Little Help? Song of Songs Resources

Can any of my readers offer some favorite resources on the Song of Songs? Critical commentaries, essays in books, journal articles, entries from Bible dictionaries/encyclopedias?

Ultimately, my interest will be in the “I am black and beautiful” bit and also the eroticism of Song of Songs. But, at this stage, I’m interested in any of your favorite high-quality critical resources on the book.

Thanks!

[Little Help? Song of Songs Resources was written by G. Brooke Lester for Anumma.com and was originally posted on 2010/06/03. Except as noted, it is © 2010 G. Brooke Lester and licensed for re-use only under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.]

What is, An Impending Sense of Job Insecurity?

Answer: According to Crossley, this dread feeling could potentially unite biblical scholars of all competing stripes.

In the online journal Bible and Interpretation, James Crossley writes that biblical scholars can hang together in defense of their discipline’s relevance, or we can hang separately in the public square of budget cuts in higher education.

The humanities will no doubt be the first target within universities in times of recession and cuts, and attention has already turned to those subjects deemed "irrelevant." Unfortunately, the critical study of the Bible can be misunderstood as academics at prayer[.]

Please do read the whole thing: it is not very long.

Joseph Kelly offers a brief round-up (first paragraph) of bloggers already commenting on the piece.

[What is, An Impending Sense of Job Insecurity? was written by G. Brooke Lester for Anumma.com and was originally posted on 2010/04/15. Except as noted, it is © 2010 G. Brooke Lester and licensed for re-use only under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.]

Sting Like a Bee: Waking the Sleeping God (Context of Scripture)

Against the assertion of Psa 121:4 that “the God of Israel will neither slumber nor sleep,” many of the psalms find that God does indeed sleep while the righteous undergo persecution. Fortunately, God can be awakened with a careful combination of slaps and strokes.

About a week ago in our continuing reading of COS in a year, we read “The Wrath of Telipinu” (1.57), one of the Hittite “disappearing god texts”: in these, the deity is imagined as having wandered off in pique and gone to sleep. In the god’s absence, everything goes badly, and so the god must be sought out, awakened, and convinced to return. In this text, the mother-goddess sends a bee to find and sting the god Telipinu; he awakens angry, of course, and the remainder of the text directs the offering of good foods, like beer-bread, to placate him and draw him back to the people.

The Bible frequently speaks of God as having gone to sleep and needing to be awakened. As God sleeps, God’s people are vulnerable, especially to their enemies. Taking the biblical texts (many of them the “complaint psalms”) at their word about the “sleeping God,” I am inclined to see the sharp rhetoric of the complaint psalm genre function like the bee and the beer-bread of the “Wrath of Telipinu.”

The texts I have in mind are Psa 7:7 (Eng 7:6); 35:23; 44:24 (Eng 44:23); 59:5. One might read Psa 121:4 as an absolute counter-claim (“the God of Israel will neither slumber nor sleep,” that is, ever) or as a timely reassurance (he won’t sleep right now when you need him). Of interest are 1 Kgs 18:27 (taunting the Baal priests) and Hab 2:19 (rousing wood and stone), and perhaps Psa 78:65; Isa 51:9; 52:1; Song 4:16; Zech 13:7.

Each of these four psalms attempts to rouse God from sleep.

Rise up, O YHWH…Awake, O my God! (Psa 7:7)

Wake up! Bestir yourself for my cause and my defense, my God and my Lord! (Psa 35:23)

Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O Lord? Awake! (Psa 44:24)

Rouse yourself! (Psa 59:5)

This imperative acts as a “stinger,” a jolt. So, too, do the sharp complaints themselves that define these psalms: as the wicked continue in victory and God’s righteous suffer loss, the natural order of God’s creation is upset and requires righting. This suggests another “stinger”: that God and God’s favored ones are losing face in the sight of God’s enemies, when it is the latter who should be shamed. Related to this is the formal element of the “statement of trust”: since God has established God’s reputation by saving the people Israel in the past, the trust of the people rests now in God’s hands…will it be in vain? The innocence of the psalmist or the community is another “stinger”: given the injustice of the psalmist’s plight, God is publicly culpable for letting the abominable situation continue.

Of course, the complaint psalms offer “beer-bread” as well. Just as several of the “stingers” revolve around the maintenance of God’s reputation, so too does the “beer-bread” that may positively induce God to awake and save. The “vow of thanksgiving” is the obvious example: after God wakes up and saves, the recipient of God’s largesse will recount God’s saving acts in public worship when he makes good his vows at the shrine or Temple. The “address to God” may include elements of praise that also, beer-bread-like, “sweeten the deal.”

Context of Scripture (William W. Hallo and K. Lawson Younger, eds.; 3 vols; Brill, 1997) is available in many theological libraries, and Charles’ schedule is an easy one. Jump in any time, and blog about your findings.

[Sting Like a Bee: Waking the Sleeping God (Context of Scripture) was written by G. Brooke Lester for Anumma.com and was originally posted on 2010/04/12. Except as noted, it is © 2010 G. Brooke Lester and licensed for re-use only under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.]

"Uh, What Kinds of Biblical Historical Conclusions Do You Usually Have Here?"

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSZfUnCK5qk]

After accepting Professor Bruce Waltke’s resignation, for having spoken aloud about the plain facts of the state of our knowledge concerning the natural world, Reformed Theological Seminary Campus President Michael Milton gushed enthusiastically about the vast spectrum of scientific/historical conclusions that the seminary would find acceptable from its faculty:

“Oh, we got both kinds: Young Earth Creationism and Old Earth Creationism!”^[1]

Milton said that the seminary allows “views to vary” about creation, describing the faculty members there as having “an eight-lane highway” on which to explore various routes to understanding. Giving an example, he said that some faculty members believe that the Hebrew word yom (day) should be seen in Genesis as a literal 24-hour day. Others believe that yom may be providing “a framework” for some period of time longer than a day. Both of those views, and various others, are allowed, Milton said.

But while Milton insisted that this provides for “a diversity” of views, he acknowledged that others are not permitted. Darwinian views, and any suggestion that humans didn't arrive on earth directly from being created by God (as opposed to having evolved from other forms of life), are not allowed, he said, and faculty members know this.

Here’s a hint to President Milton, but especially to any prospective students considering places like Reformed Theological Seminary:

• no matter how “diverse” the spectrum of “acceptable” conclusions,


• if an institution draws a line anywhere and says, “The conclusions of your research may extend here, but no further; beyond this line your inquiries may not lead you,” then


• you are not in an institution of learning. In fact,


• you couldn’t be more in the dark if you were stuffed into a sack.

I was going to add that those who enforce such parameters or assent to them should be willing to stop using the internet, and all computers (which rely on those merely theoretical critters called “electrons”); forego the MRI, the CAT scan, antibiotics, and all of modern medicine, returning to the leech-craft of their forebears; grow their own food, eschewing the disease-resistant strains available at market; keep the radio off, doing without satellite-produced early warning of natural disasters. After all, these are all the results of unbounded critical inquiry, and have arisen only where such inquiry has won out over efforts to suppress it.

But then I realized that these folks won’t return to their pre-modern dystopia without dragging everyone else along by force, so sorry, they’re just going to have to learn, one at a time, to live in the actual world, with its pesky, bias-challenging data. If one fears that one doesn’t know how, I offer the gentle and redoubtable Professor Waltke as an example.

For other feedback in the biblioblogosphere, see John Hobbins’ response and his round-up of other responses, and more recently, Jim Getz.

BACK TO POST “Creationism,” including so-called Intelligent Design, is always the view that God created all the species in the form that they have today: in other words, that evolution leading to speciation has not happened.

["Uh, What Kinds of Biblical Historical Conclusions Do You Usually Have Here?" was written by G. Brooke Lester for Anumma.com and was originally posted on 2010/04/10. Except as noted, it is © 2010 G. Brooke Lester and licensed for re-use only under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.]

Gayle’s List of (Women) Bible-Bloggers

Besides my other projects for the week, I am working through J.K. Gayle’s list of (women) Bible-bloggers, and I invite you to do the same.

I have been making a short list of Bible-bloggers to remove from my own RSS feeds on NetVibes: mostly those who 1) blog on the Bible or biblical studies only very rarely, or 2) those whose Bible-related blogging is mostly devotional rather than critical. (A previous incarnation of the “bibliobloggers” list sought to select for both of these criteria, though it had other problems related to bias; Jeremy’s current incarnation of the list is, as far as I know, open to anyone who wants to be included.)

Pruning my current feeds in this way will provide space for those on J.K.’s list who fit my criteria. Thanks for the heads-up, J.K.

[Gayle’s List of (Women) Bible-Bloggers was written by G. Brooke Lester for Anumma.com and was originally posted on 2010/04/07. Except as noted, it is © 2010 G. Brooke Lester and licensed for re-use only under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.]

Public Evidence and Sectarian Claims in SBL

What does it look like for a person of Jewish or Christian religious faith to—as a matter of method—bracket her sectarian claims about the Bible in her investigation into the content and context of biblical texts? And why is it necessary that she be willing to learn to do so?

As some of you will know, a conversation has been underway about book reviews in biblical studies that appear, as a matter of academic method, to privilege sectarian claims (sometimes along with the reviewed book itself). Alan Lenzi has raised up occasional samples, and one in particular has generated some conversation. Calvin at the Floppy Hat wrote a thoughtful post that garnered some comments.

The readers at Art Boulet’s finitum non capax infiniti, especially, have produced a comment thread especially worthy of attention. It's not a record-breaker in terms of length or number of participants, but it is clearly drawn and notably free of distracting polemics.

The basic question underlying the discussion—what does it mean for anyone, religious or not, to engage in “academic biblical studies” over against sectarian apologetics—may be of special value to students in higher education who are being asked to make this distinction, or to religious laypeople who wonder how seminary “book learning” differs from confessional “Bible study.” By all means, take a look.

[Public Evidence and Sectarian Claims in SBL was written by G. Brooke Lester for Anumma.com and was originally posted on 2010/03/27. Except as noted, it is © 2010 G. Brooke Lester and licensed for re-use only under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.]

Context of Scripture: And When I Say, "Context"...

...I mean, context.

(Reading COS in a year, following Charles’ schedule. Join in any time!)

The archival document for the day is a short Ugaritic letter from “The King to Ḥayyaʾil Regarding an Allotment of Logs” (3.45Q). I know! Hold your excitement! Dennis Pardee offers a record-breaking ratio of commentary to text: the latter measuring about 6 square inches, the former a hefty 52 square inches (in reduced font, no less). In the letter, the king scolds his recipient for asking where to get the logs for a certain temple, and informs him where the logs will come from. In the commentary, Pardee finds opportunity to make illustrative inquiry into

• indicators of genre, both in the language of the text and in such non-textual indicators as horizontal strokes dividing elements of the inscription;


• the institutions and practices associated with timber production, sale, and distribution in and around Ugarit;


• how to “follow the money” involved with dispersal of royal funds to or through civil employees and private vendors and distributors, possibly involving alliterative wordplay;


• and more! Seriously, lots to learn here for the patient.

The other text for the day is the “Prophecies of Neferti” (1:45). Students in Bible will appreciate this one as an example of “prophecy ex eventu,” that is the literary fiction of prophecy formulated “after the fact” (as in the apocalypses of Daniel 7–12, for example, or in 1 Kings 13:1-3). Here, the wise scribe Neferti is said to live during the reign of Snefru (4st Dynasty), predicting a future disastrous period that will eventually be corrected by a restorative, redeeming king “Imeny” (Amenemhet I, 12th Dynasty). The work itself of course derives from the reign of that same Amenemhet I, justifying his usurpation and reforms.

Students of the ancient Egyptian language will know that this 12th Dynasty defines the “Middle Kingdom” period of Egypt, considered a literary high point, the style of which is considered normative in later periods. Reading “The Prophecies of Neferti” alongside of “The Instructions of Amenemhet I” (1.36; a work likely written after his death to defuse his assassination and legitimate his heir’s succession) and “The Tale of Sinuhe” (1.38; a politically charged fantasy story also reflecting Amenemhet I’s death and succession), while attending to the notes, begins to provide a textured depiction of this watershed moment in Egypt’s past.^[FOOTNOTE]

Here in “The Prophecies of Neferti,” where it depicts the disastrous period preceding Amenemet’s usurpation of the crown, we learn a lot about what scares the daylights out of right-thinking ancient Egyptians:

• Asiatics in Egypt


• failure to observe ritual, including mourning rites


• violence, and indifference to violence


• burdensome taxes


• breaking down of social hierarchies


• Asiatics in Egypt.

This is why I have to be careful not to fall behind on our reading schedule, and when I do fall behind, to simply pick up where we are instead of trying to read too much at once. The texts are just so, so good on a second reading after I have had time to marinate in the contexts for a spell.

Happy reading!

BACK TO POST The interested reader might start with Ronald J. Leprohon, “Egypt, History of (Dyn. 11–17)” Anchor Bible Dictionary 2:345-348 (Doubleday, 1992).

[Context of Scripture: And When I Say, "Context"... was written by G. Brooke Lester for Anumma.com and was originally posted on 2010/03/25. Except as noted, it is © 2010 G. Brooke Lester and licensed for re-use only under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.]

Barley Flour, Pita, and "Oven Spring"

While the common barley flour used by the ancient Israelite lacks some of the qualities by which wheat flour makes such good loaves, even limited practice yields strategies of preparation that help barley flour produce the most leavened and appetizing possible bread.

As some of you know, the subject of bread production in Israel and the ancient Near East has seized my attention. While getting acquainted with the subject, one of my early projects is spending time learning to handle barley flour. While wheat flour would have been preferred where available (as today), barley flour was more affordable to the common family and, at certain times of the agricultural cycle, even the sole available grain. My Arrowhead Mills barley flour arrived a couple of days ago, courtesy of Amazon.

Dough preparation and cooking method:

The cooking method that I am starting with seeks to imitate use of the cylindrical clay oven, or tannûr, against the side of which one slaps a flat “patty”: the flat patty cooks very rapidly against the heated surface, until the cook judges it done and removes it. I am using an oven and pizza stone, heated to about 550-570 degrees Fahrenheit (285-300 C). Patties take about 2-5 minutes to cook, depending on size and leavening.

For leavening, I am using a sourdough starter that I created from white flour in February 2008 and have fed since. I use just a small smear of starter so that only a negligible few grams of white flour contribute to the barley loaf.

I use 1/2 C barley flour with 1 T olive oil and 1/2 t salt to produce four pita-like loaves.

Working with barley flour:

(Here I deal with leavened loaves. Unleavened barley bread is as easy and as uninteresting as unleavened wheat: a flat, crisp loaf. Nice for dipping into stuff, though.)

Modern recipes reflect the difficulties of working with pure barley flour: they all use a relatively small portion of barley flour, mainly for flavor, while relying on wheat flour for its material properties: more gluten, with its elasticity and potential for a good “rise.”

Barley flour has relatively little gluten. Therefore, even when you knead it a lot (layering the strings of gluten and creating overlapping web-like matrices of strings), it does not assume the strength of kneaded wheat dough. Since the dough does not “hold together” well, the gasses created by the yeast tend to just “ooze out” of the dough altogether: fewer bubbles, less “rise.”

Early discoveries:

So far, I find two inter-related strategies that help solve the problems in working with unmixed barley flour:

1. The first is the concept of “oven spring.” When dough first heats up in the oven, the yeast responds by “going into overdrive,” metabolizing very quickly and producing bubbles rapidly before getting too hot and dying off. This is why a baker slashes the skin of a (large, non-pita) loaf before baking: it allows the expansion to happen and prevents unsightly rupturing of the skin. My point here is that “oven spring” allows for a peculiarity of pita preparation: we allow the dough to rise, then smoosh down most of that rise when we flatten balls into patties. This proves to be okay, because “oven spring” will buy us a final, rapid rise, helping to produce a tender loaf. The intense heat of a clay tannûr (or pizza stone) yields an awesome “oven spring.”


2. The second, related, strategy is to be gentle in making flat patties of the pita-like bread made for slapping against the cooking surface. A rolling pin smooshes the dough down too much, losing almost all of the bubbles produced during the rising period. Also, the rolling pin crushes and tears at the already-crumbly barley dough, opening fissures through which the essential gasses of the “oven spring” will escape. But, by working the risen balls of dough with my hands, I can be gentle, preserving as much as possible of the lengthy “rise,” and also keeping the surface smooth and without fissures in order to contain the precious gasses of the “oven spring” during cooking.

The current result is a pretty tasty, tender, hand-sized pita with a flaky crumb and enough larger bubbles to make it interesting. Unlike a wheat-flour pita, it does not have the whole-patty rise that produces the characteristic “pocket” associated with the pita.

Future experiments will begin to achieve a more organized character, with attempts at different amounts of hydration and, eventually, working with molds.

[Barley Flour, Pita, and “Oven Spring” was written by G. Brooke Lester for Anumma.com and was originally posted on 2010/03/19. Except as noted, it is © 2010 G. Brooke Lester and licensed for re-use only under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.]

On Not Being a Yutz: Egyptian Religion

Ancient Egyptian religion: not self-explanatory.

While I have not posted on the subject recently, I continue to keep up on reading The Context of Scripture in a year. (Joseph’s got the beat covered, as usual.) Among the Egyptian canonical inscriptions, we have completed those that have a “divine focus” (cosmologies, hymns, prayers, incantations). Over the weeks, I have come to a conclusion:

A couple of years of instruction in Egyptian language notwithstanding, on the subject of ancient Egyptian religion, I am, relatively speaking, a yutz.

Nothing to be ashamed of: my schooling in the contexts of the Hebrew Bible, anchored in the West Semitic, has tended to look eastward to Mesopotamia. But, I feel the need to do some reinforcing reading (rapidly, given my time constraints).

I’ll be working the stacks for resources for a few days. Let me know if there is anything I should especially keep my eyes open for.

[On Not Being a Yutz: Egyptian Religion was written by G. Brooke Lester for Anumma.com and was originally posted on 2010/03/16. Except as noted, it is © 2010 G. Brooke Lester and licensed for re-use only under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.]

A Middle-Eastern Origin for Small Dogs

The Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) has its opinions about dogs. To call someone a “dead dog” is to insult them as ineffectual and non-threatening.^[1] In conversation with a superior, you might humbly refer to yourself as “but a dog.”^[2] Dogs return to their own vomit.^[3] They growl at passersby,^[4] but can be shooed away with sticks.^[5] Like the birds of the air, they will eat your flesh, if you do not enjoy a proper burial.^[6] They are not brave like lions, but for that reason, may live longer.^[7]

Perhaps the dog would have cut a more impressive figure in the ancient Near East if at least some of them weren’t so small.

A genetic study has found that small domestic dogs probably originated in the Middle East more than 12,000 years ago.

Here, a modern dog attempts to capture something of the deportment of his diminutive but noble ancestors:

Copyright G. Brooke Lester

h/t to BAR on Twitter.

REFERENCES:
BACK TO POST (1 Sam 24:14 [all numberings English text]; 2 Sam 9:8; 16:9)
BACK TO POST (2 Kgs 8:13; cf. 2 Sam 9:8)
BACK TO POST (Prov 26:11)
BACK TO POST (Exod 11:7)
BACK TO POST (1 Sam 17:43)
BACK TO POST (Psa 22:20)
BACK TO POST (Eccles 9:4)

[A Middle-Eastern Origin for Small Dogs was written by G. Brooke Lester for Anumma.com and was originally posted on 2010/03/15. Except as noted, it is © 2010 G. Brooke Lester and licensed for re-use only under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.]

Mysteries of the Global Flood Revealed!

In a culture where writing on the Bible will always be too secular for some people and too prone to apologetics for others, published works in biblical history might seek to more carefully emulate Caesar’s wife, avoiding even the appearance of (fideistic) impropriety.

Yesterday, I called attention to an infelicitous phrase in King and Stager’s Life in Biblical Israel (Westminster/John Knox Press, 2001). Writing about a Pre-Pottery Neolithic olive processing site on the sea floor off modern ʿAtlit (that’s south of Haifa, or south of Mount Carmel), King and Stager had written that the site was

…inundated in the mid-sixth millennium, probably by a world-wide flood.

The paragraph referenced Ehud Galili, “Prehistoric Site on the Sea Floor,” New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, 1:120-122. There, I find this ’graph (emphasis mine):

About twenty thousand years ago, the last Ice Age reached its peak. Soon afterward, the melting ice caused a rise in sea level that resulted in a significant reduction of coastal plains throughout the world. By the beginning of the Holocene, however, in about 8000 BCE, the Mediterranean was about 30 m lower than its present self.

In other words:

1. About 20,000 years ago, the most recent glaciation event (not an “ice age,” which are longer, such that we may well still be between glaciation events in a single Ice Age) peaked, with sea levels rising between then and now (on average, that is, with relatively short term accelerations and decelerations set aside).


2. By 10,000 years ago (around 8,000 BCE), waters had risen nearly, but not yet, to a then-coastal site settled by folks who press olives.


3. By about 7500 years ago (ca. 5500 BCE), waters had risen enough that the increasingly-sodden coastal site was abandoned, though not necessarily precipitously (King and Stager will note that no olives are left unprocessed at the site). Today, it is under water.

In King and Stager, this 15,000+ year rising of sea levels, with coastal sites gradually shifting landward, is collapsed into a “world-wide flood” that “inundates” the site “in the mid-sixth millennium.”

This choice of words obviously, and unfortunately, evokes the biblical story of an instantaneous and cataclysmic global flood (Gen 6–8). This evocation is equally damaging for biblical studies, whether the audience is those who read Gen 1–11 as history, or those who suspect with dismay that all biblical historians will do so.

This confusion, about whether the biblical narrative is being uncritically accepted, is compounded by a habit that King and Stager share with other biblical historians, whereby biblical narrative episodes are presented in language that presupposes their historicity. For just one example, (page 109),

The terebinth…gave its name to the Valley of Elah, where David slew Goliath (1 Sam. 17:19).

Not, “where David is said to have slain Goliath,” but “where David slew Goliath.” It is as if a writer on ancient Greece were to say, “Troy archaeological level VIIa is topped with a destruction layer, including burn marks to the walls outside of which Achilles slew Hector.”

This writerly habit could be explored further in another post. Here, I simply offer it as the kind of thing that makes it hard to know what to do with a cursory reference to “a world wide flood” in an academic, peer-reviewed work on the history of ancient Israel.

What would you say, reader? Do I make too big a deal over nothing? Or, in the context of larger conversations about isolating the fideistic from the evidentiary in biblical studies, does every molehill deserve scrutiny?

[Mysteries of the Global Flood Revealed! was written by G. Brooke Lester for Anumma.com and was originally posted on 2010/03/10. Except as noted, it is © 2010 G. Brooke Lester and licensed for re-use only under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.]

A Pious Scribal Addition?

This sentence, in King and Stager’s Life in Biblical Israel* (page 96), made me do a double-take (brackets represent my own clarifying additions):

Evidence for a wild olive processing site from the [Pre-Pottery Neolithic period] has been found on the sea floor at Maritime ʿAtlit south of Haifa, inundated in the mid-sixth millennium [B.C.], probably by a world-wide flood, after the olives had been processed.

“…probably by a world-wide flood…”?

The sentence concludes with a footnote (Ehud Galili, “Prehistoric Site on the Sea Floor,” New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, 1:120-122), but is not a block quote. We have this resource in our library, so I will check it out, but by their formatting, King and Stager seem to be at least taking ownership of the claim, if not outright producing it.

Did somebody go and demonstrate a mid-sixth-millennium global inundation without telling me? Or is there some other reading of the text that eludes me?

(Perhaps this is a case for the Lenzi Files.)

[Later: See also the follow-up post on this topic.]

(*) Why would Westminster/John Knox choose not to have persistent links to their own books on their web site, instead of out-linking to Cokesbury? Even if sales are through Cokesbury, why not at least keep information about the book in the publisher’s site? Talk about rushing customers out the door.

[A Pious Scribal Addition? was written by G. Brooke Lester for Anumma.com and was originally posted on 2010/03/09. Except as noted, it is © 2010 G. Brooke Lester and licensed for re-use only under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.]

Bread-making in the Ancient Near East

This is a request for resources. I plan to begin some research into bread-making in ancient Israel and in the ancient Near East. I will focus on bread production in the home, but am casting a wide net here at the beginning. So, I will even be looking into biblical grain offerings.

A live-yeast bread maker myself, I have from time to time essayed some early experiments in naan-type leavened flat loaves and in unleavened flat breads. I also have my eye on the kinds of sticky, wet doughs possibly suggested by the “queen of heaven” bread-molds and other terra cotta molds.

Without discounting the explanatory value of evidence from common-era societies, I mean to limit myself to primary evidence from Egypt, the Levant, and Mesopotamia, in the Bronze and Iron ages; perhaps, too, the Achaemenid  period around Judea.

Are there are resources you think I should take special care to find? Anything I might fruitfully keep in mind as I get started?

[Bread-making in the Ancient Near East was written by G. Brooke Lester for Anumma.com and was originally posted on 2020/03/08. Except as noted, it is © 2010 G. Brooke Lester and licensed for re-use only under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.]

Who's Reading Context of Scripture?

If you visited the last Biblical Studies Carnival, then you’ll know that Joseph is reading Hallo and Younger’s The Context of Scripture (3 vols; Brill, 1997) in a year, and so am I. Charles Halton had come up with the reading schedule at New Year’s, but one could join in any time.

Is anyone else reading CoS in a year, and posting about it occasionally? If so, please let me know. I don’t want to miss out on any posts.

[Who's Reading Context of Scripture? was written by G. Brooke Lester for Anumma.com and was originally posted on 2010/03/04. Except as noted, it is © 2010 G. Brooke Lester and licensed for re-use only under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.]

Biblical Studies Carnival LI

I dub this month’s Biblical Studies Carnival to be the “Blogroll Amnesty Edition,” because it embodies in part God's preferential option (on February 3rd, anyway) for the smaller blogs. I had asked that contributors give special consideration to the smaller blogs in this carnival, and several did. So, to the small fry linked herein: happy hit counts to us!

In accordance with venerable tradition (i.e., Duane did it), I am offering this Carnival in two parts. The first part is “Your Carnival,” and includes posts nominated to the carnival. The second part is “My Carnival,” and includes posts that I rounded up on my own. Again, “My Carnival,” in the spirit of February’s “Blogroll Amnesty Day,” will comprise mostly (but not only) posts from blogs that are sub-Top 50.

Your Carnival:

Old Testament and Suchlike:

The bloggers (in the persons of Darrell Pursiful and Tsalampouni Ekaterini) called our attention to Richard Hess on personal names in Gen 1–11.

Suzanne at Suzanne’s Bookshelf looks at Gen 3:16 ("and thy desire shall be to thy husband," KJV), specifically the meaning of the woman's desire.

Busybody Loren Rosson looks at Israelite/Judaean land ethics in the context of Philip Esler’s review (PDF) of Ellen Davis' Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

Claude Mariottini takes a closer look at the Song of Solomon, including Song 1:5 (“I am black and/but beautiful”).

David Stark at NTinterpretation is engaged with Martin Abegg on the meaning of “works of the Torah” for the Qumran community.

The New Testament and Suchlike:

Cynthia R. Nielsen at Per Caritatem has written a well thought piece on Eschatological Developments Within the Pauline Corpus.

Stephen Carlson at Hypotyposeis looks at the translation of σαρξ in Galatians 3:3.

On NT pod, Mark Goodacre lays out some of his case against the hypothetical Q source.

The Pistis Christou debate is alive and well at James Gregory’s All Things Ephesians, as he reviews a portion of Bird and Sprinkle’s The Faith of Jesus Christ: Exegetical, Biblical, and Theological Studies (Milton Keynes, U.K., and Peabody, Mass.: Paternoster and Hendrickson, 2009).

As a part of his series on Foucault at Political Jesus, Rod of Alexandria defends deconstruction and looks at the concept of Pauline “authorship.” See, too, the response by J.K. Gayle at Aristotle’s Feminist Subject.

(I have taken the “mythicism” conversation out of the NT section and given it its own area: see further below.)

Teaching and Writing:

Karyn at Boulders2Bits writes a thorough pre-publication review, with excerpts, of Jo Ann Hackett’s A Basic Introduction to Biblical Hebrew (with CD) (Hendrickson, 2010). How much would you pay for Karyn’s review? Don’t answer! There’s more! She has also reviewed Bordreuil and Pardee’s A Manual of Ugaritic (Eisenbrauns, 2009).

Alan Lenzi at Feeling Finite asks, “When Should Editors Step In and Say ‘Not on My Watch,’” concerning William Barrick’s review of Hill, Andrew E., and John H. Walton, A Survey of the Old Testament. What ideas about the history of ancient Israel or the composition history of biblical texts is an academic journal obliged to entertain? What ideas is it obliged to dismiss as unsupportable?

(Late breaker: the question is raised anew in Alan’s space in response to another RBL review, this time Bruce Waltke’s review of Michael Fox’s Proverbs 10–31: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [Yale University Press, 2009]. What is the role of confessional assertions about the Bible in peer-reviewed review articles representing the Society of Biblical Literature?)

ZOMG! Mythicism! And Stuff!

The Big Conversation of the month, though, had to have been that started and maintained by James McGrath on the subject of "mythicism," or the claim that the person Jesus Christ never existed in history. In a month-long dialogue spawning thousands of comments and dozens of responsive posts elsewhere, James found himself in a polygonal conversation with (caution: overlapping categories ahead) mythicists, creationists, atheists, and his fellow bibliobloggers.

I’ll offer links to James’ posts, then to some of the responses that I found. There is just no way for me to be comprehensive about this, but I figure that 1) if you were in the conversation, you will have caught what I’ve missed, and 2) if you are new to the conversation, this is more than enough to get you immersed.

Here is James, with the titles often paraphrased. If you would rather see all these on one page (albeit in reverse order), just search for “mythicism” on James’ blog. Here we go: mythicist misunderstanding (Feb 6), the discussion spreads (Feb 8), microexistence v. macroexistence (Feb 9), accusations and assumptions (Feb 9), more creationist parallels (Feb 10), creationism and ID (Feb 11), death of mythical messiah (Feb 11), Tacitus on mythicism (Feb 12), publishing on historical Jesus (Feb 14), YECs are like mythicists (Feb 14), yet more mythicist/creationist parallels (Feb 16), unreasonable faith and Jesus’s existence (Feb 17), not all atheists are mythicists (Feb 18), is there evidence for mythicism (Feb 19), mythicism and John the Baptist (Feb 20), mythunderstanding the criteria of authenticity (Feb 21), mythicism and historicism as theories (Feb 22), mythicism and paradigm shifts (Feb 23), at long last I understand mythicism (Feb 24), mything links (Feb 27).

Mid-month, Mike Koke at the Golden Rule took time to gather the links to date and offered a response with reference to 1 Thess 2:14-15, and also with reference to an earlier “historicity of Jesus” post of his own.

Neil Godfrey at Vridar was a steady interlocutor, arguing for the validity of questioning the historicity of Jesus (Feb 4), against misunderstandings on the part of historicists (Feb 9), and against circular arguments on Jesus’s historicity (Feb 11). (The dates should help you cross reference to James’ posts listed above.)

John Hobbins at Ancient Hebrew Poetry offered some considered judgments on the analogy from King Arthur (Feb 9) and on whether Albert Schweitzer can be called a mythicist (Feb 13).

Undoubtedly I have only scratched the surface on this topic. I assure you that I have left no-one out intentionally. I invite readers (and writers) to supplement my links to the “mythicism” conversation in the comments to this carnival.




My Carnival:

Technology:

Tim Bulkeley at SansBlogue wants to know what biblical scholars could do with an online information visualization tool.

Language, Linguistics, and Translation:

Peter Bekins of בלשנות literally had the audience drooling over linguistics at the Midwest SBL.

Crescat Graffiti blesses us with three great words that sound great together: Hieroglyphic…sex…graffiti.

In the “No, no, you can’t do that!” department, Doug “Clayboy” Chaplin alerts us to Preachers! Using! Greek! Claptrap detectors out, everyone.

(Oh, and speaking of claptrap, Jason at Εις Δοξαν reminds us that we can never, never get tired of the comedic preaching stylings of Steven Anderson.)

Tim at SansBlogue is reading Seth Sanders’ The Invention of Hebrew (University of Illinois Press, 2009). Join him for first impressions, the introduction, the first and last ’graphs, chapter one, and chapter two.

On the perennially favored topic of apologetic translation, David Ker at Better Bibles engages a post by Daniel Kirk at Storied Theology on theological manipulation in a translation of Gal 5:6.

Timothy at Catholic Bibles wants to hear you state your case for your favorite Bible translation (h/t to Qohelet at the Bible Critic).

Inscriptions and ancient texts:

Steve Wiggins of Sects and Violence in the Ancient World sees only “escapees from Flatland” (awesome literary ref there, Steve) in a bit of iconography claimed to represent Yahweh and his Asherah.

With a work in the hands of the printers, Alan Lenzi of Feeling Finite is now “off and running” on Reading Akkadian Prayers.

Speaking of reading Akkadian poetry: Beware of abnormal side effects! Duane is having Crazy Thoughts About Blindness and Reading Clay Tablets.

At כל־האדם, Joseph has continued to read The Context of Scripture. Here at Anumma, I have tried to do my part. We’re reading CoS in a year at the January 1st invitation of Charles Halton at Awilum.

Old Testament:

Paavo at מה יתרון has been working through Perdue on empire in Proverbs and in Job.

In response to Julia O’Brian’s piece in The Bible and Interpretation, “Biblical Scholarship and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” Phil Sumpter at Narrative and Ontology has been reflecting on Biblical Scholarship and the State of Israel, and on ethnic Israel and Esther.

Qohelet’s church accidentally made a comedic case against (or for?) lectio continua. Or, at least against randomized selections from Deuteronomy.

Genesis and Stuff:

Thomas Verenna is one of several who observed Darwin Day on their Bible-related blogs.

Steve Wiggins finds that the scientific fact of evolution is, in the United States at least, still Out of Reach.

At כל־האדם, Joseph Kelly reacts to Strimple’s Historical Adam essay, calling it on the fallacious “argument from abbhorent consequences.” (It is fortuitous, then, that a related lecture came to Joseph from Princeton Theological Seminary.)

At Biblia Hebraica, Doug Mangum follows up on Joseph’s post, with  a related word on the similarly fallacious “argument from the NT.”

Nijay Gupta offers recommendations for reading on Genesis and theology.

New Testament:

Wright on Paul, now made easy! See N.T. Wright for Everyone: The Apostle Paul, by Nijay Gupta.

Qohelet (The Bible Critic) endorsed the “analogy from Arthur” that was offered by Eric Reitan beginning with a comment to the historical Jesus discussion. (Above, as a respondent in the “mythicism” section, John Hobbins also weighs in on Arthur).

Also relating to the Historical Jesus, Phil Harland (Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean) continued his podcast series on Studying the Historical Jesus with parts two and three.

At NT/History Blog, Bill Heroman is thinking on “Synagogue” in James 2:3.

Little help now! Patrick McCullough at kata ta biblia is looking for assistance on NT manuscript preservation as reception history, and also needs a good title for an SBL session (not a paper, a session).

Conclusion:

Well, I’m about wiped out. Don’t delay to begin nominating posts to the next Biblical Studies Carnival (instructions for nominating at that link). I will edit this preliminary information upon confirmation, but unofficial rumor has it that the redoubtable Jim West will take next month’s Carnival into his own strong hand and outstretched arm. [That’s a ’firm.]

Thanks for the opportunity to steer the ship this month, and I hope that everyone who enjoyed the Carnival will consider hosting when they may.

[Biblical Studies Carnival LI was written by G. Brooke Lester for Anumma.com and was originally posted on 2010/03/01. Except as noted, it is © 2010 G. Brooke Lester and licensed for re-use only under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.]

A Wiki Bible (at כל־האדם)

I will write more substantively on this later on, but for now, just take a look at Joseph’s post and its comment thread.

Short version of my response: I very much like the idea of a Bible translation that is subject to the Wiki’s ways.

This Week in COS: Hebat of Uda and the Shema

Charles Halton has provided a schedule for reading Hallo and Younger’s The Context of Scripture in a year. Grab a schedule and join in any time.

We have just left the Hittite archival documents behind for a while and gotten back into the Egyptian canonical stuff as well as the Hebrew letters from Lachish. As a kind of “parting gift,” the Hittite docs yielded a votive record—that is, a record of gifts given to the gods in fulfillment of a vow—containing a nice point of contact with my usual introductory teaching on Josiah’s reform in 7th Century Judah.

Dream of the queen. In my dream Hebat asked for a necklace with sun-disks and lapis lazuli. We inquired further by oracle, and it was determined that (this Hebat was) the Hebat of Uda. [COS III:36}

“Uda” is a place name, presumably a city in which [there was] a shrine to the goddess Hebat. Other cities would also have shrines to the same goddess, and in some sense, the “Hebats” of different shrines are held to be distinct. For the queen, it makes a difference whether she is expected to offer her gift to “the Hebat of Uda” or to some other Hebat.

While the COS makes no such cross reference as this, the same kind of distinction may well be implied in the 8th Century Hebrew inscriptions of Kuntillet Ajrud, which offers blessings in the name of “YHWH of Samaria” and “YHWH of Teman.” If so, then Josiah’s 7th Century centralization of the Yahwistic cult into Jerusalem would have found resistance among those who feared offending distinct “YHWHs” among the several shrines of the Judean countryside. This theology reflected in such epithets as “Hebat of Uda,” “YHWH of Samaria,” and “YHWH of Teman, would be the likely foil for the biblical Shema, read (arguably most naturally) as “Hear, O Israel: YHWH our God is one YHWH!” (שמע ישראל יהוה אלהנו יהוה אחד).

Have you added your own cross-references to COS lately?

[This Week in COS: Hebat of Uda and the Shema was written by G. Brooke Lester for Anumma.com and was originally posted on 2010/02/18. Except as noted, it is © 2010 G. Brooke Lester and licensed for re-use only under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.]

Why We Love the Top 50 Bibliobloggers

What do I love about the Top 50 Bibliobloggers?

5. They know who they are.

4. They support academic blogging on the Bible by nominating posts to the Biblical Studies Carnival.

3. They honor the spirit of Blogroll Amnesty Day by linking “down,” where possible, to blogs that are smaller than theirs.

2. They support academic blogging on the Bible by nominating posts to the Biblical Studies Carnival.

1. They know who they are.

The upcoming, February-edition Biblical Studies Carnival will be hosted here in the first few days of March. See the previous BSC over at Duane’s. Nominate posts for the next so it can be as good as the last!

[Why We Love the Top 50 Bibliobloggers was written by G. Brooke Lester for Anumma.com and was originally posted on 2020/02/16. Except as noted, it is © 2010 G. Brooke Lester and licensed for re-use only under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.]

This Week in COS: It Wasn't My Fault!

You’ll recall that Charles Halton has invited folks to read the Context of Scripture in a year. Joseph at כל־האדם is also reading along.

For pure joy of reading, I’ve got to go back to last Sunday’s text: “The Case Against Ura-Tarh̬unta and His Father Ukkura” (3.33). The context is the reign of the Hittite king H̬attušili III (mid-late 13th century BCE), and the text involves declarations of innocence, made under oath. The defendants are accused of embezzling items entrusted to them by the queen for distribution, gifting, or trade.

The two principal excuses seem to be, “But I only stole the old ones,” and “It died: not my fault!”

In the “But I only stole the old ones” department, the following is typical:

And whenever they bring here new bits and snaffles, I have been accepting the new ones for the service of the crown, but of the old ones I have been taking for myself as many as I liked. (§5).

Translation: Yes, I pilfered an Epson printer, but they had already been replaced by the new all-in-one scanning jobs! I’m not sure, but the oath the defendants are made to take in §25 seem to reflect a ruling on this saying, more or less, Don’t do it again.

My favorite excuse, though, is the “It died: not my fault” defense. Some examples:

I also took for myself two mules, which died while in my possession.…

I had hitched up three mules belonging to the palace, and they died.…

I took for myself three cows…and drove them to my house, where they died.…

Of the asses which I had charge of, I took for myself nothing. Five asses died, and I replaced them from my house. (Ensuing lines: well, I haven’t yet, but I will.)…

The mules that they mention died.

Anyone ever see Miller’s Crossing? Remember when Tom keeps betting on horses that lose or get injured?

Lazarre's Man: Hey, horses got knees?
Tom: I don’t know... fetlocks
Lazarre's Man: Well if I was a horse, I’d be down on my fetlocks praying you don't bet on me.

If I was a Hittite mule, horse, or cow, I’d be down on my fetlocks praying that Ura-Tarh̬unta and his father Ukkura are not given charge of me.

[This Week in COS: It Wasn't My Fault! was written by G. Brooke Lester for Anumma.com and was originally posted on 2010/02/12. Except as noted, it is © 2010 G. Brooke Lester and licensed for re-use only under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.]

Darwin's Eve Mythicism with McGrath

James has been writing on “mythicism” lately (the conviction that there is no historical figure behind the New Testament depictions of Jesus; the idea is that several contemporary myths coalesced into a single invented figure).

The “-ism” is important, the suffix implying that this perspective is not a matter of reasoned argument but of dogmatic adherence. For this reason, James’s comparison to Creationsm is apt: James means to say that reasoned argument fails both creationists and mythicists, and that they appeal instead to fallacious lines of argument. Notice, in this regard, the epithet that creationists use for the theory of natural selection as the main vehicle for the fact of evolution: “darwinism.” In this way, creationists seek to suggest that there are two equally valid “isms” from which to choose, when in fact the one arises from public reasoned argument, demonstrates extraordinary explanatory power, finds support from evidence in virtually every field of science, and (most importantly) is inherently provisional pending new discoveries…while the other is held not provisionally but absolutely, resting not on an evidentiary foundation but rather the privileging a particular interpretation of a limited number of biblical proof-texts.

Tomorrow is Darwin Day. Celebrate with a trip over to Exploring Our Matrix.