Sean the Baptist (in the UCA)

Martin Hengel: An Appreciation

One of the great things about the blog world is that news like this comes through so quickly.  Thanks to Jim and Doug for passing on news of Martin Hengel's death on Thursday at the age of 82.

Hengel was an early and profound influence on me.  In my early years of NT study, when historical study raised questions that seemed (wrongly as it turned out) to threaten faith, his work on the early church and christology showed me that the one might actually shed light on the other.  In a weird way, and in contrast to the usual throwaway perceptions about the kind of teutonic scholarship that Hengel's work epitomized, I found the density of his work unbelievably exciting.  I pored over those foonotes, chased down some of the references, wondered why he seemd to get so cross with F. C. Baur.  I used to put the books down (and mention here should be made of SCM Press under John Bowden who issued English translations - a ministry that, alas, has fallen by the wayside) thinking "How can anyone know that much?!" a thought quickly followed by "I want to know that much!".  Hengel for me at that time was a giant, whose work provided my orientation to the Judaism of Jesus' world (I read him before I read Sanders) and who showed me ways in which my unreflective evangelical convictions about Jesus might in some way be a legitimate expression of aspects of the biblical witness that he so carefully traced. Anyone who wants to really get a grip on the whole notion of the foolishness of Christian proclamation could do a lot worse than read Crucifixion.

As time has gone on, I read him less.  My own views changed, not least on the relation of history to faith.  The work on John was ingenious, but the question of who wrote the gospel was, by the 3rd year of my undergraduate studies, the least interesting question.  I continued to buy the books on Paul especially, but they sometimes seemed to lack the thrilling quality of the earlier work (co-authorship became more common for Hengel).  But on my shelves I keep with pride my copies of Judaism and Hellenism (the wonderful 2 volume hardback: Volume 1 = 314 pages of text; Volume 2 = 335 pages of notes, bibliography and indices - how wonderful), The Zealots, and those SCM paperback compilations that I picked up for £5 in the SCM sale: The Cross of the Son of God; Between Jesus and Paul; Acts and the History of Earliest Christianity.  Last year I had the privilege of reviewing Volume IV of his laughably titled Kleine Schriften which reconnected me with much of this earlier work, but now in his native tongue.  That reminds me to mention that his other great legacy will be the WUNT series in which so much of his own recent work was published, but which has done so much to preserve a tradition of scholarship that, with all its weaknesses, nevertheless shapes our discipline and keeps me humble whenever I begin to think that I know anything.

Tübingen has lost a great Neutestamentler.  If God writes footnotes, then at least Hengel will be on hand to add a judicious classical reference or two, probably from memory.  Requiescat in pacem.

Update: futher tributes from Nick Norelli, Fred Sanders, Theoblog, Henry Nguyen, Brandon

I Wish I was in Rome

 The International SBL meeting starts today in Rome.  The papers look no more than moderately interesting, but I really wish I was there.  So, to all my friends who are currently residing in the most beautiful city in the world, some tips and hints to make the most of your stay.

1.  Coffee: the best coffee in the world is probably to be found in Rome.  If you ask for an espresso and the liquid merely coats the bottom of the tiny cup...that is how God intended it.  And please, don't embarrass yourself and ask for cappucino after 11.00 am and certainly not at the end of a large meal.  Oh, and don't sit down at a cafe, you will pay 3 times as much.

2.  Food: get off the beaten track.  If it looks like it is full of tourists avoid it.  Ask a stranger where there is good food (they will vitually always have an opinion and will never, never reply McDonalds).  Try the gnocchi, carciofi alla romangna (artichokes), tripe if you are feeling brave.

3.  Sightseeing - NT scholars should make sure they go and see the Ara Pacis (which was closed when I was last there) and Augustus' Mausoleum which is just round the corner, completely uncared for and overrun with cats. If you have to queue for the Ara Pacis you can while away the time by translating the Res Gestae engraved on the side.  The best view of the Forum comes from going up the steps to the Campidoglio (taking in the subterranean Insula on your right as you go up) and walk past the Palazzo dei Senatori on the left hand side, drop down the steps and take in one of the most amazing sights you will ever hope to see.  I fell in love on that spot - and not just with Rome. The Capitoline Museum is essential for antiquity and the Vatican apartments for the Raphael's alone (plus you get to pop next door to see Michelangelo's Pietà which made me cry when I first saw it).  Oh, and they have found Paul's bones down there somewhere, so try and say hello from me.

Damn, I wish I was there.  I am sure the conference will be fun as well.

Guardian Series: How to Believe

I   I came across this series from the Guardian this afternoon.  I list below all the entries thus far because different readers might be attracted to different contributions, but I have been looking at Simon Critchley's summary of Heidegger, and very good it is to.  It is notable that the Guardian sees fit to include the author of Luke-Acts alongside Hobbes, Nietzsche et al.  I would have thought there was a good argument for a series on Paul - anyone want to commission me?

• Simon Critchley: Heidegger's Being and Time

• Being and Time, part 1: Why Heidegger matters

  • Being and Time, part 2: On 'mineness'
  • Being and Time, part 3: Being-in-the-world
  • Being and Time, part 4: Thrown into this world

• Mary Midgley: Hobbes's Leviathan

• Hobbes's Leviathan, part 1: Strange selves

  • Hobbes's Leviathan, Part 2: Freedom and Desolation
  • Hobbes's Leviathan, Part 3: What is selfishness?
  • Hobbes's Leviathan, part 4: Selling total freedom
  • Hobbes's Leviathan, part 5: The end of individualism
  • Hobbes's Leviathan, part 6: Responses to readers
  • Hobbes's Leviathan, part 7: His idea of war
  • Hobbes, part 8: Can we Ride the Leviathan?

• Julian Baggini: Hume on religion

• Hume on religion, part 1: The agnostic philosopher
  

  • Hume on religion, part 2: Faith or reason
  • Hume on religion, part 3: How he skewered intelligent design
  • Hume on religion: response to comments
  • Hume on religion, part 4: The limits of scepticism
  • Hume on religion, part 5: Reason to be cautious
  • Hume on religion, part 6: True religion looks a lot like false
  • Hume on religion, part 7: Soul-searching
  • Hume on Religion: response to comments
  • Hume on religion, part 8: What did he believe?

• Jane Williams: Acts of the Apostles

• Acts of the Apostles, part 1: A band of brothers
  

  • Acts of the Apostles, part 2: Who is Luke?
  • Acts of the Apostles, part 3: An ideal church?
  • Acts of the Apostles, part 4: The story of Paul
  • Acts of the Apostles: Response to comments
  • Acts of the Apostles, part 5: Christianity on the road
  • Acts of the Apostles, part 6: The gentile mission
  • Acts of the Apostles: Response to comments
  • Acts of the Apostles, part 7: The Acts of the Holy Spirit
  • Acts of the Apostles, part 8: Echoing down the ages

• Giles Fraser: On the Genealogy of Morals

• On the Genealogy of Morals part 1: Meet Dr Nietzsche
  

  • Meet Dr Nietzsche: Response to comments
  • On the Genealogy of Morals part 2: The slave morality
  • On the Genealogy of Morals, part 3: The birth of the übermensch
  • On the Genealogy of Morals, part 4: Is Christianity cowardly?
  • On the Genealogy of Morals, part 5: Breaking the cycle of conflict
  • On the Genealogy of Morals, part 6: Superman goes mad in solitude
  • On the Genealogy of Morals, part 7: Nietzsche contra dogma

Poem for Friday: Politics - Carol Ann Duffy

A change of tone this week.  The rage contained in this, the first contribution of the Poet Laureate to national debate, is palpable.  But evidence suggests that it is righteous anger.

Politics

How it makes of your face a stone

that aches to weep, of your heart a fist,

clenched or thumping, sweating blood, of your tongue

an iron latch with no door. How it makes of your right hand

a gauntlet, a glove-puppet of the left, of your laugh

a dry leaf blowing in the wind, of your desert island discs

hiss hiss hiss, makes of the words on your lips dice

that can throw no six. How it takes the breath

away, the piss, makes of your kiss a dropped pound coin,

makes of your promises latin, gibberish, feedback, static,

of your hair a wig, of your gait a plankwalk. How it says this –

politics – to your education education education; shouts this –

Politics! – to your health and wealth; how it roars, to your

conscience moral compass truth, POLITICS POLITICS POLITICS.

Amy-Jill Levine in Melbourne

News has arrived today from two different sources giving information about a visit by Amy-Jill Levine to Melbourne in early July.

On July 2nd she will be giving a lecture at Monash University.

Lecture: Paul the Jew—Continuities and Contradictions

• Thursday, July 2nd, 8pm

  AEST
• Building H, Theatre H125
  Caulfield Campus, 900 Dandenong Road
  Monash University
  Victoria 3800
  Australia

Amy-Jill Levine is Professor of New Testament Studies at Vanderbilt University Divinity School and author of The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus.

Saul of Tarsus was a Jew who became St. Paul, the church’s foremost missionary. Today he is both hailed as the inspired evangelist who brought the God of Israel to the Gentiles, and condemned as a self-hating Jew who distorted the teachings of both Judaism and Jesus. In this lecture Amy-Jill Levine will explore Paul’s Jewish identity, his understanding of Torah, and his views on the role of the Jewish people in the divine plan.

The lecture is hosted by the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation.

In addition on the 4th of July she will be speaking to the Progressive Christian Network of Victoria.  Details are available via this flyer

I have the highest regard for Professor Levine's scholarship and will be trying to get along to at least one of these events.

A Poem for Friday: Micheal O'Siadhail - Delight

It will come as no surprise that O'Siadhail is a poet who is closely connected with a number of theologians, notably the late Dan Hardy and David Ford.  This is about as good a poem about the sacramental dimensions of eating together as I know.

Delight

Let the meal be simple. A big plate
of mussels, warm bread with garlic,
and enough mulled wine to celebrate

Being here. I open a hinged mussel
pincering a balloon of plump meat
from the blue angel wings of a shell.

A table's rising decibels of fun.
Such gossip. A story caps a story.
Banter. Then, another pun on a pun.

Iced yoghurt snipes at my temples.
My tongue matches a strawberry's heart
with its rough skin of goose-pimples.

Conversations fragment. Tête-à-tête,
a confidence passes between two guests.
A munch of oatcake thickens my palate.

Juicy fumes of a mango on my breath.
(A poem with no end but delight.)
I knife to the oblong host of its pith.

Wine sinks its ease to the nerve-ends.
Here are my roots. I feast on faces.
Boundless laughter. A radiance of friends.

from A Fragile City (Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe, 1995), 72.

Conference Report: Paul and Contemporary Philosophy

I attended this event today, and it was well worth the day out from other responsibilities.  I think I was probably the only New Testament person in a room full of people who spend their academic lives mmersing themselves in the western philosophical tradition, not least the post-Heidegger part of it  and who (and this is the thing that is really strange) actually seem to understand what they read.  The look and feel of the seminar was therefore very different to what I am used to: even the aesthetics (lots of black and thick rimmed spectacles) not to mention the language (there aren't many NT seminars where the word 'fuck' is used with such abandon ... it tends to get saved up for the bar...unless you are at SBL, where it depends entirely on which reception you are attedning as to whether or not you would feel comfortable in using the word).

Anyway, we had papers that: gave an exposition of Alain Badiou's book on Paul; explored the concept of law in Romans 7 with the help of Agamben; guided us through Heidegger's 1920-21 lectures on Paul; and explored the way in which Levinas might be seen as attempting in the late 20th century what Paul was attempting in the early 1st century, i.e. to draw on the resources of Jewish texts and traditions in order to address the fundamental questions of the world beyond Judaism.  All of the papers were excellent, not least because they illustrated the most fascinating aspect of the contempary interest in Paul, namely that he is most interesting when you use him to think with, rather than as an excuse not to do any thinking of your own.  For New Testament scholars, these kinds of debates are important, I have concluded, because there are aspects of Paul's thought that probably only permit of a philosophical explanation (rather than a historical or theological one).  Further reflection in due course, perhaps.

Poem for Friday: Les Murray on NT Scholarship

EACH MORNING ONCE MORE SEAMLESS

Mother and type of evolution,
The New Testament of the scholars
may be likened to a library catalogue
of the old type, a card index console
of wooden drawers, each a verse.
And you never know which ones are out,
stacked up, split, or currently back
in, with some words deleted
then restored. And it never ends.

Reputations slide them out,
convictions push them in.
Speculations look backwards once
and stiffen to salt-crystal proofs.
Dates grown on palms in the wilderness
and ferment in human minds -
and criticism's prison for all poems
was modelled on this traffic.

Most battered of all are the drawers
labelled Resurrection, The.
Bashed, switched, themselves resurrected
continually. Because it is impossible,
as the galaxies were, as life was,
as flight and language were. The impossible,
evolution's prey, shot with Time's arrow.
But this one is the bow of time.

Shadowy at a little distance tower
other banks of card-index drawers,
other myriad shelves, jammed with human names.
Some labelled in German are most actively
worked over, grieved, and reinserted.
More stretch away in Easter scripts,
scarcely visited. Dust softens their headwords.
yet the only moral reason to leave any
in silence fragments and reassembles
in the swarmed over, nagged, fantasised
word-atoms of the critics' testament.

From Les Murray, Collected Poems (Manchester: Carcanet, 1997), 436.

Paul Ricoeur: Living Up to Death

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews has a review of a recently published collection of Ricoeur's unpublished notes and reflections, focussed on death (that of his wife Simone and his own).  The review is interesting because it raises the issue of whether these fragments should ever have been published, but also because the book sees Ricoeur reflecting on his Christian faith, its relationship with his work as a philisopher, and his relationship with Derrida.  Of the latter he says "I am quite ordinary and no doubt my works will endure less than will those of Derrida who is really quite extraordinary" (p. 87).

The Apostle Paul and Melvin

For those of you who didn't catch it, The Apostle to the Gentiles was the topic of conversation in Radio 4's 'In our Time'. You can listen online or download the podcast.  I confess to being slightly disappointed with the discussion.  John Barclay and Helen Bond did their best, but were not helped by the kinds of questions that Melvin Bragg wanted to ask, nor by the fact that the other participant, John Haldane, a philosopher, opened up the conversation by introducing categories for interpreting Paul that are less than clear or helpful (from the perspective of NT scholarship at any rate). Anyway, something is better than nothing, and the programme helped me wile away pleasant brisk walk around the park the other evening.

Marilynne Robinson wins the Orange Prize

This news comes as no suprise.  I only draw attention to it so as to offer further encouragement to read her novels, not least Home, the run-away winner of this year's Orange Prize.  Two excerpts to wet your appetite:

On the Bible
"What a strange old book  it was. How oddly holiness situated itself among the things of the world, how endlessly creation wrenched and strained under the burden of its own significance. "I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings of old, which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us." Yes, there it was, the parable of manna. All bread is the bread of heaven, her father used to say. It expresses the will of God to sustain us in this flesh, in this life. Weary or bitter or bewildered as we may be, God is faithful. He lets us wander so will know what it means to come home."

On Church
"For her, church was an airy white room with tall windows looking out on God's good world, with God's good sunlight pouring in through those windows and falling across the pulpit where her father stood, straight and strong, parsing the broken heart of humankind and praising the loving heart of Christ. That was church."

A Poem for Friday: Idiot Psalms by Scott Cairns

A recent poem by Scott Cairns:

Idiot Psalms

by Scott Cairns

                                     1

       A psalm of Isaak, accompanied by Jew's harp.

O God Belovéd if obliquely so,

                     dimly apprehended in the midst

                     of this, the fraught obscuring fog

                     of my insufficiently capacious ken,

                     Ostensible Lover of our kind—while

                     apparently aloof—allow

                     that I might glimpse once more

                     Your shadow in the land, avail

                     for me, a second time, the sense

                     of dire Presence in the pulsing

                     hollow near the heart.

Once more, O Lord, from Your enormity incline

                     your Face to shine upon Your servant, shy

                     of immolation, if You will.

                                     2

       A psalm of Isaak, accompanied by baying hounds.

O Shaper of varicolored clay and cellulose, O Keeper

                     of same, O Subtle Tweaker, Agent

                     of energies both appalling and unobserved,

                     do not allow Your servant's limbs to stiffen

                     or to ossify unduly, do not compel Your servant

                     to go brittle, neither cramping at the heart,

                     nor narrowing his affective sympathies

                     neither of the flesh nor of the alleged soul.

Keep me sufficiently limber that I might continue

                     to enjoy my morning run among the lilies

                     and the rowdy waterfowl, that I might

                     delight in this and every evening's intercourse

                     with the woman you have set beside me.

Make me to awaken daily with a willingness

                     to roll out readily, accompanied

                     by grateful smirk, a giddy joy,

                     the idiot's undying expectation,

                     despite the evidence.

                                     3

       A psalm of Isaak, whispered mid the Philistines, beneath the breath.

Master both invisible and notoriously

                     slow to act, should You incline to fix

                     Your generous attentions for the moment

                     to the narrow scene of this our appointed

                     tedium, should You—once our kindly

                     secretary has duly noted which of us

                     is feigning presence, and which excused, which unexcused,

                     You may be entertained to hear how much we find to say

                     about so little. Among these other mediocrities,

                     Your mediocre servant gets a glimpse of how

                     his slow and meager worship might appear

                     from where You endlessly attend our dreariness.

Holy One, forgive, forgo and, if You will, fend off

                     from this my heart the sense that I am drowning here

                     amid the motions, the discussions, the several

                     questions endlessly recast, our paper ballots.

                                     4

       Isaak's penitential psalm, unaccompanied.

Again, and yes again, O Ceaseless Tolerator

                     of our bleaking recurrences, O Forever Forgoing

                     Foregone (sans conclusion), O Inexhaustible,

                     I find my face against the floor, and yet again

                     my plea escapes from unclean lips, and from a heart

                     caked in and constricted by its own soiled residue.

You are forever, and forever blessed, and I aspire

                     one day to slip my knot and change things up,

                     to manage at least one late season sinlessly,

                     to bow before you yet one time without chagrin.

Source: Poetry (January 2009).

Reumann on Philippians: Look What We Are Missing

OK, 10 minutes ago I posted to the effect that Reumann's Anchor Bible commentary on Philippians looked like a collection of research notes gathered over 25 years of research.  How wrong can one be?  The Preface, which I have just glanced at, tells the true story.

Research had been going on for 35 years: 1973-2008

Reumann started doing works on Acts 16 and 20 (where Paul visits Philippi) and wrote a draft commentary on these chapters of 1200 pages!

The first draft of the Philippians commentary came to 2800 pages, which was revised to 2400 pages and then (and you really get the impression that Reumann was pissed off by being made to do this by the publishers), to 1250 pages.  'The result', he writes, 'may be a more focussed treatment' .

So, look out for a 1200 MS page comentary on 2 chapters on Acts, and a supplementary volume entitled Philippian Studies.  Sadly, Professor Reumann died in 2008 and so I am not sure if these volumes will ever see the light of day.

New Arrivals: Anchor (Yale) Bible

The arrival of new books is always a welcome thing, and the arrival of a new, weighty commentary is a double blessing.  Which means I am quadruply blessed this morning as I have opened a box from Dove Booksellers (now the purveyor of choice, given the lack of Amazon and price of books in Australia).  A 2nd hand copy of Victor Paul Furnish's volume on 2 Corinthians, and a spangly new copy of John Reumann's posthumous and massive Philippians volume.  These are the epistles that will be occupying my attention over the next few years, so the volumes will be well used.

The Reumann commentary looks like the accumulation of 25 years of research notes on Philippians and it will interesting to see if one can detect the wood for the trees.  Reumann has the most extensive discussion of a little issue that is occupying some of my attention at the moment i.e. why Paul feels able to resort to the word σκύβαλα at Philippians 3.8 and how that lexical choice might be illuminated by an understanding of the the rhetorical force of the polemic in 3.2-3 and 3.18-19 (more of that in due course) It is also my first copy of the Anchor Bible series under the new arrangements with Yale University Press (older versions were published by Doubleday).  The format looks pretty much the same, but I kind of miss the old rough-cut edges of the earlier volumes (literally, the Furnish volume right hand edges (as with many of the older volumes) looks and feels like my 4 year old has trimmed them with a pair of blunt scissors. 

However it is good to see that Yale's adoption of the series secures its future, and I would hope that work can soon begin on replacing some of the earlier volumes that either worked with a fairly minimal definitions of the commentary genre (translation and some explanatory notes defending the translation) or were just plain idiosyncratic.

International Conference on Baptist Studies

More information about this Conference, which will be held in Melbourne in July, is now available.  For more information go here

Whitley College, Melbourne, Australia 15 - 18 July 2009

Following four successful International Conferences on Baptist Studies at Oxford in 1997, Wake Forest in 2000, Prague in 2003 and Acadia in 2006, there is to be a fifth at Whitley College, Melbourne, Australia, from Wednesday 15 to Saturday 18 July 2009.

On this occasion we are glad that the conference will also be the biennial meeting of the Australian Baptist Research Forum.  All the conferences take Baptists as their subject matter, but are not restricted to Baptists as speakers or attenders.

The theme this time is ‘Interfaces: Baptists and Others’, which includes relations with other Christians, other faiths and other movements.  What has been the Baptist experience of engaging with different groups and developments?  The theme will be explored by means of case studies, some of which will be very specific in time and place while others will cover long periods and more than one country.

PROGRAMME

Wednesday 15 July
10.00 am – 1.00 pm    REGISTRATION
1.00 pm    Lunch (if requested in advance)
2.00 – 6.00 pm    REGISTRATION
6.00 pm    Dinner
7.30 pm    GREETINGS plus
EARLY BAPTISTS AND ANGLICANS
Ruth Gouldbourne
(Bloomsbury Baptist Church, London)
Episcope without Episcopacy: Baptists, Anglicans and Ecclesiastical Oversight in the Seventeenth Century

Thursday 16 July
7.30 am     Breakfast
9.00 am    WORSHIP
9.30 am    BAPTISTS AND ANABAPTISTS
Brian Brewer (Truett Seminary, Baylor University, Texas)
Free Church Sacramentalism: A Surprising Connection between Anabaptists and Baptists
10.45 am    Refreshment Break
11.15 am    SHORT PAPERS (A1) - to be finalised
    SHORT PAPERS (A2) - to be finalised
    SHORT PAPERS (A3) - to be finalised
1.00 pm    Lunch
2.00 pm    ENGLISH BAPTISTS AND EVANGELICAL ANGLICANS
Timothy Whelan (Georgia Southern University)
An Evangelical Anglican Interaction with Baptist Missionary Society Strategy: William Wilberforce and John Ryland, 1807-1824
3.15 pm    Refreshment Break - Free Time
4.15 pm    SHORT PAPERS (B1) - to be finalised
    SHORT PAPERS (B2) x 3 - to be finalised
    SHORT PAPERS (B3) x 3 - to be finalised
6.00 pm    Dinner
7.30 pm    AUSTRALIAN BAPTISTS AND THE STATE
Ken Manley (Whitley College, Melbourne)
Australian Baptists and the State: Partner or Peril?

Friday 17 July
7.30 am     Breakfast (residential attenders only)
9.00 am    WORSHIP
9.30 am    BAPTISTS AND INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIANS
Graham Paulson (Brisbane)
Baptists and Indigenous Australians
10.45 am    Refreshment Break
11.15 am    SHORT PAPERS (C1) x 3 - to be finalised
    SHORT PAPERS (C2) x 3 - to be finalised
    SHORT PAPERS (C3) x 3 - to be finalised
1.00 pm    LUNCH
2.00 pm    SOUTH AUSTRALIAN BAPTISTS AND OTHER DENOMINATIONS
John Walker (Global Interaction, Cambodia)
Baptists and Other Denominations in South Australia, 1836 to 1936
3.15 pm    Refreshment Break - Free Time
4.15 pm    SHORT PAPERS (D1) x 3 - to be finalised
    SHORT PAPERS (D2) x 3 - to be finalised
    SHORT PAPERS (D3) x 3 - to be finalised
6.00 pm    Dinner
7.30 pm    GLOBAL BAPTISTS AND THE WORLD
Geoff Treloar (University of New South Wales)
A Great Reversal? Baptists and the World, 1900-1940

Saturday 18 July
7.30 am     Breakfast (residential attenders only)
9.00 am    WORSHIP
9.30 am    WEST AFRICAN BAPTISTS AND NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS
Matthews A. Ojo (Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria)
Baptists and New Christian Movements in West Africa
10.45 am    Refreshment Break
11.15 am    BAPTISTS AND OTHER FAITHS
Mark Lindsay (Melbourne College of Divinity)
Jesus beyond the Gates: Baptists and the Quest for Christ in Other Faiths during the Twentieth Century
1.00 pm    Lunch
2.00 pm    POSSIBLE COACH TOUR

Advertisment: Full-Time Tutor in Biblical Studies

NORTHERN BAPTIST LEARNING COMMUNITY
(on behalf of ‘Northern Baptist College Ltd’)
www.northern.org.uk

(a member of the ecumenical Partnership for Theological Education, based at Luther King House in Manchester)

intends to appoint a

Full-Time Tutor in Biblical Studies

with a major focus in EITHER Old or New Testament

(Whilst not an essential requirement for appointment to this post, there is potential for the successful applicant to play a significant role in the development and delivery of the ecumenical Partnership’s post-graduate programme.)

Requests for information can be made to:

Revd Dr Richard Kidd (Co-Principal)

richard.kidd@northern.org.uk

(Completed applications must arrive by Monday 22nd June 2009, and interviews will be held on Wednesday 15th July 2009)

[Northern Baptist Learning Community has an Equal Opportunities Policy]

Odds and Sods

In an attempt to break the silence:

The Hekhalot Rabbati, a weird and wonderful text central to the Merkabah mystical movement is now available in translation online.  Go here.  When I was in Oxford in the early 90's there was some considerable interest in these texts, the Merkabah tradition and the possibilty of influence and/or parallels with some New Testament material.  I remember a paper by Jarl Fossum at the research seminar, and Chris Rowland, Chris Morray-Jones and Paula Gooder were all working on this stuff.  There was even a short lived seminar in which we tried to read the texts in Hebrew.  Anyway, if you have't encountered this fascinating material before, go and have a read. (HT Jim Davila)

Mary Beard has some helpful advice for those who review books

An interview with Eugene Peterson on the pastoral vocation that should be essential reading for all of our students here and elsewhere. Part 1 and Part 2

Andy has a helpful review of the recent volume, Baptist Sacramentalism 2: he states that 'Suddenly we are all trinitarians, or so it would seem' wrote Colin Gunton at the beginning of the preface to 2nd edition of his book The Promise of Trinitarian Theology. It does not seem out of place to suggest 'Suddenly all Baptists are sacramentalists, or so it would seem'. ... if only it were true Andy.

Mike Bird and Craig Keener's SBL Forum article on  the case for 'generalists' in NT Scholarship has caused something of a stir and not a little support.  See comments by Mark, Pat,  and Nijay .  As Mark notes, I had something to say about this a long time ago (it was one of my first ever blog posts, following on from one about the kind of tea that N. T. Wright likes to drink) and is now not available.  However, the point still seems to me to be pertinent, I guess the only additional comment I would make concerns the ways in which the political and commercial dimensions of academia extert huge pressure towards a state whereby people say more and more about less and less.  The kind of scholarship that Mark describes (that manages, via imaginative intellectual attention to the key texts and questions, to alter consensus or perceptions) may be enduring, but may also be long-time coming: is it the kind of research that generates research funding in adequate amounts?

Oliver O'Donovan's lecture on Scripture and the Church is well worth a read.

And finally, a parable from Ben.

Rachel Elior to Speak in Melbourne on Dead Sea Scrolls

Readers in the Melbourne area may be interested in the follwing event being held at Monash Univerisyt:

"Who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?"

Professor Rachel Elior
Professor of Jewish Philosophy and Jewish Mystical Thought
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Wednesday 20 May, 12-1.30pm
Monash CAULFIELD Campus, Building H, level 8 Sushi lunch provided

For more than 50 years, scholarship has maintained that the Qumran scrolls found in 11 caves next to the Dead Sea were authored by the Essenes. This seminar contests the prevailing scholarly consensus. The seminar will present the components of the library of the scrolls and argue that they are best contextualized according to the priestly interests of their authors and their biblical content, which reflects the biblical world in the three centuries before the destruction of the Second Temple. The seminar is based on Professor Elior's recent controversial book Memory and Oblivion: The Mystery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (in Hebrew) as reported in Time Magazine, Ha'aretz and The Jerusalem Report (see websites for reviews).

For further information contact Michael.Fagenblat@arts.monash.edu.au

I am not going to be able to attend, but would value reports back about the event.

'Stuff White People Like': The Moleskine Notebook

This pretty much gets things spot on (from the wickedly funny 'Stuff White People Like" website - nb I don't have a Moleskine notebook, but I do carry around a notebook and my Mac for reasons that I cannot fully explain.

Since all white people consider themselves to be “creative,” they are constantly in need of products and accessories that will allow them to capture their thoughts.  One of the more popular  products in recent years has been the Moleskine notebook.

This particular type of notebook is very expensive and was quite popular with writers and artists in the olden days.  Needless to say, these are two properties that are highly coveted in the white community.   In fact, it’s a good rule of thumb to know that white people like anything that old writers and artists liked:  typewriters, journals, suicide, heroin, and trains are just a few examples.

Much like virtually everything else that white people like, these notebooks are considerably more expensive yet provide no additional functionality over regular notebooks that cost a dollar.  Thankfully, since white people only keep their most original and creative ideas in the Moleskine, many of them will only be required to purchase one per lifetime.

But the the growing popularity of these little journals, is not without its own set of problems.  One of the strangest side effects has been the puzzling situation whereby a white person will sit in an independent coffee shop with a Moleskine notebook resting on top of a Apple laptop.  You might wonder why they need so many devices to write down thoughts?  Well, if a white person has a great idea, they write it by hand, if they have a good idea, it goes into the computer.

Not only does this help them keep their thoughts organized, but it serves as a signal to the other white people in the shop that the owner of both instruments is truly creative.  It screams: “I’m not using my computer to check email and read celebrity gossip, I’m using it to create art.  Please ask me about it.”

So when you see a white person with one of these notebooks, you should always ask them about what sort of projects they are working on their free time.  But you should never ask to actually see the notebook lest you ask the question “how are you going to make a novel out of five phone numbers and a grocery list?”

50,000 Visits

As you already know. this is not the most regularly updated blog in the world.  However, today the current version (i.e. the one hosted here at Typepad) received its 50,000th visit.

So, to whoever arrived at 11.52 am (Melbourne time), from Sydney, using Windows XP and Internet Explorer, after clicking on a link from the New Testament Gateway blog...

Welcome and congratulations on being no. 50,000 (kind of).