min) Discussion (10 min) Adam C. McCollum, Hill Museum & Manuscript Library Towards a Typology of Translation Technique from Greek to Christian Palestinian Aramaic (CPA) (20 min) Discussion (10 min) James F. McGrath, Butler University The Satirical Use of Christian Material in the Mandaean Book of John (20 min) Discussion (10 min) Ryan Armstrong, Princeton Theological Seminary The Fountain of Youth or the Lake of Fire? Job 33:25 in 11Q10 and Greek Bible (20 min) Discussion (10 min) David Shepherd, University of Chester Can Anything Targumic Come From Qumran? Revisiting Klaus Beyer’s ‘Targums’ of Tobit and Isaiah (20 min) Discussion (10 min) S21-104a Aramaic Studies 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM 11/21/2011 Room TBD The Elephantine Papyri This section will be invited papers addressing the Elephantine Papyri corpus, perhaps from the perspectives of language, law, and social history. Mark Leuchter, Temple University, Presiding 50 Years of Research by Bezalel Porten Alejandro Botta, Boston University, Panelist (20 min) Andrew Gross, Catholic University of America, Panelist (20 min) Bezalel Porten, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Respondent (20 min) Discussion (45 min)

 

Description

Although disability imagery is ubiquitous in the Hebrew Bible, characters with disabilities are not. The presence of the former does not guarantee the presence of the later. While interpreters explain away disabilities in specific characters, they celebrate the rhetorical contributions that disability imagery makes to the literary artistry of biblical prose and poetry, often as a trope to describe the suffering or struggles of a presumably nondisabled person or community. This situation contributes to the appearance (or illusion) of a Hebrew Bible that uses disability as a rich literary trope while disavowing the presence of figures or characters with disabilities.

Isaiah 53 provides a wonderful example of this dynamic at work. The “Suffering Servant” figure in Isaiah 53 has captured the imagination of readers since very early in the history of biblical interpretation. Most interpreters understand the servant as an otherwise able bodied person who suffers. By contrast, Jeremy Schipper’s study shows that Isaiah 53 describes the servant with language and imagery typically associated with disability in the Hebrew Bible and other ancient Near Eastern literature. Informed by recent work in disability studies from across the humanities, it traces both the disappearance of the servant’s disability from the interpretative history of Isaiah 53 and the scholarly creation of the able bodied suffering servant.

Features

• Launch of the brand new Biblical Refigurations series which offers fresh perspectives on the textual, cultural, and interpretative contexts of individual biblical characters
• Highlights the relevance of disability studies to the study of the biblical text
• Engages research in disability studies from across the humanities to illuminate a very familiar passage in biblical studies
• Reviews the history of scholarship on Isaiah 53 and presents a close reading that challenges frequent assumptions associated with the suffering servant
• Written in a clear and accesible style well suited to introducing and explaining cross disciplinary findings relevant to the study of the biblical text