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Latest Harvard Theological Review

2008-05-12T20:02:00.001+01:00

There is one NT related article in the latest Harvard Theological Review:

Fragments from the Cartonnage of P⁷⁵
James M. Robinson
Harvard Theological Review, Volume 101, Issue 02, April 2008, pp 231-252
doi: 10.1017/S001781600800179X, Published online by Cambridge University Press 12 May 2008

In November 1985, the British Museum turned over to me photographs in their files that they had made while conserving the leather binding of P75 for the Bibliothèque Bodmer, which contained fragments of Luke and John not previously published in the editio princeps or otherwise available to scholarship. This article reports on these fragments and includes three plates of the photographs.

Orality and Literacy II: Clarifying the Critique of Dunn

2008-05-12T19:15:00.001+01:00

One of the benefits of writing a blog is that one is able to clarify earlier posts in the light of listening to the way that they have been read. Before beginning my series on Orality and Literacy, I was aware of the dangers of being misread, and in my first post I attempted to lay down a few markers, in particular aiming to make clear that I was not issuing any kind of challenge to the essential contrast between our literate culture and the oral culture of antiquity. It is, of course, in the nature of such posts that readers are tempted to skip over the position markers and infer a perspective more radical than the one the author actually holds. It is also important to bear in mind the sketch-like nature of blog posts, what I called "snapshots" of my thinking at a given moment.

There is actually little I disagree with in April DeConick's post on The Forbidden Gospels Blog, What is Orality? and, as always, I am grateful to April for taking the time to write with her characteristic fervour. As I wrote in comments over on her blog, though, the point of my post was to talk about the way in which we are inclined to caricature our own literate culture, to exaggerate the contrasts for rhetorical effect. I am in part being playful here, looking at how Dunn's conceptualization of our culture is in fact falling short -- I have not in this initial post even begun to deal with the ancient world. (April does not mention Dunn in her response but instead implies that my comments were targeted more broadly as an attempt to challenge contemporary work on orality in the ancient world.) It may take a few more posts in my series before my thinking on this is as clearly articulated as I would like, but let me mention here one element that I hope to return to, that we need to take seriously "secondary orality" in our culture (the term is, of course, Walter Ong's; cf. Loren Rosson's anticipation of the topic on The Busybody).

Where Dunn uses the interesting analogy of the computer's "default setting", he gives examples from word-processing, an important part of that heavily literate academic sub-culture that many of us live and breathe. But the computer could also provide a means of illustrating elements of secondary orality. The computer is now a telephone, a radio, a television and more. One of the most exciting challenges to us as early twenty-first scholars of antiquity is the exploration of comparisons and contrasts with the primary orality of the period we are studying.

Orality and Literacy I: Exaggerated contrasts with our culture?

2008-05-09T17:05:00.001+01:00

In a lot of recent New Testament scholarship, there has been a welcome corrective to our natural tendency to make the world of the evangelists into a very textual, a very literary world, to conceptualize it in anachronistic fashion as being similar to our own. There has been a renewed stress on orality and the importance of understanding oral communication and how processes of spreading oral tradition might have impacted on the formation of the Gospels. In a series of posts, I would like to offer some of my own reflections on this scholarly trend. This will be done as an experiment in "thinking out loud" as I think through the literature and reflect on certain elements that have been insufficiently discussed in the past. As always with blog posts, these are at best snapshots of my thinking at a given point, and not the result of detailed, mature reflection ready for print publication.

I would like to comment here on one of the elements in the way that the case is argued in the scholarship. When contemporary scholars are attempting to contrast our culture with that of the ancient world, they sometimes greatly exaggerate the literary nature of our culture. (By "our culture" here I mean early twenty-first century life in the west, particularly the English speaking west). James D. G. Dunn is a case in point. In his important article, “Altering the Default Setting: Re-envisaging the Early Transmission of the Jesus Tradition,” New Testament Studies 49/2 (2003), 139-75, he writes:

We here are all children of Gutenberg and Caxton. We belong to cultures shaped by the book. Our everyday currency is the learned article and monograph. Libraries are our natural habitat. (142).

There is, of course, a lot of truth in this; no one would deny the importance of the book in our culture. But what Dunn is talking about here is not so much our culture, which is full of orality at every turn, but the academic sub-culture of research and writing. Even within that sub-culture, our literary research interacts with oral and aural elements. Our primary means of communicating our scholarship is the classroom, which is all about speaking and hearing and only minimally about text. For many of us, the oral interaction in the classroom is a major contributor to the development of our thoughts. In the preparation of our scholarship, the oral plays a key role. Dunn's own article began life as an SNTS Presidential address in 2002. A lot of my work has begun life as conference papers, presented orally (and yes, I know that a lot of scholars simply read papers out loud, but even there, the primary means by which their scholarship is being appropriated is aurally). The interaction between written draft, oral presentation, revised drafts in the light of live questioning -- these are the staples of the development of academic work. Thus where Dunn conceptualizes the scholar as living in the library, I prefer to think of the enterprise as one of interaction in which solitary library time is only one feature, and not necessarily the most important feature.

Outside of that academic sub-culture, the world we live in is a world still dominated by orality. Many more people receive their news through television and radio, oral media, than through newspapers. And many who do use newspapers are now no longer simply reading them but they are combining the reading experience with watching online videos, listening to podcasts and so on. I describe myself as an avid Guardian "reader" because of the familiarity of that expression, but my "reading" in fact incorporates Guardian podcasts and sometimes also video material.

Dunn is inclined to underestimate the extent of orality in our own culture. Later in the article, he writes:

In an overwhelmingly literary culture our experience of orality is usually restricted to casual gossip and the serendipitous reminiscences of college reunions. (149).

This is a surprising statement in the light of the pervasive orality of our culture. The spoken word is everywhere. For many, the written word is secondary. It is worth reminding ourselves that being literate does not necessarily mean that the written word is primary, or that we always think along literary lines. Consider the specific case of knowledge of the Bible. As any of us who have taught the New Testament know, our students' knowledge of the texts is often received through oral tradition and not through direct familiarity with the text. How many people who think they know the Christmas story get their knowledge directly from reading Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2 (or the Protevangelium of James)? Very few. Their knowledge is conveyed through our culture's oral tradition and its harmonized and legendary version of the story so frequently retold.

My point here is not to attempt to narrow the gap between the ancient world and our world. The key task of the ancient historian is to convey some sense of the utter difference of the worlds we study from our own, and to avoid anachronistic reading in of our own way of looking at things. My point rather is that in our attempts to conceptualize the ancient world, we should be careful not to lapse into caricature of the modern world. Imagine the person who in a millennium is reading Dunn's article, looking for information about how we communicate with one another in the early twenty-first century -- that researcher would have precious little idea of how we actually live our lives. We live in libraries ("our natural habitat"), we trade in monographs and learned articles ("our everyday currency"). Where Dunn is exploring the analogy of a computer's "default setting", he conceives of the computer solely in word-processing terms, not as a communications device that combines the functions of television, radio, telephone and more.

It may be that the attempt to reimagine the orality of antiquity proceeds in part from the contemporary academic's anxiety about the heavily literary nature of his or her experience of the contemporary world. Dunn is one of the most prolific New Testament scholars ever -- his latest book running, apparently, to 1300 pages. Is it a coincidence that the scholars who stress the attempt to regain access to an ancient oral culture are those who are the most prolific writers in the contemporary culture?

Review of Biblical Literature Latest

2008-05-07T21:55:00.000+01:00

Latest from the SBL Review of Biblical Literature under the New Testament and related heading (with a catch-up megapost to come):

Paul N. Anderson
The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus: Modern Foundations Reconsidered
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5879
Reviewed by John Painter

April D. DeConick
The Original Gospel of Thomas in Translation: With a Commentary and New English Translation of the Complete Gospel
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5655
Reviewed by Stephan Witetschek

Mikael C. Parsons
Body and Character in Luke and Acts: The Subversion of Physiognomy in Early Christianity
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5830
Reviewed by Pieter J. J. Botha
Reviewed by Patrick E. Spencer

Todd Penner and Caroline Vander Stichele, eds.
Moving beyond New Testament Theology? Essays in Conversation with Heikki Räisänen
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5492
Reviewed by Jan van der Watt

Richard L. Rohrbaugh
The New Testament in Cross-Cultural Perspective
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5956
Reviewed by Stephan Joubert

C. Kavin Rowe
Early Narrative Christology: The Lord in the Gospel of Luke
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5966
Reviewed by Christopher Tuckett

Brad H. Young
Meet the Rabbis: Rabbinic Thought and the Teachings of Jesus
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5912
Reviewed by Verlyn D. Verbrugge

End of the Philo Blog, Birth of the RPBS blog

2008-05-07T21:36:00.001+01:00

I have been meaning to comment for some time on the sad news of The End of Torrey Seland's Philo of Alexandria Blog, announced at the end of March. It seemed sad to me because Torrey's blog was one of the earliest of the biblioblogs and he was on the panel with us at the SBL session on blogging in November 2005, when the panel for that session effectively chose itself. But it's good to see that with death comes new birth, and the R B P S Blog (Resource Pages for Biblical Studies Blog) comes onto the scene. I am greatly encouraged by this development because I have continued to think about the future of the New Testament Gateway, and I am encouraged that one of the pioneers of the gateway site (RPBS predates the New Testament Gateway by a good couple of years, and the New Testament Gateway is now over a decade old) is still working on his site and thinking of fresh ways to keep it vibrant.

Ehrman vs. Wright Smackdown

2008-05-07T08:36:00.000+01:00

If you haven't already seen it, there is an interesting exchange between Bart Ehrman and N. T. Wright over on Beliefnet. It's the kind of thing they used to call a "smackdown" but they have replaced that term with the more gentlemanly "Blogalogue - Debates with Spirit":

Is Our Pain God's Problem?

You have to read them from the bottom up if you navigate from that page, or you can begin with Ehrman's first and proceed through each contribution (three each) by clicking through at the top of each page. The debate is interesting but ultimately frustrating. As is also characteristic of the old "smackdowns" on Beliefnet, the scholars who are debating with one another are celebrity scholars and their tendency is to use the opportunity to expound their own views afresh, often using the other's views only as prompts. In other words, one never gets the feeling of rigorous intellectual exchange of the kind where the scholars are thinking fresh thoughts. At the end of Ehrman's last post, for example, he asks Wright if he agrees on any one of four of the leading claims in his new book. Wright does not answer the question directly, but implies that it is the wrong question. To be fair to both, I do feel that each one is trying to listen to the other, but perhaps what we need on these occasions is a live debate with a chairperson who can hold each one to account, and direct each one to speak in bite-sized chunks rather than mini-essays.

Summer Writing

2008-05-06T22:49:00.001+01:00

I finished grading undergraduate papers at 6.45am yesterday and although I still have several projects on my desk, I begin now to look forward to that happy time in the academic's life, the summer writing season. It is similar in length for the British academic and for the American academic but it begins and ends at different times, May to August in the US, June to September in the UK. Usually speaking, I begin the summer full of optimism about how much I am going to write. I then get about half of that done, with all those other projects on my desk crowding it out, reading and editing manuscripts, writing shorter articles for multi-author works, reviewing books, and continuing to excavate the email mountain, to say nothing of housework, family and, I hope, relaxation and travel. This summer I am determined to get more of the top grade kind of writing done (book and articles), spending less time on the "jobbing" kind of writing. The latter is necessary but the former is where one gets the most satisfaction and intellectual stimulation. For this process, lots of discipline is required and I have decided to make a few rules for myself:

(1) Email correspondence will be limited to early mornings and evenings. The day is for writing. In line with this, I have switched off my automatic alerts so that I cannot be distracted by the arrival of interesting (or threatening) looking emails that drag me in.

(2) Pidgin will be switched off all day. The day is for writing.

(3) My best writing time is the morning; I will therefore focus specially on the nitty gritty of writing in the mornings.

(4) I will resist chasing references and following hunches during the day. The day is for writing.

(5) I will only blog during the day if it is directly related to the topic of the book or articles I am writing. Broader blogging is for early morning or evenings.

(6) The New Testament Gateway requires some serious work, but cannot be a priority at this stage. The day is for writing. If I can get back to the New Testament Gateway in due course, that will be fantastic. If I cannot, I am going to have to be selfish and prioritize writing.

These are a few rules I am setting myself. I am also making myself accountable to my blog. The book I am working on at the moment is provisionally entitled Thomas and the Gospels and is about the relationship of the Gospel of Thomas to the Synoptics. My hope is to break the back of this this summer, ideally also finishing a couple of articles I am working on. I'll check in again in August to see what the progress is like.

Verhoeven Jesus book -- bringing his film project closer?

2008-05-05T20:37:00.001+01:00

Here on the NT Gateway Blog, we've been keeping an eye for some years on the proposed Paul Verhoeven Jesus film. There has been nothing to report for a long time, but now it seems that Verhoeven has published his own Jesus book as a step on the road towards his Jesus film. Predictably, the media has mainly latched onto some of the more sensational elements in the book. Matt Page, on Bible Films Blog, is, as usual, up to speed with developments.

Biblical Studies Carnival 29

2008-05-05T20:00:00.001+01:00

Jim West has done an excellent job with the latest Biblical Studies Carnival:

Biblical Studies Carnival 29

It's a great way of catching up if you've had an enforced absence from the blogosphere for a bit. First class job, Jim.

The Passion: More Q&A

2008-04-21T23:11:00.000+01:00

It has been a few weeks since The Passion aired on BBC1 and I have not blogged on it for a while. It may be over, for now, in the UK, but there are important things to look forward to. The first will be the DVD release at some point in the coming months. The next will be the American broadcast next year on HBO. No doubt there will be other broadcasts too throughout the world at different stages, and I will keep my eyes open for what is going on. I may also, from time to time, offer further reflections on The Passion as time goes on. My recent return to England was quite refreshing in the number of people who talked to me about their experiences of watching The Passion -- there was so much positive feedback. I don't have a lot more to talk about at the moment, but I want to draw attention to one more addition to the BBC's Passion website, more "Q & A" with Nigel Stafford-Clark (producer) and Frank Deasy (writer):

The Passion: Questions and Answers II

These questions and answers relate primarily to episodes 3 and 4, on the crucifixion and resurrection (warning: contain spoilers!).

Death of Krister Stendahl

2008-04-16T01:23:00.000+01:00

I was very sorry to hear of the death of Krister Stendahl, one of the giants of New Testament scholarship, tonight (Jim West's blog).

Travel Diary: Synoptic Problem Conference IV

2008-04-10T15:34:00.000+01:00

Thursday, Heathrow Airport, 15.34: Checked out of Lincoln College this morning, after a nice breakfast which featured two slices of British back bacon. Last time I will get any of that until August. I was disappointed to have to miss the last couple of sessions, the first of which featured Christoph Heil on Reconstructing Q, Stephen Patterson on Thomas and Eric Eve on the Synoptic Problem without Q. Heil's paper was not online before the conference, so it was a particular shame to miss his. Eve's was so full of good sense that I doubt I would have had any comments of my own to throw in. Patterson's was one of the papers I would have particularly liked to have discussed -- the subject is one of great interest to me in my current research. There was also a plenary scheduled for people to reflect on future directions. But I was already on the coach to Heathrow, listening to the Russell Brand podcast and reading the latest Doctor Who Magazine. I met up with the family, who had come down from Peterborough, and we are about to fly. There is no wireless here, so I will upload this post when I get back to Raleigh. It will be pretty late because we are flying into DC and driving down from there.

This conference has been excellent. It was very well organized and ran very smoothly; congratulations to Andrew Gregory, Paul Foster, John Kloppenborg and Joseph Verheyden for a job very well done. The catering at Lincoln College was excellent, and the location ideal -- bang in the centre of Oxford (and right next to my old college). In spite of the number of papers, the programme did not feel crammed, and I appreciated the free time on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons, and the free time again after 9pm or so. The number present, forty or so, was about right to ensure good discussion after each paper and set of papers. Any more, and it would have become unwieldy. By the end of the conference, one had the feeling of having got to know almost everyone.

Each session worked very well, with a general theme and three or so presentations followed by discussion. The only one that did not quite work, in my opinion, was the session that paired David Peabody with Kathleen Corley -- these were such very different papers that the discussion was less focused than it was for the other sessions where things were more naturally related.

The academic quality of the papers and the discussion was very high. I have to admit that I was initially a bit sceptical about the decision not to invite "position papers", or to have individuals arguing in favour of given theories, but it turned out that this was a brilliant decision. The encouragement to all presenters to be as balanced and fair as possible, and the invitations to read papers on specific themes, led to pretty helpful discussions with a marked lack of polemic; there was more light than heat, to use the cliché.

All in all, an excellent conference and a very enjoyable few days away. Congratulations to all involved!

[Actual time of upload, Friday, 15.25, back in Raleigh, North Carolina.]

Travel Diary: Synoptic Problem Conference III

2008-04-10T00:47:00.000+01:00

Oxford, Thursday, 00:47; last full day of the Synoptic Problem conference. First session, 9a.m.: Andrew Gregory chaired what was perhaps the meatiest section yet, four papers on issues relating to compositional issues and the Synoptic Problem. Three of the presenters were present and Gregory summarised the fourth paper, Kirk's, on "Memory, scribal media and the synoptic problem". Alex Damm spoke first on "Ancient Rhetoric and the Synoptic Problem"; then Robert Derrenbacker talked about "Ancient Compositional Practices and the Synoptic Problem"; then Gerald Downing on "Writers' use or abuse of written sources". Discussion was wide ranging and enthusiastic. There was perhaps most discussion on Gerald Downing's paper, and some comment on his claim that the minor agreements are in fact problematic for all synoptic theories. Several of us have picked up the feeling that this session provided a good indication of where the debate is likely to develop in the coming years -- compositional issues are clearly going to be key in future discussion of the Synoptic Problem.

After morning coffee, the next section was chaired by John Kloppenborg and featured two main papers, Eugene Boring on "The 'Minor Agreements' and Their Bearing on the Synoptic Problem" and Peter Head on "Textual Criticism and the Synoptic Problem". John Kloppenborg also read out a summary of Robert Stein's paper, "Duplicate Expressions in Mark". The discussion focused mainly on Gene Boring and Peter Head's papers. I attempted to make my point, with respect to Eugene Boring's paper, that the postulation of a "Revised Mark" may not actually aid the Two Source Theory with respect to the Minor Agreements since a Revised Mark might, in fact, have been less like our Matthew and Luke than our Mark is. On such a scenario, there might in fact have been more minor agreements in the earliest texts, and not less. I had only limited success articulating this point, however, and it may be that I need to think carefully about how to articulate it more clearly on future occasions -- or to drop it.

Before lunch, there was a group photograph. Just as we were gathering, I had a phone call from Q; we had planned to get together today, as we usually do when I am in the UK. Someone suggested that Q take the group photograph, which he was delighted to do. I hope that some kind person will email me one of the photographs taken so that I can upload it to the blog. After the photograph, Q and I wandered to the covered market, as we used to do when we were students together, and enjoyed a splendid lunch in Mortons.

The next event on the schedule, after tea, was my paper, the third of the main papers, on "The Evangelists' Use of the Old Testament and the Synoptic Problem". I enjoyed speaking on the topic, and was honoured to have it chaired by my Doctorvater John Muddiman. I began my talk by sending Michael Goulder's greetings to the conference. (I had spent Sunday afternoon with him). The discussion after my paper was perhaps a little more subdued than some of the other discussions, and I hope that that was not a reflection on its quality or interest. Nevertheless, there were lots of useful and interesting questions, including from the chair.

Drinks were at 6.30; dinner was at 7. The main course was duck and it was excellent. Once again, the relatively early end to proceedings allowed a little time for additional socializing for those so inclined.

Alas, I have to miss the last morning of the conference. I need to get the coach to Heathrow to meet the family and get the plane back to DC, and I don't think I will be able to make it to any of the morning activities. Nevertheless, I hope to add concluding comments tomorrow. Needless to say, an excellent conference, intellectually stimulating and conducted in a generous, positive spirit. Congratulations and thanks to the convenors, John Kloppenborg, Andrew Gregory, Paul Foster and Joseph Verheyden, who have done a superb job.

Travel Diary: Synoptic Problem Conference II

2008-04-09T01:19:00.002+01:00

Oxford, 01:02: second day of the Oxford conference on the Synoptic Problem at Lincoln College. One of the participants here teased me about whether or not I might blog what I had for breakfast today. So in his honour: breakfast today was sausage, egg and tinned tomatoes; it was perfectly fine but to have been perfect it would have needed (at least) good British back bacon and black pudding. But of course the catering people here don't know how much the British ex-pats present hanker for such things, and the breakfast was very nice.

Today was the first full day of the conference. The sessions all take place in the same room, a very Oxford kind of conference room, in which we all sit around the table rather than in rows. There were two separate sessions this morning, separated by coffee, and each with a series of three papers summarized. In session 1, Paul Foster chaired. William Loader talked about Synoptic Perspectives on Jesus and the Law, and his summary was in fact an interesting supplement to the paper he had uploaded, with reflections on how the evidence appeared from the perspectives of the Two-Source Theory, the Griesbach Theory and the Farrer Theory. This has become something of a pattern here -- these are the three theories mainly on the table and which receive the attention from most presenters. Duncan Reid then talked about the miracles from the perspective of differing Synoptic theories. Duncan is one of John Kloppenborg's students in Toronto. Charles Hedrick was not able to be present, so Paul Foster read a 15 minute summary of his paper. There was a broad discussion afterwards.

The second session was chaired by Joseph Verheyden. Kathleen Corley spoke about White Male dominance of Synoptic research, and David Peabody talked about Reading the Synoptic Gospels from the perspective of different source hypotheses, though he focused, inevitably, on the Two-Gospel Theory. I found Kathleen Corley's paper a bit disappointing, not least because it did not engage with the Synoptic Problem at all, so we did not get any closer to an answer to the question posed. I also doubt her thesis, that men are inclined towards Synoptic research because they identify with the historical Jesus. The third paper in the session was from Udo Schnelle, who was not present, and a summary was read, in German, by the chair.

After lunch, it was free time, and then tea. The second main paper was John Kloppenborg on Synopses and the Synoptic Problem. This was perhaps the paper that I found the most engaging in the conference so far, and it generated lengthy and helpful discussion afterwards. Dinner is finished in good time each evening, allowing plenty of time for a bit of socializing afterwards.

The way in which the discussion is being conducted at this conference is excellent. There are a few agenda-heavy questions, with repetitions of the protagonist's particular theories or perspectives, but on the whole, the discussions are tending to air issues of interest to all present, and across a range of areas.

Travel Diary: Synoptic Problem Conference I

2008-04-08T00:22:00.002+01:00

Oxford, England, 00:22: caught the train down from Birmingham to Oxford this morning, a journey that I did many times as a student; tried to finish reading one of the conference papers that I hadn't yet read and fell into a deep sleep. Walked up to Lincoln College, the location for a conference on the Synoptic Problem to celebrate the centenary (forthcoming) of the Oxford Studies in the Synoptic Problem of 1911. The idea is that the essays written for this conference will be revised for the volume to be published in time for that centenary.

I am enjoying being back in Oxford. I spent ten years here, nine of them as a student. I met my wife here and we had our first daughter here. The conference location, Lincoln College, is next door to my old college, Exeter, and I have already enjoyed walking around favourite old locations. Oxford does not change much, and the only major difference about the kind of student accommodation we are in is the addition of en-suite facilities to make the place more conducive to conferences like this. Back in my day, I had to walk down four flights of stairs to the basement to the shared, stone showers. Students today have it easy.

The conference began with lunch in the hall and then the first session of summarized papers. There are forty-three people in attendance, and most of these are presenting papers, most in summarized format. The essential idea is that the papers are written in advance and uploaded to the web (Papers), allowing plenty of time for discussion in each of the sessions, though not all have actually written their papers in advance, so some of the summaries are first-time presentations.

Eugene Boring chaired the first session and there were three papers, all from conference conveners, Andrew Gregory on Literary Dependence and the Synoptic Problem, Paul Foster on the History and Demise of M and Joseph Verheyden on Proto-Luke. Each one spoke for 15-20 minutes and the discussion was then another 45 minutes or so. Perhaps the majority of questions went to Paul Foster on his M paper, including my own on the question of "legendary" elements in M narrative material and John Kloppenborg's on the modelling of the theory. There were also comments from F. Gerald Downing, William Loader, Stephen Patterson and David Peabody.

One of the nice things about a British conference is that one breaks for tea at the proper time; I have been in America long enough to have forgotten what a pleasure it is to have a tea break at a conference. There were large, metal pots of tea of the old-fashioned catering variety.

We went from tea to the first main paper, Christopher Tuckett on "The Current State of the Synoptic Problem". The paper was ideal for the context. It was generally regarded as fair, rigorous, thorough and balanced, even if some would disagree with particular arguments, or particular selections of material covered. I was honoured that Prof. Tuckett referred to my work several times when discussing the Farrer Theory, and afterwards David Catchpole, who was chairing the session, offered "the oppressed minorities" a right to reply, me first on Farrer and then David Dungan on Griesbach. The discussion ranged to a variety of other topics, with comments and questions from, among others, Bob Derrenbacker, F. Gerald Downing, Dennis Macdonald, Maurice Casey (about the absence of Aramaic Q the survey), Paul Foster (why is Luke's use of Matthew more popular than Matthew's use of Luke?), Joseph Verheyden (are the 2ST crowd more introspective and prone to questioning their hypothesis than advocates of other theories?), William Loader (concerning the regular usage of the Synoptics in sabbath-by-sabbath worship, asking whether this distinguished them from other Graeco-Roman texts with which they are regularly compared) and others.

One general question that has already begun to raise its head is the one relating to oral tradition, literary dependency and modes of contact between documents and traditions. My guess, at this stage, is that that the issues here will recur over the coming days.

After Prof. Tuckett's paper, there were drinks. At this drinks reception, David Catchpole announced that the purpose of the volume for which we are writing is the celebration of the work of Christopher Tuckett. Prof. Catchpole spoke and Prof. Tuckett responded, thanking those assembled, but offering special thanks to David Catchpole, Bob Morgan and Christopher Rowland, all of whom were present.

From the drinks reception, we went to the hall for dinner. It was an excellent dinner -- fish course with a nice white wine; chicken for the main course with an acceptable red, and some kind of cakey pudding that I forget because of the arrival of the port.

Travel Diary: Oxford Synoptic Problem Pre-Conference II

2008-04-06T23:56:00.002+01:00

Birmingham, 00.19. After an excellent weekend with my folks in South Derbyshire, we have spent the day in Birmingham, seeing old friends. Early start tomorrow to travel down to Oxford for the conference.

Travel Diary: Oxford Synoptic Problem Conference Pre-Conference Post

2008-04-05T15:40:00.001+01:00

The new series (the fourth) of the new Doctor Who starts on BBC1 tonight (6.20pm) and we have flown over to England specially to see it. While here, I am planning to attend the Synoptic Problem Conference in Oxford (my paper). It gets underway on Monday at Lincoln College, Oxford and I must admit that I am looking forward to it very much. I have read most of the papers that are already online (see link above) and there is clearly going to be a lot of interest to talk about. I have brought the blogging machine with me and I am hoping to blog the conference as we go through, but it will depend a bit on whether there is wireless at Lincoln College. If there isn't, I will still write notes as I go through, but won't be able to upload until the end of the week. For now, I am enjoying some time at my parents' place in Derbyshire.

Synoptic Problem Conference Paper

2008-04-03T00:46:00.000+01:00

There is a conference in Oxford next week to celebrate the forthcoming centenary of Oxford Studies in the Synoptic Problem. The conference has a website and many of the papers have been uploaded already:

Oxford Conference on the Synoptic Problem

Although not yet on the site, my paper is available, and I have uploaded it here:

The Evangelists' Use of the Old Testament and the Synoptic Problem (MS Word)

The Evangelists' Use of the Old Testament and the Synoptic Problem (PDF)

Farrer on the Matthean context of double tradition

2008-03-29T23:41:00.001Z

The story of the Centurion is commonly supposed to have been derived by St Matthew from Q. But surely the moral to be drawn from the extraordinary neatness with which the story nestles into its Matthaean context is that it was cast into written form for the first time by the man who placed it in that context, that is, by St Matthew himself. St Luke re-shapes the story somewhat, but even so it has no such vital or manifold connexions with the context in which he places it. The same is true of several other pieces of the so-called Q tradition: they appear to be made for their Matthaean place, and adjusted to their Lucan place. The fact is admitted by the friends of the Q hypothesis and actually twisted into an argument in support of it. St Luke, they say, could never have found his material in St Matthew, or he would not have dreamt tearing it from the perfect setting it there has, to place it less happily in his own Gospel. It is wiser to say: St Luke, wishing to write his own book in his own way, re-arranged his material he found in his authors. He did it skilfully, but no amount of skill could make an adapted context fit as tight as the context for which the material was composed.

Austin Farrer, St Matthew and St Mark (The Edward Cadbury Lectures, 1953-4; Westminster: Dacre Press, 1954), 46-7, n.2

Dale Allison Clark Lecture Recordings

2008-03-29T11:36:00.001Z

Thanks to Andy Rowell for pointing out that Dale Allison's Clark Lectures, recently given at Duke University, are now available online:

2008 Kenneth W. Clark Lectures Online

Unfortunately, the link on that page takes one to some kind of iTunes thing. For those of us who don't use iTunes, I will inquire about an alternative link.

BBC Passion website new content: Crucifixion and Questions Answered

2008-03-22T14:08:00.001Z

More material has been added to the BBC's The Passion website. New today is an article on the crucifixion, discussing the topic by using the Telegraph and Daily Mail articles as a springboard:

BBC Portrayal of the Crucifixion

The piece is pretty well done, I think. Also new on the articles page is a section in which Nigel Stafford-Clark (producer) and Frank Deasy (writer) answer viewers' questions. There are lots of interesting comments here, and I strongly recommend it:

Your questions answered

The questions answered include one about the lack of miracles in the story, one about the use of regional accents, one about the use of animals, one about the casting of Jesus, one about the shooting of the drama, one about the research for the drama, and lots more.

The new content seems to have knocked off my article, The Passion and Its Historical Context, I hope by accident!

The Passion, episode 3

2008-03-21T22:50:00.001Z

The third episode of The Passion was broadcast tonight on BBC1. I was on the road so was unable to watch it, but will catch up on Sunday (I've seen it lots of times before, but I like to get the full televisual experience of watching it at the same time as everyone else). I am not doing my own reviews of The Passion, at least not for a year or two, because of my involvement in the production. In fact, I don't know that it's ever appropriate for people who played a role (however small) in a production to review it, though they might offer reflections at some point. That is something I have done a little of already, but I would like to do at much greater length in the future. There are all sorts of interesting little pieces of background information that would be interesting to share, but all at the right time. For now, I am fascinated to be listening to others' reactions. And generally speaking, reactions so far have been very encouraging.

For those who missed the episode but who are in the UK, it's available in the iPlayer for another week; you can access it directly from The Passion website. There are several sets of reviews and reflections already available. Doug Chaplin on Metacatholic is still finding more to like than not to like (The Passion continues, and rather well). It's all worth reading, but I found this observation particularly interesting:

One feature that any Jesus film brings home is the difficulty of narrating the terse stories of the gospels over anything like a sufficiently dramatic time span when portrayed on the screen. This was part of the effectiveness of the imprisoning of Jesus in a kind of well in Caiaphas’ courtyard. It gave a sense of time passing to the events, without seriously elongating the trial scenes with invented dialogue.

Gemma Simmonds, SJ, has a positive review over onThinking Faith

. . . . The richness of this production is in those momentary looks of realisation. Pilate looks at Jesus and knows there is more to this than he can see. Claudia’s frenzy is quelled by Pilate’s pragmatism and her own realisation of the risk Jesus represents to what makes her life bearable. Caiaphas’s whole face quivers with intensity and horror as he hears Jesus utter words that would destroy all that he has tried so desperately to save. . . .

And Matt Page, on Bible Films Blog, continues his very helpful Scene Guides series (Part One Scene Guide; Part Two Scene Guide) with his Part Three Scene Guide and connected reflections, including some thoughts on how it would have come across if had been broadcast in the originally planned six half-hour episodes. He wonders how HBO will treat it. My guess would be (and I have heard nothing on this, so it is only a guess) that they will broadcast it in thee x one hour episodes, which will actually end up producing another interesting but different viewing experience.

Passion Interview with me in Christian Today

2008-03-20T07:50:00.000Z

Christian Today have been running a big feature on The Passion and they have added a couple of interviews done on the evening of the première, the first with Frank Deasy and the second with me:

Interview: Dr Mark Goodacre, The Passion's Historical Consultant

Interview: Frank Deasy, writer of The Passion

There are lots of other materials on their BBC Passion page, with more being added regularly.

Independent praises "surprisingly gripping" Passion -- and other links

2008-03-18T11:01:00.000Z

I omitted to refer to The Independent's very positive review of The Passion. As usual, I'll quote a section, but it's all worth reading:

The Weekend's TV: The Passion, BBC1
Gavin & Stacey, BBC3
Don't pass over this Easter treat
By Thomas Sutcliffe
Monday, 17 March 2008

. . . . The Moroccan location and the dusty hugger-mugger of some of the street scenes mean that it is fleetingly haunted by the spirit of The Life of Brian, but only the most zealously dogmatic Christian could complain that it was irreverent.

Naturally, at least one dogmatic Christian has already volunteered his services. Stephen Green, the self-appointed pharisee who speaks for Christian Voice, has expressed disquiet at the fact that Deasy's account of Christ's last days should have been at pains to round out the motivations and character of two other notable players in the drama – Caiaphas, the High Priest, and Pilate, the Roman Governor. Mr Green wouldn't be satisfied, I suspect, unless both men appeared on screen accompanied by sulphurous gusts of smoke and a blast of the Carmina Burana. But for the rest of us, religiously minded or not, the prospect of a series diplomatically poised between revealed truth and historical speculation must be something of a relief. If you believe that Christ is your redeemer I can't so far see anything in The Passion that would have affronted that faith. And if you don't, its account of the politics of a week that was critical in world history proved surprisingly gripping.

If you missed the first two episodes and live in the UK, the Passion website has placed each one online so that you don't even have to go to the iPlayer:

The Passion: Episode Guide

Also on the BBC site, there are lots of comments from viewers, some of which make interesting reading to get a sketch of a range of reactions.

Digital Spy has viewing figures for the first episode, a slightly disappointing 4.1 million, a 15% share of the audience, apparently losing out to Dancing on Ice, almost 12 million (44% of the audience). As for the second episode, Doug Chaplin (Metacatholic) and Michael Bird (Euangelion) are bang up to date, with their episode 2 reviews going online within hours of last night's broadcast.

Also yesterday, Simon Mayo's TV Panel reviewed The Passion; you can listen again; fast forward to about 3.35pm for discussion of The Passion.

More comments and links later.

Guardian Review of "Fabulous" Passion

2008-03-17T07:36:00.000Z

Saving the best until last, it's nice to wake up this morning to a great review in Media Guardian. It is not possible for me to conceal my delight at this review, all the more so as it occurs in The Guardian:

The weekend's TV
Sam Wollaston

A bunch of blokes with long hair and beards head towards a city. ELO on tour? Nope, too many of them, and the lead guy's on an ass. There's a lot of palm fronds about the place ... ah, I think I know what this is: Palm Sunday. And it's going out on Palm Sunday! So The Passion (BBC1, Sunday), a drama that unfolds in four episodes spread over Easter Week, is TV in real time, a bit like 24, but more retro, and the guy saving the world has more hair. You wouldn't catch Jack Bauer on an ass either . . . .

. . . . . I don't think anyone's going to be getting too upset about it. JC isn't a woman, gay, or a Muslim (though it was all filmed in Morocco - I wonder what the locals made of that). It's actually pretty straight. Gospel, you might say. It is also fabulous, with some great performances: Ben Daniels is excellent as a complex Caiaphas, James Nesbitt plays Pontius Pilate with obvious enjoyment, Joseph Mawle is a believable Jesus (which is, I suppose, what you want from someone who says he's the son of God; it can't be an easy role). The ass is splendid too (it's pathetic, I know, but I just enjoy typing that word). But there's also a vitality and realness about the whole thing that you rarely find with this story. A passion, you could even say, in another sense of the word.

We're getting down and dirty in the narrow streets of Jerusalem, overflowing with life and the blood of sacrificed lambs. It's loud, looks alive, you can almost smell it all. This feels like a place and a time that actually happened. It's not at all preachy, though. There's no "he's good and he's bad" stuff. The characters, too, are treated as real people, not merely as vehicles for messages. In fact you could watch The Passion and totally forget that this story was central to a major world religion. And that's a good thing, I think