Teaching (and Studying) Difficult Issues

On The Forbidden Gospels Blog, April DeConick writes of her intention to include a "course contract" on her syllabi this year (after receiving a tip from a friend who developed a similar practice). The text of her contract is given here. As a biblical studies major, my classes often address difficult issues from the relationship between theology and biblical hermeneutics to theodicy, abortion, and homosexuality (the latter of which is also mentioned by DeConick as an example), and so I can see that such a contract may be warranted. And as a critically minded scholar myself, I'm not overly troubled by a contract which stipulates that students engage the various texts and their various issues in a critical way. This is certainly how the Old Testament Interpretation and the New Testament Interpretation courses are taught at Yale. But the concluding sentence of DeConick's contract still gave me some pause: "[b]y remaining in this course and accepting this syllabus, you are expressing your understanding of and agreement with these fundamental, non-negotiable conditions of intellectual freedom and critical engagement." Is intellectual freedom truly being maintained if certain viewpoints are expressly forbidden at the outset? How does the work of canonical critics such as Brevard Childs fit into a matrix which places "faith" on one pole and "scholarship" on the other? I must admit that I have no answers to these questions, nor do I really believe that they can be satisfactorily answered. And I do believe that in an academic setting, an approach such as DeConick's is both the most appropriate and the most effective. I just enjoy playing the Devil's Advocate. ;-)

I once heard a story about Prof. John Collins (possibly apocryphal, possibly not) which I still find amusing. Prof. Collins was in his first semester as an active faculty member at Yale and was teaching the standard Old Testament Interpretation course, a course of approximately 75-100 students. When it came time for him to deliver his lecture on Lev. 18, the class was a little tense, as the chapter's decisive verdict against male homosexuality remains a difficult issue for many. However, he noted that this passage includes no such verdict against female homosexuality--possibly because of a lack of concern for non-penetrative intercourse, or some similar reason. But before he could go any further, a young woman sitting in the back exclaimed in relief, "Pshew!" The entire class laughed and moved on.

The moral of this story: laughter is the surest way to bring people together, even if they represent different theological and doctrinal backgrounds. If only the church fathers had had better senses of humor...

BAR Highlights: 8/29/07

More recent archaeological news from Biblical Archaeology Review:

Temple Mount Digging Condemned—Again
Israeli archaeologists have again blasted Muslim religious authorities for construction work on the Temple Mount and have criticized the Israel Antiquities Authority for doing nothing to stop it.

Hadrian Unearthed
Parts of a large (13-16 feet) statue of the Roman emperor who quashed the Second Jewish Revolt have been uncovered in south-central Turkey.

An Inconvenient Truth?
Climate change may have led to the flooding of ancient Israel’s coastal plain 5,500 years ago.

New Translation of Egyptian Religious Text
The Pyramid Texts, one of the oldest known religious texts from Egypt and which evolved into the Book of the Dead, has been translated into English.

An Artifact in the Strangest Place
A woman in western Austria unwittingly uncovered a medieval cross while searching in a trash container for old dishes. The artifact, valued at half a million dollars, was part of a collection in Poland but was taken to Austria in 1941 by the Nazis.

New: A Slimmer Version of Collins' Intro

A recent announcement from Augsburg Fortress Publishers concerning the publication of a new abridgment of John Collins' An Introduction to the Hebrew Bible. The abridgment is about half the size of its predecessor. Prof. Collins is not only my advisor at Yale (which more than earns him a plug on this blog) but also one of the best teachers I have studied with in my career. I haven't had a chance to read the book, but I have seen a copy in the bookstore and it looks fantastic. Plenty of high-quality illustrations, helpful excurses in distinctive colored boxes, and other aids designed to appeal to undergraduates and other introductory readers. Check out the brief video clip on the accompanying website (www.collinstext.com) in which Prof. Collins wryly mentions that one of his major challenges was to produce a textbook "that students can read." With wit like that, how can he not be my favorite professor? ;-)
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Collins' Authoritative Introduction to the Hebrew Bible Now Abridged



"To now have A Short Introduction to the Hebrew Bible in a format fashioned especially for the undergraduate course is most welcome."
—James VanderKam, John A. O'Brien Professor of Hebrew Scriptures, University of Notre Dame

Fortress Press's new release of A Short Introduction to the Hebrew Bible brings the erudition of John Collins's well-regarded Introduction to the Hebrew Bible with CD-ROM (2004) to a wider audience. A marvel of conciseness, A Short Introduction provides more student-friendly features than the larger Introduction, including new charts and maps, more illustrations, chapter summaries, illuminating vignettes, and selected bibliographies.

"Using Collins' textbook is like team-teaching with a master teacher."
—Carol Newsom, Professor of Old Testament, Candler School of Theology

A dedicated Web site (www.collinstext.com) includes test banks and classroom resources geared for the busy professor.

Order your copy today

A Different Kind of "Historical Jesus"?

On his blog Euangelion, Michael Bird (currently attending the Dogmatics Conference in Edinburgh) has provided the final sentences of a paper given by John Webster entitled "The Eternal Begetting of the Son":

"The only historical Jesus there is is the one who has his being in union with the Son of God who is eternally begotten of the Father. Those who pore over the gospels searching for another Jesus (whether their motives be apologetic or critical) pierce their hearts with many pangs, for they study a matter which does not exist."

This is certainly a provocative conclusion, especially in light of the explosive growth of historical Jesus scholarship throughout the last century (growth helpfully charted for the blogosphere by Scot McKnight, with additional insightful comments from Mark Goodacre). I'm longing to read the rest of the paper... are "[t]hose who pore over the gospels searching for another Jesus" doomed to failure because of a lack of reliable source material (a judgment akin to that of Bultmann)? Or are the theological and historical personages of Jesus truly inseparable? Alas, a trip to Edinburgh wasn't included in my summer budget... ;-)

RBL Highlights: 8/28/07

A few highlights from this week's Review of Biblical Literature:

Zev Garber, ed.
Mel Gibson's Passion: The Film, the Controversy, and Its Implications
Reviewed by Timothy D. Finlay

Michael W. Holmes
The Apostolic Fathers in English
Reviewed by Hennie Stander

Ben-Zion Rosenfeld and Joseph Menirav
Markets and Marketing in Roman Palestine
Reviewed by Michael Trainor

C. Kavin Rowe
Early Narrative Christology: The Lord in the Gospel of Luke
Reviewed by Joel B. Green

Gregory Tatum
New Chapters in the Life of Paul: The Relative Chronology of His Career
Reviewed by Eve-Marie Becker

Gerd Theissen
The Bible and Contemporary Culture
Reviewed by Christian Danz

BAR Highlights: 8/22/07

More recent archaeological news from Biblical Archaeology Review:

New Tomb of Egyptian Noblewoman Uncovered
Archaeologists have uncovered the tomb of an Egyptian noblewoman in Saqqara, 15 miles south of Cairo. The stone coffin is from the 27th dynasty and is part of the royal burial grounds.

Ireland’s Earliest Breweries?
Two Irish archaeologists have proposed that the horseshoe-shaped, grass-covered mounds found throughout Ireland were in fact used for brewing beer, not for cooking as previously thought. The analysis has been rather tasty.

Returning Art
The Getty Museum’s return of several artifacts to Italy is a major international case, one that may set a precedent for other countries.

Math in Translation
A new book gives English translations of significant mathematical theories from the non-Western world in historical and mathematical context.

Mesopotamian Revivalism through Art
Iraqi artists in Baghdad have been hired to paint over the concrete slabs throughout the city with images of former kings and mythical scenes from pre-Islamic history.

New: Severson on the Parable of the Sheep and Goats

A recent announcement from Wipf and Stock Publishers:



The Least of These
Selected Readings in Christian History
by Eric R. Severson
ISBN 13: 978-1-55635-106-8 / 282 pp / $31 Retail / Paper

This collection of primary documents from Christian history—all dealing with the interpretation of the Parable of the Sheep and Goats in Matthew—spans the second to eighteenth centuries.

“A unique and brilliant contribution to theological pedagogy.”
—Robert Cummings Neville, author of Behind the Masks of God

Read Complete Description and Endorsements

Read Excerpts

Request Review or Exam Copy

RBL Highlights: 8/22/07

A few highlights from this week's Review of Biblical Literature. I was pleased to see that Jouette Bassler's Navigating Paul (which I used while facilitating a four-week study of Paul this summer) received three pretty positive reviews.
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Jouette M. Bassler
Navigating Paul: An Introduction to Key Theological Concepts
Reviewed by William S. Campbell
Reviewed by Robert A. Bryant
Reviewed by David J. Downs

Charles B. Cousar
An Introduction to the New Testament: Witnesses to God's New Work
Reviewed by Greg Carey

Edmondo Lupieri
A Commentary on the Apocalypse of John
Reviewed by Craig R. Koester

Lee Martin MacDonald
The Biblical Canon: Its Origin, Transmission, and Authority
Reviewed by David Chapman

Peter Schäfer
Jesus in the Talmud
Reviewed by Catherine Hezser

McKnight Turns to the Historical Jesus

Scot McKnight has followed his illuminating series of posts on the "New Perspective on Paul" with an equally illuminating series on Historical Jesus research, which concludes with nine general points for the reader. Mark Goodacre responded to these final points with a number of minor critiques, several of which I would second (e.g., his argument that some scholars are more effective than others in their attempts to objectively and dispassionately produce an historical reconstruction of Jesus). A few additional observations and comments of my own:

McKnight's fourth point is as follows: "I don’t think historical Jesus has any place in theological studies for the Church. To bracket off one’s theological views in order to study the historical Jesus and then to do theological studies on top of that bracketed-off-study-of-Jesus is a vicious circular argument. You won’t find the Church’s Jesus this way because you’ve decided the Church’s Jesus isn’t allowed at the table! Historical Jesus studies is for historians." While his warnings against circular arguments are well taken, it seems to me that our evolving conceptions of who Jesus really was--what he said, did, didn't say, didn't do, etc.--can and should have a profound effect on the church which is supposedly fundamentally based on his life and teachings. The Church's Jesus and the Historical Jesus may not always be one and the same, but they can communicate with one another, and learn from one another.

And his fifth point: "still, nearly every historical Jesus scholar I know--and I know most of them--believes in the portrait of Jesus they construct on the basis of the historical methods. John Dominic Crossan and Marc Borg and Tom Wright and Dick Horsley et al believe, so it seems to me, in the Jesus they have constructed. (We all do this, don’t we?)" Goodacre objects, and again points to Sanders as a pertinent example. The key to this question is one's understanding of the term "believe." If it is to be understood from a religio-spiritual perspective, then I would agree with Goodacre, and add additional examples such as Bart Ehrman (as I don't think an avowed agnostic can "believe" in Jesus in this way!). If it is to be understood from a more empirical perspective, then I would be more inclined to agree with McKnight. It is to be expected that researchers believe in the results they achieve. Thus the research process must be carefully regulated and comprehensively executed, in order to obtain a result worth believing in.

And, finally, his sixth point: "historical Jesus studies have waned significantly in the last ten years. The hey day was the 80s and 90s but the creative work has been done, climaxing perhaps in Tom Wright’s big book, and mostly the conversation has grown stale. What used to attract hundreds to academic sessions now attracts 30 or 40." Goodacre essentially agrees, and adds that "[t]here is so much of it; it is so much in the mainstream that it has become somewhat less exciting. I am tempted to add that I have not seen anything in twenty years that begins to approach Sanders' Jesus and Judaism for stimulation and interest, but then I really would sound like a Johnny-one-note." Here I find myself disagreeing with both of my esteemed colleagues. McKnight suggests that the climax of recent Historical Jesus research is Tom Wright's "big book" (which I assume is Jesus and the Victory of God, released in 1997). However, both McKnight and Goodacre fail to mention John P. Meier's magisterial Marginal Jew series, the most recent of which was released in 2001 (the third volume, with another volume forthcoming). For my money, these are the definitive volumes on the Historical Jesus, and they are every bit as stimulating and interesting as Jesus and Judaism, albeit in a slightly different vein. McKnight mentions the work of Paula Fredericksen and Amy-Jill Levine, but doesn't mention that their work is relatively recent as well (Fredericksen's Jesus of Nazareth: King of the Jews was first published in 1999; Levine's The Misunderstood Jew was first published last year). Last fall I took a seminar course with Adela Collins entitled "The Historical Jesus"; it was one of the largest seminars I've taken at Yale. There's still a great deal of interest in the Historical Jesus, and if some of that interest is outside the academy, so much the better.

Take a look at all these intriguing posts (and Goodacre's responses) and see what you think!

RBL Highlights: 8/17/07

A few highlights from this week's Review of Biblical Literature:

François Bovon
Luke the Theologian: Fifty-Five Years of Research (1950-2005)
Reviewed by Christoph Stenschke

Trevor J. Burke
Adopted into God's Family: Exploring a Pauline Metaphor
Reviewed by Mary L. Coloe

C. D. Elledge
Life after Death in Early Judaism: The Evidence of Josephus
Reviewed by Daniel Maoz

Ehud Netzer
The Architecture of Herod, the Great Builder
Reviewed by Peter Richardson

Séamus O'Connell
From Most Ancient Sources: The Nature and Text-Critical Use of the Greek Old Testament Text of the Complutensian Polyglot Bible
Reviewed by Anneli Aejmelaeus

Abraham Wasserstein and David Wasserstein
The Legend of the Septuagint: From Classical Antiquity to Today
Reviewed by John Mason

More NT Titles From Dove

More recent New Testament offerings from Dove Booksellers' Used Book Department:

Aland, Kurt; Barbara Aland
TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
(Wm B Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1988)
Condition: VG Dust Jacket Condition: VG Hardcover $16.00
Comments: DJ

Bell, H Idris; T C Skeat
FRAGMENTS OF AN UNKNOWN GOSPEL AND OTHER EARLY CHRISTIAN PAPYRI
(British Museum, 1935)
Condition: GC Hardcover $30.00
Comments: Shelfworn, frayed at head and tail of spine

Bruce, F F
BIBLICAL EXEGESIS IN THE QUMRAN TEXTS
(Wm B Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1959)
Condition: VG Hardcover $24.00
Comments: DJ

Charlesworth, James H
JESUS' JEWISHNESS: EXPLORING THE PLACE OF JESUS IN EARLY JUDAISM
(Crossroad Publishing, 1991)
Condition: VG Hardcover $22.00
Comments: DJ

Childs, Brevard S
NEW TESTAMENT AS CANON: AN INTRODUCTION
(Fortress, 1985)
Condition: NF Dust Jacket Condition: VG Hardcover $30.00
Comments: DJ

Davies, W D
JEWISH AND PAULINE STUDIES
(Fortress, 1984)
Condition: VG Hardcover $25.00
Comments: DJ

Farmer, William R
MACCABEES, ZEALOTS AND JOSEPHUS: AN INQUIRY INTO JEWISH NATIONALISM IN THE GRECO-ROMAN PERIOD
(Columbia University Press, 1956)
Condition: VG Hardcover $28.00
Comments: DJ

Farmer, William R
SYNOPTIC PROBLEM: A CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE PROBLEM OF THE LITERARY RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN MATTHEW, MARK, AND LUKE
(Macmillan, 1964)
Condition: VG Hardcover $18.00
Comments: Owner stamp on ffep, title page; DJ

Kummel, Werner Georg
NEW TESTAMENT: THE HISTORY OF THE INVESTIGATION OF ITS PROBLEMS
(Abingdon Press, 1972)
Condition: VG Hardcover $30.00
Comments: DJ

Lake, Kirsopp
EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST PAUL: THEIR MOTIVE AND ORIGIN
(Rivingtons, 1911)
Condition: VG Hardcover $30.00

Ludemann, Gerd
HERETICS: THE OTHER SIDE OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY
(Westminster John Knox, 1996)
Condition: VG Hardcover $20.00

Meier, John P
MARGINAL JEW: RETHINKING THE HISTORICAL JESUS, VOLUME 1: THE ROOTS OF THE PROBLEM AND THE PERSON
(Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1991)
Condition: VG Dust Jacket Condition: VG Hardcover $23.00
Comments: DJ

Moore, Stephen D
LITERARY CRITICISM AND THE GOSPELS
(Yale University Press, 1989)
Condition: VG Hardcover $20.00
Comments: DJ

Sanders, E P; Magaret Davies
STUDYING THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS
(Trinity Press International, 1989)
Condition: GC Paperback $20.00
Comments: Front cover, text creased at fore edge

Smith, Morton
SECRET GOSPEL: THE DISCOVERY AND INTERPRETATION OF THE SECRET GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK
(Harper & Row, 1973)
Condition: VG Hardcover $20.00
Comments: DJ

Tischendorf, Constantine
NOVUM TESTAMENTUM GRAECE (2 VOLS BOUND TOGETHER, 7TH ED)
(Adolph Winter, 1859)
Condition: GC Hardcover $40.00
Comments: Half-leatherm very worn but intact; faint dampstain to text along front and bottom edges

Weaver, Walter P
HISTORICAL JESUS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: 1900-1950
(Trinity Press International, 1999)
Condition: VG Paperback $19.00

BAR Highlights: 8/16/07

More recent archaeological news from Biblical Archaeology Review:

Saving History or Criminal Activity?
In September 2005, Israeli professor Hanan Eshel was suspected of trading antiquities and purchasing stolen goods. Although no charges were filed and the matter languished, one lawyer is demanding that the Israel Antiquities Authority be held accountable for cutting the nearly-2,000-year-old scroll that Eshel obtained.

Death on View
Royal graves in Alacahöyük, in the province of Çorum, Turkey, near the Black sea, will be on view for tourists. Replicas of the tombs will offer visitors a chance to see how the royals were buried and what treasures accompanied them.

Unexpected Find at Tiberias
The Israel Antiquities Authority’s excavation at Tiberias has uncovered a mosaic on the floor of a Byzantine church with a surprising inscription that contradicts an earlier theory about Jews and Christians in Tiberias.

Fruit Baskets: Popular Then and Now
A sixth-century B.C.E. floor mosaic showing trees and fruit baskets has been uncovered at Yavneh Yam, an ancient archaeological seaport 15 miles south of Jaffa.

Cursing Like the Ancients
Archaeologists may have found exceptional curse tablets in Lincolnshire, England, dating to a time of political turmoil under the Roman empire.

Tanning in Rome
An ancient tannery has been uncovered in the outskirts of Rome, but it is now threatened by railway construction. The complex, at 3,345 square feet, is the largest discovered in the city.

Car vs. God

I've pulled some tough all-nighters and taken some frustrating classes, but I don't think that I've ever considered this course of action as a possible outlet:

Deputies: Man 'Mad At God' Drives Into Church
St. Augustine Man Accused Of Criminal Mischief

Fortunately, it doesn't appear that anyone was injured.

Key Stendhal Essay Available Online

Mark Goodacre notes that Krister Stendhal's seminal essay "Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West" is now available online via The Paul Page. In many ways, Stendhal's work blazed a trail for Sanders, Dunn, and others who followed. I read this article for the first time last spring as part of Judy Gundry-Volf's class on Paul, and found it to be as good as advertised. Check it out!

UMC Cotillion?

An article posted on the website of the Kentucky Conference of the United Methodist Church proclaims, "New Tone Set for Conversation, Debate at 2008 Methodist General Conference." In preparation for the upcoming conference (the denomination's chief policy-making body, scheduled to meet in Fort Worth April 23-May 2), a task force has prepared a brief set of rules entitled "Guidelines for Holy Conferencing: What God Expects of Us." I suspect that fears of a devastating schism over homosexuality, magnified by the continuing state of affairs in the Episcopal Church in America and the Anglican Communion, motivated this course of action. So... will it succeed? Only time will tell, but at the moment I have doubts. While it is certainly worthwhile to urge all parties to "listen patiently before formulating responses" and "avoid using inflammatory words, derogatory names, or an excited and angry voice," the biblical text has an uncanny way of igniting people's passions, particularly when they feel that basic theological tenets are at stake. Furthermore, the rules could lead to the conclusion that the maintenance of denominational decorum, however improbable, is more important than action... in any direction. (And for what it's worth, the historical Jesus seems to have been much more interested in action than decorum!) Nevertheless, we can all benefit from timely reminders to "strive to understand the experience out of which others have arrived at their views" and "remember that people are defined, ultimately, by their relationship with God--not by the flaws we discover, or think we discover, in their views and actions."

Love for the Variants

I've just finished reading Eldon Jay Epp's article on textual variants in the most recent edition of the Harvard Theological Review (if you or your supporting institution are subscribers, you may access a full text version of the article here; the abstract is available to everyone). Not surprisingly, I found it to be extremely stimulating (and not just because he taught at Case Western, where my best friend went to school!). Epp concludes with a brief definition of textual criticism which, in my opinion, succinctly captures the new direction in which the discipline is headed:

"New Testament textual criticism, employing aspects of both science and art, studies the transmission of the New Testament text and the manuscripts that facilitate its transmission, with the unitary goal of establishing the earliest attainable text (which serves as a baseline) and, at the same time, of assessing the textual variants that emerge from the baseline text so as to hear the narratives of early Christian thought and life that inhere in the array of meaningful variants."

The body of the article is concerned with the paradigm shift expressed in the above definition: the abandonment of the long-standing search for an "original text" in favor of an "earliest attainable text," and a more detailed exploration of the relationship between individual variants and the communities which produced them. In particular, Epp is determined to avoid the common text-critical pitfall in which one reading is determined to be "original" or "correct" while the others are simply discarded. He even offers a sample of a prototypical, "variant-friendly" critical text:



I must admit that despite my appreciation of the various sigla of the Novum Testamentum Graece--particularly the unobtrusive way in which they offer a vast amount of information to readers without forcing it upon them--I enjoyed the ability to view variants alongside the "baseline" text. Of course, as Epp points out, this is only a brief sample; a full-scale edition is but a pinpoint on the biblical studies horizon. He also notes that even if such an edition were produced, it would be best used in conjunction with existing critical editions, rather than apart from them. Even so... I think I'd buy one. ;-)

More on the "New Perspective"

Mark Goodacre has helpfully provided a link to Simon Gathercole's recent article on the "New Perspective on Paul," which appeared in the August issue of Christianity Today. I agree with his observation that Gathercole's appended bibliography unfairly neglects the works of E.P. Sanders and James Dunn (particularly Sanders) in favor of those of N.T. Wright. Furthermore, it seems to me that a number of the "Six Tendencies" which Gathercole presents as the New Perspective's shortcomings could be rebutted. But the article is still well worth a read.

The Many Faces of the "New Perspective"

On his blog Jesus Creed, Scot McKnight has composed an excellent series of posts which briefly and accessibly summarize the work of the three most influential pioneers of the "New Perspective on Paul" (E.P. Sanders, James Dunn, and N.T. Wright), and also offer a number of other helpful insights regarding the coherence of the movement, terminology, theology, etc. These were particularly interesting to me, as I spent a good deal of my summer with the various works of these men while preparing and facilitating a four-week study of Paul at my home church in Louisville, Kentucky. Although it's certainly a close call, I would reverse McKnight's rankings of the two most important recent developments in biblical studies (he places historical Jesus studies ahead of the New Perspective, a choice which may be related to the fact that he has written at least one magisterial book on the former subject!). In my mind, the radical reassessment of ancient Judaism which followed in the New Perspective's formidable wake, and the ways in which this reassessment can affect current Jewish-Christian relations, give it a slight edge. Dunn's reading of Paul, in which Judaism is no longer an inherently flawed system of works-righteousness but merely the recipients of a promise which Paul desires to expand, removes much of the traditional boundary between Pauline Christianity and Second Temple Judaism and brings them closer together--a bond which offers their modern descendants a legitimate foundation for dialogue and fellowship. That's pretty exciting to me.

If you have a few minutes, check these posts out!

(NOTE: Just after completing this post, I noticed that McKnight has now added a post which outlines some of the objections to the New Perspective. Keep checking for additional updates!)

BAR Highlights: 8/9/07

More recent archaeological news from Biblical Archaeology Review:

Massive Hadrian
A larger-than-life-sized statue of the emperor Hadrian has been uncovered at Sagalassos in south-central Turkey. The statue was found in part of a bath complex that was built during the emperor’s reign.

Largest Fortress from Pharaonic Egypt Uncovered
A massive fortress dating to the pharaonic period of ancient Egypt has been uncovered at Tell-Huba near the Suez Canal. Archaeologists found graves of soldiers, horses and remnants of a water-filled moat.

Beyond the Fertile Crescent
Archaeologists are showing that civilization emerged about 5,000 years ago not only along the Euphrates River, but also along an arc from the Russian steppes through Iran and into the Arabian Peninsula.

A Tour of the Jewish Quarter
A news site in Israel describes the sumptuous Herodian remains at the Wohl Archaeological Museum in Jerusalem. Also on the site is a brief video tour of the museum.

Faith and Scholarship...

In a post on his self-titled blog, Dr. Claude Mariottini responds to criticisms of his earlier claim that in terms of biblical hermeneutics, "believers" are inherently superior to "atheists." Mariottini correctly observes that atheism cannot pass the "outsider test": it cannot scientifically prove that God does not exist, anymore than Christianity (or any other religion, for that matter) can scientifically prove otherwise. This fact is recognized by more erudite atheist commentators such as Richard Dawkins, but often overlooked or ignored by others.

However, a number of other points are extremely problematic--at least in my view. First and foremost, how does one define the term "believer"? Are Jews included within this category? Mariottini does not explicitly address this question, as he is principally concerned with the battle between Christianity and atheism. He does state that the distinction between Christian exegetes and their atheist counterparts is that the former "read the Bible from a historical, sociological, linguistic perspective, but also from the perspective of faith and religion." Under those criteria, Jewish scholars would certainly qualify, at least as far as Hebrew Bible studies are concerned. But even if these are included, the fact remains that a number of Jewish scholars have turned their attentions to the world of the New Testament, with fruitful results. Samuel Sandmel and Amy-Jill Levine immediately come to mind. Should their efforts be discarded because, in Mariottini's words, they cannot "say 'Christ lives in me'" or "understand fully what it means to be saved by grace"? Having recently read and enjoyed Levine's The Misunderstood Jew, I would respond in the negative.

Furthermore, Mariottini's argument that faith provides intrinsic exegetical superiority is largely incompatible with the last century of mainstream biblical scholarship, which has encouraged a more critical, scientific approach. A number of significant developments have occurred as direct results of this shift, including the reevaluation of key texts in light of extrabiblical historical and archaeological findings and the advent of ecumenical research efforts. A return to faith-based scholarship would likely undermine these developments. While Mariottini may believe that atheists are at a disadvantage because "they approach the Bible with false assumptions" such as the belief that there is no God, the actual veracity of those assumptions remains beyond the scope of human epistemology. Neither the atheist nor the believer can produce evidence which irrefutably verifies his or her claims. In their own ways, they are both matters of faith... and members of both camps must recognize and respect this.

Ultimately, it seems that the validity of Mariottini's arguments rests with one's understanding of the relationship between faith and scholarship--specifically, whether the two must go hand in hand. Anyone who feels that the discipline is and should be dedicated to Christian apologetics will likely be attracted to his position. On the other hand, anyone who feels that it is a primarily critical enterprise--capable of being strengthened by faith, but not simply operating on its behalf--will likely dissent. Personally, I believe that it is quite possible to be a person of faith and a critical scholar, and to use the results of the latter to strengthen the former. Also, I feel that it is possible to learn a great deal from critical scholars who represent faith commitments other than my own. Both of these beliefs certainly reflect my experience at Yale. Nevertheless, I realize that others will hold different views. Shall we agree to disagree?