Monthly Archives: February 2007

Charles Halton

Biblical Studies Carnival XV, in Memory of Bruce Manning Metzger

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Welcome to the fifteenth Biblical Studies Carnival. I am pleased to host the carnival on such an auspicious numeration (too bad it couldn’t be a multiple of 6, then I’d be really pleased). Thanks to all the contributers!

Biblical Studies Carnival XVI will be hosted by Brandon Wason over at Novum Testamentum in the first week of April 2007. Look for a call for submissions on his blog mid-month.

Note to the reader: Stay with me to the end, it’s worth it–I promise.

I would like to dedicate Biblical Studies Carnival XV to the dean of New Testament criticism, Bruce Manning Metzger. Evangelical Textual Criticism has links to several obituaries and Gordon Fee’s tribute. Metzger was a fine scholar and an even finer man. May we all learn from his life that lived out his teaching.

New to the Blogosphere:

Angie Erisman enters the fray with her new blog Imaginary Grace. One of her great posts (there are many, especially her first post, her Torah Guys, you should check it out) addresses the question of whether we should use the emotion laden terms “maximalist” and “minimalist.” Archaeologist Leen Ritmeyer has a blog about, well, archaeology. Check out his post on new discoveries in the City of David.

Ancient Near East

Tyler Williams has a great post on the ideas of creation in Mesopotamia–part 1 and part 2 along with my response here on awilum.com. Can’t afford the cover charge to Harvard? Look over Eric Welch’s shoulder and glance at his Phoenician notes from class. Don’t overlook Duane Smith’s comments concerning Eric’s notes. Duane has some more great thoughts on the editio princeps of the Tel Zayit inscription. I have a post on another article that appeared in BASOR in which I deal with Christopher Rollston’s views regarding scribal schools in ancient Israel–don’t miss the long thread of comments there’s juicy stuff in there!

Apologetics Archaeology

Biblical Archaeology or Syrio-Palestinian Archaeology? If only Albright were around to comment. Roll call: Christopher O’Brien, Duane Smith, Christopher Heard.

Old Testament/Tanak

Tyler Williams covers the Jesus/Talpiot Tomb controversy along with comments from James Tabor. Not for the faint of heart, Claude Mariottini discusses the human sacrifice that was Jephthah’s daughter. THEOdyssey blog has a post that answers assertions that the god of the Old Testament is unjust. Their conclusion: the god of the Old Testament is similar of character as the god of the New Testament.

Grilling the sacred cow: the documentary hypothesis is euthanized at Echo of Eden.

Intertestamental Literature:

Tim Brookins on the Wisdom of Solomon and New Testament parallels. Want more? Try the post on Sirach–keep up the great work Tim! Studying documents that are thousands of yeas old is hard, but Phil Harland is a pro–check out his study entitled Origins of an apocalyptic sect at Qumran: Teacher of Righteousness vs. Wicked Priest (End 1.6). I’m just glad he quoted from the 2nd edition of Martinez, numero uno was chock full of typos.

New Testament:

In a post after my own heart on the ricoblog, Rick Brannan pokes fun at Wallace’s penchant to over-analyze the Greek language, hmmm a grammar is supposed to clarify situations…A.Q. Morton, Stylometric Analysis, Pastoral Epistles, and C.S. Lewis? Check it out on pastoralepistles.com. Why is it taking so long? Richard Anderson has your answers why there is no removal of imminent eschatology. Speaking of time, Nick Meyer discusses the now and the not yet and the kingdom in the message of Jesus.

Richard Bauckham’s new book, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses has garnered some reviews. Chris Tilling goes chapter by chapter. Kevin Edgecomb didn’t like it while James Spinti did.

James Tabor addresses from where/whom Paul received his authority along with Michael Pahl breaking open the Greek in his response. Euangelion blog interviews three prominent NT scholars on their views of 2 Peter and Jude, but you have to click here to find out who they are. Interested in a review of George B. Caird “The Exegetical Method of Hebrews?” Then, Clifford has the post for you.

Mark 9:1–Zacharias vs. Crossley–I’m calling Don King: Gentlemen, let’s have a good clean fight. Left jab. Right hook. Round 2. Solar plexus. Who’s that guy in the ring with a folding chair? Judges?

Early Christian Literature:

Rico to the rescue with studies on the Greek text of the Didache. How was the Gospel of Thomas written you ask? Well, April DeConick asked first. Let Mark Goodacre lead you to the proper spring from which to draw. Tony has an extensive review of Craig Evans’ Fabricating Jesus.

Rabbinic Literature/Targums:

Interested in tithing and supporting charities? Best not forget the wisdom of the Rabbis. Ed Cook points out a spurious addition to Targum Pseudo-Jonathan.

Church History:

Who says the ancients didn’t care about the stars? Andrew Criddle doesn’t.

Philosophy:

What is poetry? Plato? Nope, the ancient Hebrew Poetry Blog. Carole McDonnell: Align your reading spectacles! Brian Norwood posts a paper on Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theology and ethics.

Here is a post about a topic that none of us could avoid if we tried–the James Cameron/Jesus tomb spectacle documentary: Ricoblog gives links to Witherington and Heiser. Also, Jim West posts responses by James Tabor and Michael Stone. Kevin Wilson discusses the media in relation to this event.  Chris Brady points us to NPR’s piece.

Throwing Down the Gauntlet:

Danny Zacharias brings the brickbats to the fat cat publishing magnates on why they aren’t using unicode–Jim Eisenbrauns kindly responds.

Charles Halton

Biographical Texts from Ramesside Egypt

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Eisenbrauns has just announced a new book in the Writings from the Ancient World series by SBL, Biographical Texts from Ramesside Egypt. This series provides ancient texts in romanized transliteration along with an English translation and brief study. Here is a description of the texts in this volume:

The Ramesside period in Egypt (ca. 1290-1070 B.C.E.) corresponds to the late Bronze Age, a time of great change both in Egypt and the Near East. Viewed as an age of empire, dominated by the figure of Ramesses II, this period witnessed crucial developments in art, language, and religious display. Biographical Texts from Ramesside Egypt offers insights into these cultural transformations through the voices of thirty-one priests, artisans, civic officials, and governmental administrators who served under the kings of the nineteenth and twentieth dynasties. Forty-six biographical texts, which were inscribed in tombs, on statues and stelae in temples, and even on temple walls, give details of their careers and character.

Biographical Texts from Ramesside Egypt
Writings from the Ancient World Society of Biblical Literature – WAWSBL
by Elizabeth Frood
Society of Biblical Literature – SBL, 2007
English
Paper
ISBN: 1589832108
List Price: $24.95
Your Price: $22.46
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~FROBIOGRA

Charles Halton

The End of a Free Ride? Möglicherweise

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Bloomberg reports that for the first time in almost 40 years many German universities are now charging tuition.  In most cases the tuition costs are very nominal when compared to Anglo-American prices.  For instance, the average cost in seven of Germany’s sixteen states is only 1,000 Euros per year.

German universities are making this shift because American and British universities are consistently beating them in global academic rankings.  One reason for this is the fact that Anglo-American institutions spend more per pupil than Germany does.  American institutions in particular spend much more because of their relatively high tuition costs coupled with very aggressive fund raising efforts.  This has led American colleges to take fully half of the spots in the top 100 institutions of higher education in the global rankings compiled by the University of Shanghai while German universities took only 5 spots.

One last piece of astounding trivia: according to the article Harvard spends $149,686 per student per year!  Harvard is a good school, but this is a ton of money.  Do you think Harvard is spending this money efficiently?

Charles Halton

Christopher Rollston on Scribal Education in Ancient Israel

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Duane Smith at Abnormal Interests has some good comments concerning Tappy, McCarter, Lundberg, and Zuckerman’s publication of the Tel Zayit abcedary that appeared in the November 2006 edition of BASOR. Another good article in this volume is Christopher Rollston’s essay, Scribal Education in Ancient Israel: The Old Hebrew Epigraphic Evidence.

Through a syn- and diachronic analysis of the orthography and dialectal formations of northern and southern Hebrew inscriptions, Rollston argues that there were probably formal scribal schools in ancient Israel beginning with the establishment of the monarchy. He states that consistency seen in the spelling of diphthongs and the graphic formation of letters–particularly the fact that the Old Hebrew samek was consistently written above the “ceiling line”–demonstrates the existence of ancient scribal schools:

Old Hebrew scribes were meticulous about the morphology and stance of the letters they penned, but in addition, they were also meticulous about maintaining precise conventional spatial relationships of letters. I would argue that this sort of precision must be the result of specialized curricular training in script production (59).

It must be stated that Rollston does not assert that formal schools mean dedicated buildings for the exclusive purpose of training scribes. He merely states that scribes had a formalized education which may have taken place in the residence of practicing scribes–an apprenticeship of sorts.

Rollston stems from the Cross school of epigraphy (N.B. I come from the Kaufman school, Stephen A. Kaufman, not I. T. Kaufman who did his work under Cross and whom Rollston also mentions) but, Rollston tips his hat to Kaufman in note 9 on pages 50-51 in which he states “Suffice it to say that I believe the critiques of palaeography by S. Kaufman (1986) and B. Zuckerman (2003) are important, and I will be responding especially to these in another venue.” However, he then proceeds in Crossian fashion. In spite of this, I find Rollston’s proposition appealing. I don’t think it is a closed case on the presence of formal scribal curriculum in ancient Israel and Judah, but I do think Rollston lends a degree of support to this possibility.

I await Rollston’s response to Kaufman, possibly in his forthcoming Writing and Literacy in the World of Ancient Israel by Brill (I just hope the volume isn’t $500)?

What do you think about Rollston’s proposition?

Charles Halton

Call for Submissions for Biblical Studies Carnival XV

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I will be hosting the 15th Biblical Studies Carnvial here on awilum.com. I invite you to submit posts for the carnvial.

This can be one of your own posts or you can nominate a post written by someone else — don’t forget that the post needs to fit into the general category of academic biblical studies and cognate areas and needs to have been written sometime in February 2007.

You can submit/nominate posts via the submission form at BlogCarnival.com or you may email them to biblical_studies_carnival AT hotmail DOT com.

Get ready for Carnival XVI hosted by Brandon Wason at Novum Testamentum.

For more information, consult the Biblical Studies Carnival Homepage.

Charles Halton

Problems with For-Profit Educational Institutions

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Should education be based on a for-profit business model? If we take the recent troubles of the University of Phoenix as an indicator, then certainly not. Here are some of the myriad of problems that the New York Times reports: the absolutely dismal graduation rate (16% overall while some campuses have rates as low as 6% and online degrees are 4%; as a comparison, the average American college has a graduation rate of 55%), 95% of the instructors are part-time (compared with 47% for all universities), and students spend 20-24 hours with an instructor per class compared with 40 hours for most universities. On top of all of annual tuition and fees are $9,630.

I do not have any experience with the University of Phoenix, but from the description in the NYT article, it seems to me that people might be better just purchasing some books and keeping an extra $8,000 in the bank. One of the reasons why this institution seems to have problems with the quality of the education it offers (for instance, Intel has decided that they will not reimburse employees tuition because the educational quality is not up to their standards) is because of the incentive to offer the lowest quality education it can get by with while attracting the highest number of students in order to maximize profit. While I think that there are some efficiencies that traditional schools should implement, education is inherently an inefficient process. Critical thinking at its best takes time to develop. Furthermore, it also takes human interaction and mentoring from someone who has thought through issues deeply and is already well-grounded in a particular field. This doesn’t happen through centrally planned curriculum and barely qualified teachers who spend a couple hours a week teaching a course. A good education reaps tremendous rewards–both fiscal and personal–and it is still an incredible value (more on this in a future post).

What do you think? Is for-profit education still a good idea? Is education inherently inefficient?

Charles Halton

Online Resources for Catalhoyuk Dig

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One of the most prominent neolithic, Anatolian archaeological dig is at Catalhoyuk. The official site can be found here and they have links to 125 photos of the dig on flickr. The official illustrator’s site has some of his reconstructed images and drawings of various finds. This is a very important site that is well documented via these sites–the excavators have done a great job using technology to make their work accessible. There is even a guide to planning a trip with comic books that describe the site!

Charles Halton

Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible

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Eisenbrauns is selling this very handy reference work for 40% off this week. If you don’t already own it, now is a great time to pick it up. As the title suggests, this volume discusses the supernatural entities that are related to the biblical text. The treatments are generally very good and the entries include a bibliography. I own a copy and use it frequently. You’d be surprised at how many deities and demons are in the Bible!
Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the BibleDictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible
2nd edition

Edited by Bob Becking, Karel Van der Toorn, and Pieter W. van der Horst
Brill Academic Publishers, 1999
xxxviii + 960 pages, English
Cloth
ISBN: 9004111190
List Price: $99.00
Your Price: $59.40
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~VANDICTIO