NT Gateway Weblog

New Journal for Greco-Roman Christianity andJudaism article

2008-07-31T10:57:00.000+01:00

A new article has been added to the latest Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism. It is the third to appear in Volume 5:

5.3, Jae Hyun Lee, Against Richard B. Hays’s ‘Faith of Jesus Christ’ [PDF]

Job Opportunity: Research Fellow (Vetus Latina Iohannes)

2008-07-31T09:51:00.000+01:00

Watch out -- the closing date on this one is very soon:
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Job Opportunity: Research Fellow (Vetus Latina Iohannes)

A vacancy is now being advertised for a Research Fellow to assist in the preparation and publication of an edition of the Old Latin versions of the Gospel according to John.

The Vetus Latina Iohannes project has been running at the University of Birmingham for a number of years, and has already made available an electronic edition of the surviving Old Latin manuscripts of John at http://www.iohannes.com/vetuslatina/ .

The main duties of the Fellow will include assisting in the compilation of an electronic database of gospel citations in Church Fathers, the analysis of this material, and the preparation of a printed edition to be published in the 'Vetus Latina' series.

Applicants must have a PhD in a relevant subject, an excellent knowledge of Latin, the ability to learn relevant IT skills quickly, and the ability to work effectively as a member of a team. A good working knowledge of Greek, experience of database design and maintenance, and experience of working on a research project are desirable.

The post-holder will be a member of the University's Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing (www.itsee.bham.ac.uk).

Informal enquiries may be addressed to Prof. D.C. Parker (D.C.Parker@bham.ac.uk) and Dr P.H. Burton (P.H.Burton@bham.ac.uk).

The advertisement for the position may be found at:

http://www.vacancies.bham.ac.uk/vacancies/furtherParticulars.htm?refNo=A31036

The starting salary is £25,888 - £28,290 a year.
Applications close on 8th August 2008.
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BBC Passion DVD Cover and Release Date

2008-07-30T15:53:00.001+01:00

There is now some news about the DVD release of The Passion (my coverage) including the cover (left); click to enlarge. There is no news yet on what extras will be available. This will be a UK release, already listed at Amazon.co.uk and the BBC Shop, the latter giving a release date of 6 October. The American release will presumably wait until after the broadcast on HBO, probably next year.

Codex Sinaiticus Project Countdown Begins

2008-07-21T12:28:00.002+01:00

Several news sources are reporting the exciting news that the Codex Sinaiticus Project is to go online on Thursday this week. Deutsche Welle announces German University to Put World's Oldest Bible Online, but it looks like they are a bit confused -- the project is actually a British Library Online Project, though in collaboration with three other institutions including Leipzig, correctly today in the 24 Hour Museum:

Codex Sinaiticus Bible Reunited in British Library Online Project

A “unique treasure” of Biblical history is to be made available online for the first time through a collaborative project between The British Library and three other major international institutions.

The Codex Sinaiticus, considered to be the world’s most important Biblical manuscript, dates from the fourth century and is thought to be the earliest, most complete Christian bible.

The manuscript is however split up and housed in four different locations - London, Sinai, St Petersburg and Leipzig. This means that pages from one book of the bible manuscript might be housed in two or more different repositories . . .

There is a holding page on the official site in German and English. The 24 hour museum article gives a little more detail:

While the project intends to have all parts of the Codex Sinaiticus online by July 2009, this year’s initial launch will give access to 106 pages held by the British Library. These include the complete Book of Psalms and the Gospel of Mark.

A further 28 fragment pages from the British Library collection will also be added. These pages enable the online completion of a further six Biblical texts when joined with the parts of the manuscript housed at Leipzig University. These texts include 1 Chronicles, Jeremiah and Lamentations.

As well as translations of some parts of the manuscript from the Greek into English and German, the website will also allow users to explore cross-referencing between both the transcription and the image of the manuscript itself. For instance, pointing at a word on the transcription will highlight the equivalent word in the image.

I will add a link and a notice when the time comes on Thurdsay. For more on the project see:

ITSEE: The Codex Sinaiticus Project
British Library Press Release (2005)

And for recent blog notices, see now Progress in the Digitization of the Codex Sinaiticus on Elginism and Codex Sinaiticus to go Online this week on j. c. baker and The Codex Sinaiticus Project on Paleojudaica.

Beyond Belief on Paul

2008-07-16T15:27:00.003+01:00

More from Radio 4: Beyond Belief back on 23 June dealt with Paul. No one else on the blogs has mentioned it so far (Surely I am the only biblioblogger who listens to Radio 4). The contributors are Paula Gooder, Gerald O'Collins and Ed Kessler, all three great choices, especially Paula! You can catch it again on Listen Again from the previous link (just select 23 June St Paul from the drop down menu). If you don't yet subscribe to the podcast, you can do so at Beyond Belief: Podcast. One choice question that gets discussed: would Paul have circumcised his son if he had one?

Are e-lists dying?

2008-07-16T11:04:00.001+01:00

In recent weeks there has been an interesting discussion on several of the e-lists relevant to our field about whether, in fact, the e-lists are now dying. Andrew Bernhard has led the charge on this one and today posts a great summary post, also looking to the future. His answer to his original question is that the e-lists are not dying but that they are going through a period of transition. If you have not been following the discussion, you may be one of the reasons for the downturn on a lot of the lists. Here's the link to Andrew's post as it appears on Xtalk:

Are e-lists dying? (Final Post)

Andrew argues that many of the e-lists are in crisis, something he demonstrates by looking at figures on the number of posts, mapping a steady decline. But he suggests that the e-lists are not dying but are in transition, and there may still be a future for them.

I don't think that that the answers to this interesting question are straightforward, but I know that for myself and other fellow bloggers, blogging is one of the reasons for the changes in the e-lists. Many of us prefer to blog than to write an email. If I were to track my own e-list participation, I reckon it would have been much higher before I began blogging in 2003.

But I don't think that the growth of blogging is the major factor. Rather, our attitudes to email in general have changed. There was a phase when email was the latest thing. It was exciting, a whole new world of communication. Remember the thrill of receiving emails in those early days? When I joined b-greek nad Xtalk back in 1996, a large part of the experience was the thrill of receiving electronic communications -- this was not like anything else I had experienced. Back then it was fun to send and receive emails, and to do your scholarship that way. Not now. When I get back from time away from the computer, I don't think, "Oh great, tons of emails!" I think, "Oh no! Email mountain! How will I ever get through all of those?" Email was once exciting but now it is oppressive. Now we do everything by email and attention to our inbox is all about finding ways to get through it as quickly as possible. We are looking for excuses to by-pass, delete as many messages as possible. E-list material has to be relegated when there are tons of personal emails to work one's way through. I suspect that the growth of email oppression is in fact the largest factor in the changing face of several of the e-lists, not least as academics receive a larger proportion of emails than many others.

"Gabriel's Revelation" Tablet

2008-07-16T01:15:00.000+01:00

While I was away from the blogging machine, a major story broke and the media and the biblioblogs have been full of it, Israel Knohl's interpretation of a newly discovered text on a tablet called "Gabriel's Revelation". Syneidon has a good summary of the issues, with links, and several bibliobloggers have been on hand to provide intelligent, critical commentary of the kind that establishes a major contribution to the discussion, with up-to-date, accurate and cautious assessments that contrast with some of those from various media outlets. Particularly worthy of note are the contributions by Tyler Williams on Codex Blogspot, Knohl, "Gabriel's Revelation" Tablet and the Resurrection; The Messiah Tablet (with tons of links) and Joe Zias on the ‘Vision of Gabriel’ ‘Messiah Tablet’ Or Whatever You Wish to Call It on Jim West's blog; New Messiah Stone by Michael Bird on Euangelion; Messianism before Christ: Gabriel's Revelation by Stephen Cook on Biblische Ausbildung; The Vision of Gabriel by Ed Cook on Ralph the Sacred River; New Inscription Found: "Messiah to be Raised After 3 Days"?! and Messiah Tablet Confirms Published Dissertation by Michael Barber on Singing in the Reign. Jim Davila is on top of the news over on Paleojudaica, Vision of Gabriel, Vision of Gabriel Inscription, Vision of Gabriel, Vision of Gabriel Watch, Vision of Gabriel Watch and An Anti-Messiah. Excellent work here from the bibliobloggers, as ever up to speed and ready to provide intelligent commentary on the breaking stories of the day.

Duke Divinity School Dean on Facebooking

2008-07-15T16:07:00.000+01:00

If you thought that your professors or deans weren't on Facebook, think again. In the Christian Century, Gregory Jones, the Dean of Duke Divinity School, has an article about Facebook:

My Facebook Friends
L. Gregory Jones

Tacitus on In Our Time

2008-07-14T23:02:00.000+01:00

Last week's In Our Time on Radio 4 dealt with Tacitus:

“The story I now commence is rich in vicissitudes, grim with warfare, torn by civil strife, a tale of horror even during times of peace”. So reads page one of The Histories by the Roman historian Tacitus and it doesn’t disappoint.

Tacitus’ Rome is a hotbed of sex and violence, of excessive wealth and senatorial corruption. His work is a pungent study in tyranny and decline that has influenced depictions of Rome, from Gibbon’s Decline and Fall to Robert Graves’ I, Claudius.

But is it a true picture of the age or does Tacitus’ work present the tyranny and decadence of Rome at the expense of its virtues? And to what extent, when we look at the Roman Empire today, do we still see it through his eyes?

Contributors

Catharine Edwards, Professor of Classics and Ancient History at Birkbeck, University of London

Ellen O’Gorman, Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of Bristol

Maria Wyke, Professor of Latin at University College London

You can listen again on the web, or you do what I do and download the podcast. In fact, why not subscribe while you are at it?

Biblical Studies Carnivals XXX and XXXI

2008-07-02T23:54:00.000+01:00

I am a big fan of the "Biblical Studies Carnival", which aims to gather together highlights each month from across the blogosphere on posts broadly relevant to Biblical Studies. Two have recently been published back to back, a treat for enthusiasts for the genre:

Biblical Studies Carnival XXX (by Tyler Williams)

Biblical Studies Carnival XXXI (by James R. Getz, Jr.)

As I have commented before, the more the bibliogging world expands, the more helpful these carnivals become. Unfortunately, the more the biblioblogging world expands, the more difficult it is for the authors to gather together the relevant information. Some go searching extensively; others, quite reasonably, limit their carnivals just to the things submitted to them. I am afraid that I have never offered to do one of these, and I have twice turned down requests to do one. I know that I would simply not have time to do a decent job, something that fills me with admiration for those who continue to produce the goods. Thanks again to all concerned.

"Smite the Amalekites!" More Henry Chadwick in Lives Remembered

2008-07-01T22:12:00.003+01:00

And still the wonderful reminiscences of Henry Chadwick are pouring in. Tomorrow's Times has the following:

Lives remembered: The Very Rev Professor Henry Chadwick

They are all worth reading, but I loved this in particular from Canon Tim Roper:

Henry would arrive, panting, straight from the hockey field, at 4.02 for a 4pm supervision. In his rooms he used to dash behind a screen while we sat demurely. “Prophesy!” he would call, and we would read our essays to a blank screen from which emerged sounds of one changing. Finally, Henry would appear, dapper as ever, and deliver himself of learned thoughts about Bultmann, form-criticism, or whatever. Thirty years later I met him. He still remembered.

And for "Smite the Amalekites", you'll have to go to the article.

See also Death of Henry Chadwick, More on Henry Chadwick and Henry Chadwick: More Lives Remembered.

Henry Chadwick: More Lives Remembered

2008-06-30T22:18:00.000+01:00

Today's Times also has further on Henry Chadwick in its "Lives Remembered":

Lives Remembered: Henry Chadwick

See also Death of Henry Chadwick and More on Henry Chadwick

Christopher Stead: Times Obituary

2008-06-30T22:07:00.000+01:00

Today's Times had its obituary of Christopher Stead:

Canon Christopher Stead: distinguished patristic scholar

For earlier obituaries, see Christopher Stead Obituary.

Review of Biblical Literature Latest

2008-06-26T01:01:00.001+01:00

Latest from the SBL Review of Biblical Literature under the NT and related heading (composite post of the last three announcements):

Bradford B. Blaine Jr.
Peter in the Gospel of John: The Making of an Authentic Disciple
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=6111
Reviewed by Stephan Witetschek

Markus Bockmuehl and Donald A. Hagner, eds.
The Written Gospel
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5285
Reviewed by David C. Sim

Sebastian Brock
The Bible in the Syriac Tradition
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5853
Reviewed by H. F. van Rooy

Gregory W. Dawes
Introduction to the Bible
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=6043
Reviewed by Randall L. McKinion

Jane DeRose Evans
The Coins and the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine Economy of Palestine
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=6191
Reviewed by Mark A. Chancey

Victor Paul Furnish
1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=6202
Reviewed by Eduard Verhoef

Paul M. Hoskins
Jesus as the Fulfillment of the Temple in the Gospel of John
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=6241
Reviewed by Mary L. Coloe
Reviewed by Nicholas H. Taylor

Ådna Jostein, ed.
The Formation of the Early Church
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=6032
Reviewed by Markus Oehler

Bart J. Koet
Dreams and Scripture in Luke-Acts: Collected Essays
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=6036
Reviewed by David L. Tiede

Jerome H. Neyrey
Give God the Glory: Ancient Prayer and Worship in Cultural Perspective
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=6113
Reviewed by Tony Costa

Birger A. Pearson
Ancient Gnosticism: Traditions and Literature
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=6053
Reviewed by James F. McGrath

Calvin J. Roetzel
2 Corinthians
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=6204
Reviewed by Frank J. Matera

Karl Friedrich Ulrichs
Christusglaube: Studien zum Syntagma pistis Christou und zum paulinischen Verständnis von Glaube und Rechtfertigung
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=6022
Reviewed by Günter Röhser

Ward Blanton
Displacing Christian Origins: Philosophy, Secularity, and the New Testament
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=6059
Reviewed by Claire Clivaz

Brian Brock
Singing the Ethos of God: On the Place of Christian Ethics in Scripture
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=6049
Reviewed by Jan G. van der Watt

Albert Eichhorn; trans. Jeffrey Cayzer
The Lord's Supper in the New Testament
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=6154
Reviewed by Sakari Hakkinen

Volker Gäckle
Die Starken und die Schwachen in Korinth und in Rom: Zu Herkunft und Funktion der Antithese in 1Kor 8,1-11,1 und in Röm 14,1-15,13
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=6018
Reviewed by Stephan Witetschek

Mike Graves and David M. May
Preaching Matthew: Interpretation and Proclamation
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=6164
Reviewed by Craig S. Keener

Fredrik Lindgard
Paul's Line of Thought in 2 Corinthians 4:16-5:10
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=6015
Reviewed by Thomas Schmeller

Mark Roncace and Patrick Gray, eds.
Teaching the Bible through Popular Culture and the Arts
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=6192
Reviewed by Leonard Greenspoon

Brian S. Rosner
Greed as Idolatry: The Origin and Meaning of a Pauline Metaphor
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=6103
Reviewed by H. H. Drake Williams III

John H. Elliott
Conflict, Community, and Honor: 1 Peter in Social-Scientific Perspective
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=6127
Reviewed by Pheme Perkins

Cristina Grenholm and Daniel Patte, eds.
Gender, Tradition and Romans: Shared Ground, Uncertain Borders
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5208
Reviewed by Angela Standhartinger

John Paul Heil
Ephesians: Empowerment to Walk in Love for the Unity of All in Christ
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5930
Reviewed by Timothy Gombis

Lieve M. Teugels and Rivka Ulmer, eds.
Midrash and Context: Proceedings of the 2004 and 2005 SBL Consultation on Midrash
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=6008
Reviewed by Alex P. Jassen

Joseph B. Tyson
Marcion and Luke-Acts: A Defining Struggle
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=6126
Reviewed by Dieter T. Roth

Journal of Biblical Literature Latest

2008-06-26T00:42:00.001+01:00

Latest from the Journal of Biblical Literature, Volume 127, Number 2 / 2008 under the New Testament heading:

A Ghost on the Water? Understanding an Absurdity in Mark 6:49-50
p. 345
Jason Robert Combs
http://jbl.metapress.com/content/b0240723l4414652/

Moral Vision and Eschatology in Mark's Gospel: Coherence or Conflict?
p. 359
David J. Neville
http://jbl.metapress.com/content/u7jptt416546277t/

"Will the Wise Person Get Drunk?" The Background of the Human Wisdom in Luke 7:35 and Matthew 11:19
p. 385
Thomas E. Phillips
http://jbl.metapress.com/content/9107420177g1r32l/

Ioynian (Romans 16:7) and the Hebrew Name Yêunnī
p. 397
Al Wolters
http://jbl.metapress.com/content/1q77gj0251166117/

Christopher Stead Obituary

2008-06-25T00:10:00.001+01:00

I missed this one a couple of weeks ago in the Telegraph:

Canon Christopher Stead
Patristic scholar who wrote about the philosophy of the early Christian Church– and trains

I have only ever known him as a Patristics scholar, but the obituary carries the delightful additional information of his love of trains -- with a picture -- and this gem:

At 89 he published The Birth of the Steam Locomotive, a scholarly study reflecting a life-long interest.

When living at the 13th-century Black Hostelry, the former monastic infirmary at Ely, he used to maintain an O-gauge model layout in the attic, which had a branch line that went through a hole in the wall to deliver Christmas presents to his oldest son's bedroom.

Although he died on 28 May, The Times does not yet appear to have published an obituary. Today's Independent, though, has the following:

The Rev Professor Christopher Stead: Scholar of patristic thought who was the last Ely Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University
Lionel R. Wickham

More on Henry Chadwick

2008-06-24T22:55:00.000+01:00

I noticed the obituaries in The Times, The Guardian, the Telegraph, the Church Times and Cambridge University on Thursday (Death of Henry Chadwick). There are several more to mention. The Times has more personal memories in Lives Remembered,

“There are only two types of young man to whom I would refuse admission to the House,” he said (with a clear glint in the eye). “The first is the young man who, by the tender age of 17, claims to have read the complete works of Dostoevsky.” After a beautifully timed pause for thought, he continued: “The second is the young man who, by the tender age of 17, actually has read the complete works of Dostoevsky!”

The New York Times has an obituary too:

Henry Chadwick, Scholar of Early Christianity, Dies at 87
By DOUGLAS MARTIN

And on Saturday, The Independent published an obituary by Andrew Louth, from which I will excerpt the last paragraph:

The Rev Professor Henry Chadwick: Historian of the early Church who held the Regius Chairs of Divinity at both Oxford and Cambridge
Andrew Louth

. . . . He was a tall man, with a slight stoop that gave him a somewhat Olympian air, enhanced by his habitual courtesy. He did not so much speak as pronounce, though this did not diminish the warmth of his conversation. In lectures, however, he performed, and, a born rhetorician, gave impeccable scholarship elegant expression. In a story he told against himself, he used to relate how, when giving some lectures in America, he was struck by three girls who came faithfully to his lectures and listened without taking notes; towards the end of the series he asked them how they had liked his lectures, and they replied saying they had no interest in what he was saying but just loved listening to his voice. He was an adornment to the world of academe; we may never see his like again.

SBL Secret Mark Session

2008-06-24T21:25:00.001+01:00

As Stephen Carlson (Hypotyposeis) and Loren Rosson (The Busybody) have mentioned, we have a session on Secret Mark in the Synoptics Section this year. The SBL On-line program has recently been updated so that it includes the following details:

SBL 24-97 Synoptic Gospels
11/24/2008
1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Room: Room TBD - Hotel TBD

Theme: Secret Mark after Fifty Years

Mark Goodacre, Duke University, presiding

Birger A. Pearson, University of California, Santa Barbara, "The Secret Gospel of Mark: A Twentieth-Century Fake" (20 min)

Stephen C. Carlson, Duke University, "Can the Academy Protect Itself from One of Its Own? The Case of Secret Mark" (20 min)

Allan J. Pantuck, UCLA, "Can Morton Smith's Archival Writings and Correspondence Shine Any Light on the Authenticity of Secret Mark?" (20 min)

Scott G. Brown, University of Toronto, "Fifty Years of Befuddlement: Ten Enduring Misconceptions about the 'Secret' Gospel of Mark" (20 min)

Charles Hedrick, Missouri State University, Respondent (20 min)

Bart Ehrman, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Respondent (20 min)

Discussion (30 min)

More from the SBL program in due course.

Death of Henry Chadwick

2008-06-19T21:07:00.001+01:00

I was sorry to hear of the death of Henry Chadwick on Tuesday, also mentioned by Rob Bradshaw on Earlychurch.org.uk. Today's Times has the obituary:

The Very Rev Professor Henry Chadwick: priest and scholar

The end of the obituary mentions his college sermons. That was the only time I met him, when he came to preach at Exeter College when I was an undergraduate there. I still remember the topic, the Good Samaritan, and our discussion afterwards, which was about jazz and the Beatles.

Rob Bradshaw mentions the obituaries in the Telegraph and The Guardian. Tomorrow's Times has a piece in Lives Remembered, which, as usual, raises a smile:

. . . . Towards the end of his time as Master of Peterhouse, he confided to me that he had concerns about moving his books from the Master’s Lodge to his rather smaller house in St John’s Street, Oxford. “Do you have many books?” I fatuously asked. “About 20,000,” he replied, without any apparent perception that this was unusual.

When he was kind enough to sponsor my application for a reader’s ticket for the Bodleian Library, he signed off the necessary form as “Henry Chadwick, Master of Peterhouse”; but, clearly concerned that this style might not cut much ice at Oxford, he added “and sometime Dean of Christ Church”. There was not much space left after that but, evidently still uneasy, he found room to add “and Curator of Bodley”. In his covering letter to me, he wrote: “I hope the enclosed does the trick . . . ” It did.

There are also pages at the University of Cambridge tomorrow (though it wrongly gives his age as 88) and tomorrow's Church Times. The latter also has an obituary but it is subscription only.

How do you make a Pharisee?

2008-06-17T23:36:00.000+01:00

Did you know that you can get a drink in north Germany called a Pharisee? Essentially it is a cheeky cup of coffee, with the rum hidden in the coffee beneath the whipped cream -- it is pretending to be one thing and it is manifesting itself as another. I sometimes use this as an illustration in class when we deal with Christian caricatures of "Pharisees" and I am looking to establish that everyone understands the Pharisee = hypocrite motif in Christian history, ahead of engaging, of course, in some proper historical exploration of who the Pharisees really were.

The Pharisäer got its name, according to legend, like this:

A peasant by the name of Peter Georg Johannsen celebrated the baptism of his seventh child in 1872. Amongst the guests was the reverend Bleyer, who had strictly forbidden that his fold should imbibe alcohol. No true baptism was complete without some alcohol to celebrate the baptised, however, so the cheeky farmer had an idea: he mixed rum with sugar, poured hot coffee on the mixture and put whipped cream on top, thus preventing the rum from evaporating and giving this neat trick away through its aromatic smell. The reverend just got plain coffee with the whipped cream on top. The guests got merrier and merrier by the minute, and a good deal noisier, too. Fate took its due course, and eventually the reverend got hold of a 'wrong' cup. On realising what had been going on, he exclaimed:

Oh ihr Pharisäer!

This version of the legend is told on a nice BBC page, Pharisee - a Coffee with Spirit that also tells one how to make a Pharisäer. And the same page links too to the birthplace of the drink, in Nordstrand -- see Pharisäerhof Nordstrand.

Orality and Literacy V: Illiiterate Tradents?

2008-06-05T12:15:00.000+01:00

I hope that it is already apparent that I regard James D. G. Dunn's article, “Altering the Default Setting: Re-envisaging the Early Transmission of the Jesus Tradition,” New Testament Studies 49/2 (2003), 139-75, as a very important and challenging contribution to the discipline. His approach in this article is summarized effectively in the following paragraph:

In a word, we naturally, habitually and instinctively work within a literary paradigm. We are, therefore, in no fit state to appreciate how a non-literary culture, an oral culture, functions. And if we are to enter empathetically into such a culture it is essential that we become conscious of our literary paradigm and make deliberate efforts to step outside it and to free ourselves from its inherited predispositions. It becomes necessary to alter the default settings given by the literary shaped
software of our mental computers. (142; emphasis original).

In previous posts in this series, I have attempted to argue that Dunn is overstating the case for the extent of our immersion in a literary culture. He is offering a valuable corrective but it is a perspective that may need a little nuancing. What Dunn describes is not our broader culture but the rarefied atmosphere of the academic sub-culture. His characterization of "our print-determined default setting" (150) and the"blinkers of a mindset formed by our print-dominated heritage" suggests that he is not engaging with the secondary orality of our culture and is inclined to over-emphasize elements in the academic's experience of the world. In this post, however, I would like to begin to think a little more about the other element in Dunn's contrast, the "oral culture", the "non-literary culture" that he says informed Christian origins.

The description of the world in which early Christians moved as an "oral culture" may be unhelpful. It is a world more accurately characterized as one in which there was interaction between orality and literacy, a "rhetorical culture" to use the term coined by Vernon Robbins. It is my working hypothesis that Dunn underestimates the importance of literacy in emerging Christianity and I will attempt to explain why by focusing on one element in Dunn's article that is shared with other studies of early Christianity, the issue of literacy rates and their relevance to the development of the synoptic tradition.

Now, Dunn is surely right to remind us of the extent of illiteracy in in this period. Citing Harris and others, he says that "literacy in Palestine at the time of Jesus would probably have been less than 10 per cent" (148). But what is the relevance of this frequently made observation to the discussion of the Synoptic Problem and the transmission of Jesus tradition, the elements at the heart of Dunn's study? The Gospel authors were of course literate, so the issue of literacy rates appears to be focused on (a) the pre-gospel period and (b) the mindsets of and the communities in which the evangelists moved. But how important is that fact of widespread illiteracy in these areas? Dunn writes:

In my judgement, discussion of possible allusions to and use of the Jesus tradition, both within the NT epistles (Paul, James, 1 Peter), within the Apostolic Fathers, and now also within the Nag Hammadi texts, has been seriously flawed by overdependence on the literary paradigm. For if we are indeed talking about largely illiterate communities, dependent on oral tradition and aural knowledge of written documents, then we have to expect as the rule that knowledge of the Jesus tradition will have shared the characteristics of oral tradition. That is to say, the historical imagination, liberated from the literary default setting and tutored in regard to oral culture, can readily envisage communities familiar with their oral tradition, able to recognize allusions to Jesus tradition in performances of an apostolic letter written to them, and to fill in ‘the gaps of indeterminacy’ in other performances of that tradition. (169-70)

I am particularly interested in the words underlined in the passage. The assumption appears to be that the tradents were illiterate or that the illiterate community members were themselves acting as tradents. Perhaps this was the case but I am not sure that this is self evident. After all, "aural knowledge of written documents" presumes literate community members reading out these documents, something that will itself have invested those who were literate with a particular authority that could not be shared by those who were illiterate. Might the same have been true also of tradents more broadly, of those who were sharing oral traditions about Jesus? How many of the early Christian tradents were literate?

Let us take a moment to think about the early Christian tradents we actually know about. The most well known, Paul, was of course literate. His sharing of Jesus tradition in places like 1 Cor. 9, 1 Cor. 11 and 1 Cor. 15 is a case of a literate tradent sharing Jesus tradition with another literate tradent (the reader of the letter) who will then share that tradition with his or her hearers. Here we have a clear example of the kind of interaction between orality and literacy that characterizes the development of Christian origins, or, more specifically, between literate tradents and (presumably) illiterate hearers of the tradition. Presumably Apollos too was literate (e.g. Acts 18.24) and so were Silas, Timothy and, we would have thought, Phoebe, Barnabas, Prisca and Aquilla and many others. If we can trust Luke, it is broadly implied that James too is literate (Acts 15.20), and his importance in the emerging Christian movement (cf. Josephus, Ant. 20) may also suggest literacy.

It is reasonable to assume that such people were participating as literate tradents in a culture in which there was interaction between orality and literacy. But we can go a little further than this. The tradition itself presupposes literate tradents. In 1 Cor. 15.3-5, he presents what he has received as of first importance (i.e. major, early tradition) and which he also passed on to the Corinthians (παρέδωκα γὰρ ὑμῖν ἐν πρώτοις ὃ καὶ παρέλαβον), "that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures". The content of the tradition invokes what is written. It is difficult to imagine illiterate tradents having success with the sharing of material that itself presupposes literacy in this way.

Additional note 1: I have deliberately used the term "literate" in a generalized way of those who would be able to dictate a letter, or to read and understand writing. The meaning of "literacy" of course changes, and there are different kinds of literacy even today, and different degrees of competence. We too readily think of (the physical act of) writing when we talk about literacy, and one of the difficulties for us is to imagine our way into a culture where the educated did not need to be and usually were not good scribes. More too on this in due course.

Additional note 2: Before anyone else says it, what about Acts 4.13, where Peter and John are described as ἀγράμματοί? Does this mean "illiterate"? This post is long enough already, so I will add a comment on this verse in my next post in the series.

Backing up Zotero

2008-06-05T08:38:00.000+01:00

I have been an enthusiastic advocate of Zotero, the bibliographical research tool plug in for Firefox. A couple of months ago, my laptop crashed. I felt quite smug when the computer guy at work began the speech about backing up and I explained that I had multiple back-ups, on flashdrives, on Google docs, on GSpace and elsewhere. (He still felt obliged to finish the speech, shaking his head about how academics just don't back up their data and how baffling it was, etc.) But there is one thing I had never even thought about backing up, my Zotero data. I suppose on some level I imagined that it was being stored out there in some dark corner of cyber-space, but it is not. The whole lot got lost when the computer crashed beyond repair. So I read Tim Bulkeley's entry on Sansblogue today with interest:

Back Up Zotero!

A useful post. Let's hope that in the long term Zotero provide a decent, easy back-up service. Also, it would be helpful to have an easy sharing facility so that one could straightforwardly transfer the data from one computer to another.

Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism Latest

2008-05-31T23:49:00.000+01:00

Two new articles have appeared in the Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism:

Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism, Volume 5

5.1 Stanley E. Porter and Andrew W. Pitts, Paul’s Bible, His Education and His Access to the Scriptures of Israel

5.2 Craig S. Keener, Three Notes on Figurative Language: Inverted Guilt in Acts 7.55-60, Paul’s Figurative Vote in Acts 26.10, Figurative Eyes in Galatians 4.15

As is usual with JGRChJ, these will remain online for the rest of the year, and then it will go print-only, as with earlier volumes, in an interesting reversal of the more common practice.

Expository Times Latest

2008-05-31T01:48:00.001+01:00

A new issue of The Expository Times has been made available:

1 June 2008; Vol. 119, No. 9

URL: http://ext.sagepub.com/content/vol119/issue9/?etoc

NT related pieces include:

Talking Points from Books
John Riches
The Expository Times 2008;119 417-421
http://ext.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/119/9/417?etoc

RELIGION PAST AND PRESENT -- VOLUME 3 H. D. Betz, D. S. Browning, B. Janowski and E. Jungel (eds), Religion Past and Present, Volume 3 (Chu-Deu) (Leiden: Brill, 2007. {euro}249.00/$279.00. pp. ii + 795. ISBN 978--90--04--13979--4)
Paul Foster
The Expository Times 2008;119 421
http://ext.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/119/9/421?etoc

An Overview of Recent Scholarly Literature on Philippians
Todd D. Still
The Expository Times 2008;119 422-428
http://ext.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/119/9/422?etoc

BIBLICAL EXEGESIS -- NOT JUST FOR BEGINNERS: J. H. Hayes and C. R. Holladay, Biblical Exegesis: A Beginners' Handbook (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007. {pound}13.99. pp. 236. ISBN 978--0--664--22775--3)
Christopher Tuckett
The Expository Times 2008;119 428
http://ext.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/119/9/428?etoc

STORING UP TREASURES IN HEAVEN Stephen R. Johnson (ed.), Q 12:33--34: Storing Up Treasures in Heaven (Documenta Q 8; Leuven: Peeters, 2007. {euro}68.00. pp. xxxiii + 213. ISBN 978--90--429--1949--5)
Paul Foster
The Expository Times 2008;119 436
http://ext.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/119/9/436?etoc

Living Text or Exquisite Corpse?
John C. Poirier
The Expository Times 2008;119 437-439
http://ext.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/119/9/437?etoc

SALVATION OF THE GENTILES M. F. Bird, Jesus and the Origins of the Gentile Mission (LNTS 331; London: T&T Clark -- A Continuum imprint, 2006. {pound}70.00. pp. xi + 212. ISBN 978--0--567--04473--0)
Paul Foster
The Expository Times 2008;119 439
http://ext.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/119/9/439?etoc

BOOK OF THE MONTH -- The Apostolic Fathers: A Landmark Edition: Michael W. Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations (3rd edn; Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007. $42.99. pp. xxv + 801+ maps. ISBN 978--8010--3468--8)
Paul Foster
The Expository Times 2008;119 440-441
http://ext.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/119/9/440?etoc

ERRORISTS AT COLLOSAE I. K. Smith, A Study of the Apostle Paul's Response to a Jewish Mystical Movement at Colossae (LNTS 326; London: T&T Clark-- A Continuum imprint, 2006. {pound}65.00. pp. xxi + 254. ISBN 0--567--03107--1)
Paul Foster
The Expository Times 2008;119 449
http://ext.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/119/9/449?etoc

ISAIAH IN LUKE--ACTS P. Mallen, The Reading and Transformation of Isaiah in Luke-Acts (LNTS 367; London: T&T Clark -- A Continuum imprint, 2007. {pound}65.00. pp. xii + 245. ISBN 978--0--567--04566--9)
Paul Foster
The Expository Times 2008;119 451
http://ext.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/119/9/451?etoc

BOOK REVIEWS -- MARY MAGDALENE Esther De Boer, The Mary Magdalene Cover-Up:
The Sources Behind the Myth (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2007. {pound}12.99. pp. 213. ISBN 978--0--567--03182--2)
Christopher Tuckett
The Expository Times 2008;119 454
http://ext.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/119/9/454?etoc

Book Review: THE SOURCES OF THE CHRISTIAN SOURCES Andrew Carriker, The Library of Eusebius of Caesarea (Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 67; Leiden: Brill, 2003. {euro}97,00. pp. xvi + 358. ISBN 90--04--13132--9)
Ulrich Volp
The Expository Times 2008;119 455-456
http://ext.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/119/9/455?etoc

Book Review: SAHIDIC COPTIC FOR BEGINNERS Bentley Layton, Coptic in 20 Lessons: Introduction to Sahidic Coptic With Exercises & Vocabularies (Leuven: Peeters, 2007. {euro}27.00. pp. viii + 204. ISBN 978--90--429--1810--8)
Paul Foster
The Expository Times 2008;119 457-458
http://ext.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/119/9/457?etoc

Book Review: NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY AND THE SYNOPTIC PROBLEM Martin Mosse, The Three Gospels: New Testament History Introduced by the Synoptic Problem (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2007. {pound}24.99. pp. xxxii+ 364. ISBN 978--1--84227--520--7)
Paul Foster
The Expository Times 2008;119 458-459
http://ext.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/119/9/458?etoc

Book Review: SOCIO-RHETORICAL COMMENTARY -- PASTORAL AND JOHANNINE EPISTLES Ben Witherington III, Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians, Volume 1: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on Titus, 1--2 Timothy and 1--3 John (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic/Nottingham: Apollos, 2006. {pound}21.99. pp. 623. ISBN 0--8308--2931--8)
Will Rutherford
The Expository Times 2008;119 463-464
http://ext.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/119/9/463?etoc

Linguistics Institute of Ancient and Biblical Greek

2008-05-30T18:33:00.002+01:00

Thanks to Catherine Smith for the following notice:

The third LIABG symposium (co-sponsored by OpenText.org) will take place on 20-22nd August 2008 at McMaster Divinity College, Hamilton, ON, Canada. Further details and registration form are available here:

2008 Symposium of LIABG

LIABG also has a new on-line journal which has just launched and is currently accepting submissions. The journal and submission guidelines can be viewed here:

Journal of the Linguistics Institute of Ancient and Biblical Greek (JLIABG)

There is also an RSS feed for the journal.